A new set of rankings from Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) positions the Queen’s Department of Economics as first in Canada and among the top 20 institutions worldwide for the achievements of its PhD graduates.

Out of 6,164 institutions worldwide, Queen’s ranked 19th based on the scores of its PhD graduates, ahead of other high caliber institutions such as UCLA, Cornell and Duke. In Canada, the University of British Columbia, Western University and the University of Toronto followed Queen’s at 29th, 31st and 42nd, respectively.

“We put a lot of effort into our PhD program and value our doctoral candidates very highly,” says James MacKinnon, Acting Head, Department of Economics. “We recruit top students and help them succeed by offering close interaction with faculty. As a result, we have had one of Canada’s leading graduate programs for a long time.”

According to the broader RePEc rankings, which average institutional scores across a large number of criteria, Queen’s ranks third overall in Canada behind UBC and U of T, and Dr. MacKinnon ranks third in a listing of the top economists in Canada.  The 37 criteria on which RePEc scores are based include publications weighted in several different ways, several measures of the number and quality of citations, working papers, downloads and abstract views, as well as the achievements of former students.

Dr. MacKinnon says the turning point for the department was the hiring of Richard Lipsey in 1970 as the first Sir Edward Peacock Professor of Economics.  That hiring put Queen’s on the map and helped it to recruit many outstanding faculty members during the 1970s.

For more information on the rankings, visit the RePEc website.