Category: Economics Programs

Columbia. Munroe Smith’s history of the faculty of political science as told by A.S. Johnson, 1952.

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-07-17

The following paragraphs come from Alvin S. Johnson’s 1952 autobiography that is filled with many such nuggets of fact and context that are relevant for the work of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. The institutional histories from which departments of economics have emerged provide some of the initial conditions for the evolution of organized economics education. Like Johns Hopkins and unlike Harvard and Chicago, Columbia University economics was to a large part made in Germany.

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[p. 164] …Munroe Smith gave me detail after detail of the history of the faculty. Dean Burgess, as a cavalry officer in the Civil War, had had much time for reflection on the stupendous folly of a war in which citizens laid waste other citizens’ country and slaughtered each other without ill will. All the issues, Burgess believed, could have been compromised if the lawyers who controlled Congress and the state legislatures had been trained in history, political science, and public law. As soon as he was discharged from the army, after Appomattox, he set out for Germany to study the political sciences. He spent several years at different universities, forming friendships with the most famous professors and imbuing himself thoroughly with the spirit of German scholarship. On his return he accepted an appointment in history at Columbia College, then a pleasant young gentlemen’s finishing school. He was permitted to offer courses in public law. Although these could not be counted for credit toward the A.B., many of the ablest students were drawn to his lectures.

From among his students he picked out four and enlisted them in a project for transforming Columbia College into a university. The four were Nicholas Murray Butler, E. R. A. Seligman, Frank Goodnow, and Munroe Smith. They were to proceed to Germany to get their doctorates. Butler was to study philosophy and education; Seligman, economics; Goodnow, administration; Munroe Smith, Roman law. The young men executed Burgess’s command like good soldiers and in due time returned to offer non-credit courses at Columbia College.

Burgess’s next move was to turn his group into a graduate faculty. Such a faculty had been set up at Johns Hopkins, the first in America, and commanded nationwide interest among educators. Burgess argued with President Frederick Barnard on the need of a graduate school in the greatest city of the country. After some years the Board of Trustees authorized in 1886 the setting up of a graduate School of Political Science, manned by Burgess and his disciples, now advanced to professorial rank.

Butler early stepped aside to develop courses he later organized into Teachers College. Burgess and his three younger colleagues watched for opportunities to enlist additional abilities: William A. Dunning in political theory, Herbert L. Osgood in American history, John Bassett Moore in international law, John Bates Clark in [p. 165] economics Franklin Giddings in sociology. This process of expansion was going on energetically while I was on the faculty; Henry R. Seager and Henry L. Moore were enlisted for the economics department, Edward T. Devine and Samuel McCune Lindsay for sociology, James Harvey Robinson and later Charles A. Beard for history. In the meantime other graduate courses were springing up throughout the institution. The towering structure of Columbia University had risen up out of Burgess’s small bottle.

Still in my time the controlling nucleus of our faculty consisted of Burgess, Seligman, Goodnow, and Munroe Smith. They all knew American colonial history well and had followed the step-by-step evolution of Massachusetts Bay from a settlement governed by a chartered company in England to a free self-governing community, germ of American liberty. Step by step Burgess and his lieutenants built up the liberties of the School of Political Science. They got the Board of Trustees to accept the principle of the absolute freedom of the scholar to pursue the truth as he sees it, whatever the consequences; the principle of absolute equality of the faculty members; the principle that no scholar might be added to the faculty without the unanimous consent of the faculty. The principle was established that the president and trustees could intervene in the affairs of the faculty only through the power of the purse.

President Seth Low, regarding himself justly as a recognized authority on administration, sought admission to the meetings of the faculty. He was turned down. A university president could not conduct himself as an equal among equals. When Nicholas Murray Butler became president he thought it would be a good idea for him to sit in with the faculty. After all, he had been one of Burgess’s first panel. We voted the proposition down, unanimously.

Since my time the faculty has grown in numbers and its relations with other departments of the university have become closer. But the spirit of liberty and equality, established by Burgess and his lieutenants, still lives on at Columbia and has overflowed into the universities of America. From time to time a board of trustees steps outside its moral sphere and undertakes to purge and discipline the faculty. But established liberties stricken down are bound to rise again.

Source: Alvin Saunders Johnson. A Pioneer’s Progress. New York: Viking Press, 1952.

Image Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library. “Columbia College, Madison Ave., New York, N.Y” [Architect: C. C. Haight] The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1886-09-04. Image of the Mid-town Campus from The American Architect and Building News, September 4, 1886. (cf. https://www.wikicu.com/Midtown_campus)

Tags BeardCA, Burgess, Butler, ClarkJB, DevineET, Dunning, Giddings, Goodnow, LindsaySM, Moore, MooreJB, Osgood, RobinsonJH, Seager, Seligman, SmithMunroe

Curriculum Economics Programs Economists M.I.T. Teaching

M.I.T. Charles Kindleberger’s Ruminations on Professional Education, 1966

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-05-16

Today’s post was an absolute treat to prepare. It gives us an opportunity to rise above the tactical aspects of economics education (i.e. syllabi and exams) to consider issues of grand strategy in higher education.

Charles Kindleberger was one of my professors in graduate school. Though I did take his course in European economic history, I must confess that I was not ready to absorb much of the intuition and wisdom that he tried to share with us. That said, my classmates and I very much respected his old-school, gentlemanly charm and deeply appreciated the scholar-economist dutifully warning us whipper-snappers that “the second-derivative is the refuge of a scoundrel!”

While this essay from 1966 mostly appears to present a distillation of Kindleberger’s experience at M.I.T. in the economics department and as chairman of the Institute Faculty, in it you will find timeless insights into the nature of higher education in general and of training in economics in particular.

Research Tip: I found this jewel of an essay while trawling through the collection of Technology Review ar srchive.org.

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The following essay was one of three papers having the theme “Innovation in Education” prepared for the 1966 M.I.T. Alumni Seminar.

Charles P. Kindleberger is professor of economics and chairman of the Faculty at M.I.T. He is known for teaching and research on world trade and economic development, and he is a member of the President’s Committee on International Monetary Arrangements. As chairman of the Faculty, Dr. Kindlberger has participated directly in many of the recent developments in professional undergraduate curricula at the Institute.

_______________________

Professional Education:
Towards a Way of Thought

by Charles P. Kindleberger

Technology Review, November 1966

THE age of the amateur is dead. Professionalism rules — in the cockpit of spaceships, in football, and in learning. We have abandoned the British tradition of the amateur who was good at everything for that of the Grandes Ecoles, with rigorous scientific training leading to professional competence. “He’s a pro,” which used to be insulting in Britain, is now a compliment everywhere.

There is some room left for the amateur tradition — in politics. It is not good enough to duck the question of where the Inner Belt road should be located by saying that these are matters for resolution by experts. In economics, also, the number of distinct opinions on a given issue is frequently greater than one and sometimes approaches the number of experts. Social scientists resent that mere people feel entitled to have opinions on issues on which popular knowledge and capacity for theorizing are limited, but they have found no way to prevent it. And there is claimed to be scope for flair, inspiration and style — the hallmarks of the amateur — at the frontiers of science, when the ordinary professionals have carried the subject as far as they can. On the whole, however, the demand for professionals and professional education is greater than it has ever been.

Part of this demand is wasteful. An economic study some years ago claimed that there was not so much a shortage of scientists and engineers as very wasteful use of those on hand. Some part of the demand for Ph.D.’s today could perhaps be satisfied with M.S.’s, and some of the jobs seeking master’s could be filled by bachelor’s. During the long years of inadequate effective demand and considerable unemployment, we have tended to upgrade job requirements throughout the economy.

But the upgrading of the educational requirements of business and the professions goes well beyond snobbism and cultural lag. Knowledge has expanded. There is 100 times more information to be obtained today than in 1900, and it is estimated that by 2000 A.D. there will be 1000 times as much knowledge. Periodicals have risen in number from 45,000 in 1950 to 95,000 currently. Librarians blanch under the prospect of coping with the accelerating torrent of periodicals, books, monographs. A major problem in research is to find out what has been done by others so as to avoid rediscovering the same information.

The result is more professional education and more specialization. Eighty-five per cent of today’s new doctors are trained as specialists rather than general practitioners. Lawyers are experts in taxation, trusts domestic or international corporate law, or anti-trust. The man who used to be merely an economist is now a specialist in international economics or African trade. The one year of internship in medicine which was normal in 1945 has been extended to two, three or even four. Business recruits directly from the universities but increasingly from graduate schools of business, and even then the bright young graduate in management is put into a training program. Increasingly the practice is to spend a year in post-doctoral work in another university to extend one’s research training even beyond the scope of the doctorate. This stretching of the educational process to the point where the first professional income is not earned until age 25, or in some lines, 30 is expensive in many, as has been widely recognized by foundations, government, and, somewhat earlier, by parents. Together with the knowledge explosion, it is putting enormous pressure on our educational institutions to break out of old patterns and to find new ways of producing and packaging professional education.

These problems can properly be discussed in three Parts — preprofessional education, professional education as such, and mid-career upgrading. The divisions are hard to keep distinct, as will become apparent, but each section presents particular problems for the university in trying to rationalize and increase the efficiency of its professional mission.

BY preprofessional education is meant the provision of the prerequisites for professional training. In some fields such as law these are nothing more than the good general education which used to be required of the British civil servant. But I refer rather to the mathematics and physics which are needed for engineering, to organic chemistry and anatomy which used to be all that were needed as prerequisites for medical school, and to the elementary courses in a given field which must be mastered before a student goes on to the advanced reaches of any subject.

Any subject can be taught as general education, as preprofessional training, and for professional uses freshman mathematics can be taught so that the student learns to differentiate and integrate, which he needs to know preprofessionally outside of professional mathematics, or he can be taught them and mathematical analysis as well, either for general education, which includes a glimpse of the beauties of the mathematician’s universe, or as part of preprofessional work in mathematics. The clash between two of the ways of addressing a subject was neatly illustrated last spring by the resignation of 11 members of the Dartmouth medical school faculty who wanted to teach biochemistry, micro-biology and cytology as professional subjects rather than as preprofessional training for medicine.

The problem in the humanities is easier. One can argue that the ability to write a simple sentence is preprofessional education widely neglected, but for the most part English is taught as general education. But mathematics, physics, and chemistry are general education of a special sort, preprofessional education more narrowly.

The Challenge of Teaching

Most professional mathematicians, physicists, and chemists — and economists, political scientists, and psychologists as well — prefer professional to general preprofessional teaching. Preprofessional teaching for the narrow group or students which you know is going to be drawn further into the professional subject being taught is challenging and fascinating, but as general education, or preprofessional training for other fields, such training often fails to engage the excitement of the ordinary as opposed to the great teacher. The ordinary teacher is more engaged by the subject than by the students as people. The result is that he may succumb to the temptation to neglect this teaching, or to make it interesting to himself by making it more professional, or both. On his side the student is either bewildered or bored, or both. It is on this account that the quality of teaching in the first two years presents a problem of particular difficulty.

The problem is met not only at the university level. In medical school, I understand, the first two years are taken up with some anatomy and physiology but with a great deal of preprofessional training in biophysics, biochemistry, and subjects like pharmacology. It is difficult to have these well taught on the one hand, and well learned on the other, when the main professional mission or the school is clinical medicine.

Articulation: Skip or Repeat?

Articulation is painful. If the superbly trained preprofessional has to follow the regular route he is bored and discouraged. If he tries to skip large portions of early professional training which his preprofessional work presumably covered, he is never quite clear what of the work the others are taking he has mastered and what he has not.

Medical schools’ admissions officers profess to be looking for broad-gauged young men and women with wide-ranging interests developed through general education rather than those who have extensive study and good grades in biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics. In their admissions choices, however, they are likely to favor the science specialist over the generalist on the score or preprofessional advantage. But this leaves the particularly well-trained young scientist likely to waste a great deal of the first two years of medical school while his generalist colleagues catch up. The problem is particularly acute for graduates of such preprofessional curricula as molecular biology at places like M.I.T. for they are catapulted somewhere into the middle of the normal first two years of training in medicine

We have a similar problem in graduate education in economics for those students who come to us with excellent training in social science from their undergraduate institutions. For them to take the first year of graduate training — the regular courses in micro- and macro-economic theory, mathematics, statistics and economic history — involves a duplication of some 60 to 75 per cent of what they have already studied. The second time around, and more systematically, this material is warmed-over porridge and not very appetizing. But to leap right into the second year of graduate work runs the risk of missing vital elements of preparation in the 25 to 40 per cent which has been missed. And we find that the undergraduate teachers have exhausted a considerable portion of the wonder and beauty of first looking into Marshall’s Principles, if I may transliterate a line from Keats; indeed, a small but disturbing fraction of our best-taught young men become sufficiently discouraged to drop out. This can be regarded perhaps a difficulty of articulating professional rather than preprofessional education, but it is a general one.

The Several Routes to a Profession

Some of these difficulties might be overcome if the choice of profession were made earlier and all students followed the same path. But this is impossible. Professional choices are not made consistently by various young people at the same stage, with the result that there must be a variety of avenues to professional education rather than merely one. And if professional choice is made only in the junior year of college, at 21, it is hard to push the preprofessional training to lower levels.

While there are children who have known since the age of five that they wanted to be involved with electricity, or machinery, or the human body as a life’s work, career choice is more and more presenting a difficult problem to American youth. Two generations ago father dominance helped, and hurt, such choice. Today fathers know enough not to push their children in directions of which they approve — or most of them know enough. The result is that career choice is much more squarely left to youth and is consequently fraught with youthful tension. The college dropout phenomenon is one aspect. Some young men welcome the army, the Peace Corps, or a year of travel, as legitimate means of delay in facing the necessity for career choice. Certain types of graduate training — business and law — are an escape from the need for decision. But even at M.I.T. at least 30 per cent of our undergraduates end up majoring in a different field than they put down as their intended specialization when they were admitted, and 20 per cent actually switch majors after they have chosen one at the end of their freshman year.

The social sciences labor under a considerable disability here, because fixing on a social science as a career comes as a rule much later than comparable decisions in science, engineering, medicine, or humanities. Children are aware of the body, animals, earth, sky, machines, and even prose, poetry, and the existence of the past, long before they become aware of the complexities of human society. The early models for career choice, as is well known, are firemen, policemen, and, in my day, streetcar conductors.

The consequence of late career decision is that one cannot insist that all applicants for professional training have completed their preprofessional work on admission — that all M.I.T. students, for example, come with calculus, or all medical students already have molecular biology, biochemistry, and biophysics. The only equitable, and I may add efficient, system of education is to keep all options open as long as possible. In consequence preprofessional cannot be dumped completely onto other training systems — by the technological institutes on to the schools, and by the graduate training programs on to the colleges. Some preprofessional education must be kept side-by-side with the professional, to offer a chance for the later chooser to catch up. This means that professional education must maintain a several-track system.

To keep preprofessional and professional education side-by-side in the same institution presents problems of teaching, as has already been mentioned. The ordinary instructor finds it easy and productive to take on advanced professional students — undergraduates in their senior year, or graduate students who have mastered the fundamentals. They work together, as members of a scholarly team, able to communicate in two directions. Preprofessional teaching, as I have said is less interesting.

There is no good solution for this problem. To divide the university into upper and lower division, as is sometimes done, creates a two-class system with invidious overtones. To separate preprofessional training off into colleges with dedicated teachers, and admit students to the universities only into graduate school from the four-year colleges and into the upper classes from junior colleges would not only violate traditions — which are important in the lives of institutions — but also compound the problem of articulation. The solution we see at M.I.T. is to strengthen the place of preprofessional teaching in the value system of the Institute, to restore it to the high esteem it enjoyed before it slipped under the pressure on staff of research, consulting, professional service and keeping up with the literature. No one contemplates that it is possible to staff a first-rate technological institution completely with instructors who are first-rate at teaching as they are at research and professional service. But the administration, the faculty, and the students can let all instructing staff know that whatever the professional demands on their time, teaching is not the marginal and dispensable activity.

Professional Education

The central issues in professional education have mostly been touched upon already: the extension or the material to be mastered, the difficulties of starting earlier because of late career choice, the downgrading of the bachelor’s and master’s degrees, the development postdoctoral training, the need for a rigorous scientific (instead of rule-of-thumb and seat-of-the-pants) approach in the applied fields because of the rapid rate of obsolescence, and so on. But I would make three points.

First, there is a risk that the revulsion from the empirical approach to engineering and applied social science in favor of science and pure theory can be carried too far. The simplest solution to a problem is not only the most efficient; it is also the most elegant. While it is true that one can stumble on solutions to applied problems as a by-product of pure theory, it is also true that theory is sometimes pursued for its own sake beyond the point of diminishing returns. It is not clear how much biophysics should be known to the gynecologist, how much topology to the student of fiscal policy, how much communication theory to the professor of the French language. I sometimes characterize these problems by a reference to medieval scholasticism and ask how many angels can dance on the rate of interest. Theory and pure mathematics are at the top or the pecking order in the intellectual world, and this is as it should be, just as the theoretical and mathematical requirements for the lowliest professional specialties have been increased. But high power can be overdone.

Second, the question of interdisciplinary education remains complex. The practitioner continues to be trained in a variety of fields — history, law, economics and political science for the foreign service officer; contracts, property, wills, constitution and international law for the lawyer (although the Yale Law School curriculum has been altered to include a year and a half of specialization); finance, statistics, accounting, marketing, and psychology for business; and so on. At the same time, research is increasingly conducted by centers which bring different specialists to bear on a single problem with the vantage point of their own focus: aeronautical, electrical, and mechanical engineers in instrumentation, for example. But the professional teaching which produces these scholars cannot be widely interdisciplinary. A man must master one social or physical science before attempting to integrate two. In my experience, the joint degree which bridges two or more fields in one Ph.D. is satisfactory neither for the student nor the faculty involved, and not only because of jurisdictional jealousies. Each field has an intellectual integrity as a discipline, much as it may lack in providing the complete answer to a complex research problem. The attempt to master them all ends in a mastery of none.

This is a pat answer which does not fully satisfy me. More and more professional practice is becoming the equivalent of research. Architectural design of a building is no longer a simple problem of drawing and construction engineering; as we at M.I.T. are acutely conscious, an architect needs to master the Venturi principle if his skyscraper is not to set up wind currents or micro-meteorology which makes it difficult to open the building’s doors. The designer of a rehousing project has to understand sociological grouping into communities.

Third, the narrowing distinction between research and practice leads me to question the desirability or intermediate degrees between the master’s and the doctorate, which we have developed at M.I.T. in the engineer degrees. These degrees are awarded to students who have completed the course work for the doctorate but who do not write the thesis. Their justification is that the student has undertaken course work beyond the master’s level and should get academic recognition for it. I can understand awarding the intermediate degree as a consolation prize to a student who is not being allowed to go on for the doctorate because of insufficient research creativity, or to a fully competent student who is unable for one reason or another to finish his thesis and who has gone far beyond the master’s level. But these degrees should not become ends in themselves. Teachers should have had exposure to a substantial research experience. and so. if possible, should practitioners.

