How much for that egg

Summary

Planet Money: "How Much for That Egg" – Episode Summary

Release Date: April 18, 2025

Introduction

In the April 18, 2025 episode of Planet Money, NPR delves into an intriguing economic puzzle centered around a simple yet impactful commodity: eggs. Hosted by Kenny Malone and Jeff Guo, the episode explores how to determine the fairest way to distribute a limited supply of farm-fresh eggs among colleagues during a nationwide shortage. This summary captures the episode's key discussions, methodologies, and conclusions, complete with notable quotes and timestamps for deeper context.

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1. Sam Mertens' Egg Initiative [00:01 - 03:09]

The episode begins with NPR colleague Sam Mertens sharing his initiative to sell a dozen farm-fresh eggs to a coworker for just $5—a significant discount amid a nationwide egg shortage where prices have soared to $12 per dozen.

Notable Quote:

• Sam Mertens [00:24]: "Today, I successfully delivered a dozen farm fresh eggs to a co-worker at HQ for $5."

Kenny Malone and Jeff Guo highlight Sam's dedication, noting that his backyard chickens produce more eggs than his family can consume, prompting him to offer them to colleagues at a reduced price to avoid price gouging.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Guo [00:52]: "Coming out of this nationwide egg shortage where farm fresh eggs have been selling for as much as $12. Sam has eggs and sold them for just $5."

2. Planet Money Takes Action [04:24 - 05:56]

Recognizing the challenge Sam faces in equitably distributing his limited egg supply, Planet Money steps in to devise a solution. The primary objective is to identify which of Sam's roughly 15 interested colleagues values the eggs the most, ensuring a fair allocation without relying solely on willingness to pay.

Notable Quote:

• Kenny Malone [04:45]: "Today on the show, a very Planet Money puzzle. We look for ways to determine which of Sam's colleagues... values Sam's eggs the most."

3. The Challenge of Valuation [05:57 - 17:27]

The hosts discuss the complexities of determining "willingness to pay" (WTP) honestly. Traditional methods, like open-ended surveys, often fall short as respondents may misrepresent their true valuations either intentionally or unintentionally.

Notable Quote:

• Becky Brown [17:40]: "Maybe they want to impress you with how much they would be willing to pay... or maybe they want to show off that they're a hard bargainer."

4. Introducing the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) Method [17:27 - 21:25]

To address the challenges of accurately gauging WTP, Planet Money consults with Abigail Jones, a professional survey designer. She recommends the BDM method, an economic technique that encourages participants to reveal their true valuations through a series of randomized price trials.

Notable Quote:

• Abigail Jones [19:40]: "It is a specific way of asking people about price that sort of forces them into a rational corner."

5. Implementing the BDM Method [21:41 - 28:59]

Planet Money adapts the BDM method into a game show format, where each participant is asked to state their maximum willingness to pay for a single Sam Mertens egg. A random price is then generated:

• If the random price is below or equal to their stated maximum, they purchase the egg at that price.
• If it's above, they do not purchase.

This method ensures that participants reveal their true valuation without feeling pressured to inflate or deflate their responses.

Notable Quote:

• Kenny Malone [23:20]: "If it is not entirely clear how this method pushes people to be honest about their max price, well, that is understandable."

6. Results and Allocation of Eggs [29:00 - 30:42]

The implementation of the BDM method yielded clear results. Among the participants, Kenny Malone emerged as the individual with the highest true valuation for Sam's eggs, warranting his selection to receive a dozen eggs at the favorable price of $5.

Notable Quote:

• Jeff Guo [29:37]: "That's what you just got. Wow."

Sam Mertens surprises Kenny in the studio, presenting him with the farm-fresh eggs as a reward for valuing them the most.

Notable Quote:

• Sam Mertens [30:05]: "These are 12 eggs."

7. Reflections and Insights [30:43 - 31:40]

The episode concludes with reflections on the effectiveness of the BDM method in ensuring fair distribution based on true valuations. The hosts acknowledge that while the method required a creative and somewhat secretive approach, it successfully identified the colleague who valued the eggs the most without resorting to conventional bidding wars.

Notable Quote:

• Kenny Malone [31:27]: "Go Golden Gophers."

