Tag: Friedman

Harvard. Department recommends promotion of James Duesenberry to associate professor with tenure, 1952

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-08-04

Thanks to Milton Friedman’s filing habits, we are able to catch a glimpse into the tenure and promotion process at Harvard for the case of James S. Duesenberry in 1952. Friedman was invited to serve on the ad hoc committee to review the case for promoting Duesenberry from assistant professor to associate professor of economics with tenure in Harvard’s economics department. A typed copy of the department’s two-page recommendation submitted by the chairman Arthur Smithies, a one page c.v. for Duesenberry, and additional letters of support by Wassily Leontief and Gottfried Haberler from Milton Friedman’s file are transcribed below .

What strikes me most is just how short this written record appears when compared to the paper steeplechase of university hiring and promotion procedures of the present day.

_____________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS

Office of the Provost

April 4, 1952

Confidential

Professor Milton Friedman
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

Dear Professor Friedman:

I am happy to learn from President Conant that you have kindly consented to serve on the ad hoc committee to consider an appointment in our Department of Economics. The committee will hold its meeting on Friday, April 18, at ten o’clock in the Perkins Room in Massachusetts Hall.

The position to be filled is that of Associate Professor of Economics. This rank carries permanency of tenure, and an assured progress toward a full professorship provided the man appointed lives up to expectations. For this reason we are seeking as good a young man as we can find in the age bracket under approximately forty years.

The Department of Economics has recommended Dr. James B. Duesenberry. I enclose for your scrutiny a copy of the Department’s recommendation, which, like all the material presented to the ad hoc committee, is strictly confidential. The next step in procedure is for the specially appointed ad hoc committee to advise the President and the Provost. In this connection not merely should the qualifications of Dr. Duesenberry be assessed, but he should also be compared with other men of his age group in the same field.

If there are any questions I can answer before the meeting of the committee, please do not hesitate to let me know. I am also enclosing a special travel voucher for your convenience in reporting your travel expenses in connection with the meeting of the ad hoc committee.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Paul H. Buck
Paul H. Buck
Provost

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

COPY

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Office of the Chairman

M-8 Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

February 18, 1952

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

Dear Provost Buck:

At its meeting of February 12th, the Department of Economics unanimously decided to recommend Assistant Professor James S. Duesenberry for promotion to an Associate Professorship beginning in the academic year 1952-1953.

The meeting was attended by Professors Black, Chamberlin, Dunlop, Galbraith, Hansen, Harris, Leontief, Mason, Slichter, and Smithies, all of whom voted in favor of the promotion. Professors Gerschenkron, Haberler, and Williams and Dr. Taylor who were unavoidably absent from the meeting have all indicated their approval.

I am attaching a brief curriculum vitae of Duesenberry and a list of his publications and papers.

We make this recommendation after a careful survey of all the economists in the country whom we felt might be qualified or available for an Associate Professorship. Altogether we considered about twenty young economists, both in the United States and abroad. It is our judgment that none of them could serve this faculty better than Duesenberry and very few if any of them are on a par with Duesenberry.

He is undoubtedly one of the very few outstanding young economists in the country. I know that if he were to indicate his availability he would be flooded with offers from many leading universities. To illustrate, the University of California has just lost Fellner to Yale and they have told me that they would gladly take Duesenberry as one of their two leading economists in Economic Theory.

When we had narrowed our list down, it included Baumol at Princeton, Dorfman at California, Tobin at Yale, Goodwin who is now in Cambridge, England, and Robert Rosa of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Rosa appealed to many of us particularly. He has had a brilliant career in the Bank which has merely been an extension of the brilliance he has shown throughout his professional career. I knew him as an undergraduate at Michigan, and he has fulfilled all the promise he showed at that time. Unfortunately, he finally decided that he was not available. Otherwise, we might have recommended Rosa’s appointment in conjunction to that of Duesenberry since we have two vacancies that we can fill.

Where Rosa would have been largely complementary to Duesenberry in view of his specific banking experience, the others on the list are more competitive with him. We were particularly impressed with Baumol who some of us know and Tobin who all of us have known for some years. Both these men are undoubtedly first class intellectually, and it would be difficult to rate them below Duesenberry. However, Duesenberry has shown a breadth of interest and a willingness to relate economics to other disciplines that the others have not yet demonstrated to the same extent. Goodwin and Dorfman are also of first-class intellectual ability, but we felt that they too were more specialized in their interests than Duesenberry.

In the last few years, Duesenberry has shown a remarkable capacity to bring together the fruits of theoretical and empirical research. His interests are now leading him in the direction of an historical study of the problem of economic development, and he has been cooperating on an experimental course on economic motivation with a member of the Social Relations Department. I believe that economies has suffered seriously in recent years from over-specialization. In particular, the theorists and the statisticians have tended to feel that the truth has been revealed only to them. History until recently has attracted far too little interest. I am confident that Duesenberry will be an important influence in reversing these tendencies.

Duesenberry made a name for himself nationally and internationally with his first book, Income, Saving, and the Theory of Consumer Behavior. His new hypothesis of “ratchet effects” has helped to avoid many of the mistakes that had previously been made in attempting to predict consumer behavior and has wide general implications for economic analysis. In this and his other work, he has already helped to rescue economies from the straight-jacket of static analysis, and I am sure he will do much more.

In view of the present needs of the Department, I wish we could have found a man who combined all Duesenberry’s other qualities with striking performance on the lecture platform. Unfortunately, that has not been possible. However, while not a striking lecturer, Duesenberry has been and will continue to be a very effective part of our undergraduate teaching. He has been a tutor in Dunster House for some years and as such has been a conspicuous success. He has also proved to be the member of the Department best equipped to teach the senior course in economic analysis for honors students. In these respects he will prove to be an important addition to the permanent staff from the point of view of undergraduate teaching.

On personal grounds, the Department looks forward very much to having Duesenberry as a permanent member. He will combine a thoroughly independent point of view with an understanding attitude towards differences of opinion with his colleagues. In general, it is the unanimous view of the Department that we could hardly make a recommendation in which we had greater confidence.

Yours Sincerely,
/s/ Arthur Smithies
Chairman

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

JAMES STEMBLE DUESENBERRY

Born July 18, 1918

B.A., University of Michigan, 1939
M.A., ibid., 1941
Ph.D., ibid., 1948
Teaching Fellow, University of Michigan, 1939-1941
U.S.A.A.F., 1942-1946.
Instructor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1946.
Teaching Fellow, Harvard University, 1946-1948.
Assistant Professor, Harvard University, 1948 to present

Publications

Books:

Income, Saving, and the Theory of Consumer Behavior, Harvard University Press, 1949.

Business Cycles and Economic Development, to be published in the fall of 1952 by McGraw-Hill Company.

Articles:

“Income Consumption Relations”, Income, Employment and Public Policy, Norton, 1948.

“The Mechanics of Inflation”, Review of Economics and Statistics, May, 1950.

“Mr. Hicks and the Trade Cycle”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, September, 1950.

“The Role of Demand in the Economic Structure”, Studies in the Structure of the American Economy, in press.

“Some Aspects or the Theory of Economic Development”, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, December 1950.

“The Leontief Input-Output System”, (ditto); to be published in a volume on Linear Programming by Paul Samuelson.

Papers Read but not Published:

“Some New Income-Consumption Relationships and Their Implications”, Econometric Society, January, 1947.

“Induction Evidence of the Propensity to Consume”, American Economic Association and the Econometric Society, December, 1947.

The Present Status of the Consumption Function” Conference on Income and Wealth, June, 1950.

“Theory of Economic Development”, Econometric Society, December, 1951.

“Needed Revisions in the Theory of Consumer Expenditures”, Econometric Society, September, 1950.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Gottfried Haberler
Professor of Economics

325 Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts
March 20, 1952

Provost Paul H. Buck
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass.

Dear Mr. Buck:

If you permit, I should like to add my personal views on the proposed appointment of James Duesenberry as Associate Professor. May I say that I know Duesenberry intimately and that I have been increasingly impressed by his work. The little book, INCOME, SAVING AND THE THEORY OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR, which he published with the Harvard University Press, is generally regarded as one of the most important and original contributions to the widely discussed and extremely important subject of the relations of national income, saving and consumption. It has been much and favorably commented upon. Duesenberry displays the rare talent of combining theoretical analysis, statistical analysis and sociological insight in a most illuminating and successful manner. He is also a very inspiring teacher.

In recent years he has turned his attention to the also much discussed problems of economic development. The parts of his forthcoming book which I have seen display a mastery of combining different approaches in a most fruitful way. His eminence in this particular field, which in a very welcome way rounds out the field covered by members of our department, is widely recognized in the economic profession at large. He was asked to address the convention of the American Economic Association last December, and Professor Innis of Toronto, the new president of the American Economic Association, has asked him to speak again on the problem of economic development at the next annual meeting of the Association.

To sum up, in my opinion the appointment of Duesenberry will greatly strengthen the Economics Department, enhance its reputation and help attract first rate students.

Very sincerely yours,
/s/ G. Haberler
G. Haberler

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge 38, Massachusetts
March 24, 1952

Provost Paul Buck
University Hall
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Provost Buck:

In anticipation of my appearance before the ad hoc committee, I would like to state my reasons for having vote [sic] in support of the departmental recommendation for appointment of Assistant Professor Duesenberry as associate professor. I have followed Jim’s development from the time he became, on my recommendation, an economics instructor and assistant in my undergraduate course on economic theory.

Duesenberry is one of the few outstanding young economists who established their reputation in the post war years. Baumol, Arrow, Goodwin and not more than one or two others, could be named as belonging to the same group. Among these, Duesenberry distinguished himself through his notable breadth of interest and what is in a sense more important, his remarkably productive scientific imagination. His well known contributions to the theory of consumption and the not yet published equally original work in the field of economic development, reveal a singular combination of intuitive insight, practical sense and theoretical “know-how”.

Duesenberry has already taken an important part in the work of the Harvard Economic Research Project, and I have no doubt that he will play a leading role in the development of economic and general social science research at Harvard.

Although not typically a smooth lecturer, Duesenberry is very effective in a classroom. His enthusiasm and real interest in students makes him an excellent tutor and undergraduate advisor.

If in its subsequent recommendations for permanent appointments we succeed in keeping our sights as high as in the present choice the future prospects of the Economics Department would be very bright indeed.

With best regards.

Sincerely yours,
/s/ Wassily Leontief
Wassily Leontief

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE 38, MASSACHUSETTS

Office of the President

April 19, 1952

Dear Professor Friedman:

I am returning herewith material which I believe you left in the Perkins Room at the time of the ad hoc committee meeting yesterday.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Virginia Proctor
Virginia Proctor
Secretary to the President

Professor Milton Friedman
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 24, Folder “25.29 Correspondence. Duesenberry, James S.”

Image Source: Harvard College. Classbook 1957.

Tags Duesenberry, Friedman, Haberler, Leontief, Smithies

Dartmouth Pedagogy Popular Economics

Dartmouth A.M. John Gilbert Thompson. Long-lag for interest rate effect, 1929

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-06-15

The reasons for this post are the fact that “John G. Thompson” is not a unique identifier for economic authorship and my desire to distinguish John G. Thompson from John G. Thompson without using subscripts. Today we meet Mr. John Gilbert Thompson (1862-1940), an educational administrator turned business economist/forecaster. He spent over thirty years in the field of education, achieving some distinction as the first principal of the State Normal School in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. In the dozen or so years before his retirement in ca. 1932 he worked at the Simonds Saw and Steel Company in Fitchburg, where he was employed, according to press accounts, as “assistant to the treasurer”, “efficiency director”, “economist”, and finally “assistant to the president”.

Particularly worthy of note for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is Thompson’s contribution to the panel “Appraisal of Economic Forecasts” chaired by Wesley C. Mitchell at the December 1929 meeting of the American Statistical Association ( see below ). His principal empirical finding was contained in a single chart ( included below ) showing the long lag between a change in the commercial paper rate and an inverse movement in the level of economic activity, as proxied by the Federal Reserve’s index of industrial production. It might come as something of a surprise to readers here that a former teaching-college principal turned economic forecaster [anyone out there ever heard of his financial newsletter Looking Ahead?] was seeing long-lags some thirty years before Milton Friedman was to make “long and variable lags” fashionable.

Of lesser interest is discovering a Simonds Saw and Steel Company’s essay competition in economics for high school and normal school students that later evolved into a prize competition for established academic and business economists. Here we encountered the name of Dr. John L. Tildsley, once a teacher of economics in the New York City High School of Commerce and then District Superintendent for High Schools in New York City. Like Thompson, Tildsley was a strong advocate for the inclusion of economics in the high school curriculum. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is mildly proud to offer content regarding these two leaders in American education.

Note: The other John G. Thompson’s full name was John Giffin Thompson. He was a University of Wisconsin Ph.D. (1907), career-long economic researcher, and the subject of an earlier post as well.

_________________________

Life, Career and Publications
of John Gilbert Thompson

1862. Born June 23 in New Bedford, MA.

1886. Dartmouth A.M., Phi Beta Kappa

1886. December 27. Married Helen Susan Titus (1863-1938) in Hancock N.H. She was a direct descendant of Peregrin White of the Mayflower. They had seven sons (from The Boston Globe, Nov. 6, 1940, p. 19), five were still alive at the time of his death in 1940.

1886-1893. Principal of schools in Winchester, N.H., Sandwich [Mass], Southboro [Mass]; Superintendent of schools in Northboro [Mass] and Leominster [Mass]. Fitchburg Sentinel, Nov. 1, 1940, p.9.

1894. Together with Thomas E. Thompson (a younger brother), Master of John R. Rollins School, Lawrence, Mass. Fables and Rhymes for Beginners. The First Two Hundred Words. Boston: Ginn & Company.

1895-1920. Principal of State Normal School (Fitchburg, Massachusetts)

1895. Together with Thomas E. Thompson, Superintendent of Schools, Leominster, Mass. Fairy Tale and Fable, Second Year: An Introduction to Literature and Art. New York: The Morse Company. (Revised Seventh edition, 1902)

1899. Together with Thomas E. Thompson, Superintendent of Schools, Leominster, Mass. For Childhood Days, First Year. New York: The Morse Company. (3^rd ed. 1901)

1902. Together with Thomas E. Thompson, Superintendent of Schools, Leominster, Mass. New Century Readers: Nature, Myth and Story. Third Year. New York: Silver, Burdett and Company. (Second edition)

1916. Word from Word Readers: Book One. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.

1916. Word from Word Readers: Book Three. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.

1917. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Manual for Teachers. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.

1917. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Book One. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.

1917. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Book Two. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.

1917. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Book Four. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.

1918. Together with Inez Bigwood, The Thompson Readers: Word Building for Recitation and Seat Work. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.

