The Independent Social Research Foundation (ISRF), in partnership with the Cambridge Journal of Economics (CJE), is pleased to announce the award of the 2015 ISRF Essay Prize in Economics to Professor Julie A. Nelson, Department Chair and Professor of Economics at the College of Liberal Arts, UMASS.
Prof. Nelson's paper, "Husbandry: a (feminist) reclamation of masculine responsibility for care", won the prize of CHF 7,000 and acceptance for publication in the CJE, one of the world's leading economics journals. The central thesis of the paper is the reclamation of the medieval word 'husbandry' to promote a masculine-associated practice of care. Recalling the agrarian, pastoral roots of the word 'husbandry' to describe cultivation and management,Prof. Nelson elegantly juxtaposes this icon of masculinity with today's 'incentivised' CEO, an image she argues is harmful and uncaring.
Judged by a panel of experts to be intellectually radical, orthogonal to current debates and articulating a strong, feminist critique of a mainstream economics which has forgotten its ethical history, the foundation has the privilege to reproduce the paper on its website, in full.
Read the winning essay online at http://www.isrf.org/funding-opportunities/essay-competitions/economics-2015/
In partnership with Organization Studies, the ISRF is now accepting submissions for the 2016 ISRF Essay Prize in Organisation Studies, on the topic "Autonomy and Organisation". For more information, visit http://www.isrf.org/funding-opportunities/essay-competitions/
GDAE will award its 2016 Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought to Amit Bhaduri and Diane Elson. This year's award, titled "Development and Equity," recognizes the contributions that these researchers have made to economic understandings of development, power, gender, and human rights.
“As the free market and waves of globalization have left some peoples behind, Diane Elson and Amit Bhaduri demonstrate why the current theories of development have excluded the poor and disenfranchised from the growth process,” said GDAE Co-Director Neva Goodwin. “Their cross-disciplinary work and profound understanding of economic development is appropriately recognized in an award that bears Leontief's name.”
GDAE awards the Leontief Prize each year to leading theorists who have developed innovative work in economics that addresses contemporary realities and supports just and sustainable societies. This year’s award will celebrate their continuing efforts to expand our knowledge of economic systems in the contexts of globalization, capital accumulation and the shifting balance of power away from governments to markets.
The ceremony and lectures by the awardees will take place on March 10, 2016 on Tufts University’s Medford campus; further details will be forthcoming.
Dr. Diane Elsonis Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, Visiting Professor at the Centre for Research on Women in Scotland’s Economy, Glasgow Caledonian University, and Research Associate of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership, Rutgers University. Dr. Elson is a member of the UN Committee for Development Policy, and an adviser to UN Women. She has published widely on gender equality, economic policy, and human rights, and is currently writing a book with Radhika Balakrishnan and James Heintz entitled Economic Policy for Social Justice: The Radical Potential of Human Rights.
Learn more about Dr. Elson
Dr. Amit Bhaduriis Professor Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and is currently the Visiting Chair Professor in Political Economy at Goa University. He has served as Professor of Political Economy at the University of Pavia, Italy, Reader at the Delhi School of Economics, and Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta. Dr. Bhaduri’s research spans several important fields including capital and growth theory, Keynesian and Post-Keynesian macroeconomics, and development economics. He has published more than 60 papers and has written ten books.
Learn more about Dr. Bhaduri
GDAE inaugurated its economics award in 2000 in memory of Nobel Prize-winning economist and GDAE advisory board member Wassily Leontief. The Leontief Prize recognizes economists whose work, like that of the institute and Leontief himself, combines theoretical and empirical research to promote a more comprehensive understanding of social and environmental processes.
The inaugural prizes were awarded in 2000 to John Kenneth Galbraith and Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen. Since then, GDAE has awarded the Leontief Prize to Paul Streeten, Herman Daly, Alice Amsden, Dani Rodrik, Nancy Folbre, Robert Frank, Richard Nelson, Ha-Joon Chang, Samuel Bowles, Juliet Schor, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Stephen DeCanio, José Antonio Ocampo, Robert Wade, Bina Agarwal, Daniel Kahneman, Nicholas Stern, Martin Weitzman, C. Peter Timmer, Michael Lipton, Albert O. Hirschman (posthumous), Frances Stewart, Angus Deaton, James K. Galbraith, Duncan Foley, and Lance Taylor.
Read more about theLeontief Prize and past winners
Read more about the2016 Leontief Prize Winners
The American Economic Association publishes a regular newsletter from the “Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession”, and two summers ago the newsletter pondered a depressing trend — or rather a depressing lack of a trend.
