Top Institutions and Economists in South Africa, as of March 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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Authors with multiple affiliations have their score distributed across regions according to the affiliation shares they provided. The ranking is performed using the set of authors or institutions within the region, recomputing the scores within the set. The ranking done by simply looking up the worldwide ranking for those authors or institutions from this region is provided in the W.Rank column and put in [square brackets].
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
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.
For 10/10: This ranking takes only publications in the last 10 years into account.
For 10/10: The ranking here is limited to the best 10 authors from each institution for each criterion. Authors with multiple affiliations count proportionally to the affiliation share they set for the score and the author count. Rankings for criteria HIndex and Students are from the general ranking.
There are 9296 institutions with 73242 registered authors evaluated for all the rankings
For a listing of all economics institutions in South Africa, see EDIRC
For South Africa, these are 77 institutions with 478 members with a total share of 432.85.

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.

Entity	Full ranking		Last 10 years		10 best authors		Last 10 years, 10 best authors		Top 5% authors		More
Authors	Short	Details	Short	Details							More
Institutions	Short	Details	Short	Details	Short	Details	Short	Details	All years	Last 10	More
Regions	Short	Details	Short	Details							More

Top institutions, all authors, all publication years

Rank	W.Rank	Institution	Score	Authors	Author Shares
1	[1]	University of Pretoria → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Pretoria, South Africa	1.08	37	28.70
2	[2]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Stellenbosch, South Africa	2.06	83	72.70
-	[-]	University of Pretoria → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa	2.09	34	26.20
3	[3]	University of Johannesburg → College of Business and Economics, Auckland Park, South Africa	3.35	63	53.43
-	[-]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Stellenbosch, South Africa	3.42	74	62.58
4	[5]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce, Cape Town, South Africa	3.97	58	45.91
5	[4]	University of South Africa (UNISA) → College of Economic and Management Sciences, Pretoria, South Africa	4.72	35	30.43
-	[-]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics, Cape Town, South Africa	5.02	56	44.85
6	[6]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Johannesburg, South Africa	5.72	36	28.53
-	[-]	University of South Africa (UNISA) → College of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa	6.33	22	19.48
7	[7]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU), Cape Town, South Africa	7.04	21	13.98
8	[8]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Policy Research in International Services and Manufacturing (PRISM), Cape Town, South Africa	7.71	8	5.63
-	[-]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management → School of Economic and Finance, Johannesburg, South Africa	7.96	22	17.15
-	[-]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Development Policy Research Unit, Cape Town, South Africa	8.71	16	15
9	[10]	South African Reserve Bank, Pretoria, South Africa	10.46	17	12.59
-	[-]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management → Wits Business School, Johannesburg, South Africa	10.54	7	5.83
10	[9]	Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University → Department of Economics, Port Elizabeth, South Africa	10.56	14	14
11	[11]	Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA), Cape Town, South Africa	10.79	30	11.75
12	[12]	University of Cape Town → Graduate School of Business, Cape Town, South Africa	12.55	4	2.75
-	[-]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics → Bureau for Economic Research, Stellenbosch, South Africa	13.14	11	9.34
13	[13]	North-West University → Centre for Business Mathematics and Informatics, Potchefstroom, South Africa	13.35	1	1
14	[16]	Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) → Economic Performance and Development, Pretoria, South Africa	14.81	5	3.75
15	[14]	University of Cape Town → Environmental Policy Research Unit (EPRU), Cape Town, South Africa	14.84	2	1.88
16	[15]	University of Stellenbosch → Business School, Stellenbosch, South Africa	15.27	6	3.53
-	[-]	University of Johannesburg → College of Business and Economics → School of Economics, Auckland Park, South Africa	16.80	7	5.25
17	[17]	North-West University → Skool vir Economie, Potchefstroom, South Africa	17.58	8	6.87
18	[18]	University of the Western Cape → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Bellville, South Africa	17.68	4	3.15
19	[19]	Sol Plaatje University → Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, Kimberley, South Africa	18.94	1	1

