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Bibliography Chicago Courses

Chicago. Mathematical Economics. Henry Schultz’s Reading List, 1935

 

 

For an earlier posting I transcribed a core list of references for the course on mathematical economics, Economics 402, taught by Henry Schultz at the University of Chicago during the Spring quarter, 1932. That list was found in the papers of Albert G. Hart in the Columbia University archives. A virtually identical core list of references was found in George Stigler’s papers at the University of Chicago archives in a folder labeled “1935 Univ. of Chicago Class notes”. Only a few handwritten additions differ between the two copies.

The “Stigler edition” of the Economics 402 list of references probably comes from the 1935 autumn quarter. There are two reasons to think this besides simply trusting the accuracy of the folder’s label. Stigler’s preliminary examinations for the doctorate must have been taken in May 1935 according to a mimeographed copy of the examination schedules located in this same folder. Mathematical economics was considered a specialized field at the time and was unlikely to have been the subject of the preliminary examination in theory;  further, one of the handwritten additions was a reference to an August 1935 paper by Henry Schultz. 

The value-added of today’s transcription of the “Stigler edition” compared to the earlier “Hart edition is that I have gone to great lengths to provide links to the overwhelming majority of items below. The links to jstor.org are free only to those with access to a research library’s e-resource, but a surprising amount of the stuff is out there and downloadable for free. The posting with the “Hart edition” also includes Schultz’s reference lists for Cost Theory and the Theory of Monopolistic Competition that were not found in the Stigler papers.

I suspect that Stigler only audited Economics 402 because we find only about five pages of his own notes for the course in that folder. In comparison for Schultz’s other course, Theory and Measurement of Demand (Economics 405), one finds about forty pages of notes.

There is one problem with one row in the table of references that I have highlighted in boldface blue. The dates given for the Journal of the American Statistical Association are not associated with papers written by Henry L. Moore nor do any of the papers in the issues noted appear to have papers of particular interest for mathematical economics expect perhaps that by Karl G. Karsten: The Theory of Quadrature in Economics. JASA March, 1924 [Link to jstor.org]. Henry L. Moore’s list of publications only shows a single March 1922 publication in JASA, but many papers in QJE.

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Course Announcements, 1935-36, 1932-33 

  1. Mathematical Economics.— Prerequisite: Economics 301 [Price and Distribution Theory], a reading knowledge of French, and consent of the instructor. Registration for a course or a double course. Autumn, SCHULTZ.

Source: University of Chicago. Announcements, The College and the Divisions for the Sessions of 1935-36, p. 297

 

  1. Mathematical Economics.—A study of economic theory from the point of view of assumptions, range of problems, methods and tools, and validity and utility of results under present conditions. Consideration is given to the problem of “circular reasoning” in price theory, to the advantages and limitations of the mathematical approach, and to the possibility of developing a “statistical complement” to pure theory. Special attention is paid to the problem of price determination and to the mathematical theory of production. Readings will be assigned on special topics in the works of Cournot, Jevons, Walras, Pareto, Marshall, Moore, and others; and the class meetings will be devoted chiefly to discussion. Opportunity for investigation of particular problems is offered the student. Prerequisite: Economics 301 [Price and Distribution Theory], a reading knowledge of French, and consent of the instructor. Registration may be made for one or more courses each quarter. Summer, Autumn, SCHULTZ.

Source: University of Chicago. Announcements, Arts, Literature and Science, vol. XXXII, February 25, 1932, no. 12 (for the sessions of 1932-33), p. 355.

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[Autumn Quarter 1935]
REFERENCES FOR ECON. 402

Mathematical Economics
By
Henry Schultz
University of Chicago

Amoroso, Luigi Lezioni di Economia Matematica
Le Equazioni Differenziali della Dinamica Economica—in Giornale degli Economisti, February, 1929. [Link to jstor.org]
La Curva Statica di Offerta—Giornale degli Economisti, January, 1930. [Link to jstor.org]  [English translation: Link to jstor.org]
Annals of the American Academy of Political & Social Science July, 1892 (Paper by Walras) [Link to jstor.org]
Auspitz, Rudolf
Lieben, Richard
Recherches sur la théorie du prix [Volume IVolume II]
Bentham, Jeremy Principles of Morals and Legislation [Volume IVolume II]
Bertolasi, Ellen Quittner Die Stellung der Lausanner Schule in der Grenznutzenlehre—in Arch. f. Sozialw. u. Sozialpol., 64. Band, Heft 1, August, 1930, pp. 16-44.
Black, J. D. [Introduction to] Production Economics [New York, 1926]
Bonar, James Philosophy and Political Economy
Bousquet, G. H. Essai sur l’évolution de la Pensée économique [1927]
Précis de sociologie d’àpres Vilfredo Pareto [Paris, 1925]
Vilfredo Pareto: Sa vie et son oeuvre
Boven, Pierre Les applications mathématiques à l’économie politique [Lausanne, 1912].
Bowley, A. L. Mathematical Groundwork of Economics
Bridgman, P. W. The Logic of Modern Physics
Cassel, Gustav Theory of Social Economy
Fundamental Thoughts on Economics
Cournot, A. A. The Mathematical Theory of Wealth
Théorie des richesses
Cunynghame, H. Geometrical Political Economy
Del Vecchio, Gustavo La Dinamica Economica Di H. L. Moore—in Giornale degli Economisti, Anno XLV, Giugno, 1930, VIII, No. 6, pp. 545-554. [link to jstor.org]
Dicey Law and Opinion in England
Edgeworth, F. Y. Mathematical Psychics
Papers relating to Political Economy [Volume  IVolume IIVolume III.]
Evans, G. C. Mathematical Introduction to Economics
Fisher, Irving Mathematical Investigations in the Theory of Value and Prices,—in Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts & Sciences (9-10) pp. 1-125.
[Ricci, Umberto] Elasticità dei bisogni, della domanda e dell’offerta. Giornale degli Economisti Aug. & Oct., 1924.

Link to Part I in jstor.org; link to Part II in jstor.org.

Halévy, Élie La formation du radicalism philosophique
[Vol. I. La Jeunesse de Bentham, 1901; Vol. II. L’Évolution de la Doctrine Utilitaire de 1789 a 1815, 1901; Vol. III. Le Radialisme Philosophique, 1904.]
Hobson, E. W. The Domain of Natural Science
Jevons, W. S. Theory of Political Economy [Third edition]
Journal of the American Statistical Association Dec. 1923; March & Dec. 1924; Dec. 1926
(Papers by H. L. Moore)
Journal of Political Economy
Oct. & Dec. 1925; April 1927
Schultz, Henry. The Statistical Law of Demand as Illustrated by the Demand for Sugar, Part I. J.P.E. (Oct., 1925), pp. 481-504. [Link to jstor.org]

Schultz, Henry. The Statistical Law of Demand as Illustrated by the Demand for Sugar, Part II. J.P.E. (Dec., 1925, pp. 577-631. [Link to jstor.org]
Appendix I: Comments on Professor Lehfeldt’s Method of Deriving the Elasticity of Demand for Wheat [Link to jstor.org].
Appendix II: Tables [Link to jstor.org].

Ezekiel, Mordecai. A Statistical Examination of Factors Related to Lamb Prices. J.P.E. (Apr., 1927), pp. 233-260. [Link to jstor.org]

Marshall, Alfred Principles of Economics [Eight edition]
Industry and Trade
Money, Credit and Commerce
Moore, Henry L. Laws of Wages
Economic Cycles
Forecasting the Yield & the Price of Cotton
Generating Economic Cycles
Synthetic Economics
Moret, Jacques L’emploi des mathématiques en économie politique
Nichol, A. J. Partial Monopoly and Price Leadership (Privately published)

[cf. “A Re-appraisal of Cournot’s Theory of Duopoly Price”, Journal of Political Economy (Feb. 1934), pp. 80-105. Link to jstor.org]

Pantaleoni, M. Pure Economics
Pareto, Vilfredo Manuel d’économie politique
Cours d’économie politique [Volume 1, Volume 2]
Anwendung der Mathematik auf National Ökonomie, —in Encycl. Mathematisch, Wissenschaft, I G 2, pp. 1094-1170
Économie mathématique, —in Encyclopédie des sciences mathématique, Tome I, vol. 4 (Fascicule 4, pp. 590-640)
The New Theories of Economics, —in Journ. Polit.Econ., Sept. 1897 [Link to jstor.org]
Traité de sociologie générale [Volume IVolume II]
Pearson, Karl Grammar of Science
Pietri-Tonelli, Alfonso Traité d’économie rationelle
[H. Gamier translation from 3rd Italian edition. Paris, 1927]
Pigou, Alfred [sic, Arthur] Economics of Welfare
[4th edition, 1920.  ]
Planck, Max A Survey of Physics
Poincaré, Henri Foundations of Science
Political Science Quarterly
(Paper by Mitchell)
Vol. XXXIII, June, 1918, No. 2, pp. 164-5 [Part II of “Bentham’s Felicific Calculus”. Link to jstor.org]
Quarterly Journal of Economics
Jan. 1898; Aug. 1925; Nov. 1926; March[sic] 1927
Irving Fisher. “Cournot and Mathematical Economics (Jan., 1898), pp. 119-138. [Link to jstor.org]. And “Appendix: Notes on Cournot’s Mathematics”, pp. 238-244. [Link to jstor.org]

Holbrook Working “The Statistical Determination of Demand Curves” (August, 1925), pp. 503-543. [Link to jstor.org]

Henry Ludwell Moore. “A Theory of Economic Oscillations” (Nov., 1926), pp. 1-29. [Link to jstor.org]

E. J. Working. “What Do Statistical ‘Demand Curves’ Show?” (Feb., 1927, pp. 212-235. [Link to jstor.org]

Revue d’histoire des doctrines économique et sociales 1910 (Article by Antonelli on Léon Walras) [Link to jstor.org]
Revue d’histoire économique et sociale
(1924), pp. 225-43
G. H. Bousquet. “Vilfredo Pareto — Le Développement et la Signification Historique de son Œuvre”, Vol. 12, No. 2.  [Link to jstor.org]
Revue de metaphysique et de morale (13) 1905 (Section on Cournot) [pp. 291-543]
Ricci, Umberto Die statistischen Gesetze des Gleichgewichtes nach Henry Schultz—in Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, January, 1931
Schultz, Henry [Handwritten addition] Interrelation of Demand, Income and Price J.P.E. Aug. 1935 [Link to jstor.org]

Statistical Laws of Demand and Supply […with Special Application to Sugar. University of Chicago Press, 1938]

Marginal Productivity and the General Pricing Process, —Journ. Polit. Econ., Oct. 1929.  [Link to jstor.org]
Der Sinn der statistischen Nachfragekurven
[Vol 10 of Frankfurter Gesellschaft für Konjunkturforschung, 1939[Handwritten addition] Interrelations of Demand J.P. E. Aug. 1933 [Link to jstor.org]
Vinci, Felice “Sui Fondamenti della Dinamica Economica”, Rivista Italiana di Statistica, Anno II, No. 3, Luglio-Settembre, 1930—VIII, pp. 222-268
Walras, Léon Économie politique appliquée
Économie sociale
Éléments d’économie politique
Wicksteed, Philip The Alphabet of Economic Science
Common Sense of Political Economy
Stephen, Leslie The [English] Utilitarians
[Vol. I. Jeremy Bentham; Vol. II. James MillVol. III. John Stuart Mill (1900). ]
Zawadzki, Wl. Les mathématiques appliquées à l’économie politique
Zeuthen, F. L. Problems of Monopoly and Economic Welfare

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Specific References to Pareto by Schultz

A ten-page handout prepared by Schultz for Economics 402 “General Laws of Individual Demand and Supply (after Pareto)” includes much more specific references to Pareto’s works, the first of which is a new item.

Vilfredo Pareto

  • Giornale degli Economisti, 1892, pp. 119-157, 1893, pp. 279-321.

[Considerazioni Sui Principii Fondamentali Dell’Economia Politica Pura

jstor link to May 1892, Volume 4, pp. 389-420;
jstor link to June 1892, Volume 4, pp. 485-512;
jstor.org link to August 1892, Volume 5, pp. 119-157;
jstor.org link to January 1893, Volume 6, pp. 1-37;
jstor.org link to October 1893, Volume 7, pp. 279-321.

English translation: Considerations on the Fundamental Principles of Pure Political Economy (edited by Roberto Marchionatti and Fiorenzo Mornati), London: Routledge, 2007.

 

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Papers of George Stigler. Addenda, Box 33. Folder “1935 University of Chicago Class Notes”.

