Elinor Ostrom and the Poverty of Economics
Wednesday, 10/14/2009 - 10:41 am by Arjun Jayadev | 32 Comments
In our brand-new ‘Womenomics’ series, highlighting the role of women in the economy and financial reform, Roosevelt Institute Braintruster Arjun Jayadev shows how the reaction to Elinor Ostrom’s Nobel Prize illuminates a devaluing of women and the social sciences in the econ field, resulting in a troubling poverty of imagination.
As many of you have now heard, Elinor Ostrom is the co-recipient, with Oliver Williamson, of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics. Professor Ostrom is a political scientist of great distinction, and won the award for a lifetime of work analyzing economic governance of common pool resources (for a lay person’s breakdown, see Info on Ostrom’s Work).
When I read about it on Monday morning, I was thrilled by the choice, realizing that it was a wise decision and rewarded a truly creative and careful person who eschewed cleverness and the comforts of high theory in order to understand how the world really worked. As a result, her contributions to theory have a firm tethering to the real world. It was not until later that evening that I remembered that she was the first woman to win the prize as well (I should note parenthetically, that this fact is a disgrace and there have certainly been very deserving women economists in the past who were not adequately honored).
But two facts were the major talking points among the economic fraternity (and I use that word deliberately) on the blogosphere: Ostrom is 1) a political scientist and 2) a woman. It was mildly discomfiting to me when Paul Krugman noted that he had not known of her work (although to his credit, he also mentioned that he looked up her work and immediately saw how deserving it was). It got worse and a bit embarrassing when Steven Levitt noted that he too did not know who she was but thought that “the economics profession is going to hate the prize going to Ostrom even more than the Republicans hated the Peace Prize going to Obama”.
Unfortunately, as I found out Levitt was right. Nowhere was this more evident than when I went to the Economics Job Rumors website. The site is frequented by economics graduate students who are on the academic job market, and as such is a reasonable barometer of the ways in which such students in the field are thinking. What I found was really disturbing. There were over 200 responses to a thread called “NOBEL BULLSHIT” in which the undisguised ignorance, tribalism and vicious misogyny of the graduate student pool were starkly evident. Here are a choice few comments which are, I hate to say, not unrepresentative of most of the discussion there.
“This is the problem with Affirmative Action: last time a woman tried to go to the moon, the Challenger exploded 73 seconds after the launch. Now this is the end of Economics.”
“Economics is superior. Don’t let political science conteminate (sic) us”
“she’s not top 5% on ideas on any ranking!!”
“susan athey or nancy stokey if you want a woman. This girl seems to be a political scientist. I don’t think she has published original research in any major economics journal”
This is the average opinion among the pool of people in their late twenties and early thirties who are going to be the teachers of economics and the leaders of thinking about economics and society in the future. It is enough to make you want to quit the discipline in disgust. All right, yes, anonymous posts bring out the worst in people, but the absolute nastiness of these responses suggest a visceral set of reactions which lays bare some of the culture of economics as a discipline. These include a thoroughgoing disregard for other disciplines (even those we take our ideas from), an inherent inability to respect ideas which do not conform to the strictures of what is acceptable knowledge (top-tier peer reviewed journal articles) and a deep-seated sexism which allows a young brash student to call the 76 year old past president of the American Political Science Association ‘this girl’.
Someone might say, ‘let not the sins of the father be visited upon the son’ and that the blame should be laid on the current teachers of economics who foster this culture. I would not disagree with that, but then how can one demand accountability? I consider myself part of this generation of economists (I got my PhD in 2005). I also know that in many universities (not the one I graduated from), cultural pressures are enormous and the stakes for personal and professional advancement are very high. But if in being starkly conformist –which would be a gentle way of putting it– my generation is not only missing a whole set of important ideas, but is adamantly closed to them, much more is lost than gained.
Scientific and ethical progress demand that this culture is changed. I don’t have any idea how to do this, but I suspect that this Nobel will nudge the field away from its poverty of imagination (I hasten to add that the best economists already long since moved on). If one is to hopeful then, perhaps this prize will mark the beginning to a different future for economics. One that will be more robust and inquisitive, that will value genuine ideas and creative thinking which illuminates the real world, and that will not instinctively devalue women. In that hope, three cheers for Elinor Ostrom!
Arjun Jayadev is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and a visiting research fellow at the Columbia University Committee on Global Thought.
The comments from that website are pretty pathetic.
At least Obama has a good female economist in the form of Christina Romer…whether he listens to her or not though is another matter.
Posted by Zach P | October 14th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I agree, Zach, the comments were pretty horrifying. There are some pretty interesting women on the scene in regulation right now, as you know, including, of course, Elizabeth Warren and Shelia Bair. I’m developing a theory about how women — possibly women of a certain generation — are uniquely positioned for regulatory work right now… it has to do with not being in the Old Boys Club and having to keep themselves above reproach…Lynn
Posted by FERI | October 14th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Cool, can’t wait to hear more, as long as Ayn Rand doesn’t make that list
Posted by Zach P | October 14th, 2009 at 11:36 am
I’m surprised at how many economists seem to not know who she is. I, ahem, read her work in graduate school.
P.S. Very well written, Arjun.
Posted by Maeve | October 14th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I agree with Maeve’s comments. I have also read her work as part of my course work at UMass. She totally deserves the prize, and shame on all those who neglect any form of governance, but markets.
Posted by Bilge | October 14th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Thanks so much for this piece, Arjun. Very brave to write this. You say that ‘It is enough to make you want to quit the discipline in disgust.’ The sad thing is that many economists, and in fact many female economists, have done so (I am one of them, retrained into political philosophy and ethics). So this is what you do: you make the discipline so hostile, sexist, aggressive and non-pluralist, that people who are a little bit open minded leave. Someone really should do a set of interviews with famous scholars who left economics.
Posted by Ingrid Robeyns | October 14th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
I don’t know, I’d hate it if economics became a “conteminated” science (see comments above).
Posted by James Call | October 14th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
That’s a good one, James! Lynn
Posted by FERI | October 14th, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I’m a political scientist and was about to take out Governing the Commons from the library when it was announced. Happy to say I beat the rush. Four copies now out, and I’m glad people are reading about collective goods problems.
Posted by Graham | October 14th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
To be fair to the buding economist, this thread http://www.urch.com/forums/phd-economics/126190-nobel-prize-predictions-6.html is also full of them, and more reasonable.
I can say that my not-top 10 institution (that has a view of one) has many first years who thought that bring reality to economics would do a world of good.
Posted by Rue | October 14th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
I think it is telling that the most exciting Nobel Prizes in economics go to relative outsiders, like Myrdal who was a sociologist, Sen, who is known just as much as a philosopher as an economist, to Kahheman, who is a psychologist and now to Ostrom. This shows that our discipline needs inter-disciplinarity in order to be meaningful.
Posted by Irene van Staveren | October 15th, 2009 at 3:52 am
May be someone should run a regression about the correlation between such “nasty comments” and the failure of the mainstream economics to understand and advise the real world….
Excellent job Arjun
Posted by Gul | October 15th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Arjun says “This is the average opinion among the pool of people in their late twenties and early thirties who are going to be the teachers of economics and the leaders of thinking about economics and society in the future.”
What kind of social scientist would make such a claim based on a small sample of non-random anonymous blog postings? I doubt Elinor Ostrom would buy such a foolish statement. Here’s another small sample: at lunch the other day at my department, we were all a bit bemused by the prize but nobody belittled Ostrom’s work. A senior female colleague was disappointed that the first woman to win the prize wasn’t an actual economist (the consensus in the room was Claudia Goldin, maybe Athey and surely Esther Duflo at some point as they get older).
Posted by James Harrigan | October 15th, 2009 at 10:05 am
I fully endorse Arjun’s words. But we must keep in mind that there is no such thing as a Nobel Prize in Economics. It just a prize created by the Swedish Central Bank. The fact that they gave a prize to Lucas, Miller, Kydland, and Prescott says a lot about it. But there are many female scientists who won the Nobel Prize in the real sciences. In a field dominated by neoclassical economics, what could we wait for?
Posted by Marcelo | October 15th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Thank you for the responses, all.
Irene, I agree that the discipline is a hostile environment. I also think that are a significant number of people who are open and pleased, but that the predominant response is one of displeasure, anger, and yes, an underlying and unspoken sexism.
To James Harrigan.. your response is cute at best. Replace average with common-in-a-non-representative sample if it tickles your scientific fancy. The point about the hostiliity, closed-ness and sexism among the younger cohort remains.
Posted by Arjun | October 15th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Arjun,
James has a point though. For all we know ‘anonymous’ might be a single person. From this you conclude that there is “hostility, closed-ness and sexism among the younger cohort” of economists.
econjobrumours is also well known to have that type of idiotic comments in some threads. (I remember another one where one of the job market candidates was being bullied and he was actually the only one brave enough to post under his own name). If you take this seriosuly as representing the view of young economists, sorry but that’s just sloppy thinking. I don’t condone the comments at all, but you can’t seriously argue these people are expressing a well-formed view that is representative of what young economists think. They’re just frustrated people letting off steam in what I think is a very offensive manner. If we follow your reasoning the average economist shows up with very strange stuff indeed on their job market presentation (see post “What to bring to the job market”).