Conclusion

Planet Money's exploration of Sam Mertens' egg distribution challenge showcases the application of economic theories in everyday situations. By utilizing the BDM method, the team effectively navigated the complexities of fair allocation, ensuring that the limited supply of eggs was distributed to those who valued them most. This episode not only highlights innovative problem-solving in economics but also underscores the importance of understanding underlying values in resource distribution.

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Notable Themes and Insights:

• Fair Distribution in Scarcity: The episode underscores the importance of equitable resource allocation when faced with limited supplies.
• Behavioral Economics: By applying the BDM method, Planet Money demonstrates how economic tools can elicit honest responses in valuation.
• Human Element: Through stories about individual chickens and their personalities, the podcast adds a relatable and engaging layer to the economic discussion.

For listeners eager to understand the nuanced interplay between economics and everyday decisions, this episode offers both entertainment and insightful analysis.

Transcript

[Kenny Malone]

This is Planet Money from npr. All right, Sam, you posted a thing in Slack. Do you just want to, like, read that message to start?

[Sam Mertens]

Sure. Bringing it up right now.

[Jeff Guo]

A couple of weeks ago, our NPR colleague Sam Mertens wrote something in our shared company messaging system.

[Kenny Malone]

We called him up and asked him to read his message.

[Sam Mertens]

Today, I successfully delivered a dozen farm fresh eggs to a co worker at HQ for $5.

[Jeff Guo]

HQ meaning NPR's headquarters in Washington, D.C.

[Kenny Malone]

And $5, meaning $5 for a dozen farm fresh eggs in this egg conomy.

[Jeff Guo]

Yeah. Coming out of this nationwide egg shortage where farm fresh eggs have been selling for as much as $12. Sam has eggs and sold them for just $5.

[Sam Mertens]

I would be willing to do this again, but I expect demand to far exceed supplies. I'm sure I could jack up the price, but I'm not in the mood to price gouge. Any suggestions for a fair and equitable system?

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, now, I mean, I'll just say this caught fire in the Planet Money Slack. Like, we just saw it as a bat signal for us. We're like, we can help.

[Sam Mertens]

Sure.

[Kenny Malone]

Sam clearly wanted our help, or at least that is what I'm hearing. Because look, we've got a scarce commodity with a dramatically low price ceiling in need of an optimized system of fair distribution. I mean, what is Planet Money here for if not to get overly involved in this very situation?

[Jeff Guo]

So Sam needs a way to decide who among his colleagues should get his future orders of his one dozen eggs at his very low price. But first order of business, why does he even have these eggs? What is his egg hookup?

[Kenny Malone]

The answer, Apparently, Sam is the hookup himself. At work, Sam helps write computer programs that help NPR get to your ears, dear listeners. But at home, apparently, Sam has chickens. Backyard chickens.

[Sam Mertens]

What we do is we have a. They have a very spacious run. Actually, I've got a. I've got a chicken Cam up available on YouTube if you can see him.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, really? Yeah. Let's check. All right, let's check on Sam's chickens here.

[Jeff Guo]

And when we check in on Sam's chickens.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, Chicken cam. Oh, wow, look at that. You got little steps for them. Yeah, they're in a whole covered.

[Sam Mertens]

Yeah, that's their run.

[Kenny Malone]

It's so loud.

[Jeff Guo]

Yes.

[Kenny Malone]

Wow. Okay, I'm counting. One, two, three.

[Jeff Guo]

Yeah. It's not just a few backyard chickens.

[Kenny Malone]

Seven.

[Jeff Guo]

It is so many backyard chickens.

[Kenny Malone]

16, 17, 18, 19, 20 chickens in there.

[Sam Mertens]

There are a total of 26.

[Jeff Guo]

And they lay way more eggs than Sam and his family could ever need.

[Kenny Malone]

Sam points out his favorite chicken, a scraggly, blackened, gold flecked hen named Lacy.

[Sam Mertens]

She's my favorite because we had a fox attack one year.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, no.

[Sam Mertens]

And we thought we'd lost Lacy. And then that evening, this bird came limping back to the coop to be let in.

[Kenny Malone]

And Lacy.

[Sam Mertens]

She survived a fox attack.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah. Sam loves his chickens so much, he'll never eat them. They all have names. The one named Cookie knows her name and sticks out her little wing to get scritches like a puppy from Sam.

