Month: August 2016

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions Fields

Chicago. Ph.D. Exam for Money, Banking and Monetary Policy, 1946

This transcribed Ph.D. examination for Money, Banking and Monetary Policy comes from a copy of the exam in the papers of Norman Kaplan at the University of Chicago archives. According to the Course Announcements, this field was covered by four quarter courses: both Money (330) and Banking Theory and Monetary Policy (331), and either The Theory of Income and Employment (335) or Business-Cycle Theory (432). In 1945-46 the first two courses were taught by Lloyd Mints. Jacob Marschak and Oscar Lange were scheduled to teach Economics 335 and 432, respectively, but I believe Lange was away that year in Washington, D.C. In any event the questions reveal emphasis on the material covered by Mints.

_________________________

 

MONEY, BANKING AND MONETARY POLICY
Written examination for the Ph.D.

Autumn Quarter, 1946

 

Time: 4 hours. Answer all questions.

 

  1. Discuss the effect of tax reduction on employment.
  2. Discuss the comparative advantages of fixed and flexible foreign exchange rates.
  3. A newspaper story of Jan. 21, 1946, on President Truman’s budget message, had the following headlines and first two paragraphs:

“TRUMAN MAPS FIRST DEBT CUT SINCE 1930
CASH ON HAND TO OFFSET ’47 DEFICIT.

“Washington—President Truman’s first budget proposes to spend $4,300,000,000 more that the government will collect, but for the first time since 1930, it won’t increase the national debt.
“Mr. Truman proposes to withdraw from the Treasury sufficient funds no only to offset this deficit but also to reduce the debt by $7,000,000,000.”

Discuss the monetary effect of this budget proposal. Would one expect the proposed debt cut to be deflationary or inflationary? Why? How would the effect compare with such alternatives as refunding the debt? Borrowing more to add to cash balances?

  1. The average amount of money (deposits plus hand-to-hand currency) in circulation in 1929 was $55 billion. At present (1946) the stock of money is $170 billion, or approximately three times the $55 billion of 1929. If we assume that the volume of transactions would normally (with a continued high level of employment) increase at the rate of 4% per annum, the volume of transactions in 1947, with a high level of employment, would then be approximately twice that of 1929 (1 compounded annually at the rate of 4% for 18 years amounts to 2.03). If we then assume that velocity will be the same in 1947 as it was in 1929, and that the stock of money will be the same in 1947 as in late 1946, we have approximately the following index numbers for 1947, using 1929 as a base:

M = 3.0
V = 1.0
T = 2.0

Therefore      P = 1.5

Discuss the reasonableness of the various assumptions made in this analysis and of 1.5 as the possible index of the price level in 1947. Is there any good reason for using 1929 as the base year rather than, say, 1940?

  1. The following statement, made in a recent CED [Committee for Economic Development] monograph, refers to the high post-war level of holdings of cash and government bonds by the public as compared with pre-war holdings:

“It is sometimes implied that the liquid assets will disappear as they are used. But money is not extinguished by use; it simply passes from the hand of the buyer to the hand of the seller. The use of liquid assets by some members of the public to buy goods, services, or securities from other members of the public will not reduce total liquid-asset holdings but only transfer their ownership.”

Suppose the liquid assets were used to such an extent as to bring on a substantial rise in the price level. Does the fact that they are not extinguished by use imply that the danger, from this source, of a further rise in prices would be unchanged?

 

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Norman M. Kaplan Papers, Box 3, Folder 5.

Image Source: 1936 Social Science Research Building. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07476, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists Stanford Syllabus

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus Simon James McLean, 1897

It all began as a humble search for a single mosaic tile — where did Simon James McLean study before going to the University of Chicago and becoming one of its first four Ph.D.’s in Political Economy? Before getting an answer to that question, I uncovered many other details of a life begun in Brooklyn (1871) with first academic degrees from the University of Toronto (A.B., 1894; LL.B., 1895), then A.M. at Columbia (1896) and finally Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1897).

After getting the Ph.D. McLean’s career literally went south, namely to the University of Arkansas (1897-1902), then west to Stanford (1902-05), and then back north to the University of Toronto (1906) at the age of 35.

From the University of Chicago’s registers of its Ph.D’s. for the years 1921, 1931, and 1938 I discovered that McLean morphed from a leading academic light regarding the economics of railroad regulation into a policy mover-and-shaker on the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada (1908-1938). The man covered a lot of territory in his life.

But wait, there’s more. While on McLean’s trail through Fayetteville, Arkansas, I came across the course descriptions at the University of Arkansas for economics and sociology that included his textbook choices. Since there is no indication of anyone else offering any of these courses, it would appear the young professor had a teaching load for each semester of 14 hours per week. I think it is reasonable to assume that his choices of topics and texts represent an average of his own earlier coursework at Columbia and Chicago. I have added links to all the texts given in the course descriptions.

 

Sources:

Theses of the University of Chicago, Doctors of Philosophy. June 1893—December 1921. Chicago: Harper Memorial Library, University of Chicago.

University of Chicago Announcements, Register Number, Doctors of Philosophy. June, 1893—April, 1931. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 122-127.

University of Chicago Announcements, Register of Doctors of Philosophy. Jan, 1893—April, 1938. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 139-144.

______________________________

 

McLean, Simon James.
University of Chicago thesis (1897):
The railway policy of Canada.

McLean’s Ph.D. thesis does appear to have been published as such. However, he did write a series of articles for the Journal of Political Economy that together account for much of his dissertation work.

An early chapter in Canadian railroad policy. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 6 (June 1898), 323-352.
Canadian railways and the bonding question. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 7 (September 1899), pp. 500-542.
The railway policy of Canada, 1849 to 1867: I. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 9 (March 1901), pp.
The railway policy of Canada, 1849 to 1867: II. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 9 (June 1901), pp. 351-383.

______________________________

 

Arkansas University.—Dr. Simon James McLean has been appointed Professor of History and Political Economy at the University of Arkansas. He was born at Brooklyn, N.Y., June 14, 1871. After passing through the public schools of Quebec and Cumberland, Canada, and the Ontario Collegiate Institute of Ottawa, he entered the Toronto University. Here he obtained the degree of A.B. in 1894 and that of LL.B. in 1895. He then pursued further graduate studies at Columbia, receiving his A.M. in 1896, and at Chicago, where, in 1897, he obtained the degree of Ph.D. In the same year he was appointed Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of Arkansas. Professor McLean has published:

“Tariff History of Canada.” University of Toronto Studies, 1895. Pp.53.
“The University Settlement Movement.” Canadian Magazine, March, 1897,
“Early Railway History of Canada.” Ibid., March, 1899.
“Early Canadian Railway Policy.” Journal of Political Economy, June, 1898.
“Canadian Railways and the Bonding Question.” Ibid., September, 1899.

 

Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 14 (September 1899) p. 64 [page 220 in printed volume].

______________________________

 

Course offerings in economics and sociology at the University of Arkansas
1899-1900

ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
S. J. McLean, Professor.

 

The courses offered in this department are designed to afford such instruction as will be advantageous to those who intend to enter public life, or those callings which will bring them closely in touch with the activities of citizenship. Course 1 is required before more advanced courses in this department are taken.

  1. Principles of Economics (both terms)……….2

Recitations, prescribed readings, reports and debates. Text-book: Walker, Political Economy [3rd edition, 1888 ].

  1. Industrial History of America and Europe since 1763 (first term)……….3

The leading industrial facts of this period are considered, including panics and trusts. A detailed study of some of the more important industries will also be made. Lectures, reports, and prescribed readings. Selected portions of Rand’s Economic History [Selections Illustrating Economic History since the Seven Years’ War 3rd ed., 1895]will be studied.

  1. Banking (first part of second term)……….3

The principles of Banking and the history of Banking Systems. [Chapters on the theory and history of banking. 1st ed., New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891. ] Lectures, recitations, reports, and readings. Text-book: Dunbar, Chapters in the Theory and History of Banking.

  1. Money (latter part of second term)……….3

The principles of Money and the history of Monetary Systems are considered. [From 1898-99 Catalogue: “Text-books: Walker and Jevons” [Francis A. Walker, Money (1878). William Stanley Jevons, Money and the mechanism of exchange (1875).]

  1. Tariff History and Problems (first term)……….2

United States, England, France and Germany. Special attention will be devoted to the tariff history of the United States. Text-book: Taussig, Tariff History of the United States. [1888] This will be supplemented by lectures and use of government documents.

  1. History of Economic Thought, from Plato and Aristotle to the Present (second term) ……….2

Text-book: Ingram’s History of Political Economy [1887]; supplementary readings and reports will also be required.

  1. Public Finance (first term)……….3

Principles and history of taxation, management of public debts, consideration of governmental activities, etc. Text-book: Plehn, Introduction to Public Finance [1896]. Lectures, readings and use of government documents.

  1. Transportation. Its History and Problems (second term)……….3

The economic aspects of water transportation, the great lakes, canal systems, and the Mississippi; the evolution of the railroad system, railroad geography, state versus private ownership, methods of government control, railroad finances, etc. Lectures, prescribed readings, and use of original material. Text-book: Hadley, Railroad Transportation. [1885]

  1. Principles of Sociology (first term)……….2

This course considers the elements and conditions of social growth and progress. Recitations, lectures and reading of assigned chapters in Spencer’s Principles of Sociology [Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3.] and in Gidding’s Principles of Sociology [1896]. Text-book: Fairbanks’s Introduction to Sociology [1896].

  1. Problems of Social Growth (second term)……….2

Trade-unionism, arbitration and conciliation, socialism, communism, co-operation and profit-sharing. Lectures and reports. For reference: Ely, The Labor Movement in America [1886], and Ely, French and German Socialism [1883].

  1. Commerce (first term)……….2

Theory of foreign commerce; investigation of the commercial resources of the leading countries of the present. Students will be expected to acquaint themselves with the United States Consular Reports. Text-book: Chisholm, Smaller Commercial Geography [1897 Handbook of Commercial Geography.].

  1. Labor Legislation (second term)……….2

History and critical investigation of the attitude of the State towards Labor; apprenticeship laws, combination laws, trade union recognition, factory legislation, etc. For reference, Stimson, Handbook to the Labor Law of the United States. [1896]

 

Source: Catalogue of the University of Arkansas, 1899-1900. Fayetteville, Ark., pp. 77-79.

______________________________

PROF. M’LEAN [sic] RESIGNS
HEAD OF ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT TO GO TO TORONTO.

Will Leave Stanford in January to Take Professsorship in Economics of Commerce and Transportation.

Professor Simon James McLean, present head of the Department of Economics, has tendered his resignation and will leave Stanford at the end of the present semester. He goes to accept the professorship of economics of commerce and transportation at the University of Toronto in Canada. Professor McLean has been contemplating this step for some time, as, aside from the fact that the work at Toronto will be along lines offering him better opportunities for advancement, the call from his alma mater was one which he felt he could not refuse. Dr. Jordan has accepted Professor McLean’s resignation and in his letter accepting it speaks as follows: “We recognize your ripe scholarship, your high ideals in education, your calmness of judgment, and your possession of those traits of character and thought which mark the gentleman among other men. As a teacher in a line of work so much afflicted by hasty judgment, by sensationalism and emotionalism, you have always held the attitude of a careful and patient investigator, one of the most solid and accurate within the range of my acquaintance.” It is still too early for any definite statement regarding the filling of Professor McLean’s place in the Department of Economics, as he will continue in charge of his classes until the twenty-second of December. Professor McLean came to Stanford in 1902 from the University of Arkansas, where he was professor of economics and sociology. He took his A. B. at the University of Toronto in 1884 and his degree of LL.B. in 1895 from the same university. The degrees A. M. from Columbia and Ph.D. from Chicago came in 1896 and 1897. Professor McLean is a recognized authority on the subject of railway rates, and has been a member of several special commissions appointed by the government to investigate conditions along this line.

