Month: October 2017

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Harvard Regulations

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Regulations, 1968

 

Besides the general university regulations governing the award of a Ph.D. degree, specific departmental rules evolve as a matter of case-law decided committee meeting by committee meeting and/or departmental meeting by departmental meeting. In the summer of 1968 the Harvard chairman of economics, Professor Richard Caves, offered the following codification of specific economics practice. Caves’ cover letter and memo that I have transcribed below were found in personal departmental files kept by John Kenneth Galbraith.

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1968 Codification of Harvard Economics Ph.D. Regulations

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

OFFICE OF THE CHAIRMAN

M-8 LITTAUER CENTER
CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS

September 13, 1968

To: Members of the Department of Economics
From: R. E. Caves, Chairman

Attached is a memorandum prepared this summer which seeks to codify the department’s regulations concerning the Ph.D. program. It is restricted to information not contained in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, General Announcement, 1968-1969 (“The Red Book”) and the leaflet “Higher Degrees in Economics,” Supplement to the General Announcement.

For some time I have felt the need for a memorandum of this type, for distribution both to graduate students and members of the department. A number of changes have been made during the last few years in the administration of various phases of the PhD. program, and it is difficult to bring these to the attention of the students. Furthermore, some regulations rest on oral traditions that I have found to vary depending on whose mouth they come from. This memorandum has been prepared following a search of the minutes of Department and Executive Committee meetings, and in consultation with the chairman of the Committee on Graduate Instruction. Please bring any inaccuracies to my attention.

This document will be distributed to the returning graduate student at the annual meeting held with them during the first week of classes. (It seems best to spare the first-year students until a psychologically more propitious time.)

Let me take this opportunity to remind members of the Committee on Graduate Instruction that they will be in charge of advising first-year graduate students this year, superseding our previous practice of assigning them to all professors and associate professors in the Department.

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DEPARTMENT REGULATIONS GOVERNING THE Ph.D. IN ECONOMICS

SUGGESTIONS FOR COURSE REGISTRATION

First year graduate students in economics with an ordinary undergraduate background should usually enroll in 201a, b, 221a, b, and 233a, b, plus some other course (or pair of half courses) relating to one of the fields that they expect to present on the general examination. Those who have not passed the mathematics exemption exam should substitute 199 for 201a and 221a during the fall term; either 200a or some other graduate course not requiring advanced prerequisites may be included. 201a and 221a are then begun in the spring semester and their continuations (201b and 221b) completed in the following fall. The mathematics placement examination is advisory, so that students who feel its results do not accurately reflect their abilities may consult the instructors in 201a or 221a.

Four courses per term is the standard load, and full-time students are not permitted to take less. There is no tuition charge for additional courses.

First year students may proceed on their own to arrange reading courses where they seem appropriate. Representative cases would be where the student is preparing an optional field for the general examination for which no regular course is currently given, or where his previous study covers a substantial portion but not all of the first-year theory, history, or statistics courses. (None of these courses is required, although they are recommended for most students.) It is also possible for first year students to sign up for “Time,” although this is normally used primarily to cover study for the general examination, and should not be substituted for a reading course without good cause.

The same general rules pertain to registration for the second year. Economics 202a is normally a second-year course, and students who still need to complete 221b or 201b or both should do so during the fall term. Other courses should be chosen to complete the preparation of the fields which the student plans to present on the oral examination.

The department expects that students will normally take at least one working seminar before the end of their second year. This may be taken during the first year, but ordinarily comes in the second. The Graduate Instruction Committee maintains an up-to-date list of working seminars. Second-year students may then wish to register for “Time” for a substantial part of their program. They are not permitted to do so unless the working seminar requirement has been or is being fulfilled. Exceptions to this requirement are given by the chairman only in rare cases to students who are still carrying a heavy load of regular courses during their second year.

In the third year, or after the residence requirement and general examination have been completed, students do not need to be registered if they are not taking courses. Those in residence, however, will ordinarily wish to register in order to use the university’s facilities, and Teaching Fellows must be registered. Registration at this stage may be either for thesis supervision (Economics 301) or “Time” unless the student wishes to take some regular course.

Students who have done graduate work in economics elsewhere before coming to Harvard may wish to apply for transfer credit. This has the sole effect of reducing their tuition obligation to the University. Since none of our courses is required of graduate students, it has no formal implications for either course registration or for the grade average compiled at Harvard. Credit for work done elsewhere is granted at the discretion of the Graduate Instruction Committee. The number of courses for which credit is granted depends on grades earned at Harvard, the nature of courses taken elsewhere and the quality of the student’s performance in them. The maximum credit that may be given for work done other than at Harvard is eight half courses, and students will be granted all or part of this, depending on the record compiled in the Department. Petition forms for requesting credit for work done elsewhere may be secured from the Graduate Office (Littauer M-13) at the end of the student’s second semester in residence at Harvard.

 

THE GENERAL EXAMINATION

The Department of Economics has prepared a number of handouts describing such topics as writing off fields for the general examination, the written theory and statistics examinations, and fields of concentration; these are available in Littauer M-13.

Composition and Timing of the General Examination. The General Examination is given in three parts: a four-hour written examination in economic theory and its history, a four-hour written examination in statistical methods, and a one-and-one-half hour oral examination in three specialized fields.

General examinations are given twice a year, once in the fall and once in the spring. In the past, the fall theory examination has occurred about November 7 and the spring theory examination the week after spring vacation, around April 11. The statistics examination is ordinarily given a few days after the theory exam. Two to three weeks are allowed for grading, so that the fall oral examinations commence after Thanksgiving vacation and the spring orals at the end of April. Exact dates are posted on the bulletin board outside M-13 as soon as they are available. All parts of the examination must ordinarily be taken at the same time, i.e., a student may not take and pass the theory written exam in one “season” and defer the balance until the next. Students will, however, in some cases be permitted to take the written statistics exam prior to the other two parts.

In the past, it was possible for students to request a particular date for the oral examination. With increased number of students to be examined, this is becoming less and less feasible, especially in the spring. Requests to be first are much more likely to be entertained than requests to be last. In the final analysis, the Department feels that the composition of the board is a great deal more important than the actual exam date, and we consequently give this factor priority in scheduling.

Application for the General Examination. Students are invited to apply for the fall exam after October 1 and for the spring exam after March 1. Application may be made in M-13.

The Written Examination. Copies of past exams are available in M-12. It should be understood that the Department is in no way committed to the format or contents of past exams. Because Business Economics Ph.D. candidates are not responsible for the portion of the written theory examination dealing with the history of economic thought, they are given an optional alternate question.

In order to take the Oral Examination, a student must pass both the written theory and written statistics examinations. In most cases, students will not be examined orally on economic theory and statistical methods material covered on the written examinations. However, candidates who receive a grade of Fair Minus on the written theory examination will take a separate oral examination in economic theory and its history, which will be conducted by at least two members of the committee responsible for the written theory examination. This examination will be given as soon as possible after the theory examinations are graded, and the candidate must pass this separate examination in order to present himself for the general oral examination. The oral theory examination will last about forty minutes and will cover the same subjects, but not necessarily the same questions, as the written theory examination. If the candidate fails the oral theory examination, he will also be considered to have failed the written theory examination; if he passes the oral theory examination, his grade on the written theory examination will remain Fair Minus, and he may proceed to the remainder of the general examination.

The procedure for the statistics examination is somewhat different. A student who performs marginally on the written statistics examination will be examined orally in statistics at his general oral examination along with his other three fields. A student who had planned to present General Analytic Ability plus two specialized fields may therefore find he must present statistics orally. If so, he will continue to present General Analytic Ability, but will have a four member board. A student with no write-off will present four specialized fields: economic history, two selected fields, and statistics.

About two or three weeks after the theory and statistics examinations, students are told whether or not they have passed via sealed envelope distributed by the Graduate Secretary in M-13. Students who must present either statistics or theory orally are informed at this time. Except for any Fair Minuses, letter grades are not given out and no grades are posted.

Write-offs. Although the general examination normally consists of three parts, the written theory examination, the written statistics examination, and the oral examination, it is sometimes possible for students to waive either the statistics examination or one field of the oral examination. The theory examination may never be waived and students may not write off more than one field.

Normally the write-off requirement will consist of distinguished grades in either one full course or two half courses indicated for that field. “Distinguished grades” are defined as A or A- for a full course, or at least an A- average for two half courses, obtained by one of the following combinations: A and A; A and A-; A and B+; A- and A-. The following do not qualify: A- and B+; A and B. The order in which the grades are obtained is not important.

Because the spring general examination is given before the end of the second semester, the questions of conditional write-offs may arise. If a student has completed the first semester of a pair of half courses for the write-off and is taking the second semester course at the time he wishes to present that field on his general examination, he may do so only if he obtained an A in that course first semester. If, at the end of the second semester, he does not have at least a B+ in that course, he will be required to take an oral examination in the field.

The courses usable for a write-off change somewhat from year to year, and students should check with the Graduate Office before taking two halves of a write-off in different years. However, if a student completely fulfills a write-off requirement his first year and does not take his general examination until his second year (the most usual case), he may still waive a generals field with his first year work, even though the write-off requirements may have changed substantially by the time he takes his generals.

The sheet on write-off requirements that is available each fall in the Graduate Office contains a list of fields in which a write-off is automatically granted for candidates with the requisite grades. Occasionally, a student will wish to write off a field which is not listed. In this case, a student has the right to petition, in writing, the Committee on Graduate Instruction.

Final jurisdiction on all matters pertaining to write-offs rests with the Committee on Graduate Instruction. Students who wish a write-off that deviates from the normal procedure should check with the Graduate Secretary in M-13, who will supply instructions on petitioning the Committee. To allow the Committee ample time to meet and discuss petitions, and to allow a student to revise his program of study if his petition is rejected, a student should present his petition as soon as possible, certainly no later than the beginning of the semester in which he wishes to take his Generals.

