Women Redefining Economics

5 women in particular are revolutionising their field by questioning the meaning of everything from ‘value’ and ‘debt’ to ‘growth’ and ‘GDP.’

Esther Duflo, Stephanie Kelton, Mariana Mazzucato, Carlota Perez and Kate Raworth. Of course there are many more to be added to this growing list (I, for one, add Diane Coyle below), but a good starting point is to read this Forbes article on their work and vision for Economics:

Read it here.

Esther Duflo - co-winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, “for their experimental approach to alleviating global poverty”. I cannot recommend her book, co-authored with Abhijit Banerjee, called Poor Economics.

You can watch a TED talk introducing her ideas below:

Alleviating poverty is more guesswork than science, and lack of data on aid's impact raises questions about how to provide it. But Clark Medal-winner Esther Duflo says it's possible to know which development efforts help and which hurt -- by testing solutions with randomized trials.

Mariana Mazzucato - described in the Forbes article as “one of the most forward-thinking economists of our times,” Mariana Mazzucato is foremost among the flame throwers. She is a professor at University College London and the Founder/Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Her book on The Entrepreneurial State will challenge your preconceptions of the role of government, not merely as a market fixer (A-level students spend their whole syllabus studying how governments can best fix market failures), but also the role of government as market maker and innovator. A must-read for anyone interested in this area of policy. Her second book, the Value of Everything, is about who exactly creates value vs extracts value in modern capitalism, and how the ‘system’ needs to be restructured to reward the right activities that add real value to society.

You can watch introductory TED talks on the topics here:

Why doesn't the government just get out of the way and let the private sector -- the "real revolutionaries" -- innovate? It's rhetoric you hear everywhere, and Mariana Mazzucato wants to dispel it. In an energetic talk, she shows how the state -- which many see as a slow, hunkering behemoth -- is really one of our most exciting risk-takers and market-shapers.

Visit http://TED.com to get our entire library of TED Talks, transcripts, translations, personalized Talk recommendations and more. Where does wealth come fr...

Kate Raworth - a Senior Research Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, is the author of Doughnut Economics. She challenges our obsession with growth, and its outdated measures.

You can see her introduces her ideas here:

What would a sustainable, universally beneficial economy look like? "Like a doughnut," says Oxford economist Kate Raworth. In a stellar, eye-opening talk, she explains how we can move countries out of the hole -- where people are falling short on life's essentials -- and create regenerative, distributive economies that work within the planet's ecological limits.

Endless growth may actually be hurting our economy -- and our planet. Economist Kate Raworth makes a case for "doughnut economics": an alternative way to look at the economic systems ruling our societies and imagine a sustainable future for all. (Audio only)

Diane Coyle - to add one of my own favourites that isn’t on the Forbes list, I would recommend Diane Coyle. She is a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She was vice-chairman of the BBC Trust, and was a member of the UK Competition Commission from 2001 until 2019. Since March 2018, she has been the Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, co-directing the Bennett Institute. Her blog, Enlightenment Economics worth dipping in and out of. Her book GDP A Brief But Affectionate History is a great read for those who want to understand in a very accessible way all the limitations of GDP as a measure of prosperity. You can watch her outline the main arguments below: