Economic Rockstar

Connecting Brilliant Minds in Economics and Finance

081: Julie Nelson on the Importance of Ecology in Economics and the Misconception of Gender Roles in the Economy

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081: Julie Nelson on the Importance of Ecology in Economics and the Misconception of Gender Roles in the Economy

Julie Nelson is Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts Boston and Senior Research Fellow at Global Development and Environment Institute, Tufts University, also in the USA.Julie Nelson Economic Rockstar

Julie’s research areas include feminist economics, ecological economics, the philosophy and methodology of economics, ethics and economics, the teaching of economics, and the empirical study of individual and household behavior.

Professor Nelson has also served as a Research Economist at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and a Visiting Associate Professor at Harvard University amongst others.

Julie is the author of Economics for Humans and author, co-author, or co-editor of several other books including Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics.

She has also authored numerous articles in journals ranging from Econometrica, the American Economic Review, and the Journal of Political Economy, to Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Feminist Economics, and Ecological Economics.

Professor Nelson earned a B.A. degree in Economics from St. Olaf College and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA.

Julie, along with Mark Maier, runs the website introducingeconomics.org

Economics:

In this episode, Julie mentions: statistical inference, bias, production function, land, labor, capital, resource maintenance, feminist economics, care, GDP, Pigouvian tax, carbon, welfare gains, negative externality and Kyoto Agreement.

Economists:

In this episode, Julie mentions: John Stuart Mill, Gary Becker and Amartya Sen.

Quotes by Julie in Episode 81:

“Math gives you internal consistency. It does not give you objectivity and reliability.” – Julie Nelson

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“Most economic textbooks tell you there are three basic economic activities… production, distribution and consumption. We added one at the beginning and what we called ‘resource maintenance’. That is, how are you ever going to produce anything if you don’t have the resources and if you haven’t taken care of them and sustained them in a way that they’ll be productive in the future” – Julie Nelson

“No one would be so silly to try to address an economic problem without looking at its social, ethical, physical and political dimensions. But later economists didn’t remember those cautions of Mills and just ran with the math aspect of it.” – Julie Nelson

“There’s still a long way to go to think of gender in an intelligent and equitable way.” – Julie Nelson

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Takeaway:

“Be careful about what you believe that economists are telling you.” – Julie Nelson

“Wherever we are in our life whether we’re at work in a business or at home or bringing our whole selves with us. We don’t just bring parts of ourselves. So if you want to be an ethical person anywhere, we need to do that when we’re at work.” – Julie Nelson

Books:

Links:

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031: Matt Rousu on Experimental Auctions and the Need for Peer-Reviewed Economic Impact Studies.

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031: Matt Rousu on Experimental Auctions and the Need for Peer-Reviewed Economic Impact Studies.

Dr. Matthew Rousu is a Professor and Warehime Chair in the Department of Economics atMatthew Rousu Susquehanna University. His main teaching interests include microeconomics, political economic thought, and game theory.

Matt is an expert on experimental auction design and implementation. He uses his expertise on experimental auctions to study problems in agricultural economics, environmental economics, and public health.  He has published over 40 scholarly articles, as well as book chapters, non-technical articles and Op-eds.

Matt has been quoted widely on many issues by The Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The NY Daily News, The Philadelphia Inquirer, US News and World Report, The Washington Post, Wikipedia, and Yahoo.com.

He has also been a guest for local radio stations mainly to discuss the local, state, and national economy.

Matt runs his own blog known as paeconomist.blogspot and is founder of the Economic Impact Review. He is the author of Political Trivia.

Matt earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of South Dakota and a Ph.D. in Economics from Iowa State University.

Find Out:

  • the benefits of lecturing at a liberal arts college – switch up your research interests.
  • about experimental auctions and their design.
  • what is consumer demand for Genetically Modified Products.
  • how demand for GMOs change due to differences in packaging.
  • how print advertisement for e-cigarettes increases their demand.
  • whether e-cigarettes are a ‘healthy’ alternative to traditional cigarettes.
  • about the impact of plain package cigarettes on consumer demand.
  • if the Irish government correct in enforcing plain packaged cigarettes.
  • how much less buyers were willing to pay for plain packaged cigarettes.
  • how a picture of smoking-related diseases on cigarette packaging decreases demand for cigarettes.
  • why Matt set up The Economic Impact Review.
  • why economic impact studies should go through a peer-review process.
  • about the lack of transparency in economic impact studies.
  • about Matt’s libertarian stance and why he’s for fracking.
  • what you get when a libertarian and socialist collaborate on an economics fracking paper.
  • about the beautiful campus of Susquehanna University.
  • why small class sizes are beneficial to both student and teacher.
  • about Matt’s exploits in the World Series of Poker.
  • how an understanding of statistics and behavioral economics can benefit a poker player.
  • how Chris Moneymaker influenced Matt’s love of poker.
  • the economics of what makes a winning poker player.
  • if poker is a game of chance or a game of skill.
  • how poker is akin to economic game theory.
  • about people’s willingness to pay for GM foods versus non-GM foods.
  • if there is a need for an independent 3rd party to disseminate information on GM foods.
  • what annoys Matt the most.
  • why Matt switched to a flipped classroom style of teaching.
  • about deceptions in economic research and why journals will not publish such research.
  • why research in psychology accepts deception of the subjects but economics does not.
  • why a lot of economics journals will not publish your work.

Economists:

In this interview, Matt mentions: Milton Friedman, Wally Huffman (Iowa State), Jason Shogren (Wyoming) and Dan Ariely.

Economics:

In this interview, Matt mentions and discusses: Consumer demand, experimental auctions, bias, incentives, pricing, demand curve, sample size, economic impact of fracking, socialism, libertarianism, microeconomics, macroeconomics, game theory, political economic thought, forensics economics, positive analysis and normative analysis.

You can disagree without being disagreeable Matt Rousu.

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Are you Willing to Pay More for Genetically-Modified Foods?

The goal of experimental auction is to assess consumers demand for some particular product.

If consumers receive information from a group, such as Green Peace, who were against GM foods, then those consumers were willing to pay up to 50% less for foods that were genetically modified compared to a plain-labelled product.

If consumers got information from an agri-business company, such as Monsanto, about the benefits of GM foods, then they would pay just as much for these foods as conventional food products.

What would the impact be on consumer’s willingness to pay if there were scientific information or, what Professor Rousu called ‘Objective Verifiable Information’ available in the decision-making process? The objective information ‘dampened’ the effects on either side.

Where to find Matt:

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