<p>Economics departments tend to be among the largest at most universities. It’s one of the most popular majors almost anywhere you go. It’s one of the most popular undergraduate majors for students in MBA programs as well as law school.</p>
<p>My guess is that nearly any university’s overall reputation is a fairly good proxy for the reputation of its econ department. To the etent one school is ranked another says little about the magnitude of difference between department quality. The drop-off between number one and number twenty-five is more likely to be negligible in a big department than it is in, say, Sanskrit.</p>
<p>A former boss of mine took a few Econ courses as an undergraduate at Berkeley. Two of his professors went on to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. Not bad for what some people are rating as a “group two” school here.</p>