India's Government Limits Homework Assigned To Students
It's because of fears that overloaded backpacks are damaging kids' backs. A survey of children aged seven to 13 found the vast majority were carrying almost half their body weight in their backpacks.
On today's Planet Money: We hear and read stories of corruption every day, but finding cold hard data on the subject is so hard that MIT economics professor, Ben Olken, had to go dig up roads in Indonesia to get some. Olken and his team set out to measure the amount of raw materials that went missing when the government gave local villagers money for projects like building roads. The study not only required the researchers to dig up roads -- but also to build a few of their own. Download the podcast; or subscribe. Music: Broken Bells' "High Road." Find us: Twitter/ Facebook/ Flickr.