Image Source: Henry Schultz (detail from group picture of the Cowles Commission’s 4th Annual Research Conference on Economics and Statistics at Colorado Springs, July 20, 1938)

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Courses North Carolina

North Carolina. Course outline and exam for mathematical economics, Hotelling. 1946 and 1950

 

 

 

Harold Hotelling continued teaching courses in mathematical economics after leaving Columbia [here an earlier posting that lists all his courses taught at Columbia] for the University of North Carolina in 1946. From two folders in Hotelling’s papers in the Columbia University archives we can piece together the week-by-week list of topics he covered for the Fall quarter of 1946 and 1950. Note that the record for 1946 begins as a typed document that then is corrected and extended by hand-written additions.

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[Begin typed]

MATHEMATICAL ECONOMICS COURSE

Fall quarter, 1946. Two hours each Tuesday and Thursday.

Oct. 1. General scope of economic theory as treated mathematically. Static and dynamic economics. Greater superficial interest in dynamic economics but greater body of definite knowledge in the static field. Moreover an understanding of static theory is important for an understanding and elucidation of dynamic phenomena.

List of important mathematical writers on economic theory, especially static economic theory: Cournot, Dupuit, Walras, Edgeworth, Pareto, I. Fisher, Schultz. Also Amoroso, Pantaleoni, Slutzky. Bibliography of Hotelling writings on economic theory.

Oct. 3. Demand curves and functions. Classification of exchanges by double dichotomy according as buyer and seller are monopolistic or competitive. Indeterminacy of the case of monopoly vs. monopsony. Other cases classically regarded as determinate. But beware of assuming determinacy if there are as many as 2 monopolies in the system. Incidence of taxation on a monopolist of just one commodity (classical treatment). Proof that a tax of t per unit on monopolist leads him to increase the price.

Assignment for Oct. 8: Find 3 demand functions such that for monopoly and zero cost the increase in price will be (1) greater than t, (2) = t, (3) less than t. Be sure the functions are realistic in the sense of being monotonically decreasing, and that both price and quantity are positive.

Oct. 8: Discussion of problems assigned. (2 out of the 8 enrolled came forward with solutions.) Demand functions for 2 related commodities. The nature of cost functions for a single commodity: total cost as a function of quantity produced tends to rise stepwise in industrial production. Average cost varies in a quasi-periodic fashion, usually tending to decrease. Marginal cost usually low but with short periods of very high values as production increases.

[Handwritten insert:]

Oct. 10. Indifference loci. Utility, ophelimity, pleasure, non-measurable but ordinable.

[Last typed item:]

Oct. 15. Duopoly (“Stability in Competition,” Econ. J. 1929). Contributions of Cournot, Bertrand, Edgeworth.

[Handwritten items follow:]

Oct. 17. Bilateral monopoly, etc. Problem: Prove competitive price in Cournot’s duopoly < monopoly price with same demand function (Costs zero)

Oct. 22. Further discussion of problem. More on indifference curves & demand functions. Emphasis derived from “stability in competition” upon need for expressing quantities of cont[inuou]s functions of more than one price. Does Cournot duopoly imply a lower price than monopoly?

Oct. 24. Demand function with limited budgets.

Oct. 24. Equations of general equilibrium. Indeterminacy of price ratios.

Oct. 29. Bartlett gives proof (which the class could not find previously) that Cournot duopoly implied lower price than monopoly.
Equation of exchange: MV +M´V´= Σpq

Oct. 31. Theory of maxima & minima: 1st order conditions, including Lagrange multiplier case. Relation to Taylor series.

Nov. 5. 2nd order conditions. Definite & indefinite quadratic forms, with & without linear constraints.

Nov. 7 Application to obtaining 1st-order conditions on demand functions unlimited budget case): symmetry conditions and inequalities. (Case of soap manufacturer)

Nov. 12. Conditions on supply functions in unlimited budget case. Demand functions with limited budgets. 6-term integrability conditions.

Nov. 14. Inequalities on demand functions with limited budgets; on supply functions with limited budgets

Nov. 19. Construction of suitable utility functions for general-equilibrium illustrations. Schultz attempted verifications. Problems of demand-function fitting. (Loaned Schultz book to [illegible word]) Taxation in general-equilibrium theory.

Nov. 21 Omitted

Paper will be required in lieu of exam.

Nov. 26. Edgeworth’s taxation paradox.

Dec. 3. Rent. Site rental & capital values. Benefit. Consumers’ & producers’ surpluses.

Dec. 5. Proof (à la “General Welfare” paper) that sales should be at marginal cost; also net loss given by a quadratic form.

Dec. 10. Connection of above with pp. 606ff. of “Edgeworth’s Taxation Paradox.” Taxation of site rentals; of scarce things such as space in crowded trains; on inheritances; of incomes; of nuisances. Minimization of net loss consistently with raising a specified revenue.

Dec. 12. Discussion. Index numbers of prices.

 

Source:   Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Papers of Harold Hotelling, Courses Taught M-S (partial) Box 48, Folder “Mathematical Economics (2)”.

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Statistics/Economics 182. Mathematical Economics.
Autumn, 1950.
Harold Hotelling

September 21. General introduction. List of references. “Comparative statics,” as distinguished from study of transitional conditions. Edgeworth’s taxation paradox as a historic demonstration for need of calculus and algebra, not merely wordy or geometric arguments. Effect of tax on monopoly price with 1 commodity—the classical graphic argument. Assignment: (1) Prove that dp/dt, the rate of increase of monopoly price with tax t, is positive; (2) determine whether dp/dt has any positive limits which are the same for all monotonically decreasing demand functions having derivatives.

Sept. 26. Further discussion of taxation of monopoly. Assignment to calculate the effect on prices of 2 commodities controlled by 1 monopolist of a tax on 1 of these commodities, with a specified pair of demand functions.

Sept. 28. Preview of conditions under which Edgeworth’s taxation paradox may hold, and of nature of demand and supply functions.

Oct. 3. Duopoly. Cournot’s treatment. Duality with double monopoly (by different producers of parts of 1 final product). The 1929 “Stability in Competition” treatment. Mutual gravitation of competitors.

Oct. 5. Double dichotomy of markets, with extension to duopoly, oligopoly, duopsony, oligopsony; also to a multiplicity of commodities. Location of industry. Von Thünen, Goodrich. Problems of shape of a city; of layout of a railroad on a homogeneous plain for the purpose of bringing grain to one city.

Oct. 10. Holiday.

Oct. 12. Review of previous work. Classic supply and demand curves, with generalization to 2 commodities. illustration with linear demand and supply functions of effects of taxation of 2 commodities.

Oct. 17. Cost –total, marginal, average. Indeterminacy of average cost. Joint costs. Allocation logically impossible without consideration of demand. “Cost-finding systems” and cost accounting. Relative precision of marginal cost.

Oct. 19. Consumers’ surplus, producers’ surplus, benefits, effects of excise taxes—all for one isolated commodity; graphic and algebraic treatments. Distribution of excise taxes among independent commodities; but the necessity of replacing this result by something based on relations between commodities. The need of algebra and calculus rather than geometry for this.

Oct. 24. Demand functions for multiple commodities with unlimited budgets. Theory of maxima and minima.

Oct. 26, 31; Nov. 2, 7. Theory of maxima and minima; demand and supply functions with unlimited budgets. Symmetry-integrability conditions; inequalities

Nov. 9. Demand functions with limited budgets. Indifference curves. Utility.

Nov. 14. Further developments à la Slutsky and Hicks.

Nov. 16. Giffen phenomenon, exhibited by means of the utility function Ø = x – e-y.

Nov. 21. Equations of general equilibrium, approximately according to Irving Fisher. Need of monetary equation to fix general level of prices.

Nov. 23. Thanksgiving holiday.

Nov. 28. Assignment: Work out and bring in next time (if not too hard) solution of equations of general equilibrium for 2 groups, farmers and fishermen, of equal numbers, large and competitive, with respective utility functions Ø = x – e-y; and the smaller root of (x- Ø)(y- Ø) = 1. Calculus of variations in the small and in the large. Formulae for variations of prices and quantities in terms of excise tax rates for a group of commodities for which demand and supply maximize profits without budgetary limitations.

Nov. 30, Dec. 5, 7. Incidence and effects of taxation with unlimited and with limited budgets. Net loss from excise taxes is positive and approximately equal to ½ Σ ti δ qi. Criterion for social value of investment. Economy of making all sales at marginal cost. Index numbers of prices.

 

Source:   Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Papers of Harold Hotelling, Courses Taught M-S (partial) Box 48, Folder “Mathematical Economics (1)”.

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Final Examination
Mathematical Economics. Math./Stat. 182
December 13, 1950

I.

A monopolist sells quantities x, y of two commodities at prices p1, p2 and pays taxes t1, t2 per unit sold respectively. His costs amount to*

C = 20 – x – y

and the demand functions are

x = 5 – 2p1 + p2,

y = 10 + p1 – 3p2.

Determine as functions of the tax rates (a) the prices and (b) the quantities yielding maximum revenue.

*(This cost function is unrealistic but the students were told to use it)

 

II.

If a toll of $p is levied for each crossing of a certain bridge, the number of crossings per year is q = 10,000 (9 -3p-p2) when this expression is positive, and is otherwise zero.

(a) What toll yields the maximum revenue?

When this toll is charged, …

(b) …how many crossings will be made per year?

(c) …what is the revenue?

(d) …what is the consumers’ surplus?

(e) …what is the total benefit from the bridge?

(f) What is the maximum possible total benefit?

 

 

III.

For a class of people all having the preference function

\Phi =q_{1}^{{{\alpha }_{1}}}q_{2}^{{{\alpha }_{2}}}\cdots q_{n}^{{{\alpha }_{n}}}

prove that a suitable index number of the cost of living is a certain weighted geometric mean.

 

Source:   Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Papers of Harold Hotelling, Courses Taught M-S (partial) Box 48, Folder “Mathematical Economics (1)”.

Image source: From a photo of the Institute of Statistics leadership around 1946: Gertrude Cox, Director, William Cochran, Associate Director-Raleigh and Harold Hotelling, Associate Director-Chapel Hill. North Carolina State University.

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Labor and Public Policy Syllabus Dunlop, 1948

The following course outline and syllabus come from the second term of a two term course in collective bargaining and public policy offered by John Dunlop at Harvard in 1947-48.  Material for the first term was posted earlier. The final examination questions for both terms will be posted soon.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 81b. Associate Professor Dunlop.–Public Policy and Labor (Sp).

Total 147: 2 Graduates, 85 Seniors, 37 Juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 11 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1947-1948, p. 90.

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Economics 81b
Spring 1948

LABOR AND PUBLIC POLICY

  1. Introduction
    1. General Setting of the Problems of the Course
    2. Governmental Attitude toward Labor and Employer Organizations
    3. Organized Labor’s Relation to Government
  2. Issues of Public Policy
    1. The Extent of “Public” Encouragement to Organization
    2. The Regulation of Labor Organizations
    3. The Machinery for the Settlement of Disputes
    4. The Treatment of the Parties to a Dispute
    5. The Status of Labor Organizations under the Anti-trust Laws
    6. Minimum Wage and Hour Regulation
    7. The Risk of Unemployment
    8. Old Age Insurance
    9. The Risks of Accident and Sickness
  3. The Process of “Public Policy” Formulation
    1. The Determination of Community Values
    2. The Operation of “Pressure Groups”
    3. The Role of the Press
    4. The Legislative Sphere
    5. The Influence of Administrative Agencies; Board Members, Administrators, and Staff

