Faculty and Research
Our current faculty includes:
- Gary Becker, who has pioneered study in the fields of human capital, economics of the family, and economic analysis of crime, discrimination, addiction, and population.
- Kevin Murphy, a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award, who studies inequality, unemployment, and relative wages; economics of growth and development, addiction, and the economic value of improvements in health and longevity.
- Steven Levitt, who studies a wide range of topics including the economic aspects of crime, corruption, sports, and education as evident in his book Freakonomics.
- John List, who is a professor of economics at the University of Chicago. He focuses on questions in microeconomics, with a particular emphasis on the use of experimental methods to address both positive and normative issues.
- Emily Oster, who is an assistant professor of economics at Chicago Booth where she studies health and development with a particular emphasis on the interactions between disease and human behavior.
- Jesse M. Shapiro, who is an assistant professor of economics and studies the economics of communication and persuasion in the areas of industrial organization and political economy.
Visiting Faculty
For the academic year of 2009-10, we are pleased to have Peter T. Leeson, the BB & T Professor for the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and author of The Invisible Hook, join the Becker Center.
For the academic year of 2007-08, we were pleased that Kerwin Charles, the Steans Family Professor in Education Policy in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, joined the Becker Center. His research focuses on a range of subjects in the broad area of empirical labor economics.