IF there is an overpowering amount for professionals to learn, not only in the separate fields but in combining one or more of them, there is no need to learn it all at once, in the four, five, six to ten years between high school and professional practice. One of the most interesting developments in professional education today is mid-career schooling. This began in the business schools and is spreading rapidly. At M.I.T. we have the Sloan School of Management programs for junior and senior executives, the new Center for Advanced Engineering Study, and a host of one- and two-week summer courses. The larger companies — General Motors, General Electric, I.B.M., to cite only those I have lectured to — run training programs for their own executives. The American Bar Association has a Committee on Continuing Legal Education which runs week-long, weekend and day seminars on new problems in the law. The medical associations, national, state, and specialty groups, conduct study sessions of varying length in new techniques, medicines, specialties.

Mid-career education presents serious teaching problems. The engineer returning to the Center for Advanced Engineering Study, or the young executive enrolled in the Sloan Fellowship Program at M.I.T., is likely to need preprofessional brushing up before he can handle the material taught in professional subjects. The Sloan Fellows’ beginning experience is a summer term spent in a specially designed course which gets them up to first-year graduate speed for the regular year. The Center for Advanced Engineering has had design and give special subjects in modern calculus and quantum mechanics. This preprofessional teaching, I can say from experience, has its own special rewards for the teacher, because the students have a fresh point of view, a capacity to relate theory to real situations in a way that the undergraduate and regular graduate student cannot do. But here is another special job of teaching, and that is expensive.

Mid-career education is expensive for the university, for the student (who must uproot his family for the time) and for his company, which normally pays both his salary and tuition charges. Its great contribution is not the correction of obsolescence though this has importance. The real point is to give an opportunity in today’s complex world for a man who has worked his way through one field, and demonstrated his capacity, to introduce a slight shift in orientation and train for wider responsibilities. It used to be that only the armed services were wise enough to see its desirability and budget for the expense of training at all stages of a successful career. The State Department has long had program of sending individuals to do a year of graduate work and is now beginning to operate its own foreign Service Institute course of six months. It seems inevitable that government, industry, the learned professions and, above all others, university instructors must count on continuing education and re-education in a world of changing knowledge and maturing people.

This mid-career training need not be undertaken by the universities. The costs of adding to the diversity of the multiversity are high. It is more cheaply done without uprooting families. And yet there is benefit in bringing people from different companies, backgrounds and experience to rub elbows, in plunging the man of affairs back into the scholarly environment. The profit is mutual, so long as mid-career trainees do not overwhelm the academic tradition. There are obvious limits to how far universities can respond to the demand. If mid-career education grows, as is likely, it is reasonable to expect the development of new institutions which provide the specialized preprofessional training and mix students from different backgrounds.

No pat series of answers emerges from a discussion of professional education. I feel confident in rejecting a number of proposals for major reform. Starting professional studies earlier is undesirable insofar as it cuts general education on the one hand and closes off options for late deciders on the other. Eliminating the doctoral dissertation, or converting it to a longish paper representing a couple of months’ work, abolishes the vital test of whether a man can organize and carry through a substantial research project, a test of increasing importance in a world where the distinction between research and practice is narrowing. Dividing the university into divisions for general education and professional training not only misses the point that the same treatment of a subject can be preprofessional, general, or professional education for students with different abilities, backgrounds, and programs, but divides the faculty into elite and non-elite members in a way which subverts morale and harms the teaching mission of the university. How to improve the university’s performance in discharging the mission of general and preprofessional teaching remains an imposing challenge. Social science is a long way from ability to change value systems, and the real solution to the problem of undergraduate teaching is to restore the prestige accorded to non-professional teaching in the value systems or university staffs.

We have come a long way in American education, I believe, when we recognize that we have serious problems of what, when and how to teach and are prepared to modify the traditional system and to experiment with new techniques. The exact character of the new techniques may be less important than the attitude that the subject is important and that present conditions can be improved.

My basic conclusion is the trite one: professional education is a vastly different process than providing a young man with a hatful of formulas and training him to select the right one for the right occasion. The real task is to teach — if it can be taught, or by example to train — the young to attack a problem as a good experimental physicist, biologist, engineer, or economist would; to have a feel for the data and for the limits of standard analytical techniques; to sense, after a time, the distinction between the run-of-the-mill textbook case and that with new and puzzling complications. It is not enough to do what a professional does: one must think the way a professional thinks. And this capacity is communicated in a complex osmotic process which may be independent of or only very loosely connected with prerequisites, examinations, credits, and theses, much less closed-circuit television, teaching machines, computers, and high-powered mathematics. The educational process is an elusive one, but I venture to predict that in the long run it will be found to resemble more the chemistry of slow-cooking on the back of the stove than that of infrared split-second broiling of steaks from the deep freeze.

Source: MIT, Technology Review, 69(1), November 1966.

Image Source: Portrait of Charles Poor Kindleberger at the MIT Museum website. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Tags Kindleberger

Berkeley Curriculum Economics Programs

Berkeley. Expansion of economics course offerings announcement. Course offerings 1904-1905.

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-03-21

In May 1903 the College of Commerce at the University of California announced a complete reorganization of the economics department’s course offerings for the coming academic year. This was reported in the Berkeley Gazette newspaper which appears to be a slight rearrangment of the University of California’s official Register for 1903-04. The newspaper article is provided in this post followed by the faculty and course announcements for the 1904-05 academic year.

So in the yin and yang of economic theory and application, practical economics received a boost at Berkeley early in the twentieth century with the introduction of “…a large number of new courses in economics of the most direct practical application to the needs of modern industrial life.”

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Enlarges Economic Courses.
University Offers New Opportunities for Students of Practical Business.
[Announced for 1903-1904]

In response to the needs of the rapidly increasing number of students enrolled in the College of Commerce of the University of California, the work of the Department of Economics has been completely reorganized. Announcement has been made of a large number of new courses in economics of the most direct practical application to the needs of modern industrial life. These courses will be of the greatest interest, however, not only to students who are fitting themselves for banking, insurance, commerce, manufacturing, and exploitation of mineral resources, but also to the theoretical student.

Professor Carl C. Plehn, Dean of the College of Commerce, will offer during the coming year a course in “American Agriculture,” in which he will discuss the development of agriculture in the United States and its present condition from an economical point of view; a new course in “Accounting and Corporation Finance,” setting forth the principles of accounting and credit as illustrated by the methods of large corporations and of the Government, the character of negotiable securities, and the methods exemplified in bank statements and railroad and other corporation and trusts accounts: and courses in “Public Finance,” “Taxation,” and in “Statistics.”

Assistant Professor Wesley C. Mitchell will offer a new course in “Banking,” intended primarily to give men who expect to engage in business such general knowledge of banking as will best prepare them for their professions; a new course in “Hondy” [sic, very likely a typographical error with “Money” the actual course name, see below] — a study of the economic problems centering around the monetary system; and courses in “Elementary Economic Ideas;” “The Problem of Labor” — a study of the position of wage earners in the economic organization of today; and in “Economic Origins.”

Mr. Lincoln Hutchinson, Instructor in Commercial Geography, will offer a new course in “The Materials of Commerce,” dealing with the principal commodities which enter into commercial affairs, production, sources and markets; a new course on the “Industrial and Commercial Development of the United States,” involving a discussion of the leading commercial problems of the day; a new course entitled the “Economic Position of the Great Powers,” a new course on “The Consular Service,” involving a brief history of the consular service, followed by a technical study of the training and duties of consuls and the practice of the leading commercial nations in consular affairs; and courses in “The History of Commerce,” “Commercial Geography,” and “The Commercial Resources of the Spanish-American Countries.”

Dr. Simon Litman, who recently came to the University as Instructor in Commercial Practice, will offer new courses in “Tariff Policies,” in “Modern Colonial Economics,” a study of the principal commercial and industrial problems which arise in connection with colonial conditions, as illustrated by the experience of the leading colonizing nations, and in “Communication and Transportation,” a study of the Post, the Telegraph, the Telephone, Trade Journals, and facilities for transportation other than railroads; and he will repeat courses already given in “Industrial Processes” and “The Technique of Trade.”

The instruction offered by the Department of Economics will be rounded out by special economic courses offered by professors in other departments. Professor Elwood Mead of the chair of Irrigation will offer a course on “The Organization of the Irrigation Industry,” Professor John C. Moore courses on “The Methods China and Japan,” Professor Ernest C. Moore courses on “The Methods of Modern Charities and Corrections,” and Albert W. Whitney of the Department of Mathematics -a new course in “Insurance,” an account of the history, principles and problems of life, fire, and other forms of insurance, with special study of the mathematical principles involved in actuarial science, and with practice in the computation and use of tables; and Mr. N. M. Hall of the Botany Department a course in “Economic Botany,” dealing with the plant families which furnish important commercial products and agricultural crops.

The work in economics will be completed by the highly important courses offered by the head of the department, Professor Adolph C. Miller of the chair of Political Economy and Commerce. Professor Miller announces a new course in “Railway Transportation,” an examination of the chief financial and economical questions which arise in railway organization and management, embracing such topics as capitalization, speculation, accounting, rate-making, competition, pooling, and consolidation; a new course in “Socialism,” a review of modern socialistic thought with some consideration of its bearing on the proper conception of the problem of social organization; a course in “Modern Industrialism,” dealing with the workings of competition and the tendency toward industrial monopolies; “The Financial History of the United States,” and a course in “Advanced Economics.”

As the culmination of the work of the department, Professor Miller announces a Seminary in Economics. Arrangements will be made for the guidance of individual students or groups of students competent, to engage in economical research. The results will be presented to the Seminary for discussion as occasion may suggest.

Source: The Berkeley Gazette (May 1, 1903), p. 2.

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Economics Course Offerings
[1904-1905]

Adolph Caspar Miller, M.A., Flood Professor of Political Economy and Commerce.

Carl Copping Plehn, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Finance and Statistics, on the Flood Foundation, and Dean of the Faculty of the College of Commerce.

Henry Rand Hatfield, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Accounting, on the Flood Foundation,

Wesley Clair Mitchell, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Commerce, on the Flood Foundation

Simon Litman, Dr.jur., Instructor in Commercial Practice.

Jessica Blanche Peixotto, Ph.D., Lecturer in Sociology.

Elwood Mead, M.S., C.E., D.Eng., Professor of the Institutions and Practice of Irrigation.

Thomas Walker Page, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Mediæval History.

Ernest Carroll Moore, LL.B., Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Education.

Albert Wurts Whitney, A.B., Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Insurance Methods.

1. The courses prerequisite to a group (15 units) of Upper Division work in the departments of History, Political Science, Economics, or Jurisprudence are any three of the following five; History 51, 54, 64, Political Science 1 (A and B), and Economics 1. No part of the work in the group of advanced courses is to be undertaken until all the three prerequisite courses shall have been completed.

2. But students who plan to take less than twelve units of Upper Division work in the four departments above mentioned may proceed immediately with the advanced courses for which they have the particular prerequisites.

The above regulations apply to students graduating in or after May, 1907. Other students are requested to observe the rules set forth in the Register for 1903-04, page 143.

A. Lectures on Commerce. Members of the Staff.

1 hr., throughout the year, ½ unit each half-year. M, 4. Prescribed each year for all students in the College of Commerce.

1. Introduction to Economics. Professor Miller.

A study of the elementary laws of economics as illustrated in the growth of industry and commerce in England and the United States.
3 hrs., throughout the year. M W F, 9.

2. Principles of Economics. Professor Miller and Assistant Professor Mitchell.

A critical exposition of the leading principles of economics on the basis of a selected text.
3 hrs., either half-year. First half-year, M W F, 10; second half-year, M W F, 9. Prerequisite: Course 1.
N. B. — This course should be taken by all students who intend to take any considerable amount of Economics.

5. Economics of Industry. Associate Professor Plehn.

An elementary course planned to meet the needs of the students in the Engineering Colleges.
3 hrs., first half-year. MWF, 1.

N.B. — This course will not be accepted as fulfilling any prescribed work in the College of Commerce, nor in the Colleges of General Culture.

3. Introduction to Commercial Geography. Associate Professor Hatfield.

The elements of scientific geography; relation between geographical phenomena and economical development; brief survey of the resources of the leading countries of the world.
2 hrs., first half-year. Tu Th, 11. Prerequisite: Course 1.

4. The Materials of Commerce. [Not given in 1904-05.]

The principal commodities which enter into commercial dealings; causes promoting their production; effects of climate, soil, and other conditions; detailed study of their sources, and of the markets in which they are sold.
3 hrs., second half-year. Tu Th S, 10. Prerequisite: Course 3.

4A. Geography of International Trade. Associate Professor Hatfield.

Demand and supply in the world markets; exports and imports of the leading countries; sea-ports; commercial and industrial centers; routes and methods of transportation; postal and telegraphic communication, etc.
2 hrs., second-half year. Tu Th, 11. Prerequisite: Course 3.

5a. American Agriculture. Associate Professor Plehn.

Leading factors in the development of agriculture in the United States and a study of its present condition from an economical point of view. This course will be based largely upon the materials furnished by the government reports and the census returns.
3 hrs., second half-year. M W F, 1. Prerequisite: Course 1, except that advanced students in the College of Agriculture may be admitted, with the consent of the instructor, without Course 1B, but a familiarity with the fundamental ideas and terminology of economics is essential.

6. History of Commerce. [Not given in 1904-05.]

Mediaeval commerce and the “Golden Age” of the Italian Republics; Turkish conquests and the “Age of Discovery”; new routes and the shifting of trade centers; the era of colonization and commercial rivalries; mercantilism and its results; nineteenth century commerce; its development and problems.
3 hrs., second half-year. Tu Th S, 10. Prerequisite: Course 3 and one course in English History.

7. Modern Industrialism. Professor Miller. [Not given in 1904-05.]

A descriptive and interpretative account of the rise of the modern industrial system, especially as affected by the Industrial Revolution. The workings of competition in the nineteenth century and the recent tendency toward the formation of industrial monopolies will receive particular attention.
3 hrs., second half-year. M W F, 2. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2.

8. Theory and History of Banking. Assistant Professor Mitchell.

A study of banking from the standpoint of its relations to the economic development of society. To show what rôle banks have played in this development and the functions they perform at present, attention will be directed to the origin of banking in Europe and America; the gradual changes in banking methods; governmental policies toward banks; the relations between banking, monetary, and fiscal systems; the effect of banking operations upon price fluctuations; the control of banks over the direction of investment; the special banking requirements of different communities; etc.
3 hrs., second half-year. M W F, 8. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2.

8A. Practical Banking. Associate Professor Hatfield.

The internal organization and administration of a modern bank, the nature of bank investments, the extension of credit, the valuation of an account, methods of keeping records.
3 hrs., first half-year. Tu Th S, 10. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2.

8B. Money. Assistant Professor Mitchell.

A study of the economic problems centering around the monetary system.
3 hrs., first half-year. M W F, 8. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2.

8C. International Exchanges. Assistant Professor Mitchell.

Foreign bills; a study of the various factors that affect their price; international trade in commodities; investments of capital in foreign countries; interest rates in important money-markets; shipments of gold; etc.
2 hrs., second half-year. Tu Th, 9. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2.

9. Public Finance-Taxation. Associate Professor Plehn.

The theory and methods of taxation, illustrated by the experience of various nations; the expenditure and administration of public funds; public debts. Especial attention will be paid to taxation in California.
3 hrs., first half-year. M W F, 2. Prerequisite: Course 1.

10. Statistics. Associate Professor Plehn.

The history, theory, and methods of statistics. The collection, analysis, and presentation of statistical data relating to eco nomics and kindred sciences. Practice in the use of mechanical, graphical, and other devices, and apparatus for tabulation, computation and analysis.
3 hrs., throughout the year, including one laboratory period. Tn Th, 11, and a laboratory period to be arranged.
Prerequisite: Course 1; Mathematics 20A must be taken in conjunction with this course. The special consent of the instructor is also necessary.

11. Insurance. Assistant Professor Whitney.

An account of the history, principles and problems of Insurance, particularly of Life-insurance and of Fire-insurance; a special study of the mathematical principles involved in actuarial science, with practice in the computation and use of tables.
3 hrs., second half-year. M W F, 9. Prerequisite: Mathematics 20a.

(77) The Economic Factors in American History. Associate Professor Page.

This course is intended to present, in their proper historical perspective, the facts and tendencies in the growth of American commerce, industry, and finance, and to indicate their influence on the constitutional and social development of the nation.
3 hrs., first half-year. M W F, 3. Prerequisite: Course 1 and two courses in American History.
[This course may be recorded as Economics 77 or History 77.]

12. Industrial and Commercial Development of the United States. [Not given in 1904-05.]

A study of the economic growth of the United States during the nineteenth century. The object is to give the student an understanding of causes which have brought the country to its present position among the nations of the world, and a basis for discussion of the leading commercial problems of to-day.
3 hrs., first half-year. Tu Th S, 9. Prerequisite: At least Sophomore standing, Course 3, and one course in American History.

12A. History of Economic Science. Professor Miller.

A critical review of the leading systems of economic thought since the sixteenth century.
2 hrs., first half-year. Tu Th, 2. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2, and at least Junior standing.

13A. Problems of Labor. Assistant Professor Mitchell.

The position of wage-earners in the economic organization of to-day.
3 hrs., first half-year. M W F, 9. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2, and at least Junior standing.

14. Principles of Accounting. Associate Professor Hatfield.

The interpretation of accounts with regard to the need of the business manager rather than those of the accountant. The formation and meaning of the balance sheet. The profit and loss statement. The various accounts appearing in the balance sheet and errors frequently found therein.
3 hrs., throughout the year. Tu Th S, 9. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2.

14A. The Investment Market. Associate Professor Hatfield.

Investment securities, corporation stocks and bonds, municipal and government bonds, market quotations, operations on the stock exchange, foreign and domestic exchange, the construction and use of exchange, bond and interest tables.
3 hrs., second half-year. Tu Th S, 9. Prerequisite: Course 14.

15. Financial History of the United States. Professor Miller.

A detailed study of the legislation and experience of the United States touching currency, banking, debt, taxation, expenditure, etc. The work will be based, as far as possible, on first-hand examination of sources.
3 hrs., second half-year. M W F, 10. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2, and at least Junior standing.

16A. Railway Transportation. Associate Professor Plehn.

An examination of the chief financial and economic questions which arise in railway organization and management, embracing such topics as capitalization, speculation, and accounting, rate making, competition, pooling, consolidation, etc.
3 hrs., second half-year. M W F, 2. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2, and at least Junior standing.

