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Harvard Statistics Suggested Reading

Harvard. Short Bibliography on Social Statistics for “Serious-minded Students”, Ripley, 1910

William Zebina Ripley

 

In 1910 Harvard published a total of 43 of short bibliographies in the collection “Social Ethics and Allied Subjects”, about half of which were dedicated to particular topics in economics and economic sociology. The project was coordinated by Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Francis G. Peabody.

Part I, Chapter 7 “Social Statistics” was the first of economics professor William Z. Ripley’s three contributions to the collection. Most items have been conveniently linked to internet archival copies for this post.

Previously posted bibliographies from Peabody’s “Social Ethics and Allied Subjects”:

Economic Theory by Professor Frank Taussig

Taxation by Professor Charles J. Bullock

Trade Unionism by Professor William Z. Ripley

Social Insurance by Dr. Robert Franz Foerster

Economics of Socialism by Professor Thomas Nixon Carver

Strikes and Boycotts by Professor William Z. Ripley

Socialism, Family and Religion by Dr. Ray Madding McConnell

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7. SOCIAL STATISTICS

William Z. Ripley

The principal source for the United States is the “Federal Census,” taken decennially since 1790. The later ones are summarized in special volumes, that for 1900 being known as the “Supplementary Analysis.” A still briefer “Abstract” is also published. The “Supplementary Analysis” is, however, more serviceable, inasmuch as it offers in the text a critical examination of the figures, setting forth the limitations upon their use. A “Statistical Atlas” also accompanies each census since 1870, offering the results in graphic form. “Special reports” on a variety of topics are also issued. Among these since 1900 may be mentioned, “A Century of Population Growth,” Washington, 1909; “Marriage and Divorce,” 1867–1906, two parts [Part One Summary, Laws, Foreign Statistics; Part Two, General Tables], Washington,1909, and “Statistics of Cities.” “Mortality Statistics” for all states having registration laws are also compiled and published annually. This is the standard reference for all states and minor subdivisions.

Several of the Commonwealths, notably Massachusetts, take censuses on the intervening quinquennial years, some of them containing more detailed information than is afforded by the federal census. The “United States Statistical Abstract,” published annually [1878-2018], is often serviceable.

For foreign countries, the “Statistical Abstract for Great Britain” and also “The Statistical Abstract for the Principal and other Foreign Countries,” will serve as convenient and accurate handbooks. Some of the leading newspapers, notably the New York Tribune [1856-1914] and the World, [1868-1925], publish “Almanacs,” containing a wide range of material gathered from official publications. The “Statesman’s Year Book” [1876-1923] is a valuable source. The most elaborate scientific collection, issued annually and covering a very wide range of social data, is, G. Sundbärg: “Aperçus statistiques internationaux.” Stockholm: Imprimerie Royale. Since 1906 this has been published in French.

Among scientific serials which are invaluable to students of social statistics, not only for their separate articles, but for their reviews of current literature, should be included: Quarterly Publications of the American Statistical Association [1888-1921] and Journal of the Royal Statistical Society.

The following standard treatises are of fundamental importance, containing not only positive statistical data, but critical examination as to their value:

Mayo-Smith, Richmond. Statistics and sociology. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1895, pp. xvi, 399.

Mayo-Smith, Richmond. Statistics and economics. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1899, pp. 467.

These volumes of material up to the date of their publication are most valuable. They are, however, less ample in American material than for foreign countries.

Bailey, William B. Modern social conditions. New York: The Century Company, 1906, pp. 377.

This treatise is confined principally to the field of vital statistics and problems of population.

Bowley, Arthur Lyon. Elements of statistics. London: P. S. King & Son, 1901, pp. 328.

The most scientific treatise extant as to statistical method, but less serviceable as a collection of positive data. [First edition (1901); Second edition (1902); Third edition (1907); Fourth edition (1920); Fifth edition (1926); Sixth edition (1937)]

Wright, Carroll D. Outline of practical sociology. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899, pp. XXV, 431.

This obviously does not include data from the census of 1900.

Newsholme, A. Elements of vital statistics. Third edition. London: Swan, Sonnenschein & Co., 1899, pp. xxiv, 326.

The standard authority for this special field.

Walker, Francis A. Discussions in economics and statistics. 2 vols. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1899, pp. iv, 454, 481. [Volume 1, Finance and Taxation, Money and Bimetallism, Economic Theory; Volume 2, Statistics, National Growth, Social Economics]

Weber, Adna F. The growth of cities in the nineteenth century. New York: Columbia University Studies, 1899, pp. xiv, 497.

This work is a convenient source book for all statistics of cities.

Schnapper-Arndt, Gottlieb. Sozial-Statistik. Leipzig: W. Klinkhardt, 1908, xxii, 642 S.

This book offers a readable account of statistical data, mainly for European countries.

Mayr, Georg von. Statistik und Gesellschaftslehre. 3 Bde. Freiburg i. B.: J. C. B. Mohr, 1895-1909, 202, 486, 260 S.  [Volume 1, Theoretische Statistik; Volume 2, Bevölkerungsstatistik; Volume 3, Sozialstatistik]

The most elaborate treatise, serviceable mainly to specialists. It contains a wonderfully complete bibliography in all languages, arranged under separate headings, which may be of use in looking up special topics.

Source: A Guide to Reading in Social Ethics and Allied Subjects. Lists of books and articles selected and described for the use of general readers by teachers in Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts (1910), pp. 32-34.

Image Source: Harvard University Archives. William Zebina Ripley [photographic portrait, ca. 1910], J. E. Purdy & Co., J. E. P. & C. (1910).

Categories
Economists Gender Harvard Smith

Radcliffe/Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumna Eleanor Martha Hadley, 1949

 

This addition to our intermittent series “Get to know an economics Ph.D. alumna” is dedicated to the Radcliffe expert on Japanese industrial organization whose government career prospects were blocked for some seventeen years after she had been denied a security clearance. This was the work of General MacArthur’s “lovable fascist”, Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby [a bit of backstory to Willoughby’s purge of Hadley is provided below]. 

Incidentally, The Diplomat (January 27, 2019) ran a story about Charles Willoughby with the title “Is This the Worst Intelligence Chief in the US Army’s History?” Plot spoiler: He and his boss MacArthur share the blame for the Yalu River disaster for the United Nations forces.

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Eleanor Hadley’s Memories of Radcliffe and Harvard

…Being somewhat at loose ends upon my return from Japan in the spring of 1940, I ended up attending the University of Washington in Seattle for the academic year 1940-1941. There I took courses in economics and in the Far East Institute, and found the Japanese-language instruction a great improvement over that I had known in Tokyo.

Finally pulling myself together, I decided to embark on a Ph.D. program in economics. It was not that economics was my favorite subject; but I assumed that I needed to build on my undergraduate work, which had been a degree in politics, economics, and philosophy. It had not occurred to me that I could choose any subject I wanted. Much as I loved philosophy, I did not see taking a graduate degree in it. Between politics and economics, I believed that the latter favored classroom discussion; and I thought that I could do reading about politics on my own.

I wanted to attend Radcliffe College; but the problem was how to finance it. Then, out of the clear blue sky, my great-aunt in Honolulu, who had lost her sister earlier that year, said that if I would spend the summer with her there, she would make it financially possible for me to enter Radcliffe that fall. I could scarcely believe my good fortune.

In Honolulu that summer, one of my America-Japan Student Conference friends from the University of Washington was enrolled in the U.S. Marines’ Japanese-language course. The Marines had decided that their service required some competency in the Japanese language. One thinks of Marines as ramrod straight. In fact, the course was so strenuous that every week my friend’s shoulders were slightly more rounded.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Thanks to my great-aunt, I entered Radcliffe in the fall of 1941 to begin a Ph.D program in economics. I remember that, so splendidly ignorant as I was of the college’s setup, I said to the dean of graduate students with a catalogue in my hand, “I see Harvard faculty listed here, but where is the Radcliffe faculty?” She replied: “Don’t you know that we are medieval? There is no Radcliffe faculty.”

Radcliffe College, both graduate and undergraduate, consisted of students and administrators but no faculty. Harvard did not admit women; Radcliffe existed to provide a Harvard education to women. For undergraduate students, Harvard faculty crossed the Cambridge commons and delivered an identical lecture to the women. For graduate courses, women crossed the commons to Harvard Yard and attended classes with the men. And though Radcliffe’s graduate final exams were identical to what the men took, they were administered in Radcliffe buildings. It was the advent of World War II, and the consequent scarcity of both faculty and students, that disrupted the pattern of duplicative lectures at the undergraduate level. Graduate women were first admitted to Harvard classes in September 1941, just three months before Pearl Harbor.

The fall of 1941 was also the first time Radcliffe graduate women were permitted to sit in the reading room of Widener Library, then the main library for Harvard students. We sat at one designated table, and this table bore signs that could be seen from whatever angle one approached it, announcing, “This table reserved for Radcliffe students taking graduate courses.” Previously, female graduate students had been permitted to sit only in a room separate from the reading room about twenty by twenty feet in size.

In all, the college informs me, there were eighteen students in economics in 1941-1942, and fourteen in 1942-1943. I believe that most of these must have been in the Ph.D. dissertation stage, because when it came to graduate students that one actually saw in classes or in the dormitory, there were only three or four of us. The college speaks of total enrollment in the graduate school of the year 1941-1942 as having been 241; it was 253 in 1942-1943.

Much of the time in classes with the Harvard men I sat petrified with fear. The men were so knowledgeable-that is, most of the time. A number of them had previously held positions bearing on the topics under discussion. Economics was not a Mills College point of strength. If I had entered graduate school in philosophy I would have felt comfortable, but not in economics. Although Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was published in 1936, it had not made the eco- nomics department of Mills College by the time I graduated in 1938. And in Japan, of course, I had had no exposure to the latest work of Western economists. Thus the General Theory was brand-new to me while familiar to most of my colleagues.

Graduate study in economics in the early 1940s was far from being a purely academic exercise. Students and faculty alike were in constant debate about how to apply what they knew to the urgent issues of the day. In the face of a catastrophic depression in the United States, where in 1933 one-fourth of the labor force was unemployed, Herbert Hoover had seen solutions in smaller government expenditures and balanced budgets. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, although campaigning in 1932 for balanced budgets, rapidly changed his mind once he was in office and saw solutions in terms of government expenditure in excess of tax income. The role of government in the economy was the defining point of a New Deal Liberal. Republicans were afraid of a large government role; Democrats were not. The difference was accounted for by differing views of market forces: would they always equilibrate demand and supply or were there times when they would be incapable of doing so?

The economics department of Harvard University was superb in the time period I was there. Among the faculty were Joseph Schumpeter (economic, thought, capitalism and socialism), Alvin Hansen (business cycles), Gottfried Haberler (international trade), Sumner Schlichter (labor), Wassily Leontief (input-output), Alexander Gerschenkron (economic development), John Williams (money and banking). The problem with a small institution such as Mills was that the department tended to depend on one individual. As one example, Harvard’s economics department was divided on the subject of Keynes, which made for great liveliness.

While the department had its share of outstanding men, it also had its share of prejudices. The faculty had only one Jew, Seymour Harris, and one was “enough.” Paul Samuelson, a few years ahead of me, would find no teaching offer from Harvard. Accordingly, he went slightly downriver and accepted MIT’s offer. In retrospect, how the department must have rued this decision.

The department, at this time, did not like the master’s degree, so in consequence the difference between the master’s and doctoral degree was the dissertation. As explained by the college’s official register: “The general examination for the Ph.D. is the same examination as for the Master’s degree.”

At a party I was introduced to Mrs. Chamberlin, a Frenchwoman who was the wife of Edward Chamberlin, the well-known Harvard economist who had already published his influential Monopolistic Competition. She asked me what field I was in and I said economics. Her wonderful reply was “Well, you don’t look like one,” which I regarded as a compliment.

I continued to study the Japanese language, this time using a text that included grammar. It was prepared by Sergei Elisseeff and Edwin Reischauer. Elisseeff had gone to Japan from St. Petersburg after the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first Westerner to graduate from Tokyo Imperial University. After the Communist takeover of Russia in 1917, he emigrated to France where he taught Japanese and Chinese at the Sorbonne, and then from 1934 to 1960, at Harvard. Reischauer had grown up in Japan, where his parents were missionaries. After his graduation from Oberlin College, he entered Harvard as a graduate student in the fall of 1935.

It was almost impossible to study Japanese in Widener Library during that fall of 1941 without interruption. Anyone passing the table reserved for Radcliffe graduate students in the reading room and seeing the unusual script had to stop and inquire what it was.

That fall I attended my first “House” dance at Eliot House on the river as the guest of John Lintner, an economist who was to become a junior fellow (a much sought-after distinction) at Harvard with a specialization in public finance. I had two astonishing experiences. One was learning that one had to think of the outside temperature before adding a corsage to one’s outfit; if one were nonchalant in the late fall, winter, or early spring, the cold might do it in. Second, coming from the West Coast, I was flabbergasted to see the whole inner wall of the dining room (converted to a ballroom) covered to a height of six to eight feet with cases of sherry, bourbon, scotch, and gin. On the West Coast at that time, one could not even sell liquor within a mile of a public educational institution. At Mills College in the 1930s it was a “sin”to have even beer on the campus. Imagine that many cases of liquor on campus! Unbelievable.

Inasmuch as so many Radcliffe graduate students were from other parts of the country as well as from abroad, the dean of the graduate school, Mrs. Cronkite (it was a Harvard affectation to drop the “Dr.”) arranged sight-seeing tours of nearby New England towns for us on Saturday afternoons. These had come to a halt soon after December 7, when gasoline conservation became necessary.

Everyone who was beyond infancy in 1941 remembers where he or she was on December 7. I was starting Sunday dinner (at that time served by maids) in the Radcliffe graduate dormitory at one o’clock. We had just begun to eat that Sunday when someone reported hearing a radio report of a Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Perhaps more than others, I was incredulous that Japan would attack the United States. Japan, of course, had all sorts of differences with the United States, but for it to take us on in armed conflict seemed unbelievable. It was clearly foolhardy, but Japan’s military apparently reasoned that, owing to Japan’s alliance with Germany, their attack would draw the United States into the European war. And a two-front war they believed Japan could win.

My father used to say that one positive feature of war is that it brings persons and nations in touch with reality. Japan’s military discovered that reality was different from what they had imagined, and so did the United States. In those months following Pearl Harbor, when every news report brought word of Japanese victories and our defeats, respect for Japan’s military prowess increased a great deal.

Some of my Radcliffe friends went down to Washington, D.C., during the summer of 1942, on completing the 1941-1942 academic year. With the United States at war, everyone was anxious to contribute to the mammoth effort our country was facing, and to become involved without delay. I, however, held off, because I wanted to get through my Ph.D. “general” examinations first. The thought of taking exams on course work done years earlier was daunting to me.

Under the system then in effect in the Economics Department, one presented oneself in six fields, four of which were examined in the “general” examination. One of the six one was allowed to “write off” — that is, fulfill the requirement with course work. I did that in statistics. My four fields for the general exams were theory, money and banking, international trade, and economic history. The Ph.D. requirements also included qualifying in two languages — normally, French and German. Harvard granted my petition to use Japanese as my second language, my first being French. I don’t believe the Economics Department had ever had to consider such a request before. Having passed all of these exams in the summer of 1943, I then went down to Washington that fall.

The sixth field was the dissertation field, in which one took the separate, “special” exam. At this time, when I took the other general exams, I had in mind to make public finance my “special” dissertation field. But I later changed to industrial organization as a result of my State Department and MacArthur staff positions. It would be in industrial organization, therefore, that I eventually took the final exam after completing my dissertation, entitled “Concentrated Business in Japan,” in 1949.

One major legacy of my Radcliffe years is a lifelong friendship with a fellow economist from Peking, Shu-chuang Kuan. It was in Cambridge in that first fall of 1941 that I met Shu-chuang. Like me, she was beginning the program in economics, and we became close friends. Our friendship has lasted to the present day, although it was interrupted for a long time by events beyond the control of either of us; nowadays, we speak regularly by telephone although we live on opposite coasts of the United States.[1]

My second year at Radcliffe, I became a “head of house” of one of the smaller dormitories. Radcliffe used graduate students for that role rather than having older women as “house mothers,” as was done in a great many colleges. In 1942-1943 we were all graduate students with one exception, an older woman from Concord, Massachusetts. It happened that she invited me to join her on a particular Friday evening. Instead of simply saying that I had a previous engagement, I said I had an invitation to the waltzing party — an event considered of great significance among the “socially acceptable” persons of Boston. Her memorable reply was, “My dear, and only your second season!”

It was customary in that period for female students to wear skirts. That was the only attire considered appropriate for attending class. The Radcliffe dorms where we lived (there was no mixing at that time) were roughly a mile from the Harvard Yard. To walk that mile with legs clad only in stockings when the weather was well below freezing was so painful that I occasionally had to stop at the Commodore Hotel on the way to thaw out.

To me, a New England spring was an astonishing experience. February came and February went. March came and March went. It was not until April that the grass began to turn green and there were crocuses. In Seattle, as in Tokyo, spring begins early. In Seattle one can have pussywillows and crocuses in February, as well as the first blooms of the camellia. In New England, May is one grand riot as the season makes up for its slow start. Everything bursts into leaf and bloom at the same time.

A Year at the OSS

While still in Cambridge I had been recruited by Charles B. (Burton) Fahs [2] for a position in the Research and Analysis Branch, Far East, of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which was one of what came to be five competing intelligence groups in Washington, D.C. (The other four were the Army, Navy, and Foreign Economic Administration [FEA] organizations, and subsequently the Air Force Intelligence group.) Roosevelt favored competition in his government.

