Category: Economists

Yale. Appointment to Council of Economic Advisers. Merton J. Peck, 1968

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-10-21

In an earlier post that featured a 1955 reading list for a course on industrial organization at Harvard taught by Carl Kaysen and Merton J. Peck, I proudly introduced that artifact with a few details about my first Yale economics professor, Joe Peck. I worked as his “bursary boy” over the next three years, undertaking the tasks of library runs, photocopying, and light editorial work to finance some of the out-of-pocket expenses of my undergraduate life.

Peck was freshly back from the Council of Economics Advisers in the last year of President Johnson’s administration (1968), when I first encountered him as my instructor in the double-credit introductory seminar “Early Concentration Economics” in the Fall of 1969. Incidentally, the seminar was co-taught by another Joe, Joseph Persky, then a visiting lecturer from Harvard, where he was completing his Ph.D. dissertation. From those earlier regional/urban economics research days, Joe Persky has become a distinguished historian of economics.

Two documents regarding Merton J. Peck’s appointment as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers in 1968 are included in this post along with his obituary that was published in the Yale Daily News.

Fun Fact: In the obituary you will find a quote from yet another Joe, Joseph Altonji, now a Yale professor of economics, but then a fellow student with me in the graduate sequence of Statistics and Econometrics at Yale and my successor in the role of student assistant to Joe Peck.

_________________________

NOMINATION OF MERTON J. PECK
Monday, February 5, 1968

U.S. Senate, Committee on Banking and Currency
Washington, D.C.

The committee met pursuant to notice at 10:08 a.m., in room 5302, New Senate Office Building, Senator John Sparkman (chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Senators Sparkman, Proxmire, McIntyre, Spong, and Bennett.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee is meeting in open hearing on the nomination of Mr. Merton J. Peck of Connecticut to serve as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Mr. Peck was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 17, 1925, and attended public schools in Shaker Heights and Medina, Ohio, as well as Evanston, Ill. He served in the Army from 1944 to 1946 with overseas duty in Okinawa and Japan. Mr. Peck graduated from Oberlin College in 1949 and took his graduate training in economics at Harvard, receiving his Ph. D. in 1954. He taught at Harvard College from 1954 to 1955, at the University of Michigan 1955-56, and the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration 1956-61. During 1961 and 1962 Mr. Peck served as Assistant Deputy Controller and Director of System Analysis in the office of Charles J. Hitch, the Assistant Secretary of Defense.

In 1963 Mr. Peck was appointed professor of economics at Yale University. In July 1967 he was appointed chairman of the Yale Economics Department.

Mr. Peck, I welcome you to the committee. We are glad to have you with us this morning. We have a more complete biographical sketch which will be printed in the record.

(The information follows:)

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MERTON J. PECK

Merton Joseph Peck was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on December 17, 1925, and attended public schools in Shaker Heights and Medina, Ohio, as well as Evanston, Illinois. He served in the Army from 1944 to 1946, with overseas duty in Okinowa and Japan.

Mr. Peck graduated from Oberlin College in 1949 and took his graduate training in economics at Harvard receiving his Ph. D. in 1954. He taught at Harvard College (1954-1955), University of Michigan (1955-1956), and the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration (1956-1961).

During 1961 and 1962 Mr. Peck served as Assistant Deputy Controller and Director of System Analysis in the Office of Charles J. Hitch, the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Controller).

In 1963 Mr. Peck was appointed Professor of Economics at Yale University. In July 1967 he was appointed Chairman of the Yale Economics Department.

Mr. Peck has written Competition in the American Aluminum Industry, 1945–58 (Harvard University Press 1961), and he is a joint author of Economics of Competition in the Transportation Industry (Harvard University Press 1959), Weapons Acquisition: An Economic Analysis (Harvard Business School 1962), Technological Change, Economic Growth and Public Policy (Brookings Institution 1967). He has also contributed articles to various professional journals

Mr. Peck married Mary McClure Bosworth in 1949. They have four children: Richard, age 13; Katherine, age 11; Sarah, age 9; David, age 7. The Pecks reside in New Haven, Connecticut.

Mr. Peck’s parents died when he was young and he was raised by his aunts, Mrs. A. R. Lyon and Miss Olive S. Peck, who now reside in Arlington, Virginia.

Mr. Peck is a member of the American Economic Association, the Econometric Society, and the Association of American University Professors.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Peck, I also have a letter addressed to me which I shall read into the record.

“DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I regret that previous commitments prevent me from being present this morning to present the President’s nominee as a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, Mr. Merton J. Peck.

“It is an honor to introduce Professor Peck to this distinguished committee. Professor Peck was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1949, after serving 2 years in the Pacific theatre as a member of our Armed Forces. Upon receiving a Ph.D. degree in economics from Harvard, Professor Peck began a distinguished teaching career that led to his appointment last year as chairman of the Yale Economics Department. He now resides with his family in New Haven, Conn.

“Professor Peck combines a background of academic experience and public service, having served for 2 years in the Department of Defense as Assistant Deputy Controller and Director of Systems Analysis. Well known as an author on economic policy, he has published studies of competition in the aluminum and transportation industries. His latest book, published by the Brookings Institution, is “Technological Change, Economic Growth, and Public Policy.’

“I have touched only briefly on the accomplishments of Professor Peck, but they indicate the obvious ability and wide experience he would bring to the Council of Economic Advisers. I strongly urge that his nomination be favorably considered by this committee.

Sincerely,
ABE RIBICOFF.”

That letter will be printed in the record.

Senator BENNETT. Mr. Peck, is your official residence in Connecticut at the moment?

Mr. PECK. Yes, Senator; it is.

The CHAIRMAN. May I say we have the approval of both Senator Dodd and Senator Ribicoff. I may say for the record that accompanying Dr. Peck is Mr. Charles Warden, special assistant to the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Senator BENNETT. Mr. Chairman, the official attitude of the Republicans on this committee has always been that the President is certainly entitled to select his economic advisers and we should under no circumstances raise any question about that privilege.
That is a kind of a negative endorsement, but in addition to that, I think Mr. Peck’s credentials are very impressive and I am sure all of the Republicans will be happy to vote for his approval.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well. Senator Spong?

Senator SPONG. I am impressed with Dr. Peck’s credentials. I would like to ask him a couple of questions, however.
Dr. Peck, have you ever been retained as a consultant by private industry?

Mr. PECK. Yes, I have.

Senator SPONG. Do you intend to end all such activities if you are confirmed and become a member of the Council of Economic Advisers?

Mr. PECK. Yes, I have.

Senator SPONG. You have ended it all?

Mr. PECK. Yes, sir.

Senator SPONG. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have any interest in any undertaking or activity which you feel would constitute a conflict of interest?

Mr. PECK. No, I do not.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you checked your situation with the General Counsel of the Council of Economic Advisers?

Mr. PECK. No, I have not, but I will do so. I have a financial statement that I filed.

The CHAIRMAN. You have filed a financial statement?

Mr. PECK. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. With the Council?

Senator BENNETT. With us.

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, with our committee?

Mr. PECK. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Very well; are there any further questions?

Senator BENNETT. No further questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much Dr. Peck. I wish you a successful and happy tenure in office.

Mr. PECK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to this unusual post as a unique opportunity to serve and, if I am confirmed, I will do so to the best of my ability.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and we shall hope to see you from time to time.

(Thereupon at 10:15 a.m., the committee went into executive session.)

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

(Excerpts from the Employment Act of 1946
and related laws follow):

EMPLOYMENT Act of 1946,
AS AMENDED, AND RELATED LAWS
(60 Stat. 23)
[PUBLIC LAW 304-79TH CONGRESS]

AN ACT To declare a national policy on employment, production, and purchasing power, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SHORT TITLE

SECTION 1. This Act may be cited as the “Employment Act of 1946 “.

DECLARATION OF POLICY

SEC. 2. The Congress declares that it is the continuing policy and responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means consistent with its needs and obligations and other essential considerations of national policy, with the assistance and cooperation of industry, agriculture, labor, and State and local governments, to coordinate and utilize all its plans, functions, and resources for the purpose of creating and maintaining, in a manner calculated to foster and promote free competitive enterprise and the general welfare, conditions under which there will be afforded useful employment opportunities, including self-employment, for those able, willing, and seeking to work, and to promote maxi mum employment, production, and purchasing power. (15 U.S.C. 1021.)

ECONOMIC REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT

SEC. 3. (a) The President shall transmit to the Congress not later than January 20 of each year an economic report (hereinafter called the “Economic Report”) setting forth (a) the levels of employment, production, and purchasing power obtaining in the United States and such levels needed to carry out the policy declared in section 2; (2) current and foreseeable trends in the levels of employment, production, and purchasing power; (3) a review of the economic program of the Federal Government and a review of economic conditions affecting employment in the United States or any considerable portion thereof during the preceding year and of their effect upon employment, production, and purchasing power; and (4) a program for carrying out the policy declared in section 2, together with such recommendations for legislation as he may deem necessary or desirable.

(b) The President may transmit from time to time to the Congress reports supplementary to the Economic Report, each of which shall include such supplementary or revised recommendations as he may deem necessary or desirable to achieve the policy declared in section 2.

(c) The Economic Report, and all supplementary reports transmitted under subsection (b) of this section, shall, when transmitted to Congress, be referred to the joint committee created by section 5. (15 U.S.C. 1022.)

COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS
TO THE PRESIDENT

SEC. 4. (a) There is created in the Executive Office of the President a Council of Economic Advisers (hereinafter called the “Council”). The Council shall be composed of three members who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and each of whom shall be a person who, as a result of his training, experience, and attainments, is exceptionally qualified to analyze and interpret economic developments, to appraise programs and activities of the Government in the light of the policy declared in section 2, and to formulate and recommend national economic policy to promote employment, production, and purchasing power under free competitive enterprise.¹ The President shall designate one of the members of the Council as Chairman.

(b) The Council is authorized to employ, and fix the compensation of, such specialists and other experts as may be necessary for the carrying out of its functions under this act, without regard to the civil service laws and the Classification Act of 1949, as amended, and is authorized, subject to the civil service laws, to employ such other officers and employees as may be necessary for carrying out its functions under this act, and fix their compensation in accordance with the Classification Act of 1949, as amended.

(1) to assist and advise the President in the preparation of the Economic Report;

(2) to gather timely and authoritative information concerning economic developments and economic trends, both current and prospective, to analyze and interpret such information in the light of the policy declared in section 2 for the purpose of determining whether such development and trends are interfering, or are likely to interfere, with the achievement of such policy, and to compile and submit to the President studies relating to such developments and trends;

(3) to appraise the various programs and activities of the Federal Government in the light of the policy declared in section 2 of this title for the purpose of determining the extent to which such programs and activities are contributing, and the extent to which they are not contributing, to the achievement of such policy and to make recommendations to the President with respect thereto;

(4) to develop and recommend to the President national economic policies to foster and promote free competitive enterprise, to avoid economic fluctuations or to diminish the effects thereof, and to maintain employment, production, and purchasing power;

(5) to make and furnish such studies, reports thereon, and recommendations with respect to matters of Federal economic policy and legislation as the President may request.

(d) The Council shall make an annual report to the President in December of each year.

(e) In exercising its powers, functions, and duties under this act—

(1) the Council may constitute such advisory committees and may consult with such representatives of industry, agriculture, labor, consumers, State and local governments, and other groups as it deems advisable;

(2) the Council shall, to the fullest extent possible, utilize the services, facilities, and information (including statistical information) of other Government agencies as well as of private research agencies, in order that duplication of effort and expense may be avoided.

(f) To enable the Council to exercise its powers, functions, and duties under this act, there are authorized to be appropriated such sums as may be necessary.

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

REORGANIZATION PLAN No. 9 of 1953

(Prepared by the President and transmitted to the Senate and the House of Representatives in Congress assembled, June 1, 1953, pursuant to the provisions of the Reorganization Act of 1949, as amended)

COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC ADVISERS

The functions vested in the Council of Economic Advisers by section 4 (b) of the Employment Act of 1946 (60 Stat. 24), and so much of the functions vested in the Council by section 4 (c) of that act as consists of reporting to the President with respect to any function of the Council under the said section 4 (c), are hereby transferred to the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. ***

¹The Postal Revenue and Federal Salary Act of 1967 provides that the annual rates of basic compensation shall be $30,000 for the Chairman and $28,750 for the other two members of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Source: On the nomination of Merton J. Peck to be a member of the council of economic advisers, February 5, 1968. Hearing Before the Committee on Banking and Currency, United States Senate. Ninetieth Congress, Second Session.

_________________________

Remarks by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Swearing in of Merton J. Peck as a Member, Council of Economic Advisers, and upon Designating Arthur M. Okun as Chairman

February 15, 1968

Dr. and Mrs. Peck and family, Mr. and Mrs. Okun and family, Secretary Wirtz, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen:

I want to welcome all of you to this ceremony this morning.

I stand here with one eye wet and one eye dry. Gardner Ackley’s departure saddens me. I would hope that he feels the same way.

When Gardner took the CEA chairmanship more than 3 years ago, the economy was already setting peacetime records. He has kept the curve climbing, turning a youthful boom into a mature and solid 8-year expansion.

Of all the good advice Chairman Ackley has given to me throughout the years, I was happiest to accept one of his fine recommendations to appoint Art Okun as his successor.

Art brings many special talents to this new job. His forecasts are so amazingly accurate that one newspaper once called him the administration’s secret weapon.

Far away from the limelight, he has been invaluable to international monetary policy — to the Treasury Department in developing the Rio Accord — to drafting the new system of Special Drawing Rights. And I am relying heavily on Chairman Okun and the Council to help us move this Nation and all nations towards swift acceptance of these new monetary arrangements.

To fill the Council vacancy, we have Merton Joseph Peck from Yale University.

I am delighted that he joins Jim Duesenberry and Art Okun at this particular time. One of our most urgent concerns in the Nation now is price stability. We have recently created a Cabinet committee to concentrate heavily on this problem. Dr. Peck is an expert on markets. He will bring special insights to price and wage problems arising from structural imperfections in labor markets, product markets, and markets for services.

Looking around us as we meet here this morning, we see more and more evidence of our economic strength. The January unemployment rate, we are pleased to say, was the lowest in more than 14 years. Corporate profits for the last quarter of 1967 were pointing upward again–to new records.

But we cannot rejoice without recognizing the dangers posed by price and cost increases. To preserve our record-breaking prosperity, we must combine it with a return to price stability.

As we have long emphasized, the first order of business is the prompt enactment by the Congress of the penny on the dollar tax increase that we will need to pay for part of our extraordinary defense costs.

Second, we need full cooperation and restraint from business and labor in their price and wage decisions. Excessive wage and excessive price increases can weaken the dollar. They cannot win lasting gains for any group. The short-run sacrifices that we ask promise long-term benefits to all of us.

Third, we must work through the new Cabinet committee for structural improvements in every market — for greater efficiency, greater productivity, and greater incentives for cost-reduction and price competition.

I will continue to look to the Council of Economic Advisers for advice on guarding our prosperity against inflation.

I was talking to someone last night and he was outlining for me the progress that our country has made throughout the years. He said, “Mr. President, there are two things that a leader must never take his mind off of in our political system. You will have many messages and many bills, but two simple rules, I suggest.”

I said, “Tell me what they are” — because he was a man of wisdom and experience and nonpartisanship.

He said, “The first one is the buck-that dollar — it must be sound. It must be stable and people must have some of them. The next one is–you don’t have to be told that one, but I want to remind you every day — the ballot. Because through the ballot people can gain the rewards they think they are entitled to. They can bring about the reforms that are essential. They can turn into motion the revolutions that are inside of all of us and they can bring them to reality and bring them to reality constitutionally and appropriately, and as we human beings should. We don’t have to act like animals to get our revolutions and reforms translated into action. That comes through the ballot.”

So, if my economic advisers are not trained counselors on the ballot, they are on the buck and that seems to be a major portion of a President’s problem. I am going to continue to look to them to guard our prosperity against inflation. They will have the help of the President and I hope they will have the help of the Cabinet and the Congress and the business and labor communities.

The Council today enjoys a worldwide reputation, I think, a reputation of three wise men who have been responsible and are responsible in the future for guiding the American economic miracle.

We expect great things from you, Dr. Peck. I am happy to welcome you officially into the world’s smallest, but the world’s most vital fraternity.

Gardner, you are on sabbatical leave, but we will expect you to carry on your good work across the ocean.

Note:
The President spoke at 1:15 p.m. in the Cabinet Room at the White House. In his opening words he also referred to Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz. During his remarks he referred to James S. Duesenberry, member of the Council of Economic Advisers, and to Gardner Ackley, outgoing Chairman of the Council, whose nomination as Ambassador to Italy was announced by the President on January 1.

Establishment of the Cabinet Committee on Price Stability was announced by the President in his message to the Congress transmitting the Economic Report.

The tax increase referred to by the President was enacted as the Revenue and Expenditure Control Act of 1968.

Source: Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks at the Swearing In of Merton J. Peck as a Member, Council of Economic Advisers, and Upon Designating Arthur M. Okun as Chairman.
Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project

_________________________

Professor led the Economics Department during its ‘golden age’

by CYNTHIA HUA
Yale Daily News, 18 March 2013

Merton Peck, a devoted teacher who chaired the Economics Department during its “golden age,” died in Florida on March 1. He was 87 years old.

A respected scholar and administrator, Peck came to Yale as an economics professor in 1963 and served as chair of the Economics Department for several terms in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. His former colleagues remember him for his kind and patient nature and ability to foster compromise during his lengthy tenure. In addition to recruiting many prominent economists to his department, Peck strengthened the faculty by keeping peace and oversaw a period of growth in the department, said Richard Nelson GRD ’56, a former economics professor.

“One of the reasons he stayed in the chair [position] for so long is because he was able to push the department upward and avoided conflict,” said Gustav Ranis GRD ’56, a economics professor. “He didn’t have any enemies.”

When disputes arose in the department, Peck listened to both sides and gently brought arguments to a resolution, Ranis said. He frequently met with faculty individually and ensured that all professors felt their voices were heard, Ranis said, adding that nobody in the department was ever upset under Peck’s leadership.

William Brainard GRD ’63 said Peck was respected among colleagues for the care and attention he devoted to teaching economics. His undergraduate seminars, Brainard said, were often so popular that he had to teach more than one section of the same course.

“He embodied many of the characteristics a professor should strive for, in being both a great scholar and giving a lot to Yale in terms of leadership,” economics professor Joseph Altonji ’75 said.

Brainard said Peck’s congenial personality and clarity of thought made him a sought-after adviser. Altonji, who worked for Peck as a research assistant and took one of his undergraduate courses, said Peck was influential in his decision to pursue a doctorate in economics and, later, to become a professor.

An expert in the economics of technology, Peck specialized in industrial organization and government regulation, producing books and papers that touched on numerous disciplines, including defense, communications and transportation. He served as a member of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s “Brain Trust” and on former President Lyndon Johnson’s Council of Economic Advisors in the 1960s.

Peck earned his bachelor’s degree at Oberlin College in the 1940s, during which time he met his wife, Mary Bosworth Peck, who died in 2004. The couple married in Oberlin, Ohio, in 1949, the year of Peck’s graduation from college. He went on to receive a doctorate in economics from Harvard.

During World War II, Peck served in the Signal Corps in Japan. His service abroad launched a lifelong interest in Japan that led to his later academic interest in the country and technology as an industry, said his son Richard.

Throughout his life, Peck remained modest about his intellectual and administrative achievements, Richard said. Outside of academics, Richard said Peck, who retired in 2002, cultivated a love of reading and jazz music.

Peck is survived by his children, Richard, Katherine, Sarah and David, and four grandchildren.

This article was updated to reflect the version published in print March 25.

Image Source: Chicago Tribune, Jan 4, 1968. Section 1B, p. 10. Newspaper image of Merton J. Peck touched-up at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Tags Ackley, Altonji, Brainard, Duesenberry, NelsonRR, Okun, Peck, Persky, Ranis

AEA Economists History of Economics Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Essay on Political Economy in America. Ely, 1887

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-10-14

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
FEBRUARY, 1887.

POLITICAL ECONOMY IN AMERICA.
by RICHARD T. ELY

At a meeting of political economists held at Saratoga in the month of September, 1885, in order to form an economic society — finally called the American Economic Association — Professor Alexander Johnston, of Princeton College, defined the purposes of the contemplated organization, as understood by him, in these words:

“This is an effort to stop the formation of any ‘crust’ on the development of economics, to assert the economic right of attempts to develop in every direction, unhampered by any accusation of heterodoxy, with the assurance that unlimited freedom of individual attempt to develop will bring about the truest, most natural, and healthiest development.”

Other ideas were brought out in the interesting discussion about the aims which should animate a body of American economists at the present time, and valuable suggestions were derived from men like Hon. Andrew D. White; Rev. Dr. Washington Gladden; Professor Henry C. Adams, of Michigan University; Professor E. J. James, of the University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Herbert B. Adams, of the Johns Hopkins University; Dr. Edwin R. A. Seligman, of Columbia College; Professor Andrews, of Brown University; and President Charles Kendall Adams, of Cornell University.

There can be no doubt, however, that all present agreed with Professor Johnston, and it is equally certain that he struck the key-note of future progress in economics.

But what did the undertaking signify? What did it mean to remove the “crust” already formed on the development of economics and to prevent its formation in the future? It is necessary for us to get a clear idea of this, if we would understand the past history and present condition of economic science in America.

The word “heterodoxy” uttered by Professor Johnston is one which throws a whole flood of light on the situation. The utterly unscientific conceptions, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, had crept into political economy; and men had with their aid attempted to check every advance in the science with a strong hand. What was orthodox? What was heterodox? Certain Englishmen, Ricardo, Malthus, Mill, Senior, successors of Adam Smith, had developed an à priori political economy which was well-pleasing to influential social elements. This was still further purified by later successors until the strong and mighty could find in it nothing to terrify “or make afraid,” nothing to disturb their calm repose. This at last became the political economy of the most conservative portion of the press, and as such gave us, to use the words of Professor Gustav Cohn, not a description of actual life, but at best a picture of the life of men in society such as one might expect to find in the “Dream of the Millionaire.” It was a Utopia as dangerous as it was pleasing. Imported to this country, it acquired a strength in certain educated circles — particularly in the North and East — to which it could scarcely aspire, even in England. It was always ready with its little tests of orthodoxy to mete out praise or condemnation, to accord honor or shame. Acceptance of its creed was often a condition of academic preferment. A small clique of men, not without newspaper influence, constituted themselves its special guardians and, still maintaining that position, even now attempt to exercise a sort of terrorism over the intellect of the country. Any deviation from the straight and narrow path laid down by them was deeply damned. Was there not, indeed, that never-failing refuge of incompetence and malignity, the epithet “socialism,” ready to hurl at all offenders?

Manifestly, the first need of the hour was to break this “crust,” and this was a worthy object for the American Economic Association. “Orthodox” and “heterodox” must be as completely driven out of economic discussion as out of biology and mineralogy. Those who use these phrases must necessarily look back to the past to discover the belief of others, whereas science should ever keep its glance directed to the future and press on to the discovery of new truth.

This determination “to assert the right of attempts to develop in every direction, unhampered by any accusation of heterodoxy,” is of particular importance in political economy, because, in the nature of things, economists worthy of the name always have been, and always will be, in opposition to current opinion. What is an economist? An economist is a man who studies the economic life of men as members of society. Now, if the science of economics is not a humbug, he must know more about industrial society than others, and that is simply saying, in other words, that he holds opinions not generally received. The true economist is a guide who always keeps in advance, who marks out new paths of social progress. This explains why the “heterodox” economist of one age becomes the “orthodox” economist of a succeeding one. Social development has gone on in the direction in which he foresaw it must move. An American writer [Daniel Raymond, Thoughts on Political Economy] in 1820, for example, speaks of the “gross heresies” of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” and even this great “Father” of English political economy did not escape the reproach of socialism. Could that progressive, far-seeing man know that his name was now used to retard the advance of his favorite study, he surely could not rest easy in his grave!

All articles on political economy in America written before 1880 are chiefly concerned with the question: Why have Americans done comparatively nothing to advance the science of industrial society? This is the nature of Professor Dunbar’s article on “Political Economy in the United States from 1776 to 1876,” which appeared in the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW in the latter year; it is also the nature of T. E. Cliffe Leslie’s article on “Political Economy in the United States,” which appeared in the Fortnightly Review, in 1880. The main thought brought out is the preponderating importance attached to the pursuit of wealth rather than to an inquiry as to its philosophy in this new country. The absence of obviously pressing economic questions is also dwelt upon by both writers. All this is true. The two chief causes of research in economics are large financial questions, and wide-spread dissatisfaction among the masses with existing social arrangements, coupled with a determination to change these radically. Our late civil war brought us one of these two chief causes of economic study; events of the past ten years have brought us the other. Thus has a mighty impulse been given to the development of political economy. But there is another aspect of the situation — not unrelated to what has already been said about economic orthodoxy — which deserves mention. The chairs of political economy in the United States have in the past been filled, to large extent, by men who were not appointed, like professors of chemistry, as searchers after truth, but as advocates — chiefly of free trade or protection as the case might be. This has been sufficiently understood, and it has acted injuriously in several ways. It has kept the best men out of the academic career, and it has repressed aspirations looking in the direction of new scientific explorations. Finally, it has reduced the influence of political economists to a minimum. Business men have despised them, while their power to guide and direct the thought of the laboring classes has been less than nothing. It has been so generally felt that professors of political economy in America were mere advocates of existing institutions, that the masses have turned away from them in angry impatience, and have been prejudiced even against the important and unassailable doctrines which they did teach. Thus has the task been rendered more difficult for those truly scientific men who with the impartiality of all science, tell the plain truth to all classes and would thus benefit all alike — for a lie is of no permanent benefit to any one! And what about the politicians? Well, every one knows they have given themselves little concern about political economy, and the political economists often censure them severely on this account. While the politicians doubtless deserve it, there is another side to the case, brought out by my good friend Professor Jesse Macy in those felicitous words: “A political science which does not at least honestly seek to give direction to actual politics is an unmitigated nuisance. Colleges and universities have in the past been treated with contempt by practical politicians simply because their work has been contemptible. Politicians are the last men in the world to treat with contempt a respectable and efficient political power and influence.”

The present time is one in which the evolution of society is proceeding with more than its usual rapidity, and it is evident that we need a positive constructive political economy, and this requirement the old political economy cannot meet. Let the reader consider for a moment the age in which its great masters, Quesnay, Turgot, and Adam Smith, lived. It was the latter half of the eighteenth century, when the progress of industry was retarded by a multitude of old institutions, good in their day, doubtless, but then antiquated. The cry of men who understood their time was, “Remove the barriers! clear the way for new social forms!” The work which the great economists advocated during that period was very properly negative and destructive. It ought not then to surprise us that when we go to our old text books of political economy to seek advice in reference to practical measures, the one chief lesson which we learn is “DON’T.” Manifestly, the call of our age is DO.

A new movement in economics was then inevitable, and it has already come. Its precise beginning cannot, perhaps, be ascertained, but the writings of the distinguished head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, General Francis A. Walker, first made it a clearly recognized accomplished fact in America. Probably, his works have inspired more of the American economists under thirty-five-possibly under forty-than those of any other man. He sowed seed which is now springing up and bearing fruit in all parts of our land. The movement was furthered by the establishment of new chairs of political economy in American colleges and universities, which was due to the wonderful impulse given to the study by the undeniable existence of those two classes of economic phenomena to which reference has already been made; namely, large financial problems and pressing social questions. Before 1876 one might have counted on one’s fingers the institutions where any serious instruction in political economy was given, whereas provision is now made for its study in every one of the more prominent colleges of the country; and although it is still inadequate in most cases, this is a remarkable advance. There are now a few colleges with two or three instructors, even, and it is not foolish to hope that in a not remote future we shall have as completely developed departments of political economy as we now have of physics and chemistry in our best universities.

