Sweeter than ice cream, more useful than sunscreen, better than a day at the beach: Planet Money Summer School is back!
This year, Planet Money Summer School is taking your brain on a world tour in search of the best economic ideas to bring home. For more than 15 years, we've packed up our microphones and traveled the globe in search of people and stories that explain how the economy really works. We're really proud to be one of the few podcasts that get out and do this for economics stories. So, this summer, we're revisiting some of our favorite places, people, and reporting — and pairing those stories with new conversations with the economists best suited to unpack the big ideas behind them.
(You can listen to past seasons of Planet Money Summer School here. We've covered economic history, investing, and the basics of micro- and macroeconomics among other topics.)
Episodes drop every Wednesday until Labor Day in the Planet Money podcast feed.
In Episode 1, we see how Australia used a market to help put scarce water resources to their "best" uses. But at the same time, it invited speculators to profit from water. So who wins? Then, we meet the New Zealand economist — who is also a jazz musician — who invented one of the most influential ideas in modern central banking: inflation targeting.
In future episodes, we'll head to Norway to learn how a nation can beat the paradox of plenty (aka the resource curse) to get rich and stay rich, while selling its surplus resources to the rest of the world. In China, we see what happens when you run an economy like an engineer, and the perils of overbuilding.
Everywhere we stop, we are collecting innovative ideas worth borrowing (or avoiding). By the end of the series in late August, we probably won't have all of the world's problems solved. But we do hope to have assembled enough good ideas for a few good conversations — or maybe even a few ideas worth pestering your elected representatives about.
Thanks to everyone who's sent us ideas so far. Timothy, who lived in Taiwan, told us he was struck by how simple filing taxes was there.
"You simply used a downloadable program provided by the government to complete your taxes — no complex loopholes, deductions, etc," he writes. "It took me maybe 30 minutes to complete it."
Timothy says he'd love it if the U.S. adopted something similar. "I know the lucrative tax prep industry would loudly oppose this," he writes, "but their accountants could find new jobs."
Kate writes about informal savings groups known as ROSCAs (Rotating Savings and Credit Associations). "They're everywhere, from West Africa to Latin America and parts of Asia, and millions of people rely on them instead of banks," she writes. "At first glance they seem irrational. Why would you hand your money to a group when you could just save it yourself? But once you dig in, they become a fascinating story about economics, trust, commitment devices, social capital, and financial inclusion."
What's the most interesting economic idea you've encountered while traveling or living abroad?
Send us your ideas: planetmoney@npr.org. Put "Summer School" in the subject line. We'll feature some of our favorite submissions in our final episode.
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