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Portrait of Gary Becker
Photo: MAR, I created this image entirely by myself. · Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences · 1992

Gary Becker

He used economics to explain schooling, crime, prejudice and family life, and showed why investing in people pays off.

The Nobel citation: “for having extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behaviour and interaction, including nonmarket behaviour”
Born
December 2, 1930, Pottsville, PA, USA
Died
May 3, 2014, Chicago, IL, USA
Affiliation at the time
University of Chicago, USA

Economics prize

1992

Awarded alone.

Age that year

62years

Born in 1930.

Sources cited

25

Fact-checked September 24, 2026.

  • His theory of crime began when, running late to examine a student, he weighed a parking ticket against the cost of a lot. He parked illegally and was not ticketed.
  • In the 1950s and 1960s the phrase human capital was attacked for treating people like machines, so he hesitated a long time before giving his 1964 book that title.
  • When his father lost most of his sight, young Gary read him the stock quotations. Becker wondered if that sparked his interest in economics, though he found it boring.
  • In 2007 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, joining his teacher Milton Friedman among the few economists who hold both it and the economics Nobel.
  • He met his second wife, historian Guity Nashat, when she tried to haggle over a dining set he was selling. He would not cut the price but let her pay later.

The breakthrough

Using economics to explain life outside the market

Before Becker, economists mostly studied markets: prices, wages and trade. Schooling, marriage, crime and prejudice were left to sociologists and psychologists, who often saw such behavior as habit or irrationality. Becker's idea was simple and bold. In these areas too, people weigh costs and benefits as best they can, whether they are selfish, loving or spiteful. He applied that idea again and again. In his 1957 book on discrimination, prejudice works like a tax: refusing to deal with people of another race or sex costs the bigot as well as the people he shuns. In Human Capital (1964), schooling and job training are investments. Like a farmer who buys a better tractor, a student gives up income now in return for higher earnings later. His 1968 paper treated crime as a gamble, weighed against the chance of being caught and the size of the penalty. His work on the family, from a 1960 essay on fertility to A Treatise on the Family (1981), explained why families have fewer children as women's time becomes more valuable and parents spend more on each child's education. Underneath it all is time. Everyone gets 24 hours a day, so as people grow richer, time becomes their scarcest resource. Not all of his conclusions have held up, but he turned large parts of human life into subjects that economists can measure and test.[2],[3],[4],[10],[11]

“For a long time my type of work was either ignored or strongly disliked by most of the leading economists.”
Gary Becker, Looking back, in the autobiography he wrote for the Nobel Foundation in 1992, on the reception of his work.[2]

What it meant for humanity

Becker did not invent a drug or a machine. He changed how governments, courts and researchers think about people's choices, and several of his ideas are now everyday tools. The biggest is human capital: the idea that schooling, training and health are investments that raise earnings and help economies grow. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences called it one of the most empirically applied theories in economics. Researchers have since gathered more than 1,100 estimates from 139 countries of what schooling pays. Worldwide, each extra year of school raises a person's earnings by about 9 percent, and returns are higher for women and in poorer countries, which strengthens the case for educating girls. When President George W. Bush gave him the Medal of Freedom in 2007, the citation said his work had fed into policies that raised living standards in rich and poor nations alike. His study of crime showed that punishment could be analyzed like any other incentive. In his Nobel lecture he noted that the US Sentencing Commission had used this approach in drafting rules for federal judges, and the research that followed found that the chance of being caught deters crime far more than the length of a sentence, a finding the Justice Department's research arm now stresses. His work on discrimination gave economists their first systematic way to study prejudice and its costs. His models of the family helped explain why birth rates fall as countries grow richer and women gain schooling, and they guided the collection of new data on how households spend their time. James Heckman, a fellow laureate, wrote that Becker's ideas launched hundreds of data sets and thousands of studies.

