Tag: Joan Robinson

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Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Summer School, Syllabus and Exams for Income Distribution. Bronfenbrenner, 1970

 

 

Try to imagine what a summer school student at Harvard might have thought in the summer of 1970 (scarcely a month after the Kent State University shootings) when confronted with the five page reading list in Martin Bronfenbrenner’s economics course on income distribution. Next jump down to the four page final exam and also imagine that summer student’s reaction.  Well, that was exactly a half-century ago and it was still a time when professors could get away with assigning mountains of reading followed by an examination demanding both comprehension and thought. Chapeau!

Worth noting:  Joan Robinson appeared in four of the seven exam questions. 

_______________________

Summer 1970

INCOME DISTRIBUTION—M. Bronfenbrenner

Text:    B.F. Haley and William Fellner (eds.), Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution.

Note:   Few will have time for even half the materials below. Students should concentrate where their interests are strongest, and/or where class presentation seems weakest.

  1. Introduction
    1. Theoretical

Clark, Distribution of Wealth, Ch. 1.

Galbraith, Affluent Society, Ch. 7.

Kuznets, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality,” AER, Mar. 55.
(Reprinted in Kuznets, Economic Growth and Structure.)

Klein, Introduction to Econometrics, Ch. 4.

M. Friedman, “Choice, Chance, and the Personal Distribution of Income,” JPE, Aug. 53.

Mincer, “Investment in Human Capital and Personal Income Distribution,” JPE, Aug. 58.

Weintraub, General Theory of the Price Level, Output, Income, and Growth, Ch. 3-4.

Solow, “Constancy of Relative Shares,” AER, Sept. 58, or Bronfenbrenner “Relative Shares and Elasticity of Substitution,” JPE, June 60.

    1. Statistical

Lydall, Structure of Earnings, Ch. 2-4.

Budd, Inequality and Poverty, pp. x-xxviii (Budd), Parts 2-3 (Solow, Goldsmith, Lampman, Projector and Weiss, Stigler, Meade).

Readings, 4 (Bowman) [“A Graphical Analysis of Personal Income Distribution in the United States”]

Kuznets, Shares of Upper Income Groups in Income and Saving, pp. xxvii-xli.

Lampman, “Recent Changes in Income Inequality,” AER, June 54.

Lebergott, “Factor Shares in the Long Run,” in NBER, Behavior of Income Shares, pp. 53-86, or Kravis, “Relative Income Shares in Fact and Theory,” AER, Dec. 59.

Phillips, “Labor Share and Wage Parity,” R.E.Stat., May 60.

  1. Maldistribution?
    1. General Ethical Issues

Budd, Part 1 (Meade and Hitch, de Jouvenel, Wallich, Tawney, Friedman)

Shaw, Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, Ch. 2-14, 20-23 (skim).

Lerner, Economics of Control, Ch. 3.

    1. General Economic Issues

Hobson, Evolution of Modern Capitalism, Ch. 11.

Durbin, Purchasing Power and Trade Depression, Ch. 1.

Bronfenbrenner, Yamane, and Lee, “Study in Redistribution and Consumption,” R.E.Stat., May 55.

Budd, Part 4 (Meade, Friedman, Simons, Pigou).

    1. American Poverty Program

Budd, Part 5 (Harrington, Miller, Ornati, Lampman, Johnson, Ad Hoc Committee on Triple Revolution, Friedman, Tobin)

R.D. Friedman, Poverty, Definition and Perspective, Ch. 2-3.

Green, Negative Taxes and the Poverty Problem, Ch. 4-6, 8.

Thurow, Poverty and Discrimination, Ch. 3-5, 9.

  1. Demand for Productive Inputs
    1. Marginal Productivity

Hicks, Theory of Wages, Ch. 1.

Ferguson, Neoclassical Theory of Production and Distribution, Ch. 4-6, 9, 12.2.

    1. Complications and Objections

Levinson, Unionism, Wage Trends, and Income Distribution, Ch. 1.

Dobb, Wages, pp. 81-92, Ch. 5.

Weintraub, Approach to the Theory of Income Distribution, Ch. 1.

Readings, 6 (Stigler [“Production and Distribution in the Short Run”]), 8 (Machlup [“On the Meaning of the Marginal Product”]) , 12 (Robertson [“Wage-Grumbles”]), 15 (Rolph [“The Discounted Marginal Productivity Doctrine”]).

The Lester-Machlup-Stigler Controversy: AER, Mar. 46 and Sept. 46, Mar. 47. (Reprinted in Clemence, Readings in Econ. Analysis).

Reder, “Marginal Productivity Reconsidered,” JPE, Oct. 47 (Reprinted in Clemence, Readings in Econ. Analysis.)

    1. Exploitation?

Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Ch. 21-26, or Pigou, pt. III, Ch. 14-19.

Rothschild, Theory of Wages, Ch. 7-8.

Readings 7 (Chamberlin [“Monopolistic Competition and the Productivity Theory of Distribution”]), 14 (Bloom [“A Reconsideration of the Theory of Exploitation”]).

Bronfenbrenner, “Potential Monopsony,” Ind. Labor Rel. Rev., Apr. 56.

    1. Impact of Innovations

Ferguson, Ch. 12.3, 16.

Readings, 9 (Robinson [“The Classification of Inventions”]), 10 (Lange [“A Note on Innovations”])

Stiglitz and Uzawa, Readings in Modern Theory of Economic Growth, 6 (Hicks [“From Theory of Wages”]), 9 (Fellner [“Two Propositions in the Theory of Induced Innovations”]), 10 (Kennedy [“Induced Bias in Innovation and the Theory of Distribution”]).

Seeber, “Classification of Inventions,” So. Ec. J., Apr. 62.

  1. Labor Supply

Rothschild, Ch. 3, or Stigler, Theory of Price (3rd), pp. 194-202.

Readings, 13 (Robbins [“On the Elasticity of Demand for Income in Terms of Effort”]).

Long, The Labor Force Under Changing Income and Employment, Ch. 1.

Break, “Income Taxes, Wage Rates, and Factor Services,” Natl. Tax J., Dec. 53.

  1. Collective Bargaining
    1. Theory and Evidence

Hicks, Ch. 7.

Readings, 19 (Dunlop [Wage Policies of Trade Unions]).

Ross, Trade Union Wage Policy, Ch. 2, 6.

Fellner, Competition Among the Few, Ch. 10.

Rees, Economics of Trade Unions, Ch. 4-5.

Lewis, Unionism and Relative Wages in U.S., Ch. 1, 4-6.

Bronfenbrenner, “Incidence of Collective Bargaining Once More,” So. Ec. J., Apr. 58. (Reprinted in Galenson and Lipset, Labor and Trade Unionism.)

    1. The Labor Monopoly Issue

Simons, Economic Policy for a Free Society, Ch. 6.

Lester, “The Labor Monopoly Issue,” JPE, Dec. 47.

Lindblom, Unions and Capitalism, Ch. 1-3, 14-18.

Lerner, Economics of Employment, Part IV, or Rothschild, Ch. 13.

    1. Wage Difference (Omitted in Class)

Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Bk. II, Ch. 14.

Dobb, Ch. 6.

Mills, White Collar, Ch. 6-7, or Harris, Market for College Graduates, Ch. 3, 3-a.

McCaffree, “Earnings Differential Between White Collar and Manual Occupations,” R.E.Stat., Feb. 53.

Burns, “Comparative Economic Position of Manual and White Collar Employees,” Journ. Of Bus., Oct. 54.

Reder, “Wage Differentials,” in NBER, Aspects of Labor Economics, pp. 257-99.

  1. Wages and Employment

Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Ch. 19.

Readings, 18 (Tarshis [“Changes in Real and Money Wages”]), 17 (Lerner [“The Relation of Wage Policies and Price Policies”]).

Slichter-Nathan Controversy: “Raising the Price of Labor as a Method of Increasing Employment,” R.E.Stat., Nov. 49.

Bronfenbrenner, “Contribution to Aggregative Theory of Wages,” JPE, Dec. 56.

  1. Theory of Interest
    1. Real Theories

Conard, Introduction to the Theory of Interest, Ch. 3, 4, 7.

Hirschleifer, “Theory of Optimal Investment Decision,” JPE, Aug. 58.

Knight, “Interest,” in Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, or, “Diminishing Returns from Investment,” JPE, Mar. 44.

Patinkin, Money, Interest, and Prices, Ch. 4.

    1. Monetary Theories

Readings, 22 (Keynes [“The Theory of the Rate of Interest”]), 23 (Robertson [“Mr. Keynes and the Rate of Interest”]), 24 (Hicks [“Mr. Keynes and the ‘Classics’; A Suggested Interpretation”]).

Harris, (Ed.), New Economics, 43-46 (Lerner).

Lange, “Rate of Interest and Optimum Propensity to Consume,” in AEA, Readings in Business Cycle Theory, 8.

Conard, Ch. 9-10.

Patinkin, Ch. 15.

    1. Rate Differences

Readings, 26 (Lutz [“The Structure of Interest Rates”])

Hicks, Value and Capital (2nd), pp. 144-52.

Conard, Ch. 17.

Kessel, “Cyclical Behavior of Term Structure of Interest Rates,” (NBER Occasional Paper 91), Ch. 1.

  1. Theory of Rent

Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy, Ch. 2.

George, Progress and Poverty, Bk. III, Ch. 2; also skim Books IV-VI.

Robertson, Lectures on Political Economy, Vol. ii, Ch. 3

Readings, 31 (Buchanan [“The Historical Approach to Rent and Price Theory”]).

