Tag: Samuelson

MIT. Revising Economics Ph.D. General Examinations. E.C.Brown, 1975

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2021-02-12

What makes this memo from E. Cary Brown particularly useful is that it provides us with a list of the graduate economics fields along with the participating faculty members as of 1975. Also the major revision proposed was to have a system of two major fields (satisfied with general examinations) and two minor fields (satisfied by course work). Interesting to note that graduate student input was clearly integrated into the revision procedure.

________________________

Memo from Chairman E. Cary Brown
on a Revision of General Exams, 1975

April 28, 1975

To: Economics Department Faculty and Graduate Students
From: E. C. Brown
Re: Revision of General Examinations

While it has been left that a Committee would be appointed to review the procedures of the general examination (see minutes of the Department Meeting of April 23, 1975), further informal discussion has moved toward a proposed concept of these examinations that I am submitting for consideration and agreement.

There seems reasonable satisfaction about the structure of the present examinations, subject to clarification of the final 2 field examinations and their relationship to the 2 field write-offs.
It is proposed that the 2 fields satisfied by passing the “general” examinations be designated major The examination will be offered in a field, will cover the field in a general way, and will be separated from course examinations. Minor fields will be satisfied by course work. A somewhat lower standard will be imposed in minor fields than in major fields. The “generals” examination, therefore, would apply to the fields of the candidate’s expected expertise, and emphasis would be on a broad coverage of the field.
Each field should, therefore, describe its general requirements for the field as a major one, and list the subjects that may reasonably be offered as a write-off to satisfy the field as a minor one. There should also be some details on the requirements when fields are closely linked (e.g., the proposal for the transportation field and its relationship to urban economics).
Assuming this proposal to be agreeable, the question of term papers still needs settling.

I propose, therefore, the following procedures:

Would each of you give Sue Steenburg a list of your graduate subjects for this academic year, with an indication of whether or not a term paper was required and, if so, the percentage of final grade it represented.
Would faculty in each field submit a list of subjects that may be used to satisfy major and minor requirements in their field as it would ultimately appear in the brochure. The fields to be covered are as follows, the faculty in the field are listed, and the responsible member underlined.

Advanced Economic Theory	Bishop, Diamond, Solow, Fisher, Samuelson, Varian, Hausman, Weitzman
Comparative Economic Systems	Domar, Weitzman
Economic Development	Eckaus, Bhagwati, Taylor
Economic History	Kindleberger, Temin, Domar
Finance	Merton
Fiscal Economics	Diamond, Friedlaender, Rothenberg, Brown
Human Resources and Income Distribution	Thurow, Piore
Industrial Organization	Adelman, Joskow
International Economics	Kindleberger, Bhagwati
Labor Economics	Piore, Myers, Siegel
Monetary Economics	Fischer, Modigliani
Operations Research	Little, Shapiro
Russian Economics	Domar, Weitzman
Statistics and Econometrics	Hall, Hausman, Fisher, Kuh
Transportation	Friedlaender, Wheaton
Urban Economics	Rothenberg, Wheaton

If there are any difficulties with these suggestions, let me know right away. If we can proceed along these lines, it appears to be simply a clarification of our recent past and a substantial timesaver. The reports can be looked at this summer by a student-faculty group, with responsibility for faculty on me and for students on Dick Anderson.

Source: M.I.T. Archives. Department of Economics Records, Box 2, Folder “Grad Curriculum”.

Image with identifications: Economics Faculty group portrait, 1976.

Tags Adelman, Bhagwati, Bishop, BrownEC, Diamond, Domar, Eckaus, FisherFM, Friedlaender, HallR, Hausman, Joskow, Kindleberger, Kuh, MertonRC, Modigliani, Myers, Piore, Rothenberg, Samuelson, Shapiro, Siegel, Solow, Soloway, TaylorFW, Temin, Thurow, Weitzman, Wheaton

Economics Programs M.I.T.

