Just as families produce holiday newsletters to chronicle the comings and goings during the calendar year, economics departments over time have gotten into the habit of documenting the work of the department for each of their academic years. This post provides the report written by John Dunlop for the Harvard Economics Department and published in September 1964. By itself the report represents a single slice of history, but Economics in the Rear-view Mirror makes a special effort to transcribe such reports wherever and whenever they are found to assemble a complete loaf of departmental history.
___________________________
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS NEWSLETTER
Prepared by
Professor John T. Dunlop
Chairman
Published by
THE HARVARD FOUNDATION FOR ADVANCED STUDY & RESEARCH
77 Dunster Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
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ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT NEWSLETTER
SEPTEMBER 1964
UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM
The undergraduate concentration in Economics in the year 1963-64 increased appreciably as indicated by the following tabulation:
| 1961-62 | 1962-63 | 1963-64 | |
| Sophomore Concentrators | 90 | 78 (7) | 135 (11) |
| Junior Concentrators | 97 | 91 (3) | 91 (10) |
| Senior Concentrators | 85 | 100 (3) | 94 (3) |
(Numbers in parentheses indicate Radcliffe students and are included in the totals).
Enrollment in undergraduate courses in the Department continued at a high level. There were, for instance, 700 students in Economics I in the fall and 678 in the spring term.
After three years as head tutor, Dr. H. Francois Wilkinson, who helped appreciably to improve our undergraduate teaching, accepted a position at Dartmouth. Dr. Lars Sandberg, who was awarded his Ph.D. degree during the year, has been appointed Instructor and head tutor starting July 1, 1964. Dr. Sandberg was an undergraduate concentrator in the Department and was graduated summa cum laude in the class of 1961.
The Allyn Young Prize for 1963-64 was awarded to Mr. Lawrence J. White as the undergraduate concentrating in Economics who submitted the best honors thesis of “summa quality.” His thesis was entitled “Devaluation, Debacle, and Aftermath: The Canadian Dollar, 1960-63.”
Mr. Duncan M. Kennedy was the winner of the John H. Williams Book Prize, which is awarded each year to the outstanding Harvard senior graduating summa cum laude majoring in Economics.
GRADUATE INSTRUCTION
The Department announced a new Graduate Prize fellowship program designed to improve the competitive position in the recruitment of the best graduate students. The program provides for up to 15 prize fellowships to be awarded each year. The students are to be assured four years of financial support; in the typical case the first two years are to be on scholarships at the rate of $3,500 a year and the following two years on part-time teaching assignment. The program was worked out with the initiative and support of Dean Ford and Dean Elder. The Department believes that the program will be particularly helpful to meet the very difficult present problem of financial support in the second year of graduate school. Although it is too early to appraise the results even for the first year, the preliminary indications are that the new program was helpful in improving the quality of our acceptances for the year 1964-65.
The Department announced that it had received a gift to honor Mrs. Selma Goldsmith and had decided to use the funds to provide a prize for the best paper prepared in a graduate seminar. The Goldsmith Prize of $100 will be awarded in October 1964 for the first time for papers completed in the current academic year. The prize paper will also be considered for publication in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
The Department has been greatly concerned to increase the extent to which graduate students, particularly in their second year, take working seminars in which they write substantial papers and present them for discussion. The Department intends to press students in this direction, making at least one working seminar the normal pattern in the second year. The Department is increasing the number of such seminars to provide more opportunity for students to elect such seminars.
In 1963-64 the Department used a total of $8,000 in subsidized computer funds. This figure represents participation in subsidized computer time by 44 graduate students, 9 undergraduates and 9 members of the junior staff.
For the period July 1, 1963 to June 30, 1964, 34 Ph.D. degrees were awarded in the Department of Economics. The list is attached.
The Wells Prize for 1963-64 was awarded to Dr. Albert Fishlow of the Department of Economics of the University of California (Berkeley) for his manuscript entitled “Railroads and the Transformation of the Anti-Bellum Economy.”
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: IBM GRANT
A development of considerable potential significance to the Department was the announcement that IBM had agreed to provide Harvard University with $500,000 a year for ten years for a University-wide program in the general field of Science and Technology. Many members of the Department, and members of the junior staff and Ph.D. candidates, do research in areas relevant to this general field. Professors Kaysen and Dunlop of the Department are members of the University-wide committee which prepared the application and which has been appointed by President Pusey to administer the grant.
NEW PERMANENT POSITIONS AND CHANGES IN APPOINTMENTS
Three new professors were added to the senior staff of the Department of Economics from three newly created professorships. Two senior members retired during the year.
On April 4, 1963 Dean Ford authorized the establishment of a new permanent position in the Department. Professor Hollis Chenery of Stanford University and currently with A.I.D., has been appointed to the Department, and he is to be in residence starting with the Spring term 1965. Professor Chenery is a specialist in the fields of economic development and input-output analysis.
On January 20, 1964 the George Gund Professorship of Economics and Business Administration was established jointly in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (in the Department of Economics) and in the Graduate School of Business Administration. The funds for this new professorship were raised under the leadership of Mr. Dwight Robinson, who had been Chairman of the Visiting Committee for a term expiring June 30, 1963, and Mr. David Rockefeller, who is the current Chairman. Professor John Lintner of the Harvard School of Business Administration was appointed to this new joint professorship and joins the Department with the new academic year. On the average he will devote half of his time to the Department and half to the Business School. Professor Lintner is a specialist in the fields of business decision making and the economic outlook. He will be particularly responsible for an undergraduate course in the Economics of Managerial Decisions.
The Littauer School of Public Administration established during the year a new professorship in the field of economic development and international economic relations. Professor Albert O. Hirschman of Columbia University was appointed to this new professorship and will begin his work in Cambridge in the fall of 1965. Professor Hirschman is to be a member of the Department of Economics and its executive committee.
Two senior members of the Department were retired during the year. Professor Seymour Harris was a Harvard undergraduate, class of 1920, and took his Ph.D. degree here in 1926. Professor Harris had been on the teaching staff of the Department for 40 years, serving as Chairman of the Department in the period 1955 to 1959. Professor Harris joined the staff of the University of California, La Jolla campus, in February 1964.
Professor Overton H. Taylor joined the teaching staff of the Department in 1924, and on his retirement at the end of this academic year has accepted an appointment at Vanderbilt University.
STAFF: VISITING PROFESSORS AND LEAVES
During the academic year the Department’s instructional staff was supplemented from other insitutions by the following: Professor Herbert S. Levine of the the University of Pennsylvania in the field of the Soviet Economy; Professor Edwin Mansfield, who came to us from the Carnegie Institute of Technology, in the field of Quantitative Methods and Econometrics; Professor Zenon S. Zannetos from M.I.T. continued to teach a one-term undergraduate course, the Economics of Managerial Decisions, for a second year; Dr. John Arena from the staff of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston assisted Professor Duesenberry in a course; and Mr. John J. Mauriel from the Harvard School of Business Administration was in charge of the undergraduate course in accounting in the Spring term.
The following members of the Department were on leave during the year: Professor Bergson was on sabbatical leave at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford; Professor E. H. Chamberlin was on leave in Cambridge with the Frank W. Taussig Research Professorship; Professor Hendrik S. Houthakker was on leave in Western Europe on a Ford Faculty Fellowship as nominated by the Department; Professor Gottfried Haberler was on sabbatical leave in Western Europe during the Spring term. A larger number of permanent members of the Department were in residence than in recent years.
Among the Assistant Professors, Thomas Wilson was on leave throughout the year working with the Royal Commission on Taxation in Ottawa; Elliot Berg was on leave in Cambridge in the Spring term.
During the year 1964-65 Professor George Break of the University of California will be visiting professor teaching in the tax and fiscal policy area; Professor Barry Supple from the University of Sussex in England will teach Economic History in the fall term; and Professor Pieter de Wolff from the Hague and the University of Amsterdam will be Frank W. Taussig Research Professor. Dr. John Arena of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston will give an undergraduate course on financial institutions from the resources made available by the Political Economy Lectures Fund (1889). Dr. Maureen Brunt from Australia is to be a Visting Lecturer for a two year period working particularly in the field of Comparative Industrial Organization.
