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60-674: Gary Stanley Becker ( / ˈ b ɛ k ər / ; December 2, 1930 – May 3, 2014) was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences . He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago , and was a leader of the third generation of the Chicago school of economics . Becker was awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1992 and received

120-779: A Fellow of the American Statistical Association . Becker was a founding partner of TGG Group , a business and philanthropy consulting company. Becker won the John Bates Clark Medal in 1967. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1972, a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1975, and a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1986. Becker

180-543: A PhD from the University of Chicago in 1955 with a thesis entitled The Economics of Discrimination . At Chicago, Becker was influenced by Milton Friedman , whom Becker called "by far the greatest living teacher I have ever had". Becker credits Friedman's course on microeconomics for helping to renew his interest in economics. Becker also noted that during his time at Chicago, there were several other economists that greatly influenced his future work, namely Gregg Lewis , T. W. Schultz , Aaron Director , and L. J. Savage . For

240-573: A historian of the Middle East whose research interests overlapped his own. In 2014 Becker died in Chicago , Illinois , aged 83. The same year, he was honored in a three-day conference organized at the University of Chicago. Becker's work has been influential not only in economics but also other disciplines including sociology and demography. His most famous work is Human Capital , and he wrote on sociological topics as diverse as marriage,

300-687: A dinner at the Supreme Court of the United States , which four of the justices attended. Newly inducted academy members who spoke at the meeting included then- United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Nobel laureates Roger Tsien and Adam Riess . In 2012, Ray Dalio received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Carlyle Group co-founder David Rubenstein , during

360-455: A family. Some specific family issues covered during this time were marriage, divorce, altruism toward other members of the family, investments by parents in their children, and long-term changes in what families do. All of Becker's research on the family resulted in A Treatise on the Family (1981). Throughout the decade, he contributed new ideas and information, and in 1991 an expanded edition of

420-541: A few years, Becker worked as an assistant professor at Chicago and conducted research there. Before turning 30, he moved to teach at Columbia University in 1957 while also conducting research at the National Bureau of Economic Research . In 1970 Becker returned to the University of Chicago, and in 1983 was offered a joint appointment by the Sociology Department of Chicago. In 1965 he was elected as

480-545: A monthly column for Business Week from 1985 to 2004, alternating with liberal Princeton economist Alan Blinder . In 1996 Becker was a senior adviser to Republican presidential candidate Robert Dole . In December 2004, Becker started a joint weblog with Judge Richard Posner entitled The Becker-Posner Blog . Becker's first wife was Doria Slote. They were married from 1954 until her death in 1970. The marriage produced two daughters, Catherine Becker and Judy Becker . About ten years later, in 1980 Becker married Guity Nashat ,

540-782: A national board of governors, but subsequent honorees have been selected by the Golden Plate Awards Council, which consists of Academy awardees. At the 13th annual summit, held in June 1974 in Salt Lake City , Academy member Leon Jaworski , the Special Prosecutor overseeing the Watergate investigations at the time, said in his keynote address that he expected to win a Supreme Court case to get subpoenaed tapes from President Richard Nixon . Among

600-421: A public policy perspective, since the cost of increasing a fine is trivial in comparison to the cost of increasing surveillance, one can conclude that the best policy is to maximize the fine and minimize surveillance. In his 1964 book Human capital theories Becker introduced the economic concept of human capital . This book is now a classic in economy research and Becker went on to become a defining proponent of

660-485: A subfield of family economics . In 2013, responding to a lack of women in top positions in the United States, Becker told the Wall Street Journal reporter David Wessel , "A lot of barriers [to women and blacks] have been broken down. That's all for the good. It's much less clear what we see today is the result of such artificial barriers. Going home to take care of the kids when the man doesn't: Is that

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720-460: A waste of a woman's time? There's no evidence that it is." This view was criticized by Charles Jones , stating that, "Productivity could be 9 percent to 15 percent higher, potentially, if all barriers were eliminated." In the mid-1960s Becker and Kelvin Lancaster developed the economic concept of a household production function. Both assumed that consumers in a household receive utility from

780-402: A well-meaning objective. Becker also theorized that a child in a US family may be perfectly selfish because it maximizes its own utility. There have been attempts to test this economic thesis, in the course of which it was found that cross-generational families do not necessarily maximize their joint income. A 2007 article by Gary Becker and Julio Jorge Elias entitled "Introducing Incentives in

