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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for Introductory and Advanced Political Economy. Dunbar, 1877-1878

 

This post plugs a gap in the time-series of Harvard economics exams back in the day when economics was still called political economy and political economy was just another moral science among the philosophy department’s course offerings. Two courses, that was all in 1877-1878.

Texts from John Stuart Mill, Walter Bagehot, John Elliott Cairnes, Henry Charles Carey were assigned readings.

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Political Economy [first course].

Course Enrollment

[Philosophy] 6. Political Economy. — J. S. Mill’s Political Economy. — Bagehot’s Lombard Street. — Financial Legislation of the United States. Three times a week. Prof. [Charles Franklin] Dunbar and Mr. [Silas Marcus] Macvane.

Total 108: 25 Seniors, 72 Juniors, 9 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1877-78, p. 59.

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PHILOSOPHY 6.
Mid-year Examination 1877-78

  1. How does the meaning of the following terms, when used in scientific discussion, differ from that which they have in popular discourse? — Wealth, Capital, Rent, Value of Money.
  2. What is the reason that rears of great unproductive expenditure e.g. years of war, are often years of great apparent prosperity? Illustrate by the cases of England and France during the wars of Napoleon.
  3. What is the objection to the “Allowance System” of poor relief, by which insufficient wages are made good by a contribution from public funds?
  4. How is the alleged tendency of profits to equivalence in different employments to be reconciled with the notorious difference in the profits of different individuals?
  5. Explain the reason for the statement that “if it were the fact that there is never any land taken into cultivation for which rent is not paid, it would be true, nevertheless, that there is always some agricultural capital which pays no rent.”
  6. Explain carefully the reason for the proposition that high wages do not make high prices.
  7. What causes determine the value of money?
  8. In the markets of the world gold bullion is worth more than seventeen times as much as silver bullion. What will be the effect on the currency of a country which establishes the double standard, makes each metal a legal tender for any amount, but adjusts the weight of the coins upon the assumption that the values of gold and silver are in the ratio of 16 to 1? What further effect will be produced if, after this has taken place, another country adopts the same measure, but with the assumed ratio of 15½ to 1?
  9. What will determine the value of an inconvertible currency which is a legal tender?
  10. What are the arguments against the possibility of general over-production, or “excess of supply”?
  11. The following are the items [in £ millions] in the Bank of England account for November 11, 1857:—
Bullion, £6.6 Private deposits, £12.9
Capital, 14.5 Notes, 21.1
Gov. Debt. & sec. 14.5 Reserve, 1.4
Gov’t. securities, 9.4 Rest, 3.4
Public deposits 5.3 Seven-day Bills 0.8
Other securities, 26.1

Arrange these items in the proper form, separating the Issue and Banking Departments, and then show the changes required by the following operations:—

An increase of loans amounting to… £4 millions
A sale of Government securities amounting to… 1 million
The withdrawal by depositors of… 3 millions

the act of 1844 being suspended.

  1. Why does the suspension of the act of 1844 give relief to the money market?
  2. How far can the Bank of England control the market rate of interest?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Bound Volume 1878-79 (sic), Papers Set for Mid-Year Examinations in Rhetoric, Logic, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Music, Fine Arts in Harvard College, February 1878, pp. 11-12.

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PHILOSOPHY 6.
Year-end Examinations 1877-78

[Let the answers given in your book stand in their proper order. Take either 8 or *8. Take care not to omit the last four questions.]

  1. Why are the wages of skilled labor so much higher than those of unskilled?
  2. Are improvements in production ever injurious to the laboring classes?
  3. Why is it that a potential change of the supply of other commodities is enough to make their value conform to any change in their cost of production, but that in the case of gold and silver the change of supply must be actual?
  4. When it is said that improvements tend to counteract the increasing cost of production from land, what sort of improvements are meant?
  5. What effect is produced upon rents, profits and wages, respectively, in a country where population is stationary and capital advancing, like France?
  6. Explain what effect, if any, will be produced on the price of corn by,
    1. a tax upon rent;
    2. a tithe;
    3. a tax of so much per acre, irrespective of value;
    4. a tax of so much per bushel.
  7. In the theory of an ultimate stationary state of society, what is implied as to the well-being of the laboring classes when that state is reached?
  8. State and examine Mr. Wakefield’s theory of a “limited field of employment” for capital as explaining the fall of profits.

*8. “There are two senses in which a country obtains commodities cheaper by foreign trade: in the sense of Value and in the sense of Cost.”

  1. What effect does an annual payment of interest to foreign creditors have upon the imports and exports of a country? If the interest is payable in gold, will it necessarily cause gold to be sent out of the country? Why, or why not?
  2. Criticise the following statement made by a well-known member of Congress:—
    “Bank of England notes have been interchangeable with money since 1844, with three brief intervals, when the system of promising gold redemption and of issuing notes based on gold deposits in excess of £14,000,000 brought about crises.”
  3. What was the provision made by the National Bank Act as to reserves for the protection of circulation and deposits, and what reserves are now required by law?
  4. What was the amount of greenbacks outstanding in the period 1868-73, and what were the changes by which the amount settled to its present figure, $346,000,000?
  5. State briefly the history of our gold and silver coins as found in the coinage acts of 1792, 1834, 1853, 1873, and 1878.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Bound Volume 1878-79, Papers Set for Annual Examinations in Rhetoric, Logic, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Music, Fine Arts in Harvard College, May 27 to June 20, 1878, pp. 13-14.

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Advanced Political Economy.

Course Enrollment

[Philosophy] 7. Advanced Political Economy. Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — McKean’s Condensation of Carey’s Social Science. — Lectures. Three times a week. Prof. Dunbar.

Total 28: 1 Graduate, 22 Seniors, 5 Juniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1877-78, p. 59.

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PHILOSOPHY 7.
Mid-year Examination, 1877-78

  1. What reasons make a revision of the usual definition of Cost of Production necessary? How do Mill and Ricardo use the term?
  2. What effect has the existence of “non-competing groups” on the exchange of commodities, each of which is the product of several classes of labor, as e.g. a steam engine and cotton cloth?
  3. What is the argument in favor of Mr. Cairnes’s position that the price of corn, in the progress of society, reaches a certain maximum, beyond which it cannot advance?
  4. When a permanent increase of currency occurs, what will be the difference in the effect on the prices of manufactured goods, vegetable products, and animal products, respectively?
  5. Criticise the following statement of the wages-fund doctrine:—
    “There is supposed to be, at any given instant, a sum of wealth which is unconditionally devoted to the payment of the wages of labor. This sum is not regarded as unalterable, for it is augmented by saving, and increases with the progress of wealth; but it is reasoned upon as at any given moment a predetermined amount. More than that amount it is assumed the wages-receiving class can not possibly divide among them; that amount, and no less, they can not but obtain. So that the sum to be divided being fixed, the wages of each depend solely on the divisor, the number of participants.”
  6. What is to be inferred from Mr. Cairnes’s reasoning as to a probable fall of prices in the United States, with respect to the recovery of prices after confidence shall have been restored and industry shall have revived?
  7. What is the reason for rejecting the common notion that high general wages hinder the extension of the foreign trade of a country like this?
  8. Discuss the bearing of the reasoning involved in the last question, on the theory of protection.
  9. Discuss the common argument that the national debt ought to be held at home, because if held abroad it compels the payment of a “tribute” to foreigners, and tends so far to check our prosperity.
  10. Explain the fact that only about one-ninth of the French Indemnity was paid in coin.
  11. In the progressive development of political economy as a logical system, what are the relations of Malthus, Ricardo, and Mill, respectively?
  12. Give some account of Colbert, J.-B. Say, Storch.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Bound Volume 1878-79 (sic), Papers Set for Mid-Year Examinations in Rhetoric, Logic, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Music, Fine Arts in Harvard College, February 1878, p. 13.

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PHILOSOPHY 7.
Year-end Examination, 1877-78

[Let the answers given in your book stand in their proper order.]

  1. In what way does skill affect the cost of the products of skilled labor?
  2. Give Cairnes’s statement of the Wages Fund doctrine. “It will perhaps strike the reader that our reasoning has conducted us into a vicious circle.” Is the circle real or apparent? Why?
  3. Cairnes says that “an alteration in the reciprocal demand of two leading nations will act upon the price, not of any commodity in particular, but of every commodity which enters into the trade.” Is this statement broad enough to cover all the effects of such an alteration?
  4. How are we to explain the fact that, while cost of production is generally the ultimate condition governing international exchange, it is seldom, if ever, the proximate or immediate cause of exchange?
  5. It has been remarked that “the object of taxation is to make all property bear its equitable share.” Is this a correct statement of the principle to be followed? Why, or why not?
  6. Criticise the following passage from a thesis on Reciprocity with Canada:—
    “Unless there is a good deal of uniformity in excise it will be difficult to maintain reciprocity between the two countries… Suppose that an income tax should be laid on in the United States, as has been proposed. Such a measure would place all United States industries at a disadvantage as regards Canadian and perhaps as regards foreign.”
  7. How does a pressure in the money market here, where paper currency is used, tend to bring gold from London to New York?
  8. What reasoning is there for or against the statement that “the balance of trade must be against the countries which export raw produce, that the precious metals must flow from these countries, and that they must, while continuing in that course of policy, abandon the idea of gold and silver as a standard of value.”
  9. Discuss this statement:
    “Interest is the compensation paid for the use of the instrument called money, and for this alone. In countries in which that is high, the rate of profit is necessarily so, because the charge for the use of his money enters so largely into the trader’s profits.”
  10. What is Mr. Carey’s theory as to the tendency (1) to decline in the value of commodities, and (2) to rise in the value of land; and how is this reconciled with his principle that the law of value is universal, embracing everything, «”whether land, labor, or their products”?
  11. What logical necessity drove Mr. Carey to the invention or discovery of a new law of population? In what does his conception of an ultimate stationary state necessarily differ from that of Ricardo and Mill?
  12. The existence of much vice and misery is ascribed by Malthus to an economic law. How far is it the result of this to “relieve the governing classes of the world from any possible responsibility for the welfare of those below them”?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2, Bound Volume 1878-79, Papers Set for Annual Examinations in Rhetoric, Logic, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Music, Fine Arts in Harvard College, May 27 to June 20, 1878, pp. 14-15.

Image Source: “Charles Franklin Dunbar: Second President of the American Economic Association, 1893.” The American Economic Review, vol. 31, no. 3, 1941.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1805801.
Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Econometrics Exam Questions Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Final Exams for “Econometrics”. Christ and Harberger, 1951-1952

 If you have ever wondered why the journal Econometrica has always published much content with next to no “econometrics” (in the sense of mathematical statistics with special application to economics), the final exams for the Johns Hopkins graduate course “Econometrics” taught by Carl Christ and Arnold Harberger in 1951-52 provide us with a ready explanation. We can see that their course offered a combination of mathematical modeling and econometrics, narrowly defined. At mid-20th century economists regarded “econometrics” as the union of mathematical economics and mathematical statistics rather than as the intersection of the two fields.

Fun fact: Marc Nerlove, who entered the Johns Hopkins graduate program in economics in 1952, was in Carl Christ’s econometrics course. This fact and the photo of Christ and Harberger come from Nerlove’s note included on the In Memoriam page for Carl Christ (1923-2017).

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EXAMINATION
ECONOMETRICS

Friday, January 25, 1952 — 2-5 p.m.

Dr. Christ
Dr. Harberger

  1. A monopolist produces Z goods, X1 and X2, under constant unit costs C1 and C2 respectively. The demands for his products are

x1 = x10 – a11 (P1 – C1) – a12 (P2 – C2)
x2 = x20 – a21 (P1 – C1) – a22 (P2 – C2)

Find the Outputs of X1 and X2 which the monopolist will produce in order to maximize profits. What condition on the a’s must be satisfied if your solution is to reflect a true maximum?

  1. Prove Euler’s theorem for homogeneous functions of the first degree.
  2. Consider the utility functions

(1) U1 = ху
(2) U2 = logex + logey

For each function state:

      1. whether the marginal utility of each good is increasing, decreasing, or constant.
      2. whether the marginal utility of one good is independent of the amount of the other good consumed.
      3. the demand functions of a person having a fixed income.

What conclusions do your results suggest?

  1. Two countries. A and B, produce export commodities XA and XB at constant cost in local currency. Income in each country is stabilized by government policy, and the demand for imports depends solely on the local-currency price of imports. The exchange rate is normally fixed, but is subject to change by policy action. Assume Country A, in an initial equilibrium of the system, does not receive as much foreign currency as it has to pay for the imports its citizens demand. What are the conditions under which the gap between its receipts and expenditures of foreign currency can be decreased by devaluation? Do these same conditions apply to the gap between receipts and expenditures expressed in its own currency?
  2. Factor A is the only factor used by a monopolist, who produces good X. The suppliers of factor A always demand a constant percentage of the product price p as their unit price. At, this price they are willing to supply unlimited amounts of A.
      1. Assume returns to scale are constant. What output will the monopolist produce? Is thin output any different from that he would produce if A were free good.
      2. Assume returns to scale are decreasing. What output will the monopolist produce? Compare your present result with your answer to (a).

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ECONOMETRICS 633-34
Final Examination

Thursday, May 22, 1952
  1. Define
      1. exogenous variable
      2. overidentified equation
      3. consistency
      4. likelihood function
      5. condensed likelihood function
  2. Suppose the actual supply and demand equations for 2 goods X1 and X2 are as follows (where p1 and p2 are their respective prices, and income Y and wage rate w are exogenous):

S1:           X1 = 3p1 – 6w + 1

D1:           X1 = 2p1 – 5p2 + Y + 2

S2:           X2 = 7p2 – 8w +3

D2:           X2 = 4p1 – 4p2 + 2Y +4

State whether each equation is identified.

  1. Given that y = ax + b + u, where a is an independent variable, u is a random normal disturbance with mean 0 and constant variance σ2, and a and b are parameters. Derive the maximum likelihood estimates of a, b, and σ2 based on N observations on the pair of variables x and y.
  2. What assumptions must you make and what data do you need in order to obtain limited-information maximum-likelihood estimates of the following equation:

C= α Y + β C-1 + γ

where C and Y are real consumption and disposable income, respectively.

  1. The output of each of n industries (excluding households) is produced by a given process requiring fixed proportions of inputs of the other n-1 commodities. If these proportions are known and if a final-demand bill of goods is specified, how are the total outputs of the n industries determined?
  2. It has been asserted that the materials restrictions imposed on durable goods manufactures after Korea, while limiting the output of durable goods well below the level of 1950, did not reduce the quantities sold to a point below what they would have been in the absence of the restrictions. This assertion is supported by empirical evidence is the form of the observed accumulation of manufacturers’ and dealers’ inventories and of some price-cutting in 1951-52. Can you think of any way whereby back in 1950 you could have anticipated these developments? To answer this question, what empirical data would you seek and how would you use it, with respect to consumer durables generally or to any particular durable good?

Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy, Series 6, Series 7, Subseries 1, Box 3/1, Folder “Department of Political Economy, Graduate Exams 1933-1965.”

Image Source: Department of Economics, Johns Hopkins University. Webpage “In Memoriam – Carl Christ (1923-2017).” Carl Christ and Arnold Harberger at the Johns Hopkins conference in honor of Marc Nerlove, 2014.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Social Work Socialism

Harvard. Readings and final exam for social ethics. Peabody, 1906-07

The field of social ethics was taught by the Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and then Dean of the Harvard Divinity School, Francis Greenwood Peabody. It was a rather popular secondary field chosen for the graduate general examination by economics graduate students in the early 20th century.  In the spectrum of individualism through socialism, applied social ethics (poor-relief, family, temperance, and “the labor question”) were imported from philosophical/theological studies.

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Building blocks for Peabody’s course

Peabody’s short bibliography on the Ethics of Social Questions published in 1910.

Francis Greenwood Peabody. The Approach to the Social Question. New York: Macmillan, 1912. “The substance of this volume was given as the Earle Lectures at the Pacific Theological Seminary in 1907.”

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Course Enrollment
1906-07

Social Ethics 1. Professor Peabody and Dr. Rogers. — Social Ethics. The problems of Poor-Relief, the Family, Temperance, and various phases of the Labor Question, in the light of ethical theory.