18. Methods of Modern Charities and Corrections; Theoretical. Assistant Professor Moore.

Studies in the administration of poor relief, the treatment of delinquents and defectives. Readings and lectures.
2 hrs., first half-year. Tu Th, 2. Prerequisite: Course 1 and Philosophy 2. Class to be limited at the discretion of the instructor.

19. Methods of Modern Charities and Corrections; Investigation. Assistant Professor Moore.

Investigation and field work to be done in part in connection with the Associated Charities of San Francisco and Oakland.
2 hrs., second half-year. Tu Th, 2. Prerequisite: Course 18.

23. Modern Industrial Processes. Dr. Litman.

The development and present condition of leading modern industries with particular reference to such industries as now exist or may be established on the Pacific Coast; emphasis will be laid on the technical processes.
3 hrs., first half-year. MWF, 10. Prerequisite: Course 1.

24. Mechanism and Technique of Trade. Dr. Litman.

Devices used by governments and individuals to promote commerce; exposition of the work performed by Boards of Trade, Commercial Museums, Mercantile Agencies, of transactions on Produce and Stock Exchanges, of modern wholesale and retail trade organizations. The course will include the reading by the student of mercantile publications, such as consular reports, trade and financial journals, etc.
3 hrs., first half-year. M W F, 9. Prerequisite: Course 1.

24A. Business Forms and Practice. Dr. Litman.

Detailed study of methods and forms used in connection with the purchase, sale and forwarding of goods; calculations necessitated by the various systems of weights, measures and moneys in different countries; the significance of price quotations in different markets; the meaning and determination of standards and grades as to quality; the forms and functions of invoices, bills of lading, warehouse receipts, consular certificates, and other business documents relating to trade.
3 hrs., second half-year. M W F, 9. Prerequisite: Course 1.

30. Economic Position of the Great Powers. [Not given in 1904-05.]

A comparative study of the commercial and industrial position of the leading nations, with particular reference to the countries of Europe.
2 hrs., first half-year. Tu Th, 11. Prerequisite: Course 3, at least Junior standing, and ability to use French and German statistical publications; consent of instructor must be obtained before enrollment.

31. The Consular Service. [Not given in 1904-05.]

A brief history of the consular service, followed by a technical study of the training and duties of consuls and the practice of the leading commercial nations in regard to appointments, etc.
2 hrs., second half-year. Tu Th, 11. Prerequisite: At least Junior standing; the consent of the instructor must be obtained before enrollment.

35. Customs Tariffs and Regulations. Dr. Litman.

Tariffs and existing reciprocity treaties and agreements of the leading commercial nations with special reference to the Tariff Law and Customs Regulations of the United States. A short tariff history and a general discussion of the aims and means of tariff policies will precede the practical part of the course, which latter will acquaint the student with the problems confronting the American importer and exporter in connection with duties, bounties, etc.
2 hrs., first-half-year. Tu Th, 2. Prerequisite: Course 1.

36. Modern Colonial Economics. Dr. Litman.

The principal commercial and industrial problems which arise in connection with colonial conditions, as illustrated by the experience of the leading colonizing nations. The object of this course is to acquaint the student with questions confronting a merchant and an investor in different colonies, and to show him how these have been and may be dealt with.
2 hrs., second half-year. Tu Th, 2. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2.

37. Communication and Transportation. Dr. Litman.

Means and methods of communication and transportation other than railroads, and their utilization in the service of commerce. An exhaustive study of internal, coast, and trans-oceanic shipping, of modern harbor facilities, of the post, the express, the telegraph, the telephone, etc.
3 hrs., second half-year. M W F, 10. Prerequisite: Course 1.

38. Commercial Resources of the Spanish-American Countries. [Not given in 1904-05.]

Detailed study of the geography, natural resources, and possibilities of development of these countries, devoting a year to each. In 1903–04 the Argentine Republic was studied. Particular attention is given to commercial relations with the United States. 1 hr., throughout the year. Hour to be arranged. Open only to graduate students who satisfy the instructor of their preparation for the work.

40. Economic Origins. Assistant Professor Mitchell.

An investigation of the origin and early development of fundamental economic customs and institutions.
2 hrs., first half-year. Tu Th, 10. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2.

42. Contemporary Socialism. Dr. Peixotto.

A study of the program and methods of the contemporary socialistic parties; a critical investigation of the theories on which these programs are based.
3 hrs., first half-year. M W F, 3. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2, and at least Junior standing.

43. History of Socialism. Dr. Peixotto.

An examination of the antecedents of contemporary socialism.
3 hrs., second half-year. M W F, 3. Prerequisite: Course 42.

45. Advanced Economics. Professor Miller.

This course is designed for students who wish to make a more thorough study of economic theory than can be undertaken in Courses 1 and 2. The aim is to work out a tenable system of economics on the basis of an examination of the theories of leading writers, past and present.
2 hrs., second half-year. Tu Th, 2. Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 2, and at least Senior standing.

20. History and Theory of Prices. Associate Professor Plehn.

The methods of scientific investigation applicable to a study of prices and the causes of their fluctuations.
The course runs throughout the year and credit will be given according to work done. For graduates only. A good training in economics and mathematics and a reading knowledge of French and German are prerequisite.

26. Seminary in Economics. Professor Miller.

Under this head are included arrangements for the guidance of the work of individual students, or groups of students, competent to engage in economic research. The results will be presented to the seminary for discussion as occasion may suggest. The course runs throughout the year, and credit will be given according to work done.

Oriental Languages 1A. Commerce of China and Japan. Professor Fryer.

A course of lectures on the historical and geographical features of the commerce of China and Japan, adapted for students in general, but particularly for those in the College of Commerce.
3 hrs., first half-year. M W F, 1.
[John Fryer, LL.D., Agassiz Professor of Oriental Languages and Literatures.]

Botany 14. Economic Botany. Mr. H. M. Hall.

Laboratory work on the morphology, relationships, properties, and geographical distribution of the plant families which furnish important commercial products and agricultural crops, accompanied by lectures on the uses, origin, cultivation, collection, and commerce of plant products.
6 hrs., first half-year; 3 units. M W F, 8–10.
[Harvey M Hall, M.S., Instructor in Botany, and Assistant Botanist to the Experiment Station]

Irrigation 1. Irrigation Institutions and Economics. Professor Mead and Mr. Stover.

Present conditions of irrigation in the United States; irrigation legislation; methods of establishing rights to water; interstate problems; conditions necessary to development of the agricultural resources of the arid west; comparisons of irrigation methods and laws of other lands with those of the United States; irrigation in humid sections of the United States; operation of irrigation works, individual, coöperative and corporate enterprises; national irrigation; water right contracts; duty of water. Lectures and recitations.
3 hrs., second half-year. Prescribed, Senior year, in the course in Irrigation Engineering, College of Civil Engineering, and in some courses in the College of Agriculture. Elective to students in Economics.
[Elwood Mead, M.S., C.E., Professor of the Institutions and Practice of Irrigation.
Arthur P. Stover, B.S., Instructor in Irrigation Engineering.]

Source: University of California. Register, 1904-1905, pp. 153-162, 171, 237-238, 264.

Image Source: University of California Buildings, Berkeley California, ca. 1907. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

Tags Hatfield, LitmanS, MillerAC, Mitchell, Peixotto, Plehn

Economics Programs Harvard

Harvard. Fin de siècle look at the economics department. 1896

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-09-07

The department of political economy at Harvard University was not even two decades old when a Boston newspaper printed the following report about the expansion in economics course offerings that took place between the single prescribed course taught seniors by Francis (a.k.a. Fanny) Bowen in 1849-50 to the twenty or so courses taught in 1896.

_________________________

1896 Newspaper Report

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

Development of the Department of Economies and the Large Increase in the Number of Students Electing the Study.

The interests aroused during the progress of the recent campaign undoubtedly account to some extent for the unusually large number of men here electing work this year in the department of economics. This increase has been already noted. Courses in finance which have never before numbered above twenty or thirty men have more than doubled, while the course known as economics 1, which last year opened with 370 men, now has 510. [In the President’s Report for 1896-1897 the final number enrolled in Economics 1 was reported as 464] The number of men electing economics 1 has increased from year to year, and now practically every undergraduate takes the course at some time or other during his college career. If he intends to specialise in economics he takes the course usually in his sophomore year; if he does not so intend, he may take it in his junior or senior year.

Within the department of economics are grouped together, with courses purely economic in character, others more properly sociological, political and financial. Those in social ethics are included in the department of philosophy, while those which deal with the forms of government and with the development of social institutions are given in the department of history and government. Within these several departments are minor groups of courses devoted to pretty well-defined lines of social inquiry, and so special and interdependent as to suggest the formation of new departments. The double title of the department of history and government indicates the extent to which the process of bifurcation has gone here, and the lines of separation are unmistakably forming within the department of economics.

A glance at some of the earlier catalogues reveals curious groupings of courses. Professor Francis Bowen, McLean professor of ancient and modern history and instructor in political economy, conducted as early as the year 1849-50 a course in political science, which was prescribed for seniors. In it Professor Bowen used as reference books John Stuart Mill’s “Political Economy,” [1848 ed., Volume I, Volume II] a book which is still used as a basis for the lectures given in the introductory course in economics; and Story’s “Commentaries on the Constitution.” After Professor Bowen was created Alford professor of natural religion, moral philosophy and civil polity he continued to give the only instruction in economics which the university offered at that time, and his course in philosophy came eventually to embrace a much wider range of topics than those indicated above, and was extended through the entire year. He lectured upon political economy and upon the English and American constitutions, and upon such a wide range of other topics, moral, ethical and metaphysical, that the ground covered by this single course is now apportioned among four departments.

With some modifications from year to year Professor Bowen continued his instruction along these lines, down through the period of the civil war, to the year 1871, when a professor of political economy was appointed. [It is interesting that the name of Charles F. Dunbar is not mentioned here, perhaps he wrote this article? Possibly Taussig?] In the year following two courses were offered under the heading “Political Science,” Mill’s “Political Economy” [1871, seventh edition. Volume I, Volume II] being reintroduced and used along with Bowen’s “Political Economy” and Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” [e.g., 1869, Rogers’ edition. Volume I,Volume II] as a basis for discussion and criticism.

These courses were soon after absorbed in the department of philosophy, where they continued to be offered until the year 1879-80, when the department of political economy was established. Development since, that date has been characterised by a gradual increase in the number of courses, from three in 1880 to the nineteen or twenty courses and half-courses that are now given. The department in the year 1886 began the publication of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, which was the first journal devoted exclusively to the advancement of economic theory that was ever printed in English.

Among the more advanced courses are two devoted to the study of economic history[,] two to the history of economic theory, one to the scope and method of economics, three to subjects distinctly sociological — the principles of sociology, socialism and communism, and the labor question in Europe and America — another to the theory and methods of statistics, and a number of half courses devoted to special subjects in taxation, finance, international payments, tariff legislation, railway transportation and the like.

Another significant step was taken in 1891-92 in the organisation of the Economic Seminary, the importance of which can hardly be overestimated. Prior to the establishment of the seminary there had been no systematic provision made for the conduct of graduate work. Graduate students in the department who were working up their doctor’s theses did so under the guidance of the several instructors, but without any very satisfactory or clearly defined official status. All this has been changed and every provision is now made for graduate work. An advanced student may study entirely in connection with the seminary, and so he is freed from the necessity of registering in a certain number of courses where the work outlined is adapted to students less advanced. The Economic Seminary numbers at the present time some twenty-five men, each of whom is engaged in original work. The seminary meets once a week, and at each meeting some member reports upon the results of his investigations, receiving at the same time the criticism of his fellow students and of the instructors in the department.

Source: Boston Evening Transcript, December 16, 1896, p. 10.

Tags BowenF, Dunbar

Economics Programs Faculty Regulations Harvard

Harvard. Economics degree requirements, A.B./A.M./Ph.D., 1921-1922

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-06-05

In addition to Harvard’s requirements for the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in economics as of the academic year 1921-22, this post includes the A.B. degree requirements for concentrators in economics. Furthermore information regarding the overlap with a concentration in “social ethics” and the Ph.D. requirements for “business economics” has been included.

Degree Requirements for 1897-98.
Degree Requirements for 1911-12.
Degree Requirements for 1934-35.
Degree Requirements from 1947.
Degree Requirements from 1958.
Degree Regulations from 1968.

_________________________

Degree Requirements
in 1921-22

GENERAL INFORMATION

ORGANIZATION

The Division of History, Government, and Economics comprises three departments: History; Government; and Economics. The Division has charge of the administration of the degree of A.B. in History, in Government, and in Economics, and of the degree of Ph.D. in History, in Political Science, and in Economics. The recommendation of candidates for assistantships, fellowships, and scholarships is in the hands of the respective Departments; and each Department has charge of all matters relating specially to its own instruction.

DEGREES OF A.B. AND S.B.

The degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science are conferred usually after four years of residence, although a student who enters college without serious deficiency may complete the requirements for the degree in three years or three years and a half. At least one year of residence is required. Students of other colleges are admitted to advanced standing in Harvard College, without examination, on presenting testimonials of scholarship and character, and satisfactory evidence of work well performed in the institutions previously attended.

CONCENTRATION IN HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, OR ECONOMICS

The requirement for concentration in a department or field of distinction demands in this Division four courses in one department, either History, Government, or Economics, and two additional courses selected from those offered by the Division. A student concentrating in Economics may select as the two additional courses related courses in Social Ethics. No one may count toward his six courses more than two of the introductory courses, History 1, Government 1, and Economics A. The election of these six courses should be made with a view to the requirements for the final examination described below, and the advice of the student’s Tutor should be sought in selecting these and any further courses in the Division

DIVISION EXAMINATION

Students concentrating in the Division of History, Government, and Economics will, at the close of their college course and as a prerequisite to the degree of A.B. or S.B., be required to pass an examination upon the field of their concentration. This examination will cover the general attainments of each candidate in the field covered by this Division and also his attainments in a specific field of study. Candidates for the Division Examination at mid years must signify their intention of taking it on or before December 15; candidates for the examination at Commencement, on or before April 1. The examination will consist of three parts:

(a) A general written examination, which will be given in two parts: one designed to ascertain the comprehensive attainment of the candidate in the subjects of this Division; the other covering the work of the Department in which the student is concentrating. There will be a large number of alternative questions to allow for differences in preparation.

(b) A special written examination, which will test the student’s grasp of his chosen specific field (see list of fields below). The candidate will be expected to show a thorough understanding of the subject of this field; knowledge of the content of courses only will not suffice. The examination will be upon a subject, not upon a group of courses.

(c) An oral examination, supplementary to either or both of the written examinations, but usually bearing primarily upon the candidate’s specific field.

The specific field should ordinarily be chosen from the following list, which indicates also the courses bearing most directly upon each field. In special cases other fields or combinations of fields may be accepted by the Division. This field should be selected by the end of the Sophomore year. [Course announcement 1921-22]

[…]

Specific field of concentration	Courses ordinarily to be elected for concentration	Alternative courses for candidates for the degree with distinction	Suggested courses in other Departments to be elected for the purpose of concentration or to be taken as free electives
1. Economic Theory	Economics A, 7a, 7b, 10, and the equivalent of 1½ full courses from the following: 1a, 1b, 3, 4a, 4b, 5, 9a, 9b	Economics 11, 12, 14, 15	Philosophy 25a
2. Economic History	Economics A, 1b, 2a, 2b, 10 and the equivalent of 1 full course from the following: 3, 4a, 4b, 6a, 9b	Economics 23, 24, 33	History 17a, 17b, 32a, 32b, 57
3. Sociology	Economics A, 1b, 6a, 7a, 7b, 8, 10		Social Ethics 4, Anthropology 1, 12, Philosophy 25a
Applied Economics
4. Money and Banking	Economics A, 1a, 1b, 2b, 3, 10, and either 4a or 4b	Economics 37, 38
5. Corporate Organization	Economics A, 1a, 1b, 2b, 4a, 4b, 10, and either 2a or 6a	Economics 36a, 36b
6. Transportation	Economics A, 1a, 1b, 2b, 4a or 4b, 10, and either 2a or 6a	Economics 36a, 36b
7. Public Finance	Economics A, 1a, 1b, 2b, 5, 10, and either 2a or 9b	Economics 31, 36a, 36b	Government 9a, 9b, 17a, 17b
8. Labor Problems	Economics A, 1b, 2a, 2b, 6a, 7b, 10, and either 7a or 9a	Economics 34	Social Ethics 4,6
9. Economics of Agriculture	Economics A, 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 9a, 10, and either 4a or 9b	Economics 32
10. International Trade and Tariff Policy	Economics A, 1a, 1b, 2a, 2b, 9a, 9b, 10	Economics 33, 39

[…]

TUTORIAL INSTRUCTION

The general final examination has been established, not in order to place an additional burden upon candidates for the A.B., but for the purpose of securing better correlation of the student’s work, encouraging better methods of study, and furnishing a more adequate test of real power and attainment. To this end students concentrating in the Division will from the beginning of their Sophomore year have the guidance and assistance of special Tutors. The work of these Tutors will be to guide students in their respective fields of study, to assist them in coördinating the knowledge derived from different courses, and to stimulate in them the reading habit. Students will meet the Tutors in small groups and for individual conferences at intervals depending upon the nature of the student’s work, the rate of his progress, and the number of courses which he may be taking in this Division in any particular year. The work of Tutors will be entirely independent of the conduct of courses, and the Tutors as such will have no control over the work or the grades of any student in any college course. Their guidance and assistance will naturally be of indirect benefit to the student in his work in individual courses, but their main function will be to help the student and guide him in the kind of reading and study which will be most useful toward his general progress in this Division. The attitude of the Tutor will be that of a friend rather than of a taskmaster, and students may consult him freely and informally concerning any phase of their work.

CONCENTRATION IN SOCIAL ETHICS

An undergraduate concentrating in Social Ethics must take four courses in the Department of Social Ethics and two either in the Department of Philosophy and Psychology or in the Department of Economics, the entire programme to be approved by a member of the Department of Social Ethics. A written examination covering the general field of concentration will be required at the end of the Senior year.

TUTORIAL INSTRUCTION IN SOCIAL ETHICS

Students concentrating in Social Ethics will, from the beginning of their Sophomore year, receive the guidance and supervision of a Tutor. The Tutors will aid the students in correlating the work of their courses, and will direct them in special reading bearing upon the work of the Department and upon the students’ special fields of interest. The Tutors will seek especially to aid students in developing habits of profitable reading, in independent thinking, in scholarly method, and in the coördination and application of their knowledge. Students will meet their Tutors individually and in small groups from time to time, the constitution of the group and the frequency of meetings depending upon the nature of the students’ work and their rate of progress. The tutorial instruction is considered a regular part of the work of any student concentrating in the Department, and is reported upon from time to time to the Chairman of the Department. Every effort is made to establish personal and friendly relations between Tutors and students, and to this end the Tutors will always be glad to be consulted informally upon any matter in which they may be of assistance to the students.