“The fraction of all bachelor of arts candidates majoring in economics has not budged much over the past decade,” wrote Cecilia Conrad of the MacArthur Foundation, co-editor of the newsletter. There are two or three male undergraduate economists for every female undergraduate economist. That is not good — but at least the ratio isn’t getting worse. In the UK, the ratio is similar but has shown a marked decline between 2002 and 2013. The basic explanation is lack of demand: too few women wish to study economics.
By Tim Harford for FT Magazine
Read the full article here
Barbara Bergmann, a pioneer in the study of gender in the economy who herself overcame barriers to women in the world of academic economics, died on April 5 at her home in Bethesda, Md. She was 87.
Her son, David Martin Bergmann, confirmed the death.
Ms. Bergmann was an emeritus professor at both American University and the University of Maryland, and she continued to research, publish and consult until very recently.
Sixty years ago, Ms. Bergmann did not need to sift through economic data to find evidence of discrimination. When she was a graduate student at Harvard in the mid-1950s, one library at the university was off-limits to women, Alice Rivlin, a fellow Ph.D. student who went on to become vice chairwoman of the Federal Reserve and director of the Office of Management and Budget in the 1990s, said in a telephone interview on Friday.
Women had just begun to be permitted to work as teaching fellows at the time, Ms. Rivlin added, and they took exams separately from their male counterparts.
“It wasn’t an atmosphere that was very congenial to women,” she said. “It was hard to get an academic job unless you wanted to teach at a women’s college.”
Ms. Bergmann persisted. She initially taught at Harvard as an economics instructor after earning her Ph.D. there in 1958, and joined the White House Council of Economic Advisers in 1961 as a senior staff economist.
After working at Brandeis University and the Brookings Institution, Ms. Bergmann joined the University of Maryland faculty in 1965, teaching there until 1988. She taught economics at American University from 1988 to 1997.
A co-founder of the International Association for Feminist Economics, Ms. Bergmann also contributed columns to the Sunday Business section of The New York Times in the 1980s.
Long a liberal voice in the field, Ms. Bergmann was a fierce critic of the laissez-faire policies then being advocated by the Reagan administration, and of proposed cuts to social programs that dated to the New Deal.
“We have our Scrooges, and lately the Scrooges have grown bolder in expressing themselves,” she wrote in December 1981. “But we are not a nation of Scrooges. On the contrary, we are a nation that, seeing voluntary efforts as commendable but chronically insufficient, has for almost 50 years been relieving social distress through the federal Treasury, using the coercive powers of government to collect the funds.”
Some of Ms. Bergmann’s columns turned out to be prescient, with an early warning of just how severe the recession of the early 1980s would be. She also wrote a column in May 1982 column entitled “A Threat Ahead From Word Processors.”
In that piece, she predicted that the advent of computers and an “an electronic revolution in the office” would decimate the need for typists, secretaries and clerical workers, who tended to be women.
She noted the downward pressure this might have on wages in some fields, and argued that while technological change and greater productivity might be a good thing economically, existing barriers to women in the work force might make finding new jobs difficult and worsen poverty.
“Will high-status people be willing to type their own documents in the future?” she asked. “Though the stigma runs deep, the spreading use of the computer for tasks other than word processing may succeed in removing the stain from the activity of typing on the job.”
In addition to frequent articles in academic journals, Ms. Bergmann was the author of a well-received history of women in the workplace, “The Economic Emergence of Women.” It first appeared in 1986 and was reissued in a new edition in 2005.
The book traces how women began joining the labor force in considerable numbers in the 19th century, well before the rise of modern feminism. Nor was leaving the home and working for hire a result of changing attitudes, Ms. Bergmann wrote; she concluded that economic forces made women’s labor too valuable to be confined to domestic work.
In the late 20th century, Ms. Bergmann called for the government to do more in the marketplace on behalf of women and single-parent families, including support for increased access to day care and the passage of legislation mandating comparable pay for women and men.
In her book, Ms. Bergmann proposed reforms “that she concedes will have to await a less traditional, more egalitarian administration,” the author Wendy Kaminer concluded in a review in The Times in October 1986.
Barbara Rose Berman was born July 20, 1927, in the Bronx to Eastern European immigrants. She earned a B.A. from Cornell in 1948 before going on to receive her M.A. and Ph.D. in economics at Harvard. In 1965 she married Fred H. Bergmann, a microbiologist at the National Institutes of Health; he died in 2011.
In addition to her son, Ms. Bergmann is survived a daughter, Sarah Nellie Bergmann, and three grandchildren.
