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David Brancaccio

"Future Effects" Senior Correspondent

David Brancaccio is Marketplace’s “future effects” senior correspondent. In this role, David aims to explore how short-term thinking can impact our personal finances, innovation, government policy, and more.

David worked as the host and senior editor of “Marketplace Morning Report” from 2013 to 2026, where he focused on the regulation of financial markets, the role of technology in labor markets, the history of innovation, digital privacy, sustainability, social enterprises, and financial vulnerability in older adults. David freelanced for Marketplace in 1989 before becoming the program’s European correspondent based in London in 1990.

David hosted the evening program from 1993-2003, then anchored the award-winning public television news program “Now” on PBS after a period co-hosting with journalist Bill Moyers. David has co-produced and appeared in several documentaries, including “Fixing the Future,” about alternative approaches to the economy, and “On Thin Ice,” about climate change and water security, with mountaineer Conrad Anker. David is the author of “Squandering Aimlessly,” a book about personal values and money. He enjoys moderating public policy discussions, including at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Chicago Ideas Week, and the Camden Conference in Maine.

David is from Waterville, Maine, and has degrees from Wesleyan and Stanford universities. Honors include the Peabody, Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University, Emmy, and Walter Cronkite awards. He is married to Mary Brancaccio, a poet and educator. They have three offspring, all adults. He likes making beer and building (and launching) pretty big rockets. Among his heroes are Edward R. Murrow and Wolfman Jack.

Latest from David Brancaccio

  • Heidi Larson, director of Vaccine Confidence Project, says people are most concerned about the safety of a new COVID-19 vaccine.
    David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

    More people will soon have access to Pfizer’s Paxlovid COVID treatment. After initial supply limits, the Biden administration says the country now has plenty available and that it wants more locations to offer the drug. We talk to Marketplace’s Nova Safo about how the drug may soon become widely available in pharmacies. Blackstone, one of the country’s largest investors, will purchase a massive office complex called PS Business Parks, signaling a shift back toward office work after the pandemic drove people to work at home. The negligent homicide case involving a nurse is being closely monitored by medical professionals who worry it could set a precedent of criminalizing medical mistakes.

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  • Materials and labor shortages continue to complicate construction industry
    Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

    Oregon-based journeyman and business owner Maurice Rahming said he’s contending with long wait times for steel and electrical equipment.

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  • Melissa Delgado, left, and Rebecca Gollnick-Starr practice the proper way to hand off a hammer on a jobsite. Both are in the pre-apprenticeship program at Women In Non Traditional Employment Roles.
    Jill Replogle

    Few industries have been impacted by pandemic-driven disruptions quite like the construction business. Whether it’s a lack of building materials or a shortage of workers, construction companies have been wading through one challenge after another for years. For more on this, we take the “Economic” Pulse of Maurice Rahming, president of O’Neill Construction Group in Portland, Oregon. Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has raised questions about what the tech billionaire is trying to accomplish — we speak to Erik Gordon, professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, about the deal.

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  • UN chief Antonio Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine ahead of his talks with Vladimir Putin.
    MAXIM SHIPENKOV/AFP via Getty Images

    From the BBC World Service: What to do about the besieged city of Mariupol is expected to be top of the list of subjects the UN’s Antonio Guterres and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin are expected to focus on. Plus, is Beijing next for a citywide lockdown as China sticks to its zero COVID strategy? And, why U.K. drugstores are reporting shortages of hormone replacement therapy. 

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  • CNN pulled the plug on its new streaming operation, CNN+. That's deprived the news industry of an opportunity to see what streamed television news could look like.
    Spencer Platt/Getty Images

    CNN reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars on developing CNN+ before canceling it last week. Warner Bros. Discovery’s shuttering of the service could affect other companies in the video news industry, which may be less willing to invest in that type of news streaming service going forward. Markets in Asia are reacting to rising COVID-19 cases in Beijing, which some may say could lead to a city-wide lockdown as seen in Shanghai. Girl Scouts added an online story to sell cookies to during the pandemic: online stores, but some parents are concerned it isn’t the same when it comes to developing crucial skills.

