Category: Harvard

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Economists Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. Edgar M. Hoover, 1932

 

The Harvard economics Ph.D. alumnus for this post is someone who had both CEA and CIA lines on his c.v. Edgar Malone Hoover also taught at the University of Michigan and Harvard before settling at the University of Pittsburgh. A course Hoover taught during the second term of 1935-36 while an instructor at Harvard was on the location of economic activity. It attracted two graduate students. Hoover served as president of the Regional Science Association in 1962 and was an important contributor to the theory of spatial price discrimination.

Vital data for Edgar M. Hoover: born February 22, 1907 in Boise, Idaho, d. July 24, 1992 in Santa Barbara, California.

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Hoover index

It is equal to the portion of the total community income that would have to be redistributed (taken from the richer half of the population and given to the poorer half) for there to be income uniformity.

See: Edgar Malone Hoover Jr. The Measurement of Industrial Localization, Review of Economics and Statistics, 18, No. 4 (November, 1936) 162–171.

Source: “Hoover index” in Wikipedia.

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From the 1974 AEA Directory

Hoover, Edgar M., b. Boise, Idaho, 1907. Educ. A.B., Harvard, 1928; A.M., Harvard, 1930; Ph.D., Harvard, 1932. Doc. Dis. The Location of the Shoe Industry in the United States, 1932. Pub. Location Theory and the Shoe and Leather Industries, 1937; The Location of Econs. Activity, 1938; An Introduction to Regional Econs., 1971. Prev. Pos.  Dir. Econ. Study, Pittsburgh Regional Planning Assoc., 1959-63, Vis. Prof. Econs., Harvard U., 1957-59. Cur. Pos.  Emeritus Prof. Econs., U. of Pittsburgh, Address 15331 Bollman Rd., Saratoga,,CA 95070.

Source: 1974 Directory of Members. American Economic Review, Vol. 64, No. 5 (October 1974), p.182.

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Resignation from the University of Michigan to work at the CEA, 1947

Dr. Edgar M. Hoover, Professor of 
Economics and a faculty member since 1936, has resigned to accept an appointment as staff member on the 
Council of Economic Advisers at Washington, D.C.

Winner of the Henry Russel Award 
in 1940, Dr. Hoover received his A.B., A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard
University, and taught there for four years before joining the faculty at Ann Arbor. He has specialized in problems of the location of industry, and in 1939 was invited to participate in a conference organized by the National Bureau of Economic Research and by the New York State Planning Commission. He spent four years on leave 
from the University as a member of 
the National Resources Planning Board and the fuel-rationing branch of the OPA, and later as a member of the Office of Strategic Services.

 

Source: The Michigan Alumnus (427) from the University of Michigan’s Faculty History Project.

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PITT NAMES HOOVER UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
Press Release: March 28, 1966

Dr. Edgar M. Hoover has been named University Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh. His appointment was announced today by Dr. Charles H. Peake, vice chancellor for the academic disciplines.

Dr. Hoover, director of the Center for Regional Economic Studies, came to Pitt in 1959 as professor of economics. At the inception of the Center in 1962, he was named director, a post he will continue to hold.

“The appointment of Dr. Hoover as University Professor is in recognition of his outstanding contributions,” Dr. Peake said. “He is an authority in the field of regional economics and under his direction the Center has conducted studies of national and international concern.” Among the Center’s activities have been studies of Appalachia, flood plain usages, industrial growth and potential, and new trends in urban economics.

Dr. Hoover currently is co-administrator for a $200,000 Ford Foundation training and research program in economics and demography. Under the project, employees of planning commissions from underdeveloped countries will study demography, in particular, the relation of population to economic change. Dr. Hoover has Just returned from India, where he laid groundwork for parts of the program.

Recently, Dr. Hoover published, in four volumes, the results of an Economic Study of the Pittsburgh Region which he directed for the Pittsburgh Regional Planning Association.

Dr. Hoover came to Pitt from Harvard University where he was visiting professor. Previously, he had worked with Princeton University’s Office of Population Research on a project estimating the future population of India. From 1952 to 1954, he was a member of the Board of National Estimates of the Central Intelligence Agency and between 1947 and 1951 he served as a senior staff member of the Council of Economic Advisors. He also has taught at the University of Michigan and was an economist in the U.S. Office of Strategic Services.

Dr. Hoover received his Ph.D., A.M. and A.B. degrees from Harvard. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, the American Economic Association, the Population Association of America, and the Regional Science Association. He was president of the latter group in 1962.

Source:  University of Pittsburgh Press Release, March 28, 1966. Records of the University of Pittsburgh.

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Harvard Ph.D. awarded in 1932 to Edgar Malone Hoover, Jr.

Hoover, Edgar Malone, Jr., A.B. 1928, A.M. 1930.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Economic Geography. Thesis, “The Location of the Shoe Industry in the United State.” Research Assistant in Economics.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1931-1932, p. 120.

 

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Class Enrollment

[Economics] 56 2hf. Dr. Hoover.—The Location of Economic Activity

Total 2: 2 Graduates.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1935-1936, p. 84.

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RESERVE SHELF LIST FOR ECONOMICS 56—Feb. 4, 1936.

E. M. Hoover

  1. Friedrich, C.J., Alfred Weber’s Theory of the Location of Industries.
  2. Sorokin, P., Contemporary Sociological Theories.
  3. Semple, E.C., American History in its Geographic Conditions.
  4. 4. Fetter, F., The Masquerade of Monopoly [The Economic Law of Market Areas] in Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 38 [No. 3 (May, 1924), pp. 520-529.]
  5. Keir, Malcolm, Manufacturing.
  6. Black, J.D., Production Economics.
  7. Weber Alfred, Ueber den Standort der Industrien (Vol. 2 only, consisting of 8 monographs by different people).

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1935-1936”.

Image Source: Economics instructor Edgar M. Hoover. Harvard Class Album 1932.

 

 

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Berkeley Carnegie Institute of Technology Chicago Cornell Duke Economics Programs Harvard Illinois Indiana Iowa Johns Hopkins M.I.T. Michigan Minnesota Northwestern NYU Ohio State Pennsylvania Princeton Stanford UCLA Vanderbilt Wisconsin Yale

Economics Departments and University Rankings by Chairmen. Hughes (1925) and Keniston (1957)

 

The rankings of universities and departments of economics for 1920 and 1957 that are found below were based on the pooling of contemporary expert opinions. Because the ultimate question for both the Hughes and Keniston studies was the relative aggregate university standing with respect to graduate education, “The list did not include technical schools, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, nor state colleges, like Iowa State, Michigan State or Penn State, since the purpose was to compare institutions which offered the doctorate in a wide variety of fields.” Hence, historians of economics will be frustrated by the conspicuous absence of M.I.T. and Carnegie Tech in the 1957 column except for the understated footnote “According to some of the chairmen there are strong departments at Carnegie Tech. and M.I.T.; also at Vanderbilt”.

The average perceived rank of a particular economics department relative to that of its university might be of use in assessing the negotiating position of department chairs with their respective university administrations. The observed movement within the perception league tables over the course of roughly a human generation might suggest other questions worth pursuing. 

Anyhow without further apology…

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About the Image: There is no face associated with rankings so I have chosen the legendary comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello for their “Who’s on First?” sketch.  YouTube TV version; Radio version: Who’s on First? starts at 22:15

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From Keniston’s Appendix (1959)

Standing of
American Graduate Departments
in the Arts and Sciences

The present study was undertaken as part of a survey of the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania in an effort to discover the present reputation of the various departments which offer programs leading to the doctorate.

A letter was addressed to the chairmen of departments in each of twenty-five leading universities of the country. The list was compiled on the basis of (1) membership in the Association of American Universities, (2) number of Ph.D.’s awarded in recent years, (3) geographical distribution. The list did not include technical schools, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the California Institute of Technology, nor state colleges, like Iowa State, Michigan State or Penn State, since the purpose was to compare institutions which offered the doctorate in a wide variety of fields.

Each chairman was asked to rate, on an accompanying sheet, the strongest departments in his field, arranged roughly as the first five, the second five and, if possible, the third five, on the basis of the quality of their Ph.D. work and the quality of the faculty as scholars. About 80% of the chairmen returned a rating. Since many of them reported the composite judgment of their staff, the total number of ratings is well over 500.

On each rating sheet, the individual institutions were given a score. If they were rated in order of rank, they were assigned numbers from 15 (Rank 1) to 1 (Rank 15). If they were rated in groups of five, each group alphabetically arranged, those in the top five were given a score of 13, in the second five a score of 8, and in the third five a score of 3. When all the ratings sheets were returned, the scores of each institution were tabulated and compiled and the institutions arranged in order, in accordance with the total score for each department.

To determine areas of strength or weakness, the departmental scores were combined to determine [four] divisional scores. [Divisions (Departments): Biological Sciences (2), Humanities (11), Physical Sciences (6), Social Sciences (5)]….

… Finally, the scores of each institution given in the divisional rankings were combined to provide an over-all rating of the graduate standing of the major universities.

From a similar poll of opinion, made by R. M. Hughes, A Study of the Graduate Schools of America, and published in 1925, [See the excerpt posted here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror] it was possible to compile the scores for each of eighteen departments as they were ranked at that time and also to secure divisional and over-all rankings. These are presented here for the purpose of showing what changes have taken place in the course of a generation.

The limitations of such a study are obvious; the ranks reported do not reveal the actual merit of the individual departments. They depend on highly subjective impressions; they reflect old and new loyalties; they are subject to lag, and the halo of past prestige. But they do report the judgment of the men whose opinion is most likely to have weight. For chairmen, by virtue of their office, are the men who must know what is going on at other institutions. They are called upon to recommend schools where students in their field may profitably study; they must seek new appointments from the staff and graduates of other schools; their own graduates tum to them for advice in choosing between alternative possibilities for appointment. The sum of their opinions is, therefore, a fairly close approximation to what informed people think about the standing of the departments in each of the fields.

 

OVER-ALL STANDING
(Total Scores)

1925

1957

1.

 Chicago

1543

1.

 Harvard

5403

2.

 Harvard

1535

2.

 California

4750

3.

 Columbia 1316 3. Columbia 4183
4. Wisconsin 886 4. Yale

4094

5.

 Yale 885 5. Michigan 3603
6. Princeton 805 5. Chicago

3495

7.

 Johns Hopkins 746 7. Princeton 2770
8. Michigan 720 8. Wisconsin

2453

9.

 California 712 9. Cornell 2239
10. Cornell 694 10. Illinois

1934

11.

 Illinois 561 11. Pennsylvania 1784
12. Pennsylvania 459 12. Minnesota

1442

13.

 Minnesota 430 13. Stanford 1439
14. Stanford 365 14. U.C.L.A.

1366

15.

 Ohio State 294 15. Indiana 1329
16. Iowa 215 16. Johns Hopkins

1249

17.

 Northwestern 143 17. Northwestern 934
18. North Carolina 57 18. Ohio State

874

19.

 Indiana 45 19. N.Y.U. 801
20. Washington

759

 

ECONOMICS

1925

1957
1. Harvard 92 1. Harvard

298

2.

 Columbia 75 2. Chicago 262
3. Chicago 65 3. Yale

241

4.

 Wisconsin 63 4. Columbia 210
5. Yale 42 5. California

196

6.

 Johns Hopkins 39 5. Stanford 196
7. Michigan 31 7. Princeton

184

8.

 Pennsylvania 29 8. Johns Hopkins 178
9. Illinois 27 9. Michigan

174

10.

 Cornell 25 10. Minnesota 96
11. Princeton 23 11. Northwestern

70

12.

 California 22 12. Duke 69
13. Minnesota 20 13. Wisconsin

66

14.

 Northwestern 18 14. Pennsylvania 45
15. Stanford 17 15. Cornell

32

16.

 Ohio State 15 16. U.C.L.A.

31

According to some of the chairmen there are strong departments at Carnegie Tech. and M.I.T.; also at Vanderbilt.

 

Source:  Hayward Keniston. Graduate Study and Research in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (January 1959), pp. 115-119,129.

 

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus. Arnold M. Soloway, 1952

 

 

An earlier post provided the syllabi for the Harvard economics department public finance course (actually consolidated into a single document for the undergraduate and graduate versions of the course) taught by J. Keith Butters and Arnold M. Soloway in 1954-55.

Since both instructors received their doctorates in economics from Harvard, I have added this post that provides some biographical information about Arnold M. Soloway. The previous post did the same for J. Keith Butters.

