Described by Milton Friedman as "the greatest social scientist who has lived and worked in the last half-century", Gary Becker, who has died aged 83, carried out research that traversed at least a dozen different areas of economics, from black markets to racial discrimination, from crime and punishment to human capital. His pioneering of rational choice theory the concept that individuals will pursue the most cost-effective means to achieve their intended outcome extended the boundaries of economics, and made the discipline relevant to a wide range of human activities. Becker continued to be heavily involved in economic policy discussions right up to his death through speaking engagements, columns and his excellent blog.
Becker was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, one of four children of Anna (nee Siskind) and Louis Becker. In the mid-1930s, the family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where Becker went to school. He studied mathematics at Princeton University in 1951, and completed his PhD at the University of Chicago in 1955, working closely with Friedman. Friedman reignited in Becker an interest in economics that had faded at university, by emphasising that "economics was not a game played by academics, but a tool to analyse the real world".
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