Latest / Trumponomics / As #MeToo Sweeps the World, Economics Profession Has Its Own Reckoning

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As #MeToo Sweeps the World, Economics Profession Has Its Own Reckoning · Trumponomics

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Most of the time on Benchmark we talk about some
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of the biggest issues in the global economy, including growth, inflation, wages,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and central banks. But today we're turning to a big
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: issue in the economics profession itself. Just as the worlds
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: of media and politics are having their own reckoning with
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: sexual harassment and misconduct following the Harvey Weinstein scandal, male
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: economists are being forced to confront a history of sexism
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: among themselves that has persisted to this day and festered
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: in ways that are frankly pretty shocking. Now women are
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: speaking out about their experiences and turning the research paper
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: into a powerful tool to shine a light on the
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: dark side of their profession. Welcome to Benchmark. I'm Scott
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: landman and economics editor with Bloomberg News in Washington, and
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Moss, economics writer editor at Bloomberg View in
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  Speaker 1: New York. Dan, is it fair to say that economics
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: is a male dominated profession? It is, and if we
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: look at a couple of anecdotes from the American Economic
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Association Annual Conference, they tell a story. The vast majority
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: of panelists at formal sessions were men, and yet he
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: is an interesting dichotomy. Many of the students appeared to
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  Speaker 1: be women. Well, maybe it's an omen for the future
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that the number of women in the profession really will
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: increase if some of these trends keep holding. But anyway,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: we have two guests today who are going to tell
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  Speaker 1: us a lot more about this topic. Later, we'll be
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  Speaker 1: talking with our colleague Gina Smilek, who's written about this
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  Speaker 1: issue for Bloomberg recently. But first, we have an economist
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  Speaker 1: with a long and distinguished experience in the field who
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  Speaker 1: recently led a petition drive to change the way job
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  Speaker 1: vacancies are posted in economics. Her name is Heidi Hartman,
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  Speaker 1: and she's the founder and resident of the Institute for
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Women's Policy Research in Washington, as well as a professor
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  Speaker 1: at George Washington University. Here, she's also the editor of
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  Speaker 1: the Journal of Women Politics and Policy, and she joins
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  Speaker 1: us by phone today. Heidi, thanks so much for taking
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  Speaker 1: the time to be with us on Benchmark My pleasure.
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  Speaker 1: Let me start off, Heidi, with the basic question, how
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: much of a share of the economics profession to women
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  Speaker 1: constitute in terms of academic positions as well as in
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  Speaker 1: government and the private sector, And how has that changed
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  Speaker 1: at all in the last twenty years or so. Well.
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  Speaker 1: I heard Betsy Stevenson, who was a member of the
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  Speaker 1: Council of Economic Advisors under Obama, say that there has
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: been no change since nine I think she was particularly
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: referring to college majors. At the same time, the share
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  Speaker 1: of women college majors in engineering and computer science and
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  Speaker 1: physics has increased, and of course in fields like psychology
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  Speaker 1: and biology, women are the majority of college majors. So
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  Speaker 1: math they are close to the majority in college majors.
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  Speaker 1: So the idea that you know, the reason we don't
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  Speaker 1: have more female economists is that they can't do math,
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  Speaker 1: which is a common chivalis, is not true according to her,
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  Speaker 1: and the lack of progress stands out in comparison to
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  Speaker 1: all the other fields. The higher up you go in
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  Speaker 1: the hierarchy of prestige jobs like top rated universities, the
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  Speaker 1: fewer women you'll find in academics. You'll find more community colleges,
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  Speaker 1: you'll find more in government. Government is historically a less
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  Speaker 1: discriminating environment. It's a fairer environment. And even in the
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  Speaker 1: corporate sector you might find more economists, although I'm not
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  Speaker 1: sure about that one. That sounds pretty ironic given the
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  Speaker 1: chair of the Federal Reserve, admittedly departing, is a woman. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: And Betsy Stevenson also gave a paper on principles textbooks
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  Speaker 1: and how often they mentioned women in examples, Like you
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  Speaker 1: make up an example about business manager and a worker,
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  Speaker 1: most typically the higher level person will be made up
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  Speaker 1: as a male and the lower level person will be
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  Speaker 1: made up as a female. And in the real world
