EconomistMom.com

My daughter, Emily, has been accepted into Sarah Lawrence College with a very nice merit scholarship of theirs–their “Presidential Scholarship.” We are headed up there today to check out the campus and the people. I am also going up there with a mission of getting us some need-based aid, because even a scholarship that would cover all the costs at an in-state, public university doesn’t even cover half of the costs of a Sarah Lawrence education. And yes, I really am “needy” now–having been through a divorce that has taken two years and depleted my entire retirement savings with the legal and medical (therapy) bills alone.

But back to the positive focus. My older daughter, Allie, is finishing her first year at Princeton, so my two older daughters’ college paths are likely to be as different as they are from each other. (Look them up in the U.S. News rankings and you’ll see part of what I mean–but don’t jump to simplistic conclusions just yet.)  It’s really wonderful that there are places seemingly “just right” for each of them. I recently wrote a column for the Christian Science Monitor related to these different types of students and the different kind of “human capital accumulation” that best brings out their talents–and how broad the definition of what makes us “valuable humans” really is. I’ll write more on this in a week or so, when I can share my CSM column and more on the David Brooks book that inspired it (as well as my kids who inspired it).

A friend of mine sent me a link to Matthew Kahn’s latest guest blog post on the Christian Science Monitor website; she sent it along with an “I believe in you” sort of note, because as Matthew was implicitly pointing out, I am not on the list of top economists to which he refers–while he is (as he explicitly points out).  He ponders (emphasis added):

REPEC provides an objective measure of who is “Royalty” in the economics profession. The current list of the top 5% is here. I am ranked #681 out of 27,365 economists so that’s not bad (and my 3 books aren’t counted here). But, here is the interesting part. There are 52 women who rank in the top 1000 and 0 of them blog. Contrast that with the men. Consider the top 100 men. In this elite subset; at least 8 of them blog. Consider the men ranked between 101 and 200. At least, six of them blog. So, this isn’t very scientific but we see a 7% participation rate for excellent male economists and a 0% participation rate for excellent women. This differential looks statistically significant to me. I have searched for Nancy Folbre among the top 1369 economists (the 5% cutoff) and she is not counted in the elite subset.

Not being a female economist himself, Matthew then theorizes–as men love to do–about why we women aren’t as able to be both “excellent” economists and blogging economists.

I find it ironic that Matthew’s blog post would appear on the Christian Science Monitor site in the same area that my guest blog posts do, and that the photo that goes with the CSM post is of…an Asian woman!  (Ok, a much younger Asian woman, but Asian nonetheless.)  Huh!  There’s a female economist blogger blogging right “next” to Matthew, right under his nose!

Oh, but I’m not an “excellent” female economist.

I think we female economists have our own empirical (not just theoretical) reasons why those of us who blog aren’t the same people as those of us who are at the top of the REPEC list.  In my case, it’s also closely related to why those of us (even non-excellent female economists) who blog don’t typically blog at the same frequency as the (even most excellent) male economists who blog.  It’s called we have and care about other things and people in our lives, not just our own individual, introspective views about how the supposed world around us supposedly works (in our own opinion)!  And that’s even things and people other than what Matthew counts so endearingly as the “home production” sort of things–you know, “cooking and rearing children.”

But yes, we female economists who happen to have families do typically end up doing most of the home production, as our typical husbands who are typically other economists typically are oblivious to what needs to get done.  You know, because the guys are so busy thinking their own deep, important thoughts about how the world swirling around them works, while in theory the guys are convincing themselves that they are the better, more successful, more “excellent” economists (or whatever they are professionally which they confuse with what defines them personally).

Which is why it should not be too hugely shocking that this particular non-excellent female economist who used to be married to an “excellent” male economist (top 5%, like Matthew!), is no longer married to that economist.

Objective, standardized statistics don’t always very accurately or comprehensively measure the quality (or “human capital”) of an economist–or a college applicant, or an economy as a whole, for that matter.  (I am working on a new column on this point for the Christian Science Monitor right now, actually.)  It’s actually part of a broader question and answer about why there aren’t more women in economics more generally (leaving aside whether they blog or not), or in other very quantitative fields for that matter.  It’s not just because we’re worse at math, by the way, because we’re not.  (Let me mention that my oldest daughter, now at Princeton, got a perfect math SAT score.)  It could be because we women often find disciplines that assume everything can be objectively, precisely, formulaically valued, very limiting at best and maybe downright wrong at worst.

And as to why this particular non-excellent female economist blogs, I’ve written about that before in a newsletter of the American Economic Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP).  But perhaps this very blog post might make for more entertaining reading for CSWEP members than that column did. 

To all you other “non-excellent” female economist bloggers, let me hear from you here!  Are we really not as “excellent” as our male counterparts?  Really?!

