Making Progress on Diversity in the Economics Profession

Christina Romer (top left); Janice Eberly (top right); and Shelly Lundberg (bottom left).

In recent years, the American Economic Association (AEA) has taken more steps to foster greater diversity within the profession. Three prominent economists discuss their efforts as AEA leaders to help make this happen.

“Getting people with different points of view that can make the profession stronger, make research better, make government policymaking better, I think, is just incredibly important for the health of the field,” said Christina Romer, professor of economics at the University of California-Berkeley and president of the AEA in 2022.

Romer was joined by Janice Eberly, professor of finance at Northwestern University and AEA vice president in 2020, and Shelly Lundberg, professor of economics at the University of California-Santa Barbara and AEA vice president in 2021. Lundberg had also chaired of the AEA Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP).

The discussion on a Women in Economics Podcast Series episode was moderated by Oksana Leukhina, an economist and research officer at the St. Louis Fed.

Lundberg shared her experiences as chair of CSWEP from mid-2016 to 2018. Though the committee provides many services and resources geared toward young economists, she found that many weren’t aware of CSWEP.

Getting the word out was a priority for Lundberg, a job made more difficult when the AEA wouldn’t allow the committee to set up a Facebook account.

“So I thought what I would do is I would start my own personal Twitter account, and I would just tweet out, you know, announcements and links to CSWEP activities,” she recalled. “And a few years later, CSWEP got its own Twitter account.”

Making more people part of the solution is also important, Eberly noted. She recalled educating a male colleague who had been unaware of how gender discrimination affected women in the field.

“We need to change practices as Christie (Romer) emphasizes, but along the way we change minds, and hopefully we change peoples’ experiences going forward,” she said. “The allies are incredibly important as part of the solution.”

In the podcast episode below, Romer, Eberly and Lundberg also talked about the evolution of diversity at AEA and their own experiences studying and teaching in the profession. A transcript is available at Women in Economics: Christina Romer, Janice Eberly and Shelly Lundberg.