Xavier Timbeau, “The Lack of Interest in Economics for the Challenge of the Century”, Economics and Statistics, 2024

A new article by Xavier Timbeau, titled “The Lack of Interest in Economics for the Challenge of the Century”, is published in the journal of Economics and Statistics, 543, 2024.

Abstract

The publication of a thematic section on the environment gives us an opportunity to assess the position of environmental issues within economics. On one level, vacancies for economists published by the American Economic Association (the Job Openings for Economists (JOE) Network) suggest that the net increase in vacancies for positions related to the environment comes from establishments that are not central to the academic economy and that such vacancies specifically labelled as relating to the “environment” tend to decrease in number when looking solely at departments of economics. The proportion of articles published in Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics dedicated to the environment is fairly similar to the low rates seen in terms of vacancies. It is hoped that these new publications will reverse these trends. The three articles published provide important insights into the main areas that applied research in economics must address to be of use in guiding public policies; however, there remains a considerable amount of research work to be carried out.