Editor’s note: We asked four economists to offer their thoughts and insights on what they expect to be a key theme or issue in 2018.

The Gilded Age returns

Greg Wright, assistant professor of economics, University of California, Merced

Income and wealth inequality are...

Every winter, local governments across the United States apply millions of tons of road salt to keep streets navigable during snow and ice storms. Runoff from melting snow carries road salt into streams and lakes, and causes many bodies of water to have extraordinarily high salinity.

At...

Match the following figures – Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, Alfred Nobel and Nikola Tesla – with these biographical facts:

• Spoke eight languages
• Produced the first motor that ran on AC current
• Developed...

“If you don’t get away from those areas, you are going to die.” That phrase concluded Puerto Rico Secretary of Public Safety Héctor Pesquera’s press conference before Hurricane Maria.

Three months after...

Every day about 100 people die in car crashes on U.S. roads. That death toll is a major reason why both Congress and the Trump administration are backing automotive efforts to develop and deploy self-driving cars as quickly as possible.

However,...

Traveling in the new year? It is very likely there is a chapel or meditation room tucked away somewhere in one of the airports you’ll pass through. Sixteen of the country’s 20 largest airports have chapels, as do many more around the world.

I am a sociologis...

Time Magazine recently featured “The Silence Breakers” as its 2017 “Person of the Year,” a nod to the countless women who have come...

In a recent survey of over 1,500 scientists, more than 70 percent of them reported having been unable to reproduce other scientists’ findings at least once. Roughly half of the surveyed scientists ran into problems trying to reproduce their own results. No...

Martin Schneider often got things done faster than a female colleague, Nicole Hallberg, who worked at the same small employment services agency. He figured this was because of his extra experience.

One day, however, a client suddenly began acting...

In today’s highly polarized political atmosphere, Americans may find themselves longing for increased bipartisanship. Wouldn’t greater cooperation from politicians improve our political situation or at least civilize political debate? What’s happening in Germany, however, should make them aware of some of the pitfalls of...