Before getting his economics training at Harvard, Soloway was a Phi Beta Kappa, two-way tackle at Brown University. He was such a good athlete that he was included in the Sports Illustrated 25th Anniversary All-American Team (see below).

I begin with the vital dates: Arnold M. Soloway was born December 3, 1920 in New York City and he died April 13, 2016 in Westwood, Massachusetts.

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Harvard Ph.D. (1952)

Arnold Michael Soloway, A.B. (Brown Univ.) 1942, A.M. (ibid.) 1948. Special Field, Public Finance. Thesis, “The Purchase Tax and British Economic Policy, 1940-1950.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1951-52, p. 178.

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Arnold M. Soloway
Obituary

Arnold M. Soloway, former Harvard economics professor, real estate developer, state chairman of Americans for Democratic Action, prominent 1960s Democratic Party leader, and well known expert on Israel and the Middle East, died at his home in Westwood, MA on Wednesday, April 13, 2016. He was 95.

Arnie graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Brown University in 1942, where he also starred on the football team. Following WWII, he returned to Brown as an economics instructor and assistant football coach, where he coached a young quarterback from Brooklyn, NY named Joe Paterno. He left Brown in 1948 and came to Harvard where he taught for more than 10 years and received his PhD in economics. During this same period, in 1948, Arnie also founded Camp Walt Whitman, a co-ed summer camp in New Hampshire, which he ran with his brother for more than twenty years and which today remains one of the nation’s highest rated summer camps. After leaving Harvard, he was an economics and business consultant for more than a decade.

He helped lead then-Boston Mayor John Collins’s “New Boston Committee” and its seminal study on Boston’s housing challenges, and later went on to serve on the consumer advisory council established by then-Attorney General Edward J. McCormack. In the years that followed he became increasingly active in Massachusetts and national democratic politics, including managing McCormack’s Senate campaign against Edward M. Kennedy in 1961 and his later gubernatorial campaign against John Volpe in 1966; chairing the Massachusetts chapter of Americans for Democratic Action; managing the Massachusetts campaign for Hubert Humphrey in his 1968 presidential campaign, and serving as a senior advisor to the late Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson in 1976.

In the early 1960s, Arnie led the renovation of the old Bellevue Hotel next to the state Capitol into an apartment complex and built the landmark “Jamaicaway Towers,” across from Jamaica Pond, at the time the tallest high rise apartment complex in New England. He later founded Design Housing, Inc., through which he built a number of residential developments including the Townhouses at Lars Andersen in Brookline, Allandale Farms in Boston, and Lochstead in Falmouth.

In addition, Arnie was the first Chairman of the Facing History and Ourselves Foundation, which was created when the now-internationally acclaimed holocaust-based curriculum began to spread beyond its roots in the Brookline schools. He also chaired and was an early backer of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA) and founded the Center for Near East Policy Research, through which he published numerous monographs and papers on Middle East issues.

He received the Louis Brandeis Award from the Zionist Organization of America in 1996 and was inducted into the Brown University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1993. In 1968, Sports Illustrated named him to their 25th Anniversary All American Football team.

Arnie is survived by three children: Nathaniel (Nick) of Helena, MT; Stan of Washington, DC; and Belle of Westwood, MA; a daughter-in-law Kathy, also of Washington, DC; and seven grandchildren: Aaron of San Francisco; Mollie of Orford, NH; Anna and Sonya of Washington, DC; and Daniel Robinson of San Francisco, Eugene Robinson of East Lansing, MI, and Hannah Robinson of Westwood, MA. He was pre-deceased in 2004 by his wife of 56 years, Joan Field Soloway.

Services at the Levine Chapels, 470 Harvard St., Brookline on Friday, April 15 at 1:00pm.

Burial in Sharon Memorial Park, 40 Dedham St., Sharon.

Source: Dignity Memorial webpage obituary.

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Brown University Athletics Hall of Fame
Arnold M. Soloway ‘42, Football
Hometown: Brookline, MA
Sport: Football
Year Inducted: 1993

Arnie Soloway was a very effective two-way tackle for three years – ’39, ’40 & ’41 – three very good Brown football teams. As a junior and again as a senior he was selected to the All-New England Team; the only Brown lineman to be awarded that honor in those years. As a senior Arnie was also awarded the Class of 1910 Football Trophy at the team banquet. The NFL Brooklyn Dodgers gave Arnie a contract to play following graduation, but with the onset of World War II Arnie volunteered to enter the service. In 1946 Arnie was hired by Rip Engle to join the Brown coaching staff with Ernie Savignano; and from 1946-48 they groomed Brown athletes to go on to varsity competition. While coaching afternoons Arnie earned his Masters Degree in economics in 1948. During 1949 and 1950 he continued to scout for Brown while studying and teaching at Harvard, completing his Ph.D. in economics in 1952, where he remained on the faculty until 1960. In 1967 Arnie was once again recognized for his football accomplishments at Brown when he was selected to the Sports Illustrated 25th Anniversary All-American Team. Arnie has had a varied and effective career in the public and private sectors: Chairman, Harvard Graduate Society Council, 1982-83; Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, 1980-81; Chairman, Special Commission on Boston Public Housing, 1978-79; Director, National Committee on American Foreign Policy; National Bureau of Economic Research, 1974-79; Visiting Professor, Graduate School, Boston College. Arnie and his wife, Joan Field Soloway (Pembroke, ’49) reside in Brookline and have three children: Nathaniel A. Brown ’74; Stan Z., Dennison ’75; and Belle F., Brown ’78; and, as Arnie will tell you, seven fantastic grandchildren from 7 months to 11 years old.

Source: Brown University Athletics Hall of Fame.

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Resigns chairmanship of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association

Arnold M. Soloway, chairman of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Alumni Association quit his post in June to protest the appointment of a Palestinian scholar to a research position at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Soloway charged that Whalid Khalidi’s appointment in the spring of 1982 was dictated by a Saudi businessman’s $1 million gift. Harvard officials declined comment.

Source: The Harvard Crimson, September 12, 1983.

Image Source: Dignity Memorial webpage obituary.

 

 

Categories
Business School Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. John Keith Butters, 1941

 

The previous post provided the syllabi for the Harvard economics department public finance course (actually consolidated into a single document for the undergraduate and graduate versions of the course) taught by J. Keith Butters and Arnold M. Soloway in 1954-55.

Since both instructors received their doctorates in economics from Harvard, I have included this post that provides some biographical information about J. Keith Butters. The next post will do the same for Arnold M. Soloway.

I begin with the vital dates: John Keith Butters was born August 28, 1915 in Chicago and he died December 11, 2005 in Lexington, Massachusetts.

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Harvard Economics Ph.D. (1941)

John Keith Butters, A.B. (Univ. of Chicago) 1937, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1939. Subject, Economics. Special Field, Public Finance. Thesis, “Federal Taxation of Corporate Profits.” Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Department of Economics.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1940-1941, p. 174.

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Effect of Federal Taxes on Growing Enterprises
by J. Keith Butters and John Lintner
(1945)

Principal Conclusions

In highly condensed form the principal findings of the study may be summarized as follows:

  1. In the development-of-the-idea stage of a new enterprise taxes are seldom of dominant importance.
  2. As a business develops beyond the “idea” stage to the point at which production appears feasible, tax considerations become progressively more important.
  3. At this stage, and beyond, high corporate taxes are typically much more repressive in their effects than are high personal taxes at least so long as capital gains continue to receive very favorable treatment.
  4. High corporate taxes restrict the growth of small companies:
    1. By greatly reducing the attractiveness of risky expansions to the managements of small companies;
    2. By curtailing the amount of capital available from retained earnings to finance such expansions; and
    3. By making the acquisition of outside capital on satisfactory terms much more difficult.
  5. In each of these respects the restrictive effect of high personal taxes appears to be much less severe:
    1. The effect of personal taxes on management incentives is much less direct;
    2. Except for unincorporated enterprises personal taxes do not reduce retained earnings; and
    3. On balance, high personal taxes may not even divert outside capital away from highly venturesome enterprises.
  6. Retained earnings are an especially critical source of funds for the expansion of small enterprises:
    1. The owners of small companies frequently place great importance on the maintenance of a strong control position and of their personal freedom of action. To the extent that they do so, they will be reluctant to undertake expansions which must be financed by outside capital.
    2. Many small companies even companies with promising growth prospects find it extremely difficult or impossible to raise outside capital on reasonably favorable terms.
    3. Hence, for both of these reasons, many expansions by small companies will, in fact, be undertaken only if funds are available from retained earnings to finance them.
  7. In almost every respect high taxes are less repressive on large, established corporations than on small, growing firms.
    1. High taxes reduce the profit expectancy of new expansions by large companies much less severely than they restrict similar expansions undertaken by small, independent companies.
    2. Large, established companies have substantial amounts of funds coming available from their noncash expenses in addition to whatever earnings they may be able to retain after taxes. These funds may be used to finance the introduction of new products and technical innovations.
    3. Finally, large, established companies generally can acquire new capital on much more favorable terms than can small companies. In addition to their ability to float common stock with relative ease, they can usually issue preferred stocks or bonds alternatives available to small companies only on a limited scale, on more expensive terms, and usually at great risk to the common stockholders.
  8. Thus, unless special adjustments are made to relieve the burden of a flat-rate corporate tax on small companies, such a tax would tend to promote an increased degree of industrial concentration in addition to restricting the growth of small, independent companies.
  9. It would be possible substantially to relieve the tax burden on most small, growing companies without greatly diminishing Federal revenues. This study clearly emphasizes the need for such relief. But it makes no attempt to examine the many problems which would arise in formulating the precise character of this relief.
  10. The financial problems confronting small firms are particularly acute in times of depression and market pessimism at such times it is practically impossible for most small companies to acquire new equity capital on acceptable terms. Indeed, perhaps the surest way to improve the position of small firms would be to follow an economic policy that would promote a high level of economic activity. The indirect effects of general prosperity would be far more powerful than any specific measures which could be taken to break down the barriers between small companies and the capital market.
  11. As a final point, existing imperfections in the capital market and the general unwillingness of individual savers to assume the risks of ownership emphasize the possibility that venture capital may be scarce at a time when there is general oversavings in the economy. Failure to recognize that oversavings and shortages of venture capital are not mutually incompatible has led to many statements of doubtful validity by both proponents and opponents of the oversavings thesis.

Source: Study Effect of Federal Taxes on Growing Enterprises. Study published by the Division of Research at the Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University in 1945, pp. 2-4.

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In Memoriam

HBS professor J. Keith Butters, an authority on finance and taxation, died in Lexington, Massachusetts, in December [2005]. He was 90.

The Thomas D. Casserly Jr. Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, Butters retired from the HBS faculty in 1986 after 43 years of service, during which he chaired the Finance Unit (from 1969 to 1973) and taught in both the MBA and the Executive Education programs. He also played an influential role as the Business School’s representative to a number of University committees that affected faculty across all of Harvard.

Source:   Harvard Business School/Alumni/Stories, March 1, 2006.

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Boston Globe Obituary

J. Keith Butters

Of Lexington, died Dec. 12, 2005, at age 90. Husband of the late Helena Renaud Butters. He is survived by his brother William of Arlington Heights, IL; 3 children, Liz Butters of Denver, CO, Gerard R. Butters and his wife Ettie of Bethesda, MD, Nancy Butters and her husband Ron Pies of Lexington, MA; two grandchildren and two great grandchildren. A tenured Professor at The Harvard Business School, he received Harvard’s “Distinguished Service Award” in 1989 in recognition of his extraordinary service to the University’s educational mission.

Source: Legacy.com obituary from the Boston Globe.

Image Source:  Harvard Business School, The Annual Report 1954.

 

Categories
Fields Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Consolidated undergraduate and graduate public finance syllabus. Butters and Soloway, 1954-55

 

Providing a ten page transcription of a course syllabus is a daunting task. It does have the useful side-effect of forcing me to read the syllabus closely and I still labor under the hope that something of potential future significance will lodge itself somewhere in my subconscious, ready to go if ever summoned. Of course having a digitized transcript allows us to easily search the growing sample of course syllabi already transcribed at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. 

Harvard economics Ph.D.’s on the economics department faculty in the mid-1950’s, J. Keith Butters and Arnold M. Soloway, are listed on the public finance syllabus below that was distributed as a consolidated reading list for the undergraduate and graduate versions of the course taught in 1954-1955. I am not sure what to make of the fact that only Butters’ name appears in the enrollment report included with the annual report of the President of Harvard College.

