About the Program

The Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics offers programs leading to PhD degrees. Due to quota limitations, students are rarely admitted for the master's degree, although it may be awarded to students who are pursuing work toward the PhD in our program (or in another field at Berkeley) after fulfillment of the appropriate MS requirements.

The Agricultural and Resource Economics Program is relatively flexible; however, the program stresses economic theory, quantitative methods, and two elective fields defined in consultation with the graduate adviser. Some common elective fields include development economics, natural resource or environmental economics, agricultural policy, and international markets and trade.

Visit Department Graduate Program Website

Admissions

Admission to the University

Minimum Requirements for Admission

The following minimum requirements apply to all graduate programs and will be verified by the Graduate Division:

1. A bachelor’s degree or recognized equivalent from an accredited institution;
2. A grade point average of B or better (3.0);
3. If the applicant comes from a country or political entity (e.g., Quebec) where English is not the official language, adequate proficiency in English to do graduate work, as evidenced by a TOEFL score of at least 90 on the iBT test, 570 on the paper-and-pencil test, or an IELTS Band score of at least 7 on a 9-point scale (note that individual programs may set higher levels for any of these); and
4. Sufficient undergraduate training to do graduate work in the given field.

Applicants Who Already Hold a Graduate Degree

The Graduate Council views academic degrees not as vocational training certificates, but as evidence of broad training in research methods, independent study, and articulation of learning. Therefore, applicants who already have academic graduate degrees should be able to pursue new subject matter at an advanced level without the need to enroll in a related or similar graduate program.

Programs may consider students for an additional academic master’s or professional master’s degree only if the additional degree is in a distinctly different field.

Applicants admitted to a doctoral program that requires a master’s degree to be earned at Berkeley as a prerequisite (even though the applicant already has a master’s degree from another institution in the same or a closely allied field of study) will be permitted to undertake the second master’s degree, despite the overlap in field.

The Graduate Division will admit students for a second doctoral degree only if they meet the following guidelines:

1. Applicants with doctoral degrees may be admitted for an additional doctoral degree only if that degree program is in a general area of knowledge distinctly different from the field in which they earned their original degree. For example, a physics PhD could be admitted to a doctoral degree program in music or history; however, a student with a doctoral degree in mathematics would not be permitted to add a PhD in statistics.
2. Applicants who hold the PhD degree may be admitted to a professional doctorate or professional master’s degree program if there is no duplication of training involved.

Applicants may apply only to one single degree program or one concurrent degree program per admission cycle.

Required Documents for Applications

1. Transcripts: Applicants may upload unofficial transcripts with your application for the departmental initial review. If the applicant is admitted, then official transcripts of all college-level work will be required. Official transcripts must be in sealed envelopes as issued by the school(s) attended. If you have attended Berkeley, upload your unofficial transcript with your application for the departmental initial review. If you are admitted, an official transcript with evidence of degree conferral will not be required.
2. Letters of recommendation: Applicants may request online letters of recommendation through the online application system. Hard copies of recommendation letters must be sent directly to the program, not the Graduate Division.
3. Evidence of English language proficiency: All applicants from countries or political entities in which the official language is not English are required to submit official evidence of English language proficiency. This applies to applicants from Bangladesh, Burma, Nepal, India, Pakistan, Latin America, the Middle East, the People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, most European countries, and Quebec (Canada). However, applicants who, at the time of application, have already completed at least one year of full-time academic course work with grades of B or better at a US university may submit an official transcript from the US university to fulfill this requirement. The following courses will not fulfill this requirement:
   • courses in English as a Second Language,
   • courses conducted in a language other than English,
   • courses that will be completed after the application is submitted, and
   • courses of a non-academic nature.

If applicants have previously been denied admission to Berkeley on the basis of their English language proficiency, they must submit new test scores that meet the current minimum from one of the standardized tests. Official TOEFL score reports must be sent directly from Educational Test Services (ETS). The institution code for Berkeley is 4833. Official IELTS score reports must be mailed directly to our office from the British Council. TOEFL and IELTS score reports are only valid for two years.

Where to Apply

Visit the Berkeley Graduate Division application page. 

