f t .

co m

http://www.ft.co m/intl/cms/s/0/bba18500-d3d7-11e3-b0be-00144feabdc0.html#axzz30pNZpOwD

Gary Becker, US economist, 1930-2014

By Tim Harfo rd Autho r alerts

Nobel laureate was one of worlds most inf luential economists, writes Tim Harf ord
Getty
Gary Becker, the man who led the movement to apply
economic ideas to areas of lif e such as marriage,
discrimination and crime, died on May 3 af ter a long illness. He
was 83.
Born in a coal-mining town in Pennsylvania, raised in Brooklyn
and with a mathematics degree summa cum laude f rom
Princeton, it was not until Becker arrived at the University of
Chicago that he realised I had to begin to learn again what
economics is all about.

More
On t his st ory
IN Obit uaries
He had considered taking up sociology, but f ound it too dif f icult. Yet he was to return to the questions of
sociology again and again over the years, taking pleasure in wielding the rigorous yet reductive
mathematical tools of economics. T his approach was to win him the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in
1992, and make him one of the most inf luential and most cited economists of the 20th century.
His doctoral dissertation was on the economics of discrimination how to measure it and what ef f ects it
might have. Becker showed that discrimination was costly f or the bigot as well as the victim. T his seemed
strange material f or an economist, and Becker attracted little attention f or his ideas when he published a
book on discrimination in 1957.
T his didnt seem to worry him. My whole philosophy has been to be conventional in things such as dress
and so on, he told me in 2005. But when it comes to ideas, Ill be willing to stick my neck out: I can take
criticism if I think Im right.
He received plenty of that criticism over the years f or daring to develop economic theories of crime and
punishment, of the demand f or children, and of rational addicts who may quit in response to a credible
threat to raise the price of cigarettes. His idea that individuals might think of their education as an
investment, with a rate of return, caused outrage. Yet nobody now f rets about the use of the phrase
human capital, the title of one of Beckers books.
T hat exemplif ies the way that Beckers approach has changed the way that economists think about what
they do, of ten without explicitly recognising his inf luence. He was economically omnivorous: colleagues
such as Lars Peter Hansen, a f ellow Nobel laureate, would f ind Becker quizzing them and providing
penetrating comments even on research that seemed f ar removed f rom Beckers main interests.
He will be remembered as a person who in a very creative way broadened the scope of economic analysis,
said Prof essor Hansen, And as one of the very best economists of the 20th century.

Beckers lif e-long af f ection was f or the subject he transf ormed. On weekend af ternoons, he would of ten
be f ound in his of f ice, writing or answering questions f rom young academics six decades his junior. He
continued to write a blog with the legal scholar Richard Posner until a f ew weeks bef ore his death.
He loved economics, said Kevin Murphy, who taught a course alongside Becker f or many years, and he
inspired so many economists. Perhaps the most likely result of a class with Becker was not mastering a
particular f ormal technique, but acquiring that distinctive economists outlook on the world.
T hat worldview was on display when on the way to his Lunch with the FT, Gary Becker parked illegally. On
cross-examination, he cheerf ully told me that af ter weighing the risks and benef its, this was a rational
crime.
T hat sounds like Gary to me, said Prof Murphy. He decided to give you a practical lesson in economics.
Becker was widowed in 1970, and remarried in 1980 to a Chicago history prof essor, Guity Nashat. She
survives him, as does a daughter, Catherine Becker; a sister, Natalie Becker; a stepson and two grandsons.
Copyright T he Financial Times Limited 2014. You may share using our article tools.
Please don't cut articles f rom FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.
T he Financial T imes Ltd 2014