The second generation of ecological economics: How far has the apple fallen from the tree?

- We process 6237 abstracts of articles published in four journals since 1989.
- We examine how scientific discourse produced in Ecological Economics has evolved.
- Ecological economic discourse is converging toward environmental economics.
- Valuation of ecosystem service discourse becomes central in ecological economics.
- Prevalence of pragmatism in the field and in the editorship explains this trend.

This paper examines the discourse produced in the academic journal Ecological Economics from its inception in 1989, and compares this discourse with that of the field of environmental economics. I used methods for discourse analysis (Alceste and Iramuteq) on 6308 abstracts of papers published in four journals - namely Ecological Economics, the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Environmental Values, and Environmental and Resource Economics, published between 1989 and 2013. The results suggest that the discourses of ecological economics and environmental economics have grown closer over time. The semantic classification of co-occurrent terms used in Ecological Economics indicates increasing significance of the notions of ecosystem services and of monetary valuation. I argue that this trend is parallel to Costanza's career-path, which suggests the rise of a tacit recognition of the New Environmental Pragmatic scientific approach. I conclude with some of the implications for EE of promoting this kind of discourse to such an extent.