Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economic Science, Becker has pioneered the aplication of economic analysis to human behavior in such areas as dicrimination, married, family, etc. This book is a classic study of the consequences of investing in a person's knowledge and skills. According to his theory, investing in an individual's education and training is similar to business investments in equipment.

One of the principal book about Human Capital Theory.

Gary S. Becker and Kevin M. Murphy explore the market behavior in a social environment most magnificiently in this book. The insight that I have gained through reading this book cannot be measured by a mere mortal. Furthermore, it astounds me that the sales rank for this book is 72,711, when on my bookshelf it is number 1! This is a must buy for anyone, even if you have no prior knowledge of economics.

This book is definitely a milestone of modern economic thought. It is one of the brightest signs of changing paradigm, from considering only those problems as 'economical' where prices and volumes could be estimated, to go beyond towards traditional areas of other sciences. Economics of family and of crime to name a few. Becker considers the decision making in these cases to show that it can be straight economical, the same as applied in a pricing or in a decision to produce. The judgement of Becker's 'economic imperialism', though, is a discussible point of view. To what extent economic reasoning can be applied is a matter of axioms underlying every economic theory. And these are not obvious but questionable instead. Therefore, it is my belief that this book should be read with a greater degree of criticism, just like any analysis of problems beyond 'traditional' scope of issues of economics.

Gary Becker is one of the most brilliant economists of our time, especially when it come to applying economics principles to non traditional areas. For example, Becker provides a rationale for altruistic behavior emerging in society, and he studies crime from the the perspective of a market economy of criminal activity. The book is somewhat technical, so a somewhat quantitative background is recommended.

Becker has written his view over the scope and method of economic analysis. And he argues that economics is a particular way in analyzing human behavior. This is an excellent presntation on the meaning of economics.

If entrepreneurs value profits above all else, then they will base their decisions on profits rather than race. This seems simple enough, though many lefties manage to avoid understanding this simple logic. Instead, they often try to dodge the content of this book by denouncing Becker's work as "garbage" without ever addressing the content of this book. The world would be a much better place if lefties would simply practice intellectual honesty when they read- but then they would cease to be lefties.

The Economics of Discrimination is the single most important book written about the topic of discrimination. Dr. Becker, a scholar of the Chicago school, won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work in topics such as discrimination. In this book, the founding father of economic "imperialism" (the application of rational choice models to the topics usually reserved for other disciplines), presents an interesting hypothesis: free markets, through the profit maximizing incentive, are the best way to combat racism and bigotry.

The logic is simple: bigotry, if practiced by employers, has a cost. The best, most greed-driven profit maximizers will have no demand for this sort of strange, cost-imposing behavior. In a competitive market, we can expect that this behavior would lead directly to bankruptcy, and rightly so. Free markets provide the profit incentive for a color-blind society. Where would you expect to see the most discrimination, then? Government, of course, because it lacks profit incentives. Not-for-profit organizations are also easy victims. In other venues, discrimination is just too costly to be viable. Restrictions on the ability to choose, though, do nothing to stop bigotry, only to encourage it.

This book delves in to this argument in great detail with total academic honesty, and it is thoroughly researched, well documented, and succinctly presented. Dr. Becker is a first rate scientist and an excellent writer, and even though this was written early in his academic career it still carries his signature style. This book is a complete, definitive, authoritative work on the subject, but also suitable as an introduction. It could be readable by anyone with elementary economic knowledge, and even by the intelligent lay person. Anyone who wants to know what discrimination is really about and what we can do about it would do well to read and understand this book. No argument about discrimination is complete without understanding the logic and models Dr. Becker presents.

As a contribution to an impressive trend of applying the economic way of thinking to the most important issues we face, this book is absolutely invaluable. If this book interests you as much as it did me, you may want to read other books by Dr. Becker. For more about discrimation, though, try The State Against Blacks by Walter Williams.

I disagree, but the previous reviewer has a right to be wrong.

This book is good for the smarter-than-average right-winger. If you are suspicious of any ideology, specially about those that claim to have easy solutions to the world's problems, then you are not going to like this book, like me.

This is a collection of articles Becker has published during his career as an economic contributer to Business Week. After having read some of Becker's other books, I came to the conclusion that this book is two things:
1) An easy to understand intro to the usage of economic principles to solve problems. Becker's other books were essentially on similar topics, but with a much more rigorous analysis.
2) An intro to new topics that could be approached from a much more rigorous standpoint. Becker's curious mind actually points out to many issues (such as immigration, affirmative action, and many other gov't issues) that would benefit from a more rigorous economic approach.

Good entertainment value, with about 80% of essays really interesting and the rest fillers.

Despite the Beckers' clear and obvious conservative bias, this is a pretty good book and well worth reading for anyone who wants to learn more about economics. For less slanted books, I would recommend "The Armchair Economist" and "Naked Economics."

This book is very innovative in the sense that some concepts taken for granted are challenged. For instance, even if the consumer behaves irrationally, the demand tends to be negatively inclined, because the resources are scarce. Sometimes, the book gets very difficult, and the reader has to derive some equations. It is very interesting the presentation of the creative theory of allocation of time. The book does not argue General Equilibrium, but it has an extensive and non usual discussion about human capital. Also, note that this is not a subject usually covered in introductory books. Finally, it should be pointed out that some exercises are really hard, although they are not mathematically demanding. I do not recommend this book for beginners, but for those who wish to deepen his knowledge about microeconomics.

Becker's work on the economics of the family is unique. He poses the existence of a marriage market where people shop for spouses. Becker reasons that polygamy is good for women because increased demand improves their bargaining position. Becker also looks at children as a type of investment- like a business decision to buy a new machine. Many will find his arguments distrubing, however his reasoning is flawless.