Posted on 05/05/2014 2:56:25 PM PDT by jazusamo
Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker was internationally renowned within the economics profession, but was not nearly as well known among the general public as he deserved to be. More important, his path-breaking ideas, including his analysis of the economics of racial discrimination, deserved to be much more a part of the many discussions of that subject.
More than half a century after Professor Becker's landmark work on the economics of discrimination, most controversies on that subject, both in the media and in politics, go on in utter ignorance of his penetrating insights. So do laws and policies that make discrimination worse.
As someone who has written about racial discrimination within the framework of analysis that Becker created, I am especially indebted to him, and wish only that more people were aware of that framework, which could spare us much rhetoric and offer some useful understanding instead.
At a time when there are so many occasions to lament that Milton Friedman is no longer with us, when his knowledge and wisdom are needed more than ever, now we must also lament that the same is true of Gary Becker.
While Becker was an economist's economist, he also transcended the traditional boundaries of economics. He applied the kind of analysis that economists use to subjects that most economists do not usually deal with.
Racial discrimination was just one of those subjects at least before Becker came along. He also analyzed family decisions within an intellectual framework ordinarily used for analyzing economic issues, though that did not mean that he thought families were all about money.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
Marked for later reading - looks like an interesting man.
Shirley not the Gary Becker from A.N.S.W.E.R.
I seriously doubt it, are you thinking of Brian Becker?
Only non-economists think economics is about money. Most economists recognize that economics is about incentives and people's response to them. Both Becker and Sowell do recognize this.
Bttt
Good point and so true.
As we say in the Midwest, keep your fences mended.
Yeah, Brian Becker. Sorry, my mistake. My apologies to Gary Becker.
Read quite a bit of Gary Becker’s economy of crime. An original thinker, IMHO
Becker shows we are all fallible under the right conditions (constraints).
An eternal struggle.
That’s why I like Econ.
:)
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