Total 175: 6 Graduates, 41 Seniors, 54 Juniors, 50 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 23 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 72

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Thick Course Description
1906-07

  1. Social Ethics . — The problems of Poor-Relief, the Family, Temperance, and various phases of the Labor Question, in the light of ethical theory. Lectures, special researches, and prescribed reading. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor Peabody and Dr. Rogers.

This course is an application of ethical theory to the social problems of the present day. It is to be distinguished from economic courses dealing with similar subjects by the emphasis laid on the moral aspects of the Social Question and on the philosophy of society involved. Its introduction discusses various theories of Ethics and the nature and relations of the Moral Ideal [required reading from Mackenzie’s Introduction to Social Philosophy, and Muirhead’s Elements of Ethics]. The course then considers the ethics of the family [required reading from Spencer’s Principles of Sociology (Volume 1; Volume 2; Volume 3)]; the ethics of poor-relief [required reading from Charles Booth’s Life and Labor of the People (links below)]; the ethics of the labor question [required reading from J. A. Hobson’s The Social Problem, Schäffle’s The Quintessence of Socialism, Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems]; and the ethics of the drink question [required reading from The Liquor Problem; a Summary of Investigations]. In addition to lectures and required reading two special and detailed reports are made by each student, based as far as possible on personal research and observation of scientific methods in poor-relief and industrial reform. These researches are arranged in consultation with the instructor or his assistant; and an important feature of the course is the suggestion and direction of such personal investigation, and the provision to each student of special literature or opportunities for observation.

            Rooms are expressly assigned for the convenience of students of Social Ethics, on the second floor of Emerson Hall, including a large lecture room, a seminary-room, a conference-room, a library, and two rooms occupied by the Social Museum. The Library of 1500 volumes is a special collection for the use of students of Social Ethics, with conveniences for study and research. The Social Museum is a collection of graphical material, illustrating by photographs, models, diagrams, and charts, many movements of social welfare and industrial progress.

Source: Announcement of the Divinity School of Harvard University, 1906-07, p. 22.

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Charles Booth’s Life and Labor of the People:

(Original) Volume I, East London;
(Original) Volume II, London;
(Original) Appendix to Volume II;
Note: the previous three original volumes were re-printed as four volumes that then were followed by
Volume V, Population Classified by Trades;
Volume VI, Population Classified by Trades (cont.);
Volume VII, Population Classified by Trades;
Volume VIII, Population Classified by Trades (cont.);
Volume IX, Comparisons, Survey and Conclusions.

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Note: Besides the changes in course number, a few minor changes in the course description from (Philosophy 5) 1902-03  Also in the course description Philosophy 5 (1904-05).

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SOCIAL ETHICS 1
Year-end Examination 1906-07

This paper should be considered as a whole. The time should not be exhausted in answering a few questions, but such limits should be given to each answer as will permit the answering of all the questions in the time assigned.

  1. Explain the significance of the titles:— “Past and Present” [by Thomas Carlyle]; “Unto this Last” [by John Ruskin]; and comment on the teachings involved.
  2. Statistics of wage-loss, employer’s loss, and assistance to employees, in the United States (1881-1900); and their lessons.
  3. The tendencies in contemporary life which appear to the scientific socialist to encourage his faith; with comments.
  4. “The normal relation of the antithesis of which I spoke,” [Socialism and Individualism, Economic and Moral] “is that of cross-correspondence”? (Bosanquet, Civilization of Christendom, p. 316). Comment on this suggestion.
  5. The effect of the growth of trade-unionism on the economic theory of wages. ( A. [Robert Archey] Woods.) [Probably Chapter 1 “The Labor Movement” in Woods’ English Social Movements (2nd ed., 1895), pp. 1-37.]
  6. Distinguish Arbitration, Conciliation, and Coöperation, and indicate the place of each in the Ethics of the Labor Question.
  7. Welfare work at Anzin, and the limitations of its usefulness.
  8. Employer’s Liability, Workmen’s Compensation Acts, and the social philosophy involved. (Adams and Sumner, pp. 478-488.)
  9. Distinguish “Profit-sharing,” “Gain-sharing,” and “Industrial Partnership,” and describe the method undertaken by the United States Steel Corporation.
  10. Compare the operation of the South Carolina liquor-law with that of the Scandinavian System. (The Liquor Problem, pp. 151-156.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1907), p. 59.

Image Source: Harvard University Archives.  Francis Greenwood Peabody [photographic portrait, ca. 1900], Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Exam Questions France Germany Harvard History of Economics Methodology

Harvard. Exam for 19th century French and German Economics, Gay, 1906-07

von Thünen and Le Play

Edwin Francis Gay (1867-1946) had spent over a decade studying history and economics in Europe before coming to Harvard in 1903. I am somewhat surprised that he could find even three students to take his graduate course that appears to have required a better-than-average reading knowledge of both German and French.

In 1902-03 Gay taught “Outlines of the Development of Economic Thought in Germany in the Nineteenth Century”.

In 1904-05 he then taught “German and French economists of the 19th century” but Harvard’s collection of printed economics exams for 1904-05 did not include Gay’s exam for the course.

Fortunately, the year-end examination from the academic year 1906-07 was printed and we have transcribed it below. Added bonus material: an English translation of the paragraph taken from a book written by the German economist Karl Bücher that students were expected to translate.

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Course Enrollment

Economics 22. Professor Gay. — German and French Economists of the Nineteenth Century.

Total 3: 3 Graduates.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 22
Year-end Examination, 1906-07

  1. Explain von Thünen’s wage theory. What is his contribution to economic method? How does it compare with Le Play’s?
  2. Compare the conceptions of distributive justice entertained by the French socialists with those of the Austrian school.
  3. Trace the development of the concept of pure profits in the German and French economists.
  4. Discuss the attack of the German historical school on the classical economists and its justification.
  5. Translate die following:
    “Zwei Dinge müssen auf diesem Gebiete den an den Kategorien der modernen Volkswirtschaft geschulten Kopf besonders befremden; die Häufigkeit, mit der unkörperliche Sachen („Verhältnisse“) zu wirtschaftlichen Gütern werden und dem Verkehre unterliegen, und ihre verkehrsrechtliche Behandlung als Immobilien. An ihnen ist so recht zu sehen, wie die beginnende Tauschwirtschaft den Spielraum, den ihr die damalige Produktionsordnung versagte, dadurch zu erweitern suchte, dass sie in täppischem Zugreifen fast alles zum Verkehrsgut machte und so die Sphäre des Privatrechts ins Ungemessene ausdehnte. Was hat man im Mittelalter nicht verliehen, verschenkt, verkauft und verpfändet! Die herrschaftliche Gewalt über Länder und Städte, Grafschafts- und Vogteirechte, Cent- und Gaugerichte, kirchliche Würden und Patronate, Bannrechte, Fähren und Wegerechte, Münze und Zoll, Jagd- und Fischereigerechtsame, Beholzungsrechte, Zehnten, Fronden, Grundzinsen und Renten, überhaupt Reallasten jeder Art. Wirtschaftlich betrachtet, teilen alle diese Rechte und Verhältnisse mit dem Grund und Boden die Eigentümlichkeit, nicht von dem Orte ihrer Ausübung entfernt und nicht beliebig vermehrt werden zu können.”

[Note: quote comes from Professor Karl Bücher, University of Leipzig. Die  Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft, Vorträge und Versuche, 3rd ed. (Tübingen, 1901), p. 153.]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1907), pp. 43-44.

English translation of Question 5’s quote

There are two things in connection with this that must appear especially strange to a student of modern political economy, namely, the frequency with which immaterial things (relationships) become economic commodities and subjects of exchange, and their treatment under commercial law as real property. These show clearly how primitive exchange sought to enlarge the sphere denied it under the existing conditions of production by awkwardly transforming, into negotiable property, almost everything it could lay hold upon, and thus extending infinitely the domain of private law. What an endless variety of things in mediaeval times were lent, bestowed, sold, and pawned! — the sovereign power over territories and towns; county and bailiff’s rights; jurisdiction over hundreds and cantons; church dignities and patronages; suburban monopoly rights; ferry and road privileges; prerogatives of mintage and toll, of hunting and fishing; wood-cutting rights, tithes, statute labour, ground-rents, and revenues; in fact charges of every kind falling upon the land. Economically considered, all these rights and “relationships”” share with land the peculiarity that they cannot be removed from the place where they are enjoyed, and that they cannot be multiplied at will.

Source: Karl Bücher, Industrial Evolution, third German edition (German title: Die Entstehung der Volkswirtschaft, Vorträge und Versuche. English translation by S. Morley Wickett, Lecturer on Political Economy and Statistics, University of Toronto. New York: Henry Hold and Company, 1907, p. 131.

Image Source: Johann Heinrich von Thünen (Wikimedia Commons). Frédéric Le Play (Social History Portal)

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Law and Economics

Harvard. Paper topics, exam questions for Industrial Relations and Commercial Law. Wyman, 1906-1907

Harvard Law School, ca. 1901

During the first decade of the twentieth century Bruce Wyman’s course on the law governing industrial relations and commercial law was one of two courses offered by the Harvard economics department that provided useful business content to undergraduates. The other one was William Morse Cole’s accounting course. Business content no doubt helps to explain the relatively high enrollment numbers in both courses. 

Fun Fact: Harvard President Lowell complained about Wyman’s course in the economics department having too soft a grade distribution (making it a “snap” course). This too could help to explain the relative popularity of Wyman’s course.

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From earlier years

1901-02. Autobiographical note, enrollment, course description, syllabus, exams.

1902-03. Obituary, enrollment, course description, exams.

1903-04. Enrollment and exams.

1904-05. Enrollment, course description, exams.

1905-06. Enrollment, paper assignments, exams.

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Course Enrollment

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

Total 152: 6 Graduates, 83 Seniors, 43 Juniors, 14 Sophomores, 6 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 21

Paper No. 1
  1. Tell all you know about

(a) Walsh v. Dwight.
(b) Is Ayer v. Rushton rightly decided?

  1. (a) X & Co. begin the manufacture of underwear, woven with an open mesh, which they advertise as “Cellular Underclothing.” A few months later Z & Co. begin the manufacture of a similar article which they advertise as “Cellular Underclothing, a better article than that of any other manufacturer.” Can X & Co. sue Z & Co. for anything? Cite any authorities that you think in point. Give your reasons carefully. (b) A & Co., proprietors of a department store, advertise “the B Co. piano, regular price $500, our price $444.” The B Co. are much injured in their business by this; as they only allow their agents 10%, retailers cease handling their piano in the district where A & Co. sell. After A & Co. sell the piano they have had in stock they continue to run the advertisement, although the B Co. of course refuse to sell them any more pianos. Can the B Co. succeed in bringing any suits against A & Co.? Cite any cases you think in point. Give your reasons carefully.
Paper No. 2
  1. (a) Tell all you know about Pontefact v. Isenberger. (b) Is Reddaway v. Banham rightly decided?
  2. (a) Can a manufacturer of aluminum utensils sue another manufacturer who advertises as aluminum utensils articles not made of that metal? (b) Can a manufacturer who sells lime juice in long tapering bottles prevent another manufacturer from putting his product on the market in a bottle of exactly the same size, shape, and material?
Paper No. 3
  1. (a) What is decided in Lewin v. Welsbach Light Co.? (b) Is Dudley v. Briggs rightly decided?
  2. (a) X & Co. conduct a commercial credit agency. By mistake of their printers they report in a publication sent only to their subscribers that A & Co. are insolvent. Can A & Co. sue for the damages caused them? (b) X & Co. advertise that according to a series of tests made in their laboratories their fertilizer is shown to be 10% stronger in nitrates than that of A & Co. A & Co. offer to prove by expert testimony that theirs is stronger. What result?
Paper No. 4
  1. (a) Give in detail the points made in the opinion of Coleridge, J., in Lumley v. Gye. (b) Is Nichol v. Martyn rightly decided?
  2. (a) Are Graham v. St. Charles Street Ry. and Robinson v. Texas Pine Land Association consistent? (b) A superintendent is hired by A for five years, with the right reserved to either party to terminate the employment upon one month’s notice. B, a rival of A in business, goes to the superintendent and by offer of a higher salary induces him to give the notice and then come to him at the end of the month. Can A sue B?
Paper No. 5
  1. (a) What is decided in Murray v. Vanderbilt? (b) Is Bishop v. Kitchen rightly decided?
  2. (a) Are Diamond Match Co. v. Roeber and Pacific Factor Co. v. Adler consistent? (b) What essential differences are there in the facts between Jelliet v. Broade and Toby v. Major?
Paper No. 6
  1. (a) What is decided in Horick & Co. v. Wright? (b) Is Jones v. Fell rightly decided?
  2. (a) Are Scottish Society v. Glasgow Association and Plant v. Woods consistent? (b) What is objectionable in Collins v. Locke?
Paper No. 7
  1. What are the four things complained of in Mogul S. S. Co. v. McGregor. Do you agree with what the court decides as to each?
  2. How did the four judges who considered Glamorgan Coal Co. v. South Wales Miners’ Association decide the issues raised in it? With which ones do you agree?
Paper No. 8
  1. (a) What is decided in Temperton v. Russell; (b) and in Hundley v. Louisville & Nashville R. R.
  2. (a) How did Green, V. C., distinguish Mogul S. S. Co. v. McGregor from Barr v. Essex Trades Council; (b) What is the course of reasoning in Delz v. Winfree?
Paper No. 9
  1. (a) Give in detail the opinion of Lord Lindley in Latham v. Craig; (b) and the dissenting opinion of Justice Holmes in Vegelahu v. Guntner.
  2. (a) What things are enjoined in Jersey City Printing Co. v. Cassidy? (b) What were the facts in Reinecke Coal Co. v. Wood?
Paper No. 10
  1. (a) What are the characteristics of a corporation, and which are essential? (b) What tests show the distinction between a corporation and its shareholders?
  2. (a) What is decided in Gallagher v. Germania Brewing Co.? (b) Is Williamson v. Smoot rightly decided?
Paper No. 11
  1. (a) Is Trustees of Schools v. Flint rightly decided? (b) Is Ellis v. Marshall rightly decided?
  2. (a) What are all the facts in Broderip v. Salomon that are of any importance? (b) What is the solution of the case by each of the three successive courts which considered it?
Paper No. 12

[missing from folder]