1918. Together with Inez Bigwood, Lest We Forget: World War Stories. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.

1919. Together with Inez Bigwood, Winning a Cause: World War Stories. Boston: Silver, Burdett and Company.

1920. A Quarter of a Century of Years and Poems. Edition limited to one thousand copies, numbered and signed by the author. Includes photograph of John G. Thompson.

Library of Congress copy Number 12 was dedicated “To His Excellency Calvin Coolidge”.

1919-1932. “Assistant to the treasurer”, “efficiency director”, “economist”, “assistant to the president” at Simonds Saw and Steel Company.

1928. Together with Gifford K. Simonds, The American Way to Prosperity, 1928.

After retirement continued to publish the financial paper/newsletter Looking Ahead with Alvan T. Simonds.

1940. October 31. Died in Westborough, MA. Buried in Hancock, N.H.

_________________________

Adam Smith Essay for High School and Normal School Students
Sponsored by
Simonds Saw Mfg. Company, 1920

                  Very few high schools give any instructions to help pupils understand economic laws that affect their daily living, and very few normal schools in the United States give those who are to become teachers any instruction that will enable them to judge intelligently in regard to their own status, their own wages, or to talk over with their pupils the conditions of industry and business which are affecting their welfare and their lives. Even the junior high school pupil would be interested to know how prosperity and adversity move in waves and how one is brought about by prudence, thrift and industry and the other by carelessness, shiftlessness and extravagance. Any boy or girl twelve years or over can be made to see that everyone in the world is paying for the destruction caused by the World War and that “no one liveth to himself alone.” Much of the unrest among the working classes and of the misunderstanding between labor and capital is due to ignorance. It is a gross neglect, almost a criminal one, that those directing our public schools have failed to see the danger and to do something about remedying the lack. It is a sad comment when one can say that the children of working parents are given a careful study of the Punic Wars and never hear anything about economics in their high school course. It is even worse that those who are to become teachers are graduated as ready to teach without ever having studied the subject, either in high school or normal school.

                  Mr. Alvan T. Simonds, President of the Simonds Saw Manufacturing Company of Fitchburg; Mass., Chicago, Ill., Montreal, Que., Lockport, N. Y., a life-long student of economics and interested in bringing about a better understanding on the part of the laborer, the capitalist, and the public, realized this deficiency in our public school and normal school education. To discover to what an extent the subject of economics was studied, he offered in September, 1920, two prizes of $1,000 and $500 for the best two essays on an economic subject. The contest was open to pupils in high schools and normal schools in the United States and Canada and the prizes were made large enough to make the competition worth while to anyone who was fitted to enter it. The subject chosen was “Present Economic Conditions and the Teachings of Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations.” It was selected because it gave contestants a definite book to study and the opportunity to connect the study of that book with the life of which they were a part. It was not indefinite and distant from them, but definite and concerned today.

                  The contest was advertised in the Saturday Evening Post, in the Journal of Education, and the School Review and in many other publications. Personal letters were sent to state superintendents and principals of normal schools.

                  The results are what might have been expected by one who knew the status of economic teaching in the United States. It is left almost entirely for the college and even there it is elective. This is not true, however, in New York City, due to the foresight and the efforts of Dr. John L. Tildsley, formerly teacher of economics in the New York City High School of Commerce, and now District Superintendent for High Schools in New York City. The study of economics is required of all pupils in the senior year of the New York City high schools. Over 125 pupils entered the contest in the city of New York, but only twenty-five finished their essays and submitted them to the judges.

                  In Fitchburg, Massachusetts, at the State Normal School each member of the graduating class as a requirement for graduation has to submit a thesis and the supervision of the theses is divided among the different instructors. Those who worked under the direction of Miss Inez Bigwood were allowed to submit their essays both for the Simonds contest and as a graduating thesis. Beside one essay submitted by a convict in California, twenty-seven were received from normal pupils and sixty-five from high school pupils. Almost every section in the United States was represented, as well as Canada with essays from Vancouver and Montreal. There were few essays from the South, although Texas, Tennessee and South Carolina were represented. The Pacific Coast was represented by California, Oregon and Washington, while there were one or two from nearly every state in the Middle West.

                  The first prize of $1,000 was awarded to David Koch, High School of Commerce, New York City. The second prize of $500 was awarded to Aloysius Thiemann, Reedsburg High School, Reedsburg, Wis.

                  It is interesting to notice that both prizes were won by high school pupils, one from the largest city in the United States and one from a small town in Wisconsin.

                  The judges were Wallace B. Donham, Dean of the Harvard School of Business Administration, Cambridge, Mass., and John G. Thompson, Principal of the State Normal School (On leave), Fitchburg, Mass.

                  It is hoped that this contest and the lessons taught by it will awaken school officials to the necessity of requiring the study of economics in high schools and normal schools and of teachers who are to teach in junior high schools and grades above.

                  In order that those who are already saying that economics is a subject too difficult for high school pupils and certainly beyond the mental ability of junior high school pupils, let me add that the first prize of $1,000 was won by a boy only seventeen years of age, who began to be interested in economics when he was in the last year of the elementary school and read books upon the subject outside his regular school work. His essay was of such understanding and power that the judges, who worked independently, both questioned whether it could possibly be the work of a high school pupil. Investigation by Dr. Tildsley established beyond doubt that it was the boy’s own work and just about what his teacher of economics in the High School of Commerce declared could be expected from him.

David Koch, who won the first prize of $1,000, is seventeen years of age. His father came from Russia to the United States in 1897. He is a button-hole maker by trade. Dr. John L. Tildsley, district superintendent of high schools in New York City, reports that David Koch began to study economics in the last year of the elementary school and has been interested in it ever since, that is for about four years. He was a student at the New York High School of Commerce and studied economics there. His economic teacher reports “He was head and shoulders above the other pupils in the economics class and knew more economics than some of the teachers.” Mr. Tildsley writes further as follows:—

“You will be interested to know that when Koch entered the high school he had the reputation of being quite radical but as the result of his school work and especially his study of economics he has lost most of his radicalism. I believe that a great stimulus has been given to the teaching of economics in this country through the offer of these prizes.”

Aloysius Thiemann, winner of the second prize, is sixteen years of age and graduates from the Reedsburg, Wisconsin, High School this year. Mr. A. B. Olson, superintendent of the Reedsburg public schools, writes as follows: —

“Aloysius Thiemann was promoted to high school from the seventh grade, he having proven through educational tests that it would be unnecessary, for him to do the eighth grade work. His work in high school has been uniformly strong. Last year Aloysius Thiemann won the State of Wisconsin Civil Service Essay Contest and the school was presented the State Loving Cup to be kept for one year. In regard To future plans, I find that Aloysius Thiemann plans to attend Notre Dame University and will probably take up the course in Journalism.”

John G. Thompson,
Assistant to the President,
Simonds Manufacturing Company

Source: Thompson, John G. “EDUCATIONAL FORUM.” The Journal of Education, vol. 93, no. 24 (2334), 16 June 1921, pp. 672–73.
JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42830956

_________________________

Award of 8th Simonds Prize (1930)

Walter Earl Spahr, a professor of New York university, was awarded the first prize of $1000 in the eighth annual Alvan T. Simonds annual economic contest last year. The subject was “The Federal Reserve System and the Control of Credit.”

Dr. Spahr is professor of economics and chairman of the department of economics, school of commerce, accounts and finance, New York university. Dr. Spahr received his A.B. from Tarlham college, Ind., in 1914; A.M. from the University of Wisconsin in 1917, and Ph.D. from Columbia university in 1925. He taught economics at Datmouth college and Columbia university before going to New York university in 1923.

He has published several notable magazine articles as well as the article in the New Encyclopedia Brittanica on “The Stockbroker in the United States.” He is joint author with R. J. Swenson of “Methods and Staus of Scientific Research with Particular Application to the Social Sciences.” His home address is 8 Michigan road, Bellerose, Long Island, N.Y.

The second prize of $500 was awarded to Ivan W. Elder, managing editor of the North Pacific Banker, Portland, Ore. He is a graduate of Reed College, Ore.

Honorable mention was awarde to Helen Elizabeth Ham, 333 E. 43d street, New York city.

The judges were Dr. Davis R. Dewey, professor of economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and John G. Thompson, assistant to the president, Simonds Saw & Steel Co.

The largest number of essays came from the United States, yet excellent ones were received from Hawaii, Japan, India, South Africa, England and Scotland, thus circling the world.

Source: The Fitchburg Sentinel (August 26, 1930), p. 9.

_________________________

Long lag between changes in the interest rate and (inverse) changes in economic activity

Ninety-First Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association Held at Hotel Washington, Washington, D. C. December 27-30, 1929.

Friday, December 27, 1929
2:30 P. M.

Appraisal of Economic Forecasts

Chairman:
Wesley C. Mitchell, Columbia University

Papers:

Garfield V. Cox, University of Chicago
Seymour L. Andrew and Harold M. Flinn, American Telephone and Telegraph Company

Discussion:

Donald Tucker, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Arthur W. Marget, University of Minnesota
J. G. Thompson, Simonds Saw and Steel Company

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

John G. Thompson, Discussion
[emphasis added]

“Since 1919 I have been working with Alvan T. Simonds, President of the Simonds Saw and Steel Company, trying to convince business executives and others interested that major movements in money rates, reversed, forecast major swings in business…we have used the volume of manufacture, as reported by the Harvard Economic Society, or the volume of industrial production, as reported by the Federal Reserve Board. We have found that major movements in these are forecast by major swings of money rates, reversed. The particular series of money rates selected, however, must be as free as possible from the influences of speculation. Therefore we have selected commercial paper rates, New York. The accompanying chart shows that each major swing in commercial paper rates, reversed, is followed some months later by a major swing in industrial production. The major swings are represented as straight lines connecting the peaks and the valleys of the three-year cycle, which has been repeated now four times since the War. Minor swings, including seasonal swings, have been neglected, but in each case the extreme high point has been connected with the next extreme low point, or the extreme low point with the next extreme high point…The light dotted line beginning in the spring of 1929 and running down to the middle of 1930 is the estimated course of industrial production, as made in December, 1928. The chart represents the movements as falling in three-year cycles and shows each cycle separated from the others….

…In attempting to convince those interested that (as this chart shows) money rates, reversed, do forecast major swings in business, the chief difficulty seems to be the long lag between the corresponding movements. The general belief seems to have been, and to be, that when money rates ease off, business immediately or almost at once turns upward. As a matter of fact and as the chart shows, this upward turn does not begin until several months later.”

Source: “Ninety-First Annual Meeting of the American Statistical Association Held at Hotel Washington, Washington, D. C. Friday, December 27, to Monday, December 30, 1929.” Journal of the American Statistical Association, vol. 25, no. 169, 1930, pp. 48-49. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2277188

Image Source: Fitchburg State University website. Home/About/History of Fitchburg State/Hall of Presidents/John G. Thompson (1895-1920).

Tags Dewey, Friedman, Marget, Mitchell, SpahrWE, Thompson_JGilbert, Tildsley, TuckerDS

Chicago Courses Curriculum Fields Graduate Student Support

Chicago. Program of advanced instruction and research training in economics. 1956-57.

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-05-22

To gauge the scale and scope of economics departments it is useful to have copies of the annual announcements/brochures. In this post we add a transcription of the announcement for advanced instruction and research in economics at the University of Chicago for 1956-57.

Some previous posts:

___________________________

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
announces
Advanced Instruction
and Research Training
in
ECONOMICS:

Price Theory
Money and Banking
Economic History
Statistics
Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
Agricultural Economics
Government Finance
International Economic Relations and Economic Development
Economics of Consumption
Labor Economics and Industrial Relations

SESSIONS OF 1956-1957

___________________________

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
Officers of Instruction

Theodore William Schultz, Ph.D., Chairman of the Department of Economics and Charles L. Hutchinson Distinguished Service Professor of Economics.

Frank Hyneman Knight, Ph.D., Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the Social Sciences.

John Ulric Nef, Ph.D., Professor of Economic History.

Earl J. Hamilton, Ph.D., Professor of Economics.

Milton Friedman, Ph.D., Professor of Economics.

Lloyd A. Metzler, Ph.D., Professor of Economics.

Margaret G. Reid, Ph.D., Professor of Economics.

W. Allen Wallis, A.B., Professor of Economics and Statistics.

D. Gale Johnson, Ph.D., Professor of Economics.

Bert F. Hoselitz, A.M., Dr. Jur., Professor of the Social Sciences.

Hans Theil, Ph.D., Visiting Professor of Economics.

Harold Gregg Lewis, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics.

Arnold C. Harberger, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics.

Albert E. Rees, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics.

Carl Christ, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics.

Simon Rottenberg, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Economics.

George S. Tolley, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics.

Robert Lloyd Gustafson, A.M., Assistant Professor of Economics.

Phillip David Cagan, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics.

Martin Jean Bailey, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Economics.

Chester Whitney Wright, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Economics.

Hazel Kyrk, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Economics and Home Economics.

Lloyd W. Mints, A.M., Professor Emeritus of Economics.

Mary Barnett Gilson, A.M., Assistant Professor Emeritus of Economics in the College.

Fellows, 1955-56

Richard King, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Economy.

Yossef Attiyeh, A.M., Falk Foundation Fellow,

Milton Frank Bauer, A.M., Canadian Social Science Research Council Fellow.

John Allan Edwards, A.M., Sears, Roebuck Fellow in Agricultural Economics.

Lawrence Fisher, A.B., Earhart Foundation Fellow.

B. Delworth Gardner, S.M., Sears, Roebuck Fellow in Agricultural Economics.

Hirsh Zvi Griliches, S.M., Social Science Research Council Fellow.

Marc Leon Nerlove, A.M., Earhart Foundation Fellow.

Hugh Oliver Nourse, A.B., Woodrow Wilson Fellow.

Walter Yasuo Oi, A.M., Owen D. Young Fellow.

Boris Peter Pesek, A.M., Ford Foundation Fellow.

Duvvuri Venkata Ramana, A.M., Ford Foundation Fellow.

Jean Reynier, Diplôme D’études Supérieures De Doctorat, University of Paris Exchange Fellow.

Robert Oliver Rogers, A.M., Sears, Roebuck Fellow in Agricultural Economics.

John William Louis Winder, A.M., Edward Hillman Fellow.

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Introductory

The Department of Economics views the central problem of economic science as that of understanding the social organization of human and other scarce productive resources: principally the allocation of these resources among alternative uses by a system of exchange. The purpose of the Department is both to train economic scientists and to advance economic science.

The Department offers programs of instruction and research training not only for students seeking an advanced degree in economics at the University of Chicago but also for students working on an advanced degree at another institution who wish to complement the training available to them there and for students not seeking an advanced degree but who wish to pursue advanced study in economics at either the predoctoral or the postdoctoral level. Instruction is provided in all of the major fields of economics affording opportunity for well-rounded training in economics. Additional facilities in other parts of the University, including those in the other social sciences, mathematics, statistics, business administration, law, and philosophy, permit students wide choice among supplementary areas of study.

