Abstract
Spanning 1925–2024, we map Land Economics (LE) using the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus with VOSviewer, Bibliometrix, and SciVal. Analyses of documents, authors, and themes show LE as a central node linking environmental, agricultural, and urban economics. Seminal strands—property rights, contingent valuation, discrete choice, and hedonic pricing—anchor long-run influence. Keyword co-occurrence and thematic mapping confirm persistent emphases on valuation models, impact assessment, and policy applications alongside emerging work on ecosystem services, climate change, and the water-energy nexus. Trend-topic and SciVal clusters reveal growing attention to disaster management, green innovation, and behavioral economics with uneven recent citation performance across topics and time.
1. Introduction
Founded in 1925 by Richard T. Ely, Land Economics (LE) is among the longest-running journals in applied economics. It was originally titled the Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics before adopting its current name in 1948 to emphasize a focused commitment to land, resource, and environmental issues (Weiss 1989). Rooted in the institutionalist tradition of the University of Wisconsin, LE has maintained a sustained scholarly platform for exploring the economic dimensions of land use, environmental governance, agricultural systems, and public utilities. From its inception, the journal has embodied Ely’s view that economic inquiry must engage with societal concerns, such as land reform, urbanization, and public infrastructure. This orientation (Dykstra 1942) was reaffirmed under the editorial leadership of Mary Amend Lescohier (1942–1974) by its 50th anniversary retrospective (Lescohier 1974) and further developed during Daniel W. Bromley’s 44-year editorial tenure (1974–2018), which prioritized governance systems, sustainability, and institutional change. Under the current editor-in-chief, Daniel J. Phaneuf, LE continues to expand its reach in ecosystem valuation, conservation finance, and sustainable land use economics.
The journal is published quarterly by the University of Wisconsin Press and is indexed in the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection and Scopus, categorized under the subject areas of economics and environmental science.1 Its current metrics include an impact factor of 1.3, a SCImago journal rank of 0.685, and an H-index of 103.2 LE is recognized as one of the leading journals in this field, together with other top-tier outlets such as the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and Ecological Economics (Ma and Stern 2006; Rousseau, Verbeke, and Rousseau 2009; Kube et al. 2018).
LE’s long-standing thematic coherence makes it a valuable corpus for bibliometric analysis. While multidisciplinary journals often fluctuate in scope, LE has consistently concentrated on institutional- and policy-focused economic issues using diverse methods, including econometric modeling, institutional analysis, and empirical evaluations (Roulac et al. 2005). The journal’s inaugural issue features Ely’s (1925) call for pragmatic economic inquiry and Harland Bartholomew’s (1925) work on economic urban planning, initiating a tradition of applied research on zoning, land taxation, deforestation, and ecosystem services. Notable articles include Schlager and Ostrom’s (1992) property-rights taxonomy and Train’s (1998) discussion of mixed logit recreation demand models. Note that Elinor Ostrom was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009.
Throughout its evolution, LE has paralleled key shifts in environmental and resource economics. Under Bromley’s leadership, the journal reinforced its policy focus, broadened its methodological base, and implemented rigorous peer-review standards. With Phaneuf’s tenure, these editorial standards have been modernized, with enhanced emphasis on data transparency and reproducibility. In 2025, LE celebrated its 100th anniversary. Motivated by this centennial celebration, the journal has created a dedicated set of web pages that provide historical context, highlight leadership and special issues, and showcase open access content.3
Journal-level bibliometric retrospectives have become common at milestone anniversaries, typically combining performance analysis with science mapping. Representative examples include the Journal of Political Economy (Amiguet et al. 2017), Resources Policy (Merigó et al. 2024), and the Scandinavian Journal of Economics (Figuerola-Wischke et al. 2024). These works show how longitudinal bibliometrics recover intellectual structures and thematic shifts—an approach we adopt for LE.
In the context of a fragmented and pluralistic economic discipline, LE plays a cohesive role by sustaining attention to specialized but policy-critical themes such as land tenure, real estate, zoning, environmental valuation, and common-pool resources. As documented by Card and DellaVigna (2013), mainstream journals increasingly prioritize experimental and empirical methods, marginalizing less trendy but vital domains. LE provides a counterpoint by giving persistent visibility to areas often underrepresented in generalist outlets.
This article conducts a comprehensive bibliometric review of LE from 1925 to 2024, addressing six research questions:
What is the current position of LE in the scientific community?
Which are the most cited articles in LE?
Which documents are cited in LE most frequently?
Who are the most productive authors, institutions, and countries publishing in LE?
What is the co-citation and bibliographic coupling structure of LE?
What is the keyword and topical structure of LE?
The analysis uses data from the WoS Core Collection and Scopus, covering all content published in LE during the target period. We apply a combination of performance indicators (total publications, citations, H-index, citations per paper) and structural mapping techniques, including co-citation analysis (Small 1973), bibliographic coupling (Kessler 1963), and keyword clustering (Callon et al. 1983) using VOSviewer (Van Eck and Waltman 2010; Yazdanjue et al. 2025)4 and Bibliometrix (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017), aligned with protocols in recent bibliometric literature (Donthu et al. 2021).
Our analysis is situated within broader discussions about the evolution of economic research with a special focus on environmental, resource, urban and agricultural economics. Bibliometric studies have traced how subfields such as health economics (Wagstaff and Culyer 2012), behavioral economics (Costa, Carvalho, and Moreira 2019), agricultural economics (Beilock and Polopolus 1988; Burton and Phimister 1996; Rigby, Burton, and Lusk 2015), and ecological economics (Ma and Stern 2006; Hoepner et al. 2012) have expanded in both output and citation complexity. Within this landscape, LE occupies a unique thematic corridor, bridging the policy relevance of applied economics with the analytical tools of environmental science (Roulac et al. 2005).
2. Methods
This study adopts a structured bibliometric methodology to provide a comprehensive analysis of LE using a multistep process grounded in established bibliometric theories and best practices. This is framed through the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, which organizes systematic literature reviews in a structured and reproducible format (Donthu et al. 2021; Paul et al. 2021). The conceptual underpinnings draw from seminal definitions in bibliometrics (Pritchard 1969; Broadus 1987; Rousseau 2014) and the foundational work of Garfield (1955) on citation indexing, explained in Bensman (2007).
We implemented a detailed data retrieval strategy through the WoS Core Collection database. The search was restricted to publications under the titles Land Economics and its predecessor, the Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics. The query, conducted in May 2025, initially returned 5,552 records. To ensure temporal consistency, we excluded publications from 2025, as their inclusion would reflect incomplete annual data with limited indexing coverage and unstable citation counts. Eliminating these also avoids biases associated with partial-year bibliometric indicators. A second filter limited the corpus to articles, reviews, and notes, leading to a final dataset comprising 4,399 documents published between 1925 and 2024. This refined corpus formed the basis for all subsequent performance and network analyses. To contextualize the journal’s standing, we collected additional metadata and journal metrics from the WoS Core Collection’s Journal Citation Report, Scopus, and SciVal.5 These data sources enabled comparative benchmarking and strengthened the robustness of the analysis.
Performance indicators computed for this study include total publication and citation counts, average citations per paper, H-index (Hirsch 2005), citation velocity (citations per year), and normalized indicators such as publications and citations per capita (Waltman 2016; Figuerola-Wischke et al. 2024; Khorshidi et al. 2025). These were calculated using Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017), supplemented with Microsoft Excel for cross-validation and consistency checks. These indicators serve to characterize the temporal and spatial dynamics of LE’s publication record, offering insights into productivity trends and influence within the field.
Beyond performance analysis, the study incorporates science mapping techniques to uncover structural patterns in LE’s intellectual and thematic development. Co-citation analysis (Small 1973) identifies foundational literature clusters and traces the journal’s conceptual evolution. Bibliographic coupling (Kessler 1963) maps current research affinities among documents based on shared references, while keyword co-occurrence analysis (Callon et al. 1983) detects thematic clusters and emerging topics. We executed these techniques using VOSviewer (Van Eck and Waltman 2010) and Bibliometrix, allowing for a fine-grained examination of the journal’s epistemic landscape and evolution.
