Becker, Gary Stanley, 1930–2014, American economist. A professor at the Univ. of Chicago from 1968, he was awarded the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for extending the scope of microeconomic analysis. Sociology, demography, criminology, and other areas of market and nonmarket behavior were included in his work. In labor economics, for example, he examined the factors that motivated human behavior. He also did research concerning human capital, and analyzed the economic aspects of the family, crime, discrimination, and other facets of human behavior and everyday life. A free-market economist and political conservative, he was a columnist for Business Week from 1985 to 2004.
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