<p>The OP’s question was,
“Can anyone list the top 10 universities for economics in the US?”</p>
<p>Certainly you can tie this question into issues like overall prestige, recruiting, career prospects, etc. We can talk about whatever we like. But it seems to me, the original question can be approached more straightforwardly if you focus on identifying the schools that provide the best education in the field of economics as an academic discipline. Where does the OP go with that in life? That’s up to him/her.</p>
<p>Econ is a bread-and-butter major. There must be 50 or 100 or more schools that can do a pretty good job of teaching you the basic concepts. There are far fewer schools that are advancing the state of the art, schools where you can be taught by people who are exploring deep, fundamental questions about the economy, how we measure and analyze economic performance, etc. You have a new approach like behavioral economics coming into focus in recent years; it has the potential to fundamentally change the field. Very few universities are engaged in that level of innovation. If you wanna be part of that, the usual suspects would include MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Chicago, maybe a few others. That ain’t happening at Georgetown, and probably not at Wharton either, no matter how prestigious those places may be or how good the campus recruiting. Look for schools that have had Clark medalists and Nobels in econ on the faculty, in combination with small classes and an otherwise good learning environment for undergraduates.</p>
<p>If however you are not interested in economics scholarship at that level of excellence, then you aren’t really interested in “top 10 universities for economics”. Just look at the overall USNWR or any other holistic rankings that strike your fancy.</p>