Category: Exam Questions

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. Final exam for Price Theory (B). Friedman. Winter quarter 1964

The spirit of Chicago’s boot-camp training in price theory with Milton Friedman as canonical drill  instructor is captured in the examination transcribed below. 

Trivial observation: Questions 9 through 11 are based on a fictional monopoly Gimcrack Company that appears to be a homage to the old song “Jim Crack Corn” (a.k.a. “Blue tail Fly”). One can imagine the American graduate students hearing the voice of the folk singer Burl Ives rendering the tune as they attempted to answer the questions.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Some other exams for the second quarter of graduate price theory at Chicago from this period have been previously posted:

December 16, 1959 (Friedman); December 1960 (Friedman?); February 10/March 15, 1965 (Griliches); December 1965 (Telser)

___________________________

ECONOMICS 301
FINAL EXAM — Winter, 1964

M. Friedman
March 19, 1964

I. [25 Points] Indicate whether each of the following statements is true (T), false (F), or uncertain (U) and state briefly (on this paper) the reason for your answer.

  1. The elasticity of a straight line demand curve varies from point to point.
  2. In the long run, demand has no influence on the price of the product of a competitive industry that uses no specialized resources.
  3. Marginal revenue is always greater than average revenue when average revenue is rising as quantity increases.

[4. and 5.] Assume that the government is going to purchase a predetermined quantity of rice for foreign relief and that it is considering making its purchases (a) directly from the growers of rice, or (b) through the regular dealer on the grain exchange. Assume also that there are no other governmental actions affecting rise growing or marketing.

  1. The price to the domestic consumer of rice that remains will be higher in case (a) than in case (b).
  2. The price received by the farmer for the rice that remains will be higher in case (a) than in case (b).
  1. An “inferior” good is one such that a larger quantity is demanded at a high than at a low price.
  2. If the quantity of Y increases and the quantity of X decreases in such a way as to keep total utility constant, then the rate of substitution of Y for X is independent of the quantity of X.
  3. The income of the farmers raising corn increases when the price of corn rises. The rise in income is the “income effect of the rise in price.”

[9., 10., 11.] The Gimcrack Company is a monopoly, selling in two distinct markets. Transportation costs between the two markets can be neglected.

  1. The company will always charge the same price for gimcracks in the two markets.
  2. The company will sell such quantities in the two markets as will make the elasticities of demand the same in the two markets.
  3. The company will sell such quantities in the two markets as will make marginal revenue the same in the two markets.

II. [25 Points] Fill in the blanks in the following questions.

  1. Consider three demand curves for commodity X: A for given money income and other prices; B, for given apparent real income in Slutsky’s sense; C, for given real income in Hick’s sense. Let all three curves go through the point (po , xo)
    If X is a superior good, then for a price lower than p0, the quantity demanded will be larger for_____ than for _____. (Insert A, B, C, in correct spaces.)
    If X is an inferior good, then for a price lower than p0, the quantity demanded will be larger for _____ than for _____.
    Suppose p0 = $5, X0 = $20, the corresponding money income $1, 000, and the income elasticity of demand for X is 2. Suppose that at a price $4, the quantity demanded on curve A is 25. Then the income compensation required to pass from A to B is $_____ (be sure to indicate sign of change) and the quantity demanded on curve B is _____.
  2. Blank is indifferent whether he wagers $1 at even-money that a coin he regards as fair will come up heads. He is eager to wager $1 against $3 (i.e., he pays $1 if he loses, receives $3 if he wins) that heads will come up twice in two successive throws of this coin. (He regards the throws as independent and so the chances of two successive heads as one in four.) Let the utility of his income if he loses $1 be 100; if he wins $1, 101. Then the utility to him of his present income can be taken to be _____ (insert a number); the utility to his present income plus $3 _____ (insert the most accurate statement the evidence permits).

III. [25 Points.] Find the mistakes (there are at least six) in the accompanying diagram showing long run and short run marginal and average cost curves for an individual firm, and explain the general principle corresponding to each particular mistake.

[NOTE: The answer to question III has been transcribed and posted with the Friedman’s December 16, 1959 exam for Economics 301.]

IV. [25 Points] Consider two alternative taxes imposed on a commodity: (a) a specific tax of T dollars per unit sold: (b) an ad valorem tax of t per cent of the price of the product.
Assume that the commodity is produced and sold under strictly competitive conditions and that the price inclusive of tax when the tax of T is imposed is P0. (i) Prove graphically that an ad valorem tax of t – T/P0will result in the same equilibrium price. (ii) Suppose a tax rate slightly greater than t – T/P0 is imposed. Under what conditions, if any, is it certain that the revenue will increase? (iii) Decrease?
Assume alternatively that the commodity is produced and sold by a monopoly. Suppose that, when a specific tax of T is imposed, the monopolist chose to sell at a price (inclusive of tax) of P1. Suppose now, an ad valorem tax of t – T/P1 is imposed. (iv) Will the monopolist’s optimum price be P1? If not, will it be higher? or lower? Prove your answer.

