In January 2009, Anne P. Carter received the Carolyn Shaw Bell Prize from the American Economic Association, in San Francisco. This Prize is awarded by one of the AEA's subcommittees, the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession. The CSWEP was founded in 1971 "to eliminate discrimination against women, and to redress the low representation of women, in the economics profession".
Regarding the status of women in the economics profession, Carter's career is of particular interest. She came into academic world in a highly discriminating time, at the end of the 1940s, and has been representative of changes from the 1970s onwards. While Carter produced outstanding work at the Harvard Economic Research Project (1949-1971) -developing economics of innovation, disaggregated technical change studies and input-output analysis- departments of economics were reluctant in offering teaching opportunities and academic decision-making responsibilities to women. However, from the 1970s onwards, she has taken on a number of key responsibilities in the economics profession, especially at Brandeis University (Mass.) and besides, within input-output circles and professional societies.
For a number of authors who know Carter and her contributions to economics, this Prize was to act as a catalyst in bringing together their works on various issues: i.e. Analysis of Technological Change, History of Recent Economics, Professionalization of Economics, Gender in Economics, etc. The six following papers are the result of our exchanges since Anne P. Carter's award.
Amanar Akhabbar