NPR: Planet Money

Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Family Dollars are opening up stores every six hours around the country. Some towns are fighting them.

Superman could easily take over the world. But there are some good economic reasons why he doesn't.

On eBay right now: A baby T-Rex. The price? $2.95 million.

The remarkable story of the online CAPTCHA tests we've all taken to stop spam and prove we're not robots.

The first few months of 2019 looked troubling. But now we seem to be on the upswing.

The share of people aged 25 to 54 in the labor force has fallen in the past couple of decades. What happened?

Does raising the minimum wage kill jobs? No. Not really. But it could. The hunt is on to find the magic number. Here's the evidence.

New York will soon charge drivers to enter the most crowded parts of the city. Congestion pricing: Does it work? Who's doing it? And is it coming to a city near you?

A trade war with China—and a hurricane—make peanut farmers miserable. And we look at the World Happiness Report for 2018.

Taxes have been around forever. But the income tax? In the U.S., it's relatively recent.

The wisdom of crowds is an eerie phenomenon that informs everything from the stock market to the price of orange juice. We put it to the test with a farm animal.

There's a gap in career earnings between introverts and extroverts.

The story behind the first six keyboard letters are driven by economics.

The IMF finds companies are getting increasingly powerful. Here's why that's bad for consumers and for the whole economy.

The cost of a measles outbreak - to individuals, families, communities, and the country - is high.

In 1973, a coup took Chile from socialism to capitalism. That economic shift was implemented by a ruthless dictator with the help of a handful of economists known as the Chicago Boys.

Free trade may solve problems for businesses transacting across borders, but it can make life painful for their workers.

Trade makes for peaceful relationships between nations, but gains for consumers and workers aren't spread evenly.

Today Chile has one of the wealthiest, most stable economies in South America. But it was born in a violent struggle, between Marxism and capitalism, democracy and dictatorship.

Prices for most agricultural products change with supply and demand. Not maple syrup.

A new round of U.S. tariffs could hit European wine, cheese, aircraft, and escargots.

A national movement to ban plastic bags is gaining steam, but these restrictions may actually hurt the environment more than help it.

The U.S. is one of the world's largest economies, but it lags when it comes to happiness: the World Happiness Report ranks America number 19.

We follow the founder of f*ckjerry and comedian Jim Mendrinos into the world of comedy. Where a whole series of informal sanctions are deployed to protect jokes from theft.

Happy Jobs Friday! The economy is still adding jobs, unemployment remains low, and wage growth is fine. It's all good...right?

A recent paper examines the motivations behind Xi Jinping's corruption crackdown and arrives at a surprising answer.

Joe Bankman, professor at Stanford, figured out a way to make filing your taxes easy and painless. Then the tax lobby found out about it.

Global demand for hazelnuts is growing, thanks to the popularity of products like Nutella. So it should be a great time to be in the hazelnut business... but there's one big problem.

Allison Schrager is an economist and journalist who visited a number of brothels to examine how we understand and deal with risk.

We answer a timeless parenting question with hard numbers and a bizarro story about a sad, office-dwelling fairy.

Companies are increasingly using algorithms to set their prices, but is that giving them too much power over consumers?

The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index is one of the indicators retailers, policy-makers and manufacturers use to gauge the health of the economy. But what is the index, exactly?

On the one hand, you could say the economy's looking rocky; on the other hand you could argue it's in good health. We lay out both sides.

Some colleges are offering students a new way to pay. It's not a scholarship. It's not a loan. It's called an income share agreement. It's like the students are selling stock in themselves.

Today, answers to your questions on dry cleaner pricing, and the comparative investment virtues of the housing and stock markets.

The story behind two sneaky forces that drive us to buy more products, more often: Planned obsolescence and psychological obsolescence.

Gabriela Saade is a 27-year-old economist in Caracas, Venezuela. Yesterday, she walked us through Venezuela's staggering numbers. Today, we walk a mile in her shoes.

The crisis in Venezuela continues to deepen, with nationwide blackouts hitting the country again this week. Today, we talk to a Caracas-based economist about what's happening in her country.

Recent studies suggest we're not witnessing the dawn of a new gig economy. What accounts for the resilience of traditional employment?

Spotify recently launched in India, but that path was long and complicated. We take the experience of Spotify and use it as a lens to look at why breaking into India is so difficult.

There's an entire, powerful industry pushing behind the scenes for better police behavior--not with protests or picket signs, but spreadsheets and actuaries.

The latest edition of "Overrated, Underrated" with economist Tyler Cowen.

All shares of stock are not created equal. Stock can come in different classes now: Class A, Class B. Some of this stock comes with superpowers... and some of it comes with almost no power at all.

Today's show is about the fickle market for art. What makes a dead shark cost $12 million, and a photo of steel wool that looks like a tornado cost only $1,265?

Venezuelans are starving because there isn't enough food. But the country has so much fertile land, water, and sunshine — shouldn't it be a farmer's paradise?

Your average cup of coffee is getting more expensive — but the price for coffee beans is going down. How can that be?

The renowned economist and former Obama adviser Alan Krueger died this past weekend. We look at his enormous legacy.

Should you take out a student loan? Jill Schlesinger, author of "The Dumb Things Smart People Do With Their Money," does the math.

The scandal that dominated the news this week involved parents paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their kids into the right college. But what is a college degree really worth?

When an American company named ABRO learns their goods are being counterfeited in China, they pursue lawsuits, extraditions, sting operations and more to make it stop.