Month: May 2019

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Curriculum Economics Programs Fields Harvard Statistics

Harvard. Report on statistics and national income courses. Crum and Frickey, 1945

Crum Frickey

 

William Leonard Crum and Edward Frickey taught Harvard’s economic statistics courses in the 1930s and 1940s.  Paul Samuelson recounted his second semester (Spring 1936) as a graduate student following his previous semester’s worth of Crum: “…I was able to learn genuine modern statistics from E. B. Wilson, bypassing Edwin Frickey (who with Leonard Crum taught at Harvard courses against modern statistics!)” [On this, Roger E. Backhouse’s Vol I: Becoming Samuelson, 1915-1948, p.101].

Reading the following intradepartmental report on economic statistics courses and how to integrate national income and product accounting into the graduate curriculum that was written by a committee of two (Crum and Frickey), one discovers that even a decade after Samuelson’s experience, the proper preparation of “ink charts” was a subject that warranted faculty discussion.  Harvard Ph.D. Robert Solow later went to Columbia to play catch-up ball with respect to statistical analysis before starting his M.I.T. contract.  Harvard economics was a full generation behind the times with respect to statistical method at mid-20th century.

A 1947 Crum/Frickey  joint memo regarding preparation for taking the comprehensive field exam in statistics has been posted earlier.

______________________

6 March 1945

Report on the course offerings in Statistics, and in National Income

At the Department meeting of 13 February, 1945, the undersigned were named a committee to study course offerings and proposed offerings in Statistics and in National Income, discuss their findings with the Chairman, and report to the Department. Attached are the two reports: I, on Statistics; II, (page 10) on National Income.

W.L. Crum
Edwin Frickey

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

I. The Offering in Statistics

At the meeting of the Harvard Economics Department on 13 February, 1945. W. L. C. and E. F. sought opinions from colleagues as to additional instruction needed in statistics and as to changes needed in existing instruction. The following is in part a report of the informal discussion, in part an indication of what W. L. C. and E. F. think can advisedly be done. The present statement is preliminary; a more definitive report will be prepared, after consultation with H. H. B., for submission to the Department at a later meeting.

  1. Opinion was expressed that many of our graduate students show conspicuous lack of ability to present statistical material in the form of chart or table, for example, in theses. Instruction in statistics here has for several years relied upon capacity of students to learn by emulation—they have abundant opportunity to acquaint themselves with good statistical presentation, both tabular and graphic, in our courses in statistics and in the source materials of other courses. In course 21a, some instruction is incidentally given in orderly tabulation of limited sorts, but we make no attempt to teach students to prepare ink charts. Apparently, something more is needed; and three suggestions, perhaps all to be followed together, are made:
    1. By compressing some other parts of the work, we can include a small amount of instruction on presentation in course 21a. This should help put those graduate students who are required to take that course here on the right track.
    2. For students not required to take 21a, because they have had the “equivalent” elsewhere, one possibly helpful device is to require in course 121b a written report involving presentation in tabular and graphic form. Such report could be graded if sufficient funds are available to cover the grading, and the instructors could make a moderate effort to advise particular students about defects in their reports. The reports would presumably be required of all students in 121b, whether or not they had had 21a.
    3. The Department’s specialists in statistics could advise any graduate student, whose thesis involved matters of statistical presentation, concerning such matters. When the Department acquires a general research laboratory, with a regular supervisor, the supervisor could give such advice. In the meantime, the instructors in statistics could stand ready to give such advice in appropriate cases. The undersigned emphasize that this advice should be understood to concern presentation of statistical materials: they do not feel but they should be called upon ordinarily to advise such as student about sources of statistics for his thesis, or about the methods of analyzing the statistics, or about their interpretation. They have often given advice on such matters in certain cases, and will continue to do so, but take the stand that they should not be regarded as under the obligation to give such advice to all comers. The point is that; if the candidate proposes to write a statistical thesis in any field of economics, a vital part of his job is to obtain, analyze, and interpret his data. We see no reason why faculty specialists in statistics should make an extraordinary contribution to a thesis which happens to have quantitative aspects.
  2. Little emphasis appeared, in any opinions expressed, on the need for laboratory instruction in statistics in our graduate offering. Some suggestion was advanced that the “homework” type of problem task could helpfully be employed. W. L. C. and E. F. have a little faith that much could be accomplished in this way – the great advantage of the supervised laboratory is that the supervisor can get students actively started on the task and can catch and clear away difficulties as they arise. (We assume, of course, any problem work of this sort, in graduate courses, should be on an advanced – not elementary – level.) To meet this suggestion, we propose only that point A2 above be put into effect, and that the following change in present operations be considered. At present, course 121a includes two home-work problems, which stretch over several weeks, but are not graded and are not used as bases for specific advice to individual students. The proposed change is that these problems be handed in, and treated like the problem described in A2. (In these cases, as in that case, grading of the reports would be feasible if funds are available for the purpose.)

An emphatic suggestion was made that graduate students have the use of laboratory equipment, and be made welcome in the laboratory. We do not believe this can be managed with the laboratory facilities of course 21a. We note, however, that a moderate chance now exists that the University will presently provide the Department with a research laboratory in statistics, adequately equipped, and under competent supervision. If and when this is done, no difficulty will arise in making ample place for work by graduate students on any statistical tasks in which they may properly be interested. We remark that the arguments in favor of a general research laboratory in statistics are much more likely to bring conviction in responsible quarters that the argument, however strongly put, in favor of facilities merely for the occasional use of graduate students.

  1. Supposing we are to give an additional half graduate course in statistics, opinions pointed toward three alternatives:
    1. A course in theory, intermediate between course 121a and Prof. Wilson’s course 122b. This does not appear a good use of our manpower, for the election in such a course would inevitably be small, especially as the mathematics prerequisites would necessarily be much more severe than those – almost nil – on which we now limp through 121a.
    2. A further course was suggested – beyond 121b and perhaps alternating with it – in topics in the application of statistics to economic fields. Economics 121b now includes a selected list of such topics, which varies moderately from year to year; but it is by no means a comprehensive coverage of all even of the major possibilities. We could readily prepare an additional half course to be called 121c of further topics in the applied fields, and many students would probably like such a course. Such a course can be described as follows:

Economics 121c will be a half-course which might be entitled Topics in Applied Economic Statistics. Economics 21a or its equivalent will be a prerequisite. Properly qualified undergraduates may, with the consent of the instructor, be admitted to economics 121c.

Economics 121c will deal with statistical problems arising in connection with the use of basic statistical data in a selected list of economic topics. (As compared with 121b this course will lay more emphasis on the basic material and less emphasis on statistical theory.)

On each topic each student will be expected to familiarize himself with the immediate and the basic sources of the main materials, through actual examination of such materials, and to present a critical appraisal of these fundamental statistics. The instructor will give a succinct historical background – an outline of the principal work which is already been done on the topic. The instructor and the class will work out together conclusions as to what are the leading issues involved, and will consider what it is that statisticians are trying to measure and what they should be trying to measure.

Such topics as the following will be included:

Consumption
Commodity prices
Cost-of-living
Employment and unemployment
Wages
Money and Banking
Production and Trade (certain phases)
Balance of international payments
Public Finance

        1. The subordinate suggestion that, in this case, basic preparation for the oral exam and also the write-off field might consist of 121a and either 121b or 121c, was advanced. A strong objection to this appears in the fact that 121b, although made up largely of topics in applied statistics, now includes – and should continue to do so – certain topics which need to be covered by every general economist (we do not here have in mind the statistical specialist) who is to have “literacy” in the field of economic statistics today. Several of the “applied” topics now in 121b include in fact fundamental matters of statistical theory needed by all economists, and not elsewhere covered in our instruction. These include, for example: the theory of index numbers, statistical deflation, secular trends in business cycles, the basic theory of measuring production and income, and at least demand and cost curves not to mention more sophisticated matters of econometrics. These essentially theoretical topics in statistics should remain part of the basic graduate year course in statistics. (This goes also for our present topic of national income: even if the Department offer a course in that subject, the course will not be taken by all students, and all should have at least the brief survey now in 121b). For the foregoing reason, we emphatically urge that 121a and 121b stand as the basic year course in the field, and that the new course 121c be regarded as an additional – but not an alternative–half course.
        2. The subordinate suggestion at 121b and 121c be given in alternate years appears to fall for the same reason given in C2a.

 

    1. Instead of the course described under C2 suggestion was made that we introduce a course in administrative (we use this word provisionally, for want of a better) statistics – mainly, but not exclusively, governmental statistics. We have not outlined such a course in full, but can suggest its nature by indicating that it would emphasize the problems encountered in actually doing statistical work in government or private agencies. Such topics as the preparation and use of index numbers of prices and production; the compilation and use of data on employment and the labor force; statistics of farm production and operation; the gathering of and analysis of facts concerning trade, both foreign and domestic; financial data such as are developed by the treasury, the S. E. C, the F. R. B., and private agencies; statistics used in the analysis of particular enterprises; the rapidly developing field of quality control in industry, suggest themselves for inclusion. The nature of the course can also be indicated by somewhat loose contrast with the course described under C2 above: in that course, the point of view is of the user (economist, or other analyst) of statistics, and attention is given to the origin of the statistics only in so far as it is needed to guide and inform the user. In this course, the point of view is of the maker of statistics, and attention is given to the use of the statistics only in so far as it is needed to guide the maker in his work. This course would go far toward meeting the contention that our students, while well founded in statistical theory, are not ready to handle the kind of statistical tasks which they encounter in government or other research agencies.

At the moment we are not ready to choose between the courses described under C2 and C3, the former (and obviously the latter) being understood as in addition to, and not alternative to, 121b.

 

  1. No opinion was expressed concerning course 122b, and we think it should continue to be given in alternate years.

No opinion was offered concerning the content of course 121a. We have in mind some compression of one of the topics know given. This, plus the longer term under the peace-time schedule, will enable us to give more satisfactory attention to the topic of small samples.

We were commissioned to report also on national income. This is covered in a separate memorandum.

 

  1. We layout now, in tentative form and subject to revision by the Department, our recommendation as to the entire offering in statistics in the early post-war years.

21a. Substantially as at present, but with the change outlined in A1.

121a. Substantially as at present, but with the change outlined in B and the change noted in D.

121b. Substantially as at present, but with the change outlined in A2.

(Courses 121a and 121b to be regarded as the core of the preparation in the field of statistics, and to be recommended to the candidates for the general oral in statistics as the most helpful unit in their preparation.)

121c. A new half course, either that described under C2 or that under C3. To be open to graduate students who have had 21a or by consent of the instructor to those who have had the equivalent of 21a, and by consent of the instructor to properly qualified undergraduates who have had 21a.

122b. Substantially as at present, and to be given in alternate years as at present.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

II. Offering in National Income

The suggestion is made that a half course, at the graduate level, in National Income be offered. The main purpose of such a course would be to give our students an extensive factual basis for their use of national income concepts and data in a wide range of our theoretical and applied fields. The course by itself could provide only a beginning for specialization the subject of national income for its own sake, and we do not understand that the Department contemplates recognizing the field in that subject.

While the course should be concerned primarily with the facts of national income, we understand that some attention could properly be given to the interpretation of those facts into their economic and social implications. Moreover, even to handle properly the factual side, the course would need give much attention to matters of definition and concept, matters which actually stand at the root of most of the “problems” of measuring national income and its chief constituents.

The core of the course would consist of the presentation, discussion, and criticism of the existing statistical facts on the national income and its constituents. These materials would presumably be limited to the United States; although some of the critical portions of the course, dealing with concepts and the like, would necessarily make large drafts on studies in certain other countries. Emphasis would be on the problems of measurement, the effectiveness and validity of the methods used, and the appropriateness of the results obtained as answers to questions posed by the economist.

In addition to the over-all aggregate of national income, viewed in real and money terms and in its variations over time, the course would examine the chief constituents of national income. These would include:

  1. Contributions to national income by various types of economic activity.
  2. Contributions from various geographical regions (much less is known on this.)
  3. Allocation, so far as it is known, to the several factors of production.
  4. Distribution according to size of income (money income) received by individuals.
  5. Distribution of income according to use: consumption expenditures of individuals (perishable, semi-durable), consumption through government, savings (by individuals, by enterprises, by government).
  6. Capital formation, and its relation to savings.
  7. Relation of taxes and public expenditures to the flow of income.

Your committee makes no recommendation as to the personnel to be assigned the task of conducting such a course. It does recommend: that the course be limited to graduate students, and to those advanced concentrators who receive permission from the instructor(s); that all students who take the course be required to have completed one half year course at the graduate level in economic theory and in statistics; that the course be given each year, rather than in alternate years; that the course be considered as a pro-seminar in statistics for the purpose of excuse – under our existing rules for reducing the oral examination to three fields – from the oral examination in statistics.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers, 1902-1950. Box 23. Folder “Course Announcement 1945-46”.

Image Source: Crum and Frickey in the Harvard Class Album, 1942 and 1950.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Examination questions for Political Economy I, 1884-1888.

 

 

 

With this post we add about fifty new questions to our growing stock of Harvard economics examinations. Nine of the sixty-three questions transcribed below are identical or nearly identical to those found in the 310 questions appended to Laughlin’s abridged version of John Stuart Mill’s Principles that served as the course textbook at Harvard at the end of the 19th century.

See:  Principles of political economy, by John Stuart Mill. Abridged with critical, bibliographical, and explanatory notes, and a sketch of the history of political economy by, J. Laurence Laughlin. New York: D. Appleton, 1884.

The new questions come from what we would today call a “Student’s Guide” to the Mill/Laughlin textbook. He called the printed 72-pages a “Synopsis”.

________________________

About Laughlin’s “Student’s Guide to John Stuart Mill”

This Synopsis is intended to replace the text book in preparing for the examinations, but it will also be found extremely useful during the year in answering the weekly written questions. The index at the end has been prepared especially for use in connection with the examination papers contained in the appendix to this book, and in the second appendix to the text book.

A Synopsis of the First Three Books of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy, as revised by Prof. J. L. Laughlin with an appendix containing the recent examination papers in Political Economy I. Cambridge, Mass.: W. H. Wheeler, 1888.

________________________

PAPERS SET FOR EXAMINATION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY I.
[# in Laughlin’s list of 310 questions (1884)]

1883-1884.

  1. Explain carefully the following terms: production, consumption, effectual demand, margin of cultivation, cost of production, value of money, cost of labor, wealth, and abstinence. [#2, virtually identical]
  2. What conclusion as to the limit to the increase of production does Mr. Mill deduce from his investigation of the laws of the various requisites of production? [#54]
  3. Explain clearly how it is possible for the land of a country which is all of a uniform fertility to pay rent. [#105]
  4. Point out distinctly the connection between the money wages of laborers in the United States and the productiveness of the soil. [#244]
  5. Explain the operation of the laws of value by which the relative prices of wool and mutton would be regulated. [#194]
  6. Why is it necessary to make any different statement of the laws of value for foreign than for domestic products? What is the cause for the existence of any international trade? [#199]
  7. (1) What is the true theory of one country underselling another in a foreign market? (2) What weight should be attributed to the fact of generally higher or lower wages in one of the competing countries? [#241]
  8. If capital continued to increase and population did not, explain the proposition that “the whole savings of each year would be exactly so much subtracted from the profits of the next and of every following year.” [#254, virtually identical]
  9. Give the arguments for and against the income tax. Would the tax on any kinds of income not fall upon the persons from whom it was levied? Explain.
  10. Define the term banking-reserve. What is the theory on which only a small part of the total resources is constantly kept as a reserve? What relation exists between the items of deposits, loans, and reserve?
  11. Explain the provisions of the Resumption Act, and show how the actual results were produced.
  12. Was the issue of greenbacks in February, 1862, an actual necessity?

 

1885-1886.

