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Top Institutions and Economists in the Field of Africa, as of July 2026

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This page is part of a larger set of rankings for research items, serials, authors and institutions made available on this site. A FAQ is available.

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  • The scores of institutions in each field are determined by a weighted sum of all scores of authors affiliated with the respective institutions, where the authors have provided weights ("shares") if they have multiple affiliations. The weights are determined, for each author, by the proportion of all working papers announced in NEP that have also been announced in this NEP report.
  • To be classified, an author needs to have five or more working papers announced in the NEP report for this field. For authors whose first paper is less that 10 years old, having 25% of the papers in the NEP report is sufficient.
  • Only classified authors are considered for the institution scores.
  • A series of rankings by different criteria are aggregated. The average rank score is determined by taking a harmonic mean of the ranks in each criterion. For a list of criteria, see the general ranking page.
  • Authors who are deceased or whose email address with RePEc is invalid are not counted, the latter under the assumption that they have moved or have died
  • For institutions: Authors who are deceased or whose email address with RePEc is invalid are not counted, the latter under the assumption that they have moved or have died
  • There are 9347 institutions with 73835 registered authors evaluated for all the rankings
  • For Africa, these are 532 institutions and 729 authors.

The data presented here are experimental. They are based on a sample of the research output in Economics and Finance. Only material catalogued in RePEc is considered. For any citation based criterion, only works that could be parsed by the CitEc project are considered. For any ranking of people, only those registered with the RePEc Author Service can be taken into account. And for rankings of institutions, only those listed in EDIRC and claimed as affiliation by the respective, registered authors can be measured. Thus, this list is by no means based on a complete sample. You can help making this more comprehensive by encouraging more publications to be listed (instructions) and more authors to register (form). For more details on the various rankings that are available as well for documentation, follow this link.

EntityFull rankingLast 10 years10 best authorsLast 10 years, 10 best authorsTop 5% authorsMore
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Top Institutions

Rank Institution Score Authors Author
Shares
1World Bank Group, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)13713.71
2Oxford University → Department of Economics, Oxford, United Kingdom2.19172.79
3International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, District of Columbia (United States)2.704914.50
-World Bank Group → Economics Research, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)3.20184.46
-Oxford University → Department of Economics → Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Oxford, United Kingdom3.20122.24
4Brown University → Economics Department, Providence, Rhode Island (United States)4.2650.57
5Michigan State University → College of Agriculture and Natural Resources → Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, East Lansing, Michigan (United States)5.23147.29
6University of Chicago → Harris School of Public Policy, Chicago, Illinois (United States)6.2920.49
7National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)7.25130.56
8London School of Economics (LSE), London, United Kingdom8.5971.76
9New York University (NYU) → Department of Economics, New York City, New York (United States)9.8010.21
10Göteborgs Universitet → Handelshögskolan, Göteborg, Sweden10.1394.12
11Stockholms Universitet → Institute for International Economic Studies (IIES), Stockholm, Sweden11.3120.71
12University of Pretoria → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Pretoria, South Africa12.55196.38
13University of British Columbia → Vancouver School of Economics, Vancouver, Canada12.9210.20
14Princeton University → Department of Economics, Princeton, New Jersey (United States)13.1720.36
-University of Pretoria → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa13.87196.38
15Harvard University → Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)14.4950.17
16Tufts University → Department of Economics, Medford, Massachusetts (United States)15.6740.83
17University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Stellenbosch, South Africa15.672411.57
18Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) → Economics Department, Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)16.8620.26
19University of California-Berkeley → Department of Economics, Berkeley, California (United States)17.0510.15