Ferguson, Ch. 1.4.2, 2.2.1, 2.3.2, 3.4.3.

  1. Theory of Profit

Knight, Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, Ch. 1-2, 8-9.

Readings, 27 (Knight [“Profit”]), 29 (Gordon [“Enterprise, Profits, and the Modern Corporation”]), 30 (Crum [“Corporate Earnings on Invested Capital”]).

Weston, “Generalized Uncertainty Theory of Profit,” AER, Mar. 50.

Marchal, “New Theory of Profits,” AER, Sept. 51.

Bronfenbrenner, “Rehabilitation of Naïve Profit Theory,” So. Ec. J., Apr. 60 (Reprinted in Brait and Hochman, Readings in Microeconomics).

Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, Profits Hearings, Dec. 48. (Testimony of Slichter, Harris, Ruttenberg, Montgomery, and Nixon on definition and measurement).

  1. Aggregative Distribution Theories

Scitovsky, “Some Theories of Income Distribution,” in NBER, Behavior of Income Shares, pp. 15-31.

Davidson, Theories of Aggregate Income Distribution, Ch. 4-8.

Douglas, “Are There Laws of Production?” AER, Mar. 48. (Reprinted in Kelley edition of Douglas, Theory of Wages.)

Ferguson, Ch. 12.4-12.9, 15.

Readings, 11 (Kalecki [“The Distribution of the National Income”]), or Rothschild, Ch. 15.

Boulding, Reconstruction of Economics, Ch. 14.

Stiglitz and Uzawa, 21 (Kaldor [“Alternative Theories of Distribution”]) [Also in Kaldor, Essays in Value and Distribution, no. 10.], 22 (Robinson).

Reder, “Alternative Theories of Labor’s Share,” in Abramovitz, Allocation of Economic Resources.

Source:  Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archives. Papers of Martin Bronfenbrenner, Box 25, Folder “Micro-econ + Distribution, 1 of 2, 1966-71, n.d.”

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Economics S-222—Income Distribution
Summer 1970—M. Bronfenbrenner
Final Examination

In a (probably unsuccessful) attempt to make my own position clear on a number of controversial issues, I have perhaps understressed in class certain powerful statements of contrary positions.

For purposes of this examination, please consider any four of the quotations below. Indicate the portions of distribution theory to which they apply. Then comment upon them, indicating why they do (or do not) appear convincing.

  1. Technical conditions and the rate of profit determine the pattern of normal prices, including the price of labour-time in terms of each commodity; money-wage rates determine the corresponding money price level. But what determines the rate of profit?
    Marx closes his system sometimes (following Ricardo) by postulating a real-wage rate governed by the conventional standard of life (the value of labour-time) and sometimes by taking as given the share of net profit in the value of net output (the rate of exploitation). Marshall conceals the problem behind a smoke-screen of moral sentiments. The latter-day neoclassicals are for ever chasing definitions around a circular argument. Sraffa offers no observations on the subject. Von Neumann postulates a real-wage rate which is precisely specified in terms of particular quantities of particular commodities, but leaves us helpless when that assumption is relaxed. The question of what determines the rate of profit, when the real-wage rate is not to be taken as given, is a huge blank in traditional economic teaching.
    [Joan Robinson, Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth, p. 11]
  2. Even from the momentary market point of view, the Keynesian formulation tends to obscure unduly the parts played by Productivity and Thrift…While there are hints here and there of a broader treatment, in the main (Mr. Keynes’) plan is to set the rate of interest in a direct functional relation only with that part of the money stock which is held for what he calls “speculative reasons”, i.e., because it is expected that the rate of interest will subsequently rise. Thus the rate of interest is what it is because it is expected to become other than it is; if it is not expected to become other than it is, there is nothing left to tell us why it is what it is. The organ which secretes it has been amputated, and yet it somehow still exists—a grin without a cat. Mr. Plumptre of Toronto…has aptly compared the position of the lenders of money under this theory with that of an insurance company which charges its clients a premium, the only risk against which it insures them being the risk that its premium will be raised.
    [Dennis H. Robertson, “Mr. Keynes and the Rate of Interest” in Essays in Monetary Theory, 1940. Pages 35-36.]
  3. …

The price of pig
Is something big,
Because its corn, you’ll understand,
Is high-priced too;
Because it grew
Upon the high-priced farming land.

If you’d know why
That land is high,
Consider this: its price is big
Because it pays
Thereon to raise
The costly corn, the high-priced pig!

 [Herbert Joseph Davenport, The Economics of Enterprise, 1913. Pages 107-108]

  1. The level of money-wage rates obtaining at any particular moment is an historical accident. The absolute level of wages in terms of money affects nothing except the words and numbers in which money values are reckoned and the nominal value of the stock of currency. But changes in the level of money-wage rates have important effects upon the behavior of the economy in real terms.
    The causes of movements in money-wage rates are bound up with the competition of different groups of workers to maintain or improve their relative positions, and the consequences of changes in wage levels are most important in connection with the competition in international trade.
    The level of money-wage rates may be continuously rising simply because it is easier for each group of employers to give way to the demands of their workers and recoup themselves by raising prices than to incur the losses and unpleasantness involved in resisting them.
    [Joan Robinson, Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth, pp. 70-71]
  2. A distinction should be made between primary and secondary distribution of the national income.
    The national income first of all falls into the hands of the capitalists. Primary distribution of the national income consists on its being distributed between capitalists and workers. The workers receive wages, the capitalists surplus value, which is distributed among the industrialists, merchants, bankers, and big landed proprietors.
    After the national income has been distributed among the basic elements of capitalist society, a secondary distribution or redistribution takes place. We have seen that in the non-productive branches of the economy (medical institutions, public services, entertainments, etc.) no national income is created. But the capitalists who control these enterprizes and institutions pay salaries to their employees, cover the cost of maintaining premises, and in addition make a profit. The capitalists cover all these items of expenditure out of the national income created in the sphere of material production by charging for the services provided. These payments produce an average profit for the capitalists in the non-productive sphere. Part of the income of the working people is (also) redistributed through the state budget in the interests of the ruling class. The bourgeois state has its army, police, penal institutions and courts, administrative apparatus and so on. All are maintained out of the state budget, taxes levied upon the population being its main source of revenue. After working people have received wages through the primary distribution on the national income, they have to pay taxes out of them. In this way, the part of the national income put at the disposal of the working people is reduced. (Capitalists, too, pay taxes. But part is returned in the form of extremely high payment for supplies and service to the government. Another part is spent in the upkeep of the state apparatus, army and so on, the chief purpose of which is to defend the interests of these same capitalists.)
    This is why not only the distribution, but also the redistribution of the national income in bourgeois society is effected in the interests of the exploiting classes.
    [P. Nikitin, Fundamentals of Political Economy, trans. Violet Dutt and Murad Saifulin (probably 1966), pp. 133-135 quoted by Martin Bronfenbrenner in Income Distribution Theory, Chapter 2, footnote 12. Cf: 1983 Translation of a later edition by Jane Syer, pp. 151-152.]
  3. The neo-classical model is most at its ease in a stationary state. The amount of capital that capitalists are willing to maintain in being (neither saving nor dissaving) is a function of the rate of interest, or, alternatively, there is one rate of interest at which net saving is zero. The physical stock of capital and the real-wage rate are such as to have brought the rate of profit into equality with the rate of interest. There is then one value of the stock of capital that yields the rate of return (with a given labor force fully employed) which will cause it to be maintained. This is the value of capital that satisfies the conditions of the stationary state.
    When it leaves the stationary state, the neo-classical model is all at sea. With any given value of capital in existence, the amount of saving that the capitalists wish to do to increase it depends upon the rate of interest, which must be equal to the rate of profit, but how can we tell what the rate of profit is till we know the rate of accumulation?
    It is an illusion to suppose that “the marginal productivity of capital” provides an independent determinant of the rate of interest. A “quantity of capital” in terms of value has no meaning in terms of physical productivity until the prices of its physical components are known, and this involves the rate of profit. A “quantity of capital” in terms of a list of physical capital goods appropriate to various kinds of output, if they are taken to be fully utilized, entails the output of investment goods, and so the rate of accumulation, independently of the rate of profit that is supposed to determine it. If they are not necessarily fully utilized, then we have to know the current rate of investment to find out the state of effective demand and current profits. Whatever we do, we are one equation short.
    The reason why the model works all right in the stationary state has nothing to do with its stationariness. It works because the rate of accumulation—zero—is specified. With any specified rate of accumulation, the function connecting saving with the rate of profit determines the position, for it shows what the rate of profit and the value of capital must be to make saving equal to investment at full employment.
    [Joan Robinson, Essays in the Theory of Economic Growth, pp. 81-82]
  4. The theory of the distribution of the product of industry between wages and profits which is knocking about in current economic teaching consists of a number of propositions, each of which is quite unexceptionable in itself, but none of which bears any relation to the rest…The proposition that the share of profits in income is a function of the ratio of investment to income is perfectly correct, but capacity and the degree of monopoly have to be brought in to determine what income it is that profits are a share of, and investment is related to.
    [Joan Robinson, Collected Economic Papers, II, p. 145]

L’ENVOI

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head.

(Alexander Pope)

 Source: Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archives. Papers of Martin Bronfenbrenner, Box 24, Folder “Exams. Micro-econ + distribution. 2 of 2, 1954-66, n.d.”

Image Source: Martin Bronfenbrenner. University of Minnesota Archives/Libraries/Umedia.

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Cambridge Chicago Teaching

Chicago. Harry Johnson’s observations and reflections on teaching, 1969

 

The transcribed letter below was written by Professor Harry G. Johnson to (then) graduate student Michael Mussa whose proposal for student evaluations of graduate courses at the economics department of the University of Chicago met with hostile reception. It is always a genuinely nice gesture for a senior professor to take time and effort to recognize a student initiative and this letter is a model of such a response. I presume the copy of this letter I found in Milton Friedman’s papers had been shared by Johnson with his colleagues.

Johnson first reflects on the nature of teaching in a leading graduate institution, concluding on the one hand that some bad teaching will be inevitable but that even the worst teachers could improve their (literal) performances. He then illustrates with his own course (the third of the three quarter sequence in Price Theory) followed by three examples from his own Cambridge training: D. H. Robertson, Maurice Dobbs, and Joan Robinson. 

Pro-tip: the snap-shot of Harry Johnson comes from Robert J. Gordon’s very own personal collection “Photos of Economists”.

Johnson mentioned that Joan Robinson refused to hand out reading lists for her courses. For a rare Joan Robinson reading list: from Williams College 1982.

_________________

From a Photocopy of a letter from Harry Johnson to Michael Mussa

May 28, 1969

Michael Mussa:

I’ve been reading the reports of the faculty-student advisory committee, in which your proposal for student evaluations of courses seem to have fared rather badly. Personally, I am more favorable to the idea than my colleagues seem to have been.

There are of course plenty of problems in defining the function of such evaluations; and at least in a place like Chicago teaching competence can’t be given much weight (a) because a large part of staff work is guiding Ph.D.s and conducting the workshops—i.e. research rather than teaching oriented; (b) because our courses ought to be not only teaching the accepted structure of knowledge, but exposing students to the frontiers of the subject, and this kind of material is often difficult to teach; (c) our competitive position as a leading world graduate school, which among other things determines the quality of the students we get and therefore the “externalities” our students obtain from each other, ultimately depends on the published scientific contributions of our faculty and not on their capacity to teach a particular course well at a particular time.

On the other hand, I do not share the view of some of my colleagues—both here and even more in England—that teaching performance is an absolutely fixed characteristic of the individual that cannot be altered by care and study on his part. Consequently I think that student evaluations can be useful to both the individual teacher and his colleagues, as guides to where some investment in improvement could usefully be undertaken.

One obvious point, with respect to which I benefitted from last year’s evaluation, is the course reading list. As a result of that evaluation, I took off the 302 reading list an article by Champernowne, the approach of which I wanted represented in the course, but which students considered too difficult for what they got out of it; instead, I now present the approach in very simple form. I also took off a number of readings on the poverty problem which were significant when the war on poverty started, but which now appear to have little substantive content. I now link the poverty material more closely to the general theme of the course.

I think that student evaluation of the reading list can be very valuable in indicating what readings are really useful and what are either too hard or too easy for the level of the course. An even more important function, which would be harder to devise, would be for students to suggest from their own current and previous reading of the journals and textbooks better sources for the main parts of the course. The literature is tremendous, and there is no easy way of searching it for the most useful contributions.

As to the teaching itself, it seems to me that there are two separate problems, each of them susceptible of solution by rational investment by the individual teacher. The first is organization of the material; this includes reading list and course organization, organization of the individual lecture and supplementation of the lecture by appropriate hand-outs of crucial data or pieces of analysis. The Chicago course-load is fairly light by most universities’ standards, and the purpose of the lecture I teaching rather than public virtuoso performance. There is little reason why a person who knows or is told that he is disorganized and confusing while on his feet in front of a class should not provide his students with the insurance of a paper version of what he meant to tell them. The second problem is that of personality. A teacher has to understand that in the classroom he is playing a role, which does not have to define or exhaust the full scope of his private personality; and he has to forego the tricks that people use in private conversation to defend themselves and preserve what they think is the respect of others. Specifically, it is not helpful to students to be exposed to an account of all the mental confusion that accompanied the first discovery of a new truth (especially if the truth itself never emerges). Nor does it help for a lecturer to use two methods of disguising uncertainty or insufficient thought in private conversation: (1) vehement assertion of a conclusion without adequate supporting argument; (2) dropping the voice just as the crucial point is reached, so that the audience doesn’t really hear what is being said (Margaret Reid picked me up on this trick when I first came to Chicago).

It seems to me that lecturers have a lot to learn from the acting profession in this respect: even if the lines are lousy, they deliver them with conviction. It also seems to me that student evaluations would help to tell lecturers that, however good the message they thought they were putting across, it was being scrambled in transmission and wasn’t reaching the students.

I would not pretend that everybody can be a good lecturer. All I claim is that most people could do better than they do, by recognizing their weaknesses and trying to correct them. Even so, you could well not get very good lectures.

