Evidence of a toxic environment for women in economics

A pathbreaking new study of online conversations among economists describes and quantifies a workplace culture that appears to amount to outright hostility toward women in parts of the economics profession.

Alice Wu, who will start her doctoral studies at Harvard next year, completed the research in an award-winning senior thesis at UC Berkeley. Her paper has been making the rounds among leading economists this summer and prompting urgent conversations.

David Card, an eminent economist at Berkeley who was Wu’s thesis adviser, said she had produced “a very disturbing report.