The "VWL-Ranking" of the German "Handelsblatt" measures at which institutes in the German-speaking area "the most top-class research takes place". In 2019, WIFO ranked 7th, thus achieving the top position among Austria's institutes, as it did in the last ranking in 2017.
In the Austria ranking of the sixth "Economist Ranking" of the daily newspapers "Die Presse", "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" and "Neue Zürcher Zeitung", WIFO 2019 also scores top places and leaves "the strongest footprint as an institute in total".
Margit Schratzenstaller took third place as best woman, Christoph Badelt took fourth place and Harald Oberhofer made it into the top 20 for the first time with 16th place. Oberhofer was also convincing in the newly introduced Twitter ranking, where he reached 6th place.
What is evaluated
The "Economists Ranking" published on 21 September 2019 in the daily newspaper "Die Presse" analyses how often economists from German-speaking countries were mentioned in the media in the previous year, how many scientific quotations they have and what political influence they have. In addition, the Twitter presence was included for the first time this year. In the "Handelsblatt-VWL-Ranking 2019", the research institutes were credited with points for publications by associated economists from the last ten years - the more respected the journal, the more points it received.