[Jeff Guo]

Aw. But Sam being a sweetie. Okay. Is also an issue for us. Sam is capping his egg sale prices at just $5, basically to cover some of the cost of taking care of the chickens. And we explained to Sam that this does take the easiest option off the table. Like, you could just sell your eggs to whatever NPR colleague is willing to pay the most.

[Kenny Malone]

Well, I mean, Sam, you know, Planet Money shows up, we are going to. We are going to suggest an auction, first and foremost. But I think your initial condition is you don't want to do that.

[Sam Mertens]

No, I certainly don't want to be. Oh, yeah, there's the guy who was selling eggs for 15 bucks a dozen.

[Kenny Malone]

No, I know.

[Jeff Guo]

Sam was also not interested in the next most obvious option.

[Kenny Malone]

Generally the fairest way to allocate a correct lottery. Sam says, you seem not interested in a lottery.

[Sam Mertens]

Not fun.

[Kenny Malone]

It isn't fun.

[Sam Mertens]

I'm not getting money. I might as well get fun out of this.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, I have to shut this. It's so distracting. I have to turn it down. All right, hold on. So loud.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, I've paused the chickens.

[Sam Mertens]

I can listen to any and all suggestions as long as you're fine with me saying, no, thank you.

[Kenny Malone]

I think we are okay with that. As long as you are okay with us having no limit on the increasing complexity of our suggestions.

[Sam Mertens]

That's part of the fun, isn't it?

[Kenny Malone]

I hope so. Yes.

[Jeff Guo]

Hello, and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Jeff Guo.

[Kenny Malone]

And I'm Kenny Malone. Today on the show, a very Planet Money puzzle. We look for ways to determine which of Sam's colleagues, which are also our colleagues, values Sam's eggs the most, therefore winning the right to buy a dozen of his precious eggs at his absurdly low price of $5.

[Jeff Guo]

We try out some techniques from the world of new product development to see if we can secretly test for egg love.

[Kenny Malone]

And we discover a pricing method from a development economist that forms, forces people to express their true value for an item. And maybe America's next great Game show. Okay, everybody, welcome to how much for that egg? That's after the. Our colleague Sam Mertens has backyard chickens, which in an egg shortage, makes him the egg king. And he has tasked us, we made him task us a little bit with figuring out who should get eggs when he has an extra dozen.

[Jeff Guo]

Now, there are a group of people at NPR, about 15 of them, who have at some point expressed interest in buying a dozen of Zam's eggs. Econ101 would say Sam's extra eggs should just go to whichever those colleagues values Sam's eggs though most.

[Kenny Malone]

But Sam has given us an interesting little twist. His egg price is fixed. He will not let us sell a dozen eggs for anything other than $5, which basically covers his backyard chicken costs. So what this means is that we cannot just do the Planet Money thing and let the market decide, sell to the highest bidder. So with our invisible hands tied behind our invisible backs, we went looking for some other way to determine who values Sam's eggs the most. And that. That is how we ended up talking to Abigail Jones.

[Abigail Jones]

Yeah, So I work in market research and consulting on the vendor side. I don't know. That's really boring.

[Kenny Malone]

You want to jazz it up?

[Abigail Jones]

I don't know.

[Kenny Malone]

Like, professional survey designer.

[Abigail Jones]

Yeah, I'm a professional survey designer. I help answer questions via surveys.

[Jeff Guo]

And we went to Abigail because we were curious if we could answer our question via a survey.

[Kenny Malone]

Right. Is there a way we could ask our 15 NPR colleagues how much they value eggs?

[Abigail Jones]

Yeah, that's a great question for a survey.

[Kenny Malone]

My fear is that they'll just be like, oh, this is about whether I get to buy the eggs. I'm going to pretend to like eggs the most. Yes, yes. If people know they're taking a survey about this, it certainly could mess up the results.

[Abigail Jones]

So what we would want to do is we would. We call blinding it. So you basically disguise eggs among everything else.

[Jeff Guo]

To blind our survey of its egginess, she says we will need to casually include eggs within a set of other foods.

[Abigail Jones]

And so in the industry, we would call that a competitive set. And how do eggs stack up relative to those other choices?

[Kenny Malone]

Can my list of foods just be like, I don't know, the items at the Holiday Inn Express Buffet.

[Abigail Jones]

Yeah, for sure.

[Kenny Malone]

Now, I would think, great, we now show people 10 breakfast buffet items and have them rank them. But Abigail says, oh, no, no, no.

