Planet Money Summer School
Economics is a game you should know how to play. And once you get the fundamental concepts, you start to see it everywhere: the news, the supermarket and even your dating life. So it's time to learn the rules. Planet Money Summer School is a crash course in economics for your ears. See the world through the lens of an economist and you'll start to feel a little less overwhelmed when making financial decisions. And if you're in front of the classroom? Teachers, this is made for you, too. Let us be your breezy and fun companion to assigned readings. We'll even assign the homework (and spare you the groans). Go beyond summer school and stay up-to-date on the economy with the latest episodes of the Planet Money podcast.Got money on your mind? Try Planet Money+ ? a new way to support the show you love, get a sponsor-free feed of the podcast, *and* get access to bonus content. A subscription also gets you access to The Indicator and Planet Money Summer School, both without interruptions.
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npr.org/podcasts/510362/planet-money-summer-schoolEpisodes
Macroeconomics 8: Productivity & Getting Lit
Productivity is our economic measure for how far our work goes, as individuals and as a society over all. It plays an important role in determining our quality of life, the prices of our goods and services, and, to some extent, the amount of free time we have. Today, we explore how thousands of years of productivity advancements transformed something now so standard that we take it for granted: light. | At this Summer School, phones ARE allowed during class... Check out this week's PM TikTok! | Listen to past seasons of Summer School here.
2022-09-01Link to episode
Macroeconomics 7: The Fed & Volcker's Socks
The Federal Reserve plays a very important role in the economy. When things start to look uncertain, the central bank is tasked with stepping in to restore people's confidence in the economy. But how do they do it? On today's episode we dive deep on monetary policy and the role of the fed. |At this Summer School, phones ARE allowed during class... Check out this week's PM TikTok! | Listen to past seasons of Summer School here.
2022-08-25Link to episode
Macroeconomics 6: Trade & The Better Life
International trade is the web of cross-border relationships that binds economies together. Because of trade we have access to cheaper, higher-quality goods, and we get to benefit from other countries' cultures. Economics tells us trade makes society, overall on average, better off, but that doesn't mean everyone wins. Today, the good and bad of trade through the eyes of workers in developing economies who make the things sold around the world. We follow them as they navigate the ever-shifting international trade environment. |At this Summer School, phones ARE allowed during class... Check out this week's PM TikTok! | Listen to past seasons of Summer School here.
2022-08-18Link to episode
Macroeconomics 5: Car Parts, Celery & The Labor Market
You can learn a lot about a person from their job. The same can be said of an economy. The market for jobs can us a lot about how the economy is doing, but more importantly, it is where we look to see who the economy is working for, and who is left behind. In today's lesson we'll visit two workplaces each facing a different labor puzzle. At one end, there's the question of when to replace a worker with a robot, and what it is like to be that worker waiting for the robots to come. We'll also visit a farm where raising wages aren't enough to attract the workers needed to do the work. How wages are set, and who gets the raises on this session of Summer School. | 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.
2022-08-11Link to episode
Macroeconomics 4: Inflation & Drinking Buddies
Inflation can be one of the scariest forces in the economy. As prices rise and your dollar doesn't go as far, you feel poorer, and it's all out of your control. To better understand inflation, we turn to the story of Brazil, where, in the 90s, hyperinflation threatened to derail the whole economy until the country turned to a group of unlikely heroes: four drinking buddies. | 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.
2022-08-04Link to episode
Macroeconomics 3: Booms, Busts & Us
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.
2022-07-28Link to episode
Macroeconomics 2: GDP & What Counts
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.
2022-07-21Link to episode
Macroeconomics 1: Recessions & Rap Battles
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 our Spotify playlist. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
2022-07-14Episode 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 our Spotify playlist. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Link to episode
Investing 6: Crypto & Commencement
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.
2021-09-02Link to episode
Investing 5: Bubbles, Bikes, & Biases
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.
2021-08-26Link to episode
Investing 4: Bonds & Becky With the Good Yield
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.
2021-08-19Link to episode
Investing 3: Smooth Spending & The 401K
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.
2021-08-12Link to episode
Investing 2: Index Funds & The Bet
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. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
2021-08-04Link to episode
Investing 1: The Stock Market & Penelope The Cow
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.
2021-07-29Link to episode
Intro Econ: Graduation!
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.
2020-09-03Link to episode
Intro Econ 8: Risk & Disaster
Inside one insurance policy is a world of incentives and bad behaviors. Take the final exam and get your diploma here.
2020-08-26Link to episode
Intro Econ 7: Advertising & Race
Intro Econ 6: Taxes & Donald Duck
The surprisingly entertaining history of the income tax. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
2020-08-12Link to episode
Intro Econ 5: Trade & Santa
The economics of free trade and what happens when governments get involved. | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
2020-08-05Link to episode
Intro Econ 4: Scarcity & Pistachios
Class 4 brings us an economic conundrum: how do you efficiently share a scarce resource? | Subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
2020-07-30Link to episode
Intro Econ 3: Profit & Cocaine
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.
2020-07-23Link to episode
Intro Econ 2: Markets & Pickles
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.
2020-07-16Link to episode
Intro Econ 1: Choices & Dating
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.
2020-07-08Link to episode
Introducing Planet Money Summer School
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 friends. Win arguments. Throw the words "diminishing marginal utility" into every discussion. Wednesdays in the PM feed this summer. (Fridays will be our usual coverage of the economy).
2020-07-06Link to episode