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Harvard. Final exam questions for statistics and insurance/speculation. Allyn Young, 1911

 

If you were an important enough economist in your time, even shards of your course content are worthy of transcription and preservation as artifacts at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Allyn Young was a visiting professor of economics at Harvard from Stanford during the academic year 1910-11. According to the course announcements for the year, he was to teach a two-term statistics course and two one-term courses, mathematical economics (fall term) and insurance and speculation (spring term). It doesn’t look like the mathematical economics course was actually held (no enrollment figures were reported nor could I find a final exam for that course). Maybe the course was still unofficially still taught to auditors anyway, or maybe it was withdrawn due to lack of student interest, who knows?

The jewel of the post is the final exam for Young’s course on insurance and speculation. It appears to have been a one-off offering, but nonetheless an early attempt to bring risk/uncertainty into the finance curriculum. The year-end examination in Statistics has been transcribed and included below.

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Economics 4. Statistics.

Course Announcement

[Economics] 4. Statistics. Tu., Th., at 11. Professor Young (Leland Stanford Jr. University).

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1910-11, p. 63.

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 4. Professor Young (Leland Stanford Jr. University. —  Statistics. Theory, method, and practice.

Total 26: 5 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 2 Freshmen, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1910-11, p. 49.

Economics 4
[Mid-Year Examination, 1911]

[Note: no printed copy was found in the Harvard Archives collection of Mid-Year Examinations.]

Economics 4
[Year-End Examination, 1911]

Answer eight questions.

  1. In what ways did (1) “German university statistics” and (2) “political arithmetic” differ from modern “statistics”?
  2. What errors are found in age statistics?
  3. In what ways may the death rates of two or more cities be accurately compared?
  4. What are the best methods of measuring the change in the length of human life? What different things may be meant by the “length of human life”?
  5. Discuss census statistics of manufactures, with special reference to the definitions of (1) “manufactures,” and (2) “capital.”
  6. What are the chief uses of price statistics? How are the problems of (1) choosing quotations, and (2) weighting, affected by the intended use?
  7. What different methods of “smoothing” a statistical diagram can you suggest? When should diagrams be “smoothed” and when not?
  8. What refinements of method should be observed in making comparisons of the birth rate at different periods or for different classes of the population?
  9. May it be expected that most frequency curves will approximate the normal curve of error? Why?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 9, Papers set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,… in Harvard College, June 1911 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1910-11), p. 42.

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Economics 27. Mathematical Economics.

Course Announcement

[Economics] 27 1hf. Mathematical Economics. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Professor Young (Leland Stanford Jr. University).

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1910-11, p. 64.

[No enrollment data were reported in the Report of the President of Harvard College 1910-11. A printed copy of the semester final examination was not included in the Mid-Year Examinations 1911 volume in the Harvard Archives. It appears that the course was in fact not offered during the first term of 1910-11 as originally planned.]

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Economics 28. Insurance and Speculation.

Course Announcement

[Economics] 28 2hf. Insurance and Speculation. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 12. Professor Young (Leland Stanford Jr. University).

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1910-11, p. 65.

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 28 2hf. Professor Young (Leland Stanford Jr. University. —  Insurance and Speculation.

Total 84: 3 Graduates, 27 Seniors, 35 Juniors, 12 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 6 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1910-11, p. 50.

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Note: Allyn A. Young published an article “Insurance and Speculation” in the Grolier series The Book of Popular Science (1924 edition, vol. 12) which was reprinted in the valuable collection edited by Perry G. Mehrling and Roger J. Sandilands,  Money and Growth: Selected Papers of Allyn Abbott Young. Routledge, 1999.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Economics 28
[Final Examination, 1911]

Answer eight questions.

  1. What is self-insurance? What are its possibilities and its limitations?
  2. Discuss briefly the advisability and the possibility of federal control of insurance.
  3. What are “deferred dividend policies”? In what ways were they found to be objectionable?
  4. Explain briefly the effects of speculation upon price fluctuations.
  5. Describe the methods of a typical “hedging” operation on the part of the seller or buyer of an actual commodity.
  6. What are “options”? Why are they discountenanced by the American exchanges?
  7. What would be the probably economic effects of a prohibition of short-selling?
  8. What do you consider to be the real evils of speculation? Suggest remedies.
  9. Explain briefly the essential features of the methods of the New York Stock Exchange clearing house.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 9, Papers set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,… in Harvard College, June 1911 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1910-11), pp. 59-60.

Image Source: The 1918 Cornell yearbook, The Cornellian (vol. 50), p. 18.