 

Source: The Stanford Daily, Vol. XXVII, Issue 66, November 28, 1905.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Berkeley Chicago Economists

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus Henry Rand Hatfield, 1897

Henry Rand Hatfield (1866-1945) was among the first four Ph.D.’s in Political Economy at the University of Chicago in 1897. The following items present a reasonably complete picture of the life and career of this scholar. Numbers people can be sorted into accountants and statisticians. In the early years of graduate economics education they shared the same tidal pool on the eve of their respective evolutionary development paths. Hatfield had a long and distinguished career in accounting. Of particular interest to historians of economics is his paper “An Historical Defense of Bookkeeping,” originally published in The Journal of Accountancy, April 1924.

For an appreciation of his contributions to accounting, see the biographical note  from S.A. Zeff and T.F. Keller, eds. Financial Accounting Theory I: Issues and Controversies, Second edition. McGraw Hill, p. 502 (posted at the website Accounting Hall of Fame). 

____________________________________

 

660. HENRY RAND HATFIELD.

Brother of Nos. 368 [Emily Marcia Hatfield (Hobart)]  and 389 [James Taft Hatfield].

            Born 27 Nov. 1866, in Chicago. Prepared in Northwestern University Academy. A.B. [Northwestern, 1892]. Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1897. Adelphic. Beta Theta Pi; Phi Beta Kappa. Kirk contestant. Graduate student University of Chicago, 1892-94. Fellow in Political Economy, University of Chicago. Instructor, Washington University, St. Louis, Mo., 1894-96 and 1897-98; Instructor in Political Economy, University of Chicago, 1898-1902; Assistant Professor of Political Economy, and Dean of College of Commerce and Administration, 1902 . Contributor to Journal of Political Economy.

Married Ethel A. Glover, 15 June 1898, at Washington, D. C.

Children—      John Glover, born 24 Jan. 1900.

                       Robert Miller, born 16 Aug. 1902.

Residence, 5825 Kimbark Ave., Chicago, 111.

 

Source: Northwestern University. Alumni Record of the College of Liberal Arts, 1903 (Charles B. Atwell ed.). Chicago: Lakeside Press, 1903, p. 225.

____________________________________

 

Henry Rand Hatfield, Accounting: Berkeley and Systemwide

Henry Rand Hatfield was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 27, 1866, son of Reverend Robert Miller Hatfield and Elizabeth Taft Hatfield; and died on December 25, 1945 in Berkeley, California. He was married to Ethel Adelia Glover in 1898, and is survived by his widow and two children, John Glover Hatfield and Elizabeth Glover, and six grandchildren. A second son, Robert Miller Hatfield, died in 1927 at the age of twenty-five.

Professor Hatfield attended school in Evanston, Illinois and here, in 1884, he entered Northwestern University. After two years of college he withdrew to take employment in a bond house; but five years later he returned to complete work for a bachelor’s degree. Following this he enrolled at the University of Chicago where he received, in 1897, the degree of Ph.D. His chief college interest was in the classics. He studied economics and political science, however, at Northwestern and Chicago and these studies enabled him to accept an instructorship at Washington University, St. Louis, in 1893. In 1898 he was appointed instructor at the University of Chicago. Two years later, at the suggestion of the University but not at its expense, he visited Germany to observe the organization of business teaching in that country. The University of Chicago had established its College of Commerce and Administration in 1898, the same year in which he had joined its staff, and the survey of German practice was undertaken in the interest of this technical program. In 1902 he was appointed assistant professor and dean of the new college, serving until 1904.

His connection with the University of California began in 1904, when he was appointed Associate Professor of Accounting. Five years later, he was appointed Professor of Accounting and Secretary of the College of Commerce. In 1916 his title was changed to Dean of the College of Commerce–a position which he held until 1920. From December, 1915 to June, 1916; from May, 1917 to July, 1918; and from 1920 to 1923, he was Dean, Acting Dean, and Dean of the Faculties. As Dean of the Faculties he served as the principal administrative officer under the President of the University. As Secretary and Dean of the College of Commerce, he was able, during eleven years, to guide the development of the expanding College of Commerce. Emphasis upon sound fundamental training, broad, rather than highly specialized instruction, and insistence upon intellectual discipline were characteristics of his plans. In his capacity as teacher, he conducted classes in geography, economics, banking, international trade, and business organization, as well as in accounting and finance; but after 1917 he confined himself to accounting and finance. Perhaps his greatest interest was in the elementary course in accounting, in his advanced seminars in accounting problems, and in the history of accounting. In all he achieved more than ordinary results.

During World War I Professor Hatfield was on leave from the University of California from July, 1918 to June, 1919. For most of this time he was Director of the Division of Planning and Statistics of the War Industries Board–a responsible position in which his technical competence, his administrative ability, and his skill in establishing friendly relations with his associates, were displayed. After the War Industries Board ceased operations he remained in Washington for a few months as expert with the Advisory Tax Board, discussing the formulation of government policy during the period immediately following the war.

His friends and associates will always remember him as a shrewd, witty, and affectionate person, endowed with a breadth of interest which caused him to be helpful to many people in many ways. This was true of community and church matters to which he gave his time, and of University affairs in which he played a significant and sometimes a very influential role. His permanent reputation will, however, rest upon his contributions to accounting and to the accounting profession.

His contribution to the profession includes organization work of the first quality assisting in the reorganization of the State Board of Accountancy, and in the formation of the California State Society of Certified Accountants soon after he arrived in California. These new or revived institutions introduced new methods into local practice at a time when the morale of California accountants was at its lowest ebb.

His ideas upon accounting were even more significantly expressed in written form. Here his major work was the volume Modern Accounting, published in 1908, repeatedly reprinted, and in 1927 rewritten and enlarged under the title of Accounting, its Principles and Problems. Before 1908, when Modern Accounting was first issued, almost nothing above the level of discussion of technical rules and perfunctory procedures had been written on the subject for many years; Hatfield’s original and systematic discussion has been described as a white light in a previously rather dark landscape. By 1927 the situation had changed somewhat; but his fuller treatment was again welcomed with appreciation and respect, and the later volume has preserved its significance during the following years. In 1938 and 1940 he rounded out his contribution by preparing considered statements of accounting principles in collaboration with other writers.

Besides these major works, Professor Hatfield exerted influence through a long succession of reviews and articles providing selective, constructive, and critical discussion of accounting principles as they were stated and restated in England and in the United States over more than two decades. His concise and vigorous style, his clarity of thought and tinge of humor, and his practice of restricting each article to the consideration of a few points enlarged the impact of his ideas upon the accounting and legal professions for which he wrote.