Paper No. 13
  1. (a) In Bundy v. Ophir Iron Co. what is decided as to Bundy’s rights and what is left undecided? (b) Give all the facts you remember as to Scovill v. Thayer.
  2. (a) Are the doctrines in Currie’s Case (re Gt. Northern Coal Co.) and Hospes v. Northwestern Mfg. Co. alike? (b) Is Coit v. Gold Amalgamating Co. rightly decided?
Paper No. 14
  1. (a) What is decided in McNab v. McNab & Harlin Mfg. Co.? (b) What distinctions are taken in McDonald v. Williams?
  2. (a) What is the difference in the situation between Monument Bank v. Globe Works and Jemison v. Citizens’ Savings Bank? (b) If the Mt. Washington Road Co. had accepted the omnibuses would they have had to pay Downing & Sons for them anything at all?
Paper No. 15
  1. (a) What is decided in Ashton v. Burbank? (b) And in Hartford & New Haven R. R. v. Croswell?
  2. (a) A & B, forming a firm engaged in the cotton business, meet a cotton broker, X, who offers them a large lot of cotton at a high price. A agrees that the firm will buy it, B openly protesting; can X hold A & B? (b) Is Dudley v. Kentucky High School rightly decided?
Paper No. B1
  1. (a) What is decided in Chicago City Ry. Co. v. Allerton? (b) and in Sweutzel v. Penn. Bank?
  2. (a) Directors in a banking corporation supervise the business by examining carefully each month the statements drawn up by the cashier. Later it is discovered that the cashier has for over a period of two years been using the funds of the bank for speculation, covering his embezzlements by fabricated statements. Are the directors liable for these losses? (b) The directors in a copper mining company are proposing to sell the entire output of the mine for the next six months to a copper selling company at 15½ c. per lb. They call a stockholders’ meeting to discuss the sale; three-fourths of the shares are voted against the proposition at that meeting. Nevertheless the directors of the mining company go ahead and sign the contract in the name of the company. Everybody in the selling company knows of the adverse vote by the stockholders. Can the selling company hold the mining company to this contract?
Paper No. B2
  1. (a) What are the points decided in Boyd v. American Carbon Co.? (b) And in Emery v. Ohio Candle Co.?
  2. (a) Is Bates v. Coronado Beach Co. rightly decided? (b) Suppose a partnership arrangement between a locomotive manufacturer and a cotton mills corporation for five years. If the corporation breaks the contract with partnership funds in its hands, what are the manufacturer’s rights? Suppose instead of a locomotive manufacturer it was another cotton milling corporation, what would be its rights?
Paper No. B3
  1. (a) What does Gould v. Head decide? (b) Give all the points made in People v. North River Sugar Co.
  2. (a) Is Smith v. San Francisco & N. P. R. R. rightly decided? (b) Would Milbank v. N. Y., L. E., & W. R. R. be decided differently if both corporations concerned had not been in the same business?
Paper No. B4
  1. (a) What is decided in St. Louis, etc. R. R. v. Terre Haute, etc. R. R.? (b) Is McCutcheon v. Merz Capsule Co. rightly decided?
  2. (a) Should Trenton Potteries Co. v. Olyphant be decided as it is? (b) Is Whitwell v. Continental Tobacco Co. rightly decided?
Paper No. B5
  1. To what extent does the corporation law interfere with the consolidation of corporations with intent to gain monopoly. Cite a case upon each form of organization?
  2. What seems to you the best solution of the trust problem in each of these forms?
Paper No. B6
  1. (a) What does Cincinnati, H. & D. R. R. decide? (b) Do you agree with Fleming v. Montgomery Light Co.?
  2. (a) Would the A telephone company be obliged to permit the B telephone company to have its (B’s) subscribers’ local lines connected with its (A’s) long distance lines? (b) Can an electric light company refuse to install current for power for an applicant who lights his house with gas bought from a rival company?
Paper No. B7
  1. (a) What is decided in State v. Dalton? (b) Is Jenks v. Coleman rightly decided?
  2. (a) Would a law be constitutional which required oleomargarine to be colored pink? (b) Would a law be constitutional which limited the employment of bricklayers and plasterers to eight hours per day?
Paper No. B8
  1. (a) What is decided in State v. Campbell? (b) Is State v. Nebraska Telephone Co. rightly decided?
  2. (a) Suppose a ticket agent, to whom you pay money for a ticket good to stop over, stamps it in some secret way so that it reads as a limited ticket to the conductor of the second train you take after stopping over, and this conductor puts you off, using necessary force, but causing you injury. For what can you sue the railroad company? (b) Is Forsee v. Alabama Ry. rightly decided?
Paper No. B9
  1. (a) Must a telegraph company transmit despatches from race tracks to pool rooms? (b) May a ferry company refuse to transport a forger?
  2. (a) Must a railroad company allow a telephone company to install a pay-station in a terminal station? (b) May a theatre refuse to sell a ticket to a man in naval uniform?
Paper No. B10
  1. (a) What is decided in Coupland v. Housatonic R. R.? (b) Can Craker v. Chicago & N. W. Ry. and Batton v. S. & N. Ala. R. R. both be right?
  2. (a) A traveller comes to an inn and asks for room 15 which is vacant, but the innkeeper assigns him to room 16; later in the day he changes him to room 17. Can the guest complain of his action at either time? (b) A Pullman agent has a telegram reserving a berth on file; he accordingly refuses to sell his last berth to an applicant or to order another car put on. Has the applicant any complaint?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Folder: “Economics 1906-1907”. Note: Harvard College Library stamp Jan 29, 1907 on Papers No. 1-14; Stamp Jul 5, 1907 Papers No. 15, B1-B10. Each of these paper assignments was printed on a separate sheet of paper.

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ECONOMICS 21
Mid-year Examination, 1906-07

First give your answers, then your reasons, supporting your views by authorities, but not writing more than 30 pages.

  1. A is a manufacturer of soap, who is dealing with a jobber named B, among others. C, another manufacturer of soap, goes to B and first offers him a rebate of 10% if B will not handle the soap of A any longer, but will deal with C exclusively, and then threatens B that unless he will do this he will not sell him any soap at all. B then accedes with much protestation. A, thus cut off by B, brings suit against C for loss of business, — what decision? Would A have had any complaint if C had not made the threat?
  2. The Meadow Dairy, incorporated, is formed by X, Y, and Z, who constitute themselves the board of directors, with X president, and Y general manager. Soon after, Z, being in poor health, goes to Europe. The corporation thus managed by X and Y, begins an advertising campaign in which it claims: ‘that all its milk is produced upon its own farms, and contains 15% of solids, whereas that sold by their largest competitor, the Hill Farm Dairy, is bought from irresponsible farmers, and never contains 10% of solids.’ The truth of the matter is, that it is the Meadow Dairy which has no cows of its own, and resells a poor grade of milk (10%), while the Hill Farm has its own herds and a high grade of milk (15%). A State statute makes it a misdemeanor to sell milk containing less than 12% of solids. The Hill Farm proprietors (it is a partnership, composed of A, B, and C) decide to take action. Before any proceedings are begun, C gives public notice that he wants the whole matter dropped. A and B seek counsel as to the extent to which they can get redress of any sort against any one, civil or criminal?
  3. An association of refiners of kerosene oil adopt the following policies. How many of these will give a rival refiner who is injured an action for damages: (a) Refusing to sell any oil to retailers who deal at all with refiners outside the association. (b) Reducing prices 25% in districts where rival refiners are selling. (c) Giving 33 1/3% discount to those retailers who will agree to deal with members of the association exclusively. (d) Fining any member of the association who sells to any retailer who deals with any outside refiner.
  4. In a strike at a paper mill, called to get recognition of the Union by getting the non-union men discharged, the union of the employees adopt the following tactics. How many of these will be stopped by an injunction asked for by the employers: (a) Posting two pickets at the mill gates with instructions to them to use no violence. (b) Refusing to patronize dealers who advertise in newspapers which buy their paper from this mill. (c) Posting upon billboards an appeal to workingmen urging “all honest laborers not to employ for employment at the mill while the strike is in progress.” (d) Paying non-union men who have taken employment at this mill $25 each to quit work at the end of the week for which they are employed.
  5. An association of dealers in plumbers’ supplies, of which X, Y, and Z are members, has a rule that all plumbers who are in arrears to any member over ninety days shall be reported to the secretary, who shall send copies of the report to all other members L, M, and N, three other members of the association, introduce a motion at the annual meeting of the association that no member shall extend credit to any delinquent plumber so reported, but the motion fails, they alone voting for it. A, a plumber who is in arrears and is so reported, finds himself unable to get goods on credit from L or from X, what redress has he at law?
  6. A newspaper publisher employs only union printers, who are hired by the day. He is building a house, on which he employs by the day a non-union carpenter. A retail grocer, with whom the union printers are accustomed to deal, advertises in the newspaper.
    In order to prevent the carpenter from continuing in the employ of the publisher, the union printers tell the grocer that they intend to withdraw their patronage from his store, unless he ceases to patronize a newspaper whose proprietor employs a non-union carpenter. The grocer holds out for awhile, but finally (as the union printers hoped he would) notifies the publisher that he shall cease to advertise in the newspaper, unless the publisher ceases to employ the carpenter. In consequence of this notice, the publisher ceases to employ the carpenter.
    The union printers were not actuated by personal ill will toward the carpenter; but by a wish to strengthen the general cause of labor unionism and to increase the power of labor unions in general.
    Has the carpenter an action against the union printers? Has the grocer?
  7. A corporation owns a building worth $40,000. X owns one fourth of the corporate stock. The corporation effects an insurance of $35,000 on the building. X effects an insurance of $10,000 on his interest in the building. The building is totally destroyed by fire.
    In a suit by the corporation on its policy, the insurance company offers to prove an admission made by X that he set the fire negligently, but unintentionally. Is the evidence competent?
    In a suit by X on his policy, the insurance company claims that, as the building belonged to the corporation, X had no insurable interest in it. What decision in X’s suit?
  8. All the shares in the X Brewing Co., the capital stock of which is $90,000, are purchased from the corporation by A, B, and C, who convey to it a brewery, which is worth about $30,000, in which they each have a one-third interest; the agreement with the corporation is that the corporation shall take the brewery as full subscription price and issue to A, B, and C $30,000 each in fully paid shares. The next year the corporation issues $40,000 in debentures on all the assets of the corporation to A who loans them that sum. A year after this is done the X corporation fails, owing $100,000 to X for supplies, with nothing but the brewery itself left. How much on a dollar will X get? How will A, B, and C come out?
  9. A shareholder in a bank accepts dividends for the year 1904 which are paid out of capital which he would have known if he had attended the annual meeting; in 1905 he accepts dividends, although the bank is then hopelessly insolvent, which he has no reason to suspect. What rights have depositors against him? What rights have other shareholders?
  10. A corporation, not authorized to borrow money, or to purchase real estate, borrows $1000 of X giving its note due in 30 days for $1000; expends $500 of the amount in paying a valid corporate debt to B; and expends the balance in purchasing land. X sues the corporation on this note for $1000. Decision is given against him on the ground that the borrowing by the corporation was ultra vires. Are there any remedies open to X?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1906-07.

