AERE@SEA ["Abstract submission for the five regional and national meetings at which AERE sponsors sessions each year"]

From the inbox (without my name following "Dear," it becomes a term of endearment, right?):

Dear ,

We’re excited to announce the new AERE website with up-to-date information about conferences, job opportunities, and all AERE news, as well as improved functionality! 

We hope you can take a moment to explore the site, which will be your portal for:

- Access to every issue of JAERE and REEP and the AERE Newsletter;

- Registration for AERE events;

- Abstract submission for the AERE Summer Conference;

- Abstract submission for the five regional and national meetings at which AERE sponsors sessions each year;

- Announcements for conferences and jobs; and

- Information on how to nominate someone for AERE honors and awards.

Click here for the newly designed website's homepage.

The big change in the website that I'm most excited about is the institutionalization (is that a word?) of the "AERE@SEA" sessions (and other regional meetings). As Glenn Blomquist reminded me at the SEA meetings in DC, this started at Murphy's Bar in DC with a conversation between Jim Kahn, Glenn and myself about trying to organize environmental sessions. Jim and I began organizing "SAPCREE" (Southern Appalachian Committee for Resource and Environmental Economics) sessions with later became "SCREE" (dropping Appalachian). The last year that I was on the AERE board I timidly described what was going on at the regional meetings and made the case that there were a bunch of good economists who couldn't get on the AERE program at the ASSA meetings and couldn't AERE sponsor sessions at regional meetings? The board agreed and for a number of years I submitted proposed sessions to the AERE program committee their approval. After several years of rubber stamping I quit submitting them for AERE's approval and no one noticed. Since then AERE sessions have been organized for the Western and Midwest meetings (now we need an environmental champion for the Eastern meetings).

Here is some data from the first 8 years of 10 years of AERE sessions. The number of papers presented has ranged from 23 to 48 with an average of 35. The number of these papers published in peer-reviewed journals under the same title has ranged from 9 to 17 with an average of 12. The number of citations has ranged from 9 to 437 with an average of 125. Since my paper titles always seem to change from a conference to a journal, my guess is that the latter two numbers understate the quality of the work presented by AERE members at the SEA meetings. 

Table 1. AERE@SEA session data

Year	Papers Presented	Papers Published	Citations
2007	23	11	144
2008	43	17	437
2009	32	9	70
2010	34	14	123
2011	32	13	147
2012	41	10	9
2013	25	13	61
2014	48	12	12

This past year we had the most sessions (25) and papers (105) ever (Figure 1) [and the most cancellations (which got out of hand)... but that is another story]. The almost final program [PDF] included 24  sessions and 96 papers. AERE@SEA has become part of the AERE's online submission process (see the "submit abstracts" portion of http://www.aere.org/aere-sea) which should improve the quality and efficiency of session organization (I hoping: 1. no more soft deadlines, 2. no more lost abstracts, 3. fewer cancellations, 4. a program committee). 

Figure 1. 105 papers initially scheduled for presentation in the 2016 AERE@SEA sessions (5 of these were student sessions). 

1. Electricity - 4
2. Weather - 4
3. Agriculture - 4
4. Adaptation - 4
5. Residuals - 4
6. Transportation and Environmental Economics - 6
7. Stated Preferences - 5
8. Energy - 5
9. Hedonics - 3
10. Forests - 4
11. Pollution - 5
12. Technological Change and Fisheries - 5
13. Hazards - 4
14. Choice Experiments - 5
15. Health - 3
16. Renewable Energy - 4
17. Bioeconomics - 3
18. Managing Flood Risk - 4
19. Recreation - 4
20. Nudges - 5
21. Development - 4
22. Topics on the Environment and Natural Resources - 5
23. Natural Resources - 4
24. Regulation - 4
25. Climate - 3