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Harvard. Graduate Money and Banking. Williams and Hansen, 1941-42

 

This post adds to the growing stock of course materials for the money and banking field taught in the Harvard economics department.

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Course materials for graduate money and banking taught by John Williams and Alvin Hansen for other years posted at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Course Enrollment

Economics 141. Professors Williams and Hansen.—Principles of Money and Banking.

Total 37: 24 Graduates, 7 School of Public Administration, 2 Radcliffe, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1941-42, p. 64.

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ECONOMICS 141
Principles of Money and Banking
1941-1942

  1. Pre-requisite reading. (For those who have not had advanced undergraduate course in Money and Banking.)
    1. Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Banking Studies — 1941
    2. Escher, Franklin: Modern Foreign Exchange — Macmillan, 1935
  1. Minimum required Reading (It is recommended to begin with Robertson’s book on Money, and then the chapters indicated in Wicksell’s Interest and Prices and Hawtrey’s A Century of Bank Rate. This may be followed by the chapters required in Keynes’ A Treatise on Money.)
  1. Books:
    1. Angell, James W.: Investment and Business Cycles — McGraw-Hill, 1941
    2. Haberler, Gottfried:  Prosperity and Depression — League of Nations, 1939), Chapter 8.
    3. Hansen, Alvin H.: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles — Norton, 1941
    4. Hansen, Alvin H.: Full Recovery or Stagnation? — Norton, 1938
    5. Hansen, Alvin H.: Business Cycle Theory — Ginn 1927. Chapter IV.
    6. Hawtrey, R.G.: A Century of Bank Rate — Longmans, 1938
    7. Hayek, F. A.: Prices and Production — Routledge, 1935 (rev. ed.)
    8. Keynes, J. M.: Treatise on Money — Harcourt, Brace, 1930. Chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 30.
    9. Keynes, J. M.: General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money — Harcourt, Brace, 1936.
    10. Lindahl, Erik: Studies in the Theory of Money and Capital — Allen and Unwin, 1939. Part II. Chapters III, IV, V, VI.
    11. Myrdal, G.: Monetary Equilibrium — Hodge, 1939. Chapters I, II, III
    12. Robertson, D. H.: Money — Harcourt, Brace, 1929. (2nd ed.)
    13. Robertson, D. H.: Essays in Monetary Theory — King, 1940
    14. Schumpeter, J. A.: Business Cycles — McGraw-Hill, 1939. Chapters 14, 15
    15. Wicksell, K.: Interest and Prices — Macmillan, 1936. Introduction by Bertil Ohlin, Author’s Preface, and Chapters 5, 7, 8, 11
  1. Articles:

See articles marked * in general reference list below.

  1. General reference reading

Angell, J.W.: Behavior of Money — McGraw-Hill, 1935

Armstrong, W.E.: Saving and Investment — Routledge, 1936

Beach, W.E.: British International Gold Movements and Banking Policy — Harvard U. Press, 1935

Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Twenty-Fifth Annual Report

Bresciani-Turroni, C.: The Economics of Inflation — Allen & Unwin, 1937

Brookings Institution: The Recovery Problem in the United States — 1936

Burgess, W.R.: The Reserve Banks and the Money Market — Harpers, 1936

Cassel, G.: The Downfall of the Gold Standard — Clarendon Press, 1936

Cassel, G.: On Quantitative Thinking in Economics — Clarendon Press, 1935.

Cassel, G.: Money and Foreign Exchange after 1914 — Macmillan, 1923.

Chandler, L.V.: An Introduction to Monetary Theory — Harper, 1940

Clark, Colin: National Income and Outlay — Macmillan, 1938

Clark, J.M.: Economics of Planning Public Works — Gov’t .Printing Office, 1935

Clark, J.M.: Strategic Factors in the Business Cycle — National Bureau of Economic Research, 1934

Cole, G.D.H.: What Everybody Wants to Know about Money — Knopf, 1933

Committee on Finance and Industry: Macmillan Report — H.M.S.O., 1931

Copland, Douglas: Australia in the World Crisis, 1929-1933 — Macmillan, 1934

Coulborn, W, A. L.: An Introduction to Money — Longmans, 1938

Crowther, G.: An Outline of Money — Nelson, 1941

Currie, L.: Supply and Control of Money in the United States — Harvard U. Press, 1934

Durbin, E.F.M.: Purchasing Power and Trade Depressions — Cape, 1933

Durbin, E.F.M.: The Problem of Credit Policy — Van Nostrand, 1935

Economic Essays in Honour of Gustav Cassel — Allen & Unwin, 1933

Economic Reconstruction — Report of Columbia Commission, Columbia U. Press, 1934

Einzig, Paul: World Finance, 1939-40 — Kegan, Paul, 1940

Ellis, H.S.: German Monetary Theory — Harvard U. Press, 1934

Ellsworth, P.T.: International Economics — Macmillan, 1938

Fisher, Irving: Purchasing Power of Money — Macmillan, 1911

Fisher, Irving: Booms and Depressions — Adelphi, 1932

Fisher, Irving. 100 Per Cent Money — Adelphi, 1935

Foster and Catchings: Money — Houghton, Mifflin, 1930

Foster and Catchings: Profits — Houghton, Mifflin, 1925

Gayer, A.D.: Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilization — Macmillan, 1935

Gayer, A.D.: Public Works in Prosperity and Depression — N.B.E.R., 1935

Gilbert, Milton: Currency Depreciation and Monetary Policy — U. of Penn. Press, 1939

Graham, F.D.: Exchange, Prices and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany, 1920-1923 — Princeton U. Press, 1930

Graham, F.D. and Whittlesey, C.R.: Golden Avalanche — Princeton U. Press, 1939

Gregory, T.E.: The Gold Standard and its Future — Dutton, 1935

Greidanus, T.: The Development of Keynes’ Economic Theories — King, 1939

Hall, N.F.: The Exchange Equalization Account — Macmillan, 1935

Hamilton, E.J.: American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain — Harvard U. Press, 1934

Hansen, Alvin H.: Economic Stabilization in an Unbalanced World — Harcourt, Brace, 1932

Hansen, Alvin H.: International Economic Relations, Part III — Hutchins Commission, U. of Minnesota Press, 1934.

Hardy, C.O. Credit Policies of the Federal Reserve System — Brookings, 1932

Hardy, C.O. Is There Enough Gold? — Brookings, 1936

Harris Institute Lectures: Gold and Monetary Stabilization — U. of Chicago Press, 1932

Harris, S.E.: Assignats — Harvard U. Press, 1930

Harris, S.E.: Monetary Problems of the British Empire-Macmillan, 1931

Harris, S.E.: Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy — Harvard U. Press, 1933

Harris, S.E.: Exchange Depreciation — Harvard U. Press, 1936.

Harris, S.E.: Economics of the American Defense Program — Norton, 1941

Harrod, R. F.: The Trade Cycle — Clarendon Press, 1936.

Harrod, R. F.: International Economics — Nisbet, 1939.

Hawtrey, R.G.: Currency and Credit — Longmans, 1928

Hawtrey, R.G.: Art of Central Banking — Longmans, 1932

Hawtrey, R.G.: A Century of Bank Rate — Longmans, 1939

Hayek, F.A.: Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle — Harcourt, Brace, 1933

Hayek, F.A.: Beiträge zur Geldtheorie — Springer, 1933

Hayek, F.A.: Monetary Nationalism and International Stability — Longmans, 1937

Hayek, F.A.: Profits, Interest and Investment — Routledge, 1939

Hayek, F.A.: The Pure Theory of Capital — Macmillan, 1941

Heilperin, M.A.: International Monetary Economics — Longmans, 1939

Hicks, J.R.: Value and Capital — Oxford U. Press, 1939

Iversen, Carl: International Capital Movements — Oxford U. Press, 1936

Johnson, G.G.: The Treasury and Monetary Policy, 1933-38 — Harvard U. Press, 1939

Kalecki, M.: The Theory of Economic Fluctuations — Farrar and Rinehart, 1939

Kemmerer, E.W.: The A B C of the Federal Reserve System — Princeton U. Press, 1938

Kemmerer, E.W.: The Gold Standard — its Nature and Future — Economists Nat’l Com. On Monetary Policy, 1940

Keynes, J.M.: A Tract on Monetary Reform — Macmillan, 1923

Keynes, J.M.: Unemployment as a World Problem — U. of Chicago, 1931 (pp. 1-42)

Keynes, J.M.: Means to Prosperity — Harcourt, Brace, 1933

Keynes, J.M.: How to Pay for the War — Harcourt, Brace, 1940

King, W.T.C.: History of the London Discount Market — Routledge, 1936

Knight, A.W.: What is Wrong with the Economic System — Longmans, 1939

Kuznets, S.S.: National Income and Capital Formation, 1919-1935 — Nat’l Bureau of Econ. Research, 1937

League of Nations: Final Report on Gold–1932

League of Nations: World Economic Survey (Annual)

League of Nations: Money and Banking; Monetary Review, Commercial and Central Banks (Vols. I and II) Annual

Lester, R.A.: Monetary Experiments — Princeton U. Press, 1939

Lundberg, E.: Economic Expansion — King, 1937

Machlup, Fritz: The Stock Market, Credit, and Capital Formation — Hodge, 1940

Madden, J.R. and Nadler, M.: International Money Markets — Prentice-Hall, 1935

Marget, A.W.: The Theory of Prices — Prentice-Hall, 1938

Marshall: Money, Credit, and Commerce — Macmillan, 1923

Marshall: Official Papers — Macmillan, 1926

Meade, J.E.: An Introduction to Economic Analysis and Policy — Oxford U. Press, 1938

Meade, J.E.: Consumers’ Credits and Unemployment — Oxford U. Press, 1938

Mises, L.: The Theory of Money and Credit — Harcourt, Brace, 1935

Moulton, H.G.: The Formation of Capital — Brookings, 1935

Moulton, H.G.: Income and Economic Progress — Brookings, 1935

Moulton, H.G.: Financial Organization and the Economic System — McGraw-Hill, 1938

Myers, Margaret G.: Paris as a Financial Centre — Columbia U. Press, 1936

National Industrial Conference Board: The Availability of Bank Credit, 1933-38 — 1939

Northrup, Mildred B.: Control Policies of the Reichsbank — Columbia U. Press, 1938

Ohlin, B.: Penningpolitik, Offentliga Arbeiten, etc., — Nordstedt, 1934

Ohlin, B.: Interregional and International Trade — Harvard U. Press, 1933

Ohlin, B.: Editor of issue of The Annals, May 1938 on Some Problems and Policies in Sweden

Paris, J.D.: Monetary Policies of the U.S., 1932-38 — Columbia U. Press, 1938

Phillips, C.A.; McManus, T.F. and Nelson, R.W.: Banking and the Business Cycle — Macmillan, 1939

Pigou, A.C.: The Theory of Unemployment — Macmillan, 1933

Pigou, A.C.: Employment and Equilibrium — Macmillan, 1941

Plumptre, A.F.W.: Central Banking in the British Dominions — U. of Toronto Press, 1940

Prather, C.L.: Money and Banking — Irwin, 1940

Riefler, W.W.: Money Rates and the Money Market — Harper, 1930

Robbins, Lionel: The Great Depression — Macmillan, 1934

Robinson, Joan: Introduction to the Theory of Employment — Macmillan, 1937

Roll, Erich: About Money — Faber and Faber, 1934

Saulnier, R.J.: Contemporary Monetary Theory — Columbia U. Press, 1938

Sayers, R.S.: Modern Banking — Oxford U. Press, 1937

Schumpeter, J.A.: The Theory of Economic Development — Harvard U. Press, 1934

Shackle, G.L.S.: Expectations, Investment and Income — Oxford U. Press, 1938

Shepherd, Henry L.: The Monetary Experience of Belgium, 1914-1936 — Princeton U. Press, 1936

Spahr, Walter E.: The Case for the Gold Standard — Economists’ Nat’l Com. On Monetary Policy, 1940

Thornton, Henry: An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1802) — Farrar and Rinehart, 1939 (Introduction by Hayek)

Thorp, Willard L.: Economic Problems in a Changing World — Farrar and Rinehart, 1939

Timoshenko, V.: World Agriculture and the Depression — U. of Michigan, Bureau of Business Research, 1933

Turner, R.C.: Member-Bank Borrowing — Ohio State U., 1938

Veblen, T.: Theory of Business Enterprise — Scribner’s, 1904

Veblen, T.: The Engineers and the Price System — Huebsch, 1921

Villard, H.H.: Deficit Spending and the National Income — Farrar and Rinehart, 1941

Vineberg, P.F.: The French Franc and the Gold Standard — McGill U., 1938

Viner, Jacob: Studies in the Theory of International Trade — Harper, 1937

Warren and Pearson: Gold and Prices — Chapman and Hall, 1935

Warren and Pearson: World Prices and the Building Industry — Wiley, 1937

Westerfield, R.B.: Our Silver Debacle — Ronald Press, 1936

Westerfield, R.B.: Money, Credit and Banking — Ronald Press, 1938

Whitaker, A.C.: Foreign Exchange — Appleton-Century, 2nd ed., 1933

White, Horace: Money and Banking — Ginn, 1936 (revised edition by Tippetts and Froman)

Whittlesey, C.R.: International Monetary Issues — McGraw-Hill, 1937

Wicksell, K.: Lectures on Political Economy, Money — Macmillan, 1935

Williams, J.H.: Argentine Trade under Inconvertible Paper — Harvard U. Press, 1920.

