The Economics of Life: From Baseball to Affirmative Action to Immigration, How Real-World Issues Affect Our Everyday Life

From economics Nobel Laureate Gary Becker and historian Guity Nashat Becker comes this collection of the economist's popular BusinessWeek columns. These 138 essays have fueled numerous debates, touching on hot-button issues from crime to organization of sports. The Beckers' surprising--and uncompromising--positions on drugs ("legalize them"), immigration ("auction off immigration slots"), welfare ("curtail it sharply"), and other topics provide a provocative commentary on our times.

"The great majority of people are more rational and make fewer mistakes in promoting their own interests than even well-intentioned government officials," writes this impressive couple (Gary won the 1992 Nobel Prize for Economics). The short, column-length essays that make up this volume first appeared in Business Week magazine and show for a popular audience how market incentives influence human behavior in countless ways. The Beckers criticize centralized planning, racial quotas and trade tariffs, and endorse drug legalization, privatized social security and school vouchers. They also veer into unexpected terrain, addressing religion, sports and marriage with keen insight.