The Oral Examination. The identity of the board members remains a secret until twenty-four hours before the oral. (Those with Monday exams are informed by a Sunday phone call.) The board will usually consist of three faculty members, at least one of whom is tenured.

Students who have no write-off, or who write off statistics, will be examined in three fields. All others will be examined in two regular fields, but a third examiner will be present on the board to evaluate the student’s General Analytic Ability.

The final grade on the General Examination is a composite of three other grades: the theory exam grade, the statistics exam grade, and the grade on the orals. The only grade that is recorded on the permanent record is the final grade. Students are informed within an hour or so of their oral examinations of their final grade for the general.

As in the past, if a student fails any portion of the general oral examination, he fails the entire oral examination, and must again present the same three specialized fields (or two specialized fields and General Analytic Ability). If a student who must present statistics orally fails this portion of the general examination, he will have to retake both the written statistics examination and the entire general oral examination.

Students who receive a grade of at least Good Minus on the general are not required to take a final examination in any fields which were presented at the oral.

Master of Arts Degree. Students who have passed all portions of the general examination may apply for an M.A. degree. There is no fee for this. However, students who have received credit for work done elsewhere should check before applying for an M.A., as this may jeopardize having the necessary sixteen half courses for the Ph.D. residence requirement. Since there is a December 1 deadline for the March degree and an April 1 deadline for the June degree, degree applications may be submitted by the optimistic before generals are taken.

As far as the Department has been told, applying for an M.A. in no way affects one’s draft status, unless the MA. is a terminal one.

 

SUPERVISION OF THE DOCTORAL DISSERTATION

A student is expected to begin active work on his doctoral dissertation as soon as he has completed his General Examination. At that time, he will ask two faculty members from the Department to comprise his thesis committee and to supervise his thesis until it is completed. One of the committee members should be either a professor or an associate professor in the Department (or comparable visiting faculty member), but the second committee member may be chosen from among the lecturers and assistant professors. In some cases it has been possible for students to choose as one committee member a professor from either another department at Harvard or from the economics department of another university. The student will ask one of the committee members (which need not be the tenure member) to serve as principal director of his thesis and chairman of his thesis committee. (A different procedure applies optionally to students who passed the general examination before 1968.)

Having secured approval from two faculty members, a Ph.D. candidate shall register his thesis topic with the Graduate Office within one term after completing the General Examination. On the appropriate form, he shall propose to the Department Chairman a thesis topic and suggest the two faculty members who have agreed to supervise it. The Chairman of the Department will consider the suitability of the proposed thesis committee. Unless they hear otherwise, students may assume approval has been given.

Throughout the time he is writing his thesis, a student is expected to keep in touch with both members of his dissertation committee on the progress of his work. In case a member of the dissertation committee leaves the university for more than a semester, the student is responsible for suggesting a replacement. Department members who are on leave from the university are expected, however, to continue to supervise theses begun under them whenever practicable.

Every student who has passed his General Examination since February 1, 1966, is required to present at least one report on his thesis project to a working seminar. Each year a list of working seminars is issued by the committee on Graduate Instruction. If no working seminar in the field exists, arrangements shall be made for presenting the thesis to another seminar in the presence of at least one member of the thesis committee. Students who plan to be out of residence while writing their dissertations would contact the Department Chairman regarding special arrangements for fulfilling this requirement.

Students are reminded that five years after the general oral examination has been passed, there is a deadline for submitting the thesis. Because the special examination is an investigation of a student’s knowledge of his particular field, not merely a thesis defense, it is imperative that a student maintain an up-to-date knowledge of his field. Students who spend many years writing their dissertations may tend not to keep in touch with current literature and may find themselves handicapped at the special examination. Therefore the Department is quite strict about enforcing this five-year rule, and extensions of time are by not means automatic.

A limited amount of computer time is available each year to students writing theses. Unfortunately, the funds available have been increasingly less adequate in recent years, but the Department is able to allow each student one-half hour of time for writing his thesis. However, we are sufficiently constrained that it is impossible for us to give thesis-writing students additional time beyond the thirty minutes except in a few special cases. Students must plan their programs very carefully and take advantage of the services of the IBM fellows in order to cut costs. Anyone planning a thesis which will involve considerable use of the computer should be all means establish how it will be financed before beginning work on it. While it is unfortunate that students must sometimes pay for their own computer time, this avenue is nevertheless always open. Computer time on the 7094 costs $2.50 a minute and students whose fellowships or personal finances permit the outlay may always purchase time. Computer time is arranged through the Graduate Office in M-13.

Some seminars and courses have funds to finance computing needs for term papers, etc. Slightly more lenient rules than those quoted above apply to holders of NSF Fellowships.

 

THE SPECIAL EXAMINATION AND COMPLETION OF THE THESIS

When a candidate has nearly finished writing his doctoral dissertation, he shoud see the Graduate Secretary in Littauer M-13 about typing and binding the thesis and taking the Special Examination.

In order to take the Special Examination, it is required that a candidate first submit two bound copies of his thesis to the Department.* At this time he will fill out an application for the Special Examination. A third reader will be chosen and an examination date fixed. (Should a second reader not already have been chosen, he will also be selected at this time.)

*In spite of past leniency, the Department will be adamant about enforcing this rule, and exceptions to it will not be automatic.

            Contrary to the extract “Higher Degrees under the Department of Economics,” from the Supplement to the General Announcement, the thesis does not have to be submitted by December 1 for a March degree or March 1 for a June degree. However, candidates must file a degree application with the Graduate Secretary by December 1 for a midyear degree or April 1 for Commencement, and must pass the Special Examination before either February 1 or June 1 for the appropriate degree to be conferred. A degree application may be filed before the thesis is submitted, as degree applications may be withdrawn if the thesis is not completed in time.

Special examinations may be arranged at any time of the year. Students are warned, however, to allow ample time for the readers after the final draft is completed and before the special exam is scheduled. Furthermore, a serious traffic jam develops at the end of every summer, when most faculty members are away and many students wish to finish in order to take fall jobs. The department cannot guarantee prompt scheduling of specials at this time.

Candidates are reminded that the Special Examination is now formally an examination in the field, or parts of fields, in which the thesis lies. Students are referred to a memorandum dated September 12, 1966, which explains this further.

Physical Requirements for the Thesis. “The Form of the Doctoral Thesis,” taken from the Supplement to the General Announcement, explains procedures for finishing the thesis, but the following points should be noted.

Number of Copies. Unless specifically told otherwise by his advisor, a student may assume the Department requires only two copies of his thesis.

Paper. The first copy of the thesis must be typed on Crane’s thesis paper, which is available in the Coop. The second copy may be Xeroxed. As twenty pound paper does not travel successfully through most Xerox machines, it obviously cannot be required for the second copy. If the second copy is a carbon, it should be done on thirteen pound (or heavier) paper. Any deviation from this format should be cleared through Mr. Elkins, Archivist at Widener Library.

Summary. Although a summary is no longer required by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, two copies of a four to ten page summary are required by the Department of Economics. The summaries are initialed by the two supervising members of the thesis committee when the thesis is accepted and are inserted in a pocket in the back of each copy of the thesis. In addition, the Department would like a 75-word summary of the thesis to be published in the September issue of the American Economic Review.

Binding. The New England Book Binding Company, 24 Blackstone Street, Cambridge (located parallel to Memorial Drive and one block north, between Western Avenue and River Street, phone 868-7220), can bind theses in five working days for about $9.00 per volume. They will also pick up and deliver in Cambridge. Candidates should be sure to tell the bindery to put a pocket for the summary in the back of each copy of the thesis, as this is not done automatically. The thesis may be bound in any reasonable color.

Footnotes. Unless a student is informed otherwise by his advisor, he may follow the editorial recommendations on page 4 of “The Form of the Doctoral Thesis.” Footnotes may be at the bottom of the page, within the text, at the end of chapters, or at the end of the thesis.

Thesis Acceptance Certificate. The Thesis Acceptance Certificate is signed by the first and second readers at the Special Examination. The Department will take care of pasting it in the thesis.

Caveat. Once a thesis has been taken to the Registrar’s Office, it cannot be retrieved.

Special Examination. The special field or fields in which the Special Examination shall be taken are designated by the chairman of the dissertation committee. The exam also constitutes a defense of the thesis.

The two supervising members of the thesis committee agree on a grade on the thesis itself. A separate grade on the special examination is given by the three-man examining committee.

 

Source: John Kenneth Galbraith Papers. Series 5. Harvard University File, 1949-1990. Box 526, Folder “Harvard University Department of Economics: General correspondence, 1967-1974 (3 of 3)”.

Image Source: PhinisheD Gown at pinterest.co.uk

 

 

 

Categories
Fields Harvard Regulations Statistics

Harvard. Use of written general examination for quantitative methods in economics, 1968

 

We can see in the following memo how the traditional oral examinations had to be adapted for a field such as quantitative methods that does not lend itself readily to oral examination while still holding to the principle of a general oral examination  “to assess the candidate’s general ability to use the tools of theory and quantitative methods and to understand the interrelation of different parts of the discipline.” I am surprised that they were apparently still using oral examination for quantitative methods up through the 1967 “generals season”.

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Additional Oral General Examiner for Students Taking Written Quantitative Methods Exam

April 10, 1968

Memo to: Members of Department of Economics
From: Richard E. Caves, Chairman

At its meeting of February 27, the Department of Economics voted to change the examining procedure for the field of quantitative methods. A written exam will now be given in this field, with the result that students having a write-off and presenting the field of quantitative methods will be offering only two fields on the oral examination. It was voted that, in these cases, a third examiner be present to judge the candidate’s general ability to use economic reasoning and his proficiency as an economist.