Courses of instruction at three levels of advancement are offered by the Department:

1. Intermediate courses (numbered in the 200’s) for those completing their work for the Bachelor’s degree and for others preparing for advanced training in economics.

2. Courses in economic theory, statistical inference, economic history, and economic analysis related to problem fields (numbered in the 300’s) that provide the strong theoretical foundation and related applied knowledge required of all candidates for advanced degrees in economics as preparation for economic research. Students are urged before entering these courses to acquire a command of the rudiments of the differential calculus.

3. Courses (including seminars, workshops, and other research working groups, and individual instruction) that provide arrangements for research and research supervision (numbered in the 400’s). These courses apply and seek to teach students to apply the foundations of economic analysis to research on particular economic problems.

THE ECONOMICS RESEARCH CENTER

The Department devotes a large proportion of its resources to research in economics and to the training of student research apprentices. The purpose of the Economics Research Center is to co-ordinate the research and research training activities of the Department. The Center supplies essential clerical, computing, and reference library services, assists in the organization of research seminars and working groups, and publishes the major research output of the Department in its series: “Studies in Economics.”

Some of the research training in the Center is organized on a continuing basis by one or more faculty members working with associates and students in research groups. (The staffs and research projects of these groups for the academic year 1955-56 are listed below.) Research training and facilities for research are available, however, to all qualified students, both those associated with a research group and those engaged in individual research.

Projects and Staffs of Research Groups, 1955-56

Workshop in Money and Banking

Faculty: Professors Cagan and Friedman.

Research Assistants and Fellows: Yossef Attiyeh, Hugh Roy Elliott, Duvvuri V. Ramana, and Robert E. Snyder.

Project: The role of monetary and banking factors in economic fluctuations.

Office of Agricultural Economies Research

Faculty: Professors Gustafson, Johnson, Schultz, and Tolley.

Research Associates: John A. Dawson, Cecil B. Haver, William E. Hendrix, Lester G. Telser, and Joseph Willett.

Research Assistants and Fellows: Marto Ballesteros, Michael Joseph Brennan, Donald S. Green, Hirsh Zvi Griliches, Vaughan Stevens Hastings, Roy J. Kelly, Edward Franklin Renshaw, James A. Rock, and Clifton R. Wharton, Jr.

Projects: (1) Agricultural inventories. (2) Conservation and development of natural resources. (3) Technical assistance in Latin American countries. (4) Developments affecting Negro farm families. (5) Soviet agriculture. (6) Technological growth in agriculture (hybrid corn). (7) Growth in output per unit of input in the United States and in agriculture.

Research Group in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations

Faculty: Professors Lewis, Rees, Rottenberg, and Seidman.

Projects: (1) The American worker as a union member. (2) Labor in the Mexican economy. (3) Real wages in the United States, 1890-1914. (4) Population, the labor force, and labor supply.

Research Group in Public Finance

Faculty: Professors Bailey and Harberger.

Research Assistants and Fellows: Meyer L. Burstein, Lawrence Fisher, Yehuda Grünfeld, Marc Leon Nerlove, William A. Niskanen, Jr., and Walter Y. Oi.

Projects:
(1) Resource allocation effects of federal taxes and of agricultural price supports.
(2) Sources and methods of controlling cyclical instability in the American economy.
(3) The capital market effects of federal taxation, expenditure, and regulatory policies.

Research Group in Economics of Consumption

Faculty: Professor Reid.

Research Assistant: Juliette Rey.

Project: Trends in, and factors determining, consumption levels.

Research Group in Economic Development

Faculty: Professors Hamilton, Harberger, Hoselitz, Rottenberg, and Schultz.

Projects: (1) Problems in the economic development of Chile. (2) Historical research in money, banking, prices, and interest rates, their interrelationship, and their role in the economic development of leading countries. (Note also projects (3), (6), and (7) of the Office of Agricultural Economics Research and project (2) of the Research Group in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations.) The Research Group in Economic Development works closely with the Research Center in Economic Development and Cultural Change of which Mr. Hoselitz is the director. The Center engages in research and publishes the journal Economic Development and Cultural Change.

Three members of the faculty of the Department are associated with research groups organized in other parts of the University: Mr. Hoselitz with the Research Center in Economic Development and Cultural Change; Mr. Nef, with the Committee on Social Thought; and Mr. Wallis, with the Committee on Statistics. In addition, other members of the economics faculty are engaged in individual research projects not associated with a research group: Mr. Metzler on the theory of international adjustment under conditions of full employment and high demand: and Mr. Christ on econometric research on economic growth and technological change.

FELLOWSHIPS, SCHOLARSHIPS,
AND RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIPS

Students who wish to pursue a program of advanced instruction and research in economics at the University may compete not only for the regular University Fellowships and Scholarships described in these Announcements (see pp. 22-27) but also for the fellowships listed below:
[Note: The announcement transcribed here is a reprint of the Department of Economics section of the Announcements of Graduate Programs in the Divisions. Cross-references are to that publication]

Postdoctoral Fellowships:

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Political Economy awarded upon recommendation of the Department of Economics.

Postdoctoral Fellowships in Money and Banking awarded by the Workshop in Money and Banking in co-operation with the Department of Economics.

Predoctoral Fellowships:

Awarded upon recommendation of the Department of Economics:

Frank H. Knight Fellowships, Marshall Field Fellowship, Edward Hillman Fellowship Awarded upon recommendation of the Office of Agricultural Economics Research for students specializing in agricultural economics:
Sears, Roebuck Foundation Fellowships in Agricultural Economics

Stipends for the predoctoral fellowships, including the regular University fellowships, range generally from $1,000 to $3,000 per annum. Stipends for the postdoctoral fellowships range up to $4,000 per annum. Application blanks may be obtained from the Department of Economics or from the University Committee on Fellowships and Scholarships.

Research Assistantships

Research assistantships and associateships are available to qualified students who have research interests in particular problem areas. Application blanks for these positions may be obtained from the Economics Research Center.

ADVANCED DEGREES

The Department of Economics offers programs leading to both the A.M. and the Ph.D. degrees in Economics. The following paragraphs summarize briefly the major Departmental requirements for advanced degrees for students holding a four-year Bachelor’s degree or its equivalent. (The following paragraphs are not intended as an exhaustive statement of the requirements for advanced degrees; for the details of the requirements students should consult with the Departmental counselors.)

THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

The Departmental requirements for the Master’s degree in Economics for students holding the traditional four-year Bachelor’s degree include: (1) satisfactory performance on two of the written field examinations in economics required for the Ph.D. degree; (2) a satisfactory command of the principles of economic theory; and (3) acceptance of a paper or report on a problem approved by the Department,

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

The Departmental requirements for admission to candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics include: (1) satisfactory performance on written field examinations in price theory and monetary theory and banking and in one other field that, with the approval of the Department, may be a field outside of economics; (2) a well-rounded command of the subject-matter of the major fields of economics; (3) effective reading knowledge of French or German or some other foreign language approved by the Department; and (4) acceptance of the candidate’s thesis prospectus.

The Departmental requirements for the degree include in addition to the preceding requirements for admission to candidacy: (1) effective reading knowledge of a second foreign language or completion of an approved substitute program of study; (2) departmental approval of the completed thesis; and (3) satisfactory performance on a final oral examination on the field of the thesis.

SUMMER PROGRAM
FOR COLLEGE TEACHERS OF ECONOMICS

The Department of Economics will give particular attention in its Summer Quarter 1956 program to the interests of college teachers of economics, both those working for the Ph.D degree at another institution and others who wish to renew or to complement their training and experience in economics. A limited number of tuition and half-tuition scholarships will be available for teachers who do not hold the Ph.D. degree. (Application blanks for these scholarships may be obtained from the Department of Economics.) For those who hold the Ph.D. degree in Economics or related fields the Department invites application for guest privileges.

Courses of Instruction

INTERMEDIATE COURSES

208. A, B, C. The Elements of Economic Analysis. Aut (208A): Rees; Win (208B) Rees; Spr (208C): Cagan.

209. Intermediate Price Theory. Prereg: Math 150A or equiv. Aut: Lewis.

210. Index Numbers, National Accounting, and Economic Measurement. Prereq: Soc Sei 200A and Econ 209, or equiv. Aut: Christ.

213. Introduction to Mathematics for Economists. Prereq: Econ 209 and Math 150A, or equiv. Sum: Staff; Win: Theil.

220. Economic History of the United States. Spr: Hamilton.

240. Introduction to Industrial Relations. Win: Staff.

255. Introduction to Agricultural Economics. Prereq: Econ 208A and 208B, or equiv, Spr: Johnson.

260. Introduction to Government Finance. Prereq: Econ 208A and 208B, or equiv. Win: Bailey.

271. Economic Aspects of International Politics. Aut: Hoselitz.

299. Undergraduate Thesis Research. Prereq: consent of Departmental Secretary. Sum, Aut, Win, Spr: Staff.

ADVANCED COURSES

I. Price Theory

300. A, B. Price Theory. Prereg: For 300A, Econ 209 or equiv, and Math 150A or equiv, or consent of instructor; for 300B, 300A. Aut (300A): Friedman; Win (300A): Wallis; Spr (300B): Friedman.

301. Price and Distribution Theory (= Social Thought 382). Prereq: Econ 209. Sum: Knight.

302. History of Economic Thought (= Social Thought 381). Prereq: Econ 301 or equiv. Spr: Knight.

303. Recent Developments in Economics. Prereg: graduate work in economic theory. Sum: Harberger.

305. Economics and Social Institutions (= Philosophy 305). Prereg: Econ 301 and some European economic history. Sum: Knight.

308. Welfare Economics. Prereq: Econ 300A or equiv. Sum: Johnson.

309. Mathematical Economics. Prereq: Econ 213 and Econ 300A, or equiv. Win: Theil.

310. Special Topics in Mathematical Economics. Prereq: Econ 309, Math 150C, and the rudiments of matrix algebra; or consent of instructor. Spr: Theil.

II. Monetary Theory and Banking

303. Recent Developments in Economics. Prereg: graduate work in economic theory. Sum: Harberger.

330. Money. Prereg: Econ 208C or equiv. Aut: Staff.

331. Banking Theory and Monetary Policy. Prereg: Econ 330; Econ 335 desirable. Win: Cagan.

334. The Development of Monetary and Financial Institutions. Prereq: Econ 222 or 208C. Spr: Hamilton.

335. The Theory of Income, Employment, and the Price Level. Prereg: Econ 208A, B, C or equiv. Spr: Christ.

362. Monetary and Fiscal Policy. Prereg: Econ 208C; Econ 330 and 335 desirable. Spr: Harberger.

370. Monetary Aspects of International Trade. Prereg: Econ 330, 335, or equiv. Aut: Metzler.

439. Workshop in Money and Banking. An experiment in combining training in research and learning of subject-matter organized around a continuing investigation into monetary factors in business cycles. Students participate in this central investigation both directly and by undertaking individual projects in the general area. Each project is directed toward the preparation of a report of publishable quality. Guidance is provided on general reading in the field, and informal seminars are held from time to time to discuss general issues or specific projects. Students. are required to give full time to the workshop; they receive three credits per quarter of registration. Prereg: consent of instructor. Aut, Win, Spr: Friedman, Cagan.

III. Statistics

311. Principles of Statistical Analysis (= Business 321 and Statistics 301). Aut: Staff.

312. Techniques of Statistical Analysis (= Business 322 and Statistics 302). Prereg: Econ 311 or equiv. Win: Staff.

313. Applications of Statistical Analysis (= Sociology 308, Business 323, and Statistics 303). Prereq: Econ 312 or Stat 362 or equiv. Spr: Wallis.

314. Econometrics. Prereq: Econ 311 and either Econ 300A or Econ 335; Econ 210 desirable. Sum: Gustafson; Win: Christ.

315. Special Topics in Econometrics. Prereq: Econ 312, Econ 314, differential calculus, and rudiments of matrix algebra; or consent of instructor. Spr: Christ.

For other courses in statistics see page 203.

IV. Mathematical Economics and Econometrics

303. Recent Developments in Economics. Prereq: graduate work in economic theory. Sum: Harberger.

309. Mathematical Economics. Prereq: Econ 213 and Econ 300A, or equiv, Win: Theil.

310. Special Topics in Mathematical Economics. Prereq: Econ 309, Math 150C and the rudiments of matrix algebra; or consent of instructor. Spr: Theil.

314. Econometrics. Prereq: Econ 311 and either Econ 300A or Econ 335; Econ 210 desirable. Sum: Gustafson; Win: Christ.

315. Special Topics in Econometrics. Prereq: Econ 312, Econ 314, differential calculus, and rudiments of matrix algebra; or consent of instructor. Spr: Christ.

V. Economic History

320. American Economic Policies. Prereg: Econ 220 or equiv. Sum: Hamilton.

329A. The Geographical and Historical Background of the Genesis of Industrial Civilization (= Social Thought 324A and History 332G). Aut: Nef.

329B. The Role of the Discoveries and the Reformation in the Genesis of Industrial Civilization (= Social Thought 325A and History 332H). Spr: Nef.

334. The Development of Monetary and Financial Institutions. Prereg: Econ 222 or 208C. Spr: Hamilton.

VI. Labor Economics and Industrial Relations

340. The Labor Movement. Aut.

341. Labor Problems. Prereq: Econ 208A, 208B, and Econ 240; or equiv. Win: Rees.

344. Labor Economics. Prereq: Econ 300B. Spr: Lewis.

VII. Agricultural Economics

355A. Economic Organization for Growth (with particular reference to agriculture). Prereq: Econ 300A or equiv. Aut: Schultz.

355B. Economic Organization for Stability (with particular reference to agriculture). Prereq: Econ 300A or equiv. Spr: Schultz.

356. Income, Welfare, and Policy (with particular reference to agriculture). Prereg: Econ300A or equiv; Econ 300B and 355A recommended. Win: Johnson.

455. Seminar in Agricultural Economics. Prereq: consent of instructor. Aut, Win, Spr: Schultz, Johnson, Tolley, Gustafson.

VIII. Government Finance

360. Theory of Public Finance. Prereg: Econ 260 and Econ 300A, or consent of instructor, Aut: Bailey.

361. Public Finance in the American Economy. Prereq: Econ 300A; Econ 300B desirable. Win: Harberger.

362. Monetary and Fiscal Policy. Prereg: Econ 208C; Econ 330 and 335 desirable. Spr: Harberger.

IX. International Economic Relations

370. Monetary Aspects of International Trade. Prereq: Econ 330 and 335, or equiv. Aut: Metzler.

371. Economic Aspects of International Relations. Prereq: Econ 330 or equivalent. Win: Metzler.

372. Problems in Economic Development. Prereq: Econ 335 or equivalent, Econ 320 and 371 desirable. Spr: Hoselitz.

X. Economics of Consumption

381. Consumers and the Market (= Home Economics 341), Prereq: course in economic theory. Win: Reid.

383A. Consumption Levels (= Home Economics 343A). Prereq: course in statistics. Aut: Reid.

388. The Family in the American Economy (= Home Economics 348). Prereq: course in economic theory. Sum, Spr: Reid.

XI. Seminars and Workshops

439. Workshop in Money and Banking. Aut, Win, Spr: Friedman, Cagan.

455. Seminar in Agricultural Economics. Aut, Win, Spr: Schultz, Johnson, Tolley, Gustafson.

490. Research in Economics. Prereg: consent of Departmental Secretary, Sum: Staff.

498. Thesis Seminar. Registration may be made for one or more courses. Prereg: consent of Departmental Secretary. Sum, Aut, Win, Spr: Staff.

499. Individual Research. Registration may be made for one or more courses. Prereg: consent of Departmental Secretary. Sum, Aut, Win, Spr: Staff.

Source: University of Chicago Archives. George Stigler papers. Addenda. Box 31, Folder “7/87 Chic. School. GJS Folder. Lit., incl. “Pantaleoni?”, 1930 anti-tariff signers”.

Tags Arberger, BaileyMJ, Cagan, Christ, Friedman, Gilson, Griliches, GustafsonRL, HamiltonEJ, Hoselitz, JohnsonDG, Knight, Kyrk, LewisHG, Metzler, Mints, Nef, NerloveM, Oi, Pesek, Rees, Reid, RottenbergS, SchultzTW, Theil, Tolley, Wallis, WrightCW

Libertarianism

Freedom School. First Newsletter. January, 1964

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-05-14

Robert LeFevre’s Freedom School in the late 1950’s through the 1960’s offered two kinds of libertarian agit-prop courses at its log-cabin campus located in the Rampart Range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado: a two week comprehensive course and shorter intensive courses designed for business executives interested in the fundamentals of libertarian philosophy, politics, and economics. The 1962 Prospectus for the Freedom School was posted earlier.

An academic upgrade was introduced for the 1963-64 academic year, named the Phrontistery [“a thinking place”]. The goal was to have a two semester course organized around a series of invited distinguished lecturers that included Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, Gordon Tullock, and Warren Nutter.

Fun fact: the main house of Milton and Rose Friedman’s “Capitaf” was designed using the plans for the hexagonal Falcon’s Lair building at the Freedom School provided to them by Robert LeFevre.

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The Freedom School is an educational institution offering short courses of instruction in the field of economics, philosophy, ethics, history and political science. Special sessions each year are reserved for executives and those making managerial decisions in business and the professions. Eight two-week comprehensive courses are offered to adults each summer from June through September. Special Workshop and library facilities are available for graduates.

Write for informational folder.

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To Our Readers…

With this issue of the Newsletter, the Freedom School initiates a new monthly publication, designed to keep you informed on news of the Freedom School. It will bring you information about additions to the staff, faculty and trustees, as well as plans for the progress of the School — in its summer sessions and in its development of Rampart College.

The Newsletter will give you information on our graduates – what they are doing and how they are communicating the philosophy of freedom.

This publication is for you – we want you to read it, we want it to be interesting to you and, therefore, we want to hear about it from you. We want to know what interests YOU particularly, what features we can incorporate into the Newsletter that will give you and the School an instrument of mutual communication.

Please don’t hesitate – give us your opinion of the Newsletter: good, bad or indifferent.

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Texas Biochemist Discusses “Equality

Professor Roger J. Williams

No man is the equal of any other man in the view of a leading biochemist from the University of Texas who spoke at the Freedom School Phrontistery last November.

He is Dr. Roger J. Williams, who has been the director of the Clayton Foundation Biochemical Institute at the University since 1941.

The professor has spent a life-time studying, teaching and researching bio-chemistry, and has pioneered in thought and research on the human side of the problem.

In his studies, the professor has concluded that biochemically and every other way every human is different, even though all may look alike superficially. He explained in his lectures how each person is different anatomically, neurologically, endocrinologically, biochemically, and psychologically.

The professor has been a trail-blazer in his field, and is the discoverer of pantothenic acid (one of the B vitamins) which is required in the machinery of all oxygen-using organisms.

He also did pioneer work on folic acid, and named it. It is another B vitamin that is used in the treatment of anemias. At the Clayton Institute, more vitamins have been discovered than in any other laboratory in the world.

The professor was the first biochemist to be elected president of the American Chemical Society, which now has about 100,000 members, and has received the Mead Johnson award of the American Institute of Nutrition.

Williams is a firm believer in the individuality of each person and his belief is backed up with facts acquired during his long career in biochemistry.

He is a living example of his own theory, having a great interest in literature as well as in his chosen field of study, and he maintains a parallel interest in people. Williams is the kind of man who can say with a twinkle in his eye, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating and in the subsequent metabolic effects,” and mean what he says.

A little key to what the professor is talking about is found in his book, “Nutrition in a Nutshell”, which tells a reader more about his own nutritional problems than he probably knew before — facts he ought to know — and he does it in words that we can understand. In the book Williams points out that each individual has his own nutritional problems.

Two other books by Williams may be time bombs planted in the field of social sciences. They are “The Human Frontier” and “Free and Unequal”, which discusses the biological basis of individual liberty.

What Williams has learned in a life-time of study and reflection about people and each man’s individuality was discussed by him under the theme, “The basis of our love of liberty is biological.”

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Tullock Tells of New Approach to Politico-Economic Study

Professor Gordon Tullock

Dr. Gordon Tullock, associate professor, Thomas Jefferson Center for Studies in Political Economy, University of Virginia, was the second visiting professor to lecture at the Freedom School Phrontistery.

The professor is one of a small group of men in America, numbering about 30, who set about studying political science in a different way.

“We are trying to apply a logical, scientific approach to the political phenomena in an effort to improve our knowledge of politics,” is the way Tullock explains why these few are interested in approaching the study of politics from an unconventional view.

He passed on some of his theories on that subject to Freedom School Phrontistery enrollees in his two series of lectures last November. The two topics were, “Property Institutions” and “Modern Political Theory”.

In the new approach to political science, Tullock attempted to apply the classic economic theories to politics. He hastened to point out that he and fellow theorists are not another group of economic determinists.

Rather, he explained, he and his confreres are applying economics to the study of politics as the pioneer political geographers applied geography to the study of politics.

Tullock added that the studies have no particular relevance to the specific political activities that are going on now and will increase later this year.

“Some people think that a professor of economics ought to be able to make a fortune in the stock market, but this is not necessarily so. That is the case with us. We are studying politics, but are not necessarily able to make predictions on any campaign,” Tullock said.

Tullock was graduated from the University of Chicago in 1947 with a degree in law, after having earned his bachelor’s degree there during prior study.

Shortly after his graduation he went to work in a law office in Chicago, and was given a chance to enter foreign service. In 1948 he was on duty in Tientsin, China. He was there for two years, including a year under the communists. He also served in Hong Kong and Korea and did post-doctoral studies in Chinese at Yale and Cornell Universities before he resigned from the service in 1955 to enter the academic world.

He now claims to have found the field of study which intrigues him most. He says there is plenty to keep him busy in his area of economics-political science.

Tullock knows there is lots of hard work ahead. “I’m an optimist and a crusader,” he explained. He and his fellow students in the field intend to push toward their goals as far as they can in one generation.

“We have a genuine theory of politics. We think ours is a more sensible view of politics,” he explained. The immediate goal of his studies is to learn more about how politics works and to determine these facts through scientific investigation.

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Freedom School Growth Measured
in Land, Construction, Students

During the calendar year 1963, the Freedom School’s growth has been such as to amaze the early graduates of the School. In March, 206 acres of rolling meadow-land were added to the 320 acres that originally comprised the campus. This land adjoins the eastern boundaries of the School, and provides a mile of road frontage along Perry Park Road, Colorado Highway 105. This land will probably play a major role in the location and development of Rampart College.

Also in 1963 a new building was completed. Although construction was started in the fall of 1962, the building was not ready for occupancy until February. The major part of this building (called Falcon Lair) is hexagonal in shape, built of logs, and the focal point is a huge hexagonal stone fireplace in the center of a large room which serves as a combination living room-lounge, in which students can relax and where informal entertainment and discussion take place.

Also within the “hex” is a modern kitchen and other facilities. Attached to the “hex” and also built of logs is a rectangular building containing living accommodations for the president and his wife. A wide, open porch extends from the north and east sides of the building.

Other improvements include a general remodeling of Falconwood Lodge, the main building which housed the first classroom and the kitchen and dining room. The kitchen has been doubled in size — with commercial equipment added, making it possible to maintain the same high standard of food preparation and service the School has featured. The new, modern, attractive and comfortable dining room, which can seat 50, has new tables, chairs and lighting.

Below the dining room, the “Bunkhouse” which has, during the life of the School, served as student quarters and office space, is now a recreation room for students. Soft drink, coffee and hot chocolate machines have been added, along with a “Skittles” game and a regulation size pool table, making it a convenient place for students to relax and play various games.

Carpeting has been added to the living quarters in Reno Sales Lodge and to the two cabins that house four students each — Deer Haven and Tall Pines — resulting in more comfortable quarters for students.

The growth of the School can also be measured in the increased number of students who have been graduated each year. During the first year of operation, 26 students were graduated. That number has increased yearly and during the summer season of 1963, 143 students were graduated from Freedom School.

In addition, three special sessions (a workshop and two three-day seminars) were held, with a total enrollment of 44 persons. Inquiries for 1964 courses were received months before the new 1964 Bulletin was in the mails.

View of fireplace in Falcon Lair. The hexagonal stone fireplace, focal point of the 1469-square-foot main room, weighs 23 tons, seven tons of which is the stone facing, and is 14 feet tall. The striking hexagonal wrought-iron chandelier was a gift of Freedom School graduate Brian Monahan.

[Note: Substituted this better image from the Rampart College Bulletin, 1966.]

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F.S. CALENDAR [1964]

Jan. 13 – 17: Prof. Ludwig von Mises, speaking on:
1) Determination of Prices of the Factors of Production;
2) Savings and Accumulation of Capital;
3) Profit and Loss.

Jan. 27 – 31: Prof. Sylvester Petro, speaking on:
1) Freedom, Competition and Property as Juridical Concepts;
2) the Monopoly Issue at Common Law and Under Interventionism;
3) Freedom and Trade Unionism.

Feb. 10 – 14: Dr. F. A. Harper, speaking on the Philosophical Aspects of Peace.

These lectures will take place from 9 a.m. until noon, with discussion from

2 to 5 p.m. on each of the dates specified. Anyone interested in attending any of these meetings may do so by applying to the Registrar of the Freedom School.

Information will be sent upon request.

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Hamowy Wins Oxford Grant

Ronald Hamowy, graduate of the Freedom School (1962) and author of the Phrontistery Organizational Plan, is the recipient of a two-year fellowship to Oxford.

Hamowy’s association with the Freedom School began in the summer of 1962 when his services were obtained to prepare the outline and to project the operation of the Phrontistery. The Organizational Plan was the result of much study and with on modest modification is the working format presently employed. Hamowy also made the recommendations for enrollees and guest lecturers, but was required to depart for England and his studies at Oxford a few weeks before the Phrontistery program.

During much of the time he was preparing the outline and interviewing prospective students, Hamowy was conducting research at the University of Paris.

He is a graduate of City College of New York (1960), is a candidate for doctorate in social thought under F. A. von Hayek at the University of Chicago, and now Earhart Fellow at Balliol College, Oxford.

During his two-year fellowship, Hamowy plans on making frequent trips to the United States, and hopes to visit the Phrontistery early in the year.

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Phrontistery Under Way

Phrontistery enrollees are (seated): Dale M. Haywood, Michael F. Helm, Peter C. Blake, Kameon Kimball, Leanna Koehn, Eduardo Helguera, R. Douglas Pinkney; (standing) Juan Manzano-Taylor, Calvin Byles, Jerry Woloz, William A. Colson, Robert E. Gaskins, Jr., David S. Jackman III, R. James Graser, Charles M. McGehee, Charles F. Adams, Hollis B. Danvers, Burl B. Bigelow, and Juan Larreta.

[ Note: This clearer image has been substituted from a Colorado Public Radio podcast episode “Liberty’s Pitchman, Robert LeFevre: The Freedom School” ]

Dean of the Freedom School Phrontistery is Dr. V. Orval Watts, who for 17 years has been a college instructor and professor of economics. Dr. Watts has taught at Clark University, Harvard University, Antioch College, Carleton College, Claremont Men’s College and the Freedom School. Most recently he served as Visiting Professor of Money and Banking at Pepperdine College, California. He received his B.A. from the University of Manitoba and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. In conjunction with his duties at the Freedom School, Dr. Watts is Director of Economic Education for Northwood Institute in Midland, Michigan.

Dr. V. Orval Watts

Dr. Watts is a charter member of the Mont Pelerin Society and a member of the Economists’ National Committee on Monetary Policy, and has been economic counsel for the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the Foundation for Economic Education, and business and industrial institutions in Southern California, as well as producer and moderator of radio and television forums. His experience and talents make him a valuable asset to the Phrontistery.

Assisting Dr. Watts is Robert J. Smith, assistant dean of the Phrontistery. Smith is a Freedom School graduate (1958) and received his B.S. from Stanford University. During the summer of 1959 he managed the Stanford Geological Survey, later joining the Foundation for Economic Education as a part time staff member. He was recently a William Volker Fellow in economics at New York University, and is working toward his master’s degree in Business Administration under Professor Ludwig von Mises.

Participating in the Phrontistery are 19 students, 16 of whom are Freedom School graduates, listed below:

Charles F. Adams, Denver, Colo., University of Colorado; Burl B. Bigelow, Denver, Colo., Western State College; Peter C. Blake, Weslaco, Tex., Yale University, University of Colorado; Calvin Byles, New Braunfels, Tex., Texas University; William A. Colson, Bellevue, Wash., San Jose City College, Calif.; Hollis B. Danvers, Houston, Tex., Southern Methodist University; Robert E. Gaskins, Jr., Encino, Calif., Summerfield Scholar, University of Kansas; R. James Graser, Oconomowoc, Wis., Beloit College, University of Wisconsin; Dale M. Haywood, Arcadia, Neb., University of Nebraska, New York University; Eduardo Helguera, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Universidad de Buenos Aires; David S. Jackman III, Wichita, Kans., University of Kansas; Kameon Kimball, Waterville, Wash., University of Washington; Leanna Koehn, Dodge City, Kans., University of Kansas; Juan Manzano-Taylor, Rizal, P.I., University of the Philippines; Charles M. McGehee, El Paso, Tex., Texas Western College; and R. Douglas Pinkney, Willoughby, O., Grove City College, Pa.