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  Speaker 1: they don't take as many examples of women economists as
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  Speaker 1: there actually are in the field. I guess there are
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  Speaker 1: about in the PhD market, and their examples and textbooks
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  Speaker 1: are about half of that. In the policy maker arena
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  Speaker 1: Janet Yellen herself accounts for of all mentions of female
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  Speaker 1: policy makers and economics. I saw that statistic, and I
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  Speaker 1: found that absolutely astounding. But maybe, Heidi, can you tell
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  Speaker 1: us a little bit more about why the underrepresentation of
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  Speaker 1: women is so ingrained in the economics profession and whereas
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  Speaker 1: that hasn't you know, those barriers have kind of been
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  Speaker 1: broken in some of the other fields you mentioned. Well,
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  Speaker 1: I think part of it is just the very way
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  Speaker 1: we detend to define economics. We talk about the rational
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  Speaker 1: economic man, we talk about scarcity and allocating scarce goods
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  Speaker 1: and the marketplace and production outside the home is the
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  Speaker 1: main field of economics. But a lot of what is
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  Speaker 1: now called human provisioning is done in the home by
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  Speaker 1: unpaid labor. And that's been historically the realm of women
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  Speaker 1: and is still disproportionately the realm of women, and that
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  Speaker 1: has been, you know, for the most part, defined out
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  Speaker 1: of bounds for economics. Now that's changing, but you know,
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  Speaker 1: you still have GDP figures that do not include unpaid
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  Speaker 1: labor except in satellite accounts. Unpaid labor as a deterrent
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  Speaker 1: to paid labor, where the productivity might be higher, is
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  Speaker 1: not even included in our macroeconomic models. So our models
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  Speaker 1: of long term growth are incomplete because we don't include
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  Speaker 1: what some of the barriers might be the labor force participation,
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  Speaker 1: such as the need to provision for families and to
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  Speaker 1: raise children and take care of elders. Heidie, have you
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  Speaker 1: personally faced barriers? Well, yes and no. I think that
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I found that academia would be difficult for me based
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  Speaker 1: on the kind of response my work was getting. I
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  Speaker 1: always focused on gender. I was cautioned by many people
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  Speaker 1: not to focus on gender. That would be a bad
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  Speaker 1: move in the profession, And so I decided to start
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  Speaker 1: my own think tank in my early forties. And why
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  Speaker 1: would that be a bad move, Because it's undervalued in economics,
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  Speaker 1: women often tend to go into labor economics where they
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  Speaker 1: can study topics that appear to interest them more topics
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  Speaker 1: like unemployment, poverty, and those topics are, you know, not
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  Speaker 1: the mainstream of the field. The mainstream of the field
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  Speaker 1: or macroeconomics, financial economics, international economics, and micro economics. Now
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: in the area of microeconomics, it was Gary Becker, rather
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: conservative economists, who opened the whole area of the new
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  Speaker 1: household economics, in which he opened the concept of house
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  Speaker 1: decision making and that included unpaid labor. But he tended
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  Speaker 1: to say that the household as a whole maximize their
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  Speaker 1: joint utility, and he kind of ignored any conflicts between
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  Speaker 1: men and women, and I've tended to focus on conflicts
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  Speaker 1: between men and women. For example, the way I look
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  Speaker 1: at the economics field is very different from the way
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  Speaker 1: many of my academic economists friends look at it. I
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  Speaker 1: look at as a as a turf war. I believe
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  Speaker 1: white men in particular are digging in their heels to
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  Speaker 1: keep that field for themselves, and they tend to come
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  Speaker 1: from a conservative background. They often migrate over from engineering
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  Speaker 1: and mathematics, which is probably a little bit of a
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  Speaker 1: more conservative background than if you migrated, say from sociology
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  Speaker 1: and economics. So people tend to self segregate, perhaps at
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  Speaker 1: an early age, and the women may be discouraged from
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  Speaker 1: the way the courses are taught. We don't see examples
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  Speaker 1: of women in the textbooks. We don't see examples of
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  Speaker 1: particular questions of interest to women. One woman says that
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't want to go into economics because she thought
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: it was all about how to help corporations make more money. Now,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: this leads us into a topic that we want to
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: discuss with you, because you've been heavily involved in it lately.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: What is economics job market rumors? And how did it start?
