Category: Princeton

Categories
Princeton Suggested Reading Syllabus

Princeton. Reading assignments. Graduate International Trade. F.D. Graham and C.R. Whittelsey, 1930-34

 

For this post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has transcribed the reading assignments for Princeton’s graduate course “International Trade Theory” for the academic years 1930-31 (F. D. Graham), 1931-32 (C. R. Whittlesey), and 1933-34 (F. D. Graham). The typed lists come from Frank W. Fetter’s papers at the Economists’ Papers Archive of Duke University and are found in a folder along with Fetter’s handwritten notes for the course in 1932-33 that was taught by Graham.

Frank W. Fetter and C. R. Whittlesey co-taught the companion course, Economics 526 “International Economic Policies” during the second semester of 1933-34.

____________________

Graduate Course in International Trade.
Assignments, 1930-31
F. D. Graham

Bastable: Theory of Foreign Trade.

Mun: Englands Treasure by Forraign Trade.
A. Smith: Book II, Ch. 5; Bk. IV, Chs. 1, 2, 3.

Ricardo: Chs. 17, 19, 22.
Mill: Chs. 17, 18, 19, 21.

Cairnes: Part III, 1, 2, 3, 5.
Graham: QJE 1924, Theory of International Values Reexamined

Marshall: Money, Credit and Commerce, Bk III.
Taussig: International Trade.

Graham: QJE, Some Aspects of Protection.
Knight: Criticism of Graham and reply, QJE.

Marshall: Appendix.
Pigou: Protective and Pref. Import Duties.
Dietzel: Retaliatory Duties, Omit Ch. III.

Angell: Theory of International Prices, to p. 199.

Patten: Economic Basis of Protection.
Angell: Theory of International Values, Continental Th. Hist.

Taussig: Readings in International Trade—Wagner, Schuller International Trade, chs. 11, 12, 13.
Viner: Dumping, first (theoret.) part
Graham: Review of Dumping.

Viner: Canada’s Balance of International Indebtedness (omit techni. Part)
Taussig: Int. Trade Under Deprec. Paper, QJE 1917
Graham: Do QJE 1922

Goschen: Foreign Exchange
Cassel: Money & Foreign Exchange. P.P.P. notion
Graham: Self-limiting and Self-inflammatory movements QJE 1929
Germany’s Capacity to Pay. AER June 1925

Pigou: Some Problems of Foreign Exchange, Econ. J. 1920.
League of Nations Papers: Brussels Fin. Conf., entitled “Exchange Control”

Graham: The Young Plan, Alumni Weekly
_______: Exchange, Prices, and Production (omit Part III)

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Frank Whitson Fetter Papers, Box 55, Folder “Teaching. Ec-International Trade Theory (Princeton University) Assignments, Syllabi, notes, 1930-1934”.

____________________

Graduate Course in International Trade.
Assignments, 1931-32
C. R. Whittlesey

Mun: England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade.
A. Smith: Wealth of Nations, Book II-5; Bk. IV-1, 2, 3.

Ricardo: Chs. 17, 19, 22.
Mill: Bk. III, chs. 17, 18, 19, 21.
Cairnes: Part III, chs. 1, 2, 3.

Nassau Senior: On the Cost of Obtaining Gold, 35 pp.
Bastable: Theory of Foreign Trade.

Taussig: International Trade.
Marshall: Money, Credit and Commerce, Bk III.

Graham: Theory of International Values Reexamined, Q.J.E., Nov. 1923.
C.R.W.: Foreign Investment & Terms of Interchange.
Williams, J.H.: The Theory of International Trade Reconsidered. Economic Journal, June 1929, pp. 195-209.

Whittlesey: Article on Stevenson Plan.
Patten: Economic Basis of Protection.
Graham: Some Aspects of Protection Further Considered. Q.J.E. Feb. 1923
Knight: Criticism. Q.J.E. August 1924.
Graham: Reply and Rejoinder. Feb. 1925
Broster, E.J. Proposal for a Scientific Tariff. Econ. Journ. June 1931, 313-16.

Wagner: Agrarian vs. Mfg. State in Taussig: Readings (ch. 13)
Brentano: Terrors of Industrial State in Taussig: Readings (ch. 15)
Dietzel: Retaliatory Duties (whole book)
Pigou: Protective and Preferential Duties.

Viner: Dumping. (Theoretical part) pp.
Graham: Review. June 1924, A.E.R., pp. 321-4

Keynes: Treatise on Money, last ch. Of Vol I
Taussig: Trade Under Depreciated Paper, Q.J.E., May 1917, pp. 380
Graham: Trade Under Depreciated Paper, Q.J.E., Feb. 1922, pp. 220-73
Zapoleon: International & Domestic Commodities and the Theory of Prices, Q.J.E. May 1931, pp. 409-59.
Viner: Canada’s Balance of International Indebtedness. Introduction and Part II.
Graham: Classical Economists and Theory of International Trade.

Viner: Canada’s Balance of International Indebtedness. Introduction and Part II.
Goschen: Foreign Exchange.
Graham: Hyper-Inflation, pp. 97-99; 113-49.
Cassel: Money and Foreign Exchange After 1914. pp. 137-202.
Graham: Germany’s Capacity to Pay and the Reparation Plan. A.E.R. June 1925.

N. Senior: On the Transmission of the Precious Metals.
Pigou: Some Problems of Foreign Exchange, Econ. Jour., Dec. 1920, pp. 460-72.
Thomas: Government Control of Foreign Exchange Abroad. Annalist, 11-27-31, pp. 869-71.
League of Nations: Exchange Control (Brussels Finance Conf.)
Baster, A.S., Jr.: A note on Australian Exchange. Econ. Jour., Sept. 1930, pp. 466-71.

Graham: Hyper-Inflation (all the rest)

Angell: Theory of International Prices.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Frank Whitson Fetter Papers, Box 55, Folder “Teaching. Ec-International Trade Theory (Princeton University) Assignments, Syllabi, notes, 1930-1934”.

____________________

List of Readings in International Trade Theory.
1933-34
[F. D. Graham’s Course, Princeton]

Comparative Costs and International Values.

Mun: England’s Treasure by Foreign Trade.
Cantillon: Essai sur la nature In commerce in general
Smith: Wealth of Nations, Book II, ch. 5; Bk. IV, ch. 1, 2, 3.
Ricardo: Principles, chs. 17, 19, 22.
Mill: Principles, Bk. III, chs. 17-22.
Senior: Cost of Obtaining Money
Cairnes: P.E. Part III.
Bastable: International Trade.
Graham: Theory of Int. Values Reex., Q.J.E., 1923.
______: Theory of Int. Values, Q.J.E., 1932.
Ohlin, Interregional and Int. Trade.
Angell, J.W. Theory of Int. Values: Selections
Taussig, F.W. International Trade.
Viner, J. Doctrine of Comparative Costs, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, Oct. 1932
Marshall: Money, Credit and Commerce, Bk III and Appendices, F, G, N, J.
Edgeworth: Pure Theory of Int. Values in Papers.

Monetary Mechanism

Senior: Distribution of Precious Metals.
Cairnes: The Australian Episode
Taussig: Int. Trade under Deprec. Paper, Q.J.E. 1917
Graham: Int. Trade under Deprec. Paper—the U.S., Q.J.E. 1922
______: Exchange, Prices and Prod. Selections
______: The Fall in the Value of Silver, etc. J.P.E. 1931
Viner, J. Canada’s Balance of Payments.
Goschen: Foreign Exchange.
Angell, J.W. Theory of Int. Prices.

Protection

Patten: Economic Basis of Protection
Taussig: Readings in Int. Trade: Schüller, etc.
Dietzel: Retaliatory Duties
Pigou: Protective and Preferential Import Duties.
Copland & others:
Graham: Protective Tariffs
______: Some Aspects of Protection Further Consid. Q.J.E. 1922

Special Problems

Viner: Dumping
Wallace & Edminster: Int. Control of Raw Materials

Foreign Investment

Whittlesey: Foreign Investment and Terms of Trade.
Wilson: Capital Exports and the Terms of Trade.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Frank Whitson Fetter Papers, Box 55, Folder “Teaching. Ec-International Trade Theory (Princeton University) Assignments, Syllabi, notes, 1930-1934”.

Image Sources: Princeton University yearbook Bric-A-Brac. Frank D. Graham (1942) and C. R. Whittlesey (1938).

Categories
Amherst Barnard Berkeley Brown Chicago Colorado Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Duke Harvard Illinois Indiana Iowa Johns Hopkins Kansas M.I.T. Michigan Michigan State Minnesota Missouri Nebraska North Carolina Northwestern NYU Ohio State Pennsylvania Princeton Radcliffe Rochester Stanford Swarthmore Texas Tufts UCLA Vassar Virginia Washington University Wellesley Williams Wisconsin Yale

U.S. Bureau of Education. Contributions to American Educational History, Herbert B. Adams (ed.), 1887-1903

 

I stumbled across this series while I was preparing the previous post on the political economy questions for the Harvard Examination for Women (1874). I figured it would be handy for me to keep a list of links to the monographs on the history of higher education in 35 of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Maybe this collection will help you too.

Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams

  1. The College of William and Mary. Herbert B. Adams (1887)
  2. Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. Herbert B. Adams (1888)
  3. History of Education in North Carolina. Charles L. Smith (1888)
  4. History of Higher Education in South Carolina. C. Meriwether (1889)
  5. Education in Georgia. Charles Edgeworth Jones (1889)
  6. Education in Florida. George Gary Bush (1889)
  7. Higher Education in Wisconsin. William F. Allen and David E. Spencer (1889)
  8. History of Education in Alabama. Willis G. Clark (1890).
  9. History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education. Frank W. Blackmar (1890)
  10. Higher Education in Indiana. James Albert Woodburn (1891).
  11. Higher Education in Michigan. Andrew C. McLaughlin. (1891)
  12. History of Higher Education in Ohio. George W. Knight and John R. Commons (1891)
  13. History of Higher Education in Massachusetts. George Gary Bush (1891)
  14. The History of Education in Connecticut. Bernard C. Steiner (1893)
  15. The History of Education in Delaware. Lyman P. Powell (1893)
  16. Higher Education in Tennessee. Lucius Salisbury Merriam (1893)
  17. Higher Education in Iowa. Leonard F. Parker (1893)
  18. History of Higher Education in Rhode Island. William Howe Tolman (1894)
  19. History of Education in Maryland. Bernard C. Steiner (1894).
  20. History of Education in Lousiana. Edwin Whitfield Fay (1898).
  21. Higher Education in Missouri. Marshall S. Snow (1898)
  22. History of Education in New Hampshire. George Gary Bush (1898)
  23. History of Education in New Jersey. David Murray (1899).
  24. History of Education in Mississippi. Edward Mayes (1899)
  25. History of Higher Education in Kentucky. Alvin Fayette Lewis (1899)
  26. History of Education in Arkansas. Josiah H. Shinn (1900)
  27. Higher Education in Kansas. Frank W. Blackmar (1900)
  28. The University of the State of New York. History of Higher Education in the State of New York. Sidney Sherwood (1900)
  29. History of Education in Vermont. George Gary Bush (1900)
  30. History of Education in West Virginia. A. R. Whitehill (1902)
  31. The History of Education in Minnesota. John N. Greer (1902)
  32. Education in Nebraska. Howard W. Caldwell (1902)
  33. A History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania. Charles H. Haskins and William I. Hull (1902)
  34. History of Higher Education in Colorado. James Edward Le Rossignol (1903)
  35. History of Higher Education in Texas. J. J. Lane (1903)
  36. History of Higher Education in Maine. Edward W. Hall (1903)

Image Source: Cropped from portrait of Herbert Baxter Adams ca. 1890s. Johns Hopkins University graphic and pictorial collection.

Categories
Cal Tech Columbia Fields M.I.T. Michigan Princeton Stanford

Columbia. Memo advocating the establishment of an Industrial Relations Section. Wolman, 1944

 

 

The following brief memo written by Leo Wolman was commissioned in 1943 by an informal committee to provide a case for establishing an Industrial Relations Institute at Columbia. Besides identifying the existing centers of industrial relations research and teaching in the U.S. and Canada, Wolman also points to the key role played by “C. J. Hicks, the dean of American industrial relations men, adviser to the Rockefellers on policies and problems in this field and, until his retirement some 15 years ago, the director of labor relations for the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey.”

_____________________

Leo Wolman, Biographical Note

1890, Feb. 24. Born, Baltimore, Md.
1914. Ph.D. in political economy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.
1916. Published The Boycott in American Trade Unions. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press
1918. Appointed head of section on production statistics, War Industries Board
1919. Attached to American peace mission, Paris, France
1919-1928. Member, faculty, New School for Social Research, New York, N.Y.
1920-1931. Director of research, Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union
1920-1934. Editor, Journal of American Statistics Association
circa 1925. Became freelance researcher for the National Bureau of Economic Research, formally joining the staff in 1931 and later becoming director-at-large for research. NBER publications by Leo Wolman.
1931-1958. Professor of economics, Columbia University, New York, N.Y.
1933. Appointed to staff of National Recovery Administration
1936. Published Ebb and Flow in American Trade Unionism. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research
1961, Oct. 2. Died, New York, N.Y.

Source: Library of Congress. Leo Wolman Papers. Biographical Note.

_____________________

COPY TO DR. FACKENTHAL

October 23, 1944

Dean George B. Pegram,
201 Low Memorial Library.

Dear Dean Pegram:

I enclose a copy of a statement prepared by Professor Wolman on “Industrial Relations Sections or Departments in American Universities”. This was prepared in compliance with the recommendation made by the informal committee that met last year to consider the possibility of our setting up an Industrial Relations Institute at Columbia. I have had some two dozen copies of this statement mimeographed. These will be available for distribution if you plan to call another meeting to explore this matter further.

Faithfully yours,

_____________________

Industrial Relations Sections or Departments

During the past 15 years, a number of American universities, and one Canadian, have organized sections or departments of industrial relations. The earliest of these was the Industrial Relations Section of Princeton University. Since 1930, similar sections have been established at the University of Michigan, Stanford, California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Queens University, Canada. These sections are integral parts of the graduate departments of the several institutions. The moving spirit in initiating and finding financial resources for the sections, already established, was C. J. Hicks, the dean of American industrial relations men, adviser to the Rockefellers on policies and problems in this field and, until his retirement some 15 years ago, the director of labor relations for the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey.

The purposes of this departure were several—to keep members of the faculty and students abreast of the very rapid developments in this important area of private and public policy, to make available to employers, managers, labor, and public officials comparative data as to practices, rules, procedures and policies, to enable students desiring to specialize in labor, labor relations and related subjects to observe and study the practical workings of industrial relations, to push forward the boundaries of knowledge through research, and to establish a closer relation between the scientific activities of universities and the problems of industry, labor, government, and the public. In carrying out these purposes, the various sections have built up libraries of current materials, have published studies dealing with current developments, such as the reemployment of veterans, or of historical importance, such as labor banking in the United States, have trained graduate students, and have held conferences, annual as a rule, for persons working in labor relations.

Depending on their location, age, and industrial environment, the sections now in operation have emphasized different practices. California Technology, operating in a region where large-scale industry is relatively new and personnel men are scarce, has devoted much of its time and resources to bringing to bear the knowledge and experience of other parts of the country on the problems and needs of Southern California. The Massachusetts Institute, operating in an area concerned with unemployment and industrial contraction, has concentrated on research in wages, labor mobility, unemployment, and the like. But all of the sections study, teach, and write about the large issues of private and public policy.

The funds for these enterprises come largely from business, usually in the form of annual contributions pledged for periods of 3 or 5 years. Occasionally a specific piece of research is financed by one of the Foundations but this source of funds has not been counted on for current expenses. Contributions by labor unions have been only a small fraction of total income, though they generally participate in the conferences, and make use of available materials.

There can be little question that the establishment of an industrial relations section at Columbia (associated with the faculties of Political Science and Business) would confer many benefits upon the University. It would make available to students in this field facilities, publications, and contacts with labor and industry which they now lack. It would open up for graduate students new opportunities for employment. It would make available to the university facilities and funds for research. It would create for interested numbers of the faculty, working in the related areas of labor economics, theory, public law, sociology, and labor law, the occasions for using the materials, experience, and problems of industry, labor, and government, not now available to them. It would enable the University to enlarge the range of its public service by serving some of the needs of the enormous and variegated industry, located in this city and the surrounding industrial area of New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York State.

The funds for such an undertaking are probably available in industry. At any rate the other universities had no difficulty raising money. What is needed at Columbia is endorsement of the idea by the faculty, administration, and trustees and the appointment of a small committee instructed to make the plans, raise the funds and find the man capable of directing a section of industrial relations at Columbia.

Leo Wolman

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Faculty. Box 2, Folder “Department of Economics—Faculty. Beginning Jan. 1, 1944”.

Image Source: Detail from a faculty group picture (early 1930’s). Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 9, Folder “Photos”.

Categories
Dartmouth Economists Germany Michigan Princeton Suggested Reading Syllabus

Princeton. Course readings for “Government and Business”. Frank Haigh Dixon, 1924-25

 

 

According to the Princeton catalogue for 1922/23, the undergraduate course Economics 407 “Corporations: Finance and Regulation” was taught by Professor Frank Haigh Dixon. The course was designated as a senior course that graduate students could attend with supplementary work and a weekly conference. Frank W. Fetter took Economics 407 (that appears to have had the title “Government and Business” during the first semester of the academic year 1924-25. In his papers at the Economists’ Papers Archive at Duke University, one finds 47 pages of lecture notes for this course taken by Fetter (in which clear references to Dixon as the lecturer are found) plus about 40 pages of notes he took on his reading assignments. 

This post is limited to providing links to the texts and the weekly reading assignments of Dixon’s course. The course outline is followed by a memorial faculty minute for Professor Frank Haigh Dixon that provides career and biographical information.

__________________

Princeton University, 1924-1925

Government and Business
Economics 407

Links to Course Texts

Gerstenberg, Charles W. Financial Organization and Management. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1924. [Revised in 1923, Second revised edition 1939, Fourth Revised Edition, 1959]

Jones, Eliot. The Trust Problem in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1921.

Ripley, William Z. (ed.). Trusts, Pools and Corporations, rev. ed. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1916.   [1905 edition]

Morgan, Charles Stillman. Regulation and the Management of Public Utilities. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, Riverside Press Cambridge, 1923. [Awarded second prize in Class A of the Hart, Schaffner & Marx competition]

Assignments

Sept. 26 Gerstenberg Ch. 4-7
Sept. 30 Gerstenberg Ch. 8-12
Oct. 6 Gerstenberg Ch. 13, 18, 19, 22
Oct. 13 Gerstenberg Ch. 27, 28, 29
Oct. 20 Gerstenberg Ch. 30, 31, 32
Oct. 27 Gerstenberg Finish book
Nov. 3 Jones

Ripley

 Ch. 1, 2, 3, 4, 19

old ed. pp. 244-249
rev. ed. pp. 465-470
Nov. 10 Jones

Ripley

 Ch. 13, 14

Ch. 1 and 2
Nov. 17 Jones

Ripley

 Ch. 5, 7

Ch 4 (rev.) or 5 (old)

8 (rev. only)
Nov. 24 Jones Ch. 6, 9, 10.
Dec. 1 Jones Ch. 17 & 18
Dec. 8 Jones

Ripley

 Ch. 8

Ch 18 (rev ed.) &

pp. 545-549 (rev. ed)
Dec. 15 Jones

Ripley

Morgan

 Ch. 15

Ch 19 (rev. ed.)