Students who had not attended the Freedom School prior to the Phrontistery are: Michael F. Helm, Reseda, Calif., San Fernando Valley State College, Calif.; Juan R. Larreta, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Universidad de Buenos Aires; and Jerry Woloz, Brooklyn, N.Y., San Fernando Valley State College, Calif.

_________________

Many Thanks

The Freedom School wishes to express its sincere gratitude to the following graduates for their recent contributions to the School (September through November, 1963).

$1,000 and above:

R. C. Hoiles
Mr. and Mrs. R. D. Threshie, Jr.

$100 and above:

Mrs. Mabelle Acorn
Robert E. Ahern
Russell E. Baetke
Mr. and Mrs. Albert Bassett
Burton Bergman
Mrs. May Bowman
Henry B. Herreid
Roland W. Holmes
Mr. and Mrs. Ned W. Kimball
Mrs. Mary H. Vincent

Up to $100:

Miss Susan M. Breck
Mr. and Mrs. George A. Brightwell, Jr.
Mr. and Mrs. Axtell Byles
Floyd E. Camp
Mr. and Mrs. Wayne T. Carroll
Mrs. Patricia F. Cornell
Miss Carol E. Dazey
Mr. and Mrs. C. R. Estes
Miss Margaret Harkness
Russell Johnson
Mrs. Marjorie Lawrence
Mr. and Mrs. J. Dohn Lewis
Dr. Ruth S. Maynard
Brian J. Monahan
Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan Pavey
James Pessagno
John V. Peters
Cecil Quinn
Mr. and Mrs. John L. Russell
Butler D. Shaffer
Mrs. Katharine W. Spaulding
Leonard A. Talbot
Herman A. Tessmann
Joseph M. White, Jr.
Mrs. Louise Young

_________________

“Freedom and liberty always refer to interhuman relations. A man is free as far as he can live and get on without being at the mercy of arbitrary decisions on the part of other people.” —

Ludwig von Mises, “The Individual in Society”,
Essays on Liberty, 1952.

_________________

The Freedom School
NEWSLETTER

NAN CORBY
Editor

J. DOHN LEWIS
Director of Publications

Published on the 15th of each month.
Third class postage paid at Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Mailed to those interested in education for liberty.

Published by
Pine Tree Press
for The Freedom School, Inc.
Box 165
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Source: HenryHazlittarchives (Beta). Series>Henry Hazlitt Articles>LeFevere’s [sic] Journal 1964-1974.

Tags Friedman, LeFevre, Tullock, Watts

Chicago Funny Business

Chicago. Economics skit based on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Friedland, Niskanen, Oi. Ca. 1960-61

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-11-23

Future generations of economics graduate students and junior faculty, having been raised in a world of TikTok and able to bring the tools of sound and image processing to their media productions, will probably find the following sixty-some year old Chicago economics skit dull reading. Even the curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, a veteran of this art-form from M.I.T. in the mid-1970s [cf. Analysis in Wonderland, Wizard of E-52-383c, Casablank], finds this Chicago artifact in need of a major revise-and-resubmit. But we transcribe our artifacts as we find them, with minor editorial revisions to improve formatting, corrections for obvious misspellings, and annotations that have become necessary due to the passage of time. Material in square brackets (in italics) have been added to the transcription.

For those who wish to compare the skit with the text of Julius Caesar by Shakespeare.

_____________________

About the authors

Claire E. Friedland

1929. Born 20 November in New York City.
1951. B.A. Queens College, City University of New York. Phi Beta Kappa.
1955. M.A. University of Chicago.
1957-59. Statistical analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
1959-71. Research Economist, University of Chicago (research assistant to George Stigler).

See: Chicago’s Hidden Figure: A Chat with Claire Friedland on her Work with George Stigler. Promarket (website), November 22, 2017.

William A. Niskanen

1933. Born 13 March in Bend Oregon.
1954. A.B. Harvard University.
1955. M.A. University of Chicago.
1962. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: The Demand for Alcoholic Beverages.
1957-61. Defense policy analyst at RAND.
1962-64. Director of special studies in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
1964-70. Director of Program Analysis Division at the Institute for Defense Analyses.
1970-1972. Assistant director for evaluation of the Office of Management and Budget.
1972-75. Professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley.
1975-80. Chief economist of Ford Motor Company.
1980-81. Professor in the Graduate School of Management, UCLA
1981-85. Member of the Council of Economic Advisers.
1985-2008. Chairman of the board of directors, Cato Institute.
2008-11. Chairman emeritus, Cato Institute.
2011. Died October 26 in Washington, D.C.

See: William A. Niskanen, A Life Well Lived (Cato Institute, 2012). Above screen-shot is from that memorial presentation.

Walter Yasuo Oi

1929. Born July 1 in Los Angeles, CA.
1952. B.S. UCLA.
1954. M.A. UCLA.
1958-62. Research Economist, Northwestern University.
1961. Ph.D. University of Chicago. Thesis: Labor as a Quasi-Fixed Factor of Production.
1962-67. University of Washington
1967-. Professor, Graduate School of Management, University of Rochester.
1993. Elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
1995. Named Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association.
2000. Received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.
2013. Died December 24 in Brighton, N.Y.

Image Source: University of California Los Angeles. Yearbook Southern Campus, 1952, p. 176.

_____________________

[Opening] Song to the tune of
“Jamaican Farewell“.

Prelims are done,

‘Tis a night for fun,

Don’t let worries

upset your equilibrium.

The faculty’s here,

They’re drinkin’ the beer,

The price of the liquor

For them is too dear.

On our play

We’ll soon raise up the curtain

You may judge it

true false or uncertain
[Note: a good chunk of the canonical prelim exam at Chicago featured questions having this format: example ]

Ficticious characters are in this scene

They bear no resemblance to Human bein’s.

Let the liquor flow

get on with the show,

Don’t let the faculty get out the door

They want to go home

to their little babes

To see if they’ve finished

with the prelim. grades.

_____________________

BRAVE OLD WORLD

A Tragic Comedy in Three Acts by the Adam Smithsonian Players.

by
Clare [sic] E. Friedland, William A. Niskanen,
& Walter Y. Oi

Cast of Characters:

Julius Freemarket [Milton Friedman]: Popular leader of Marshallia and Head of the Ministry of Money.

Capt. Marc Caganthony [Phillip Cagan]: Freemarket’s first lieutenant and pilot of the plane.

Llaius Mysticus: [The initials happen to match Lloyd Metzler. The double “Ll” is the give-away.] A soothsayer, and prophet of things to come.

Gregaryous Wrecker [Gary Becker]: A dope peddler.

A. Sovereign Consumer [Representative Graduate Student]: Exerciser of the right of free choice and beneficiary of the fruits of capitalism.

Carlos Cassius [Perhaps a reference to Carl F. Christ?]: Proprietor of the “Do it Yourself, Ph.D. Components” shop. A leading citizen of the community.

H. Greggo Brutus [H. Gregg Lewis]: Seller of Ph.D.’s New and Used, also a leading member of the business community.

G. Dale Jolly [D. Gale Johnson]: The Key Resource Person of the Ministry of Money.

Sancho Humbugger: Former brainchild of the Chicagocrats. [probably played by Marto A. Ballesteros, Chicago Ph.D. 1957].

Act I: Bliss

Narrator: The scene takes place in the brave old world of 1894 — or some permutation thereof.

If this scene seems utopian, a slight word of explanation may be in order.

In an attempt to conform to the justice and impartiality of the marketplace, a new electoral system has been inaugurated, according to which one dollar equals one vote. Thus, the Chicagocrats (with the aid of John D. [Rockefeller] & sundry other foundations) have become the majority party and a new regime has been established based upon the principle of free enterprise, in which Julius Freemarket has become the popular leader of the entire stationary state of Marshallia. All artificial market restrictions and evidences of paternalism, such as child labor laws, pure food and drug acts and compulsory sewage disposal, have been abolished; and in response to price incentives of the purest kind, we find many new industries flourishing in the marketplace.

The scene opens as we find Julius Freemarket, together with his trusted lieutenant Marc Caganthony, taking their morning constitutional — as all important people must — observing the well oiled functioning of the competitive mechanism.

_______________

Enter Freemarket and Caganthony

_______________

Free: Isn’t it wonderful that all is in static equilibrium?

Cagant: Yes, it certainly is.

Free: Except, of course, those things which are in moving equilibrium.

Cagant: Yes, of course.

_______________

Enter soothsayer, Llaius Mysticus

_______________

Llaius: Julius! Julius!

Free: Ha! Who calls? I hear a tongue shriller than all music calling “Julius!”. Speak, Freemarket is turned to hear.

_______________

Llaius comes up to Freemarket and tugs at sleeve.

_______________

Llaius: Beware the Ides of March.

_______________

Freemarket, turning to Caganthony

_______________

Free: What man is that?

Cagant: A soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.

Free: It is only Llaius Mysticus. He is a dreamer, a dreary prophet of gloom and doom. He has no empirical basis for his prophesies. Let us leave him and visit with Gregaryous Wrecker.

_______________

Enter Gregaryous Wrecker, singing “I’m an Old Dope Peddler”
[Tom Lehrer song (1953), Lyrics, Performance]
Upon completion of song, enter A. Sovereign Consumer (coded “Cons.”)

_______________

Cons.: (in hushed tone) Psst,…psst…hey buddy.

Free: Don’t be bashful young man. Just step right up there and tell the gentleman what you want. There’s nothing to be afraid of now. The dollar’s almighty.

Cons.: What’s today’s price on king-sized, filter tipped, Tiajuana marijuana?…Fresh ones.

Wreck: Current price is one dollar,… but March futures are fifty cents.

Cons.: Yeah? So high?

Wreck: Well, you see, the idea is this. We’ve got the phenonmener [sic] that the stuff has become a teenage fad, ever since the kids found out Alvis Regs-ley [Elvis Presley] is a user.

[Almost the same word “phenomener” appears in the Tom Lehrer song “Don’t Major in Physics”. Lyrics, Backstory.

…More often a king weds a commoner
Than a physicist makes a housewife,
For they only are versed in phenomener
⁠That have nothing to do with real life.

….

I like physics and my girl does not.
I tried showing her my apparatus,
But a blank smile was all that I got.
She asked me why I was in Physics,
⁠And advised me to transfer to Ec,
And whenever I tried to talk Physics,
All she wanted to do was to neck! ]

Cons.: You got anything cheaper?

Wreck: Well, advertised brands, like Tiajuana Marijuana sell for a few cents more than cheaper substitutes, but they’re worth it for the prestige.

Cons.: Prestige hell! I’ll have plenty of that when I get my Ph.D. Give me the cheap one.

_______________

Exit, Gregaryous Wrecker, as A. Sovereign Consumer moves from that booth to the booth of Carlos Cassius who is found on the telephone.

_______________

Cass.: “Do it Yourself, Ph.D. Components”, … Carlos Cassius speaking. Well, I’ve got simple and multiple regressions, higher r-squares are a bit more expensive. I’ve got a sale on permanent and transitory variables (in an aside to audience) I stole these out of Speedy Read’s [“speed reading” is implicit, one may suppose. The gendered pronoun makes it clear that Margaret Reid was being referred to] wastebasket when she wasn’t looking——— Oh! You’re at Haskell High. [Perhaps a reference to “Haskell Hall”?] Well then, I’ve got some spurious correlations here, ——— very cheap———I lose money on every one of these, but I make it up in the volume. … No, we can’t guaranty that you’ll pass your thesis seminar with these. (pause) Alright, thank you very much for calling. (turns to consumer). What can I do for you?

Cons.: Wow! I see you got a new jomping [sic] point. I’ll take it.

Cass.: Well, that ought to just about complete your set.

_______________

A. Sovereign Consumer moves away from Cassius’s desk to that of H. Greggo Brutus, who is found on the telephone.

_______________

Brutus: This is Greggo Brutus speaking … “Labor Exchange, Ph.D.’s new and used”.

Well, I’ve got a Ph.D. in physics for $2,000, and one in economics from Cambridge for $3,000. (pause) What? … you’ve got only $350? Well, the best I can do for you then, is a Masters degree in planning. (pause) Very fine, I’ll have Mrs. Jones send it out to you first thing in the morning.

(in an aside to audience) Great Jupiter! Here comes another one of those Israelis. Every time I sell one of them a degree, I begin to worry about my job. [Possibly a reference to Zvi Griliches (Ph.D., 1957)?]

(to consumer) Good morning.

Cons.: I want to buy a Chicago Ph.D.

Brutus: I have one here that I’m selling for a customer named Frank Fright, [Frank Knight] who’s decided to give it up and go into Hindu Philosophy. It’s a little old, but I can throw in his endowed chair, and 400 of his reprints, at a price that’s a bargain for the set.

Cons.: A tie in sale? You’re nothing but a reactionary. … a throwback to the old regime. (As he walks off) Heretic! Subversive! Thief!

Brutus: (reflectively) Could it be possible, that I, H. Greggo Brutus have been throwing sand into the wheels of the competitive machine? Perhaps, I have erred ——— yes he is right. Oh those Israelis, they see through everything.

Act II — Scene I

Props: table, chair, blackboard, sign: “Freemarket Watches You”.

From George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984, film version (1956)

Nar: So…, life in Marshallia goes merrily on its way.

Guided by the velvet glove of the invisible iron hand and watched by Freemarket’s careful eye, consumers happily go around computing their marginal utilities, and entrepreneurs are rocking happily in the cradle of competitive equilibrium.

Freemarket has preserved only one authority from the government of the decadent Past — the Ministry of Money. This Ministry is really quite harmless, as its activities are entirely financed out of the secular rate of growth of the money supply. As the only equipment of the Authority consists of a printing press and an airplane [by the end of the 1960s Friedman’s metaphor had morphed into one using helicopters], the costs are in any case quite meagre.

We now visit the Headquarters (and sole office) of the Ministry in a tower at Halfway Airport [“Midway” was the actual name of Chicago’s airport], to see Freemarket’s weekly meeting with his Key Resource Person, G. Dale Jolly, Time: Morning, March 1.

Free: Everything in equilibrium today as usual, Jolly?

Jolly: (Laughs) I have a catastrophe to report, sir.

Free: Catastrophe? Impossible! We’ve purged all the reactionary elements, smoothed all the frictions, removed all the controls, dissolved the rigidities, exiled all the labor organizers, and turned Harvard Yard [Note: the “competition” in Cambridge Mass was still Harvard and not M.I.T.] into a parking lot.

Jolly: It’s the price index, Freemarket; remember, you told me never to take my eyes off the price index.