Doctoral Degree Requirements

Curriculum

Courses

Agricultural and Resource Economics

Faculty and Instructors

+ Indicates this faculty member is the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

Faculty

Michael Anderson, Associate Professor. Environmental economics, health economics, applied econometrics, especially relating to questions of causal inference.
Research Profile

+ Maximilian Auffhammer, Professor. Environmental and resource economics, energy economics and applied econometrics.
Research Profile

Ellen Bruno, Specialist. Environmental and Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics, and Applied Econometrics.
Research Profile

Thibault Fally, Associate Professor. International Trade and Investment, economic development, trade, development.
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Meredith Fowlie, Associate Professor. Energy, environmental regulation.
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+ J. Keith Gilless, Professor. Forest economics and management, wildfire protection planning.
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Marco Gonzalez-Navarro, Associate Professor. Development Economics, Urban Economics.
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Larry S. Karp, Professor. International trade, design of international environmental agreements, international investment agreements, trade liberalization and environment, instrument selection for pollution control, alternative discounting models.
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Ethan A. Ligon, Associate Professor. Dynamic incentives and inequality, development economics, agricultural contracts, risk sharing, intra-household allocation, applied econometrics.
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Jiang Lin, Adjunct Professor. Energy and climate policy, energy and emissions pathways, electricity market and planning, low-carbon economics transition and appliance efficiency issues in China.
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Jeremy R. Magruder, Associate Professor. Labor markets in developing countries, social networks, economics of HIV/AIDS.
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Aprajit Mahajan, Associate Professor. Development economics, Econometrics, Technology adoption, Health, Agriculture, Management, Measurement error, Dynamic choice.
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Jeff Perloff, Professor. Industrial organization, labor, agricultural economics, marketing, trade, econometrics.
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Gordon Rausser, Professor. Agricultural economics, applied econometrics, futures and options markets, industrial organization and antitrust analysis, natural resource and environmental economics, public policy and economic regulation.
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David Roland-Holst, Adjunct Professor. Development, energy, environment and climate change, trade, food and agricultural policy, international trade.
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Howard Rosenberg, Retired Extension Specialist.

James Michael Sallee, Associate Professor. Public economics, energy economics, transportation, taxation.
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Joseph Shapiro, Associate Professor. Environmental and resource economics, energy economics and applied econometrics.
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Leo K. Simon, Adjunct Professor. Environmental and energy economics, water policy, game theory, mechanism design and environmental regulation, comparing agri-environmental policy processes in the U S and Europe.
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David Sunding, Professor. Environmental economics, natural resources, agriculture, econometrics, regulation, law and economics.
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Sofia Berto Villas-Boas, Professor. Industrial organization, consumer behavior, food policy, environmental regulation.
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L. Timothy Wallace, Retired Extension Specialist.

Brian Wright, Professor. International trade, economics of markets for storable commodities, dynamics of policy and capitalization of support payments.
Research Profile

David Zilberman, Professor. Agricultural and nutritional policy, economics of technological change, economics of natural resources and micro-economic theory.
Research Profile

Affiliated Faculty

Severin Borenstein, Professor. Industrial organization and government regulation, energy economics, applied microeconomic theory.
Research Profile

Lucas Davis, Associate Professor. Energy and environmental economics, applied microeconomics, public finance.
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Solomon Hsiang, Associate Professor. Public Policy.
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+ Edward Andrew Miguel, Professor. African economic development, economic causes and consequences of violence, methods for transparent social science research.
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Catherine D. Wolfram, Professor. Regulation of business, energy and environmental economics, electricity industry restructuring.
Research Profile

Emeritus Faculty

Alain De Janvry, Professor Emeritus. Development economics, agriculture for development, technological innovations, rural institutions, payments for environmental services.
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Anthony Fisher, Professor Emeritus. Economics of global climate change.
Research Profile

Michael Hanemann, Professor Emeritus. Non-market valuation, environmental economics and policy, water pricing and management, demand modeling for market research and policy design, the economics of irreversibility and adaptive management.
Research Profile

George G. Judge, Professor Emeritus. Information theoretic approaches to econometric estimation and inference.
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Sherman Robinson, Professor Emeritus.

Elisabeth Sadoulet, Professor Emeritus. Development economics, poverty, microfinance institutions, education, program impact evaluation.
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Andrew Schmitz, Professor Emeritus.