Whether at Harvard in the 1950s or during the Reagan era, Ms. Bergmann was ready to challenge the prevailing orthodoxies of the time, Ms. Rivlin said.
“Barbara was always quite outspoken and forceful in her views,” she said. “She was never shy about them.”
Schwartz, Nelson D. "Barbara Bergmann, Trailblazer for Study of Gender in Economics, Is Dead at 87." New York Times 11 April 2015
The full article can be read here
President Erdoğan:
On behalf of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), we are writing to express our concern over investigations into, and prosecutions of, signatories of the statement “We will not be a party to this crime.” We understand that many feminist scholars, including members of IAFFE, are among those who signed this petition calling for an end to the state violence against Kurds and for a return to peace negotiations.
The International Association for Feminist Economics is an open, diverse community of academics, activists, policy theorists, and practitioners from around the world. Our common cause is to further gender-aware and inclusive economic inquiry and policy analysis with the goal of enhancing the well-being of children, women, and men, regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin. We are deeply concerned about the punitive actions that jeopardize well-being and violate the freedom of expression, including academic freedom, of our members and other academics who have signed the petition.
We urge the Turkish government to stop all punitive actions against the signatories of the Peace Petition and that Turkey observe the international human rights conventions to which it is legally bound, as well as norms of freedom of expression essential in all democratic societies.
Respectfully,
Şemsa Özar, President of IAFFE
Executive Committee of the Board of Directors
Cecilia Conrad, Board Chair
Joyce Jacobsen, President Elect
Ann Mari May, Executive Vice President & Treasurer
Ebru Kongar, Executive Vice President & Secretary
Diana Strassmann, Editor of Feminist Economics
Cc:
Bekir Bozdağ
Minister of Justice
06669 Kizilay
Ankara, Turkey
Fax: +90 312 419 3370
The Honorable John F. Kerry
United States Secretary of State
US Department of State
2201C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Ambassador Serdar Kılıç
Turkish Ambassador to the United States
2525 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington,DC 20008
Fax: 202‐612‐6744
Email: embassy.washingtondc@mfa.gov.tr
Ambassador John Bass
American Embassy Ankara
110 Atatürk Blvd
Kavaklıdere, 06100 Ankara ‐ Turkey
Fax: (90‐312) 467‐0019
Email: webmasterankara@state.gov
Ms. Victoria Nuland
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs
US Department of State
2201C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Fax: 202‐736‐4462
The Honorable Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais des Nations, CH‐1211
Geneva 10, Switzerland
Sent January 21, 2016
Professor Naila Kabeer looks back over the history of feminist economics and outlines her reasons why it matters for the future.
Male voices and perspectives tend to dominate economics, but feminist economists are challenging this
Like many other areas of life, male voices have tended to dominate economics. Throughout history, millions of women have been subject to systems and structures that privilege male perspectives at their expense. Feminist economics chanllenges this reality.
To read more, go to http://www.ecnmy.org/engage/why-we-need-feminist-economists/
Feminist economics deserves recognition as a distinct branch of the discipline
Had he lived to see it, Alfred Marshall, a 19th-century giant of economics, probably would not have celebrated International Women’s Day, which takes place on March 8th. “If you compete with us, we shan’t marry you,” he once gallantly warned the fairer sex. In his book, Principles of Economics, he described the field as “the study of men as they live and move and think in the ordinary business of life”.
Economics still has its problems with women. ...
The Economist, March 12, 2016
H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
President of the Republic of Turkey
T.C. Cumhurbaşkan Genel Sekreterliği
06689 Çankaya, Ankara
Turkey
Via Email: cumhurbaskanligi@tccb.gov.tr
President Erdoğan:
On behalf of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), we are writing to deplore the coup attempt and express our concern over the actions of the Turkish government against academics in Turkey. These include travel abroad ban for academics, suspension of 15,200 education staff, and the ordering by the Higher Education Council (YÖK) of resignation of all Deans from both Turkey's Public and foundation universities. We understand that some universities also have taken actions against academics who are the signatories of the peace petition earlier in 2016. IAFFE condemns strongly and unconditionally these actions against academics, and expresses its heartfelt support for the academic community in Turkey.
The International Association for Feminist Economics is an open, diverse community of academics, activists, policy theorists, and practitioners from around the world. Our common cause is to further gender-aware and inclusive economic inquiry and policy analysis with the goal of enhancing the well-being of children, women, and men, regardless of race, ethnicity, or national origin. We are deeply concerned about the actions that jeopardize well-being of all and violate the freedom of expression, including academic freedom, of our members and other academics who have signed the peace petition.
