{ "title": "Marianne Bertrand: Inequity Detective", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand", "canonical": "https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand", "overlayPath": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand/index.md", "summary": "Prakash Loungani profiles Chicago’s Marianne Bertrand, an advocate for inclusive growth Last December, there were news reports that a Black woman, Tenisha Tate-Austin, had the appraised value of her home raised by half a million dollars by having a white friend pretend to own it.", "sections": [ { "heading": "Profile and career milestones", "content": "- Author/profile: Prakash Loungani; F&D Magazine; March 2022.\n- Education and appointments:\n - PhD from Harvard in 1998.\n - Started career at Princeton; moved in 2000 to Chicago’s Booth School of Business, where she has remained.\n- Awards and honors:\n - Prize in 2004 for “outstanding contributions by young women” in economics.\n - Prize in 2012 for “outstanding contributions to the field of labor economics.”\n - Selected in 2020 to give the Ely Lecture at the annual meetings of the American Economic Association (AEA)." }, { "heading": "Landmark research on racial discrimination", "content": "- 2004 audit study (with Sendhil Mullainathan):\n - Sent nearly 5,000 fictitious resumes in response to job ads in Boston and Chicago.\n - Found that Black-sounding names, such as Lakisha, were 50 percent less likely to get a callback than white-sounding names, such as Emily, with resumes alike in qualifications.\n - Interpreted as difficult to attribute to anything other than explicit prejudice or unconscious bias.\n- Real-world resonance:\n - Study invoked in contemporary anecdotes of housing appraisal manipulation highlighting racial bias." }, { "heading": "Gender inequity, motherhood, and labor outcomes", "content": "- Core findings:\n - “Mothers take a massive earnings hit right after that first birth, and their income never recovers.”\n - Careers of college-educated women track those of their husbands until the birth of the first child; declines thereafter.\n - Women graduates of top MBA programs tend to cut back hours and interrupt careers on becoming mothers.\n- Mechanisms emphasized:\n - Childbearing and childcare as “more potent yet prosaic” explanations for gender gaps.\n - Women disproportionately responsible for home and childcare tasks, making it harder to meet inflexible schedules in higher-paying occupations.\n- Evidence on representation in finance (from IMF-related research cited):\n - Women accounted for fewer than 5 percent of CEOs at financial institutions.\n - Women made up less than 25 percent of the representation on bank boards.\n- Social cost:\n - Bertrand: “Women are not born with a comparative advantage in changing diapers, so it follows that we must be leaving some money on the table by having only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies run by women.”" }, { "heading": "Social norms, household dynamics, and pace of progress", "content": "- Progress acknowledged:\n - Ely Lecture stressed “good news” that gender gaps in education and labor force participation are on the decline, especially in the developed world.\n- Norms studied:\n - Norm that men should earn more than their wives; sharp drop-off in percentage of US households where the wife earns more once she makes over half the family income.\n - Households where the woman earns more show “compensating behavior” by the wife to take on more household chores; such households were more prone to marital strife and divorce.\n- Advice to younger women (commencement remarks): “if you want to have it all, make sure to check your date’s willingness for diaper duty and to let you shine as the brightest star at work.”" }, { "heading": "CEO pay, “skimming,” and corporate governance", "content": "- Trends and magnitudes:\n - In the United States today, the average CEO makes 350 times the average worker, compared with a 20-to-1 ratio that prevailed in 1965.\n- Key findings (with Mullainathan and other work):\n - CEO compensation increases with factors outside a CEO’s control (e.g., oil prices, exchange rates), implying pay driven in part by luck.\n - Conclusion from the paper: “CEO pay is as sensitive to a lucky dollar as to a general dollar.”\n - “Skimming” view: when corporate governance is weak, CEOs can set their own pay with little oversight; skimming is less prevalent in better-governed firms with large shareholders able to limit CEO capture.\n- Broader implications:\n - Bertrand links pay structures and short-termism to firms’ neglect of social purpose, while noting potential trade-offs between financial return and social impact: “some people out there are really willing to leave money on the table if they think they can have a [social] impact.”" }, { "heading": "Shifts in economics: interdisciplinarity and equity", "content": "- Disciplinary change:\n - From “an imperial science” to greater embrace of other social sciences; Bertrand: “to put it humbly, economists have realized their mistakes and now embrace, rather than dismiss, the other social sciences.”\n- Equity and efficiency:\n - Challenges the view that focusing on distribution undermines sound economics; argues that “inequality also hurts efficiency.”\n - Cites Booth colleague Chang-Tai Hsieh’s finding that lowering barriers to entry for women and African Americans accounted for a quarter of US growth.