Top institutions, 10 best authors for each, publications last 10 years

Rank	W.Rank	Institution	Score	Authors	Author Shares
1	[1]	University of Pretoria → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Pretoria, South Africa	1.03	37	10
-	[-]	University of Pretoria → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa	2.03	34	10
2	[2]	University of South Africa (UNISA) → College of Economic and Management Sciences, Pretoria, South Africa	2.67	35	10
3	[3]	University of Johannesburg → College of Business and Economics, Auckland Park, South Africa	2.76	63	10
4	[4]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Stellenbosch, South Africa	3.56	83	10
-	[-]	University of South Africa (UNISA) → College of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa	3.93	22	10
-	[-]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Stellenbosch, South Africa	4.82	74	10
5	[5]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Johannesburg, South Africa	5.15	36	10
6	[6]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce, Cape Town, South Africa	5.16	58	10
-	[-]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics, Cape Town, South Africa	6.28	56	10
7	[7]	Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University → Department of Economics, Port Elizabeth, South Africa	7.42	14	10
-	[-]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management → School of Economic and Finance, Johannesburg, South Africa	7.47	22	10
8	[8]	South African Reserve Bank, Pretoria, South Africa	8.20	17	10
-	[-]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Development Policy Research Unit, Cape Town, South Africa	8.64	16	10
-	[-]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management → Wits Business School, Johannesburg, South Africa	9.74	7	5.83
9	[9]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit (SALDRU), Cape Town, South Africa	10.24	21	10
10	[10]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Policy Research in International Services and Manufacturing (PRISM), Cape Town, South Africa	10.36	8	5.63
-	[-]	University of Johannesburg → College of Business and Economics → School of Economics, Auckland Park, South Africa	10.63	7	5.25
11	[11]	University of Cape Town → Graduate School of Business, Cape Town, South Africa	10.84	4	2.75
12	[12]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management → School of Economic and Finance → Studies in Financial Markets and Macroeconomics (SFM), Johannesburg, South Africa	11.47	4	3.50
13	[13]	University of Stellenbosch → Business School, Stellenbosch, South Africa	16.70	6	3.53
14	[16]	University of Cape Town → Environmental Policy Research Unit (EPRU), Cape Town, South Africa	16.79	2	1.88
15	[14]	Walter Sisulu University → Faculty of Business and Management Science, Mthatha, South Africa	16.86	1	1
16	[15]	University of Fort Hare → Department of Economics, East London, South Africa	17.03	7	7
17	[17]	North-West University → Fakulteit Economiese en Bestuurwetenskappe, Mmabatho, South Africa	17.42	7	5.65
-	[-]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics → Bureau for Economic Research, Stellenbosch, South Africa	17.56	11	9.34
18	[18]	University of Pretoria → Department of Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development, Pretoria, South Africa	19.74	9	6.55
19	[19]	North-West University → Skool vir Economie, Potchefstroom, South Africa	19.82	8	6.87

