Federal subsidies come in a variety of forms, from the overt (a check from the Treasury) to the vaguely disguised (accelerated tax depreciation) to the well-concealed (government insurance for less than the real cost). If you know your way around federal documents and are willing to work hard, you can uncover most of them. But a lot of the spadework has already been done, thanks to Subsidyscope, a joint effort of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Policy Group and the Sunlight Foundation. The new site has catalogued subsidies going to the transportation, financial services, energy and non-profit sectors, and will add health care, housing and agriculture. It even includes datasets that can be downloaded and used by researchers at no cost.
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One-Stop Shopping |
Professor Dieter Helm (Oxford) is a very fine fly fisherman, and an even better economist. If you haven’t done so, take a look at his new book “The Carbon Crunch: How We Are Getting Climate Change Wrong — and How to Fix It” for a bit of unconventional wisdom. He argues that politicians and the general public have not shown any real interest in addressing climate change. Helm argues that places like Europe should focus on setting a price for carbon that would cover consumption (and not just production), and that fracking could be a good “bridge” technology for reducing consumption of coal. The book is readable and insightful for those interested in the inside track on climate policy. 
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