Mapping the Knowledge Structure of Agricultural Economic Studies: A Co-Word Analysis

Abstract

The study of agricultural economics has evolved significantly over the years, with various research areas and subfields emerging. This study aims to map the knowledge structure of agricultural economic studies using co-word analysis. A total of 21,730 articles published between 1985 and 2022 in agricultural economics were retrieved from the Web of Science database. The titles and abstracts of these articles were analyzed using VOSviewer software to create a map of the most frequently occurring terms. The results showed that in terms of frequency, the keyword “agriculture” had the highest frequency, and in terms of co-occurrence, the two keywords “poverty” and “panel data” had the highest frequency. The results of the co-word analysis showed that the research areas of agricultural economics studies were divided into six main clusters: (1) technology adoption, (2) demand, (3) agricultural policy, (4) trade and markets, (5) productivity and efficiency, and (6) risk. This analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the knowledge structure of agricultural economics and can guide future research and policy development in this area.

Keywords

• agricultural economics
• knowledge map
• scientometrics
• co-word analysis