Top authors, all publications years

Rank	W.Rank	Author	Score
1	[1]	Rangan Gupta	1
2	[2]	Nicholas M. Odhiambo	2.36
3	[6]	John Paul Dunne	4.48
4	[11]	Murray Leibbrandt	7.59
5	[10]	Roula Inglesi-Lotz	8.42
6	[12]	Haroon Bhorat	8.97
7	[16]	Dirk Tasche	9.60
8	[27]	Alexander Zimper	9.75
9	[4]	Ulrich Schmidt	11.65
10	[18]	Harald Winkler	12.50
11	[9]	Andrew Phiri	13.03
12	[29]	Cally Ardington	13.48
13	[23]	Martine Visser	14.97
14	[22]	Fiona Tregenna	15.01
15	[19]	Ingrid Woolard	15.28
16	[17]	Johan Fourie	16.30
17	[20]	Lawrence Edwards	16.47
18	[21]	Eric Schaling	18.22
19	[24]	Servaas van der Berg	21.30
20	[34]	Nicola Viegi	22.74
21	[25]	Ivan Nicholas Turok	23.16
22	[26]	Johann Frederick Kirsten	23.36
23	[3]	Erik Stam	23.56
24	[31]	Manoel Bittencourt	23.69
25	[33]	Dorrit Posel	23.83
26	[30]	Steven Fredric Koch	25.05
27	[45]	Neil Andrew Rankin	25.46
28	[35]	Renee van Eyden	25.83
29	[40]	Ramos Emmanuel Mapanga Mabugu (Ramos E. Mabugu)	27.88
30	[28]	Lumengo Bonga-Bonga	29.03
31	[42]	Mike Morris	30.37
32	[38]	Stan Du Plessis	31.29
33	[37]	Charles Komla Delali Adjasi	31.31
34	[46]	Kalu Ojah	32.01
35	[15]	Nicholas Biekpe	32.07
36	[53]	Rulof P. Burger	32.57
37	[5]	Augustin Fosu	35.24
38	[52]	Matthew W Clance	37.17
39	[59]	Vimal Ranchhod	38.47
40	[49]	Charl Jooste	39.13
41	[47]	Nick Vink	39.30
42	[51]	Beatrice Desiree Simo-Kengne	41.05
43	[44]	Derek Yu	41.69
44	[55]	Matteo Bonato	44.92
45	[62]	Andrew Kerr	45.14
46	[48]	Nicholas Ngepah	45.19
47	[65]	Kevin Nell	47.20
48	[80]	Co-Pierre Georg	47.59
49	[68]	Margaret Mabugu	48.33
50	[54]	Dieter von Fintel	49.63
51	[50]	Sin-Yu Ho	50.23
52	[60]	John Weirstrass Muteba Mwamba	50.77
53	[67]	Daniela Maria Casale	50.82
54	[72]	Ismail Olaleke Fasanya	52.20
55	[7]	Jan Luiten van Zanden	52.69
56	[61]	Eftychia Nikolaidou	53.61
57	[70]	Daan Steenkamp	54.36
58	[73]	Ruthira Naraidoo	54.76
59	[82]	Benjamin Stanwix	56.24
60	[64]	Moinak Maiti	56.43
61	[63]	Arno Tausch	59.77
62	[87]	Ben W. Smit	59.97
63	[78]	James Blignaut	60.60
64	[66]	Sheilla Nyasha	60.83
65	[74]	Morne Oosthuizen (Morne Jacques Oosthuizen)	60.96
66	[76]	Michael Machokoto	61.88
67	[90]	Witness Simbanegavi	62.30
68	[77]	Christopher Malikane	65.24
69	[75]	Willem H. Boshoff	66.82
70	[14]	Johannes Wolfgang Fedderke	67.50
71	[71]	Hlalefang Khobai	68.40
72	[96]	Sonali DAS	69.47
73	[89]	Monique Reid	70.50
74	[85]	Andrea Saayman	72.37
75	[99]	Nicola Branson	73.51
76	[91]	Hylton Hollander	75.94
77	[106]	Stephen George Sinclair Taylor	77.73
78	[79]	Joel Hinaunye Eita	78.40
79	[115]	Merle G. Holden	78.65
80	[58]	Don A Ross	79.36
81	[84]	Marthinus Christoffel Breitenbach	79.58
82	[95]	Ronelle Burger	81.36
83	[107]	Umakrishnan Kollamparambil	81.46
84	[93]	Danilo Spinola	83.95
85	[83]	Eliphas Ndou	86.22
86	[121]	Guangling Liu	86.86
87	[131]	Matthew Olckers	87.23
88	[120]	Harold Kincaid	87.78
89	[105]	Sylvanus Ikhide	88.20
90	[118]	Camille Roger Meyer	90.46
91	[94]	Grietjie Verhoef	91.50
92	[109]	John Ele-Ojo Ataguba	91.62
93	[104]	Alexis Habiyaremye	92.29
94	[88]	Mduduzi Biyase	92.75
95	[125]	Edwin Muchapondwa	93.48
96	[103]	Carolyn Chisadza	93.72
97	[114]	Paul Nkemngu Acha-Anyi	96.48
98	[111]	Konstantin Makrelov	96.92
99	[86]	Simon Jon Roberts	97.04
100	[108]	Charles Lepepeule Machethe	97.74
101	[92]	Meshach Jesse Aziakpono	98.37
102	[126]	Dambala Gelo	98.44
103	[117]	Elvis Korku Avenyo	99.16
104	[124]	Kevin Kotze	102.33
105	[13]	Andreas Freytag	105.29
106	[141]	Seán M. Muller (Sean M. Muller)	105.84
107	[122]	Tafirenyika Sunde	105.97
108	[144]	Mare Sarr	106.84
109	[81]	Fred Gault	106.86
110	[100]	Daniel Makina	108.38
111	[130]	Reza Che Daniels	111.99
112	[123]	Tendai Gwatidzo	112.09
113	[155]	Bennett Stephen Labson	112.56
114	[145]	Waldo Krugell	113.16
115	[133]	Mthokozisi Mlilo	114.21
116	[137]	Johane Dikgang	114.36
117	[110]	Clement Zibusiso Moyo	114.78
118	[129]	Adeola Oyenubi	115.65
119	[69]	Ravinder Rena	116.95
120	[142]	Marisa von Fintel	117.26

