Faculty strength in Economics

Here is a link posted by a fellow cc contributor in another thread, I thought it was interesting. It measures and ranks the amount of published economics research of faculty by college.

1 to #131

https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usecondept.html

Top 20. Obviously skews to research unis

Harvard
MIT
Princeton
Cal
Chicago
Stanford
Columbia University of arts and sciences
Brown
NYU
Yale
BU
UCSD
UMich
Penn
UCLA
Northwestern
Boston College
Columbia grad school
Dartmouth
UW Madison

How come Amherst is not on this list?

@CupCakeMuffins

Because it is ranking faculty strength based on published research. Amherst is not a modern research powerhouse, it is a LAC.

A more appropriate thread title might be, “research strength in economics”.
Counting publications/citations may or may not be a very good indicator of faculty strength, depending on what you’re really trying to measure.

FWIW,

Williams (#53)
Wellesley (#84)
Middlebury (#96)
Claremont McKenna (#99)
Wesleyan U. (#120)
Hamilton (#125)
and,
Colgate U. (#131)

LACs all, made the cut.

It’s not research production that matters; it’s quality and impact in the sub field. And even the best researchers don’t translate to great teaching. Or even access to these profs, as an undergraduate.

For kids with a drive in a particular area, I do recommend checking how active a college’s profs are- and in what topics. But that’s more thna ranking by quantity a dept produces.

Well it has to be of a certain quality to get published. It’s not like a production line . It has to be accepted. Come on it does mean something if lots of research gets published. And it’s just another data point and nothing in a vacuum

But if someone here in cc was interested in Econ it’s a nice list. How many posts from parents and students mention access to research opportunities.

In an earlier study on this topic, Hartley and Robinson wrote

On the undergraduate level, these benefits would be more pronounced, of course, at colleges at which the most accomplished faculty teach a range of undergraduate courses and mentor undergraduate research.

I think these rankings like all others arent the be all or end all. But as a data point it doesn’t hurt to have a vibrant research culture. And a tremndous school like UCSD can get overlooked in the perceived prestige chase.

@privatebanker Thanks for this list. I agree its good for economics majors to be aware of this measure,
and have a shot at doing economics research on campus, to see if they want to get a PhD in econ. Be sure
to take a lot of math, or even a math major, if a PhD in economics is a goal. It was also good to see U of Colorado got a rank of 39, and Colorado school of Mines made the list, too at 127.

Amherst’s economics faculty perform well (15th) when compared with departments of similar size: https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.uslacecon.html.

I showed this discussion to my D who is a senior majoring in economics at Pomona. She’s also planning on going to grad school to get a PhD after working for a couple years. Her take: if you want to do economics research as an undergrad, go somewhere where they’re doing some research but, most importantly, where the professors are accessible to undergrads.

She pointed out that most econ undergrads are not even trying to do research. It’s a very popular major among students who have no intention of getting a PhD in economics, but rather want to go into business/banking/finance/law or any number of other career paths. For example, in D’s senior class at Pomona there are probably 50-60 econ majors and she estimates that only about 5-8 of those (including her) were trying to do research and all those who wanted opportunities had them.

D has been published as a co-author with one of her professors in an academic journal and has presented a paper at a conference where she was the only undergraduate presenter. She will be an RA at one of the Federal Reserve Banks after graduation. (She wanted to work for a couple years before applying to grad school.) When she was interviewing for jobs she got positive feedback (from one of the senior economists at the FRB) that she had significantly more research experience than the other applicants. As @Coloradomama mentioned, she’s followed the advice to take lots of math (linear algebra, real analysis, differential equations, probability, computational statistics, game theory).

My point includes that you’d want to know where that research was published. Not all journals/publications vet with the same standards. And no, it doesn’t ensure undergrads get access to research opps. In many cases, if anyone, its grad students.

Not arguing, just pointing out. And of course, the top schools are the top schools, for reasons that include production.

Regarding a specialty of interest, in environmental economics – which may include those working in ecological economics – Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Yale and Chicago and LACs Hamilton, Vassar and Wesleyan lead American institutions of their types (also as measured by faculty scholarship).

https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.env.html.