Category: Syllabus

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Courses Minnesota Syllabus

Minnesota. Fiscal Policy Reading List. Walter Heller, 1950

This course reading list from the Spring quarter of 1950 at the University of Minnesota was enclosed with a thank-you letter dated April 27, 1950 from Walter W. Heller to Milton Friedman thanking him for having sent three reprints of “A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability” (AER, 1948) that Heller had included in the required readings for his Minnesota course.

A brief biography of Walter Heller is provided in the Finding Aid for his papers at the University of Minnesota Archives and here a memoir of a former student.

________________________________

University of Minnesota
School of Business Administration

Economics 195 — Fiscal Policy
(Spring, 1950)

Abbreviations Textbooks
KKK K.K. Kurihara, Monetary Theory and Public Policy, New York, W. W. Norton, 1940.
IEPP Metzler, et al, Income, Employment, and Public Policy, New York, W. W. Norton, 1948.
Douglas Report Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit and Fiscal Policies of the Joint Congressional Committee on the Economic Report, Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies (Sen. Doc. No. 129, 81st Cong., 2nd Session)
PFFE Musgrave et al, Public Finance and Full Employment, Fed. Res. Bd. Postwar Economic Studies, No. 3, December 1945.
 

Additional References
BCT American Economic Association, Readings in Business Cycle Theory.
SCE American Economic Association, A Survey of Contemporary Economics.
B&B Bowman and Bach, Economic Analysis and Public Policy.
H-1 Hansen, Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles.
H-2 Hansen, Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy
NE Harris et al, The New Economics.
Hart Hart, Money, Debt, and Economic Activity.
“Green Book” Joint Committee on Economic Report, Monetary, Credit and Fiscal Policies. [Possibly this set of hearings is intended]
EC Lerner, Economics of Control.
Murphy Murphy, The National Debt in War and Transition.
S-1 Simons, Federal Tax Reform.
S-2 Simons, Economic Policy for a Free Society.
FAP Twentieth Century Fund, Financing American Prosperity.
AER American Economic Review
CED Committee for Economic Development.

Assignments (Do not expect the assignments to fit perfectly into the course outline; you will find that many fit only partially or obliquely and that there is much overlap)
Asterisk (*) means assigned; others are suggested.

 

I. BACKGROUND AND REVIEW

A. Monetary Policy and Concepts

1.* B&B, Ch. 11 (Ch. 40 also suggested)

2.* KKK, pp. 3-39

B. Public Finance

1.* B&B, Book VI (for quick review)

2. H-1, Part Two

C. Theory of Employment, Income, and Interest

1.* KKK, Part II (But beware of the dogma!)

D. Business Cycles

1.* B&B, Ch. 14 (for review, as needed)

2. Hart, Part III

II. NATURE AND OBJECTIVES OF FISCAL POLICY

1*. Gerhard Colm, “Fiscal Policy” (NE, Ch. 34)

2.* Alvin Hansen, “Keynes on Economic Policy” (NE, Ch. 16)

3.* Hart, Ch. 19

4.* Everett Hagen, “Direct v. Fiscal-Monetary Controls: A Critique” (Mimeograph- to be published in A. E.A. Proceedings, May, 1950)

5.* Smithies, “Federal Budgeting and Fiscal Policy”, (SCE, pp. 174-192)

6.* Wright, “Income Redistribution Reconsidered”, IEPP

7. Vickrey, “Limitations to Keynesian Economics”, Social Research, December, 1948

8. United Nations, National and International Measures for Full Employment, 1949

9. Meade, Planning and the Price Mechanism, The MacMillan Co., 1948

10. “The Problem of Full Employment”, by Hart, Sweezy, et al, AER, Proceedings issue, May, 1946, pp. 280-335.

III. ECONOMIC REQUISITES FOR FULL–EMPLOYMENT EQUILIBRIUM

A. Introduction

1. G. L. Bach, “Economic Requisites for Economic Stability” (to be published in AEA Proceedings, May, 1950)

B. The Income Claims Requirement (and cost-price problems)

1. Walter Morton, “Trade Unionism, Full Employment, and Inflation”, A.E.R., March, 1950

2.* FAP: Ellis, pp. 176-198; Hansen, pp. 256-260; Machlup, pp. 426-440; 460-466 (Suggested also: Clark, pp. 97-125; Williams, pp. 367-373)

C. The Adequate Money Demand Requirement

1. The general problem

a. Samuelson, “The Simple Mathematics of Income Determination”, IEPP

b. Smithies, “Effective Demand and Employment”, NE

c.* Review Kurihara assignment

2. The consumption function

a.* Duesenberry, “Income-Consumption Relations”, IEPP

b. Lubell, “Effects of Redistribution of Income on Consumers’ Expenditures”, AER, December, 1947

3. Investment

a.* Domar, “Investment, Losses, and Monopolies”, IEPP

b.* Higgins, “Concepts and Criteria of Secular Stagnation”, IEPP

c.* Sweezy, “Declining Investment Opportunity”, Ch. 32, NE

d. Higgins, “The Concept of Secular Stagnation”, AER, March, 1950

e. Hansen, H-1, Chs. 16 and 17

f. Wright, “The Great Guessing Game”, Review Econ. Statistics, February, 1946

IV. LONG–RUN FISCAL POLICY

A. General

1. Bishop, “Alternative Expansionist Fiscal Policies: A Diagrammatic Analysis”, IEPP

2.* Smithies, SCE, pp. 192-195

3.* Hansen, H-2, Ch. 13

4.* Williams, “Deficit Spending”, BCT, Ch. 13

5.* Musgrave, “Fiscal Policy, Stability and Full Employment”, PFFE

B. Taxation

1.* Smithies, SCE, pp. 195-200

2.* Musgrave, “Federal Tax Reform”, PFFE

3.* Simons, S-1, Ch. 2

4. Hansen, H-1, Ch. 19

C. Expenditure Policy

1. Higgins, Ch. 35, NE

2.* Smithies, SCE, pp. 200-204

V. DEBT MANAGEMENT

1.* Domar, “Public Debt and National Income”, PFFE

2.* Wallich, “Public Debt and Income Flow”, PFFE

3. Lerner, “The Burden of the National Debt”, IEPP

4.* Simons, “On Debt Policy”, S-2

VI. ANTI–CYCLICAL FISCAL POLICY

A. Political and Administrative Requisites for (and Barriers to) Effective Fiscal Policy

1. Roy Blough, “Political and Administrative Requisites for Achieving Economic Stability”, to be published in Proceedings issue of AER, May, 1950

2.* Alexander, “Opposition to Deficit Spending”, IEPP

B. General

1. Fellner, “Employment Theory and Business Cycles”, SCE

2.* Smithies, SCE, pp. 204-209

3.* Lerner, EC, Ch. 24

C. Automatic Devices

1.* Hart, Chs. 21 and 22

2.* Friedman, “A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Greater Economic Stability,” AER, Je., 1948

2a. “Comment” on above, and “Rejoinder”, AER, Sept., 1949

3. CED Taxes and the Budget (Policy Statement), 1947, pp. 10-34

D. Discretionary Policy

1.* Hart, Chs. 23 and 24

2.* Hansen, H-2, Ch. 12

3.* Margolis, “Public Works and Economic Instability”, JPE, August, 1949

E. State and Local Finance

1. Mitchell, Litterer, and Domar, “State and Local Finance”, PFFE

VII. SPECIFIC APPLICATIONS OF FISCAL POLICY

A. The Wartime Case

1.* Murphy, Chs. 5, 6, 7, 18, 19

2. Keynes, How to Pay for the War, Macmillan, London, 1940

B. A War–Devastated Economy

1.* Heller, “The Role of Fiscal-Monetary Policy in German Economic Recovery”, AER, Proceedings issue, May, 1950 (also mimeographs on reserve)

C. The U.S. Economy in Peacetime (?)

1.* Douglas Report, pp. 1-32

2.* The Green Book, pp. 395-424 (skim and scan)

3. CED. Monetary and Fiscal Policy for Greater Economic Stability, (Policy Statement), 1948

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives, Milton Friedman Papers, Box 28, Folder 5 (Correspondence: Heller, Walter W.).

Categories
Courses Harvard Syllabus

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

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

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

_________________________

[Course Announcement]

Economics 9a 1hf. International Trade and Tariff Policies

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

 

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

 

_________________________

[Course Enrollment]

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

 

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

 

_________________________

ECONOMICS 9a
Outline, 1933–1934

 

Important Books:

Ohlin: International and Interregional Trade¨[1933]

Taussig: International Trade [1927]

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

Taussig: Tariff History [6th ed 1914]

 

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

Lecture 1. The regional balance of payments

Lecture 2. The international balance of payments

Lecture 3. Conditions of international and interregional trade

Lecture 4. Movements of commodities and factors

Lecture 5. The problems of localization and transportation

Lecture 6. The Classical theory as developed by Ricardo

Lecture 7. The Classical theory as modified by Taussig

Lecture 8. The supply and demand theory of Marshall

 

Assignment:

Ohlin: Chapters 1-7.

