Teaching feminist economics to challenge the hidden assumptions in economics
Juan Moreno-Cruz
INTRODUCTION
My first encounter with economics was in 2005. Until then, all my training had been in electrical engineering. The math involved in engineering made it exciting and challenging, while the applied and practical aspects of design made it an appealing career prospect. When I flew to Canada to work on my Ph.D., I intended to continue my engineering career. Still, I had grown impatient with the discipline because it abstracted from the social issues that needed addressing in Colombia. I wanted to do something with a more social focus, but my love of math and abstract thought remained. I became curious about economics. I took Microeconomics, and the material and the logical structure I studied were precisely what I wanted to learn. It was instantaneous. I was enthralled and in love with economics. I still am. Economics, maybe uniquely so in the social sciences, uses mathematical models to capture human behavior. These mathematical models are then used to formulate hypotheses and design economic policy. Economic models appear simple and beautiful, and therein lies their strength. When you understand how economists build these models and how to see the world through them, it is hard to see society through a different lens.
Like engineers use columns and beams to support houses and skyscrapers, economists use carefully crafted assumptions to build economic models. Assumptions provide the structure needed to reach higher levels (some people call this internal validity), but they also delimit the boundaries of our models (some people call this external validity). Just as most columns and beams hide behind walls and we seldom think about them, we often forget that assumptions provide support for our models.
The primary function of the assumptions we make is to abstract from reality, not to reproduce it; economists use assumptions to create a version of reality that is informative yet simple and tractable enough to generate insights about the human condition. Assumptions, however, are tricky things. As in science fiction, they build fantasy worlds that are believable enough for us to suspend disbelief. They are powerful enough to generate alternative realities; they invite us to live in these worlds to the point where these alternative realities begin to blur with our reality. Herein lies the issue. When we teach economics, we forget those assumptions are not immediately apparent. As teachers, we must ensure our students see behind the curtain to understand the structure holding our worldviews together. Otherwise, we begin to teach our theories as gospel and policy prescriptions as dogmas.
Thinking about my path toward economics helps me reflect on my goals when I became an economist. Of course, plans change, but we must make those changes intentionally. I understand intentionality as a need to dig deeper, step outside the mechanics of publishing and teaching, and challenge the core assumptions supporting our worldview. It has been more than 15 years since I took that first class in economics, and I am convinced we must look at the world through different lenses to teach our students how to challenge the basic assumptions that hold economic models together.
Challenging fundamental assumptions in our economic models is the objective of feminist economics. Feminist economists looked behind the wall and saw a world that was not representative of all people. They saw women’s work as undervalued and uncounted in economic models and methodologies. Their views and perspectives contrast with the long-held beliefs in economics. They can make relations between us and the environment more visible in how we research and teach economics. My introspective search for a more critical way of teaching economics has convinced me that the way forward lies in introducing feminist economics concepts, approaches and lenses into the traditional curriculum.
LOOKING BEHIND THE WALL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS
Let’s unearth the basic assumptions behind environmental economics as an opportunity to show the power of the models we create and to imagine approaches that would overcome the negative impacts of a too-easy reliance on their truths.
Two assumptions underlie environmental economics, my field of study. First, from an economist’s perspective, the environment and the economy exist independently but are related via the exchange of energy and waste. The field of ecological economics tackles this assumption head on, pointing out that the economy is immersed in the environment and cannot survive without it. The second assumption is that humans are isolated, hyper-rational agents who relate only transactionally with others and do not account for the impacts of their actions on others because these impacts are external to them. This representation of humans is commonly known as Homo economicus.
These two assumptions deliver a set of prescriptive policies that rely on creating the right incentives to correct human behavior. For positive externalities, introduce subsidies. For negative externalities, raise taxes. The role of the government is to restore the conditions that allow the market to operate as if there is no friction.
Economic policy, as stated above, looks to increase the efficiency of the market, and it does so by adjusting prices either directly (e.g., taxes) or indirectly through quantities (e.g., quotas). These policy interventions are meant to increase overall welfare. Welfare, however, does not increase equally for all, if at all. Some gains and losses from trade or policy fall disproportionally on a fraction of the population; some people could even be net losers from policy intervention. Redistribution of these gains is required, but seldom implemented. Often, redistribution is not part of the design, but is later used for troubleshooting.
The main concern is that our policies not only correct individual behavior but also shape our relationships with other humans and the natural environment. Our policies and institutions slowly morph us into the shape of the avatars we create in our models. And over time, we point to the success of those policies as capturing the essence of humans. We need policies that incline us to lean toward our ethical side, the side that takes collective interest into account and understands the economy as embedded in the natural environment. To create those more compassionate policies, we need better assumptions.
