Ranking of Top Environmental Economics Journals

Environmental Economics have posted a ranking of environmental economics academic journals. I seem to recall filling in a questionnaire about this from some guys in Holland that may or may not be related to these findings (edit: it is by the way so I think I count as one vote in there somewhere). I seem to recall posting on this a month or so ago but here it is again just in case.

Environmental economics is a difficult field in which to rank journals. Ecological Economics tends to cause the most difficulty. John Whitehead provides an explanation which is that EE has a high impact factor because papers in EE cite other papers in EE. I think that is only part of the answer. EE papers are also more interdisciplinary and are thus read more widely and cited more widely. EE remains a bit of a mystery to me as a journal and its different rankings shows that this view is shared.

The other mystery is that ERE should be ranked higher and does make a creditable 4th in the economists ranking (a lot higher than its current 8 in the impact factor race). This is due as JW states to the number of issues per year but also related to its historic concentration on theory papers that traditionally get lower citations per paper.

These rankings touch on one problem with publishing in environmental economics. If a paper is submitted to JEEM (the undoubted leader by a mile) and is rejected (the most likely outcome) then it is a loooooonnng way down to the next journal especially if the paper is not related to agriculture.

Only the top 5-7 journals can creditably considered TOP 100 ECONOMICS JOURNALS at a push. The rest languish in the lower reaches of academia.

In the UK where journal quality is of great concern to the powers that rate economics departments this can make specialising in environmental economics a risky business. As this ranking then determines how much money a department receives for the next 8 years you can imagine that "publish well or perish" is a well known phrase.

Of course there are many general interest journals that publish environmental related papers such as the AER and Restat among the big boys as well as many of the international general journals.

I think the 3rd World Congress ranking is about right and am not sure any of JW's extra journals deserve to break into the top 11 except perhaps Energy Economics.

Apologies for blatant stealing but these lists will need to be accessed for years to come especially when advising PhD students where to submit.

Top journals in environmental economics [Env-econ]

Here are the rankings according to 2006 Impact Factors:

1. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (JEEM)
2. Ecological Economics (EE)
3. American Journal of Agricultural Economics (AJAE)
4. Resource and Energy Economics (REE)
5. Energy Journal (EJ)
6. Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (AJARE)
7. Land Economics (Land)
8. Environmental and Resource Economics (ERE)
9. Environment and Development Economics (EDE)
10. Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics (JARE)
11. Natural Resources Journal (NRJ)

Here are the rankings according to a survey of attendees of the 3rd World Congress:

1. JEEM
2. AJAE
3. LAND
4. ERE
5. REE
6. EE
7. EDE
8. EJ
9. JARE
10. NRJ
11. AJARE

JW's missing journals for the record are:

* Energy Economics
* Natural Resource Modeling
* Marine Resource Economics
* Energy Policy
* Journal of Environmental Management
* Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics
* Water Resources Research
* Agricultural and Resource Economics Review

A couple of these I have never heard of so it gives me something to check out.


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