This listing of certain courses by the Cowles Commission offered at the University of Chicago ca. 1952 is probably more interesting as to what was not included, namely applied fields with the possible exception of international economics (though probably what was meant there was only the theory of international trade and payments). Otherwise the list and course descriptions seem completely contemporary…without either the word microeconomics or macroeconomics being used!
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Courses at the University of Chicago in Econometrics, Mathematical Economics, Economic Theory, and Statistics*
* Not all of these courses are offered in any one academic year.
National Income and Related Aggregates. Survey of the sources and methods involved in estimating the economic structure. National income, capital formation, balance of payments, and the components of the input-output analysis. Formulation of national economic programs. Aggregates arc related to the data and methods of both business and government accounting. Attention is given to students’ practical work.
Price Theory. A systematic study of the pricing of final products and factors of production under essentially stationary conditions. Covers both perfect competition and such imperfectly competitive conditions as monopolistic competition, oligopoly, and monopoly.
Welfare Economics. Description of conditions defining production and utility “possibilities.” Implications of these conditions for appraising economic policies affecting resource allocation, income distribution, and the level of employment. Special applications are made in the appraisal of imperfect competition, various government fiscal policies, and alternative economic systems.
Allocation of Resources in Production. Criteria for optimal resource allocation. Prices are introduced as marginal rates of substitution under efficient allocation of resources. The use of prices as guides to allocative decisions. Applications to a variety of production and pricing problems, including those of the transportation industry, and problems of industrial location.
Choice and Possibilities in Economic Organization (with particular application to agriculture). Economic development. Economic fluctuations.
The Theory of Income, Employment, and Price Level. Government policies and other factors determining the employment of resources, the national income and its use, and the levels of prices, wage rates, and interest rates. These problems are linked with the behavior of individual firms and households.
Economics of Uncertainty. Probabilistic vs. deterministic social science, normative and descriptive. Optimal strategies under complete and incomplete information. Applications to private and public policy; choice of assets (liquidity, inventories, diversification); versatility.
Monetary Aspects of International Trade. Foreign payments and receipts. Classical and modern theories of adjustment of the balance of payments. Theories of exchange rates. Capital movements in the balance of payments. Postwar monetary plans.
Economic Aspects of International Relations. Price theory and international trade; the gains from international specialization. International trade and the distribution of income. Historical and theoretical discussion of the theory of tariffs. Commercial policies of particular countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Commodity agreements and cartels. The growth of state trading. The new mercantilism.
Seminar on Modern Developments in Economic Theory. Discussion of selected topics from recent literature.
Seminar in Monetary Dynamics. The dynamic adjustment of the economy as a whole, with special emphasis on the role of the monetary and banking system. Student discussion of theoretical issues and empirical studies in this general field.
Scope and Method of the Social Sciences. The first of this sequence of three courses is an introduction to statistical methods as used in the social sciences.
Statistical Inference (sequence of three courses). The first two courses survey the principles of statistical inference. Among the subjects treated are: elements of probability; concepts of population sample, and sampling distribution; choice of estimates in the light of their sampling properties; testing hypotheses with reference to specific alternatives; principles of sampling and sample design; analysis of proportions, means, and standard deviations; simple, partial, and multiple regression and correlation. In the third course of the sequence students may carry out a statistical investigation; published statistical studies may be analyzed in detail; or some special field of application may be studied.
Introduction to Econometrics. Some properties of vectors, matrices, systems of linear equations. Analysis of simple economic models.
Statistical Problems of Model Construction. Discussion of problems arising when inference processes are directed to a postulated structure underlying the probability distribution of observed variables. Problems of identification of structural characteristics in a given model, of estimation of identifiable parameters, of estimation bias arising from incorrectly specified models, and of testing the specifications that define a model. Examples are drawn from econometrics, factor analysis, latent attribute analysis, and from the study of errors of observation.
Statistical Methods of Measuring Economic Relations.
Time Series. Stochastic difference equations, trends, moving averages, tests for randomness, correlograms, periodograms.
Sample Surveys. Theory of sampling from finite populations and especially its application to human populations.
Markov Processes. Three types of Markov process: discrete in space and time; discrete in space and continuous in time; continuous in both space and time. Use of certain of these processes as models in, e.g., genetics, evolution, diffusion, and communication.
Analysis of Variance and Regression. Algebra and geometry of vector spaces systematically applied to theory and application of subjects known variously as linear hypotheses, regression, analysis of variance, and least squares.
Estimation and Tests of Hypotheses. General methods, especially the theories of Neyman, Pearson, and Fisher.
Sequential Analysis. The sequential probability ratio test and its operating characteristics and average sample number functions; application to standard distributions; double dichotomies; sequential estimation; special problems.
Statistical Theory of Decision-Making. Critical review of modern statistical viewpoints, emphasizing general ideas as opposed to techniques. Interpretations of probability; the probabilistic utility theory; critique of Bayes’ theorem; methods proposed for avoiding Bayes’ theorem, especially Wald’s theory of minimum risk and the Neyman-Pearson theory; randomization; sufficient statistics and likelihood ratios; de Finnetti’s theory of personal probability.
Mathematical Statistics. An introduction to the theories of mathematical statistics that include discussions of point estimation, set estimation, and the testing of hypotheses.
Theory of Minimum Risk. Where practical, illustrations are drawn from standard statistical tests and estimates, but the treatment is for the most part on an abstract level. Existence theorems; general techniques of solution; simple dichotomies; asymptotic point estimation; symmetrical problems; sequential decisions.
Multivariate Analysis. The multivariate normal distribution. Related distributions such as the Wishart distribution and its noncentral analogue, and the distribution of the roots of determinantal equations. Hotelling’s cannonical correlations. Associated tests and estimation functions and the problem of classification.
The Design of Experiments. Design of experiments with special reference to the analysis of variance. Interaction and its exploitation in design, and the analysis of covariance. Numerical methods, analysis in the case of missing observations, and the effects of departure from the underlying assumptions of the analysis of variance are touched upon.
Non-Parametric Inference.
Econometrics Seminar. Reports by staff members, students, and visitors.
Statistics Seminar. Reports by staff members, students, and visitors.
Source: Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. Economic Theory and Measurement. A Twenty Year Research Report, 1932-1952 (University of Chicago, 1952), pp. 177-180.
Image Source: Cowles Foundation website: Social Science Building at the University of Chicago.