An Interview with Gary Becker

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Ethics, Philosophy, Economics, Books, Science, Business, Courses, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Interviews, Education, History

4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 10 July 2006

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Russ Roberts interviews Gary Becker, of the University of Chicago, on the challenges of being an intellectual maverick, the economic approach to human behavior, the influences of Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall on Becker's work and Becker's optimism for the future of economics.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, coming to you from the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:04.7	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of George Mason University.
0:07.6	If you have comments or feedback, send email to Roberts at gmu.edu.
0:13.9	You can find more Econ Talk at www.econtalk.org along with readings and links related to this
0:21.2	podcast.
0:22.7	My guest today is Gary Becker, Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University
0:27.0	of Chicago.
0:29.3	Gary was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1992, and is perhaps the most creative economist
0:34.8	of, I don't know, the last 50 years, the last 100, just a, I suppose, a matter of taste
0:39.5	in judgment.
0:41.0	He's written widely on the economics of crime, discrimination, and the family.
0:45.7	And he received the Nobel Prize and has made his mark in the profession for extending
0:49.2	economics to such an enormously wider range of behavior than merely the financial.
0:55.4	And it's a pleasure and honor to have him on the show.
0:58.4	Good to be here, Russ.
1:00.0	Gary, I wonder if you could start by talking about the influence of your work on, on economists.
1:05.7	When you first started writing on the diverse topics that you've written on, there was
1:11.6	a lot of skepticism of the value of economics applied to these areas.
1:15.9	Over time, my perceptions, most, if not all, of that skepticism is faded, but I'd be
1:21.1	interested in your perception of how the profession has received your work and then used it.
1:27.1	Well, there's no question that initially there was a great deal of skepticism starting
1:31.5	with my first study and book on the economics of the subracial discrimination.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.