Planet Money

Planet Money

Wanna see a trick? Give us any topic and we can tie it back to the economy. At Planet Money, we explore the forces that shape our lives and bring you along for the ride. Don't just understand the economy – understand the world. Support public media by joining NPR+ at plus.npr.org. You’ll get perks for over 25 NPR podcasts, including bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Planet Money.

Episodes

July 29, 2026 38 mins
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! It’s expensive, wealthy, and abundant in resources. We’re going to compare two of them in particular today: deep reservoirs of oil and icy waters full of salmon. While one resource was heavily in demand, the countr...
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    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 look at some radical experiments that turned out to be enormously successful.

    What are the building blocks of health, education and prosperity for all? How does a nation grow ...
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    July 22, 2026 25 mins
    The cyclospora outbreak that’s sickening thousands of Americans got us interested in the rise of Big Lettuce, and the challenges of keeping it clean. 

    So on today’s show, we tell you just how much lettuce Americans eat every year (SO MUCH!), how bagged lettuce came to dominate grocery store shelves, what that means for food safety, and why these outbreaks continue to happen — despite the FDA’s ef...
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    In the summer of 2020, sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to join the racial justice movement of his generation in the wake of George Floyd's killing. Antonio arrived in Seattle during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP. Less than a week later, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved.

    In this eight-part series, hosts Sydney Brownstone of The Seattle Times and Will James ...
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    As the World Cup comes to a close, so does a massive real-time experiment happening just around the edges. Major League Soccer – the top men’s professional soccer league in the U.S. and Canada – has been scrambling to take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity when average American sports fans suddenly cared a lot about soccer.

    In between World Cup matches, NPR Sports Correspondent Becky Sulliv...
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    China’s turbocharged growth may have made it rich, but now it has to deal with rich country problems. 

    High-speed trains that connect every town. Gleaming new bridges and skyscrapers. An apartment (or two) for every family. No country on Earth has seen the kind of economic growth that China has over the last 50 years. China has become the factory to the world, a grand experiment in central government planning mixe...
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    Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a luxury brand item secondhand (say, a Chanel handbag) you had to have an in. There was no easy way to find one. But over the past decade, the market for secondhand luxury goods has exploded. There are now many online resellers where you can shop for used and discounted luxury items. One big problem — how can you be sure if it’s real and authentic?

    Some online resellers clai...
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    Come along as we travel the world in search of the best economic ideas to bring home!

    From the beaches of Barbuda to the fjords of Norway, there's money (and money problems) everywhere. For this summer travel season, Planet Money Summer School will take you on a world tour for your ears. Pack that sense of wonder and nose for adventure, this is our semester abroad. We’re going to explore exotic locales and discover cul...
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    Lionel Messi is arguably the greatest soccer scorer of all time. But when it comes to penalty kicks, Messi is merely average. Why? Maybe the answer involves game theory.

    According to game theory, there’s an optimal strategy for taking penalty kicks. This strategy involves an idea that was once somewhat controversial in economics — that is, until economists started studying soccer players in real life. 
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    Will limiting how much students can borrow force schools to lower their prices? 

    The Department of Education thinks so. It has a new plan to bring down tuition costs. Starting today, July 1st, it’s going to cap how much it’s willing to loan to graduate students. 

    You read that right. To reduce the burden of school…the plan is to give students less money to pay for school. 

    This...
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    In the early 90’s, a company called General Magic began working on a portable device that would allow people to check email, make phone calls, even play games. It was basically a smartphone. But it never caught on.

    On today’s show, a theory about why this device failed. General Magic had generous investors, world-class talent and creative freedom. But is it possible what they needed was constraints?


    Fu...
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    Prediction markets aren’t new. Election betting was common until the 1940s, then mysteriously faded away.

    There was an entire political era when party bosses were expected to conspicuously gamble on their candidates (even if they secretly hedged).

    And in the 1980s, a few economists designed an election market that beat out election polling 74 percent of the time.

    Today, we’re running an excerpt from...
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    Maybe the real monster in the Alien franchise isn’t actually the killer alien. Because behind the acid blood and jump scares is an even more insidious horror: a single employer with unchecked power. That employer is named Weyland-Yutani, a mega-corporation that dominates workers across the galaxy.

    Weyland-Yutani is a sort of extreme example of what economists call a monopsony — when one employer dominates a labor...
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    The cyber weapon that might have prevented nuclear war.

    The U.S. and Israel have long been in conflict with Iran over their nuclear development program. Some of that conflict has been out in the open, with bombs and blockades, but some of it has been invisible. 

    Recently some security researchers discovered a cyberweapon likely tied to that invisible conflict. It looks like it was designed to hide on nuclear scie...
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    Can the government stop you from cutting down your own tree? In many towns and cities these days, removing a tree now requires a permit. You might have to pay a fee, or promise to plant replacement trees. But sometimes, the city won't let you cut down the tree at all, even a tree in your own backyard.

    That's because trees are important for air quality, for flood control, and for public health. They help keep neighborhoods co...
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    June 10, 2026 17 mins
    One specific type of affordable housing used to be popular in American cities, kept rents low, then nearly vanished. Is it time to reconsider boarding houses and single room occupancy units? If they lowered rents in cities, why did they go away? We have the history.

    Then, let’s talk about corporate landlords. They’re blamed for driving up rents. Studies show they do the opposite. When corporate landlords come to ...
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    One reason the $70 billion supplement industry is set to double in the next seven years? Lax regulation.

    On today's show, we tell the story of a century-long battle between the U.S. government and … you, the people, blinded by your love of a magic pill.

    We’re talking about protein powders, pre-workouts, creatine, stuff for gut health, joint health, vitamin C, turmeric supplements. All that. You might not ...
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    Have you ever walked around a street, mall, or airport and noticed two or three of the same franchise restaurant within walking distance? Why might one Starbucks or McDonald’s or Wetzel’s Pretzels sometimes be built so close to another? Are they friends or competitors? And how can that possibly be profitable?

    Today’s show is one such example. Our pals at Hyperfixed got a knotty question we just had to help ...
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    99% of chemicals in our food right now were added without FDA approval. Many were added in secret, through a sneaky loophole built into the 1958 Food Additives Amendment.

    It was supposed to require FDA approval for new additives. But food companies and chemical makers found a workaround. And the FDA formally okayed the loophole in the 90s — in the process bringing attention to a loophole to the loophole.

    The FDA...
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    Tax avoidance -- that is, legally reducing your tax bill -- is as American as apple pie. But the line between tax avoidance and tax evasion is often a grey one. 

    On today’s show, a collaboration with Tax Notes, we listen in on the secret tapes that show how the wealthiest Americans avoid taxes. 

    We trace the lifecycle of a tax loophole: how it was born (in Malta), how it grew, how the Feds cracked down...
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