Top Institutions and Economists in South Africa, as of May 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 9321 institutions with 73501 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 484 members with a total share of 437.71.

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	1.09	37	28.70
2	[2]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Stellenbosch, South Africa	2.04	87	76.20
-	[-]	University of Pretoria → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa	2.12	34	26.20
3	[3]	University of Johannesburg → College of Business and Economics, Auckland Park, South Africa	3.23	63	53.43
-	[-]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Stellenbosch, South Africa	3.39	78	66.08
4	[5]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce, Cape Town, South Africa	4.12	57	44.91
5	[4]	University of South Africa (UNISA) → College of Economic and Management Sciences, Pretoria, South Africa	4.51	36	30.62
-	[-]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics, Cape Town, South Africa	5.20	55	43.85
6	[6]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Johannesburg, South Africa	5.54	37	28.86
-	[-]	University of South Africa (UNISA) → College of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa	6.27	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	6.98	21	13.98
-	[-]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management → School of Economic and Finance, Johannesburg, South Africa	7.65	23	17.48
8	[8]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Policy Research in International Services and Manufacturing (PRISM), Cape Town, South Africa	7.83	8	5.63
-	[-]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Development Policy Research Unit, Cape Town, South Africa	8.58	16	15
-	[-]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management → Wits Business School, Johannesburg, South Africa	10.20	7	5.83
9	[9]	Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University → Department of Economics, Port Elizabeth, South Africa	10.34	14	14
10	[10]	South African Reserve Bank, Pretoria, South Africa	10.46	17	12.59
11	[11]	Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA), Cape Town, South Africa	10.92	30	11.75
12	[12]	University of Cape Town → Graduate School of Business, Cape Town, South Africa	12.63	4	2.75
-	[-]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics → Bureau for Economic Research, Stellenbosch, South Africa	12.64	13	10.84
13	[13]	North-West University → Centre for Business Mathematics and Informatics, Potchefstroom, South Africa	13.84	1	1
14	[14]	University of Cape Town → Environmental Policy Research Unit (EPRU), Cape Town, South Africa	14.69	2	1.88
15	[15]	University of Stellenbosch → Business School, Stellenbosch, South Africa	15.05	6	3.53
16	[16]	Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) → Economic Performance and Development, Pretoria, South Africa	15.53	5	3.75
-	[-]	University of Johannesburg → College of Business and Economics → School of Economics, Auckland Park, South Africa	15.95	7	5.25
17	[17]	North-West University → Skool vir Economie, Potchefstroom, South Africa	16.54	8	6.87
18	[18]	University of the Western Cape → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Bellville, South Africa	17.15	5	4.15
19	[19]	Sol Plaatje University → Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences, Kimberley, South Africa	19.11	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	1.08	37	10
-	[-]	University of Pretoria → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa	2.09	34	10
2	[2]	University of South Africa (UNISA) → College of Economic and Management Sciences, Pretoria, South Africa	2.65	36	10