I remember when I was a student at Cambridge, England. D.H. Robertson was Professor; he had had a lot of acting experience in his youth. He wrote every word of his lectures, and rewrote them every year. He delivered them well, but you had to listen hard and know a lot already to get the points. Yet he would never answer any questions from class; once a year, in the second-last lecture, he would ask the class for written questions; in the last lecture, he would read us his written answers to the written questions. Maurice Dobb, who was my supervisor and whose lectures I attended religiously out of a youthful enthusiasm for left-wing causes, also wrote every word of his lectures on socialist planning, and they were beautifully logical and well-organized constructions; but he read them in a flat monotone that rapidly depressed the audience, with the result that the beachhead of communism he established in Cambridge never got occupied by troops prepared to push on to a major assault on capitalism. Joan Robinson, on the other hand, always claimed she lectured as the spirit moved her, and refused to give out either a reading list or reference (apart from insulting remarks about D.K. Robertson, and favorable references to Keynes and Kalecki). In fact she said the same thing every year; but the students always got excited because to them it came as something new.

In my judgment, Robertson could have learned to answer the questions he could answer, and ask for time to consider the others; Dobb could have learned to modulate his voice to emphasize the difference between major points and supporting arguments; and Robinson could have been persuaded by student demands to produce a reading list. But it is quite likely that none of them would have changed their ways; and I doubt that Cambridge would have been well advised to fire them if they hadn’t.

Yours sincerely,
[signed]
Harry G. Johnson
Department of Economics

HGJ/sf

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman. Box 194, Folder “194.4 Economics Dept. A-G”.

Image Source:  Harry Johnson. Photo by Robert J. Gordon, Summer 1970 or 1971.

 

Categories
Economists Exam Questions Suggested Reading Syllabus Williams

Williams College. Joan Robinson’s (last) course reading list, 1982

After a glorious three week archive/library tour that has taken me from the Library of Congress in Washington to the Harvard Archives to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library to the Johns Hopkins Archives and back to the Library of Congress, I have time before my flight back to Berlin for a post.

Less than a year before her death, Joan Robinson taught at Williams College in the Autumn/Winter of 1982. Her lectures at Williams were attended by a former colleague of mine from the University of Houston, Dr. D. Andrew Austin, now at the Library of Congress. Andrew shared with me the reading list for her lectures “Problems in Economic Analysis” along with a list of questions for a paper/take-home (exam).

Robinson’s chosen readings are taken from her books:

  • Economic Heresies: Some Old-fashioned Questions in Economic Theory. London: Macmillan, 1971.
  • Contributions to Modern Economics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978.
  • Aspects of Development and Underdevelopment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
  • Collected Economic Papers (5 vols.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1951-79; reprinted by MIT Press in 1980.
  • What are the Questions? An Other Essays: Further Contributions to Modern Economics. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1981.

_________________________

 

Professor Joan Robinson

PROBLEMS IN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
[Williams College, 1982]

OUTLINE OF TOPICS AND REFERENCES

  1. Economics: Ideas and Ideology
    “Marx, Marshall, and Keynes” (Contributions to Modern Economics, Ch. 7)
    “Economics Today” (Collected Economic Papers, Vol. 4, p. 122-127)
    “The Second Crisis of Economic Theory” (Collected Papers, 4, Ch. 10)
  2. What are the Questions?
    “What are the Questions?” (Further Contributions, Ch. 1)
    “The Age of Growth” (Further Contributions, Ch. 2)
    “Stagflation” (Further Contributions, Ch. 3)
  3. and 4. Effective Demand and Employment
    “Prices and Money” (Economic Heresies, Ch. 6)
    “Obstacles to Full Employment” (Contributions, Ch. 3)
    “The Rate of Interest” (Contributions, Ch. 5)
  4. Prices
    “The Philosophy of Prices” (Contributions, Ch. 14)
    “Imperfect Competition Revisited” (Contributions, Ch. 15)
    “The Theory of Value Reconsidered” (Contributions, Ch. 16)
    “The Theory of the Firm” (Economic Heresies, Ch. 7)
  5. Capital, Distribution, and Growth
    “The Meaning of Capital” (Contributions, Ch. 11)
    “Marginal Productivity” (Collected Papers, Vol. 4, Ch. 14)
    “Interest and Profit” (Economic Heresies, Ch. 3)
    “Surplus and Accumulation” (Aspects of Development & Underdevelopment, Ch. 2)
  6. International Trade
    “Beggar-My-Neighbour Remedies for Unemployment” (Contributions, Ch. 17)
    “The New Mercantilism” (Contributions, Ch. 18)
    “Trade in Primary Commodities” (Aspects of Development, Ch. 4)
  7. Economic Development
    “The Poverty of Nations” (Collected Papers, Vol. 4, Ch. 11)
    Aspects of Development and Underdevelopment
  8. Capitalism and Socialism
    “Latter-Day Capitalism” (Contributions, Ch. 21)
    “Has Capitalism Changed” (Contributions, Ch. 20)
    “Socialist Affluence” (Contributions, Ch. 22)

 

Econ. 353 Paper/Take Home
Professor Joan Robinson

Do the following three questions:

  1. Experience in the 1980s seems to be fulfilling Kalecki’s prediction of a political trade cycle. Comment.
  2. a) Explain Keynes’ theory of employment.
    b) Keynes failed to make clear whether this theory was intended to apply to a closed or open economy. Does it matter? Why or why not?
  3. What is the meaning of capital as a factor of production?