A number of members of the department will be asked to take up this open-ended rule in oral examinations during the Spring generals season. Discussion at the Department meeting indicated an agreement that the third examiner should not raise detailed questions of substance outside of the two fields being presented for specific oral examination, but should try to assess the candidate’s general ability to use the tools of theory and quantitative methods and to understand the interrelation of different parts of the discipline. It was suggested that the third examiner might either take his turn at the end of the examination or break in periodically during examination in the two specific fields. He also might, if practical, develop questions on the basis of the candidate’s performance in the written theory and statistics examinations.

The new system of oral examination may call for some change in our traditional method of grading a general examination, which involved each examiner giving a grade both on his own field and on the examination as a whole. It may be more suitable, depending upon the course of the individual examination, for the third examiner to evaluate only the examination as a whole. The grade on the written statistics examination should be taken into account in the same way that the grade on the written theory exam has been in the past.

The Department viewed the inclusion of a third examiner as experimental. I hope that members of the department who have taken up this role will discuss it among themselves to help us develop a standard of practice in this area an to evaluate its usefulness.

 

Source: John Kenneth Galbraith Papers. Series 5. Harvard University File, 1949-1990. Box 526, Folder “Harvard University Department of Economics: General correspondence, 1967-1974 (3 of 3)”.

Image Source:  “Bye-Bye, Blue Books?” in Harvard Magazine, July/August 2010.

Categories
Economic History Harvard Syllabus Williams

Harvard. American Industrial History. Readings and Paper Topics. John E. Sawyer, 1949-51

 

 

Some instructors play only briefly a part in an economics department’s regular program. Today we have the Harvard assistant professor John Edward Sawyer who taught undergraduate American economic history for a few years at mid-20th century before going on to teach at Yale and ultimately becoming the president of his alma mater, Williams College. I have provided a memorial minute for some additional biographical information about Sawyer. The minute is followed by a list of topics and recommended reading for his American economic history course term paper as well as the required reading list.

An obituary for John Edward Sawyer by Henry B. Dewey was published at the American Antiquarian Society Proceedings of the Semiannual Meeting (April 22, 1995).

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Sawyer, John Edward (1917-1995)
Williams College President 1961-1973
By Prof. J. Hodge Markgraf (Williams Class of 1952)

 

In this nation, in this century, Jack Sawyer was a giant among leaders of higher education, among executives of philanthropic foundations, and among the pioneers in environmental studies. To all of these endeavors he brought high intelligence, wide knowledge, humanistic values and keen analysis.

It is his impact on this college that brought him national prominence and it is that leadership which this memorial minute celebrates. Jack’s involvement with Williams started early. He came to campus with his father, Class of ’08, and his brother, Class of ’37, before his own matriculation here as a freshman in September 1935. By the time he graduated magna cum laude with Highest Honors in History (he was the first thesis student of President James Phinney Baxter), he had joined a fraternity, been elected to Phi Beta Kappa, sung in the Glee Club, worked on the Gul , served as a Junior Advisor, and helped edit the Purple Cow magazine. The Class of 1939 was unique in this century because it provided four distinguished members of this faculty: in addition to Jack, they were Jim Burns, Bill Gates, and Jack Savacool.

Jack Sawyer’s next official connection to Williams came in 1952, when he was appointed a permanent trustee at age 34. He was named our 11th president in 1961; at age 44 he was the youngest Williams president in this century. He served as president for 12 years and, when he left in 1973, every aspect of this college was transformed: students, faculty, curriculum, administration, trustees, alumni, finances, and physical plant. It is difficult to convey the scope and manner of these changes. Within days of his arrival here he appointed a committee to study the fraternity question, and he had its report in less than a year. The trustees’ decision to replace fraternities with a residential house system set the stage for the construction of housing and dining facilities. A new record for annual alumni giving that winter of 1962-1963 helped dispel the notion that alumni were upset over this bold move. It should come as no surprise that the Alumni Fund outdid itself. Behind the scenes, generous donors assured Jack the goal would be exceeded, an action that thwarted a pro-fraternity group calling for funds to be withheld. At the same time, Jack experimented with more flexible admissions criteria (the so called 10% program), ended compulsory attendance for the classroom and the chapel, instituted paid assistant professor leaves, created the offices of provost and dean of the faculty, and was persuaded by four science faculty (only one of whom was tenured) to build a science center for research and computing.

In mid-decade he took the lead in revising the curriculum to include non-western studies, changing the college calendar to create the Winter Study Program, establishing the first center for environmental studies at the college level, increasing the number of African-American students, expanding the recruitment of women and minorities for faculty and administration positions, and completing a capital campaign eight times the scale of the previous one.

At the end of the decade he helped create the Twelve College Exchange Program, he engineered the change to coeducation here more sensitively than any other institution undergoing the same transition, and he was one of the leaders in establishing the New England Small College Athletic Conference. His last curricular contribution was the Graduate Program in the History of Art. Throughout the decade he increased the diversity of trustee membership by including women, minorities, and young alumni.

These extraordinary changes, for the most part, met with ready acceptance and surprising harmony. Jack’s presidency, however, was not without stress. There was the expected hostility from some alumni over the demise of fraternities, and there were objections from similar quarters over the coeducation decision. Internally, younger faculty in 1968 were expressing displeasure with an entrenched committee structure that dominated faculty governance. The result was the Faculty Steering Committee, the introduction of term limits for committee assignments, the addition of students to most faculty committees, and limited attendance by students at faculty meetings. In 1969 black students occupied offices in Hopkins Hall to protest deficiencies in the curriculum, in social and cultural events, and in admissions as they related to Afro-American concerns. What followed were increased staffing, funding, and diversity in the Afro-American Studies Program, in social and cultural events, in admissions and administrative activities.

Finally, in May 1970 the U.S. government’s military actions in southeast Asia, especially the Cambodian incursion, resulted in protests on many campuses. The deep feelings expressed by students and faculty at Williams, shared by Jack, led to the canceling of the last two weeks of classes and the suspension or postponement of final exams. Those were the easy moves. He then organized delegations of students, faculty, and trustees to call on members of Congress to press the case for disengagement. It was characteristic of him to insist that a trustee be part of each delegation in order to demonstrate a consensus within this college community. These public crises were not easy for Jack because many of the college’s constituencies were neither shy nor uncertain about offering advice. The fact that we survived as well as we did is testimony to his leadership and that of many others.

Throughout his public career Jack’s leadership reflected his sense of stewardship. He was acutely aware that the institutions he led were entrusted to him for only a short time and that prior events implied both limitations and opportunities. Above all else, however, he aspired to lead a life that was useful and, in doing so here, his vision for Williams redefined this college. His multiple initiatives were all part of a larger schema. His horizon was further and his sight was clearer than most of his contemporaries. He was wise, compassionate, witty, gracious, and extraordinarily well read. He cared foremost about people and ideas. His desire to effect meaningful change and his ability to chart the clearest pathway sometimes resulted in an attention to detail that not everyone appreciated. In observing these situations, I was convinced that such micromanagement did not stem from pettiness or a need for power, but rather from an unavoidable desire to have everyone’s energies coherent and focused.

Sometimes his analytical prowess could not be restrained. During CAP interviews with faculty candidates, he occasionally became so engaged with their description of the doctoral thesis that he would redesign their expositions and suggest an additional chapter or two, citing the key primary literature that ought to be consulted. Applicants’ responses ranged from barely-concealed resentment to profound gratitude.

The biographical facts are these. John Edward Sawyer was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on 5 May 1917. He attended Deerfield Academy, obtained an A.B. degree from Williams, and earned an A.M. degree from Harvard in 1941. He completed all requirements for a Ph.D. except the thesis before serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1946, assigned to the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, North Africa and Europe. He than returned to Harvard as a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows (1946-1949) and as an Assistant Professor (1949-1953). He was an Associate Professor at Yale University (1953-1961) before becoming President of Williams College (1961-1973). In 1974 he became Vice President of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and served as its President from 1975 until his retirement in 1987 at age 70.

His many honors included the U.S. Navy Bronze Star medal, thirteen honorary degrees, the National Academy of Sciences Public Welfare Medal, the Phi Beta Kappa Award for Distinguished Service to the Humanities, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Chairman’s Award, and the Williams College Bicentennial Medal.

In June 1941 he married Anne Swift, who in 1984 was the first recipient of the college’s Ephraim Williams Medal. Jack Sawyer died in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, on 7 February 1995 at age 77.

His foremost legacy is this college. His life was splendidly useful.

Source: Markgraf, J. Hodge. “John Edward Sawyer.” 8 March 1995. Williams College Faculty Meeting Minutes. Williams College Archives. Also available online at Williams College, Special Collections, Williams History—Presidents.

____________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 136 (formerly Economics 36a). Economic History: The Growth of an Industrial Economy in the United States

Half-course (spring term). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Assistant Professor Sawyer.

 

Source: Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences During 1950-51. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XLVII, No. 23 (September 1950), p. 81.

____________________________

Course Enrollment
[1949-50]

[Economics] 136a. (formerly Economics 36a). Economic History: The Growth of an Industrial Economy in the United States. (Sp) Assistant Professor Sawyer.

Total 68: 1 Graduate, 18 Seniors, 25 Juniors, 15 Sophomores, 4 Radcliffe 5 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1949-50, p. 73.

____________________________

1949-50
Economics 136

Undergraduate Papers

Each student will prepare a paper due not later than May 15 on a problem in American economic history since 1800.

The paper is to be 10-15 pages in length (3,000 – 4,000 words). It is to be based on an additional 300-500 pages of reading, usually from more than one book, on one of the topics suggested below; or on other topics or books of special interest to the student for which he has secured the approval of the instructors.

The paper is not to be a mere descriptive summary of the reading. The student should rather draw on the reading, and the sum of his work in history and economics, to discuss an important economic problem within the topic on which he has read.

