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Gary Stanley Becker (born December 2, 1930) is an
United States|American economist.  A professor at
the University of Chicago, he won the 1992  Bank
of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of
Alfred Nobel|Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic
Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for "having
extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a
wide range of human behavior and interaction,
including non-market behavior".  He is also a
member of the Hoover Institution and the National
Bureau of Economic Research.

Born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, he earned a B.A.
at Princeton University in 1951 and a Ph.D. at the
University of Chicago in 1955.  He taught at
Columbia University from 1957 to 1968, and then
returned to Chicago, where he still teaches price
theory to the new graduate students each year.  He
won the John Bates Clark Medal in 1967.  Gary
Becker was one of the first economists to branch
into what were traditionally considered topics
belonging to sociology, including racial
discrimination, crime, family organization, and
drug addiction.  He is known for arguing that many
different types of human behavior can be seen as
rational and utility maximizing.  He is also among
the foremost exponents of the study of human
capital.  Among others, colleague Steven Levitt is
often seen as following in Becker's footsteps of
applying economic theory to unusual subjects.

According to the Nobel Prize citation, his work
can be categorized into four areas:
* investments in human capital
* behavior of the family (or household), including
distribution of work and allocation of time in the
family
* crime and punishment
* discrimination on the markets for labor and
goods.

Usually considered politically conservative, he
wrote a monthly column for Business Week from 1985
to 2004, alternating with liberal Princeton
economist Alan Blinder.  In December 2004, Becker
started a joint weblog with Judge Richard Posner.

==Major Works==
* Journal reference | Author=Gary Becker and Kevin
M. Murphy | Title=A Theory of Rational Addiction |
Journal=The Journal of Political Economy |
Year=1988 | Volume=96 | Pages=675-700
* Journal reference | Author=Gary Becker and
George J. Stigler | Title=De Gustibus Non Est
Disputandum | Journal=The American Economic Review
| Year=1977 | Volume=67 | Pages=76-90
* Journal reference | Author=Gary Becker and H.
Gregg Lewis | Title=On the Interaction between the
Quantity and Quality of Children | Journal=The
Journal of Political Economy | Year=1973 |
Volume=81 | Pages=S279-S288
* Journal reference | Author=Gary Becker |
Title=Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach |
Journal=The Journal of Political Economy |
Year=1968 | Volume=76 | Pages=169-217

== See also ==
*List of economists

== External links ==
*http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/ The
Becker-Posner Blog
*http://home.uchicago.edu/~gbecker/ Homepage at
the University of Chicago
*http://alop.atspace.com/tui/becker-press.html
Nobel Prize press release
*http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/02-06/becke
r.cfm Interview by the Minneapolis Fed
*http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu The Initiative on
Chicago Price Theory