Nelson is among the founders and the most highly cited scholars in the field of feminist economics.

[6] A follow-up volume, Feminist Economics Today, summarizes the development of the field over the following ten years [7] Nelson is author, co-author, or editor of numerous academic articles and books on both feminist theory and the empirical study of behavior, as well as a co-author of the "in Context" series of economics textbooks.

[8] She argues that the current approach to studying the economy as though it were an asocial machine, using only tools that emphasize 'detachment, mathematical reasoning, formality and abstraction', is narrow and damaging.

[9] She suggests that the metaphor of a "beating heart" would better frame discussions about the economy in terms of values.

Nelson started her career at the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, subsequently became a tenured associate professor at the University of California, Davis, and then moved to the Boston, Massachusetts area, where she was professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston and a senior research fellow with the Global Development and Environment Institute.