Women in Economics
IMF Blog, August 6, 2021
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Bibliographic details
- Authors: The Editors
- Published: August 6, 2021
Overview
- Women remain underrepresented in economics, yet many have made an outsized impact on the field.
- Finance & Development magazine has regularly highlighted the contributions made by women economists.
- Publication date: August 6, 2021.
Themes and areas of impact
- Elimination of poverty and development economics.
- Political economy and anti-corruption.
- Gender economics and the economics of racism and sexism.
- Climate change policy intersects with economic research.
- Social safety nets and pension research.
- Democratic institutions and policy spillovers across countries.
- Economics of the internet, auction theory, and tech economics.
- Measurement of multidimensional poverty.
Featured economists and contributions
- Rohini Pande (Yale University): Described as one of the most influential development economists of her generation; contributions to political economy, international development, gender economics, anti-corruption, and efforts to combat climate change.
- Lisa D. Cook (Michigan State University): Applied academic methods to show how racism and sexism have created a huge drag on the U.S. economy.
- Mariana Mazzucato (University College London): Advocates that governments need to seize their power to lead innovation for the betterment of humanity.
- Esther Duflo (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): Earned a Nobel Prize in economics for using new research methods to transform development economics as co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.
- Olivia Mitchell (University of Pennsylvania): One of the founders of modern academic pension research, incorporating behavioral economics into the discipline.
- Susan Athey (Stanford University): Studied the economics of the internet, applied auction theory to online services such as search-related advertising, and developed tech economics.
- Claudia Goldin (Harvard University): Known for research into the role of women in the US economy and for developing a nuanced understanding of the gender pay gap.
- Kristin Forbes (Massachusetts Institute of Technology): Focused on financial contagion, cross-border capital flows, capital controls, and international policy spillovers.
- Nancy Birdsall: Helped establish the Center for Global Development to analyze how rich-country and international financial institution policies affect the developing world and can be improved to reduce poverty and inequality.
- Hélène Rey (London Business School): Challenged accepted wisdom on the international financial system, the role of the dollar, and macroeconomic issues.
- Sabina Alkire (Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative): Helped develop a new method for measuring multidimensional poverty and is driven by a commitment to better measure poverty as a precondition for eradicating it.
- Janet Yellen: Secretary of the US department of the Treasury and previously served as the 15th chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018—the first woman to hold each of the posts.
Source: Finance & Development magazine, "Women in Economics", August 6, 2021.