V. [20 Points] When someone offers a cigarette to pipe-puffing Surgeon General Luther Terry, he always grabs it. “Every one I accept I tear up,” he says. “That way there’s one less cigarette.” (Time, February 7, 1964).
Analyze the economics of the Surgeon General’s policy. In doing so, assume of course, that a substantial class of people with similar beliefs behave the same way, so the effect is at least potentially appreciable. Would it contribute to his objective of reducing smoking? If so, through what channels?

___________________________

PROBLEM
for
ECONOMICS 301
Winter Quarter, 1964

Analyze the business practice discussed in the accompanying excerpt from a Wall Street Journal story of December 4 1963.

Under what circumstances, if any would you expect such a practice to be in the self-interest of the participating companies? How would you suggest testing your explanation?

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 77. Folder: University of Chicago, Econ. 301.

Image Source: Detail from picture of Milton Friedman (November 1957) at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, pf1-06234, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Principles

Harvard. Enrollment and exams for Outlines of Economics. Taussig et al., 1904-1905

Frank W. Taussig & A. Piatt Andrew

From the final exams for the two semester introductory economics course run by Frank Taussig and A. Piatt Andrew in 1904-05 we see (among other things) that John Stuart Mill provided the backbone of theory and that there was room for a compare and contrast question regarding a liberal market economy vs a socialist economy.

________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 1. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig, Asst. Professor [Abram Piatt] Andrew, and Messrs. [Vanderveer] Custis, [James Alfred] Field, [Silas Wilder] Howland, [Selden Osgood] Martin, and [Chester Whitney] Wright. — Outlines of Economics.

Total 438: 10 Seniors, 84 Juniors, 232 Sophomores, 54 Freshmen, 58 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 74.

________________________

ECONOMICS 1
Mid-year Examination, 1904-05

One question in each group may be omitted.
Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions
Give your reasons in all cases.

I

  1. Which among the following would you consider (1) “productive laborers,” (2) otherwise useful to society: actors, manufacturers of gambling implements, stock-brokers, landlords receiving and spending the rents of land.
  2. It has been laid down that,—
    Capital is distinguished from non-capital by its nature, — it consists of machinery, materials, and other apparatus for production;
    Capital is distinguished from non-capital by the intention of the owner in dealing with his wealth;
    Capital, though the result of saving, is yet continually consumed.
    Can you reconcile these propositions? If not, which do you consider sound?
  3. “The laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths.” Is this true of the law stating the conditions under which the accumulation of capital takes place? of that stating the conditions under which production upon land takes place?
  4. Define briefly: value in use, value in exchange, utility, marginal utility, margin of cultivation, consumer’s rent.
  5. Can a person having a monopoly of a given commodity control its price at will? If so, how? If not, why not?
  6. “An individual speculator cannot gain by a rise in price of his own creating . . . when there is neither at the time nor afterwards any cause for a rise of prices except his own proceedings.”
    On what reasoning does this statement of Mill’s rest? Does the practice of dealings for future delivery (“futures”) affect the reasoning.

II

  1. What is the difference between a wages-fund and a wages-flow? Which seems to you the better mode of describing the influences that act on the general rate of wages?
  2. “The expectations of profit, therefore, in different employments, cannot long continue very different: they tend to a common average.”
    “It is true that, to persons with the same amount of original means, there is more chance of making a large fortune in some employments than in others.”
    “Gross profit varies greatly from individual to individual, and can scarcely be in any two cases the same.”
    Can these statements of Mill’s be reconciled?
  3. Is the return from capital sunk in the soil to be regarded as rent or interest? Is the return from urban real estate to be regarded as rent or interest? Is the return on corporate securities (stocks and bonds) to be regarded as rent or interest?
  4. How will a rise in the rate of interest affect the selling value of land? that of securities yielding a fixed income?
  5. “But it is impossible for anyone to study political economy, even as at present taught, or to think at all upon the production and distribution of wealth, without seeing that property in land differs essentially from property in things of human production, and that it has no warrant in abstract justice.” Henry George.
    Do you think this statement true in view of what you have learned in this course? Consider both your reading and the lectures.
  6. What would become of interest, rent, business profits, in a socialist state? what if there were an all-embracing régime of coöperative production?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1904-05.