  1. Explain what is meant by the “standard of living” of the laboring class. In a densely populated country would the standard of living have any influence on the general rate of wages?
  2. Show clearly why there must be land in cultivation which pays no rent.
  3. Explain carefully the relation between Cost of Labor and Real Wages. How can an increase of population affect Cost of Labor?
  4. Under what conditions can it be said that normal value depends on the “expenses of production”? State the law of market and normal value for commodities affected by the law of diminishing returns.
  5. Explain the reason for the existence of foreign trade. Is there any different reason for the exchange of goods in domestic trade?
  6. What is inconvertible paper money? From the history of the United States notes state the main events showing the attitude of Congress towards their issue, while the notes were inconvertible.
  7. Why is a bank obliged to limit its loans when its cash reserve is seriously impaired?
  8. Why is it that the products of extractive industries are liable to great variations of market value?
  9. Upon whom would a tax on Rent fall? Would such a tax be a discriminating tax on the agricultural interests?
  10. What are the advantages of direct taxation? State by what kinds of taxation, direct or indirect, the United States gets its revenue.
  11. Is it correct to say that high wages alone prevent us from selling manufactured goods in foreign markets!

 

1886-1887.

  1. Compare the economic effects of defraying war expenditures by loans and by taxation. [#33, virtually identical]
  2. Does the rent of a factory building affect the value of the goods made in it? Does the rent of a farm affect the value of the grain grown on it? Does the rent paid for a lot near a great city, from which gravel is taken, affect the value of the gravel?
  3. It has been said that “the laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them.” State briefly the laws of the production of wealth here referred to, and whether the statement in regard to them is true.
  4. It has been said that the law of population and the law of diminishing returns from land point inevitably to misery and want as the destiny of the mass of mankind. What influence affecting the operation of these laws are to be taken into account; and if they are taken into account, are the laws of population and diminishing returns from land thereby shown to be invalid?
  5. Explain briefly the nature of the remuneration received by the following persons: a farmer tilling his own land; a merchant carrying on business with his own capital; a manufacturer carrying on business with borrowed capital; a holder of railway stocks; a holder of government bonds; a patentee.
  6. Wherein is the value of metallic money governed by different principles from those that regulate the value of commodities in general? And wherein is the value of inconvertible paper money governed by different principles from those that regulate the value of coin?
  7. Credit is said to be purchasing power. Explain what is meant by this proposition, and in what manner it bears on the theory of the value of money. Point out in what form credit, as purchasing power, is most likely to affect prices in the United States and in France.
  8. (a) Suppose that:
    In the U. S. one day’s labor produces 2 bushels of corn;
    In the U. S. one day’s labor produces 10 yards of cotton cloth;
    In England one day’s labor produces 1 bushel of corn;
    In England one day’s labor produces 5 yards of cotton cloth.
    Would trade arise between England and the United States? If so, how?
    (b) Suppose that in England one day’s labor produced 8 yards of cotton cloth, other conditions remaining the same as in (a). Would trade arise? If so, how?
    (c) Suppose that in England one day’s labor produced 2 yards of cotton cloth, other conditions remaining the same as in (a). Would trade arise? If so, how?
  9. Suppose a new article to appear among the exports of a given country. Trace the effects in that country on the course of the foreign exchanges; on the flow of specie; on the value of money; on the terms of international exchange. Would the results be the same if, instead of a new article of export, some article previously exported were to be sold abroad in larger quantity because of a lowering of its cost and price?
  10. (a) Arrange in proper order the following items of a bank account: Loans, $538,000; Bonds and Stocks, $40,000; Capital, $200,000; Real Estate, $26,000; other assets, $26,000; Surplus, $65,100; Deposits $440,000; Notes, $101,550; Cash, 124,000; Cash Items, $52,650.
    (b) Suppose the bank to discount four months paper (at 6 per cent) to the amount of $10,000 of which it purchases one-half by promises to pay the bearer on demand, and one-half by cash. How would the account then stand?
    (c) Suppose a borrower to have repaid a loan of $2000 by giving $1000 in cash, and $1000 in a cheque on the bank. How would the account then stand?
    (d) Suppose the bank to be confronted, in a time of general embarassment, with demands from depositors for cash, and from borrowers for discounts. What policy would be adopted if it were the Bank of England? if it were a United States national bank?

 

1886-1887.

DIVISION A.

  1. If taxes levied on the rich cause a diminution in their unproductive expenditure, would that in any way affect the employment offered for labor? Discuss fully.
  2. What principle does Mr. Mill furnish by which the respective shares of labor and capital are determined? Has his Wages-Fund Theory any connection with his exposition of the dependence of “profits” on Cost of Labor?
  3. In discussing the distribution of the product, why is it that the relative shares of labor and capital can be discussed independently of rent? Would an increase of rent affect the share of labor or of capital?
  4. Why is it that city banks make a greater use of the deposit liability than of the note liability? Why is the fact just the reverse with country banks?
  5. State fully the difference between Cost of Labor and Cost of Production. Would a decrease in Cost of Production affect Cost of Labor in any way?
  6. If the returns, and consequently wages, in our extractive industries were to decline, how would the course of our foreign trade probably be affected?
  7. Explain carefully how, and under what conditions, Reciprocal Demand regulates Normal Value.
  8. How do you reconcile the doctrine of comparative cost in international trade with the fact that a merchant regulates his conduct by a comparison of prices at home with prices abroad?
  9. Explain how a tax on “profits” may fall either (1) on the laborer, or (2) on the landlord.
  10. Discuss the argument that protection raises wages.
  11. Is the customs-duties on sugar economically justified?

 

DIVISION B.

  1. Suppose the price of silver to rise to such a point that the ratio of silver to gold would be 15 to 1, what change would take place in the money at present in use in the United States? Is such a change probable? if so, why? if not, why not?
  2. State the essential differences between the coinage acts of 1792, 1834, and 1878.
  3. “All experience has shown that there are periods when, under any system of paper money, however carefully guarded, it is impracticable to maintain actual coin redemption. Usually contracts will be based on current paper money, and it is just that, during a sudden panic or an unreasonable demand for coin, the creditor should not be allowed to demand payment in other than the currency in which the debt was contracted. To meet this contingency, it would seem to be right to maintain the legal tender quality of United States notes. If they are not at par with coin, it is the fault of the Government and not of the debtor, or rather it is the result of an unforeseen stringency not contemplated by the contracting parties.” From the Report of the Treasury, dated December, 1887.
    Under what circumstances was this passage written? Is the recommendation made by it a wise one? Has it been acted on?
  4. Ten men club together to buy flour at wholesale, each taking a part and paying his share of the price. Ten others club together, borrow money jointly, and lend it out to themselves for aid in carrying on their trades. A third ten club together, set up a work shop on joint account and work in it, and periodically divide the net proceeds. What kinds of cooperation are typified, respectively, by these proceedings? In what countries has each kind been most widely applied? Which seems to you to be of greatest intrinsic interest for the social question?
  5. What is meant by the eight-hour law? Wherein does it resemble, and wherein differ from, factory legislation in England?
  6. Compare the regulations of the Knights of Labor in regard to strikes with those of an English Trades-Union.
  7. “The present doctrine is that the workman’s interests are linked to those of other workmen, and the employer’s interests to those of other employers. Eventually it will be seen that industrial divisions should be perpendicular, not horizontal.” Explain what is meant by this passage; state by what devices it is endeavored to promote the ” horizontal ” and the “perpendicular” divisions, respectively; and give an opinion as to which line of division is likely to endure.
  8. The declaration of principles of Knights of Labor demands “the enactment of laws providing for arbitration between employers and employed, and to enforce the decision of the arbitrators.” Is it desirable to comply with that demand in whole, in part, or not at all?
  9. Suppose a tax were levied of ten per cent on the house-rent paid by every person, those who occupied their own houses being assessed for the letting value of their dwellings. Would such a tax be direct or indirect? Would it conform to the principle of equality of taxation? Give your reasons.

 

1887-1888.
Mid-year. 1888.

  1. Is productive consumption necessarily consumption of capital? Can there be unproductive consumption of capital?
  2. Distinguish which of the following commodities are capital, and, as to those that are capital, distinguish which you would call fixed capital and which circulating.
    A ton of pig iron; a plough; a package of tobacco; a loaf of bread; a dwelling-house.
    Can you reconcile the statement that one or other of these commodities is or is not capital with the proposition that the intention of the owner determines whether an article shall or shall not be capital?
  3. Suppose an inconvertible paper money to be issued, of half the amount of specie previously in circulation. Trace the effects (1) in a country carrying on trade with other countries, (2) in a country shut off from trade with other countries.
  4. Explain in what manner the proposition that the value of commodities is governed by their cost of production applies to wheat, to iron nails, and to gold bullion.
  5. Explain the proposition that rent does not enter into the cost of production. Does it hold good of the rent paid for a factory building? Of the rent paid for agricultural land?
  6. It has been said that wages depend (a) on the price of food, (b) on the standard of living of the laborers, (c) on the ratio between capital and population. Are these propositions consistent with each other? Are they sound?
  7. Suppose that
    One day’s labor in the United States produces 10 pounds of copper,
    One day’s labor England produces 8 pounds of copper,
    One day’s labor in the United States produces 5 pounds of tin,
    One day’s labor England produces 5 pounds of tin,
    Would trade arise between England and the United States, and if so, how?
    Suppose that, other things remaining as above, one day’s labor in England produced 12 pounds of copper, would trade arise, and if so, how?
  8. Explain what is meant when it is said that “there are two senses in which a country obtains commodities more cheaply by foreign trade: in the sense of value, and in the sense of cost.”
  9. Arrange in proper order the following items of a bank account: Capital, $300,00; Bonds and Stocks, $35,000; Real estate and fixtures, $20,000; Other assets, $20,000; Surplus, $80,000; Undivided Profits, $10,500; Notes, $90,000; Cash, $110,000; Cash items, $90,000; Deposits, $850,000; Loans, $1,050,000; Expenses, $5,500. ,
    Suppose loans are repaid to this bank to the amount of $100,000. One half by cancelling deposits, one quarter in its own notes, and one quarter in cash; how will the account then stand?
  10. What is the effect of the use of credit on the value of money? Wherein does credit in the form of bank deposits exercise an effect on the value of money different from that of credit in the form of bank notes?

 

Source: A Synopsis of the First Three Books of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy, as revised by Prof. J. L. Laughlin with an appendix containing the recent examination papers in Political Economy I. Cambridge, Mass.: W. H. Wheeler, 1888.

Image Source: James Laurence Laughlin. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-03687, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Outline and final exam. Economic and Political Ideas, Taylor. 2nd term, 1947-48

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overton H. Taylor described his book, A History of Economic Thought: Social Ideals and Economic Theories from Quesnay to Keynes (McGraw-Hill, 1960), as “an outgrowth from, or reduction to book form of, a part of the course of lectures, covering the same ground, which I have given annually for many years at Harvard University.”  This post provides the undergraduate course outline and final examination for the second half of his course that began with mercantilism and ended with New Deal liberalism and Keynesian economics.

Material from the first half of the course for the immediately following academic year (covering much the same material but stopping at the end of the 19th century) has been posted earlier:

Syllabus. Economics 115 (Fall Term, 1948-49). Economics and Political Ideas in Modern Times.

Final Exam. Economics 115 (Fall Term, 1948-49). Economics and Political Ideas in Modern Times

A much earlier version of the material for a one semester course has likewise been posted:

Syllabus. Economics 1b (Spring Term, 1940-41). The Intellectual Background of Economic Thought.

Final Exam. Economics 1b (Spring Term, 1940-41). The Intellectual Background of Economic Thought.

Greater emphasis on the economic theory was given in his graduate course:

Syllabus. Economics 205a (Fall Term, 1948-49). Main Currents of Thought in Economics and Related Studies over Recent Centuries.

In the Preface to his 1960 book Taylor described his purpose in writing as follows:

Perhaps I have a desire to be a ‘missionary’ in both directions–to convert as many noneconomist or lay readers as I can into interested students of economic theory and its history, and to convert more fellow-economists into interested students, also, of the diverse, general views or perspectives on all human affairs which formerly concerned all philosophical political economists.

 

________________________

 

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 15a. Dr. Taylor.—Economics and Political Ideas in Modern Times (F).

Total 100: 5 Graduate, 44 Seniors, 40 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 1 Radcliffe, 2 Other.

 

[Economics] 15b. Dr. Taylor.—Economics and Political Ideas in Modern Times (Sp).

Total 33: 2 Graduates, 18 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 2 Radcliffe, 2 Public Administration.

 

Source: 15a, Fall term ; 15b, Spring term: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1947-48, pp. 68, 89.

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Economics 15b (115)
Spring Term, 1948
Outline

I. February 5 — 14. 17th Century Political Absolutism and Mercantilism. Liberalism.

Reading due February 14:

(1) Hobbes Leviathan, Chs. 1-6, incl.; 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21, 24;
(2) Locke, Civil Government II, Chs. 2, 3, 5, and 7-12, Incl.; and
(3) Gray, Economic Doctrines, Chs. 1-3.

Lectures

Th., Feb. 5, Introductory lecture about the course.

Sat, Feb. 7, Western civilization in the 17th Century, and the philosophy and political theory of Hobbes.

Tu., Feb. 10, Mercantilism and its economic theory.

Th., Feb. 12, 18th Century liberalism vs. political absolutism and mercantilism; and Locke’s theory of the free society.

Discussion

Sat., Feb. 14, Class discussion of the reading in Hobbes, Locke, and Gray.

II. February 17 — 28. 1705-1850. Foundations of the Classical, Liberal Theory of Political Economy.

Reading due February 28:

(1) Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments: Part I, sec. I, and Part II, secs. I, II or (1a) Selby-Bigge, British Moralists, Selection from A. Smith, Moral Sentiments;
(2) Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book I, 1-7, incl.

Lectures

Tu., Feb. 17 Newton, Locke, and the 18th century’s vision of “the natural order.”

Th., Feb. 19 The philosophy and economic theory of the Physiocrats.

Sat., Feb. 21 Adam Smith’s philosophy, theory of morals and law, and economic theory.

Tu., Feb. 24 Hume and Bentham vs. natural law. Utilitarian liberalism.

Th., Feb. 26 Malthus and Ricardo. The classical theory of political economy.

Discussion

Sat., Feb. 28 Class discussion of the Adam Smith reading.

III. March 2 — 13. Early 19th Romantic and Positivistic Attacks and Alternatives.

Reading due March 13

(1) Spann, History of Economics, Chs. [no chapters given, but would appear to be Spann’s Chapter 8A of the 1930 translation “Types of Economic Theory”]
(2) Comte, Positive Philosophy, pp.[no pages given, but note Introd. Ch. 1; Book VI, 1, 2 were assigned by Taylor in his graduate course Econ 205a]
(3) J. S. Mill, Essays, Utilitarianism, and Liberty.

Lectures

Tu., March 2, The romantic movement and the anti-liberal reaction.

Th., March 4, Carlyle and Ruskin vs. the economists and utilitarians.

Sat., March 6, The romantic reaction in Germany, and types of political and economic thought it produced there.

Tu., March 9, August Comte’s philosophy, and critique of the classical, liberal economic theory.

Th., March 11, Early socialism; and J. S. Mill’s attempted synthesis.

Discussion

Sat., March 13, Class discussion of the Spann, Comte, and Mill reading.

IV. March 16 — 27. Marxism.

Reading due March 27:

Burns, Handbook of Marxism, Chs. [no chapters given here, but note Chs. 1, 13, 14, 22, 26, 29, 30 were assigned by Taylor in his graduate course Econ 205a]

Lectures

Tu., March 16, Antecedents and elements of Marxism: “utopian” socialism, Hegel’s philosophy of history, and Ricardo’s economic theory.

Th., March 18, Marx: theory of history.

Sat., March 20, Marx: economic theory of capitalism: value, wages, and profits.

Tu., March 23, Marx: theory of capitalism’s destined evolution and self-destruction.

Th., March 25, Marx: theory of the revolution and the new society.

Discussion

Sat., March 27, Discussion of the Marx reading.

March 28—April 4, Spring Recess

V. April 5 — 17. 1870-1914. Victorian Conservative Liberalism and Neo-Classical Economics.

Reading due April 17:

(1)  C. Brinton, English Political Thought in the 19th Century, Ch. III, Secs. 1, 2; IV, 1, 2, 3, 4; and
(2) A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book I, Chs. 1-3; III; IV, Chs. 1-3 and 8-13; and V, Chs. 1-5.

Lectures

Tu., April 5, The epoch and ideology of Victorian conservative liberalism.

Th., April 7, The renaissance and new ideas of liberal economic theory in this epoch. The discoverers of “marginal utility”—Jevons, the Austrians, Walras, and Marshall.

