Advanced Introduction to Feminist Economics

Book excerpt: Many questions arise of an economic nature that are only partially addressed by standard economic analysis. These lacunae give rise to particular lines of critique in economics, including a wide-ranging and increasingly cogent feminist approach to reenvisioning economics. This book provides a comprehensive description of this intriguing new area of feminist economics. It includes discussion of what constitutes feminist economics and how feminist economics is different from other approaches. The intellectual origins of the area are explicated, and the current state of the subfield outlined. Specific topics covered include conflict over terminology, pedagogy, and content in the field of economics, measurement of the unmeasured economy, the role of caring labor in the economy, heteronormativity in economics, feminist approaches to economic development, multiple approaches to empiricism, modeling of intrahousehold relationships, consideration of the role of property rights in reifying gender roles, differential effects of international trade and finance by gender, and feminist approaches to public finance and social welfare.