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The question of whether, and to what extent, Chicago price theory is Marshallian is a large one, with many aspects. The theory of individual behavior is one of these, and the treatment of altruism, or, more generally, other-regarding behavior, falls within this domain. This chapter explores the analysis of other-regarding behavior in the work of Alfred Marshall and Gary Becker with a view to drawing out the similarities and differences in their respective approaches. What emerges is sense that we find in Becker’s work important commonalities with Marshall but also significant points of departure and that the line from Marshall to modern Chicago is neither as direct as it is sometimes portrayed, nor as faint as it is sometimes claimed by Chicago critics.

Teixeira devotes the first chapter of his book to a modest-sized personal portrait of Mincer and overview of his professional career. Some of this material is largely of personal interest, although only the most stoic would fail to be moved. Mincer was born into a Jewish family in Poland in 1922. He excelled as a high school student and was in his first year of university studies in Czechoslovakia (chosen largely because other universities rejected him due to his religious background) when Hitler and the Nazis took over the country. Mincer spent three years in German concentration camps and miraculously survived, although his family in Poland was much less fortunate.

This study examines the extent to which educational outcomes are transmitted from mothers to daughters in rural China. An analysis of the 2010 China Family Panel Survey reveals that: (i) how far daughters go in their education is strongly associated with their mothers’ education; (ii) the association between mothers’ and daughters’ educational outcomes in rural China was found to be stronger than the corresponding relationships between mothers and sons, fathers and daughters, and fathers and sons, especially at higher levels of education; and (iii) while having more brothers and being born later worsens daughters’ educational outcomes, mothers’ higher education effectively mitigates these negative effects. These findings add to a growing body of literature and empirical evidence that challenges conventional social mobility research paradigms that neglect mothers’ roles. More importantly, the distinction between mother–daughter relationship and that between fathers and daughters and mothers and sons highlights the fact that education is likely transmitted intergenerationally via mechanisms that differ depending on the gendered parent–child pairs.

It has long been known that family firms have a high mortality rate and that increasing these firms' survival rate is one of the most difficult challenges faced by both public policies and scholars. While most policies and researchers have focused on the business side, in recent years, more attention has been paid to the family sphere. This chapter goes one step further by not focusing on one side or another of this binomial, but on the relationship between both. In particular, we analyze the paradoxes emerging between the different inter- and intragenerational dyads that coexist in family firms (mother-daughter, father-son, mother-son, father-daughter, brother-sister, wife-husband, etc.) to open new lines of debate and propose new basis for the establishment of family firms-targeted public politics. We propose policies that will help family decision-makers to manage unique paradoxes that characterize family businesses.

Although preference for sons has been documented among parents in developing countries, it is an open question whether and to what extent intra-household resource allocation is influenced by family sex composition. This study investigates the effects of sex composition on intra-household resource allocation based on the collective household model of Dunbar, Lewbel, and Pendakur (2013). I extend their model to estimate the influences on a household member’s resource share by observing how budget shares of a private assignable good vary not only with total expenditure and family size, but also with family sex composition. Using data from the 2005 Iranian Household Income and Expenditure Survey, I find that family composition significantly affects intra-household resource allocation in Iranian rural areas. Specifically, rural parents assign 1.6–1.9 percentage points more resources toward their sons. These resources are essentially coming at the expense of mothers. In all-boy families, mothers get 2.8–3.6 percentage points fewer resources than they do in all-girl families. These effects are more pronounced among farmer families than nonfarmer families. However, I find no significant role for gender composition in intra-household resource allocation in urban areas.

This chapter discusses conceptual links among Hazel Kyrk’s A Theory of Consumption (1923), the overall work of Thorstein Veblen, and Wesley C. Mitchell’s essays on spending and money. The three authors are concerned with transformations in production, related changes in the organization of consumption, and the effects on people. The approach is based on reading of Kyrk’s book in light of an integrated view of Veblen’s overall work. This chapter explains how Mitchell’s essays on money and spending built on Veblen’s work and discusses their relevance for understanding Kyrk’s book as conceptually linked to institutional economics. This chapter delineates the following commonalities: conception of living humans and money as an institution; distinction between business and industrial concerns; connection between distribution, waste, and consumption; and Veblen’s “machine process” of standardization in production and its relation to consumption. This chapter brings more detail in the conceptual and theoretical discussion of Veblen’s influence on Kyrk’s book.

This chapter explores how stress may manifest among non-family member employees, family member employees, and family firm founders in family firms during the startup phases of the organization. Understanding how stress arises in family firm startups has received limited attention to date. Notably absent in the research is the understanding of how stress arises in non-family member employees, which is important to understand as non-family member employees often outnumber family member employees. As stress increases for the non-family member employee due to issues such as role ambiguity and conflict, negative outcomes resultant from this stress may increase the chances of the employee exhibiting withdrawal behaviors. It is suggested these outcomes increase the stress of the family firm entrepreneur and family members by increasing interrole and interpersonal conflicts and negatively impacting decision-making. These effects on the family members may adversely impact the family firm’s chances of performing well, thus decreasing its chances for survival. Recommendations for future research are also made.