Willis, H.P., and Beckhart, B.H.: Foreign Banking System — Holt, 1929

Wood, Elmer: English Theories of Central Banking Control, 1819-1858 — Harvard U. Press, 1939

Articles

Angell, J.W.: “The 100% Reserve Plan” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1935

Angell, J.W.: “Foreign Exchange” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Volume 6

Beveridge, W. H.: “Unemployment in the Trade Cycle”, Economic Journal, March, 1939.

Clark, Colin: “The Determination of the Multiplier from National Income Statistics”, Economic Journal, September, 1938.

Currie, L.: “The Failure of Monetary Policy to Prevent the Depression of 1929-32”, Journal of Political Economy, April 1934.

Curtis, Myra: “Is Money Saving Equal to Investment?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1937

Duncan, A.J., and Gilboy, E.W.: “Propensity to Consume” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1939

Eddy, George A.: “The Present Status of New Security Issues”, Review of Economic Statistics, August 1939.

Ellis, Howard: “Some Fundamentals in the Theory of Velocity”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1939.

Ellis, Howard: “Notes on Recent Business-Cycle Literature”, Review of Economic Statistics, August, 1938.

Ellis, Howard: “Exchange Control in Austria and Hungary” Quarterly Journal of Economics November 1939. Part II.

Graham, F.D.: “100% Reserves: comment”, American Economic Review, June, 1941.

Haberler, G.: “Mr. Kahn’s Review of ‘Prosperity and Depression’”, with rejoinder by R.F.Kahn, Economic Journal, June 1938

Hansen, Alvin H.: “Progress and Declining Population” American Economic Review, March 1939

Hansen*, Alvin H.: “Gold in a Warring World,” Yale Review, Summer, 1940

Hansen*, Alvin H.: “Monetary and Fiscal Controls in War Time” Yale Review, Winter, 1940

Hansen, Alvin H.: “Income, Consumption, and National Defense” Yale Review, Winter, 1940

Harris*, S.E.: “American Gold Policy and Allied War Economics”, Economic Journal, September, 1940.

Harrod R.F.: “An Essay in Dynamic Theory”, Economic Journal, March, 1939.

Hicks*, J.R.: “Mr. Keynes’ Theory of Employment”, Economic Journal, June, 1936.

Hicks*, J.R.: “Mr. Keynes and the ‘Classics’”: a Suggested Interpretation” Econometrica, April 1937

Hicks*, J.R.: “Mr. Hawtrey on Bank Rate and the Long-Term Rate of Interest,” The Manchester School, Vol. X, no. 1, 1939

Holden, G.R.: “Rationing and Exchange Control in British War Finance” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1940

Horsefield, J.K.: “Currency Devaluation and Public Finance, 1929-37” Economica, August 1939

Kaldor, Nicholas: “Capital Intensity and the Trade Cycle”, Economica, February, 1939.

Kaldor*, Nicholas: “Stability and Full Employment”, Economic Journal, December, 1938.

Kalecki, M.: “The Short-Term Rate of Interest and Velocity of Cash Circulation”, Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1941.

Keynes*, J.M.: “Alternative Theories of the Rate of Interest”, Economic Journal, June, 1937.

Keynes*, J.M.: “Relative Movements in Real Wages and Output” Economic Journal, March 1939

Kondratieff, M.D.: “The Long Waves in Economic Life”, Review of Economic Statistics, November, 1935.

Lange*, Oscar: “The Rate of Interest and the Optimum Propensity to Consume”, Economica, February 1938

Langum, J.K.: “The Statement of Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds”, Review of Economics Statistics, August, 1939.

Lehmann, Fritz: “One Hundred Per Cent Money”, Social Research, February, 1936.

Lerner*, A.P.: “Mr. Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”, International Labour Review, October 1936 and November 1937.

Lerner, A.P.: “Saving Equals Investment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1938.

Lerner, A.P.: Alternative Formulations of the Theory of Interest,” Economic Journal, June, 1938.

Lerner*, Lange, Curtis, Lutz: “Saving and Investment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1939.

Long, C.D.: “Long Cycles in the Building Industry, 1856-1935”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1939.

Lutz, F.A.: “The Outcome of the Saving-Investment Discussion”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1938.

Lutz, F.A.: “Velocity Analysis and the Theory of the Creation of Deposits”, Economica, May 1939.

Machlup*, F.: “Period Analysis and the Multiplier Theory”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1939.

Machlup, F.: “The Theory of Foreign Exchanges”, Economica, November, 1939.

Marget, A.W.: “The Monetary Aspects of the Walrasian System”, Journal of Political Economy, April 1935.

Marget, A.W.: “Leon Walras and the ‘Cash-Balance’ Approach to the Problem of the Value of Money”, Journal of Political Economy, October, 1931.

Morgenstern, O.: “Professor Hicks on Value and Capital” Journal of Political Economy, June 1941

Ohlin, Robertson, Hawtrey: “Alternative Theories of the Rate of Interest: Three Rejoinders”, Economic Journal, September, 1937.

Ohlin*, B.: Some Notes on the Stockholm Theory of Savings and Investment”, Economic Journal, March 1937, June, 1937.

Ohlin, B.: “Mechanism and Objectives of Exchange Control”, Supplement to American Economic Review, March 1937.

Pigou, A.C.: “Mr. J.M. Keynes’ ‘General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” Economica, May 1936

Plumptre, A. F. W.: “Interest Rates and Bank Credit in the British Dominions”, Economic Journal, June, 1939.

Poole, K.H.: “Tax Remission as a Means of Influencing Cyclical Fluctuations” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1939

Robinson*, Joan: The Concept of Hoarding”, Economic Journal, June, 1938.

Samuelson*, P.: “Interactions between the Multiplier Analysis and the Principle of Acceleration”, Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1939.

Samuelson, P.: “The Rate of Interest under Ideal Conditions”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1939.

Schumpeter, J. A.: “An Analysis of Economic Change”, Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1935.

Shirras, G. F.: “The Position and Prospects of Gold,” Economic Journal, June-September, 1940.

Simmons*, E. C.: “Treasury Deposits and Excess Reserves”, Journal of Political Economy, June, 1940.

Simons, H. C.: “Rules versus Authority in Monetary Policy”, Journal of Political Economy, February, 1936.

Somers, H. M.: “Monetary Policy and the Theory of Interest”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1941.

Viner, Jacob: “Mr. Keynes on the Causes of Unemployment: A Review” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1936.

Watkins, L. L.: “The Expansion Power of the English Banking System,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1938.

Williams, J.H.: “The Adequacy of Existing Mechanisms under Varying Circumstances” Supplement to American Economic Review, March, 1937.

Williams*, John H.: “Fiscal Policy and Preparedness”, Proceedings, Academy of Political Science, May, 1939.

Williams, John H.: “Economic and Monetary Aspects of the Defense Program”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, February, 1941.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003, Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1941-1942”.

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1941-42
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 141
Principles of Money and Banking
Mid-Year Examination

(Three hours)

  1. Choose any three from questions I-IV.
    1. Compare the formulations of (a) Robertson and (b) Keynes (Treatise and General Theory) with respect to the following:
      Equality or inequality of Saving and Investment (give equations and define terms).
      2. The role of investment as a determinant of income and employment.
    2. Develop Keynes’ theory of interest and compare with the theories (a) of the classicals and (b) of Wicksell and others belonging to his school.
      2. What is the role of the rate of interest as a determinant of income and employment?
    3. “The validity of the multiplier theory rests upon the stability of the consumption function.” Explain and evaluate this statement.
    4. Give a compact summary statement describing the most significant monetary events of the two decades 1920-1940, and indicate the lessons to be learned from each.
  1. Choose one from questions V and VI.
    1. According to Angell: (1) what are the inter-relations of (a) anticipations, (b) investment, and (c) income, and what are the determinants of each; (2) what are the determinants and the role of (a) market rates of interest, (b) the money supply, an (c) money hoards?
    2. Critically state and evaluate the central thesis in Hayek’s Prices and Production.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-term Examinations, 1852-1943, Box 15. Papers Printed for Mid-Year Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …,Military Science, Naval Science. January-February, 1942.

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1941-42
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 141
Principles of Money and Banking
Final Examination

(Three hours)

Discuss THREE topics.

  1. The relation of consumption to income and its significance for fiscal policy.
  2. The implications of fiscal policy for monetary policy and the banking system.
  3. The ideas of Foster and Catchings and of Hayek regarding the “paradox of savings.”
  4. Fellner’s analysis of the “technological argument of the stagnation thesis.”
  5. Milton Gilbert’s analysis of war expenditures and national production.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations, 1853-2001, Box 6, Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …,Military Science, Naval Science. June, 1942.

Images Source:  Hansen and Williams from Harvard Classbook 1942.

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Readings and Final Exam for Business Cycles. Hansen and Haberler, 1942

 

Reading assignments and the final exam for the business cycles course taught at Harvard in 1938 by Alvin Hansen and Gottfried Haberler were posted earlier.

Also posted earlier are the Course outline and exam for 1949 and the course outline for 1950. that were taught by Alvin Hansen.

For 1955-56 we have the course outline and reading assignments again jointly taught by Hansen and Haberler.

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Course Enrollment

Economics 45a 2hf. Professors Hansen and Haberler. — Business Cycles.

Total 59: 2 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 30 Juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 School of Public Administration, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1941-42, p. 63.

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SPECIFIC READING ASSIGNMENTS
IN ECONOMICS 45a
1941-42

  1. First four weeks:
    1. Haberler: Prosperity and Depression, Chapters 1, 9, 10, 11
    2. Hansen: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Chapters 1, 2
    3. Schumpeter: Business Cycles, pp. 325-351
    4. Schumpeter: “Analysis of Economic Change,” Review of Economic Statistics, May 1935
    5. Kondratieff: “The Long Waves in Economic Life,” Review of Economic Statistics, November 1935
    6. Mitchell: Business Cycles, Chapter 3
    7. Federal Reserve Chart Book (Available at the Coop. 60¢)
  2. Six weeks:
    1. Hansen: Full Recovery or Stagnation? Chapters 1-5
    2. Haberler: Prosperity and Depression, Chapters 2-8; 13
    3. Hansen: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Chapters 11, 12
  3. Last two weeks:
    1. Hansen: Business Cycle Theory, Chapters 4 and 8
    2. Hansen: Full Recovery or Stagnation?, Chapters 16-20
  4. Reading Period (Choose A or B):
    1. 1. Mitchell: “Business Cycles,” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 3, pp. 92-106
      2. Hansen: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Chapters 3-5: 16-17; 23-24
    2. Clark, J.M.: Strategic Factors in Business Cycles (entire book)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1941-1942”.

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1941-42
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 45a
BUSINESS CYCLES
Final Examination

I

(Answer any THREE of the four questions in Part I.)

