Das Handelsblatt Ökonomen-Ranking 2007: Eine kritische Beurteilung

The Handelsblatt Okonomen-Ranking is as yet the best privately provided ranking of individual economists and entire economics departments in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. It is, however, not suited for management purposes because the employed evaluation method gives rise to dysfunctional incentives. The research productivities derived by the Handelsblatt method, moreover, turn out to be biased. The Committee for Research Monitoring of the Verein fur Socialpolitik makes use of an established bibliometric method that is not afflicted with these shortcomings. We show how selected results are altered when instead of the standard method various aspects of the Handelsblatt method are applied. Copyright 2008 die Autoren Journal compilation 2008, Verein fur Socialpolitik und Blackwell Publishing Ltd.