[Abigail Jones]

We try to avoid having people rank a lot of things because people are really bad at putting things in order. They can tell you they're they're top, they can tell you maybe their second top or third top. Beyond that, the quality of the response really starts to diminish.

[Jeff Guo]

So Abigail recommended that we adapt a survey technique that companies use to design new products where you basically force people to make trade offs.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah. So. So in the company world, this would look like, oh, I don't know, I'm a car company and I ask people, if you had to choose, do you want a car with fancy sound system or fancy navigation system? Now, how about choosing between a powerful engine and good mileage?

[Jeff Guo]

If you put enough of these choices in front of people, you can figure out what trade offs people really care about.

[Kenny Malone]

In our case, we use those forced trade offs to test for love of eggs.

[Jeff Guo]

So we created a survey with a series of questions that force people to make breakfast trade offs.

[Kenny Malone]

Abigail suggested we add a couple traditional survey questions about some of those foods.

[Abigail Jones]

How often do they eat them all? Well, how. What are their views of those foods? And then we can show kind of a composite, like egg lovers score.

[Kenny Malone]

Score. Composite Egg lovers score is good. It's good. Yes. Do you remember that there was an egg Council campaign that was like, I love eggs from my head down to my legs?

[Abigail Jones]

No.

[Jeff Guo]

No, you don't.

[Abigail Jones]

No.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay. Because I would love to call this the I love eggs from my head down to my legs composite score trademark.

[Abigail Jones]

I think that's a. It's a great name for a score.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay.

[Jeff Guo]

And with that.

[Kenny Malone]

Hello. Hello. Hey, Kenny.

[Becky Brown]

Hello.

[Kenny Malone]

Hi.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

Hey there.

[Jeff Guo]

We started calling people from that list of 15 NPR colleagues interested in buying Sam's eggs. Of course, we needed to blind the fact that this survey was secretly actually about those eggs.

[Kenny Malone]

Welcome to the inaugural Planet Money presents a Food Breakfast Food preferences survey. Okay. Too many Foods editor. Oh, I think it's what makes it wonderful.

[Jeff Guo]

Here's how this all worked.

[Kenny Malone]

Imagine that you go into a Holiday Inn Express breakfast buffet. Okay.

[Jeff Guo]

Each survey participant was shown a random.

[Kenny Malone]

Grouping of four Waffles, eggs, bacon, yogurt.

[Jeff Guo]

We asked them to choose their most desired food.

[Kenny Malone]

Most bagel, most eggs. Yeah. Most desired eggs. I pretty much always grab eggs. Waffles, most. Bacon's always number one. I should be keeping kosher, but I don't. But bacon is. It's just always the top.

[Jeff Guo]

We also had them choose their least desired food.

[Kenny Malone]

So I'll put the eggs at the least on this.

[Becky Brown]

And probably waffles, least. Biscuits and gravy. The yogurt, I have bad vibes about that.

[Kenny Malone]

Bagels, the bottom, because I'm trying to cut carbs. I don't eat meat, so I feel like I have to say bacon, but I probably would rather eat bacon than oatmeal. I don't know what that means. We had each person do this over waffles, top and over. Will not eat oatmeal. And over bacon. Six times in total, there were six different groupings of food that they are forced to make trade offs within. I feel like the bagels always suck. Now, one big lesson for us is how a tiny decision in survey design can have unintended consequences. So I thought that literally telling everyone to imagine they were looking at a hotel breakfast buffet would be fun and make this all concrete and real for them. But immediately, like in the very first survey, the issue became clear. Depending how badly the place makes the eggs, scrambled eggs can be really disgusting. Yeah, we, we unintentionally cause people to imagine the worst versions of all of these foods, especially the eggs. It's just like a vat of, of liquid, that greasy slime on it.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

It's like the powdered, reconstituted eggs. That's just like, there's barely flavor there.

[Kenny Malone]

Uh, not exactly what I wanted them to picture.

[Jeff Guo]

And yet this survey still did exactly what it was supposed to do. It identified a single person from the crowd.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah, there was exactly one, Only one person who over and over chose eggs above all other foods every single time.

[Jeff Guo]

That person was named Mike Myers. He's an NPR audio visual engineer. And our survey would conclude that he values eggs more than anyone else, even if they are Holiday Inn Express buffet eggs.