  1. Enumerate, describe and compare waves of different length suggested in the literature on business cycles. Discuss especially Schumpeter, Kondratieff, and Hansen with respect to the schema they suggest and the analysis they make of these different wave movements.
  2. Discuss the typical behavior of interest rates in the cycle and the role attributed to interest rates in the explanation of the cycle by different theorists.
  3. Compare the downturn in 1929 with that in 1937. How do they differ, and what are the differences in the explanations suggested thereby?
  4. Discuss briefly the essential features of (a) the multiplier principle and (b) the acceleration principle. Discuss their interaction and indicate the various types of movement which may result from their interaction.

II

(Answer EITHER A or B)

A.

(1) Discuss the technique used by Mitchell in the article in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences for the analysis of business cycles.

(2) Compare the role of (a) monetary policy, and (b) fiscal policy in the United States in the recovery from 1933 to 1936.

B. Sketch the theoretical skeleton of J.M. Clark’s Strategic Factors in Business Cycles.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations, 1853-2001, Box 6, Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …,Military Science, Naval Science. June, 1942.

Image Source:  Alvin Hansen and Gottfried Haberler in the Harvard Class Album, 1942.

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Graduate course on money, banking and the business cycle. Schumpeter, 1933-34

 

It took Joseph Schumpeter a few years to establish his personal teaching niche in the Harvard economics department. This post provides material I have found (thus far) from Schumpeter’s graduate course covering monetary economics, policy, and business cycles from his second year as a permanent faculty member.

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Economics 50. (formerly Economics 38). Professor Schumpeter. — Money, Banking, and the Business Cycle.

Total 31: 10 Graduates, 15 Seniors, 1 Junior 4 Radcliffe, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1933-34, p. 86.

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Reading Period Titles for Economics 50

Reading Period. Fall Term, 1933-34.

Suggested Readings:

(1) Pigou, A.C., Industrial Fluctuations.
(2) Mitchell, The Business Cycle.
(3) Hansen, Theories of the Business Cycle.
(4) Snyder, C., Business Measurements.
(5) Persons, W.M., Business Forecasting.
(6) Hawtrey, R.G., The Art of Central Banking

Reading Period. Spring Term, 1933-34.

Suggested readings:

League of Nations (B. Ohlin), The Course and Phases of the World Economic Depression, 1931.
J.M. Clark, Strategic Factors in Business Cycles (National Bureau of Economic Research), 1934.
J.M. Rogers, The Process of Inflation in France, 1914-1927 (Columbia University Press, 1929).

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1933-34”.

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1933-34
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 50
Mid-Year Examination.

Answer any FOUR of the following questions.

  1. Is the equation of exchange (MV = PT) a tautology, and if so, in what sense? What do you think of Mr. Keynes’ claim that his equations are no mere identities?
  2. How are we to measure the amount of credit creation, and what is the distinction between it and the net increase of producers purchasing power above what it would be if there were no credit creation?
  3. “A fall in the prices of consumption-goods due to an excess of saving over investment does not in itself…require any opposite change in the price of new investment goods.” Explain and criticize.
  4. Explain the fact that the general price level and the rate of both short and long interest consistently vary together.
  5. “If the banking system controls the terms of credit in such a way that savings are equal to the value of new investment, then the average price-level of output as a whole is stable.” What do you think of this?
  6. How do you define “value of money”? Discuss the difficulties in the concept of the General Level of Prices.
  7. In what ways might speculation in securities affect business activity?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 12. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1933-34.

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1933-34
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 50
Final Examination.

Answer fully any FOUR of the following SIX questions.

  1. What were, according to your opinion, the causes of the inflow of gold into France after the stabilization of the French franc?
  2. If you were to recommend a policy conducive to the elimination or the smoothing down of business fluctuations, what would you try to stabilize: the sum total of incomes, incomes per capita, the price level, any particular group of prices, the rate of interest, the rate of exchange, profits?
  3. “Both international and national considerations called for a reversal of restrictive monetary policy early in 1929.” What do you think of this?
  4. What do you think were the most important “intensifying factors” which account for the unusual severity of the present world’s crisis?
  5. What is meant by Carl Snyder’s Trade Credit Ratio and what do you think of its significance?
  6. How would you define the relation between gold and prices? What consequences would you expect from the devaluation of the dollar (a) for the internal price level of this country in the short and in the long run, (b) for the external trade of the United States?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, Finals (HUC 7000.28, 76 of 284), June 1934.

Image Source: Harvard Archives. Irving Fisher and Joseph Schumpeter (May 12, 1934).

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Midyear Exam for Money, Banking and Cycles. Harris, 1934

 

This post adds an item to the course materials for Seymour Harris’ 1933-34 undergraduate Harvard course “Money, Banking and Cycles”.

Previously posted:

Syllabus and reading assignments for both semesters.

Course Final Examination from June 1934.

_____________________

1933-34
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3
Mid-Year Examination

  1. Answer (a), (b) or (c)
    1. What banking weaknesses were revealed by the major crises in the U.S. in the fifty years preceding the War?
    2. Give the main outline of Bank of England policy during the Restriction Period (Napoleonic Wars) with critical comments.
    3. Discuss the principles of Central Banking embodied in the Bank Charter Act of 1844. Was England’s success in maintaining the gold standard before the War because of or in spite of the Act? Would you favor the adoption of the principles of the Bank Act of 1844 in this country at the present time?
  2. Spend one hour on this question.
    The more important items on the balance-sheet of the Federal reserve authorities were as follows in the months designated:
(Millions of dollars)
Bills Discounted Bills Bought U.S. Govt. Securities Monetary Gold Stock Money in Circulation Member Bank Reserve Balances
March ‘32 714 105 809 4372 5531 1899
March ‘33 994 379 1875 4260 6998 1914
Sept. ‘33 138 7 2202 4327 5632 2489

What inferences as to policies and developments in this period can be drawn from these figures? Elaborate.

  1. Answer two of the following three questions:
    1. Discuss the relation of the banks to the capital market.
    2. What concern should a central bank have with security speculation?
    3. What limits, if any, are there to the creation of deposits? What limits, if any, are there to the creation of deposits? Discuss in this connection the varying reserve requirements against time and demand deposits.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 12. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1933-34.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album 1934.

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Junior tutorials in economics. Smithies and Chamberlin, 1960-61

 

The previous post is a Harvard Crimson article that reported on a major re-evaluation of the undergraduate economics program in 1959. The place of the junior tutorial was described as follows:

“The analytic material ejected from Ec. 1 has found refuge in Sophomore tutorial, while Ec. 98 (Junior tutorial) although heavily biased towards the empirical is the only course in the Department offering an overall view of the field.”

_____________________________

Course Enrollments

[Economics] 98a Tutorial for Credit—Junior Year. Professor Smithies. Half course, Fall.

Total 65: 11 Seniors, 48 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 4 Radcliffe.

[Economics] 98b Tutorial for Credit—Junior Year. Professor Chamberlin. Half course, Spring.

Total 61: 13 Seniors, 46 Juniors, 2 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1960-61. Page 75.

_____________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Fall 1960

Economics 98a
MACROECONOMICS
Professor Smithies

Reading List

  1. The English Classical System

Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, chs. 1, 2, 3; Book II; Book IV, chs. 1, 3, 8.

David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy, chs. 2-6, 21.

W. J. Baumol, Economic Dynamics, ch. 2.

Malthus, T. R., An Essay on the Principle of Population (1st & 2nd editions), Macmillan, London, 1914.

Malthus, T. R., Principles of Political Economy, Book II, ch. I, “On the Process of Wealth.”

  1. Marxian Dynamics

M.M. Bober, Karl Marx’s Interpretation of History, chs. 1-3 and 9-13.

P. Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development, chs. 4-6, 8, 9.

Suggested:

Joan Robinson, An Essay on Marxian Economics.

J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Part I.

  1. The Neo-Classical School and the Schumpeterian System

J. A. Schumpeter, The Theory of Economic Development.

____________, Business Cycles, Vol. I, chs. 3, 4.

____________, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Part II.

A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book VI, chs. 12, 13, Appendixes A, C, D.

Suggested:

A. A. Young, “Increasing Returns and Economic Progress,” Economic Journal, December 1928, reprinted in R. V. Clemence (ed.) Readings in Economic Analysis, Vol. 1.

R. Solow, “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth,” QJE, Feb. 1956.

A. Smithies, “Productivity, Real Wages, and Economic Growth,” QJE, May 1960.

  1. Keynesian Economics.

J. M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, chs. 3, 19, 22-24.

A. Hansen, Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy, chs. 3-6.

L. Klein, The Keynesian Revolution, ch. 3.

Suggested:

Income, Employment and Public Policy, “Essays in Honor of Alvin H. Hansen”, chs. 1, 5, 6.

S. E. Harris (ed.), The New Economics, chs. 39, 40.

  1. Business Cycles.

A.H. Hansen, Business Cycles and National Income, chs. 11-24.

Tinbergen and Polak, The Dynamics of Business Cycles, ch. 13.

  1. Business Cycles and Economic Growth.

E. Domar, “Expansion and Employment,” American Economic Review, March 1947, also reprinted in Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth, ch. IV.

A. Smithies, “Economic Fluctuations and Growth,” Econometrica, January 1957.

Wm. Fellner, “The Capital-Output Ratio in Dynamic Economics,” in Money, Trade, and Economic Growth (Essays in Honor of J. H. Williams).

  1. Inflation.

Bernstein and Patel, “Inflation in Relation to Economic Development,” International Monetary Fund, Staff Papers, Nov. 1952.

Kenneth K. Kurihara, Post-Keynesian Economics, ch. 2.

Staff Report on Employment, Growth, and Price Levels, Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the U.S., December 24, 1959, ch. 5.

  1. Economic Analysis and Economic Policy.

J. Tinbergen, Economic Policy: Principles and Design, chs. 1, 2, 3.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 7, Folder “Economics, 1960-1961 (1 of 2)”.

_____________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Economics 98b
MICROECONOMICS
Spring 1961

Professor Chamberlin

Week of Tuesday

Feb. 7

Markets, Perfect and Imperfect
Chamberlin, Monopolistic Competition, Chapter II, including note on Deviation from Equilibrium.

Feb. 14, 21

General Relations of Demand, Supply, Cost and Value
Marshall, Principles, Book V, Chapters 1-11, Appendix H.

Robinson, Joan, “Rising Supply Price,” Economica, New Series VIII, (1941). (Also in AEA Readings in Price Theory, Vol. VI, and in Robinson, Joan, Collected Economic papers).

Feb. 28

The Production Function and the Cost Curve of the Firm
(No lecture)

Boulding, Economic Analysis, Third Edition, chapters 28, 34, or revised edition, Chapters 24, 31 to p. 698.

Monopolistic Competition, 6th or 7th edition, Appendix B. (Also in Towards a More General Theory of Value, Essay 9.)

Mar. 7, 14

General Analysis of Monopolistic Competition. Product Differentiation. The Group
Monopolistic Competition, Chapters 1, 4, 5, 9.

Chamberlin, “Monopolistic Competition Revisited,” Towards a More General Theory of Value, Essay 3.

Robinson, Joan, Imperfect Competition, Foreword, Introduction, Chapters 1, 2.

Triffin, Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium Theory, pp. 78-89.

Mar. 21

Oligopoly
Monopolistic Competition, Chapter 3, Appendix A.

Fellner, Competition Among the Few, Chapter 1.

Arant, Willard, “Competition of the Few Among the Many,” QJE, 70:327 (1956).

Clark, J.M., “Toward a Concept of Workable Competition,” AER, 1940. (Also in AEA Readings in Price Theory)

Suggested: Fellner, further chapters.

Mar. 28

Nonprice Competition
“The Product as an Economic Variable,” Towards a More General Theory of Value, Essay 6.

Monopolistic Competition, Appendix C, Chapters 6, 7.

Apr. 2-9

SPRING VACATION

Apr. 11, 18, 25,
May 2

 Microincome Theory, Wages, Exploitation, Collective Bargaining
Hicks, The Theory of Wages, Chapters 1, 2, 4.

Robertson, “Wage Grumbles,” Readings in Income Distribution, No. 12.

Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chapter 25.

Monopolistic Competition, (5th or later edition), Chapter 8; pp. 215-18.

Chamberlin, “Monopoly Power of Labor,” Towards a More General Theory of Value, Essay 12.

Dunlop, “Wage Policies of Trade Unions,” Readings, No. 19.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 7, Folder “Economics, 1960-1961 (2 of 2)”.

