OSU’s Wade Brorsen to receive his profession’s most prestigious honor

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Wade Brorsen of Oklahoma State University’s Division of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources has been named a 2014 Fellow by the Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.

“Being recognized as an AAEA Fellow is our profession’s most prestigious honor, reserved for individuals who have provided continuous contribution to the advancement of agricultural and applied economics,” said Damona Doye, interim head of the OSU Department of Agricultural Economics. “Dr. Brorsen is the department’s first AAEA Fellow in 30 years.”

Brorsen will be officially honored during the AAEA’s annual meeting this summer.

An OSU faculty member since 1991, Brorsen’s significant contributions include an outstanding and extensive research program, AAEA-winning teaching efforts and professional service as an editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics and the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

“Wade’s productivity is nothing short of stellar,” Doye said. “His works have been cited more than 3,550 times according to Google Scholar, which is an extremely large number for an agricultural economist who doesn’t work in natural resources or international development and who has never chased trendy topics.”

Brorsen has 190 refereed journal articles, a rate of more than six per professional year, among the profession’s highest publication rates. His work has been used in policy discussions by government agencies such as the U.S. General Accounting Office.

Examples of topics in which Brorsen has provided cutting-edge insights include satellite video auctions, feeder cattle price slides, lean-pork pricing systems, the banning of subtherapeutic antibiotics, neural networks, global optimization methods, effects of crop reports, futures market basis, price lead-lag relationships, forward contracting costs and factors affecting futures market success.

“Wade’s work has been used extensively by others in the profession, and has changed the way Cooperative Extension economists develop marketing programs for clientele,” Doye said. “It’s difficult to think of an area in price analysis about which he has not written.”

Brorsen has received Outstanding Graduate Teacher awards by AAEA and OSU. All of his graduate students have published a refereed journal article from their thesis work. A dozen of his former Ph.D. students are faculty members at colleges and universities in six different countries.

“I know Dr. Brorsen has had a huge impact on the careers of young faculty and other professionals because I was one of them,” said Lydia Zepeda, professor of consumer science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “He provided the most useful mentoring of my career.”

An OSU Regents professor since 1996, Brorsen is the current holder of the A.J and Susan Jacques Chair in agricultural economics. Prior to that, he was the holder of the OSU Jean and Patsy Neustadt Chair in agricultural economics from 2001 to 2011.

Brorsen is a Cowboy alumnus, having earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in agricultural economics from OSU in 1979 and 1980, respectively. He earned his doctoral degree in agricultural economics from Texas A&M University in 1983 and a second Master of Science degree, this one in statistics, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990.