Month: August 2019

Categories
Gender Johns Hopkins Suggested Reading Syllabus

Johns Hopkins. Reading List for Economic Development. Irma Adelman, 1963

 

From 1962-66 Irma Adelman was associate professor in the department of political economy at Johns Hopkins University.

A nice biographic memorial was posted at the UC Berkeley Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics website. A copy of her c.v. can also be found in the internet archive Wayback Machine.

________________

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Economic Development 327
Dr. Adelman
Spring 1963

Textbooks

A. Pepelasis, L. Mears and I. Adelman, Economic Development (Harper, 1961).
I. Adelman, Theories of Economic Growth and Development (Stanford University Press, 1961).

Other General Works

W.A. Lewis, The Theory of Economic Growth (1955).

N. S. Buchanan & H. Ellis, Approaches to Economic Development (1955).

H. Leibenstein, Economic Backwardness and Economic Growth (1957).

P.T. Bauer & B.S. Yamey, The Economics of Underdeveloped Countries (1957).

A.N. Agarwala & S.P. Singh, The Economics of Underdevelopment (1958).

G. Meier & R. Baldwin, Economic Development (1957).

[C. P.] Kindleberger, Economic Development (1958).

A.O. Hirschman, The Strategy of Economic Development (1958).

B. Higgins, Economic Development (1959).

W.W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth (1960).

E. Hagen, On the Theory of Social Change (1961).

 

Bibliographies

A. Hazlewood, The Economics of Underdeveloped Areas (2nded.), 1959.

F.N. Trager, “A Selected and Annotated Bibliography on Economic Development 1953-1957,” Economic Development & Cultural Change, July 1958.

[G.] Meier & [R.] Baldwin, Economic Development Appendices.

 

I. Levels and Rates of Growth

[A.] Pepelasis, et al., Ch. 1.

S. Kuznets, “Quantitative Aspects of the Economic Growth of Nations,” Economic Development and Cultural Change (Oct. 1956) pp. 5-51.

Abramovitz, Moses and others, The Allocation of Economic Resources (first article by Abramovitz).

Nutter, C. Warren, “On Measuring Economic Growth,” J.P.E. V. LXV (1957) pp. 50-63 and comment by H.S. Levine ibid (Aug. 1958).

S. Kuznets, “The State as a Unit in the Study of Economic Growth,” Journal of Economic History (1951) pp. 25-41.

S.H. Frankel, The Economic Impact on Underdeveloped Countries (Oxford, 1952) pp. [page numbers not given]

Hoselitz, B.F., “Patterns of Economic Development,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, V. 21, pp. 416-431.

Rostow, W.W., “The Take-off into Self-sustained Growth, E.J. (1956) pp. 25-48.

 

II. The Production Function

Solow, R.M., “Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function,” Review of Economics and Statistics XXXIX (Aug. 1957) pp. 312-320.

Abramovitz, M. “Resource and Output Trends in the United States Since 1870,” (NBER Occasional Paper 52). Also published in AER, Papers and Proceedings, XLVI (May 1956) pp. 5-23.

K.J. Arrow, H.B. Chenery, B.S. Minhas and R.M. Solow, “Capital-Labor Substitution and Economic Efficiency,” Rev. Econ. & Stat. Aug. 1961.

[M.] Abramovitz, Review of Denison’s Book—AER Jan. 1963.

 

III. Population and Labor Force

[A.] Pepelasis, et al., Ch. 3.

U.N. Department of Social Affairs (Population Division) The Determinants and Consequences of Population Trends, pp. 5-20, 47-97, 194-209.

[G.] Meier and [R.] Baldwin, pp. 281-291.

C. Long, The Labor Force under Changing Income and Employment, Ch. 1.

E. Hagen, “Population and Economic Growth,” AER, June 1959, pp. 310-327.

G. Goode, “Adding to the Stock of Physical and Human Capital” AERProceedings XLIX (May 1959) pp. 147-155 and Comment by A. Kofka, pp. 172-175.

[H.] Leibenstein, Ch. 10.

I. Adelman, “An Econometric Analysis of Population Growth,” mimeographed.

IV. Reproducible Capital

[A.] Pepelasis, et al., Ch. 4.

S. Kuznets, “International Differences in Capital Formation and Financing,” in Univ. NBER Committee for Economic Research, Capital Formation and Economic Growth, pp. 19-33, 45-51.

S. Kuznets, “Capital Formation Proportions: International Comparisons in Recent Years,” Economic Development and Cultural Change V. VIII, No. 4 Part II, July 1960.

H.S. Houthakker, “An International Comparison of Personal Savings,” Bulletin of the International Statistical Institute, 38, Part 2, (1961).

W.W. Rostow, “The Takeoff into Self-sustained Growth,” E.J. LXVI, March 1956.

A. Cairncross, “The Place of Capital in Economic Progress,” in American Economic Association (L. Dupriez, ed.) Economic Progress.

C. Wolfe and S. Sufrin, Capital Formation and Foreign Investment in Underdeveloped Areas (1955).

 

V. Natural Resources

[A.] Pepelasis, et al, Ch. 2.

Usher, A.P., “The Resource Requirements of an Industrial Economy,” JEH Supplement VII, 1947, pp. 36-46.

Mason, E.S., “The Political Economy of Resource Use,” and discussion by Hartley, Jameson, Adlin in Henry Jarrett (ed.) Perspectives on Conservation, pp. 157-201.

W.S. and E.S. Woytinsky, World Population and Production, Ch. 10.

[G.] Meier & [R.] Baldwin, pp. 521-526.

 

VI. Technology and Entrepreneurship

[A.] Pepelasis et al, Ch. 5.

A. Gerschenkron, “Social Attitudes and Economic Environment in Relation to Entrepreneurship and Technology,” Economic Progress, pp. 307-330, 557-559.

Redlich, F., “Business Leadership: Diverse Origins and Variant Forces,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, V. VI No. 3, April 1958.

Gilfillan, S.C., “Invention as a Factor in Economic History,”Journal of Economic History, V. (Dec. 1945), pp. 66-85.

Schmookler, J., “The Level of Inventive Activity,” Review of Economics & Statistics, V. 36, pp. 183-190.

A.O. Hirschman, Ch. IX.

E. Hagen, Ch. 4- Ch. 12.

 

Source: Johns Hopkins University, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy, Series 6. Box No. 1, Folder: Course Outlines and Reading Lists. c. 1900, c. 1950, 1963-68”.

Categories
Fields M.I.T. Syllabus

M.I.T. International Economics Syllabus for General Exam. Bhagwati and Dornbusch, 1977

 

 

In 1976 there was a graduate-student-faculty discussion concerning a reform of procedures for the general examinations at MIT’s department of economics. I have only been able to locate the field syllabus for international economics of the three fields mentioned in my classmate’s report:

“As a compromise intended to make everyone feel better without rocking the boat, a syllabus will be made up in each of three fields. The syllabus is intended to give some guidance as to what topics might show up on a general. The three fields chosen for the experiment are econometrics, industrial organization, and international trade.”

Source:  Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute Archives. MIT Department of Economics Records (AC 394). Box 2; Folder “Gen Exams”. Dick Startz, “Final Report on Generals’ Reform”, November 21, 1976.

__________________________

January 1977
Bhagwati & Dornbusch

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
Syllabus

This syllabus is designed to provide some guidance in regard to the field requirements in international economics. It is not exhaustive but does indicate the broad areas in which the students will be required to be knowledgeable.

The syllabus is divided into the traditional areas of international monetary theory and policy, on the one hand, and the pure theory of trade, on the other. However, most public policy issues, with which the students will be expected to be familiar, require a skillful adaptation of both strands of analysis (as should be obvious from the writings of the best trade economists on policy matters such as the effect of the oil price increases). Thus, the students will be expected to integrate the two sets of insights as appropriate, in addressing themselves to policy questions. In this regard, the students will also be expected to have reasonable familiarity with the central issues of current concern, e.g. SDRs, GATT rules, the New International Economic Order problems, etc. Acquaintance with earlier historical writings, chiefly in the 1930s, should also prove to be rewarding since it emphasizes the integration of policy and theory. Here, the writings of economists such as Haberler, Ohlin, Iversen and Hawtrey are particularly recommended.

A. INTERNATIONAL MONETARY THEORY AND POLICY

International Macroeconomic Issues:

  1. National Income Accounting in the Open Economy. Balance of Payments Accounting. Reform of Balance of Payments Accounting in the US.
  2. Keynesian Macroeconomics in the Open Economy and the Current Account: The foreign trade multiplier, multipliers with repercussions. The transfer problem and income adjustment.
  3. Keynesian macroeconomics under capital mobility: Monetary and fiscal policy. The policy mix. Financing versus adjustment.
  4. Price and output adjustment in a Keynesian framework.
  5. Exchange rates and the current account: Elasticity, absorption and monetary approaches.
  6. Internal and external balance: The role of home goods.
  7. Flexible exchange rates: The income adjustment process. The terms of trade and saving.
  8. Flexible rates and capital mobility: Asset market theories of exchange rate determination. The role of expectations. The transmission of disturbances.
  9. Purchasing power parity.
  10. Portfolio balance theories of macroeconomics in the open economy: Capital flows and the structure of the balance of payments.
  11. The social cost of foreign exchange.
  12. Stabilization policy, the budget and trade policy.

International Financial Issues

  1. International monetary standards and international reserves.
  2. The Euro-dollar market.
  3. Interest arbitrage and forward markets.
  4. Intermediation, the pattern of world payments and lending, and the balance of payments.
  5. International Investment.

B. THE PURE THEORY OF TRADE

  1. General equilibrium analysis of the traditional value-theoretical model of trade theory, involving two primary, non-traded factors producing two traded commodities; theories of comparative advantage: Ricardo and Heckscher-Ohlin; empirical verification; new directions in explaining comparative advantage.
  2. Tariff analysis: effects of tariffs on internal and external terms of trade; equivalence of tariffs and quotas; transfer problem; growth and trade.
  3. Trade and welfare; trade vs. autarky; optimality of free trade; restricted trade vs. autarky; distortions and ranking of policy interventions; measurement of gains and losses from alternative policies; theory of non-economic objectives; preferential tariff reductions and customs union theory.
  4. Extension of the positive and welfare analysis of alternative models: (1) models involving use of imported factors of production; (2) models with non-traded goods; (3) models with putty-clay characteristics.
  5. Comparative advantage and uncertainty; analysis of illicit trade in general equilibrium; project analysis and trade theory.

 

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute Archives. MIT Department of Economics Records (AC 394). Box 2; Folder “Gen Exams”.

Image Source:  Jagdish Bhagwati (left), Rudiger Dornbusch (right). MIT Museum legacy website.

Categories
Berkeley Exam Questions

Berkeley. Graduate Macro, final exam. Akerlof, 1992 and 1993

 

While the internet archive “The Wayback Machine” is truly a treasure chest filled with e-artifacts, without a pirate’s map to locate the buried treasure it is not for impatient, casual users. So from time to time, I dig around to share links to  economics from the recent past. For example course materials from…

Principles of Macroeconomics at M.I.T. from 1995-2006

Principles of Microeconomics at M.I.T. from 1994-2005

The following post takes us to late twentieth century Berkeley where and back when George Akerlof regularly taught a core macro course to graduate students. I have transcribed .pdf copies of his final exams from 1992 and 1993 (links to the original files provided below), trying to provide the look-and-feel of the original exams as much as possible.

For those who might not have come across George Akerlof’s autobiographical essay at the Nobel Prize website, I have just provided the Wayback Machine link to an archived copy.

_______________________

Department of Economics
University of California
Spring Semester 1992
Professor George A. Akerlof

ECONOMICS 202A
FINAL EXAMINATION

PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE BEGINNING.

  1. The exam is in three parts. Each part has equal weight in grading.
  2. You have three hours for the entire exam, so spend about 1 hour on each part.
  3. Answer all the questions using a separate Bluebook for each part.
  4. Be sure to write your name on the cover of all of your Bluebooks.

Grades will reflect the precision, clarity and completeness of your answers as well as their correctness.

 

PART A (Please use a Separate Blue Book)

State whether the following are True, False, or Uncertain. Explain why in each case.

  1. Suppose U.S. GNP is difference stationary. Suppose the 1992-1993 growth rate is expected to be .5 percent but in fact turns out to be 1.2 percent. Future expected growth rates should be adjusted upward by .7 percent.
  2. In long-run equilibrium in Summers’ model, with a constant rate of growth of the labor supply, q is either less than or equal to one.
  3. A country with staggered contracts commits itself to have zero growth of its money supply. It will have lower inflation and higher welfare than if it failed to make such a commitment.
  4. Real rigidities, such as efficiency wages, fail to explain deviations of unemployment from the natural rate.
  5. If Blanchard and Summers’ model is modified so that unions foresee shocks in demand, employment and wages will be constant over time.
  6. According to Bulow and Rogoff the marginal value of debt in amount D is (1-F(D)), where F(D) is the probability of default with D dollars’ worth of debt.

 

PART B (Please Use a Separate Blue Book)

State whether the following are True, False, or Uncertain. Explain why in each case.

  1. Consider a Shapiro-Stiglitz model where the production function is \varepsilon f(k), with the variation in \varepsilon due to productivity shocks. Unemployment will be invariant with changes in \varepsilon because workers never shirk in the Shapiro-Stiglitz model.
  2. Professor Charles E. Bucket found a significant correlation between the predicted component of the money supply and changes in GNP. His results are inconsistent with Taylor’s model because they imply that people do not have rational expectations.
  3. According to Murphy, Vishny and Shleifer, if the state sector has an elastic demand for lumber and the private sector has an inelastic demand for lumber, Perestroika will result in a welfare loss, even if the state sector initially is given priority for the output of the lumber industry.
  4. Summers’ model contradicts the observed correlation between investment and the rate of interest since in his model investment only depends on the value of q.
  5. Workers’ beliefs about what they should be paid will have no effect on unemployment since wages are set equal to marginal products. Unemployment develops because firms must pay wages so high that workers will not shirk.
  6. The observed variance of stock prices relative to the observed variance of the present discounted value of actual dividends is biased downwards in finite samples. Thus Shiller’s evidence is not inconsistent with efficient markets.

 

PART C (Please Use a Separate Blue Book)

Consider the following system motivated by Taylor

  1. yt= mt– pt (aggregate demand)
  2. yt= a(pt– wt) (aggregate supply)
  3. wt= pt-1 (wage determination)
  4. mt= mt-1+ \varepsilon t (money supply rule)

Find the impulse response function of a unit change in \varepsilon t on yt and pt.

Note: The impulse response function is the effect of a current unit shock on future values of the respective variables.

 

***END OF FINAL***

Source: The Wayback Machine internet archive.  PDF file of the Spring 1992 Final Exam of Economics 202A.

_______________________

Department of Economics
University of California
Spring Semester 1993
Professor George A. Akerlof

Economics 202A
FINAL EXAMINATION

PLEASE READ THESE INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE BEGINNING.

  1. The exam is in 3 parts. Each of the first 12 questions has equal weight in grading.
  2. Some questions are much more difficult than others.
  3. Answer all the questions using a separate Bluebook for each part.
  4. Be sure to write your name on the cover of all of your Bluebooks.
  5. There are 70 total points for the exam.

Grades will reflect the precision, clarity and completeness of your answers as well as their correctness.

 

PART A (Please use a Separate Blue Book)

State whether the following are True, False, or Uncertain. Explain why in each case. Each question is worth 5 points.

1) According to Sargent unemployment is a random walk since the change in unemployment between t and t+1 depends only on an error term which is uncorrelated with prior information.

2) In Summers’ model if the investment equation is of the form:

\frac{I}{K}=a+bQ,

adjustment costs will be of the form:

A=\frac{1}{2a}{{\left( \frac{I}{K}-b \right)}^{2}}K.

3) In the Shapiro-Stiglitz model an increase in the labor supply will leave the unemployment rate constant because the nonshirking boundary depends only on the unemployment rate (which is the ratio of the number of unemployed to the total labor supply). In equilibrium this ratio will be unchanged if there is a shift in the labor supply.

4) In the Barro-Gordon model if the government’s desired level of unemployment is exactly the natural rate, there is no benefit from precommitment to zero increase in the money supply.

5) Every day Mr. and Mrs. Romer have higher income than expenses. They have the following strategy of money holding. When their bank account reaches $2,500 they purchase a $2,000 bond. On May 7, they received an unexpected bill for $1,063 for earthquake insurance. The expected level of their bank account will increase by exactly $1,063.

6) Consider an economy with perfect competitors and constant costs. Suppose the money supply changes by \varepsilon . Some firms keep their prices constant. These firms will suffer losses due to their individual decisions to keep their prices constant which are proportional to \varepsilon (first-order). The change in their profits due to the change in the aggregate equilibrium because many such firms kept their prices sticky, however, is proportional to \varepsilon 2 (second-order).

7) If workers retain their union membership even if unemployed, unemployment will not follow a random walk.

 

PART B (Please Use a Separate Blue Book)

Answer the following questions. Each question is worth 5 points.

8) Graph the effect of a permanent and a temporary (one-period) unexpected change in the money supply in the Taylor model. Explain your graph.

9) Two identical firms A and B have a constant certain payout x. Firm A has all equity. Firm B has debt D. The interest rate is r and the corporate profit tax rate is \tau . Derive the value of firms A and B on the assumptions of efficient markets. What is the difference, if any, between the value of firms A and B?

10) The demand for real balances, when fully adjusted in the long-run, is

{{m}^{*}}=a{{y}_{t}}-b{{r}_{t}}

The adjustment process is given by

{{m}_{t}}-{{m}_{t-1}}=\delta \left( m_{t}^{*}-{{m}_{t-1}} \right)

What are the long-run and short-run income and interest elasticities of the demand for real balances?

(Note: y, r, and m are the logarithms of income, the interest rate and real balances).

11) Given the demand for money is of the form

\frac{M}{p}=a-b\pi

What is the maximum steady-state level of seigniorage?

(Note: \pi is the rate of inflation, M is nominal money balances and p is the price level).

12) Debt-laden poor Country A has debt with New York banks of D dollars. It will pay off x dollars of this debt, where x is a random variable with uniform distribution between 0 and  \bar{X}. Industrial rich Country B kindly offers to buy (and retire) Z dollars worth of A’s debt from New York banks if Country A will leave the probability distribution of its payoffs unchanged. According to the Bulow-Rogoff model, how much must Country B pay to leave Country A with only D-Z dollars of debt? What is the “value” in terms of decreased debt payments to Country A of Country B’s kind offer?

 

PART C (Please Use a Separate Blue Book)

Answer one of the following two questions. Worth 10 points.

 

1) Derive from first principles the non-shirking boundary (in the Shapiro-Stiglitz) model.

— OR —

2) Derive from first principles the AR(1) equation for xt in the Taylor model.

 

*** END OF FINAL ***

Source: The Wayback Machine internet archive.  PDF file of the Spring 1993 Final Exam of Economics 202A.

Image Source: The Wayback Machine internet archive. “George A. Akerlof. Biographical” webpage at the Nobel Prize website.

Categories
Columbia Economists NBER

Columbia Alumnus Arthur F. Burns applies to NBER for Research Associateship, 1930

 

 

Arthur F. Burns was twenty-five years old when he submitted the following application for a Research Associate position that provided 11 months funding at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Results from this project would be ultimately incorporated into Burns’ doctoral dissertation published as the NBER monograph Production Trends in the United States Since 1870 (1934).

_____________________

Arthur F. Burns’ late NBER application forwarded to Edwin Gay

National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

February 25, 1930

Dr. Edwin F. Gay
117 Widener Library
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Dr. Gay:

The attached application of Mr. Arthur Frank Burns has just been received. Athough the time limit has passed, you might wish to consider it, and I am therefore forwarding it to you.

Yours very truly,
[signed] G. R. Stahl
Executive Secretary

GRS:RD

[handwritten note]
[Frederick C.] Mills knows something about this man and regards him favorably.

_____________________

NBER Research Associate Application of Arthur F. Burns
(February, 1930)

National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

51 Madison Avenue
New York

RESEARCH ASSOCIATES’ APPLICATION FORM

Applications and accompanying documents should be sent by registered mail and must reach Directors of Research not later than February 1, 1930. Six typewritten copies (legible carbons) should accompany each formal application.

Candidates should have familiarized themselves with the main objects and work of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Candidates are expected to be in good health, free from physical or nervous troubles, and able to complete their work in New York without predictable interruption.

Research Associates will not accept other remunerative employment while connected with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Candidates’ names should be written plainly on each manuscript.

Title of Project

A Study of Long-Time Indexes of Production

Name of Candidate

Arthur Frank Burns

Date of Application

February 21, 1930

 

THE CANDIDATE

PERSONAL HISTORY:

Name in full: Arthur Frank Burns
Home address: 34 Bethune St., New York City
Present occupation: University teaching
Place of birth: Stanislawow, Poland
Date of birth: April 27, 1904
If not a native-born citizen, date and place of naturalization: About 1920; Bayonne, New Jersey
Single, married: Married
Name and address of wife or husband: Helen, 34 Bethune Street
Name and address of nearest kin if unmarried: [blank]
Number, relationship, and ages of dependents: [blank]

Name the colleges and universities you have attended; length of residence in each; also major and minor studies pursued.

Columbia College, Sept. 1921-Feb. 1925. Majors—Economics, German. Minors—English, History
Columbia University, Feb. 1925-June 1927. Major—Economics. Minor—Statistics.

List the degrees you have received with the years in which they were conferred.

B.A.—Feb. 1925
M.A.—Oct. 1925

Give a list of scholarships or fellowships previously held or now held, stating in each case place and period of tenure, studies pursued and amount of stipend:

Columbia College Scholarship, 1921-1924. $250 per annum
Gilder Fellowship, Academic Year 1926-1927, Columbia University. Stipend $1200. Chief study pursued—Monetary Theory

What foreign languages are you able to use?

French and German

 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS:

Give a list of positions you have held—professional, teaching, scientific, administrative, business:

Name of Institution

Title of Position

Years of Tenure
Columbia University

Instructor in Extension

Feb. 1926-June 1927

Soc. Science Res. Co.

 Report on Periodicals Summer of 1927
Rutgers University Instructor

1927 to date

Of what learned or scientific societies are you a member?

Phi Beta Kappa
American Statistical Society

Describe briefly the advanced work and research you have already done in this country or abroad, giving dates, subjects, and names of your principal teachers in these subjects:

Master’s essay on Employment Statistics, under Professors F.A. Ross and W.C. Mitchell, in 1925
Studies in the field of Business Cycles, under Professor W.C. Mitchell, 1926 to date
Studies in the field of Monetary Theory, under Professors Mitchell and Willis, 1926-1927
Work on Negro Migration, under Professor F.A. Ross, Summer of 1925
Work on Instalment Selling, under Professor E.R.A. Seligman, Summer of 1926
Report on Social Science Periodicals for the Social Science Research  Council, under Professor F. Stuart Chapin, Summer of 1927.

Submit a list of your publications with exact titles, names of publishers and dates and places of publication:

See separate sheet on publications

THE PROJECT

PLANS FOR STUDY:

Submit a statement (six copies) giving detailed plans for the study you would pursue during your tenure of an Associateship. This statement should include:

(1) A description of the project including its character and scope, and the significance of its presumable contribution to knowledge. Describe how the inquiry is to be conducted, major expected sources of information, etc.
(2) The present state of the project, time of commencement, progress to date, and expectation as to completion.
(3) A proposed budget showing the amount of any assistance, whether of a statistical or clerical nature, or traveling expense that you would require to complete your project.

REFERENCES:

Submit a list of references

(1) from whom information may be obtained concerning your qualifications, and
(2) from whom expert opinion may be obtained as to the value and practicability of your proposed studies.

_____________________

Arthur F. Burns

THE PROJECT
A Study of Long-Time Indexes of Production

            Several years ago I embarked upon an inquiry into the broad problem “The Relationship between ‘Price’ and ‘Trade’ Fluctuations.” The study had two main purposes: (1) to provide a systematic description and analysis of one structural element of the “business cycle,” (2) to determine and appraise the empirical basis for the widely held view that “business stability” may be attained through the “stabilization of the price level.” But soon enough I found it difficult to adhere to the project that I had formulated. The task in the course of execution in the statistical laboratory loomed more formidable than in the “arm-chair” in which it found its inception. But another circumstance proved even more compelling in bring about a restriction of the area of the investigation: no sooner was a small segment of the plan that served as my procedural guide completed, but a host of new queries, not at all envisaged in the original plan, arose and pressed for an answer. Thus, impelled by considerations of a practical sort—working as I did single-handed, and by a growing curiosity, I subjected the project to successive reductions of scope. The present project, “A Study of Long-Time Indexes of Production,” is the untouched, and perhaps an unrecognizable, remainder of the original inquiry. On this limited project I have been at work intermittently for about a year and a half.

            The object of the present project is to study the “secular changes” in “general production” in the United States, and thereby throw light on one important constituent aspect of the trend of “economic welfare.” The establishment of a theory of secular change in general production calls, in the main, for the performance of two tasks. In the first place, the rate of growth of the physical volume of production and its variation have to be determined. In the second place, the empirical generalizations so arrived at have to be interpreted. The general plan of the investigation is built around these two problems; but to perform these tasks adequately, a host of subsidiary problems have to be met.

            Some details of the organization of the project, as well as the point to which work on the project has been carried thus far, may best be indicated by setting forth the extent to which the tentative individual chapters have been completed. The first chapter treats of the contents of the concept “economic welfare,” and traces, analytically and historically, problems in the measurement thereof; this chapter is practically finished. The materials for the second chapter, which is devoted to the history of production indexes, have, for the greater part, already been collected; and a preliminary draft of the chapter has been completed. Much of the third chapter, which is concerned with an analysis of a conceptually ideal measure of the physical volume of production, and the special bearing of this analysis on long-time indexes of production, is written; this chapter is to be but an extension of the paper on “The Measurement of the Physical Volume of Production,” which was published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1930. In the fourth chapter, an analysis of the available long-time indexes of production is made; this chapter covers a much more extensive area than the brief reference to it may lead one to suppose; and though several months of continuous work have already been devoted to it, considerable literary research and statistical routine remain. The fifth and six chapters will present the results of the computations on the rate of secular change in physical production; though much ground has been covered (over one hundred trends have already been determined), even more remains to be done. Of the next and final two chapters, in which an interpretation of the computed results is to be offered, very little has been put into written form; but a substantial body of literature has been abstracted; and a preliminary outline of some portions of the theory to be presented, now that many of the calculations are completed, has been worked out.

            It will be apparent from this statement of the work already done on the project that it has reached a point where completion by the middle of 1931 may well be expected. In fact, the freedom to pursue the investigation unencumbered by academic duties may make possible a more intensive cultivation of the demarcated field than is presently contemplated; or, if it be deemed advisable, an extension of the investigation, now confined to the United States, to several other countries for which what appear to be reasonably satisfactory materials have of late become available.

            Needless to say, the above statement of the project constitutes no more than a report on its present status. There probably will be modifications of some importance. One change, in fact, is now being seriously considered: the replacement of Chapters II and III by a brief section, to be worked into the introductory chapter, to the end that a nicer balance between the divisions on, what may be described as, “data and method” and “results” be achieved.

            In continuing with this study there will be no travelling expenses to speak of. At the most, there will be a trip or two to Washington. It goes without saying that the study will proceed more rapidly if clerical assistance is had. Only a single statistical clerk would be needed, and a halftime clerk might suffice.

_____________________

Arthur F. Burns

References

Group I

Professor Robert E. Chaddock, Columbia University
Professor Wesley C. Mitchell, Columbia University
Professor H. Parker Willis, Columbia University
Professor Eugene E. Agger, Rutgers University
Professor Frank W. Taussig, Harvard University

Group II

Professor Wesley C. Mitchell, Columbia University
Professor Wilford I. King, New York University
Mr. Carl Snyder, New York Federal Reserve Bank
Dr. Edmund E. Day, Social Science Research Council
Dr. Simon Kuznets, National Bureau of Economic Research

_____________________

Arthur F. Burns

Publications

A Note on Comparative Costs, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1928

The Duration of Business Cycles, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1929

The Geometric Mean of Percentages, Journal of the American Statistical Association, September, 1929

The Ideology of Businessmen and Presidential Elections, Southwestern Political and Social Science Quarterly, September, 1929.

Thus Spake the Professor of Statistics, Social Science, November, 1929

The Quantity Theory and Price Stabilization, American Economic Review, December, 1929

The Relative Importance of Check and Cash Payments in the United States: 1919-1928, Journal of the American Statistical Association, December, 1929

The Measurement of the Physical Volume of Production, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1930

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Reference Letter:  H. P. Willis

Columbia University
in the City of New York
School of Business

February 27, 1930.

Mr. G. R. Stahl,
Executive Secretary,
National Bureau of Economic Research,
51 Madison Avenue,
New York City.

My dear Mr. Stahl:

            I have received your letter of February 26. Mr. Arthur F. Burns, whom you mention, was a student here some years ago, passed his doctorate examination with money and banking as one of his topics. I had general supervision of his work in money and banking and also came into contact with him individually now and then. I thought him a specially acute and capable student of the subject and it seemed to me that he had rather unusual research ability. He has been teaching, I believe, at Rutgers University for a couple of years past and during that time he has occasionally written articles in the scientific magazines and has sent me copies. I have read them with substantial interest and have thought that they showed steady growth in the grasp of the subject and in ability to present it.

            I do not know exactly what kind of work you would be disposed to assign him in your bureau were you to appoint him, and hence it is difficult for me to give specific opinion of his “strong and weak points”, for strength and weakness are relative to the work to be done. I should suppose that in a statistical research relating to monetary and banking questions, and particularly to the price problem, Mr. Burns would be decidedly capable. I do not think of any elements of corresponding weakness that need to be emphasized, but perhaps you might find him less devoted to the necessary routine work that has to done in every statistical office, than you would to the planning of investigation and the initiation of inquiries in it. Put in another was this might be equivalent to saying that Mr. Burns is perhaps stronger in conception and planning than he is in execution and yet I do not know that he is in any way to be criticized for his power of execution. I simply mean that he does not seem to be as outstanding in that direction as he is in the other.

            I, however, commend him unreservedly to you as a capable man in connection with price, banking and credit research.

Yours very truly,
[signed] H. P. Willis

HPW:S

_____________________

Reference Letter:  Willford I. King

AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION

Secretary-Treasurer
Willford I. King
530 Commerce Building, New York Univ.
236 Wooster Street, New York City

February 27, 1930.

Mr. G. R. Stahl,
National Bureau of Economic Research,
51 Madison Avenue,
New York City.

Dear Mr. Stahl:

            I have met Mr. Arthur F. Burns two or three times but do not know very much about his record. One thing, however, stands out strongly in his favor. He recently published in the AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW a very fine piece of work on the equation of exchange. This indicates to me that he is competent to do research work of high quality.

Cordially yours,
Willford I. King.

WIK:RW

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Reference Letter: F. W. Taussig

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 28, 1930

Dear Mr. Stahl:

            I have a high opinion of A. F. Burns. I have watched his published work, and some I have examined with care. As will be noted, he has an article in the current issue of the Quarterly Journal of Economics which I consider first-rate. He is a keen critic, and handles figures well. He writes more than acceptably, and in my judgment gives promise of very good work in the future. You will have to go far to find a man clearly better.

Very truly yours,
[signed] F. W. Taussig

Mr. G. R. Stahl
National Bureau of Economic Research
51 Madison Avenue
New York City

_____________________

Reference Letter:  E. E. Agger

Rutgers University
New Brunswick, New Jersey
Department of Economics

March 5, 1930

Mr. G. R. Stahl,
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
51 Madison Avenue,
New York City

Dear Mr. Stahl:

            Replying to your letter of February 26th I may say that I have known Mr. Arthur F. Burns ever since his undergraduate days. He was one of my honor students when I was at Columbia and when he finished his graduate work I brought him to Rutgers as an Instructor. I think that he will be promoted to an Assistant Professorship next year.

            He has been a specialist in the field of Statistics and Economic Theory and would therefore, in my judgment, be ideally equipped for the post of Research Associate. He is meticulously careful and most painstaking. You are doubtless familiar with some of his writings during the past year or so. They have seemed to me excellent pieces of work. We shall sorely miss him should he ask for leave to accept possible appointment under you, but on the other hand, I believe that in the end it will add to his value to us, at the same time that you are getting the use of his services. In short, I recommend him without qualification.

Sincerely yours,
[Signed] E.E. Agger

EEA:H

_____________________

Reference Letter:  Carl Snyder

COPY
Thirty Three Liberty Street
New York

March 5, 1930

Dear Mr. Stahl:

            I have followed the work of Arthur F. Burns, of whom you wrote, with a great deal of interest. It seems to me careful, conscientious, well-planned work. He has the inquisitive mind, and that is the great thing. His ideas seem to me sound and his statistical methods well grounded.

            The problem in which he is interested is one in which we have done a great deal of work here, and I know of nothing of greater importance. I wish very cordially to endorse the recommendation for his appointment as a Research Associate.

Please believe me, with very best regards,

Sincerely yours,
Carl Snyder

Gustav R. Stahl, Esq.,
National Bureau of Economic Research
51 Madison Avenue, New York City

_____________________

Reference Letter:  Simon Kuznets

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
51 Madison Avenue, New York

March 3, 1930

Committee on Selection,
National Bureau of Economic Research
51 Madison Avenue,
New York City

Gentlemen:

            Arthur F. Burns who is applying for appointment as a Research Associate is my former classmate from Columbia University, and has always impressed me by his keen powers of observation and analysis. His work speaks for itself, for he has had opportunity to publish some of the by-products of his doctor’s thesis in the form of articles.

            He has a thorough statistical training, both in theory and in technique, for he has studied statistics, taught it, and applied its principles. He is also thoroughly versed in economic theory, having studied it under Professors W. C. Mitchell and H. L. Moore.

            On the whole, Mr. Burns is a candidate of high promise. He is still quite young in years, but is quite experienced in research work. He ought to prove equal to the opportunities which an appointment as a research associate will provide for him.

Yours respectfully
[signed] Simon Kuznets
[Research Staff member, NBER]

_____________________

Reference Letter:  Robert E. Chaddock

Columbia University
in the City of New York
Faculty of Political Science

March 3, 1930.

Mr. G. R. Stahl, Executive Secretary
National Bureau of Economic Research
51 Madison Avenue, New York City

Dear Mr. Stahl,

            I have expressed my opinion as to the qualifications of Cowden, Gayzer and Leong as candidates for Research Associate. Mr. Arthur F. Burns is superior to any of these in qualifications for research, in my opinion. All his inclinations and his critical attitude toward his own and the results of others point to research as his field. He has unusual technical preparation in Statistics and does not lose sight of the logical tests of his knowledge. He has been publishing articles constantly since entering upon his teaching at Rutgers University where he is successful as a teacher so far as I know. I would not rate him ahead of the candidates I have described before in matters of personality and personal contact, but I do regard him as a very superior candidate in respect to qualifications for research and scholarly productivity.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Robert E. Chaddock

REC:CT

_____________________

Letter:  Edwin F. Gay to Arthur F. Burns

NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
51 Madison Avenue, New York

June 25, 1930

Mr. A. F. Burns
34 Bethune Street
New York City

My dear Mr. Burns:

            At a recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Bureau it was decided that since all the members of the regular staff are not available until the end of September, the Research Associates should be asked to report here on October 1, 1930, instead of September 15. You may, of course, come earlier but full provision for your work cannot conveniently be made before the date indicated. The stipends of the Research Associates are to run from October 1, and also the salaries of such statistical assistants as are designated for the service of the Research Associates.

            Upon your arrival you are to report to Dr. Frederick C. Mills, who will have direct responsibility as your adviser. You will be free, of course, to consult with any of the members of the staff.

            In regard to arrangements for statistical and other assistance, you will consult with Mr. Pierce Williams, the Executive Director.

            It gives me great pleasure, in behalf of the directors and staff of the National Bureau, to welcome you as a research associate. We trust that you will find the eleven months with us not only scientifically profitable but personally enjoyable.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Edwin F. Gay]
Director of Research

RD

[handwritten note] P.S In looking over your application, I [word illegible] certain [items?] which I think should be filled out. These are: the date of arrival in this country, precise date of naturalization; pre-college education.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Arthur F. Burns Papers, Box 2, Folder “Correspondence/NBER, 1930”.  IMG_8329.JPG

Image Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Arthur F. Burns Papers, Box 6. Folder “Photographs, B&W I”. Note: “1930s” written on back of photograph.

 

Categories
Economists Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Topics for the Ricardo Prize Examination, 1916

 

In an earlier post, JACOB VINER BEATS PAUL DOUGLAS FOR RICARDO PRIZE SCHOLARSHIP, 1916, we learned of a head-to-head competition between two young men who were to go on to become colleagues at the University of Chicago. Rummaging through Harvard Economics Department’s Correspondence & Papers, I happened to find a copy of the Ricardo Prize Examination topics for that 1916 examination in a folder where one would not have expected it to be filed. Now the record is more complete.

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Ricardo Prize Exam. Will be Held in Upper Dane Tomorrow

The Ricardo Prize Scholarship examination will be held in Upper Dane Hall tomorrow at 2 o’clock. The scholarship is valued at $350, and is open to anyone who is this year a member of the University, and who will next year be either 8 member of the Senior class or of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Each candidate will write in the examination room an essay on a topic chosen by himself from a list not previously announced, in economics and political science. In addition, statements of previous studies, and any written work, must be submitted by every candidate to the Chairman of the Department of Economics not later than the time of the examination. The man who wins the scholarship must devote the majority of his time next year to economics and political studies.

Source:  Harvard Crimson, April 4, 1916.

____________________

1915-16
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
RICARDO PRIZE EXAMINATION

  1. The Single Tax.
  2. Minimum Wage for Men, in the Light of Economic Theory.
  3. Some Phase of the Theory of Value and Price.
  4. Regulation of Railroads by the States.
  5. The War and the Rate of Interest.
  6. Agricultural Credit.
  7. The Regulation of Monopolies.
  8. Free Trade in England.
  9. The Banks and the Stock Exchange.
  10. Price Maintenance.

April 5, 1916.

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

Image Source: Collage of details taken from photos apf1-08488 (Viner) and  apf1-05851 (Douglas) from University of Chicago Photographic Archive, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. Money, Prelim Exam for Banking and Monetary Policy, 1959

 

Preliminary examinations at the University of Chicago for Money, Banking and Monetary Policy from the Summer Quarter, 1956 and Winter Quarter, 1969 have been posted earlier.

On August 4, 1959 a three-hour “Core Examination” was taken by seventeen students and a four-hour “Money Prelim” was taken by nine students. Two additional questions were added to the “Money Prelim”.

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Summer Quarter 1959 Examination Committee for Money, Banking and Monetary Policy:

Milton Friedman (chairman)
Earl J. Hamilton
Reuben A. Kessel

_______________

Reuben A. Kessel, obituary
New York Times, 21 June 1975.

Dr. Reuben A. Kessel, professor of economics at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business since 1962, died yesterday at a hospital in Chicago, after having suffered a stroke a week ago. He was 52 years old and lived in Floss moor, Ill.

Dr. Kessel earlier taught at the University of Missouri and the University of California at Los Angeles. From 1952 to 1956 he was an economist with the Rand Corporation. He later served as research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research here. He joined the Chicago faculty in 1957.

He was the author of “Cyclical Behavior of the Term Structure of Interest Rates.”

He received an M.B.A. degree in 1948 and a doctorate in 1954, both from Chicago.

Surviving are his widow, a daughter and two brothers.

_______________

CORE EXAMINATION
MONEY, BANKING AND MONETARY POLICY

Preliminary Examination for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees
Summer Quarter 1959
[August 4]

WRITE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON YOUR EXAMINATION PAPER

Your Code Number and NOT your name
Name of Examination
Date of Examination

Results of the examination will be sent to you by letter.

Answer all questions. Time 3 hours.

  1. Answer both a and b.
    1. During the calendar year 1958 the United States “lost” over $2 billion of gold.
      1. Explain precisely what this statement means.
      2. What factors might account for the loss?
      3. What monetary or other effects does the loss have?
    2. It has been urged that to stem further losses, the U.S. should raise the price of gold from its present official level of $35 an ounce to a higher level.
      Discuss the consequences of such a move if

      1. other major countries raise the price of gold in proportion or
      2. they do not.
  2. Comment on both a and b.
    1. “Banks like to lend money. It’s their bread and butter. But sometimes loans have to be turned down. Remember, bankers are not lending their own money. Bank loans are made from money entrusted to banks by depositors.” (Business in Brief, Chase Manhattan Bank, No. 13, Oct. 1956, p. 8).
    2. “Treasury financing in 1954 was carried out with short- and intermediate-term securities, many of which were bought by commercial banks and served to increase the money supply.” Economic Report of the President, 1956.
  3. Consider a closed economy which has a fiduciary currency fixed in nominal amount. In this economy, a tax on earnings is replaced by a tax of equal yield on real property. Trace the consequences to be expected for income, interest rates, and the level of prices.
  4. Suppose all wages are escalated, in the sense of being linked continuously to a price index. It would be argued by many that government could not under such circumstances acquire real resources by issuing fiat currency. Do you agree? Justify your answer.

_______________

MONEY, BANKING AND MONETARY POLICY

Preliminary Examination for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees
Summer Quarter 1959
[August 4]

WRITE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON YOUR EXAMINATION PAPER

Your Code Number and NOT your name
Name of Examination
Date of Examination

Results of the examination will be sent to you by letter.

Answer all questions. Time: four hours.

  1. Answer both a and b.
    1. During the calendar year 1958 the United States “lost” over $2 billion of gold.
      1. Explain precisely what this statement means.
      2. What factors might account for the loss?
      3. What monetary or other effects does the loss have?
    2. It has been urged that to stem further losses, the U.S. should raise the price of gold from its present official level of $35 an ounce to a higher level.
      Discuss the consequences of such a move if

      1. other major countries raise the price of gold in proportion or
      2. they do not.
  2. Answer either a or b.
      1. Sir John Clapham has asserted (The Bank of England, Vol. II, p. 421) that it was in the Bank of England that “the practice of central banking had originally been worked out.” To what extent do you agree?
      2. Explain and criticize what you consider the most important contribution to monetary thought before 1900.
  3. Analyze, in terms of the income-expenditure approach, the effect of a reduction in the stock of money via (a) an open market sale by the Federal Reserve, (b) a surplus in the budget used to reduce the stock of money. Indicate the empirical magnitudes that must be known to predict the quantitative effect in each case.
  4. Comment on both a and b.
    1. “Banks like to lend money. It’s their bread and butter. But sometimes loans have to be turned down. Remember, bankers are not lending their own money. Bank loans are made from money entrusted to banks by depositors.” (Business in Brief, Chase Manhattan Bank, No. 13, Oct. 1956, p. 8).
    2. “Treasury financing in 1954 was carried out with short- and intermediate-term securities, many of which were bought by commercial banks and served to increase the money supply.” Economic Report of the President, 1956.
  5. Consider a closed economy which has a fiduciary currency fixed in nominal amount. In this economy, a tax on earnings is replaced by a tax of equal yield on real property. Trace the consequences to be expected for income, interest rates, and the level of prices.
  6. Suppose all wages are escalated, in the sense of being linked continuously to a price index. It would be argued by many that government could not under such circumstances acquire real resources by issuing fiat currency. Do you agree? Justify your answer.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 77, Folder 8 “University of Chicago, Econ 331”.

Image Source: Irwin Collier taking a break from archival work at the Hoover Institution.

Categories
Exam Questions Toronto

Toronto. Examination papers in political economy, 1876

Knox College Building

 

The previous post provided transcriptions of the 1875 examinations at the University of Toronto in political economy. The 1876 examinations transcribed below include two additional examinations dedicated to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

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Other Toronto examinations in political economy

University of Toronto, Annual Examinations for 1858.

University of Toronto, Annual Examinations for 1875.

University of Toronto, Annual Examinations for 1891.

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1876
Second Year.

ROGERS’S POLITICAL ECONOMY.

Examiners: Thomas Hodgins, M.A., LL.B. [and] W. P. R. Street, LL.B.

  1. What is the true definition of rent? Does this definition apply equally to land in country and city? State generally the causes which will increase and diminish rent.
  2. What is the measure of the price in England of any kind of foreign produce? Give an illustration of this.
  3. When the imports of a country exceeds its exports, what advantage or disadvantage to the country is thereby indicated? Illustrate your answer by one or two imaginary commercial transactions between merchants in two countries.
  4. Mention some of the causes giving rise to an efflux of specie. Can you suggest a case in which such an efflux would not be checked by a rise in the rate of discount?
  5. Explain the constituent parts of wages, and state the causes which determine their amount.

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1876.

______________________

University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1876
Second Year.

ROGERS’S POLITICAL ECONOMY
Honors

Examiner: Thomas Hodgins, M.A., LL.B. [and] W. P. R. Street, LL.B.

  1. What are the economical grounds upon which a government is justified in insisting upon the education of the young, and in levying a tax for educational purposes?
  2. Illustrate, by reference to the past history of England, the alteration that has taken place during the last five centuries in the theory of the functions of government.
  3. When a tax is imposed on an export, in what cases may it be paid by the consuming country? What is the effect upon the trade in the article taxed in the exporting country where the tax is not paid by the consuming country?
  4. A certain article of commerce, of which there are several grades having different values, becomes suddenly scarce: are all the grades affected equally as to price? Explain your answer fully.
  5. Shew the fallacy of the statement that inferior lands have been occupied and cultivated as population has increased.
  6. Explain the meaning of the assertion that values are relative to each other. What circumstances are necessary to give value to any object of commerce?

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1876.

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1876
Third Year.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Pass

Examiner: W. J. Robertson, B.A.

ROGERS.

  1. (a) Investigate the relation between labor and wages, so as to discover the causes of high and low wages.
    (b) Explain and criticize the Malthusian theory of population.
  2. (a) Give an account of the principal restrictions on occupations as exhibited in the commercial history of England.
    (b) Examine various methods adopted to regulate the rate of wages, and shew their economic effects.
  3. “There is not a shadow of evidence in support of the statement that inferior lands have been occupied and cultivated as population increases.” What theory is here referred to? What is Rogers’ theory of rent?
  4. In the long run the price of commodities depends, as we have several times seen, on the cost of production.” Fully explain this statement. What modification does it admit of?
  5. (a) “The fact is, as demand, to be effectual, must be accompanied by the power of exchange; so supply, to be effectual must be accompanied by the power to produce.” Develop a line of argument in support of this statement.
    (b) Shew the effect of increasing the price of manufactured or imported articles, the price of the productions of the earth given in exchange remaining fixed.
  6. Assign limits to governmental interference with the free course of trade.
  7. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of indirect taxation.

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1876.

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1876
Third Year.

SMITH’S WEALTH OF NATIONS

Examiners: Thomas Hodgins, M.A., LL.B. [and] W. P. R. Street, LL.B.

  1. Shew how the accumulation of stock leads to the improvement in the productive powers of labour.
  2. Expain the two different ways in which a capital may be employed so as to yield a revenue or profit to its employer.
  3. Does the money of any Society form a portion of its gross, or its neat revenue, or of either, or both? Explain fully.
  4. Explain shortly the advantages gained by the substitution of paper for gold or silver money.
  5. What is meant by the “balance of trade”? Explain the fallacy upon which was founded the supposition, that a favourable balance of trade was necessary to the prosperity of a country.
  6. What are drawbacks? What was their object under the mercantile system, and in what cases, if any, does the author think them reasonable, and in what cases unreasonable?

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1876.

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1876
Third Year.

SMITH’S WEALTH OF NATIONS
Honors.

Examiners: Thomas Hodgins, M.A., LL.B. [and] W. P. R. Street, LL.B.

  1. Distinguish the gross, from the neat, revenue of all the inhabitants of a country; and describe what each is composed of.
  2. “What is annually saved, is as regularly consumed as what is annually spent, and nearly in the same time too, but it is consumed by a different set of people”.
    How does the author proceed to shew this?
  3. Explain the different ways in which a nation may purchase the pay and provisions of an army in a distant country.
  4. How does the author expose the fallacy of the theory entertained by Mr. Locke, Mr. Law, and others, that the increase of the quantity of gold and silver, after the discovery of the Spanish West Indies, was the real cause of the lowering of the rate of interest in Europe?
  5. Shew how it is, that the study of his own advantage necessarily leads each individual member of a Society, to prefer that employment of his capital which is most advantageous to the Society.

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1876.

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1876
Third Year.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Honors

Examiner: W. J. Robertson, B.A.

MILL I.

  1. Explain what is meant by the mercantile system. Assign causes for the errors involved therein.
  2. (a) Mention and illustrate by examples, the different kinds of indirect labor employed in production.
    (b) Distinguish between materials and implements.
  3. (a) “Yet in disregard of a fact so evident, it long continued to be believed that laws and governments without creating capital, could create industry.” Fully explain. What exception does Mill admit to the general rule he lays down?
    (b) Examine whether the unproductive expenditure of the rich is necessary to the employment of the poor.
  4. Distinguish between circulating and fixed capital. Show the effect of increasing the latter at the expense of the former.
  5. Give the substance of Mill’s remarks on the degree of productiveness of productive agents.
  6. Compare the advantages of production on a large and on a small scale, including in your discussion the relative advantages of large and small farming.
  7. Give and illustrate the law of increase of production from land.

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1876.

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1876
Candidates for B.A.

CIVIL POLITY.

Examiner: Rev. George Paxton Young, M.A.

COX’S BRITISH COMMONWEALTH.
SMITH’S WEALTH OF NATIONS.

  1. Define the duties of Government.
  2. Where does the right of taxation lie? Give historical illustrations.
  3. Discuss the question, whether a representative in Parliament ought to be the chosen advocate of particular classes or interests.
  4. “The law does not allow any man, however great his property, to give more than one vote to one candidate.” —Is this law based on correct principles?
  5. What distinctions are there between the pleadings in equity and at common law?
  6. What are the principles on which International Executive Government is established?
  7. Point out the reciprocal obligations of a Supreme State and its Colonies.
  8. What principle give occasion to the division of labour? To what limitation is the division of labour subject? Illustrate.
  9. Discuss the subject of the wages of labour.
  10. Inquire into the policy of restraints upon the importation from foreign countries of such goods as can be produced at home.

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1876.

______________________

University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1876
Candidates for B.A.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Honors

Examiner: W. J. Robertson, B.A.

MILL

  1. (a) Discuss the nature of wealth, giving different views. What conclusion does Mill come to? Give his reasoning.
    (b) Discuss after Mill the nature of productive labour.
  2. How does Mill answer the question, “What is Capital?” State the fundamental propositions respecting capital; and examine the effect of government loans for unproductive expenditure.
  3. Inquire into the effect of increasing the cost of the raw material of manufactures; and show whether the increased cost of food affects prices or not.
  4. Give, with illustrations, the equation of International Demand.
  5. Give the substance of the chapter “Of Excess of Supply.”
  6. Trade the influence of credit on prices, and inquire into its effects on the general prosperity of a community.
  7. Give different theories of the cause of rent. Criticise Mill’s statement of it, showing how he differs from American economists.
  8. What are the principles of the Theory of Value?
    (a) Give Mill’s summary.
    (b) Some political economists assign as the cause of value, desire for an object—values being regulated by the strength of the desire. Carefully examine this view.
  9. What different remedies have been offered and tried for low wages? State your own views on the principal cause of low wages; also, state the most effectual remedies.
  10. (a) Examine how far paternal government would be economically beneficial.
    (b) Give illustrations of how governments may undertake commercial enterprises for the benefit of the nation, which otherwise could be carried out by private companies.
  11. Discuss, from an independent stand point, the advantages and disadvantages of incidental protection.

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1876.

Image Source: Knox College. University of Toronto Libraries / Heritage U of T / U of T Chronology. (archived copy at the Wayback Machine)

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Toronto

Toronto. Examination papers in political economy, 1875

From the six exams covering economics at the University of Toronto from 1875 we see that Rogers’ Manual of Political Economy was used as an introductory text with J. S. Mill’s Principles being principal text for the more advanced courses. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations also explicitly examined.

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About the 1875 Examiners

Thomas Hodgins, M.A. Q.C., Toronto

The Canadian Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of Eminent and Self-Made Men: Ontario Volume. Chicago and Toronto: American Biographical Pub. Co., 1880. pp. 386-388.

George Paxton Young

Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. XI (1881-1890).

William John Robertson (Toronto, B.A.1873)

A Brief Historical Sketch of Canadian Banking and Currency  by W. J. Robertson (Examiner in Political Economy, Toronto University). Paper read before the historical and political science association of the University of Toronto, Feb. 4th, 1888.

William P. R. Street (b. 10 May 1868; d. 27 August 1946)

According to Toronto City Directory:  Judge (1890)

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875
Second Year.

ROGERS’S POLITICAL ECONOMY

Examiners: Thomas Hodgins, M.A., LL.B. [and] W. P. R. Street, LL.B.

  1. What was Mr. Price’s scheme for extinguishing the National Debt?
  2. What are the objects of Trades Unions, and what are the means taken to carry them out?
  3. Explain the peculiar disadvantages of taxes on raw materials.
  4. What is the measure of value? Explain the statement that there can be no universal rise in values.
  5. How does the author discuss the question as to the propriety of government interference to check the too rapid exhaustion of coal in Great Britain?
  6. State briefly the causes which increase and diminish rent, and explain their operation in doings so.

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875
Second Year.

ROGERS’S POLITICAL ECONOMY
Honors

Examiners: Thomas Hodgins, M.A., LL.B. [and] W. P. R. Street, LL.B.

