Rankings

[thehardcenter]

I am sure that this must've been asked several times. Now that econphd is gone, where can I find good rankings of econ depts? The ideas one seems weird as it's based only on publications I guess.

[oleador]

Christian Roessler previously posted that econphd moved to econphd.net
Though it is quite old, it is still the most comprehensive ranking we have, in my view.

I've seen at least two or three other good ranking but I don't have the links. I think my fellow TMers will help you with that.

And the search button is your friend as always

[tm_guru]

The USNWR ones are peer based and are pretty much good enough if you are content with seeing the 'Top 10' as a collection of about 15 schools ranked between 1 and 20, and so on and so forth.

[wobuffet]

I was hoping to be able to look at the new NRC rankings before finalizing my list of schools... pfft at that!

[applicant12]

I know there's a paper... I have the paper on my computer but I don't reallly remember the link to get it. I also don't know how old that is so if you want it, pm me your email address and I can send it to you

[thehardcenter]

hi,
thanks a lot for the inputs. I have found a few similar threads too.
Will get back if I have any further queries.

[walt526]

Originally Posted by tm_guru

The USNWR ones are peer based and are pretty much good enough if you are content with seeing the 'Top 10' as a collection of about 15 schools ranked between 1 and 20, and so on and so forth.

Based on the anecdotes that I've heard about the level of discussion (or lackthereof) that goes on when the department chair and/or grad coordinator fills out the surveys, I'm not sure that I'd put a lot of weight on the USN&WR rankings.

In theory, it's a great idea: get the leadership of the top institutions to rate their impression of the quality of grad programs. Unfortunately, it's a biased sample (a sizeable number decline to participate). And of those that do, many of the fields are completed by academics who don't specialize in those areas and are based entirely on someone's (often dated) preconceptions, not an accurate reflection of the top research being done. And of course in something like Macro there's a subjective element to the type of research being done (e.g., the list that you'd get from a freshwater would likely be considerably different than a saltwater--and even if they tried to do the competing field justice, there's limited discussion between the two camps).

The best way to figure out whether or not a school is "ranked high enough" is to look at their placement records and ask yourself if those are the types of jobs that you'd be interested in. If you're aiming for a top academic research position, then there are only 5-10 schools worth considering. If your goals are more modest, then there are at least a few dozen programs that could work if you can identify which ones are strong in likely research interests (not necessarily Top 30, just strong in your fields of interest so long as it's not a really small field, like economics of education or environmental economics).

[thehardcenter]

Originally Posted by walt526

The best way to figure out whether or not a school is "ranked high enough" is to look at their placement records and ask yourself if those are the types of jobs that you'd be interested in. If you're aiming for a top academic research position, then there are only 5-10 schools worth considering. If your goals are more modest, then there are at least a few dozen programs that could work if you can identify which ones are strong in likely research interests (not necessarily Top 30, just strong in your fields of interest so long as it's not a really small field, like economics of education or environmental economics).

Yes, but for someone like me who doesn't want to narrow down any particular field of research before beginning the grad school, what kind of of rankings exist?

[claphands]

My advice was going to be go to repec or google scholar and see who is cited in your field and where they come from, but it hasn't worked for me: everyone writing what interests me is European or Australian for some reason and I want to study in the US*

*actually I'd love to study in Europe, but they don't have enough straight B.A. to PhD programs and I don't want to have to do a masters along the way (already have an MA in an unrelated, non quant, field)

[walt526]

Originally Posted by thehardcenter

Yes, but for someone like me who doesn't want to narrow down any particular field of research before beginning the grad school, what kind of of rankings exist?

Well outside of the Top 10 (or fewer) overall or so, there aren't a lot of schools that are within "Top 30" across the board. Some examples... Caltech is great school--so long as you don't want to study macro. Minnesota is a great school if you want to study macro, but not exactly a public economics powerhouse. Outside of the super-elite, most schools have a relative weakness in at least one of the major fields so you should have some idea of what you want to study (or don't want to study) to help narrow things down.

EconPhd.net and Grijalva and Nowell (2008) do a pretty good job on literature reviews. Keep in mind that literature reviews tend to disadvantage smaller departments (relative weak placement of WUSTL demonstrates this point perfectly).