Sat., April 9, The market mechanism of the free economy and its equilibrium.

Tu., April 13, Marginal productivity and incomes; Clark and Carver.

Th., April 15, Alfred Marshall.

Discussion

Sat., April 17, Discussion of the political ideas of Brinton’s Victorians, and Marshall’s economics.

VI. April 20 — May 1. Present Day Ideologies and Economic Theory.

Reading due May 1:

(1) Sabine, History of Political Theory, Chs. 28 to end of book, omit 31;
(2) John Dewey, Liberalism and Social Action; and
(3) Beveridge, Full Employment in a Free Society, Part II, Sec. 2, and III through Sec. 5.

Lectures

Tu., April 20, Russian Communism versus Democracy and Liberal Capitalism or Liberal Socialism.

Th., April 22, Ideas of and about Fascism.

Sat., April 24, From 19th century to present day Liberalism.—continuity and contrast. The New Deal and the American tradition.

Tu., April 27, The economic theory of monopolistic competition, and liberal policy.

Th., April 29, “Keynesian” economic theory, and liberal policy.

Discussion

Sat, May 1, Discussion of the Sabine, Dewey, and Beveridge reading.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Reading Period
May 3—15, 1948

Economics 15b: Read one of the following:

Schumpeter: Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Parts 1, 2, and 4.

Lionel Robbins: Nature and Significance of Economics.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists I Economics, 1895-2003. Box 4, Folder “Economics, 1947-1948 (1 of 2)”

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1947-48
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 15b
[Final examination, May 1948]

Answer in all five questions, including 7a or 7b; and make one of your answers a one hour essay, so marked in your blue book.

  1. “Although the classical economists were free market liberals, the picture presented in their economic theory of the ‘natural’ working of the free market economy was not a picture of utopian perfection. They acknowledged a number of real flaws in the system. Then Marx, professing to build on but actually distorting the classical theory, exaggerated those flaws into evils held to be destined to destroy the system. And later the neo-classical economists, in opposition to Marx and in the effort to buttress laissez-faire more thoroughly, revised the old classical theory into one which appeared to support an unqualified optimism.”
    Explain and discuss each part of the statement. What flaws did old classical theory find in the system? What graver ones did Marx impute to it, and what were the chief similarities and differences between his and Ricardo’s doctrines in this connection? What novel concepts and doctrines in neo-classical theory contributed to its purer optimism; and how did they do so, and how legitimately?
  2. “The trouble with the free enterprise or free market economic system is that its long-run effects on a society’s culture and internally prevailing human attitudes, eventually destroy the kind of milieu which alone can enable this economic system to serve the general welfare, and survive. Where and as long as there is a real community, held together by a real moral consensus holding the competition of private interests within the bounds of mutual fair play, the free market system can develop and function well. But in time the growth of competitive, acquisitive ambitions and skills, in the mass of individuals and private groups, breaks through and dissolves the moral consensus and the bonds uniting the community. Competition then becomes warfare and anarchy, and coercive public controls must be developed to take the place, if possible, of the agreement in self-control by all severally, which has broken down.”
    What truth if any do you think is contained in this argument? What might be cited as some times of historical and contemporary evidence at least appearing to support it, and help convincingly in your judgment can it be thus supported? How might an economic theorist still thoroughly devoted to free-market liberalism, reply to the argument, and how if at all would you criticize his (best) reply to it?
  3. “The theory of monopolistic competition proves that, instead of harmonizing all private interests with the public interests, most actual business competition has characteristics which make the maximizing of private gains decidedly injurious to the economic welfare of society.”
    Explain and discuss. What characteristics of “most actual business competition” are referred to? Explain the proof of their socially undesirable consequences, and discuss any criticisms or limitations of this proof that you think may be valid. Do you think “decidedly injurious” is an overstatement? Why or why not?
  4. “Classical economics denied that there ever could be any deficiency of total demand for a full-employment output of the economy. Marx saw inevitable, chronic deficiency of total demand as one of the ‘internal contradictions’ bound eventually to destroy private capitalism. Keynes agreed with Marx about the deficiency, but, having a different theory of its causes, thinks it can be remedied by a simple type of governmental action within the capitalist framework.”
    Explain and discuss. How did the classical view support its denial of the possibility of deficient demand? Why is demand deficient according to Marx? Wherein does Keynes agree, and disagree with Marx? On what assumptions may the Keynesian remedy be held come consistent with retention of private capitalism; on what other assumptions, inconsistent with that?
  5. Describe and discuss all the main, admitted, and (in your opinion) likely ultimate, curtailment of individual freedoms in the Beveridge program for assuring “full employment in a free society.” Would you fear an eventual loss of virtually all freedom – “totalitarian” outcome – if the whole program were adopted in this country? Why or why not?
  6. Discuss the common and the divergent elements of the old classical liberalism, the liberalism of the Roosevelt New Deal, and the outlook of the average present day American exponent of “free enterprise.” As between our “New Dealers” and conservative “free enterprisers,” which group more nearly represents the main essentials of the older liberalism, in your opinion? Explain and defend your opinion on the last point carefully.
  7. (a) If you read Schumpeter in the reading period, explain and discuss his theory of the ways in which capitalism is preparing its own demise and the way for socialism.
    (b) If you read Robbins, state in your own words, and discuss critically, his definition of what economic science deals with and accomplishes.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final Examinations, 1853-2001, Box 15, Papers Printed For Final Examinations: History, History of Religions,…,Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science. May 1948.

Image source: O. H. Taylor in the Harvard Class Album, 1942.

Categories
Columbia Teaching Undergraduate

Columbia. On Research Seminaries, a.k.a., graduate workshops. Seligman, 1892

 

The previous post contained a survey of the teaching of economics in Europe and the United States written by Columbia’s E.R.A. Seligman and published in an encyclopedia of education in 1911. In the short list of references there Seligman cites his paper presented in 1892 on the research seminarium, a.k.a. seminary, a.k.a. seminar, a.k.a. graduate workshop. The general points are illustrated with a paragraph about the dual mandate of an economic seminarium: (i) to teach methods of interpretation and explanation (à la history) and (ii) to teach the methods of the formulation and criticism of ideas (à la political science, philosophy or philology). 

Seligman strongly argues for keeping the functions of college (undergraduate) education vs. university (graduate) education distinct from each other.

Also of some interest is the following evidence that the combative and raw tone of economists in seminars appears to have rather deep historical roots:

“Let each member bring in his report, which should be both explanatory and critical; let this report be opened to a running fire of merciless criticism from the other members present…[the student] is spurred on to do his best work by the fear of pitiless criticism and good-natured ridicule.” 

Oh yes, and for collectors of ex cathedra sexist remarks, it is time to put on your safety goggles, e.g. “…when we dub every little second rate college or female seminary a university, we are degrading the title.”

______________________

THE SEMINARIUM:
ITS ADVANTAGES AND LIMITATIONS
1892

By Edwin R. A. Seligman
Professor of Political Economy and Finance, Columbia College, New York

The word seminarium has a very un-American sound. Yet like so many other plants of exotic growth it has been successfully transplanted to American soil. Not only has it become thoroughly acclimatized; but with characteristic American energy, attempts are continually being made to foster its growth in places and under conditions entirely unsuited to its development. What is the real meaning of the seminarium, what are its methods and its limitations?

The original home of the seminarium, it is well known, is to be found in the ecclesiastical schools of the middle ages. The medieval “seminaries” were, as the word implies, veritable seed-plats, institutions in which the youthful would-be religious writer and teacher was taught to unfold the seed of doctrinal disputation, of theological acumen and of pulpit eloquence. The medieval seminaries, however, like the medieval universities were called upon to perform a two-fold task. They were supposed on the one hand to impart to the students a comprehensive knowledge of particular topics, and on the other hand to teach them methods of special work. This latter part of their duties was gradually relegated to an inferior place in the institutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. In the theological seminaries of America it has until very recently played but a minor role; while the creation of general seminaries throughout the land, devoted solely to the ends of high school education, has hopelessly discredited the word. A seminary, in American parlance, has become a place where a not very high grade of secondary education can be received.

With the revival of the interest in science in Germany there came a change. By science, I do not of course mean natural science. The philosophical, the political, the philological disciplines are assuredly as purely scientific as the mathematical or physical or biological. Not so very long ago it had become the fashion to denote by “science” simply the group of natural sciences, and to speak in a rather patronizing tone of the other domains of human knowledge. This was to be ascribed in part indeed to the presumption of the advocates of these youthful disciplines: in part also to the reaction against the philosophical mysticism and transcendentalism of the times. But the main reason, as I take it, was the one that especially concerns us here. These new disciplines — the natural sciences — prospered and grew strong chiefly because they laid hold of and subserved to their ends the important feature of the old medieval seminary idea. They transformed and assimilated this feature and converted it into the principle of original research, of laboratory work. The laboratory is the seedplat of natural science. And it is to the immense and successful extension of laboratory work that we owe the marvelous development of natural science, and the frequent identification of natural science with science in general during a part of the 19th century. If the philosophical disciplines, in the larger sense of the word, were to retain anything of their pristine position, it would be absolutely necessary to quicken them into renewed life by the application of the same principle.

And thus it was that there came about, modestly enough at first, the employment of the seminarium method in Germany. In the beginning used by a few eminent teachers of philology and history, it spread rapidly, until it has become to-day the very core of university work. The seminarium is to the moral, the philosophical, the political sciences what the laboratory is to the natural sciences. It is the wheel within the wheel, the real center of the life-giving, the stimulating, the creative forces of the modern university. Without it no university instruction is complete; with it, correctly conducted, no university can fail to accomplish the main purpose of its being.

The seminarium may be defined as an assemblage of teacher with a number of selected advanced students, where methods of original research are expounded, where the creative faculty is trained and where the spirit of scientific independence is inculcated. Starting out from this definition it will be profitable to discuss in turn the nature and methods of the seminarium, its advantages, its dangers and limitations.

The seminarium is, in the first place, a peculiarly university feature, and an indispensable adjunct to true university work. The difference between the college and the university I take to be this: the college is the place where men are made; the university is the place where scholars are made. The college attempts to develop all the educational sides of a young man’s character; the university confines itself primarily to one side. The college gives him an all-round training, it teaches him to think and to express himself, it acquaints him with the general trend of human knowledge, but it at the same time lays stress on his physical development and to a certain extent on his ethical development; the college wants to turn out true men, gentlemen — men in attainments, in manners, in physique. The most successful college is the one that best combines all these various duties. As Cicero expressed it, the college is to give the education befitting the gentleman. The university on the other hand has quite different aims and purposes. With general all-round knowledge it has nothing to do; for the candidate for university degrees is expected to have already received this general groundwork of training. With physical and ethical or religious training the university has still less to do. Its students are men, not boys: men with serious objects in view, who have neither the leisure for nor the necessity of frittering away their time in athletic pursuits: men whose ethical and religious nature is presumed to have been developed so that they need no further tutelage or moral supervision from their lay preceptors. To sum it up in a word, the college is the place for general education; the university is the place for specialization. In the college students are taught to imbibe; in the university they are taught to expound. In the college the goal is culture; in the university the goal is independence.

But how can this purpose of the university be best attained? The university lectures are indeed good so far as they go: but in themselves they do not fully accomplish the desired end. The university lecture is supposed to give the special student knowledge of his special work. The university professor who is worthy of the name will afford his students what they can not find in books: otherwise there would be no need of attending lectures. He will not only keep his classes informed as to the latest progress and recent thought in the particular field, but will endeavor to expound his own views, to mould the mass of existing knowledge of the topic into a plastic whole, and to shape it by the imprint of his scholarship and his convictions. The university student goes as often to hear the professor as to attend the course. The function of the university lecturer after all is, in the main, to present in compact form the actual condition of the subject; to show the seeker for truth how far the specialization of knowledge has advanced. Specialized information, particular knowledge, — that is the watchword of the university lecture course.

But this in itself is only one-half, and in truth the lesser half, of university work. There remains the instruction in method, in original research, in critical comparison, in creative faculty. Mere knowledge of what others have done, while of supreme importance in preventing sciolism [a superficial show of learning], will in itself never make a thinker. It may give erudition, but will never give method. Were university instruction confined to university lectures, the outlook for the perpetuation and advance of science would be dark indeed.

Let us ascertain, then, the advantages of the seminarium. The advantages are two fold: the advantages to the student; the advantages to the instructor.

In the first place we must note the creation of ties of friendship between the students. In the university, as opposed to the college, the students are as a rule unacquainted with each other. There are commonly no athletic sports, no secret societies, no organizations for mutual good fellowship, to draw the students together. The university students come primarily to work, and have neither time nor inclination for these outside pursuits. They enter the lecture room as strangers, and depart as strangers. The seminarium, which collects the ablest and brightest students around one table, gives them an opportunity of gauging each other’s abilities, of familiarizing each with the other’s strong points, of laying the seeds of future collaboration in scientific or professional work. The value of such acquaintanceship can not be overestimated. Every one who has worked in a seminarium as a student will testify to the fact that he has carried with him not only pleasant memories but also the inspiration from stimulating arguments with his fellow members. The seminarium does in this respect for the better class of university students what the debating society and fraternity do for the college student.

In the second place we notice the increased familiarity with the recent literature. The average student will be content to follow his lecture and do nothing more. He desires to pass his examination, to attain his degree; and he imagines, generally correctly enough, that if he is thoroughly acquainted with his professor’s exposition, he will somehow pull through. A few students may be so interested in the topic that they will voluntarily endeavor to supplement the lectures by an exhaustive course of outside reading. But they for the most part do not know either where to turn or how to begin. The seminarium here again supplies the defect. It is a valuable practice to begin each seminarium exercise with a half hour devoted to the review of current periodical and other scientific publications. If each member e. g. is assigned the periodical literature of some one country, not only will he be required to thoroughly familiarize himself with the current work in that language, but the whole seminarium will thus have presented to it piecemeal the very latest stage of scientific inquiry. If to the review of periodical literature be added a critical review of the newest books, the members will soon find that their range is being extended and that their appetite for further work is being whetted.

In the third place, and most important we note the knowledge of methods of work.

This is the real raison d’être of the seminarium. To teach the student how to handle his material and by interpretation or discovery to make a contribution to the store of existing knowledge, that is the real purpose of the seminarium. The methods must to a certain extent differ according to the nature of the discipline. If the study be history, the method must of course consist primarily in a critical analysis and comment upon the sources, the documents. The members of the seminarium try their hand in turn at interpretation and explanation, and have their endeavors supplemented and rectified by the comments of the professor. To estimate at its true weight the value of historical material in the light of contemporary events and recent criticism is the most difficult task for the incipient historian to learn.

On the other hand if the subject is political science or philosophy or philology, the methods must be a little different. Here the training must be, not in original material, but in the formulation and criticism of ideas. Take political economy, for example. The long and bitter contest between the two factions in economics now bids fair to be settled by mutual compromise. The more tolerant and wiser economists of to-day in all countries recognize that both the historical and the comparative method on the one hand, and the deductive method on the other are not only not mutually exclusive, but complementary; and that the use of each method in turn is of the utmost value in the elucidation of different problems. In discussing such a problem as land tenure e. g. the historical and comparative method is indispensable; in discussing such a problem as the incidence of taxation the historical and comparative method is useless. Economists are becoming catholic in their methods as well as in their aims.

The economic seminarium therefore must train in both methods. The historical and comparative method must be taught by the same canons that are used in the historical seminarium. The original material is found in all manner of documents, statutes, decisions and what not. The student must be shown how to use these documents, how to separate the chaff from the wheat, how to retain the essentials, how to arrange and coordinate the facts. The economic seminarium is in this respect an historical and comparative workshop. But when we come to the other method, different tactics must be employed. Here the wiser plan is to take up a carefully defined special topic, and to spend a number of consecutive sessions in its examination. The best way to learn to think correctly is to ascertain the flaws in the thoughts of others. Let each student be assigned the works of a definite author or class of authors, so that the whole field of the literature will be parceled out to the class. Let each member bring in his report, which should be both explanatory and critical; let this report be opened to a running fire of merciless criticism from the other members present; and let the professor in summing up the day’s discussion point out wherein the advance, if any, has been made. If this discussion goes on from week to week, it may be assumed that the members will at all events have learned what pitfalls to avoid, what examples to follow. Such a training can not fail to produce its good results, if they consist in nothing more than the consciousness on the part of the students of their own shortcomings. In the seminarium the student for the first time feels himself a man; he occupies the place of the preceptor, he makes his own independent and constructive exposition; but he is spurred on to do his best work by the fear of pitiless criticism and good-natured ridicule. Each successive effort, we may be sure, will be better than the last; and if, after two or three years of such training, the student has not learned how to work, the fault lies not with the seminarium but with himself.

But not only does the student derive these advantages from the seminarium. The professor is apt to be equally benefited. In the first place the professor learns to unbend himself. In the lecture room he is the sole arbiter, the oracle. He lays down the law, as he comprehends it. In the seminarium he is not the preceptor but the coworker. He puts himself down to the plane of his students. He criticises them, but must in turn expect to be criticised by them; and the more open and fearless the criticism the better for both. The professor is here the friend, the equal. He leads the discussion, to be sure; but if there are keen, able, bright students present, he may often learn instead of teach. I venture to say, without fear of contradiction, that every successful seminarium conductor has frequently received new ideas, novel suggestions, and helpful stimulus for his own particular work. It is this feeling of equality, of meeting on a common fighting ground that constitutes one of the most precious features of the seminarium. The professor, moreover, is brought into personal and friendly contact with the students — an utter impossibility in the lecture room. And while on the one hand the student must prize highly the opportunity of intimate converse with the professor, the professor on the other hand is enabled to gauge the merits of each, to give to each the needed word of counsel and to form a more definite opinion as a guide in passing on the candidate’s examination and in recommending him for future positions. Finally, the professor will make use of the seminarium in advancing his own particular work. His advanced students may be put on the details of the topic in which he is interested; they may be made to do the dirty work, so to speak, of original investigation. Their results can not, indeed, be implicitly relied on, but they will discover a fact here or a new idea there which, when carefully scrutinized, may be welded together into a composite whole. Every successful teacher will use his seminarium as a work shop. The handiwork of some may be defective but he will generally find something that can be turned to good use. A real seminarium will, in short, be scarcely less valuable to the professor than to the student.

While the advantages of the seminarium are thus plain, its risks and limitations are perhaps in some danger of being overlooked; and this danger is stronger in America than anywhere else.

We energetic Americans, when we get a good thing, are apt to overdo it. College athletics is a good thing; but when professionalism is introduced and educational interests are subordinated to athletic pursuits, it becomes a bad thing. A university is an honored institution; but when we dub every little second rate college or female seminary a university, we are degrading the title. Higher degrees are in themselves a mark of distinction; but when our minor institutions multiply these high degrees and grant them for absurdly inadequate work, all degrees tend to lose their value and significance. So in the same way with the seminarium. The seminarium is a strictly university method. When an attempt is made to introduce these methods into the college, the academy and the high school, not only is it an abuse which will be utterly useless or worse than useless for the student, but one which will tend to cast discredit on the idea itself. The project of extending the benefits of the seminarium to other than university students is a well meaning, but utterly mistaken notion.

The reason is obvious: the seminarium is an adjunct to specialization; but specialization, as we have already indicated, is the work of the university, not of the college or high school. The great danger with higher education in America is that university ideas may be pushed down to manifestly unfit places. Even in the college, the elective system is a good thing only if its operation be carefully restricted. An absolutely free election which would enable a young man to spend all his time in college on a single topic involves a radical confusion of ideas. It would not be a college education, because it would not be a general education, the education befitting a gentleman. It would not be a university education, because the student is not old enough to profit by the university methods. Absolutely free election in the sense indicated, would ruin the college and would also ruin the university; for when university professors are compelled to expound their ideas to immature boys, they are inevitably compelled to degrade their work to the level of their students. The real university course presupposes a certain general foundation; and if this foundation is lacking, the course loses half of its usefulness.

But if specialization is unfit work for the college and high school, to a still greater extent is the seminarium absolutely unsuitable for the college and high school. The seminarium connotes original research; college students have neither the maturity nor the training which are necessary prerequisites to independent thinking. The seminarium implies a certain equality between student and preceptor; the college boy is a manifestly absurd equal for his professor. The seminarium imports the use of the cooperative method; but how can students whose linguistic and literary equipment is necessarily of the slightest successfully employ the arts of comparison and criticism. The seminarium involves the employment of the most advanced pedagogical methods; but advanced methods can be used only with advanced students.

To attempt to employ university methods with immature youths would be even worse than to endanger the cause of university education by pushing it down into the college. The seminarium in the college would be useless and worse than useless. It would be useless because minds in a formative state can not create. That which is itself being created can not produce. Any attempt to construct something new would simply result in a parrot-like repetition of the old.

But the seminarium in the college would be worse than useless; it would be positively deleterious. It would injure the student, because it would lead him to understand that he is doing original work, when he is only rehashing the work of others. It would foster habits of superficiality and of vainglory. To use an agronomic term, it would lead to extensive, not to intensive, culture. A diet of meat is a very excellent thing; but during certain years of our existence we are fed not on meat but on milk. The attempt prematurely to substitute solids for liquids is as perilous in the intellectual, as in the physical, development. The seminarium, moreover, would react on the morale, not only of the student, but also of the teacher. No self-respecting teacher who comprehends what a seminarium means could continue to employ these methods with immature boys without becoming conscious that he is untrue to his mission. He pretends to be doing what he knows can not be done. He is dissipating his energies without accomplishing any positive result, except that of more or less conscious deception. And finally the seminarium in the college and high school is worse than useless, because it would tend to discredit the whole institution. The public would be led to believe that the high school seminarium was the genuine article; and the force of public opinion might in the long run degrade the university seminarium to the plane of its educational congener [person, organism, or thing resembling another in nature or action]. The tendency of unbridled democracy in education, as in politics, is not to pull the average up to the level of the best; but to pull the best down to the level of the average.

Let us strive, therefore, to live up to the ideal. Let us set our standard high and cling to it unflinchingly. If the seminarium is such a potent engine for good, let us develop its possibilities and give free scope to its opportunities. But let us beware of attempting to use it where it ought not to be used: let us beware of emasculating its energy and degrading its position. Let us beware of the misguided zeal which destroys what it endeavors to upbuild. Let us render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and let us recognize the danger of applying university methods to non-university conditions.

 

Source: Printed paper distributed at the 30th University Convocation of the State of New York, July 5-7, 1892 for discussion Wednesday, July 6.

Image Source:  See “Medieval Universities“, The History of Economic Thought Website of Gonçalo L. Fonseca.

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Survey of Economics Education. Colleges and Universities (Seligman), Schools (Sullivan), 1911

 

In V. Orval Watt’s papers at the Hoover Institution archives (Box 8) one finds notes from his Harvard graduate economics courses (early 1920s). There I found the bibliographic reference to the article transcribed below. The first two parts of this encyclopedia entry were written by Columbia’s E.R.A. Seligman who briefly sketched the history of economics and then presented a survey of the development of economics education at  colleges and universities in Europe and the United States. Appended to Seligman’s contribution was a much shorter discussion of economics education in the high schools of the United States by the high-school principal,  James Sullivan, Ph.D.

_________________________

 

ECONOMICS
— History —

Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D., LL.D.
Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University

The science now known as Economics was for a long time called Political Economy. This term is due to a Frenchman — Montchrétien, Sieur de Watteville — who wrote in 1615 a book with that title, employing a term which had been used in a slightly different sense by Aristotle. During the Middle Ages economic questions were regarded very largely from the moral and theological point of view, so that the discussions of the day were directed rather to a consideration of what ought to be, than of what is.

The revolution of prices in the sixteenth century and the growth of capital led to great economic changes, which brought into the foreground, as of fundamental importance, questions of commerce and industry. Above all, the breakdown of the feudal system and the formation of national states emphasized the considerations of national wealth and laid stress on the possibility of governmental action in furthering national interests. This led to a discussion of economic problems on a somewhat broader scale, — a discussion now carried on, not by theologians and canonists, but by practical business men and by philosophers interested in the newer political and social questions. The emphasis laid upon the action of the State also explains the name Political Economy. Most of the discussions, however, turned on the analysis of particular problems, and what was slowly built up was a body of practical precepts rather than of theoretic principles, although, of course, both the rules of action and the legislation which embodied them rested at bottom on theories which were not yet adequately formulated.

The origin of the modern science of economics, which may be traced back to the third quarter of the eighteenth century, is due to three fundamental causes. In the first place, the development of capitalistic enterprise and the differentiation between the laborer and the capitalist brought into prominence the various shares in distribution, notably the wages of the laborer, the profits of the capitalist, and the rent of the landowner. The attempt to analyze the meaning of these different shares and their relation to national wealth was the chief concern of the body of thinkers in France known as Physiocrats, who also called themselves Philosophes-Économistes, or simply Économistes, of whom the court physician of Louis XVI, Quesnay, was the head, and who published their books in 1757-1780.

The second step in the evolution of economic science was taken by Adam Smith (q.v.). In the chair of philosophy at the University of Glasgow, to which Adam Smith was appointed in 1754, and in which he succeeded Hutcheson, it was customary to lecture on natural law in some of its applications to politics. Gradually, with the emergence of the more important economic problems, the same attempt to find an underlying natural explanation for existing phenomena was extended to the sphere of industry and trade; and during the early sixties Adam Smith discussed these problems before his classes under the head of “police.” Finally, after a sojourn in France and an acquaintance with the French ideas, Adam Smith developed his general doctrines in his immortal work. The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. When the industrial revolution, which was just beginning as Adam Smith wrote, had made its influence felt in the early decades of the nineteenth century, Ricardo attempted to give the first thorough analysis of our modern factory system of industrial life, and this completed the framework of the structure of economic science which is now being gradually filled out.

The third element in the formation of modern economics was the need of elaborating an administrative system in managing the government property of the smaller German and Italian rulers, toward the end of the eighteenth century. This was the period of the so-called police state when the government conducted many enterprises which are now left in private hands. In some of the German principalities, for instance, the management of the government lands, mines, industries, etc., was assigned to groups of officials known as chambers. In their endeavor to elaborate proper methods of administration these chamber officials and their advisors gradually worked out a system of principles to explain the administrative rules. The books written, as well as the teaching chairs founded, to expound these principles came under the designation of the Chamber sciences (Camiralia or Cameral-Wissenschaften) — a term still employed to-day at the University of Heidelberg. As Adam Smith’s work became known in Germany and Italy by translations, the chamber sciences gradually merged into the science of political economy.

Finally, with the development of the last few decades, which has relegated to the background the administrative and political side of the discipline, and has brought forward the purely scientific character of the subject, the term Political Economy has gradually given way to Economics.

Development of Economic Teaching

Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D., LL.D.
Professor of Political Economy, Columbia University

— Europe —

As has been intimated in the preceding section, the first attempts to teach what we to-day would call economics were found in the European universities which taught natural law, and in some of the Continental countries where the chamber sciences were pursued. The first independent chairs of political economy were those of Naples in 1753, of which the first incumbent was (Genovesi, and the professorship of cameral science at Vienna in 1763, of which the first incumbent was Sonnenfels. It was not, however, until the nineteenth century that political economy was generally introduced as a university discipline. When the new University of Berlin was created in 1810, provision was made for teaching in economics, and this gradually spread to the other German universities. In France a chair of economics was established in 1830 in the Collège de France, and later on in some of the technical schools; but economics did not become a part of the regular university curriculum until the close of the seventies, when chairs of political economy were created in the faculties of law, and not, as was customary in the other Continental countries, in the faculties of philosophy. In England the first professorship of political economy was that instituted in 1805 at Haileybury College, which trained the students for the East India service. The first incumbent of this chair was Malthus. At University College, London, a chair of economics was established in 1828, with McCulloch as the first incumbent; and at Dublin a chair was founded in Trinity College in 1832 by Archbishop Whately; at Oxford a professorship was established in 1825, with Nassau W. Senior as the first incumbent. His successors were Richard Whately (1830), W. F. Lloyd (1836), H. Merivale (1838), Travers Twiss (1842), Senior (1847), G. K. Richards (1852), Charles Neate (1857), Thorold Rogers (1862), Bonamy Price (1868), Thorold Rogers (1888). and F. Y. Edgeworth (1891). At Cambridge the professorship dates from 1863, the first incumbent being Henry Fawcett, who was followed by Alfred Marshall in 1884 and by A. C. Pigou in 1908. In all these places, however, comparatively little attention was paid at first to the teaching of economics, and it was not until the close of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth that any marked progress was made, although the professorship at King’s College, London, dates back to 1859, and that at the University of Edinburgh to 1871. Toward the close of the nineteenth century, chairs in economics were created in the provincial universities, especially at Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Bristol, Durham, and the like, as well as in Scotland and Wales; and a great impetus to the teaching of economics was given by the foundation, in 1895, of the London School of Economics, which has recently been made a part of the University of London.

— United States —

Economics was taught at first in the United States, as in England, by incumbents of the chair of philosophy; but no especial attention was paid to the study, and no differentiation of the subject matter was made. The first professorship in the title of which the subject is distinctively mentioned was that instituted at Columbia College, New York, where John McVickar, who had previously lectured on the subject under the head of philosophy, was made professor of moral philosophy and political economy in 1819. In order to commemorate this fact, Columbia University established some years ago the McVickar professorship of political economy. The second professorship in the United States was instituted at South Carolina College, Columbia, S. C, where Thomas Cooper, professor of chemistry, had the subject of political economy added to the title of his chair in 1826. A professorship of similar sectional influence was that in political economy, history, and metaphysics filled in the College of William and Mary in 1827, by Thomas Roderick Dew (1802-1846). The separate professorships of political economy, however, did not come until after the Civil War. Harvard established a professorship of political economy in 1871; Yale in 1872; and Johns Hopkins in 1876.

The real development of economic teaching on a large scale began at the close of the seventies and during the early eighties. The newer problems bequeathed to the country by the Civil War were primarily economic in character. The rapid growth of industrial capitalism brought to the front a multitude of questions, whereas before the war well-nigh the only economic problems had been those of free trade and of banking, which were treated primarily from the point of view of partisan politics. The newer problems that confronted the country led to the exodus of a number of young men to Germany, and with their return at the end of the seventies and beginning of the eighties, chairs were rapidly multiplied in all the larger universities. Among these younger men were Patten and James, who went to the University of Pennsylvania; Clark, of Amherst and later of Columbia; Farnam and Hadley of Yale; Taussig of Harvard; H. C. Adams of Michigan; Mayo-Smith and Seligman of Columbia; and Ely of Johns Hopkins. The teaching of economics on a university basis at Johns Hopkins under General Francis A. Walker helped to create a group of younger scholars who soon filled the chairs of economics throughout the country. In 1879 the School of Political Science at Columbia was inaugurated on a university basis, and did its share in training the future teachers of the country. Gradually the teaching force was increased in all the larger universities, and chairs were started in the colleges throughout the length and breadth of the land.

At the present time, most of the several hundred colleges in the United States offer instruction in the subject, and each of the larger institutions has a staff of instructors devoted to it. At institutions like Columbia, Harvard, Yale, Chicago, and Wisconsin there are from six to ten professors of economics and social science, together with a corps of lecturers, instructors, and tutors.

Teaching of Economics in the American Universities. — The present-day problems of the teaching of economics in higher institutions of learning are seriously affected by the transition stage through which these institutions are passing. In the old American college, when economics was introduced it was taught as a part of the curriculum designed to instill general culture. As the graduate courses were added, the more distinctly professional and technical phases of the subject were naturally emphasized. As a consequence, both the content of the course and the method employed tended to differentiate. But the unequal development of our various institutions has brought great unclearness into the whole pedagogical problem. Even the nomenclature is uncertain. In one sense graduate courses may be opposed to undergraduate courses; and if the undergraduate courses are called the college courses, then the graduate courses should be called the university courses. The term “university,” however, is coming more and more, in America at least, to be applied to the entire complex of the institutional activities, and the college proper or undergraduate department is considered a part of the university. Furthermore, if by university courses as opposed to college courses we mean advanced, professional, or technical courses, a difficulty arises from the fact that the latter year or years of the college course are tending to become advanced or professional in character. Some institutions have introduced the combined course, that is, a combination of so-called college and professional courses; other institutions permit students to secure their baccalaureate degree at the end of three or even two and a half years. In both cases, the last year of the college will then cover advanced work, although in the one case it may be called undergraduate, and in the other graduate, work.