 _____________________________

ECONOMICS 98b—PAPER
[Spring 1961]
Due any time, but not later than May 9.

The purpose of this paper is to give an opportunity for a bit of “theorizing” of your own. The paper may be either constructive or critical, but the emphasis should be on your own contribution, rather than on developing the subject more generally, or expounding it mainly in terms of the ideas and views of others.

The ideal subject would be chosen by yourself—either an adverse reaction to, or further development of: something said in lectures, in the assigned or related reading, or in tutorial discussions. A rounded treatment or essay on the subject is not desired—rather something in the nature of a “Note” (say for the Quarterly Journal), which would either present an idea of its own or criticize one which has been presented by someone else. (A good illustration of this latter is Essay 13 in Towards a More General Theory of Value.) Brevity is therefore desirable. Papers should normally be from six to twelve pages (typed, double spaced), with fifteen as an absolute limit. Extensive reading is not indicated; (in an extreme case there might even be none at all), but a great deal of time should be given to thinking through carefully what you want to say.

The accompanying list of topics is suggestive only; as stated above, one chosen by yourself might be better. In any case your subject should be approved; and the question of reading should be taken up with your tutor.

SUGGESTED TOPICS

Some further analysis of the classroom market problem, or of a variation on it. (Material between page 236 to the end in the article as printed would illustrate further developments from the original problem.)

Marginal cost pricing as against Marshall’s short run normal analysis.

The Representative Firm Revisited.

Comment on Modigliani’s article: “New Developments on the Oligopoly Front,” JPE 66:215 (1958).

Mr. Kaldor’s concept of advertising cost. (“The Economic Aspects of Advertising,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. XVIII (1) No. 45.)

Some aspect of spatial equilibrium.

A review of Machlup, “Marginal Analysis and Empirical Research,” AER, Sept. 1946.

Review of Gottlieb, “Price and Value in Industrial Markets,”Economic Journal, March 1959.

Is equilibrium with external economies possible under perfect competition? Under monopolistic competition?

Temporal Differentiation.

Some aspect of empirical cost curves.

“Bilateral Oligopoly”—Big Business and Big Labor.

Measures which might be taken to reduce “excess capacity.”

A critique of Stigler’s “Monopolistic Competition in Retrospect,” in his Five Lectures on Economic Problems.

“‘Entry’ is often not the literal appearance of a new firm, but the decision of an old one to add the new product to its line.” What effect would this have on the conventional analysis?

“Conjectural Variation” as a solution to oligopoly.

How would more attention to sales maximization and less to profit maximization affect the analysis?

Deliberate product obsolescence: Implications for public policy.

The Lester-Machlup controversy over the wage elasticity of the demand for labor.

Comment on “Some Basic Problems in the Theory of the Firm” by Papandreou in A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. II.

If the concept of a “group” were to be abandoned, following Triffin, what would happen to the analysis in Chapter 5?

Review of Alchian, “Uncertainty, Evolution and Economic Theory,” JPE 1950; also in AEA Readings in Industrial Organization and Public Policy.

The Economic Analysis of Industry-Wide Advertising.

My Own Grumbles on Wages. (Suggested by the title of Roberson’s article assigned later in the course.)

The case for assuming imperfect, instead of perfect, knowledge in economic theory.

Stigler on the Kinked Demand Curve. (“The Kinky Oligopoly Demand Curve and Rigid Prices,” AEA Readings in Price Theory, and criticism by Efroymson in QJE 69:119 (1955).

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003.Box 7, Folder “Economics, 1960-1961 (1 of 2)”.

Image Source:  John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation website. Arthur Smithies (1955 Fellow), Edward H. Chamberlin (1958 Fellow).

 

 

 

Categories
Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Undergraduate economics concentrators dropped over 50% in 1950s.

 

This post provides some backstory to the next post that features the reading lists for Harvard’s junior year tutorial in macroeconomics (Arthur Smithies) and microeconomics (Edward Chamberlin) used in 1960-61. The following Harvard Crimson article describes the undergraduate program in crisis (as seen in the massive drop in economics concentrators). The fall in numbers was attributed to the observation that economics “instruction gyrates widely from verbal triviality to mathematical incomprehensibility”.  Now one might say that much economics instruction gyrates from verbal incomprehensibility to mathematical triviality.

Alfred Marshall tried to design his own Cambridge Curriculum to address two classes of students, those needing general economics training for leadership careers in business and government and those needing advanced training for research careers in economics. Integrated training of the two classes within a single program at Harvard appears to have reached its limits by the second half of the twentieth century. 

Marshall, Alfred. The New Cambridge Curriculum in Economics. London: Macmillan, 1903.

________________________

Economics: Undergraduate Program Undergoes Extensive Re-Evaluation
By Michael Churchill

The Harvard Crimson, November 14, 1959

C. P. Snow, British scientist and author, recently called attention to what he termed the problem of two cultures in our society–the gap in understanding between the traditional humanities and social sciences on the one hand and modern science and technology on the other. Both exist side by side, yet remain intellectually divorced in our modern society. This dichotomy serves well in considering the difficulties surrounding the discipline of economics, for its midway position in such a scheme is indicative of its problems.

The subject matter of economics is the productive system, with all its relations to the world of technology. The concern of economics, however, is this system’s role in society and its effect on men, their livelihood, and their institutions. Not an integrator of the two cultures, nevertheless it must span the separation.

The Economics Department is currently undergoing a crisis. It has failed up to now to accommodate both elements in a coherent program. The result is strikingly demonstrated by the flight of undergraduate concentrators from the field. In less than a decade the number has declined by over half; from 709 in 1949 to 340 in 1958. Although the decline may partially reflect a nationwide tendency, it also is the result of the confusion and frustration attending the undergraduate program here, as the instruction gyrates widely from verbal triviality to mathematical incomprehensibility.

Though economics stands mid-way between two cultures, it is its similarity to the natural sciences that causes the greatest problems. Professional economics shares with the sciences an analytic technique “remote from the common experience of the layman and a language that is principally mathematical,” to use the words the Bruner Committee applied to the natural sciences. And to judge from the current trend this will become increasingly so.

Another similarity with science is that the study of economics is often cumulative, thereby necessitating an extensive introduction to provide the requisite basic knowledge. These are the same problems with which the Bruner Report was concerned in the teaching of natural sciences in a liberal arts program. That report dealt primarily with the problem of the non-concentrator in science–the General Education courses in natural sciences. The Economics Department, however, because of the interest of its concentrators, encounters the same problems throughout its program.

Some of the concentrators are presumably economists, and the Department little wishes to discourage their interests. The vast majority, however, will be lawyers, doctors, and even, despite the Department’s hostility, businessmen.

A final similarity with the sciences lies in the difficulty both areas have in getting the proper senior faculty to teach undergraduate courses. Because of the vast gap between the level of professional work and the elementary nature of undergraduate work–a gap so great that the difference is not only of degree of sophistication but of content–many professors are either reluctant to teach undergraduates or incapable of making the transition.

The combination of the inherent difficulties in teaching economics in a liberal arts college plus the almost total neglect of the undergraduate program in past years has resulted in the precipitous decline in concentrators. The hope of halting that decline lies at the bottom of the Department’s plans to re-design the undergraduate program, which are now under way.

Arthur Smithies, Chairman of the Department, met frequently this summer and again this fall with a Department Committee on Undergraduate Education appointed last spring. Headed by Professor Dunlop, members of the group are Professors Chamberlin, Duesenberry, and Meyer, Assistant Professors Gill and Lefeber, and instructors Baer and Berman.

The results of this increased attention are already apparent in changes made this year in Economics 1 and Junior tutorial, Ec. 98. Historical and topical subjects have gained emphasis at the expense of some of the more theoretical and analytical material, which is now consigned to Sophomore tutorial. In former years economic theory was presented in a historical vaccum without any consideration of the evolution of the economic system from a local medieval subsistence economy to the modern international productive system. The first month of Economics 1 is now devoted to filling this gap. Other changes include an increased emphasis upon the problem of underdeveloped countries and the substitution of a three-week study of the economy of the Soviet Union for the former week’s survey of comparative economic systems.

Along with these changes in content have come those of organization. Gone is the “parade of stars” which formerly masqueraded as lectures. Instead there are now blocs of integrated lectures covering single aspects of the course, for example the series of lectures the first month that Professor Gill gave on economic history. Another long-standing distinguishing trait of the course, its extensive use of teaching fellows, is also on the way out.

The changes are clearly tending to make the course less an introduction into the Department and more a General Education course in the social sciences. The stress, in the attempt to interest the non-concentrator through presentation of historical and topical issues, is now upon political economy rather than upon economics. In a liberal arts college such a solution to the problems affecting the discipline seems to be the most logical and rewarding for an introductory course.

Faced, however, with the task of teaching its concentrators some of the methods and techniques of the economist, the department has moved towards increasing utilization of Sophomore and Junior tutorial for this purpose. The analytic material ejected from Ec. 1 has found refuge in Sophomore tutorial, while Ec. 98 (Junior tutorial) although heavily biased towards the empirical is the only course in the Department offering an overall view of the field.

But there is this year, in addition, an increased amount of attention towards policy questions and topical economic issues in both courses, a reflection of the prevalent belief that meaningful economics on the undergraduate level should relate, as Smithies said, “to the great public issues of the day.” In practice these two elements–the analytical tools and the social framework in which they must fit–still remain divorced in these courses, but at least the attempt is being made to integrate them.

The most perplexing problems facing the Department occur in the area of the middle group courses. To some extent they are aggravated by the Department’s quantative approach to the number of concentrators, with its concern to retain the marginally interested student within the Department. And again the nature of the field, with its disparity between advanced professional techniques and an undergraduate approach, intensifies the problem that confronts many other departments in the College–that of withstanding the polar attractions of pre-professional orientation or of superficiality. Concerning the middle course group area, Dunlop’s committee has only just begun its discussions, but the major alternatives are well known.

There is general agreement, according to Dunlop, that the undergraduate program as part of a liberal arts program should not be a pre-professional training. Disagreement, however, becomes manifest quickly after that statement. Many members of the department, for instance, feel that the best concentrators, the potential future economists, should be allowed to take courses on the graduate level, and indeed should be encouraged to do so. In effect these students would be obtaining a pre-professional training, but the supporters of this proposal feel that this is the only way whereby the interest of the economics-oriented student can be prevented from obstruction by the triviality of normal undergraduate economics courses. At present many undergraduates already take graduate level courses, but the new plan would make a sharper distinction between those who do and do not.

Another group in Department, however, voices the opinion that the College student should not clutter his schedule with pre-professional courses, but rather use his time to study such fields as music, literature, and mathematics. If a student does do graduate work later in economics he will have no trouble picking up whatever advanced analytic tools he needs at that time, while if he does not intend to do so there is no sense in wasting his time with a lot of specialized technique, this bloc maintains.

One proposal, approved by nearly all and sorely needed, is to introduce a greater flexibility into the program through increased use of half-year courses. Presently over half of the seventeen courses offered run from September to June. Many of these, it is admitted, could be pared down to a half-year.

This leads to the proposal for a new type course to replace the far-flung surveys. They would probe smaller areas, but penetrate deeper. Based on the combined desire to attract more students, and the premise that the goal is a more intelligent understanding of the public issues of the past and present, the courses would be designed around the topical approach. Examples would be courses on the corporation, on the economic impact of government activity, the present course on the Soviet Union, a half-year course on underdeveloped countries. In discussing this approach, Dunlop stressed that these would not be “watered down versions of the analytic approach but a new crosscut.” It should be noted that, while not analytical, these courses would still include some quantitative analysis or even simple economic models, but these methods would not become ends or major concerns of the courses.

Another proposal is to set up a core program in the Department. There is, in fact, almost one already. Ec. 141–Money and Banking, Ec. 161–Industrial Organization, and Ec. 181–Industrial Relations, cover the major areas of the field and at least two of them are necessary to handle Generals well. A real core program where all concentrators would progress from one level of the next has many advantages; it provides a common background which the lecturer can assume, gives a common training, and insures that a student will not neglect a vital aspect of the field. But it also has disadvantages, the primary one being the difficulty of handling non-concentrators who have not had this core. Separate sections in a course might be a simple answer here. A more difficult problem is that of time. Ec. 1, 98, and 99 already constitute three-fifths of the required courses. A central core program of another three semesters would aggravate the present lack of flexibility.

