Economics & Econometrics in QS Subject Rankings 2026: Global Distribution and Top-Tier Indicators

The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 places Harvard University at the top of Economics & Econometrics, with 699 institutions from 75 countries and regions appearing in the global list. For prospective students choosing a program by subject, this ranking offers a detailed picture of where the field’s strongest departments are concentrated, and how the top tier differs from the rest of the field.

Global Scale and Country Concentration

The 2026 edition of the Economics & Econometrics subject ranking covers 699 institutions worldwide, spanning 75 countries and regions. This is a broad field in terms of geographic representation, but the distribution of ranked institutions is far from even. The United States leads with 110 ranked institutions, followed by the United Kingdom with 59, and China (Mainland) with 52. Germany contributes 32, while France and India each place 27 institutions. Italy (23), Australia (22), Spain (20), and Canada (18) round out the top ten countries by ranked-institution count.

What this means for applicants is that the field’s academic infrastructure is heavily concentrated in a handful of countries. The US alone accounts for roughly one in six ranked programs, and the top three countries together represent nearly a third of all ranked institutions. If you are looking for a wide range of choices within a single country, the US, the UK, and China (Mainland) are the clear leaders.

Country/Region	Ranked Institutions
United States of America	110
United Kingdom	59
China (Mainland)	52
Germany	32
France	27
India	27
Italy	23
Australia	22
Spain	20
Canada	18

The Top Tier: Where the Highest Scores Cluster

At the very top, Harvard University holds the number one position. The top 10 ranks are all occupied by institutions with overall scores of 90 or above, according to the score bands in the 2026 data. The 90–99 band contains exactly 10 institutions, matching the top 10 ranks exactly. This means that a score of 90 or higher is a genuine marker of the field’s absolute elite—there is no institution ranked 11th or lower that reaches this threshold.

The next band, 80–89, contains 20 institutions, which corresponds exactly to ranks 11 through 30. Combined with the top 10, this means 30 institutions score 80 or above. The 70–79 band is the largest high-scoring cluster, containing 99 institutions. These correspond to ranks 31 through 129, a wide band that includes many strong departments but with a meaningful gap from the very top.

A notable feature of the 2026 distribution is the sharp drop-off after the 70-point threshold. The score bands show 202 institutions in the 60–69 range, and then no institutions at all in the 50–59, 40–49, or 30–39 bands. This does not mean that ranked institutions below 202 have no scores—rather, the data indicates that the remaining institutions fall below the 60-point threshold without further banding in the published dataset. The practical implication is that the field’s top 200 programs are clustered within a relatively narrow score range, and beyond that, the published bands do not differentiate further.

Rank Distribution: Density and Gaps

The rank bands provide a clearer view of how institutions are distributed across the ranking. The top 10 ranks each contain one institution, as do ranks 11–20 and 21–30. The 31–50 band contains 20 institutions, meaning ranks 31 through 50 are fully populated. The 51–100 band contains 51 institutions, which is slightly more than the 50 positions in that range—this reflects the fact that the ranking includes 101 institutions in the top 100, with some ties or shared positions at the boundary.

From rank 101 onward, the distribution becomes less dense. The 101–150 band contains 49 institutions, and the 151–200 band contains 52. The 201–300 band holds 97 institutions, and the 301-and-beyond band contains 400 institutions. This means that the median ranked institution sits at rank 351.0, well outside the top 300. For applicants, this suggests that the ranking’s middle and lower sections are much more sparsely differentiated than the top, and that the field’s reputation and research output are heavily front-loaded.

Subject Rank	Institution	Country/Region	Academic Reputation	Employer Reputation	Citations	Overall Score
1	Harvard University	United States of America	100	100	95.6	99.1
2	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	United States of America	98.7	95.6	99.8	97.8
3	Stanford University	United States of America	96.2	95.8	97.4	96.6
4	University of Chicago	United States of America	95.8	79.4	100	94
5	Princeton University	United States of America	97.8	82.3	96.8	93.8
6	The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)	United Kingdom	97	85.5	90.4	93.1
7	University of California, Berkeley (UCB)	United States of America	93.9	86.6	94	93
8	University of Oxford	United Kingdom	93.5	97	86.3	92.3
9	Yale University	United States of America	92.1	90.2	95	92.1
10	University of Cambridge	United Kingdom	91.7	96.4	85.3	90.4
11	Columbia University	United States of America	88.6	85.1	92	89.5
12	New York University (NYU)	United States of America	86.3	81.8	89	86.9
12	University of Pennsylvania	United States of America	85.9	83.1	90.4	86.9
14	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	United States of America	84.9	82.9	91.3	86.6
14	National University of Singapore (NUS)	Singapore	88.1	87.6	83.9	86.6
16	Northwestern University	United States of America	86.6	72.6	93.7	86.2
17	UCL	United Kingdom	86.8	80.8	86.4	85.9
18	Bocconi University	Italy	86.3	78.8	88.7	85.8
19	Peking University	China (Mainland)	82.2	84.5	84.1	84.2
20	Tsinghua University	China (Mainland)	80	84.7	86.7	83.9

What the Indicators Suggest for Program Selection

For students choosing a program, the score bands offer a useful way to think about tiers. Institutions with scores of 90 or above are the field’s global leaders—these are the programs that consistently appear at the top of international rankings and typically offer the strongest research environments and faculty networks. The 80–89 band includes another 20 institutions that are highly competitive but may not have the same level of global recognition as the very top.

The 70–79 band, with 99 institutions, is where most strong, well-regarded programs fall. These are departments that perform well on the ranking’s indicators but are not in the same league as the top 30. The 60–69 band, containing 202 institutions, represents the broad middle of the field—programs that are solid but not necessarily internationally prominent.

It is worth noting that the ranking’s top 100 includes 101 institutions, meaning there is a slight overlap at the boundary. For applicants targeting a “top 100” program, this is a minor but relevant detail: the cutoff is not perfectly clean, and some institutions share positions near rank 100.

Data Notes

The data in this article comes from the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026, published by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), with a data reference date of 2026-04-03. The subject ranking covers 60 separate discipline tables, including component scores for academic reputation, employer reputation, citations, H-index, and international research network. The official page is QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026

The analysis was conducted by parsing the subject-specific block for Economics & Econometrics and filtering by country. Rank values are taken as the lower-bound integer of the published rank range. The global list includes 699 institutions across 75 countries and regions. The country leaderboard reflects the number of ranked institutions per country, not the quality or average rank of those institutions. The score bands and rank bands are derived from the published overall scores and rank positions, respectively. One limitation is that the score bands do not differentiate among institutions scoring below 60, so the lower half of the ranking is not described in terms of score ranges in this article. The median rank of 351.0 is the midpoint of all ranked positions in the 2026 list.