Erika Beras Erika Beras is a reporter and host for NPR's Planet Money podcast.
Erika Beras, photographed for NPR, 2 August 2022, in New York, NY. Photo by Mamadi Doumbouya for NPR.
Stories By

Erika Beras

Mamadi Doumbouya/NPR
Erika Beras, photographed for NPR, 2 August 2022, in New York, NY. Photo by Mamadi Doumbouya for NPR.
Mamadi Doumbouya/NPR

Erika Beras

Host and Reporter, Planet Money

Erika Beras (she/her) is a reporter and host for NPR's Planet Money podcast.

Prior to joining the team in 2021 she spent four years as a reporter at Marketplace.

As a freelancer, she was a regular contributor to Scientific American podcasts and filed stories for NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Latino USA. She also contributed to PRI's The World, the BBC and Monocle 24 Radio and wrote stories for National Geographic and NewYorker.com.

Before that, she spent a decade as a staff reporter for NPR Member station WESA and at The Miami Herald.

Her reporting has taken her places as varied as The Democratic Republic of Congo, Switzerland and Erie, Pennsylvania.

She has been awarded grants, fellowships and awards from Radio Television Digital News Association, National Association of Science Writers, The International Center for Journalists, the International Women's Media Foundation, The Center for Health Reporting, The Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, Third Coast International Audio Festival and others.

Beras is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer and a graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. A native Spanish speaker, she grew up in New York City and lives in Pittsburgh.

Story Archive

Thursday

 And in the end, we customers may just be getting exactly what we asked for.

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Friday

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Friday

How flying got so bad (or did it?)

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Friday

One man's trash: A look at the hot commodities of the 'junk economy'

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Friday

Junkman Jon Rolston has spent the last two decades clearing out houses and offices of their junk. In that time, he's become a kind of trash savant. James Sneed/NPR hide caption

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The junkyard economist

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Friday

Wednesday

Friday

The photo that helped the amateur art detectives locate the stolen Bhairav masks on display in the museums. Anil Chandra Shrestha hide caption

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Anil Chandra Shrestha

Friday

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Thursday

Amateur art detectives used modern tools and the law to return stolen artifacts

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Wednesday

How Big Steel in the U.S. fell

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Tuesday

The moment the steel industry changed in the U.S.

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Friday

'Planet Money': A lawsuit for your broken heart

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Friday

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A Swiftie Super Bowl, a stumbling bank, and other indicators

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As states began outlawing heart balm lawsuits, newspaper articles in the 1930's chronicled the strong feelings and uproar over Heart Balm lawsuits. The Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, Hawaii), Sunday, Apr 14, 1935/Smithsonian Magazine hide caption

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The Honolulu Advertiser (Honolulu, Hawaii), Sunday, Apr 14, 1935/Smithsonian Magazine

Thursday

The 'Planet Money' team took on a challenge: making an economics podcast for children

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Friday

Jack Corbett/NPR

Econ Battle Zone: Disinflation Confrontation

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Friday

Wednesday

Dollarizing Argentina

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Friday

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Wednesday

Planet Money hosts a Thanksgiving feast - of food and economics. Sam Yellowhorse Kesler/NPR hide caption

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Sam Yellowhorse Kesler/NPR

Why turkey prices drop at Thanksgiving — when the demand is highest

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Friday

Tuesday

An economic mystery at the all-you-can-eat buffet

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