I entered the OSS as a P-3, the equivalent of today’s government service classification of GS-9. I was put to work assessing the significance of Japan’s wooden-shipbuilding program, which Japan had begun in response to the shortage of steel.

Even though it was conventional in that period to dislike Washington, I loved the city from the moment I arrived. But where would I live? Washington was still suffering an acute shortage of housing. I located an apartment, but it was still under construction. A Radcliffe friend, Ruth Amande (Roosa), said that I might join friends with whom she was sharing a house, and that is what I did for six weeks or so.

That is also how I came to know Ralph Bunche, for his secretary was part of the same household. Bunche was at the OSS too, but in another part of the organization. In 1944 he was invited to become an assistant secretary of state, the first African American to be so invited, and transferred over from the OSS to the State Department. Subsequently, Bunche won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1950 and was undersecretary of the United Nations from 1955 to 1971. His B.A. was from UCLA in 1927; his Ph.D., from Harvard in 1934. We had a friendly relationship, although not a close one, during the period when we were both at the State Department.

Source: Eleanor M. Hadley. Chapter 2 “Radcliffe College and Washington, D.C.” from Memoir of a Trustbuster: A Lifelong Adventure with Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003. Pages 42-48.

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Radcliffe Ph.D. Awarded June 1949

Eleanor Martha Hadley, A.M. [Radcliffe College, 1943]

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Business Organization and Control.
Dissertation, “Concentrated Business Power in Japan”.

Source: Radcliffe College. Reports of Officers Issue 1948-49 Session. Official Register of Radcliffe College, Vo. XV, No. 6 (December, 1949, p. 21.

Note: B.A. Mills College (Oakland, CA), 1938

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Career

1943 – 1944. Research analyst , Office Strategic Services. Washington, D.C.

1944 – 1946. economist, Department State. Washington, D.C.

1946 – 1947. economist, GHQ-Supreme Command Allies Pacific. Tokyo, Japan.

1950 – 1951. staff member, President Truman’s Commission Migratory Labor. Washington, D.C.

1956 – 1965. associate professor, Smith College. Northampton, Massachusetts.

(ca 1963-64 Fulbright Fellowship to Japan)

1967 – 1974. economist , United States Tariff Commission. Washington, D.C.

1972 – 1984. professorial lecturer, George Washington University. Washington, D.C.

1974 – 1981. group director international division, General Accounting Office. Washington, D.C.

1986 – 1994. visiting scholar, University Washington, Seattle, Washington.

Source:

https://web.archive.org/web/20211124081228/https://prabook.com/web/eleanor_martha.hadley/695543

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Books

Hadley, Eleanor. Antitrust in Japan. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970.

_____________. Japan’s Export Competitiveness in Third World Markets. Georgetown: The Center for Strategic and international Studies, 1981.

_____________. Memoir of a Trustbuster: A Lifelong Adventure with Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003.

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Testimony before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate. July 29, 1964 pp. 147-161.

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Obituary

Eleanor Hadley spent her life standing up to oppression, dies at 90

By Sara Jean Green The Seattle Times, June 6, 2007

Eleanor Hadley rarely talked of her experiences as a young American woman tasked with democratizing the economy of post-World War II Japan, preferring instead to discuss politics and policy with guests who would stop by her Normandy Park home for an intellectual chat and a cup of tea.

She’d fought a 16-year battle to clear her name after she was secretly added to a McCarthy-era blacklist, but Ms. Hadley was never bitter — though she was plenty indignant in the grand, gutsy way that family and friends say she reacted to any injustice or abuse of power.

Ms. Hadley, who dedicated her life to academia and government service, died from natural causes at Seattle’s Swedish Medical Center on Friday (June 1). She was 90.

A 1986 recipient of Japan’s Order of the Sacred Treasure for meritorious service, Ms. Hadley was finally persuaded by a group of admirers to pen her autobiography, co-authoring “Memoirs of a Trust Buster: A Lifelong Adventure with Japan” in 2003.

“She was one of the very few women in a leadership position during the occupation” of Japan, said professor Kenneth Pyle, of the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. “It was rare because it was a man’s world. … She was a very independent and assertive woman in an environment that did not encourage that.”

Eleanor Martha Hadley was born July 17, 1916, in Seattle, graduating from Franklin High School in 1934. Her father, Homer Hadley, an engineer, first conceived the idea of a concrete floating bridge across Lake Washington; and her mother, Margaret Hadley, was a pioneer in preschool education and the education of children with disabilities. Her brother Richard Hadley, who died in 2002, was a prominent Northwest land developer.

Ms. Hadley attended Mills College in Oakland, Calif., and was selected for a student fellowship at Tokyo Imperial University, said her nephew, Robert Hadley, of Normandy Park. From 1938 to 1940, she traveled extensively in Japan and China, becoming one of the first Westerners to visit Nanjing after the Japanese military massacred 150,000 to 300,000 Chinese in that city.

“She went to Japan a pacifist but came back from the whole experience with an understanding that there are times you have to stand up to horrible regimes,” her nephew said.

She returned to the U.S. to pursue her doctorate in economics at Harvard-Radcliffe University but was recruited in 1943 by the U.S. State Department to work as a research economist focusing on Japan.

At the end of the war, Ms. Hadley — then 31 — was asked to join Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s staff in Tokyo, where she worked to help break the zaibatsu, the powerful industrial and financial combines that dominated Japan’s economy.

Ms. Hadley returned to Harvard in 1947 to complete her doctorate and planned to join the newly created Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Hadley said. But the CIA job offer — and her security clearance — were mysteriously withdrawn. She didn’t learn until years later that she’d been labeled a Communist and was blacklisted by Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, MacArthur’s conservative chief of intelligence.

She later became a professor at Smith College in Massachusetts and George Washington University in Washington, D.C. For 16 years, she worked to clear her name and finally prevailed after Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson from Washington intervened on her behalf. She went to work for the U.S. Tariff Commission (now the International Trade Commission) and General Accounting Office, returning to the Seattle area after her retirement in 1984.

In addition to her nephew Robert Hadley, Ms. Hadley is survived by her nephew Scott Talley of Colorado Springs, Colo.; and nieces Alisa Scharnickel, of Arlington, and Lisa Hadley, of Honolulu.

Source: Web-archive copy of the Hadley obituary.

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Backstory: “The Purge of Hadley”

Source: Thiry, Martin. Chapter 2 “Eleanor Hadley: Anti-Trust in Occupation Japan”, Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy, US. 1946-1954: Three at the Intersection and What it Wrought. M.A. (History) Thesis, University of Hawai’i (August, 2007),  pp. 56-58.

…Hadley left Japan in September of 1947 to finish her doctorate at Harvard. The years ahead were black ones. She was recruited by the nascent CIA for analyst work, but she was unable to get a security clearance. She was turned down by several government agencies. She worked on the fringes of the Washington bureaucracy until 1956 when she got a job teaching at Smith College. In 1965 Henry “Scoop” Jackson took up her case. He was able to track down the retired Whitney who joined in the effort to clear her name. There was nothing in the GHQ-SCAP files to suggest disloyalty. At the end of 1966, through some machinations on the part of Jackson, Hadley was finally given her clearance. The years of banishment had been long. The climate in Washington had been harsh to one “under a cloud.” She had been blacklisted from before the coming of McCarthy and remained so long past his demise. Dean Rusk, an old college teacher, even refused his help.[214] “I was afraid to get a book out of the library (in those days)… [I] was miserable going through it,” Hadley remembers.

The mystery of why she had been blacklisted was eventually resolved. Major-General Charles Willoughby had been the head of SCAP’s Military Intelligence Section. Later an advisor to General Franco, he maintained extensive surveillance on Japanese radicals as well as reporting critically on American reformers within SCAP itself.[215] Willoughby was an ultraconservative and controlled censorship for SCAP[216] He had a personal rivalry with Whitney, which may have accounted for some of Government Section’s pursuit of reform: Whitney knew Willoughby would hate it. Willoughby brought extreme right-wing views and a Prussian bearing to his job. MacArthur called him “my lovable fascist.”[217]

Willoughby’s papers were declassified in 1975,[218] including a report on “Leftist infiltration into SCAP.” Hadley was mentioned. The concern was that she was dating a journalist. “Her relative immaturity… suggest the possibility.… [of] being exploited by leftists.”[219] Hadley shared her thoughts on Willoughby:

Hadley: Politics shaped his job. He was security. After five years of Mr. Bush we know how far security can be pushed. I enjoyed having dinner with foreign correspondents, US and European. It’s possible I said something one night. I was never informed about that.

Author: What were the specific accusations against you?

Hadley: No specific accusations whatsoever. It was all done very quietly. The black ball consisted of telling people in D.C. that I was doubtful. I “might” have spilled the beans, I “might” have been indiscreet, I “might” have indicated SCAP direction to foreign correspondents. All “might have’s”- Willoughby’s wonderment.

Author: Would you have led a different life if you had not been black balled?

Hadley: 17 years out of [one’s] most productive makes a dent.[220]

Without access to Willoughby’s files there is no way to confirm Hadley’s story. Still, I find it plausible. The forces around her, the clash of competing ideologies within SCAP and the US political scene, worked greater effects. I do not render judgment on the issue of zaibatsu dissolution. I simply do not know enough about it. What I do feel comfortable arguing is that the clash of ideologies within SCAP and beyond about zaibatsu dissolution became increasingly Orientalized the more it entered into the discourse of US domestic politics. And the more entrenched it became in US domestic politics the more Orientalized it became. The power of this convergence was more than enough to wreck Hadley’s career in government…

[214] Hadley, Memoir of a Trustbuster, 121-145.

[215] Bailey, Paul. Postwar Japan: 1945 to the Present. Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers (1995), 31.

[216] Dower, John. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II. New York: W.W. Norton and Compnay (1999), 406.

[217] Schaller, Michael. Douglas MacArthur: The Far Eastern General. Oxford: Oxford University Press (1989), 121.

[218] His papers are on file at the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, VA, but not on-line. http://www.macarthurmemorial.org/archives_record.asp (accessed 1/30/07).

[219] Hadley, Memoir of a Trustbuster, 146.

[220] Eleanor Hadley, “Telephone Interview With Eleanor Hadley 1/25/07” (Honolulu-Seattle).

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Image Source: From the website World War II Database. Archived copy at web.archive.org.

Categories
Economics Programs Graduate Student Support Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Chairman’s Report to the Dean. Harris, 1956

 

The previous post provided transcriptions of the annual reports to the Dean by the chairman of the economics department from 1932 through 1941. This post skips ahead to the middle of the 1950s to give us a glimpse of the post-war Harvard economics department. Seymour Harris’ big take-aways from his 45 year survey of undergraduate and graduate economics courses taught by Harvard economics faculty: (i) “the proportion of undergraduate courses given by full professors has fallen from 75 to 35 percent” and (ii) “graduate courses are relatively 5 times as numerous as they were in 1909-10.” (from July 3, 1956 cover letter to Dean McGeorge Bundy that accompanied the report transcribed below).

It is also interesting to note that the economics department’s continues to plead for more funds to compensate it for “…about one half the teaching burden of the G.S.P.A. and students in the G.S.P.A. account[ing] for about one third of all the graduate students in economics (on a full-time basis)…”. Harris wrote this report two decades after the Graduate School of Public Administration had opened for business.

____________________________

CONFIDENTIAL

June 30, 1956

Report to the Dean of the Faculty for the Academic Year 1955-56
by Seymour E. Harris, Chairman of the Department of Economics

Contents

Undergraduate Instruction

  1. More Mature Staff for Economics 1.
  2. Contents of Economics 1.
  3. Staff Meetings of Economics 1.
  4. Lectures in Economics 1.
  5. Economics Tutorial.
  6. High Honors Concentrators.
  7. Seminars for Honors Graduates.

Allocation of Resources

  1. Enrollment of Undergraduates in Graduate Courses and Vice Versa.
  2. Increase in the Number of Undergraduate Courses, 1909-10 to 1955-56.
  3. Increase in the Number of Graduate Courses, 1909-10 to 1955-56.
  4. Table 1 – Distribution of Courses by Academic Rank, 1909-10 to 1955-56.
  5. Table 2 – Courses Given by Faculty, 1909-10 to 1955-56, by Rank.
  6. Table 3 – Percentage of Courses, Undergraduate and Graduate.
  7. The Increased Importance of Graduate Instruction.
  8. Reduced Undergraduate Instruction by Higher Ranking Members of Faculty.
  9. Ibid., Statistical Summary.
  10. Number of Faculty by Rank.

Relations with G.S.P.A.

  1. Teaching Responsibilities of Economics Department in G.S.P.A.
  2. Contributions of G.S.P.A. to Economics Department.
  3. Overall Consideration of Number of G.S.P.A. Seminars.

Library Problems

  1. Library Problems.

Fellowships

  1. Inadequate Fellowships.
  2. Campaign for Additional Money.
  3. Outside Fellowships.

Research and Personnel Problems

  1. Competition of Research Fellowships for Potential Teachers.
  2. Research Projects.
  3. Financing of Pay of Director of Research Projects.
  4. Small Research Grants.
  5. Secretarial Help.
  6. Personnel Changes.
  7. Honors, etc.

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

Undergraduate Instruction

The Department is especially concerned with the problem of undergraduate instruction. Confronted with a trend away from economics the country over (see my Memo to the Alumni of the Harvard Graduate School in Economics, May, 1956, p. 4) and the competition of an unusually able corps of undergraduate teachers in competing fields at Harvard and notably in history and government we are paying increased attention to our undergraduate instruction. In the last year we have taken the following steps:

  1. More Mature Staff for Economics 1. We are using a larger proportion of instructors and assistant professors in Economics 1. We expect that half the Economics 1 staff will consist of instructors and assistant professors in 1956-57 as compared with 20 per cent in 1955-56.
  2. Contents of Economics 1. We are revising Economics 1 for 1956-57. Economics 1 has become too technical. One advantage of increasing the average age of the staff is that the older men are less inclined to teach the highly technical economics they get in graduate courses. Probably less than 20 per cent of those enrolled in Economics 1 are, or are likely to become, concentrators in economics; and no more than 1-2 per cent will become economists. Our major responsibility is to give the student in Economics 1 relatively simple economic theory and relate it to the major issues of public policy. We intend to devote more time to integrating our economics with history and political science. Macroeconomics will continue to receive a major part of our attention, but less time will be given to the economics of the firm.
  3. Staff Meetings of Economics 1. The Chairman now meets with the Economics 1 staff for 1½ hours every 2 weeks and in every possible way is trying to make the teaching fellow and other junior members, who contribute so much time and enthusiasm to our teaching program, feel as though they are an important part of our department staff.
  4. Lectures in Economics 1. This year we doubled our lectures in Economics 1 — a lecture every other week. In these lectures we try to go over ground not covered in the readings and also incidentally to give the undergraduate an opportunity to listen to some of the top economists in the country. We are now not disposed to increase the number of lectures further but we shall continue the experiment. Of this I am convinced — lectures are not likely to be as important in Economics 1 as in the elementary course in government and history (Social Science). The undergraduate probably gets much more from discussions of economics in small sections than from lectures.
  1. Economics Tutorial. Tutorial in economics is not as good as it ought to be. We are wrestling with this problem. We intend to have more meetings of tutors and to impress upon them the importance of tutorial. At one of our Executive Committee meetings, we had a frank discussion with the seven masters and several senior tutors concerning our tutorial work. Our Junior tests, tied to house tutorial, seem to be working well. This year we prepared an extensive reading list for Sophomore tutorial; and next year we intend to integrate tutorial and Economics 1 more than in the past. We hope that tutorial in the second half of the Sophomore year will deal with some of the theoretical problems that will be excluded from Economics 1.
  1. High Honors Concentrators. This year we had periodic meetings with all first and second group men in economics. At these meetings (one evening every two weeks) we try to encourage discussions of important problems in the seminar manner.
  1. Seminars for Honor Graduates. Economics 100 and 102 are two new courses (to be introduced in 1956-57 and 1957-58) to be open to Junior and Senior honors students. They will be run on a seminar basis, limited in enrollment, and will be integrated with tutorial. The student will get an opportunity to deal with theoretical problems and their empirical counterpart.

Allocation of Resources

  1. Enrollment of Undergraduates in Graduate Courses and Vice Versa. Here are some tables which throw some light on the allocation of resources between undergraduate and graduate courses. Generally courses for undergraduates and graduates are taken primarily by undergraduates, and courses for graduates primarily by graduates. Hence, we assume that the courses for undergraduates and graduates are in fact courses for undergraduates and courses for graduates are in fact courses for graduates. (In the spring term 1956 the percentage of Arts and Science graduate enrollment in courses for undergraduates and graduates was 14 or 1 per cent of the 1181 enrolled in these courses; the enrollment of undergraduates in courses primarily for graduates was 10 of 482, or 2 per cent).
  2. Increase in the Number of Undergraduate Courses, 1909-10 to 1955-56. Table 1 reveals relatively unimportant changes in the number of courses for undergraduates; and the net change in the number of courses for undergraduates and graduates (in fact undergraduate courses) in the last 40-50 years has not been large. In 1909-10, there were 10½ undergraduate courses (inclusive of half courses for undergraduates and graduates and exclusive of bracketed courses); in 1955-56, there were 14½ of such courses.
  3. Increase in the Number of Graduate Courses, 1909-10 to 1955-56. It is especially in graduate courses that the rise has been spectacular. In 1909-10 there were 1½ graduate courses in Economics (exclusive of bracketed ones); by 1929-30, there were 11; by 1939-40, there were 12½ courses; by 1949-50, there were 21½ courses; and by 1955-56, there were 24. All these totals include half courses.
  1. Table 1 — Distribution of Courses by Academic Rank, 1909-10 to 1955-56*
    (Refers to Units of Full Courses)
  1909-10 1919-20 1929-30 1939-40 1949-50 1955-56
Rank U G U G U G U G U G U G
Full Prof. 8 1 3 7 4 ½ 7 7 ¼ 16 ¾ 8 15 ¼ 5 18
Assoc. Prof. — — — — 3 3 3 ¼ 1 ¾ 1 3 ¼ 3 2 ½
Asst. Prof. 1 ½ ½ 3 ½ 2 ½ 1 — ½ — 2 ½ — 4 2
Instructor & Lecturer 1 — 3 1 1 ½ 1 1 ½ 1 3 3 2 ½ 1 ½
Total 10 ½ 1 ½ 9 ½ 10 ½ 10 11 12 ½ 19 ½ 14 ½ 21 ½ 14 ½ 24
  1. Table 2 — Courses Given by Faculty, 1909-10 to 1955-56, by Rank*
    (Refers to Nearest Decimal point)
  1909-10 1919-20 1929-30 1939-40 1949-50 1955-56
Rank U G U G U G U G U G U G
Full Prof. 76 66 32 67 45 64 58 86 55 73 35 75
Assoc. Prof. — — — — 30 27 26 9 7 14 21 10
Asst. Prof. 14 — 36 24 10 — 4 — 17 — 27 8
Instructor & Lecturer 10 34 32 9 15 9 12 5 21 13 17 7
Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

* U = “undergraduate” and “undergraduate and graduate”;  G = “graduate”.
Source: Compiled from Course of Study Volumes.

