Primary Research Group has published: International Benchmarks for University Departments of Economics & Finance, ISBN 1-57440-148-3.  This unique report presents the results of a survey of 55 major departments of economics or finance from the United States, Australia, France, Italy, Austria, Germany, Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, China, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Poland and other countries.    

The 180+ page report presents data on a broad range of issues including budgets, salaries, personnel planning, departmental governance, student assessment, research plans, grants and other forms of support, tenure decisions and other critical issues. 

The report also probes trends in enrollment in specific types of courses, with trend data for more than 12 categories of economics/finance classes including econometrics, mathematical methods, game theory, macro, micro and international economics, public finance, behavioral economics, industrial organization, healthcare economics and other categories and subject areas.

The report also tracks policies, budgets and spending on research institutes attached to economics departments and services offered by these departments to non-academic audiences including consultancy, classes for executives and special seminars. 

In addition to data defining major trends in scholarship, research support and education, the report also provides practical management information on such topics as the financial support the departments receive for information technology and new faculty recruitment.

Data is broken out for U.S. programs, European programs, other developed countries, and developing countries.  Data is also broken out by size of institution, size of economics/finance faculty, and type of college. 

Just a few of the participating institutions were: the University of Maryland, the University of Melbourne, the University of Minnesota, Cornell University, Polytechnique, Sogang University, the Graduate Institute of Geneva, Chinese Culture University, Federal University of Pernambuco, Toulouse Business School,  Universita di Turino, University of California Berkeley, and King Faisal University.

Some of the reports findings were that:

Mean costs for recruiting new faculty were $12,437.50 while median costs were $6,500.  

55% of departments surveyed contribute or archive journal articles or other publications authored by the department\'s faculty to a digital repository maintained by the college library.

In 36.59% of cases the department chairman was elected by the faculty and in 26.83% of cases he or she was appointed by the dean; in the remaining cases, some combination of these two methods was used. Elections were most common in Europe, accounting for more than 57% of cases; appointment by the dean was most common in developing countries, accounting for more than 57% of the cases there

More than 44% of departments surveyed planned to increase their efforts to attract international students. None said that they would be decreasing their efforts.

Enrollment in courses in behavioral economics increased significantly over the past two years, particularly in Europe and in developing countries.

The programs in the sample spent a mean of about $275,000 US for salaries and other forms of financial support for graduate students.  The median was $185,700 and the range was $20,000 to $798, 617. 

A third of departments sampled offer seminars on economic policy developments or other issues to fee-paying, largely or partially non-academic audiences

The departments in the sample had a mean of 16.65 tenured faculty, only about a third of all faculty members; the median was 15.

A third of the departments sampled have conducted ongoing meetings or formed a formal assessment committee within the past year. Once again European departments lagged all others in this respect and only 10% of European departments in the sample conducted such meetings or maintained a formal assessment committee. 

The report is available from Primary Research Group for $98.00 (US) and is also available from major international book distributors.  For further information, view our website at www.PrimaryResearch.com.