Month: August 2017

Categories
Chicago Courses Cowles

Cowles Commission’s List of Univ. of Chicago Courses, 1952

 

This listing of certain courses by the Cowles Commission offered at the University of Chicago ca. 1952 is probably more interesting as to what was not included, namely applied fields with the possible exception of international economics (though probably what was meant there was only the theory of international trade and payments). Otherwise the list and course descriptions seem completely contemporary…without either the word microeconomics or macroeconomics being used!

___________________

 

Courses at the University of Chicago in Econometrics, Mathematical Economics, Economic Theory, and Statistics*

* Not all of these courses are offered in any one academic year.

National Income and Related Aggregates. Survey of the sources and methods involved in estimating the economic structure. National income, capital formation, balance of payments, and the components of the input-output analysis. Formulation of national economic programs. Aggregates arc related to the data and methods of both business and government accounting. Attention is given to students’ practical work.

Price Theory. A systematic study of the pricing of final products and factors of production under essentially stationary conditions. Covers both perfect competition and such imperfectly competitive conditions as monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly.

Welfare Economics. Description of conditions defining production and utility “possibilities.” Implications of these conditions for appraising economic policies affecting resource allocation, income distribution, and the level of employment. Special applications are made in the appraisal of imperfect competition, various government fiscal policies, and alternative economic systems.

Allocation of Resources in Production. Criteria for optimal resource allocation. Prices are introduced as marginal rates of substitution under efficient allocation of resources. The use of prices as guides to allocative decisions. Applications to a variety of production and pricing problems, including those of the transportation industry, and problems of industrial location.

Choice and Possibilities in Economic Organization (with particular application to agriculture). Economic development. Economic fluctuations.

The Theory of Income, Employment, and Price Level. Government policies and other factors determining the employment of resources, the national income and its use, and the levels of prices, wage rates, and interest rates. These problems are linked with the behavior of individual firms and households.

Economics of Uncertainty. Probabilistic vs. deterministic social science, normative and descriptive. Optimal strategies under complete and incomplete information. Applications to private and public policy; choice of assets (liquidity, inventories, diversification); versatility.

Monetary Aspects of International Trade. Foreign payments and receipts. Classical and modern theories of adjustment of the balance of payments. Theories of exchange rates. Capital movements in the balance of payments. Postwar monetary plans.

Economic Aspects of International Relations. Price theory and international trade; the gains from international specialization. International trade and the distribution of income. Historical and theoretical discussion of the theory of tariffs. Commercial policies of particular countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Commodity agreements and cartels. The growth of state trading. The new mercantilism.

Seminar on Modern Developments in Economic Theory. Discussion of selected topics from recent literature.

Seminar in Monetary Dynamics. The dynamic adjustment of the economy as a whole, with special emphasis on the role of the monetary and banking system. Student discussion of theoretical issues and empirical studies in this general field.

Scope and Method of the Social Sciences. The first of this sequence of three courses is an introduction to statistical methods as used in the social sciences.

Statistical Inference (sequence of three courses). The first two courses survey the principles of statistical inference. Among the subjects treated are: elements of probability; concepts of population sample, and sampling distribution; choice of estimates in the light of their sampling properties; testing hypotheses with reference to specific alternatives; principles of sampling and sample design; analysis of proportions, means, and standard deviations; simple, partial, and multiple regression and correlation. In the third course of the sequence students may carry out a statistical investigation; published statistical studies may be analyzed in detail; or some special field of application may be studied.

Introduction to Econometrics. Some properties of vectors, matrices, systems of linear equations. Analysis of simple economic models.

Statistical Problems of Model Construction. Discussion of problems arising when inference processes are directed to a postulated structure underlying the probability distribution of observed variables. Problems of identification of structural characteristics in a given model, of estimation of identifiable parameters, of estimation bias arising from incorrectly specified models, and of testing the specifications that define a model. Examples are drawn from econometrics, factor analysis, latent attribute analysis, and from the study of errors of observation.

Statistical Methods of Measuring Economic Relations.

Time Series. Stochastic difference equations, trends, moving averages, tests for randomness, correlograms, periodograms.

Sample Surveys. Theory of sampling from finite populations and especially its application to human populations.

Markov Processes. Three types of Markov process: discrete in space and time; discrete in space and continuous in time; continuous in both space and time. Use of certain of these processes as models in, e.g., genetics, evolution, diffusion, and communication.

Analysis of Variance and Regression. Algebra and geometry of vector spaces systematically applied to theory and application of subjects known variously as linear hypotheses, regression, analysis of variance, and least squares.

Estimation and Tests of Hypotheses. General methods, especially the theories of Neyman, Pearson, and Fisher.

Sequential Analysis. The sequential probability ratio test and its operating characteristics and average sample number functions; application to standard distributions; double dichotomies; sequential estimation; special problems.

Statistical Theory of Decision-Making. Critical review of modern statistical viewpoints, emphasizing general ideas as opposed to techniques. Interpretations of probability; the probabilistic utility theory; critique of Bayes’ theorem; methods proposed for avoiding Bayes’ theorem, especially Wald’s theory of minimum risk and the Neyman-Pearson theory; randomization; sufficient statistics and likelihood ratios; de Finnetti’s theory of personal probability.

Mathematical Statistics. An introduction to the theories of mathematical statistics that include discussions of point estimation, set estimation, and the testing of hypotheses.

Theory of Minimum Risk. Where practical, illustrations are drawn from standard statistical tests and estimates, but the treatment is for the most part on an abstract level. Existence theorems; general techniques of solution; simple dichotomies; asymptotic point estimation; symmetrical problems; sequential decisions.

Multivariate Analysis. The multivariate normal distribution. Related distributions such as the Wishart distribution and its noncentral analogue, and the distribution of the roots of determinantal equations. Hotelling’s cannonical correlations. Associated tests and estimation functions and the problem of classification.

The Design of Experiments. Design of experiments with special reference to the analysis of variance. Interaction and its exploitation in design, and the analysis of covariance. Numerical methods, analysis in the case of missing observations, and the effects of departure from the underlying assumptions of the analysis of variance are touched upon.

Non-Parametric Inference.

Econometrics Seminar. Reports by staff members, students, and visitors.

Statistics Seminar. Reports by staff members, students, and visitors.

Source: Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. Economic Theory and Measurement. A Twenty Year Research Report, 1932-1952 (University of Chicago, 1952), pp. 177-180.

Image Source: Cowles Foundation website: Social Science Building at the University of Chicago.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Arrow on the Subordination of Price Theory, 1940-42

 

Reading this account by Kenneth Arrow, I wondered why the lecturer in his history of economic thought course was not identified by name and who the lecturer was. In the Arrow papers at Duke’s Economists’ Papers Archive one finds his notes to John Maurice Clark’s course “On Current Types of Economic Theory” so for now I’ll presume that the son of the great John Bates Clark was the unknown lecturer of Arrow’s anecdote. 

_________________________

Kenneth Arrow Recalls the Subordination of Price Theory at Columbia

The intellectual environment at Columbia University when I was a graduate student in 1940-1942 was far different from that in which the modern graduate student in economics finds himself. Neoclassical price theory now holds pride of place, as all students will acknowledge, some joyfully, some ruefully. But at Columbia at that period there was no required course in price theory. Indeed there was no course at all offered which gave a systematic exposition of microeconomics, except for Harold Hotelling’s one term offering of mathematical economics, the content of which would today be more or less standard for a general course but which was then regarded as highly esoteric indeed. The one required course which was most nearly equivalent to price theory was a course on the history of economic thought, where the lecturer gave potted summaries of everyone from the mercantilists on. Walras was barely mentioned and certainly was much less prominent than H. J. Davenport. Keynes was not mentioned (for that matter the General Theory was not mentioned even in the course on business cycles, though there were some glancing references to the Treatise on Money).

But the work of Thorstein Veblen was indeed prominently displayed in the course on economic thought, and it was no accident. The corrosive skepticism of Veblen towards “received” theory had, belatedly and even posthumously, under mined the never-very-secure hold of neoclassical thought on teaching of American economics. Of course he was not alone in effecting the change; the more benign, but equally negative, judgments of John R. Commons, in whose name we are gathered, shaped a generation of economists trained under him at the University of Wisconsin. At Columbia, the channel of influence was Wesley C. Mitchell, creator of the National Bureau of Economic Research. His version of the attack upon neoclassical economics was an insistence on the large-scale accumulation of data. It was in large part his direct influence plus the general background created by Veblen and Commons that led to the subordination of price theory at Columbia.

Source: From Kenneth J. Arrow, “John R. Commons Award Paper: Thorstein Veblen as an Economic Theorist.” The American Economist 19, no. 1 (1975): 5-9.

Image Source:  Kenneth J. Arrow as Guggenheim Fellow (1972)  John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Categories
Columbia Economists Harvard Illinois Missouri Research Tip UCLA

Columbia Ph.D. Alumnus. Benjamin M. Anderson, 1886-1949

 

 

While the bulk of my internet trawling time for Economics in the Rear-View Mirror is devoted to tracking down curricular material and texts, serendipity occasionally takes me to biographically interesting places. Benjamin Anderson is of interest to ERVM both as having earned an economics Ph.D. from the Columbia School of Political Science and later as an economics professor at Harvard and UCLA. 

Research Tip: The University of California’s series of In Memoriam volumes.

____________________

Benjamin McA. Anderson, Economics: Los Angeles
(1886-1949)

Earl J. Miller, Marvel Stockwell, John Clendenin, Vern O. Knudsen

BENJAMIN MCALESTER ANDERSON (May 1, 1886-January 19, 1949), son of Benjamin McLean and Mary Frances (Bowling) Anderson, was born in Columbia, Missouri. He married Margaret Louis Crenshaw May 27, 1909. He is survived by his wife and three children, John Crenshaw, William Bent, and Mary Louise (Brown). A fourth child, Benjamin M. Anderson III, died in 1919.

Professor Anderson received the A.B. at the University of Missouri in 1906, the A.M. at the University of Illinois in 1910, and the Ph.D. in Economics at Columbia in 1911. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and an active member of the American Economic Association, in which he served as vice-president and a member of the Executive Committee. He served as Professor of History in the State Normal School at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1905; Professor of English Literature and Economics at Missouri Valley College, Marshall, Missouri, in 1906; Professor of History and Economics at the State Teachers College, Springfield, Missouri, from 1906 to 1911; Instructor in Economics at Columbia from 1911 to 1913; Assistant Professor of Economics at Columbia, 1913; Assistant Professor of Economics, Harvard, 1913-1918; economic advisor in the National Bank of Commerce in New York, 1918-1920; economist for the Chase National Bank of New York, 1920-1939; Professor of Economics in the University of California at Los Angeles, 1939-1949 (Connell Professor of Banking, 1946-1949).

Professor Anderson enjoyed a rich experience as a youth in his home at Columbia, Missouri. His father was for many years a prominent member of the Missouri State Legislature. Their home was the scene of innumerable political conferences to which Dr. Anderson was invited and from which he developed a keen interest in the then current political and economic problems.

Dr. Anderson’s publications were extensive, including four books and many articles and reviews. Outstanding among them were his books, Social Value, 1911; The Value of Money, 1917; Effects of the War on Money, Credit and Banking in France and the United States, 1919; Financing American Prosperity (coauthor with J. M. Clark, Columbia; A. H. Hansen, Harvard; S. H. Slichter, Harvard; H. S. Ellis, California at Berkeley; and J. H. Williams, Harvard), 1945. Much of his time during the last few years of his life was devoted to the writing of another book entitled Economics and the Public Welfare, a financial and economic history of the United States, 1914-1946. This extensive work was ready for proofreading at the time of his death. The book has now been published. It is a further major contribution to the field of economic literature comparable in quality to the high standard set in his previous works.

He contributed articles to many magazines and journals. Among them were the American Economic Review; Annals of the American Academy; Political Science Quarterly; Quarterly Journal of Economics; The New York Times; The Commercial and Financial Chronicle; The Bankers Magazine (London); The London Times; and the Wall Street Journal. During the past ten years he has published eight issues of the Economic Bulletin under the sponsorship of the Capital Research Company of Los Angeles. He associated himself for many years with a group of well-known economists in the organization known as the Economists’ National Committee on Monetary Policy, and served as President of that organization. Several of his articles were reprinted and circulated on a wide basis by that organization.

While economist for the Chase National Bank of New York, Professor Anderson published over two hundred issues of the Chase Economic Bulletin, which was distributed and read extensively in government, banking and educational circles in many countries. Representing the Chase National Bank he traveled extensively in foreign countries to conduct negotiations with leading government and banking officials. He was called on numerous occasions to testify before committees of the U.S. Congress and the New York State Legislature on questions of state, national and international policy relating to the fields of money and banking. These activities together with the wide circulation of his books, and of his articles in professional and financial journals and magazines, made him one of the best-known and most distinguished economists of his generation in both the national and international fields.

The firsthand contact with practical banking, with American and foreign banking officials, and with government agencies concerned with our economic and monetary affairs, which Dr. Anderson had enjoyed through many years, greatly enriched the content of his teaching and enabled him to provide for his students a sound and thoroughly practical experience. He originally possessed a scholarly command of history, literature, and languages which added impressively to his work, and he brought to his teaching and advisory tasks a broad perspective and keen judgment which made his pronouncements on economic affairs surprisingly accurate and wise.

Professor Anderson was a modest and distinguished scholar and a man esteemed by his colleagues for his personal qualities of kindly manner, stimulating humor, sympathetic appreciation and helpful cooperation. As a scholar and as a man he made a memorable contribution to the community in which he lived.

Source: Calisphere website: University of California, In Memoriam 1949, pp. 1-4.

Image Source: Benjamin M. Anderson in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Introductory Economics, Final Exams. Taussig, 1914-1915

 

Frank W. Taussig played a central role in Harvard’s economics at two important stages. He was the lecturer for the entry-level Principles of Economics course for undergraduates and the core economic theory course for graduate students. In addition he covered the field of international economics.

The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions for his principles course come from four different sources, three of which are available on-line. Over the past few weeks, I have posted corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered at Harvard during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

The following year (1915) Edmund E. Day and R. S. Davis (who belonged to the team of instructors and assistants for this principles course) published their Questions on the Principles of Economics (New York, Macmillan) that was arranged by topics to follow Taussig’s own textbook Principles of Economics (Second, revised edition of 1915: Volume One; Volume Two).