  1. Table 3 — Percentage of Courses, Undergraduate and Graduate
Total No. of Courses % of Total Courses
(Exclusive of Bracketed Courses)
“Undergraduate” and
“Undergraduate & Graduate”		 Graduate
(Inclusive of G.S.P.A. Economics Courses)
1909-10 12 88 12
1929-30 21 56 44
1939-40 32 39 61
1949-50 36 41 59
1955-56 38½ 38 62

From 1909 to 1929-30 the percentage of graduate courses was up from 12 to 44 per cent; but since 1929-30 the rise has been less spectacular. In Table 2, we note the courses, both undergraduate and graduate, given by men of various rank, from 1909-10 to 1955-56. The following points should be noted.

  1. The Increased Importance of Graduate Instruction. In 1909-10 there were but 1½ out of 12 courses, or 12 per cent, graduate courses. By 1929-30 courses were roughly evenly divided between graduate and undergraduate. By 1939-40 and 1949-50 the ratio was about 60 per cent graduate courses; and by 1955-56, 62 per cent of all courses were graduate courses, or 5 times as much relatively as in 1909-10.
  2. Reduced Undergraduate Instruction by Higher Ranking Members Faculty. Whereas in 1909-10 full professors accounted for 76 per cent of undergraduate course work, by 1955-56 they gave only 35 per cent of these courses; and there has been a marked decline since 1949-50. The total of undergraduate courses taught by them dropped from 1949-50 to 1955-56 by 3, or 37 per cent, and of graduate courses rose by 2¾ or 18 per cent. A similar trend is evident for associate professors, though from 1949-50 to 1955-56, the percentage of undergraduate courses taught by associate professors rose. It is a striking fact that in 1955-56, full professors taught 37 per cent less undergraduate courses and 1700 per cent more graduate courses than in 1909-10. In the former year there were 4 full professors, each responsible on the average for 2 full undergraduate courses and ¼ graduate courses. In 1955-56, 13 full professors averaged 1/3 of 1 undergraduate course and 1.4 graduate courses. (All 13 were not on full time). It is clear that the trend is away from undergraduate teaching for permanent members of the Department.
  3. Ibid., Statistical Summary. As might be expected, the percentage of all graduate courses taught by full professors tends to rise and of undergraduate courses to fall — the latter courses taught by professors declined from 76 per cent in 1909-10 to 45 per cent in 1929-30, and to 35 per cent by 1955-56.
  4. Number of Faculty by Rank. In this connection, the number at different ranks is of some interest. The full professors account for a somewhat larger proportion (teaching fellows omitted) than 50 years ago; but permanent appointments are an increased percentage.
  1909-10 1929-30 1939-40 1949-50 1955-56
Professors 4 5 12 13 13
Assoc. Professors — 3 3 2 4
Asst. Professors 1 2 1 4 4
Lecturers and Instructors 3 2 3 4 3
Visiting, etc. Professors 2
(part-time)		 3
(part-time)		 — — 1
Total (excl. Visiting) 8 12 19 23 24
———— ———— ———— ———— ———— ————
% Full Prof. (excl. Visiting) 50 42 63 57 54
% Permanent (incl. Permanent Lecturers) 50 67 89 74 75

Relations with the Graduate School of Public Administration

  1. Teaching Responsibilities of Economics Department in G.S.P.A. Our relations with the G.S.P.A. are of great importance. It is now close to 20 years since the G.S.P.A. was founded and yet the Department of Economics has never taken a long look at our relations. The Economics Department accounts for about one half the teaching burden of the G.S.P.A. and students in the G.S.P.A. account for about one third of all the graduate students in economics (on a full-time basis).
  2. Contributions of G.S.P.A to Economics Department. The G.S.P.A. has made an important contribution towards the Economics Department. It provides some research and secretarial help, good physical facilities, useful library, central facilities for students and faculty, an opportunity to give our students excellent seminars, and to meet outstanding scholars and practical men in government.
  3. Over-all Consideration of Number of G.S.P.A. Seminars. It may be that a decision should be made concerning the number of seminars. We tend to add one at a time, and the numbers now are at such a level that we may be putting a disproportionate amount of energy into these seminars. At any rate, net additions should be considered with care, given our available manpower. At present only 6 of the 18 permanent members of our faculty are not associated with the G.S.P.A.; and of the 6, Professors Dorfman and Duesenberry are about to participate. Of 27 courses to be given by permanent members of the Department, 7¼ will be as seminars in the G.S.P.A.

Library Problems

  1. Library Problems. Professor Arthur Cole retires this year. He has for many years been responsible for the acquisition of books in economics. Unless this responsibility is assumed by another, our economic collection will deteriorate. So far we have not been able to work out an arrangement acceptable to the Dean and the Director of the library. In my opinion, there is need for a central responsibility for library acquisitions in economics.

Fellowships

  1. Inadequate Fellowships. One of our most serious problems is fellowships. A study of fellowship funds announced as available to students suggested that Harvard was falling way behind. In a recent period of 5 years, five institution which are our strongest competitors had 30, 23, 20, 10, and 5 times as much money available for fellowships per Ph.D. granted in these five years. Increasingly we are losing the best students to rival institutions.
  2. Campaign for Additional Money. We have discussed this problem with Dean Bundy and Dean Elder, and also with our Visiting Committee. We have set up a committee consisting of Dean Mason, Professors Slichter, Dunlop and Harris to seek aggressively more fellowship funds. We are seeking these funds in the expectation that the major part of new funds will be available as additional funds for the Economics Department. Our goal is 6 fellowships at $2500 per year, or $15,000 per year additional. We discovered last year that by offering large fellowships to a limited number, we were more successful than in the past in attracting the more able candidates.
  3. Outside Fellowships. Our fellowship problem is eased by the availability of fellowships given by outside groups — governments, foundations etc. For example, Harvard received 5 of the 15 Wilson National fellowships for 1956-57. But it should be observed that there is often pressure to deny applicants access to the major universities and especially to Harvard. There is pressure to distribute widely, Moreover, a large proportion of these fellowship holders are often below our usual fellowship standards.

Research and Personnel Problems

  1. Competition of Research Fellowship Money for Potential Teachers. It is becoming increasingly easy for graduate students writing theses to receive fellowships that generally pay at least as much as a teaching fellowship. This year we lost 10 potential teachers as a result of these lucrative fellowships.
  2. Research Projects. Many of the Senior members of the staff are associated with large research projects, some of them of great significance. At least 9 of these projects may be classified as giant projects, three of them involving outlays of one half million or more dollars in the next 3-5 years. In 1955-56, Professor Leontief received almost one half million dollars to continue the projects of the Harvard Economic Group, and Dean Mason received $450,000 for a study of the New York Metropolitan area.
  3. Financing of Pay of Directors of Projects. It has always seemed to the Chairman, at least, that the foundations ought to pay part of the salary of the faculty members who direct these projects. When these projects are the major interest of those responsible for them, a case could be made for the foundation paying part of the salary of the relevant members of the faculty.
  4. Small Research Grants. It would be helpful to get some help from the Ford Foundation for small research projects especially for those who do not participate in the giant projects. I have had some preliminary discussion with the Ford Foundation, and I believe they would look with favor on an application for $25,000-30,000 per year for research help. Grants might vary from a few hundred dollars to $1,000-2,000 and be tied with specific projects. The great danger here is abuse of the privileges. Hence any such grant would have to be carefully administered – with some representation of outside economists on the committee.
  5. Secretarial Help. A related problem is that of secretarial help. Most of the Senior members, through administrative posts, control of seminars, editorial work, and research grants, manage to get the minimum amount of secretarial help. But 5 of our permanent members have virtually no access to secretaries and this is also true of most of our assistant professors. It would be helpful if some provision could be made for secretarial help for those without it. We realize this raises serious problems of finance.
  6. Personnel Changes. Professor Hansen retires this year and Professor Williams next year. We thus lose the best combination in money, cycles, and fiscal policy available anywhere. It is going to be difficult to fill this gap. Professor Black’s departure has also left a serious gap. We have added 2 very able assistant professors, Drs. J. Henderson and Valavanis, aside from two appointments (Drs. Moses and Conrad) in which the Economics Department shares one quarter of the cost. For 1957-58 and 1958-59, the Economics Department will have the services of Dr. E. Hoover for 3/7 of his time. We probably have the most able group of assistant professors in our history. It is not going to be easy to fill the gaps noted above, and make the most effective use of the young talent now in the Department. The Visiting Committee is again raising the question of a Professor of Business Enterprise, a matter to which we should give earnest attention. President Conant and Provost Buck were apparently prepared at the last discussion of this problem to provide an additional appointment for this purpose.
  7. Honors, etc. Dean Mason received an honorary degree from Harvard, and was a United States Representative at the United Nations Conference in Geneva on Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy.

Professor Hansen gave the Walgreen lectures at the University of Chicago.

Professor Harris served as Chairman of the Nor England Governors” Textile Committee,

Professor Galbraith advised the Indian Government on their Five Year Plan.

Professor Smithies was a Visiting Professor at Oxford and Professor

Kaysen at the London School of Economics.

 

Books:

Galbraith and Holton: Marketing Efficiency in Puerto Rico.

Harris: Keynes: Economist and Policy Maker.

Harris: New England Textiles and the New England Economy: Report to the Conference of New England Governors.

Kaysen: United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corporation: An Economic Analysis of an Anti-Trust Case.

Kaysen and Harris were two of the four co-authors of the American Business Creed.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2,  Folder: “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean, 1955-”.

Image Source: Seymour E. Harris in The Harvard Class Album 1957.

 

Categories
Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Chair annual reports to Dean, 1932-1941

 

This post takes us from the trough of the Great Depression to the eve of the U.S. entry into the Second World War. The items below are transcriptions of copies of reports written by the Harvard economics department chairmen of the time (Harold Hitchings Burbank (a.k.a. Burbie to his Buds) and Edward Hastings Chamberlin. Some chest-thumping, some whining, no notes of irony and definitely no flashes of wit…we all know this art form. Nevertheless some raw intelligence of value for working historians of economics of the present and future.

____________________________

November 12, 1932

Dear Dean Murdock,

Under the Faculty vote of December, 1931, the Chairman of each Department is requested to report in each half year to the Dean of the Faculty on the working of the plan recommended by the Committee on Instruction concerning Hour Examinations and Other Course Requirements. My report for the Department of Economics follows.

Acting on the Report from the Committee on Instruction, the Department of Economics on January 12, 1932 voted to observe the recommendations of the Committee. Following the Department meeting, I reported to you to the effect that the requirements of the Department of Economics were substantially in accord with the principles laid down by the Committee on Instruction. Ordinarily, we require not more than one Hour Examination in any one half year; ordinarily, we require not more than one thesis or report in any one half year. It is the standing rule of the Department of Economics and of the Division of History, Government, and Economics, that Senior candidates for Honors, who are writing Honors theses, shall be excused from the writing of any theses in courses within the Division. After a long discussion and with considerable reluctance, the Department voted that for Seniors who are candidates for Honors in the Division, Hour Examinations in courses within the Department shall be optional.

The vote of the Department was made known immediately to the students and observed in all of our undergraduate course (not of an introductory nature) during the second half of last year, and it is being observed in the current half year.

In the Division of History, Government, and Economics, we have had for many years a rule that all Seniors in good standing shall be exempted from final examinations in courses within the Division in their last half year. The result has been, of course, that after the April Hour Examinations, Seniors have paid little attention to courses within in the Division, and their attendance has been hardly more than occasional. The members of the Department who are more interested in courses than in General Examinations, and who perhaps doubt the efficacy of General Examinations, view this situation with increasing criticism.

When the Department voted the making of Hour Examinations optional for Seniors who are candidates for Honors, the doubting members were highly critical, fearing that our courses elected largely by Seniors would be entirely disrupted. From all that I can learn, I cannot see that there have been any untoward or undesirable results. In most of our “Senior” courses, the attendance until the Easter recess was satisfactory. Honors candidates attended lectures and, I believe, completed most of the required readings. Their records on the General Examinations were excellent. The Honors theses were among the best we have ever had.

A number of members of my Department and not a few members of the Departments of History and Government are strongly opposed to the new order. They make the point that we have in substance permitted an additional reduction in courses, that Senior Honor candidates are simply required to register in courses, but they have nether to attend them nor to do the work. All of these allegations are true enough, but it seems to me they are beside the point. To the extent that we have confidence in our examiners and tutors, I do not believe that in effect the requirements regarding the quality and quantity or work have been reduced.

The Department of History has recommended to the other departments of the Division the consideration of a motion which would require all senior candidates for Honors to complete whatever courses in History they elect. I think that probably the departments of the Division will consider in full detail the questions this motion involves.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

1933
[not found]

A copy of the report is not found with the others included in this post: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1934

Dear Dean Murdock,

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics:

In this period of rapid economic evolution the problems presented to a group of university economists are both stimulating and perplexing. The changing pattern of our social and economic structure offers new data for analysis and at the same time calls for a testing of principle that involves new fields for both teaching and research.

There have been few periods in modern history more difficult to interpret, yet the responsibility for interpretation seems foremost among the duties devolving upon educational institutions. For many years the keystone of the introductory course in economics has been that the community has the right to expect political and economic leadership from the graduates of its colleges. Our undergraduate courses are directed toward the attainment of this end. But the teaching of political economy is an art not easily mastered even by those who give abundant evidence of intellectual leadership. In the instruction of undergraduates and in the training of teachers and scholars in our graduate school, the difficulties inherent in our subject must not be overlooked. The presentation of the data of economics makes demands upon the staff not felt in many other departments of the University. Looking toward the strengthening of our undergraduate instruction, the Department is now associating a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are now in charge of the large lecture courses. In Money and Banking, in the Relations of Government to Industry, and in Public Finance, this experiment is advanced sufficiently to indicate its desirability.

At the same time that our teaching problems have become intensified the need for the results of research is pressing. In periods of accelerated social evolution involving political and economic experimentation, the demand for accurate data is insistent. Relatively, economics is a young science. The foundations of fact are still being established. Investigations that may have an important bearing upon government policy should not be delayed. The economists of this University have contributed largely to their subject, but always with scant facilities in material equipment and in time.

Among the many problems confronting us as a group, that of securing the time necessary for research is perhaps the most troublesome. To our exacting teaching requirements must be added the demands for public service. Since the establishment of this Department, the requests for such service heave been continuous. Of late the increasing calls have raised a question which must be considered by the University administration. The opportunities for service to governments are gratifying. Undoubtedly these services belong among the necessary functions of a university. But obviously they do divert a considerable part of our time and energy from our strictly defined duties. Over the years the University is enriched by such services, but at any given time the responsibilities attaching to teaching and research are interrupted. If the University Includes public service among its important functions, the personnel of the staffs affected should be so adjusted that the work can be performed without overtaxing our internal activities.

During the past your, the leave of absence of Professor John M. Williams was continued to allow him to serve as Economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to advise on monetary and credit policies, and to direct research. In the latter part of the year, Professor Williams was called by the Department of State to investigate certain conditions in Brazil, Uraguay [sic], Argentina, and Chili [sic]  and to formulate policies of exchange controls. Daring the second half-year, Assistant Professor Edward H. Chamberlin was granted leave of absence to work with the Committee on Government Statistics and Information Services in Washington. Also, during the second half-year, though leave was not requested, Assistant Professor William T. Ham was in Washington frequently, serving as a member of the staff of the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. And also, though no leave was requested, Professor John D. Black devoted a substantial part of the year to public service. He served on a number of committees connected with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and land utilization. At the request of Secretary Wallace, he organized and directed the activities of committees outlining programs of economic research in (1) the marketing of farm products and (2) farm population and rural life. Also at the request of the Secretary of Agriculture, he served with two others to coordinate the work of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of the United States Department of Agriculture. In the summer months, Drs. Alan Sweezy and Lauchlin B. Currie were called to the Treasury Department to serve as special investigators.

Owing to his illness, Professor Emeritus William Z. Ripley was unable to fulfill his duties as President of the American Economic Association. In his absence, Professor Abbott P. Usher, first Vice-President of the Association, was in charge of the December, 1933 session.

Notable among our publications of the year were Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy, by S. E. Harris, and The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, by E. H. Chamberlin. Because of its significance for immediate practical application, I am including at this point the Report of the Committee on Model State and Local Taxation, by Professor C. J. Bullock’s committee of the National Tax Association. Also at this point, mention should be made of Economics of the Recovery Program, by seven members of the Department. In the course of the year, about forty-five articles were contributed to scientific journals by various members of the Department.