Taussig, International Trade: Chapters 1-7

 

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

(October 30 –November 10)

Lecture 9. International trade under a gold standard

Lecture 10. International trade under a gold standard, continued

Lecture 11. International trade under a silver standard

Lecture 12. International trade under an inconvertible standard

 

Assignment:

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

 

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

Lecture 13. Effects of import duties

Lecture 14. Some aspects of British fiscal policy

Lecture 15. British fiscal policy and her international position.

Lecture 16. Some aspects of American fiscal policy

Lecture 17. The international competitive position of the United States

Lecture 18. The technique of tariff bargaining and administration

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

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

 

Assignment:

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

Taussig, Tariff History: Part II.

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

Lecture 21.    The mechanism of capital movements

Lecture 22.    Statistical verification of the theory

Lecture 23.    Keynes, Ohlin, Taussig on reparations

 

Assignment:

Ohlin: Chapters 19-22.

 

HOUR EXAMINATION: Wednesday, October 25.

 

Reading Period:

Read ONE of the following:

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

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

 

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

Image source: Harvard Album, 1934.

 

Categories
Bibliography Chicago Courses Syllabus

Chicago. Course on International Economic Policies. Viner, 1944.

As the previous posting for Economics 370 (International Trade and Finance) taught by Jacob Viner at the University of Chicago during the Winter Quarter of 1944, this posting is based on detailed notes taken by Don Patinkin from which I have extracted a rough course outline with a corresponding list of assigned as well as suggested readings and references. 

After the course description, the course outline and Viner’s reading assignments as written by Don Patinkin in his notes have been transcribed.  A list of term paper topics for the course has also been transcribed. I am happy to report that almost all of the readings have been properly identified and brought into proper bibliographic form in a separate list placed at the end of this posting. As most of the readings for Viner’s policy course are well on this side of the copyright threshold, fewer links can be offered. The periodical literature that can be accessed at jstor.org has been linked, but most folks this interested in the history of 20th century economics have access to jstor through their university affiliations.

__________________________

[Course Description]

XI. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS

  1. International Economic Policies. A survey, with particular reference to the United States, of the international aspects of the economic policies and activities of governments. Topics: the fundamentals of international trade; tariffs and tariff technique; quotas and exchange controls; commercial treaties; unfair competition; colonial policies; international capital investments; commodity controls; the international aspects of shipping and railroad policies; international economic institutions; economic factors in diplomacy and war. Prereq: Two years’ work in the Division of the Social Sciences, or equiv. Spr: M, W, F, 9, Viner.

Source: The University of Chicago, Announcements, The College and the Divisions. Sessions of 1943-1944.   Vol. XLIII, No. 10 (August 10, 1943), p. 317.

__________________________

[Course Outline and Reading Assignments]

Economics 371
International Economic Policies
Spring Quarter, 1944
Jacob Viner

[Outline]

 

Subject LECTURES
Types of Econ. Policy
Mercantilism
Scandal Theory
Tariffs (MFN & CMFN)
Tariff Bargaining (History etc.)
New Forms of Trade Barriers
Monopoly Question
Int’l Cartels
Customs-Union
Colonial Problems
Native Labor Problem
Int’l Movements of Capital
Postwar investment policy
Raw Materials
Commodity Agreements
International Agencies

 

[Readings Assigned/Suggested in Sequence As Announced by Viner]

Winslow, “Marxian, Liberal, & Sociological Theories of Imperialism,” JPE v. 39 #6,Dec. ’31, pp. 713-86]

Robbins, Economic Causes of War, pp. 94-8, & Appendix pp. 111-24, London, 1939.

Staley, Foreign Investment & War. U. of C. Public Policy Pamphlets, 13-24]

Sulzbach, “Capitalistic Warmongers” U. of C. Public Policy Pamphlets. 25-35

cf. also Staley “War & The Private Investor” [not assigned]

John H. Herz, “Power Politics & World Organization” Am. Pol. Science Review Dec 42, v. 36 #6.

Int’l Relations. Jacob Viner, Proceeding American Econ Association March ‘44

Jacob Viner. Address before League of Nations. Society in Canada. Interdependence, V. 13 #3 &4 1936, pp. 218-229.

Haberler, Theory of Int’l Trade pp. 211-26, 245-95,
or
Ellsworth, Int’l Econ. pp. 275-340

U.S. Tariff Comm. Reciprocity Report, pp. 27-47, 504-510

Viner, Tariffs, Ency. Soc. Sciences

Tasca, Reciprocal Trade Policy of U.S. ch.’s 2-5 (pp. 10-9

Viner, Most Favored Nations Clause, JPE Feb ’24,
Index Jan ‘31

Viner, Trade Relations between Free-Market & Controlled Economies (League of Nations Memo 1943)

Joseph B. Lockey Am. Journal of Int’l Law 235-43

B. Nolde, Recueil de Cours Academie de Droit Internationale, 1924 II.

Viner—Proc. American Econ. Assoc. March 1944, pp. 315-29 “Intern. Relations between State-Controlled Nat. Economies”

Ellsworth
Haberler

(These not assignments, merely references)
Margaret Gordon, Barriers to World Trade
Howard Ellis, Exchange Control
Henry J. Tasca, World Trading Systems (Diff. between U.S. & Eng. on export controls)

 

League of Nations, Commercial Policy in Interwar period

[League of Nations] Haberler, Quantitative Trade Controls

Howard Ellis, Exchange Control, pp. 13-17

July [sic, May] ’43 Social Research. Schüller

Corwin Edwards “Int’l Cartels as Obstacles to Int’l Trade”. Proceed. A. E. Assoc. March ‘44

Ervin Hexner “Int. Cartels in the Post-War World” Southern Econ. Journal. Oct. ‘43

New Republic—special supplement on Cartels March 27, 1944

Federalist—No. XI & passim

De Beers “Tariff Aspects of the Federal Union” QJE Nov. 1941

U.S. Tariff Comm. Colonial Tariff Policies, Introduction, pp. 1-16, 26-42, 55-9, 63-78

P. Bidwell Tariff Policy of the U.S. 1933, pp. 70-101

Royal Institute of Int’l Affairs—The Colonial Problem. ch’s 1, 3,4.

Viner. typewritten article on U.S. colonial policy – on reserve.

Violet Conolly, Soviet Trade from the Pacific to the Levant” (1935)

[Violet Conolly], Soviet Economic Policy in East 1933.

Haberler [Regional blocs]—in Seymour Harris ed. Postwar Econ. Problems 1943, pp. 325-344

Skim [next three items]

Feis, Europe the World’s Banker. ch’s 1-3, pp. 463-69
Viner, Int’l Finance & Balance of Power Diplomacy, Southwestern Political and Social Science Quarterly March ’29, V. IX, No. 4.
Viner, Political Aspects of Int’l Finance” Journal of Business of U. of C. April-July ’28.

R.I.I.A.—The Problem of Int’l Investment. ch’s 1, 2,3 (=pp. 1-39); & 8 (=pp. 102-12)

J.W. Angell—Financial For. Policy of U.S. 1933—ch’s 3, 4,7

O. R. Hobson, The Function of Foreign Lending (pamphlet on reserve)

Staley, “Une critique de la protection diplomatique des placements à l’étranger” Revue gén. de Droit Int. Pub. Sept-Oct., 1935, pp. 541-558.

Knorr- Hist. of Eng. Colonial Theories (U of C. Ph.D. thesis)

On forced colonial labor: Lord Olivier, White Men & Colonial Labor (sic, white capital and coloured labour. McMillan (Penguin book). Lord Hailey, African Surveys.

Wallace & Edminster, Int’l Control of Raw Materials, ch’s 1, 9, 10, 11, 12

Staley, Raw Materials in Peace & War ch’s 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8,11

Round Table Discussion. Proceedings A.E. Assoc. (St. Louis, 1926), pp. 41-8

Viner, (Rubber Control), Foreign Affairs, July ‘26

Viner, Raw Materials Problem in Porritt (ed.), The Causes of War, 185-202 (Just look at last two)

Viner, Objectives of Post-War Int’l Econ. Reconstruction. New Wilmington lecture. May 1942,(on reserve).

______________________________

Possible Term Papers

Policy of U. S. with respect to any post war econ.

Lessons for post-war settlement from past failures

Foreign Investment in Backward Countries

Econ. Provisions other than P-p(?)

Lend-Lease as means of Inter-Allied Econ. Relation[?]

