Month: January 2016

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Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. Economic Theory Exams, A.M. and Ph.D. Summer 1949

The economic theory examination committee at the University of Chicago in the Summer Quarter of 1949  for the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees was made up of F. H. Knight (chair), O. H. Brownlee, M. Friedman, and  L. A. Metzler.  49 students took Part I of the exam (33 were Ph.D. students, 16 were A.M. students, equally divided between economics majors and minors). Part II of the examination was taken by 14 Ph.D. students (no A.M. students).  It does not appear that Knight participated in the grading of Part II however.

Two minor notes: Students were assigned numbers, presumably to assure anonymity with respect to their examiners, but the “unlucky” number 13 was not assigned to anyone. The “grade sheet” for the exams is labelled the “Report on Written Examination” which is similar to the use of the word “report” by the registrar’s office on official University of Chicago transcripts (for this usage, see the Patinkin transcripts).

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ECONOMIC THEORY, Part I
[August 2, 1949]

Written examination for the Ph.D. and A. M. Degrees, Summer Quarter, 1949

Ph.D. candidates: Time: 3½ hours. Answer all questions

A.M. Major candidates: Time: 3 hours. Answer question #2 and two others.

A.M. Minor candidates: Time: 2 hours. Answer question #2 and one other.

 

  1. (a) Discuss and evaluate alternative theories of “Profits” as a distributive share.
    (b) It is frequently said that in a private enterprise economy the producers’ motive is to maximize “profits”. Discuss the meaning of “profits” in this connection in relation to your answer to (a).
  1. Write briefly on the meaning of the capital concept and its importance in interpreting economic growth or change. Relate your discussion to the case of a Crusoe economy and state whether (and if so how) the principles are different for the competitive pecuniary social order.
  1. With reference to federal legislation assuring to every resident in the U.S.A. medical care by the physician and hospital of his choice, free and with no special taxation: Appraise the proposal as to effects upon general welfare, assuming that the alternative is the sale of medical insurance, not subsidized, but with the same distribution of personal income effected by cash “relief”.
  1. Briefly discuss the familiar diagram of a family of short-run cost curves for a firm, with an “envelope” as a long-run curve. State the main “cases” for price-equilibrium under monopoly and under “perfect competition.” Explain why the point of tangency with both curves descending may be such an equilibrium-supply, and particularly why it locates the minimum cost for the corresponding output.
  1. Briefly outline or list the main features of the Ricardian theories of value and of distribution and contrast each point with a “sound” modern view.”

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ECONOMIC THEORY, Part II
[August 4, 1949]

Written examination for the Ph.D. Degree, Summer Quarter, 1949.

Time: 2½ hours.

  1. Assume an economic system in which real expenditure upon goods and services (real consumption, investment, government expense) is a function of real income and the interest-rate; show that the set of values which satisfy the conditions for equilibrium in the commodity market (make real savings and investment equal) need not contain the “full-employment” income level; i.e., that level of real income which would be produced when the quantity of labor supplied equals the quantity demanded, both the labor supply and labor demand being functions of the real wage.
    Evaluate the assumptions of this system on terms of their realism, citing the relevant evidence; and indicate modifications which would result in the inclusion of the “full employment” level of income as one of the values satisfying the condition for equilibrium in the commodity market.
  1. Under the so-called “security-reserve proposal” member banks would be required to keep a supplementary reserve against deposits over and above the reserves they are now required to keep in the form of a deposit with a Federal Reserve Bank. This supplementary reserve could be in the form of government securities.a. What is the main purpose, or purposes, of this proposal?
    b. What effect would it have on the ability of the banks to expand credit, and how?
    c. In the light of present economic conditions, what can you say about the urgency of such a “reform”?
  1. It is a common view today that an equal reduction of both taxes and governmental expenditure would contribute to an increase of the national income or counteract a tendency to depression. State your position and discuss carefully.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 76, Folder 10 “University of Chicago Econ. 300B”.