Ch. 1 & 2
Jan. 12 Morgan Ch. 3, 5
Jan. 19 Morgan Ch. 6, 7

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Frank Whitson Fetter Papers, Box: 49, Folder:  “Student Papers, Graduate Courses (Princeton University) EC 407 Government and Business Notes 1924-1925”.

__________________

Faculty Minute adopted March 6, 1944

FRANK HAIGH DIXON

The death, on January 27, 1944, of Frank Haigh Dixon, professor of economics, emeritus, closed a scholarly career of national distinction in his special field of transportation and public utilities. Professor Dixon was born in Winona, Minn., on October 8, 1869, the son of Alfred C. and Caroline A. D. Dixon. He pursued his collegiate studies at the University of Michigan until his attainment of the doctorate in 1895. This was followed by a year of study at the University of Berlin. Returning to Michigan, he served one year as an instructor in history before becoming an assistant professor of economics. At the University of Michigan he had the good fortune to have as his teacher and later as colleague that able economist and remarkable man, Henry Carter Adams, who at that time was organizing the uniform accountancy system of all the American railroads under the jurisdiction of the Interstate Commerce Commission. As a young economist Dixon was thus attracted to the subject of transportation, in which he wrote his doctoral thesis. Declining an invitation to go to Cornell University, he in 1898 accepted a call to an assistant professorship at Dartmouth College.

Professor Dixon’s record of academic and public services is outstanding. Following a visit to England in 1900 to get information, he largely prepared the plans for the establishment at Dartmouth of a graduate school of commerce and business, the Amos Tuck School of Administration and Finance, of which he became the first director. In 1903 he attained full professorial rank. Giving up the Tuck School position, he retained the chairmanship of the department of economics and at the time of his resignation to come to Princeton was recognized as one of the most influential leaders in the Dartmouth faculty.

Professor Dixon came to Princeton in 1919 with ripe scholarship, broad experience and outstanding ability as a lecturer and teacher of college classes, as was further evidenced at once by the large enrollments in his Princeton courses. His coming put Princeton in the first rank of American universities for the distinction of its graduate work in this field. His Alma Mater, Michigan, tried in vain to lure him away from us. His services as chairman of the department of economics and social institutions from 1922 to 1927, on various faculty committees, and particularly in the building up of the Pliny Fisk Collection of research material in the fields of railroad and corporation finance, were marked by clear vision, practical judgment, and unwavering loyalty to the best interests of the University as a whole. In 1938, having reached the age for retirement, he became professor emeritus.

From the first of his career Professor Dixon was very active professionally outside the classroom. In 1907-1908 he served as a consulting expert for the Interstate Commerce Commission and in the following year in a similar capacity for the National Waterways Commission. During the first world war he was a special expert for the U.S. Shipping Board and he was a member of the executive board of the New Hampshire Commission on Public Safety. From 1910 to 1918, without giving up his college work, he was chief statistician of the Bureau of Railway Economics at Washington. For a full half century he was a member of the American Economic Association, serving repeatedly on its executive committee, and in 1927 he was vice-president of the Association. His writings, which with few exceptions were on transportation, are too numerous to be listed here. One of the most notable items in his bibliography was his authoritative text published after his coming to Princeton, “Railroads and Government: their Relations in the United States, 1910-1921.”

In 1900 Professor Dixon married Alice L. Tucker, daughter of the Rev. William J. Tucker, then president of Dartmouth College. In coming to Princeton Professor and Mrs. Dixon left in Hanover many close professional and personal friends. In turn they quickly won in Princeton many others whose number and regard have grown with the passing years. We rejoice that Mrs. Dixon is keeping the family residence among us. To her and to her three children, William Tucker, Roger Colt, and Caroline Moorhouse Dixon, the faculty of Princeton University wishes to express its deep sympathy as well as the high appreciation of the large contributions which Frank Haigh Dixon made to this University community.

Frank A. Fetter
William S. Carpenter
Stanley E. Howard, Chairman

 

Source:  Princeton Alumni Weekly, Vol. 44 (April 28, 1922), p. 25.

Image Source: Frank Haigh Dixon faculty portrait Tuck School, Dartmouth College. Rauner Special Collections Library.

Categories
Economists Germany Harvard Johns Hopkins Michigan Princeton Swarthmore

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Richard Abel-Musgrave, 1937

 

The German-born economist Richard Abel-Musgrave was one of many German/Austrian educated economists who came to the United States in the 1930s, much to the enrichment of economics. He was one of the many truly outstanding economists to have left Harvard in the 1930s with an economics Ph.D. Richard Musgrave wrote a principal textbook for the field of public finance.  More biographical information can be found in Hans-Werner Sinn’s lecture “Please Bring Me the New York Times: On the European Roots of Richard Abel Musgrave” (2007).

A Musgrave-artifact posted earlier at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror: 

External examination questions for honors A.B. at Swarthmore College, 1946.

_____________________

Harvard Ph.D.

RICHARD ABEL-Musgrave, DIPLOM-VOLKSWIRT (Univ. of Heidelberg, Germany) 1933, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1935.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Public Finance. Thesis, “The Theory of Public Finance and the Concept of ‘Burden of Taxation.’” Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1937-38, p. 155.

_____________________

Short Bio from Harvard Law School Yearbook

Richard Musgrave
H. N. Burbank Professor of Political Economy

Born: Königstein, Germany, 1910; Education: Diplom Volkswirt (Economics) U. of Heidelberg 1930, M.A. (Economics) Harvard 1936, Ph.D. (Economics) Harvard 1937; Subsequent Experience; 1941-8 Economist on the Federal Reserve Board, 1948-58 Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, 1958-62 Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins, 1962-5 Professor of Economics at Princeton; Married: 1964 to the former Peggy Brewer, one child; Joined the Faculty; 1965; Subjects: Federal Tax Policy, Economics for Lawyers, Taxation and Economic Development; Publications: Fiscal Systems (1969), The Theory of Public Finance (1958), Public Finance in Theory and Practice (1974); Extra-legal Activites: Consultant to the U.S. Treasury, the Council of Economic Advisers, and Foreign Missions; President, Tax Reform Commission for Columbia (1969), director, Fiscal Reform Project, Bolivia; Editor Quarterly Journal of Economics. (1968-75), President, International Seminar in Public Economics.

Source: Harvard Law School Yearbook 1979, p. 63.

_____________________

Obituary from UC Santa Cruz

Musgrave, renowned pioneer of public finance, dies at 96

January 16, 2007
By Jennifer McNulty, Staff Writer

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Richard A. Musgrave, widely regarded as the founder of modern public finance and an adviser on fiscal policy and taxation to governments from Washington to Bogota to Tokyo, died Monday, Jan. 15.

Musgrave, 96, was an adjunct professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and professor emeritus of economics at Harvard University. His wife, Peggy Boswell [sic, “Brewer” was her maiden name] Musgrave, said Musgrave died of natural causes.

A staunch believer that government can play a positive and constructive role in society, Musgrave also believed deeply that economists can contribute to making government work well, thereby contributing to a better society. His work on public finance has been described as his “attempt to marry the theory and practice of good government.”

“Richard Musgrave transformed economics in the 1950s and 1960s from a descriptive and institutional subject to one that used the tools of microeconomics and Keynesian macroeconomics to understand the effects of taxes,” says Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard and president of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Richard Musgrave was a giant – a towering figure who transformed the field of public economics,” adds David M. Cutler, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics and dean for the social sciences in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

An academic economist for the last 60 years, Musgrave mixed his university work with a wide range of public service and consultation. Starting in the 1940s, he advised governments in Colombia, Chile, Myanmar, Japan, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and Taiwan on taxation and fiscal policy, and led tax reform commissions in Colombia and Bolivia.

Similarly, domestic agencies and congressional committees repeatedly sought Musgrave’s advice on public finance policy questions. He worked with or as a consultant to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the World Bank.

Musgrave described the setting of tax policy as a delicate orchestration of factors including employment, inflation, economic growth, and the fair distribution of the tax burden – with the latter generally assigned outsize importance, in Musgrave’s view.

“Clearly, tax policy is not simply a matter of raising revenue in an equitable fashion,” he and his wife, then an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in the Boston Globe in 1978. “The entire performance of the economy must be allowed for as well, though this should be done with least damage to the fairness of the tax system.”

Two of Musgrave’s books became classics in their field: The Theory of Public Finance: A Study in Public Economy (1958) and Public Finance in Theory and Practice, coauthored with Peggy Musgrave (1973).

“Intelligent conduct of government is at the heart of democracy,” Musgrave wrote in the introduction to The Theory of Public Finance. “It requires an understanding of the economic relations involved; and the economist, by aiding in this understanding, may hope to contribute to a better society. This is why the field of public finance has seemed of particular interest to me; and this is why my interest in the field has been motivated by a search for the good society, no less than by scientific curiosity.”

The Theory of Public Finance transformed the study of public finance to a discipline in which questions are analyzed in general equilibrium terms, where changes in tax policy take into account the resulting changes in the economy. Musgrave’s many intellectual contributions included studies on tax incidence, tax progressivity, public goods, fiscal federalism, the effects of taxation on risk taking, and the role of fiscal policy in stabilizing the economy.

