biography
| name: |
Becker, Gary (Stanley)
|
pronunciation:
[beker]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1930– )
|
| biography:
| Economist, born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, USA. One of the sharpest economic minds, he often challenged long-established theories and introduced many original ideas into the economic community with his uncanny ability to apply a single, general economic principle to apparently unconnected factors. Except for 12 years at Columbia University (1957–69), he spent his career at the University of Chicago as an active part of the Chicago School of economics. His doctoral dissertation (1957) presented model evidence of labour discrimination, and also examined wage differentials between black and white workers by squaring it with the competitive model of labour markets. A later analysis examined crime as an occupation chosen for rational reasons with full consideration of the risks and benefits. In the mid-1960s he began to concentrate on his ‘new economics of the family’, and in 1965 explored the division of family labour. His controversial ideas have challenged the singular consumptive nature of the family, and instead view the family as a multi-person production unit, producing ‘joint utility’ from the skills and knowledge of different family members. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1992. |
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