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Introduction
In a time that so much is said and written, especially by economists, about theglobalization of the economy, it is surprising to see the ‘localism’ when economistsplay their ranking-games. US economists rank US institutions (for example, Scott andMitias (1996-SM from here))
, Canadian economists restrict themselves to theCanadian departments (Lucas (1995)), Asian economist focus on Asian departments(Jin and Yau (1999)) and Australian economists look at Australian Departments(Harris (1990)). Only recently, the ‘European single market’-idea has reached therankings with the publication of a ranking of European departments based on 10 top journals (Kalaitzidakis, Mamuneas and Stengos (1999-KMS from here)) but earlieron, Dutch economists had ranked Dutch economists (for example, De Ruyter vanSteveninck (1998)), Belgian economists had restricted themselves to Belgiandepartments (Bauwens (1998)) and German economists had focused on German-speaking economists (Bommer and Ursprung (1998). Here, we will take the final stepfurther and provide a worldwide ranking of departments and of economists, usingmore than 30 years of data (1969-2000)
.Another, often heard, critique on rankings is that rankings only use a limited numberof journals. The European ranking mentioned above is based on 10 journals and themost recent US ranking is based on 8 journals. Departments or individuals unsatisfiedwith their ranking find a powerful excuse in this narrowness. Here, we will computerankings that are based on different samples of journals, one sample even using up to
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The only exception is Hirsch, Austin, Brooks and Moore (1984). Recently, some other papers on theoutput of economics departments worldwide have been presented (based on 15 journals, Kocher andSutter, 2001 and based on 30 journals, Kalaitzidakis et al (2001)). Bauwens et al (2001) present a newEuropean ranking and compare European departments to departments in California.
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In this article we focus on the period 1990-2000. For rankings on shorter and longer periods, seehttp://homepages.ulb.ac.be/~tcoupe.
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