The 15 Best Economics Podcasts (2026)

Stephen Dubner built a career on asking questions that economists are not supposed to ask, and Freakonomics Radio is where those questions get the full treatment. The podcast grew out of the bestselling book series he co-authored with Steven Levitt, but it has long since evolved beyond its origins into one of the most consistently interesting shows about how the world actually works.

Each week, Dubner picks a topic and peels back the layers. Why do some policies that sound great on paper fail completely in practice? What can wolves teach us about organizational behavior? How does the airline industry really make safety decisions? The episodes run 45 to 65 minutes and feature a mix of expert interviews, data analysis, and Dubner's own narration tying it all together.

With over 950 episodes and a 4.5-star rating from more than 30,000 reviews, the show has earned its reputation for rigorous but accessible thinking. Dubner is a skilled interviewer who pushes back on his guests without being combative. He genuinely wants to understand, and that curiosity comes through in every conversation.

The Freakonomics Radio Network has spawned several spinoffs, but the original remains the flagship for good reason. It takes the tools of economics and applies them to everyday life in ways that feel both surprising and obvious once you hear the explanation. That is a tough trick to repeat weekly for almost a thousand episodes, but Dubner keeps pulling it off.

Planet Money is not a traditional investing podcast, and that is exactly why it belongs on a list for beginners. NPR's twice-weekly economics show uses narrative journalism to explain how money, markets, and economies actually work, and that foundational understanding is what separates investors who make informed decisions from those who just follow tips. The team -- including Kenny Malone, Erika Beras, Jeff Guo, and Mary Childs -- has a gift for finding stories that make abstract economic concepts feel tangible and specific. They once bought a toxic asset to explain the 2008 financial crisis. They set up an actual shell company to show how corporate secrecy works. They invested in gold to trace the global commodity supply chain. Each episode runs about 25 minutes and the storytelling is tight, funny, and surprisingly informative. Recent episodes have covered how patent pools affect innovation, the economics of public domain intellectual property, and dispatches from Brazil's economy. You will not learn how to read a stock chart here, but you will start to understand why interest rates move markets, how trade policy affects your portfolio, and what inflation actually does to purchasing power. For a beginner investor, that economic literacy is the foundation everything else builds on. Planet Money has been doing this since 2008 and has won multiple Peabody Awards for its work.

The Indicator is Planet Money's daily spinoff, and it does something remarkable: it explains an economic concept or trend in under 10 minutes. Hosted by Adrian Ma, Darian Woods, and Wailin Wong, the show drops Monday through Friday and covers everything from tariff impacts and job market shifts to why your grocery bill keeps climbing.

With nearly 960 episodes and a 4.7-star rating from over 9,000 reviews, The Indicator has proven that short does not mean shallow. The hosts rotate through different pairings and bring a conversational warmth that keeps the economics from feeling like homework. They will explain how immigration affects labor markets or break down what a yield curve inversion actually means for your job security, and they do it without condescension.

The production is NPR-quality, which means clean audio, solid fact-checking, and original music. Some listeners note that the actual content runs about five minutes once you strip out ads and credits, which can feel brief. But that brevity is the whole point — this is the podcast equivalent of a sharp newspaper column. You can listen during a coffee break and come away understanding something about the economy that was murky 10 minutes ago. It connects especially well to work life because so many episodes deal directly with wages, hiring trends, remote work policies, and the forces shaping your paycheck.

Russ Roberts has been hosting EconTalk every Monday since 2006, building an archive of over 1,000 long-form conversations that together form one of the most comprehensive economics education resources available in audio. Roberts, who splits his time between Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford's Hoover Institution, interviews authors, economists, psychologists, historians, philosophers, and doctors. The guest list is genuinely eclectic -- recent episodes have featured psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer critiquing Kahneman and Tversky's research on intuition, economist William Easterly debating whether economic progress justifies coercion, and poet Anna Gat exploring technology's effect on conversation. Each episode runs about an hour and follows a conversational rhythm rather than a rigid interview format. Roberts asks probing follow-up questions and is not afraid to push back on his guests or acknowledge when he is uncertain about something. That intellectual honesty is a big part of why the show has such a loyal following. The topics extend well beyond traditional economics into healthcare systems, consciousness, the 2008 financial crisis, data interpretation, and the philosophy of science. Roberts has a libertarian-leaning perspective, but he regularly hosts guests who disagree with him and gives their arguments a fair hearing. EconTalk rewards patient listeners who enjoy watching ideas get tested in real time through genuine dialogue rather than rehearsed talking points.

