Category: Courses

Categories
Courses Harvard Syllabus

Harvard. Economic and Political Ideas. O. H. Taylor, 1948

 

As wonderful as is the Harvard University Archive’s collection of old syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), coverage is by no means complete and there are many gaps and omissions. Unfortunately I could not find the syllabus from the second term of the two term course taught by Overton Hume Taylor (1897-1987) that can be seen as an expanded, grown up version of a freshman/sophomore level, one semester course “The Intellectual Background of Economic Thought” that he taught in 1940-41. Sometime soon I’ll try to cobble together likely content for his second semester course from 1949. But for now, the first term can certainly serve as a stand-alone course. As can be seen from the course description below, Economics 115 was the union of two related, but distinct, courses, Economics 15a and Economics 15b.

In the meantime I have found the final examination questions for this course in the Harvard archives.

Here is a link to Taylor’s A History of Economic Thought (1960). My guess is that the second term of the course covered  Chapters 14-17 in Taylor’s text (rise of Communism and Fascism, Welfare State Economics, Imperfect Competition, Keynesian Macroeconomics).

Overton Hume Taylor (1897-1987) was born in Colorado, received his B.A. at the University of Colorado in 1921 and Ph.D. from Harvard in 1928. He held the rank of instructor 1929-1960, was promoted to professor, 1960-64. He retired from Harvard in 1964, going on to teach at Vanderbilt University.

______________________

If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

_____________________________

 

[Course Description from Announcement of Courses, 1948-49]

Economics 115 (formerly Economics 15a and 15b). Economics and Political Ideas in Modern Times.

Full course. Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Dr. O. H. Taylor.

A course which may be of interest equally to Economics, Government, and History concentrators; dealing with both economic and political thought in their joint historical development. Hobbes and the mercantilists; Locke, the physiocrats, Adam Smith and Smith’s successors (economic liberalism), Marxism; and other, including present-day, ideologies and economic theories. Prerequisite: Economics 1.

Source: Harvard University. Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year, 1948-49, p. 74.

_____________________________

[Course Enrollment: Economics 115, 1948-49.]

115 (formerly Economics 15a and 15b). Economics and Political Ideas in Modern Times. (Full Co.) Dr. O. H. Taylor.

(F) 10 Graduates, 12 Seniors, 12 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 3 Radcliffe, 1 Other. Total: 44.
(S) 7 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 14 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 1 Radcliffe, 1 Other: Total: 38.

Source: Reports of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1948-49, p. 76.

_____________________________

Economics 115
Fall Term, 1948-49

Economics and Political Ideas in Modern Times – First Semester

I. September 30-October 9.
Introduction; Plato and the Middle Ages; Hobbes and Mercantilism.

Reading due October 9:
(1) Plato, Republic Book II; and
(2) Hobbes, Leviathan 1-6, 13, 14, 17, 18, 21, 24.
Thursday, September 30. Introductory lecture. Aim and Nature of the Course. Economics, politics, philosophy, and political economy. Economics in modern western civilization and in pre-capitalist civilizations. Visionary and prosaic philosophies and cultures. Economic science and political faiths.
Saturday, October 2. The modern west’s partial break with and debts to, its ancient-medieval heritage. Latter’s debt to philosophy of Plato. Platonic views in philosophy, politics, and economics; and the ruling medieval views.
Tuesday, October 5. The rise of modernity; 17th century Europe and England; Hobbes vs. Plato.
Thursday, October 7. 17th century English mercantilism and economic theory.
Saturday, October 9. Class discussion of the reading in Plato and Hobbes. (no lecture).
II. October 12-23.
Liberalism; Locke; the Physiocrats and Adam Smith.

Reading due October 23:
(1) Locke, Civil Government, II, Chs. 2, 5, 7-12, inclusive;
(2) Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Chs. 1-7.
Tuesday, October 12. [Holiday]
Thursday, October 14. Varieties of liberalism and associated economic thought from early-modern times to present.
Saturday, October 16. Natural law and early-modern liberalism. Locke vs. Hobbes. Locke, Newton, and the 18th century.
Tuesday, October 19. The philosophy and economics of the Physiocrats (French 18th century liberal economists).
Thursday, October 21. The philosophy and economics of Adam Smith.
Saturday, October 23. Class discussion of the reading in Locke and Adam Smith
III. October 26-November 6.
Bentham, Malthus, and Ricardo; Opposition Currents; and J. S. Mill

Reading due November 6:
J. S. Mill essays, “Utilitarianism” and “Liberty.”
Tuesday, October 26. Bentham and his followers. Utility vs. natural law. Utilitarian liberalism and classical economics.
Thursday, October 28. Malthus vs. the anarchist-socialists.
Saturday, October 30. Ricardo and classical economics.
Tuesday, November 2. The “Manchester School,” free trade in England, and the popular version of the Bentham-Ricardo doctrines. Opposition movements, Romantic Toryism, Comtism, and early socialism.
Thursday, November 4. The education, career, and mature opinions of J. S. Mill.
Saturday, November 6. Class discussion of the Mill essays.
Tuesday, November 9. Hour exam.
IV. November 9-20.
The Romantic Reaction, and Comte

Reading due November 20:
(1) Either Carlyle, Past and Present or Ruskin Unto This Last; and
(2) Comte, Positive Philosophy, Introduction, Ch. 1, and Book VI, Chs. 1, 2.
Thursday, November 11.                             [Holiday]
Saturday, November 13. The romantic movement vs. rationalism and liberalism. Political and economic ideas of the English romanticists.
Tuesday, November 16. Romantic-reactionary thought in Germany, from the period between Kant and Hegel to Hitler; and its expressions in the sphere of economics.
Thursday, November 18. Romanticism, positivism, and the main 18th century outlook—interrelations. The positivism of August Comte vs. liberalism and economic science.
Saturday, November 20. Class discussion of the Carlyle-Ruskin and Comte reading.
V. November 23-December 4;
Marxism

Reading due December 4:
(1) Burns, Handbook of Marxism, Chs. 1, 13, 22, 29, 30;
(2) Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Part I.
Tuesday, November 23. “Utopian” socialism, Hegel, Ricardo, and Marx; and the Marxian theory of history.
Thursday, November 25.                             [Holiday]
Saturday, November 27. The Marxian economic theory of capitalism, I: value, wages, and profits.
Tuesday, November 30. The Marxian economic theory of capitalism, II: the system’s destined evolution and self-destruction.
Thursday, December 2. The Marxian vision of the future beyond capitalism—the revolution and the new society; and concluding appraisal of Marxism.
Saturday, December 4. Discussion of Marx reading.
 
VI. December 7-18.
Victorian Conservative Liberalism and Neo-Classical Economics.

Reading due December 18:
(1) C. Brinton, English Political Thought in the 19th Century,
Ch. III, Sections 1, 2, and IV, 1, 2, 4;
(2) A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book I, Chs. 1, 2, Appendix A and B; Book IV, Chs. 1-3, inclusive; and V, 1-5 inclusive.
Tuesday, December 7. How in the late 19th century the classical liberalism, originally a radical, became a conservative ideology. New developments of economic theory in the conservative liberal context, after 1870.
Thursday, December 9. Utility economics and utilitarianism; the free price system and economic welfare.
Saturday, December 11. Marginal productivity and distributive justice—Clark and Carver
Tuesday, November 14. Neo-classical theories about capital, money, business cycles, monopoly, and economic progress.
Thursday, December 16. The special views and system of Alfred Marshall.
Saturday, December 18. Class discussion.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 4, Folder “Economics 1948-49 (1 of 2)”.

Image Source: Harvard Album, 1952.

Categories
Courses Curriculum Exam Questions Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Three Economics Courses. Texts and Exams, 1874-77.

In the mid-1870’s there were three courses in political economy offered at Harvard every year. The first was a one-term prescribed course in political economy required of all undergraduates in their sophomore year.  The other two courses in political economy were electives of which one was recommended for students of history while the other presumably put greater emphasis on economic theory. In the Harvard University Catalogues for the academic years 1874-5 through 1876-7, there is exactly one examination for each of these three courses. Using the annual Reports of the President of Harvard College, I was able to use enrollment data to determine the dates of the examinations.

The textbooks for the courses are identified and we see the first graduate students recorded in the class-enrollments for 1876-77.  I have grouped the courses below by academic year.

______________________

If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

_____________________________________

1874-75

PRESCRIBED: POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Sophomore year

Prof. Dunbar. Fawcett’s Political Economy for Beginners. — Constitution of the United States (Alden’s Science of Government, omitting the first four and the last three chapters).
Two hours a week. Half-year. 208 students, 4 sections, 2 exercises per week for students, 8 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1874-75, p. 45.

 

[Note: Courses 7 and 8 are parallel Courses, Course 7 being preferable for students of History.]

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 7.
Political Economy

Prof. Dunbar. Political Economy. — Fawcett’s Manual of Political Economy. — Blanqui’s Histoire de l’Èconomie Politique en Europe.— Bagehot’s Lombard Street.
Three hours a week. 19 Seniors, 14 Juniors.
1 Sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 3 exercises per week for Instructor.

Source: Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1875-76, p. 49. Also, Harvard University Catalogue, 1874-75, p. 56.

 

[EXAMINATION FOR 1874-75(?) FROM 1875-76 CATALOGUE]
PHILOSOPHY 7.

[In answering the questions do not change their order.]

  1. State the general principles which determine the exchange of commodities between two countries, and show the analogy between this case and that of exchange between individuals under the familiar law of demand and supply.
  1. If the United States were to levy an export duty on cotton, on whom would it fall? What objection is there to the proposition?
  1. It is known that the people of the United States are debtors to Europe to a large amount; should our annual returns show a balance of imports or of exports? Why? If, in fact, the balance appears to be the wrong way, what conclusion is to be drawn?
  1. With commerce in its normal condition, would exchange on Europe be in our favor, against us, or at par? Why? Would this state of things be for our disadvantage or not?
  1. What causes the tendency of profits to fall as a nation advances?
  1. If a tax were laid, at a uniform rate, on all property of every description, would it meet the requirements of Adam Smith’s first rule? Give the reason.
  1. Why should not large incomes be taxed at a higher rate than moderate ones; as, e.g., incomes of $10,000 and upwards higher than those between $5,000 and $10,000?
  1. How much control has the Bank of England over the rate of interest in the money market?
  1. Under the national bank act, how does the action of our banks, when the reserves are suddenly reduced, differ from that of the Bank of England in like case?
  1. What difference would there be likely to be in the operation of these two methods, at a time when the condition of monetary affairs is critical?
  1. State the following leading facts relating to the issue of legal tender notes: —

(1) When they were first authorized;
(2) The maximum prescribed by the act of June, 1864;
(3) The point to which they were reduced by Mr. McCulloch;
(4) The amount of expansion under Mr. Richardson
(5) The provision contained in the act of June, 1874;
(6) The provisions for withdrawal in the act of January, 1875.

  1. How do the deposit of bonds required of the national banks and the reserve required for their circulation differ in purpose?
  1. Give the date and circumstances of the first issue of fractional currency.
  1. Why did the government issue 5-20 bonds rather than 20-year bonds bearing the same rate of interest? Which is more valuable? Why?
  2. If all business were done for cash, what difference would it make as to the ease of resuming specie payments? Why?

Source: The Harvard University Catalogue, 1875-76. Cambridge, p. 238.

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 8.
Political Economy

Prof. Dunbar. Political Economy. — J. S. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Bagehot’s Lombard Street. Legislation of the United States on Currency and Finance.

Three hours a week. — 65 Seniors, 33 Juniors.
2 Sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1874-75, p. 48. Also, Harvard University Catalogue, 1874-75, p. 56.

 

_____________________________________

1875-76

PRESCRIBED: POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Sophomore year

Mr. Macvane. Fawcett’s Political Economy for Beginners. — Constitution of the United States (Alden’s Science of Government, omitting the first four and the last three chapters).
Two hours a week. Second half-year. 182 students, 4 sections, 2 exercises per week for students, 8 exercises per week for Instructor.

Source: Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1875-76, p. 44.

 

[Examination of 1875-76(?), from 1876-77 Catalogue]
PRESCRIBED POLITICAL ECONOMY.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

[Those who take the examination in the Constitution may omit the questions marked with a star (*).]

