
Stacey Vanek Smith
Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money.She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.
Prior to coming to NPR, Smith worked for Marketplace, where she was a correspondent and fill-in host. While there, Smith was part of a collaboration with The New York Times, where she explored the relationship between money and marriage. She was also part of Marketplace's live shows, where she produced a series of pieces on getting her data mined.
Smith is a native of Idaho and grew up working on her parents' cattle ranch. She is a graduate of Princeton University, where she earned a bachelor's degree in comparative literature and creative writing. She also holds a master's in broadcast journalism from Columbia University.
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With college applications expected to decline in coming years, many U.S. schools are having trouble balancing their books. This tough financial reality has led to a wave of recent school mergers.
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For astronauts living at the International Space Station, money is practically useless. There's nowhere to spend it. Instead astronauts developed a functioning barter economy.
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The latest pandemic relief package includes hundreds of billions of dollars in funding for small businesses. But for many companies, the money hasn't targeted one of their biggest overheads: rent.
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The first doses of COVID-19 vaccines are being administered. Our Planet Money team delves into the dark web to learn more about the counterfeit vaccines that are being sold around the world.
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The essential ingredient in the birth of the mafia wasn't the threats or the murders or the other stuff that's great for Hollywood movies. It was lemons. Our Planet Money team explains.
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Of the 1.1 million people who left the job market in September, more than 860,000 were women. We examine why women are dropping out of the workforce, and what it will mean for the economy.
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There's a long history of bars playing a vital role in innovation and economic growth. NPR discusses what may happen now that the coronavirus pandemic has shut down so many of them.
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The coronavirus pandemic forced many people to work from home. NPR looks into what remote work from home could mean for commercial real estate.
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Discontinued Lego sets can be worth a lot of money. Counterfeit Lego kits, made illegally in China, are scamming collectors.
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The price of eggs skyrocketed at the start of the pandemic. That had some states crying foul — and filing suits against egg companies.