PAPERS by Camila Orozco Espinel
History of Political Economy, 2022
Feminist Economics was produced by the deployment of relatively diverse research under a single a... more Feminist Economics was produced by the deployment of relatively diverse research under a single academic label. This article offers a global picture of the first years of feminist economics. Focusing on the heterogeneity of the approaches that coexist in the field -and the porosity among them-, the article proposes an answer to the question: how does feminist economics persist as an approach and a community even though both are quite diverse? The three tensions studied were: the tension between URPE’s Women’s Caucus and CSWEP and the role played by the sessions organized during the ASSA conferences; the tension between the different methodologies used by feminist economists; and the tension surrounding the place of feminist economics in the discipline. We identified different elements to understand how feminist economists coexist under the same umbrella. Feminist economists’ common frustration about economics’ resistance to including feminist perspectives is central. The main sources for this paper are seventeen semi-structured interviews we conducted between 2019-2020 aiming to collect the oral histories of selected feminist economist closely related to the beginning of the institutionalization process of the field.
History of Political Economy, 2022
This article explores the trajectories of the first Colombian women economists. It sheds light on... more This article explores the trajectories of the first Colombian women economists. It sheds light on how differences between women and men’s experiences structured the process of becoming and working as economists and more generally the professional development of economics in the country. The paper focuses on the trajectories of five women who graduated between the 1950s and the early 1970s and who had exceptionally successful careers. It shows how the late professionalization of economics in Colombia and access to international credentials created specific opportunities and challenges for women economists. During their professional trajectory, the group of women that constitute the focus group of this article resorted to a mix of professional strategies, which included mobilizing resources by securing the support of male figures, such as fathers and mentors; striking a balance between showing an intrepid character and developing a sense of pragmatism; and delegating part of the care and domestic tasks that were expected from them as wives and mothers to other women less endowed with economic, social and academic capital.
Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2022
Milton Friedman is is usually presented as an economist characterized by his empirical approach t... more Milton Friedman is is usually presented as an economist characterized by his empirical approach to economics. His binary classification of economics into positive means and normative ends relies on the empirical content of predictions. Throughout his career, he used extensive, data-based statistical techniques. While important scholarly attention has been devoted to Friedman's academic and political trajectories, his methodological prescriptions, and the development of economics at the University of Chicago, we know much less about the interplay of these elements. This paper proposes an intertwined reading of them. My aim is threefold. First, to understand Friedman's work and methodological choices, I relate his empirical approach to his early training in statistics. Second, I articulate Friedman's understanding of economics as an empirical policy science in the process of building the image of economists as neutral advisers in the policy-making process. Third, I claim that Friedman's empirical methodological framework, developed while he was in the Economics Department of the University of Chicago, established the guidelines for an institutional long-term project that shaped it.
Revue d‘histoire des sciences humaines, 2017
Through the constitution of membership criteria to the discipline, this arti- cle studies the que... more Through the constitution of membership criteria to the discipline, this arti- cle studies the question of “making science” in economics. The article reconstructs a sequence during which the constitution of membership criteria and homogenization of the disciplinary corpus were crystallized: the standardization of PhD program. Based on an analysis of the Bowen Report, the paper focuses on the role of the American Economic Association in this process and analyzes the challenges associated with heterogeneity and lack of certification for a discipline going through a professionalization process and claim- ing the authority of science. Contemporary economists often claim the exceptionality of their discipline within the human and social sciences by highlighting its consensual char- acter. The article shows that constitution of membership criteria and the homogenization of the disciplinary corpus are essential to create the conditions for a consensus to settle.
WORKING PAPERS by Camila Orozco Espinel
Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University Working Paper Series, No. 2020-11, 2020
Before the use of mathematics in economics was generalized, mathematical and nonmathematically tr... more Before the use of mathematics in economics was generalized, mathematical and nonmathematically trained economist lived together. This paper studies this period of cohabitation. By focusing on the communication challenges between these two groups during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, a watershed moment, this paper analyzes the entrance of mathematics into economists’ training. The paper explores the development of teaching materials specific for the mathematical training of social scientists, the entrance of mathematics to the economics curriculum, and the role of the Social Science Research Council in this delivered process. All these elements are integral to understand how the mathematical methods and tools introduced by a small group of economists during the mid-twentieth century came to be adopted by the entire discipline within a couple of decades and thus effected a permanent transformation of economics.