Posted by Nicolas | October 15th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Nicolas,
I’m not interested in convincing you or anyone else that young economists are closed to alternative ways of thinking and that there is a rampant sexism in the field. I’m part of the field, and I know and see it everyday. We could take more statistically representative samples and alternative measures (tenured women professors, the number of tenure cases which are denied because of the fact that a person has not published in type x journals etc. etc.)
As I said, you and James are welcome to take “average” to mean “very common”. This seems to me to be hung up on a rather narrow concern. But that does not change the point of the post-which is about the tribalism and sexism in the field, and the narrow strictures of what is seen to be good work. Even someone very much in the center of the field (Steven Levitt) has suggested that the response among economists to the Nobel is likely to be hostile because of the fact that Ostrom is a political scientist (though the same criticism would not be leveled at someone like Danny Kahnemann who is a psychologist).
Posted by Arjun | October 15th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Wow - the venom that passes between social scientists is always a bit astounding. I wonder if chemists and physicists fought so violently?
Well, for what it’s worth, I’m an aspiring (male) economics graduate student, and what I know of Ostrom’s work (which is mostly second hand from Sam Bowles’ discussions - haven’t quite gotten around to picking up a copy of Governing the Commons) I rather like, and I hope the charges of sexism in this thread don’t hold true wherever I come one day to research.
i’d say the same of closed minds, but reading the behavioral econ., economic anthro., and mainstream econ. lit’s has pushed me to mostly agreeing with Arjun, there (although even as I agree, I worry about charges of close-mindedness; they rarely seem to create productive change). Fortunately, there are also institutions where that appears to be emphatically not true!
Posted by Philip | October 15th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Arjun,
thanks for replying. I guess my point is that you’ve just expressed this opinion and by linking to the econjobrumours comments and to Steve Levitt’s blog entry you’re giving the impression that this opinion is based on eveidence rather than just your own experience, which I just don’t think is the case. Referring to some idiots on an anonymous forum + Steve Levitt is not evidence that backs your point. I know plenty of people who smoke that don’t have cancer, but that doesn’t mean smoking doesn’t lead to cancer.
Now, I’m not saying that people should not voice opinions unless they have tons of data and an empirical analysis behind them, but it’s quite a big charge here that you’re levelling at economists. I don’t think it’s very productive to make sweeping statements like this based on just your own experience. I’ve always thought the whole idea behind academic study and scientific progress was to move away from these he-says-she-says kind of debates where people form opinions based on very limited evidence (like their own experience) or preconceived ideas that they don’t want to let go off, and I’m afraid a blog post like this is pushing in the opposite direction.
Posted by Nicolas | October 16th, 2009 at 4:26 am
Nicolas,
Thanks for your response. If your charge against me is that this is an unscientific study and based on impressions and personal experience, you are pushing on an open door.This is a blog post that is trying to obtain an impressionistic view of the immediate reaction among economists by looking at the responses of a Nobel Laureate, a Clark Medal winner and a website frequented by many graduate students.
You suggest that you are not saying that people should not voice opinions unless they have tons of data and an empirical analysis behind them, and then go on to provide a homily on academic study. It is unfortunate that this post disappointed you by being insufficiently scientific, but it was never meant to be that.
Moving to substance then. If you choose to believe that the field is knowledgeable about other disciplines which have a bearing on economic subject matter and accepting of forms on knowledge that are not through the peer reviewed journal structure, and that there is no sexism in the field, you are of course welcome to that opinion. You will have to-in that case- explain away the responses of the three sources I linked to.
best
Arjun
Posted by Arjun | October 16th, 2009 at 8:43 am
Dear Arjun,
A very well written article. As an econ grad student I support your message, but would like to add that the venom against women and more so against the “other” social sciences is not going to be wished away by one or even a dozen nobel prizes (okay, maybe a dozen will do the trick!).
The important thing is that ideas and methodologies at the core of economic research have to change. Dare I add, ideologies need to change, too. Unfortunately, the only thing which can usurp the center-stage of economic research from the elegant garbage students are force-fed is more relevant AND more elegant research. Without it, nothing short of an utter failure of the profession (and not just a failure of its macroeconomic models) will keep us from being seduced by useless but logically elegant models.
Posted by Tanmay | October 16th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Tanjay,
Do you think he emphasis on elegance is misguided? I think it can be very useful if well applied, but has often been misleading in econ.
Tanjay/Arjun/Others Interested,
Are there any scholars or specific books/works that you think make the case that econ today suffers from a strong sexism especially well? I’d like to read something fairly systematic and thorough in that vein, and thought you may have suggestions.
