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Courses Exam Questions M.I.T. Suggested Reading Syllabus

M.I.T. Capital Theory, Uncertainty, Welfare Economics. Half-semester Core Microeconomics. Samuelson, 1975

From my files from graduate school I have transcribed the syllabus and final exam for the fourth of the four half-semester core microeconomic theory courses taught at M.I.T. during the academic year 1974-75. The topics of capital theory, uncertainty and welfare economics fell to Paul Samuelson. The preceding three half-semester microeconomics theory courses were taught by Robert Bishop, Martin Weitzman and Hal Varian.

 

______________________

READING LIST FOR 14.124
P. A. Samuelson
SPRING 1975

MICROECONOMIC THEORY

I. CAPITAL THEORY

  1. I. Fisher

Theory of Interest
Part II, all; Part I, Chs. 1,3; Part III, Chs. 10,11.

  1. E. Böhm-Bawerk

Positive Theory of Capital
Book V, all; Book VI, Chs. 6,7,8.

  1. R. M. Solow

“A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth”
Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1956; pp. 65-94.

Capital Theory and the Rate of Return
(DeVries Lectures) North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1963.

  1. T. Koopmans

Three Essays, pp. 105-126.

  1. F. Ramsey

E.J., 1928

  1. N. Kaldor

“Alternative Theories of Distribution”
RES, 1955

  1. Sraffa

Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities
Chs. 1, 2, 3.

  1. Dorfman-Samuelson-Solow

Linear Programming and Economic Analysis
Chs. 11, 12.

  1. A. Samuelson

“A Summing Up”
QJE, 1966

II. ECONOMICS OF UNCERTAINTY

  1. K. Arrow

Theory of Risk Bearing
Chs. 3,1,2,4.

  1. J. Tobin

RES, 1958

  1. H. Markowitz

Portfolio Selection
sample

III. MODERN WELFARE ECONOMICS

  1. A. Bergson [A. Burk]

“A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics”
QJE, 52 (February 1938)
pp. 310-334

  1. J. Hicks

“The Foundations of Welfare Economics”
EJ, 49 (December 1939)
pp. 696-712

  1. P. A. Samuelson

Foundations of Economic Analysis (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1947)
Chapter 8, “Welfare Economics”

  1. P. A. Samuelson

“The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure”
Review of Economics and Statistics, 36 (November 1954)
pp. 387-389

reproduced as
Chapter 92
The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson, Vol. II
MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1966; editor: J.E. Stiglitz

  1. K. Arrow

Social Choice and Individual Values, 1951
Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Monograph #12
Wiley, New York, second edition, 1963

  1. J. Rawls

A Theory of Justice
Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1971

__________________

Background Reading

  1. A. C. Pigou

The Economics of Welfare, 1920
Macmillan, London, 4th edition, 1932
reprinted in new appendices, 1952

  1. L. Robbins

An Essay of the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, 1932
Macmillan, London, 2nd edition, 1935

  1. van der Graaf

Theoretical Welfare Economics
Cambridge University Press, London, 1957, paperback

______________________

 

FINAL EXAM
14.124
MAY 20, 1975

This is a 1 ½ hour exam. You may take up to an extra half hour, but only if you need it and not in order to establish extra credit for all you know.
Answer any 3 of the following four questions, thus allowing about one half hour for each.

 

  1. Society consists of 2N people [equal numbers of men (i=1) and women (i=2)] who will live and consume for two periods: t=1,2, or now and tomorrow. Also, society has a Solow neoclassical production function:

C(t) + K(t+1) = F[L(t),K(t)]

All 2N people have the same labor, namely Li(t) = 1/2N. The women or men possesss equal shares in the initial capital good, K(1) = k/2N, but it is an unknown of the problem to find out what will be K(2).

Intertemporal tastes of the representative man and woman involve the same concave u[C(t)] function, and with equal Böhm-Fisher subjective time preference factors, ρ1 and ρ2, in:

U1 = u[C1(1)] + u[(C1(2)]/(1+ρ1), U2 = u[C2(1)] + u[(C2(2)]/(1+ρ2), ρ1 = ρ2.

(You may set N=1 to simplify your expositions if you wish to do so.)
The equilibrium is now determinable.

(a)  Describe graphically, and/or mathematically, and/or literally, how Irving Fisher or any modern economist would determine the equilibrium for:

C1(1)*, C1(2)*, C2(1)*, C2(2)*, K(2)*; r*, the rate of interest between period 1 and 2. (Hint: Will women lend to men or borrow from them?)

(b)  Very briefly, modify your above answer to show what will happen when men are more “impatient” than women, so that ρ1 > ρ2.

  1. Prove that fair-game investing or gambling will (a) be avoided by what class of people?; (b) be embraced by what class of people? How do you reconcile under (a) the purchases of insurance at unfavorable-game premiums?
  1. Lerner, Lange, and others wish to utilize market pricing in achieving maximization of a social welfare function appropriate to a socialist state where (a) all non-labor inputs are owned by the State; (b) “people’s changing tastes are to count,” (c) where the bureaucrats responsible for the different industries do not necessarily in every case face constant returns to scale and classical returns.

Describe how goods and services should be priced, how people’s total spendable incomes are to be determined, and also any special problems that might arise for the Lerner-Lange-Smith VISIBLE HAND.

  1. Bentham says that people may differ in the heights of their marginal utility from the same number of chocolates (or real incomes). But he believes that this difference in intensities of enjoyments is distributed “in about the same way among the very rich and the very poor.” What kind of income tax formula would he then presumably want to legislate? What “incentive effects” would you want to keep in mind appraising this solution?

Source: Personal copies

Image Source: Left to right: Robert C. Merton, Jerome Bert Wiesner and Paul A. Samuelson with Vol. 3 of Samuelson’s Collected Scientific Papers (1972). MIT Webmuseum.

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Syllabus for Money, Banking & Commercial Crises. Anderson, 1917-18.

Benjamin McAlester Anderson (1886-1949) was awarded a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University in 1911. His dissertation, Social Value–A Study in Economic Theory Critical and Constructive was published in the Hart, Schaffer & Marx Prize Essays series. From 1913-18 he held the rank of Assistant Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Today I post his syllabus for the course “Money, Banking and Commercial Crises” from 1917-18 that is wonderfully detailed  both with respect to topics and detailed reading assignments. The final examination questions for the second-term of the two-term course have been transcribed and posted too. I have included Anderson’s c.v. as of the publication of his dissertation in November, 1911 below. I’ll next post the University of California’s brief biography of Anderson published in its “In Memoriam” series.

_______________________

VITA
[Benjamin M. Anderson 1911]

The author was born in Columbia, Missouri, May 1, 1886. He was prepared for college in the high
school in Columbia, and attended the State University of Missouri, receiving the A. B. degree from that institution in 1906. His work in economics at Missouri was chiefly with Professor J. E. Pope. He was made a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha of Missouri, in 1905. He filled a temporary vacancy in the chair of history at the State Normal School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, during the summer session of 1905. He was Professor of Political Economy at Missouri Valley College, Marshall, Missouri, 1906-7, and from 1907 to 1911 was Head of the Department of History and Political Economy in the State Normal School at Springfield, Missouri, though on leave of absence during the years 1909-10 and 1910-11. He was Fellow in Economics at the University of Illinois during the term 1909-10, working in the seminars of Dean Kinley and Professor E. L. Bogart, and, in philosophy, in the seminar of Professor B. H. Bode. He received the A. M. degree at Illinois in 1910. As Garth Fellow in Political Economy at Columbia University, 1910-11, he studied under Professors Seligman, Seager, H. L. Moore, Giddings and John Dewey, doing seminar work with Professors Seligman, Seager and Giddings. He was appointed in 1911 Instructor in Political Economy at Columbia University. In May, 1909, he was married to Miss Margaret Louise Crenshaw, at St. Louis, Mo.

