Category: 3-EconSometimeCommentary

Only the finest restaurants have a chance to bask in their glow. Sometimes, it’s a bit too bright. Zachary Crockett squints at the menu.

 

• SOURCES:
  • Nick Kokonas, founder and co-owner of The Alinea Group.
  • Charlie Mitchell, executive chef and co-owner of Clover Hill restaurant.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "Michelin Announces 2022 Stars for New York City," by Ryan Sutton and Luke Fortney (Eater, 2022).
  • "What’s Wrong With the Michelin Guide?" by Tim Hayward (Financial Times, 2021).
  • "Eating A 6-Course Dinner From The Best Restaurant In The Country," by Number Six With Cheese (2020).
  • "Expert Opinion and Restaurant Pricing: Quantifying the Value of a Michelin Star," by Carly Shin (Stanford Economic Review, 2018).
  • "Here's How Michelin Stars Actually Affect the Restaurant Business," by Hillary Eaton (Food & Wine, 2017).
  • "Three-Star Chef Asks Michelin Guide To Leave Him Out: 'I Will Be Able To Feel Free,'" by Laurel Wamsley (The Two-Way, 2017).
  • "Lunch with M.," by John Colapinto (The New Yorker, 2009).
  • "Alinea," review by the Michelin Guide.

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Why You Shouldn’t Open a Restaurant (Update)," by Freakonomics Radio (2019).

*Note: This episode originally ran in 2020*

'Tis the season for Americans to head out in droves and bring home a freshly-cut Christmas tree. But decorative evergreens don't just magically show up on corner lots, waiting to find a home in your living room. There are a bunch of fascinating steps that determine exactly how many Christmas trees get sold, and how expensive they are.

Today on the show, we visit the world's largest auction of Christmas trees — and then see how much green New Yorkers are willing to throw down for some greenery. It's a story where snow-dusted Yuletide dreams meet the hard reality of supply and demand. We've got market theory, a thousand dollars in cash, and a "decent sized truck"... anything could happen.

This episode was produced by James Sneed. It was edited by Bryant Urstadt. It was engineered by Gilly Moon. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Argentina has been on a decades-long search for economic stability, but it always seems to be out of reach. High inflation has been plaguing the country and just surpassed 160% a year.

Over the past couple of years, the local currency has collapsed. One U.S. dollar used to be worth 20 Argentinean pesos in 2018. Today, one U.S. dollar is worth 1,000 pesos on the black market. And that means for Argentineans, the real prices of everything — from groceries to gas — have spiked.

In a country where the local currency is in free fall, promising to replace that currency with the US dollar can seem like a magical solution.

Argentina's new president, Javier Milei, won in part by promising to do just that - to dollarize. To scrap Argentina's peso and replace it with the relatively stable, predictable, boring United States dollar.

On today's show, what does dollarizing mean? Why dollarize, how to do it, and will it even work?

For more:
A black market, a currency crisis, and a tango competition in Argentina (Apple, Spotify, NPR)
Venezuela's Fugitive Money Traders
Why Ecuador Uses The Dollar? : The Indicator from Planet Money

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The research keeps coming in on remote work. New evidence suggests working from home, at least full-time, may not be as productive as we once thought. Economist Jose Maria Barrero and his co-authors have reviewed this and other studies for a recent paper. In this episode, we hear about the challenges that come with working fully remote and some best practices for hybrid work.

This episode was first published as a bonus episode for our Planet Money+ listeners. Today, we're making it available for everyone!

To hear more episodes like this, and to hear Planet Money and The Indicator without sponsor messages, support the show by signing up for Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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The tradition of sending cards to loved ones was in decline — until it was rescued by a new generation. But millennials have their own ideas about what sentiments they want to convey. Zachary Crockett is thinking of you on your special day.  

 

• SOURCES:
  • Mia Mercado, writer and former editor at Hallmark.
  • George White, president of Up With Paper and former president of the American Greeting Card Association.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • 34th Louie Awards - Finalists & Winners, (2022-2023).
  • "Season’s (and Other...) Greetings," by Maria Ricapito (Marie Claire, 2020).
  • "Hallmark Greeting Cards Have Adjusted to the Digital Revolution," by Trent Gillies (CNBC, 2017).
  • "Testimony of Don Hall, Jr. President and CEO of Hallmark Cards, Inc. Before a Joint Hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, Federal Services and International Security and the House, Postal Service and the District of Columbia" (2010).

Economics Job Market Rumors is a website that's half a job information Wiki, where people post about what's going on inside economics departments, and half a discussion forum, where anyone with an internet connection can ask the economics hive mind whatever they want. All anonymously.

