Environmental economics is a subfield of economics concerned with environmental issues. As economics deals with the allocation of resources through markets that are impacted by the behaviors of the public, businesses, and institutions environmental economics looks closer at how environmental and natural resources are developed and managed.  This field of economics has been traced back to the 1960s with the increase in awareness and concern for environmental stabilities and resource preservation.  

Environmental economics are studied by agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency in the US to improve the effectiveness of its environmental policies.  Particular issues include the costs and benefits of alternative environmental policies to deal with air pollution, water quality, toxic substances, solid waste, and global warming.

Environmental economics and ecological economics are closely related in subject matter but differ as ecological economics focuses on sustainability and rejects the proposition that human-made capital can substitute for natural capital. 

Some current research and development areas include: valuation of natural resources, sustainable agriculture and development, environmentally integrated technology, integrated environmental-economic modeling at local to regional to global scaling, renewable resource management and conservation, current economic and environmental paradigms and the implications of alternative innovations, consequences of genetically engineered organisms, and gene pool inventory and management, alternative principles for valuing natural wealth, and lastly, integrating natural resources and environmental services into local and national income.