Case studies: Missionaries & Imperialism

Am. gov. preferences to domestic trade in gov. purchases

gov. intervention to collect foreign debt—any case study

Study of literature dealing with econ motives of U.S. entry into World War I.

Econ. Doctrine as applied by World Court in its Decisions

Canadian-American Hydro-agreements

Int’l action of cooperatives

Intl trade theories underlying activities of I. L.O.

 

______________________________

Bibliography for Viner’s Economics 371 in 1944

 

Angell, James Waterhouse. Financial foreign policy of U.S. New York: 1933. [A report to the second International studies conference on the state and economic life, London, May 29 to June 2, 1933, prepared for the American committee appointed by the council on foreign relations.]

Bidwell, Percy Wells. Tariff policy of the U.S.; A study of recent experience. New York: Council on Foreign Relations.1933 [A report to the second International studies conference on the state and economic life, London, May 29 to June 2, 1933, prepared for the American committee appointed by the council on foreign relations.]

Conolly, Violet. Soviet trade from the Pacific to the Levant, with an economic study of the soviet Far Eastern region. London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1935.

Conolly, Violet. Soviet economic policy in the East; Turkey, Persia, Afghanistan, Mongolia and Tana Tuva, Sin Kiang. London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford, 1933.

de Beers, John S. Tariff aspects of a federal union. Quarterly Journal of Economics v. 56, no. 1 ( November 1941), pp. 49-92.

Edwards, Corwin D. International cartels as obstacles international trade. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings. v. 34, No. 1, part 2 supplement (March 1944) pp. 330-40.

Ellis, Howard Sylvester. Exchange control in central Europe. Harvard economic studies, no. 69. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1941. [Originally published as ‘Exchange control in Austria and Hungary’ and ‘Exchange control in Germany’ in the Quarterly journal of economics, volume 54, no. 1, part 2, November, 1939 and volume 54, no. 4, part 2, August, 1940.]

Ellsworth, Paul Theodore. International economics. New York: Macmillan, 1938.

Feis, Herbert. Europe the world’s banker, 1870-1914. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1931.

Gordon, Margaret S. Barriers to world trade; a study of recent commercial policy. New York: Macmillan, 1941. [Bureau of international research of Harvard university and Radcliffe college.]

Hamilton, Alexander. The utility of the union in respect to commercial relations and a navy. The Federalist, Number 11. 1787-88.

Haberler, Gottfried. The theory of international trade with its application to commercial policy (translated by Alfred W. Stonier and Frederic Benham). London: W. Hodge & company, 1936.

Haberler, Gottfried. Quantitative trade controls: their causes and nature. Geneva: League of Nations, Series II, Economic and financial. 1943. [“Prepared by Professor Gottfried Haberler … in collaboration with Mr. Martin Hill.”]

Haberler, Gottfried. “The political economy of regional or continental blocs” In Seymour Edwin Harris (ed.), Postwar economic problems, New York, McGraw Hill, 1943, pp. 325-44.

Hailey, William Malcolm (Lord Hailey). An African survey: a study of problems arising in Africa south of the Sahara. London: Oxford University Press, 1938. [Issued by the Committee of the African Research Survey under the auspices of the Royal Institute of International Affairs.]p

Herz, John H. Power Politics and world organization. American Political Science Review v. 36, no. 6 (December 1942), pp. 1039-1052.

Hexner, Ervin. International cartels in the postwar world. Southern Economic Journal v. 10, no. 2 (October 1943), pp. 114-135.

Hobson, O.R. The function of foreign lending. [International Chamber of Commerce. 9th International Congress (Berlin), 1937, Document #3].

Knorr, Klaus. British colonial theories, 1570-1850. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1944. [University of Chicago Ph.D. thesis]

League of Nations. Economic, Financial and Transit Department. Commercial policy in interwar period. Geneva: League of Nations, 1942.

Lockey, Joseph B. Pan-Americanism and imperialism. American Journal of International Law vol. 32, no. 2 (April 1938), pp. 244-243.

New Republic. Special supplement on cartels, March 27, 1944.

Nolde, Boris. Recueil des Cours 1924 II. Académie de Droit Internationale.

Olivier, Sydney Haldane (Lord). White capital & coloured labour. London: Independent Labour Party,1906 [also London: Hogarth Press by Leonard & Virginia Woolf]

Robbins, Lionel. Economic causes of war. London: J. Cape, 1939.

Royal Institute of International Affairs. The colonial problem. London: Oxford Press, 1937.

Royal Institute of International Affairs. The problem of international investment. London: Oxford University Press, 1937.

Schüller, Richard. Commercial policy between the two wars; personal observations of a participant. Social Research v. 10, no. 2 (May 1943), pp. 152-174.

Staley, Eugene. War and the private investor; a study in the relations of international politics and international private investment. Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, Doran & company, 1935.

Staley, Eugene. Une critique de la protection diplomatique des placements à l’étranger. Revue Générale de Droit International Public. v. 42 (September-October, 1935), pp. 541-558.

Staley, Eugene. Foreign investment and war. University of Chicago Public Policy Pamphlets, Nr. 18, 1935.

Staley, Eugene. Raw materials in peace and war. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1937.

Sulzbach, Walter. “Capitalistic warmongers”: a modern superstition. University of Chicago Public Policy Pamphlets, Nr.35, 1942.

Henry J. Tasca. The reciprocal trade policy of the U.S.; a study in trade philosophy. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1938.

Henry J. Tasca, World trading systems; a study of American and British commercial policies. Paris: International institute of intellectual co-operation, League of Nations, 1939.

U. S. Tariff Commission. [Stanley Kuhl Hornbeck; Jacob Viner; Clive Day; Walter B. Palmer]. Reciprocity and commercial treaties. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1919.

U. S. Tariff Commission. Colonial tariff policies. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1922.

Viner, Jacob. The most-favored-nations clause in American commercial treaties. Journal of Political Economy v. 32, no. 1 (February 1924), pp. 101-129. [Reprinted in Viner, 1951.]
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1822463

Viner, Jacob. The most-favored-nation clause. Index v. 61 (February 1931), pp. 2-17. [Reprinted in Viner, 1951.]

Viner, Jacob. Political aspects of international finance. Journal of Business of the University of Chicago v. 1, no. 2 and no. 3 (April and July 1928)

Viner, Jacob. International finance and balance of power diplomacy, 1880-1914. Southwestern Political and Social Science Quarterly. v. 9, No. 4 (March 1929).

Viner, Jacob. Tariffs. In vol. 14 of Edwin R. A. Seligman and Alvin Saunders Johnson (eds.) Encylopaedia of the social sciences. New York: Macmillan 1930

Viner, Jacob. Address before League of Nations Society in Canada, Interdependence, v. 13, nos. 3 and 4 (1936), pp. 218-229.

Viner, Jacob. National monopolies of raw materials. (Rubber Control), Foreign Affairs v.4, no. 4 (July 1926), pp. 585-600. (rubber control)

Viner, Jacob. Raw materials problem. In Arthur Porritt and Arthur Salter (eds.), The causes of war. New York: Macmillan, 1932.

Viner, Jacob. U.S. Policy with Respect to the ‘Colonial Problem’. Typescript. [Perhaps later published as “The American interest in the ‘colonial problem.’” New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1944.]

Viner, Jacob. Objectives of post-war international economic reconstruction. New Wilmington lecture, May 1942.

Viner, Jacob. International Economics. Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1951.

Viner, Jacob. Trade relations between free-market and controlled economies. Geneva: League of Nations, 1943.

Viner, Jacob. International relations between state-controlled national economies. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings v. 34, no. 1, part 2 (March 1944, pp. 315-29
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1818704

Wallace, Benjamin B. (chairman). American practices analogous to foreign controls over raw materials, round table discussion. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings vol. 17, no. 1 Supplement (March 1927), pp. 41-8. [W. E. Grimes, H. E. Erdman, J. D. Black, Vanderveer Custis, Amos E. Taylor]

Wallace, Benjamin Bruce and Edminster, Lynn Ramsay. International control of raw materials. Brookings Institution. Washington, D.C., 1930.

Winslow, E. M. Marxian, liberal, and sociological theories of imperialism. Journal of Political Economy, v. 39, no. 6 (December 1931), pp. 713-86]

 

Source: Don Patinkin Papers. Duke University Rare Book Library. Box 3 (Course Materials and Class Notes), Folder “Patinkin as Student: Notebooks (1944)”.

Image source: Jacob Viner on the left, Theodore W. Schultz on the right. Undated. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07483, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

 

Categories
Bibliography Chicago Courses Syllabus

Chicago. International Trade and Finance. Viner, 1944

 

Don Patinkin took reasonably detailed notes in two of Jacob Viner’s three graduate courses in international economics in 1944 from which it is a fairly easy task to put together course outlines and the corresponding lists of assigned as well as suggested readings and references.

Just as in his core economic theory course Economics 301, Price and Distribution Theory, Viner appears to have given reading assignments generally in blocks at a time that one presumes he wrote or had written on a black board to be copied into student’s notes. During his lectures there was the occasional new reference to be given.

A Chicago quarter is a dozen weeks long. Viner packed into the first dozen weeks a historical survey of mercantilism followed by one on the bullionist controversy and found time to talk about both exchange rate determination and the pure theory of trade as well as the competing plans by Keynes and White put forward on the eve Bretton Woods conference. An educational tour-de-force.

Almost all of the readings have been properly identified and brought into proper bibliographic form. And if this is not enough, I include Patinkin’s list of 19 Ph.D. examination questions for the field.

More recently I have posted the bibliography and exam questions for this course as taught by Viner in the Winter Quarter of the 1932/33 year. That information was found in the Milton Friedman papers in the Hoover Institution archives.

__________________________

Econ. 370
International Trade and Finance
Jacob Viner

Winter Quarter, 1944

__________________________

[Course Description]

XI. INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS

  1. International Trade and Finance. The theory of international values, the mechanism of adjustment of international balances, foreign-exchange theory, the international aspects of monetary and banking theory, and tariff theory. Prereq: Econ 301 or equiv. Win: M, W, F 9, Viner.

Source: The University of Chicago, Announcements, The College and the Divisions. Sessions of 1943-1944.   Vol. XLIII, No. 10 (August 10, 1943), p. 317.

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[Course Outline and Reading Assignments]

Subject LECTURES
MERCANTILISM
BULLIONIST CONTROVERSY
INT’L MECHANISM: SIMPLE SPECIE
role of exchange rate fluctuations
role of price changes
role of specie flow
income elasticity for imports
terms of trade
unilateral payments
inductive studies
purchasing power parity theory
FRACTIONAL RESERVES
short term capital movements
inter-regional adjustments
flight capital
fixed and flexible exchanges
current int’l monetary agreement discussion
PURE THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE
Ohlin on determinants of specialization
Alternative cost doctrine
The case for FREE TRADE
Graphical analysis—Edgeworth on gains from trade

 

Mercantilism

Viner, Studies, ch. 1 & 2.

Heckscher, Mercantilism, II, 175-261.

—— Ency. Soc. Sciences, v. 10, pp. 333b-339a.

—— Econ. Hist. Review, Nov. 1936.

Viner, Review of Heckscher, Econ. Hist. Review, v. 6.

—— “Balance of Trade”, Ency. Soc. Sciences, v. 2, pp. 399-406.

Seligman, Bullionists, Ency. Soc. Sciences, v. 3, pp. 60-64.

Mun, England’s Treasure, ch’s 2, 3,4,5,6,7,8,19,20.

Hume’s Essays: “Of Money”, “Of the Balance of Trade”

Malynes

Bullionist Controversy

Viner, Studies, ch. 3 & 4.

Silberling, “Financial & Monetary Policy” (Q.J.E.—skim; Feb. & May 1924).

Angell, James W. Theory of international prices. Ch III & Appendix A, pp. 427-503.

Viner—Review of Angell. J.P.E. (pp. 601-611 only).

Ricardo—High Prices of Bullion in McCulloch edition of Works or in Gonner ed. Ricardo’s Essays.

Mechanism of International Equilibrium

E. M. Bernstein, J.P.E. 1939

Imre de Vegh in Review of Econ. Statistics, 1941

Leontieff (Essays in Honor of Taussig)

Robertson—Viner. QJE Feb 1939.

Ricardo, Principles ch. 7.

J.S. Mill, Principles, Book III, chs. 17 & 18.

Ohlin—Interregional & International Trade. ch’s 1,2,4,14,20; Appendices I & II.

Viner—Studies ch. 6.

[for material of ch. 5 (Viner) see—

Elmer Wood—Eng. Theories of Central Banking Control

E.V. Morgen. Hist. of Central Banking Theories

Wadrey [?], Ph.D. thesis]

read Ellsworth—Int’l Economics—chs. 5 &6—well organized

Mosak — Dr.’s thesis on material of ch. 6

Bronfenbrenner — Studies in Math. Economics-Lange

Haberler — Theory of Int’l Trade

 

International Mechanism Under Gold Standard, Fractional Reserves

[Viner] Studies — ch. 7

Explorations in Economics [Taussig Festschrift]: Currie [Domestic Stability & the Mechanism of Trade Adjustment to Int’l. Capital Movements]—pp.46-56, also Angell pp. 15-19, Leontief [Notes on the Pure Theory of Capital Transfer]—pp.84-91.

E. M. Bernstein, J.P.E., June 1940.

J.C. Gilbert, R.E. Studies V (1937-8), 187ff.

Imre de Vegh, R.E. Stat, 1942. [sic]

Paish, Economica, Nov. 1936

Interest Rates & Capital Movements

O. M. W. Sprague [Economic Adviser to the Bank of England]—Memorandum [presented after the Bank for International Settlements in May 1932]: Statistical Data on Foreign Short-Term Loans—their Collection & Use

[Paish, F. W.] Banking Policy & Int’l Payment. Economica [Nov.] 1936.

Gilbert. Review of Econ. Studies V. 5, pp. 187 ff.

The “Gold Standard”

[criticism of…next three items]

Keynes — Treatise on Money.

Whittlesey

Graham & Whittlesey. Golden avalanche

Bretton Woods:

Get Keynes’ plan (British Ministry of Information) & White (Treasury) plan (revised of July)

see also FR bulletin

Princeton bibliography on this.

Williams’ July- 1943 and Jan 1944, Foreign Affairs.

Irving Trust Co. Symposium. Read: texts of agreement

Goldenweiser, E. A.

articles by Kemmerer, Viner, Williams

C. P. Kindleberger, Short-Term Capital Movement (1936)

Marco Fanno. Normal and Abnormal Cap. movements.

Paul Einzig. Foreign Balances (1936)

Viner—Two plans for int’l monetary standard. Yale Review.

Pure theory of Int’l Trade

Viner—Studies ch.’s 8-9.

Lerner-(two articles) Diagrammatical Represent. Economica 346-56, 1932-34 319-34.

Leontieff — Use of Indifference Curves—Q.J.E. 1933.

Samuelson — Welfare Econ A.E.R. 1938.

Kaldor — Tariff — Economica 1940.

De Scitovszky — Reconsideration of Tariff — Review of Econ Studies—summer 1942.

J.C. Gilbert—Rev. Econ. Studies V. 3 “Present State of Int’l Theory”

Q.J.E. May 1938 Robertson on [Viner’s] Studies pp. 539ff.

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Bibliography for Viner’s Economics 370 in 1944

Angell, James W. Theory of international prices: History, criticism and restatement. Harvard Economic Studies No. 28, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1926.

Angell, James W. Equilibrium in international payments: the United States, 1919-1925. In Explorations in economics, notes and essays contributed in honor of F. W. Taussig. (1936).

Bernstein, E. M. Exchange rates under the gold standard. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 48, No. 3 (Jun., 1940), pp. 345-356.

Bronfenbrenner, Martin. International transfers and the terms of trade: An Extension of Pigou’s Analyis. In Studies in mathematical economics and econometrics: in memory of Henry Schultz (1942).

Currie, Lauchlin. Domestic stability and the mechanism of trade adjustment to international capital movements. In Explorations in economics, notes and essays contributed in honor of F. W. Taussig. (1936)

De Scitovszky, T. A reconsideration of the theory of tariffs. The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Summer, 1942), pp. 89-110.

de Vegh, Imre. Imports and income in the United States and Canada. The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Aug., 1941), pp. 130-146

Einzig, Paul. Foreign balances. London: Macmillan, 1938.

Ellsworth, P. T. International economics. New York: Macmillan, 1938.

Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. Edwin R. A. Seligman and Alvin Johnson (eds.). New York, Macmillan Co.

Vol. 2 (1930);  Vol. 10 (1933)

Explorations in economics, notes and essays contributed in honor of F. W. Taussig. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936.

Fanno, Marco. Normal and abnormal international capital transfers. University of Minnesota Press, 1939.

Fisher, Irving. The purchasing power of money. Its determination and relation to credit, interest and crises. New York: Macmillan, 1911.

Gilbert, J. C. The present position of the theory of international trade. The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Oct., 1935), pp. 18-34.

Gilbert, J. C. The mechanism of interregional redistributions of money. The Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Jun., 1938), pp. 187-194.

Graham, Frank D. and Charles R. Whittlesey. Golden avalanche. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939.

Haberler, Gottfried. The theory of international trade. Trans. by Alfred Stonier and Frederic Benham. London: William Hodge, 1936.