We organized the study according to the SPAR-4-SLR protocol, whose operational phases are described in Appendix Table A1. The assembling phase focused on identifying the scope of the review and formulating six research questions centered on LE’s scientific position, most cited documents, citation sources, productive contributors, knowledge structures, and keyword evolution. The acquisition phase involved data extraction and triangulation using Scopus and the WoS Core Collection’s Journal Citation Report. The arranging phase included two filtering steps to exclude documents beyond 2024 and to retain only articles, reviews, and notes, resulting in the final analytic corpus. The assessing phase applied bibliometric indicators and graphic methods, while the reporting phase involved tabular and visual presentation of results and a discussion of key limitations, such as the coverage scope of the WoS Core Collection and the temporal variability of bibliometric indicators. Appendix Table A1 operationalizes the methodological workflow and links each procedural stage to its bibliometric function. The analytical rigor ensured by the SPAR-4-SLR framework enables reproducibility and consistency and provides a replicable model for journal-centric bibliometric evaluations.
3. Results
Publication and Citation Structure of LE
The temporal distribution of publications in LE reflects the journal’s responsiveness to institutional transitions, editorial policies, and evolving research priorities across nearly a century. From its inception in 1925 through 2024, LE has published 4,399 documents, exhibiting distinct phases of expansion, stabilization, and variability aligned with broader disciplinary and editorial developments. In this section, we investigate annual publication volumes and citation metrics to uncover the journal’s historical productivity, knowledge diffusion, and intellectual relevance.
Figure 1 illustrates the annual number of papers published in LE over the period 1925–2024. The data reveal three major waves of publication intensity. The first wave occurred in the mid- to late 1930s, exceeding 70 documents annually, coinciding with heightened discourse on land reform and public infrastructure during the interwar period. The second wave in the late 1960s to early 1970s reflects increased academic attention to environmental policy and urban planning. The third wave, though less pronounced, appears in the early 1980s and again in the mid-2000s, consistent with LE’s broadened focus on resource economics and institutional governance. Since the 2010s, the journal has published a slightly small number of papers per year, fluctuating between 30 and 40, with a brief spike in 2021 likely due to backlog effects from COVID-19-era disruptions. Overall, LE’s publication trajectory shows adaptability to shifting academic landscapes while maintaining thematic continuity.
Annual Publication Volume in Land Economics (1925–2024)
Table 1 and Appendix Table A2 present the decadal and annual citation distribution of LE, showing totals, citation thresholds, and presence in the journal’s 50 most cited papers. Table 1 captures decade-scale impacts, and Appendix Table A2 shows annual data. The citation dynamics show a distinct acceleration beginning in the late 1970s, with cumulative citations rising sharply from 8,284 (1975–1984) to a peak of 21,510 during 1995–2004. This period also exhibits the highest density of highly cited publications, including 15 papers with more than 200 citations and 56 with more than 100, aligning with LE’s expanded reach in applied environmental and resource economics. Notably, the years 1995–2004 alone accounts for 30% of all papers that received over 50 citations and 42% of LE’s top 50 most cited articles.
Decadal Citation Distribution of Land Economics Papers (1925–2024)
In contrast, earlier decades (1925–1964) generated limited citation traction, with most publications receiving fewer than 20 citations and no representation in the top 50 list. While the publication volume in these periods was nontrivial, their relative citation inertia underscores shifts in scholarly visibility and archival longevity. The 2005–2014 cohort maintains high impact, contributing 367 papers cited at least five times, although fewer exceeded the 100-citation threshold compared with the prior decade. More recent years (2015–2024) show a natural drop-off in citation counts due to temporal lag but already include 218 papers cited at least five times, reflecting LE’s continued citation potential. Only 0.82% of LE’s papers have surpassed 200 citations, while 70.74% have been cited at least once, confirming broad reach but selective deep influence.
Figure 2 visualizes the annual citation dispersion of LE papers using a box-whisker plot, capturing medians, interquartile ranges, and outliers (Tukey 1977; Hussain et al. 2025). The figure confirms that citation inequality intensified during LE’s most impactful era, 1990–2010, marked by frequent outliers above 200 citations and interquartile ranges widening beyond 100 citations per paper. Schlager and Ostrom’s (1992) seminal article is at the top, with 1,389 citations, followed by other highly cited works from Train (1998), Dalhuisen et al. (2003), and Irwin (2002). Prior to the 1960s, citation distributions were compressed below 50, reflecting limited long-term academic uptake. Post-2010 publications show narrowing dispersion, consistent with shorter citation windows and delayed accrual. The median citation per paper has also declined since 2015, indicating a temporal lag in postpublication impact rather than a shift in relevance.
Annual Citation Distribution of Land Economics Papers (1925–2024)
Table 2 presents the longitudinal bibliometric positioning of LE in the Journal Citation Reports and Scopus from 1997 to 2023, encompassing key indicators of scholarly impact and journal visibility. LE’s impact factor steadily increased from 0.68 in 1997 to a peak of 2.08 in 2020, followed by a decline to 1.3 in 2023. Its five-year impact factor similarly peaked in 2018 at 2.91, reflecting sustained citation momentum. The article influence score, which normalizes citation impact using eigenvector centrality as proposed by Bergstrom et al. (2008), ranged between 0.64 and 1.04, confirming a consistent performance for much of the 2010s.
Longitudinal Performance Metrics of Land Economics in Its Journal Citation Report (Web of Science Core Collection) and Scopus
While LE remained in the top quartile of economics journals for several intervals (1998–2000, 2002, 2004, 2009–2010, 2015–2016), its relative rank has declined in recent years, dropping to the third quartile by 2021. This is reflected in its percentile ranking, which dropped from above 75% during its peak years to 46.3% by 2023. Similarly, CiteScore (Scopus) fluctuated between 2.6 and 3.4, with the best percentile achieved in the two categories that index LE (Economics and Econometrics) (83-EC in 2018). Despite competitive pressures and expanding journal landscapes, LE has remained a solid journal with periods of upper-quartile performance, particularly when policy-relevant environmental research surged.
Influential Papers in LE
Understanding the intellectual contribution of a journal requires examining its most cited outputs, which often shape its disciplinary identity and external recognition. The citation performance of individual documents offers insight into the thematic foci, methodological innovations, and policy relevance that resonate most with the academic community. In LE’s case, highly cited papers span diverse domains—from property rights and conservation valuation to land use modeling and environmental regulation—revealing a citation landscape deeply embedded in applied economics and environmental governance.
Appendix Table A3 lists the 50 most cited papers published in LE, with citations ranging from 165 to 1,389. Schlager and Ostrom’s (1992) seminal paper on property-rights regimes is at the top; this is a foundational text for institutional and common-pool resource analysis and is cited over 1,300 times, with an annual average exceeding 42 citations. Other standout contributions include Train’s (1998) modeling of recreation demand heterogeneity (673 citations) and Huff’s (1963) early work on spatial analysis in trade areas (438 citations), both highlighting the journal’s reach across applied microeconomics and regional planning.
A prominent cluster of papers appears in the early 2000s, including Dalhuisen et al.’s (2003) meta-analysis on water demand elasticity (409 citations) and Irwin’s (2002) investigation of property values and open space (398 citations). These papers reflect LE’s sustained engagement with valuation techniques and environmental economics. More recent impactful works include Abdulai and Huffman’s (2014) econometric study on conservation adoption (400 citations) and Di Falco and Veronesi’s (2013) climate adaptation analysis (213 citations, see Appendix Table A3), illustrating that LE continues to generate high-velocity citations even in the last decade.
The listings in Appendix Table A3 demonstrate thematic breadth, covering land tenure, hedonic pricing, contingent valuation, urban land use modeling, and environmental policy design. Multiple entries by authors such as Stephen Polasky, John Loomis, and Riccardo Scarpa further suggest the journal’s ability to foster influential, policy-relevant research over time. This influential corpus underpins LE’s epistemic identity and reinforces its role as a reference venue in applied environmental and land economics.
Table 3 presents the 40 most referenced studies in LE, encompassing a range of scholarly works that have significantly shaped the field’s intellectual foundations. The cited papers span a broad temporal range, with classics dating to the early 20th century—such as Hotelling’s (1931) seminal article on exhaustible resources—and extending to more contemporary empirical and theoretical contributions, such as Johnston et al.’s (2017) discussion of best practice in stated preference modeling. This mix of citations demonstrates LE’s dual role as both a disseminator of cutting-edge knowledge and a venue that builds on historically rooted economic thought.
