Книга: Gary Becker «Social Economics Market Behavior in a Social Environment»
Производитель: "Неизвестный" Social Economics Market Behavior in a Social Environment ISBN:9780674003378 Издательство: "Неизвестный" (2001)
ISBN: 9780674003378 |
Gary Becker
Infobox Scientist
name = Gary Becker
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caption = National Science Medal award ceremony, 2000
birth_date = Birth date and age|1930|12|2|mf=y
birth_place =
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field =
work_institution =
NBER
alma_mater =
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known_for = Analysis of
prizes =
Gary Stanley Becker (born
Becker was one of the first economists to branch into what were traditionally considered topics belonging to
Nobel Prize
According to the Nobel Prize citation, his work can be categorized into four areas:
* investments in human capital
* behavior of the family (or household), including distribution of work and allocation of time in the family
* crime and punishment
* discrimination on the markets for labor and goods.
Becker’s Nobel lecture, "Nobel Lecture: The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior", subsequently published in the "
Becker also received the
Usually considered politically conservative, he wrote a monthly column for "
Discrimination
Becker often includes a variable of taste for discrimination in explaining behavior. He believes that people often mentally increase the cost of a transaction if it is with a minority they discriminate against. His theory held that competition decreases discrimination. If firms were able to specialize in employing mainly minorities and offer better product or service, such a firm could bypass discrepancy in wages etc. between equally productive blacks and whites or females and males.
Becker’s research found that when minorities are a very small percentage the cost of discrimination mainly falls on the minorities. However, when minorities represent a larger percentage of society then the cost of discrimination falls on both the minorities and the majority. He also pioneered research on the impact of self-fulfilling prophecies of teachers and employers on minorities. Such attitudes often lead to less investment in productive skills and education of minorities.Fact|date=April 2008
Crime and punishment
Becker’s interest in
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 such as the probability of apprehension, conviction, punishment, as well as their current set of opportunities. From the public policy perspective, since the cost of increasing the fine is marginal to that of the cost of increasing surveillance, one can conclude that the best policy is to maximize the fine and minimize surveillance. However, this conclusion has limits, not the least of which include ethical considerations.
One of the main differences between this theory and
Human capital
Becker’s research was fundamental in arguing for the augmentability of
His research included the impact of positive and negative habits such as punctuality and alcoholism on human capital. He explored the different rates of return for different people and the resulting macroeconomic implications. He also distinguished between general to specific education and their influence on job-lock and promotions.
Families
Becker’s research on human social interactions has had many implications for the family such as for the marriage market, divorce, fertility, and social security. Becker argued that such decisions are made in a marginal-cost and marginal-benefit framework. For example, he concluded that wealthier couples have higher cost to divorce and thus a lower divorce rate.
A major focus of Becker’s research was the impact of higher real wages in increasing the value of time and therefore the cost of home production such as childrearing. As women increase investment in human capital and enter the work force the opportunity cost of childcare rises. Additionally, the increased rate of return to education raises the desire to provide children with formal and costly education. Coupled together, the impact is to lower fertility rates.
A more controversial issue was Becker’s conclusion that parents often act altruistically towards selfish children by highly investing in a child in an effort to indirectly save for old age. Becker believed that the rate of return from investing in children was often greater than normal retirement savings. However, parents can not know for sure that the child will take care of them. Since they cannot legally bind a child to care for them they often resort to manipulation through instilling a sense of “guilt, obligation, duty and filial love that indirectly, but still very effectively... commits children to helping them out.” Becker even went so far as to say that social security can cause families to be less interdependent by removing the motivation of parents to use altruistic behaviors in motivating their children to care for them.
Organ Markets
An article by Gary Becker and Julio Elias on "Introducing Incentives in the market for Live and Cadaveric Organ Donations" [http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/BeckerEliasOrgans(5-06).pdf] said that a free market could help solve the problem of a scarcity in organ transplants. Their economic modelling was able to estimate the price tag for human kidneys ($15,000) and human livers ($32,000). It is argued by critics [http://www.nature.com/ncpneph/journal/v2/n9/full/ncpneph0268.html] , that this particular market would exploitat the underprivileged donors from the developing world. This view was endorsed by the National Kidney Foundation in a testimony to the US Congress where Dr Francis Delmonico argued that "...a US congressional endorsement for payment would propel other countries to sanction unethical and unjust standards...".
Politics
Becker is also famous for his economic analysis of democracy. He asked what determines the extent to which an interest group can exploit another. The basis of his analysis was the concept of deadweight loss. A thief damages his victim by stealing money and byforcing the victim to dash about replacing credit and identity cards. More technically the interest group harms its victim by taking money and by imposing deadweight losses. Becker’s insight was to recognize that deadweight losses put an exponential break onpredation. He took the well-known insight that deadweight losses are proportional to 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.Becker’s model has been seen by some as implying that politics are efficient because deadweight losses are a break to predation. This conclusion has weight if we hold constant all other forces that influence political outcomes and the conclusion fits neatlyinto the hypothesis that virulent predators evolve into benign symbiotes, but the conclusion comes from a partial reading of Becker’s model. The outcome of a contest between interest groups depends also on combatant’s political savvy. Groups with the giftof intrigue, or with more guns, can laugh at deadweight losses and impose their will for generations, as the sad example of African dictatorships shows. Becker’s analysis is so general that its hull can fit around just about any sort of relationbetween interest groups. The model applies as well to dictatorships as it does to democracies. What is remarkable is that what some may see as a Dr. Seuss version of political modeling can make powerful testable predictions about interest groups.
He is also noted for his advocacy of
Publications
* [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/132.ctl UCP descr]
* ( [http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/12426.ctl UCP descr] )
* Gary S. Becker (1965) “A Theory of the Allocation of Time,”] "Economic Journal" 75 (299), p [http://www.jstor.org/pss/2228949 p. 493] -517.
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*Gary S. Becker (1976). "The Economic Approach to Human Behavior". [http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iwEOFKSKbMgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA15&dq=%22The+Economic+Approach+to+Human+Behavior%22+Introduction&ots=3kGFcb-mF&sig=CRs1sWCuH1LI1qI6VHZ2yvds_qI Links] to chapter previews. University of Chicago Press.
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* Gary S. Becker (1991). [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/BECTRR.html "A Treatise on the Family"] ,
* Gary S. Becker (1992). "The Economic Way of Looking at Life" ( [http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/1992/becker-lecture.html Nobel Prize Lecture] ).
* Gary S. Becker, (1996), [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/BECACC.html "Accounting for Tastes"] ,
* Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy, (2001), [http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/BECSOC.html "Social Economics: Market Behavior in a Social Environment",] Harvard University Press.
See also
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References
External links
* [http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/ The Becker-Posner Blog]
* [http://home.uchicago.edu/~gbecker/ Homepage at the University of Chicago]
* [http://timharford.com/2006/06/its-the-humanity-stupid-gary-becker-has-lunch-with-the-ft/ Profile in the Financial Times]
* [http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/02-06/becker.cfm Interview by the Minneapolis Fed]
* [http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu The Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory]
* [http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/1992/becker-autobio.html Gary S. Becker – Autobiography]
* [http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2006/07/an_interview_wi.html Podcast featuring Becker] Becker discusses human behavior,
* [http://ideas.repec.org/e/pbe29.html IDEAS/RePEc]
Persondata
NAME= Becker, Gary
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SHORT DESCRIPTION= Economist
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Источник: Gary Becker
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