PROFESSIONAL AND PUBLIC ACTIVITIES OF THE DEPARTMENT STAFF
Professor Abram Bergson spent the year at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and has written a monograph now in the press, entitled The Economics of Soviet Planning. He continues as Director-at-large of the Social Science Research Council, and as a member of its Committee on Economy of Communist China.
Professor Richard Caves published during the year American Industry: Structure, Conduct, Performance, in Foundations of the Modern Economic Series, Prentice Hall. He completed research and writing of Northern California’s Water Industry: Public Enterprise and Scarce Natural Resources (jointly with J. S. Bain, J. Margolis, V. Ostrom) under a grant from Resources for the Future and scheduled for publication in 1965. He served on the Review Committee for Balance of Payments Statistics of the U. S. Bureau of the Budget, and consulted with the Council of Economic Advisers and the Council for Economic Development.
Professor Edward Chamberlin was elected to the Real Academia de Ciencias Economicas y Financieras, Barcelona, and a Communication on “Excess Capacity” was read before the Academy in March 1964 and printed in Italian translation in the Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Economiche e Commerciale, Milan, Spring 1964. He was also re-elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. During the year the eighth edition of his book Theory of Monopolistic Competition was issued by the Harvard University Press, and the second edition of Economic Analysis of Labor Union Power also appeared.
Professor Robert Dorfman was elected President of the Institute of Management Science; he also participated in a Study Week on Econometrics at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the Vatican in October 1963.
Professor James Duesenberry’s article on monetary economics, “The Portfolio Approach to the Demand for Money and Other Assets,” appeared in the February 1963 National Bureau of Economic Research Supplement to the Review of Economics and Statistics. He was consultant to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve; he continued as consultant to the Treasury and the Council of Economic Advisers; he also continued as Acting Co-Chairman of the Econometrical Model Project of the Social Science Research Council and Co-Director of the Merrill Capital Markets Project at the Harvard Business School.
Professor John T. Dunlop’s article “Job Creation: Private and Public Manpower Policies” appeared in Proceedings of A Symposium on Employment, sponsored by the American Bankers Association. A revised edition of Industrialism and Industrial Man (with three other authors) was published by Oxford University Press, Galaxy Book Edition. Five volumes were published in the year in the Wertheim Series from research projects under Professor Dunlop’s direction: three in the history of labor-management organization and two treating international labor questions. He continued as a member of the President’s Missile Sites Labor Commission and was appointed to the President’s Committee on Equal Opportunity.
Professor Otto Eckstein published Economic Policy in Our Time, with eight European scholars (3 vols.), North Holland Publishing Company; and Public Finance, in Foundations of Modern Economic Series, Prentice-Hall. Professor Eckstein is editor of the Series. He also edited and has written an introduction to Studies in the Economics of Transfer Payments to be published by the Brookings Institution. Professor Eckstein becomes a member of the Council of Economic Advisers on September 1, 1964.
Professor J. Kenneth Galbraith published during the year Economic Development, Harvard University Press and Houghton Mifflin Company. He gave the American Association for the Advancement of Science Distinguished Lecture in December 1963, and gave the Charter Day Address, University of California at Davis, May 1964. He received LL. D. degrees from four universities: University of Massachusetts, Brandeis University, University of California and Loyola College (Baltimore).
Professor Alexander Gerschenkron published during the year a number of articles and chapters in books, including the following: “Agrarian Policies and Industrialization: Russia 1861-1914” in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. VI; “Reflections on Economic Aspects of Revolutions,” in Internal War, Harry Eckstein, ed., Glencoe, 1964; “City Economies, Then and Now,” in The Historian and the City, Harvard University Press, 1963. He gave a lecture entitled The Stability of Dictatorships under the auspieces of the Harvard Foundation at Yale, 1963.
Professor Gottfried Haberler completed his term as President of the American Economic Association in December, 1963. He has been on sabbatical leave in the Spring term. He spent a month teaching in the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, and has been lecturing at various universities in Western Europe.
