<p>It looks as though Swarthmore has a very strong econ department if your interest is academic (rather than business) oriented. </p>
<p>Go to this link: <a href=“http://campus.lakeforest.edu/~lemke/[/url]”>http://campus.lakeforest.edu/~lemke/</a>
Then scroll down to “Papers in Progess” and hit the link for a paper entitled “The Role Faculty Scholarship Plays in Producing Economic Ph.Ds from Liberal Arts Colleges.” If you go to the bottom of this paper (about page 23), you will find a chart that compares the Ph.D production in economics of various LACs. According to this study, Middlebury is weak in this area while Swarthmore is the strongest of the LACs by far. (Caveat: the study looked at a very discrete time period (the fate of 1992 econ grads) so statistical anomalies are possible.)</p>