Another good sign is the growing faith, both within and without our institutions of learning, in truth. People value the searcher for truth more than formerly, the mere advocate less. It is a significant fact that the youngest of the great American universities, the Johns Hopkins, founded in 1876, took for its motto, “Veritas vos liberabit.” [“Truth will set you free”] Another equally significant fact is this: The Johns Hopkins University assumed a non-partisan attitude in natural science. Its biological laboratory was instituted solely for the search of truth, regardless of consequences. Darwinian and anti-Darwinian doctrines, as such, could not be considered. Some good people were prejudiced against the University at the start on this account, and looked with much trepidation upon its teachings; but in ten years this has for a large part disappeared, and no college has warmer, more devoted friends among the clergy. This means faith in truth and a conscious recognition of the fact that one truth can not clash with another. One other illustration of this all-important point must follow, if the reader will pardon a personal allusion. When the writer’s name was brought forward for the position of teacher of political economy in the Johns Hopkins University five years ago, the authorities of the institution, true to their motto, asked no questions about his opinions in regard to free trade and protection or anything else, although these were then as unknown as he himself. There was simply an endeavor to ascertain his qualifications for the position. This is an experience which is probably almost unique.

People are learning, both in political economy and natural science, that truth alone can make them free; that truth alone has in it the power of life; that truth — not error — is able to conserve the good, and that to fear it is unworthy of an enlightened people.

There has been the same remarkable progress in the development of an economic literature in America, which has been noted elsewhere. To confine ourselves to the past few months, such works may be mentioned as James on “The Relation of the Modern Municipality to the Gas Supply;” Shaw on “Co-operation in a Western City” — two remarkable publications of the American Economic Association — Hudson on “Railways and the Republic;” Hadley on “Railroad Transportation,” and Laughlin on “Bi-metallism in the United States.” These are all based on investigations in the rich field of American economic life. We have also bold endeavors to reconstruct fundamental principles in economics, like Patten’s “Premises of Political Economy,” and J. B. Clark’s “Philosophy of Wealth.” All these are works of international importance.

One year ago there was no economic periodical in the United States. To-day there are three, and all evidently rest on a permanent basis. They are the bi-monthly monographs of the American Economic Association, published in Baltimore; the Political Science Quarterly of Columbia College, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, published under the auspices of Harvard University.

A change in the conception of political economy must not fail to be noticed in this place. Its scope has become enlarged, and it is not quite the same thing which it was once. It has become a distinctively ethical science, and necessarily includes purpose within its province. It is clearly recognized that the will of man is a chief factor in economic life, and that, within certain limits, we can have just such a social system as we choose — always, be it observed, however, within certain limits. Accordingly, ideals for the individual, for the State, for society, for the church, are placed before men, and they are urged to strive for them in every practicable way. It is on this account, also, that the new political economy lays so much stress on ethical education, for it is seen that errors as often proceed from the heart as from the head.

It must not be supposed that the new political economy has gained exclusive sway even in the colleges and universities of the United States — much less outside of them. Still it is making its way rapidly; it is accepted by the teachers in most of our colleges, and it is beginning to permeate the thought of our time, as may be seen in the utterances of press and pulpit.

The economists of the older school cannot, either, be denied their use. They are not mere drags on the car of progress, but with their criticism, sharp and ungracious though it sometimes be, they render the advance surer.

In conclusion, however, it is undeniable that the prime need of the hour is increased light in economics, a further development of the new political economy, and the qualities indispensable in the men who would carry on the work already so auspiciously begun are these: a good heart, a strong intellect, and dauntless courage.

Source: North American Review, Vol. 144, No. 363 (February, 1887), pp. 113-119.

Image Source: Universities and their sons; history, influence and characteristics of American universities, with biographical sketches and of alumni and recipients of honorary degrees, Vol. IV (1900), p. 505. Image was smoothed and colorised at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Economists Race

How Black-Lives Mattered to Wesley Clair Mitchell’s Immediate Ancestors. Mid 19th Century

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-10-12
1 Comment on How Black-Lives Mattered to Wesley Clair Mitchell’s Immediate Ancestors. Mid 19th Century

In preparing Wesley Clair Mitchell’s remarks on his empirical approach to economics, I became curious about his grand-aunt with whom he, as a precocious boy, delighted to dispute deep theological issues. Mitchell wrote (emphasis added):

Concerning the inclination you [John Maurice Clark] note to prefer concrete problems and methods to abstract ones, my hypothesis is that it got started, perhaps manifested itself would be more accurate, in childish theological discussions with my grand aunt. She was the best of Baptists, and knew exactly how the Lord had planned the world. God is love; he planned salvation; he ordained immersion; his immutable word left no doubt about the inevitable fate of those who did not walk in the path he had marked. Hell is no stain upon his honor, no inconsistency with love. — I adored the logic and thought my grand aunt flinched unworthily when she expressed hopes that some back-stairs method might be found of saving from everlasting flame the ninety and nine who are not properly baptized. But I also read the bible and began to cherish private opinions about the character of the potentate in Heaven. Also I observed that his followers on earth did not seem to get what was promised them here and now. I developed an impish delight in dressing up logical difficulties which my grand aunt could not dispose of. She always slipped back into the logical scheme, and blinked the facts in which I came to take a proprietary interest.

To find out more, I sought detail in the biography/autobiography written by Wesley Clair Mitchell’s wife, Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Two Lives — The Story of Wesley Clair Mitchell and Myself (New York, 1953). There I was able to harvest plenty of information about Wesley Clair Mitchell’s family and identify the grand-aunt in question, Beulah McClellan Seely, a.k.a. “Grandma Seely.” I even learned that Beulah had put her reminiscences into writing and had them privately printed as A Story of My Life (1901), 73 pages. As the link indicates, there even happens to be a digital copy of Beulah’s memoir (originally from the Oberlin College library) that one can download from the internet. So between Lucy Sprague Mitchell and Beulah McClellan Seely, we have Wesley Clair Mitchell’s maternal and paternal sides fairly well-covered. A few dates and places have been added or checked using information found at the ancestry.com website that I subscribe to.

What I found particularly interesting were two clear indicators of progressive racial views held by Wesley Clair Mitchell’s immediate ancestors:

Wesley Clair’s father volunteered to serve as surgeon to the 4th United States Colored Infantry for the last three years of the war because he believed it was not right to have different medical care for soldiers of color defending the Union in the Civil War.
On his mother’s side we find activist abolitionists and direct participation in the Underground Railroad to smuggle escaped slaves to Canada.

But first a fun fact:

Naming and Nicknaming Mitchell

I always called my husband “Robin.” That needs a word of explanation. When he was born, his parents had his name “Wesley Clair” waiting for him — so his mother wrote me. “Wesley” was for his father, John Wesley Mitchell, but was never used for the boy, perhaps because it was used for his father. He was never called “Wesley” until he began to be known professionally and signed himself Wesley C. Mitchell. His family and early friends called him “Clair.” They still do — his two sisters and four brothers and all his California friends. It was a name chosen by his mother for her first son. In her first letter to me she explains her choice:

… I hope you will like Clair’s name. It meant to me purity and strength and infinite beauty and the very essence of God’s love — all of which we believe you will find embodied in the spirit we feel sure the eternal years will only render more dear to you.

But I didn’t like either of his names — “Wesley” had rather grim associations and “Clair” seemed oversweet. So, when we were in the California Sierra before we were married, and in public, according to the mores of the day, were still saying “Mr. Mitchell” and “Miss Sprague,” I gave him a private name — “Robin.”

Source: Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Two Lives — The Story of Wesley Clair Mitchell and Myself (New York, 1953), p. xx.

The Paternal Side of the Family

Father: John Wesley Mitchell (b. 30 Dec 1837 in Avon, Maine; d. 12 Jan 1915, New Orleans, Louisiana).He had four siblings.

Grandparents (paternal):

John Wesley Mitchell. Born 19 Jan 1798 in Durham, Maine; died 26 Mar 1889 in Strong, Maine)
Lydia Spaulding (b. 29 May 1799 in Fairfield, Maine; d. 16 Nov 1889 in Strong, Maine)

John Wesley Mitchell’s Civil War Service

[John Wesley Mitchell] went through the Medical School of Maine — affiliated with Bowdoin College — and received his M.D. in 1863 — Civil War days. He was then twenty-five years old. On a visit to his home soon after this, his mother extracted a promise from him that he would not volunteer for war service. But when he was in Boston, he learned of the desperate need of doctors, took the army examinations and, according to his children, passed with the highest grade on record. He entered service as surgeon of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry. But when he found that the Negro troops were not receiving the same medical care as the white, he resigned his commission and requested that he be transferred to the 4th United States Colored Infantry, where he served for the last three years of the war.

Source: Lucy Sprague Mitchell, Two Lives — The Story of Wesley Clair Mitchell and Myself (New York, 1953), p. 9.

John Wesley Mitchell was married to Lucy Medora (Dora) McClellan who received his proposal in 1867 at her adopted parents’ home in Chicago. Lucy Sprague Mitchell notes “…she was not as impulsive as he” and she was a mere 19 years old at the time anyway. John Wesley left Chicago to go to the New York Medical College and then practiced medicine in Chicago and later Des Moines. According to Lucy Sprague Mitchell, John Wesley was married and divorced twice before re-proposing to Medora. His first marriage was with a woman he married while practicing medicine in Des Moines. The second woman was a redhead who took care of Dr. Mitchell “during one of his many illnesses”. But according to Lucy Sprague, who is vague about her sources here, John Wesley’s second wife wanted to become a stage actress. . Despite my amateur gumshoe genealogical search of the ancestry.com resources, I am unable to confirm either of John Wesley Mitchell’s two strikes in the mating game that were reported by his daughter-in-law, Lucy Sprague Mitchell.

John Wesley said, ‘All right, but I won’t be married to you.’” And so they divorced. It was at a chance meeting with Medora’s brother-in-law that John Wesley learned Medora was not yet married, he decided to try his luck again, and in May 1872 they were married in Mrs. Beulah McClellan Seely’s home

John Wesley Mitchell’s Obituary

JOHN WESLEY MITCHELL, son of John and Lydia (Spalding) Mitchell, was born 30 Dec. 1837 at Avon, Me. He received his early education in his native town and began the study of medicine after attaining his majority. He attended two courses of lectures of which the second was at the Medical School of Maine where he received his degree in 1863. He at once entered the service of his country as assistant surgeon of the 21st Massachusetts Infantry, but resigned his commission to become in September of that year, surgeon of the 4th United States Colored Infantry. This position he held throughout the war, being mustered out of service in May 1866. He received in March 1865 the rank of colonel by brevet for meritorious service. While before Petersburg, Va., he received an injury to his thigh from the fall of his horse, an injury from which he never fully recovered and which was a source of no little suffering throughout his life. On leaving the army he took special post-graduate courses in the New York Medical College and then settled in the practice of his profession at Chicago, Ill. He soon removed to Rushville, Schuyler County, where he had an extensive practice, too great for his physical strength. He then took up his residence in Decatur, Ill., where he remained till 1900. The closing years of his life were spent at New Orleans, La. Here he died of arteriosclerosis, 12 Jan. 1915.

Dr. Mitchell possessed unlimited ambition and great determination, yet the effects of the injury alluded to above seemed ever to shatter his hopes. There was granted him, however, a gentleness and sweetness of spirit superior to untoward circumstances. In purity of life and in brotherly affection to all men, he followed closely in the footsteps of the Great Physician.

Dr. Mitchell married in 1872 Lucy Medora, daughter of James and Eunice McClellan of Chicago, Ill., who survives him with their seven children, Prof. Wesley Clair Mitchell of Columbia University, New York City, Leonard McClellan Mitchell, a merchant of Chicago, Roy Purrington Mitchell and Lucius Sherman Mitchell, both of New Orleans, Dr. James Francis Mitchell of Berkeley, Cal., Beulah Mitchell, wife of the Chicago artist Walter Marshall Clute, and Eunice Mitchell, wife of Prof. D. N. Lehmer of the University of California.

Source: Bowdoin College Bulletin, Obituary Number (June, 1915), pp. 333-334.

The Maternal Side of the Family

The following chart provides an overview of Wesley Clair Mitchell’s immediate ancestors on his mother’s side to give a visual impression of how his grand-aunt fit into the family picture.

Mother: Lucy Medora (Dora) McClellan (b. 5 Mar 1847 in Illinois; d. 7 Sep 1922 in Berkeley, California)

Lucy Medora McClellan was adopted at age five by her Aunt Beulah following the death of her mother Eunice Clark Sherman McClellan in 1850. Medora’s father James McClellan and Beulah McClellan were brother and sister, having at least 7 siblings.

Thus Wesley Clair Mitchell’s mother was raised by her adoptive parents, Francis Tuthill Seely (b. 13 Apr 1820 in Orange County, NY; d. 25 May 1891 in Decatur, Illinois) and Beulah McClellan Seely (b. 26 Dec 1824 in New York; d. 16 Nov 1906). They had been married Feb. 17, 1843 but were unable to have children of their own.

About Beulah McClellan Seely

“She was a tall, impressive figure, a ‘handsome dresser,’ and carried herself with an authoritative air.’” According to Wesley Clair Mitchell’s wife, Lucy Sprague.

From Beulah’s reminiscences we learn that she and her husband first lived two months at his father’s home and then moved to a farm three miles from him. However, a cyclone came and blew their house down forcing them to move back to Father Seely’s house until the 1843 harvest was done. Next the young couple moved to her parents’ home to help care for her mother who had suffered a severe stroke. A fatal stroke followed that winter (1843-44). They lived the next five years in Bristol, a quarter of a mile from her father, and where her husband Francis Seely set up a shoemaking business.

….Several years later [ca 1849?] we became dissatisfied with our prospects in Bristol and moved to Chicago, where my brother James [Wesley Clark Mitchell’s grandfather] had just settled. He was interested in the first abolition paper published there, for which my husband did the presswork. These were the times when the “Underground Railway” was in full operation and our house was a station for fugitives. Dr. Seely, my husband’s father, near Bristol, was a prominent member of the organization and brought slaves to our house, where they could be smuggled onto the boats for Canada. This was soon after Lovejoy’s murder [1837] and excitement was great. I remember that in the case of one man who came to father Seely, a trial and sale were held and father bid the man off for a dollar and a half and sent him over the line.”

Source:Beula McClellan Seely, A Story of My Life (1901), 73 pages p. 37.

… my brother James lost his second wife, Eunice [d. 1850; note— James’ first wife was Eunice’s sister Edit who had died earlier], who left him with six children, the oldest ten years old, the youngest, Florence, only a few weeks. Soon after he gave Medora to me. She was not yet six years old and has always been the greatest comfort and blessing to me.

Source: Ibid., pp. 40-41.