[Kenny Malone]

Were you picturing a big vat of watery eggs? I. I honestly was. I'm indiscriminate. You know, eggs are eggs. You know, I, you know, throw enough salt and pepper on them, maybe some hot sauce. You know, maybe the weird hotel inclusion was accidentally a great way to, to separate people who love eggs from people who truly love eggs from their head down to their legs. Test, test, check. One, two. Later that week, we brought Mike into a studio. Was someone coming in? Come on in. And we had Sam Mertens surprise him with one dozen way below market price. Backyard chicken eggs. Mike, do you know Sam?

[Jeff Guo]

Hey, Sam.

[Sam Mertens]

Hello. You have been selected as the person who most desires these.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, wow, those are gorgeous. What can Mike expect in terms of flavor profiles?

[Sam Mertens]

They are all going to have much stronger, eggier flavors than anything you get at the store.

[Kenny Malone]

Don't know if that sounds good or not.

[Sam Mertens]

If you don't like egg, you're not going to like these eggs. Well, if you like eggs, you're going to love these eggs.

[Kenny Malone]

Mike. Mike. Sounds like I love him. Okay. And cue the music.

[Jeff Guo]

From my head down to my legs.

[Kenny Malone]

1989 government research shows eggs have 22% less. Keep going, Jeff. I'll dance.

[Jeff Guo]

So we found a way to allocate the first dozen of Sam's five dollar eggs. Success.

[Kenny Malone]

Sort of. Because that method did rely entirely on us being sneaky. We were hiding eggs in a blinded survey, so that's probably only going to work one time. What about the next time Sam has a dozen eggs?

[Jeff Guo]

After the break, one more carton of eggs. One new customer. And a method that forces people to honestly state their truest value or anything. This message comes from NPR sponsor Intercom. Want to make your customer service dramatically better? With fin, you can. Fin, the leading AI customer service agent is now available on every help desk. Fin can instantly resolve up to 80% of your tickets, which makes your customers happier. And you can get off the customer service rep hiring treadmill fin by Intercom named the number one AI agent in G2's winner. Report [e-mail] NPR.

[Sam Mertens]

Hi girls.

[Kenny Malone]

Sam Mertens is up early to give his hens some treats.

[Sam Mertens]

What was that? What was that?

[Kenny Malone]

Huh?

[Sam Mertens]

What was that?

[Jeff Guo]

Another day, another round of eggs to be collected.

[Sam Mertens]

But everybody seems to be in good spirits.

[Kenny Malone]

Now, before we decide how to allocate the next dozen eggs from Sam, we needed to have a a delicate conversation with him.

[Jeff Guo]

Right. Because only charging $5 for a dozen eggs like respect, that is a solid, not jerky, colleague move.

[Kenny Malone]

But the thing is, how much someone is willing to pay is a very useful, very economicsy data point that we would love to use as we figure out who values Sam's eggs the most.

[Jeff Guo]

Or as we put it, to Sam.

[Kenny Malone]

I don't know how else to say this, but planet money gonna planet money. And it's very hard for us to not use price to some degree.

[Sam Mertens]

As long as I can point to you guys and say it was your ideal.

[Kenny Malone]

Sam was in.

[Jeff Guo]

Now the obvious thing to do would to be just to ask our 15 NPR colleagues how much they'd be willing to theoretically pay for a dozen of Sam's eggs. Whoever values them the most, they get the dozen for $5. Of course.

[Kenny Malone]

However, this method has some problems.

[Jeff Guo]

Can I ask you, how much would you pay for a dozen eggs?

[Becky Brown]

Oh, interesting.

[Kenny Malone]

Rebecca Dizon Ross, not one of our colleagues. Uchicago economist, big egg spender.

[Becky Brown]

Apparently farm fresh eggs, maybe 8$9.

[Jeff Guo]

$8$9. That's pretty good. One of the things that Rebecca studies is how to figure out how much people value things using price. And there's a term for this. It's called willingness to pay.

[Kenny Malone]

Willingness to pay is simply the absolute maximum dollar amount someone is willing to pay for something. But that is deceptively complicated to measure. Like if we just ask our NPR egg colleagues, hey, we, what's the most you would pay for a dozen eggs? You know, like we did with Rebecca.

