Posted on 12/23/2019 5:01:17 AM PST by karpov
The economics profession embarked this year on a soul-searching appraisal of perceived hostility to women and minorities in its ranks, and the Federal Reserve—the nation’s largest employer of Ph.D. economists—wants to get ahead of the curve.
For the Fed, where three quarters of its research economists are men and most are white, facing up to the lack of women and minorities among these employees isn’t just a matter of appearances. A staff that better reflects the U.S. population could limit the potential for groupthink or blind spots that hinder the central bank’s assessment of how the economy is changing.
“The economics profession for decades has had a problem, and the [Fed staff] is a reflection of the economics profession,” said Claudia Sahm, who last month joined the Washington Center for Equitable Growth as its director of macroeconomic policy after 12 years as a Fed economist. “One of the reasons we missed things was we were too closed of a system.”
Current and former staffers and private economists who interact with the central bank say the Fed’s attention to diversity issues gained new urgency under former Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen and has continued under her successor, Jerome Powell. The shift has coincided with veteran female staffers earning promotions to three of the central bank’s most important management positions this year.
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The underrepresentation of women in economics could carry implications for policy. A 2013 survey of U.S. economists showed that women tend to have greater support for income redistribution, regulation and linking import openness to the labor standards of trading partners.
A growing body of research has pointed to institutional barriers women face in the field, including disparities in earning tenure and having research published in journals.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Apparently we need a big enough fed to combat every perceived flaw in human nature, real or not.
Our government (at all levels) has no idea how to fit people with no role in many fields into those fields just to re-distribute wealth. If there were any doubts, look at how some STEM programs (designed to entice women and certain preferred minorities into those fields, often picking up the tab along the way) have been bastardized into “STEAM” - adding an “A” for “arts”. Nothing more than a tool to transfer funds to semi-literate budding rappers...
I would be far more concerned about ideological diversity at the Fed. Who cares what color they are?
The local university near me has a program in Science, Technology and Mathematics, but no Engineering program.
They call it STEM, but spell it ST&M. The “E” is for “and”.
When people ask what I do, I tell them I work for the “And Department”.
Affirmative Action Fed chairs. What could go wrong?
I know one woman Ph.D. economist. She works in a federal agency, teaches part-time, and is conservative. To reach that level in the field you cannot just rely on your diversity courses. You gotta do most or all of the math I did in electrical engineering.
“A staff that better reflects the U.S. population could limit the potential for groupthink or blind spots that hinder the central bank’s assessment of how the economy is changing.”
Talk about a completely stupid, contradictory statement. Looks like being white is inherently and genetically a flawed state of being. We have been told that speaking of or referring to demographic changes was racist.
Does the color of one’s skin change the laws of physics in going to the moon? Change the rules of buying and selling?
I thought that, deep down, we were all alike, that importing millions of uneducated third worlders would not even cause a hiccup in our national character.
Maybe minorities and women don’t want to do that work.
It reminds of the push on chicks and STEM.
Maybe, just maybe, they don’t like it.
Econ 557a Econometrics of High-Dimensional ModelsI've taken a look at the mathematics underlying financial derivatives. It involves advanced calculus. The financial outfits who needed to create software models hired physics PhDs to do them, because they were the main ones who could deal with the math.This class provides an introduction of econometrics of high-dimensional models. The class will cover the following topics: 1) relevant results in probability theory (concentration and maximal inequalities); 2) estimation of linear high-dimensional models using Lasso, Dantzig selector, and related methods; 3) estimation of generalized linear high-dimensional models (e.g., quantile and logit regressions) using penalized M-estimators; 4) basics of machine learning (regression trees, random forests, neural networks); 5) semi-parametric inference in high-dimensional models via double machine learning; 6) related topics in econometrics such as grouped fixed effect estimators in panel data and many moment inequalities. Although the class will be primarily based on research papers, as a general reference, a highly recommended textbook is Wainwright (2019), High-dimensional statistics: a non-asympotic view point, Cambridge University Press.
There are not that many women and minorities who understand that level of math.
To Hell with “diversity”.
Very funny!
The ampersand department...
I’ve worked with and for qualified women in the financial sector - and it is a shame they’ll have their credentials questioned because of, and workplace polluted by, tokens pushed to the front of the line.
I've known Latino guys who do -- they were white men who grew up in Argentina and Brazil.
It will also solve the problems of quotas, since nobody will be able to calculate them.
just be honest about it and announce lowering the standards.
They can’t do that, because then you are admitting the government believes these preferred groups to be inferior.
A real problem here is that it trickles down to the private-sector workforce; lawsuits are won by semi-literate tokens with a meaningless piece of paper who allege they are paid and/or promoted less than real workers with earned degrees/certificates. The only defense for the private sector employers is using additional testing (bar, CPA, and actuarial exams, engineering certification) to further screen employees - and the organizations overseeing them will deal with mounting pressure due to the same unequal results.
Later, when we were interviewing for jobs, he made sure he had a picture of himself on his resume. He had offers from dozens of schools, including some Ivy League schools. He took a job with one of the Florida state universities. When we asked why he turned the other schools down, his answer was" "Come on...a black Ph.D. teaching in the deep South. It doesn't get any better than that." (Personally, I think that was an excuse...I think he knew he'd be out of his league at any of the high-powered schools.) To the FL school's credit, they recognized he knew nothing and was a bad teacher with an even worse attitude and was quickly let go. After a few more teaching attempts, he ended up at the Federal Reserve. My advisor said he asked him to visit and give a lecture to his Money and Backing class and said his grad students "just shredded him".
Quotas and lowering standards helps no one.
Like there is any such thing as black economics.
Why not black physics and black gravity?
Quotas everywhere. I think we need a smaller Fed with less discretion, not a more “diverse” Fed.
...
I agree. Lay off 99% of their economist army and follow a neutral policy (let the market set interest rates), rather than manipulating the economy with a never ending destructive cycle of tight money followed by easy money.
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