Planet Money

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The economy explained. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, "Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy." Now imagine that's actually a fun evening.

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#919: Are Cities Overrated?

06.14.2019

Moving to the big city used to provide an escalator to a more prosperous life, even if you didn't have a college degree. But now economists are wondering: Are cities overrated?

Planet Money episodes:

06.14.2019 #919: Are Cities Overrated? Moving to the big city used to provide an escalator to a more prosperous life, even if you didn't have a college degree. But now economists are wondering: Are cities overrated?
06.12.2019 #590: The Planet Money Workout Barely workout? Gyms like it that way. They're one of a few businesses that benefit from low attendance. Economics explains why gyms encourage members to commit, but not too much.
06.07.2019 #918: The Day Of Two Noons In the 1800s, every town had its own "local time," which was not only confusing, but sometimes dangerous. So railroads implemented the standardized time we have today.
06.05.2019 #651: The Salmon Taboo People in Japan never ate raw salmon. Then Norway had a salmon surplus—and persuaded Japanese sushi eaters to try something new.
05.31.2019 #917: Quit Threat! The unemployment rate in the U.S. is just 3.6%. Many people think we are at, or near, full employment. For the first time in a long while, power is shifting toward workers.
05.29.2019 #916: The Whistleblower Whisperer Jordan Thomas represents Wall Street whistleblowers in some of the biggest SEC cases against banks. In addition to protecting their secrets, he's also kept some of his own.
05.24.2019 #915: How To Meddle In An Election David Goldstein decides to copy Cambridge Analytica and run an experiment on actual voters during the 2017 Alabama special election.
05.23.2019 #914: Trump and Deutsche, A Long Affair After Donald Trump's companies declared four bankruptcies, several major banks stopped loaning him money. But Deutsche Bank didn't.
05.18.2019 #913: Counting The Homeless From renting hotels to a jobs report-like census in the night, we look at ways communities are helping the homeless.
05.15.2019 #407: A Mathematician, The Last Supper, And The Birth Of Accounting The story of Luca Pacioli, who brought double-entry bookkeeping to the masses, transforming accounting and businesses around the world.
05.10.2019 #912: How Uncle Jamie Broke Jeopardy How James Holzhauer built on the strategies of Ken Jennings, Roger Craig, and Monica Thieu, to crack the game show Jeopardy.
05.08.2019 #911: You Asked The Listener Question Hotline What's the cost of being tall? Are people less productive when the weather is bad? Why is vanilla so expensive? Answers to those questions and more.
05.03.2019 #910: Economics, Sexism, Data Alice Wu's undergraduate senior thesis on gender bias on the Econ Job Rumors forum sparked a movement to address sexism in the field of economics.
05.01.2019 #416: Why The Price of Coke Didn't Change For 70 years For 70 years, the price of a bottle of Coca-Cola stayed a nickel. Why? The answer includes a half a million vending machines and a 7.5 cent coin.
04.27.2019 #909: Dollar Stores Vs Lettuce Every six hours a new dollar store opens in the U.S. Are they killing grocery stores?
04.24.2019 #908: I Am Not A Robot The remarkable story of the online "CAPTCHA" tests we've all taken to prove that we're not robots.
04.19.2019 #907: Two Spring Indicators The Indicator from Planet Money explores trade wars, peanuts, hurricanes, and happiness.
04.17.2019 #644: How Much Does This Cow Weigh? We wanted to understand an eerie phenomenon that drives everything from the stock market to the price of orange juice. So we asked you to guess the weight of a cow.
04.12.2019 #906: The Chicago Boys, Part II How a ruthless dictator, and a bunch of economists known as the Chicago Boys, took Chile from socialism to capitalism.
04.11.2019 #905: The Chicago Boys, Part I In the late 1950s and early '60s a handful of Chilean students went to study economics at the University of Chicago. What they learned changed their country.
04.06.2019 #904: Joke Theft Copyrighting comedy is expensive. So comedians have devised an informal system of sanctions to protect their jokes from theft. Sometimes it works.
04.04.2019 #760: Tax Hero Joe Bankman, professor at Stanford, figured out a way to make filing your taxes easy and painless. Then the tax lobby found out about it.
03.29.2019 #903: A New Way To Pay For College Some colleges are offering students a new way to pay. It's not a scholarship. It's not a loan. It's more like the students are selling stock in themselves.
03.28.2019 #902: The Phoebus Cartel The story behind two sneaky forces that drive us to buy more products, more often: Planned obsolescence and psychological obsolescence.
03.22.2019 #901: Bad Cops Are Expensive There's an industry of people working to eliminate bad police behavior. They're not activists or protestors. They're insurers.
03.20.2019 #189: Why A Dead Shark Costs $12 Million Today's show is about the fickle market for art. What makes a dead shark cost $12 million, and a photo of steel wool that looks like a tornado cost only $1,265?
03.15.2019 #900: The Stolen Company When an American company named ABRO learns their goods are being counterfeited in China, they start their own trade war.
03.13.2019 #724: Cat Scam The internet was supposed to get rid of middlemen--but instead they are taking over the global economy.
03.08.2019 #899: Mexico Fights The Fuel Pirates Thieves are stealing billions of dollars worth of gasoline in Mexico. The President is taking drastic action to cut them off, and it comes at a serious cost. Content warning: Audio of deadly pipeline explosion.
03.07.2019 #785: The Starbury The story of an NBA All-Star and an experiment: To make a desirable basketball shoe cheap enough for anyone.
03.02.2019 #898: Happy Fed Independence Day The story of the day the Federal Reserve got its independence and the fight—an actual physical fight—to keep it.
02.28.2019 #897: New Orleans Vs. Airbnb Airbnb has changed New Orleans. And now landlords and preservationists are fighting over the future of the city.
02.22.2019 Antitrust 3: Big Tech What does the rise of dominant tech companies say about competition and the state of antitrust law? Third in a series.
02.20.2019 Antitrust 2: The Paradox How Robert Bork won the fight over the very meaning of competition in America, and paved the way for some of the biggest companies we've ever seen.
02.15.2019 Antitrust 1: Standard Oil At the turn of the 20th century, Ida Tarbell investigated John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. What she discovered changed the economy of the United States.
02.14.2019 #418: A Fake Bank For Money Laundering Run By The Government To catch drug traffickers, the U.S. government tried something it had never tried before. It set up and ran a fake offshore bank for money laundering. Fake name. Fake employees. Real drug money.
02.08.2019 #893: Our Valentines 2019 We give a shout out to the stuff we've been obsessing over in the office — those stories that were so good, we wished we had thought of them ourselves.
02.07.2019 #892: The Lost Plane In December, a commercial flight had to make an emergency landing in Iran. They discovered that landing there would be easy. Getting out – much, much harder.
02.01.2019 #891: Who Won The Bet Over Bitcoin? Five years ago, two sides met on our show to make a bet about the future of bitcoin. Today, we announce the winner.
01.30.2019 #825: Who Started The Wildfire? After a wildfire, teams of investigators start combing the wreckage for clues. Finding the cause means, maybe, finding someone to pay. But where's the line between a natural disaster and a human one?
01.25.2019 #890: The Division Problem Today on the show, we take on one of life's most vexing problems: Sharing.
01.23.2019 #688: Brilliant Vs. Boring John Bogle died last week. His creation — the index fund — changed investing. Today, how his invention set off a million dollar bet between some of the biggest brains on Wall Street, including Warren Buffett.
01.18.2019 #889: The Pay-What-You-Want Experiment In 2010, Panera launched several pay-what-you-want cafes. On today's show: How this charitable experiment worked out.
01.17.2019 #888: The First Shutdown In 1879, Congress and the President were locked in a battle over the rights of African-Americans. It led to the first government shutdown.
01.12.2019 #887: You Asked For It, Yet Again On today's show we answer questions about silver dollars, Venmo, and Brexit. Why? Because you asked!
01.09.2019 #690: All In We go inside a professional poker tournament, where some of the smartest betting takes place behind the scenes.
01.04.2019 #886: The Price of a Hack Hackers are an expensive headache for companies. But there might be a simple economic fix.
01.02.2019 #885: Do It For Your Country People are the engine that fuels an economy. But what happens when you start running out of people?
12.28.2018 #884: The Rest Of The Story, Winter 2018 We check in on some stories we did this year to see what's changed. Find a full list of the episodes we referenced at our website, NPR.org/money.
12.26.2018 #609: The Curse Of The Black Lotus How the card game "Magic: The Gathering" deflated a speculative bubble. You can support our show at donate.npr.org/planetmoney.