________________________

ECONOMICS 1
Year-end Examination, 1904-05

Omit one question from each group.

I

  1. What is meant by the equilibrium of demand and supply? How is it secured?
  2. Suppose there were a general rise in wages: could capitalists, by charging higher prices for their goods, prevent profits from falling?
    Suppose a rise of wages in a particular trade: could the capitalists in that trade, by charging higher prices, keep their profits from falling?
  3. Under what head — wages, rent, interest, profits — would you class the remuneration of (1) an apothecary; (2) a city merchant who owns the building in which he carries on his business; (3) an author who receives copyright payments on books which he has written; (4) a stockholder in a company which owns a lucrative patent?
  4. Is land capital? Are buildings capital? Are the skill and capacity of a workman — such as a trained engineer or a great inventor — to be regarded as capital?

II

  1. What would be the effect on the price of beef if a high protective tariff were levied on the import of hides?
  2. Which of the economic advantages and disadvantages of combination, in the broad sense, result from (a) pooling, (b) merger in a single corporation, (c) monopoly?
  3. President Roosevelt in a recent message said that our tariff “duties must never be reduced below the point that will cover the difference between the labor cost here and abroad.” Discuss this statement.
  4. Suppose that a country which manufactures only enough to supply half the home market, and which has a large export trade in wheat, imposes a uniform import duty of 50% on all commodities. What will be the effect on the nominal and the real wages of agricultural laborers, absolutely, and as compared with wages in manufacturing industries?

III

  1. How do you explain the fact that there is less than 1/10 as much silver in a dime as in a silver dollar? Is there any reason why this should be so?
  2. Explain briefly:—

(a) Deposit.
(b) Suffolk Bank system.
(c) Clearing House certificate.
(d) Post-note.
(e) Discount.
(f) Reserve city.
(g) Central reserve city.
(h) Asset currency.

  1. Secretary Shaw has said “Without claiming that the national banking act is perfect or that our currency system is free from objection I think that the world joins us in the verdict that it is the best system known to man.”
    Discuss this statement, comparing the American system as regards security and elasticity with those of England and Germany.
  2. If a national bank examiner should discover the following to be the account of a bank in Boston to what would he object:
Capital 200,000 Loans 733,000
Surplus 24,000 U.S. Bonds 75,000
Undivided profits 43,000 Other assets 42,000
Notes 78,000 Deposits in U.S. Treas. 3,500
Deposits 745,000 Deposits in other banks 150,000
Clearing House certificate 14,000
Coin & legal tender notes 72,500
1,090,000 1,090,000

Would his objections differ at all if the bank were located in Cambridge?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05;  Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1905), pp. 21-23.

Image Sources:  Frank W. Taussig (Original black and white image from of Frank William Taussig from a cabinet card photograph, 1895, at the Harvard University Archives HUP); Abram Piatt Andrews (Picture from ca. 1909 used in a magazine article about Andrew’s appointment to the directorship of the U. S. Mint. Hoover Institution Archives. A. Piatt Andrew Papers, Box 51). Images colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Enrollment and exam questions for agrarian history. Gay, 1903-04

Edwin Francis Gay

Edwin F. Gay only taught the graduate economics course “General Outlines of Agrarian History” once. As we see from the course enrollment for this course offered at Harvard during the first term of 1903-04, only four students attended. Who among us has not been personally confronted with the reality that our supply does not necessarily generate its own demand? 

___________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 24 1hf. Asst. Professor Gay. — General Outlines of Agrarian History.

Total 4: 3 Seniors, 1 Junior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 24
Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

  1. Explain briefly:

(1) emphyteusis.
(2) massa and fundus.
(3) mainmorte.
(4) gavelkind and Borough English.
(5) common recovery.
(6) copyhold.
(7) majorat and seniorat.
(8) Norfolk husbandry.

  1. Describe briefly:

(1) the provisions of the Capitulare de villis; its date and significance.
(2) the system of estate settlement by “Familienfideikommisse.”
(3) the place in agrarian history of Colbert, Orlando Bridgman, Arthur Young and Albrecht Thaer.

  1. “It seems to be almost certain that the ‘hams’ and ‘tuns’ [of England] were, generally speaking, and for the most part from the first, practically manors with communities in serfdom upon them.” Whose view is this? State succinctly the chief arguments for and against.
  2. What were the chief factors in the emancipation of the medieval serf and how far had the movement of emancipation progressed by 1500 in England, France and Northern Italy?
  3. What were the causes of the Peasant War of 1525? How did the condition of the peasant of South Germany differ from that of the peasant in the North-east and North-west?
  4. Summarize (with dates of the more important statutes) the changes of policy in the English Corn-laws.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1903-04.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1914.