Heckscher, Eli F. Mercantilism (2 vols.) London: George Allen and Unwin, first edition, 193; revised, second edition, 1955. Original Swedish edition, 1931). (Review Essay by John J. McCusker in EH.net)

Heckscher, Eli F. Mercantilism. The Economic History Review, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Nov., 1936), pp. 44-54

Hume, David. Essays, moral, political, and literary. Eugene F. Miller (ed.). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc.

Kaldor, Nicholas. A note on tariffs and the terms of trade. Economica, New Series, Vol. 7, No. 28 (Nov., 1940), pp. 377-380.

Keynes, John Maynard. A treatise on money. (2 vols.) New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1930.

Kindleberger, Charles P. International short-term capital movements. New York: Columbia University Press, 1939.

Leontief, Wassily W. The use of indifference curves in the analysis of foreign trade. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 47, No. 3 (May, 1933), pp. 493-503.

Leontief, Wassily. Note on the pure theory of capital transfer. In . In Explorations in economics, notes and essays contributed in honor of F. W. Taussig. (1936).

Lerner, A. P. The diagrammatical representation of cost conditions in international trade. Economica, No. 37 (Aug., 1932), pp. 346-356.

Lerner, A. P. The diagrammatical representation of demand conditions in international trade. Economica, New Series, Vol. 1, No. 3 (Aug., 1934), pp. 319-334.

Malynes, Gerard. A treatise of the canker of England’s commonwealth, 1601. in Tawney and Power, Tudor economic documents, III, 1924, pp. 386-505.

Malynes, Gerard. The circle of commerce or the ballance of trade, in defence [sic] of free trade [sic], 1623.

Mill, John Stuart. Principles of political economy with some of their applications to social philosophy. (7th ed.). A. J. Ashley (ed.). London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1909.

Morgan, E.Victor The theory and practice of central banking, 1797-1913. Cambridge,: Cambridge University Press, 1943.

Mosak, Jacob L. General-Equilibrium theory in international trade (University of Chicago doctoral dissertation, 1941).Bloomington, IN: Principia Press, 1944.

Mun, Thomas. England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade (1664). New York, Macmillan and Co., 1895.

Ohlin, Bertil G. Interregional and international trade. Harvard Economic Studies No. 39. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1933.

Paish, F. W. Banking policy and the balance of international payments. Economica, New Series, Vol. 3, No. 12 (Nov., 1936), pp. 404-422.

The Works of David Ricardo (New edition). J. R. McCulloch (ed.). London: John Murray, 1888.

Economic Essays by David Ricardo. Edited with introductory essay and notes by E. C. K. Gonner. London, G. Bell and Sons, 1926.

Ricardo, David. Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, E. C.K. Gonner (ed.). London, George Bell and Sons, 1903.

Robertson, D. H. Changes in international demand and the terms of trade. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 52, No. 3 (May, 1938), pp. 539-540.

Robertson, D. H. Indemnity Payments and Gold Movements. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Feb., 1939), pp. 312-314.

Robertson, D. H. Indemnity Payments and Gold Movements: A Rejoinder. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Feb., 1939), pp. 317.

Samuelson, Paul A. Welfare economics and international trade. The American Economic Review, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Jun., 1938), pp. 261-266

Shields, Murry (ed.) International financial stabilization: a symposium. New York: Irving Trust Company, 1944.

Silberling, Norman J. Financial and Monetary Policy of Great Britain During the Napoleonic Wars, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Feb., 1924), pp. 214-233; No. 3 (May, 1924), pp. 397-439.

Sprague, O. M. W. “Statistical Data on Foreign Short-term Funds; their Collection and Use.” Paper read before an assembly of central bank governors following the General Meeting at the Bank for International Settlements in May 1932. [mentioned in Third Annual Report, Bank for International Settlements, Basle (May 8, 1933), p. 22.]

Studies in mathematical economics and econometrics: in memory of Henry Schultz. Oscar Lange, Francis McIntyre and Theodore O. Yntema (eds.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942.

Viner, Jacob. Angell’s Theory of International Prices. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 34, No. 5 (Oct., 1926), pp. 597-623.

Viner, Jacob. Review of Heckscher. The Economic History Review, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Oct., 1935), pp. 99-101

Viner, Jacob. Studies in the Theory of International Trade. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1937.

Viner, Jacob. Indemnity Payments and Gold Movements: A Reply. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Feb., 1939), pp. 314-317.

Viner, Jacob. Two plans for international monetary stabilization. Yale Review, Vol. XXXIII (1943-44), p. 77ff.

Whittlesey, Charles Raymond. International monetary issues. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937.

Williams, John H. Currency stabilization: The Keynes and White Plans. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Jul., 1943), pp. 645-658.

Williams, John H. Currency stabilization: American and British attitudes. Foreign Affairs, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Jan., 1944), pp. 233-247

Wood, Elmer. English theories of central banking control, 1819-1858, with some account of contemporary procedure. Harvard Economic Studies 64. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1939.

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Ph. D. Exam questions in int’l trade

  1. Basic determinants of course of trade (direction, volume, constituent items) between regions in absence of legal barriers. How reconcile this with statement that course of trade determined by (1) comparative cost of prod. (2) relative scarcities of factors of production in regions.
  1. Explain differences & similarities in mechanism of capital transfer under (a) int’l metallic standard & (b) flexible exchanges.
  1. Is it possible to demonstrate superiority of fixed over flexible exchanges, or vice versa, from a national point of view, on purely a priori grounds? Why or why not?
  1. Role in int’l monetary equilibrium of (a) official gold price (b) stabilization fund (c) sterilization (d) tripartite agreement.
  1. Give an account of the evolution of terms of trade theorizing or explain the role in mercantilist thought of (a) bullionist doctrine (b) balance of labor doctrine c) quantity theory of value of money.
  1. Discuss the role in Eng. mercantilist thinking of (a) considerations of power as distinguished from consideration of plenty (b) provision motive (c) quantity theory of money.
  1. Discuss the role of “income elasticity” in the older & newer literature on the mechanism of adjustment of int’l balances.
  1. Discuss the role of short-term capital movements under flexible & fixed exchanges.
  1. Explain the possibilities & the limitations of national gain in the long-run thru governmental restriction on for. trade.
  1. int’l monetary system
  1. Explain the relationship to each other in int’l static equilibrium of (a) comparative costs (b) relative scarcity of factors (c) reciprocal demand.
  1. Discuss role in operations of pre-1914 gold standard of (a) central banking (b) London money market (c) exchange rate fluctuations.
  1. Explain role in mechanism of adjustment to disturbances of int’l balances of payments of (a) income elasticity (b) price elasticity (c) final purchase (or income) velocity.
  1. Note on following pre-Smithian doctrines (a) power vs. plenty as objectives of trade policy (b) the desirability or undesirability of hoards of the precious metals (c) a divinely ordained “universal economy.” (d) balance of labor.
  1. What are the possibilities in the long run, of national & of world economic gains from the imposition by national units of restrictions on foreign trade.
  1. Role of int’l short-term capital movements in int’l monetary & trade mechanism.
  1. Under free trade the nature of interregional specialization is determined by the relative scarcities of the factors of production in the diff. regions.
    1. What is meant by relative scarcity of factors of prod.
    2. Do the exponents of this theory mean “determined solely”
    3. Does free trade necessarily conduce to the lessening of the differences in the relative rates of remuneration of the diff. categories of “factors of production” as between diff. countries.
    4. If you were setting up a system of equalities to illustrate the nature of int’l equilibrium under free trade—what “standard of living” consideration would you take care of & how?
  1. Discuss interrelationships (if any) of balance of power, balance of trade, “balance of labor” considerations in English mercantilist doctrine.
  1. Explain basic theoretical issues between bullionists & the ant-bullionists of Restriction period & indicate to what extent Ricardo’s views were not generally accepted by the bullionists.

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Source: Don Patinkin Papers. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.. Box 3 (Course Materials and Class Notes), Folder “Patinkin as Student: Notebooks (1944)”.

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-08488, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. The photograph is dated 14 June 1944.

Categories
Bibliography Courses Economists Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Uncategorized

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Course Enrollment Statistics:

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

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

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

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

 

I. For general reference you should currently consult:

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

Suggestions:

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

 

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

Suggestions:

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

 

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

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

Suggestions:

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

 

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

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

Suggestions:

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

 

V. Monographs on individual authors. No assignments.

Suggestions:

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

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

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1939-1940
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113b2

Answer any FOUR out of the following five questions:

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

Final. 1940

 

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

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1940-1941
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113b2

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

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

Final. 1941.

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

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

Image Source: Harvard Album, 1943.

Categories
Bibliography Courses Harvard Socialism Syllabus

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

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

Course final examination questions are available here.

