RePEc gathers information not only about publications and authors, but also institutions. Specifically, the EDIRC project (Economics Departments, Institutes and Research Centers) catalogues since 1995 all academics and government institutions that employ a significant share of economists, including think tanks and associations. For-profit organizations (banks, consultants, etc.) are listed if they contribute their publications to RePEc. As of today, 11,000 institutions are listed, including over 600 associations. Over 4000 have at least one registered author and about 1000 have some publication in RePEc.
The collected institutional data is used and displayed in various ways throughout RePEc. Authors use it when
they register to determine their affiliations. So do RePEc archives for their publications. Author and institution data are combined on EDIRC to compile the publication output of all institutions. Combine this with citation data from CitEc and download data from LogEc to determine institutional rankings.
Note that all the information about institutions has been gathered with the help of a lot of people.
The RePEc Blog 