\n- Policy lens:\n - Advocates assessing economic policies holistically: even if a trade policy passes aggregate cost-benefit tests, concentrated losses (e.g., shutting down 80 percent of manufacturing plants in some communities) require balancing equity concerns.\n - Welcomes international financial institutions like the IMF embracing the balance between efficiency and equity: “it’s a no-brainer, really.”\n- Institutional engagement:\n - Notes IMF work on Inclusive Growth and Structural Policies that guides how policy advice can better balance efficiency and equity.\n\nSource: Prakash Loungani, F&D Magazine, March 2022 — “Marianne Bertrand: Inequity Detective.”\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- شخصيات اقتصادية\n - شخصيات اقتصادية (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - شخصيات اقتصادية (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- La traqueuse d’injustices\n - La traqueuse d’injustices (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - La traqueuse d’injustices (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Inequity Detective\n - Inequity Detective (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - Inequity Detective (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- pie\n - pie (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - pie (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Detective de la desigualdad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2022\n - Detective de la desigualdad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2022 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - Detective de la desigualdad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2022 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- 不平等现象的侦探\n - 不平等现象的侦探 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n - 不平等现象的侦探 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand" } ], "bullets": [ "[Markdown version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand/index.md)", "[Structured JSON version](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand/index.json)", "[Bundle manifest](/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand/bundle-manifest.json)", "Authors: PRAKASH LOUNGANI", "Published: March 1, 2022", "Author/profile: Prakash Loungani; F&D Magazine; March 2022.", "Education and appointments:", "Awards and honors:", "2004 audit study (with Sendhil Mullainathan):", "Real-world resonance:", "Core findings:", "Mechanisms emphasized:", "Evidence on representation in finance (from IMF-related research cited):", "Social cost:", "Progress acknowledged:", "Norms studied:", "Advice to younger women (commencement remarks): “if you want to have it all, make sure to check your date’s willingness for diaper duty and to let you shine as the brightest star at work.”", "Trends and magnitudes:", "Key findings (with Mullainathan and other work):", "Broader implications:", "Disciplinary change:", "Equity and efficiency:", "Policy lens:", "Institutional engagement:", "**شخصيات اقتصادية**", "**La traqueuse d’injustices**", "**Inequity Detective**", "**pie**", "**Detective de la desigualdad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2022**", "**不平等现象的侦探**" ], "related": [ { "title": "شخصيات اقتصادية", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/ar/people.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/ar/people.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/ar/people.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "La traqueuse d’injustices", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/fr/people.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/fr/people.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/fr/people.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Inequity Detective", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/pie.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/pie.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/pie.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "pie", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/ru/pie.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/ru/pie.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/ru/pie.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "Detective de la desigualdad ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2022", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/sp/people.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/sp/people.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/sp/people.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } }, { "title": "不平等现象的侦探", "role": "document", "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/zh/loungani-pie.pdf", "summary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/zh/loungani-pie.pdf.md", "mime": "text/markdown" }, "binary": { "path": "/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/march/zh/loungani-pie.pdf", "mime": "application/pdf" } } ], "alternates": { "markdown": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand/index.md", "json": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand/index.json", "bundleManifest": "/en/publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/inequity-detective-bertrand/bundle-manifest.json" }, "generatedAtUtc": "2026-09-15T17:44:24.444Z" }