On the robustness of alternative rankings methodologies: Australian and New Zealand economics departments, 1988 to 2002

Abstract

Just as friendly arguments based on an ignorance of facts eventually led to the creation of the definitive Guinness Book of World Records, any argument about university rankings has seemingly been a problem without a solution. To state the obvious, alternative rankings methodologies can and do lead to different rankings. This article evaluates the robustness of rankings of Australian and New Zealand economics teaching departments for 1988 to 2002 and 1996 to 2002 using alternative rankings methodologies, and compares the results with the rankings obtained by Macri and Sinha (2006). In the overall mean rankings for both 1988 to 2006 and 1996 to 2002, the University of Melbourne is ranked first, followed by UWA and ANU.