[…]

THE DEGREE OF A.B. WITH DISTINCTION IN HISTORY, IN GOVERNMENT, AND IN ECONOMICS

In the opinion of the Faculty every undergraduate of superior ability should look to a considerable amount of advanced work in some subject or related subjects as a natural part of his undergraduate career; but it is not to be imagined that the Faculty intends to call for anything like original research on the part of undergraduates, or for the passing of examinations similar to those required for the higher degrees. The Degree with Distinction, it is believed, is so planned as to be within the reach of every student of good ability.

General Regulations. — The candidate for the degree of A.B. with Distinction in History, Government, and Economics shall make application, not later than November 1 of the year in which he expects to receive the degree, to the Division of History, Government, and Economics; he shall, at the same time, record his name and purpose at the office of the Dean of Harvard College. Students intending to become candidates are urged to put themselves, as early as the beginning of their Sophomore year, under the guidance of the Division.

The requirements for the degree cum laude and magna cum laude are the same. The grade of distinction depends on the excellence of the student’s work, as determined by the Division. If his work be judged unworthy of distinction, but worthy of a degree, the Division may recommend him for a degree without distinction.

Special Regulations. — Not later than November 1 of his final year of preparation, the candidate must present, for approval by the Division, a plan of study, which shall comprise at least seven courses, selected from those offered by the Division, and not including more than two from the three introductory courses, History 1, Government 1, and Economics A. This plan of study may, however, with the approval of the Division, include related courses offered by other Departments of the University, and also, by special vote of the Division, suitable work done outside of regular courses.

If four or more of the seven courses are courses in History, the candidate, if successful, will be recommended for the Degree with Distinction in History; if four or more of them are courses in Economics, he will be recommended for the Degree with Distinction in Economics; if four or more of them are courses in Government, he will be recommended for the Degree with Distinction in Government.

Besides this minimum requirement, the candidate may indicate in his plan of study any additional work done in History, Government, Economics, or in related subjects. The character and range of this work will be taken into account in determining the recommendation for the Degree with Distinction. The winning of a University prize in any of the subjects represented in the Division, such as a Bowdoin, Toppan, or Sumner prize, may, at the Division’s discretion, be accepted as evidence towards establishing a candidate’s qualification for the Degree with Distinction.

Not later than May 1 of his Senior year, the candidate will present to the Chairman of the Division a thesis; and he will be required to pass an examination on his general field, or on such portion of the field as the Division may determine. Successful candidates at this examination will be excused from the final examinations in their Senior year in the courses offered for the Degree with Distinction; and unsuccessful candidates at the examination may be recommended by the Division for the ordinary degree without taking the final examinations in such courses.

In the award of the Dillaway Fellowship preference will be given to the most successful candidate for the Degree with Distinction in History; and the Philip Washburn Prize is offered for the best thesis, of sufficient merit, on an historical subject presented by a successful candidate for the Degree with Distinction in History.

IN SOCIAL ETHICS

Candidates for Distinction must elect eight courses in the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, Social Ethics, and Economics, of which four must be in the Department of Social Ethics and two in each of the others, and must pass an oral examination in addition to the written.

[…]

IN COMBINATION WITH THE CLASSICS

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has established a degree with distinction based upon programmes combining studies in the Classics with the studies of the Division of History, Government, and Economics. Three different programmes are offered with the following requirements in each: –

[Classics and History; Classics and Government; Classics and Economics]

[…]

Classics and Economics

Eight courses five in the Department of the Classics (both Greek and Latin) and three in the Department of Economics.
A thesis connecting Ancient and Modern Economic Theory or History.
A general examination, either written or oral, on Greek and Roman Literature, History and Economics, and on the subject matter of certain works which will be determined by a joint committee of the Department of the Classics and the Department of Economics.

DEGREE OF A.M.

The ordinary requirement for the degree of Master of Arts for a graduate of an approved college consists of one year of residence and study devoted to advanced work approved by the Administrative Board of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences as affording suitable preparation for the degree, and completed with distinction. Graduates of colleges whose requirements for admission and grad uation are considerably below those of Harvard College, or of colleges whose standing is not well known to the Administrative Board, and graduates of any college who have not sufficient prep aration for advanced work in their particular subject of study, are ordinarily required to devote at least two years to their study for this degree. In special cases this period may be shortened to one year or one year and a half for students whose work in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences shows unusual excellence.

The programme of study for the degree of Master of Arts must form a consistent plan of work pursued with some definite aim, whether it lies wholly in a single department or field of study or in more than one; this work may be done either in, or in con nection with, the regular courses of instruction, or independently of them. Programmes should be submitted early in the academic year, and no programme will ordinarily be approved that is received after January 15 of the academic year in which the degree is to be taken. All applications should be addressed to the Secretary of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

All candidates must possess an elementary knowledge of two modern foreign languages, ordinarily French and German.

DEGREE OF PH.D.

For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy not less than two years devoted to advanced studies, approved as affording suitable preparation for the degree, are required of graduates of colleges of good standing. This degree is not usually taken in less than three years after the attainment of the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Harvard College, or an equivalent. A graduate of another college may ascertain by writing to the Secretary of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences whether any special conditions will be imposed upon him. In order to be admitted to the degree the candidate must show a general training in the whole field of study, firm grasp of his special subject within the field, and independent research in some portion of that subject. He must present a thesis, showing original treatment or investigation, and must pass such examination or examinations as may be required by the Division. The degree is given on the ground of thorough study and high attainments. Appropriate studies carried on in the graduate school of another university may be recognized as a part of the candidate’s preparation for the degree. The minimum period of residence at Harvard University is one year.

The University confers the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History; in Political Science; in Economics; and in Business Economics. Candidates for the degree under any of these heads are subject to supervision and examination by the Division of History, Government, and Economics. In order to indicate the grounds on which it is prepared to recommend candidates for the degree, the Division has adopted the following statements and suggestions.

All communications relative to the doctorate should be sent to Professor Charles H. Haskins, Chairman of the Division Committee on Graduate Degrees, 23 University Hall, Cambridge.

GENERAL PREPARATION

Every candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy is required, at an early stage in his preparation, to submit to the Division, through the Chairman of its Committee on Graduate Degrees, evidence of the extent and quality of his general studies. A command of good English, spoken and written, the ability to make free use of French and German books, and a fair acquaintance with general history are expected in all cases. On the evidence presented, the Division will decide, provisionally, as to the sufficiency of the candidate’s general training. No set examinations will be held at this stage, but before he is admitted to the general examination each candidate must present a certificate from a designated member of the Division stating that he is able to make free use of French and German books. Such a certificate may be given on the basis either of a special test or of the candidate’s use of these languages in connection with the regular courses of instruction. Candidates may be required to make up deficiencies by pursuing specified College courses, or in such other way as the Division may designate. The provisional acceptance of a candidate, as regards this portion of his preparation, does not preclude the Division from rejecting him later, if, in the examination on specific subjects, it shall appear that his general education is insufficient.

Candidates must pass two examinations: the first general, the second (after the acceptance of the thesis) on a special field, defined in each case by vote of the Division.

I. GENERAL EXAMINATION

The first examination will be held not later than the beginning of the last year of study for the degree, and candidates are recommended to present themselves for this examination in the course of the preceding academic year. The object of this test is to ascertain the applicant’s attainments within a considerable range of subjects in the field of History, Political Science, or Economics. He will ordinarily be examined in six subjects in all, chosen from the groups defined below under the respective departments of study, but the ground of his special field will not be covered in the general examination. Candidates are not required, however, to follow the details of these plans. They may present, for the consideration of the Division, reasonable substitutes for any of the topics named, and may offer appropriate combinations of parts of the separate subjects. They are advised, in all cases, to submit their plans of study for approval at an early date, as the Division reserves the right to disapprove any plan which seems to it unsatisfactory, even though the plan meet the formal requirements of distribution in the various groups. In judging of the candidate’s fitness for the degree, regard will be had to the general grasp and maturity shown, as well as to the range and accuracy of his attainments in the specific subjects of examination.

II. THESIS

The thesis must be in the hands of the Chairman of the Division Committee on Graduate Degrees on or before April 1 of the year in which the degree is sought. It must be accepted as satisfactory before the candidate can be admitted to the final examination. It must show an original treatment of the subject, or give evidence of independent research, and must also be in good literary form and suitable for publication.*

*A list of the theses which have been accepted for the Ph.D. in the Division of History, Government, and Economics will be found in the list of Doctors of Philosophy and Doctors of Science who have received their degree in course from Harvard University, 1873-1916, published by the University in 1916.

Every thesis must be accompanied by a brief summary, not exceeding 1200 words in length, which shall indicate as clearly as possible the methods, material, and results. Each summary must be approved by the Division Committee as adequate and as in suitable form for publication. These summaries will be printed by the University in an annual volume.

III. SPECIAL EXAMINATION

The second examination will be on a single limited subject agreed upon in advance. It is intended that each candidate should have, as far as possible, freedom of choice in selecting his subject, but it is expected that he will submit, for approval, an outline of work to be presented in satisfaction of this requirement. It is desirable that this outline should be submitted a year in advance of the examination. Ordinarily the ground covered by the special examination will not be greater in extent than one of the subjects offered by the candidate at his general examination, and may be identical with one of these subjects. Or the candidate may limit his more special preparation to an approved portion of this field, which will regularly include the period or topic within which the thesis lies. At the final examination, the candidate will be expected to show such a mastery of his special field, and such an acquaintance with the literature, general and special, bearing on it, as would qualify him to give instruction to mature students.

* * * * * * * * *

THE DEGREE OF Ph.D.
IN ECONOMICS

GENERAL PREPARATION

Candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics must meet the general requirements stated [above]. They should also be well grounded in the main outlines of European and American history, and should have had a general view of the nature and growth of political institutions and constitutional law.

GENERAL EXAMINATION

This examination will include six subjects, chosen from the following list. Of the six subjects, Group A must be offered and one subject from Group C. The others will ordinarily be chosen from Group B. In all cases at least one of the subjects chosen must be historical in character, either economic history under Group B or one of the historical fields under Group C.

Group A

Economic Theory and its History, with special reference to the Development of Economic Thought since 1776.

Group B

Economic History before 1750.
Economic History since 1750.
Statistical Method and its Application.
Money, Banking, and Crises.
Transportation
Economics of Corporations.
Public Finance.
International Trade and Tariff Policy.
Economics of Agriculture.
Labor Problems.
Socialism and Social Reform.
Sociology

Group C

Any of the historical fields (Nos. 1 to 16) defined under the requirements for the Ph.D. in History.
Comparative Modern Government.
American Government and Constitutional Law.
Municipal Government.
Jurisprudence (selected topics).
Philosophy (selected topics).
Anthropology
History of Political Theory.
International Law.

In the case of a candidate whose special subject is in the Department of Social Ethics, the six subjects for examination will be chosen from the two following groups. The candidate will be examined in all four of the subjects in Group E, and is expected to be proficient in the history of one of them. He will select two subjects from Group F.

Group E

Ethical Theory.
Economic Theory.
Poor Relief.
Social Reforms.

Group F

Sociology
Statistics
Economic History.
The Labor Question.
Criminology and Penology.
Problems of Municipal Government.
Anthropology

THE DEGREE OF Ph.D.
IN BUSINESS ECONOMICS

GENERAL PREPARATION

Candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Economics must meet the general requirements stated [above, pp. 102-204]. They should also be well grounded in the outlines of European and American history. In the course of their preparation they should have had fundamental training in Accounting, Marketing (or Commercial Organization), and the Law of Contracts. Courses in these subjects required for the degree of Master in Business Administration should be taken ordinarily during the first year of graduate study.

GENERAL EXAMINATION

This examination will include six fields chosen from the following list. The subject of Economic Theory is required in all cases, but not more than two subjects may ordinarily be taken from Group A. Preparation for the subjects in Group B should aim, as far as practicable, to combine the more general training in Economics with the technical training in Business courses.

Combinations of examination subjects other than those here stated may be offered. In all cases the programme of study must be approved by the Division. Candidates are urged to seek early in their residence the advice of the Dean of the Graduate School of Business Administration and of the Chairman of the Department of Economics.

Group A

Economic Theory.
Economic History since 1750.
Public Finance and Taxation.
Economics of Agriculture.

Group B

Accounting.
Marketing.
Foreign Trade.
Industrial Management and Labor Problems.
Money and Banking.
Corporate Organization and Finance.
Transportation.
Insurance.
Statistical Method and its Application.

SPECIAL EXAMINATION

The field for the special examination should be chosen in accordance with the requirements stated [above “III. Special Examination”], except that ordinarily the subject should be one of those in group B.

Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XVIII, No. 20 (April 21, 1921) Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1921-22.

Image Source: Harvard Square 1915 from Brookline Public Library’s Photograph Collection at Digital Commonwealth (Non-Commercial, Creative Commons license).

Economics Programs Faculty Regulations Harvard

Harvard. Economics Graduate Degree Requirements, 1934-1935

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-06-02

Update: within a few minutes of posting the following, I discovered that I had already transcribed and posted the same material over seven years ago. Actually it was my third post. How did I miss it? My Catalogue of Artifacts page had a misprint, instead of the year 1934 the year 1924 was incorrectly entered. My standard procedure is to search through the catalogue for names and dates. But this item, being a departmental document only had a date. I am leaving this here, though it double-counts an artifact. I like the image and I have added the other comparable posts (so some light curation is going on here).

It has been a while since Economics in the Rear-view Mirror added to the collection of the rules and and regulations governing the award of graduate degrees in economics. To date for Harvard the collection now includes today’s post for 1934-35 and the following items:

Degree Requirements for 1897-98.

Degree Requirements for 1911-12.

Degree Requirements from 1947.

Degree Requirements from 1958.

Degree Regulations from 1968.

_________________________

1934-1935
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Requirements for Graduate Degrees:
The more important regulations regarding graduate degrees are stated below.

General Information for Candidates for the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees
1. Programs of study
  1. The program of study for the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees must form a consistent plan of work pursued with some definite aim. It should be submitted to Professor Burbank, Chairman of the Department of Economics, 41 Holyoke House, for approval early in the year.
  2. The fields of study are to be chosen from the following:

GROUP A.

1. 1. 1. Economic Theory and its History, with special reference to the Development of Economic Thought since 1776.
    2. Economic History since 1750, or some other approved field in Economic History
    3. Statistical Method and its Application

GROUP B

1. 1. 1. Money and Banking
    2. Economic Fluctuations and Forecasting
      e.² Industrial Organization and Control
    3. Public Utilities (including Transportation)
    4. Economics of Corporations
    5. International Trade and Tariff Policies
    6. Economics of Agriculture
    7. Labor Problems
    8. Socialism and Social Reform
    9. Public Finance
    10. Economic History before 1750
    11. Commodity Distribution and Prices
    12. Economics of Public Utilities
    13. ²Mathematical Economics

GROUP C

1. 1. 1. Any of the historical fields from Group A or B, defined under the requirements for the Ph.D. in History. [See Division Pamphlet.]
    2. Comparative Modern Government
    3. American Government and Constitutional Law
    4. Municipal Government
    5. Jurisprudence (Selected topics)
    6. Philosophy (Selected topics)
    7. Anthropology
    8. History of Political Theory
    9. International Law
    10. Sociology [Certain fields—see Sociology Pamphlet]
    11. Economics of Forestry

1. Application for degrees

Candidates for degrees must apply to the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, 24 University Hall, by December 1, for the degree at Midyears; or by January 15, for the degree at Commencement.

Special Requirements for the A.M. degree
1. Residence

The candidate must take one full year of advance work at Harvard—four courses with a grade of B or higher in each. These courses may be taken in one year or over a period of years. (See new requirement on page 5.)

1. Languages

An ELEMENTARY knowledge of French and German, and a READING knowledge of the other language is required. This requirement may be met as follows:

1. 1. For the READING knowledge, by a passing grade in the written examinations given by the Department early in November and March.
  2. For the ELEMENTARY knowledge, by one of the following methods:
    1. A passing grade in an elementary course at Harvard or some other institution
    2. A passing grade in an undergraduate examination at Harvard, which is given three times a year—

French: September 22; January 7; April 22
German: September 22; January 8; April 23

1. 1. 1. A passing grade in the written examination given by the Department early in November and March.

This requirement may be met at any time prior to application for the Master’s degree.

1. General Examination

The candidate must pass an oral examination on FOUR fields of study, to be selected from those listed above according to the following distribution:

1. 1. TWO from Group A, including Economic Theory
  2. TWO from Groups A, B, or C (not more than ONE to be selected from Group C.)

The fields are covered only in part by formal course instruction. Supplementary reading must be undertaken to meet the requirements.

Preparation for this examination normally requires TWO full years of study. A student is advised not to stand for examination until he feels thoroughly prepared.

With Professor Burbank’s consent, a student may offer THREE fields of Study for the Oral Examination, substituting a pro-seminar course for the fourth field.

When the General Examination is passed in the Spring, the candidate is excused with credit from the final course examination in courses relating to fields offered for the General Examination.

In judging the candidate’s fitness for the degree, regard will be had for the general grasp and maturity shown, as well as for the range and accuracy of his knowledge of the special subjects examined.

To secure a date for the General Examination, candidates must make arrangements with the secretary in the Division Office, 15 Little Hall before April 1.

Special Requirements for the Ph.D. degree
1. Residence

The candidate must take two years of advanced work—eight courses, with grades of B or higher in each (See new requirements on page 5.) One year, or four courses, must be taken at Harvard. Credit for work done at another institution may be substituted for the other year’s work, with Professor Burbank’s approval.

1. Languages

The candidate must present a READING knowledge of both French and German. This requirement is satisfied ONLY by passing the Department written examination which is given early in November and March. It must be met SIX months before the Special Examination. Examinations in the two languages need not be taken at the same time.
At the time of the Special Examination, candidates must show an acquaintance with the literature in their special fields in two modern languages other than English, ordinarily French and German.

1. Fields of Study

The candidate must present SIX fields of study to be selected from the groups listed above according to the following distribution:

1. 1. The THREE fields in Group A are required unless a candidate can show that he has done sufficient advanced work in Economic History or in Statistics to warrant his substituting a field from Group B or Group C.
  2. The remaining THREE fields may be selected from Group B and Group C—though not more than ONE field may be taken from Group C.

Evidence of a knowledge of the SIX fields of study is shown as follows:

1. General Examination

FOUR fields, including Economic Theory, are presented at an oral examination. [For details regarding this examination, refer to the notes under C. of the requirements for the A.M. degree.]

1. “Fifth” field

The requirement regarding the “fifth” field may be met by presenting work of distinguished quality in an approved course at Harvard.

1. Special field

The candidate meets the requirements of the sixth field by standing for oral examination and presenting a thesis which normally lies within the field examined. Ordinarily this field is chosen from Groups A or B. By special arrangements the same subject may be offered for the General and Special Examinations. However, this program is unusual, and arrangements must be made with the Chairman of the Department. In this case, the candidate must show evidence of a thorough knowledge of another field, which might have been-offered for examination.

1. 1. Candidates for the degree at Midyears should arrange for their Special Examination on or before December 1 in the Division Office, 15 Little Hall; for the degree at Commencement, on or before April 1.
  2. Two copies of the thesis must be in the hands of the Chairman of the Division, 15 Little Hall, by January 3 for the degree at Midyears, and by April 1for the degree at Commencement.

The thesis must be accepted before the candidate may be admitted for the Special Examination. It must show an original treatment of the subject and give evidence of independent research. It must be in good literary form, suitable for publication. Except by special permission from the Chairman of the Division, all theses must be in typewritten or printed form.

Every thesis must be accompanied by a summary not exceeding 1200 words in length, which shall indicate as clearly as possible the methods, material, and results of the investigation. Each summary must be approved by the Division Committee as adequate and in suitable form for publication. These summaries are printed by the University in an annual volume.

At least SIX months must elapse between the General and Special Examinations.

Candidates for the Ph.D. degree must plan on no less than THREE full years of advanced study, and it is only a student with superior training and no outside demands on his time who can attain his degree in that time.

IMPORTANT NOTE: After September 1, 1934, candidates for the Ph.D. are required to show evidence, in some section of their graduate work, of high distinction — “A” — in formal course instruction, General or Special Examinations, or Dissertation.

Business Economics: For the degree in Business Economics, consult the Division pamphlet.

Miss Stone, in 41 Holyoke House, will be glad to answer any questions arising in connection with these regulations.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics Records (UAV349.11) Box 13 Folder “Graduate Instruction Degree Requirements”.

Image: Harvard Class-Day Book 1934.

Tags Burbank

Economics Programs M.I.T. Undergraduate

M.I.T. Economics department committee (re-)organization. 1976-78

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-05-19

During my second year in graduate school at M.I.T. (1975-76), the economics department professors were engaged in a discussion about reforming the administration of their department. At the time I was completely unaware of this discussion that had been provoked by the following memorandum written by then Department Head, Professor E. Cary Brown, based on his experience with the growing overload of administrative chores and responsibilities in a department with the scale of that attained by M.I.T.’s economics department.

Brown’s memo to the faculty is followed by a transcription of a copy of the letter Brown wrote to Robert Solow, who as an administrative reorganization committee member, must have been asked for some further testimony. The entire committee’s (Peter A. Diamond, Stanley Fischer, Jerry Hausman, Paul Joskow, Robert M. Solow) report was completed two months after Brown’s memo. In the same departmental file from the M.I.T. archives, one finds a copy of the actual assignment of administrative responsibilities for the academic year 1977/78.

Many, if not most, of the administrative tasks had been allocated and faithfully executed before this “reorganization”. I know that Evsey Domar had long been covering the placement of new Ph.D.’s and also proudly serving as the departmental representative for library-related affairs. I sense reading these documents that the truly neglected child all along was the undergraduate program for which some arm-twisting was required to achieve equitable burden-sharing among the faculty. But perhaps there were other specific items that had been sore points too. Maybe Brown simply wanted an explicit organization chart to forestall “whataboutism” from the mouths of relatively uncooperative colleagues. But like I wrote above, this was a discussion that was invisible to me (appropriately so) at the time.

Cf. The committee assignments in the Harvard economics department during the 1972-73 academic year.

__________________________

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139

March 12, 1976

Economics Department Faculty

Dear [blank]

For some time I have become increasingly dismayed at the increase in the administrative burden in the Department, and now find the present job as Head to be a nearly impossible one. If the job is to be made tolerable, it must have substantial additional faculty support in some form to cut it down to a scope manageable either by me or a successor.

There are two basic ways that this can be achieved: (1) by spreading the administrative activities and responsibilities more widely among the faculty; or (2) placing these tasks on essentially an associate departmental head, whose precise title could take various forms Executive Officer, Academic Officer (e.g., Tony French in Physics), or Associate Head. I personally would favor the Associate Head route, but regard it as an open question subject to further discussion and consideration, and to Administration approval. This new structure should be treated as an experiment, to last no longer than until the next Head is chosen, and to be reconsidered at that time.

My own thinking about the administrative tasks of the Department separates them into four major areas: undergraduate programs, graduate programs, research programs, and personnel and budgeting. While these can be headed by an administrator or by faculty, it seems to me that the first two programs should have formal faculty control regardless of the form the administrative reorganization takes. The graduate program nearly has that form now and largely runs itself, with the exception of a few odds and ends that now lie outside the responsibility of the graduate registration officers. The undergraduate program is a long way from this structure and will require a good deal of imagination, initiative and effort to resuscitate the Undergraduate Economics Association and provide more guidance and support for majors. The research programs (student and faculty) focus more or less clearly under the Committee on Economic Research. Personnel and budgeting are an administrative responsibility. They have involved increasing amounts of time as budgets have tightened, space has tightened, and the search for new faculty has expanded.

The administrative structure is an important matter to the Department. Because it involves departmental administration and the role of the Department Head, it concerns the Administration through Dean Hanham. He has asked me to appoint the following committee to consider these questions of reorganization and to make recommendations: Bob Solow, Peter Diamond, Stan Fischer, Paul Joskow, and Jerry Hausman. Please give your views to members of the committee as soon as you can.

Sincerely,
[signed “Cary”]
E. Cary Brown, Head

ECB/sc

__________________________

Brown to Solow

March 16, 1976

Professor Robert Solow
E52-383

Dear Bob:

I shrink from making organization charts, but the following diagram is intended to give some idea of the orders of magnitude of faculty involvement in departmental chores.

Chairman, Committee on Undergraduate Studies

Faculty counselors (we have agreed with the UEA to keep members to 10 or less, and let faculty build up expertise by staying adviser for freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior year).

—10 faculty: 2 for each class. 4 for seniors

Faculty adviser for humanities concentration in economics (advises and signs up students); also considers the eligibility of economics subjects, what we consider concentration, etc.
Closely related to (2) is possible membership on the so-called Humanities Committee that approves and reviews the whole Humanities, Arts, and Social Science requirement and program. (We have no one on this year but as the largest concentration will surely need to have a presence.)
Approval of transfer of credits from other schools to M.I.T.
Advising with Undergraduate Economic Association in matters academic, professional, social.
Undergraduate placement, while an Institute responsibility, could be supervised and assisted by a faculty member who would keep up to date on summer placement, interning possibilities, salaries. The experience our students have applying to graduate schools, actual jobs offered and taken.
Design of curriculum, cooperative program, etc.
Various activities, such as providing information to undergraduates in their choice of major (Midway in fall, seminar in spring), Open House activities, Alumni activities, etc.
Relations with other Departments at undergraduate level, such as subject offerings, subject content, etc.
Supervision and staffing of undergraduate subjects with multiple sections — 14.001, 14.002, 14.03, 14.04, 14.06, 14.30, 14.31.
Catalog copy.

Chairman, Committee on Graduate Studies

Graduate Registration Officers, so far one each for first two years, and one for thesis writers. Has been suggested that we have an additional adviser for foreign students and minority and women?
Admissions Committee has, in the past, had three members.
Placement, both summer and permanent.
Supervision of core subjects.
Ph.D. and M.S. requirements, program, size.
Financial aid — coordinating various GRO; Admissions Committee, and Budget limitations.
Graduate School Policy Committee meetings.
Annual revision of brochure.
Graduate Economics Association, Black Graduate Economics Association.
Catalog copy.
Various activities — professional and social that are not contained within a particular class.

Chairman, Committee on Economic Research (I faculty)

Organized list of faculty projects requiring research assistants and the supply of them (both graduate and undergraduate). Assignment of R.A.’s.
Assistance in research proposals.
Inventory of internships and off-campus research.
Supervision of unscheduled subjects, such as UROP, Undergraduate Seminar, and thesis.
Supervision of M.I.T. Working Paper Series.
Allocation of computer funds, developing rules, developing alternative sources.

Personnel and Budgeting (Administrative Officer and a large chunk of my time)

Personnel
1. Nonfaculty is supervised by the Administrative Officer.
2. Faculty Personnel

(1) Employment — new Ph.D.’s and senior faculty
(2) Review and promotion
(3) Assignments, leaves, research

1. Postdoctoral personnel
Space allocations, revisions.
Budget Proposals
a. Proposals
b. Implementation

Telephone
Xerox & Ditto
Supplies
Equipment

There may be other matters that I am leaving out – routine meetings average probably a day a week, and things like that. Consultations with faculty, students, and other Departments, would probably add a couple more days.

If there are questions, I’ll oblige, of course.

Sincerely,
E. Cary Brown, Head

ECB/sc

__________________________

MEMORANDUM

May 10, 1976

TO: Department Faculty
FROM: Committee on Reorganization (PAD, SF, JH, PJ, RMS) [Peter A. Diamond, Stanley Fischer, Jerry Hausman, Paul Joskow, Robert M. Solow]

SUBJECT: Reorganization

ECB’s [E. Cary Brown] letter of March 12, which created this committee, starts from the premise that the administrative burden on the Department Head has become essentially impossible. This seems clearly to be the case. It has happened because the department has increased in size and complexity without any corresponding adaptation of its administrative arrangements. Every new function has fallen into the Head’s lap. (Top that, anyone.) Apart from the sheer burden of work thus created, another problem is the difficulty of communications, because that is also time-consuming.

After some palaver and negotiation, we have a reorganizational package to suggest. It rests on two conditions; since it is something of an interconnected web, it will probably unravel if the two conditions can not be met. (1) Since the only way to correct an excessively centralized structure is to decentralize it, we propose to diffuse administrative responsibility more widely through the department; there will be at least one serious administrative post for everyone, or perhaps two minor posts instead, but everyone will have to participate. (2) The administrative load attached to the undergraduate program has increased with the size of the enrollment and the improvement of the curriculum; no one wants to manage an inadequately staffed program. We propose, therefore, that the normal teaching load for everyone in the department be agreed to be half graduate and half undergraduate teaching. This definition should be extended to everyone on the departmental budget: joint appointees, visiting professors, etc. As soon as there are a couple of exceptions to this understanding, there will be more. Then the management of the undergraduate program will break down, and it will revert or default to the Department Head, and that is what we are trying to stave off.

The particular organization we have in mind is as follows.

The central functions (budgeting, space, leaves, relations with the MIT hierarchy, etc.) will be in the hands of the Department Head and an Associate Head namely PAD [Peter A. Diamond]). In addition, one of them (probably ECB [E. Cary Brown]) will be an ex officio member of the Committee on Undergraduate Studies to be proposed below, and the other will be an ex officio member of the Committee on Graduate Studies. The precise division of labor is obviously a matter of taste; for the moment, ECB [E. Cary Brown] will probably do most of the relations with the MIT structure and PAD [Peter A. Diamond] will concentrate on intra-departmental matters.
There will be a Director of Undergraduate Studies (PT [Peter Temin]), who will be chairman of a Committee on Undergraduate Studies (with 2 or 3 additional members, possibly RD [Rudiger Dornbusch], PJ [Paul Joskow] and one other). This committee will be responsible for revisions of the undergraduate curriculum adding and subtracting subjects, staffing them, degree requirements, etc. In recent discussions with the Undergraduate Economics Association, the proposal has merged that there should be a larger number of Undergraduate Advisors (i.e., registration officers) than there is now, with each taking care of at most 10 students. That suggests we would need about 8 such advisors. The members of the Committee might serve as advisors, plus others. Merely serving as registration officer for 10 undergraduates is by itself not an onerous job.
There seems to be no need for change in the organization of graduate studies in the department. We suggest that there be a Director of Graduate Studies (RSE [Richard S. Eckaus]) and a Committee on Graduate Studies which would, as now, consist of the other two Graduate Registration Officers. Things are going very well now with REH [Robert E. Hall] handling the first-year students. MJP [Michael J. Piore] the second-year students and RSE [Richard S. Eckaus] the thesis-writers. REH [Robert E. Hall] is prepared to take on the task or devising a scheme to keep track of post-generals students, and see that they find themselves a reasonable thesis topic in a reasonable amount of time. The scheme may need another person to look after it.
We suggest the creation of Committee on Staffing whose functions would include looking after the hiring of assistant professors, the dovetailing of visiting professors with faculty leaves, and the rationing of visiting scholars. The picture we have is that the members of committee would do the interviewing and preliminary screening of new Ph.D.’s at the annual meetings, and decide which of them to invite to come and give seminars. At that stage and thereafter, the whole department faculty would be in on the act, and final decisions would be made, as they are now, in a department meeting. The main time-consumer for this committee would be the correspondence in connection with hiring. Since that would fall on the Chairman, that post would be a major one. For the other members of the committee, the burden would be relatively light. We suggest REH [Robert E. Hall] as chairman, plus perhaps 3 others.
There seems to be no reason to change the way the Admissions Committee now functions.
We see no need for major change in the Placement process. Our only suggestion are (a) perhaps to provide EDD [Evsey D. Domar] with another person to share the load, and (b) to have a pre-season department meeting, analogous to the post-generals meeting, at which each graduate student entering the market could be discussed by the full facuIty, and information and ideas collected.
There are other details. RLB [Robert L. Bishop] is functioning as advisor to MIT undergraduates thinking about economics as part of their Humanities requirement, and we are happy to preserve that human capital. MAA [Morris A. Adelman] who has been our representative to CGSP is to begin a term on the CEP, which should count as a major administrative burden. We need his successor on CGSP.

One last point: we hope that each committee chairman will promptly send a written notice of each substantive decision to the Head and Associate Head for distribution to the department faculty, so that communications are well looked after. That plus rational expectations should do the trick.

Source: MIT Archives. MIT Department of Economics Records. Box 2, Folder “Department Organization”.

__________________________

DEPARTMENTAL ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES:
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT 1977-78

UNDERGRADUATE COMMITTEE

Chairman:	Peter Temin
Members:	Cary Brown	Senior Faculty Counsellor, Ex Officio
	Jerry Rothenberg	Senior Faculty Counsellor
	Peter Temin	Senior Faculty Counsellor
	Rudiger Dornbusch	Junior Faculty Counsellor
	Jeffrey Harris	Junior Faculty Counsellor
	Jagdish Bhagwati	Sophomore Faculty Counsellor (Fall)
	Henry Farber	Sophomore Faculty Counsellor (Spring)

Summer Jobs: Jeffrey Harris
Humanities Adviser: Robert Bishop
Transfer of Credits: Cary Brown

GRADUATE COMMITTEE

Chairman:	Richard Eckaus	Thesis, Graduate Registration Officer
Members:	Paul Joskow/Mike Piore	Second Year Graduate Registration Officer
	Marty Weitzman	First Year Graduate Registration Officer
	Jerome Rothenberg	CGSP Representative
	Stan Fischer, Ex Officio

Admissions Committee:

Chairman: Robert Bishop
Members: Frank Fisher and Lance Taylor

Placement: Evsey Domar
Harvard-MIT Theory Seminar: Eric Maskin
Theory Workshop: Kevin Roberts

OTHER DEPARTMENTAL ACTIVITIES

Staffing Committee: Chairman: Rudiger Dornbusch

(For New Ass’t Profs.) Members:

Paul Joskow
Jerry Hausman
Stan Fischer, Ex Officio
(Added for Temporary Visitors: Robert Solow)

Independent Activity Period: Jeffrey Harris/Marilyn Simon
Unstructured Subjects Committee: Peter Temin, Undergraduate; Richard Eckaus, Graduate
Computer Allocation: Richard Eckaus

ADDENDUM: INSTITUTE COMMITTEES

CEP: Morris Adelman
Associate Chairman of the Faculty: Michael Piore
Visual Arts: Jerry Rothenberg
Library System, Chairman: Evsey Domar

Image Source: For this portrait of members of the M.I.T. economics department in 1975 see the Economics in the Rear-view Mirror post that provides identifications.

Tags Adelman, Bhagwati, Bishop, BrownEC, Diamond, Domar, Dornbusch, Eckaus, Farber, Fischer, FisherFM, HallR, HarrisJE, Hausman, Joskow, Maskin, Piore, RobertsK, Rothenberg, Solow, TaylorLD, Temin, Weitzman

Chicago Economics Programs Economists Harvard UCLA War and Defense Economics

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Jack Hirshleifer, 1950

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-05-17

This UCLA economics department obituary of Jack Hirshleifer is so good that Economics in the Rear-view Mirror keeps a copy for its “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumnus/a” series. Hirschleifer was Brooklyn born and Harvard bred, but his scientific fruit definitely ripened in the California sun.

__________________________

Harvard Ph.D. 1950

Jack Hirshleifer, S.B. [Harvard] 1946 (1945), A.M. [Harvard] 1948.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Labor Problems. Thesis, “Price Flexibility and General Interdependence.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1949-50, p. 197.

__________________________

UCLA
Department of Economics
Obituary of Jack Hirshleifer

Education:

Ph.D. Harvard University

Research Areas:

Economic analysis of conflict; bioeconomics with particular reference to sources of cooperative behavior and the nature of evolutionary equilibrium; voluntary provision of public goods.

Biography:

Jack Hirshleifer, professor emeritus of economics, died July 26, 2005, bringing to a close a career marked by wide- ranging interests and brilliant contributions to the subfields of information economics, investment and capital theory, bioeconomics, and the economic theory of conflict.

After active duty in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II, Hirshleifer completed his A.B. degree at Harvard, magna cum laude. Five years later he had earned his doctorate in economics, also at Harvard. From 1949 to 1955 he worked as an economist at the Rand Corporation. Before coming to UCLA in 1958, he took a postdoctoral fellowship in statistics and economics at the University of Chicago where he also taught for five years.

His extensive publications included seven books and close to a 100 scholarly articles. From his first study, Water Supply: Economics, Technology, and Policy [Chicago, 1960] to The Dark Side of the Force: Economic Foundations of Conflict Theory [Cambridge, 2001], Professor Hirshleifer in his scholarship has demonstrated a clarity of analysis and probing for fundamental assumptions which set him apart as one of the most distinguished economists of his generation.

Elected a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, Professor Hirshleifer also served on the editorial boards of the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and the Journal for Bioeconomics. In 2000 he was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. He also served as president of the Western Economic Association and as vice- president of the American Economic Association.

Professor Hirshleifer was deeply respected by all his fellow faculty members during his 33 years as a member of the UCLA economics department. His door was always open for any colleague, graduate student or undergraduate who might feel like “popping- in.” While a giant among researchers, Professor Hirshleifer was also deeply committed to the teaching of economics. As a teacher he always strove to give his students a sense of his own deep fascination with the role of competitive markets. This led him to write a revolutionary and best- selling textbook in intermediate microeconomics, Price Theory and Applications. While prior books focused on modeling and theory, the new text added dozens of intriguing real world illustrations of economics forces at work. Through his own text- book and through the many texts that have copied his approach, Professor Hirshleifer continues to influence tens of thousands of undergraduates each year.