M.I.T. Economics and Political Science, excerpt from President’s Report, 1961

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-11-25

M.I.T.’s department of economics has done historically well in attracting graduate students who have received third-party funding, e.g. National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships. Besides offering a top-down report of the position of the economics department at M.I.T., the excerpt from the President’s 1961 Centennial Year Report transcribed below offers the factual nugget: “This year, too, M.I.T. was selected as first choice by more Woodrow Wilson Fellows in economics — eighteen out of eighty — than any other school in the country”.

_____________________

Also from 1961

M.I.T. Graduate Economics Brochure of 1961.

General Examinations in Economic Theory at M.I.T. from 1961: Microeconomics; Macroeconomics.

Fun antique video. Round table discussion with Jerome Wiesner, Jerrold Zacharias, and John Burchard of MIT with Raymond Aron of the Université de Paris-Sorbonne, Isidor Rabi of Columbia University, and Sir Eric Ashby of Cambridge University was filmed as part of the Tomorrow television series produced by CBS Television Network for MIT on occasion of MIT’s Centennial in 1961.

_____________________

From the President’s Report 1961, M.I.T.

The Social Sciences In the light of the concerns of the Centennial for the larger influences of science upon society, I think it appropriate to review this year the state of the social sciences at the Institute. That we should have become occupied with these areas was inevitable, and the Institute has a clear obligation to cultivate especially those that relate most directly to modern developments in engineering, science, and mathematics. M.I.T. has recognized this responsibility and has responded with strong and growing support to work in the social sciences in the School of Humanities and Social Science and elsewhere. These activities are giving to the Institute an entirely new dimension that few not associated intimately with M.I.T. yet appreciate.

It is a simple truth that the interests of the great physical and social sciences were never more interwoven than today. The overriding practical problems of our time — defense; disarmament; the economics of change; the politics of peace; the relationships among industry, science, and government — require joint technical and social analysis. The very progress of science is influenced by the broader social context, and the advances of engineering affect all our human institutions.

In our decision to encourage the growth of certain key social sciences at M.I.T., we determined not only to build on strength, but also to exploit particularly those that have special relevance to our central concerns with science and engineering. We hope to create more points of contact between the social and physical sciences and to foster more fruitful collaboration between them. In this way, in spite of enormous pressures for growth, we can delimit the domain of our interests and the way in which we allocate our resources to them.

We have given special attention to those fields in which mathematics and statistical techniques are playing an increasingly important role. This is, of course, completely compatible with our M.I.T. style, with our desire to be governed in our approach to problems by a sense of the quantitative, the analytical, the mathematical. But by no means are we seeking to build our social sciences in the image of the physical. We recognize full well the many differences in set and attitude that distinguish them. An exaggerated insistence on emphases that are too narrow or criteria that are too rigid will only defeat our long-range objective of making the social sciences an integral part of the modern scientific university. Each field must be free to develop in its own way, to follow with complete freedom its own professional instincts.

From this point of view, the flowering of the social sciences at M.I.T. represents a new experience for us. Accustomed as we are to the demonstrable factual data of the physical sciences, we must accept the larger subjective element of judgment that enters into the social sciences in their present state. Since developments in many of these areas are open to a variety of interpretations, we must foster, within the limits of our aims and resources, a range of views and interests. The ultimate safeguard, however, lies not in seeking an impossible balance among modes of thought, but in recruiting a faculty of the highest intellectual power and integrity. This we have done.

In my report of a year ago I touched on a faculty survey of the social sciences which gave highest priority for development to fields of economics and economic history, political science, and psychology. I want now to comment briefly on the current status of these fields at the Institute and to examine in passing our commitments and our hopes in these areas.

ECONOMICS The oldest social science at M.I.T., economics is still by a sizable margin the largest. The teaching of economics goes back to 1881 and Francis Amasa Walker. General Walker, the Institute’s third president and one of its great builders, was an authority on political economy — as economics was then called — and his understanding of the processes in American industrial development notably influenced his views on the education of engineers. He gave an outstanding lecture course on political economy and was the author of a distinguished text in the field. He also brought other economists to the Institute.