______________________________

SOME FUNDAMENTAL ISSUES OF PUBLIC POLICY

  1. Does the process of collective bargaining between labor organizations and employers give assurance that the “public interest” will be best served? How do you evaluate the possibility of collective bargaining resulting in continuing warfare or “combination” against the “public interest”?
  2. “The threat of strike and lockout, and probably some work stoppages, are vital to the functioning of collective bargaining.” Do you agree? Do you have “vigorous” or “healthy” labor and management organizations where there have been no work stoppages for long periods? How can the “public” be made to understand the necessity for the social costs of voluntarism?
  3. Do you think it is possible to prohibit strikes by law? May not workers always bring equal pressure by turning out a smaller quantity of work? How do you distinguish between the right to strike and the right of an individual to refuse to work? Are the concepts identical? Are “wildcat strikes” and similar spontaneous walkouts, in part at least, a desirable social safety valve?
  4. Is it possible to have private collective bargaining when bargaining units become in effect National in scope as in the railroad and steel industries? Do you think the parties in such cases are likely to reach settlements without governmental intervention? Is it possible to keep the Government out of such disputes? If not, do you think it follows that the “government” is required to adopt some explicit wage policy in peacetime?
  5. The Department of Labor was established to “promote the interests of wage earners.” The mediation and conciliation functions of the Government were located in the Department of Labor? Do you believe employers had any valid objections to this arrangement? What should be the relation of the two assistant Secretaries of Labor, “representing” the AFL and CIO, to the administration of the Department of Labor?
  6. For the purposes of “public concern” with the “internal affairs” of a labor organization, would you regard a union more like a “private club” or a “public utility”? Does the presence of a Governmental guarantee of the right to organize affect the answer to this question?
  7. How is “public policy” in fact formulated? Contrast, for example, the mechanics used in formulating: the old age insurance program, the “cooling-off period” of the War Labor Disputes Act, the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, the Fair Labor Standards Act.
  8. What mechanism would you propose to formulate working compromises between agriculture and organized labor? Consider the interest of agriculture in industrial employment for “surplus population” and in cheap prices of industrial goods; also consider the interest of organized labor in food prices and in extending the area of organization.
  9. Where would you draw the line between “management personnel” and “labor” for the purpose of determining the rights to self-organization and protection from “unfair labor practices”? How would you constructively treat the issue of the “organization of supervisors” from the point of view of management? From the point of view of the labor movement?
  10. Do you think it possible to extend gradually the area of labor-management agreement fast enough to preclude the necessity of legislation to prescribe in detail the rights and duties of both sides? How would you speed up the process of agreement? Consider this question in the light of American experience in contrast to that in England, Sweden, Germany and Australia.
  11. How would you define the “legitimate” interests of management in the organization of its employees? What criteria would you establish to draw lines between cases of coercion on the one hand and the exercise or the expression of the “legitimate” interests of management you have defined?
  12. How would you define the area on which you would allow an employer as a matter of public policy, to deal with an employee as an individual rather than through the collective bargaining agent? Does the union have the right to insist that individual merit increases be “negotiated or bargained” with the union? May the company install a pension plan without “bargaining”?
  13. Can the Federal Government avoid having a “wage policy”? Are labor and management organized along lines which would facilitate the formulation of a national wage policy? What are the dimensions or ingredients you would suggest for a national wage policy—the rate of change of the wage level, wage rate differentials, etc.?
  14. Under a system of unemployment compensations how would you define “availability for work”? Should men on strike be allowed benefits? May one refuse to accept a lower wage rate and still draw benefits? How far away must a job be before refusal of the job is a bar to benefits?
  15. What different concepts of the labor force, employment and unemployment do you regard as essential to public policy-making?
  16. What procedures would you recommend to formulate public policy on a health program?

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Economics 81b

LABOR AND PUBLIC POLICY

I. INTRODUCTION

  1. General Setting of the Problems of the Course
    1. Conflicts of interests in a political democracy
    2. The meaning of “public policy formation”
    3. Fundamental issues of public policy in this field

Required Reading

Sumner H. Slichter, Trade Unions in a Free Society

Twentieth Century Fund, Trends in Collective Bargaining. A Summary of Recent Experience, 1945, pp. 1-33; 188-211; 215-50. (Students who have had Economics 81a need only read pp. 215-50.)

Henry C. Simons, “Some Reflections on Syndicalism”, Journal of Political Economy, March 1944, pp. 1-25. (To be read by students who have not taken Economics 81a)

Frederick H. Harbison and Robert Dubin, Patterns of Union—Management Relations, pp. 3-178.

Richard A. Lester, “Reflections on the ‘Labor Monopoly’ Issue”, Journal of Political Economy, December 1947, pp. 513-36.

Recommended Reading

Élie Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism, translated by Mary Morris, 1928, pp. 89-150; 249-310.

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise, Chapter 8, “Business Principles in Law and Politics”.

Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, 1942.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Vol. 2, pp. 158-61; 177-91; (Alfred A. Knopf, 1945 edition)

Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Industrial Democracy.

  1. Governmental Attitude toward Labor and Employer Organizations
    1. The evolution of public policy.
    2. The present status of both types of organization
    3. The role of the Department of Labor

Required Reading

Charles O. Gregory, Labor and the Law, pp. 13-82.

Pendleton Herring, The Politics of Democracy, 1940, pp. 368-90.

D. O. Bowman, Public Control of Labor Relations, 1942, pp. 3-57.

John Lombardi, Labor’s Voice in the Cabinet, A History of the Department of Labor from its Origin to 1921, pp. 15-95.

Recommended Reading

Felix Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Holmes and the Supreme Court, Chapter 1, “Property and Society”, pp. 13-48.

Edward S. Corwin, The Twilight of the Supreme Court, pp. 52-101.

Leo Wolman, “The Turning Point in American Labor Policy,” Political Science Quarterly, June 1940, pp. 161-75.

H. Samuels, The Law of Trade Unions.

Calvert Magruder, “A Half Century of Legal Influence upon the Development of Collective Bargaining”, Harvard Law Review, May 1937, pp. 1071-1117.

James M. Landis and Marcus Manoff, Cases on Labor Law, (1942 edition) Chapter 1, “Historical Introduction”, pp. 1-40.

Charles O. Gregory and Malcolm Sharp, Social Change and Labor Law.

U. S. Department of Labor, Division of Labor Standards, Federal Labor Laws and Agencies, Bulletin 79.

Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew, pp. 182- 336.

 

II. ISSUES OF PUBLIC POLICY

  1. The Extent of “Public” Encouragement to Organization
    1. The Wagner Act and the NLRB
    2. The Labor Management Relations Act, 1947
    3. Selected problems of policy determination

Required Reading

The Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 and The Conference Report

Herbert Unterberger and Max Malin, The Taft-Hartley Act in Operation

E. E. Witte, “Labor-Management Relations under the Taft-Hartley Act”, Harvard Business Review, Autumn 1947, pp. 554-75.

Charles E. Wyzanski, Jr., “The Open Window and the Open Door”, California Law Review, Vol. 351, pp. 336-51.

C. O. Gregory, Labor and the Law, pp. 223-52; 289-33.

Carl Raushenbush and Emanuel Stein, Labor Cases and Materials, 1941, pp. 286-370.

D. O. Dowman, Public Control of Labor Relations, pp. 133-186.

Recommended Reading

La Follette Committee Reports

Lewis L. Lorwin and Arthur Warbnig, Labor Relations Boards, 1935.

E. Merrick Dodd, “The Supreme Court and Organized Labor, 1941-45”, Harvard Law Review, Vol. 58, pp. 1018-71.

Joseph Rosenfarb, The National Labor Policy and How It Works.

National Labor Relations Board, Government’s Protection of Labor’s Right to Organize, Bulletin No. 1.

E. B. McNatt, “The Appropriate Bargaining Unit Problem”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1941.

Robert R. R. Brooks, Unions of their Own Choosing, 1939.

William E. Mosher and J. Donald Kingsley, Public Personnel Administration, 1941, pp. 558-85.

David Ziskind, One Thousand Strikes of Government Employees

Gordon R. Clapp, Employee Relations in the Public Service, A Report Submitted to the Civil Service Assembly, 1942.

National Labor Relations Board, Legislative History of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947.

Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. The New Labor Law

Herbert O. Eby, The Labor Relations Act in the Courts.

Paul Herzog, “Labor Relations Acts of the States”, Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Sciences, November 1942.

Report and Findings of a Panel of the National War Labor Board in Certain Disputes Involving Supervisors.

Harold W. Metz and M. Jacobstein, National Labor Policy, 1947.

National Labor Relations Board, Annual Reports

  1. The Regulation of Labor Organizations

Required Reading

Florence Peterson, American Labor Unions, 1945, pp. 84-126.

Recommended Reading

Joel Seidman, Union Rights and Union Duties, 1943.

Neil Chamberlin, “Judicial Process in Labor Unions”, Brooklyn Law Review, 1940

Henry V. Rothschild, “Government Regulation of Trade Unions in Great Britain”, Columbia Law Review, 1939.

American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy in Trade Unions

Report on Certain Aspects of Labor Union Responsibility and Control

O. de. R. Foenander, Industrial Regulations in Australia, pp. 169-216.

Clyde W. Sumners, “The Admission Policies of Labor Unions”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nov. 1946.

Ludwig Teller, A Labor Policy for America, A National Labor Code

  1. The Machinery for the Settlement of Disputes
    1. Types and characteristics of disputes related to methods of settlement
    2. Mediation, conciliation, and arbitration
    3. The railroad machinery
    4. Wartime machinery for settlement of disputes
    5. The fact-finding procedure
    6. Recent legislative proposals

Required Reading

C. O. Gregory, Labor and the Law, 378-412; 413-46.

U. S. Department of Labor, Division of Labor Standards, Arbitration of Grievances, Bulletin 82 (scan only)

Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations in Great Britain, 1938, pp. 1-25.

Twentieth Century Fund, How Collective Bargaining Works, pp. 318-80.

Paul Fisher, “The National War Labor Board and Postwar Industrial Relation”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1945, pp. 483-523.

The President’s National Labor-Management Conference, Summary and Committee Reports, (Division of Labor Standards Bulletin 77) pp. 1-71.

Report of the Governor’s Labor Management Committee, Massachusetts, 1947

Recommended Reading

T. R. Fisher, Industrial Disputes and Federal Legislation, pp. 141-53; 154-86.

Kurt Braun, The Settlement of Industrial Disputes, 1944.

Howard S. Kaltenborn, Governmental Adjustment of Labor Disputes, 1943.

Frances Kellor, Arbitration in Action, 1941.

J. J. Robbins, The Government of Labor Relations in Sweden, 1942.

J. Henry Richardson, Industrial Relations in Great Britain, 1938.

Herbert R. Northrup, Labor Adjustment Machinery.

Ducksoo Chang, British Methods of Industrial Peace.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 287, The War Labor Board Report of the National Defense Mediation Board.

The Reports and Proceedings of the Labor Management Conference

The Fact-Finding Reports: General Motors, Oil Companies, and the Meat Packing Companies

John T. Dunlop, “Fact-Finding in Labor Disputes”, Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, May 1946, pp. 64-74.

B. M. Stuart and Walter J. Couper, Fact-Finding in Industrial Disputes.

Ludwig Teller, A Labor Policy for America, A National Labor Code.

Clarence M. Updegraff and Whitley P. McCoy, Arbitration in Labor Disputes.

Herbert R. Northrup, “The Railway Labor Act and Railway Labor Disputes in Wartime”, American Economic Review, June 1946, pp. 324-43.

C E. D. Research and Policy Committee, Collective Bargaining: How to Make it More Effective, Feb. 1947.

  1. The Treatment of the Parties to a Dispute
    1. The Injunction
    2. Boycott and Picketing
    3. The Use of Seizure

Required Reading

C. O. Gregory, Labor and the Law, pp. 83-199; 334-77.

Harry A. Millis and R. E. Montgomery, Organized Labor, pp. 613-29; 629-51.

Recommended Reading

Carl Raushenbush and Emanuel Stein, Labor Cases and Materials, 1941, pp. 5-213.

Samuel Yellen, American Labor Struggles

Felix Frankfurter and N. Greene, The Labor Injunction

  1. The Status of Labor Organizations under the Anti-trust Laws

Required Reading

C. O. Gregory, Labor and the Law, pp. 200-22; 253-88.

C. D. Edwards, “Public Policy toward Restraints of Trade by Labor Unions: An Economic Appraisal”, American Economic Review, Supplement, March 1942, pp. 432-48.

E. E. Witte, “A Critique of Mr. Arnolds Proposals”, American Economic Review, Supplement, March 1942, pp. 449-59.

Recommended Reading

Thurman Arnold, The Bottlenecks of Business, Chapter XIX

A. T. Mason, Organized Labor and the Law

Carl Rauschenbush and Emanuel Stein, Labor Cases and Materials, 1941, p. 46-62.

  1. Minimum Wage and Hour Regulation
    1. Conditions Leading to Legislation
    2. Economic Principles and Consequences
    3. Administrative Agencies and Procedures
    4. Problems of Administration and Policy-Making

Required Reading

The Fair Labor Standards Act

Harry Millis and R.E. Montgomery, Labor’s Progress and Some Basic Labor Problems, pp. 324-56.

