[tptacek]

Mankiw isn't a mathematician; he's an economist. Ranked by impact factor, Europe's universities are indeed outclassed by those of the US (attempt to control that by population and by the radically different systems those institutions operate under). I don't think you can really defend the claim that Europe's academic output is "dismal" compared to, like, the Earth, though.

[pandafood]

No, but it is dismal compared to America's, which is what I said. And you said "academics like Mankiw", not "economists like Mankiw." Also, stipulating "by impact factor" seems like a sneaky way of suggesting that that's not a legitimate way to rank. That's fine; it's still true when you rank by "quality of output factor."

[tptacek]

I chose impact factor because it's easy to look up. I suspect any other reasonable metric will produce similar results. I object only to the emotional word "dismal" here. Europe simply isn't a wasteland of academic economic thought.