Posted by Philip | October 17th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Arjun,
That *many* Economists can be as arrogant, ignorant and obnoxious as evidenced by the Krugman, Levitt and econjobrumors is something that I’m sure we all have had a chance to experience on many occasions in the past.
Now, to conclude from this last instantiation of this fact (the Ostrom comments) that the whole profession is sick, well, I think that is taking it too far. I know many Economists, young and old, who think of Professor Ostrom’s research as first rate economics research, without any reservations or apologies. By their very nature, those people are not as vocal as the obnoxious anonymous types that appear to populate the blogosphere. An ‘adverse selection’ of opinions makes it into the discussion board, as opposed to one more representative of how many of us feel about this year’s excellent Nobel choice.
Don’t get me wrong! The ignorance shown in econjobrumors is flabbergasting, and very embarrassing. But it does not, I repeat, necessarily represent the opinion of the majority of the working population of academic economists worldwide.
Posted by Ed | October 19th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Some examples of feminist economics - often critiquing the epistemology of mainstream economics more than sexism among actual economists:
Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics - by Marianne A Ferber, Julie A Nelson
Feminist Economics Today: Beyond Economic Man - by Marianne A Ferber, Julie A Nelson
The Elgar Companion to Feminist Economics - by Janice Peterson, Margaret Lewis
Liberating Economics
Feminist Perspectives on Families, Work, and Globalization - Drucilla K. Barker and Susan F. Feiner
And works of D. (now Dierdre) McClosky
Posted by thebadara | October 30th, 2009 at 1:19 am
what a fucktard! how did you get your phd
Posted by uiii | November 21st, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Quit the profession then. You’re barely part of it anyway.
Posted by The Oompa Loompa Lord | November 21st, 2009 at 5:21 pm
If you think the sexism on that job rumors site is bad, check out the threads that discuss black economists (the threads that the moderator did not erase).
Posted by dcase | November 21st, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Only (some) talk show hosts use anonymous messages as a valid argument.
Posted by JimC | November 21st, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Open the floodgates to hell.
Posted by anonymous | November 23rd, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Hey Arjun, why don’t you just quit, dude?
Posted by fab | November 24th, 2009 at 2:27 am
Whether or not the obnoxious anonymous commenters represent a “majority” of academic economists/PhD students is rather irrelevant to how the profession is perceived both by outsiders and by minority/female students trying to make a go of it.
If those in the “majority” don’t voice their opinions, then what dominates is offensive hateful sexism and racism. The “silence” of the majority is just another factor putting pressure on people who don’t conform because they don’t KNOW that they have your support. So either get vocal or quit whining about people taking those who ARE vocal as representative of your community.
Posted by Emily | December 17th, 2009 at 9:42 am
I think the field of economics is dominated by conservative thinkers, who tend to be more amenable to sexism and more closed-minded. It has nothing to do with her being a woman, it has to do with the fact that she is refuting some basic assumptions of economics.
Economics is more of a religion than a science, and many of the beliefs it is founded on are unfounded. When I took economics in college, the first day our professor told us we would be learning, “why the free market system is the best system for allocating resources” and that natural resources were, “those resources we obtain by the grace of God.” The entire discipline seems to have started out as a systematic justification for exploitation, where someone would come up with a catchy name for a policy regime (re: “trickle-down” economics, “free” trade), present it as truth (see “Confessions of an Economic Hitman”), and then spread it throughout the economic community (see the Chicago Boys). Anyone who promotes theories or documents evidence that suggests that our current system of “rich take all” is not sustainable or is not the most efficient way of distributing resources is immediately chastised, alienated, etc. as not truly understanding the real ways of the world, as passed down to us by the Gods of Economics.
Quite frankly, Ostrom’s theories should not be surprising to anyone with half a brain who’s ever seen or heard of a plant. Grass (and plants) grow, but if you cut them off at the base too many times or uproot them, they’ll die/won’t grow back, and if animals graze on the same patch of land for too long, it’s not sustainable. And it’s the same with private companies: they will bite off as much profit as they can at one time, pollute as much as we let them, with little or no regard for the larger community, the local economy, or the long-term sustainability. Communities, on the other hand, will only take what they need and are actually concerned about how much the system can take (because they are the ones who live there and have to suffer the consequences).
But communal ownership isn’t as profitable for the powers that be, and it definitely goes against some of the fundamental tenets of the religion of economics. Like global warming conspiracists, they refuse to pay attention to the evidence while simultaneously refusing to provide (real world) evidence that would support their own theory.
Posted by Bethany | December 17th, 2009 at 2:10 pm