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  Speaker 1: When did you hear about it? Well? I honestly only
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: heard about it a short time ago, right around the
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  Speaker 1: time that Justin Wolfers wrote a New York Times opinion
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  Speaker 1: piece about it in August of so, less than a
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  Speaker 1: year ago. That's because I'm not often searching on the
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  Speaker 1: academic job market for new PhD candidates. And I'm not
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  Speaker 1: in an academic department full time, so I wasn't aware
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  Speaker 1: of it. But the field itself has been aware of
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  Speaker 1: it for about ten years, and it appears to be
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  Speaker 1: something that was started as a public service by a few,
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  Speaker 1: largely men. It appears somewhere, I'm not sure where, and
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  Speaker 1: they run it not only for economics, but from sociology
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  Speaker 1: in political for sociology and political science. And there is
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  Speaker 1: an official job market that is run by the a A.
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  Speaker 1: It's called Joe Job Openings for economists and there, if
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  Speaker 1: you're an employer hiring, as I was this year, you
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  Speaker 1: put in your ad and you get a lot of
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  Speaker 1: applications and you screen them and you set up interviews
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  Speaker 1: at the annual meetings. But there's a whole process that
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  Speaker 1: actually starts before that and after that, where you might
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  Speaker 1: be selecting your candidates, flying them out to your campus,
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of people want to know exactly what's
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: going on with that, who's playing out, who's been offered,
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  Speaker 1: has the position been filled? And they want that information
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  Speaker 1: in real time, and the way they get it is
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: through rumors they posted anonymously on this job board created
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: by these virtually anonymous people. One is called kirk and
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  Speaker 1: along with that, anonymous postings can also include comments about
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  Speaker 1: the candidates, such as she's hot and he's smart or
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  Speaker 1: even brilliant, or a great macroeconomist. The study that Josin
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  Speaker 1: Wolfer's popularized by putting it in the New York Times
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: was done by a senior at Berkeley, Alice Woo, and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: she used all kinds of software that can just measure,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: count and identify the words used about female and male coundates.
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  Speaker 1: You don't know who's making the comments, but you can
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  Speaker 1: tell using names which ones are female, which ones are male.
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  Speaker 1: And in addition to all the comments skirless comments about
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  Speaker 1: women and very few skirless comments about men in the
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  Speaker 1: top twenty terms, she found also terrible comments about every
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  Speaker 1: minority group, whether gay and lesbian, Black, Hispanic, Asian, American, Muslim, American, Jewish,
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  Speaker 1: every minority group was let me just stop you there
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  Speaker 1: and come back to something you said. We're talking about
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  Speaker 1: a group of nominally sophisticated, well educated people and they're
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  Speaker 1: putting in job postings she's hot. Well, it's not so
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  Speaker 1: much job things. The job postings. Official job postings are elsewhere.
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  Speaker 1: This is where you put the information about who's coming
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  Speaker 1: to campus, who's going to get the job, and you say, well,
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  Speaker 1: Susie Smith is not going to get the job because
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  Speaker 1: she's stupid. And they use language like that pretty regularly
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: on that site. Yeah, yeah, and it's it's anonymous. And
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  Speaker 1: these may be from they could even be from non economists,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: but most people acknowledge their economists. They could be graduate students,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: they could be assistant professors that could be competing assistant
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: professors who don't want Susie Smith to get the job,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: so they not only say she's hot, but they say
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: she's a whore or something else. And now the time
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  Speaker 1: right for a me too movement in academic economics. Well,
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  Speaker 1: there may be. I mean, I have heard stories of
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  Speaker 1: women who have been propositioned and worse, but those are
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  Speaker 1: not the prevalence stories. The prevalence stories are more about
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: the aggression in the field of men, particularly towards women's
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: So it's known as a very aggressive field. You give
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  Speaker 1: your job talk or any invited paper, and you're criticized.