840-528: Is properly defined and measured, that is). He was also among the foremost exponents of the study of human capital . According to Milton Friedman , he was "the greatest social scientist who has lived and worked" in the second part of the twentieth century. Becker was born to a Jewish family in Pottsville, Pennsylvania . He received a BA from Princeton University in 1951, completing a senior thesis titled "The Theory of Multi-Country Trade". He then earned

900-511: The Financial Times , both the former Swedish minister for finance , Kjell-Olof Feldt , and the former Swedish minister for commerce, Gunnar Myrdal , wanted the prize abolished, with "Myrdal rather less graciously want[ing] the prize abolished because it had been given to such reactionaries as Hayek (and afterwards Milton Friedman )." Relatedly, it has been noted that several members of the awarding committee have been affiliated with

960-477: The Academy of Achievement , is a nonprofit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest-achieving people in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet one another. The academy also brings together the leaders with promising graduate students for mentorship . It hosts an International Achievement Summit, which ends with an awards ceremony, during which new members are inducted into

1020-548: The Chicago school of economics . The book was republished in 1975 and 1993. Becker considered labor economics to be part of capital theory. He mused that "economists and plan-makers have fully agreed with the concept of investing on human beings". Together, Becker and Jacob Mincer founded Modern Household Economics, sometimes called the New Home Economics (NHE), in the 1960s at the labor workshop at Columbia University that they both directed. Shoshana Grossbard , who

1080-546: The Mont Pelerin Society . Milton Friedman was awarded the 1976 prize in part for his work on monetarism . Awarding the prize to Friedman caused international protests. Friedman was accused of supporting the military dictatorship in Chile because of the relation of economists of the University of Chicago to Pinochet , and a controversial six-day trip he took to Chile during March 1975 (less than two years after

1140-546: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences . It was first awarded in 1969 to Dutch economist Jan Tinbergen and Norwegian economist Ragnar Frisch "for having developed and applied dynamic models for the analysis of economic processes". An endowment "in perpetuity" from Sveriges Riksbank pays the Nobel Foundation's administrative expenses associated with the award and funds the monetary component of

1200-549: The committee 's bias towards mainstream economics , though heterodox economists like Friedrich Hayek ( Austrian School ) and Ronald Coase (associated with new institutional economics ) have won. In his speech at the 1974 Nobel Prize banquet, Friedrich Hayek stated that had he been consulted on the establishment of a Nobel Prize in economics, he would have "decidedly advised against it", primarily because "The Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess. This does not matter in

1260-414: The natural sciences . Here the influence exercised by an individual is chiefly an influence on his fellow experts; and they will soon cut him down to size if he exceeds his competence. But the influence of the economist that mainly matters is an influence over laymen: politicians, journalists, civil servants and the public generally." Nevertheless, Hayek accepted the award. According to Samuel Brittan of

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1320-696: The 1990 summit in Chicago, for example, student delegates "rubbed shoulders" with Ronald Reagan , Maya Angelou and Michael Jordan , and in 1995, students met with inductees including George H. W. Bush , Ruth Bader Ginsburg , Lady Bird Johnson , Robin Williams , Mike Krzyzewski and Rosa Parks . Academy members and summit attendees have also included Jimmy Carter , Colin Powell , Maya Lin , Barbra Streisand , Mikhail Gorbachev , Steven Spielberg , and George Lucas . In 2005, The Washington Post called

1380-544: The Becker-Mincer workshop at Columbia in the 1960s and have published in the NHE tradition include Andrea Beller, Barry Chiswick , Carmel Chiswick, Victor Fuchs , Michael Grossman , Robert Michael, June E. O'Neill , Sol Polachek, and Robert Willis. James Heckman was also influenced by the NHE tradition and attended the labor workshop at Columbia from 1969 until his move to the University of Chicago. The NHE may be seen as

1440-478: The Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation donated $ 9 million to the academy. The annual summit is attended by graduate students and young innovators from the U.S. and overseas, like Sergey Brin and Larry Page , computer science graduate students who later founded Google . The summits were originally attended by high school students chosen for their academic achievement and extracurricular activities. Preceding

