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What Keeps Economists Up At Night? And Other Stuff

Echo Wang

The Indicator team attended the annual conference of the American Economic Association, where more than 10,000 economists gather. Many listeners sent questions on social media, so our producers stalked some economists to find the answers.

Here are some of the questions we answered:

-What keeps them up at night? Via @ninaberries

-Top things the middle class can do to regain strength? Via @MannyM

-What's the most interesting finding you've seen in the past year?via @jameshoman

-Which public policies are effective to reduce gender gaps? Via @atribinu

-If you lived in St. Louis and had a son would you name him FRED? Via @ariasm1

-What could be the role of tariffs in a potential new recession? @jpgarnham

-Could a lack of individuality in a society lead to a loss of diversity of subjective value and hurt an economy? @jonatang00

-What poorly conceived indicator has done the most harm historically? Via @evergreentwete

If you have more questions or comments, tweet us @theindicator or email us at indicator@npr.org.

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Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, PocketCasts and NPR One.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Echo Wang
Darius Rafieyan joined NPR in 2017 as the founding producer of The Indicator from Planet Money. He has produced stories about infectious disease outbreaks, the world's greatest air salesman, and the economics of Tinder.
Constanza Gallardo