Free: Of course; this is the variable we chose to stabilize as a guide to our monetary policy. (aside) See my JPE article of 1951, reprinted in my Essays in Negative Economics [reference to Friedman’s “Essays in Positive Economics” (1953)], only $5.75, at the bookstore.

Jolly: See for yourself: The Multivac [a fictional supercomputer that was to appear in over a dozen Isaac Asimov science fiction stories] shows that wholesale prices have dropped 20 points in the last week.

Free: A random-transitory-stochastic type shock, no doubt. Nothing to worry about. What is the money supply, Jolly?

Jolly: (Laughing) I think I lost the series, sir. It was either lost or stolen; in this section of Chicago you can’t be sure which.

Free: You lost the whole series?

Jolly: Not all of it. Some of the data is…

Free: (Quickly) You mean “data are”

Jolly: Data is, are, (we didn’t use such fancy language down on the farm), not all missing.

Free: This poses a serious problem. Capt. Caganthony, what do the rules state for this situation?

Cagant: (typically thumbing through phone book) Rule 412, Section A2 states that 80,000 assorted $10, $20, and $50 bills be dropped in a Latin Square design [see the Wikipedia article, probably application in statistics] over each city of over one million population.

Jolly: (Leaving) I won’t rest until I find the lost money data, sir. (Exit)

Free: Marc, the loss of that money series is quite serious, but I trust Jolly.

Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep of nights,
Blond Cassius, for example, has a lean and hungry look.
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

Cagant: Fear Cassius not, Freemarket, he’s not dangerous.

Free: Would he were fatter.

Such men as he be never at hear’ts [sic] ease
While they behold models better than their own.

Cagant: But the rules, the rules!

Free: Oh yes, the rules. Your watch should read 0800, Capt. Caganthony. Release the money over Chicago at exactly 0900 hours and over the other specified cities at subsequent 3-hour intervals.

Cagant: Roger, and off. (Exits, runs askew, whirring like a plane.)

_______________

Sound effects: Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.

_______________

Act II — Scene 2

Props: Table, chair, candle lit on table.

Nar: Let your eyes now adjust to the darkness of a cellar at the home of H. Greggo Brutus. The time, the evening of March 14.

_______________

On stage, Brutus. Enter Cassius.

_______________

Brut: How now Cassius. How goes the night?

Cass: (Shaking money from his coat) Did I go thru a tempest dropping money? This disturbed sky is not to walk in. But worst of all, paper has risen so high in price, due to this mad money-printing that I am forced to run my correlations on the backs of twenty dollar bills.

Brut: This glut of currency is slowing the chariots on the streets. Jolly reports it is smothering the crops. Who knows what adverse expectations it may cause in the marketplace.

Cass: All was prosperous until the ministry of money was moved to action. And now prices fall all the more as each new planeload of manna falls. It is as though the fundamental equation might contain some fundamental flaw.

Brut: Speak not such heresy in my house Cassius. Freemarket is a true and noble Marshallian. Did he not refuse the title of Supreme Bureaucrat when it was offered him by Cagananthony? I am certain he will be swayed from this policy when Jolly finds the lost money series and he sees the extreme to which he has gone.

Cass: Why must he sit in his airport tower and wait upon the money series? Is the error of his ways not obvious to every Marshallian who but looks about him? Brutus, think not that Freemarket is above the weaknesses of ordinary men. Did I not swim with him in the Tiber the other day and see him nearly carried away by the foam? So it is with this new power with which he seems drunk. Has not our noble sage, Frank Fright [Knight], warned us that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely”? [Knight clearly was quoting Lord Acton (1889)]

Brut: There is truth in what you say. Freemarket promised us an economy free of all government interference. (Did he not condemn Adam Smith for suggesting that a state might build roads and schools and provide for the common defense?) Yet he insisted on this one ministry which would harmlessly follow a set of prescribed rules. And now he blindly follows his model and his rules, we know not where. Perhaps he has started us on the dreaded Road to Serfdom. [Homage à Hayek (1944)]

Cass: Then you are with us Brutus. I have moved already some of the noblest-minded Marshallians to undergo with me a plan. But there is none among us who is schooled in planning anymore.

Brut: Wait? …approach Sancho Humbugger, the brain-child of the Chicagocrats before Freemarket’s victory! He was suspected of deviationist tendencies and exiled to some southern outpost.

_______________

Enter Sancho, to Latin tune, wearing a huge sombrero and serape.

_______________

Sanche: Ole! (with wide sweep of hand)

Cass: Sancho! You’ve been away too long. Was it hot down there?

San: No, Chile.

Brut: Time enough later for such nonsense. Sancho, how do you happen to be in Marshallia?

San: Well, I was on this luxury airliner, see, when I starts up a conversation with this dame sitting next to me see. It seems she’s a white sox fan like me, see. (She wuz wit some slob who just made a killing selling cheap paper to the Marshallian Ministry of Money.) And she tells me how going from Professor to Bureaucrat was too much for Freemarket, and so he’s dropping this dough like mad. So I thought I’d take a hop to Marshallia and see if I could do something to help maybe.

Cass: Sancho, you must construct a plan for us to restore the price index to its former level, by any devious means, even (ugh?) Public Works, so as to stop the exercise of Freemarket’s excessive power with (Stage whisper) countervailing power.
[Clear reference to Galbraith’s American Capitalism: The Theory of Countervailing power (1952)]
Our whole way of life rests on your shoulders, Sancho.

San: You need a plan eh? I get the picture. Let’s see now.
(Paces nervously, mumbling, grabs for pencil & paper, scribbles furiously.)
I’ve got it! This is our action! We’re home!

_______________

All join in huddle.

_______________

Brut: (emerging) Do so; and let no man abide this deed but we the doers.

Act II — Scene III

Props: telephone, table, chair, sign (askew)

Nar: More men than these are disturbed on this troubled eve.

Free: (Alone, tired, slowly walking the room.)

Nor heaven, nor earth have been at peace tonight. That phone has screamed at each hour of the clock. (phone rings)
Jolly? What? The second derivative of prices is now falling? Oh, well, I’ll merely follow rule 205 next. Go bid the Multivac do present calculate and bring me its clanking opinion of success.
(picks up phone again.)
Capto Caganthony? He’s asleep? (With amazement and anger.) Give him this urgent message: “Another plane.” No, that’s all. He’ll know what to do.

Act III — Scene I

Props: Desk, chair, sign, blackboard.

Nar: The ides of March are come…but not gone. And, as we shall see, the events of the early day are false portent of the fate which for Freemarket lay.

_______________

Freemarket sits at desk, chin in hands, brooding.
Capt. Caganthony is at stage left and rear. Enter Jolly, whistling “Whistle as you work”. [From the Disney Film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” (1937)]

_______________

Jolly: Tra, la, la, la, la, la, la (Whistles again.)

Free: Jolly, this is no time for glee; look, now my hair has started to fall out. [merely gratuitous bald-shaming of Friedman]

Jolly: (Laughing) But I’ve found it! Under my tractor seat cushion!

Free: My hair?

Jolly: No, that’s been gone too long. I found the lost money data.

Free: Thank Jupiter. Oh, Jolly, I could kiss you. Now all our troubles are over. Did you hear that, Marc, he’s found it. I knew I could trust you, Jolly.

Cagant: Now all our troubles are over. (In a monotone)

Free: (To Jolly) Tell me, did you put the data through the Multivac?

Jolly: Yes I did. But there are some strange results. (Laughing) Prices are still falling in all the cities on which money was dropped. But there has been a phenomenal reflation in the backward river valleys of the South and West.

Free: Are you certain?

Jolly: Yes, if my assumptions are true.

Free: That’s irrelevant. Just the facts, Jolly, just the facts. [Probably an indirect homage à Sgt. Joe Friday from the then popular radio/TV series Dragnet]

Jolly: (Laughing) Of course, Freemarket, Just the facts. There are disturbing signs that the permanent component of the income of farm laborers has increased substantially.

Free: Impossible, my book is not published yet. Those cotton pickers will be buying Ph.D.’s next. (To Cagant) Marc, are you sure you dropped the money only in large metropolitan areas?

Cagant: (Monotone) Your instructions were carried out explicitly, so help me Mints. [Friedman’s old Chicago teacher in money matters, Lloyd Mints]

Free: (To himself, disturbed) The money must have been dropped in the wrong place. Marc, when was your last eye check?

Cagant: Why, when I worked for the National Bureau.

Free: That explains it, they hire anybody. Come, Marc, sit here.

_______________

Cagant is blindfolded, turned away from blackboard toward audience.

_______________

Free: Now, as I write these symbols on the board, read them back to me. [as if reading a chart in an eye examination]

Cagant: Delta, Gamma, Beta, Alpha (Freemarket smiles), X, G, M=KPZ. (Freemarket actually writes M=KPY)

Free: Z? (Angrily) Not Z…Y!

Cagant: Why? [punning on “Y” and “Why” sounding alike] I don’t know. I saw Z as in Z. I said, Zed. [perhaps just a silly rhyme “said”/“Zed”]

Free: (Calmly) Don’t repeat yourself, Marc. Let’s go over this last line again.

Cagant: M= KPZ

Free: Now, Marc, you don’t really want to go back to the National Bureau, do you? You know what these symbols are.

Cagant: You look at Y, I look at Z. Utility preferences differ, you know.

Free: (In a rage) This is a matter of doctrine, not of consumer choice!

Cagant: (Angrily) Under the new free-market system, this is a matter to be settled in the market place, not by a government decree.

_______________

Cagan [sic] stalks out agrily.

_______________

Free: (Upset) Jolly, the fundamental Truth of the Fundamental Equation has been questioned Call the Chamber of Chaos into session — I need reassurance.

Jolly: Stand firm, Freemarket these men are fallible; (in a shocked tone) they could even utter a non-sequitur! (Exit)

_______________

Enter Cassius, Brutus, and Humbugger

_______________

All except Free: Hail, Freemarket, Hail. You called for us?

Free: Yes, come in, Cassius, come in, noble Brutus. Ah, worthy Humbugger is with you. Good. Let me put our problem in my own terms.

Sancho: (Aside to Cassius and Brutus) Our cause is dead if he does.

Cass: (Quickly) No, glorious Freemarket, we know the problem and we know its cause. Pray hear friend Sancho speak for us.

San: Witness, noble Freemarket, how, with these quick strokes, if

(Writing on blackboard, allowing audience to see)

I = I*
G = G*
C = a + bY
and
Y = C+ I + G
then we’re home!

Free: Great Jupiter, is this the Keynes’ mutiny [punning Herman Wouk’s novel The Caine Mutiny (1952)]? This is heresy!

San: Heresy or no,

We have this to show,
Prices still fall in Chicago.
But in the West and South, on my advice,
Migrant workers have picked up quite a slice
Of permanent income; the rest don’t rhyme so nice.

Free: (Sharply) Doesn’t rhyme as nicely. Your grammar is abominable, Sancho.

San: By organizing unions to boost their wages,

By building dams to water their crops,
Income increased first by stages,
And then by leaps, and bounds, and hops.

Free: (in fury) Damn! Damn! Damn!

San: Yes Freemarket.

It is Dams we built this day.
And thru these public works disaster did allay.

Free: I must warn thee, Sancho.

These symbols and your reasoning
Might fire the blood of ordinary men,
And turn pre-ordinance and first decree
into the law of children.

(Sternly)

Thy model, and thyself, by decree, are banished.
Know all, Freemarket doth not wrong, nor
without cause will he be satisfied.

Cass: I, Cassius, do beg enfranchisement of Sancho’s model.

Free:

I could be well moved if I were as you.
If I could pray to move, prayers would move me.
But I am as constant as velocity

(Becoming emotional)

Of whose true fixed and resting quality
There is no variable in the literature.
Cassius, stand you with Humbugger?

_______________

Cassius walks in front of Freemarket to stand beside Sancho, and remains silent.

_______________

Free: (Disturbed)

Good Brutus, when all is said and done
Stand you with models with equations four,
Or with the Fundamental One?

_______________

Brutus silently joins Cassius and Sancho.

_______________

Et tu, Brute! Then die, Freemarket, die!

_______________

Freemarket clutches at sign, pulls it down, and collapses on table.
The whole cast gathers around the table on which Freemarket lies, as an audience for the following speech:

_______________

Cagant:

Friends, Marshallians, Chicagocrats, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Freemarket, not to praise him.
The models that men build live after them,
Their meaning oft interred in their books.
So let it be with Freemarket.

All (including MAB): [almost certainly, Marto A. Ballesteros]

How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted o’er
In states unborn and accents yet unknown.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 129, Folder “Faculty skits, ca. 1960s.

Image Sources: The Tusculum portrait, possibly the only surviving sculpture of Caesar made during his lifetime, now housed at the Archaeological Museum in Turin, Italy.
Milton Friedman portrait: Hoover Institution.

_______________

Note on Marto A. Ballesteros identification for “MAB”

Fellow 1957—Asst Prof. 1960 at the University of Chicago according to the 1969 AEA Directory of Members.

Publications

Argentine Agriculture, 1908-1954: A Study in Growth and Decline By Marto A. Ballesteros (University of Chicago, 1958). (PhD thesis)

Ballesteros, Marto A. Desarrollo agrícola chileno, 1910-1955. Santiago: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Sociales,1965. p. 7-40.

Newspaper Accounts

The Peninsula Times Tribune (13 Sep 1957). Marriage to Jill Sidnell Geer of Los Altos. Off to Chile to live for one year. His parents are from Madrid, his undergraduate studies were at the University of Madrid, MA and PhD at the University of Chicago. Just received his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago, Junior fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for a year 1956-57.

The Galion Inquirer (23 Sep 1957) that “[Balesteros] will be doing research and teaching in economics at the Universidad Catolica de Chile, Centro De Investigaciones Economicas, Santiago, Chile, under sponsorship of the University of Chicago and the International Cooperation Administration of the U.S. Government”.

Miami Herald (8 Apr 1965), “Dr. Marto Ballesteros, chief of the Pan American Union’s public finance unit”.

Tags Friedland, Friedman, Niskanen, Oi

Economists NBER

NBER. Oral History Interviews with 8 researchers. Goldin, 2001-2003

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-10-11

The 2023 recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, Professor Claudia Goldin of Harvard University, has contributed to the history of modern economics through her series of eight interviews with senior economists whose careers have been intrically woven into the historical fabric of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In other news, Professor Goldin has been named to the Economics in the Rear-view Mirror’s “Economists Wearing Jewelry” Hall of Fame.

______________________

Interview with Claudia Goldin (2004)

Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, The Region (September 1, 2004). Interviewer: Douglas Clement, editor.