Musgrave’s influence endured throughout his lengthy career. In 1998, he was invited by the University of Munich to join his “archrival” in the study of political economy, James M. Buchanan, in a five-day debate. The results were published in 1999 as Public Finance and Public Choice: Two Contrasting Visions of the State. [At the CESifo Mediathek one can find videos from this five day conference. Search “Two visions” or “Buchanan” or “Musgrave”]

“Two towering pillars of 20th-century public economics examine the deep foundations of their own thought and their common subject,” economist Robert M. Solow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote of the work. “Who could resist the chance to eavesdrop on their reflections? Certainly not anyone who cares about the role of government in modern society.”

Born Dec. 14, 1910, in Koenigstein, Germany, Richard Abel Musgrave studied at the University of Munich, Exeter College, and the University of Heidelberg, where he received his Diplom Volkswirt (the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree) in 1933. He continued his studies at the University of Rochester and at Harvard, where he received an A.M. degree in 1936 and a Ph.D. in 1937.

Musgrave was an instructor in economics at Harvard until 1941, when he became an economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, a position he held until 1947. He taught economics at Swarthmore College from 1947 to 1948, following which he was an economics professor at the University of Michigan from 1948 to 1958; at Johns Hopkins University from 1958 to 1961; and at Princeton University from 1962 to 1965.

In 1965 Musgrave joined Harvard as professor of economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and at Harvard Law School. He was named H. H. Burbank Professor of Economics in 1969, when he also became chair of Harvard’s standing committee on Afro-American studies. In 1981 he was named professor emeritus at Harvard and became an adjunct professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, remaining affiliated with that campus through 2004.

Among his numerous awards and honors, Musgrave was a Fulbright professor in Germany in 1956 and held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959. He was named honorary president of the International Institute of Public Finance in 1978, the same year he was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economics Association. He received the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy in 1981. In 1983, 50 years to the day after he received his Diplom Volkswirt, Musgrave was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Heidelberg, his alma mater. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986, and in 1994, he received the Daniel M. Holland Medal from the National Tax Association.

Musgrave is survived by his wife, Peggy Boswell [sic,  “Brewer” was her maiden name] Musgrave, and three stepchildren: Pamela Clyne of New Jersey, Roger Richmond [sic, “Richman” is correct] of California, and Thomas Richmond [sic, “Richman” is correct] of Colorado. He is also survived by numerous nephews and nieces, including Harry Krause, the Max L. Rowe Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois College of Law. Details regarding a memorial service have not been finalized.

Source:  UC Santa Cruz. University News. January 16, 2007.

_____________________

Harvard Crimson Obituary

Renowned Economist Musgrave Dead at 96
Former professor ‘transformed’ public sector economics

By Tina Wang, Crimson Staff Writer
January 19, 2007

During the lifetimes of most Harvard undergraduates, Richard A. Musgrave—a founder of modern public sector economics—was in retirement.

Musgrave, who died Monday at age 96, also came from an era preceding current economics faculty. But his ideas about the state’s role in the economy left a lasting impact felt by Harvard faculty and alums today.

Having taught public finance at Harvard for about two decades, Musgrave had been an emeritus professor since 1981.

“The training I received well after he had retired was different because he was around,” said Dean for the Social Sciences David M. Cutler ’87.

Concerned with the government’s equitable and efficient distribution and redistribution of resources through taxation and spending, “he transformed the whole way people thought about public economics,” said one of Musgrave’s former students, James M. Poterba ’80, who now chairs the economics department at MIT.

Born in 1910 in Germany, Musgrave, who received a Ph.D in political economy from Harvard, taught here from 1937 until 1941, when he left for a post at the Federal Reserve.

After various teaching stints, including at Princeton, Musgrave returned to Harvard in 1965 with tenured appointments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and at Harvard Law School.

He also took prominent economic advising roles in Washington, as well as with foreign governments, from Colombia to South Korea.

Musgrave died in Santa Cruz, Calif., where he and his wife had moved to teach at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

‘THE MUSGRAVE TRICHOTOMY’

In his senior year of college—and the last year Musgrave taught at Harvard—Poterba audited Musgrave’s graduate course, co-taught with Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein ’61.

“He didn’t just study the tax system or government policies in an abstract classroom, or in a theoretical way. He studied these questions because he believed they were incredibly important in making the lives of individual citizens better,” Poterba said.

The ground-breaking “Musgrave trichotomy” identified three separate roles of government—redistributing income, allocating resources, and stabilizing the macroeconomy, Cutler and Poterba said.

“Everything that’s taught in public economics now is completely different than what was taught from before,” said Cutler, who co-teaches Economics 1410, “Public Sector Economics.” “You look at textbooks before him and you wouldn’t even recognize them.”

Cutler said that when he teaches his students to think about questions of efficiency and redistribution in public sector economics separately, “all of that comes from Musgrave.”

“Generations of students who used his textbook [The Theory of Public Finance] think about the world very differently,” Cutler said.

Musgrave strove for much of his life to find ways for the state to play a positive role in the economy, which entailed understanding the trade-offs between allowing the government to provide some goods versus allowing the private sector to provide them.

As a student who came to Harvard in the mid-1930s during the Great Depression, when Keynesian views about the benefits of government intervention in the economy were starting to enter economic discourse, “Musgrave was always very deeply of the view that the government could make things better,” Poterba said.

ECONOMIC OUTLIER

Musgrave’s economic principles, particularly with their focus on social equity, did not always square perfectly with mainstream thinking in his field.

“He was probably a little bit frustrated that the profession has moved as far as it has toward the efficiency direction,” said Cutler. “Although I think it would’ve moved even farther had he not been around.”

An emphasis on equity may have eroded in conventional economics discourse, partially because “it’s really hard to say how equitable should things be,” Cutler said. “You’re saying, ‘gee, what’s the right distribution of income.’”

Contrary to trends in his field, Musgrave “probably moved a bit in the direction of thinking there was an activist role of government,” Poterba said.

The German school of thought— “thinking about the whole community almost as though it was one actor”—was another influence that Musgrave brought to bear on U.S. economic thinking, Poterba said.

“That was a perspective that was somewhat different from what most U.S. economists were using,” Poterba said.

Concerned with questions of how to set up an equitable tax system, Musgrave was a vocal critic of President Reagan’s conservative economic program.

In 1982, Musgrave, with 33 other economists, sent a letter to the White House criticizing Reagan’s economic policy as “extremely regressive in its impact on our society, redistributing wealth and power from the middle-class and poor to the rich,” The Crimson reported.

“One never knows if this will have any effect on the President, but we felt it was important to speak out,” Musgrave told The Crimson at the time.

‘DEEPLY COMMITTED’

Cutler said he first met Musgrave in the early 1990s when Musgrave was on the East Coast and had contacted him, saying he had heard Cutler had joined the Harvard faculty and wanted to meet him.

They met about every other year through much of the 1990s to chat about economics research and the goings-on of the department, according to Cutler, who joined the Harvard economics faculty in 1991.

“Every time after meeting him, I would think, ‘I hope I’m in as good a shape at 40 as he is at 80,’ ” Cutler said.

“Even though Musgrave was in his 80s and 90s at the time, he kept very well up-to-date…not very many people will do that,” he said.

He was still “very interested in the world of economics and how it could be used in policy areas,” he said.

Poterba has fond memories of Musgrave’s energy as well.

In Musgrave’s class, “even at that stage, one of his last years at Harvard, he was incredibly energetic and enthusiastic about the whole study of government and taxation, deeply committed to training students, and maintained long connections and ties to students,” Poterba said.

A stone in Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge will bear Musgrave’s name, his wife, Peggy Brewer Musgrave, told The Boston Globe.

Source:  Tina Wang. Renowned Economist Musgrave Dead at 96. Harvard Crimson(January 19, 2007).

Image Source: Harvard Law School Yearbook 1970, p. 31.

 

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

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

 

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

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

Anyhow without further apology…

______________________

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

______________________

From Keniston’s Appendix (1959)

Standing of
American Graduate Departments
in the Arts and Sciences

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

OVER-ALL STANDING
(Total Scores)

1925

1957

1.

 Chicago

1543

1.

 Harvard

5403

2.

 Harvard

1535

2.

 California

4750

3.

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

4094

5.

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

3495

7.

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

2453

9.

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

1934

11.

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

1442

13.

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

1366

15.

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

1249

17.

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

874

19.

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

759

 

ECONOMICS

1925

1957
1. Harvard 92 1. Harvard

298

2.

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

241

4.

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

196

6.

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

184

8.

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

174

10.

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

70

12.

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

66

14.

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

32

16.

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

31

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

 

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

 

 

Categories
Bibliography Princeton Suggested Reading

Princeton. Reading List for Money. Wallich, 1950

 

I first encountered the name of Henry C. Wallich as the Holy Spirit of the Newsweek trinity of economists (In the Name of Samuelson, Friedman, and Wallich, Amen) back in high-school when my economics teacher (for the record, football coach and business teacher, Mr. Steve Palenchar) assigned us the weekly Newsweek column for reading and discussion. I never had a course with Henry Wallich at Yale so I have no personal impression to share. 

In the meantime I have had the good fortune of meeting and working with his daughter, economist Christine Wallich (a Yale economics Ph.D. and former economist with the World Bank), at the American Academy in Berlin where she sits on the board of trustees.

The following eleven page reading list on money from Wallich’s Princeton days was found in Martin Shubik‘s papers. For exactly mid-20th-century, this list serves as a most comprehensive and convenient benchmark for the state of monetary macroeconomics.

