Categories
Bibliography Johns Hopkins Suggested Reading Syllabus

Johns Hopkins. Trade and Economic Development, Course Reading List. Balassa, 1968

 

Perhaps the story is apocryphal and/or I have confounded my European economists but I believe I remember having heard once upon a time during the Cold War that when Janos Kornai was asked how he could explain the relative abundance of successful Hungarian émigré economists, he replied “Oh we don’t export our best economists”. If the story is true, then certainly one of the Hungarian émigrés implicit in the question was likely to have been Bela Belassa. He attained textbook immortality as a co-parent of the Balassa-Samuelson Effect.

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The Johns Hopkins University
Department of Political Economy
Spring, 1968
Mr. Balassa

Trade and Economic Development
Bibliography and Reading List

Abbreviations of Books

Books are referred to by author unless otherwise noted.

Balassa, Bela, Trade Prospects for Developing Countries

Ellis, H.S., ed. Economic Development in Latin America

Hicks, J.R., Essays in World Economics

Harrod, Roy, ed., International Trade Theory in a Developing World

Johnson, H.G. I International Trade and Economic Growth

Johnson, H.G. II Money, Trade and Economic Growth

Johnson, H. G. III Economic Policies towards less Developed Countries

Meier, G.M., International Trade and Development

Mikesell, R.F., U.S. Private and Government Investment Abroad

Nurkse, R., Equilibrium and Growth in the World Economy

Pincus, J., Trade, Aid, and Development

Wionczek, M.S., ed. Latin American Integration

Abbreviations of Periodicals

AER      American Economic Review
Econ    Economica
EDCC   Economic Development and Cultural Change
EJ         Economic Journal
ER        Economic Record
JPE       Journal of Political Economy
Ky        Kyklos
LBR      Lloyds Bank Review
MS       Manchester School
Met     Metroeconomica
OEP     Oxford Economic Papers
QJE      Quarterly Journal of Economics
RES      Review of Economics and Statistics
RESt     Review of Economic Studies

I Foreign Trade and Economic Growth

Meier, ch. 2

Hicks, ch. 4 and Note B

Johnson, II, ch. 4

Johnson, I, ch. 4

Bhagwati, J., “International Trade and Economic Expansion” AER, December 1958

*Mishan, E.J. “The Long-Run Dollar Problem: A Comment” OEP June 1955

*Corden, W.M., “Economic Expansion and International Trade: A Geometric Approach,” OEP June 1956

*Findlay, R. and Grabert, H. “Factor Intensity, Technological Progress and the Terms of Trade,” OEP, February 1959

*Bhagwati, J., “Immiserizing Growth: A Geometrical Note,” RESt, June 1958

*Srinivasan, T.N., “Foreign Trade and Economic Development,” Met, January-August, 1965

II Trade Relations between Developed and Developing Countries: The Controversy

Nurkse, R., ch. 10 I, 11

Prebisch, Raul, “Commercial Policy in the Underdeveloped Countries” AER, May 1959

Pincus, Part II

Seers, Dudley, “A Model of Comparative Growth Rates in the World Economy,” EJ, March 1962

Meier, ch. 7

*Haberler, G., International Trade and Economic Development National Bank of Egypt, Cairo Lectures

*Viner, J., International Trade and Economic Development

*Cairncross, A.K., “International Trade and Economic Development,” Ky 1960 (4)

*Mynt, H., “The Gains from International Trade and to Backward Countries,” RESt, 1954-55

*Flanders, M.J., “Prebisch on Protectionism: An Evaluation,” EJ, June 1964

 

III Trade Relations between Developed and Developing Countries: The Facts

Balassa, ch. 1, 3, 4

Balassa, “Economic Growth, Trade, and Balance of Payments into Developing Countries”, mimeo, ch. 1, 2

Baer, W., “The Economics of Prebisch and ECLA” EDCC, January 1962, Comment by Flanders and Reply by Baer, ibid April 1964

Massell, B.F., “Export Concentration and Fluctuations in Export Earnings,” AER, March 1964

Morgan, T., “Trends in Terms of Trade, and their Repercussions on Primary Producers,” Harrod, ed. ch. 3

Meier, ch. 3

*Haberler, G., “Terms of Trade and Economic Development,” in Ellis, ch. 10.

*United Nations, International Compensation for Fluctuation in Commodity Trade, New York 1961

*United Nations, World Economic Survey, 1962, part I ch. 2

*Kindleberger, C.P., The Terms of Trade: A European Case Study

 

IV Trade Relations between Developed and Developing Countries: The Policies

Balassa, B., The Impact of the Industrial Countries’ Tariff Structure on their Imports of Manufactures from less-Developed Areas, Econ. November 1967

Johnson III, ch. 5, 6

Pincus, ch. 6, 7, 9

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, Preferences and other Policy Measures to Stimulate Exports of the Developing Countries, Trade Intelligence Paper No. 7, 1966

Swerling, B. Current issues in Commodity Policy, Princeton Essays in International Finance No. 7

*Patterson, G., “Would Tariff Preferences Help Economic Development?” LBR, April 1965

*Johnson, H.G., “Trade Preferences for Developing Countries,” LBR, April 1966

*UNCTAD, The Question of the Granting and Extension of Preferences in Favour of Developing Countries, May 31, 1967

*Wallich, H.C., “Stabilization of Proceeds from Raw Material Exports” in Ellis ed.

*International Monetary Fund, Compensatory Financing of Export Fluctuations

*New Directions for World Trade, Proceedings of a Chatham House Conference, 1964

V Trade Policies in Developing Countries

Chenery, H.B., “Comparative Advantage and Development Policy,” AER May 1961

Hagen, E.E., “An Economic Justification of Protectionism,” QJE November 1958

Mynt, H., “Infant Industry Arguments for Assistance of Industries in the Setting of Dynamic Trade Theory,” Harrod, ch. 7

Balassa, B. and Schydlowsky, D., “Effective Tariffs, the Domestic Cost of Foreign Exchange, and the Equilibrium Exchange Rate,” JPE, April 1958

Corden, W.M., “The Vernon Report,” ER, March 1966

Meier, ch. 6

*Black, J., “Arguments for Tariffs,” OEP June 1959

*Bruno, M., “The Optimal Selection of Export-Promoting and Import-Substituting Projects, Planning the External Sector: Techniques, Problems and Policies United Nations, 1967

*Kemp, M.C., “The Mill-Bastable Infant-Industry Dogma,” JPE, February 1960

*Lewis, W.A., “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labor,” MS May 1954

*Chenery, H.B. and Bruno, M., “Development Alternatives in an Open Economy: The Case of Israel, EJ, March 1962

*Sheahan, J., “International Specialization and the Concept of Balanced Growth,” QJE, May 1958

 

VI Economic Integration among Less Developed Countries

Balassa, B., Economic Development and Integration

Balassa, B., “Integration and Resource Allocation in Latin America” mimeo

Mikesell, R.T., “The Theory of Common Markets as Applied to Regional Arrangements among Developing Countries,” Harrod, ch. 9

Massel, B.F. and Cooper, C.A., “Toward a General Theory of Customs Unions for Developing Countries,” JPEOctober 1965

*Wionczek, M.S., “Latin American Free Trade Association,” International Conciliation, January 1965

*Hansen, R.D., Central America: Regional Integration and Economic Development, National Planning Association, 1967

*United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, The Latin American Common Market, 1959

*Urquidi, V., Free Trade and Economic Integrity in Latin America

VII Capital Needs of Developing Countries and Foreign Aid

Johnson III, ch. 4

Pincus, ch. 8

Chenery, H.B. and Strout, A.M., “Foreign Assistance and Economic Development,” AER September 1966

McKinnon, R., “Foreign Exchange Constraints in Economic Development and Efficient Aid Allocation, EJ June 1954

Pincus, J., “The Cost of Foreign Aid,” RES November 1963

*Little, I.M.D. and Clifford, J.M., International Aid

*Fei, J.C.H. and Paauw, D.S., “Foreign Assistance and Self-Help: A Reappraisal of Development Finance,” RESAugust 1965

*Rosenstein-Rodan, P., “International Aid for Underdeveloped Countries,” RES May 1961

*Vanek, J., Estimating Foreign Resource needs for Economic Development: Theory, Method, and a Case Study of Colombia

 

VIII Foreign Investment and Economic Development

Nurkse, ch. 7, 10 II

MacDougall, D., “The Benefits and Costs of Private Investment Abroad: A Theoretical Approach, ER March 1960

Singer, M., “the Distribution of Gains between Investing and Borrowing Countries,” AER, May 1950

Alter, G.M., “The Servicing of Foreign Capital Inflows by Underdeveloped Countries,” Ellis, ch. 6

Meier, ch. 5

*Mikesell, Part II

*Avramovic and Gulhati, Debt Servicing Problems of Low Income Countries

*Mikesell, R.F., Public International Lending for Development

*Bernstein, M.D. Foreign Investment in Latin America

 

Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives, Department of Political Economy. Series 5/6. Box 6/1, Folder “Course Outlines and Reading Lists c. 1900, c. 1950, 1963-68”.

Image Source: Portrait of Bela Balassa in the Johns Hopkins University Yearbook, Hullabaloo 1976. Note that the image posted on the Béla Belassa page at the website Alchetron mistakenly uses a photo of Balassa Sándor Erkel Ferenc.

Categories
History of Economics Suggested Reading Syllabus

Maryland. Undergraduate History of Economic Thought Syllabus. Milton Moss, 1986

 

Following his retirement from federal government service as an economic statistician, Milton Moss (Columbia economics Ph.D., 1962) taught a one semester undergraduate survey course on the history of economics at the University of Maryland from 1981 through 1986. He shared his course outline and reading assignments with his old former colleague at the Federal Reserve Board Herbert Furth in whose papers at the Hoover Institution Archives I was able to find the copy transcribed below. Checking the undergraduate course catalogues for the University of Maryland, I could verify that Moss was a part-time lecturer and that this course was indeed offered under this number in the early 1980s.

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Economics 307
The Development of Economic Ideas
[University of Maryland, 1986]

General Syllabus and
Course Outline of Topics, Readings and Questions
Dr. Milton Moss

 

General Syllabus

Course: Econ 307: The Development of Economic Ideas, Dr. Milton Moss.

Objective: To give an historical perspective to present day economic ideas, highlighting the interactions of economic, social, and political issues and policies.

Readings:

Required:

    1. Harry Landreth, History of Economic Theory
    2. Charles W. Needy, Classics of Economics

Recommended

    1. Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers (very entertaining)
    2. Mark Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect (challenging)
    3. Eric Roll, A History of Economic Thought, 4th edition (optional)
    4. Bible, Old and New Testaments (optional)
    5. M. I. Finley, The Ancient Economy (optional)
    6. Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (very useful for Marx)

Topics:

    1. Overview—Main Themes of the Course
    2. Before Economics Became a “Science”—Antiquity and Middle Ages
    3. Mercantilism & Physiocracy
    4. Classicism—Smith, Malthus, Ricardo
    5. Marxism
    6. Marginal Analysis and Microeconomics—Jevons, Menger, Marshall, and Modern versions
    7. Veblen and Institutional Economics
    8. Keynes and Macroeconomics
    9. Measurement of Economic Performance—National Income and Income Distribution
    10. Review of Main Themes of the Course

Examinations:

Three exams:

Premidterm (20 points)
Midterm (30 points)
Final (50 points)

Each exam will be discussed one week in advance of the examination date.

 

Outline of Topics, Readings, and Questions

  1. Before Economics Became a “Science”—500 B.C.—1300 A.D.

Readings: Landreth 14-19; Roll, Chap. I; Bible: Genesis, 41, 1-36; Leviticus, 27, 1-8; Finley, 17-19;
Student notes in class lecture and discussion.

Questions:

    • “Economics is the oldest art but one of the youngest sciences.” What does this mean?
    • What did Xenophon mean by “OIKONOMICOS”?
    • What is a “just” price? A “just” interest charge?
    • What is the money value of a human being?
    • What food supply policy did Joseph recommend in Ancient Egypt?
  1. Mercantilism and Physiocracy—1500-1750+
    Thomas Mun and Francois Quesnay.

Readings: Landreth 19-29; Needy, 1-14; Blaug, 10-36; Roll, Chap. II and p. 128-137.
Lectures and discussion.

Questions: How does Mercantilism differ from Physiocracy on:

    • What makes a nation wealthy and powerful?
    • How government policy may further a nation’s economic goals?
    • How all economic transactions in a nation are interdependent?
  1. Classicism—1770-1830+
    — Adam Smith, T. R. Malthus, David Ricardo, J.S. Mill, J.-B. Say.

Readings: Landreth 31-151; Needy, 15-83; Blaug, 36-235; Roll, Chap. IV; Heilbroner*, 40-101.
Lectures and discussion.

Questions:

    • Why are some nations poor and others rich?
    • Why do people and/or nations gain through specialization and free exchange?
    • How do free markets “naturally” lead capital and labor to their most efficient uses?
    • Why are wages unequal in different occupations?
    • How do changes in productivity of labor and in costs of production change the distribution between wages, profits, and rent?
    • What is the effect of population growth on economic well-being? On poverty?
    • Why might a scarce resource such as land lead to “diminishing returns”?
    • Is overproduction or underconsumption economically possible?
  1. Marxism—1850-1880 and modern versions.
    Karl Marx and his “successors.”

Readings: Landreth 153-190; Blaug, 236-309; Roll, Chap. VI; Needy, 84-108; Heilbroner*, 133-167; Schumpeter, 1-59.
Lectures and discussion.

Questions:

    • How did Marx build upon the classical labor cost theory of value to explain the distribution of income between wages and profits?
    • What is the economic incentive for technological change?
    • How does technological change lead to:
      a. monopoly?
      b. a reserve army of the unemployed?
      c. Socialism?
    • How do economic incentives affect the relation between money and production of commodities?
    • What is the Marxian view of the role of the State under capitalism? In welfare policy? In foreign policy?
    • Why is Marxism seemingly so influential in today’s politics and economics—especially in the “Third World”?
  1. Marginal Analysis and Microeconomics—1870 to present day.
    W. S. Jevons, Carl Menger, L. Walras, A. Marshall and modern theory.

Readings: Landreth 191-316 (but mainly 201-18 and 279-316); Needy, 118-146; Blaug, 309-390; Roll, Ch. VIII.
Lectures and discussion.

Questions:

    • How did marginalism shift price analysis away from the labor or cost theory of value to analysis of demand and supply?
    • How does marginal utility in relation to price explain demand?
    • How does marginal cost in relation to price explain supply?
    • To what uses besides demand and supply questions is marginal analysis applicable at the present time?
  1. Veblen and “Institutional” Economics—1899 to date.
    Mostly Veblen, but references also to W. C. Mitchell, J. R. Commons, and J. Galbraith.

Readings: Landreth 317-345, 354-360; Needy, 174-198, 1982-212 (optional); Heilbroner*, 210-244; Roll, 439-454. Lectures and discussion.