Image Source: 1907 portrait of Medora and John Wesley Mitchell and 1903 detail of Beulah Seeley are posted in the “Spencer/Forbes/Adkins/Lehmer” Family Tree at the ancestry.com genealogical website.

Tags Mitchell

Business Cycles Columbia Economists Methodology

Columbia. Wesley Clair Mitchell Reflects on his Personal Research Style. 1928

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-10-10

This post provides a transcription of Wesley Clair Mitchell’s original reply to methodological questions posed to him by his younger Columbia colleague John Maurice Clark in 1928. Clark was so impressed with Mitchell’s reply that he had it published in 1931 and later then reprinted in 1952 (see links below). For autobiographical context I have included a brief statement by Mitchell, one of Decatur, Illinois’ favorite sons, that was written shortly after his methodological reflections.

Fun Fact: Adolph C. Miller, who was one of Mitchell’s teachers at the University of Chicago and later his colleague at Berkeley, was married to Mary Sprague, older sister of Mitchell’s wife, Lucy Sprague.

Coming attraction: We will learn more about Wesley Clair Mitchell’s parents and the Baptist grand-aunt who raised his mother in a later post.

______________________

Decatur Herald (Decatur, Illinois)
7 July 1929, p. 44

Mitchell One of First To Prove Business Cycle

Every business man in the United States is familiar now with the theory of the business cycle. Comparatively few, even in Decatur, probably know that it was a former Decaturian, Dr Wesley C. Mitchell, who did the pioneer work in economic research establishing the theory of a business cycle.

“My father and mother were John Wesley Mitchell and L. Medora McClellan Mitchell.

“After living several years opposite the Stapps Chapel, we moved out to a ten-acre place on what later became Leafland avenue. There were seven children and we all went through Decatur schools. My High school class was 1893; but I dropped out in the fourth year in order to push more rapidly my preparation for taking college entrance examinations. In that way I entered the University of Chicago in the autumn of ’93. From that time forward I returned to Decatur only during vacations until the time when my parents moved to Louisiana about 1902.

Studied In Germany

“My undergraduate work was done at the University of Chicago. Graduating in 1896, I received a fellowship which permitted me to go on immediately with postgraduate work. The year ’97-98 I spent on a traveling fellowship in Germany and Austria. The next year I was back at Chicago receiving the degree of Doctor of Philosophy summa cum laude in ’99. My chief subjects were economics and philosophy.

“No more congenial opening turning up, I spent 1900 in the Census Office at Washington in a small Division of Analysis and Research presided over by Walter F. Willcox of Cornell. Next year I was appointed instructor at the University of Chicago and taught there in 1900-02. The end of this period I published my first book, “A History of the Greenbacks.”

“One of my teachers at Chicago, Professor A. C. Miller, now a member of the Federal Reserve board, was called to the University of California as head of the Department of Economics. He asked me to go with him. As a result I lived from 1902 to 1912 in Berkeley as an assistant, associate and finally full professor of economics. While there I published a second volume of my monetary studies called “Gold Prices and Wages in the United States”(1908), and also a book called “Business Cycles” (1913). I also spent one of these years lecturing at Harvard.

Helped to Launch School

“In 1912 I married Lucy Sprague a daughter of Otho S. A. Sprague of Chicago. We went to Europe for a year and then came to live in New York city where I became attached to Columbia University. During the war I was chief of the Price Section in the Division of Planning and Statistics in the War Industries board. After the war I helped organize the New School for Social Research in New York and later the National Bureau of Economic Research, with which I am still connected as one of the directors.

“In these later years my investigations have been carried on very largely in conjunction with the National Bureau’s programs. My latest book, “Business Cycles: The Problem and Its Setting,” was published in 1927, and I am now working upon the supplementary volume to be called “Business Cycles: The Rhythm of Business Activity.”

“It is many years since I have been in Decatur or had an opportunity to talk with any of my old friends, aside from Will Westerman who graduated from the Decatur High school a little before my time, and who is now one of my colleagues at Columbia, where he is a professor of ancient history.

“It will be a great pleasure to get the records of other old friends which your Centenary number will doubtless contain. Accept my congratulations upon this enterprise.

WESLEY C. MITCHELL

______________________

NBER Memorial Volume
for Wesley Clair Mitchell

Wesley Clair Mitchell: The Economic Scientist, National Bureau of Economic Research, New York, 1952.

______________________

Backstory:

Memorial Address
by John Maurice Clark.

“I had undertaken to analyze his methods of studying business cycles, for a volume of such analyses, edited by Stuart Rice; and as part of my preparations I had written to Mitchell, asking him some rather searching questions. In reply, he sent me an autobiographical sketch of his intellectual development, starting with his adolescent arguments over theology with his grandaunt. The letter was close to three thousand words long and so beautifully written as to be fit for publication without the change of a comma. Much against his desires, Mitchell was persuaded to allow this correspondence to be published, as part of the study which had occasioned it.* Its great value, naturally, lay in the fact that it had been written without a thought of publication, merely in a characteristically generous response to my request for inside information. More than anything else I know in print, it gives not only his typical mental attitudes, but the flavor of his genially pungent personality.”

Source: Wesley Clair Mitchell: The Economic Scientist, National Bureau of Economic Research (New York, 1952), p. 142.

*Appendix: “The Author’s Own Account of His Methodological Interests” to John Maurice Clark’s “Preface to Social Economics” in Methods in Social Science: A Case Book. Edited by Stuart A. Rice for the Social Science Research Council, Committee on Scientific Method in the Social Sciences. University of Chicago Press, 1931. Pages 673 ff.

______________________

Typed copy of Wesley Clair Mitchell’s Response to Questions
posed him by John Maurice Clark

[Handwritten note: “Revised Feb 11, 1929”]

Huckleberry Rocks, Greensboro, Vt.
August 9, 1928.

Dear Maurice:

I know no reason why you should hesitate to dissect a colleague for the instruction, or amusement, of mankind. Your interest in ideas rather than in personalities will be clear to any intelligent reader. Nor is the admiration I feel for you skill as an analyst likely to grow less warm if you take me apart to see how I work. Indeed, I should like to know myself!

Whether I can really help you is doubtful. The questions you put are questions I must answer from rather hazy recollections of what went on inside me thirty and forty and more years ago. Doubtless my present impressions of how I grew up are largely rationalizations. But perhaps you can make something out of the type of rationalizations in which I indulge.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Concerning the inclination you note to prefer concrete problems and methods to abstract ones, my hypothesis is that it got started, perhaps manifested itself would be more accurate, in childish theological discussions with my grand aunt. She was the best of Baptists, and knew exactly how the Lord had planned the world. God is love; he planned salvation; he ordained immersion; his immutable word left no doubt about the inevitable fate of those who did not walk in the path he had marked. Hell is no stain upon his honor, no inconsistency with love. — I adored the logic and thought my grand aunt flinched unworthily when she expressed hopes that some back-stairs method might be found of saving from everlasting flame the ninety and nine who are not properly baptized. But I also read the bible and began to cherish private opinions about the character of the potentate in Heaven. Also I observed that his followers on earth did not seem to get what was promised them here and now. I developed an impish delight in dressing up logical difficulties which my grand aunt could not dispose of. She always slipped back into the logical scheme, and blinked the facts in which I came to take a proprietary interest.

I suppose there is nothing better as a teething-ring for a child who likes logic than the garden variety of Christian theology. I cut my eye-teeth on it with gusto and had not entirely lost interest in that exercise when I went to college.

There I began studying philosophy and economics about the same time. The similarity of the two disciplines struck me at once, I found no difficulty in grasping the differences between the great philosophical systems as they were presented by our text-books and our teachers. Economic theory was easier still. Indeed, I thought the successive systems of economics were rather crude affairs compared with the subtleties of the metaphysicians. Having run the gamut from Plato to T. H. Green (as undergraduates do) I felt the gamut from Quesnay to Marshall was a minor theme. The technical part of the theory was easy. Give me premises and I could spin speculations by the yard. Also I knew that my “deductions” were futile. It seemed to me that people who took seriously the sort of articles which were then appearing in the Q.J.E. might have a better time if they went in for metaphysics proper.

Meanwhile I was finding something really interesting in philosophy and in economics. John Dewey was giving courses under all sorts of titles and every one of them dealt with the same problem — how we think. I was fascinated by his view of the place which logic holds in human behavior. It explained the economic theorists. The thing to do was to find out how they came to attack certain problems; why they took certain premises as a matter of course; why they did not consider all the permutations and variants of those problems which were logically possible; why their contemporaries thought their conclusions were significant. And, if one wanted to try his own hand at constructive theorizing, Dewey’s notion pointed the way. It is a misconception to suppose that consumers guide their course by ratiocination — they don’t think except under stress. There is no way of deducing from certain principles what they will do, just because their behavior is not itself rational. One has to find out what they do. That is a matter of observation, which the economic theorists had taken all too lightly. Economic theory became a fascinating subject — the orthodox types particularly — when one began to take the mental operations of the theorists as the problem, instead of taking their theories seriously.

Of course Veblen fitted perfectly into this set of notions. What drew me to him was his artistic side. I had a weakness for paradoxes — Hell set up by the God of love. But Veblen was a master developing beautiful subtleties, while I was a tyro emphasizing the obvious. He did have such a good time with the theory of the leisure class and then with the preconceptions of economic theory! And the economists reacted with such bewildered soberness: There was a man who really could play with ideas! If one wanted to indulge in the game of spinning theories who could match his skill and humor? But if anything were needed to convince me that the standard procedure of orthodox economics could meet no scientific tests, it was that Veblen got nothing more certain by his dazzling performances with another set of premises. His working conceptions of human nature might be a vast improvement: he might have uncanny insights; but he could do no more than make certain conclusions plausible — like the rest. How important were the factors he dealt with and the factors he scamped was never established.

That was a sort of problem which was beginning to concern me. William Hill set me a course paper on “Wool Growing and the Tariff.” I read a lot of the tariff speeches and got a new sidelight on the uses to which economic theory is adapted, and the ease with which it is brushed aside on occasion. Also I wanted to find out what really had happened to wool growers as a result of protection. The obvious thing to do was to collect and analyze the statistical data. If at the end I had demonstrated no clear-cut conclusion, I at least knew how superficial were the notions of the gentlemen who merely debated the tariff issue, whether in Congress or in academic quarters. That was my first “Investigation” — I did it in the way which seemed obvious, following up the available materials as far as I could, and reporting what I found to be the “facts.” It’s not easy to see how any student assigned this topic could do much with it in any other way.

A brief introduction to English economic history by A. C. Miller, and unsystematic readings in anthropology instigated by Veblen reenforced the impressions I was getting from other sources. Everything Dewey was saying about how we think, and when we think, made these fresh materials significant, and got fresh significance Itself. Men had always deluded themselves, it appeared, with strictly logical accounts of the world and their own origin; they had always fabricated theories for their spiritual comfort and practical guidance which ran far beyond the realm of fact without straining their powers of belief. My grand aunt’s theology; Plato and Quesnay; Kant, Ricardo and Karl Marx; Cairnes and Jevons, even Marshall were much of a piece. Each system was tolerably self-consistent — as if that were a test of “truth”! There were realms in which speculation on the basis of assumed premises achieved real wonders; but they were realms in which one began frankly by cutting loose from the phenomena we can observe. And the results were enormously useful. But that way of thinking seemed to get good results only with reference to the simplest of problems, such as numbers and spatial relations. Yet men practiced this type of thinking with reference to all types of problems which could not be treated readily on a matter-of-fact basis — creation, God, “just” prices in the middle ages, the Wealth of Nations in Adam Smith’s time, the distribution of incomes in Ricardo’s generation, the theory of equilibrium in my own day.

There seemed to be one way of making real progress, slow, very slow, but tolerably sure. That was the way of natural science. I really knew nothing of science and had enormous respect for its achievements. Not the Darwinian type of speculation which was then so much in the ascendant — that was another piece of theology. But chemistry and physics. They had been built up not in grand systems like soap bubbles; but by the patient processes of observation and testing — always critical testing — of the relations between the working hypotheses and the processes observed. There was plenty of need for rigorous thinking, indeed of thinking more precise than Ricardo achieved; but the place for it was inside the investigation so to speak — the place that mathematics occuped in physics as an indispensable tool. The problems one could really do something with in economics were problems in which speculation could be controlled.

That’s the best account I can give off hand of my predilection for the concrete. Of course it seems to me rather a predilection for problems one can treat with some approach to scientific method. The abstract is to be made use of at every turn, as a handmaiden to help hew the wood and draw the water. I loved romance — particularly William Morris’ tales of lands that never were — and utopias, and economic systems, of which your father’s when I came to know it seemed the most beautiful; but these were objects of art, and I was a workman who wanted to become a scientific worker, who might enjoy the visions which we see in mountain mists but who trusted only what we see in the light of common day.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Besides the spice of rationalizing which doubtless vitiates my recollections — uncontrolled recollections at that — this account worries me by the time it is taking yours as well as mine. I’ll try to answer the other questions concisely.

Business cycles turned up as a problem in the course of the studies which I began with Laughlin. My first book on the greenbacks dealt only with the years of rapid depreciation and spasmodic wartime reaction. I knew that I had not gotten to the bottom of the problems and wanted to go on, so I compiled that frightful second book as an apparatus for a more thorough analysis. By the time it was finished I had learned to see the problems in a larger way. Veblen’s paper on “Industrial and Pecuniary Employments” had a good deal to do with opening my eyes. Presently I found myself working on the system of prices and its place in modern economic life. Then I got hold of Simmel’s Theorie des Geldes — a fascinating book. But Simmel, no more than Veblen, knew the relative importance of the factors he was working with. My manuscript grew — it lies unpublished to this day. As it grew in size it became more speculative. I was working away from any solid foundation — having a good time, but sliding gayly over abysses I had not explored. One of the most formidable was the recurring readjustments of prices, which economists treated apart from their general theories of value, under the caption “Crises.” I had to look into the problem. It proved to be susceptible of attack by methods which I thought reliable. The result was the big California monograph. I thought of it as an introduction to economic theory.

