Gary Becker Quotes

• Economy is the art of making the most of life.

  Gary Becker

  Art, Economy

  43 Copy quote

• I am saying that the economic approach provides a valuable unified framework for understanding all human behaviour

  Gary Becker

  Understanding, Behaviour, Economics

  Gary Stanley Becker, Ramón Febrero, Pedro Schwartz (1995). “The essence of Becker”, Hoover Inst Pr

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• Human capital analysis starts with the assumption that individuals decide on their education, training, medical care, and other additions to knowledge and health by weighing the benefits and costs. Benefits include cultural and other non-monetary gains along with improvement in earnings and occupations, while costs usually depend mainly on the foregone value of the time spent on these investments.

  Gary Becker

  Training, Analysis, Cost

  40 Copy quote

• Different constraints are decisive for different situations, but the most fundamental constraint is limited time.

  Gary Becker

  Different, Limited Time, Fundamentals

  Gary Stanley Becker, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace (1996). “The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior: The Nobel Lecture”, p.5, Hoover Press

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• Along with others, I have tried to pry economists away from narrow assumptions about self interest. Behavior is driven by a much richer set of values and preferences.

  Gary Becker

  Self, Assumption, Behavior

  Gary Stanley Becker, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace (1996). “The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior: The Nobel Lecture”, p.5, Hoover Press

  33 Copy quote

• Even a wizard would have a great deal of difficulty repealing the economic law that higher minimum wages reduce employment. Since politicians are not wizards, they should not try.

  Gary Becker

  Law, Trying, Employment

  Gary Becker, Guity Becker, Guity Nashat (1998). “The Economics of Life: From Baseball to Affirmative Action to Immigration, How Real-World Issues Affect Our Everyday Life”, McGraw Hill Professional

  37 Copy quote

• The most fundamental constraint is limited time

  Gary Becker

  Limited Time, Fundamentals, Constraints

  Gary Stanley Becker, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace (1996). “The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior: The Nobel Lecture”, p.5, Hoover Press

  24 Copy quote

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

  Gary Becker

  Motivation, Criminals, Different

  Gary Stanley Becker, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace (1996). “The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior: The Nobel Lecture”, p.7, Hoover Press

  21 Copy quote

• My work on human capital began with an effort to calculate both private and social rates of return to men, women, blacks, and other groups from investments in different levels of education.

  Gary Becker

  Men, Effort, Return

  Gary Stanley Becker, Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace (1996). “The Economic Way of Looking at Behavior: The Nobel Lecture”, p.9, Hoover Press

  22 Copy quote

• Still, intuitive assumptions about behavior is only the starting point of systematic analysis, for alone they do not yield many interesting implications.

  Gary Becker

  Yield, Interesting, Analysis

  25 Copy quote

• Why in almost all societies have married women specialized in bearing and rearing children and in certain agricultural activities, whereas married men have done most of the fighting and market work?

  Gary Becker

  Marriage, Children, Fighting

  11 Copy quote

• Fines are preferable to imprisonment and other types of punishment because they are more efficient. With a fine, the punishment to offenders is also revenue to the State.

  Gary Becker

  Philosophy, Punishment, Political

  9 Copy quote

• I argued last year on my shared blog that selling the right to immigrate would be the best approach to legal immigration. Among other benefits, the revenue from immigrants' payments could reduce taxes. Paying for the right to immigrate would also negate the argument that immigrants get a free ride when they gain health care and other benefits. Moreover, making immigrants pay would attract the type of immigrants who came much earlier in American history: young men and women who are reasonably skilled and want to make a long-term commitment to the United States.

  Gary Becker

  Commitment, Years, Long

  12 Copy quote

• A stronger yuan could lead to greater Chinese asset accumulation in the U.S. and elsewhere.

  Gary Becker

  Chinese, Stronger, Assets

  8 Copy quote

• The Treatise tries to analyze not only modern Western families, but also those in other cultures and the changes in family structure during the past several centuries.

  Gary Becker

  Past, Other Cultures, Trying

  13 Copy quote

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