The confusion consequent upon this unequal development has had a deleterious influence on the teaching of economics, as it has in many other subjects. In all our institutions we find a preliminary or beginners’ course in economics, and in our largest institutions we find some courses reserved expressly for advanced or graduate students. In between these, however, there is a broad field, which, in some institutions, is cultivated primarily from the point of view of graduates, in others from the point of view of undergraduates, and in most cases is declared to be open to both graduates and undergraduates. This is manifestly unfortunate. For, if the courses, are treated according to advanced or graduate methods, they do not fulfill their proper function as college studies. On the other hand, if they are treated as undergraduate courses, they are more or less unsuitable for advanced or graduate students. In almost all of the American institutions the same professors conduct both kinds of courses. In only one institution, namely, at Columbia University, is the distinction between graduate and undergraduate courses in economics at all clearly drawn, although even there not with precision. At Columbia University, of the ten professors who are conducting courses in economics and social science, one half have seats only in the graduate faculties, and do no work at all in the college or undergraduate department; but even there, these professors give a few courses, which, while frequented to an overwhelming extent by graduate students, are open to such undergraduates as may be declared to be advanced students.

It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish, in principle at least, between the undergraduate or college courses properly so-called, and the university or graduate courses. For it is everywhere conceded that at the extremes, at least, different pedagogical methods are appropriate.

The College or Undergraduate Instruction. — Almost everywhere in the American colleges there is a general or preliminary or foundation course in economics. This ordinarily occupies three hours a week for the entire year, or five hours a week for the semester, or half year, although the three-hour course in the fundamental principles occasionally continues only for a semester. The foundation of such a course is everywhere textbook work, with oral discussion, or quizzes, and frequent tests. Where the number of students is small, this method can be effectively employed; but where, as in our larger institutions, the students attending this preliminary course are numbered by the hundreds, the difficulties multiply. Various methods are employed to solve these difficulties. In some cases the class attends as a whole at a lecture which is given once a week by the professor, while at the other two weekly sessions the class is divided into small sections of from twenty to thirty, each of them in charge of an instructor who carries on the drill work. In a few instances, these sections are conducted in part by the same professor who gives the lecture, in part by other professors of equal grade. In other cases where this forms too great a drain upon the strength of the faculty, the sections are put in the hands of younger instructors or drill masters. In other cases, again, the whole class meets for lecture purposes twice a week, and the sections meet for quiz work only once a week. Finally, the instruction is sometime carried on entirely by lectures to the whole class, supplemented by numerous written tests.

While it cannot be said that any fixed method has yet been determined, there is a growing consensus of opinion that the best results can be reached by the combination of one general lecture and two quiz hours in sections. The object of the general lecture is to present a point of view from which the problems may be taken up, and to awaken a general interest in the subject among the students. The object of the section work is to drill the students thoroughly in the principles of the science; and for this purpose it is important in a subject like economics to put the sections as far as possible in the hands of skilled instructors rather than of recent graduates.

Where additional courses are offered to the Undergraduates, they deal with special subjects in the domain of economic history, statistics, and practical economics. In many such courses good textbooks are now available, and especially in the last class of subject is an attempt is being made here and there to introduce the case system as utilized in the law schools. This method is, however, attended by some difficulties, arising from the fact that the materials used so quickly become antiquated and do not have the compelling force of precedent, as is the case in law. In the ordinary college course, therefore, chief reliance must still be put upon the independent work and the fresh illustrations that are brought to the classroom by the instructor.

In some American colleges the mistake has been made of introducing into the college curriculum methods that are suitable only to the university. Prominent among these are the exclusive use of the lecture system, and the employment of the so-called seminar. This, however, only tends to confusion. On the other hand, in some of the larger colleges the classroom work is advantageously supplemented by discussions and debates in the economics club, and by practical exercises in dealing with the current economic problems as they are presented in the daily press.

In most institutions the study of economics is not begun until the sophomore or the junior year, it being deemed desirable to have a certain maturity of judgment and a certain preparation in history and logic. In some instances, however, the study of economics is undertaken at the very beginning of the college course, with the resulting difficulty of inadequately distinguishing between graduate and undergraduate work.

Another pedagogical question which has given rise to some difficulty is the sequence of courses. Since the historical method in economics became prominent, it is everywhere recognized that some training in the historical development of economic institutions is necessary to a comprehension of existing facts. We can know what is very much better by grasping what has been and how it has come to be. The point of difference, however, is as to whether the elementary course in the principles should come first and be supplemented by a course in economic history, or whether, on the contrary, the course in economic history should precede that in the principles. Some institutions follow one method, others the second; and there are good arguments on both sides. It is the belief of the writer, founded on a long experience, that on the whole the best results can be reached by giving as introductory to the study of economic principles a short survey of the leading points of economic history. In a few of the modem textbooks this plan is intentionally followed. Taking it all in all, it may be said that college instruction in economics is now not only exceedingly widespread in the United States, but continually improving in character and methods.

University or Graduate Instruction. — The university courses in economics are designed primarily for those who either wish to prepare themselves for the teaching of economics or who desire such technical training in methods or such an intimate acquaintance with the more developed matter as is usually required by advanced or professional students in any discipline. The university courses in the larger American institutions which now take up every important subject in the discipline, and which are conducted by a corps of professors, comprise three elements: first, the lectures of the professor; second, the seminar or periodical meeting between the professor and a group of advanced students; third, the economics club, or meeting of the students without the professor.

(1) The Lectures: In the university lectures the method is different from that in the college courses. The object is not to discipline the student, but to give him an opportunity of coming into contact with the leaders of thought and with the latest results of scientific advance on the subject. Thus no roll of attendance is called, and no quizzes are enforced and no periodical tests of scholarship are expected. In the case of candidates for the Ph.D. degree, for instance, there is usually no examination until the final oral examination, when the student is expected to display a proper acquaintance with the whole subject. The lectures, moreover, do not attempt to present the subject in a dogmatic way, as is more or less necessary in the college courses, but, on the contrary, are designed to present primarily the unsettled problems and to stimulate the students to independent thinking. The university lecture, in short, is expected to give to the student what cannot be found in the books on the subject.

(2) The Seminar: Even with the best of will, however, the necessary limitations prevent the lecturer from going into the minute details of the subject. In order to provide opportunity for this, as well as for a systematic training of the advanced students in the method of attacking this problem, periodical meetings between the professor and the students have now become customary under the name of the seminar, introduced from Germany. In most of our advanced universities the seminar is restricted to those students who are candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, although in some cases a preliminary seminar is arranged for graduate students who are candidates for the degree of Master of Arts. Almost everywhere a reading knowledge of French and German is required. In the United States, as on the European continent generally, there are minor variations in the conduct of the seminar. Some professors restrict the attendance to a small group of most advanced students, of from fifteen to twenty-five; others virtually take in all those who apply. Manifestly the personal contact and the “give and take,” which are so important a feature of the seminar, become more difficult as the numbers increase. Again, in some institutions each professor has a seminar of his own; but this is possible only where the number of graduate students is large. In other cases the seminar consists of the students meeting with a whole group of professors. While this has a certain advantage of its own, it labors under the serious difficulty that the individual professor is not able to impress his own ideas and his own personality so effectively on the students; and in our modern universities students are coming more and more to attend the institution for the sake of some one man with whom they wish to study. Finally, the method of conducting the seminar differs in that in some cases only one general subject is assigned to the members for the whole term, each session being taken up by discussion of a different phase of the general subject. In other cases a new subject is taken up at every meeting of the seminar. The advantage of the latter method is to permit a greater range of topics, and to enable each student to report on the topic in which he is especially interested, and which, perhaps, he may be taking up for his doctor’s dissertation. The advantage of the former method is that it enables the seminar to enter into the more minute details of the general subject, and thus to emphasize with more precision the methods of work. The best plan would seem to be to devote half the year to the former method, and half the year to the latter method.

In certain branches of the subject, as, for instance, statistics, the seminar becomes a laboratory exercise. In the largest universities the statistical laboratory is equipped with all manner of mechanical devices, and the practical exercises take up a considerable part of the time. The statistical laboratories are especially designed to train the advanced student in the methods of handling statistical material.

(3) The Economics Club: The lecture work and the seminar are now frequently supplemented by the economics club, a more informal meeting of the advanced students, where they are free from the constraint that is necessarily present in the seminar, and where they have a chance to debate, perhaps more unreservedly, some of the topics taken up in the lectures and in the seminar, and especially the points where some of the students dissent from the lecturer. Reports on the latest periodical literature are sometimes made in the seminar and sometimes in the economics club; and the club also provides an opportunity for inviting distinguished outsiders in the various subjects. In one way or another, the economics club serves as a useful supplement to the lectures and the seminar, and is now found in almost all the leading universities.

In reviewing the whole subject we may say that the teaching of economics in American institutions has never been in so satisfactory condition as at present. Both the instructors and the students are everywhere increasing in numbers; and the growing recognition of the fact that law and politics are so closely interrelated with, and so largely based on, economics, has led to a remarkable increase in the interest taken in the subject and in the facilities for instruction.


Economics
— In the Schools —

James Sullivan, Ph.D., Principal of Boys’ High School, Brooklyn, N.Y.

This subject has been defined as the study of that which pertains to the satisfaction of man’s material needs, — the production, preservation, and distribution of wealth. As such it would seem fundamental that the study of economics should find a place in those institutions which prepare children to become citizens, — the elementary and high schools. Some of the truths of economics are so simple that even the youngest of school children may be taught to understand them. As a school study, however, economics up to the present time has made far less headway than civics (q.v.). Its introduction as a study even in the colleges was so gradual and so retarded that it could scarcely be expected that educators would favor its introduction in the high schools.

Previous to the appearance, in 1894, of the Report of the Committee of Ten of the National Educational Association on Secondary Education, there had been much discussion on the educational value of the study of economics. In that year Professor Patten had written a paper on Economics in Elementary Schools, not as a plea for its study there, but as an attempt to show how the ethical value of the subject could be made use of by teachers. The Report, however, came out emphatically against formal instruction in political economy in the secondary school, and recommended “that, in connection particularly with United States history, civil government, and commercial geography instruction be given in those economic topics, a knowledge of which is essential to the understanding of our economic life and development” (pp. 181-183). This view met with the disapproval of many teachers. In 1895 President Thwing of Western Reserve University, in an address before the National Educational Association on The Teaching of Political Economy in the Secondary Schools, maintained that the subject could easily be made intelligible to the young. Articles or addresses of similar import followed by Commons (1895), James (1897), Haynes (1897), Stewart (1898), and Taussig (1899). Occasionally a voice was raised against its formal study in the high schools. In the School Review for January, 1898, Professor Dixon of Dartmouth said that its teaching in the secondary schools was “unsatisfactory and unwise.” On the other hand, Professor Stewart of the Central Manual Training School of Philadelphia, in an address in April, 1898, declared the Report of the Committee of Ten “decidedly reactionary,” and prophesied that political economy as a study would he put to the front in the high school. In 1899 Professor Clow of the Oshkosh State Normal School published an exhaustive study of the subject of Economics as a School Study, going into the questions of its educational value, its place in the schools, the forms of the study, and the methods of teaching. His researches serve to show that the subject was more commonly taught in the high schools of the Middle West than in the East. (Compare with the article on Civics.)

Since the publication of his work the subject of economics has gradually made its appearance in the curricula of many Eastern high schools. It has been made an elective subject of examination for graduation from high schools by the Regents of New York State, and for admission to college by Harvard University. Its position as an elective study, however, has not led many students to take it except in commercial high schools, because in general it may not be used for admission to the colleges.

Its great educational value, its close touch with the pupils’ everyday life, and the possibility of teaching it to pupils of high school age are now generally recognized. A series of articles in the National Educational Association’s Proceedings for 1901, by Spiers, Gunton, Halleck, and Vincent bear witness to this. The October, 1910, meeting of the New England History Teachers’ Association was entirely devoted to a discussion of the Teaching of Economics in Secondary Schools, and Professors Taussig and Haynes reiterated views already expressed. Representatives of the recently developed commercial and trade schools expressed themselves in its favor.

Suitable textbooks in the subject for secondary schools have not kept pace with its spread in the schools. Laughlin, Macvane, and Walker published books somewhat simply expressed; but later texts have been too collegiate in character. There is still needed a text written with the secondary school student constantly in mind, and preferably by an author who has been dealing with students of secondary school age. The methods of teaching, mutatis mutandis, have been much the same as those pursued in civics (q.v.). The mere cramming of the text found in the poorest schools gives way in the best schools to a study and observation of actual conditions in the world of to-day. In the latter schools the teacher has been well trained in the subject, whereas in the former it is given over only too frequently to teachers who know little more about it than that which is in the text.

See also Commercial Education.

 

References: —

In Colleges and Universities: —

A Symposium on the Teaching of Elementary Economics. Jour. of Pol. Econ., Vol. XVIIl, June, 1910.

Cossa, L. Introduction to the Study of Political Economy: tr. by L. Dyer. (London, 1893.)

Mussey, H. R. Economies in the College Course. Educ. Rev. Vol. XL, 1910, pp. 239-249.

Second Conference on the Teaching of Economics, Proceedings. (Chicago, 1911.)

Seligman, E. R. A. The Seminarium — Its Advantages and Limitations. Convocation of the University of the State of New York, Proceedings. (1892.)

In Schools: —

Clow, F. R. Economics as a School Study, in the Economic Studies of the American Economic Association for 1899. An excellent bibliography is given. It may be supplemented by articles or addresses since 1899 which have been mentioned above. (New York, 1899.)

Haynes, John. Economics in Secondary Schools. Education, February, 1897.

 

Source: Paul Monroe (ed.), A Cyclopedia of Education, Vol. II. New York: Macmillan, pp. 387-392.

Source: E.R.A. Seligman in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 484-6.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard M.I.T. Yale

Yale. Transportation economist and railroad expert. Prof. Kent T. Healy (1902-1985)

 

Personal backstory to this post.

During my freshman year at Yale (1969-70) I took a double-credit seminar course “Early Concentration Economics”. The idea, I suppose, was to give me an accelerated start into an economics major. At least that is why I enrolled in the course. The first semester covered microeconomics and was taught by Professor Merton J. (“Joe”) Peck and a visiting graduate student from Harvard (Ph.D., 1971), Joseph Persky (now a distinguished historian of economics). We used the intermediate price theory textbook by Richard H. Leftwich and we were assigned the “Simple Analytics of Welfare Maximization” by Francis Bator. I loved the course. It also led to Joe Peck becoming one of my mentors in economics.

The second semester was not so successful. Now, with nearly a half-century of university life behind me, it is pretty obvious what the problem with that course was. Basically, a double-credit course is going to be incredibly hard to staff, I mean what professor is going to let himself/herself be tied down to double sessions with first year students? I believe Kent T. Healy (in his last year of teaching)  allowed himself to be drafted into covering the macroeconomics semester for us early concentrators. As you will see from the biographical and career information below, Professor Healy was a railroad expert from the old school of transportation economics. I vaguely recall an anecdote or two having to do with him travelling in a caboose.

Complicating matters, the second semester of 1969-70 was marked by academic strikes and disruption (the Black Panther Bobby Seale was on trial in New Haven, there were the Kent State shootings etc.) so that many course meetings were canceled and academic credit was fudged all around. We were assigned two of the short volumes in Otto Eckstein’s Prentice-Hall series “Foundations of Modern Economics” (Charles Schultze’s National Income Analysis and Eckstein’s own Public Finance).  I recall Myrdal’s Asian Drama was part of the original course plan, but I don’t think we did much with it.  

I do want to give Healy some credit, he took on the burden of teaching far outside his lane during the last semester of his service. It’s what a loyal, long-time colleague in a department does (yeah, right). Still, there was no infectious enthusiasm for macroeconomics coming from him during the Spring of 1970 and I feel Yale should have been held liable for charging tuition but only providing academic day-care with that course.

Besides being something of an academic anachronism as far as the discipline of economics goes, Healy was also one of the few people I have encountered who attained the rank of professor without having a Ph.D. degree. From the career information provided below, we see that Kent Tenney Healy lived a very rich and active life that combined elements of business and engineering experience, public policy, teaching, and public service. I have also been told by Gustav Ranis that Healy was a kind, thoughtful man. I do regret never having met the man in his true realm of distinction. 

