How much for that egg

Recently, one of our NPR colleagues wrote a message to all of NPR saying he had extra eggs to sell for cheap, but needed a fair way to distribute them during a shortage. What is Planet Money here for if not to get OVERLY involved in this kind of situation?

Our colleague didn't want to charge more than $5, so we couldn't just auction the eggs off. A lottery? Too boring, he said.

Okay! A very Planet Money puzzle to solve.

Today on the show, we go in search of novel systems to help our colleague decide who gets his scarce resource: cheap, farm-fresh eggs. We steal from the world of new product development to try and secretly test for egg love, and we discover a pricing method used in development economics that may be America's next great gameshow.

This episode of Planet Money was produced by Emma Peaslee and it was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Jimmy Keeley. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

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Music: NPR Source Audio - "Punchy Punchline," "Game Face," "Feeling the Funk," and "The Host Most Wanted"

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