Gary Becker Explains Your Dinner Check

Saturday marked the death of Gary Becker, perhaps the greatest social scientist of the last 50 years. More than anyone else, Becker is responsible for the rigorous pursuit of the idea that human beings are rational and responsive to incentives. That’s a simple idea, but Becker used it to produce path-breaking insights into countless areas, including crime, discrimination, addiction, politics and the structure of the family.

Becker was a colleague and a friend of mine, and he was a quintessentially rational man. On the tennis court, where he competed with people decades younger than he was, he always hit the right shot. Because he couldn’t hit the ball hard, he relied on placement, and he always hit the ball exactly where it should go. In an academic workshop, he didn’t grandstand or try to show people up; he sought the truth. “What’s the evidence for that?” he liked to ask.