* * * * * * * * * * *

This conception is responsible for the chapter on “Modern Economic Organization.” I don’t remember precisely at what stage the need of such a discussion dawned upon me. But I have to do everything a dozen times. Doubtless I wrote parts of that chapter fairly early and other parts late as I found omissions in the light of the chapters on “The Rhythm of Business Activity.” Of course, I put nothing in which did not seem to me strictly pertinent to the understanding of the processes with which the volume dealt. That I did not cover the field very intelligently, even from my own viewpoint, appears from a comparison of the books published in 1913 and 1927. Doubtless before I am done with my current volume, I shall be passing a similar verdict upon the chapter as I left it last year.

* * * * * * * * * * *

As to the relation between my analytic description and “causal” theory I have no clear ideas — though I might develop some at need. To me it seems that I try to follow through the interlacing processes involved in business expansion and contraction by the aid of everything I know, checking my speculations just as far as I can by the data of observation. Among the things I “know” are the way in which economic activity is organized in business enterprises, and the way these enterprises are conducted for money profits. But that is not a simple matter which enables me to deduce certain results — or rather, to deduce results with certainty. There is much in the workings of business technique which I should never think of if I were not always turning back to observation. And I should not trust even my reasoning about what business men will do if I could not check it up. Some unverifiable suggestions do emerge; but I hope it is always clear that they are unverified. Very likely what I try to do is merely carrying out the requirements of John Stuart Mill’s “complete method.” But there is a great deal more passing back and forth between hypotheses and observation, each modifying and enriching the other, than I seem to remember in Mill’s version. Perhaps I do him injustice as a logician through default of memory; but I don’t think I do classical economics injustice when I say that it erred sadly in trying to think out a deductive scheme and then talked of verifying that. Until a science has gotten to the stage of elaborating the details of an established body of theory — say finding a planet from the aberrations of orbits, or filling a gap in the table of elements — it is rash to suppose one can get an hypothesis which stands much chance of holding good except from a process of attempted verification, modification, fresh observation, and so on. (Of course, there is a good deal of commerce between most economic theorizing and personal observation of an irregular sort — that is what has given our theories their considerable measure of significance. But I must not go off into that issue.)

* * * * * * * * * * *

Finally, about the table of decils. One cannot be sure that a given point on the decil curves represents the relative price of just one commodity or the relative wage of just one industry. For it often happens, particularly near the center of the range covered, that several commodities and industries have identical relatives in a certain year and these identical relatives may happen to be decil points. But I think the criticisms you make of my interpretations of the movements of the decils are valid. Frederick C. Mills makes similar strictures in his Behavior of Prices, pp. 279 following, particularly p. 283 note. The fact is that when writing the first book about business cycles I seem to have had no clear ideas about secular trends. The term does not occur in the index. Seasonal variations appear to be mentioned only in connection with interest rates. Of course certain rough notions along these lines may be inferred; but not such definite ideas as would safeguard me against the errors you point out. What makes matters worse for me, I was behind the times in this respect. J.P. Norton’s Statistical Studies in the New York Money Market had come out in 1902, I ought to have known and made use of his work.

That is only one of several serious blemishes upon the statistical work in my 1913 volume. After Hourwich left Chicago, and that was before I got deep into economics, no courses were given on statistics in my time. I was blissfully ignorant of everything except the simplest devices. To this day I have remained an awkward amateur, always ready to invent some crude scheme for looking into anything I want to know about, and quite likely to be betrayed by my own apparatus. I shall die in the same sad state.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I did not intend to inflict such a screed upon you when I started. Now that I have read it over, I fell compunctions about sending it. Also some hesitations. I don’t like the intellectual arrogances which I developed as a boy, which stuck by me in college, and which I shall never get rid of wholly. My only defense is that I was made on a certain pattern and had to do the best I could — like everybody else. Doubtless I am at bottom as simple a theologian as my grand aunt. The difference is that I have made my view of the world out of the materials which were available in the 1880’s and ’90’s, whereas she built, with less competent help than I had, out of the material available in the farming communities of the 1840’s and ’50’s. Perhaps you have been able to develop an outlook on the world which gives you a juster view than I had of the generations which preceded me and of the generation to which I belong. If I did not think so, I should not be sending you a statement so readily misunderstood.

Ever yours,
Wesley C. Mitchell.
(Copy by J.M.C. )

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Special Manuscript Collections. Mitchell, W.C. Collection. Box C8, Ch-Ec. Folder “Clark, John Maurice v.p., 8 Apr 1926 & 21 Apr 1927 to Wesley C. Mitchell 2 a.l.s. (with related material)”.

Image: Wesley Clair Mitchell. Detail from a departmental photo dated “early 1930’s” in Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Photos”. Colorized at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Tags ClarkJM, Hourwich, Laughlin, MillerAC, MillsFC, Mitchell, Veblen, Wm Hill

Economics Programs Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics PhD Alumnus Howard Sylvester Ellis, 1929

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-10-06

A graduate student’s application for candidacy for an economics Ph.D. provided information to the Dean of Harvard’s Division of History, Government, and Economics to establish the eligibility for taking the General Examination and it also then provided a check-list for the satisfaction of degree requirements — French and German language competency, acceptance of the Ph.D. thesis, and success in both the General and Special Examinations.

In addition to the application itself, this post includes the file correspondence and the Harvard course transcript for the future president of the American Economic Association (1949) and economics professor at Berkeley, Howard Sylvester Ellis (1898-1992). His most important contribution was perhaps the volume he edited and first published in 1948, A Survey of Contemporary Economics (11th printing in March 1966. The chronology of Ellis’ career has been included as well, following his Harvard graduate school record.

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

[Note: Boldface used to indicate printed text of the application; italics used to indicate the handwritten entries]

I. Full Name, with date and place of birth.

Howard Sylvester Ellis. Denver, Colo. July 2, 1898.

II. Academic Career: (Mention, with dates inclusive, colleges or other higher institutions of learning attended; and teaching positions held.)

State University of Iowa, 1916-20.
Chicago, Summer 1920.
University of Michigan, 1920-1922. Half-time graduate work & Instructor of Economics.
Harvard University, 1922-3 [Thayer Fellow], Assistant in Economics 1923–.

III. Degrees already attained. (Mention institutions and dates.)

B.A. State University of Iowa, 1920 (June).
M.A. University of Michigan 1922 (March).

IV. General Preparation. (Indicate briefly the range and character of your under-graduate studies in History, Economics, Government, and in such other fields as Ancient and Modern Languages, Philosophy, etc. In case you are a candidate for the degree in History, state the number of years you have studied preparatory and college Latin.)

History: Medieval, 1 yr; Greek & Roman, 1 yr; United States, 1 yr; Modern European, 1 yr.; Social Reform, 1 semester.
Economics: Principles, 1 yr.; Accounting, Banking, Business Administration, Hist. of Theory –summer session. See also under “Remarks”.
Sociology: Principles, 1 yr.; Anthropology, 1 yr.
Latin: 4 yrs. prep., 1 coll.; German: 4 yrs coll.; French: 2 yrs coll; Italian: 1 summer coll.

V. Department of Study. (Do you propose to offer yourself for the Ph.D., “History,” in “Economics,” or in “Political Science”?)

Economics.

VI. Choice of Subjects for the General Examination. (State briefly the nature of your preparation in each subject, as by Harvard courses, courses taken elsewhere, private reading, teaching the subject, etc., etc.)

Economic Theory and Its History. Course 11, Prof. Taussig; Seminary in Theory & History, Prof. Taylor at Michigan & his “Course 7”; courses with Prof. Knight at Iowa; Course 14, Prof. Bullock; teaching principles at Michigan & Harvard.
Industrial History: Courses 2a & b, Professor Usher & supplementary reading. Undergraduate concentration in history’.
Railroads. Course at Michigan, Prof. Sharfman. & Readings contemplated.
Public finance. Course 31, Prof. Bullock.
Political Theory. Course Gov’t 6, Prof. McIlwain.
Economic Theory & Its History.
(Historical subject now contemplated as subject for thesis and special examination)

VII. Special Subject for the special examination.

~~Historical subject in economic theory.~~ Money and Banking with special reference to recent theory (note by H.H.B. 2/12/29).

VIII. Thesis Subject. (State the subject and mention the instructor who knows most about your work upon it.)

Recent German Monetary Theory.

IX. Examinations. (Indicate any preferences as to the time of the general and special examinations.)

Spring 1924. General Examination

X. Remarks

Preparation in fields indicated beside undergraduate courses.

Economics: Seminary in History of Theory & Theory, 2 yrs;
Advanced Theory, 1 set (F.M. Taylor); 1 yr (F.W. Taussig)
Railroads, 1 semester; Corporations, 1 semester;
Public finance, 1 yr (Bullock); Statistics, 1 yr;
Economic or Industrial History, 1 yr.;
Other courses currently.

Philosophy: History of Philosophy, 1 yr.; Metaphysics, 1 semester; Kant, seminary, 1 semester.

Special [Examination] Professors Taussig, Williams, Mason

Signature of a member of the Division certifying approval of the above outline of subjects.

[signed] T. N. Carver

* * * [Last page of application] * * *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant]

Name: Howard Sylvester Ellis

Approved: January 11, 1924

Ability to use French certified by C. J. Bullock, Apr. 11, 1923.

Ability to use German certified by C. J. Bullock, Apr. 11, 1923.

Date of general examination May 26, 1924. Passed. [F.W.T.]

Thesis received April 1, 1929

Read by Professors Hawtrey, Taussig, Williams

Approved May, 1929

Date of special examination June 10, 1929 [F.W.T.]

Recommended for the Doctorate [left blank]

Degree conferred [left blank]

Remarks. [left blank]

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

Certification of reading knowledge
of French and German for Ph.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts
April 11, 1923

Dear Dean Haskins:

This is to certify that I have examined Mr. H. S. Ellis and find that he has such a knowledge of French and German as we require of candidates for the Ph.D. degree.

Very sincerely yours
[signed]
C. J. Bullock

Dean C. H. Haskins

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

General Examination, date and
change of an examiner
[carbon copy]

22 May, 1924

My dear Professor Taussig:

This is to remind you that are chairman of the committee for the general examination of H. S. Ellis for the Ph.D. in Economics, to be held on Monday, 26 May, at 4 p.m., in Widener U. I enclose Mr. Ellis’s papers herewith. Professor Dewing is going to substitute for Professor Cunningham on the committee.

Very truly yours,
[unsigned copy]
Secretary of the Division

Professor F. W. Taussig

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

General Examination, date and
change of an examiner
[carbon copy]

22 May, 1924

My dear Mr. Ellis:

This is to remind you that your general examination for the Ph.D. in Economics is to be held on Monday, 26 May, at 4 p.m., in Widener U. Professor Dewing is going to substitute for Professor Cunningham on the committee.

Very truly yours,
[unsigned copy]
Secretary of the Division

Mr. H. S. Ellis

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

Passed General Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 28, 1924

My dear Haskins:

As chairman of the committee appointed to conduct the general examination of H. S. Ellis for the Ph.D. degree in Economics, I have to report that Mr. Ellis passed the examination to the satisfaction of the committee. While his showing at the examination was not without defects, his record on the whole made the case clear.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

Dean C. H. Haskins

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

Scheduling Special Examination,
Changing special field
to Money & Banking

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

H. H. Burbank

34 Holyoke Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 12, 1929

Dear Miss Campbell:

I am confirming our telephone conversation of a few moments ago. The special field of Howard Ellis will be Money and Banking with special reference to recent theory.

Ellis wishes as late a date as possible and you have suggested as near June 10 as can be arranged. I will write Ellis and ask him to correspond with you.

Very sincerely,
[signed]
H. H. Burbank

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

Thesis summary

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ANN ARBOR
Department of Economics

1327 Wilmot St.
April 18, 1929

Miss Glady E. Campbell,
Secretary of the Division of History, Government and Economics,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Miss Campbell:

Kindly find enclose a summary of my dissertation, and accept my thanks for calling the matter to my attention.

Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
Howard S. Ellis

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

Passed Special Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts
June 11, 1929

My dear Carver,

As chairman of the committee appointed to conduct the special examination Mr. Howard S. Ellis in economics I have to report that Mr. Ellis passed the examination.

Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

Professor T. N. Carver
774 Widener Library
Cambridge, Massachusetts

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

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
(INTER-DEPARTMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE SHEET)

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Record of H. S. Ellis
in the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

	Grades
1922-23	Course	Half-Course
Economics 2a¹		A
Economics 2b²		A
Economics 11	A
Economics 31	A minus
Economics 41	B plus


1923-24 (midyear grades)	Course	Half-Course
Economics 14	A minus
Government 6	A

[Note: a supplementary transcript of the record of H.S. Ellis dated May 18, 1929 reports a grade of “excused” for Economics 14 and Government 6 for the 1923-24 year]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics, Ph.D. Degrees Conferred 1929-30. (UA V 453.270), Box 09.

__________________________

Course Names and Instructors

1922-23

Economics 2a ¹hf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. Assistant Professor Usher.

Economics 2b ²hf. Economic History of the United States. Assistant Professor Usher.

Economics 11. Economic Theory. Professor Taussig.

Economics 31. Public Finance. Professor Bullock.

Economics 41. Statistical Theory and Analysis. Professors Young and Day.

1923-24

Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. Professor Bullock.

Government 6. History of Political Theory. Professor McIlwain.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College for 1922-23, 1923-24.

__________________________

Howard Sylvester Ellis
Timeline of his life and career

1898. Born July 2 in Denver Colorado.

1916-20. State University of Iowa.

1920. A.B. State University of Iowa.

1920. Summer term, University of Chicago.

1920-1922. Half-time graduate work half-time instructor of Economics, University of Michigan.

1922. A.M. University of Michigan.

1922-23. Thayer Fellow, Harvard.

1923. Ricardo Prize awarded for the best essay written in a special examination held in economics. (Harvard Crimson, 9 June 1923)

1924. February. A.M. in economics, Harvard.

1923-24. Teaching section leader in Economics A (Principles of Economics), Harvard.

1924-25. Non-resident, Frederick Sheldon Travelling Fellowship, Harvard. Studied at the University of Heidelberg.

1925-38. Taught at the University of Michigan.

1929. Ph.D. in economics, Harvard. (Report of the President of Harvard College, 1928-29, p. 103)

1930. Awarded the David A. Wells prize in Economics for best Ph.D. thesis in three years. (Harvard Crimson, 2 June 1930)

1938-65. Flood Professor of Economics. University of California, Berkeley.

1943-45. Assistant director of Research and Statistics at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington.

1944-45. Visiting professor at Columbia.

1948. Edited A Survey of Contemporary Economics for the American Economic Association. (12 printings)

1949. President of the American Economic Association.

1951. Visiting professor at the University of Tokyo sponsored by a Rockefeller Foundation grant.

1953-55. President of the International Economic Association.

1955. (with Norman Buchanan). Approaches to Economic Development published.

1958-59. Visiting professor at Bombay.

1969. Visiting professor at Claremont, California

1972. Visiting professor at Wisconsin-Milwaukee

1992. Died April 14 in Capitola, California. (University of California. In Memorium); also the biography at the History of Economic Thought website)

Image Source: Portrait of Howard S. Ellis (ca. 1925) in Marjorie C. Brazer “The Economics Department of the University of Michigan: A Centennial Retrospective” in Economics and the World around It, edited by Saul H. Hymans (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980). Colorized at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Tags Ellis

Chicago Cowles Economist Market Economists Stanford

Cowles Commission. Arrow declines offer for joint appointment of research director and professor of economics. 1953

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-08-26

Tjallings Koopmans declared his intention to resign his research directorship of the Cowles Commission for Economic Research at the University of Chicago effective June 30, 1954, having served in that position for six years. This necessitated a search for an economist who could satisfy the needs of both the Cowles Commission and the Chicago Department of Economics. Kenneth Arrow, a Cowles alumnus so-to-speak, was the first target of the search. In this post you will find transcriptions of some of the relevant correspondence in the matter. Arrow was offered a salary of $12,000 (approximately $140,000 at today’s prices) which was equal to that of Koopmans and $1000 less than that of the more senior Jacob Marschak.

For a history of the Cowles Commission and Foundation for Research in Economics, see Robert W. Dimand’s Cowles Working Paper (November 2019).

Plot-spoiler: Arrow declined the offer, “The activity of administration represents for me, I feel, a violation of the principle of comparative advantage, especially if one takes account of my strong subjective preferences,” to which Economics in the Rear-view Mirror can only add, “Good Choice!”

Postscript: Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has appended the September 30 announcement of Arrow’s being appointed executive head of the Stanford economics department. OK, so the comparative advantage argument could have played a role in his Chicago decision, assuming he believed a move would have increased the productivity of both the Stanford and Chicago faculties! Now I’ll bet that having experienced winters in Chicago and Stanford, the family simply decided to stay in California.

Posted earlier: a mini c.v. for Arrow as of 1951.

________________________

COWLES COMMISSION
FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHICAGO 37, ILLINOIS

July 21, 1953

Professor T. W. Schultz
c/o Hotel Maury
Casilla Correo 1385
Lima, Peru

Dear Mr. Schultz:

The Central Administration and the Board of Trustees have now approved our recommendation with respect to Arrow. Please find enclosed a copy of my letter to Arrow. I presume that Dean Tyler will send you a copy of his letter. May I ask you, if you can find time, to write to Arrow to support this offer, and to indicate the participation the Economics Department? In case you have secretarial assistance, may we have a carbon of your letter?

It may be winter in South America just now, but here it is mid-summer, with all that that means. Hoping that you find your trip interesting and profitable,

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Tjalling C. Koopmans

TCK:lb

Enclosure

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

[COPY]

July 21, 1953

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow
c/o The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, California

Dear Ken:

In this letter, which will reach you simultaneously with a letter from Dean Tyler, I am writing to express the gratification of the Cowles Commission research staff in general, and of myself in particular, at the action of the University and of the Executive Committee of the Commission, in extending to you an invitation to join our staff as Director of Research. The Executive Committee has acted on the unanimous recommendation of our faculty, which reflects our great confidence in you as an intellectual leader. We believe that, above all others in the field, you are the person capable of giving the Commission the research leadership it needs during the years just ahead. Needless to say, we hope that you will decide to accept.

I well remember your statement this April that you wished not to be considered for a position which like this one has administrative aspects. As illustration you mentioned that you did not wish to become chairman of your department at Stanford either. The fact that you are now taking another view of the latter task gives us the courage to ask you to reconsider your attitude toward the former. The administrative aspects of this position are adjustable in terms of your own preferences. I think you will find Ross Cardwell capable of discharging those administrative functions which you may wish to avoid. He brings to this a real understanding and sympathy for the objectives of the group.

Mr. Schultz will write to you concerning the participation of the Economics Department in this offer. Since he is currently in South America, some time will go by before his letter can reach you. Let me say only that the Department is likewise unanimous in its support for a joint offer, and hopes that you will regard participation in its teaching and other activities an compatible with your primary responsibility with regard to the Commission. A tentative ratio, two-thirds Commission, one-third Department, is proposed for your consideration.

I am writing to Jascha [Jacob Marschak], who is currently at the Institute for Numerical Analysis, to inform him that this offer has now been approved. Please feel free to discuss the matter with him and to regard him as an additional source of information. We also hope that you will find it possible to visit Chicago some time in September so that you may inform yourself fully with regard to the opportunities and challenge of this position. The best timing of this visit depends somewhat on Mr. Schultz’ plans, on which I am not fully informed.

In conclusion, I want you to know that I look forward with great anticipation to the prospect of a reintensified contact with you, both in research and in a personal way. We all hope that our proposal is challenging enough to you to earn your serious consideration and, ultimately, your acceptance.

Please give our best regards to Selma. We hope that she will look with sympathy on our trying to get you both back to Chicago.

Cordially yours,

Tjalling C. Koopmans

cc: Executive Committee (A. Cowles, R. L Cardwell, T. W. Schultz, R. W. Tyler)
J. Marschak

________________________

COPY

The University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois
The Division of the Social Sciences

Office of the Dean

July 21, 1953

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow co The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, California

Dear Mr. Arrow:

I take great pleasure in inviting you to become Professor of Economics of the University of Chicago and Director of Research in the Cowles Commission. This is a regular tenure position as a full professor at a salary of $12,000 per year effective for 1954-55, on a 4-E contract. As you may have heard, the provisions of the 4-E contract have recently been liberalized so that the faculty member retains his earnings from royalties, from occasional lectures, and other occasional short-term assignments.

The interest in your appointment is indicated by the fact that you were the unanimous selection of the Executive Committee of the Cowles Commission, as well as the research staff of the Commission and the faculty of the department of economics. We are all anxious to have you join us and feel sure that we can provide you with excellent conditions for making an important intellectual contribution. We hope that you will come to Chicago at our expense sometime in September to look into the situation as fully as you wish and to work out conditions that are satisfactory, including the time when you would be able to join our staff.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]
R. W. Tyler
Dean

RWT:rk

________________________

[COPY]

August 24, 1953

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow
c/o The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, California

Dear Mr. Arrow:

I have returned from my field work in Peru and Mexico and learned with great pleasure from Dean Tyler and Professor Koopmans that the Chancellor has approved our recommendation to invite you to come to the University of Chicago as Professor of Economics and Director of Research in the Cowles Commission. Dean Tyler has already formally extended to you this invitation and Professor Koopmans has written to you at some length. May I convey to you the fact that this invitation is rare in that it is the unanimous view and wish of the members of the Department of Economics. This expresses in the strongest possible terms our own very high regard for your professional achievements as an economist and our firm wish to have you become one of us.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]
Theodore W. Schultz

TWS:jw

________________________

[COPY]

September 11, 1953

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow
c/o The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica California

Dear Ken:

This is further to my handwritten letter of about a month ago, in which I indicated that I would write again upon returning to Chicago. Let me again express the hope that you may be able to visit us at a time convenient to you. I continue to believe that this is the most effective procedure for you to obtain clarification on points such as those ou have raised in conversation with Jascha. However, in case you should prefer to seek clarification by correspondence, may I suggest that you write to Dean Tyler if you have questions relating to the Cowles Commission (with a carbon copy to me) and to Mr. Schultz for questions relating to the Department.

We had an interesting and fruitful meeting at Kingston, in which high temperature and a light program contributed to a relaxed atmosphere.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Cordially,
[unsigned copy]
Tjalling C. Koopmans

TOK:lb

Cc: J. Marschak, T.W. Schultz, R.W. Tyler

________________________

The RAND Corporation
1700 Main St. • Santa Monica • California

15 September 1953

Professor Theodore W. Schultz
Department of Economics
The University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Professor Schultz:

Thank you very much for your letter of August 24. I am indeed thrilled by the evidence of approbation by my former colleagues at the University of Chicago.

However, for reasons set forth in the enclosed letter to Dean Tyler, I feel that I should not accept the offer. The activity of administration represents for me, I feel, a violation of the principle of comparative advantage, especially if one takes account of my strong subjective preferences.

Best regards to all members of the Department.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Kenneth J. Arrow

KJA: ge
encl.

________________________

[COPY]

15 September 1953

Dean R. W. Tyler
The Division of the Social Sciences
The University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Dean Tyler:

I have thought over very seriously the kind and flattering offer to serve as Research Director of the Cowles Comission. It is with a great deal of regret that I feel that I must decline.

The stimulating and vital intellectual atmosphere at the University of Chicago and the high salary offered were very strong inducements, but I feel that I am not temperamentally qualified to assume the administrative responsibilities called for. I would feel strongly the conflict between pursuing my individual research and the responsibilities of leadership, and I do not feel that I would make a satisfactory resolution. I wish to thank you again, not least, for your willingness to wait this long for me to come to a decision.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]
Kenneth J. Arrow

KJA:ge
cc: Prof. T. C. Koopmans, Prof. T. W. Schultz [checkmark]

________________________

[COPY]

The University of Chicago
The Division of the Social Sciences

Office of the Dean

September 21, 1953

Mr. Kenneth J. Arrow
The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, California

Dear Mr. Arrow:

We are greatly disappointed that you feel it unwise to accept our invitation to become Director of Research for the Cowles Commission. We think you have an important contribution to make to our University. Hence, I hope we can work out some other position here that would appeal to you.

Sincerely yours,
R. W. Tyler
Dean

RWT:rk

cc: Mr. T. W. Schultz [checkmark], Mr. T. C. Koopmans

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics, Records. Box 42, Folder 4.

________________________

Postscript

New Economics Executive Named

Kenneth J. Arrow, professor of economics and statistics at Stanford, has been appointed executive head of the University’s Department of Economics, President Wallace Sterling announced yesterday.

Nationally known for his work in the analysis of criteria for economic decisions, Dr. Arrow has been on the Stanford faculty since 1949. As department head he replaces Professor Edward S. Shaw, who has resigned to devote full time to teaching and research.

Dr. Arrow heads a project at Stanford supported by the Office of Naval Research to study the efficiency of economic decision-making.

As a post-doctoral fellow of the Social Science Research Council, Dr. Arrow traveled extensively in Western Europe for nine months of 1952, studying statistical problems of national economic planning.

He lectured at Oxford University and the Institute of Applied Economics in Paris and was one of a small group of distinguished American economists invited to participate in a colloquium on the theory of risk. The colloquium was conducted in Paris by the National Center of Scientific Research of the French Ministry of Eduaction.

Professor Arrow was graduated by the College of the City of New York in 1940 with Phi Beta Kappa honors and as winner of the Pell medal for highest scholastic proficiency.
He served as assistant professor at the University of Chicago in 1948-49. Appointed acting assistant professor at Stanford in 1949, he became associate professor in 1950 and this year was promoted to full professor.

[Note: the promotion was announced April 28, effective September 1, 1953.]

Source: The Stanford Daily, 1 October 1953.

Image Source: Kenneth J. Arrow as Guggenheim Fellow (1972) John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Tags Arrow, Koopmans, Marschak, SchultzTW

Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Seymour Edwin Harris. 1926

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-08-25

While this post still needs the course transcript from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard to be complete, there is enough information about the 1926 Harvard economics Ph.D. Seymour Edwin Harris for it to be added to our series “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumnus/alumna”.

_______________________

Biographical/Historical Note

Seymour Edwin Harris was born September 8, 1897 in New York City. He received an A.B. in 1920 and a Ph.D. in 1926 from Harvard University. From 1922 to 1964, Dr. Harris taught economics at Harvard University, where he received a full professorship in 1954, and served as the chairman of the department of economics from 1955 to 1959. During World War II, Dr. Harris was involved in several wartime planning projects. From 1954 to 1956, Dr. Harris became chief economic advisor to Adlai Stevenson. He then served Senator John F. Kennedy in the same capacity and was chosen as a member of President Kennedy’s task force on the economy. In 1961, Dr. Harris was named as chief economic consultant to Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury. During the Kennedy administration. Dr. Harris, a proponent of Keynesian economics, was a member of Walter W. Heller’s New Frontiersmen, which persuaded President Kennedy that the stimulation of the economy was more important than a balanced budget and tax cuts and government spending could counter threats of a recession. In 1963, Dr. Harris became the chairman of the department of economics at the University of California at La Jolla. At the same time, he served as a chief economic advisor to the Johnson administration.

Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Archives. Guide to the Seymour E. Harris Personal Papers.

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

[Note: Boldface used to indicate printed text of the application; italics used to indicate the handwritten entries]

I. Full Name, with date and place of birth.

Seymour Edwin Harris. Sept. 8, 1897; Brooklyn, N.Y.

II. Academic Career: (Mention, with dates inclusive, colleges or other higher institutions of learning attended; and teaching positions held.)

C.C.N.Y. – 1916-18. Harvard A.B. 1918-20.
Princeton – Instructor of Economics 1920-2.
Harvard – Tutor 1922-4.

III. Degrees already attained. (Mention institutions and dates.)

A.B. Harvard. 1920.

IV. General Preparation. (Indicate briefly the range and character of your undergraduate studies in History, Economics, Government, and in such other fields as Ancient and Modern Languages, Philosophy, etc. In case you are a candidate for the degree in History, state the number of years you have studied preparatory and college Latin.)

Economics A, 3, 5, 11, 33
History 1, 12, 32b
Government 1, 17B.
Latin – 2 years at college. Greek – 1 year. French – 2 years (college). German – 1 year.

V. Department of Study. (Do you propose to offer yourself for the Ph.D., “History,” in “Economics,” or in “Political Science”?)

Economics.