______________________

Biographical Note

Kent Tenney Healy was born in Chicago, Illinois on February 2, 1902, the son of William and Mary Sylvia (Tenney) Healy. He received an A.B. [cum laude, in Physics] from Harvard College in 1921 and a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1923. From 1923 to 1924, he was a student at the Harvard Law School.

On November 3, 1928, he married Ruth Emily Allen. His four children were Ruth Tenney, William Kent, Kent Allen and Sylvia Kent.

Associated with transportation and economics all his life, he began as a switchboard operator on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in 1922. From 1924 to 1925, he was an inspector and from 1925 to 1926, a cost engineer.

After studying transportation in Europe during the years of 1926 and 1927, he became an assistant professor of transportation at Yale University. From 1934 to 1940, he was an assistant professor of economics, becoming an associate professor in 1940. In 1945, he received an M.A., and was appointed as the T. Dewitt Cuyler Professor of transportation, a position he held until 1970.

As a recognized expert in transportation economics, he served as member or consultant with many United States Government agencies from 1940 to 1945, participated in local government planning and financial management in Killingworth, Connecticut, circa 1957 to 1970, and was a director of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company (1947-1948) and the Connecticut Company (1947-1964).

He died on January 9, 1985 at the age of 82 [in West Haven, Conn.].

Source: Connecticut State Library. Healy (Kent T.) Papers, 1935-1963. Inventory. Additions from obituary in the New York Times, January 12, 1985.

______________________

Books by Kent T. Healy

  • Electrification of steam railroads.New York: McGraw-Hill, 1929.
  • Cases on railroad economics, supplemented by selected statistics, (1938).
  • The Economics of Transportation in America: The Dynamic Forces in Development, Organization, Functioning and Regulation. New York: Ronald Press, 1946.
  • Performance of the U.S. railroads since World War II: A quarter century of private operation. New York: Vantage Press, 1985.

______________________

Yale Career from the Yale Archives.

Kent T. Healy was born in Chicago on February 2, 1902. He received his B.A. from Harvard in 1921, and his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from M.I.T. in 1923. Healey was an assistant professor of transportation at Yale from 1928-1937, an assistant professor of political economy from 1937-1938, an assistant professor of economics from 1938-1940, an associate professor from 1940-1945, and the Thomas DeWitt Cuyler Professor of Transportation from 1945-1970.

Source: Yale University Archives. Kent Tenney Healy papers.

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Extra-academic career

Kent Tenney Healy was born in Chicago, IL on February 2, 1902. A recognized expert in transportation economics, he taught at Yale University from 1934-1970. Due to his expertise, he often served as a consultant to many United States government agencies or as a member of various commissions from 1940-45. He also participated in state and local government planning and financial management especially in Killingworth, CT. Mr. Healy served as a director of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Co., 1947-48 and the Connecticut Co., 1947-64.

Commission on Reorganization of State Departments, 1935-1937. Special Act No. 242 of 1935 established a five member commission appointed by the Governor, with the advice and consent of the General Assembly to study the “organization, powers and duties, personnel and expenditures” of each agency and prepare recommendations and propose legislation. The commission held its first meeting in Governor Wilber Cross’ office on June 21, 1935. Col. Thomas Hewes served as chairman. The commission appointed Benjamin P. Whitaker, Research Director, on July 1, 1935. A small staff and a number of expert consultants prepared the report, approved by the commission, for submittal to the governor on January 25, 1937. The General Assembly extended the commission authorization to March 30, 1937. Even after that date, the commission members and the Research Director provided advice and assistance to the governor and the General Assembly.

State Planning Board. Advisory Committee on Transportation, ?-1936. The State Planning Board adopted a policy of appointing advisory committees to assist the board and its staff in developing research studies. The Transportation Committee consisted of the Highway Commissioner, the Motor Vehicle Commissioner, and a member of the Public Utilities Commissioner. The committee was to make the state’s transportation program more definite and practical, review past accomplishments, draw up plans for further work and prepare and interpret a report for the State Planning Board. On April 10, 1935, the committee issued “Transportation in Connecticut. Part I: Passenger Transportation.” There is no evidence that it issued any other parts.

Highway Advisory Committee, 1943-1945. Special Act 456 of 1943 directed the governor to appoint a five member committee to study and advise the highway commissioner concerning post-World War II highway improvements, the problem of just and equitable distribution of highway funds for cities and towns, problems with the system, the departments procedures and practices and existing laws to determine what is desirable for an efficient highway program. Highway Commissioner William J. Cox, first mentioned such a committee in his biennial report to the governor for 1939-1940. He again recommended the committee to Governor Baldwin in December 1942. Baldwin put the recommendations into his inaugural speech and saw it through the General Assembly. After hearing testimony from the Highway, Motor Vehicle and State Police departments and inspecting the new Fairfield County route (I-95) to replace Route 1, the committee submitted its report to the governor in December 1944.

Savings Banks’ Railroad Investment Committee, 1945-1963. The General Assembly created a six member committee to certify railroad company bonds as eligible for investment by savings banks for the banking commissioner. The governor appointed members to three-year terms from nominations given him by the Executive Committee of the Savings Banks’ Association of Connecticut, the Banking Commissioner, the Executive Committee of the Connecticut Bankers Association, and the Executive Committee of the Savings Banks’ Deposit Guaranty Fund of Connecticut. A nominee had to be either a bank officer or director or trustee of one of the above organizations or its members. The statute allowed reimbursement of travel expenses only to be paid by the Savings Banks’ Association. In 1961, the General Assembly changed the committee’s name to the Railroad Legal Investment Commission. In 1963, it disbanded the committee and placed its responsibilities solely with the banking commissioner.

Source: Social Networks and Archival Context website.

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Report to the 25th Reunion of the Harvard Class of 1922

KENT TENNEY HEALY

HOME ADDRESS: 245 Lawrence St., New Haven 11, Conn.

OFFICE ADDRESS: Strathcona Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.

BORN: Feb. 2, 1902, Chicago, Ill. PARENTS: William Healy, ‘97, Mary Sylvia Tenney.

PREPARED AT: Evanston Academy, Evanston, Ill.; Browne and Nichols School, Cambridge, Mass.; Wellesley High School, Wellesley, Mass.

YEARS IN COLLEGE: 1918-1921. DEGREES: A.B. cum laude, 1922 (21); S.B. (Massachusetts Inst. of Technology), 1923; A.M. hon. (Yale Univ.), 1945.

MARRIED: Ruth Emily Allen, Nov. 3, 1928, Cheshire, Conn. CHILDREN: Ruth Tenney, Aug. 4, 1929; William Kent, July 5, 1930; Kent Allen, Sept. 30, 1932; Sylvia Kent, Dec. 3, 1941.

OCCUPATION: T. DeWitt Cuyler Professor of Transportation; chairman, Economics Department; chairman, Committee on Transportation, Yale University.

WARTIME GOVERNMENT POSTS: Transportation consultant, Bituminous Coal Division, Department of Interior, Office of Defense Transportation, Administrator of Lend Lease and Office of Strategic Services.

OFFICES HELD: Public utility consultant, Commission of Reorganization of State Departments, Connecticut, 1935-36; member, Connecticut Highway Advisory Commission, 1943-45, New Haven Traffic Commission, since 1946; chairman, Savings Bank Railroad Investment Committee, since 1945; president, Family Service of New Haven, since 1944; treasurer, The Foote School Association, Incorporated, 1937-46.

MEMBER OF: Graduate Club; Delta Psi.

PUBLICATIONS: Steam Railroad Electrification, McGraw-Hill, 1929; Cases on Railroad Economics (private), 1938; The Economics of Transportation in America, Ronald, 1940; numerous articles.

 

THE twenty-five years since graduation have slipped by awfully fast and I don’t feel a day older than I did when I left Cambridge. Certainly the years have been full of interest and enjoyment.

One of the things that has made the years particularly challenging has been that I have consciously changed my course on several occasions. Starting out with a career of electrical engineer in the public-utility field, I fairly quickly shifted over to transportation and joined the Operating Department of the New Haven Railroad. If anybody had told me at this point that I was going to become a teacher, I would have been thoroughly dismayed. But when I left the New Haven to broaden myself by studying transportation operation in Europe, I started a sequence which was to lead to the doors of good old Eli.

If one writes a book, it apparently can easily lead to a college post. My first one, built around what I learned in Europe, led to an appointment in transportation at Yale. The teaching part of this job has been a continuous challenge because every year has given me a chance to introduce new ideas and methods. Further, the satisfaction of helping to develop the intellectual process of a loyal group of students cannot be matched by anything else. Along with the teaching has been research and consulting, which are some of the ways in which one can sharpen one’s thinking. help the world at large, and also keep abreast of the practicalities of life.

Along with all this, I was fortunate enough to team up with the ideal girl, and together we’ve gone through all the pains and pleasures of bringing up four children.

When the war came along, I naturally put what talents I have to work for the country, starting with the Bituminous Coal Division of the Department of Interior on coal transportation problems, working with the O.S.S. particularly on the North African problem, and with Lend Lease and the Office of Defense Transportation. Not the least interesting part of all this was the chance to compare the different government agencies in war time as well as contrast them with the peace-time agencies I had seen something of before.

In the meantime my work at Yale was shifting from just transportation to a combination of that and economics. Finally, by the end of the war, I found myself chairman of the Economics Department as well as head of the transportation group. I am not so sure that the administrative responsibilities, challenging though they are, are quite as worth while as the teaching and research.

Along with all this, I have always felt that one should play a part in the local community in which one lives, and I have for a goodly number of years maintained an association with various social agencies. More recently my contribution has been as president of the largest family casework agency in New Haven. At the same time I have done my stint in both state and city government, ranging from being a member of the State Highway Advisory Commission to now being chairman of the State Savings Bank Railroad Investment Committee and a member of the City Traffic Commission (trying to solve the unsolvable in this latter).

This all adds up to a full and happy existence and, I hope, a useful one.

 

Source: Harvard Class of 1922. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report (Cambridge, Mass.: 1947), pp. 427-429.

Image Source:Kent T. Healy (1922 and 1947). Harvard Class of 1922. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report, Portraits of the Class (Cambridge, Mass.: 1947), p. 97.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. General Examination in Macroeconomic Theory. Spring, 1991

 

We turn our attention now to relatively recent Macroeconomic Theory. The immediately preceding post provides a transcription of the Spring 1991 General Examination in Microeconomic Theory at Harvard.

This post represents the second artifact from the Abigail Wozniak collection of Harvard graduate economics general examinations from Spring 1991 through Spring 1999. Future installments will be posted, though not on a regular schedule. 

 From the different formatting and fonts seen in the original copies, we can conclude that Part I (questions 1-3), Part II (questions 4-6), Part III (questions 7-9) were each written by different sets of examiner(s). 

___________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
ECONOMICS 2010d: FINAL EXAMINATION and
GENERAL EXAMINATION IN MACROECONOMIC THEORY
SPRING, 1991

Instructions for all Economics Department graduate students:

The examination will last four hours.

Answer all three parts of the examination (Parts I, II and III).
Within each part, answer any two of the three questions given (so that, in all, you will answer six questions).

Use a separate bluebook for each question. Clearly indicate the question number and your identification number on the front of each bluebook.

Do not indicate your name on any bluebook you submit.

 

Instructions for all other students:

The examination will last three hours.

Answer Parts II and III only. Within each part, answer any two of the three questions given (so that, in all, you will answer four questions).

Use a separate bluebook for each question. Clearly indicate the question number and your name on the front of each bluebook.

 

PART I

Question 1

“Old Keynesian” models were often criticized by their detractors for their apparent reliance on counter-cyclical real wages to generate fluctuations in output. Write a well crafted essay giving several examples of how more modern models (both Keynesian and non-Keynesian) have dealt with this issue. Explain the mechanism by which each model yields output fluctuations without counter-cyclical real wage fluctuations.

 

Question 2

Suppose that the simplest Lucas model describes the economy:

(1) {{y}_{t}}={{m}_{t}}-{{p}_{t}}+{{\nu }_{t}} , quantity theory in logs

(2) {{y}_{t}}=\alpha \left( {{p}_{t}}-{}_{t-1}{{p}_{t}} \right)+{{\varepsilon }_{t}} , Lucas supply function.

where t-1pt  represents the mathematical expectation as of period t-1 of the price in period t, and {{\nu }_{t}} and {{\varepsilon }_{t}} are i.i.d. disturbances.

Suppose, however, that private agents, in their ignorance, believe that the economy is described by (1) and:

(3) {{y}_{t}}=\beta \left( {{p}_{t}}-{}_{t-1}{{p}_{t}} \right)+{{\varepsilon }_{t}} , bogus supply function

where \beta \ne \alpha .

(a) Will this ignorance lead to any real effects of anticipated money under any of the following monetary policies? “Where relevant, assume the central bank knows that (2) is true but that people believe (3).)

(4.1)  {{m}_{t}}=\bar{m}+{{u}_{t}} , constant money supply

(4.2) {{m}_{t}}=\rho \left( {{m}_{t-1}} \right)+{{u}_{t}} , gradual adjustment

(4.3) {{m}_{t}}=-c\left( {{y}_{t-1}} \right)+{{u}_{t}} , lagged feedback rule

Here ut  is a random error, and 0<\rho <1.

(b) Now suppose agents make a different mistake. They think the supply function is

(5) {{y}_{t}}=\alpha \left( {{p}_{t}}-{}_{t-2}{{p}_{t}} \right)+{{\varepsilon }_{t}}

That is, they know the parameter, but get the lag structure wrong. Answer the same question again.

(c) Give a brief intuitive explanation of why you obtain different answers in parts (a) and (b).

 

Question 3

Consider the following simple growth model:

The economy is comprised of a single representative agent, who divides his labor between two activities. A fraction {{\theta }_{t}}  of labor is spent producing goods for consumption at time t, while a fraction 1-{{\theta }_{t}}  of labor is spent producing capital goods at time t.

Suppose that the production function for consumer goods is.

{{c}_{t}}={{\theta }_{t}}k_{t}^{\alpha },

where kt denotes the capital stock as of time t.

The evolution of the capital stock is given by,

{{k}_{t+1}}=\left( 1-\delta \right){{k}_{t}}+\left( 1-{{\theta }_{t}} \right)k_{t}^{\alpha }

where \delta  is the constant rate of depreciation, and 0<\alpha <1.

(a) If \theta   is constant for all t, what happens to kt as t\to \infty ? What happens to ct in the long-run equilibrium?

(b) Suppose that consumer preferences are given by,

\sum\limits_{t=0}^{\infty }{{{\beta }^{t}}}\ln {{c}_{t}},

Where 0<\beta <1 is the discount factor. What is the path for \left\{ {{\theta }_{t}} \right\} which maximizes utility?

Before calculating this algebraically, explain the basic trade-offs involved in selecting and optimal \theta . What must happen to {{\lim }_{t\to \infty }}{{k}_{t}}  under the optimal policy? Now using the first order conditions, derive an expression for the optimal time path of the ratio {{{\theta }_{t}}}/{{{\theta }_{t-1}}}\; . What happens to this ratio as t\to \infty .

(c) How does an increase in the depreciation rate \delta  or an increase in the discount factor \beta affect the long-run equilibrium fraction of labor engaged in consumer goods production. Interpret your answers.

 

PART II

Answer any two of the following three questions. Be sure to use a separate bluebook for each answer.

  1. Suppose that a nation’s government seeks to influence its level of aggregate demand so as to keep it as close as possible to the “full employment” level of output, which is determined independently of government actions. Suppose also that the government has two ways of affecting aggregate demand. Government spending closely and reliably influences aggregate demand; money growth also influences aggregate demand, but in a highly unpredictable manner. At the same time, there is a specific level of government spending that is deemed appropriate for reasons having nothing to do with its effect on aggregate demand; by contrast, the rate of money growth is of no consequence except insofar as it causes aggregate demand to be above or below “full employment” output. How can the government take account of these considerations in its conduct of fiscal and monetary policy?