Questions:

    • Economic behavior, according to Veblen, can be divided into two main types: “Industrial employments,” and “pecuniary employments”.
      a. How does this view of economic behavior differ from that of Smith, Marx, and the marginalists?
      b. What are some examples of the two types of behavior? In Veblen’s day? At the present time?
    • Should economics be a study of disequilibrium rather than equilibrium? Of institutional change rather than fixed economic laws?
  1. Keynes and Macroeconomics—1930 to present.

Readings: Landreth 431-497; Needy, 324-352; Heilbroner*, 245-283; Blaug, 665-692 (difficult reading but worth trying your hand at—entirely optional); Roll, 479-497.
Lectures and discussion.

Questions:

    • During the great depression of the 1930’s what different proposals were made for putting people back to work? Marxian? Neoclassical? Keynesian?
    • How did the Keynesian framework of aggregate demand change the analysis of employment?
    • What is the effect of changes in aggregate demand, especially investment demand, on general economic fluctuations?
    • What role can Government play in diminishing economic fluctuations? Critically examine that role.
    • How has the trade-off between unemployment and inflation resulted in a reappraisal of Keynesian macroeconomic policy?
    • Is Keynes only a depression economist? Has “stagflation”—the concurrence of a stagnant economy and inflation-upset the foundations of Keynesian theory?
    • What are the main alternative views of macroeconomic policy today?
  1. Measurement of Economic Performance — 1690—Present.

Topics: National Income, Gross National Product, and Income Distribution.
Rely almost entirely on lectures.

Questions:

    • What are some highlights in the historical development of measurement of the income of nations?
    • National Income as presently compiled shows how income of a nation is distributed while Gross National Product shows how income is used. Why is that?
    • What have been some key uses by government and business policy makers of the National Income and Product Statistics?
    • On income distribution, what are the main issues that distinguish distribution of income to the factors of production from distribution by size of income among persons and households?
    • What are the advantages and limitations to using income as a measure of economic well-being?
  1. Review of the Main Themes in the History of Economic Thought
    General Discussion.

Note to Readings—Underlined references are required readings. Others are optional. References to Heilbroner are asterisked because students are likely to enjoy his entertaining and lively writing. Note that reference to Lectures and discussion are in bold indicating their critical importance in this course.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. J. Herbert Furth Papers. Box 12.

Image SourceAdam Smith by James Tassie (1787). The National Portrait Gallery (U.K.)

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Syllabus and Final Exam for Economic Development of China. Paauw, 1955

 

Douglas Seymour Paauw was a Harvard economics Ph.D. (1950) who taught courses on the economies of East Asia. Like many area specialists of his generation, he acquired his foreign language skills during his military service in World War II. He lived to the age of 98 and died in February, 2020. His Seattle Times obituary is followed by the syllabus, reading list and final examination for his 1955 course at Harvard on Chinese economic development.

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Earlier post on the Chinese Economy

Harvard. Readings for Chinese Economic Problems, 1947

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Obituary

Douglas S. Paauw was born December 13, 1921 in Hancock, MN and passed away peacefully at the age of 98 at home in Bellevue, WA on February 17, 2020. He grew up in Holland, MN and graduated from Pipestone High School in 1939. He received a BA degree from Calvin College in Michigan.

In 1948 he married Kaye Horan, daughter of long-time Congressman Walt Horan of Wenatchee, WA. This union produced two sons, Scott & Doug.

During World War II he served as a Chinese interpreter after receiving training in Chinese at Harvard University. Following his WWII service, he received a Master’s degree from the University of Washington (1949) and a PhD in economics from Harvard (1950).

He taught at Harvard until 1956, after which he taught at Lake Forest College (1956-1959), Nommensen University in Indonesia (1960-1961), Yale (1961-1963), University of the Philippines (1965-1967), and Wayne State University where he served as Chairman of the Department of Economics (1970-1987). He also served as Director of Research at the National Planning Association in Washington, D.C. for seven years.

Dr. Paauw became known as one of the world’s top experts on economic development in Southeast Asia. He worked in Indonesia, spending a total of ten years there after his first visit in 1954. He is the author of several books and many articles on Southeast Asian economic development.

Since retirement in 1990, he lived in Bellevue, WA. He was devoted to family, friends, his adopted country of Indonesia, and the game of tennis, which he actively played until age 90.

He is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Doug and Kathy Paauw of Redmond, WA, three grandchildren Alan Paauw, Carly Paauw Jerome, and Cindy Paauw, and two great-grandchildren, Aurora Kilcer and Violet Jerome. He is predeceased by his wife of 65 years, Kaye Horan Paauw, and his son, Scott, who both passed away in 2014.

SourceSeattle Times, February 23, 2020.

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From the Calvin College Archives

Douglas Seymour Paauw was born in Stevens, Minnesota on December 13, 1921. He received his B.A. degree from Calvin College and his M.A., Ph.D. from Harvard University. Paauw married Helen Kathleen Horan on September 10, 1948. He worked as a developmental economist and worked with government planning associations. Paauw’s work allowed him and his family the unique opportunity to live in interesting locations like Indonesia and the Philippines. Paauw eventually moved to the United States and settled in Detroit, Michigan where he accepted the position of Chairman of the Economics Department at Wayne State University. Douglas Seymour Paauw reached the status of Professor Emeritus of Economics.

SourceArchival Record at Calvin College.

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Douglas Seymour Paauw
Harvard Economics Ph.D., 1950

Douglas Seymour Paauw, A.B. (Calvin Coll.) 1946, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1949.
Subject, Economics. Special Field, Public Finance. Thesis, “Chinese Public Finance during the Nanking Government Period.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1949-1950, p. 198.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 113a Economic Development in the Far East: China. Dr. Paauw, Half course. (S)

Total 16: 7 Graduates, 3 Seniors, 3 Juniors 2 Sophomores, 1 Radcliffe

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

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 113a

Tentative Lecture Subjects, Spring Term, 1954-1955

Introduction

  1. Introductory Lecture
  2. A Birdseye View of the History of the Chinese Economy

The Supply of Factors

  1. The Supply of Factors: Land
  2. The Supply of Factors: Population
  3. The Supply of Factors: Labor
  4. The Supply of Factors: Capital
  5. The Supply of Factors: Entrepreneurship

The Utilization of Factors

  1. The Size of the Chinese Economy
  2. The Use of Factors: Agriculture
  3. The Use of Factors: Industry
  4. The Use of Factors: Industry (Manchuria)

The Institutional Setting

  1. The Development of Financial Institutions
  2. The Development of Fiscal Institutions
  3. The Development of Other Institutions (Markets, etc.)

External Relationships

  1. Foreign Trade
  2. Foreign Investment

The Development of the Chinese Economy

  1. Early “Industrialization Efforts
  2. Kuomintang Planning
  3. Inflation, Disruption and Collapse, 1939-1949
  4. Communist Rehabilitation of the Economy
  5. Communist Agricultural Policy
  6. Communist Economic Planning
  7. The Financing of Recent Economic Development
  8. Assessment of Economic Growth

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 113a

Reading List, Spring Term, 1954-1955

Wittfogel, K. A., “Foundations and Stages of Chinese Economic History”, Zeitschrift für Socialforschung, 1935 (in English).

Allen, G. C., and Donnithorne, A. G., Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development, Chapter 15.

Rostow, W. W., et al., The Prospects for Communist China, Chapter 12.

Abramovitz, M., “Economics of Growth”, A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. II (B. F. Haley, editor), pp. 132-182.

Bergsmarck, D. R., Economic Geography of Asia, Chapters 23, 24, 25 (to p. 523), 26.

Usher, A. P., “The Resource Requirements of an Industrial Economy”, Journal of Economic History, Supplement, VII, 1947, pp. 35-46.

Jaffe, A. J., “A Review of Censuses and Demographic Statistics of China”, Population Studies, Vol. I, No. 3, December 1947, pp. 308-337.

Ta Chen, Population in Modern China, Chapters 1 and 5.

Spengler, J. J., “The Population Obstacle to Economic Betterment”, Proceedings, American Economic Review, Vol. 41, No. 2, May 1951, pp. 343-358.

Levy, M. J., and Shih, K. H., The Rise of the Modern Chinese Business Class.

Allen, G. C., and Donnithorne, A. G., op. cit., Chapters 1 and 2.

Liu Ta-Chung, China’s National Income (emphasize Chapters 1, 2, and 5).

Ou Pao-San, “A New Estimate of China’s National Income”, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 54, No. 6, December 1946, pp. 547-554.

Chang Pei-Kang, Agriculture and Industrialization, Chapters 2, 4, and 5.

Buck, J. L., Land Utilization in China, Chapter 1.

Chiu, A. K., “Agriculture”, Chapter in China (H. F. McNair, editor).

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 113a

Reading List, Spring Term, 1954-1955
Part II

Ou Pao-san and Wang Fo-shen, “Industrial Production and Employment in Pre-war China,” Economic Journal, Vol. 56, September 1946, pp. 426-434.

Hubbard, G. E., Eastern Industrialization and its Effect on the West, pp. 181-205, 222-228.

Schumpeter, E. B., The Industrialization of Japan and Manchukuo, pp. 376-418.

Chang, Kia-ngau, “China’s Need for Transport,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 23, No. 3, April 1945, pp. 465-475.

Tamagna, F. M., Banking and Finance in China, Chapters 6 and 7, pp. 121-223.

Ting, L. G., “Chinese Modern Banks and the Finance of the Government and Industry,” Nankai Social and Economic Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 578-616.

Paauw, D. S., “Chinese National Expenditures in the Nanking Period,” Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 1, Nov. 1952, pp. 3-26.

Li Cho-ming, “International trade” in H. F. McNair, China, pp. 492-506.

Remer, C. F., Foreign Investments in China, Chapters 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.

Wu Yuan-li, “Communist China and Trade with the West,” Pacific Spectator, Vol. 7, No. 4 Autumn, 1953, pp. 404-418.

Fong, H.D., “Toward Economic Control in China,” Nankai Social and Economic Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 2, pp. 296-397.

Li Choh-ming, “Wartime Inflation in China,” Review of Economic Statistics, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 23-33.

Rostow, W. W. et al., The Prospects for Communist China, Ch. 13, pp. 237-255.

Paauw, D. S., “Economic Principles and State Organization,” Annals of the American Academy, Vol. 227, Sept. 1951, pp. 101-112.

Hsia, Ronald, Price Control in Communist China, Introduction, Chapters 1 through 8.

Chao, K. C., “Current Agrarian Reform Policies in Communist China,” Annals of the American Academy, Vol. 227, Sept. 1951, pp. 113-123.

Schwartz, B. I. and Paaw, D. S., “David Mitrany’s Marx Against the Peasant: Two Comments on its Implications for the Far East,” Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 1, Nov. 1952, pp. 47-50.

Barnett, A. D., “China’s Road to Collectivization,” Journal of Farm Economics, Vol. 35, No. 2, May, 1953, pp. 188-202.

Rostow, W. W., et al., The Prospects for Communist China, Ch. 14 and 15, pp. 256-295.

 

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

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1954-55
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113A
[Final examination. June, 1955]

  1. (2 hours) Answer two of the following:
    1. Prior to the Communist Period Chinese industrialization efforts were characterized by a series of stops and starts, backing and filling, advance and retrogression. Give the history of these efforts and the reasons for their failure to achieve the objectives of economic development.
    2. Given an analysis of the prospects for Chinese economic growth under the Communist growth model, including all relevant factors which you can draw from your study of the Chinese economy. The strengths or weaknesses of the models discussed in the course should be presented to support your conclusions.
    3. Outline the important changes which have taken place in the Chinese economy during the past 100 years, giving your analysis of the factors which precipitated these changes, their impact on general economic welfare and the structure of the economy and their implications for the rate and costs of economic progress.
  2. (1 hour) Discuss one of the following basing your discussion mainly on required course reading on the subject. You are expected to refer to the major sources supporting your discussion.
    1. Problems of developing “Westernized” business entrepreneurship in China.
    2. The growth and development of fiscal, monetary and banking institutions.
    3. Transition in the agricultural sector during the Communist period.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, … , Economics, … , Naval Science, Air Science, June, 1955. Included in bound volume Final Exams, Social Sciences, June, 1955 (HUC 7000.28, Vol. 110).

Image Source: Harvard Square from the Tichnor Brothers Collection of postcards. Boston Public Library, Print Department.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Socialism Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Economics of Socialism, Syllabus and Final Exam. O.H. Taylor, 1953

Joseph Schumpeter’s shadow was still cast over “his” Economics of Socialism course that was taken over by Harvard’s historian of political-economy, O. H. Taylor. This post provides the syllabus and final exam for Taylor’s course as taught in the  second term of the 1952-53 academic year. The syllabus from the spring term of 1955 was posted earlier. 

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Course Announcement, 1952-53

Economics 111. Economics of Socialism.

Half-course (spring term). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructorFri., at 10. Dr. O. H. Taylor.

A brief survey of the development of socialist groups and parties; pure theory of centralist socialism; the economics of Marxism; applied problems.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Courses of Instruction, Box 6, Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year, 1952-53, p. 99.

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Economics 111—Economics of Socialism
Spring Term, 1952-53

OUTLINE

  1. January 28-February 13: Socialist Thought Before Marx, and the Doctrines of Marx.

Reading:
1. H. Laidler, Social-Economic Movements, Chapters 8-16.
2. Burns, Handbook of Marxism, Chapter 1.
3. G. H. Sabine, History of Political Theory, Chapters on Hegel and Marx.
4. J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Part I.
5. P. M. Sweezy, Theory of Capitalist Development, Parts I and II.

Lectures:
Introduction. Pre-history of the socialist vision. Some “utopian” socialists. Hegel and Marx, philosophies of history. Marx’s economic interpretation of history. Ricardo and Marx, economic theories of production, class roles and incomes, value, and economic development.

Discussion: February 13.

  1. February 16-27: Marx, continued; and History of German and Other Continental European Socialism (Parties, Movements, and Ideas) to the First World War.

Reading:
1. P. M. Sweezy, Theory of Capitalist Development, Part II (continued).
2. Joan Robinson, Essay on Marxian Economics.
3. O. H. Taylor, “Schumpeter and Marx”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1951.
4. H. Laidler, Social Movements, Chapters 19-23.

Lectures:
Marx’s economics (continued)—theory of capitalism’s (the economy’s) working, evolution, dilemmas, and degeneration, or life-cycle. Marx’s program—strategy and tactics—for the social movement, and ideas of the revolution and its sequel—stages of creation of the socialist society. Lasalle and Marx, and the German Social Democratic Party in the Age of Bismarck. Later history of the German party—Bernstein’s revisionism vs. Marxist orthodoxy. Other Continental European movements, parties, and ideas.

Discussion: February 27.

  1. March 2-13: Varieties of Socialist Thought and Effort, and the Labor Movement in England from 1815 to 1914.

Reading:
1. Max Beer, History of British Socialism, [Volume I] Part 2; [Volume II] 3, 4.
2. G. D. H. Cole, A Short History of the British Working Class Movement, Part I, Chapters 5-9; Parts II and III.
3. The Fabian Essays.

