GMU's Ranking Among Graduate Programs in Economics in the US

I received this email from Don Boudreaux, Chair of the Economics Department at GMU, today:

Colleagues,

For those of you who haven't yet seen the April 2008 issue of the Southern Economic Journal, I draw your attention to an article that ranks all 129 economics-PhD-granting programs in the United States.  The citation is:

Therese C. Grijalva and Cliffor Nowell, "A Guide to Graduate Study in Economics: Ranking Economics Departments by Fields of Expertise," Southern Econ. Journal, April 2008, Vol. 74, No. 4, pp. 971-996.

Here's the abstract:

"Ph.D. programs in economics are ranked overall and by subject field.  The results provide insight into students researching graduate programs in economics in specific subject fields.  Results indicate that (i) differences in overall research productivity measures diminish as a university's rank declines; (ii) a university ranked highly in a particular subject field may be the result of single, extremely productive faculty member; and (iii) many programs outside the traditional top 20 programs are ranked high in specific subject fields."
.....

According to this study, GMU Econ now ranks 41 OVERALL among programs in the U.S.  GMU is just behind #40 UNC-Chapel Hill, and above highly regarded programs such as Univ. of Washington (45), Texas A&M (49), Florida State (52), GW (54), U. Pittsburgh (59), Washington University (69), Emory (71), UC-Irvine (72) and VA Tech (75), and West Virginia (104).

When ranked by field (as defined by the classification of the JEL) GMU Econ ranks

- 3rd in Methodology and History of Economic Thought
- 9th in General Economics and Teaching
- 11th in Law and Economics
- 25th in Microeconomics
- 25th in Public Economics
- 39th in Financial Economics [This surprises me, pleasantly.]
- 40th in Mathematical and Quantitative Methods [Another pleasant surprise.]
- 43rd in Economic Systems
- 47th in Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics
- 52nd in Economic History [pre-Nye!]
- 55th in Labor and Demographic Economics
- 57th in Industrial Organization
- 66th in Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth [a disappointing ranking]
- 79th in Macroeconomics and monetary policy [no surprise here, but still disappointing]
- 79th in Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
- 92nd in Health, Education, and Welfare
- 99th in International Economics

The key independent variable in this study is faculty publications in scholarly journals (1985-2004), weighted for quality.

CAVEAT: this study gives NO credit to published books (or blogs, of course). Because we are an especially "book-and-blog friendly" department, I'm confident that, if anything, our true ranking is even higher than is revealed by this study.  Note that Tyler Cowen's major and most celebrated contributions are in book form (and his NY Times column). The same is true, at least in part, for Jim Buchanan, Gordon Tullock, Jim Bennett, Pete Boettke, Bryan Caplan, David Levy, Russ Roberts, Charles Rowley, Dick Wagner, and Walter Williams (and his syndicated column).
.......

These findings speak extraordinarily well of you all.  I'm proud -- very much so -- to be your colleague.  Keep up your great work!

Don

I very much enjoy working at GMU and my colleagues, so I share Don's sentiments.  I do realize that studies of the sort Don reports are very sensitive to their methodology and thus rankings can fluctuate wildly.  But I also think it is important information for readers of this blog to look at the SEJ study (or the early JEL study that ranked GMU #42) because sometimes in the comments section it seems that people take shots at GMU students for supposedly not being "mainstream" and getting a "mainstream" education.  Well, the reality is (and anyone can track this down by looking at CVs online) is that the faculty that teaches them at GMU is actually more accomplished publishing in well known journals of the profession than many of those who criticize the program at GMU imagine or could even accomplish themselves.

I will write an additional post on the entire "mainstream" business shortly.  I am, however, involved in a book manuscript on Joel Mokyr's new book which will keep me occupied for a few days, though I promise to report on the discussions with Joel as well.

Comments

[liberty]

third. nice.

[Anom.]

Congrats. Very impressive. Keep on climbing.

I find this funny in wake of recent sneering comments about the GMU Econ Dept. at Thoma's site.

see:

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/06/libertarians-an.html#c117896634

and

http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/06/this-global-sho.html#c117932316

[Vedran]

I'm glad that we're doing good in the ranking. But, these ranks almost never tell you much about the quality of the school. I think most students can learn more from a school where there are some decent publications with focused teachers than one where research is so intense as to leave no time for students.

