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Harvard. From Self-Report on Behavioral Sciences to Ford Foundation. Economics, 1953.

In 1953 five universities—Chicago, Harvard, Michigan, North Carolina and Stanford—were granted funds by the Ford Foundation to review the behavioral sciences in their institutions. The Committee that wrote Harvard’s Report was chaired by economist Edward S. Mason, then Dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration. Harvard’s Report sought “to evaluate strengths and weaknesses in the fields of the behavioral sciences at this university, to appraise needs, and to look forward to the future.”

Behavioral sciences was defined for the study to include “the fields of anthropology, economics, government, history, psychology, and sociology, with their applications in business, education, law, medicine, public health, and elsewhere.”

The following excerpt dealing with economics and its applications comes from Part II of the Report — Research and Scholarly Activity: Recent or Current, A. The Topical Classification.

This report presents a most convenient self-representation of Harvard Economics at mid-twentieth century. 

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[p. 127]

V. Economic Institutions and Behavior

As in the other sections of this inventory, we have sought to view the study of economic institutions and behavior at Harvard in a fashion which reaches over disciplinary and organizational lines. The professional economists in the Department of Economics, the Graduate School of Public Administration, the Business School, and the Russian Research Center of course carry by far the largest part of economic studies at Harvard. In general we follow the economists’ divisions of subject matter but attempt to take notice of pertinent work in other fields. A substantial and important part of Harvard’s economic studies are conducted in the Business School and in relations with the Law School. While some of these studies gain attention here we would remind the reader that our primary focus is on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and the reports on the professional schools in Part VI should be consulted as supplements to the account given here.

Special resources for the study of economics exist at Harvard and deserve to be recalled. In addition to the collections in the Widener Library, the Baker Library at the Harvard Business School and the library of the Graduate School of Public Administration provide exceptional facilities. Two journals, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics, are edited and published through the Department of Economics. The seminars of the Graduate School of Public Administration are equipped with special funds and facilities for research activities. All of them direct and encourage the research of graduate students, and some have close connections with major research products.

One further general point calls for comment. The infusion of policy concerns into the work of Harvard’s economists is very strong. In classifying theses we originally sought to discriminate studies directed toward public policy, and we contemplated a separate topical discussion. It was, however, soon pointed out to us by economists that the pervasiveness of policy concerns made this unwise, and our final topical heading (v. 16) treats more of special applications than policy questions in general. This strength of policy orientation has brought sharp criticisms and cautions from some of our informants but it is generally accepted as an inevitable and desirable pattern in contemporary economic studies.

 

I. Economic Theory

Economic theory is certainly one of the proudest possessions of the behavioralsciences. Within Harvard as elsewhere it penetrates professional studies so extensively that separation of the discussion of theory from the discussion of special fields threatens to be artificial and arbitrary. In a sense our discussion of economic theory thus be [p. 128] comes a general introduction to much of what follows under later headings.

Economics at Harvard has always had a firm attachment to the main traditions of economic theory. The assaults of institutionalists and other critics of abstract theory have been felt less at Harvard than at some other major American universities — a fact which was pointed to with satisfaction by some of our informants in this survey. Instruction in the received body of economic theory has been of central importance in the curriculum, and the faculty has been prominent in the theoretical advances of the past generation. One of our professional informants traced the recent history of theory at Harvard in close relationship to the major trends in the field. He thought that the major developments between the end of the Twenties and World War II were the theory of monopolistic competition and the Keynesian “revolution” and that Harvard had been prominent in both. In the first of these, Professor Edward H. Chamberlin made the major American contribution in his Theory of Monopolistic Competition (now in its sixth edition, 1948). Professor Chamberlin has continued to devote his energies to the development of this theory, his latest efforts (as editor and author) appearing in Monopoly and Competition and Their Regulation (1954). The American phase of the Keynesian revolution is associated with the name of Professor Alvin H. Hansen and others of the Harvard staff, who were important disseminators and critics of the theory. Professor Hansen has recently published A Guide to Keynes, and another of Harvard’s Keynesians, Professor Seymour E. Harris, has a study of the life and influence of Keynes on the press.

Both of these developments in economic theory continue to have major importance at Harvard, both as general theory and in more particular contexts noted later.

The more recent development of economic theory is, like all contemporary movements, difficult to envisage clearly. It is particularly complicated by the strong upsurgence of mathematical economics, and the growing intimacy of relations among theory, econometrics, and statistics. One of the principal issues in the development of economics at Harvard centers around this shift in the character of the field. Some of the younger men we interviewed in this survey felt that Harvard was lagging in the kind of mathematical theory which is being vigorously developed at Chicago, Stanford, and to a lesser extent at some other institutions. One man expressed a strong concern that the training he had received at Harvard might be “out of date.” More senior economists expressed varied views on this issue. It is felt by several men that in Professor Wassily W. Leontief’s input-output analysis, Harvard has been the scene of one of the most important [p. 129] newer developments in economic theory. This work, with its intimate combination of empirical procedure and theory, is thought to typify the more recent patterns of economic analysis and to offer one of the major prospects for future development. Mathematical economics has also not gone without representation in the curriculum, as we note below (v. 14), in a more direct and extended discussion of the subject.

Harvard economists point with satisfaction to the penetration of theory into all the special domains of their field, and tend to rank the prestige of specializations in terms of the theoretical development they display. Pure theory has a prestige in economics which has no close parallel in any of the other fields we have studied. The feeling that it needs to be brought into close conjunction with empirical data is, nevertheless, strong, and we report the vigorous comments of one of our informants on the point:

“I think economics is the most advanced of the social sciences in some respects and the most backward in others. I would say that the critical thing for the development of any social science is effective integration between empirical data and the theoretical system of the social science. 1 would say that economics has achieved a unified body of analytical thought which the other social sciences have not yet reached. An important aspect of this theory is that it is genuinely not a theory of individuals, but a theory of the way a whole society operates. I think that the theory of general equilibrium, despite all the difficulties with it, is the crowning achievement of economics. All that Marshallian analysis amounts to is a little step beyond what the entrepreneur knows; it amounts to a kind of theory of rational behavior that might tell people how they ought to behave, but it doesn’t really tell people things that they haven’t known before. The general equilibrium theory does this, so that we’ve got a valuable theoretical tool. And now we’re getting to the stage where we’re filling our boxes with data. For a long time the statistical work really wasn’t very good. Instead of linking observations with theory, statisticians got interested in how you made observations. Now, I think, we’re getting farther. We’re beyond the stage of illustration; we’re to the pilot plant stage definitely, and perhaps even to large scale operations in some things. I think that the important things that lie before us are not so much in the kind of integration that crosses fields, perhaps, as in the correlation of theory and data within given problems — perhaps in given fields. I think that this sort of work has to be done by individuals too, or people working on both ends of the problem. You can’t have the kind of division of labor where the National Bureau takes care of the data and the Cowles Commission takes care of the theory; these things have to be worked out together.”

Given the prestige of theory, it would be offensive as well as inaccurate to permit the impression that only work mentioned under this heading qualifies as theory. Despairing of abstracting theoretical efforts from their special contexts, we have sought to note many of them in the discussion of special fields below. An alternative organization which considered all of the work of each staff member successively might have displayed the interpretation of theory and empirical investigation better than the organization here used. Reasons for the difficulty in drawing lines between special fields would also have [p. 130] appeared with special clarity. There are, however, compensating advantages in the procedure we have followed which recommended it as the best solution we could find to a difficult problem.

 

2. Economic Institutions and Systems

A broad concern with economic institutions and systems characterizes many types of behavioral scientists. The historian of the ancient world, of medieval Europe, or Tokugawa, Japan, must depict a set of economic institutions. The sociologist seeking a comprehensive view of a total society — and this is not an uncommon activity of Harvard’s sociologists, as we have seen in iv.6 — must describe and analyze economic institutions in a wider setting. The anthropologist doing a rounded ethnography or seeking a comparative understanding of primitive economics must delineate the institutional framework within which economic processes occur. These varied activities often proceed from no very explicit conceptual base or eschew an aim toward general analysis and theory. The work of historians and ethnologists typically has this a-theoretical character. A substantial amount of more generalizing or conceptual work can nevertheless be detected among behavioral scientists other than economists at Harvard.

Among the anthropologists at Harvard, Professors Douglas L. Oliver and John Pelzel have perhaps the most active concern with primitive economics; Professor Pelzel offers a graduate seminar in the field and has engaged in researches already noted (iv.6). The Values Project (ii.2) has included a study of Navaho Acquisitive Values, by Richard Hobson, to be published in the Peabody Museum Papers, vol. XLII, no. 3.

Professor Talcott Parsons in the Social Relations Department has had a special interest in economic questions throughout his career. His recent series of Marshall lectures (iv.l) are the latest fruits of this interest, which has had many facets but has laid special stress on the institutional structure typically assumed by economic theory. Dr. Francis X. Sutton, of the Department of Social Relations, has joined with Professor James S. Duesenberry, of the Department of Economics, in a course on the sociological analysis of economic behavior, which has laid particular stress on institutionalized patterns.

While a special “institutionalist” bias is avoided by Harvard’s economists, there is a substantial body of work which attends to the institutional characteristics of different economic systems. Instruction in the economics of socialism has had an established position in the curriculum. The late Professor Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy reflected his long association with this instruction, which is now continued by Dr. O. H. Taylor. The economic institutions of various countries of the contemporary world win attention in the work on economic development (v.9). [p. 131] The economy of Soviet Russia is the subject of extensive study. A major project of the Russian Research Center, under the direction of Professor Alexander Gerschenkron, includes the extensive variety of studies indicated in the following list:

J. S. Berliner, The Theory and Operation of the Soviet Firm
[Bibliography of economic articles in Soviet periodicals]
R. Campbell, Soviet Accounting Methods and their Influence on Pricing
R. Holtzman, A Study of Soviet Taxation
M. G. Clark, Economics of Soviet Steel
N. T. Dodge, The Soviet Tractor Industry and Mechanization
A. Erlich, Soviet Industrialization Controversy, 1925-1928
G. Grossman, Capital-Intensity: A Problem in Soviet Planning
D. R. Hodgman, Soviet Industrial Production, 1928-1951
H. Hunter, Soviet Transportation Policy
C. A. Recht, Urbanization and the Soviet Housing Shortage
F. Seton, The Structure of Soviet Economy, 1934

In another section of the Russian Research Center, a study of the budgets of Soviet urban families in 1940 is in progress. Professor Gerschenkron has also been engaged in other studies of the Russian economy under the auspices of the Rand Corporation. The construction of a machinery production index, investigations of the iron and steel, coal, and petroleum industries, and a study of power, have recently been brought to completion and a study of ruble-dollar prices for Soviet machinery is under way.

A number of studies of the American economy, which depart from the strictly technical framework of economic theory and emphasize broader political and social elements, probably deserve to be considered in this connection. Professor John K. Galbraith’s recent book, American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power (1952), presents a general account of the working of the American economy with particular emphasis on the role of monopolistic elements on both sides of many markets which act to limit the disadvantages to the economy which would result from such imperfections operating on either side alone. He is currently engaged in further development of this analysis. Professor Sumner H. Slichter has also devoted himself to a general account of the economic system of the United States, The American Economy (1953), and is presently engaged in a consideration of the long-run prospects for American capitalism.

The diffuse nature of considerations which can be brought to bear on economic institutions and systems suggest this context for our remarks on the relation between economics and other disciplines at Harvard. The physical juxtaposition of economists and political scientists in the Littauer building of the Graduate School of Public Administration is viewed with satisfaction by men from both fields. Great intimacy of working relations between the fields seems not, however, to be common practice. While a joint degree in Political Economy and [p. 132] Government is offered and we encountered two men who spoke warmly of political economy as a worthy discipline, a serious effort at merging of fields (comparable say, to that which has been attempted in the Department of Social Relations) has not been made. The highly technical character of economics and the consequent demands it makes on graduate students and younger men in the field were pointed out to us as deterrents to interdisciplinary work. An “atmosphere” discouraging such ventures was alleged by one of our informants:

“I saw something of the so-called field of political economy at X University and certainly didn’t think much of it. I don’t know of anything in particular of that sort that is going on around here. I used to be interested in this kind of thing myself; I was interested in sociology and economics, but when I got into my work, I found that there was a real requirement of specialization. This was something that was gently indicated to me by the professors and people in the Department. I don’t know that anybody actually ever told me I had better watch out for combined fields, but the opinion that you had to was unanimous among graduate students. If a man started to work in some other field, Professor X always tried to get him transferred to that other department.”

Ties between the Social Relations area and economics have been noted above in a joint course, but they have not been extensive and we encountered only very mild sentiment that they should be strengthened.

 

3. Consumption and Distribution (including Marketing)

A logical and secure place for consumption and distribution as a distinct subject in the curriculum of economic studies is perhaps not easy to establish. Given a theoretical cast the subject merges into the general framework of economic analysis; given a more empirical cast it tends toward the concrete, practical problems which make up courses in marketing and bring it under a professional school rather than the Arts and Sciences curricula. Nevertheless, consumption and distribution has a place of de facto importance in the instruction and research of the economics staff. The problems of agricultural economics have stimulated much attention to the subject by Professor John D. Black and others associated with him. In this general area, Dr. Ayers Brinser is currently bringing to conclusion a two-year study of the consumption of meat, which was sponsored by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The study sought to determine the varying patterns of meat purchases among a sample of consumers from different economic classes.