Top 40 Most Cited Foundational Works Referenced in Land Economics
Rosen’s (1974) hedonic pricing model article in the Journal of Political Economy is the highest-cited paper, with 89 citations, highlighting its lasting impact on environmental valuation and property economics. Mitchell and Carson’s (1989) book Using Surveys to Value Public Goods follows, with 63 citations. A foundational reference for the contingent valuation method, it reflects LE’s engagement with stated preference techniques. Classic theoretical contributions are well represented: Coase’s (1960) theory of social cost (41 citations), Tiebout’s (1956) local public goods model (38 citations), and Gordon’s (1954) model on common-property resources (34 citations) have each deeply influenced the environmental economics literature. Similarly, the consistent citation of Lancaster’s (1966) consumer theory and Hotelling’s (1931) resource pricing indicate LE’s reliance on fundamental microeconomic frameworks.
The list also includes several methodological cornerstones, such as Maddala’s (1983) limited-dependent and qualitative variables in econometrics and White’s (1980) heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors, attesting to LE’s methodological rigor. Influential econometric texts by Kmenta and Klein (1971) and Angrist and Pischke (2009) are also frequently cited, pointing to a strong econometric foundation across LE research.
Importantly, several works in the list are published in LE itself, including Irwin (2002), Billings and Agthe (1980), and Seller, Stoll, and Chavas (1985), affirming the journal’s own contribution to core debates in land valuation, hedonic pricing, and nonmarket valuation. Moreover, interdisciplinary reach is visible in references such as Allen et al. (1998) on crop evapotranspiration and Dillman’s (1978) survey methodology, which expand LE’s empirical breadth across agricultural and environmental applications.
Citing LE Articles
To identify how LE has influenced the broader academic discourse, we extracted all citing documents from the WoS Core Collection. By selecting the Citing Articles option under LE’s journal profile and clicking the citation count (45,608), we obtained the complete set of documents that reference LE. To ensure consistency with prior filtering criteria, we applied the same parameters: including only articles, reviews, and notes (reducing the pool to 41,131), excluding Early Access records (resulting in 40,709), and eliminating papers published in 2025 to avoid incomplete citation tracking (yielding a final set of 40,709 citing documents). This dataset provides a robust empirical foundation for assessing LE’s intellectual reach through author-, institution-, and country-level citation metrics.
Table 4 presents the most active contributors citing LE papers, categorized by unique citing papers and individual authors. At the individual level, John Loomis leads the list, with 159 unique citing publications, reflecting his sustained output in nonmarket valuation and environmental economics. Prominent scholars such as Nick Hanley, Robert Johnston, and John Whitehead follow closely; all are known for their contributions to stated preference methods and environmental policy analysis. These frequent citers are not only prolific in volume of unique citing papers but also highly central in shaping discourse around valuation techniques, ecosystem services, and behavioral responses to environmental policies.
Most Active Contributors Citing Land Economics Papers, Categorized by Unique Papers and Individual Authors
The year-level distribution complements the author-level statistics by showing when these citations have been the most numerous, indicating that the prominence of these contributors aligns with the broader upward trend in citing activity. The temporal distribution of unique citing documents suggests an upward trajectory over the last decade, with 2024 (1,959), 2023 (2,128), and 2022 (2,376) showing the highest-citing volumes. This trend signals LE’s continued intellectual vitality and relevance to emerging topics such as climate adaptation, conservation policy, and sustainable land use.
Table 5 illustrates the disciplinary and journal-level landscape of scholarly outputs that cite LE, offering insights into the scope of its intellectual influence. At the journal level, Ecological Economics ranks first, with 1,472 citing articles, reflecting the strong conceptual and methodological alignment between ecological-economic integration and the themes central to LE. Interestingly, LE itself is the second most common source of self-citation (1,224), indicating both internal continuity and self-referential theoretical development. Other leading journals, such as Land Use Policy (882), Sustainability (805), and Environmental and Resource Economics (737), reinforce LE’s prominence within environmental policy, valuation, and interdisciplinary land studies.
Leading Journals in Web of Science Core Collection Categories Citing Land Economics
Notably, high-impact applied journals, such as the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (661) and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (548), also appear prominently, underscoring LE’s connection to both theoretical innovation and empirical modeling within environmental and agricultural domains. The breadth of citing journals, including Marine Policy, World Development, Energy Policy, and PLOS One, points to LE’s interdisciplinary integration and cross-sectoral reach.
At the level of the WoS Core Collection categories, Economics (15,472) and Environmental Studies (12,992) are the most dominant, which together account for over two-thirds of all citations. This is consistent with LE’s dual focus on economic theory and applied environmental policy. The third-highest category, Environmental Sciences (8,385), and others such as Urban Studies (2,982), Agricultural Economics and Policy (2,322), and Forestry (1,737) reveal a disciplinary intersection that spans both the social and the natural sciences.
Additionally, categories such as Development Studies, Business, Sociology, Law, and Political Science suggest that LE’s impact extends beyond traditional environmental economics, influencing institutional analyses, governance, and human-nature interaction frameworks. The presence of specialized categories, such as Water Resources, Fisheries, Hospitality, Leisure, Sport, and Tourism, indicates thematic versatility and practical relevance in sector-specific research.
The journal and category-level patterns affirm that LE occupies a central position in the academic ecosystem of environmental and land economics. Its citing literature reflects a convergence of theoretical rigor and applied relevance, with citations emanating from both domain-specific and interdisciplinary knowledge spaces. This diverse citation base is indicative of LE’s ability to inform debates across environmental governance, spatial planning, ecosystem valuation, and sustainability transitions.
Leading Authors
A comprehensive understanding of LE’s intellectual development requires examining the contributions of individual scholars and their affiliations over time. By analyzing publication volume, citation performance, and historical dispersion, we identified the most influential authors contributing to LE’s legacy. Productivity and citation metrics were extracted from the core publication set, enabling us to identify prolific contributors with diverse scholarly trajectories across different time periods.
Table 6 highlights the 34 most prolific contributors to LE, offering a longitudinal and impact-based view of authorship. Among them, V. Kerry Smith ranks first, with 25 publications and a high H-index of 17, accumulating 1,046 citations—an indication of both sustained productivity and substantive scholarly influence. Kevin Boyle and Richard Bishop demonstrate similarly high citation-per-paper (C/P) metrics, with 72.67 and 64.00 respectively, underscoring the quality and visibility of their contributions.
Most Productive Authors in Land Economics
Several authors, including William Evans, Robert Dudley, E. W. Morehouse, and Richard Andrews, were active primarily in the early decades (1925–1974), often without recorded citation data in current databases, reflecting the historical depth of LE. In contrast, modern contributors, such as Robert Johnston, John Loomis, Nick Hanle, and Andrew Plantinga, have had significant impacts post-1995, with many of their most cited works appearing between 1995 and 2024. John Loomis and Patricia Champ stand out for their near-90 C/P ratios, highlighting substantial contemporary visibility.
In terms of H-index values, the presence of multiple authors with scores above eight reflects not only productivity but also sustained scholarly influence within LE. Additionally, the temporal dispersion across the four defined time periods (D1–D4) reveals evolving participation: legacy contributors cluster heavily in D1, while recent authors dominate D3 and D4, signifying generational shifts in research themes and author demographics.
US institutions dominate the author list, with affiliations such as the University of Wisconsin, University of Maryland, Cornell University, and Arizona State University being repeatedly associated with high-output scholars. Non-US representation includes scholars from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom and other international affiliations, though these remain fewer in number, suggesting a historically US-centric authorship base. This observation aligns with earlier findings regarding national dominance in citations and productivity, reinforcing the centrality of US institutions in LE’s scholarly network.
Summary statistics for institutions, countries, and annual trajectories are in Appendix Tables A5–A8.
Comparative Analysis of LE with Other Journals in Economics
To contextualize LE within its scholarly ecosystem, we conducted a comparative assessment against peer journals with thematic overlaps in environmental, resource, agricultural, and ecological economics. These journals share disciplinary intersections with LE, often attracting similar author communities and contributing to adjacent policy and sustainability debates. By comparing key bibliometric indicators—total publications, total citations, H-index, C/P, and their counterparts for the past decade—this analysis positions LE within a broader network of journals that serve as either citation sources or destinations, offering insight into its sustained relevance and bibliometric competitiveness.
