Suggestions on graduate school decision

[gradfusion]

I am new to this forum and this is my first post. I am finishing up my Master's in Economics in US and all my background undergraduate work is also in Economics. I am trying to decide what kind of graduate school to apply to.

My interest spans various fields but the theme is that of sustainable development which involves bringing together people and their local environment. My problem with Environment and Resource Economics is that it sees environment as being subsumed within the economy and hence believes that more can be produced always. In that sense, I am more of an ecological economist who believes that environment contains the economy and not the other way round. So I have been thinking along the lines of going into ecological anthroplogy since it will look at environment-human linkage but I am not familiar with the discipline of anthropology to the extent that I would be aware of its shortcomings. Besides, being trained in a rigorous field such as Economics I also like the quantitative and structured approach that it takes to solving problems. I don't necessarily agree with its assumptions of rationality, perfect information and certainty. But I respect quantitative methods as an approach to problems. Anthropology is likely to involve more qualitative methods and ethnographic studies which I am not sure I want to do or may want to do once I am exposed to them.

I am looking for Ph.D. programs for next year and I wonder whether I should look at Public Policy programs, Econ, Development Studies or Anthro schools.

I see myself working as a researcher for a development organization and eventually, heading a research wing. I would also like to get involved in activistic work at local and community level in my home country which is still a developing country with a lot of structual problems.

Could someone throw some light on what kind of programs I should be looking at in the US? I am also open to programs in Canada.

Thanks for reading and responding.