Economics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Gary Stanley Becker was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of the third generation of the Chicago school of economics.
Feminist economics is the critical study of economics and economies, with a focus on gender-aware and inclusive economic inquiry and policy analysis. Feminist economic researchers include academics, activists, policy theorists, and practitioners. Much feminist economic research focuses on topics that have been neglected in the field, such as care work, intimate partner violence, or on economic theories which could be improved through better incorporation of gendered effects and interactions, such as between paid and unpaid sectors of economies. Other feminist scholars have engaged in new forms of data collection and measurement such as the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM), and more gender-aware theories such as the capabilities approach. Feminist economics is oriented towards the goal of "enhancing the well-being of children, women, and men in local, national, and transnational communities."
Development economics is a branch of economics which deals with economic aspects of the development process in low- and middle- income countries. Its focus is not only on methods of promoting economic development, economic growth and structural change but also on improving the potential for the mass of the population, for example, through health, education and workplace conditions, whether through public or private channels.
Positive economics is the part of economics that deals with positive statements. That is, it focuses on the description, quantification and explanation of economic phenomena. It deals with empirical facts as well as cause-and-effect behavioral relationships and emphasizes that economic theories must be consistent with existing observations and produce testable, precise predictions about the phenomena under question. Positive economics as a science concerns analysis of economic behavior to determine what is true. Examples of positive economic statements are "the unemployment rate in France is higher than that in the United States," or “an increase in government spending would lower the unemployment rate.” Either of these is potentially falsifiable and may be contradicted by evidence. Positive economics as such avoids economic value judgments. For example, a positive economic theory might describe how money supply growth affects inflation, but it does not provide any instruction on what policy ought to be followed. This contrasts with normative economic statements, in which an opinion is given. For example, “Government spending should be increased” is a normative statement.
Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's social roles, experiences, interests, chores, and feminist politics in a variety of fields, such as anthropology and sociology, communication, media studies, psychoanalysis, political theory, home economics, literature, education, and philosophy.
Philosophy and economics studies topics such as public economics, behavioural economics, rationality, justice, history of economic thought, rational choice, the appraisal of economic outcomes, institutions and processes, the status of highly idealized economic models, the ontology of economic phenomena and the possibilities of acquiring knowledge of them.
Heterodox economics is any economics thought or theory that contrasts with orthodox schools of economic thought, or that may be beyond neoclassical economics. These include institutional, evolutionary, feminist, social, post-Keynesian, ecological, Austrian, Marxian, socialist and anarchist economics.
Deirdre Nansen McCloskey is the Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She is also adjunct professor of Philosophy and Classics there, and for five years was a visiting Professor of philosophy at Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Since October 2007 she has received six honorary doctorates. In 2013, she received the Julian L. Simon Memorial Award from the Competitive Enterprise Institute for her work examining factors in history that led to advancement in human achievement and prosperity. Her main research interests include the origins of the modern world, the misuse of statistical significance in economics and other sciences, and the study of capitalism, among many others.
Family economics applies economic concepts such as production, division of labor, distribution, and decision making to the family. It is used to explain outcomes unique to family—such as marriage, the decision to have children, fertility, polygamy, time devoted to domestic production, and dowry payments using economic analysis.
Marianne A. Ferber was an American feminist economist and the author of many books and articles on the subject of women's work, the family, and the construction of gender. She held a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
Barbara Rose Bergmann was a feminist economist. Her work covers many topics from childcare and gender issues to poverty and Social Security. Bergmann was a co-founder and President of the International Association for Feminist Economics, a trustee of the Economists for Peace and Security, and Professor Emerita of Economics at the University of Maryland and American University.
Heidi I. Hartmann is an American feminist economist who is founder and president of the Washington-based Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), a research organization created to conduct women-centered, public policy research. She is an expert on the intersection of women, economics and public policy. Dr. Hartmann is also a Research Professor at George Washington University and the editor of the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy.
Feminist Economics is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Routledge and the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) in the field of feminist economics.
Feminist ethics is an approach to ethics that builds on the belief that traditionally ethical theorizing has undervalued and/or underappreciated women's moral experience, which is largely male-dominated, and it therefore chooses to reimagine ethics through a holistic feminist approach to transform it.
Ingrid A.M. Robeyns holds the Chair Ethics of Institutions at Utrecht University, Faculty of Humanities and the associated Ethics Institute.
The International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) is a non-profit international association dedicated to raising awareness and inquiry of feminist economics. It has approximately six hundred members in sixty-four countries. The association publishes a quarterly journal entitled Feminist Economics. Since 1998 IAFFE has held NGO special consultative status.
Edith Kuiper is the assistant professor of economics at State University of New York at New Paltz, and she was the president of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE) from 2006 to 2007.
Paula S. England, is an American sociologist and Dean of Social Science at New York University Abu Dhabi. Her research has focused on gender inequality in the labor market, the family, and sexuality. She has also studied class differences in contraception and nonmarital births.
