Steve Levitt

Pharmacopoeia has one, and the International Codex Alimentarius has another.

But none of them are legally binding in the United States.

One of the big reasons that tighter standards aren't in place is that adulterated honey isn't considered a food safety issue.

Compared to something like adulterated baby formula, it doesn't seem like such a big deal, right?

It's not a matter of life and death.

Where does Michael Roberts come down on that question?

After the break, we've heard about the beekeepers, but what about the bees?

I'm Steve Levitt.

You're listening to Freakonomics Radio.

We'll be right back.

Before the break, we were talking about the unintended consequences of food fraud.

So let's speak with an economist.

It does seem appropriate that a University of Chicago-trained economist would be the authority on the economics of honeybees, both because it's not the typical thing you'd expect an economist to know about,

And because there are so many aspects of the honeybee economics that are hard to make sense of unless you think hard about markets and how markets work.

How did you first get interested in the economics of honeybees?

Economists have been interested in one particular aspect of honeybees for a long time.

I think it was back in the 1950s.

that the future Nobel Prize winner James Mead highlighted a very economically unusual feature of the relationship between honeybees and apple orchards.

Could you describe what makes that relationship of special interest to economists?

An economic struggle, and that's what we call a positive externality.