Business & Education

Trickle-Down Economics: Pricing H2O

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Published August 8, 2018 at 3:46 PM CDT

When demand for a commodity is high and supply is low, providers usually just raise the price. That pushes demand down. But when that commodity is water - an essential for human life - those pricing rules don't apply. Or do they?

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Business & Education

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.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith

Cardiff Garcia

Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.

See stories by Cardiff Garcia