A collaborative report on the economy of Puerto Rico by a group of Harvard economists headed by Professor Galbraith is now ready for the press. This report emphasizes the marketing aspects of the economic growth problem. Drawing on his experience in field studies in Puerto Rico, Assistant Professor Richard H. Holton is studying the role of commodity distribution in pre-industrial societies. A study of Saving among Upper-Income Families in Puerto Rico by Dr. Eleanor E. Maccoby of the Department of Social Relations (in collaboration with [p. 133] Frances Fielder) appeared in the past year. An extensive interviewing program provided the data for this study, which was sponsored by the Social Science Research Center of the University of Puerto Rico. Professor Duesenberry has continued work on the theory of consumption presented in his Income, Saving, and the Theory of Consumer Behavior (1949).

 

4. Public Finance, Fiscal Policy, and Taxation (cf. also Law and Business School reports in VI)

The strong interests in public finance, fiscal policy, and taxation, which have characterized economics in the recent past have been amply represented at Harvard. Professor Hansen’s pioneering role in the development and implementation of fiscal policy is well known and his work continues at the present time. His recent appearances before Congressional committees on the proposed tax program and the President’s Economic Report point to his continuing interest in national policies. Professor Arthur Smithies has recently completed a book on the federal budgeting process and other aspects of fiscal policy and public finance. The study is an attempt to bring theoretical analysis to bear on the decisions involved in governmental spending, and public investment.

A substantial part of Harvard’s work on taxation is located in the Law School and the Business School and is noted in the reports on these schools. Professor Stanley S. Surrey of the Law School, Professor Smithies, and Professor John Keith Butters of the Business School come together for a Seminar on Taxation offered jointly by the Department of Economics and the Graduate School of Public Administration. Professor Butters, who has been collaborating in a large-scale Merrill Foundation study of the effects of taxation on investment and incentives, at the Business School, also offers instruction in public finance under the Department of Economics (with Assistant Professor Lawrence E. Thompson of the Business School faculty).

A work like Professor Harris’ report on the New England economy includes much material on comparable problems. Assistant Professor Arnold M. Soloway is presently engaged in the study of indirect or consumption taxes for the city of Boston, and has a general interest in the financial problems of state and local government. The finance of state and local governments has, however, been less extensively studied at Harvard than has public finance at the national level. Recent planning in the Graduate School of Public Administration aims toward extending such work in the context of a general program on state and local government.

Dr. Theodore S. Baer of the Department of Government has recently turned his interests to taxation and public finance and has devoted the past year to these studies under a Ford Foundation fellowship. An examination of our classification of theses reveals that economists have [p. 134] not monopolized the study of these fields. Theses on the grain tribute system of the Manchus in China, Spanish royal finances in the sixteenth century, and the development of direct taxation in nineteenth-century England remind us that historians occasionally venture into these fields. Political scientists have also studied the financial problems of local governments in four recent theses.

Despite the apparent abundance of activity, members of the Depart ment of Economics have pointed out to us that no economist on the present staff is primarily devoted to research and instruction in public finance. Arrangements for instruction have depended on ties with the Business School in the persons of Professors Dan Throop Smith and John Keith Butters.

 

5. Money and Banking

The traditional field of money and banking has undergone marked changes in recent years. A decrease in attention to the institutional detail of banking operations and a heightened concern with the general analysis of money and income has blurred the lines between this field and others. Harvard’s practice in retaining the traditional label was pointed out to us as a conservative one, but the work of the staff follows modern tendencies and spreads over traditional divisions. Professors Alvin H. Hansen, John H. Williams and Seymour E. Harris have been principal figures in Harvard’s work in this area. In long association with the Federal Reserve System, Professor Williams has applied economic doctrine to the guidance of policy, and has contributed extensively to the discussion of monetary problems. His recent publications include Postwar Monetary Plans and Other Essays, and the noted Stamp Memorial Lecture for 1952. His recent work has been particularly concerned with international monetary problems and is noted below under v.ll. Professor Harris does no current teaching in the field but has made many contributions to the literature.

Among the junior staff, Dr. Ira O. Scott is preparing for publication his study of postwar monetary policy, which includes a theory of assets.

 

6. Business Fluctuations

The difficulty of establishing clear divisions among the special fields of economics shows itself strongly with respect to business fluctuations. So much of economic theory and its applications in fields such as international trade, or money and banking, has been concerned with business fluctuations that the subject is altogether lacking in clear boundaries. We confine ourselves here to reporting work in which the concern with business fluctuations seems especially prominent. Professor Hansen has devoted much of his career to the subject and his recent contributions include a volume on Business Cycles and National Income (1952). Professor Haberler’s earlier study made a large contribu [p. 135] tion to this subject, which remains one of his principal interests. Professor Duesenberry is working on a study which attempts to integrate the business cycle with the mechanism of economic growth in a coherent theory. Professor Slichter’s numerous publications contain much analysis of fluctuations in business conditions.

 

7. Industrial Organization

We use the label “industrial organization” here in a somewhat broader sense than is common at Harvard. At least three sorts of work can be detected in the University at present which have to do with the organization of industry. The first of these is the work in industrial sociology carried out in the Department of Social Relations, the Business School, and among the labor economists. The second sort of work is represented in the technical studies of management problems which bulk large in the output of the Division of Research of the Harvard Business School. Thirdly, there are the studies of particular industries, problems of monopoly and competition, etc., which have won a coherent status among Harvard’s economists as the special field of “industrial organization.” We divide each of these ranges of work separately.

a. Industrial Sociology. Sociological journals now burgeon with studies of the internal structure of business organization, many of which continue a tradition established some twenty years ago at the Harvard Business School in the work of Professors Elton Mayo and Fritz J. Roethlisberger. The present work at the Business School is discussed in the section of our report on that school, and we here confine ourselves to the rather limited work within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Professor George C. Homans of the Department of Social Relations has continued an interest of long standing in the field. His recent activities have included a study of the social organization of a large office in a public utility company, and an effort to bring the study of work groups into a general analysis of small group structure (iv.2). Recent theses from the Department of Social Relations include the published studies by Elliott Jaques, The Changing Culture of a Factory, and Theodore V. Purcell, S.J., The Worker Speaks his Mind on Company and Union. Some of the work by labor economists might merit classification here but is treated under another heading (v.8).

b. Technical Studies of Management Problems. By far the most important locus of studies of this character is to be found in the Business School. (See Part VI of this report.) We note, however, that economists’ work on industrial organization and in input-output analysis sometimes leads into highly technical studies of the nature of particular industries. A few theses seemed to us to reflect this tendency and the importance of technical data for input-output analyses and other “non- aggregative” studies was stressed by our informants. [p. 136]

c. Industry Studies, etc. The lists of recent theses in economics show a large number (some 38 in the five-year period, 1948-1953) devoted to pricing, competition, and other economic matters in particular industries. A majority of these industry studies derive from an extensive program of studies in what has come to be known as the field of “industrial organization.” The development of this field was described as follows in one of our interviews:

“Well. I should perhaps first begin by saying that this is very much of an American field, as it’s actually studied. Of course, there’s a background in the classical writers. Marshall’s book on Industry and Trade was really a pioneer work in this field, and along about 1916 there was Dennis Robertson’s book on the control of industry. It’s only been rather recently that this field has gotten consolidated, that it’s gotten a recognizable structure. There was, of course, a lot of work on the industries that we now attend to. There was, for example, a great deal of work on the railroads. There were a lot of people who were railroad economists, but they really didn’t have any solid theoretical grounding in their work. Really, the first good article on railroad pricing policies was Don Wallace’s article in which he got involved in a controversy with I’igou. The trouble with these railroad economists was that they were not analytically well-trained people. And there was a great deal of work in public utility economics. All of this, however, had nothing much to go on but the classical pure competition model. It was really the theory of monopolistic competition that brought a new interest and gave a new focus to the field. Essentially, this has provided the conceptual framework for the industry studies, and it set up a whole new line of problems in general terms that people could get their teeth into. I would say that now over the last couple of decades the field has gotten very well established. J. M. Clark holds one of the leading positions in this field, and there are also Professor Edward S. Mason and a number of his students. There were other people, and other lines of work that went into this development, that I perhaps ought to mention. There was all the old stuff on trusts and monopolies, people like W. Z. Ripley and Elliott Jones, and so forth, but it was really only after the monopolistic competition theory appeared and the subject got tied to theoretical interests of a general sort that the subject developed. There were industry studies in the Marshallian tradition, but the important work seems to have been done in the last couple of decades.”

As our informant indicates, instruction and research in this field at Harvard has been guided by Professor Mason, with the collaboration of Professor Carl Kaysen, Assistant Professor James W. McKie and others. A graduate seminar and a major project serve as foci for the research effort. The seminar serves to guide graduate students undertaking the industry studies which provide basic materials for more general studies in the field. The Merrill Foundation for the Advancement of Financial Knowledge has sponsored the major research project now under way with the collaboration of several economists and lawyers from Harvard and other institutions. The ultimate aim of this five-year study is the development of workable policy in the fields of monopoly and competition. In addition to industry studies, a series of so-called “functional” studies have been planned on such subjects as patents, industrial research, advertising, the areas exempted under the existing antitrust legislation, and procedural problems under the present [p. 137] law. Several members of Harvard Law faculty (Professors David F. Cavers, Robert R. Bowie, and Kingman Brewster; Assistant Professors Albert M. Sacks and Donald T. Trautman), the Business School faculty (Professors John V. Lintner and Bertrand Fox), and economists from other institutions have been members of the group. Extended seminar discussions have been devoted to working out a conceptual scheme for the guidance of the project and the general volume which is planned to embody its conclusions.

In addition to his work on this project, Professor Kaysen is working on a book the intent of which is the derivation of typical patterns of reaction in oligopolistic market structures and the application of probability techniques to the determinate of price and output under such conditions. He has also recently completed work as a “law clerk” for Federal Judge Charles E. Wyzanski in the antitrust prosecution of the United Shoe Machinery Company. Assistant Professor McKie has been engaged as a member of the Merrill project and is also working on two additional projects, one on oil exploration and the other on oil conservation (this latter in collaboration with Professor Kaysen). A longer term project is a study of existing industry studies in an attempt to determine relationships between structure and functioning in these industries.

 

8. Labor and Collective Bargaining

A vigorous program of research and instruction in the field of labor economics has been maintained by Professors Sumner H. Slichter and John T. Dunlop. The Baker Library of the Harvard Business School and the Industrial Relations Library at the Graduate School of Public Administration have resources of exceptional magnitude for work in the field. A Trade Union Program was started in 1942 at the suggestion of leaders of the labor movement. The Program is directed by an Executive Committee from the Faculties of Arts and Science and of Business Administration and has the purpose of training union representatives for executive responsibility in the labor movement. The Jacob Wertheim Research Fellowship for the Betterment of Industrial Relations provides funds for a series of publications in the field, and twelve volumes have thus far appeared under the imprint of the Harvard University Press.

Professor Slichter, as Lamont University Professor, has guided instruction and research on both sides of the Charles River, at the Business School, in the Department of Economics, and at the Graduate School of Public Administration.

Professor Dunlop’s current research activities include several projects. A critical appraisal of wage stabilization is being conducted jointly with Professor Archibald Cox of the Law School under a grant from the Sloan Foundation. A comparative analysis of the labor [p. 138] problem in economic development joins Harvard with other universities (California, Chicago, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in a project supported by the Ford Foundation. Professor Dunlop is directing work assigned to Harvard on France, Italy, and certain topical questions. In addition to these research projects, Professor Dunlop continues his primary interest in wage determination, and is completing a book on collective bargaining and public policy. In the near future he will begin a history of collective bargaining in the United States during the period of 1933-1953.

Dr. Martin Segal is currently working on two projects concerned with the study of intra-plant wage structures, and will soon begin a study of the internal wage structure of three industries located largely in New England. An investigation of the managerial decisions on the introduction of changes in unionized plants is also planned.

 

9. Economic Development

Economic studies inevitably reflect the major problems of the contemporary scene. As one of our informants pointed out to us, the great focus of economists’ efforts in the late Thirties was on the fiscal policy problems relating to the Keynesian doctrines and the Great Depression. At present, the dominant focus of interest seems to be on economic development, reflecting a broadened view of the world and a worried preoccupation with formerly exotic areas. Despite widespread dissatisfaction with the state of theoretical approaches to developmental problems, economists now seem to shape work in several special fields about these problems. Thus it is now rather arbitrary to divide the study of economic development from studies in agricultural economics (v.10) or international economic problems (v.11). These fields, which bore a quite different complexion a decade or so ago, have now become thoroughly infused with developmental problems.

The diffuse spread of work in economic development means that it is exceptionally difficult to draw the lines about those researches which merit note here. We note at least one general study; Assistant Professor Robert E. Baldwin is collaborating on a book dealing specifically with the mechanism of economic growth and drawing heavily on classical and neo-classical economics. Professor Dunlop’s participation in a comparative study of the labor problem in economic development has been mentioned above (v.8). A major Ford-sponsored project on the economic development of Pakistan is being directed by Professor Mason, Dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration. This is an action rather than a research program, but it depends upon research studies, and several members of the Harvard faculty, including Professor Leontief, will act as consultants. Dr. Douglas Paauw has specialized in the development problems of the Far East and is engaged in research and instruction on that area. The study of economic growth [p. 139] problems in Puerto Rico by Professor Galbraith, Assistant Professor Holton and others has been noted above (v.2). Professor Galbraith offers a seminar in the field and is currently working on a “theory of poverty” with important implications for underdeveloped areas. Professor Holton is studying the nature of the entrepreneurial activity in underdeveloped areas, an interest which also finds representation in the studies of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History (cf. v. 12 below). Professor Duesenberry’s current research (v.6) bears heavily on the problem of differential development of economies, and Professor Gerschenkron’s studies in the industrialization of Europe (v. 12) are largely concerned with economic development. On the domestic scene, Professor Harris has recently directed a study of the problems of New England in general, and of the textile industry in particular. His book on The Economics of New England was published in 1952, and a report on the New England textile industry by a committee appointed by the Conference of New England Governors appeared in 1953. Professor Mason’s continued interest in resource supplies and in international oil problems involves him in a concern with underdeveloped areas.

