Economics – Julie A. Nelson

Some Cautions Regarding Solidarity

A recent feminist economics conference celebrated “solidarity.” Is this always a good thing?

The theme of the 33rd annual conference of the International Association for Feminist Economics, which just finished up, was “Social Justice Through Solidarity.”

Certainly, solidarity has its strong points, especially when contrasted with an overemphasis on atomistic individualism and narrow self-interest. Yet I believe that a narrow focus on solidarity also has its drawbacks, both as an intellectual stance and in its efficacy in achieving desired outcomes.

What If ‘Capitalism’ Isn’t the Problem?

A few days ago, I was interviewed by Oshan Joshan for his podcast series “Musing Minds.” We talked about both economics, Zen, gender…so on some of the same themes I’ve addressed elsewhere on this blog.

Oshan gave the interview the title “What If ‘Capitalism’ Isn’t the Problem?” That’s not to say we don’t have enormous problems! Only that we have mis-identified their source.

A Caution about Sent and van Staveren’s “Feminist Review…”

While the conclusions it comes to are broadly correct, the article “A Feminist Review of Behavioral Economic Research on Gender Differences” by Sent and van Staveren should not be used as a model for methodology.

Sent and van Staveren FE In their article “A Feminist Review of Behavioral Economic Research on Gender Differences,” published in the April 2019 issue of Feminist Economics, Esther-Mirjam Sent and Irene van Staveren state that their work was inspired by my own work. In a series of articles (here, here, and here) and a book, I had performed meta-analyses of behavioral economics work concerning gender and risk-taking. Sent and van Staveren are to be commended for taking on the ambitious project of extending the focus to include investigations into not only risk, but also overconfidence, altruism, and trust. They also come to conclusions that are, based on my own investigation, broadly correct: “[F]ew studies report statistically significant as well as sizeable differences,” “large intra-gender differences (differences among men and differences among women) exist,” and “[m]any studies have not sufficiently taken account of various social, cultural, and ideological drivers.” I feel obligated, however, to point out that there are a number of methodological problems in their article. While the article is certainly notable, considerable caution should be exercised about taking its methods as a model for future work. Continue reading “A Caution about Sent and van Staveren’s “Feminist Review…””

Yes, Economics Has a Problem with Women

In the news recently we’ve heard about a study of sexist terms used to refer to women economists. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, economics has a problem with women. In the news recently we’ve heard about the study of the Economics Job Market Rumors (EJMR) on-line forum. Student researcher Alice H. Wu found that posts about women were far more likely to contain words about their personal and physical issues (including “hot,” “lesbian,” “cute,” and “raped” ) than posts about men, which tended to focus more on academic and professional topics. As a woman who has been in the profession for over three decades, however, this is hardly news.

Dismissive treat of women, and of issues that impact women more than men, comes not only from the sorts of immature cowards who vent anonymously on EJMR, but even from men who probably don’t think of themselves as sexist. Continue reading “Yes, Economics Has a Problem with Women”