Recommended Reading

Richard B. Morris, Government and Labor in Early America

Dorothy Sells, British Wage Boards

Paul H. Douglas and J. Hochman, “Fair Labor Standards Act,” Political Science Quarterly, LIII (491-515); LIV (29-55)

Marion Cahill, Shorter Hours, A History of the Movement since the Civil War

E. Merrick Dodd, “The Supreme Court and Fair Labor Standards, 1941-45,” Harvard Law Review, February 1946, pp. 321-73.

E. M. Burns, Wages and the State

E. J. Riches, “Conflicts of Principles in Wage Regulation in New Zealand”, Economica, August 1938.

Orme W. Phelps, The Legislative Background of the Fair Labor Standards Act

Attorney General’s Committee on Administrative Procedure, Administrative Procedure in Government Agencies.

Wage and Hour Division, Annual Reports.

Bureau of National Affairs, Wage and Hour Manual, Cumulative Edition 1944-45

US. Department of Labor, Maximum Hour Regulation in France, 1936-40

U. S. Department of Labor, Wartime Regulation of Hours of Labor and Labor Supply in Great Britain.

Bureau of National Affairs, Your Working Time Problem under the Wage and Hour Law.

  1. Labor Supply and Unemployment
    1. Characteristics of the Labor Market
    2. Definitions and Measurement of Employment, Labor Force and Unemployment
    3. Employment Exchanges
    4. Unemployment Compensation

Required Reading

E. Wight Bakke, The Unemployed Worker, A Study of the Task of Making a Living Without a Job, pp. 1-34.

S. H. Slichter, “The Impact of the Social Security Program upon Mobility and Enterprise,” American Economic Review, March 1940.

Lloyd G. Reynolds, “The Supply of Labor to the Firm”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1946, pp. 390-411.

Louis J. Ducoff and M. S. Hagood, Labor Force Definitions and Measurements, Current Issues, Social Security Bulletin, pp. 1-35.

Recommended Reading

Dewey Anderson and Percey E. Davidson, Recent Occupational Trends in American Labor

G. E. Bigge, “Strength and Weakness of our Unemployment Compensation Program,” Social Security Bulletin, February 1944, pp. 5-11.

W. S. Woytinsky, Three Aspects of Labor Dynamics

Joan Robinson, “Mobility of Labor” in Essays in the Theory of Employment

A. C. Pigou, The Economics of Welfare, pp. 488-511, 656-70.

Elizabeth Gilboy, Applicants for War Relief, pp. 31-46; 69-83; 98-122

W. S. Woytinsky, “Controversial Aspects of Unemployment Estimates in the United States,” Review of Economic Statistics, May 1941, pp. 68-77.

Henry H. Collins, Jr., America’s Own Refugees, pp. 89-180; 249-67

E. Wight Bakke, Citizens without Work, A Study of the Effects of Unemployment upon the Workers’ Social Relations and Practices, pp. 71-106, 283-306.

W. H. Beveridge, “An Analysis of Unemployment”, Economica, November 1936, pp. 357-86.

Harry Malisoff, “The Emergence of Unemployment Compensation,” Political Science Quarterly, 1939 (3 parts)

Harrison Clark, Swedish Unemployment Policy—1914-1940

Atkinson, R. C., Adencrantz, L. C., and Deming, B., Public Employment Service in the United States, Chs. 1 and 3.

Breckinridge, Sophonisba, Public Welfare Administration in the United States, Selected Documents (2nd edition)

Abbott, Edith, Public Assistance, Vol. 1, American Principles and Policies

Pilgrim Trust, Men without Work, Report

Huntington, Emily, Doors to Jobs

Matscheck, W., and Atkinson, R. C., Problems and Procedures of Unemployment Compensation in the States

White, R. C., Administering Unemployment Compensation

Kulp, A. C., Social Insurance Coordination, An Analysis of British and German Organization

F. N. Ball, Statute Law Relating to Employment, 1946 (English experience)

8,9 Security Against Accident, Ill Health, and Old Age

Required Reading

Harry Millis and Royal E. Montgomery, Labor’s Risks and Social Insurance, pp. 187-270; 353-420.

E. E. Witte, “Postwar Social Security” in Postwar Economic Problems, edited by S. E. Harris, pp. 263-77.

Bernhard J. Stern, Medicine in Industry, pp. 17-48 and 133-56.

“Union Health and Welfare Plans”, Monthly Labor Review, February 1947, pp. 191-214

Recommended Reading

J. Douglas Brown, “Economic Problems in the Provision of Security against the Life Hazards of Workers, American Economic Review, Supplement, March 1940

Twentieth Century Fund, More Security for Old Age, pp. 1-18; 69-86.

Seymour E. Harris, Economics of Social Security, pp. 161-279

Barbara Armstrong, The Health Insurance Doctor, pp 1-98

Heinrich, H. W., Industrial Accident Prevention

National Research Council, Committee on Work in Industry, Fatigue of Workers

Federal Security Agency, Social Security Board, Annual Reports

Abraham Epstein, Insecurity—A Challenge to America

Stewart, Maxwell S., Social Security

Davis, Michael M., America Organizes Medicine

William Beveridge, Full Employment in a Free Society

E. Wight Bakke, “America and the Beveridge Plan,” Yale Review, June 1944, pp. 642-57.

Social Security Bulletin, “A Basic Minimum Program of Social Security,” January 1944, pp. 3-12.

Franz Goldmann, Public Medical Care, Principles and Problems

Committee on Ways and Means, House of Representatives, 79th Congress 1st Session, Issues in Social Security.

Verne Zimmer, “New Developments in Workmen’s Compensation”, Social Security Bulletin October 1944.

 

 

THE PROCESS OF “PUBLIC POLICY” FORMULATION

(The reading in this Section is to be distributed throughout the term rather than concentrated at the end of the course. The study of the Process of “Public Policy” Formulation must be interwoven with the actual problems of public policy.)

Required Reading

Neil W. Chamberlain, The Union Challenge to Management Control, (Pages to be assigned)

R. A. Gordon, Business Leadership in the Large Corporation, pp. 67-188.

Peter F. Drucker, Concept of the Corporation, pp. 1-114 (Optional)

Paul H. Appleby, Big Democracy, 1-144.

Walter Gellhorn, Federal Administrative Proceedings, pp. 1-40

Fritz Marx, Editor, Elements of Public Administration, pp. 314-338, 365-80

John M. Gaus, Reflections on Public Administration, (Optional)

Dorwin Cartwright, “Public Opinion Polls and Democratic Leadership”, Journal of Social Issues, May, 1946, pp. 3-12.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1893-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 4, Folder “1947-48 (2 of 2)”.

Image Source: John Dunlop in Harvard Class Album 1950.

Categories
Courses Curriculum Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Economics courses with enrollments and exam questions, 1871-1875

 

In an earlier posting I assembled information for the two or three economics courses regularly offered at Harvard in the mid-1870s. Today’s posting provides information on the economics course offerings during the first half of the 1870s. Except for the academic year 1870-1, all the courses were taught by Charles Dunbar, who only began teaching at Harvard in 1871/72. Below you will find titles of the textbooks assigned for the courses, enrollment figures, and final examination questions pieced together from the Harvard course catalogues, reports of the President of Harvard and a few unpublished exams I have found during my visit to the Harvard archives in February 2017.

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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….

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1870-71

REQUIRED: POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Junior year

Assistant Professor of Philosophy Ellis Peterson, A.M. Roger’s Political Economy. Mr. O. W. Holmes, Jr. — Alden, Constitution of the United States.

One hour a week. 119 students, 3 sections, 1 exercises per week for students, 3 exercises per week for instructor [for political economy]. 2 sections, 1 exercises per week for students, 3 exercises per week for instructor [for constitutional law].

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1871-72, p. 39;  Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1870-71, p. 51.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Final Examination, June 1871
Junior year

I.

1. What is the sense in which the term wealth is used in Political Economy? 2. What was the cause, and also the effect of the belief that wealth was money? 3. In what sense is the term value used by Political Economists? 4. What is the cause of economical value, and under what conditions is land an exception to the rule of value? 5. Distinguish price from value, and show that while there may be a general rise in prices, there cannot be a general rise in values.

II.

1. What are the causes of “demand,” and which of these are relative, and which absolute? 2. On what does the price of commodities depend in the long run? Also, at any particular time? 3. Why is the increase in the price of bread-stuffs greater than the decrease in the supply? 4. Explain the effects of a very high price of bread on the price of meat. 5. Illustrate by the “cotton famine” in England (1826-65), how demand and supply affect prices.

III.

1. Give the origin and the definition of capital. 2. What are the real profits of capital, and what are included in the gross profits? 3. What are the principal causes of the unequal distribution of capital? 4. How are capital and labor affected by governmnet’s contracting a loan for an unproductive purpose? 5. Why are the fluctuations in the rate of disocunt greater than in the rate of interest?

IV.

1. Show that unproductive labor may be indirectly productive? 2. Give the advantages of “Division of Labor.” 3. Analyze wages of labor. 4. (1)If the number of laborers and the amount of capital invested in production be given, what of course must be the average wages of labor? (2)What causes the difference of wages in different employments? (3)What causes fluctuations of wages of a certain labor, and also of a certain laborer? 5. Show how the staple food of a country may affect the rate of wages?

V.

1. Give Malthus’s Theory of Population. 2. Why have the credit banks of M. Delitzsch been successful? 3. What is the first of Adam Smith’s four canons of taxation? 4. Distinguish direct from indirect taxes. 5. Give briefly the arguments for and against direct and also indirect taxation.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001. (HUC 7000.28) Box 1 of 284, Folder “Final Examinations, 1870-1871”.

 

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 4
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Senior year

Nicholas St. John  Green, LL.B. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. — J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.

Three times a week. 99 Seniors, 2 sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1871-72, p. 41Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1870-71, p. 52.

PHILOSOPHY IV
POLITICAL ECONOMY
Final Examination, June, 1871

  1. In what respect do the views of Mr. Mill upon co-operation and the division of labor differ from the views of Adam Smith?
  2. On what does the degree of Productiveness of productive Agents depend?
  3. What is the doctrine of Malthus and what is Mr. Mill’s opinion of that doctrine?
  4. What is Communism? St. Simonism? Fourierism?
  5. What does Mr. Mill think concerning property in land?
  6. What is the remedy for low wages?
  7. What are the functions of money, and how and to what extent can credit supply its place?
  8. What are the evils of an inconvertible paper currency?
  9. What are the ordinary functions of government?
  10. What are the limits of the province of government?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001. (HUC 7000.28) Box 1 of 284, Folder “Final Examinations, 1870-1871”.

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1871-72

REQUIRED: POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Junior year

Prof. Dunbar. Roger’s Political Economy. — Alden, Constitution of the United States.
One hour a week. 128 students, 3 sections, 1 exercises per week for students, 3 exercises per week for instructor.

[Note: Political Economy and the U.S. Constitution were each a half-year course with Political Economy covered in the first semester and the U.S. Constitution in the second semester.]

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 58 Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1871-72, p. 46.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Final Examination, February 1872
Junior year

  1. What is the difference between price and value?
  2. What is capital, and whence is it derived?
  3. Is a legal tender note of the United States money? If not, then what is it?
  4. What effect has an excessive issue of paper currency upon prices?
  5. In an estimate of public wealth, what kinds of individual wealth are excluded, and why?
  6. Why is the rate of interest high in a newly settled Western State?
  7. What determines the rate of wages?
  8. What was the theory of Malthus as to the growth of population?
  9. What effect has the introduction of machinery upon the rate of wages?
  10. What is rent, and how does it depend upon the cost of production?
  11. In the trade between nations, how is the transmission of gold and silver for the most part avoided?
  12. If there is a scarcity of some article of which there are several qualities of different prices, will the cheapest or the dearest quality rise most, and why?
  13. What is the difference between direct and indirect taxation, and what are their respective advantages!
  14. Why is a tax on raw materials a bad tax?
  15. How does our national debt differ in form from the English, and what advantage has either form?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 241.

ELECTIVE: POLITICAL ECONOMY
Senior year

Prof. Dunbar. Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. — J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.
Three times a week. 75 Seniors, 2 sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 61Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1871-72, p. 48.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Special Examination, December, 1871

  1. What is probably the most important advantage obtained by the division of labor?
  2. Define wealth.
  3. Define money.
  4. What is the difference between value and price?
  5. What is the real price of an article, and by what is it measured?
  6. What is the natural price?
  7. What is the market price, and what is its relation to the natural
    price?
  8. In a country where gold and silver coin are both used, what effect will a permanent increase in the supply of either metal have upon the currency? What effect upon prices?
  9. Can these effects be avoided or mitigated, and if so, by what expedient?
  10. What is rent, and how does it depend upon the cost of production?
  11. In the trade between nations, how is the transmission of gold and silver for the most part avoided?
  12. If there is a scarcity of some article of which there are several qualities of different prices, will the cheapest or the dearest quality rise most, and why?
  13. What is the difference between direct and indirect taxation, and what are their respective advantages!
  14. Why is a tax on raw materials a bad tax?
  15. How does our national debt differ in form from the English, and what advantage has either form?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 248-9.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Special Examination, January, 1872

  1. What is the distinction between wealth and capital?
  2. What is the difference between fixed and circulating capitals? and to which does money belong?
  3. When either of the precious metals becomes more abundant, and the remedy of over-valuation and limitation of the right of tender is to be applied, does it make any difference which metal is over-valued, and if so, what difference?
  4. On what basis is the Bank of England established?
  5. How does Smith distinguish between productive laborers and unproductive?
  6. Explain the paradox that “what is annually saved is as regularly consumed as what is annually spent.”
  7. What is the error of Locke and Montesquieu as to the supposed connection between the depreciation of value of gold and silver and the lowering of the rate of interest?
  8. What is Adam Smith’s view as to the point at which the rate of interest should be fixed by law, and what is his mistake?
  9. How can a paper currency be kept at par with gold?
  10. What was the theory of the balance of trade, and in what respect was it fallacious?
  11. Why do manufactures often flourish while a nation is carrying on a foreign war?
  12. What was the theory of the agricultural system, and what was its great error?
  13. State the general objection to any system for the extraordinary encouragement of a particular branch of industry, and such partial or complete answers to that objection as may occur to you.
  14. What is the chronological relation of the several systems of Political Economy?
  15. Consider the following passage from a Report of the Comptroller of the Currency, made in December, 1871:—

“The tenacity with which the Pacific States adhere to a gold currency is quite notable. Whether it is equally praiseworthy is another thing. It is not clear that those States derive any substantial benefit from the course they have pursued, and it is beginning to be manifest that the United States are not at all benefited by it. The substitution of a paper currency in California and the other gold-producing States for their present hard money would probably set free for the use of the government and the whole country some thirty or forty millions of gold, and, at the same time, provide those communities with a more economical, active, and accommodating circulating medium.”

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 249-50.

POLITICAL ECONOMY
Final Examination, June, 1872.

  1. How does Mr. Mill distinguish between productive labor and unproductive? and under which head is mental labor (as, e.g., that of a philosopher or inventor) to be placed?
  2. If a nation has to meet extraordinary expenses, as in time of war, is it better to raise the amount by loan, or by taxes within the year! and why?
  3. What is the relation between profits and the cost of labor?
  4. What is the law which determines the value of that class of commodities of which the supply can be indefinitely increased without increase of cost?
  5. Why are both profits and wages high in a new and fertile country?
  6. If a fall in profits takes place, are manufactured articles or agricultural produce most likely to fall in value, and why?
  7. Why does Mr. Mill think a general over-supply of commodities impossible?
  8. Suppose a paper currency to be issued, of which every note represents actual property. Can it be depreciated, and why?
  9. Can two countries exchange products if in one the general cost of production is higher than in the other, and why?
  10. What is the general law determining the values at which a country exchanges its produce with other countries?
  11. What effect is produced upon international trade by an improvement which introduces a new article of export?
  12. What effect is produced upon rent, profits, and wages respectively, by a great improvement in agriculture?
  13. What reasons are there in theory for exempting from income tax so much of income as is saved and invested?
  14. If a tax upon agricultural produce is of long standing, on whom does it finally fall, and why?
  15. Under what circumstances does Mr. Mill think that protecting duties can properly be levied?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1872-73, p. 250.

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1872-73

REQUIRED: POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Junior year

Prof. Dunbar. Fawcett’s Political Economy. — Constitution of the United States.
Two hours a week. First half-year. 162 students, 1 lecture, 4 recitations, 2 exercises per week for students, 5 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 62Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1872-73, p. 42.

Final Examination, February, 1873
CONSTITUTION AND POLITICAL ECONOMY
Prof. Dunbar

If unable to answer all the questions on this paper, do not fail to answer a part under each class.

A.

  1. What are the essential points in which the Constitution differs from the Confederation?
  2. Who are citizens of the United States?
  3. State the rule by which Representatives are to be apportioned among the States under Amendments XIV., and XV.
  4. What does the Constitution provide as to the issue of paper currency, whether by Congress or by the States, and whence does Congress derive its power to make paper a legal tender?
  5. On what provision did the claim of power by Congress to prohibit slavery in the Territories chiefly rest?
  6. Whence does either House of Congress obtain its power to punish witnesses for refusal to testify before a committee?
  7. State the change which was made in the method of electing president by Amendment XII., adopted in 1804, and the circumstances which led to that change.
  8. State briefly the provisions relating to the veto power.
  9. State the provisions which define the treaty-making power, and the power of appointing to office.
  10. To what does the judicial power of the United States extend, and how is it limited by Amendment XI.?
  11. How does the Constitution define treason and provide for its punishment?
  12. How can the Constitution be amended, and what exception is there to the power of amendment?

B.

  1. How are the permanently different rates of profit in different pursuits in the same country accounted for?
  2. How does credit affect prices?
  3. What is the advantage obtained by the consumer from the warehousing system?
  4. Should permanent incomes derived from invested property be taxed at the same rate as temporary or professional incomes? Give the reason.
  5. On whom does a tax laid on premises occupied for manufacturing purposes fall, and why?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 265.

 

ELECTIVE: POLITICAL ECONOMY.
Senior year

Prof. Dunbar. J. S. Mill’s Political Economy. — McCulloch on Taxation. — Subjects in Banking and Currency.
Three times a week. First half-year. 65 Seniors, 2 sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 67Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1872-73, p. 44.

 

[Final Examination May or June 1873]
Political Economy
Prof. Dunbar

  1. Mill says, “That high wages make high prices is a popular and wide-spread opinion.” To what extent, and why, is that opinion incorrect?
  2. Suppose the recent combinations of English agricultural laborers to be successful in securing higher wages; what would be the effect on the price of food, the profits of farmers, and the rent?
  3. Adam Smith’s theory of the benefit of foreign trade was that it affords an outlet for surplus produce, and enables the country to replace a part of its capital with a profit. What criticism is to be made on this theory?
  4. How does Bastiat apply his theory of value, for the purpose of showing which of two nations will gain the most from an exchange of products?
  5. Explain Mill’s remark that “there are two senses in which a country obtains commodities cheaper by foreign trade: in the sense of value, and in the sense of cost.”
  6. If a country has regular annual payments to be made abroad, as e. g. interest on a public debt, what effect is produced thereby on the imports and exports, and on the terms on which it exchanges products with other countries?
  7. Suppose capital and population are both increasing; what will be the effect on rent, wages, and profits, and why?
  8. What will be the effect, in the case supposed above, if a great improvement is made in cultivation?
  9. Apply the results in Nos. 7 and 8 to the case of a country like the United States, where the land and the agricultural capital are generally owned by the same person.
  10. State the reasons for and against an income tax, the leading exemptions which should be made, and the rule to be observed in taxing incomes from invested property and from business profits respectively.
  11. Under what circumstances will a tax on exports fall upon foreigners?
  12. In what cases will a duty on imports fall upon foreigners?
  13. What answer is made to Adam Smith’s argument that home trade affords more encouragement to productive industry than foreign trade?’
  14. What answer is made to the objection that the system of protection adds the amount of the duty to the price paid by consumers of protected commodities?
  15. It being admitted that revenue must be raised by duties on imports, how does the plan of “a revenue tariff with incidental protection” fail to satisfy either the theory of protection or that of free trade?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 266.

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1873-74

REQUIRED: POLITICAL SCIENCE.
Sophomore and Junior year

[Note: In 1873 the required study of Political Science was transferred from the Junior to the Sophomore Year that implies combining Juniors and Sophomores for the transition year 1873-74.]

Prof. Dunbar and Mr. Howland. Elements of Political Economy. — Constitution of the United States.
Two hours a week. Half-year. 153 students, 3 sections, 2 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 67; Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1873-74, p. 44.

Final Examination
PRESCRIBED POLITICAL ECONOMY
February 1874

Political Economy

Those who are also to pass in the Constitution may omit questions marked (*).

  1. Define (a) wealth; (b) value; (c) price; (d) capital; (e) money.
  2. What are the qualities which make gold and silver suitable materials for a currency? What are the objections to a double standard of value?
  3. Explain the action of demand and supply upon the prices (a) of raw materials; (b) of manufactured articles.
  4. Show how rents would be affected by suddenly doubling the productiveness of all lands under cultivation. Prove that rent does not enter into the price of agricultural produce.
  5. State and illustrate the causes which produce a difference in the rate of wages in different employments.
  6. Suppose the amount of the (gold) currency of a country to be suddenly doubled, what would be the effect upon (a) values; (b) prices; (c) exports and imports?
  7. Define direct and indirect taxation. What are the objections to an import duty on raw materials? What is the incidence of a tax levied on the rent of land and paid by the tenant?
  8. (*) Define productive and unproductive consumption. If the latter were to cease altogether, what would be the ultimate effect upon production?
  9. (*) Show how the cost of labor is affected, (a) if the efficiency of labor is increased; (b) if the margin of cultivation sinks.
  10. (*) What are the elements of which profits are composed? Why does the rate of profits vary (a) in different employments; (b) in different countries?
  11. (*) Explain the several ways in which credit promotes production. What are the disadvantages of an irredeemable paper currency?
  12. (*) Explain the use of bills of exchange. What is meant by an unfavorable balance of exchange?
  13. (*) Discuss the question, whether temporary and permanent incomes should be taxed alike.

 

Constitution of the United States.
Those who are also to pass in Political Economy may omit questions marked (*).

  1. (*) When and by whom was the Constitution framed, and what were the principal steps leading to its formation and adoption?
  2. Define citizenship.
  3. What changes have the abolition of slavery and the consequent amendments of the Constitution made in the system of representation?
  4. State the method of electing the President, and the difference between the present method and that at first adopted.
  5. (*) By whom are questions settled which affect the validity of elections (a) of representatives, (b) of senators, (c) of President?
  6. (*) What provision does the Constitution make tor the removal, death, resignation, or inability to serve of the President or Vice-President, or for a failure to elect either officer or both?
  7. (*) What powers over the militia are given to Congress or to the President?
  8. What are the provisions of the Constitution affecting the subject of currency?
  9. What are the provisions relating to taxation, and what are direct taxes under the Constitution?
  10. (*) What are the provisions relating to impeachment?
  11. Under what provision did Congress claim and exercise the power of prohibiting slavery in the territories?
  12. What is the extent of the judicial power of the United States, and where is it vested?
  13. What is the provision for amending the Constitution?

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1874-75, p. 218-19.

 

ELECTIVE: PHILOSOPHY 6.
Political Economy

Prof. Dunbar. Political Economy. J. S. Mill’s Political Economy. — Bagehot’s Lombard Street. — Sumner’s History of American Currency.
Three hours a week. 70 Seniors, 1 Junior.
2 Sections, 3 exercises per week for students, 6 exercises per week for Instructor.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1873-74, p. 67Annual report of the President of Harvard University for 1873-74, p. 46.

 

Final Examination
Philosophy 6 (Political Economy)
June 1874

  1. If the recent efforts to promote emigration on a large scale among English agricultural laborers should be successful, what would be the effect on the price of food, the profits of fanners, and rent!
  2. What is the reason for the expectation that both capitalists and laborers will be gainers from co-operation, and that neither will gain at the expense of the other? and how is this expectation to be reconciled with the general doctrine of Ricardo, that “the rate of profits depends on wages, rising as wages fall, and falling as wages rise”?
  3. Is it desirable to collect a surplus revenue for the purpose of paying off a national debt, or should the amount be left “to fructify in the pockets of the people”? Give the reason.
  4. Explain Mill’s doctrine of the tendency of profits to a minimum, the causes which produce that tendency, and the circumstances which counteract it.
  5. State the general law which determines the values at which a country exchanges its produce with foreign countries, and illustrate its application by the example of cloth and linen.
  6. Explain the incidence of taxes on imports, and the arguments that may be drawn thence as to the policy of protecting duties.
  7. Does or does not a protecting duty give additional employment to home labor? Give the reason.
  8. Criticise the following passage from Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” Book II., chapter iv. : —

“The legal rate of interest, it is to be observed, though it ought to be somewhat above, ought not to be much above the lowest market-rate. [If it were much above] the greater part of the money which was to be lent, would be lent to prodigals and projectors, who alone would be willing to give this high interest. Sober people, who will give for the use of money no more than a part of what they are likely to make by the use of it, would not venture into the competition. . . . Where the legal rate of interest, on the contrary, is fixed but a very little above the lowest market-rate, sober people are universally preferred, as borrowers, to prodigals and projectors. The person who lends money gets nearly as much interest from the former as he dares to take from the latter, and his money is much safer in the hands of the one set of people than in those of the other. A great part of the capital of the country is thus thrown into the hands in which it is most likely to be employed with advantage.”

  1. A respectable newspaper remarks, that “the object of taxation is to make all property bear its equitable share.” Is this a correct statement of the principle which should be followed in adjusting a system of taxation? Why, or why not?
  2. What effect will high internal taxes have upon prices and upon values?
  3. Explain the incidence of taxes laid on the rent of houses or stores, in a city where the value of land is great. Would the result be different if the tax were laid on the assessed value of the premises? Why, or why not?
  4. Give the leading facts and dates in the history of the United States Bank.
  5. Explain fully how the suspension of Peel’s act of 1844 gives relief to the money market in a panic, and what relation it bears to a suspension of specie payment.
  6. The dollar contains 23.22 grains of pure gold. A dollar in silver currency, if of full value, according to this standard should contain about 866.7 grains, but in fact contains only 345.6 grains of pure silver. How does this explain the somewhat tardy disappearance of silver change when our paper currency depreciated, and to what point must the value of the paper rise before silver can come back into general circulation?
  7. State present limits of our paper currency, and discuss the objections to such a currency when, like ours, it is redundant and depreciated, and has a maximum fixed by law.

Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1874-75, p. 223-4.

_____________________________________

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

 

Final Examination June, 1875
PRESCRIBED POLITICAL ECONOMY

Political Economy

[Do not change the order of the questions. Those who are to pass in the Constitution may omit questions marked (*).]

  1. (*) If A owns a United States bond, is it wealth? Is it capital?
  2. (*) What is the differene between circulating capital and fixed capital, and how is it that each “in order to fulfil its functions must be consumed?”
  3. (*) What is the difference between value, as the term is used in this discussion, and value in use?
  4. What is the relation between market price and cost of production? Consider this with reference to each of the three classes into which commodities are divided in relation to their value.
  5. (*) How is the value of gold determined?
  6. What circumstances are said to have counteracted the effect of the Australian and Californian gold discoveries? Did these circumstances affect the value of gold in England alone, or in other countries also? How?
  7. If a country uses both gold and silver coin as its legal tender, and silver depreciates, which coin will remain in circulation? Why?
  8. On what does the cost of labor depend? In your answer distinguish between real wages and money wages.
  9. What is the difference between convertible paper currency and inconvertible? Is one more secure against depreciation than the other? Why?
  10. Why does the interest earned on capital in different employments tend to equality at any given time and place?
  11. Explain the incidence of taxes laid on dwelling houses.
  12. Apply the four canons of taxation to the case of a duty on imported goods, and show whether it answers their requirements or not.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001. (HUC 7000.28) Box 1 of 284, Folder “Final Examinations, 1874-1875”.

Image Source: Charles Franklin Dunbar from The Harvard Graduates’Magazine, Vol. VIII, No. 32 (June, 1900), Frontspiece.

Categories
Courses Harvard Syllabus

Harvard. Business Organization and Control. Mason and Kaysen, 1950-51

 

The frequency of posting has been reduced during this three week trip to archives for more material. From yesterday’s haul from the Harvard archives I have transcribed the syllabus for an industrial organization and regulation course taught at mid-century by Edward S. Mason and Carl Kaysen.

__________________

Economics 261 (formerly Economics 161a and 162b). Business Organization and Control

Full course. Mon., Wed., Fri., and 3. Professor Mason and Assistant Professor Kaysen.

 

Source: Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences During 1950-51. Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. XLVII, No. 23 (Sept. 1950), p. 86.

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Obituary: IN MEMORY OF Carl Kaysen
February 9, 2010

Twenty years ago, as the crumbling of the Berlin Wall signaled the end of the Cold War, Carl Kaysen wrote an essay whose title asked: “Is War Obsolete?” Coming from someone else, the question might have seemed rhetorical or whimsical, but Dr. Kaysen’s career brought to his musings the force of history.

He was President John F. Kennedy’s personal representative to talks that resulted in the 1963 signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty to prevent nuclear bomb tests in the atmosphere, underwater, and outer space. He succeeded J. Robert Oppenheimer, who directed the Manhattan Project, as director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

John Kenneth Galbraith, the noted economist who died in 2006, once called Dr. Kaysen “the most widely read, the most widely informed man I know.”

“He was a very wise man, one of Kennedy’s wisest counselors,” said Theodore C. Sorensen, Kennedy’s special counsel and speechwriter.

Dr. Kaysen, a professor emeritus of political economy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died in his sleep Feb. 8 at his home in Cambridge. He was 89. His health had failed after a bad fall in October and a decade of battling spinal stenosis.

In the Kennedy administration, Dr. Kaysen was deputy special assistant for national security affairs, a second-in-command to McGeorge Bundy, the president’s national security adviser.

As Kennedy, Bundy, and others spent 13 days and nights of brinksmanship during the Cuban missile crisis, “Carl was essentially in charge of all other White House foreign policy matters during that time,” Sorensen said. “The president had complete confidence in him.”

Dr. Kaysen’s leadership led some in the White House to nickname him the “vice president in charge of the rest of the world.” Reflexively modest, he never trumpeted that role.

“He was low-key, never loud, and maybe that’s why he is an unsung hero,” Sorensen said. “He received much less publicity and attention compared to other people in Kennedy’s White House and inner circle.”

Although Dr. Kaysen’s career as an economist took him to teaching posts at Harvard and MIT, along with the Institute for Advanced Study, his most lasting contribution may lie in his work for Kennedy while negotiating the Partial Test Ban Treaty.

“I think he was the principal officer in the White House helping to shepherd that through,” said Sorensen, who added that he would miss Dr. Kaysen, one of his closest friends.

“He spent his entire life, right up to last week, trying to deflect and change the impulse toward war,” said James Carroll, a columnist for the Globe’s opinion pages who chronicled some of Dr. Kaysen’s contributions in the 2006 book, “House of War: The Pentagon and the Disastrous Rise of American Power.”

Dr. Kaysen “played a pivotal role at what is the pivot of the whole story, when Kennedy basically shifted US policy from arms buildup to arms control,” Carroll said. “Kaysen was critical in putting in place the arms control regime, which ultimately enabled the Soviet Union and the United States to end the conflict nonviolently.”

In his 1990 essay, Dr. Kaysen searched for a way for the world to stop seeing war as inevitable.

“The international system that relies on the national use of force as the ultimate guarantor of security, and the threat of its use as the basis of order, is not the only possible one,” he wrote. “To seek a different system with a more secure and a more humane basis for order is no longer the pursuit of an illusion, but a necessary effort toward a necessary goal.”

Born in Philadelphia, Dr. Kaysen graduated in 1940 with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, then did graduate studies at Columbia University while serving on the staff of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

During World War II, Dr. Kaysen served as an intelligence officer, helping pick targets for bombardiers in the Army Air Corps.

“We invented a form of poetry called bomb damage assessment,” he told Carroll during interviews for “House of War.”

Rather than send planes to bomb civilian areas, Dr. Kaysen and his colleagues sought to specify locations, such as oil refineries, that would hobble the German Army.

After the war, he went to Harvard, where he studied economics and received a master’s and a doctorate. He began teaching at Harvard in the mid-1950s and, except for his work with the Kennedy administration, stayed until 1966, when he became head of the Institute for Advanced Study. He resigned from that position in 1976 and joined MIT’s faculty.

Dr. Kaysen married Annette Neutra, whom he had known since they sat next to each other in first grade, in 1940. They had two daughters, Susanna of Cambridge and Jesse of Madison, Wis., and moved where his career took them: to Washington, D.C., to London on one study grant and Greece on another.

His wife died in 1990. Four years later, he married Ruth Butler, a writer.

“He did great things, but he was extremely modest,” Butler said. “There was a quietness about his sense of his own life that was really enchanting.”

Dr. Kaysen, she added, “had a beautiful voice,” the kind that — combined with his intellect —could dominate any room and any discussion, though he usually chose to avoid doing so.

“He was a famously great teacher,” said Susanna, who wrote the acclaimed memoir “Girl, Interrupted.” “Of course, I never took a class from him, but my whole life was a class from him.”

She said her father, who was known for reading a few books at a time, had tastes that ranged from high culture to popular fare. He could quote the German writer Goethe and liked to listen to jazz pianist Fats Waller.

For decades, Dr. Kaysen was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, and cochaired its Committee on International Security Studies. In 2002, he coauthored “War With Iraq: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives.”

Leslie Berlowitz, CEO of the organization, said with “a very quiet wisdom and a wry, ironic sense of humor,” Dr. Kaysen brought “his wealth of experience in arms control and international negotiations to the academy,” which became a key area of study.

“He was the soul of calm and kindness,” Carroll said of Dr. Kaysen’s leadership at the academy. “He was the most unfailingly gracious person, and was profoundly respectful of other people.”

Dr. Kaysen also leaves a sister, Flora Penaranda, of Bogot·.

A memorial service will be announced.

— Bryan Marquard
The Boston Globe

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Tech. Volume 130, Issue 3 (February 9, 2010).

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READING ASSIGNMENTS
Economics 261a
1950-51

Authorized for purchase by veterans:

R. A. Gordon, Business Leadership in the Large Corporations.
Twentieth Century Fund, Electric Power and Government Policy.

First Week: History and Legal Structure of the Corporation.

Reading:

Purdy, Lindahl and Carter, Corporate Concentration and Public Policy, Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Second, Third, and Fourth Weeks:

Determination of Corporate Income.
Depreciation and Replacement.
Patterns of Corporate Financial Structure.
Flow of Funds—Savings and Investment.

Reading:

A. S. Dewing, Financial Policy of Corporations, either 3rd or 4th Editions; Book III, Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6.
Richard Ruggles, National Income and Income Analysis, Chapters 2 and 3.
T.N.E.C. Monograph No. 37, pp. 1-71.
T.N.E.C. Monograph No. 12, Part III.

Fifth Week: Internal Organization of the Corporation.

Reading:

R. A. Gordon, Business Leadership in the Large Corporation, Chapters 3, 4, 12, 13, and 14.
Peter Drucker, Concept of the Large Corporation, Part II.
Berle and Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property. Book IV.

Sixth and Seventh Weeks: Economic Concentration and the Position of the Large Corporation.

Reading:

Federal Trade Commission, The Merger Movement.
John Lintner and Keith Butters, “The Effect of Mergers on Industrial Concentration”, Review of Economics and Statistics, February, 1950.
Willard Atkins, George Edwards, and Harold S. Moulton, The Regulation of Security Markets.

Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Weeks: Public Utility Regulation—Electric Power.

The Nature of Public Utilities.
Cost and Demand Structure of the Power Industry.
History and Prospects of Regulation.
Theory of Rate-Making.
Government vs. Private Power Operations; Power in Multi-Purpose Projects.

Reading:

Twentieth Century Fund, Electric Power and Government Policy, Chapter 1; 4; 9, pp. 480-540;10.
Bauer, J., Transforming Public Utility Regulation, Chapters 1 through 8.
W. A. Lewis, Overhead Costs, Chapter 2.
A. M. Henderson, “The Pricing of Public Utility Undertakings”, Manchester School, September, 1947.

Eleventh, Twelfth, and Thirteenth Weeks: Railroad Transportation.

Demand and Cost Conditions in Transportation.
Structure of Freight Rates.
Interrelations of Freight Rates and Industrial Location.
Railroad Regulation: Aims, Problems and History.
Intercarrier Competition.

Reading:

D. P. Locklin, Economics of Transportation, 3rd Edition, Chapters 2, 3, 7, 8 18, 19.
D. H. Wallace, “Joint and Overhead Costs in Railway Rate-Making”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1934.
C. Dearing and W. Owen. National Transportation Policy, Chapters 9, 11-16 inclusive.
W. A. Lewis, Overhead Costs, Chapter 1.

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ECONOMICS 261
1950-51
Reading Assignments—Second Term

First Three Weeks:

Cost Behavior and Price Determination.

National Bureau of Economic Research, “Cost Behavior and Price Policy”, Chapters 2, 3, 5, 10, 11.
Fritz Machlup, “Marginal Analysis and Empirical Research”, American Economic Review, September, 1946.
E. G. Nourse, Price Making in a Democracy, Chapters 7, 9, 10, 11.
Blakiston, Survey of Contemporary Economics, Chapters 3, 4.

Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Weeks:

  1. Oligopoly.

W. J. Fellner, Competition Among the Few, Chapters 1, 4, 5, 6, 7.

  1. Integration and Price Discrimination (Including Basing-Point Systems).

T.N.E.C. Monograph 27, Part VI, The Product Structure of Large Corporations, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 5.
D. H. Wallace, Market Control in the Aluminum Industry, Chapters 8, 9, 10 Sec. 3 (pp. 216-224) only, 16.
M. A. Adelman. “The Large Firms and Its Suppliers, Review of Economics and Statistics, May, 1949.
Fritz Machlup, The Basing Point System, Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7.
Carl Kaysen. “Review of Machlup”, Review of Economics and Statistics, August, 1950.

  1. Patents and Industrial Research.

A. A. Bright, Jr. and R. Maclaurin, “Introduction of the Flourescent Lamp”, Journal of Political Economy, October, 1943.
R. L. Bishop, “The Patent System and Patent Reform”, (mimeographed).
H. Bergson, “Patents and the Anti-Trust Laws” (mimeographed).

Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Weeks:

Anti-Trust Policy.

T.N.E.C. Monograph 38, A Study of the Concentration and Enforcement of the Federal Anti-Trust Laws.
Other reading to be assigned.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 5. Folder “Economics 1950-51 (2 of 2)”.

 

Image Sources: Edward S. Mason, Harvard Class Album 1950; Carl Kaysen, 1955 fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

 

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Junior Year Theory of Production and Distribution of National Income. Haberler and Leontief, 1942.

 

 

The last time Economics 1 was offered as a year course (1939-40), it was taught by Professor Chamberlin, Associate Professor Leontief and Instructor O.H. Taylor. Starting in the academic year 1940-41, Economics 1 was split into the two semester courses Economics 1a (Chamberlin: Economic Theory) and 1b (O.H.Taylor: Intellectual Background of Economic Thought). Two years later, 1941-42, the second semester course 1b was taught by Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Leontief under the title “Theory of Production and Distribution of the National Income”. In 1942-43, Economics 1b as “Theory of Production and Distribution of the National Income” was taught a last time by Professor Leontief and Dr. Monroe.

Here is a recently added link to the final examination questions for the 1941-42 course taught by Haberler and Leontief.

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Course enrollment

*1b 2hf. Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Leontief.–Theory of Production and Distribution of National Income.

Total 27: 2 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 3 Sophomores.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1941-42, p. 62.

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Economics 1b
1941-42

 

  1. Theory of Wages
  2. Theory of Capital and Interest
    1. Capital goods as factors of production. Stock vs. flow concepts. Durable and non-durable goods. Money capital and the rate of interest. Demand for capital by an individual firm.
    2. Time preference. Propensity to save.
    3. Interrelation of production and consumption goods industries. General equilibrium. national Income, Saving, and Investment.
  1. Theory of Profits
  1. Introduction to Welfare Economics

Modern theory of utility. Individual vs. social utility. Distribution of national income. Private vs. social marginal product.

 

Readings in: (Specific chapter and page of assignments will be given later.)

Paul Douglas, The Theory of Wages.
Meade and Hitch, An Introduction to Economic Analysis.
Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital.
J. B. Clark, The Distribution of Wealth.
Irving Fisher, The Theory of Interest (1930).
J. M. Keynes. General Theory of Interest and Unemployment.
K. Wicksell, Lectures on Political Economy. [Volume I; Volume II]
Pigou, Economics of Welfare.
Triffin, Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium Theory.

Articles by Frank Knight in the Journal of Political Economy and by A. Lerner in the Economic Journal.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1941-1942”.

Image Source:  Harvard Class Album 1942.

 

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Junior Year Economic Theory, Chamberlin. 1940

 

 

The last time the undergraduate course Economics 1 (Economic Theory) was offered as a full year course (1939-40), it was taught as an honors course by Professor Edward Chamberlin, Associate Professor Wassily Leontief and Instructor O.H. Taylor. Starting in the academic year 1940-41, Harvard’s Economics 1 was split into back-to-back semester courses Economics 1a (Chamberlin: Economic Theory) and 1b (Taylor: The Intellectual Background of Economic Thought). Two years later the second semester course 1b was taught by Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Leontief under the title “Theory of Production and Distribution of the National Income” (1941-42).

________________________________

Course Enrollment

*1a 1hf. Professor Chamberlin.—Economic Theory.

Total 63: 1 Senior, 56 Juniors, 6 Sophomores.

 

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1940-1941, p. 58.

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ECONOMICS 1a
1940-41
Revised Outline

  1. The Law of Supply and Demand. Meaning and Generality. Relation to the Law of Cost. Cost curves and supply curves. Relation to monopoly and to competition. Pure and perfect competition. Market problem illustrating deviations from “equilibrium” as defined by perfect competition. Equilibrium vs. the equation of supply and demand.

Mill—Principles, Book III, chapters 2, 3, 5.
Chamberlin—Monopolistic Competition, chapters 1, 2.
Henderson—Supply and Demand, chapters 1,2.
Marshall—Principles, pp. 348-350; p. 806 note.

  1. Competitive theory, illustrated by Marshall.

Marshall—Principles, Book V, chapters 1-5; book IV, chapter 13; Book V, chapters 8, 9, 10, 12.

  1. The effect of small numbers in the market.

Monopolistic Competition, Chapter 3.

  1. Product differentiation. Co-existence and blending of monopoly and competition. Output (sales) as a function of price, “product” and selling outlays. Price-quantity relationships examined in some detail, selling costs and products as variables more briefly.

Monopolistic Competition, chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 (pp. 130-149), Appendices C, D, E.
Alsberg, C. L.—“Economic Aspects of Adulteration and Imitation,” Q.J.E., Vol. 46, p. 1 (1931).

  1. Production and Distribution. Diminishing returns. Diminishing marginal productivitiy. The laws of cost. General effect of monopoly elements on the analysis.

Garver & Hansen—Principles, chapter 5.
Viner, J.—“Cost Curves and Supply Curves,” Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, 1931.
Monopolistic Competition, Appendix B.

  1. Theory of Wages.

Hicks, J. R.—Theory of Wages, chapters 6, 7.

  1. Profits.

Henderson, Supply and Demand, Ch. 7.

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ECONOMICS 1a
1940-41

  1. The Law of Supply and Demand. Meaning and Generality. Relation to the Law of Cost. Cost curves and supply curves. Relation to monopoly and to competition. Pure and perfect competition. Market problem illustrating deviations from “equilibrium” as defined by perfect competition. Equilibrium vs. the equation of supply and demand.

Mill—Principles, Book III, chapters 2, 3, 5.
Chamberlin—Monopolistic Competition, chapters 1, 2.
Henderson—Supply and Demand, chapters 1,2.
Marshall—Principles, pp. 348-350; p. 806 note.

  1. Competitive theory, illustrated by Marshall.

Marshall—Principles, Book V, chapters 1-5; book IV, chapter 13; Book V, chapters 8, 9, 10, 12.

  1. The effect of small numbers in the market.

Monopolistic Competition, Chapter 3.

  1. Product differentiation. Co-existence and blending of monopoly and competition. Output (sales) as a function of price, “product” and selling outlays. Price-quantity relationships examined in some detail, selling costs and products as variables more briefly.

Monopolistic Competition, chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 (pp. 130-149), Appendices C, D, E.
Alsberg, C. L.—“Economic Aspects of Adulteration and Imitation,” Q.J.E., Vol. 46, p. 1 (1931).

  1. Production and Distribution. Diminishing returns. Diminishing marginal productivitiy. The laws of cost. General effect of monopoly elements on the analysis.

Garver & Hansen—Principles, chapter 5.
Viner, J.—“Cost Curves and Supply Curves,” Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, 1931.
Monopolistic Competition, Appendix B.

  1. Theory of Wages.

Hicks, J. R.—Theory of Wages, chapters 6, 7.

  1. Theory of Capital and Interest.

Clark, J. B., The Distribution of Wealth, Chapters 9 and 10.
Böhm-Bawerk, The Positive Theory of Capital, Book II, Chs. 2 and 5, Book V.

  1. Profits.

Marshall, Book VI, Ch. 5, section 7; Chs. 7, 8.
Taussig, Principles, Vol. II, Ch. 50, section 1.
Henderson, Supply and Demand, Ch. 7.
Berle and Means, The Modern Corporation, Book IV.
Chamberlin, Monopolistic Competition, Ch. 5, section 6; Ch. 7, section 6; Appendices D, E; Ch. 8.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1940-1941”.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album 1946.

Categories
Courses Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Edward Chamberlin Lobbies to Teach a Graduate Theory Course. 1935

 

 

With the retirements of Charles J. Bullock and Frank W. Taussig in 1935 Edward H. Chamberlin saw his opportunity to start to break out of his designated field box “government and industry” and into “theory”. We have here a letter that Chamberlin wrote to the head of the economics department, Harold H. Burbank. The letter is of the putting-this-conversation-into-the-written-record variety. His deference to Burbank and recognition of the established claims of other colleagues to the theory field are complemented with a dash of false-modesty—“Perhaps I may, however,…put in my own ‘claim’ (if such it may be called) for whatever consideration it deserves.”

In any event, from the subsequent shuffle in instructional assignments for the 1935-36 academic year, we see that Chamberlin succeeded in joining Schumpeter and Leontief at the Harvard theory table.

________________________

Letter from Associate Professor Chamberlin to Chairman Burbank
Requesting to teach a graduate course in theory

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

14 Ash Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 26, 1935

Professor H. H. Burbank, Chairman
Department of Economics,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.

 

Dear Burby:

This is to confirm our conversation of the other day. I should like to ask if arrangements could possibly be made at this late date for me to give a graduate half course next year on “Contemporary Value Theory.”

I have been asked by several people recently why it was that, although the theoretical problems which Mrs. Robinson and myself have raised are the subject of lively controversies in numerous other universities, one finds them very much in the background at Harvard. There does seem to be a general interest in the subject, and, since I have a strong continuing interest in it myself, the occasion seems to present itself of offering to graduate students at Harvard a better opportunity than they now have to study and discuss this set of problems and others related to it.

I realize that others than myself have claims to theory courses and that the problems of fitting the members of the Department to courses are not easy. Perhaps I may, however, even for this very reason, put in my own “claim” (if such it may be called) for whatever consideration it deserves. My work in Public Utilities and Industrial Organization could be reduced without difficulty. Donald Wallace could take my part in Economics 49 with Professors Crum and Mason, and, I am sure, would do an excellent job of it. This arrangement, together with a slight reduction in my tutorial load, would give me the time for another half course and I should continue in the undergraduate 4a and 4c. I should have, even then, only one-fifth of my time in theory, the other four fifths in the practical field of government and industry.

You have recently intimated in conversation that I might soon be given a share of the work in theory. I hope it may be next year, and also that a way can be found to arrange for it without interfering with the work which others are now doing or plan to do in the field.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Edward H. Chamberlin

________________________

Copy of letter from Chairman Burbank to Dean Murdock
with changes to 1935-36 course announcements

April 17, 1935

Dear Dean Murdock,

Owing to the retirement of Professor Taussig, several changes in the Course Announcement for the coming year will have to be made. The Department recommends the following:

*Economics 7b1. Theories of Value and Distribution. [listed as “Modern Economic Thought” in Report of the President of Harvard College 1935-36, p. 82; ]

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Associate Professor Chamberlin.
[Replacing Taussig, Schumpeter and Sweezy who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 8a2. Introduction to the Mathematical Treatment of Economics.

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., 4-5. Asst. Professor Leontief.
[Replacing Schumpeter who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 11. Economic Theory.

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Schumpeter.
[Replacing Taussig and Schumpeter who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 14b2. History of Economic Thought since 1776.

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. Monroe.
[Replacing “History and Literature of Economics from the Physiocrats through Ricardo” taught by Professor Bullock in 1934-35. Bullock retired from Harvard September 1, 1935.]

Sincerely yours,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

 

 

Source: Harvard University Archives, Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 23, Folder “Course offerings 1926-1937”.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1939.

Categories
Courses Suggested Reading Syllabus Wisconsin

Wisconsin. Milton Friedman’s Reading Assignments in Economic Theory, 1940-1

 

 

In the previous post we have the syllabus for the summer course Economics 150 (Economic Theory) taught by James S. Earley in 1940. It is interesting to compare that syllabus with the reading assignments transcribed below for the same course as taught by Milton Friedman at the University of Wisconsin sometime during the academic year 1940-41 when Earley was on leave from the university. We see significant overlap but there are differences (e.g. Smith and Mill were added by Friedman). It is also interesting to compare this to the course “The Structure of Neoclassical Economics” taught by Milton Friedman in 1939-40 at Columbia.

_____________________

Reading Assignments in Economics 150
Instructor: Milton Friedman

*Recommended but not required.

Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book III, ch. 2, 3, 4; Book V, ch. 1, 2.
F. H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, ch. 3.
Frederic Benham, Economics, pp. 89-100.
*J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital, pp. 11-37.
Marshall, Book V, ch. 3, 4, 5, 12, Appendix H.
A. L. Meyers, Elements of Modern Economics, ch. 5, 7, 8, 9.
Joan Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, ch. 2.
J. M. Clark, The Economics of Overhead Cost, ch. 9.
Jacob Viner, “Cost Curves and Supply Curves”, Zeitschrift fuer Nationaloekonomie, Bd. III (Sept., 1931), pp. 23-46 (in English)..
Edward Chamberlin, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Ch. 3, sec. 1, 4, 5, 6; ch. 5.
*M. Abramovitz, “Monopolistic Selling in a Changing Economy”, Q.J.E., Feb., 1938, pp. 191-214.
R. F. Harrod, “Doctrines of Imperfect Competition”, Q.J.E., May 1934 sec. 1, pp. 442-61.
Marshall, Book V, ch. 6.
J. B. Clark, The Distribution of Wealth, Preface, ch. 1, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 23.
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book II, ch. 14.
J. R. Hicks, Theory of Wages, ch. 1-6.
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, ch. 10.
Marshall, Book VI, ch. 1-5.
Simon Kuznets and Milton Friedman, “Incomes from Independent Professional Practice”, Bulletin 72-3, National Bureau of Economic Research, sec. 5, appendix.
F. H. Knight, “Interest,” in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, also in Ethics of Competition.
J. M. Keynes. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money., ch. 11-14.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman. Box 76, Folder 6 “University of Chicago Econ. 150 [sic, “University of Wisconsin 1940-41” is correct].

Image Source: Columbia University, Columbia 250 Celebrates Columbians Ahead of Their Time.

Categories
Courses Suggested Reading Syllabus Wisconsin

Wisconsin. Economic Theory Syllabus. James S. Earley, 1940

 

James S. Earley was an assistant professor of economics on leave from the University of Wisconsin during Milton Friedman’s year in Madison, 1940-41. The syllabus for his course transcribed for this post was found in Milton Friedman’s papers along with Friedman’s own syllabus for the course (next post).

____________________

James S. Earley, Life and resources.

1908 (October 16) Born, Valley City, North Dakota
1932 A.B., Antioch College
1934 M.A., University of Wisconsin
1937-67 Faculty member at the University of Wisconsin
1939 Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
1940-41 Economist, National Defense Advisory Commission and Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply
1941-45 Economist, Office of Price Administration, serving as member of the Economic Adviser’s Panel and later as Head Economist in the Office of the Economic Adviser
1945 Adviser on British Commonwealth Financial Affairs, Department of State
1967- University of California, Riverside
1997 (July 5) Died in Riverside, CA

Earley’s wartime papers (1942-1945) are available at the Harry S. Truman Library.

An Oral History Interview with James Earley was conducted in 1982 and is available on-line at the UW-Madison Oral History Program. He discusses the hiring of Milton Friedman at 41:43 of the second part of the interview.

Warren J. Samuels, (2003), Lectures by James S. Earley on the development of economics, University of Wisconsin, 1954–1955, in Warren J. Samuels (ed.) Histories of Economic Thought (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Volume 21 Part 2) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.89 – 271

 

____________________

 

ECONOMICS 150S—ECONOMIC THEORY
Summer Session, 1940

James S. Earley
Syllabus

Six Week Session: Topics I-VII, inclusive
Eight Week Session: Topics I-XI, inclusive

 

(**before a reference denotes reading requires of all students. *denotes reading required of graduate students but not of undergraduates. References marked ≠ are required of undergraduate students only. Other references are for additional reading, as desired. Copies of all required works will be found in Bascom Reading Room or in the Periodical Room; most of the others will also be found in Bascom. Full titles and references are given in the appended bibliography.)

 

I. (June 25, 26)
Nature, Purposes, and Methods of Economic Analysis

**Marshall, Appendices C, D.: Book I, Chap. III.
Meyers, Chapters I, II.
Keynes, J. Neville.
Knight, Ethics of Competition, pp. 105-47.
Knight, Risk, etc., Chap. I.
McIsaac and Smith, Chap. I.
Robbins, esp. Chaps. IV, V.
Roll, Part I, Sections 1, 2, 3, 5.
Fraser.

II. (June 27, 28, 29)
Consumer Demand

**Garver & Hansen, pp. 103-110, and Chap. IX.
*Marshall, Book III, Chaps. III, IV, VI.
≠Meyers, Chaps. III, IV.
Benham, op. cit., Appendix on Indifference Curves, pp. 89-98.
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chaps. I, II, III.
Knight, Ethics, pp. 15-60.
Knight, Risk, etc., Chap. III, esp. pp. 58-73.
McIsaac and Smith, Chap. IV, pp. 51-68.
Roll, Part II, Section I.
Boddy, Stigler and Garver, pp. 4-10.

III. (July 1, 2, 3)
Average and Marginal Curves; Types of Market Situations

**Meade, pp. 101-7; “Appendix of the Graphs”, pp. 411-424.
**Meyers, Chap. V.
**McIsaac and Smith, pps. 33-50; 128-31.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 69-81.
Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chap. 17.

 

IV. (July 5, 6)
Market Price: Temporary Equilibrium of Demand and Supply under Competitive and “Monopolistic” Conditions.

*Marshall, Book V, Chap. II.
≠Meyers, Chap. VI, pp. 63-75, and Chap. VII.
Davenport, Chap. V.
Garver & Hansen, Chap. VIII, pp. 110-125; 128-131.
Knight, “Cost of Production”, Sections I, II.

 

V: (July 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16)
“Normal” Price: The Time Analysis; Costs of Production; The Economics of the Firm; “Normal” Equilibrium Under Competitive Conditions

**Marshall, Book V, Chaps. III, V.
**Meyers, Chap. VIII.
*Knight, “Cost of Production—“, Sections I-IV inc
*Robinson, Imperfect Competition, pp. 92-97.
Boddy et al, pp. 11-18; 19-23.
Chamberlin, Chap. II.
Garver and Hansen, Chap. X, esp. pp. 160-167.
Henderson, Chap. X.
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chaps. IV, V, VI.
Knight, Risk, etc., Chap. III.
Marshall, Book V, Chap. IV.
Meade, Part II, Chap I, pp. 107-116.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 85-110; 114-27; 163-78.
Taussig, Vol. I, Chaps. 12-16.
Viner, “Cost Curves and Supply Curves”.

First Examination, Wenesday, July 17.

VI. (July 18, 19, 22, 23, 24)
“Normal Equilibrium Under Monopolistic Conditions; Competitive vs. Monopolistic Conditions and Economic Welfare

**Meade, Part II, Chaps. II, III, VI.
**Meyers, Chaps. IX.
Chamberlin, Chaps. IV, V.
Dennison and Galbraith, Chaps. I-VI.
Garver and Hansen, Chap. XII, XIII.
Harrod.
Marshall, Book V, Chap. XIV.
Meade, Part II, Chaps. VII, VIII.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 128-62; 178-86.
Pigou.
Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chaps. 3, 11, 13.
Taussig, Vol. I, Chaps. 17, 18.
Meyers, Chap. X.

VII. (July 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, August 1)
The Theory of Distribution: General Principles, Competitive and Monopolistic

**Meade, Part II, Chap. V.
**Meade, Part III, Chap. I.
*Chamberlin, Chap. VIII. (3rd edition).
*Marshall, Book V, Chap. VI.
≠Meyers, Chap. XI.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 248-59.
McIsaac and Smith, Chap. X.
Henderson, Chap. V.
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chaps. VII, VIII.
Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chaps. 20, 21, 22, 27.

 

Final Exam for Six Weeks Students, Second Exam for Eight Weeks Students: August 2.

 

VIII. (August 5, 6)
Rent

**Marshall, pp. 415-424.
*Holland.
*Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chap. 8, sections 1-7 inclusive.
≠Garver and Hansen, Chap. XXV.
Henderson, Chap. VI.
Marshall, Book V, Chaps. VIII, IX, X; Book VI, Chap. IX.
Meyers, Chap. XIV.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 278-94.

 

IX. (August 7, 8, 9)
Wages

*Dobb, pp. 70-108.
*Marshall, Book VI, Chap. III, IV, V.
≠Meyers, Chap. XII.
≠Marshall, Book VI, pp. 559-73.
Garver and Hansen, Chap. XXVI.
Hicks, J. R., Theory of Wages, esp. pp. 8ff.
Meade, Part IV, Chap. II.
Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chaps. 25, 26.
Robertson.

 

X. (August 12 13)
Profits

**Meyers, Chap. XV.
*Knight, Article on “Profit” in Encyclopedia S.S.
Knight, Risk, etc., esp. pp. 22-48; 264-90.
Garver and Hansen, Chap. XXVII.
Marshall, Book VI, Chap. VII.
McIsaac and Smith, Chap. XIV, pp. 344-57; 374-8.

 

XI. (August 14, 15)
Interest

**Meyers, Chaps. XIII, XVI.
**Robinson, Introduction, Chaps. VIII, IX.
*Keynes, J. M., Chaps. 13, 14.
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chaps. XI, XII, XIII.
Lerner.
McIsaac and Smith, Chaps. XII, XIII.
Meade, Part I, Chaps. II, III.
Meade, Part IV, Chap. III.
Marshall, Book VI, Chap. VI.

 

Final Examination for Eight Weeks Students: Friday, August 16.

 

Bibliography

Frederic Benham. Economics, especially Appendix to Chap. VI, “Indifference Curves”, pp. 89-100.
F.M. Boddy, G. J. Stiger and F. B. Garver. Materials for Advanced General Economics.
E. Chamberlin. Theory of Monopolistic Competition (3rd edition).
H. J. Davenport. Economics of Enterprise.
H. S. Dennison & J. K. Galbraith. Modern Competition and Business Policy.
Maurice Dobb. Wages.
L. M. Fraser. Economic Thought and Language.
Garver and Hansen. Principles of Economics (1937 edition).
Lewis Haney. Value and Distribution.
R. F. Harrod. “Doctrines of Imperfect Competition”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1934, pp. 442 ff.
H. D. Henderson. Supply and Demand.
J. R. Hicks. Theory of Wages.
J. R. Hicks. Value and Capital.
M. Tappan Holland. “Marshall on Rent”, Economic Journal, Sept. 1930, pp. 369-383.
J. M. Keynes. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
J. Neville Keynes. Scope and Method of Political Economy.
W. H. Kiekhofer. Economic Principles, Problems and Policies.
F. H. Knight. Article entitled “Cost of Production and Price Over Long and Short Periods” in Ethics of Competition (pp. 186-216) or in Journal of Political Economy for 1921 (pp. 304-35).
F. H. Knight. Article on Profit in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
F. H. Knight. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit.
A. P. Lerner. “Alternative Formulations of the Theory of Interest”, Economic Journal, June 1938. (pp. 211-30)
Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics (5th to 8th eds.)
Albert L. Meyers. Elements of Modern Economics.
J. E. Meade & C. J. Hitch. Introduction to Economic Analysis and Policy (American Edition, 1938).
McIsaac and Smith. Introduction to Economic Analysis.
A. C. Pigou, Economics of Welfare.
D. H. Robertson. “Wage Grumbles” and “Economic Incentive” in Economic Fragments.
Joan Robinson. Economics of Imperfect Competition.
Joan Robinson. Introduction to the Thoery of Employment.
Lionel Robbins. Nature and Significance of Economic Science.
Erich Roll. Elements of Economic Theory.
F. W. Taussig. Principles of Economics (Fourth Edition, 1939).
Jacob Viner. Article on “Cost” in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
Jacob Viner. “Cost Curves and Supply Curves”, Zeitschrift für National-Ökonomie, 1932, (pp. 23-46). The Article is in English.

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman. Box 81, Folder 10 “Economics Miscellaneous”.

 

Image Source: Detail from a photograph in Wisconsin State Journal (May 6, 1948) at the Wisconsin Historical Society.