Comment: Future directions for Australasian environmental economics

The review of the past contributions of Australasian (Australia and New Zealand) environmental economists by Bennett and Randall (2016) provides a valuable window to the past 60 years. In their categorisation of notable contributions, they highlight the conceptual advances, analytical tools, crossdisciplinary fertilisation and multidisciplinary advances over the preceding decades. According to them, and we concur, Australasian economists have, to date, ‘punched above their weight’ in terms of their global impact. The key questions that we pose, as discussants to Bennett and Randall, include the following: Will Australasian environmental economists continue to outperform relative to their peers elsewhere in the world? And, if so, how might this be accomplished? By necessity, this requires us to speculate on possible futures for the environmental economics discipline in general, and the relative strengths and future expertise of Australasian economists in particular. We see our contribution as not so much predicting the future, but rather highlighting possible future directions for environmental economics and pathways for research investment in Australia and New Zealand.