P.S. The mid-year (January) and end-year (May) final exams have been transcribed and posted in a later post.

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Course Enrollments

[Economics] 151. Public Finance. Associate Professor Butters. Full course.

(W) Total 30: 15 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 4 Other Graduates, 1 Other
(S) Total 27: 14 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Other Graduate

[Economics] 251 Public Finance. Associate Professor Butters. Full course.

(F) Total 19: 7 Graduates, 8 Other Graduates, 1 Radcliffe, 3 Special
(S) Total 16: 6 Graduates, 7 Other Graduates, 1 Radcliffe, 2 Special

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1954-1955, pp. 90, 93.

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Economics 151 and 251
PUBLIC FINANCE
Fall Term, 1954-1955

Professors Butters and Soloway

NOTE: Readings under the heading “Required” are required for Economics 151. Students in Economics 251 are required to read the asterisked assignments and to be generally familiar with the substance of the material covered in the other required assignments for Economics 151.

The following general studies and texts are suggested for reference throughout the course. Specific assignments on various topics are made from some of these sources.

General Texts and Treatises on Public Finance:

Blough, Roy, The Federal Taxing Process

Brownlee, O. H. and Allen, E. D., Economics of Public Finance, (Second Edition)

Due, John F., Government Finance

Groves, H. M., Financing Government (Third Edition) [Fifth edition]

Groves, H. M., Viewpoints on Public Finance

Hicks, U. K., Public Finance

Pigou, A. C., A Study in Public Finance

Poole, K. E., (Editor), Fiscal Policies and the American Economy

Schultz, W. J. and Harriss, C. L., American Public Finance [Third edition, before Harriss]

Somers, H. M., Public Finance and National Income

 

Serial Publications and Periodicals:

Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury

Budget Messages of the President

Economic Reports of the President and Economic Reviews of the Council of Economic Advisers

Proceedings of the National Tax Association

National Tax Journal

Taxes, The Tax Magazine (Published by Commerce Clearing House, Inc.)

The loose-leaf tax services published by Commerce Clearing House, Inc. and Prentice-Hall, available in the Law Library

 

September 28: Nature and Scope of Government Finance

Required

*Brownlee and Allen, Economics of Public Finance, Second Edition, pp. 3-22

*Colm, Gerhard, “Why Public Finance,” National Tax Journal, Sept. 1948, pp. 193-206

*Due, Government Finance, Ch. 1, pp. 1-16

Suggested

*Hicks, Public Finance, Ch. 1, pp. 1-16

Groves, Financing Government, Ch. 1, pp. 1-8

 

September 30 – October 2: Concepts of Justice

Required

*Due, Government Finance, Ch. 7, pp. 114-133

*Simons, Henry, Personal Income Taxation, Ch. 1, pp. 1-40

*Blough, The Federal Taxing Process, Ch. 15, pp. 382-408

Suggested

Pigou, A. C., “Some Aspects of Welfare Economics,” American Economic Review, June 1951, pp. 287-302

*Pigou, A Study in Public Finance, Part II, Chs. 1-7, pp. 40-93

*Robbins, L., “Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility,” Economic Journal, December 1938, pp. 635-641

*Wright, D. Mc., “Income Redistribution Reconsidered,” Income, Employment and Public Policy, edited by Metzler, L. Pp. 159-176

Blum, W. J., and Kalven, Harry, The Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation

Shehab, F., Progressive Taxation: A Study in the Development of the Progressive Principal in the British Income Tax

 

October 5 – October 16: The Budget

Required

Groves, Financing Government (Third Edition), pp. 509-527

Schultz and Harriss, American Public Finance, pp. 131-151

*Smithies, Arthur, The Determination and Control of Federal Expenditures (mimeographed volume), Chs. I-VI (128 pages)

*Smith, Harold D., The Management of Your Government, Chs. 5-7, pp. 54-102

*March, Michael, “A Comment on Budgetary Improvement in the National Government,” National Tax Journal, June 1952, pp. 155-173. Also, “Reply to Mr. March” by Herman Loeffler, same issue, pp. 174-175

*The Budget of the United States Government for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1955, pp. M5-M104 and A3-A16. (This assignment can be scanned rather than studied carefully as to matters of detail.)

*National Income, 1951 (A Supplement to the Survey of Current Business) pp. 10-18, 21-34, 42-43, 46-49

*Tax and Expenditure Policy for 1950, Committee for Economic Development, pp. 35-41

Suggested

Hicks, J. R., The Problem of Budget Reform

Hansen, A. H., Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Ch. 10, pp. 186-222

Key, V. O., “The Lack of a Budgetary Theory,” American Political Science Review, Volume 34 (December 1940), pp. 1137-1144

U.S. Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, Budget and Accounting, Parts I and II, pp. 7-31, 77-84

U.S. Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, Task Force Report on Fiscal, Budgeting, and Accounting Activities (Appendix F), pp. 37-38

Loeffler, Herman C., “Alice in Budget-Land,” National Tax Journal, March 1951, pp. 54-64

Fieldler, Clinton, “Reform of the Legislative Budget,” National Tax Journal, March 1951, pp. 65-76

Burkhead, Jesse, “The Outlook for Federal Budget-Making,” National Tax Journal, December 1949, pp. 289-299

*Smithies, A., The Determination and Control of Expenditures, Chs. VII-XII and Ch. XVIII (Mimeographed)

Dirks, F. C., “Recent Progress in the Federal Budget,” National Tax Journal, June 1954, pp. 141-154

 

October 19 – November 6: Expenditures

Required

*Due, Government Finance, Chs. 2-6, pp. 17-113

*Musgrave, R. A. and Culbertson, J. M., “The Growth of Public Expenditures in the United States, 1890-1948,” National Tax Journal, June 1953, pp. 97-115

*”State and Local Government Receipt and Expenditure Programs,” Survey of Current Business, January 1953, pp. 11-16

*Douglas, P. H., Economy in the National Government, Chs. I-VIII, pp. 3-204

*Buchanan, J. S., “The Pricing of Highway Services,” National Tax Journal, June 1952, pp. 97-106

Studenski, “Federal Grants-in-Aid,” National Tax Journal, September 1949, pp. 193-214

*Newcomer, Mabel, “State and Local Financing in Relation to Economic Fluctuations,” National Tax Journal, June 1954, pp. 97-109

*Maxwell, J. A., “The Equalizing Effects of Federal Grants,” Journal of Finance, May 1954, pp. 209-215

*Stark, John R., “Equities in the Financing of Federal Old and Survivors Insurance,” National Tax Journal, September 1953, pp. 286-292

Suggested

*Maxwell, J. A., Federal Grants and the Business Cycle, Chs. I-IV, pp. 1-99

*Clark, C., “Public Finance and Changes in the Value of Money,” Economic Journal, December 1945, pp. 371-389

*Pechman, J. A., and Mayer, Thomas, “Mr. Colin Clark on the Limits of Taxation,” Review of Economics and Statistics, August 1952, pp. 232-242; and Smith, D. T., “Note on Inflationary Consequences of High Taxation,” Ibid., Pp. 243, 247

*Goode, Richard, “And Economic Limit on Taxes: Some Recent Discussions,” National Tax Journal, September 1952, pp. 227-233

*Pigou, A. C., A Study in Public Finance, Chs. I-V, pp. 1-34

Machlup, F., “The Division of Labor between Government and Private Enterprise,” American Economic Review, 1943 Supplement, pp. 87-104

Hansen, A. H., and Perloff, H. S., State and Local Finance in the National Economy, Chs. 2 and 8

Hicks, J. R. and Hart, A. G., The Social Framework of the American Economy, Ch. XIII, pp. 174-185

Bowen, H. R., Toward Social Economy, Ch. 18

Backman, Jules and Kurnov, Ernest, “Pricing of Government Services,” National Tax Journal, June 1954, pp. 121-140

 

November 9 – November 30: Fiscal Policy

Required

*Smithies, Arthur, “Federal Budgeting and Physical Policy,” in A Survey of Contemporary Economics (edited by Howard S. Ellis), Ch. 5, pp. 174-209

Hansen, A. H., Business Cycles and National Income, Ch. 12, pp. 195-207

(Note: Read one or two of the following four sources)

(1) Gordon, R. A., Business Fluctuations, Ch. 18, pp. 525-544

(2) Brownlee, O. H. and Allen, E. D., Economics of Public Finance, 2nd edition, Chs. VI-VIII, pp. 94-140

(3) Musgrave, R. A., “Fiscal Policy, Stability, and Full Employment,” Public Finance and Full Employment (Postwar Economic Studies No. 3, Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System), pp. 1-21

(4) Due, Government Finance, Chs. 25-26, and 28, pp. 470-505, and 524-550

*Hart, A. G., Money, Debt and Economic Activity, Second Edition, Chs. XXVII, XXVIII, and XXIX, pp. 448-495

*Hicks, U. K., Public Finance, Ch. XVII, pp. 316-336

*Committee for Economic Development, Taxes and the Budget: A Program For Prosperity in a Free Economy (November 1947), especially pp. 9-34

*Blough, Roy, “Political and Administrative Requisites for Achieving Economic Stability,” American Economic Review, May 1950, pp. 165-177

*Lerner, A. P., The Economics of Control, Ch. 24, pp. 302-322

*Pechman, Joseph A., “Yield of the Individual Income Tax During a Recession,” National Tax Journal, March 1954, pp. 1-16

Suggested

*Wallich, H. C., “Income Generating Effects of a Balanced Budget,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1944, pp. 78-91

*Musgrave, R. A., and Painter, M. S., “The Impact of Alternative Tax Structures on Personal Consumption and Saving,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1948, pp. 475-499

*Margolis, Julius, “Public Works and Economic Stability,” Journal of Political Economy, August 1949, pp. 277-292

Beveridge, W. H., Full Employment in a Free Society

Hansen, A. H., Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles

Terborgh, George, The Bogie of Economic Maturity

Hansen, A. H., “Some Notes on Terborgh’s ‘The Bogie of Economic Maturity,’” Review of Economics and Statistics, February 1946, and Terborgh’s reply R. E. S., August 1946

*”The Problem of Economic Instability,” A committee report, American Economic Review, September 1950, pp. 505-538 (sections pertaining to fiscal policy)

Bach, G. L., “Monetary-Fiscal Policy, Debt Policy, and the Price Level,” American Economic Review, May 1947, pp. 228-242

Bronfenbrenner, M., “Postwar Political Economy: The President’s Reports,” Journal of Political Economy, October 1948, pp. 373-391

*Clark, J. M., “An Appraisal of the Workability of Compensatory Devices,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, March 1939, reprinted in Readings in Business Cycle Theory, pp. 291-310

“Problems of Timing and Administering Fiscal Policy in Prosperity and Depression,” papers by E. E. Hagen and A. G. Hart; discussion by J. K. Galbraith, B. H. Higgins, W. S. Soytinski, and O. H. Brownlee, American Economic Review, May 1948, pp. 417-451

*Musgrave, R. A. and Miller, M. H., “Built-in Flexibility,” American Economic Review, March 1948, pp. 122-128

Musgrave, R. A., “Alternative Budget Policies for Pole Full Employment,” American Economic Review, June 1945, pp. 387-400

Clark, J. M., Economics of Planning Public Works

Lubell, “Efforts of Redistribution of Income on Consumers’ Expenditures,” American Economic Review, March 1947, pp. 157-170; Correction, December 1947, p. 930; Comment by J. M. Clark, p. 931

Burkhead, Jesse, “The Balanced Budget,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1954, Pp. 191-216

 

December 2 – December 18: Government Debt and Debt Management

Required

Due, Government Finance, Chs. 24 and 27, pp. 445-469 and 506-523

Schultz and Harriss, American Public Finance, Chs. XXV-XXVII, pp. 615-704

*Lerner, A. P., “The Burden of the National Debt” in Income, Employment and Public Policy (Metzler, L., et al.), Pp. 255-275

*”How to Manage the Debt,” Symposium in Review of Economics and Statistics, February 1949, pp. 15-32

*Murphy, H. C., The National Debt in War and Transition, Chs. 18-19, pp. 249-288

*Thomas, Woodlief, “Lessons of War Finance,” American Economic Review, September 1951, pp. 618-631

*Abbott, C. C., The Federal Debt (Twentieth Century Fund, 1952), Ch. 6, pp. 89-112

Suggested

Abbott, op. cit., pp. 1-196

*Roosa, R. V., “Interest Rates in the Central Bank,” in Money, Trade and Economic Growth (In Honor of John Henry Williams), pp. 270-295

*Simons, H. C., “On Debt Policy,” Journal of Political Economy, December 1944, pp. 356-361, and “Debt Policy and Banking Policy,” Review of Economics and Statistics, May 1946, pp. 85-89; both reprinted in Economic Policy for a Free Society, pp. 220-239

*Musgrave, R. A., “Credit Controls, Interest Rates and Management of Public Debt,” in Income, Employment and Public Policy (Metzler, L., At all.), Pp. 221-254

Harris, S. E., The National Debt and the New Economics

Committee on Debt Policy, Our National Debt

Seltzer, L. H., “Is a Rise in Interest Rates Desirable or Inevitable?” American Economic Review, December 1945, pp. 831-850

Roosa, R. V., “Integrating Debt Management and Open Market Operations,” American Economic Review, Supplement, May 1952, pp. 214-235

Wallich, H. C., “Debt Management as an Instrument of Economic Policy,” American Economic Review, June 1946, pp. 292-310

Bach, G. L., “Monetary-Fiscal Policy Reconsidered,” Journal of Political Economy, October 1949, pp. 383-394

Tobin, James, “Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt: The Patman Inquiry,” Review of Economics and Statistics, May 1953, pp. 118-127

Burgess, W. Randolph, “Federal Reserve and Treasury Relations,” Journal of Finance, March 1954, pp. 1-11

 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Economics 151 and 251
PUBLIC FINANCE
Spring Term, 1954-1955

Professors Butters and Soloway

Note: Readings under the heading “Required” are required for Economics 151. Students in Economics 251 are required to read the asterisked assignments and to be generally familiar with the substance of the material covered in the other required assignments for Economics 151. References in Shultz and Harriss, American Public Finance, refer to the new 6thedition.

 

February 3-10: General Introduction to Taxation in the United States.

Required:

Shultz, W. J., and Harriss, C. L., American Public Finance, Chapters 7, 9, 10, 11.

Groves, Harold, Viewpoints on Public Finance, Chapter 1.

Lerner, A. P., Economics of Control, Chapter 24 (review).

Suggested:

*Bullock, C. J., Readings in Public Finance, Chapters VIII-IX.

Paul, Randolph E., Taxation in the United States (1954).

Ratner, Sydney, American Taxation, Its History as a Social Force in Democracy (1942).

Dewey, Davis R., Financial History of the United States.

 

February 10-17: Personal Income Taxation.

Required:

Shultz, W. J., and Harriss, C. L., American Public Finance, Chapters 12, 13.

*Simons, H. C., Personal Income Taxation, Chapter I (reread), Chapters II, III (passim), IV-VI, VIII, X.

Groves, H. M., Financing Government, 3rdedition, Chapter 9.

Your Federal Income Tax, Bureau of Internal Revenue.

Suggested:

*National Tax Journal, March 1955, articles by Professor Shoup, Brown, and Pechman.

*Vickrey, W. S., Agenda for Progressive Taxation, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 6 (passim), 12, 13, 14.

Fisher, I., and Fisher, H. W., Constructive Income Taxation, A Proposal for Reform, Chapters 1, 5, 7, 8, 9, and 21.

Holt, C. G., “Averaging of Income for Tax Purposes: Equity and Fiscal-Policy Considerations,” National Tax Journal, December 1949.

*Musgrave, R. A., and Tun, Thin, “Income Tax Progression, 1929-48”, Journal of Political Economy, December 1948, pp. 498-514.

Farioletti, Marius, “The 1948 Audit Control Program for Federal Income Tax Returns”, National Tax Journal, June 1949, pp. 142-150.

Farioletti, Marius, “Some Results from the First Year’s Audit Control Program of the Bureau of Internal Revenue”, National Tax Journal, March 1952, pp. 65-78.

Blakey, R. G., and Blakely, G. C., The Federal Income Tax.

Magill, Roswell, Taxable Income.

Prentice-Hall, Federal Tax Course – 1954, Chapters 1-3.

 

February 19-24: Capital Gains Taxation.

Required:

*Seltzer, L. H., The Nature and Tax Treatment of Capital Gains and Losses, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 9, 11.

Groves, H. M., Financing Government, 3rd edition, pp. 172-177.

*Simons, H. C., Personal Income Taxation, Chapter VII.

Suggested:

*Vickrey, W. S., Agenda for Progressive Taxation, Chapter 5.

Capital Gains Taxation (A Tax Institute Symposium) (passim).

Federal Income Tax Treatment of Capital Gains and Losses (A Treasury Tax Study), 1951.

Groves, H. M., Viewpoints on Public Finance, pp. 151-158.

Prentice-Hall, Federal Tax Course – 1954, Chapters 4-6.

 

February 26-March 5: Corporation Income Tax.

Required:

Shultz, W. J., and Harriss, C. L., American Public Finance, pp. 311-320.

*Goode, Richard, The Corporation Income Tax, Chapters 1-9, 11, 18.

*Thompson, L. E., and Butters, J. K., “Effects of Taxation on the Investment Policies and Capacities of Individuals”, Journal of Finance, May 1953, Pp. 137-151.

*Smith, D. T., “Taxation and Executives”, Proceedings of the National Tax Association, 1951, pp. 232-250.

*Brown, E. C., “Business-Income Taxation and Investment Incentives”, Income, Employment, and Public Policy (Essays in Honor of Alvin H. Hansen), pp. 300-316.

Butters, J. K., and Lintner, J., Effect of Federal Taxes on Growing Enterprises, Chapters I-VII, VII and IX passim.

Suggested:

Prentice-Hall, Federal Tax Course – 1954, Chapters 21-23.

Smith, D. T., and Butters, J. K., Taxable and Business Income, Forward, Introduction, and Chapter 1.

*Slitor, Richard E., “The Corporate Income Tax: A Re-evaluation”, National Tax Journal, December 1952, pp. 289-309.

*Domar, E. D., and Musgrave, R. A., “Proportional Income Taxation and Risk-Taking”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1944, pp. 388-422.

Butters, J. K., Effects of Taxation on Inventory Accounting and Policies, Chapters I, IV, V.

Butters, J. K., Thompson, L. E., and Bollinger, L. L., Effects of Taxation on Investments by Individuals, Chapters I-VI.

Smith, D. T., Effects of Taxation on Corporate Financial Policy, Chapters I, VI-IX.

*Smith, D. T., “Corporate Taxation and Common Stock Financing”, National Tax Journal, September 1953, pp. 209-225.

Brown, E. See., Effects of Taxation on Depreciation Adjustments for Price Changes, Chapters I-IV.

*Eldridge, D. H., “Tax Incentives for Mineral Enterprise”, Journal of Political Economy, June 1950, pp. 222-240.

Economic Effects of Section 102 (Tax Institute Symposium, 1951).

 

March 8-10: Integration of Personal and Corporate Income Taxation.

Required:

*Goode, Richard, The Corporation Income Tax, Chapter X.

*Simons, H. C., Personal Income Taxation, Chapter IX.

Suggested:

*The Postwar Corporation Tax Structure, U.S. Treasury Study.

How Should Corporations be Taxed?, A Tax Institute Symposium.

“Final Report of the Committee on the Federal Corporation Income Tax”, Proceedings of the National Tax Association, 1950, pp. 54-76.

Lent, G. E., The Impact of the Undistributed Profits Tax, 1936-1937.

 

March 12-15: Excess Profits Taxation.

Required:

*Hart, A. G., and Brown, E. C., Financing Defense, Chapter 7.

*Blough, Roy, “Measurement Problems of the Excess Profits Tax”, National Tax Journal, December 1948, pp. 353-365.

*”Symposium on the Excess Profits Tax”, National Tax Journal, September 1951, pp. 219-36.

Tax Institute, Excess Profits Tax, Parts 1 and 3, and pp. 119-141.

Suggested:

Oakes, E. E., “Excess Profits Tax Amendments”, National Tax Journal, March 1952, pp. 53-64.

Hicks, J. R., Hicks, U. K., and Rostas, L., The Taxation of War Wealth, Chapters 1, 4-7.

 

March 14-19: Estate and Gift Taxation.

Required:

Schultz, W. J., and Harriss, C. L., American Public Finance, Chapter 20.

*Groves, H. M., Viewpoints on Public Finance, Nos. 44, 46, 47, and 48 (all in Chapter 5).

*Butters, J. K., Lintner, J., and Cary, W. L., Effects of Taxation on Corporate Mergers, Chapters I-III and V.

Bloch, Henry S., “Economic Objectives of Gratuitous Transfer Taxation”, National Tax Journal, June 1951, pp. 139-147.

Suggested:

*Surrey, Stanley S., et al., “A Critique of Federal Estate and Gift Taxation”, California Law Review, March 1950. (Introduction by Stanley Surrey, Pp. 1-27, required for graduate students; remainder optional.)

*Federal Estate and Gift Taxes– A Proposal for Integration and for Correlation with the Income Tax. (A joint study by an advisory committee to the Treasury Department and the Office of the Tax Legislative Council, 1947) (Sections I and II and remainder, passim. Required for graduate students).

Keith, E. Gordon, “How Should Wealth Transfers Be Taxed?”, American Economic Review, May 1950, pp. 379-390.

Wedgewood, Josiah, The Economics of Inheritance, especially Chapters 9-11.

 

March 22-31: Taxes on Consumption.

Required:

Schultz, W. J., and Harriss, C. L., American Public Finance, Chapters 8, 16.

*Groves, H. M., Viewpoints on Public Finance, Nos. 58, 59, 60, 64.

Soloway, A. M., “The Purchase Tax and Fiscal Policy”, National Tax Journal, December 1951.

Suggested:

Due, John F., “American and Canadian Experience with the Sales Tax”, The Journal of Finance, September 1952.

*Due, John F., “Toward A General Theory of Sales Tax Incidents”, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1953.

Pao Lun Cheng, “A Note on the Progressive Consumption Tax”, The Journal of Finance, September 1953.

Soloway, Arnold M., “Economic Aspects of the British Purchase Tax”, Journal of Finance, May 1954.

*Hicks, U. K., Public Finance, Chapters IX and X.

Hart and Brown, Financing Defense, Chapter 4.

 

April 12-23: Intergovernmental Tax Problems.

Required:

Shultz, W. J., and Harriss, C. L., American Public Finance, Chapters 23, 24, 18, 19.

*Groves, H. M., Postwar Taxation and Economic Progress, Chapter 12.

*State-Local Relations, The Council of State Governments, Report of the Committee on State-Local Relations, 1946, Parts 3 and 4; Parts 1, 2, 5, and 6 passim.

*Federal State Local Tax Correlation; Symposium of the Tax Institute, 1953. Chapters I, II, III, VII, VIII, XVIII.

Suggested:

Groves, H. M., Postwar Taxation and Economic Progress, Chapter 12.

Groves, H. M., Viewpoints on Public Finance, Chapter 2.

*George, Henry, Progress and Poverty.

Hansen and Perloff, State and Local Finance in the National Economy.

*National Tax Journal, December 1951, pp. 341-371.

 

April 26-May 5: Burden of Taxation.

Required:

*Musgrave, R. A., et al., “Distribution of Tax Payments by Income Groups”, National Tax Journal, March 1951, pp. 1-53.

*Tucker, Rufus S., “Distribution of Tax Burdens in 1948”, National Tax Journal, September 1951, pp. 269-283.

*Allen, E. D., and Brownlee, O. H., Economics of Public Finance, Chapter X.

*Tucker, R. S., “Distribution of Government Burdens and Benefits”, American Economic Review, May 1953, pp. 519-534.

Suggested:

*”Further Consideration of the Distribution of the Tax Burden”, National Tax Journal, March 1952, pp. 1-39.

Poole, K. E., Fiscal Policies and the American Economy (Chapter VIII, “The Fiscal System, The Distribution of Income, and Public Welfare” by John H. Adler), pp. 359-409.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 6, Folder “Economics, 1954-1955”.

Image Source: J. Keith Butters from Webpage of the Harvard Business School Baker Library Historical Collection “Edwin H. Land & the Polaroid Corporation: The Formative Years”.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Labor Movement in Europe, Final Exams. Meriam, 1924 and 1925.

 

Harvard’s semester course “The Labor Movement in Europe” was introduced by Professor William E. Rappard in 1912-13 and 1913-14 but then not offered again until 1923-24 and 1924-25 when it was taught by Richard Stockton Meriam. The course was then once again bracketed in the annual course announcements until 1930-31 when it was “reintroduced” by Dr. William Thomas Ham.