______________________ 

Course Announcement

Economics A. (formerly 1). Principles of Economics. Tu., Th., Sat., at 11.
Professor Taussig and Asst. Professor Day and five assistants.

Course A is introductory to the other courses. It is intended to give a general survey of the subject for those who take but one course in Economics, and also to prepare for the further study of the subject in advanced courses. It is usually taken with most profit by undergraduates in the second year of their college career. It may not be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor. History 1 or Government 1, or both of these courses, will usually be taken to advantage before Economics A. [p. 61]

Course A gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It undertakes a consideration of the principles of production, distribution, exchange, money, banking, international trade, and taxation. The relations of labor and capital, the present organization of industry, and the recent currency legislation of the United States will be treated in outline.

The course will be conducted partly by lectures, partly by oral discussion in sections. A course of reading will be laid down, and weekly written exercises will test the work of students in following systematically and continuously the lectures and the prescribed reading. [p. 62]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

______________________ 

Course Enrollment

[Economics] A. Professor Taussig and Asst. Professor Day, assisted by Dr. J. S. Davis, and Messrs. P. G. Wright, Burbank, Vanderblue, W. C. Clark, and Monroe.—Principles of Economics.

Total 491: 1 Graduate, 30 Seniors, 137 Juniors, 260 Sophomores, 11 Freshmen, 52 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

______________________ 

Mid-year Examination

ECONOMICS A

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Answer all the questions; be concise; plan your answers with care; and leave time for revision at the close.]

  1. In what ways, if at all, is the development of the complex division of labor connected with (a) the monotony of labor; (b) the Industrial Revolution; (c) integration of industry; (d) the recurrence of industrial crises?
  2. Explain: external economies; internal economies. Which set of economies is most significant for the explanation of (a) the localization of industry; (b) increasing returns; (c) the development of monopoly?
  3. If possible distinguish between

(a) diminishing returns and diminishing utility;
(b) by-product and joint product;
(c) joint cost and joint demand;
(d) “corners” and monopolies;
(e) median and arithmetical mean.

  1. Explain briefly the immediate and the ultimate effects (if any) which each of the following changes, taken separately, will tend to have on the price of cotton, cotton-seed oil, and cotton-mill machinery; (a) prohibition of organized speculation; (b) a change of fashion toward greater use of cotton fabrics; (c) doubling of the population of the country. (Assume for all three cases that there is no international trade, and that the quantity of money remains the same.)
  2. In what direction and by what process, if at all, would the following tend to affect the value of money in the United States; (a) increased demand for gold ornaments; (b) increasingly lavish expenditures by spendthrifts; (c) a continued drain of specie to the East; (d) a larger output of silver in the United States; (e) abolition of all legally required banking reserves?
  3. Under what conditions does inconvertible paper money circulate as readily as specie? Under what conditions, not as readily?
    Under what conditions is the value of inconvertible paper money as great as that of specie? Under what conditions is its value less than that of specie?
    State two indications of its having less value than specie. Which of the two is the more significant? Which is the more easily ascertained?
  4. State points of similarity, points of difference, between the Federal Reserve system and the English banking system as regards (a) centralization of reserves; (b) centralization of note issue; (c) measures available for preventing panics.
  5. Under what circumstances, if any, can a country have a permanent excess of imports? Under what circumstances, if any, a permanent outflow of specie? Does an excess of imports lead to an outflow of specie?
    Wherein, if at all, does a country gain or lose in its foreign trade (a) if prices and money incomes are higher than in foreign countries; (b) if prices and money incomes are lower?

Mid-Year. 1915.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers in Economics, 1882-1935. Prof. F. W. Taussig. (HUC 7882). Scrapbook, p. 106.

______________________ 

Final Examination

ECONOMICS A

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
Answer all the questions.

  1. Explain concisely: —

diminishing returns,
margin of cultivation,
equilibrium of supply and demand,
economic rent.

  1. Construct a simple index number of prices for 1914, using 1908 as the base.

 

1908

1914
Wheat, bbl.

$8.00

$12.00
Coal, ton

8.00

8.00
Iron, ton

18.00

9.00
Lumber, 1000 feet

20.00

15.00
Meat, lb.

.20

.30
Sugar, lb.

.10

.10

(1) Would the index-number point to a rise or a fall in the value of money? (2) Would a Board of Arbitration be justified in recommending a change in wages? If so, on what basis? If not, why not?

  1. Under what circumstances, if under any, will the imposition of a import duty cause the price of the dutiable commodity to fall? Under what will it fail to affect the price? Under what will it cause the price to rise?
  2. To what cause or causes should you ascribe: —

(a) the high level of general wages in the United States;
(b) the high wages of skilled workmen such as plumbers;
(c) the high wages of domestic servants in the United States;
(d) the high wages of trained nurses.

