Lollipops, Politics, and Economics: It’s Complicated

NPR’s Planet Money recently ran a story titled “The Lollipop War.” The story illustrates why regulating economic policy can be difficult.

Sugar costs more in the U.S. than in the rest of the world. If you’re in the candy business — if, say, you make 10 million lollipops a day — that’s a big deal.

On today’s show, we visit a candy factory in Ohio (where they want U.S. sugar to be cheaper) and a sugar-beet field in Minnesota (where they don’t). And, perhaps inevitably, we hear from Washington, where the fight over sugar has been playing out for years.