Judging from the examination questions below, Meriam appears to have dedicated about a third of his course to socialist economics and socialist labor movements.

___________________

Meriam’s Harvard Ph.D. record, 1921

Richard Stockton Meriam, A.B. 1914.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Social Ethics. Thesis, “Trade Unions in Germany, 1865-1914.” Instructor in Economics, and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics, Harvard University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1920-21.Page 62.

___________________

Course Announcement

6b2 hf. The Labor Movement in Europe. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Meriam.

This course will deal primarily with the development of trade unionism, of the coöperative movement, and of the political labor movement in Europe from the beginning of the nineteenth century and with the trend of opinion concerning their significance. Special attention will be given to the theories of the relations of labor to industry in the state which have gained adherents among wage earners or have influenced the labor policies of European states. The development of labor legislation and of social insurance prior to the war and the labor problems of the war and reconstruction periods will also be examined.

Candidates for distinction will be given an opportunity to write theses.

Source:  Division of History, Government, and Economics 1924-25. Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. XXI, No. 22 (April 30, 1924), page 69.

___________________

Course enrollment
2nd semester 1923-24

[Economics] 6b2 hf. Dr. Meriam.—The Labor Movement in Europe.

Total 30: 3 graduates, 12 seniors, 11 juniors, 1 sophomore, 3 others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1923-24. Page 106.

___________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Economics 6b2
Final examination 1924

I. (One hour)

  1. Write a critical review of the Webbs’ The Consumer’s Coöperative Movement, discussing in particular
    1. the Webbs’ interpretation of the movement;
    2. their comparison of the coöperatives with private enterprise;
    3. their comparison of the coöperatives with government enterprise.

 

II. (One hour)
Answer 2 and either 3 or 4.

  1. What do you consider the most important single step to be taken in the United States either (a) to obtain for this country the benefits of the labor movement in Europe, or (b) to avoid its dangers?
  2. Do you accept Sombart’s thesis that “there is a distinct tendency in the social movement to uniformity”?
  3. Answer two.
    1. Compare the characteristics of the German labor movement in 1875, 1890, in 1913.
    2. Compare the position of trade unionism within the labor movement in France and Great Britain in the period 1905-13.
    3. Account for the peculiarities of the French labor movement prior to 1900.

 

III. (One hour)

Explain and criticize four of the following quotations.:

  1. “The books on socialism deal largely with controversies which do not proceed to the heart of the matter. This seems to me to hold of K. Marx, Das Kapital, the most famous and influential of socialist books.”
  2. “Property is theft.”
  3. “Though it (the program of the British Labor Party) lacks a single constructive feature, though it is made up exclusively of scraps of Marxian jargon, catchphrases, and shibboleths, nevertheless it is the kind of program which any class is likely to adopt in its own interest when it for the first time concludes that it can outvote other classes and controlled the state.”
  4. “Even if the state of affairs characterized by peasant protectorship is destined by fate to disappear, socialism does not have to precipitate its disappearance. Its role is not to separate property and labor, but on the contrary to reunite in the same hands these two factors of production, whose division results in the servitude and poverty of the workers who have fallen to the state of proletarians.”
  5. “All this (the schemes of guild socialists) is quite different from producers’ coöperation.”

Source: Harvard University Archives.  Examination Papers. Finals 1924.(HUC 7000.28, vol. 66). Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions,… , Government, Economics, Anthropology,… , Psychology, Social Ethics. (June 1924).

 

___________________

Course enrollment
2nd semester 1924-25

[Economics] 6b2 hf. Asst. Professor Meriam.—The Labor Movement in Europe.

Total 34: 10 graduates, 8 seniors, 12 juniors, 1 sophomore, 3 others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1924-25. Page 75.

___________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Economics 6b2
Final examination 1925

(Avoid duplication in selecting questions)

I. (One hour)

  1. Write an essay on one of the following subjects:
    1. Marxian socialism and the labor movement.
    2. “Democracy has forced one concession after another from the pure theory of individualism.”
    3. “Violent political passions have but little hold on those who have devoted all their faculties to the pursuit of their well-being. The ardour which they display in small matters calms their zeal for momentous undertakings.”

II. (One hour)
Answer 2 and either 3, 4, or 5

  1. (20 minutes for a or b.) What are the obstacles to the formation in the United States of the Labour Party like either (a) the British Labor Party or (b) the German Socialist Party?
  2. Does a comparison of the characteristics of the labor movement in various European countries in the period 1865-1875 with those in the period 1905-1914 support Sombart’s thesis on The Tendency to Uniformity?
  3. Do you agree with the conclusion of the following quotation from an article on the “labor banks” recently established in the United States? –

“The labor movement in America is far in advance of that in any other country. This will sound strange to ears which are tuned to the current phrases regarding labor movements. They who are still thinking in terms of the primitive tactics of class war will, of course, repudiate it at once. The labor movement of this country is passing out of the primitive fighting stage in which leadership concerned itself chiefly with the immediate tactics of battle. It is passing into a stage in which it is concerning itself with the higher strategy of maneuvering for permanent advantage. The leaders of labor in no other country show any sign of being aware of the first principles of this higher strategy, nor, for that matter, do the more vociferous self-appointed champions of labor in this country. They are fighting capital either directly or politically. They are not even encouraging laborers to become their own capitalists, or to get possession of the machinery of production by the one effective method of purchase.”

  1. Account for:
    1. The comparative results of consumers’ and producers’ coöperation.
    2. The comparative strength of consumers’ coöperation in the United States and Great Britain.
    3. The persistence of the ideal of producers’ coöperation among the wage-earners.

III. (One hour)

Explain and criticize four of the following quotations:

  1. “The final goal is nothing; the movement is everything.”
  2. “Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolition of the wages system!’”
  3. “Universal suffrage considered by 89 to 96 per cent of the population as a question of the belly and spread throughout the entire national body with the belly’s warmth! Have no fear, gentlemen. There is no power that could withstand it long. Universal suffrage is the standard you must raise. This is the standard which will give you victory.”
  4. “We do not regard Co-operation particularly as a method by which poor men may make savings and advance their own position in the world.… To us the social and political significance of the Co-operative Movement lies in the fact that it provides a means by which, in substitution for the Capitalist System, the operations of industry may be….carried on under democratic control without the incentive of profit-making, or the stimulus of pecuniary gain.”
  5. The Bolsheviki are followers of Karl Marx, in their experiment was based upon his teachings.”
  6. “If the Co-operators would guarantee to the Trade Unionists in their employment distinctly preferential terms, and if the eight million Trade Unionists would, in return, give, not merely all their custom to the Co-operative Societies, but also absolute continuity of service, even when striking against profit-making employers, and an actual superiority in conscientiousness and skill in Co-operative employment, this ‘Direct Action’ would… transfer trade after trade to the joint control of the democracy of consumers in alliance with the democracy of producers without the necessity of paying any compensation to the capitalists.”

 

Source:Harvard University Archives.  Examination Papers. Finals 1925.(HUC 7000.28, vol. 67). Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History of Science, History,… , Government, Economics, Philosophy,… , Anthropology, Military Science. (June 1925).

Image Source: Robert Stockton Meriam in the Harvard Class Album 1925.

Categories
Economists Harvard Northwestern

Harvard. Economics PhD alumnus, Elmo Paul Hohman, 1925

 

In the previous post Economics in the Rear-View Mirror salvaged part of a reading list for a course on labor problems from a new assistant professor of economics at Northwestern University who would go on to complete his economic history dissertation at Harvard on the American whaling industry (1785-1885). 

Below we add to our record some biographical and career information on this economics Ph.D. alumnus of Harvard.

Elmo Hohman’s wife, Helen Fisher Hohman,  was herself an economics Ph.D. alumna of the University of Chicago. Her post in our series “Get to know an economics Ph.D.” immediately follows.

____________________

Pre-Harvard history theses at the University of Illinois

Hohman wrote his B.A. thesis in history at the University of Illinois:  “The Ku Klux Klan: Its Origin, Growth, and Disbandment” (1916).  His M.A. thesis in history at the University of Illinois is also available: “The Attitude of the Presbyterian Church in the United States Towards American Slavery” (1917).

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Traces from Harvard graduate school

“The Ricardo Prize Scholarship in Economics has been awarded to Elmo P. Hohman 1G. of Nashville, Ill” (Harvard Crimson, 4 June 1920).

“Among the men appointed tutors in History, Government, and Economics for next year is James W. Angell ’18, son of president-elect Angell of Yale. The other newly-appointed tutors are James Hart, William A. Berridge ’14, Karl W. Bigelow, Elmo P. Hohman, and Norman J. Silberling ’14.” (Harvard Crimson, 17 June 1921).

____________________

Harvard Ph.D. awarded 1925

ELMO PAUL HOHMAN, A.B. (Univ. of Illinois) 1916, A.M. (ibid.) 1917, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1920.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Labor Problems. Thesis, “The American Whaleman: A Study of the Conditions of Labor in the Whaling Industry, 1785-1885.” Assistant Professor of Economics, Northwestern University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1924-25. Page 100.

____________________

Career of Elmo Paul Hohman

Assistant and tutor, department economics, Harvard, 1920-1923. Instructor economics, Northwestern University, 1923-1925, assistant professor, 1925-1931, associate professor, 1931-1938, professor since 1938. Special referee, division of unemployment compensation, Illinois Department of Labor, 1939-1942.

Regional price executive, OPA, Chicago, 1942, district price executive Chicago Metropolitan office, 1942-1944. Vice chairman, shipbuilding commission National War Labor Board, 1944, war shipping panel, 1945. Chairman advising committee, Yale Fund for Seamen’s Studies since 1946.

Observer, visiting scholar, International Labor Office, 1928-1929, 1936-1937, 1946, 1958-1959. National panel arbitrators Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Member maritime division International Labor Organization, Geneva.

Student, 3d R.O.T.C., Camp Grant, Illinois, 1918. Commander Second lieutenant infantry, 1918. Associate field director, American Red Cross transport service, 1919.

Source:  Prabook entry for Elmo Paul Hohman.

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Obituary of Elmo Paul Hohman
August 2, 1894 [in Salem,Washington County, Illinois]– January 1, 1977 [Evanston, Illinois]

Services for Elmo Paul Hohman, 82, professor emeritus of economics at Northwestern University, were pending. Mr. Hohman, of 606 Trinity Ct., Evanston, died last Saturday in Evanston Hospital. He joined the faculty of Northwestern in 1923 as an instructor of economics and retired as a professor in 1962. He wrote several books on the American Merchant Marine, among them, “The American Whale Man,” Seamen Ashore,” and “The History of American Merchant Seamen.” He is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Eleanore Wadlow, and two grandchildren. His late wife, Mrs. Helen Fisher Hohman, was also a professor of economics at Northwestern.

Transcribed from Chicago Tribune January 5, 1977 by Marsha L. Ensminger

Memorial service for Elmo Paul Hohman

A memorial service for Elmo Paul Hohman, professor emeritus of economics at Northwestern University, will be at 1:30 p.m. Sunday in the Presbyterian Home Chapel, 3131 Simpson St., Evanston. Mr. Hohman died Jan. 1. He retired as a professor at Northwestern in 1962 after 39 years on the faculty. His late wife, Helen Fisher Hohman, who died in 1972, also was a professor of economics at Northwestern. He is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Eleanore Wadlow, and two grandchildren.

Transcribed from Chicago Tribune February 26, 1977 by Marsha L. Ensminger

Source:  Genealogy Trails History Group for Washington County, Illinois

Image Source: Photo of Elmo Paul Hohman from his passport application dated 30 January 1919. Hohman applied for a passport to join the Transport Service of the American Red Cross in France and England.

 

 

 

Categories
Harvard Northwestern

Northwestern [?]. Partial reading list for labor problems. Hohman [?], 1924

 

 

The following artifact was found all alone, an orphan in a folder in the Harvard University archives marked “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics 1923-24”. The course outline is obviously incomplete since the second semester of the academic year 1923-1924 at Harvard ran from the second week of February through  the end of April 1924. Also peculiar is the fact that the course number “B3”  on the outline does not correspond to an economics course at Harvard. The only clue we have is the handwritten (and crossed out) name Hohman in the upper right corner of the page.

It turns out that Elmo Paul Hohman (Harvard Ph.D. 1925) was appointed at Northwestern University as an assistant professor of economics in 1923-24. I have also been able to confirm that “B3” is consistent with the course numbering system used at Northwestern at that time. Based on the handwritten additions and underlining noted in the transcription below, one can reasonably conclude that someone teaching a labor economics course at Harvard added the items on British labor experience from Hohman’s outline.

