2025-02-13
7 分钟The Economist Hello, Mike Byrd here, co-host of Money Talks,
our weekly podcast on markets, the economy and business.
Welcome to Editor's Picks.
We've chosen an article from the latest edition of The Economist,
which we very much hope you'll enjoy.
Valentine's Day is fast approaching.
Inside sock drawers around the world,
men and a few women will be hiding rings intended to convey their everlasting love.
Since De Beers, the world's leading diamond company,
ingeniously announced that diamonds are forever in the 1940s,
most engagement rings have included a diamond, and an expensive one at that.
The average American will spend $5,000 on the band for their proposal.
A lot has changed in recent years, however.
The most important development is the soaring popularity of lab-grown diamonds.
Identical to their natural alternatives, except to gemologists with specialist equipment,
such stones now make up around half of the American DER market,
reckons Martin Rappaport, chairman and founder of Rappaport,
a diamond pricer, up from a tiny fraction a decade ago.
DER is the unglamorous acronym the industry uses for Diamond Engagement Ring.
American jewelers report that lab-grown diamonds now account for more than half their sales of loose diamonds,