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Evaluating China’s Double First-Class Project from the Perspective of Economics

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In 2017, China released its building list of First-class Universities and First-class Subjects (Double First classes), which should get great support for development for many years into the future. This paper examines the academic performance of eight universities that are currently listed as having First-class Subjects of economics, in international papers and domestic papers, and compares their academic performance with another eight non-listed universities. The comparison shows that in general only three listed universities have obvious advantages among the 16 sample universities, while four listed universities do not show advantages, with one of them unexpectedly lagging behind. In contrast, several non-listed universities perform obviously better among the sample universities. In addition, several other aspects of this Double First-class list are also found to be less objective, scientific, or rigorous.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the editor (Professor Jeroen Huisman) and two anonymous reviewers whose comments have greatly improved the paper. However, any remaining errors are ours. In addition, the views expressed herein are ours and should not be attributed to our affiliations.

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  1. School of Finance, Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, No.3 Wenyuan Road, Qixia District, Nanjing City, 210046, China

    Zhibai Zhang

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  1. Zhibai Zhang
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Correspondence to Zhibai Zhang.

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Zhang, Z. Evaluating China’s Double First-Class Project from the Perspective of Economics. High Educ Policy 35, 234–254 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-020-00207-9

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