Feminist Economics, Setting out the Parameters

___Introduction___ Feminist economics has developed its position over the past decade, towards a firmer embeddedness in economic science and a source of inspiration for activists, policy makers, and social science researchers in a wide variety of fields of research. This development has come about in a relatively short period of time, as is reflected, for example, in the follow-up book of the feminist economic primer Beyond Economic Man (Ferber/Nelson 1993), published ten years later: Feminist Economics Today (Ferber/Nelson, 2003) The strengthened position of feminist economics also shows in the 10-year anniversary of the prize-winning journal Feminist Economics, the flourishing of the International Association for Feminist Economics (IAFFE), as well as the more regular demand for feminist economic policy advise by institutions like the UN, OECD and governments in developed and developing countries, and in well-established training courses in feminist economics, such as at the Institute of Social Studies and University of Utah . It is impossible to give a fair overview of the state of the art of feminist economics in the number of pages available, even when limited to issues pertaining to development and macroeconomics . As a consequence, this is a very sketchy and subjective overview of what I perceive to be recent developments in feminist economics that have relevance for feminist development analysis and policy. The next section recognizes three trends in feminist economics, in particular the engagement of feminist economists with heterodox schools of economics. The following sections will briefly review developments in methodology and methods in feminist economics. These will be followed by three sections on topics that have recently become key themes or areas of research in feminist economics, in particular in the area of development economics: unpaid labour and the care economy; the two-way relationship between gender and trade; and gender, efficiency and growth. Each of these topics will be introduced, with references to the main literature, and some links to policy recommendations. The paper will end with a conclusion

Structuralism and individualism in economic analysis: The contractionary devaluation debate in development economics

This dissertation argues that the debates about the appropriate economic policies to follow in the developing world within the field of development economics are at heart debates about the appropriate ontology to ascribe to agents within the developing world. In particular, the field of development economics has been split by analytical debates between two distinct ontological traditions: structuralism and individualism. This struggle between structuralist and individualists operates within the boundaries set by a commitment (shared by both ontological traditions) to two overlapping maps: (i) Cartesianism as the only acceptable mode of undertaking economic analysis, and (ii) deviance from the Western world as the defining characteristic of the developing world. The consequence of the struggle between structuralist and individualist traditions, carried out within the ontological contours set by Cartesianism and deviance, has been to create a set of unresolvable debates within the field, and a proclivity for intellectual swings within the field from one pole of the structure-agent dichotomy to the other. This continual swinging shapes policy shifts which affect the lives of millions within the developing world. The dissertation demonstrates the operation of the ontological struggles and limits described above by examining the shift within the field of development economics from the paradigm of import substituting industrialization to the paradigm of neoliberal pro-market reforms. It also demonstrates the concrete effects of this struggle between ontological paradigms on the lives of those living in the developing world by examining one specific policy debate within the field in detail--the contractionary devaluation debate about the effect of exchange rate devaluations on developing countries. The dissertation ends by providing an alternative theoretical framework, Marxian Overdetermination, which uses a different set of ontological assumptions and eschews the limits set by Cartesianism and deviance. This framework is used to provide a very different assessment of the impact of exchange rate devaluations on the lives of those in the developing world, and to propose a different set of strategies to follow for improving the living conditions of poor and exploited members of the developing world

Social analysis and the capabilities approach: a limit to Martha Nussbaum's universalist ethics

Postcolonial theorists critique modernist universalisms for legitimating structural power. Responding to these critiques, Martha Nussbaum argues that abandoning universalism leads to ethical relativism. Adapting Amartya Sen's capabilities approach, she has proposed a modified universalism that draws on cross-cultural conversations as a non-ethnocentric basis for universal judgment and intervention. This paper takes as its point of departure Nussbaum's (mis)reading of a critique by Nkiru Nzegwu. Working from that conversational failure, the paper identifies the social analysis Nussbaum deploys as a point of ethnocentric breakdown in her universalist approach. Copyright The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

Gender and the stability of consumption: a feminist contribution to post-Keynesian economics

Alan Coddington critiques post-Keynesians for their use of fundamental uncertainty. He argues that fundamental uncertainty should also affect the consumption function, undermining the case for Keynesian macroeconomic policies. This paper shows how contemporary feminist theory provides post-Keynesians with a compelling response to Coddington. It uses the concept of gender as an effect of heteronormativity to integrate 'the household', the institution that undertakes consumption spending, into post-Keynesian economics. This gives us a more robust analysis of the sources of consumption stability in a world marked by the fundamental unknowability of the future. Copyright The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.