Each student is responsible for getting his own books and for submitting as early as practical a one-paragraph statement of his reading plans and of the problem he expects to deal with (the latter may, of course, change as the reading progresses). The final paper should indicate the reading on which it is based and the sources (including other courses) on which the paper has drawn.

The following examples illustrate the kind of problems which a paper might treat within some of the different topics:

  1. The relationship between technological change and the growth of a particular industry.
  2. The factors that prevented the development of a Central Bank in the United States in the 19th
  3. The role of the railroad in the growth of a particular market area.
  4. The role of transportation and location in the economic growth of a given city.
  5. The role of Rockefeller (or any other business man) in the growth of large-scale enterprise, his attitudes towards competition and the economic conditions behind these attitudes.

1800 – 1880’s

Geography and Land

E.C. Semple, American History and Its Geographic Conditions
R.M. Robins, Our Landed Heritage
B.E. Hibbard; A History of the Public Land Policies
A.M. Sakolski, The Great American Land Bubble
P.W. Gates, The Wisconsin Pine Lands
K. Coman, Economic Beginnings of the Far West

Population

W.W. Thompson and P.K. Whelpton, Population Trends in the U.S.
Census Monograph, 1909, A Century of Population Growth, 1790-1900
M.L. Hansen, The Atlantic Migration
M.L. Hansen, The Immigrant in American History

Transportation

J.G.B. Hutchins, American Maritime Industries and Public Policy, 1789-1914
R.G. Albion, The Rise of the New York Port
W.J. Lane, From Indian Trail to Iron Horse
Cleveland and Powell, Railroad Promotion and Capitalization in the U.S.
P.W. Gates, The Illinois Central Railroad and its Colonization Policies
U.B. Philips, A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt
R.C. Overton, Burlington West
R.F. Riegel, Story of the Western Railroads
E.C. Kirkland, Men, Cities and Transportation
W.F. Gephart, Transportation and the Development of the Middle West

Development of Markets

L.E. Atherton, The Pioneer Merchant in Mid-America
F.M. Jones, Middleman in the Domestic Trade of the U.S.
T.S. Berry, Western Prices before 1861, A Study of Cincinnati Market
R.G. Albion, The Rise of the Port of New York, 1815-1860
J.W. Livingood, The Philadelphia-Baltimore Trade Rivalry, 1780-1860
G.S. Callendar, The Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises of the States, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. XVII

Technological Progress

Leo Rogin, Introduction of Farm Machinery in Relation to Productivity of Agriculture
F. McCormick, The Development of Farm Machinery
J.V. Roe, English and American Toolmakers
A.P. User, A History of Mechanical Inventions
S.C. Gilfilan, The Sociology of Inventions
[and] Inventing the Ship

Industrial Growth

V.S. Clark, The History of Manufactures in the U.S., Vols. I, II
R.M. Tryon, Household Manufacture in the U.S., 1640-1860
A.H. Cole, American Wool Manufacture, 2 vols.
C.F. Ware, The Early New England Cotton Manufacture
M.T. Parker, Lowell, A Study in Industrial Development
V. Schlakman, Economic History of a Factory Town
C.M. Green, Holyoke, Massachusetts
J.R. Commons, History of Labor in the U.S., Vols. I, II
N.J. Ware, The Industrial Worker, 2 vols.

Business Organization and Government Policy

Cochran and Miller, The Age of Enterprise
Oscar Handlin, Commonwealth: Massachusetts 1774-1861
Louis Hartz, Economic Policy and Democratic Thought
W.J. Lane, Cornelius Vanderbilt
Sidney Ratner, Social History of American Taxation
F.W. Taussig, Tariff History of the U.S.
J.S. Davis, Essays in the Earlier History of American Corporations, 2 vols.
J.W. Cadman, Jr., The Corporation in New Jersey: Business and Politics, 1791-1875

Role of Capital and Economic Growth

N.J. Silverling, The Dynamics of Business
W.B. Smith and A.H. Cole, Fluctuations in American Business, 1790-1860
L.H. Jenks, The Migration of British Capital to 1875
G.W. Van Vleck, The Panic of 1857
R.G. McGrane, Foreign Bondholders and American State Debts
R.A. Foulke, The Sinews of American Commerce

Money and Banking

M.S. Myers, The New York Money Market, Vol. I
D.R. Dewey, State Banking before the Civil War
R.A. Lester, Monetary Experiments
E.R. Tauss, Central Banking Functions of the Treasury
H.E. Miller, Banking Theories in the US. before 1860
A.B. Hepburn, A History of Coinage and Currency in the U.S.
R.C.H. Catterall, The Second Bank of the U.S., 2 vols.
N.S.B. Gras, The Massachusetts First National Bank of Boston, 1784-1934

Agricultural Expansion

L.B. Schmidt and Ross, Readings in the Economic History of American Agriculture
Bidwell and Falconer, History of Agriculture in the Northern States, 1620-1860
L.C. Gray, History of Agriculture in the Southern U.S. to 1860
E.E. Edwards, American Agriculture—the First 300 Years in Yearbook of Agriculture, 1940
A.W. Griswold, Farming and Democracy

The Social Impact of Economic Change

Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization
C.M. Green, Holyoke, Massachusetts
Oscar Handlin, Boston’s Immigrants
R.R. Russell, The Economic Aspects of Southern Sectionalism
P.S. Foner, Business and Slavery
T.D. Clark, Pills, Petticoats and Plows: The Southern Country Store

1880’s — 1940’s

Population

M.L. Hansen, The Immigrant in American History
Carter Goodrich and Associates, Migration and Economic Opportunity
National Resources Com., The Problems of a Changing Population

Land Policy

R.M. Robbins, Our Landed Heritage
B. H. Hibbard, A History of Public Land Policies

Transportation

Sidney L. Miller, Inland Transportation
Stuart Daggett, Railroad Reorganization
J.I. Bogen, The Anthracite Roads
J.E. Otterson, Foreign Trade and Shipping
W.Z. Ripley, Railroads: Rates and Regulation
W.Z. Ripley, Railroads: Finance and Organization
U.S. National Resources Planning Board, Transportation and National Policy, Part II, Section 1, Air Transport
K.T. Healy, The Economics of Transportation in America
C.E. Puffin, Air Transportation, 1941

Technological Progress

L.L. Corwin, TNEC Monograph 22, Technology in Our Economy
Harry Jerome, Mechanization in Industry
National Resources Planning Committee, Technological Trends and National Policy
N.R. Danielian, A.T.&T.
Holland Thompson, The Age of Invention
A.A. Bright, The Electric Lamp Industry
W.R. MacLaurin, Innovation and Invention in the Radio Industry

Industrial Growth

Solomon Fabricant, The Output of Manufacturing Industries
Ralph Epstein, The Automobile Industry
Rudolph Clemen, The American Livestock and Meat Industry
Victor Clark, History of Manufactures in the U.S., Vols. II, III
G.E. McLaughlin, Growth of Manufacturing Areas
H. Barger and S. Schwartz, The Mining Industries, 1899-1939
J.B. Walker, Epic of American Industry
Pearce Davis, Development of the Glass Industry
D.H. Wallace, Market Control of the Aluminum Industry
P.A. Rickard, A History of American Mining

Money and Banking

Margaret Myers, The New York Money Market
G.H. Edwards, The Evolution of Finance Capitalism
National Industrial Conference Board, The Banking Situation in the U.S., 1932
W.Z. Ripley, Main Street and Wall Street
W.C. Mitchell, History of Greenbacks
E.R. Tauss, Central Banking Functions of the Treasury
H.E. Miller, Banking Theories in the U.S. before 1860
A.D. Noyes, Forty Years of American Finance
B.U. Ratchford, American State Debts
W.G. Schultz and M.R. Caine, Financial Development of the U.S.

Income and Economic Growth

Simon Kuznets, National Income: A Summary of Findings
Colin Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress
N.J. Silberling, The Dynamics of Business
National Industrial Conference Board, Studies in Enterprise and Social Progress
TNEC Monograph 37, Saving, Investment, and National Income
TNEC Monograph 12, Profits, Productive Activities and New Investment
Report of the Committee on Recent Economic Changes in U.S., 2 Vols, 1929

Agriculture

L.B. Schmidt and E.D. Ross, Readings in the Economic History of American Agriculture
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1940 Yearbook of Agriculture
U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1940 Yearbook of Agriculture
Fred Shannon, The Farmer’s Last Frontier
H. Barger, and H.H. Landsbert, American Agriculture 1899-1939
R.P. Brooks, The Agrarian Revolution in Georgia 1865-1912
J.D. Black, Agricultural Reform in the U.S.
A.W. Griswold, Farming and Democracy
Geoffrey Shepherd, Marketing Farm Products

Labor

J.R. Commons, etc., History of Labor in the U.S., Vols III, IV, 1935
L.L. Lorwin, The American Federation of Labor
C.E. Bonnett, Employer’s Associations in the U.S., 1922
H. Millis and R. Montgomery, The Economics of Labor, 3 vols, 1945
Slichter, Union Policies and Industrial Management
Samuel Gompers, Seventy Years of Life and Labor, 1925
E.W. Bakke, The Unemployed Worker
P.F. Brissenden, The I.W.W., A Study in American Syndicalism

Business Organization and Government Policy

H.R. Seager and C.A. Gulick, Trust and Corporation Problems, 1929
M.W. Watkins, Industrial Concentration and Public Policy
A.H. Burns, The Decline of Competition, 1936
R.W. Brady, Business as a System of Power, 1941
B.H. Williams, The Economic Foreign Policy of the U.S.
F.W. Taussig, Tariff History of the U.S.
Keith Sward, The Legend of Henry Ford
A.T. Mason, Brandeis and the Modern State
A. Nevins, J.D. Rockefeller

The Social Impact of Economic Change

T.C. Cochran and W. Miller, The Age of Enterprise
Economic Growth, Journal of Economic History, Supplement to Vol. VII, 1948
T.W. Arnold, The Folklore of Capitalism, 1937
L.D. Brandeis, Other People’s Money, 1914
C.D. Thompson, Confessions of the Power Trust, 1932
R.S. and H.M. Lynd, Middletown, 1929; and Middletown in Transition, 1937
James West, Plainville, U.S.A., 1945
George Soule, Prosperity Decade, 1947
Broadus Mitchell, Depression Decade, 1947
A.M. Schlesinger, The Rise of the City
Ida Tarbell, The Nationalizing of Business, 1878-1898
H.U. Faulkner, The Quest for Social Justice, 1898-1914

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 4, Folder “Economics, 1949-1950 (2 of 3)”.

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Economics 136
Spring term
Required reading list — 1950-51

A textbook is used in this course to provide a comprehensive historical survey complementary to the more topically organized lectures. Each student will normally buy, along with other books marked with an asterisk below, one of the following texts:

Recommended for general undergraduate use:

Kirkland, E.C., A History of American Economic Life, Rev. Ed. (Crofts)

Recommended for graduate students and undergraduates seeking a more advanced text:

Williamson, H.F., The Growth of the American Economy (Prentice Hall)
Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789-1945 (Govt Printing Office)

Reading assignments up to the Hour Test (tentatively March 21)

Text: Kirkland, Chs. IV-XI or equivalent in Williamson (approximately the first half)

Other reading (in the order given):

*Franklin, Benj., Autobiography, any edition, entire, or equivalent to pp. 6-38, 75-149, 216-34 of the Modern Library edit.
Taylor, George R., ed., The Turner Thesis, Problems in American Civilization (Heath), sections 1, 4 – 9.
Taylor, George R., ed., Jackson vs. Biddle, Problems in American Civilization (Heath), sections 1- 10
Reading on capital formation
*Manning and Potter, Gov’t and the American Economy (Holt) pp. 35–73, 75-115

Reading assignments between the Hour Test and Reading Period

Text: Kirkland, Chs. XII-XVII or equivalent in Williamson (approximately second half)

Other readings (in order given):

Manning and Potter, ibid., 75-115, 8[?]-23
Reading on business cycles
Shannon, Fred A., The Farmer’s Last Frontier (Farrar and Rinehart). Chs. V-IX, XV
Millis and Montgomery, Organized Labor, Ch. II and III, and Manning and Potter, ibid., 117-60, 161-200
Berle and Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, selections

Reading period (tentatively)

Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Parts II-IV

An essay of 10-15 pages on some problem in American economic history will be due approximately one week before the end of the reading period.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 5, Folder “Economics, 1950-1951 (1 of 3)”.

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[Final] Reading Period Assignment
May 7-May 26, 1951

Economics 136:

J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. Preface to the Second Edition and Parts II and III
H. C. Simons, Economic Policy for a Free Society, Chapters I and II

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 5, Folder “Economics, 1950-1951 (1 of 3)”.

Image Source: John Edwards Sawyers in 1970.

 

Categories
Berkeley Columbia

Columbia Economics Ph.D. Alumnus (1931) and Berkeley professor, Leo Rogin

 

Today we get a glimpse of the life of Russian-born economist Leo Rogin who died at age 54 after having taught twenty years at UC Berkeley.

A additional brief biographical paper of Leo Rogin that highlights his influence on John Kenneth Galbraith:

Robert W. Dimand and Robert H. Koehn. Galbraith’s Heterodox Teacher: Leo Rogin’s Historical Approach to the Meaning and Validity of Economic Theory. Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. 42, No. 2 (June, 2008) pp. 561-568.

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Leo Rogin, Economics: Berkeley
1893-1947

by Robert A. Brady, Ralph W. Chaney, and Malcolm M. Davisson

The greatest tribute to Leo Rogin’s intellectual qualities was the response of his students. They invariably reported his classes to be extraordinarily challenging and exhilarating. Few teachers paid so little lip service to the conventional canons of pedagogy, yet few were able to stir up such animated and continuous reëxamination of fundamental propositions which underlie social theory in general and economic theory in particular. Former students are scattered all over the country who, years after, remember his classes as the outstanding intellectual experience of their entire college career.

Part of this experience was derived by contact with his charming personal qualities: an infectious enthusiasm, a wonderful sense of humor, a never failing delight in new ideas, and a great tolerance in outlook and interpretation. Some of these qualities may trace back to a life of rich and varied personal experience. He was born in Mohilev, Russia, on April 18, 1893. His father, manager of a large Russian estate, moved with his family to the United States in 1902, where in due time they became American citizens. Leo Rogin’s early interest was quite naturally devoted to agricultural subjects. He received the B.S. degree in Agriculture from Rutgers College in 1916 and the Ph.D. degree in Economics from Columbia University in 1931. He began teaching as Instructor in Economics and Sociology at Grinnell College in 1921. The following year he became Associate Professor of Economics and Sociology at North Carolina College for Women. In 1926 he was Assistant Professor of Economics at Lawrence College, Wisconsin. He came to the University of California in 1927, where he was Lecturer (1927-1938), Associate Professor (1938-1946), and Professor (1946-1947).

Interspersed with his teaching were other professional assignments. In 1925-1926 he served as Economist on the staff of the Guarantee Trust Company. In 1934-1935 he was Chief of Staff of the Labor Advisory Board of the NRA. In 1937-1938 he was Director of an extensive Survey of Destitution in Wyoming.

An understanding of the contribution of Leo Rogin must begin with the realization that he held that neither theory nor practice in the social sciences could be adequately analyzed or creatively expanded or refined outside of a frame of reference which was coextensive with the dual role of citizen and scholar. From this it followed that the differentia specifica which separates the social sciences from the natural sciences inheres in the structure, character, and functioning of social relations as such; that there is no escape from the acceptance of the historicity of social science theory, however formal and abstract; and that no aspect of social sciences–economics, political science, sociology–can be looked upon as more than a specific angle of an approach to an examination of the social sciences as a whole.

It is no accident, accordingly, that Leo Rogin felt, as an economist, that this view required that he become unusually well versed in philosophy and history. That this implied a stronger, rather than a weaker, imperative for rigor in his thinking processes is indicated by his systematic and long drawn-out self-education in logic and mathematics. But this very same emphasis also led him to feel that since the significant reality of the social sciences was an ever-changing and perpetually fluid manifold of social relations, it was highly necessary to cultivate a sense for the vagaries of theory by active participation in the social life of his time. Thus his personal as well as his scholarly life represented a quite unusual wedding of theory and practice. He maintained an acute and vivid interest in people, events, and a whole range of current social problems while at the same time constantly pursuing a heavy schedule of detailed and exacting research. This research had just begun to yield its most important results at the time of his sudden death in the summer of 1947. A major work, tentatively titled The Meaning and Validity of Economic Theory, representing some ten years of intensive work, is to be published in 1948. This study, dealing with the major figures in the evolution of economic thought from the time of the Physiocrats and the founding of the Classical School to J. M. Keynes, was prefatory to two other projected works. One was to be a detailed study of Keynes, whom Rogin regarded as one of the great transitional figures of contemporary times. The other was to be a constructive examination of the theory of economic planning.

Thus his work was cut off at the very time when it bore promise of yielding a significant reëxamination of economic theory as a whole. His earlier critical writings reflected a very carefully outlined plan of work and were notable for their penetration and originality. Particularly noteworthy was a series of articles and reviews on the writings of Karl Marx and Werner Sombart. An earlier study, The Introduction of Farm Machinery in its Relation to the Productivity of Labor in the Agriculture of the United States During the 19th Century, published by the University of California Press in 1931, reflects his intense interest in the practical side of economic investigation and forecasts his later concern over techniques and methodology. E. A. J. Johnson said of this study that, “It is at once a set of findings and a method… his methodological contributions are indispensable to economic historians.” His later work would have amplified this statement to cover the significant problems of contemporary theory and policy formation.

In 1923 Leo Rogin married Winifred Ellsworth. His widow, three daughters, and a son survive him.

Source: University of California. In Memoriam, 1947.

Image Source:  Blue and Gold, 1922.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Fields Harvard

Harvard. Money, Banking, and Crises. PhD General Exam, 1930s

 

While economics course examination questions are relatively abundant at Harvard, field examinations for Ph.D. candidates are not so common. The following is transcribed from a carbon-copy found in a departmental folder labeled “1935-37-38-42”.  Judging from the questions, I might have guessed the exam would have come earlier than the late 1930s. At least for now we’ll have to say “exact year unknown”.

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General Examination for the Ph.D. Degree.
Money, Banking, and Crises.

  1. Briefly compare the experience of France and the United States with bimetallism. What lessons can be drawn from the experience of the two countries?
  2. What factors worked in favor of, and what against, the successful operation of the Bland-Allison Act during the 80’s?
  3. Compare the general organization of banking in England with that in Germany. Which seems to you the stronger? Why?
  4. What features of the Canadian banking system affect the elasticity of note issue in that country? How elastic is the Canadian bank note issue? How has the note issue been affected by the “rest fund fad”? How do you account for the “rest fund fad”?
  5. Describe the use of call loans in banking in the United States. To what extent and for what reasons are such call loans made? Are they an element of strength or weakness in our system? Why!
  6. What is meant by a free gold market? Are the following such: (a) London; (b) Paris; (c) Berlin; (d) New York? In each case, why or why not?
  7. How will the rate of sterling exchange in New York be affected by: (a) a slump on the New York Stock Exchange; (b) low call money rates in New York; (c) a financial panic in the United States?
  8. What are the three best index numbers for the study of general prices since 1895 in England and the United States? What are the points of strength and weakness in each?
  9. Describe and criticize at length Professor Fisher’s plan for stabilizing or standardizing the gold dollar.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950 (UAV.349.10), Box 23, Folder “Course Outlines 1935-37-38-42”.

 

 

 

Categories
Cornell Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Local taxation. Suggested topics and readings. Durand, 1902

 

This posting was prepared at the INET Festival for New Economic Thinking in Edinburgh (October 19-20, 2017). It turned out to be a nice case-study of preparing an artifact for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. Edward Dana Durand was a Cornell Ph.D. in economics and statistics who was to go on to be a director of the U.S. Census. He taught at Harvard in 1902, between jobs. For this course I was only able to find the instructions for preparing a report on taxation with suggested reading.  Course description, enrollment figures as well as two short biographical pieces are included below.

A memorial piece by K. Pribram was published as “Edward Dana Durand (1871-1960)” in Revue de l’Institut International de Statistique / Review of the International Statistical Institute  Vol. 28, No. 1/2 (1960), pp. 118-120.

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EDWARD D. DURAND
THE NEW CENSUS DIRECTOR

The Outing Magazine, August 1909

WHEN your chief says it will take a “corking” good man to fill your place, it means he is paying you the best compliment possible. This is what Commissioner of Corporations Herbert Knox Smith said of his deputy, Edward Dana Durand, when the commissioner was told that President Taft had decided to place Mr. Durand at the head of the Census Bureau. In his office on the floor above Mr. Durand received the news with the pleasure of feeling that a part of his ambitions were about to be realized. He felt that he had at last been chosen to fill the most exacting office that could be assigned to a statistician.

Naturally Mr. Durand will encounter many difficulties in his new position, but it is expected that his confidence in himself will be of as great aid as it has been in the past. Different from Mr. North, his work is academic, Mr. Durand being possibly the best-trained statistician ever appointed to the position of Director of the Census Bureau.

While he has held various positions as a teacher, Mr. Durand has not gained the distinction in academic work that he has outside. Nevertheless his success in government service has been speedy and gratifying. His most significant work in the public eye has been his book on the finances of New York City, his work with the Industrial Commission, and with the Bureau of Corporations. While serving as secretary of the Industrial Commission he edited a very creditable report of nineteen volumes. This proved that while Mr. Durand is not a good writer he is a good organizer. As Deputy Commissioner of Corporations he gained experience with the report on the Beef Trust, for which report he was chiefly responsible. He set his standard as a statistician, however, in his report on the Standard Oil Trust, which was issued from the same bureau.

Mr. Durand was born in Romeo, Michigan, October 18, 1871, his father being Cyrus Y. Durand, a druggist. He is one of five children, all now living.

He lived for about eleven years at Romeo, when the family moved to Huron, South Dakota, then a very new town, and “took up a claim” of land near there. Mr. Durand finished his high-school education at Huron, and then went for one year to Yankton College. From there he went to Oberlin College, Ohio, and graduated there in 1893. During the summer of 1893 Mr. Durand was stenographer to the Secretary of the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago. He then went to Cornell University and took a post-graduate course in political science, economics, and statistics. During this time he was assistant to Prof. J. W. Jenks, Secretary of the American Economic Association. He received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Cornell, in 1896.

After leaving Cornell Mr. Durand was employed for nearly two years in the New York State Library, at Albany, his special duty being to prepare material for the assistance of members of the Legislature, including the publication of indices and digests of the laws passed annually by the various states of the country.

At the beginning of 1898 Mr. Durand was appointed Assistant Professor of Political Economy and Finance at Stanford University, California, where he remained for a year and a half. When the Industrial Commission, of which he was secretary, was disbanded, he lectured on corporation and labor questions for a year at Harvard University. In 1903 he was appointed an expert on street railways in the Census Bureau, where he held the position of special examiner for about four months before being called to the Bureau of Corporations.

He was married in 1903 to Mary Elizabeth Bennett, who had been a classmate of his at Oberlin College. They have two children, both boys.

When he finishes his work with the Census he may have his other ambition gratified of being called back to academic work, possibly as president of some college.

Mr. Durand becomes Director of the Census Bureau upon the eve of taking the Thirteenth Census of the United States. This is the government’s largest statistical job, and since our census is more elaborate and detailed than that of any foreign country, it can be recognized what the new officer has to encounter. Some idea of the immensity of the work can be gained by a study of the act of Congress authorizing the taking of the census.

While Mr. Durand is very affable in his manners there is nothing effusive about him. Of medium height and build, his forehead so high as to give the impression of being slightly bald, and wearing a small moustache, he is withal of striking appearance. During the last few days that he was Deputy Commissioner of Corporations he could be found busily engaged in putting the office in order for his successor. The days were warm and he worked without his coat, wearing most of the time a white shirt and a double-ply collar with a small black bow-tie.

Source: The Outing Magazine, Vol. 54, August 1909, pp. 563-564.

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 U. S. Census Bureau: History/Directors

Edward Dana Durand (1909-1913): Durand was born, in 1871, in Romeo, Michigan. When he was still a child, however, his parents moved to a homestead in South Dakota. Durand attended Yankton College for one year before transferring to Oberlin College. He received a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1896. After receiving his doctorate, Durand moved between several government and academic positions until 1909, when he became deputy commissioner of corporations. Later that year, President Taft appointed him the new director of the census. He replaced Samuel North, who had left after repeated clashes with the secretary of commerce and labor, and took over the Census Bureau well into the planning process for the 1910 census.

Durand concentrated much of his energy on improving the preparation of census reports. He pioneered several lasting innovations in the presentation of data at the Census Bureau. For example, Durand introduced the publication of state-level reports and the early release in press releases of statistics for which there was the greatest demand (such as the total population of individual cities, states, and the United States population). These releases were be followed by bulletins, abstracts, and final reports with greater detail.

After leaving the Census Bureau in 1913, Durand eventually took a place on the U.S. Tariff Commission, where he served from 1935 until his retirement in 1952. He died in 1960.

Source:  From webpage of the U.S. Census Bureau. History, Directors 1909-21  .

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Course Description

[7b2 hf. The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. Half-course (second half-year).]

Omitted in 1902-03. [sic]

In this course both the theory and practice of taxation will be studied. Attention will be given at the outset to the tax systems of England, France, and Germany; and the so-called direct taxes employed in those countries will receive special consideration. After this, the principles of taxation will be examined. This will lead to a study of the position of taxation in the system of economic science, and of such subjects as the classification, the just distribution, and the incidence of taxes. Finally, the existing methods of taxation in the United States will be studied, each tax being treated with reference to its proper place in a rational system of federal, state, and local revenues.

Written work will be required of all students, as well as a systematic course of prescribed reading. Candidates for Honors in Political Science and for the higher degrees will be given the opportunity of preparing theses in substitution for the required written work.

Course 7b is open to students who have taken Economics 1.

Source:   Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1902-03 (University Publications, New Series, no. 55, June 13, 1902), pp. 49-50.

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Course Announcement

7b1 hf. The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation in the United States. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 12. Dr. Durand.

 

Source:   Harvard University, University Publications, new Series, No. 8 Extra Ed., Announcement of the Courses of Instruction provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year, 1902-03 (1902), p. 44.

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Course Enrollment

7b 1hf. Dr. Durand.—The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special reference to local taxation, in the United States.

Total: 21.   3 Graduates, 13 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University, Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 68.

http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/427018754?n=70&oldpds

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ECONOMICS 7b
REPORTS AND THESES, 1902

Each student is expected to prepare a brief, informal report on the system of State and local taxation in some particular State. The report should describe chiefly present methods, with considerable fullness, but need not enter into extensive criticism of the working of the system. The amount received by the State treasury from various sources should be stated wherever practicable. Reliance should be placed mainly on original documents. Among the States whose finances are most interesting and can be most easily and satisfactorily treated are: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina, Kansas, Mississippi, Georgia. Students will do well to write to the State comptroller or auditor for copies of tax laws and financial reports.

A more extensive and formal thesis will also be presented by each student. it should be primarily descriptive, but should involve some account of historical development, and careful criticism of the working of the system or method covered.        Exact references, by title, volume, and page, or by chapter and section, must be given for all facts cited, whether in reports or theses, and a bibliography of works consulted must be appended. Large diagrams should be prepared where statistics suitable for graphic presentation are found.

The following topics for theses are suggested, but others may be chosen if desired: —

SUGGESTED THESIS SUBJECTS

  1. The United States Internal Revenue System.
  2. History of the Tariff up to the Civil War.
  3. The Tariff during and since the War.
  4. Special War Taxes in the United States.
  5. The Federal Income Tax.
  6. Constitutionality of the Income Tax of 1894.
  7. The Tax System of Great Britain.
  8. The Tax System of Prussia.
  9. Taxation in the Australasian Colonies.
  10. Taxation in Massachusetts.
  11. Taxation in New York.
  12. Taxation in Pennsylvania—or some other selected State.
  13. Progressive Taxation in Practice.
  14. Excise Taxes in the United States and Europe.
  15. Stamp and Transaction Taxes.
  16. The Income Tax in the United States and Foreign Countries.
  17. Personal Property under the General Property Tax.
  18. Double Taxation under the General Property Tax.
  19. Theoretical Comparison of Property and Income Taxes.
  20. The Inheritance Tax.
  21. Taxation of Land Values.
  22. Business License Taxes.
  23. General Corporation Taxes.
  24. Taxation of Railroads.
  25. Taxation of Banks and insurance Companies.
  26. Legal Aspects of Corporation Taxes.
  27. Relation of State and Local Taxation.
  28. Special Assessments.
  29. Exemptions from Taxation in the United States.

CHIEF SOURCES FOR REPORTS ON STATE TAXATION

Poor, B. P.: Constitutions.