1500-527: The Nobel Prize laureates, and receive the award at the same ceremony. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awards the prize "in accordance with the rules governing the award of the Nobel Prizes instituted through his [Alfred Nobel's] will", which stipulate that the prize be awarded annually to "those who ... shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind". According to its official website,

1560-488: The Nobel family has ever had the intention of establishing a prize in economics. He explained that "Nobel despised people who cared more about profits than society's well-being", saying that "There is nothing to indicate that he would have wanted such a prize", and that the association with the Nobel prizes is "a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation". Critics cite the apparent snub of Joan Robinson as evidence of

1620-625: The Nobel laureates in physics , chemistry , physiology or medicine , and literature , each laureate in Economics receives a diploma, gold medal, and monetary grant award document from the King of Sweden at the annual Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Stockholm , on the anniversary of Nobel's death (December 10). The first prize in economics was awarded in 1969 to Ragnar Frisch and Jan Tinbergen "for having developed and applied dynamic models for

1680-578: The Prize in Economics for the coming year. Members of the Academy and former laureates are also authorised to nominate candidates." All proposals and their supporting evidence must be received before February 1. The proposals are reviewed by the Prize Committee and specially appointed experts. Before the end of September, the committee chooses potential laureates. If there is a tie, the chairman of

1740-987: The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences "administers a researcher exchange with academies in other countries and publishes six scientific journals. Every year the Academy awards the Nobel Prizes in Physics and in Chemistry, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the Crafoord Prize and a number of other large prizes". Each September the Academy's Economics Prize Committee, which consists of five elected members, "sends invitations to thousands of scientists, members of academies and university professors in numerous countries, asking them to nominate candidates for

1800-965: 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 Kenneth Arrow and Robert Solow . Economist Justin Wolfers called him "the most important social scientist in the past 50 years." Becker was one of the first economists to analyze topics that had been researched in sociology , including racial discrimination , crime , family organization, and rational addiction . He argued that many different types of human behavior can be seen as rational and utility-maximizing, including those that are often regarded as self-destructive or irrational. His approach also extended to altruistic aspects of human behavior, which he showed to sometimes have self-serving ends (when individuals' utility

1860-493: The academy at the event included boxer Muhammad Ali , filmmaker Steven Spielberg , Nobel Prize laureate Isidor Isaac Rabi , opera singer Leontyne Price , and country singer Loretta Lynn , the first country music artist ever admitted into the academy. The 2002 summit was held in Dublin , and was hosted by then-Taoiseach (prime minister) and inductee Bertie Ahern . Former President Bill Clinton held private talks during

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1920-444: The academy. Founded in 1961 by Sports Illustrated and LIFE magazine photographer Brian Reynolds , the Academy of Achievement recognizes high achievers in public service, business, science and exploration, sports, and the arts. Reynolds established the academy after realizing that the famous people he photographed from different fields did not usually get to meet one another. A 1989 San Francisco Chronicle article called

1980-406: The analysis of economic processes". Three women have received the prize: Elinor Ostrom , who won in 2009, Esther Duflo , who won in 2019, and Claudia Goldin , who won in 2023. Goldin was the first woman to win the award solo. In February 1995, following acrimony within the selection committee pertaining to the awarding of the 1994 Prize in Economics to John Forbes Nash , the Prize in Economics

2040-506: The award. In 2022, the monetary portion of the Prize in Economic Sciences was 10 million Swedish kronor , the same amount as the original Nobel Prizes. Since 2006, Sveriges Riksbank has given the Nobel Foundation an annual grant of 6.5 million Swedish kronor (in January 2008, approx. US$ 1 million; € 0.7 million) for its administrative expenses associated with the award as well as 1 million Swedish kronor (until

2100-487: The awardees at the summit were actor James Stewart , professional athlete John Havlicek , and Nobel Laureate chemist Paul Flory . The 25th annual American Academy of Achievement Summit took place in 1986 in Washington, D.C. The ceremony was addressed by former inductees Chuck Yeager and Erma Bombeck , and was attended by a group of 390 high school graduates assembled from across the U.S. New members admitted to

2160-521: The awards dinner are three days of panels, presentations and informal dialogues between the students and inductees. Many inductees return multiple years to participate in the panels, programming and networking. On September 9, 1961, the academy hosted its first International Achievement Summit. Held in Monterey, California , it included a "Banquet of the Golden Plate" award ceremony , named for