Source: Benjamin M. Anderson, Social Value–A Study in Economic Theory Critical and Constructive, p. i.

_______________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 3. Asst. Professor Anderson, assisted by Mr. Laporte.—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 38: 13 Seniors, 15 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 6 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1917-18, p. 54.

_______________________

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
1917-18

SYLLABUS FOR ECONOMICS 3

(Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises)
Assistant Professor Anderson

Required reading is marked with an asterisk

 

Part I. MONEY

  1. FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS.
    1. Definitions: money; specie; currency, etc.
    2. Origin of money; origin of gold and silver money; gold as a commodity.
    3. Functions of money; common measure of values; medium of exchange; legal tender; standard of deferred payments; store of value; bearer of options; reserve for credit operations.
    4. Standard and subsidiary money; Gresham’s law and monometallism; the gold standard.
    5. Value of money: preliminary statement.

Reading.

Anderson, Value of Money, pp. 397-427.*
Phillips, Readings in Money and Banking, pp. 1-26.*
Moulton, Money and Banking, Pt. I, pp. 45-62.*
Laughlin, Principles of Money, passim.
Menger, art. “Geld” in Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften.

  1. GOVERNMENT PAPER MONEY.
    1. Colonial and Revolutionary Paper Money.
    2. The French Assignats.
    3. The Greenbacks.
    4. Causes governing the value of inconvertible paper.
      1. Gold premium and index numbers.
    5. Financial results of inconvertible paper.
    6. Social and industrial consequences of inconvertible papers.

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. I, pp. 134-162; 168 (chart); 178-209, 260-66.*
Horace White, Money and Banking, chs. on Revolutionary Bills of Credit, and Greenbacks.*
Phillips, pp. 26-70, 115-120.*
Mitchell, W. C., History of the Greenbacks, and Gold, Wages and Prices under the Greenback Standard.

  1. THE STANDARD QUESTION.
    1. Early history of metallic money.
    2. History of bimetallism.
      1. Mediaeval and early modern times.
      2. England
      3. France
      4. United States.
    3. Theory of bimetallism:
      1. Theory of the ratio:
        1. Gresham’s Law.
        2. The compensatory principle.
      2. The standard of deferred payments: justice between debtor and creditor:
        1. Index numbers: of commodity prices; of wages.
        2. The commodity standard upheld by bimetallists.
        3. The labor standard by monometallists.
      3. Theory of exchanges between gold and silver countries.
    4. The monetary system of the United States.

Reading.

Phillips, Chs. VI and VII.*
Moulton, Pt. I, pp. 66-68, Chs. IV, VI, and VIII.*

    1. The gold exchange standard, and the triumph of the gold standard.
      1. India.
      2. Philippines.
      3. Mexico.
      4. Straits Settlement.
      5. Gold standard in 1914.

Reading.

Phillips, Chs. XII and XIV.*
Kemmerer, Modern Currency Reforms.

  1. THE VALUE OF MONEY.
    1. Economic Value.

Reading.

Anderson, Ch. I.

    1. Must the value of money rest on a commodity basis? Quantity theory doctrine that inconvertible paper may be sustained in value by limitation in supply.
    2. The quantity theory v. Gresham’s Law.

Reading.

Anderson, Chs. VII and XVII.
Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 14-32.*

  1. STABILIZING THE GOLD DOLLAR.

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. I, pp. 258-60; 266-71.*
Phillips, Ch. XIII.*

PART II. CREDIT AND BANKING

  1. NATURE OF CREDIT.
    1. Kinds of credit instruments.
    2. Definitions of credit.
    3. Bank-credit—analysis of bank statement.
    4. The mechanism of the modern bank.

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 12-37.*
Anderson, Ch. XXIII.*
Dunbar, Theory and History of Banking, Chs. I-V.*
Fiske, The Modern Bank, pp. 25-260, omitting Chs. XXI, XXVIII, XXX.*
Horace White, ch. on Bank Statement.*

    1. The use of checks in payments in the United States.

Reading.

Phillips, pp. 150-58.*
Kinley, The Use of Credit Instruments in Payments in the United States, National Monetary Commission Report.

    1. The volume of money and credit and the volume of trade,—trade and speculation.

Reading.

Anderson, Ch. XIII.*

  1. BANK-NOTES AND BANK DEPOSITS: “CURRENCY SCHOOL” v. “BANKING SCHOOL.”
    1. Currency School and the quantity theory.
    2. Essential identity of notes and deposits under “assets banking.”
    3. Systems of bank-note issue: Suffolk system; Canada; England; France; Germany; Austria; United States national banking system.

Reading.

Anderson, Ch. XIV.*
Mill, J. S., Principles of Political Economy, Bk. III, Ch. XXIV, pars. 1 and 2.*
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 225-58.*
Conant, Modern Banks of Issue, passim.

  1. THE ENGLISH BANKING SYSTEM.
    1. History.
    2. Analysis of present system in London: Bank of England; Joint Stock Banks; branches of foreign banks; discount houses; acceptance houses; bill brokers; Stock Exchange; commodity speculation; warehousing system and commission houses; insurance; foreign exchange.

Reading.

Withers and Palgrave, English Banking System, National Monetary Commission Report, pp. 3-110.*
Phillips, pp. 435-442; 464-473.*
Withers, The Meaning of Money.
Bagehot, Lombard Street.
Conant, Modern Banks of Issue.

  1. FOREIGN EXCHANGE.

Reading.

Escher, Foreign Exchange.*
Anderson, Ch. XVI, and Appendix to Ch. XIII.*
Weekly article in Annalist on foreign exchange market.

  1. SPECULATION ON THE STOCK AND PRODUCE EXCHANGES.
    1. Theory of speculation.
    2. The New York Stock Exchange.
      1. Methods of doing business.
      2. Contrasted with London, Paris, and Berlin exchanges.
    3. Investment bankers and underwriters.
    4. Chicago Board of Trade; New York Cotton Exchange.

Reading.

Emery, Speculation on the Stock and Produce Exchanges.
Pratt, Work of Wall Street.
Van Antwerp, The Stock Exchange from Within.
Passages to be assigned.
Weekly articles in Annalist on stock and bond markets.

  1. “COMMERCIAL BANKING” AND SPECULATION; BANK ASSETS AND BANK RESERVES.

Reading.

Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 47-54.*
Anderson, Ch. XXIV, and pp. 363-81, and 177-85.
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 66-89.*

  1. CLEARING HOUSES.
    1. Methods.
    2. Extraordinary functions.
    3. The interpretation of “clearings.”

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XIX.

  1. THE “MONEY MARKET.”
    1. “Money” v. money.
    2. “Money rates” v. interest rates.
    3. Analysis of causes governing money rates:
      1. General causes.
      2. Causes affecting special types of “paper.”

Reading.

Scott, W. A., Money and Banking, ch. on “Money Market.”* (1910 or later editions.)
Anderson, pp. 375-79; 425-32; 453-58;495-97; 516-27; 529-44.*
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 120-136.*
Weekly article on “Money” in the Annalist.

  1. BANKING IN GERMANY.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXV.*

  1. BANKING IN CANADA.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXI.*

  1. BANKING IN FRANCE.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXIV.*

  1. BANKING IN THE UNITED STATES.
    1. Before the Civil War.
      1. The two National Banks.
      2. State and private banks.
    2. Origin of the national banking system.
    3. State banks and trust companies; private banks; savings banks, etc.
    4. Comparative growth and present status of different classes of institutions. Geographical distribution.