Categories
Agricultural Economics Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Enrollment and final exam for economics of agriculture. Carver, 1903-1904

 

In the second term of the 1903-04 academic year at Harvard, Professor Thomas Nixon Carver added a course in agricultural economics to his teaching portfolio. He was raised on a farm so this applied field must have been close to his heart. Details of his rural upbringing can be found in his autobiography, Recollections of an Unplanned Life (Los Angeles: The Ward Ritchie Press, 1949).

A problem set for this course has been transcribed and posted previously.

___________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 23 2hf. Professor Carver. — The Economics of Agriculture, with special reference to American conditions.

Total 99: 5 Graduates, 32 Seniors, 28 Juniors, 17 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 15 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 23
Year-End Examination. 1903-04

  1. How does the agricultural group of industries in the United States compare in importance with the manufacturing group?
  2. Describe the principal classes of soils found in the United States, and state, in a general way, in what regions each class pre-dominates.
  3. What are the chief advantages of the rotation and diversification of crops?
  4. What, according to the evidence collected by the United States Industrial Commission, are the chief obstacles to successful agriculture?
  5. What are the chief factors which tend to build up the cities more rapidly than the rural districts?
  6. Why does wheat growing tend to move more rapidly than corn growing toward newer countries?
  7. What are the chief factors affecting international competition in corn, wheat, and cotton?
  8. How do the price of land and the cost of labor affect the intensity of cultivation in any community? Explain fully.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College, p. 41.

Image Source: Figure 15, “A pioneer mode of breaking the land.” from T.N. Carver’s “Historical Sketch of American Agriculture,” in the Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, Vol. IV, edited by Liberty Hyde Bailey. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1909, pp. 39-70.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Law and Economics

Harvard. Enrollment and semester exams in law and economics. Wyman, 1903-1904

Harvard Law School, ca. 1901

To the archive of old economics exams this post adds the mid-year and final exams for the course “Principles of Law governing Industrial Relations” taught at Harvard in 1903-04 by assistant professor Bruce Wyman.

Since most undergraduate economics majors then as now do not pursue further graduate studies in economics, the Harvard economics department offered introductory courses in accounting and business law as a vocational sop in its early 20th century course offerings.

Two earlier sets of exams for this course have been transcribed and posted:  1901-02 (includes his 1921 report to the Class of 1896).; 1902-03 (includes an obituary for Bruce Wyman).

Fun fact: Wyman was alleged to offer “snapper” (i.e., easy) courses for Harvard undergraduates. Included in that post is a New York Times report of a scandal that led to his resignation from the Harvard Law School faculty.

___________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 21. Asst. Professor Wyman. — Principles of Law governing Industrial Relations.

Total 148: 11 Graduates, 89 Seniors, 30 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 10 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 21
Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

Answer eight questions. Give reasons with care.

