Planet Money

This episode is packed with your best economic ideas from around the world and a penguin interview. It all comes together in this final session of Summer School 2026. Pack your parka, we’re headed to…

There’s a room where the fates of retail products are decided. Will they make it onto the shelves of the big box stores? Usually the rest of us can’t get inside the room where decisions…

This week’s stop on our world tour – Korea. A country divided into two very different power structures since the end of WWII. Today South Korea is the maker of some of the world’s favorite…

Some of the biggest firms on Wall Street are, at this very moment, waiting for thousands of strangers to die to reap their returns. Because there’s a market for life insurance policies. And it’s legal.…

Just about everyone in Argentina is an expert in inflation and whether they like it or not, economic flexibility. Can we learn from them?  Over the years, we at Planet Money have checked in on…

When workers past retirement age can’t afford to retire — that’s one thing. When they can, and just don’t want to — that’s trickier. It used to be legal to force people to retire when they…

Imagine a nation where, for the residents, land is for the claiming. You walk down the street, pick out a nice looking plot of land, and just plop down a marker. No rent, no taxes,…

Squishy, slimy, fidgety toys are having a moment. But it’s more than just an anxiety-soothing, social-media fueled trend – these toys are reshaping how toys get made. Today on the show, we have the story…

Let’s call it the luxury of restraint. This is what enabled Norway to avoid the fate of so many other countries when they discovered oil and it changed the mix of their economy overnight. Norway!…

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. In Kenya and Nigeria, economics isn’t just theory, it’s real life. We’ll…