______________________

Oral History Interviews with Claudia Goldin

Gary Becker (August 5, 2003)

Richard Easterlin (March 15, 2002)

Milton Friedman (August 16, 2002)

Victor Fuchs (March 18, 2002)

Robert Lipsey (August 8, 2001)

Anna Schwartz (November 19, 2001)

Victor Zarnowitz (December 11, 2001)

Jacob Mincer (July 26, 2002)

Cf. History page of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Tags Becker, EasterlinR, Friedman, FuchsV, Goldin, LipseyRE, Mincer, Schwartz, Zarnowitz

Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. Final exam for Price Theory (B). Friedman. Winter quarter 1964

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2023-08-31

The spirit of Chicago’s boot-camp training in price theory with Milton Friedman as canonical drill instructor is captured in the examination transcribed below.

Trivial observation: Questions 9 through 11 are based on a fictional monopoly Gimcrack Company that appears to be a homage to the old song “Jim Crack Corn” (a.k.a. “Blue tail Fly”). One can imagine the American graduate students hearing the voice of the folk singer Burl Ives rendering the tune as they attempted to answer the questions.

* * * * * * * * * *

Some other exams for the second quarter of graduate price theory at Chicago from this period have been previously posted:

December 16, 1959 (Friedman); December 1960 (Friedman?); February 10/March 15, 1965 (Griliches); December 1965 (Telser)

___________________________

ECONOMICS 301
FINAL EXAM — Winter, 1964

M. Friedman
March 19, 1964

I. [25 Points] Indicate whether each of the following statements is true (T), false (F), or uncertain (U) and state briefly (on this paper) the reason for your answer.

The elasticity of a straight line demand curve varies from point to point.
In the long run, demand has no influence on the price of the product of a competitive industry that uses no specialized resources.
Marginal revenue is always greater than average revenue when average revenue is rising as quantity increases.

[4. and 5.] Assume that the government is going to purchase a predetermined quantity of rice for foreign relief and that it is considering making its purchases (a) directly from the growers of rice, or (b) through the regular dealer on the grain exchange. Assume also that there are no other governmental actions affecting rise growing or marketing.

The price to the domestic consumer of rice that remains will be higher in case (a) than in case (b).
The price received by the farmer for the rice that remains will be higher in case (a) than in case (b).

An “inferior” good is one such that a larger quantity is demanded at a high than at a low price.
If the quantity of Y increases and the quantity of X decreases in such a way as to keep total utility constant, then the rate of substitution of Y for X is independent of the quantity of X.
The income of the farmers raising corn increases when the price of corn rises. The rise in income is the “income effect of the rise in price.”

[9., 10., 11.] The Gimcrack Company is a monopoly, selling in two distinct markets. Transportation costs between the two markets can be neglected.

The company will always charge the same price for gimcracks in the two markets.
The company will sell such quantities in the two markets as will make the elasticities of demand the same in the two markets.
The company will sell such quantities in the two markets as will make marginal revenue the same in the two markets.

II. [25 Points] Fill in the blanks in the following questions.

Consider three demand curves for commodity X: A for given money income and other prices; B, for given apparent real income in Slutsky’s sense; C, for given real income in Hick’s sense. Let all three curves go through the point (p_o , x_o)
If X is a superior good, then for a price lower than p₀, the quantity demanded will be larger for_____ than for _____. (Insert A, B, C, in correct spaces.)
If X is an inferior good, then for a price lower than p₀, the quantity demanded will be larger for _____ than for _____.
Suppose p₀ = $5, X₀ = $20, the corresponding money income $1, 000, and the income elasticity of demand for X is 2. Suppose that at a price $4, the quantity demanded on curve A is 25. Then the income compensation required to pass from A to B is $_____ (be sure to indicate sign of change) and the quantity demanded on curve B is _____.
Blank is indifferent whether he wagers $1 at even-money that a coin he regards as fair will come up heads. He is eager to wager $1 against $3 (i.e., he pays $1 if he loses, receives $3 if he wins) that heads will come up twice in two successive throws of this coin. (He regards the throws as independent and so the chances of two successive heads as one in four.) Let the utility of his income if he loses $1 be 100; if he wins $1, 101. Then the utility to him of his present income can be taken to be _____ (insert a number); the utility to his present income plus $3 _____ (insert the most accurate statement the evidence permits).

III. [25 Points.] Find the mistakes (there are at least six) in the accompanying diagram showing long run and short run marginal and average cost curves for an individual firm, and explain the general principle corresponding to each particular mistake.

[NOTE: The answer to question III has been transcribed and posted with the Friedman’s December 16, 1959 exam for Economics 301.]

IV. [25 Points] Consider two alternative taxes imposed on a commodity: (a) a specific tax of T dollars per unit sold: (b) an ad valorem tax of t per cent of the price of the product.
Assume that the commodity is produced and sold under strictly competitive conditions and that the price inclusive of tax when the tax of T is imposed is P₀. (i) Prove graphically that an ad valorem tax of t – T/P₀will result in the same equilibrium price. (ii) Suppose a tax rate slightly greater than t – T/P₀ is imposed. Under what conditions, if any, is it certain that the revenue will increase? (iii) Decrease?
Assume alternatively that the commodity is produced and sold by a monopoly. Suppose that, when a specific tax of T is imposed, the monopolist chose to sell at a price (inclusive of tax) of P₁. Suppose now, an ad valorem tax of t – T/P₁ is imposed. (iv) Will the monopolist’s optimum price be P₁? If not, will it be higher? or lower? Prove your answer.

V. [20 Points] When someone offers a cigarette to pipe-puffing Surgeon General Luther Terry, he always grabs it. “Every one I accept I tear up,” he says. “That way there’s one less cigarette.” (Time, February 7, 1964).
Analyze the economics of the Surgeon General’s policy. In doing so, assume of course, that a substantial class of people with similar beliefs behave the same way, so the effect is at least potentially appreciable. Would it contribute to his objective of reducing smoking? If so, through what channels?

___________________________

PROBLEM
for
ECONOMICS 301
Winter Quarter, 1964

Analyze the business practice discussed in the accompanying excerpt from a Wall Street Journal story of December 4 1963.

Under what circumstances, if any would you expect such a practice to be in the self-interest of the participating companies? How would you suggest testing your explanation?

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 77. Folder: University of Chicago, Econ. 301.

Image Source: Detail from picture of Milton Friedman (November 1957) at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, pf1-06234, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Tags Friedman

Chicago Economists Funny Business

Chicago. The School of Chicago 1972 by Roger Vaughan (Ph.D. 1977). IDs by Gordon, McCloskey & Grossbard

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-07-31
8 Comments on Chicago. The School of Chicago 1972 by Roger Vaughan (Ph.D. 1977). IDs by Gordon, McCloskey & Grossbard

The 1500th artifact added to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror deserves to be a celebratory post for visitors. For this honor I have chosen a pastiche drawn by a Chicago economics graduate student in 1972. Roger Vaughan (Ph.D. 1977) was the principal, if not only, illustrator for the student-produced satirical publication P.H.A.R.T., an issue of which has been transcribed for an earlier post.

I first saw a copy of Roger Vaughan’s reworking of Raphael’s “School of Athens” added to a photo from a Tweet of a few years back. At that time it did not occur to me to engage in a serious search for the backstory to the drawing. And yet, serendipity turned out to be kind to me when, on a visit to the Harvard Archives last year, I stumbled upon a folded, mint-condition copy of Vaughan’s “The School of Chicago 1972” in the papers of Zvi Griliches. Of course I had this masterpiece of economics funny business copied and it now has pride of place in my home study.

A few identifications of the figures seen in “The School of Chicago 1972” are obvious (e.g. Milton Friedman and George Stigler, duh) and others could be identified from other Vaughan caricatures that likewise are found in Griliches’ papers (e.g. Marc Nerlove, Stan Fischer, and Robert J. Gordon). Still, most of the renderings remained unidentified. My first idea was to seek out the artist himself, but alas I could only confirm that he had passed in October 2021. The next idea was to seek a living eye-witness to the Chicago economics department of a half-century ago. Here I was luckier, the Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences at Northwestern University, Robert J. Gordon, responded to my inquiry almost immediately and as quickly forwarded my request for further information to Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Deirdre McCloskey, for her confirmation and further commentary. Following the initial posting of this artifact, Professor Shoshana Grossbard of San Diego State University spotted a few misspelled names (mea culpa), but, more importantly, was able to identify Margaret Reid by her beret(!).We can all be grateful to these colleagues for their identifications provided below. There remains one unidentified man in the back-row standing to George Stigler’s left plus a couple of yet-to-be identified graduate students. Peeps, Economic in the Rear-view Mirror needs your help! You can leave comments at the end of this post.

___________________________________

About the artist, Roger Vaughan

From his 1981 AEA Biographical Listing, p. 421

Vaughan, Roger J, 421 Hudson St., Apt. 406, New York, NY 10014. Birth Yr: 1946

Degrees: B.A., U. of Oxford, 1968; M.A., Simon Fraser U., 1970; Ph.D. U. of Chicago, 1977. Prin. Cur. Position: Dep.Dir., Off. Of Develop. Planning, State of New York, 1980-

Concurrent/Past Positions: Econ., Citibank, 1978-80; Econ. The Rand Corp. 1974-78. Research: Urban Policy, finance, taxation training.

Roger J. Vaughan’s Rand Reports,
1974-1980

• The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 1, Overview 1980
• Federal Activities in Urban Economic Development 1979
• Recent Contributions to the Urban Policy Debate 1979
• The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 4, Population and Residential Location 1979
• Assessment of Countercyclical Public Works and Public Service Employment Programs. 1978
• Regional Cycles and Employment Effects of Public Works Investments. 1977
• The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 2, Economic Development 1977
• The value of urban open space 1977
• The Economics of Urban Blight. 1976
• Getting People to Parks. 1976
• Public Works as a Countercyclical Device: A Review of the Issues 1976
• The Use of Subsidies in the Production of Cultural Services. 1976
• The Application of Economic Analysis to the Planning and Development of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. 1975
• The Economics of Expressway Noise Pollution Abatement. 1975
• The Economics of Recreation: A Survey. 1974

Source: Rand Reports. Published Research by Author, Roger J. Vaughan.

Sage. Research Methods.

Communicating Social Science Research to Policymakers
By: Roger J. Vaughan & Terry F. Buss
Published: 1998
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412983686

___________________________________

Raphael’s Scuola di Atene (1509-1511)

For some explanation of what we see in the original, cf. “The Story Behind Raphael’s Masterpiece ‘The School of Athens'” by Jessica Stewart at the Modern Met Website.

___________________________________

Roger Vaughan’s Pastiche

Open the image in a new window to see a larger image

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 129. Folder “Posters, ca. 1960s-1970s”.

Background

The statues standing in the upper alcove are of the President and Vice-President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon (holding a lyre, a sweet visual pun) and Spiro T. Agnew (with the pennant “Effete Snobs”, abridged from his description of self-characterized intellectuals as an “effete core of impudent snobs” in his “Generation Gap” speech given in New Orleans on October 19th, 1969.)

“1126” refers to the street address of the Social Science Research Building, 1126 E. 59th St.

“MV=PT” inscribed in the center of the dome is the Equation of Exchange (cf. Irving Fisher’s The Purchasing Power of Money). Cf. at the left of the back-row of Chicago economists, Arnold Zellner is carrying papers with “MV=PY“. Milton Friedman’s vanity license plates on his red cadillac used “MV=PQ” for the Equation of Exchange. Everyone seems to have agreed on the notational virtues of “M”, “V”, and “P”. Does anyone know whether there was any substantive reason for differences regarding the choice of “T”, “Y”, and “Q” for the final term?

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror comment: Though his arm is blocking part of the equation, Zellner is clearly displaying the equation of exchange, MV = PY.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “Underneath Nixon is Marc Nerlove pointing into the ear, by the way of insult, of Hans Theil the great Dutch econometrician (the four great econometricians at Chicago, which had included Zvi Griliches, who had just moved to Harvard, hated each other).”

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror comment: Robert J. Gordon served as an editor of the Journal of Political Economy (J.P.E.) from 1971-1973.

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror comment: Stigler’s position corresponds to that of Aristotle’s in Raphael’s fresco. There Aristotle holds a copy of his own Nicomachean Ethics. Stigler is seen here holding a book by [Adam] Smith, presumably Wealth of Nations.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “George Tolley [is] in a garbage can because he did urban economics (Vaughan was his student).”

Shoshana Grossbard’s comment: “[Margaret Reid]…not only [wore] the dark beret, but also [has] her hair in a bun, under the beret. that was her typical look. She and I attended Becker’s workshop in applications of economics in the years 1974-76.”

And guess what a casual search just turned up…

Margaret Gilpin Reid, professor emeritus of Home Economics and Economics

Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07052, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror’s comment: On the high-resolution hard-copy hanging on my study wall, the beret looks sort of like an ink blot and I regreted that imperfection. But now, thanks to Shoshana Grossbard’s careful observation combined with her memory of Reid’s “typical look” and an archival sighting of said beret, I am convinced and grateful that we now have another positive identification!

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “D. Gale Johnson…has a pitchfork because he was an agricultural economist. ”

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: Ted Schultz […] is pointing down to say “This is where the true Chicago School is, where I am!”.

Foreground

The identification of Robert F. Pollard was made by Roger Vaughan’s work and life partner, Anna Nechai.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “…Dick Zecher [is] sticking his finger through an IBM card because he was in charge of the Department’s mainframe computer access.”

Another visual pun: Harry Johnson is portrayed writing on a literal Edgeworth-Bowley-box, a two-dimensional representation of allocations that could be Pareto efficient exchange equilibria. The two tradeable goods are measured in Edgeworth and Bowley units, respectively.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “Mary Jean Bowman, one of two tenured women in a small department; she did educational and demographic economics. The other woman was Margaret Reid, the inventor of household economics…”

The triangle seen in the previous detail is Arnold Harberger’s measure of deadweight loss (efficiency cost resulting from a natural or policy induced distortion of markets). See Robert J. Gordon’s historical photo of Al Harberger stripping down to reveal himself as “Triangleman” ca. December 1970. In Raphael’s fresco Harberger’s place was that of Euclid.

Robert J. Gordon’s comment: “I think the bearded student is Dan Wisecarver”

Robert J. Gordon’s comment: “The woman holding the ball is Carolyn Mosby, the head of the department staff.”

Tags Becker, Bowman, Brock, Fogel, Friedman, Ghez, GordonRJ, Harberger, Hoselitz, JohnsonDG, JohnsonH, Kahan, LewisHG, McCloskey, PollardRF, SchultzTW, Sjaastad, Stigler, Telser, Theil, Tolley, Vaughan, Wisecarver, Zecher, Zellner

Chicago Policy Suggested Reading

Chicago. Governmental Price Fixing Reading List. Friedman, 1972

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-05-01

President Richard Nixon’s peacetime wage and price controls were less than a year old when Milton Friedman used the teachable moment to discuss “governmental price fixing” in a course of his at the University of Chicago.