Categories
Courses Economists Harvard

Harvard. Mathematical Economics Rescheduled. Petitions, E. B. Wilson, 1935

One of the iron statistical laws of scheduling classes is that the probability of finding a Pareto improvement to a scheduling conflict ex post semester-start rapidly tends to zero with the size of the class that needs to be rescheduled. Here is a case of one such rare Pareto-improvement.

For the second semester of the academic year 1934-35 at Harvard E. B. Wilson’s Mathematical Economics rescheduled to eliminate the conflict with Fritz Machlup’s Money and Banking course.

What happens to make this particular case interesting in the history of economics is the list of distinguished (ex post) names among the undersigned of three foreign visitors to Harvard, namely Oskar Lange, Nicholas Georgescu, and Gerhard Tintner along with the graduate student Wolfgang Stolper and the undergraduate Sidney S. Alexander.

Six of the undersigned went on to receive Harvard Ph.D.’s in economics, they were:

  • Sidney Stuart Alexander.D. 1946. Financial structure of American corporations since 1900. (note: Harvard S.B. 1936, so undergraduate)
  • James Pierce Cavin, 1938 Ph.D. The sugar quota system of the United States, 1933-1937.
  • Wolfgang Stolper, 1938 Ph.D. British monetary policy and the housing boom, 1931-1935
  • Albert Leonard Meyers, 1936 Ph.D. Future trading on organized commodity exchanges
  • Chih-Yu Lo, 1937 Ph.D. A statistical study of prices and markets for electricity
  • Wilfred Malenbaum, Ph.D. 1941. Equilibrating tendencies in the world wheat market.

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[Memo: Econ. Chair to Dean, Carbon copy]

February 7, 1935

Dear Dean Murdock,

Because of the conflict of Economics 13b (Mathematical Economics) and Economics 50 (Principles of Money and Banking), which are scheduled for 3:00 on Tuesday and Thursday, Professor Wilson has requested that the hour for Economics 13b be changed to 2:00 on Tuesday and Thursday. I understand from Miss Higgs that rooms are available at this hour. The students registered in the course agree to this change.

I shall appreciate it if the change can be arranged before the next meeting of the class on Tuesday.

Sincerely yours,

H. H. Burbank

 

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

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[Memo: Dept. Secretary to E. B. Wilson, Carbon copy]

February 5, 1935

Dear Professor Wilson,

Dr. Machlup tells me that because of the conflict of Economics 13b and 50 you are willing to change the hour of meeting Economics 13b to 2:00 on Tuesday and Thursday. Until I am sure that the students who are taking the course for credit are agreeable, I cannot notify Dean Murdock of this change.

The simplest way to do this, I think, is for you to ask the class at its meeting on Thursday. There will be no trouble, I am sure, about securing a room at that hour. If you will let me know the outcome as soon as possible, I will make the necessary arrangements at the office.

Sincerely yours,

Secretary

 

Professor E. B. Wilson
55 Shattuck Street
Boston, Massachusetts

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[Petition signed by students/auditors in Econ 13b]

[Penciled in upper right: “Econ 13b]

[typed] We should like to attend both, unfortunately conflicting, courses: Economics 13b (Mathematical Economics) and Economics 50 (Money and Banking). It would be much appreciated if a change in schedule could be arranged.

[signed] Oskar Lange
[signed] Nicholas Georgescu
[signed] Gerhard Tintner

[added in handwriting] We also, though not taking Ec. 50, would be willing to change hours.

[signed] S. S. Alexander

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950 (UAV.349.10). Box 23, Folder “Course Offerings 1932-37-40”.

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[Petition signed by students/auditors in Econ 50]

[Penciled in upper right: “Econ 50]

[typed] We should like to attend both, unfortunately conflicting, courses: Economics 13b (Mathematical Economics) and Economics 50 (Money and Banking). It would be much appreciated if a change in schedule could be arranged.

[signed] W. Stolper
[signed] J. P. Cavin
[signed] A. L. Meyers
[signed] C. Y. Lo
[signed] T. Y. Wu [?]
[signed] S. Bolts [?]
[signed] P. Chanten [?]
[signed] W. Malenbaum

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950 (UAV.349.10). Box 23, Folder “Course Offerings 1932-37-40”.

