ECONOMIC RESEARCH IN
BELGIAN UNIVERSITIES

This page describes the ranking of university research institutions and researchers in Belgium based on published articles.
Note: changes and additions to the text of the previous edition are highlighted in red, except the new tables. Updated on May 7, 2001.

• INTRODUCTION

• RULES OF THE GAME

• RESULTS (for universities) (now available from 1992-1996 till1994-1999)

• RESULTS (for individuals): 1992-1996, 1993-1997, 1994-1999 (6 years), and cumulative since 1992.

• JOURNAL LIST

INTRODUCTION

In 1992, Casper de Vries (now Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, but then Professor at KU Leuven) produced the first ranking of economists and research institutions in economics in Belgium. A rather detailed overview of his results and the underlying method was published (on Saturday June 27, 1992) in De Financieel-Ekonomisch Tijd, a well known Belgian newspaper that sponsored the study. The same kind of rankings had been made for the Netherlands, see http://center.uvt.nl/top40/ for the story (it should come as no surprise that Casper de Vries is Dutch). The ranking covered a five year period (from 1987 to 1991) of publications in a list of about 80 journals. The results were updated yearly until 1996 (covering the period 1992-1996), which enabled a 10 year synthesis.

Casper de Vries rankings are based on published articles as a (quantitative and qualitative) measure of research output, and hence "reputation", "quality" or "importance" of institutions and individuals. Since 1995, Paul de Grauwe, Professor at KU Leuven, and Yunus Aksoy, produced rankings based on citations rather than publications in the last five years. His results were also reported in De Financieel-Ekonomisch Tijd. Citations reflect better the long run impact of researchers than papers, so Paul de Grauwe's rankings provide another picture of the state of the profession (as far as the impact of research is concerned). This ranking is continued by Paul de Grauwe and his collaborators, but they are not covered on this web page.

In 1996, Casper de Vries decided to leave the task to others. He must be thanked warmly for having started this kind of evaluation in Belgium. Guy Elewaut, the journalist of De Financieel-Ekonomisch Tijd who has reported yearly on the results until 1997, invited a few professors to discuss about the continuation of the project. They are: Luc Bauwens (UCL), Bruno de Borger (UFSIA), Paul de Grauwe (KUL), and Freddy Heylen (RUG). This group discussed the method used by Casper de Vries and decided to modify it. The main change is a broader coverage of journals, at least potentially. One reason for this is that it was decided to collect the data electronically rather than by going to a library. Thus it was decided to collect the data from the ECONLIT data base of the Journal of Economic Literature. Details on the method used as from now are found in the section RULES OF THE GAME.

Each method has its drawbacks and advantages. One drawback of the ECONLIT list that we want to stress is that it does not cover as deeply the fields related to management as those related to economics. This should be kept in mind in looking at the results.

RULES OF THE GAME

To download a text (Word file) describing the method followed to do the rankings, click here.

Which publications count?

Articles published in journals by individuals who have mentioned in the articles their affiliation to a Belgian university. Notice that an article does not count if its authors have not mentioned at least one affiliation to a Belgian university. It may happen that someone is well known to be employed by a Belgian university but has not mentioned (voluntarily or not), his affiliation to this university in a particular article: the unavoidable consequence is that this article does not count.

Excluded are research outputs like books, articles or chapters in collective volumes, theses...

Which journals are included?

Only the articles from the journals covered by the ECONLIT data base of the Journal of Economic Literature, after deleting intentionally the Belgian journals: Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Cahiers Economiques de Bruxelles, Economisch en Sociaal Tijdschrift, Recherches Economiques de Louvain, and Tijdschrift voor Economie en Management. Click here to obtain th list of these journals (about 600).

For the years 98 and 99: the list of journals has been expanded according to publications found from the ECONLIT data base. This amounts to adding 16 journals  wherein publications have been found. They all get a weight of 1.

Which formulas are used?

Each article contributes to the score of one or several institutions, and to the score of one or several individuals. There is one formula for institutions and another for individuals.

• for institutions

The contribution of an article to the score of university Z is the weight of the journal where the article is published (1 to 5), divided by N, the number of co-authors of the article, multiplied by a sum of N terms, each term being equal to
-1/number of affiliations mentioned by co-author j of the paper, if co-author j mentions university Z in his affiliations,
or
-0 if co-author j does not mention university Z in his affiliations.
A paper can contribute to the scores of different universities, and possibly for less than 100% for all universities. See the examples below.
Adding up the contributions of all articles for university Z, gives the total score of this university.