Economic Theory & History.
Economics A, 11 – as undergraduate – 14, 15
Money and Banking.
Economics 38
Two half courses at Princeton Grad. School. (Currency Reform & Monetary Histor of the U.S.)
Statistics.
Economics 41
Public Finance
Economics 31
American History.
History 32b (as Undergraduate)
& Private reading
[Left blank]

VII. Special Subject for the special examination.

Money and Banking with International Trade as a substitute field [committee: Professors Young (chairman), Taussig, Gay, and Monroe]

VIII. Thesis Subject. (State the subject and mention the instructor who knows most about your work upon it.)

Subject? [The Assignat]
Professor Young.

IX. Examinations. (Indicate any preferences as to the time of the general and special examinations.)

May 15, 1924
[March (early), 1926]

X. Remarks

I have not decided on any subject. At present, I expect to write in Theory, and I hope under Professor Young.

Signature of a member of the Division certifying approval of the above outline of subjects.

Allyn A. Young

* * * [Last page of application] * * *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant]

Name: S. E. Harris

Approved: April 2, 1924

Ability to use French certified by C. J. Bullock, 10 May 1923.

Ability to use German certified by C. J. Bullock, 10 May 1923.

Date of general examination April 29, 1924. Passed A.A.Y.

Thesis received March 5, 1926

Read by [left blank]

Approved [left blank]

Date of special examination [left blank]

Recommended for the Doctorate [left blank]

Degree conferred [left blank]

Remarks. [left blank]

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

Certification of reading knowledge
of French and German for Ph.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 10, 1923

This is to certify that I have examined Mr. S.E. Harris and have found that he has such a knowledge of French and German as we require of candidates for the Ph.D. degree.

Very truly yours
[signed]
C. J. Bullock [K]

Dean D. H. Haskins

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

Passed General Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts
April 30, 1924

Dear Dean Haskins:

As Chairman of the Committee to conduct the general examination of S. E. Harris for the degree of Ph.D., I beg to report that Mr. Harris passed the examination. It was the opinion of the Committee that Mr. Harris’ showing was distinctly good, “better than the average”.

Yours sincerely,
[signed]
Allyn A. Young

Dean C. H. Haskins

[Note: The exam was held Tuesday, 29 April at 4 p.m. in Widener D. Committee: Professors Young, Crum, Bullock, Williams and Dr. Merk with Professor Persons substituting for Professor Crum at the examination.]

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

Passed Special Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 12, 1926

To the Division of History, Government and Economics:

As chairman of the committee appointed to conduct the special examination of Mr. S. E. Harris for the degree of Ph.D. in Economics I beg to report that Mr. Harris passed a very creditable examination.

[signed]
Allyn A. Young

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics, Ph.D. Degrees Conferred 1929-30. (UA V 453.270), Box 6.

Image Source: This particular portrait of Seymour E. Harris has been cropped from the 1934 Harvard Album. The identical portrait can be found already in the 1925 Harvard Album.

Tags Bullock, Gay, Harris, Monroe, Persons, Taussig, WilliamsJH, Young

Development Economist Market Economists Harvard Toronto

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus William Edmund Clark, 1974

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-08-05

Ed Clark once a 'Trudeaucrat' and then a Financial Master of the Universe

During the 1973-74 academic year Dale Jorgenson served as the placement officer for 34 Harvard economics Ph.D.s (in hand or anticipated) planning to go on the market. A fifth year student offering the field of economic development with a thesis on government investment planning in Tanzania hoped to spend his first post-doc year at Harvard. Jorgensen apparently offered him a discouraging word, leading William Edmund Clark to approach John Kenneth Galbraith for help. Galbraith’s note to the department chair, James Duesenberry, is transcribed below. Galbraith could not pass up the opportunity to lend a helping hand simultaneously with a discrete back-of-the-hand at Jorgenson.

Archival artifacts from the feud involving Jorgenson and Galbraith, inter alios, in the Harvard economics department at this time were the subject of an earlier post.

Curatorial due diligence demanded that I track down whatever happened to the Harvard economics Ph.D. alumnus William Edmund Clark. It turns out that he went back to his native Canada where he entered government service. He became much more than another faceless government economist. He rose rapidly through the bureaucratic ranks and within a decade “enjoyed” sufficient notoriety to become a Trudeaucratic target of Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney’s new government in the mid-1980s to be purged from the ranks of the civil service. From there Clark went on to an enormously successful career as a financial mover-and-shaker over the following three decades. “Red Ed” Clark also went on to make his mark in philanthropy.

The details of Clark’s truly remarkable life after his Harvard Ph.D. can be found in his Wikipedia article. John Kenneth Galbraith must have seen something that Dale Jorgenson either failed to see or didn’t want to encourage.

__________________________

Galbraith Tries an End-Run
around Jorgenson

December 20, 1973

Professor James Duesenberry
Littauer M-8
Harvard University

Dear Jim:

W. E. Clark, vitae attached, was in to see me the other day. He would like to stay on at Harvard; he has been told by Jorgenson that, in effect, there isn’t much interest in him. I find it difficult to plead we lack interest in anybody with this kind of record. I continue to suspect Mr. Jorgenson of an influence on our enterprise that is both inimical and evangelical. Couldn’t there be some corrective action without some fuss.

Yours faithfully,
John Kenneth Galbraith

JKG: efd

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

William Edmund Clark
Curriculum Vitae

Born: October 10, 1947
Marriage Status: Married
Children: One Son
Education:

Honors B.A., University of Toronto 1969. Economics
A.M. Harvard University 1971. Economics
Ph.D. Expected Harvard University. 1974 (Summer) Economics

Awards, Grades:
1. Stood first in class last three years at University of Toronto
2. Received Excellent Minus on written Theory for Ph.D.
3. Received Excellent on Orals for Ph.D.
  Topics: Economic Development; Theories of Social Change
4. Woodrow Wilson Scholar
Thesis. Pattern of Government Controlled Investment in Tanzania
Thesis Advisors: A. O. Hirschman; A. MacEwan
Teaching Experience:

Summer Course, Acadia University, Nova Scotia 1970
Teaching Fellow, Harvard University 1971/72.

Other Work Experience:

Researcher, Center of Criminology, University of Toronto, 1966 (summer)
Researcher, Ford Foundation Project on Higher Education, University of Toronto, 1968 (summer)
Head, Research Project on Student Aid, Financed by Ontario Government and Ford Foundation, 1969 (summer)
Member, University of Toronto Tanzania Project, 1971-73
Team head, University of Toronto Tanzania Project, 1972-73

Publications:

“Access to Higher Education in Ontario” joint article with D. Cook and G. Fallis

Address: 11 Peabody Terrace Apt. 702 Cambridge, Mass. 02138
Telephone: 617-492-0416
References:

A.O. Hirschman, Harvard University
A. MacEwan, Harvard University
D. Nowlan, Dept. of Economics, University of Toronto
D.F. Forster, Provost, University of Toronto
A. Sinclair, Chairman, Dept. of Economics, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia

Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. John Kenneth Galbraith Personal Papers. Series 5. Harvard University File, 1949-1990. Box 526. Folder “Harvard Economics Dept. of Economics: General correspondence, 1967-74 (1 of 3)”.

Image Source: “Turbulence follows former ‘Trudeaucrat”, National Post (Toronto), Aug 9, 1999.

Tags ClarkEdmund, Duesenberry, Galbraith, Jorgenson

Economist Market Economists Harvard Michigan

Harvard. Department recommends promotion of James Duesenberry to associate professor with tenure, 1952

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-08-04

Thanks to Milton Friedman’s filing habits, we are able to catch a glimpse into the tenure and promotion process at Harvard for the case of James S. Duesenberry in 1952. Friedman was invited to serve on the ad hoc committee to review the case for promoting Duesenberry from assistant professor to associate professor of economics with tenure in Harvard’s economics department. A typed copy of the department’s two-page recommendation submitted by the chairman Arthur Smithies, a one page c.v. for Duesenberry, and additional letters of support by Wassily Leontief and Gottfried Haberler from Milton Friedman’s file are transcribed below .

What strikes me most is just how short this written record appears when compared to the paper steeplechase of university hiring and promotion procedures of the present day.

_____________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS

Office of the Provost

April 4, 1952

Confidential

Professor Milton Friedman
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

Dear Professor Friedman:

I am happy to learn from President Conant that you have kindly consented to serve on the ad hoc committee to consider an appointment in our Department of Economics. The committee will hold its meeting on Friday, April 18, at ten o’clock in the Perkins Room in Massachusetts Hall.

The position to be filled is that of Associate Professor of Economics. This rank carries permanency of tenure, and an assured progress toward a full professorship provided the man appointed lives up to expectations. For this reason we are seeking as good a young man as we can find in the age bracket under approximately forty years.

The Department of Economics has recommended Dr. James B. Duesenberry. I enclose for your scrutiny a copy of the Department’s recommendation, which, like all the material presented to the ad hoc committee, is strictly confidential. The next step in procedure is for the specially appointed ad hoc committee to advise the President and the Provost. In this connection not merely should the qualifications of Dr. Duesenberry be assessed, but he should also be compared with other men of his age group in the same field.

If there are any questions I can answer before the meeting of the committee, please do not hesitate to let me know. I am also enclosing a special travel voucher for your convenience in reporting your travel expenses in connection with the meeting of the ad hoc committee.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Paul H. Buck
Paul H. Buck
Provost

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

COPY

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Office of the Chairman

M-8 Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

February 18, 1952

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

Dear Provost Buck:

At its meeting of February 12th, the Department of Economics unanimously decided to recommend Assistant Professor James S. Duesenberry for promotion to an Associate Professorship beginning in the academic year 1952-1953.

The meeting was attended by Professors Black, Chamberlin, Dunlop, Galbraith, Hansen, Harris, Leontief, Mason, Slichter, and Smithies, all of whom voted in favor of the promotion. Professors Gerschenkron, Haberler, and Williams and Dr. Taylor who were unavoidably absent from the meeting have all indicated their approval.

I am attaching a brief curriculum vitae of Duesenberry and a list of his publications and papers.

We make this recommendation after a careful survey of all the economists in the country whom we felt might be qualified or available for an Associate Professorship. Altogether we considered about twenty young economists, both in the United States and abroad. It is our judgment that none of them could serve this faculty better than Duesenberry and very few if any of them are on a par with Duesenberry.

He is undoubtedly one of the very few outstanding young economists in the country. I know that if he were to indicate his availability he would be flooded with offers from many leading universities. To illustrate, the University of California has just lost Fellner to Yale and they have told me that they would gladly take Duesenberry as one of their two leading economists in Economic Theory.

When we had narrowed our list down, it included Baumol at Princeton, Dorfman at California, Tobin at Yale, Goodwin who is now in Cambridge, England, and Robert Rosa of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Rosa appealed to many of us particularly. He has had a brilliant career in the Bank which has merely been an extension of the brilliance he has shown throughout his professional career. I knew him as an undergraduate at Michigan, and he has fulfilled all the promise he showed at that time. Unfortunately, he finally decided that he was not available. Otherwise, we might have recommended Rosa’s appointment in conjunction to that of Duesenberry since we have two vacancies that we can fill.

Where Rosa would have been largely complementary to Duesenberry in view of his specific banking experience, the others on the list are more competitive with him. We were particularly impressed with Baumol who some of us know and Tobin who all of us have known for some years. Both these men are undoubtedly first class intellectually, and it would be difficult to rate them below Duesenberry. However, Duesenberry has shown a breadth of interest and a willingness to relate economics to other disciplines that the others have not yet demonstrated to the same extent. Goodwin and Dorfman are also of first-class intellectual ability, but we felt that they too were more specialized in their interests than Duesenberry.

In the last few years, Duesenberry has shown a remarkable capacity to bring together the fruits of theoretical and empirical research. His interests are now leading him in the direction of an historical study of the problem of economic development, and he has been cooperating on an experimental course on economic motivation with a member of the Social Relations Department. I believe that economies has suffered seriously in recent years from over-specialization. In particular, the theorists and the statisticians have tended to feel that the truth has been revealed only to them. History until recently has attracted far too little interest. I am confident that Duesenberry will be an important influence in reversing these tendencies.

Duesenberry made a name for himself nationally and internationally with his first book, Income, Saving, and the Theory of Consumer Behavior. His new hypothesis of “ratchet effects” has helped to avoid many of the mistakes that had previously been made in attempting to predict consumer behavior and has wide general implications for economic analysis. In this and his other work, he has already helped to rescue economies from the straight-jacket of static analysis, and I am sure he will do much more.

In view of the present needs of the Department, I wish we could have found a man who combined all Duesenberry’s other qualities with striking performance on the lecture platform. Unfortunately, that has not been possible. However, while not a striking lecturer, Duesenberry has been and will continue to be a very effective part of our undergraduate teaching. He has been a tutor in Dunster House for some years and as such has been a conspicuous success. He has also proved to be the member of the Department best equipped to teach the senior course in economic analysis for honors students. In these respects he will prove to be an important addition to the permanent staff from the point of view of undergraduate teaching.

On personal grounds, the Department looks forward very much to having Duesenberry as a permanent member. He will combine a thoroughly independent point of view with an understanding attitude towards differences of opinion with his colleagues. In general, it is the unanimous view of the Department that we could hardly make a recommendation in which we had greater confidence.

Yours Sincerely,
/s/ Arthur Smithies
Chairman

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

JAMES STEMBLE DUESENBERRY

Born July 18, 1918

B.A., University of Michigan, 1939
M.A., ibid., 1941
Ph.D., ibid., 1948
Teaching Fellow, University of Michigan, 1939-1941
U.S.A.A.F., 1942-1946.
Instructor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1946.
Teaching Fellow, Harvard University, 1946-1948.
Assistant Professor, Harvard University, 1948 to present

Publications

Books:

Income, Saving, and the Theory of Consumer Behavior, Harvard University Press, 1949.

Business Cycles and Economic Development, to be published in the fall of 1952 by McGraw-Hill Company.

Articles:

“Income Consumption Relations”, Income, Employment and Public Policy, Norton, 1948.

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

“Mr. Hicks and the Trade Cycle”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, September, 1950.

“The Role of Demand in the Economic Structure”, Studies in the Structure of the American Economy, in press.

“Some Aspects or the Theory of Economic Development”, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, December 1950.

“The Leontief Input-Output System”, (ditto); to be published in a volume on Linear Programming by Paul Samuelson.

Papers Read but not Published:

“Some New Income-Consumption Relationships and Their Implications”, Econometric Society, January, 1947.

