The continent nobody owns & everyone benefits from (Summer School)

**Robert Smith** (0:01)
This is Planet Money, from NPR.

**Robert Smith** (0:16)
Welcome back, everyone, to Planet Money Summer School World Tour. Today is graduation day. We have drilled for oil in Norway, smuggled products into North Korea, traveled the bridges to nowhere in China, and bargained for water rights in Australia. We've met a paint entrepreneur in Nigeria, a shoe salesman in Argentina, and an inflation tamer in New Zealand. And all the while, we've been gathering up lessons in economics that we can put to use back here, back home. As part of today's graduation celebration, we will hear from your fellow members of the summer school class of 2026 Listeners like you who have written in from around the globe with provocative ideas that could just make life a little better for all of us, if we have the will to do it. We'll feature the very best ideas near the end of the show, and then all that's left is for you to take a short online test and receive your totally real but not legal diploma. The test is at npr.org/summerschool.
Before we play the pomp and give our speeches and all, I do have a confession to make. When we started summer school, I came up with what I thought was a pretty clever tagline.
Seven continents, eight weeks, 1,000 ideas.
I think we've delivered on the eight weeks part and all the ideas, but we are missing a continent. We have gone all summer and we have not talked about Antarctica. The problem I discovered is that Planet Money has never been to Antarctica, and I wasn't even sure there were economic ideas to talk about there. Can young penguins not afford to buy their own nests? Is the exchange rate of ice to snow out of whack?
But after working all summer to find something, we discovered that there are some profound rules of economics at work on the continent waiting for us down on the ice, down on the glaciers. We even discovered an economist who did something remarkable. She figured out exactly what Antarctica was worth. She put a price tag on the whole continent, and she joins us as our professor today.

**Natalie Stokel** (2:18)
Hi, I'm Natalie Stokel. I'm a professor of economics at the University of Tasmania.

**Robert Smith** (2:23)
So you live off the southern coast of Australia. Are you the closest economist to Antarctica?

**Natalie Stokel** (2:31)
I could be. There might be some down on the bottom of South America. So it could be that there are some that are down there. There could well be some there, yes.

**Robert Smith** (2:40)
So have you actually been there? Have you stepped on the ice?

**Natalie Stokel** (2:43)
I have not stepped on the ice yet.

**Robert Smith** (2:45)
They have all these scientists there. They need economists on the ground.

**Natalie Stokel** (2:49)
Well, this is what I think we need to tell the world. Yes, I would agree.

**Robert Smith** (2:53)
So what does an economist do when studying Antarctica? It doesn't have money. It has no private ownership. It seems like the one place where economics doesn't exist. Tell me I'm wrong.

**Natalie Stokel** (3:05)
Oh, absolutely wrong. It means there's no markets that exist, but economics is about far more than markets, and it's trying to use insights from that to think about resources around the world. I think Antarctica may not have many markets, but the goods and services that it supplies to the rest of the world are massive, really hugely important to the entire world economy.

**Robert Smith** (3:32)
You, in fact, put a price on what Antarctica is worth to the planet, and we will get to that in just a moment. But before we do, I want to go back and just talk about this concept of Antarctica. Who owns it?

**Natalie Stokel** (3:48)
I suppose philosophically, you could say that the entire world owns it in terms of it's a resource for all.
Countries around the world have agreed not to have a massive land grab and to actually collectively look at how they can manage various operations that are being undertaken down there. So, it's a collaborative form of governance through the Antarctic Treaty system.

**Robert Smith** (4:14)
I look this up. It is my understanding that the treaty says that Antarctica is reserved for peaceful purposes and scientific research. Forty-six countries have signed it. It's officially shared territory, no military bases or mining companies.
But how exactly is this enforced? What would happen if a rogue country, and some countries do have old claims on the territory, what would happen if a rogue country decided they wanted to build a golf resort or a strip mining operation? Can anyone stop them?