  1. Why is saving no less advantageous for laborers than lavish expenditure? Why do laborers usually favor ” making work “?
  2. “The standard of living affects wages not directly, but ” — how?
    What evidence of varying standards of living appears in the statistics of births and deaths for different countries? for different social classes?
  3. “The special question presented in this regard by the trust movement seems to be whether large-scale management adds something to the gains from large-scale production in the narrower sense. Here, too, it would appear at first sight that the matter may be allowed to settle itself. Let them fight it out and let that form of organization survive which does the work most cheaply.”
    Explain (a) what is meant by large-scale management and large-scale production; (b) what grounds there are for saying that they should be allowed to fight it out, what grounds for saying that they should not; (c) what legislation has recently been enacted in the United States on this subject.
  4. “Important distinctions exist between full-fledged socialism and public management of selected industries.” What are the distinctions?

Final. 1915.

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, pp. 39-59.

Image Source: Frank W. Taussig in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Statistics Final Exam. Day, 1914-15

 

 

Harvard’s 1914-15 statistics course in the department of economics was open to both undergraduate and graduate students. It was taught by Harvard Ph.D. (1909) and assistant professor, Edmund Ezra Day. The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions come from three different sources, all of which are available on-line. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 1a1. Statistics. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11.  Asst. Professor Day, assisted by Mr. F. E. Richter.

This course will deal primarily with the elements of statistical method. The following subjects will be considered: methods of collecting and tabulating data; the construction and use of diagrams; the use and value of the various types and averages; index-numbers; dispersion; interpolation; correlation. Special attention will be given to the accuracy of statistical material.

In the course of this study of statistical method, examples of the best statistical information will be presented, and the best sources will be indicated. Population and vital statistics will be examined in some measure, but economic statistics will predominate.

Laboratory work in the solution of problems and the preparation of charts and diagrams will be required. [p. 62]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 1a 1hf. Asst. Professor Day, assisted by Mr. F. E. Richter.—Statistics.

Total 53: 23 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

________________________

Final Examination

ECONOMICS la1

  1. Formulate, if possible, practical definitions for use in statistical enumerations of the following: (a) cities; (b) farms; (c) manufacturing establishments; (d) the insane; (e) the blind. What are the essentials of a satisfactory statistical unit?
  2. What three sorts of evidence may be employed to prove the inaccuracy of census enumerations of population? Which of the three is generally most effectively used?
  3. Describe the different methods of estimating the growth of population. Under what circumstances is each method applicable? preferable? What method should you recommend for estimating the population of (a) Hartford, Connecticut; (b) Seattle, Washington; (c) the United States; (d) the United Kingdom?
  4. In computing a crude birth-rate what disposition is made of (a) still-births; (b) multiple births; (c) illegitimate births? On what different bases may a crude birth-rate be refined? What are the objections to refining birth-rates? When is refining desirable?
  5. What subjects are covered by the Census of Manufactures in the United States? What is the statistical value of the different results secured?
  6. In the construction of index-numbers of prices, what are the advantages and disadvantages of (a) the weighted arithmetic mean; (b) the median? What are the more important difficulties in the construction of price indexes?
  7. Discuss the reporting of crops in the United States with reference to (a) the bureaus engaged; (b) methods of securing data; (c) publication of results; (d) accuracy of results.
  8. Define and briefly explain the uses of (a) the index-number; (b) logarithmic curve; (c) coefficient of dispersion; (d) coefficient of correlation.

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, p. 41.

Image Source: Edmund Ezra Day in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

 

 

 

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Accounting, Final Examination. J.S. Davis, 1914-15

 

 

Harvard’s accounting course was open to both undergraduate and graduate students. It was taught by the Harvard Ph.D. (1913) and instructor of economics, Joseph Stancliffe Davis. The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions come from three different sources, all of which are available on-line. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

The course syllabus was transcribed  and is available in a later posting.

An obituary for Davis written by Joseph H. Willits, “Joseph Stancliffe Davis, (1885-1975)” , was published in The American Statistician 30, no. 4 (1976), p. 199.

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 1b. Accounting. Half-course (second half-year). Lectures, Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 1.30; problems and laboratory practice, two hours a week. Dr. J. S. Davis, assisted by Mr. F. E. Richter and —.

This course will deal with the construction and the interpretation of accounts of various types of business units, designed to show the financial status at a particular time, the financial results obtained during a period of time, and the relation between the results and the contributing factors. In other words, it will be concerned with the measurement, in terms of value, of economic instruments, forces, products, and surpluses.

Some attention will necessarily be given to the fundamentals of book-keeping, but emphasis will be placed chiefly upon the accounting principles underlying valuation and the determination of profits and costs. Problem work will be regularly assigned, and published reports of corporations will serve as material for laboratory work. [p. 63]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 1b 2hf. Dr. J. S. Davis, assisted by Mr. F. E. Richter.—Accounting.

