Rate My Professor Scott Temple

Scott Templeton is an Associate Professor of Economics in the John E. Walker Department of Economics at Clemson University, part of the Wilbur O. and Ann Powers College of Business, focusing on Business & Economics with a specialization in agricultural, environmental, and natural resource economics. Holding a Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley (1994), an M.S. in Applied Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz (1987), and a B.A. in Economics from UC Santa Cruz (1983), he has been a faculty member at Clemson since July 2000. Over his twenty-five years at the university, Templeton has taught numerous courses such as Economics of Environmental Quality, Natural Resource Use, Technology, and Policy, Environmental Economics, Managerial Economics, Microeconomics for Public Policy, Applied Mathematical Economics, Dynamic Optimization with Economic Applications, and Introductory Statistics.

Templeton's research interests include laboratory experiments on dynamic efficiency, adoption and valuation of institutional and technical innovations that affect environmental quality, sustainable use of natural resources, and regional economics. Specific areas of study encompass tests of prices and dynamically efficient use of non-renewable resources using data from experimental markets, the bio-economic survival of trees with pitch canker in California's urban forests, and the spread of irrigation use by farmers in coastal states of the South Atlantic USA over the past two decades. He has published in prominent journals including Weather, Climate, and Society ("Farmer Interest in and Uses of Climate Forecasts for Florida and the Carolinas: Conditional Perspectives of Extension Personnel," 2018), Regional Environmental Change ("Usefulness and Uses of Climate Forecasts for Agricultural Extension in South Carolina, USA," 2014), Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics ("What Explains the Incidence of the Use of a Common Sediment Control on Lots with Houses under Construction?," 2010), and Environmental and Resource Economics ("Household Use of Agricultural Chemicals for Pest-Soil Management and Own Labor for Yard Work," 2008). Recent book chapters include "Peter Berck’s Contributions to Forestry Economics" and "Integrated Management of Bark Beetles: Economic Contributions of Peter Berck and Foundational Entomological Research" (both 2023, in Sustainable Resource Development in the 21st Century). Templeton coordinated the MA in Economics program from 2017 to 2024 and the MS in Economic Analytics from 2020 to 2024, and has served on Clemson's MBA Council since 2012 and its Sustainability Commission since December 2024.