 

  1. What aspects of economic behavior determine whether monetary policy should tighten, ease, or remain unchanged when the economy experiences an adverse shock affecting its aggregate ability to supply goods and services on the basis of given labor and capital inputs? Be specific about the policy objective that your answer assumes.

 

  1. Under what circumstances will a tax-and-transfer system intended to buffer the economy against shocks (of whatever origin) be unable to affect the distribution describing real economic outcomes? Show clearly that the set of assumptions you posit is sufficient for this “ineffectiveness” result. What are the major correspondences and contrasts between this set of assumptions and the conditions under which actual tax-and-transfer systems typically function in most industrialized economies? What conclusions do you draw from any contrasts?

 

Part III

Question 7

Consider the following model of a small open economy under flexible exchange rates:

I = I0 – r,
S = r,
X = R,
M = –R,
F = –\alpha  r, \alpha ≥ 0
[S– (G– T)] – I = X – M,
F = X – M,

Where I = domestic investment, S = domestic private saving, X = exports, M = imports, F = capital outflow, G = government spending, T = tax revenues, r = domestic real interest rate, and R = real exchange rate. I0 is a shift variable representing investment demand shocks, and \alpha  indexes the degree of international capital mobility (when \alpha =0 , capital is completely immobile; when \alpha =\infty , capital is perfectly mobile). In order to eliminate problems related to the negativity of some variables, think of all magnitudes as deviations from some unspecified values. The world interest rate is equal to zero. Domestic and foreign assets are perfect substitutes.

 

  1. Suppose that fiscal policy is exogenous, in the sense that

G – T = G0 – T0,   G0, T0 given.

What are the equilibrium effects of an investment shock (a change in I0) on national saving and investment? Is a positive investment-national saving relation an indicator of a lack of perfect capital mobility? Explain.

  1. Suppose now that fiscal policy is endogenous, in the sense that

G – T = [G0 + \beta(S – I)] – T0,   G0, T0 given.

where 0 < \beta  ≤ 1. Answer the same questions as in 1. Explain.

 

  1. Can the presence or lack of a crowding out effect of fiscal policy (resulting from changes in G0) be used to empirically discriminate between the exogeneous and endogenous policy hypotheses? Why or why not?

 

  1. Comment on the potential theoretical and empirical implications of this exercise.

 

Question 8

The “twin deficits” hypothesis asserts that U.S. Federal budget deficits are responsible for U.S. trade deficits.

  1. Present two models, one which supports and one which invalidates, this hypothesis.
  2. How could a proponent of the model which does not support the twin deficit hypothesis account for the recent coincidence of budget and trade deficits?
  3. How would you test empirically each of your proposed models?

 

Question 9

What are the effects on consumption and capital accumulation of i) a proportional labor income tax, and ii) a proportional capital income tax in:

  1. A life-cycle (overlapping generations) model;
  2. An economy with infinitely-lived consumers.

 

Source: Department of Economics, Harvard University. Past General Exams, Spring 1991-Spring 1999, pp. 89-94. Private copy of Abigail Waggoner Wozniak.

Image Source: View of Widener Library from Harvard Campus, Cambridge, Mass. from Boston Public Library, Tichnor Brothers Collection of Massachusetts Postcards.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. General Examination in Microeconomic Theory. Spring, 1991

 

 

The following general examination in microeconomic theory (Spring 1991) comes from a collection of nine years’ worth of general exams at Harvard from the last decade of the 20th century shared by Abigail Waggoner Wozniak (Harvard economics Ph.D., 2005). Abigail Wozniak was an associate professor of economics at Notre Dame before she was appointed senior research economist and the first director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis’ Opportunity & Inclusive Growth Institute. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is grateful for her generosity in having a copy sent here for eventual transcription. 

The “Wozniak collection” is over 90 pages long, so it will take some time for all the exams to appear. But for now I can at least promise that the Spring 1991 macroeconomics examination will be posted soon.

______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
GENERAL EXAMINATION IN MICROECONOMIC THEORY
SPRING, 1991

Instructions:

For those taking the generals in microeconomic theory:

  1. You have FOUR hours.
  2. Answer a total of five questions subject to the following constraints:
    at least two from Part A;
    at least one from Part B;
    exactly one from Part C.

For those taking the final exam in Economics 2010B, but not the generals:

  1. You have three hours and ten minutes
  2. Answer a total of four questions subject to the following constraints:
    at least two from Part A;
    do not answer any questions from Part B;
    at least one from Part C.

Please use a separate blue book for each question, and please put your name (or number) on each book.

Unless otherwise specified, the parts within each question will be equally weighted.

 

PART A (questions 1, 2,3)

  1. Consider an economy composed of a large number of consumers who differ in their tastes and endowment. The preferences of each individual are described by u={{x}^{\alpha }}{{y}^{\beta }}{{z}^{\left( 1-\alpha -\beta \right)}}, where \alpha ,\beta >0,\,\,\,\,\,\alpha +\beta <1 and endowments are \omega =\left( {{\omega }_{x}},{{\omega }_{y}},{{\omega }_{z}} \right)
    1. Write the excess demand function for good x and y as a function of the prices of the goods p= (px, py, pz), using a knowledge of the statistics of the distribution F.
    2. Find an expression for the equilibrium price system.
    3. Show that it is unique.
    4. Suppose that the price system p is out of equilibrium at time t = 0 and that for each commodity price adjusts proportionately to excess demand. The constant of proportionality dk>0 for k= x, y, z is known to be positive but is not known to you. Can you nevertheless be sure that the price system will converge to the equilibrium found in b)? Explain
  2. Consider a firm with production function f(x) which is uncertain about the price of its product p. This uncertainty is summarized in the distribution function G(p). The firm wants to maximize its expected profits. The workers of this firm, represented by their union, want to make a contract with the firm that will guarantee them a certain level of expected utility. The union’s von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function is u(c,x), where c is the total payment received by the union and x is the quantity of labor provided by the union to the firm.
    1. Show that a contract in which c and x are specified in advance of the firm’s learning p is worse than one in which c and x can be chosen after p.
    2. Assume that the realization of p from the distribution G is observable to both the firm and the union and that contracts c(p), x(p) specifying the payment and employment as a function of p are possible. Describe an optimal contract mathematically as it depends on f, u and G.
    3. Now suppose that only the firm can observe p and that it must propose a contract c(x) which gives the compensation level as a function of labor demanded, and that the firm retains the right to choose x (and hence c) after the value of p is known. Write the problem of finding an optimal contract. What are the constraints?
    4. Now suppose that there are only two possible prices p, call them pH,pL. Moreover, assume that x is a normal good in the union’s utility function. Show that the constraints found in part c are binding. Relative to an efficient situation, compare the value of the marginal product of labor to the marginal rate of substitution between x and c in the union’s utility function.
  3. Consider a region consisting of three towns in which a jail must be built. The towns are configured as shown below:

1

2

3
    1. The towns do not want the jail located in their borders. Moreover they do not want it in the town adjacent to themselves. Assume that utilities are quasi-linear, so that we can speak of the willingness to pay to avoid having the jail in or near a given town in units of money, which is transferable among the towns. Each town has a willingness to pay for avoiding having the jail in its borders of 10. Their willingness to pay for having it in an adjacent town are:
Town Willingness to pay to avoid jail in a neighbor
1 5
2 3
3 0

Where should the jail be located on efficiency grounds?  (.15)

    1. Assume that the towns could freely bargain about the location of the jail, and that they can make deals involving monetary compensation among themselves. Describe the set of such arrangements that are robust against defection or recontracting. (.60)
    2. Now assume that each town is populated by an identical number of citizens with identical utility functions such that their individual willingnesses to pay sum up to the town willingness to pay as given in part a. Could some type of competitive market be arranged to produce an efficient outcome? How would you organize it? (.25)

 

PART B (questions 4 and 5)

  1. There are two firms, an incumbent and a potential entrant. To produce at all, a firm must install at least ko units of capacity. The cost of capacity is q (>0) per unit. A firm that installs k units of capacity (k ≧ko) can produce up to k units of output. The marginal cost of output is c. Inverse demand is given by p = a – bx, where x is total output (the sum of the two firms’ outputs). The incumbent moves in period 1 and selects its capacity level kI. The entrant then moves in period 2 and either chooses not to enter or else selects a capacity kE. Finally, the two firms select output levels simultaneously in period 3. Subgame-perfect equilibrium is the solution concept.
    1. What level of capacity must the incumbent install in order to deter entry? (Note: you need just set up the equation; it is not necessary to solve it explicitly). Will the incumbent ever choose to install capacity that it does not use in equilibrium?
    2. If the incumbent chooses to accommodate entry, how much capacity will it install? Again, just set up the maximization).
    3. Under what conditions on the parameter values will the incumbent act to deter entry rather than accommodate it?
    4. Now suppose that demand is random and that the uncertainty is not resolved until the beginning of period 3.
      Specifically, suppose that inverse demand is a-bx+\varepsilon  or  a-bx-\varepsilon with equal likelihood where \varepsilon is “small”. Assume that firms are risk neutral. Does the uncertainty increase or decrease the capacity needed to deter entry? (It should not be necessary to perform any computations to answer this question).
  2. Suppose we are in a three commodity market. Good 3 is a numeraire and the demand functions for the other two goods are:

x1(p,w)= a1+ b1p1+ c1p2+ d1p1p2
x2(p,w)= a2+ b2p1+ c2p2+ d2p1p2

    1. Note that the demand for goods x1, x2 does not depend on wealth. Write down the most general class of utility functions whose demand has this property.
    2. Argue that if the above demand functions are generated from utility maximization then the values of the parameters cannot be arbitrary. Write down as exhaustive a list as you can of the restrictions implied by utility maximization. Justify your answer.
    3. Suppose that the conditions identified in (ii) hold. The initial price situation is
      p= (p1, p2) and we consider a change to p´= (p´1, p´2). Define the concept of consumer surplus generated in going from p to p´.
    4. Let the value of the parameters be
      a1= a2= ½ , b1= c2= -1, c1= b2= ½, d1= d2= 0. Suppose the initial price situation is p= (1,1). Compute the consumer surplus for a move to p´ for each of the following three cases: (1) p´= (2,1), (2) p´= (1,2), (3) p´= (2,2). Denote by CS1, CS2, CS3 the respective answers. Under which condition will you have CS3= CS1+ CS2. Discuss.

 

PART C  (questions 6 and 7)

  1. In both neo-Marxian and neo-Keynesian theories there is, to paraphrase Schumpeter, no growth without profit and no profit without growth. But the interaction between profit and growth is different in the two theories. What are the most important differences?
  2. Consider the problem of predicting the shots made by an expert billiard player. It seems not at all unreasonable that excellent predictions would be yielded by the hypothesis that the billiard player made his shots as if he knew the complicated mathematical formulas that would give the optimum directions of travel, could estimate accurately by eye the angles, etc., describing the location of the balls, could make lightning calculations from the formulas, and could then make the balls travel in the direction indicated by the formulas.
    It is only a short step from these examples to the economic hypothesis that under a wide range of circumstances individual firms behave as if they were seeking rationally to maximize their expect returns (generally if misleading called “profits”) and had full knowledge of the data needed to succeed in this attempt; as if, that is, they knew the relevant cost and demand functions, calculated marginal costs and marginal revenue from all actions open to them, and pushed each line of action to the point at which the relevant marginal coast and marginal revenue were equal. (Milton Friedman, “The Methodology of Positive Economics,” in Essays in Positive Economics, pp. 21-22).

What are the most important criticisms of Friedman’s position? What would be lost for economics, normative as well as positive, if the maximization hypothesis were abandoned?

 

Source: Department of Economics, Harvard University. Past General Exams, Spring 1991-Spring 1999, pp. 84-88. Private copy of Abigail Waggoner Wozniak.

Image Source: Abigail Wozniak webpage at the University of Notre Dame.

Categories
Funny Business Gender Radcliffe

Radcliffe. Fake economics professor in the college yearbook, 1963

 

This post adds to our collection of artifacts filed under “Funny Business”. It is the first example of undergraduate economics humor to have found its way to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. Somebody inserted a totally fake professor into the part of the yearbook that provided pictures and biographical sketches of distinguished faculty who had taught the 1963 graduating cohort of Radcliffe women.

The fact that I found the artifact in the Radcliffe yearbook of 1963 (p. 92) led me to assume initially that its author was herself a Radcliffe student. Upon examining the credits pages in the yearbook, I noticed that the Radcliffe yearbook apparently was a joint endeavor of Radcliffe women and Harvard men. Now I am not sure if we can ever classify this fake faculty entry genderwise. 

The text itself reveals the author(s) knew something about American economic history (the name of the professorship is a play on the 1830 Webster-Hayne Senate debate on protectionist tariffs), the history of economics (Heinrich Schwabe’s 1843 “solar cycle”), and economic policy (the 1954-55 Dixon-Yates controversy). I think we can reasonably conclude that an economics concentrator was involved.

To someone like myself who has transcribed many an economics skit and doggerel, the lame sex joke (game theory applied to promiscuous rabbits) does seem more like a guy-thing than a gal-thing, conditional on having been published in 1963. Perhaps someone out there has a Radcliffe mother/grandmother/aunt (A.B. ca. 1963) who could positively identify EconAnon for us.

P.S. From the yearbook I was only able to identify three graduates of the Radcliffe class of 1963 who were economics concentrators. One of them, Joanne Elizabeth Clifford, listed “yearbook publications” among her activities. According to the July 5, 1973 New York Times, she married Douglas Field Eaton a fellow graduate of Harvard Law School. She was associated with the New York law firm of Debevoise, Plimpton, Lyons & Gates at the time. Maybe Ms. Clifford Eaton could provide a lead, at least she may be presumed to have recognized the joke at the time.

______________________

Sigfried [sic] von Schmidt, the sixty-seven year old Webster A. Hayne Professor of Economics and Moral Philosophy, came to Harvard in 1932 after taking his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Alabama. His Ph.D. thesis, entitled “The Peace Corps and Social Change in Haiti During the Administration of William Henry Harrison,” was later expanded into a fourteen volume work. It is considered the definitive work in its field. Professor von Schmidt teaches Economics 208, “Correlation of Solar Phenomena and Business Cycles,” affectionately known to students as “sun spots and bread lines”.

Professor von Schmidt has varied interests in the field of economics. He is the originator of the marginal income product and was the first person to apply the residual feed-flow back mechanism to the balance of payments. His national stability curve was accepted as an important policy making tool in the autumn of 1929 by the Council of Economic Advisors. He has since expanded the scope of this original work and will soon publish Birth Control and the National Stability Curve.

Professor von Schmidt is also actively engaged in consulting work with a number of quasi-governmental organizations such as the Dixon Yates Power Co. He is also well known for his 1960 Godkin Lecture on “The application of a game theory approach to the problem of promiscuity among rabbits.”

Source: The Radcliffe Yearbook (May, 1963), p. 92.

 

Categories
Gender Harvard Radcliffe

Radcliffe. Economics Course Offerings, 1920-1925

 

 

The following lists of courses available to Radcliffe women for the academic years running from 1920/21 through 1924/25 differ from earlier postings at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror in two respects: (i) I did not find course enrollment numbers in the annual Radcliffe presidential reports for these years, and (ii) I list both the courses offered to the Radcliffe women together with those graduate economics courses that “competent students in Radcliffe College” were allowed to attend. There is a self-own in these double daggers (‡), because one might just conclude that some incompetent (ahem, male) Harvard students had been allowed to attend the courses. Not all Harvard economics graduate courses were open to Radcliffe students.

The annual Radcliffe course catalogues have been corrected according to information provided in the Report of the President of Radcliffe College. Those courses listed in the catalogue that were not offered in a given year without being officially announced as [“bracketed”] have been crossed out below. There were actually very few such corrections needed.

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Here are seven previous installments in the series “Economics course offerings at Radcliffe College”:

Pre-Radcliffe economics course offerings and Radcliffe courses for 1893-94,  1894-1900, 1900-1905, 1905-1910, 1910-1915, 1915-20.

__________________

The courses marked with a double dagger (‡) are Graduate courses in Harvard University which are open to competent students in Radcliffe College. No student will be admitted to any one of these courses unless she can satisfy the instructor that she is entirely qualified to do the work of the course.

__________________

1920-21
ECONOMICS

Primarily for Undergraduates

Economics A. Principles of Economics

Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Asst. Professor Burbank.

