There are numerous rankings of Economics Ph.D. programs available.
U.S. News and World Report
According to the 2017 rankings released by U.S. News and World Report, Iowa State University's graduate program in Economics was ranked 28th among public universities and tied for 53rd overall. This ranking was two slots higher than the previous ranking.
National Research Council
One recent assessment resulted from a comprehensive survey of doctoral programs undertaken by the National Research Council (“A Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States (2010)”). The NRC’s program assessment methodology and results are somewhat complex, but one synthesis of their findings places our program within the top 30 Economics Ph.D. programs in the U.S.; and among the top 10 in public universities.
Research Papers in Economics (RePEc)
RePEc, sponsored by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, is a comprehensive database of research papers in economics. The information in the database is used to rank the research productivity of registered authors based on a variety of metrics. Authors’ rankings, in turn, are used to rank the institutions with which they are affiliated for academic departments of both economics and agricultural economics.
American Economic Association
Links to other rankings of graduate programs in economics are provided on the American Economic Association website.
Econphd.net
By field of specialization, a ranking by econphd.net places our department 4th in the “subdiscipline” of Resource and Agricultural Economics. This subdiscipline is further partitioned according to JEL descriptors into two parts: Resource and Environmental Economics, in which we rank 8th; and Agricultural Economics, in which we rank 1st overall.
Journal Articles Ranking Economics Programs
- Based on faculty productivity, “A Guide to Graduate Study in Economics: Ranking Economics Departments by Fields of Expertise,” by T.C. Grijalva and C. Nowell, Southern Economic Journal, 2008: 74(4), pp. 971-96. According to this study, our program ranks 31st overall (15th among public universities) and 1st overall in the field of Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics.
- A more recent ranking of economics programs, see "Ranking U.S. Economics Programs by Faculty and Graduate Publications: An Update Using 1994 - 2009 Data," by M. A. McPherson, Southern Economic Journal, 2012: 79 (1), pp. 71-89.