Regarding Bates, it’s one only 11 LACs to appear in this list of “best colleges for Chinese”:
Note that the University of Wisconsin also appears.
These sites will help you evaluate these schools’ economics departments:
https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.uslacecon.html
https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.usecondept.html
Based on what you have posted so far, I’d recommend Bates from your group.