Category: Series

We ask economists for their expertise all the time on The Indicator, so why not their tips on love? On our final installment of Love Week, we ask economist Tim Harford to answer listeners' relationship quandaries, from paying for a first date to alternatives to saying, 'I love you.'

Thanks to Grant-Lee Phillps for composing our Love Week theme song and Kaitlin Brito for artwork.

Related episodes:
Trying to fix the dating app backlash (Apple / Spotify)
How American heiresses became Dollar Princesses (Apple / Spotify)
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)

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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Unanswered messages. Endless swiping. An opaque algorithm. The backlash to online dating feels like it's reached a fever pitch recently. For today's Love Week episode, why people are unhappy with online dating and what Hinge's CEO is trying to do about it. Also, a Nobel Prize economist delivers a little tough love.

Related listening:
How American heiresses became Dollar Princesses (Apple / Spotify)
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)
Hinge: Justin McLeod (How I Built This)
The dating app paradox
The economics behind sorority rush

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.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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)

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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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.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy