The case of the serial sinking Spanish ships

Planet Money

NPR

Business, News

4.6 • 29.8K Ratings

🗓️ 5 January 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Picture the Pacific Ocean of the 16th century. Spanish Galleons sail the wide open seas, carrying precious cargo like silver, porcelain, and textiles. The waters are dangerous; ship logs show concerns over pirates. But pirates are not to blame for a mysterious event that keeps happening.

For, you see, one in five of the ships leaving from the port of Manila didn't make it to Acapulco. It's a shipwrecking rate much higher than rates for other routes of the time. And the mystery of the serial shipwrecking Spanish ships remains unsolved, until today.

Everyone involved with these Spanish ships were aligned in a goal: Don't wreck the Spanish ships. And yet, wreck they did. Three economists took a look at the incentives for profit and risk at the time, and found the key to unlocking this ancient booty (of knowledge).

Our show today was produced by James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Cena Loffredo. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.

Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Planet Money from NPR.
0:05.0	Do you just want to read the keywords?
0:07.0	I'm not sure I've ever seen a better set of keywords.
0:10.0	Yeah, totally.
0:11.0	This is economist Fernando Arteaga, one of the authors of a research paper we have become obsessed with.
0:17.0	Yeah, so corruption, rent seeking, bribery, and she breaks.
0:22.0	I mean, come on.
0:23.4	Who's not reading that paper?
0:24.7	Yeah, hopefully everybody.
0:26.6	Hopefully everybody.
0:28.2	Every once in a while, an academic paper pops up
0:30.8	that feels like it was made for planet money. And this one reads like Ag of the
0:36.2	Christie meets Master and Commander. Yeah, yeah, yeah, mystery meets shipwrecks.
0:41.0	Which is kind of something that people like generally.
0:45.2	We love shipwrecks.
0:46.2	Shipwrecks are fascinating as long as your ship isn't wrecking.
0:49.2	Yeah, that's true. I hope never to be in that situation.
0:53.8	The shipwreck that we are talking about begin in the 1500s.
0:57.2	During this time period, the Spanish Empire ran, arguably the most valuable shipping route
1:02.3	in the world.
1:03.0	Ships ran between Mexico and the Philippines.
1:06.0	They carried silver, they carried fancy porcelain and textiles.
	...

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