Most economists have not yet grappled with the demands of intersectional scholarship, which recognizes the intertwined nature of gender, race, class, caste and other influences on the economic situation of individuals and groups. Among economists, feminist economists may have made the most progress and be best positioned to break further ground, though we can do better and much remains to be done. This article synthesizes the case for intersectional work, reviews the state of the economic literature, describes the contributions of the articles in this special issue of Feminist Economics on "gender, color, caste and class," and sketches directions for the future.Race, Gender, Caste, Class, Intersectionality, Feminist Economics,

Using data from the University of California and results from previously published research on the returns to higher education, this article presents a preliminary evaluation of the impact of ending affirmative action in admissions at a large, publicly funded university. At the undergraduate level, eliminating race as a factor in the admissions process will redistribute African Americans, Mexican Americans, and Native Americans away from the most competitive campuses (UC-Berkeley, UCLA, UC-San Diego) towards the less competitive campuses in the California State University system. This redistribution will lower the returns to schooling for those affected groups and could have a negative impact on the educational environment for all students. Affirmative action will, in the short run, reduce the number of African American, Mexican American, and Native American students admitted and, in the long run, will have an adverse effect on the delivery of legal and health care services to those racial and ethnic groups.

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Feminist economics can provide critical insights into understanding the HIV/AIDS epidemic�-�the disease's progression, its microeconomic and macroeconomic impacts, and the effectiveness of policy interventions. Yet, relatively little work has been or is being done by feminist economists on HIV/AIDS. In this paper, the editors briefly survey the recent social science literature on the gendered nature of the epidemic and identify key constructs of feminist economic theory that might be productively applied to understanding HIV/AIDS. For example, an analysis of safe sex within a game-theoretic bargaining framework would highlight the limitations of prevention efforts that focus on changing individual behavior and underscore the impact of gendered institutions on women's likelihood of infection and access to treatment. A gendered analysis of the microeconomic and macroeconomic impacts of HIV/AIDS would contribute to a fuller understanding of the disease's impact on economic well-being. This paper challenges feminist economists to address these important research questions.HIV/AIDS, care work, macroeconomic models, health economics, JEL Codes: I0, O1,

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