When authors register at the RePEc Author Service, they are asked to provide their affiliation(s). Here, I want to clarify a few items about how affiliations are handled within RePEc. It is important that authors maintain their affiliations current, so that the proper institutions can get credit for their accomplishments.
What an affiliation is
An institution that pays the authors for his work. This may include current visiting positions, courtesy appointments and emeritus status. This is basically the institution(s) one would put under one’s name in a publication.
What an affiliation is not
Former place of study or work. Societies or associations. Consulting gigs. Banks where you hold an account (we have seen it all).
How to affiliate yourself in the system
There is a database of institutions derived from EDIRC that is used for affiliations. For universities, affiliations are listed at the department, center or institute level. Search in the database first, and only if you do not find your affiliation, suggest a new entry (90% of received suggestions are already in the database). Only affiliations from the database will count towards rankings, suggestions will not. Accepted suggestions will be converted.
About multiple affiliations
One can have multiple affiliations. But be aware that, for ranking purposes, each affiliation is attributed a share of the author’s scores. This means in particular that an author with affiliations in several countries will not count fully in each. We want to let authors decide what the shares should be, but until this is instituted, the temporary solution is a probabilistic calculation of what the main affiliation could be. The author’s email address, personal homepage and the number of affiliates at each institution are inputs in the formula. Authors can see their weights by following the ranking analysis link in their month email from RePEc. Affiliations not listed in EDIRC get a default value in the calculation.
Removing affiliations
To adjust affiliations, authors should log into the RePEc Author Service and click on “affiliations”. We leave authors authority on what they consider their proper affiliations and will not override their choices. The only exception is when some authority from an affiliated institution asks the author to be removed from the list.
Special cases
Deceased authors are considered to be unaffiliated. We welcome notifications and will adjust records in this respect. In particular, some of the authors with whom we have lost contact may have left us. Note that the latter do not count towards their affiliations either, the presumption being that the reason their email address is not valid any more is that they have changed employment.
Authors with write-in affiliation(s) are ranked in a country if it can be guessed from the URL of the affiliation (country domain), and if not from their email address.
Posted by Christian Zimmermann 
The RePEc Blog 