[Becky Brown]

Maybe they want to impress you with how much they would be willing to pay, or maybe they want to show off that they're a hard bargainer and so they name something low. And so you worry that if you just ask them that you might not get the real response.

[Jeff Guo]

It's not even that people are lying necessarily. They might just have trouble discovering what in their heart of hearts is their true maximum willingness to pay.

[Kenny Malone]

So how then do you get people to zero in on that true value? Well, economists and researchers have developed a very clever way to do this. It is. It's a little topsy turvy, I'll be honest. It took me a couple times to really understand it, but it is so cool and has become my new favorite cocktail party trick. And we're going to show you how we use this on our egg curious NPR colleagues.

[Jeff Guo]

But first, okay, we're going to take a detour to Uganda because it really helps to see why and how economists use this technique in real life.

[Kenny Malone]

So Rebecca was in rural Uganda conducting an economics experiment.

[Becky Brown]

The experiment was actually about the parents willingness to pay for educational and health goods for their kids.

[Kenny Malone]

So there's this idea that mothers may value things like educational and health goods more than fathers. And so maybe aid groups would do better delivering that kind of aid through mothers.

[Jeff Guo]

Rebecca was in Uganda to test that theory. She wanted to see how much moms and dads valued a bunch of different items like a math workbook or candy or shoes or deworming medicine.

[Kenny Malone]

Now, like we've discussed, just asking, hey, how much is this worth to you? That will not necessarily work as a.

[Becky Brown]

Result of that concern, A sort of more credible or commonly used way of doing it is to use this method called the Becker de Groot Marshak or bdm.

[Jeff Guo]

Sorry, sorry, can you say that again? Becker de Groot Marshack. The Becker de Groot Marshack, it's really fun to say, or BDM method as it's known. It is like a magic trick. It is a specific way of asking people about price that sort of forces them into a rational corner.

[Becky Brown]

Yeah. So the key here is that this gives you the Incentive to tell your true willingness to pay for the products.

[Kenny Malone]

So here is how this worked for Rebecca in Uganda. She would find parents willing to participate in her research.

[Becky Brown]

They'd let us into their home, you know, give us some place to sit, and then we'd say, okay, and now we're interested in selling you some goods for your kids.

[Jeff Guo]

Like they were actually selling items. That part is key to this whole thing.

[Kenny Malone]

And let's say you, dear listener, you are the parent here. Rebecca pulls out a math workbook. She then tells you she is about to generate a random price for this book.

[Becky Brown]

Okay, so, like, I have some random number generator that will generate a price between, say, you know, in the range of the relevant prices.

[Kenny Malone]

But. But before she generates that random price, she needs from you your max willingness to pay price.

[Becky Brown]

I ask you to tell me how much you value the good or in particular, how much you would be willing to pay for it.

[Kenny Malone]

It's not a negotiation. It's not an offer. You are simply stating the absolute max you'd be willing to pay.

[Jeff Guo]

And then Rebecca randomly generates the book price and is. If that price is higher than your max, then you have agreed to not buy the book. But anything else, if it's lower than your max, you do buy the book.

[Becky Brown]

That's the only way that you can guarantee that you will get to buy it in the cases that you would want to buy it and not buy it in the cases that you don't.

[Kenny Malone]

And that's it. That's the Becker DeGroote Marshak method.

[Becky Brown]

They found a way to give you the incentives to exactly tell your exact willingness to pay.

[Kenny Malone]

If it is not entirely clear how this method pushes people to be honest about their max price, well, that is understandable. The good news is that we have been Becker DeGroote marshaking the heck out of our colleagues at NPR, and you're about to see it in action.

[Jeff Guo]

Yeah, because it is the perfect method to figure out which of our NPR colleagues values eggs the most.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

Hello.

[Kenny Malone]

Hello. Hello, Becky. You are the next contestant on how.

[Jeff Guo]

Is that egg.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

That was so simultaneous.

[Jeff Guo]

This is NPR audio engineer Becky Brown. She is One of the 15 people who expressed interest in Sam's eggs.

[Kenny Malone]

Couple of notes about our version of Becker DeGroote Marshak. Ours is a game show, and what each person would be asked to value was not one dozen eggs, but one. One single Sam Mertens chicken egg. This was a test. A test to see how much each person valued Sam's eggs. Right.

