Rankings

TSE is one of the leading centers for research in economics and is usually ranked in the top-3 league in europe. It is consistently ranked among the very best in Europe in rankings based on quality-weighted publications.

Ranking researchers and the research centers to which they belong is useful to students wishing to undertake doctoral studies in economics, which lead to the doctoral degree in the majority of cases.  In addition, rankings are the best predictor of future productivity of the various research centers competing worldwide.  Finally, they indicate the attractiveness of these centers relative to their peers in terms of recruitment and visits.

These rankings are based on the number of articles published by the researcher and the center to which he/she belongs over a given period of time.  The rankings are quite complex as they depend on numerous parameters, including the choice of journals considered, their relative weight as a function of quality, the importance of the length of the published article and the number of co-authors, the period under consideration, etc.  Thus, a perfect ranking system is elusive.

Another example is the University of Connecticut REPEC ranking of economics department that ranks TSE number 12 in the world (February 2010). This ranking is based on the work of Tom Coupé, using 1990-2000 publications. This list of the 1000 most productive economists in the world includes 22 French economists living  in France. Among them, 12 are TSE members (Jean Tirole included who is ranked number 2 in the world);

Tilburg University also provides a productivity evaluation of different research centers in economics in the world. The standard ranking (as indicated in its website: https://econtop.uvt.nl/rankingsandbox.php) is based on the unweighted number of publications within the 68 journals considered as the best between 2004 and 2008. TSE appears to be number 27 in the world. Considering only the top-5 journals, TSE is ranked number 22.in the world behind two European universities : LSE and UC London and 19 American universities.

TSE productivity index: TSE has analysed the number of articles published by TSE researchers in the 5 best international journals (Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review,  Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Econometrica), weighted by the number of authors and pages. The following sheet shows the average weighted number of articles per year. The productivity index has increased by 25% between 2007 and 2009.

EconPhD also includes rankings based on the productivity of the 15 top researchers at each center, which controls for the size of the department.  This method puts the Toulouse economics department in an even better position:  TSE ranks first in the nation and in Europe, and 6th in the world, eclipsed only by 5 American departments: MIT, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Chicago.  For the sake of comparison, the second leading research center in France after l’Université de Toulouse, (CERAS), was ranked 87th in the world.