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  Speaker 1: That's the dominant language and economics. It's not well, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I was thinking a different approach might be. You could
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: take blah blah blah, and then we might get better
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: results on blah blah blah. No is, why did you
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: do it that way? There's a much better way to
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: do it, don't you know that? And your way is stupid, right,
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  Speaker 1: that's how That's a lot of the language I've heard
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: over the years, right, yeah, yeah, And so that's just
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  Speaker 1: our culture now, Heidi, I just wanted to ask you
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: before we turn to Gina, how surprised were you at
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: the success of your petition drive to create a more
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: legitimate site than economics job market rumors. I mean you
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you ended up getting over a thousand signatures. Tell us
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit more about that. Yes, my colleague Michael
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Reich who's at Berkeley, and he and I went to
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Swarthmore College together, where we both majored in economics. We
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: were surprised at how quickly it caught on. It. It
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: caught on like wildfire, and we had six hundred within
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: you know, a couple of weeks, and we let the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: A A know what was happening. And it was finally
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: at that point, I think around October that they issued
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: their first formal statement opposing the language on e g I. MR.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: They didn't even do that from August when it was
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: exposed in the Times until late October, and then October
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: officially transmitted our petition and by the time we shut
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: it down for signatures we had, we were surprised at
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: how quickly it moved. It is, as far as we know,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: the largest number of signatures that's ever been delivered to
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the A and it was very successful and I think
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: very significant because the nub of the problem is hiring.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: If we hired more women in economics, they do have,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: on average, I would say, is somewhat less aggressive style
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: than successful men. And the more successful women we have
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: in the field, the better the culture will be for everyone.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Let me turn to Gina now, Gina smile like vers
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: the U s. Economy and Federal Reserve for Bloomberg News
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: in New York. She's with Dan in our studio there today. Gina,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: welcome back to Benchmark. Thank you. Gina. Can you tell
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: us a little bit more about your reporting on economics,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: job market rumors and the kinds of stories you've heard
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: about the barriers women facing economics. I know you recently
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: interviewed a professor at the University of Maryland. Maybe you
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: can tell us a little bit about that too. Yeah,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: absolutely so. So while at the AA meetings down in Philadelphia,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I got really interested in this topic because it was
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: so much the buzz in the air was something that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: people were talking about, and so I sort of poked
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: around and was trying to figure out of economics as
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: having a me to moment and sort of, like Heidi said,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: what I really found is it's more talking about sort
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: of this systemic sexism than any individual stories. But I
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: did find this one woman who was willing to talk
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: about her experience with economic job market rumors. And her
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: name is Melissa arne Um. She's a really well respected
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: economist at the University of Maryland. She's tenured there and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: she's also a senior fellow the Brookings Institution. So this
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: is one with a pretty crazy CV. And what was
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: really shocking to me is she almost quit the field
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: because she was facing so much harassment on this website.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And you know, it was the kind of thing where
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: she would go to a conference and immediately there would
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: be a thread just criticizing her paper, pulling it apart,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: talking about her and really sort of vulgar terms. And
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: then one of the examples that was just shocking to me,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: is she was at one conference and they kept posting
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: her locations, they posted her whereabouts just kind of you know,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to let her know that they had an eye on her,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and that kind of her assment just you know, obviously
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: was a huge problem for her, and she didn't know
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: how to how to sort of handle it, and she
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: ended up sticking it out and it's sort of calmed
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: down over time. But I think this is sort of
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: a watershed moment that economics as a field is finally
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: talking about the site that has been a problem for
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of prominent female economists for quite a while now.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: So not quite a me too moment in the sense
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: that it's been generally understood until now, but definitely something
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: going on and perhaps just as debilitating for the victims. Yeah,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: I think what I think this is what I think
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the headline we used on our story is and less
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: of a me to a moment and more of a reckoning.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: So this isn't the kind of thing where everyone's you know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: sort of holding hands and jump in outing names and
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: exposing high profile abuse in the field. What it is
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: sort of looking at this problem empirically and saying you know,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: here's data that shows that women are talked about in
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: physical terms, here's data that shows that women aren't talked
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: about in professional terms and textbooks. Here's data that shows
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: why undergraduate women aren't getting into and staying in economics
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and especially macroeconomics. And I think sort of that kind
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: of empiricism is really comfortable in the economics field and
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: is also sort of a way to drive change for them.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: And speaking of empiricism, aren't their realms of data showing
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that the most prosperous, the most affluent, the most secure
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: societies are the ones that also embrace diversity in all
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: its forms. So like what gives here? Yeah, And I
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: think it's interesting. And I think the thing is if
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: you talk to a lot of women in economics, and
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, Heidi probably has a better csp on this
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: than I do, But it seems like if you talk
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to a lot of women in economics and men in economics,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: they'll tell you that there are a field that wants
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: to embrace diversity. I think it's often not even a
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: conscious decision that diversity is being discouraged in some ways,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: it's sort of the subtle thing, like the language and
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: textbooks that just makes the field unwelcoming to women, but
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: that you might not recognize at face value. And so
