Stacey Vanek Smith

Companies know that when they screw up big time they need to issue an immediate and comprehensive apology. But what about the smaller stuff? If a company gets your order wrong or sends you a faulty product, what should they do? That's the topic of a new paper on the economics of apologies. A group of economists partnered with the ride-sharing app Uber to try and figure out the most effective way for a company to apologize to a wronged customer.

China's social credit score is a lot like a credit score in the U.S., but with a twist. In China, your ability to participate fully in the economy is dependent not just on your borrowing history, but also your behavior. How you act at work, what you buy in the store and whether you obey traffic laws can all factor into your score.

The Chinese government is currently piloting this program in several cities. Today on the Indicator, we look at life in one of the pilot cities and see what life might look like in China if this system is adopted nationwide.

In America, default and bankruptcy is almost a rite of passage for people in business. It's certainly nothing to be ashamed of. In China, however, failure to pay your debts is a cardinal sin. Offenders are banished to a blacklist. If you're on the blacklist, you can't buy a plane ticket or stay in many hotels. And your face may be plastered on billboards throughout the city, naming you as untrustworthy. Today on the Indicator, we talk with a coal broker who has been on the list for more than two years.

Even the most creative jobs have parts that are pretty routine — tasks that, at least in theory, can be done by a machine. Take, for example, being a reporter.

A company called Automated Insights created a program called WordSmith that generates simple news stories based on things like sporting events and financial news. The stories are published on Yahoo! and via the Associated Press, among other outlets.

We wanted to know: How would NPR's best stack up against the machine?

On Sept. 9, BJ Holloway's life savings were stolen. Six cows worth about $10,000 were taken in the dead of the night from his land in Spencer, Okla.

BJ started raising cows when he was just a teenager. His parents gave him the first two, and he raised those until they had calves he could sell off to buy some more. Over the years, he kept doing that, breeding the cows and selling off the little ones. Raising cows is a business for BJ, and all of his savings are wrapped up in them, which made the theft of the cows absolutely devastating.

A law passed to protect the Union army in the Civil War is one of the key tools federal officials have used to collect tens of billion in corporate fines this year.

During the Civil War, the army relied heavily on private contractors for necessities like uniforms, shoes, and gunpowder. Those contractors often cut corners.