3	[3]	University of Johannesburg → College of Business and Economics, Auckland Park, South Africa	2.69	63	10
4	[4]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Stellenbosch, South Africa	3.54	87	10
-	[-]	University of South Africa (UNISA) → College of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Pretoria, South Africa	4.06	22	10
-	[-]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics, Stellenbosch, South Africa	4.81	78	10
5	[6]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Johannesburg, South Africa	4.90	37	10
6	[5]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce, Cape Town, South Africa	5.13	57	10
-	[-]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics, Cape Town, South Africa	6.16	55	10
-	[-]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management → School of Economic and Finance, Johannesburg, South Africa	7.00	23	10
7	[7]	Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University → Department of Economics, Port Elizabeth, South Africa	7.28	14	10
8	[8]	South African Reserve Bank, Pretoria, South Africa	8.55	17	10
-	[-]	University of Cape Town → Faculty of Commerce → School of Economics → Development Policy Research Unit, Cape Town, South Africa	8.65	16	10
-	[-]	University of the Witwatersrand → Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management → Wits Business School, Johannesburg, South Africa	9.81	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	10.09	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	10.21	8	5.63
-	[-]	University of Johannesburg → College of Business and Economics → School of Economics, Auckland Park, South Africa	10.55	7	5.25
11	[11]	University of Cape Town → Graduate School of Business, Cape Town, South Africa	10.80	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	11.68	4	3.50
13	[13]	University of KwaZulu-Natal → College of Law and Management Studies, Durban, South Africa	15.29	12	9.50
14	[14]	University of Fort Hare → Department of Economics, East London, South Africa	16.72	7	7
-	[-]	University of Stellenbosch → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences → Department of Economics → Bureau for Economic Research, Stellenbosch, South Africa	16.77	13	10
15	[17]	University of Cape Town → Environmental Policy Research Unit (EPRU), Cape Town, South Africa	16.80	2	1.88
16	[15]	University of Stellenbosch → Business School, Stellenbosch, South Africa	17.01	6	3.53
17	[16]	Walter Sisulu University → Faculty of Business and Management Science, Mthatha, South Africa	17.12	1	1
18	[18]	North-West University → Fakulteit Economiese en Bestuurwetenskappe, Mmabatho, South Africa	17.87	7	5.65
19	[20]	University of the Western Cape → Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, Bellville, South Africa	19.49	5	4.15

Top authors, all publications years

Rank	W.Rank	Author	Score
1	[1]	Rangan Gupta	1.00
2	[2]	Nicholas M. Odhiambo	2.58
3	[4]	John Paul Dunne	5.02
4	[14]	Murray Leibbrandt	7.49
5	[11]	Roula Inglesi-Lotz	8.69
6	[10]	Haroon Bhorat	9.02
7	[17]	Dirk Tasche	10.85
8	[30]	Alexander Zimper	10.99
9	[7]	Ulrich Schmidt	11.42
10	[19]	Harald Winkler	12.41
11	[37]	Cally Ardington	12.96
12	[20]	Fiona Tregenna	13.46
13	[5]	Andrew Phiri	13.54
14	[29]	Martine Visser	13.73
15	[28]	Eric Schaling	15.11
16	[12]	Johan Fourie	15.33
17	[25]	Ingrid Woolard	15.64
18	[27]	Lawrence Edwards	16.48
19	[3]	Erik Stam	18.69
20	[18]	Johann Frederick Kirsten	19.88
21	[16]	Servaas van der Berg	20.73
22	[22]	Ivan Nicholas Turok	21.36
23	[42]	Nicola Viegi	21.39
24	[36]	Manoel Bittencourt	22.94
25	[31]	Steven Fredric Koch	23.40
26	[33]	Dorrit Posel	23.42