Within the limitations described above, the research work of the staff is going forward at a satisfactory rate. Investigations in the following subjects are well advanced: History of the Industrial Revolution; Development of Banking and Credit in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Evolution of English Company Law; Economic Fluctuations; Nature and Effects of Inflation; Index Numbers; Municipal Ownership of Public Utilities; State and Local Taxation; Unbalanced Budgets; The National Income; New England Agriculture; The Economics of Agricultural Production; German Trade Unionism; The Fundamentals of Sociology; Economics and Politics; Socialism as an International Movement.

A considerable number of these projects are nearing completion and should be ready for publication shortly. A large project on the relation of Government to Industry involving the efforts of a number of the staff is in its initial stages. This subject is of such immediate importance that other plans for research are being put aside until it can be carried to its completion. The Quarterly Journal of Economies has continued its usual high standard. During the year, five substantial volumes were added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

Again I would press the point that the potential research capacity of the Department is severely handicapped by the demands of teaching and public service.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 18, 1935

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

In the report of last year the effects of the contemporary political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research were discussed briefly. More than ever we are aware of the responsibilities incumbent upon the teacher of Economics in this period of rapid and far-reaching change. Our undergraduate instruction had been, and is, receiving particular attention. A few years ago we began experimentally the association of a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are nominally in charge of the larger lecture courses. We are quite convinced that this method of instruction is most effective. Also there is a positive, although perhaps incidental, advantage in this arrangement in that it relieves the pressure for the multiplication of undergraduate courses.

I find it necessary to stress again the problem presented by the demands upon our staff for services to the public. We believe that public service belongs among the necessary functions of a university. But under existing conditions large demands for public service at any given time bring serious interruptions to both research and instruction. “If the University includes public service among its important functions the personnel of the staffs affected should be so adjusted that the additional work can be performed without taxing severely our internal activities.”

I am very happy, to write that Professor Chamberlin’s “The Theory of Monopolistic Competition”, published somewhat over a year ago, has won immediate recognition as a foremost contribution to economic theory. During the past year two books of unusual importance have appeared,—Professor John D. Black, “The Dairy Industry and the A.A.A.”, and Professor Sumner Slichter, “Towards Stability”. Six manuscripts have been completed, and should appear in book form during the present year. It is significant that five of these books have been written by the younger members of our Department whose teaching duties have been mainly of a tutorial nature. Among the publications I should note the report submitted to the Treasury Department on the “Objectives and Criteria of Monetary Policy” by Dr. Alan Sweezy, and the report to the State Department on “Foreign Exchange Control in Latin America” by Professor John Williams.

In addition to the above volumes and reports the members of the Department published somewhat over fifty articles in the scientific journals of our subject. Some of these contributions are of major importance.

The investigations of the staff are being carried forward as satisfactorily as possible with the limited facilities that are at our disposal. Two researches on a very large scale have to do with the general subject of the Trade Cycle and the Relation of Government to Industry. Numerous important, but less extensive, investigations are in process.

Perhaps I should note here that a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation enabled the Department to undertake the continuation of the Review of Economic Statistics and the fundamental research that is involved in this publication, The Quarterly Journal of Economics long published by the members of this Department, together with the Review of Economic Statistics, are among the more important activities of the Department. In the course of the year three volumes more added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

As in my last report, I would again bring to your attention the disturbing fact that the potential research capacity of the Department is handicapped severely by the demands of administration, teaching, and public service.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1936

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

I find it necessary to emphasize again the effects of the contemporary political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research. It had been necessary to bring these matters to your attention in both of the preceding years, since they present such important problems to us. We feel an increasingly positive responsibility regarding out undergraduate instruction in this period of rapid and far-reaching change.

We have continued the experiment begun some few years ago of the association of a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are in charge of the large lecture courses. We believe that we are improving our instruction by this method, and at the same time this arrangement tends to relieve the pressure for the multiplication of undergraduate courses.

Perhaps as a result of the general social situation the elections of our undergraduate courses and the number of concentrators in Economics have increased very heavily. The problems of instruction presented by these overwhelming numbers are intensified perhaps by the personnel situation in which the Department finds itself. During the last dozen years the personnel of this Department—one of the largest in the University—has been changed completely. For a quarter of a century a group of eminent economists brought great prestige to the University. With the resignation of Professor Gay the active services of this group has come to an end. One cannot speak of replacing these scholars. They were unique both as individuals and as a group. Their leadership and their scholarship has left a lasting impression on the development of Economics. In the course of the passing of this group a now Department has been brought together. This new and younger Department is assuming full responsibility at the very time when questions of teaching and new methods of research are becoming insistent.

The demands upon members of our staff for public service continue. It has seemed expedient to encourage some few members to give their time and energy for public purposes. But with a minimum teaching force it has not been possible for all members of the Department to comply with the requests made. The public service relations of faculty members remains a question for the University to consider.

The Quarterly Journal of Economics celebrates this year its fiftieth anniversary. For forty years this Journal has won and held its prestige under the editorship of Professor F. W. Taussig. Professor Taussig, now emeritus, has graciously consented to continue as editor during the present year, but very shortly it will be necessary for us to provide for the editorial direction of this very important publication.

In an earlier report to you I indicated the activities of the Department in connection with the Review of Economic Statistics. The scientific work underlying this publication, as well as the journal itself, is now under the direction of a committee of the Department. The Review continues as a vehicle of publication of the results of investigations here and elsewhere regarding the business cycle. We have ambitious plans for the Review, and we have every reason to believe that its scientific usefulness will increase.

There is little question that, the research activities of practically all members of the staff have been curtailed by the heavy teaching loads which have been imposed. However, the research programs of various members and of various groups within the Department have shown marked progress in the past year. As I have indicated in an earlier report the research activities of our members are of two somewhat different types. Numerous members of the staff working altogether independently are pursuing their own researches while others working as a group are developing particular aspects of a well devised project in research. In the social sciences this latter type of work is rapidly assuming importance. In general it is this type of research which receives the support of the large foundations. Within our own group there are a number of projects of this character. Messrs. Mason, Chamberlin, Wallace, Cassels, Reynolds, and Alan Sweezy are developing Industrial Organization and Control. In the process of the exploration of this subject numerous independent volumes and studies will appear. Professors Mason, Chamberlin and Dr. Wallace are already well advanced in their study of monopolistic combinations and expect to complete it in about one year. Professor Cassels and Dr. Reynolds expect to finish their study on Canadian combinations this year, and Dr. Alan Sweezy is at work on investment policies. Dr. Wallace’s monograph, Market Control in the Aluminum Industry, is now going to press, and Dr. Abbott’s monograph on The Rise of the Business Corporation has just appeared and is being, used by our undergraduate courses. The full development of this program will take a number of years, but its completion will mark, I believe, a very significant chapter in research in the relation of government to industry.

Another cooperative project on the Farm Credit Administration is being carried on by Professors Black and Harris and Dr. Galbraith, largely with the assistance of grants from the Committee on Research in the Social Sciences. Professor Black is working on the cooperative aspects of the Farm Credit Administration’s policies. Professor Harris is working on the monetary and recovery aspects of the Farm Credit Administration’s loan operations. Dr. Galbraith is working on the structural aspects of the Farm Credit Administration and the mortgage, credit and production loan policies. Numerous articles resulting from this research have been published in scientific periodicals.

Professors Crum, Wilson, and Black are conducting a study of the relation of weather and other natural phenomena with the economic cycle. This study is partly financed by the United States Department of Agriculture.

I believe I have mentioned to you and to President Conant in conversation the plans which are being developed for large research projects in collaboration with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In addition to these cooperative projects all members of the Department are pursuing work along the lines of their individual interests. Professor Schumpeter’s study of time series and cyclical fluctuations is practically completed, and he hopes to send it to press by December. Professor Haberler’s major contribution—The Theory of International Trade and Its Application to Commercial Policy has been translated and is now available in English. For the past two years Professor Haberler has been working at Geneva on the Nature and Causes of the Recurrence of Economic Depressions which is soon to be published by the League of Nations. We are hoping to provide facilities for him so that the important research may be continued at Harvard. Professor Frickey’s study on a Survey of Time Series Analysis and Its Relation to Economic Theory is well advanced. The statistical work on the first volume has been completed, and he hopes to have it written by the middle of this present academic year. The statistical work on the second volume has been completed in part. Already two significant articles have been published. Professor Cole’s recent study in Fluctuations in American Business, written in collaboration with Professor W. B. Smith, was published late in 1935. Dr. Oakes’ investigations in Massachusetts Town Finance, the winner of the Wells Prize for 1935-36, is now being printed. Professor Chamberlin has continued to elaborate his Theory of Monopolistic Competition which is winning wide recognition among economist the world over. Numerous articles, some sixty in number, from members of the staff have appeared in various scientific periodicals in the course of the year.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

[Separate sheet following: I should have included Professor Harris’ Exchange Depreciation, Its Theory and History. We believe that this new book, which is being published today, will take Its place beside the significant contributions Professor Harris has made in the last half-dozen years, particularly his Monetary Problems of the British Empire and Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy.]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

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October 21, 1937

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

Previous reports of the Department of Economics have brought to your attention the effect of the political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research. It is still necessary to point out that the positive responsibility of the Department regarding undergraduate instruction has not lessened.

The election of our undergraduate courses remains at substantially the high level of recent years, while the number of concentrators continues to increase.

Last year I mentioned that with the resignation of Professor Gay the active services of the senior members of this Department, had come to an end. At this point it seems necessary to put into writing a matter I have discussed with you in conversation which has important ramifications. Coincident with the resignation of Professor Gay there were increased elections in certain of our courses that involve a large degree of individual instruction and also on an increase in the number of students demanding tutorial supervision. To meet these latter problems it was necessary to add to our staff a group of young men to carry on the instruction in the elementary course, Accounting, Statistics, Money and Banking, and so on. With increased numbers in courses demanding increased instruction, increased cost cannot be avoided; but it seems to us that this increasing cost because of increasing should not result in less effective intellectual leadership. To transfer a considerable part of the salary released by a retiring professor of distinguished accomplishment to the support of routine instruction in middle group courses seems to us not to be wise University policy.

Professor Taussig has resigned as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economies. For the time being, committee of the Department will undertake the editorial direction of this publication.

The Review of Economic Statistics, which appears under the direction of a committee of the Department, is financed by funds from the Rockefeller Foundation. Should the grant be continued, it is expected that the research activities of the committee will be increased.

Not less than ten members of the Department are concerned with the activities of the Graduate School of Public Administration. In some instances—as in the case of Dean Williams—their work in the School has been compensated by a reduction of work in the Department, but for the most part the activities in the new School are simply in addition to the duties of the staff members.

The Committee on Research in the Social Sciences, of which Professor Black is Chairman, is working in close cooperation with the National Bureau of Economic Research and its cooperating University agencies. Principle among them is the project upon Fiscal Policy for which Professor Crum is acting as Chairman.

The responsibilities and activities of members of the Department tend in some instances to change the direction of our research, but in only too many instances they also tend to retard our research.

In all directions, however, the research activities of the members of the Department were sustained, with six books and approximately sixty articles appearing. Special mention should he made of the following books:

Three Years of the AAA by John D. Black

A Study of Fluid Milk Prices by John M. Cassels. Wells Prize Essay of 1934-35

Professor Chamberlin’s significant volume, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition has been revised.

Prosperity and Depression by Gottfried Haberler

Exchange Depreciation by S. E. Harris. (Came from the press last fall, and mentioned a year ago.)

Studies in Massachusetts Town Finance by E. E. Oakes. Wells Prize Essay of 1935-36

Professor Schumpeter’s book on Business Cycles has been completed, and is now ready for the press.

Economic History of Europe since 1750 by Usher, Bowden, and Karpovich

Explorations in Economics. Essays in Honor of F. W. Taussig contains contributions by most of the members of the staff.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1938

Dear Dean Birkhoff,

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

As in previous years I am very happy, to be able to record that the research activities of the officers of the Department have been sustained. In the last two years I have been, able to enumerate an unusually large number of books actually published together with numerous contributions to our periodical literature. In the present year the number of volumes is smaller since the research activities of our staff are still in process. The most notable volumes are Professor Hansen’s Full Recovery or Stagnation and Professor Wallace’s Market Control in the Aluminum Industry. Professor Haberler devoted the major part of the year, and spent the summer abroad, revising his Prosperity and Depression. Also the volume by Professor Crum and Associates on Economic Statistics has been revised.

In all, some fifty or sixty periodical contributions have been made by members of the staff. Notable among these contributions have been the articles by Professor Slichter on “The Downturn of 1937” in the Review of Economic Statistics for August, 1938.

It fell to the lot of the officers of this Department, together with the officers of the Department of Government, to develop instruction in the Littauer School of Public Administration during the past year. Without going into the details of the principles upon which this instruction is based, it may be noted that research courses of a very advanced nature constitute the core of the work of the School. Professors Williams, Hansen, Black, Mason, Slichter, and Wallace are devoting a considerable proportion of their time to this work. It is expected and hoped that these activities will result in an increase in our contributions.

The grant of funds from the Rockefeller Foundation to subsidize the research underlying the Review of Economic Statistics expired with the closing of the fiscal year. This contribution made it possible to continue the Review, and to maintain the scholarly level of the contributions. In the course of the year the Review published a number of the contributions of the staff. Other contributions are nearing completion, and will be published in the present year. The accomplishments or Professors Crum and Haberler as Managing Editors of the Review should be noted. They have succeeded in restoring the very high level of scholarship which characterized the Review a decade ago. We believe that the Review in its present form adds materially to the prestige of the Department and the University.

Also I am happy to note that the Quarterly Journal of Economics under its new editorial staff is maintaining its high position.

There is little to be added to the points which have been discussed in previous reports. The Department finds itself fully occupied with the continuation of its traditional activities and the assumption of such new duties as are involved in the Graduate School of Public Administration. If the personnel of the Department remains constant, it will be necessary to reduce our activities, either in research, in teaching, or in both.

Last fall at a dinner of the Committee to Visit the Department of Economics I reported in some detail regarding the increasing activities of members of the Department. This report led to the appointment of a committee to investigate the budgetary situation of the Department. The investigation conducted under the direction of Mr. George May of Price, Waterhouse, made some very interesting disclosures regarding the increasing load of the Department.

I believe that problems of undergraduate and graduate instruction, the tutorial situation, and the public service contributions of our members have been discussed sufficiently in previous reports. I can only repeat that “there is little question that the research activities of practically all members of the staff have been curtailed by the heavy loads of teaching and administration.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

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October 16, 1939

Dear Dean Ferguson:

In accord with your recent request, I submit herewith a report of the work by the Department of Economies for the past year.

Honors have been bestowed upon members of the Department as follows: Professor Schumpeter has received an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and Professor Leontief has been elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Professor Williams was elected a Vice-President of the American Economic Association.

In the field of publications, the outstanding event is the final appearance of Professor Schumpeter’s two volume work on Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalistic Process. The fruition of years of study and research, this book is of especial interest as the first major work of Professor Schumpeter in the English language, his well-known Theory of Economic Development having appeared first in German before its translation into English much later. Other books actually appearing within the academic year (the fall of 1938) were referred to in our last report, such as Professor Hansen’s Full Recovery or Stagnation?, a revision of the volume on Economic Statistics by Professor Crum and associates, and a new, enlarged and revised edition of Prosperity and Depression by Professor Haberler (published by the League of Nations). During the year arrangements have been completed for the translation into Japanese of A History of Mechanical Inventions by Professor Usher. For some years Professor Emeritus F. W. Taussig has been at work on a thorough-going revision of his textbook on the Principles of Economics. Volume I appeared last spring, Volume 2 is in the press and will appear very shortly. This much needed revision (the last was in 1921) may regain for Professor Taussig’s text some of the preeminence it held in an earlier period before it had become so badly out of date. Politics, Finance and Consequences by Professor Emeritus C. J. Bullock, the result of continuing research since his retirement, has been published during the past year in the Harvard Economic Studies. A book of which Mr. Paul M. Sweezy was a prominent co-author, An Economic Program for American Democracy, is popularly supposed to have been influential in putting the stamp of economic authority upon recent economic policies of the Federal Government. Finally, some sixty-odd articles, addresses, and reviews by members of the Department have appeared in journals, both professional and popular, during the past year.

A matter not mentioned in our last report was a new policy adopted by the Quarterly Journal of Economics of publishing at intervals of approximately one year a series of supplements devoted to articles and studies of interest to scholars but of such length as to make their publication in the regular issues impractical. These supplements are sent to subscribers without charge, and additional copies are sold separately. The first of these appeared in May 1938, Rudimentary Mathematics for Economists and Statisticians by Professor Crum. Two other manuscripts have been accepted and will appear shortly.

The Committee on Problems of the Business Cycle has carried on the publication of the quarterly Review of Economic Statistics but because of the expiration of its grant of research money many of its new research investigation have been greatly curtailed. Quarterly issues of the Review of Economic Statistics, in addition to carrying the studies of current economic history which present a quarterly record of economic statistics for the United States with their interpretation, have published a wide range of articles on various aspects of the trade cycle problem. Several of these articles have been contributed by foreign specialists but more than half were produced by American writers (in this connection we may note that about one-fourth of the subscribers are located abroad). In addition to the normal research activities involved in studying current history the Committee has financed during the year a continuation of the special investigation by Dr. J. B. Hubbard of the remarkable developments in the issuance of securities since 1933. A further article in Dr. Hubbard’s series will appear in the issue of November 1939.

