Chicago. History of Economic Thought, Ph.D. preliminary exam. Summer, 1989

 

The previous post provided the transcribed questions for the 1974 version of the Chicago prelim exam for the history of economic thought. Here we have the questions for a fifteen year younger exam Presumably both these sibling exams were authored by George Stigler in whose archived papers they can be found.

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History of Economic Thought Prelim Exam
Summer 1989

Answer Question 1 or Question 2, not both:

1. Sam Hollander argues that David Ricardo’s Principles is really a neoclassical analysis (such as Marshall’s), although written in a different style and laying different amounts of emphasis upon various parts of the theory (for example, more emphasis on cost, less on demand).
   1. If this is true of Ricardo, why not also of Adam Smith? How do these two differ?
   2. What is neoclassical (Marshallian) or not neoclassical about Ricardo’s treatment of wages on average, or of wages in individual occupations?
2. In his recent review of Samuel Hollander’s study of J. S. Mill, Pedro Schwartz argued that Hollander failed to see that J.S. Mill had a very different view of the scope of economics than Smith or Ricardo. Mill “treated (economics) as a limited science whose rationale is irreconcilable to the guiding principles of ethics and politics.”

From your knowledge of Mill’s Principles, defend Schwartz or Hollander.

Answer all of the remaining questions:

3. Do people know what is good for them? Show how Smith and J.S. Mill draw their conclusions on this question.
4. Arguments have often persisted for long periods over what an economist really meant. Ricardo is a favorite example, but there is hardly an economist of note who has escaped this sort of dispute. Compare the roles of…
   1. …a careful analysis of what the economist meant (relying on his writings, letters, etc.)…
   2. …a careful analysis of what his contemporaries and immediate successors thought he meant…

…in resolving such disputes. Which is the more important basis of judgment, and why? Apply both techniques to Malthus’ use of the arithmetic and geometric ratios.

5. “Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command…the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society.
   First, every individual endeavors to employ his capital as near home as he can, and consequently as much as he can in the support of domestic industry.
   Thus, upon equal or nearly equal profits, every wholesale merchant naturally prefers the home trade to the foreign trade. …In the home trade his capital is never so long out of his sight as it frequently is in the foreign trade…yet for the sake of having some part of his capital always under his own view and command, he willingly submits to this extraordinary charge (double charge of loading and unloading as well as to the payment of some duties and customs).”

In this passage, famous for arguing free trade, Smith seems to make a case (a) for preferring domestic industry to foreign trade, and (b) to define the advantage of “society” as that of one’s own nation. Is Smith not an advocate of free trade?

6. Read all the way through this question before beginning your answers.
   1. In explaining the advance of knowledge in a science, one must choose between:
      1. The Kuhnsian view of revolutions, which says that wholly new paradigms (incommensurable with earlier paradigms) work major revolutions such as that of Marginal Utility, and
      2. All science is basically cumulative (which Kuhn believes is true only of “normal” science within a paradigm).
         Appraise these alternatives.
   2. Again, in explaining progress in a science one must choose between:
      1. A “great man” theory, in which a genius (he’s one by definition) makes a fundamental contribution and lesser scholars fill in the details, and
      2. The science has a main direction that is the product of the whole community of scholars. If a theory needs to be invented or discovered, one or more scholars will do so (Robert Merton).
         Again, appraise these alternatives.
   3. In both parts above, try to illustrate your argument by an episode in economics—preferably from this century. Thus, the theory of the firm, statistical study of economic functions, oligopoly theory, Keynes’ General Theory, monetarism, etc., are examples.

 

Source: University of Chicago Archives. George Stigler Papers, Addenda. Box 33 (2005-16), Folder “Misc. Course Materials. History of Economic Th[ought].”

Image Source: Posted by Glory M. Liu on her personal research webpage (next to the abstract for her article “Rethinking the Chicago Smith Problem: Adam Smith and the Chicago School, 1929-1980” published in Modern Intellectual History.