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Lotteries And Happiness

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Published October 26, 2018 at 4:46 PM EDT

Today on The Indicator, the hedonic treadmill. This is the idea that when something really great happens to us, like winning the lottery, we might be really happy at first. But eventually we just get used to our new life — and we go back to our baseline level of happiness. Researchers in Sweden have concluded that that does happen, but it's only part of the story.

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Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith

Cardiff Garcia

Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.

See stories by Cardiff Garcia