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

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Course Description

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

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

 

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ECONOMICS 7b
SOCIALISM

Starred references are required

GENERAL WORKS, HISTORICAL

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

2.   Bertrand Russell. German Social Democracy.

3.   John Rae. Contemporary Socialism.

4.   Thomas Kirkup. A History of Socialism.

5.   William Graham. Socialism, New and Old.

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

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

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

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

 

GENERAL WORKS, EXPOSITORY AND CRITICAL

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

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

3.   Albert Schaeffle. The Quintessence of Socialism.

4.   Albert Schaeffle. The Impossibility of Social Democracy.

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

6.   James Mackaye. The Economy of Happiness.

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

8.   Gustave Simonson. A Plain Examination of Socialism.

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

10. Émile Vandervelde. Collectivism.

11. R. Flint. Socialism.

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

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

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

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

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

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

18. John Spargo. Socialism.

 

TYPES OF SOCIALISTIC PROPAGANDA

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

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

1. Lamennais. Les Paroles d’un Croyant.

2. Washington Gladden. Tools and the Man.

3. Josiah Strong. Our Country.

4. Josiah Strong. The New Era.

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

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

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

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

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

C. Utopian. Pictures of ideal Commonwealths.

1. Plato’s Republic.

2. Sir Thomas More. Utopia.

3. Francis Bacon. New Atlantis.

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

5. Etienne Cabot. Voyage en Icarie.

6. William Morris. News from Nowhere.

7. Edward Bellamy. Looking Backward.

8. Laurence Gronlund. The Cooperative Commonwealth.

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

D. Experimental.

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. Albert Shaw. Icaria.

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

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

E. Opportunist.

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

2. The Fabian Tracts.

3.   Edward Bernstein. Ferdinand Lassalle.

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

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

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

7.   Vladimir G. Simkhovitch. Marxism versus Socialism.

8.   J. Ramsay Macdonald. Socialism.

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

10. Edward Bernstein. Evolutionary Socialism.

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

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

A. Theoretical

1. Karl Marx. Capital.

2. Frederic Engels. Socialism, Utopian and Scientific.

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

B. Propagandist

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

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

2. Karl Kautsky. The Social Revolution.

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

(1) Bolshevist.

1. Austin Lewis. The Militant Proletariat.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(2) Syndicalist.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(3) The I. W. W.

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

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

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

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

 

ANARCHISM

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

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

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

2. William Godwin. Political Justice.

3. Peter Kropotkin. Memoirs of a. Revolutionist.

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

5. Elisée Reclus. Evolution et revolution.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14. Josiah Warren. Equitable Commerce.

15. Josiah Warren. True Civilization as Immediate Necessity.

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

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

2.   Friederich Nietzsche. Also sprach Zarathustra.

3.   Friederich Nietzsche. Jenseits von Gut and Böse.

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

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

1. Mikhail Bakunin. Dieu et l’Etat.

2. Emma Goldman. Anarchism and other Essays.

3. Paul Eltzbacher. Anarchism.

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

5. H. Krouse. The Anarchist Constitution.

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

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

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

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

 

THE SINGLE TAX

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

1. *Henry George. Progress and Poverty.

2.   Henry George. Our Land and Land Policy.

3.   Alfred Russell Wallace. Land Nationalization.

4.   Thomas G. Shearman. Natural Taxation.

5.   Louis F. Post. The Single Tax.

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

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

Image Source: Harvard Album 1915.

Categories
Bibliography Courses Exam Questions Harvard Syllabus

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

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

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

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

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Economics 202a
Fall Term 1948-49

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

I.     Theory of a Firm

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

Reading assignments:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

II.    Theory of the Household:

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

Reading assignments:

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

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

 

III. Theory of Market Relationships:

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

Reading assignments:

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

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

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

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

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

One of the following three articles:

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

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

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

 

IV.  Basic concepts of a general equilibrium theory:

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

Reading assignments:

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

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

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

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

[…]

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

[…]

___________________________

 

1948-49

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

Please write legibly

Answer four questions:

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

Final. January, 1949.

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Economics 202b
Spring Term, 1949

Part I: General Equilibrium Theory and the Economics of Welfare

a.   Basic Concepts of a General Equilibrium Theory:

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

Reading:

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

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

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

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

 

b. Economics of Welfare

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

Reading:

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

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

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

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

 

Part II: The Theory of Distribution

 

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

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

Reading:

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

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

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

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

 

b. Theory of Interest

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

Reading:

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Reading:

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

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

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

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

 

Part III: Capital and Economic Development

a. Capital and Income

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

Reading:

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

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

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

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

 

b. Economic Development and Accumulation of Capital

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

Reading:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Part IV: Keynesian Theory and Problems

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

Reading:

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

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

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

 

Reading Period:

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

OR

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

___________________________

Sources:

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

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

Image Source:  Harvard Album, 1949.

Categories
Chicago Courses Syllabus

Chicago. Economics From an Institutional Standpoint. Knight c.1934

Frank Knight’s teaching at Chicago covered four bases: core economic theory, the history of economics, social control of the economy and institutional economics. 

One truly can’t fault 1930’s Chicago economics for failing to be aware of the surrounding disciplines. On the other side of the political spectrum we witness the same breadth in Paul Douglas’ 1938 course, Types of Economic Organization.

The following course outline is out of place in the folder for Econ 304 in the Homer Jones Papers. Note that the “general alphabetical bibliography” mentioned in the outline was not in this folder.   The copy of the outline transcribed below apparently came from Homer Jones’ classmate, A.H. = “Alice Hanson”,  later his wife.

Milton Friedman’s 1976 remembrance of Homer Jones was reprinted in the St. Louis Fed’s Review November/December 2013, 95(6), pp. 451-54.

__________________

 Course Description

305. Economics from an Institutional Standpoint.—The relations between the classical-mathematical and institutional-historical views of economic phenomena; institutional factors as the framework and much of the content of the price economy; late nineteen century economic society as a complex of structural forms. Prerequisite: Economics 301 and some European economic history. C. 10:00, Knight.

Source:   Course description from the University of Chicago’s Announcement of courses for Summer Quarter 1934

_____________________________

[ penciled addition:] A. H. (n.d.)

Economics 305
Economics from Institutional Standpoint

Main Topics and Notes on Literature
(To be used with general, alphabetical bibliography)

I. American Institutional Economics

1. Veblen, Th. (Perhaps the one true example, except Handman, who has written little.)

a. The Place of Science in Civilization. (1919) Collected Essays. “Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science,” 3rd paper, contains most of Veblen’s position. For his criticism of classical economics, especially “Professor Clark’s Economics” and “Limitations of Marginal Utility”; also three papers on “Presuppositions of Economic Science.” For V’s positive contribution, the title essay and second, on “Evolution of the Scientific Point of View” most important, to be followed with “Industrial and Pecuniary Employments,” “Gustav Schmoller’s Economics” and papers on Capital, Marx, and Socialism.

b. Economics in the Visible Future. A.E.R., 1925 (Cf. Discussion of J. M. Clark).

c. Other works: Instinct of Workmanship, Theory of the Leisure Class, and Imperial Germany and the Industrial Revolution most important. Theory of Business Enterprise social-critical, on line of Industrial and Pecuniary Employments. Later books (Nature of Peace, Higher Culture in America, Vested Interests, Engineers and Price System, Absentee Ownership, etc.) More satirical, and literary or controversial in appeal.

2. Handman, M. S.

3. Commons, J. R., Legal Economist. (Laws are not institutional in origin, but become institutions if long kept in force).

a. Legal Foundations of Capitalism. (Cf. Reviews, Mitchell, A.E.R., June, 1924 and Scharfman, Q.J.E., 1924-5.

b. “Institutional Economics,” A.E.R., Dec. 1931. (Corres. Regarding same, ibid., June, 1932.)

4. Mitchell, W. C. (Quantitative or statisticial economist, properly at opposite pole from institutionalism, but usually included in the movement. Has, like most economists, written some things of a really institutionalist character

a. “Quantitative Method in Economics” (Presidential Address) A.E.R., 1925. (His main position: not institutionalistic).

b. “Prospects of Economics.” (Leading Essay) in Tugwell, The Trend of Economics. (Institutional only in sense of being more or less critical of the older classical economists).

c. “The Role of Money in Economic Theory” (Institutional) A.E.R. 1916 Sup.; “The Backward Art of Spending Money.” A.E.R., 1912. “Human Behavior in Economics.”….Rev. of Sombart, Q.J.E. 1928-9; Bentham’s Felecific Calculus, P.S.Q., June, 1918.

d. On Mitchell’s main work on Business Cycles, see review by J. M. Clark, in Rice’s Case-Book, with Mitchell’s comment.

5. Copeland, Clark, Hale, Mills, Tugwell, Wolfe, etc., see Tugwell, (Editor) The Trend of Economics. Sometimes treated as an institutionalist manifesto, but with several “black sheep.” Cf. Review of the volume by A. A. Young, Q.J.E.

