In June 2016, Tilburg University in the Netherlands published the latest Worldwide Economics Ranking three years after its last publication. According to several different rankings (see https://econtop.uvt.nl/rankingsandbox.php), the economics discipline of SUFE has edged into top 60 in the world. For the years 2012-2015, in terms of publication quantity in the 35 leading international economics journals, SUFE has remained the 1st among all the universities in the Greater China region (including Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan), and its rank has risen from 6th to 2nd in Asia and from 62nd to 54th worldwide (see Table 1). For the year of 2015, SUFE’s global ranking has further risen to 31st, which has surpassed quite a few world famous universities and presented an impressive upward trend.
(SUFE is ranked 54th worldwide from 2012 to 2015)
(SUFE is ranked 31st worldwide for 2015)
Tilburg University Economics Ranking was first published in 2010 and has been deemed as a comprehensive and systematic ranking system that evaluates the quality of economics research. The source of the information used in this ranking is the ISI Web of Knowledge. It has identified a list of 70 leading journals in the fields of econometrics, economics and finance. The standard Tilburg University Top 100 ranking is based on a subset of 35 of these journals.
Despite its important reference, Tilburg ranking does not take the difference of Impact Factor among different journals into account. Hence, we reconsidered the ranking using its ranking sandbox based on the publication data of widely recognized top 17 journals (top-tier and tier-1 journals by SUFE’s list), and found that SUFE still ranks 1st in mainland China, 6th in Asia, and within top 100 worldwide (see Tables 2, 3, and 4). In particular, SUFE has also made the record of publications in all top 5 journals of American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies in mainland China.
These research achievements are a testament to the consistent efforts of SOE and SUFE in the overall reform of economics education since 2004 to realize the vision of building a world-class economics school. To further advance towards this goal, apart from publication quantity and quality, there will be more work that needs to be done in increasing paper citations and recruiting eminent senior professors.
Meanwhile, the school also pays due attention to issues and topics related to China and its major national development strategy. Many of SOE’s policy research and reports have been adopted by the central and local governments and exerted extensive positive social impact.
| University | Rank in Mainland China | Rank in Asia | Rank in the World | Quantity of Publications |
| Shanghai University of Finance and Economics | 1 | 2 | 54 | 82 |
| Peking University | 2 | 4 | 66 | 75 |
| Tsinghua University | 3 | 7 | 82 | 63 |
| Shanghai Jiao Tong University | 4 | 14 | 148 | 34 |
| Renmin University of China | 5 | 15 | 151 | 33 |
| Xiamen University | 6 | 17 | 159 | 32 |
| Capital University of Economics and Business | 7 | 25 | 200 | 25 |
| University of International Business and Economics | 8 | 27 | 225 | 22 |
| Fudan University | 9 | 28 | 242 | 20 |
| Zhejiang University | 10 | 30 | 270 | 18 |
Table 2 2012-2015 Top 10 Universities in Mainland China in Tilburg Economics Ranking (5 Top-Tier Journals)
| University | Rank in Mainland China | Rank in Asia | Rank in the World | Quantity of Publications |
| Shanghai University of Finance and Economics | 1 | 8 | 100 | 5 |
| Tsinghua University | 2 | 10 | 126 | 3 |
| Xiamen University | 2 | 10 | 126 | 3 |
| Zhejiang University | 4 | 14 | 168 | 2 |
| Peking University | 5 | 21 | 228 | 1 |
| Shanghai Jiao Tong University | 5 | 21 | 228 | 1 |
| Sun Yat-sen University | 5 | 21 | 228 | 1 |
| Central University of Finance and Economics | 5 | 21 | 228 | 1 |
| Capital University of Economics and Business | 5 | 21 | 228 | 1 |
Table 3 2012-2015 Top 10 Universities in Mainland China in Tilburg Economics Ranking (12 Tier-1 Journals)
| University | Rank in Mainland China | Rank in Asia | Rank in the World | Quantity of Publications |
| Shanghai University of Finance and Economics | 1 | 5 | 54 | 32 |
| Peking University | 2 | 7 | 68 | 28 |
| Tsinghua University | 3 | 8 | 69 | 27 |
| Xiamen University | 4 | 9 | 85 | 21 |
| Capital University of Economics and Business | 5 | 13 | 124 | 14 |
| Shanghai Jiao Tong University | 6 | 16 | 145 | 12 |
| Southwestern University of Finance and Economics | 7 | 25 | 181 | 9 |
| Fudan University | 8 | 28 | 200 | 8 |
| Zhejiang University | 8 | 28 | 200 | 8 |
| Renmin University of China | 8 | 28 | 200 | 8 |
Table 4 2012-2015 Top 10 Universities in Mainland China in Tilburg Economics Ranking (Top-Tier and Tier-1: 17 Journals)
| University | Rank in Mainland China | Rank in Asia | Rank in the World | Quantity of Publications |
| Shanghai University of Finance and Economics | 1 | 6 | 64 | 37 |
| Tsinghua University | 2 | 7 | 80 | 30 |
| Peking University | 3 | 8 | 84 | 29 |
| Xiamen University | 4 | 9 | 106 | 24 |
| Capital University of Economics and Business | 5 | 15 | 144 | 15 |
| Shanghai Jiao Tong University | 6 | 18 | 163 | 13 |
| Zhejiang University | 7 | 23 | 195 | 10 |
| Southwestern University of Finance and Economics | 8 | 27 | 209 | 9 |
| Fudan University | 9 | 31 | 231 | 8 |
| Renmin University of China | 9 | 31 | 231 | 8 |
Appendix: SUFE Tenure-Track Journal List (Top-Tier and Tier-1)
Top Tier:
American Economic Review
Econometrica
Journal of Political Economy
Quarterly Journal of Economics
Review of Economic Studies
Tier-1:
Economic Journal
Games and Economic Behavior
International Economic Review
Journal of Econometrics
Journal of Economic Theory
Journal of International Economics
Journal of Labor Economics
Journal of Monetary Economics
Journal of Public Economics
Journal of the European Economic Association
Rand Journal of Economics
Review of Economics and Statistics
Theoretical Economics
