TY  - JOUR
AU  - Pollak,Robert A.
TI  - Gary Becker's Contributions to Family and Household Economics
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9232
PY  - 2002
Y2  - September 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9232
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9232.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Robert Pollak
Washington University in St. Louis
Arts and Sciences
and the Olin Business School
Campus Box 1133
1 Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO  63130-4899
Tel: 314/935-4918
Fax: 314/935-6359
E-Mail: pollak@wustl.edu
AB  - Gary Becker's influence on the economics of the family has been pervasive. His ideas have dominated research in the economics of the family, shaping the tools we use, the questions we ask, and the answers we give. The foundational assumptions of Becker's economic approach to the family -- maximizing behavior and equilibrium -- as well as such primary auxiliary assumptions as household production and interdependent preferences, are now widely accepted not only by economists but also by family sociologists, demographers, and others who study the family. Yet the interesting and provocative implications of Becker's economic approach to the family do not follow from the foundational assumptions or from the primary auxiliary assumptions. Instead they depend on contested auxiliary assumptions to which neoclassical economics has no commitment and which lack empirical support. This paper discusses the crucial role of auxiliary assumptions in Becker's analysis of the family, first in the context of preferences, then in the context of household production, and finally in the context of family or household collective choice.
ER  -