Today is Alice Rivlin’s 80th birthday!  Alice has been my role model for as long as I’ve been an economist (nearly 30 years if you define my “birth” in that role as when I graduated with my undergrad econ college degree), which is nearly a decade or so longer than I’ve been a mom (my oldest child turns 20 this year).

Alice is a great role model as both economist and mom.  It turns out our birthdays are just two days apart (I turned 49 on March 2nd, which by the way is exactly the day Jon Bon Jovi–another kind of kindred spirit you might say–also turned 49), that Alice’s dad was an scientist and professor like mine, that she grew up in the Midwest, that she’s had a lot of very important economic policy jobs in DC at places I have worked at and still hope to work at (and maybe even rise to) someday, and that she managed all her professional success while raising three kids (two sons and one daughter, which I think is probably energy-equivalent to my three daughters and one son).

What I only learned yesterday when I was looking for Alice’s specific birthdate and came across this more detailed bio about Alice’s personal life was that Alice, just like me, also went through a divorce after a marriage of 22 years which produced several kids.  I have turned to Alice in the past for her advice on my professional path, knowing she had already traveled a similar path with incredible success.  But it seems there might be much more of her wisdom about life in general that I could tap into.

Oh, and we’re both kind of short.  (She “exceeds” me in this respect, too, though.) 

Anyway, when I started this blog nearly three years ago, I thanked Alice for being a great role model and mentor, pointing out that long before I became an economist and a mom and the penned “Economist Mom,” Alice had been the kind of “Economist Mom” I only aspire to be.  The genuine, original Economist Mom.  I’m just a cheap copy.

So Happy Birthday, Alice!  Here’s to the Original Economist Mom. Today in particular I celebrate your life and all your achievements, but you continue to inspire me in so many ways everyday–and not as much for all you’ve accomplished as for who you are.

UPDATE 3/7:  Here’s a photo of the original and copycat Economist Moms from Alice’s birthday party this past weekend:

On Tuesday I am part of panel for the Urban Institute’s “First Tuesdays” event, “What Policymakers, The Public, The Press, and Parents Need to Know About Economics…In 90 Minutes or Less.” I’m pretty sure I’m unofficially responsible for the “Parents” part of the billing.  My official assignment is the part about “the bottom line on how government uses your dollars.”  I’m planning on bringing out my usual EconomistMom analogies between the federal budget and a family budget.  Hope you’ll “tune in” for the live webcast, accessible via the link on the event page.

I’m happy I’ll be speaking alongside my friends Donald Marron and Gene Steuerle as Bob Reischauer plays “Oprah,” and I’m also looking forward to meeting the Economist magazine’s Greg Ip.

I’m over Missouri now, about to fly into Kansas, on my way to Los Angeles for this Tax Policy Center-Loyola Law School conference on tax expenditures tomorrow.  (I’m flanked by daughters #2 and 3, flying on my favorite way to travel to the west coast:  Virgin America–which I’ve blogged from before, albeit a couple thousand feet lower.)

Here are my presentation slides I’ll be speaking from tomorrow.  I’ll report on the rest of the conference later this weekend.  My daughters and I will be taking a little detour to San Francisco, just for fun, before we head back home.

My dog, Taco, a (speculated) chihuahua-dachshund-miniature pinscher mix dog I adopted in the fall of 2009 (as an estimated 8-month-old pup), came violently ill late last week from something that was delicious to him but ended up effectively “poisoning” him.  (The circumstances under which he got himself into that situation were beyond my control and will not be elaborated on here.)  I rushed him to the emergency vet late Friday night after he had very uncharacteristically refused food for over a day and couldn’t even hold down any water.

The emergency facility I took him to was incredible.  State-of-the-art technology, the best of trained veterinarians–and even a coffee bar in the waiting room(!).  Taco stayed overnight hooked up on IVs to rehydrate and medicate him, and was subjected to a battery of tests to rule out more serious conditions.  I received regular, comprehensive updates over the phone and also by email.  By Saturday afternoon, I was able to visit him (that’s when the photo above was taken), and by Saturday night–a bit less than 24 hours after his admission–he was able to come home with me.

The bill was a real shocker for me.  Nearly exactly equivalent to one month’s rent (which in the DC area isn’t very cheap).  And I don’t carry “pet health insurance.”  Was it worth it?  Of course.

I’ve explained how the health care market when it comes to demand for the care of one’s loved ones does not exactly follow economic theory, where one is supposed to compare marginal benefits with marginal cost.  In the case of health care for our loved ones, we ask what is the marginal cost?  And then, can I come up with that money?  I suppose that implicitly, we are saying the marginal benefits to us are infinite or at least priceless.