Course A cannot be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor.

 

For Undergraduates and Graduates

The Courses for Undergraduates and Graduates, unless otherwise stated, are open only to students who have passed in Course A. Economics 1a, 1b, 2a and 2b may be taken, with the consent of the instructor, by students who take Course A at the same time. Economics 8 is open to Juniors and Seniors of good standing who are taking Course A. Other courses in the group can be taken at the same time with Economics A only by special vote of the Department.

 

Economics 1a 1hf. Accounting

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Mr. Shaulis.

 

Economics 1b 2hf. Statistics

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Asst. Professor J. S. Davis.

Laboratory work I the solution of problems and preparation of charts and diagrams will be required.

 

Economics 2a 1hf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Dr. E. E. Lincoln.

 

Economics 2b 2hf. Economic History of the United States

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Dr. E. E. Lincoln.

 

Economics 6a 1hf. Trade-Unionism and Allied Problems

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10. Mr. ____.

 

Economics 8. Principles of Sociology

Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor Carver.

 

Economics 10 1hf. Economic Thought and Institutions

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Th., at 2.30. Dr. A. E. Monroe.

 

Primarily for Graduates

ECONOMIC THEORY AND METHOD

‡Economics 11. Economic Theory

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

 

‡Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Professor Bullock.

 

APPLIED ECONOMICS

‡Economics 31. Public Finance

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor Bullock.

 

‡Economics 32 2hf. Economics of Agriculture

With special reference to American conditions. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 12. Professor Carver.

 

‡Economics 33 1hf. International Trade and Tariff Problems

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

 

‡Economics 34. Problems of Labor

Tu., Th., at 1.30. Professor Ripley.

 

‡Economics 35a 1hf. Business Corporations

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor J. S. Davis.

 

‡Economics 35b 2hf. Business Combinations

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor J. S. Davis.

 

STATISTICS

‡Economics 41. Statistical Theory and Analysis

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professor Day.

 

‡Economics 42a 1hf. Statistical Tabulation

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 1.30. Professor Day.

 

‡Economics 42b 2hf. Statistical Graphics

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 1.30. Professor Day.

 

Course of Research in Economics for Graduates

Graduate students pursuing research may register in the following course, which has the same status as any of the other graduate courses in Economics. Such research will be under the direction of members of the Department, and may lie within any of the fields recognized as appropriate for candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy:—

 

‡Economics 20. Economic Research

Professors Taussig, Carver, Ripley, Bullock, Young, Persons, Day, Sprague, and Cole.

Source: Catalogue of Radcliffe College, 1920-1921, pp. 56-58  with corrections from Report of the President of Radcliffe College, 1920-1921, p. 23.

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1921-22
ECONOMICS

Primarily for Undergraduates

Economics A. Principles of Economics

Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Professor Day and Mr. Meriam.

Course A cannot be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor.

 

For Undergraduates and Graduates

The Courses for Undergraduates and Graduates, unless otherwise stated, are open only to students who have passed in Course A. Economics 1a, 1b, 2a and 2b may be taken, with the consent of the instructor, by students who take Course A at the same time. Economics 8 is open to Juniors and Seniors of good standing who are taking Course A. Other courses in the group can be taken at the same time with Economics A only by special vote of the Department.

 

Economics 1a 1hf. Statistics

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 1.30. Mr. Berridge.

 

Economics 1b 2hf. Accounting

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Cole.

 

Economics 2a 1hf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10.Dr. Lincoln.
Omitted in 1921-22.

 

Economics 2b 2hf. Economic History of the United States

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Dr. Lincoln.
Omitted in 1921-22.

 

Economics 6. Labor Problems

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 9. Mr. Meriam.

 

Economics 8. Principles of Sociology

Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor Carver.

 

Economics 10 1hf. Economic Thought and Institutions

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Th., at 2.30. Dr. A. E. Monroe.
Course 10 is open to undergraduates who have passed in Economics A and are concentrating in the Division of History, Government, and Economics; and to others with the consent of the instructor.

 

Primarily for Graduates

ECONOMIC THEORY AND METHOD

‡Economics 11. Economic Theory

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professors Taussig and Young.

 

‡Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Professor Bullock.

 

APPLIED ECONOMICS

‡Economics 31. Public Finance

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor Bullock.

 

‡Economics 32 2hf. Economics of Agriculture

With special reference to American conditions. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 12. Professor Carver.

 

‡Economics 34. Problems of Labor

Tu., Th., at 1.30, or by arrangement. Professor Ripley.

 

‡Economics 35a 1hf. Business Corporations

Half-course ( first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor J. S. Davis.

 

‡Economics 35b 2hf.Business Combinations

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor J. S. Davis.

 

STATISTICS

‡Economics 41. Statistical Theory and Analysis

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professor Day.

 

‡Economics 43a 1hf.Statistical Graphics

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 3.30. Professor Day.

 

Course of Research in Economics for Graduates

Graduate students pursuing research may register in the following course, which has the same status as any of the other graduate courses in Economics. Such research will be under the direction of members of the Department, and may lie within any of the fields recognized as appropriate for candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy:—

 

‡Economics 20. Economic Research

Professors Taussig, Carver, Ripley, Bullock, Young, Persons, Day.

 

Source: Catalogue of Radcliffe College, 1921-1922, pp. 60-62 with corrections from Report of the President of Radcliffe College 1921-1922, p. 57.

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1922-23
ECONOMICS

Primarily for Undergraduates

Economics A. Principles of Economics

Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Mr. Meriam.

Course A cannot be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor.

 

Economics B 1hf. Economic Thought and Institutions

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Th., at 2.30. Dr. A. E. Monroe.
Given in alternate years. To be omitted in 1923-24.

Course B is open to undergraduates who have passed in Economics A and are concentrating in the Division of History, Government, and Economics; and to others with the consent of the instructor.

 

Economics C hf. Theses for Distinction

Half-course (throughout the year). Hours to be arranged. Members of the Department.

Economics C is open only to students in their last year in College who are candidates for the degree with distinction in Economics. Students wishing to enroll in the course should consult with Dr. A. E. Monroe.

 

For Undergraduates and Graduates

The Courses for Undergraduates and Graduates, unless otherwise stated, are open only to students who have passed in Course A. Economics 1a, 1b, 2a and 2b may be taken, with the consent of the instructor, by students who take Course A at the same time. Economics 8 is open to Juniors and Seniors of good standing who are taking Course A. Other courses in the group can be taken at the same time with Economics A only by special vote of the Department.

 

Economics 1a 1hf. Statistics

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 1.30. Professor Day.

 

Economics 1b 2hf. Accounting

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Cole.

 

Economics 2a 1hf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Dr. A. P. Usher.

 

Economics 2b 2hf. Economic History of the United States

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Dr. A. P. Usher.

 

Economics 6. Labor Problems

Mon., Wed.,and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 9. Dr. Meriam.

 

Economics 7b 2hf. Programs of Social Reconstruction

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Professor Carver.

 

Economics 8. Principles of Sociology

Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor Carver.

 

Primarily for Graduates

Except by special vote of the Department the courses for graduates are open to those undergraduates only who are in their last year of work and are candidates for the degree with distinction in the Division of History, Government, and Economics; but students of good standing may, in their last year of study, be admitted to Course 32, if they can show that they have special need of the subject.

 

ECONOMIC THEORY AND METHOD

‡Economics 11. Economic Theory

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

 

‡Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Professor Bullock.

 

‡Economics 15. Modern Schools of Economic Thought

Mon., Wed., at 3.30, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Professor Young.

 

APPLIED ECONOMICS

‡Economics 31. Public Finance

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor Bullock.

 

‡Economics 32 2hf. Economics of Agriculture

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 12. Professor Carver.

 

‡Economics 33 1hf. International Trade and Tariff Problems

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

 

‡Economics 34. Problems of Labor

Tu., Th., at 1.30, or by arrangement. Professor Ripley.

 

STATISTICS

‡Economics 41. Statistical Theory and Analysis

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professors Day and Young.

 

Course of Research in Economics for Graduates

Graduate students pursuing research may register in the following course, which has the same status as any of the other graduate courses in Economics. Such research will be under the direction of members of the Department, and may lie within any of the fields recognized as appropriate for candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy:—

 

‡Economics 20. Economic Research

Professors Taussig, Carver, Ripley, Bullock, Young, Persons, and Day.

 

Source: Catalogue of Radcliffe College, 1922-1923, pp. 60-62 with corrections from Report of the President of Radcliffe College, 1922-1923, pp. 89-90.

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1923-24
ECONOMICS

Primarily for Undergraduates

Economics A. Principles of Economics

Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Mr. Remer.

Course A cannot be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor.

 

[Economics B 1hf. Economic Thought and Institutions]

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Th., at 2. Dr. A. E. Monroe.
Given in alternate years. Omitted in 1923-24.

Course B is open to undergraduates who have passed in Economics A and are concentrating in the Division of History, Government, and Economics; and to others with the consent of the instructor.

 

Economics C hf. Theses for Distinction

Half-course (throughout the year). Hours to be arranged. Members of the Department.

Economics C is open only to students in their last year in College who are candidates for the degree with distinction in Economics. Students wishing to enroll in the course should consult with Dr. R. S. Meriam.

 

For Undergraduates and Graduates

The Courses for Undergraduates and Graduates, unless otherwise stated, are open only to students who have passed in Course A. Economics 1a, 1b, 2a and 2b may be taken, with the consent of the instructor, by students who take Course A at the same time. Economics 8 is open to Juniors and Seniors of good standing who are taking Course A. Other courses in the group can be taken at the same time with Economics A only by special vote of the Department.

Economics 1a 1hf. Statistics

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Mr. Blackett.

 

Economics 1b 1hf. Accounting

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Mr. A. W. Hanson.

 

Economics 2a 1hf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10.Asst. Professor Usher.

 

Economics 2b 2hf. Economic History of the United States

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Usher.

 

Economics 3 1hf. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises

Assistant Professor Williams.

 

Economics 4b 2hf. Economics of Corporations

Mr. A. V. Woodworth.

 

Economics 6. Labor Problems

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Dr. Meriam.

 

Economics 7b 2hf. Programs of Social Reconstruction

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Professor Carver.

 

Economics 8. Principles of Sociology

Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor Carver.

 

 

Primarily for Graduates

Except by special vote of the Department the courses for graduates are open to those undergraduates only who are in their last year of work and are candidates for the degree with distinction in the Division of History, Government, and Economics; but students of good standing may, in their last year of study, be admitted to Course 32, if they can show that they have special need of the subject.

 

ECONOMIC THEORY AND METHOD

‡Economics 11. Economic Theory

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 3. Professor Taussig.

 

‡Economics 12a 1hf.Problems in Sociology and Social Reform

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor Carver.

 

‡Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Professor Bullock.

 

‡Economics 15 1hf.Modern Schools of Economic Thought

Half-course (first half-year) Tu., Th., at 10, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Professor Young.

 

APPLIED ECONOMICS

‡Economics 31. Public Finance

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor Bullock.

 

‡Economics 32 2hf.Economics of Agriculture

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., and( at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Professor Carver.

 

[‡Economics 33 1hf.International Trade and Tariff Problems]

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.
Omitted in 1923-24.

 

‡Economics 34. Problems of Labor

Full course (first half-year) Tu., Th., 2-4, or by arrangement. Professor Ripley.

 

‡Economics 37 1hf.Commercial Crises

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 9, or by arrangement. Professor Persons.

 

‡Economics 38. The Principles of Money and Banking

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Friday at 4. Professor Young.

 

STATISTICS 

‡Economics 41. Statistical Theory and Analysis

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Asst. Professor Crum.

 

Course of Research in Economics for Graduates

Graduate students pursuing research may register in the following course, which has the same status as any of the other graduate courses in Economics. Such research will be under the direction of members of the Department, and may lie within any of the fields recognized as appropriate for candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy:—

 

‡Economics 20. Economic Research

Professors Taussig, Carver, Ripley, Bullock, Young, and Persons.

 

Source: Catalogue of Radcliffe College, 1923-1924, pp. 62-65 with corrections from Report of the President of Radcliffe College, 1923-1924, p. 34.

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1924-25
ECONOMICS

Primarily for Undergraduates

Economics A. Principles of Economics

Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Mr. Bober.

Course A cannot be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor.

 

Economics B 1hf. Economic Thought and Institutions

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., (and at the pleasure of the instructor) Th., at 2. Asst. Professor A. E. Monroe.
Given in alternate years.

Course B is open to undergraduates who have passed in Economics A and are concentrating in the Division of History, Government, and Economics; and to others with the consent of the instructor.

 

Economics C hf. Theses for Distinction

Half-course (throughout the year). Hours to be arranged. Members of the Department.

Economics C is open only to students in their last year in College who are candidates for the degree with distinction in Economics. Students wishing to enroll in the course should consult with Asst. Professor R. S. Meriam.

 

For Undergraduates and Graduates

The Courses for Undergraduates and Graduates, unless otherwise stated, are open only to students who have passed in Course A. Economics 1a, 1b, 2a and 2b may be taken, with the consent of the instructor, by students who take Course A at the same time. Economics 8 is open to Juniors and Seniors of good standing who are taking Course A. Other courses in the group can be taken at the same time with Economics A only by special vote of the Department.

 

Economics 1a 1hf. Statistics

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Mr. D. W. Gilbert.

 

Economics 1b 1hf. Accounting

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor W. M. Cole.

 

Economics 2a 1hf. European Industry and Commerce since 1750

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10.Asst. Professor Usher.

 

Economics 2b 2hf. Economic History of the United States

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Usher.

 

Economics 3 1hf. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Assistant Professor Williams.

 

Economics 4b 2hf. Economics of Corporations

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. Woodworth.

 

Economics 6. Labor Problems

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Asst. Professor Meriam.

 

Economics 7b 2hf. Programs of Social Reconstruction

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Professor Carver.

 

Economics 8. Principles of Sociology

Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 10. Professor Carver.

 

Primarily for Graduates

Except by special vote of the Department the courses for graduates are open to those undergraduates only who are in their last year of work and are candidates for the degree with distinction in the Division of History, Government, and Economics; but students of good standing may, in their last year of study, be admitted to Course 32, if they can show that they have special need of the subject.

 

ECONOMIC THEORY AND METHOD

 

‡Economics 11. Economic Theory

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Taussig.

 

‡Economics 12a 1hf.Problems in Sociology and Social Reform

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor Carver.

 

‡Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Professor Bullock.

 

‡Economics 15 1hf.Modern Schools of Economic Thought

Half-course (first half-year) Tu., Th., at 10, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Professor Young.

 

ECONOMIC HISTORY

‡Economics 23. European and American Economic History

Wed., Fri., at 3, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Asst. Professor Usher.
With the consent of the instructor Course 23 may be taken as a half-course in either half-year.

 

‡Economics 24. Topics in Modern Economic History

Two consecutive evening hours a week, to be arranged. Professor Gay.

 

APPLIED ECONOMICS

‡Economics 31. Public Finance

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor Bullock.

 

‡Economics 32 2hf.Economics of Agriculture

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Professor Carver.

 

‡Economics 33 1hf.International Trade and Tariff Problems

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 2. Professor Taussig.

 

‡Economics 34. Problems of Labor

Tu., Th., 2-4, and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 2. Professor Ripley.

 

‡Economics 37 1hf.Commercial Crises

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 9, or by arrangement. Professor Persons.

 

‡Economics 38. The Principles of Money and Banking

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 4. Professor Young.

 

‡Economics 39 2hf.International Finance

Half-course (second half-year) Tu., Th., at 3. Asst. Professor Williams.

 

STATISTICS

‡Economics 41 2hf.Statistical Theory and Analysis

Half-course (second half-year) Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Asst. Professor Crum.

 

Course of Research in Economics for Graduates

Graduate students pursuing research may register in the following course, which has the same status as any of the other graduate courses in Economics. Such research will be under the direction of members of the Department, and may lie within any of the fields recognized as appropriate for candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy:—

 

‡Economics 20. Economic Research

Professors Taussig, Carver, Ripley, Bullock, Young, and Persons.

 

Source: Catalogue of Radcliffe College, 1924-1925, pp. 66-68  with corrections from Report of the President of Radcliffe College 1924-1925, p. 27.

Image Source: From the cover of the Radcliffe Book of the Class of 1916.