Tribute by David Levine

Jack Hirshleifer was an economic theorist with broad-ranging interests. Two areas in economics have especially felt the impact of his work. Early in his career, he was instrumental in the information economics revolution; late in his career, he expanded the domain of economic discourse with his work on evolutionary economics and conflict resolution.

Hirshleifer spanned a broad range of issues in his early work as one of the founding fathers of information economics. He made the abstract ideas of contingent claims concrete through his examples and applications. In the process, he helped develop fundamental tools, such as the covariance of risks, the analysis of gambling and insurance, the Modigliani-Miller Theorem, and the analysis of public investment. He also expanded the range of information economics with two fundamental contributions. His work on the private and social value of information clearly shows that competitive markets need not reflect the social value of information. His example of an inventor who can invest based on the knowledge of the impact of his invention shows that there can be an oversupply of inventive activity. This “race to be first” has its reflection in the current literature on patent races, and represents a fundamental problem in intellectual property law that the profession is only now coming to grips with. His second fundamental contribution showed that differences in taste are not enough to explain speculation. He was the first to analyze speculation in a full general-equilibrium model, with different structures of market completeness carefully considered. Although not generally recognized as such, this is also the first paper to point out the indeterminacy of equilibrium when markets are incomplete.

In addition to his founding contributions in information economics, Hirshleifer had a lifelong interest in conflict, beginning with his earliest work on war damages. Late in his career this area became the focus of his contributions, and he was a leader in extending economic methods to problems more traditionally studied in political science. He wrote broadly on expanding the domain of economic discourse to include the “rational” evolutionary analysis of altruism and spite. His work on conflict showed how “Peace is more likely to the extent that the decisiveness of conflict is low, or … if the stakes are small or the technology favors the defense. More surprisingly, perhaps, increased productive complementarity between the parties does not systematically favor peace…the poorer side is generally motivated to invest more heavily in fighting effort. So conflict can become an income-equalizing process.” Finally, his weakest link/best shot experiment (with Glenn Harrison) demonstrates that economic incentives play a key role in determining how much people will contribute to a public good.

Tribute by Roger Farmer

I was approached last month by Junyao Ying, a UCLA alum who is now working in China. Junyao and his wife Weiyi Qiu have recently translated Jack’s book, Investment Interest and Capital into Chinese. Junyao asked me to write a few words about Jack for the translation. This is what I wrote.

The economics department at UCLA was a very exciting place in the 1980s, not least because of Jack Hirshleifer. Many of us ate lunch every day in the Faculty Center, and being in Southern California, most days we ate outdoors in the sunshine. Jack would arrive at 12.00 sharp with an economic question for the day that he would pose to the table. Jack’s questions would be from the news of the day and the analysis he expected would be in the UCLA style.

The department had a unique approach to economics and Jack, along with Harold Demsetz, Armen Alchian, Ben Klein and later, Al Harberger, were a huge part of that. Their economics was intuitive, often verbal, but always incisive. One story, relayed to me by another UCLA giant of the era, Axel Leijonhufvud, expresses well the Socratic teaching style that permeated the UCLA curriculum. As Axel relays it, he was sitting in on Armen’s first graduate micro class when the master appeared, paced back and forth for a few minutes, and then boomed loudly: “So why don’t we sell babies anyway?”

Jack had the same approach. Many of our discussions would end up around one of his favorite topics: the economics of disasters. Earthquakes were never far from our minds and Jack was an expert on what today we might call black swan events. LA earthquakes are relatively frequent but they typically register less than 5.0 on the Richter Scale, enough to shake the floor, but usually not to do much damage. Sometimes we see larger quakes and every century or so, an 8.0 magnitude quake brings significant loss of life. Jack pointed out that, if you go far enough back in the fossil record, there have been earthquakes large enough to cause a slippage in the earth’s crust large enough to move two points that were previously next to each other five miles apart!

Jack was an economic imperialist. He believed passionately that the economic method can and should be applied to all of the social sciences. While we may not all share that opinion, in this time of crisis, we can nevertheless benefit from Jack’s insights. He may not be here in person to opine on how to deal with black swan events, but we can still learn from Jack by reading his written words.

Publications

“War Damage Insurance,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 35, No. 2. (May 1953), pp. 144-153. Argues that vulnerability rated war damage insurance would create private incentives to make property less vulnerable to enemy bombing, and that this would be superior to administrative fiat.

“On the Theory of Optimal Investment Decision,” The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 66, No. 4. (Aug 1958), pp. 329-352. Examines different internal rate of return and present value rules when there is a divergence between borrowing and lending rates, and shows that while the problem can be solved by careful consideration of the budget constraint, neither of these rules gives the correct answer all the time.

“Risk, The Discount Rate, and Investment Decisions,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 51, No. 2(May 1961), pp. 112-120. Discusses how covariance of new risks with the existing portfolio makes it desirable to diversify by adding new risks.

“Investment Decision Under Uncertainty: Choice-Theoretic Approaches,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 79, No. 4. (Nov 1965), pp. 509-536; and “Investment Decision under Uncertainty: Applications of the State-Preference Approach,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 80, No. 2. (May 1966), pp. 252-277. These two paper develop the time-state-preference approach (what we now call the state-contingent model) applied to traditional problems in economics: gambling and insurance; Modigliani-Miller Theorem and evaluation of public projects.

“Urban Water Supply: A Second Look,” (with J. W. Milliman) The American Economic Review, Vol. 57, No. 2 (May 1967), pp. 169-178. In a famous earlier work with J.C. DeHaven Water Supply: Economics, Technology and Policy(University of Chicago Press, 1960) alternative methods of supplying water to Southern California were subject to cost-benefit analysis. This paper review what actually happened: policy makers ignored the advice, and chose what both prospectively and retrospectively was the worst economic choice. They conclude: “It appears that the agenda for economists, at this point, should place lower priority upon the further refinement of advice for those efficient and selfless administrators who may exist in never-never land. Rather, it should focus on devising institutions whereby fallible and imperfect administrators may be forced to learn from error.”

“The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 61, No. 4. (Sep 1971), pp. 561-574. Makes the simple yet crucial point that the benefit of receiving information first bears no necessary relationship to the social value of the information. For example, inventive activity may be oversupplied because the inventor can make investments based upon knowledge of the invention. This paper also makes careful use of an infinitesimal deviant individual in a representative individual world.

“Speculation and Equilibrium: Information, Risk, and Markets,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 89, No. 4. (Nov 1975), pp. 519-542. This paper shows that differences in taste are not enough to explain speculation – differences in beliefs are required. Unlike earlier work on speculation that ignores the endogeneity of prices, the setup here is a full general equilibrium model, with different structures of market completeness carefully considered. In particular, market incompleteness alone cannot explain speculation. Although not generally recognized as such, this is the first paper to point out the indeterminacy of equilibrium in an incomplete market setting.

“Competition, Cooperation, and Conflict in Economics and Biology,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 68, No. 2 (May 1978), pp. 238-243. This paper draws connections between the economics and sociobiology literature, and marks the beginning of Hirshleifer’s interest in sociobiology and conflict.

“The Expanding Domain of Economics,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 75, No. 6. (Dec 1985), pp. 53-68. This paper is a broad overview of the application of economic logic to a variety of “non-economic” problems. Hirshleifer begins by examining endogeneity of preferences. He identifies the different between altruistic preferences, and what would now be called the “warm-glow” effect of participation. He reviews Becker’s “rotten kid” theorem, which says that an altruistic parent can actually gain from altruism. As an alternative theory of preferences, models of status, such as the rat-race are examined. The underlying point of view is that of “as-if” rationality – altruism must provide some benefit to the altruist. From this perspective, Hirshleifer examines models such as the psychological model of “anger, gratitude, response” and argues that seemingly irrational behavior does indeed benefit the individual. The final topic is once again that of conflict. A narrow range of possible settlements it is argued increases the potential for conflict. Increasing returns followed by diminishing returns explains the monopoly on military force within the state, while also explaining the multiplicity of states.

“An Experimental Evaluation of Weakest Link/Best Shot Models of Public Goods,” (with Glenn W. Harrison) The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 97, No. 1. (Feb 1989), pp. 201-225. This experimental contribution to the public goods literature explores how the increasing incentives to free ride lead to greater free riding. This paper also introduces the “best-shot” game, a public goods contribution game in which only the largest contribution to the public good matters. In this type of game it is socially and individually optimal for only one player to contribute, and unlike many other types of public goods games, this theoretical prediction is exactly what happens in the laboratory.

“The Technology of Conflict as an Economic Activity,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 81, No. 2 (May 1991), pp. 130-134. “Peace is more likely to the extent that the decisiveness of conflict is low, or … if the stakes are small or the technology favors the defense. More surprisingly, perhaps, increased productive complementarity between the parties does not systematically favor peace…the poorer side is generally motivated to invest more heavily in fighting effort. So conflict can become an income-equalizing process.”

Source: Jack Hirshleifer UCLA page archived by the Wayback Machine.

Image Source: The 1946 Harvard Class Album, p. 153.

Tags Hirshleifer

Columbia Economics Programs Regulations

Columbia. Reform of the PhD dissertation printing requirement, 1936-1940

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-04-29

The following extracts from the minutes of Columbia’s Faculty of Political Science (an amalgam of the Departments of History, Economics, Public Law, and Social Science) provide milestones along the tortuous bureaucratic road taken to implement a fairly modest reform in the publication-of-the-dissertation requirement for the Ph.D. at Columbia University back in the 1930s. The reform initiated sometime in early 1936 only saw the light of day first with the printed Faculty announcement published at mid-year 1940.

See: Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions 1940-1941 published in Columbia University Bulletin of Information, 40^th Series, No. 29 (June 29, 1940), p. 14.

______________________

April 17, 1936

Professor [James Waterhouse] Angell [Economics] presented for consideration a Memorandum on the Printing Requirement for Ph.D. Dissertations in the Faculty of Political Science, signed by Professors [Robert Morrison] MacIver [Political Philosophy and Sociology], [Robert Livingston] Schuyler [History], [Robert Emmet] Chaddock [Statistics], [Carter] Goodrich [Economics], and [James Waterhouse] Angell [Economics], a copy of which is attached to these minutes. He also presented, and moved the adoption of a resolution providing for a modification of the present printing requirement. After amendments, offered by Professors [Samuel McCune] Lindsay [Social Legislation] and [John Maurice] Clark [Economics], had been accepted, the resolution read as follows:

WHEREAS, the Faculty of Political Science believes that the University printing requirement for dissertations imposes a heavy financial burden on candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under this Faculty; that the printing requirement as it actually works does not impose equivalent burdens on the candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in certain other parts of the University; that the printing requirement operates as a severe property qualification impeding the access of otherwise competent students to receipt of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under this Faculty, and that the printing requirement on occasion impels first-class graduate students, who apart from financial considerations would prefer to do their work for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Columbia, to go elsewhere; and

WHEREAS, in 1932 the Committee on Publications of this Faculty made a Report to the Faculty, and recommended a reconsideration of the printing requirement with a view to its relaxation; and

WHEREAS, the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction, after considering this Report, went on record as it that time favoring retention of the printing requirement, and in the absence of any definite proposal by the Faculty of Political Science did not recommend any change; therefore be it

RESOLVED, that the Faculty of Political Science now records itself as desiring a modification of the printing requirement with respect to dissertations offered under the Faculty of Political Science, so that the requirement may be met in any one of three ways, at the option of the candidate, subject to the approval of the committee examining the dissertation, as follows:

(1) By publication of the original approved dissertation in full through a recognized publisher, or otherwise in a form approved by the Dean of the Faculty; or,

(2) By publication of an article, presenting the essential content and results of the dissertation and accepted as satisfactory by the Committee which examined the original dissertation, in a professional journal, or otherwise acceptable to the examining Committee; or,

(3) By publication of an abstract of the dissertation, presenting the essential content and results of the dissertation and accepted as satisfactory by the Committee which examined the original dissertation, in a series of abstracts of dissertations to be published at intervals as volumes in the Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law. The abstracts should ordinarily not exceed 15 pages in length. The candidate will defray his pro rata share of the cost of publication.

Under the second and third alternatives, the candidate shall submit five copies of the proposed article or abstract at least three weeks in advance of the final examination in defense of the dissertation itself. Under such alterative, the requirements for the deposit of copies of the approved printed document and for its distribution to the members of the Faculty are those stated in the Graduate Announcement. In addition, if the dissertation is printed in abridged or abstracted form provision shall be made for preserving at least two legible copies of the original dissertation.

RESOLVED, further, that the foregoing Resolution be transmitted to the University Council, with the request that the Council take action permitting the Faculty of Political Science to realize its desire as above stated.

RESOLVED, further, that the attention of the University Council be also invited to the appended Memorandum on the Printing Requirement, prepared informally by certain members of the Faculty.

After a general discussion, in which fourteen members of the Faculty participated, Professor [Lindsay] Rogers [Public Law] moved that the following resolution be substituted for the resolution under consideration:

RESOLVED, that the Faculty of Political Science transit the pending resolution and the accompanying Memorandum prepared by certain or its members, to the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction and request that the Joint Committee inquire into the results of the publication requirement at Columbia University and the results of differing requirements at other universities and make the findings of such inquiry available to the Faculty of Political Science for the farther consideration of the publication requirement at the Faculty’s regular meeting in the autumn.

The Faculty being evenly divided, President [Nicholas Murray] Butler cast the deciding vote in favor of the resolution presented by Professor Rogers and it was adopted.

[…]

Appendix to Minutes

To the members of the faculty of Political Science:

We enclose herewith a memorandum on the printing requirement for Ph.D. dissertations in the Faculty of Political Science. It contains proposals which will be advanced formally at the meeting of the Faculty on April 17th next. By signing the memorandum we desire to indicate our belief that the questions raised and the proposals made deserve to be brought before the attention of the whole Faculty, but do not express our concurrence on all points.

R. M. MacIver
R. L. Schuyler
R. L. Chaddock
C. Goodrich
J. W. Angell

MEMORANDUM ON THE PRINTING REQUIREMENT FOR PH.D. DISSERTATIONS IN THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
[April 17, 1936]

The question of prolonging or abolishing the present temporary arrangement, under which Ph.D. dissertations may be offered for examination in typescript, must be passed on by the Faculty of Political Science at its meeting on April 17th. This provides on appropriate occasion for examining the whole question of the printing requirement in the Faculty.

At the present time, the situation is broadly this. The Faculty will accept dissertations in typescript for the purposes of the defense examination, and if the defense is successful a certification is given the candidate, announcing that he has met all the requirements for the Ph.D. degree except that of actual publication of the dissertation.

The degree itself is not awarded, however, until the candidate has secured actual publication — “publication” having recently been defined to include in effect some, though not all, of the non-printing forms of reproduction, such as photostating, and provided that certain conditions are met.

Columbia University and the Catholic University of America are apparently the only two large institutions of higher learning which have retained in full the printing requirement, which was once wide-spread in this country. By enforcing the requirement, Columbia imposes on itself a prime facie impairment of its power to attract first-class graduate students who will become candidates for the Ph.D. degree, and who are free to choose between the several leading institutions. No University has so many first-class students that it can afford to turn any away needlessly. If retention of the printing requirement is to be justified, it must be shown to yield benefits which offset this disadvantage.

In addition, the requirement works unevenly as between different, sections of the University. In the Faculty of Political Science, as in that of Philosophy, the requirement is extremely burdensome in financial terms to the average Ph.D. candidate. For that large proportion of candidates whose means are limited, its fulfillment imposes genuine hardship. In the Faculty of Political Science the typical dissertation is essentially literary in character, runs to at least 250 to 300 printed pages in length, and even after allowance for royalties usually costs the candidate $600 to $800 to publish — often much more. The fact that perhaps a quarter of the dissertations are published in the Studies at a saving to the candidate of 20% of the price charged by the University Press, does not greatly alter the situation, nor does it operate to lighten the average financial burden very much. For many students, the sum involved is equivalent to their total living expenses for 6 to 8 months or more: the burden is real. In the Faculty of Pure Science and in the Medical School, on the other band, the typical dissertation is not more than 20 or 25 pages in length (often less than 10), and is published in one of the technical or professional journals at no cost at all to the candidate. Moreover, though this is not relevant for present purposes, the Pure Science dissertation is commonly a joint product of the candidate and the supervising Faculty member, and is published under both signatures.

In defense of the retention of the printing requirement by the faculty of Political Science, the most common contention is that its abolition would lead to a disastrous lowering of our standards for the Ph.D. degree. This contention, of course, cannot be tested directly except from future experience. It is significant, however, that apparently none of the other leading American universities which had abolished the printing requirement has restored it. Moreover, it seems highly improbable that the existence of the printing requirement and the maintenance of high standards are related to one another as cause is related to effect. It could not be contended seriously that merely enforcing a printing requirement would enable a faculty of inadequate scholarly competence to maintain high standards, nor that the existence of a printing requirement would ensure, in such circumstances, the production of distinguished dissertations. Equally it cannot be contended that the modification or withdrawal of the printing requirement will alone cause a faculty of high scholarly competence to deteriorate its standards, nor that modification or withdrawal will alone lead to the production of low-grade dissertations under such a faculty. Indeed, to assert that such results would ensue is to imply that the members of such a faulty maintain high standards only from fear of being “found out”, should they lower their standards, through the publication of discreditable Ph.D. dissertations.

It is also contended that publication is an advantage to the candidate, in that it brings his name and work to the attention of other scholars and also helps him to get a better position. This is undoubtedly true to many cases. But the same or better general results can be obtained in a different way, to be suggested in a moment, which entails relatively little cost to the candidate. As things now stand, most candidates apparently feel that they would gladly forego the not always unequivocal advantages of this type of advertising, in order to void the expense and sacrifice now imposed upon them.

Finally, it is contended that the typescript dissertations found in the libraries of other Universities are in general less finished and sometimes less scholarly products then those which have undergone publication; and that they are less accessible to the generality of scholars. This last is of course true. The contention would have granter force as an argument in favor of retaining the publication requirement, however, if there were any way of shifting the bulk of the financial burden of publication to those other scholars who would allegedly be such large beneficiaries from the act of publication itself. It would also here greater force If any substantial number of other universities had indicated, by retaining the requirement, that they felt the cogency of these considerations. In actuality, and from their very nature, many and perhaps most Ph.D. dissertations in Political Science are not of sufficiently broad interest to merit publication as books. Some suggestions for publishing their essential contents, however, will be outlined presently. It is believed that adoption of these suggestions will give the authors and their work rather wider publicity than is now obtained, in the average case, and will do so without impairing the dissemination of scholarly knowledge.