Table 7 benchmarks LE against 37 related journals based on lifetime and recent bibliometric indicators and according to thematic proximity, including environmental, agricultural, and resource economics. Note that many other journals could have been included if considering more than 37 journals, especially from the WoS Core Collection categories of Economics, Agricultural Economics and Policy, and Regional and Urban Planning. Additionally, note that LE is well connected to many of the leading general economics journals.
Publication and Citation Performance of Land Economics and Related Journals
LE, founded in 1925, occupies a good position in total citation count (70,192) but is significantly lower than Water Resources Research (720,712) and the Journal of Environmental Management (678,354), both of which benefit from broader interdisciplinary scopes and substantially higher annual publication volumes (e.g., > 23,000 papers for the latter). Nonetheless, LE maintains a relatively compact publication base (4,399 papers) while achieving an H-index of 111, indicating consistent historical influence across nearly a century. Note that it is the second oldest journal in Table 7, behind the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, which was first published in 1919.
Journals such as Ecological Economics (C/P = 59.56) and Landscape and Urban Planning (C/P = 60.05) obtain better citation efficiency, likely due to their larger interdisciplinary readership that connects with environmental and social sciences. Meanwhile, LE’s C/P of 15.96 is modest in comparison, but its longevity and foundational status in land and resource economics justify its continued citation traction. Considering the publications of the past 50 years (1975–2024), the cites per paper of LE is 30.89. Notably, recent performance metrics (2015–2024) show that LE published 375 papers with 4,109 citations (C/P10 = 10.96), trailing behind journals like Energy Economics (C/P10 = 39.91) and the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy (C/P10 = 41.17), reflecting the growing attention to climate policy and energy transition topics.
Some emerging open access journals (e.g., Land) have shown rapid volume growth but exhibit relatively low average impact per paper, suggesting quantity-driven strategies without proportional citation gains. In contrast, LE continues to balance selectivity and tradition, sustaining a higher historical H-index than several newer journals (e.g., Forest Policy and Economics, Marine Resource Economics).
The comparative landscape illustrates a shift in thematic emphasis across the environmental-economics spectrum, but LE’s classical orientation persists, and its moderate to high citation efficiency in the last decade reaffirms its relevance. Yet journals focused on energy, urban planning, and ecological transition are now dominating citation dynamics. This underscores the need for LE to further engage with emergent environmental-economic paradigms without losing its legacy contributions to land use policy and institutional economics.
Mapping LE with VOSviewer and Bibliometrix
Co-citation Analysis of LE
To uncover the intellectual structure of LE, we conducted a co-citation analysis using VOSviewer (Van Eck and Waltman 2010), focusing on journals most frequently cited together in LE documents. Co-citation analysis reveals the epistemic alignment of a journal by identifying how frequently it is co-cited with others in the literature, reflecting its theoretical anchoring and disciplinary proximity. This method allows the mapping of LE’s citation behavior and its embeddedness within intersecting scholarly communities. The analysis applied a minimum threshold of 30 citations and 200 co-citation links to identify robust, recurrent citation relationships among journals.
Appendix Figure A1 visualizes the co-citation network of journals most frequently cited together in LE.6 The journal occupies a central node in the citation space, tightly clustered with the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, and Ecological Economics, highlighting its disciplinary entrenchment in environmental and agricultural economics. These journals share thematic emphases on valuation, land use, resource governance, and policy-oriented economic modeling, forming a densely connected citation core.
The figure reveals five major co-citation clusters. The red cluster is anchored around the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Ecological Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics, and Land Use Policy, indicating LE’s proximity to agricultural economics, sustainability science, ecological valuation, and environmental policy literature. The blue cluster includes the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management and classic economics and econometrics journals such as Econometrica, the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Journal of Economic Perspectives, suggesting LE’s methodological engagement with mainstream economic theory and quantitative modeling.
Another notable group—the yellow cluster—features journals focused on urban and regional studies (Journal of Urban Economics, Urban Studies, Regional Science and Urban Economics), indicating that LE also contributes to and draws from literature at the intersection of land use, spatial planning, and regional development. The green cluster is more dispersed. It contains outlets such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Economic Journal, and the New York Times, pointing to LE’s engagement with public policy and governance as well as regulatory economics.
Peripheral nodes, such as Nature, Science, and World Development, show occasional but strategic co-citations, reflecting interdisciplinary extensions toward environmental science and development economics. These weaker connections underscore LE’s role as a bridge between core economic theories and applied sustainability studies.
Table 8 presents the most frequently cited journals in LE globally and over three temporal windows. LE itself ranks first in all periods, with 3,592 total citations and steady citation counts across decades, reflecting strong self-referencing and thematic continuity. The Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (2,374 citations) and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics (2,164) consistently hold second and third positions, demonstrating LE’s close alignment with environmental and agricultural economics. Their stable citation levels across all decades confirm their foundational role in LE’s discourse.
Most Cited Journals Globally in Land Economics (1995–2024)
Core economics journals—the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and Econometrica—remain prominent, though their relative share declines over time, indicating a shift from theoretical to more applied and interdisciplinary references. Ecological Economics and Environmental and Resource Economics show upward citation trends, especially post-2005, highlighting LE’s growing engagement with ecological valuation and sustainability science. World Development, Water Resources Research, and the Journal of Urban Economics also gain ground, pointing to LE’s expanding thematic scope.
In contrast, earlier citations to Forest Science, the Journal of Regional Science, and the Bell Journal of Economics have diminished, indicating a shift away from traditional land use and natural resource management sources toward policy-oriented and interdisciplinary outlets. The citation pattern reflects LE’s dual anchoring in economic theory and policy application, with increasing integration into environmental, urban, and development studies over the past two decades.
Appendix Figure A2 presents the co-citation network of individual papers most frequently cited together in LE, offering a granular view of the journal’s intellectual scaffolding. The clusters align with the most cited papers in Table 3 and reveal five main citation communities.
The green cluster is centered on seminal works in nonmarket valuation and environmental demand modeling, with Hanemann (1984), Mitchell and Carson (1989), and Cameron (1988) forming the backbone. These foundational papers underpin much of LE’s focus on contingent valuation, discrete choice models, and stated preference methods.
The blue cluster reflects econometric theory and empirical strategy, with classics such as Heckman (1979), Coase (1960), Hotelling (1931), and Econometrica-based papers forming tight methodological anchors. This illustrates LE’s continued reliance on structural microeconomic theory and identification strategies in policy evaluation. The yellow and blue clusters combine land use and institutional economics with contributions from Schlager and Ostrom (1992), Demsetz (1967), and Carson and Groves (2007), linking resource governance with behavioral and institutional frameworks—a reflection of LE’s interdisciplinary leanings.
The red and orange clusters include Rosen (1974), Tiebout (1956), Alonso (1964), and Muth (1969), establishing the theoretical foundation of urban economics, spatial land valuation, and location theory. These citations continue to inform LE’s urban and regional policy analyses.
The light blue cluster connects studies from the Bell Journal of Economics and LE itself (e.g., Taylor 1975; Billings and Agthe 1980), signaling the internal dialogue within LE’s historical core on hedonic pricing, property valuation, and empirical land market studies. The map underscores how LE’s cited literature draws on a mix of applied empirical methods, spatial economic theory, and valuation frameworks, cementing its role at the interface of environmental, agricultural, and urban land economics. The clustering also confirms that highly co-cited documents tend to be those that combine robust methodological contributions with strong policy relevance.
Appendix Figure A3 presents the co-citation network of authors most frequently cited together in LE, offering insight into the intellectual alliances that shape the journal’s knowledge base. The clusters reveal distinct thematic communities. The green cluster is centered on nonmarket valuation and stated preference methods, with key figures including W. Michael Hanemann, Robert Mitchell, Richard Carson, John Loomis, Kevin Boyle, and Wiktor Adamowicz. Their high co-citation density reflects LE’s deep engagement with contingent valuation, choice modeling, and environmental valuation techniques.
The purple cluster includes V. Kerry Smith, Richard Bishop, Alan Randall, Kenneth McConnell, and David Brookshire—authors associated with early contributions to resource valuation and the development of benefit-transfer methods. Their foundational work provides the empirical grounding for land and environmental economics. The blue cluster comprises Daniel Bromley, James Heckman, Christopher Clark, and Elinor Ostrom, representing institutional economics, property rights, and dynamic resource use. These authors form the theoretical core of LE’s exploration of common-pool resources and environmental governance.
