Economics, Sexism, Data

Enlarge this image via Econ Job Rumors via Econ Job Rumors

When Alice Wu was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley studying economics, she learned about the Economics Job Market Rumors forum, an anonymous forum for economists. She went through a few threads, and was immediately shocked by some of the things that were being said about women on the page.

Now for most people, here's how this story goes. You log onto an anonymous online forum, see a bunch of sexist garbage, and say: Well, it looks like people on this forum are being sexist. Case closed.

But Alice Wu set out to use data to test for bias on econjobrumors.com. Because as an economist, she couldn't be sure it was there until she wrote a rigorous, replicable, statistically-sound, quantitative economics thesis about it.

Today on the show: A young economist holds a mirror up to her field.

If you want to learn more about gender debates in economics today, check out Soumaya Keynes's great reporting in The Economist.

Music: "Edge of Fear" and "Groovy Baseline."

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