*Economics imperialism* is about power¹ & interdisciplinary and, of course, has a history. Here you go @causalinf and @Undercoverhist 1/n

¹ Power like in explanatory power & at the same time/ especially power as expressed by differential funding of phds in social sciences 2/ Recent debates started by a big and loud “economists do it better, no?” that characterizes not every econ, but a culture within the profession. On this, good reference is “The superiority of economics” by Fourcade, Ollion and Algan aeaweb.org/articles?id=10…

Historians of economics should write a script for Hollywood on the life and work of economist Phyllis Wallace.

This was suggested to me by Ashenfelter in an intrw last June and I think he is definitely right on this point.

Here is a thread commissiond by @Undercoverhist

1/19 An economist, a civil servant and a “quiet revolutionary”, Wallace is the most important economist in the history of the economics of discrimination in term of policy impact, among *many many many* other things she did. (quote here by labor econ Lisa Lynch) 2/

Last issue of #oeconomia is out!

Economics as a Public Science
Part 1: The Economist’s Ethos and Modes of Persuasion

Edited by Harro Maas, Steven Medema & @melguidi
-- > bit.ly/2qZOR9P

1/10 The issue is a result of a conference on “Economics and Public Reason” hosted by the Centre Walras-Pareto in May 2018.

Contributors to the first part include @aalvarezgallo @JimenaHurtado @AGoutsmedt @danielle_guizzo @cescoeco @Undercoverhist @TN_Kayzel

2/10

Historically, econ has thought employers as more rational than women and minorities. It translated in how economists define and measure discrimination.

Here is a short thread on my PhD thesis bc it’s Sunday and it’s raining 1/28 My PhD was on the history of a specific (now standard) approach to discrimination (*the economics of*) I studied the origin and reception of theories and models, as well as empirical analyses and their uses outside academia, from the 1950s until the 2000s, in the USA. 2/28

Just read @JoMicheII crystal clear post on the pay gap (spoiler *it exists!*): Strikes me how, regardless of the evolution of the size of the pay gap itself, the same *type* arguments are pushed forward across centuries. 1/n medium.com/@jomicheII/the… eg Sidney Webb (EJ, 1891) who, while confessing his incapacity to properly weight the different factors — customs, conventions, nature, choice, discrimination — which according to him, explain wage diff, he nevertheless emphasize one - the general inferiority of women’s work 2/n