2220-455: The biased ones. If the employer employs the minority, low wages can be provided, but more people can be employed, and productivity can be increased. Becker's contributions to politics have come to be known as "Chicago political economy" of which he is considered one of the founding fathers. Becker's insight was to recognize that deadweight losses put a brake on predation. He took the well-known insight that deadweight losses are proportional to

2280-496: The committee casts the deciding vote. Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences vote in mid-October to determine the next laureate or laureates of the Prize in Economics. As with the Nobel Prizes, no more than three people can share the prize for a given year; they must still be living at the time of the Prize announcement in October; and information about Prize nominations cannot be disclosed publicly for 50 years. Like

2340-463: The core of Becker's economic theory on the family , which he developed on the basis of figures for United States families in 1981, is the rotten kid theorem . He applied the economics of an altruist to a family, wherein a person takes actions that improve the well-being of another person, despite more self-interested action being feasible. Becker pointed out that a parent foregoes higher income, by focusing on family work commitments in order to maximize

2400-600: The coup that ended with the suicide of its democratically elected President Salvador Allende ). Friedman himself answered that he never was an adviser to the dictatorship, but only gave some lectures and seminars on inflation and met with officials, including Augusto Pinochet , in Chile. Four Nobel Prize laureates – George Wald , Linus Pauling , David Baltimore and Salvador Luria  – wrote letters in October 1976 to The New York Times protesting Friedman's award. The 2005 prize to Robert Aumann

2460-416: The end of 2008) to include information about the award on the Nobel Foundation's web site. The Prize in Economic Sciences is not one of the Nobel Prizes endowed by Alfred Nobel in his will. However, the nomination process, selection criteria, and awards presentation of the Prize in Economic Sciences are performed in a manner similar to that of the original Nobel Prizes. Laureates are announced with

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2520-469: The enormous influence of Becker's work which "has turned out to be a fount of economic writing on crime and its control", as well as the analytics of crime and punishment. While Becker acknowledged that many people operate under a high moral and ethical constraint, criminals rationally see that the benefits of their crime outweigh the cost which depends upon the probability of apprehension, conviction, and punishment, and their current set of opportunities. From

2580-429: The family, criminal behavior, and racial discrimination. Becker recognized that people (employers, customers, and employees) sometimes do not want to work with minorities because they have bias against the disadvantaged groups. He went on to say that discrimination increases a firm's cost because in discriminating against certain workers, the employer would have to pay more to other workers so that work can proceed without

2640-578: The five Nobel Prizes established by Alfred Nobel's will in 1895, it is commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics , and is administered and referred to along with the Nobel Prizes by the Nobel Foundation. Winners of the Prize in Economic Sciences are chosen in a similar manner as and announced alongside the Nobel Prize recipients, and receive the Prize in Economic Sciences at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony. That

2700-735: The gold-plate service used for special occasions by the Palace Hotel in San Francisco , which provided the service for the ceremony. Physicist Edward Teller was the keynote speaker , and warned of the United States' poor performance in the atomic arms race . Awardees at the inaugural ceremony included engineers Charles Stark Draper and Kelly Johnson , General Douglas MacArthur and film director William Wyler . Other attendees included Nobel laureate Willard Libby (Chemistry, 1960) and future Nobel laureate Luis Walter Alvarez (Physics, 1968). The first honorees were chosen by

2760-490: The goods they purchase. Such as for example, when consumers purchase raw food. If it is cooked, a utility arises from the meal. In 1981 Becker published Treatise on the Family , where he stressed the importance of division of labor and gains from specification . During Becker's time at Chicago in the 1970s, he mostly focused on the family. He had previously done work on birth rates and family size, and he used this time to expand his understanding of how economics works within

2820-547: The market for live and cadaveric organ donations" posited that a free market could help solve the problem of a scarcity in organ transplants. Their economic modeling was able to estimate the price tag for human kidneys (about US$ 15,000) and human livers (about US$ 32,000). It is argued by critics that this particular market would exploit the underprivileged donors from the developing world. Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences Although not one of

2880-502: The organization "little-publicized but immensely powerful". According to William DeVries , who helped develop the first artificial heart, "It is a social network. Like a club. Now I can call Chuck Yeager up, or Philip 'Bo' Knight , and they'll return my calls, ask me out places. I promised myself I would never ask the people here for money, but I know a lot of scientists who do." Reynolds also wanted to bring together highly accomplished leaders with promising students, to inspire them. At