We urge the Turkish government and Turkish authorities to respect the basic rights of academics and their institutions, and call on Turkey observe the international human rights conventions to which it is legally bound, as well as norms of academic freedom essential in all democratic societies.
Respectfully,
Joyce Jacobsen, President of IAFFE
Executive Committee of the Board of Directors
Cecilia Conrad, Board Chair
Silvia Berger, President Elect
Ann Mari May, Executive Vice President & Treasurer
Ebru Kongar, Executive Vice President & Secretary
Diana Strassmann, Editor of Feminist Economics
Cc:
Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım
Office of the Prime Minister
Başbakanlık 06573 Ankara, Turkey
Via facsimile +90 312 417 0476; +90 312 403 62 82; + 90 312 422 26 67
Bekir Bozdağ
Minister of Justice
06669 Kizilay
Ankara, Turkey
Fax: +90 312 419 3370
The Honorable John F. Kerry
United States Secretary of State
US Department of State
2201C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Ambassador Serdar Kılıç
Turkish Ambassador to the United States
2525 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington,DC 20008
Fax: 202.612.6744
Email: embassy.washingtondc@mfa.gov.tr
Ambassador John Bass
American Embassy Ankara
110 Atatürk Blvd
Kavaklıdere, 06100 Ankara, Turkey
Fax: (90-312) 467-0019
Email: webmasterankara@state.gov
Ms. Victoria Nuland
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs
US Department of State
2201C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Fax: 202-736-4462
The Honorable Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
Palais des Nations, CH-1211
Geneva 10, Switzerland
Sent August 4, 2016
Many of you will remember Lois, who was an early member of IAFFE and attended many annual conferences. She also was a guest editor, along with Nancy Folbre and Agneta Stark, of a Feminist Economics issue on Gender and Aging (July 2005). I am sorry to report that her daughter, Rachel Shaw, let me know last week that Lois passed away on September 10. Her husband Dick predeceased her last year. Lois and Dick had four children, and Lois spent many years as their primary caregiver. She said it was reading Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique that changed her life and led her to resume her education and earn a doctorate in economics (she had graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California at Berkeley).
Lois spent much of her career as an economist doing research on women’s employment issues, including women’s retirement and the impact of the US Social Security system on reducing poverty among older women. After receiving her PhD in economics from the University of Michigan, she worked on developing the National Longitudinal Surveys at Ohio State University. She lived in the Washington, DC, area for several decades, working at and retiring from the US General Accounting Office (now called the Government Accountability Office). After retirement, she joined the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, where she worked on many studies over the years, often but not always on older women. Until just a few years ago, she was still serving as a peer reviewer of our work before publication.
Lois was always active on policy issues and she was also a founding member of a small-DC based volunteer group called the Economists’ Policy Group on Women’s Issues, chaired by Barbara Bergmann and myself. The highlight of our activities was ranking the presidential candidates in the 1992 election on their stance on women’s issues; as one of the first such efforts by a group of economists, it got quite a lot of media play! Lois devoted the same thorough scholarship to uncovering the candidates’ policy positions (before the internet) as she did to all her professional work.
Those of you who knew and worked with Lois might like to send a note to:
Rachel Shaw, 12904 Ardennes Avenue, Rockville, Maryland, 20851, USA
Or an email to Rachel at Botania@verizon.net
A memorial service will be held for Lois on Saturday, November 12, at 11:00 A.M.at the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Rockville, 100 Welsh Park Drive, Rockville, Maryland, USA.
With sadness but with fond memories of Lois,
Heidi
Heidi Hartmann, President
The following is a Statement by the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) regarding Executive Orders restricting immigration and travel. IAFFE is committed to supporting all IAFFE members who are impacted by such executive orders.
IAFFE Statement on Executive Orders Restricting Immigration and Travel
As an international organization, we believe that free interchange among scholars, students, and activists from around the world is crucial to the creation of knowledge for the benefit of society. We are therefore deeply concerned about any executive order that restricts immigration from a set of countries and creates new and unreasonable barriers to travel, particularly for refugees. In addition to flying in the face of long-established American values of fairness, decency, and freedom of religion, such executive orders create serious obstacles to many of our organization’s members, who now may be prevented from pursuing valuable research, teaching, and learning activities that involve crossing national borders. We believe that such orders will have serious long-term consequences for the progress of knowledge, and for the state of communities across the globe, and that any such order needs to be reversed.
Board of Directors
International Association for Feminist Economics
February 16, 2017