Reading.

Horace White, Chs. on First and Second National banks, The Bank War, The Suffolk Bank System, The Safety Fund System, The Free Bank System, The National Bank System.*
Phillips, Chs. XV and XX.*
Barnett, State Banks and Trust Companies.

 

PART III. CRISES AND PANICS

  1. THEORY OF CRISES.
  2. FINANCIAL PANICS.

Reading.

Phillips, pp. 644-71.*

  1. HISTORY OF CRISES UNDER THE NATIONAL BANKING ACT.

Reading.

Sprague, History of Crises under the National Banking System, National Monetary Commission Report, pp. 153-320.*

  1. THE ENGLISH BANKING SYSTEM DURING THE FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.
  2. NEW YORK AND THE CRISIS OF 1914.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXXII.*

  1. REMEDIES FOR CRISES AND PANICS. BUSINESS BAROMETERS.

 

PART IV. THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM

Reading.

Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 259-337.*

 

PART V. MISCELLANEOUS

  1. AGRICULTURAL CREDIT.

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXVII.*

  1. THE “MONEY TRUST.”

Reading.

Phillips, Ch. XXVIII.*
Anderson, pp. 516-20.*
Moulton, Pt. II, pp. 471-95.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 1, Folder “Economics 1917-1918”.

Image Source: Benjamin M. Anderson in Harvard Album, 1915.

Categories
Courses M.I.T. Syllabus

M.I.T. Industrial Economics Syllabus. Bishop. 1957

Robert Lyle Bishop was born June 4, 1916 in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1937.  He was awarded a Sheldon Travelling Fellowship that financed a ten month study tour in Europe. He then went to Princeton for the following year (1938-9), but returned to Harvard where he received an appointment as instructor in economics and tutor in the Division of History, Government and Economics. Bishop moved to M.I.T. in September 1942. Robert Bishop received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in 1950. The title of his doctoral dissertation was “The Mechanization of the Glass-Container Industry: a Study in the Economics of Technological Change.”  Besides having served as department chairman (1958-1965) and as dean of the School of Humanities and Social Science (1964-73),  his biggest mark in the education of economists at M.I.T. is to be found in his mimeographed notes for 14.121, the graduate-level introduction to microeconomic theory. Bishop died February 7, 2013.

This reading list for Robert L. Bishop’s first term in a two-term sequence is found filed in a folder of reading lists in Robert Solow’s papers at Duke.

Fun fact: A future president of the United States, an undergraduate named John F. Kennedy, lived in the suite directly below Bishop’s tutorial quarters in F entry of Winthrop House.

_______________________________

Course Enrollment

“Problems in Industrial Economics” (14.271) in the Fall term of 1957 was taught by Professor Robert L. Bishop. The course met three hours per week. Seven students were enrolled.

Source: MIT Libraries, Institute Archives. MIT Department of Economics Records, Box 3, Folder “Teaching Responsibility”.

_______________________________

Brief Course Description

The prerequisite for the course was the intermediate microeconomics course “Prices and Production” (14.03).

Small and large enterprises in the American economy; market structures; degrees of monopoly and competition; requisites of public policy.

Source: Course Catalogue of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1957-1958, p. 234.

_______________________________

 

14.271 Reading List
Fall, 1957

  1. General

  1. P.W.S. Andrews, “Industrial Economics as a Specialist Subject,” Journal of Industrial Economics, Nov. 1952.
  2. W. Leontief, “Input-Output Economics,” Scientific American, Oct. 1951.
  3. Bureau of the Census, 1952 Annual Survey of Manufactures, pp. 1-12, 201-06.
  4. Conklin and Goldstein, “Census Principles of Industry and Product Classification”, Universities: National Bureau of Economic Research, in Business Concentration and Price Policy, pp. 15-55.
  5. J.S. Bain, “Price and Production Policies,” in Ellis (ed.), Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. I., pp. 129-73.
  6. J.K. Galbraith, “Monopoly and the Concentration of Economic Power,” in Ellis (ed.), Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. I. pp. 99-128.
  7. E.A.G. Robinson, The Structure of Competitive Industry.
  8. Foss and Churchill, “The Size Distribution of the postwar Business Population,” Survey of Current Business, May 1950, pp. 12-20.
  9. Survey of Current Business, National Income Supplement, July 1954, Tables 7, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 25, 27, 29.

  1. Big Business Concentration, and the “Monopoly Problem”

  1. A. A. Berle, The 20th Century Capitalist Revolution, pp. 1-60.
  2. Joel Dean, Managerial Economics, pp. 97-109.
  3. A. Papandreou, “Problems in the Theory of the Firm, “ in Haley (ed.) Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. II, pp. 183-222.
  4. Kaplan and Kahn, “Big Business in a Competitive Society,” Fortune, Feb. 1953, pp. 1-14.
  5. Corwin Edwards, “Conglomerate Bigness as a Source of Power,” in National Bureau of Economic Research, Business Concentration and Price Policy, pp. 331-60.
  6. T.N.E.C. Monograph No. 27, Part I, pp. 1-18, 54-57; Part V, 273-96, 407-12; Part VI, pp. 581-91, 660-71.
  7. Stocking and Watkins, Monopoly and Free Enterprise, pp. 53-84.
  8. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cost Behavior and Price Policy, pp. 219-66.
  9. A. N. Burns, The Decline of Competition, pp. 1-42.
  10. E.S. Mason, “Industrial Concentration and the Decline of Competition,” in Explorations in Economics, pp. 434-43; also available in Mason, Economic Concentration and the Monopoly Problem, pp. 16-43.
  11. J.M. Clark, The Economics of Overhead Cost, pp. 434-50.
  12. Butters, Lintner, and Cary, The Effects of Taxation: Corporate Mergers, Chs. IX, X.
  13. M.A. Adelman, “The Measurement of Industrial Concentration,” Review of Economics and Statistics, Nov. 1951, pp. 269-96.
  14. Edwards, Stocking, George, and Berle, “Four Comments on ‘The Measurement of Industrial Concentration,’ with a Rejoinder by Professor Adelman,” Review of Economics and Statistics, May 1952, pp. 156-78.
  15. J.M. Blair, “The Measurement of Industrial Concentration: A Reply,” M.A. Adelman, “Rejoinder,” Lintner and Butters, “Further Rejoinder,” Review of Economics and Statistics, Nov. 1952, pp. 343-67.

  1. General Motors and the Automobile Industry

  1. Joel Dean, Managerial Economics, pp. 397-403, 427-57.
  2. Donaldson Brown, “Pricing Policy in Relation to Financial Control,” Management and Administration, Feb., Mar., and Apr., 1924.
  3. Albert Bradley, “Financial Control Policies of General Motors,” paper read to American Management Association, 1926, revised 1928.
  4. H.B. Vanderblue, “Pricing Policies in the Automobile Industry,” Harvard Business Review, (1939), Vol. 18, pp. 385-401, and Vol. 19, pp. 64-81.
  5. Wall Street Journal, “How Auto Firms Figure Their Costs to Reckon The Price Dealers Pay”, December 10, 1957.
  6. General Motors Corporation, The Dynamics of Automobile Demand, articles by Horner and S.M. Du Brul, pp. 3-18, 124-139.
  7. D.A. Moore, “The Automobile Industry,” in Adams (ed.), The Structure of American Industry, 2nd ed., pp. 274-325.

  1. Competition in the Steel Industry

  1. Walter Adams, “The Steel Industry,” in Adams (ed.), The Structure of American Industry, 2nd ed.
  2. R.L. Bishop, “Price Stability v. Flexibility,” manuscript.
  3. U.S. Steel Corporation, Business, Big and Small, Built America, articles by D. Austin and B.B. Smith, pp. 69-111.
  4. Synopses and Excerpts from Affidavits in U.S. v. Bethlehem Steel and Youngstown Sheet and Tube, 1957.
  5. R.L. Bishop, “On the Definition of Markets,” manuscript.
  6. Fritz Machlup, The Basing-Point System, Chs. 1, 3, 5.
  7. J.M. Clark, “Basing Point Methods of Price Quoting,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 1938, pp. 477-89.
  8. Carl Kaysen, “Basing Point Pricing and Public Policy,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Aug. 1949.

  1. Cost Determination and Analysis

  1. J. M. Clark, The Economics of Overhead Costs, pp. 17-69, 201-03, 459-79.
  2. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cost Behavior and Price Policy, pp. 1-32, 51-218.
  3. Caleb Smith, “Survey of the Empirical Evidence on Economies of Scale,” in Universities, National Bureau of Economic Research, Business Concentration and Price Policy, pp. 213-38.
  4. J.S. Bain, “Economies of Scale, Concentration, and Condition of Entry in Twenty Manufacturing Industries,” Economic Review, 1954, pp. 15-39.
  5. Leonard J. Doyle, “Most Profitable Product Volume,” N.A.C.A. Bulletin No. 30 (Feb. 1, 1949), pp. 643-52.
  6. James Earley, “Marginal Policies of ‘Excellently Managed’ Companies,” American Economic Review, Mar. 1956, pp. 44-70.
  7. Joel Dean, Managerial Economics, pp. 247-347.

 

Source: Duke University. Rubenstein Library. Papers of Robert M. Solow, Box 68, Folder “Reading lists”.

Image Source:   Robert Lyle Bishop. MIT Museum.

Categories
Courses Harvard Socialism Syllabus

Harvard. Socialism and Communism. Carver and Bushee, 1901

Beginning with his second year at Harvard, Thomas N. Carver regularly offered a course on schemes of social improvement which covered utopias through marxian socialism, including communistic experimental communities in America. He co-taught his first offering of “Socialism and Communism” in 1901 with the graduate student Frederick A. Bushée who was to go on to teach at Clark University, Colorado College and the University of Colorado. Following a brief c.v. for Bushée, enrollment numbers for the course and its reading list are provided in this post.

Carver’s course reading lists for 1919-20 and 1920 have been previously posted.

Since this post was completed, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has acquired and transcribed a copy of the final exam for this course.

Links to all the readings but one (Anton Menger, The Right to the Whole Produce of Labor) can be found in the post for Economics 14 (1902-1903).

___________________

Bushée, Frederick Alexander.

Harvard thesis title: Ethnic factors in the population of Boston. New York, Macmillan (London, Sonnenschein), 1903, 8°, pp. viii, 171 (Publ. Amer. Econ. Assoc., ser. 3, 4: no. 2). Preliminary portion pub. as “The growth of the population of Boston,” in Publ. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 1899, n. s., 6: 239-274.

1872, July 21. Born in Brookfield, Vermont.
1894. Litt. B. Dartmouth College.
1894-95. Resident South End House, Boston.
1895-96. Hartford School of Sociology.
1896-97. Resident South End House, Boston.
1897-1900. Graduate student, Harvard University.
1898. Harvard University, A.M.
1900-01. Collège Libre des Sciences Sociales, Collège de France, Paris; University of Berlin.
1901-02. Assistant in Economics, Harvard University.
1902. Harvard University, Ph.D. in Political Science.
1902-03. Instructor in Economics and History in the Collegiate Department of Clark University.
1903-08. Assistant Professor in Economics, Clark University.
1907-08. Instructor in Economics and Sociology, Clark University.
1910-12. Professor of Economics and Sociology at Colorado College.
1912. Hired by University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1916. Professor of Economics and Sociology, and Secretary of the College of Commerce, University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1925-32. Professor of Economics and Sociology, and Acting Dean of the School of Business Administration, University of Colorado. Boulder, Colo.
1939. Retired.
1960, April 4. Died in Boulder, Colorado.

Reminiscence of the Bushees by Earl David Crockett, the son of Bushee’s successor at the University of Colorado.

___________________

[Course Enrollment]

[Economics] 14 1hf. Asst. Professor Carver and Mr. Bushée.—Socialism and Communism.

Total 27: 5 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 3 Others.

 

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1901-02, p. 77.

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ECONOMICS 14

Topics and references. Starred references are prescribed.

HISTORICAL

  1. *Ely, R. T. French and German Socialism.
  2. Russell, Bertrand. German Social Democracy.
  3. Rae, John. Contemporary Socialism.
  4. Kirkup, Thomas. A History of Socialism.
  5. Menger, Anton. The Right to the Whole Produce of Labor.
  6. Bliss, W. D. P. A Handbook of Socialism.
  7. Graham, William. Socialism New and Old.

 

EXPOSITORY AND CRITICAL

  1. *Schaeffle, Albert. The Quintessence of Socialism.
  2. [Shaeffle, Albert.] The Impossibility of Social Democracy.
  3. *Marx, Karl. Capital.
  4. [Marx, Karl] and Engels, Frederick. The Manifesto of the Communist Party.
  5. Engels, Frederick. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
  6. Gonner, E. C. K. The Socialist Philosophy of Rodbertus.
  7. [Gonner, E. C. K.] The Socialist State.
  8. Shaw, Bernard, and others. Fabian Essays in Socialism.
  9. Fabian Tracts.
  10. Ely, R. T. Socialism: an Examination of its Nature, Strength, and Weakness.
  11. Bernstein, Edward. Ferdinand Lassalle.
  12. Hyndman, Henry M. The Economics of Socialism.
  13. Webb, Sidney, and Mrs. Beatrice. Problems of Modern Industry.
  14. Simonson, Gustave. A Plain Examination of Socialism.

 

UTOPIAS

  1. *Plato’s Republic.
  2. *More, Sir Thomas. Utopia.
  3. *Bacon, Francis. New Atlantis.
  4. *Campanella, Tommaso. The City of the Sun.
    (Numbers 2, 3, and 4 may be found in convenient form in Henry Morley’s Ideal Commonwealths.)
  5. Cabet, Etienne. Voyage en Icarie.
  6. Morris, William. News from Nowhere.
  7. Bellamy, Edward. Looking Backward.
  8. [Bellamy, Edward.] Equality.

 

COMMUNISTIC EXPERIMENTS

  1. *Nordhoff, Charles. The Communistic Societies of the United States.
  2. Kautsky, Karl. Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation.
  3. Hinds, W. A. American Communities.
  4. Noyes, J. H. History of American Socialisms.
  5. Codman, J. T. Brook Farm Memoirs.
  6. Shaw, Albert. Icaria.
  7. Randall, E. O. History of the Zoar Society.
  8. Landis, G. B. The Separatists of Zoar.

 

WORKS WITH SOCIALISTIC TENDENCIES

[Under this heading is brought several classes of theories wrongly confused with socialism.]

A. CHRISTIAN SOCIALISM

  1. Lamenais and Kingley. Contemporary Review, April, 1882.
  2. Les Paroles d’un Croyant.
  3. Kingsley, Charles. Alton Locke.
  4. Gladden, Washington. Tools and the Man.
  5. Strong, Josiah. Our Country.
  6. [Strong, Josiah.] The New Era.

B. STATE SOCIALISM

An indefinite term, which is generally made to include all movements for the extension of government control or ownership, especially over Transportation and Lighting systems.

C. AGRARIAN SOCIALISM

  1. *George Henry. Progress and Poverty.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1901-1902”.