In the red cluster, we observe classical economists such as Charles Tiebout, Gary Becker, Kenneth Arrow, and A. Myrick Freeman, signifying LE’s historical grounding in welfare economics, public finance, and foundational theory. Governmental authors and institutions (USDA, US Census Bureau) are also embedded here, indicating LE’s engagement with applied policy literature. Last, a yellow cluster connects applied land and urban economics contributors such as Sherwin Rosen, Raymond Palmquist, Elena Irwin, and Nicolai Kuminoff, reflecting LE’s long-standing concern with hedonic pricing, spatial equilibrium, and urban land use. This author-level co-citation map confirms LE’s positioning at the intersection of environmental valuation, institutional economics, and applied land use theory. It reveals a stable intellectual architecture grounded in both economic theory and empirical policy tools while increasingly bridging to interdisciplinary and methodological advances.
Bibliographic Coupling of LE
To uncover the thematic interconnections within LE, we conducted a bibliographic coupling analysis. This technique groups documents based on shared references, revealing structural similarity in cited knowledge. By analyzing highly cited documents (≥ 100 citations, ≥ 100 links), the coupling map highlights influential internal discourse and clusters of research themes central to LE.
Appendix Figure A4 identifies distinct thematic clusters among LE’s most influential documents. At the center, Train (1998), Dalhuisen et al. (2003), Irwin (2002), and Hewitt and Hanemann (1995) form a tightly connected core around water demand, land use, and discrete choice modeling—reflecting LE’s methodological backbone. In the upper right, the largest and most distinct cluster centers on Schlager and Ostrom (1992) and Copes (1986), anchoring institutional economics, property rights, and common-pool resource governance. The lower-left red and blue clusters, including Carson et al. (1996) and Cesario (1976), are dedicated to nonmarket valuation and stated preference methods, aligning with LE’s environmental valuation focus. A distinct green and pale blue clusters link works such as Deininger, Ali, and Alemu (2011), Di Falco and Veronesi (2013), and Abdulai and Huffman (2014), reflecting land tenure, agricultural adaptation, and climate resilience in developing countries—signaling LE’s increasing global policy relevance.
Other clusters include urban planning and housing (Mahan, Polasky, and Adams 2000; Bin and Polasky 2004), conservation programs (Ferraro and Simpson 2002; Uchida, Xu, and Rozelle 2005), and forest/environmental service schemes (Alix-Garcia, Shapiro, and Sims 2012; Arriagada et al. 2012). The coupling network reflects LE’s thematic breadth—anchored in valuation and choice modeling, expanding into institutional governance, land tenure, and spatial-environmental planning.
Keyword and Topic Analysis of LE
Keyword and topic analysis provides insights into the intellectual structure and thematic evolution of LE. Using co-occurrence mapping of Keywords Plus from the WoS Core Collection dataset, this analysis identifies core concepts, methodological approaches, and topical clusters that have shaped LE’s scholarly discourse. Appendix Figure A8 illustrates the co-occurrence network of terms, revealing major thematic axes and their interrelations. It depicts the co-occurrence map of Keywords Plus in LE, with node size reflecting term frequency and color representing the average year of appearance (blue = earlier focus, red = recent emphasis).
Central nodes, such as “models,” “values,” “demand,” “policy,” “management,” and “choice,” anchor the network, underscoring the journal’s sustained engagement with quantitative analysis, valuation techniques, and decision-support frameworks. The clustering of “contingent valuation,” “willingness to pay,” and “benefits” highlights the prominence of stated preference methods in environmental and resource economics. Terms like “property rights,” “deforestation,” “cost,” and “conservation” connect governance and ecological management topics, while “prices,” “market,” and “property values” point to LE’s focus on the interface of land markets and environmental quality.
The temporal gradient shows how recent research (warmer nodes) increasingly integrates “choice experiments,” “ecosystem services,” and “incentives,” indicating a shift toward multidimensional valuation and policy tools. Meanwhile, enduring blue nodes (e.g., “land use,” “externalities,” “efficiency”) reflect LE’s foundational contributions to classical environmental-economic problems. Appendix Figure A8 reveals LE’s balanced thematic profile: firmly rooted in valuation economics and land use policy while progressively embracing ecosystem services, behavioral insights, and experimental methods.
Appendix Table A9 offers a detailed view of the most frequent Keywords Plus in LE globally and across three decades, illustrating the journal’s thematic evolution and intellectual priorities. The term “model” is the most frequent globally (166 occurrences), maintaining its leading position across all periods. This highlights LE’s solid foundation in quantitative frameworks and methodological rigor, with models being central to analyses of land use, valuation, and policy impacts.
“Impact” ranks second globally (124 occurrences) and becomes the most frequent term in the 2015–2024 period (73 occurrences). This shift reflects a growing focus on evaluating the effects of environmental policies, land use changes, and conservation interventions, aligning with contemporary demands for evidence-based decision-making. Valuation-related terms, including “values” (85 occurrences), “price” (84), “contingent valuation” (75), and “willingness to pay” (59), consistently appear in the top ranks. These terms signify LE’s sustained attention to methodologies for estimating economic values of land, environmental goods, and ecosystem services, reinforcing its role as a key outlet for work on nonmarket valuation and resource pricing.
The prominence of “policy” (74 occurrences), “management” (68), “conservation” (55), and “risk” (46) demonstrates LE’s applied orientation toward addressing real-world challenges. These keywords indicate a strong engagement with governance, regulatory instruments, and sustainable resource management, with increasing attention to uncertainty and risk in decision contexts. Newer terms, such as “ecosystem services,” “climate change,” and “adoption,” gain traction in the 2015–2024 period, signaling LE’s responsiveness to emerging global environmental priorities and the integration of ecological-economic linkages. Meanwhile, “preferences,” “demand,” and “information” consistently reflect the journal’s engagement with behavioral and market-based analyses.
Figure 3 presents a WordCloud generated using the Bibliometrix software (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017), visually summarizing the most frequent Keywords Plus in LE. The prominence of each term corresponds to its frequency, offering a quick insight into dominant research themes.
Word Cloud of the Most Frequent Keywords in Land Economics, Highlighting Dominant Themes
The central position and size of “model,” “impact,” “price,” “values,” and “contingent valuation” reaffirm their leading roles in LE’s scholarship, consistent with findings from Appendix Table A9. These keywords highlight LE’s focus on methodological approaches (e.g., models), valuation techniques (e.g., contingent valuation, willingness to pay), and the assessment of economic and environmental impacts.
Other prominent terms—“policy,” “management,” “economics,” “conservation”— reflect the applied and policy-relevant nature of LE’s contributions, spanning governance, land management, and resource sustainability. The inclusion of emerging terms such as “climate change,” “ecosystem services,” and “risk” demonstrates LE’s responsiveness to evolving global environmental challenges. The figure effectively illustrates LE’s interdisciplinary scope, bridging economic modeling, valuation, behavioral insights, and environmental policy.
Appendix Figure A9 shows the evolution of trend topics in LE over time using Bibliometrix. The plot illustrates the temporal spread and intensity of the Keywords Plus provided by the WoS Core Collection, with larger bubbles indicating periods of peak relevance. Early focus areas include “discrete response data,” “implicit markets,” and “welfare evaluations,” dominant during the 1990s. Around the early 2000s, interest shifted toward “choice,” “public goods,” and “uncertainty,” reflecting growing engagement with behavioral and policy issues.
From 2010, terms such as “mixed logit,” “services,” “heterogeneity,” “choice experiments,” and “climate change” gained prominence, indicating the journal’s alignment with advanced econometric modeling and sustainability discourse. The sustained presence of “willingness to pay,” “impact,” and “risk” highlights LE’s consistent focus on valuation and policy-relevant environmental economics. This figure effectively captures LE’s progression from foundational valuation and market analysis to contemporary topics in ecological economics, choice modeling, and climate policy.
Appendix Figure A10 presents a thematic map of LE, generated using Bibliometrix and the walktrap clustering algorithm (Pons and Latapy 2006). The map plots themes based on centrality (relevance) and density (development), offering insights into the intellectual structure of LE research. The motor themes (upper right quadrant) include “model,” “economics,” “management,” “choice,” “demand,” “impact,” “cost,” “growth,” “efficiency,” and “land.” These are highly relevant and well developed, indicating their core role in structuring LE’s discourse. The niche themes (upper left quadrant), such as “values,” “contingent valuation,” “willingness to pay,” “benefits,” and “choice experiments,” are specialized and internally cohesive but less connected to other topics. In the basic themes (lower right quadrant), no distinct clusters appear beyond the motor themes, suggesting a concentration of foundational topics within core clusters. The emerging or declining themes (lower left quadrant), represented by “property rights” and a cluster around “price,” “market,” “risk,” and “amenities,” exhibit lower development and relevance, possibly signaling declining or underexplored areas.