[Jeff Guo]

But what we couldn't tell them because it might skew the results was that whoever valued this single egg the most would be the winner of more eggs. They would get to buy a full dozen of Sam's eggs at his fixed price of $5.

[Kenny Malone]

See, we didn't violate his terms. No, no. So we begin our BDM assessment with Becky Brown, audio engineer. We show her a basket of Sam's eggs. So is there one of these eggs in particular that looks great?

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

If I were looking for, like, platonic egginess, I think that dark brown one is really like. That came from a chicken that is not depressed.

[Kenny Malone]

In fact, Sam told me that egg came from Noodles, who is indeed a very happy chicken.

[Jeff Guo]

So we asked Becky to think long and hard about her willingness to pay for. For this one egg. Just that one egg.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

If it's one egg, and I'm doing the math and it's just one egg, I feel like, I guess maybe 90 cents. Why not for one egg?

[Kenny Malone]

Becky just landed there. Okay, 90 cents.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

Yeah.

[Kenny Malone]

And here. Here, listeners, is where you can see why the BDM method forces people into a rational corner, forces them to reveal their true willingness to pay.

[Jeff Guo]

We run through a couple scenarios with Becky. First, we said, imagine that the random price we generate is 89 cents.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah. Okay. That is below Becky's 90 cents. She will have to buy the egg for that random price. $0.89.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

I am not upset. It sounds like a good egg and a good egg, and it'll go to a good home and into a good stomach.

[Jeff Guo]

If this random number generator, it comes back and it's like, $2. How do you.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

I. I would dismiss the random number generator as mad. Like, completely mad. It would not. I would not understand this $2 egg.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, 91 cents. You're not allowed to buy it.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

Cruel twist of fate probably is how I would feel, but not, like, despondent.

[Jeff Guo]

It feels like this is your maximum willingness to pay for this egg.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

Yes.

[Jeff Guo]

But now it was time to see if that's true in reality.

[Kenny Malone]

We're gonna go to Cheezoid, our random number generator, which is held by Jeff. Jeff, go. And Cheezoid. Bloop. Okay, good, good. Hacker typer, how are you feeling?

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

This egg is in the hands of fate, and I have no control over what happens from here on out. Either I have egg or I don't have egg.

[Kenny Malone]

Wow. Really healthy, Becky. Truly healthy. Okay, Jeff, drumroll, please. Now, remember, Becky buys the incredibly precious Sam Mertens backyard chicken egg at 90 cents or lower.

[Jeff Guo]

Here we go.

[Kenny Malone]

Oh, $1000. 2. Wow. You're so close, Becky.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

No Egg. That's okay.

[Kenny Malone]

You look a little disappointed. I'm going to be honest.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

Well, no, because I feel like then we sad, but not the end of the world.

[Jeff Guo]

Which means that was it. Becky named the exact right price for her and did not overpay for an egg.

[Kenny Malone]

Congratulations, Becky. You go home with nothing.

[Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez]

Nice.

[Kenny Malone]

Now, again, Becky had no idea that this was all our test to determine who would get to buy a full dozen of Sam's eggs for a mere $5.

[Jeff Guo]

And to figure that out.

[Kenny Malone]

Hello, Maggie Goodall. Lennon Sherburn.

[Jeff Guo]

The same game with the rest of our NPR egg colleagues.

[Kenny Malone]

It is time to play how much for that Egg?

[Jeff Guo]

We explain the rules and ask them each to give us the absolute maximum price they pay for a single egg.

[Kenny Malone]

We're gonna put 10 seconds on the clock. Talk us through your thinking. Can I use a calculator? Sure. Looking up a calculator, I have questions about how the random price is generated. Jeff is going to randomly generate a number within a reasonable interval.

[Jeff Guo]

Got it.

[Kenny Malone]

I'm thinking about the rarity of the egg. Think about what you can make with the egg.

[Becky Brown]

I would really like a nice egg from these beautiful chickens.

[Kenny Malone]

I will pay 50 cents. So I'm dividing eight by 12, and that gives me 66 cents, 82 cents.

[Becky Brown]

I'm just gonna let the number come to me.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay.

[Kenny Malone]

A dollar and 44 cents. I think I'll probably give Sam, like, $2.50. I'm going to go with $2.65. Ooh, 65. Five dollars.

[Jeff Guo]

What.

[Kenny Malone]

What was that number again?