  1. The general manager of the New York Magazine resigned his position to set up a rival magazine which he called the Empire Magazine. Before and after his resignation he solicited business for his new magazine from advertisers in the old. When he left he took a copy of the list of subscribers, intending to write them just before their subscriptions expired, urging them not to renew, but to subscribe to his new magazine, as all the good features of the New York would be found in the Empire in improved form. May the owner of the New York have any injunction against the former manager?
  2. Taddy & Co., manufacturers, sold large quantities of Myrtle Grove tobacco to Nelten & Co., jobbers, upon certain conditions in the invoices headed “minimum retail prices,” and below “acceptance of the goods will be deemed a contract between the purchaser and Taddy & Co.” Stenous & Co., retailers, bought a large amount of this Myrtle Grove tobacco from Nelten & Co., which they later offered to their customers at less than the minimum retail price. Can Taddy & Co. have an injunction against Stenous & Co.?
  3. A travelling agent of the Globe Stove Works goes through the Southwest getting small dealers to sign contracts for stoves. The travelling agent of the World Stove Works crosses his track often. In several instances the agent of the World Company, acting under orders from headquarters, makes a special price to dealers that have bought from the Globe Works, and induces them to cancel their orders for Globe stoves and buy the World stoves. Has the Globe Company any remedy against the World Company?
  4. The National Harrow Company sent broadcast the following circular: “We believe that we have the patents, and we have determined henceforth to sue any dealer handling these infringing harrows wherever they are found.” The infringing harrows referred to were those of the Davison Company. During the year following these circulars the business of the Davison Company fell off 50 per cent. In the year after that the Supreme Court decided in one of the suits which the National Company had prosecuted in good faith that their principal patents were invalid. The Davison Company now sue the National Company for damages done their business by the circulars quoted above. What decision?
  5. Most of the employees in certain breweries belong to a union, most of the brewers are in an association. By an agreement between the union and the association, any brewer must discharge any employee not belonging to the union, if the employee refuses for one week to join the union after being requested to do so. An engineer is taken on at one of the breweries; he refuses to join the union at request; one week later the secretary of the union gave notice to the brewer to discharge the engineer, which was accordingly done. Has the engineer any suit for damages against the secretary of the union?
  6. By a contract between the United States Fuel Company and the Ohio Operators Association, composed of ten concerns engaged in producing coal and coke in a certain district, the company was to handle for a term of years the entire output of the mines of the association intended for the western market. The amount to be furnished by each member of the association was to be fixed by its executive committee; the fuel company was to fix a uniform price from time to time at which it should sell the products turned over. The net profits of the fuel company less its commission were to be turned back to the members of the association pro rata. Is this agreement enforceable?
  7. There are two ice manufacturing companies in Tuscalosa, Ala. The second makes a lease of all its plant to the first for ten years for a high rental; then the first leases this same plant to third parties to be used only as a store house; thereupon the first ice company increases its rate 50 per cent. according to the previous understanding with the second company. This situation lasts for a year, when a new third company constructs a new plant with modern machinery and puts its rates at 50 per cent. below the first company. The first company reduces its rates, and thereupon refuses to pay the full rental to the second company according to the terms of the lease. What rights has the second company against the first company?
  8. An act of legislature provided: “That all the proprietors of the Charles River Marshes, are hereby constituted a corporation under the name of the Marsh Company, with authority to assess and collect from each member ten per cent. upon the valuation of his land, to be expended in making and maintaining a street across the same.” Nine of the ten proprietors after giving the tenth notice of the proposed meeting, meet, organize the corporation, and vote an assessment upon all the members for the amount specified in the charter. Suit by the company against the tenth man to collect the assessment. What decision?
  9. A company was formed by A. Solomon and his two sons, each subscribing one share, the statute for incorporations requiring “three associates each subscribing at least one share.” The capital stock was fixed at $100,300 of which $300 was paid in cash for the three original shares. A. Solomon then conveyed the real estate, machinery, stock in trade and good-will of his shoe business to this corporation for $100,000, which it was all worth at a conservative valuation. He took in payment debenture bonds to the amount of $50,000, a note for $25,000 and paid up shares to the face of $25,000. The remaining 50,000 shares later were sold at 50 each by the company, a discount of 50 per cent. being allowed. A year later a financial crisis comes, and the company is put in a receiver’s hands. He finds besides what has been related that the company has incurred new floating indebtedness to the amount of $25,000, while the property left may be sold for $65,000. How should the receiver wind up this corporation?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1903-04.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 21
Year-End Examination. 1903-04

Answer any six questions. Give reasons.

  1. A soap company buys the majority of the stock in a competing soap company. At the next meeting of this corporation it elects a board of directors. This new board of directors of the second company vote to enter into a five years’ contract with the first company to sell to it the whole product of the factory at a price which will barely cover the cost of production. Have the minority stockholders in the second company any relief at law?
  2. Three competing steel corporations agree to manufacture and sell rails at joint profit, accounting to each for a pro rata share upon each sale, settlements to be made semi-annually. One of these companies manufactures as much as possible, then sells all at the high prices prevailing since the arrangement, and then withdraws from the pool refusing to account to the others. Have the other two any remedy against it?
  3. An oil corporation is organized with an authorized capitalization of $500,000,000. It issues all its stocks for a variety of properties (distilleries, pipe lines, etc., etc.) which its directors value at $500,000,000, as these properties before consolidation are earning for their owners $50,000,000 per annum. As a result of this monopolization the new corporation earns $100,000,000 per annum. Is there any relief against this situation at law?
  4. A natural gas company is engaged in the supply of gas to a certain city. After about two thirds of the inhabitants have been taken on, it was discovered that by sinking more wells no more gas is gotten. The present supply is no more than enough to keep up a sufficient pressure to give the present takers proper service. In this condition of things a householder who lives upon the pipe lines of the company, in the centre of the city, applies to the company for gas. The company refuses him. Should a mandamus be granted?
  5. A telephone company in New York operates as a separate branch of its business a service of messengers on call. A messenger company applies to the telephone company for a telephone. The telephone company refuses upon the ground that the messenger company wish the telephone connection in order that people all over the city may summon messengers from it, which would be competition with the business of the telephone company. What decision?
  6. A traveller took a train on a railroad and presented to the conductor an excursion ticket which was in two parts. The conductor accidentally punched the wrong coupon; he then wrote on the back “cancelled by mistake” and signed the statement. The rules of the company also required a conductor under such circumstances to draw a circle about the hole accidentally punched. This circle not having been drawn, the conductor on the return trip refused to accept the punched ticket, and ejected the passenger upon his refusal to pay fare. Has the passenger any cause of action? If so, for what?
  7. A State passes a statute forbidding the sale of oleomargarine colored any shade of yellow. Is this constitutional?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College, pp. 40-41.