Table 9 highlights the most prominent topics in LE research between 2014 and 2023, based on Scopus data accessed via the SciVal platform. The analysis integrates the field-weighted citation impact (FWCI)—a normalized metric that accounts for subject, year, and document type (Purkayastha et al. 2019)—and the worldwide prominent percentile (PP), which reflects topic visibility relative to global outputs (Klavans and Boyack 2017).
Leading Topics in Land Economics (2014–2023), According to SciVal (Scopus)
The top-ranked topic cluster (“willingness to pay, discrete choice, logit model”) led with 28 papers, an FWCI of 0.9, and a PP of 96.81, demonstrating broad recognition despite citation impact slightly below world average. The “hedonic price index, real estate price, housing market” cluster follows, with 22 papers, FWCI 0.84, and PP 95.55, emphasizing the journal’s focus on property valuation and urban economics. Other notable clusters include “travel cost, recreational activity, cost-benefit analysis” (19 papers; FWCI 0.58; PP 87.06) and “willingness to pay, contingent valuation, cost-benefit analysis” (15 papers; FWCI 0.76; PP 94.27), reflecting LE’s strong tradition in environmental valuation methods. Clusters addressing natural resource and risk topics, such as “fisheries management, quota system” (FWCI 1.17) and “risk management, climate change, flood” (FWCI 1.35), stood out for achieving above-average citation impacts, highlighting their global relevance. The distribution of topics illustrates LE’s multidimensional scope, spanning valuation, land use, climate policy, housing markets, and natural resource management. The presence of clusters with high PP but modest FWCI suggests that some LE topics are highly visible yet may lag in citation impact, indicating opportunities for future engagement and influence.
4. Conclusions
General Findings
This bibliometric study provides a comprehensive, multidimensional analysis of LE, a journal with nearly a century of contributions to the fields of environmental, agricultural, and urban economics. Using data from the WoS Core Collection and Scopus with advanced analytical tools such as VOSviewer and Bibliometrix, the investigation uncovers LE’s intellectual structure, thematic evolution, and scholarly influence at multiple levels—document, author, institution, country, and topic.
The citation analysis shows that LE’s most influential contributions stem from seminal works on property rights, contingent valuation, discrete choice modeling, and hedonic pricing, with key papers such as Schlager and Ostrom (1992), Train (1998), and Huff (1963) remaining foundational references. The journal has also significantly shaped methodological debates, especially in environmental valuation, land use change modeling, and market-based conservation strategies. Co-citation maps reveal tight intellectual linkages with journals such as the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, and Ecological Economics, confirming LE’s central role in connecting environmental and resource economics with urban and regional studies.
Keyword and thematic analyses show that LE’s research portfolio is anchored in core topics such as models, impact assessments, policy, management, and valuation techniques. Notably, contingent valuation, willingness-to-pay studies, and choice experiments constitute recurring focal points, while newer areas such as climate change, ecosystem services, and water-energy nexus topics are gaining prominence. Thematic maps indicate that models, economics, and management represent basic themes, while impact, cost, and growth emerge as motor themes with high centrality and density.
Trend-topic and SciVal cluster analyses further demonstrate LE’s responsiveness to evolving societal challenges. While classic themes on land markets and resource management maintain continuity, newer clusters such as disaster management, water-energy nexus, pro-environmental behavior, and green innovation indicate adaptation to contemporary policy and environmental issues. Nevertheless, the FWCI across topics and clusters remains mixed, reflecting both areas of high international influence (e.g., water distribution FWCI = 1.67; climate change and disaster management FWCI = 1.27) and areas with opportunity for greater global resonance.
These findings position LE as a key journal at the intersection of environmental, agricultural, and urban economics with enduring contributions to valuation science and policy-relevant research and an evolving thematic focus that aligns with global sustainability challenges.
Practical Implications
The results of this bibliometric analysis provide several practical insights relevant to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers engaged in environmental, land, and resource economics. First, the identified core themes—contingent valuation, willingness to pay, land use change, and hedonic pricing—offer a clear map of methodological and topical areas where LE has historically provided evidence to inform policy. This reinforces the journal’s role as a critical knowledge source for designing and evaluating market-based instruments that are increasingly central to sustainable land and resource management strategies (e.g., payments for ecosystem services, conservation auctions, and resource pricing).
The prominence of applied topics such as housing markets, urban planning, risk management, and climate change adaptation in both document-level and topic cluster analyses highlights the journal’s capacity to contribute to pressing global challenges. These areas are directly relevant to the formulation of policies on disaster risk reduction, climate-resilient urban development, and sustainable agricultural transitions.
For research funders and academic institutions, the diverse profile of LE’s themes—ranging from basic models to applied environmental policy—underscores the value of supporting multiscalar, policy-relevant investigations. The analysis of the FWCI and worldwide PP metrics indicates that while LE’s work is often influential within its domain, certain clusters (e.g., green innovation, pro-environmental behavior) show room for broader international engagement and higher citation impact. This provides a practical benchmark for researchers aiming to align their work with high-visibility and high-impact streams within the field.
The mapping of motor themes (e.g., impact, cost, growth) and basic themes (e.g., model, economics, management) suggests priority areas for policy advisory bodies and consulting organizations seeking rigorous scientific backing for interventions in land use planning, natural resource governance, and environmental regulation. The thematic evolution detected in LE points to the importance of integrating emerging topics such as water-energy nexus, climate change-disaster management linkages, and behavioral economics in resource use into policy development and academic curricula to ensure relevance to contemporary sustainability agendas.
Limitations and Future Research
While this bibliometric study offers a detailed and multilayered view of LE, several limitations merit acknowledgment, which simultaneously provide avenues for future research. First, the analysis is constrained by our reliance on data from the WoS Core Collection and Scopus, which, despite their comprehensive coverage, do not include all relevant citations, particularly from non-English sources, regional journals, and gray literature. This may underrepresent contributions from certain geographic regions (e.g., Latin America, Africa, parts of Asia) and emerging interdisciplinary fields that are not fully indexed in these databases.
Second, citation-based metrics, such as total citations, FWCI, and worldwide PP, provide valuable but incomplete proxies for scholarly influence. These measures favor older publications and may not fully capture the societal, policy, or practical impacts of more recent or applied research outputs. Furthermore, co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and co-occurrence analyses reflect structural patterns of knowledge use but do not address the qualitative depth, methodological rigor, or originality of the cited works.
The study’s temporal coverage (1925–2024) allows for long-term trend analyses, but the dynamic nature of scientific discourse means that some emerging topics (e.g., water-energy nexus, green innovation, climate risk and social media) identified in the last decade are still in the early stages of citation accumulation. Future research could apply complementary methodologies, such as altmetrics or full-text semantic analysis, to capture broader impacts and nuanced thematic development beyond citation counts.
Moreover, while the study mapped authors, institutions, countries, and themes, it did not deeply investigate gender diversity, interdisciplinarity at the individual paper level, or the evolution of specific methodological paradigms (e.g., agent-based modeling, machine learning applications in land economics). Future investigations could integrate these dimensions, along with comparative analyses across journals in adjacent domains (e.g., urban planning, environmental policy, sustainability science), to contextualize LE’s role more fully within the broader scientific landscape.
Finally, expanding bibliometric studies of LE to include citation contexts (e.g., how and why a paper is cited) and impact on real-world policy (e.g., references in legislation, reports, or guidelines) would enhance our understanding of the journal’s applied influence. Such future work would provide a richer, more integrated assessment of LE’s contributions to science and society.
Acknowledgments
We thank Editor-in-Chief Daniel J. Phaneuf and the anonymous reviewers for valuable comments that have improved the quality of this study.
Appendix
Structured procedure for evaluating LE based on the SPAR-4-SLR framework.
Annual citation distribution of LE publications (1925–2024).
The 50 most cited papers in LE (1925–2024), ranked by total and annual citations.
