Memoirs of an Unregulated Economist

Stigler, one of the leading figures in the conservative ``Chicago School'' of economics, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1982 for his work on the economics of information and on the economics of public regulation. In this engaging memoir, he recounts his intellectual development. As a graduate student at the University of Chicago during the 1930s, he was deeply influenced by economists Frank Night and Jacob Viner. These two mentors nurtured his belief in the efficacy of free markets and the harm that government interference in markets often causes. Stigler, who taught at Iowa State University and Columbia University before returning to the University of Chicago in 1958, here describes the work of colleagues like Milton Friedman, Gary Becker, Ronald Coase and Richard Posner, ``Chicago'' economists who share a fierce commitment to free markets and to rigorous microeconomic analyses. Stigler concludes that economic logic will eventually pervade other, less rigorous social sciences. This is a well-written and tautly argued book. (September)