Total 119: 2 Graduates, 62 Seniors, 49 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

________________________

Course Final Exam

ECONOMICS 1b

  1. Explain concisely five of the following: —

(a) “a controlling account”;
(b) “charging to capital”;
(c) “a sinking fund”;
(d) “a life insurance reserve”;
(e) “the five normal elements in cost”;
(f) “stores ledger.”

  1. “The Depositors’ Guarantee Fund of Nebraska is to accumulate up to one and one-half per cent of the average daily [bank] deposits for the whole state, at the rate of one-half of one per cent for each of the first two years, then one-tenth of one per cent until the limit is reached, at which time assessments are to stop. No money is actually paid out by any bank except its proportionate share of losses arising from failures; the assessments are simply charged off from its profits and entered to the credit of the Depositors’ Guarantee Fund, which can be drawn upon by the State Banking Board.”

(a) What journal entries should a bank make (1) when an assessment of $5000 falls due? (2) when at the call of the State Banking Board it pays over $3000 as its share of a loss arising from the failure of another bank?
(b) Should a bank show “ Depositors’ Guarantee Fund “ on its balance sheet as an asset, a liability, or a proprietorship item?

  1. From the following condensed but essentially complete statements, ascertain (taking each statement separately) the profits earned or the loss sustained during the year. Indicate the title each statement should bear.

(A)

Dr.

 Cr. Assets

Liabilities
Real Estate and Plant $40,000 $35,000
Merchandise $15,000 10,000
Accounts Payable 10,000 $10,000
Cash 30,000 30,000
Capital 60,000 60,000
Expense 15,000 2,000

 

(B)

Jan. 1

 Dec. 31 Jan. 1

Dec. 31
Plant $80,000 $70,000 Capital Stock $100,000 $100,000
Receivables 45,000 50,000 Payables 65,000 75,000
Merchandise 30,000 25,000 Wages Accrued 5,000 5,000
Cash 50,000 60,000 Reserve for Ins. … 10,000
Int. Prepaid 5,000 10,000 Surplus 40,000 25,000
(NOTE.—No dividends have been paid.)

 

(C)

Purchases $100,000 Net Sales $130,000
Wages 10,000 Interest Earned 4,000
Depreciation 6,000 Commission 6,000
Interest Expense 2,000
Miscel. Expense 12,000
Proprietor 10,000

 

  1. Show journal entries for the first-named concern in each of the following transactions:—

(a) A department store raises cash by discounting at the First National Bank its 3-months’ note for $100,000, at 4%.
(b) Enterpriser having exhausted his personal credit, gets Goodfellow to accommodate him with a $5000 60-day note bearing interest at 6%, which Enterpriser immediately gets discounted at 5%.
(c) Retailer settles a bill of Manufacturer’s dated June 1, for goods listed at $150,000 and sold subject to a trade discount of 20% on terms ” 30 days net,” paying with a note maturing July 1.
(d) A railroad company buys steel freight cars at a cash price of $480,000, but pays for them with an issue of 4% 10-year bonds at 80.

 

  1. Balance Sheet, January 1,1915.
Fixed Assets $500,000 Capital Stock $300,000
Current Assets 250,000 Bonds 300,000
Deficit 50,000 Current Liabilities 200,000
$800,000 $800,000

You are asked what is the capital of a company showing the above balance sheet, which is assumed to be correct. What four possible correct answers might you give? In each case explain what the term “capital” signifies.

  1. “The prospective investor in railroad securities should scrutinize very carefully any radical reduction in expenses that is made in either maintenance of way or maintenance of equipment; but a reduction in transportation expenses without any falling off in the revenue of the road may be fairly safely accepted as a reflection of increased efficiency.”

(a) Why this difference?
(b) Wherein would the company’s financial statements be falsified by excessive reductions in charges to maintenance?

  1. “No rate of depreciation is at present prescribed by the commission, and although the companies are supposed to report to the Interstate Commerce Commission the rate which they use, they are at liberty to make this rate as low as they want to and are permitted to vary the rate from year to year. Furthermore, no charge for retirements is necessary until a locomotive is actually scrapped or sold. Let us assume, for a moment, that a road wishes to make a good showing by holding down maintenance of equipment expenses. Cars and engines which have become worn out or obsolete may be put on side tracks and neither scrapped nor sold, but new equipment bought. There is no way in which this can be detected from the maintenance . . . accounts.”

(a) How does this practice enable the roads to make “a good showing”?
(b) By what supplementary statistics, if any, can the practice be detected?
(c) Why should no rate of depreciation be prescribed?

  1. “As the premium [on a bond] is nothing but the present worth of an annuity of the ‘difference of interest,’ so the various amortisations are nothing but the present worths of the different instalments of annuity.”
    Explain the italicized terms and the statement.
  2. What are the principal defects in present-day municipal accounting? What steps have been taken toward improvement?
  3. State concisely the four most important accounting facts or principles which you have learned in this course. (Accuracy of statement and wisdom in selection will be considered in grading answers.)

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, pp. 42-44.