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ECONOMICS 21
Year-end Examination, 1906-07

First give your answers clearly; then give your reasons briefly.

  1. What is the position of a person who has sold steel rails at
    16 2/3% profit to a railway company if he is (1) a promotor of the corporation, (2) a large stockholder in the corporation,
    (3) the treasurer of the corporation, (4) a director who resigned from office while the sale was being negotiated and was then immediately re-elected?
  2. Can an action for damages be brought (1) by a retail tobacco dealer against a tobacco trust which will not sell to him because he handles rival brands; (2) by a newspaper against a press association which makes lower rates to others which deal with it exclusively; (3) by a city which has paid an artificially high price for iron pipe to an iron foundry which is a member of a pool; (4) by one railroad against another which makes lower rates to those persons who will ship by it exclusively?
  3. Are there legal objections to the following arrangements?
    (1) a rich man, who is a large stockholder in two competitive railroads, increases his holdings in both to over 50% of the shares in each; (2) three rich men, holding each 20% of the shares in these two roads, agree to vote these shares as a majority of them shall decide; (3) the organization of a corporation to buy the controlling interest in these two roads; (4) an agreement between the two roads to maintain the maximum rates fixed by the law?
  4. Can a street railway urge against the constitutionality of legislation reducing fares that the gross receipts so reduced
    (1) will leave no net profit: (2) or will leave nothing for replacements, (3) or nothing for depreciation; or (4) nothing for losses by accidents?
  5. Can an innkeeper refuse to admit to his premises (1) a driver of a stage line seeking passengers; (2) a caller for a guest;
    (3) a neighbor with a dog; (4) a prize fighter who has come to train for a month?
  6. Can a gas company refuse to supply (1) an applicant who uses electricity; (2) an applicant who owes his last month’s bill;
    (3) a tenant in an apartment house; (4) a householder on a street where there are no gas mains?
  7. Is it illegal for a water company to make lower rates
    (1) for factories than for residences; (2) for hospitals than for churches; (3) for customers who use over 100,000 gallons than for less; (4) for customers who pay in advance.
  1. Is it illegal for a railroad to charge lower rates per pound
    (1) for trainloads than for carloads; (2) for carloads than for less than carloads; (3) for 100 lb. packages than for less; (4) for barrels than for boxes?
    [Note: Questions IX and VIII were reversed in the original printed copy]
  1. (1) Can a railroad work coal mines? (2) Can a gas company make lower rates to those who have gas stoves? (3) Can the proprietor of a grain elevator store his own grain in his own warehouse? (4) Can a railroad refuse to take at the carload rate a lot of goods offered by various shippers who have got together for the purpose?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1907), pp. 42-43.

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

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Principles of accounting, final examinations. Cole, 1906-07

William Morse Cole, his life, career, and publications.

The essence of Cole’s accounting course is to be found in his textbook:

Accounts. Their Construction and Interpretation for Business Men and Students of Affairs. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908.

“The first issue of this book was brought out at a time when no general, non -technical, non-professional treatise on accounting had been published . The author had then been giving for eight years a course of instruction to seniors in Harvard College on the principles of accounting, and believed that many business men and students of affairs would be interested to see briefly but comprehensively how accounts are constructed and interpreted.”
Revised and enlarged edition, 1915.

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Local boy makes good
(a sample)

At a recent meeting of the president and fellows of Harvard College William Morse Cole was appointed assistant professor of accounting for five years from Sept. 1. Mr. Cole was formerly one of the teaching staff of the B.M.C. Durfee High school, which he left to teach in Worcester [South High School].

Source: Fall River [Massachusetts] Daily Evening News (May 19, 1908), p. 7.

William Morse Cole, who for a number of years was an instructor in English in the B.M.C. Durfee High school, but at the present time professor in the new school of business of Harvard University, has recently published a book entitled “Business Law and Methods.”

Source: Fall River [Massachusetts] Daily Evening News (August 20, 1909), p. 6.

William Morse Cole, formerly an instructor in the B.M.C. Durfee High school, now assistant professor of accounting in Harvard University, has published through D. Appleton & Co., a volume entitled “The American Hope,” an attempt to look beyond the unfavorable symptoms of American life to show the rational point of view toward American conditions.

Source: Fall River [Massachusetts] Daily Evening News (April 1, 1910), p. 11.

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Earlier accounting exams

1901-02
1902-03
1903-04
1904-05
1905-06

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Course Enrollment
1906-07

Economics 18. Mr. W. M. Cole. — Principles of Accounting.

Total 90: 7 Graduates, 50 Seniors, 21 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 18
[Homework?]

            The following transactions are to be entered in complete form, with full details and index references; the resulting figures are to be carried through a six-column statement; the books are then to be closed as for the end of the year, and a Balance Sheet for the beginning of the new year is to be shown.

            The books to be used are a journal, a special-column cash-book, a sales book, a purchase book, and a ledger. When insufficient details for a complete entry are given below, reasonable details are to be assumed. Interest and discount should be figured at 6%.

            In determining and recording profit, all additional facts necessary to know are to be assumed at fairly reasonable figures. Care should be taken that all necessary additional facts are considered.

            Do not attempt in this case to analyze the profit into its three elements, wages of management, interest on investment, and pure profit, but consider it an entity and carry it to the account of the proprietor, to the amount of an even $1000.

January

1. You (use any name you wish) begin business with the following capital: cash, 15,000; store building, 15,000; promissory notes to the amount of 5000 (as follows: Felix Holt, 1000, dated to-day, payable in two months; Adam Bede, 2000, dated Dec. 1, two months; Silas Marner, 500, dated Dec. 16, one month; Richard Feverel, 1500, dated Nov. 1, payable on demand with interest). Buy office and store furniture for cash, 500. Pay for postage, 15. Buy stationery, books, etc., for cash, 125.

2. Buy goods of David Copperfield, payment due in 10 days, 4000. Buy goods of Oliver Twist for cash, 3000.

3. Pay freight, 65. Pay telephone bill, three months, in advance, 25.

4. Buy horses and wagon, cash, 500. Pay for advertising, 30.

5. Sell goods to Dombey & Son, 30 days time, 700. Buy goods of Enoch Arden, cash, 6000.

8. Pay wages: bookkeeper, 25; three clerks, at 15 each; driver, 10.

9. Buy goods of Henry Esmond, 10 ds., 7000. Accept David Copperfield’s draft on you, payable in three days, for the amount of your bill.

10. Discount at a bank your own note (signed for the business) for 5000, 30 days. Richard Feverel pays his note.

11. Buy goods of Silas Lapham, cash, 6000.

12. Discount Adam Bede’s note, getting 1993.33. Pay your acceptance of the 9th.

13. Sell goods to Roderick Hudson, 10 ds., 575.

15. Sell goods to David Balfour, 10 ds., 200.

16. S. Marner’s note is paid. Sell goods to John Halifax for his note, 30 ds., 600.

17. Sell goods to John Nicholson, cash, 300.

18. Borrow on your own note for 30 ds., bearing interest, 4000.

19. Pay H. Esmond in full. Pay insurance, 100.

20. Pay freight, 75. Sell goods for cash, 150. Sell goods to Nicholas Nickleby, 30 ds., 1200.

22. Pay wages, two weeks, at the same rates as on the 8th. Pay for remodelling offices, 400. Three months’ rent is paid in advance by a tenant to whom one of the remodelled offices is let, 100.