Lectures:

Early Nineteenth Century English radicalism and its varieties—Benthamism, Ricardian socialism (before Marx), Owenism, Chartism. The Christian socialists. Evolution of the trade unions. The Fabians and their philosophy and program. Other socialist societies and creeds. Formation and early history of the Labor Party and its program.

Discussion: March 13.

  1. March 16-27: The Internationals, the First World War, the Russian Revolution, Lenin, and Communism.

Reading:
1. H. Laidler, Social-Economic Movements, Chapters 24-27.
2. G. H. Sabine, History of Political Theory, Chapter “Communism”.
3. Burns, Handbook of Marxism, Chapters 22, 26, 29, 30.
4. P. M. Sweezy, Theory of Capitalist Development, Part IV.

Lectures:
The old socialist internationals; socialist internationalism and pacificism, the German and other parties, and the first World War. Czarist Russia, its radical parties, Lenin and the Bolsheviki, and the Russian Revolutions of 1917-18. Lenin’s policies and the early evolution of the Soviet regime; and Lenin’s theories, or “development” of Marxism. Theory of capitalism and imperialism. Modern Communist Marxism vs. democratic socialism.

Discussion: March 27.

Spring Recess

  1. April 6-17: Economic Theory and the Problems of Planning and Policy in a Socialist Economy.

Reading:
1. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Part IV.
2. Lange-Taylor, Economic Theory of Socialism.
3. M. Dobb, Soviet Economic Development since 1917, Chapters 1, 13.

Lectures:
“Rational economic decisions” in competitive capitalism and in a socialist society; historic, intellectual background and development of the study of this problem. The Lange model of a liberal, competitive-market socialism. Dobbs and others on problems neglected in the Lange model. Critical remarks on the whole discussion—doubts of relevance for socialism of the bourgeois aim at “rational economy.”

Discussion: April 17.

  1. April 20-29: Economic Policies in Soviet Russia, and in England Under the Last Labor Government.

Reading: [blank]

Lectures: [blank]

Discussion: April 29.

 

Source: Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 5. Folder “Economics, 1952-53 (1 of 2)”.

____________________________

1952-53
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 111

[Final examination. May, 1953]

  1. Discuss the implications, and degrees of validity if any, of Marx’s description of the “socialisms”” of Fourier, Owen, etc. as “Utopian,” and of his own system as “scientific socialism.”
  2. Give a general account and discussion of one of the following “parts” of Marx’s system of thought:
    1. His general theory of the dynamics of all history: “materialism,” the dialectic, the economic interpretation of history, the class struggle theory.
    2. His theory of value and surplus value—or value, wages, and capitalist incomes—in the capitalist economy.
    3. His theory of the capital-accumulation process—its causes, motives, and results—and the dynamics, and predicted course, of the evolution of the capitalist economy.
  3. Describe and discuss the character, and some of the main elements or tenets, of Fabian socialist thought. (The reference is only to the original Fabian group, the Webbs, Shaw, etc.)
  4. “Throughout the histories of the German and English socialist movements, the German socialists have been hampered by their excessive burden of dogmatic theory, and the English, by their lack of theory.”
    Comment, in the light of what you know of the actual histories; giving brief accounts of particular episodes or developments—at least one in the history of the German and one in that of the English movement—which might be held to illustrate the statements, and discussing the question, whether and how far they do so.
  5. Choose and discuss one or more of the important theoretical problems to be “solved” in developing any sound, useful structure of economic theory, for use in socialist economic planning and the construction and operation of a socialist economy.
  6. On any one of the important, general topics considered in New Fabian Essays, describe (summarize) the views or opinions expressed therein, and discuss them critically.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives.  Final Exams—Social Sciences, June 1953 (HUC 7000.28, vol. 99).

Image Source: O.H. Taylor in Harvard College, Class Album 1952.

Categories
Economists Exam Questions Harvard Michigan Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Syllabus, reading assignments, final exam for “Economies of Tropical Africa”. Berg, 1961

 

Today’s post provides material from a regional economics course on economic development in “tropical Africa” by the newly minted Harvard Ph.D., Elliot Joseph Berg, from the Spring term of the 1960-61 academic year. Biographical and career information is provided, followed by the transcription of the course syllabus and final examination.

According to a story about African Studies in the Harvard Crimson (“Harvard Expands Africa Studies with Courses in History, Anthropology”, October 3, 1961), 

“Last year [1960-61] the University offered its first two courses on Africa–one in Government, the other in Economics.”

__________________________

 

Elliot Joseph Berg’s best known publication:

Report of the African Strategy Review Group coordinated by Elliot Berg. Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Action. The World Bank, 1981.

Finding aid to Elliot Berg Papers on African Development. (MSS 308 large) Michigan State University Libraries.

__________________________

Life and Career

Elliot Joseph Berg
(b. 20 May 1927 in New York City;
d. 21 November 2002 in Alexandria, VA).

Education:

B.A., New York University, 1949
M.A., Columbia University, 1955
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1960.

Teaching Fellow, Assistant Professor of Economics, Harvard University 1959-1964.

Project Director, Harvard Advisory Group, Liberia, 1964-1966.

Awarded Grand Commander Order Star of Africa by the Government of Liberia, 1965.

Professor of Economics, Director of the Center Economic Development, University of Michigan, 1966-1983

1982-1991: President, Elliot Berg Associates. Alexandria, VI.

Adjunct Professor, Universite de l’Auvergne, Clermont, France, 1982-2000

Vice President, Development Alternatives Incorporated, Bethesda, MD, 1990-1995.

Source:   Prabook webpage for Elliot Joseph Berg.

__________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 118. The Economy of Tropical Africa. Dr. E.J. Berg. Half course. (S)

Total 37: 3 Graduates, 13 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 10 Sophomores, 2 Radcliffe, 3 Other Graduates.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1960-1961, p. 76.

__________________________

Syllabus and Readings

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Outline
Economics 118
THE ECONOMIES OF TROPICAL AFRICA

 

  1. The Pattern of Development
    1. The Pre-Colonial Background
    2. Peoples and Cultures: The Colonial Ideology
    3. The expansion of the Money Economy: Measures of Rates of Growth
    4. Types of Economic Growth: The Mining and Settler Economies and the Peasant-Producer Economies
    5. Development of a Labor Force
    6. The Role of the Non-African: Patterns of Conflict and Cooperation
  2. Structural Characteristics of African Economies
    1. Population Patterns
    2. The Extent of the Money Economy and the Concept of Dualism
    3. African National Accounts
    4. Export-Orientation and the Terms of Trade
    5. Goods Markets and Price Determination
    6. Labor Markets and Wage Determination
  3. Problems of Economic Policy and the Strategy of Development
    1. The Expansion of Agricultural Output
    2. Internal Trade Policies and Marketing Boards
    3. Transportation and Development
    4. The High-Level Manpower Problem and the Economics of Education
    5. Wage and Labor Policy
    6. Monetary Policy
    7. Tax Policy and Problems of Public Finance
    8. Accelerated Industrialization
    9. Development Planning
    10. The Role of the State: The Socialist Solution in Africa
  4. The Economics of Independence
    1. Economic Viability, Economic Development and the Size of States
    2. Uneven Growth and the Economic of Federalism
    3. External Economic Assistance
    4. Africa and the European Common Market
    5. Problems of African Economic Integration
    6. The Economic Prospects for Africa

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

*Indicates substitutable readings

  1. The Pattern of Development

*Pim, Sir Alan, The Financial and Economic History of the African Tropical Territories. (Oxford, 1940).

*Knowles, L., The Economic Development of the Overseas Empire, (London, 1924), Vol. I, pp. 113-301; 485-508.

Stamp, L.D., Africa—A Study in Tropical Development (New York, 1953) Ch. 2.

Kimble, G. H. T., Tropical Africa (New York, 1960), Ch. 1.

Hancock, W. K., Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, Vol. II, Problems of Economic Policy, 1918-1939, Part 2 (London, 1942).

Buell, R. L., The Native Problem in Africa (New York, 1928), Ch. 21, 29, 82, 83, 87, 89.

Myint, H., “The Classical Theory of International Trade and the Underdeveloped Countries,” Economic Journal, June 1958, pp. 317-337.

Singer, H., “The Distribution of Gains Between Investing and Borrowing Countries,” American Economic Review, May 1950, Papers and Proceedings, pp. 473-485.

United Nations, Bureau of Economic Affairs, Enlargement of the Exchange Economy in Tropical Africa (New York, 1954).

Hailey, Lord, An African Survey (London, 1957), pp. 1263-1306.

Bauer, P. T., Economic Analysis and Policy in Underdeveloped Countries, Ch. 2.

  1. Structural Characteristics of African Economics
    1. General

United Nations, Department of Economic Affairs, Review of Economic Conditions in Africa. Supplement to World Economic Report, 1949-50 (New York, 1951). Ch. 1.

United Nations, Department of Economic Affairs, Scope and Structure of Money Economies in Tropical Africa. (New York, 1955).

    1. The Dual Economy and the Supply of Effort

United Nations, Department of Economic Affairs, Enlargement of the Exchange Economy in Tropical Africa.

B. Higgins, Economic Development (New York, 1959), Ch. 12, pp. 274-293.

A. I. Richards, Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia (OUP, 1939), pp. 201-227.

P. T. Bauer and B. Yamey, The Economics of Underdeveloped Countries (Cambridge, 1957), Ch. VII.

W. O Jones, “Economic Man in Africa,” Food Research Institute Studies (Stanford), Vol. I, #2, May 1960, pp. 107-134.

    1. Population Patterns

G. T. Kimble, Tropical Africa, Vol. I, Ch. 3, pp. 81-124.

A. Hirschman, The Strategy of Economic Development (New Haven, 1958) pp. 176-182.

East Africa Royal Commission (1953-1955) Report (London, H.M.S.O., 1956. Cmd 9475), Ch. 3, pp. 30-40; Appendix VII, pp. 462-473.

    1. National Income

D. Seers, “The Role of National Income Estimates in the Statistical Policy of an Underdeveloped Area,” in Review of Economic Studies, Vol. XX (1952-3), pp..159-68.

A. R. Prest, The Investigation of National Income in British Tropical Dependencies. University of London, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Commonwealth Papers, No. IV., (London, 1957).

Phyllis Deane, Colonial Social Accounting (Cambridge, 1953) pp. 223-229.

    1. Export-Orientation and the Terms of Trade

Singer, “The Distribution of Gains…(article cited in Part I.)

Higgins, Economic Development, Ch. 15 (omit pp. 374-382).

United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Economic Survey of Africa Since 1950, Ch. 3.

G. Haberler, International Trade and Economic Development (Cairo, 1959), pp. 1-24.

    1. Consumer Goods Markets, Price Determination and the Mechanics of Inflation

Gold Coast, Ministry of Finance, A Survey of Some Economic Matters (Accra, 1952), pp. 12-17.

D. Seers and C. R. Ross, Report on Financial and Physical Problems of Development in the Gold Coast(Accra, 1952), pp. 1-72.

P. T. Bauer, West African Trade (Cambridge, 1954), pp. 7-64; 104-144; 156-171; 379-392.

F. Bezy, Problemes Structurels de l’Economie Congolaise (Louvain, 1957), pp. 86-94.

East Africa Royal Commission Report, pp. 64-76.

M. Perham, (ed.), Mining, Commerce & Finance in Nigeria, (London, 1948), pp. 195-202; 218-224 (“Balance of Payments and the Three Sectional Price Levels”).

F. C. Wright, African Consumers in Nyasaland and Tanganyika. An Enquiry into the Distribution and Consumption of Commodities Among Africans Carried Out in 1952-1953. Colonial Research Studies #17 (London, 1955).

W. V. Berelsford, Copperbelt Markets. A Social and Economic Study (Lusaka, 1947), pp. 7-12; 21-41.

M. Capet, Les Economies de l’AOF (Paris, 1958), pp. [no pages given]

    1. Labor Markets, The Migrant Labor System and Wage Determination

International Labour Office, African Labour Survey (Geneva, 1959), pp. 106-120; 127-169; 259-294.

Bezy, Problemes Structurels de l’Economie Congolaise, pp. 101-197.

Sheila Van der Horst, Native Labour in South Africa (London, 1942) pp. [no pages given]

E. A. Royal Commission Report, pp. 146-172.

E. Berg, “French West Africa,” in W. Galenson, ed., Labor and Economic Development (New York, 1959), pp. 193-204.

J. C. Mitchell, “The Causes of Labour Migration,” in Bulletin of the Inter-African Labour Institute, Jan. 1959, pp. 12-45.

W. Elkan, “Migrant Labor in Africa: An Economist’s Approach,” in American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, Vol. XLIX, #2, (May 1959), pp. 188-197.

B. Gussman, “Industrial Efficiency and the Urban African: A Study of Conditions in Southern Rhodesia,” in Africa, Vol. XXIII, #2 (April 1953), pp. 135-144.

W. Watson, Tribal Cohesion in a Money Economy: A Study of the Mambwe People of Northern Rhodesia(Manchester, 1958), Ch. 3-5.

  1. & IV. The Strategy of Development and the Economics of Independence
    1. The Expansion of Agriculture

Food and Agricultural Organization, The State of Food and Agriculture, 1958 (Rome, 1959), Part III, pp. 90-162.

S. H. Frankel, “The Kongwa Experiment: Lessons of the East African Groundnut Scheme,” in The Economic Impact on Under-Developed Societies, (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), pp. 141-153.

K.D.S. Baldwin, The Niger Agricultural Project (Oxford, 1957) pp. 1-7, 81-125; 172-197.

Kimble, Tropical Africa, Vol. I, Ch. 5, pp. 163-193.

E. Africa Royal Commission Report, Part V.

    1. Marketing Boards

P. T. Bauer, West African Trade, pp. 263-343.

    1. Wage and Labor Policy

International Labour Office, African Labour Survey (Geneva, 1958), pp. 259-294.

Inter-African Labour Institute, Commission for Technical Co-operation in Africa South of the Sahara, The Human Factors of Productivity in Africa: A Preliminary Survey, pp. 1-55; 103-106.

Federation of Nigeria, Report of the Fact-Finding Committee on the Minimum Wage Question, (Lagos, 1955), mimeo’d, pp. 10-25.

E. A. Royal Commission Report, pp. 146-162.

E. Berg, “French West Africa,” in W. Galenson (ed.), Labor and Economic Development, pp. 223-241.

    1. High Level Manpower and the Economics of Education

Federal Ministry of Education, Nigeria. Investment in education; The Report of the Commission on Post-School Certificate and Higher Education in Nigeria. (The Ashby Report.) (Lagos, 1960).

    1. Industrialization

United Nations, Economic Survey of Africa Since 1950, pp. 134-140.

W. A. Lewis, Report on Industrialization and the Gold Coast (Accra, 1952).

    1. Development Plans and Finance

W.A. Lewis, “On Assessing a Development Plan.”

United Nations, Economic Survey of Africa Since 1950, pp. 135-47.

“The Finance of Development in Tropical Africa,” in United Africa Company, Statistical and Economic Review, #20 (September 1957), and #21 (March 1958).

    1. Integration and the Economics of Federalism

E. Berg, “The Economic Basis of Political Choice in French West Africa,” in American Political Science Review, Vol. LIV, #2 (June, 1960), pp. 391-405.

East Africa, Report of the Fiscal Commission (The Raisman Report).

C. Legum, A New Deal in Central Africa. (“The Economic Argument”).

[No additional reading assignment was given for the Reading Period]

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 7, Folder “Economics 1960-61, (1 of 2)”.

__________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Economics 118
FINAL EXAMINATION
May 29, 1961

Dr. Elliot Berg

INSTRUCTIONS: Answer both questions in Part I, and any three questions in Part II. Organize your answers and write clearly.

Part I. Answer both Questions

  1. (45 minutes). An African economist recently made the following statement:
    “The pattern of economic development imposed by the European powers in Africa has been a disaster for Africa. What benefits have we drawn from the European presence? Our people have been exploited, our raw materials drained, our economies tied to specialized products which face a dismal future on world markets. The economic benefits of the colonial experience have accrued to the metropolitan countries.”
    Do you agree? Discuss.
  2. (45 minutes). You are an eminent economist, deputized by a committee of African governments to make recommendations regarding the re-grouping of existing African states into the most “rational” conceivable economic units. If economic considerations alone were decisive, how would you re-draw the African map?
    In your answer you may focus on any one region (i.e., West Africa, East Africa, etc.) or you may discuss the problem more generally. Make clear the theoretical considerations, on which you base your recommendations—e.g., if you think larger states are more conducive to economic growth than smaller ones, give the analysis supporting your position.

 

Part II. Answer any three questions

(30 minutes)

  1. “In the development planning of most African countries, agricultural expansion should receive first attention, for agriculture is the essential springboard on which all economic growth depends.”
    Do you agree? Discuss, giving some attention to the problems of agricultural development, and to alternative methods of agricultural development in Africa.

(30 minutes)

  1. Some economics argue that because of the migrant labor system in Africa wage levels for unskilled African labor are higher than they would otherwise be. On the other hand, Adam Smith wrote, in The Wealth of Nations: “When a person derives his subsistence from one employment, which does not occupy the greater part of his time, in the intervals of leisure he is often willing to work for another for less wages than would otherwise suit the nature of the employment.”
    Are these arguments incompatible? Analyze the effects of labor migration on the level of wages of unskilled African labor.

 

(30 minutes)

  1. Discuss the major problems of national income accounting in African countries.

 

(30 minutes)

  1. African economies are commonly described as “fragile.” In what sense, and to what extent, is this an accurate description? Do you believe that African economies are more susceptible to domestic inflation than are advanced industrial economies?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Bound volume: Social Sciences, Final Examinations. June, 1961. (HUC 7000.28, vol. 134). Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, … , Economics, … , Naval Science, Air Science.

Image Source:  Screen shot of Elliot Berg, President of Elliot Berg Associates, Inc. from C-SPAN, International Conference on Privatization hosted by the Sequoia Institute(February 17, 1986).

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Final exam for Economic Trends and Fluctuations. Haberler, 1932.

 

Gottfried Haberler taught two courses as a visiting lecturer at Harvard in 1931-32. His mid-year exam for Economics 15 Problems in Economic Theory was transcribed and posted earlier.

I have not (yet) found a syllabus for his one-semester business cycle course, but judging from the titles assigned for the reading period, he was clearly serving a Viennese melange of business cycle theories. 

___________________

Course Enrollment

Primarily for Graduates:—

III. Applied Economics

[Economics] 37 1hf. Dr. Haberler.Economic Trends and Fluctuations.

Total 7: Graduates 7.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1931-1932, p. 72.

___________________

Reading Period
Jan 4-20, 1932

Economics 37.

Schumpeter, J.: The Explanation of the Business Cycle, in “Economica”, Vol. 7, 1927.

Hayek, F.A.: Prices and Production, London, 1931.

Robertson, D.H.: Banking Policy and the Price Level.

Suggestions for further reading:

Hayek, F.A.: Geldtheorie u. Konjunkturtheorie, Vienna, 1929. [1932 translation by N. Kaldor and H.M. Croome]

Mises, L.: Theorie des Geldes u. der Umlaufmittel, Pt. III, Ch. 5, “Geld, Umlaufmittel u. Zins”.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 2. Folder: “Economics, 1931-32”.

___________________

1931-32
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 37

Students may use any books or notes they wish.

Answer FIVE of these six questions.

  1. The relation of the rate of interest and prices according to (a) Irving Fisher, (b) Knut Wicksell, and (c) R. G. Hawtrey. State whether these different views are compatible with each other in your opinion.
  2. What is the influence of a credit expansion on the structure of production?
  3. Criticize the “monetary” theory of the business cycle as developed by R. G. Hawtrey.
  4. A. Hayek and J. Schumpeter have the notion that the upward swing of the business cycle is characterized by an increase of the “roundaboutness” of production. What is the difference between their theories and why do they reach different conclusions as to the essence of depression?
  5. What is the difference between D. H. Robertson’s and F. A. Hayek’s theory of the business cycle?
  6. It is frequently said that an individual can use up his capital, but that this is impossible—excepting physical destruction by a war or an earthquake—for a closed economy because, if one person sells a piece of his capital equipment, it necessarily accrues to somebody else. What do you think of this?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 12, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-years, 1931-32.

Image Source: Link to Österreichische Nationalbibliothek record.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Summer School, Syllabus and Exams for Income Distribution. Bronfenbrenner, 1970

 

 

Try to imagine what a summer school student at Harvard might have thought in the summer of 1970 (scarcely a month after the Kent State University shootings) when confronted with the five page reading list in Martin Bronfenbrenner’s economics course on income distribution. Next jump down to the four page final exam and also imagine that summer student’s reaction.  Well, that was exactly a half-century ago and it was still a time when professors could get away with assigning mountains of reading followed by an examination demanding both comprehension and thought. Chapeau!

Worth noting:  Joan Robinson appeared in four of the seven exam questions. 

_______________________

Summer 1970

INCOME DISTRIBUTION—M. Bronfenbrenner

Text:    B.F. Haley and William Fellner (eds.), Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution.

Note:   Few will have time for even half the materials below. Students should concentrate where their interests are strongest, and/or where class presentation seems weakest.

  1. Introduction
    1. Theoretical

Clark, Distribution of Wealth, Ch. 1.

Galbraith, Affluent Society, Ch. 7.

Kuznets, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality,” AER, Mar. 55.
(Reprinted in Kuznets, Economic Growth and Structure.)

Klein, Introduction to Econometrics, Ch. 4.

M. Friedman, “Choice, Chance, and the Personal Distribution of Income,” JPE, Aug. 53.

Mincer, “Investment in Human Capital and Personal Income Distribution,” JPE, Aug. 58.

Weintraub, General Theory of the Price Level, Output, Income, and Growth, Ch. 3-4.

Solow, “Constancy of Relative Shares,” AER, Sept. 58, or Bronfenbrenner “Relative Shares and Elasticity of Substitution,” JPE, June 60.

    1. Statistical

Lydall, Structure of Earnings, Ch. 2-4.

Budd, Inequality and Poverty, pp. x-xxviii (Budd), Parts 2-3 (Solow, Goldsmith, Lampman, Projector and Weiss, Stigler, Meade).

Readings, 4 (Bowman) [“A Graphical Analysis of Personal Income Distribution in the United States”]

Kuznets, Shares of Upper Income Groups in Income and Saving, pp. xxvii-xli.

Lampman, “Recent Changes in Income Inequality,” AER, June 54.

Lebergott, “Factor Shares in the Long Run,” in NBER, Behavior of Income Shares, pp. 53-86, or Kravis, “Relative Income Shares in Fact and Theory,” AER, Dec. 59.

Phillips, “Labor Share and Wage Parity,” R.E.Stat., May 60.

  1. Maldistribution?
    1. General Ethical Issues

Budd, Part 1 (Meade and Hitch, de Jouvenel, Wallich, Tawney, Friedman)

Shaw, Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, Ch. 2-14, 20-23 (skim).

Lerner, Economics of Control, Ch. 3.

    1. General Economic Issues

Hobson, Evolution of Modern Capitalism, Ch. 11.

Durbin, Purchasing Power and Trade Depression, Ch. 1.

Bronfenbrenner, Yamane, and Lee, “Study in Redistribution and Consumption,” R.E.Stat., May 55.

Budd, Part 4 (Meade, Friedman, Simons, Pigou).

    1. American Poverty Program

Budd, Part 5 (Harrington, Miller, Ornati, Lampman, Johnson, Ad Hoc Committee on Triple Revolution, Friedman, Tobin)

R.D. Friedman, Poverty, Definition and Perspective, Ch. 2-3.

Green, Negative Taxes and the Poverty Problem, Ch. 4-6, 8.

Thurow, Poverty and Discrimination, Ch. 3-5, 9.

  1. Demand for Productive Inputs
    1. Marginal Productivity

Hicks, Theory of Wages, Ch. 1.

Ferguson, Neoclassical Theory of Production and Distribution, Ch. 4-6, 9, 12.2.

    1. Complications and Objections

Levinson, Unionism, Wage Trends, and Income Distribution, Ch. 1.

Dobb, Wages, pp. 81-92, Ch. 5.

Weintraub, Approach to the Theory of Income Distribution, Ch. 1.

Readings, 6 (Stigler [“Production and Distribution in the Short Run”]), 8 (Machlup [“On the Meaning of the Marginal Product”]) , 12 (Robertson [“Wage-Grumbles”]), 15 (Rolph [“The Discounted Marginal Productivity Doctrine”]).

The Lester-Machlup-Stigler Controversy: AER, Mar. 46 and Sept. 46, Mar. 47. (Reprinted in Clemence, Readings in Econ. Analysis).

Reder, “Marginal Productivity Reconsidered,” JPE, Oct. 47 (Reprinted in Clemence, Readings in Econ. Analysis.)

    1. Exploitation?

Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Ch. 21-26, or Pigou, pt. III, Ch. 14-19.

Rothschild, Theory of Wages, Ch. 7-8.

Readings 7 (Chamberlin [“Monopolistic Competition and the Productivity Theory of Distribution”]), 14 (Bloom [“A Reconsideration of the Theory of Exploitation”]).

Bronfenbrenner, “Potential Monopsony,” Ind. Labor Rel. Rev., Apr. 56.

    1. Impact of Innovations

Ferguson, Ch. 12.3, 16.

Readings, 9 (Robinson [“The Classification of Inventions”]), 10 (Lange [“A Note on Innovations”])

Stiglitz and Uzawa, Readings in Modern Theory of Economic Growth, 6 (Hicks [“From Theory of Wages”]), 9 (Fellner [“Two Propositions in the Theory of Induced Innovations”]), 10 (Kennedy [“Induced Bias in Innovation and the Theory of Distribution”]).

Seeber, “Classification of Inventions,” So. Ec. J., Apr. 62.

  1. Labor Supply

Rothschild, Ch. 3, or Stigler, Theory of Price (3rd), pp. 194-202.

Readings, 13 (Robbins [“On the Elasticity of Demand for Income in Terms of Effort”]).

Long, The Labor Force Under Changing Income and Employment, Ch. 1.

Break, “Income Taxes, Wage Rates, and Factor Services,” Natl. Tax J., Dec. 53.

  1. Collective Bargaining
    1. Theory and Evidence

Hicks, Ch. 7.

Readings, 19 (Dunlop [Wage Policies of Trade Unions]).

Ross, Trade Union Wage Policy, Ch. 2, 6.

Fellner, Competition Among the Few, Ch. 10.

Rees, Economics of Trade Unions, Ch. 4-5.

Lewis, Unionism and Relative Wages in U.S., Ch. 1, 4-6.

Bronfenbrenner, “Incidence of Collective Bargaining Once More,” So. Ec. J., Apr. 58. (Reprinted in Galenson and Lipset, Labor and Trade Unionism.)

    1. The Labor Monopoly Issue

Simons, Economic Policy for a Free Society, Ch. 6.

Lester, “The Labor Monopoly Issue,” JPE, Dec. 47.

Lindblom, Unions and Capitalism, Ch. 1-3, 14-18.

Lerner, Economics of Employment, Part IV, or Rothschild, Ch. 13.

    1. Wage Difference (Omitted in Class)

Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Bk. II, Ch. 14.

Dobb, Ch. 6.

Mills, White Collar, Ch. 6-7, or Harris, Market for College Graduates, Ch. 3, 3-a.

McCaffree, “Earnings Differential Between White Collar and Manual Occupations,” R.E.Stat., Feb. 53.

Burns, “Comparative Economic Position of Manual and White Collar Employees,” Journ. Of Bus., Oct. 54.

Reder, “Wage Differentials,” in NBER, Aspects of Labor Economics, pp. 257-99.

  1. Wages and Employment

Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Ch. 19.

Readings, 18 (Tarshis [“Changes in Real and Money Wages”]), 17 (Lerner [“The Relation of Wage Policies and Price Policies”]).

Slichter-Nathan Controversy: “Raising the Price of Labor as a Method of Increasing Employment,” R.E.Stat., Nov. 49.

Bronfenbrenner, “Contribution to Aggregative Theory of Wages,” JPE, Dec. 56.

  1. Theory of Interest
    1. Real Theories

Conard, Introduction to the Theory of Interest, Ch. 3, 4, 7.

Hirschleifer, “Theory of Optimal Investment Decision,” JPE, Aug. 58.

Knight, “Interest,” in Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, or, “Diminishing Returns from Investment,” JPE, Mar. 44.

Patinkin, Money, Interest, and Prices, Ch. 4.

    1. Monetary Theories

Readings, 22 (Keynes [“The Theory of the Rate of Interest”]), 23 (Robertson [“Mr. Keynes and the Rate of Interest”]), 24 (Hicks [“Mr. Keynes and the ‘Classics’; A Suggested Interpretation”]).

Harris, (Ed.), New Economics, 43-46 (Lerner).

Lange, “Rate of Interest and Optimum Propensity to Consume,” in AEA, Readings in Business Cycle Theory, 8.

Conard, Ch. 9-10.

Patinkin, Ch. 15.

    1. Rate Differences

Readings, 26 (Lutz [“The Structure of Interest Rates”])

Hicks, Value and Capital (2nd), pp. 144-52.

Conard, Ch. 17.

Kessel, “Cyclical Behavior of Term Structure of Interest Rates,” (NBER Occasional Paper 91), Ch. 1.

  1. Theory of Rent

Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy, Ch. 2.

George, Progress and Poverty, Bk. III, Ch. 2; also skim Books IV-VI.

