Environmental Economics

Environmental economics loosely defines a body of academic research that applies the values and tools of mainstream economics to the task of integrating the environment in economic decision making. Originating mostly in the 1960s and 1970s, environmental economics developed simultaneous to an emerging public awareness of environmental crisis. Unlike much of the environmental movements around the globe, however, environmental economics has deliberately stayed away from more fundamental philosophical questions about the interaction between humans and nature, and instead concentrated on the practical requirements of policy analysis and recommendations within the given economic and political context. Environmental economics, in this sense, also needs to be contrasted to competing schools of economics such as ecological economics and green economics, both of which deviate substantially from the premises ...