✕
RETHINK
ECONOMICS
RETHINK
ECONOMICS
... and receive personalised notifications on
new pluralistic content directly into your inbox!

Economics of Discrimination

Tanita Lewis
Summer Academy 2022 for Pluralist Economics, 2022
Level: beginner
Perspective: Other
Topic: Inequality & Class
Format: Syllabus

This workshop was originally taught at the Summer Academy for Pluralist Economics 2022
Instructor:  Tanita Lewis (SOAS University of London, UK)

Workshop description

In order to address discrimination, we must understand and address its fundamental basis of systemic oppression. Stratification economics goes beyond myopic mainstream conceptualisations of discrimination and recognises the historical, institutional, and structural factors that create and maintain socioeconomic disparities and hierarchies. To critically approach the economics of discrimination, this workshop will focus on stratification economics, a systematic and empirically grounded approach to addressing intergroup inequality (Darity, 2005). Focusing on racial discrimination, we will discuss the core elements of stratification economics, critically evaluate its relevance, and apply these understandings to construct case studies and solutions for change. In our discussions, we will consider an array of topics, including intersecting oppressions, reparative justice, and the role of knowledge production in overcoming injustice and creating a better world.

 

Learning objectives

  • Critically evaluate the economics of discrimination through an anti-oppressive, racial justice-centred lens
  • Understand the core elements, methodologies, and ideological underpinnings of stratification economics
  • Apply these understandings to case studies of oppression and discrimination against people of the global majority


Reading list 

Readings marked with an asterisk * are required for each day’s tasks.

Day 1

Day 2

  • *Darity Jr., W., Hamilton, D., Mason, P.L., Price, G.N., Dávila, A., Mora, M.T. and Stockley, S.K. 2017. Stratification Economics: A General Theory of Intergroup Inequality. The Hidden Rules of Race: Barriers to an Inclusive Economy. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp47-51.
  • *Lewis, T., Asare, N., and Fields, B. 2021. Stratification Economics. Exploring Economics. https://www.exploring-economics.org/en/discover/stratifications-economics/. Section 1-3.
  • Darity Jr., W. 2005. Stratification economics: The role of intergroup inequality. Journal of Economics and Finance. 29(2), pp.144-153.

Day 3

Day 4

  • *Curry, Frank, Gary Dymski, Tanita J. Lewis, and Hanna K. Szymborska. 2022. “Seeing Covid-19 Through a Subprime Crisis Lens: How Structural and Institutional Racism Have Shaped 21st-Century Crises in the U.K. and the U.S.” The Review of Black Political Economy 49(1): pp.77–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/00346446211065174.

Day 5

Download syllabus here

Tags: discrimination | justice | stratification economics
Foundations in Socioeconomics
2020
Level: advanced
Foundations in Socioeconomics
This course will introduce key concepts, theories and methods from socioeconomics. The first part of the course, will deal with the main economic actors and how their interactions are governed. Markets are seen as sets of social institutions. Institutions shape how consumers, firms and other economic actors behave. While it is difficult to understand how novelty emerges, we can study the conditions that are conducive to innovation. We will review how economic performance, social progress and human wellbeing are measured and what progress has been made. In the second part of the course, we will study a specific macroeconomic model that accounts for biophysical boundaries and inequality.
Prof. Dr. Sigrid Stagl
University of Vienna
Economic crisis and austerity: challenges to gender equality
2015
Level: beginner
Economic crisis and austerity: challenges to gender equality
Departing from an analysis of women's employment and changing gender regimes in the pre crisis period, Jill Rubery illustrates how the crisis affects men's and women's employment differently. Afterwards, she discusses the crisis' impact on gender relations. Based on empirical findings, she shows how men were more affected by the recession and women more by austerity and presents possible explanations. Those are furthermore linked to women's employment decisions and prevalent gender regimes. In particular, Rubery discusses cut backs in public spendings on care, flexibilization and the role of conservative gender ideologies.
Jill Rubery
Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik
The Magic Money Tree: From Modern Monetary Theory to Modern Tax Theory
2019
Level: beginner
The Magic Money Tree: From Modern Monetary Theory to Modern Tax Theory
John Christensen from the Tax Justice Network addresses the Modern Monetary Theory idea that governments don't need tax revenues if they want to spend money. Doing so, he sums up the main points made by MMT proponents and their critics, and shows how MMT can be reconciled with another progressive economic narrative: "Modern Tax Theory". While MMT made valuable contributions to the policy debate on fiscal policy, it misrepresents the importance of taxation as a political matter and as a way to generate public revenues. This is where MMT steps in.
John Christensen
Tax Justice Network
L’économie, c’est du care!
2018
Level: beginner
L’économie, c’est du care!
Ce court-métrage interroge l’état actuel de l’économie avec des petits jeus d’esprit. Et il encourage la réflexion en retraçant la manière dont s’est imposée la conception contemporaine de l’économie.
Author: Ina Praetorius (WiC - Wirtschaft ist Care) Producer: Hans Jörg Fehle Realisator: Sergio Herencias, Andreas Tanner and others
Wirtschaft ist Care

Donate

This project is brought to you by the Network for Pluralist Economics (Netzwerk Plurale Ökonomik e.V.).  It is committed to diversity and independence and is dependent on donations from people like you. Regular or one-off donations would be greatly appreciated.

 

Donate