For the Economics Department this is a time of discussion, but it must soon reach the hour of decision. Certainly the present situation is not tolerable. By its over-concern with theoretical models and tools, the Department has separated itself from the true materials of a liberal arts education in economics. It should not, however, allow itself to reach the other extreme, in its quest for concentrators, of reducing the content of the courses to a point where an economics student is no more qualified to discuss and solve an issue of political economy than an intelligent government concentrator.

There is little question of the importance of economics today, with its strategic position between the technological productive system and the literary tradition of the social sciences, and with its unique combination of the empirical and theoretical. It remains only to be taught well.

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Harvard Statistics

Harvard. Semester exams for Statistics. John Cummings, 1896-1900

 

 

 

John Cummings was awarded the first Ph.D. in political economy at the University of Chicago in 1894. His doctoral thesis was “The Poor Law system of the United States”, later published as “The Poor Laws of Massachusetts and New York.” Publications of the American Economic Association, vol. X, no. 4 (July, 1895). His first real academic job was at Harvard, after which he went to have a successful career as a statistician in government service. He was apparently quite a big name in vocational education policy by the end of his career.

This post provides the questions to all of the semester exams from the times he taught the statistics course for when he taught at his undergraduate alma mater during the last five years of the 19th century.

Life and Career of John Cummings

1868. Born May 18 in Colebrook, New Hampshire.

1887. Entered Harvard College.

1891. A.B., magna cum laude, Harvard College

1892. A.M., Harvard College

1893-94. Senior Fellow, Department of Political Economy, University of Chicago.

1894. Ph.D. in Political Economy; Reader in Political Economy, University of Chicago.

1894-1900. Instructor in Economics, Harvard University.

1900-02. Editorial staff New York Evening Post.

1902. Married Carrie R. Howe in Marion, Indiana, December 3, 1902)

1902-10. Assistant Professor in Political Economy. University of Chicago.

1910-16. Expert special agent, Census Bureau.

1917-23. Statistician, Federal Board for Vocational Education, Washington, D.C.

1924-30. Statistician and economist, Division of Research and Statistics, Federal Reserve Board.

1930-1933. Chief of Research and Statistics, Federal Board for Vocational Education, Washington, D.C.

1933-. Chief of research and statistical service, vocation education, United States Office of Education.

1936. Died , June 26.  in Washington, D.C.

Buried at the Crown Hill Cemetery, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Sources: Obituary in Washington Post, June 27, 1936, p. 8. Also “A Tribute to Dr. Cummings” in School Life (September 1936), p. 12.

_____________________

Tribute to Memory of John Cummings

At the annual meeting of the National Committee on Research in Secondary Education, of which organization Dr. Cummings was a member, the following resolution was adopted honoring his memory:

In the passing of Dr. John Cummings, of the United States Office of Education, research lost one of its most careful and effective workers. For a period of more than 20 years, Dr. Cummings was in the forefront of development in vocational education throughout the Nation. As research expert for the Joint Congressional Committee on National Grants for Education during President Wilson’s administration, he was instrumental in providing the bases upon which the legislation known as the Smith-Hughes Act was developed. Subsequently, as Chief of the Research and Statistical Service of the Vocational Educational Division in the Federal Office of Education, he was identified closely with the expansion and improvement of services in his field of work.

Dr. Cummings had the confidence and respect of his associates. By disposition he was kindly, tolerant, and friendly. He was never too busy to help those who came to him for counsel and advice. Gentle and reserved, he was at the same time an aggressive champion of objectives and principles in which he believed. His was a brilliant mind and an indomitable spirit. The National Committee on Research in Secondary Education can pay him no better or more deserved tribute than that voiced by his chief, Dr. J. C. Wright. Assistant Commissioner for Vocational Education, when he said: “As an economist, statistician, and editor, Dr. Cummings rendered invaluable service to the cause of vocational education in the United States. He was a man of outstanding ability, brilliant mentality, and quiet, unassuming personality. The Office of Education, and more particularly the cause of vocational education, has suffered a distinct loss in his death.”

Source:  School Life, vol. 22 (April, 1937), p. 236.

_____________________

Harvard Course: Statistics

Course Description
(1897-98)

[Economics] 4. Statistics. — Applications to Social and Economic Problems. — Studies in the Movements of Population. — Theory and Method. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. John Cummings.

This course deals with statistical methods used in the observation and analysis of social conditions, with the purpose of showing the relation of statistical studies to Economics and Sociology, and the scope of statistical inductions. It undertakes an examination of the views entertained by various writers regarding the theory and use of statistics, and an historical and descriptive examination of the practical methods of carrying out statistical investigations. The application of statistical methods is illustrated by studies in political, fiscal, and vital statistics, in the increase and migration of population, the growth of cities, the care of criminals and paupers, the accumulation of capital, and the production and distribution of wealth.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1897-98, p. 37.

_____________________

Course Enrollment 1895-96
(Half-course)

[Economics] 42. Dr. John Cummings. — Theory of Statistics. — Applications to Social and Economic Problems. — Studies in movements of population. Hf. 3 hours. 2d half-year

Total 19: 2 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1895-1896, p. 64.

 

1895-96.
ECONOMICS 4.
Year-End Final Examination.

[Divide your time equally between A. and B.]

A.
I and II may be treated as one question.

  1. What do you understand by “movement of population”? What light do Statistics throw upon the law of population as stated by Malthus?
  2. What are some of the “more striking facts and more pregnant results of the vast growth of population in Europe, America, and the British Colonies within the last half century”?

 

B.
Take five.

  1. In constructing a life table what correction must be made for abnormal age and sex distributions of the population?
  2. Define the following terms: “Mortality,” “Expectation of Life,” “Mean Duration of Life.” How should you calculate the mean duration of life from the census returns for any community?
  3. How should you calculate the economic value of a population?
  4. What are some of the inaccuracies to which censes enumerations are liable?
  5. What is the nature of a statistical law? Of what categories of social phenomena may statistical laws be formulated? In what sense are they laws? How do they bear upon freedom of the will in human conduct?
  6. How do the conditions of observation in social sciences differ from conditions of observation in the natural sciences?
  7. What do you understand by the law of criminal saturation?
  8. By what considerations should the Statistician be guided in making selection of social phenomena for investigation?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1896-97. Papers set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College. June 1896, pp.38-39.

_____________________

Course Enrollment 1896-97
(Year-course)

[Economics] 4. Dr. John Cummings. — Theory and Methods of Statistics. — Applications to Economic and Social Questions. — Studies in the Movement of Population. 3 hours.

Total 15: 8 Seniors, 7 Juniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1896-1897, p. 65.

 

1896-97.
ECONOMICS 4.
Mid-Year Examination.

[Divide your time equally between A. and B.]

A.

  1. The development of scientific statistics and the statistical method as employed in the social sciences.
  2. Social and economic causes of the migratory movements which have taken place in the populations of Europe and America during this century, and the laws in accordance with which those migrations have taken place where you can formulate any.

B.
(Take five.)

  1. Rural depopulation and the growth of cities in the United States.
  2. Define: “mean after life,” “expectation of life,” “mean duration of life,” “mean age at death.” What relation does the mean age of those living bear to the mean age at death? To the mean duration of life?
  3. Anthropological tests of race vitality as applied to the American negro?
  4. Explain how the economic value of a population is effected by its age and sex distribution.
  5. The United States census: either (1) an historical account of it, or (2) an account of the work now undertaken by the Census Bureau.
  6. Explain the various methods of calculating the birth rate of a population.
  7. How far are social conditions in a community revealed in the birth rate, the death rate, the marriage rate? Of what are fluctuations in these rates evidence in each case?
  8. What do you understand by the “index of mortality”?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years. 1896-97.

 

1896-97.
ECONOMICS 4.
Year-End Final Examination.

I.

  1. Give an historical account of the United States census, and a general statement of the ground covered in the census of 1890; also show how the census taking is supplemented by work done in the Department of Labor and in the statistical bureaus established in connection with the several administrative departments.
  2. Define Körösi’s “rate of natality,” and state any statistical evidence you know that the rate is affected by the standard of living.
  3. “It must, at all times, be a matter of great interest and utility to ascertain the means by which any community has attained to eminence among nations. To inquire into the progress of circumstances which have given pre-eminence to one’s own country would almost seem to be a duty….The task here pointed out has usually been left to be executed by the historian.” Porter: “The Progress of the Nation.”
    What contribution has statistics to make in the execution of this task? What do you understand to be the nature of the statistical method, and what are the legitimate objects of statistical inquiry?

II.
[Take two.]

  1. What light does statistics throw upon the “natural history of the criminal man”?
    Give Ferri’s classification of the “natural causes” of crime, and comment upon that classification. Of criminals.
    What do you understand by “rate of criminality”? By “criminal saturation”?
  2. To what extent in your opinion is suicide an evidence of degeneration in the family stock?
    Discuss the influence upon the rate of suicide of education, religious creed, race, climate and other facts of physical, political and social environment.
  3. Comment critically upon the tables relating to crime in the last five federal censuses taken in the United States.
  4. What difficulties beset a comparative study of criminality in different countries?
  5. How far is it possible to give a quantitative statement to moral and social facts?

III.
[Take one.]

  1. What are some of the more salient facts concerning the movement of population and wealth in the United States, England, and France during the present century, so far as those facts are evidenced in the production, consumption and distribution of wealth?
  2. Discuss the movement of wages and prices in the United States since 1890.
  3. What do you understand by “index figures,” “average wages,” “average prices,” and “weighted averages”?

IV.
[Take one.]

  1. How do you account for the increase in the proportion of urban to rural population during this century? What statistical evidence is there that the increased density of a population affects the mean duration of life? What importance to you attach to this evidence?
    Explain the effect of migratory movements upon the distribution of a population according to age, sex and conjugal condition, and upon the birth rate, death rate and marriage rate.
  2. Define and distinguish: “mean age at death”; “mean duration of life”; mean age of those living”; expectation of life.”
  3. The “law of population” as formulated by Malthus and by subsequent writers.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1896-97. Papers set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College. June 1897, pp. 39-41.

_____________________

Course Enrollment 1897-98
(Year-course)

[Economics] 4. Dr. J. Cummings. — Statistics. — Applications to Economic and Social Questions. — Studies in the Movement of Population. — Theory and Method. 3 hours.

Total 18: 7 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1897-1898, p. 78.

 

1897-98.
ECONOMICS 4.
Mid-Year Examination.

[Divide your time equally between A. and B.]

A.
[Take two.]

  1. In what sense do you understand Quetelet’s assertion that “the budget of crime is an annual taxation paid with more preciseness than any other”?
    Comment upon the “element of fixity in criminal sociology.”
    What are the “three factors of crime”?
    Can you account for the “steadiness of the graver forms of crime”? for the increase or decrease of other crimes?
    Define “penal substitutes.”
    What determines the rate of criminality?
    Comment upon the tables relating to crime in the last federal census, and explain how far they enable one to estimate the amount of crime committed and the increase or decrease in that amount.
  2. Comment upon the movement of population in the U.S. as indicated in the census rates of mortality and immigration. Upon the movement of population in France and in other European countries during this century. Can you account for the decline in the rates of mortality which characterize these populations?
    Give an account of the growth of some of the large European cities and of the migratory movements of their populations. Can you account for the depopulation of rural districts which has taken place during this century?
  3. Give some account of the Descriptive School of Statisticians and of the School of Political Arithmetic.
    Of the organization and work of statistical bureaus in European countries during this century.
    Of the census bureau in the United States.

 

B.
[Take four.]

  1. What are some of the “positive” statistical evidences of vitality in a population? “negative”?
  2. Define “index of mortality.”
  3. Comment upon the density and distribution of population in the United States.
  4. What do you understand by “normal distribution of a population according to sex and age”? Define “movement of population.”
  5. Explain the various methods of estimating a population during intercensal years.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 4. Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years. 1897-98.

 

1897-98.
ECONOMICS 4.
End-year Examination.

Divide your time equally between A. and B.

A.

I.

“The wealth of a nation is a matter of estimate only. Certain of its elements are susceptible of being approximated more closely than others; but few of them can be given with greater certainty or accuracy than is expressed in the word ‘estimated.’” Why? State the several methods used for determining the wealth of a nation. Give some account of the increase and of the present distribution of wealth in the United States.