Finally, and this amounted to more than a diversion in his long career, Professor Hatfield maintained a consistent interest in the history of his subject, which resulted in the accumulation of a substantial body of little-known material and in the publication of many articles. In this work he benefited from the classical training of his early days. It is probably safe to say that he was the best informed scholar on the history of accounting in the United States and perhaps in any country. His persistent historical studies and his sound general knowledge enabled him to trace the beginnings of practice and of theories upon which modern systems have been built. It is a loss to economic and to cultural history that the fruits of his research were never gathered together and comprehensively set forth.

Professor Hatfield, at one time or another, was president of the American Association of University Instructors in Accounting, vice president of the American Economic Association, delegate of the United States Government to the International Congress on Commercial Education, and Honorary Member of the California Society of Certified Public Accountants. From 1923 to 1928 he was Senator of Phi Beta Kappa. In 1928 Beta Alpha Psi, the national accounting fraternity, gave him an award for the most outstanding contribution to the literature of accountancy for that year. He was Dickinson lecturer at Harvard in 1942. He received the LL.D. degree from Northwestern University in 1923 and from the University of California in 1940. In conferring this last degree President Sproul referred to him as a “constant champion of the logical approach, the sane view, and the clear disclosure of the essential facts of goods and proprietorship; discoverer of scientific principles and sound philosophy in a field obscured by dogma and convention; one able to find life and even humor in the dust of ledgers.” The essential modesty of the man was a quality which endeared him to his friends, but it will be pleasant to remember that he received during his life some of the recognition which he so richly deserved.

Academic Senate Committee Stuart Daggett Ira B. Cross Lucy Ward Stebbins

 

Source: 1945, University of California: In Memoriam, pp. 98-102.

 

Image Source: Website Berkeley Heritage, Henry Rand Hatfield house (Berkeley’s Northside), 2695 Le Conte Ave. at La Loma, 1908.

 

Categories
Columbia Economic History Economists

Columbia. Ph.D. Alumnus Isaac Aaronovitch Hourwich, 1893

Some Ph.D.’s in economics go on to contribute to the development of the science, others go on to contribute to the commonwealth outside the ivory tower and others leave you wondering what were they thinking when they decided to write a dissertation anyway. Most of my interest is in the first group but sometimes the lives led by the other two groups are just too interesting to merely mention the title and date of their dissertation without further notice.

Today’s post is dedicated to Columbia Ph.D. alumnus, Isaac Aaronovich Hourwich, whose dissertation was among the first ten economics doctoral dissertations accepted by the Columbia School of Political Science. I decided to look him up after seeing him listed as a Docent in Statistics for the Department of Political Economy at the University of Chicago in 1893/94.

Fun Fact: Isaac’s sister, Jhenya Hourwich, translated Marx’s Das Kapital into Russian, and he later translated Das Kapital into Yiddish in 1919.

__________________________________

The Dissertation

Hourwich, Isaac Aaronovich. The economics of the Russian village. Columbia University Ph.D. dissertation published in Studies in History, Economics and Public Law. Volume II, 1892-1893.

__________________________________

 

Teaching at the University of Chicago

 

Isaac A. Hourwich, Ph.D., Docent in Statistics.

Graduate, Classical Gymnasium, Minsk, Russia, 1877; Candidate of Jursprucence (Master of Law), Demidoff Juridical Lyceum, Yaroslavl, 1887; Member of the Bar, Court of Appeals of Wilno, Russia, 1887-90; Seligman Fellow, Columbia College, 1891-2; Ph.D., ibid., 1893.

Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register July, 1893—July, 1894. Chicago: 1894, p. 18.

 

__________________________________

 

The following biographical note comes from the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, Center for Jewish History, Guide to the Papers of Isaac A. Hourwich (1860-1924).

Isaac A. Hourwich was born April 27, 1860 in Vilna to a middle-class maskilic family. His father, who worked in a bank and knew several European languages, made sure to give his two children a modern secular education. Hourwich graduated in 1877 from the classical gymnasium at Minsk, and later studied medicine and mathematics. As a student, he became interested in nihilistic propaganda. His activities with a revolutionary Socialist circle in St. Petersburg led to his arrest and imprisonment in 1879 on the charges of hostility to the government and of aiding to establish a secret press. He was sent to Siberia as a “dangerous character,” from 1881-1886. While in prison, he studied the settlement of Russian peasants in Siberia, and wrote a book in Russian, The Peasant Immigration to Siberia, which was published in 1888. After his release, he studied law at the Imperial University in St. Petersburg. He earned his legal degree from Demidoff Lyceum of Jurisprudence in Yaroslavl, Russia and was admitted to the Russian bar in 1887. He then practiced law in Minsk and continued his involvement in radical political movements. He helped to found the first secret Socialist circles among the Jewish workers in tsarist Russia, along with his wife Yelena (Kushelevsky) Hourwich and his sister Jhenya Hourwich, who later translated Marx’s Das Kapital into Russian.

In 1890, Hourwich fled Russia, leaving behind his first wife Yelena (Kushelevsky) Hourwich and four children, Nicholas Hourwich (1882-1934), who was later involved in the founding of the Communist Party, Maria (Hourwich) Kravitz (1883-), Rosa Hourwich (ca.1884-), and Vera (Hourwich) Semmens (1890-1976), although Hourwich’s parents continued to support his family. He first went to Paris but he had to leave there as well, at which point he immigrated to the United States. He divorced his first wife and married again, to Louise Elizabeth “Lisa” (Joffe) Hourwich (1866-1947). Lisa Hourwich had taught school in Russia, and, after immigrating to the United States with her family, attended law school, eventually passing the Illinois bar, although she never practiced as a lawyer. They had five children, Iskander “Sasha” Hourwich (1895-1968), Rebecca Hourwich Reyher (1897-1987), who was a prominent suffragist, Olga “Dicky” Hourwich (1902-1977), George Kennan Hourwich (1904-1978), and Ena (Hourwich) Kunzer (1906-1989).