  1. Explain the service which Capital renders to production. Should you call a coal mine capital? a steam engine? a mill stream? Why?
  2. Define Value. Show whether a general rise of values is possible. Distinguish between natural value and market value. Do they ever coincide?
  3. What do you understand to be “the value of money “? On what does it depend? How does a rise in the value of money show itself?
  4. Mention the three classes into which commodities are divided in relation to their value. In which class should you place gold and silver?
  5. (*) Show how far the action of demand and supply controls the value of commodities in each class.
  6. Explain the relations between rent of land, price of food, and growth of population.
  7. What is meant by cost of labor? Show that a man’s wages may be low and yet the cost of his labor be high. Point out the connection between cost of labor and profit of capital.
  8. (*) Wherein do productive and unproductive consumption differ? “A knowledge of one of the first principles of political economy is sufficient to show that society is no gainer by the reckless expenditure of the spendthrift:” State the principle referred to, and illustrate the truth of the assertion.
  9. (*) Show that foreign trade is advantageous to both countries only when the relative cost of the commodities exchanged is different in the two countries. When exports and imports fail to balance each other in any country, how is the equilibrium restored?
  10. Give the four “canons of taxation,” and show the application of any two of them. How may the burden of taxation be distributed according to the first canon, in a country where the revenue is raised by duties on tea, sugar, wines, etc.
  11. (*) Distinguish direct from indirect taxes. To which class does the income tax belong? Ought permanent and temporary incomes to be taxed equally?
  12. (*) Show whether high wages make high prices. Suppose that laborers, by combinations and strikes, should succeed in raising wages so much as to bring profits down to a very low figure, would they be benefited thereby? Why?

 

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.

[Those who take the examination in Political Economy will answer questions 1-7 only.]

  1. Explain the terms exclusive and concurrent as applied to legislative power. Mention two subjects in reference to which Congress has exclusive, and two in which it has concurrent, power of legislation.
  2. Through what stages must bills go in their passage through each house? Mention the ways in which a bill may become a law. In what case does a bill fail to become a law though passed by both houses and not vetoed by the President?
  3. State the qualifications required for Vice-President; for senators. Describe the mode of electing senators. How, and under what authority, has this mode been established?
  4. Show how the amendments relating to slavery (XIII.-XV.) affected the apportionment of representatives. How far has the right of each State to make its own franchise law been abridged by these amendments?
  5. When a president is to be elected, how many electors are appointed by each State? How are the electors chosen? What control has Congress over the election?
  6. What officers are subject to impeachment? For what offences? What is the effect of resigning? How may persons convicted on impeachment be punished?
  7. Give the provisions of the Constitution in reference to trial by jury. Describe the function of grand juries. Explain fully “the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.”
  8. Define treason. What courts have jurisdiction in cases of treason? What evidence is necessary in order to convict? What is provided in the Constitution as the punishment of treason 1
  9. How are direct taxes apportioned? What taxes are direct in the meaning of the Constitution? Compare this sense of the word with its use in Political Economy.
  10. Give the provisions in the original Constitution relating directly or indirectly to the subject of slavery. What difficulties, arising from the existence of slavery, were encountered in framing the Constitution?
  11. Taxes on exports. Taxes on immigrants.
  12. The treaty-making power in the United States and in England.
  13. Copyright and patent rights.
  14. Naturalization of aliens. Expatriation.
  15. Bills of credit. Legal-tender notes.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue, 1876-77, p. 229.

 

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 5.
Political Economy

Prof. Dunbar. Political Economy. — J. S. Mill’s Political Economy. — Bagehot’s Lombard Street. –Lectures on the Financial Legislation of the United States.
Three hours a week. Second half-year. 36 Seniors, 80 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.
2 Sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for Instructor.

Source: Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1875-76, p. 49.

 

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 6.
Political Economy

Prof. Dunbar. Advanced Political Economy. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — McKean’s Condensation of Carey’s Social Science. Lectures.
Three hours a week. 24 Seniors.
1 Sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 3 exercises per week for Instructor.

Source: Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1875-76, p. 49.

 

[EXAMINATION OF 1875-76(?) FROM 1876-77 CATALOGUE]
PHILOSOPHY 6.

  1. Give Mr. Cairnes’s statement of the wages-fund doctrine. (p. 167.)
  2. Criticise the following extracts from Walker’s “Wages Question,”
  3. 128-130: —

“A popular theory of wages is based upon the assumption that wages are paid out of capital, the saved results of the industry of the past. Hence, it is argued, capital must furnish the measure of wages. On the contrary, I hold that wages are, in a philosophical view of the subject, paid out of the product of present industry, and hence that production furnishes the true measure of wages. … So long as additional profits are to be made by the employment of additional labor, so long a sufficient reason for production exists; when profit is no longer expected, the reason for production ceases. At this point the mere fact that the employer has capital at his command no more constitutes a reason why he should use it in production when he can get no profits, than the fact that the laborer has legs and arms constitutes a reason why he should work when he can get no wages.

“The employer purchases labor with a view to the product of the labor; and the kind and amount of this product determine what wages he can afford to pay. … If the product is to be greater, he can afford to pay more; if it is to be smaller, he must, for his own interest, pay less. It is, then, for the sake of future production that the laborers are employed, not at all because the employer has possession of a fund which he must disburse; and it is the value of the product, such as it is likely to prove, which determines the amount of the wages that can be paid, not at all the amount of wealth which the employer has in possession or can command. Thus it is production, not capital, which furnishes the motive for employment, and the measure of wages.”

  1. What is the reasoning which leads Mr. Cairnes to predict an ultimate fall of prices in the United States as compared with prices elsewhere? How will a protective tariff affect the movement? (p. 304.)
  2. A recent writer says: —

“We will be able to resume specie payments when we cease to rank among the debtor nations, when our national debt is owed to our own people, and when our industry is adequate to the supply of the nation’s need of manufactured goods.” (Thompson’s “Social Science,” p. 206.)

How essential are these three conditions, severally, for the resumption of specie payments?

  1. Criticise the argument contained in the following proposition :—

“With every increase in the facility of reproduction, there is a decline in the value of all existing things of a similar kind, attended by a diminution in the price paid for their use. The charge for the use of the existing money tends, therefore, to decline as man acquires control over the great forces provided by the Creator for his service; as is shown by the gradual diminution of the rate of interest in every advancing country.”

  1. Compare the generally received principle that paper currency tends to expel coin, with the following: —

“All commodities tend to move towards those places at which they are most utilized. . . . The note and the check increase the utility of the precious metals; and therefore is it, that money tends to flow towards those places at which notes and checks are most in use, — passing, in America, from the Southern and Western States towards the Northern and Eastern ones, and from America towards England.”

  1. What is Mr. Carey’s doctrine as to the value of land in an advancing society? Compare it with his general doctrine as to the determination of value hy cost of reproduction.
  2. What is Mr. Carey’s general law of distribution between labor and capital? Give the general course of reasoning leading to this law.
  3. Discuss Mr. Carey’s objection to the Malthusian theory, that increase of numbers is in the inverse ratio of development, man multiplying slowly while the lower forms of animal and vegetable life multiply rapidly.
  4. What logical necessity has compelled Mr. Carey to assume the existence of a law of diminishing fecundity in the human race? Compare this with the process of reasoning which leads to the Malthusian conclusion as to the necessary operation of ” checks,” positive and preventive.

Source:  Harvard University Catalogue, 1876-77, p. 233-4.

_____________________________________

1876-77 

NO LONGER PRESCRIBED: POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Sophomore year

Political Economy is no longer listed among the sophomore prescribed courses according the Annual reports of the President of Harvard University for 1876-77, pp. 44-45.   The only prescribed course from the department of philosophy was a junior year course of Logic and Psychology, each for one semester.  Cf. Catalogue of Harvard University, 1876-77, p. 55.

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 5.
Political Economy

Prof. Dunbar. Political Economy. — J. S. Mill’s Political Economy. — Financial Legislation of the United States. Three hours a week. 1 Graduate, 30 Seniors, 64 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 2 Unmatriculated.

Source: Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1876-77, p. 49.

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 6.
Advanced Political Economy

Prof. Dunbar. Advanced Political Economy. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — McKean’s Condensation of Carey’s Social Science.
Three hours a week.  2 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 3 Juniors.

Source: Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1876-77, p. 49.

 

Categories
Amherst Courses Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins University. Theory of Distribution, John Bates Clark, 1892

When John Bates Clark held lectures on the theory of distribution at Johns Hopkins University in autumn 1892, he was also holding down two academic jobs in Massachusetts where he was Professor of Political Science and History at Smith College and Professor of Political Economy at Amherst College.

One presumes what he taught in his Hopkins course were his papers “The Law of Wages and Interest” (Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1890)  and “Distribution as Determined by a Law of Rent”  (Quarterly Journal of Economics, April 1891) as well as his response to Walker’s criticism (QJE, July  1891) published as “The Statics and the Dynamics of Distribution” (QJE, October 1891).

 

Source: John Bates Clark: A Memorial. Privately printed, p. 10.  For Smith College, see the faculty list in Smith College, Official Circular, No. 19 (1892), p. 50.

______________________

If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

_____________________________________

[Amherst College Catalogue for 1892-93]

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

A topical analysis of the subject, with references to important authorities, is made the basis of the work. In the class-room the course is carried on by means of recitations, discussions, lectures, abstracts, essays, and frequent examinations. A syllabus of the results attained is placed in the hands of each student daily.

First Term: four hours a week. — Economic Theory. An analysis of industrial society, the aim of which is thorough acquaintance with the Principles of PoliticalEconomy and correct methods of analysis. — Mill, Walker, Clark, Marshall.

Second Term: four hours a week. — The Silver Question; the Problem of Distribution; the Principles of Taxation, with especial reference to the Tariff Question; Theories of Free Trade and Protection; the History of Tariff Legislation in the United States; the Existing Tariff; Public Credit.
The work of this term is open to those only who have taken the first term.

Third Term: four hours a week. — The Theory of Distribution; the Labor Question; Socialism; Social Reform; Immigration.
The work of this term is open to those only who have taken the first term.

 

Source: Catalogue of Amherst College for the Year 1892-93, pp. 31-32.

_____________________________________

 

[Abstract of a course of lectures before the students in History and Politics, Oct.-Nov., 1892.]

On the Theory of Distribution. By John B. CLARK.

It was the object of the course to demonstrate the working of the forces that apportion the income of society among various claimants. To most men the gaining of a personal income presents itself as a process in distribution. A man does not keep the things that he himself produces, but secures for his own use a share of the things that others produce. The amount of the income appears to vary according to the terms that the recipient is able to make with those with whom he deals. That some law governs those terms is generally believed; but an accepted theory of distribution is lacking.

The course tried to make it clear that the law that is sought connects distribution with production. It causes the share of the social income that one recipient would receive, if conditions were quite normal, to correspond with the amount that he has contributed toward the creation of that income. Under natural law a man consumes things that other people make; but he gets and uses the value, or abstract quantum of wealth, that he himself brings into existence. “To each his product” is the rule, under free exchange and perfect competition.

In studying the mechanism by which this effect is secured, it is necessary, first, to ascertain, not what income accrues to particular men, but what attaches to the performing of certain functions. A man may perform several: he may be a laborer, a capitalist and an employer of laborer and capital. A purely economic theory of distribution accounts for the gains secured by working, by furnishing capital or by employing men and capital. A further and more distinctly sociological study accounts for the merging of various functions in the same men, and gives a resulting social distribution of wealth. The two studies together account for the size of the incomes of different persons and of different social classes.

In practical life static forces and dynamic ones are in action together. There are influences at work that would continue to produce their effects if society were reduced to a stationary state. Other influences depend on progress; these act when the economic world is in a transitional condition, leaving behind it one position of static equilibrium and advancing toward another. In life the dynamic influences succeed each other perpetually, and the stationary condition is never reached; but the static forces operate throughout the progressive movement. Isolating these forces and separately examining them affords one key to success in a study of distribution. The division of gains that takes place between employer and employed in one industry is to be kept in its true relation to the general distribution of the income of society as a whole. The non-competing groups and sub- groups that constitute an industrial society have been studied, and thereby the sources of the wages and interest earned in different employments have been determined.

The law that fixes the amount of wages and that of interest, in the whole social field, has been revealed by the use of a formula that is commonly applied in determining the rent of land. The central principle of the theory is that of so-called “diminishing returns.” In its broader and more scientific use the principle causes labor to become less productive per unit when more of it is applied in connection with a fixed amount of capital; and it causes capital to yield less per unit when an increasing quantity of it is used in connection with a limited amount of labor.

The character and effects of the chief dynamic influences were examined, and some of the conditions of the future well-being of society as a whole and of different social classes were determined.

 

Source: The Johns Hopkins University. University Circulars. Vol. XII, No. 105 (May 1893), p. 83.

Image Source: The Amherst Olio ’96 (1894).

Categories
Courses Economic History Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Economic History of the U.S., Gay and Klein, 1911.

During the academic year 1910-11 at Harvard, a pair of economic history courses were offered by Professor Edwin Francis Gay, assisted by a history department instructor, Julius Klein, who would go on to complete his Ph.D. in 1915. The first term course, Economics 6a, was dedicated to European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. The second term course, Economics 6b covered U.S. Economic and Financial History from colonial times up to 1900. Below we have the enrollment figures for Economics 6b and its reading list. One can see by the reliance on a textbook and relatively few standard sources that U.S. economic history was not Gay’s primary research interest. Biographical information on both Edwin F. Gay and Julius Klein can be found in the previous posting.

________________________

Welcome to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can even subscribe to this blog below.  There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

____________________________

 

[Enrollment: Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States.]

6b 2hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. Klein.—Economic and Financial History of the United States.

13 Graduates, 19 Seniors, 52 Juniors, 22 Sophomores, 7 Freshmen, 6 Other:
Total 119.

 

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1910-11, p. 49.

 

____________________________

ECONOMICS 6b (1911)
[Economic and Financial History of the United States]

Required Reading is indicated by an asterisk (*)

 

1. Colonial Period

Callender*, Economic History of the United States, pp. 6-63, 85-121.

Ashley, Commercial Legislation of England and the American Colonies, Q. J. E., Vol. XIV, pp. 1-29; printed also in Ashley’s Surveys, pp. 309-335.

Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, pp. 36-51.

McMaster, History of the People of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 1-102.

Eggleston, Transit of Civilization, pp. 273-307.

Beer, Commercial Policy of England, pp. 5-158.

Rabbeno, American Commercial Policy, pp. 3-91.

Lord, Industrial Experiments in the British Colonies of North America, pp. 56-86, 124-139.

 

1776-1860

2. Commerce, Manufactures, and Tariff

Taussig*, Tariff History of the United States, pp. 68-154.

Hamilton*, Report on Manufactures, in Taussig’s State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff, pp. 1-79, 103-107, (79-103).

Callender, Economic History, pp. 432-563.

Bolles, Industrial History of the United States, Book II, pp. 403-426.

Bishop, History of American Manufactures, Vol. II, pp. 256-505.

Pitkin, Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States (ed. 1835), pp. 368-412.

Gallatin, Free Trade Memorial, in Taussig’s State Papers, pp. 108-213.

Commons, Documentary History of American Industrial Society, Vol. IV, pp. 15-89; Vol. VI, pp. 311-353.

Rabbeno, American Commercial Policy, pp. 146-183.

Hill, First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States, Amer. Econ. Assoc. Pub., Vol. VIII, pp. 107-132.

 

3. Internal Improvements

Callender*, Economic History, pp. 271-275, 345-404.

Tenth United States Census (1880), Vol. IV, Thos. C. Purdy’s Reports on History of Steam Navigation in the United States, pp. 1-62, and History of Operating Canals in the United States, pp. 1-32.

Gephart, Transportation and Industrial Development in the Middle West, pp. 43-129.

Chevalier, Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States, pp. 80-87, 209-276.

Ringwalt, Development of Transportation Systems in the United States, pp. 41-54, 64-166.

Phillips, History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt, pp. 46-131.

Bishop, State Works of Pennsylvania, pp. 150-261.

Gallatin, Plan of International Improvements, Amer. State Papers, Misc., Vol. I, pp. 724-921 (see especially maps, pp. 744, 762, 764, 820, 830).

Pitkin, Statistical View (1835), pp. 531-581.

Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, Vol. II, pp. 417-424.

 

4. Agriculture and Land Policy.—Westward Movement

Callender*, Economic History, pp. 597-692.

Hart, Practical Essays on American Government, pp. 233-257; printed also in Q.J.E., Vol. I, pp. 169-183, 251-254.

Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, pp. 52-74.

Fite, Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War, pp. 1-23.

Turner, Significance of the Frontier in American History, in Report of Amer. Hist. Assoc., 1893, pp. 199-227.

Donaldson, Public Domain, pp. 1-29, 196-239, 332-356.

Hibbard, History of Agriculture in Dane County, Wisconsin, pp. 86-90, 105-133.

Sanborn, Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of Railways, Bulletin of Univ. of Wisconsin Econ., Pol. Sci. and Hist. Series, Vol. II, No. 3, pp. 269-354.

 

5. The South and Slavery

Callender*, Economic History, pp. 738-819.

Cairnes, The Slave Power (2d ed.), pp. 32-103, 140-178.

Hart, The Southern South, pp. 218-277.

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 34-119.

Commons, Documentary History of American Industrial Society, Vol. I, pp. 309-375.

Russell, North America, its Agriculture and Climate, pp. 133-167.

De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (ed. 1838), pp. 336-361, or eds. 1841 and 1848, Vol. I, pp. 386-412.

Helper, Compendium of the Impending Crisis of the South, pp. 7-61.

Ballagh, Land System of the South. Publications of Amer. Hist. Assoc., 1897, pp. 101-129.

 

6. Finance, Banking, and Currency

Dewey*, Financial History of the United States, pp. 34-59, 76-117, 224-246, 252-262.

Catterall*, The Second Bank of the United States, pp. 1-24, 68-119, 376 map, 402-403, 464-477.

Bullock, Essays on the Monetary History of the United States, pp. 60-93.

Hamilton, Reports on Public Credit, Amer. State Papers, Finance, Vol. I, pp. 15-37, 64-76.

Kinley, History of the Independent Treasury, pp. 16-39.

Kinley, The Independent Treasury of the United States (U. S. Monet. Comm. Rept.), pp. 7-208.

Sumner, Andrew Jackson (ed. 1886), pp. 224-249, 257-276, 291-342.

Ross, Sinking Funds, pp. 21-85.

Scott, Repudiation of State Debts, pp. 33-196.

Bourne, History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837, pp. 1-43, 125-135.

Conant, History of Modern Banks of Issue, pp. 310-347.

 

1860-1900

7. Finance, Banking, and Currency

Mitchell*, History of the Greenbacks, pp. 3-43.

Noyes*, Forty Years of American Finance, pp. 1-48, 234-256 (73-233).

Sprague*, History of Crises under the National Banking System, pp. 43-108.

Taussig, Silver Situation in the United States, pp. 1-157.

Dunbar, National Banking System, Q.J.E., Vol. XII, pp. 1-26; printed also in Dunbar’s Economic Essays, pp. 227-247.

Howe, Taxation and Taxes in the United States under the Internal Revenue System, pp. 136-262.

Tenth United States Census (1880), Vol. VII; Bayley, History of the National Loans, pp. 369-392, 444-486.

 

8. Transportation

Hadley*, Railroad Transportation, pp. 1-23, 125-145.

Johnson*, American Railway Transportation, pp. 24-68, 307-321, 367-385.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 466-481.

Adams, Chapters of Erie, pp. 1-99, 333-429.

Davis, The Union Pacific Railway, Annals of the Amer. Acad., Vol. VIII, pp. 259-303.

Villard, Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 284-312.

Dixon, Interstate Commerce Act as Amended, Q.J.E., Vol. XXI, pp. 22-51.

Vrooman, American Railway Problems, pp. 10-45, 218-264.

 

9. Commerce and Shipping

Meeker*, History of Shipping Subsidies, pp. 150-171.

Meeker, Shipping Subsidies, Pol. Sci. Quart., Vol. XX, pp. 594-611.

Soley, Maritime Industries of the United States, in Shaler’s United States, Vol. I, pp. 518-618.

McVey, Shipping Subsidies, J.Pol.Ec., Vol. IX, pp. 24-46.

Wells, Our Merchant Marine, pp. 1-94.

Day, History of Commerce, pp. 553-575.

 

10. Agriculture and Opening of the West

Industrial Commission*, Vol. XIX, pp. 43-123, 134-167.

Noyes*, Forty Years of American Finance, pp. 257-283.

Twelfth United States Census (1900), Vol. V, pp. xvi-xlii.

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 120-226.

Quaintance, Influence of Farm Machinery, pp. 1-103.

Adams, The Granger Movement, North American Review, Vol. CXX, pp. 394-424.

Bemis, Discontent of the Farmer, J. Pol. Ec., Vol. I, pp. 193-213.

Wright, Wool Growing and the Tariff, pp. 308-273.

 

11. Industrial Expansion

Noyes*, Forty Years of American Finance, pp. 114-152, 182-233.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 485-519, 544-569.

Twelfth Census, Vol. IX, pp. 1-16; Vol. X, pp. 725-748.

Wells, Recent Economic Changes, pp. 70-113.

Sparks, National Development, pp. 37-52.

 

12. The Tariff

Taussig*, Tariff History, pp. 155-229, 321-360.

Taussig*, Tariff Act of 1909, Q.J.E., Vol. XXIV, pp. 1-38, also in Tariff History (ed. 1910), pp. 360-408.

Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies, Vol. II, pp. 243-394.

Taussig, Iron Industry, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 143-170, 475-508.

Taussig, Wool and Woolens, Q.J.E., Vol VIII, pp. 1-39.

Tausssig, Sugar, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CI, pp. 334-344 (Mar. 1908).

Taussig, Tariff and Tariff Commission, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CVI, pp. 721-729 (Dec. 1910).

Wright, Wool-growing and the Tariff since 1890, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 610-647.

Wright, Wool Growing and the Tariff, pp. 274-328.

Robinson, History of the Two Reciprocity Treaties, pp. 9-17, 40-77, 141-156.

Laughlin and Willis, Reciprocity, pp. 311-437.

 

13. Industrial Concentration

Willoughby*, Integration of Industry in the United States, Q.J.E., Vol. XVI, pp. 94-115.

Noyes*, Forty Years of American Finance, pp. 284-354.

Twelfth Census, Vol. VII, pp. cxc-ccxiv.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIII, pp. v-xviii.

Bullock, Trust Literature, Q.J.E., Vol. XV, pp. 167-217.

 

14. The Labor Problem

Industrial Commission*, Vol. XIX, pp. 724-746, 793-833.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 502-547.

United States Bureau of Labor Bulletins, No. 18 (Sept., 1898), pp. 665-670; No. 30 (Sept., 1900), pp. 913-915; No. 53 (July, 1904), pp. 703-728.

Levasseur, American Workman, pp. 436-509.

Commons, Documentary History of American Industrial Society, Vol. IX, pp. 55-117.

Mitchell, Organized Labor, pp. 391-411.

Twelfth Census, Special Report on Employees and Wages, p. xcix.

National Civic Federation, Industrial Conciliation, pp. 40-48, 141-154, 238-243, 254-266.

 

15. Population, Immigration, and the Race Question

United States Census Bulletin*, No. 4 (1903), pp. 5-38.

Industrial Commission*, Vol. XV, pp. xix-lxiv.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 68-112.

Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, pp. 33-78.

Walker, Discussions in Economics and Statistics, Vol. II, pp. 417-451.

Hoffmann, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, pp. 250-309.

Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, pp. 102-228.

Twelfth Census Bulletin, No. 8.

United States Bureau of Labor Bulletins, Nos. 14, 22, 32, 35, 37, 38, 48.

Washington, Future of the American Negro, pp. 3-244.

Stone, A Plantation Experiment, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 270-287.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1910-1911.”

________________________

Final Examination Economics 6b
(1910-11)

Image Source: Edwin Francis Gay and Julius Klein, respectively, from The World’s Work, Vol. XXVII, No. 5 (March 1914) and Harvard Album 1920.

 

 

 

Categories
Courses Economic History Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. 19th Century European Economic History. Gay and Klein, 1910

Edwin Francis Gay (1867-1946) came to Harvard in 1902 as an instructor of economic history taking over William Ashley’s courses after having spent a dozen years of training and advanced historical study in Europe (Berlin, Ph.D. in 1902 under Gustav Schmoller, also he was in Leipzig, Zurich and Florence). He was given a five-year contract as assistant professor of economics in 1903, but in just four years he actually advanced to the rank of professor. He served as a principal advisor to Harvard President Charles Eliot in establishing the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1908. After the favored candidate to be the founding dean of the business school, William Lyon Mackenzie King (Ph.D., Harvard 1909) turned down the offer, instead continuing as deputy minister of labor in Canada then later becoming prime minister of Canada, President Eliot turned to Gay. In nine years Gay put his stamp on the Harvard Business School, apparently playing an instrumental role in the use of the case method (pedagogic transfer from the law school) with a strong emphasis on obtaining hands-on experience through practical assignments with actual businesses. He is credited with establishing the academic degree of the M.B.A. (Master of Business Administration), the credential of managers. 

During WW I Gay worked as adviser to the U.S. Shipping Board and then went on to become editor of the New York Evening Post that would soon go under, giving Gay “an opportunity” to return to Harvard where he could teach economic history up through his retirement in 1936. Gay was among the co-founders of the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Council of Foreign Relations. He and his wife moved to California where he worked at the Huntington library where his bulk of his papers are to be found today.

A reading list for his course  Recent Economic History (1934-35) has been posted on Economics in the Rear-View Mirror earlier.

Assisting Gay in the 1910 course on European Economic History of the Nineteenth century was the history department instructor, Mr. Julius Klein (1886-1957). 

Litt.B. (Univ. of California) 1907, Litt. M (ibid.) 1908, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1913, Ph.D. (Harvard Univ.) 1915.
Subject of Ph.D. History.
Special Field: Spanish History
Thesis: The Mesta; A Study in Spanish Economic History, 1273-1836.
Instructor in History, later assistant professor.
In 1932 he was Assistant Secretary, United States Department of Commerce.

While tracking down Julius Klein I came up with the following link to an artifact of the Harvard History Department:

“[Julius Klein] made this portrayal of departmental bigwigs, in ink with black and brown washes, in a style evocative of the Bayeux Tapestry, which chronicles the Norman conquest of England.”

JuliusKleinInkDrawing

________________________

Welcome to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can subscribe to this blog below.  There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

________________________

[Enrollment: Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. 1910]

[Economics] 6a 1hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. Klein.—European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century.

12 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 12 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 3 Other:
Total 61.

 

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1910-11, p. 49.

________________________

 

ECONOMICS 6a (1910)

Required Reading is indicated by an asterisk (*)

 

1. The Industrial Revolution

Cunningham*, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. III, pp. 609-669.

Hobson*, Evolution of Modern Capitalism, pp. 10-82.

Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, pp. 32-93.

Woolen Report of 1806; reprinted in Bullock, Selected Readings in Economics, pp. 114-124.

Walpole, The Great Inventions, in History of England, Vol. I, pp. 50-76; reprinted in Bullock, pp. 125-145, and Rand, Selections illustrating Economic History, chapter ii.

Chapman, The Lancashire Cotton Industry, pp. 1-112.

Webb, History of Trade Unionism, pp. 1-101.

Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, pp. 14-42.

Wallas, Life of Francis Place, pp. 197-240.

Mantoux, La Révolution Industrielle, pp. 179-502.

Cooke Taylor, The Modern Factory System, pp. 44-225.

 

2. Agrarian Movement.—Continent

Von Sybel*, French Revolution, in Rand, Selections, pp. 55-85.

Seeley*, Life and Times of Stein, Vol. I, pp. 287-297, in Rand, pp. 86-98.

Morier*, Agrarian Legislation of Prussia, “Systems of Land Tenure,” pp. 267-275, in Rand, pp. 98-108.

Brentano*, Agrarian Reform in Prussia, Econ. Jour., Vol. VII, pp. 1-20.

Four de St. Genis, La Propriété Rurale, pp. 80-164.

De Foville, Le Morcellement, pp. 52-89.

Von Goltz, Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik, pp. 40-50.

Colman, European Agriculture (2d ed.), Vol. II, pp. 371-394.

Schulze-Gaevernitz, Volkswirtschaftliche Studien aus Russland, pp. 308-383.

Dawson, W. H., Evolution of Modern Germany, pp. 255-294.

 

3. Agrarian Movement.—England

Johnson*, A. H., Disappearance of the Small Landholder in England, pp. 7-17, 107-164.

Curtler*, W. H. R., Short History of English Agriculture, pp. 190-271.

Hasbach, History of the English Agricultural Labourer, pp. 71-116.

Taylor, Decline of Land-Owning Farmers in England, pp. 1-61.

Prothero, Pioneers and Progress of English Farming, pp. 64-103.

Broderick, English Land and English Landlords, pp. 65-240.

Caird, English Agriculture in 1850, pp. 473-528.

Colman, European Agriculture (2d ed.), Vol. I, pp. 10-109, 133-174.

Levy, Entstehung und Rückgang des landwirtschaftlichen Grossbetriebs in England.

 

4. The Free Trade Movement.—England

Armitage-Smith*, G., Free Trade and its Results, pp. 39-94, 130-144.

Morley*, Life of Cobden, chapters vi, vii, xvi.

Levi, History of British Commerce, pp. 218-227, 261-272, 292-303; in Rand, pp. 207-241.

Ashworth, Recollections of Cobden and the League, pp. 32-64, 296-392.

Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, Vol. I, pp. 49-77.

Parker, Sir Robert Peel from his Private Letters, Vol. II, pp. 522-559; Vol. III, pp. 220-252.

Cunningham, Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement, pp. 27-99.

Tooke, History of Prices, Vol. V, pp. 391-457.

Curtler, Short History of English Agriculture, pp. 271-293.

Schulze-Gaevernitz, Britischer Imperialismus, pp. 243-375.

 

5. Tariff History—Continent

Ashley*, P. Modern Tariff History, pp. 3-62, 301-312.

Worms, L’Allemagne Économique, pp. 57-393.

Amé, Les Tarifs de Douanes, Vol. I, pp. 21-34, 219-316.

Perigot, Histoire du Commerce Français, pp. 77-185.

Lang, Hundert Jahre Zollpolitik, pp. 168-230.

 

6. Banking and Finance

Cunningham*, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. III, pp. 689-703, 822-829, 833-840.

Andréadès*, History of the Bank of England, pp. 284-294, 331-369, 381-388.

Tugan-Baranowsky, Studien zur Theorie und Geschichte der Handelskrisen in England, pp. 38-54, 62-121.

Giffen, Growth of Capital, pp. 115-134.

Macleod, Theory and Practice of Banking (4th ed.), Vol. I, pp. 433-540; Vol. II, pp. 1-197.

Bastable, Public Finance, Bk. V, chapters 3 and 4 (3d ed), pp. 629-657.

 

7. The New Gold

Cairnes*, Essays, pp. 53-108; in Rand, pp. 242-284.

*Jevons, Investigations in Currency and Finance, pp. 34-92.

Leroy-Beaulieu, Traité d’Économie Politique, Vol. III, pp. 192-238.

Giffen, Economic Inquiries and Studies, Vol. I, pp. 75-97, 121-228.

Hooper, Recent Gold Production of the World, Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1901, pp. 415-433.

 

8. Transportation—Private Ownership

Hadley*, Railroad Transportation, pp. 146-202.

Acworth*, Elements of Railway Economics, pp. 61-75, 99-159.

McLean, English Railway and Canal Commission of 1888, in Q. J. E., 1905, Vol. XX, pp. 1-55, or in Ripley, Railway Problems, pp. 603-649.

Acworth, Railways of England, pp. 1-56.

McDermott, Railways, pp. 1-149.

Porter, Progress of the Nation, pp. 287-339.

Edwards, Railways and the Trade of Great Britain, Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1908, pp. 102-131.

Pratt, Railways and their Rates, pp. 1-184.

Colson, Legislation des Chemins de Fer, pp. 3-20, 133-182.

Kaufmann, Die Eisenbahnpolitik Frankreichs, Vol. II, pp. 178-284.

Guillamot, L’Organisation des Chemins de Fer, pp. 82-120.

Forbes and Ashford, Our Waterways, pp. 107-177, 215-252.

Léon, Fleuves, Canaux, Chemins de Fer, pp. 1-156.

Evans, A. D., British Railways and Goods Traffic, Econ. Jour., 1905, pp. 37-46.

Thompson, H. G., Canal System of England, pp. 1-73.

 

9. Transportation.—State Ownership

Hadley*, Railroad Transportation, pp. 236-258, [203-235].

Meyer*, Governmental Regulation of Railway Rates, pp. 92-188.

Acworth, Relation of Railways to the State, Econ. Jour., 1908, pp. 501-519.

Mayer, Geschichte und Geographie der Deutschen Eisenbahnen, pp. 3-14.

Lotz, Verkehrsentwicklung in Deutschland, pp. 2-47, 96-142.

Lenshau, Deutsche Wasserstrassen, pp. 9-56, 95-161.

Peschaud, Belgian State Railways, translated in Pratt, State Railways, pp. 57-107.

Tajani, The Railway Situation in Italy, Q. J. E., Vol. XXIII, pp. 618-653.

Pratt, Railways and their Rates, pp. 185-326.

Pratt, Railways and Nationalization, pp. 1-120, 253-293.

 

10. Commerce and Shipping

Bowley*, England’s Foreign Trade in the Nineteenth Century (ed. 1905), pp. 55-107.

Meeker*, History of Shipping Subsidies, pp. 1-95.

Cornewall-Jones, British Merchant Service, pp. 252-260, 306-317.

Glover, Tonnage Statistics of the Decade 1891-1900, Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1902, pp. 1-41.

Ginsburg, British Shipping, in Ashley, British Industries, pp. 173-195.

LeRoux de Bretagne, Les Prime à la Marine Marchande, pp. 93-224.

Charles-Roux, L’Isthme et le Canal de Suez, Vol. II, pp. 287-339.

Von Halle, Volks- und Seewirtschaft, pp. 136-219.

 

11. Agricultural Depression

Report on Agricultural Depression*, Royal Commission of 1897, pp. 6-10, 21-40, 43-53, 85-87.

Haggard*, Rural England, Vol. II, pp. 536-576.

The Tariff Commission, Vol. III, Report of the Agricultural Committee, 1906.

Thompson, Rent of Agricultural Land in England and Wales during the Nineteenth Century, Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1907, pp. 587-611.

Hasbach, History of the English Agricultural Labourer, pp. 274-364.

Arch, Autobiography, pp. 65-144, 300-345.

Little, The Agricultural Labourer, Report to the Royal Commission on Labour, 1894, Vol. I, pp. 195-253.

Adams, Position of the Small Holding in the United Kingdom, Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1907, pp. 412-437.

Plunkett, Ireland in the New Century (ed. 1905), pp. 175-209.

Bastable, Some Features of the Economic Movement in Ireland, Econ. Jour., Vol. XI, pp. 31-42.

  1. Méline, The Return to the Land, pp. 83-144, 185-240.

Imbart de la Tour, Le Crise Agricole, pp. 24-34, 127-223.

Simkhovitch, The Agrarian Movement in Russia, Yale Review, Vol. XVI, pp. 9-38.

King and Okey, Italy Today, pp. 156-192.

 

12. Recent Tariff History

Smart*, Return to Protection, pp. 14-27, 136-185, 234-259.

Balfour*, Economic Notes on Insular Free Trade, pp. 1-32. (Also in Fiscal Reform, pp. 71-95)

Chamberlain*, Imperial Union and Tariff Reform, pp. 19-44.

Ashley, W. J., Tariff Problem, pp. 53-210.

Marshall, Fiscal Policy of International Trade, pp. 30-82.

Pigou, Protective and Preferential Import Duties, pp. 1-117. (See also his Riddle of the Tariff, pp. 1-107.)

Cunningham, Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement, pp. 100-168.

Ashley, P., Modern Tariff History, pp. 78-112, 313-358.

Zimmermann, Deutsche Handelspolitik, pp. 218-314.

Meredith, Protection in France, pp. 54-129.

Balfour, Fiscal Reform, pp. 97-113, 2266-280.

 

13. Industrial Development

Ashley*, W. J., British Industries, pp. 2-38, 68-92.

Howard*, Recent Industrial Progress in Germany, pp. 51-109.

Cox, British Industries under Free Trade, pp. 2-84, 142-175, 235-376.

Levasseur, Questions ouvrières et industrielles en France sous le troisième République, pp. 27-166.

La Belgique, 1830-1905, pp. 397-617.

Fischer, Italien und die Italiener (ed. 1901), pp. 240-267.

Machat, Le Developpement Économique de la Russie, pp. 157-229.

Jeans, J. S., Iron Trade of Great Britain, pp. 1-73, 100-111.

Dawson, Evolution of Modern Germany, pp. 37-65.

Helm, E., Survey of the Cotton Industry, Q. J. E., Vol. XVII, pp. 417-437.

 

14. Industrial Combination

Report of the Industrial Commission*, Vol. XVIII, pp. 7-13, 75-88, 101-122, 143-165.

Macrosty*, The Trust Movement in Great Britain, in Ashley, British Industries, pp. 196-232.

Macrosty, Trust Movement in British Industry, pp. 24-56, 81-84, 117-154, 284-307, 329-345.

Walker, Monopolistic Combinations in Europe, Pol. Sci. Quart., Vol. XX, pp. 13-41.

Walker, Combinations in the German Coal Industry, pp. 38-111, 175-289, 322-327.

Walker, German Steel Syndicate, Q. J.E., Vol. XX, pp. 353-398.

Liefmann, Kartelle und Trusts, pp. 22-32.

Baumgarten und Meszlény, Kartelle und Trusts, pp. 83-152.

Chastin, J., Les Trusts et les Syndicats, pp. 23-127.

 

15. Labor.—Coöperative Movement

Bowley*, Wages in the United Kingdom, pp. 22-57, 81-127.

Shadwell,* Industrial Efficiency, Vol. II, pp. 307-350.

Wood, Real Wages and the Standard of Comfort since 1860, Roy. Stat. Soc. Jour., 1909, pp. 91-101.

Cost of Living of the Working Classes in the United Kingdom, Germany and France. Report to the Board of Trade, 1909.

Webb, Trade Unionism, pp. 344-478.

Howell, Labor Legislation, pp. 447-499.

Willoughby, Workingmen’s Insurance, pp. 29-87.

Beveridge, Unemployment.

Ashley, W. J., Progress of the German Working Classes, pp. 1-65, 74-141.

Dawson, The German Workman, pp. 1-245.

Holyoake, History of Coöperation in England (ed. 1906), Vol. I, pp. 32-42, 70-162, 283-298; Vol. II, pp. 361-396.

Gide, Productive Coöperation in France, Q. J. E., Vol. XIV, pp. 30-66.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 394-397, 407-413.

Dawson, Evolution of Modern Germany, pp. 294-308.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1910-1911.”

________________________

Final Examination Economics 6a
(1910-11)

Image Source: Edwin Francis Gay and Julius Klein, respectively, from The World’s Work, Vol. XXVII, No. 5 (March 1914) and Harvard Album 1920.

 

Categories
Chicago Courses Suggested Reading Syllabus

Chicago. Introduction to Money and Banking. A. G. Hart, 1933

In the early 1930’s Lloyd Mints alternated teaching the undergraduate money and banking course at the University of Chicago (Econ 230) with the doctoral student Albert G. Hart who held the ranks of teaching assistant/instructor before receiving his Ph.D. in 1936. In Hart’s papers at Columbia University there is a copy of material for his course kept for students in the Harper Reading Room at the University of Chicago. The “Report on Conduct and Content of Course” included in this posting presents a detailed outline of his course as of its third iteration. Square brackets are used where I have supplied specific page numbers for the textbook assignments that I have found elsewhere in the same folder with this Report. 

In the Review section Hart includes among the “leading ideas” of the course: “… in fields where prices are sticky, inflation and deflation take themselves out on volume of sales and hence of production and/or employment…”

______________________

If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

_________________________________

[Course Description from University of Chicago Announcements]

230. Introduction to Money and Banking.—The material in the course includes a study of the factors which determine the value of money in the short and in the long run; the problem of index numbers of price levels; and the operation of the commercial banking system and its relation to the price level and general business activity. Prerequisite: Social Science I and II or equivalent. Summer, Hart; Autumn, Mints; [Spring], Hart.

Source: University of Chicago, Announcements [for 1933-34], Arts, Literature and Science, vol. 33, no. 8 (March 25, 1933), p. 266.

_________________________________

 

Report on Conduct and Content of Course.

Econ 230
A. G. Hart

General Remarks:

My general policy (in which I follow the suggestions of Mr. Mints) has been to conduct the course definitely as a theoretical study, with the emphasis on analysis rather than history or factual description. Class meetings are devoted largely to discussion, with inevitable lapses into lecturing when historical or factual questions cannot be avoided. My reading assignments have been light (about 100 pages a week), but are of a character to call for mulling over. So far as possible I have avoided second-hand textbook material and gone to authoritative writers. On the necessary technical banking material a textbook is inevitable, and I have used Rodkey’s Banking Process twice and Bradford’s Banking once. (To my taste the former is definitely preferable.) On other subjects I have gone to standard authorities, as Irving Fisher, J. M. Keynes, Alvin Hansen, Wesley Mitchell, D. H. Robertson. These writers are emphatically not beyond the grasp of undergraduate classes here. Some points have been emphasized by written exercises; and I have tried by giving our examinations and by putting past examinations on reserve to make my examinations a guide to what I expected students to take away with them. Full assignments, as made this summer, and past examinations are in my assignment folder on reserve in Harper main reading room.

The following scheme is that given in my assignments; the order of various points somewhat altered from time to time, especially when current events bring certain sides of the course to the fore.

 

Scheme of Course:

I.  Introduction: Money Concepts; Sketch of Monetary History; Present Circulating Medium in U. S.

Explanation of purposes of the course; the notion of money in the broader notion of circulating medium; a summary of the history of the American circulating medium; brief analysis of the current statistics on money in circulation and on bank deposits. Emphasis is laid on the fact that the class of circulating media has no clear-cut boundary, but shades off into the realm of ordinary commodities, and on the importance of bank deposits in American circumstances. Reading: Robertson, Money, pp. 1-17. Class Time: usually two, perhaps three hours.

II. The Quantity Theory of Money According to Fisher.

An analysis of the relations between quantity of money and bank deposits, their velocities, prices, and volume of transactions, through the Fisher equation. Emphasis is laid on the validity of the equation, the restricted conditions under which the Quantity Theory holds, and the consequent inadequacy of the Quantity Theory for short-period analysis; also on relative flexibility of different groups of prices. Reading: Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 1-32, 47-54, 74-111, 184-97. Class Time: five or six hours.

III. The Quantity Theory According to the Cambridge School; European Postwar Monetary Experience.

A restatement of the Quantity Theory in “Cambridge” terms, using Keynes’ Monetary Reform as type. This is used to reinforce the analysis of the difficult “velocity” problem in the preceding section, and leads into some examination of the workings of inflation. The idea of forced saving is here brought out. Lately I am coming to doubt the pedagogical usefulness of the formulation in Monetary Reform; and I may take a different tack another time. Reading: Keynes, Monetary Reform, pp. 3-45, 46-80 [, 81-94]; Robertson, Money, e.g. 18-43. Class Time: three or four hours.

IV. Index Numbers: Refinement of Concept of Purchasing Power.

The concept of an index number of prices as reflecting changes in the value of a composite commodity of fixed make-up; index of quantity as reflecting valuations of different mixtures of goods at fixed prices. Necessity of index number analysis to put meaning into notion of price and output changes brought about by money. Emphasis is placed, of course, on fundamental notions and interpretation, not on the technique of index-number compilation. Reading: Fisher, Purchasing Power, pp. 198-233; memorandum of my own in assignment folder. I should assign Keynes [Treatise (optional), I, pp. 53-94] but for library difficulties. Written Assignment: problem in index-number computation, with simplified arithmetic, calculated to bring out differences among the various basic formulas. Class Time: three or four hours.

V. Nature of Banking and Clearing.

(In the Autumn Quarter, 1932 I put this before the treatment of monetary theory, which appears to be just about as satisfactory as the present arrangement.) Basic character of a bank; demand liabilities greater than quick assets, and demand liabilities serving as circulating medium. Mechanism of making and transferring deposits; clearing relations among banks. History of American banking. Study of bank reserves; of earning assets. Principle of credit pyramiding on increment of reserves. Reading: textbook passages [Rodkey, Banking Process, 1-86, 124-37, 137-54, 178-95, 201-224, 267-86; or Bradford, Banking, pp. 1-51, 52-96, 98-123]; Phillips, Bank Credit, chapter III [pp. 32-77]. Written Assignment or Hour Examination: reconstruction and interpretation of dismembered bank statement, involving comparison of two banks or one bank at two dates. Class Time: ten or twelve hours.

VI. Central Banking: Federal Reserve System.

Analysis of open market, re-discount and clearing functions of the Federal Reserve Banks, and of the administration of the system and its influence on the member bank reserve position. I have made no attempt to cover foreign central banking except for an hour’s lecture on the Bank of England and incidental references from this point in the course on to practices of foreign central banks. This is not because I doubt the usefulness of treating foreign banking ceteris paribus; but the marginal utility of time in a one-quarter course is so high as to put this below the zone of profitable use of resources. Emphasis is placed on the essential simplicity of central banking — holding cash reserves and earning assets and swapping them on the open market according to the position of business—, on its necessary non-profit character, etc. The leading ideas in this section are largely modeled on Mr. Mints. One of the drawbacks of using Bradford as text is the necessity of scrambling sections V and VI together to follow its arrangement. Reading: textbook passages [Rodkey, Banking Process, pp. 36-123, 196-200, 224-238; or Bradford, Banking, pp. 125-144, 145-168, 170-222, 223-247, 248-274, 311-336, 337-355]; W. R. Burgess, Reserve Banks and the Money Market, pp. 206-229; passages in Federal Reserve Bulletin [March 1932, pp. 1-5]. Written Assignment or Classroom Work: Analysis of weekly statements of Federal Reserve Banks and weekly reporting member banks; calculation of Federal Reserve reserve and collateral requirements and of free gold. [take F.R. statement for July 13 (published in morning papers July 21). Compute gold reserve requirements against deposits and notes, calculate excess gold reserves. Compute gold collateral requirement on notes, with and without Glass-Steagal arrangement, and calculate free gold on each basis.] From this point in the course the statement is discussed at some length every Friday. Class Time: five or six hours, plus a short time each week toward the end of the quarter for study of the statement.

VII. Foreign Exchange; International Banking Relations.

The mechanism of the exchange markets: acceptances, cable drafts, etc. The balance of payments and supply and demand of foreign funds; determination of the rate and adjustment of balances on and off the gold standard. Classical mechanism of adjustment; orthodox types of central bank intervention; post-war manipulative tricks in exchange market. Due largely to the trend of current events, emphasis has been placed on the determination of rates off the gold standard and on the short-run importance of flight from the currency and other types of speculative movements. Reading: as the topic is peripheral and cannot absorb much time, I have compromised between textbook readings and authoritative material, and have been assigning Taussig, Principles, vol. I, pp. 447-78 besides text-book passages. [Rodkey, Banking Process, pp. 155-68; or Bradford, Banking, 275-310; Robertson, Money, 69-91] Class Time: three or four hours.

VIII. Short Period Monetary Theory.

Inapplicability of quantity theory (though not of Fisher equation) in “transition period”. Generalization of Fisher cash-transactions approach: can be used wherever flow of goods and flow of money which buys it can both be conceptually isolated. Analysis through income concepts. Hawtrey’s scheme as a special case of transactions approach; illustration of analysis by his cycle theories. Concept of forced savings. Reading: Fisher, Purchasing Power, 55-74; Robertson, Money, 92-116; Hawtrey, Currency and Credit, 1-64. Class Time: four to six hours.

IX. Business Cycles.

Concept of business cycle; basic types of series showing cycle. Types of business cycle theories. Problems of “overproduction” in various senses. Reading: Mitchell, Business Cycles, the Problem and its Setting, pp. 1-60. Class Time: three to five hours.

X. Banking Policy and “Stabilization”.

General concept of stabilization – largely connotation with meaning vague. Monetary stabilization – constancy of index number or the exchange rate. Partial incompatibility of former and latter. Criteria of desirable indices to stabilize – full employment chief – point to desirability of gently raising money wages on average; consequences in other price groups. Central difficulty of price stickiness. Ways and means – inadequacy of central-bank control; inevitable influence of government finance. Savings-investment criterion of policy – its weaknesses. Reading: Robertson, Money, 144-194; Hansen, Economic Stabilization in an Unbalanced World, 3-27, 65-113, 271-314. Class Time: 4 to 6 hours.

Review:

When possible (it isn’t in the summer) I plan to devote four or five hours to systematic review. Leading ideas are brought out more clearly; especially: 1) the price level associated with the given flow of goods cannot rise, unless less goods of this group are sold or more money is spent on them; 2) when price movements are on foot the various forms of “price stickiness” make the movements of different speed and amplitude in different fields; 3) it is these relative price movements which are of practical importance; 4) in fields where prices are sticky, inflation and deflation take themselves out on volume of sales and hence of production and/or employment; 5) a banking system uncontrolled except by “qualitative” considerations will inevitably bring about inflation and deflation involving destructive movements of relative prices and of production; 6) in fact these considerations do not even enable a banking system to protect itself against a heavy proportion of failures in deflation.

 

Discussion of Above Scheme:

It will be observed that the course as I have given it contains little or no discussion of two topics which occupy a great deal of the literature, viz.: bimetallism and the classification of money under various heads (commodity, token, fiat etc.) Both of course come in for incidental mention; but neither, it seems to me, belongs in a one-quarter course here and now. Bimetallism, as discussed in the books, is today rather a historical relic; the effective issue is not double versus single standard, but gold standard versus “paper standard”. Systematic classification of money has distinct uses; but I’m inclined to trust to the passage on the subject in Robertson and avoid wasting class time on it. The necessary discussion of monetary history affords opportunity to talk a bit about both these matters; but a student who had taken the course with me could probably not explain the relation (e.g.) between over-valued and under-valued metal, or between proper bimetallic and limping standards.

More serious than these omissions of subject-matter is another type of omission: the course as I give it makes little attempt to inoculate the student against cranks by systematic study and dismemberment of the work of theoretical bunglers. It is a rather serious pedagogical defect to include little reading with which the instructor thoroughly disagrees. My excuses firstly that the course must take up more material then can be so treated in a single quarter and secondly that it seems to me the line between correct and incorrect analysis is fairly clearly drawn in the elementary phases of monetary and banking theory here treated. But frankly I’m afraid I must lay more weight on the first excuse than the second.

Albert G. Hart.

 

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Albert Gailord Hart Papers: Box 61, Folder “Assignments and Other Memoranda for Reserve in Harper Reading Room/Sec 2 Ec 230 1933 Chicago, Money (Summer Quarter)”.

Image Source:  ditto.

Categories
Courses M.I.T. Suggested Reading Syllabus

M.I.T. Advanced Economic Theory (Capital and growth). Solow and Phelps, 1962

Edwin Burmeister (MIT PhD, 1965) took the advanced theory course that was devoted to capital theory and economic growth during the fall term 1962-63. The course that term was co-taught by Robert Solow (2 hour 37 minute oral history interview at this link) and Edmund Phelps. Burmeister’s notes for the course are available in the Burmeister Papers at Duke University Rubenstein Library’s Economists’ Papers Project. The reading list for the course has a Part I, but I could find no corresponding part II. However, Burmeister’s notes appear to be complete otherwise so that it seems likely that Solow and Phelps wanted to divide the course into positive and normative parts with the reading list for optimal saving not ready at the start of the term.  I have inserted five titles between Parts D and E that were explicitly mentioned in the lectures but not included in the Part I reading list.

______________________

If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

_______________________

ADVANCED ECONOMIC THEORY
14.123
Fall 1962

R. M. Solow and E. S. Phelps

 

Part I: INVESTMENT AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

A. Capital and Production

Lutz, “Essentials of Capital Theory”, The Theory of Capital (International Economic Association).

Scitovsky, T., Welfare and Competition, Chapter 9.

Lutz and Lutz, The Theory of the Investment of the Firm, Chapters 5 and 6.

Kaldor, N., Essays on Value and Distribution, Part IV.

Lange, O., “The Place of Interest in the Theory of Production”, REStud, 1935-36.

Dorfman, R., “Waiting and the Period [of] Production”, QJE, August 1959.

Robinson, “The Production Function and the Theory of Capital”, REStud, 1953-54.

Comment and Reply:

Solow, R., “The Production Function…”, REStud, 1955-56.

Robinson, Ibid.

Swan, T., Appendix to “Economic Growth and Capital Accumulation,” Ec Record, November, 1956.

Solow, R., “Substitution and Fixed Proportions in the Theory of Capital,” REStud, June, 1962.

Phelps, E., “Substitution, Fixed Proportions, Growth and Distribution,” Parts 1-3 and Appendix B only. CFDP [Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper] 133, Feb. 1962.

Samuelson, P., “The Surrogate Production Function,” REStud, June 1962.

N. & N. Ruggles, “Concepts of Real Capital Stocks and Services,” Output, Input and Productivity Measurement, No. 25 in Studies in Income and Wealth (NBER).

[handwritten addition: Wicksell, LECTURES]

 

B. Technical Change

Dickinson, H., “A Note on Dynamic Economics”, REStud, 1954-55.

Uzawa, H., “Neutral Inventions and the Stability of Growth Equilibrium,” REStud, Feb. 1961.

Fellner, W., “Two Propositions in the Theory of Induced innovation,” Econ. Journ., June 1961.

 

C. Models of Investment, Technical Progress and Growth

Johnson, H., “A Simple Joan Robinson Model of Accumulation with One Technique,” Osaka Econ. Papers, Feb. 1962.

Swan, T., “Economic Growth and Capital Accumulation,” op. cit.

Solow, R., “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth,” QJE, Nov. 1956.

Pitchford, J., “Growth and the Elasticity of Factor Substitution,” Ec. Record, Dec. 1960.

Phelps, E., “Substitution, Fixed Proportions, Growth and Distribution,” CFDP [Cowles Foundation Discussion Paper] 133, Feb. 1962, Parts 4-5.

Arrow, K., “The Economic Implications of Learning by Doing,” REStud, June, 1962.

Kaldor, N., and J. Mirlees, “Growth and Obsolescence,” Ibid.

 

D. The Quantitative Importance of Investment and Technical Change for Economic Growth

Solow, R., “Technological Change and the Aggregate Production Function,” REStat, August 1957.

Masslee, B., “A Dissaggregated View of Technical Change,” JPE, Dec. 1961.

Solow, R., “Investment and Technical Progress, “Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences, (Stanford, 1960).

Phelps, E., “The New View of Investment”, QJE, Nov. 1962.

_______________________

[Insert: Optimal problems in capital theory…beginning ca Dec. 14, 1962]

[Ramsey problem, optimal control à la Pontryagin]

von Weizsäcker, Carl Christian. Wachstum, Zins und optimale Investitionsquote. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Basel, 1961. Published in Veröffentlichungen der List Gesellschaft Bd. 26, Reiche B Studien zur Ökonomie der Gegenwart, Kyklos-Verlag, 1962

Phelps, Edmund. 1961. “The Golden Rule of Accumulation: A Fable for Growthmen”. The American Economic Review 51 (4): 638–43.

Robinson, Joan. 1962. “Comment”. The Review of Economic Studies 29 (3): 258–66.

Goodwin, R. M., 1961. “The Optimal Growth Path for an Underdeveloped Economy”. The Economic Journal,Vol. 71, No. 284: 756–74.

Chakravarty, S., 1962. “Optimal Savings with Finite Planning Horizon”. International Economic Review 3 (3): 338–55.

_______________________

E. Investment in Knowledge and Skills

Nelson, R., “The Simple Economics of Basic Scientific Research, JPE, June 1959.

Arrow, E., “The Allocation of Scientific Resources” in The Rate and Direction of Innovative Activity, (NBER).

Schultz, “Investment in Human Capital,” AER, March 1961.

 

Source: Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Edwin Burmeister papers, 1960-2008. Box 23.

Image Source: Robert Solow, MIT Web Museum.

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Methods of Social Reform. Frank A. Fetter, 1906.

Thomas Nixon Carver was granted a sabbatical leave from Harvard for the academic year 1906-07. Frank Albert Fetter from Cornell was hired to teach Carver’s course that covered economic utopias and proposed social reforms. 

Inspecting university course catalogues from where Fetter had previously taught, I was able to find that he did indeed once teach a one term course at Cornell before teaching Carver’s course in 1906:  “Political Science 55a: Socialism and Communism” that was given in the Fall term of a three term academic year 1894-95.

After Fetter returned to Cornell, it appears he then taught a course very similar to what he taught at Harvard: Political Science 66b Social Reforms. “History and growth of the more radical modern plans for changing industrial conditions; program and spirit of the socialistic parties in Europe and America.” (1907-08)

Here are the main dates in Fetter’s career:

1891  A. B. Indiana University
1892  Ph.M. Cornell University
1894  Ph.D. University of Halle
1894-1895   Instructor in Political Economy, Cornell University
1895-1898   Professor of Economics and Social Science, Indiana University
1898-1901   Professor, Stanford University
1901-1911   Professor, Cornell University
1911-1933   Professor, Princeton University

1912  President of the American Economic Association

Comparing this syllabus with those used by Carver before and after this year, one sees that Fetter essentially added items to Carver’s syllabus and made some minor rearrangements of the topics, e.g. anarchism moved to the end of the term.

______________________

If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below.  There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting…

_______________________________

[Course Enrollment First Half-year 1906-07]

[Economics] 14b 1hf. Professor Fetter (Cornell University).—Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.

4 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 7 Other. Total 32.

 

Source:  Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1906-07, p.71.

_______________________________

 

ECONOMICS 14b
METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM

First Half-Year, 1906 – 07, F. A. Fetter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.  Evil’s and Discontent Portrayed.

Engels, F., Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.
Rowntree, B. S., Poverty (a study of York, Eng.).
London, J., The People of the Abyss (in London).
Brooks, J. G., The Social Unrest (1903).
Hunter, R., Poverty (a pessimistic view of the U. S.).
Spargo, J., The Bitter Cry of the Children (1906).

II. Utopian Romances (chronological order of publication).

Plato, The Republic (4th century B.C.).
Morley, H. (ed.), Ideal Commonwealths (containing Plutarch’s Lycurgus, More’s Utopia (1516), Bacon’s New Atlantis (1629), Campanella’s City of the Sun (1520), Hall’s Mundus Alter et Idem (1607)).
Cabet, E., Voyage en Icarie (1839)
Bellamy, E., Looking Backward (1887).
Morris, W., News from Nowhere.
Hertzka, Freiland.
Bellamy, E., Equality (1897).
Wells, H. G., Anticipations (1902).
________, Mankind in the Making (1904).
Parry, The Scarlet Empire (1906, anti-utopian).

III. Communistic Experiments (American books in chronological order).

Kautsky, Karl, Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation.
Cabet, E., Icaria (history of the society in America, 1852).
Noyes, J. H., History of American Socialisms (1870).
Nordhoff, Charles, The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875).
Hinds, W. A., American Communities (1878, and later revised edition).
Shaw, Albert, Icaria, a Chapter in the History of Socialism (1884).
Codman, J. T., Brook Farm; Historic and Personal Memoirs (1894).
Randall, E. O., The Zoar Society (1899).
Landis, G. B., The Separatists of Zoar.
Lockwood, George B., The New Harmony Communities.
Broom, Isaac, The Last Days of the Ruskin Coöperative Association (1902).
Hillquist, M., History of Socialism in the United States (1903).

IV. Religious and Altruistic Socialism

Lamennais, Les Parole d’un Croyant.
Kaufman, Lamennais and Kingsley. Contemporary Review, April, 1882.
Kingsley, Charles, Alton Locke.
Stubbs, Charles Kingsley.
Woodworth, A. V., Christian Socialism in England (1903).
Gladden, Washington, Tools and the Man, A View of Christian Socialism.
Strong, Josiah, Our Country (1885), The New Era (1893).
Ballon-Adin, Practical Christian Socialism.
Nitti, F., Catholic Socialism (trans. 1895).
Carlyle, Thomas: “The Socialism and Unsocialism of Thomas Carlyle,” a selection of chapters by W. D. P. Bliss.
Ruskin, John: “The Communism of John Ruskin,” a selection by W. D. P. Bliss from Unto This Last, The Crown of Wild Olive, and Fors Clavigera.
“William Morris, Poet, Artist, Socialist,” a collection of his socialistic writings, by F. W. Lee.

V. History and Exposition of Collectivism (alphabetic by authors).

Dawson, W. H., German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle (1888).
Ely, R. T., French and German Socialism (1883); Socialism, an examination of its nature, strength, and weakness (1895).
Flower, B. O., How England Averted a Revolution of Force (1903).
Gonner, E. C. K., The Socialist Philosophy of Rodbertus (1899).
Graham, William, Socialism, New and Old.
Kirkup, Thomas, A History of Socialism.
Peixotto, Jessica B., The French Revolution and Modern French Socialism (1901).
Rae, John, Contemporary Socialism (2d ed. 1891).
Russell, Bertrand, German Social Democracy.
Schaeffle, Albert, The Quintessence of Socialism (1874).
Sombart, Werner, Socialism and the Social Movement in the 19th Century (1st ed. translated; 5th ed. revised, in German, 1905).
____________, Der moderne Capitalismus, 2 vols.

VI.  Collectivist arguments.

German.

Karl Marx and F. Engels, The Communist Manifesto (1847).
Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1867).
Engels, F., Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
Bebel, A., Woman in the Past, Present and Future (trans. 1894).
Kautsky, K., The Social Revolution (trans. 1903).
Bernstein, E., Ferdinand Lassalle (trans. 1893).
_________, Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus (1899).
_________, Zur Geschichte und Theorie des Sozialismus (2d ed. 1901).

English and American.

Hyndman, H. M., The Economics of Socialism (English of the Marxist school).
Webb, Sydney and Beatrice, Problems of Modern Industry.
Fabian Essay in Socialism, B. Shaw and others.
Fabian Tracts, 1-86 (1884-1899).
Blatchford, R., Merrie England (1895).
Gronlund, L., The Coöperative Commonwealth (1895).
_________, The New Economy (1898).
Bliss, W. P. D., A Handbook of Socialism (1895).
Vail, Modern Socialism (1899).
Ghent, W. J., Our Benevolent Feudalism.
_________, Mass and Class.
London, J., War of the Classes.
Spargo, John, Socialism (1906).

Various.

Selections from Fourier.
Jaures, J., Studies in Socialism (trans. 1906).
Ensor, R. C. K., Modern Socialism as set forth by Socialists (collection of 29 articles, 1904).
Labriola, A., Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History (trans. 1904).
Vandervelde, E., Collectivism.

VII. Anti-Collectivist Arguments.

Brunhuber, Dr. Robert, Die heutige Sozialdemokratie (1906).
Cathrein, Rev. Victor, Socialism Exposed and Refuted (trans. 1902).
______________, Socialism, its Theoretical Basis and Practical Application.
Gilman, N. P., Socialism and the American Spirit.
Gonner, E. C. K., The Socialist State.
Guyot, Y., The Tyranny of Socialism.
Le Bon, G., Psychology of Socialism (trans. 1899).
Mackay, T., A Plea for Liberty.
Malloch, W. H., Labor and the Popular Welfare (new ed., 1894).
___________, Classes and Masses.
___________, Aristocracy and Evolution (1898).
Menger, A., The Right to the Whole Produce of Labor (trans. 1899).
Sanders, G. A., Reality, or Law and Order vs. Anarchy and Socialism, a reply to E. Bellamy (1898).
Schaeffle, A., The Impossibility of Social Democracy (1884).
Simonson, G., A Plain Examination of Socialism (1900).
Spencer, H., The Coming Slavery.

VIII. Land Nationalization.

Favorable.

George, H., Progress and Poverty.
______________, Our Land and Land Policy.
Wallace, A. R., Studies, Scientific and Social (in Vol. II, articles on land nationalization).
Loria, A., Problèmes Sociaux Contemporains.
George, H., Jr., The Menace of Privilege.
Shearman, T. G., Natural Taxation.

Unfavorable.

Cathrein, Rev. Victor, The Champions of Agrarian Socialism, A Refutation of Lavelèye and George (trans. 1889).
Huxley, T. H., Evolution and Ethics (chs. on single tax, 1894).
_________, Social Diseases and Worse Remedies (1891).
Rae, John, Ch. 12 of Contemporary Socialism.
Smart, W., Taxation of Land Values (1900).
Walker, F. A., Land and Its Rent (1883).

General.

Epps, Land Systems of Australia.
Lefèvre-Shaw, English Commons and Forests.

IX. The Extension of State Action

Adams, H. C., The Relation of the State to Industrial Action.
Ely, R. T., Problems of To-day (chs. 17-23).
Hobson, J. A., The Social Problem, Life and Work (1901).
Jevons, W. S., Methods of Social Reform (last 5 chs.).
Ritchie, D. C., Principles of State Interference.
_________, Darwinism and Politics.
Taylor, F. M., The Right of the State to Be (1891).
Willoughby, W. W., Social Justice.

X. Anarchism and Nihilism.

Godwin, William, Political Justice; on Property.
Tolstoi, L., The Slavery of Our times (1900).
Kropotkin, The Scientific Basis of Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 21: 238.
______________, The Coming Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 22: 149.
Reclus, Elisée, Anarchy. Contemporary Review, 14: 627.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1906-1907).

Categories
Chicago Courses Suggested Reading Syllabus

Chicago. Monetary Dynamics Seminar. Milton Friedman, 1952

Welcome to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled thus far. You can subscribe to this blog below.  There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

______________________

Transcribed from items in the Milton Friedman papers at the Hoover Institution today’s posting includes the bibliographic handout provided by Milton Friedman to the participants in his graduate seminar “Monetary Dynamics” that took place in the Spring Quarter of 1952 along with the official class list. We note that one of the graduate students enrolled in the seminar was Gary S. Becker. It is also interesting to note that “empirical studies” essentially meant “case studies” as of mid-twentieth century.

___________________________

The University of Chicago
Office of the Registrar

OFFICIAL CLASS LIST
SPRING QR. 1952

Instructor: FRIEDMAN MILTON
Department: ECON
Course number: 432

Student name:

Axilrod, Stephen H.
Becker, Gary S.
Deaver, John V.
Drayton, James
Fisher, Lawrence
Klein, John
Oort, Coenraad J.
Timberlake, Richard H. Jr.
Venetianer, Edmond

___________________________

 

Economics 432: Monetary Dynamics
Spring Quarter, 1952

  1. The central topic for this quarter will be monetary inflation. We hope to cover the theory of monetary inflation and empirical evidence on monetary inflations. The major issues in this area are, the process whereby changes in the stock of money produce their effect on prices and output or conversely, whereby changes in prices and output affect the stock of money; the role of the interest rate in inflation or, conversely, the effect of monetary changes on the interest rate; the role of exchange rates in monetary inflation as both cause and effect; the relative value of alternative simplified theories for predicting the course of inflationary movement; the role and problems of governmental monetary policy in inflationary periods; empirical regularities in monetary inflations and hyperinflations.
  2. We shall of course not be able to cover all these issues at all adequately; the interests of the members of the seminar will guide the selection made.
  3. There is a vast literature on these problems. The following bibliography, despite its length, is highly selective and is designed to suggest material available and to give leads to people working on particular topics rather than to be exhaustive. The three parts into which the essentially theoretical material is classified (1 to 3) are by no means mutually exclusive and many entries could with equal justification have been classified elsewhere; the sections are meant only to indicate major broad divisions and the order within the sections, the rough lines of theoretical development. Similarly, many of the items in Section 4, supposedly dealing with policy, could readily have been classified in the earlier sections; and many of the entries in section 5, labeled empirical studies, contain discussions of policy or of theory.

 

1. Classical analysis of inflation

A. Original sources

David Hume, “Of Money,” “Of Interest” in Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, part II (first published 1752).

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776), Vol I. Bk. II, Chap 4; Bk 1, Ch xi, part of Pt. III (pp. 188-210 in Cannan edition); Bk. II, Ch. 11, esp. pp. 283-87 of Cannan edition.

Henry Thornton, An Essay on Paper Credit (1802), esp pp. 254-8, 281, 296-7, and 335-9 of reprint.

David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy, (3rd ed. London (1821), Ch. 21; The Works and Correspondence, edited by P. Sraffa, Volume III, passim. (Cambridge 1951).

Nassau Senior, On the Value of Money (1840)

________________, Three Lectures on the Cost of Obtaining Money (1930)

John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, (1848), Bk. III, Ch. 8, 9, 23.

J. E. Cairnes, “Essays Toward a Solution of the Gold Question,” (written, 1858 to 1860) in Essays in Political Economy, Theoretical and Applied, (London, 1873) pp. 1 to 165.

B. Secondary sources

T. E. Gregory, Introduction to Tooke and Newmarch (London (1928), esp. pp. 22-31.

F. A. Hayek, “A Note on the Development of the Doctrine of ‘Forced Savings’”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1932, pp. 123-33.

J. W. Angell, The Theory of International Prices – history, criticism, and restatement (Cambridge, Mass., 1926)

Jacob Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade, (New York, 1937), Ch. III, IV, V.

Lloyd W. Mints, History of Banking Theory (Chicago, 1945)

2. Neo-classical

A. Swedish school

Knut Wicksell, Interest and Prices, esp introduction, by Bertil Ohlin, Preface, (London 1936) and Ch. 5-9.

_______________, Lectures, Vol. 2, Ch. IV; pp. 127-222 (London 1935)

Gunner Myrdal, Monetary Equilibrium, London (1939).

E. Lundberg, Studies in the Theory of Economic Expansion, (Stockholm, 1937)

E. Lindahl, Studies in the Theory of Money and Credit (London, 1939)

A. P. Lerner, “Swedish Stepping Stones in Economic Theory,” Canadian Journal of Economics, November 1940.

Brinley Thomas, Monetary Policy and Crisis, Ch. 3 and 4. (1936)

J. Marschak, “Wicksell’s Two Interest Rates,” Social Research, Nov. 1941.

B. Austrian school

L. von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit (1934) Eng. Translation.

F. A. Hayek, Prices and Production (2nd edition (1935)).

C. Cambridge school

Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, pp. 593-5; Money, Credit, and Commerce, pp. 38-50 (1923)

__________________, Official Papers, Ch. II, esp. 38-41, 45-6, 123-32, 157-60. (1926)

D. H. Robertson, Essays in Monetary Theory, esp. Ch. II, XII (1940)

__________________, Banking Policy and the Price Level (3rd ed, 1950)

__________________, “Notes on the Theory of Money,” Readings in Monetary Theory, (Blakiston, 1951), pp. 159-61.

A. C. Pigou, Industrial Fluctuations (1927)

J. M. Keynes, Monetary Reform (London, 1923) especially Ch. III.

F. Langston, The Trade Cycle.

D. Other

J. M. Keynes, A Treatise on Money, esp Vol I, Ch. 13, pp. 293-302, Vol. II, Ch. 25, 30, 32, 33 (1930).

R. G. Hawtrey, The Art of Central Banking (1933), esp. pp. 116-207, 366-71.

__________________, Capital Employment, (1937) Ch. 4-6.

Irving Fisher, Elementary Principles of Economics, Ch. IX (N.Y. 1912) (revised)

__________________, The Purchasing Power of Money, (1926) Ch. 8.

__________________, The Rate of Interest, Ch. 8, 14, 16.

Bertrand Nogaro, Modern Monetary Systems (London, 1927)

M. Albert Aftalion, Monnaie, Prix et Change (Paris, 1927)

Joseph Schumpeter, Business Cycles, Vol II, Ch. 8 (1939)

MacMillan Report, Royal Commission on Finance and Industry, Cmd 3897 (1931), Ch. 11, pp. 92-160.

E. Critiques

H. Ellis, German Monetary Theory (1934) Ch. 8, 9, 19.

R. J. Saulnier, Contemporary Monetary Theory (1938)

Arthur Marget, The Theory of Prices (1938, 1942) Vol 1, Ch. 2, 12-16, Vol 2, Ch. 3.