Yet, until well into the modern era of M.I.T., economics remained largely a service department for the School of Engineering. Only since World War II has the department matured and assumed a truly professional character. Today it is universally conceded to be among the most distinguished. Indeed, by any of the usual measures — the stature of its teachers, the quality of its research, the achievements of its graduates — it ranks in the small handful of leaders. This year the president of the American Economic Association [Paul Samuelson] and the presidents-elect of the Econometric Society [Franco Modigliani] and of the Industrial Relations Research Association [Charles A. Myers] are members of this department. This year, too, M.I.T. was selected as first choice by more Woodrow Wilson Fellows in economics — eighteen out of eighty — than any other school in the country. The strengths which have won this kind of recognition within the profession are substantial indeed. They were achieved, essentially, by encouraging economics at M.I.T. to chart its own professional course; by the development of a distinguished graduate curriculum and of a major research program; and by insistence on the same standards of excellence we demand of our scientific and engineering departments. As a consequence, we have accomplished in economics the same kind of comprehensive renovation of purpose that Karl Compton undertook at an earlier date for the School of Science.

Economics at M.I.T. is also an important resource for other areas of teaching and research, and for the School of Industrial Management in particular. Management education at M.I.T. grew out of our teaching in economics, and today the teaching and research of the Department and the School reinforce one another more strongly than ever. Much of the research of the Department bears directly on the interests of the School — research on the economics of particular technologies; on the problems of measurement of productivity and output; on the contribution of technical progress to economic growth; on the origin and growth of new enterprises. Through this close relationship between the Department and the School, we also enjoy a fruitful interchange of theoretical and practical points of view.

The history and current role of economics at M.I.T. is the model for our development of other social sciences. We have now established sections of political science and of psychology within the Department of Economics and Social Science. Both are fields in which student and faculty interest is keen and in which we have unusual opportunities to make important contributions.

POLITICAL SCIENCE Because of the interweaving of technology with all the affairs of the modern world, and especially with those of government, we have set high priority on the development of political science. It is an area in which we have been moving rapidly ahead. This June we awarded our first Ph.D. degrees in this field, and there are now about thirty doctoral candidates within the Section. In addition, some five hundred undergraduates take elective courses in political science each year.

The Section now offers courses in six fields of political science, all of which are related to other interests of the Institute: international relations and foreign policy, political communication, defense policy, government and science, political and economic development, and political theory and comparative politics. Besides providing opportunities for combining work in political science with a scientific or engineering field, the faculty of the Section maintain close ties with their colleagues in economics, psychology, industrial management, and city and regional planning.

In the past two years, we have developed superlative strength in the field of comparative politics of developing areas, and through the association of the Section with the Center for International Studies we probably have as strong a faculty as is to be found anywhere in the politics of development. In support of this work, the Institute received two notable gifts this year. One, the donation of $500,000 from Dr. Arthur W. Sloan and Dr. Ruth C. Sloan of Washington, D.C., establishes a professorship in political science with emphasis on African studies. Not only does this gift provide an important new endowed professorship, but it also recognizes in a most dramatic way the growing stature of political science at the Institute.

The second grant is one of $475,000 from the Carnegie Corporation for research in training on the politics of transitional societies. The grant will make possible expansion of our research on the problems of nation-building in transition countries such as the newly emerged African and Asian nations. It, too, gives substantial recognition to the quality of our program. The Carnegie grant, among other benefits, establishes graduate fellowships both for course work at M.I.T. and for field work towards the doctoral thesis. We are enthusiastic about the values to be derived from this aspect of the grant which will permit us to send our students overseas for on-the-spot research in developing areas.

We have enjoyed magnificent opportunities for field studies in other areas of our political science activities through the generous support of the Maurice and Laura Falk Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The Ford Foundation has also underwritten much of our work on government and science, and the Rockefeller Foundation this year supported a new seminar on arms control. This seminar brought together some thirty individuals in the Cambridge academic community with strong interests in both the technological and political aspects of this subject. We very much hope that this may prove to be the beginning of a substantial new research program on defense policy.

This brief sampling of our progress in political science is intended only to suggest the vitality of this field at the Institute. It has grown quickly, but without over- stretching itself. It has set high standards in research, and it has developed both its undergraduate and graduate courses in a most creative and constructive spirit. This new venture for M.I.T., in sum, has met with outstanding success.