_________________

READING LIST FOR COURSE IN MONEY

Henry C. Wallich
Spring Term—1950

  1. Current Monetary Issues
    1. Minimum Reading
      • Bach, George L.: “Monetary, Fiscal Policy, Debt Policy, and the Price Level,” American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings of American Economic Association), May 1947, pp. 228-42.
      • Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System: Postwar Economic Studies, No. 8, Nov. 1947, article by Thomas and Young.
      • Mints, L. W. and others: “A Symposium on Fiscal and Monetary Policy,” Review of Economic Statistics, XXVIII, May 1946, pp. 60-84.
      • Wallich, H. C. “Debt Management as an Instrument of Economic Policy,” American Economic Review, June 1946, pp. 292-310.
    2. Recommended Reading
      • Abbott, Charles C. “The Commercial Banks and the Public Debt,” American Economic Review, May 1947 (Papers and Proceedings of American Economic Association), pp. 265-76.
      • Burkhead, Jesse V. “Full Employment and Interest-Free Borrowing,” Southern Economic Journal, Vol. XIV, July 1947, pp. 1-13.
      • Carr, Hobart C. “The Problem of the Bank-held Government Debt,” American Economic Review, December 1946, pp. 833-42.
      • Committee on National Debt Policy. Our National Debt and the Banks, National Debt Series 2, New York: 26 Liberty Street, 1947, 18 p.
      • Leland, Simeon E. “Management of the Public Debt After the War,” American Economic Review, June 1944 supplement, pp. 89-134.
      • Seltzer, L.H. “The Changed Environment of Monetary-banking Policy,” American Economic Review, XXVI, May 1946.
      • Sproul, Allan. “Monetary Management and Credit Control,” American Economic Review, XXXVII, June 1947, pp. 339-50.
      • Symposium: “How to Manage the National Debt,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXXI, Feb. 1949.
      • Thomas, Woodlief. “The Heritage of War Finance,”American Economic Review, (Papers and Proceeding of American Economic Association) May 1947.
      • Wallich, H.C. “The Changing Significance of the Interest Rate,” American Economic Review, Dec. 1946, pp. 761-787.
      • U. S. Congress—Joint Committee on the Economic Report. “Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies” (A Collection of Statements Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies by Government Officials, Bankers, Economists, and Others), Washington, 1949 (especially Chs. 2 and 3).
      • U. S. President. The Economic Report of the President, 1948, 1949, and 1950 (together with the Annual Economic Review of the Council of Economic Affairs), Washington, (sections on monetary and fiscal policies).
      • Willis, J. Brooke. “The Case Against the Maintenance of the Wartime Pattern of Yields on Government Securities,” American Economic Review, May 1947 (Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Association), pp. 216-27.
      • Woodward, Donald B. “Public Debt and Institutions,” American Economic Review, May 1947 (Papers and Proceedings of American Economic Association), pp. 157-83.
    3. Other Reading
      • Abbott, Charles C. Management of the Public Debt, New York: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1946, 194 p.
      • Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Annual Reports for the years 1945-48.
      • Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. “Debt Retirement and Bank Credit,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, July 1947, pp. 775-87.
      • Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Public Finance and Full Employment, Postwar Economic Studies No. 3, Washington, December 1945, 157 p.
      • Burgess, W. Randolph. “Free Enterprise and the Management of the Public Debt,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, New York: Columbia University, 116th& Broadway, Vol. XXII, May 1947, pp. 256-67.
      • Chandler, L. V. “Federal Reserve Policy and the Federal Debt,” American Economic Review, XXXIX, March 1949.
      • Domar, Evsey D. “The Distribution of Interest on the Public Debt,” Current Comments, June 5, 1946.
      • Federal Reserve Bank of New York: “Federal Reserve Credit and Credit Policy,” Annual Report, 1947, pp. 24-32.
      • Homan, P. T. and F. Machlup (eds.). Financing American Prosperity, New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1945.
      • Institute of International Finance. Credit Policies of the United States, Bulletin No. 152, New York: New York University, 90 Trinity Pace, September 1947, 16 p.
      • Institute of International Finance: Management of the Public Debt, Bulletin No. 142, New York: New York University, 90 Trinity Place, February 1946, 18 p.
      • Institute of International Finance. The Means of Payment and Debt Management, Bulletin No. 148, New York: New York University, 90 Trinity Place, February 1947, 15 p.
      • Institute of International Finance. The Public Debt and the Banks. Bulletin No. 137, New York: New York University, 90 Trinity Place, May 1945, 18 p.
      • Lanston, A. G. “Federal Fiscal Policy and Debt Management,” Commercial and Financial Chronicle, June 12, 1947, 165:3112.
      • Ratchford, B. U. “The Economic and Monetary Effects of Public Debts,” Public Finance, No. 4, 1948 and No. 1, 1949.
      • Seltzer, L. H. “Is a Rise in Interest Rates Desirable or Inevitable?” American Economic Review, XXXV, Dec. 1945, pp. 831-50.
      • Whittlesey, C.R. “Federal Reserve Policy in Transition,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LX, May 1946, pp. 340-50.
  2. Monetary and Banking Organization
    1. Minimum Reading
      • Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Banking Studies. Baltimore: Waverly Press, 1941 (first choice).
        or
        James, F. C. Economics of Money, Credit and Banking. New York: Ronald Press, 1941, 3rd (Chs. 1-26).
        or
        Thomas, Rollin G. Our Modern Banking and Monetary System, New York: Prentice-Hall, 1945, 812 p. (Chs. 1-30).
    2. Recommended Reading
      • Currie, Lauchlin. The Supply and Control of Money in the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934, 199 p. (Harvard Economic Studies, v. 47), (Part I, and Chs. 13 and 14).
      • Gayer, Arthur D. Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilization. New York: MacMillan Co., 1935, 288 p. (Chs. 4 and 5)
      • Jacoby, N. H. and Saulnier, R. J. Business Finance and Banking. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1947.
      • Keynes, John M. A Treatise on Money. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1930 (Vol. I, Ch. 1).
      • Ratchford, Benjamin U. “History of the Federal Debt in the United States,” American Economic Review, May 1947 (Papers and Proceedings of American Economic Association), pp. 130-41.
    3. Other Reading
      • Burgess, Randolph W. The Reserve Banks and the Money Market. New York and London: Harper and Brothers, 1927.
      • Clapham, Sir John. The Bank of England. Cambridge Univ. Press, 1944.
      • Conant, C.A. History of Modern Banks of Issue. New York, 6th, 1937.
      • De Vegh, Imrie. The Pound Sterling. New York: Scudder, Stevens and Clark, 1939, 130 p.
      • Dulles, E. L. The French Franc, 1914-1928. New York: MacMillan Co., 1929, 570 p.
      • Feaveryear, A. S. The Pound Sterling. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1931, 367 p.
      • Institute of International Finance. How to Read the New York Money Market, Pamphlet No. 145. New York: New York University, 90 Trinity Place, September 1946.
      • Institute of Bankers. Current Financial Problems and the City of London. Europa Publ. Ltd., 1949, art. By W.T.C. King “The London Discount Market.”
      • Madden, J. T., and Nadler, M. The International Money Markets. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1935, 548 p.
      • Mints, L. W. A History of Banking Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945, 319 p.
      • Morgan, E. Victor. The Theory and Practice of Central Banking, 1797-1913. Cambridge University Press, 1943, 252 p.
      • Nadler, Marcus. Money Market Primer. New York: Ronald Press, 1948, 212 p.
      • Plumptre, A. F. W. Central Banking in the British Dominions. Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1940, 462 p.
      • Willis, H. P., and Beckhart, B. H., (eds.) Foreign Banking Systems. New York: H. Holt & Co., 1929, 1305 p.
      • Willis, H. P. Theory and Practice of Central Banking. 1939.
  3. Money in Relation to Income and Prices
    1. Minimum Reading
      • American Economic Association (H. S. Ellis, ed.). A Survey of Contemporary Economics. Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1948 (Ch. By Villard).
      • Haberler, G. Prosperity and Depression. Geneva: United Nations, rev. ed., 1946 (Ch. 8).
      • Hansen, A. H. Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949.
      • Harris, S. E. (ed.). The New Economics. New York: Knopf, 1947, (Ch. By Lintner).
      • Keynes, John M. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1936, (esp. Books 3, 4, 5).
      • Mints, Hansen, Ellis, Lerner, Kalecki. “A Symposium on Fiscal and Monetary Policy,” Review of Economic Statistics, May 1946.
      • Saulnier, R. J. Contemporary Monetary Theory, 1938. (all parts not covered by direct readings of the originals).
      • Wilson, T. Fluctuations in Income and Employment. London: Pitman, 1942 (Part I, Chs. 1-6).
    2. Recommended Reading
      • Angell, James W. The Behavior of Money. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936, 207 p. (Conclusions to Chs. 1-5, and Ch. 6)
      • Economists’ National Committee on Monetary Policy. Two Programs for Monetary Reform. New York: February 1947.
      • Wallich, H. “The Current of Liquidity Preference,” Quarterly Journal of EconomicsAugust 1946, pp. 490-512.
      • Fellner, William. Monetary Policies and Full Employment. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2nd ed., 1947 (especially Part III).
      • Gayer, Arthur, D. Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilization. New York: MacMillan Co., 1935, 288 p. (Ch. 2 and 12).
      • Hansen, A. H. Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles. New York: Norton, 1941.
      • Harrod, Hansen, Haberler and Schumpeter. “Five Views on the Consumption Function,”Review of Economic Statistics, Nov. 1946.
      • Harrod, R. F. Towards a Dynamic Economics. London: MacMillan, 1948 (Lectures 2 and 5).
      • Hawtrey, R. G. Capital and Employment. London: Longmans Green and Co., 1937, 348 p. (Chs. 7-11).
      • Henderson, H. D. “The Significance of the Rate of Interest,” Oxford Economic Papers, October, 1938.
      • Johnson, G. Griffith, Jr. The Treasury and Monetary Policy 1933-38. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939, 224 p. (Ch. 2, 5-7).
      • Kalecki, M. Essays in Economic Fluctuations. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1939.
      • Keynes, John M. A Treatise on Money. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930 (Vol. 1, Part II).
