''50 Things That Made the Modern Economy'' is a radio show and

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

on the

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

. It is presented by economist and journalist

Tim Harford Timothy Douglas Harford (born 27 September 1973) is an English economic journalist who lives in Oxford. Harford is the author of four economics books and writes his long-running ''Financial Times'' column, "The Undercover Economist", syndic ...

. The first series was broadcast between 5 November 2016 and 28 October 2017. A second series began on 30 March 2019. Harford explained in a BBC interview in 2017 that his motivation for creating the show was "to paint a picture of economic change by telling the stories of the ideas, people, and tools that had far-reaching consequences". He was "fascinated" by the many unexpected outcomes, such as "the impact of the fridge on global politics, or of the gramophone on income inequality." Towards the end of the first series, a public call was made for suggestions of a "51st thing". Harford chose six submissions for an online vote. The winning item was announced as the

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

in an episode on 28 October 2017. A bonus episode about

Santa Claus Santa Claus, also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, or simply Santa, is a Legend, legendary figure originating in Western Christianity, Western Christian culture who is said to Christmas gift-bringer, bring ...

was broadcast on 24 December 2018. The first series was published in Britain as ''Fifty Things That Made The Modern Economy.'' by

Little, Brown Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily D ...

, and as ''Fifty Inventions That Shaped The Modern Economy'' in the US by Riverhead. Reviews of the book were mixed. The show won a silver award for "Best Radio Podcast supported by UK Radioplayer" at the 2017

British Podcast Awards The British Podcast Awards is an annual awards ceremony intended to celebrate outstanding content within the British podcast scene. The British Podcast Awards is owned and operated by Haymarket Media Group, which also owns several media businesses ...

Episodes

Series 1 (2016–2017)

Each of the nine-minute long programmes introduces the story of a product or invention that revolutionised the modern world. Each episode was originally broadcast on

, with a subsequent broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

and distribution as a BBC podcast.

Special (2018)

A bonus episode on

was broadcast on 24 December 2018. This included the announcement of the series 2 for March 2019.

Series 2 (2019)

Bonus episodes

The series 1 episode on the

Index Fund An index fund (also index tracker) is a mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF) designed to follow certain preset rules so that the fund can a specified basket of underlying investments.Reasonable Investor(s), Boston University Law Review, avail ...

was re-released with additional comments by Harford in the podcast feed to commemorate the death of

John C. Bogle John Clifton "Jack" Bogle (May 8, 1929 – January 16, 2019) was an American investor, business magnate, and philanthropist. He was the founder and chief executive of The Vanguard Group, and is credited with creating the index fund. An avid inve ...

. A number of episodes of the parallel BBC radio documentary series ''30 Animals That Made Us Smarter'' were included as bonuses in the podcast feed of early episodes of series 2.

"51st thing"

The shortlist selected by Harford for public vote as the 51st thing was: *

Credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

Glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...

Global Positioning System The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...

(GPS) *

Irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...

Pencil A pencil () is a writing or drawing implement with a solid pigment core in a protective casing that reduces the risk of core breakage, and keeps it from marking the user's hand. Pencils create marks by physical abrasion, leaving a trail ...

Spreadsheet A spreadsheet is a computer application for computation, organization, analysis and storage of data in tabular form. Spreadsheets were developed as computerized analogs of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data entered in cel ...

The item selected by public vote was the credit card, announced by Harford in the episode entitled "Number 51".

Book

Each of the short chapters describes fifty products or inventions that have revolutionised the modern world. The chapter order is different from the radio broadcast and podcast order. Some book chapters have modified titles, and the chapters are grouped into sections in the book.

References

External links

*
BBC World Service episode guide

Financial Times review of podcast
{{Podcast platform links 2016 radio programme debuts BBC World Service programmes British documentary radio programmes British podcasts Business and finance podcasts Educational broadcasting in the United Kingdom History of technology History podcasts Radio programs about economics Technology podcasts Works about economic history Works about the history of industries 2016 podcast debuts