Les explications du professeur Gary Becker
lundi 22 octobre 2007 par Philippe Simonnot
"Le département d’économie de l’université de Chicago a toujours été fort, déclare Gary Becker. Cela a commencé avec Thornstein Veblen, qui a enseigné ici. Puis est venue l’époque de Frank Knight et de Jacob Viner. Tous deux croyaient à la puissance de l’outil économique. Ensuite Milton Friedman et Stigler ont pris le relais. C’était pour eux une religion que de croire dans l’analyse économique. Et une telle croyance a la capacité de stimuler énormément les étudiants qui viennent ici."
C’est en effet une question difficile. Je pense que l’une des explications possibles est que les gens ici croient dans le pouvoir d’analyse des outils économiques appliqués à de multiples champs, et pas seulement dans le champ économique.
Voulez-vous dire qu’il faut pousser l’analyse économique jusqu’au bout, jusqu’à épuiser ses possibilités, sans se laisser arrêter par d’autres considérations, sans appeler au secours d’autres savoirs ?
Exactement. Beaucoup d’économistes, même dans le champ économique, ne vont pas jusqu’au bout du raisonnement qu’ils peuvent tenir avec leurs propres moyens. Ici, nous nous efforçons de pousser le raisonnement le plus loin possible, non seulement en économie, mais dans d’autres domaines comme la famille, le crime, la drogue, l’éducation, la loi et tant d’autres. Toute question qui pose un problème d’allocation des ressources et de choix dans une situation de rareté relève de l’économie. Il se trouve, et nous l’avons montré, que dans beaucoup de domaines présumés non économiques, l’économiste peut faire des découvertes intéressantes et souvent inattendues.
Acceptez-vous qu’on appelle « impérialisme économique » cette application de l’économie à d’autres domaines que l’économie ?
Cela ne me dérange pas.
Ce type d’analyse économique est fondé sur l’« individualisme méthodologique », c’est-à-dire que seul l’individu est une unité pertinente d’analyse, que la société n’est qu’une somme d’individus.
Tout à fait.
D’où vient cette croyance dans le pouvoir explicatif de l’économie ?
Oh ! c’est une longue histoire, qui remonte à plus de cent ans. Le département d’économie de l’université de Chicago a toujours été fort. Cela a commencé avec Thornstein Veblen, qui a enseigné ici. Puis est venue l’époque de Frank Knight et de Jacob Viner. Ce n’était pas des « impérialistes » de l’économie. Mais tous deux croyaient à la puissance de l’outil économique. Ensuite Milton Friedman et Stigler ont pris le relais. C’était pour eux une religion que de croire dans l’analyse économique. Et une telle croyance a la capacité de stimuler énormément les étudiants qui viennent ici.
Philippe Simonnot
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Commentaires sur les explications du professeur Gary Becker23 octobre 2007, par
Commentaires sur les explications de Becker/ Comments about Becker explanations in mises@yahoogroups.com
Much along the lines of Friedman´s methodology Becker indeed writes :
"That alternative explanation did not simply reconcile the phenomena in question with the stability of tastes, but also sought to show that the hypothesis of stable tastes yielded more useful predictions about obsrvable behavior."
He also adds explanatory power, however, as a criterion justifying this approach :
"The great advantage (...) of relying only on changes in the arguments entering household production functions is that all changes in behavior are explained by changes in prices and incomes, precisely the variables that organize and give power to economic analysis."
This is also very much in the Chicago School tradition. Economic analysis is price theory before it is anything else.
Ludwig van den Hauwe
Randy Holcombe writes :
> They want to assume everyone has the same underlying utility function. > If we start with people who have different preferences, then anything is > possible and we really can’t explain any outcome, or exclude any > outcome. It’s very consistent with Friedman’s positivism in that regard.
Yes, but even by positivist standards, this approach is out of date. Behavioral economists and experimental economists argue that changes in preferences, both among and within individuals, are observable via controlled experiments. In other words, what Becker and Stigler regard as assumptions, the behavioralists treat as testable hypotheses. So explaining outcomes via changes in preferences isn’t inconsistent with positivism.
I’m reminded of Rothbard’s statement, in "In Defense of Extreme Apriorism," that if forced to choose between the mainstream positivism of Machlup and the ultra-empiricism of Hutchison, he would take the latter.
Peter Klein Whatever Becker’s argument in "De Gustibus," it is irrelevant to a Misesian theory of economics as I understand it. Motivation, preferences, whatever you want to call the psychological wellsprings of human action, are not observable and may not even be known to the actor(s). At the moment of choice, one thing is chosen and the other not. Changes in relative prices are historical evidences of changing choices.
Neoclassical economics needs an assumption of "rational" behavior because of its focus on stability conditions for general equilibrium. This is foreign to the approach of Mises and others in the Mengerian tradition of understanding human action.
Sam Bostaph
Bogdan Enache <bogdan.c.enache@gmail.com> wrote :
Becker’s argument seems to be that that without stable preferences the hypothesis of rational behaviour is a tautology, consequently only assuming stable preferences can we have a testable theory.
I’m probably missing something, but since the price structure or the human capital are themselves determined by preferences isn’t his claim that changing behaviour can be accounted only by changes in relative prices, human capital etc - and not by changes in preferences - a case of circular reasoning ?
Thank you for your helpful responses.
Bogdan Enache
2007/10/22, Randall Holcombe <holcombe@garnet.acns.fsu.edu> : I don’t understand Becker’s explanations : people’s preferences are, he says, transitive and stable ; they don’t really change, ever - but behaviours do.... I don’t have in-depth knowledge of Becker’s insights on this matter ; I started reading his book "Human Behaviour" a few weeks ago but I had to purspone this reading for the near future. Maybe somebody on the list is willing to elaborate a little bit on his argument.
See George J. Stigler and Gary S. Becker, "De Gustibus Non Est Desputandum." American Economic Review 67, no. 2 (March 1977) : 76-90.
Essentially, the argument is that to understand people’s behavior, we have to assume everyone has the same preferences, and their behaviors differ because of different relative prices they face, different components in their human capital, background, etc. If we say people choose different things because their preferences differ, that’s equivalent to saying we really don’t know why they choose what they do.
Of course, the title of their article is in Latin, so who knows what it really means... (That’s a joke, so don’t e-mail me and tell me !)
Randy Holcombe A comment on the Becker interview linked below.
I don’t understand Becker’s explanations : people’s preferences are, he says, transitive and stable ; they don’t really change, ever - but behaviours do because of different phenomenons (like drug addiction, costumes, ageing etc) which have an impact on behaviours through effect on people’s income and the price structure. Is he really suggesting that there is no sort of causal relation between preference and behaviour ? That’s what I understand.
I don’t have in-depth knowledge of Becker’s insights on this matter ; I started reading his book "Human Behaviour" a few weeks ago but I had to purspone this reading for the near future. Maybe somebody on the list is willing to elaborate a little bit on his argument.
Bogdan Enache