by JAYATI GHOSH
Note: Opening theMiami Institute’s economics forum, Jayati Ghosh presents severe and persistent forms of discrimination and power imbalances in economic analyses, and underscores older and newer networks of scholars pushing back against these tendencies.
Recently, mainstream economics has been forced to acknowledge some of the explicit and implicit forms of discrimination and bias that are rampant in the discipline, thanks in particular to some brave interventions by some women economists. The focus of these interventions has been on still-pervasive patriarchal and racist attitudes that are evident within the discipline in the Global North, particularly in the United States – such as the now-famous blog by Claudia Sahm: “Economics is a disgrace.” While these are critical concerns, there are other severe and persistent forms of discrimination and power imbalances in economic analyses that have not been the focus of attention, which have also operated to impoverish the discipline.
I would like to highlight two of these in particular: the hegemony of one particular approach to both theory and applied economics, falling broadly within what can be described as the neoclassical framework and the denigration of alternative approaches; and the neglect of and ignorance about economic research and analysis done by scholars who are not located in the Global North, especially those writing in languages other than English. I believe that there is no other discipline or branch of knowledge—whether in the natural or social sciences or in the humanities—that has been so driven by geographic location and ideological determinism.
Consider the second issue first: the extent to which the mainstream economics discipline is completely dominated by the North Atlantic, whether in terms of prestige, influence, or the ability to determine the content and direction of what is globally accepted in the discipline. Just as an example, all the 84 prizes awarded by the Swedish Central Bank Prize in memory of Alfred Nobel (falsely called the Economics Nobel Prize) have gone to economists resident in the North, and essentially living and working in the U.S. and Europe. The North Atlantic still dominates in “recognised” publications and in setting the research agendas in the field of economics and the policy agendas across governments. The enormous knowledge, insights and contributions to economic analysis that are made by economists located in the Global South are largely ignored, almost certainly by those in the North, but even (sadly) by economists in other parts of the South. Theoretical contributions are generally assumed to be made only by those who are resident or working in the North, who also feel able to comment on economic conditions and processes everywhere in the world, with a confidence unmatched by those resident elsewhere, and with far greater likelihood of being taken seriously.
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