Trends in Three Decades of Rankings of Dutch Economists

This paper analyzes more than 30 years of rankings of the best 40 Dutch economists, and examines if performance in terms of weighted publications increased. One of the findings is that over time the differences between top-performers and those lower on the charts decrease, but also that the group of top-performers is small and persistent over the years. Further, the average scores of ranked economists also increase over time. At the same time, new entries usually decrease in the subsequent years. Finally, after 20 years the charts contain 95 % new names and, in general, inclusion in the rankings usually lasts only for about 5 years.