[Reports on Psychology and Linguistics complete this section of the President’s Report]

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The President’s Report 1961. pp. 11-16.

Image Source: The M.I.T. mascot beaver on the cover of its yearbook, Technique 1949.

Tags Modigliani, Myers, Samuelson, WalkerFA

M.I.T. Regulations Teaching Undergraduate

M.I.T. Dean’s request for writing requirements for elective subjects in economics department, 1953

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-09-21

The following exchange between the M.I.T. Dean of Humanities and Social Studies (John E. Burchard) and the representative of the chairperson of the Economics Department (Charles A. Myers covering for Ralph E. Freeman) gives us a short list of undergraduate courses that would have regularly had non-economics B.S. students attending to satisfy their distributional requirements in 1953. Dean Burchard’s informational request seems to be a fishing expedition with the hope of landing any evidence that some instructor in some course was helping to improve M.I.T. undergraduate writing skills. It is also interesting to see that sociology, psychology, and political science were all subjects administered by the economics department.

____________________________

Dean Reminding Economics Department about Information Request

May 6, 1953

Memorandum to Professor [Charles Andrew] Myers:

I asked Ralph [Evans Freeman] a while ago to get me some information but have not heard from him and imagine it got left and wonder if you could undertake this survey for me in the near future and give me an answer.

The problem is that those of us who were worried about the English style of our students at M.I.T. are pretty certain that we will never get a good overall performance on the mere basis of instruction in the first two years where writing is required and read and criticized. The burden of continuously upholding the standard obviously is going to rest with the professional departments and I have no doubt there are great inconsistencies in this throughout the Institute, and I also have no doubt most of them are pretty remiss in this obligation.

Before starting any campaign on this question, however, it is obvious that I need to know whether the house of my own School is in point of fact in order, or if not how far it is out of order.

I accordingly asked Professor [Howard Russell] Bartlett and Professor [Ralph] Freeman to get me an indication of the amount of writing required in the various subjects which might be elected by students in the School. In the History Department this was obviously limited to non-professional subjects and for the moment I am more interested in the general electives in the Department of Economics than I am in what policing you do of your own majors. It would be more helpful to know about both.

What Professor Bartlett did was write me a general answer which told me how many papers were required each semester, the approximate length, and how many written examinations. I wonder if it would be possible for you to dig out the same information for the various appropriate subjects in the Department of Economics and report to me fairly soon. I would like to be thinking about this problem during the summer.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
John E. Burchard
Dean of Humanities and Social Studies

Jeb/h

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

Economics Department’s First Response to Dean’s Request for Information

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Industrial Relations Section
Department of Economics and Social Science
Cambridge, Massachusetts

May 11, 1953

Memorandum to Dean John E. Burchard

Dear John:

This is in answer to your memorandum of May 6^th. I guess this is something Ralph was unable to compete before he left and I thought I should get done promptly since I will be leaving tomorrow for the annual research meeting of the Committee on Labor Market Research of the Social Science Research Council in Minneapolis. George Shultz is one of the invited guests.

Perhaps the best way to answer your question is to list what the various people in charge of the various undergraduate subjects reported:

14.01	[Economic Principles I]	([Robert Lyle] Bishop) — 3 or 4 written hour examinations, mostly of the essay type
14.02	[Economic Principles II]	([Edgar Carey] Brown) — 4 written hour examinations, no term papers
14.03	[Prices and Production]	([Robert Lyle] Bishop) — 2 to 3 hour examinations; no term papers
14.09	[Economic Problems Seminar]	([Paul Anthony] Samuelson) — no written exams, but 2 written papers, one long and one short, plus oral presentation of the content of the paper prior to the submission of the written paper
14.51	[International Relations]	([Norman Judson] Padelford) — 8 written quizzes of 35 to 40 minutes in length; no term paper, except that sometimes there are written projects.
14.61	[Industrial Relations]	(Doug [Douglass Vincent] Brown and [John Royston] Coleman) — 3 hour examinations and 3 written case reports
14.63	[Labor Relations]	([George Pratt] Shultz) — 3 written hour examinations and one term paper
14.64	[Labor Economics and Public Policy]	([George Benedict] Baldwin) — 3 hour examinations and one written term paper
14.70	[Introductory Psychology]	([George Armitage] Miller) — 2 or 3 written hour examinations, partly objective in character; no term paper
14.72	[Union-Management Relations]	([Joseph Norbert] Scanlon) — 2 hour examinations and a special paper on a particular case
14.73	[Organization and Communications in Groups]	([Alex] Bavelas and [Herbert Allen] Shepard) — 2 objective-type examinations and one written essay-type examination
14.75	[Experimental Psychology]	([Joseph Carl Robnett] Licklider) — no examinations, but a written paper on the experiment, suitable for publication — this latter test is never quite met but students are expected to write with that end in view
14.77	[Psychology of Communication]	([George Armitage] Miller) — 3 objective-type examinations
14.91 and 14.92	[The American Political System; Comparative Political and Economic Systems]	([Jesse Harris] Proctor and [Roy] Olton) — 3 written hour exams, no term paper in the first term — 3 written hour exams plus a written term paper in the second term
15.30	[Personnel Administration]	([Paul] Pigors) — 4 written cases, one term paper and one hour examination

I think this pretty well covers the principal courses which are taken by undergraduate students in other departments. I think my own experience in teaching such undergraduate courses as 14.61 and 14.63 is similar to that of most of the staff, in that I have called attention to students of misspelled words, poor grammar, and generally poor organization and expression of written answers and papers. I really doubt if we can do much more or should do much more. It would be quite a task to go over each written examination with each student in detail, or even to do this after they have submitted a term paper. From time to time I have done this with some theses but not as a general rule, since the student is warned in advance that his grade will depend not only on content, but on expression.

I hope this gives you the information you need.

Sincerely
[signed] Charlie
Charles A. Myers

m:g

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

Follow-up Request by Dean

May 12, 1953

Memorandum to Professor Myers

Dear Charlie:

Your memorandum of yesterday answers my question about the writing in part.

I guess I agree, though I wish I didn’t have to, that people in the department cannot be expected to act as writing critics for students who are still defective in their English. Though I wish more people required papers and fewer examinations, this is obviously a matter of individual teachers’ methods.

The remaining question which I think is not answered is I believe a critical one, namely, does poor writing really result in a lower grade, and if it does is that single comment written on to the paper when it is returned with the grade to the student?

I hate to trouble you further but wonder if you would be able to explore this with the same group of people.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
John E. Burchard
Dean of Humanities and Social Studies

Jeb/h

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

Economics Department’s Response to Follow-up Request by the Dean

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Industrial Relations Section
Department of Economics and Social Science
Cambridge, Massachusetts

June 1, 1953

Memorandum to Dean John E. Burchard

Dear John:

These are some further thoughts on your memo of May 12^th, asking me to check again on whether poor writing really results in a lower grade in our courses and whether comments are written on the papers when they are returned with grades to the students.

Nearly everyone with whom I have talked here agrees that poor writing does result in a lower grade, if by “poor writing” is meant poor organization, hasty sentence construction, and confusing or fuzzy thinking as expressed in written words. Poor spelling apparently does not count so much, although Bob Bishop and I specifically do encircle misspelled words on written exams and papers. Comments on poor organization, etc., are specifically written on papers and exams when returned to students, and I know that many of us have stressed to students before writing exams and papers that their grades will depend in part on the way in which their material is organized and presented.

One further experience might be of interest in connection with your comment that you wish more people would require papers and fewer examinations. During the past term Jim Baldwin gave term papers in 14.64 and found that the pressure of senior theses on the students was so great that they did a very poor job on the papers. His grades reflect this, but he is bothered about the apparent conflict between the senior thesis and the term paper requirement in senior Humanities and Social Studies courses. Maybe we ought to place more emphasis on good writing in the senior thesis in the Department and in other Departments.

Sincerely,
[signed] Charlie
Charles A. Myers

CAM:dg

Source: M.I.T., Institute Archives and Special Collections, School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Office of the Dean, Records, 1934-1964. Box 3, Folder “103, Economics Department, General, March 1951-1956”.
For [first and middle names of instructors] and [course titles]: Course Catalogue of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1952-53.