      • Klein, L. R. The Keynesian Revolution. New York: MacMillan Co., 1946 (Especially Chs. 3, 4, and 6).
      • Marget, Arthur W. The Theory of Prices. New York: Prentice-Hall, Vol. 1, 1938, 624 p. (Chs. 1, 11-16).
      • Robertson, D. H. Essays in Monetary Theory. London: King, 1940 (Especially Chs. 1-13).
      • Ruggles, Richard. An Introduction to National Income and Income Analysis. New York: McGraw-Hill Co., Inc., 1949 (Chs. 9-12).
      • Simons, H. C. Economic Policy for a Free Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948 (Especially Chs. 2, 7, 13).
      • Spahr, W. E. “The Management of Our Monetary System,” Commercial and Financial Chronicle, March 20, 1947.
      • Terborgh, George. The Bogey of Economic Maturity. Chicago: Machinery and Allied Products Institute, 1945.
      • Tobin, James. “Liquidity Preference and Monetary Policy,” Review of Economic Statistics, XXIX, May 1947, pp. 124-31.
      • Viner, J. Studies in the Theory of International trade. New York: Harper, 1939 (Chs. 3-7).
      • Williams, John H. “An Appraisal of Keynesian Economics,” American Economic Review, Supplement, XXXVIII, May 1948.
    3. Other Reading
      • Arndt, H. W. The Economic Lessons of the Nineteen-Thirties. London: Oxford University Press, 1944 (especially Dissenting Note).
      • Beveridge, W. H. Full Employment in a Free Society. London: Allen and Unwin, 1944 (Part I, Part IV).
      • Burns, Arthur F. “Economic Research and the Keynesian Thinking of Our Times,” (26thAnnual Report). New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1947.
      • Clark, Colin. “Public Finance and Changes in the Value of Money,” Economic Journal, LV, Dec. 1945, pp. 371-89.
      • Crawford, Arthur W. Monetary Management under the New Deal. Washington: American Council on Public Affairs, 1940.
      • Fellner, W. “Monetary Policy and the Elasticity of Liquidity Functions,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1948, pp. 42-44.
      • Goldenweiser, E. A. Monetary Management (Committee for Economic Development Research Study). New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949.
      • Haberler, G. Prosperity and Depression. Geneva: United Nations, rev. ed., 1946.
      • Hardy, C. O. “Fiscal Operations as Instruments of Economic Stabilization,” American Economic Review, May 1948, pp. 395-416.
      • Harris, Seymour E. (ed.) Economic Reconstruction. New York: McGraw Hill, 1945, article by H. S. Ellis, “Central and Commercial Banking in Postwar Finance”, pp. 237-52.
      • Harrod, R. F. Towards a Dynamic Economics. London: MacMillan, 1948.
      • Hawtrey, R. G. The Art of Central Banking. London: Longmans, 1932.
      • Hawtrey, R. G. Capital and Employment, London: Longmans, 2nd
      • Hawtrey, R. G. Currency and Credit. London: Longmans, 3rd, 1928.
      • Hawtrey, R. G. The Gold Standard in Theory and Practice. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1947, 280 p.
      • Hayek, F. A. von. Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1933, 244 p.
      • Hayek, F. A. von. Prices and Production. London: Routledge, 1935.
      • Hicks, J. R. “Mr. Keynes and the Classics: A Suggested Interpretation,” Econometrica, V, 1937 (Reprinted in Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution, Philadelphia Blakiston, 1946).
      • Hick, J. R. Value and Capital. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1939.
      • Keynes, J. M. A Tract on Monetary Reform. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1924.
      • Kuznets, Simon. “Capital Formation, 1879-1938,” in Studies in Economics and Industrial Relations. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1941.
      • Lerner, Abba P. The Economics of Control. New York: MacMillan, 1944 (especially Chs. 21-25).
      • Lindahl, Erik. Studies in the Theory of Money and Capital. New York: Farrar and Rinehart, 1939 (especially Part II).
      • Marget, Arthur W. The Theory of Prices. New York: Prentice-Hall, Vol. 2, 1942, 802 p. (especially Chs. 1-3, 8,9).
      • Mellon, Helen J. Credit Control: A Study of the Genesis of the Qualitative Approach to Credit Problems. Washington: American Council on Public Affairs, Studies in Economics, 1941, 134 p.
      • Modigliani, F. “Fluctuations in the Saving-income Ratio: A Problem in Economic Forecasting,” Studies in Income and Wealth, XI. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1949.
      • Modigliani, F. “Liquidity Preference and the Theory of Interest,” Econometrica, XII, Jan. 1944, pp. 45-88.
      • Moulton, Harold G. The New Philosophy of Public Debt. Washington: Brookings Institution, 1943, 93 p.
      • Myers, M. G. Monetary Proposals for Social reform. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940, 191 p.
      • Myrdal, Gunnar. Monetary Equilibrium. London W. Hodge, 1939, 214 p.
      • Niebyl, Karl H. Studies in the Classical Theories of Money. New York: Columbia University Press, 1946, 190p.
      • Pigou, A. C. Employment and Equilibrium. London: MacMillan Co., 1941, 283 p.
      • Pigou, A. C. Lapses from Full Employment. London: MacMillan, 1945.
      • Reeve, J. E. Monetary Reform Movements. Washington: American Council on Public Affairs, 1943, 404 p.
      • Rist, Charles. History of Monetary and Credit Theory from John Law to Present Day. London: George Allen, 1940, 442 p. (especially Chs. 3-7).
      • Rueff, J. “The Fallacies of Lord Keynes’ General Theory,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1947.
      • Samuelson, P. A. “The Effect of Interest Rate Increases on the Banking System,” American Economic Review, March 1945, p. 16ff.
      • Simmons, E. C. “The Role of Selective Credit Control in Monetary Management,” American Economic Review, Sept. 1947, pp. 633-41.
      • Warburton, Clark. “The Monetary Theory of Deficit Financing,” Review of Economic Statistics, May 1945, pp. 74-84.
      • Wicksell, Knut. Interest and Prices. London: MacMillan, 1936.
      • Wright, D. M. The Economics of Disturbance. New York: MacMillan, 1947 (Ch. 2).
      • Wright, D. M. “The Future of Keynesian Economics,” American Economic Review, XXXV, June 1945, pp. 284-307.
      • Wood, E. English Theories of Central Banking Control, 1819-1858, 1938.
  4. International Aspects
    1. [No minimum reading listed]
    2. Recommended Reading
      • Balogh, T. “The Concept of a Dollar Shortage,” The Manchester School, XVII, May 1949, pp. 186-201.
      • Ellis, H. S. “The Dollar Shortage in Theory and Fact,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XIV, Aug. 1948, pp. 358-372.
      • Gayer, Arthur D. Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilization. New York: MacMillan Co., 1935, 288 p. (Chs. 1-3).
      • Goldenweiser, E. A. and Bourneuf, A. “Bretton Woods Agreements,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, September, 1944.
      • Graham, Frank D. “The Cause and Cure of ‘Dollar Shortages’,” (Essays in International Finance, No. 10), Princeton: Princeton University Press, Jan. 1949.
      • Haberler, G. “Some Economic Problems of the European Recovery Program,” American Economic Review, XXXVIII, Sept. 1948, pp. 495-525.
      • Johnson, G. Griffith, Jr. The Treasury and Monetary Policy 1933-38. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939, 224 p. (Chs. 2-5).
      • Lary, H. B.: The United States in the World Economy, Washington: Department of Commerce, 1943.
      • League of Nations. International Currency Experience, 1944.
      • Machlup, F. International Trade and the National Income Multiplier, Philadelphia: Blakiston, 1943 (especially Chs. 1-4).
      • Mikesell, R. F. “International Disequilibrium,” American Economics Review, XXXIX, June 1949, pp. 618-45.
      • Nurkse, R. “Conditions of International Monetary Equilibrium,” (Essays in International Finance, Spring 1945. Princeton: Princeton University.
      • Triffin, Robert. “National Central Banking and the International Economy,” Postwar Economic Studies, No. 7, September 1947 of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
      • Williams, John H. “Europe after 1952: The Long-term Problem,” Foreign Affairs, April 1949.
      • Williams, John H. Postwar Monetary Plans and Other Essays. New York: Knopf, 1947, 312 p. (Part I).
    3. Other Reading
      • Angell, James W. Theory of International Prices. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926 (Harvard Economic Studies, vol. 28).
      • Balogh, T. “Britain’s Economic Problem,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXIII, Feb. 1949, pp. 32-67.
      • Balogh, T. “Britain, O.E.E.C., and the Restoration of a World Economy,” Bulletin of the Oxford Institute of Statistics, XI, Feb.-March 1949.
      • Balogh, T. “Exchange Depreciation and Economic Readjustment,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXX, Nov. 1948, pp. 276-285.
      • Balogh, T. “The United States and the World Economy,” Bulletin of the Oxford Institute of Statistics, VIII, Oct. 1946.
      • Brown, Wm. Adams. The International Gold Standard Reinterpreted, 1914-34. New York: NBER, 1940, Publ. No. 37, Vols. 1 and 2.
      • Buchanan, N. S. International Investment and Domestic Welfare. New York: H. Holt & Co., 1945.
      • Friedrich, C. J. and Mason, E. S. (eds.) Public Policy. Harvard Univ. Grad. School of Pub. Adm., 1941, article by Salant on “Foreign Trade Policy in the Business Cycle.”
      • Gilbert, Milton. Currency Depreciation and Monetary Policy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939, 167 p.
      • Graham, F. D. Exchanges, Prices and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany, 1920-1923. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1930.
      • Graham, F. D. and Whittlesey. Golden Avalanche. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939.
      • Graham, F. D. The Theory of International Values. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1948.
      • Harris, Seymour E. Exchange Depreciation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1936 (Harvard Economic Studies, vol. 53), especially Chs. 1-2.
      • Hawtrey, R. G. “The Function of Exchange Rates,”Oxford Economic Papers, I, June 1949, pp. 145-56.
      • Henderson, Sir Hubert D. “The Function of Exchange Rates,” Oxford Economic Papers, I, January 1949.
      • Henderson, Sir Hubert D. “The International Problem” (Stamp Memorial Lecture). London: Oxford University Press, 1946.
      • Keynes, John M. “The Balance of Payments of the United States,” Economic Journal, LVI, June 1946, pp. 172-87.
      • Nurkse, Ragnar. “International Monetary Policy and the Search for Economic Stability,” American Economic Review, Supplement, XXXVII, May 1947, pp. 569-80.
      • Polak, J. J. “Exchange Depreciation and International Monetary Stability,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXIX, Aug. 1947, pp. 173-83.
      • Williams, John H. “The Task of Economic Recovers,” Foreign Affairs, Jul 1948.