Robertson, Lectures on Political Economy, Vol. ii, Ch. 3

Readings, 31 (Buchanan [“The Historical Approach to Rent and Price Theory”]).

Ferguson, Ch. 1.4.2, 2.2.1, 2.3.2, 3.4.3.

  1. Theory of Profit

Knight, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, Ch. 1-2, 8-9.

Readings, 27 (Knight [“Profit”]), 29 (Gordon [“Enterprise, Profits, and the Modern Corporation”]), 30 (Crum [“Corporate Earnings on Invested Capital”]).

Weston, “Generalized Uncertainty Theory of Profit,” AER, Mar. 50.

Marchal, “New Theory of Profits,” AER, Sept. 51.

Bronfenbrenner, “Rehabilitation of Naïve Profit Theory,” So. Ec. J., Apr. 60 (Reprinted in Brait and Hochman, Readings in Microeconomics).

Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, Profits Hearings, Dec. 48. (Testimony of Slichter, Harris, Ruttenberg, Montgomery, and Nixon on definition and measurement).

  1. Aggregative Distribution Theories

Scitovsky, “Some Theories of Income Distribution,” in NBER, Behavior of Income Shares, pp. 15-31.

Davidson, Theories of Aggregate Income Distribution, Ch. 4-8.

Douglas, “Are There Laws of Production?” AER, Mar. 48. (Reprinted in Kelley edition of Douglas, Theory of Wages.)

Ferguson, Ch. 12.4-12.9, 15.

Readings, 11 (Kalecki [“The Distribution of the National Income”]), or Rothschild, Ch. 15.

Boulding, Reconstruction of Economics, Ch. 14.

Stiglitz and Uzawa, 21 (Kaldor [“Alternative Theories of Distribution”]) [Also in Kaldor, Essays in Value and Distribution, no. 10.], 22 (Robinson).

Reder, “Alternative Theories of Labor’s Share,” in Abramovitz, Allocation of Economic Resources.

Source:  Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archives. Papers of Martin Bronfenbrenner, Box 25, Folder “Micro-econ + Distribution, 1 of 2, 1966-71, n.d.”

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Economics S-222—Income Distribution
Summer 1970—M. Bronfenbrenner
Final Examination

In a (probably unsuccessful) attempt to make my own position clear on a number of controversial issues, I have perhaps understressed in class certain powerful statements of contrary positions.

For purposes of this examination, please consider any four of the quotations below. Indicate the portions of distribution theory to which they apply. Then comment upon them, indicating why they do (or do not) appear convincing.

  1. Technical conditions and the rate of profit determine the pattern of normal prices, including the price of labour-time in terms of each commodity; money-wage rates determine the corresponding money price level. But what determines the rate of profit?
    Marx closes his system sometimes (following Ricardo) by postulating a real-wage rate governed by the conventional standard of life (the value of labour-time) and sometimes by taking as given the share of net profit in the value of net output (the rate of exploitation). Marshall conceals the problem behind a smoke-screen of moral sentiments. The latter-day neoclassicals are for ever chasing definitions around a circular argument. Sraffa offers no observations on the subject. Von Neumann postulates a real-wage rate which is precisely specified in terms of particular quantities of particular commodities, but leaves us helpless when that assumption is relaxed. The question of what determines the rate of profit, when the real-wage rate is not to be taken as given, is a huge blank in traditional economic teaching.
    [Joan Robinson, Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth, p. 11]
  2. Even from the momentary market point of view, the Keynesian formulation tends to obscure unduly the parts played by Productivity and Thrift…While there are hints here and there of a broader treatment, in the main (Mr. Keynes’) plan is to set the rate of interest in a direct functional relation only with that part of the money stock which is held for what he calls “speculative reasons”, i.e., because it is expected that the rate of interest will subsequently rise. Thus the rate of interest is what it is because it is expected to become other than it is; if it is not expected to become other than it is, there is nothing left to tell us why it is what it is. The organ which secretes it has been amputated, and yet it somehow still exists—a grin without a cat. Mr. Plumptre of Toronto…has aptly compared the position of the lenders of money under this theory with that of an insurance company which charges its clients a premium, the only risk against which it insures them being the risk that its premium will be raised.
    [Dennis H. Robertson, “Mr. Keynes and the Rate of Interest” in Essays in Monetary Theory, 1940. Pages 35-36.]

The price of pig
Is something big,
Because its corn, you’ll understand,
Is high-priced too;
Because it grew
Upon the high-priced farming land.

If you’d know why
That land is high,
Consider this: its price is big
Because it pays
Thereon to raise
The costly corn, the high-priced pig!

 [Herbert Joseph Davenport, The Economics of Enterprise, 1913. Pages 107-108]

  1. The level of money-wage rates obtaining at any particular moment is an historical accident. The absolute level of wages in terms of money affects nothing except the words and numbers in which money values are reckoned and the nominal value of the stock of currency. But changes in the level of money-wage rates have important effects upon the behavior of the economy in real terms.
    The causes of movements in money-wage rates are bound up with the competition of different groups of workers to maintain or improve their relative positions, and the consequences of changes in wage levels are most important in connection with the competition in international trade.
    The level of money-wage rates may be continuously rising simply because it is easier for each group of employers to give way to the demands of their workers and recoup themselves by raising prices than to incur the losses and unpleasantness involved in resisting them.
    [Joan Robinson, Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth, pp. 70-71]
  2. A distinction should be made between primary and secondary distribution of the national income.
    The national income first of all falls into the hands of the capitalists. Primary distribution of the national income consists on its being distributed between capitalists and workers. The workers receive wages, the capitalists surplus value, which is distributed among the industrialists, merchants, bankers, and big landed proprietors.
    After the national income has been distributed among the basic elements of capitalist society, a secondary distribution or redistribution takes place. We have seen that in the non-productive branches of the economy (medical institutions, public services, entertainments, etc.) no national income is created. But the capitalists who control these enterprizes and institutions pay salaries to their employees, cover the cost of maintaining premises, and in addition make a profit. The capitalists cover all these items of expenditure out of the national income created in the sphere of material production by charging for the services provided. These payments produce an average profit for the capitalists in the non-productive sphere. Part of the income of the working people is (also) redistributed through the state budget in the interests of the ruling class. The bourgeois state has its army, police, penal institutions and courts, administrative apparatus and so on. All are maintained out of the state budget, taxes levied upon the population being its main source of revenue. After working people have received wages through the primary distribution on the national income, they have to pay taxes out of them. In this way, the part of the national income put at the disposal of the working people is reduced. (Capitalists, too, pay taxes. But part is returned in the form of extremely high payment for supplies and service to the government. Another part is spent in the upkeep of the state apparatus, army and so on, the chief purpose of which is to defend the interests of these same capitalists.)
    This is why not only the distribution, but also the redistribution of the national income in bourgeois society is effected in the interests of the exploiting classes.
    [P. Nikitin, Fundamentals of Political Economy, trans. Violet Dutt and Murad Saifulin (probably 1966), pp. 133-135 quoted by Martin Bronfenbrenner in Income Distribution Theory, Chapter 2, footnote 12. Cf: 1983 Translation of a later edition by Jane Syer, pp. 151-152.]
  3. The neo-classical model is most at its ease in a stationary state. The amount of capital that capitalists are willing to maintain in being (neither saving nor dissaving) is a function of the rate of interest, or, alternatively, there is one rate of interest at which net saving is zero. The physical stock of capital and the real-wage rate are such as to have brought the rate of profit into equality with the rate of interest. There is then one value of the stock of capital that yields the rate of return (with a given labor force fully employed) which will cause it to be maintained. This is the value of capital that satisfies the conditions of the stationary state.
    When it leaves the stationary state, the neo-classical model is all at sea. With any given value of capital in existence, the amount of saving that the capitalists wish to do to increase it depends upon the rate of interest, which must be equal to the rate of profit, but how can we tell what the rate of profit is till we know the rate of accumulation?
    It is an illusion to suppose that “the marginal productivity of capital” provides an independent determinant of the rate of interest. A “quantity of capital” in terms of value has no meaning in terms of physical productivity until the prices of its physical components are known, and this involves the rate of profit. A “quantity of capital” in terms of a list of physical capital goods appropriate to various kinds of output, if they are taken to be fully utilized, entails the output of investment goods, and so the rate of accumulation, independently of the rate of profit that is supposed to determine it. If they are not necessarily fully utilized, then we have to know the current rate of investment to find out the state of effective demand and current profits. Whatever we do, we are one equation short.
    The reason why the model works all right in the stationary state has nothing to do with its stationariness. It works because the rate of accumulation—zero—is specified. With any specified rate of accumulation, the function connecting saving with the rate of profit determines the position, for it shows what the rate of profit and the value of capital must be to make saving equal to investment at full employment.
    [Joan Robinson, Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth, pp. 81-82]
  4. The theory of the distribution of the product of industry between wages and profits which is knocking about in current economic teaching consists of a number of propositions, each of which is quite unexceptionable in itself, but none of which bears any relation to the rest…The proposition that the share of profits in income is a function of the ratio of investment to income is perfectly correct, but capacity and the degree of monopoly have to be brought in to determine what income it is that profits are a share of, and investment is related to.
    [Joan Robinson, Collected Economic Papers, II, p. 145]

L’ENVOI

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.

(Alexander Pope)

 Source: Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archives. Papers of Martin Bronfenbrenner, Box 24, Folder “Exams. Micro-econ + distribution. 2 of 2, 1954-66, n.d.”

Image Source: Martin Bronfenbrenner. University of Minnesota Archives/Libraries/Umedia.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Course outlines and semester exams in money and banking. Smith and Dorfman, 1958-59

 

I was surprised to find that as late as 1958-59 Harvard had no course on its books that even used the word “macroeconomics” in the title. The door to macroeconomics was instead found in undergraduate, graduate courses that were devoted to money and banking: Economics 141–Money, Banking, and Economic Fluctuations” and Economics 241–“Principles of Money and Banking”. I have to admit that I was somewhat puzzled to see the macroeconomist Warren Smith paired with the microeconomist Robert Dorfman for the graduate sequence. Maybe it was because Keynesian economics attracted the whiz-kids of mathematical economics of the time that the department turned to Robert Dorfman for graduate instruction in Keynesian economics, the main subject covered in his semester of the two semester Economics 241 course.

Before getting to the course outlines and exams, I provide memorial minutes  for Warren Smith, who was a visiting professor at Harvard that year from the University of Michigan, and Robert Dorfman, a member of the Harvard faculty, recently acquired from the Berkeley economics department.

___________________________

University of Michigan, LSA Minutes. Memorial.

WARREN L. SMITH
1914 – 1972

Professor Warren Lounsbury Smith was born in Watertown, New York, on March 23, 1914, He died in Ann Arbor on April 23, 1972, He had come to The University of Michigan as a freshman in 1940, and in 1943 he married fellow student Ann Elizabeth Schwartz of Ann Arbor, His studies were interrupted by military service during World War II, but he continued a brilliant career as a student here, earning the B.A.in 1947, the M.A. in 1949, and the Ph.D. in Economics in 1952.

Warren Smith’s professional life as an economist thus began relatively late, at the age of 38. His accomplishments during the all-too-brief span of only 20 years are, therefore, all the more remarkable. He taught both undergraduate and graduate courses in the Economics Department at Michigan while still a student. After teaching at the University of Virginia and Ohio State University, he returned to Michigan in 1957 with the rank of Associate Professor of Economics. He was promoted to full professor in 1959, and served as Chairman of the Department of Economics from 1963 to 1967 and again in 1970-71. Professor Smith was regarded by graduate and undergraduate students alike as an absolutely superb teacher. His devotion to his responsibilities to students, both in and out of the classroom, brought him the deepest admiration and respect of all those who were privileged to know him in this capacity.

Excellence in teaching, however, was not gained at the expense of scholarship and service to the Department, the University, and the Nation. As Chairman of the Department Professor Smith was unstinting in the time and energy devoted to the task of finding the means to satisfaction of the needs of the Department. His colleagues are universally agreed that a very large part of the qualities of excellence now found in the Department are attributable to his stewardship.

Professor Smith’s public service contributions were both extensive and highly acclaimed. He served as consultant to the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, the Commission on Money and Credit, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Council of Economic Advisers, and appeared frequently as a public witness before Congressional Committees. In 1962-63 he served as Senior Economist on the Staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and in 1968-69 he was a member of the Council.

But in the world of professional economists Warren Smith’s most magnificent monument, the living testimony to the greatness that he achieved, is to be found in his published articles and monographs and his Macroeconomics. As a scholar Professor Smith won world-wide renown, His work was always relevant, always expressive of the keenest insights, and always lucidly and forcefully presented. Few, if any, American economists have done more to shape current thinking on monetary and fiscal policy and debt management than Warren Smith.

To Ann Achwartz Smith, his wife, and to his children, Andrew, Samuel, and Catherine, we the faculty of the Department of Economics and of the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts convey our sense of deepest personal loss. No one in our midst has ever more fully and completely exemplified the finest qualities of friend, colleague, teacher, scholar, and public servant than Warren Lounsbury Smith. The lives of all of us have been enriched because we were privileged to know him.

Peter O. Steiner

Source: Warren Lunsbury Smith Memorial Minute, University of Michigan, Faculty History Project.

___________________________

Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Science, Memorial Minute
Robert [Elihu] Dorfman

Robert Dorfman, the late David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, was a leader in the introduction of mathematical methods to economics in the twentieth century. He died on June 24, 2002, at his home in Belmont, Massachusetts.

Dorfman made important contributions, particularly as a pioneer in the use of linear programming, characterizing production relationships in terms of individual activities with fixed coefficients. He collaborated in 1958 with MIT Professors (and later Nobel laureates) Robert M. Solow and Paul A. Samuelson on the classic Linear Programming and Economic Analysis.

He believed that mathematical methods were key – both as analytical tools and as means of exposition. In this regard, Jerry Green, John Leverett Professor in the University and David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy, said at Dorfman’s memorial service in 2002, “He was an ambassador for the future of our field.”

Dorfman wrote in 1954: “Is mathematics necessary in social science? I suppose not. It is quite conceivable that all problems could be solved by verbal means, just as it is possible to find that the square root of CXCVI is XIV. Such methods, though, would be not only painful but fearfully inefficient.”

Dorfman also made significant contributions to environmental economics. Beginning in 1972, he edited with his wife, Nancy S. Dorfman, three editions of Economics of the Environment. Testimony to the lasting value of this work is the fact that it is now in its sixth edition (edited since 2000 by Robert Stavins, Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government at the Kennedy School).

In this realm, Dorfman understood the importance of the underlying natural science. His analysis of water resources in Pakistan, for example, drew on collaborations with engineers and hydrologists. He was for many years an affiliate of Harvard’s Center for Population Studies, where he helped introduce optimization methodologies for resource management to developing countries.

