<p>Both Chicago and Swarthmore have excellent economics departments. Economics is one of Swarthmore's three most popular majors, along with political science and bio. Swat is the number one producer of PhDs in the country (per 1000 graduates) in Economics, in Political Science, and in Social Sciences overall. </p>
<p>Here's the data for Econ PhDs for the most recent period. Of course, PhDs in Economics are going to most accurately represent academic economists: professors, think-tankers, etc. as opposed to MBA investment banker types. Both Chicago and Swat have notably strong inclinations towards the academic side of things. I wouldn't view this data as a measure of "quality" per se. To be one of the top schools in PhD production requires two things: a school where a lot of students get PhDs, and a department with a fair bit of interest at relative to other departments at that school. For the most part, the geekier schools tend to dominate these lists, where more pre-professional schools (like a Northwestern) don't show up, even though they may also have strong departments:</p>
<p>Number of PhDs per 1000 grads </p>
<p>1 Swarthmore College 16
2 Grinnell College 7
3 Williams College 7
4 Carleton College 7
5 Harvard University 6
6 Agnes Scott College 6
7 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5
8 University of Chicago 5
9 Yale University 5
10 California Institute of Technology 5
11 Princeton University 5
12 Macalester College 5
13 Stanford University 4
14 Pomona College 4
15 Oberlin College 4
16 Wellesley College 4
17 Trinity University 4
18 Bowdoin College 3
19 Earlham College 3
20 Berea College 3
21 Amherst College 3
22 Wabash College 3
23 Bard College 3
24 Rocky Mountain College 3
25 Coe College 3
26 Wesleyan University 3
27 College of William and Mary 3
28 Colby College 3
29 Columbia University in the City of New York 3
30 Hillsdale College 3
31 Franklin and Marshall College 3</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, every student who has ever taken Philosophy at Swarthmore has loved it. One of the Philosophy professors, Shuldenfrei, appears to be one of Swarthmore's most beloved professors. He's featured in the admissions DVD.</p>
<p>The NSF data does not provide PhD data strictly for Philosophy. However, as far as I can tell, Philosophy is about the only thing that could be including in their "Other Humanities" category. Again, both Chicago and Swat are near the top of the list, nationally -- as you would expect from two schools catering to academic types:</p>
<p>PhDs per 1000 grads </p>
<p>Academic field: Other humanities </p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database<br>
Number of Undergraduates: ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database<br>
Formula: Total PhDs divided by Total Grads, multiplied by 1000 </p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period </p>
<p>1 St John's College (both campus) 18.3
2 Reed College 9.2
3 Swarthmore College 6.0
4 Carleton College 5.5
5 Haverford College 5.4
6 Hampshire College 5.1
7 Williams College 4.9
8 Bryn Mawr College 4.9
9 Yale University 4.6
10 Amherst College 4.5
11 Vassar College 4.4
12 Pomona College 4.2
13 Wesleyan University 4.1
14 Princeton University 3.9
15 University of Chicago 3.7
16 University of Dallas 3.4
17 Oberlin College 3.3
18 Wellesley College 3.3
19 Harvard University 3.2
20 Whitman College 3.1
21 Rice University 3.1
22 Bennington College 3.0
23 Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL) 3.0
24 Bowdoin College 2.9
25 Antioch University, All Campuses 2.8
26 Columbia International University 2.8
27 University of the South 2.7
28 Principia College 2.6
29 Stanford University 2.6</p>