Image Source: Thomas Nixon Carver in Harvard Album, 1906.

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. History of Economics Reading List. Schumpeter, 1949

Joseph Schumpeter offered his graduate course “History and Literature of Economics since 1776” nine times during the period 1940-1949. The core readings were basically unchanged. In an earlier post I provided the reading list and examinations from the 1939-40 academic year. This post provides the much stripped down reading list for the last time Schumpeter offered the course. The only addition to the reading list was George Stigler’s 1941 book,  Production and Distribution Theories.

Below you will find the course enrollment figures and the reading list for the Spring semester of 1949.

 

___________________________

Course Enrollment Statistics:

Graduates Seniors Juniors Radcliffe Other Total
1939-40 9 3 1 0 3 16
1940-41 11 2 0 3 1 17
1941-42 5 1 0 4 1 12
1942-43 10 3 0 6 3 22
1943-44 2 1 0 3 3 9
1944-45 Not offered
1945-46 18 2 5 25
1946-47 21 1 0 6 7 35
1947-48 17 4 0 2 7 30
1948-49 2 1 0 0 1 4

Note: course number was Economics 113b until the academic year 1947-48, then Economics 213b thereafter. Joseph Schumpeter died in January 1950.

 

Source: Harvard/Radcliffe Online Historical Reference Shelf. Harvard President’s Reports.

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Economics 213b
Spring 1949

Reading List

 

This course will cover the period between and including A. Smith and A. Marshall. Particular emphasis will be placed upon the Ricardian system of economic theory. The new edition of Gide and Rist, History of Economic Doctrines, Heath & Company, 1948, is recommended for survey purposes.

  1. Richard Cantillon, Essai sur la nature du commerce en général (1755), English translation by Higgs (1931).
  2. David Hume, Political Discourses (edition by Green and Grose, 1875), Vol. I. [Miller edition]
  3. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Cannan’s (Modern Library) edition.
  4. David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy. (Everyman’s Library).
  5. Thomas R. Malthus, Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). [1803 edition, enlarged]
  6. William N. Senior [sic: should be “Senior, Nassau William”], Outline of the Science of Political Economy (1836).
  7. John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, also read introduction to Ashley’s edition.
  8. Karl Marx, first volume of Das Kapital (English translation, Modern Library).
  9. Augustin Cournot, Principles of the Theory of Wealth (Fisher’s edition, 1927).
  10. Knut Wicksell, Lectures on Political Economy (Robbins’ edition, 1934) [Vol. I; Vol. II].
  11. Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, particularly Book V.

Further suggestions:

E. Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest, Vol. I.
E. Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution (1924). [2nd ed., 1903]
F. W. Taussig, Wages and Capital (1896).
G. Stigler, Production and Distribution Theories (1941).
J. Bonar, Malthus and his Work (1924). [1885 ed.]
M. Bowley, Nassau Senior and Classical Economics (1937).
J. R. Hicks, “Leon Walras,” (Econometrica, 1934).
J. M. Keynes, Essays in Biography (mainly the essays on Malthus and Marshall).
J. Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade (1937).

 

Source: Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Harvard University Archives, HUC 8522.2.1. Box 4, Folder “Economics, 1948-1949 (2 of 2)”.

Image Source:  Harvard Album, 1947.

 

Categories
Courses Economists Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Economics and Public Policy for Public Administration, Smithies. 1949-50

 

Following the brief obituary for Arthur Smithies from the Harvard Crimson, course enrollment statistics and the course reading list for his public administration course “Economic Analysis and Public Policy” at mid-century are included in today’s post.

The mid-year and course final examinations have been transcribed and posted now as well.

________________________________

 

Economist and K-House Master Arthur Smithies Dies at Age 73

The Harvard Crimson
September 14, 1981

Arthur Smithies, Ropes Professor of Political Economy Emeritus and a former master of Kirkland House, died of a heart attack at the Cambridge Boat Club last Wednesday after rowing on the Charles River. He was 73 years old.

Smithies, an authority on the Federal budget and the fiscal policies of developing countries, served as chairman of the Economics department from 1950 to 1955 and from 1959 to 1961. “Smithies did a lot for Harvard,” Otto Eckstein, Warburg Professor of Economics and one of Smithies’ students, said yesterday. “He really started the modern era of the Economics department here.”

An early advocate of Keynesian economics, Smithies wrote extensively on the Federal budget, fiscal policy and full employment. His “The Federal Budget and Fiscal Policy,” published in 1948, was regarded as the standard work in the field for two decades.

By the 1960s, however, his interests had changed to the economic problems of developing countries. In the 1970s, Smithies helped develop and implement policies aimed at preventing the South Vietnamese government from collapsing economically in the face of high military expenditures.

“Unlike many economists, Smithies correctly believed that the difference between a good economist and an inferior one is his sense of history,” John Kenneth Galbraith, Warburg Professor of Economics Emeritus, said Friday. Smithies was “one of the most popular and engaging members of the Harvard Economics department,” Galbraith added.

As master of Kirkland House from 1965 to 1974, Smithies was known for his affection for students, his ability to stimulate debate, and his love of athletics, former students and associates said last week. He was also known for his annual renditions of “Waltzing Matilda” at the Kirkland House Christmas party. A native of Tasmania, Smithies had “a terrible singing voice, which the students always induced him to use,” Warren Wacker, master of South House and a close friend of Smithies, said yesterday.

________________________________

 

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 206. (formerly Economics 106a and 106b). Economic Analysis and Public Policy. (Full Co.) Professor Smithies.

(F) Total 59: 6 Graduates, 1 Senior, 39 Public Administration, 7 Business School, 5 Radcliffe, 1 Other.

(S) Total 58 (sic): 6 Graduates, 1 Senior, 36 Public Administration, 9 Business School, 4 Radcliffe, 1 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University, Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of the Departments 1949-50, p. 74.

________________________________

 

ECONOMICS 206

Reading List 1949-50

 

American Economic Association, (ed. Howard Ellis) Survey of Contemporary Economics, “Federal Budgeting and Fiscal Policy,” by Arthur Smithies, Blakiston, 1948.

American Political Science Review, “Federal Executive Reorganization Re-examined,” A Symposium edited by Fritz Marx, February 1947, pp. 48-84.

Appleby, Paul H., Big Democracy, Alfred Knopf, New York, 1945.

Beveridge, Sir William [*], Full Employment in a Free Society, Norton, New York, 1945.

Economic Reports of the President [*], all issues, particularly Midyear Economic Report, July 1949.

Federal Expenditures and Revenue Policies, Hearings before the U.S. Joint Committee on Economic Report, 81st Congress, September 1949.

Franks, Sir Oliver (Essays) Central Planning and Control in War and Peace, Harvard University Press, 1947.

Hansen, Alvin H., Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Norton, 1941.

Hayek, Friedrich, Road to Serfdom, University of Chicago Press, 1945.

Income, Employment and Public Policy: Essays in Honor of Alvin H. Hansen, Norton, 1948, New York. Article: “Income-Consumption Relations and Their Implications” by James S. Duesenberry.

Keynes, J. M. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Harcourt Brace & Co., New York 1936.

Lange, Oskar, On the Economic Theory of Socialism, University of Minnesota, 1948.

Mills and Long, National Bureau of Economic Research, Statistical Agencies of the Federal Government, New York, 1949.

Mises, Von, Ludwig, Economic Planning, Dynamic America, New York, 1945.

Nathan, Robert, A National Wage Policy for 1947, Washington, 1947.

Samuelson, Paul A. [*], Economics: An Introductory Analysis, McGraw-Hill, 1948.

Schumpeter, Joseph [*], Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Harpers and Brothers, New York, 1947.

Smithies, Arthur, Business Cycle Analysis and Public Policy, Paper submitted to Business Cycle Conference, New York, November 26, 1949.

Spence Bill, Economic Stability Act of 1949, H. R. 2756.

United Nations, Secretariat, Department of Economic Affairs, Maintenance of Full Employment, 1949 (especially United Kingdom), 1949.

 

Reading Period Assignment

Meade, J., Planning and the Price System, Allen & Unwin, London, 1948.

Sweezy, Paul, Socialism, Economic Handbook Series (Harris, ed.), McGraw-Hill, New York, 1949.

 

[*] Indicates that book is authorized for purchase by veterans.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 5, Folder “Economics, 1949-50 (3 of 3)”.

Image Source: Harvard Album 1952.

 

Categories
Courses Curriculum Harvard

Harvard. Expansion of Economics Course Offerings. 1883.

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The tripling of regular economics course offerings at Harvard in the early 1880’s attracted medium (they only had newspapers then, so I suppose the singular form is appropriate) attention as seen in the following story from the New York Evening Post (October 11, 1883) that was picked up by the Chicago Tribune (October 15, 1883).  The expansion in course offerings in political economy was announced in the Harvard Crimson on May 24, 1883.

Here are links to five earlier Harvard-related posts from this period at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror:

1874-77.
Three Economics Courses. Texts and exams
Courses in Political Economy

1881.
Economics. Two Course Reviews

1886.
Account of Graduate Department

1888-89.
Political Economy Courses

_______________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY AT HARVARD [1883].

Sketch of the Reorganized Department – Seven Courses of Study – Their Scope and Aim.
[Correspondence of the Evening Post.]

Cambridge, Mass., October 5. – The Department of Political Economy in Harvard College has undergone an enlargement and organization this year which marks a growing interest in the subject on the part of the students and a readiness on the part of the authorities to give encouragement and increased opportunity for its pursuit. For some years political economy was taught practically in two courses, an introductory one, which developed the principles of the English school, Mill being the author used, and an advanced course, which took up Cairnes’ Leading Principles of Political Economy, and discussed also banking and finance. Some years there were two introductory courses instead of one, but in that case they were alternative, and not supplementary. Last year the field treated was broadened by the addition of course, given by Dr. Laughlin, on the economic effects of land tenures in England, Ireland, France, Germany, and Russia; and this year the return of Professor Dunbar from his vacation in Europe, and the retention of both Dr. Laughlin, now assistant professor, and Mr. Taussig, has resulted in the expansion of the whole treatment into seven courses of study. A brief account of the scope and character of these courses is as follows:

First, there is one course intended to give familiarity with the leading principles of the science. Mill’s book is here used as a basis, but there are also lectures on banking and the critical review of the public finance of the United States, chiefly during and since the last war. The course aims to give that general knowledge which every educated man ought to have. For those, however, wish to attain a thorough mastery of the principles of economics, one course is not deemed sufficient. Consequently course 2 – a history of economic theory and a critical examination of leading writers – is given by Professor Dunbar. He will take up all the principal writers in England, France, Germany, and Italy, and will review other recent literature, including the work of Henry George. He intends us to develop a grasp upon the fundamental principles that will enable the student to do practical work of real value.

The other five subjects are designed to turn the attention of students to the historical and practical side, affording training in the use of books and sources, the collection of statistics, and the investigation of such public questions as constantly arise from year to year. They are as follows:

Course 3. Discussion of Practical Economic Questions. – The work will here be done in discussion of live questions of the day, and in written monographs upon subjects which most concern the economic interests of the United States, for example: The navigation laws and American shipping; bimetallism; reciprocity with Canada; advantages of Government issues of notes compared with those of national banks.

Course 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. This is in the form of lectures by Professor Dunbar, and will trace the economic effects of the great events in the history of the last 125 years.

Course 5. Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France, and Germany; is the course which was introduced by Professor Laughlin last year, and which he gives again; the work is mostly in the form of written theses.

Course 6. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States, by Mr. Taussig; is a study of the tariff laws which the country has tried, and of the reasons for their passage or repeal. The scope of the course is best seen in the following useful syllabus:

I. 1789-1816: Tariff system adopted after the formation of the Constitution; Hamilton’s report; the state of the protective controversy before 1816; the beginnings of manufacturing industry.
II. 1816-1840: The American System; Henry Clay; the tariffs of 1824, 1828, 1832; the Compromise Tariff of 1833; the growth of manufactures; the economic effects of protection.
III. 1840-1860: The political tariffs of 1842 (protectionist); 1846 (free trade); the industrial progress of the country from 1846 to 1860.
IV. 1860-1883: The Civil War; the development of the existing tariff system; the revenue act of 1864; the tax-reducing acts of later years; the tariff revision of 1883.

Course 7. Comparison of the Financial Systems of France, England, Germany, and the United States; is conducted by Professor Dunbar. He will compare the systems adopted by these nations to provide themselves with revenues, and will direct the study to the economic principles underlying public finance and closely connected with the science of government.

 

Source: New York Evening Post, October 11, 1883, p. 2. Scan of the page at Historical Newspapers From The United States and Canada, Archives of the New York Evening Post Newspaper, pdf-page 0360.

Image Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Sever Hall, Harvard Univ., Cambridge, Mass.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1898 – 1931.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Toronto

Toronto. Honors Exam. Money, Credit and Prices. 1933

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The honors examination questions for Money, Credit and Prices from the University of Toronto transcribed below were filed away by A. G. Hart in a folder marked “Chi[cago] Qualifying”, perhaps not an ideal resting place for this particular archival artifact. At least now these exam questions are discoverable through a standard internet search and provide researchers going to the University of Toronto archives a tip should they search for economics course materials there.

_______________________________

Course descriptions

3e. Money, Credit and Prices. A course dealing with monetary theory and related subjects, including the discussion of the role of money in economic theory; bimetallism; the gold standard; the gold exchange standard; the relation between money, credit, production and prices; the business cycle; central banks and the control of credit; stabilization of business; the foreign exchanges; the role of money in the theory of international trade; money and foreign exchange; problems in various countries, including reparations. For reference: Cassel, Theory of Social Economy, Vol. II, and Money and Foreign Exchange after 1914; Fisher, The Purchasing Power of Money; Keynes, A Treatise on Money; Marshall, Money, Credit and Commerce; Edie, Money, Bank Credit and Prices; Willis and Beckhart, Foreign Banking Systems; Burgess, Interpretations of the Federal Reserve Bank; Mitchell, Business Cycles, the Problem, and its Setting; Snyder, Business Cycles and Business Measurements; Hobson, Rationalization and Unemployment; Gregory, Foreign Exchange; Taussig, International Trade; Angell, International Prices; The Young Plan; Reports of Agent General for Reparations; Reports of League of Nations Gold Delegation; The Macmillan Report, 1931; Current Financial Literature. Three hours a week.

3h. Banking. A special course on the theory and practice of banking operations. One hour a week.

 

Source: University of Toronto Calendar, Faculty of Arts 1932-33. University of Toronto Press, pp. 112-113.

Image Source: Detail from photo of A. F. Wynne Plumptre (1972) from the University of Toronto Archives Image Bank.

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Card paper clipped to examination copy

I thought you might find this of interest.
A. F. Wynne Plumptre [B.A., Lecturer]
Kings College, Cambridge
Toronto, Canada

_______________________________

 

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
FACULTY OF ARTS

ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS, 1933

THIRD YEAR—HONOUR

ECONOMICS 3e, 3h
MONEY, CREDIT AND PRICES

Examiners—The Staff in Economics

 

(Question ONE must be answered by all candidates, and THREE or FOUR other questions.)

  1. What do you mean by “inflation”? Under what circumstances, if any, is it desirable?
  2. The following figures appear in the monthly returns of the combined Canadian Chartered Banks:

(in millions of dollars)

Sept. 1929. Sept. 1932.
Current Commercial loans

1,404

1,003
Total Securities held

487

704
Demand Deposits

759

481
Notice Deposits

1,471

1,359
Bank Notes in circulation

197

132
Finance Act borrowings

79

23

Sketch the probable causes of these movements.

  1. It is said, often in criticism of French financial methods, that the power of finance is used in that country to further political ends. In England, on the other hand, efforts have usually been made to keep “politics” dissociated from “finance”; i.e., to keep politicians from dictating the country’s monetary and financial policies. How far, in your opinion, can or should the two be kept separate in Canada or any other country?
  2. “The establishment of the federal reserve bank system…is actually the reason why they have had the recent trouble in the United States banks.” (Sir John Aird, quoted in the Toronto Daily Star, March 22nd, 1933.) How far do you agree with this statement?
  3. In maintaining the gold standard, “world wide international co-operation becomes all but essential just at the moment when the particular local manifestations of the universal trouble occupy the whole attention of the Government in each country and make international action specially difficult.” (Sir Basil Blackett.) Is this a fair summary of the causes of the breakdown of the international gold standard? If so, does it necessarily follow that the restoration and subsequent maintenance of the gold standard is impracticable?
  4. Give an outline of what is meant by any two of the following policies:

Bimetallism,
Remonetization of silver,
Revaluation of gold,
Reduction of central bank reserve ratios.

  1. Outline very briefly the theory of “comparative costs” in international trade. How far do you think it is desirable that members of the newly appointed Canadian tariff board should be familiar with the principles of this theory?
  2. Do you believe that monetary policy is, or might be, a major factor in determining the level of prices and prosperity in either Canada or England or some other country? (Candidates should answer this question with respect to one country only.)
  3. “Booms and slumps are simply the expression of the results of an oscillation of the rate of interest about its equilibrium position.” (J. M. Keynes.) How far do you agree?
  4. Suppose that, at the forthcoming World Economic Conference, it were generally agreed that international exchange rates should be stabilized immediately. What factors would you then take into consideration in estimating at what rate the Canadian dollar should be stabilized? How far would the theory of “purchasing power parity” assist you?
  5. It appears to be customary for monetary theorists to make use of equations in explaining their theories. Why do you think they have used this method? Do you think that such an equation is likely to clarify or becloud the theory to which it refers?

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Albert Gailord Hart Papers, Box 60, Folder “Exams: Chi[ago] Qualifying”

 

Categories
Courses Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Problems of Labor. William Z. Ripley, 1931

 

 

William Zebina Ripley (1867-1941) was awarded a B.S. in civil engineering from M.I.T. in 1890. With his dissertation “The Financial History of Virginia, 1607-1776”  he earned a doctorate in political economy at Columbia University in 1893. His initial reputation was based on his work The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (1899)  that ascribed civic and moral characteristics of peoples to their racial characteristics. Like many in the populist right today who worry about the impact of immigrants on the existing domestic culture, Ripley too saw social behaviors as essentially hard-wired. He moved on from his racist social anthropology to become an expert on railroad affairs, labor market institutions and the regulation of financial markets (Main Street and Wall Street (1927)).  He ended policy-wise closer to the Occupy Wall Street movement than one might have expected from his early scholarship.

A brief biographical entry for Ripley written by Paul J. Miranti Jr.’s was published in History of Accounting: An International Encyclopedia. 1996, pp. 502-505.

The reading list in today’s post comes from a folder of economics reading lists for the Harvard economics department from the academic year 1931-32. While penciled in at the top of the page is “Econ 34”, the typed header reads “Assignments for Economics 10”. As seen from the enrollment report for Economics 34, William Z. Ripley was credited with teaching that class. The reading assignments are clearly for a course in labor economics (as opposed to the Economics 10a and 10b, economic history courses taught by Usher that year). There was no previous course numbering system in which Economics 10 was a labor economics course either. Thus, I am puzzled about the origin of this reading list. Maybe “Economics 10” was simply a secretarial typo.

________________________________

 

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 34. Professor Ripley.—Problems of Labor.

3 Graduates, 1 Radcliffe, 1 Other: Total 5

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments, 1931-32, p. 72.

________________________________

 

Econ 34

Assignments for Economics 10 [sic]
1931

I. INTRODUCTION; THE WAGE SYSTEM AND DOCTRINES OF WAGES.

Final Report of the Commission on Industrial Relations, 1915, pp. 22-91; pp. 407-439. [pencil note: “either of these the 1st day; the other the 2nd day.”]
Bogart, Economic History of the United States, ch. 4.
Mill, Principles of Political Economy, book II, chs. 5,11.
Marshall, Principles of Economics, book VI, chs. 1-5.

II. LABOR ORGANIZATION.

  1. Collective Bargaining; Employers’ Associations.

Webb, Industrial Democracy, part II, ch. 2.
Hoxie, Trade Unionism in the United States, chs. 8, 10.
Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, ch. 39.

  1. Trade Union Policies and Activities

Hoxie, ch. 11.
Furniss, Labor Problems, ch. 10
Watkins, Labor Problems, ch. 20.
Estey, The Labor Problem, ch. 3.

(a) The Closed Shop.

Estey, ch. 5.
Catlin, ch. 12.

(b) The Standard Rate; Opposition to Piece Rates.

Webb, Part II, ch. 5.
Hoxie, ch. 13.

(c) The Normal Day

Webb, part II, ch. 6.

(d) Restriction of Output

Catlin, ch. 13.

(e) Union Attitude toward Machinery; Technological Unemployment.

Webb, part II, ch. 8.
Watkins, ch. 5.

(f) Mutual Assistance (Benefits)

Catlin, ch. 14.

(g) Labor Banks.

Hardman, American Labor Dynamics, ch. 28.

(h) The Closed Union.

Webb, part II, ch. 10, section (a) and part III, ch. 3, section (a).

  1. Historical Background

Webb, History of Trade Unionism.
Furniss, ch. 8.
Hoxie, ch. 4.
Wolman, Growth of American Trade Unions.
Ware, The Labor Movement in the United States, 1860-1895.
Perlman, History of Trade Unionism in the United States.
Mary Beard, A Short History of the American Labor Movement.

(a) The Early Years.

(b) The Knights of Labor.

(c) The Development of Craft Unionism.

  1. Trade Unionism vs. Industrial Unionism

Hoxie, ch. 6.
American Mercury, March, 1929, Earl W. Shimmons, “The Twilight of the A. F. of L.”

  1. Trade-union Problems.

(a) Organization of the A. F. of L.

Hoxie, ch. 5.
Furniss, ch. 9.
Matthew Woll, The American Federation of Labor.

(b) The Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and the Railroad Brotherhoods.

(c) Trade Union Organization Abroad. (Great Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Italy, Australasia, Canada, Latin America).

Catlin, The Labor Problem, ch. 10.
Raynor, Trade Unionism.
Dunn, Soviet Trade Unions.
Beals, Rome or Death, ch. 10.
Logan, Trade-union Organization in Canada, ch. 4.
Journal of Political Economy, June 1930, M. R. Clark, “French Syndicalism of the Present.”

(d) Problems of Organization.

Hoxie, ch. 7.
Hardman, American Labor Dynamics, chs. 6,7.

(e) Unionism in the South.

Hardman, ch. 18.
Wm. Green, Labor’s Message to the South.
American Mercury, Feb. 1930, W. J. Cash, “The War in the South.”