 

Choose one of the following two questions:

  1. The orthodox doctrines of economics which were dominant in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had a clear message. They supported laisser faire, free trade, the gold standard, and the universally advantageous effects of the pursuit of profit by competitive private enterprise. This was acceptable to the authorities in an expanding and flourishing capitalist world, especially to the authorities in England, which was still felt to be the dominant center and chief beneficiary of the system. Comment.
  2. The so-called Quantity Theory of Money consists in mistaking a symptom for a cause. Comment.

 

 

Source: Copy provided to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror by D. Andrew Austin of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Image Source: Joan Robinson at Williams College, Fall 1982 in Joan Robinson and the Americans by Marjorie Shephard Turner, p. 112 (ebook price: $9.99). Published by M. E. Sharpe , 1989.

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Friedman from Cambridge on Arrow, Tobin, Harry Johnson, Joan Robinson. 1953

Thank goodness for leaves of absence and sabbaticals! In an earlier age letters were actually exchanged between the lone scholar off to foreign groves of academe or government service and colleagues back at the home institution. When Milton Friedman went off to the University of Cambridge for the academic year 1953-54 (see Chapter 17 “Our First Year Abroad”  in Milton and Rose D. Friedman, Two Lucky People: Memoirs), he wrote detailed letters discussing departmental matters and impressions of Cambridge academic life to the chair of the department, Theodore W. Schultz. In this posting we encounter Milton Friedman’s views on possible candidates to take up the directorship of the Cowles Commission, his very positive impression of Harry Johnson, his utter shock regarding Joan Robinson’s views on China, and comparisons between Chicago and Cambridge training in economics. More to come:  Here a letter dated 29 March 1954.

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If you find this posting interesting, here is the complete list of “artifacts” from the history of economics I have assembled. You can subscribe to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror below. There is also an opportunity for comment following each posting….

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15 Latham Road
Cambridge, England
October 28, 1953

Dear Ted [Theodore W. Schultz]:

Many thanks for your letter of October 22. It contained a fuller budget of news then I had otherwise received. I am delighted to hear of the decision of the Rockefeller Foundation, and appreciate your taking the necessary steps including repairing my omission in not specifying the effective date. I am sorry to hear that the problems raised by my absence were still further complicated by Allen [W. Allen Wallis?]. The Harberger-Johnson [Arnold Harberger; D. Gale Johnson] arrangement seems, however, excellent.

It is certainly too bad about Arrow. Re Tobin, as you know, I have in the past had a very high opinion of his ability and promise though I would not have put him as high as Arrow. I regret to say, however, that my opinion fell somewhat this summer as a result of going over in great detail his article on the consumption function in the collection of essays in honor of [John Henry] Williams. As you may know, I drafted this summer a lengthy paper on the theory of the consumption function. One of the pieces of evidence I considered was Tobin’s paper, which reached conclusions in variance with most of the other evidence. On close examination, his conclusions turned out not to be justified by his own evidence, but rather to be a product of sloppy and incompetent statistical analysis. One swallow does not of course make a summer, but I am inclined to give this piece of evidence more weight than I otherwise would since it is the only bit of his work that I have gone over with sufficient care to feel great confidence in my judgment of it. My generally favorable opinion has been based on a rather superficial and casual reading of most of his other published work – indeed, on first reading, I had had an equally favorable opinion of the consumption paper. His memorandum on research that you sent me strikes me as being on the whole very sensible and very good.

In view of the above, I am very uncertain how to respond to your request for my “vote”. Everything obviously depends on the alternatives, and these are likely to vary if viewed in terms of the Cowles position in the department. Are either the former, Tobin may well be the best of the available people. Re: the latter, I much more dubious that he is than formerly. In view of my inability to participate in the discussion of the alternatives, the best thing seems to me to be to abstain from casting a definite vote either way, to make it clear that I shall cheerfully accept the decision of my colleagues, but to urge them strongly to canvass possible alternatives carefully and if possible to avoid letting an appointment to Cowles also commit the department to a permanent appointment in the department, unless the letter seems desirable on its own account.

