The feminist challenge to neoclassical economics

Abstract

This paper describes a feminist research agenda within economics, how some of the research priorities have been accommodated within neoclassical economics, and how others fundamentally challenge the neoclassical economic paradigm. There are three major challenges to neoclassical economics raised by feminists. First, women are invisible in much economic analysis and this situation needs to be remedied. Second, tests may be affected by educational, social, and economic institutions. We need a feminist model of endogenous preferences and to incorporate the endogeneity of preferences into welfare economic analysis and policy recommendations. Finally, institutional structures matter and deserve careful analysis. (c) 1993 Academic Press, Inc. Copyright 1993 by Oxford University Press.