Fifty Years of Industrial Organization in Agricultural Economics: Evidence, Evolution, and Emerging Directions

Over the past 2 decades, industrial organization (IO) research has gained substantial influence within agricultural and resource economics (ARE). We document this shift using state-of-the-art AI models and a targeted survey of IO scholars. Drawing on 18,809 articles published in the top 10 ARE journals (1975–2024) and 8,284 articles from five leading IO journals, we trace changes in thematic focus, methodological approaches, and citation trends. A central finding is that IO research in ARE has experienced a marked rise in scholarly influence since the early 2000s. We explore potential drivers of this trend and highlight areas where IO scholarship is especially uniquely positioned to shape future research. Beyond the substantive contributions, we demonstrate how AI tools can be used to map the intellectual evolution of economic subfields at scale.