Later today I'm heading off to Erasmus University in Rotterdam for a symposium on the booming 'Economics Made Fun' genre of books. The event is the brainchild of Professor Jack Vromen, who has an interesting paper on the subject of this boom. While pondering my talk, and looking up my own collection of pop economics books, I realised that almost no women write them. No wonder I seem to be one of the relatively few women on the symposium programme.
By coincidence, Deirdre McCloskey's new book, Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World, dropped through the mailbox for review. Professor McCloskey is a standard bearer for female popularisers. I particularly like an earlier book, How to be Human – Though An Economist. The only other female 'pop' author I can think of is Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind, the absolutely must-read biography of John Nash.
Of course this paucity reflects the male-dominance of the economics profession as a whole, something which – in Europe at any rate – seems to be getting worse rather than better. (This will make it clear that my preference would be to have a less uneven sex ratio in economics.) I wonder whether the famous Schelling segregation model is at work? If women have a slight preference to work in fields where there are some other women already climbing the career ladder, the dynamic would lead to a diminishing proportion of female economists the more prospective students see men predominant in the field. And, let's be honest, male economists are not as groovy and stylish (with honourable exceptions – I'll spare their blushes) as male historians, doctors etc.
I'll report back on the symposium on this blog at the weekend. Meanwhile, Bourgeois Dignity looks very promising. The argument as summed up in the blurb seems to be somewhat similar to Joel Mokyr's view about the importance of culture and ideas for the development of capitalism, as set out in his Gifts of Athena and elsewhere. McCloskey gives her own precis here. My review will be published in January.