R. S. Sayers, Modern Banking, Ch. VI (1939, rev. ed.)

G. Haberler, Prosperity and Depression, (1941, 3rd ed.) Part I.

3. Keynes of General Theory

A. General

J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. (London, 1936)

R. F. Kahn, “The Relation of Home Investment to the Multiplier,” Economic Journal, 1931.

Joan Robinson, Essays in the Theory of Employment (1938)

________________, “The Economics of Hyper-Inflation,” (Economic Journal, Sept. 1938), “War Time Inflation,” both in Collected Economic Papers (New York, 1951).

M. Kalecki, Essays on the Theory of Economic Fluctuations (1939)

J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital (2nd ed. 1946) Parts 3 and 4.

Alvin H. Hansen, Fiscal Policy and Full Employment, (1941).

________________, Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy (1949) Chapter. 7, 8, 9.

________________, Economic Policy and Full Employment (1947).

L. Klein, The Keynesian Revolution (1947)

T. Wilson, Fluctuations in Income and Employment (3rd ed. 1948)

W. Fellner, A Treatise on War Inflation (1942)

A. G. Hart, Money, Debt and Economic Activity, (1948) Ch. 10.

A. P. Lerner, The Economics of Control, Ch. 21-25 (1944)

Walter A. Salant, “The Inflationary Gap, Meaning and Significance for Policy Making,” American Economic Review (June, 1942) pp. 308-14.

Milton Friedman, “Discussion of the Inflationary Gap,” American Economic Review (June, 1942) pp. 314-20.

Arthur Smithies, “The Behavior of Money National Income under Inflationary Conditions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1942.

T. C. Koopmans, “The Dynamics of Inflation,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 1942, pp. 53-65 (comment by A. Smithies and reply, pp. 189-90.)

Franklin Holzman, “Income Determination in Open Inflation,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 1950.

Clark Warburton, “Monetary Expansion and the Inflationary Gap,” American Economic Review, 1944.

Lloyd A. Metzler, “Wealth, Saving, and the Rate of Interest,” Journal of Political Economy, April, 1951.

B. Wage-Price Spiral

Ralph Turvey, “Period Analysis and Inflation,” Economica, 1949.

________________, “Some Aspects of the Theory of Inflation in a Closed Economy,” Economic Journal, Sept. 1951.

J. Dusenberry, “The Mechanics of Inflation,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 1950.

W. A. Morton, “Trade Unionism, Full Employment, and Inflation” American Economic Review, March 1950.

_______________, “Keynesianism and Inflation,” Journal of Political Economy, June 1951.

M. W. Reder, “Theoretical Problems of a National Wage Policy,” Canadian Journal of Economics (Feb. 1948)

_____________, “On Money Wages,” Industrial Relations Research Association conference, 1950.

A. Rees, “Postwar Wage Determination in the Basic Steel Industry,” American Economic Review (June 1951).

4. Government Policy in Inflationary Periods

David Ricardo, “Funding System,” in The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed by Piero Sraffa (Cambridge, 1951), Vol. IV, esp pp. 185-200; also Vol. III, passim.

A. C. Pigou, The Political Economy of War (revised ed., 1940)

A. G. Hart, E. D. Allen, and collaborators, Paying for Defense (Philadelphia, 1941)

M. Kalecki, “General Rationing,” Bulletin of Oxford Institute of Statistics, January 1941.

G. L. Bach, “Rearmament, Recovery, and Monetary Policy,” American Economic Review, 1941

W. A. Wallis, “How to Ration Consumer Goods and Control Their Prices,” American Economic Review, 1942.

Carl Shoup, Milton Friedman, and Ruth Mack, Taxing to Prevent Inflation (New York, 1943).

Milton Friedman, “The Spendings Tax as a Wartime Fiscal Measure,” American Economic Review, 1943.

J. J. Polak, “On the Theory of Price Control,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 1945.

L. Seltzer, “Is a Rise in Interest Rates Desirable or Inevitable,” American Economic Review, December, 1945.

R. I. Robinson, “Monetary Aspects of Public Debt Policy,” Postwar Economic Studies #3, Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System.

H. C. Wallich, “The Changing Significance of the Interest Rate,” American Economic Review, December 1946.

R. G. Hawtrey, “Monetary Aspects of the Economic Situation,” American Economic Review, March 1948.

Ten Economists on Inflation, Review of Economics and Statistics, 1948.

L. V. Chandler, “Federal Reserve Policy and Federal Debt,” American Economic Review, March 1949.

R. S. Sayers, “Central Banking in Light of Recent Experience,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1949.

H. C. Murphy, The National Debt in War and Transition (1950)?E. A. Goldenweiser, American Monetary Policy (1951)

L. W. Mints, Monetary Policy for a Competitive Society. (1950)

Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit and Fiscal Policies (“Douglas subcommittee”), Hearings, 81st Congress, 1st Session and Report, 81st Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Document 129.

“The Controversy over Monetary Policy,” (Seymour Harris, Lester Chandler, Milton Friedman, Alvin Hansen, Abba Lerner, and James Tobin), Review of Economics and Statistics, August 1951.

J. K. Galbraith, The Theory of Price Control (1952)

Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt, Joint Committee Print, 82nd Congress, 2nd Session (Washington, 1952) in two volumes.

5. Empirical Studies

W. C. Mitchell, History of the Greenbacks (Chicago, 1903)

_______________, Gold, Prices, and Wages under the Greenback Standard (Berkeley, 1908)

N. S. Silberling, “Financial and Monetary Policy of Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (1924), pp. 214-33, 397-439.

C. Bresciani-Turroni, The Economics of Inflation.

E. L. Dulles, The French Franc (New York, 1929)

W. De Bordes, The Austrian Crown (London, 1924)

S. S. Katzenellenbaum Russian Currency and Banking, 1914-24 (London, 1925)

James H. Rogers, The Process of Inflation in France, 1914-27 (New York, 1929)

Frank D. Graham, Exchange, Prices, and Production in Hyper-inflation: Germany, 1920-23 (Princeton, 1930)

Seymour Harris, The Assignats (1930)

R. A. Lester, Monetary Experiments (1939)

E. J. Hamilton, “Prices and Wages at Paris under John Law’s System,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (November, 1936).

______________, “Prices and Wages in Southern France under John Law’s System,” Economic History, a supplement of the Economic Journal (February, 1937)

Bertrand Nogaro, “Hungary’s Monetary Crisis,” American Economic Review (Sept. 1948).

Henry W. Spiegel, “A Century of Prices in Brazil,” Review of Economics and Statistics, 1948

A. J. Brown, “Inflation and the Flight from Cash,” Yorkshire Bulletin of Economic and Social Research, Vol. 1 (Sept., 1949)

L. V. Chandler, Inflation in the United States, 1940-49. (1951)

Milton Friedman, “Price, Income, and Monetary Changes during Three Wartime Periods,” [American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 1952, pp. 612-625]

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 78, Folder 4 (University of Chicago, Econ 432).

 

Categories
Courses M.I.T. Syllabus

MIT. Course Outline of Economic Statistics. Robert Solow, 1960

Welcome to my blog, Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled for you to sample or click on the search icon in the upper right to explore by name, university, or category. You can subscribe to my blog below.  There is also an opportunity to comment following each posting….

______________________

Robert Solow’s name is typically associated with neo-classical growth theory and MIT macroeconomics of the Keynesian persuasion. This posting reminds us that he was originally hired to beef up the statistics instruction in the MIT economics department. Like his Harvard professor Wassily Leontief, his theoretical work never really left the gravitational field of empirical economics.

_____________________________

14.382 Economic Statistics (A)
Prereq.: 14.371T  [Statistical Method]
Year: G(2)                  3-0-6

Study of selected statistical techniques found useful in recent economic work, especially the regression analysis of economic time series.

Solow

Source: The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bulletin 1959-1960. General Catalogue Issue, p. 248.

_____________________________

 

COURSE OUTLINE
14.382
[Economic Statistics, Robert M. Solow]

Spring Semester, 1960

 

I. AGGREGATION AND INDEX NUMBERS (3 weeks)

A. Aggregation

R. G. D. Allen, Mathematical Economics, Chapter 20.

Stedman B. Noble, “Structure and Classification in Resource Flow Models”, George Washington University Logistics Research Project, May 1959.

____________________, “Resource Flow Models with Application”, delivered to the Econometric Society, December 1959.

Zvi Griliches and Y. Grunfeld, “Is Aggregation Necessarily Bad?”, The Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming.

E. Malinvaud, “L’agrégation dan les Modéles Économique”, Cahiers du Séminaire d’Économetrie, No. 4, 1956, pp. 69-143.

B. Index Numbers

Kenneth J. Arrow, “The Measurement of Price Change”, The Relation of Prices to Economic Stability and Growth, Joint Economic Committee Compendium, March 1958.

C. S. Carter, W. B. Reddaway and R. Stone, The Measurement of Production Movements, Cambridge University Press: England, 1948.

Federal Reserve Bulletin, “Revised Industrial Production Index”, December 1959, pp. 1451-1466.

 

II. ESTIMATION TECHNIQUES (4 weeks)

A. Small Sample Properties of Simultaneous Equation Estimators

Robert L. Basmann, “An Experimental Investigation of Some Small Sample Properties of (GCL) Estimators of Structural Equations”, November 1958 (dittoed).

_____________________, “On Finite Sample Distributions of Identifiability Test Statistics”, March 1959 (dittoed).

Harvey M. Wagner, “A Monte Carlo Study of Estimates of Simultaneous Linear Equations”, Econometrica, Vol. 26, 1958, pp. 117-133.

Robert Summers, “Capital-Intensive Approach to the Small Sample Properties of Various Simultaneous Linear Equation Estimators”, 1958 (unpublished).

Richard J. Foote, “An Experiment to Test the Relative Merits of Least Squares and Limited Information Coefficients for Forecasting Under Specified Conditions”, Analytical Tools for Studying Demand and Price Structures, 1958, pp. 128-42.

B. Specification

G. E. P. Box and Norman Draper, “A Basis for Selection of a Response Surface Design”, Journal of the American Statistical Association, September 1959.

Henry Scheffe, The Analysis of Variance, “The Effects of Departures from Underlying Assumptions”, Chapter 10, 1959.

Hans Theil, Economic Forecasts and Policy, Chapter 6.2, pp. 204-39, “Statistical Methodology”, and Appendix 6B, “Analysis of Specification Errors”, pp. 326-33.

 

III. MEASUREMENT OF SUPPLY, COST, AND PRODUCTION FUNCTIONS (3 weeks)

Robert M. Solow, “Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function”, The Review of Economics and Statistics, August 1957.

Luigi Pasinetti, “On Concepts and Measures of Changes in Productivit” and Comment by R. Solow, Review of Economics and Statistics, August 1959, pp. 270-86.

Jack Johnston, “Statistical Cost Functions: Reappraisal”, Review of Economics and Statistics, 1958.

Zvi Griliches, “Hybrid Corn: And Exploration in the Economics of Technical Change,” Econometrica, October 1957, pp. 501-22.

Paul H. Douglas, “Are There Laws of Production?”, American Economic Review, March 1948, pp. 1-41.

Irving Hoch, “Simultaneous Equation Bias in the Context of the Cobb-Douglas Production Function”, Econometrica, October 1958, pp. 566-78.

John R. Meyer, M. J. Peck and others, The Economics of Competition in the Transportation Industries, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, 1959.

Lawrence R. Klien, Econometrics, “A Cross-Section Model of Production of Railway Services”, Chapter 5, Section 4, pp. 226-41.

Hollis Chenery, “Engineering Production Functions”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1949.

Kenneth J. Arrow, Marvin Hoffenberg, A Time Series Analysis of Inter-industry Demands, The RAND Corporation, North-Holland Publishing Co.: Amsterdam, 1959.

Hollis Chenery and Paul G. Clark, Interindustry Economics, 1959.

 

IV. MACRO MODELS AND DECISION THEORY (5 weeks)

Hans Theil, Chapter 3, “Postwar Macro Economic Forecasts in the Netherlands and Scandinavia,” Chapter 5, “Underestimation of Changes,” pp. 154-183, Chapter 7, “Forecasts and Policy: Problems and Tools,” pp. 379-410, Chapter 8, “Underestimation of Changes: Analysis and Implications,” pp. 411-529.

James Duesenberry, Quarterly Model of U.S. Economy.

New Klein Model, Suits-Klein-Goldberger Model.

_____________________________

Source: Robert Solow papers. Box 68, Folder “Reading lists”, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Image Source: MIT Museum.