Gender and Economics in Muslim Communities: A Critical Feminist and Postcolonial Analysis

ABSTRACT

This contribution seeks to delineate the broad contours of a transnational, anti-imperial feminist perspective on gender and economics in Muslim communities by bringing together feminist analyses of Orientalist tropes, development discourses and policies, and macro- and microeconomic trends. The goal is to facilitate conversations among scholars who have tended to work within their respective disciplinary and methodological silos despite shared interests. This approach pays special attention to intersectionality, historicity, and structural constraints by focusing on the diversity of the experiences of women and men by religion, location, citizenship, class, age, ethnicity, race, marital status, and other factors. It recognizes the complex relationships between the economic, political, cultural, and religious spheres and the role of local and transnational histories, economies, and politics in shaping people's lives. Finally, it emphasizes that openness to different methodological approaches can shed clearer light on the question of how various structural factors shape women's economic realities.     

Faculty Role Models and Diversifying the Gender and Racial Mix of Undergraduate Economics Majors

The sex, race, and undergraduate composition of newly minted Ph.D.s in economics is analyzed. Liberal arts colleges are shown to yield a disproportionate number of female economists while economists of color tend to come from comprehensive universities.     

A Meta-analysis of the Gender Gap in Performance in Collegiate Economics Courses

The conventional wisdom has been that men outperform otherwise equivalent women in collegiate economics courses. Recent work in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields documenting gains by women suggests that it is time to reevaluate the gender performance gap in economics. Surveying 68 studies containing 235 distinct regressions published since 1980, we find that 68.4% of regressions report men outperform women, though this is only statistically significant in 30.7% of regressions. Although the literature points to numerous reasons for this gap, our focus is on the effects of study design and the impact of broad socio-cultural changes over time. Using meta-regression analysis, we find that the likelihood of observing a statistically significant gap has declined noticeably, by almost 3% annually. Although the drop may not be as large as in some STEM fields, the result is highly robust to the specification of the time trend and the model.     

The Status of Econometrics in the Economics Major: A Survey

In this article, the authors describe the place of econometrics in undergraduate economics curricula in all American colleges and universities that offer economics majors as listed in the U.S. News & World Report “Best Colleges 2010” guide (U.S. News & World Report 2009). Data come from online catalogs, departmental Web sites, and online course syllabi. About one-third of the schools require econometrics of all students majoring in economics, about half require it of none, and a sixth require it of some, but not all, economics majors. Among universities with economics PhD programs and liberal arts colleges, almost all those ranked in the top 10 require it. Below the top 10, there is little correlation between ranking and econometrics requirements. Liberal arts econometrics classes are much more likely to require research projects than their counterparts in universities.     

Core Requirements for the Economics Major

In this article, the authors are the first to describe the core economics curriculum requirements for economics majors at all American colleges and universities, as opposed to a sample of institutions. Not surprisingly, principles of economics is nearly universally required and implemented as a two-semester course in 85 percent of economics major programs. Most schools do not prescribe the order in which the principles sequence is taken. The intermediate courses are commonly required, although variation exists across institution types. While the quantitative requirement for the major has increased since 1980, significant differences exist among institutions and by academic rankings. As compared to 1950, there has been an increase in the number of required economics credit hours for the major.     

Why it Pays to Major in Economics

In this article, the authors use a large, recent, and accessible data set to examine the effect of economics major on individual earnings. They find a significant positive earnings gain for economics majors relative to other majors, and this advantage increases with the level of education. Their findings are consistent with Black, Sanders, and Taylor (2003), documenting that about two-thirds of the bachelor's degree premium for economics majors can be attributed to the type of job economics majors perform, and about one-third is a premium that economics majors earn over other workers within the same job.     

中国经济学三大理论的局限性

作为致用之学的经济学理论在中国已经形成了西方经济学、马克思经济学、马克思主义经济学、发展经济学、制度经济学等流派,从而打破了20世纪80年代以前马克思主义经济学一统天下的格局,实现了经济学理论的多元化。但是,由于中国具体的经济实践和制度环境上的原因,西方经济学、马克思主义经济学和发展经济学三大经济学理论的中国化具有十分重要的理论意义和现实意义。     

First-Year Study Success in Economics and Econometrics: The Role of Gender,Motivation, and Math Skills

In this study, the authors investigate the relationships among gender, math skills, motivation, and study success in economics and econometrics. They find that female students have stronger intrinsic motivation, yet lower study confidence than their male counterparts. They also find weak evidence for a gender gap over the entire first-year curriculum of economics or econometrics. In terms of size and significance, their estimates of gender effects rank below the effects of preparatory education and motivation.     

