Planet Money

When workers past retirement age can’t afford to retire — that’s one thing. When they can, and just don’t want to — that’s trickier.It used to be legal to force people to retire when they hit a certain age. The trend used to be earlier and earlier retirement. Now it’s later and l ...  Show more

Imagine a nation where, for the residents, land is for the claiming. You walk down the street, pick out a nice looking plot of land, and just plop down a marker. No rent, no taxes, no deed – just free land. That’s the communal system of property rights that governed a small Carib ...  Show more

Squishy, slimy, fidgety toys are having a moment. But it’s more than just an anxiety-soothing, social-media fueled trend – these toys are reshaping how toys get made.Today on the show, we have the story of the once-humble squishy dumpling and what it teaches us about how to make ...  Show more

Let’s call it the luxury of restraint. This is what enabled Norway to avoid the fate of so many other countries when they discovered oil and it changed the mix of their economy overnight.Norway! It’s expensive, wealthy, and abundant in resources. We’re going to compare two of the ...  Show more

Let’s head to a small town in Kenya that’s become globally famous for helping economists answer some of the biggest questions facing humanity.In Kenya and Nigeria, economics isn’t just theory, it’s real life. We’ll look at some radical experiments that turned out to be enormously ...  Show more