The principal positive arguments against the retention of the printing requirement in the faculty of Political Science have already been indicated, directly or by implication. They are two in number. One turns on the financial costs and other burdens placed on the candidate. The great bulk of our students are not well-to-do. In the majority of cases, financing the publication of the dissertation exacts a genuine and often a disproportionately large sacrifice from the candidate or his family. It is not easy to see that the candidate of the University receives a return commensurate with this sacrifice. However, as the present system works out in practice it frequently means that the actual receipt of the Ph.D. degree itself is delayed by one or more years after the completion of the work, while the candidate is accumulating enough money to pay for publication. To the extent that this happens, as it seems to in what is not far from a majority of the cases, one of the alleged advantages of the publication requirement — that it helps the candidate secure a better position — may turn into a positive disadvantage, because of the delay involved. The present practice of examining on typescript has helped this situation somewhat, but apparently not as greatly as had been hoped; and of course, it still leaves the candidate with a serious financial burden to carry into future years, before he can obtain the actual Ph.D. degree. The fact that so large a proportion of our candidates now elect to be examined on typescript is surely not wholly unrelated to the matter of their financial ability or inability, at the time of the examination, to defray the cost of printing.

There is also some evidence that the existence of the printing requirement influences candidates to select topics for the Ph.D. dissertation with a view to the probable popularity of the topics, rather than with a view to their scholarly merit and interest alone, in order to lighten the burden of the printing costs.

The second argument against retention of the printing requirement in the faculty of Political Science turns on the best interests of the University itself. What we are really doing is to enforce a fairly severe property qualification for the Ph.D. degree, and one which is in effect inoperative in certain parts of the University. It is a property qualification imposed by only one other large University. There is much evidence to indicate that — as seems natural enough — this property qualification drives elsewhere many first-class students who would prefer, except for financial considerations, to come to Columbia for their Ph.D. work in the Political Science field. To repent what was said before, no University has so many first-class students that it can afford to turn any away needlessly. A property qualification is surely the wrong basis on which to select our Ph.D. candidates.

In connection with the earlier discussion of standards, it should also be pointed out that such a modification of the printing requirement as would eliminate its more serious disadvantages to the student would presumably contribute to the actual raising of the general standards of scholarship and performance prevailing, rather than to their deterioration. This would happen to the extent that the modification increased the number of high-calibre through impecunious students who come to us for their training.

Both the material evidence available and the logical argument against retention of the present form of publication requirement in the Faculty of Political Science are thus extremely strong. We therefore make two suggestions:

(1) At the meeting of the Faculty of Political Science on April 17th, action should be taken looking to the immediate modification of the printing requirement, in its present form, for Ph.D. dissertations under the Faculty. At the same time, however, in the interests of the Ph.D. candidates, of other scholars elsewhere, and of the University as a whole, it seems desirable to retain something of the advantages of the present requirement. Outright abolition of the requirement is therefore not proposed. It is suggested that it be modified as follows:

(2) Action should be taken by the Faculty to provide that, the printing requirement, subject to confirmation by the University Council, may be met in any one of three ways: namely either by,

(a) Publication of the complete dissertation under the present regulations; or, by,

(b) Publication of an article, presenting the essential features and results of the dissertation and to be approved by the examining committee, in one of the recognized professional journals; or by,

(c) Publication of an abstract of the dissertation, presenting briefly the essential features and results of the dissertation and to be approved by the examining committee, in a new annual or semi-annual volume of Abstracts to be published as a regular part of or supplement to the present Studies; the costs of publication and distribution of the volume to be paid by the candidates pro rata. The abstracts would not exceed perhaps 15 pages each, and the average cost to the individual candidate would probably be under $50. The numerical majority of the dissertations would presumably be handled through these new Abstracts.

In each of the three options, the present requirement for the deposit of 75 copies — whether of book, article or abstract — would be retained; and in the last two cases deposit of two copies of the original dissertation would also be required. Dissertations would be defended on typescript, unless the candidate himself preferred to defend on galleys.

These alternatives leave candidates who have the funds, or who can secure commercial publication without a subsidy, free to publish as heretofore. The alternatives take the present severe burden off those candidates who have not sufficient funds, however; and at the same time retain for them most of the advantages, from getting their names and work more widely known, which they obtain under the present arrangements. Indeed, it seems probable that the publicity they thus receive, and the accessibility of the main content of their work to other scholars, will be substantially greater under the proposed arrangements than under those now prevailing. The average sale of the present full-length dissertation hardly exceeds 250 to 300 copies; the circulation of the better-known professional journals runs to several thousand.

In order to make it easier to secure publication in full of most of the best dissertations, without placing an undue burden on the candidates, we also suggest that the present Studies be made substantially more selective in character than they now are, with a diminution in the number of volumes issued per year and with a higher average standard of quality required for acceptance. To illustrate, we suggest that not more than one or two full-length dissertations a year should be published in the Studies from each Department, apart from the proposed new volumes of Abstracts. We believe that the resulting increase in the average quality of the Studies, by increasing the average sales per volume would enable the Studies to carry a much larger proportion of the costs of publication then at present, perhaps 50% or more. We also believe that the improvement in quality and the decrease in number of issues per year would raise the general standing of the Studies to a basis of comparability with the similar series published by various other leading Universities. Probably the most nearly ideal arrangement would be one under which the publication of a dissertation in the studies would be in the nature of a prize award, entailing no cost at all to the successful candidate. Since financial limitations make this impossible at present, we suggest the arrangement just outlined.

R. M. MacIver
R. L. Schuyler
R. E. Chaddock
C. Goodrich
J. W. Angell

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science 1920-1939 (April 17, 1936) pp. 759-775.

December 11, 1936

For the information of the Faculty the following memorandum was presented, concerning the action of the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction on the subject of the printing requirement for doctoral dissertations. At its April, 1936, meeting the Faculty of Political Science adopted a resolution transmitting to the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction a memorandum by certain members of the Faculty urging modification of the printing requirement for doctoral dissertations. On May 19, following, the Joint Committee appointed a sub-committee to study and report on the subject.

The sub-committee submitted its report, accompanied by a digest of information, to the Joint Committee at its meeting on November 9, and on November 16, 1936, the Joint Committee adopted the sub-committee report and its opinions as follows:

“For the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction:

Your sub-committee empowered to consider the question of the printing of doctoral dissertations, composed of the undersigned as chairman and of Professors Angell, Gray, Patterson, Pegram, and Rogers, has duly elicited the information as to the practice in this matter in the leading American universities as well as the pertinent sentiment of three hundred and twenty-one of our own recipients of the doctoral degree in the decade from 1924 to 1933 inclusive. A digest of the information as elicited is now available for the members of the Joint Committee.

After full consideration of this digest and of all other aspects of the question, your sub-committee would submit the following opinions:

That the present requirement of printing should be maintained. Our vote on this recommendation stands four to two, Professors Angell and Patterson dissenting.
That we regret the hardship which the printing of the dissertation now entails on certain of the recipients of the degree.
That it is advisable to make due effort to relieve this hardship as much as possible by any reduction that may be feasible in the cost of printing, and in particular by the establishment, if possible, of a subsidy from University funds to aid in the cost of printing; and that the Joint Committee, or its chairman, should make due inquiry into this possibility.

The second and third opinions were unanimous.”

While opinion in the Joint Committee was not unanimous on point (1) of the adopted report, discussion on certain amendments that were offered and not carried led the Committee to agree as to the substance of two points of the rejected amendment. A sub-committee consisting of Professors Pegram, MacIver, Rogers, and Wright was appointed to rephrase these two points for communication to the Faculties, which they have done as follows:

“(a) It was the sense of the Joint Committee that there may be cases in which the Ph.D. Examining Committee may consider it unnecessary to require the printing of all the supporting date which the Examining Committee may have before it in the five typed copies required by the rules. In such a case the Examining Committee may, with the approval of the Dean, accept as the dissertation a shorter form of the manuscript, or an article or series of articles, provided five copies of the same in form for publication have been circulated to the Examining Committee with the additional materials, and are before the Committee at the time of the final examination.

(b) It was the sense of the Joint Committee that the Dean has authority under the present regulations to accept dissertations printed in part or in whole by photo offset process or other manifolding process when there are special reasons, arising out of the nature of the dissertation (tabular and statistical matter, reproductions of texts, etc.), making such offset process appropriate.”

For the information of members of the Faculty of Political Science, it is to be noted that the problem of printing dissertations under the Faculty of Pure Science is rarely a serious one to students. Dissertations are short as compared to those in the other Faculties and are usually published in the professional Journals. In the Faculty of Philosophy the cost of printing dissertations is serious. That Faculty, at its November meeting, unanimously voted to place on record its opinion in favor of the three numbered paragraphs of the sub-committee report adopted by the Joint Committee.

The Joint Committee will proceed further with inquiry into means of reducing the cost of printing dissertations and into the possibility of securing funds for aiding publication.

Respectfully submitted,
George B. Pegram,
Chairman
Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction

In connection with the proposal of the Joint Committee that an effort be made to establish a subsidy from University funds to aid graduate students in the printing of doctoral dissertations, the President pointed out some of the administrative problems involved in providing for the judicious and far allotment of such aid. He stated, however, that if a satisfactory administrative method could be devised, a revolving fund of $25,000 or $30,000 would go far toward lightening the financial burden which the present printing requirement imposes on certain candidates for the doctoral degree.

The Chairman of the Committee on Instruction presented a memorandum (a copy of which is appended to these Minutes) reminding the Faculty that at its meeting in April, 1986, it had neglected to provide for the dissertation examination on typescript beyond June 30, 1936, but that the privilege had been extended to candidates under the Faculty with the consent of the Dean’s office. After discussion of the memorandum Professor [Vladimir Gregorievitch] Simkhovitch [Economic History] moved that the motion concerning examination on typescript, which lapsed on June 30, 1938, be re-enacted and remain in effect for a term of one year. The motion was adopted, after Professor [Philip Caryl] Jessup’s [International Law] amendment substituting “until revoked by the Faculty” for the words “for a term of one year”, had been accepted. As re-enacted, the resolution then read:

“RESOLVED; that candidates for the doctorate under the Faculty of Political Science, upon recommendation of the Department concerned, may be granted the privilege of examination on dissertations presented in typescript — five or more legible copies to be deposited in the Dean’s office for the inspection of the examiners at least three weeks prior to the examination, it being understood that the dissertations which in the judgment of the examining committee require extensive revision shall be rejected, without prejudice to subsequent examination after such revision.”

Discussion of the resolution emphasized the fact that permission to be examined on typescript is granted only on recommendation by the department. It would appear, therefore, that a department may refuse to make any recommendation, require its candidates to stand examinations on galley proofs, or it may recommend in some cases and refuse to recommend in other cases.

[…]

Memorandum Concerning Dissertation Examination on Type-script

At the meeting of the faculty of Political Science on December 9, 1932, Professor Schuyler, as chairman of the Committee on Publications, raised the question of substituting for the then requirement that the examination must be on galley proof, a requirement that dissertations must be presented in typescript. After discussion the Faculty amended Professor Schuyler’s proposal. The resolution as passed provided that for the remainder of the academic year, 1932-33, candidates for the doctorate under the Faculty of Political Science could be granted, upon the recommendation of the department concerned, the privilege of examination upon typescript four or more legible copies to be deposited in the Dean’s office for the inspection of the examiners at least three weeks prior to the examination, it being understood that dissertations which in the judgment of the examining committee required extensive revision should not be accepted subject to such revision, but should be rejected, without prejudice to subsequent examination after such revision. (Minutes, p. 699)

At its April meetings in 1933, 1934, and 1935 the Faculty continued the provisions of this resolution in affect for the ensuing academic years.

At the November 1935 meeting of the Faculty the Dean called attention to the fact that the Joint Committee on Graduate Instruction had discussed the desirability or requiring five typescript copies of dissertations. the Faculty thereupon amended its regulations to require five instead of four copies.

At the April 1936 meeting the Faculty discussed the modification of printing requirement for dissertations. By inadvertence the Faculty neglected to provide for the examination on typescript alternative. with the consent of the Dean’s office, however, candidates under the Faculty of Political Science have been permitted to present their dissertations in typescript even though technically this privilege lapsed as of June 30, 1936.

Earlier this month a question rose in respect of the period which shall elapse between the presentation of the typescript copies and the date of the final examination. Under the terms of the resolution adopted by the Faculty of Political Science the period was three weeks. Under the printed terms of the regulations of the Faculties of Philosophy and of Pure Science the period is three weeks. As a matter of fact, this regulation is not enforced. Two weeks is deemed a sufficient period.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science 1920-1939 (April 17, 1936) pp. 783-790.

April 21, 1939

The Chairman of the Committee on Publications further reported that, on the initiative of the Managing Editor of the Studies, the Committee had given consideration to the problem of reducing the financial burden upon doctoral candidates who publish their dissertations in the Studies. In consequence of this discussion, upon the recommendation of the Managing Editor, and in accordance with a unanimous resolution of his Committee, he offered the following resolution which was unanimously passed;

Be it RESOLVED; That in order to afford to doctoral candidates an alternative method of publishing dissertations in the Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law at a lower cost than is possible under the existing requirements, these requirements be so modified as to permit, after October 1, 1939, at the option of the candidate,
1. the use of paper binding
2. the use of a double-column format, and of type smaller than that now employed, and
3. the relegation of footnotes to the end of each chapter.
Be it RESOLVED: That the Faculty of Political Science request the Trustees of the University to advance the sum of fifty dollars to each student publishing his dissertation in the Studies, said sum to be a first claim against the author’s royalties. In the event that said author’s royalties do not total fifty dollars within three years after the publication of the dissertation, the full receipts thereafter accruing to such volume shall be paid over to the University until such a time as the University is fully reimbursed for its advance.
Be it RESOLVED: That the Faculty of Political Science request the Trustees of the University to authorize the Library to pay to each doctoral candidate who had published his dissertation in the Studies, the sum of fifty dollars, upon his depositing with the Library one hundred copies of the said dissertation.

[…]

The Chairman of the Committee on Instruction reported that since receipt of the report of the Committee on the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (of which Professor Woodbridge was Chairman) the Committee on Instruction had given further consideration to the printing requirements. He submitted the following motions which were passed:

BE IT RESOLVED, that this Faculty favored such modification of the present requirement for the printing of the doctoral dissertation as would allow candidates certain options, as follows:
1. The dissertation may be printed from type and published in book form.
2. The dissertation may be published as an article or series of articles in a scholarly journal.
3. The dissertation may be reproduced by an offset process approved by the Dean of the Graduate Faculties.
BE IT RESOLVED, that it is the sense of the Faculty that there may be cases in which the Ph.D. Examining Committee may consider it unnecessary to require the printing of all the supporting data which the Examining Committee may have before it in the five typed copies required by the rules. In such a case the Examining Committee may, with the approval of the Dean, accept as the dissertation a shorter form of the manuscript, or an article or series of articles, provided five copies of the same in form for publication have been circulated to the Examining Committee with the additional materials, and are before the Committee at the time of the final examination.
BE IT RESOLVED, that this Faculty, realizing that in the past insufficient attention has sometimes been paid to a student’s choice of subject, resulting in the necessity of the preparation of a manuscript of unreasonable length, calls attention to the need for considering the scope of the task when a topic for a dissertation receives its preliminary approval.
BE IT RESOLVED, that the next available edition of the Bulletin of the Faculty include the first resolution on this subject stated abo e, setting forth the three options, and that in the Bulletin this be followed by a paragraph substantially as follows:

The departmental approval mentioned above relates to both the content of the dissertation and to the form in which it is printed. Students are therefore advised to consult their departmental representatives before exercising the option.

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Faculty authorize its Committee on Instruction to prepare a special leaflet for the benefit of candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy under this Faculty, the leaflet to contain a full explanation of all the regulations on this subject.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science 1920-1939 (April 21, 1939) pp. 842-3, 845-846.

Image Source: Low Memorial Library, Columbia University from the Tichnor Brothers Collection, New York Postcards, at the Boston Public Library, Print Department.

Tags AngellJW, Chaddock, ClarkJM, Goodrich, Simkhovitch

Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Department Reports to the Dean, 1946-47 to 1949-50

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-04-18

This post adds the Chair’s annual reports on the Harvard Economics Department for the early post-WW II years to previously posted reports for 1932-33 through 1945-46.

Reports to the Dean of Harvard
from the Department of Economics.

1932-1941

1941-1946

___________________________

1946-1947

September 29, 1947

Dear Dean Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the work of the Department of Economies for the academic year 1946-47.

This report necessarily follows much the same pattern as the report for last year. Again our work has been dominated by the number of students, undergraduate and graduate, and the lack of a trained junior staff.

The number of undergraduates of course is entirely so beyond our control. In Economies A and in most of our “middle group” courses, the elections taxed our capacity for effective instruction. Under the most propitious conditions the crowded classrooms would have presented many problems but with a dearth of trained teaching fellows and annual instructors the load carried by the senior staff was unduly heavy. Foreseeing this range of problems, the Department voted on February 19, 1946 [sic, 1947 probably correct. In December 1946 departments wereallowed to withdraw from offering tutorials] to suspend tutorial instruction for a period of two years. It may be stated here that this was probably a wise decision. Concentration in Economics appears to have resumed the trend apparent before the war. In the current year the number of concentrators will approach, or perhaps exceed 800. Even should no consideration be given to the expenditure involved, the possibility of finding and training effective tutors even for honors candidates seems somewhat remote.

On the graduate level the problems of instruction were even more difficult. During the year the number of graduate students receiving instruction was approximately 286. Our course offering on this level is large. Nevertheless, the principal graduate courses were crowded to a point where the maintenance of standards was difficult. After the graduate student has completed his preliminary program and has been accepted as a candidate for the Ph.D, degree, the instruction is largely individual. In the last year we were just coming into the situation where a considerable proportion of the students were receiving such instruction. The full impact of this situation will be felt in the current year. Most members of the senior staff will be directing the theses of some 10 to 15 students. Some officers will be responsible for even larger numbers. With the numbers we are attempting to handle on the graduate level the single task of examining candidates in the general and special examinations becomes a major consideration. During the last academic year the staff conducted general and special examinations. Such an amount of examining and of individual instruction on the graduate level has its bearing on tutorial instruction for undergraduates.

The Department voted to accept the large number of graduate students now on our rolls only after considerable investigation and discussion. It is my own personal opinion that we have set our limit altogether too high. However, the pressure upon us for admission has been very strong and our obligations to the Littauer School, where the pressure is hardly less, just be observed.

This matter of the size of the Graduate School in the immediate future is one of our most difficult problems. It will receive our attention in the current year.

