IN MEMORIAM: GARY S. BECKER

In his classroom, rigor was its own reward. By Russell Roberts.

This article was originally printed in the Hoover Digest on July 9, 2014.

Gary Becker was my PhD adviser at the University of Chicago. We graduate students were in awe of him and more than a little afraid of him. He had a very big brain and was never one for casual conversation or chitchat.

Gary Becker

In class, Becker would often glance up at the ceiling while he lectured, wandering back and forth in front of the class, seemingly not paying attention. We always wondered what he saw up there—his lecture notes? His next great idea? Then he would stop and pause, barking out a student’s last name followed by a question, usually a question about whether a change in one variable would cause another to go up or down. Or stay the same. Often, the student would ask Becker to repeat the question as a way to stall for time, mental wheels spinning furiously, hoping to find the right response. Knowing we might be called on, we paid close attention to the lecture, desperately trying to figure out the implications of the analysis so we could be ready to answer if we were called on.

They were not easy questions. Mostly he was patient with our imperfections. The only exception I remember was when a student declared that Becker didn’t understand Coase’s work. A collective gasp filled the air. We half-expected a lightning bolt to come down through the roof and kill the student on the spot. What followed as Becker sparred with the student seemed close enough to the same result.

Why were we so nervous? We respected him so much; we hoped to earn just the smallest amount of respect in return.

When I was working on my dissertation and I wanted to see Becker, I would go to his secretary, Myrna Hieke, and she would give me a fifteen-minute time slot. When the time came, I would sit across from him andhe would greet me with something like “Well?” That was not an invitationto tell him about my weekend. I was there to get some help with whateverI was struggling with in my research. Then he would tell me how I couldfix it. Even in that casual setting, the laser-like quality of his mind wassomething to behold. I usually didn’t use the whole fifteen minutes.

When I completed my dissertation, his summary remark was that itmade “some contribution.” It was a phrase Becker used occasionally. Hedid not mean the word “some” the way it’s used in a phrase like “Koufaxhad some fastball.” It was more like a grudging admission that there wassomething there worthwhile. “Modest” would be the best translation. Agrudging concession. Coming from him, though, it was high praise.

When you presented your paper at his workshop, the expectation wasthat all of the participants had read your paper and there was no needfor you to present it. You were given five minutes to mention anythingyou felt might be of interest and then the participants grilled you forninety minutes. Becker was the main griller. His copy of the paper beingpresented had a special look that we students envied. It was covered incomments, but more than that, it looked as if it had been run over by acar a few times. The workshop was a scary place for a student to present,but we were helped by the fact that a lot of illustrious guests from outside Chicago also seemed to find it somewhat challenging.

He wasn’t a warm and fuzzy guy from a student’s perspective. But he was never mean or arrogant. He just had high expectations of what itmeant to be an economist and we wanted to meet them.

I will always be grateful for the support he gave me as a student andin my career. His interview on EconTalk, my weekly podcast, was theninth episode of what is now more than four hundred episodes. It was akindness on his part that helped me recruit other guests. We talked lastfall about doing another interview, but it fell through. I wish I had tried alittle harder to make it happen.

He exuded honesty and a relentless desire to discover the truth aboutevery aspect of human behavior. He gave all of us intellectual license topursue economics to wherever it might lead. His confidence in economicsinspired us. His curiosity and his reasoning powers were unparalleled.George Stigler liked to say about economics and economists that there isonly one social science and we are its practitioners. Gary Becker, morethan anyone, gave empirical support to Stigler’s claim. He was a giant. I’llmiss him.