Since the reading list at Northwestern was for the second semester of 1923-24, it seems likely that the reading list was forwarded to the Harvard library reserve desk for either the second semester of 1923-24 or 1924-25. The second semester of the two Harvard labor economics courses, “The Labor Movement in Europe”, was taught by Richard Stockton Meriam (Harvard, Ph.D. 1921) who briefly overlapped with Elmo Hohman as an economics tutor. Exams from 1913-1932 for the first semester labor course (Trade-Unionism and Allied Problems) taught by W. Z. Ripley have been posted earlier. Since one finds an examination question about British trade-unions in Ripley’s course, it is also possible that some of Hohman’s readings were included for Ripley’s course.

In subsequent posts I’ll provide biographical and career information for Harvard Ph.D. alumnus Elmo Paul Hohman and for his wife, Chicago Ph.D. alumna, Helen Fisher Hohman.

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Links to Items on Homan’s Labor Problems Reading List

Watkins, Gordon S. An Introduction to the Study of Labor Problems. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1922.

Douglas, Paul H., Curtice N. Hitchcock, and Willard E. Atkins. The Worker in Modern Economic Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923.

Hammond, J.L. and Barbara Hammond. The Town Labourer, 1760-1832. The New Civilisation. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1920.

Blanshard, Paul. An Outline of the British Labor Movement. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1923.

Perlman, Selig. A History of Trade Unionism in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1922.

______________________

[handwritten] British
[handwritten] Hohman

ECONOMICS B3.—LABOR PROBLEMS.
(Second Semester, 1923-1924)
OUTLINE OF SUBJECT-MATTER OF COURSE, WITH ASSIGNED READINGS.

I.—Historical Development of the Labor Movement in England and the United States.

1.—English Background Up to and Including the Industrial Revolution.

Feb. 11 Readings:

Watkins, 9-23.
Douglas, 89-96;101-111;121-129.
Hammond, 17-36; 144-150; 156-163; 172-182.

2.—Recent British Experience. [underlined in pencil]

Feb. 18 Readings:

Douglas, 706-718.
Blanshard[underlined in pencil with added note in margin:“look up”], 22-31; 49-90; 100-107; 156-163.

3.—Early American Labor Conditions.

Feb. 25 Readings:

Watkins, 24-40.
Perlman, 3-66.

4.—Modern development of American Labor.

Mar. 3 Readings:

Perlman, 68-80; 106-128; 130-145; 163-166; 235-261; 279-284.

 

II.—The Various Types of Activity Which Have Played a Part, Effective and Ineffective, in the Development of the Labor Movement.

A.—Self-Help; Methods Springing from and Controlled by the Laborers Themselves.

5.—Trade Unionism.

Mar. 10 Readings:

Watkins, 298-324; 330-338; 351-387; 438-444.

6.—Mutual Insurance; Demand for a Larger Share in the Control of Industry; Political Action; Workers’ Education.

Mar. 17 Readings:

Watkins, 366-369; 449-473.
Douglas, 667-668; 719-739; 761-765.
Perlman, 285-294.
Blanshard, 137-145. [underlined in pencil]

 

B.—Public and Governmental Activities.

7.—Labor Legislation.

Mar. 24 Readings:

Watkins, 592-602; 609-620; 120-144; 146-186.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1923-1924”.

Image Source: Cigar box label from the collections of the Museum of the City of New York.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Reading list and final exam for course “Conflict, Coalition and Strategy”. Schelling, 1970

 

 

There are undergraduate courses, and then there are great undergraduate courses. Today we have the 49 item course bibliography for Thomas C. Schelling’s “Conflict, Coalition and Strategy” along with its ten-page final examination. This material comes to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror from one of the students who took that course, then Harvard undergraduate, Robert Dohner. I am  generally not jealous of Bob’s Harvard undergraduate education, but I’ll admit there are a good half-dozen economics and politics courses in my own Yale training that I would have gladly traded for that single Schelling semester in 1970. You can all thank Bob Dohner for sharing this memory!

The teaching assistant for the course, James T. Campen, was born 1943. He received an A.B. from Harvard in 1965, M.A. at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge in 1971 and Ph.D. from Harvard in 1976. Campen was active early on in the Union for Radical Political Economics and was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Boston from 1977 where he worked up into his emeritus years.

_____________________

Economics 1030
“Conflict, Coalition and Strategy”
Prof. Thomas C. Schelling
Mr. James T. Campen
Fall 1970

(*Contained in Coop package)

Introduction (13 pages)

  1. *Schelling, T. C., “Strategic Analysis and Social Problems,” Social Problems, Vol. 12 (Spring 1965), pp. 367-379.

 

I. Personal Incentives and Social Organization (56 pages)

  1. Hardin, Garrett, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, Vol. 162, No. 3859, pp. 1243-1248.
  2. Olson, Mancur, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 1-3,9-16, 53-57,86-87, 132-141.
  3. Luce, R. Duncan and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1957), Chapter 5.4, “An Example: The Prisoner’s Dilemma,” and Chapter 5.5, “Temporal Repetition of the Prisoner’s Dilemma,” pp. 94-102.
  4. Demsetz, Harold, “Toward a Theory of Property Rights,” Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Association, American Economic Review, Vol. 57 (May 1967), pp. 347-359.

 

II. Rules, Restraints, and Conventions (296 pages)

  1. Schelling, T. C., “Some Thoughts on the Relevance of Game Theory to the Analysis of Ethical Systems,” in Ira R. Buchler and Hugo G. Nutini (eds.), Game Theory in the Behavioral Sciences (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), pp. 45-60.
  2. Lorenz, Konrad, On Aggression (Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966), pp. 68-84, 109-138. NOTE: Different pages in Bantam paperback, pp. 64-80, 104-132.
  3. Piaget, Jean, The Moral Judgment of the Child (The Free Press, 1965, and Collier Books, 1962, same translator and identical pagination in both versions), pp. 65-76, 94-100, 139-174, 197-232. NOTE: Hardcover editions dated 1932 and 1948 have these pages instead: pp. 56-69, 89-95, 135-171, 195-231. To check: the first selection begins, “Consciousness of Rules: II Third Stage.”
  4. Jervis, Robert, The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 18, 90-110, 147-152, 197-205, 216-223.
  5. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 3, pp. 53-80, and Chapter 4, pp. 89-108.
  6. Lewis, David K., Convention: A Philosophical Study (Harvard University Press, 1969), pp. 5-8, 36-51, 83-107, 118-121.

 

III. Contests and Disputes (123 pages)

  1. Moore, Omar K. and Alan R. Anderson, “Puzzles, Games, and Social Interaction,” in David Braybooke, Philosophical Problems of the Social Sciences (The Macmillan Company, 1965), pp. 68-79.
  2. Langholm, Sivert, “Violent Conflict Resolution and the Loser’s Reaction,” Journal of Peace Research, 1965-4, pp. 324-347.
  3. Galtung, Johan, “Institutionalized Conflict Resolution,” Journal of Peace Research, 1965-4, pp. 348-383.
  4. Goffman, Erving, Interaction Ritual (Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 239-270, “Where the Action Is.”
  5. Skolnick, Jerome H., “Social Control in the Adversary System,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. XI, No. 1 (March 1967), pp. 52-70.

 

IV. Formal Processes of Collective Decision (133 pages)

  1. *Steinhaus, Hugo, “The Problem of Fair Division,” Econometrica, Vol. 16 (January 1948), pp. 101-104.
  2. *Farquharson, Robin, “Sincerity and Strategy in Voting,” mimeograph, February 5, 1955, 7 pages.
  3. Schelling, T. C., “What Is Game Theory?” in James C. Charlesworth (ed.), Contemporary Political Analysis (The Free Press, 1967), pp. 212-238.
  4. Buchanan, James M. and Gordon Tulloch, The Calculus of Consent (The University of Michigan Press, 1962), pp. 43-62, 131-145, 249-262.
  5. *Schelling, T. C., “Voting Schemes and Fair Division,” multilith, September 1970.
    [Handwritten note: 23 10th line 12th 1.27 s.b. 1.55. A gets 295 instead of 241. B gets 85]
  6. Leiserson, Michael, “Game Theory and the Study of Coalition Behavior,” in Sven Groennings, E. W. Kelley, and Michael Leiserson (eds.), The Study of Coalition Behavior (Holt, Reinhardt and Winston, 1970), pp. 255-272.
  7. Farquharson, Robin, Theory of Voting (Yale University Press, 1969), Appendix 3, pp. 77-80.

 

V. Individual and Collective Bargaining (266 pages)

  1. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 2, pp. 21-52, and Chapter 5, pp. 119-161.

[Handwritten note: Hour Exam]

  1. Fisher, Roger, International Conflict for Beginners (Harper & Rowe, 1969), Chapter 3, “Making Threats Is Not Enough,” pp. 27-59.
  2. Walton, R. E. and R. B. McKersie, A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations (McGraw-Hill, 1965), pp. 4-6, 67-125, 310-340.
  3. Ross, H. Laurence, Settled Out of Court (Aldine, 1970), Chapter IV, “Negotiation.” NOTE: Pending appearance of book, mimeograph copy on reserve, entitled “Negotiation.”
  4. *Schelling, T. C., “Communication, Bargaining and Negotiation,” Arms Control and National Security, Vol. 1 (1969), pp. 69-71.
  5. *Rapoport, Anatol and Melvin Guyer, “Taxonomy of 2 x 2 Games,” Papers, Vol. 6, 1966, Peace Research Society (International), pp. 11-26.

 

VI. Violence and Nonviolence (191 pages)

  1. Sibley, Mulford Q., The Quiet Battle (Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963), pp. 9-10, 55-66.
  2. Hubbard, Howard, “Five Long, Hot Summers and How They Grew,” The Public Interest, No. 12 (Summer 1968), pp. 3-24.
  3. Nieburg, H. L., “Violence, Law and the Informal Polity,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 1969), pp. 192-209.
  4. Schelling, T. C., Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 1-18, 92-105, 116-125.
  5. Roberts, Adam (Ed.), Civilian Resistance as a National Defense (Stackpole Books, 1968), or The Strategy of Civilian Defense (Faber & Faber Ltd., 1967) (the two versions are identical), pp. 9-13, 87-105, 205-211, 302-308.
  6. Walter, Charles W., “Interposition: The Strategy and Its Uses,” Naval War College Review, Vol. XXII, No. 10 (June 1970), pp. 72-84.
  7. Nozick, Robert, “Coercion,” in Sydney Morgenbesser, Patrick Suppes and Morton White (eds.), Philosophy, Science and Method (St. Martin’s Press, 1969), pp. 440-472.
  8. Shure, Gerald H., Robert J. Meeker and Earle A. Hansford, “The Effectiveness of Pacifist Strategies in Bargaining Games,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. IX, No. 1 (March 1965), pp. 106-117.

 

VII. Interactive Models: Large Groups (89 pages)

  1. Penrose, L S., On the Objective Study of Crowd Behavior (H. K. Lewis & Company, Ltd., 1952), Chapter 6, “Panic Reactions,” pp. 28-35.
  2. Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense (Harper & Brothers, 1962), Chapter 6, “The Group as a Party to Conflict: The Ecological Model,” pp. 105-122.
  3. Schelling, T. C., “Neighborhood Tipping,” Harvard Institute of Economic Research, Discussion Paper No. 100, December 1969.
  4. *Schelling, T. C., “Models of Segregation,” The American Economic Review, Vol. LIX, No. 2 (May 1969), pp. 488-493.

 

VIII. Interactive Models: Two Parties (145 pages)

  1. Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense (Harper & Brothers, 1962), Chapter 2, “The Dynamics of Conflict: Richardson Process Models,” pp. 19-40.
  2. Goffman, Erving, Interaction Ritual (Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 97-112, “Embarrassment and Social Organization.”
  3. *Valavanis, Stefan, “The Resolution of Conflict When Utilities Interact,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 2 (June 1958), pp. 156-169.
  4. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 9, pp. 207-229.
  5. Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense (Harper & Brothers, 1962), Chapter 12, “International Conflict: The Basic Model,” and Chapter 13, “International Conflict: Modifications,” pp. 227-273.
  6. Schelling, T. C., “War Without Pain, and Other Models,” World Politics, Vol. 15, No. 3 (April 1963), pp. 465-487.

 

IX. Randomized Decision (55 pages)

  1. *Schelling, T. C., “Zero-Sum Games,” multilith, September 1970.
  2. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 175-190, 201-203.