[Becky Brown]

Five dollars.

[Kenny Malone]

All right, we may need to take a timeout. Jeff, how do we pause the game?

[Jeff Guo]

Pause the game.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay. We should say it is not best. Becker, DeGroote, Marshak, practice to immediately reveal to someone that you think their number is way too high. But this person had had a little bit broken our game, I suppose.

[Jeff Guo]

Her name was Valentina Rodriguez Sanchez. She's another NPR audio engineer. And her number was so high, it was actually higher than the highest egg price our random number generator was set to produce.

[Kenny Malone]

Because, again, $5 was the amount Sam was selling every an entire dozen of his eggs for. So, you know, we needed to make extra sure that this was, in fact, her truest in her heart of hearts value for a single egg.

[Jeff Guo]

You said $5?

[Kenny Malone]

Yes. For one egg? Yes.

[Jeff Guo]

Like, if the. If the number generator comes up with, like, $5, then you have to literally pay $5 for. For an egg, for.

[Kenny Malone]

Yeah, I've. I've spent $5 on some dumb things, and I really like eggs. It occurred to us in this moment that. That perhaps making this a game show may have impacted our results a tad. Like maybe it turned one single egg into too much of a prize, imbued it with more value than we had intended.

[Jeff Guo]

Nevertheless, it was clear even after we tried to dissuade Valentina from this bonkers valuation, she was sticking to it. So we increased the max on our random number generator.

[Kenny Malone]

Random number generator activate.

[Abigail Jones]

Beep, boop, boop.

[Kenny Malone]

Beep, boop, boop, Beep, boop, boop, beep.

[Jeff Guo]

Oh. Oh.

[Kenny Malone]

Okay, here. And now we reveal.

[Jeff Guo]

Okay, here we go. You ready for this?

[Kenny Malone]

Not sure how I feel about your reaction.

[Jeff Guo]

If it's below your number, you will have to this egg.

[Kenny Malone]

You have to buy the egg for that amount. That's fine. I get paid tomorrow. Again, Valentina was willing to pay up to $5, but she would only have to pay the random price. Oh, my. Okay, here we go. All right.

[Jeff Guo]

All right.

[Kenny Malone]

And the number is 22 cents.

[Jeff Guo]

Oh, my God.

[Kenny Malone]

I. I just saved. You saved $4.78 of consumer surplus.

[Jeff Guo]

That's what you just got. Wow.

[Kenny Malone]

My goodness. The next week, we asked Valentina to meet us in a studio. Hello, Valentina. In playing the single egg game, we were trying to determine, using an economic technique, who valued eggs the most based on willingness to pay. Indeed, it wasn't even close. It was me.

[Jeff Guo]

As has become our custom, we had Sam Mertens surprise her with a visit.

[Sam Mertens]

Hi, how are you?

[Kenny Malone]

I'm good, thank you very much.

[Sam Mertens]

I've been told that you are willing to pay $5 for a single egg.

[Kenny Malone]

Indeed. And Sam, would you like to tell Valentina what she's won? Oh, my God. They're all different colors.

[Sam Mertens]

These are 12 eggs.

[Becky Brown]

Stop.

[Sam Mertens]

From my chickens.

[Kenny Malone]

This is so cool.

[Sam Mertens]

They are all within the week, laid and available for $5.

[Kenny Malone]

This is so exciting. I should buy some bagels and make some bacon, egg and cheese bagels.

[Sam Mertens]

None of my chickens lay bagels.

[Kenny Malone]

Maybe we leave it on Sam making a chicken dad joke. That's where we leave things.

[Sam Mertens]

In any event, these here are.

[Kenny Malone]

It's like green.

[Sam Mertens]

Yes, they are laid by all of eggers who actually cost free.

[Jeff Guo]

If you're looking for more economic explainers to help you make sense of this moment, check out our feed. We have a deep dive into trade deficits. What are they? Why do they matter? Also, an up close look at how the new tariffs are actually playing out in Canada. This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Marianne McHugh. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Jimmy Healy. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

[Kenny Malone]

Special thanks this week to Len Testa, Tim Harford, Alice Evans and the University of Minnesota Women's Ultimate Team. Go Golden Gophers.

[Jeff Guo]

I'm Jeff Kuo.

[Kenny Malone]

I'm Kenny Malone. This is npr. Thanks for listen.