Feminist economics challenges these two assumptions. It does so by forcing us to see what our models keep invisible. For environmental economics, the feminist economics lens brings forth the essential role of the relations between us and the environment around us. Expanding our understanding of humanity, our connections with each other and the environment, we will see that our policies narrowly focus on efficiency, neglecting other objectives like increased equality and access to opportunity.
Feminist Economics to Teach Environmental Economics
New work in feminist economics points to a more holistic representation of humans in the economy. This work reimagines humans as social animals with a deep desire to connect and care for others. We grow and evolve as a society because our interest in belonging engenders trust and reciprocity. But for these traits to flourish, we need institutions that encourage and protect our interests in caring for each other. If our future depends on the success of others, then maybe we can internalize the effects of our actions on others, thus minimizing the activities that cause pain and maximizing the common benefit. I do not know how to design the institutions and policies that cultivate this behavior, but I know we won’t be able to find them in the emptiness of the space Homo economicus occupies.
Feminists economists (Kate Raworth and Mariana Mazzucato), political scientists (Federica Carugati and Margaret Levi) and philosophers (Carol Gilligan and Joan Tronto) are working to highlight the assumptions hidden in economic models. They are building new assumptions and worldviews to create a more caring and compassionate version of ourselves, so we can hope to build an understanding of the world around us that also reflects these values. I see it as our duty to teach our students these new perspectives. And thus, I extend an invitation to join me as I learn and teach feminist economics to challenge our assumptions. I see two specific ways to change our teaching in a way that aligns with a more encompassing view of the economy and how it works.
Focus on Relationships
In environmental economics, the focus is on individual agents – be they people, firms, or governments. Insofar as relations enter the framework, they do so in a purely transactional way via commerce, trade, or migration flows. We can think of how families enter the economic analysis: they are a place of bargaining and negotiation, investment, and consumption. But families are the core social units, and we severely misrepresent them in economics. How are those relations shaping our relations with people outside our core networks and the environment? Introducing relationships into economic thinking and even modeling is fundamental for understanding our role in society and our planet. From a pedagogical perspective, it also allows students to learn through their experience about economics; to think of assumptions that better represent their beliefs and those around them.
Embrace the Narratives
Narratives are how we navigate our relationships. They forge our identities and make them malleable. They are, in many ways, the opposite of the notion of stable preferences commonly assumed in economics. They tell us that our choices are the product of our histories and the stories of those around us. Pay attention to their lives, how they came to be and who helped shape them. This approach would highlight the role of those relations with our families, of either birth or choice, often made indivisible in our economic models. Focusing on narratives will also help us better understand our current moment and our relationship with the environment. This focus on relationships will also facilitate and encourage a more collaborative environment in the classroom, where we switch from the transactional relations of teachers imparting knowledge to students and move toward a co-creation of knowledge where the teacher’s experience enriches and guides the curiosity of students.
Apply the Teachings of Feminist Economics to the Classroom
We are constantly creating the world around us through our relationship with ourselves and the environment. Recognizing that capacity for affecting positive change starts in the classroom. By offering a more compassionate version of ourselves, focusing more on the students and less on the material, we challenge the position of the Homo economicus construct in economics. Allowing for more experiences and experimentation within the classroom creates space to learn to collaborate and support rather than compete and survive.
CONCLUSION
Let me close with a confession. I just recently landed on feminist economics literature. I focused on my perspective as a latecomer to economics to identify limitations in economic modeling as they pertain to my subfield of environmental economics. Yet I soon discovered my perspective was so aligned not only with the work of feminist economics but also with that written mainly by women economists. I had to pause to understand why I had not heard about their work before. The answer is that there is a feedback loop between the material we cover in economics, how we teach it, and the people entering our discipline. This feedback loop reinforces the status quo and works to keep dissenting voices in the margins. But those voices of newcomers allow them to see through the wall. Even though some progress has been made in the discipline, women are severely under-represented in economics. The challenge within the profession comes from the increased representation of women and other minorities who see gaping holes in how economic models represent different perspectives. To teach economics, we need to ensure our sources, readings, and materials include those of women and other marginalized communities, not only feminist economics, to understand their perspectives and embed those worldviews in the assumptions that build our models.
My goal in this short reflection is to highlight the importance of assumptions. I wanted to invite you to check on your assumptions within your research and discipline. Thus, while I focus on my field of environmental economics and feminist economics to expand our mental models, I hope the lessons I uncover here can be helpful across other domains. My goal is that by inviting introspection, we can become better teachers. We can teach our students to use models, be skeptical about them, and be constructive.