II.

What statistical data indicate the movement of real wages during this century? What facts have to be taken into account in determining statistically the condition of wage earners? State the several methods of calculating index numbers of wages and prices, and explain the merits of each method. Explain the use of weighted averages as indexes, and the considerations determining the weights. What has been the movement of wages and prices in the United States since 1860?

III.

Statistical data establishing a hierarchy of European races, the fundamental “laws of anthropo-sociology,” and the selective influences of migratory movements and the growth of cities.

 

B.
Take six.

  1. “I have striven with the help of biology, statistics and political economy to formulate what I consider to be the true law of population.” (Nitti.) What is this law? Is it the true law? Why?
  2. Upon what facts rests the assertion that “the fulcrum of the world’s balance of power has shifted from the West to the East, from the Mediterranean to the Pacific”?
  3. What factors determine the rate of suicide? Consider the effect upon the rate of suicide of the sex and age distribution of the population, of the social and physical environment, and of heredity.
  4. Statistical determination of labor efficiency, and the increase of such efficiency during this century.
  5. How far are statistics concerning the number of criminal offenders indicative of the amount of criminality? Statistics of prison populations? Of crimes? What variables enter in to determine the “rate of criminality”? What significance do you attach to such rates?
  6. The statistical method.
  7. Graphics as means of presenting statistical data.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1898-99. Papers set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College. June 1898, pp.43-44.

_____________________

Course Enrollment 1898-99
(Year-course)

[Economics] 4. Dr. John Cummings. — Statistics. — Theory, method, and practice. — Studies in Demography. Lectures (3 hours) and conferences; 2 reports; theses.

Total 19: 10 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1898-1899, p. 73.

 

1898-99.
ECONOMICS 4.
Mid-Year Examination.

Devote one hour to A and the remainder of your time to B.

A.
Take two.

  1. The growth of modern cities and the laws governing the migrations of population as illustrated in the growth and constitution of the populations of London, Berlin, and other large cities.
  2. Define fully a “normal or life-table population,” considering its age and sex constitution and its movement.
  3. Discuss the development and predominance of the statistical method, and the gradual limitation of the field of statistical science.

B.
Take six.

  1. What do you understand by the “law of large numbers”?
    Discuss some of the principles which should govern the formation of statistical judgments.
  2. The “new law of population.”
  3. The value of criminal statistics and the nature of the statistical proofs that the value of punishments is over-estimated.
  4. “Several tests are employed to measure the duration of human life, and we are at present concerned to determine their precise value, and the relationship existing between them.” What are some of these tests, their precise value and inter-relationship?
  5. What is the nature of the statistical evidence that the “influx of the population from the country into London is in the main an economic movement”?
  6. The rate of mortality in urban an in rural populations.
  7. Decline in the rates of natality in the populations of Europe and the United States.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year Examination papers, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers. Mid-years, 1898-99.

 

 

1898-99.
ECONOMICS 4.
End-year Examination.

Devote at least one hour, but not more than one hour and a half, to A, and the remainder of your time to B.

A.

  1. Statistics of wages, manufactures, and capital in the eleventh census of the United States.
  2. Movement of population and the standard of living. Consider in connection with the growth of population and the movement of wages, prices, efficiency of labor and capital, the exploitation of new natural sources of power and wealth, and the relative movements of industrial groups.

B.
Take six.

  1. Average wages as an index of social condition.
  2. Statistical indexes of pauperism.
  3. What is the statistical basis for calculating the doubling period of a population and of what is that period an index?
  4. Define normal distribution of population (a) by sex, (b) by age.
  5. Show how the economic value of a population is affected by its age and sex distribution.
  6. To what extent may the prison population of the United States as given in the eleventh census be accepted as an index of criminality for the population of the United States?
  7. The growth of cities and the movement of population. Consider the effect of “urbanization” upon rates of criminality, natality, and mortality.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1898-99. Papers set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Fine Arts, Architecture, and Music in Harvard College. June 1899, p.30.

_____________________

Course Enrollment 1899-1900
(Year-course)

[Economics] 4. Dr. John Cummings. — Statistics. — Theory, method, and practice. — Studies in Demography. Lectures (3 hours) and conferences; 2 reports; theses.

Total 10: 1 Graduate, 2 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

 

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 4.
Mid-Year Examination.

Devote one hour to A and the remainder of your time to B.

A.

  1. Urban growth and migration. Consider the sex and age distribution of migrants, the natural increase of urban and rural populations, and the causes of migration into urban centres. Illustrate by considering the actual conditions and movement in some one country or important urban centre.
  2. The data of criminal statistics as an index of amount of criminality. Consider the tables relating to crime in the United States census; the several statistical methods of dealing with crime and with the criminal classes; age, sex, and civil status as a factor in criminality; and the law of criminal saturation.

B.
Elect ten, and answer concisely.

  1. and 2. [counts as two questions]. Statistical measurements of agglomeration. Consider statistical methods of determining degree of concentration, also definition of the urban unit.

3. and 4. [counts as two questions]. Causes tending to make the rate of mortality lower for urban than for rural populations? causes tending to make it higher? the rate of natality?

  1. Methods of estimating population for intercensal years.
  2. Statistical laws and freedom of the will
  3. Define “life-table population.”
  4. Define carefully the following terms: “birth rate,” “rate of natality”; “rate of mortality”; death rate”; “rate of nuptialité”; “marriage rate”; index of mortality.”
  5. What do you understand by normal distribution of population by sex? by age? by civil status?
  6. Economic value of a population as effected by its age and sex distribution? by movement? by immigration?
  7. Of what statistical significance is the doubling period for any population?
  8. Can you account for the retardation in the rate of movement of population during this century?
  9. Tell when, if ever, the following terms are identical:—
    1. mean age at death.
    2. mean age of living.
    3. mean duration of life.
    4. expectation of life.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year Examination papers, 1852-1943. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers. Mid-years, 1899-1900.

 

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 4.
End-year Examination.

Divide your time equally between A and B.

A.

  1. Statistical methods of estimating wealth accumulated.
    Comment critically upon the census statistics of wealth accumulated in the United States.
  2. Statistical evidences of the progress of the working classes in the last half-century. Discuss the movement of wages and prices.
    What do you understand by “index figures,” “average wages,” “average prices,” “weighted averages”? Explain methods of weighting.
  3. The growth of cities and social election.

 

B.
Two questions may be omitted.

  1. How far are social conditions in a community revealed in the birth rate? the death rate? by the “index of mortality”? What do you understand by “movement of population”?
  2. In constructing a life table what correction must be made for abnormal age and sex distribution? Define “mortality,” “natality,” “expectation of life.” How should you calculate the “mean duration of life” from the census returns?
  3. The limit to the increase of population in the food supply? in other forms of wealth?
  4. Can you formulate any laws which will be true in general of the migrations of population?
  5. Methods of estimating population for intercensal years.
  6. Statistics of manufacturers in the United States census.
  7. How should you calculate the economic value of a population?
  8. Take one:—
    The rate of suicide as evidence of degeneration.
    The tables relating to crime in the Federal census of the United States.
  9. How far is it possible to give to moral and social facts a quantitative statement?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 5, Bound volume: Examination Papers 1900-01. June 1900, p. 32.

Image Source: “A Tribute to Dr. Cummings” in School Life, Volume 22 (September 1936), p. 12.

Categories
Harvard Teaching Undergraduate

Harvard. Grading system. Hard subjects: political economy and mathematics, 1886

 

There are two things I learned in preparing this post. The first (and what initially caught my eye) was the complaint that economics, like mathematics, already in the 1880’s was considered a subject that demanded relatively hard-work to get a good grade. The second was that the Harvard reform of introducing elective courses undermined the percentile precision of the old marking system and led to the adoption of the grading system. It apparently did not occur to anyone that a grade point average (G.P.A.) based on the less granular grading bands would arise from the ashes of the marking system.

______________________

RANKS AND MARKS AT HARVARD.

AN IMPORTANT REFORM PROPOSED IN THE PERCENTAGE SYSTEM.

Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 16 [1886]. — Ever since its establishment last Fall, the conference committee, a joint organization of Faculty and students, has been steadily losing favor with the students of the university until it has at last earned the name of the “Misplaced Confidence Committee,” bestowed upon it by several of the college papers. This result, however, might easily have been anticipated. The college expected too much of the new organization and was naturally disappointed at the non-fulfillment of its expectations. It did not realize that the experiment of intrusting a certain part of the government of the college to the student members must proceed slowly and carefully. The conference committee, however, in spite of the remarks of disapproval which have been frequently bestowed upon it, has been steadily at work on the greatest evil which to-day exists in the university — the marking system. All possible information in regard to the marking systems of other colleges was obtained, and on these data the committee proceeded to work out the solution of the Harvard question of ranks and marks. Finally, after a number of meetings, the conference committee has come to a decision and has adopted the following resolutions:

Resolved, That the members of the conference committee deem the marking system, now in use at Harvard, unsuited to the elective system, and that they strongly recommend a change.

Resolved, That it is desired that by this change the inequalities of marks arising from different degrees of work required in different courses, and from different standards of marking pursued by different instructors, as far as possible, be removed.

The system which the committee recommends is what is known as the “grade system,” i.e., the students are divided up as to rank into certain classes or grades. The first grade represents those who have passed with distinction; the second those who have passed, and the third those who have failed. If necessary more grades can be easily introduced and finer distinctions made between the upper classes of marks. These changes now go before the whole faculty for final action, and although they may not be adopted in toto they will undoubtedly receive due consideration, and will at least, lead to important modifications in the present system of marking by percentage.

The question of the adoption of a grade system for a percentage system was not the only one discussed by the committee. The evil which lies at the root of the whole matter is in the inequalities of marks arising from the different amount of work required in different courses. Under the elective system there are about 200 courses from which the undergraduate is required to take four yearly. Now, it is perfectly obvious that it is impossible to make all these courses require an equal amount of work. But aside from that there are many inequalities which might be done away with. Some of the professors are notoriously hard markers, others are the very reverse. Some require extra work in their courses, others rely entirely on the examination papers to prove to them the amount of work done by the students. There are ordinarily two examinations yearly in each subject. Some of the instructors, however, hold hour examinations every month or two, and count these in as a part of the percentage for the year. Some take no account of the attendance, while others allow a constant attendance to go a long way toward making up a defective examination paper. Notwithstanding such a diversity of marking as this, the students of each class are grouped together, and comparisons are drawn as if they all stood on the same footing, as if they all took the same courses. To this the students, and to a great extent the Faculty, object. There are certain courses in college, in natural history and in the fine arts, in which an average student with very little application can easily obtain a high mark. A student of the same ability may take some of the most difficult courses, those in political economy or mathematics, and with double the application receive about half the marks obtained by this leisure-loving friend. Yet these two students are ranked together, and to the outside world the former is by far the brighter. Had the relative rank been determined by the amount of work the result would have been somewhat different.

The only distinction made by the college authorities between the courses of instruction is by dividing them into two groups — half courses and full courses — two of the former being considered equivalent to one of the latter. Of the 200 courses only a few are half courses. Thus while there is practically one grade in the courses, or at most two grades, there is no limit to the grades in the rank of the students, for the exact standing of every student to the smallest fraction can be ascertained. The names of all who obtain 70 per cent. or over in every course are printed with the per cent. attached and the list sent to every man in college. Those who receive a mark below 70 per cent. are informed privately. To lessen the evils which attend such a fine system of grading, the conference committee has recommended a substitution of broader grades. Seeing, however, that the real trouble extended beyond this, the committee has gone further, and has recommended that as the grades in marks grew broader the grades in the courses should grow finer. That both of these recommendations are in the spirit of reform seems evident. As the committee has among its members five of the Faculty, there is reason to believe that these members will be enabled to convince the rest of the Faculty of the desirability of some important changes, both in the system of marking by percentage and in the system which allows but two grades of courses.

Source: The New York Times, 17 January, 1886.

______________________

New Regulations by the Faculty.

November 24, 1886

The new “Regulations of the Faculty of Harvard College” are out and present many new and entertaining features. A hasty comparison of the last year’s “codex” with the present one may be of interest to those who have not time to make the comparison for themselves.

