Um pouco de McCloskey

Quer ler um artigo divertido da professora (ex-professor) Deirdre (ex-Donald) McCloskey? Veja aí um excerto. Agradeço a dica ao De Gustibus.

Leia-o aqui:

Becker (Nobel 1992), a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, asks, for example, why people have children. Answer: because children are durable goods. They are expensive to produce and maintain, over a long period of time, like a house. They yield returns over a long future, like a car. They have a poor second-hand market, like a refrigerator. They act as a store of value against future disasters, like pawnable gold or your diamond ring. So (you will sense a logical leap here; David Hume noticed the same leap in Mandeville and Hobbes), the number of children that people have is a matter of cost and benefit, just like the purchase of a house or car or refrigerator or diamond. A prudent parent decides whether to invest in many children or few, extensively or intensively, early or late, just like investing in a durable good. vIf you think this is funny stuff you are not alone. But think again: there's no doubt that Prudence does affect at least part of the decision to have children, to emigrate, to attend church, to go to college, to commit a murder, not to speak of buying a house or a car or a loaf of bread. In his obsessive study of the Prudential part, the economist can make some quite interesting and sometimes counter-intuitive and occasionally even factually true points