______________________________

Spring, 1972

Economics 496
Selected Topics in Contemporary Economic Problems
Dr. M. Friedman

Reading List

General Note: The special topic that will be considered this semester is governmental price fixing. We shall examine three general categories of price fixing: fixing of prices of specific commodities or services; general price and wage controls; fixing of exchange rates. The basic theoretical tools required to analyze these problems have presumably been studied in courses in price theory, monetary theory, and income and employment theory but will be reviewed in class lectures. This reading list therefore covers mostly applied material.

I. Fixing of Specific Prices

HD1761 H6	Houthakker, Hendrik, Economics Policy for the Farm Sector, American Enterprise Institute, 1967
HD1761 P13	Paarlberg, Don, American Farm Policy, Wiley, 1964
HB171.5 A34 1967	Alchian, A. & Allen, W., University Economics, pp. 92-99, 402-404
HD4918 P47	Peterson, J. M. & Stewart, C T. Employment Effects of Minimum Wage Rate, American Enterprise Institute, 1969
HD4918 F74	Friedman, M. & Brozen, Y. The Minimum Wage Rate, Who Really Pays?
HC106.5 B83	Burns Arthur F., The Management of Prosperity, pp. 45-48

II. General Wage and Price Controls

	Campbell, Colin (ed.), Wage Price Controls in World War Il, U.S. and Germany, American Enterprise Institute
HB B24 H1	Ullman, I. & Flanagan, R. J. Wage-Restraints: Study of Incomes Policies in Western Europe, University of California Press, 1971
HC106.5 S435	Shultz, G. P. & Aliber, R. Z. (eds.), Guidelines, Informal Controls, and the Market Place, University of Chicago Press
HB236 A3 G3	Galbraith, J. K., A Theory of Price Control. Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1952
HB236 U5H35	Hardy, C. O., Wartime Control of Prices, Washington, Brookings Institute, 1940
	Wallis, W. A., How to Ration Consumers’ Goods and Control Their Prices, American Economic Review, Sept. 1942, pp. 501-512
	Gorter, W. & Hildebrand, G. H., “Is Price Control Really Necessary?” American Economic Review, March 1951, pp. 77-81

III. Control of Exchange Rates

HG3883 U7 F7	Friedman, M. & Roosa, R. L., The Balance of Payments: Free vs. Fixed Exchange Rates
HB33 F7	Friedman, M., “The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates,” Essays in Positive Economics, University of Chicago Press
HG538 F856	Friedman, M., Dollars and Deficits
HG3821 A66	Halm, G. (ed.), Approaches to Greater Flexibility of Exchange Rates, Princeton University Press, 1970

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 78, Folder 5 “University of Chicago, Econ. 496”.

Image Source: Milton Friedman (undated) from University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-06231, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Tags Friedman

Chicago Funny Business

Chicago. Economics Christmas Skit Material, 1969

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2021-11-27

While no date is given for the following two pages, we can be confident that the material was prepared and one presumes performed at the Chicago Economics Department Christmas Party of 1969. Photos from the December 1970 Christmas party have been posted by Robert J. Gordon–they do not correspond to the texts below.

The events of campus unrest at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard and San Francisco State referred to all took place 1968-69, so the earliest possible date for this skit would have been in December 1969.

I have added the “true” lyrics to the chosen tunes as well as links to videos with the corresponding melodies for readers who wish to try their luck in the privacy of their own offices. Replication probably requires a cocktail or two to establish the appropriate a-critical mood.

Your sober scribe was not particularly amused. OK, maybe the lighting, costuming, and orchestral arrangements were fantastic–hard to know. I pity though the poor future historians of present economics who will have to deal with audio and video evidence and not just the written record.

________________________

SONGS FOR SKIT

University of Chicago
Economics Department
Skit Song Lyrics

“The Merry Minuet
(They’re rioting in Africa…)
https://youtu.be/L8-BI89mb9A

They’re rioting at C’lumbia

La La La La La La La

They’re shooting up Cornell

La La La La La

They’re plowin’ up ole Harvard Yard

La La La La La La La

And Hiyakowa’s catching hell.

La La La La La

Academia is festering with strife and discord

The faculty hate students cause they’re paranoid

But we can be certain and brimming with cheer

That none of this nonsense will ever happen here.

They’re rioting in Africa
They’re starving in Spain
There’s hurricanes in Florida
And Texas needs rain
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans,
the Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs,
South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don’t like anybody very much
But we can be thankful and tranquil and proud
That Man’s been endowed with the mushroom shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lovely day
Some one will set the spark off and we will all be blown away
They’re rioting in Africa
There’s strife in Iran
What nature doesn’t do to us
Will be done by our fellow man!

University of Chicago
Economics Department
Skit Song Lyrics

Santa Claus is Coming to Town
https://youtu.be/HSmsq2iq4bQ

You’d better watch out
You’d better not strike
You’d better not riot
I’m (or We’re) telling you why
The National Guard is coming to town.
They know what you’ve been smoking
They know when you’ve been bad
They know when you’ve been sitting-in
So get out…do you understand!!
They’re making a list
And checking it twice
They’re going to find out
Whose [sic] Commie or nice
The National Guard is coming to town.

Oh! You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town
He sees you when you’re sleeping
He knows when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been bad or good
So be good for goodness sake!
He’s making a list
Checking it twice
Gonna find out
Who’s naughty or nice
Santa Claus is coming to town

University of Chicago
Economics Department
Skit Song Lyrics

On Top of Old Smokey
https://youtu.be/P51eCjKN2Kw

On top of a mountain
In central Vermont
Resides Milton Friedman
Of wisdom the fount.
The scene is idyllic
On that mountain peak
But here in Chicago
The outlook is bleak.
Since Telser to Belgium
Has decided to roam,
Just Zecher and Gorden [sic]
Are left here at home.
No thesis prospectus
Are we able to give
Faculty all neglect us
As their prerogative.
Heed our ultimatum
Before it’s too late
Move the MONEY workshop
To the Green Mountain State.

On top of old smokey
all covered with snow
I lost my true lover
for courting too slow
For courting’s a pleasure
and parting’s a grief
And a false hearted lover
is worse than a thief
For a thief will just rob you
and take all you save
But a false hearted lover
will lead you to the grave
And the grave will decay you
and turn you to dust
Not one girl in a hundred
a poor boy can trust
They’ll hug you and kiss you
and tell you more lies
Than cross lines on a railroad
or stars in the skies
So come all your maidens
and listen to me
Never place your affections
on a green willow tree
For the leaves they will wither
and the roots they will die
You’ll all be forsaken
and never know why.

University of Chicago
Economics Department
Skit Song Lyrics

Mickey Mouse Club Song
https://youtu.be/x4C_lUy58Rw

Who’s the leader of the club
That’s made for you and me
M-i-l-t-o-n Da Da Da Da De[e]
Uncle Miltie,
Uncle Miltie
Forever let us sing his praises high
[…high, high, high]
He’s the man with just one theory
When others must use two
M-i-l-t-o-n Da Da Da Da Do[o]
Milt the Stilt (Paul the Small)
Milt the Stilt (Paul the Small)
In our hearts we know which one is right […] [right, right, right]
Velocity is constant
The Phillips curve’s a fraud
M-i-l-t-o-n Da Da Da Da Da[w]
Money matters,
money matters
As long as prices
do not rise too fast.
What’s the purpose of the club
That’s made for you and I
U of C Ph.D. M-O-N-E-Y
Permanent Income,
Permanent income
It makes it all worthwhile, or so they[…]
[…]say. [say, say, say]
Rules and not discretion
And let me tell you why
M-I-L-T-O-N M-O-N-E-Y

Who’s the leader of the club
That’s made for you and me
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Hey! there, Hi! there, Ho! there
You’re as welcome as can be
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck)
Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck)
Forever let us hold our banner
High! High! High! High!
Come along and sing the song
And join the jamboree!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Mickey Mouse club
Mickey Mouse club
We’ll have fun
We’ll meet new faces
We’ll do things and
We’ll go places
We’re marching all around the world
Who’s the leader of the club
That’s made for you and me
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Hey! there, Hi! there, Ho! there
You’re as welcome as can be
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck)
Mickey Mouse! (Donald Duck)
Forever let us hold our banner
High! High! High! High!
Come along and sing a song
And join the jamboree!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E(yay Mickey)
(yay Mickey)
(yay Mickey Mouse Club!)

University of Chicago
Economics Department
Skit Song Lyric

O Tannenbaum (O Christmas Tree)

https://youtu.be/27JleM39TPY

Now that we’ve lost our faculties
To real world positions
We can observe to ascertain
What were their life ambitions
Lester Telser for his amusement
Investigated advertisement
So now we find him having fun
On the avenue called Madison.
Those who had taught development
Have left to form a settlement
With Harberger as President
An economist in residence
With [Larry] Sjastaad in an advisory task
They’re sure to find their golden path
And on their farms up with the sun
Are Teddy Schultz and Gale Johnson.
Bob Fogel has aspired to be
The president of the Santa Fee
Gregg Lewis we all should know
Leads the AFL and CIO
And Friedman’s gone up to Ely
To found his university
Big Harry with his knife so free
Now runs a toothpick factory.

[Handwritten addition:]

Uzawa + Mundell have gone to instigate at the Sorbonne
And [Erwin] Diewert is a lumberjack
Up near the straits of Mackinac

Geo. T who’s of urban fame [George S. Tolley]
Has taken over Lindsay’s game [NYC mayor]
And since there is no more faculty
We’ve all enrolled at MIT.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
How lovely are your branches!
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
How lovely are your branches!
Not only green in summer’s heat,
But also winter’s snow and sleet.
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
How lovely are your branches!
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
Of all the trees most lovely;
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
Of all the trees most lovely.
Each year you bring to us delight
With brightly shining Christmas light!
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
Of all the trees most lovely.
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
We learn from all your beauty;
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
We learn from all your beauty.

Your bright green leaves with festive cheer,
Give hope and strength throughout the year.
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas tree,
We learn from all your beauty.

Some dialogue:

Opening scene, faculty seated around a table, one member is reading a newspaper:

One faculty member: (reading newspaper, shakes head) The students are revolting!

(All concur)

Another member: But thank God—ah I mean Milton—that we’re at Chicago. Our students are well behaved, well ordered, normal, continuous and homothetic.

Another: (questioning) But how do you know about their sex lives?

(Pause for a few seconds, for all the uproarious laughter, then break into song—“They’re rioting at Columbia….” [See above].)

(After song, and during, students enter, their spokesman present list of demands to Stigler).

Student spokesman: We’ve come to present our nonnegotiable demand schedule for reform in the department.

(All faculty in shock and dismay)

We have decided to bring the free market economy into the university. Therefore:

(1) We demand that prelim grades be bought and sold freely—thereby bringing greater efficiency into the production of economists.

(2) We demand the immediate return of all industrial organization exams from the public enterprise post office.

And (3) We demand the removal of all artificial floors and ceilings in the Department.

Stigler: (unrolls list of demands and exclaims) Heck—we’re saved. Your demand schedule is upward sloping (a pause)

(turns sheet of paper to audience)

And therefore nonexistent.

(All faculty sigh in relief)

Source: Harvard University Archives, Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 129, Folder “Faculty skits, ca. 1960s”.

Tags Diewert, Fogel, Friedman, Harberger, JohnsonH, LewisG, Mundell, Sjastaad, Telser, Tolley, Uzawa, Zecher

Life, Career and Publications of John Gilbert Thompson

Adam Smith Essay for High School and Normal School Students Sponsored by Simonds Saw Mfg. Company, 1920

Award of 8th Simonds Prize (1930)

Long lag between changes in the interest rate and (inverse) changes in economic activity

Appraisal of Economic Forecasts

John G. Thompson, Discussion [emphasis added]

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS Officers of Instruction

Introductory

THE ECONOMICS RESEARCH CENTER

Projects and Staffs of Research Groups, 1955-56

FELLOWSHIPS, SCHOLARSHIPS, AND RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIPS

ADVANCED DEGREES

THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

SUMMER PROGRAM FOR COLLEGE TEACHERS OF ECONOMICS

Courses of Instruction

INTERMEDIATE COURSES

ADVANCED COURSES

To Our Readers…

Texas Biochemist Discusses “Equality

Tullock Tells of New Approach to Politico-Economic Study

Freedom School Growth Measured in Land, Construction, Students

F.S. CALENDAR [1964]

Hamowy Wins Oxford Grant

Phrontistery Under Way

Many Thanks

The Freedom School NEWSLETTER

About the authors

Claire E. Friedland

[Opening] Song to the tune of “Jamaican Farewell“.

BRAVE OLD WORLD

A Tragic Comedy in Three Acts by the Adam Smithsonian Players.

by Clare [sic] E. Friedland, William A. Niskanen, & Walter Y. Oi

Cast of Characters:

Act I: Bliss

Act II — Scene I

Act II — Scene 2

Act II — Scene III

Act III — Scene I

Note on Marto A. Ballesteros identification for “MAB”

Newspaper Accounts

Interview with Claudia Goldin (2004)

Oral History Interviews with Claudia Goldin

ECONOMICS 301 FINAL EXAM — Winter, 1964

PROBLEM for ECONOMICS 301 Winter Quarter, 1964

About the artist, Roger Vaughan

From his 1981 AEA Biographical Listing, p. 421

Roger J. Vaughan’s Rand Reports, 1974-1980

Sage. Research Methods.

Raphael’s Scuola di Atene (1509-1511)

Roger Vaughan’s Pastiche

Background

Foreground

Economics 496 Selected Topics in Contemporary Economic Problems Dr. M. Friedman

Reading List

SONGS FOR SKIT

Some dialogue:

Life, Career and Publications
of John Gilbert Thompson

Adam Smith Essay for High School and Normal School Students
Sponsored by
Simonds Saw Mfg. Company, 1920

John G. Thompson, Discussion
[emphasis added]

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
Officers of Instruction

FELLOWSHIPS, SCHOLARSHIPS,
AND RESEARCH ASSISTANTSHIPS

SUMMER PROGRAM
FOR COLLEGE TEACHERS OF ECONOMICS

Freedom School Growth Measured
in Land, Construction, Students

The Freedom School
NEWSLETTER

[Opening] Song to the tune of
“Jamaican Farewell“.

by
Clare [sic] E. Friedland, William A. Niskanen,
& Walter Y. Oi

ECONOMICS 301
FINAL EXAM — Winter, 1964

PROBLEM
for
ECONOMICS 301
Winter Quarter, 1964

Roger J. Vaughan’s Rand Reports,
1974-1980

Economics 496
Selected Topics in Contemporary Economic Problems
Dr. M. Friedman