Image Source: Joseph Stancliffe Davis, Harvard Class Album, 1916.

 

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. U.S. Economic History, Final Exam. Gay, 1915

 

 

“Economic and Financial History of the United States” was a course open to both undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard taught by Edwin F. Gay. The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions come from three different sources, all of which are available on-line. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

The course outline and reading assignments for this course in 1911 has been transcribed earlier here at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 2b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Professor Gay, assisted by —.

The following are among the subjects considered: aspects of the Revolution and commercial relations during the Confederation and the European wars; the history of the protective tariff policy and the growth of manufacturing industries; the settlement of the West and the history of transportation, including the early canal and turnpike enterprises of the states, the various phases of railway building and the establishment of public regulation of railways; banking and currency experiences; various aspects of agrarian history, such as the public land policy, the growth of foreign demand for American produce and the subsequent competition of other sources of supply; certain social topics, such as slavery and its economic basis, and the effects of immigration. [pp. 63-4.]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 2b 2hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. A. H. Cole.—Economic and Financial History of the United States.

Total 131: 30 Graduates, 17 Seniors, 44 Juniors, 30 Sophomores, 10 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

________________________

Final Examination

ECONOMICS 2b

  1. (a) In the War of 1812, as well as in the embargo period, American shipping suffered; but with peace it nourished again. So too American shipping suffered in the Civil War; while afterwards shipping declined. How do you account for this?

   (b) What justification, if any, is there for the following assertion: —

“In the case of England, the mail subvention system a wise and liberal policy, while in that of the United States it was a tax on the people to support a mistaken policy.”
Is a ship subsidy policy desirable for the United States at the present time?

  1. Outline briefly your views as to the immediate influence of the Civil War on (a) land policy, (b) banking, (c) tariff, and (d) industrial progress North and South.
  2. “The currency legislation from the close of the Civil War was a series of compromises.” What compromises? Why? Resulting in what legislative Acts?
  3. In how far has the protective tariff been a factor in the development of the textile industries of the United States? What other factors have been operative?

Take two of the following questions.

  1. “Surpluses have spelled disaster to the United States.” Do you agree? When and how?
  2. Do you defend or oppose the movement toward industrial combination? State your reasons.
  3. (a) Trace the relation between the competition of the coastal cities and the development of transportation.
    (b) Summarize the important provisions of the amendments to the Interstate Commerce Act?

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, pp. 45-46.

Image Source:  Edwin F. Gay in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

 

 

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. 19th Century European Economic History, Final Examination. Gay, 1914-15

 

 

“European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century” was a course open to both undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard taught by Edwin F. Gay. The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions come from three different sources, all of which are available on-line. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

The outline and reading assignments for this course in 1910-11 has been transcribed earlier here at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 2a1. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 9.

Professor Gay, assisted by —.

Course 2a undertakes to present the general outlines of the economic history of western Europe since the Industrial Revolution. Such topics a the following will be discussed: the economic aspects of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic régime, the Stein-Hardenberg reforms, the Zoll-Verein, Cobden and free trade in England, labor legislation and social reform, nationalism and the recrudescence of protectionism, railways and waterways, the effects of transoceanic competition, the rise of industrial Germany.

Since attention will be directed in this course to those phases of the subject which are related to the economic history of the United States, it may be taken usefully before Economics 2b. [p. 63.]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 2a 1hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. A. H. Cole.—European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century.

Total 88: 21 Graduates, 18 Seniors, 27 Juniors, 16 Sophomores, 6 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

________________________

Final Examination

ECONOMICS 2a1

  1. Comment on the following statement by a recent writer:
    “The conjunction of three main factors was necessary to this radical transformation [the Industrial Revolution] — (a) surplus capital, (b) surplus labor, (c) a new market. Whenever these major quantities come together, the lesser conditions, such as invention, better communications, and a favorable state policy, will soon appear.”
  2. Compare the attitude of the countries in the northern half of the Zollverein with those in the southern half as to governmental policy regarding railroads and the customs tariff. What is the connection between these policies and the agricultural situation in those regions?
  3. What ground is there for the assertions that the land of the English landlord has been, since 1880, “a millstone about his neck,” and that he “has been treated as if the land did not belong to him”?
  4. Outline the case for and against government ownership of railroads in Germany.
  5. Compare the forms of industrial combination, trade unionism, and cooperation in England and Germany.
  6. Was the situation of British trade “ominous” during the decade 1900-1910? Give the grounds for your view.

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, p. 45.

Image Source: Edwin F. Gay in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Money, Banking, Commercial Crises. Final examination, Anderson, 1914-1915

 

 

“Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises” was a course open to both undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard taught by Benjamin M. Anderson. The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions come from three different sources, all of which are available on-line. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Asst. Professor Anderson, assisted by —.