Center for the History of Political Economy Working Papers, 2019
Center for the History of Political Economy Working Paper, 2019
The economics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides a field well befit... more The economics Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides a field well befitting to study the translation in the discipline of economics of “fundamental research” into “tools”. Certainty, MIT was not the only bridge in economics connecting the academic and the practical arenas. Nevertheless, at MIT the connection was accomplish throughout a particular conception of science as a technical form of knowledge. Concretely, at MIT the translation was operationalized through the use of mathematical, yet simple, models that aimed first to understand a few aspects of a situation, and then to be applied to a wide range of issues. Although Samuelson’s and Solow’s approaches to modeling were different, their work put forward the guidelines and incarnates MIT’s way of translating “fundamental research” into “tools”. This paper analyses how in the context of an engineering school closed related to the war and postwar political and military powers, MIT economists advanced the frontier of the discipline into the practical arena.
DISSERTATION by Camila Orozco Espinel
Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics, 2019
This research studies how economists in the United States established the scientific authority of... more This research studies how economists in the United States established the scientific authority of their discipline during the period around World War II. Concretely, our analysis shows how the economists’ quest for the authority of science shaped a new body of ideas and concepts, control instruments and computational procedures which defined the very essence of economics. Simultaneously these developments brought material and symbolic benefits to the discipline, inside and outside academia. By establishing itself as a type of knowledge which is at once abstract, technical and empirical, Economics consolidated as a discipline capable of producing universal knowledge, articulating the academic world and the practical sphere and establishing its qualifications as an applied domain for policy-making. Our analysis focuses on three top institutions in the US academic world: the Cowles Commission, the Economics Department of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago. By studying the standardization of the PhD program in Economics, this research also studies the process of reaching a consensus within the discipline as link to the quest for the special status of “science”. Rooted in the social history of science, this study contributes to the analysis of standards which influence today’s research, teaching and professional activity of economists.
BOOK CHAPTERS by Camila Orozco Espinel
Handbook of the History of Women’s Economic Thought, 2018
This chapter takes the first steps toward identifying the women associated directly or indirectly... more This chapter takes the first steps toward identifying the women associated directly or indirectly with the CEPAL. The idea is to contribute to rendering their names and work visible beyond their location and fields of work. To the best of our knowledge, there is no register or list of the women who have been professionally or academically connected to the Commission. Our purpose, therefore, is to highlight the importance of their contribution to the CEPAL’s research and operational activities and hence to Latin American intellectual, social, and eco- nomic life. Our aim is twofold. First, by using the CEPAL’s Digital Repository, we will present the academic and professional background of the ten most prolific women who have published
SPECIAL ISSUE PRESENTATIONS by Camila Orozco Espinel
Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, 2017
La question « [X] est-elle une science ? », où [X] renvoie à un domaine de connaissances savantes... more La question « [X] est-elle une science ? », où [X] renvoie à un domaine de connaissances savantes, jalonne l'histoire sinueuse de la classification des disciplines. De nos jours, cette interrogation est régulièrement appliquée aux sciences humaines et sociales : à titre d'exemple, les suggestions automatiques à la requête « est-elle une science » sur le moteur de recherche Google associent premièrement cette forme interrogative aux disciplines de l'histoire, de l'économie, de la philosophie et de la sociologie. Symétriquement, il semblerait qu'un trait important de la définition contemporaine des catégories « sciences sociales » et « sciences humaines » soit l'incertitude quant à leur scientificité : selon le même principe, les premières suggestions à la requête « les sciences sociales sont » proposent « les sciences sociales sont-elles des sciences » ou « les sciences sociales sont-elles des sciences comme les autres ». Nous ne cherchons pas dans ce dossier à entrer dans les considérations nécessaire-ment normatives sur ce qui serait ou ne serait pas scientifique, et conjointement sur ce que seraient ou ne seraient pas les sciences humaines et sociales. Ce dossier propose plutôt, suivant la perspective de la Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines, de contribuer à l’étude des usages de l’argument de la scientificité au sein de disciplines traditionnellement affiliées à la catégorie des sciences humaines et sociales.
BOOK REVIEWS by Camila Orozco Espinel
Journal of Economic Methodology, 2015
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PAPERS by Camila Orozco Espinel
WORKING PAPERS by Camila Orozco Espinel
DISSERTATION by Camila Orozco Espinel
BOOK CHAPTERS by Camila Orozco Espinel
SPECIAL ISSUE PRESENTATIONS by Camila Orozco Espinel
BOOK REVIEWS by Camila Orozco Espinel