  • His 1964 book Human Capital found that education had paid Americans a substantial return in higher income and had probably been a major factor in raising US productivity.[3],[15]
  • A 2018 World Bank review of 1,120 estimates from 139 countries, built on human capital theory, found that each extra year of school raises earnings by about 9 percent, with higher returns for women and in low-income countries.[16]
  • In his Nobel lecture Becker noted that the US Sentencing Commission had explicitly used the economic analysis of crime to develop the rules federal judges follow in punishing offenders.[4]
  • Research in the tradition he began finds that the certainty of being caught deters crime far more than harsher punishment. The US National Institute of Justice puts this first in its summary of deterrence research.[3],[17]
  • By his account, his 1957 book was the first to use economic theory systematically to study what prejudice does to minorities' pay and jobs. In his Nobel lecture he argued that apartheid's cost to whites helps explain its collapse.[2],[4]
  • Heckman credits Becker's frameworks with shaping the collection of data on time use, returns to schooling, crime, marriage and divorce, fertility and addiction.[10]

Impact in numbers

Becker's impact runs through ideas, so we record no quantified claim. Human capital theory changed how governments, researchers and families think about schooling and training, and his work on crime, discrimination and the family opened research fields that now produce thousands of studies. But the payoff from education belongs first to students, teachers and the governments that fund schools, and human capital theory had several founders, including Theodore Schultz and Jacob Mincer, so crediting Becker with a share of that payoff would be guesswork. The same holds for crime policy, where his influence on federal sentencing rules is documented but no study measures its effect on crime rates. His proposals on paying organ donors and other market reforms remain debated. His clearest effects are on knowledge: the questions economists ask, the data they collect and the way policymakers weigh incentives.

EconomyEducationFundamental science

No number is given here on purpose. Some contributions cannot be counted honestly, and we would rather describe them than invent a figure.

The double edge

We found no documented physical harm from Becker's work, so no harm is quantified. His ideas and proposals, though, drew sharp criticism. Feminist economists argued that his theory of the family made the traditional division of labor, with wives at home, look efficient and benign, and in 2013 he doubted that staying home with children was a waste of a woman's time. His 2007 proposal to pay organ donors runs against the transplant community's ethical consensus, which warns that organ commerce has harmed the poor. His model of crime suggested governments could save on policing by raising penalties, and critics tie Chicago-school thinking to America's reliance on prisons, while later research finds that longer sentences deter little. Other economists showed that his theory of rational addiction missed smokers' self-control problems, which points to higher tobacco taxes. Becker engaged his critics and sometimes revised his models in response.

  • Moderate

    A theory of the family critics call biased against women

    Becker's model treats the traditional split, with husbands in paid work and wives at home, as efficient specialization that small biological differences or discrimination can tip along gender lines. Barbara Bergmann (1995) called some of its conclusions preposterous and said such theory makes existing institutions look benign and government action useless. In 2013 Becker questioned whether staying home with children was a waste of a woman's time.[4],[21],[22]

  • Minor

    Paying for organs

    In 2007 Becker and Julio Jorge Elías argued that paying for organs from living and deceased donors would end long transplant waiting lists and many of the deaths of those waiting, raising total transplant costs by no more than about 12 percent. The transplant profession's Declaration of Istanbul holds that donation should be financially neutral, counts removing organs for financial gain as trafficking, and warns that organ commerce has harmed poor and powerless people.[19],[20]

  • Moderate

    Crime, punishment and prisons

    Becker's crime model implied a state could spend less on catching offenders by raising penalties, though he noted that risk-loving offenders fear the certainty of punishment more. His popular columns backed strong punishment for serious crimes. Legal scholar Bernard Harcourt argues that Chicago-school faith in free markets helped make mass incarceration seem natural. Research summarized by the US Justice Department finds long sentences do little to deter crime.[4],[13],[17],[23]

  • Minor

    Is addiction rational?

