Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-10-12)

muchasthreetimes.Byage27,she’d

delivereda TEDtalkonthetopic,con-

sultedforthePresident’sCommission

onAIDS,andbeennamedthe“future

ofeconomics,”alongsideShapiroanda

fewothers,bytheTimes.

Itwasalsoduringtheseyearsthat

Osterhadoneofherbiggestfumbles.

PartofherdissertationchallengedNobel

Prize-winningeconomistAmartyaSen’s

ideathatAsiasufferedfroma 100million

“missingwomen”problemasa resultof

genderdiscriminationandmisogyny.

Oster posited that almost half the prob-

lem could be explained by pregnant

women having hepatitis B, which cor-

related to birthing boys. The Journal of

Political Economy, co-edited at the time

by University of Chicago economist

Steven Levitt, published it in 2005. Levitt

and co-author Stephen Dubner lauded

it in Slate just as they were rocketing to

fame with the release of Freakonomics,

a blockbuster that’s been praised for

bringing economics to the masses and

pannedfordebasingthedisciplinewith

cleverness.Thepaperraisedeyebrows

throughoutthefield:Whodidthisyoung

womanthinkshewas?

Inthiscase,thecriticswereright.The

followingyearresearchersinTaiwan

contradictedherfindingsusinga larger

datasample.Sheendeduptraveling

throughoutChinatocollectbetterdata

andcorrectingherselfina follow-up

paper.When the WallStreetJournal

wrotea featureontheabout-face,she

saidit wastheresponsiblethingtodo.

“Thisis thewayscienceworks,”shesaid.

OsterleftCambridgein 2006 todoa

postdocandteachattheUniversityof

Chicago,whereShapirohadbegunhis

postdoctheyearprior.Thetwomar-

riedthatyear,bondedbya sharedlove

ofefficiencyandstructure.Theyhash

outbigdecisionsmostly overemail

andtrackfamilyto-dosusingproject-

managementsoftware.Uponlearning

shewaspregnant with their second

child, Oster alerted Shapiro via a Google

Calendar invite to the due date. She

became a regular contributor to Slate

and wrote a short-lived advice column

for the Journal, explaining how to apply

concepts such as diminishing marginal

utility and comparative vs. absolute

advantage to child care and marital

chore-splitting.

The idea for Oster’s first book was

born in 2010 during her first preg-

nancy, with daughter Penelope, when

her obstetrician’s dictates about what

to eat and how to sleep felt patronizing

and didn’t come with data. She scoured

the research to weigh risks and benefits

for herself and distilled it into Expecting

Better, triggering the ire of doctors

everywhere. The book has become

a wildsuccess: Itsells morecopies

eachyear thanthelast. YetOster’s

decisiontowritea bookforthemasses—

analyzing and synthesizing other peo-

ple’s research, instead of originating

her own—isn’t necessarily currency in

the world of academia. In 2014 the

OSTER’S TWO KIDS ARE IN

SCHOOL. SHE ARGUES THAT

YOUNGER CHILDREN CAN RETURN

TO THE CLASSROOM EARLIER

THAN OLDER KIDS CAN

Bloomberg Businessweek October 12, 2020

PHOTOGRAPH BY RACHEL HULIN FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK