Economists !

In the 50s and 60s, Greenspan found that women economists were underpriced and hired a lot of them. I’m not sure about the 70s and 80s. The earliest source I have for this is this 1983 profile. I am somewhat surprised that this isn’t the standard example in econ textbooks.

I always valued men and women equally, and I found that because others did not, good women economists were cheaper than men. Hiring women does two things: It gives us better quality work for less money, and it raises the market value of women.

Report comment

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the/an argument Scott seems to be making resembles the following:

“Conservatives and reactionaries claim that lingering gender discrepancies between wages and hiring are not primarily the result of irrational sexism (i.e. sexism that constitutes a bias in the Bayesian sense).

The first actor to take action to market hot dog buns in 10-packs would reap huge sales benefits. Nonetheless, there has been no overt action to market hot dog buns in this way. The potential for profit here is so obvious that failure to act on it can only be the result of bias on the part of the profit-motivated individuals. Because the deductive argument fails here, it cannot be used to justify ongoing gender-based wage and hiring disparities.”

As someone who is partial to GMU-economist type arguments, the counter-argument initially struck me as compelling. On further reflection and discussion, though, I think there a couple of points to be made.

As has been pointed out, we don’t know what kind of costs that a large-scale baker, such as the makers of Wonder bread, would have to incur in order to gain the obvious first-mover advantage. It might involve a complete re-jigging of ovens or shipping containers or something.

Partly because we don’t know this, we also don’t know the decision matrix emplyed by the board and CEO of Wonder when considering whether to implement the change across the board. The change might take four years to turn a profit, and the CEO’s compensation scheme might motivate her to take a shorter-term view.

On the other hand, I don’t need to know the specifics of anyone’s decision-making process in order to profit from what I believe is a clear bias in the market. All I have to do is convince someone that actually knows something about finance to craft me an investment vehicle that is weighted toward companies that hire more women and weighted even stronger for corporations with women on the board or in senior management. I can use this heuristic to profit from a broad-based strategy.

I don’t do this because I’m confident that most ongoing gender discrepancies in wages and hiring are, in fact, not due to bias (again, in the Bayesian sense, which could include some rational decisions that could be labelled “sexist”).

Failures to respond to incentives occur for different reasons. While the failure to respond to the hot dog discrepancy may be “mysterious” and seems like a market failure because no obvious explanation presents itself, this does not mean that “market failure” should become the go-to option when we think we see a bias, particularly one this politically charged.

Obviously, the deductive argument does strike a blow against the infallibility of the free market as a problem-solver, but since most of us are at least willing to acknowledge the concept of “market failure”, I think it is safe to say that we would likely not posit such absolute infallibility in the first place.

Report comment

As someone who is partial to GMU-economist type arguments, the counter-argument initially struck me as compelling. On further reflection and discussion, though, I think there a couple of points to be made.

As has been pointed out, we don’t know what kind of costs that a large-scale baker, such as the makers of Wonder bread, would have to incur in order to gain the obvious first-mover advantage. It might involve a complete re-jigging of ovens or shipping containers or something.

Partly because we don’t know this, we also don’t know the decision matrix emplyed by the board and CEO of Wonder when considering whether to implement the change across the board. The change might take four years to turn a profit, and the CEO’s compensation scheme might motivate her to take a shorter-term view.

On the other hand, I don’t need to know the specifics of anyone’s decision-making process in order to profit from what I believe is a clear bias in the market. All I have to do is convince someone that actually knows something about finance to craft me an investment vehicle that is weighted toward companies that hire more women and weighted even stronger for corporations with women on the board or in senior management. I can use this heuristic to profit from a broad-based strategy.

I don’t do this because I’m confident that most ongoing gender discrepancies in wages and hiring are, in fact, not due to bias (again, in the Bayesian sense, which could include some rational decisions that could be labelled “sexist”).

Failures to respond to incentives occur for different reasons. While the failure to respond to the hot dog discrepancy may be “mysterious” and seems like a market failure because no obvious explanation presents itself, this does not mean that “market failure” should become the go-to option when we think we see a bias, particularly one this politically charged.

Obviously, the deductive argument does strike a blow against the infallibility of the free market as a problem-solver, but since most of us are at least willing to acknowledge the concept of “market failure”, I think it is safe to say that we would likely not posit such absolute infallibility in the first place.

Report comment

Report comment

Report comment

Report comment

Anyway, if you’re handy to Philadelphia, Terralyn at the Reading Terminal Market makes a toothpaste that has little or no mint in it.

I’m not sure whether she does mail order.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Terralyn-Naturally/178834865489904
(215) 922-3170

Report comment

My question for toothpaste is: why doesn’t everyone buy Aim? Is there some difference in ADA-approved toothpaste brands that makes it worth spending three to four times as much on a better-known brand, a difference that just about everyone but me knows about? Or is it just that people tend to be suspicious of products priced at a quarter of the conventional cost?

Report comment

Are you really complaining about the mint being too strong, or about it being too sweet?

Here are two hypotheses: (1) you and everyone you talked to like sweet things less than the general public; (2) children like sweet things (or maybe minty things) more than adults, but people get fixed very early, either on a brand, or on their sense of what a toothpaste should taste like.

Report comment

So I’ve started bringing this up with other people, and so far, everyone I’ve talked to hates mint toothpaste. I asked my hygenist for unflavored toothpaste at my most-recent tooth cleaning, and she said they can’t find it anymore, and that she herself never has her teeth cleaned because the mint flavor is too revolting.

Yet in an American drugstore, you can find thirty varieties of mint-flavored toothpaste, some non-mint, high-priced Tom’s of Maine, and nothing else.

Report comment