    Becker and Kevin Murphy modeled addiction as a forward-looking, rational choice. Jonathan Gruber and Botond Kőszegi (2001) confirmed that smokers look ahead but pointed to strong evidence that they are time-inconsistent and underestimate how hard quitting is. In their model the best cigarette tax is at least a dollar a pack higher than under rational addiction.[10],[24]

Against the odds

Becker grew up in a stable home, and no source records him facing antisemitism himself. His parents had both left school after eighth grade. His father, who had left Montreal on his own at 16, ran businesses in Pottsville and then Brooklyn and later lost most of his sight. The America of Becker's youth still limited Jewish ambition. From the 1920s Harvard, Yale and Princeton used vague tests of character to hold down Jewish admissions, and Columbia's president openly defended Jewish quotas. Economics departments rarely hired Jews before World War II. In 1927 a Harvard professor recommending a brilliant student to Chicago's economics chairman made a point of the man's Jewishness, and the candidate ended up at Minnesota; Penn hired no Jew into a full-time economics post until 1950. By the time Becker entered Princeton at 17, after World War II, these barriers were softening and academic careers once closed to Jews were opening. The resistance he met was to his ideas. As a graduate student he began to worry about racial, religious and gender discrimination, but his 1957 book on prejudice had no visible impact for years: most economists did not consider discrimination to be economics, and sociologists and psychologists doubted he was adding to their fields. He said the support of Friedman and other Chicago mentors was crucial to persevering against much hostility.

  • —

    Quota

    Context rather than a barrier he is known to have met: from the 1920s Harvard, Yale and Princeton screened applicants for character and leadership in ways meant to limit Jewish admissions, and Columbia's president openly defended quotas. Becker entered Princeton at 17, in the late 1940s.[9],[14]

  • 1927

    Discrimination

    Economics departments long resisted hiring Jews. In 1927 a Harvard professor recommending a top student to Chicago's economics chairman flagged that he was Jewish, and the candidate went to Minnesota. Penn hired no Jew into a full-time economics post until 1950.[14]

  • 1957

    Other

    His first book, The Economics of Discrimination (1957), had no visible impact for several years. Most economists did not think discrimination was economics, and sociologists and psychologists doubted he was contributing to their fields.[2]

  • —

    Other

    For decades leading economists ignored or disliked his work, and his 1960 paper on fertility drew harsh attacks from critics who rejected treating children as costly goods. At the Nobel banquet he said the prize honored economists who had faced obstacles, criticism and ridicule for studying behavior beyond markets.[2],[5],[10]

Jewish background

Both parents JewishRelationship to Jewish identity not documented

Becker was born into a Jewish family in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. His father, Louis W. Becker, had left Montreal and his family for the United States at 16; his mother, Anna Siskind, came to New York from Eastern Europe with her family as a baby. The Associated Press and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency both described him as Jewish when he died in 2014. Religion does not seem to have been central to his life: his sister Natalie recalled that as a boy he was intense about the Giants, handball and math problems, not about religion. We found no statement by Becker himself about his Jewish identity.[2],[6],[7],[8],[9],[25]

Key dates

  1. December 2, 1930

    Born in Pottsville, a coal-mining town in eastern Pennsylvania, where his father owned a small business.[1],[2]

  2. 1935

    Around age four or five, moves with his family to Brooklyn, where he later attends James Madison High School.[2],[9]

  3. 1951

    Graduates from Princeton in three years and starts graduate study at Chicago, where Milton Friedman's course renews his excitement about economics.[2],[8],[12]

  4. 1955

    Earns his PhD at Chicago with a dissertation on the economics of discrimination, having already begun teaching there as an assistant professor.[1],[2],[4],[11]

  5. 1957

    Publishes The Economics of Discrimination and moves to Columbia University and the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York.[1],[2],[3]

  6. 1964

    Publishes Human Capital, his theory and measurement of investment in education and training.[3],[15]

  7. 1967

    Wins the John Bates Clark Medal, then given every two years to the top American economist under 40.[11],[12]

  8. 1968

    Publishes Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach, founding the modern economics of crime.[3],[4]

  9. 1970

    Returns to the University of Chicago after the 1968 Columbia protests; his first wife, Doria Slote, dies the same year.[2],[12]

  10. 1981

    Publishes A Treatise on the Family, covering marriage, divorce, fertility and parents' investment in children.[2],[3]

  11. 1985

    Begins a monthly Business Week column, which he writes until 2004.[2],[12]