In New York, Hourwich joined the Russian Workers Society for Self-Education, later the Russian Social Democratic Society, which was made up mostly of Jewish immigrants from Minsk. The Society helped to finance the Group for Liberation of Labor (1883-1903), which Georgi Plekhanov, Pavel Axelrod and Lev Deutsch formed in Geneva, Switzerland for the dissemination of Marxist ideas in Russian. From 1891-1892 he was a fellow at Columbia University where he earned a Ph.D. in economics in 1893. His thesis was published under the title The Economics of the Russian Village and a Russian translation was published in Moscow in 1896. He then taught statistics at the University of Chicago from 1892-1893, after which he returned to New York City, where he practiced law while also contributing to Marxist legal magazines in Russia. In 1897-1898, after the creation of the Social Democratic Party by Eugene V. Debs, Hourwich founded the first party branch in New York City with Meyer London. He also edited a Russian Socialist newspaper, Progress, from 1901-1904.

Hourwich moved to Washington, D.C. in 1900, where he worked for the United States government for several years, first as a translator at the Bureau of the Mint in 1900-1902, then at the Census Bureau in 1902-1906 and in 1909-1913 as a statistician and expert on mining. He was a statistician for the New York Public Service Commission, 1908-1909. During this period he developed his knowledge of American politics and economics which he used in his writings in the English and Yiddish press. He briefly wrote for the Forward after it began publication in 1897, even though he did not then know much Yiddish and had to learn it as he went along. For his articles in the Forward and other Yiddish periodicals he used the pseudonyms “Marxist” and “Yitzhok Isaac ben Arye Tzvi Halevi” so as not to bring attention to the fact that a government employee was writing for radical newspapers. His articles about American politics and economic institutions, particularly for the Tog (Day), were important in popularizing Socialism and were often the main source for explaining American economics and politics to a Yiddish-speaking audience in the United States. In addition to various essays in the Yiddish press, Hourwich published: “The Persecutions of the Jews,” in The Forum in August 1901, “Russian Dissenters,” in The Arena in May 1903 and “Religious Sects in Russia,” in The International Quarterly in October 1903, to name only a few.

In the wake of the October 1905 revolution, Tsar Nicholas II declared amnesty for political prisoners and Hourwich took advantage of this to return to Russia where he ran for a seat in the second Duma in Minsk in 1906. He was the nominee of a new Democratic People’s Party. The Jewish Socialist parties resented his intrusion and his non-Socialist campaign, particularly the Bund, which was running its own candidate. He was elected and would most likely have gained the seat in the Duma but the senate in St. Petersburg annulled his election and his name was taken off the final list of candidates. When the Duma was dissolved in June 1907 Hourwich returned to the United States and his government job. He also continued to write for various English magazines. Hourwich was an expert on immigration, and his book Immigration and Labor was published in 1912. In this work, he defends unrestricted immigration by arguing that the influx of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe was beneficial to the American economy. This argument was based upon economic figures and was the first defense of open immigration based on economic, rather than humanitarian, reasons.

Hourwich was active in the garment workers union at the time the agreement known as the “Protocol of Peace” was in effect. Engineered by Louis D. Brandeis following the cloakmakers’ strike of 1910, the Protocol was a system for resolving conflicts between workers and manufacturers in the garment industry without resorting to arbitration. This system was proving difficult to implement when Hourwich was appointed Chief Clerk of the Cloak and Skirt Makers’ Union in early 1913. He was in favor of reforming the Protocol, including a change from conciliation to arbitration, exactly what Brandeis had been against when drafting the Protocol. Hourwich’s position earned him the enmity of other union leaders, of his old friend, Meyer London, and also of Brandeis, who had represented the garment employers in Boston against the union during the 1910 strike. In addition, the heads of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union, Abraham Rosenberg and John Dyche, vehemently opposed Hourwich for asserting the power of the local union against its parent organization and were concerned that his actions would lead to another strike. The officers of the ILGWU tried unsuccessfully to force Hourwich out, although the majority of garment workers supported him for his populist views, despite his lack of trade union experience.

In November 1913, the Cloak, Suit and Skirt Manufacturers’ Association refused to negotiate with Hourwich as the union representative and demanded his resignation. Although the heads of the union were united in their dislike of Hourwich, they supported him in resisting the manufacturers’ pressure. However, in early 1914 when the manufacturers threatened to break off the Protocol and a strike appeared imminent, Hourwich stepped down rather than compromise, despite the protests of many rank-and-file union members. The so-called “Hourwich Affair” showed the weakness of the Protocol as a means of settling disputes and hastened its eventual reform. It also revealed the various power struggles taking place between the International and the local unions, as well as between the union leadership and the mass of garment workers.

Hourwich was an early critic of the totalitarian tendencies of the Bolshevik government. Nevertheless, he maintained some sympathy for the Marxist cause and served as legal advisor to the Soviet ambassador to the United States, Ludwig C.K. Martens. He was also connected with the weekly magazine, Friends of Soviet Russia, published by the Soviet Agency, although he never wrote in support of the Bolsheviks. A visit to the Soviet Union in 1922 disillusioned Hourwich, however, and he returned firmly opposed to the Soviet regime.

Despite his commitment to Socialism, Hourwich did not strictly adhere to party doctrine and often crossed political boundaries in his allegiances. For example, in 1912 he supported Theodore Roosevelt and ran for Congress on the ticket of Roosevelt’s Progressive Party, an unthinkable act for a Jewish radical, although he seems to have been unconcerned with any criticism this raised. He was involved with the Socialist Democratic Party but did not join the Socialist Party of America, despite its Marxist program. He wrote for various Yiddish newspapers of every political affiliation, including the Socialist Jewish Daily Forward, the anarchist Fraye Arbeter Shtimme (Free Workers Voice), where he published his unfinished memoirs Zikhroynes fun an Apikoyres (Memoirs of a Heretic), the Warheit (Truth), the Tog (Day), and the Tsukunft (Future). His non-ideological approach led some to label him a political opportunist. He was an ardent supporter of President Wilson and his advocacy of the New Freedom and social reform until Wilson’s 1916 appointment of Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court. Hourwich was still holding a grudge against Brandeis for his involvement in the “Hourwich Affair.”

