Discover your career path with our graduate-level specialty areas
The field of Agricultural Economics is quite broad and covers many areas of specialization. Potential specialty areas are listed below. Within each area, potential career paths, and recommended course work are addressed.
PhD students must select at least one specialty area from the following list. PhD students have the option of declaring a second specialty area, with the advice and oversight of the advisory committee. MS students are not required to declare a specialty area, but may choose to do so in consultation with their advisory committee.
The specialty area is intended to support thesis research and represents concentrated study within the broad area of applied economics. The courses used to satisfy the specialty requirement are subject to the approval of the student's advisory committee and the department's Graduate Committee.
An application with major professor approval describing the desired specialty area must be submitted to the Graduate Committee with the plan of study by the end of the student's third semester.
New PhD Specialty Areas were approved by the faculty of the Department of Agricultural Economics on January 21st, 2020. The following four specialty areas will be in effect for PhD students entering in/after August 2020.
All PhD students currently enrolled in the PhD program (as of January 2020) have the option of completing a specialization from the Policy and Procedure Manual under which their program is governed (the handbook dated the year they began the program) OR of adopting one of the new specializations outlined below. To view the pre-2020 specializations and their requirements, scroll to the next section.
Ph.d. specialty areas
Agribusiness Management and Marketing (select 9 credits)
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- AGEC 60000 - Agricultural Finance
- AGEC 61300 - Introduction to Economics of Risk
- AGEC 62200 - Food System Organization & Policy
- AGEC 60500 - Agricultural Price Analysis (3) <new name Agricultural Mkts and Price Analysis>
- AGEC 69000F - Applied Contract Theory and Mechanism Design (3)
International Trade and International Development (select 9 credits)
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- AGEC 61800 - Applied General Equilibrium Analysis
- AGEC 64300 - Theory of Economic Development
- AGEC 60400/60800 - Welfare Economics (1) and Benefit Cost Analysis (2)
- AGEC 61900 - Applied Economics
- AGEC 64400 - International Ag Trade
Applied Economics Quantitative Methods (select 9 credits)
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- AGEC 61900 - Applied Economics
- AGEC 60500 - Agricultural Price Analysis (3) <new name Agricultural Mkts and Price Analysis>
- AGEC 60400/60800 - Welfare Economics (1) and Benefit Cost Analysis (2)
- AGEC 65500 - Time Series Analysis
- AGEC 69000 - Applied Nonparametric Econometrics
Resources, Environment, and Sustainable Production (select 9 credits)
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- AGEC 61900 - Applied Economics
- AGEC 60400/60800 - Welfare Economics (1) and Benefit Cost Analysis (2)
- AGEC 61800 - Applied General Equilibrium Analysis
- AGEC 61300 - Introduction to Economics of Risk
- AGEC 52800* - Global Change and the Challenge of Sustainably Feeding a Growing Planet
- * See Instructor for Additional Project Requirements to use this course in your PhD specialization