 

Total pages: 1,367

Reading period: To be assigned later [see question 6 in final examination below]

 

Economics 1030
Final Exam
January 22, 1971

There are altogether six questions. The sixth contain several alternatives, according to your choice of reading-period assignment. You are not to answer any five questions out of the six. You may not choose more than one among the alternate forms of question six. Specifically, you may answer the first five questions; you may instead answer any four among the first five and one of the alternates in question 6.

The five questions you answer will be given equal weight and are intended to require about equal time.

  1. Each of the terms, concepts or principles listed on the next page is to be identified by reference to a matrix. Several matrices are provided and are adequate, but you may prefer to construct your own. (There may be more than one matrix shown that illustrates a particular concept; some of the matrices shown may illustrate several concepts. You need not make reference to more than one–your own, or one of those shown.)
    In some cases–marked by an asterisk–you need only identify an appropriate matrix; if, for example, one of the terms were “prisoners’ dilemma,” it would be sufficient to indicate Matrix #1. In other cases–where there is no asterisk–you will have to state clearly just what it is about the indicated matrix that exemplifies the concept; for example, if “promise” were one of the terms listed, you could state that in Matrix #1, if Column had first move, Row could promise first row on condition Column choose column 1, improving the expected outcome from payoffs of 1 apiece to 2 apiece in the upper left cell.

Here are the items to be identified:

    1. warning
    2. inducing move
    3. altruist’s dilemma*
    4. zero-difference game*
    5. Pareto equilibrium
    6. convention*
    7. randomized commitment
    8. dominated strategy
    9. threat-vulnerable equilibrium
    10. social contract*
    11. [a first] alternative concepts of “arms agreement”
    12. [a second] alternative concept of “arms agreement”
    13. Insurance as a bargaining advantage or disadvantage

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. Explain the concept of interposition (Charles Walters, “Interposition: The Strategy and Its Uses”), and compare it with non-violent intervention (Gene Sharp, “The Technique of Non–Violent Action,” or Howard Hubbard, “Five Long Hot Summers and How They Grew”), then examine the strategic similarities and differences between (a) naval-force interposition and (b) tactics used to blockade, occupy or immobilize a campus building.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. John Stuart Mill argued that even

…if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each individual were only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is concerned, were the sheer deduction from the benefit.

Assuming that the hypothesis which Mill discusses is true (that nobleness in itself detracts from individual happiness), under what conditions would you expect individuals to choose to develop noble characters? Discuss with reference to readings and lectures concerning interplay of individual incentives, social organization and moral codes.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. One of the questions on a makeup examination which you will take tomorrow will be based on either an article by Smith or an article by Jones. Your limited time in the library’s rules make it impossible for you to study both articles. If the exam question is based on the Smith article, you will have a 90 percent chance of answering it correctly if you read Smith, but will surely fail to answer correctly if you read Jones; if the exam question is based on Jones, you will have a 60 percent chance of getting it right if you study Jones, no chance otherwise. You will get the question either right or wrong; no partial credit will be given.
    You want to use your study time to maximize the probability of answering the question correctly. Your examiner will choose the exam question in such a way as to minimize the same probability. Both you and she know all of the information in this paragraph, and both of you are familiar with the basic theory of two-person zero-sum games.

A.

    1. Draw a payoff matrix to illustrate the situation, letting your payoffs be represented by the probability of getting the correct answer.
    2. What will be your strategy in this situation?
    3. What will be the teacher’s strategy be?
    4. If you use the strategy which you indicated in A2, what is the probability that you will get a correct answer?

B.

You suddenly recognize that the librarian whom you will be asking for one of the articles is also your teacher’s secretary, and knows which article the question will be based on.

    1. If you could get the secretary to tell you truthfully which article you should read, what would be your probability of getting the correct answer be? (That is, you are to estimate this probability before asking for the article, on the assumption that the librarian will know the answer and answer truthfully.)
    2. If you felt that the librarian/secretary would answer your question truthfully six chances out of 10 but there was a 40 percent chance the examiner would be told that you tried to cheat, resulting in your receiving an automatic zero on this question (but with no other negative consequences), would asking the library and increase your overall probability of getting credit for the question?

C.

If you knew (and the teacher knew that you knew) that the teacher believed that you would have .7 chance of answering either question, given that you studied the right article, but you alone knew that the chances were 90 percent and 60 percent for the two articles as mentioned above:

    1. What would your strategy be?
    2. What would be your probability of getting the question right?

D

Now consider the situation where you might be able to get the question correct even if you chose the wrong article. The chances of this are 1/5 if the question is based on Smith and 2/5 if the question is based on Jones. (Both you and the teacher correctly understand the situation.)

    1. What is your strategy in this case?
    2. What is the teacher’s strategy?
    3. What are your chances for getting the correct answer?

E.

Consider the same problem as in Part D with one change: you and the teacher both know that he wants you to do as well as possible on the exam.

    1. What is your strategy?
    2. What is the teacher’s strategy?
    3. What is your probability of getting the correct answer?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. You are one of two students in a small class who have arranged to write a paper in lieu of a final exam. You are certain that the grade your paper receives will depend not only on how much time you spend on it but also on how much time the other student spends on his. Even if the examiner tries to judge your paper on its merits alone he will be unconsciously influenced by how it compares with the other student’s paper.

You estimate…

    1. …that you will lose about 3 grade points on other exams for every 10 hours you spend on this paper;
    2. …that your grade on this paper will be:
      1. 5, 9, 12, 14 or 15 points according as you spend 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 hours on it,
      2. plus 3, 5 or 6 points if you spend 10, 20 or 30 hours more than your rival, and minus 3, 5 or 6 points if you spend 10, 20 or 30 hours less than your rival.

When you plot a smooth graph of your overall grade, taking all three factors into account–quality of your paper, quality of the competing paper, time taken away from your other courses–you get the following “contours” of your overall net score as a function of the time you both devote to your papers.

The graph is interpreted this way. If you work 30 hours and he does nothing, you get a net score of 9 (i.e., a gross score of 12 for your paper on its merits, plus 6 for superiority, less 9 for the 30 hours taken from other courses). If you both work 30 hours you get 3 (the same 12 on your own paper, less 9 on other courses, and did nothing for superiority). If you work 20 hours and he works 10, you get 6. Every point on the graph denotes a combination of your work time and his; every point has an associated net score for you; points of equal score can be connected by “contour lines” is in the graph. (The dotted lines at 45 degrees represents equal time for the two of you.)

You are quite sure that your rival, whoever he is, has a nearly identical graph when he considers his own grade in relation to the time you both spend on your papers.

  1. Draw your “reaction curve” (otherwise called in Boulding, “partial-equilibrium curve” or “reaction function”), and explain what it means.
  2. Drawing on your knowledge that your rival reaches identical estimates with respect to his own grades, draw his reaction curve.
  3. Locate and characterize any equilibria that occur.
  4. Discuss the likely amounts of work the two of you will do on each of the following alternative assumptions:
    1. Each of you can see the other work–in the library, for example–and can keep count of each other’s time, but you are unacquainted and not permitted to consult each other.
    2. You have no idea who the other student is and no way to monitor the amount of work he does, nor does he know who you are.
    3. You do not know who he is, but are sure that he can recognize you and watches you work in the library, keeping track of how much work you do.
    4. You are well enough acquainted to get together and talk the situation over, reaching an understanding about how much work you intend to do, perhaps reaching a bargain on restraining your competition; but you are not close enough friends to be unselfish toward each other and furthermore you do not know how badly each other may need grade points.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. This question is based on the reading period assignment. If you chose one of the following four books answer Part A:

Edward C. Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society
J. H. Dales, Pollution, Property and Prices
H. L. Nieburg, Political Violence: The Behavioral Process
Carl M. Stevens, Strategy and Collective Bargaining Negotiation

If you chose James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent, answer Part B.

If you chose Erving Goffman, Interaction Ritual, answer Part C.

If you chose Robert Jervis, The Logic of Images in International Relations, answer Part D.

If you chose Mancur Olson, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action, answer Part E.

  1. Identify one or more major themes or propositions in the book which you chose is the reading period assignment. Discuss what you consider to be the most more interesting and/or important ways that these themes illuminate the body of Economics 1030 and are in turn illuminated by it. Be specific.
  2. Buchanan and Tullock
    1. Using their concept of “cost,” explain the roles ascribed by the authors to unanimity rule, majority rule, and any other competing alternatives rules.
    2. On what conditions, if any, or with what reservations, would you accept their point of view?
  3. Goffman

Goffman’s book contains the word, “ritual,” in its title, and every chapter involves some analysis of ritual in phase-to-face behavior even though the chapters were originally independent essays. Explain what “ritual” means in this context and identify its role in the following topics of Economics 1030:

      1. Personal incentives and social organization
      2. Rules, restraints and conventions
      3. Contests and disputes
      4. Formal processes of collective decision
      5. Individual and collective bargaining
  1. Jervis
    Define signals and indices, then illustrate the manipulation of indices, and the veracity and ambiguity of signals, by reference to any one of the following sources of signals and indices, which you should examine in some detail:

    1. An advertising campaign
    2. A student’s essay on a final examination
    3. The public relations involved in the year-long process of selecting a Harvard president
  2. Olson
    Most of Olson’s book is devoted to an analysis of the behavior of large groups. How important is group size? In what ways does the behavior of small groups differ systematically from that of larger ones? What are the most important reasons for this?
    With reference to college courses, speculate briefly on the location and significance of the boundary between “small” and “large.”

Source: Personal copy of course syllabus and final examination shared for transcription at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror by Robert Dohner (Harvard, 1974; M.I.T., 1980).

Image Source: From Schelling testifying before a Senate subcommittee on national security in 1966. New York Times, Dec. 13, 2016.

Categories
Agricultural Economics Economists Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Syllabus for “Consumption, Distribution and Prices” taught by PhD (1952) alumnus, Richard H. Holton, 1954-55

 

 

The Harvard course “Consumption, Distribution and Prices” was an odd amalgam. The first semester was a course in marketing and the second semester was a course in the theory of micro- and macroeconomic consumption and saving functions with an added dash of advertising economics and agricultural economic policy thrown in. The instructor for 1954-55 was an assistant professor of economics, Richard Henry Holton who had completed his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1952.  Holton went on to a successful economic policy and academic administrative career culminating in the Deanship of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. His biography is sketched in the memorial piece reproduced below.

The syllabus for Economics 107 “Consumption, Distribution and Prices” completes this post.

_________________________

Ph.D. in Economics awarded by Harvard University in 1952

Richard Henry Holton, S.B. in Bus. (Miami Univ.) 1947, A.M. (Ohio State Univ.) 1948.

Special Field, Consumption, Distribution, and Prices. Thesis, “The Supply and Demand Structure of Food Retailing Service: a Case Study.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1951-1952, p. 176.

_________________________

IN MEMORIAM
Richard Holton (1926-2005)
E. T. Grether Professor of Marketing, Emeritus
Dean, Haas School of Business
Berkeley

Richard H. Holton was the E. T. Grether Professor of Marketing, Emeritus and, from 1967 to 1975, dean of the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Dean Holton, who joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1957, was a leader in the fields of marketing, international business and entrepreneurship and left a lasting imprint in these areas at the Haas School. Throughout his career, Dean Holton focused on teaching, campus leadership and public service. On leave from the campus from 1963 to 1965, he served as U.S. assistant secretary of commerce. He was thoughtful, considerate, self-effacing, devoted to the greater good of the school and the University, and always alert toward the welfare of colleagues, friends, and family. He was also known for his good stories to liven an occasion, and to soften conflict in an organizational setting.

Holton grew up in the small town of London, Ohio. He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1947 with honors in economics. At Miami, he met Constance Minzey, whom he married in 1947. The couple moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he earned a master’s degree in economics at Ohio State University. He then enrolled in the doctoral program in economics at Harvard University. He was a resident tutor in Adams House at Harvard, with Constance (Connie), during several years of his graduate studies.

From 1951 to 1952, Holton was assistant director of marketing projects at the Social Science Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico. His work there led to his 1955 monograph, “Marketing Efficiency in Puerto Rico,” written with the late J. K. Galbraith and others. He also was coauthor, with Richard Caves, of another study, “The Canadian Economy: Prospect and Retrospect” (1959).

