The Diamond-Water Paradox

NPR | By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Published July 25, 2018 at 6:03 PM CDT

Adam Smith, the father of economics, had a problem. He believed in the wisdom of markets--that the free market would always settle on the best price for something. That price would be an expression of how valuable that item was. The problem: diamonds are more expensive than water and water is more valuable to us than diamonds.

We talked to Linda Yueh about the paradox and Smith.

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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.

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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