Ranking Think Tank Impact Per Dollar

The progressive Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) has released an updated version of a study about the cost effectiveness of the most widely cited think tanks.  CEPR, which rates itself as #1, describes it as "an analysis that calculates the number of media hits per budget dollar."

Here are the top ten:

1. Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR): 1.3 citations per $10,000
2. Economic Policy Institute (EPI): 0.94
3. American Enterprise Institute (AEI): 0.47
4. Cato Institute: 0.35
5. New America Foundation (NAF): 0.31
6. Brookings: 0.27
7. Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE): 0.26
8. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP): 0.25
9. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): 0.25
10. Center for American Progress (CAP): 0.24

If you click on the link above or here, you can also view the top think tanks rated by website traffic per budget dollar.

CEPR was co-founded in 1999 by economists Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot, and approximately 80 percent of CEPR's funding comes from grants made by foundations.

Foundation support in 2011 included:

• Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Arca Foundation
• Atlantic Philanthropies
• Ford Foundation
• Moriah Foundation
• National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI)
• Open Society Foundations
• Public Welfare Foundation
• Rockefeller Brothers Fund
• Rockefeller Family Fund
• Russell Sage Foundation
• Sloan Foundation
• Streisand Foundation

The Washington, DC-based CEPR has no connection or relationship whatsoever with the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research.