Planet Money

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 cultural norms, but we’re also going to buckle down and learn the biggest economic lessons around the world from our guides.

We start as far away as you can get from Planet Money headquarters, New Zealand and Australia. We’ll visit a sheep farm to observe an innovative but controversial market for the most important substance on earth, and we’ll ask when do speculators help and when do they hurt the rest of us? Then, we’ll get to know the economist – and jazz musician – who changed how the entire world fights inflation when he released a secret number to tame the dreaded wild beast. How did that work? Spoiler: it was the great leap forward in economic mind tricks.

Featured Episodes:
Liquid Markets (2021)

The Secret Target (2018)

Featured Terms:
Multiple equilibria
Inflation targeting
Speculators (impact on liquidity)

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This episode of Planet Money Summer School is hosted by Robert Smith. It was produced by Sophia Paliza-Carre, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Annlie Huang with help from Robert Rodriguez.

Music: NPR Source Audio - "The Boy from Ipanema," "Desmontes," "Long Drive,” and “Bondi.”

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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. 

On today's show, we kick it over to the hosts of the Soccernomics podcast to explain how game theory has changed soccer, and how soccer has changed game theory. 

Watch the penalty shootout between Manchester United and Chelsea in the Champions League final in 2008. 

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This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from James Sneed. It was edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Annlie Huang. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

The Soccernomics episode was originally hosted by Ashish Malhotra, Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski and sound designed by Alex Roldan.

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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 plan is, in part, based on an idea that’s been floating around higher education circles for decades: The Bennett Hypothesis, which claims there’s a direct relationship between student borrowing and tuition prices. And therefore, if the Department of Education — the biggest student loan provider in the country — limits how much students can take out, then schools will have no choice but to charge students less. 

This hypothesis was floated roughly 40 years ago...without evidence. But now, as the Trump administration rolls out their Bennettian plan, we have decades of data to see how true this hypothesis is.

Today on the show: NPR Education Correspondent Cory Turner explains this theory, and what the new plan influenced by it will mean for borrowers this fall.

Other notes:

Bill Bennett: “Our Greedy Colleges”
Cory Turner: "July 1 brings big student loan changes. Here's what you need to know"
The Indicator: "What you should know about your student loans" 

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This episode was hosted by Cory Turner and Kenny Malone. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Charlotte Isidore and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

Music: NPR Source Audio - “Morning Chorus,” “Belle Mar,” and “The Sky Was Orange.”

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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?

Further reading and viewing:

David Epstein’s book is Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better.

Tony Fadell’s book is Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Make Things Worth Making.

Sarah Kerruish and Matt Maude’s documentary is called General Magic.

Support:

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Read: 
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
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This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Emma Peaslee. It was produced by Emma Peaslee with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and James Sneed. It was edited by Marianne McCune and fact-checked by Charlotte Isidore. It was engineered by Jimmy Keeley with help from Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

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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 our friends at Throughline, NPR’s excellent history podcast. Subscribe right now if you don’t already. And, listen to their extended version of the episode to hear about the early markets for betting on terrorism and military uses of prediction markets.

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Read: 
Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life 
Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter
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Today's episode was produced for Planet Money by Sam Yellowhorse Kesler, edited by Alex Goldmark, and engineered by Maggie Luthar. The original Throughline episode was produced by Rund Abdelfatah, Casey Miner, Cristina Kim, Devin Katayama, Sarah Wyman, Julia Redpath, and Kyana Moghadam. 

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