Image Source: (Left) John Burchard ; (Right) Charles A. Myers. MIT Museum Legacy Website (People Collection).

Tags Adolph Miller, BaldwinGB, Bishop, BrownDV, BrownEC, ColemanJR, Myers, Pigors, Samuelson, Scanlon, ShultzG

Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Economics Faculty Skit à la Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In”, December 1968

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-05-15

This post continues our series “Funny Business” that features successful and less-than-successful attempts at humor by economists. Reading one of these historical skits demands the reader to concede that the defense, “It seemed funny at the time,” might actually be valid for fifty year old jokes. At the December 1968 Graduate Economics Association party the M.I.T. economics faculty offered its version of the wildly popular, frenetic comedy series “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” (like “Sit-in”, get it? As I just said, “it seemed funny at the time”).

For young and non-U.S. historians of economics, remote learning of the original Laugh-In content is easy:

Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In information at IMDb.
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In highlights on YouTube.

The tag-line “Sock it to me” was a creation of the 1960s and made a meme by Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Paul Samuelson closing the skit with that line is almost up there with 1968 Presidential candidate Richard Nixon’s saying it in his cameo appearance on Laugh-In.

The skit transcript below includes some square-bracketed comments to help the reader. Of course, nothing says “joke” more than a good footnote.

______________________

Reminder/Invitation

December 11, 1968

Graduate Students, Faculty Members
and Secretaries

DON’T FORGET!!

A week from today is the GEA Christmas Party—Tuesday, December 17^th. The festivities will begin at 8:00 pm in the Campus Room of Ashdown House. Admission is only $1.00 and the entertainment is free.

______________________

GEA CHRISTMAS SKIT 1968
[Faculty]