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  • COLOMBO, SRI LANKA - APRIL 24: Riot police officers gather behind the barricade while university students protest amid the country's ongoing economic and political crisis on April 24, 2022 in Colombo, Sri Lanka.  Street protests have increased island-wide with pressure building for Sri Lanka’s president Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his government to resign. One protester was shot and killed by police on Tuesday in Rambukkana, during a demonstration against the shortage of fuel.  (Photo by Buddhika Weerasinghe/Getty Images)
    Buddhika Weerasinghe / Stringer

    The war in Ukraine is worsening debt risk in developing countries. Rising commodity prices, higher borrowing rates, and other factors are making the economic situation harder for countries like Sri Lanka. Many of the countries facing these challenges were previously considered risky, but the war is exacerbating poor conditions and may push some past the tipping point. Elon Musk and Twitter are reportedly in talks for the social media platform to be acquired by the SpaceX and Tesla billionaire. The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues convenes in New York City for a week of discussion on issues like indigenous rights related to business and the economy.

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  • Supporters of the re-elected French President Emmanuel Macron at the Eifel Tower in Paris.
    Getty Images

    From the BBC World Service: EU leaders breathed a sigh of relief as France’s centrist incumbent, Emmanuel Macron, warded off the challenge of far-right challenger Marine Le Pen to be re-elected as French president. Also today, panic-buying in Beijing over fears of a fresh lockdown, and English soccer is set to get a new regulator.

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  • NEW YORK, NEW YORK - APRIL 21: An advertisement for CNN+ is displayed in Manhattan on April 21, 2022 in New York City.  Only three weeks after its launch, CNN has announced that it's new streaming service is already planning to shut down. CNN+ had attracted well known names in media and entertainment to its line-up, which looked to compete with other streaming services and to appeal to a younger audience.  (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

    The vehicle that was supposed to usher CNN into the streaming era appears to have been stopped in its tracks. Less than a month after launch, CNN+ is being shut down. We discuss some of the factors that led to this point. Christopher Low talks mortgage rates during our markets discussion. Marketplace’s China correspondent Jennifer Pak clues us in on life in Shanghai, which has been in COVID lockdown for weeks. It’s National Parks Week, and many parks are still using early pandemic reservation systems. Is it going to stay that way?

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  • MYKOLAIV, UKRAINE - APRIL 21: A view of a Mykolaiv Regional Council building which was destroyed as a result of a shellfire on April 21, 2022 in Mykolaiv area Ukraine. Mykolaiv, a port city near where the Southern Bug river flows into the Black Sea, has been a target of Russian attacks throughout its current invasion of Ukraine. Ukrainian forces here repelled an initial advance from Russian-held territory nearby, but the city has experienced frequent shelling and air strikes even as Russia shifts the focus of its war to the eastern Donbas region. (Photo by Anastasia Vlasova/Getty Images)

    President Biden recently announced an additional $800 million in assistance to Ukraine. However, there’s been a noticeable change in the kind of military aid the U.S. is sending, and that change could hint at the U.S. outlook on how the war is going. To help us break down the U.S. aid package, we spoke to Mark Cancian, a retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Florida lawmakers have approved a bill to strip Disney of special tax privileges through self-government of its land in Orlando.

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  • A community volunteer (C) wearing personal protective equipment gestures as residents line up during a test for the Covid-19 coronavirus in a compound during a Covid-19 lockdown in Pudong district in Shanghai on April 19, 2022. - China OUT (Photo by LIU JIN / AFP) / China OUT (Photo by LIU JIN/AFP via Getty Images)

    From the BBC World Service: China’s government introduces even tougher COVID lockdown restrictions, including alarms on people’s doors. France has issued an arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn, the former boss of the Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi car alliance. After being charged with financial wrongdoing in Japan in 2018, Ghosn fled to Lebanon and has been there ever since. And, we meet a 100-year-old man in Brazil who’s worked for the same company for 84 years.

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David Brancaccio