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Great Economists, The
book

Great Economists, The

by Phil Thornton
June 2014
Beginner content levelBeginner
264 pages
4h 53m
English
FT Publishing International
Content preview from Great Economists, The

Chapter 9

Gary Becker – economics in the real world

I was not sympathetic to the assumption that criminals had radically different motivations from everyone else.’

Gary Becker, Prize Lecture to the memory of Alfred Nobel, 9 December 1992

Introduction

Many economists have been accused of seeking to solve mathematical equations without thinking about the real-life impact of their theories. Gary Becker is certainly no slouch in terms of academic economics, but he has applied a neoclassical view of the discipline to a range of very ‘real world’ problems that were previously thought to be the sole domain of sociologists and lawyers. These included racial discrimination, crime and punishment, how families work, and understanding drug addiction.

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Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781292009414