Gary Becker was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1992. He's written widely on the economics of crime, discrimination, and the family. When he first started writing about these topics, there was a lot of skepticism. Over time, his perception is most that skepticism has faded.
Russ Roberts interviews Gary Becker, of the University of Chicago, on the challenges of being an intellectual maverick, the economic approach to human behavior, the influences of Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall on Becker's work and Becker's optimism for the future of economics.