Dorfman’s career at Harvard spanned 32 years. He was Professor of Economics from 1955 to 1972, and then David A. Wells Professor of Political Economy until his retirement in 1987. He was known by junior colleagues as a marvelous mentor. Henry Rosovsky once said that the kindest five words that can be said to a young scholar are, “I have read your thesis.” Jerry Green has observed, “That was exactly what Bob said to me the first time we met. I am sure he said the same to many others.”

From 1976 to 1984, Dorfman served as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Green, an associate editor, observed his style: “I saw how he worked with articles and authors of all kinds. Diamonds in the rough had to be polished.”

Dorfman enjoyed a reputation as a masterful teacher, especially at the graduate level. He taught mathematical economics, microeconomic theory, macroeconomic theory, and econometrics, and thereby – in the words of Dale Jorgenson, Samuel W. Morris University Professor – “almost single- handedly brought the Harvard graduate program to the level of competing institutions.” Jorgenson recalls the course he took from Dorfman, and counts himself among “the fortunate students who were brought to the frontier of research in economic theory.”

In the 1970s, Dorfman launched a seminar series on the economics of information and organizations with Professor Kenneth Arrow and Richard Zeckhauser, Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Political Economy at the Kennedy School. Generations of young scholars benefitted from this colloquium, including Green, who later became a co-chair. Zeckhauser recalls that “the most faithful presenter was Eric Maskin (now Professor of Economics), who was then starting to develop his pioneering work in mechanism design that would ultimately win him the Nobel Prize.”

Born on October 27, 1916, in New York City, Dorfman received his B.A. in mathematical statistics from Columbia College in 1936 and an M.A. in economics from Columbia University in 1937. Dorfman was a wartime pioneer in operations research. From 1939 to 1943, he worked as a statistician for the federal government, and then served during World War II as an operations analyst for the U.S. Army Air Force, based in the Southwest Pacific theater and in Washington, D.C.

After the war, Dorfman enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley, earning his Ph.D. degree in economics in 1950. He joined the faculty at Berkeley, where he was an associate professor of economics when he moved to Harvard in 1955.

Among his scholarly contributions were four classic articles in the American Economic Review: “Mathematical or ‘Linear’ Programming” (1953), “Operations Research” (1960), “An Economic Interpretation of Optimal Control Theory” (1969), and “Incidence of the Benefits and Costs of Environmental Programs” (1977).

Dorfman was a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as vice president of the American Economic Association, and vice president of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists. In 1972, when Dorfman was inducted as a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association, his citation included this summary: “Robert Dorfman’s characteristic intellectual style is based on a deep and painstaking mastery of the theoretical fundamentals, leading to a clear intuitive grasp of intellectual questions and thence to masterly exposition.”

Thirty years later, his co-author Robert Solow characterized him as “always polite, even self- deprecating, never assertive, he nevertheless stood his ground. If Bob Dorfman mildly and quizzically expressed some hesitation about your pet idea, it was always a good move to look up, just in case a boulder was about to crash down on you—politely, of course.”

According to his wife, Nancy, Dorfman turned to mathematics in college as a substitute for poetry, after concluding that he did not have a future as a poet. But his love of literature was reflected in the clarity and grace with which he explained complex economics in simple terms.

Robert Dorfman is survived by his wife, Nancy, of Lexington; his son, Peter, of Belmont; his daughter, Ann, of Newton; granddaughter, Joni Waldron, of Washington, D.C.; and grandson, Loren Waldron, of Newton.

Respectfully submitted,

Jerry Green
Dale W. Jorgenson Peter P. Rogers
Robert N. Stavins, Chair

SourceThe Harvard Gazette, November 14, 2012.

___________________________

Course Announcement.

Economics 241. Principles of Money and Banking

Full course. M., W., (F.), at 12. Professor Dorfman (spring term) and Associate Professor Warren Smith (University of Michigan).

SourceOfficial Register of Harvard University. Vol. LV, No. 20 (September 3, 1958), p. 95.

___________________________

Course Enrollment.

[Economics] 241 Principles of Money and Banking, (F) Associate Professor Warren Smith (University of Michigan); (S) Professor Dorfman. Full course.

(F) Total 20: 16 Gr., 2 Ra., 2 Others.
(S) Total 18: 16, 1 Ra., 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1958-1959, p.73.

___________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Outline and Reading List
Economics 241: Principles of Money and Banking

Fall, 1958-59

  1. Monetary Mechanics
    1. (Sept. 22-29) Determinants of Member Bank Reserves and Money Supply Assignments:

Assignments: W. H. Steiner, E. Shapiro, and E. Solomon, Money and Banking (4th, 1958), Part III; E. S. Shaw, Money, Income, and Monetary Policy (1950), Chaps. II, III, X, XI; Bank Reserves: Some Major Factors Affecting Them (1953); The Treasury and the Money Market (1954).

References: J. P. Powelson, Economic Accounting (1955), Chaps. 13, 25; M.A. Copeland and D.H. Brill, “Banking Assets and Money Supply Since 1929,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, Jan. 1948, pp. 24-32; “A Flow-of-Funds System of National Accounts: Annual Estimates,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, Oct. 1955, pp. 1085-1124; Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Flow of Funds in the United States, 1939-53 (1955); M. A. Copeland, A Study of Moneyflows in the United States (1955); M.A. Copeland, A Study of Moneyflows in the United States (1952).

    1. (Oct. 1-6) Bank Credit Expansion

Assignments: A.G. Hart, Money, Debt, and Economic Activity (2d ed., 1953), Chap. IV; Shaw, Money, Income, and Monetary Policy, Chaps. VI, VII.

References: J.W. Angell and K. Ficek, “Expansion of Bank Credit,” Journal of Political Economy, XLI, 1933, pp. 1-32, 152-193; W.F. Crick, “The Genesis of Bank Deposits,” Economica, VII, 1927, pp. 191-202, reprinted in F.A. Lutz and L.W. Mints (eds.), Readings in Monetary Theory (1951), pp. 41-53; D. Vining, “A Process Analysis of Bank Credit Expansion,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LIV, 1940, pp. 599-623.

    1. Monetary Policy
      1. (Oct. 8-17) Techniques of Control

Assignments: E.A. Goldenweiser, American Monetary Policy (1951), Chap. V; Monetary Policy and Management of the Public Debt (Patman Committee Documents), Replies to Questions and Other Material, Part 1, pp. 275-299; R.V. Roosa, Federal Reserve Operations in the Money and Government Securities Markets (1956); W.L. Smith, “The Discount Rate as a Credit-Control Weapon,” Journal of Political Economy, LXVI, April 1958, pp. 171-177.

References: Steiner, Shapiro, and Solomon, Money and Banking (4th), Chaps. 12-14; Hart, Money, Debt, and Economic Activity, Chaps. V, VI; W. W. Riefler, Money Rates and Money Markets in the United States(1930); D.A. Alhadeff, Monopoly and Competition in Banking (1954); G. L. Bach, Federal Reserve Policy Making (1950); L. Currie, The Supply and Control of Money in the United States (1934); C.O. Hardy, Credit Policies of the Federal Reserve System (1932); S.E. Harris, Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy (1933), 2 vols.; Patman Committee Documents (1952).

      1. (Oct. 20-Nov. 5) How Monetary Policy Works

Assignments: Hart, Money, Debt, and Economic Activity (2nd), Chaps. XVII, XVIII; J. Tobin, “Liquidity Preference and Monetary Policy,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXIX, May 1947, reprinted in A. Smithies and J.K. Butters (eds.) Readings in Fiscal Policy (1955), pp. 233-247; H.S. Ellis, “The Rediscovery of Money,” and R.V. Roosa, “Interest Rates and the Central Bank,” both in Money, Trade, and Economic Growth: In Honor of John Henry Williams (1951), pp. 253-269 and 270-295, respectively; “Influence of Credit and Monetary Measures on Economic Stability,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, March 1953, pp. 219-234; J.G. Gurley and E.S. Shaw, “Financial Aspects of Economic Development,” American Economic Review, XLV, Sept. 1955, pp. 515-538; W.L. Smith, “On the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy,” American Economic Review, XLVI, Sept. 1956, pp. 588-606; “Consumer Instalment Credit” (A Review Article), American Economic Review, XLVII, Dec. 1957, pp. 966-984; and “Monetary Policy and the Structure of Markets,” in The Relationship of Prices to Economic Stability and Growth, Compendium of Papers Submitted by Panelists Appearing before the Joint Economic Committee (1958), pp. 493-511; D. Carson, “Recent Open Market Committee Policy and Technique,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXIX, Aug. 1955, pp. 321-342; A.H. Hansen, The American Economy (1957), Chaps. 3,4.

References: G.L.S. Shackle, “Interest Rates and the Pace of Investment,” Economic Journal, LVI, March 1946, pp. 1-17; F.A. Lutz, “The Interest Rate and Investment in a Dynamic Economy,” American Economic Review, XXXV, Dec. 1945, pp. 811-830; T. Wilson and P.W.S. Andrews, Oxford Studies in the Price Mechanism (1951), Chap. I; W.H. White, “Interest Inelasticity of Investment Demand—The Case from Business Attitude Surveys Re-examined,” American Economic Review, XLVI, Sept. 1956, pp. 565-587; J.R. Meyer and E. Kuh, The Investment Decision (1957); R.A. Musgrave, “Credit Controls, Interest Rates, and Management of the Public Debt,” in Income, Employment, and Public Policy: Essays in Honor of Alvin H. Hansen (1948), pp. 221-254; and “Monetary-Debt Policy Revisited,” in C.J. Friedrich and J.K. Galbraith (eds.), Public Policy, Vol. V, 1954; W.L. Smith and R.F. Mikesell, “The Effectiveness of Monetary Policy: Recent British Experience,” Journal of Political Economy, LXV, Feb. 1957, pp. 18-39; H.P. Minsky, “Central Banking and Money Market Changes,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXXI, May 1957, pp. 171-187; United States Monetary Policy: Recent Thinking and Experience (Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 1954); Monetary Policy: 1955-56 (Joint Economic Committee, 1956); E. Miller, “Monetary Policy in a Changing World,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXX, Feb. 1956, pp. 23-43; Symposium on Monetary Policy, Bulletin of the Oxford Institute of Statistics, April, May, and August 1952; J. Tobin, “Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt: The Patman Inquiry,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXXV, May 1953, pp. 118-127; P.A. Samuelson, “Recent American Monetary Controversy” Three Banks Review, March 1956, pp. 3-21; and statement to the Patman Committee, Monetary Policy and Management of the Public Debt, Hearings, pp. 691-698; H.G. Johnson, “The Revival of Monetary Policy in Britain,” Three Banks Review, June 1956, pp. 3-20; J.K. Galbraith, “Market Structure and Stabilization Policy,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXXIX, May 1957, pp. 124-133; C.R. Whittlesey, “Monetary Policy and Economic Change,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXXIX, Feb. 1957, pp. 31-39; A.H. Hansen, “Monetary Policy,” RES, XXXVII, May 1955, pp. 110-119; S. Weintraub, “Monetary Policy: A Comment,” RES, XXXVII, Aug. 1955, pp. 292-296; J.H. Karekin, “Lenders’ Preferences, Credit Rationing, and the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy,” RES, XXXIX, Aug. 1957, pp. 292-301; R.S. Sayers, Central Banking after Bagehot (1957); Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Consumer Instalment Credit, 6 vols. (1957); Financing Small Business, Report to the Committees on Banking and Currency and the Select Committees on Small Business by the federal Reserve System, Parts 1 and 2 (1958); Investigation of the Financial Condition of the United States, Hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, Parts 1, 2, and 3 (1957).

  1. Fiscal Policy
    1. (Nov. 7-14) Fiscal Policy and National Income

Assignments: R.L. Bishop, “Alternative Expansionist Fiscal Policies: A Diagrammatic Analysis,” in Income, Employment, and Public Policy: Essays in Honor of Alvin H. Hansen, pp. 317-340; R.A. Musgrave, “Alternative Budget Policies for Full Employment,” American Economic Review, XXX, June 1945, pp. 387-400, reprinted in Smithies and Butters (eds.), Readings in Fiscal Policy, pp. 291-306; and “Money Liquidity, and the Valuation of Assets,” in Money, Trade, and Economic Growth: In Honor of John Henry Williams(1951), pp. 216-242.

References: J.A. Maxwell, Fiscal Policy, (1955); O.H.Brownlee and E.D. Allen, Economics of Public Finance(2d ed.; 1954), Part II; J.F. Due, Government Finance: An Economic Analysis (1954), Chaps. 25-28; H.M. Somers, Public Finance and National Income (1949), esp. Part VI.

    1. (Nov. 17-19) Automatic Fiscal Stabilizers

Assignments: R.A. Musgrave and M.H. Miller, “Built-In Flexibility,” American Economic Review, XXXVIII, March 1948, pp. 122-128, reprinted in Smithies and Butters (eds.), Readings in Fiscal Policy, pp. 379-386; Hart, Money, Debt, and Economic Activity (2d ed.) Chaps. XXVII and XXVIII; M. Friedman, “A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability,” AER, XXXVIII, June 1948, pp. 245-264, reprinted in Lutz and Mints (eds.), Readings in Monetary Theory, pp. 369-393; Committee for Economic Development, Taxes and the Budget: A Program for Prosperity in a Free Economy (1947); W.W. Heller, “The CED’s Stabilizing Budget Policy after Ten Years,” AER, XLII, Sept. 1947, pp. 634-651.

References: D.W. Lusher, “The Stabilizing Effectiveness of Budget Flexibility,” together with comments thereon, in Policies to Combat Depression (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1956), pp. 77-122; W. Egle, Economic Stabilization: Objectives, Rules and Mechanisms (1952), Chaps. 3-7; E.C. Brown, “The Static Theory of Automatic Fiscal Stabilization,” Journal of Political Economy, LXIII, Oct. 1955, pp. 427-440.

    1. (Nov. 21-Dec.1) Discretionary Tax and Expenditure Adjustments Assignments:

Assignments: Hart, Money, Debt, and Economic Activity (2d ed.) Chaps. XXIX and XXX; A. Smithies, “Federal Budgeting and Fiscal Policy,” in H.S. Ellis (ed.), A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. I (1948), pp. 174-209; P.A. Samuelson, “Principles and Rules in Modern Fiscal Policy: A Neo-Classical Reformulation,” in Money, Trade, and Economic Growth: In Honor of John Henry Williams (1951), pp. 157-176.

References: G. Haberler, Prosperity and Depression (3d ed., 1946), Chap. 13; R. Goode, “Anti-Inflationary Implications of Alternative Forms of Taxation,” AER Papers and Proceedings, XLXX (May 1952), pp. 147-160; G. Colm, “The Corporation and the Corporation Income Tax in the American Economy,” J.K. Butters, “Taxation, Incentives, and Financial Capacity” (reprinted in Readings in Fiscal Policy, pp. 502-520); and J. Lintner, “The Effect of Corporate Income Tax on Real Investment,” all in AER Papers and Proceedings, XLIV, May 1954, pp. 486-503, 504-519, and 520-534, respectively; E.C. Brown, “Consumption Taxes and Income Determination,” AER, XL, March 1950, pp. 74-89; R. Blough, The Federal Taxing Process (1952); A. Smithies, The Budgetary Process in the United States (1955) H.M. Somers, Public Finance and National Income, Part II; Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Papers Submitted by Panelists Appearing before the Subcommittee on Tax Policy of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report (1955); Federal Expenditure Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Papers Submitted by Panelists Appearing before the Subcommittee on Fiscal Policy of the Joint Economic Committee (1957).

