The New Home Economics at Columbia and Chicago

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.