The immediate future seems to promise a vigorous continuation of this varied work on development problems. The demand for such studies from the world at large and from the student body at Harvard is strong. Our list includes 20 theses on economic development in 1948—1953, and there are numerous others in progress at the moment. The interest of the foreign students who make up an increasingly important fraction of the student body in the Graduate School of Public Administration is strongly focused on developmental problems, since a high percentage of these students come from areas like Asia and Latin America where these problems have a compelling importance. The intellectual resources which economics and related fields can bring to these problems seem not to be altogether satisfactory. One economist put the problem sharply by asserting that all the established general propositions in the field could be written on a postcard. The area programs (cf. areal classification below) and Harvard’s extensive staff of scholars with competences in special areas provide extensive resources, but the lack of a general theoretical approach is keenly felt. The need for interdisciplinary attack on these problems is generally felt, and is exemplified in the area programs. A critic of this approach felt, however, that interdisciplinary study of particular areas tended to discourage the kind of general analysis he hoped might be developed and applied to an extensive array of cases. Other economists were not anxious to see economic development treated as a special field and suggested that the present dispersion of activity among economic historians, agricultural economists, and others, was appropriate to the current state of knowledge. [p. 140]

 

10. Agricultural Economics

 A remarkable total of 43 theses in agricultural economics accepted during the years 1948-1953 points to the prominence of this field at Harvard and the strong program maintained for many years by Professor Black. The work of Professor Black, now emeritus but still very active, has brought students to Harvard from all over the country and reached a sector of national life which no other part of the University’s work has reached so successfully. Particularly through students in the Graduate School of Public Administration, a major influence has been exerted on the direction of agricultural policies.

Professor Black’s long interest in production economics, or the application of economic reasoning to farm problems, is being channeled currently into a five-year input-output study of 241 dairy farms in New England. The goal is a determination of the best allocation of resources on such farms. Dr. Brinser has been associated with Professor Black in this and other work discussed under v.3 above. The increasing association of agricultural economics with development problems has been noted in our general comments on economic development. The interests of Professor Galbraith in agricultural economics bear this stamp as do Professor Black’s current and projected studies in India and Pakistan.

 

11. International Economic Problems

The field of international economics has very intimate ties to other special fields within the corpus of economic studies. It has always reflected the major currents of economic analysis in general; at present it shows the impress of economic development interests. Professors Seymour E. Harris, Gottfried Haberler, and John H. Williams have interests of long standing in the field, and have regularly offered courses and graduate seminars in it. Professor Williams has recently completed service on the Randall Commission and participated in the writing of its report. He is also currently revising for publication a series of five lectures on international financial problems given at the Center of Latin American Monetary Studies in August, 1953. Professor Harris has a volume on the dollar problem which will soon be ready for the press. A regular flow of articles, reviews, etc., from Professor Haberler point to his continuing activity in the field. A diversity of points of view is to be found among these men, with Professor Haberler advocating a free multilateral trade position which is not shared by his colleagues.

 

12. Economic History

The study of economic history at Harvard spreads over the departmental lines suggested by its name, and finds a home in other sites as well. In the Department of Economics, Professor Gerschenkron offers [p. 141] courses in the field and is engaged in various researches. The industrialization of Western Europe, particularly in the nineteenth century, will be the subject of books of general interest for the study of economic development. It will view the countries of Western Europe as “underdeveloped areas” of their time and treat their economic growth with attention to such factors as the role of investment bankers, resource patterns, etc. Professor Gerschenkron’s Russian studies (v.2) also include an economic history which he is currently writing. Other work includes the supervision of a translation of Eli Heckscher’s Economic History of Sweden, scheduled for publication in the fall of 1954.

Professor Gerschenkron has also been one of the directors of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History. This Center, established in 1948 with a large grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, has fostered numerous studies in its designated field. Biographical studies of entrepreneurs have been prominent in the work of the Center, but studies of a more general character, such as those on the origins and backgrounds of American businessmen by William Miller and co-workers, have been fostered. A volume of essays, Men in Business (1952) edited by William Miller, H. L. Passer’s The Electrical Manufacturers 1875- 1880 (1953), and a study of Railway Leaders: 1845-1890 (1953) by Professor Thomas Cochran (University of Pennsylvania) have been published in a special series from this Center. From its inception, the Center has been an interuniversity project, although it has been closely associated with Harvard in its location and through Professor Arthur H. Cole (Harvard Business School), its director, others of its executive Committee, and the research staff. Through fellowships to graduate students, conferences, and the publication of a journal, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, it has done much to stimulate work in the field.

A broad interest in social and economic history characterizes several members of the history staff. In the medieval field, Assistant Professor Bryce D. Lyon is preparing a study of the money fief in Western Europe, and offers a general course on social and economic history in the period. In later periods of European history, Professors Wilbur K. Jordan, David E. Owen, Michael Karpovich, and others have had an extensive concern with economic history. In the American field, Professors Frederick Merk and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr., have fostered economic history, both in their own studies and in theses of their students.

The work of the Business School in business history should be recalled in this connection, and the reader is referred to the Business School report for an account of it.

Although we have enumerated some 18 theses in economic history of the period 1948-1953, and several staff members pointed with satisfaction to present instruction or past achievements, there was concern [p. 142] expressed about the shortage of capable scholars in this field. A weakness in economic history in the United States, as compared with England or Germany, was alleged by economists. Professor Gerschenkron has recently brought about a notable upturn in activity, but the numbers of economists doing history theses have been relatively few at Harvard as at other American universities. Harvard historians were divided in their assessment of the field; there were some who thought that the record showed a commendable degree of interest and competence, but there were others who detected a general avoidance of economic history as dull and tedious work. The proper training of economic historians presents unresolved problems. Economists expressed the view that a sound background in theory and general economics was the indispensable base for studies in the field, and noted the difficulty of inducing men to add the labor of acquiring the necessary historical knowledge and linguistic equipment to the already formidable demands of graduate study in economics. Discussions in the Committee have led to some re-examination of the division of instructional labor between the Departments of History and Economics which may help solve the difficult problems of training.

 

13. Government and Business

Examination of course offerings and the lists of theses have led us to recognize studies of the relations of business and government under a special heading. In the arrangement of work characteristic at Harvard, however, the great bulk of work having to do with government regulation and related matters is encompassed in the field of industrial organization, and we have treated it as such (v.7.c above).

 

14. Statistics and Econometrics

The field of economics has long had a heavy dependence on statistical work, and the possibilities of mathematical expression of economic theory were realized in the nineteenth century. As long as statistics remained a fairly simple subject guiding the interpretation of empirical findings, and theory was contrived without precise attention to “operational” testing, a reasonably clear distinction between “economic statistics” and “mathematical economics” was possible. Recent decades have greatly complicated the picture. Technical developments in statistics have made the subject highly mathematical and brought it to convergence with other developments in mathematic economics. A new term, “econometrics,” which was fostered by the Econometric Society and its journal, Econometrica, now serves as a designation of much of the recent work, which might with equal propriety be called simply economic theory or statistics.

Harvard has responded to these developments and participated in them in varying measures. In Professor Leontief’s Harvard Economic [p. 143] Research Project, a major technique of econometric analysis, the input- output analysis, has had its principal locus of development. With intellectual roots in the general equilibrium analysis of Walras, the input-output technique is an attempt to give quantitative analyses of the behavior of total national economies without going over to the aggregative techniques of national income analysis (and thus sacrificing a picture of structural interrelations within the economy). Professor Leontief has been engaged in this work for more than two decades, beginning on a modest scale in the Thirties and expanding rapidly during the war in connection with several branches of the national government. Since the war, the Project has been maintained on a large scale with support from the government and the Rockefeller Foundation, employing about twenty people under the direction of Professor Leontief and his executive assistant, Mrs. Elizabeth Gilboy. Models for the American economy have been worked out which trace the interrelationships among as many as 500 different sectors. Such work is obviously expensive and requires a substantial organization such as Professor Leontief has maintained. Among many recent publications from the Project, we note the collaborative volume by Professor Leontief and others, Studies in the Structure of the American Economy (1953).

Instruction in this and other econometric techniques is offered in the Department of Economics by Professor Leontief and Assistant Professor John S. Chipman. Professor Chipman is carrying on two research programs, both concerned with capital and interest. The first is on the construction and application of dynamic models of the sort known as linear programming models, and involves attention to technological questions. The second is a study of liquidity preference.

Professor Guy H. Orcutt is the principal figure in the recent develop ment of other statistical and quantitative studies. His well-known work on the problem of auto-correlation in time series is continuing. He is preparing a book on statistical inference and a study of the demand for residential housing. The instruction on economic statistics is primarily in Professor Orcutt’s hands and as organizer and active participant in a Research Seminar on Quantitative Economics, he is actively working on problems concerned with the economic behavior of households and firms. Studies currently being conducted under the auspices of this seminar include:

E. Kuh — Statistical Investment Functions
J. Meyer — An Econometric Investigation of Postwar Investment in Manufacturing Industries
J. Tryon — Factors Influencing the Behavior of Business Inventories
F. Gillis — Sources and Uses of Funds: Selected Corporations: 1920-1950
B. Chinitz — The Demand for Cash Balances
H. Miller — An Empirical Study of the Demand for Refrigerators
V. Lippitt — Determinants of Demand for Consumer Durable Goods [p. 144]
H. Allison — Consumer Level Analysis of Demand for Meat, Fish, and Poultry
C. Zwick — The Demand for Meat

While there is respect for the work actually being carried out in these fields at Harvard, we encountered much discussion on the need for further development. It is generally conceded that Harvard is not so strong in mathematical economics and statistics as some other universities. The problem of statistics is one which transcends the Department of Economics and we devote a special section to it at the conclusion of this inventory. The general result of our survey of Harvard’s statistical resources may, however, be anticipated here; it is that they fall short of adequacy to the expanding needs of the behavioral sciences. Economists at Harvard feel this weakness in statistics and we repeatedly encountered the assertion that a man who wanted a first-rate training for technical work in the field would be better elsewhere. Others forms of mathematical work in economics show a similar weakness at Harvard as compared with some institutions.

As we suggested in our discussion of economic theory above, there is no clear unanimity on the need for Harvard to devote more of its resources to mathematical work. Especially among senior members of the Department of Economics, there is much disquietude at the luxuriant growth of this work. As one man put it sharply,

“I’d like to see a deflation of some of the mathematics that’s going on in economics. I think there’s a really serious threat here. This is the kind of work that attracts the ablest people, and they get so concentrated on mathematics that they scorn anything else … I think we ought to teach mathematical economics, but we ought to keep it in its proper place. I think there are real dangers of people getting involved with this kind of work and then making public policy proposals and forgetting the assumptions [in their abstract models]. . . . I’m disposed to fight this trend toward mathematics.”

Some members of the staff feel an uncomfortable lack of equipment in assessing mathematical work; one told of learning calculus when he was forty to “protect himself.” Others have the necessary training without being primarily mathematical economists. Among these latter there is a pronounced concern for balance. They regard much of the current mathematical work as of little consequence in the development of economics, and would deplore a heavy concentration of graduate training on mathematical technique. The importance of mathematical and statistical competence is nevertheless stressed and, on balance, it is probably accurate to say that sentiment tips toward further strengthening of Harvard training in these respects.

 

15. History of Thought

A generally poor state of American scholarship in the history of economic thought was pointed out by two economists we interviewed in this survey. The increasingly technical character of economics and [p. 145] its divorcement in America from the European traditions of broad, diffuse scholarship were suggested as possible explanations. The only active scholar currently on the staff is Dr. Taylor, who has offered courses which trace the history of economic thought in relation to the broad movements of intellectual history; he has published numerous essays in the field and is now engaged in preparing a volume of them for publication. There is a notable absence of younger men in the field — a situation in sharp contrast with the lively activity in intellectual history and the history of political thought. If Harvard has a recent record of strength in the field, hospitality to scholars trained abroad is in part responsible. The scholarly legacy of Professor Joseph Schumpeter included a monumental History of Economic Analysis (2 V., 1954) which appeared after his death. While not actively working in the field, Professors Haberler, Gerschenkron, and Leontief maintain serious interests in it.

 

16. Applications of Economic Analysis to Welfare Programs, Education, etc.

The pervasiveness of concerns with public policy in the work of Harvard’s economists has been pointed out above, and illustrated under various special fields. Problems of economic policy arise in many areas which are not as such the special concern of economists. Professor Harris has been particularly attentive to such problems and has devoted himself to a series of studies in the economics of social security, education, health, and other welfare programs. The economic problems posed by the social security programs are a familiar subject for economists and our theses list shows about one per year devoted to them. Less common is the kind of work represented in Professor Harris’ Market for College Graduates (1949), and his current work on the economics of cancer (for a University committee on cancer research). The need for more ample study of the support of public education was stressed in discussions during this survey, and we have heard the economics of medicine described as an “underdeveloped area” in economics.

 

Summary

An attempt to assess the strengths and weaknesses of economics at Harvard encounters the inevitable difficulty presented by the lack of commonly accepted standards of judgment. To some, the Department of Economics appears to give insufficient attention to mathematical economics and econometrics. To others, the heavy emphasis on theory is suspect. Still others may complain of the considerable extent and variety of attention given to applied fields. To these latter critics it should be pointed out that the Department is required not only to provide a professional training for economists, but to meet the needs [p. 146] of the Graduate School of Public Administration with its heavy emphasis on practice and policy. Perhaps the best general description of the economics offering is that it is relatively eclectic — not so much methodologically as in scope of attempted coverage — with all that this implies, both good and bad.

Despite this scope, there are inevitably important areas of economic inquiry that are neglected. The field of demography is one, and this field, which must necessarily overlap several departments, is, in fact, extensively treated by none. There is almost no systematic work in transportation and public utilities, fields which in many universities are-given a prominent place. The absence of mathematical statistics is a lack shared by many of the behavioral science departments, a lack sufficiently important to merit special treatment in this report. In an ideal department with unlimited resources, such deficiencies necessarily would excite adverse comment. Under existing circumstances, at Harvard, it is not so obvious that all such fields should be cultivated if their cultivation means the abandonment of current work. The emphasis preferred by the Department of Economics has always been on men rather than fields, and it is by no means clear that this emphasis is misplaced.

It seems fair to note that the Department has been criticized within the University, and to some extent outside, for emphasizing research at the expense of teaching, particularly of undergraduates. This criticism, however, seems less justified now than it was a few years ago and. in any case, it is within the competence of the Department to improve its teaching performance without in any material way lessening its emphasis on research.

Finally, there is some evidence that the Department of Economics is less inclined than most other behavioral science departments to explore the periphery of its field and to seek to establish bridges giving access to the other disciplines. The Committee suspects that this may be characteristic of Economics Departments in other universities. In some ways, of course, this confidence in its own “mystery” has been a source of strength to Economics. In dealing, however, with certain problems in which economists are becoming intensely interested, such as economic development and the various aspects of public policy, an isolationist attitude is not likely to prove fruitful.

 

Source: The behavioral sciences at Harvard; report by a faculty committee. June, 1954.

Image Source: Faculty picture of Edward S. Mason in Harvard Album, 1950.

Categories
Courses Harvard Syllabus

Harvard. Syllabus for International Trade and Tariff Policies. Harris, 1933

Seymour Harris (1897-1975) received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1926 with a dissertation about paper money issued during the French Revolution: “The Assignats.” It was published as Harvard Economic Studies 33. He took over the international trade course that was offered to undergraduates and graduates from A. H. Cole starting in 1932-33.  Beginning in 1936-37 the course was then jointly taught by Harris and Gottfried Haberler.

Following his retirement from Harvard in 1964 Harris went on to become the founding chairman of the UC San Diego Department of Economics. Paul Samuelson offered written tribute to Seymour Harris’ contributions

_________________________

[Course Announcement]

Economics 9a 1hf. International Trade and Tariff Policies

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Asst. Professor Harris.

 

Source: Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences 1933-34, Second edition. Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. XXX, No. 39 (September 20, 1933).

 

_________________________

[Course Enrollment]

102 Total: 4 Graduates, 76 Seniors, 16 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 4 Others.

 

Source: Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1933-34, p. 84.

 

_________________________

ECONOMICS 9a
Outline, 19331934

 

Important Books:

Ohlin: International and Interregional Trade¨[1933]

Taussig: International Trade [1927]

Taussig: Some Aspects of the Tariff Problem [3rd enlarged ed with Harry D. White, 1931]

Taussig: Tariff History [6th ed 1914]

 

I. Pure Theory of International Trade (September 25 – October 27)

Lecture 1. The regional balance of payments

Lecture 2. The international balance of payments

Lecture 3. Conditions of international and interregional trade

Lecture 4. Movements of commodities and factors

Lecture 5. The problems of localization and transportation

Lecture 6. The Classical theory as developed by Ricardo

Lecture 7. The Classical theory as modified by Taussig

Lecture 8. The supply and demand theory of Marshall

 

Assignment:

Ohlin: Chapters 1-7.

Taussig, International Trade: Chapters 1-7

 

II.   Pure Theory, continued; Money and the Theory of international Trade

(October 30 –November 10)

Lecture 9. International trade under a gold standard

Lecture 10. International trade under a gold standard, continued

Lecture 11. International trade under a silver standard

Lecture 12. International trade under an inconvertible standard

 

Assignment:

Taussig, International Trade: Chapters 17, 18, 26, 27.

 

III.       Fiscal Problems (November 13,- December 8)

Lecture 13. Effects of import duties

Lecture 14. Some aspects of British fiscal policy

Lecture 15. British fiscal policy and her international position.

Lecture 16. Some aspects of American fiscal policy

Lecture 17. The international competitive position of the United States

Lecture 18. The technique of tariff bargaining and administration

Lecture 19. Tariffs, prices, and the terms of trade

Lecture 20. The problem of raw materials in its international aspects.

 

Assignment:

Taussig, Some Aspects of the Tariff Problem: Chapters 1-3, 9-13.

Taussig, Tariff History: Part II.

IV.   Capital Movements and Reparations (December 11-22)

Lecture 21.    The mechanism of capital movements

Lecture 22.    Statistical verification of the theory

Lecture 23.    Keynes, Ohlin, Taussig on reparations

 

Assignment:

Ohlin: Chapters 19-22.

 

HOUR EXAMINATION: Wednesday, October 25.

 

Reading Period:

Read ONE of the following:

  1. Ashley, Modern Tariff History [Germany—United States—France]  [3rd ed, 1920]
  2. Barnes, A History of the English Corn Laws: Chapters 7-12 [1930]
  3. Beveridge, Tariffs: The Case Examined [1st ed. October 1931; 2nd ed. June 1932]
  4. Culbertson, International Economic Policies: Chapters 1-5, 7 [1925]
  5. League of Nations, Course and Phases of the World Economic Depression: Pp. 1-274 [B. Ohlin, 1931]
  6. Loveday, Britain and World Trade  [1931]
  7. Marshall, Money, Credit and Commerce  [1922]
  8. Pigou, Essays in Applied Economics: Chapters 14-15.[1923]
    Pigou and Robertson, Economic Essays and Addresses [1931]:

Part I, Chapter 4;
Part II, Chapters 2, 4, 5.

 

Source: Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Harvard University Archives: HUC 8522.2.1, Box 2, Folder “1933-1934”.

Image source: Harvard Album, 1934.

 

Categories
Bibliography Courses Harvard

Harvard. Business Cycles Course. Hansen, 1950.

According to the course catalogue for 1950-51, this course was to be co-taught by Professor Alvin Hansen and Assistant Professor Richard Goodwin. (Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. 47, No. 23, September, 1950.) However, Goodwin did not receive tenure at Harvard and moved on to Cambridge University in 1950. In the following years material for this course was swept into the second semester of Economics 141. “Money, Banking and Economic Fluctuations” offered jointly by Hansen and John H. Williams.

________________________

Economics 145a
Business Cycles 1950-51
Professor Hansen

Part I. Descriptive Survey

Haberler, Prosperity and Depression, Ch. 1,9.
Hansen, Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Ch. I, II.
Schumpeter, “The Analysis of Economic Change,” in Readings in Business Cycle Theory, Ch. I.
Federal Reserve Chart Book (available at the Coop.)

Suggested Reading:

Mitchell, “Business Cycles,” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 3, pp. 92-106.
Kondratieff, “The Long Waves in Economic Life,” in Readings in Business Cycle Theory, Ch. 3.
Frickey, Economic Fluctuations in the United States.
Burns and Mitchell, Measuring Business Cycles.
Beveridge, Full Employment in a Free Society, Part II, Sec. 1 and Appendix A.
Schumpeter, Business Cycles, pp. 161-174; 212-219.
Dewey and Dakin, Cycles, Ch. 1-9.
Aschinstein, Introduction to Business Cycles, 1950.

Part II. The Meaning and Genesis of National Product

Hansen, Economic Policy and Full Employment, Ch. 3, 4.
Gilbert and Jaszi, “National Product and Income as an Aid in Economic Problems,” in Readings in the Theory of Income and Distribution, Ch. 2.
Machlup, “Period Analysis and Multiplier Theory,” in Readings in Business Cycle Theory, Ch. 10, only pp. 210-234.
Morgan, Income and Employment, Ch. I.
Haberler, Prosperity and Depression, Ch. 8, Section 4, pp. 222-232; Ch. 13, Section 1, pp. 455-461.
Hansen, Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Ch. XI, XII, XIII, XIV.

Suggested Reading:

National Income, Supplement to Survey of Current Business, July, 1947.
Kuznets, (a) The National Income and its Composition, Ch. 1; (b) National Income, A Summary of Findings.
Kaldor, “The Quantitative Aspects of the Full Employment Problem in Britain,” Appendix C in Beveridge, Full Employment in a Free Society.

Part III. Theory of Cycles and Investment

Haberler, Prosperity and Depression, Ch. 10, 11, and 3; Ch. 13, Section 3, pp. 473-479.
Hansen, (a) Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Ch. XVI and XVII; (b) Economic Policy and Full Employment, Ch. 14-16.
Keynes, General Theory, ch. 22.
Lerner, Economics of Control, Ch. 21, 22.
Harris, The New Economics, Ch. 33.
Schumpeter, Business Cycles, Ch. IV, Sections A, B, and C, pp. 130-161; Ch. VII, Section C., pp. 325-351.
Morgan, Income and Employment, Ch. 7-9.

Suggested Reading:

Tinbergen and Polak, The Dynamics of Business Cycles.
Long, Building Cycles and the Theory of Investment, Ch. I, II, VII, VIII, XII.
Haberler, Prosperity and Depression, Chapter VIII.
Schumpeter, Business Cycles, Chapters 6 and 7.
Tinbergen, Robertson, Hayek, Hawtrey in Readings in Business Cycle Theory, Ch. 4, 15, 16, 17.
Clark, Strategic Factors in Business Cycles.
Wilson, The Fluctuations in Income and Employment Ch. 1-10.
Estey, Business Cycles, Ch. 1-16.
Hansen (a) Business Cycle Theory, Ch. 4, 8; (b) Full Recovery or Stagnation, Ch. 3 (Hayek); and Appendix Keynes’ Treatise, pp. 331-343.
Metzler, (a) “The Nature and Stability of Inventory Cycles,” in Review of Economic Statistics, August, 1941; (b) “Business Cycle Theory and the Theory of Employment,” in American Economic Review, June, 1946.
Samuelson, Readings in Business Cycle Theory, Ch. 12.
Samuelson, Chapter II in Harris’ Postwar Economic Problems: Income, Employment and Public Policy, Norton, 1948.

Part IV. Policy

Beveridge, Full Employment in a Free Society, Parts IV and V.
C. E. D., Taxes and the Budget, 1947.
Hansen, (a) Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Ch. 9; (b) Economic Policy and Full Employment, Ch. 5-13; 22.

Suggested Reading:

Hicks, Ch. 24, in Readings in Income Distribution (Keynes and the Classics; also in Econometrica, Vol. 5, 1937).
Pigou, Lapses from Full Employment.
Kaldor, “Stability and Full Employment,” in the Economic Journal, December, 1938.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Postwar Studies, No. 3, Musgrave, “Federal Tax Reform,” pp. 22-52.
Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Ch. XV, XVI, XVII.
Twentieth Century Fund, American Housing, Ch. 12, pp. 311-341.
Financing American Prosperity, Twentieth Century Fund, (especially, Clark, Slichter and Williams).

READING PERIOD ASSIGNMENT

Read one of the following four assignments:

  1. Morgan, Income and Employment, Ch. 10-18.
  2. Polanyi, Free Trade and Full Employment, Ch. 3, 4, 6, 7; AND John H. Williams, “Free Enterprise and Dull Employment,” Chapter 7 in Financing American Prosperity.
  3. Terborgh, George, The Bogey of Economic Maturity (entire book, disregarding appendices) AND H. Hansen’s review of Terborgh’s book in Appendix B in Economic Policy and Full Employment AND Wright’s review in Review of Economic Statistics, February, 1946, pp. 13-22.
  4. National and International Measures for Full Employment, United Nations, Department of Economic Affairs, 1949.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 5. Folder: “Economics, 1950-1951 (1 of 2)”.

Image Source:  Harvard Album 1952.

Categories
Bibliography Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. U.S. history for economics graduate students. F. J. Turner, 1912

The object of the “general examination” for Harvard Economics Ph.D. students in 1911-1912 was “to ascertain the applicant’s attainments within a considerable range of subjects in the field of History, Political Science, or Economics.” The ordinary case would be that Ph.D. students would be “be examined in six subjects in all, chosen from the groups defined below under the respective departments of study” but not to include the subject of a student’s “special field” that would be subject to a second examination.

“Of the six subjects, at least one must be taken from each of the groups A, B, C, and D, the first three of these groups being purely economic, while the fourth, more general in character, is intended to secure a somewhat broader basis of preparation. In all cases at least one of the subjects chosen must be historical in character, either economic history under group B or one of the historical fields defined under Group D.”

Of the seven topics listed in Group D, one was the “History of American Institutions.” In 1912 the economics chairman, Professor Charles J. Bullock asked colleagues for reading lists to provide students preparing for their degree examinations.  The historian Frederick Jackson Turner responded with the following list. In the same folder there is a list of Ph. D. examination questions for U. S. history that is undated but most likely from that time as well (1912).

__________________________________

153 Brattle St
Cambridge, June 14, 1912

 

Professor C. J. Bullock,
Harvard University

 

My dear Bullock,

I suggest the following list in reply to your letter asking for books suitable for preparation for the examination of one of your graduates in Economics. I omit economic aspects in my list, as I take it these are covered by other lists.

For a general view he should read

either

A. B. Hart (ed) Epochs of Am. Hist.—3 vols.

or

Encyclopaedia Britannica, art. U. S.—history, 11th ed.

or

Cambridge Modern History, VII (U.S.)

 

He should read more extensively in standard histories. One of the following groups would seem reasonable:

A. Select ten volumes from:

E. Channing, History of U. S. (2 vols. out)

J.  Schouler,   History of U. S.

J. F. Rhodes, History of U. S.

or B. Select fifteen volumes from:

A. B. Hart (editor) Am. Nation Series, e.g. vols. 10-19, 21-25. The colonial period and the civil war could, in this case, be supplied by reading C. M. Andrews, The Colonial Period (in press, H. Holt) and F. L. Parson, The Civil War, both of the above being little books in the Home University Library. Of course it would be better to read Channing, or Osgood (Am. Colonies, 3 vols.)

 

or C. Select ten volumes of Am. Nation Series and ten volumes of the following:

American Statesmen Series:

Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Clay (2 vols.), Calhoun, Lincoln, Chase, Blaine; and T. Burton, John Sherman, A. Johnson, Douglas, R. G. Thwaites, D. Boone.

 

On political institutions and diplomacy:

J. Bryce, American Commonwealth (last edn)
E. Stanwood, Presidency
A. Johnston, American Politics
C. A. Beard, American Government and Politics
McClain’s or Boyd’s Cases on Constitutional Law
H.W. Rogers (editor) Constitutional History (“Michigan Law Lectures”

J. B. Moore, American Diplomacy
or J. W. Foster, Century of American Diplomacy

A.B. Hart, Foundations of American Foreign Policy
or A. C. Coolidge, U. S. as a World Power

In general I should say that the candidate should possess a good general knowledge of the narrative American History; a clear understanding of the history of political parties and issues, including the most important constitutional questions, leading cases, etc.; a firm hold on the history of the development of the significant political institutions; a good working knowledge of the main problems of our foreign relations; and a well considered and well based estimate of the work and characteristics of the leading statesmen. (Of course such economic history as lands, tariff, internal improvement, banking, and currency and finance are otherwise provided for.)

It is not unlikely that you may conclude that the above list is either too extensive or too limited for the purpose in hand. In that case use your judgment.

Sincerely yours,

[signed]

Frederick J. Turner

__________________________________

Ph. D. Examination in American History since 1789.

  1. Of what officers was Washington’s first cabinet composed? Is the cabinet provided for in the constitution? When and under what circumstances have additions been made to it? What are its powers? What books treat of its history?
  2. What are the principal periods and steps in the development of the speakership of the House of Representatives? Name and characterize the four greatest speakers. Give a list of secondary sources useful on this topic.
  3. Could a political party which held the Presidency and Congress procure a repeal of decision of the supreme court obnoxious to it, as for example the income tax decision of 1895, if the Democrats had won? How could this be done, if it could be done? On what occasions would a dominant party have been tempted to make use of such a power if it existed?
  4. What were the most important legislative policies of the following men: Henry Clay, Thomas H. Benton, John C. Calhoun?
  5. Ought Stephen A. Douglas’s biography to be included in the American Statesmen series? Why?
  6. What were the significant policies of the Democratic party 1830-1850, and who were the leaders of the party?
  7. Was the Mexican war an unjust war? What is its significance in American history? Authorities on the question.
  8. Discuss Thaddeus Stevens as an American Statesman? Was his reconstruction policy wise? How far was it put in operation? How did Lincoln’s and Johnson’s reconstruction policy differ from each other? What were the most enduring results of the legislative and constitutional enactments constituting reconstruction?
  9. Briefly explain the following leading cases: Hylton v. U.S.; Prize cases; Marbury v. Madison; Fletcher v. Peck; Cohens v. Virginia?
  10. Sketch three important incidents showing the influence of sectionalism in American history, selecting one from each of these periods: 1789-1815; 1815-1835, 1870-1896.
  11. What is the best “help” in finding “congressional documents” for the purposes of American history? What are the primary sources for debates in House and Senate 1789-1820?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers, 1902-1950 (UAV 349.10), Box 25, Folder “Suggested Readings”.

Image Source: Harvard Album, 1916.

 

Categories
Bibliography Courses Economists Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Uncategorized

Harvard. Econ 113b. Schumpeter’s Grad Course on the History of Economics. 1940.

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Joseph Schumpeter offered this one semester, second term graduate course “History and Literature of Economics since 1776” nine times during the period 1940-1949. The core readings were basically unchanged. Below you will find the course enrollment figures and the reading list for 1940 (into which I have inserted the two additions from the reading list for 1941). Exam questions from 1940 and 1941 are included as well as an important research tip at the bottom of the posting. Nobel Laureates James Tobin and Robert Solow took this course in 1940 and 1947, respectively. I have gone to the trouble of providing links to almost the entire reading list as a public service to the history of economics community of scholars.

The (much reduced) reading list for the last time Schumpeter taught the course, Spring 1949 is transcribed in a later post.

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If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

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[Course Description: History and Literature of Economics since 1776]

Course work will mainly consist in critical study of the leading English, French, German and Italian contributions to economic thought in the nineteenth century. An introductory and a concluding series of lectures and discussions will provide the links with earlier and modern developments. Undergraduates who have passed Ec A are admitted without individual permission

Source: Joseph Schumpeter Papers, Harvard University Archives, HUG (FP) 4.62. Box 10 “Lecture Notes”, Folder “Ec 113, 1941”.

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Course Enrollment Statistics:

Grad. Students Seniors Juniors Radcliffe Other Total
1939-40 9 3 1 0 3 16
1940-41 11 2 0 3 1 17
1941-42 5 1 0 4 1 12
1942-43 10 3 0 6 3 22
1943-44 2 1 0 3 3 9
1944-45 Not offered
1945-46 18 2 5 25
1946-47 21 1 0 6 7 35
1947-48 17 4 0 2 7 30
1948-49 2 1 0 0 1 4

Note: The course number was Economics 113b until the academic year 1947-48, under the new course numbering system in 1948-49, it became Economics 213b. Joseph Schumpeter died in January 1950.

Source: Harvard/Radcliffe Online Historical Reference Shelf. Harvard President’s Reports.

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Economics 113b
[History and Literature of Economics since 1776]
1939-40
[second term]

 

I. For general reference you should currently consult:

Erich Roll, A History of Economic Thought (1939, [link to 1945 edition]), or
L. H. Haney, History of Economic Thought (1927).[1923 revised edition]

Suggestions:

John M. Keynes, Essays in Biography (Essays on Malthus, Marshall and Edgeworth).

 

II. Works dealing with the history of individual doctrines or problems. No assignment.

Suggestions:

E. Boehm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest, Vol. I.
E. Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution (1924). [2nd ed., 1903]
F. W. Taussig, Wages and Capital (1896).
J. Viner, Studies in the Theory of International Trade (1937), Chs. I and II.
K. Marx, Theorien über den Mehrwehrt (1921). [1910 edition by Karl Kautsky: vol I, vol. II(1), vol. II(2), vol. III.]

 

III. This course covers many authors whose teaching is also dealt with in other courses and whose works are more or less familiar to every student. The most important of them are:

Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, also read the introduction to Cannan’s edition.
David Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy.
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy; also read introduction to Ashley’s edition.
Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, particularly Book V.
John B. Clark, Distribution of Wealth (1899).

Suggestions:

Augustin Cournot, Principles of the Theory of Wealth (Fisher’s edition, 1927).
Léon Walras, Element d’économie pure (edition definitive, 1926).
Knut Wicksell, Lectures on Political Economy (Robbins’ edition, 1934). [volume I, volume II]

 

IV. In addition, the following books should be read, at least cursorily:

Richard Cantillon, Essai sur la nature du commerce en général (1755); English translation by Higgs (1931).
David Hume, Political Discourses (edition by Green and Grose, 1875), Vol. I. [Miller edition]
Sir James Steuart, Principles of Political Economy (1767). [Vol I (1767); Vol II ]
A. R. J. Turgot, Réflexions sur la Formation et la Distribution des Richesses (1766), (Oeuvres, ed. Daire, 1844). Vol I; Vol II.
Thomas R. Malthus, Essay on the Principle of Population (1798). [1803 edition, enlarged]
Jean B. Say, Traité d’économie politique (1803). [2nd ed. 1814] [1855 English translation from 4th and 5th editions]
William N. Senior, Outline of the Science of Political Economy (1836).
William St. Jevons, Theory of Political Economy (1871).
J. E. Cairnes, Leading Principles.
Karl Marx, first volume of Das Kapital (English translation).

Suggestions:

J. H. v. Thünen, Der isolierte Staat (ed. Waentig, 1930).
R. Auspitz und R. Lieben, Untersuchungen über die Theorie des Preises (1888), (also translation into French). [Vol. I (French); Vol. II (French)]
Carl Menger, Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre (London School reprints, 1934). [English translation with introduction by F. A. Hayek]
F. Y. Edgeworth, Mathematical Psychics (London School reprints, 1932).
M. Longfield, Lectures on Political Economy (London School reprints, 1931).
H. C. Carey, The Past, the Present and the Future (1848).
H. George, Progress and Poverty (1879).
S. Newcomb, Principles of Political Economy (1885).
Ph. Wicksteed, The Commonsense of Political Economy (1908).

 

V. Monographs on individual authors. No assignments.

Suggestions:

[Addition to list in 1940-41: Henry Higgs, The Physiocrats (1897)]
W. R. Scott, Adam Smith as Student and Professor (1937).
J. Rae, Life of Adam Smith (1895).
J. Bonar, Malthus and his Work (1924). [1885 ed.]
M. Bowley, Nassau Senior and Classical Economics (1937).
F. Mehring, Karl Marx (1936).
J. R. Hicks, Leon Walras (Econometrica, 1934).
[Addition to list in 1940-41: H. W. Jevons and H. S. Jevons, “William S. Jevons,” Econometrica]

Source: Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Harvard University Archives, HUC 8522.2.1. Box 2, Folder “1939-40, 2 of (2)” and Folder “1940-41”.

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1939-1940
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113b2

Answer any FOUR out of the following five questions:

  1. Discuss the wage-fund theory and its practical implications. In what sense was it resuscitated by Boehm-Bawerk and Taussig?
  2. Exponents of the Labor-Quantity theory of value and exponents of the Marginal Utility theory of value have for decades tried to refute each other. What is the true relation between the two theories?
  3. State and criticize the Marxian theory of Surplus Value or of Exploitation.
  4. What do you think of the so-called Ricardian theory of rent?
  5. What are the main objections that were raised against the “Austrian school” during the early stages of its development?

Final. 1940

 

Source: Joseph Schumpeter Papers, Harvard University Archives, HUG (FP) 4.62. Box 10 “Lecture Notes”, Folder “Ec 113, 1941”.

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1940-1941
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113b2

One question may be omitted. Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.

  1. If a layman, trying to make intellectual conversation, asked you what Adam Smith’s performance consisted in, what would you say?
  2. What was the importance, for the economic theory of its time, of Malthus’ Essay on Population?
  3. Explain the meaning and use of the theorem usually referred to as Say’s Law.
  4. What are the conditions that would have to be fulfilled in order to make the labor-quantity theory of value true?
  5. State and discuss Ricardo’s version of the so-called law of the falling rate of profit.
  6. Jevons, Walras and Menger no doubt felt that they had revolutionized economic theory. What did this revolution consist in and how important do you think it was?
  7. Under modern conditions, most producers have no use for any significant part of their products. Hence their subjective valuation of these products depends on what these products will exchange for, that is to say, on their prices. How, then, can we derive these prices from utility schedules of buyers and sellers without reasoning in a circle?

Final. 1941.

Source: Joseph Schumpeter Papers, Harvard University Archives, HUG (FP) 4.62. Box 10 “Lecture Notes”, Folder “Ec 113, 1941”.

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Research Tip: 75 pages of student notes taken by future Nobel Laureate James Tobin for Economics 113b2 of the 1939-40 academic year are available in the James Tobin Papers at the Yale University Library Manuscripts Collection, Group No. 1746, Box. No. 6 in one of the hard-bound volumes of Tobin’s notes from his Harvard courses.

Image SourceHarvard Album, 1943.

Categories
Courses Economists Harvard Uncategorized

Harvard. Economics Dept. votes down course on Russian Revolution, 1919

An undergraduate student approached Frank W. Taussig to gain the latter’s support for a semester course in the second term of 1919-20 on “various phases” of the Russian Revolution before the latter left for the U. S. Tariff Commission in Washington, D.C. It appears that Taussig’s initial response was at least mildly encouraging and much activity to organize the course followed as reported in the undergraduate’s letter. The undergraduate went on to have a distinguished career as an economic historian and established the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago in 1941 that today bears his name, the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought.

In Taussig’s absence the Harvard economics department voted not to participate in such a course.

_________________________________

 

[Taussig to Day forwarding Nef letter]

United States Tariff Commission
Washington

December 6, 1919.

Dear Ezra:

The enclosed letter in the main explains itself. I’m willing to assume the responsibility provided that the department approves of the general scheme and of my participation in it. Bring this before the members individually or at a meeting; and I suggest that then you communicate direct with Neff [sic].

My first impression is that we secure for the lectures: (1) Foerster [Robert Franz, Ph.D. 1909] or Meriam [Richard Stockton, Ph.D. 1921], (2) Ohsol [Johann Gottfried, Ph.D. 1914]. I suggest that one of the first two give introductory lectures on Marx, Marxism, the International and post Marxian socialist developments. Then let Ohsol take up the development of thought in Russia and say something about the doctrinal position and the communistic scheme. I believe Ohsol would do the thing with full information and in a temperate spirit. By way of ascertaining possibilities, I shall find out whether Ohsol is still with the Federal Trade Commission and whether he is likely to remain in reach through next spring.

As between Foerster and Meriam, I am inclined, on the whole, to let Meriam have a try. Foerster has plenty of other work to do and Meriam’s recent residence abroad has probably put him in touch with the Continental situation.

[…]

Always sincerely yours,

[signed] F. W. T Taussig

Prof. E. E. Day,
Department of Economics,
Cambridge, Mass

_________________________________

[Nef’s Letter to Taussig: requests course on Russian Revolution]

19 Holworthy Hall,
Cambridge, Mass.
December 4, 1919.

Prof. F. W. Taussig,
c/o U. S. Tariff Commission,
Washington, D. C.

