Is this really a moral victory for Ireland or is it once again just “the cracked looking-glass of a servant”?
Author: Michael Moore
The current issue of the New Yorker has a profile of Esther Duflo. In the article, the views of Angus Deaton on the limitations of randomised controlled trials are assessed as wondering if “someone put sand in Angus’s toothpaste”. Readers will find the offending substance here.
You will undoubtedly make your own assessment of the following direct quote from Duflo in the New Yorker piece: “I want a baby goat” she mused. “I’ll take good care of it”.
Look at http://www.rae.ac.uk/results/qualityProfile.aspx?id=34&type=uoa
These are the economics results for the most recent Research Assessment Exercise for the UK.
The first numeric column reports the number of staff returned in the subject for each institution: UK departments are comparable in size to many Irish ones. On the same website, one can browse to a narrative for each department: each institution is specifically required to comment on early career researchers. Like some Irish deparments, many UK departments are also developing new talent.
Now compare their position in the Tilburg ranking https://econtop.uvt.nl/ to Irish departments.
Everyone still happy?
Tilburg has produced a ranking of economics departments for the whole world. See https://econtop.uvt.nl/ . It is based on journal publications since 2004. The nice aspect of this website is that you can change the ranking yourself by including the journals that you like and excluding the ones that you despise. No matter how the cookie is cut, our economics departments are abysmal.
I’ve been patiently waiting for a response to, or even a report in Ireland of, the publication of the 2009 Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities. See http://www.arwu.org/indexs.jsp. Could this possibly be a case of socioanalytic denial?
This is by far the most widely used ranking in the world for three reasons. It is almost impossible to ‘game’. It is used as an information tool by internationally mobile students. It is designed to honestly assess the evolution of the relative position of Chinese Universities: we know it’s honest because they don’t score well.
There have been enthusiastic references in the Irish media and in this blog to other university rankings. This is because some Irish universities appear to be important in these. But you should be suspicious: they also rank many British universities well above obviously superior US institutions. The apparent success of some Irish Universities is a by-product of this ludicrous outcome.
Go on: check it out. Has the Portarlington Institute for Science and Society got the recognition it deserves?