Image Source: Harvard Law School ca. 1901 from the Detroit Publishing Company photograph collection (Library of Congress).

Categories
Exam Questions International Economics Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. International Economics Exams. Balassa, 1968-69.

 

This post is able to match the examination questions to the corresponding reading list for one semester of Bela Balassa’s international trade theory course that he taught at Johns Hopkins in 1968-69. Alas, the archival box did not have the reading list for the second semester, but at least the exam questions for the second semester, also transcribed below, give us a good idea of the main course content during the spring of 1969.

I am also delighted to have found a picture of Bela Balassa to replace the one I had found on a webpage that, as it turns out, happens to be of an entirely different Balassa (see note at the bottom of the post for details). Professor M. Ali Khan of Johns Hopkins tipped me off about the previous picture (used in other posts) not being quite right. 

____________________________

Note: the reading list for the fall semester course was transcribed and posted earlier.

EXAMINATION
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS 18.641
Thursday, January 16, 1969

Dr. Balassa

  1. Answer two questions (80 minutes)
    1. Discuss the meaning of the expressions “labor” and “capital” in the Heckscher-Ohlin framework and indicate the implications that the recent interpretations of these concepts have for the theory of international trade.
    2. Analyze the relationship between country size and the commodity composition of exports and imports.
    3. Discuss the applicability of alternative theories of specialization to trade among industrial countries.
  2. Answer two questions (80 minutes)
    1. Examine the usefulness of a general equilibrium approach to trade theory.
    2. Consider the implications of introducing intermediate goods in trade models.
    3. Show the applicability of the theory of duopoly and bilateral monopoly to the theory of tariffs.
  3. Answer one question (40 minutes)
    1. State briefly the Stolper-Samuelson and the Rybczynski theorems and indicate the relationship between the two.
    2. What welfare consequences can be derived from the following results if subscript 2 refers to the after-trade and subscript 1 to the before-trade situation:

ΣP2Q2 < ΣP2Q1

ΣP1Q2 > ΣP1Q1

____________________________

Note: the reading list for the spring semester course was not included in the collection of course outlines for the department of political economy in the Johns Hopkins University archives.

Final Examination
International Trade Theory 18.642
May 21, 1969

Professor Balassa

Give approximately equal time to all questions.

  1. Answer two questions.
    1. It has been customary to consider separately internal and external balance and to examine the effects of the use of various policy instruments on each. How can this be reconciled with Johnson’s proposition that “the balance-of-payments is the difference between aggregate receipts and payments in the domestic economy:”
    2. Reformulate the exchange stability problem if the devaluation is regarded as a transfer.
    3. Indicate the effects of a devaluation on the non-merchandise items of the balance of payments.
  2. Answer two questions.
    1. Examine the welfare implications of alternative means for attaining balance-of-payments equilibrium, including devaluation, restrictions on trade, restrictions on capital movement, and domestic deflation.
    2. Milton Friedman has recently argued that the introduction of the two-tier gold market has placed the world on a dollar standard and thus the United States no longer has a balance-of-payments problem. Similar conclusions have been reached by Depres-Kindleberger-Salant on the grounds that the U.S. plays the role of the world banker. Discuss.
    3. Discuss the implications of fixed and flexible exchange rates for national monetary and fiscal policies under the assumption of perfect capital mobility.

Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy Series 6. Box 3; Folder: “Graduate Exams, 1933-1965”.

Image Source: Portrait of Bela Balassa in the Johns Hopkins University Yearbook, Hullabaloo 1976.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final exam for Principles of Accounting. Cole, 1903-1904

William Morse Cole offered his principles of accounting course as a vocational non-credit course for seniors in the Harvard economics department from 1900-1905, after which time the subject received for-credit status. In 1908 Cole was appointed assistant professor of accounting in Harvard’s newly established business school.

Exam questions for 1900-01, 1901-02 and 1902-03 have been posted earlier.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 18
Course enrollment. 1903-04

Economics 18 1hf. Mr. W.M. Cole. — The Principles of Accounting.

Total 51: 2 Graduates, 33 Seniors, 12 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 18
Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

I.

Do not devote more than half your time to this part of the paper.

  1. (a) On which side of a balance sheet is the balance of the following accounts likely to be?
    (b) What, in each case, does the amount of such a balance indicate?

