Category: News

In the late 19th century, British aristocrats had a big problem. They were short on cash to fund their lifestyles and maintain their vast country estates. In our third installment of Love Week, we look at the economic forces that drove some British men of the time to marry American heiresses, dubbed "Dollar Princesses," forming a union of money, status and, sometimes, love.

For more on Dollar Princesses, Mark Taylor's research paper is published here. Kristen Richardson's book is called The Season: A Social History of the Debutante.

Related episodes:
Why the publishing industry is hot (and bothered) for romance (Apple / Spotify)
It's Love Week! How the TV holiday rom-com got so successful (Apple / Spotify)

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Once relegated to supermarket aisles, romance books are now mainstream. And authors, an often-maligned group within publishing, have found greater commercial success than many writers in other genres. On today's episode of Love Week, our series on the business of romance, we find out how romance novelists rode the e-book wave and networked with each other to achieve their happily-for-now status in the industry.

Read more by Christine Larson, Priscilla Oliveras and Natalie Caña.

Thanks to Grant-Lee Phillips for our theme song and Kaitlin Brito for artwork.

Related listening:
It's Love Week! How the TV holiday rom-com got so successful (Apple / Spotify)
Rufaro Faith's 'Let the Games Begin' is a rom-com set in the Olympic village

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Welcome to Love Week on the Indicator, our weeklong series exploring the business and economic side of romance. On today's show, we fire up the gas logs and pour a mug of cocoa to discuss the made-for-TV rom-com machine, and how television executives learned to mass produce seasonal romance.

Special thanks to Grant-Lee Phillips for our Love Week theme song and Kaitlin Brito for episode artwork.

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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It's ... Indicators of the Week! It's that time of week where we look at the most intriguing indicators from this last week of economic and business news.

On today's episode: NHPR's Nate Hegyi, host of the podcast Outside/In, joins us to talk natural disaster loans, election prediction markets and ... potato chips?

Related Episodes:
What's with all the tiny soda cans? And other grocery store mysteries, solved.
A market to bet on the future

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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When the leader of the Wagner group, Yevgeny Prigozhin died in an exploding plane widely attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it wasn't clear what would happen. Today, why the Wagner Group has been called the world's most dangerous private army, its relationship with Russia and how its business model creates a blueprint for others to follow.

Related episodes:
Not your typical army: how the Wagner Group operates (Apple / Spotify)
How the 'shadow fleet' helps Russia skirt sanctions (Apple / Spotify)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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Two years ago, the yield curve inverted. That means short-term interest rates on Treasury bonds were unusually higher than long-term interest rates. When that's happened in the past, a recession has come. In fact, the inverted yield curve has predicted every recession since 1969 ... until now. Today, are we saying goodbye to the inverted yield curve's flawless record?

Related episodes:
The inverted yield curve is screaming RECESSION (Apple / Spotify)
Yield curve jitters
Two Yield Curve Indicators

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This year's Economics Nobel went to a trio of researchers whose work focuses on the importance of strong institutions for an economy. Today we hear from the newly minted Nobel laureates about how they came to their groundbreaking conclusions.

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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It's ... Indicators of the Week! It's that time of week when we look at the most fascinating economic numbers from the news.

On today's episode: Inflation slowly coming down, getting the lead out of water pipes, and a more expensive Mega Millions.

Related Episodes:
Lotteries And Happiness
Indicator exploder: jobs and inflation

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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The problem of how to price water is a perennial conundrum. Water is an essential limited resource that everyone needs, so how do you price it so everyone can afford it while making sure that utilities have enough revenue to fix their aging systems?

Today on the show, we find out why it's so hard to price water and how a city's solution led to a threat to cut off thousands of residents from a popular welfare program.

You can read more about the fight over water prices here.

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If you need some reading glasses in the United States, you don't have to break the bank to pick some up. That's important for older folks who need a little extra magnification. But in some parts of the world, people who need readers don't have that privilege. Today on the show, we'll find out why that is and learn the economic solution to the reading glasses shortage.

Related episodes:
Two indicators: supply chain solutions (Apple / Spotify)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

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