27	[26]	Lumengo Bonga-Bonga	24.26
28	[53]	Neil Andrew Rankin	24.28
29	[38]	Renee van Eyden	25.42
30	[44]	Kalu Ojah	27.36
31	[57]	Rulof P. Burger	27.42
32	[43]	Ramos Emmanuel Mapanga Mabugu (Ramos E. Mabugu)	27.82
33	[40]	Mike Morris	29.40
34	[41]	Charles Komla Delali Adjasi	30.17
35	[21]	Nicholas Biekpe	31.83
36	[35]	Stan Du Plessis	32.20
37	[6]	Augustin Fosu	33.07
38	[39]	Nicholas Ngepah	33.12
39	[34]	Nick Vink	35.16
40	[55]	Matthew W Clance	35.85
41	[52]	Charl Jooste	35.97
42	[60]	Matteo Bonato	37.55
43	[71]	Vimal Ranchhod	38.40
44	[50]	Derek Yu	38.65
45	[24]	Daan Steenkamp	39.58
46	[59]	Beatrice Desiree Simo-Kengne	41.01
47	[64]	Andrew Kerr	41.04
48	[47]	Sin-Yu Ho	43.02
49	[72]	Kevin Nell	45.13
50	[8]	Jan Luiten van Zanden	46.29
51	[88]	Co-Pierre Georg	46.38
52	[76]	Ruthira Naraidoo	46.90
53	[54]	Arno Tausch	48.41
54	[63]	Eftychia Nikolaidou	48.74
55	[58]	Dieter von Fintel	48.90
56	[65]	Moinak Maiti	49.46
57	[82]	Ismail Olaleke Fasanya	49.49
58	[68]	John Weirstrass Muteba Mwamba	50.24
59	[86]	Benjamin Stanwix	50.79
60	[81]	Daniela Maria Casale	51.32
61	[46]	Kazeem Ovanero Isah	51.74
62	[23]	Philip Kofi Adom	54.83
63	[85]	Michael Machokoto	56.74
64	[75]	Ben W. Smit	56.96
65	[69]	Hylton Hollander	57.36
66	[89]	Margaret Mabugu	57.70
67	[102]	Witness Simbanegavi	59.90
68	[61]	Eliphas Ndou	60.28
69	[83]	Willem H. Boshoff	61.00
70	[87]	Morne Oosthuizen (Morne Jacques Oosthuizen)	61.40
71	[62]	James Blignaut	61.45
72	[80]	Sheilla Nyasha	63.43
73	[84]	Christopher Malikane	63.50
74	[74]	Danilo Spinola	64.42
75	[13]	Johannes Wolfgang Fedderke	65.63
76	[98]	Monique Reid	65.95
77	[90]	Andrea Saayman	67.28
78	[79]	Hlalefang Khobai	67.81
79	[114]	Stephen George Sinclair Taylor	68.98
80	[107]	Nicola Branson	69.13
81	[108]	Sonali DAS	70.59
82	[78]	Meshach Jesse Aziakpono	72.15
83	[140]	Matthew Olckers	73.08
84	[77]	Joel Hinaunye Eita	73.36
85	[91]	Marthinus Christoffel Breitenbach	75.43
86	[124]	Merle G. Holden	76.14
87	[67]	Don A Ross	77.13
88	[104]	Ronelle Burger	79.65
89	[110]	Umakrishnan Kollamparambil	79.84
90	[95]	Grietjie Verhoef	81.75
91	[99]	Sylvanus Ikhide	82.24
92	[132]	Harold Kincaid	82.29
93	[92]	Mduduzi Biyase	82.94
94	[119]	Camille Roger Meyer	83.69
95	[106]	Alexis Habiyaremye	85.74
96	[109]	Charles Lepepeule Machethe	86.45
97	[111]	Carolyn Chisadza	89.15
98	[115]	Guangling Liu	89.65
99	[116]	Adeola Oyenubi	90.79
100	[133]	Edwin Muchapondwa	90.88
101	[120]	John Ele-Ojo Ataguba	91.04
102	[96]	Daniel Makina	91.20
103	[93]	Simon Jon Roberts	91.58
104	[126]	Paul Nkemngu Acha-Anyi	93.39
105	[118]	Elvis Korku Avenyo	94.00
106	[125]	Kevin Kotze	95.48
107	[128]	Tafirenyika Sunde	96.52
108	[130]	Konstantin Makrelov	97.18
109	[134]	Dambala Gelo	97.67
110	[56]	Ravinder Rena	98.52
111	[156]	Roy Charles Havemann	98.90
112	[105]	Themba Gilbert Chirwa	99.08
113	[117]	Tendai Gwatidzo	100.32
114	[112]	Clement Zibusiso Moyo	101.00
115	[180]	Michael K. Johnston	101.35
116	[152]	Seán M. Muller (Sean M. Muller)	102.65
117	[94]	Fred Gault	103.57
118	[15]	Andreas Freytag	105.08
119	[150]	Waldo Krugell	106.10
120	[142]	Mthokozisi Mlilo	106.59
121	[147]	Mare Sarr	106.92
122	[97]	Byron Gibby Botha	108.10

Top authors, publications last 10 years

Rank	W.Rank	Author	Score
1	[1]	Rangan Gupta	1.03
2	[2]	Nicholas M. Odhiambo	1.97
3	[6]	Roula Inglesi-Lotz	6.39
4	[18]	Matthew W Clance	9.09
5	[3]	Andrew Phiri	9.35
6	[9]	Nicholas Ngepah	11.11
7	[10]	Kazeem Ovanero Isah	12.20
8	[36]	Rulof P. Burger	12.72
9	[5]	Nicholas Biekpe	12.86
10	[13]	Sin-Yu Ho	13.46
11	[8]	Lumengo Bonga-Bonga	13.67
12	[44]	Neil Andrew Rankin	14.23
13	[4]	Erik Stam	14.50
14	[19]	Moinak Maiti	14.54
15	[15]	Johan Fourie	15.16
16	[17]	Haroon Bhorat	15.37