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I think this is this sort of deep dive into
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: sort of the roots of the problem, the reasons that
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: undergraduate women are not joining the economics field, is going
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: to be an interesting thing to watch going forward. Could
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I tell one story I interviewed for a job as
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: an assistant professor at Swarthmore College, my alma mater, and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: one professor who who whom I knew personally but had
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: become on the faculty thereafter I left. When I asked
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: him whether there was any women's studies program at Swarthmore
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: in front of other people, he said, oh, I think
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the door is behind the coke machine and the basement
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: of the library. Now, I don't think that's an unconscious stay. So, yes,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: there are well meaning men and women who believe the data,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: want the data, and want to make change, But there
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: are plenty of particularly men in the field, who don't
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: want change, who actively put down women in order to
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: keep change from happening. So that's sort of a conceit
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: right now. Based on the New York Times article, the
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: front page article that oh, it's just a bunch of
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: well meaning, rational people, and once they get this data,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: they're going to change. The Committee on the Status of
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Women in an Economics profession has existed since nineteen seventy
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: one and they haven't gotten much changed since nineteen seventy one,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and they've been producing data since nineteen seventy one. So
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: do you think it's going to change now? Well? I
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: think so, But people have to fight, and the petition
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: is the first fight. The session of the papers that
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: I went to was very good. It was very well attended.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: I think it was well attended because the press had
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: already started covering the petition drive and people knew it
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: was an issue and people had signed a petition. Now. Interestingly,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: most of the women giving papers to the high profile
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: women in the profession to sign the petition. They told
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: us personally they supported it, but they didn't want to
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: sign it. Question for both Heidie and Gina. As Janet
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: Yellen prepares to depart, what sort of role model has
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: she been or could she become depending on what she
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: does now? For women in economics, And I don't just
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: mean academic economics, I mean people who use economics in
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: their place of work. You're a journalist, but you cover
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: economics for example. Yeah, you know. So, Actually, I have
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: a good anecdotal story about this that I think it
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: is sort of telling. So my colleague Janet, who covers
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: in damage, Janet Lauren, has a little daughter, Charlie, and
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Charlie is obsessed with Jenny Ellen and economics because her
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: mom told her the Jennie Ellen's the most important woman
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: in the world, and that would be right. Yeah. Well,
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: and I think it's really interesting because I think that,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: you know, she's a little girl who's going to be
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit more focused on macroeconomics, some sort of
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: monetary policy, these sort of issues as she grows up
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: because Jenny Ellen was in that job. She's actually pretty
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: upset the Jennie l and lost her job. She doesn't
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: understand why. But I think it's really interesting to to
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: sort of think about how that's going to shape a
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: generation of future economists. Heidi, your thoughts on that, I agree.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Jenny Ellen has been fantastic. She's held two conferences on
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: diversity in the economics profession, specifically giving a great speech
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: at the first one on how diversity within the profession
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: would improve the science of economics, would make us include
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: more questions, would give us better answers, who would be
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: better able to anticipate recessions and how to get out
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: of them, and a host of other questions. And she's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: just been fantastic. By the way, you can still buy
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I think small t shirts for Childler's at the Federal
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Reserve Board gift shop. That's a future chair of the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Federal Reserve Board. Pink and blue. I think they come
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: in right. Well. I have a two year old her
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely going to think about that for her third birthday.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: Better get it now. I wanted to come back to
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: another question about these research papers. I mean, one thing
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: that really struck me is that you mentioned papers by
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Alice Woo. I think there are others that kind of
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: highlight some of these issues with the job board and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: some other things. In the economics profession and in my
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: covering the economics world in my career, I've just see
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: so many research papers that are dominated by math, complex
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: formulas and conclusions that tend to be pretty incremental, just
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: incrementally advancing our knowledge of of whatever topic it is.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Is that good? I mean, is that also a function
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: of the male dominance of economics and would things be
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: different with greater female presence in the profession, Well, this
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: is Heidi, I think it would be. But I think
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: it's it's a different trade of economics. It's the trade
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: of economics to be highly control old. As to what
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: constitutes economics, the neo classical framework is dominant. Yes, it's
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: lead in game theory. Yes it's let in behavioral economics.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: But we have a whole new association, the International Association
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: for Feminist Economics, which I believe is about twenty plus
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: years old, and um it started in order to create
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: a new economics, feminist economics, which will be focusing on
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: this human provisioning that I mentioned earlier. And you know,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: it's got a great award winning journal. It publishes tons
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: of articles in there about this new approach. But the
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: field itself is not very open to new approaches. The
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: way the field is organized, you have to start your
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: own five oh one c. Three. You have to have
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: three members for at least three years before you can
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: even apply to get session space at what they call
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: the Allied Social Science Association meetings, the annual meetings that
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: were just held in Philadelphia, but they're really run by
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the American Economics Association, So the a A is definitely
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: involved in fence keeping, keeping out marginal ideas, keeping out
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: marginal people. Do you know, is there any one question
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: that you wanted to ask Heidi before we wrap up? Yeah? Hi?
