Rankings of economics blogs
Among the things economists are notorious for in academia is our intense--close to obsessive--interest in rankings. Rankings of journals, of particular papers, of individual economists, and of departments. (This assertion should be backed by some citations, but I don't want to make time to find them. Just trust me.) So I figured it was just a matter of time until someone produced a detailed ranking of economics blogs. Especially since I invited my many millions of readers to produce one over a year ago.
But I haven't seen one. And a few minutes spent Googling suggests that there isn't one. So I guess it falls to me to begin this neglected but vitally important task.
What follows are preliminary rankings of economics blogs, computed in four different ways. Lest anybody take these rankings too seriously, after presenting them I"ll discuss eight big, big limitations on the methods and data used.
Ranking 1, using data from BlogPulse. BlogPulse is useful and fun. It claims to have identified 14.2 million--and counting--blogs.
| Econ Rank | Blog | BlogPulse Rank |
| 1 | Marginal Revolution | 88 |
| 2 | Tim Worstall | 119 |
| 3 | Crooked Timber | 146 |
| 4 | Café Hayek | 322 |
| 5 | Angry Bear | 450 |
| 6 | The Becker-Posner Blog | 525 |
| 7 | Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal | 552 |
| 8 | EconLog | 703 |
| 9 | Asymmetrical Information | 879 |
| 10 | Dynamist Blog | 957 |
| 11 | Mahalanobis | 1136 |
| 12 | SCSU Scholars | 1426 |
| 13 | Mises Economics Blog | 1430 |
| 14 | Agoraphilia | 1532 |
| 15 | Adam Smith Institute | 1603 |
| 16 | Eclectic Econoclast | 1780 |
| 17 | Knowledge Problem | 1926 |
| 18 | A Constrained Vision | 2085 |
| 19 | Truck and Barter | 2106 |
| 20 | Newmark's Door | 2296 |
| 21 | Freakonomics | 2309 |
| 22 | General Glut's Globblog | 2606 |
| 23 | Cold Spring Shops | 2852 |
| 24 | voluntaryXchange | 3087 |
| 25 | Division of Labor | 3098 |
| 26 | William J. Polley | 3212 |
| 27 | Vox Baby | 3525 |
| 28 | Deinonychus antirrhopus | 3635 |
| 29 | The Sports Economist | 5516 |
| 30 | New Economist | 5777 |
| 31 | The Liberal Order | 7038 |
| 32 | Peter Gordon's Blog | 9454 |
I think it's interesting that in a universe of 14.2 million blogs, three of the top 200 are economics blogs. Is that more than we'd expect, or less? And I'll note immodestly that the top two link here, to the Door.
Ranking 2 uses information from The Truth Laid Bare. TTLB is a well-known and well-respected source of blog rankings. In last week's Washington Post article on political blogs, featuring my wife, David von Drehle cited TTLB rankings.
| Econ Rank | Blog | TTLB--Links Rank | BlogPulse Rank | |
| 1 | Crooked Timber | 45 | 3 | |
| 2 | Asymmetrical Information | 77 | 8 | |
| 3 | Daniel W. Drezner | 80 | n/a | |
| 4 | Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal | 107 | 6 | |
| 5 | Marginal Revolution | 109 | 1 | |
| 6 | Dynamist Blog | 153 | 9 | |
| 7 | Tim Worstall | 167 | 2 | |
| 8 | Adam Smith Institute | 365 | 10 | |
| 9 | Angry Bear | 417 | 5 | |
| 10 | The Becker-Posner Blog | 476 | 5 | |
| 11 | EconLog | 685 | 7 | |
| 12 | EconoPundit | 887 | n/a | |
| 13 | AtlanticBlog | 1219 | n/a | |
| 14 | Prestopundit | 1250 | n/a | |
| 15 | Knowledge Problem | 1349 | 12 | |
| 16 | Deinonychus antirrhopus | 1790 | 21 | |
| 17 | Coyote Blog | 1799 | n/a | |
| 18 | BusinessPundit | 1897 | n/a | |
| 19 | Truck and Barter | 1927 | 14 | |
| 20 | Stumbling and Mumbling | 2282 | n/a | |
| 21 | Cold Spring Shops | 2311 | 17 | |
| 22 | Newmark's Door | 2792 | 15 | |
| 23 | A Constrained Vision | 2811 | 13 | |
| 24 | Mahalanobis | 2895 | 8 | |
| 25 | Econbrowser | 2906 | n/a | |
| 26 | Vox Baby | 3026 | 20 | |
| 27 | The Sports Economist | 3239 | 22 | |
| 28 | Brad Setser's Web Log | 3318 | n/a | |
| 29 | The Idea Shop | 3416 | n/a | |
| 30 | General Glut's Globblog | 3504 | 22 | |
| 31 | Economist's View | 3673 | n/a | |
| 32 | voluntaryXchange | 3898 | 18 | |
| 33 | Eclectic Econoclast | 4194 | 11 | |
| 34 | The Angry Economist | 5440 | n/a | |
| 35 | New Economist | 5777 | 28 | |
| 36 | Ben Muse | 6964 | n/a | |
| 37 | William J. Polley | 7092 | 24 | |
| 38 | Let's Fly Under the Bridge | 8705 | n/a | |
| 39 | Heavy Lifting | 8707 | n/a | |
| 40 | The One-Handed Economist | 17967 | n/a | |
| Agoraphilia | n/a | |||
| Café Hayek | n/a | |||
| Division of Labor | n/a | |||
| Freakonomics | n/a | |||
| Mises Economics Blog | n/a | |||
| Peter Gordon's Blog | n/a | |||
| SCSU Scholars | n/a | |||
| The Liberal Order | n/a | |||
Where "n/a" signifies "not available".