Bloomberg journalists Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway have been co-hosting Odd Lots since 2015, and their formula is simple: find the most interesting, often overlooked story in finance or economics, then bring on the person who knows it best. New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday, and the topics range widely — semiconductor supply chains, Federal Reserve plumbing, rare earth metal markets, Venezuelan hyperinflation, prediction market regulation, and everything in between.

What makes Odd Lots different from a standard market commentary show is the hosts' genuine curiosity about how systems work. Joe and Tracy are not trying to give you stock picks or trading signals. They want to understand why shipping rates just spiked, how the repo market nearly broke in 2019, or what happens to global trade when one country hoards a critical mineral. The guests are typically researchers, economists, traders, or policymakers who can explain the mechanics in detail — people like Adam Posen from the Peterson Institute or Ricardo Hausmann from Harvard's Kennedy School.

With over 1,150 episodes and a 4.5-star rating from nearly 1,800 reviews, the show has built one of the largest audiences in financial podcasting. Episodes usually run 40 to 55 minutes, which is enough time to thoroughly explore a topic without dragging. The Bloomberg production quality is consistently high, and both hosts have a knack for asking the follow-up question you were thinking. If you want to understand the plumbing behind markets rather than just the price action on top, Odd Lots delivers that week after week.

Kai Ryssdal has anchored Marketplace since 2005, and his direct, plain-spoken delivery has made the show a daily habit for millions of listeners. Produced by American Public Media, the podcast airs every weekday and covers the day's business and economic news in about 30 minutes. Ryssdal and his team of reporters stationed around the world talk to CEOs, policymakers, small business owners, and regular people navigating the economy. The show's strength is context -- it goes beyond stock tickers and GDP numbers to explain what economic shifts actually mean for people's daily lives. No economics degree required. Ryssdal has an Emmy for investigative journalism from a PBS FRONTLINE documentary on money in politics, and that reporting instinct shows in how the show approaches stories. Rather than just reading data points, Marketplace finds the people affected by policy changes, trade disputes, and market swings and lets them explain the impact in their own words. The production has a distinctive rhythm: the opening market numbers, followed by reported segments, brief interviews, and Ryssdal's commentary tying it all together. After two decades, the format still feels fresh because the team consistently finds new angles on recurring economic themes. Marketplace is the kind of show you can listen to every single day without feeling like you are hearing the same thing twice. For a reliable daily briefing on the economy that respects your intelligence without demanding specialized knowledge, it remains one of the best options in public radio.

Shankar Vedantam has a gift for making behavioral science feel like storytelling. Hidden Brain, which grew out of his work at NPR, takes the invisible forces shaping your decisions and lays them bare in episodes that run about an hour. Vedantam interviews researchers and pairs their findings with real-life narratives, so you get both the data and the human moment that makes it stick. One week he might explore why you procrastinate on the things you care about most, and the next he is unpacking the psychology behind how strangers become friends. With 668 episodes, a 4.6-star rating from over 41,000 reviews, and a weekly release schedule that has barely wavered, this is one of the most consistent psychology shows running. The production quality is polished but not sterile. Vedantam has this calm, curious voice that makes complex research feel conversational rather than academic. If you have ever caught yourself doing something irrational and thought "why did I just do that," this show will probably give you the answer, backed by peer-reviewed studies. It is especially good for people who want to understand their own cognitive blind spots without sitting through a textbook.

David Beckworth, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, has been hosting Macro Musings since 2016 and recently passed the 500-episode milestone. The show focuses squarely on macroeconomics -- monetary policy, central banking, fiscal policy, and the forces that shape national and global economies. Beckworth is a vocal advocate for nominal GDP targeting as a monetary policy framework, and that perspective gives the show a clear analytical lens without making it one-note. Each week, he brings on academic economists, policy experts, and financial market practitioners for hour-long conversations that go substantially deeper than what you will find on most economics podcasts. Recent episodes have covered Federal Reserve strategy, cryptocurrency regulation, Treasury market mechanics, and retrospectives on major macro events of the year. Beckworth does his homework -- he reads his guests' papers before the interview and asks specific, informed questions that push conversations past surface-level talking points. The show is produced by the Mercatus Center with assistance from producer Sam Alburger, and the two occasionally team up for year-end retrospective episodes reviewing the biggest macro stories. Macro Musings is not trying to be accessible to everyone; it assumes some baseline familiarity with economic concepts and rewards listeners who want to go deep on how monetary and fiscal systems actually function. If you follow central bank policy or care about how interest rates, inflation, and government spending interact, this is one of the most substantive shows in the space.