  1. Mention some of the causes of an efflux of specie.
  2. “If a government interferes with the liberty of its subjects it is bound to shew cause for the interference.” What are the two causes which the author mentions as justifying such interference?
  3. How is Rent defined? Upon whom does the loss arising from an increase in the wages of agricultural laborers fall? Explain?
  4. Mention some of the difficulties in the way of an equitable tax upon incomes.
  5. Explain the operation of a rise in the rate of discount in checking a drain of specie. Under what circumstances is it likely to be ineffectual for that purpose?
  6. What is the real pledge given by a government as the security for the National debt? How is this shewn by the author?

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875

Third Year.
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Pass

Examiner: W. J. Robertson, B.A.

ROGERS.

  1. If the contract be voluntary, and the service be mutual, is one man’s gain another’s loss? Discuss.
  2. (a) What is the cause of value? Distinguish between value in exchange, and value in use.
    (b) What expedients are adopted to lessen labor, and increase production?
    (c) Give examples of the beneficial effect of division of labor.
  3. (a) What, according to Rogers, is the measure of value? Illustrate.
    (b) Can there be a general rise in value? If not, why not?
    (c) Can there be a general rise in price? Illustrate.
  4. (a) What functions does money perform? Account for the error that money alone is wealth.
    (b) Enumerate various substitutes for money.
  5. Investigate the true relation between Capital and Labor, referring to popular theories and remedies, which you deem erroneous.
  6. Give an account of the causes which depress the rate of wages.
  7. Give Rogers’s views regarding the subject of Protection, stating the limits he prescribes, and shewing wherein he disagrees with Mill.
  8. (a) Give the general rules of taxation?
    (b) What are the relative advantages of direct and indirect taxation?

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.

 

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875

Third Year.
CIVIL POLITY.
Honors

Examiner: W. J. Robertson, B.A.

MILL I.

  1. (a) What are the requisites of production?
    (b) Does nature contribute more to the efficacy of labor in some occupations than in others? Explain.
  2. State the different ways in which labor is employed. Criticise the division of labor into agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial.
  3. Discuss, after Mill, the questions of productive and unproductive labor, also of productive and unproductive consumption.
  4. Enumerate and illustrate (where necessary) the fundamental propositions respecting capital.
  5. Institute a comparison between the benefits of large and small farming respectively.
  6. Give the substance of Mill’s chapter “Of the Law of the Increase of Labor.”

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875

Candidates for B.A.
CIVIL POLITY.

Examiner: Rev. George Paxton Young, M.A.

COX’S BRITISH COMMONWEALTH—SMITH’S WEALTH OF NATIONS.

  1. From what source is the right of government derived? Examine the question fully.
  2. Give an account of the origin and rise of the British Cabinet. On what conditions does the permanence of any particular Cabinet usually depend?
  3. Describe the practice of Parliament with respect to private bills; and state what different courses may be adopted when a public bill is returned from either House to the other with amendments.
  4. What is an impeachment, and how is it conducted?
  5. Examine the doctrine of the balance of power.
  6. Under what restrictions are criteria of truth afforded by public opinion? And to what extent do justice and policy require that governments should be directed by its dictates?
  7. Give an account of the origin and use of money.
  8. Show, that, in the price of commodities, the profits of stock constitute a component part altogether different from the wages of labour, and regulated by different principles.
  9. Explain the order in which manufactures, agriculture, and foreign commerce naturally arise; and state the relation of these branches to the increase of opulence, whether in town or country.
  10. “The attention of governments never was so unnecessarily employed as when directed to watch over the preservation of the increase of the quantity of money in any country.” How does Smith establish this position?

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.

 

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University of Toronto
Annual Examinations: 1875

Candidates for B.A.
CIVIL POLITY.
Honors

Examiner: W. J. Robertson, B.A.

MILL

  1. Show what would be the effect of increasing fixed Capital, at the expense of circulating.
  2. Explain and illustrate the diversity in the effective strength of the desire of accumulation.
  3. Give the substance of the chapter “Of the Law of the Increase of Production from Land.”
  4. Distinguish between Communism, St. Simonism, and Fourierism. Criticise these systems.
  5. Examine Mill’s views on the right of bequest and inheritance.
  6. Give examples of the influence of custom on rents, tenure of land, and prices.
  7. Discuss the question of peasant proprietorship.
  8. Enumerate various popular remedies for low wages. Criticise.
  9. State Mill’s theory of rent, with your own views thereon.
  10. Can there be an over-supply of commodities generally? Explain.
  11. (a) What regulates international values? Illustrate.
    (b) Briefly show the indirect benefits of Commerce.
  12. Give examples of exceptions to the rule of Laisser-faire.
  13. Discuss briefly the influence of credit on prices.

Source: University of Toronto. Examination Papers for 1875.

Image Source:  BlogTO / Toronto of the 1880s (January 11, 2011)

Categories
Chicago Economists Gender Germany Illinois Nebraska Radcliffe Wellesley Wisconsin

Michigan. Author of Progress of Labor Organization among Women, Belva Mary Herron, 1905

 

Today’s “meet an economics alumna” post features Belva Mary Herron whose only academic degree was a B.L. from the University of Michigan in 1889. Her greatest hit “Progress of Labor Organization among Women” was awarded the third Caroline Wilby Prize in 1904 “given annually to the student who has produced the best original work within any of the departments of Radcliffe College” . 

The Progress of Labor Organization Among Women, Together with Some Considerations Concerning Their Place in Industry. University of Illlinois. The University Studies Vol. I, No. 10 (May, 1905).

Herron’s only other publication I have been able to find was an article, Factory Inspection in the United States, published in the American Journal of Sociology. Vol. 12, No. 4 (January, 1907), pp. 487-99.

For the last four (or five) years of her life (she died in mid-career at age 43) she was on the faculty of Rockford College in Illinois. Between her undergraduate days and her final position at Rockford College, as best as I have been able to piece together, Belva Mary Herron wandered from the universities of Chicago, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Illinois, then through Radcliffe and Wellesley Colleges, finding time for a year of study in Germany (1896-97). 

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Review by Edith Abbott in Journal of Political Economy (1905)

Labor Organization among Women. By BELVA MARY HERRON. (Studies of the University of Illinois.) Urbana: The University Press, 1905. 8vo, pp. 79.

A careful study of the progress of labor organization among women is a most welcome contribution to our knowledge of one of the most important phases of women’s work. Miss Herron makes no attempt in this monograph to discuss trade-unionism by and large in either its theoretical or practical aspects, but confines herself closely to a statement of the facts regarding the organizations in which women are found in the largest numbers, and a discussion of the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of women as unionists.

After an investigation of the status of women in fourteen of the principal labor organizations affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, two questions should perhaps be raised: (i) Is there any evidence to show that women are to be considered a factor in the trade-union movement in this country today? (2) How do women differ from men as trade-unionists? A third question, as to the reasons why women should belong to unions, also suggests itself, but appears on second thought to be superfluous, for there is no special women’s problem here. There are the same advantages in organization for women as for men.

With regard to the first question, it is clear that woman’s rôle in trade-unionism is a very slight one. Though admitted into almost all the unions on the same footing as men, they have little or no influence on the organizations. Occasionally they serve as delegates to conventions, but the number of such delegates is very far from being in proportion to the number of women members. In short, it seems fair to say that women are not to be considered a factor in present-day unionism.

With regard to the differences between women and men as members of labor organizations, Miss Herron’s own statement should be quoted:

[Women] are not as well organized as men—a smaller percentage is in the union than is in the trade. Nearly all officials testify that it is harder  to organize women than men; a number say that when they once do understand union principles and become interested in the movement, they are  excellent workers; there is a unanimous opinion that there are always some capable working-women and active unionists whose good sense and enthusiasm are of great advantage to the organization. (P. 66.)

In summarizing the conditions unfavorable to women’s effectiveness in trade unions, Miss Herron regards as temporary the draw- backs which come from the “several trades ” — the low degree of  vitality and intelligence which result from miserable wages and bad sanitation; but she points out that there are other and permanent difficulties in the way — that women are the unskilled workers, and lack of vital interest in the trade; that many of them are young and do not take their industrial situation seriously; that they have more home interests; that most of them expect to marry, and regard their work as only a temporary employment, which results “in an unwillingness to sacrifice any present for a future good, as is often necessary in the union, or to give time and energy to build up an organization with which they will be identified but a few years.”

Those who have faith that there are large possibilities for women in industry, when the conventional ideas regarding women’s work shall have been readjusted, will not be inclined to regard these difficulties as “permanent” in any true sense. It may be suggested here that the largest field of usefulness for such organizations as the Women’s Trade Union League lies in attempting to remove these very difficulties. There is no ineradicable reason why women should not be given proper industrial training, and there is abundant testimony to show that they become very efficient workers with such training. Miss Herron points out that women are in industrial life to stay, and if that is true, we must help them to stay self-respectingly — as skilled laborers with a decent wage and an honest, workmanlike attitude toward their work.

On the whole, the monograph is one for which those who are interested in working-women should be grateful. It not only contains interesting and valuable information regarding women as unionists, but it also throws some much-needed light on the difference between women’s work and men’s work. In certain important industries it contains a short account of the relation of women to the earlier labor movement in the United States, a brief history of women’s trade unions in England, and sketches of organizations, like the Women’s Trade Union League, which are in sympathy with the movement for the organization of working-women.