-Göteborgs Universitet → Handelshögskolan → Institutionen för Nationalekonomi med Statistik, Göteborg, Sweden17.3082.70
-University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Stellenbosch, South Africa18.312310.90
20University of Chicago → Department of Economics, Chicago, Illinois (United States)20.8510.10
21Cornell University → College of Agriculture and Life Sciences → Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Ithaca, New York (United States)21.1640.38
22Stanford University → Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford, California (United States)21.4710.18
23Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics (IIE), Washington, District of Columbia (United States)23.0840.19
24African Governance and Development Institute (AGDI), Yaoundé, Cameroun26.0241.42
25Northwestern University → Department of Economics, Evanston, Illinois (United States)26.3820.27
26Kiel Institut für Weltwirtschaft - Leibniz Zentrum zur Erforschung globaler ökonomischer Herausforderungen (IfW), Kiel, Germany26.54101.18
27University of California-Santa Cruz (UCSC) → Economics Department, Santa Cruz, California (United States)27.0310.43
28London Business School (LBS), London, United Kingdom27.1810.25
-London Business School (LBS) → Department of Economics, London, United Kingdom28.2010.25
-London School of Economics (LSE) → Department of Geography and Environment, London, United Kingdom28.3110.11
29Yale University → Economics Department, New Haven, Connecticut (United States)28.5720.23
30Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi, Milano, Italy29.6820.30
31Northwestern University → Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Evanston, Illinois (United States)32.1920.39
32Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), London, United Kingdom32.54130.24
33Princeton University → School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton, New Jersey (United States)33.0510.11
34University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU), Cape Town, South Africa34.0572.28
35Harvard University → Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health → Department of Global Health and Population, Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)34.2920.21
36Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER), Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg34.51241.62
37European University Institute → Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), Firenze, Italy36.3110.07
38Université Libre de Bruxelles → Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, Bruxelles, Belgium36.5720.56
39Barcelona School of Economics (BSE), Barcelona, Spain36.9730.68
40Universiteit Antwerpen → Instituut voor Ontwikkelingsbeleid en -beheer (IOB), Antwerpen, Belgium37.7872.53
41University of Ghana → Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), Legon, Ghana38.4220.86
-Université Libre de Bruxelles → Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management → European Centre for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics (ECARES), Bruxelles, Belgium38.7820.54
-Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) → IZA@LISER Network, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg39.09231.12
42African Development Bank, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire41.2152.41
43University of Michigan → Economics Department, Ann Arbor, Michigan (United States)42.0031.03
-University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics, Cape Town, South Africa42.06103.18
43University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce, Cape Town, South Africa42.06103.18
-London School of Economics (LSE) → Financial Markets Group (FMG), London, United Kingdom42.6210.07
45Texas A&M International University → Division of International Banking & Finance Studies, Laredo, Texas (United States)43.6510.38
46United Nations → Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Roma, Italy43.8841.09
47Center for Global Development (CGD), Washington, District of Columbia (United States)44.5251.03
48University of Nottingham → School of Economics, Nottingham, United Kingdom46.6040.59
49Universidade Nova de Lisboa → School of Business and Economics, Lisboa, Portugal47.3530.99
50Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) → Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)51.4310.04
51Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg → Fakultät für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Heidelberg, Germany52.2320.29
-Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg → Fakultät für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften → Alfred-Weber-Institut für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Heidelberg, Germany53.5810.13
52University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign → Department of Economics, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois (United States)53.7910.54
53Universidad Nacional de La Plata → Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, La Plata, Argentina53.9620.65

