Planet Money
The world of science has been stuck in an existential crisis over whether we actually know the things we thought we knew. Re-running an old study today doesn’t always yield the same result. Same with re-enacting old experiments. Collectively, this is known as the “replication crisis.”
Economist Abel Brodeur has come up with one way to help fix this crisis: he’s invented an internationally crowdsourced surveillance system, designed to keep social scientists honest. He calls it the “Replication Games.”
Further Listening:
- Fabricated data in research about honesty. You can’t make this stuff up. Or, can you?
- The Experiment Experiment
- How Much Should We Trust Economics?
This episode was hosted by Mary Childs and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by James Sneed and Emma Peaslee, with help from Willa Rubin. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, and engineered by Ko Takasugi-Czernowin. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.
Find more Planet Money: Facebook / Instagram / TikTok / Our weekly Newsletter.
Listen free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.
Help support Planet Money and hear our bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.
To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices
-
The hack that almost broke the internet
Last month, the world narrowly avoided a cyberattack of stunning ambition. The targets were some of the most important computers on the planet. Computers that power the internet. Computers used by banks and airlines and…
-
Why Gold? (Classic)
In the past few months, the price of gold has gone way up – even hitting a new high last month at just over $2,400 per troy ounce. Gold has long had a shiny quality…
-
Zombie mortgages are coming back to life
Karen McDonough of Quincy, Mass., was enjoying her tea one morning in the dining room when she saw something odd outside her window: a group of people gathering on her lawn. A man with a…
-
Inside video game economics (Two Indicators)
Why do video game workers offer labor at a discount? How can you design a video game for blind and sighted players? Does that design have lessons for other industries? These and other questions about…
-
The birth of the modern consumer movement
Today on the show, the story of the modern consumer movement in the U.S. and the person who inspired it: Ralph Nader. How Ralph Nader’s battle in the 1960s set the stage for decades of…
-
Hire Power (Update)
(Note: This episode originally ran in 2021.) Millions of American workers in all sorts of industries have signed some form of noncompete agreement. Their pervasiveness has led to situations where workers looking to change jobs…
-
The case of the stolen masks
About thirty years ago, Yagya Kumar Pradhan woke up to the news that the temple he and his clan used had been broken into. The temple had been ransacked. And someone had stolen two holy…
-
How unions are stopped before they start (Update)
(Note: This episode originally ran in 2023.) Union membership in the U.S. has been declining for decades. But, in 2022, support for unions among Americans was the highest it’s been in decades. This dissonance is…
-
FTX and the Serengeti of bankruptcy
For the last year and a half, the story of FTX has focused largely on the crimes and punishment of Sam Bankman-Fried. But in the background, the actual customers he left behind have been caught…
-
Grocery prices, credit card debt, and your 401K (Two Indicators)
What’s going on with consumers? This is one of the trickiest puzzles of this weird economic moment we’re in. We’ve covered a version of this before under the term “vibecession,” but it’s safe to say,…