23. R. Hudson’s bill is paid. Paid for coal, 100.

24. Pay subscription for flood sufferers, 100. Sell goods for cash, 1200.

25. Draw a draft on Dombey & Son, payable in ten days, to your own order, for the amount of their bill due Feb. 4. Pay a dry-goods bill for your wife out of the cash drawer, 75. David Balfour’s bill is paid.

26. You receive, accepted, the draft drawn on the 25th.

27. You discount at a bank Dombey & Son’s acceptance.

29. Sell goods to David Balfour, 30 ds., 1300.

30. Pay wages as before.

31. Pay for lighting, 15. You draw for your own use, 150.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1906-07”.

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ECONOMICS 18
Mid-year Examination, 1906-07

Perform and arrange your work strictly in the order of the questions, and so present it that each topic shall be in a paragraph by itself

  1. (a) Jan. 1, X invests in a partnership a note of his wife, for $5000, due in one month. (b) Jan. 14, X exchanges the note for one of his own payable at the same time. (c) Jan. 25, X takes up his own note, leaving in exchange an accepted draft, due Feb. 1, on B, who is a creditor of the partnership. (d) Feb. 1, the debt of the firm to B becomes due, and B’s acceptance is sent to him in payment.
    Journalize the entries, designating each by a letter as above.
    (e) In the meantime, B, not knowing that X is a member of the firm and that his acceptance will be used to cancel a debt to him, sends his check to X for payment of the acceptance. The two letters cross, and X, not knowing that the acceptance has been sent to B, turns in the check to the cashier, who misunderstands X and thinks the check is invested by X.
    What entry will the cashier make?
    (f) X discovers that the cashier has misunderstood him, and explains. The correct situation is discovered, is confirmed by a letter from B, and a check is sent to B, his check being already deposited.
    What entry shall now be made to correct the books?
  2. “The profit and loss account on the balance sheet is simply the difference between resources and liabilities.”
    “The profit and loss account on the balance sheet is taken directly from the ledger and represents the balance of all undistributed loss and gain.”
    Either reconcile these two statements or show why one is correct and the other incorrect.
  3. You are in charge of “taking account of stock” in a store. The clerks give you the numbers and descriptions of articles, and the invoice book-keeper fills in prices as they appear on incoming bills. How far is this material adequate for an inventory?
  4. You have balance sheets of a corporation for two successive years, but you can get no other information. How much can these sheets tell you of the business for the intervening year?
  5. A man’s business is of the cash mail-order variety, both for purchases and for sales. He handles no goods, but orders others to ship directly to his customers. For some classes of goods, he issues catalogues, which he sells for a small fee intended to pay for postage and printing; for other goods he advertises in magazines; and for other goods not covered by magazines and catalogues, he advertises by means of painted signs. He conducts a premium department for second and third orders exceeding a definite sum in value. He pays his office help, for their correspondence, on the piece-price plan, with deductions for errors.
    What ledger accounts should you recommend him to use? If you would recommend any unusual ones, state the method and the purpose of their use.
  6. Describe the principal books that you would recommend for the business described in the preceding question, and show how they could be employed with minimum labor. Illustrate by rough but intelligible forms, showing by posting-checks how posting is to be done.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1906-07.

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ECONOMICS 18
Year-end Examination, 1906-07

The points indicated at the beginning of each question show comparative value on a scale of one hundred. Omit questions to the value of fifteen points. Follow the order of the questions. Write on the exact subject set, not on some other subject that chances to be allied. As far as practicable, put your answers in tabular or parallel-column form. Give a new paragraph to each part of each answer.

  1. (7½ points.) What are the advantages and the disadvantages of keeping a separate sales ledger?
  2. (7½ points.) Is it possible (whether it is desirable or not) to keep books without a journal? If so, explain under that plan how one could best enter the exchange of bonds for stock, and defend such treatment.
  3. (15 points.) State briefly what facts are shown by each of the following ledgers: stock; stores; bond; purchase; machine; deposit.
    Classify these ledgers on the following bases: those represented by general ledger accounts; those to which posting is done; those from which posting is done; those which are purely statistical.
  4. (40 points.) Assume your inability to go behind the returns. Arrange the following items in intelligible form, and show the mathematical correctness or discrepancy of the conclusions:
Sales $249,000 Material on hand a year ago $21,600
Accounts receivable 17,000 Taxes paid 800
Material on hand 14,000 Taxes accrued to pay 800
Capital Stock 90,000 Plant 65,000
Wages due 7,000 Merchandise 67,000
Wages paid 83,000 Rentals earned and rec’d 200
Dividends paid 9,000 Rentals accrued but not due 300
Bonds issued 30,000 Accounts payable 46,000
Real estate 25,000 Suspense accounts 1,000
Cash 12,000 Repairs of plant 6,000
Patent rights 16,000 Surplus for the year 4,000
Sundry sums written off 13,000 Miscellaneous costs 11,500
Bills receivable 7,000 Material purchased 85,000
Interest paid 900 Selling costs 20,000
Interest accrued to pay 600 Estimated value of outstanding advertising paid for 2,000
Surplus on ledger 52,100
Insurance paid 500
Insurance unexpired 200
  1. (15 points.) Discuss the general principle of distinction between charging to revenue and charging to capital. Does this apply to the treatment of premium on bonds? Explain.
  2. (7½ points.) What sets of records should be kept for bonds held under each of the following circumstances: (a) ownership; (b) in trust; (c) as collateral?
  3. (7½ points.) On which side of a balance sheet are you likely to find the following accounts; will corresponding or related accounts, under the same or another name, appear for each on the other side of the sheet; if so, what relation, both as to nature and as to amount, will exist between the two: depreciation fund; treasury stock; collateral trust bonds?
  4. (7½ points.) What is the usual method of recording individual holdings of capital stock?
  5. (7½ points.) What is the argument for figuring depreciation of machinery at a fixed rate on depreciated valuation rather than on original cost?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1906-07 (HUC 7000.25), pp. 41-42.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Transportation

Harvard. Enrollment and final exam for railroad practice. Daggett, 1906-1907

Railroad Train by Edward Hopper (1908)

 

Stuart Daggett was born March 2, 1881 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and graduated from Roxbury Latin School (Boston, Massachusetts) in 1899. He received all three of his degrees, the A.B. in 1903, the A.M. in 1904, and the Ph.D in 1906, from Harvard University. The title of his thesis was “Railroad Reorganization”, published as vol. 4 of  Harvard Economic Studies (Houghton Mifflin, 1908). During 1906 to 1909 he was Instructor at Harvard, and in 1909 he accepted appointment to the University of California as Assistant Professor of Railway Economics. He was appointed full professor in 1917 and from 1920-1927 he was dean of the College of Commerce, retiring in 1951 as Flood Foundation professor emeritus of transportation. Stuart Daggett died December 22 1954 in Oakland, California.

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Railroad Practice
1906-07

Course Enrollment

Economics 17 2hf. Dr. Daggett. — Railroad Practice.

Total 37: 4 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 12 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 17
Year-end Examination, 1906-07

Answer 1, 2, 3, and five other questions.

  1. Distinguish between
    1. departmental railroad organization, and
    2. divisional railroad organization.
      Show the lines of responsibility under each system.
  2. Suppose a shipment of boots and shoes, weighing 10,000 pounds, from Boston to Minneapolis. The route to be via the Vanderbilt lines to Chicago, thence via the Chicago & Northwestern to Minneapolis. Rate, $1.35 per 100 pounds. The shipment to be sent “collect,” and the Chicago & Northwestern to get one-third of the total rate.
    Make out in full the waybill which will accompany these goods between Chicago and Minneapolis

    1. supposing auditor’s office settlements,
    2. supposing junction settlements.
  3. Describe carefully the system of through-billing with auditor’s office settlements of a shipment as in (2). Show what reports are made, and how the balances are determined and settled.
  4. Name the principal freight traffic associations and state as precisely as possible the territory which each covers. What are the main differences between such associations and the previously existing pools?
  5. Draw a workable diagram of a terminal cluster. What is a pole yard; a hump yard; a gravity yard; and what are the advantages and disadvantages of each?
  6. Discuss the advantages of the steel freight car over the wooden one; of the large freight car over the small one. How do the sizes of freight cars in Europe and the United States compare, and why?
  7. Why is it more expensive to haul passengers than to haul freight?
  8. What is a “block signal” system? Describe clearly the working of
    1. the staff system;
    2. the automatic electric system.
      Illustrate (b) with a diagram showing the necessary circuits.
  9. Compare the experience of France with state railroad operation with that of Germany. What, in each case were the causes which led to state operation, the extent of the lines operated, the results from state operation, and the reasons for those results?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1906-07 (HUC 7000.25), p. 40.