	Music
[Franklin M.] Fisher:	It’s the Faculty Laugh-In.
	Music
	(Enter [E. Cary] Brown, [Paul A.] Samuelson and [Robert L.] Bishop, Brown and Samuelson sit.)
Samuelson:	For the first question on your advanced theory oral: Who was the greatest economist of all time?
Bishop	(After much thought) Pigou…
	Music
[Morris] Adelman:	It is written: when offer curve bend backwards, then is time to send [Walt] Rostow to Texas. [For background to Rostow Affair, see Appendix below]
	Music—through
[Matthew D.] Edel (carries sign)	“Economics is a dismal science”
	([Peter] Temin and [Duncan] Foley enter as Rowan and Martin)
Foley:	It certainly was a swell idea to put on a faculty laugh-in.
Temin:	It’s so much easier than thinking up a connected skit.
Foley:	Well, what cute laugh-in type feature do we have coming up next?
Temin:	I see by my script here that we’re going to have a “Laugh-in looks at…” next.
Foley:	Yes, it says: Faculty laugh-in looks at the new [Nixon] administration.
	Music
[Jerome] Rothenberg:	Washington: James Reston has expressed outrage at news reports that the University of Maryland has no plans to hire Spiro T. Agnew. [Motivation for James Reston mention here see, Appendix “Rostow Affair” below]
Temin:	Meanwhile at the Council of Economic Advisers, Republicans begin to grapple with the unaccustomed complexities of the Federal budget.
	(enter Bishop and Foley)
Bishop:	They always said Art Okun could do it with a pencil on the back of an envelope. [See Appendix below]
Foley:	I still think we’d better wait for the computer printout.
Bishop:	No, look, its easy. Let’s see, how does it go? Is it Y = C + the deficit, or does the deficit = Y + C?
	Music
Temin:	At the same time we hear the swan song of liberals seeking sanctuary on college campuses.
Fisher:	Song “Hey Dick [Nixon]” [presumably to the tune of “Hey Jude”, lyrics to parody not in the file]
Rothenberg:	Washington: the M.I.T. economics department has again startled Washington circles by announcing that it will not hire Henry Kissinger in 1972. [cf. Appendix below on “Rostow Affair”]
Foley:	Why don’t we just use their budget?
Bishop:	And give up on the job? It can’t be that hard.
Foley:	We don’t even have the computer printout yet.
Bishop:	Doesn’t investment come in here someplace?
	Music
Rothenberg:	Washington: It has just been learned that the M.I.T. economics department, responding to the furor over the Rostow affair has abolished its economic history requirement. [see Appendix below]
	Music
	(Man seated, knock on door: goes to answer, returns)
Adelman:	Dear, Mr. Brower is here to fix the point (calling). [Punny reference to Brower’s fixed-point theorem that is a building block for the proof of the existence of a general equilibrium.]
	Music—through
Edel (carries sign)	“Pigou Power”
	(Enter Bishop, Brown, Samuelson)
Brown:	Describe an Edgeworth-Bowley Box.
Bishop:	(gesturing) It’s about so wide…
	Music
	(Enter Foley and Temin)
Foley:	What movie did you see last night?
Temin:	“Thoroughly Modern Miltie” [clearly “Milton Friedman”, the film’s title was “Thoroughly Modern Miltie”]
	Music—through
Fisher (carries sign)	“Nest principal minors” [Linear algebra joke, written like a creepy, even pedophilic, command here, “nested principal minors” or “nest of principal minors” would be proper.]
Rothenberg:	The negative definite is equivalent to the lie direct. [Shakespeare As You Like It, V:iv in Appendix below]
	Music
Foley:	The computer printout is here!
	(enter tons of printout)
Bishop:	I think I’ve got it!
Foley:	What?
Bishop:	One of Okun’s envelopes. How old do you think this is anyway?
	Music
Samuelson:	A Poem by Paul A. Samuelson Some people cover lots more ground But no one handles the New York Times like Carey Brown. [Likely another reference to the Rostow Affair, see Appendix Below]
	Music
	(Adelman seated, door knock)
Adelman:	Dear, Mr. [Evsey] Domar is here to compare the systems. [One of Evsey Domar signature courses was “Comparative Economic Systems”]
	Music
Foley:	What movie did you see last night?
Temin:	Ride the high Pontry [“Ride the High Country”, 1962 Western film by Sam Peckinpah]
Foley:	What Pontry again? [A punny reference to Pontryagin’s maximum principle in optimal control theory.]
	Music
	(Enter Bishop, Samuelson, Brown)
Brown:	What was Marshall’s greatest contribution?
Bishop:	In 1903, Marshall gave £1500 to King’s College.
	Music
	(Enter Fisher and Temin with box)
	“2 squares least stage” (sign) [“2-stage least squares” is the name of statistical procedure, here Fisher and Temin are the two “squares“.]
	Music
Adelman:	Mark Hopkins said the ideal education is a professor and a student sitting on a log, with the professor talking to the student. I sometimes think I would get the same results sitting on the student and talking to the log.
	Music
Bishop:	Sock it to me
	Music
	(Enter Temin and Foley)
Temin:	Here we are out here again imitating Rowan and Martin.
Foley:	Shouldn’t you be standing on the other side? What now?
Temin:	Now we’re giving the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fat Award” just like on TV.
Foley:	And who gets the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fat Award”?
Temin:	Fate. The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award goes to…
	(Music cue—fanfare)
Temin:	Kenneth Boulding for receiving a vote of confidence from…himself. [Boulding gave his Presidential address to the American Economic Association a few weeks later on “Economics as a Moral Science”. For likely background to the joke see the Appendix below.]
	Music
Fisher:	A Bordered hessian is a German mercenary surrounded by continentals.
	Music
Samuelson:	(carries sign) “I am an external economist.”
	Music
Foley:	What movie did you see last night?
Temin:	“Closely watched brains” [“Closely watched trains”, 1966 Czech film directed by Jiří Menzel]
	Music
Foley:	(Poring over computer printout). I think the whole idea of the budget is a stupid, dumb, stupid idea. Why do we even need a budget?
Bishop:	Look, we’ve got to have something to send down to the Congress tomorrow.
Foley:	I’m going to hold my breath until the stupid deficit comes out right.
Bishop:	Just try to remember whether capital gains are part of income or not.
	Music cue
	(Enter Fisher, Temin, Edel) “3 squares least stage” (sign) [“3-stage least squares” is a statistical procedure, and Fisher, Temin and Edel are the three “squares“.]
	Music
Brown:	The students are revolting.
Bishop:	Yes, I’ve though so for a long time.
	Enter Everybody
Rothenberg:	SDS Sam [SDS=Students for a Democratic Society… (wild guess) impression of Bogart saying “Play it Again Sam”?]
Foley:	Well, here we are out here again, and it’s time to say…
Temin:	Long joke.
Foley:	Say goodnite, Peter.
Temin:	Goodnite, Peter.
Samuelson:	Sock it to me.

