The Economics of Regional Economics Associations

Abstract

Membership and conference attendance trends of regional economics associations are reported and analyzed. Although membership and conference attendance grow steadily at the American Economic Association, both are stagnant for the regional associations. Membership elasticity for economics associations ranges from ­0.25 to ­0.50; conference attendance is very inelastic with respect to registration fees. While the regional associations may find it challenging to grow, they have the capacity to expand revenues if that should be necessary to survive.