How much is a bat worth? Protecting these tiny insect-eaters isn’t just good for farms – their deaths cost taxpayers and the wider economy

By Dale Manning, Associate Professor in Public Policy and Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Tennessee
Anya Nakhmurina, Associate Professor of Accounting, Yale University
Eli Fenichel, Professor of Natural Resource Economics, Yale University

Most Americans tend to think about bats only around Halloween, but the U.S. economy benefits from these furry flying mammals every day.

Bats pollinate plants, including many important food crops, when they stop by flowers to drink nectar. Their guano is mined from caves for fertilizer. And they eat a lot of bugs – the…

Read complete article

~	Julius Malema: South Africa’s performative revolutionary is facing his biggest battle

~	Informal workers in Lagos are left to cope with devastating floods alone: why things must change

~	In Sudan, a migrant community reveals a resistance to malaria: the genetic study helping shape medicine

~	New York Considers Measures to Rein in ICE

~	Angus Taylor promises to index income tax to inflation in big tax gamble

~	Grattan on Friday: Taylor’s bold budget reply is a mix of sound and dubious policy commitments

~	How the world can avoid millions going hungry when supply chains collapse

~	Westlife at 25: how the boyband emerged during Ireland’s economic boom

~	Pregnancy is a chance to reshape family eating habits before the baby arrives

~	How severe has the economic impact of the Iran war been for the Gulf states?