## The Accessibility Economist

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### Profile and approach
- Betsey Stevenson: a 53-year-old labor economist at the University of Michigan who integrates public perceptions with economic indicators to address fairness in the economy.
- Education and training:
  - PhD, Harvard, completed in 2001.
  - Doctoral committee included Claudia Goldin (2023 Nobel laureate) and Lawrence F. Katz.
- Personal details:
  - Life partner and coauthor: Justin Wolfers.
  - Children: 14-year-old Matilda and 11-year-old Oliver.
  - Grew up in half a dozen states; undergraduate degree in economics and mathematics at Wellesley College.

### Major research contributions
- Title IX and women’s outcomes:
  - Dissertation and subsequent research showing that access to high school sports under Title IX increased women’s college enrollment, labor force participation, and advancement into managerial positions.
  - Goldin: “Betsey was the first to show the enormous impact of Title IX.”
  - Title IX enacted in 1972 (part of federal civil rights legislation).
- Money and happiness:
  - 2008 paper with Justin Wolfers finding “a clear positive link between average levels of subjective well-being [happiness] and GDP per capita across countries.”
  - Found no evidence of “a point beyond which wealthier countries have no further increases in subjective well-being,” challenging the Easterlin paradox.
- Family structure, divorce, and welfare:
  - Series of papers linking liberalized divorce laws to empowerment of women and declines in domestic violence, female suicides, and murders of women (research cited from 2003).
  - 2007 paper reviewing 150 years of divorce and marriage records: divorce rates rose for decades then had been declining for the preceding 25 years; people who married in the 1980s had a higher probability of staying together 20 years than those who married in the 1970s.
- Women’s welfare and labor:
  - Pioneering work showing women’s happiness suffered because of simultaneous entry into the workforce and persistent primary caregiving responsibilities.

### Teaching, outreach, and pedagogy
- Principles of Economics textbook (coauthored with Justin Wolfers):
  - First edition published in 2020; second edition in 2023; authors working on a third edition.
  - Philosophy: “economics should be useful in everyday life”; economics defined as “the study of ‘the ordinary business of everyday life.’”
  - Text accompanied by supporting online elements, podcasts, and interactive tools; many real-world, policy-focused examples.
- Podcasts and public engagement:
  - Produced a series of more than 50 podcasts in 2020–21 titled “Think Like an Economist.”
  - Writes columns for Bloomberg and is exploring a book on creating a fairer economy.

### Policy influence and public service
- Government roles and advising:
  - Important player in the Obama administration: served as chief economist of the Labor Department and on the Council of Economic Advisers.
  - Served on the Biden-Harris transition team and has testified regularly in Congressional hearings.
  - Engaged by the Obama Foundation to lead outside advisors crafting economic recommendations for President Obama’s Democracy Forum speech.
- Policy areas and impact:
  - Worked on developing universal basic leave policy and paid family and sick leave policy.
  - Paid leave work resulted in an executive order applying to federal contractors; according to Stevenson, this executive order was not reversed by the Trump administration.
  - On paid sick leave: “workers have to earn [it] over time; it increases employers’ costs only 2 percent; and productivity rises because people aren’t working while ill or spreading disease in the workplace.”
- Reputation in government:
  - Jason Furman: “Betsey is one of the most effective economists I’ve seen in government.”  
  - Valerie Jarrett: Stevenson was “our go-to person for how to make economic policies fairer.”

### Communication style and public perception focus
- Emphasis on accessibility: uses realistic examples, clear language, and human-centered explanations to make economic ideas understandable and relevant.
- Praised for connecting economic ideas to people’s lived experiences and for helping to explain the impact of policies such as equal pay, paid leave, and paid sick days in “people’s pockets.”
- Wolfers: “Betsey’s gift is that she can be an economist and a real person at the same time. She connects with people. She hears, understands, and gives voice to their concerns.”

*Source: F&D People in Economics profile of Betsey Stevenson (March 2024).*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2024/03/pie0324.pdf_