Top authors, publications last 10 years

Rank	W.Rank	Author	Score
1	[1]	Rangan Gupta	1
2	[2]	Nicholas M. Odhiambo	2.00
3	[7]	Roula Inglesi-Lotz	6.17
4	[13]	Matthew W Clance	8.30
5	[4]	Andrew Phiri	8.70
6	[5]	Nicholas Biekpe	10.26
7	[12]	Nicholas Ngepah	10.43
8	[31]	Rulof P. Burger	11.85
9	[11]	Sin-Yu Ho	13.17
10	[10]	Lumengo Bonga-Bonga	13.68
11	[35]	Neil Andrew Rankin	13.79
12	[18]	Renee van Eyden	13.85
13	[14]	Moinak Maiti	14.16
14	[17]	Haroon Bhorat	14.63
15	[23]	Fiona Tregenna	14.75
16	[15]	Johan Fourie	16.25
17	[19]	Michael Machokoto	16.92
18	[24]	Daan Steenkamp	17.39
19	[3]	Erik Stam	18.33
20	[16]	Hlalefang Khobai	19.82
21	[20]	Matteo Bonato	21.40
22	[33]	Ismail Olaleke Fasanya	22.08
23	[21]	John Paul Dunne	22.64
24	[25]	Murray Leibbrandt	22.88
25	[27]	John Weirstrass Muteba Mwamba	23.25
26	[29]	Steven Fredric Koch	23.58
27	[34]	Martine Visser	24.64
28	[28]	Paul Nkemngu Acha-Anyi	24.90
29	[62]	Matthew Olckers	29.23
30	[32]	Danilo Spinola	31.13
31	[44]	Charl Jooste	31.45
32	[39]	Hylton Hollander	32.78
33	[36]	Carolyn Chisadza	33.53
34	[42]	Marthinus Christoffel Breitenbach	35.19
35	[30]	Mduduzi Biyase	35.77
36	[37]	Sheilla Nyasha	37.46
37	[54]	Andrew Kerr	37.61
38	[43]	Elvis Korku Avenyo	38.18
39	[40]	Charles Komla Delali Adjasi	40.21
40	[38]	Clement Zibusiso Moyo	41.25
41	[46]	Harald Winkler	41.58
42	[51]	Mthokozisi Mlilo	44.58
43	[52]	Kalu Ojah	45.01
44	[91]	Alexander Zimper	45.78
45	[57]	Jones Odei-Mensah	46.28
46	[55]	Tafirenyika Sunde	46.75
47	[60]	Umakrishnan Kollamparambil	46.91
48	[53]	Adeola Oyenubi	46.97
49	[100]	Stephen George Sinclair Taylor	47.66
50	[56]	Camille Roger Meyer	49.27
51	[50]	Dieter von Fintel	50.18
52	[61]	Christopher Malikane	51.30
53	[70]	Nicola Viegi	52.05
54	[77]	Benjamin Stanwix	53.01
55	[74]	Ramos Emmanuel Mapanga Mabugu (Ramos E. Mabugu)	54.48
56	[58]	Beatrice Desiree Simo-Kengne	54.94
57	[64]	Lawrence Edwards	55.26
58	[47]	Joel Hinaunye Eita	56.02
59	[66]	Emmanuel Orkoh	56.91
60	[79]	Willem H. Boshoff	58.43
61	[89]	Roy Charles Havemann	58.71
62	[65]	Grietjie Verhoef	59.40
63	[76]	Konstantin Makrelov	60.53
64	[26]	Ulrich Schmidt	62.13
65	[68]	Ivan Nicholas Turok	62.40
66	[86]	Monique Reid	62.61
67	[75]	Mike Morris	63.17
68	[87]	John Ele-Ojo Ataguba	64.47
69	[78]	Charles Lepepeule Machethe	65.00