Bills Receivable.
Accounts Payable.
Plant.
Profit and Loss.
Wages.
Merchandise.

  1. If December 31 is the end of the fiscal year, and after office hours on that day the books are closed for the year, in what respects would a trial balance, taken at the opening of business on January 1, differ from one taken at the close of business December 31? Illustrate by means of specific accounts.
  2. Why, in any logical system of accounting, must there be a debit for every credit?
  3. (a) What is the function of a ledger? (b) How do items usually get into a ledger? (c) Can items in the ledger have any other origin than that referred to in (b)? If so, what?

II.

  1. Suppose you are the executor of the estate of one of two partners. Suppose you are given a trial balance of the books as they stood at the time of the death of the partner whose estate you represent, and that the surviving partner swears to the correctness of that trial balance. In order to be sure of doing justice to the heirs of the deceased partner, how far do you need, in arranging settlement, to go beyond or behind the trial balance?
  2. You organize a corporation, and on January 1, 1904, the following facts are shown by the books:—

The corporation has taken over from an individual owner a business of which the assets, determined by conservative valuation of the property, are $100,000 (Bills Receivable and Accounts Receivable, $20,000; Supplies, $5,000; Real Estate and Plant, $75,000). Capital stock to the amount of $500,000 has been issued, of which $200,000 has been given the original owner for his title, $300,000 has been sold for cash at par. The corporation has bought a neighboring plant for $100,000, paying for it by Bill Payable to that amount.

Show a brief balance sheet under these conditions.

Now, you are absent from the corporation’s affairs for two years. On your return you are told that 6 per cent. dividend has been paid in each year, and you are shown the balance sheets below.

Write a brief history of the business for each of the two years of your absence.

Jan. 1, 1905.
Real Estate and Plant, $420,000 Capital Stock $500,000
Bills Rec.& Accts.Rec. 70,000 Funded Debt 100,000
Supplies 5,000 Profit and Loss 20,000
Merchandise 105,000
Cash 20,000            
$620,000 $620,000

Jan. 1, 1906.
Real Estate and Plant $400,000 Capital Stock $600,000
Deprec’n Fund Bonds 20,000 Reserve Fund 20,000
Reserve Fund Bonds 20,000 Profit and Loss 20,000
Bills Rec.& Accts.Rec. 70,000
Supplies 5,000  
Merchandise 105,000  
Cash 20,000            
$640,000 $640,000
  1. (a) What is the difference between a revenue and a capital account?
    (b) If time shows that items originally charged to revenue account should have been charged to capital account, what treatment can be given such items at the end of the year, without changing their ledger classification, so that the profit or the loss shall be correctly determined?
    (c) Reverse the conditions of (b), — i.e., assume error to have been made in charging to capital instead of to revenue, — and designate the required treatment.
  2. Conceive the balance sheet of a railroad to be exactly the same for 1904 as for 1903. Conceive the true net income to be $11,000,000, the fixed charges $3,000,000, the “other income” $2,000,000, and the road to be operated for 66 2/3 per cent.
    Construct as much as you can of the income sheet.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1903-04.

 

 

Categories
Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Public Finance

Harvard. Enrollment and final exam for U.S. Financial History. Bullock, 1903-1904

Charles Jesse Bullock first taught at Harvard as a visiting instructor in 1901-02. He returned at the rank of assistant professor of economics in 1903-04. The previous post provided the short biography from the Williams College yearbook from his last year on the faculty there together with his year-end exam for his Harvard course on the history of early economics (ancient Greeks through Adam Smith) in 1903-04.

___________________________

Course Enrollment
Economics 16, 1903-04

Economics 16 2hf. Asst. Professor Bullock. — The Financial History of the United States.

Total 27: 11 Seniors, 12 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 162
Year-End Examination, 1903-04

  1. Discuss colonial and State tariffs prior to 1789.
  2. Discuss fully the subject of requisitions and taxation under the Confederation.
  3. What do you consider to be the real services of Hamilton from 1789-1795? At what points was his policy open to criticism?
  4. Characterize the sinking-fund laws of 1795, 1802, and 1817.
  5. Describe in outline the course of tariff legislation from 1846 to 1861.
  6. Why was the independent-treasury system established? To what extent has its original purpose been secured? At what points is it open to criticism?
  7. What were the chief defects of the financial policy followed during the Civil War?
  8. What changes were effected in the national debt between 1865 and 1871?
  9. What different methods of resuming specie payments were proposed after the Civil War? What method was finally adopted?
  10. At what times during its history has the federal government been confronted with the problem of a surplus revenue? How, at each time, has the problem been solved?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College, p. 37.

