Why do some big successful brands go bust?

Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt.

I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype.

They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time.

And I'm picking what went wrong, talking to owners and employees to ask, what can we learn?

It was being undercut by similar rivals. It just couldn't survive.

Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds.

Hello, this is Tim Harford. Thank you very much for downloading the shorter World Service edition of More or Less.

First broadcast on Friday the 21st of April.

Hello and welcome to More or Less on the BBC World Service with me, Tim Harford.

America may be one of the richest countries in the world,

but the struggles of the white working-class American

have captured that nation's imagination.

The story of white men not having a place in the world,

the loss of blue-collar jobs.

That's a very popular story. It's a story I've been hearing for most of my life.

That narrative intensified with the growing popularity of Donald Trump.

For many people, Trump's supporter conjures an image of a white, working-class American guy

and a red baseball cap.

But beyond the folk music and the caricatures, there are the hard numbers, and here on

more or less, hard numbers are our bread and butter.

Few pieces of research have made more of an impact than a pair of studies published by two

...