New Evidence on Diversity in Environmental and Resource Economics

We describe new data on diversity within the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (AERE), with a focus on association membership and publication in the association’s flagship journal, the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (JAERE). We use these data to provide an update on the status of women in AERE and to extend the scope of diversity measures to describe the professional position, employer, alma mater, degree year, and degree country of JAERE authors. We find that AERE’s female membership share was approximately 29 percent in 2020. Compared with membership, women served in AERE leadership roles at higher rates and accounted for a smaller share of JAERE authors. In terms of international diversity, 72 percent of JAERE authors were employed in the United States, 78 percent of authors with PhDs earned their degrees from US schools, and 15 percent of authors obtained undergraduate degrees from schools outside the United States, Canada, and the European Union. We also show that 25 percent of JAERE authors were affiliated with 10 employers and 40 percent of authors obtained their highest degrees from 10 schools.