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The New Home Economics at Columbia and Chicago

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Book cover Jacob Mincer A Pioneer of Modern Labor Economics

Abstract

This paper studies forty years of New Home Economics (NHE), a school of household economics started by Jacob Mincer and Gary Becker at Columbia University in the early sixties. Household economics is defined as economic research concerning decisions that household members make regarding any allocation of resources. These decisions may regard consumption, labor supply, transportation, fertility, or health. From studying the history of the NHE we learn that its growth benefited from the concentration of talent at Columbia, the diversity of a student body that included many talented men and women, a relatively high concentration of married students who tended to be more interested in household production, the proximity of research organizations in New York, an avoidance of political controversy, and a pleasant workshop atmosphere.

This is an abbreviated and corrected version of an article published in Feminist Economics, Vol 7, Number 3, November 2001, [copyright symbol] International Association for Feminist Economics 2005. Reprinted with permission from IAFFE. The original article can be accessed at www.feministeconomics.org. I am grateful to Jacob Mincer and Gary Becker, two extraordinary teachers and mentors. Their uncompromising and spiritually uplifting demand for truth continues to inspire me. I thank Mincer, Becker, James Heckman, and some of their students at Columbia (Andrea Beller, Linda Edwards, Marjorie Honig, Sol Polachek, and Cordelia Reimers) for answering some of my questions; and Bina Agarwal, Andrea Beller, Barry Chiswick, Linda Edwards, Nancy Folbre, Andrew Foster, James Heckman, Evelyn Lehrer, Diana Strassmann, and Howard Yourow for useful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. San Diego State University, San Diego

    Shoshana Grossbard (Professor of Economics)

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  1. Shoshana Grossbard
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Shoshana Grossbard

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© 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

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Grossbard, S. (2006). The New Home Economics at Columbia and Chicago. In: Grossbard, S. (eds) Jacob Mincer A Pioneer of Modern Labor Economics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-29175-X_7

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