And as long as there are rich enough people around who willingly pay for these health services–even pet health services–out of their own pockets, then reforming health care even in the most efficient ways will not necessarily reduce overall health care costs as much as we might hope.  Health care is not like any other market.  There will always be a ton of demand for health care even when the out-of-pocket prices aren’t held artificially low by subsidized health insurance.

Even defense spending, even tax expenditures.  I did this opening segment of Tuesday’s PBS Newshour broadcast, with my 12-year-old son Johnny watching me in the makeup room and from the “green room”–which made it all the more special.  One of my standard favorite lines I didn’t get to squeeze in about the politicians’ take on fiscal responsibility and reducing the deficit:  “It seems like a good idea…until you get right down to it”–i.e., it’s always easier in abstract theory than in specific practice.

As both Jim Horney (of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities) and I emphasize in the interview, everything should be on the budget-cuts table, and in fact, many in Congress like to use that line.  But then you listen more carefully and you find Republicans taking revenue increases and defense/national security cuts off the table, and Democrats taking most other types of spending off the table (whether for short-term or longer-term reasons), and you soon realize that what’s really left on the “bipartisan deficit-reduction table”–at least within the current Congress–is really close to nothing.  And that’s a huge problem: the contrast between what non-politician budget experts from both the left and the right agree on, and what Congress can’t agree on.

Don’t worry, I’m still here– still trying to keep up with the developments on the tax cut deal (and still have my opinions about it all)…. BUT preoccupied with my daughter Grace’s “Nutcracker week” (coming to a close this weekend) and about to leave for far, far away for a few days, very likely with no opportunity to blog.

Will be back next week sometime.  In the meantime, keep up with some of my fiscal policy musings on Concord’s website.

OK.  I feel that I’ve got to use my “comparative advantage” to say something “economic” about something most economists can’t speak from personal experience on:  breast pumps.

I read this story in yesterday’s New York Times (coincidentally on my train ride up to New York) and was amused.  The story explains that the cost of breast-feeding equipment is not considered a tax-deductible medical expense, even under the new health reform law, and complains this doesn’t seem right given that:

Denture wearers will get a tax break on the cost of adhesives to keep their false teeth in place. So will acne sufferers who buy pimple creams.

People whose children have severe allergies might even be allowed the break for replacing grass with artificial turf since it could be considered a medical expense.

But nursing mothers will not be allowed to use their tax-sheltered health care accounts to pay for breast pumps and other supplies.

I happen to agree with breast-feeding advocates that breast feeding is a good practice, with psychological and physical health benefits to both mom and baby that extend for years.  I happen to have breast fed all of my own (four) babies (not all at once of course), and I am one of those working moms who needed a good breast pump to use when I returned to work and decided it was worth paying a lot of money for this good “investment.”  (Here’s the equivalent newest version of the one I had, which I recall seemed a lot more expensive 15-20 years ago, but maybe that’s because my real and not just nominal income has increased.  I don’t think technology advances have had the same effect on breast pump prices as on flat-panel TVs…)

But a breast pump is not a health-related expense, as it’s not necessary in order to treat a medical condition or ailment.  It’s a work-related expense that happens to promote or be consistent with a healthy activity.  For the vast majority of women without severe obstacles to breast feeding the natural way (direct from the source!), breast pumps are not necessary in order to breast feed one’s baby unless and until mom goes back to the office and can’t have baby with her.

Given that this is mostly a work-related expense, it’s more consistent with expenses such as transportation and parking expenses, which employers often pay a portion of and which receive “preferences” under the federal income tax (nearly $500/month can be excluded from taxable income).  Or child care expenses which also receive generous tax treatment on the grounds that they are work-related expenses.  If breast-feeding, working-mom advocacy groups want to argue for a tax preference for breast-feeding equipment, I think they ought to argue it on gender-equity grounds as a cost of earning income that disproportionately burdens working women (moms with the breasts, duh!) more than working men.

If breast pumps were to be given tax-preferred treatment as a health-care expense just because it’s a piece of equipment that makes it easier to engage in a healthy activity, I’d say it would be hard to draw the line.  That would be equivalent to not just allowing the cost of (health-enhancing) yoga classes to be deductible as a health-related expense from taxable income, but allowing the cost of one’s yoga mat, props, and maybe even cute yoga clothes to receive tax exemption, too.

More than two years ago I blogged about a major infrastructure project I witnessed in its early stages while I was vacationing–the Hoover Dam bypass project.  Well, the project has just been completed, as I learned this weekend from the cover story in Parade Magazine.  Impressive story about its design and construction, and great photos–so check it out.

At the same time more than two years ago I likened my family to a major infrastructure project, as my husband and I were celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary during that family vacation.  Well, just as one of these “major infrastructure projects” has been completed, the other is nearly finally dismantled.  I guess this is sort of my “coming out” as “Divorced Economist Mom.”  (At least a little more to come in the coming weeks and months, but that’s enough said for now.)