Image Source: Williams College, The Gulielmensian 1902, Vol. 45, p. 26. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard History of Economics

Harvard. Enrollment and final exam for history of 19th century economics. Bullock, 1903-1904

The new assistant professor of economics at Harvard in 1903 hired from Williams College, Charles Jesse Bullock, was given responsibility for courses on the early history of economics and public finance.

I could only find the year-end examination in the collection of economics examinations at the Harvard archive for Bullock’s two semester course “History and Literature of Economics to the opening of the Nineteenth Century” offered in 1903-04. It is transcribed and posted below. 

___________________________

Short biography from the Williams College Yearbook, 1902

Charles Jesse Bullock, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Political Science

Graduated from Boston University, 1889, with commencement appointment, and received the degree of Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1895. He taught in high schools from 1889 to 1893, was Traveling Fellow in Boston University in 1893-94, and was Fellow and Assistant in the University of Wisconsin, 1894-95 From 1895 to 1899, he was Instructor in Economics at Cornell University. Dr. Bullock has written: “The Finances of the United States, 1775-1789,” (Madison, 1895); “Introduction to the Study of Economics,” (Boston, 1897, second edition, 1900); and “Essays on the Monetary History of the United States,” (New York, 1900). Editor of “Discourse Concerning the Currencies of the British Plantations in America” (Am. Economic Assoc., New York, 1897), and contributor of various articles to the economic and statistical magazines. He is a member of the American Economic Association and of the American Statistical Association, an associate  member of the National Institute of Art, Science, and Letters, and a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Dr. Bullock is a member of the society of ΦΒΚ and of the ΘΔΧ Fraternity.

Source: Williams College, The Gulielmensian 1902, Vol. 45, p. 26.

___________________________

Bullock appointed assistant professor of economics

At a special meeting of the Board of Overseers held yesterday it was voted to concur with the President and Fellows in their votes as follows: …appointing Charles Jesse Bullock, Ph.D., assistant professor of economics for five years from September 1, 1903…

Source: The Harvard Crimson, May 21, 1903.

___________________________

Course Enrollment
Economics 15, 1903-04

Economics 15. Asst. Professor Bullock. The History and Literature of Economics to the opening of the Nineteenth Century.

Total 5: 5 Graduates.

 Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 15
Year-End Examination. 1903-04

  1. What trace of the influence of Aristotle can be found in modern economic thought?
  2. What were the chief characteristics of English, French, German, and Spanish mercantilism?
  3. Give a brief account of the writings of any three of the following men: Child, Montchrétien, Forbonnais, Seckendorff, Justi, Genovesi, Ustariz.
  4. Give a critical account of the economic doctrines of Thomas Mun.
  5. Give an account of the economic opinions of Sir Dudley North.
  6. Characterize the economic doctrines of Gournay.
  7. Name and characterize the principal works that treat of the Physiocratic School.
  8. Describe the development of Adam Smith’s economic opinions prior to 1764.
  9. What is your opinion of Smith’s criticism upon the mercantilists?
  10. Describe the progress of Smith’s doctrines in France and Germany.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College, pp. 36-37.

Image Source: Williams College, The Gulielmensian 1902, Vol. 45, p. 26. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Economist Market Exam Questions Harvard Methodology

Harvard. Final exam questions for economic methods course. Carver, 1903-04

Thomas Nixon Carver

This semester-long course on methods of economic investigation taught by Thomas Nixon Carver was listed as one being “primarily for graduates”. Only the introductory course of the department was considered “primarily for undergraduates” while the bulk of course offerings were deemed appropriate for both graduate and undergraduate students. Judging from the questions, this course appears to have been little more than a leisurely trot through John Neville Keynes, The Scope and Method of Economics (1897, 2nd ed.) along with Cairnes’ Logical Method of Political Economy (1875, 2nd ed.).

___________________________

Related previous posts

___________________________

Course Enrollment

Economics 13 1hf. Professor Carver. Methods of Economic Investigation.

Total 11: 5 Graduates, 3 Seniors, 3 Radcliffe

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 13
Mid-Year Examination. 1903-04

Discuss the following topics.

  1. The relation of economics and ethics.
  2. The departments of political economy.
  3. The fields for the observation of economic phenomena.
  4. The nature of an economic law.
  5. The use of hypotheses in economics.
  6. The relation of theoretical analysis to historical investigation.
  7. The place of diagrams and mathematical formulae in economics.
  8. The methods of investigating the causes of poverty.
  9. The methods of determining the effects of immigration on the population of the United States.
  10. The place of direct observation in economic study.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1903-04.

Image Source: Harvard Classbook 1906. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.