Top Authors

Rank Author Score
1Paul Collier
Oxford University → Department of Economics → Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Oxford, United Kingdom
2.34
2David Malin Roodman4.90
3Nathan Nunn
University of British Columbia → Vancouver School of Economics, Vancouver, Canada
5.34
4Stefan Dercon
Oxford University → Department of Economics → Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Oxford, United Kingdom
5.66
5James Levinsohn5.74
6Dani Rodrik
Harvard University → Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)
6.74
7William Easterly
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)
New York University (NYU) → Department of Economics, New York City, New York (United States)
7.58
8James Alan Robinson
University of Chicago → Harris School of Public Policy, Chicago, Illinois (United States)
7.84
9Jakob Svensson
Stockholms Universitet → Institute for International Economic Studies (IIES), Stockholm, Sweden
9.20
10Marcel A Fafchamps
Stanford University → Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford, California (United States)
9.71
11Anne Case11.77
12Simplice A. Asongu
African Governance and Development Institute (AGDI), Yaoundé, Cameroun
12.71
13Edward Andrew Miguel
University of California-Berkeley → Department of Economics, Berkeley, California (United States)
13.98
14Pascaline Dupas
Princeton University → Department of Economics, Princeton, New Jersey (United States)
14.19
15David Weil
Brown University → Economics Department, Providence, Rhode Island (United States)
14.52
16Simon Johnson15.37
17Elias Papaioannou
London Business School (LBS) → Department of Economics, London, United Kingdom
15.65
18Thomas S. Jayne
Michigan State University → College of Agriculture and Natural Resources → Department of Agricultural, Food and Resource Economics, East Lansing, Michigan (United States)
17.42
19Michael Kremer
University of Chicago → Department of Economics, Chicago, Illinois (United States)
18.58
20Augustin Fosu
University of Ghana → Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), Legon, Ghana
23.63
21Rangan Gupta
University of Pretoria → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa
25.78
22Jonathan Robinson
University of California-Santa Cruz (UCSC) → Economics Department, Santa Cruz, California (United States)
26.18
23Aart Kraay
World Bank Group → Economics Research, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
26.23
24Oded Galor
Brown University → Economics Department, Providence, Rhode Island (United States)
26.54
25J. Vernon Henderson
London School of Economics (LSE) → Department of Geography and Environment, London, United Kingdom
26.98
26Esther Duflo
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) → Economics Department, Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)
27.03
27Christopher Udry
Northwestern University → Department of Economics, Evanston, Illinois (United States)
28.35
28Dean Karlan
Northwestern University → Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Evanston, Illinois (United States)
30.35
29Stelios Michalopoulos
Brown University → Economics Department, Providence, Rhode Island (United States)
33.56
30Eliana La Ferrara34.70
31Klaus W. Deininger
World Bank Group → Economics Research, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
36.37
32Francis John Teal
Oxford University → Department of Economics → Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), Oxford, United Kingdom
36.52
33Robert Cull
World Bank Group → Economics Research, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
37.69
34Douglas Gollin
Tufts University → Department of Economics, Medford, Massachusetts (United States)
37.71
35Brian M. Lucey
Trinity College Dublin → School of Business, Dublin, Ireland
38.18
36David Lam
University of Michigan → Economics Department, Ann Arbor, Michigan (United States)
39.22
37Quentin Wodon39.25
38Xinshen Diao
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
39.63
39Antonio Ciccone
Barcelona School of Economics (BSE) → Universitat Pompeu Fabra → Departament d'Economia i Empresa, Barcelona, Spain
40.65
40Isaac M. Mbiti
University of Virginia → Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, Charlottesville, Virginia (United States)
41.57
41Anthony J. Venables
Oxford University → Department of Economics, Oxford, United Kingdom
41.73
42Margaret Mcmillan
Tufts University → Department of Economics, Medford, Massachusetts (United States)
42.76
43Thorsten Beck
European University Institute → Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), Firenze, Italy
42.87
44George Clarke
Texas A&M International University → Division of International Banking & Finance Studies, Laredo, Texas (United States)
44.01
45John Muellbauer
Oxford University → Department of Economics, Oxford, United Kingdom
44.09
46Markus P. Goldstein
World Bank Group, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
45.67
47Christopher Blattman
University of Chicago → Harris School of Public Policy, Chicago, Illinois (United States)
48.89
48Carlos Pestana Barros49.83
49John C. Anyanwu
African Development Bank, Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire
50.96
50Philip Verwimp
Université Libre de Bruxelles → Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management → European Centre for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics (ECARES), Bruxelles, Belgium
51.27
51Sanjaya Lall53.40
52Kathleen Beegle
World Bank Group → Economics Research, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
54.11
53Christopher B. Barrett
Cornell University → College of Agriculture and Life Sciences → Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Ithaca, New York (United States)
54.80
54Axel Dreher
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg → Fakultät für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften → Alfred-Weber-Institut für Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Heidelberg, Germany
55.00
55Alexander Moradi
Libera Università di Bolzano / Freie Universität Bozen → Facoltà di Economia / Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakutät, Bozen-Bolzano, Italy
56.38
56Stephen A. O'Connell
Swarthmore College → Department of Economics, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (United States)
58.53
57Lori Beaman60.45
58Robert Owen Mendelsohn
Yale University → Economics Department, New Haven, Connecticut (United States)
60.64
59Richard Akresh
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign → Department of Economics, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois (United States)
60.87
60Damien de Walque
World Bank Group → Economics Research, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
62.09
61Arne Bigsten
Göteborgs Universitet → Handelshögskolan → Institutionen för Nationalekonomi med Statistik, Göteborg, Sweden
64.29
62David Bloom
Harvard University → Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health → Department of Global Health and Population, Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)
64.81
63Martin Ravallion66.06
64Simeon Djankov
London School of Economics (LSE) → Financial Markets Group (FMG), London, United Kingdom
66.77
65Menale Kassie
Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP), Nairobi, Kenya
67.84
66Remi Jedwab
George Washington University → Department of Economics, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
68.01
67John Hoddinott
Cornell University → College of Agriculture and Life Sciences → Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, Ithaca, New York (United States)
68.54
68Leonce Ndikumana
University of Massachusetts-Amherst → Department of Economics, Amherst, Massachusetts (United States)
69.79
69David Mckenzie
World Bank Group → Economics Research, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
70.87
70Gunnar Köhlin (Gunnar Kohlin)
Göteborgs Universitet → Handelshögskolan → Environment for Development, Göteborg, Sweden
71.18
71James Thurlow
International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
71.53
72Elizabeth Asiedu
Howard University → Department of Economics, Washington, District of Columbia (United States)
71.57
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