Morally questionable, economically efficient There are tons of markets that don’t exist because people just don’t want to allow a market – for whatever reaso […]

Groundhog Day 2024: Trademark, bankruptcy, and the dollar that failed It’s Groundhog Day, and the eyes of the nation have turned to a small town in western P […]

The Chicken Tax (Classic) Note: This episode originally ran in 2015. German families in the 60s loved tasty, cheap American-raised chicken that was suddenly coming […]

Bonus: Janet Yellen on Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! Our friends at NPR’s news quiz Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! recently had a very Planet Money guest on their show: Treas […]

Rescues at sea, and how to make a fortune At around 1 a.m. on the morning of November 15, 1994, Captain Prentice “Skip” Strong III woke to a distress call. Skip was […]

Hear us out: We ban left turns and other big ideas On today’s episode, we have three big economic ideas for your consideration – ideas that could potentially imp […]

Econ Battle Zone: Disinflation Confrontation After very high inflation, the United States is finally feeling some relief in the form of “disinflation.” But, why exa […]

Mid-East conflict escalation, two indicators On today’s show, we look at two indicators of the economic disruptions of the war in Gaza and try to trace how far t […]

The Maine Potato War of 1976 When you think of a potato, one state probably comes to mind: Idaho. But for much of American history, Maine was home to the […]

The Universal Basic Income experiment in Kenya There’s this fundamental question in economics that has proven really hard to answer: What’s a good way to help peo […]

The case of the serial sinking Spanish ships Picture the Pacific Ocean of the 16th century. Spanish Galleons sail the wide open seas, carrying precious cargo like […]

The Rest of the Story, 2023 It’s that time of year again! Our annual year-end tradition of checking in on the stories we’ve reported and the people we met along the […]

The Indicators of this year and next Today on the show, hosts from Planet Money and The Indicator debate the economic indicators of this year and next […]

We buy a lot of Christmas trees (Update) *Note: This episode originally ran in 2020* ‘Tis the season for Americans to head out in droves and bring home a f […]

Dollarizing Argentina Argentina has been on a decades-long search for economic stability, but it always seems to be out of reach. High inflation has been plaguing […]

How to be better at hybrid work, according to research The research keeps coming in on remote work. New evidence suggests working from home, at least full-time, may […]

What econ says in the shadows Economics Job Market Rumors is a website that’s half a job information Wiki, where people post about what’s going on inside eco […]

Why ’90s ads are unforgettable Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s __________. The best part of waking up, is _______ in your cup! Got ____? If you can ide […]

The U.S. economy’s biggest superpower, explained What if you could borrow money on the cheap and use it to pay for just about anything? The U.S. government can, and […]

Why do doctors still use pagers? Remember pagers? They were huge in the 80s — these little devices that could receive short messages. Sir Mix-A-Lot even had a s […]