Joseph Schumpeter offered his graduate course “History and Literature of Economics since 1776” nine times during the period 1940-1949. The core readings were basically unchanged. In an earlier post I provided the reading list for 1939-40 along with examinations from the 1939-40 and 1940-41 academic years. The reading list, complete with links to every item, for 1948-49 has also been transcribed and posted.
In this post you will find transcriptions of final examination questions for five of the remaining seven years in the series.
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Final Examination, 1941-42
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113b2
One question may be omitted. Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.
- Economists of the most varied types have claimed Adam Smith as patron-saint. How would you describe his general method as revealed in the five books of the Wealth of nations?
- If you felt called upon to defend Ricardo’s theory of value, how would you do it?
- Marx predicted the breakdown of the capitalist system. What was his main line of argument? Do you think that the course of events in the last decade has verified his theory?
- Explain the meaning and use of the theorem usually referred to as Say’s Law.
- Senior defined cost of production as the sum of labor and abstinence necessary for production. Do you think this satisfactory?
- Does Marshall’s work seem to you to close or to begin a period in the history of economic thought?
Source:Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28) Box 6, Papers Printed for Final Examinations—History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. June 1942.
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Final Examination, 1942-43
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113b2
Answer any four out of the following five questions.
- With the possible exception of Darwin’s Origin of Species, no scientific book has ever equaled the success of the Wealth of Nations. How do you account for this success?
- Discuss the Malthusian theory of population and describe its role in the classical system of economic theory.
- What do you think of the so-called Ricardian theory of rent?
- Criticize the following statement made by Adam Smith: “The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got. The natural price, or the price of free competition, on the contrary, is the lowest which can be taken…for any considerable time.”
- The founders of the marginal-utility school evidently believed that they had revolutionized economic theory. What warrant was there for this belief? What do you think their contribution consisted in?
Source:Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28) Box 7, Papers Printed for Final Examinations—History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. May 1943.
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Final Examination, 1943-44
[not (yet) located]
Course not offered 1944-45
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Final Examination, 1945-46
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113b
Two questions may be omitted. Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.
- Explain the meaning and use of “Say’s Law.”
- Sketch the history and discuss the merits and demerits of the wage-fund theory.
- How did Ricardo explain “profits?”
- Choose any economist between 1776 and 1890 with whose work you are familiar, and describe the nature, method, and value of his contribution.
- Smith no doubt sponsored what Lord Keynes described as the Fallacy of Cheapness and Plenty. What do you think of the proposition involved?
- What relation do you conceive to exist between economists’ theoretical explanations of facts and (a) their political preferences in general and (b) the interests of the social classes to which they belong in particular?
Source:Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28) Box 11, Papers Printed for Final Examinations—History, Government, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. May 1946.
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Final Examination, 1946-47
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113b
One question may be omitted. Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.
- Characterize briefly the nature, and the historical roots, of Adam Smith’s performance.
- What was the contribution of Ricardo to economics? And what of it may be said to have survived until today?
- State and criticize the various explanations that the English classics offered for what they took to be an indubitable tendency in the rate of profits to fall?
- Appraise the role, in the history of economic theory, of Malthus’s Law of Population?
- Discuss the validity and the importance of the marginal-utility theory of value.
- What do you mean by, and what do you think of, Institutionalism?
Source:Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28) Box 14, Papers Printed for Final Examinations—History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. May 1947.
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Final Examination, 1947-48
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 113b
One question may be omitted. Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.
- Discuss the nature and importance of Ricardo’s contributions to economic theory.
- Discuss the nature and importance of Senior’s contributions to economic theory.
- “Demand for commodities is not demand for labor.” Explain and criticize.
- State and analyze the Ricardian theory of Rent.
- State and analyze Say’s “Law of Markets.”
- Most English classics were votaries of Laissez-faire. What qualifications did they admit, particularly with reference to the labor contract?
Source:Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28) Box 15, Papers Printed for Final Examinations—History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. May 1948.
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Final Examination, 1948-49
[not (yet) located]
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Image Source: Selection from “Joseph A. Schumpeter and other at dinner table, ca. 1945”, Harvard University Archives HUGBS 276.90p (4).