Luigi Zingales, a University of Chicago Booth School economist, and Bethany McLean, author and journalist known for her early reporting on the Enron scandal, co-host this podcast from the Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State. The premise is right there in the name: capitalism is not working the way it should, and the show investigates where and why it breaks down. Produced in collaboration with the Chicago Booth Review, episodes examine specific failures and distortions in capitalist systems -- recent topics have included the AI investment bubble, Japan's economic stagnation, private equity's growing influence, the debate over privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and rising wealth inequality. Zingales brings academic rigor and a European outsider's perspective on American markets, while McLean contributes the investigative journalist's instinct for following money and power. Their dynamic works because they approach the same questions from different angles and are not afraid to disagree with each other on air. Episodes typically run 30 to 45 minutes and feature guest experts alongside the hosts' own analysis. The show does not fit neatly into left or right political categories -- it is critical of corporate concentration and regulatory capture regardless of which party enables them. For listeners interested in the structural problems within modern capitalism and the policy debates around fixing them, Capitalisn't offers informed, nuanced discussion rooted in serious economic research.

Mark Zandi, Moody's Analytics chief economist, anchors this podcast alongside colleagues Marisa DiNatale and Cristian deRitis. The three of them discuss key economic indicators, forecasts, and the risks facing the global economy with the kind of specificity you would expect from one of the world's leading economic research firms. Each episode typically centers on fresh data -- a jobs report, inflation numbers, consumer spending figures -- and the team walks through what the numbers mean, how they fit into the broader economic picture, and what they signal about the months ahead. The show's signature feature is the Risk Matrix, a visual framework the team uses to map out major economic threats and assign probabilities to different scenarios. Recent episodes have covered tariff impacts, Federal Reserve leadership transitions, labor market resilience, and the team's annual predictions for the year ahead, complete with base case, upside, and downside probability estimates. Zandi has been a go-to economist for media and policymakers for years, and his ability to translate complex data into clear language carries the show. DeRitis and DiNatale add depth with their own areas of expertise in credit markets and regional economics. Episodes run about 30 to 40 minutes and come out weekly. The tone is professional but not stiff -- there is genuine back-and-forth among the hosts. Listeners can reach the team at insideeconomics@moodys.com with questions. For anyone who wants a regular, data-grounded read on where the economy stands and where it is heading, this is a reliable source.

Nick Hanauer, a venture capitalist and self-described "class traitor," co-hosts this weekly show with David Goldstein. Produced by Civic Ventures, the podcast makes a sustained argument that trickle-down economics has failed and that a middle-out approach -- investing in workers, raising wages, and strengthening the middle class -- is how economies actually grow. Hanauer's background gives the show an unusual vantage point: he is a wealthy entrepreneur who became an early investor in Amazon, yet he has spent years publicly arguing that extreme inequality threatens both democracy and economic stability. Each episode brings on economists, policy researchers, labor organizers, and political figures to examine how economic policy affects working people in concrete terms. The show covers minimum wage debates, corporate consolidation, tax policy, housing affordability, and labor rights with a clear progressive perspective. That point of view is stated upfront rather than disguised as neutrality, which makes the arguments easier to evaluate on their merits. Goldstein, a longtime political strategist and writer, complements Hanauer by grounding policy discussions in political context and historical precedent. Episodes typically run 30 to 45 minutes and release weekly. The production is straightforward -- mostly interview-based with some commentary segments. Pitchfork Economics is not trying to present both sides of every argument; it has a thesis about how the economy should work and builds its case episode by episode. Listeners who share that perspective will find it energizing, and those who disagree will at least encounter well-sourced arguments to push back against.

