UC Berkeley's Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics is the world's top-ranked program in agricultural and resource economics. Our faculty and graduate students produce cutting-edge research in the following areas:

Professor Sofia Berto Villas-Boas and students
  • Global food production
  • Nutrition and health
  • Development economics
  • Climate change
  • Environmental economics
  • Applied econometrics
  • Policy evaluation
  • Energy economics
  • Natural resource economics
  • International trade

Our faculty are active researchers and work closely with our graduate students, and other students from across the Berkeley campus. Many of our faculty have been elected as fellows of leading professional organizations including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Economic Association, Econometric Society, American Statistical Association, American Agricultural Economics Association, and the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. Several are affiliates of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

ARE's graduate program trains students to conduct important and innovative research in agricultural and resource economics, and to become leaders in the economics profession. Our graduates have gone on to teaching and research positions at many of the world's top universities, including Columbia, Oxford, Stanford, MIT, Michigan, LSE, Berkeley, Wisconsin, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, UC San Diego and others. Some of our distinguished alumni include Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith and Middle East envoy Philip Habib.

ARE also offers the undergraduate major in Environmental Economics and Policy. Students in the major learn the fundamentals of microconomics applied to problems of the environment, natural resource and international development. Students completing the EEP major have gained admission to top graduate programs, and have gone on to pursue careers in investment, finance, government, academics, nonprofit organizations, law and public policy.