In his Nobel Prize speech, Friedrich Hayek asserted that, “… I must confess that if I had been consulted whether to establish a Nobel Prize in economics, I should have decidedly advised against it. It is that the Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess.”
Praised by Milton Friedman as the “greatest social scientist who has lived and worked in the last half century”, Gary Becker, is best known for combining disciplines of economics and sociology to study human behavior. His approach led to many novel areas of specialization such as human capital, family economics, and economic analysis of crime, racial discrimination, addiction and population. Gary Stanley Becker was born in Pennsylvania in 1930. As he was interested in mathematics, he pursued a BA in economics from Princeton University. He later argued that education in Princeton “didn’t deal with the important social problems”. Nevertheless,...
Since 2002, the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty is a $250,000 prize that is given by Cato Institute every two years to individuals who have contributed to the human freedom. The prize is named after Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize Laureate, who is one of the most famous figures in the history of human fight for liberty and freedom. According to the website of the Cato Institute, Milton Friedman agreed to lend his name to the prize in 2001. Moreover, as the Cato Institute website further explains, Friedman has said in a statement: “Those of us who were fortunate enough...
Milton Friedman was born in New York in 1912. As a kid, he showed great enthusiasm to study mathematics and wanted to become an insurance actuary. While in college, he developed an interest in economics and therefore pursued graduate studies in economics in University of Chicago and later got his Ph.D. from Columbia University. In 1967 he became president of the American Economic Association. It was also during this period that Friedman became an adviser to President Richard Nixon. In 1976, he won the Nobel Prize in economics for his achievements in the field of consumption function...