Mention has been made in previous reports of the burden placed upon particular members of the Department and thus upon the group as a whole by the responsibilities of public service. These responsibilities have continued and expanded during the past year. The adjustment of this burden is a pressing problem. Its immediate influence upon both teaching and research is adverse, yet no ready solution appears at hand. The additional burden of uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration presents an even more serious problem. For the most part the seminars and other activities of this School constitute a net additional load for those members of the Department responsible for them, and inevitably throw a heavier burden of administrative and other work upon others not directly concerned. Budgetary allowance for courses given within the School is an obvious answer to this problem, whenever it may become possible.

You have asked, among other things. for an account of “any changes in the methods of instruction”, of the Department. The changes here have been revolutionary. Over a long period of years there has been built up in the Department a staff of trained instructors and tutors, carrying on established traditions of teaching and constantly experimenting in the adaptation of methods to new problems. These men were sifted constantly, and the best of them retained for a substantial period, after which, if not advanced, they were without exception placed to advantage elsewhere. In view of the singular success with which in the past the personnel problem has been handled in Economics, it is not surprising that the Department is unanimous in viewing with dismay and discouragement the situation in which we now find ourselves. Fifteen teachers and tutors at the instructor or assistant professor level have left us within the past year, seven the preceding year. The general effect upon teaching may be indicated by the tutorial situation. Sixty-seven per cent of the students concentrating in Economics this year are tutored by men of two years or less experience, forty-three per cent by men of no tutorial experience whatsoever, Furthermore, it has been our policy in the past to stagger new men as between tutoring and Economics A, having them start in with either one alone and take up the other the following year. This fall we have been obliged to take on five men who are both teaching Economics A and tutoring for the first time. It has been our policy also to provide more experienced instruction in middle group courses through a period of apprenticeship in Economics A. This fall we have been obliged to put men of no classroom experience whatever directly into middle group courses. We are already experiencing in acute form the devastating effects upon instruction of a rapid turnover, brought on by the mass exodus of last year.

It takes time (and patience on the part of someone) to train men in the discussion method of teaching Economics which has been developed with such success in Economics A at Harvard University. Much is learned by slow experience, by making mistakes and by discussing techniques with fellow instructors, especially with those who have been through the mill. It is impossible to assimilate new men unless the collective experience of the group is maintained at a fairly high level. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that anyone in the Department will be interested in training them unless a substantial portion stay long enough to make it worth while.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1940

Dear Dean Ferguson:

I submit herewith a report of the work by the Department of Economics for the past year. There is very little to report—no events or changes of outstanding importance, and only a few isolated items which might be of interest.

Professor Black has been elected to honorary membership in the Swedish Royal Society of Agriculture. Professor Slichter has been honored by appointment as Lamont University Professor.

In the field of publications there is the usual long list of articles in the professional periodicals, but no major work of importance by any member of the Department. Professor Usher’s History of Mechanical Inventions was during the year translated into Japanese. Also in the field of publications it is of interest that there has been begun under the supervision of a committee in the Department and financed in part by a grant from the A. W. Shaw Fund a new series entitled The Harvard Studies in Monopoly and Competition. The first two volumes of this series appeared within the year, — the first, Corporate Size and Earning Power, by Professor W. L. Crum, and the second, Control of Competition in Canada, by Lloyd Reynolds.

The Committee on Problems of the Business Cycle has continued publication of the quarterly Review of Economic Statistics. In place of the general reviews of current economic developments in the United States, which in earlier years had been regular features of each quarterly issue, the Review introduced this past year the policy of presenting each quarter an article pertaining to some specific problem of current interest. The November 1939 issue contained a study of the impact of the war on America commodity prices; the February 1940 number included a study of the current gold problem and the American economy; a review of recent developments in agriculture and the influences of the war on American agriculture appeared in May; while the August 1940 issue presented a comparison and evaluation of various estimates of unemployment in the United States. These studies have been made by members of the Department, with the Committee staff contributing assistance, whenever it was desired, in the preparation of the articles for publication. As in previous years, the Review has also presented articles covering a wide range of studies on various trade cycle problems; and the Review staff has continued the compilation of selected current economic series which have been used in research studies by Department members and graduate student within the Department.

There have been no important changes in policy in the year by the Quarterly Journal of Economics. The policy begun the previous year of publishing occasional supplements sent to subscribers without charge has been continued. Two supplements appeared during the year, Exchange Control in Austria and Hungary and Exchange Control in Germany, both by Professor Howard S. Ellis. Through an arrangement with the Harvard Economic Studies they will shortly appear in that series as a single volume.

During the year Professor Emeritus Frank W. Taussig attained his eightieth birthday. A tribute and greeting was presented to him on this occasion signed by some two hundred of his former students.

I call attention again to the continuing problem of the added burden to members of the Department for uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration. The situation here remains substantially as described in my last report. It remains one of the most serious problems which the Department has to meet in maintaining the standards of its instruction.

The quality of instruction given by the Department continues to suffer from the heavy losses in the junior personnel during the past few years. Sixty-four per cent of the students concentrating in Economics this year are tutored by men of two years or less experience, fifty-five per cent by men of one year or less. The difficulties of maintaining satisfactory instruction with such a rapid turnover remain almost insuperable, and concentration in Economics which has fallen off steadily over the past four years slumped most disastrously for the year 1940-41. Although most of the liquidation of our more experienced instructors and tutors had taken place before the year on which I am reporting, we have during that year again lost a number of our best men because of the limited inducement which could be offered for them to remain with us even for a short period.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1941

Dear Dean Ferguson:

I submit herewith a report on the work of the Department of Economics covering the past year.

Professor Slichter has been elected President of the American Economic Association. This is the third time in the past five years that this honor has gone to an economist from Harvard, Professor Sprague having been elected in 1937-38 and Professor Hansen in 1938-39.

In the field of publications there have appeared, in addition to the usual long list of articles, several books of possible importance. I should mention especially Professor Slichter’s Union Policies and Industrial Management, Professor Leontief’s The Structure of American Economy: An Empirical Application of Equilibrium Analysis, and Dr. Triffin’s Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium Theory. The latter appeared in the Harvard Economic Studies of which there have now been published 70 volumes, four within the past year. The new series of Harvard Studies in Monopoly and Competition has been augmented by two new volumes during the past year, bringing the total to four. Professor Usher’s History of Mechanical Inventions has again been translated, this time into Spanish. During the past year an arrangement was made with the Rockefeller Foundation (for the current year only) which if continued may prove to be of real importance to the members of our Department. Professor Crum has been relieved of one-half of his teaching duties for research through the payment by the Foundation of the salary of someone to replace him in his teaching assignment. In addition to providing possibilities for research to members of the Department, such an arrangement would have the added advantage of making it possible to invite to Harvard for short period either possible candidates for permanent appointments or others whose presence here for one year would prove stimulating to our students.

Again I call attention to the problem of the added burden to members of the Department for uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration. This has been from the beginning a serious matter in maintaining standards of instruction. It is especially a factor in concentrating the activities of the older members of the Department in the graduate field, leaving undergraduate instruction to be taken care of in undue degree by younger men whose experience on the average seems to decline further each year.

The quality of instruction by the junior staff continues to be a grave concern to our Department. Last year I mentioned that 64 per cent of the students concentrating in Economics were tutored by men of two years or less experience. This year the percentage has increased to 72, and the problem of finding enough experienced and competent tutors in the right fields for distinction seniors has become impossible to solve. The general situation is reflected also in Economics A where the percentage of new instructors has jumped alarmingly for the current year. For the five years 1936-41 the sections taught by new men averaged 24 per cent of the total. For the current year 39 per cent of the sections are taught by new men. For the same five years the sections taught by men of one year or less experience averaged 45 per cent of the total. For the current year this figure has advanced to 61 per cent. The large volume of complaints on the part of students as to the inexperience of their tutors and Economics A section instructors leaves no doubt in the minds of the Department that the continuing decline in concentration in Economies is mainly a reflection of this situation. In view of the competing opportunities for our younger men which have repeatedly been pointed out the problem for our Department continues to be not to maintain a high rate of turnover as the present rules of tenure seem designed to do, but to be able through more flexible arrangements both with respect to tenure and to salaries to maintain a staff sufficiently experienced to give satisfactory instruction to our undergraduates. Such instruction is clearly not being given at the present time.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

Image Source: Harold Hitchings Burbank from the Harvard Class Album 1934.

 

Categories
Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Economics Seminary and Public Lectures. Speakers and Topics, 1913-1914

The economics seminary at Harvard featured a dozen speakers over the course of the 1913-14 academic year.  The department invited 27 year-old Josef Schumpeter (Theory of Crises) from the University of Vienna.

I have included the dates for two sets of major public guest lectures that were given by Wesley C. Mitchell (Business Cycles) and E. Dana Durand (Anti-trust and regulation), respectively.

Earlier posts with information on the Seminary of Economics at Harvard:

Seminary of Economics 1897-1898.

Seminary of Economics 1891/92-1907/08.

Request by Radcliffe Women to attend the Seminary of Economics, 1926.

Seminary of Economics 1929-1932.

_______________________

Monday, Sept. 29, 1913

Seminary of Economics. Meeting for Organization. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m. All Graduate Students in Economics are invited to attend.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 2. Sept. 26, 1913, p. 7.

Monday, Oct. 20, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “The Administration of the State-Owned Railways of Prussia.” Professor W. J. Cunningham. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 5. Oct. 18, 1913, p. 27.

Monday, Nov. 3, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “The Organization of the Grain Trade on the Pacific Coast.” Mr. Wilfred Eldred. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 7. Nov. 1, 1913, p. 39.

Monday, Nov. 17, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “The German Potash Syndicate.” Mr. H. R. Tosdal. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 9. Nov. 15, 1913, p. 57.

Monday, Dec. 1, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “Pisan Industry in the Early Fourteenth Century.” Mr. F. C. Dietz. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 11. Nov. 29, 1913, p. 65.

Thursday/Friday, Dec. 4/5, 1913

Lectures. “Business Cycles. I and II.” Dr. Wesley C. Mitchell, formerly Professor of Political Economy at the University of California. (I) Emerson A, 4.30 p.m.; (II) Emerson A, 4.30 p.m.
These lectures, though addressed primarily to graduate students of Economics and students in the Graduate School of Business Administration, will be open to the public.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 11. Nov. 29, 1913, p. 66.

Monday, Dec. 13, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “New Jersey Business Corporations and Corporation Policy, 1791-1820.” Dr. J. S. Davis. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 13. Dec. 13, 1913, p. 81.

Monday, Jan. 12, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “The Development of Capital and National Wealth in Germany.” Professor Karl Rathgen, of the University of Hamburg. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 17. Jan. 10, 1914, p. 109.

Monday, Feb. 9, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Some Aspects of the Quantity Theory of Money.” Professor Anderson. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 21. Feb. 7, 1914, p. 131.

Monday, Mar. 2, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Some Aspects of the Quantity Theory of Money.” Professor Taussig. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 24. Feb. 28, 1914, p. 153.

Monday, Mar. 16, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “The Theory of Crises.” Professor Josef Schumpeter, of the University of Vienna. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 26. Mar. 14, 1914, p. 167.

Monday, Mar. 23, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Recent Experience in Railroad Construction Finance.” Professor Ripley. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 27. Mar. 21, 1914, p. 173.

Monday, Apr. 6, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “International Trade Balances.” Dr. G.W. Nasmyth. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 29. Apr. 4, 1914, p. 185.

Monday/Tuesday, Apr. 13/14, 1914

Lectures. “What Shall We do with the Trusts? I. The Necessity of Regulation of Prohibition.” (Emerson D, 8 p.m.)  and II. “Possibility of Preventing Combination and Difficulties of Regulation.” (Emerson D, 11 a.m.) Professor E. Dana Durand, of the University of Minnesota.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 30. Apr. 11, 1914, p. 195.

Monday, May 25, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “United States Forest Policy.” Mr. John Ise. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 36. May 25, 1914, p. 231.

Image Source: Karl Rathgen: Fotosammlung des Geographischen Institutes der Humboldt-Universität Berlin.    Schumpeter: Ulrich Hedtke, Joseph Alois Schumpeter. Archive.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Transcript for Edward Hastings Chamberlin, 1922-1927

In the previous post we have the academic backstory found in Edward Hastings Chamberlin’s application to the economics graduate program at Harvard. This post provides the academic record of Chamberlin while a graduate student at Harvard. He entered Harvard with an M.A. degree in economics from the University of Michigan which probably is sufficient explanation for his seemingly light graduate coursework at Harvard.

Edward Hastings Chamberlin’s papers can be consulted at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s Economists’ Papers Archive. It is interesting to note that he seems to have audited Allyn Young’s Ec 15 course (which does not appear on his graduate transcript) since notes to that course are included in Chamberlin’s papers.

___________________________

Ph.D. in Economics Awarded 1927

Edward Hastings Chamberlin, S.B. (State Univ. of Iowa) 1920, A.M. (Univ. of Michigan) 1922, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1924.
Subject, Economics. Special Field, Economic Theory. Thesis, “The Theory of Monopolistic Competition.”
Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics, Harvard University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1926-1927, p. 102.

___________________________

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Record of Edward Hastings Chamberlin

Years: 1922-23, 1923-24, 1924-25, 1925-26, 1926-27

[Previous] Degrees received. Where? When?

S.B. State Univ. of Iowa 1920
A.M. Univ. of Michigan 1922

First Registration: 25 Sept. 1922

1922-23

 Grades
First Year Course

Half-Course
Economics 11

A
Economics 41

A-
Division: Economics
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship:
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year:

 

1923-24

 Grades
Second Year Course

Half-Course
Economics 14

inc./exc.
Economics 23

exc.
Government 6

exc.
Marketing Problems

85%

Passed General Exam. in Economics,
22 May 1924
Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship: Henry Lee Mem’l Fellow
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship:
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year: A.M.

 

1924-25

 Grades
Third Year Course

Half-Course
Economics 20 (A.A.Y.)

—
Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: in Economics
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year:

 

1925-26

 Grades
Fourth Year Course

Half-Course
Economics 20 (A.A.Y.)

A
Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: in Economics.

Tutor in the Div. of History, Government, and Economics
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year:

 

1926-27

 Grades
Fifth Year Course

Half-Course
Economics 20 (A.A.Y.)

A
Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship: $1500
Instructorship: in Economics.

Tutor in the Div. of History, Government, and Economics $1200.
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year: Ph.D.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Record Cards of Students, 1895-1930, Burtt—Cook. Record Card of Edward Hastings Chamberlin.

___________________________

Course Names and Instructors

Pro-tip for linking course numbers to course names and instructors.

Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Course of instruction. 1879-2009.

1922-23

Economics 11. Economic Theory. Professor Frank W. Taussig

Economics 41. Statistical Theory and Analysis. Professors Allyn Abbott Young and Edmund Ezra Day

1923-24

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

Economics 23. Modern Economic History since 1750. Assistant Professor Abbott Payson Usher

Government 6. History of Political Theory. Professor Charles Howard McIlwain.

Marketing Problems. [First Year, First Half course at the Graduate School of Business Administration]

1924-27.

Economic Research. Graduate students pursuing research may register in the following course, which has the same status as any of the other graduate courses in Economics. Such research will be under the direction of members of the Department, and may lie within any of the fields recognized as appropriate for candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Economics 20. Professors Taussig, Carver, Ripley, Gay, Bullock, Young, and Persons. Members of the Faculty of the Graduate School of Business Administration will also guide research lying within their respective fields

___________________________

Image Source: Faculty picture of Edward H. Chamberlin from the Harvard Class Album, 1932.

Categories
Economics Programs Economists Harvard Iowa Michigan Undergraduate

Harvard. Application for Admission to Economics Ph.D. Program. Edward H. Chamberlin, 1922

 

The archived student records of the Graduate School of Arts and Science at Harvard University provide us material needed to write a prequel to a Ph.D. economist’s professional biography. To illustrate the the richness of such material, I have transcribed Professor Edward Hasting Chamberlin’s application materials that he submitted to Harvard. Judging from a couple of issues of Iowa’s “The Hawkeye Yearbook”, it does appear that Edward Chamberlin was quite a Busy Man on Campus during his undergraduate years.

Pro-tip. More information about the faculties and courses of instruction during Chamberlin’s pre-Harvard  university days can be culled from the respective university catalogues archived at  hathitrust.org:

Catalogues of the State University of Iowa.
Catalogues of the University of Michigan.

Fun-fact: Edward H. Chamberlin played the role of Geoffrey Rawson in the production of Mrs. Bumpstead-Leigh performed May 12, 1920 at the Englert Theatre (joint production of the Erodelphian Literary Society and Irving Institute). The Hawkeye Yearbook, 1921.

_____________________________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY, SOCIOLOGY,
BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

532 Thompson St.
Ann Arbor, Mich.
April 11, 1922.

Mr. George W. Robinson, Secretary
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Sir:

Enclosed with this letter are transcripts of my work at the State University of Iowa and at the University of Michigan and my application for admission to candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics at Harvard University. Under separate cover I am making marked copies of the University of Michigan and the State University of Iowa. In some cases the catalogues do not indicate the work taken on account of changes. In these instances I have tried to duplicate the needed information in the margins.

I am making my application early so that I may know in advance as much as possible about the work I must take for my degree I presume that individual courses are not settled upon until after a conference. I shall be glad if I may know this spring how much credit will be allowed me for previous work, how much additional coursework will be required, and in what general branches.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
Edward H. Chamberlin

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF
ARTS AND SCIENCES

APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION TO CANDIDACY FOR A DEGREE IN ARTS OR PHILOSOPHY

NAME:  E. H. Chamberlin

DATE   April 1922

DEGREE APPLIED FOR Ph.D.

SUBJECT Economics

COLLEGE State U. of Iowa and U. of Mich.