My dear Professor Taussig:

The Friday before you left for Washington, you will remember I consulted you as to the possibilities of offering a course on various phases of the Russian Revolution, during the second semester of the present academic year. Since that time considerable progress has been made. Prof. A. C. Coolidge is enthusiastic over the plan which he believes will work in well with the collection of all available documents and data on the Revolution for the Library. For this part of the work, he proposes, provided the funds can be raised and the demands warrant it, to employ a secretary who will have full charge of collecting the materials. He further plans to set aside a room in Widener Library, which will contain the most important books and documents to be consulted by students taking the course.

Professor Lord has expressed his willingness to take charge of the first part of the course, which would deal with the background of the problem and the narrative history up to the beginning of the Bolshevik regime. The second and third part would deal with the economic and political theories involved, and with the actual workings of the Soviet form of government so far as they can be ascertained. Fifield Workum and I went today to see Professor Ferguson, who thought the scheme feasible and proposes to bring it up before the history department for approval at a meeting on Friday, December 12th. First, however, he wishes to know whether you will be willing to take charge of the second part of the course. This would not mean that you would actually deliver the lectures, although we all hope very much you will be able to give some of them, but simply, as I understand it, that you will see that this part of the course is given.

The third part, Professor Coolidge proposes to arrange with Professor Ferguson. After hearing from you, Professor Ferguson will bring the plan before the history department.

We feel that undergraduate interest in the course justifies its being offered. Professor Ferguson thought it might be given at 2.30 o’clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the second term. This would enable a number of men who are now taking History A to take it. All the undergraduates to whom I have mentioned the possibility have immediately expressed a desire to enroll. Professors Ferguson and Coolidge feel that it will make the course both possible and successful if you could stand behind the second part of it.

Very sincerely yours,

[John U. Nef]

_________________________________

[Day’s Reply to Taussig: Time not yet ripe]

December 12, 1919

Dear Mr. Taussig:

At a meeting of the Department yesterday afternoon I brought up for discussion your letter presenting the proposal of J. U. Nef and other undergraduates for a course the second half-year on various phases of the Russian Revolution. The matter was discussed at length, with the result that a number of different grounds for opposing the plan were brought up. I need not go over these at length, as you can readily imagine most of them. Professor Ripley’s objection lay altogether against the method in which the course was to be administered; Bullock’s against the proposed subject matter of the course. The outcome was a unanimous vote that in the opinion of the members of the Department it is inexpedient for the Department to participate in the offering of the proposed course. If you wish further details regarding the opinions expressed, I shall be glad to send them to you. I may add that I should have voted with the other members had I been called upon to do so, as it does not seem to me that the time is yet ripe for academic instruction on the subject of the revolution.

[…]

Sincerely yours,

[Day]

Prof. F. W. Taussig

_________________________________

[Taussig’s Reply to Department Decision: Should have met students half way]

United States Tariff Commission
Washington

December 15, 1919.

Dear Ezra:

I have yours of December 12th. I confess it is a matter of surprise that the Department should have voted as it did. My own strong inclination was to meet the under graduates half way, and to have joined in giving a course, not “on the Revolution,” but upon Russian history and Russian conditions, as leading up to the Revolution. I am sorry not to have been on hand.

[…]

  Very sincerely yours,

  (signed) F. W. Taussig

Professor E. E. Day,
Department of Economics,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts.

_________________________________

Source: Harvard University Archives. UAV.349.10 Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950, Box 23.   Folder: “Course Offerings 1913-1925”.

Image SourceHarvard Album, 1920.

Categories
Bibliography Courses Harvard Socialism Syllabus

Harvard. Economics of Socialism, Anarchism and the Single Tax. Carver, 1920

For almost the entire first quarter of the twentieth century, Thomas Nixon Carver taught the material of this course. According to the Harvard Annual President’s Report for 1919-20 (p. 90), the course, which covered utopias, varieties of socialism and anarchism, and Henry George’s Single Land Tax, was attended by 10 graduate students; 13 seniors, 29 juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 Freshman; 14 students from other departments/divisions.

Course final examination questions are available here.

A short-annotated bibliography for the economics of socialism was prepared by Carver and published in 1910 in A guide to reading in social ethics and allied subjects; lists of books and articles selected and described for the use of general readers.

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Course Description

In the Official Register of Harvard University (Vol. XVI, October 30, 1919, No. 45) Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1919-20 (Second Edition, p. 64): The course title for Economics 7 given in the second term of 1919-20 was “The Single Tax, Socialism, Anarchism” and met Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays at 10 a.m.

“A critical study of the theories which underlie some of the more radical programmes of social reform. An examination also of the social utility of private property in its various forms; also some attention to the concept of justice in economic relations; the concept of progress; the significance of conservatism and radicalism.”

 

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ECONOMICS 7b
SOCIALISM

Starred references are required

GENERAL WORKS, HISTORICAL

1. *R. T. Ely. French and German Socialism.

2.   Bertrand Russell. German Social Democracy.

3.   John Rae. Contemporary Socialism.

4.   Thomas Kirkup. A History of Socialism.

5.   William Graham. Socialism, New and Old.

6.   Jessica B. Peixotto. The French Revolution and Modern French Socialism.

7.   Wm. B. Guthrie. Socialism Before the French Revolution.

8.   M. Hillquit. History of Socialism in the United States.

9.   Jessie W. Hughan. American Socialism of the Present Day.

 

GENERAL WORKS, EXPOSITORY AND CRITICAL

1.   *O. D. Skelton. Socialism, A Critical Analysis.

2.   J. E. Le Rossignol. Orthodox Socialism.

3.   Albert Schaeffle. The Quintessence of Socialism.

4.   Albert Schaeffle. The Impossibility of Social Democracy.

5.   R. T. Ely. Socialism: an Examination of its Nature, Strength and Weakness.

6.   James Mackaye. The Economy of Happiness.

7.   Henry M. Hyndman. The Economics of Socialism.

8.   Gustave Simonson. A Plain Examination of Socialism.

9.   Werner Sombart. Socialism and the Social Movement in the Nineteenth Century.

10. Émile Vandervelde. Collectivism.

11. R. Flint. Socialism.

12. W. D. P. Bliss. A Handbook of Socialism.

13. Jessie W. Hughan. The Facts of Socialism.

14. E. de Laveleye. The Socialism of Today.

15. E. Böhm-Bawerk. Karl Marx—The End of his System.

16. W. E. Walling. The Larger Aspects of Socialism.

17. S. P. Orth. Socialism and Democracy in Europe.

18. John Spargo. Socialism.

 

TYPES OF SOCIALISTIC PROPAGANDA

I. IDEALISTIC. The appeal is made to all classes on the ground of piety, a sense of justice, or of sympathy for the laboring classes.

A. Religious. The religious motive is invoked in behalf of human brotherhood.

1. Lamennais. Les Paroles d’un Croyant.

2. Washington Gladden. Tools and the Man.

3. Josiah Strong. Our Country.

4. Josiah Strong. The New Era.

B. Fulminations. A thundering discontent with things as they are, with no very definite program for improvement.

1. William Morris, Poet, Artist, Socialist. Edited by Francis Watts Lee. A collection of the socialistic writings of Morris.

2. John Ruskin, the Communism of John Ruskin. Edited by W. D. P. Bliss. Selected chapters from Unto this Last, The Crown of Wild Olive, and Fors Clavigera.

3. Thomas Carlyle, The Socialism and Unsocialism of Thomas Carlyle. Edited by W. 4. D. P. Bliss. Selected chapters from Carlyle’s Various Works.

Socialism and everything resembling it were even more abhorrent to Carlyle than the present system.

C. Utopian. Pictures of ideal Commonwealths.

1. Plato’s Republic.

2. Sir Thomas More. Utopia.

3. Francis Bacon. New Atlantis.

4. Tommaso Campanella. The City of the Sun. (Numbers 2, 3, and 4 may be found in convenient form in Morley’s Ideal Commonwealth.)

5. Etienne Cabot. Voyage en Icarie.

6. William Morris. News from Nowhere.

7. Edward Bellamy. Looking Backward.

8. Laurence Gronlund. The Cooperative Commonwealth.

9. H. G. Wells. A Modern Utopia.

D. Experimental.

There were men and women who had so much confidence in socialism as to believe that it was only necessary to start it to insure its success. They believed that if the world could be given an example of socialism in operation, it would be led to adopt it.

1. Charles Nordhoff. The Communistic Societies of the United States.

2. Karl Kautsky. Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation.

3. *W. A. Hinds. American Communities.

4. J. H. Noyes. History of American Socialisms.

5. J. T. Codman. Brook Farm Memoirs.

6. Albert Shaw. Icaria.

7. G. B. Landis. The Separatists of Zoar.

8. E. O. Randall. History of the Zoar Society.

E. Opportunist.

1. *Bernard Shaw and others. The Fabian Essays in Socialism.

2. The Fabian Tracts.

3.   Edward Bernstein. Ferdinand Lassalle.

4.   Sidney and Beatrice Web. Problems of Modern Industry.

5.   E. C. K. Gonner. The Socialist Philosophy of Rodbertus.

6.   E. C. K. Gonner. The Socialist State.

7.   Vladimir G. Simkhovitch. Marxism versus Socialism.

8.   J. Ramsay Macdonald. Socialism.

9.   Sidney A. Reeve. The Cost of Competition.

10. Edward Bernstein. Evolutionary Socialism.

11. H. G. Wells. New Worlds for Old.

II. MARXIAN. Believing that every man will work for his own material interests, and that in any capitalistic society, the laboring classes must sooner or later outnumber all others, the appeal is made, not to idealistic sentiments, but to the conscious self interest of the laboring classes. In their own interest they are to overthrow the present economic system and so up a socialistic system.

A. Theoretical

1. Karl Marx. Capital.

2. Frederic Engels. Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.

3. A. Labriola. Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History.

B. Propagandist

(a) Political. Reliance is placed upon the voting power of the masses.

1. Karl Marx and Frederic Engels. The Manifest of the Communist Party.

2. Karl Kautsky. The Social Revolution.

(b) Militant. Reliance is placed upon the physical power of the masses. Ignore the state! The ballot is too slow!

(1) Bolshevist.

1. Austin Lewis. The Militant Proletariat.

2. Beatty, B. Red heart of Russia. Century, 1918.

3. Bryant, L. Six red monthsin Russia. Doran, 1918.

4. Petrunkevich, A. I. et al. Russian Revolution. Harvard University Press, 1918,

5. Radzwill, C. Rasputin and the Russian revolution. Lane, 1918.

6. Russell, C. E. Unchained Russia. Appleton, 1918.

7. Sack, A. J. Birth of the Russian Democracy. Russian Information Bureau, 233 Broadway, N. Y.

8. Trotzky, Leon (Bronshtein, L. D.). The Bolsheviki and World Peace, N. Y., 1918.

9. Trotzky, Leon (Bronshtein, L. D.). Our Revolution; Essays on Working Class and International Revolution, N.Y., 1918.

(2) Syndicalist.

1.   Challange, Felicien. Syndicalisme revolutionaire et Syndicalisme reformiste. Paris. F. Alcan. 1909. 156 pp.

2.   Delivet, Emile. Les employées et leurs corporations. Paris. River. 1909.

3.   Dufor, ——-—-. Le syndicalisme et la prochaine revolution. Paris. M. Rivier. 1913.

4.   Estey, J. Revolutionary syndicalism; an exposition and a criticism. London. P. S. King. 1913.

5.   Garriguet, L. L’Évolution actuelle de socialisme en France. Paris. 1912.

6.   Harley, John H. Syndicalism. London & N. Y. Dodge Pub. 1912. 94pp.

7.   Kirkaldy, Adam W. Economics and syndicalism. University Press. Cambridge. 1914. 140 pp.

8.   MacDonald, James R. Syndicalism, a critical examination. 1913. Chicago. Open Court Pub. 74 pp.

9.   Pataud, Emile. Syndicalism and the cooperating commonwealth. Preface by Kropotkin. Oxford. 1913. 240 pp.

10. Snowden, Philip. Socialism and Syndicalism. London. 1913. 262 pp.

11. Spargo, John. Syndicalism, industrial unionism and socialism. N. Y. Huebsch. 1913. 243 pp.

12. Ware, Fabian. The worker and his country. London. 1912. 288 pp.

(3) The I. W. W.

1.   Brissenden, Paul F. The launching of the Industrial Workers of the World. University of California Press. 1913. 82 pp. contains bibliography.

2. *Brooks, John G. American syndicalism. N. Y. Macmillan. 1913. 264 pp.

3.   De Leon, Daniel. Preamble of the I. W. W. address at Union Temple, Minneapolis. July 10, 1905. N. Y. Labor News Co. 48 pp.

4.   Trautman, William E. Direct. action and sabotage. Pittsburg Socialist News Co. 1912. 43 pp.

 

ANARCHISM

I. PHILOSOPHICAL. A more or less reasoned belief that the abolition of government, especially of government by force, would remove most of the ills of society. Clear in its perception that all government rests upon force; unclear in its reasoning to the conclusion that the use of force is wrong; divided in opinion as to the results of abolishing government.

A. Anarchist Communism. Seeing that property rights are the creation of government, it is concluded that the abolition of government would automatically abolish property and restore communism, and that the masses would pounce upon and destroy anyone who thereafter dared to call anything his own.