(f) Violence in Labor Disputes.

United States Commission on Industrial Relations, 1915.
Helen Marot, American Labor Unions.

  1. Organized Labor and the Courts.

Hoxie, ch. 9.
Furniss, ch. 12.
Commons and Andrews, Principles of Labor Legislation, ch. 3, section 1.
Blum, Labor Economics, chs. 4, 5.
Sayre, Cases on Labor Law.

(a) The Strike and the Boycott.

Catlin, ch. 15.
Groat, Organized Labor in America, chs. 10, 11, 14, 15.

(b) Picketing

(c) The Injunction.

(d) Legal Status of Trade Unions.

  1. Labor and Politics: Policy of the A. F. of L.

Furniss, ch. 11.
Hardman, ch. 22.
Samuel Gompers, Should a Political Labor Party be Formed?

  1. Conciliation, Mediation, and Arbitration.

Webb, part II, ch. 3.
Furniss, ch. 13.
Blum, pp. 248-291.
Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 31, M. B. Hammond, “The Regulation of Wages in New Zealand.”

(a) Compulsory Mediation; The Lemieux Act (Canada).

(b) Compulsory Arbitration in New Zealand and Germany.

[handwritten addition in pen: Pol. Sci. Quarterly, Sept. ’29, H. B. Davis, “The German Labor Courts”)]

  1. Industrial Relations.

Gemmill, Present Day Labor Relations.
Furniss, chs. 14, 15.
Hardman, chs. 19, 20, 21.

(a) The Company Union; Employee Representation; Attitude of Organized Labor.

(b) Trade-union Management.

(c) Profit-sharing and Ownership-sharing.

III. UNEMPLOYMENT.

  1. The Problem of Unemployment

Fairchild, Furniss, and Buck, Elementary Economics, ch. 48.
Furniss, Labor Problems, ch. 2.
Blum, Labor Economics, ch. 8.
Cassel, Theory of Social Economy, ch. 15.

  1. Remedies for Unemployment.

Furniss, ch. 3.
Blum, chs. 9, 10.

IV. SOCIAL LEGISLATION.

Webb, part II, ch. 4.
Sayre, Cases on Labor Law.

  1. Industrial Accidents; Workmen’s Compensation Acts.

Furniss, ch. 7.
Commons and Andrews, pp. 434-453.

  1. The Minimum Wage.

Furniss, ch. 4.
Journal of Political Economy, Dec. 1912, Webb, “Theory of the Legal Minimum Wage.”
Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems. ch. 42.

  1. Hours of Labor.

Furniss, ch. 5.

  1. Unemployment and Sickness Insurance.

Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, chs. 3, 4.

  1. Old-age Pensions.

  2. Child and Woman Labor.

Furniss, ch. 6.

V. SCHEMES OF SOCIAL REFORM.

Hoxie, ch. 14.
Manifesto of the Communist Party.
Lindsay, Karl Marx’s Capital.

  1. The Co-operative Movement.

Catlin, ch. 22.

  1. Communism, Anarchism and Socialism.

Lorwin, Labor and Internationalism, chs. 16, 17, 21, 22

  1. The Single Tax.

  2. Socialist Parties in the United States.

VI. MISCELLANEOUS PROBLEMS OF LABOR.

  1. The International Labor Organization of the League of Nations.

  2. The Labor Turnover.

Estey, ch. 10.
Commons, Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, ch. 12.

  1. Immigration.

Watkins, ch. 35.

  1. Credit Unions as a Factor in Improving Living Conditions among the Working Classes.

American Federationist, Jan. 1930, Roy F. Bergengren, “The Credit Union.”
Edson L. Whitney, Co-operative Credit Societies (Credit Unions) in America and in Foreign Countries.

  1. Recent Trend of Real Wages.

VII. CONCLUSION.

Hamilton and May, Control of Wages

 

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1931-1932”.

 

 

 

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Suggested Reading

Harvard. European Central Banking. Schumpeter, 1945

Course offerings in money and monetary policy at Harvard in the late 1930s and most of the 1940s  were dominated by John H. Williams and Alvin Hansen. An exception was the course, “The Theory and Policy of Central Banking: European Experience,” that was offered just once (Fall term 1945-46) by Joseph Schumpeter. I was only able to find what appears to be a hastily assembled, provisional list of suggested readings provided at the start of the semester with a promise that “References to material and literature will be given currently”. The list of final examination questions for the course that I found in Schumpeter’s papers at the Harvard Archives at least gives us some indication of the broad themes of the course.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 142a. (fall term) Professor Schumpeter.—The Theory and Policy of Central Banking: European Experience.

4 Graduates, 1 Junior, 5 Public Administration, 1 Radcliffe:   Total 11

 

Source: Harvard University, Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1945-46, p. 60.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
1945-6
Economics 142a

This course aims at working out the role of central banks both in the capitalist and in the planned economy, and at reviewing a number of theoretical and historical problems in the field of money and credit, relevant tot he main theme. References to material and literature will be given currently. The following list is confined to general suggestions.

 

  1. General works on central banking.

A. C. Conant, History of Modern Banks of Issue, 6th ed., 1927.
C. H. Kisch and W. A. Elkins, Central Banks*, 1928.
E. Victor Morgan, Theory and Practice of Central Banking, 1797-1913, 1942.
V. C. Smith, The Rationale of Central Banking, 1936.
R. G. Hawtrey, The Art of Central Banking*, 1932.
M. H. de Kock, Central Banking, 1939.

  1. Works on the History of Banking Theory.

W. T. C. King, History of the English Discount Market*, 1936.
H. E. Miller, Banking Theories in the U. S. before 1860, 1927.
E. Wood, English Theories of Central Banking Control, 1819-1858, 1939.

  1. For Prewar Figures on Central Banks, see

League of Nations, Money and Banking 1938-9, Vol. I, 1939.

  1. Miscellaneous Suggestions.

J. W. Angell, The Behavior of Money, 1936.
P. Einzig, The Theory of Forward Exchange, 1937.
C. R. Whittlesey, Bank Liquidity and the War, (National Bureau of Economic Research, Our Economy in War, Occasional Paper 22).
A. Youngman, The Federal Reserve System in wartime, (the same, Occasional paper 21).

* These are especially recommended.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 4, Folder “Economics, 1945-46 (2 of 2)”.

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Final Examination Questions

 

1945-46

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 142A

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

  1. Discuss the issue: “Control of Money” or “Control of Credit.”
  2. If you were to frame the plan for a Central Bank, for instance in one of the South-American states, would you give it the right to do business with customers other than banks?
  3. In 1910, the Governor of the Bank of England declared that the following types of finance bills were “legitimate”: (a) bills that represent exchange transactions; (b) bills created in order to finance the carrying of stocks of commodities or securities; (c) bills drawn in anticipation of public loans. Comment.
  4. Suppose that a country which has been using paper money, adopts an unrestricted gold standard. Disregarding the period of transition, would you expect Bank Rate to keep on a higher level after the gold standard has been established than it did under the paper standard? Assume that the rest of the world is on the gold standard.
  5. State the main points of difference between the constitutions and policies of the Bank of England, the Bank of France and the Bank of Germany in the last quarters of the 19th century and explain briefly their significance and causes.
  6. Explain the reasons for the decline in importance of the Domestic Bill during the half-century before 1914. Had this decline anything to do with the legislation about central banks? And had it, in turn, any influence upon their policy?

Final. January, 1946.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Joseph Schumpeter Papers. Lecture Notes, Box 3, Folder “misc. notes”.

 

Image Source: Selection from “Joseph A. Schumpeter and other at dinner table, ca. 1945”, Harvard University Archives HUGBS 276.90p (4).