In his later years Hourwich became active in the Zionist movement, and in 1917 he helped to organize the American Jewish Congress. Hourwich’s books in Yiddish include Mooted Questions of Socialism (1917), a Yiddish translation of Marx’s Das Kapital (1919), and a four-volume edition of his collected works (1917-1919). Hourwich died of pneumonia on July 9, 1924.

Source: Guide to the Papers of Isaac A. Hourwich (1860-1924).

__________________________________

Personal Notes [1894]

Dr. Isaac Aaronovich Hourwich has been appointed Docent in Statistics at the University of Chicago. He was born April 26, 1860, at Wilno, Russia, and was educated at the Classical Gymnasium, at Minsk, from 1869-77. The year 1877-78 he spent at the Medioc-Chirurgical Academy at St. Petersburg, and 1878-79 at the University of St. Petersburg. Later he became a non-resident student of the Demidor Juridical Lyceum, at Yaroslavl, where in 1887 he graduated with the degree of LL.M. He was admitted to the bar at Minsk, and practiced law from 1887 to 1890. In 1891 he became a student of Columbia College, New York, and received in 1893 the degree of Ph.D. from that institution. Dr. Hourwich has published:

“Peasant Emigralion to Siberia.” Juridichesky Vestnik (Juridical Herald), Moscow, January, 1887.
“The Study of Peasant Emigration to Siberia.” Sibirski Sbornik (Siberian Magazine), 1887.
“Peasant Emigration t0 Siberia.” Pp. 160. Moscow, 1888.
“The Agrarian Question in Russia.” Ur Dagens Krönika. Stockholm, September, 1890.
“The Persecution of the Jews.” The Forum. August, 1891.
“The Russian Judiciary.” Political Science Quarterly, December, 1892.
“The Economics of the Russian Village.” Pp. 184. Columbia College Studies in History, Economics and Public Law.

Source:  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 4 (Jan., 1894), p. 156.

Image Source: Portrait of Isaac Aaronovich Hourwich from his Oysgeehle shrifn, Vol. I, frontispiece, copyright 1916.

 

 

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. List of 114 economics dissertations 1875-1926

Economics in the Rear-View Mirror now has a page dedicated to the authors of 114 doctoral dissertations in economics written at Harvard during the period 1875-1926. Perhaps a half-dozen are judgment calls, but if anything I have erred on the side of inclusion for the list. It was not until 1904-05 that “Economics” was even listed as a Ph.D. subject at Harvard and the boundary between historians interested in economic history and economists interested in history is pretty fuzzy anyway up to the last third of the 20th century. Further complicating matters is the fact that sociology was a part of economics at Harvard (and often elsewhere) for most of this period. 

The page will be corrected, augmented and linked as time goes on. But for now we have the names, years and titles of the dissertations along with educational background and some early career information for almost all 114 cases.

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Economic Problems of Latin America. Bradley, 1944

Philip Durgan Bradley, Jr. (1912-2003) received his A.B. from Lawrence College in 1935, his A.M from Harvard in 1938, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1942 with the dissertation “Some aspects of corporate income taxation”. Bradely’s special examination for the Ph.D. was in Public Finance. Besides having been a tutor/instructor then assistant professor of economics at Harvard, a visiting professor at the University of Virginia and a contributor to a volume about unions published by the American Enterprise Organization (forerunner of today’s American Enterprise Institute), his career remains somewhat obscure.

Bradley, Philip D. et al. Labor Unions and Public Policy. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Association, 1958.
Bradley, Philip D. (ed.) The Public Stake in Union Power. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1959.

______________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 38b. (spring term) Dr. Bradley.—Economic Problems of Latin America.

Total 82: 1 Graduate, 5 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Freshman, 20 Radcliffe, 44 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President and Reports of the Departments, 1943-44, p. 184.

______________________________

 

Economics 38b
Spring Term, 1944

 

  1. Introduction

Royal Institute of International Affairs, Republics of South America, Chs. I and II.

  1. Agriculture and Land Tenure
    1. L. Schurz, Latin America, pp. 155-178.
    2. M. McBride, Chile: Land and Society, Ch. V.
    3. H. Barber, Land Problems in Mexico, Foreign Agriculture, Vol. III, pp. 99-120.
    4. O Nyhus, Argentine Pastures and the Cattle-Grazing Industry, Foreign Agriculture, Vol. IV, pp. 3-30.
    5. Agriculture in Peru, Foreign Agriculture, Vol. II, pp. 267-98.
    6. D. Wickizer, The World Coffee Economy, Chs. I, II, VII.
  1. Resources, Mining, and Industry
    1. F. Bain and T. T. Read, Ores and Industry in Latin America, pp. 54-62, 72-81, 135-147, 248-258, 303-308.
    2. Wythe, The New Industrialization in Latin America, Journal of Political Economy, 1937, pp. 207-28.
    3. C. Simonsen, Brazil’s Industrial Evolution, pp. 11-63.
    4. José Jobin, Brazil in the Making, Part III, Ch. I, pp. 93-106.
  1. Government, Labor, and Industry
    1. Lewis Lorwin, National Planning in Selected Countries, General, pp. 121-134; Brazil, 137-140; Venezuela, 157-164.
    2. M. Phelps, Migration of Industry to South America, Chapter VI, Government Control of Business Activities, pp. 165-193.
    3. M. Phelps, “Petroleum Regulation in South America,” American Economic Review, March 1939, pp. 48-59.
    4. American Advisory Economic Mission to Venezuela, Report to the Minister of Finance.
      1. General Background, pp. 243-277, 286, 295, 298.
      2. Chapter I, Introduction, pp. 1-2, 4-6, 10-14.
      3. Chapter II, Price Level and Structure, pp. 15-37, 46-52.
      4. Chapter III, Tariffs, pp. 75-82.
      5. Venezuelan Public Finance, pp. 301-310.
        Chapter V, Internal Revenue System, pp. 141-155, 175-177, 195-202.
    5. M. Phelps, Migration of Industry to South America,
      Chapter VII, section on Labor, pp. 238-270.
    6. Galarza, Labor Trends and Social Welfare in Latin America, 1941 and 1942, Summary pp. i-viii.CHOOSE EITHER 7, 8, OR 9.
    7. Paula Lopes, “Social Problems and Legislation in Brazil,” International Labor Review, Vol. 44, No. 5, pp. 493-537.
    8. Galarza, Labor Trends and Social Welfare in Latin America, Argentina, pp. 1-23 and Chile, pp. 50-70.
    9. Galarza, Labor Trends and Social Welfare in Latin America, Bolivia, pp. 23-40.
      and
      E. Herrnstadt, “Problem of Social Security in Colombia,” International Labor Review, Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 426-449.
  1. Trade, Money and Finance
    1. Olson and Hickman, Pan American Economics, Ch. 3.
    2. Law and Contemporary Problems, Hemisphere Trade, Autumn, 1941
      Operation of the Trade Agreements Program, pp. 684-707.
    3. S. Tariff Commission, Foreign Trade of Latin America, Part II, Volume 2, United States Silver Policy, pp. 204-209.
    4. Triffin, Money and Banking in Colombia, Sections 2 and 3.
    5. German Max, Monetary History in Chile.
    6. Triffin, Central Banking and Monetary Management in Latin America.
    7. Olson and Hickman, Pan American Economics, Ch. 5.
    8. C. Wallich, “Future of Latin American Dollar Bonds,” American Economic Review, June 1943, pp. 321-336.
    9. Patterson, “The Export-Import Bank,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1943.