REMARKS

B, except for French

25 Apr. 1923: French O.K.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Application for Admission to Candidacy for a Degree in Arts or Philosophy

[Note: Chamberlin’s responses in his application have been highlighted using boldface.]

Return this application, with certificates of other evidences of scholarship and character, to the Secretary of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, No. 24 University Hall, Cambridge, Mass.

Applications for the degree of Master of Arts or Doctor of Philosophy will be received as late as the fifteenth day of January of the academic year in which the degree is to be taken; but candidates are urged to file their applications at the beginning of the year or ealirer, so that they may receive timely advice with reference to the work that will be expected of them for the degree.

The application should be accompanied by a Recorder’s or Registrar’s certificate of the applicant’s college or university work, and also, if possible, by a college catalogue or catalogues in which the studies he has taken are clearly marked. Final admission to candidacy for a degree is always conditional upon satisfactory official certification of the facts stated in the application.

Applications for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy should be filed, if possible, at the beginning of a student’s Graduate work for the degree.

An applicant for the degree of Master of Arts, who wishes to take later the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, should state the fact in his application for the Master’s degree, which will then be considered with reference to both degrees.

  1. Full name. Edward Hastings Chamberlin
  2. Post-office address. (Give prompt notice to the Secretary of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of any change.). 532 Thompson St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
  3. Date and place of birth. La Conner, Wash. May 18, 1899.
  4. High schools or other preparatory schools attended, and periods of attendance. Iowa City (Iowa) High School. 4 years
  5. Colleges and universities attended and periods of attendance. What course did you take (classical, literary, scientific, etc.)? Univ. of Iowa. 1916-1920. Commerce; Univ. of Michigan. graduate. 1920-1922.
  6. If you are an undergraduate, state: (a) What degree you expect, and when. [left deliberately blank]. (b) Rank or average standing in class [left deliberately blank]
  7. If you have received a degree, state what degree, from what college, and when. B.S. in Commerce, Univ. of Iowa, June, 1920; M.A. University of Michigan, June, 1922.
  8. If you have been a Graduate student at any college or university, state where, when, and in what subjects. State University of Iowa, summer sessions 1920 and 1921. Income Tax. Pol. Science; Univ. of Michigan 1920-1921, 1921-1922, Economics, Philosophy.  and name your principal teachers in those subjects. Iowa. Prof. R. A. Stevenson [Associate Professor of Accounting, Russell Alger Stevenson, B.A. Michigan, 1913; M.A. Iowa, 1915; Ph.D. Michigan, 1918], Prof. Jacob Van der Zee [Assistant Professor of Political Science Jacob Van der Zee, B.A. Iowa, 1905; B.A. Oxford, 1908; M.A. 1913; LL.B. Iowa, 1913]; Michigan, Prof. F. M. Taylor [Professor of Political Economy and Finance Fred Manville Taylor, Ph.D.], Prof. I. L. Sharfman [Professor of Economics Isaiah Leo Sharfman, A.B., LL.B.], Dean Alfred H. Lloyd [Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the Graduate School Alfred Henry Lloyd, Ph.D.].
  9. Honors or other evidences of high scholarship awarded to you. Phi Beta Kappa. Beta Gamma Sigma.
  10. For what degree (or degrees) do you wish to be a candidate, and when? Doctor of Philosophy in Economics, September 1922.
  11. Of the following branches, underscore once those which you have studied in college, and [mark with an asterisk (*)] those in which you have done advanced work. This information should be supplemented by a carefully marked and annotated catalogue or calendar.
Hebrew Government Physics
Sanskrit *Economics Chemistry
Greek Sociology Botany
Latin *Philosophy Zoölogy
English Composition Education Geology
English Literature Fine Arts Physiography
German Architecture Mineralogy
French Music Mining
Italian Mathematics Anthropology
Spanish Astronomy Subjects not classified above.
History Engineering Psychology
Journalism
  1. (a) State which of the languages named below you have studied, and how long in each case. German 1 1/2 yrs. high school; 2 yrs. Univ.  French [deliberately blank], Greek [deliberately blank], Latin 2 years high school. Any modern foreign language other than German and French. Spanish.  (b) Do you know German and French well enough to be able to consult works on your subject in these languages? German-yes; French-no.
  2. In what subject do you wish to be considered as a candidate for a degree? State in detail your previous work in this subject.

Economics
Industrial History
4 sem. hrs.		 Intro. to Econ. Theory
6 sem. hrs.		 Research in Accounting
2 sem. hrs.
Commercial Geography
4 sem. hrs.		 Cost Accounting
4 sem. hrs.		 Railroads
3 sem. hrs.
Prin. of Economics
6 sem. hrs.		 Public Utility Accounting
2 sem. hrs.		 Essentials of Ec. Theory (continued)
2 sem. hrs.
Prin. of Accounting
6 sem. hrs.		 Income Tax
2 sem. hrs.		  

*The course in Ec. statistics had nothing to do with statistics but dealt with the nature of income and sundry other subjects.

 
Business Efficiency
4 sem. hrs.		 Essentials of Econ. Theory
2 sem. hrs.
Corporation Finance
4 sem. hrs.		 Commercial Law
4 sem. hrs.
Banking
2.6 sem. hrs.		 *Economic Statistics
4 sem. hrs.
Problems of Peace and Reconstruction
1.3 sem. hrs.		 Studies in Econ. Theory
(History of Econ. Thought)
2 sem. hrs.
Industrial History
4 sem. hrs.		 Intro. to Econ. Theory
6 sem. hrs.
  1. Present occupation. (State definitely.) Instructor in Economics, University of Michigan.
  2. If you are, or have been a teacher, what positions have you held? at what institutions? in what subjects? and during what periods of time? Instructor, University of Michigan (1920.-1921; 1921-1922) and University of Iowa (Summer Session 1921); Economics and Accounting—Sept. 1920 to June 1922.
  3. From whom can information as to your previous work be obtained? Prof. F. M. Taylor [Professor of Political Economy and Finance Fred Manville Taylor, Ph.D.], and Prof. I. L. Sharfman [Professor of Economics Isaiah Leo Sharfman, A.B., LL.B.], Ann Arbor, Mich.; Prof. F. H. Knight [Associate Professor of Economics Frank Hyneman Knight, B.S. Tennessee, 1913; A.M. 1913; Ph.D. Cornell, 1916], University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa.
  4. List of printed and written documents submitted with this application. Catalogue, University of Michigan—separate cover; Catalogue, University of Iowa—separate cover; Certified record of courses pursued from Iowa and Michigan

Signature. [signed] Edward H. Chamberlin
Place of writing this application. Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Date. April 11, 1922

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
IOWA CITY

TRANSCRIPT OF RECORD

of Edw. Hastings Chamberlin
College Liberal Arts

Secondary Credits Accepted from Iowa City, Iowa

Units
Latin

2
French
German

1½
English

4
History—Gv.—Econ.

2
Algebra

1½
P. & S. [Plane & Solid] Geometry

1½
Science

2
Draw.

2

16

 Entrance conditions: none

Degree B.S.C. Conferred [date] 6-15-20

This is a true statement of the credit earned by Edw. Hastings Chamberlin in the college of Liberal Arts of the State University of Iowa.

[signed] [?Signature illegible], Asst Registrar
Date 7/31/20

1916-17

Cat No

 Subjects 1st Sem 2nd Sem
Hrs Gr Hrs

Gr
Drill

excused

 ½

B
Phy Training

excused

 ½

Cr
Fresh. Sect.

1

C
1, 2 Eng. (Rhet.)

2

 A 2

B
13, 14 German (Interm.)

5

 C 5

C
5 Math. (Trig. Alg.)

5

A
3 Econ (Ind.Hist.)

4

B
4 Econ. (Com. Geog.)

4

B
6 Math. (An. Geom.)

5

A

1917-18

Cat No

 Subjects 1st Sem 2nd Sem
Hrs Gr Hrs

Gr
Drill

.5

 Cr .5

Cr
1 Econ (Prin.)

1(2)

3

 B 3

C
7 Econ. (Elem.Acc.) 7(8)

3

 A 3

A
21 Eng. (Lit.) 21(22)

3

 B 3

B
51 Spanish (Elem.)

51(52)

5

 A 5

A
179 Eng. (Editing) 179

2

 C

Phy. Tr.

.5

C

1918-19

Cat No

 Subjects 1st Sem 2nd Sem
Hrs Gr Hrs

Gr
Psych. (Elem.)

1,2

2

 B 2

B
Span. (2d yr.) 54,55

2

 A 2

A
Econ. (Efficiency) 167,168

2

 B 2

A
Econ. (Corp. Finance) 143,144

2

 B 2

B
Econ. (Banking) 165,166

1.3

 B 1.3

A
Econ. (Prob. Peace & Recon.)

50

1.3

C
Officers’ Training Course, Fort Sheridan, Ill. 6 s.h.
Service in the U.S. Army 7-18-18 to 1-15-19 10 s.h.
1238

1254

 10-11-19

1919-20

Cat No Subjects Fall Winter Spring
Hrs Gr Gr Gr Hrs Gr
Com. (Intro. Econ. Theory) 135

2

 A 2 A 2

A
Com. (Cost Account) 131

2

 B 2 A

Com. (Com. Law) 189

1.3

 B 1.3 B 1.3

A
Math. (2d yr. L.A. Math) 3

2.7

 A 2.7 A 2.7

A
Com. (Pub. Ut. Acc’t) 132

2

A

 

Summer Session 1920

Cat No

 Subjects July
Hrs

Gr
Econ VI

2

A

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Summer Session 1921

Cat No

 Subjects August
Hrs

Gr
Pol Sci 11S

1.6

P
Pol Sci 117S

.4

P

[Summer Session 1921 from a card from the State University of Iowa, Iowa City. Registrar: H. C. Dorcass [University Examiner and Registrar Herbert Clifford Dorcas, B. Ph. Iowa, 1895; M.A. Columbia, 1903] 9/19/21]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ANN ARBOR

GRADUATE SCHOOL
OFFICE OF THE DEAN
[Transcript of courses taken
by Edward H. Chamberlin]

April 7, 1922.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:

This is to certify that Mr. Edward H. Chamberlin, B.S. in Commerce, University of Iowa, was admitted to this Graduate School in the fall of 1920 as a candidate for the Master’s degree. During his residence in the School, Mr. Chamberlin has pursued the following courses:

First Semester, 1920-21

Course

 No. Credit

Grade

Economics

 8 2 hrs. B
Economics 13d 2 hrs.

A

Economics

 17 1 hr. A

Second Semester, 1920-21

Economics

 7 2 hrs. A
Economics 8a 2 hrs.

B

Economics

 18 1 hr. A

First Semester, 1921-21

Philosophy

 9a 3 hrs. A
Economics 6 3 hrs.

A

German

 *9c —— B

Second Semester, 1921-22

Economics

 8 2 hrs. Now taking.
Philosophy 9b 3 hrs.

Now taking.

German

 *10c —— Now taking.

A=Excellent, B=Good, C=No graduate credit,  *Undergraduate course

Mr. Chamberlin was granted credit towards the Master’s degree at this University for graduate work done at the State University of Iowa. Upon the satisfactory completion of the work now being pursued, the degree of Master of Arts will be conferred upon Mr. Chamberlin in June, 1922.

[signed] Alfred H. Lloyd
Dean, Graduate School.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Carbon Copy of Reply to Chamberlin’s Application of 11 April 1922

13 April 1922

My dear Sir:

Your application for admission to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences as a candidate for a higher degree has been received and examined. The obvious difficulty in your case is your deficiency in French. I accordingly advise you to devote as much time as possible to work in this language between now and next fall. In the meantime you will do well to look over the scheme of subjects from which selections are made, in preparation for the general or preliminary examination for the doctorate, and at the beginning of the year you should consult Professor Charles H. Haskins, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, as to the arrangement of your work. i see no specific deficiency in your preparation other than the French, and I see no reason to doubt that you can arrange a satisfactory plan of work for the doctorate in consultation with Dean Haskins and with the Department of Economics. It is impossible at present to make any very definite estimate of the length of time that your work would require. I should suppose that you ought to plan for two solid years at least, with the idea that if your work is not completed by the end of that time you may perhaps be able to finish up your thesis in absentia, and then to come back for your final examination. If a part of your time during either of the two years is devoted to work as assistant or instructor, at least a  third year in residence would presumably be necessary.

Very truly yours,
[Carbon copy unsigned]

Edward H. Chamberlin

Source: Harvard University Archives. GSAS student folders (UAV161.201.10), Box 117, Folder: E. H. Chamberlin.

Image: Edward Chamberlin. University of Iowa. The Hawkeye 1920, p. 37.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final Examinations in Economics courses, 1892-1893

The economic historian William J. Ashley joined the Harvard economics department in 1892-93, joining Professors Charles F. Dunbar and Frank W. Taussig and the instructors Edward Cummings and William M. Cole. This post gives us a complete set of semester examinations for all the economics courses offered at Harvard and, as extra bonus, exams for the Social Ethics course taught in the philosophy department by Francis G. Peabody.

_________________________

1892-93.
PHILOSOPHY 5. ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.

Enrollment

[Philosophy] 5. Professor F. G. PEABODY. — The Ethics of the Social Questions. — The questions of Charity, Divorce, the Indians, Temperance, and the various phases of the Labor Question, as problems of practical Ethics. — Lectures, essays, and practical observations. 2 hours.

Total 131: 5 Graduates, 60 Seniors, 25 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 24 Divinity, 11 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-93.
PHILOSOPHY 5.
[Mid-Year Examination]

  1. Explain and illustrate the “correlation” of the Social Questions and the doctrine of Social Energy.
  2. How does the history of ethical theory illustrate the philosophy of the Social Questions?
  3. Compare the principles of the English Poor-Law with the principles of the Elberfeld System.
  4. The plan, scope, and results of Mr. Charles Booth’s Study of East London.
  5. The character of the migration to London and its effect on
    1. social conditions in London (Charles Booth, I. 501, II. 444);
    2. the problem of municipal charity.
  6. How do the Germans deal with the problem of unemployed tramps?
  7. One year of General Booth’s Social Scheme, — its achievements and its possible limitations.
  8. Define the modern Labor Question and note its special characteristics.
  9. What does Carlyle mean by:
    Gospel of Mammonism? (Bk. III. ch. 2.)
    Gospel of Dilettantism? (Bk. III. ch. 3.)
    Captains of industry? (Bk. IV. ch. 4.)
    Plugson of Undershot? (Bk. III. ch. 10.)

What is his lesson drawn from:
Gurth, the thrall of Cedric? (Bk. III. ch. 13; Bk. IV. ch. 5.)

  1. Ruskin’s doctrine of wealth, of wages, and of exchange. How far, in your opinion, is Ruskin’s view of Political Economy justifiable?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

 

1892-1893
PHILOSOPHY 5.
[Year-End Final Examination]

  1. State the Labor Question in terms of Ethics, arranging the various industrial propositions of the day in the order of their ethical sufficiency. Explain your arrangement.
  2. Why does the Anarchist find encouragement in the philosophy of Herbert Spencer?
  3. What is the philosophy of history which encourages the Socialist?
  4. The practical advantages which the Socialist anticipates under his programme, his reasons therefor, and your own judgment of their probability.
  5. The substitute for money proposed by Marx; with Schäffle’s criticism of the proposal. (Schäffle, pp. 77-90).
  6. The German system of insurance against old age and invalidism, — its plan, scope and difficulties.
  7. The Familistère at Guise and its lessons for socialism.
  8. Why has Coöperation gained so large a place in English industry and had such meagre success in the United States?
  9. The method of Profit-Sharing adopted in the Maison Leclaire, the secret of its success and the limits of its application in other cases. (Sedley Taylor, pp. 13-20).
  10. The special characteristics of the latest liquor Legislation proposed in Germany, in England and in the United States.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 1. PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS

Enrollment

[Economics] 1. Professors [Frank W.] TAUSSIG and [William J.] ASHLEY, and Messrs. [Edward] CUMMINGS and [William M.] COLE. —

First half-year:

Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

Second half-year:

Division A (Theoretical): Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

Division B (Descriptive): Labor and Capital, Coöperation. — Hadley’s Railroad Transportation. — Dunbar’s Chapters on Banking. — Financial Legislation. 3 hours.

Total 322: 1 Graduate, 50 Seniors, 114 Juniors, 116 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 38 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 1.
[Mid-Year Examination]

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. “Production, and productive, are of course elliptical expressions, involving the idea of something produced; but this something, in common apprehension, I conceive to be, not utility, but wealth.” Why should not all labor which produces utility, be accounted productive?
  2. “The distinction, then, between Capital and Non-Capital, does not lie in the kind of commodities, but in the mind of the capitalist.” Does pig-iron cease to be capital when the owner sells it and buys a country-house?
  3. What is meant when it is said that rent is no burden on the consumer?
  4. Why are the earnings of the professional classes higher than the wages of mechanics? Why are the wages of mechanics higher than those of day-laborers?
  5. Explain the connection between:

The tendency of profits to a minimum.
The law of diminishing returns.
The effective desire of accumulation.