2940-510: The prize for work in the field of behavioral economics . Some critics argue that the prestige of the Prize in Economic Sciences derives in part from its association with the Nobel Prizes, an association that has often been a source of controversy. Among them is the Swedish human rights lawyer Peter Nobel , a great-grandnephew of Alfred Nobel . Nobel accuses the awarding institution of misusing his family's name, and states that no member of

3000-411: The prize is not an original Nobel Prize has been a subject of controversy, with four of Nobel's relatives having formally distanced themselves from the Prize in Economic Sciences. The award was established in 1968 by an endowment "in perpetuity" from Sweden's central bank, Sveriges Riksbank , to commemorate the bank's 300th anniversary. Laureates in the Prize in Economic Sciences are selected by

3060-479: The rules governing the committee during 1994: The prize's scope was redefined as one of social sciences, and Prize Committee members were limited to serve for three years. The award's official Swedish name is Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne . The Nobel Foundation's translations of the Swedish name into English have varied since 1969: Academy of Achievement The American Academy of Achievement , colloquially known as

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3120-443: The secretary and four of the five members are professors of economics. In 1978, Herbert A. Simon , whose PhD was in political science , became the first non-economist to win the prize, for his work in the fields of economics and organizational decision making. Elinor Ostrom , also a political scientist, won the prize in 2009. Similarly, Daniel Kahneman , a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton University , won

3180-475: The square of the tax, and used it to argue that a linear increase in takings by a predatory interest group will provoke a non-linear increase in the deadweight losses its victim suffers. These rapidly increasing losses will prod victims to invest equivalent sums in resisting attempts on their wealth. The advance of predators, fueled by linear incentives, slows before the stiffening resistance of prey outraged by non-linear damages. Jurist Richard Posner has stressed

3240-484: The summit "one of the world's most dazzling gatherings of international celebrities - Nobel Prize winners, heads of state, star athletes, titans of industry, scientists and entertainers." In 1985, Reynolds's son, Wayne Reynolds, took over the leadership, becoming the executive director of the academy. In 1999, he was selected as the board chairman . In the 1990s, Reynolds moved the organization's headquarters from Malibu, California , to Washington, D.C. In 2007,

3300-536: The summit with Irish nationalist politician John Hume that reportedly concerned the conflict in Northern Ireland as well as other international conflicts. New inductees into the academy in 2002 included Clinton, U2 lead singer Bono , and Afghan president Hamid Karzai . The 50th-anniversary American Academy of Achievement Summit was held in Washington D.C. , in October 2012, and was attended by delegates from 29 countries. The five-day event included

3360-463: The work was published. His research applies basic economic assumptions such as maximizing behavior, preferences, and equilibrium to the family. He analyzed determinants for marriage and divorce, family size, parents' allocation of time to their children, and changes in wealth over several generations. This publication was an extensive overview of the economics of the family and helped to unite economics with other fields like sociology and anthropology. At

3420-582: Was a member, and later the president of, the Mont Pelerin Society . Becker received the Nobel Prize in 1992 "for having extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behavior and interaction, including nonmarket behavior". Becker also received the National Medal of Science in 2000. Becker received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 2001, presented by Awards Council member and Nobel Prize laureate Leon M. Lederman . A political conservative , he wrote

3480-487: Was a student of Becker at the University of Chicago, first published a history of the NHE at Columbia and Chicago in 2001. After receiving feedback from the NHE founders she revised her account. Among the first publications in Modern Household Economics were Becker (1960) on fertility, Mincer (1962) on women's labor supply, and Becker (1965) on the allocation of time. Students and faculty who attended

3540-462: Was criticized by the European press for his alleged use of game theory to justify his stance against the dismantling of illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine . Paul Krugman 's left-wing commentary has attracted both widespread praise and criticism. The 1994 prize to mathematician John Forbes Nash caused controversy within the selection committee. This resulted in a change to

3600-478: Was redefined as a prize in social sciences. This made it available to researchers in such topics as political science, psychology, and sociology. Moreover, the composition of the Economics Prize Committee changed to include two non-economists. This has not been confirmed by the Economics Prize Committee. The members of the 2007 Economics Prize Committee are still dominated by economists, as

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