He was assistant professor of economics at Harvard from 1953 to 1957, and in 1957 he came to UC Berkeley as an associate professor in the School of Business Administration (later renamed the Haas School of Business). Holton became director of the Berkeley campus’s Institute of Business and Economics Research in 1959. He reorganized it to reflect the growing interest in business science. His own research resulted in a steady flow of publications in marketing policies and competition.

From 1962 to 1963, he served as special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. President John F. Kennedy appointed him assistant secretary of commerce in February 1963, and he served until February 1965. Holton’s continuing interest in consumer protection resulted in a year’s appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson as chairman of the President’s Consumer Advisory Council. He also served from 1968 to 1972 as chairman of the Public Advisory Committee on Truth in Lending Regulations of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

In 1967, Holton became dean of the School of Business Administration at UC Berkeley. During his tenure, he fostered stronger relationships with business leaders, and served on numerous advisory boards of business organizations. He is widely credited with launching some of the current distinctive capabilities of the Haas School in entrepreneurship and international affairs, and its part-time M.B.A. program. As dean, he also initiated a system of student ratings of all courses at the Haas School, a practice still used today to gauge teaching effectiveness and improve courses over time.

In 1970, Holton started a course in entrepreneurship and business development, one of the first such courses at any business school, enlisting a widely-experienced entrepreneur and Haas School alumnus, Leo Helzel, to co-teach the course. This association led to new support for research and teaching in entrepreneurship, and the formation, with contributions from Williams-Sonoma Chairman Howard Lester, of the Haas School’s Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. His work with the program in entrepreneurship and innovation helped to generate the school’s immensely popular annual business plan competitions. He is also credited with developing the school’s first curriculum for international business studies, another key element of the school’s current academic programs.

To reach an important new group of students, in 1972 Dean Holton initiated a part-time M.B.A. Program in San Francisco to serve qualified candidates who wanted to gain the benefits of a management degree but were not able to leave their jobs for a full-time M.B.A. program. That program has since evolved into the Berkeley Evening & Weekend M.B.A. Program, which now enrolls more students than does the full-time M.B.A. program; it is now offered on the Berkeley campus and in Silicon Valley. It has accommodated the steadily growing demand by students for a top-ranked management education on a part-time schedule.

In 1981, Holton expanded on a longtime personal interest in international business when he became dean of visiting faculty of the newly established National Center for Industrial Science and Technology Management Development, which was part of the Dalian Institute of Technology in the People’s Republic of China. Holton and his wife commuted between Berkeley and Dalian for the following five years, while he continued his regular faculty duties at UC Berkeley. Between 1980 and 1992, Holton wrote a number of articles on the emergence of a modern, market-based economy in China, writing about international joint ventures and their financing, China’s state planning as compared to market-driven behavior, economic reform of the distribution sector of China, and China’s prospects as an industrialized country. He also coedited a book, United States-China Relations (University of California Press, 1989). Holton traveled extensively in China and led California Alumni Association-sponsored Bear Trek trips there.

Holton was awarded the Berkeley Citation, the campus’s highest honor, at his retirement in 1991. Even after his retirement, for three years until spring of 2005, when his health began to fail, he taught a freshman seminar, “The Economic Development of Modern China”.

Holton kept taped to his desk lamp at home a quote from Thomas Carlyle, reflecting Holton’s belief in his calling as an educator: “There is nothing more fearsome than ignorance in action.” Holton’s love for the campus community was expressed in his enthusiasm for Cal Bears football, his participation in a campus photography club, and his membership in the all-male Monks Chorus, a group of faculty, alumni and others with campus ties who, clad as Franciscan monks, perform at The Faculty Club Christmas feast. Holton joined the Monks (whose history goes back to 1902) in the early 1960s, and sang bass.

Holton loved the mountains, and took every opportunity to take backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada. He often made these trips with his friend and colleague of more than 40 years, Fred Balderston, an emeritus UC Berkeley professor at the Haas School.

A generous philanthropist and devoted member of public interest organizations, within a year of moving to Berkeley Holton joined the board of directors of the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley. His board membership with Alta Bates Hospital spanned nearly four decades. He was to be named a 2006 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Alta Bates Summit Foundation. He also served on the board of the Berkeley Public Library Foundation, the Council of Better Business Bureaus, The World Affairs Council of Northern California, and the board of trustees at Mills College. He and his family shared a longtime commitment to the Point Reyes peninsula and the village of Inverness, California.

As his health failed, he was surrounded by his wife and children. He died peacefully at home in Berkeley on Monday, October 24, 2005, after battling cancer and Parkinson’s disease. Holton is survived by Constance, his wife of nearly 60 years; brother, David, of Washington, D.C.; daughters, Melissa Holton, of Moss Landing and Inverness, and Jane Kriss, of Inverness; son, Tim, of Berkeley; and three grandchildren.

Raymond Miles
Frederick Balderston

Source: Senate of the University of California. In Memoriam—Richard Holton (1926-2005).

_________________________

Course Enrollment
1954-55

[Economics] 107. Consumption, Distribution and Prices. Assistant Professor Holton. Full course.

(F) Total 38: 11 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 1 Other.
(S) Total 36: 11 Seniors, 23 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Freshman.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1954-55, p. 89.

_________________________

Economics 107
Consumption, Distribution and Prices
Fall Term, 1954-55

Texts:

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Elements of Marketing, Prentice-Hall, 5thedition
Clewett, Marketing Channels, Irwin

  1. Survey of the distributive sector. September 28-October 7.

Compass of the distributive sector; its quantitative importance in the economy; capital coefficients and value added in the distributive sector; the problem of measuring “efficiency” in distribution in contrast with manufacturing; pressures increasing and pressures decreasing distribution costs; distribution and economic growth.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 1
Stewart and Dewhurst, Does Distribution Cost Too Much? Chapters 1, 2, 5, 10, 11
Black and Houston, Resource-Use Efficiency in the Marketing of Farm Products, pp. 22-47
Westing, Readings in Marketing, Readings 1, 2, 3.

  1. The nature of marketing channels. October 14-October 26.

Alternative types of marketing channels; factors affecting the nature of the channel; vertical integration and quasi-integration; recent changes in distribution channels.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 4, 5, 13, 15-20, 23, 24.
Clewett, Chapters 2-17
Westing, Readings in Marketing, 19-21, 23, 25
McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing: General Mills, p. 199; Whalen, p. 215; National Rock Drill Co., p. 225; Atlas, p. 254.

OCTOBER 28—MID-TERM EXAMINATION

  1. Costs and products of firms in distribution. November 2-November 30.

Empirical cost studies of retail firms; a priori analysis of cost conditions in retailing and wholesaling; selling costs and the advertising budget; cost allocation and cost control in distribution; the nature of the product in distribution; the problem of selecting the product “mix”; the product mix and price discrimination.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 27, 28, 29, 31, 32.
Clewett, Chapters 18 and 19
Dean, Managerial Economics, Chapters 3 and 6 (pp. 351-375)
Chamberlin, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Chapter 7
Cary Company case (on reserve in Lamont)
McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing: Richwell, p. 117

  1. Price policy of firms in distribution. December 2-December 18.

Retailers’ pricing practices; role of cost in distributors’ price policy; the determination of trade discounts; price discrimination under the Robinson Patman Act; resale price maintenance.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 26
Q. F. Walker, “Some Principles of Department Store Pricing,” Journal of Marketing, January 1950
O. Knauth, “Considerations in the Setting of Retail Prices,” Journal of Marketing, July 1949
R. Alt, “The Internal Organization of the Firm and Price Formation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1949
Dean, Managerial Economics, Chapter 9
S.D. Rose, “Your Right to Lower Your Prices,” Harvard Business Review, September 1951
E. R. Corey, “Fair Trade Pricing, A Reappraisal,” Harvard Business Review, September-October 1952
McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing: Dewey and Almy, p. 575; Canners’ League, p. 581; Boothby, p. 608

Reading Period: Margaret Hall, Distributive Trading, Hutchinson’s University Library

 

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

Economics 107
Consumption, Distribution and Prices
Spring Term, 1954-55

It is suggested, but not required, that students buy Heller, Boddy and Nelson, Savings in the Modern Economy.

  1. The demand for consumer goods; Feb. 3-Feb. 24
    1. Consumption expenditures in the aggregate: consumption expenditures and savings in the national income data; the consumption function, long run and short run; determinants of the savings to income ratio; consumer demand, economic growth, and the business cycle.

Readings:

(Review Samuelson, Economics, Ch. 13)
Richard Ruggles, National Income and Income Analysis, Ch. 4, pp. 67-78
Heller, Boddy and Nelson, Savings in the Modern Economy, contributions by Goldsmith, Woodward and Bryce, pp. 133-155; Duesenberry, pp. 195-203; Morgan and Reid, pp. 213-220; Hansen, pp. 47-55; and Slichter, pp. 64-72.
Arthur Burns, The Instability of Consumer Spending, 32nd Annual Report of the National Bureau of Economic Research, pp. 3-20
James S. Duesenberry, Income, Saving and Consumer Behavior, Ch. 3

    1. The theory of consumer demand and the demand for classes of consumer goods: The theory of consumer demand reviewed; the utility approach and the indifference curve approach evaluated; income elasticity, budget studies and Engel’s law; psychological analysis of consumer behavior; trends in U.S. consumption.

Readings:

(Review Samuelson, Ch. 23 and Appendix)
Ruby Norris, The Theory of Consumer’s Demand, Ch. 3
Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Ch. 2
Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory, Ch. 3, “The Motivation of Economic Activity.”
George Katona, Psychological Analysis of Economic Behavior, Ch. 5
Lerner and Lasswell (ed), The Policy Sciences, Ch. 12, “Expectations and Decisions in Economic Behavior,” by G. Katona
“The Changing American Market,” Fortune, August, 1953

Section Meetings:

Feb. 8: National income and the consumption function reviewed
Feb. 15: Consumption function in the current literature
Mar. 1: Marginal utility; indifference curves

  1. The demand for producer goods; March 1-March 8

Investment expenditures and the theory of income determination; investment expenditures in the national income data; the determinants of investment expenditures; fluctuations in inventory investment; the firm’s demand for producers’ goods; the determinants of corporate savings.

Readings:

R.A. Gordon, Business Fluctuations, Ch. 5
Tinbergen and Polak, The Dynamics of Business Cycles, Ch. 13, pp. 163-182
Joel Dean, Managerial Economics, Ch. 10, pp. 549-600
Heller, Boddy and Nelson, Savings in the Modern Economy, contribution by John Lintner, pp. 230-255

Section Meetings:

March 8: Producer demand

  1. Identifying demand conditions for the individual firm; March 10-March 15

Survey of market research and sales forecasting methods

Readings:

Dean, Managerial Economics, Ch. 4, pp. 141-220 only

Section meetings:

March 15: Market research; read Canner’s League of California case in McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing, p. 581

  1. Marketing and public policy issues; March 17-March 24

Economic effects of advertising; the problem of consumer information; FTC and FDA control of labeling, standards, and truth in advertising; consumer research and consumer cooperatives as solutions; resale price maintenance and advertising.

Readings:

L. Gordon, Economics for Consumers, Ch. 24 and 26
Neil Borden, Economic Effects of Advertising, Ch. 28, pp. 837-882

Section meetings:

March 22: Review
March 29: Economic effects of advertising

MARCH 29: MID-TERM EXAMINATION

  1. Marketing of farm products; March 31-April 14

The impact of imperfect markets in agriculture; fluctuations in marketing margins over time; futures market; the functioning and control fo futures markets.

Readings:

Converse, Heugy and Mitchell, Ch. 21 and 22
G. Shepherd, Marketing Farm Products, Ch. 9 and 10
W. H. Nicholls, Imperfect Competition within Agricultural Industries, Ch. 4 to p. 81

Section meetings:

April 12: Impact of price support operations on the marketing of farm products

  1. Federal farm policy; April 21-May 3

The goals of an agricultural policy; predecessors of the present program; details of the present policy; advantages and disadvantages of the present policy; the alternatives

Readings:

T. Schultz, Production and Welfare of Agriculture, Ch. 5, 7, 8
Schickele, Agricultural Policy, Ch. 3, 9-17

Section Meetings:

April 26: Mechanics of parity and price supports
May 3: Review

Reading Period Assignment: Ruth Mack, “Economics of Consumption,” in Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. II, plus readings to be assigned; and Editors of Fortune, Why Do People Buy, Ch. 1.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 6, Folder “Economics, 1954-1955”.

Image Source:  “Happy 120th Birthday, Berkeley Haas!” Webpage from Summer 2018.