Table A4 presents the most prolific contributors among institutions and countries, based on the number of unique publications that cite LE (TP denotes unique citing publications). Institutionally, the U.S. Department of Agriculture dominates with 850 unique citing publications, aligning with its mandate on agricultural economics, conservation, and resource management. It is followed by CGIAR (606), a global partnership focused on food systems and sustainability, and Michigan State University (549), which has a strong tradition in applied environmental and agricultural economics. These institutions underscore LE’s utility in policy-driven and interdisciplinary research agendas.
At the national level, the United States overwhelmingly leads with 18,741 unique citing articles, constituting nearly half of all unique citing articles to LE. This reflects the journal’s U.S. origins and its alignment with key research themes in American environmental and resource economics. However, international engagement is also significant: China (3,861), the United Kingdom (3,654), Canada (2,413), and Australia (2,380) form the next tier of contributors, indicating LE’s broad global visibility and growing relevance across diverse geographic contexts.
Table A5 identifies the 49 most productive institutions in LE, ranked by the number of publications (TP), total citations (TC), and citation-per-paper (C/P) rates, alongside H-index values and their temporal contributions across four eras (D1 to D4). The University of Wisconsin–Madison (USA) emerges as the leading institution with 124 papers, 3,701 citations, and an H-index of 29. Its dominance is further marked by a consistent publication pattern across all decades, with especially strong representation in the early periods (D1 and D2).
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) ranks second with 101 publications and the highest cumulative citation count (4,284), reflecting both its policy relevance and research longevity. Notably, USDA also holds the highest H-index (35) and a robust citation-per-paper ratio (42.42), indicating sustained scholarly influence.
Oregon State University and the University of Maryland—each with over 50 publications and citation rates exceeding 35 per paper—demonstrate concentrated academic output in applied environmental and land policy research. The U.S. Forest Service also stands out with a C/P of 58.98, further underscoring the impact of government-affiliated research bodies in shaping LE’s scholarly footprint.
Most active contributors in citing LE articles, categorized by institutions and countries.
Most productive institutions in LE.
Institutions such as the University of California–Berkeley (C/P = 62.86), University of Minnesota–Twin Cities (C/P = 64.84), and University of Arizona (C/P = 86.70) reflect high citation efficiency despite producing fewer than 40 papers each. These results suggest that while publication volume remains a critical indicator of institutional involvement, several elite universities exert influence through highly cited, often interdisciplinary contributions.
The vast majority of listed institutions are based in the United States, highlighting LE’s historical U.S.-centrism. Non-U.S. representation includes the University of British Columbia and the University of Alberta (Canada), as well as the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. However, these appear less frequently and often with smaller temporal coverage, suggesting limited but emerging international engagement in recent decades.
Temporal analysis shows that while several institutions had their most productive periods in the early decades (e.g., D1 for Wisconsin and USDA), a significant number of institutions intensified their contribution in the post-1995 period (D3 and D4), indicating a shift toward modern, environmentally focused policy research. Institutions like the University of Georgia, Arizona State University, and the World Bank show diverse patterns of contribution across all eras, revealing a mix of academic and policy-driven knowledge production.
Table A6 presents the 50 most active countries in LE, ranking them by total publications (TP), total citations (TC), H-index, citation-per-paper (C/P), and two population-normalized metrics: papers per million inhabitants (P/Po) and citations per million inhabitants (C/Po). The United States stands as the journal’s epicenter with 2,197 papers and 64,108 citations, yielding a dominant H-index of 119 and a P/Po of 6.33—over four times higher than the global median. The U.S. also shows balanced temporal contributions across all four eras, reflecting its longstanding leadership in land and environmental economics. Canada and the UK follow distantly in publication count but demonstrate high citation density and influence. Canada’s H-index (31) and C/Po (96.76) indicate broad dissemination relative to population, while the UK outperforms in C/P (38.4) and H-index (36), with a publication surge post-1995. Notably, smaller nations like Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, and Switzerland rank far higher when population-adjusted metrics are considered. Norway, for instance, despite publishing just 60 papers, leads all countries in citations per million inhabitants (C/Po = 314.41), followed by New Zealand (209.77) and Denmark (170.39), highlighting their outsized intellectual contributions.
Most productive and influential countries in LE.
Conversely, populous nations such as China and India register modest engagement with LE despite their broader research expansions. China, with 32 papers and 794 citations, yields a P/Po of only 0.02, and India registers the lowest C/Po (0.03) among countries with at least five papers. These disparities suggest that LE’s niche remains concentrated in economically advanced, Anglophone, and environmentally policy-focused regions.
The data also show the emergence of Global South nations—such as Ethiopia, Chile, and Kenya—with high citation-per-paper scores relative to their volume, possibly indicating the influence of region-specific, high-impact contributions or collaborations. Ethiopia, for instance, has a C/P of 87.75 from just 4 papers, suggesting targeted but influential scholarship.
Temporal distribution reveals that most countries increased their publication share in the post-1995 period (D3 and D4), particularly in Europe, Oceania, and East Asia. This shift aligns with the globalization of environmental policy discourse and the growing relevance of interdisciplinary land use studies in national research agendas. Nonetheless, the dominance of the U.S. and its institutions remains structurally embedded in the journal’s citation and publication architecture.
Table A7 presents the longitudinal trajectory of contributions to LE by the top 20 countries and top 10 institutions from 2005 to 2024. The United States consistently dominates the journal’s authorship landscape with an average of ~27 papers annually and no single year falling below 18 publications. The U.S.’s sustained productivity reflects its entrenched institutional presence and intellectual leadership in land and environmental economics, corroborated by the dominant roles of institutions such as the University of Wisconsin–Madison, USDA, and Oregon State University.
Among other countries, Canada and the UK show modest but consistent activity, with peak years of contribution emerging after 2010, indicating growing scholarly attention to LE-aligned topics within these countries’ research agendas. Germany, Norway, and Australia also reflect this upward trend, although their annual outputs exhibit more variability. Notably, Norway maintains a relatively steady presence despite its smaller population base, aligning with its high population-normalized productivity observed in Table A6.
In Asia, China and Japan demonstrate a gradual increase in publications over the two decades. China, while still underrepresented in total output, has expanded its contributions since 2015, reflecting the broader globalization of environmental economics scholarship. Conversely, countries like Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands exhibit episodic contributions that cluster in specific years, likely driven by collaborative or policy-relevant projects.
On the institutional front, the University of Wisconsin–Madison leads with 124 papers, though its output is concentrated in earlier years (notably 2011–2013), with fewer recent contributions. The USDA displays consistent productivity across the full period, indicative of its central role in policy-driven research. Other U.S. institutions such as Oregon State, Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and the US Forest Service maintain moderate but stable output levels.
Institutional participation from outside the U.S. remains limited in this list, underscoring LE’s traditional North American orientation. However, recent increases in contributions from institutions like Cornell, Michigan State, and Ohio State may signal renewed interest in LE’s thematic focus, possibly driven by evolving policy frameworks and interdisciplinary research trends.
The table illustrates a pattern of concentration—both geographically and institutionally—suggesting that while LE maintains a global readership, its authorship base is primarily situated in a selective group of North American public research institutions. This concentration highlights both the journal’s legacy within this scholarly community and the potential for diversification as environmental challenges become increasingly global.
Annual publication trends (2005–2024) of the most productive countries and institutions contributing to LE.
Table A8 categorizes the publication performance of LE by supranational regions, illustrating pronounced geographic concentration. North America overwhelmingly dominates, accounting for 2,334 papers (nearly 83% of the total) with 66,958 citations, an H-index of 120, and 28.69 citations per paper. This aligns with the historical roots of the journal and the centrality of U.S. and Canadian institutions in land and resource economics. Additionally, the high paper- and citation-per-million-population indicators (6.03 and 173.04, respectively) underscore the region's intellectual density and infrastructural support for sustained scholarly output.
Europe ranks second, contributing 341 publications with a cumulative 11,494 citations and a high H-index of 56. While its total output is modest relative to North America, Europe demonstrates a higher citation-per-paper rate (33.71), indicating a stronger average impact. Temporal distribution reveals an acceleration of European contributions post-1995, likely influenced by EU-wide funding schemes and growing interest in sustainability economics.
Asia contributes 100 papers, with a relatively low C/P value (22.08), reflecting limited yet growing engagement. Importantly, most of these papers were published in the most recent decade (D4), showing a clear upward trajectory led by China and Japan. Despite this, Asia exhibits minimal productivity and impact per capita, suggesting untapped potential and possible access barriers or prioritization of local journals.