    1. (Dec. 3-10) Debt Management

Assignments: E.R. Ralph, “Principles of Debt Management,” AER, XLVII, June 1957, pp. 301-320; R.V.Roosa, “Integrating Debt Management and Open Market Operations,” AER Papers and Proceedings, XLII, May 1952, pp. 214-235, reprinted in Smithies and Butters (eds), Readings in Fiscal Policy, pp. 265-288; Committee for Economic Development, Managing the Federal Debt (1954) E.A. Goldenweiser, American Monetary Policy, Chap. III.

References: J.M. Buchanan, Public Principles of Public Debt (1958); H.C. Murphy, The National Debt in War and Transition (1950); L.V. Chandler, Inflation in the United States, 1940-48 (1951); C.C. Abbott, The Federal Debt: Structure and Impact (1953); Patman Committee Documents (1952); General Credit Control, Debt Management and Economic Stabilization (Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 1951); Investigation of the Financial Condition of the United States, Hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, Parts 1, 2, and 3 (1957); “Proposal for a Special Reserve Requirement against the Time and Demand Deposits of Banks,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, Jan. 1948, pp. 14-23; J. Cohen, “A Theoretical Framework for Treasury Debt Management,” American Economic Review, XLV, June 1955, pp. 320-344.

    1. (Dec. 12-19) Co-ordination of Stabilization Policies

Assignments: P.A. Samuelson, “The New Look in Tax and Fiscal Policy,” in Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, (Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 1955), pp. 229-234; R.A. Musgrave, “The Optimal Mix of Stabilization Policies,” in The Relationship of Prices to Economic Stability and Growth, Compendium of Papers Presented by Panelists Appearing before the Joint Economic Committee (1958), pp. 597-609; W.L. Smith, “Monetary-Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXXI, Feb. 1957, pp. 36-55; A. Smithies, “The Control of Inflation,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXXIX, Aug. 1957, pp. 272-283.

References: P.A. Samuelson, “Full Employment versus Progress and other Economic Goals,” in M.F. Milliken (ed.), Income Stabilization for a Developing Democracy (1953), pp. 547-580; R.A. Musgrave, “Monetary-Debt Policy Revisited,” in C.J. Friedrich and J.K. Galbraith (eds.), Public Policy, Vol. V, 1954; J. Tobin, “Monetary Policy and Management of the Public Debt: The Patman Inquiry,” RES, XXV, May 1953, pp. 118-127; G.L. Bach, “Monetary-Fiscal Policy Reconsidered,” Journal of Political Economy, LVII, Oct. 1949, pp. 383-394, reprinted in Smithies and Butters (eds.), Readings in Fiscal Policy (1955), pp. 248-264.

General References

Federal Reserve Bulletin (monthly), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Treasury Bulletin (monthly), U.S. Treasury Department.

Survey of Current Business (monthly), U.S. Dept. of Commerce.

Monthly Review of Credit and Business Conditions (monthly), Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Monthly bulletins are also published by the other eleven Federal Reserve banks.

International Financial Statistics (monthly), International Monetary Fund.

Report on Assets, Liabilities, and Capital Accounts—Commercial and Mutual Savings Banks (semiannually), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Federal Reserve Chart Book on Financial and Business Statistics (monthly), Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Historical Supplement to Federal Reserve Chart Book (annually in September), Board of Governors of the FRS.

Annual Report, Board of Governors of the FRS.

Annual Report, FRB of New York. The other eleven Federal Reserve Banks also publish annual reports.

Annual Report, Comptroller of the Currency.

Annual Report, Secretary of the Treasury.

Annual Report, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Banking and Monetary Statistics, Board of Governors of the FRS, 1943.

Business Statistics (biennially), U.S. Dept. of Commerce.

National Income Supplement to the Survey of Current Business, latest edition 1954, U.S. Dept. of Commerce.

Economic Report of the President (annually in January), U.S. Government Printing Office.

Hearings on the Economic Report before the Joint Economic Committee (annually),

Monetary Policy and Management of the Public debt (Patman Committee documents), 3 vols.:

1. Hearings before the Subcommittee on General Credit Control and Debt Management of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 82d Congress, 1952

2. Replies to Questions and Other Material for the Use of the Subcommittee on General Credit Control and Debt Management, Part I, 82d Congress, 1952.

3. Replies to Questions and Other Material for the Use of the Subcommittee on General Credit Control and Debt Management, Part 2, 82d Congress, 1952.

Investigation of the Financial Condition of the United States, Hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, Parts 1, 2, and 3, 85th Congress, 1957.

United States Monetary Policy: Recent Thinking and Experience. Joint Committee of the Economic Report, 83d Congress, 1954.

Monetary Policy: 1955-56, Joint Economic Committee, 84th Congress, 1956.

Consumer Instalment Credit, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 1957.

B.H. Beckhart (ed.) Banking Systems (1955).

P.G. Fousek, Foreign Central Banking: The Instruments of Monetary Policy, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 1958.

[Reading Period: Ec. 141 Fall Term. No further assignment]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 7, Folder “Economics, 1958-1959, (1 of 2)”.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 241
Money and Banking

Midterm Examination
January 22, 1959

I.

“At times short-term interest rates have been higher than long-term interest rates, while on other occasions long-term rates have been higher than short-term rates. Moreover, while short- and long-term rates usually move in the same direction, short-term rates ordinarily fluctuate over a wider range than long-term rates, but long-term security prices fluctuate more widely than short-term security prices.” Show how these patterns of behavior can be explained by the so-called expectational theory of the rate structure.

II.

“The sensitivity of output, employment, and prices to changes in the money supply may vary greatly depending upon the reaction coefficients of the economy and on the prevailing conditions.” Discuss.

III.

Proponents of the so-called “new monetary policy” have argued that even though expenditure schedules may be interest inelastic, restrictive monetary policy may be quite potent due to its effects on the supply of funds. Explain and evaluate their arguments, indicating some of the criticisms that have been advanced.

IV.

In principle at least, a given stabilization objective can be achieved by means of various combinations of monetary and fiscal measures. Taking an inflationary situation as your context, discuss the considerations, both theoretical and practical, which should be taken into account in choosing the optimal mix of stabilization policies.

V.

“If markets were reasonably competitive and prices correspondingly flexible, economic stability would be assured.” Discuss.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, Social Sciences, January 1959. (HUC 7000.28) Vol. 122. Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, Government, Economics,…, Naval Science, Air Science. January, 1959.

___________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 241

READING LIST NO. 1
Spring, 1959

Framework of Keynesian Analyis

A.P. Lerner, “The General Theory (1),” S.E. Harris, ed., The New Economics, Ch. 11.

J. Lintner, “The Theory of Money and Prices,” S.E. Harris, ibid., Ch. 37.

L. Tarshis, “An Exposition of Keynesian Economics,” R.V. Clemence, ed., Readings in Economic Analysis, Vol. I, pp. 197-208.

L.R. Klein, The Keynesian Revolution, Chs. 3 and 4.

The Consumption Function

J.M. Keynes, General Theory, Book III.
(NOTE: All assignments in the General Theory imply assignment of the corresponding passages in A.H. Hansen, A Guide to Keynes.)

R.P. Mack, “Economics of Consumption,” Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. II, pp. 39-78.

J.S. Duesenberry, Income, Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behavior, Ch. 3.

Irwin Friend, Individuals’ Saving, esp. Ch. 8.

M. Friedman, A Theory of the Consumption Function, Ch. 9 at least.

A. Marshall, Principles of Economics (8th edn.), pp. 228-236.

The Multiplier

G. Haberler, “Mr. Keynes’ Theory of the Multiplier,” Readings in the Theory of Business Cycles, Ch. 9.

F. Machlup, “Period Analysis and Multiplier Theory,” ibid., Ch. 10.

R.M. Goodwin, “The Multiplier,” The New Economics, Ch. 36.

G.L.S. Shackle, “Twenty Years On,” Ec. Journal, 61, June 1951.

Investment

J.M. Keynes, General Theory, Chs. 11, 12, 16.

A.P. Lerner, Economics of Control, Ch. 25.

I. Fisher, Theory of Interest, Chs. 5-11.

David Durand, “Costs of Debt and Equity Funds for Business,” Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, ed., Conference on Research in Business Finance, pp. 215-261, 328-330, 333-334.

Interest

J.M. Keynes, General Theory, Chs. 13, 14, 15, 17, 18.

A.P. Lerner, in The New Economics, Chs. 45, 46.

W. Fellner and H.M. Somers, “Alternative Monetary Approaches to Interest Theory,” Rev. of Ec. Stat., Feb. 1941.

B. Ohlin, “Some Notes on the Stockholm Theory of Saving and Investment,” Readings in Business Cycle Theory, Ch. 5.

F.A. Lutz, “The Outcome of the Saving-Investment Discussion,” ibid. Ch. 6.

J.M. Keynes, Economic Journal, 47 (1937), pp. 241-252, 663-669.

B. Ohlin, Economic Journal, 47 (1937), pp. 423-427.

R.W. Clower, “Productivity, Thrift and the Rate of Interest,” Economic Journal, March 1954.

S.C. Tsiang, “Liquidity Preference and Loanable Funds Theories,” American Economic Review, September 1956.

F.A. Lutz, “The Structure of Interest Rates,” Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution, Ch. 26.

T. Wilson and P.W.S. Andrews, eds., Oxford Studies in the Price Mechanism, Ch. 1

Reading Period: Ec. 141 Spring Term

United States Monetary Policy: Its Contribution to Prosperity without Inflation (The American Assembly, Columbia University, 1958).

___________________________

ECONOMICS 241
Money and Banking

Final Examination
May 28, 1959

READ CAREFULLY: Answer Question 1 (40 points) and any three others (20 points each).

1.

Trace through in detail three of the following economic mechanisms, stating the special assumptions on which they rest:

  1. The manner in which an increase in the level of investment affects the level of income according to the period interpretation of the multiplier.
  2. The manner in which a decrease in wage rates affects the level of employment, according to Keynes.
  3. The manner in which an increase in the money supply leads to an increase in the price level without an increase in the interest rate, according to the “classical” doctrine.
  4. The manner in which an excess of ex ante investment over ex ante saving leads to a cumulative expansion, according to Ohlin and the Swedish school.
  5. The manner in which an excess of the warranted rate of growth over the natural rate of growth leads to chronic depression, according to Harrod.

2.

Explain in some detail the classical theory of investment, as exemplified by Fisher, and then spend most of your time on describing the defects and shortcomings of that theory.

3.

In what way does the theory of income determination employed by Hicks (or Modigliani, if you prefer) differ from Keynes? Explain in full detail the model of income determination used by Hicks or Modigliani, emphasizing (a) the technical devices employed and (b) the deficiencies of the model.

4.

Describe the consumption functions advocated by (a) Duesenberry (early), (b) Friedman, (c) Pigou (late) and discuss the implications of these various consumption functions (as contrasted with Keynes’) for an overall theory of income determination.

5.

Explain the “cost of capital” theory of investment (also called the “corporate investment approach”) and discuss its implications for an overall theory of income determination, as contrasted with the implications of the Fisher-Keynes theory.

6.

Write a belated book review of Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. In the course of it raise the major criticisms and objections that have been advanced by previous reviewers and commentators, and indicate how they affect your appraisal giving, of course, your reasons.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Final examinations, 1853-2001. Box 27, Final Exams—Social Sciences-June, 1959. Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions,…, Economics,…Naval Science, Air Science. June, 1959.

Image Sources: Warren Smith (left) from the University of Michigan Faculty History Project. Robert Dorfman (right). AEA Distinguished Fellow 1992. The American Economic Review, Vol. 83, No. 3 (Jun., 1993).

Categories
Berkeley Exam Questions Problem Sets Suggested Reading Syllabus

Berkeley. Graduate Macroeconomics à la Akerlof, et al. 1992-2007

 

A few days ago, George Akerlof reached the age of 80. I first met George in the summer of 1973 when I was an intern at the Council of Economic Advisers. I worked as a research assistant to two labor economists and George was on university leave to serve a tour of duty as a senior staff economist at the Council. We only overlapped a few weeks but as we both shared a common undergraduate alma mater, Yale College, we were sort of academic siblings. Almost two decades later George and his wife, Janet Yellen, contacted me regarding details of German Democratic Republic economic statistics for their Brookings paper with Andrew K. Rose and Helga Hessenius “East Germany in from the Cold: The Economic Aftermath of Currency Union” (Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1:1991). During our long telephone conversation George referred to specific footnotes in my World Bank working paper produced for the project led by Paul Marer that resulted in the book Dollar GNPs of the USSR and Eastern Europe (1985) so naturally I was impressed by his scholarly thoroughness.  There were two other encounters that were roughly a decade apart, the last being a conversation in the lobby of the Mt. Washington Hotel at the Bretton Woods conference of INET in 2011

Like many other economists I have received great inspiration from the work and scientific manner of George Akerlof. So in honor of his eightieth birthday, Economics in the Rear-View Mirror offers this collection of links to internet archived course materials from his graduate macroeconomics course at Berkeley.

P.S. For another shipload of links from the WaybackMachine (not involving George Akerlof), course materials from…

Principles of Macroeconomics at M.I.T. from 1995-2006

Principles of Microeconomics at M.I.T. from 1994-2005

__________________________

Mining the internet archive WaybackMachine

The links to course material for Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory taught at the University of California, Berkeley were assembled from the lists created by  searches using the internet archive WaybackMachine:

54 URLs captured with: http://emlab.berkeley.edu:80/users/akerlof/index.shtml

167 URLs captured with: http://emlab.berkeley.edu:80/users/webfac/akerlof/e202*

83 URLs captured with: http://emlab.berkeley.edu/users/webfac/akerlof/e202a

It is of course frustrating to have so much that is yet so incomplete. Still what we have extracted is conveniently displayed below and perhaps others will be successful in filling gaps in the record.

