Planet Money
Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world.Wanna go deeper? Subscribe to Planet Money+ and get sponsor-free episodes of Planet Money, The Indicator, and Planet Money Summer School. Plus access to bonus content. It's a new way to support the show you love. Learn more at plus.npr.org/planetmoney
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Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School)
Let’s head to a small town in Kenya that’s become globally famous for helping economists answer some of the biggest questions facing humanity.<br/><br/>In Kenya and Nigeria, economics isn’t just theory, it’s real life. We’ll look at some radical experiments that turned out to be enormously successful.<br/><br/>What are the building blocks of health, education and prosperity for all? How does a nation grow rich? What is the most effective way to spend a dollar to fight poverty? We find answers in a town that became the laboratory for new concepts in economi...
Big Lettuce meets Small Intestine
The cyclospora outbreak that’s sickening thousands of Americans got us interested in the rise of Big Lettuce, and the challenges of keeping it clean. <br/><br/>So on today’s show, we tell you just how much lettuce Americans eat every year (SO MUCH!), how bagged lettuce came to dominate grocery store shelves, what that means for food safety, and why these outbreaks continue to happen — despite the FDA’s efforts to stop them.<br/><br/>Check out other related episodes:<br>Food Scare Squad<br>How refrigeration took over the world<br/><br/>Support:<br>Planet Money+<br/><br/>Read...
New NPR Series: "We Keep Us Safe" from the Embedded podcast
In the summer of 2020, sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement of his generation in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Antonio arrived in Seattle during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP. Less than a week later, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved.<br/><br/>In this eight-part series, hosts Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times and Will James of KUOW team up with NPR's Embedded to investigate Antonio's death. They track down key eyewitnesses and surface crucial evidence that's never been made public.<br/><br/>Find "...
Can World Cup mania grow MLS in the U.S.?
As the World Cup comes to a close, so does a massive real-time experiment happening just around the edges. Major League Soccer – the top men’s professional soccer league in the U.S. and Canada – has been scrambling to take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity when average American sports fans suddenly cared a lot about soccer.<br/><br/>In between World Cup matches, NPR Sports Correspondent Becky Sullivan has been following Major League Soccer executives as they try to figure out how best to get a foot in the door with sports fans in the U.S.<br/><br/>In this e...
Building things and breaking things in China (Summer School World Tour)
China’s turbocharged growth may have made it rich, but now it has to deal with rich country problems. <br/><br/>High-speed trains that connect every town. Gleaming new bridges and skyscrapers. An apartment (or two) for every family. No country on Earth has seen the kind of economic growth that China has over the last 50 years. China has become the factory to the world, a grand experiment in central government planning mixed with personal ambition. <br/><br/>It was all enabled by what our guide for today calls, an engineering state, a central planning mindset where leaders believe they can...
Seven allegedly fake Chanel bags vs The RealReal
Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a luxury brand item secondhand (say, a Chanel handbag) you had to have an in. There was no easy way to find one. But over the past decade, the market for secondhand luxury goods has exploded. There are now many online resellers where you can shop for used and discounted luxury items. One big problem — how can you be sure if it’s real and authentic?<br/><br/>Some online resellers claim to have solved this problem. They say they’ve developed a process of authentication, and so buyers can trust that t...
Our mission: Find the world’s best economic ideas (Summer School World Tour)
Come along as we travel the world in search of the best economic ideas to bring home!<br/><br/>From the beaches of Barbuda to the fjords of Norway, there's money (and money problems) everywhere. For this summer travel season, Planet Money Summer School will take you on a world tour for your ears. Pack that sense of wonder and nose for adventure, this is our semester abroad. We’re going to explore exotic locales and discover cultural norms, but we’re also going to buckle down and learn the biggest economic lessons around the world from our guides.<br/><br/>...
How to win a penalty shootout (with game theory)
Lionel Messi is arguably the greatest soccer scorer of all time. But when it comes to penalty kicks, Messi is merely average. Why? Maybe the answer involves game theory.<br/><br/>According to game theory, there’s an optimal strategy for taking penalty kicks. This strategy involves an idea that was once somewhat controversial in economics — that is, until economists started studying soccer players in real life. <br/><br/>On today's show, we kick it over to the hosts of the Soccernomics podcast to explain how game theory has changed soccer, and how soccer has changed game theory. <br/><br/>Watch...
Can the Trump administration make college cheaper?
Will limiting how much students can borrow force schools to lower their prices? <br/><br/>The Department of Education thinks so. It has a new plan to bring down tuition costs. Starting today, July 1st, it’s going to cap how much it’s willing to loan to graduate students. <br/><br/>You read that right. To reduce the burden of school…the plan is to give students less money to pay for school. <br/><br/>This plan is, in part, based on an idea that’s been floating around higher education circles for decades: The Bennett Hypothesis, which claims there’s a d...
We almost had a smartphone in the 90s. Why did it fail?
In the early 90’s, a company called General Magic began working on a portable device that would allow people to check email, make phone calls, even play games. It was basically a smartphone. But it never caught on.<br/><br/>On today’s show, a theory about why this device failed. General Magic had generous investors, world-class talent and creative freedom. But is it possible what they needed was constraints?<br/><br/><br>Further reading and viewing:<br/><br/>David Epstein’s book is Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better.<br/><br/>Tony Fadell’s book is Build: An Unort...