  12. October 13, 1992

    Awarded the economics prize alone, for extending microeconomic analysis to a wide range of human behavior, including behavior outside markets.[1],[3]

  13. November 5, 2007

    Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush.[18]

  14. May 3, 2014

    Dies in Chicago, aged 83, from complications after surgery.[1],[11]

Sources

  1. 1.Gary S. Becker - Facts · NobelPrize.org (Nobel Prize Outreach)
  2. 2.Gary S. Becker - Biographical (autobiography from Les Prix Nobel 1992) · NobelPrize.org (The Nobel Foundation), 1993
  3. 3.The Prize in Economics 1992 - Press release (13 October 1992) · NobelPrize.org (Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), 1992
  4. 4.The Economic Way of Looking at Life, Nobel Lecture, 9 December 1992 (Gary S. Becker) · NobelPrize.org (The Nobel Foundation), 1992
  5. 5.Gary S. Becker - Banquet speech (10 December 1992) · NobelPrize.org (The Nobel Foundation), 1992
  6. 6.Gary Becker, Nobel Prize-winning economist, dies (Marcy Oster) · Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 2014
  7. 7.Jewish Nobel laureate Becker dies at 83 (Associated Press) · The Times of Israel (via Internet Archive), 2014
  8. 8.Becker, Gary S(tanley) 1930- (Contemporary Authors entry) · Encyclopedia.com (Gale, Contemporary Authors)
  9. 9.Private Notes on Gary Becker (James J. Heckman), IZA Discussion Paper 8200 · IZA Institute of Labor Economics, 2014
  10. 10.Gary Becker: Model Economic Scientist (Heckman JJ), American Economic Review 105(5):74-79 · PubMed Central (American Economic Association), 2015
  11. 11.Gary S. Becker, Nobel-winning scholar of economics and sociology, 1930-2014 (William Harms) · University of Chicago News, 2014
  12. 12.Gary Becker, Who Applied Economics to Social Study, Dies at 83 (Laurence Arnold) · Bloomberg (via Internet Archive), 2014
  13. 13.Gary S. Becker [Ideological Profiles of the Economics Laureates] (Klein DB, Daza R), Econ Journal Watch 10(3):285-291 · Econ Journal Watch, 2013
  14. 14.MIT's Openness to Jewish Economists (E. Roy Weintraub), CHOPE Working Paper 2013-05 · Center for the History of Political Economy, Duke University, 2013
  15. 15.Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education, First Edition (Gary S. Becker) · National Bureau of Economic Research, 1964
  16. 16.Returns to Investment in Education: A Decennial Review of the Global Literature (Psacharopoulos G, Patrinos HA), World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 8402 · World Bank (via RePEc/IDEAS), 2018
  17. 17.Five Things About Deterrence · National Institute of Justice, US Department of Justice, 2016
  18. 18.President Bush Honors Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients (remarks and citations, 5 November 2007) · The White House (George W. Bush archives), 2007
  19. 19.Introducing Incentives in the Market for Live and Cadaveric Organ Donations (Becker GS, Elías JJ), Journal of Economic Perspectives 21(3):3-24 · American Economic Association, 2007
  20. 20.The Declaration of Istanbul on Organ Trafficking and Transplant Tourism (2018 edition) · Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group (The Transplantation Society and International Society of Nephrology), 2018
  21. 21.Becker's theory of the family: Preposterous conclusions (Barbara Bergmann), Feminist Economics 1(1):141-150 · RePEc/IDEAS (Taylor & Francis), 1995
  22. 22.The Economics of Leaning In (David Wessel) · The Wall Street Journal (via Internet Archive), 2013
  23. 23.The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order (Bernard E. Harcourt) · Harvard University Press, 2011
  24. 24.Is Addiction "Rational"? Theory and Evidence (Gruber J, Kőszegi B), Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(4):1261-1303 · RePEc/IDEAS (Oxford University Press), 2001
  25. 25.Gary Becker · Wikipedia

Fact-checked on September 24, 2026 by a separate AI fact-checking pass that re-opened the sources, with 6 corrections made. How we check

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