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Articles 1 - 15 of 15
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Proposed National Standards For Financial Literacy: What’S In? What’S Out?, Julie A. Nelson, Mark H. Maier, Deborah M. Figart
Proposed National Standards For Financial Literacy: What’S In? What’S Out?, Julie A. Nelson, Mark H. Maier, Deborah M. Figart
Julie A. Nelson
Financial education must go beyond focusing on the choices individuals face and examine the forces that shape and constrain these choices.
The Power Of Stereotyping And Confirmation Bias To Overwhelm Accurate Assessment: The Case Of Economics, Gender, And Risk Aversion, Julie A. Nelson
The Power Of Stereotyping And Confirmation Bias To Overwhelm Accurate Assessment: The Case Of Economics, Gender, And Risk Aversion, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
Behavioral research has revealed how normal human cognitive processes can tend to lead us astray. But do these affect economic researchers, ourselves? This article explores the consequences of stereotyping and confirmation bias using a sample of published articles from the economics literature on gender and risk aversion. The results demonstrate that the supposedly “robust” claim that “women are more risk averse than men” is far less empirically supported than has been claimed. The questions of how these cognitive biases arise and why they have such power are discussed, and methodological practices that may help to attenuate these biases are outlined.
Ethics And The Economist: What Climate Change Demands Of Us, Julie A. Nelson
Ethics And The Economist: What Climate Change Demands Of Us, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
Climate change is changing not only our physical world, but also our intellectual, social, and moral worlds. We are realizing that our situation is profoundly unsafe, interdependent, and uncertain. What, then, does climate change demand of economists, as human beings and as professionals? A discipline of economics based on Enlightenment notions of mechanism and disembodied rationality is not suited to present problems. This essay suggests three major requirements: first, that we take action; second, that we work together; and third, that we focus on avoiding the worst, rather than obtaining the optimal. The essay concludes with suggestions of specific steps …
Poisoning The Well, Or How Economic Theory Damages, Julie A. Nelson
Poisoning The Well, Or How Economic Theory Damages, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
Contemporary mainstream economics has widely “poisoned the well” from which people get their ideas about the relationship between economics and ethics. The image of economic life as inherently characterized by self-interest, utility- and profitmaximization, and mechanical controllability has caused many businesspeople, judges, sociologists, philosophers, policymakers, critics of economics, and the public at large to come to tolerate greed and opportunism, or even to expect or encourage them. This essay raises and discusses a number of counterarguments that might be made to the charge that current dominant professional practice is having negative ethical effects, as well as discussing some examples of …
Broader Questions And A Bigger Toolbox: A Problem-Centered And Student-Centered Approach To Teaching Pluralist Economics, Julie A. Nelson
Broader Questions And A Bigger Toolbox: A Problem-Centered And Student-Centered Approach To Teaching Pluralist Economics, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
This essay discusses a "broader questions and bigger toolbox" approach to teaching pluralist economics. This approach has three central characteristics. First, economics is defined so as to encompass a broad set of (provisioning) concerns. Second, emphasis is placed on contemporary real-world issues, institutions, and current events, rather than on debates in the history of economic thought. Third, a variety of concepts and theories are introduced, all of which are treated as partial and fallible--useful in some (perhaps very limited) situations while not so useful in others. Possible reasons an instructor might want to adopt this approach, and examples of use …
Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson
Economic Writing On The Pressing Problems Of The Day: The Roles Of Moral Intuition And Methodological Confusion, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
Economists are often called on to help address pressing problems of the day, yet many economists are uncomfortable about disclosing the values that they bring to this work. This essay explores how an inadequate understanding of the role of methodology, as related to ethics and human emotions of concern, underlies this reluctance and compromises the quality of economic advice. The tension between caring about the problems, on the one hand, and writing within the existing culture of the discipline, on the other, are illustrated with examples from U.S. policymaking, behavioral economics, and the economics of climate change and global poverty. …
Sociology, Economics, And Gender: Can Knowledge Of The Past Contribute To A Better Future?, Julie A. Nelson
Sociology, Economics, And Gender: Can Knowledge Of The Past Contribute To A Better Future?, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
This essay explores the profoundly gendered nature of the split between the disciplines of economics and sociology which took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, emphasizing implications for the relatively new field of economic sociology. Drawing on historical documents and feminist studies of science, it investigates the gendered processes underlying the divergence of the disciplines in definition, method, and degree of engagement with social problems. Economic sociology has the potential to heal this disciplinary split, but only if the field is broadened, deepened, and made wiser and more self-reflective through the use of feminist analysis.
