What Interests Environmental and Resource Economists? A Comparison of Research Output in Agricultural Economics versus Environmental Economics

We compare the research productivity of faculties housed in departments offering doctoral degrees in agricultural economics (AgEcon) with faculties housed in departments offering doctoral degrees in economics (Econ) that specialize in environmental and resource economics. Rankings are based on faculty publications in EconLit between 1985 and 2010. We find that AgEcon departments publish more papers and rate higher overall on productivity measures than Econ departments but that average productivity is greater for Econ departments. AgEcon publications dominate the Journal of Economic Literature’s (JEL’s) agriculture (Q1) subdiscipline while Econ and AgEcon departments publish evenly in the other Q subdisciplines.