Planet Money

Here at Planet Money, Thanksgiving is not just a time to feast on turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casseroles and pie(s). It's also a time to feast on economics. Today, we host a very Planet Money Thanksgiving feast, and solve a few economic questions along the way. First: a turkey mystery. Around the holidays, demand for turkey at grocery stores goes up by as much as 750%. And when turkey demand is so high, you might think that the price of turkey would also go up. But data shows [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165176523000575], the price of whole turkeys actually falls around the holidays; it goes down by around 20%. So what's going on? The answer has to do what might be special about supply and demand around the holidays. We also reveal what is counted (and not counted) [https://apps.bea.gov/scb/issues/2022/02-february/0222-household-production.htm] in the ways we measure the economy. And we look to economics [https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018/06/popular-economicsciences2012.pdf] to help solve the perennial Thanksgiving dilemma: Where should each dinner guest sit? Who should sit next to whom? This episode was hosted by Erika Beras and Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed with an assist from Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Josh Newell. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts [http://n.pr/PM-digital] or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney [https://n.pr/3HlREPz]. Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts [http://n.pr/PM-digital], Spotify [https://n.pr/3gTkQlR], Google Podcasts [https://n.pr/3iMBXqz], the NPR app [https://n.pr/3Bkb17W] or anywhere you get podcasts. Find more Planet Money: Facebook [https://n.pr/3h92GwS] / Instagram [https://n.pr/3FqLuws] / TikTok [https://n.pr/3sGZdrq] / Our weekly Newsletter [https://n.pr/3zrFvUB].

Some of the most influential and beloved novels of the last few years have been about money, finance, and the global economy. Some overtly so, others more subtly. It got to the point where we just had to call up the authors to find out more: What brought them into this world? What did they learn? How were they thinking about economics when they wrote these beautiful books? Today on the show: we get to the bottom of it. We talk to three bestselling contemporary novelists — Min Jin Lee (Pachinko and Free Food for Millionaires), Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven, The Glass Hotel and Sea of Tranquility), and Hernan Diaz (Trust, In the Distance) – about how the hidden forces of economics and money have shaped their works. This episode was hosted by Mary Childs and Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Willa Rubin, edited by Molly Messick, and engineered by Neisha Heinis. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts [http://n.pr/PM-digital] or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney [https://n.pr/3HlREPz]. Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts [http://n.pr/PM-digital], Spotify [https://n.pr/3gTkQlR], Google Podcasts [https://n.pr/3iMBXqz], the NPR app [https://n.pr/3Bkb17W] or anywhere you get podcasts. Find more Planet Money: Facebook [https://n.pr/3h92GwS] / Instagram [https://n.pr/3FqLuws] / TikTok [https://n.pr/3sGZdrq] / Our weekly Newsletter [https://n.pr/3zrFvUB]. Music: Universal Music Production - "This Summer," "Music Keeps Me Dancing," "Rain," and "All The Time."

China's economic growth for the past few decades has been extraordinary. And much of that growth was fueled by real estate – it was like this miraculous economic engine for the country. But recently, that engine seems to have stopped working. And that has raised all kinds of questions not just for China but also for the global economy. Today on the show, we look at what's happening inside China's real estate market. And we try to answer the question: how did we get here? Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts [http://n.pr/PM-digital] or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney [https://n.pr/3HlREPz].