Editing Gary Becker (section)

==Economic analysis==
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, the family, criminal behavior, and racial discrimination.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Nelson |first1=Robert H. |title=Economics as Religion |url=https://archive.org/details/economicsasrelig00nels |url-access=limited |date=2001 |publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/economicsasrelig00nels/page/n220 194]}}</ref>

===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 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.<ref>{{cite web | title = Economics explains how discrimination can persist in the labor market | date = 7 October 2013 | url = http://www.open.edu/openlearn/money-management/money/economics/economics-explains-discrimination-the-labour-market/content-section-0 | publisher = Open University | access-date = January 28, 2016 | archive-date = October 7, 2013 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20131007195824/http://www.open.edu/openlearn/money-management/money/economics/economics-explains-discrimination-the-labour-market/content-section-0 | url-status = dead }}</ref>

===Politics===
Becker's contributions to politics have come to be known as "Chicago political economy" of which he is considered one of the founding fathers.<ref>Filip Palda (2016) A Better Kind of Violence, Chicago Political Economy, Public Choice, and the Quest for an Ultimate Theory of Power, Cooper-Wolfling Press</ref>

Becker's insight was to recognize that [[deadweight loss]]es put a brake on predation. 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.<ref>{{Cite journal | author = Gary Becker | title = A theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence | journal = Quarterly Journal of Economics | volume = 98 | issue = 3 | pages = 371–400 | date = August 1983 | doi = 10.2307/1886017 | jstor = 1886017 }}</ref>

===Crime and punishment===
Jurist [[Richard Posner]] has stressed the enormous influence of Becker's work which "has turned out to be a fount of economic writing on crime and its control",<ref>{{cite book | author= Richard A. Posner | title = Frontiers of legal theory | page = 52 | publisher = Harvard University Press | year = 2004 | isbn = 9780674013605 }}</ref> as well as the analytics of crime and punishment.<ref>{{citation | editor = Bernard Harcourt | title = The illusion of free markets: punishment and the myth of natural order | pages = 133–134 | publisher = Harvard University Press | year = 2011 | isbn = 9780674057265 }}</ref>

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 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.<ref>{{citation | contribution = Crime and punishment: an economic approach | author = Gary Becker | title = Essays in the economics of crime and punishment | pages = 1–54 | publisher = National Bureau of Economic Research distributed by Columbia University Press | location = New York | year = 1974 | isbn = 9780870142635}}</ref>

===Human capital===
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 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".<ref>{{Cite book|title= Business, Economics, Financial Sciences, and Management |author= Min Zhu |publisher= Springer Science & Business Media| year=2012 |isbn=9783642279669 |pages= 436}}</ref>

=== Modern household economics ===
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 was a student of Becker at the University of Chicago, first published a history of the NHE at Columbia and Chicago in 2001.<ref>{{cite journal | author = Grossbard-Shechtman Shoshana | year = 2001 | title = The New Home Economics at Columbia and Chicago | journal = Feminist Economics | volume = 7 | issue = 3| pages = 103–130 | doi = 10.1080/13545700110111136 | s2cid = 153814425 }}</ref> After receiving feedback from the NHE founders she revised her account.<ref>Shoshana Grossbard (2006) “The New Home Economics at Columbia and Chicago” in Jacob Mincer: A Pioneer of Modern Labor Economics, edited by S Grossbard, Springer</ref>

Among the first publications in Modern Household Economics were Becker (1960) on fertility,<ref>Becker, Gary S.  1960. "An Economic Analysis of Fertility." In National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, Demographic and Economic Change in Developed Countries, a Conference of the Universities. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press</ref> Mincer (1962) on women's labor supply,<ref>{{cite book | author = Jacob Mincer |year=1962 |chapter=Labor Force Participation of Married Women: a Study of Labor Supply |editor= H. Gregg Lewis |title=Aspects of Labor Economics |publisher=Princeton University Press }}</ref> and Becker (1965) on the allocation of time.<ref>{{cite journal |author = Gary Becker |title=A Theory of the Allocation of Time |journal= The Economic Journal |volume=75 |issue=299 |year=1965 |pages= 493–517|doi=10.2307/2228949 |jstor=2228949 }}</ref><ref>Jan De Vries (2008) ''The industrious revolution: consumer behavior and the household economy'', Cambridge, p. 26 {{ISBN?}}</ref> Students and faculty who attended 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 (economist)|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 a subfield of [[family economics]].<ref>{{cite journal | author = Berk Richard A., Fenstermaker Berk Sarah | year = 1983 | title = Supply-side sociology of the family: The challenge of the new home economics | journal = Annual Review of Sociology | volume = 9 | issue = 1| pages = 375–395 | doi = 10.1146/annurev.so.09.080183.002111 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | author = Grossbard-Shechtman Shoshana | year = 2001 | title = The new home economics at Colombia and Chicago | journal = Feminist Economics | volume = 7 | issue = 3| pages = 103–130 | doi = 10.1080/13545700110111136 | s2cid = 153814425 }}</ref>

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 a waste of a woman's time? There's no evidence that it is."  This view was criticized by [[Charles I. Jones|Charles Jones]], stating that, "Productivity could be 9 percent to 15 percent higher, potentially, if all barriers were eliminated."<ref>{{cite news| author= David Wessel |title=The Economics of Leaning In|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323916304578400192414995044?mod=e2fb|access-date=4 April 2013|newspaper= The Wall Street Journal|date= 3 April 2013}}</ref>

=== Home production ===
In the mid-1960s Becker and [[Kelvin Lancaster]] developed the economic concept of a household production function. Both assumed that [[consumer]]s in a household receive utility from 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 [[Gain (accounting)|gains]] from [[Specification (technical standard)|specification]].<ref>{{Cite book|title= Economic Growth with Income and Wealth Distribution |author= Wei Zhang |publisher= Springer | year= 2006 |isbn=9780230506336 |pages=71}}</ref>

=== Economics of the family ===
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 a family.<ref name="nobelbio" /> 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 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.<ref>Becker, Gary S. ([1981] 1991).  ''A Treatise on the Family'',  Enl. edition. [https://books.google.com/books?id=NLB1Ty75DOIC Description] and [https://books.google.com/books?id=NLB1Ty75DOIC&pg=PR7 preview]. Harvard University Press. {{ISBN|0674906985}}.</ref>

==== Rotten kid theorem ====
At 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 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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Game Theory Evolving: A Problem-centered Introduction to Modeling Strategic Behavior |author=Herbert Gintis |publisher= Princeton University Press|year=2000 |isbn=9780691009438 |pages=34–35}}</ref>

===Organ markets===
A 2007 article by Gary Becker and [[Julio Jorge Elias]] entitled "Introducing Incentives in the market for live and cadaveric organ donations"<ref>{{Cite journal |author1=Gary Becker |author2=Julio Jorge Elías | title = Introducing incentives in the market for live and cadaveric organ donations | journal = Journal of Economic Perspectives | volume = 21 | issue = 3 | pages = 3–24 | date = Summer 2007 | doi = 10.1257/jep.21.3.3 | pmid = 19728419 | doi-access = free }}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite journal | author = Vivekanand Jha & Kirpal S. Chugh | title = The case against a regulated system of living kidney sales | journal = Nature Clinical Practice Nephrology | volume = 2 | issue = 9 | pages = 466–467 | date = September 2006 | doi = 10.1038/ncpneph0268 | pmid = 16941033 | s2cid = 9253108 }}</ref>