70	[92]	Dambala Gelo	66.19
71	[112]	Neryvia Pillay	69.44
72	[108]	Leonard Le Roux	69.52
73	[80]	Derek Yu	70.33
74	[88]	Ingrid Woolard	70.43
75	[85]	Xolani Sibande	70.46
76	[73]	Yonas Tesfamariam Bahta	72.07
77	[49]	Don A Ross	74.19
78	[90]	Morne Oosthuizen (Morne Jacques Oosthuizen)	74.38
79	[71]	Forget Mingiri Kapingura	74.51
80	[69]	Eliphas Ndou	74.70
81	[111]	Ruthira Naraidoo	77.23
82	[93]	Jules Clement Mba	77.34
83	[127]	Stan Du Plessis	78.22
84	[97]	Dorrit Posel	78.81
85	[110]	Nick Vink	79.30
86	[98]	Amy Julia Thornton	79.59
87	[45]	Ndemaze Asongu	80.12
88	[119]	Harold Kincaid	80.19
89	[109]	Kevin Nell	80.83
90	[114]	Kevin Kotze	81.31
91	[101]	Eftychia Nikolaidou	81.48
92	[94]	Timothy Köhler (Timothy Kohler)	82.58
93	[102]	Tendai Gwatidzo	82.99
94	[113]	Gabrielle Wills	84.80
95	[121]	Witness Simbanegavi	86.32
96	[124]	Talita Greyling	86.42
97	[128]	Thomas Andrew McWalter	86.82
98	[125]	Eleni Yitbarek	86.99
99	[83]	Syden Mishi	88.62
100	[95]	Alexis Habiyaremye	89.31
101	[129]	Sonali DAS	89.79
102	[104]	Munacinga Chinyama Hamusankwa Simatele	92.12
103	[96]	Zurika Robinson	92.32
104	[118]	David Mhlanga	93.18
105	[105]	Daniel Makina	93.29
106	[135]	Manoel Bittencourt	94.61
107	[82]	Franz Ruch	96.49
108	[106]	Themba Gilbert Chirwa	97.02
109	[148]	Corlise Liesl Le Roux	98.26
110	[116]	Servaas van der Berg	98.86
111	[136]	David Oluwatosin Fadiran	99.93
112	[138]	Johane Dikgang	100.33
113	[123]	Ariel Herbert Fambeu	100.70
114	[115]	Athenia Bongani Sibindi	104.16
115	[120]	Ntokozo Patrick Nzimande	108.15
116	[99]	Simon Jon Roberts	109.78
117	[141]	Charles Shaaba Saba	110.84
118	[143]	Herbert Ntuli	111.03
119	[126]	Meshach Jesse Aziakpono	111.70
120	[131]	Byron Gibby Botha	112.25

Credits:

Citations from CitEc project by José Manuel Barrueco Cruz, University of Valencia, Spain. Hardware provided by Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas (IVIE), Valencia, Spain.
Abstract views and downloads statistics from LogEc project by Sune Karlsson, Örebro University, Sweden.
Author registration, institution database, and ranking computations by Christian Zimmermann.
RePEc has been initiated by Thomas Krichel.

We do our best, but we cannot exclude errors.

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