Oceania, driven mainly by Australian and New Zealand institutions, provides 77 papers and 2,932 citations, boasting the highest citation-per-paper ratio (38.08) among all regions. Its strong performance normalized by population (1.66 papers and 63.09 citations per million) further confirms Oceania’s high-efficiency research output, particularly notable given its small population base.
Latin America and Africa remain underrepresented with 32 and 16 papers, respectively, although Africa’s citation-per-paper ratio (36.44) is on par with leading regions, driven by a few high-impact studies. Both regions show minimal per-capita indicators, pointing to systemic limitations in research funding and visibility in top-tier economics journals.
The table highlights the persistent geographical concentration of LE’s authorship in the Global North, particularly in North America, with emerging contributions from Asia and underexploited participation from the Global South. These findings echo broader patterns in economic research and underscore the journal’s opportunity to engage more diverse regional perspectives as global sustainability and land use issues intensify.
Regional distribution of publication and citation output in LE.
Co-citation network of journals cited in LE, based on a minimum of 30 citations and 200 inter-journal links (VOSviewer).
Co-citation map of documents cited in LE, based on a minimum threshold of 15 citations and 100 links (VOSviewer).
Co-citation network of authors cited in LE, using a minimum threshold of 40 citations and 100 links (VOSviewer).
Bibliographic coupling of documents published in LE, with a minimum of 100 citations and 100 inter-document links (VOSviewer).
Figure A5 illustrates the bibliographic coupling of LE authors who have published at least five papers and share a minimum of 100 citation links. Node color represents the average year of publication (from blue = early to red = recent), aligned with productivity and influence patterns in Table 8 in the main text. The central orange cluster represents recent contributors (post-2010), including Plantinga, Klaiber, Lewis, Lupi, and Deininger, who are linked through land use dynamics, climate policy, and spatial econometrics. Their tight interconnectivity reflects shared reference frameworks in contemporary land and resource modeling.
The yellow–green cluster features enduring authors such as Boyle, Hanley, McConnell, Loomis, and Smith, known for their seminal work in environmental valuation and policy evaluation. Their sustained presence since the early 2000s positions them at the methodological core of LE. A green subcluster, including Bishop, Brown, and Opaluch, bridges the empirical and theoretical traditions in resource and benefit transfer studies, maintaining relevance across decades.
Peripheral authors in blue (e.g., Evans, Andrews, Wehrwein) represent LE’s early contributors from the 1940s–1970s. Despite limited contemporary connectivity, their historical prominence is preserved in Table 8 through high publication counts. The structure shows that while LE has expanded into modern land use, conservation, and econometric modeling, its citation fabric remains anchored in foundational valuation and policy assessment literature. The coupling map reflects both generational continuity and thematic renewal in the journal’s author community.
Figure A6 visualizes the inter-institutional structure of bibliographic coupling in LE, highlighting institutions with shared citation patterns. Color indicates the average publication year (blue = earlier, red = more recent), aligning with productivity metrics in Table A5. At the center of the network, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University of Illinois, and Ohio State University form the densest core, reflecting their long-standing and diverse contributions to LE across multiple domains—valuation, land use, and agricultural policy. Their strong connections with institutions like Michigan State, Maryland, and UC Berkeley indicate shared disciplinary foundations and methodological overlap.
Oregon State University, Cornell, USDA, and US Forest Service appear as key nodes bridging applied environmental economics and federal land policy research. These institutions consistently show high coupling density, confirming their leadership in integrating empirical resource studies within LE. Emerging players such as Duke, Arizona, Florida, and Texas A&M, exhibit increasingly warm node colors, suggesting greater publication activity in the past decade—often focused on spatial modeling, ecosystem service valuation, or behavioral economics.
Peripheral institutions—e.g., University of Western Australia, Peking University, and Leeds—represent LE’s growing internationalization, though their link density remains moderate due to field-specific or regional citation networks. The coupling structure reflects a mature and collaborative research environment, with U.S.-based institutions dominating both output and intellectual connectivity. The spread of color gradients from blue to red also signals LE’s sustained renewal, as established institutions integrate with newer research hubs.
Bibliographic coupling of authors publishing in LE, with a minimum of 5 documents and 100 links (VOSviewer).
Bibliographic coupling of institutions publishing in LE, with a minimum of 5 publications and 100 shared reference links (VOSviewer).
Figure A7 depicts the bibliographic coupling network of countries contributing to LE, reflecting shared citation practices and intellectual linkages. Node size corresponds to publication volume; color indicates average publication year (blue = earlier, red = recent), aligned with Table 10 in the main text. The USA dominates the network with the largest node and the strongest links, acting as the central hub of global LE scholarship. It exhibits robust coupling with Canada, Germany, England, and Australia, reflecting sustained collaboration and methodological alignment in land use, environmental policy, and valuation studies.
Germany, Canada, and England form secondary hubs, tightly linked with each other and with multiple European nations (e.g., Sweden, Netherlands, France), indicating a strong regional research fabric. Australia and New Zealand show dense interlinkages with Anglo-American and European countries, underlining their active role in applied environmental economics and land use research within LE. Emerging economies like China, India, and Chile appear with thinner links and warmer node colors, indicating more recent and growing engagement with LE’s research topics. Their ties are primarily anchored to the USA and key European countries. The map highlights the USA’s centrality, the clustering of established economies, and the increasing bibliographic integration of newer contributors in LE’s global knowledge network.
Bibliographic coupling of countries publishing in LE, with a minimum of 5 publications and 50 shared reference links (VOSviewer).
Co-occurrence network of Keywords Plus in LE, showing terms with at least 5 occurrences and 100 co-linkages (VOSviewer).
Most frequent Keywords Plus in LE globally and by period (1995–2024), and the evolution of core concepts and emerging topics.
Trend topics in LE generated using Bibliometrix and the temporal evolution and peak periods of key research themes.
Thematic map of LE with the 250 most frequent author keywords (minimum cluster frequency of 4), generated using Bibliometrix with the Walktrap clustering algorithm.
Table A10 presents the most prominent topic clusters in LE research between 2014 and 2023, as identified in Scopus via the SciVal platform. These clusters reflect aggregated thematic areas, offering a broader perspective on LE’s intellectual landscape. The analysis uses the FWCI to measure citation performance relative to the world average in similar fields (Purkayastha et al. 2019) and worldwide PP to indicate relative global visibility (Klavans and Boyack 2017). The “Natural Resource; Land Use Change; Contingent Valuation” cluster (61 papers; FWCI 0.76; PP 95.55) leads, underscoring LE’s sustained focus on environmental valuation and land use dynamics. The “Housing Market; Regression Analysis; Real Estate Sector” cluster (52 papers; FWCI 0.76; PP 43.62) highlights the journal’s enduring contributions to urban and housing economics, though with moderate global visibility.
Clusters such as “Data Envelopment Analysis; Industry; Regression Analysis” (FWCI 1.18; PP 80.37) and “Climate Change; Disaster Management; Social Media” (FWCI 1.27; PP 91.23) demonstrate above-average citation performance, pointing to LE’s engagement with methodological innovations and emerging societal challenges. Similarly, “Water Distribution; Hydraulics; Water-Energy Nexus” achieved the highest FWCI (1.67), indicating strong citation impact despite modest output. Conversely, clusters like “Property Right; Political Ecology; Ownership” (PP 13.99) and “Volunteering; Altruism; Pricing” (PP 43.36) show lower global prominence, suggesting niche or localized interest. Overall, these clusters reveal LE’s diverse scholarly contributions across environmental economics, housing markets, water policy, and climate change, with varying degrees of citation influence and visibility.
Leading topic clusters in LE between 2014 and 2023 (SciVal – Scopus).
Footnotes
↵1 The WoS Core Collection is available at https://clarivate.com; the Scopus database is available at https://www.scopus.com.
↵3 See the journal’s centennial microsite at https://le.uwpress.org/page/centennial.
↵4 The VOSviewer software tool is available at https://www.vosviewer.com.
↵5 See the SciVal reference guide, at https://scival.com/
↵6 To preserve the use of color and accommodate layout considerations, many of the figures and tables are provided in the Appendix.
This open access article is freely available online at: http://le.uwpress.org.
References
In this issue
Jump to section
Related Articles
Cited By...
- No citing articles found.