1. P. J. Proudhon. What is Property?

2. William Godwin. Political Justice.

3. Peter Kropotkin. Memoirs of a. Revolutionist.

4.   Peter Kropotkin. The Scientific Basis of Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 21: 218.

5. Elisée Reclus. Evolution et revolution.

6. William M. Salter. Anarchy or goveminent? An inquiry in fundamental government.

7. W. H. Van Ornum. Why Government at all?

8. Ernst V. Zenker. Anarchism; a criticism and history of the anarchist theory.

9. Paul Boilley – Les Trois Socialismes; Anarchisme, Collectivism. Reformisme.

10. Peter Kropotkin. La Science moderne et L’Anarchie.

11. Peter Kropotkin. The Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 22: 149.

12. *Leo Tolstoi. The Slavery of Our Times.

13. Elissee Reclus. Anarchy. Contemporary Review. 14: 627.

14. Josiah Warren. Equitable Commerce.

15. Josiah Warren. True Civilization as Immediate Necessity.

B. Exaggerated Individualism. There should be no restraint either moral or legal, upon the strong whose “right” to govern and exploit the weak is the only natural or divine right there is. Nature abhors weakness and it is the mission of the strong to exterminate the weak, to the end that weakness may cease to exist and that strength alone may survive. Moral and legal codes are the inventions of the weak to protect themselves from the strong in order that weakness may fill the world with its own spawn.

1. *Max Stirner (pseudonym for Kaskar Schmidt). Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum.

2.   Friederich Nietzsche. Also sprach Zarathustra.

3.   Friederich Nietzsche. Jenseits von Gut and Böse.

4.   James G. Huneker. Egoists: A Book of Supermen.

II. EMOTIONAL. A mere explosive protest against all forms of authority, particularly against the police power and other visible manifestations of authority.

1. Mikhail Bakunin. Dieu et l’Etat.

2. Emma Goldman. Anarchism and other Essays.

3. Paul Eltzbacher. Anarchism.

4. R. Hunter and R. Wiles. Violence and the Labor Movement.

5. H. Krouse. The Anarchist Constitution.

6. John H. Mackay. The Anarchists; a picture of civilization at the close of the 19th century.

7. A. R. Parsons. Anarchism; its philosophy and scientific basis as defined by some of its apostles.

8. B. R. Tucker. Anarchism; the attitude of anarchism toward industrial combinations.

9. United States Department of Justice. Transmission through the Mails of Anarchistic publications. Message from the President. Washington. 1908.

 

THE SINGLE TAX

All public revenues shall be raised from a single tax on land values.

1. *Henry George. Progress and Poverty.

2.   Henry George. Our Land and Land Policy.

3.   Alfred Russell Wallace. Land Nationalization.

4.   Thomas G. Shearman. Natural Taxation.

5.   Louis F. Post. The Single Tax.

6.   C. B. Fillebrown. A Single Tax Catechism.

_______________________

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 1. Folder: 1919-1920.

Image Source: Harvard Album 1915.

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Economists Harvard Transcript

Harvard. Graduate Course Record. Thomas Schelling, 1946-49

Included in the materials from the 1949-50 hiring search for someone to teach in Columbia College was a mimeographed fact-sheet/transcript for 28 year old Thomas Schelling together with a departmental statement provided by the Chairman of the Harvard Department of Economics, Harold Burbank. I think we can be pretty sure that both items were attached to a letter Burbank sent to Angell dated December 14, 1949 in which Tobin and Schelling were discussed with supporting data (cf. Appendix C in the Hiring Committee’s Report of January 9, 1950 that clearly provides information on Tobin from the same letter).

Interesting to note perhaps is (i) the future Nobel laureate did not get short-listed by the search committee and (ii) “his interest is mainly in the national income, fiscal policy approach” might have been a contemporary euphemism or dog-whistle for “Keynesian economist”.

In any event, I am delighted whenever I find the complete graduate course records of Ph.D.’s. I have filled in the names of the instructors for the respective courses based on the Harvard President’s Reports.

____________________

Thomas Crombie Schelling

Address: Program Division, ECA-OSR [Economic Cooperation Administration, Office of the Special Representative (Administration of the Marshall Plan)], 2 Rue Saint Florentin, Paris, France

Born: April 14, 1921, U.S.

Married: Yes

Degrees:

A.B., 1944, University of California (Highest honors)

A.M., 1948, Harvard University

Experience:

1941-43         American Embassy, Santiago, Chile

1945-46         U. S. Bureau of Budget, Fiscal Division

1946-48         Teaching Fellow, Harvard

1948               Elected to Society of Fellows, resigned September, 1949

1948-              ECA, Copenhagen Paris

 

Courses:

Summer 1946

Ec. 201 (Reading)                 Satis.

Fall 1946-47

Ec. 103a (Adv. theory [Schumpeter])         A+

Ec. 104b (Math. Ec. [Leontief])                    A+

Ec. 148a (Int. Tr. Sem. [sic, 148a was Fiscal Policy Seminar with Williams and Hansen])        A-

Spring 1946-47

Ec. 103b (Adv. Theory [Schumpeter]))      A+

Ec. 121b (Statistics [Frickey]))                     A-

Ec 148b (Int. Tr. Sem. [sic, 148a was Fiscal Policy Seminar with Williams and Hansen]))       A-

Summer 1947

Ec. 201 (Reading)     Satis.

Fall 1947-48

Ec. 102a (Adv. Theory [Leontief])   A+

Ec. 133a (History [Usher])               A-

Ec. 161a (Ind. Org. [Alexander and Crum])           A+

Spring 1947-48

Ec. 102b (Adv. Theory [Leontief])   Exc.

Ec. 133b (Ec. History[Usher])          A

Ec. 162b (Ind. Org. [Mason])           Exc.

Fields of study: Economic Theory, Industrial Organization, Money and Banking, Statistics, write-off, Economic History; special field, Business Cycles

Generals: Passed April 7, 1948 with a grade of Excellent Minus

____________________

[Supporting Statement
by Chairman of the Harvard Economics Department,
14 Dec. 1949(?)]

Schelling came to us immediately after the war with a quite extraordinary record in his undergraduate work at Berkeley and an outstanding war accomplishment in the Bureau of the Budget. His intellectual work with us was of the highest order, so high indeed that he was recommended for the Society of Fellows and accepted by them. However, Schelling saw fit to accept a position with the E.C.A. and at the end of the first year elected to stay with that organization even at the expense of resigning his fellowship. I have not heard from him directly but I understand that he intends to take his degree this spring and will be available.

The members of the staff most familiar with Schelling’s work—Hansen, Harris, and Smithies—regard him as one of the very top students we have had at least in the last ten years. I believe those mentioned will recommend him without qualification. It is true that his interest is mainly in the national income, fiscal policy approach, which I believe is one of the areas in which you are least interested, but he certainly is capable of working in theory and perhaps in other areas as well.

Very sincerely,

[signed]

H. H. Burbank

 

Professor James W. Angell
Columbia University
New York 27, New York

____________________

Source: Department of Economics Collection, Columbia University Archive. Box 6, Folder: “Columbia College”.

Image Source: Harvard Kennedy School Magazine, Summer 2012.

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Bibliography Courses Exam Questions Harvard Syllabus

Harvard. Economic Theory II, Econ 202. Leontief, 1948-49

In a previous posting I provided the reading lists for the two term graduate course “Economic Theory I” , Economics 201, taught by Edward Chamberlin in 1947-48. “Economic Theory II”, Economics 202a and 202b, was taught by Wassily Leontief. Presuming a student who took both courses would have done this in consecutive years, I provide the course outlines, reading lists and the exam questions (only for Economics 202a) for the year 1948-49.

Leontief apparently did not get around to covering Part IV of Economics 202a in the Fall Term, since the entire section can be seen repeated for the first topic of the Spring term.

Besides Chamberlin’s course Economics 201 just mentioned. It is interesting to compare Leontief’s course with  that of Lloyd Metzler  and that of Milton Friedman at Chicago also in the same year.

__________________________

Economics 202a
Fall Term 1948-49

Economics 202a will cover the Theory of a Firm, the Theory of Individual Demand, Theory of Market Relationships, and introduce the basic concepts of the General Equilibrium Theory. 202b, as given in the Spring Term, will cover the Theory of Distribution (wages, capital and interest), profits), the Theory of General Equilibrium (Keynes), and introduce the basic concept of Welfare Economics and Economic Dynamics.

I.     Theory of a Firm

Costs; total, average, marginal.
Theory of the multiple plant firm.
Revenue; total, average, marginal.
Long and short run analysis
Supply under competitive and monopolistic conditions.
Production function, marginal productivity, increasing and decreasing returns.
Joint products.
Demand for factors of production.
Discontinuous relationships and non-marginal analysis.
Internal and external economies.
New invention and technological change.

Reading assignments:

Oscar Lange, “The Scope and Method of Economics,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. XIII, (i), 1945-46, pp. 19-32.

E. A. G. Robinson, Structure of Competitive Industry, Chs. II, VII, VIII, pp. 14-35, 107-133.

Boulding, Economic Analysis, Part II, Chs. 18-26, pp. 375-595 (New edition: Chs. 20-26, pp. 419-552; Chs. 31, 32, pp. 669-733).

I. Fisher, “A Three-Dimensional Representation of the Factors of Production and Their Remuneration Marginally and Residually,” Econometrica, October, 1939.

George Stigler, “Production and Distribution in the Short Run,” Journal of Political Economy, 1939, pp. 305-327. Reprinted in Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution, pp. 119-142.

Joe S. Bain, The Economics of the Pacific Coast Petroleum Industry, Part I, Ch. V, pp. 84-114.

Lerner, Economics of Control, Chs. 15, 16, 17, pp. 174-211.

Chamberlin, “Proportionality, Divisibility, and Economies of Scale,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1948, pp. 229-262.

National Bureau of Economic Research, Cost Behavior and Price Policy, Ch. VII, pp. 142-169; Appendix C, pp. 321-329.

 

II.    Theory of the Household:

Theory of utility and indifference lines analysis.
Individual demand, prices and income.
Dependent and independent, competing and complementary, superior and inferior goods.
Measurability of utility.
“Marginal utility of money.”
Consumer surplus.
Interpersonal interdependence in consumers’ behavior.
Economic theory of index numbers.

Reading assignments:

Hicks, Value and Capital, Part I, Chs. I-III, pp. 1-54.

Boulding, Economic Analysis, Chs. 29, 30; pp. 636-685. (New edition, Chs. 33, 34; pp. 734-759).

 

III. Theory of Market Relationships:

Pure competition; individual and market supply and demand curves.
Stability of market equilibrium, statics and dynamics.
Monopoly and price discrimination.
Monopolistic competition.
Duopoly, oligopoly, bilateral monopoly, etc.
“Theory of games.”

Reading assignments:

Marshall, Principles of Political Economy [sic], Book V, Chs. III, V.

Chamberlin, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Chs. II, III, IV, and V.

Joan Robinson, The Economics of Imperfect Competition, Chs. 15 and 16.

Robert Triffin, Monopolistic Competition and the General Equilibrium Theory, Chs. I and II.

W. H. Nicholls, Imperfect Competition within Agricultural Industries, Ch. 18.

One of the following three articles:

Leonid Hurwicz, “The Theory of Economic Behavior,” American Economic Review, December, 1945, pp. 909-925.

Carl Kaysen, “A Revolution in Economic Theory?” The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. XIV (I), 1946-47, p. 1-15.

Jakob Marschak, “Theory of Games,” Journal of Political Economy, April, 1946, pp. 97-115.

 

IV.  Basic concepts of a general equilibrium theory:

Data and variables.
Price system and general interdependence.
Linear model of a general equilibrium system.

Reading assignments:

Lange, The Economic Theory of Socialism, pp. 65-72.

Cassel, The Theory of Social Economy, Vol. I, Ch. IV, pp. 134-155.

E. H. Phelps Brown, Framework of the Pricing System, in particular chapters dealing with general equilibrium theory.

___________________________

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
Reading Period Assignments
January 3—January 19, 1949

[…]

Economics 202: Howard S. Ellis, Editor, A Survey of Contemporary Economics, 1948, Ch. 1, Value and Distribution, by Bernard F. Haley; and Frank H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, Ch. III to X, incl.

[…]

___________________________

 

1948-49

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 202a
[Final Exam, first term]

Please write legibly

Answer four questions:

  1. Taking into account considerations suggested by Stigler in his article on “Production and Distribution in the Short Run,” describe the determination of the optimum investment in fixed equipment for a plant faced with a regular seasonal variation in output.
    Give an illustrative example.
  2. Given information about (a) changing factor prices, and (b) changing factor combinations used by an individual enterprise (operating under competitive conditions) over a certain period of time—
    explain under what conditions this information might definitely indicate the presence of genuine technological change as contrasted with passive adjustment to variable market conditions.
  3. Under what conditions could one measure the utility of alternative combinations of commodities consumed by an individual household?
    Describe in detail the process of measurement in the case where these conditions are satisfied.
  4. “A market characterized by duopolistic indeterminism can be stabilized through establishment of an official price ceiling enforced by some outside authority.” Comment.
  5. State what significant difference do you see between the theory of an individual firm as presented in Knight’s “Risk, Uncertainty and Profits” and the treatment of the same subject in the most recent literature as presented in Haley’s article on value and distribution in the “Survey of Contemporary Economics.”

Final. January, 1949.

___________________________

Economics 202b
Spring Term, 1949

Part I: General Equilibrium Theory and the Economics of Welfare

a.   Basic Concepts of a General Equilibrium Theory:

Data and variables. Price System and general interdependence. Linear model of a general equilibrium system.

Reading:

Lange, The Economic Theory of Socialism, pp. 65-72.

Cassel, The Theory of Social Economy, Vol. I, Ch. IV, pp. 134-155.

E. H. Phelps Brown, Framework of the Pricing System, in particular chapters dealing with general equilibrium theory.

Schultz, T. W.: Agriculture in an Unstable Economy, Ch. I, pp. 24-43, Ch. IV, pp. 134-153.

