Academic department prestige: A new measure based on the doctoral student labor market

Past rankings of academic departments have been based on a variety of factors including faculty publications, citations, and external perceptions. However well designed, these studies are conceptually flawed as means of assessing prestige. This paper views prestige as an ex ante condition related to an existing stratification system, rather than as an ex post result of productivity. As such, prestige can be measured by the academic department's ability to place its doctoral recipients. As a means of illustrating the use of this approach, an empirical analysis of accounting faculty placements from graduate schools in the United States was conducted. The resultant rankings were also evaluated for stability over time and against other program characteristics to illustrate the validity and the uniqueness of the measure.