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Gary Becker Biography

Gary Stanley Becker (/ˈbɛkər/; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist and empiricist. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago. Described as “the most important social scientist in the past 50 years” by The New York Times, Becker was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1992 and received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007. A 2011 survey of economics professors named Becker their favorite living economist over the age of 60, followed by Ken Arrow and Robert Solow.

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Gary Becker Quotes

My work on human capital began with an effort to calculate both private and social rates of return to men, women, blacks, and other groups from investments in different levels of education.

Capital, Effort, Groups, Men, Return

The most fundamental constraint is limited time

Constraints, Fundamental, Fundamentals, Limited, Limited Time, Time

A stronger yuan could lead to greater Chinese asset accumulation in the U. S. and elsewhere.

Accumulation, Assets, Chinese, Greater, Stronger

Different constraints are decisive for different situations, but the most fundamental constraint is limited time.

Constraint, Decisive, Different, Fundamentals, Limited Time, Situations

Still, intuitive assumptions about behavior is only the starting point of systematic analysis, for alone they do not yield many interesting implications.

Analysis, Implications, Interesting, Intuitive, Yield

Even a wizard would have a great deal of difficulty repealing the economic law that higher minimum wages reduce employment. Since politicians are not wizards, they should not try.

Employment, Law, Politicians, Trying, Wages

Fines are preferable to imprisonment and other types of punishment because they are more efficient. With a fine, the punishment to offenders is also revenue to the State.

Efficient, Fine, Philosophy, Political, Punishment, Revenue

Human capital analysis starts with the assumption that individuals decide on their education, training, medical care, and other additions to knowledge and health by weighing the benefits and costs. Benefits include cultural and other non-monetary gains along with improvement in earnings and occupations, while costs usually depend mainly on the foregone value of the time spent on these investments.

Analysis, Foregone, Gains, Spent, Training

I am saying that the economic approach provides a valuable unified framework for understanding all human behaviour

Approach, Behaviour, Economics, Saying, Understanding, Valuable

Why in almost all societies have married women specialized in bearing and rearing children and in certain agricultural activities, whereas married men have done most of the fighting and market work?

Certain, Children, Fighting, Marriage, Married

Along with others, I have tried to pry economists away from narrow assumptions about self interest. Behavior is driven by a much richer set of values and preferences.

Assumption, Assumptions, Behavior, Richer, Self, Values

I was not sympathetic to the assumption that criminals had radically different motivations from everyone else.

Assumption, Criminals, Different, Motivation

The Treatise tries to analyze not only modern Western families, but also those in other cultures and the changes in family structure during the past several centuries.

Cultures, Family, Other Cultures, Past, Tries, Trying

I argued last year on my shared blog that selling the right to immigrate would be the best approach to legal immigration. Among other benefits, the revenue from immigrants' payments could reduce taxes. Paying for the right to immigrate would also negate the argument that immigrants get a free ride when they gain health care and other benefits. Moreover, making immigrants pay would attract the type of immigrants who came much earlier in American history: young men and women who are reasonably skilled and want to make a long-term commitment to the United States.

Approach, Commitment, Long, Right, Shared, Years

Economy is the art of making the most of life.

Art, Economy, Life, Making