What makes a toy go viral
Squishy, slimy, fidgety toys are having a moment. But it’s more than just an anxiety-soothing, social-media fueled trend – these…
How to beat the resource curse in Norway (Summer School)
Let’s call it the luxury of restraint. This is what enabled Norway to avoid the fate of so many other…
AI tokens could become the kilowatt-hour of the AI age
AI companies use tokens to track usage and bill customers. Now economists are using them to track the spread of…
Piles of cash and a town of solutions in Kenya, Nigeria (Summer School)
Let’s head to a small town in Kenya that’s become globally famous for helping economists answer some of the biggest…
Big Lettuce meets Small Intestine
The cyclospora outbreak that’s sickening thousands of Americans got us interested in the rise of Big Lettuce, and the challenges…
The best economic ideas from around the world — Planet Money Summer School is back
Our free economics course for your ears is on a quest for great economics ideas.
Can World Cup mania grow MLS in the U.S.?
As the World Cup comes to a close, so does a massive real-time experiment happening just around the edges. Major…
Building things and breaking things in China (Summer School World Tour)
China’s turbocharged growth may have made it rich, but now it has to deal with rich country problems. High-speed trains…
‘The Trojan Teddy Bear’: The promise and peril of childhood in the age of AI
AI is moving beyond chatbots and into toys, dolls, and robots built to befriend children. A leading child-development expert says…
Seven allegedly fake Chanel bags vs The RealReal
Once upon a time, if you wanted to buy a luxury brand item secondhand (say, a Chanel handbag) you had…