 

READING PERIOD

Read: V. D. Wickizer, World Coffee Economy, Ch. XI and XII, pp. 203-208 and pp. 220-233.

Read one of the following:

C. D. Kenner, Social Aspects of the Banana Industry, Omit Chs. 6, 8, 9, and 11.

D. M. Phelps, Migration of Industry to South America, Chs. 1 thru 4.

Banco Central de la República Argentina, Annual Report:

a. 1938, pp. 5-27
b. 1939, pp. 1-24
c. 1940, pp. 1-12
d. 1941, pp. 17-40
e. 1942, pp. 1-50

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (Box 3), Folder “Economics, 1943-44 (2 of 2)”.

Categories
Funny Business Harvard

Harvard. On Latino immigration. Carver recalls 1929 invitation to White House.

From the conclusion of John Maynard Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money:

“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

______________________

Presidential candidate Donald J. Trump wants to build a Wall with Mexico.  The Donald has given Economics in the Rear-View Mirror a “teachable moment” in the history of economics. President Herbert Hoover issued an executive order to protect American workers from Latino immigration. Hoover was not a madman, obviously. Cut to 1929…

 

From Harvard Professor Thomas Nixon Carver’s autobiography:

            One day during the spring of 1929, while I was playing golf at the Oakley Country Club, a messenger from the clubhouse told me that there was a long distance call for me from the White House. When I went to the phone, Mr. Williams, one of President Hoover’s secretaries, told me that the President would like to consult me and was inviting me and Mrs. Carver to have dinner with him and Mrs. Hoover, and to spend the night in the White House, on a certain date about a week later. I accepted the invitation and called up Flora to tell her of the invitation. She was pleased and said, “But I’ll have to get a new dress.”

When we arrived in Washington we were met at the train by a White House porter and a secretary who took us to the White House in an official limousine. It was midafternoon, so we had several hours to wait for dinner. We were shown to our rooms where we put in some time writing letters to our friends on White House stationery.

At dinner there were only four persons besides the President and Mrs. Hoover. One was his secretary, Mr. Williams, and the other was a daughter of one of Mrs. Hoover’s friends. After dinner the President, Mr. Williams and I retired to his office where we talked till bedtime.

The tariff question and the labor question were worrying him. He was already feeling some disappointment—even some irritation at the lack of cooperation he was receiving from the members of his own party in the Senate. He had sound ideas on the tariff and the labor question, both of which were in the public mind. The Senate, however, was for increasing rather than decreasing the tariff. Eventually he felt forced to sign a tariff bill as a means of getting the duties stabilized, at least for a time, knowing that nothing is so bad for business as uncertainty.

He saw clearly that the immigration of cheap labor from low standard countries was the chief threat to the American standard of living. A move had been made in the right direction when the quota system of limiting, immigration was adopted, but that system did not apply to immigration from the Western Hemisphere. Immigrants from French Canada, from the West Indies, from the Philippines and from all of Latin America were still free to come and were coming by the tens of thousands. These doors were kept open by the combined influence of those who wanted cheap labor and the sentimentalists who wanted to welcome “the poor and oppressed of all the earth,” together with the inertia of Congress.

Before the end of his administration, President Hoover put through an order, based on an old law, instructing consular agents to refuse visas to any immigrant who might become a public charge, or displace a citizen worker who might then become a public charge. That order did more for the American worker than all the New Deal legislation that followed. It seems not to be very well enforced just now (1948), judging by the reports regarding the immigration of Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Mexicans.

 

Source: Thomas Nixon Carver. Recollections of an Unplanned Life (Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press, 1949), pp. 254-254.

 

 

Categories
Courses Harvard Syllabus

Harvard. Agricultural Economics, Carver 1917

Thomas Nixon Carver covered quite a lot of beachfront in the Harvard economics curriculum for the first three decades of the twentieth century. His courses ranged from economic theory, sociology, social reform through the economics of agriculture, today’s post. His autobiography, Recollections of an Unplanned Life (1949) can be read online at Hathitrust.org. Before there were conservative think tanks, Thomas Nixon Carver was an academic scribbler from whom organizations like the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and politicians from Orange County, California distilled their frenzy.

Addition:  a course description along with the final examination questions collected during my  2017 archival visits to the Library of Congress and Harvard University archives.

___________________________________

 

Course Announcement

[Economics] 9 1hf. Economics of Agriculture

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (and the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor Carvers, assisted by Mr. —.

Source: Provisional Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 19718-18. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XIV, No. 4 (February 10, 1917), p. 99.

___________________________________

 

Enrollment

[Economics] 9 1hf. Professor Carver.—Economics of Agriculture.

Total 13: 5 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 3 others

 

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1917-1918, p. 54.

