The course announcement, enrollment figures, course description, and reading assignments for Abbott P. Usher’s Harvard half-course (first term, 1942-43), “The Location of Economic Activity. General Principles and Current Problems,” have been transcribed and posted earlier.
This post provides a transcription of the final examination for the course.
________________
1942-43
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 65a1
[Final examination]
I
(About one hour)
- Write an essay on a topic based upon the work of the reading period, or on one of the following topics: the basing point system, the effect of parallelism in a railway network upon the rate structure.
II
Answer THREE questions.
- Under what circumstances may we describe a region as “maturely” settled? Within what limits may we expect to find variations in the density of population in maturely settled areas?
- Discuss the relative significance of surplus food, coal, and water power as in the localization of economic activity in the modern world.
- Answer a, or b.
- Within what limits can we defend the charging of higher gross rates, per ton mile or per passenger mile, for shorter than for longer distances?
- Discuss: “It is probably safe to say that the centralization of manufacturing industry has reached its limit. A reaction toward decentralization began when manufacturers located their mills in the suburbs of large cities in order to escape high city rents….”
Weber, Growth of Cities, 1899.
- Describe the pattern of production in the steel industry of the United States, and explain the outstanding features of the pattern of localization.
- Describe the processes of extracting and refining copper, and discuss the influence of these procedures upon the location of the various types of enterprises in the copper industry.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University: Papers Printed for Mid-Year Examinations [in] History, Theology,…, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. January, 1943. [Mid-Year Exams—Social Sciences, 1943. HUC 7000.55]
Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1947.