A friend of mine recently asked me how an economist might solve the issue of subsidies to the world’s fisheries, which some including myself, think are promoting overexploitation of fish around the world. I kept my response as short as possible (sometimes I get wordy in e-mail) but wanted to expand on some ideas here. [...]

It’s not too surprising that the Alakrana, a Spanish tuna fishing boat subsidized with € 4.3 million ($5.8 million USD), has caught illegally fishing off the coast of Somalia. For me, what is more interesting is that there seems to be some meat to the theory that there is a link between Somali piracy and [...]

This infographic says it all. What the image tells us is that government subsidies are disproportionately lowering the cost of food items thought to be responsible for obesity. When you arrive at the grocery store to find that meat is cheaper than vegetables, the decision for a thrifty shopper is to consume more of foods [...]