Why you bought your couch You probably own a chair or a table or a sofa. And you probably think you know why you bought it. Because it was comfy. Or blue. Or the […]

Title Pirates A couple years ago, Gina Leto, a real estate developer, bought a property with her business partner. The process went like it usually did: Lots of […]

The long view of economics and immigration (Two Indicators) Mass deportations. What would actually happen—economically—if the President-elect follows through on pro […]

The great German land lottery Every ten years, a group of German farmers gather in the communal farm fields of the Osing for the Osingverlosung, a ritual dating […]

The strange way the world’s fastest microchips are made This is the story behind one of the most valuable — and perhaps, most improbable — technologies humanity has […]

What markets bet President Trump will do On the day after the election, Wall Street responded in a dramatic way. Some stocks went way up, others went way down. By […]

Moving to the American dream? (update) Back in the 90s, the federal government ran a bold experiment, giving people vouchers to move out of high-poverty neighborhoods […]

The veteran loan calamity Ray and Becky Queen live in rural Oklahoma with their kids (and chickens). The Queens were able to buy that home with a VA loan because […]

So your data was stolen in a data breach If you… exist in the world, it’s likely that you have gotten a letter or email at some point informing you that your dat […]

Why do hospitals keep running out of generic drugs? There’s something strange going on in hospitals. Cheap, common drugs that nurses use every day seem to be c […]

Romance on the screen and on the page: Two Indicators On today’s show, we have two stories from The Indicator, Planet Money‘s daily podcast. They just launched Lov […]

The Subscription Trap Over the past two decades, there’s been a sort of tectonic economic shift happening under our feet. More and more companies have switched f […]

We asked 188 economists. And the survey says… (For our story on this year’s Nobel in Economics, check out our daily show, The Indicator!) Let’s face it. Eco […]

So imPORTant: Bananas, frogs, and… Bob’s?? Even in our modern world with planes and jets and drones, the vast majority of goods are moved around the planet in cargo […]

Can cap and trade work in the US? Recently, the state of Washington embarked on an ambitious new plan to combat climate change. Taking a page from economics […]

What’s up with all the ads for law firms? The lawyer commercial is almost an art form unto itself. Learned practitioners of the law doing whatever it takes to get […]

How Venezuela imploded (update) (Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2016.) Back in 2016, things were pretty bad in Venezuela. Grocery stores didn’t h […]

What’s THAT got to do with economics? “Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy.” That is the bold promise in Planet Money‘s tagli […]

Veep-onomics Next week, JD Vance and Tim Walz will face off in the only confirmed vice presidential debate ahead of the election. As voters look ahead to what […]

How to save 10,000 fingers Table saws are extremely dangerous. The government estimates that injuries from table saws send something like 30,000 people to the […]