Sunday, January 18, 2009

School Rankings

I have been reading Philip A. Klein's Economics Confronts the Economy, which I purchased in the Strand, several weeks ago. This 2006 book is an institutionalist critique of mainstream economics. At one point, Klein wants to establish that mainstream economists at the best schools are, for the most part, no longer taught, for example, the history of economic thought. He provides the following list of schools:
  1. University of Chicago
  2. Harvard
  3. MIT
  4. Princeton
  5. Stanford
  6. Norwestern
  7. Yale
  8. University of Pennsylvania
  9. University of California at Berkeley
  10. University of California at Los Angeles
  11. University of Wisconsin
  12. Columbia
  13. University of Rochester
  14. Cornell
  15. University of Minnesota
  16. University of Michigan
I don't know the basis of Klein's ranking. If one were to ask me which schools in the U.S. are considered the most prestigious among mainstream economists, I might have named seven from this list. Maybe Northwestern is higher than I expect, and Columbia is lower. I suppose one could offer further quibbles

No comments: