What makes a monopoly depends on who you ask and what’s being monopolized. In the case of Google, it's a narrow focus on one element of its business: search. Jennifer Huddleston details how a court concluded that Google, despite its many competitors, is still a search monopolist.
It's that time of year when we want to lie on a beach and lose ourselves in a good book. Today on the show, three summer reading recs that got our hosts thinking about economics. Remember, anything read on the beach is, in fact, a "beach read."
Books recommended in this episode: • Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (B&N, Bookshop) • Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World by Tom Chivers (B&N, Bookshop) • Range: Why Generalist Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein (B&N, Bookshop)
Indicators of the Week is a show dedicated to highlighting some of the most interesting numbers in the news. Today, we break down our favorite indicators in Google's antitrust defeat, the currency trade in Japan that jolted global markets and another way of creating an Olympic medal tally.
Related episodes: Is Google search getting worse? (Apple / Spotify) Why the Olympics cost so much (Apple / Spotify)
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
The International Olympic Committee has developed a reputation over the years for stringently enforcing its trademarks during the summer games. It has good reason to, with brands like Coca-Cola and Visa paying top dollar for exclusive sponsorship rights. Today on the show, the lengths the IOC will go to protect its trademarks and how smaller brands try to avoid their dragnet.
Related episodes: Why the Olympics cost so much (Apple / Spotify) Peacock, potassium and other Paris Olympics Indicators (Apple / Spotify)
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Globalization, as we once knew it, is dead ... well, that's according to the UK's new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves.
Chancellor Reeves has run the UK Treasury since July 2024. She's facing an economic backdrop familiar to many countries: hollowed-out industrial towns; climate change; global wars and conflicts.
Today on the show: Our conversation with Chancellor Reeves on her visit this week to the US. What she thinks went wrong with globalization, and the new economic map she's coursing.
Public support for fostering robust legal immigration has taken a dramatic negative turn. What's likely under a Trump or Harris administration on immigration? David Bier comments.
The U.S. wants to become a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. That will mean a lot of new generation from renewable energy. It also means more transmission networks are needed to bring it onto the grid.
But there's a debate over how that new transmission should be built — between a competitive or monopoly approach. Today, we look at why competition is so divisive and why each side thinks they should build the next generation of transmission infrastructure.
Related Listening: Texas' new power grid problem (Apple / Spotify) Green energy gridlock (Apple / Spotify)
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