Agricultural Economics at 50: Scholarship of the global agricultural economics community

Abstract

Last year, Agricultural Economics reached its 50th volume, after 34 years. In this article, we reflect on the evolution of the journal during this period. We describe the evolving editorial structure of the journal and the composition of the editorial board from only editorial advisory board to both associate editors and editorial advisory board. We also employ bibliometric analysis to showcase the evolution of the average number of pages per article, number of articles per volume, authorship patterns that reflect the steady rise in collaborative research, article content, research coverage, as well as the journal's impact as chronicled by its citations over the period under consideration. We conclude by briefly defining some goals and providing perspectives for the future of the journal in the face of the evolving publishing landscape. We found that although articles published in the journal remain predominantly on agricultural topics, significant changes in topical coverage has occurred in the last two decades. While 20 years ago, only very few articles were classified under environmental issues and mathematical and quantitative methods, the share of articles published in these areas increased by 19% and 45%, respectively, over this time period.