This is The Economist's third ranking of executive MBA (EMBA) programmes. These pricey, part-time courses for experienced managers are more popular than ever. Yale School of Management tops the ranking this year, up from tenth in 2015. Programmes are ranked on two broad measures: personal development/educational experience and career development. On both, Yale excels, ranking first out of 65 programmes for pre-MBA salary, quality of faculty, rating of culture and classmates, while the helpfulness of its alumni network was also thought of highly by students.

Yale's programme is emblematic of the globe-trotting nature of executive education. A quarter of Yale's class of 2019 are from outside the United States, hailing from 16 different countries. This global outlook extends beyond the nationality of students enrolled on EMBA programmes. Three of the top ten programmes are run jointly by schools in different countries, or continents: UCLA Anderson School of Management and National University of Singapore; Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany; and Kellogg's joint programme with York University's Schulich School of Business in Canada. Chicago Booth teaches its EMBA at campuses in Chicago, London and Hong Kong. Two of the top ten are new entrants, including the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas Business School, and Lausanne’s IMD Business School. Yet, while some things do change, some stay the same. Seven of the ten programmes this year were also among the ten best in 2015. See the full methodology here.