封闭式基金业绩持续性的统计分析

本文基于统计分析的方法,利用Jensen Index、Sharpe Ratio、市场择时能力等三个指标,研究了我国封闭式基金业绩的持续性。本质上是考查我国市场基金历史业绩对未来业绩是否存在一定程度的揭示作用,从而为投资者提供一种适用于我国基金市场的简便、易行的投资方法。     

经济学视角下的制度变迁:内生性、驻存与演进

制度变迁的效率假说隐含地将经济体简约为一个绝对理性的最大化行为者,这种做法存在缺陷。就长期而言,制度变迁的本质是内生的,但也受到外部冲击的影响。制度演进过程既体现出路径依赖的特征,又不乏偶然性和机遇。经济因素或政治因素都可能导致内卷化,即长期陷入某种低效率或无效的制度安排。有效制度的演进可以通过多种途径而实现:它往往得益于一些偶然事件的影响或冲击,但也可能因经济行为者如利益集团的推动而出现。     

经济学的二重性和在政策分析中的角色

经济学具有二重性,即兼具科学性质和人文性质.作为科学的经济学只涉及解释手段的选择,不考虑目的的选择问题.这是因为:手段的效果可以通过事实经验地证明,而目的包含价值观和伦理因素,无法转换为纯粹经验的描述.虽然不符合实证原则,但是作为人文的经济学是作为科学的经济学的前提,作为人文的经济学讨论目的的选择.在目的选择的过程中,伦理、价值判断、政治哲学等因素起着决定性的作用.社会实现稳定和谐的最终基础是道义与共识.     

The Role of Nonattenuated Rights in Positive Economics: A Critical Appraisal

This article assesses the institutionalist elements of Friedrich Hayek's neoliberal political economy by presenting his views on the entangled relations between the state and markets in capitalism. Through the analysis of Hayek's work, the article contributes to further consolidating the view that neoliberalism is an ideological project of institutional transformation which, despite some enduring myths, has an irreplaceable role for a state with many important functions in a more limited democracy. Markets, for their part, are politically contested social constructions that depend on previous non-market institutions for their existence and legitimation. This paper argues that Hayek's work corroborates this institutionalist claim.     

Persistence of Capacity Shortage and the Role of Adjustment Costs

This paper finds that plant capital constraints on output in UK industry tend to persist for surprisingly long periods, reflecting a slow response of capital investment. The paper examines the conventional view that this response pattern may be explained by cost of adjustment. Using UK time‐series data for a small number of industry groups, it is shown that the observed dynamics of capital constraints (capital shortage) are not fully explained by a quadratic adjustment cost model or by alternative forms of adjustment cost.     

中国经济国民投资率的福利经济学分析

本文首次系统地从福利经济学角度出发,运用前沿计算方法,试图回答中国投资率是否过高这一重要问题。本文首先计算了两个投资率:一是境内投资率;二是国民投资率,即(境内投资+对外投资)/GDP。通过横向的对比,发现无论是境内投资率还是国民投资率,即便考虑高经济增长率,中国经济都远高于世界各国。其次,采用经济增长理论的基准模型,利用中国的参数进行校准,并且进行稳健性检验,运用逆向积分法模拟中国经济福利最大化的投资路径。结果表明,中国经济上世纪90年代平均境内投资率低于福利最大化的投资率6%,国民投资率4%;2002年后,平均境内投资高于福利最大化的投资率5%,国民投资率12%;1990—2008年实际投资相对福利最大化的投资路径总福利损失约为5.9%,相当于每期损失约3.8%的GDP。最后,本文进一步分析,如果适当地降低国民投资率,同时改善投资效率,中国经济的GDP增长率并不会大幅下降。     

“老龄健康”的经济学研究

"老龄健康"问题是社会发展进程中面临的重大议题,其相关领域的研究已构成各国国家战略的重要组成部分。经济学和其他学科参与研究"老龄健康"问题之前,"老龄健康"问题更多地被作为医学概念,但是,随着经济学和其他学科的交叉与融合,决策者和研究者逐渐认识到跨学科研究的价值,越来越多的学者开始从经济学视角对"老龄健康"问题展开新的探索。关于社会经济、行为、环境、遗传因素及其交互作用与老龄健康关系的跨学科研究,逐渐成为近20年来这一研究领域的主要内容。本文将从宏观和微观两个层面,说明经济学家对"老龄健康"相关领域研究的逻辑、方法、内容、贡献和重点,通过对"老龄健康"经济学研究的讨论,希望对中国经济学科研究领域的拓展和老龄化问题的解决提供有价值的参考。