Professor Hendrik Houthakker was awarded the John Bates Clark Medal by the American Economic Association at its annual meetings in December 1963. This medal is awarded every other year “to that economist under the age of 40 who is adjudged to have made a significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.” Professor Houthakker was on leave throughout the year and spent most of the time in Switzerland working on the Theory of Consumer Choice, which is to be published by Holden, Day late in 1964. With Dr. Lester Taylor of the Department he presented a paper “Projecting Personal Consumption Expenditures in 1970” at the Cleveland Meetings of the Econometric Society, and a second paper “Recent Empirical Experience with Dynamic Demand Function” at the Boston meetings of the Econometric Society. These papers will be published in a volume entitled United States Consumption 1929-1970.
Professor Carl Kaysen returned this academic year from two years’ leave for government service in Washington, but has continued to serve as a Special Consultant to the President. His publications this year include two book reviews: Alfred Sloane, My Years with General Motors, New Republic, February 29, 1964; and Gunnar Myrdal, Challenge to Affluence, Harvard Law Review, June, 1964. In addition, he presented a paper entitled “The New Competition and the Old Regulation” to a Conference in Modern Competitive Theory held by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in May. The proceedings of that conference will be published shortly.
Professor Simon Kuznets published a number of articles and chapters in various books during the year including: “Notes on Take-Off,” in The Economics of Take-Off Into Sustained Growth, edited by W. W. Rostow, proceedings of a conference held by the International Economic Association, St. Martin’s Press, 1963; “Economic Growth and the Contribution of Agriculture: Note on Measurement,” in The Role of Agriculture in Economic Development, Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference of Agricultural Economists, London, Oxford University Press, 1963; “Applicacion des las Estimaciones de Renta Nacional en el Analisis y Politica del Crecimiento Economico,” in El Ingreso y La Riqueza, Seccion de Obras de Economia, Fondo de Cultura Economica, Mexico-Buenos Aires, 1963.
Professor Kuznets was elected to the Royal Academy of Sciences, Sweden; he was Chairman of the Committee on Economic Growth, Social Science Research Council and its Committee on the Economy of China. He was also Chairman of the Executive Committee, Board of Trustees, Maurice Falk Institute for Economic Research in Israel; he gave the Haynes Foundation Lectures at the University of California at Riverside, which are to be published by the Harvard University Press.
Professor Wassily Leontief’s publications included “The Structure of Development” in Scientific American, September, 1963; and “Alternatives to Armament Expenditures,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, June, 1964. He participated in a Study Week on Econometrics at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the Vatican in October, 1963, was Guest Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna in January, 1964, and lectured in Japan in May as guest of the Nihon Keizai Shimbun.
Professor Edward S. Mason published Foreign Aid and Foreign Policy, which represents the reworking of his Elihu Root Lectures given at the Council on Foreign Relations in May 1963. He was a member of a two-man Steering Committee on a large study called the Coal Transport Study undertaken by the International Bank for the Government of India. Professor Mason was awarded an honorary LL.D. degree by Yale University in June 1964.
Professor John Meyer published the following: Investment Decisions, Economic Forecasting and Public Policy (with Robert Glauber), Division of Research, Harvard Graduate School of Business, 1964; “Investment, Liquidity and Monetary Policy,” (with Edwin Kuh), Impacts of Monetary Policy, Prentice-Hall, 1964; “Competition, Market Structure and Regulatory Institutions in Transportation,” Virginia Law Review, 1964. Professor Meyer is Director of a new formal program of studies in transportation, location and land use problems which has been inaugurated within the Graduate School of Public Administration. This program has put particular emphasis upon the transportation planning problems of the newly industrializing countries. A substantial part of the research program has been financed by a grant from The Brookings Institution with A.I.D. funds.
Professor Thomas Schelling continued to divide his time between the Department of Economics and the Center for International Affairs, his main research interest being conflict theory and military policy. He “unofficially estimates that he may have set a record for war college visits, having lectured at six within the year, to wit: The National War College, Army War College, Air War College, Navy War College, NATO, and the Israeli Defense College.” He also lectured at the Air Command Staff College.