• for individuals

The contribution of an article to the score of an individual is the weight of the journal where the article is published (1 to 5), divided by N, the number of co-authors of the article. It does not matter whether the person mentions multiple affiliations or where they are, provided that one affiliation at least is a Belgian university. See the examples below.
Adding up the scores of his articles, gives the total score of an individual.

Examples

1) For the following article (data extracted from ECONLIT):
TI: Strategic Analysis of Contingent Claims
AU: Anderson,-Ronald-W.; Sundaresan,-Suresh; Tychon,-Pierre
AF: CEPR and U Catholique de Louvain; Columbia U; FNRS and U Catholique de Louvain
SO: European-Economic-Review; 40(3-5), April 1996, pages 871-81,
the contribution to the score of UCL is: 4/3 (1/2 + 0 + 1/1) = 2 points (for co-author 3, FNRS is not counted as a second affiliation since positions at FNRS are allocated to universities). Anderson and Tychon get 4/3 points each for the individual ranking.

2) For
TI: Optimal Fiscal and Public Expenditure Policy in a Two-Class Economy
AU: Nava,-Mario; Schroyen,-Fred; Marchand,-Maurice
AF: Catholic U Louvain and London School of Econ; U Antwerp; U Catholique de Louvain
SO: Journal-of-Public-Economics; 61(1), July 1996, pages 119-37,
the contribution to the score of UCL is 4/3 (1/2 + 0 + 1/1) = 2 points. The contribution to UFSIA is 4/3 (0 + 1/1 + 0) = 4/3 points. Each co-author gets 4/3 points for the ranking of individuals.

How are the weights of journals attributed?

Whenever the information was available, we have computed a score for each journal, which is the number of citations times the impact factor based on the data of the Journal of Citation Reports (1996 Social Sciences Edition). By taking the product of the two measures (citations and impact factors), we take account of both the long run standing and the recent impact of the journal. Based on its score, each journal is assigned a weight from 5 to 1, as follows:

Which institutions are included?

Only the Belgian universities are included. Here is the list of universities which have got ranked until now:

For the 1994-1999 ranking: the three universities in Antwerp (UFSIA, UIA, and RUCA) are merged under the heading University of Antwep (UA).

Which individuals are included?

Only the individuals who have mentioned in (at least one of) their articles that they are affiliatied to a Belgian university. Actually, the list of individuals is built from the data base.

Which are the affiliations of an individual?

All the affiliations he has mentioned in the publications that count for his total score.

Which output is achieved?

• The ranking of all universities which get a positive score, consisting of names and total score over rolling five year periods: RESULTS (for universities)
• The Top-30 of Economists, consisting of names of authors, affiliation, total score over rolling five year periods (1992-1996, 1993-1997) , then 6 years (1994-1999) and since 1992.
  Note: we decided to switch to 6 year periods and to update after 2 years. The next rankings will be issued in 2003.

RESULTS (for universities)

click here for the Word file text with the detailed results for individuals and universities (92-96 and 93-97)
click here for the Word file text with the detailed results for individuals and universities for 1994-1999

For 1994-1999 ranking: the three universities in Antwerp (UFSIA, UIA, and RUCA) are now merged under the heading University of Antwep (UA).

RESULTS (for individuals)

• 1992-1996
• 1993-1997 (click here for the Word file text with the detailed results for individuals and universities for 1992-1996 and 1993-1997)
• 1994-1999 (covers last 6 years; click here for the Word file text with the detailed results for individuals and universities for 1994-1999;
• 1992-1999 (cumulative since 1992, you can also download the Excel file indi9299.xls with results for all researchers)

JOURNAL LIST

Click here to download an Excel file (updated) containing the list of journal names and weights.

The number of citations associated to a journal in year YYYY is the number of times all articles published in that journal have been cited in articles in all journals. It can be seen as a measure of the long run standing of a journal.

The impact factor of the journal X for year YYYY is the number of citations of articles published in the two previous years in X, divided by the total number of articles published in the two previous years in X. It is thus an average measure of the frequency at which an article of the journal has been cited in a particular year. It can be interpreted as a measure of the recent relevance or influence of the articles published in the journal.

Date: May 31, 2003