People can talk about finding work, share rumors, and just blow off steam. And that steam can get scaldingly hot. The forum has become notorious for racist and sexist posts, often attacking specific women and people from marginalized backgrounds.

Last year, economist Florian Ederer and engineer Kyle Jensen discovered a flaw in the way the site gave anonymity to its users. The flaw made it possible to identify which universities and institutions were the sources of many of the toxic posts on the site. And helped answer a longstanding question that's dogged the economics profession: was the toxicity on EJMR the work of a bunch of fringey internet trolls, or was it a symptom of a much deeper problem within economics itself?

This episode was hosted by Mary Childs and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Willa Rubin with help from James Sneed and Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Keith Romer and engineered by Josh Newell. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's __________.

The best part of waking up, is _______ in your cup!

Got ____?

If you can identify these brands based on tagline alone, it's possible you... are a 90s kid.

The '90s were arguably the peak moment of advertisers trying to make an impression on us that could last for decades. They got us to sing their jingles and say their slogans. These kinds of ads are called brand or image marketing. And it became a lot harder to pull off in the 21st century.

On today's show, we look back at the history of advertising, and two pretty unassuming products that totally transformed ads.

This show was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez and Kenny Malone. It was produced by James Sneed, and engineered by James Willets. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez, and edited by Molly Messick. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

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We're celebrating 300 years of Adam Smith! On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, we'll hear a keynote from the 2023 Markets & Society conference given by Emma Rothschild, the Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History at Harvard University. In this lecture, Emma Rothschild begins by building an understanding of Adam Smith's conception of markets. She reanalyzes Smith's "invisible hand" metaphor, challenging the traditional interpretation and suggesting that it might not primarily refer to markets or economic equilibrium but rather the economics of uncertainty and trust. Emma also discusses Frank Knight, F.A. Hayek, Smith's frustration with the frivolity of markets, the abolition of feudalism, the four bad markets, Smith's hope for the future, and more.

This lecture is part of the University of Glasgow’s Smith@300: Celebrating Adam Smith as Scholar, Educator, and Citizen supported by the John Templeton Foundation.

The introduction is given by Craig Smith.

Read more about Emma Rothschild.

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.

Virtual Sentiments, our new podcast series from the Hayek Program is now streaming! Subscribe today and listen to season two, now releasing!

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CC Music: Twisterium

What if you could borrow money on the cheap and use it to pay for just about anything? The U.S. government can, and does, with U.S. Treasuries. But the market for Treasuries might be more fragile than we know.

In this episode, Yesha Yadav of Vanderbilt Law School explains why.

This episode was first published as a bonus episode for our Planet Money+ listeners. Today we're making it available for everyone. To hear more episodes like this, and to hear Planet Money and The Indicator without sponsor messages, support the show by signing up for Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

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How does the blood of a 450-million-year-old arthropod help prevent lethal infections in humans? And could we exhaust the supply?  Zachary Crockett wades in.

 

• SOURCE:
  • Dina Fine Maron, senior wildlife crime investigative reporter at National Geographic.

 

• RESOURCES:
  • "When the Horseshoe Crabs Are Gone, We’ll Be in Trouble," by Deborah Cramer (The New York Times, 2023).
  • "Horseshoe Crab Blood Is Vital to Modern Medicine. A New Lab-Made Alternative Could Save the Species," by Kristoffer Whitney, Jolie Crunelle, and The Conversation (Fortune, 2023).
  • "Horseshoe Crab Blood Saves Lives. Can We Protect These Animals From Ourselves?" by Dina Fine Maron (National Geographic, 2022).
  • "For Atlantic Horseshoe Crabs, Love Is a Battlefield," by Dina Fine Maron (National Geographic, 2022).
  • "Horseshoe Crab Blood: The Miracle Vaccine Ingredient That's Saved Millions of Lives," by Katie Pavid (Natural History Museum, 2020).
  • "The Role of Horseshoe Crabs in the Biomedical Industry and Recent Trends Impacting Species Sustainability," by Jordan Krisfalusi-Gannon, Anthony L. Dellinger, et al. (Frontiers in Marine Science, 2018).
  • "Video: Horseshoe Crabs Mate in Annual Beach 'Orgy,'" by Heather Duner MacAdam (National Geographic, 2014).
  • "Crash: A Tale of Two Species," S26.E7 of Nature (2011).

 

• EXTRAS:
  • "Baby Blue Blood Drive," by Radiolab (2020).