Life has its ups and downs. Same for the economy. Today we ask, can the business cycle be tamed? Two stories of recession and techniques for moderating the ferocity of booms and busts. Plus, how bankruptcy is a secret weapon of the American economy. | Subscribe to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. | At this Summer School, phones ARE allowed during class... Check out this week's PM TikTok! | Listen to past seasons of Summer School here. See pcm.adswizz.com for inform...
Jul 28, 2022•32 min•Ep. 18
What even is "the economy"? And how do you measure it? Our path out of the economic darkness and into the light has been guided in large part by one single statistic: GDP. This week: the origins, history, and problems with the economic indicator to rule them all. | At this Summer School, phones ARE allowed during class... Check out this week's PM TikTok! | Listen to past seasons of Summer School here. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorsh...
Jul 21, 2022•25 min•Ep. 17
Season 3 of summer school is here asking the biggest economic questions about what makes an entire economy grow or contract. Episode 1 begins with the rise of macroeconomics as a field, with one of the great economic debates of the 20th century: what causes booms and busts, and what can the government do about it? How free should a free market be? It's a debate (over beats and with an actual rap battle) between John Maynard Keynes and F.A. Hayek. Watch this Tik Tok to learn more and listen to ou...
Jul 14, 2022•31 min•Ep. 16
In the last class of Planet Money Summer School Season 2, we cover one more important market — cryptocurrency. If you're thinking about investing in crypto, do you know exactly what it is that you're buying? Or how it should (if at all) fit alongside the rest of your investments? | Watch this Tik Tok to learn more and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here | Don't forget to take the Summer School Final Quiz . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for ...
Sep 02, 2021•34 min•Ep. 15
Investing during a bubble can leave you bust. But how to tell the difference between a bubble before it bursts and an investing rocket ship taking off? We'll run through a historical example and look inside our own thinking to find the mental biases that can contribute or exacerbate bad bubble thinking. | Watch this Tik Tok to learn more and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage yo...
Aug 25, 2021•28 min•Ep. 14
A few years back, Cardiff asked for an unusual Christmas present: a junk bond... Parallel to the stock market, the bond market offers different levels of risk and reward. In this class, what is a bond, how do they differ from stocks, and how do they help companies grow? | Watch this Tik Tok to learn more. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences....
Aug 18, 2021•32 min•Ep. 13
Even if you don't own stocks, there are a lot of reasons to care about investing. We meet some of the folks left out of the stock market who deploy sophisticated economic thinking, even creating their own alternate financial systems. Our professors help us understand how consumption smoothing and life-cycle theory apply to personal finance. And we meet the creator of the 401(k). | Watch this Tik Tok to learn more. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information ab...
Aug 11, 2021•32 min•Ep. 12
In 2006, Warren Buffett bet a million dollars that the most brainless, boring investment around would do better than the researched, handpicked investments of some of the smartest hedge fund managers in the world. The second class of Summer School looks at how that bet played out, the origins of the index fund, and why it's so hard to beat the market. Returning to the underlying theme of risk and reward, we also discuss how diversification reduces risk. | Watch this TikTok to learn more. | Subsc...
Aug 04, 2021•32 min•Ep. 11
The first class of Planet Money Summer School starts off with a field trip. With the help of a cow, two economists, and three cute animals, we learn what a stock is and how stocks are priced, and we begin to see the psychological forces that make prices move up and down on the stock market. Keep an eye out throughout for our big theme for the course this summer: risk and reward. | Watch this Tik Tok to learn more. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information ab...
Jul 28, 2021•36 min•Ep. 10
Summer School graduates take the stage to show us how we can all see our everyday world through the beautiful lens of economics. | Take the final exam and get your diploma here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Sep 02, 2020•19 min•Ep. 9
Inside one insurance policy is a world of incentives and bad behaviors. Take the final exam and get your diploma here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Aug 26, 2020•26 min•Ep. 8
A Black ad executive figures out how to reach diverse audiences. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Aug 19, 2020•28 min•Ep. 7
The surprisingly entertaining history of the income tax. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Aug 12, 2020•26 min•Ep. 6
The economics of free trade and what happens when governments get involved. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Aug 05, 2020•25 min•Ep. 5
Class 4 brings us an economic conundrum: how do you efficiently share a scarce resource? | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy
Jul 29, 2020•27 min•Ep. 4
In our third class, we take all that we've learned about decisions and markets and bring it to a former drug kingpin. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Jul 23, 2020•26 min•Ep. 3
In our second class, we meet our old friends supply and demand and do graphs using only the power of the human voice. Then, we show you how markets can be created anywhere by telling the story of a food bank that had too many pickles and not enough pancake syrup. It's economics to the rescue. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy ...
Jul 16, 2020•30 min•Ep. 2
First lesson: Economics is not about money. It's a lens of great power and beauty. In this episode, we meet our teachers and learn the first four fundamental concepts of economic thinking, and watch them applied to things like dating and hailing a cab. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here . See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy...
Jul 08, 2020•31 min•Ep. 1
Introducing an economics education for your ears! We're calling it Planet Money Summer School . It's all the economics you meant to learn, but didn't get around to. Each Wednesday, we'll serve up a Planet Money story, or selection of excerpts, paired with insights from our economists-in-residence for the summer. Get an understanding of the basic concepts of economics going to the beach. You can pick up your economics knowledge while you bike, stroll the sand or just lay in the grass. Amuse your ...
Jul 06, 2020•2 min