Image Source: Railroad Train by Edward Hopper (1908). Wikiart, Visual Art Encyclopedia.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Public Finance

Harvard. Public finance and taxation. Enrollments and final exams. Bullock, 1906-1907

The Tax Collector. Marinus van Reymerswaele (1542)

As can be seen below, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has put together a considerable time-series of public finance exams for Harvard at the start of the 20th century.

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Bullock’s earlier public finance exams
at Harvard

1901-02. Economics 7a and 7b. Financial administration; taxation [undergraduate]

1903-04. Economics 16.  Financial history of the United States

1904-05. Economics 7a. Introduction to public finance [undergraduate]

1904-05. Economics 7b. Theory and methods of taxation [undergraduate]

1904-05. Economics 16. Financial history of the United States.

1905-06 Economics 7.  Public finance [undergraduate]

1905-06 Economics 16. Public finance [advanced]

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From 1910: Short bibliography on public finance “for serious minded students” by Bullock

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INTRODUCTION TO
PUBLIC FINANCE

Course Enrollment
1906-07

Economics 16a 1hf. Asst. Professor Bullock. — Introduction to Public Finance

Total 15: 4 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 16a
INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC FINANCE

Mid-year Examination, 1906-07
  1. What classes of public expenditure increased most rapidly during the nineteenth century and what classes showed the least tendency to increase?
  2. Describe the policy pursued by the United States in regard to its public lands.
  3. What are the chief abuses of the fee system in the United States?
  4. Discuss the financial aspects of national ownership of railroads.
  5. Compare the administration of the British post office with the administration of the post office in the United States.
  6. Write an account of American State debts in the nineteenth century?
  7. Compare the history of the British debt in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with the history of the French debt at the same period.
  8. What are the advantages and disadvantages of sinking funds?
  9. What are the essential characteristics of a good budget system?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1906-07.

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THE THEORY AND METHODS OF TAXATION

Course Enrollment
1906-07 

Economics 16b 2hf. Asst. Professor Bullock. — The Theory and Methods of Taxation

Total 22: 3 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 16b
THE THEORY AND METHODS OF TAXATION

Year-end Examination, 1906-07

Omit one question.

  1. What are the criteria by which you would test the justice of any system of taxation?
  2. What are the chief difficulties encountered by American commonwealths in constructing their tax systems?
  3. Describe the French system of direct taxation.
  4. Compare the French system of direct taxation with that employed in Prussia.
  5. What points of difference have you observed between the British and the French systems of taxation?
  6. What lessons has European practice for the student of American taxation?
  7. Outline a system of corporation taxes which you would consider satisfactory for such a state as Massachusetts.
  8. Write a history of income taxation in the United States.
  9. Upon what class or classes of persons does the American system of state and local taxation fall with the greatest weight?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1906-07 (HUC 7000.25), p. 39.

Image Source: The Tax Collector by Marinus van Reymerswaele (1542). Wikiart, Visual Art Encyclopedia.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard History of Economics

Harvard. Semester exams for history of economics. Bullock, 1906-07

The two-semester course on the history of economics up through Adam Smith taught by assistant professor Charles J. Bullock at Harvard in  1906-07 was taken by seven graduate students and one undergraduate.

A reprint of the 1690 pamphlet by Nicholas Barbon “A Discourse of Trade” was published by Johns Hopkins Press in 1905 and Bullock incorporated it into his course at the first opportunity (the course was announced but not taught in 1905-06). The third question of the year-end exam below concerns a quote from the first page of Barbon’s Discourse.

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Before joining Harvard in 1903

Source: Williams College, The Gulielmensian 1902, p. 16.

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Earlier History of Economics Courses
Taught by Charles J. Bullock

1903-04

1904-05

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Course Enrollment
1906-07

Economics 15. Asst. Professor Bullock. — History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848.

Total 8: 7 Graduates, 1 Junior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 15
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THEORY
Mid-Year Examination, 1906-07

  1. By the close of the Middle Ages what progress had been made in developing a theory of value?
  2. Compare the communism of Plato with that of More.
  3. What was the attitude of the following writers toward commerce: Aristotle, Xenophon, Thomas Aquinas?
  4. What economic topics were discussed by Roman writers?
  5. Discuss the connection between political and economic theory from the time of Plato to the middle of the eighteenth century.
  6. What is your opinion of the scholastic doctrine of usury?
  7. Write an account of economic discussions in Italy in the fifteenth century?
  8. To what books would you turn for information concerning the political and economic theories of the Schoolmen?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1906-07.

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ECONOMICS 15
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THEORY
Year-end Examination, 1906-07

Omit one question.
  1. What analysis does Quesnay make of the organization of economic society? Does his analysis resemble at any points the analysis made by Aristotle?
  2. What traces of Aristotelianism and Scholasticism do you find in the economic thought of Europe from 1500 to 1800?
  3. At about what time was the following passage written?
    “The Stock and Wares of all Trade are the Animals, Vegetables, and Minerals of the whole Universe, whatsoever the Land or Sea produceth. These Wares may be divided into Natural and Artificial. Natural Wares are those which are sold as Nature produceth them. … Artificial Wares are those which by Art are changed into another Form than Nature gave them.” [A Discourse of Trade (1609) by Nicholas Barbon]
    Does this passage suggest any distinction drawn by earlier writers? What use was made of it by the economists of the period when it was written?
  4. Compare the general development of mercantilist doctrines in England from 1500 to 1760 with the development of French mercantilist doctrines of the same period.
  5. What tendencies are noticeable in the economic thought of England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain between 1740 and 1760? Name some of the chief writers in each country at this time.
  6. What is the fundamental difference between the theories of commerce entertained by enlightened mercantilists of the eighteenth century and the view of Hume, d’Argenson, and Adam Smith?
  7. What various elements were fused in the economical philosophy of Adam Smith?
  8. What are the prevailing theories of value, profits, and rent found in the writings of English mercantilists?
  9. Outline Turgot’s theory of distribution.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1907-08; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1907), pp. 37-38.

Image Source: Williams College, The Gulielmensian 1902, p. 16. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Final exam for Methods of Social Reform. Socialism etc. Fetter, 1906-1907

As mentioned in the previous post Thomas Nixon Carver was in Europe for a sabbatical year in 1906-07,  the Harvard economics department had to fill the instructional gap left by Carver and so Frank A. Fetter was brought in from Cornell to cover two of Carver’s standard courses: one on the economic theory of income distribution and the other that surveyed methods of social reform. The artifact for today is Fetter’s final exam for the fall semester course on “Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.”

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Course Reading List
1906-07
(previously posted)

https://www.irwincollier.com/methods-of-social-reform-fetter-covers-carver-course/

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Course Enrollment
1906-07

Economics 14b 1hf. Professor Fetter (Cornell University). — Methods of Social Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.

Total 32: 4 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 3 Sophomore, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 14b
Mid-year Examination, 1906-07

  1. Discuss the various classes into which the communistic experiments in America may be divided, and indicate the periods of their greatest success.
    Why are there fewer experiments of that kind now?
  2. Compare Christian socialism with Marxism in its philosophy of progress and in the methods it favors.
  3. In what countries is radical socialism making most headway, and what methods are followed by it?
  4. Define and criticize the surplus-value theory of Marx. Indicate its relation to the labor-value theory of Ricardo, and to Malthusianism.
  5. Discuss historical materialism, and the application made of it by Mars to the revolutionary propaganda.
  6. What is meant by the class conflict, and class consciousness? Give illustrations supporting and opposing these ideas.
  7. Discuss the personality, training, and social experiences of the founders of social-democracy.
  8. In what countries has the socialization of industry made greatest progress? What are present tendencies?
  9. What would be the effect, upon present holders, of a single tax absorbing the whole net rental of city land-sites? What would be the effect upon future purchasers of the land?
  10. In the light of the experience in other countries, what experiments in social reform do you expect to see soon tried in America?
    Give reasons.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1906-07.

Image Source: Faculty portrait of Frank A. Fetter in the 1902 Classbook, Cornell University, p. 21.