EDITH ABBOTT.

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

Source: Journal of Political Economy. Vol. 13, No. 4 (September 1905), pp. 605-607.

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Personal Note (1899)

University of Nebraska.—Miss Belva Mary Herron has been appointed Instructor in Political Economy at the University of Nebraska. She was born in Pittsburg, Pa., September 23, 1866, received her early education in private schools in Mexico, Mo., and Jacksonville, Ill. And her college education in the University of Michigan, where she received the degree of Bachelor of Letters in 1889. She has subsequently pursued graduate studies at the Universities of Michigan, Chicago and Wisconsin. In 1898 Miss Herron was appointed Assistant Instructor in Political Economy.

Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 14 (November, 1899), p. 67.

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Belva Mary Herron, UM Class of ’89-’90, Lincoln Neb.
[with portrait, 1902]

Teacher in Girls’ Academy, Jacksonville, Ill., ’91. Studied in Germany ’96-’97. Fellow U. of C. ’93-’94. Instructor in Political Economy, University of Nebraska ’98-’02.

Source: The Michiganensian, 1902, p. 285.

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News from the Class of ‘89
[1910]

Belva M. Herron, ’89, who has occupied the chair of Political Economy and Political Science at Rockford College, Rockford, Ill., for the past four years, is expert agent for the United States Department of Labor. Address, Mexico, Mo.

Source: The Michigan Alumnus, Vol. XVII (November 1910). Ann Arbor, Michigan: The Alumni Association. P. 100.

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Necrology
University of Michigan
Graduates Literary Department

[Class of] 1889. Belva Mary Herron, B.L., d. at San Antonia [sic], Texas, March 4, 1911, aged 43. Buried at Mexico, Mo.

Source: The Michigan Alumnus, Vol. XVII (May 1911). Ann Arbor, Michigan: The Alumni Association. P. 496.

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University of Illinois, Alumni Record
*BELVA MARY HERRON

B.L., 1889, Univ. of Mich.; b. Sept. 23, 1866, Pittsburg, Pa.; d. John Fish (b. 1832, ibid.) & Rose (White) Herron (b. 1836, Montgomery Co., Mo.) Prepared in Jacksonville Acad., Ill. Honorary Fellowship, Univ. of Chicago, 1893-94; Fellowship, Univ. of Ill., 1904-05; Wilby prize for best work in Grad. Sch., Radcliffe Coll., 1904. Employment by Carnegie Inst. for writing history of labor laws in Ill., 1904. Teacher in Acad., Jacksonville, Ill., 1890; Asst. Instr., Adjust Prof.  in Dept. of Econ., Univ. of Nebr., 1898-1903; Asst. in Wellesley Coll., 1903-04; Fellow in Econ., Univ. of Ill., 1904-5; Instr., do., 1905-6. Author: Progress of Labor Organization among Women. *Deceased.

Source: James Herbert Kelley, ed. The Alumni Record of the University of Illinois(Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois, 1913), p. 707.

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From Belva Mary Herron’s Last Will, May 22, 1909.

Note:  Net value of her estate ca. $18,400. Promissory notes secured by mortgages on real estate in Montgomery and Audrain counties, Missouri.

$1200 total explicitly designated for the First Christian Churches of Mexico Missouri, Lincoln Nebraska, Ann Arbor Michigan and the Christian Women’s Board of Missions of the Christian Church. $100 to the General Board of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union.

[Following sums designated for specific individuals…] “The remainder of my estate (worth at the present time between $12000 and $13000) I will and bequeath to the Board of Home Missions of the Christian (Disciples) Church to be used preferably in building a church as settlement house some where in the middle west which might bear my mother’s name, Rose Herron Chapel.”

Source: Ancestry.com database on-line. Missouri. Probate Court (Audrain County); Probate Place: Audrain, Missouri.

Image Source: The Michiganensian, 1902, p. 285.

 

Categories
Chicago Cowles Economists

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, Theodore O. Yntema, 1929

 

From the records of the University of Chicago’s economics department we see that Theodore O. Yntema switched his Ph.D. thesis topic to international trade from “A Study in the Theory of Demand” after eighteen months. He was of course a very distinguished Chicago Ph.D. alumnus from the 1920s.

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Distinguished Alumni Award

THEODORE O. YNTEMA
AM ’25, PHD ’29

RETIRED CHAIRMAN, FINANCE COMMITTEE
FORD MOTOR COMPANY

Theodore O. Yntema’s ties with the University of Chicago Booth School of Business span more than five decades. After receiving an AB degree from Hope College in 1921 and an MS in chemistry from the University of Illinois in 1922, he came to the University of Chicago where he earned an AM in business in 1924 and a PhD in economics in 1929. His doctoral dissertation, a “Mathematical Reformulation of the General Theory of International Trade” published by the University of Chicago Press in 1932, was considered a classic in its field.

Yntema was a pioneer contributor not only to the development of the Booth School of Business, but also to the whole field of quantitative analysis in finance during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. His career furnished a strong bond between the theoretical and analytical facets of finance and its application to modern corporate management.

He served on the faculty of Chicago Booth from 1923 until 1949, when he joined the Ford Motor Credit Company. At Ford, he was vice president of finance and subsequently became chairman of the finance committee. Yntema was a Ford director and chairman of the board for two subsidiaries, Ford Motor Credit Company and America Road Insurance Company.

He was a life trustee of the University of Chicago, a member of the Council on Chicago Booth, a professional lecturer in business policy at Chicago Booth, a visiting professor at Oakland University, a trustee of the Committee on Economic Development, and a chairman of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Theodore O. Yntema Professorship at Chicago Booth was established in 1973.

Source: Chicago Booth School of Business / Distinguished Alumni Awards / Honorees / Theodore O. Yntema.

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Theodore O. Yntema (1900-1985)

A.B., Hope College, 1921; A.M., 1922. and C.P.A., 1924, University of Illinois; Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1929

Theodore O. Yntema became director of research of the Cowles Commission at the time of the move to Chicago in September, 1939. [Olav Bjerkholt points out in his comment below that this is incorrect!] He joined the faculty of the University of Chicago in 1923, and was professor of statistics in the School of Business, 1930–44, and professor of business and economic policy, 1944–49. He was economic consultant in the National Recovery Administration, 1934–35; head of economics And statistics in the Division of Industrial Materials of the Defense Commission, 1940; consulting economist and statistician for the United States Steel Corporation, 1938–40; consultant in the War Shipping Administration 1942; director of research of the Committee for Economic Development, 1942–49; consulting economist for Stein Roe & Farnham, 1945–49; consulting economist, Lord, Abbett & Co., 1946–49; consulting economist, Ford Motor Company, 1947–49; and consultant for the Economic Stabilization Agency, 1951. Since 1940 Yntema has been a director of the National Bureau of Economic Research. In 1949 Yntema joined Ford Motor Company as vice president-finance and since 1950 a director of the Company. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and of the American Statistical Association. He is author of A Mathematical Reformulation of the Theory of International Trade, 1932, and co-author of Jobs and Markets, 1946. Yntema also directed most of the research leading to Volume I of TNEC Studies, published by the United States Steel Corporation, and from 1942–49 also planned and directed most of the research leading to the Research Reports of the Committee for Economic Development. [Abstracted from A Twenty Year Research Report 1932–1952].

Source: Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics /  From the Archives / Theodore O. Yntema (1900-1985).

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Petitions for Thesis Subject and Examination by
Theodore O. Yntema, 1926-27

March 15, 1926

Mr. T. O. Yntema
University of Chicago
Faculty Exchange

My dear Mr. Yntema:

At the last Departmental meeting it seemed to the group that the suggested topic “A Study in the Theory of Demand” is satisfactory as a thesis subject.

The fields that you suggested for the examination seemed entirely satisfactory:

  1. Theory
  2. Accounting and Statistics
  3. The Market
  4. Finance

Yours very sincerely,

LCM:MLH

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration

August 20, 1927.

The Faculty of the Department of Economics:

I hereby petition for a change of my fourth field from “The Market” to “International Economic Policies”. This seems desirable in view of the change in my thesis topic from “A Study in the Theory of Demand” to “A Mathematical Reformulation of the General Theory of International Trade”. My revised list of fields would then be:

  1. Economic Theory
  2. Finance
  3. Statistics and Accounting
  4. International Economic Policies

[signed]
Theodore O. Yntema

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

[To:] Mr. T. O. Yntema

[From:] L. C. Marshall

Nov. 21, [19]27

            I am instructed to report to you that the field “International Economic Policies” meets with approval as far as the matter of general principle is concerned.

The next appropriate step is for you to prepare a detailed statement suggesting as precisely as you can what territory you intend to cover and what you contemplate preparing for the examination.

LCM: GS

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics Records. Box 38, Folder 1.

Image Source:  Hope College. Digital Collections. History of Science at Hope College. 1921; Theodore Otte Yntema; Consulting Economist for Stein, Roe, and Farnham; Ford Motor Car Company; Lord Abbott Company.