___________________________________

 

[The reading assignments of the course “Economics of Agriculture” (1917-1918) come from the following three publications by Thomas Nixon Carver:

Principles of Rural Economics. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1911.

Selected Readings in Rural Economics. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1916.

“The Organization of a Rural Community” published in the Yearbook of United States Department of Agriculture for 1914. Washington, D.C., 1915.pp. 89-138.]

ECONOMICS 9
1917-18

  1. Place of rural economics in the general scheme of Economics.
  2. General conditions of agricultural properity.

Principles. Chap. 1.
Selected Readings. Pages 1-31.

  1. Agricultural development in Europe.

Principles. Pages 29-63.
Selected Readings. Pages 151-253.

  1. Agricultural development in the United States.

Principles. Pages 63-116.
Selected Readings. Pages 254-351.

  1. The problems of land tenure.

Selected Readings. Pages 352-486.

  1. Tenancy and agricultural labor in the United States.

Selected Readings. Pages 487-574.

  1. The factors of agricultural production.

Principles. Chap. 3.

  1. Problems of farm management.

Principles. Chap. 4.
Selected Readings. Pages 575-644.

  1. Agricultural discontent.

Principles. Chap. 5.
Selected Readings. Pages 645-763.

  1. The marketing of farm products.

Selected Readings. Pages 764-897.

  1. Agricultural credit.

Selected Readings. Pages 936-970.

  1. The organization of rural life

Carver, The Organization of a Rural Community.

  1. National and state agricultural policies.

Selected Readings. Pages 898-935.

  1. Present tendencies and opportunities in agriculture.

Selected Readings. Pages 32-150.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1917-1918”.

Image Source: Harvard Album 1915.

Categories
Bibliography Courses Harvard

Harvard. Hansen and Williams’ course bibliographies. Fiscal and monetary policy, International Monetary Policy, 1950-56

In checking a reference using Google, I serendipitously stumbled upon the following pages at FRASER:

Committee on the History of the Federal Reserve System Collection>Bibliographies: Harvard University Reading Lists (1950-1955), Entry 168, Box 10, Folder 5.

A pdf file can be downloaded for the following two reading lists:

Economics 248. Fiscal Policy Seminar (1955/56) of Alvin H. Hansen and John Henry Williams: 60 pages.
Economics 248b. Fiscal Policy Seminar (Spring, 1950): 54 pages

Cf. The earlier post in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror on the Harvard Fiscal Policy Seminar, that lists the speakers from 1937-1944.

 

The very next page in the series: FRASER, Committee on the History of the Federal Reserve System Collection>Bibliographies: Harvard University Reading Lists (1950-1955), Entry 168, Box 10, Folder 6.

A pdf file can be downloaded for the following five reading lists:

Economics 241. Principles of Money and Banking. (Spring, 1956). Williams: 16 pages.
Economics 241[?]. Principles of Money and Banking (Fall, 1954). Hansen: 5 pages.
Economics 242. International Monetary Organization and Policy (Fall, 1955). Williams: 62 pages.
Economics 242. International Monetary Organization and Policy (Fall, 1953). Williams, 60 pages.
Economics 242. International Monetary Organization and Policy (Fall, 1954). Williams, Supplemental Reading Suggestions to Fall, 1953 reading list, 22 pages.

 

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions M.I.T.

MIT. Final Examinations for European Economic History. Kindleberger, 1970/74

The M.I.T. graduate economics program of my day (mid-1970s) still offered three courses in economic history: Peter Temin‘s American Economic History, Evsey Domar‘s Russian Economic History and Charles Kindleberger‘s European Economic History. I will confess here that little value-added from his lectures has survived the intervening decades for me  (I did read plenty!). That said, my personal take-away from Kindleberger’s class was that he represented the ideal balance of scholar-gentleman-economist. I suspect he felt as much a dinosaur when he taught us in the mid-1970s as I certainly do now when I eavesdrop on the conversation of graduate students when they mimic their elders, who are now sometimes a full generation younger than me. 

I posted a few of his favorite stories from his days at Columbia University. Here an outline biography of Charles Kindleberger at the MIT economics department.

__________________________

December 12, 1974
8:30-10:30

Informal Final Examination
14.733
European Economic History

 

Answer any three questions (forty minutes each), but be certain that not all your answers refer exclusively to Great Britain or the Continent of Europe.

 

  1. It was said that the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy, Roman nor an Empire.
    to what extent was the Industrial Revolution a) Industrial? b) a Revolution?
    Explain at some length, and indicate which Industrial Revolution, if there are more than one, you are referring to.
  1. Compare and contrast one pair, at least twenty-five years apart, from the following list:
    1. financial crises in Europe
    2. economic booms
    3. recoveries from war
    4. reparation transfers
  1. Evaluate the role of tariff policy in the economic growth or the economic development of one or more countries of Europe over some period of time which you specify.
  1. Compare the profiles of economic development over the nineteenth century of one of the pairs of countries below, and account for the major differences:
    1. Netherlands — Britain
    2. Britain — Germany
    3. France — Germany
    4. Italy — other country of your choice

__________________________

14.733 FINAL EXAMINATION
December 23, 1970 9AM
Three hours

 

Answer any four questions […illegible…] but at least one from each group.

 

Group I

  1. Describe the course and causes of the Industrial revolution in one country in Europe.
  2. Compare and contrast Rostow’s Stages and Gerschenkron’s discontinuity in economic growth, illustrating your answer with material from European history.
  3. Discuss the role in the early industrialization of one country of Europe of a) labor; b) capital; or c) technology.

 

Group II

  1. To what do you ascribe the business cycle in the 19th century Europe? Explain.
  2. Argue for or against the advantage of backwardness and the penalty of the head start, illustrating your argument with 19th century economic data from Europe.
  3. How do you account for the limited movement toward free trade in Europe after 1869. what did it accomplish, and why did it end?

 

Group III

  1. Did Europe grow rich on imperialistic exploitation of the rest of the world in the last quarter of the 19th century? Support your answer fully.
  2. Compare German recoveries after World War I and after World War II.
  3. Discuss the role of Europe in the 1929 depression.
  4. Compare and contrast the role of London in world finance before and after 1913.

 

Source: Personal copies of Irwin Collier.