Category: 3-EconSometimeCommentary

For decades, the U.S. has been the single biggest source of remittances worldwide. A remittance is a transfer of money, typically from an immigrant to their family in their country of origin. But we are in the middle of a big, loud and very public immigration crackdown on those who are here without legal status. And that crackdown is disrupting the global remittance market. 

People who have come to the U.S. from a handful of countries — especially some Central American countries — have been sending more money back to their countries of origin. And it’s a bit of a puzzle because … you might think the opposite would be the case.

As immigration plummets, we try to figure out why remittances are surging in some countries, and not others. And we learn why a surge in money sent home inspires joy — but also fear.

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This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Greg Rosalsky. It was produced by Luis Gallo with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Marianne McCune with fact-checking help from Sierra Juarez. It was engineered by Patrick Murray. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money’s executive producer.

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On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Nina Bandelj delivers a keynote lecture at the 2023 Markets & Society conference on the social life of money for children. Drawing on research about what she calls the “parenting economy,” she shows that parents increasingly treat children as human capital investments, using savings plans, loans, and educational spending to secure their futures. Bandelj argues that the financialization of family life reflects parental pressures and social inequality, calling for children to be seen as a shared public responsibility rather than private investments.

Dr. Nina Bandelj is Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine and the President of the Sociological Research Association. Her articles have been published in top discipline and specialty journals such as the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Theory and Society, and Socio-Economic Review. She has published various books, including Overinvested: The Emotional Economy of Modern Parenting (Princeton University Press, forthcoming), Money Talks: Explaining How Money Really Works (Princeton University Press, 2017) coauthored with Frederick Wherry and Viviana Zelizer), and Socialism Vanquished, Socialism Challenged: Eastern Europe and China, 1989-2009 (Oxford university Press, 2012) coedited with Dorothy Solinger.

**This lecture was recorded October 22, 2023 at the second annual Markets & Society conference.

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Running a campground isn’t all eating s'mores around the campfire. Zachary Crockett fans the flames.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Mark Lemoine, owner, Coloma/St. Joseph KOA Holiday campground; sr. vice president, franchise operations at Kampgrounds of America.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "The Economic Impact of Parks," (National Recreation and Park Association, 2023).
  • "Campground Industry Analysis," (CHM Government Service, 2020).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • Coloma/St. Joseph KOA.

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The U.S. Constitution famously outlaws “cruel and unusual punishments.” But there's another, far more obscure part of the Constitution called the Excessive Fines Clause, which basically says that the fine has to fit the crime. So far, the Supreme Court has been pretty mysterious about what that means. But for Ken Jouppi, the fate of his $95,000 plane hinges on it.

Ken is a bush pilot. He used to run an air taxi service in Fairbanks, Alaska. In 2012, police caught one of Ken’s passengers with a six-pack of Budweiser in her luggage. Over that six-pack, Ken was convicted of bootlegging. As punishment, he was ordered to forfeit his $95,000 Cessna.

The Supreme Court is now considering whether to take Ken’s case. And what’s at stake here is more than just a plane. Hanging in the balance is an increasingly popular — and controversial — business model for criminal justice.

More on economics and the law:
- Fine and punishment
- The prisoner's solution
- Paying for the crime
- Rescues at sea, and how to make a fortune

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Today’s episode was produced by James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler with help from Luis Gallo. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Ko Tagasugi Chernovin with help from Robert Rodriguez. Planet Money's executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

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When gas prices skyrocket, do station owners get a windfall? And where do their profits really come from? Zachary Crockett pulls up to the pump.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Garrett Golding, assistant vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
  • Jeetander P. Sethi, founding member of the American Petroleum and Convenience Store Association.
  • Kai Trimble-Lea, owner of a B.P. gas station in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Top Numbers Driving America's Gasoline Demand," by Lem Smith (American Petroleum Institute, 2022).
  • "Electric Cars Are Coming. How Long Until They Rule the Road?" by Brad Plumer, Nadja Popovich and Blacki Migliozzi (The New York Times, 2021).
  • "Petroleum & Other Liquids," (U.S. Energy Information Administration).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "In the 1890s, the Best-Selling Car Was … Electric," by Freakonomics Radio (2022).
  • "Is it Too Late for General Motors to Go Electric?" by Freakonomics Radio (2020).

 

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When TikTok videos started to go viral on Instagram and Reddit, TikTok turned to professional sound designers to protect their content.

More and more companies are paying to develop a “sonic identity” – a series of sounds, songs, and micro-jingles to help maintain a unified brand.

In this episode, in conjunction with the sound design podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz, we hear the backstory to possibly the most successful audio branding campaigns in history. It’s a tale of guerilla marketing and the power of sonic suggestion.

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This adapted episode was hosted by Kenny Malone and Dallas Taylor. It was produced by Casey Emmerling and James Sneed. The episode was edited by Jess Jiang. Alex Goldmark is our Executive Producer.