Clapperton, Geo.: Taxation in Various States and Canada. In Reports of the Industrial Commission. Vol. XI.

New York State Library: State Finance Statistics, 1890, 1895.

Census of 1890: Valuation and Taxation.

Ely, R. T.: Taxation in American States and Cities.

Seligman, E. R. A.: State Finance Statistics. In Publications of American Statistical Association, 1889.

Hollander, J. H., Ed.: Studies in State Taxation.

Chapman, J. W.: State Tax Commissions in the United States. In Johns Hopkins University Studies, 1897.

Reports of special State commissions and committees on taxation. The most important are the following, which are mostly in the library: Massachusetts, 1875, 1897; New York, 1871-72, 1894, 1900; Pennsylvania, 1889; Connecticut, 1887; Ohio, 1893; Maine, 1889; New Jersey, 1897; Illinois, 1885; Wisconsin, 1899-1901; Oregon, 1886.

Reports of State Bureaus of Labor Statistics in Illinois, 1894 and 1896; Missouri, 1896; Connecticut, 1896.

Compilations of tax laws of individual states, published separately, or in general compilations, known as Revised Statutes, General Laws, etc. Accessible in Law School.

Reports of State comptrollers or auditors, State treasurers, and State boards of assessment, equalization, etc. Few are in the Harvard Library, but many may be found in the Massachusetts State Library and the Boston Public Library, and others may be obtained by correspondence.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GENERAL WORKS

Many of the above references will be useful in preparing theses.

Wells, D. A.: Theory and Practice of Taxation.

Cossa, L.: Taxation, its Principles and Methods.

Cohn, G.: The Science of Finance (translation).

Leroy-Beaulieu, P.: Traité de la Science des Finances.

Wagner, A.: Finanzwissenschaft.

Palgrave, R. H. I.: Dictionary of Political Economy.

Conrad, J.: Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften.

Say, L.: Dictionnaire des Finances.

Statesman’s Yearbook.

United Kingdom: Statistical Abstracts for Foreign Countries.

United States Treasury Reports.

Industrial Commission: Vol. XIX, Taxation: Vol. IX, Taxation of Transportation Companies; Vol. XI, Clapperton’s report.

Reports of the Special Commissioner of the Revenue, 1866-69.

Cooley, T. M.: Law of Taxation.

Howe, F. C.: Taxation under the Internal Revenue System.

Columbia College Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law; Various monographs on State systems and on special methods of taxation.

Seligman, E. R. A.: Essays in Taxation, Shifting and Incidence of Taxation, Progressive Taxation in Theory and Practice.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, Course Outlines and Reading Lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1902-03”.

 

 

 

Categories
Amherst Columbia Economists Germany Johns Hopkins Smith

Columbia. John Bates Clark, Faculty Memorial Minute, 1938

 

Memorial minutes give us a snapshot appreciation of a deceased economist by colleagues. One really doesn’t read these to get any new significant items for the biography, one hopes instead to cull some insight into the minds and hearts of those who knew both the person and the work. “Innate modesty and a genuine kindliness” are a pair of expressed recessive traits that perhaps help to distinguish John Bates Clark from brilliant economic theorists of more recent vintage.

This biographical note for Clark from 1894 provides an earlier testimony.

____________________

Memorial minute for Professor J. B. Clark
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
April 22, 1938

 

JOHN BATES CLARK
1847-1938

In recording the death of Professor Emeritus John Bates Clark on March 21, 1938, at the age of ninety-one, the Faculty of Political Science is moved not only by a feeling of loss but also by a feeling of gratitude for great services rendered to mankind.

Born in Providence in 1847 and graduated from Amherst in 1872, Professor Clark set an example followed in the next three decades by scores of young American economists in going to Germany for graduate work. The interests in historical and anthropological studies that he cultivated in Heidelberg and Zürich were lasting characteristics of his mind—a fact often overlooked by commentators upon his later work.

On returning to this country, he began the searching analysis of economic relations that developed gradually into his peculiar contribution to social sciences. A little later than W. Stanley Jevons in England, Karl Menger in Austria, and Leon Walras in France, but quite independently of them and with an emphasis all his own, Professor Clark discovered how the utility of goods influences their values and prices. A collection of his early papers, The Philosophy of Wealth, published in 1885, revealed him as the keenest economic theorist of his time and country.

After teaching at Carleton, Smith, Amherst, and Johns Hopkins, Professor Clark joined this Faculty in 1895. It was while teaching at Columbia that he developed the full implications of his insights. His way of seeking to understand the complicated processes of economic life was to seize upon a set of fundamental factors, and to examine what results they would produce in the absence of disturbing circumstances. Work of this character obviously required logical powers of a high order and constructive imagination. What is less commonly appreciated, to make the results significant the work must be guided by sound intuitive judgments regarding the factors to be admitted to the problems treated and the factors to be excluded. How admirably Professor Clark’s judgment served him and how cogently he reasoned upon the basis of his assumptions were demonstrated by The Distribution of Wealth, published in 1899. That book still stands as the most important contribution of our country to pure economic theory.

Professor Clark’s later books, The Control of the Trusts, 1901, The Problem of Monopoly, 1904, and The Essentials of Economic Theory, 1907, show how effectively he could use his abstract constructions in dealing with practical problems, and how he could bridge the gulf that seemed to yawn between the timeless statis state of his Distribution of Wealth and the ever shifting condition of the work in which real men make their livings.

Of the service that Professor Clark rendered as the first Director of the Division of Economics and History of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, his co-workers in that field can speak with fuller knowledge than we possess. But we may note that no one deficient in a sense of reality, and no one without fervent interest in the welfare of his kind could have planned and carried through as he did the detailed record of the horrible sufferings that the War of 1914-1918 brought upon the world.

With intellectual distinction and integrity there was joined in Professor Clark and innate modesty and a genuine kindliness that won the affection of all who came into personal contact with him. Of what we deem finest in human achievement and character he was an example to be cherished and emulated.

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1920-1939. pp. 825-6.

Image Source: Amherst Yearbook Olio ’96 (New York, 1894), pp. 7-9. Picture above from frontispiece. Another link.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Ph.D. alumnus, Abram Bergson. SSRC, 1946-47

 

Abram Bergson was the venerable dean of Soviet economic studies in the United States. During my undergraduate and graduate days, I was assigned in four different courses one chapter from his magnum opus, The real national income of Soviet Russia since 1928 (Cambridge, Harvard, University Press, 1961). In that chapter Bergson provided an exposition of Richard Moorsteen’s economic theory of quantity indexes. In comparison John Rawls’ Theory of Justice was only assigned in three of my undergraduate and graduate courses! I cross-registered from MIT for Bergson’s seminar in socialist economics at Harvard during the Spring semester of 1975 with the ulterior motive of obtaining a Harvard library card.

In point of fact, I had first encountered the work of Abram Bergson several years earlier. During my freshman year at Yale (1969-70), I was assigned Francis Bator’s article on the simple analytics of welfare maximization in which Bergson’s concept of the Social Welfare Function was discussed [A. Burk (Bergson) “A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb. 1938, LII, 310-14].

Paul Samuelson, who was a graduate student of economics at Harvard with Bergson, was a tireless champion of his friend’s contribution to welfare economics. See, Paul A. Samuelson, “Abram Bergson, 1914-2003: A Biographical Memoir”, in National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, Volume 84 (Washington, D.C.: 2004).

For Bergson’s work in Soviet Economic Studies see John Hardt, “Abram Bergson’s Legacy: 1914-2003”.

Today’s artifact is a Social Science Research Council biographical note for Abram Bergson, 1946-47 fellow.

_________________________

Bergson, Abram
Demobilization Award 1946-47

b. Baltimore, Md. April 21, 1914. m. Rita S. Macht 1939. c. Judith 1940, Emily 1946, Lucy 1948. B.A. 1933, Johns Hopkins; Ph.D. 1940, Harvard, economics. Instructor 1937-38, 1939-40, Harvard; assistant professor 1940- 42, University of Texas; economist 1942-46, chief 1944-46, Economics Subdivision, USSR Division, Office of Strategic Services; visiting associate professor 1946-47, associate professor 1947-50, professor of economics 1950—, Columbia University, New York 27. Home: 35 Claremont Ave. New York 27.

Sheldon Travelling Fellow summer 1937, 1938-39, Harvard. Consultant: Department of State 1944-46, 1948—; Rand Corporation 1948—; Operations Research Office, Johns Hopkins University, 1949. Member of American Delegation to Reparations Conference 1945, Moscow. Publications: “Incidence of an Income Tax on Savings,” Quar. J. Econ. 1942; “Distribution of the Earnings Bill among Industrial Workers in the Soviet Union,” J. Polit. Econ. 1942; “Prices, Wages and Income Theory,” Econometrica 1942; “Price Flexibility and the Level of Income,” Rev. Statis. 1943; The Structure of Soviet Wages: A Study in Socialist Economics 1944; “The Fourth Five Year Plan: Heavy versus Consumers’ Goods Industries,” Polit. Sci. Quar. 1947; “A Problem in Soviet Statistics,” Rev. Econ. Statis. 1947; “Soviet Defense Expenditures,” For. Affairs 1948; “Socialist Economics” in A Survey of Contemporary Economics (ed. H. Ellis) 1948; (with J. Blackman and A. Erlich) “Russian Postwar Reconstruction and Development,” The Annals 1949. Fellowship program: research in Washington on Soviet economy.

 

Source: Fellows of the Social Science Research Council, 1925-1951. New York: 1951, p. 30.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Funny Business

Chicago. First Epistle Unto the Entering Students. Ca. 1950

 

 

These scriptural apocrypha were found in a folder archived in Milton Friedman’s papers at the Hoover Institution labelled “University of Chicago, Miscellaneous” in which texts from Chicago (economics) performance art had been filed. The First Epistle Unto the Entering Students and First Epistle Unto New Students are clearly of divine inspiration though we are left without any explicit indication of authorship or date. The version designated V2.0 is presumed to be of later origin: the correction of “thou” for “thee” as well as the multiplication of false gods, from “Probability” to “Macro-economics and Probability” seem to fit the proposed sequence.

