《人类行为的经济分析》集中体现并代表了贝克尔的学术思想和学术成就，这是因为，首先，贝克尔在本书中第一次明确阐述了他的研究方法，他的那些研究成果不过是这种研究方法的逻辑延伸和具体化，换言之，读者完全可以循着这一思路在人文科学领域里进行任何一个问题的研究；其次，《人类行为的经济分析》是一部特殊的文集，绝大部分章节的内容由贝克尔从他已发表的诸多论述中精心采撷、编篡而成，各个章节具有相对独立性，各章之间又彼此关联。

Economic Theory is used by the author instead of a title like Micro Theory or Price Theory because of his deep belief that there is only one kind of economic theory, not separate theories for micro problems, macro problems, non-market decisions, and so on. Indeed, the most promising development in recent years in the literature on unemployment and other macro problems has been the increasing reliance on utility maximization. Much of Becker's discussion is related to the market sector in industrialized economies, the principles being developed are frequently applied to other sectors and different kinds of choices. Economic analysis is essential in understanding much of the behavior traditionally studied by sociologists, anthropologists, and other social scientists. This is a true example of economic imperialism. The broad definition of economics in terms of scarce means and competing ends should be taken seriously and should be a source of pride to economists since it provides insights into a wide variety of problems.
Microeconomics, is the subject matter of these lectures. The lectures are emphatically, not confined to microeconomics in the literal sense of micro units like firms or households. Becker's main interest is in market behavior of aggregations of firms and households. Although important inferences are drawn about individual firms and households, the author tries to understand aggregate responses to changes in basic economic parameters like tax rates, tariff schedules, technology, or antitrust provisions.
It is important to choose the appropriate mathematical level of the presentation, especially since social science sophistication has improved in recent years. Beckerhas placed extended mathematical discussions in footnotes and appendixes. Practically all statements proved mathematically are also provided geometrically or verbally in the body of the text.

Imagine each family as a kind of little factory--a multiperson unit producing meals, health, skills, children, and self-esteem from market goods and the time, skills, and knowledge of its members. This is only one of the remarkable concepts explored by Gary Becker in his landmark work on the family. Becker applies economic theory to the most sensitive and fateful personal decisions, such as choosing a spouse or having children. He uses the basic economic assumptions of maximizing behavior, stable preferences, arid equilibria in explicit or implicit markets to analyze the allocation of time to child care as well as to careers, to marriage and divorce in polygynous as well as monogamous societies, to the increase and decrease of wealth from one generation to another. The consideration of the family from this perspective has profound theoretical and practical implications. For example, Becker's analysis of assortative mating can be used to study matching processes generally. Becker extends the powerful tools of economic analysis to problems once considered the province of the sociologist, the anthropologist, and the historian. The obligation of these scholars to take account of his work thus constitutes an important step in the unification of the social sciences. "A Treatise on the Family" will have an impact on public policy as well. Becker shows that social welfare programs have significant effects on the allocation of resources within families. For example, social security taxes tend to reduce the amount of resources children give to their aged parents. The implications of these findings are obvious and far-reaching. With the publication of this extraordinary book, the family moves to the forefront of the research agenda in the social sciences.

Since his pioneering Since his pioneering application of economic analysis to racial discrimination, Gary S. Becker has shown that an economic approach can provide a unified framework for understanding all human behavior. In a highly readable selection of essays Becker applies this approach to various aspects of human activity, including social interactions; crime and punishment; marriage, fertility, and the family; and "irrational" behavior.