Opinion: Economics has a serious gender problem – it needs more women
Friday, October 28, 2016 - 08:01
in Mathematics & Economics
On the eve of the 2008 financial crisis, economists were feeling optimistic. The two-headed beast that had blighted the economy throughout the 1970s and 1980s – inflation combined with unemployment – had been tamed, and the business cycle seemed to be a thing of the past. Economists believed they had developed such a good understanding of the economy that they could keep it on an even keel. The Nobel Prize-winning economist and president of the American Economic Association, Robert Lucas, went as far as to announce that the Great Depression would never happen again.