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Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Spring 1992
George Akerlof

Final exam (1992)

Final Questions

_______________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Spring 1993
George Akerlof

Final exam (1993)

Final Questions

_______________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Spring 1995
George Akerlof / G. Mehrez / P. Ghezzi

Final exam (1995)

Final Questions

_______________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Spring 1996
George Akerlof / G. Mehrez / P. Ghezzi

Final exam (1996)

Final Questions Version 1
Final Questions Version 2

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Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Spring 2000
George Akerlof / Andrea De Michelis / Mar-Andreas Muendler

Midterm 2000

Midterm Exam Questions
Midterm Exam Answers

Final exam (2000)

Final Questions Version 1
Final Questions Version 2

_______________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Spring 2001
George Akerlof / Andrea De Michelis

 Course Home page (2001)

Economics 202A: Homepage

Lectures (2001)

[Could not find an archived copies of lectures]

Final Exam (2001)

Final Questions

____________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Spring 2002
George Akerlof

 Course Home page (S2002)

Economics 202A: Homepage

Syllabus (S2002)

[Could not find an archived copy of syllabus]

Lectures (S2002)

[Could not find an archived copies of lectures]

Problem Sets and Solutions (S2002)

[Could not find an archived copies of problems]

Midterm Q’s and A’s (S2002)

Midterm Examination Akerlof/De Michelis (with answers)

Final exam (S2002)

Final Questions

____________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Fall 2002
George Akerlof

 Course Home page (F2002)

Economics 202A: Homepage

Syllabus (F2002)

[Could not find an archived copy of syllabus]

Lectures (F2002)

Lectures 1-5 (GA)Lecture 6 (GA) / Lecture 7 (GA) / Lecture 8 (GA) / Lecture 9 (GA) / Lecture 10 (GA) / Lecture 11 (GA) / Lecture 12 (GA) / Lecture 13 (GA) / Lecture 14 (GA) / Lecture 15 (GA) / Lecture 16 (GA)  / Lecture 17 (GA) / Lecture 18 (GA) / Lecture 19 (GA) / Lecture 20 (GA) / Lecture 21 (GA) / Lecture 22 (GA) / Lecture 23 (GA) / Lecture 24 (GA)

Problem Sets and Solutions (F2002)

Problem Set 1 and Solutions

Problem Set 2 and Solutions

Problem Set 3 and Solutions

Problem Set 4 and Solutions

Problem Set 5 and Solutions

Problem Set 6 and Solutions

Problem Set 7 and Solutions

Problem Set 8 and Solutions

Problem Set 9 and Solutions

Problem Set 10 and Solutions

Problem Set 11 and Solutions

Midterm Q’s and A’s (F2002)

Midterm Examination Questions. Akerlof/De Michelis
Midterm Examination Answers. Akerlof/De Michelis 

Final exam (F2002)

Final Questions

____________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Fall 2003
George Akerlof and David Romer

 Course Home page (2003)

Economics 202A: Homepage

Syllabus (2003)

[Could not find an archived copy of syllabus]

Lectures (2003)

[Could not find an archived copies of lectures]

Problem Sets and Solutions (2003)

[Could not find an archived copies of problems]

Midterm Q’s and A’s (2003)

Midterm Examination Akerlof/Goncalves (with answers)

Final exam (2003)

[Could not find an archived copy of questions or answers]

____________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Fall 2004
George Akerlof

 Course Home page (2004)

Economics 202A: Homepage

Syllabus (2004)

Economics 202A: Syllabus

Lectures (2004)

Lecture 1 (GA) / Lecture 2 (GA) / Lecture 3 (GA) / Lecture 4 (GA) / Lecture 5 (GA) / Lecture 6 (GA) / [Could not find notes for Lectures 7-24]

Problem Sets and Solutions (2004)

Problem Set 1 and Solutions

Problem Set 2 and Solutions

Problem Set 3 and Solutions

[Could not find problem sets and solutions for 4-10]

Midterm Q’s and A’s (2004)

Midterm Examination Akerlof/Kroft (with answers)

Final exam (2004)

[Could not find an archived copy of questions or answers]

____________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Fall 2005
George Akerlof

 Course Home page (2005)

[Could not find an archived copy]

Syllabus (2005)

[Could not find an archived copy]

Lectures (2005)

[Could not find archived copies of lectures 1-6] / Lecture 7 (GA) / Lecture 8 (GA) / [Could not find archived copies of lectures 9-15] / Lecture 16 (GA) / [Could not find archived copies of lectures 17-?]

Problem Sets and Solutions (2005)

Problem Set 5 and Solutions

Problem Set 6 and Solutions

Problem Set 7 and Solutions

 

Midterm Q’s and A’s (2005)

Midterm Examination Akerlof/Halac (with answers)

Final exam (2005)

[Could not find an archived copy of questions or answers]

____________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Fall 2006
George Akerlof and David Romer

 Course Home page (2006)

Economics 202A: Homepage

Syllabus (2006)

Economics 202A: Syllabus

Lectures (2006)

Lecture 1 (GA) / Lecture 2 (GA) / Lecture 3 (GA) / Lecture 4 (GA) / Lecture 5 (GA) / Lecture 6 (GA) / Lecture 7 (GA) / Lecture 8 (GA) / Lecture 9 (GA) / Lecture 10 (GA) / Lecture 11 (GA) / Lecture 12 (GA) / [Could not find archived copies of Romer’s Lectures]

Problem Sets and Solutions (2006)

Problem Set 1 and Solutions

Problem Set 2 and Solutions

Problem Set 3 and Solutions

Problem Set 4 and Solutions

Problem Set 5 and Solutions

Problem Set 6 and Solutions

Problem Set 7 and Solutions

Problem Set 8 and Solutions

Problem Set 9 and Solutions

Problem Set 10 and Solutions

Problem Set 11 and Solutions

Problem Set 12 and Solutions

Problem Set 13 and Solutions

Midterm Q’s and A’s (2006)

Midterm Examination Akerlof/Halac (with answers)

Final exam (2006)

[Could not find an archived copy of questions or answers]

____________________

Economics 202A: Macroeconomic Theory
Fall 2007
George Akerlof (first half) and Maurice Obstfeld (second half)

 Course Home page (2007)

Economics 202A: Homepage

Syllabus (2007)

Economics 202A: Syllabus

Lectures (2007)

Lecture 1 (GA) / Lecture 2 (GA) / Lecture 3 (GA) / Lecture 4 (GA) / Lecture 5 (GA) / Lecture 6 (GA) / Lecture 7 (GA) / Lecture 8 (GA) / Lecture 9 (GA) / Lecture 10 (GA) / Lecture 11 (GA) / Lecture 12 (GA) / Lecture 13 (MO) / Lecture 14 (MO) / Lecture 15 (MO) / Lecture 16 (MO) / Lecture 16a (MO) /Lecture 16b (MO) /  Lecture 17 (MO) / Lecture 18 (MO) / Lecture 19 (MO) / Lecture 20 (MO)

Problem Sets and Solutions (2007)

[Could not find an archived copy of problems or solutions]

Midterm Q’s and A’s (2007)

[Could not find an archived copy of questions or answers]

Final exam (2007)

Final Questions / Final Answers

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Image Source:  George A. Akerlof Facts Page, Nobel Prize Website.

Categories
Australia Economics Programs Suggested Reading

Melbourne. History, Constitutional Law, Political Economy, Philosophy Examination Fields. Elkington, 1899

 

Serendipity led me to the University of Melbourne archives where there turns out to be a considerable amount of digitised material from the University’s history. I figured I’d take a quick look at turn of the century (as in 1899) economics offerings in the land down under. I’ve transcribed the lists of readings for examinations there in economics and related fields. I have even added links to all the items for our collective convenience.

The professor of history and political economy at the time was John Simon Elkington who had succeeded  William Edward Hearn, LL.D. Hearn resigned the chair of History and Political Economy in 1873 and died in 1888.

Elkington was not really an economist, even at a time when “economist” was much more inclusive a term than today. Judging from the brief biographical entry for him in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, he appears to have been less a gentleman and a scholar than a dirty old drunkard of the chair whose spectre might haunt some Victorian faculty club to this day. 

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A Colorful Professor

John Simeon Elkington (b. Nov. 22, 1841 at Rye, Sussex, England; d. June 6, 1922 in Canterbury, Melbourne, Australia)

Elkington was appointed professor of history and political economy at the University of Melbourne 1879 and he retired “by agreement” March 1, 1913. His main field was constitutional history, though his teaching portfolio did include political economy.

“…he was an intense political partisan and a ‘Freetrader of Freetraders’. A gifted raconteur, he ‘interspersed the dry facts of historical research and economic argument with anecdotes and stories’ whose Rabelaisian quality had to be censored when women students entered the university… Gregarious by nature, he attracted interesting people: ‘he has known everybody and is full of anecdotes and incidents about the leading men in Victorian life’. Bankruptcies in 1892 and 1895 after speculating in land and mining, as well as his inordinate thirst, created problems for the university.”

Source: Norman Harper, ‘Elkington, John Simeon (1841–1922)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/elkington-john-simeon-6100/text10451, published first in hardcopy 1981, accessed online 4 June 2020.

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From the University of Melbourne Calendar 1899

ARTS AND SCIENCE.

DETAILS OF SUBJECTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE ANNUAL EXAMINATIONS TO BE HELD IN THE EXAMINATION TERM, 1899

POLITICAL ECONOMY—

Books recommended in addition to the various references to other works given in the Lectures: —

Hearn—Plutology.
Walker—Political Economy.

So far as treated in the Lectures:

Marshall—Principles of Economics.
Adam Smith—Wealth of Nations.

Additional for Honours.

Bagehot—Economic Studies.
Mill—Political Economy, Books I. and V.
Mill—Logic, Book VI.
Spencer—Principles of Sociology, Part II.
Spencer—Study of Sociology.

[p. 228]

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

DEDUCTIVE LOGIC—

The Course will include the following subjects: —The scope and definition of Deductive (or Formal) Logic; the Primary Logical Laws; the formation and characteristics of general notions; Terms, Propositions, and Reasonings, in connection with the questions and exercises in the text-books; recent criticisms and proposed extensions of the traditional logic; Symbolic Logic; and Fallacies.

Pass.

Books recommended: —

Jevons—Elementary Lessons in Logic.
Keynes—Studies and Exercises in Formal Logic, Parts I. II., and III.
Whately—Logic, Book III.

The Examination will include Exercises to test the Candidate’s skill in applying the logical rules.

Additional for Honours.

Veitch—Institutes of Logic, Part I.
Keynes—Studies and Exercises in Formal Logic, Part IV.

INDUCTIVE LOGIC—

Mill’s Logic, critically treated with reference to the views of other logicians, will be used as the principal text-book. In considering Books I. and II., prominence will be given to the Psychology of Judgment and of Reasoning; and Book III. Will be made the basis of a full treatment of the Logic of Induction.

This subject does not presuppose a previous knowledge of Deductive Logic.

Books recommended: —

Mill—Logic. [Part I, Books I-III; Part II, Books IV-VI]
Jevons—Principles of Science [Volume I; Volume II], so far as referred to in Lectures.
(Fowler’s Inductive Logic may be read with advantage prior to the study of Mill’s Logic.)

Additional for Honours.

Venn—Empirical Logic.

[pp. 234-235]

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

MORAL PHILOSOPHY—

Candidates will be expected to show—

(i.) A general knowledge of the History of Moral Philosophy.

(ii.) A critical acquaintance with the following works: —

Butler—Dissertation on Virtue and Sermons on Human Nature.
Kant—Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals.
J.S. Mill—Utilitarianism; with references to Bentham.
Herbert Spencer—Data of Ethics.

[p. 236]

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

SUBJECTS OF EXAMINATIONS FOR FINAL HONOURS AND SCHOLARSHIPS TO BE HELD IN THE FIRST TERM, 1900.

(2.) — SCHOOL OF HISTORY, INCLUDING CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY AND LAW, AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.

Ancient History.
The History of the British Empire.
The Character and Method of the Social Sciences.
The Principles of Political Economy.
Constitutional and Legal History.

Books recommended: —

The books and references mentioned under Ancient History, History of the British Empire, Parts I. and II., Political Economy and Constitutional and Legal History.

Mommsen—History of Rome, Book I.; Book II., ch. 1, 2, 3, 8, 9.
Spencer—Principles of Sociology, Part V. and Part VIII.
Seebohm—The English Village Community.
Stubbs—Constitutional History [Volume I; Volume II; Volume III].
Lord Playfair—Subjects of Social Welfare, Part II., articles 1-7.
Edmund Burke—Thoughts on the cause of the present discontents, and the two speeches on America.
Cunningham—Growth of English Industry and Commerce (2nd edition). [Volume I (1890); Volume II (1892)]
Lecky—History of England in the Eighteenth Century. [Volume I; Volume II; Volume III; Volume IV; Volume V; Volume VI; Volume VII; Volume VIII]
Spencer—First Principles, Part II., ch. 12-17 (3rd edition).
The article Political Economy in the current edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (published separately). [Vol. 19 of the 9th edition, article written by J.K.I. (John Kells Ingram)]

(3.) —SCHOOL OF LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY.

Papers will be set in the following subjects: —

  1. FORMAL LOGIC—

Veitch—Institutes of Logic, Part I.
Keynes—Studies and Exercises in Formal Logic.
Venn—Symbolic Logic.

The Examination will include exercises in Formal and Symbolic Logic.

  1. INDUCTIVE LOGIC—

Mill—Logic. [Part I, Books I-III; Part II, Books IV-VI]
Venn—Empirical Logic.

  1. PSYCHOLOGY—

Psychology of the senses and Intellect.
Lotze—Metaphysics, Book III. (Psychology).

  1. METAPHYSICS—

Kant—Critique of Pure Reason.
E. Caird—Metaphysic (Article, Encyclopaedia Britannica. Republished in Essays on Literature and Philosophy [Vol. II]).

  1. MORAL PHILOSOPHY—

Aristotle—Nicomachean Ethics.
Spencer—Data of Ethics.
Green—Prolegomena to Ethics.

  1. HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY—

The History of Modern Philosophy, from Descartes to Kant inclusive.

[pp. 252-253]

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

EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS TO BE HELD IN THE FIRST TERM, 1900.

A. — SCHOOL OF HISTORY, INCLUDING CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY AND LAW, AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.

The History of the Middle Ages.

The Practical Applications (as stated by the principal Economic Writers) of the Principles of Political Economy.

Constitutional History and Law.

Books recommended: —

Bryce—Holy Roman Empire.
Gibbon—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Dr. Smith’s edition), ch. 49-71 [Volume VI; Volume VII; Vol. VIII].
Hallam—Middle Ages, except ch. 8 [Volume I; Volume II; Volume III].
Mill—Political Economy, Books III., IV., V.
Cliffe Leslie—Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy.
Herbert Spencer—Principles of Ethics, Part IV., and The Man versus The State.
Giffen—Essays in Finance.
Walker—Wages Question.

Bachelors of Arts who graduated before 1st April, 1896, may substitute this work for Constitutional History and Law.

Sir H.S. Maine—Dissertations on Early Law and Custom.
The following Articles in the current edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: —Equity, Fictions, International Law, Law, Treaties.

B. —SCHOOL OF LOGIC AND PHILOSOPHY.

Any four of the Papers set for the Final Honour Examination in the same Term.

[pp. 257-258]

Source:  University of Melbourne. Library, Digitised-Collections. University of Melbourne Calendar 1899.

Image Source: Professor John Simeon Elkington. Copy in the University of Melbourne Archives from Photo N. 4. Alma Mater, Supplement (April 1, 1896).