This course undertakes a theoretical, descriptive, and historical study of the main problems of money and banking. Historical and descriptive materials, drawn from the principal systems of the world, will be extensively used, but will be selected primarily with reference to their significance in the development of principles, and with reference to contemporary practical problems. Foreign exchange will be studied in detail. Attention will be given to those problems of money and credit which appear most prominently in connection with economic crises. Though emphasis will be thrown upon the financial aspects of crises, the investigation will cover also the more fundamental factors causing commercial and industrial cycles. [p. 64]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 3. Asst. Professor Anderson, assisted by Mr. E. E. Lincoln.—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 52: 1 Graduate, 14 Seniors, 27 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 9 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

________________________

Final Examination (2nd term)

  1. Discuss the theory of foreign exchange. How would the acceptance of the quantity theory modify your discussion of this problem?
  2. Trace the main events of the Panic of 1907, and indicate the conclusions that may properly be drawn therefrom with reference to monetary and banking reform.
  3. To what extent are credit instruments used in the United States as a means of effecting exchanges? Contrast retail and wholesale transactions with reference to this point. Contrast city and country. How was the information on this point obtained?
  4. Give an account of the main developments in the London money-market from the outbreak of the War till the end of February, 1915.
  5. Explain: “puts”; “borrowing and carrying”; stock-exchange clearing house. Discuss the relations of the Stock Exchange and the banks in New York.
  6. Indicate the comparative growth of State banking institutions and National banks since the beginning of the National banking system. What explanations can you give?
  7. Contrast one-name and two-name paper. Should the Federal Reserve Board seek to reintroduce two-name paper? Give reasons.
  8. Contrast England, Germany, France, Canada and the United States with reference (a) to note-issue, and (b) to use of deposits.
  9. In precisely what ways does our Federal Reserve system seek to remedy the defects in our banking system?
  10. Discuss the foreign exchange policy of the Bank of Austria-Hungary; of the Reichsbank; of the Bank of England.

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, pp. 46-47.

Image Source: Benjamin M. Anderson in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Transportation Economics, Final Examination. Ripley, 1914-15

 

 

“Economics of Transportation” was a course open to both undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard taught by William Z. Ripley. Judging from the common course number, instructor, and size of enrollment, it appears to have been regarded as the first course of a sequence that included “Economics of Corporations”. The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions come from three different sources, all of which are available on-line. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

Readings for the course can most likely found in some or all of:

Railway Problems (revised edition, 1913), edited with an introduction by William Z. Ripley. From the series of Volumes Selections and Documents in Economics, edited by William Z. Ripley published by Ginn and Company, Boston.

William Z. Ripley. Railroads–Rates and Regulation. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912.

William Z. Ripley. Railroads–Finance & Organization.  London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1915.

 

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 4a1. Economics of Transportation. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor Ripley, assisted by—.

A brief outline of the historical development of rail and water transportation in the United States will be followed by a description of the condition of transportation systems at the present time. The four main subdivisions of rates and rate-making, finance, traffic operation, and legislation will be considered in turn. The first deals with the relation of the railroad to shippers, comprehending an analysis of the theory and practice of rate-making. An outline will be given of the nature of railroad securities, the principles of capitalization, and the interpretation of railroad accounts. Railroad operation will deal with the practical problems of the traffic department, such as the collection and interpretation of statistics of operation, pro-rating, the apportionment of cost, depreciation and maintenance, etc. Under legislation, the course of state regulation and control in the United States and Europe will be traced. [p. 64]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 4a 1hf.Professor Ripley, assisted by Mr. Tosdal.—Economics of Transportation.

Total 156: 6 Graduates, 46 Seniors, 88 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 9 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

________________________

Final Examination

ECONOMICS 4a1

Answer in order. Do only as many as can be well done.

  1. Classify the means employed by “inside” speculators to attain their ends, citing instances by name.
  2. What was the significant feature of the St. Louis Terminal Railway Co. dissolution case?
  3. Suppose two transportation companies capitalized at $10,000,000 each. One prospers under able management. The other is unsuccessful and is finally bought up by the first for half its original cost. By ability it is again put fully upon its feet without further outside investment of capital. What should be the basis upon which reasonable rates for the combination of the two roads should be allowed?
  4. Contrast the conditions in the Union Pacific, — Southern Pacific dissolution case and those in New England bearing upon the combination of the New Haven and the Boston & Maine. Make each point in a separate paragraph. Draw sketch maps if they will help.
  5. Name as many differences as you can between reorganization and receivership.
  6. Make up a few imaginary items for a Freight Classification, showing what is its usual form.
  7. Explain how the conflict of Federal and state authority came about in the Shreveport, La. case.
  8. What was the first noteworthy effect of the amendment of the Interstate Commerce Act in 1906?
  9. State in not more than ten words each, three motives for the resort to a construction company in railroad building.
  10. What was the principal trouble with the Rock Island railroad system? Why did it go to pieces?

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, pp. 47-48.

Source Image: William Z. Ripley in Harvard Class Album, 1915.