John Rolfe is a resource economist who is Professor of Regional Economic Development in the School of Business and Law at the CQ University at Rockhampton, and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Professor Rolfe has a number of research interests, but specialises in non-market valuation, regional development, environmental, resource and agricultural economic issues, agricultural adoption, and economic impact assessment in regional areas. He co-edited two important reference books on the topic of non-market valuation and benefit transfer in 2006 and 2015, and has published in a number of discipline areas outside his core skills in Applied Economics, including agricultural management, environmental reporting, impact assessment, and regional development,.

Professor Rolfe has led a number of major research projects (> 40) over the past 10 years for a total funding value of more than $7.4M. His research has been funded through a number of sources, including the Australian Research Council grants, Australian and State Governments, Research and Development Corporations, and industry grants. He has supervised a number of PhD and Masters students to completion, as well as post-doctoral researchers. Professor Rolfe is a past Editor-in-Chief for a major applied economics journal, the Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

Professor Rolfe’s standing in the resource economics field in Australia is shown by his participation in the national Environmental Economics Research Hub, from 2007-2011, where he was one of four program directors. In 2011, he was identified by Regional Development Australia as one of the most influential academics in Australia in regional development issues. He has served as the Independent Chair for the Gladstone Regional Community Consultative Committee on the basis of his expertise in impact assessment since 2012, and as Chair of the Gladstone Healthy Harbour Partnership Independent Science Panel as an expert in resource economics since 2016. In 2012-2013 and again in 2016-2017 he was one of the leaders of the 2013 Great Barrier Reef Science Consensus Statement, reflecting his expertise in this topic. In 2014-15 he acted as an expert in agricultural and development economics to an Expert Working Group in the Australian Council of Learned Academics. In 2019 he was appointed by the Queensland and Australian Governments to the Great Barrier Reef Independent Science Panel.

Professor Rolfe has extensive practical and policy experience on the intersection of agricultural and environmental issues in northern Australia, with a focus on economic analysis. At an academic level his key impacts are largely in the development and application of non-market valuation techniques, particularly choice modelling, and the transfer of those values to different case study settings. At a policy level, he has had a major role in applying economic analysis to key issues in regional development, agricultural development and resource protection, with a particular emphasis on dealing with agricultural water quality issues into the Great Barrier Reef.John has a number of research interests, but specialises in non-market valuation, regional development, environmental, resource and agricultural economic issues, agricultural adoption, and economic impact assessment in regional areas. He has 115 refereed publications in the form of journal articles, book chapters, book reviews and conference papers, and a further 250 non-refereed journal articles, conference papers and research reports. John Rolfe has more than 2,000 citations and an H-index of 25 in Scopus, and 5,900 citations and a H-Index of 37 in Google Scholar.

Professor Rolfe has extensive practical and policy experience with agricultural and environmental issues in northern Australia. He has a background in agriculture and operated a cattle property in the Central Queensland region for a number of years. John has worked at Central Queensland University in part-time and then full time roles since 1989. As well as academic roles, he has also held a number of management positions in different parts of the University, including Head of Campus, Head of School, Director of Research Centre, and Deputy Dean Research. He served as President of the Australasian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society in 2019-20.