Accounting for Tastes

Gary S. Becker

Published by Harvard University Press 1996

Accounting for Tastes

Gary S. Becker

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674020658

Overview
Contents

About this book

Becker argues that past experiences and social influences form two basic capital stocks, personal and social, and applies these concepts to assessing the effects of advertising, the power of peer pressure, the nature of addiction, and the function of habits.

Reviews

[Becker's] achievement has been to create an elegant structure, internally consistent and based on reasonable assumptions, and to use it to generate many testable propositions about how people grapple with the complexities of personal choice...[He] has helped to liberate economics from a straitjacket of oversimplification and narrowness of view.
-- David Throsby Times Literary Supplement

Gary Becker has used his regular economics column in Business Week to communicate economic truths in plain English and to apply them to the issues of the day...[In this] collection of scholarly essays, Becker applies technically sophisticated economic arguments to work habits, parental altruism and other matters.
-- David R. Henderson Wall Street Journal

The formation of preferences or tastes and the role tastes play in consumer behavior provide the underlying themes of Accounting for Tastes. Becker's goal in explaining this role is to extend the assumption that individuals behave in ways that maximize utility based on preferences independent of past and future behaviors...Becker's work shows that economic theory can be fruitfully applied to a wide range of questions in the social sciences. He has extended the borders of economics by applying an economic approach to the analysis of a number of questions considered by some to be primarily within the domain of social sciences other than economics...[Accounting for Tastes] is thought provoking.
-- Peggy S. Berger Journal of Consumer Affairs

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
PART I. PERSONAL CAPITAL
1. Preferences and Values Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	24
3. A Theory of Rational Addiction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
4. Rational Addiction and the Effect of Price on Consumption Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
5. An Empirical Analysis of Cigarette Addiction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
6. Habits, Addictions, and Traditions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
PART II. SOCIAL CAPITAL
7. The Economic Way of Looking at Life Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
8. A Theory of Social Interactions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	162
9. A Note on Restaurant Pricing and Other Examples of Social Influences on Price Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	195
10. A Simple Theory of Advertising as a Good or Bad Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
11. Norms and the Formation of Preferences Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	225
12. Spouses and Beggars: Love and Sympathy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
References Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 278

eBook

Published: July 1, 2009
ISBN: 9780674020658