17	[27]	Renee van Eyden	15.44
18	[30]	Fiona Tregenna	16.12
19	[25]	Michael Machokoto	17.15
20	[14]	Daan Steenkamp	17.36
21	[26]	Murray Leibbrandt	20.52
22	[22]	Hlalefang Khobai	20.80
23	[21]	John Paul Dunne	21.22
24	[28]	Matteo Bonato	22.71
25	[32]	Steven Fredric Koch	22.78
26	[38]	Martine Visser	23.42
27	[23]	John Weirstrass Muteba Mwamba	23.52
28	[39]	Ismail Olaleke Fasanya	24.24
29	[34]	Paul Nkemngu Acha-Anyi	24.71
30	[41]	Charl Jooste	27.89
31	[31]	Danilo Spinola	27.95
32	[77]	Matthew Olckers	28.57
33	[40]	Carolyn Chisadza	30.36
34	[24]	Mduduzi Biyase	32.32
35	[37]	Adeola Oyenubi	32.96
36	[51]	Andrew Kerr	33.81
37	[47]	Marthinus Christoffel Breitenbach	35.49
38	[35]	Hylton Hollander	35.94
39	[46]	Sheilla Nyasha	37.81
40	[12]	Philip Kofi Adom	37.85
41	[49]	Harald Winkler	38.34
42	[55]	Elvis Korku Avenyo	38.59
43	[95]	Alexander Zimper	39.10
44	[48]	Clement Zibusiso Moyo	39.71
45	[50]	Charles Komla Delali Adjasi	40.40
46	[115]	Stephen George Sinclair Taylor	41.06
47	[20]	Eliphas Ndou	41.18
48	[67]	Ramos Emmanuel Mapanga Mabugu (Ramos E. Mabugu)	41.41
49	[69]	Camille Roger Meyer	42.15
50	[58]	Tafirenyika Sunde	42.21
51	[64]	Mthokozisi Mlilo	42.72
52	[88]	Benjamin Stanwix	43.35
53	[61]	Kalu Ojah	43.97
54	[70]	Umakrishnan Kollamparambil	46.54
55	[42]	Joel Hinaunye Eita	47.21
56	[75]	Jones Odei-Mensah	48.82
57	[72]	Christopher Malikane	49.32
58	[118]	Roy Charles Havemann	50.50
59	[54]	Beatrice Desiree Simo-Kengne	50.74
60	[66]	Dieter von Fintel	50.84
61	[78]	Charles Lepepeule Machethe	52.10
62	[76]	Emmanuel Orkoh	54.13
63	[80]	Lawrence Edwards	54.46
64	[62]	Grietjie Verhoef	55.73
65	[87]	Willem H. Boshoff	56.23
66	[57]	Derek Yu	57.36
67	[71]	Ivan Nicholas Turok	58.48
68	[90]	Ingrid Woolard	59.12
69	[112]	Monique Reid	60.65
70	[92]	Nicola Viegi	60.98
71	[33]	Ulrich Schmidt	61.08
72	[102]	John Ele-Ojo Ataguba	61.51
73	[96]	Xolani Sibande	62.73
74	[93]	Konstantin Makrelov	63.53
75	[86]	Mike Morris	64.03
76	[68]	Yonas Tesfamariam Bahta	64.90
77	[63]	Timothy Köhler (Timothy Kohler)	66.19
78	[119]	Leonard Le Roux	68.07
79	[127]	Ruthira Naraidoo	68.21
80	[91]	Jules Clement Mba	68.53
81	[109]	Dambala Gelo	69.53
82	[100]	Tendai Gwatidzo	70.23
83	[65]	Don A Ross	70.63
84	[94]	Eftychia Nikolaidou	71.27
85	[53]	Ndemaze Asongu	72.01
86	[97]	Dorrit Posel	72.23
87	[105]	Nick Vink	72.67
88	[52]	Byron Gibby Botha	72.70
89	[137]	Neryvia Pillay	72.87
90	[134]	Harold Kincaid	72.98
91	[83]	Forget Mingiri Kapingura	73.03
92	[106]	Morne Oosthuizen (Morne Jacques Oosthuizen)	73.95
93	[108]	Amy Julia Thornton	74.58
94	[79]	Daniel Makina	75.16
95	[85]	Syden Mishi	75.52
96	[113]	Kevin Nell	76.96
97	[84]	Alexis Habiyaremye	77.32
98	[107]	Stan Du Plessis	77.44
99	[122]	Kevin Kotze	77.59
100	[126]	Gabrielle Wills	77.90
101	[111]	Zurika Robinson	78.65
102	[104]	Themba Gilbert Chirwa	81.88
103	[142]	Thomas Andrew McWalter	82.67
104	[98]	Munacinga Chinyama Hamusankwa Simatele	83.06
105	[132]	David Mhlanga	85.81
106	[136]	Witness Simbanegavi	85.90
107	[138]	Talita Greyling	87.19
108	[101]	Meshach Jesse Aziakpono	87.25
109	[139]	Eleni Yitbarek	88.30
110	[141]	Sonali DAS	88.89
111	[153]	Corlise Liesl Le Roux	91.57
112	[117]	Ariel Herbert Fambeu	94.74
113	[59]	Servaas van der Berg	96.34
114	[123]	Manoel Bittencourt	96.74
115	[145]	Johane Dikgang	96.83
116	[82]	Franz Ruch	97.32
117	[150]	Herbert Ntuli	99.48
118	[148]	David Oluwatosin Fadiran	100.92
119	[177]	Ryan David Hawthorne	101.36
120	[110]	Simon Jon Roberts	102.22
121	[129]	Athenia Bongani Sibindi	103.22
122	[125]	Johann Frederick Kirsten	103.93

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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