Gary Becker Interview (page: 7 / 9) Nobel Prize in Economics	Print Interview

Were there other experiences or particular events in your youth that really stand out as formative ones?

Gary Becker: It's hard -- at least it's always hard for me -- to know. I think there was my love for math.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. The only area I was precocious on was sort of an ability to calculate and do arithmetic, so I had some mathematical talent. I had a great love for math, love for social issues, trying to do something for society. I think those motivated me once I got to be a teenager. And then it was just a series of events, partly lucky. I went to Princeton, which is a great place. I didn't think I would get into Princeton, but they accepted me and I went there. Took the economics course, had a couple of good teachers when I was at Princeton, and a crisis in my study of economics when I was an undergraduate. I didn't feel... finally concluded it wasn't dealing with these important social issues. And I thought for a while about becoming a sociologist. Tried sociology but found it too difficult. I couldn't really get on top of it, as I began to read. And so came back to economics reluctantly, went to the University of Chicago, and that was a major... again, lucky. Most of my contemporaries, the advice we'd get would be to go to Harvard. And a lot, Princeton, in those days, if you were a good student and you wanted to go to grad school, you went to Harvard. I did get a very attractive offer from Harvard, but maybe this was my rebellious streak. I felt I wanted to do something different. Chicago seemed like... interesting. It was out in the Midwest. I hadn't been in the Midwest. It had a good department, I thought I'd try Chicago. And I did go to Chicago, and I encountered great teachers. Mainly I would say Milton Friedman had the greatest influence on me. And he taught me that you could use economics for powerful problems. That was really a revelation at that time. And I would say that was the next big, important event in my development.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

Had he already won his Nobel Prize?

Gary Becker: No. The Nobel Prize came much later. It only was started much later. So then, he was what now I would call a young economist. He looked older than me at the time. I was 20, he was about 40, so he's 20 years older than I am, approximately. But he was considered a powerful intellect already, and had enormous influence soon in the profession. He mesmerized all us graduate students, and in particular he did it for me. And again, what I got out of him, not only his brilliance and so on, but the feeling of how one could use economics to discuss things that had always interested me. That was a revelation.

At that point, did you decide, "This is my path," or were there still other things that you wanted to try?

Gary Becker: At that point, I thought I would become a professional economist and teacher. You know, you don't know what you're capable of doing, so I didn't really articulate it too well in my own mind, but I thought somehow I'd be an economist. I didn't know. Maybe I'd go into business, maybe not. I didn't know, but I knew I wanted to do economics, and I began to really feel fascinated by doing research on economics, and trying to struggle with some of these major problems using economics, using mathematics to understand these problems. So I was pretty convinced I wanted to do that at that time. But how it would work out, I didn't know.

What was your family's reaction when you went into this field?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Gary Becker: My mother was very dubious about my becoming an academic. She said, "The pay is so low." That's the first thing she told me, and I remember telling her, "Well, $10,000 a year will be enough for me." That's the number she said. "You won't make more then $10,000 a year." I said, "Well, I can live on $10,000 a year." Of course, $10,000... worth a little more today. It was low, but not so low. So she wasn't happy. My father was proud that I got a position at Columbia. He was quite proud of that. And while he originally thought I would go into business with my brother, he was proud of the fact that I went into academia. And my mother was... I think deep down she was proud about it. She worried about whether I'd be financially well enough off. But I think they were certainly supportive. My father, for sure, was supportive of this move on my part, 'cause I was the first academic in our extended family, and to get a position at Columbia was, you know, a great university. They were proud of me.

How many brothers and sisters do you have?

Gary Becker: I had two sisters and a brother.

Where are you in the line-up?

Gary Becker: I'm third. I had an older brother and an older sister.

Did they go on to college?

Gary Becker: We all went to college. My brother went to MIT and got a Master's and a Bachelor's degree there, and a law degree ultimately he got. So he got a lot of degrees. My older sister graduated from NYU, my younger sister got three or four degrees, so we all went on. They didn't become academics though. My brother became a chemical engineer and worked for a large company, Monsanto, and eventually he founded his own company. My oldest sister -- unfortunately she died when she was 38 years old -- but she had become a top executive in what's called the Asia Society, in the New York area. My younger sister is now a psychoanalyst. So they've all become professionals, although I was the only one who became an academic.

Have you given any attention to Frank Sulloway's book on birth order, Born to Rebel?

Gary Becker: I can't say I've paid a lot of attention to it. I've read some of the birth order literature in general. He talks about the first born...

He says the younger siblings are often the more creative ones. They're historically the ones that foment revolution and discover new genres and so forth.

Gary Becker: It seemed like a very interesting thesis. In my case I don't know how applicable it was. I always thought my oldest sister was extremely talented, but she died too young, so she didn't have time to really bring out all her talents. But she had a very good career on the way.

What happened to her?

Gary Becker: She had breast cancer. My mother died of breast cancer at a young age, but not that young, and then my sister died, so it was a terrible tragedy that happened to her. She had a lot of rebellious aspects to her. My brother was less rebellious, and was quite successful. I certainly felt I was influenced a lot by what they did ahead of me. They paved the way a lot for me.

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