 

Source:  Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Martin Shubick Papers. Box 2, Folder “Notes, Money, Prof. Henry Wallich Spring 1950”.

Image Source: Henry C. Wallich, 1962 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow  .

Categories
Berkeley Chicago Columbia Cornell Economics Programs Economists Harvard Illinois Johns Hopkins Michigan Minnesota Northwestern Ohio State Pennsylvania Princeton Stanford Toronto Wisconsin Yale

Economics Graduate Programs Ranked in 1925

 

Filed away in the archived records of the University of Chicago’s Office of the President is a copy of a report from January 1925 from Miami University (Ohio) that was based on a survey of college and university professors to obtain a rank ordering of graduate programs in different fields. The following ordering for economics graduate programs 1924-25 is based on two dozen responses. I have added institutional affiliations from the AEA membership list of the time and a few internet searches. The study was designed to have a rough balance between college and university professors and a broad geographic representation. What the study lacks in sophistication will amuse you in its presumption.

_____________________

This rating was prepared in the following way: The members of the Miami University faculty representing twenty fields of instruction were called together and a list of the universities which conceivably might be doing high grade work leading to a doctor’s degree in one or more subjects was prepared on their advice. Each professor was then requested to submit a list of from forty to sixty men who were teaching his subject in colleges and universities in this country, at least half of the names on the list to be those of professors in colleges rather than in universities. It was further agreed that the list should be fairly well distributed geographically over the United States. [p. 3]

 

ECONOMICS

Ratings submitted by: John H. Ashworth [Maine] , Lloyd V. Ballard [Beloit], Gilbert H. Barnes [Chicago], Clarence E. Bonnett [Tulane], John E. Brindley [Iowa State], E. J. Brown [Arizona], J. W. Crook [Amherst], Ira B. Cross [California], Edmund E. Day [Michigan], Herbert Feis [ILO], Frank A. Fetter [Princeton], Eugene Gredier, Lewis H. Haney [N.Y.U.], Wilbur O. Hedrick [Michigan State], Floyd N. House [Chicago], Walter E. Lagerquist [Northwestern], W. E. Leonard, L. C. Marshall [Chicago], W. C. Mitchell [Columbia], C. T. Murchison [North Carolina], Tipton A. Snavely [Virginia], E. T. Towne [North Dakota], J. H. Underwood [Montana], M. S. Wildman [Stanford].

 

Combined Ratings:  (24)

1 2 3 4-5
Harvard 20 4 0 0
Columbia 11 9 2 1
Chicago 9 7 3 2
Wisconsin 8 7 4 2
Yale 3 3 9 3
Johns Hopkins 2 4 8 3
Michigan 0 6 4 5
Pennsylvania 0 3 6 8
Illinois 0 5 4 4
Cornell 0 2 7 5
Princeton 2 1 4 4
California 0 3 4 5
Minnesota 0 2 4 6
Northwestern 0 2 3 6
Stanford 0 1 4 6
Ohio State 0 1 2 8
Toronto 0 2 2 3

Staffs:

HARVARD: F.W. Taussig, E.F. Gay, T.N. Carver, W.Z. Ripley, C.J. Bullock, A.A. Young, W.M. Persons, A.P. Usher, A.S. Dewing, W.J. Cunningham, T.H. Sanders, W.M. Cole, A.E. Monroe, H.H. Burbank, A.H. Cole, J. H. Williams, W.L. Crum, R.S. Meriam.

COLUMBIA: R.E. Chaddock, F.H. Giddings, S.M. Lindsay, W.C. Mitchell, H.L. Moore, W. Fogburn, H.R. Seager, E.R.A. Seligman, V.G. Sinkhovitch, E.E. Agger, Emilie J. Hutchinson, A.A. Tenney, R.G. Tugwell, W.E. Weld.

CHICAGO: L.C. Marshall, C.W. Wright, J.A. Field, H.A. Millis, J.M. Clark, Jacob Viner, L. W. Mints, W.H. Spencer, N.W. Barnes, C.C. Colby, P.H. Douglas, J.O. McKinsey, E.A. Duddy, A.C. Hodge, L.C. Sorrell.

WISCONSIN: Commons, Elwell, Ely Garner, Gilman, Hibbard, Kiekhofer, Macklin, Scott, Kolb, McMurry, McNall, Gleaser, Jamison, Jerome, Miller, S. Perlman.

YALE: Olive Day, F.R. Fairchild, R.B. Westerfield, T.S. Adams, A.L. Bishop, W.M. Daniels, Irving Fisher, E.S. Furniss, A.H. Armbruster, N.S. Buck.

JOHNS HOPKINS: W.W. Willoughby, Goodnow, W.F. Willoughby, Thach, Latane.

MICHIGAN: Rodkey, Van Sickle, Peterson, Goodrich, Sharfman, Griffin, May, Taylor, Dickinson, Paton, Caverly, Wolaver.

PENNSYLVANIA: E.R. Johnson, E.S. Mead, S.S. Heubner, T. Conway, H.W. Hess, E.M. Patterson, G.G. Huebner, H.T. Collings, R. Riegel, C.K. Knight, W.P. Raine, F. Parker, R.T. Bye, W.C. Schluter, J.H. Willits, A.H. Williams, R.S. Morris, C.P. White, F.E. Williams, H.J. Loman, C.A. Kulp, S.H. Patterson, E.L. McKenna, W.W. Hewett, F.G. Tryon, H.S. Person, L.W. Hall.

ILLINOIS: Bogart, Robinson, Thompson, Weston, Litman, Watkins, Hunter, Wright, Norton.

CORNELL: W.F. Willcox, H.J. Davenport, D. English, H.L. Reed, S.H. Slichter, M.A. Copeland, S. Kendrick.

PRINCETON: F.A. Fetter, E.W. Kemmerer, G.B. McClellan, D.A. McCabe, F.H. Dixon, S.E. Howard, F.D. Graham.

CALIFORNIA: I.B. Cross, S. Daggett, H.R. Hatfield, J.B. Peixotte, C.C. Plehm, L.W. Stebbins, S. Blum, A.H. Mowbray, N.J. Silberling, C.C. Staehling, P.F. Cadman, F. Fluegel, B.N. Grimes, P.S. Taylor, Helen Jeter, E.T. Grether.

MINNESOTA: G.W. Dorwie, J.D. Black, R.G. Blakey, F.B. Garver, N.S.B. Gras, J.S. Young, A.H. Hansen, B.D. Mudgett, J.E. Cummings, E.A. Heilman, H.B Price, J.J. Reighard, J.W. Stehman, H. Working, C.L. Rotzell, W.R. Myers.

NORTHWESTERN: Deibler, Heilman, Secrist, Bailey, Pooley, Eliot, Ray Curtis, Bell, Hohman, Fagg.

STANFORD: M.S. Wildman, W.S. Beach, E. Jones, H.L. Lutz, A.C. Whitaker, J.G. Davis, A.E. Taylor, J.B. Canning.

OHIO STATE: M.B. Hammond, H.G. Hayes, A.B. Wolf, H.F. Waldradt, C.O. Ruggles, W.C. Weidler, J.A. Fisher, H.E. Hoagland, H.H. Maynard, C.A. Dice, M.E. Pike, J.A. Fitzgerald, F.E. Held, M.N. Nelson, R.C. Davis, C.W. Reeder, T.N. Beckman.

Compiled with the assistance of J.B. Dennison, associate professor of economics.

 

Source:  Raymond Mollyneaux Hughes, A Study of the Graduate Schools of America. Oxford, OH: Miami University (January 1925), pp. 14-15.  Copy from University of Chicago. Office of the President. Harper, Judson and Burton Administrations. Records, Box 47, Folder #5 “Study of the Graduate Schools of America”, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago.

 

Image Source: Four prize winners in annual beauty show, Washington Bathing Beach, Washington, D.C. from the U. S. Library of Congress. Prints & Photographs. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b43364

 

Categories
Exam Questions Princeton Undergraduate

Princeton. Two undergraduate comprehensive exams in economics, 1929 and 1932

 

Another catch in my trawling for exams, we have below two undergraduate comprehensive examinations from Princeton (1929 and 1932).  These exams were selected and published in a supplement to the Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges dedicated to the subject of comprehensive exams. The style of the questions is rather different from those seen for Harvard from 1931 that were transcribed for the previous post.