In the last two or three years these reports have noted certain experiments in instruction, especially in connection with Economics A. Such experiments are dependent upon the presence of a considerable number of able and mature young men with adequate teaching experience, as well as upon a margin of free time. Both of these factors are lacking to such a degree that substantial and outstanding progress could not be expected but the plans were active and some progress was made.

If full tutorial instruction is not resumed by the Department, experimentation in undergraduate courses is imperative and this we have planned. It is our expectation that a good deal in the way of individual guidance can be accomplished in connection with Economics A and some of our middle group courses. We believe that we can make our instruction more efficient with a much smaller personnel and at much less expense than the tutorial system would involve. However, a definitive decision has not been reached on all of these matters.

It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the heavy instructional demands discussed above affected our research projects. Furthermore, the officers of this Department are severely handicapped by the lack of research funds. This dearth of research funds is a question which has been placed before our Visiting Committee.

In spite of the difficulties involved, the contributions of the members of the Department were substantial. The following books were published:

Teoria de la Competencie Monopolica, by E. H. Chamberlin, Mexico, 1946. (Spanish translation of The Theory of Monopolistic Competition)

Economic Policy and Full Employment, by A. H. Hansen. McGraw-Hill. 1947.

The New Economics, S. B. Harris, editor and contributor Knopf. 1947.

The National Debt and the New Economics, by S. E. Harris. 1947.

Income and Employment, by T. Morgan. Prentice-Hall. 1947.

New enlarged edition of Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, by J. A. Schumpeter.

The Challenge of Industrial Relations, by S. H. Slichter, Cornell University Press, 1947.

Postwar Monetary Plans and other Essays, by J. Williams. Knopf, 3rd edition. 1947.

articles were published.

Although we are able to record only one new volume and one republication of an older volume in the Harvard Economic Series for the past year, four other volumes are in the hands of the printer and will appear in the current year.

In the area of distinctions or honors, I believe the only items to be noted concern Dean Edward S. Mason. Last spring he was appointed Economic Advisor to Secretary of State Marshall at the Moscow Conference. In July he was appointed a member of President Truman’s Committee on Foreign Aid.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1947-1948

September 30, 1948

Dear Provost Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the work of the Department of Economics for the academic year 1947-48.

The report on the work of the Department for the last year can be given in part in the same terms that have been employed in the last three reports. Our major problems have been quantitative and have presented the same difficulties that were emphasized in the other post-war reports. However, we believe that the last year did reach the peak of the load and that the pressure of numbers will abate steadily. The problem of building and maintaining an effective junior staff was hardly less than in the preceding years. Crowded classrooms and insufficiently trained assistants imposed unduly severe burdens upon the senior teachers responsible for course instruction. Some improvement, especially in the middle group courses, is in prospect for the coming year but it is probable that two to three years more will be necessary before these courses will be adequately staffed. In the introductory course which relies heavily upon a large number of young instructors and teaching fellows, the situation is still serious but latterly we have been able to utilize young men with more satisfactory preparation and training. Because of the heavy demands for the services of these young men by other institutions, the turnover is large leaving us each year with a relatively inexperienced staff.

Graduate instruction continues to make unusual demands upon the time and energy of the senior staff. During the past year we conducted 109 general examinations and 26 special examinations. Examining and the related task of directing the research of candidates for the higher degrees undoubtedly have an incidence upon undergraduate instruction which raises questions of fundamental importance. It is encouraging that the number of graduate students is, through the action of the Department, declining.

In spite of the difficulties presented by the numbers of undergraduates and graduates, the Department, perhaps belatedly, has given particular consideration to its commitments in the Areas and in General Education. A report on General Education is enclosed.

Also, the Department has considered at length and in detail various problems of instruction, particularly undergraduate instruction. These considerations will be continued in the current year. By completely revising the content of our basic courses it may be possible to increase the effectiveness of our instruction and reduce somewhat the number of courses offered. A preliminary report on this aspect of our work is included.

A year ago I noted that many of our senior officers were handicapped severely by the lack of research funds. As you know, it can now be recorded with sincere satisfaction that a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and that several projects under the auspices of the Research Marketing Act, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Charles H. Hood Dairy Foundation, the Ferguson Foundation Fund, and the Carnegie Corporation Fund, meet the situation effectively for some of our officers. The set-up of these projects promises not only to be of great value to the professors in charge of the research but it contributes heavily to the training of our most promising graduate students and younger officers.

The following books were published by members of the Department:

How Shall We Pay for Education? by Seymour Harris. Harpers.

Stabilization Subsidies by Seymour Harris. Historical Report Series, U.S. Gov’t.

Price Control of International Commodities by Seymour Harris. Archives Volume, Historical Records Office.

International Monetary Policies, by Gottfried Haberler (with Lloyd Metzler and Robert Triffin). Postwar Economic Series, Federal Reserve System Board of Governors.

Problemas de Conjuntura e de Politica Economica, by Gottfried Haberler. Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janiero.

Production in the United States, 1866-1914, by Edwin Frickey. Harvard University Press.

Seventy-eight articles have been published. Three books were published in the Harvard Economic Series during the past year. Five volumes are in the hands of the Press to be published later this year.

Professor Edward H. Chamberlin has been appointed to succeed Dr. Arthur B. Monroe as Managing Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Both the Quarterly Journal of Economies and the Review of Economic Statistics are well established intellectually and financially. With the demands of instruction and research, the editing of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics, as well as the direction of the Harvard Economic Series, raises questions regarding the adequacy of the manpower within the Department.

In the area of distinctions or honors, Professor Joseph A. Schumpeter was chosen to be President of the American Economic Association for 1948. Dean Edward S. Mason was awarded an honorary degree, D. Litt, from Williams College, June, 1948.

Very sincerely,
H. H. Burbank

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1948-1949

September 28, 1949

Dear Provost Buck:

The pattern of the report of the Department of Economics on the work of the last year is essentially the same as the other reports for the post-war years. Indeed, not a little of the introduction to the report of a year ago could be utilized in the current report. The quantitative side of our work has been among our major problems. I think I was correct in predicting that the peak of the load would be passed in 1948-49. For the year 1949-50, numbers, particularly on the graduate level, will be approximately less although the total is still beyond the capacities of our senior staff.

Again I can repeat that the problem of building and maintaining a junior staff presents great difficulties. We have strengthened our position on the level of the assistant professor but we are unable to hold our most promising young Ph.D’s for appointment at the instructor level. All of our undergraduate instruction suffers because of this factor, but Economics 1 (the introductory course) is affected particularly. The demand for these young men by other institutions continues at a high level resulting in a high rate of turnover and leaving us sech year with a relatively inexperienced staff. [end of p. 1]

[Note: need to replace unfocussed image of page 2]

[p. 3 begins ] …expectation that we will be able to revise our general examination effectively.

In the post-war years the Department has been striving to meet its obligations to General Education and to the areas. We believe that we have made an excellent beginning in both General Education and in the Russian Area. We are still actively engaged in the attempt to strengthen our position in the Chinese Area. This is exceedingly difficult but I believe that some progress is being made.

Last year we were able to record with great satisfaction that some research projects were being established satisfactorily. These projects under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation and under the auspices of various groups interested in agriculture and marketing are now going forward successfully and up proving to be important for us not only as research projects but also because of their general effect upon a relatively large group of our graduate students. We can now give a type of training to our most promising men which would have been impossible without such projects. It should be emphasized at this point that other areas of interest need research funds.

The following books were published:

Collective Bargaining: Principles and Cases, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1949, by John I. Dunlop.

Labor in Norway by Walter Galenson. Harvard University Press, 1949.

Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy, by Alvin Hansen McGraw-Hill, 1949.

The European Recovery Program, by Seymour E. Harris. Harvard University Press.

Foreign Economic Policy for the U.S., edited by Seymour E. Harris, Harvard University Press.

Price Control of International Commodities, by Seymour E. Harris. Archives Volume for Historical Records Office.

Saving American Capitalism, edited by Seymour E. Harris. Knopf.

Economic Planning, by Seymour E. Harris. Knopf.

Post-war Monetary Plans and Other Essays, by John H. Williams. Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

The American Economy, Its Problems and Prospects, by Sumner H. Slichter. Knopf.

There were 62 articles published by members of the Department during the past year. Five books were published in the Harvard Economic Studies and two volumes are in the hands of the Press to be published later this year. There has been a total of 86 books published in the Harvard Economic Studies to this date.

It should be recorded that both the Quarterly Journal of Economics under the editorship of Professor Chamberlin and the Review of Economics and Statistics have prospered during the year. Again I do feel it necessary to refer to the fact that editing the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics and the carrying forward of the Harvard Economic Studies continues to raise questions regarding the adequacy of the manpower within the Department.

In the area of distinctions and honors, Professor Slichter was awarded honorary degrees (LL.D.) from the following universities: Lehigh University, Harvard University, University of Rochester, University of Wisconsin and Northwestern University. Professor

Haberler was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Economics (“Doktor der Wirtschaftswissenschaft honoris causa”) from Handelshochschule, St. Gallen, Switzerland. Dr. Galbraith was awarded the President’s Certificate of Merit, Medal of Merit Board, for services in Price Control and Economic Stabilization during the war.

Sincerely
[Harold H. Burbank]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean 1948-54”.

___________________________

1949-1950

[Draft] Report to Dean, October 2, 1950
Professor Burbank

In each of the reports for the last three years, emphasis has been placed upon two matters; our efforts to handle the increased numbers incident to the war, particularly on the graduate level, and our attempts to revise and improve our instruction, particularly on the undergraduate level.

With a good deal of satisfaction we are able to report that for the last year substantial progress has been made in each of these areas. Immediately after the war the number of our graduate students increased from approximately 100 to nearly 300. By raising the standards of admission and giving the most careful scrutiny to applications, the numbers on the graduate level are now well under 200, and will be reduced somewhat more for 1950-51.

The work of supervising and directing graduate students falls very unevenly upon the various members of the senior staff. Even with not over 150 graduate students some members of the staff will carry an inordinate part of individual instruction and of examining for the higher degrees. Further, large graduate classes tend to dilute the instruction.

On the undergraduate level the Department has revised its requirements for concentration, including the content of many of our key courses. This plan has been accepted by the Faculty and is now in operation. It is an ambitious scheme that involves not only a change in the content and coverage of our key courses but it also involves the strengthening the staff in these courses and an integration of course work with tutorial work. Undoubtedly it will take some years to complete this plan. Much depends upon our ability to build a strong junior staff, especially on the annual instructor level. When this reorganized instruction is in full operation it is expected that a number of courses now offered for undergraduates may be deleted.

Also it is with a good deal of satisfaction that after a period of suspension tutorial instruction has been reestablished and is developing steadily. The period of suspension was unfortunate but probably inevitable. We are now approaching a position with respect to both graduate and undergraduate instruction that at least approximates a normal situation, with a possibility of a carefully planned and well integrated system of undergraduate instruction. As a part of this plan increased attention has been given to reestablishing the General Examinations on something approximating the level of earlier years. Since we are lacking experienced tutors the establishment of tutorial instruction is a very real task but it is believed it can be done successfully.

We have been fortunate to have been able to attract to the Graduate School a group of unusually able young men. The very top of this group represents ability of the very highest order. Unfortunately only rarely can we retain the services of these young men even on the assistant professor level. However, the Department is keenly aware of the difficulties it faces in recruitment and every effort is being made to follow the progress of the product of other schools as well as the progress of our own young scholars.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1949-1950

January 5, 1951

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Provost Buck:

I am now somewhat belatedly submitting the report of the Department of Economics for 1949-50.

I. Undergraduate Instruction

Four hundred eighty-two Harvard and Radcliffe students concentrated in economics in 1949-50 as compared with 608 in the previous year. The enrolment in Economics 1 was 402 as compared with 546 in the previous year. Seventy-seven students graduated with honors; 20 obtaining magna cum laude and 57 cum laude.

The entire senior staff gave courses at the undergraduate level— a practice that distinguishes Harvard sharply from institutions such as Columbia and Chicago which restrict the activities of some of the most talented members of the staff to graduate instruction. Nevertheless, the strength of our undergraduate teaching has depended very largely on the unusually fine group of assistant professors we now have on our staff.

During the past couple of years the Department has been gradually moving toward restoration of the tutorial system and last spring it decided finally to give tutorial instruction to all honors students in their junior and senior years,

II. Graduate Instruction

Two hundred graduate students in economics were in residence last year as compared with 234 the previous year. The Department gave 58 general examinations for the Ph.D. and 47 special examinations.

The number of graduate students is still too large to handle effectively with the present staff. The students themselves justifiably complain that they cannot see enough of the members of the faculty. However if they did see as much of the faculty as they wanted to, the faculty would have little time for reading and research and the quality of instruction would decline. We are planning to deal with this problem as far as possible by making sure that more graduate students attend reasonably small seminars and do have an opportunity to get to know at least one faculty member reasonably well.

I believe that the quality of our graduate work has suffered through overemphasis on course work and preoccupation with grades. We tend to make graduate instruction too much of a prolongation of undergraduate instruction. We also tend too much in the direction of specialization and provide too little encouragement for students to become coordinated in the whole economic field. The remedy for this state of affairs depends more upon the general attitude of the Department rather than any specific measures of reorganization. We shall do whatever is possible to encourage students in the feeling that their main function here is to acquire the maturity that is essential for scholarship rather than to accumulate a collection of pieces of isolated information.

III. Research

Professors Mason, Leontief, Black, Galbraith and Dunlop are all conducting organized research projects within the Department. Apart from their substantive value, these projects give a considerable number of graduate students an opportunity to take part in organized research activity. I believe these projects have an important part to play in the future of the Department as a whole rather than as special interests of individual members. However, I do not share the view that most of our intellectual activities should be directed towards organized research. There is danger that we may become a research bureaucracy and that the merits of individual scholarship may achieve less recognition than they deserve. While the research project is invaluable in training the students in specialized activity, it does little to cultivate the maturity that should be one of the most important products of our graduate training.

IV. The Staff of the Department

Professor Schumpeter’s death has meant a loss to the Department that cannot be covered by any individual that we now have on the staff or could get from the outside. The only way to make up for his absence is for the present members of the faculty to direct part of their attention to the aspects of economic thought in which Schumpeter was particularly interested. This has in part been done. I think it is true to say that since Schumpeter’s death his own work has received more attention in Harvard classrooms than it received while he was alive.

The only new additions to the to the staff at the professorial level in 1949-50 were assistant professors Orcutt and Sawyer. Orcutt is giving a course at the graduate level and the undergraduate level on empirical economies in which he stresses the quantitative aspects of economic theory. He is also a first-class statistician. Since the resignation of Professor Crum we have had only one professional statistician in the Department, and it seems highly desirable to have at least two. Sawyer will add considerable strength to the Department’s work in economic history although he will spend half of his time in the General Education program.

**VI. [sic] Distinctions**

Members of the Department received the following distinctions:

Professor Edward Chamberlin — An honorary degree (Dr.) awarded by the Universita Catholica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy. December 1949.

Professor Sumner Slichter — President, Industrial Relations Research Association.

Professor Gottfried Haberler — President, International Economic Association for 1950 (held by Professor Schumpeter at the time of his death).

I am attaching a bibliography of the writings of the members of the Department. [not included in this folder]

Sincerely yours,
Arthur Smithies

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean 1948-54”.

Images Source: Burbank (left) from the Harvard Class Album 1946, Smithies (right) from the Harvard Class Album 1952.

Tags BlackJD, Burbank, Chamberlin, Crum, Dunlop, Frickey, Galbraith, Haberler, Hansen, Harris, Leontief, Mason, Metzler, Monroe, Orcutt, SawyerJ, Schumpeter, Slichter, Smithies, Triffin, WilliamsJH

Professional Education: Towards a Way of Thought

by Charles P. Kindleberger

Enlarges Economic Courses. University Offers New Opportunities for Students of Practical Business. [Announced for 1903-1904]

Economics Course Offerings [1904-1905]

1896 Newspaper Report

Degree Requirements in 1921-22

GENERAL INFORMATION

ORGANIZATION

DEGREES OF A.B. AND S.B.

CONCENTRATION IN HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, OR ECONOMICS

DIVISION EXAMINATION

TUTORIAL INSTRUCTION

CONCENTRATION IN SOCIAL ETHICS

TUTORIAL INSTRUCTION IN SOCIAL ETHICS

THE DEGREE OF A.B. WITH DISTINCTION IN HISTORY, IN GOVERNMENT, AND IN ECONOMICS

IN SOCIAL ETHICS

IN COMBINATION WITH THE CLASSICS

DEGREE OF A.M.

DEGREE OF PH.D.

GENERAL PREPARATION

I. GENERAL EXAMINATION

II. THESIS

III. SPECIAL EXAMINATION

THE DEGREE OF Ph.D. IN ECONOMICS

GENERAL PREPARATION

GENERAL EXAMINATION

THE DEGREE OF Ph.D. IN BUSINESS ECONOMICS

GENERAL PREPARATION

GENERAL EXAMINATION

SPECIAL EXAMINATION

1934-1935 HARVARD UNIVERSITY Department of Economics

Requirements for Graduate Degrees: The more important regulations regarding graduate degrees are stated below.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139

Brown to Solow

MEMORANDUM

DEPARTMENTAL ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES: ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT 1977-78

Harvard Ph.D. 1950

UCLA Department of Economics Obituary of Jack Hirshleifer

Tribute by David Levine

Tribute by Roger Farmer

Publications

April 17, 1936

Appendix to Minutes

MEMORANDUM ON THE PRINTING REQUIREMENT FOR PH.D. DISSERTATIONS IN THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE [April 17, 1936]

December 11, 1936

Memorandum Concerning Dissertation Examination on Type-script

April 21, 1939

Reports to the Dean of Harvard from the Department of Economics.

1946-1947

1947-1948

1948-1949

1949-1950

[Draft] Report to Dean, October 2, 1950 Professor Burbank

1949-1950

I. Undergraduate Instruction

II. Graduate Instruction

III. Research

IV. The Staff of the Department

VI. [sic] Distinctions

Professional Education:
Towards a Way of Thought

Enlarges Economic Courses.
University Offers New Opportunities for Students of Practical Business.
[Announced for 1903-1904]

Economics Course Offerings
[1904-1905]

Degree Requirements
in 1921-22

THE DEGREE OF Ph.D.
IN ECONOMICS

THE DEGREE OF Ph.D.
IN BUSINESS ECONOMICS

1934-1935
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Requirements for Graduate Degrees:
The more important regulations regarding graduate degrees are stated below.

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139

DEPARTMENTAL ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES:
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT 1977-78

UCLA
Department of Economics
Obituary of Jack Hirshleifer

MEMORANDUM ON THE PRINTING REQUIREMENT FOR PH.D. DISSERTATIONS IN THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE
[April 17, 1936]

Reports to the Dean of Harvard
from the Department of Economics.

[Draft] Report to Dean, October 2, 1950
Professor Burbank

**VI. [sic] Distinctions**