A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

A Treatise on the Family

The European Union has been relatively cautious about using biotechnology in food production. A label regime combined with the right of individual member states to ban introduction of new genetically modified (GM) strains means that GM food products in effect are banned in many countries. We show how it is possible to empirically test whether a ban can be motivated by reference to potential negative externalities. This is followed up by results from a choice experiment. We cannot reject the hypothesis of equal WTP for a ban and a labeling scheme.

Consumer Benefits of Labels and Bans on GM Foods—Choice Experiments with Swedish Consumers

Agricultural Household Models: Survey and Critique

Implications of Non-Farm Work to Vulnerability to Food Poverty-Recent Evidence From Northern Ghana

This study examined changes in consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for apparel products as labour-related information and brand were added. Tobit analysis of auction bids from 121 university students for t-shirts showed men, Hispanics and consumers who believe in social responsibility and fair trade had significantly higher WTP once labour-related labelling was added. The amount and complexity of information did not matter, leaving substantial leeway to companies in crafting their message. Adding brand significantly increased WTP for two better-known brands while not changing WTP for the social responsibility messages. Results suggested brands can benefit from stressing social responsibility-related attributes of products.

Effects of social responsibility labelling and brand on willingness to pay for apparel

https://www.k-state.edu/economics/staff/publications/Chang%20-%20Labor%20Supply.pdf

Labor supply, income, and welfare of the farm household

Leading wool suppliers such as Australia began marketing organic wool to counter a decades-long decline in the world wool market. Given the challenge of adopting certified organic practices for wool production in certain parts of the world including the United States, consumer demand for organic wool products relative to alternative production attributes is assessed to explore the feasibility of certifying these attributes. An Internet survey found that most US consumers preferred wool to acrylic; distinguished wool products by origin; valued organic certification less than combined environmental sustainability and animal welfare claims; and lowered their valuation for wool products in response to the information provided on wool attributes.

Consumer Preferences for Sustainable Wool Products in the United States

Sightseeing and recreation have become prevalent in the Kenting coral reef area. However, coral reefs in Kenting are being severely bleached at an increasing rate under the influence of excessive human activities and climate change that have necessitated stronger conservation policies by the government. Based on a random utility model for coral ecology conservation, the preferences and willingness-to-pay (WTP) values of diving, fishing, and sightseeing visitors are analyzed. Empirical results show that: (1) increasing living coral coverage, improving water quality, restricting the number of daily visitors, increasing biodiversity, increasing the ratio of marine protected areas, and reducing the coral reef’s conservation fund will improve the overall utility of Kenting for visitors; (2) the WTP values significantly vary with respondents’ socioeconomic background and travel behaviors; (3) the results of a latent class model (LCM) also show that the two groups with different coral conservation preferences and WTP values have different socioeconomic backgrounds and travel behaviors.

Assessment of the Economic Value of Ecological Conservation of the Kenting Coral Reef

Choice experiments were conducted to assess US consumer demand for woolproduct attributes. The average consumer's WTP was higher for US wool gloves compared to acrylic gloves. For Australian wool gloves, WTP was lower if consumers read information on husbandry practices. Demand for attributes varied across socioeconomic and psychographic characteristics.

US Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Wool Product Attributes

To assess the impact of BSE in Japan, a Japanese meat demand system is estimated as a gradual switching Rotterdam model. The results, based on data from April 1994 to May 2002, suggest the structural transition took five months from its discovery. The scare affected both domestic and imported beef.

Yun-Ju Chen

Papers

Labor supply, income, and welfare of the farm household

Consumer Preferences for Sustainable Wool Products in the United States

Assessment of the Economic Value of Ecological Conservation of the Kenting Coral Reef

US Consumers' Willingness to Pay for Wool Product Attributes

The Impact of BSE on Japanese Retail Beef Market