6. Other authors more or less sympathetic with the “movement,” see Boucke[sp?], Clark, Edie (uses the word for all recent economics he approves of) Hamilton.

 

II. Criticism of Institutional Economics.

1. Eva Flügge, in Jahrb. f. Nationalökon. u. Statistik, LXII, 1927. Important; on relations to German Historical School Position.

2. Homan, P. T. Essays on Veblen and Mitchell in Contemporary Economic Thought. Also Paper, A.E.R., Sup., Mar., 1932, and Discussion following, by various members. Cf. J.P.E., 1927 (Impasse, etc.) Q.J.E., 1928 (Issues, etc.)

3. Morgenstern, Schumpeter, Suranyi-Unger.

 

III. Earlier Historical Economics

1. Leslie, T.E.C. “The Philosophical Method in Political Economy” and “History of German Political Economy” in Essays in Moral and Political Philosophy.

2. Schmoller, The Mercantile System. (Example of an argument for the method. Cf. Veblen’s essay on Schmoller, under Veblen, above.

3. Ashley, W. J. Trans. of Roscher Program; also “The Study of Economic History” and “The Study of Economic History after Seven Years,” first two in Q.J.E., all in Surveys Historical and Economic.

4. Cohn, G., A.A.A., 1894 and Ec. Jour., 1905; Dunbar, Q.J.E. Vol. I (and in vol. Econ. Essays); Keynes, J.M., in Scope and Method of Pol. Econ.; Ingram, in History of Pol. Econ.; Nasse, Q.J.E., 1886; Rae, in Contemporary Socialism, pp. 193-221; Seager, J.P.E., 1892; Wagner, Q.J.E., 1886.

 

IV. The Neo-Historical School in Germany, and Related Work.

1. Parsons, T., Capitalism in Recent German Literature (Somart and M. Weber; best thing in English. For orientation see also Parsons, “Economics and Sociology” in Q.J.E., February, 1932).

2. Sombart, W., “Economic History and Economic Theory”, Ec. Hist. Rev.; Nationalökonomie u. Soziologie, Kieler Vorträge; also in G.D.S., Vol. III.

3. Diehl, Carl, Life and Work of Max Weber, Q.J.E. Vol.33.

4. Abel, Th., Chap. on Max Weber in vol., Systematic Sociology in German.

5. Weber, M., Protestant Ethic; and General Economic History.

6. Sombart, W., Die drei Nationalökonomien. Der modern Kapitalismus.

7. Weber, M., Essays in Ges. Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, esp. on Roscher und Knies, and Objektivität; finally, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (2 vols., in Grudriss d. Sozialökonomie).

8. Brinkmann, C., in Überbau etc., Schmollers Jahrb., 1930.; von Schelting, Zum Streit um die Wissenssoziologie, in Archiv. f. Sozialwiss. u. Sozialpol., v. 62, 1930. And references in both.

9. Related work in other countries. Tawney. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, and other work; Simiand[sp?], La method positive dans l’économie politique (and French Neo-Positivism generally).

10. Another German movement closely related to neo-historism is the Universalistic economics of Spann. See in English his History of Economics. Also, C. Schmitt, Politische Romantik.

11. On the problem of Objectivity (Wertfreiheit) an essential issue throughout this movment, but especially under the influence of communism and fascism, see E. Spranger, Der Sinn d. Voraussetzungslosigkeit d. Wissenschaft (1930 and references.

 

V. ISSUES INVOLVED IN INSTITUTIONALISM

1. General Problems of Behavior (above bio-mechanics and chemistry and histology). Surveys, chiefly on level of physiology and animal behavior in Parmelee, Problem of Human Behavior; Allport, Social Psychology. Cf. Metchnikoff, Nature of Man; Wheeler, Ants; Emerson, Termites. Psychology Symposia, Clark University, Psychologies of 1925, also 1930; also, The Unconscious, sponsored Mrs. E. Dummer. Cf. Cooley, Dewey, Ellwood, McDougall, Sumner, Wallas. Survey of General Sociology, Park & Burgess, Introduction. Sociology from standpoint of society as a unit, Spann, Gesellschaftslehre; from that of personalities in relation, Hornell Hart.

2. History and Economic History. Müller-Lyer; Hobhouse, also Hobhouse, Wheeler & Ginsburg; Gras; E. Gross. On Economic Interpretation of History; Communist Manifesto: Engels; Labriola; See; Seligman. (Hanson; Knight; Matthews). History and Historical Method: Adams, G. B. [sp.?]; Adams, Brooks; Barth; Bernheim; Cheyney; Flint; Fueter; Teggart; Rickert; Windelband. (For Rickert-Windelband view of history, Chap. I of Park & Burgess Sociology with Bibliography. Cf. Small, Origins of Sociology.

3. Institutions. Besides Sociology, see Anthropology, works of (esp.) Lowie, Goldenweiser; also, Boas, Kroeber, Wallis, Wissler, etc.

4. Particular Institutions, (all more or less economic in basis and function). Language: Sapir; The Family; Westermarck, Calhoun; Law: Commons, Pound, Jenks, Holdsworth, Maine, Maitland, Vinogradoff. Religion: Barton, Carpenter, Carus, Cumont, Harnak, Simkhovitch, Sohm, Lagarde, Walker.

5. Economic Institutions, Specifically. Bibliographies in Sombart, Der modern Kapitalismus; use table of contents and index. Surveys of Economic History; Knight, Barnes & Fluegel, Economic History of Europe; H. See, Modern Capitalism (both with chapter bibliographies).

6. Methodology. See M. R. Cohen, “Social Science and Natural Science,” in Ogburn & Goldenweiser (Ed.) The Social Sciences in their Interrelations; also most of the 33 papers in the volume, all with bibliographies. Rice, S. A., (Ed.) Methods in Social Science, a Case-Book; 52 papers, mostly analyses of particular works or groups of works from methodological standpoint. Keynes, J. N., Scope and Method of Political Economy.

7. Idea of Style and Culture-Pattern. Compare Wöfflin, Kunstgeschichtliche Grundbegriffe; Sapir in Ogburn and Goldenweiser.

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Source: Homer Jones Papers, Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Box 2, Folder “Frank H. Knight, Economics 304, lecture, notes, 1933, Oct.-1934.”

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-03516, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

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Other sources for this course:

  • F. T. Ostrander’s “Notes on Frank H. Knight’s Course, Economics from an Institutional Standpoint, Economics 305, University of Chicago, 1933-34,” Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, 23(B), 2005.
  • Earl Hamilton’s  Economics 305 notes in Summer Quarter 1935, (Frank Knight Papers, Box 38, Folder 8) are cited among other places in Malcolm Rutherford’s “Chicago economics and institutionalism” in The Elgar Companion to the Chicago School of Economics (Ross B. Emmett, ed.).
  • In the Hyman Minsky Archive at Bard College are notes Minsky took in Economics 305 during the Spring Quarter 1942.
Categories
Chicago Courses Syllabus

Chicago. Price Theory. Economics 300 A&B. Metzler. 1948-49

Milton Friedman wasn’t the only person teaching graduate price theory at the University of Chicago in the postwar years. During the academic year 1948-49 both the Harvard-trained Lloyd A. Metzler and Milton Friedman offered parallel sessions of Economics 300 A&B during the same quarters. Both taught the course going into the early 1950s. While the overlap is significant to be sure, the differences of the two approaches, Chicago vs. Harvard, are fairly clear. 

One of the advantages of consulting multiple archives is that I was able to find this Autumn 1948 reading list for Economics 300A, not in Lloyd A. Metzler’s papers at Duke but in Milton Friedman’s papers at Hoover. This list of readings does not square with Friedman’s course organization but also has no name and the course catalogue for 1948-49 does not identify Metzler. Since it matches the later years’ reading lists found in the Metzler papers, we know the nameless Economics 300A for the Autumn Quarter at the University of Chicago was taught by Metzler too.

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Economics 300A
Autumn 1948

I. The Theory of Consumer’s Choice

A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book III.

J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital, Chapters I – V, and appendices to these chapters.

W. S. Jevons, Theory of Political Economy, Chapters I – IV.

P. A. Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis, Chapters III, V, VII.

M. Friedman [& L. J. Savage], “The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risk,” Journal of Political Economy, LVI (August, 1948) 279-304.

I. Fisher, “Measuring Marginal Utility,” in Economic Essays in Honor of John B. Clark (1927).

II. Production Functions and Cost Schedules

J. M. Cassels, “On the Law of Variable Proportions,” in Explorations in Economics (1936).

J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital, Chapter VI, VII, VIII, and appendices to those chapters.

J. Robinson, The Economics of Imperfect Competition, Chapter II.

P. A. Samuelson, Foundations, Chapter IV.

G. J. Stigler, The Theory of Price, Chapters VII, VIII.

III. Market Price under Perfect Competition.

J. Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, Book III.