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Do you one question that I think is really pergnant
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and something I wasn't really able to get at in
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: my story too much? Is obviously what we're talking about
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: now is sort of the way that sexism and and
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: sort of settle sexism and overt sexism play into academic economics.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Is it a different story for Wall Street economists? Do
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you think? You know? Do you hear different stories when
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: you talk to women in the two groups? Well, I
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: have talked to the Bond women for example, on Wall
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Street and and other groups, and I get the same
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: sense that they want to band together to identify themselves
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: as women economists to get a little bit more clout.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: One of the things that goes on at Columbia University
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: is a sort of economic journalists forum where they typically
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: invite prominent male economists and have female economic journalists asked
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the questions because they want to give more prominence to
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the economic journal was sor female. So there's still a
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: need to bolster women in those areas, but I don't
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: know that it's quite as aggressive as it is in
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: in academia. I'm speaking now particularly of economists. I mean,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: obviously the traders on the floor quite aggressive, and we
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: don't see too many women there. I know we said
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: that would be the last question, but I think we're
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: tapping a pretty deep vein here. Much of the conversation
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: has oriented around the United States, and this is a
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: show about the global economy. Are the problems observed here
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: replicated abroad? Are we doing relatively better or relatively worse
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: in the US? GENA? Do you want to take a
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: crack at that one? That one's a little bit beyond
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the scope of my reporting. To be perfectly honest with you,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: I've heard anecdotes that suggests relatively better, but they're purely anecdote,
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and I don't have any sort of empirical evidence of that. Now,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: you did work in Frankfort for a while helping cover
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: the German economy and the European Central Bank. Some thoughts
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: based on that experience. Well, you know, it's interesting because
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: I was in Frankfurt in and really this conversation hadn't
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: even started to the degree that it has now. You know,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I think that this really and Heidi can kind of
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: speak to this. Obviously, there's been this focus on making
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: economics a more diverse field for years, but I think that,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: at least as someone covering the field, I hadn't heard
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: a lot about sexism and economics in this sort of
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: overt way. You know, like Hidi said, people knew economic
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: job market rumors existed, but not until this summer. Do
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: I think there was really this reckoning where we said,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: you know, this is really sort of toxic and this
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: probably is hurting women in the field. I don't think
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: that conversation was happening yet. Then, how do any perspectives, Well,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I think that's right. Germany is a special case. I
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: am of a German background, I have many German relatives.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: I go over every couple of years. It's a relatively
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: patriarchal society. I think it's safe to say. In England
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: was certainly sortle more commentary about testosterone and men being
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: responsible for some of the international financial crises, big moments
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: in that crisis, the most recent crisis, So we do
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: see some more open discussion. I think elsewhere we have
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: a much better focus on getting more women on boards
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: in the other European countries, not only England, but also
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Scandinavia and I think Germany as well and France. So
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: there's been national legislation or national goals in those states.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: We don't have that yet in the United States for corporations,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: even though you know they're publicly chartered institutions. So we
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: do have further ago in the United States. And I
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: think it's safe to say that economics is dominated by
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: American economists worldwide. All right, well, we'll have to leave
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: it there. This has been a really interesting conversation and
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: definitely an issue that is not going to go away
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: anytime soon. Heidi Hartman and Gina smile like, thanks so
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: much for being with us today. My pleasure. Yeah, thank you.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: Benchmark will be back next week. Until then, you can
• 27:04
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• 27:06
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• 27:10
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• 27:13
  Speaker 1: minute to rate and review the show so more listeners
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: can find us and let us know what you thought
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: of the show. You can follow me on Twitter at
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: at scott Landman. Dan, you're at moss Under School decade Pidy,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: is there a Twitter handle you wanted to give? My
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Twitter feed is at Heidi at i w PR. That's
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: the at sign H g I D I A T
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: i w PR. And Gina. You are at at Gina
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Smiley Benchmark is produced by tofor Foreheads. The head of
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• 27:47
  Speaker 1: you next time.