Julie Nelson (economist)

Julie Nelson (economist)

Julie A. Nelson is an American feminist economist and Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston, most known for her application of feminist theory to questions of the definition of the discipline of economics, and its models and methodology. Nelson received her Ph.D. degree in Economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her work focuses on gender and economics, philosophy and methodology of economics, ecological economics, and quantitative methods. Nelson is among the founders and the most highly cited scholars in the field of feminist economics.

Beyond Economic Man: Feminist Theory and Economics, a 1993 book Nelson co-edited with Marianne A. Ferber, has been called a 'landmark' and the 'manifesto' of feminist economics. A follow-up volume, Feminist Economics Today, summarizes the development of the field over the following ten years Nelson is author or co-author of four additional books and numerous academic articles on both feminist theory and the empirical study of household behavior. Her 2006 book Economics for Humans dismisses the view that markets are inexorable "machines" and discusses how a better understanding of the relation of economics and values could improve both business and care work. She argues that the current economic language that refers to the economic "machine" is inherently masculine, focussing on 'detachment, mathematical reasoning, formality and abstration', and suggests that updated language that refers to the economy as, for example, a "beating heart" would better frame discussions about the economy in terms of values. Her most recent work addresses issues of ethics and economics, particularly in relation to climate change.

Nelson was a founding member of the International Association for Feminist Economics and is an Associate Editor of the journal Feminist Economics. Nelson started her career at the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, subsequently became a tenured Associate Professor at the University of California, Davis, and then moved to the Boston, Massachusetts area where she is currently Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a Senior Research Fellow with the Global Development and Environment Institute.