Chad P. Bown of the Peterson Institute for International Economics hosts Trade Talks, a podcast focused specifically on the economics of international trade and trade policy. The show has become essential listening during an era of tariff wars, supply chain disruptions, and shifting global alliances. Bown brings on top trade economists, legal scholars, and policy experts to break down what is actually happening when governments impose tariffs, negotiate trade agreements, or rewrite the rules of commerce. In 2025, the show produced emergency episodes covering sweeping tariff announcements, featured Nobel laureate Paul Krugman discussing industrial policy under the current administration, and examined the de minimis rule that affects small packages from China. Each episode runs about 30 to 45 minutes and typically centers on a single trade issue or recent policy development. Bown is a meticulous researcher -- he co-created a widely cited tariff tracking database -- and his preparation shows in the precision of his questions. The show manages to make trade policy, which can be dry and technical, genuinely engaging by connecting abstract policy decisions to real-world consequences for businesses, workers, and consumers. The guest roster draws heavily from academic economists and former trade officials, giving listeners access to the people who actually study and shape trade policy. Trade Talks fills a specific niche that no other economics podcast quite covers. If you want to understand tariffs, trade wars, and the rules governing global commerce, this is the most focused and authoritative show available.

University of Michigan economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, who are also partners in life, co-host this show alongside producer Nastaran Tavakoli-Far. The premise is practical: take the analytical tools that economists use professionally and show how ordinary people can apply them to everyday decisions. Each episode introduces a core economic concept -- opportunity cost, marginal thinking, cost-benefit analysis, sunk costs -- and demonstrates how it plays out in real situations, from choosing a career to deciding how much of anything is enough. Stevenson and Wolfers bring serious academic credentials (both have advised federal policymakers and published extensively in top economics journals) but they communicate with warmth and humor rather than academic jargon. Their personal dynamic adds a layer of authenticity; they occasionally reference their own household decision-making as examples, which makes abstract concepts feel immediate and tangible. The show functions almost like an economics course you can take in your earbuds, but without the homework or exams. Episodes cover decision-making frameworks, red flags in reasoning that lead people astray, and how to think about trade-offs more clearly. The format is conversational, with the hosts building on each other's points and occasionally disagreeing about how to apply a principle. Episodes run about 30 minutes and are released regularly. Think Like An Economist stands out because it focuses on economic thinking as a life skill rather than treating economics as a spectator subject about markets and policy.

The International Monetary Fund produces this podcast series featuring conversations with IMF economists, visiting scholars, and global policy leaders about the most pressing economic and financial issues of the day. Produced by award-winning journalist Bruce Edwards, the show draws on the IMF's unique position as an organization representing 191 member countries to offer a genuinely global perspective on economics. Recent episodes have featured discussions on shifting trade alliances with economist Gordon Hanson, AI's impact on economic growth with Carl Benedikt Frey, rethinking multilateralism with Danny Quah, and a candid career reflection from IMF First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath. The show also covers stablecoins and digital finance, sovereign debt in developing nations, and climate economics. Each episode typically runs 20 to 30 minutes and features a single in-depth interview. The format is straightforward -- an interviewer and an expert, no elaborate production or narrative structure -- which puts the focus squarely on the ideas being discussed. The guest roster is exceptional because the IMF can attract economists and policymakers who rarely appear on other podcasts. The global scope is what really distinguishes this show from domestically focused economics podcasts; episodes regularly address economic conditions in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East alongside coverage of major Western economies. For listeners who want to understand the global economic system from the perspective of the institution that helps manage it, IMF Podcasts offers direct access to the people doing that work.

Pete and Gav, two self-described friendly neighbourhood economists, host this show that profiles the world's most influential economic thinkers through a structured format of ten questions per episode. Each installment takes a single economist -- from Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes to more contemporary figures like Jayati Ghosh and Paul Samuelson -- and explores their life, historical context, and lasting contributions to economic thought. The ten-question structure gives each episode a clear rhythm: the hosts cover the economist's background, the problems they were trying to solve, the ideas they developed, and how those ideas hold up today. What keeps the show from feeling like a textbook recitation is the genuine enthusiasm Pete and Gav bring to the material. They include quizzes, write poems about their subjects, and occasionally veer into tangents that reveal just how much fun they have making the show. The production is supported by Nic on the technical side, and the overall feel is more like sitting in on a lively conversation between two knowledgeable friends than attending a lecture. Episodes also cover broader economic concepts like supply-side economics and international trade theory, using the biographical format as an entry point into larger ideas. The show runs roughly 30 to 40 minutes per episode and is particularly well-suited for students, self-learners, or anyone who wants to understand economics through the stories of the people who shaped the field. Economics In Ten makes the history of economic thought genuinely entertaining without sacrificing substance.