Chapter 15 The economics of outdoor recreation The economics of outdoor recreation deals with the supply of and demand for natural resources for recreational purposes. This chapter discusses the conceptual and empirical approaches problems and solutions encountered in applying economics to the provision of natural resources and explains the way in which the evolution of the economics of outdoor recreation has been influenced by the distinctive nature of markets for outdoor recreation. The distinctive characteristic of a recreational activity is that the services usually are provided by the public sector. This characteristic strongly favors the nature of research on outdoor recreation economics; it is welfare economics in action with the task of providing the public sector better information about the allocation of recreational resources. As a tool for analyzing decisions in the public sector outdoor recreation economics has primarily become the study of the demand for outdoor recreation. Public sector decisions about natural resources tend to be lumpythat is whether to utilize a resource for a specific purpose such as recreation.