Planet Money

NPR

This is The Indicator from Planet Money.

I'm Ricky Mulvey.

Joining me today is our producer, Angel Carreras.

My guest today is Alex Mayase.

He is a longtime contributor to Planet Money on NPR, focused on economics and business.

And he is also the host of a new food and economics podcast called Gastronomics.

But for our purposes today, he is the author of the new book, Planet Money, a guide to the economic forces that shape your life.

Hello, Alex.

Welcome.

So I do think like cost disease, that's something I really keep an eye on and think about is the way that it often is a powerful economic force in terms of pushing us to spend less time with others and more time alone.

Alex, it's been a pleasure talking to you.

And I don't even play backgammon, but I thought it was really, really interesting.

If you do not currently listen to Planet Money, you should because it's similar to that kind of vibe.

It's, like, they deep dive on, like, weird shit that's, like, very – so they just did, like, how do products get selected for big box stores.

And they did this by creating a board game with exploding kittens that they then sold to a big box store and talked about, like, the whole process of how it got there.

But they also talk about things like – how does a how does a economy go from being like a little economy to a big economy and like talking about like the value of the peso in argentina and like all kinds of just they they did um what was it called planet money summer school where they were doing like episodes on different countries um over the course of the summer to teach you about economic things but it's that they always pick out interesting economic topics but like things you wouldn't think about anyways i'll definitely check it out what have you been watching Little House on the Prairie, which had a new version come out on Netflix that I have been enjoying.

It's my, like, cozy comfort show at nighttime.

And then I just today finished watching the new season of House of the Dragon.

The

podcast, the podcast that's called, uh, planet money.

So good podcast.

It's like an NPR podcast literally started as reporting on, on that recession.

Yeah, what did I learn in the second day? Just so much.

The Planet Money people were so inspirational, showing their storytelling, giving insight on their way that they look in at stuff, like they summarize and skim and find the meaningful moments very reminiscent of what I personally learned and like my mentorship with Jeff Bartsch like finding those key moments to build your story around What is interesting about maybe a boring story? Oh, she's outside now taking a photo of herself in front of the pizza place.

That's awesome.

I love Alexis so much, you guys.

Natalia is a research economist, and along with her co-author Emma Harrington, has had her work published in top journals, including Science, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and American Economic Journals.

Along with Emma, her research has also been featured in the BBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Atlantic's Good on Paper podcast, and NPR's Planet Money.

Emma is a professor of economics at the University of Virginia.

Natalia and Emma, welcome to Traceability Podcast.