Shifting Perspectives: An Updated Survey of Environmental and Natural Resource Economists

In 2023, a survey was given to environmental and natural resource economists to gauge levels of consensus in the field. Respondents were queried on core topics in the discipline, including air quality, groundwater, climate change, natural resource management, land conservation, environmental justice, and more. Many of the survey questions mirrored questions from the first such survey of environmental and natural resource economists in 2012, but additional questions on newer topics were also added. From these survey results, we can determine contemporary levels of consensus in the field, as well as how these levels have changed over the last decade. We find, for the most part, significant levels of consensus today, and over time, on many key topics including the prevalence of market failures and support for policy interventions including Pigouvian taxes and cap-and-trade schemes. At the same time, some areas with lower levels of consensus today, and over time, include the effects of population growth on the environment, and what to do with revenues from policy interventions such as taxes or cap-and-trade schemes. Key Words: environmental policy, natural resources, professional consensus, survey, academic opinion, AERE