Anyone who has tried shopping for day care knows that it is tough out there.For one, it is hard even to get your hands on information about costs, either online or over the phone – day cares will often only share their prices after you have taken a tour of their facilities. Even once you find a plac...

Each year on February 2, the only story anyone can talk about is whether or not a groundhog has seen its shadow. Our hosts try to find the story to break this news cycle curse.

How a great economics paper can surprise you, delight you, and even change your life.

Monopoly is a game legendary for its celebration of American capitalism, but its creator envisioned something very different.

Some of history's biggest financial scams owe their name to Charles Ponzi. Here's the story of the man behind the eponymous scheme.

Driving a truck used to mean freedom. Now it means a mountain of debt.Subscribe to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney

If the Fed had a mantra to go along with its mandate, it might well be "two percent." We look into how that became the target inflation rate, why some economists are calling for a change and how the inflation rate becomes unanchored.Subscribe to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/pla...

Welcome to the Planet Money Movie Club, a regular series from Planet Money+ in which we watch an economics-related movie and discuss! On today's episode, Kenny Malone, Wailin Wong, and Willa Rubin talk about Frank Capra's 1946 classic 'It's A Wonderful Life.' They discuss CPI adjustments, how a copy...

All sorts of lessons (even about economics) can be learned from kids' books. On today's show, we visit an elementary school to try to teach third graders econ using some beloved childrens' classics. And, along the way, we learn a few things ourselves.Subscribe to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or a...

It's that time of year again! Our annual year-end tradition of checking in on previous stories to hear what happened after the microphones stopped running.

Hosts of Planet Money and The Indicator make their cases for which economic indicator defined 2022.

Cold economic reasoning says, supposedly, that gifts are inefficient transfers of wealth. But Planet Money host Jeff Guo believes in the economic virtues of gift giving. On today's show, Jeff tries to win over Planet Money's resident Scrooge, Kenny Malone, by going on a quest to find him the perfect...

"ESG" investing – Environmental, Social, Governance – has attracted a lot of attention from investors, and from Republican politicians who call it "woke investing." On today's show, what the fight over ESG reveals about the potential and limitations of sustainable investing.Subscribe to Planet Money...

Inflation is making prices go up, except not for...sports tickets? So, we set out on a daylong sporting event marathon to learn why.Subscribe to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Telemarketing calls are not only annoying; in some cases, they are illegal. Congress even gives you the right to sue scofflaw telemarketers for $500 a call. Today, the story of one man who collected a surprising amount of money bringing telemarketers to justice. Subscribe to Planet Money+ in Apple P...