Confidence intervals for the date of the first appearance of the Epistle should probably include 1950. The Cowles Commission “The American Patrol” song follows immediately in Friedman’s folder and it has been dated to be around 1949 by Carl Christ (JEL, March 1994, p. 34). For this reason I have included course descriptions for the economics courses in 1950-51 specifically mentioned (301 and 302 being standard Frank Knight courses). From the text it would appear that a dissertation writing graduate student at that time could have been the author “for these many months have I spent in the land of Marshall and Pigou, and have felt the weight of prelims on my balding head.” Perhaps a visitor to this page knows the identity of a witty balding graduate student in economics at mid-century Chicago?

The image for this posting is taken from the bottom of the page of the alternate version of the First Epistle. Is there another riddle of the Sphinx?

__________________________

First Epistle Unto the Entering Students:
[V1.0]

Lo ye who enter through the gates of admissions, unto the sanctity of the Department, behold its Grace and witness the Truth it gives unto you.

Heed ye well the words of one who is older and wiser than thee, for these many months have I spent in the land of Marshall and Pigou, and have felt the weight of prelims on my balding head.

Beware the course called 302, for therein shalt thou know the deer from the beaver.

Beware also the courses 300 A & B, for they shall try thee sorely. There is a time to speak and there is a time to be silent: be thou silent. Present thyself upon the appointed hour, lest the social cost exceed the private gain and the wrath of the master descend upon thee.

Shun thou the geometer, for he loveth his curves too dearly and seeks to seduce thee therewith. Throw thou his siren song from thy soul, for it lacketh rigor and appeals but to the senses.

Shun thou also the temple of the false god Probability, for therein dwell the Philistines who worship not Marshall. For there shall they descend upon thee with all manner of strange things, and thy head shall whirl in n-dimensions.

Attend carefully upon the course 301, for there if thou learnest nothing else, shalt thou learn at least this—and it shall be a contribution to thy general education.

Avoid thou the seven sins of the classicists and remember as thine own name the five rates of substitution. Confuseth not stocks with flows lest thou spend thy days in the industrial relations center.

Shun thou the welfare economist, for he duly loveth to stick out his neck, and he will teach thee his evil ways.

Disturb not the agricultural economist when he is at his data for he loveth them mightily and will defend them as a lioness her cubs—he heeds not the statistician or the wiseman.

Yea, verily, stray not unto the land of the Hansenites. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Scourge from thy heart the heretics of Keynes. The devil dost appear in the name of the Lord.

Await the coming of the Messiah, for then shall the Pigou effect bring full employment upon the land.

 

FIRST EPISTLE UNTO NEW STUDENTS
[V2.0]

 

  1. To all who enter through the Gate of Admissions unto the sanctity of the Department, heed ye well the words of one who is wiser and older than thou. For verily I have dwelt in the land of Marshall for many months, and have felt the curse of Prelims on my head.
  2. Beware the courses called 300A and 300B, for they will tax thee sorely. They have been devised that the deer may be known from the beaver.
  3. Present thyself upon the appointed hour, lest the social cost exceed the private gain and the wrath of the Master fall upon thee mightily.
  4. Shun thou the geometer, for he seeks to seduce thee with curves. His siren song is pleasant but he lacketh rigor.
  5. Shun thou also the temple of the twin gods, Macro-economics and Probability, for therein dwell the Philistines who worship not Marshall. There wilt thou be set upon with all manner of strange things and thou shalt feel the lash of the mixed strategy upon thee, and thy head shall whirl in n-dimensions.
  6. Treasure thy Marshall, for verily all manner of mysteries are set down therein. Read it well and carefully, but say not that thou hast understood.
  7. Take to thine own bosom the demand curve lest it desert thee in thine hour of need.
  8. Attend well upon the lectures called 301, for there if thou learnest nothing else, shalt thou learn at least one thing and it shall be a contribution to thy general education.
  9. Shun thou the agricultural economist when he is at his data, for he loveth them dearly and will defend them as a lioness her cubs.
  10. Beware also the statistician who will leave thee witless with a pair of dice.
  11. Shun the welfare economist, for he loveth mightily to stick out his neck and will teach thee his evil ways.
  12. Shun thou the Social Science Tea, but study diligently in Harper lest thou and thy end thy days in the Business School.
  13. There is a time to speak and a time to be silent. Be thou silent in the presence of the Master, for he shall reveal to thee the secrets of Marshall and there shalt thou solve the riddle of the Sphinx.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 79, Folder 6, “University of Chicago, Miscellaneous”.

_______________________________

ADVANCED COURSES

300A, B. 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. 300A deals primarily with the pricing of final products; 300B, with the pricing of factors of production. Prereq: for 300A, Econ 209 or equiv and Math 112 or equiv, or consent of instructor. For 300B, Econ 300A. Aut (300A) ThTh 1:30-3:30; Wallis; Win (300A): MWF 1:30; Metzler; Win (300B): TuTh 1:30-3:30; Friedman; Spr (300B): MWF 2:30; Metzler.

301. Price and Distribution Theory. Study of the general body of economic thought which centers about the theory of value and distribution and is regarded as “orthodox theory.” Critical examination of some modern systems of this character. Prereq: Econ 209, Math 112 or equiv, and two years’ work in the Division of Social Sciences, or equiv. Sum: MTuWF 11; Knight.

302. History of Economic Thought. Brief survey of the whole field of economic thought and a more intensive study of the “classical school” of British economists, whose doctrines are studied in relation to the problems and discussions of today. Prereq: Econ 301 or equiv. Spr: TuTh 3:30-5:30; Knight.

 

Source:   The University of Chicago. Announcements, Vol. L, No. 9 (July 20, 1950): The Division of the Social Sciences, Sessions of 1950-1951, pp. 28-29.

Categories
Curriculum Harvard Uncategorized Undergraduate

Harvard. Undergrad economics program described in The Harvard Crimson, 1953

 

 

The Harvard Crimson has a really useful search function that can get you a student’s perspective on undergraduate economics education in Harvard’s ivy-covered (well, sometimes) lecture halls. I added links to courses and professors for a bit of value-added. Otherwise the article speaks for itself.

_______________________

The Harvard Crimson
April 22, 1953

Economics
Number of Concentrators: 331.
1952 Commencement Honors: cum, 17; magna, 20; summa, 1; 2 cums in General Studies.

The fact that Economics can boast one of the top faculties in the country, and probably has more nationally known professors than any other department in the College, is one of the main drawbacks to the concentrator. For few undergraduates are able to claim having really studied under any of them.

Most of the courses are conducted under the lecture system which does allows the undergraduate little contact with the men who divide their time between Washington and Cambridge.

The mistake should not be made that a concentrator in Economics will be trained in how to make his first million, no illusions should be developed that Economics is just another term for business administration. What the Department of Economics attempts to do is quite simple: the development of the economic background to present day social and political issues.

Tutorial

Economics I, required of every concentrator, is designed to introduce the student to the field. Its main criticism is that it is too general. But in the past it has been quite efficient in preparing students for the more advanced courses.

In an attempt to introduce some personal contact, the Department has now extended tutorial to all sophomores and juniors. According to Departmental chairman Arthur Smithies, its purpose is threefold: 1) to make specific things brought up in classes more concrete, 2) to tie the various fields of economics together, 3) to bring out the close relationship between economics and the other social sciences.

Tutorial in the junior year, usually limited to honors candidates, is now open to non-honors candidates also. Called “presumptive honors tutorial,” it meets in sessions conducted along honors tutorial lines. The program was opened last year with the hope of inducing more concentrators to apply for honors in their senior year. According to Ayers Brinser ’31, Head tutor of Economics, a great majority of the juniors who enter the junior tutorial with no intention of being an honors-candidates, change their minds during the junior year. By offering the presumptive tutorial, the department enables students who did not sign for honors to change in their senior year.

Basic Courses

Requirements for concentration do not impose too great a restriction on the concentrator’s program. Four Economic courses including Economics I are a must for non-honors men, while honors candidates are held for five. Three of the courses must be chosen from the basic courses: Economics 101, Economic Theory and Policy; Economics 141, Money, Banking and Economics Fluctuations; Economics 151. Public Finance; Economics 161, Business Organization and Public Regulation; Economics 171, Economics of Agriculture; and Economics 181a and b, Trade Unionism and Collective Bargaining, Public Policy and Labor.

Honors candidates may elect to take tutorial for credit for one semester of their senior year, while they work on their 40,000 word theses. Currently, more than a third of the concentrators are honors candidates.

The department also requires all concentrators to take full courses in Government, History, Social Relations or the second group Social Science courses.

Most popular of the advanced courses last year was Economics 161. Professors Kaysen and Galbraith divided last year’s schedule. The course deals with the structure and character of business and their markets; the attitude of the public toward combination and regulation, including the transportation industry and the public utilities; and the problems of resource conservation and industrial mobilization.

Labelled by most concentrators as the most difficult of the basic courses, Economics 141 crams a great deal into its program. Most concentrators prefer to get this one out of the way in their sophomore or junior year, since it is a good foundation for other courses in the field.

Labor Economics

One of the most popular professors teaching an undergraduate courses, John Dunlop will be back to give the two semesters of Labor Economics. Different from the other basic courses in that it emphasizes more human aspects, Economics 181 combines human and legal aspects of the labor movement as well of the economic foundation.

Economics 101, the basic theory course for undergraduates, is restricted to honors candidates in their last year of study.

Source: The Harvard Crimson, April 22, 1953.