The methodology to identify the quality of teaching would be pretty difficult to find. Perhaps looking at the publications of graduating students upon the first 5 years of graduation. Information like that would tell those interested in programs a lot more than the current ranking.

I don't care if a professor has 5 Nobel Prizes and the most publications in the world if he doesn't care in class and avoids students at all possible interactions.

[Mace]

GMU gets my #1 ranking.

[Mario Rizzo]

Eleventh in Law and Economics is VERY impressive. But let's not pay a lot of attention to these numbers because if books are excluded then something really important is missing in the ratings.

[grunyen]

I'm extraordinarily interested in pursuing a PhD in econ at GM (a year from now). However, I will only have completed Cal I and Cal II, and possibly Linear Alg.

This doesn't meet the min requirements for PhD candidates. Otherwise I think I'm an extraordinary candidate (State and International Awards, GPA, scholarships, and listened to 99% of EconTalk, as well as reading tons of econ).

I'm very open to suggestions or advice. I've written to Russ and Don, but they only respond to my non-school questions. =(

[Peter boettke]

Dear Grunyen,

Focus on getting a solid GRE math score -- 770 or higher. If you do, then most likely the DGS will not be strict on the pre-requisites given that you have had Calc 1 and 2.

However, keep in mind that the best way to clear all of this up is to take classes over the next year in the math department at your university rather than taking additional econ electives (provided you have completed the requirements for the major.

Good luck.

[grunyen]

Thanks Pete. (You can't know how exciting it is to hear from you and Russ and Don. Some people would wig out over Paris Hilton, I'm a weirdo)

Unfortunately Cal II and Linear Alg. will be all I can do by graduation time. I don't think I can stand waiting another year just so I can do more math- putting off applying.

If you have the chance to email me, I would definately appreciate some further Q&A. I assume you can access my email address through the blog. Thanks again!

[Vedran]

Grunyen,

I'm just finishing my first year at Mason and I had the EXACT same background in math as you did. Needless to say, I had a lot of difficulty in math econ.

No offense to professor Boettke but I feel his advice is way off. You can take a Cal. III and IV course and end up using only 3 or 4 concepts from a year of math.

Mathematical Economics is extremely scattered. It uses a little linear algebra, a little of this a little of that. Taking whole courses will be largely a waste of time. The book that help edeveryone in the class with poor math skills is:

Schaum's Outline Introduction to Mathematical Economics.

Also get Alpha Chiang's Mathematical Econ book. This is basically a standard.

The best method to prepare is to get the syllabus beforehand and take the course yourself. Ultimately, don't take Math Classes. Take Math Econ classes if possible. It will save you hours of your life.

[Peter Boettke]

Grunyen,

Vedran gives good advice on what books to read:

Schaum's Outline Introduction to Mathematical Economics.

Also get Alpha Chiang's Mathematical Econ book. This is basically a standard.

Read both of those and you will do fine. You need to score well on the GRE Math, for that you will need to study a Princeton Review, etc.

BTW, see my post from a few days ago about gearing up for GMU.

Pete

[Joshua Minix]

I found Calc III, linear algebra and the usual math courses quite useful and interesting. Stopping at Calc II doesn't make a lot of sense imho as its not until Calc III/Analytical geometry that you really tie it all together into something useful. If you can, chose math professors who tend to be more theoretical and proof oriented rather than computational. Dr. Goldin at GMU is amazing.

If you are currently doing your undergraduate studies right now, I would recommend you think about working for a year and taking a few math courses at the same time. A year of working as an economist would be greatly beneficial and the math courses would be useful and improve your competitiveness. You could probably learn enough to get by without taking the courses, but it will depend somewhat on how mathematically inclined you are and whether you want to get by or be the best.

For the record I did my undergraduate work at GMU, then worked as an economist for 3 years and am now doing graduate work at another school.

My former employer is hiring at the moment, if you are interested shoot me a message on facebook.

best if luck!

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