The first regulation on the list we find changed. Absences are no longer returned to the Dean, but to the secretary, who enters them on each student’s record. Petitions to the faculty may now be handed in up to 10 o’clock on the day of the faculty meeting. The new Rule (5) with regard to the time of changing electives, limiting such changes to Nov. 1 and March 1, are well known already. Rule 7 and 8 is new. Instructors are to report to the Dean from time to time the names of students who have failed to satisfy them in the performance of the work of the course. Any instructor, with the approval of the Dean, may exclude a student from his course for neglect of work, and the fact shall be reported to the faculty at the next meeting.

The scale of scholarship has been changed from the old percentage system to a system of five grades, A, B, C, D, E. Students who fail in a course will be assigned to E. Last year this grade was fixed at two-fifths of the maximum mark. Failure on the work of the year is changed from “failure to get one half the maximum mark,” to those who “stand below grade E.” As the regulation previously read, a student who failed on the year’s work as a whole, although he passed on all his studies, could make up the deficiency by taking one or more electives in addition to those regularly required for a degree. The marks on these courses would be substituted for the lowest marks he received in the previous year’s work. Now, a student may regain his standing “by attaining in some subsequent year such grades, that the average number of courses in which he stands below grade C is not more than three for each of the two years.”

The penalty for dishonesty in examination has been withdrawn from the rules, pending probably the invention of some more terrible scheme. Under the “Degree of Bachelor of Arts,” rule 26 reads: “above group D.” This is changed from “one half of the total maximum.” In rule 27, grade A is substituted for 90 per cent.

The magna cum is now obtained by one “who has stood in grade A in one half of his college work and has not fallen below C in any study. This is changed from the old rule of “80 per cent. for the whole college course, or 85 per cent. for the last three years.” The cum laude cannot be received by anyone who has fallen below grade C in any study.

There are some changes in the requirements for Honors in English; and the assignments of honorable mention and of Degrees with Distinction will be made through standing committees of the Faculty. Application for scholarships must be handed in before the last Monday in May. The establishment of a committee to overlook the work of special students was announced last spring, and needs no additional comment.

Source: The Harvard Crimson archive. 24 November, 1886.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Mid-year and Final Exams for all three courses in Political Economy. Laughlin and Dunbar, 1879-80

 

All you could learn in political economy at Harvard in 1880 was packed into four semesters (two full courses). The core textbook was John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Economics. This post provides enrollment data together with the mid-year and course final examinations for Political Economy 1, 2, and 3. What makes this post particularly interesting is that the relevant sections or pages of Mill’s Principles are cited along with the examination questions. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has added links to those items below.

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Actually only two distinct political economy courses offered in 1879-80

From the following note in the annual Harvard course catalogue we see that Political Economy 1 only offered a “lite” version of Political Economy 2. “Courses 1 and 2 cannot be taken together, nor can either be taken by any student who has taken the other”; “Course 3 is open to those only who have passed satisfactorily in Course 2.” The Harvard University Catalogue (1879-1880), p. 84.

An important guest lecturer at Harvard in 1879-80:

Besides prescribed and elective courses for credit, Harvard offered opportunities for “voluntary instruction”:  In 1879-80 Professor Simon Newcomb gave three public lectures on Political Economy.

Source: The Harvard University Catalogue (1879-1880), p. 90.

The John Stuart Mill textbook of Harvard choice

Most likely edition of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy used at Harvard was a New York reprint of the London 5th edition. It corresponds to the pages given for the mid-year exam in Political Economy 1.

“From the fifth London edition” 2v. New York: D. Appleton, 1868.

_________________________

Political Economy 1

Enrollments and Text
Political Economy 1
1879-80

Political Economy 1. Dr. Laughlin and Prof. Dunbar. (partial Course.) — Selections from Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — 1 Section; 2 Exercises per week for Students; 2 Exercises per week for Instructors.

Total 21: 7 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 1 Law.

Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1879-80, page 56.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-Year Examination
1879-80

  1. Comment on the following: “The cry was constantly — I know it myself from my intimate acquaintance with the large manufacturers and the small manufacturers too — that every one of them needed more currency than they had. They had capital, but could not get that which enabled them to pay off their hands…The manufacturers need a currency which will enable them to pay their weekly and daily debts.” — Cong. Record, April 7, 1874.
  2. State some of the objections made to Malthus’ Law of Population. (I. 439-40)
  3. Give the law of value regulating manufactured products. (I. 560) How far are such products affected by the Law of Diminishing Returns? (I. 238)
  4. State the argument for or against the common saying “wages are high when trade is good.” (I. 421)
  5. In what way can an increase of Population affect the Cost of Labor to the Capitalist?
  6. Define clearly Value, Price, Real Wages, and Cost of Production.
  7. Describe the offices which are performed by Money. (B. III., ch. vii.)
  8. What is to be said to the following: “Some political economists have objected altogether to the statement that the value of money depends on its quantity combined with the rapidity of circulation; which, they think, is assuming a law for money that does not exist for any other commodity.” (II. p. 43)
  9. What effect had the discovery of gold in this century upon the coinage of the United States?
  10. What circumstances led to the establishment of the Bank of Amsterdam and of the Bank of England respectively?
  11. What changes would be made in the subjoined accounts by,
    1. the deposit of £1,200,000;
    2. the sale of £2,000,000 of government security;
    3. new loans amounting to £3,000,000;
    4. repayment of £750,000 of loans.
  12. If the Bank of England announces an increase of its rate of discount, what is to be inferred as to the cause of this step and its probable effect?

November 12, 1857.

Issue Department.
Notes Issued £21.1 Government Securities £14.5
Coin and Bullion £6.6
£21.1 £21.1

 

Banking Department
Capital £14.5 Government Securities £9.4
Rest £3.4 Other Securities £26.1
Public Deposits £5.3 Notes
Coins		 £1.4
Other £12.9
7-day Bills £0.8
£36.9 £36.9

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Mid-Year Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 11-12.

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Year-End Examination
1879-80

[Let the answers be given in their proper order]

  1. “If there are human beings capable of work, and food to feed them, they may always be employed in producing something.” (Book I., ch. v., §3.)
  2. When the growth of population outstrips the progress of improvements, what are the means of relief for the laborer? (Book I., ch. xiii., §3.)
  3. What is the reason why land-owners can demand rent? (Book II., ch. xvi., §1.)
  4. State the law of the value of money which governs general prices. What change is to be made in the statement, if credit is to be taken into consideration? (Book III., ch. vii., §§3, 4.)
  5. On what does the desire to use credit depend? What connection exists between the amount of notes and coin in circulation and the use of credit? (Book III., ch. xii., §8.)
  6. In what consists the benefit of international exchange? (Book III., ch. xvii., §3.) State the Law of International values. (Book III., ch. xviii., §4.)
  7. What is the effect of a depreciated currency on (1) foreign trade, and (2) the exchanges? (Book III., ch. xxii., §3.)
  8. Why should a tax on profits, if no improvements follow, fall on the laborer and capitalist? (Book V., ch. iii., §3.)
  9. What effect is produced on prices, profit, and rent by the removal of a tithe? (Book V., ch. iv., §4.)
  10. On whom does a tax on imports generally fall? (Book V., ch. iv., §6.)
  11. Give a history of the circumstances under which the first Legal Tender Act was passed. When were the other acts passed?
  12. Describe the following: (1) national bank-note; (2) five-twenty; (3) seven-thirty; (4) compound interest note; (5) certificate of indebtedness; (6) subsidiary silver coinage; (7) national bank reserve; (8) Resumption Act (briefly).

 

Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Annual Examinations, 1879-80, p. 12.

_________________________

Political Economy 2
1879-80

Enrollments and Text
Political Economy 2
1879-80

Political Economy 2. Prof. Dunbar. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Financial Legislation of the United States. — Lectures. — 2 Sections; 3 Exercises per week for Students; 6 Exercises per week for Instructors.

Total 108: 10 Seniors, 83 Juniors, 13 Sophomores, 2 Unmatriculated.

Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1879-80, page 56.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Mid-Year Examination
1879-80

  1. State once more and with care the reason for the following proposition: —
    “There is a distinction, more important to the wealth of a community than even that between productive and unproductive labor; — the distinction, namely, between labor for the supply of productive, and for the supply of unproductive, consumption.”
  2. What is the argument for Dr. Chalmers’s opinion that funds required for public unproductive expenditures should be raised by taxes and not by loans, and what cases are to be excepted from his reasoning?
  3. What conclusion as to the limit to the increase of production, does Mr. Mill deduce from his investigation of the laws of the increase of labor, capital and land?
  4. Why are the wages of women generally lower than those of men?
  5. Show carefully the distinction between wages, cost of labor and cost of production.
  6. Define natural value and market value and show what determines them respectively, distinguishing between the three classes into which Mr. Mill divides commodities.
  7. What effect may the great durability of gold and silver have upon the value of money at any given time?
  8. What effect has a general rise of wages upon the values of commodities?
  9. How is it shown that rent forms no part of the cost of production?
  10. The silver dollar contains 412 ½ grains of standard silver, but a dollar of silver change contains only 384 grains. On what theory is this difference of weight made?
  11. What difference has the Act of 1844, known as Peel’s act, made as to the convertibility of the notes of the Bank of England?
  12. If a serious drain of money from England, e.g., to this country, takes place, what steps will the Bank of England take, and what effect is likely to be produced on its account?
    If more convenient, this may be illustrated by using the following account: —
Issue Department.
Notes Issued £36.5 Government Securities £15.0
Coin and Bullion £21.5
£36.5 £36.5

 

Banking Department
Capital £14.5 Government Securities £16.0
Rest £3.2 Other Securities £22.0
Public Deposits £7.6 Notes
Coins

£8.0

£1.1
Other £21.5
7-day Bills £0.3
£47.1 £47.1

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Mid-Year Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 12-13.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Year-end Examination
1879-80

[Let the answers stand in your book in their proper order
Take TEN QUESTIONS, including 6, 8, 11, 12 and 13.]

  1. Why is it that “ceteris paribus, those trades are generally the worst paid, in which the wife and children of the artisan aid in the work?” (Book II., ch. xiv., §4.)
  2. If the general rate of profit falls, how will the value of commodities made by hand be affected in comparison with those made by machinery? (Book III., ch. iv., §5.)
  3. “Another of the fallacies from which the advocates of an inconvertible currency derive support, is the notion that an increase of the currency quickens industry.” (Book III., ch. xiii., §4.)
  4. Why is it that in international trade “a thing may sometimes be sold cheapest, by being produced in some other place than that at which it can be produced with the smallest amount of labor and abstinence?” (Book III., ch. xvii. §1.)
  5. What determines the values at which a country exchanges its produce with foreign countries? (Book III., ch. xviii., §8.)
  6. Suppose that a country whose exports have hitherto balanced her imports, makes an improvement which cheapens one of her articles of export, e.g. cloth. Will money flow into or out of the country? Will foreign or domestic consumers of cloth obtain the greater advantage of its cheapness? Give the reasoning on which your answers depend. (Book III., Chap. xxi., §2.)
  7. What effect does an annual payment of interest to foreign creditors have upon the imports and exports of a country? Will interest “payable in gold” necessarily cause gold to be sent out of the country? Why, or why not? (Book III., Chap. xxi., §4.)
  8. How do taxes on agricultural produce, e.g. tithes, affect landlords, farmers, and consumers, respectively, —
    1. when first laid on?
    2. when of long standing? (Book V., ch. iv. §5.)
  9. What are the arguments for and against an income tax? (Book V., ch. iii., §5.)
  10. Discuss the reasons for and against maintaining a surplus revenue for the extinction of national debt. (Book V., ch. vii. §2.)
  11. Explain the changes in the amount of greenbacks outstanding, beginning with February, 1868.
  12. State briefly the history of our gold and silver coinage, as found in the coinage acts of 1792, 1834, 1853, 1873, and 1878.
    The silver dollar contains 371 ¼ grains of silver.
  13. To what extent is the national banknote a legal tender? in what is it payable? what provision is made for its redemption? and what security is there for its ultimate payment?

 

Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Annual Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 13-14.

_________________________

Political Economy 3
1879-80

Enrollments and Texts
Political Economy 3
1879-80

Political Economy 3. Prof. Dunbar. Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — MacLeod’s Elements of Banking. — Bastiat’s Harmonies Économiques. — 1 Section; 3 Exercises per week for Students; 3 Exercises per week for Instructors.

