Social Economics: Market Behavior in a Social Environment

by Gary S. Becker, Kevin M. Murphy

Overview

Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy present a testable, analytic framework for measuring how people make choices by including the social environment along with standard goods and services in their utility functions. These extended utility functions provide a way of analyzing how changes in the social environment affect people's choices and behaviors. More important, they also provide a way of analyzing how the social environment itself is determined by the interactions of individuals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674020641
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	07/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	190
File size:	913 KB

About the Author

Kevin Murphy is the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Economics and Industrial Relations, Graduate School of Business, the University of Chicago. He won the John Bates Clark Medal of the American Economics Association in 1997.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
Part I	The Effect of Social Capital on Market Behavior
1	The Importance of Social Interactions	3
2	Social Forces, Preferences, and Complementarity	8
3	Are Choices "Rational" When Social Capital Is Important?	22
Part II	The Formation of Social Capital
4	Sorting by Marriage	29
5	Segregation and Integration in Neighborhoods	47
6	The Social Market for the Great Masters and Other Collectibles	74
7	Social Markets and the Escalation of Quality: The World of Veblen Revisited	84
8	Status and Inequality	105
Part III	Fads, Fashions, and Norms
9	Fads and Fashion	133
10	The Formation of Norms and Values	144
	References	159
	Author Index	165
	Subject Index	167

Editorial Reviews

[Becker and Murphy] are pioneers in the quest to extend the boundaries of rational choice theory in economics… They depict human beings not as isolated individuals but as members of society, shaped by social and cultural forces… This book marks another step in bringing economic theory closer to social reality.

Times Literary Supplement - David Throsby

This fascinating short book seeks to advance a ‘social economics’ field that would tackle such interpersonal issues head-on. It does so by addressing a diverse set of issues that includes social capital, habits and social interactions, sorting and marriage markets, segregation and integration of neighborhoods, escalation in product quality, status and inequality, and the modeling of fashions, norms, and values.

Journal of Economic Literature - Stephen R. G. Jones