Beatrice Cherrier

Delighted that this conversation with the brilliant Beatrice Cherrier @Undercoverhist is now posted. Our discussion includes Beatrice's general vision of the history of thought and its role in economics and her work on the status of women in economics. History of economic thought is profoundly underappreciated in economics, and the loss is all the greater given the fact that the field is flourishing thanks to a younger generation of star scholars such as Beatrice. Beatrice has been a pioneer in the study of economics as a research community. As such, her work speaks to questions that are foundational to the history and philosophy of science. For example, Beatrice work is integral to understand how ideas Philip Kitcher's The Advancement of Science apply to economics. Here are some of Beatrice's papers that I have found especially valuable. "Classifying Economics: A History of the JEL Codes," Journal of Economic Literature, 2017. explores how and why these codes have evolved, providing a window into the evolution of economics research. “The Lucky Consistency of Milton Friedman’s Science and Politics, 1933-1963,” in P. Mirowski, T. Stapleford, and R. Van Horn, eds. Building Chicago Economics: New Perspectives on the History of America’s Most Powerful Economic Programme. Cambridge University Press, 2011 is a remarkable paper and gives many insights into how to think about fact/value dichotomy claims. The Friedman that emerges here is neither a scientific saint nor someone immune from effects of his normative commitments on his work as a social scientist. (with Roger Backhouse) “Samuelson, Gender Biases and Discrimination," European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2019. (with Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche and John Singleton) “Economics Is Not a Man's Field”: CSWEP and the First Gender Reckoning in Economics, 1971–1991, History of Political Economy, 2025 are invaluable in understanding how the economics profession has treated and addressed the treatment of women, with messages for contemporary problems. "The Price of Virtue: Some Hypotheses on How Tractability Has Shaped Economic Models," Oeconomica, forthcoming is terrific discussion of how this methodological commitment has shaped research.