May I complicate your problem further by introducing another name that the department ought to keep in mind in considering its long-run plans, namely Harry Johnson, now here at Cambridge, but originally a Canadian. Of the various younger people I have met around here, he impresses me as being by all odds the best and most promising, and as of the moment I would unhesitatingly rate him above Tobin. As you know, his specialty has been money and he lectures here on money and banking, but he has also been doing some work in international trade. More than most of the people here he has worked in technical and scientific economics instead of allowing himself to be diverted almost entirely to policy issues – which I suppose appeals to me partly because his policy position is so different from my own but impresses me partly also because I have been rather shocked by how large a part of intellectual activity around here is concerned almost exclusively with current policy issues. I have no idea whether Johnson would be interested in moving – he is certainly regarded as one of the clearly important and promising people at Cambridge and seems to have an assured future here – but the chance seems to me sufficiently great that we ought to keep him on our list.

Incidentally, back to Tobin, Dorothy Brady was having my piece on consumption typed up and was to send a copy to Margaret Reid when done, so that the detailed criticism of Tobin’s article that it contains could be made available to anyone who wanted to look at it.

Writing this paragraph just gave me a brainstorm – why not Dorothy for the Cowles post? In her case it would be easier to separate the appointment from a departmental commitment since she would almost certainly not demand tenure; she is a first-rate and experienced administrator; she has the necessary mathematical and statistical background; and she might give the research program a highly desirable shift toward closer contact with significant detailed empirical and economic problems – which is probably at the same time her strongest recommendation and the greatest obstacle to agreement.

On the other issue you raise, I am very much in favor – from our point of view – of Al Rees for the editorship. I think he would be an excellent editor. I am delighted that you were able to persuade Earl [Hamilton] to stay on for another year – I wish he felt able to keep it longer, as I am sure we all do, but Al seems to me clearly the next best alternative.

We have been enjoying Cambridge very much indeed, though I must confess that to date it has been too stimulating and active for me to have gotten much work done. I am enormously impressed – and in some directions, depressed – by the difference in atmosphere from the US. Educationally, the aim of education is to train the future ruling class rather than simply to educate people, which accounts for much more explicit emphasis in teaching and research on problems of immediate economic policy – economics is essentially taught as an art to be employed by rulers rather than as a science. There is enormous emphasis on form and cleverness, which reaches its peak in debates, of which I have participated in one (opposing the resolution “Yankee-eating baiting is unjustifiable and ungrateful” – tell me, how should I interpret the fact that on the vote of the audience, my side won?) And listening to another in the Cambridge Union. Surprisingly, the appeal is to the emotions rather than the reason; the level of wit and of phrasing is amazingly high, of intellectual content, abysmal. Politically, the atmosphere is incredibly redder than at home. This, I think, accounts for a good deal of the misunderstanding here of the state of civil liberties in the US. The right comparison to make is between tolerance of opinions equally deviant from the norm; the comparison that is made is between tolerance of the same opinion; but the normal opinion here would be regarded as clearly “left” at home, and moderately left opinion here is extremely radical; this difference in average opinion leads to the belief here that there is complete intolerance in the United States. These reflections are partly stimulated by a talk Joan Robinson gave on China a little over a week ago. It was an incredible talk to me; I was glad I went because I wouldn’t have believed anybody who had given me an accurate report, and you will have the same difficulty in believing mine. What is incredible is not alone that she sincerely believed the most extreme statements of the Chinese Communists about tremendous progress as a result of the “liberation”, but that she presented them without any examination of the internal consistency of her successive statements, without a sign of critical intelligence at work, without attempting to cite evidence of a kind she could have expected to acquire as a result of her brief visit there. Had the same talk been given by a faculty member in the US there undoubtedly would have been a fuss while here it passed over without a ripple. This difference may in part reflect a difference in tolerance of extreme opinions; but to a much greater extent it reflects the fact that her opinion is nothing like so extreme relative to British opinion as relative to American. The fair comparison is between the reception of her speech and one that, let us say, Maynard Krueger would make; and I doubt that there would be much difference in the reactions in that case.

The anti-American feeling is really extreme. It is widely accepted that America has concluded that war is inevitable, is no longer even interested in maintaining the peace and only waiting for an appropriate time to start a war. The American troops in England and Europe are said to be unwanted – though I’m sure an outcry would go up if they were to be withdrawn. England’s trade difficulties are America’s fault, because American productivity is growing so shockingly fast – this is a theme that in politer form is being increasingly put forth in academic circles, note especially Hicks in his inaugural address. All in all, these views, surprisingly enough, lead the left and not so left here to espouse essentially the Hoover-Taft position about the role America should play.

These are all of course first impressions for a highly biased segment of England, so I know you will take them with the mass of salt they deserve.

We’re all personally fine. The kids are quite happy in their schools. We are happy to be coming to the end of our month in a hotel – we move into the house we rented this Friday.

Our very best to everyone.

 

Yours,

[signed]

Milton

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 194, Folder “194.6 Economics Department S-Z, 1946-1976”.

Image: Left, Milton Friedman (between 1946 and 1953 according to note on back of photo in the Hoover Archive in the Milton Friedman papers). Right, Theodore W. Schultz from University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07484, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.