Adam Davidson
Adam Davidson is a contributor to Planet Money, a co-production of NPR and This American Life. He also writes the weekly "It's the Economy" column for the New York Times Magazine.
His work has won several major awards including the Peabody, DuPont-Columbia, and the Polk. His radio documentary on the housing crisis, "The Giant Pool of Money," which he co-reported and produced with Alex Blumberg, was named one of the top ten works of journalism of the decade by the Arthur L. Carter of Journalism Institute at New York University. It was widely recognized as the clearest and most entertaining explanation of the roots of the financial crisis in any media.
Davidson and Blumberg took the lessons they learned crafting "The Giant Pool of Money" to create Planet Money. In two weekly podcasts, a blog, and regular features on Morning Edition, All Things Considered and This American Life, Planet Money helps listeners understand how dramatic economic change is impacting their lives. Planet Money also proves, every day, that substantive, intelligent economic reporting can be funny, engaging, and accessible to the non-expert.
Before Planet Money, Davidson was International Business and Economics Correspondent for NPR. He traveled around the world to cover the global economy and pitched in during crises, such as reporting from Indonesia's Banda Aceh just after the tsunami, New Orleans post-Katrina, and Paris during the youth riots.
Prior to coming to NPR, Davidson was Middle East correspondent for PRI's Marketplace. He spent a year in Baghdad, Iraq, from 2003 to 2004, producing award-winning reports on corruption in the US occupation.
Davidson has also written for The Atlantic, Harper's, GQ, Rolling Stone, and many other magazines. He has a degree in the history of religion from the University of Chicago.
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In honor of our 10th anniversary, we revisit our very first episode. -
We visited a libertarian summer paradise. What we found: People paying in gold. Exotic bacon dishes. A nine-year-old selling alcohol. -
Oil prices are hovering near $120 a barrel and people are wondering what, if anything, can be done to bring prices down. Oil is a commodity — the price of which is set in a global market. Increasingly, oil-producing countries are pointing at the weak dollar as the main factor keeping prices high.
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Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson issued a sweeping proposal to overhaul how U.S. financial companies are regulated. The proposal does not address the immediate crisis, but seeks to lessen the impact of crises in the future.
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The U.S. dollar plunged against other major currencies Thursday, dipping below 100 yen for the first time in 12 years. There were other signs of weakness — retail sales were down in February. Despite all this, the stock market closed higher.
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New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has announced that he is resigning. Spitzer will step down on Monday and hand over the reins of power to Lt. Governor David Paterson. Spitzer had been under intense pressure to resign after federal law enforcement alleged that he had paid large sums of cash to a high-class call girl agency.
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A routine financial inquiry led to the discovery of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's involvement in a high-priced prostitution ring. How do banks scrutinize the transactions of their customers, particularly "PEPs" — politically exposed people?
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The Commerce Department says the U.S. gross domestic product grew at just 0.6 percent in the final quarter of 2007. That is the weakest growth rate in five years for the GDP.
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A day after the U.S. Federal Reserve slashed a key interest rate, world markets were calmer. A steep two-day slide was triggered by fears of a U.S. recession, but it's unclear that a nationwide downturn is a certainty.
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President Bush's emergency stimulus package proposes to put cash in the hands of consumers. Most observers expect that relief to take the form of tax rebate checks. But it's not yet clear how much the checks will be for, or who will qualify for them.
