Alison L. Booth is an Australian
labour economist and
novelist
A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...
who is professor of economics at the
Australian National University
The Australian National University (ANU) is a public research university located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and ...
. She is the author of six novels. These are ''Stillwater Creek'' (2010), ''The Indigo Sky'' (2011), ''A Distant Land'' (2012), ''A Perfect Marriage'' (2018), ''The Philosopher's Daughters'' (2020) and ''The Painting'' (2021).
Early life and education
Booth was born in
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
and grew up in
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
. Her father, Norman Booth, wrote an Australian war novel called ''Up The Dusty Track''.
Booth has both a Masters of Economics and a PhD from the
London School of Economics
, mottoeng = To understand the causes of things
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £240.8 million (2021)
, budget = £391.1 millio ...
. Her dissertation under
Tony Atkinson was on the
microeconomic
Microeconomics is a branch of mainstream economics that studies the behavior of individuals and firms in making decisions regarding the allocation of scarce resources and the interactions among these individuals and firms. Microeconomics fo ...
behaviour of trade unions and membership.
Career
Booth's research interests cover labour economics, behavioural economics, and the economics of gender. She lectured at the
University of Bristol
, mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'')
, established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter
, type ...
in the 1980s and was Professor of Economics the
University of Essex from 1995 to 2013.
She was editor-in-chief of ''
Labour Economics'' from 1999 to 2004 and President of the European Association of Labour Economists from 2006 to 2008. In 2017, Booth received the Distinguished Fellow Award of the Economic Society of Australia, and in 2019 she was elected as fellow of the Econometric Society. She has also spent time on the Council of the European Society of Population Economists. She has worked in the areas of
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
and
discrimination
Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...
in the labour force.
Her research found that girls at
single-sex schools
Single-sex education, also known as single-gender education and gender-isolated education, is the practice of conducting education with male and female students attending separate classes, perhaps in separate buildings or schools. The practice of ...
are less
risk averse
In economics and finance, risk aversion is the tendency of people to prefer outcomes with low uncertainty to those outcomes with high uncertainty, even if the average outcome of the latter is equal to or higher in monetary value than the more c ...
than those at
co-ed schools, perhaps due to the absence of "culturally driven norms and beliefs about the appropriate mode of female behaviour" and that women take more career risks when they are supported by other women. Her research has also investigated how competitive behaviour in China was affected by the Cultural Revolution and she has used field data to study the impact of culture on male and female competitive behaviour in Japan and in South Korea. Booth has also called for
blind recruiting due to her research into discrimination in callback rates for applicants with non-Anglo-Saxon sounding names.
Fiction
Booth has also published short stories and six novels.
[
The first book in Booth's trilogy, ''Stillwater Creek'' (2010), "captures a particular time in Australian history – memories of the war are still relatively fresh, communism is the new fear, and social mores are still very conservative".] In an interview, Booth said about the town of Jingera, "I like to think of tas... a stage on which a few actors play out the universal stories. Translated into French (''Les Rivages du Souvenir'') by Helene Collon for publication by Presses de la Cite in 2011, the novel was Highly Commended in the 2011 ACT Book of the Year Award, and was published as a Select Edition in 2011 by Reader's Digest in Australasia and in the UK.
Booth's second novel, ''The Indigo Sky'' (2011), is set in late 1961. Booth "uses Jingera as a microcosm for the social and political issues faced by post-war Australia. he.. weaves the gritty issues of paedophilia, racism and postwar trauma into her first book, and the removal of Aboriginal children and bullying into her second book, but manages to maintain a light and hopeful tone". The final book in the trilogy, ''A Distant Land'' (2012), is set in Jingera, Sydney and Cambodia in 1971. It focuses on "Human rights, civil liberties and war".
Booth's fourth novel, ''A Perfect Marriage'' (2018), is a "cleverly structured" story of middle-class "domestic violence" and its long term effects.
The fifth novel, ''The Philosopher's Daughters,'' was published in the UK on 2 April 2020. The novel explores race and gender in 19th-century Australia, and has been described as "wonderfully evocative".
Booth's sixth novel, ''The Painting,'' was published in the UK in July 2021. It "deftly explores the migration experience", and its author is described as "an elegant writer who excels at inhabiting the intellectual headspace of her characters".
Personal life
Booth is married and has two daughters.[
]
Select bibliography
Books
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Articles
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*Booth, Alison; Fan, Elliott; Zhang, Dandan; Xin, Meng (2019). "Gender Differences in Willingness to Compete: The Role of Culture and Institutions". ''The Economic Journal'', 129: 734–764, https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12583
Novels
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*Booth, Alison (2020). ''The Philosopher's Daughters.'' ''RedDoor Press. ''
*Booth, Alison (2021). ''The Painting.'' RedDoor Press. ISBN 9781913062651.
References
External links
ANU Profile
Website
*http://legacy/iza.org/en/webcontent/personnel/vitae/booth.cv.pdf
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Booth, Alison
Living people
Australian women novelists
21st-century Australian novelists
21st-century Australian women writers
Australian women economists
Academic staff of the Australian National University
Alumni of the London School of Economics
Education economists
Labor economists
Year of birth missing (living people)
Australian expatriates in England
Writers from Sydney
Writers from Melbourne
Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
Fellows of the Econometric Society