Total 24: 24 Seniors.

Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1879-80, page 56.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Mid-Year Examination
1879-80

  1. Give a careful and logical summary of the laws determining the values of all commodities, monopolized or free, domestic or foreign, using the corrected definition of Cost of Production. [Forty minutes.]
  2. In the case of accessory products, as, e.g. wool and mutton, what determines their normal values respectively, and what determines the course of their respective values as time goes on?
  3. In his enumeration of the causes which determine the Wages Fund, Mr. Cairnes finds himself obliged to include the rate of wages. How does he avoid the charge of reasoning in a circle?
  4. Comment on the following: —
    “The advocates of the wages-fund theory assume, first, that the capital of a country is a fixed quantity, and that the capital employed in industry is a fixed proportion of this quantity; and, secondly, that wages are paid out of that proportion of capital which is set apart for industry. Both of these propositions, in my opinion, are erroneous.
    “With regard to the first…there is no fact in Economic Science so well established as this, that capital follows profits….Capital is always forthcoming wherever there are prospects of large profits….The capital of a country, therefore, is not a fixed quantity, for if its credit is good, and sufficient inducements are offered in the shape of interest, it can readily borrow whatever it wants. For the same reason the capital employed in industry Is not a fixed quantity, and varies, not in proportion to the gross amount in the country, but in proportion to the profitableness of the industry of that country.
    “With regard to the second proposition…This is true to a limited extent only. No doubt a certain amount of capital is required for the payment of wages, just as a certain amount of capital is necessary for the purchase of raw material. There is this essential difference between the two cases, however, that while raw material is paid for (in cash or bills) before being used, wages are not paid till they have been earned….The employé, in fact, stands to his employer in the relation of a capitalist who advances him the use of his services, which services are ultimately paid for, not out of a wages-fund, but out of the produce of the services themselves.” (Outlines of an Industrial Science: by David Syme. p. 138.)
  5. Give a careful but briefly stated outline (as if written for a rather elaborate Table of Contents) of Mr. Cairnes’s reasoning as to the relations existing between the demand for commodities and the wages fund, and between prices and money-wages.
  6. What is meant by the “comparative costs of production,” on which international values are said to depend; and how is that dependence to be reconciled with the fact that any given sale of goods is found to be an independent transaction, determined by the price of the commodity.
  7. What reasoning led Mr. Cairnes in 1873 to look for a fall of prices in this country, and for possible commercial crises?
  8. What is Mr. Cairnes’s reason for believing that, in the United States, protection is not needed to secure diversity of industries?
  9. If the common saying that “the value of gold is the same all the world over” has no foundation, how does a supply of new gold distribute itself over all countries and over all commodities in each country.
  10. Stafford; Colbert; Sir J. Stewart; Quesnay.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Mid-Year Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 13-14.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Year-End Examination
1879-80

  1. Professor Cairnes says that “the notion which prevails both here and in the United States, that the high rate of general wages obtaining in each country is a hindrance to the extension of its foreign trade, must be pronounced to be absolutely without foundation.”
    By what reasoning this this conclusion supported?
  2. How much truth is there in the maxim that “the value of gold is and must be the same all the world over”?
  3. A few years ago an American writer said, —
    “We will be able to resume specie payments when we cease to rank among the debtor nations, when our national debt is owed to our own people, and when our industry is adequate to the supply of the nation’s need of manufactured goods.”
    With what degree of justice can this be treated as a prediction verified by the events?
  4. Sherman says, —
    “During the last four years the value of our exports of merchandise has exceeded the value of our imports of merchandise $753,271,475. The excess of exports has heretofore been mainly met by the remittance to this country of American securities, but the time appears to have come when the balance of trade in our favor is to be adjusted by means of the precious metals.” — (Finance Report for 1879, p. xxxi.)
  5. It is becoming a serious problem what (English) agriculturists are to do. They will not get rents much lowered in a hurry, for land still commands a high value in the market, and is difficult to be got at all except under special circumstances. Large proprietors would rather cultivate their own land at a loss than submit to a reduction of rent telling on its value.” — (London Times, May, 1880.)
  6. Criticising Professor Cairnes’s reply to M. Alby, Sir Anthony Musgrave remarks,—
    “It is precisely because in no country are all industries equally favored by nature that Mr. Cairnes’s objection fails…. It is exactly because the favored industry in any nation requires no assistance, that it can assist the industries not so fortunate….Suppose that the high price secured by protection is rendered necessary by the onerous conditions under which native industry is tempted to work; suppose that Frenchmen, as Mr. Cairnes says are encouraged to produce iron from ores of inferior quality by the high price secured to them — what has happened? Useful iron has been extracted from ores which would have otherwise have been wasted; employment has been afforded to many who might otherwise have been idle for want of occupation; people have been fed who would otherwise have starved and as a set-off to this, some others have been obliged to smoke fewer cigars and drink less wine than they would have had money to purchase, if they had not been compelled to spend it in iron. In the absence of protection “they,” we are told,” would obtain their iron on more favorable terms at a smaller sacrifice of labor and abstinence by exchanging for it their wines and silks with England.”…Whose labor? and abstinence from what? Unfortunately the persons who have the wine and silk are not those who want the iron. The truth is, we do not want to save labor — we want to find wholesome and remunerative employment for paupers. And if the sacrifice of “abstinence” only means, as I believe it does, that riches will not accumulate so fast in the hands of capitalists — that the employers of labor will have to forego some luxuries that they may give higher wages to the laborers, and that the comforts of life may be thus more equally distributed — I cannot see much objection to this.” — (Contemporary Review, January, 1877.)
  7. “Ever half year we see summaries in the newspapers shewing that the Joint Stock Banks have in the aggregate perhaps $200,000,000 of deposits, and it is supposed that they have that quantity of money to trade with. But it is a complete and entire delusion.”
  8. How does discounting differ from the cash credit system, long practiced by the Scotch banks?
  9. State and explain Bastiat’s law of value.
  10. What is the reasoning in support of the following? —
    “A mesure que les capitaux s’accroissent, la part absolue des capitalistes dans les produits totaux augmente et leur part relative Au contraire, les travailleurs voient augmenter leur part dans les deux sens.”
  11. What is Bastiat’s theory of the value of land, and how is it reconciled with the value attaching to natural fertility?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1880-81. Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Fine Arts, and Music. Annual Examinations, 1879-80, pp. 14-15.

Image Source: Charles F. Dunbar photographed by William Notman. Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard College Library.

Categories
Economists Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for Economic Theory and Monetary Economics. R.G. Hawtrey, 1928-29

 

 

Sir Ralph Hawtrey (Fun fact: according to J.M. Keynes,  Alfred Marshall was his third cousin once removed) was given leave by the British Treasury to lecture at Harvard during the 1928-29 academic year. Full course outlines with assigned readings are not found in the Harvard University Archives collection of course syllabi and reading lists. Only the titles of the items for the end of semester reading periods for his graduate course “Principles of Money and Banking” could be found and are transcribed below. The first semester exam for “Problems in Economic Theory” and both semester exams for “Principles of Money and Banking” are included in this post.

_____________________

Problems in Economic Theory

Course Announcement.

[Economics] 15. Problems in Economic Theory

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 4. Mr. R. G. Hawtrey.

In this course less attention will be given to specific economic doctrines than to questions of the scope, methods, premises, and goal of economic science, and of its relations to logic and psychology and to the other social sciences.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1928-29. Published in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXV, No. 29 (May 26, 1928), p. 71.

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Enrollment.

[Economics] 15. Mr. Hawtrey.— Problems in Economic Theory.

Total 6: 3 Graduates, 1 Senior, 2 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1928-29, p. 72.

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1928-29
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 15
Mid-year examination

Five questions and ONLY FIVE should be answered

  1. How does the functioning of a market depend on dealers holding stocks of the goods dealt in?
  2. By what process does the investment market maintain equilibrium between the supply of savings and the supply of fresh capital?
  3. Jevons wrote: “By free capital I mean the wages of labour either in its transitory form of money or in its real form of food and other necessaries of life.”
    Is this an improvement on the Wages fund theory? Can you improve the statement further?
  4. Explain the relation of profit to (1) compensation for risk, (2) rent of ability, (3) quasi-rent.
  5. Why is the explanation of profit as the remuneration of management and organization incomplete?
  6. What are the chief objections to the doctrine that the end of economic activity is the maximum of total utility?
  7. Can justice in distribution be regarded as a part of the subject-matter of economics?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 11, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1929. Papers printed for Mid-year Examinations in History, New Testament,…Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science, January-February, 1929.

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DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
SPRING READING PERIOD—1928/29

Economics 15

No additional assignments.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2. Folder “Economics 1928-29”.

_____________________

Principles of Money and Banking

Course Announcement.

[Economics] 38. The Principles of Money and Banking

Tu., Th., at 10, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Mr. R. G. Hawtrey.

The course is intended to afford training in analysis and research in the field of money and banking. The subject as a whole will be systematically reviewed. Selections from important writings dealing with monetary principles will be read and critically discussed.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1928-29. Published in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXV, No. 29 (May 26, 1928), p. 73.

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Enrollment

[Economics] 38. Mr. Hawtrey. — Principles of Money and Banking.

Total 50: 32 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 1 Junior, 5 Radcliffe, 2 Others.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1928-29, p. 73.

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DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
MID-YEAR READING PERIOD—1928/29

Economics 38

Select two from the following list and read about 300 pages.

  1. Keynes, J.M.: Indian Currency and Finance.
  2. Burgess, W. R.: The Federal Reserve System and the Money Market.
  3. Hargreaves, E. L. : Restoring Currency Standards.
  4. Knapp: State Theory of Money.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2. Folder “Economics 1928-29”.

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1928-29
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 38
Mid-year examination.

Six questions and ONLY SIX should be answered.

  1. What different meanings can be given to “velocity” in monetary theory?
  2. On what conditions can the use of gold coin be made to maintain a gold standard effectively?
  3. What are the essential functions of a bank? To what extent do they depend on the assignability of debts from one creditor to another?
  4. Why does a contraction of credit tend to cause unemployment?
  5. What circumstances determine the degree of sensitiveness of borrowers to the rate of discount or short-term interest?
  6. Upon what conditions does the power of a Central Bank to control credit depend? Is the issue of notes by the Central Bank essential?
  7. Describe the effect of external investment on the foreign exchange market.
  8. In what circumstances and to what extent will relatively high rates of discount and short-term interest attract balances from abroad for temporary investment.
  9. What is meant when London is called an international clearing centre?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 11, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1929. Papers printed for Mid-year Examinations in History, New Testament,…, Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science, January-February, 1929.

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DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
SPRING READING PERIOD—1929

Economics 38

Select two from the following list and read about 300 pages.

  1. Keynes, J.M.: Indian Currency and Finance.
  2. Burgess, W. R.: The Federal Reserve System and the Money Market.
  3. Hargreaves, E. L. : Restoring Currency Standards.
  4. Knapp: State Theory of Money.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2. Folder “Economics 1928-29”.

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1928-29
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 38

Final examination.

Five questions and only five to be answered.

  1. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of the “elasticity” claimed for the fixed proportion system of gold reserve.
  2. How far is it true to say that gold reserve laws “exist to be broken”?
  3. To what extent can the phenomena of the business cycle, as experienced up to 1914, be traced to the working of the gold standard?
  4. What are the principal conditions likely to predispose a country to be the scene of a financial crisis?
  5. Compare, in respect of relative liquidity, the principal classes of assets usually held by banks. Criticise the idea of the “self-liquidating” bill.
  6. Show how speculation in the foreign exchanges may interfere with measures for the reestablishment of the gold standard in a country with an unstable currency.
  7. What grounds are there for supposing that it is practicable, through the coöperation of the central banks of gold standard countries to affect the purchasing power of gold?
  8. How, in your opinion, can the stability of the purchasing power of a currency unit best be tested statistically?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Bound volume (No. 71) Examination Papers, Finals, 1929. (Papers printed for Final Examinations in History, Church History,… , Economics,…, Military Science, Naval Science, June, 1929.

Image Source: Creative Commons image of Sir Ralph George Hawtrey by Walter Stoneman (1939) at the National Portrait Gallery.