Becker, Gary

Becker, Gary S., Thomas J. PhUlipson, and Rodrigo R. Soares. 2005. The Quantity and Quality of Life and the Evolution of World Inequality. American Economic Review 95(1) 277-291. 

Becker, Gary. 1983. A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence. Quarterly Journal of Economics 98 371-400. 

Becker, Gary, and Casey Mulligan. 1997. "On the Endogenous Determination of Time Preferences." Quarterly Journal of Economics 112 729-58. 

Becker, Gary, and Kevin Murphy. 1988. "A Theory of Rational Addiction." Journal of Political Economy96 675-700. 

Becker, Gary. 1992. "Habits, Addictions, and Traditions." Kyklos, 45 327-46. 

Becker, Gary S., Michael Grossman, and Kevin M. Murphy. 1991. "Rational Addiction and the Effect of Price on Consumption." A merican Economic Review 81 237-41. 

Becker, Gary. 1996. Accounting for Tastes. Cambridge Harvard University Press. 

Babcock, i.inda, 346-47, 348 Bacon, Francis, 238 balance, see equilibrium Balzac, Honors de, 1 108 Balzac, Guez dc, 32 Banfieid, Edward, 308-00 Barry, Brian 337 Becker, Gary 5,37 3Qi. 321-28 on altruism, 322-24 on envy, 322-24 on guilt, 301, >24-25 on love, 305,325-27 Bedford, Gunning, 381-82, beliefs, 336... 

Becker, Gary and Kevin Murphy. 1988. A Theory of Rational Addiction. Journal of Political Economy. August, 96(4) 675-700. 

Becker, Gary S. and George J. Stigler. 1974. Law Enforcement, Malfeasance, and Compensation of Enforcers. The Journal of Legal Studies. January, 3(1) 1-18. 

Let me first turn to Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy s (1988) theory of rational addiction.171 do this not because I think they give a full view of the state of addicts but because they present a plausible structure for a part of addicts beliefs and desires when in the addicted state. Their theory simply put is this ... 

The crucial feature of addictive products is that past consumption affects current well-being. Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy (1988) provide a model of "instantaneous utility functions" to capture this feature, and we adopt (a translation of) their model. People s instantaneous utility for a given period represents how much pleasure they experience that period. Suppose that all effects of past consumption on period-/ instantaneous utility can be captured in a single summary statistic, which we denote by kt. We often refer to k, as people s addiction level in period t People s instantaneous utility in period t is given by u,(a kt)—that is, how much pleasure they experience in period t depends both on whether they hit and on their addiction level. 

In an influential article, Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy (1988) present a model of rational addiction. The model has two main aspects. On the one hand, it offers a simple causal model of the consequences of consuming addictive substances. On the other hand, it offers a standard belief-desire account of how people might choose to engage in such consumption. 

In the present analysis, the antonym of a mechanism is a scientific laiv. A law asserts that given certain initial conditions, an event of a given type (the cause) will a/mrys produce an event of some other type (the effect). An example If we keep consumer incomes constant, an increase in the price of a good will cause less of it to be sold ("the Law of demand"). Again, we may ask for a story to support the law. One story could be that consumers maximize utility. Gary Becker showed, however, that the law of demand could also be supported by other stories, such as that consumers follow tradition or even that they behave randomly.14... 

Maximilian F. Reiser Christoph R. Becker Konstantin Nikolaou Gary Glazer... 

Stigler, George J., Gary S. Becker, 1977, De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum, American... 

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