__________________________

Senior Comprehensive Examination
Princeton University, 1932

Part I
Use a separate book for each question

I
(20%)

  1. Contrasting the England of 1700 with the England of the Middle Ages, R. H. Tawney states: ” Opinion ceased to regard social institutions and economic activity as amenable, like personal conduct to moral criteria.”
    How far was this true (1) of price; (2) of the money reward for human labor? Give the reasons.
  2. Compare Henry George’s theory of rent with Ricardo’s theory of rent.

II
(40%)

  1. What was the Marxian theory of “surplus value”? Discuss the present price and wages policy in Russia in the light of the Marxian theory.
  2. “Socialization will proceed, step by step, from one industry to another, according as circumstances in each country may permit. Objectionable as private profit-making enterprise is to Socialists, they will refrain from destroying it in any industry until they are in a position to replace it by a more efficient form of organization.” (From a resolution of the Labor and Socialist International.)
    What is the “more efficient form of organization” proposed for the “nationalized industries,” as illustrated in the Webb Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain? Would it be more efficient than “private profit-making enterprise” in these industries? Give your reasons.

III
(40%)

Answer one of the three following questions: A, B, or C.

A

Discuss the Interstate Commerce Commission in its present status as a regulator of interstate commerce. Is it lacking any powers which it should possess? Should it be deprived of any powers that it now has? Are there any powers it should retain which could be made more effective by legislation? Give reasons for your answers.

B

At the time of the Napoleonic Wars the following statement was made as to the ability of Great Britain to make remittances to the continent to support her armies and subsidize her allies:

“A favorable balance of trade is a very probable consequence of large drafts on Government for foreign expenditure; an augmentation of exports, and a diminution of imports, being promoted and even enforced by the means of such drafts.”

A few weeks ago, in a discussion of the payments of inter-allied debts, it was stated:

“The essential fact about war debt payments is that they are foreign payments. Many people seem to think that the French Government may tax its citizens, deposit the money in the Bank of France, and then either draw a check upon the Bank of France to pay the United States on war debts, or use the same money for armament expenditures. The essential difference is that a check drawn in francs by the French Government upon the Bank of France to the credit of the American Treasury is of no value to us until it is transferred into dollars.”

On the basis of these statements, discuss critically the topic, “Divergent Views on the Payment of International Obligations,” laying particular emphasis on the economic principles which are involved. Where possible, use historical illustrations in your discussion.

C

A certain industrial corporation has outstanding common stock of par value of $10,000,000; also a first mortgage bond issue, amply secured by the plant, of $2,000,000.

Below is a list of five possible methods of voluntarily revising the capital structure of this company.

  1. The issuance of convertible bonds,
  2. The declaration of a stock dividend,
  3. The declaration of a privileged stock subscription,
  4. The purchase of the company’s own stock in the open market,
  5. The formal reduction of the corporation’s capital by amendment of the certificate of incorporation.

Discuss thoughtfully four of these five methods.

While it is not desirable to lay down any rigid plan to be adhered to in discussing all of these methods, your answer should explain (1) what is involved in the use of the method in question, (2) the objective or objectives ordinarily sought to be attained by its use, (3) what conditions other than those stated in the first paragraph should prevail in order to justify the use of the method, and (4) any special disadvantage which might be suffered.

__________________________

Senior Comprehensive Examination
Princeton University, 1929

Examination in Special Field I

I

Case A

During the latter part of the period of inconvertible paper currency in this country (1862-1879) trade dollars (a silver coin somewhat heavier than the standard silver dollar and possessing at that time the right of free coinage) began to appear in circulation alongside the greenbacks, although the trade dollar was intended for use only in foreign trade.

Case B

In Russia, the chervonetz, a paper monetary unit issued in 1923, kept at a high value by relative limitation of quantity and backed by a considerable gold reserve, quickly drove the Soviet paper rouble, an enormously depreciated paper monetary unit, out of circulation.

Case C

In Germany, in 1923, foreign gold standard currencies appeared in considerable volume in ordinary commercial transactions, which up to that time had for years been carried on almost entirely with highly depreciated paper marks.

In all these cases “bad” money not only did not drive out good but the reverse was more nearly true. Explain each case and state Gresham’s Law so as to make it universally applicable.

II

Suppose that the United States in 1893 had abandoned the gold standard, taken from gold the legal tender quality and made all paper currency redeemable in silver dollars which were no longer freely coined.

(a) What would have been the upper and lower limits on the exchange rates of the dollar against gold standard currencies?

(b) What influences would have affected the gold value of the dollar?

(c) How, if at all, would the gold price of silver have been affected?

(d) Could the rise in prices, which took place after 1896, have been prevented under the monetary system outlined above? Reasons.

III

Compare the check and deposit system of banking, such as prevails in Anglo-Saxon countries, with the French system where checks are little used and practically the whole of the circulating medium is issued by the Bank of France which shares its profits with the government of the republic.

Your answer should attempt to assess, from the point of view of the general interest, the relative virtues and vices of the two types of banking, showing specifically and precisely in what manner advantages or disadvantages accrue under the one or the other system.

IV

Assume that in any given country:

(a) central bank reserves are very high;

(b) exports are increasing relative to imports;

(c) stock speculation has been and continues rampant and stock prices have risen greatly;

(d) commodity prices are stable.

What policy do you think the central bank should pursue, and why?

V

Spain is now on an inconvertible paper monetary standard. Suppose that political disturbances lead to a sharp decline in confidence with regard to Spain’s economic prospects, that present foreign lenders to Spain seek to withdraw their capital and that further loans are refused. Trace through the resulting movement of exchange rates the probable course of trade and industry in Spain up to the point of restoration of a stable economic equilibrium. Assume no further inflation of the Spanish currency.

VI

  1. Give a brief description of the Dawes Plan of reparations payments, criticizing adversely where such criticism seems to you to be warranted.
  2. Compare the economic effects on both paying and receiving countries of reparations in cash and reparations in kind.

 

Source:  Edward S. Jones. Comprehensive Examinations in the Social Sciences, Supplement to the December, 1933 Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges, pp. 38-41.

Image Source:John E. Sheridan, Princeton Poster, c. 1901  . Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA.

 

Categories
Columbia Economic History Economists Germany Illinois Indiana Princeton

Halle (Germany). 1897 economics PhD alumnus and later Illinois professor, Ernest L. Bogart

 

Today’s post provides some biographical information about the American economic historian and long-time University of Illinois economics professor, Ernest L. Bogart. I might have begun my search beginning from the fact that Bogart was the 1931 President of the American Economic Association, but no, I stumbled across his name during an examination of the Columbia University Quarterly of March, 1899 where I read “Mr. E. L. Bogart, graduate student in 1897-98, has been appointed Professor of Political Economy at Indiana University”.  I could find no record of Bogart actually completing a degree at Columbia, so I slipped on my gum shoes and proceeded to do a background check. It wasn’t hard and again found an example of an economist who had lived a very successful academic life but has become dependent on the helping hand of a historian of economics to be dusted off, properly preserved, and displayed in a collection of artifacts. 

Ernest L. Bogart began his academic life as a Princeton man (A.B., 1890; A.M.,1896) and went on to the Johannes Conrad Seminar in Halle Germany to write a doctoral dissertation published as Die Finanzverhältnisse der Einzelstaaten der Nordamerikanischen Union [in Sammlung nationalökonomischer und statistischer Abhandlungen des staatswissenschaftlichen Seminars zu Halle a.d.S. herausgegeben von Johannes Conrad. Vol. 14. Jena: Gustav Fischer, 1897]. He passed through Columbia University for one year in what we would today call a post-doc, then on to appointments at Smith College (probably filling in for Henry L. Moore on leave), then University of Indiana, Oberlin College, back to Princeton, and then to the University of Illinois in 1909.

__________________

MEET THE FACULTY: ERNEST L. BOGART

After serving the University and his country—and even acting in an international capacity—for nearly a third of a century, Ernest L. Bogart, head of the department of economics from 1920 until the beginning of the current school year, and now professor of economics, emeritus, has retired, and, with Mrs. Bogart, is residing temporarily in New York City.

Mr. Bogart, whose notable, writings in the field of economics, are numerous and whose service to the nation has been wide and varied, assisted the Persian government in 1922-23. He was adviser on banking and currency to that Government and is credited with having aided materially in Persian monetary matters.

Born March 16, 1870 in Yonkers, N.Y., Mr. Bogart received his A.B. degree in 1890 and his A.M. degree in 1896, both from Princeton University. In 1897 he obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of Halle, German.

Two years as an assistant professor of economic and social science at Indiana University were followed by five years service—1900-05—at Oberlin College. He then returned to his alma mater and for four years was assistant professor of economics. In 1909, he came to the University as professor of economics, a position he held until this year.

In addition to his service here, Mr. Bogart was professor of banking and finance, Georgetown School of Foreign Service, 1919-20, professor of economics, Claremont College, 1929-30 professor of economics during the summer sessions at Columbia University, University of California, University of Texas, and Southern California.

Mr. Bogart’s government service includes membership on the committee of public information, 1918, in charge of commodity studies bureau of research, War Trade Board, 1918, regional economist, foreign trade advisor, State Department, 1919-20, advisory committee, National Economic League since 1920, delegate of State Department to convention of foreign trade council, 1920, advisory committee, Stable Money Association since 1924, committee on monetary policy of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, 1933, government’s commission on unemployment, 1933, and economists’ national monetary commission since 1934.

The economist is a member of the National Park Association, Econometric Society (British), Foreign Policy Association, Persian-American Association, American Economic Association, Phi Beta Kappa, Beta Gamma Sigma, Delta Sigma Pi, and Phi Kappa Epsilon.

Source: From the Daily Illini, November 29, 1938, p. 3. Transcription also found at: University of Illinois. Conference on Iran’s Economy, December 11-13, 2008.

Image Source: Ernest L. Bogart, Historical faculty, department of economics, University of Illinois.