I think the amount of agreement between the BlogPulse rankings and the TTLB--Link rankings is reasonable, with a couple of exceptions. Both Mahalanobis and The Eclectic Economist rank a bit better according to BlogPulse. I don't know why.
Ranking 3 is also based on TTLB's data, but this ranking is based not on links but on hits.
| Econ Rank | Blog | TTLB--Hits Rank | TTLB--Links Rank | |
| 1 | Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal | 61 | 107 | |
| 2 | Angry Bear | 127 | 417 | |
| 3 | Daniel W. Drezner | 133 | 80 | |
| 4 | Tim Worstall | 285 | 167 | |
| 5 | Truck and Barter | 454 | 1927 | |
| 6 | EconoPundit | 484 | 887 | |
| 7 | Coyote Blog | 488 | 1799 | |
| 8 | Cold Spring Shops | 494 | 2311 | |
| 9 | BusinessPundit | 503 | 1897 | |
| 10 | Econbrowser | 648 | 2906 | |
| 11 | Knowledge Problem | 673 | 1349 | |
| 12 | General Glut's Globblog | 740 | 3504 | |
| 13 | AtlanticBlog | 785 | 1219 | |
| 14 | Deinonychus antirrhopus | 981 | 1790 | |
| 15 | Newmark's Door | 1301 | 2792 | |
| 16 | Prestopundit | 1316 | 1250 | |
| 17 | A Constrained Vision | 1353 | 2811 | |
| 18 | Eclectic Econoclast | 1678 | 4194 | |
| 19 | Let's Fly Under the Bridge | 2143 | 8705 | |
| 20 | The Idea Shop | 2250 | 3416 | |
| 21 | Heavy Lifting | 2826 | 8707 | |
| 22 | Ben Muse | 4544 | 6964 | |
| Crooked Timber | n/a | 45 | ||
| Asymmetrical Information | n/a | 77 | ||
| Marginal Revolution | n/a | 109 | ||
| Dynamist Blog | n/a | 153 | ||
| Adam Smith Institute | n/a | 365 | ||
| The Becker-Posner Blog | n/a | 476 | ||
| EconLog | n/a | 685 | ||
| Stumbling and Mumbling | n/a | 2282 | ||
| Mahalanobis | n/a | 2895 | ||
| Vox Baby | n/a | 3026 | ||
| The Sports Economist | n/a | 3239 | ||
| Brad Setser's Web Log | n/a | 3318 | ||
| Economist's View | n/a | 3673 | ||
| voluntaryXchange | n/a | 3898 | ||
| The Angry Economist | n/a | 5440 | ||
| New Economist | n/a | 5777 | ||
| William J. Polley | n/a | 7092 | ||
| The One-Handed Economist | n/a | 17967 |
Although a lot of data is missing for the TTLB-hits rankings, the agreement between the TTLB rankings for the 22 blogs that have values for both is quite reasonable (simple correlation coefficient = .819; Spearman's rho = .798). One interesting point raised by this table is that with three mild exceptions (Dresner, Worstall, and Prestopundit), the rankings of economics blogs based on hits are higher than their rankings based on links, sometimes substantially so.
I leave explaining this as an exercise for the reader.
Finally, ranking 4, using information from Google. Google currently claims to index over 8 billion Web pages. Google assigns each of those pages a PageRank, concisely characterized as "Google's measure of the importance of [the] page".
PageRanks are integers from 0 to 10, 10 being most important. I read a while back (but can't now find the source) that 10s are very rare, on the order of only two or three dozen. In a few of minutes of looking I found only four: Google itself, the New York Times, Harvard, and Statcounter. MIcrosoft, AOL, the Washington Post, Yahoo, Yale, and Oxford are among the sites that earn only a 9. Wal-Mart and General Motors are 8s. The very well-known blogs Instapundit, Daily Kos, and Drudge Report each earn a 7. I have absolutely no evidence for this, but I guess PageRank might be logarithmic, like the Richter Scale.
| Blog | Page Rank |
| Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal | 8 |
| Adam Smith Institute | 7 |
| Angry Bear | 7 |
| Asymmetrical Information | 7 |
| BusinessPundit | 7 |
| Crooked Timber | 7 |
| Daniel W. Drezner | 7 |
| Dynamist Blog | 7 |
| EconLog | 7 |
| Economics Unbound | 7 |
| Knowledge Problem | 7 |
| Mises Economics Blog | 7 |
| The Becker-Posner Blog | 7 |
| A Constrained Vision | 6 |
| Agoraphilia | 6 |
| ArgMax Economics | 6 |
| AtlanticBlog | 6 |
| Café Hayek | 6 |
| Chicago Boyz | 6 |
| Club for Growth | 6 |
| Cold Spring Shops | 6 |
| Coyote Blog | 6 |
| Deinonychus antirrhopus | 6 |
| Division of Labor | 6 |
| EconoPundit | 6 |
| Freakonomics | 6 |
| General Glut's Globblog | 6 |
| Law and Economics Blog | 6 |