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2025 Best Economics Doctor's Degree Schools

In 2025, College Factual analyzed 49 schools in order to identify the top ones for its Best Economics Doctor's Degree Schools ranking. When you put them all together, these colleges and universities awarded 1,385 doctor's degrees in economics during the <nil> academic year.

Jump to one of the following sections: * Our Methodology

• Best Doctor’s Degree Schools List

Choosing a Great Economics School for Your Doctor's Degree

Overall Quality Is a Must

The overall quality of a doctor's degree school is important to ensure a quality education, not just how well they do in a particular major. To make it into this list a school must rank well in our overall Best Colleges for a Doctor's Degree ranking. This ranking considered factors such as graduation rates, overall graduate earnings and other educational resources to identify great colleges and universities.

Average Early-Career Salaries

Average early-career salary of those graduating with their doctor's degree is one indicator we use in our analysis to find the schools that offer the highest-quality education. That is, everyone wants their doctor's degree to be worth something, and salaries are one measure of determining that.

Other Factors We Consider

In addition to the above, you should consider some of the following factors:

• Major Focus - How much a school focuses on economics students vs. other majors.
• Major Demand - The number of economics students who choose to seek a doctor's degree at the school.
• Educational Resources - The amount of money and other resources allocated to students while they are pursuing their degree. These resources include such things as number of students per instructor and education expenditures per student.
• Student Debt - How easy is it for economics to pay back their student loans after receiving their doctor's degree.
• Accreditation - Whether a school is regionally accredited and/or accredited by a recognized economics related body.

Our full ranking methodology documents in more detail how we consider these factors to identify the best schools for economics students working on their doctor's degree.

One Size Does Not Fit All

The economics school you choose to invest your time and money in matters. To help you make the decision that is right for you, we've developed a number of major-specific rankings , including this list of the Best Economics Doctor's Degree Schools.

Best Schools for Doctorate Students to Study Economics in the United States

Explore the top ranked colleges and universities for economics students seeking a a doctor's degree.

10 Top Schools for a Doctorate in Economics

Northwestern University is a wonderful decision for individuals interested in a doctor's degree in economics. Northwestern is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Evanston. More information about a doctorate in economics from Northwestern University

University of Pennsylvania is a great option for individuals pursuing a doctor's degree in economics. Located in the large city of Philadelphia, UPenn is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in economics from University of Pennsylvania

It is difficult to beat Columbia University in the City of New York if you want to pursue a doctor's degree in economics. Located in the city of New York, Columbia is a private not-for-profit university with a very large student population. More information about a doctorate in economics from Columbia University in the City of New York

Any student who is interested in a doctor's degree in economics has to check out University of Chicago. Located in the large city of Chicago, UChicago is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. More information about a doctorate in economics from University of Chicago

Cornell is a very large private not-for-profit university located in the small city of Ithaca. More information about a doctorate in economics from Cornell University

Harvard is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the medium-sized city of Cambridge. More information about a doctorate in economics from Harvard University

Stanford is a fairly large private not-for-profit university located in the suburb of Stanford. More information about a doctorate in economics from Stanford University

Located in the city of Durham, Duke is a private not-for-profit university with a large student population. More information about a doctorate in economics from Duke University

UC Berkeley is a fairly large public university located in the medium-sized city of Berkeley. More information about a doctorate in economics from University of California - Berkeley

Located in the city of Providence, Brown is a private not-for-profit university with a fairly large student population. More information about a doctorate in economics from Brown University

Additional Noteworthy Schools

Here are some additional great schools for Economics students that almost earned our Best Economics Doctor's Degree Schools award.

Economics by Region

View the Best Economics Doctor's Degree Schools for a specific region near you.

Other Rankings

Best associate degrees in economics, best master's degrees in economics, best value in economics, best for non-traditional students in economics, best online in economics, most popular online in economics, best bachelor's degrees in economics, best overall in economics, highest paid grads in economics, best for veterans in economics, most popular in economics, most focused in economics.

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Economics Related Rankings by Major

Economics is one of 13 different types of Social Sciences programs to choose from.

Economics Concentrations

Majors similar to economics, notes and references.

• The bars on the spread charts above show the distribution of the schools on this list +/- one standard deviation from the mean.
• The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System ( IPEDS ) from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), a branch of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) serves as the core of the rest of our data about colleges.
• Some other college data, including much of the graduate earnings data, comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s ( College Scorecard ).
• Credit for the banner image above goes to pixabay . More about our data sources and methodologies .

Popular Reports

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Best Universities for Economics in the World

Updated: February 29, 2024

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Below is a list of best universities in the World ranked based on their research performance in Economics. A graph of 196M citations received by 10.3M academic papers made by 5,995 universities in the World was used to calculate publications' ratings, which then were adjusted for release dates and added to final scores.

We don't distinguish between undergraduate and graduate programs nor do we adjust for current majors offered. You can find information about granted degrees on a university page but always double-check with the university website.

1. Harvard University

For Economics

2. University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

3. Stanford University

4. University of California - Berkeley

5. University of Toronto

6. Columbia University

7. University of Pennsylvania

8. University of Chicago

9. University of Oxford

10. University of Washington - Seattle

11. New York University

12. Cornell University

13. Yale University

14. University of California - Los Angeles

15. Massachusetts Institute of Technology

16. Johns Hopkins University

17. University College London

18. London School of Economics and Political Science

19. University of Wisconsin - Madison

20. University of Cambridge

21. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

22. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

23. Pennsylvania State University

24. Ohio State University

25. University of British Columbia

26. University of Illinois at Urbana - Champaign

27. Princeton University

28. Duke University

29. University of Sydney

30. University of Melbourne

31. University of Texas at Austin

32. University of Southern California

33. University of Manchester

34. Michigan State University

35. University of Maryland - College Park

36. University of Hong Kong

37. University of Amsterdam

38. Australian National University

39. University of California-San Diego

40. University of New South Wales

41. National University of Singapore

42. Monash University

43. Arizona State University - Tempe

44. Northwestern University

45. University of Queensland

46. University of Florida

47. Boston University

48. Rutgers University - New Brunswick

49. Carnegie Mellon University

50. University of California - Davis

51. Catholic University of Leuven

52. University of Pittsburgh

53. Imperial College London

54. Erasmus University Rotterdam

55. King's College London

56. University of California - San Francisco

57. University of Warwick

58. University of Virginia

59. McGill University

60. University of Edinburgh

61. University of Nottingham

62. Texas A&M University - College Station

63. University of Arizona

64. University of Alberta

65. University of Sheffield

66. McMaster University

67. University of Copenhagen

68. University of Bristol

69. Washington University in St Louis

70. University of Rochester

71. University of Leeds

72. University of Birmingham

73. Tsinghua University

74. Emory University

75. Iowa State University

76. University of Illinois at Chicago

77. George Washington University

78. Vanderbilt University

79. University of Tokyo

80. University of Southampton

81. University of Iowa

82. University of California - Irvine

83. Utrecht University

84. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich

85. Georgetown University

86. Tel Aviv University

87. University of Sussex

88. University of Groningen

89. Chinese University of Hong Kong

90. Georgia Institute of Technology

91. Peking University

92. Tilburg University

93. Hong Kong Polytechnic University

94. University of Calgary

95. Western University

96. University of York

97. University of Auckland

98. Lund University

99. University of California - Santa Barbara

100. University of Utah

Economics subfields in the World