UMICH, UIUC, or UW Madison

goldenboy8784
Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:14:02 +0000

Alexandre:

NYU and CMU should be ranked higher.

NYU actually belongs in Tier 1; I just overlooked it and forgot to include it in that list I provided. Past rankings of Economics programs suggest that CMU should be ranked a tad bit higher but it’s very possible that Wash U and Brown have improved vis-a-vis Carnegie Mellon in the past 15 years and you need to acknowledge the possibility of this.



Alexandre:

Maryland, Brown and WUSTL are excellent, but they are not quite on par with the schools rated next to them. Northwestern should be be rated higher. Caltech, although excellent in some respects, is way too limited to be ranked as high as Michigan, Minnesota and UCLA.

Well, I don’t know what to say; the most prominent research-based ranking system of graduate programs in the country disagrees with you. Although you seem very well informed; I think I will trust the judgment of the experts in this case.



Alexandre:

goldenboy, as usual, I do not agree with the NRC, although their Econ ratings are much more in line with reality. Then again, I am not sure the NRC is supposed to be interpreted as a ranking.

One good thing about the NRC rating system is that it provides both a Survey based regression ordering and a Reputation based regression ordering. The former deals with what leading economics faculty members consider to be the most important factors that determine a program’s strength and the latter deals with what features in renowned departments (like Harvard or Chicago) that economist admire and see duplicated in other programs.

So essentially, the S-Ranking deals with what economists deem to be important when assessing economics programs while the R-Ranking is concerned with what these economists actually seem to value subconsciously when rating economics departments and comparing them to the ones they respect the most.

For example, when asked what factor is most important in selecting a food item at a grocery store, someone might answer “nutritional value” and this is what the S-Ranking measures; however, when the judge assesses what this individual actually bought from the grocery store after considering a variety of options, he finds that the person actually values “low prices” more which is what the R-Ranking tries to capture. It is the difference between what something “ought to be” and what something “actually is” when tested in a real-life scenario.

When looking at both the S-Ranking and the R-Ranking together, you basically have the most powerful tool for assessing academic departments.

Maryland’s S-Ranking: (18-30), R-Ranking: (5-18)
Wash U’s S-Ranking: (17-27), R-Ranking: (17-26)
Brown’s S-Ranking: (12-20), R-Ranking: (14-24)

Even the S-Ranking puts Wash U and Brown solidly in Tier 3 while the S-Ranking puts Maryland in Tier 3 instead of Tier 2 like the R-Ranking so there may be some variation there.

You just have to admit it; Brown, Wash U and Maryland have elite economics departments now and the latter’s might be super-elite like Wisconsin’s.