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[Economics 13b: Course enrollment]

[Economics] 13b 2hf. Professor E. B. Wilson.—Mathematical Economics.

2 Graduates, 1 Junior. Total 3

 

[Economics] 50. Professors Williams and Dr. Machlup-Wolf.—Principles of Money and Banking.

16 Graduates., 10 Seniors, 1 Junior, 8 Radcliffe. Total 35.

 

Source: Annual Report of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1934-35, pp. 81-2.

 

Categories
Economic History Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economic historian William J. Ashley. Short biographical sketch, 1899

“William James Ashley (1860–1927) was one of a group of economists (including, among others, William Cunningham, H. S. Foxwell, and W. A. S. Hewins) who at the turn of this century constituted the English school of economic history, the school which had been given its form in the 1870s and 1880s by Thorold Rogers and Arnold Toynbee. Ashley, alone of this group, also had ties with the German school of historical economists, which under the leadership of Gustav Schmoller had, from the 1870s on, posited a historical, statistical, and inductive method against the abstract, deductive method of the classical school of Ricardo.”

More can be found in the entry written by  Bernard Semmel in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (1969).

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ASHLEY, William James, 1860-

Born in London, Eng., 1860; educated at Balliol College, Oxford; Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford; Lecturer in Modern History in Lincoln and Corpus Christi Colleges; Professor of Political Economy and of Constitutional History in the University of Toronto, Canada; Professor of Economic History at Harvard; Corresponding member of the Royal Historical Society (England); author of “Introduction to English Economic History and Theory.”

WILLIAM JAMES ASHLEY, A.M., Professor of Economic History at Harvard since 1892, is the son of James and Jane (Short) Ashley, and was born in London, England, February 25, 1860. His early education was obtained at St. Olave’s Grammar School, Southwark, London; and his collegiate training as a Scholar of Balliol College, Oxford, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1881, (obtaining the Lothian Prize in the next year), and the degree of Master of Arts in 1885. For the three years preceding 1888 he was a Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and Lecturer in Modern History in Lincoln and Corpus Christi Colleges. From then until 1892 he was a Professor of Political Economy and Constitutional History in the University of Toronto, Canada. The last named year he was appointed Professor of Economic History at Harvard. Mr. Ashley is a Corresponding Member of the Royal Historical Society (England). As a writer as well as an Instructor he has won pronounced recognition. His chief work is An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, of which the first volume was published in 1888 [Part I. The Middle Ages: first edition, 1888; second edition, 1892; third edition, 1894; fourth edition, 1909] and the second in 1893 [Part II. The End of the Middle Ages: first edition, 1888; second edition, 1893; fourth edition, 1906], several editions being put to press, and the book appearing both in England and America, as well as being translated into German and French. Various articles have also appeared from his pen in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, in the Political Science Quarterly, in the Economic Journal, in the Economic Review and in the English Historical Review. He married, on July 2, 1888, Annie Margaret, daughter of George Binkbeck Hill, D.C.L., the Editor of Boswell, and has three children: Annie, Alice Mary and Walter Ashley.

 

Source: University and their Sons. History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL.D. Vol II (1899), p. 595.

 

 

 

Categories
Harvard Syllabus

Harvard. Taxation Theory and Methods. Taussig, 1897-98

 

Frank W. Taussig took over this taxation course from Charles E. Dunbar in 1896/97. The course was a graduate course that juniors and seniors were permitted to attend. About a decade later the topic was absorbed into Charles Bullock’s teaching portfolio. The reading list is for the academic year 1897-98. It is not altogether obvious what Taussig intended with the pairings of readings within curly brackets.  I presume he meant that students were allowed to choose from the two items.

After posting this material, I have added a transcription of the final examination for this course.

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[Course Announcement]

*71 hf. The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to Local Taxation in the United States. Half-course (first half-year.) Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 1.30. Professor Taussig.

Source: Harvard University, Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1897-98 (second edition, 1897), p. 39.

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[Course Enrollment]

[Economics ] 71. Professor Taussig.—The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to Local Taxation in the United States. 2 or 3 hours. 1st half year.