“Induction Evidence of the Propensity to Consume”, American Economic Association and the Econometric Society, December, 1947.

The Present Status of the Consumption Function” Conference on Income and Wealth, June, 1950.

“Theory of Economic Development”, Econometric Society, December, 1951.

“Needed Revisions in the Theory of Consumer Expenditures”, Econometric Society, September, 1950.

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

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Gottfried Haberler
Professor of Economics

325 Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts
March 20, 1952

Provost Paul H. Buck
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Mr. Buck:

If you permit, I should like to add my personal views on the proposed appointment of James Duesenberry as Associate Professor. May I say that I know Duesenberry intimately and that I have been increasingly impressed by his work. The little book, INCOME, SAVING AND THE THEORY OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, which he published with the Harvard University Press, is generally regarded as one of the most important and original contributions to the widely discussed and extremely important subject of the relations of national income, saving and consumption. It has been much and favorably commented upon. Duesenberry displays the rare talent of combining theoretical analysis, statistical analysis and sociological insight in a most illuminating and successful manner. He is also a very inspiring teacher.

In recent years he has turned his attention to the also much discussed problems of economic development. The parts of his forthcoming book which I have seen display a mastery of combining different approaches in a most fruitful way. His eminence in this particular field, which in a very welcome way rounds out the field covered by members of our department, is widely recognized in the economic profession at large. He was asked to address the convention of the American Economic Association last December, and Professor Innis of Toronto, the new president of the American Economic Association, has asked him to speak again on the problem of economic development at the next annual meeting of the Association.

To sum up, in my opinion the appointment of Duesenberry will greatly strengthen the Economics Department, enhance its reputation and help attract first rate students.

Very sincerely yours,
/s/ G. Haberler
G. Haberler

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

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge 38, Massachusetts
March 24, 1952

Provost Paul Buck
University Hall
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Provost Buck:

In anticipation of my appearance before the ad hoc committee, I would like to state my reasons for having vote [sic] in support of the departmental recommendation for appointment of Assistant Professor Duesenberry as associate professor. I have followed Jim’s development from the time he became, on my recommendation, an economics instructor and assistant in my undergraduate course on economic theory.

Duesenberry is one of the few outstanding young economists who established their reputation in the post war years. Baumol, Arrow, Goodwin and not more than one or two others, could be named as belonging to the same group. Among these, Duesenberry distinguished himself through his notable breadth of interest and what is in a sense more important, his remarkably productive scientific imagination. His well known contributions to the theory of consumption and the not yet published equally original work in the field of economic development, reveal a singular combination of intuitive insight, practical sense and theoretical “know-how”.

Duesenberry has already taken an important part in the work of the Harvard Economic Research Project, and I have no doubt that he will play a leading role in the development of economic and general social science research at Harvard.

Although not typically a smooth lecturer, Duesenberry is very effective in a classroom. His enthusiasm and real interest in students makes him an excellent tutor and undergraduate advisor.

If in its subsequent recommendations for permanent appointments we succeed in keeping our sights as high as in the present choice the future prospects of the Economics Department would be very bright indeed.

With best regards.

Sincerely yours,
/s/ Wassily Leontief
Wassily Leontief

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

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS

Office of the President

April 19, 1952

Dear Professor Friedman:

I am returning herewith material which I believe you left in the Perkins Room at the time of the ad hoc committee meeting yesterday.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Virginia Proctor
Virginia Proctor
Secretary to the President

Professor Milton Friedman
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 24, Folder “25.29 Correspondence. Duesenberry, James S.”

Image Source: Harvard College. Classbook 1957.

Tags Duesenberry, Friedman, Haberler, Leontief, Smithies

Amherst Chicago Economists

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, George Rogers Taylor. 1929

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-08-02

The economics Ph.D. alumnus featured in today’s post was awarded his doctorate in 1929 by the University of Chicago. George Rogers Taylor had a long and distinguished career at Amherst College as a leading U.S. economic historian. He was the author of the history of economics at Amherst College from 1832 to 1932 transcribed for the previous post.

Taylor was an early pioneer in the interdisciplinary field of American Studies.

__________________________

George Rogers Taylor
Life and Career

1895. Born June 15 in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

1914. Graduates from Wayland Academy at Beaver Dam.

Fun Fact: The school was named after Francis Wayland (1796-1865), Baptist minister, economist, and president of Brown University.

1916. Graduates from Oshkosh Normal School. “He earned his way through college by waiting on tables, mowing lawns and tending furnaces. He credits the late Prof. F. R. Clow for his life-long interest in economics, Prof. M. H. Small for getting him a job as a steward in a boarding club where he received his meals and Prof. J. O. Frank, whose furnace he tended.” Source: The Oshkosh Northwestern, May 10, 1971, p. 3.

1916-17. Principal of an Blair School with ca. five teachers at Waukesha, Wisconsin. He taught seventh grade and half of the sixth grade.

The original school was established in 1847, rebuilt at new locations in 1889 and 1966 and finally closed in June 2019. Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (June 4, 2019).

1917-19. Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, aviation operations. Assigned to wireless telephony.

1919. Summer. Worked at the post office at Beaver Dam.

1919-20. Taught eighth grade for one year at Wayland Academy.

1921. Ph.B., University of Chicago. Attended two summer school sessions plus an academic year to complete degree requirements in one year. College credit was given for some of his Navy service.

Taylor had received a four year scholarship which covered his tuition for his Chicago training. There was a long-time close connection between the Wayland Academy and Chicago. The main prize at Wayland Academy’s commencement was a four year scholarship to Chicago.

1921-22. Taught at University of Iowa. Taylor was asked by Frank Knight to go there as an instructor for a year.

Taught public speaking for part of spring term at a Hammond, Indiana high school at some point during graduate school.

1923. Taught economics at Earlham College for a semester.

1924. August 23 marries Mary Leanah Henderson in Mooresville, Indiana. He met her when she was a senior at Earlham College.

1923-24. Instructor, University of Chicago.

1924. Joins the faculty of Amherst College at the rank of instructor, coming along with Professor Paul Douglas.

1927. Promotion to assistant professor, Amherst College.

1929. Ph.D. University of Chicago.

1929. Promotion to associate professor, Amherst College.

1929-30. First semester visiting professorship at Mount Holyoke.

1930. Visiting professor at Smith College.

1930-31. Research for the International Committee on Price History.

1930. “Prices in the Mississippi Valley Preceding the War of 1812,” Journal of Economic and Business History, Vol. III, pp. 148-163.

1931. “Agrarian discontent in the Mississippi valley preceding the war of 1812,” (subject of the doctoral dissertation) Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 39, No. 4 (August 1931), pp. 471-505.

1932. “Wholesale Commodity Prices at Charleston, S.C.,” Journal of Economic and Business History, (two parts). Vol. IV (February and August).

1932. Arrived August 3 at the port of New York aboard the S.S. Europa that sailed from Southampton.

1934-35. Second semester. Visiting professor of economics at Mount Holyoke.

1937. (with Louis Morton Hacker and Rudolf Modley). The United States: A Graphic History. New York: Modern Age Books, Inc.

1938. Senior agricultural economist, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

1939. (with Edward Albertus and Lawrence Z. Waugh). Internal Barriers to Trade in Farm Products. Department of Commerce. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

1939. M.A. (hon.) Amherst College.

1939. Promotion to professor of economics, Amherst College.

1940. Spring semester. Visiting professor, Mount Holyoke College.

1940. “State Laws which Limit Competition in Agricultural Products,” Journal of Farm Economics Vol. 22, No. 1 (February).

1941-46. Office of Price Administration and War Production Board.

1943. Adviser on price and control and rationing to the Republic of Paraguay.

1948-68. General editor of the Amherst College’s American studies program book series “Problems in American Civilization” (D.C. Heath Co.). This was a part of Amherst’s “New Curriculum” introduced in 1947. Amherst was a pioneer of the field of American Studies.

1949. Jackson versus Biddle; the struggle over the second Bank of the United States. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1950. Hamilton and the National Debt. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1951. The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860. Vol. IV of The Economic History of the United States.Rinehart and Co.

1952. Visiting Professor, Columbia University.

1953. The Great Tariff Debate, 1820 to 1830. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1955-60. Editor of Journal of Economic History.

1956. The Turner Thesis concerning the Role of the frontier in American History. Rev. ed. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1956. (with co-author Irene Neu). The American railroad network, 1861-1890. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

1956-58. President of the American Studies Association.

1959-62. Chairman of the Council on Research in Economic History.

1959. (with Ethel Hoover) Statement at Hearings before the Joint Economic Committee: Employment, Growth and Price Levels, 86th Congress, 1st Session, April 9, 1959.

1960. “Railroad Investment before the Civil War: Comment,” Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, National Bureau of Economic Research, Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. XXIV.

1961. Summer. Visiting professor at the University of Hawaii.

1962-64. President of the Economic History Association.

1963. The War of 1812: Past Justifications and Present Interpretations. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1963. Visiting Professor, Tokyo University.

1964. Presidential address before the Economic History Association annual meeting “American Economic Growth before 1840: An Exploratory Essay,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. XXIV (December, 1964), 427-444.

1965. Retires from Amherst College.

1964. March 12. Public lecture at the University of Delaware published in “The National Economy Before and After the Civil War,” in David T. Gilchrist and David Lewis eds., Economic Change in the Civil War Era (Greenville, Delaware, 1965).

1966. “The Beginnings of Mass Transportation in Urban America, Part I,” The Smithsonian Journal of History. Part I (Summer); Part II (Autumn).

1965-70. Senior resident scholar at the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library (Wilmington, Delaware). Taught graduate seminars in economic history at the University of Delaware.

1967. “American Urban Growth Preceding the Railway Age,”Journal of Economic History, Vol. XXVII (September).

1969. Introduction to the reprint of Introduction and Early Development of the American Cotton Textile Industry to 1860 (1863) by Samuel Batchelder. New York: Harper & Row.

1969. American Economic History before 1860 (Goldentree Bibliographies in American History, ed. Arthur S. Link) compiled by George Rogers Taylor. New York: Appleton Century Croft.

1983. Died April 11 in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Sources:

Obituary, Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Massachusetts), April 12, 1983, p. 4.

Scheiber, Harry N., and Stephen Salsbury. “Reflections on George Rogers Taylor’s ‘The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860’: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospect.” The Business History Review, vol. 51, no. 1, 1977, pp. 79–89.

May 19, 1978 interview of George Rogers Taylor from the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections, Oral History Project.

Hugh G. J. Aitken’s memorial note in The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 626-629.

Image Source: Amherst College, The Olio 1930, p. 45.

Tags Clow, Douglas, Knight, TaylorGR

NOMINATION OF MERTON J. PECK Monday, February 5, 1968

(Excerpts from the Employment Act of 1946 and related laws follow):

Remarks by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the Swearing in of Merton J. Peck as a Member, Council of Economic Advisers, and upon Designating Arthur M. Okun as Chairman

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. FEBRUARY, 1887.

POLITICAL ECONOMY IN AMERICA. by RICHARD T. ELY

Naming and Nicknaming Mitchell

The Paternal Side of the Family

John Wesley Mitchell’s Civil War Service

John Wesley Mitchell’s Obituary

The Maternal Side of the Family

About Beulah McClellan Seely

Decatur Herald (Decatur, Illinois) 7 July 1929, p. 44

Mitchell One of First To Prove Business Cycle

Studied In Germany

NBER Memorial Volume for Wesley Clair Mitchell

Backstory:

Memorial Address by John Maurice Clark.

Typed copy of Wesley Clair Mitchell’s Response to Questions posed him by John Maurice Clark

HARVARD UNIVERSITY DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

Certification of reading knowledge of French and German for Ph.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY Department of Economics

General Examination, date and change of an examiner [carbon copy]

General Examination, date and change of an examiner [carbon copy]

Passed General Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY Department of Economics

Scheduling Special Examination, Changing special field to Money & Banking

HARVARD UNIVERSITY Department of Economics

Thesis summary

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ANN ARBOR Department of Economics

Passed Special Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY Department of Economics

HARVARD UNIVERSITY (INTER-DEPARTMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE SHEET)

Record of H. S. Ellis in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Course Names and Instructors

1922-23

1923-24

Howard Sylvester Ellis Timeline of his life and career

COWLES COMMISSION FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO CHICAGO 37, ILLINOIS

[COPY]

COPY

The University of Chicago Chicago 37, Illinois The Division of the Social Sciences

[COPY]

[COPY]

The RAND Corporation 1700 Main St. • Santa Monica • California

[COPY]

[COPY]

The University of Chicago The Division of the Social Sciences

Postscript

New Economics Executive Named

Biographical/Historical Note

HARVARD UNIVERSITY DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

Certification of reading knowledge of French and German for Ph.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Passed General Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Passed Special Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Galbraith Tries an End-Run around Jorgenson

William Edmund Clark Curriculum Vitae

George Rogers Taylor Life and Career

NOMINATION OF MERTON J. PECK
Monday, February 5, 1968

(Excerpts from the Employment Act of 1946
and related laws follow):

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
FEBRUARY, 1887.

POLITICAL ECONOMY IN AMERICA.
by RICHARD T. ELY

Decatur Herald (Decatur, Illinois)
7 July 1929, p. 44

NBER Memorial Volume
for Wesley Clair Mitchell

Memorial Address
by John Maurice Clark.

Typed copy of Wesley Clair Mitchell’s Response to Questions
posed him by John Maurice Clark

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Certification of reading knowledge
of French and German for Ph.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

General Examination, date and
change of an examiner
[carbon copy]

General Examination, date and
change of an examiner
[carbon copy]

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Scheduling Special Examination,
Changing special field
to Money & Banking

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ANN ARBOR
Department of Economics

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
(INTER-DEPARTMENTAL CORRESPONDENCE SHEET)

Record of H. S. Ellis
in the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Howard Sylvester Ellis
Timeline of his life and career

COWLES COMMISSION
FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHICAGO 37, ILLINOIS

The University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois
The Division of the Social Sciences

The RAND Corporation
1700 Main St. • Santa Monica • California

The University of Chicago
The Division of the Social Sciences

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Certification of reading knowledge
of French and German for Ph.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Galbraith Tries an End-Run
around Jorgenson

William Edmund Clark
Curriculum Vitae

George Rogers Taylor
Life and Career