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Every year, thousands of products are recalled from store shelves. How does the process work — and who foots the bill? Zachary Crockett gets a refund on his frozen shrimp.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Chris Harvey, senior vice president at Sedgwick.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "FDA Advises Public Not to Eat, Sell, or Serve Certain Imported Frozen Shrimp from an Indonesian Firm," (FDA, 2025).
  • "U.S. product recalls reach second-highest level in six years during 2024," (Sedgwick, 2025).
  • "Lot Codes For Food Tracing: How Are They Used?" by Thomas Burke (Forbes, 2021).
  • "How Globalization Challenges Safety In The Food Supply Chain," by Elliot Maras (Food Logistics, 2015).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Recalls, Market Withdrawals, & Safety Alerts," (FDA).
  • "Recalls & Public Health Alerts," (USDA).
  • "Recalls & Product Safety Warnings," (CPSC).
  • "Check for Recalls," (NHTSA).

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Bjarne Caesar Skinnerup works as a maritime pilot in the straits of Denmark. That means he’s used to seeing oil tankers. But after the start of the war in Ukraine, the tankers started getting weird. They were flying flags he’d never seen before. They were old, very old, though many had taken on new names. Something was off. 


He’d stumbled on a shadow fleet of hundreds of tankers ferrying sanctioned oil out of Russia … with near impunity. 

Today on the show, how those ships are transforming the global oil market and fueling the war in Ukraine. And why this all might be a financial and environmental disaster waiting to happen.


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This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi and Daniel Ackerman. It was produced by Willa Rubin and edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Kwesi Lee and Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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In 1975, New York City ran out of money. For a decade it had managed to pay for its hundreds of thousands of city employees and robust social services by taking on billions of dollars in debt. But eventually investors were no longer willing to lend the city any more money. New York teetered on the edge of bankruptcy — the city shuttered more than a dozen firehouses, teachers went on strike and garbage piled up in the streets.

Rescuing the city required the cooperation of the state of New York, the banks, the city workers unions, giant property owners and … the White House. But President Gerald Ford was adamantly opposed to bailing out NYC, prompting the famous New York Daily News headline — “Ford to City: Drop Dead.”

On today’s show, the story of a group of private citizens who were deputized by the state of New York to try to save the city’s finances. Led by investment banker Felix Rohatyn, the group had to put together a grand bargain that everyone would be willing to agree to, and to come up with the billions of dollars the city needed to survive.

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Today’s episode of Planet Money was hosted by Keith Romer and Nick Fountain. It was produced by James Sneed with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler and Julia Ritchey. It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Debbie Daughtry and Cena Loffredo. Our executive producer is Alex Goldmark.

Special Thanks: Denis Coleman, David Schleicher, Liall Clarke, Kevin Hennigan and everyone at Classical King FM in Seattle.

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On this episode, Chris Coyne and Peter Boettke explore the life and legacy of economist Kenneth E. Boulding, Boettke's former professor and mentor. Boettke recalls his experiences in Boulding's Great Books in Economics course and their conversations outside of class about peace, economics, and poetry. The conversation outlines Boulding’s path from studying chemistry at Oxford and an unusually early publication in the Economic Journal to his formative time in Chicago with Frank Knight and his later academic years. Coyne and Boettke discuss why no “Boulding school” emerged, how Boulding's ideas can and are still inspiring new research on institutions, civil society, and peace, and more.

This is the first episode in a short series of episodes that will feature a collection of authors who contributed to the volume 1, issue 2 of the Markets & Society Journal or to a forthcoming special issue from The Review of Austrian Economics.

Dr. Peter Boettke is Director of the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, the BB&T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, and a Distinguished University Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University. He has published numerous books, including The Historical Path to Liberty and Human Progress (Universidad Francisco Marroquín Press, 2025) coauthored with Rosolino Candela, The Socialist Calculation Debate: Theory, History, and Contemporary Relevance (Cambridge University Press, 2024) coauthored with Rosolino Candela and Tegan Truitt, and The Struggle for a Better World (Mercatus Center, 2021).

Show Notes:

• Kenneth Boulding’s article, “After Samuelson, Who needs Smith?” (History of Political Economy, 1971)
• James Buchanan’s article, “What Should Economists Do?” (SEJ, 1964)
• Frank Knight’s article, “The Theory of Investment Once More: Mr. Boulding and the Austrians” (QJE, 1935)
• Kenneth Boulding’s book, The Image (University of Michigan Press, 1969)
• Kenneth Boulding's AEA address, "Economics as a Moral Science" (The American Economic Review, 1969)
• Kenneth Boulding’s book, Stable Peace (University of Texas Press, 1978)
• Kenneth Boulding’s book, Three Faces of Power (SAGE Publications, 1990)
• Albert Hirschman’s book, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (Harvard University Press, 1972)
• Raghuram Rajan’s book, The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind (Penguin Press, 2020)
• Center for Research on Conflict Resolution
• Journal of Conflict Resolution

**This episode was recorded September 10, 2025.

If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.

Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!

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