Getting Past 'Rational Man/Emotional Woman': Comments On Research Programs In Happiness Economics And Interpersonal Relations, Julie A. Nelson
Getting Past 'Rational Man/Emotional Woman': Comments On Research Programs In Happiness Economics And Interpersonal Relations, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
Orthodox neoclassical economics portrays reason as far more important than emotion, autonomy as more characteristic of economic life than social connection, and, more generally, things culturally and cognitively associated with masculinity as more central than things associated with femininity. Research from contemporary neuroscience suggests that such biases are related to certain automatic processes in the brain, and feminist scholarship suggests ways of getting beyond them. The “happiness” and “interpersonal relations” economics research programs have made substantial progress in overcoming a number of these biases, bringing into consideration by economists a wide range of phenomena which were previously neglected. Analysis from …
Between A Rock And A Soft Place: Ecological And Feminist Economics In Policy Debates, Julie A. Nelson
Between A Rock And A Soft Place: Ecological And Feminist Economics In Policy Debates, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
The field of ecological economics includes both economic analysis on the one hand, and discussions of normative values and visions for society, on the other. Using feminist insights into cultural beliefs about the relative “hardness” and “softness” of these two sides, this essay discusses how ecological economists can use this unique “between” space in order to better inform policy. The current crisis of global climate change, it is argued, requires that economists move beyond modeling and measurement, while ecological thinkers need to re-examine beliefs about markets and profit.
Rationality And Humanity: A View From Feminist Economics, Julie A. Nelson
Rationality And Humanity: A View From Feminist Economics, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
DOES RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY (RCT) HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT to contribute to the humanities? Usually the arguments for answering “yes” to this question go something like the following: The application of RCT has proved to be a powerful tool in economics and the social sciences, leading to clear and rigorous insights unattainable from less precise methods. Therefore, by also harnessing this power, the disciplines in the humanities could advance toward becoming more elegant, rational, and forceful in their explorations of human behavior. As an economist, I’d like to address this argument on its home ground. Has the use of RCT advanced …
Teaching Ecological And Feminist Economics In The Principles Course, Julie A. Nelson
Teaching Ecological And Feminist Economics In The Principles Course, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
It can be difficult to incorporate ecological and feminist concerns into introductory courses, when one is also obliged to teach neoclassical analysis. In this essay we briefly describe how one might extend existing “multi-paradigmatic” approaches to feminist and ecological concerns, and then present an new alternative approach that may be more suitable for some students. This “broader questions and bigger toolbox” approach can be applied in both microeconomics and macroeconomics introductory classrooms.
A Response To Bruni And Sugden, Julie A. Nelson
A Response To Bruni And Sugden, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
An article by Luigino Bruni and Robert Sugden published in this journal argues that market relations contain elements of what they call ‘fraternity’. This Response demonstrates that my own views on interpersonal relations and markets – which originated in the feminist analysis of caring labour – are far closer to Bruni and Sugden's than they acknowledge in their article, and goes on to discuss additional important dimensions of sociality that they neglect.
Podcast: Economic Expressions: A Conversation With The Economist Julie Nelson, Julie A. Nelson
Podcast: Economic Expressions: A Conversation With The Economist Julie Nelson, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
No abstract provided.
Antidotes To High School Economics (Mis-)Education On World Hunger, Julie A. Nelson
Antidotes To High School Economics (Mis-)Education On World Hunger, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
No abstract provided.
Can We Talk? Feminist Economists In Dialogue With Social Theorists, Julie A. Nelson
Can We Talk? Feminist Economists In Dialogue With Social Theorists, Julie A. Nelson
Julie A. Nelson
The article focuses on the issues regarding the social and political theory of feminism. It has been mentioned that political action will be dynamized rather than compromised by a more alive observation of economic organizations and activities. The author has suggested that feminist social theorists across the disciplines must join the several feminist economists who are dropping the negative one-size-fits-all prescription of protection from markets. It is essential to have more positive results in the complex contemporary economies.