Diversity in Economics — Peter Radford

In this case geographical diversity.

Dani Rodrik has brought to our attention a rather serious problem within the economics profession: it is still dominated by people living and working in the West. As a consequence it has a decided bias towards issues that are of significant interest to the West.

This is, of course, not news to any of you not living in the West. Nor is it news to anyone outside the profession paying attention to the product of the journals and various other outlets. The ideas that get the most attention and the work that gets most lauded is still channeled through a very narrow lens. The result is a considerable — massive? — underrepresentation of viewpoints and experiences that inhibit the ability of the discipline to engage broadly with the world.…

Economists, and not just economists, are not looking at the world system. That needs to change given the changes wrought by modern technology that has shrunk the global and new knowledge, both methods and data, that makes analysis of systems now possible. Work has been done in this area and is being done, but a paradigm shift is needed to catch up with changing times.

 

The Radford Free Press

Diversity in Economics
Peter Radford