Quality versus quantity: Ranking research records of economics departments in New Zealand

Abstract

A comparison of research records of the current members of the 7 major economics departments in New Zealand, from 1990 onwards, using journal quality weights from the Laband and Piette (1994) study. The information, taken from the Econlit database, covers more than 500 economics journals, as of November 2000. 32 different ranking measures are computed. According to 29 of these, the top three departments are Auckland, VUW and Canterbury. By 27 measures, Auckland takes the number one spot, while the relative rankings of VUW and Canterbury, and the remaining departments, depend on the measures used.

Notes

Department of Economics, University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

I would like to thank (without implicating) Debasis Bandyopadhyay, Viv Hall, Bryce Hool, Sholeh Maani, Tim Maloney, Alan Rogers, Basil Sharp, Donggyu Sul and, especially, Tim Hazledine for helpful comments, suggestions and discussions when preparing this material. Thanks also to Tina Kao for research assistance. Any remaining errors or omissions are my responsibility alone.