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The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

Public sector economics is a fundamental piece of the discipline. So we wanted to give our hosts an opportunity to put their knowledge to the test in a game we’re calling Indicator Quizbowl. Today on the show, Wailin and Darian go head to head to see who the bigger public policy nerd is.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:02.1	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
0:13.7	I'm Daryam Woods.
0:14.8	I'm Waylon Wong.
0:15.9	And I'm Adrienne Ma.
0:17.2	We take a little pride in having our econ nerd credentials.
0:21.6	And every once in a while we think, why not put these credentials to the test
0:25.6	by having a little competition, a little friendly competition we like to call the Indicator Quiz Bowl.
0:33.3	Today on the show, it's a trivia matchup between our own Daryan Woods and Whalen Wong.
0:40.8	I'm shadow boxing. You can't tell about it.
0:43.3	So the way that this will work is I'll ask five questions.
0:46.8	Whoever gets the right answer, we'll get a point for that.
0:49.1	And the winner will be the person with the most points at the end of the show.
0:52.2	Simple enough.
0:53.6	Today's indicator quiz bowl topic will be the economics with the most points at the end of the show. Simple enough. Today's indicator quiz bowl topic will be the economics of the public sector,
0:58.3	aka government economics.
1:00.8	Oh, does Daryne have an unfair advantage because he's worked in the public sector pre-MPR?
1:07.4	But in New Zealand, so does that transfer?
1:10.6	We'll find out.
1:11.6	Don't you also have a degree in public policy from an American university?
1:16.0	Nobody at the Olympics complains that the other person's been training too much.
1:19.8	All right.
	...

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