A. Marshall, Principles, Book V.

G. J. Stigler, The Theory of Price, Chapters IX, X.

IV. Monopoly and Monopolistic Competition.

J. Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, Books II, IV, V, and X.

E. Chamberlin, Theory of Monopolistic Competition, IV, V, VI, VII.

V. Duopoly, Oligopoly, Bilateral Monopoly.

J. Marschak, “Neumann’s and Morgenstern’s New Approach to Static Economics,” Journal of Political Economy, LIV, (April 1946).

E. Chamberlin, Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Chapter III.

H. G. Lewis, “Some Observations on Duopoly Theory.” American Economic Review, XXXVIII (May 1948, supplement) 1-9.

O. Morgenstern, “Oligopoly, Monopolistic Competition, and the Theory of Games,” American Economic Review, XXXVIII (May 1948, supplement) 10-18.

VI. Modern Price Theory and Welfare Economics.

A. Burk (Bergson), “A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (1937-38).

A. C. Pigou, The Economics of Welfare (4th Edition), Part II, Chapters I – XI.

A. P. Lerner, The Economics of Control, Chapters I – XIX.

P. A. Samuelson, Foundations, Chapter VIII.

J. R. Hicks, “The Foundations of Welfare Economics,” Economic Journal XLIX (1939).

G. J. Stigler, “The New Welfare Economics,” American Economic Review, XXXIII (1943), 355-359.

Source: Hoover Institution, Milton Friedman Papers. Box 76, Folder 9 “University of Chicago Econ. 300 A”.

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Economics 300B
Major Topics and Selected Readings
Winter, 1949
Lloyd A. Metzler

The principal books to be used are as follows:

A. Marshall, Principles of Economics, eighth edition, reprinted 1947.

J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital, second edition, 1946.

B. Haley and W. Fellner, editors, Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution, reprinted 1947.

G. J. Stigler, Production and Distribution Theories, 1941.

I. Production Functions and the Doctrine of Marginal Productivity

B. Haley and W. Fellner, Readings, Chapters 5, 6, 7, 11.

Stigler, Production and Distribution Theories.

P. H. Douglas, “Are There Laws of Production?”, American Economic Review, XXXVIII (1948) 1-41.

II. The Theory of Wages

B. Haley and W. Fellner, Readings, Chapters 13, 14, 16, 17, 19.

J. R. Hicks, The Theory of Wages, 1932.

R. A. Lester, “Shortcomings of Marginal Analysis for Wage-Employment Problems”, American Economic Review, 1946.

F. Machlup, “Marginal Analysis and Empirical Research”, American Economic Review, 1946.

G. J. Stigler, “The Economics of Minimum Wage Legislation,” American Economic Review, 1946.

III. Capital and Interest

E. Böhm-Bawerk, The Positive Theory of Capital, 1891.

I. Fisher, The Theory of Interest, 1930.

W. Fellner and B. Haley, Readings, Chapters 20, 21, 22, 23,24, 26.

J. M. Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Book IV.

A. Marshall, Principles, the relevant chapters in Books IV and VI.

J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital, Parts III and IV.

IV. Inter-relations of Wages, Interest, and Profits.

F. H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profits.

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

O. Lange, Price Flexibility and Employment.

K. Wicksell, Interest and Prices.

K. Wicksell, Lectures on Political Economy, Vol. I, Part 2.

Source: Duke University David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Lloyd Appleton Metzler Papers, Box 9, Folder: “Reading Lists 300 A & B — 302”.

Source Image: “From family album, taken while Lloyd Metzler was a student at Harvard.”
“Lloyd A. Metzler” by Margiemetz – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons.

Categories
Chicago Courses Syllabus

Chicago. Price Theory. Economics 300 A&B. Friedman. 1948

 

 

In the previous posting I provided transcriptions of Milton Friedman’s handwritten record of classes for the first time he offered the first quarter of a two-quarter sequence in price theory together with a handout and examination questions. Unfortunately I was unable to find a comparable record of classes for the second quarter of the sequence, Economics 300B for the Winter Quarter 1947. Below we have a draft of assigned and recommended readings for the following year. This can be compared to the readings for the price theory course Friedman taught at Columbia in 1939-40.

Interesting to note is the double appearance of Keynesian economics, something one might have not expected in a price theory course, once for the determination of interest rates (after dealing with the theory of wages) and later (apparently) to illustrate general equilibrium.

The October 1951 version of the Reading Assignments for Economics 300A and B is printed as an appendix to J. Daniel Hammond’s “The development of post-war Chicago price theory” in The Elgar Companion to Chicago School Economics, edited by Ross  B. Emmett, pp. 7-24. It is nearly identical to the handwritten draft of reading assignments I have transcribed here from 1948.  This Hammond article offers much context and is very much worth consulting.

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September, 1948

Economics 300 A&B
Reading Assignments by M. Friedman

(Notes:

  1. It is assumed students are familiar with material equivalent to that contained in George Stigler, Theory of Price, or Kenneth Boulding, Economic Analysis.
  2. Readings marked with asterisk (*) are recommended, not required.)

Knight, F. H., The Economic Organization, esp. pp. 1-37.
Keynes, J. N., The Scope and Method of Political Economy, ch. I and II, pp. 1-83.

 

Marshall, Alfred, Principles of Economics, Bk III, ch 2, 3, 4; Bk V, ch 1,2.
Schultz, Henry, The Meaning of Statistical Demand Curves, pp. 1-10.
Working, E. J. “What do Statistical ‘Demand Curves’ Show?”
Knight, F. H. Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, ch 3.
*Lange, O., “On the Determinateness of the Utility Function”, Review of Economic Studies, Vol I (1933-34), pp. 218 ff.
*Allen, R.G.D., “The Nature of Indifference Curves,” Ibid, pp 110 ff.
Hicks, J. R., Value and Capital, Part I (pp 11-52).
*Wallis, W. A., and Friedman, Milton, “The Empirical Derivation of Indifference Functions”, in Lange et al, Studies in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics
*Friedman, Milton and Savage, L. J., “The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risk,” Journal of Political Economy LVI (August 1948) pp. 279-304.

 

Marshall, Book V, ch 3, 4, 5, 12, Appendix H.
Meyers, A. L. Elements of Modern Economics, ch 5, 7, 8, 9.
Robinson, Joan, Economics of Imperfect Competition, ch 2.
Clark, J. M., The Economics of Overhead Costs, ch 9
Viner, Jacob, “Cost Curves and Supply Curves”, Zeitschrift fuer Nationaloekonomie, Bd III (Sept, 1931), pp 23-46.
Chamberlin, Edward, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, ch 3, sec. 1, 4, 5, 6; ch 5.
Harrod, R. F. “Doctrines of Imperfect Competition”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1934, sec. 1, pp. 442-61.

 

*Triffin, Robert, Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium Theory, esp. Part II.
*Robinson, E. A. G., The Structure of Competitive Industry.
*___________________, Monopoly.
*Plant, Arnold, “The Economic Theory Concerning Patents for Inventions,” Economica, Feb, 1934.
*Dennison, S. R., “The Problem of Bigness,” Cambridge Journal, Nov. 1947.

 

Marshall, Book IV, ch 1, 2, 3; Bk V, ch 6.
Clark, J. B., The Distribution of Wealth, Preface, ch 1, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 23.
Mill, John Stuart, Principles of Political Economy, Book II, ch 14.
Hicks, J. R., The Theory of Wages, ch 1-6.
Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, Bk I, ch 10.
Marshall, Bk VI, ch 1-5.
Friedman, Milton, and Kuznets, Simon, Income from Independent Professional Practice, Preface, pp. v to x; ch 3, Sec 3, pp. 81-95, ch 4, Sect 2, pp. 118-137, App, Sec 1 & 3, pp 142-151, 155-61.
Knight, F. H. “Interest” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, also in Ethics of Competition.
Keynes, J. M. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, ch 11-14.

 

Cassell, Gustav, Fundamental Thoughts in Economics, ch. 1, 2,3.
_________________, The Theory of Social Economy, ch 4.
J. R. Hicks, “Mr. Keynes and the ‘Classics’; A Suggested Interpretation”, Econometrica, vol 5, April 1937, pp. 147-159.
Franco Modigliani, “Liquidity Preference and the Theory of Interest and Money,” Econometrica, vol 12, No. 1 (Jan 1944) esp. Part I, sec. 1 through 9, sec 11 through 17, Part II, sec 21.
A. C. Pigou, “The Classical Stationary State,” Economic Journal, vol 53, December, 1943, pp. 343-51.
____________, “Economic Progress in a Stable Environment,” Economica, 1947, pp. 180-90.

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archive, Milton Friedman Papers, Box 77, Folder 1 “University of Chicago, Economics 300 A & B”.