Older episodes

Planet Money

What's Planet Money about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Planet Money episodes:

#919: Are Cities Overrated?

#590: The Planet Money Workout

#918: The Day Of Two Noons

#651: The Salmon Taboo

#917: Quit Threat!

#916: The Whistleblower Whisperer

#915: How To Meddle In An Election

#914: Trump and Deutsche, A Long Affair

#913: Counting The Homeless

#407: A Mathematician, The Last Supper, And The Birth Of Accounting

#912: How Uncle Jamie Broke Jeopardy

#911: You Asked The Listener Question Hotline

#910: Economics, Sexism, Data

#416: Why The Price of Coke Didn't Change For 70 years

#909: Dollar Stores Vs Lettuce

#908: I Am Not A Robot

#907: Two Spring Indicators

#644: How Much Does This Cow Weigh?

#906: The Chicago Boys, Part II

#905: The Chicago Boys, Part I

#904: Joke Theft

#760: Tax Hero

#903: A New Way To Pay For College

#902: The Phoebus Cartel

#901: Bad Cops Are Expensive

#189: Why A Dead Shark Costs $12 Million

#900: The Stolen Company

#724: Cat Scam

#899: Mexico Fights The Fuel Pirates

#785: The Starbury

#898: Happy Fed Independence Day

#897: New Orleans Vs. Airbnb

Antitrust 3: Big Tech

Antitrust 2: The Paradox

Antitrust 1: Standard Oil

#418: A Fake Bank For Money Laundering Run By The Government

#893: Our Valentines 2019

#892: The Lost Plane

#891: Who Won The Bet Over Bitcoin?

#825: Who Started The Wildfire?

#890: The Division Problem

#688: Brilliant Vs. Boring

#889: The Pay-What-You-Want Experiment

#888: The First Shutdown

#887: You Asked For It, Yet Again

#690: All In

#886: The Price of a Hack

#885: Do It For Your Country

#884: The Rest Of The Story, Winter 2018

#609: The Curse Of The Black Lotus

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