 

b. Economics of Welfare

Individual maximum and social welfare. Efficiency and distributive justice. Efficiency of the purely competitive system. Monopoly and economic welfare. External economies. Pricing and allocation for public enterprise.

Reading:

Hicks, J. R. : “The Foundation of Welfare Economics,” Economic Journal, December 1939, pp. 696-712.

Meade and Hitch: An Introduction to Economic Analysis and Policy, Part II, Chs. VI-VII, pp. 159-220.

Meade, J. E., and Fleming, J. M.: Price and Output Policy of State Enterprise,” Economic Journal, Vol. LIV, December 1944, pp. 321-339.

Coase, R. H.: “Note on Price and Output Policy,” Economic Journal, Vol. LV, April 1945, pp. 112-113.

 

Part II: The Theory of Distribution

 

[a. The Theory of Wages. Omitted this year.]

Demands for labor and methods of remuneration. Short run supply of labor, money and real wages. Theory of noncompetitive labor markets. Technological unemployment. Long run supply of labor and the theory of optimum population.

Reading:

Douglas, P. M.: The Theory of Wages, Ch. I, pp. 3-17; Ch. III, pp. 68-96.

Robinson, G. B. H.: Economic Fragments, “Wage Grumbles,” pp. 42-57, also reprinted in Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution.

Marx, Karl: Capital, Vol. I, Part IV, Ch. XV, pp. 405-422, 466-488.

Robbins, L.: “On the Elasticity of Demand for Income in Terms of Effort,” Economica, Vol. X, 1930, pp. 123-129.

 

b. Theory of Interest

Productivity of Capital. Expectations, risk, and uncertainty. Inventory speculation. Interest as cost and the demand for capital. Saving and the supply of capital. Monetary theory of interest. Theory of assets.

Reading:

Irving Fisher: The Theory of Interest, Chs. VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XVI, XVII, and XVIII. 1930.

Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution (Blakiston, 1946)

F. Knight: “Capital and Interest,” pp. 384-417.

Keynes: “The Theory of the Rate of Interest,” pp. 418-424.

D. H. Robertson: “Mr. Keynes and the Rate of Interest,” pp. 425-460.

 

[c. Theory of Profits and of Rent. Omitted this year.]

Theory of residual income. Entrepreneurial function. “Normal Profits.”

Reading:

Beddy, James: Profits, Ch. X, “An Explanation of Profits,” pp. 216-266.

Crum, W. L: “Corporate Earnings on Invested Capital,” Harvard Business Review, XVI, 1938, pp. 336-350.

Kaldor, N.: “The Equilibrium of the Firm,” The Economic Journal, March 1934, pp. 60-76.

Robinson, Joan: Economics of Imperfect Competition, Ch. 8.

 

Part III: Capital and Economic Development

a. Capital and Income

National wealth: Stock and flow concepts. Dollar measures and physical measures. Capital and income. Capital in production. Depreciation and obsolescence. Period of production and the speed of turnover. The time shape of production and consumption process.

Reading:

Kuznets: “On Measurement of National Wealth,” Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 2, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1936, pp. 3-61.

Rae, John: New Principles of Political Economy, 1834, Chs. I-V.

Irving Fisher: Nature of Capital and Income, Chs. I, IV, V, XIV, XVII, Macmillan, 1906.

Kaldor: “Annual Survey of Economic Theory: The Recent Controversy on The Theory of Capital,” Econometrica, July 1937, pp. 201-233.

 

b. Economic Development and Accumulation of Capital

Statics and Dynamics. The general problem of economic growth. Saving, Investment and the growth of income. Acceleration principle. Technical change. Accumulation and employment.

Reading:

Bresciani-Turoni: “The Theory of Saving,” Economica; Part I, February 1936, pp. 1-23; Part II, May 1936, pp. 162-181.

Domar: Expansion and Employment,” American Economic Review, March 1947, pp. 34-55.

Schelling: “Capital Growth and Equilibrium,” American Economic Review, December 1947, pp. 864-876.

Harrod: “An Essay in Dynamic Theory,” Economic Journal, March 1939, pp. 14-33.

Pigou: Economic Progress in a Stable Economy,” Economica, August 1947, pp. 180-188.

Stern: “Capital Requirements in Progressive Economies,” Economica, August 1945, pp. 163-171.

A. Sweezy: “Secular Stagnation?” in Harris, Postwar Economic Problems, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1943, pp. 67-82.

Hansen: “Economic Progress and Declining Population Growth,” American Economic Review, March 1939, pp. 1-15.

 

Part IV: Keynesian Theory and Problems

a. Over-all outlines of the General Theory. Wage and price “stickiness.” Demand for money. Saving and “oversaving.” Multiplier principle.

Reading:

Lerner, A. P.: The Economics of Control, Chs. 21, 22, and 25.

Keynes, J. M.: General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Chs. 1, 2, 8, and 18.

Haberler, G.: Prosperity and Depression, Ch. 8.

 

Reading Period:

Schumpeter: Theory of Economic Development, Harvard University Press, 1936.

OR

Harrod, R. F.: Towards a Dynamic Economics, Macmillan, 1948.

___________________________

Sources:

Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1 Box 4, Folder: “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1948-1949 (2 of 2)

Wassily Leontief Papers, Harvard University Archives. HUG 4517.45, Box 2, Folder “Fall to Winter—202a ‘48-‘49”.

Image Source:  Harvard Album, 1949.

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Courses Harvard

Harvard. Economic Theory I. Chamberlin, 1947-48

The 1947 requirements for Ph.D. students are vague with respect to the precise courses that would adequately prepare candidates for their core theory examinations. At that time Economic Theory I (course number changed from 101 to 201 in 1948) was taught by Edward Chamberlin and Economic Theory II (course number changed from 102 to 202 in 1948) by Wassily Leontief. While I suppose there would have been graduate students with sufficient preparation who could have taken both the MW(F) course by Chamberlin and the TTh(S) course offered by Leontief (both at noon) simultaneously, I could easily imagine these courses would have been taken in sequence over two years by typical students. Thus this posting gives the reading list for Economics 101 with Chamberlin for 1947-48 and the next posting will be for Economics 202 with Leontief for 1948-49.

A comparison with Chamberlin’s reading list from a decade earlier reveals a modest streamlining of his course with the only major change being the addition of Welfare Economics to the end of the second semester.

From the Harvard archives’ collection of final examination papers, I was able to transcribe the questions from the final examinations in both Economics 101a and 101b for the 1947-48 academic year.

Bibliographic note: I have added the explicit titles of readings only identified by number in Chamberlin’s reading list from a published collection of reprinted essays and papers edited by Frank E. Norton. The title Explorations in economics refers to Explorations in economics: Notes and essays contributed in honor of F. W. Taussig published by McGraw-Hill in 1936.

__________________________

Economics 101a
Fall, 1947

 

I.  Brief Survey of Markets; Demand and Supply

Boulding, Economic Analysis, Chapters 1-5; pp. 177-9.

Marshall, Principles, Book V, chapters 1, 2.

Chamberlin, Monopolistic Competition, Chapter 2.

Mill, Principles, Book III, Chapter 2.

 

II. Cost vs. Utility, and the Marshallian Synthesis

Mill, Principles, Book III, Chapters 3, 5.

Boehm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital, Books III, IV.

Marshall, Principles, Appendix I; Book V, chapters 3-5; Book IV, Chapter 13; Book V, Chapters 8, 9, Appendix H.

Boulding, Economic Analysis, Chapter 7.

Suggested:

Ricardo, Political Economy, Chapter 1.

Mill, Book III, Chapters 1, 4, 6.

Jevons, Theory of Political Economy, Chapters 3, 4.

Marshall, Book III and remainder of Book V

Keynes – “Alfred Marshall,” Economic Journal, September 1924. (Also in Keynes, Essays in Biography.)

 

III.  Further Analysis of the Production and Consumption Functions; Indifference Curves

Boulding, Chapters 22, 23, 29, 30 (omit pp. 669-676).

Monopolistic Competition, Appendix B.

Suggested:

Hicks, Value and Capital, Chapters 1-3.

 

IV.  Monopoly and Monopolistic Competition

Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, Chapter 2.

Chamberlin, Monopolistic Competition, Chapters 1-7 (to page 149); Appendix C.

Alsberg, C. L., “Economic Aspects of Adulteration and Imitation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1931.

Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chapter 15, Sections 1-4.

Suggested:

Monopolistic Competition, Chapter 9.

Burns, A.R., The Decline of Competition, Chapter 8, “Non-Price Competition”.

Robinson, Imperfect Competition, balance of chapters 15, 16.

Pigou, Economics of Welfare, Chapters on “Price Discrimination” and “The Special Problem of Railway Rates.”

__________________________

Economics 101b
Spring Term, 1947-48
Economic Theory — Professor Chamberlin

I.   Selling Costs; Discrimination:

Monopolistic Competition, Chs. 6, 7 (to page 149)

Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, Chapters 15, Sections 1-4.

Suggested:

1.  Monopolistic Competition, balance of Ch. 7.

2.  Robinson, Imperfect Competition, balance of 15, 16.

3.  Pigou, Economics of Welfare, Chs. on “Discriminating Monopoly,” and “The Special Problem of Railway Rates.”

 

II.  Distribution — General; Wages

Boulding, Economic Analysis, Ch. 11; Review 22, 23.

Marshall, Principles, Book VI, Chapters 1-2.

Hicks, Theory of Wages, Chs. 1-4.

Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution, 8, 12.

[Norton, Frank E. (ed.). Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution. Philadelphia and Toronto: Blakiston Company, 1946.   8. Machlup, Fritz (1936). “On the meaning of the marginal product” in Explorations in Economics. 9. Robertson, Dennis H. (1931). “Wage-grumbles” in Economic Fragments.]

Monopolistic Competition, Ch. 8; pp. 215-18 (5th ed.).

Hicks, Chs. 6, 5.

Marshall, Book VI, Chs. 3-5.

Taussig, Principles, 4th ed., Ch. 52 (or 3rd revised ed., Ch. 47).

Mill, Principles, Book V, Ch. 10, Section 5.

Taussig, 4th ed., Vol. II, Ch. 59, Sections 1, 2, 7.

Hicks, Ch. 7, pp. 179-185.

Readings, 19

[19. Dunlop, John T. (1942). “Wage policies of trade unions,” American Economic Review.

Suggested:

1. Readings, 1-5.

[1. Kuznets, Simon S. (1933), “National income,” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences.
2. Gilbert, Milton and Jaszi, George (1944). “National product and income statistics as an aid in economic problems,” Dun’s Review.
3. Clark, John Maurice (1931). “Distribution” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences.
4. Bowman, Mary Jean (1945). “A graphical analysis of personal income distribution in the United States,” American Economic Review.
5. Cassels, John M. (1936). “On the law of variable proportions” in Explorations in Economics.]

2. Douglas, Theory of Wages, Chs. 1-3.

3. J. B. Clark, Distribution of Wealth, Chs. 7, 8.

4. Simonds, “Some Reflections on Syndicalism,” J.P.E., 1944.]

 

III. Interest:

Böhm–Bawerk, Positive Theory, Book I, Ch. 2; Book II, Book V.

Marshall, Principles, Book IV, Ch. 7; Book VI, Ch. 6.

Wicksell, Lectures, Vol. I, pp. 144-171,185-195, 207-218.

Clark, J. B., Distribution of Wealth, Chs. 9, 20.

Recommended: Fisher, I., Theory of Interest, Chs. 5, 6.
Readings, 20, 21

[20. Hayek, Friedrich A. von (1935-36). “The mythology of capital,” Quarterly Journal of Economics.
21. Knight, Frank H. (1946). “Capital and interest” in Encyclopaedia Brittanica.]

 

IV. Rent:

Ricardo, Ch. 2.

Marshall, Book V, Chs. 8-11.

Robinson, J., Economics of Imperfect Competition, Ch. 8.

 

V. Profits:

Marshall, Book VI, Ch. 5, Section 7; Chs. 7, 8.

Taussig, Principles, (4th ed.), Vol. II, chapter 49, section 1 (3rd revised ed., Ch. 50, Section 1)

Henderson, Supply & Demand, Ch. 7.

Readings, 29.

[29. Gordon, Robert A. (1936). “Enterprise, profits and the modern corporation” in Explorations in Economics.]

Monopolistic Competition, Ch. 5, Sec. 6; Ch. 7, Sec. 6; Appendices D, E.

Schumpeter, Theory of Economic Development, Chs. 1-4.

Suggested:

Readings, 27.

[27. Knight, Frank H. (1934). “Profit” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences.]

 

VI. Welfare Economics:

Pigou, Economics of Welfare, Part I, Ch. 1.

Lerner, Economics of Control, Chs. 1-7, 9.

Meade and Hitch (or Meade), Economic Analysis and Policy, Part II, Ch. 6.

Robbins, L., “Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility: A Comment,” Economic Journal, December, 1938.

Hicks, “The Foundations of Welfare Economics,” Economic Journal, December, 1939.

Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Chs. 16, 17.

Suggested:

1. Lerner, Economics of Control, further chapters.

2. Pigou, Economics of Welfare, Part I; Part II, Chs. 1-11.

3. Lange, O., “The Scope and Method of Economics,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. XIII (1).

4. de Scitovsky, T. “A Note on Welfare Propositions in Economics,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. IX (1).

 5. Baumol, W. J., “Community Indifference,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. XIV (1).

6. Schelling, T. C., “On the Formulation of Welfare Propositions,” (Manuscript at desk in Littauer Library).

__________________________

Source: Harvard University Archives, Syllabi, course outlines and Reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1). Box 2, Folder: Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1947-48.

Image Source: Harvard Album, 1946.