Christina Romer | Women in Economics

The fourth episode of our Women In Economics series is on Christina Romer, macroeconomic historian and former chair of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Great Recession.

Christina began her career at William & Mary and fell in love with economics, so much so that she changed her career path from law to econ. Her research since has fundamentally changed the way we think about the Great Depression and business cycles.

Because of her groundbreaking work, she was tapped by President Obama in 2008 to chair the Council of Economic Advisers and help lead the country through the Great Recession.

Learn more about Christina Romer: https://mru.io/tem

More Women in Econ: https://mru.io/pl9

***INSTRUCTOR RESOURCES***

High school teacher resources: https://mru.io/d4t
Professor resources: https://mru.io/ame
EconInbox: https://mru.io/jre

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- [Christina] The most important thing
that I try to pass on

is the sense that economics
is an empirical field,

then if you get
new empirical evidence,

you're going to have
to change the way

you think about the economy.

I think being open to that

is the most important thing
for a young economist to know.

Economists -- not a group
with a lot of Marys, Natashas or Juanitas,

and that's caused a lot of controversy.

However, what's often overlooked
are the actual female economists

who are pushing economics forward

by addressing real-world issues.

Welcome to Women in Economics.

♪ [music] ♪

I grew up in a family

where public policy
was discussed a lot.

I was planning to be a lawyer,

so I was going to major
in Government.

And as part of the Government
major at my college,

you had to take
a year of Economics.

I was about three weeks in,
and I was hooked,

like the government major's gone,
the lawyer's gone,

I was in an Economist.

Christina Romer
is a macro economic historian.

She takes the tools
of modern economics,

statistics, and data

and applies them
to historical questions.

Christie's researcher agenda
throughout her career

has focused on a course set of topics

about economic fluctuations
and business cycles.