Total 42: 5 Graduates, 27 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Annual Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College 1897-98, (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1899), p. 78.

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ECONOMICS 71.

Seligman, [Edwin R. A.] — Essays in Taxation.
[1st edition, 1895; 2nd edition, 1897; 3rd edition, 1900; 4th edition, 1903; 5th edition, 1905; 6th edition, 1909; 7th edition, 1911; 8th edition, 1913; 9th edition, 1921; 10th edition, 1925]

Bastable, [C.F.] — Public Finance.
[1st edition, 1892; 2nd edition, 1895; 3rd edition, 1903]

Leroy-Beaulieu, [Paul] —Science des Finances, Vol. I [Des Revenus Publics]
[3rd edition (1883); 5th edition (1892); 6th edition (1899)]

Say, [Léon] — Dictionnaire des Finances. [1889]
[Tome I: A — D (1889); Tome II: E — Z (1894)]

Quarterly Journal of Economics, cited as Q. J. E.

Dowell, [Stephen] — History of Taxation and Taxes in England [1884].
Vol. I (Taxation, From the Earliest Times to the Civil War); Vol. II (Taxation, From the Civil War to the Present Day); Vol. III (Direct Taxes and Stamp Duties); Vol. IV (Taxes on Articles of Consumption)]

[Palgrave, R. H. Inglis (editor). Dictionary of Political Economy (1899).
Vol. I, A — E; Vol. II, F — M; Vol. III, N — Z]

PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS: CLASSIFICATION.

Seligman, Ch. IX.
Bastable, Bk. II, Ch. I; Bk. III, Ch. 1

 

TAXES ON LAND.

{Leroy-Beaulieu. Bk. II, Ch. VI;
Say, article “Foncière (Contribution).” 233-241.}
Bastable, Bk. IV, Ch. I.
Dictionary of Political Economy, article “Land Tax.”

 

HABITATION TAXES.

{Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. VII.
Say, article “Personelle-Mobilière,” 850-857.}
Dowell, Vol. III, 186-192.

 

INCOME TAXES.

Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. X.
Bastable, Bk. IV, Ch. IV.
{Dowell, Vol. III, 99-122;
Article “Income Tax in the United Kingdom,” in Dictionary of Political Economy, Vol. II.}
J. A. Hill, The Prussian Income Tax, Q. J. E., January, 1892.
Seligman, Ch. X, iii, iv.

 

BUSINESS TAXES.

{Say, article “Patentes,” pp. 743-752;
Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. VIII.}
J. A. Hill—The Prussian Business Tax, Q. J. E., October, 1893.

 

SUCCESSION TAXES.

Seligman, Ch. V; Ch. IX, i.
Bastable, Bk. III, Ch. III.

 

PROGRESSION.

{Leroy-Beaulieu, Bk. II, Ch. II;
Bastable, Bk. III, Ch. III.}
Seligman, Progressive Taxation [1894], pp. 190-200; pp. 39-53 (Switzerland). [2nd edition, 1908]]

 

DIRECT TAXES BY THE UNITED STATES.

C. F. Dunbar, The Direct Tax of 1861, Q. J. E., July, 1889; Vol. III, pp. 436-446.
J. A. Hill, The Civil War Income Tax, Q. J. E., July, 1894.
C. F. Dunbar, The New Income Tax, Q. J. E., October, 1894.

 

LOCAL TAXES IN ENGLAND.

Blunden, Local Taxation and Finance, Ch. III, IV, V.

 

LOCAL TAXATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Seligman, Ch. II, IV, VI, XI.
Ely, Taxation in American States, part III, Ch. VII.
Plehn, The General Property Tax in California, (Economic Studies, Vol. II, No. 3), Part II, 151-178.
Angell, The Tax Inquisitor System in Ohio, in Yale Review, February, 1897.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 1, folder “1897-1898”.

Image Source: Harvard College Album, 1900.

Image Source:  Frank W. Taussig (Original black and white image from of Frank William Taussig from a cabinet card photograph, 1895, at the Harvard University Archives HUP.