Gender Concerns When Noah the Economist Ranks Biodiversity Protection Policies

Abstract

Because the funds to protect biodiversity are very limited, biodiversity protection policies are prioritized using the Noah’s Ark perspective. I discuss how gender affects Noah’s assessment of key elements of his ranking: Discounting, changes in total economic value, marginal costs, changes in ecological value, and the probability of policy success. This incremental approach makes visible the breadth of the mechanisms by which gender differentiated social constructs interact to affect Noah in a richly complex manner.