  1. Is a general rise in prices advantageous to the community as a whole? to any part of it?
  2. Specie, bank-notes, inconvertible paper, checks, —are they or are they not “money”?
  3. “It is when the metals are completely superseded and driven from circulation that the difference between convertible and inconvertible paper begins to be operative.” Explain.
  4. Does foreign trade tend to bring about the same level of (1) money wages, (2) prices, in the trading countries?
  5. In what manner does a country gain when its exports increase?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 1.
[Year-End Final Examination]

Division A.
[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. What is meant when it is said that the rent paid for the use of a factory building enters into cost of production, while that paid for the use of the site does not?
  2. What determines the limits within which the foreign exchanges may fluctuate?
  3. According to Mill, “The universal elements of cost of production are the wages of labor and the profits of the capital.” Cairnes on the contrary says, “I repeat, therefore, that not only do wages not constitute the laborer’s share in the cost of production, but these can not be taken in any sense to represent that cost.”
    Why not?
  4. “It appears, therefore, that the fund available for those who live by labor tends, in the progress of society, while growing actually larger, to become a constantly smaller fraction of the entire national wealth.”
    Why?
  5. “The illusion which I am combatting, that Demand and Supply are independent economic forces, sometimes assumes another form in the notion that producers and consumers are distinct classes, and that production and consumption are acts which may go on irrespective of each other.”
    Explain the illusion.
  6. How is the price of wool in Australia likely to be affected by the shipment of frozen mutton to England?
  7. “In the language of Mr. Mill, ‘the produce of a country exchanges for the produce of other countries at such values as are required in order that the whole of her exports may exactly pay for the whole of her imports.’ Now, as a matter of fact, it very rarely happens that the whole exports of a country, even if we take an average of many years, exactly pay for the whole of its imports; nor can it be truly said that there is any tendency in the dealings of nations toward this result.” Why not?
  8. At what rate of interest did the United States borrow, when it exchanged 5-20 bonds for legal tender notes at par, in 1862-63?
  9. What do you infer from the success of distributive coöperation in Great Britain, as to the future development of coöperation in general?
  10. What are the grounds for saying that the general fall in prices in the United States in the period immediately after the civil war, had an effect on debtors different from that of the fall in prices since 1879?

 

Division B.
[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. Does the benefit of international trade lie in the exports? in the imports?
    Why?
  2. Is a general fall in prices harmful to debtors? to creditors?
  3. Will an increase in the quantity of money in the community affect the rate of interest?
  4. How would you estimate the minimum reserve required by law to be anywhere held for deposits in country national banks of the United States?
  5. How would you explain the close correspondence in the banks of the United States between the amount of loans and the amount of deposits?
  6. Explain the decline in the volume of national bank notes in recent years.
  7. Explain why the original limit of uncovered issue for the Bank of England was put at £14,000,000.
  8. How would an act for the free coinage of silver in the United States at the present mint ratio, affect the price of silver bullion?
  9. Compare the attitude of the Latin Union toward the use of both metals in 1866 with its attitude in 1878.
  10. Compare carefully, as to the character and quantity of the issues of money provided for, the legislation of the United States in 1878 with that of 1890.
  11. Point out wherein profit-sharing is similar to coöperative production, wherein different.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

 

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 2. ECONOMIC THEORY 

Enrollment

[Economics] 2. Professor TAUSSIG. — Economic Theory. — Examination of selections from leading writers. 3 hours.

Total 38: 11 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 6 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year Examination]

  1. State George’s doctrine as to the cause of interest, and give an opinion of its soundness.
  2. “It may be said, we grant that wages are really paid out of the product of current industry, and that capital only affects wages as it first affects production, so that wages stand related to product in the first degree, and to capital in the second degree only; still, does not production bear a certain and necessary ratio to capital? and hence may not the measure of wages be derived from capital virtually, — though not, it is true, directly, — through its determination of product?” Consider whether so much would be granted by one holding to the wages-fund doctrine; and answer the questions.
  3. “The employer [in the West and South] advances to the laborer such provisions and cash as are absolutely required from time to time: but the ‘settlement’ does not take place until the close of the season or the year, and the final payment is often deferred until the crop is not only harvested but sold.” Under such conditions is it true that wages are paid out of capital, or limited in amount by the quantity of previously accumulated capital?
  4. What do you conceive President Walker’s opinion to be as to the effect on business profits of the possession of large means by the business man at the outset of his career?
  5. Are there grounds for saying that in a socialist community the conception of capital would be different from that in communities as now organized?
  6. Compare Adam Smith’s doctrine as to the relation of capital and wages with Ricardo’s.
  7. Compare Adam Smith’s conclusions with Ricardo’s as to the propriety of import duties levied to countervail internal taxes on necessaries consumed by laborers.
  8. “No extension of foreign trade will immediately increase the amount of value in a country, though it will very powerfully contribute to increase the mass of commodities, and therefore the sum of enjoyments.” What does Ricardo mean?
  9. “There is only one case, and that will be temporary, in which the accumulation of capital with a low price of food may be attended with a fall in profits.” What is the case, and why did Ricardo think it would be temporary?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 2.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[One question in each of the three groups may be omitted.]

I.

  1. What is the meaning and importance of the proposition that demand for commodities is not demand for labor?
  2. How far is Ricardo’s doctrine as to the connection between labor and value similar to Marx’s doctrine that value consists of the labor incorporated in commodities?
  3. What is meant when it is said that the connection between value and expenses of production depends on the mobility of capital, while the connection between value and cost of production depends on the mobility of labor and capital?
  4. “The ideal of justice in distribution, applicable both to individual producers and to the different factors in production (land, labor, capital), may be stated thus: each should have a share in net income proportionate to the contribution which, by labor or by the use of material means of production, he has made to the product.”
    What should you say as to the feasibility of carrying out such a principle?

II.

  1. Explain briefly what is meant by total utility, marginal utility, and consumer’s rent.
    “Subject to these corrections, then, we may regard the aggregate of the money measures of the total utility of wealth as a fair measure of that part of the happiness which is dependent on wealth.” Mention one or two corrections.
  2. Give your opinion on the objection raised by Carey to the theory of rent, that the total rent paid for the use of land does not exceed interest at current rates on the total capital sunk in land.
  3. How far is it an answer to the proposition that rent and business profits are analogous, when it is said that the losses of some business managers must be set off against the larger gains of others?
  4. Explain Professor Marshall’s opinion as to the bearing on the relative wages of different laborers of
    1. The “rent” of labor;
    2. the standard of living among laborers;
    3. the expenses of production of labor;

and point out the connection between his views on these subjects.

III.

  1. Explain the distinctions (1) between private capital and social capital, (2) between historico-legal capital and national capital; and point out how far the two distinctions run on the same lines.
  2. “In the present condition of industry, most sales are made by men who are producers and merchants by profession. . . . For them, the subjective use-values of their own wares is, for the most part, very nearly nil. . . . In sales by them, the limiting effect which, according to our theoretical formula, would be exerted by the valuation of the last seller, practically does not come into play.”
    Explain what is meant, and consider the consequences as to the importance of the law that price is determined by the valuations of the marginal pairs.
  3. “Our whole interest is centred in the question as to the position which the law (of cost of production), so well accredited by experience, takes in the systematic theory of price. Does it run counter to our law of marginal pairs or not? Our answer is that it does not. It is as little of a contradiction as we before found to exist between the proposition that the marginal utility determines the height of subjective value, and the other proposition that the costs determine it.”
    In what way is the apparent contradiction removed in the two cases referred to by Böhm-Bawerk?
  4. Explain the three grounds on which Böhm-Bawerk bases the superiority of present over future goods, and give your opinion as to their relative importance and significance.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 3. PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY

Enrollment

[Economics] 3. Mr. CUMMINGS. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 3 hours.

Total 22: 5 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 3.
[Mid-Year Examination]

Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit two.

  1. “We have just seen that a one-sided application of the conception that society is of organic growth leads to difficulties, as well as the conception of artificial making. These we can only escape by recognizing a truth which includes them both.”
    What are these difficulties, and what is this truth?
  2. “If societies have evolved, and if that mutual dependence of parts which coöperation implies, has been gradually reached, then the implication is that however unlike their developed structures may become, there is a rudimentary structure with which they all set out.”
    What evidence do you find of such a structure?
  3. According to Aristotle, “Man is by nature a political” According to Thomas Aquinas, “homo est animal sociale et politicum.” How far is this insertion of “sociale” alongside of “politicum” significant of the different way in which the State presented itself to the mind of the Greek and to the mind of the medieval philosopher?
  4. “The theory of the social contract belongs in an especial manner to the political philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But it did not originate with them. It had its roots in the popular consciousness of medieval society. As a philosophical theory, it had already been anticipated by the Greek Sophists.”
    Indicate briefly some of the important changes which the doctrine underwent.
  5. “In primitive societies the person does not exist, or exists only potentially, or, as we might say, in spe. The person is the product of the State.” Explain. What is the theoretical and historical justification of this doctrine, as against the contention that the individual loses what the State gains?
  6. Discuss the relative preponderance of free and of un-free elements at different stages of social development.
  7. It has been remarked by Spencer that those domestic relations which are ethically the highest, are also biologically and sociologically the highest. Discuss the historical evidence on this point. What is the test of this ethical superiority?
  8. To what extent is there ground for saying that the influence of militant and of industrial organization is traceable in the status of women and the duration of marriage in the United States and in other countries?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 3.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit one.]

  1. “The different forms of the State are specifically divided, as Aristotle recognized, by the different conceptions of the distinction between government and subjects, especially by the quality (not the quantity) of the ruler.” Explain. Indicate briefly the relation of the different forms of the State to one another.
  2. “If there is any one principle which is clearly grasped in the present day, it is that political power is a public duty as well as a public right, that it belongs to the political existence and life of the whole nation, and that it can never be regarded as the property or personal right of an individual.” How far did this principle secure recognition in Greek, in Roman, and in medieval times?
  3. “The past seems to prove that kings and aristocracies make States, and that left to themselves, the people unmake them.” State carefully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the political philosophy here involved.
  4. “This is one of curious phases of the railway problem in Europe, which has a tendency to show how multiform and various are the influences at work to modify and change the conditions of the railway problem, and how little can be gathered from mere government documents and laws to shed light upon this most interesting and intricate of all modern industrial questions.” What light does Italian, French and Austrian experience with railroads throw on the general question of State control?
  5. “Expediency and the results of experience must determine how far to go. They seem to justify public ownership of gas works, water works and electric lights. The same would doubtless be true of the telegraph and telephone.” Discuss the evidence.
  6. “We will first concentrate our attention on the economic kernel of socialism, setting aside for the moment the transitory aspect it bears in the hands of agitators, its provisional passwords, and the phenomena and tendencies in religion by which it is accompanied.” State and criticise this “economic kernel.”
  7. “The philanthropic and experimental forms of socialism, which played a conspicuous role before 1848, perished them[sic, “then”?] in the wreck of the Revolution, and have never risen to life again.” What were the characteristics of these earlier forms; and what was their relation to the movements which preceded them and followed them?
  8. How are the socialistic teachings of Lasalle and Marx related to the economic doctrines of Smith and Ricardo?
  9. What ground do you find for or against the contention that “socialism is the economic complement of democracy”?
  10. “Not only material security, but the perfection of human and social life is what we aim at in that organized co-öperation of many men’s lives and works which is called the State. . . . But where does protection leave off and interference begin?”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 4. ECONOMIC HISTORY OF EUROPE AND AMERICA

Enrollment

[Economics] 4. Mr. COLE. — Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours.

Total 116: 41 Seniors, 59 Juniors, 45 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 18 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-93. ECONOMICS 4.
[Mid-Year Examination]

I.
[Take all.]

  1. State at least three parallels in the lives of Watt and George Stevenson.
  2. From an economic point of view, and assuming that a revolution must have come sooner or later, was the occurrence of the disturbances in France between 1785 and 1815 opportune or inopportune for France?
  3. Was there any necessary connection between the economic and the military reforms of Prussia between 1807 and 1812? If so, what?
  4. Why was the United States helped more than any other country by the introduction of steam navigation?

II.
[Omit one.]

  1. What was the origin and what were the main provisions of the English Corn Law of 1815?
  2. What were the main provisions of the French railway law of 1842?
  3. What were the main features of Gallatin’s plan for internal improvements in 1807?
  4. What was the social status at the beginning of this century of poor immigrants into America?
  5. What was the cause of the suspension of specie payments by the Bank of England in 1797?
  6. What was the effect of the Continental wars of 1793-1815 upon the English laborers? How was it manifested?
  7. What was the influence on French manufactures of Napoleon’s rise to power? Cite examples.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 4.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. What sort of wealth did France actually sacrifice in paying the German indemnity? What was the process?
  2. Explain the influence of the Civil War upon our tariff legislation.
  3. Explain whether or not England can obtain cheap coal from abroad after her own supplies become scarce.
  4. What motives had Congress for granting lands to Western railroads, — other than the Union Pacific? What was the system of grants adopted?
  5. It has been said that after 1850 England could not well maintain duties upon any class of imports, and hence free trade was inevitable. What do you think of the statement?
  6. Was the Zollverein an experiment in free trade or in protection? Why do you think as you do?
  7. How did the extraordinary demand for gold between 1871 and 1873 affect the rate of bank discount? How do you explain the effect?
  8. Show at least three important benefits arising from improved means of transportation.
  9. Explain carefully, but concisely, why the southern soils of the United States were rapidly exhausted before the war. Could resort have been made successfully to rotation of crops, to more careful cultivation, to the use of better tools?
  10. Using only the materials which have been furnished by Economics IV, show what in your opinion, after careful thought, England would have gained or lost up to the present time if the American colonies had not won their independence.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 5. RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION

Enrollment

[Economics] 5. Professor TAUSSIG. — Railway Transportation. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 26: 7 Graduates, 12 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 5.
[Mid-Year Final Examination]

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions].

  1. “A more powerful force than the authority of the courts was working against the Granger system of regulation. The laws of trade could not be violated with impunity. The effects were most sharply felt in Wisconsin. . . . In the second year of its operation [that of the law reducing rates], no Wisconsin road paid a dividend; only four paid interest on their bonds. Railroad construction came to a standstill. . . . Foreign capital refused to invest in Wisconsin; the development of the State was sharply checked; the very men who most favored the law found themselves heavy losers. . . . The very men who passed the law in 1874 hurriedly repealed it after two years trial.” State the essential features of the legislation here alluded to, and give an opinion as to this explanation of its effects.
  2. “The principle of tolls [rates based on cost of service] keeps rates up. If it is strictly applied, it makes it necessary that each item of business should pay its share of the fixed charges.” Why? or why not?
  3. What is meant when it is said that railway rates are governed by value of service?
  4. Compare :
    1. The natural system of rates.
    2. The German reform tariff.
    3. The maximum rates of the Granger legislatures.
  5. Is it true that the prohibition of pooling in the Interstate Commerce Act increases the severity of the long and short haul clause?
  6. What were the causes of the depression of 1888-90?
  7. Should you say that the approaching maturity of the Government debt gives a favorable opportunity for an experiment in public management, by the assumption of federal ownership of the Pacific roads?
  8. Give an opinion on two among the suggestions made by Mr. Clark as to future legislation on railways by the states.
  9. Sketch the history of railway policy in Italy.
  10. What have been the financial results of public railway management in Prussia?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 6. HISTORY OF U.S. TARIFF LEGISLATION

Enrollment

[Economics] 6. Professor TAUSSIG. — History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 50: 7 Graduates, 19 Seniors, 17 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 6.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Answer all the questions, however briefly.]

  1. Sketch the industrial history of the country, and its bearing on tariff legislation, from 1816 to 1824.
  2. How far do protective duties account for the growth of the cotton manufacture from 1830 to 1840? Of the iron manufacture from 1840 to 1850? Of the silk manufacture from 1860 to 1880?
  3. What do you believe the state of public opinion to have been on tariff legislation in 1800? In 1824? In 1850?
  4. State the important provisions of the tariff act of 1857.
  5. Are there grounds for saying that the duty on pig iron since 1870 has proved a successful application of protection to young industries? State carefully what you think the test of success in such a case.
  6. What can be said for, what against, the change in the duties on sugar made in 1890?
  7. Compare the general character of the tariff act of 1883 with that of the act of 1890.
  8. Assume that, on the imposition of a duty on tin-plates, domestic production should so develop that tin-plates were made with less labor in the United States than in foreign countries. What would happen if thereafter the duty were removed?
  9. Explain what is the object, what the effect of minimum duties; and give two instances of their application, one before 1860, the other after.
  10. Explain briefly in what manner the connection between the tariff and wages was discussed by Webster in 1824, by Clay in 1824, and by Walker in 1845.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 71. THEORY AND METHODS OF TAXATION

Enrollment

[Economics] 71. Professor DUNBAR. — The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special references to local taxation in the United States. 3 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 21: 7 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 7[1].
[Mid-Year Final Examination]

[Let your answers stand in the order of the questions.]

