Month: May 2021

Categories
Economists Harvard Teaching Undergraduate

Harvard. Political Economy à la Francis Bowen, 1870

From time to time one digs up a nugget in the secondary literature that deserves its own post. Harvard President Charles W. Eliot (from 1869 to 1909), an advocate of putting more political economy into the curriculum, trash talks the quality of economics instruction when he took office.

Here two textbooks that had been inflicted upon Harvard College students in the pre-Dunbar days.

Francis Bowen (1856). The Principles of Political Economy Applied to the Condition, the Resources, and the Institutions of the American People. Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1856.

Francis Bowen (1870). American Political Economy, including Strictures on the Management of the Currency and the Finances since 1861. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

________________________

Harvard’s retired president,
Charles W. Eliot, looking back at economics instruction à la Bowen

In respect to the teaching of political economy, or economics, I can perhaps give you some notion of the great change which has taken place since 1869 by describing the work done by Professor Francis Bowen, the only Harvard professor who then dealt at all with the subject of political economy. He gave only about a quarter of his time to that subject, because he had so many other subjects to deal with. His idea of teaching political economy was to write an elementary book on the subject, and to require the senior class — it was a required subject of the senior year — to read that book. He gave no lectures; he sometimes commented upon those pages of the book which had been assigned as the lesson of the day, to be repeated in the recitation room by those students who had studied the lesson. It is a long way from that condition of things to the present organization of the Department of Economics.

Source:  Charles William Eliot (1923), Harvard Memories. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, pp. 70-71.

Image Source: Harvard University. Hollis Images. Portrait (1891) of Francis Bowen by Edwin Tryon Billings.

 

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Yale. Course summary and preview, Industrial Organization, Behavior, and Public Policy. Nelson, 1973

In the preceding post we find the 5 1/2 page reading list for Richard Nelson’s 1973 unconventional graduate economics course at Yale on industrial organization. After posting that reading list, I discovered another artifact for the course providing both a motivation for and a preview of the course. Incidentally I did not take the course, but was able to acquire these materials late in my undergraduate pack-rat days.

____________________

RESUMÉ AND PREVIEW OF ECONOMICS 140A
Mr. Nelson
Fall Semester 1973

This is a course about the organization and public control of economic activity. In the past few years the much debated issues have included: Is there a public interest in assuring that Lockheed will not go through bankruptcy? Are our large corporations really private or are they social assets?

Should ITT be forced to divest certain recent acquisitions? Are our anti-trust laws on this and other matters in need of rethinking?

Should we abandon rate regulation of truck and rail transportation? What if anything can and should be done about the erosion of passenger rail service? Would abandonment of “regulated competition” and establishment of a quasi-public monopoly help? Should it be subsidized?

How can we enable consumers to be better informed about the likely cost and quality of a repair job they procure at different T.V. repair shops or automobile mechanics? More generally, how can we make consumer choice more effective?

What kind of a system of taxes, subsidies, and prohibitions should be established to deal with pollution? How should such a regulatory system be organized and administered?

Are educational vouchers a good idea? How would such a system work? Is public subsidy of day care for young children a good idea? How should extra-family day care be organized in the United States?

Should we establish a system of National Health Insurance and, if so, what should the system be like? Need we complement this change with some reorganizations on the supply side?

Should the nation significantly increase its funds for cancer research? Should a National Cancer Institute be established that is independent of the National Institutes of Health System? Should public funds be used to subsidize the development of power reactors for civilian use? How should these funds be spent?

The list of important economic organization issues obviously is much longer than this sample. The second semester of this course – 140B – will consider certain classes of these questions in detail. Economics 176 (ISPS 690) is a workshop for advanced graduate students where research on these kinds of questions can be undertaken. This semester’s course will be dedicated to developing tools and concepts for looking at these questions. While some examples from the list will be used as illustrations, we will not consider any particular policy issue in any detail.

Economic organizational questions of the sort illustrated above are regarded by many people as the key public policy decisions that shape the future of the nation. Like all decisions these involve articulating values and choosing from some set of alternatives. And, like all decisions, these require mechanisms to get the choice carried out. But the organizational decisions are meta decisions. They involve establishing or modifying the machinery that will make choices (demand) and carry these out (supply) over a considerable time horizon. In a society as large and complex as our own most of decision making and administration is delegated and decentralized. Public policy decisions that are resolved at a high national level generally must be and are few in number. And the most important of these decisions tend to be organizational decisions — decisions about the manner in which a class of decisions will be made and effected for some time in the future.

There are various intellectual perspectives on the economic organization question. Various parts of the political science literature are concerned with public choice (economists also have contributed to this discussion) and public administration. From this perspective one can view the sectoral economic organization problem as that of selecting a form of governance, and often we will find it convenient to look at the problem this way. However, very little literature within this tradition has been focused specifically on particular economic sectors.

The comparative economic systems literature views the economic organization question writ large. At least since the Mises-Lange dialogue of the 1930’s the economic systems tradition has developed in appreciation of the vast multi-dimensional nature of the nation’s wants and capabilities, and of the enormous informational and computational requirements to make sensible decisions regarding what, how, and for whom. The organizational analysis and alternatives have tended to be defined in terms of general economy wide organizational modes, like consumer choice to set priorities and a regime of private and for profit firms to supply the goods and services in question, versus central planning to establish priorities and make decisions and public agencies to carry them out. Other alternatives considered have included “market socialism” and the Yugoslav model. The mode of general formal theorizing has been that of general equilibrium.

The industrial organization tradition tends to be less sweeping. Analysis within this tradition generally assumes a general background national solution to the organizational problem and focuses on the details of organization of particular sectors, industries, or activities. Predominantly a western intellectual tradition (and largely American) the general organizational background is assumed to be consumer choice plus private market supply, although it is recognized that many sectors are not so organized. The analysis considers a particular sector, say manufacturing or transportation, or a particular industry, say the aluminum or the aircraft industry and explores how that sector is organized and how it performs, and the public policy actions that might make it perform better. The basic analytic perspective is partial equilibrium with the operation of the rest of the economy subsumed under the specification of the supply curves of factors of production and the demand curves for the products of that industry.

The basic perspective taken in this course will be that of the industrial organization tradition but we shall depart form that subject as traditionally defined in three key ways. First, research within the industrial organization tradition has focused almost exclusively on sectors where demand is generated by the decisions of individuals to purchase or not purchase a particular item, and where supply is generated by private firms who are expected to be maximizing profit, perhaps subject to a regulatory constraint. The principal policy issues considered have largely involved the appropriate role of anti-trust and regulation. Very little attention has been given to public policy issues regarding the articulation of values and demand when full-blown individual consumer sovereignty may not be appropriate. Thus, the tradition has not concerned itself much with problems of inadequate consumer information, or of how to organize to control or internalize externalities. Many externalities are public goods, or bads, and the industrial organization tradition, with few exceptions, has ignored the organizational issues in making collective demand or regulatory decisions leaving these questions to the public finance field (where they have not been handled adequately). Relatedly, the tradition has tended to shy away from analysis of sectors where supply is organized governmentally, or through not-for-profit private entities.

Thus the traditional industrial organization literature really has not gripped many of today’s most pressing policy issues relating to sectors organized largely by private demand and for-profit supply, and has paid limited attention to sectors not so organized which comprise a large share of this nation’s economy. It seems important to broaden the perspective. Thus in addition to considering the traditional industrial organization literature, this course also will explore literature in such fields as public choice, public administration, and the scattered material on other kinds of organization of demand and supply. The sectors we shall consider will be not only manufacturing and public utilities (on which the traditional literature has focused) but also such sectors and activities as medical care, day care for children, and scientific research.

Second, the course will be particularly concerned with the state of existing theory of how organizations behave under different conditions of sectoral organization, exploring both generally prevailing theory, and various proposed amendments and reformulations. To repeat the point stressed earlier, decisions regarding sectoral organization or reorganization are meta decisions. Choice among possible organizational alternatives should rest on understanding of how the sectors will behave under the different regimes.

Existing positive economic theory is quite limited in the range of circumstances under which it can make definite predictions. Regarding market forms, we have a theory of behavior in which we rest some confidence only for sectors organized along the lines of perfect competition (and there is some reason to be less than fully confident even in that theory). Most market sectors do not evolve such a structure. Often the sectors turn out to be oligopolistic, usually the sector is regulated in some way or another. Often the units include not-for-profit organizations or public agencies. Until recently these public or quasi-public sectors were ignored by economists, and economists still often seem to believe that because they are “public” they can be predicted to work as the public, or the president or congress, dictates. This clearly is wrong. The way the decision to establish a public corporation to run passenger rail service will work out will depend largely on Amtrack. One might think that in cases of direct government spending the connection of order to result would be more direct. But the Atomic Energy Commission will not itself produce power reactors. These will be obtained (if at all) through contracts with private organizations and the cost and effectiveness of the system will be influenced heavily by the behavior and performance of these contractors. Between the provision of federal subsidy to day care and the objective of more or better provision of day care services lies a layer of local governmental bodies who must monitor the funds, a network of day care centers, and the parents who must decide to use day care.

Sensible resolution of the question of how to organize a sector, or how to manipulate the incentives within the sector, to achieve an agreed upon public purpose requires ability to predict response that economists presently do not have. This is so even regarding market sectors. The “anatomy of market failure” is highly sensitive to how firms and individuals actually behave. Various theories of behavior predict different things about the problems that will occur under different organizational regimes and about how to deal with these problems. And we have very little in the way of a theory of public or non-profit organizations. A good part of this course will be concerned with attempting to lay out the pieces from which a better theory perhaps can be built.

Third, particular stress will be placed on the long-run performance of a sector, in the context of the evolution of the economy more generally. Major policy decisions regarding the organization or a sector of activity are not made, or re-made, very often. These policy decisions thus must be made with a long time horizon. In a world of change, of evolving opportunities and problems, adequate sectoral behavior requires at the least that the sector respond effectively to changing patterns of demand and cost, and that it seize new opportunities created outside the sector. A major complaint about the railroads and about the public school system, is that they have not met these minimal requirements. We would hope that sector would go beyond this minimal standard and be creative and innovative. Much of the discussion regarding the organization of cancer research, and the aircraft industry, involves how to reorganize to better seize and manage the rapid flow of innovative ideas.

To a considerable extent the microeconomic policy issues of today are the result of the pace and the pattern of economic development the United States has experienced. Some, as power reactors, cancer research issues, involve technologies and scientific understanding that did not exist two· decades ago. The rise, current problems, and the policy issues surrounding Lockheed obviously involve modern technology and its management. The conglomerate merger problem certainly is related to the improvement in communication, transportation and management techniques that have made such diversified companies possible; the central policy issue is whether these companies are an efficient form in the new regime of tech­nology. Part of the issue relating to public schools and delivery of medical care is that productivity in these sectors has risen slowly relative to other sectors. Thus as factor costs have risen with rising average productivity, the relative costs of an educational day or a hospital day have soared. The policy issue of pollution clearly has been generated by past economic and demographic trends. Sectoral organizational changes are essential aspects of how the political economy generates and responds to change. And public policy decisions regarding these changes are the key policy decision guiding the economic evolution of the nation in the future.

Part 1 of this course will consider the sectoral economic organization question broadly, and examine some of the particular assumptions of the industrial organization tradition. Part 2 will consider the “private demand, for-profit firms” mode of organization, reviewing the arguments for its merit, some of the basic problems and limitations of this mode, and examine some of the tools of microeconomic policy traditionally treated in a course in industrial organization. The central policy issues introduced in this section will be considered in more detail in Econ 140 B.

Part 3 will be concerned with the present ability of microeconomic theory to predict the behavior of sectors organized in different ways. The standard theory rests heavily on the assumption that firms maximize profits. A different theory of the behavior of economic organization leads in many cases to a different appraisal of the situations that are likely to warrant intervention, and the kinds of interventions that can work. We survey a number of different departures taken recently by microeconomic analysis, and consider their implications for microeconomic policy. One strand of literature explores different motivational assumptions. A second strand employs a radically different kind of theorizing based on organization theory. Each of these avenues of analysis indicates that some of the instances of market failure under the traditional approach may not be serious problems under different views of the nature and behavior of firms, and some problems that do not appear under the traditional theory do appear under different models. And these richer models clearly are necessary if we are to model non-market sectors.

In Part 4 we study the characteristics of the economic change process, with particular focus on technological advance. Explicit recognition of the essential qualities of a dynamic world requires, we argue, certain major modifications of the theory of the firm, the role of markets, and of competition. We begin by considering these and the issues involved. Then we turn to examine technological change as a process, and dynamic processes more generally. The focus shifts away from “optimal decision making” toward problem solving, learning, and adjustment mechanisms, and from competitive equilibrium and its attributes toward a view of competition and diffusion as dynamic processes.

In Part 5 we return to certain problems and instruments of public policy and consider these from a richer perspective. One topic will be a reconsideration of decision making with particular focus on problems of externalities and on the evolving interest in social experiment and evaluation. Second, we will consider problems of control of public sector and non-market organized economic activity. Third, we will examine how micro economic policy issues come about and various theories about how they are resolved.

Obviously the course is an unorthodox treatment of “industrial or­ganization.” We are persuaded that the conceptualization and the literature studied provide the graduate student with a better set of tools to deal with the industrial organization questions of the future than is provided in a more conventional course. However many topics treated in the standard courses that we will not have time to consider, are interesting and important. We strongly urge all students to familiarize themselves with that literature. American Industry: Structure, Conduct and Performance by Richard Caves provides an excellent brief overview. Serious students should read carefully F.M. Scherer, Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance. Those planning to take comprehensives in industrial organization will be expected to know this material.

There will be a mid-term examination and a final. Upon agreement with the instructor a paper may be substituted for the final.

 

Source: Copy from the private papers of Irwin Collier.

Categories
Suggested Reading Syllabus Yale

Yale. Course Outline for Industrial Organization, Behavior, and Public Policy. Nelson, 1973

 

Richard R. Nelson was an Oberlin College undergraduate (B.A. 1952) and received his Ph.D. from Yale University (1956). He was a senior staff economist at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Kennedy Administration (1961-63) and Professor of Economics at Yale from 1968-1986 before accepting a professorship at Columbia University.

On Richard Nelson’s life and career:

Entry for Richard R. Nelson written by Johann Peter Murmann for the Encyclopedia of Strategic Management.

Sidney G. Winter’s speech at the “Nelson Fest” held in New York City, October 13, 2000.

Warning: the original mimeographed course outline was plagued with misspellings that I have tried to correct. There are certainly others that have slipped through my editorial filter. For this transcription I need to be explicit: Caveat lector!

_______________________________

ECONOMICS 140A
Industrial Organization, Behavior, and Public Policy
Richard R. Nelson

Reading List
Fall Term 1973

* Assigned
** Material I assume you are familiar with, for review

Sept. 11, 18

  1. Perspectives on the Economic Organization Problem.
    1. The Problem Writ Large.
      1. R. Dahl*, A Preface to Democratic Theory, Chapt. 4.
      2. A. Sen**, Collective Choice and Social Welfare, Chap. 2, 3, 6.
      3. H. Simon*, Administrative Behavior, Chapters 1 & 3.
      4. H. A. Simon “The Changing Theory & The Changing Practice of Public Administration” in I. Pool (ed.) Contemporary Political Science.
      5. A. Etzioni, Modern Organizations, Chaps. 1 & 2.
      6. F. Knight, The Economic Organization, Chap. 1.
      7. R. Dahl and C. E. Lindblom, Politics, Economics, and Welfare, Chapt. 1.
      8. L. Hurwicz, “The Design of Mechanisms for Resource Allocation” AER May 1973.
      9. J. Marschak & R. Radner, Economic Theory of Teams.
      10. B. Ward, The Socialist Alternative.

Sept. 18

    1. Industrial Organization
      1. F. M. Scherer*, Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance, Chapt. 1.
      2. R. Caves, Industrial Organization.
      3. R. Coase*, “Industrial Organization: A Proposal for Research” in V. Fuchs ed. Policy Issues & Research Opportunities in Industrial Organization.

Sept. 25

  1. Private Purchase and Market Supply as an Organizational Solution.
    1. The Role of Prices, For-Profit Suppliers, Competition.
      1. F. Knight*, The Economic Organization, Chapt. 2.
      2. O. Lange**, “On the Economic Theory of Socialism,” in Lange and Taylor, On the Economic Theory of Socialism, pp. 72-86.
        Also reprinted in M. Bornstein (ed.) Comparative Economic Systems.
      3. F. Bator**, “The Simple Economics of Welfare Maximization”, American Economic Review, March, 1957.
      4. T. C. Koopmans, Three Essays on the State of Economic Science, Essay I.
      5. F. Hayek*, “The Use of Knowledge in a Society,” American Economic Review, Sept. 1945.
      6. J. Schumpeter, “The Process of Creative Destruction”, Chapt. 7 in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy.
      7. J. K. Galbraith*, “The Economics of Technical Development”, Chapt. 7 in American Capitalism.
      8. J. M. Clark*, Competition as a Dynamic Process, Chapt. 4.
      9. F. M. Scherer*, Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance, Chapt. 2.

Oct. 2,9

    1. Sources and Consequences of Monopoly Power.
      1. Scherer*, Industrial Market Structure and Economic Performance, Chapts. 3, 4, & 17.
      2. A. Harberger*, “Monopoly and Resource allocation,” AER, May 1954.
      3. O. Williamson*, “Economies as an Antitrust Defense,” AER, March 1968.
      4. H. Liebenstein*, “Allocative Efficiency vs. X-Efficiency,” AER, June, 1966.
      5. J. Bain, “Economies of Scale, Concentration and Conditions of Entry in Twenty Manufacturing Industries,” AER 1954.
      6. F. Modgliani, “New Developments on the Oligopoly Front,” JPE June 1958.
      7. G. Stigler*, “A Theory of Oligopoly,” JPE, Feb. 1964.
      8. J. K. Galbraith, The New Industrial State, Chapts. 1-3.
      9. Mason and Kaysen essays*, in E. Mason (ed.) The Corporation and Modern Society.
      10. J. Markham*, “An Alternative Approach to the Concept of Workable Competition,” in AEA Readings in Industrial Organization and Public Policy, (Heflebower and Stocking, eds.).
      11. Scherer*, Chapts. 18-22.

Note—a most detailed examination of Anti-trust and Regulation will be undertaken in Econ 140-b.

Oct. 9
and an
evening
discussion

    1. Externalities and Public Goods, Public Choice.
      1. F. Bator**, “The Anatomy of Market Failure,” QPE, August 1958.
      2. R. Coase*, “The Problem of Social Cost,” Jour. of Law and Economics, October, 1960.
      3. H. Demsetz*, “The Exchange and Enforcement of Property Rights” Jour. of Law and Econ., 1964.
      4. E. Mishan, “The Postwar Literature on Externalities” JEL, March 1971.
      5. C. Tiebout, “A Pure Theory of Local Public Expenditure” JPE, Oct. 1956.
      6. J. Buchanan*, “An Economic Theory of Clubs,” Economica, Feb. 1965.
      7. M. Olsen**, The Logic of Collective Action.
      8. A. Downs, An Economic Theory of Democracy, Part 1.
      9. Buchanan & Tullock*, The Calculus of Consent, Chapt. 6.
      10. Prest and Turvey*, “Cost-Benefit Analysis: A Survey,” Jour., Dec., 1955, –also in Survey of Economic Theory III.
      11. P. Steiner, “The Public Sector and The Public Interest” in Haveman & Margolis (eds.) Public Expenditures and Policy Analysis.
  1. More Complex Models of Organizational Behavior.

Oct. 16

    1. Organizational Goals.
      1. W. Baumol**, Business Behavior, Value and Growth, Ch. 1, 2, 4-8.
      2. O. Williamson*, “Managerial Discretion and Business Behavior”, AER, December, 1963.
      3. R. Marris*, “A Model of Managerial Enterprise,” QJE, May, 1963.
      4. J. Williamson, “Profits, Growth and Sales Maximization”, Economica, Feb. 1966.
      5. Kamerschen, “Ownership and Control and Profit Rates,” AER, June 1968.
      6. Marris and Wood (eds.) The Corporate Economy.

Oct. 23

    1. The Firm as an Organization: Behavioral Theory.
      1. R. Coase*, “The Nature of the Firm,” reprinted in Stigler and Boulding (eds.), Readings in Price Theory.
      2. Alchian and Demsetz, “Production, Information Costs and Economic Organization” AER, Dec. 1972.
      3. H. A. Simon, “A Comparison of Organization Theories,” in Models of Man.
      4. O. E. Williamson, “Hierarchical Control and Optimum Firm Size,” JPE, April 1967.
      5. H. A. Simon*, “Theories of Decision Making in Economics and Behavioral Science, AER June 1959.
      6. H. A. Simon, “A Behavioral Model of Rational Choice,” in Models of Man.
      7. J. March and H. Simon, Organizations.
      8. R. Cyert and J. March*, A Behavioral Theory of the Firm, Chaps. 1-8 (browse, 10.
      9. J. P. Crecine, Governmental Problem Solving (browse).
      10. F. Machlup*, “Theories of the Firm, Marginalist, Behavioral Management”, AER, March 1967.
      11. M. Schubik, “A Curmudgeon’s Guide to Microeconomics”, Journal of Economic Literature, June 1970.

Oct. 30

    1. Sector Models Compatible With Behavioral Organization Theories
      1. A. Alchian*, “Uncertainty, Evolution, and Economic Theory,” JPE, June 1950.
      2. G. Becker, “Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory,” JPE, Feb. 1962.
      3. S. Winter*, “Natural Selection and the Theory of the Firm”, Yale Economic Essays, Spring, 1964.
      4. H. Simon and C. Bonini, “The Size Distribution of Business Firm,”, AER Sept. 1958.
      5. Davis, Demster, Wildavsky*, “A Theory of the Budgetary Process,” American Political Science Review, Sept. 1967.
  1. Micro Economic Organization in a Dynamic World.

Nov. 6

    1. Schumpeterian Competition.
      1. J. Schumpeter*, The Theory of Economic Development, Chapts. 1 and 2.
      2. H. Simon*, “The Science of Design,” Chapt. 3 in The Sciences of the Artificial.
      3. H. Simon and J. March Organizations, Chapt 3.
      4. S. Winter*, “Satisficing, Selection, and the Innovating Remnant,” QJE, 1971, May.
      5. E. Mansfield, “Entry, Gibrat’s Law, Innovation, and the Growth of Firms,” AER, December, 1962.
      6. R. Nelson*, “Issues and Suggestions for the Study of Industrial Organization in a Regime of Rapid Technical Change,” in V. Fuchs (ed.) Policy Issues and Research Suggestions in Industrial Organization.
      7. A. Phillip*, Technical Change and Market Structure, Chapts. 1 and 8.
      8. W. Baumol, “Entrpreneurship and Economic Theory”, AER May 1968

Nov. 13
and an evening
session

    1. R&D and Technical Change.
      1. R. Nelson, M. J. Peck, and E. M. Kalachek*, Technology, Economic Growth and Public Policy, Chapters 2-5.
      2. F. Scherer, Chap. 15.
      3. R. Nelson (ed.)*, The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity, Part D.
      4. Jacob Schmookler, Invention and Economic Growth, Harvard, 1966, Chapter 11.
      5. E. Mansfield, Industrial Research and Technological Innovation, Chapters 2, 5, 7, 8, 9.
      6. J. Jewkes, P. Sawers, and R. Stillerman, The Sources of Invention, St. Martin’s Press, 1958. Part I.
      7. Zvi Griliches*, “Hybrid Corn: An Exploration in the Economics of Technological Change,“ Econometrica, Oct. 1957.
      8. J. Coleman, E. Katz, and H. Menzel*, “The Diffusion of an Innovation Among Physicians,” Sociometry, December, 1959.
      9. Werner Hirsch*, “Manufacturing Progress Functions,” Review of Economics and Statistics May 1952.
      10. R. Vernon*, “International Investment and International Trade in Product Cycles”. QJE, May 1966.
      11. L. B. Mohr, “Determinants of Innovation in Organizations” American Political Science Review 1969.
  1. The Policy Issues Revisited.

Nov. 20

    1. Value Articulation, Demand Generation, Monitoring of Supply.
      1. C. E. Lindblom, The Policy Making Process (Browse).
      2. A. Wildavsky*, The Budgetary Process (Browse).
      3. T. J. Lowi, The End of Liberalism, (particularly Chap. 5).
      4. C. Schultze*, Politics and Economics of Public Spending.
      5. A. Rivlin, Systematic Thinking for Social Action.
      6. A. Wildavsky*, “The Political Economy of Efficiency”, Public Administration Review, Dec. 1966.
      7. A. Hirschman, Exit, Voice and Loyalty.

Nov. 27

    1. Command and Control of Non Market Supply.
      1. G. Allison*, “Models and the Cuba Missile Crisis,” Am. Polit. Sci. Review, Summer, 1969.
      2. A. Downs, Inside Bureaucracy.
      3. W. Niskanen*, Bureaucracy and Representative Government.
      4. H. Kaufman, The Forest Ranger, Chapts. 1, 2, 7.
      5. A. Downs*, “Competition and Community Schools,” in his Urban Problems and Prospects.
      6. J. Newhouse, “Towards a Theory of Non-Profit Institutions: An Economic Model of a Hospital,” AER, March 1970.
      7. Nelson & Krashensky*, “Some Questions Regarding Economic Organization: The Case of Day Care for Children” Mimeo.

Dec. 4
and an evening
session

    1. The Dynamics of Change.
      1. L. Davis and D. North*, Institutional Change and American Economic Growth, Part I.
      2. C. E. Lindblom, The Intelligence of Democracy. Chaps. 1, 2, 9.
      3. T. Schelling*, The Strategy of Conflict, Chap. 2 & 3.
      4. A. Kahn*, “The Tyranny of Small Decisions,” Kyklos, 1966.
      5. V. Goldberg*, “Institutional Change and the Quasi-Invisible Hand”, Mimeo.
      6. Edwards, Reich, and Weisskopf, The Capitalist System.
      7. E. Dunn, Economic and Social Development.

 

Source: From the personal papers of Irwin Collier.

Image Source: From the Nelson Fest, October 2000.

 

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs Economists Faculty Regulations Graduate Student Support

Chicago. H. Gregg Lewis proposes a “labor laboratory”. Ca. early 1950s.

 

Thanks to a prompt from Beatrice Cherrier (a.k.a. Twitter’s undercoverhist), I have transcribed the following documents found together in the economics department records in the University of Chicago archives. We catch a glimpse of H. Gregg Lewis’ early vision of a “labor laboratory” for the training of budding labor economists in the craft of empirical economic research. Serendipitously we also discover the deep self-doubt plaguing Lewis that he shared with the chair of his department at the time, T. W. Schultz.

For much more on Chicago’s workshop system, see:

Ross Emmett.” Sharpening Tools in the Workshop: The Workshop System and the Chicago School’s Success” in Building Chicago Economics: New Perspectives on the History of America’s Most Powerful Economics Program,  pp. 93-115, Robert van Horn, Philip Mirowski and Thomas Stapleford, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2011. ​There may be slight differences between the published version of the paper and the one on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1014015

In preparing this post I found the following testimony of a former student of Lewis who went on to a most distinguished career in labor economics (who also happens to have taught my daughter an honors undergraduate class in statistics at the University of Texas).

Daniel S. Hamermesh. H. Gregg Lewis: Perhaps the Father of Modern Labor Economics. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13551, July 2020.

__________________________

Four page handwritten letter by H. Gregg Lewis to T. W. Schultz
(undated, early 1950s)

PRIVATE

To: T. W. Schultz
From: H. G. Lewis

Some time before the end of this quarter I’d like to sit down with you for an unrushed hour or so to discuss some problems, personal ones, and to receive your counsel.

What has brought the discussion “to a head” is my wish to experiment teaching labor economics along the “laboratory” lines I sketched in an earlier memorandum. (I submit a proposal to that end below.) However, I think there is little virtue and, perhaps, much painful effort in conducting such an experiment unless I have reasonable prospects of continuing the experiment beyond next year. And that has raised the whole question of my future at the University. The problem is not mainly my lack of tenure or the recent freeze on tenure appointments, though these are not irrelevant. Indeed, the purpose of this discussion is not to raise the issue of the Department’s assessment of my work, but my own assessment of myself and what is good for me.

It is difficult to convey to you what the nature of my problem is, since I’m not sure of it myself. In substance it is in [illegible word] aspects loss of self-confidence, demoralization and high tension.

Prior to 1945, I was full of confidence, though I think never very cocky or very self-assured. But in the post-war years my confidence has been continuously slipping. In the last two years particularly, I have felt demoralized, incompetent as an economist, unprepared to say or to write anything that I felt could stand the test of critical examination. Altogether it seems up to an estimate that I’m really [new page] [first word lost/truncated through stapling] … the Department. (My colleagues have been generous to me in attributing my low productivity to Departmental “busy” work. Though I sometimes feel “burdened” by that “busy” work, it’s not the real reason for my low output.)

The demoralization has not been [illegible word] intervals [illegible word] confidence returned. Indeed I do not really feel that I am a shame to the profession, though, I’m not ready to belong in the company of my Chicago colleagues.

I do not know quite what it is that has put me in this unproductive state of mind. Part of it is surely a better realization of my own worth. And sometimes, I attribute much of the trouble to an environment of colleagues who are, on my view, my own superiors. I have learned much from them and stand to learn more if, I should stay. Furthermore, I’m not at all certain that my morale would be improved by a change of environment.

If, I were to stay, I should like to begin an experiment next year (Winter and Spring quarters) with a “laboratory in labor economics.” Although, I’m less enthusiastic about the idea than I was several weeks ago, I still want to give the experiment a good try. (My loss of enthusiasm stems from the fairly cool reception the idea has had from several of my colleagues. They fear[?] that though the laboratory may be unctuous[?] for students, it will prevent its supervisor from doing his own productive research.)

In its negative aspect the proposal involves releasing me from my present duties. Given somewhat smaller enrollment next year, the dropping of a section of Econ 209 and one of Soc. Sci. 200A would not require funds for replacement teaching. Relieving me of an assortment of busy work distractions is [new page] another matter. I am not confident that I could give the laboratory a fair trial while carrying on these busy activities. At the same time I do not want these activities added to those my colleagues already carry. Some replacement funds — from the Ford grant — appear to be necessary therefore.

On the positive side, I would replace these duties with full-time devotion intimate teaching of a few (a half-dozen or so) students who have reached the A.M. level and beyond. I would plan to be engaged with the students, heavily in research. The students admitted to the laboratory would commit themselves to full-time work in it for at least two consecutive quarters. (They would receive their instruction by example, by reading and research and by intimate conferences with their fellows including their supervisor. Progress would be tested by oral and written examinations, papers, and reports. The laboratory would be open to students who had “completed” their theory training and who [illegible word] to do supervised reading and research in labor economics.

The laboratory would make positive demands for resources at the very minimum for desk and conference space for the students and some clerical aid. It seems desirable to me also to provide subsidies of at least tuition to the student members in order to provide an incentive for them to remain in school while doing research. In addition, I should like to bring to the laboratory at least one more mature[?] young economist for a year of research.

In summary the following are the resource demands of the laboratory:

[new page]

  1. Some replacement funds to provide for the services from which I would be released
  2. Desk and conference space for the laboratory and some typing assistance from Social Science typing resources
  3. Six tuition scholarships
  4. A research assistant for three quarters at a negotiated salary of some $4000 to $5,000

I have not made a request for funds for this purpose from the [illegible word, beginning with “D”] since these are matters that go beyond my own private[?] interest.

 

Source: The University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics. Records. Box 41, Folder 1.

__________________________

Typed memo regarding training graduate students as “scientific craftsmen”

[Penciled note] From Gregg Lewis

I have been discomfited for some time by the belief that graduate faculties of economics generally are neglecting their responsibilities for making economics an effective science and for training their students as scientific craftsmen. I think we do as well as can be expected as moral philosophers and teachers of moral philosophy. Some of us—Knight is our shining example—do exceedingly well indeed. But most of us and most of our students are not made of the stuff that makes for good moral philosophers. Nevertheless, we expend a large part of our energies in that direction and encourage our students to imitate us. This is clearly a misfortune for economic science, and probably also for moral philosophy, if the Knight-Gresham Law of Talk is correct.

Meanwhile, economics as a science languishes. Most of us cultivate the whole field of economic ideas indiscriminately, the useless and misleading along with the useful. And we plant new ideas with the same nice regard for the weeds among them. Thus, each new generation of economists faces a more and more formidable task of weeding. The weeds become more abundant, their roots deeper.

We are not in want of good reasons for making a science of economics. True, the problems of economic planning that are surely the central ones for economic science do have moral content. And, unfortunately it is easy to make practically every controversy on economic policy sound as though it turned solely on a question of morals. The plain fact of the matter, however, is that the really hard core of our disagreements is not in the differences of moral beliefs but in differences of beliefs about economic facts.

That many of us have no real capacity for moral philosophy of course does not mean that we are prepared to be good scientists. Most of us, even if your spirits are willing, will have to struggle hard to overcome our slatternly research habits and to learn scientific skills and “instincts of workmanship.” But that is no excuse for making the effort. For unless we do, our students will be as ill-prepared as we are.

The problem of building a science, of course will not be solved merely by a formal reorganization of graduate instruction. But I think reorganization will help. The example which has guided the proposed reorganization I set forth below is the experimental laboratory of the natural sciences.

“Each professor—whether of money and banking, business cycles, public finance, or what not—will have his own laboratory. He will have one or two assistants who would share responsibility for the laboratory, and other assistants needed. The students (doctoral candidates) in a certain subject will get their training in the laboratory, by working on some project. The individual assignments will be of limited scope, but will be the function of the professor in charge to see that they fit together. The projects will grow out of the research program of the laboratory and will be supervised closely.
There would be no regimentation of the laboratory directors, any more than there is of professors in a well-run university.*
[footnote] *From a letter written by Arthur F. Burns who suggested the idea to me.

It would not be mandatory for any professor to direct such a laboratory, but if he chose to do so, he would be relieved largely from other duties and would be responsible for conducting the affairs of the laboratory continuously and full time. Nor would graduate students in all fields be required (for the Ph.D. degree) to participate in a laboratory project. Those who elected to do so, however, would commit themselves full-time for a period of something like an academic year.

Establishment of such laboratories by a considerable proportion of our faculty would call for a reduction of our student load per faculty member. This can be accomplished in substantial part I think by drastically reducing the number of students who plan to have the A.M. their terminal degree. And this is something I favor, reorganization or not.

Space problems are sure to arise but I do not think they need to be nor will prove to be insoluble.

THE MAIN FEATURES OF THE PROPOSAL

  1. The proposed program of graduate study, I believe, does not conflict in any way with Divisional degree requirements and hence would require no special dispensation by Divisional authorities.
  2. All candidates for the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees normally would obtain the Master’s Degree, after three or four quarters (beyond the four-year A.B.) of full-time participation in lecture courses, and by a route fairly similar to that of our present “Alternative” Master’s degree. The Master’s thesis would be dispensed with, the Master’s degree treated as an undergraduate or non-research degree, and students interested only in the A.M. degree discouraged from applying for admission.
    The obtaining of the Master’s degree would be the principle requirement for admission to graduate study.
  3. Faculty members would be given the free choice of devoting their scholastic energies as most of them do now or of conducting the kind of laboratory described above.
  4. Students admitted to graduate study for the Ph.D. degree would have two alternatives open to them.
    1. Taking graduate courses as they do now principally in “non-laboratory” fields, leading to a preliminary examination or examinations and the satisfaction of “distribution” requirements.
    2. Participating full-time for three quarters in a laboratory leading to the preparation of a paper or papers which would be a prerequisite for admission to Ph.D. candidacy.
  5. The recently passed procedure for admission, writing of thesis, and final Ph.D. examination would not be changed.

 

THE PROPOSED DEGREE REQUIREMENTS:

  1. For the A.M. Degree:
    1. The Divisional requirements
    2. The qualifying examination covering the subject matter of Economics 209, 211 or Social Science 200A, 220 or 222, 230.
    3. The Field Examinations: (Required of all candidates)
      1. Economic Principles: (Required of all candidates)
        This examination would be essentially the same as the present Ph.D. “Theory” prelim, including monetary theory. In terms of present courses, preparation for the examination normally would mean taking the following courses: 300A, 300B, 302, 330, 335.
      2. Statistics: (Required of all candidates)
        Essentially the present prelim covering 311, 312, 313 or 316 or equivalents.
    4. Economics electives: Course credit or examination in a balance of courses sufficient to bring the total registration in Economics to 15 courses. Normally the balance would amount to four courses.
  2. For Admission to Graduate Study:
    1. The A.M. degree above or its equivalent.
    2. Satisfaction of the high level language requirement
  3. Program of Graduate Study
    1. Three quarters of full-time residence in an economics laboratory leading to a paper or papers approved by the laboratory director or
    2. Passing a preliminary examination in a third field (a field other than Principles or Statistics) and satisfaction of the distribution requirement. Normally this would require a full academic year.

Source: The University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics. Records. Box 41, Folder 1.

Images:  University of Chicago Photographic Archive, H. Gregg Lewis [apf1-03861] and T. W. Schultz [apf1-07479], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Chicago Funny Business Harvard M.I.T. Princeton

M.I.T. Faculty Skit, Playing Monopoly at Lunch, 1986

 

It has been a while since I have added an artifact to the MIT economics skits wing of the Funny Business Archives here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. Apparently the following script was a, if not the sole, late-20th century MIT faculty skit not written by Robert Solow. I can believe that. In any event, today’s post is further grist to the mill for social historians of economics.

Again a grateful tip of the hat to Roger Backhouse is in order.

__________________

1986 FACULTY SKIT

(Skit opens with Dornbusch, Fischer, Diamond, Eckaus and McFadden seated around MONOPOLY board. Farber is standing alongside, watching the game. Fisher and Hausman are in the wings to make walk-on appearances).

ANNOUNCER: One of the most important unwritten rules in the Economics Department is that no one but Bob Solow writes the skit. This year, Bob reportedly outdid himself and wrote a sitcom in which Bob Lucas is struck by a blinding light while driving to work and transformed into a neo-Keynesian. The skit, titled “I’m OK, You’re OK,” follows Lucas’ attempts to explain why he is estimating Phillips curves to Lars Hansen and Tom Sargent.

Unfortunately, Bob is unable to be with us tonight, since he is delivering the presidential address to the Eastern Economic Association in Philadelphia. When we opened the envelope marked “SKIT” which Bob left for us, we were surprised to discover only a copy of his presidential address. We suspect he had a somewhat bigger surprise when he opened his envelope in Philadelphia. [Address published as “What is a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Macroeconomics after Fifty Years” Eastern Economic Journal, July-September 1986]

We were of course scared skitless when we realized our predicament, and we were tempted to re-run some of the great Solow skits of the past. There was the 1974 Watergate Skit, in which Paul Colson Joskow testifies to Senator Sam Peltzman that he would run over his grandmother to get a t-statistic above two. There was the 1978 Star Wars skit, in which Milton Vader and his minions capture the wookie Jerrybaca and hold him captive in the Chicago Money Workshop. And in the incredible 1973 MASH skit, Hawkeye Hall and Trapper Jerry Hausman find Radar Diamond and Hot Lips Friedlaender cavorting in the Chairman’s office. (If that doesn’t give Solow Rational expectations, what does?)

We guessed that you had all seen these re-runs on late-nite channel 56, however, and therefore decided to try something new and provide a partial answer to the age-old question: What Really Goes On in the Freeman Room at Lunchtime on Wednesdays? We now invite you to join us for a brief look at one of these infamous gatherings…

 

MCFADDEN: (Rolling dice). “Who owns Oriental Avenue?”

DORNBUSCH: Me. That’s six dollars.

FISCHER: My turn? (Rolls dice). Damn. Inflation tax again; Here’s ten percent of my cash balances. I passed go, didn’t I?

DIAMOND: Uh huh. Here’s $186 dollars.

FISCHER: I should get $200.

DIAMOND: Not since Gramm-Rudman. Everything’s reduced seven percent across the board.

DORNBUSCH: My turn. (Rolling dice). Four. (Reaches over and moves marker).

ECKAUS: No way, Rudi—you just moved six places. No overshooting in this game. (Hands Dornbusch Chance card)

DORNBUSCH: Ah. Go directly to Brazil. Do not return until the day classes start.

HAUSMAN: (Walking in from side of stage) How come you guys are playing MONOPOLY? I thought you usually played RISK…

DIAMOND: Oliver [Hart] took that game home. You know, his contract calls for RISK-sharing…

HAUSMAN: Can you believe the graduate students scheduled the skit party for the Friday before income taxes are due? The only people who’ll come are graduate students and people like theorists who file 1040 EZ’s. (walks off)

(FISHER walks in)

DIAMOND: (Rolling dice). My turn. Oriental again. Six more dollars for Dornbusch.

FISCHER: That’s a pretty profitable property, Rudi.

FISHER: How many times do I have to say it! You can’t possibly tell that from accounting numbers! (Pause). Why don’t we ever play fun games, like Consultant?

ECKAUS: I hear Jorgensen and Griliches play that all the time up at Harvard. Maybe you should give them a call.

FISHER: They’re never around.

DIAMOND: Of course not, Frank—that’s how you play consultant.

(FISHER exits.)

FARBER: Speaking of Harvard, how are we doing on graduate recruitment this year? I heard there was some Princeton scandal.

DIAMOND: The AEA put them on probation for recruiting violations. People could look the other way when they offered prospective students money and cars, but this year Joe Stiglitz promised to write a joint paper with all entering students.

FARBER: They’re really giving out cars?

DIAMOND: Sure. Yugo’s.

FARBER: All I got was a motorcycle…

MCFADDEN: Harvard and Princeton have been dumping all over us. Every prospective student has heard that Jerry Hausman cashed in his Frequent Flyer miles for a 727. And some even know that Marty Weitzman has a Harvard offer.

FISCHER: Well, that offer was certainly no surprise. The Harvard deans read THE SHARE ECONOMY and decided they should hire more workers.

DIAMOND: Still, we’re getting the best students. This morning I signed a Yale undergrad by offering him Solow’s office. I figured Bob can share E52-390 with Krugman, Eckaus, and Farber next year. But what happens when we run out of river-view offices?

FARBER: How’s Harvard doing on recruiting?

ECKAUS: Not too well. They’re on a big kick to look relevant. Mas-Collel’s going nuts—Dean Spence has a new rule that any agent in a theoretical model has to have a proper name. Andreu’s having real problems with his continuum papers…

MCFADDEN: I hear the Kennedy School’s helping their visibility. Have you heard about the new Meese Distinguished Service Medal?

DIAMOND: No. Who’s getting them?

MCFADDEN: Sammy Stewart for Distinguished Relief Pitching,
Martin Feldstein for Distinguished Empirical Work,
Larry Summers for Distinguished Dress,
NASA for distinction in Travel Safety,
Bob Lucas and Bob Barro for Distinguished Plausible Assumptions,
Ferdinand Marcos for Distinguished Contributions to Charity,
and John Kenneth Galbraith for Distinguished Use of Mathematics.

DORNBUSCH: Harvard’s visibility campaign’s paying off. Just last week one of their junior guys hit the cover of PEOPLE magazine with a paper about marriage rates among movie stars.

FISCHER: You read PEOPLE?

FARBER: The National Enquirer had a story about a Harvard student who claimed to have a picture of Jeff Sachs in Littauer. Just like the old days with Howard Hughes…

DORNBUSCH: Perhaps we should return to the game.

(MODIGLIANI walks on).

DIAMOND: My turn again? (Rolls dice and moves piece). Community Chest. (Looking at card) You are elected department head. Lose three turns.

(Someone walks up and hands DIAMOND a telephone message. He stands up.)

DIAMOND: I nearly forgot. I’m scheduled to join Mike Weisbach who is taking a prospective student windsurfing this afternoon. Figured it was the least I could do to convince him we were as laid back as Stanford. Franco—do you want to take my place?

MODIGLIANI: (Sitting down in Diamond’s place) So, what are the new developments on the Monopoly front? [Famous Modigliani paper “New Developments on the Oligopoly Front,” JPE, June 1958] (Pause) Now, which of these pieces is Peter’s?

MCFADDEN: The coconut. [Reference here to Diamond’s coconut model of a search economy.]

MODIGLIANI: My turn now?

FISCHER: No Franco—but go ahead. [presumably a reference to Modigliani’s propensity to talk, and talk, and talk.]

MODIGLIANI: (Rolls dice and moves marker). Chance. (McFadden hands him a card). What is this? You have won second prize in a Beauty Contest, Collect $10? This is NOT POSSIBLE. This year I win only FIRST PRIZES [reference to 1985 Nobel Prize for Economics].

DORNBUSCH: (To audience) Wait till he gets the bequest card… [cf. the JEP Spring 1988 paper by Modigliani that surveys the bequest motive]

FISCHER: Franco, I have a deal for you. I’ll trade you Mediterranean and the Water Works for North Carolina and an agreement that you never charge me rent on either property. If you renege, I’ll order Chinese food.

MODIGLIANI: No deal. But what’s this about Chinese food?

FISCHER: It’s a new thing I learned from Garth [Soloner]—it makes the deal sub-gum perfect.

MCFADDEN: My turn. (Rolls and draws a Chance card). My favorite card: Advance Token to the Railroad with the Highest Logit Probability Value. Let me see which one that is… (pulls out a calculator)

FISCHER: While we’re waiting for Dan to converge, how did we do in junior hiring? Did we get that Princeton theorist?

ECKAUS: No dice. All the Princeton guys told him not to come.

DORNBUSCH: Why?

ECKAUS: They said “Go to Yale, go directly to Yale.”

MODIGLIANI: What about senior appointments?

FARBER: Ask Peter [Temin]. He’s on the Search Committee.

MCFADDEN: (Looking up from calculator). I’m having convergence problems. Maybe we should postpone the game for a few minutes while I run down to the PRIME.

[the image of the last page at my disposal is very blurred, fortunately it is only the wrap-up by the announcer]

ANNOUNCER: As you all know, NOTHING takes a few minutes on the PRIME. So until next year, when the [?] [?] Solow who accompanied Stan, 3PO and R2D2 to [?] the [?] [?] from Chicago returns to produce another skit. Good night.

 

Source: Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Robert M. Solow, Box 83.

Categories
Columbia Exam Questions

Columbia. Midterm Exam for International Trade Policy. Rodrik, 1992

 

This post marks the first time that I have transcribed an artifact in the near-history of economics that had been posted on Twitter. Amin Khalaf (@khalaf_amin) tweeted “Best class I took at Columbia was with @rodrikdani almost 30 years ago” and attached an image of the mid-term exam for the course he took on international trade policy. Digitized content is much more useful for the historians of economics of the present and future, so I decided to transcribe and post this one page rather than allow it to simply languish out there in the twittersphere.

Dear visitor to this page: there is always room for more such content. Send Economics in the Rear-view Mirror (c/o  irwin.collier@gmail.com) your own artifacts from your economics training

______________________

ECONOMICS G6303 MID-TERM EXAM
November 11, 1992
Prof. Dani Rodrik

This is a take-home exam. You can choose when to do it within the next 24 hours, but you should take no more than two hours to complete it. This includes the time you spend reading and thinking about the questions, and the time you use to consult your notes. Completed exams should be turned in to Hye Sun at the Economics Department by 12 noon tomorrow (November 12th). Late exams will be marked down accordingly. This exam will be 1/3 of course grade.

  1. Consider a model with three goods, an importable, an exportable, and a non-traded good. The importable is not produced domestically, and the exportable is not consumed domestically. The economy has at least three factors of production, one of which is labor. These factors of production are supplied inelastically and full employment prevails. Write down the system of equations that determines the following endogenous variables: the wage rate, the price of non-tradables, and welfare.
  2. For a small open economy, the real exchange rate is defined as the inverse of a relative price of home goods to tradables. In our model, two potential indices of the real exchange rate are: (i) the price of the non-traded good relative to the exportable; and (ii) the wage rate relative to the price of the exportable. Using the model described above, determine how the imposition of a small import tariff affects these two relative prices. Does the tariff move these two relative prices in the same direction? Explain your findings intuitively.
  3. Focusing on the relative price of non-tradables alone, show that the result of the previous analysis can be reversed when there is a large pre-existing tariff. (I.e., you must analyze the consequences of an increase in the tariff starting from a tariff-distorted equilibrium). Explain why this happens intuitively.
  4. Now amend the model as follows. Assume that the wage rate (relative to the price of the exportable) is exogenously fixed at a level that is too high, so that unemployment results. The representative consumer/worker undertakes a labor-leisure choice, so we can write his utility function as U(cm, cn,
     \bar{L} – L), where cm and cn are the consumption levels of the importable and the non-traded goods,  \bar{L} is the total endowment of labor time, L is employment, and  \bar{L} – L is leisure. He is constrained in the amount of labor he can supply, since employment is determined by labor demand from producers (which falls short of labor supply at the fixed wage rate). Express the appropriately amended expenditure function of the representative consumer/worker. (Hint: labor demand (employment) will not be an argument of the expenditure function.) How is this function defined? What is the interpretation of the derivative of this function with respect to employment?
  5. Write down the system of equations that determines the following three endogenous variables in this amended model: the employment level, the price of the non-tradable, and welfare. Check whether the imposition of a small tariff is a welfare-enhancing policy in this model. Explain your result in intuitive terms.

Source: Photo attachment to May 11, 2021 Tweet by Amin Khalaf (@khalaf_amin).

Image Source: Institute for Advanced Study, Dani Rodrik page (archived from 5 January 2021).

 

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Final exams in political economy and ethics of social reform, 1889-1890

 

The Harvard University Archives provide a fairly complete collection of final examinations for all Harvard courses. Slowly but surely Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is adding transcriptions of economics exam questions, sometimes for individual courses together with syllabi where available and sometimes as annual collections along with course enrollments. In this post we get one year closer to the turn of the twentieth century. Stay tuned or, better yet, subscribe to the blog below!

______________________

1889-90
PHILOSOPHY 11.
THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL REFORM.

Enrollment.

[Philosophy] 11. Prof. [Francis Greenwood] Peabody. The Ethics of Social Reform. — The modern social questions: Charity, Divorce, the Indians, Temperance, and the various phases of the Labor Question, as questions of practical Ethics. — Lectures, essays, and practical observations. — Students in this course made personal study of movements in charity and reform. They inspected hospitals, asylums, and industrial schools in the neighborhood, and the various labor organizations, cooperative and profit-sharing enterprises and movements of socialism, temperance, etc., within their reach. Four special reports were presented by each student, based so far as possible upon these special researches. Hours per week: 2 or 3.

Total 112: 1 Graduate, 53 Seniors, 34 Juniors, 9 Sophomores, 15 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 79.

1889-90
PHILOSOPHY 11.
THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL REFORM
[Mid-Year Examination. 1890.]

Omit one question.

  1. “This Course of study has a twofold purpose, — an immediate and practical purpose, and an indirect and philosophical purpose.” — Lecture I. Illustrate both of these intentions of the Course in the case of either Social Question thus far treated.
  2. Compare the “Social Organism” of Hobbes or of Rousseau with the modern conception of society.
  3. “Here is a tenant-farmer whose principles prompt him to vote in opposition to his landlord…May he then take a course which will eject him from his farm and so cause inability to feed his children?…No one can decide by which course the least wrong is likely to be done.” — Spencer, Data of Ethics, p. 267.

“Thou love repine and reason chafe,
There came a voice without reply —
‘Tis man’s perdition to be safe
When for the truth he ought to die.’”

Emerson, Poems, p. 253. Sacrifice.

Define and compare the principles of conduct proposed in these two passages.

  1. The doctrine of the “Forgotten Man,” — its meaning and its effect on charity and on the stability of the State. Interpret, under this principle of conduct, the parable of the Good Samaritan.
  2. The history of the English Poor Law as illustrating the progress and the dangers of modern charity.
  3. The Law of Marriage in the United States, — its two chief forms, its effect on divorce, and the changes proposed in the interest of Divorce Reform.
  4. The Patriarchal Theory, — its definition, its evidence, and its place in the Philosophy of the Family.
  5. Exogamy, — its meaning, its suppose causes, and its effect on the development of society.
  6. The relation of the stable family type to —
    1. The Philosophy of Individualism.
    2. The Philosophy of Socialism.
  7. Illustrate the dependence of the question of the home on the industrial and economic tendencies of the time.

Source: Harvard University Archives.  Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. Bound volume. Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1889-90.

 

1889-90
PHILOSOPHY 11.
THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL REFORM
[Year-end Examination. 1890.]

[Omit one question.]

  1. State, briefly, any general results which you may have seemed to yourself to gain from this course of study.
  2. The facts, so far as investigated, as to the distribution of wealth in England and in this country, and the lessons to be derived from these facts in either case.
  3. The economic doctrine of Carlyle’s “Past and Present,” and its value in the modern “Social Question.”
  4. Distinguish Anarchism, Communism, and Socialism in their relation to: —
    1. The philosophy of Individualism
    2. The present industrial order.
  5. The tendency in modern legislation which encourages the Socialist. How far, in your opinion, is his inference from this tendency justifiable?
  6. Distinguish the logical and the practical relationships of Socialism to: (a) Religion. (b) Co-operation.
  7. The business principles which give a commercial advantage to an English co-operative store.
  8. State the issue between Federalism and Individualism in Co-operation.
  9. Describe the four prevailing methods of liquor legislation, their relation to each other, and the arguments which encourage each.
  10. Illustrate the “correlation” of the temperance question with other social questions of the time.
  11. How far does such a study of the Social Questions as we have pursued go to establish a theory of Ethics? Illustrate this philosophical contribution in the case of any one of the questions of this Course.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1890-92. Papers set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1890), pp. 8-9.

______________________

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 1. Profs. [Frank William] Taussig and [Silas Marcus] Macvane, and Mr. [Edward Campbell] Mason. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — Lectures on Social Questions (Coöperation, Profit-Sharing, Trades-Unions, Socialism). Banking, and the financial legislation of the United States. Hours per week: 3.

Total 179: 2 Graduates, 29 Seniors, 65 Juniors, 60 Sophomores, 23 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 80.

 

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
[Mid-Year Examination. 1890.]

  1. Define wealth; define capital; and explain which of the following are wealth or capital: pig iron, gold bullion, water, woolen cloth, bank-notes.
  2. Is there any inconsistency between the propositions (1) that capital is the result of saving, (2) that it is perpetually consumed, (3) that the amount of capital in civilized communities is steadily increasing?
  3. On what grounds does Mill conclude that the increase of fixed capital at the expense of circulating is seldom injurious to the laborers? On what grounds does he conclude that, when government expenditures for wars are defrayed from loans, the laborers usually suffer no detriment?
  4. Explain the proposition that even though all the land in cultivation paid rent, there would always be some agricultural capital paying no rent.
  5. Trace the connections between the law of population and the law of rent.
  6. What is the effect on values, if any, of (1) a rise of profits in a particular occupation, (2) a general rise in profits?
  7. “The preceding are cases in which inequality of remuneration is necessary to produce equality of attractiveness, and are examples of the equalizing effect of competition. The following are cases of real inequality, and arise from a different principle.” Give examples of differences of wages illustrating each of these two sets of cases; and explain what is the principle from which the second set arise.
  8. “Retail price, the price paid by the actual consumer, seems to feel very slowly and imperfectly the effect of competition; and when competition does exist, it often, instead of lowering prices, merely divides the gains of the high price among a greater number of dealers.” Explain.
  9. What are the laws of value applying to (1) land, (2) raw cotton, (3) cotton cloth, (4) gold?
  10. How does the legislation of the United States on National Banks provide for the safety of notes and of deposits?

Source: Harvard University Archives.  Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. Bound volume. Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1889-90.

 

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
[Year-end Examination. 1890.]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
One question may be omitted.

  1. How does Mill explain the fact that the wages of women are lower than the wages of men? Wherein is his explanation analogous to certain propositions on which Cairnes laid stress?
  2. “Wages, then, depend mainly upon the proportion between population and capital. By population is here meant the number only of the laboring class, or rather of those who work for hire; and by capital, only circulating capital, and not even the whole of that, but the part which is expended in the direct purchase of labor.” — Mill.
    What has Cairnes added to this statement of the wages-fund doctrine?
  3. On what grounds does Cairnes conclude that trades unions cannot raise general wages?
  4. Explain how it may happen that a thing can be sold cheapest by being produced in some other place that that at which it can be produced with the greatest amount of labor and abstinence.
  5. What effect does the growth of a country have on the relative values of hides and beef? How far would improvements enabling beef to be transported for great distances affect Cairnes’s conclusions on this subject?
  6. Mill lays it down that an emission of paper money beyond the quantity of specie previously in circulation will cause the disappearance of the whole of the metallic money; but observes that if paper be not issued of as low a denomination as the lowest coin, such coin will remain as convenience requires for the smaller payments. What light does experience of the United States during the Civil War throw on the main proposition, and on the qualification?
  7. “No nation can continue to pay its foreign debts by the process of incurring new debts to meet a balance yearly accruing against it; yet this, in truth, is the nature of the financial operation by which of late years the United States has contrived to settle accounts with the rest of the world…These considerations lead me to the conclusion that the present condition [1873] of the external trade of the United States is essentially abnormal and temporary. If that country is to continue to discharge her liabilities to foreigners, the relation which at present obtains between exports and imports in her external trade must be inverted.”
    State the reasoning by which Cairnes was led to this prediction; and explain how far it was verified by the events of the years after succeeding 1873. Point out the bearing of those events on the resumption of specie payments by the United States.
  8. “Suppose that, under a double standard, gold rises in value relatively to silver, so that the quantity of gold in a sovereign is now worth more than the quantity of silver in twenty shillings. The consequence will be that, unless a sovereign can be sold for more than twenty shillings, all the sovereigns will be melted, since as bullion they will purchase a greater number of shillings than they exchange for as coin.” — Mill.
    Explain (1) the conditions assumed in regard to international trade in this reasoning; (2) the mode in which, under the double standard, the metal whose value rises in fact goes out of circulation; (3) the reasons why the coinage of silver in the United States since 1878 has not driven gold out of the currency.
  9. Are general high prices an advantage to a country?
  10. What were Mill’s expectations as to the future of coöperative production? Cairnes’s? What does experience lead you to expect?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1890-92. Papers set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1890), pp. 10-11.

______________________

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 2. Prof. [Frank William] Taussig and Mr. [John Graham] Brooks. First half-year: Lectures on the History of Economic Theory. — Discussion of selections from Adam Smith and Ricardo. — Topics in distribution, with special reference to wages and managers’ returns. — Second half-year: Modern Socialism in France, Germany, and England. — An extended thesis from each student. Hours per week: 3. *Consent of instructor required.

Total 24: 7 Seniors, 12 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 80.

 

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
[Mid-Year Examination. 1890.]

  1. Sidgwick supposes that, in a country where the ratio of auxiliary to remuneratory capital is 5 to 1, 120 millions are saved and added to the existing capital, and asks, “in what proportion are we to suppose this to be divided?” Answer the question.
  2. On the same supposition Cairnes’s answer is expected to be that the whole of the 120 millions would be added to the wages fund. “But then, unless the laborers became personally more efficient in consequence — which Cairnes does not assume — there would be no increase in the annual produce, and therefore the whole increase in the wages fund would be taken out of the profits within the year after the rise. Now, though I do not consider saving to depend so entirely on the prospect of profit as Mill and other economists, still I cannot doubt that a reduction in profits by an amount equivalent to the whole amount saved would very soon bring accumulation to a stop; hence the conclusion from Cairnes’s assumptions would seem to be that under no circumstances can capital increase to any considerable extent unless the number of laborers increases also.”
    What would Cairnes say to this?
  3. Explain what is Sidgwick’s conclusion as to the effect of profits on accumulation; and point out wherein his treatment of this topic differs from Cairnes’s and from Ricardo’s.
  4. In what sense does George use the term “wages”? Ricardo? Mill? Cairnes?
  5. Explain wherein Sidgwick’s general theory of distribution differs from Walker’s.
  6. Compare the treatment of rent by the Physiocratic writers and by Adam Smith.
  7. What was Adam Smith’s doctrine as to labor as a means of value? What was Ricardo’s criticism on that doctrine?
  8. What did Adam Smith say to the argument that taxes on the necessaries of life raise the price of labor, and therefore give good ground for import duties on the commodities produced at home by the high-priced labor? What would Ricardo have said to the same argument?
  9. How does Ricardo show that the application of labor and capital to worse soil brings a decline of profits not only in agriculture, but in all industries?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers in economics 1882-1935 of Professor F. W. Taussig (HUC 7882). Scrapbook.
Also included in Harvard University Archives.  Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. Bound volume. Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1889-90.

 

Political Economy 2.
[Year-end Examination, June 1890.]

  1. Characterize French Socialism, chiefly with reference to St. Simon and Louis Blanc.
  2. What general differences do you note between French and German Socialism?
  3. Summarize Lasalle’s theory of history development.
  4. State and criticize in detail Marx’s theory of surplus value. What follows as to Socialism, if this theory fails?
  5. Is Schaeffle a Socialist? If so, why? If not, why not?
  6. State the present attitude of English Socialism, with special reference to the Fabian Society. Note the most important changes from the Marx type.
  7. In what definite ways would Socialism modify the system of private property?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Vol. Examination Papers, 1890-92. Papers set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1890), pp. 11-12. Previously posted in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

______________________

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 3. Prof. [Frank William] Taussig and Mr. [John Graham] Brooks. Investigation and Discussion of Practical Economic Questions. — Subjects for 1889-90: Profit-Sharing; the Silver Situation in the United States; Prices since 1850; the Regulation of Railways by the Interstate Commerce Act. — Lectures and discussion of theses. Hours per week: 2. *Consent of instructor required.

Total 19: 15 Seniors, 4 Juniors.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 80.

 

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
[Mid-Year Examination. 1890.]

  1. Define Profit-sharing, distinguishing it from Coöperation and from existing forms of the wages system.
  2. What in your opinion are the four most successful experiments, with specific reasons for the choice?
  3. State as definitely as possible the conditions under which Profit-sharing is most likely to succeed.
  4. What are the advantages of immediate as against deferred participation?
  5. How serious is the current objection that the laborer cannot or ought not to bear the losses incident to business?
  6. What of the objection that secrecy is impossible?
  7. What specific evidence is there that an extraordinary person is not permanently necessary to successful Profit-sharing?
  8. State briefly the actual advantages and disadvantages of Profit-sharing as they have appeared in history.
  9. What would be the probably effects of competition upon a larger application of Profit-sharing to our industrial system?
  10. What is the best method of dividing the bonus? Add any criticism upon the actual division as seen in history.
  11. Will self-interest alone insure successful Profit-sharing? If not, how can the difficulty be met without violating “business principles”?

Supplementary Questions.

  1. What, if any, is the nature of the antagonism in Profit-sharing among capitalist, manager, and workman?
  2. What of the objection that Profit-sharing is inconsistent with the nature of a legal contract?
  3. Would a wider application of Profit-sharing modify any given theory (as that of Cairnes or Walker) as to the wage fund?

Source: Harvard University Archives.  Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. Bound volume. Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1889-90.

 

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
[Year-end Examination. 1890.]

  1. In 1887 the Secretary of the Treasury suggested that the purchase by the government of silver for coinage into standard dollars should be subject only to one limitation: that whenever the silver dollars held by the Treasury, over and above those held against outstanding certificates, exceeded $5,000,000, the purchase and coinage should cease.
    Explain (1) how the effects of this plan, in the years from 1887 to 1889, would have differed from those of the actual coinage and issue; (2) whether the silver currency so issued could, under any circumstances, be at a discount as compared with gold.
  2. Give the same explanations in regard to a plan by which the government should purchase every month $4,500,000 worth of silver bullion and issue therefor certificates, redeemable, at the government’s option, in gold or silver coin; or, at the holder’s option, in silver bullion at its market value on the day of their presentation for redemption.
  3. What are India Council Bills? How does their issue affect the price of silver?
  4. Point out what bearing you think improvements in production have on the existence and effects of an appreciation of gold.
  5. Explain the following terms, giving examples: (a) group rate; (b) differential; (c) relatively reasonable rates; (d) arbitraries, (e) commodity rate.
  6. Is it unjust discrimination, under the Interstate Commerce Act, (1) to offer a discount to any consignee who receives more than a specified quantity of freight a year; (2) to give a lower rate to regular shippers than to occasional shippers; (3) to refuse to pay mileage for the use of cars furnished by a shipper of cattle, when mileage is paid for the use of cars furnished by a shipper of oil; (4) to charge more per mile on long hauls than on short hauls.
  7. Comment on the following: “The value of service is generally regarded as the most important factor in fixing rates…The value of service to a shipper in a general sense is the ability to reach a market and make his commodity a subject of commerce. In this sense, the service is more valuable to a man who transports a thousand miles than to a man who transports a hundred miles, so that distance is an element in value of service. In a more definite and accurate sense, it consists in reaching a market at a profit, being in effect what the traffic will bear, to be remunerative to the producer or trader.”
  8. Explain how the penalties for violating the Interstate Commerce Act can be enforced, and how they have been enforced.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1890-92. Papers set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1890), pp. 12-13.

______________________

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 4. Mr. [Adolph Caspar] Miller. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. — Lectures and written work. Hours per week: 3.

Total 106: 25 Seniors, 27 Juniors, 35 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 16 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 80.

*  *  *  *  *  *

From the prefatory note to Benjamin Rand’s (ed.) Selections illustrating economic history since the Seven Years’ War (Cambridge, MA: Waterman and Amee, 1889):

These selections have been made for use as a text-book of required reading to accompany a course of lectures on economic history given at Harvard College.

*  *  *  *  *  *

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
[Mid-Year Examination. 1890.]

[Take all of A, and seven questions from B.]

A.

  1. “It has often been imagined that the property of these great masses of land was almost entirely in the hands of the church, the monasteries, the nobility, and the financiers; and that before 1789 only large estates existed, while the class of small proprietors was created by the Revolution. Some consider this supposed change as the highest glory, and others as the greatest calamity of modern times; but all are agreed as to the fact. — Von Sybel, [Economic Causes of the French Revolution] in Selections, p. 52.
    (a) What do you consider to be the fact?
    (b) Granting the fact, how do you regard the change?
  2. Speaking of the fall of wages in England during the French wars, Mr. Porter [The Finances of England, 1793-1815, Selections, p. 114] says: “Nor could it well be otherwise, since the demand for labor can only increase with the increase of the capital destined for the payment of wages.” Why was there no increase of the capital destined for the payment of wages when, according to J. S. Mill, “the wealth and resources of the country, instead of diminishing, gave every sign of rapid increase”?
  3. Porter [Selections, p. 121] says: “There never could have existed any doubt of the fact that, whenever the necessity for borrowing should cease, the market value of the public funds would advance greatly…. The knowledge of this fact should have led the ministers, by whom successive additions were made to the public debt, to the adoption of a course which would have enabled them to turn this rise of prices to the advantage of the public, instead of its being, as it has proved, productive of loss.”
    What was the course adopted and how was it productive of loss? Was this “loss” at all offset by any advantages?
  4. Mention briefly the events associated in your mind with six of the following names: Sheffield; Slater; Coalbrookdale; Young; Dud Dudley; Coxe; Killingworth; Clarkson; “Rocket.”

B.

  1. How was England commercially affected by the loss of her American colonies in 1783?
  2. (a) Compare the French debt and taxation in 1789 with those of England at about the same date.
    (b) Point out the significance of England’s debt in 1783 as compared with 1889.
  3. (a) What method would you pursue in investigating the question as to the depreciation of bank notes during the Restriction?
    (b) Tooke’s explanation of the high price of bullion during the Restriction. Wherein did it differ from the opinion of the Bullion Committee?
    (c) How do you account for the high profits of the Bank of England during the Restriction?
  4. (a) Describe the French assignats and point out wherein they differed from the territorial mandates.
    (b) What was the tiers consolidé?
  5. (a) In what particular ways were England and the United States peculiarly benefited by the introduction of steam navigation?
    (b) What changes were introduced into the French railway system under Napoleon III.?
  6. (a) Napoleon’s Continental System. Its effects upon England and France respectively.
    (b) Point out the chief factors determining the commercial development of the United States from 1789 to 1816.
  7. (a) General commercial and industrial nature of the period 1815 to 1830.
    (b) Were the progressive changes of prices a cause or an effect of the disturbances of this period?
    (c) How did the increase of pauperism affect the distribution of wealth in England during and following the Napoleonic wars?
  8. (a) Why has the current of liberal commercial opinions been successful in influencing legislation in England, but ineffective in France?
    (b) Describe the Merchants’ Petition, and point out its importance.
  9. (a) Formation and constitution of the Zoll Verein.
    (b) In what manner were the duties of the Zoll Verein levied?

Source: Harvard University Archives.  Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. Bound volume. Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1889-90.

 

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
[Year-end Examination. 1890.]

[Take all of A and eight questions from B.]

A.

  1. Cairnes [From Cairnes’ Essays in Political Economy, “The New Gold”, in Selections, p. 211] says that “as a general conclusion we may say, that in proportion as in any country the local depreciation of gold is more or less rapid than the average rate elsewhere, the effect of the monetary disturbance will be for that country beneficial or injurious.”
    1. By what process of reasoning does Mr. Cairnes reach this conclusion?
    2. To what extent was it verified by the history of the new gold movement?
    3. What would determine the rapidity of the local depreciation in any country?
  2. The writer in Blackwood’s [“The French Indemnity: The Payment of the Five Milliards” in Selections, p. 250], speaking of the origin of the indemnity bills, quotes M. Say as being of the opinion “that scarcely any part of the indemnity bills was furnished by the current commercial trade of the country.” How were they furnished?
  3. The same writer [Selections, p. 246] says that “the quantities of bills, of each kind, that were bought by the French Government as vehicles of transmission, in no way indicate the form in which the money was handed over to the German Treasury.” Why?
  4. Wells [Recent Economic Changes, p. 218] says “the changes in recent years in the world’s economic condition have essentially changed the relative importance of the two functions which gold, as the leading monetary metal, discharges; namely, that of an instrumentality for facilitating exchanges and as a measure of value.” Describe some of the agencies and evidences of this change in the functions of gold, and point out what influence has thus been exerted upon the value of gold.

B.

  1. Why was an additional supply of gold especially important, 1850-69?
  2. What part did India play in the gold movement, 1851-67? How has her ability in this respect been modified?
  3. To what extent can the decline of our tonnage be ascribed to the effects of the Civil War?
  4. How do you account for the increase of the trading classes during the Civil War?
  5. American wheat and its effect upon English agriculture. How were the results modified by the lord and tenant system?
  6. German coinage and the crisis of 1873. To what extent did it contribute to the fall of prices after 1873?
  7. How did the crisis of 1873 simplify the problem of specie resumption for the United States? Did it do the same for France?
  8. Why did France recover so rapidly after the war of 1870-71?
  9. The Suez Canal and Oriental trade.
  10. Compare the period 1873-89 with the period 1815-30.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1890-92. Papers set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1890), pp. 13-14.

______________________

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 6. Prof. [Frank William] Taussig. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. — Lectures on the History of Tariff Legislation. — Discussion of brief theses (two from each student). — Lectures on the Tariff History of France and England. Hours per week: 2 or 3. 2d half-year. *Consent of instructor required.

Total 29: 19 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 80.

 

1889-90.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[End-Year]

  1. What grounds are there for believing that the restrictive policy of Great Britain did or did not have a considerable effect on the industrial development of the American colonies?
  2. What was the effect of the political situation in 1824 on the tariff act of that year? in 1842 on the act of 1842?
  3. “The tariff of 1846 was passed by a party vote. It followed the strict constructionist theory in aiming at a list of duties sufficient only to provide revenue for the government, without regard to protection.”—Johnston’s American Politics.
    Was the act passed by a party vote? Did it disregard protection? Did it succeed in fixing duties sufficient only to provide revenue?
  4. What basis is there for the assertion that the gold premium, in the years after the civil war, increased the protection given by the import duties?
  5. Under what circumstances was the tariff act of 1864 passed? How long did it remain in force?
  6. Is there any analogy between the effects of the duties on cotton goods after 1816 and those on steel rails after 1870?
  7. Wherein would there probably be differences in the effects of reciprocity treaties (1) with Canada, admitting coal free; (2) with Great Britain, admitting iron free; (3) with Brazil, admitting sugar free?
  8. Apply Gallatin’s test as to the effect of duties on the price of the protected articles, to the present facts in regard to (1) clothing wool, (2) silks.
  9. On what grounds is the removal of the duty on pig iron more or less desirable than that of the duty on sugar?
  10. Is it a strong objection to ad valorem duties that they depend on foreign prices and that therefore the duties are fixed by foreigners? Is it a strong objection to specific duties that they operate unequally?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1890-92. Papers set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1890), pp. 14-15.
Also: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers in economics, 1882-1935. Prof. F. W. Taussig.

______________________

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Public Finance and Banking.

[Omitted in 1889-90]

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 80.

______________________

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 8. Mr. [Adolph Caspar] Miller. History of Financial Legislation in the United States. — Lectures and brief theses. Hours per week: 2 or 3. 1st half-year.

Total 25: 13 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 81.

 

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.
[Mid-year examination]

[Take two questions from A, and eight from B.]

The questions under A are supposed to require half an hour each for careful treatment, and those under B fifteen minutes each.

A.

  1. Commenting on those provisions of the Funding Act of August 4, 1790, by which the six-per-cent stock was made “subject to redemption by payments not exceeding in one year, on account of both principal and interest, the proportion of eight dollars upon each hundred, Professor Adams remarks: —
    “In our previous study of annuities it was discovered that long-time annuities did not meet the requirements of good financiering, because they unnecessarily embarrassed the policy of debt payment. The same objection attaches to this plan of Mr. Hamilton. The record of subsequent treasury operations renders it reasonably certain that a simple six-per-cent bond, guaranteed to run for twenty years, would have proved satisfactory to public creditors, and have induced them to comply with the other conditions which the Government imposed. This would have brought the larger part of the six-per-cent bonds under the control of Congress in the years 1811 and 1813, and permitted either their redemption or their conversion into stock bearing a reduced rate of interest. But since the right of redemption except at a stated rate, had been signed away, it was found necessary to continue the higher rate of interest upon the common stock till 1818, and upon the ‘deferred stock’ until 1824. As the matter turned out, the war of 1812 would have rendered such an operation upon the common stock impossible, had it been permitted by the contract; but this does not excuse the Federalists for having adopted a bad theory of funding.”
    Do you consider this a sound criticism of Hamilton’s plan of funding? By what means do you determine whether or not it met the “requirements of good financiering”?
  2. “Our sinking fund, however, differed materially from that which was adopted in the early financial history of Great Britain, as it was not exclusively applied to the liquidation of a particular debt in existence. It was also unlike that of Mr. Pitt, as the amount of the capital appropriated was not fixed before 1802….Properly speaking, the essential character of a sinking fund was not to be found in the operations of that of the United States.” — Jonathan Elliot, Funding System of the United States and of Great Britain, p. 406, note.
    Discuss the above with particular reference to the alleged difference of principle between Pitt’s sinking-fund policy and Hamilton’s. In this connection, also point out carefully what changes were introduced into the sinking-fund policy of the United States in 1802. Do those changes represent any real departure from the principle of Hamilton’s sinking-fund?
  3. “The most generally received opinion is, that, by direct taxes in the Constitution, those are meant which are raised on the capital or revenue of the people….As that opinion is in itself rational,… it will not be improper to corroborate it by quoting the author from whom the idea seems to have been borrowed. Dr. Smith Wealth of Nations, book V. chap. 2) says, ‘The private revenue of individuals arises ultimately from three different sources: Rent, Profit, and Wages. Every tax must finally be paid from some one or other of those three different sorts of revenue, or from all of them indifferently.’ After having treated separately of those taxes which, it is intended, should fall upon some one or other of the different sorts of revenue, he continues, ‘The taxes which, it is intended, should fall indifferently upon every different species of revenue, are capitation taxes, and taxes upon consumable commodities.’ And, after having treated of capitation taxes, he finally says, ‘The impossibility of taxing the people, in proportion to their revenue, by any capitation, seems to have given occasion to the invention of taxes upon consumable commodities. The State, not knowing how to tax directly and proportionably the revenue of its subjects, endeavours to tax it indirectly.’ The remarkable coincidence of the clause of the Constitution, with this passage, in using the word ‘capitation’ as a generic expression, including the different species of direct taxes, — an acceptation of the word peculiar, it is believed, to Dr. Smith, — leaves little doubt that the framers of the one had the other in view at the time, and that they, as well as he, by direct taxes, meant those paid directly from, and falling immediately on, the revenue.” — Albert Gallatin, Sketch of the Finances, p. 12.
    Discuss the above with particular reference to the source and meaning of the phrase “direct taxes” in the Constitution of the United States.

B.

  1. “The Act provided, that, if the total amount subscribed by any state exceeded the sum specified therein, a similar percentage should be deducted from the claims of all subscribers. Four ninths of the stock issued by the government for this loan bore interest at six per cent, beginning with the year 1792; on third bore three per cent interest, beginning at the same time, and the balance, two ninths, bore six per cent interest after the year 1800. The latter kind of stock was to be redeemed whenever provision was made for that purpose. And, with respect to seven ninths of the stock, the government was at liberty to pay two per cent annually, if it desired; but no imperative obligation was created to pay it.” — A. S. Boles, Financial History of the United States, vol. II. p. 28.
    Is this an accurate statement, so far as it goes, of the provisions of the Act of August 4, 1790, for assuming the State debts?
  2. How is President Madison’s approval of the Bank Act of April 10, 1816, to be reconciled with his bank veto of January 30, 1815?
  3. “During the winter of 1833-34 there was a stringent money market and commercial distress. The State banks were in no condition to take the public deposits. They were trying to strengthen themselves, and put themselves on the level of the Treasury requirements in the hope of getting a share of the deposits. It was they who operated a bank contraction during that winter…The administration, however, charged everything to Biddle and the bank.” — W. G. Sumner, Andrew Jackson, p. 316.
    Where do you consider that the real responsibility for the pressure of 1833-34 rested?
  4. What criticism would you make on the financial management of the war of 1812? Was it a fair test of the policy of relying upon public credit for defraying the extraordinary expenses of war?
  5. What kind of currency did the government use and where did it keep its moneys, and under what authority of law, from 1811 to 1864?
  6. How is the extension of accommodations by the Bank of the United States from 1830 to the middle of 1832 to be explained?
  7. What were the terms of the one hundred and fifty million bank loan of 1861, and how was it financially important?
  8. Point out the steps by which the legal-tender notes have become a fixed and permanent part of the currency.
  9. What is the essence of the national bank system, so far as concerns note-circulation, and what bearing does this have upon the future of the system?
  10. Is Mr. Chase entitled to take rank in American history as a great finance minister? State carefully and concisely the grounds of your opinion.

Source: Harvard University Archives.  Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. Bound volume. Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1889-90.

______________________

1889-90
POLITICAL ECONOMY 9.
Management and Ownership of Railways.

[Omitted in 1889-90]

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1889-1890, p. 81.

 

Image Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard Square, 1885.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Gender Social Work Third Party Funding Vassar

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumna, Sydnor Harbison Walker, 1926

 

Sydnor Harbison Walker was a budding labor economist who became an important grants administrator/manager with the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial and later the Rockefeller Foundation. Her 1926 Columbia University dissertation was on the economics of social work, which like home economics, provided an academic harbor within economics for not a few women economists of the time.

_____________________

Life of Sydnor Harbison Walker

Born: 26 September 1891 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Parents: Walter and Mary Sydnor Perkins Walker.

1913. A.B. from Vassar with honors

Taught English and Latin at private schools in Louisville, Dallas, and Los Angeles.

1917. M.A. University of Southern California.

Thesis: “The General Strike with Particular Reference to Its Practicability as Applied to American Labor Conditions”

1917. Poughkeepsie City director listing as “assistant Vassar College”.

1918-19. Poughkeepsie City director listing as “instructor Vassar College”.

1919-21 [ca.]. Philadelphia.

Personnel work at Scott Company in Philadelphia [where she met Beardsley Ruml, see below].
Personnel work at Strawbridge & Clothier in Philadelphia.

1921-23. American Friends Service Committee.

One year of relief work in Vienna
Followed by one year in Russia with the American Friends Service Committee.

1924-1929. Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund.

Recruited by Beardsley Ruml as “research associate” in June 1924.

1926. Economics Ph.D. from Columbia University. Henry Seager, principal adviser.

Dissertation published: Social Work and the Training of Social Workers. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1928.

1929-1943. Rockefeller Foundation (absorbed the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund in 1929).

1933. Promoted to associate director

1934. Sydnor H. Walker, “Privately Supported Social Work,” in Recent Social Trends in the United States, ed. President’s Research Committee on Social Trends (New York: Whittlesey House, 1934), pp. 1168-1223.

1937. Appointment to acting director of the Social Science Division.

1939. Voted to the board of trustees of Vassar. Resigned October 1942 due to illness.

1941. October. Contracted a spinal infection, involving a paralytic illness that “permanently confined her to a wheel chair”. She had been elected to be president “of a prominent woman’s college” but the illness forced her to decline the honor.

1943. Resigned from the Rockefeller Foundation.

1945. Edited a volume for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, New York City. “The first one hundred days of the atomic age, August 6-November 15, 1945”.

1948. Appointed assistant to Sarah Blanding, president of Vassar.

1958. Retired from Vassar.

Died: 12 December 1966 in Millbrook, New York, leaving a bequest of $10,000 to Vassar College.

_____________________

Walker’s principal biographer

Amy E. Wells. Considering Her Influence: Sydnor H. Walker and Rockefeller Support for Social Work, Social Scientists, and Universities in the South.  pp. 127-147. Chapter 5 in Andrea Walton (ed.). Women and Philanthropy in Education.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005.

_________. Sydnor Harbison Walker. American National Biography Online. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

_____________________

Vassar Memorial Minute
Walker, Sydnor Harbison, 1891-1966

Miss Sydnor Harbison Walker, Vassar alumna, faculty member, trustee and Assistant to the President, died December 12, 1966, at her home in Millbrook, New York, at the age of 75. She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, the daughter of Walter and Mary Sydnor Perkins Walker.

After attending Louisville schools, Miss Walker came to Vassar and was graduated in 1913 with honors. Economics was her major interest and she returned to Vassar to teach it in 1917, with an M.A. from the University of Southern California. Professor Emeritus Mabel Newcomer, a young colleague at the time, writes that “her quick wit and gaiety made her well liked among students in the residential hall where she lived ….. as a teacher she exhibited these same qualities, combined with clarity of thought and expression …. although she could be sharply critical of the careless and the dilatory.”

In 1919 Miss Walker decided that she needed some practical experience and went to work for a pioneering firm of industrial relations consultants where she wrote their weekly news letter. Three members of this young firm became college presidents and some years later Miss Walker herself was on the way to the presidency of a prominent college for women. A fourth member of the firm was Beardsley Ruml.

In 1921 Miss Walker engaged in the relief work of the American Friends Service Committee, first in Vienna and later in Russia. In a letter to President Emeritus MacCracken, she vividly describes her experience.

“We are now feeding about 15,000 a week through our depots, and we are supplying clothing to nearly 3,000. Our work is done on an individual case basis, which we think to be the soundest, not only from a social point of view, but because we believe that method essential for the creation of a spirit of international good-will — at no time a secondary object in our program… In addition to the feeding and clothing…. we are teaching mothers to care for their babies through the welfare centers; we are supporting a score of hospitals and other institutions for children; we have restocked farms with poultry and cattle and are helping farmers to build up permanent food resources for the city; and we are assisting materially in such constructive Austrian enterprises as the building of suburban land settlements and the creation of a market abroad for the art work of many gifted persons…we feel that we are a real part of the life of the city and not a superimposed group of relief workers.”

It is not hard for those who knew Miss Walker to visualize her presiding over relief work in the Imperial Palace of the Hofburg, whose stately corridors were cheerless and deserted save for these activities.

Returning to America in 1924, Miss Walker combined her interests in industrial relations with social welfare and education by becoming a research assistant at the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fund in New York. In the meantime she received her doctorate in economics from Columbia University in 1928 with a dissertation on “Social Work and the Training of Social Workers.”

When the Rockefeller Foundation absorbed the Spelman Fund in 1929, Miss Walker began her association of twenty years with the Foundation. She moved from the research department to the position of Associate Director of the Social Sciences Division and finally became its Acting Director. While there she developed a program of international relations involving considerable travel in Europe and South America in very responsible positions. In 1933 she collaborated in the preparation of the report of President Hoover’s Committee on Social Trends, contributing a chapter entitled, “Privately Supported Social Work.”

In 1939 Miss Walker was proposed for trustee of Vassar College by the Faculty Club and she was elected by the board. Again quoting Miss Newcomer, “her contribution as a Vassar trustee was very real….Her experience on the faculty and as a student, and her current work in the Rockefeller Foundation, had given her a real understanding of the problems of the college and enabled her to offer constructive criticism and suggestion for change.”

Her resignation as trustee occurred in October 1942, and came because of a crippling illness which led eventually to her permanent confinement to a wheel chair. A friend and fellow alumna described her long battle against mistaken diagnoses, official predictions of helplessness and the end of her career.

“Sydnor simply rejected the idea of permanent immobility…. for a person who never knew what fatigue meant, who never could understand inactivity, either mental or physical, nothing could have been more tragic than paralysis.”

When Miss Walker realized that complete recovery was impossible, on her own initiative she went to one of the first rehabilitation clinics in New York and learned to help herself to a remarkable degree. Also she wrote, and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation published in 1945, a report entitled “The First Hundred Days of the Atomic Age.”

In 1948 another opportunity to serve Vassar came to Miss Walker when Miss Blanding named her Assistant to the President. She returned to live in Metcalf House and became an active participant in Vassar’s development. Miss Blanding knew her as “a brilliant woman who never lost her zest for life nor her interest in things of the mind. She was a voracious reader and stimulating companion.”

After Miss Walker’s retirement in 1957, she bought a large colonial house in Millbrook, reminiscent of her native Kentucky. There she continued her vital interest in Vassar and in the many friendships she had made throughout her rich and colorful life.

Respectfully submitted,

Josephine Gleason
Clarice Pennock
Verna Spicer
Winifred Asprey, Chairman

Source: Online collection published by Vassar College Libraries. Faculty meeting minutes: XVIII-334-336.

_____________________

From The Rockefeller Foundation: A Digital History.

Sydnor H. Walker worked with the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (LSRM) and the Rockefeller Foundation’s (RF) Division of the Social Sciences, helping to shape research in the social sciences over the course of two decades.

Walker was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1891. She received an A.B. in economics from Vassar College in 1913 and an M.A. from the University of Southern California in 1917.

She returned to Vassar in 1917, where she served as an instructor in economics. A colleague commented that Walker was appreciated by the students for “her quick wit and gaiety…although she could be sharply critical of the careless and the dilatory.”[1] In 1919 Walker left her teaching position to join an industrial relations consulting firm headed by Beardsley Ruml. She subsequently went abroad to Vienna and Russia to aid in European relief with the American Friends Service Committee.

Upon her return to the U.S. in 1924, Walker was recruited by Ruml to work for the LSRM as a research associate. She was a staunch advocate of using scientific and standardized methods to conduct research in the social sciences. While working for the LSRM, Walker continued her studies at Columbia University, receiving her Ph.D. in economics in 1928. Her dissertation, “Social Work and the Training of Social Workers,” was published by the University of North Carolina Press in 1928.

When many of LSRM’s programs were consolidated with the RF in 1929 and a new Division of the Social Sciences created, Walker became Assistant Director of the division. She was promoted to Associate Director in 1933 and Acting Director in 1937. Among her interests at the RF, she was a proponent of improving the teaching of social work and the administration of social welfare programs. Her grant-making extended to many southern universities. She also contributed to the development of the social sciences outside the U.S., working with grantees in Europe and Latin America.

Resigning from the RF in 1943 for health reasons, she worked on a report for the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, “The First Hundred Days of the Atomic Age,” which was published in 1945.

She served as a trustee for Vassar College from 1939-1943 and was appointed assistant to the president of Vassar College in 1948, a position she held until 1957.

Sydnor H. Walker passed away in 1966. Former Vassar College President, Sarah Blanding, called her “a brilliant woman who never lost her zest for life nor her interest in things of the mind.”[2] Her officer diaries are available to researchers at the Rockefeller Archive Center (RAC) and additional papers are in the Biographical Collection at the Vassar College Libraries.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

[1] Josephine Gleason et al. “Sydnor Harrison Walker: A Memorial Minute,” Vassar Faculty Meeting, December 1966, Biographical Files Collection, Vassar College Archives, Vassar Libraries.

[2] Gleason et al.

Source: Webpage, The Rockefeller Foundation: A Digital History. People/Sydnor H. Walker. Also the source for the portrait of Sydnor H. Walker used above.

 

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs Faculty Regulations

Chicago. Economics A.M. requirements amended to become “Consolation Prize”. Lewis and Schultz, 1950

 

In 1950 the Chicago economics department voted to convert its master’s degree into an award for the successful partial completion of its Ph.D. program. It was to serve as a “consolation prize” for good graduate students but those found not to have the right “Ph.D. stuff” (H. Gregg Lewis’ words in his memo of Sept. 29, 1950 to chairman T. W. Schultz, transcribed below). I have also included the relevant portion of the distributional and examination requirements for the Ph.D. that had already formed part of the so-called “alternate departmental master’s degree”. H. Gregg Lewis’ proposal was largely accepted by the department (minutes from the meeting of November 2, 1950 transcribed below), thereby eliminating distinct tracks for its A.M. and Ph.D. degree programs, respectively.

_______________________

ALTERNATIVE DEPARTMENTAL MASTER’S DEGREE
[1950-51 regulations]

Upon request the Department will consider recommending for the Master’s degree candidates who have satisfied the distribution requirement for the Ph.D. degree and have passed with satisfactory standing the three written field examinations for the Ph.D. degree. One modern foreign language is required. In place of a thesis such candidates may present an acceptable paper or report on a problem approved by the Department.

[…]

Distributional requirement [Ph.D.]. The candidate is expected to have familiarity with the subject matter equivalent to that covered in at least one course (200 or 300 level of reasonable comprehensivenss in each of ten fields (five required and five elected), satisfactory evidence of which can be provided by course credit or by passing a special examination. The required fields are: (a) economic theory, (b) accounting, (c) statistics, (d) economic history, and (e) money, banking, and monetary policy. The fields from which five may be elected are: (f) consumption economics, (g) industrial relations, (h) monopoly and public utilities, (i) agricultural economics, (j) government finance, (k) international economic relations, and (l) substitute fields, but not in excess of two, proposed by the candidate and approved by the Departmental counselor or the Department. One or both of these substitute fields may be outside the Department of Economics, and in general some work outside the Department is recommended with a view to rounding out a program appropriate for the individual student. In case of students transferring from other institutions, adequate training in general history may be substituted for economic history upon the written recommendation of the Departmental counselor.

Preliminary written field examinations [Ph.D.]. In each of three fields of specialization, in addition to presenting course credit or special examinations to show satisfactory preparation, the candidate will be required to pass a written examination.

The candidate is expected to select the three fields of specialization—a primary field and two secondary fields—for intensive graduate work. The primary field is that in which the [Ph.D.] thesis will be written. One of the three fields (primary or secondary) must be that of economic theory, including monetary theory. The fields from which selection is to be made are listed above under the heading “Distributional Requirement,” except that accounting may not be chosen as a field without approval of the Department. One secondary field of specialization may be a field named by the candidate outside the list above, and this may be in a department other than Economics. A secondary field may also be developed under one of the interdepartmental committees of specialization International Relations, Human Development, Planning or Social Thought. The program of work proposed, which ordinarily will include four to five courses, must be approved by the Department. No other secondary field may replace the required field in economic theory.* Students should consult with the Departmental counselor with respect to appropriate programs of work in preparation for the field examinations. The field examinations are given by the Department in the sixth and seventh weeks of the Winter and summer quarters. Application for any field examination should be made not later than the end of the first week of the quarter in which the examination is to be taken.

*Students who take the field examination in money, banking, and monetary policy will not be required to write the monetary theory part of the economic theory examination.

 

Source: University of Chicago, Announcements. The Division of the Social Sciences, Sessions of 1950-1951, Vol. L, Number 9 (July 20, 1950), pp. 25-26.

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ECONOMIC COURSES LISTED IN THE LEWIS MEMO (29 Sept 1950) AND INCLUDED IN THE DEPARTMENTAL MINUTES (2 Nov 1950)

209. Intermediate Economic Theory. (Procter Thomson/Harold Gregg Lewis) Designed for students majoring in economics. Deals with factors controlling production, value and relative prices, and distribution.

211. Introduction to Statistics. (Harold Gregg Lewis) Elementary principles of statistics. Main topics: frequency distributions, averages, dispersion, index numbers, elements of the theory of statistical inference.

220. Economic History of the United States. (Earl J. Hamilton) Facts and factors in American’s economic growth from the Colonial period to World War II, including the development of agriculture, industry, commerce, finance, and transportation; economic effects of wars; role of the entrepreneur; rise in living standards; unrest and utopias in periods of stagnation; commercial crises and economic basis of cultural progress.

222. The Rise of Industrial Civilization in Europe. (John Ulrich Nef) Economic development in its relation to religious, political, intellectual and artistic history since the seventeenth century.

230. Introduction to Money and Banking. (Milton Friedman/Lloyd Wynn Mints) Factors which determine the value of money in the short and in the long run; and operation of the commercial banking system and in relation to the price level and general business activity.

240. Introduction to Industrial Relations. (Albert E. Rees) The nature of the labor market; government regulation of wages; social security; the history, structure, and functions of American labor unions; and collective bargaining. Special attention is given to current problems of public policy.

255. Introduction to Agricultural Economics. (D. Gale Johnson). Nature of resources used in agriculture. Prices, production, resource allocation, and income distribution. Analysis of government programs, subsidies, storages, crop control, soil conservation, food-stamp plan.

260. Introduction to Government Finance. (Richard B. Goode) Survey of institutions and theories of government finance. Effects of public expenditures; functions of public revenue; forms of taxation; tax criteria; determination of tax policy; public borrowing; debt management; fiscal policy.

270. International Economics. (Bert F. Hoselitz) The nature of international payments and receipts; foreign trade and banking system. The gold standard in the interwar period. The breakdown of the gold standard and the period of fluctuating exchange rates. Exchange controls, clearing agreements and payments agreements. The second world war and the foreign exchange markets. The position of the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development in the present world economy.

271. Economic Aspects of International Politics. (Bert F. Hoselitz) An introductory survey, with particular reference to the United States, of the economic policies and activities of governments. Topics: international specialization of production and the distribution of world resources, structure of international exchanges and the mechanism of international transfer of goods and services; tariffs and other regulatory measures; trade agreements and the most-favored nation clause; international flow of capital and investment; the position of the ITO, the IMF, the ECA and other official agencies in international trade and exchange.

300A, 300B. Price Theory. (W. Allen Wallis 300A/Lloyd A. Metzler 300B/Milton Friedman 300B) A systematic study of the pricing of final products and factors of production under essentially stationary conditions. Covers both perfect competition and such imperfectly competitive conditions as monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly. 300A deals primarily with the pricing of final products; 300B, with the pricing of factors of production.

Source: University of Chicago, Announcements. The Division of the Social Sciences, Sessions of 1950-1951, Vol. L, Number 9 (July 20, 1950), pp. 27-28.

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THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

September 29, 1950

To        T. W. Schultz

From   H.G. Lewis

In Re: Requirements for the Master’s Degree

This is an elaboration of comments made to you this summer concerning the Master’s degree.

I should like to recommend the following changes in our requirements for the A.M. degree:

  1. That the distinction between the “regular” A.M. and the “alternative” A.M. be abolished.
  2. That the departmental requirements for the A.M degree consist of the following alteration of the present alternative A.M. requirements:
    1. A distribution requirement covering five (rather than the present eight) fields of economics of which theory, statistics, and money and banking shall be mandatory. Students who do not hold the traditional A.B. degree must meet the requirement by passing satisfactorily a qualifying examination coving the subject matter of Economics 209, 211 (unless the student has passed the Divisional qualifying examination), 230, and two courses chose from 220, 222, 240, 255, 260, 270, 271.1/ Students holding the traditional A.B. may meet the requirement by showing equivalent course credit.
    2. The passing of two Ph.D. field examinations (with Part I of the Theory exam counting as a full exam) at a satisfactory level (that is, at either the Ph.D. level or at a level somewhat lower but not so low as not to warrant blessing the candidate with a Master’s degree).2/
    3. A showing of competence in economic principles; made either by passing (at the A.M. level or higher) Part I of the Theory examination, by course credits or course examinations in Economics 300A and 300B, or by equivalent course credit.

I would recommend that the changes in requirements become effective as of the beginning of the Summer Quarter, 1951 for students entering the Department in that and later quarters.

1/ This qualifying examination is now offered every quarter. This is an extravagant use of faculty. I should like to see the exam offered only once a year. Furthermore, I should like to permit students to substitute course grades for all or part of the exam provided the course grades are for courses taken here and provided they are not at a level lower than B.

2/ There would be therefore no special examinations for A.M.’s, but the examinations would be graded into three levels: passing for the Ph.D. and A.M. degrees, passing for the A.M. degree but not for the Ph.D., failing for both.

I would urge students to give requirement (b) high priority in preparing their programs of study.

Since the ends sought by these changes can be reached in other ways, I specify below what these ends are.

I view our principal instructional purpose as that of training high-level (Ph.D. and beyond) professional economists. I think we ought to view our training of “junior” economists and the awarding of the A.M. degree only as an incident arising from the fact that at the time a student applies for admission to the department, we cannot predict accurately either his calibre as a student or his academic goals.

It seems to me that the requirements for the Master’s degree should meet these tests:

  1. They should include no requirements which the Department would not make for the Ph.D. degree. Otherwise both student and faculty time will be spent in activities extraneous to the training of high-level economists. The present alternative A.M. meets this test but the regular A.M. does not.
  2. The requirements should be at a level high enough to be respected by the academic world. Both present degrees meet this test, I believe.
  3. But the standards for the degree should not be so high that potentially able Ph.D. candidates will be deterred from entering because of the considerable risk that if they fail to meet Ph.D. standards they will also fail to meet A.M. standards. If we set standards for the A.M. that are almost as likely not to be met as the Ph.D. standards we hold out no “consolation prize” to those good students who are fearful of not being able to meet Ph.D. standards. The present alternative A.M. requirements do not meet this test.

One of the ways by which we can raise the calibre of our Ph.D. candidates without reducing our enrollment is to increase the number of students who are given an opportunity to show at close hand their potentialities to us and to screen out at an earlier date those who are not of Ph.D. stuff. I am confident that quite accurate screening can take place ordinarily by the end of the first year of graduate residence. I contemplate our using the A.M. requirements as a screening device; the present alternative A.M. is not satisfactory from that point of view since it postpones too long the screening decision.

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics Records. Box 41, Folder “41.8”.

_______________________

MINUTES
Meeting of the Department

Time and Place: Thursday, November 2, 1950, at 1:00 p.m. in Room 424, Social Science Research Building.

Present: T. W. Schultz (chairman), H. G. Lewis, A. Rees, R. Goode, G. Tolley, D. G. Johnson, F. H. Harbison, J. Marschak, C. Hildreth, F. Knight, L. Metzler.

  1. Handling of Student Business
    It was agreed that all bona fide applications for admission to candidacy filed this quarter would be considered as falling under present degree requirements even though Departmental action does not take place until Winter quarter.
  2. Ford Foundation
    Schultz stated that as a Department we have an obligation to ourselves, to the University, and to the community more largely to think through carefully the problem of making the best use of the Ford Foundation’s present grant of $300,000 to the University as well as possible later grants. There was a brief general discussion of the problem.
  3. Departmental Rules Governing Residence and Availability to Students
    Schultz pointed out that in the current year we have been able for the first time to reduce direct teaching loads for most of our members to four courses per year or less. This reduction, he pointed out, makes it desirable that the Department impose upon itself rules governing residence and availability to students and others in the university community lest they be imposed upon us from outside. The problem of rules for residence involves not only a rule stipulating in some way minimum residence, but also the question of whether “free” quarters out of residence should be considered a matter of a right accruing to an individual from his residence or a privilege dependent upon ad hoc decisions made by the Department chairman and the Dean. Schultz expressed himself as being in favor of a rule somewhat similar to the rules for accumulating sabbatical leave under a 3Q contract. In addition there is the problem of insuring, perhaps by rule, “availability” when in residence. The formulation of appropriate rules is to come before the Department for its consideration in the Winter quarter.
  4. The Department considered Lewis’ recommendations for changes in the A.M. requirements. (See attached memo. [above]) the following amendment of Lewis’ recommendation was passed:
    1. That the distinction between the regular A.M. and the “alternative” A.M. degrees be abolished.
    2. That the Departmental requirements for the A.M. degree consist of the following:
      1. A distribution requirement to be met by passing a “Qualifying” examination covering the subject matter of Economics 209, 211 (unless the student has passed the Divisional qualifying examination) 220 or 222, 230 and two courses chosen from 240, 255, 260, 270, and 271. Students holding the traditional A.B. may satisfy the requirement by equivalent course credit.
      2. The passing of two Ph.D. field examinations (with Part I of the Theory examination counting as an examination) at a satisfactory level of A.M. candidates.
      3. A showing of competence in economic principles; made either by (at the A.M. level or higher) Part I of the Theory examination, by course credits or examinations in Economics 300A and 300B, or by equivalent course credit.
      4. An acceptable paper or report on a problem approved by the Department. The paper will be read by two members of the Department of which the course instructor will be one in the event the student submits a term paper prepared for a course.

The above changes in requirements are to become effective as of the beginning of the Summer quarter, 1951 for students entering the Department in that and later quarters.

It was understood that the above motion in no way changes present preliminary examinations or other requirements for the Ph.D. degree. Professor Knight asked the minutes to show his objection to dropping Economics 210 (Accounting) from the requirements for the A.M. degree.

  1. Student Business
    1. Petitions

Lawrence Bostow’s petition for approval of French and Russian as languages for the Ph.D. was approved.

Mr. H. M. Herlihy’s petition for the field of “Social Organization” (Sociology Department) as his third field for the Ph.D. degree was approved.

Mr. John Holsen’s petition for a third Ph.D. field in Planning (Planning Department) was approved. Mr. Johnson, his counselor, was asked to inform Mr. Holsen, however, that this approval does not entitle Holsen to shorten his total program in Economics for the Ph.D.

Mr. Edward Mishan’s petition for approval of Spanish as a Ph.D. language was denied.

    1. Admission to Candidacy

Mr. Howard Ammerman’s application for admission and for approval of a thesis topic was moved to the bottom of the list of applications.

Mr. Rondo E. Cameron’s application for admission to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree was recommended to the Division for approval, contingent upon his passing the Theory examination (written Summer, 1950) and his proposed thesis topic, “French Foreign Investment, 1815-1870,” was approved. Thesis committee: E. J. Hamilton, chairman, L. Metzler, P. Thomson.

After some discussion, Mr. Clifford Clark’s application was moved down the list. Lewis was instructed to advise Clark to consult with Hamilton concerning the latter’s misgivings about the proposed thesis topic, and in addition to confer with Hayek, Knight, and other members of the Department concerning the thesis topic.

Mr. George P. Coutsoumaris’ application for admission to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree was recommended to the Division for approval, contingent on his passing the Theory examination (written Summer, 1950), and his proposed thesis topic, “Possibilities of Increasing Economic Efficiency in Greek Agriculture,” was given qualified approval, the Department suggesting that he limit the topic somewhat preferably to a topic approximately the same as that covered in the sections (VII and VIII) of his outline dealing with capital in Greek agriculture. Thesis committee: D. G. Johnson, chairman, C. Harris, J. Margolis (planning).

Mr. David Fand’s proposed thesis topic, “Monetary Theory of the Federal Reserve Board,” was discussed. It was agreed to come back to it at the next meeting after several more of the members of the Department had an opportunity to discuss the topic with Fand.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:05 p.m.

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics Records. Box 41, Folder “41.8”.

Images:  University of Chicago Photographic Archive, H. Gregg Lewis [apf1-03861] and T. W. Schultz [apf1-07479], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Berkeley Economists Harvard Princeton

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, Merton Kirk Cameron, 1921

 

After graduating from Princeton, Merton K. Cameron taught high-school Latin, Greek and History before going on for graduate work in economic history at Harvard University where he co-taught courses in the economics of transportation and the economics corporations with Professor William Z. Ripley in 1915-16.

From his obituary in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (23 May 1952, p. 5) we learn that he retired from the University of Hawaii in August, 1949 because of ill health and then moved with his family to California. It was reported that Cameron was “a member of the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, Phi Gamma Delta, American Association of University Professors, Phi Kappa Phi, Pi Gamma Mu, National Association of Cost Accountanats and the American Economics Association.”

Merton Kirk Cameron was born 7 January 1886 in Cecil County, Maryland and died 22 May 1952 in San Gabriel, California.

_________________

Harvard Economics Ph.D., 1921

Merton Kirk Cameron, A.B. (Princeton Univ.) 1908, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1914.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Economic History. Thesis, “The History of Tobacco-Growing in the Ohio Valley.”
Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Oregon.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1920-21, p. 60.

_________________

Summer School, Berkeley 1932

Merton Kirk Cameron, Ph.D., Professor of Economics and Head of the Department of Economics and Business, University of Hawaii.

A.B., Princeton University, 1908; M.A., 1914, Ph.D., 1921, Harvard University. Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Oregon, 1920-23, Associate Professor, 1923-28; Professor of Economics, University of Hawaii, since 1928.
Author: Experience of Oregon with Popular Election and Recall of Public Service Commissioners; Some Neglected Aspects of the Problem of Poverty; The Political Pressure on the State Commissioners; Some Economic Causes of the Backward Condition in the Ante-Bellum Ohio Valley Tobacco District.

Source: University of California, Intersession and Summer Session, 1932 at Berkeley. (Officers of Administration and Instruction, Visiting Instructors), p. 4.

_________________

From the Princeton Alumni Weekly (1952)
Memorial

Merton Cameron, Ph.D., educator and author of many scientific books and articles on sociological and economic studies, died on May 22, 1952 at his home in San Gabriel, Calif. For the past 30 years prior to his retirement in 1950 he was professor of Economics and chairman of the Dept. of Economics and Business at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu. During World War II following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor he was active in defense work in Honolulu, both in directing the construction of bomb shelters and as an expert on finger prints. At that time his wife, Margaret, served in the Honolulu Office of Censorship.

Froggy, as he was affectionately known in college, elected teaching as a career, having served on the faculties of several U.S. schools including the Lanier High School in Maryland, the Donald Fraser School of Decatur, Ga. [ca. 1908], and the Riverside Military Academy at Gainesville, Ga. [ca. 1911], before accepting an offer from the University of Hawaii. He was one of those rare teachers who was not only a master of his subject but able to arouse enthusiastic response and admiration from his pupils.

Surviving in addition to his wife, Mrs. Margaret Elizabeth Sullivan Cameron, are a son, Merton K. Jr.; a daughter Edith, wife of Col. Kenneth R. Kenerick and two grandchildren, Karen J. Kenerick and Kaye Elizabeth Kenerick.

To the members of his family who survive the Class extends its sincere sympathy.

For the Class of 1908
Robert C. Clothier, President
Courtland N. Smith, Secretary

Source: Princeton Alumni Weekly, July 4, 1952, p. 34.

Image Source: University of Hawaii Yearbook, 1936.