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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The volatility in stock markets around the world appears to have subsided, at least for now. But the past 10 days have been a wrenching ride for investors, and many analysts still don't understand what set off the slide. NPR's Adam Davidson profiles two entrepreneurs and how the market turmoil affected them.
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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.
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The Federal Reserve Bank moved Wednesday morning to ease a global credit crisis, announcing a plans to offer $40 billion in emergency funds to banks through an auction process. The move was coordinated with other major central banks and is designed to increase liquidity around the globe.
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After seeing its sock industry decimated by competition from lower-wage countries, Fort Payne, Ala., aims to prepare its youngest residents for a high-tech future. It's investing in technologically advanced education tools in hopes that its high school graduates will be able to take advantage of a wave of new high-tech jobs coming to the region.
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Fort Payne, Ala., the world's sock capital, doesn't like competition from Honduras, which has enjoyed duty-free sock exports to the U.S. The tariff is set to be reinstated soon, but some say the town should move away from socks if it wants to compete globally. -
Robert Frank often wonders such things as: Why are milk cartons square? He solves the conundrums in everyday life using basic economics. Some of the findings are in his new book The Economic Naturalist.
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A cheap dollar may be boosting exports, but it's also putting U.S. companies on sale. Foreign firms are snatching up U.S. based companies at the fastest pace in seven years. When the topic is foreign takeovers of U.S. firms it doesn't take much to prompt concerns about loss of jobs and control. But many observers see these transactions as an absolutely normal and inevitable part of globalization.
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Mattel issues a recall affecting more than 9 million toys made in China, citing magnets that could be swallowed and possible problems with lead paint. The company's Fisher-Price division recalled 1.5 million preschool toys from a different Chinese supplier earlier this month.
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The federal minimum wage goes up 70 cents to $5.85 an hour. More than a million workers will make around $1,500 a year more than they would have without the increase. It is the first increase in a decade.