Professor Arthur Smithies published “Inflation in Latin America” in Public Policy. He recently completed a research paper on Program Budgeting for the Rand Corporation, which will be published. He continued as consultant to the Treasury and as Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Abstracts. Professor Smithies was Visiting Lecturer in Brazil under the auspices of A.ID., and was also Advisor in Argentina under the sponsorship of the Harvard Development Advisory Service.
Ph.D. Degrees in Economics Awarded in 1963-64
| Aaron, Henry Jacob | “Social Security in an Expanding Economy” |
| Ahmad, Ziauddin | “Deficit-Financing, Supply Response and Inflation in Underdeveloped Countries” |
| Ahtiala, Kaarlo Pekka | “The Short-Term Adjustment Mechanism on the Bond Market” |
| Almon, Shirley Montag | “The Distributed Lag Between Capital Appropriations and Expenditures” |
| Bateman, Cleveland Worthington | “Investment Behavior and the Acceleration Principle” |
| Bolton, Roger Edwin | “Defense Purchases and Regional Growth in the United States” |
| Bonnen, James Thomas | “United States Agricultural Capacity: A General Equilibrium Model for 1965” |
| Brunt, Maureen Doris | “Concentration in the Australian Economy” |
| Cohen, Benjamin Ira | “A Study of the Export Policies of the Indian Government, 1951-52 to 1965-66” |
| Comanor, William Stephen | “The Economics of Research and Development in the Pharmaceutical Industry” |
| Davie, Bruce Fenwick | “State & Local Government Bond Issues Before 1913 – A Study of Increasing Market Perfection” |
| Dorsey, John Wesley | “The Mack Case: A Study in Unemployment” |
| Eckstein, Salomon | “Collective Farming in Mexico” |
| Edwards, Franklin Richard | “Concentration and Competition in Commercial Banking: A Statistical Study” |
| Eisenmenger, Robert Waltz | “The Dynamics of Economic Growth in New England 1870-1960” |
| Enzer, Hermann | “Learning on-the-job: A Process Analysis” |
| Gandhi, Ved Parkash | “Tax Burden on Indian Agriculture” |
| Glimp, Fred Lee | “The Entrepreneureal Concept and the Notion of Creative Leadership” |
| Hagelin, Edith Hilma | “The Swedish Full Employment Policy and Economic Development, 1945-52” |
| Hartman, Robert William | “Demand for the Stock of Non-Farm Housing” |
| Jack, Andrew Barrie | “The Marketing Function of the Innovating Entrepreneur: the Sewing Machine and Garment Industry in the United States” |
| Johnson, William Arthur | “India’s Iron & Steel Industry: A Study of Planned Industrial Growth” |
| Lithwick, Norman Harvey | “Economic Growth in Canada – a Quantitative Analysis” |
| McGuire, Martin Cyril | “Information and Arms Races” |
| Madjid, Abdul Hadi | “A Dynamic Input-Output Model Incorporating Technical Change” |
| Mallon, Richard Dicks | “Economic Development and Foreign Trade of Pakistan” |
| Perkins, Dwight Heald | “Price Formation in Communist China” |
| Pincus, John Alexis | “Economic Aid and International Cost Sharing” |
| Prescott, James Russell | “The Economics of Public Housing: A Normative Analysis” |
| Ryan, William Francis | “Economic Development and the Church in French Canada 1896-1914” |
| Sakr, Mohamed Ahmed H. | “Economic Integration and the Growth of Less-Developed Countries” |
| Sandberg, Lars Gunnarsson | “Swedish Economic Policy in Theory and Practice, 1950-1961” |
| Shaw, Lawrence Hugh | “A Measure of the Effects of Weather on Agricultural Output” |
| Warden, Charles Browne | “Unemployment Insurance: A Statistical Study of Massachusetts Experience” |
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Edward H. Chamberlin Papers, Box 17, Folder “Economics Department 1964”.
Image Source: Portrait of John T. Dunlop in Harvard Classbook 1952.