  1. What is Mr. Bastable’s theory (pp. 339-342) as to the incidence of a tax on a commodity, and what are the conditions on which he finds that any shifting of the tax will depend? How far does his doctrine in this particular differ from that of Ricardo?
  2. Discuss the following extract from Leroy-Beaulieu (Science des Finances, II. 303):—
    So the land tax, unless it is extraordinarily high or very badly assessed, has no influence on the price of agricultural products: it merely diminishes what in scientific language is called the rent of land, — that is the net income of the landowner after deducting the expenses of cultivation and the profits of the farmer. This proposition is generally true in all countries where the land is completely occupied: it does not apply, on the contrary, to new countries where a large part of the soil is not yet under cultivation, like the United States or Australia. In these countries the land tax acts as an increase of the general cost of working new lands, and consequently retards their reduction to cultivation.
  3. In answer to the demand for taxes resting exclusively or chiefly on land and its great unearned increment of value, it is sometimes urged that gains are often offset by losses, and that individuals can hardly be called on to give up their surplus gains unless they are guaranteed against possible loss. How much weight is to be attached to this answer?
  4. Discuss Bastable’s remark that,—
    It may be urged that progressive taxation is not in fact likely to weaken the disposition to save. It will only affect those who possess a good deal already, and such persons save as much from habit as from conscious motive. There is, too, the further fact that the heavier taxation on the rich will leave the poor a larger disposable sum, part of which they may save, and to that extent increase the store of wealth.
  5. What do you say to the proposition maintained by Mill (Book V., ch. ii. §4) and discussed by Bastable (p. 297), that the part of income which is saved should be exempt from taxation?
  6. W. is credited with having laid down two propositions: First, that “any income tax which permits of any exemption whatever is a graduated income tax”; and, secondly, that “a graduated income tax to the extent of its discrimination is an act of confiscation.”
  7. State the general plan on which the French Contribution des Patentes is levied, and then discuss the following:—
    1. Bastable says (p. 411):—
      The Patente is very far from being a proportional tax on industrial gains. It rather resembles a charge on certain necessaries of the business, such as buildings, labor, or motive power.
    2. Leroy-Beaulieu (Science des Finances, I. p. 396) says:—
      The manufacturer being taxed by the general tax on rents [personelle-mobilière] there is evident injustice in loading him with an additional tax on his habitation.
    3. And in general he says (ibid., p. 380):—
      In countries like France where incomes in general are not subject to any special direct tax, it is indisputable that a tax on the profit of manufacturers, of merchants, and of the liberal professions, has no reason for existence and can only be explained by the brutal law of fiscal necessity.
  8. Describe the changes which the Prussian income tax has gone through and the distinctive characteristics of the law of 1891.
  9. Describe the plan on which the English “death duties” are now arranged.
  10. What are the methods used in different countries for the taxation of tobacco, and how far does each appear applicable in the United States?
  11. Which of the following taxes are best fitted for national use and which for local, and why?

Excise;
Income;
Real Estate;
Stamps on deeds, commercial paper and legal instruments;
Successions.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 72. FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC DEBTS

Enrollment

[Economics] 72. Professor DUNBAR. — Financial Administration and Public Debts. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 23: 10 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 3 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 7[2].
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Give one half of your time to a careful treatment of the questions under A.]

A.

  1. Discuss the conditions necessary for maintaining a thoroughgoing budget system, and show what changes (if any) of constitution, law, or political practice would be required, in order to set such a system in operation in the United States.
  2. When the United States issued the 5-20 bonds (principal and interest payable in gold), they had the choice between three courses, viz:
    1. To sell the bonds for par in gold and make the rate of interest high enough to attract buyers;
    2. to sell the bonds for gold at such discount as might be necessary, their interest being fixed at six per cent;
    3. to sell the bonds for their nominal par in depreciated paper.
      Which of these courses now seems to you the best, and why?
  3. Discuss the following:
    “Viewed as a purely financial question, it is no occasion for congratulation that a debt is widely diffused. Not only is its management necessarily more expensive, but the facility offered to politicians to use the debt for party and personal ends often defeats the best purposes of the financier. . . .France, for example, continued to pay for a number of years a higher rate of interest than was necessary, because the government feared the voting power of the holders of rentes. Nor do industrial considerations necessarily lead to the approval of widely-diffused debt. The unfailing indication of healthy state of industries is found in the personal attention of all members of society to business affairs. and this can only come with personal interest in some particular form of product. In so far as the private income of individuals arises from payments of interest by the state, the public is deprived of the beneficial workings of that solicitous care which insures success in industrial ventures. —Adams, Public Debts, p. 43.

B.

  1. State the manner in which the selling value of bonds is influenced, by, —
    1. annual drawings by lot for payment;
    2. reserved right to pay at pleasure;
    3. agreement to pay at or after some distant date;
    4. arrangement like that of the “Five-twenties.”
  2. The distinction between a bond reimbursable from the date of issue and one which is secured against redemption for ten or twenty years, is said to be “one of the most fundamental that presents itself in the entire course of credit operations,” because,—
    “A bond reimbursable from the date of its issue shows great carelessness on the part of the administration as to ultimate payment; on the other hand, a bond guaranteed against immediate payment is evidence of an intention to escape the evils of perpetual indebtedness.” — Adams, Public Debts, p. 161.
    Give your reasons for agreeing or for disagreeing with this statement.
  3. Under what conditions is the use of terminable annuities as a species of sinking fund advisable, and on what principle should the extent to which their use is carried be limited, if at all?
  4. What do you say to the following dictum as to buying public debt:
    “Payment by purchase (of bonds) upon the market at market prices is defensible when bonds are below par, but not when above par and so conditioned as to be payable, within a reasonable time, at their nominal value.”
  5. Describe the operation by which the French government converted the Morgan Loan in 1875 and state any criticism to be made upon this conversion.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 8. HISTORY OF U.S. FINANCIAL LEGISLATION

Enrollment

[Economics] 8. Professor DUNBAR. — History of Financial Legislation in the United States. 2 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 34: 3 Graduates, 19 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 8.
[Mid-Year Final Examination]

[Let your answers stand in numerical order.]

  1. Hamilton has sometimes been charged with favoring the policy of a perpetual public debt. Discuss the grounds for this charge.
  2. The act of 1790 for assuming the debts of the States did not wait for the settlement of accounts between the States and the Union. Did this failure to wait necessarily affect the result?
  3. What is a “direct tax” of the United States and on whom and how is it laid? Give instances.
  4. What were the provisions of law or the practices in use, regulating the kinds of currency received and paid by the Treasury, between 1789 and 1846?
  5. What was the Specie Circular, and what were its effects?
  6. What is Mr. Gallatin’s view of the part played by the United States Bank and of its influence, in the disastrous period 1837-1841?
  7. Describe the Independent Treasury Act of 1846, and state any modifications that the system has undergone.
  8. Give some account of the treasury notes issued 1837-46, and show how they resembled or differed from notes now issued by the United States.
  9. What considerations are there which tend to create doubt as to the necessity of the first Legal Tender Act?
  10. State the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Acts.
  11. Sketch the legislation which has established the national banking system.
  12. Describe the change which has taken place in the meaning attached to the word “resumption,” and the circumstances which have given us a legal tender currency of fixed amount.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

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1892-93.
ECONOMICS 9. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITION OF WORKINGMEN

An earlier post to this course with valuable links to the works quoted in the exams.

Enrollment

[Economics] 9. Mr. CUMMINGS. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen in the United States and in other countries. 3 hours.

Total 24: 3 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 68.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 9.
[Mid-Year Examination]

[Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries. Omit two questions.]

  1. “In a society adjusted to manual labor, it is absolutely impossible that a labor problem, as a class problem, should take its origin; but in a society adjusted to machinery, provided the English law of property be maintained, the development of class lines will surely make its appearance in industries.”
    State fully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with these assertions.
  2. “First, government must regulate the plane of competition, for without legal regulation the struggle between men for commercial supremacy will surely force society to the level of the most immoral man who can maintain himself.”
    What evidence does the history of factory legislation furnish upon these points?
  3. Comment upon the following passage: “The object held in view by workmen, when they organized themselves into unions, was to gain again that control over the conditions of labor which they lost when machinery took the place of tools.”
  4. “The English public has had the courage and strength to leave workingmen’s associations full freedom of movement, at the risk even of temporary excesses and acts of violence, such as at one time stained the annals of trades-unions.” Explain.
    How far is this true of France? Of the United States?
  5. Describe briefly the origin, growth, and present tendencies of the English Friendly Society movement.
  6. To what extent do trade organizations and friendly societies constitute an aristocracy of labor?
  7. To what forms of remuneration can the evils of “sweating” be traced?
  8. “The aim of Coöperation is at the same time the aim of Trade Unionism.” In what sense?
  9. Sketch briefly the course of factory legislation during the present century either in England or in the United States.
  10. Comment on the following passage: “The fact that the ignorant masses are enabled by the factory to engage in what it once took skilled labor to perform has given the widespread impression that factory labor has degraded the skilled, when in truth it has lifted the unskilled; and this is the inevitable result of the factory everywhere.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 9.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience different countries. Omit two questions.]

  1. How is the burden of contribution distributed in each of the three departments of the German system of compulsory insurance? What theoretical or practical objections have you to the system?
  2. “In England especially the State is not in a position to compete effectively with energetic Insurance Companies or with the Friendly Societies, pulsating with the vigour of social life; and still less can it so compete when hampered by restrictions which handicap its powers.” Discuss the evidence on this point furnished by English experience with government workingmen’s insurance. Are there any indications that German ideas are gaining ground in England?
  3. “What, we will ask, is the relation of Profit-sharing to the ordinary wage system; and to what extent does Profit-sharing constitute an improvement upon the ordinary wage system?” Are there grounds for the assertion that Profit-sharing is “inferior in point of equity and expediency to the ordinary non-coöperative wage system“?
  4. “Besides the militant trade unionist workmen, that very shrewd class of workingmen, the coöperators, regard Profit-sharing with marked disapprobation; so much so that, although Profit-sharing forms an essential part of the professed principles of Industrial Coöperation, yet by far the greater part of Industrial Coöperation is carried on upon the system of altogether excluding the employees from participation in profits.” What are the facts referred to, and how do you account for them?
  5. “Here it is necessary to interpolate a protest against the assertion almost universally made by previous writers on this subject, that ‘Industrial Coöperation has succeeded in distribution, but has failed in production,’ — an assertion generally coupled with the explanation that ‘production’ is too difficult to be, as yet, undertaken by workingmen.” What are the facts?
  6. “But the enthusiastic Coöperator will ask: why not develop the voluntary system of democratic Coöperation until it embraces the whole field of industry?” What do you conceive to be the economic limits to such extension by consumers’ associations?
  7. “Having considered the social and economic position of workers in the coal, iron and steel industries in several countries, let us now by proper combination ascertain the average conditions prevailing in the two continents.” What are the probable conclusions to be drawn from these comparative statistics of family budgets in the United States and other countries?
  8. “The Hungarians, Italians, Bohemians and Poles, who throng our gates give most concern. . . . Up to the present time there seems no ground to fear that such new comers have wielded a depressing influence. There seems rather reason for congratulation in the fact that instead of their having lowered the American standard of living, the American standard of life has been raising them.” Discuss the evidence. What light do recent changes in the character and volume of migration from different countries throw on this problem?
  9. Indicate briefly the course of short-hour legislation in Massachusetts. How does it compare with the legislation in other states and other countries?
  10. Indicate carefully how far there has been any approximation to compulsory arbitration in Massachusetts; in New York; in other countries. What are the objections to compulsory arbitration?
  11. What do you conceive to be the significance of the Farmers’ Alliance and the Single Tax movements in the United States? And how are they related to each other?
  12. Precisely what evidence is there for and against the contention that the employment of “private armed forces” has been largely responsible for violence and bloodshed during strikes? Give concrete examples. 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

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1892-93.
ECONOMICS 10. U.S. AND EUROPEAN ECONOMIC HISTORY TO 1763

Enrollment

[Economics] 10. Professor ASHLEY. — The Economic History of Europe and America, to 1763. 3 hours.

Total 20: 6 Graduates, 7 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 3 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 10.
[Mid-Year Examination]

N.B. — Not more than seven questions must be attempted.

  1. Present the substance of recent suggestions as to the origin of the Celtic Sept, and compare them with earlier views.
  2. Describe the Roman villa system, and compare it with mediaeval manorial agriculture and with modern American farming.
  3. Discuss the value of the Domesday Survey for economic history.
  4. Explain the importance of “Commutation.”
  5. State and criticize Mr. Thorold Rogers’ view of the causes of the Peasant Revolt of 1381.
  6. Describe the character of internal trade in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
  7. To what extent was the mediaeval regulation of industry justified?
  8. Trace the history, and comment on the significance, of Journeymen’s Societies.
  9. “Capital is a historical category.” statement in the light of medieval history. Explain and criticize this statement in the light of mediaeval history.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 10.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Candidates are requested to attempt only six questions, — of which six one at least must be chosen from the first set.]

  1. Compare the position of the Roman coloni with that of the peasants of the Middle Ages.
  2. “The reign of Edward I appears to mark the turning-point in the history of the craft-gilds.” Explain and criticize this.
  3. Estimate the importance of the work of M. Fustel de Coulanges in relation to Economic History.
    ________________________________
  4. How did the Reformation affect the English craft companies?
  5. Describe the “domestic system” of industry, and compare it with earlier and later systems.
  6. Narrate the later fortunes of the Hanseatic merchants in England.
  7. State and discuss the principles involved in the Poor Law of the sixteenth century.
  8. Give some account of the various discussions concerning economic policy occasioned by the East India Company.
  9. Compare a New England town with an English manor.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

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1892-93.
ECONOMICS 11. HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THEORY BEFORE ADAM SMITH 

Enrollment

[Economics] 11. Professor ASHLEY. — History of Economic Theory, down to Adam Smith. 2 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 8: 7 Graduates, 1 Senior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 11.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Candidates are requested to attempt only six questions.]

  1. Explain Aristotle’s view of chrematistics.
  2. What has been the economic influence of the Roman law?
  3. Compare the fundamental ideas of the Canonists with those of the Socialists.
  4. Explain the Canonist doctrine of Partnership.
  5. What were the principles involved in the discussion concerning Montes Pietatis?
  6. Consider the influence of the Reformation on Economic opinion.
  7. Sketch briefly the various stages in the history of Mercantilism.
  8. Explain briefly the significance for the history of economic thought of either Bodin, or Sir Josiah Child.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

 

Categories
Austria Economists Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Ludwig von Mises visits the economics department, 1940

“Money as a Dynamic Factor” was the title of the talk given by Ludwig von Mises Thursday evening, December 5, 1940 at the Harvard department of economics. From a memo written by Paul Sweezy [transcribed for the following post] we know that the cocktail committee added sherry and whiskey to the selection of hard drinks served as refreshment that evening.

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Carbon copy of letter from Chamberlin to Mises

November 20, 1940

Dear Dr. von Mises:

            The Department of Economics at Harvard would like to offer their graduate students the privilege of meeting you and hearing you while you are in this country. Would it be possible for you to speak at Harvard on the evening of either December 5 or December 12? If so, I should be glad to receive from you suggestions as to possible subjects. We should hope, too, that you would be able to remain in Cambridge for a day or so in order to give students and others a chance to talk with you informally. An honorarium of $100 will be paid (from which you would be expected to meet your own travelling expenses).

            I very much hope you will be able to accept this invitation.

Sincerely yours,

 

E. H. Chamberlin

Dr. Ludwig von Mises
599 West End Avenue
New York City

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Mises’ Reply to Chamberlin

 Ludwig Mises

New York, Nov. 23, 1940

Dear Professor Chamberlin:

Thank you very much for your kind invitation. I shall be very pleased to address the graduate students of your Department.

            I hope that nothing will prevent me from delivering my address on the first of the two days you suggested in your letter (i.e. December 5) and to have informal talks with the students on the following days.

            Would you consider as a suitable topic for my address: “Money as a dynamic factor”?

Sincerely yours

[signed] L. Mises

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Department Announcement
of Lecture by Mises

Department of Economics

Professor Ludwig von Mises, formerly of the University of Vienna and of the Institute for International Studies at Geneva, will speak on “Money as a Dynamic Factor”, in the Littauer Lounge at 8 P.M., Thursday, December 5 [1940].

(Open to members of the University)

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Thank you note from Mises

New York, December 11, 1940

Dear Professor Chamberlin

Thank you for your kind letter of December 9. May I express once again my gratitude for the warm reception you and your colleagues accorded me. It was a great pleasure to me to have the opportunity to meet the distinguished members of your department.

Sincerely yours

Ludwig Mises

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961. Box 25 (Visiting Committees-Whippen), Folder: “Possible Visitors to Econ. Department”.

Image Source:  Ludwig von Mises (1935) at the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek Digital website.

Categories
Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Report of the Cocktail Committee. Paul Sweezy, 1941

 

Departmental meetings with cocktails! What could possibly go wrong? Paul Sweezy   wrote the following memo that outlined his scheme to collect revenue to balance the budget of the Harvard economic department’s “Cocktail Committee”. While the average outlay of $3 per meeting seems rather modest when deflated by the bar price for martinis at the time, it is interesting to note that the whiskey and sherry expenditure for drinks following Ludwig von Mises’ talk (only sherry?) amounted to more than double the average cost. Quality vs. quantity vs. price? 

Incidentally, I love Sweezy’s distinction between meeting “attendance” and “participation”.

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Martini: Bar Price in 1940

We again find the quarter [i.e. $0.25] martini a couple years later, in Chicago of 1940, at Gimbel’s Restaurant and Cocktail Lounge, on a block of West Randolph Street not far from the Cook County Court House and Grant Park.

Source: Brent Cox, “How Much More Do Martinis Cost Today?” Posted at The Awl (June 5, 2012).

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

CAMBRIDGE, MASSSACHUSETTS

April 17, 1941

Report of the Cocktail Committee

There have been seven regular department meetings for which cocktails have been provided at a total cost of $21.65, or slightly over $3 per meeting.

In addition, at one meeting whiskey was provided and sherry was served at the Mises meeting, making a further cost of $6.57.

There will be two more regular meetings. Budgeting each of these for $3 brings the total outlay of the cocktail committee for the year to $34.22.

It is difficult to know how to apportion this expense most rationally. I suggest that the members of the department who have benefitted from the facilities provided divide themselves into three categories as follows:

(1) Those who have attended regularly and participated freely. $3 each.

(2) Those who have attended regularly and participated moderately, or attended irregularly and participated freely. $2 each.

(3) Those who have derived only occasional benefit. $1 each.

            It this scheme seems reasonable, I shall collect money at the April 22 meeting, or members may leave their contributions with Miss Tatnall. I shall then be in a position to make a final report to the May meeting on the yield of this particular tax system and to make any further recommendations which may be necessary.

Paul M. Sweezy

 

Source: Harvard University Archives, Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers  (UAV 349.11), Box 10, Folder “Department Meeting Agenda”.

Image Source: Paul Sweezy from the Harvard Class Album 1942.