Davis is home to a highly regarded agricultural and resource economics program. The Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ARE) offers both an M.S. and a Ph.D. degree, and also administers the undergraduate program in managerial economics. ARE specializes in the microeconomic analysis of agriculture (food security, commodity markets, migrant labor), the environment (pollution abatement, non-market valuation), natural resources, and international development. Unlike many economics programs, the ARE graduate curriculum emphasizes empirical work and policy analysis, as opposed to pure economic theory. Some students (and ARE professors!) do economic experiments.
ARE graduate students and faculty share academic interests with Environmental Science and Policy, Geography, Ecology, Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Economics students, among others. Profiles of selected ARE grad students can be seen here.
The department receives much of its funding from the Giannini Foundation, which also funds the ARE departments at UC Berkeley and UC Riverside. The bi-monthly newsletter ARE Update showcases research on the economics of agriculture, development and the environment.
As a point of trivia, the department was once home to Professor Tom Hazlett, who Rush Limbaugh credited with the creation of the term "feminazi." Hazlett left ARE in 2000 and took a professorship at George Mason University in 2005.
The department is located in the SS&H building, in the wing of the building pictured to the left. They have a library on the fourth floor.