Source: M.I.T. Archives. Folder “GEA 1967-68”.

_________________________

Appendix

Rostow Affair

Source: Howard Wesley Johnson, Holding the Center: Memoirs of a Life in Higher Education. From Chapter 8, pp. 189-90.

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

Art Okun’s Reputation as an economic forecaster “on the back of an envelope”

Source: Joseph A. Pechman contribution for In Memoriam: Arthur M. Okun. November 28, 128–March 23, 1980 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1980), p. 14.

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

From Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Act V, Scene 4.

JAQUES

Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?

TOUCHSTONE

O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven
justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the
parties were met themselves, one of them thought but
of an If, as, ‘If you said so, then I said so;’ and
they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the
only peacemaker; much virtue in If.

Source: From the Shakespeare homepage at M.I.T.

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

Kenneth Boulding’s Vote for AEA to Meet in Chicago in 1968

Source: Robert Scott, Kenneth Boulding: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Tags Adelman, Bishop, Boulding, BrownHG, Domar, EdelMD, FisherFM, Foley, Okun, RostowWW, Rothenberg, Samuelson, Temin

Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Dystopian Faculty Skit by Solow,1969

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-02-19

The current events of the late ‘sixties are the clear inspiration for this somewhat dark, dystopian skit for the M.I.T. economics departmental Christmas party of December 1969. According to the cover page, it was written by Robert Solow with input from Frank Fisher.

The skit was transcribed from the typed text [that includes a short handwritten addition] from Robert Solow’s papers in the Economists’ Papers Archive at Duke University. A grateful tip of the hat to Roger Backhouse for this artifact that should keep a cultural historian of economics busy for a few hours and be worth a few minutes of procrastination for working economists.

Pro-tip: you can summon all of the Economics in the Rear-view Mirror posts with economic humor content using the keyword “Funny Business”:

https://www.irwincollier.com/category/funny-business/

_______________________

Back-story for selected references in the text

SPECTRE. In Ian Fleming’s world of James Bond the acronym for the organization of international evil [Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion].

Chairman Edel. Assistant Professor Matthew D. Edel (Yale, Ph.D.) taught the course Economic Growth and Development. Presumably pronounced to rhyme with “Fidel”. Edel was a regional expert for Latin America, spoke at a colloquium February 4, 1970 on “The Strategy of Cuban Economic Development”

14.463 Monetary Economics in term I, 1969-70 was taught by four instructors.

According to the staffing report for that term in the departmental records at the MIT archive.

Karen H. Johnson, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1973),
Robert K. Merton, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1970), advisor Paul Samuelson
David T. Scheffman, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1971), advisor Paul Samuelson
Jeremy J. Siegel, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1971)

There is no record that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ever graduate students of economics in M.I.T.

Bread and Roses. Reference to the Women’s Liberation Organization in Boston, 1969-1971. The name chosen in memory of the Great Lawrence Strike of 1912.

Ted Behr. An M.I.T. Ph.D. (1969) who by 2009 had already gone through seven career changes and twelve jobs. Must have been quite a character judging from this interview.

I think we may assume that no Bulgarians were injured in the writing or performance of this skit.

_______________________

Some Obvious Context

Fall 1964. Berkeley Free Speech Movement

Wikipedia Entry on the Protest Year 1968

April 1968. Columbia Student Strike ; Harvard Student Strike

February 1969. Black student strike at the University of Wisconsin

_______________________

RIP VAN SAMUELSON RETURNS TO MIT AFTER THE REVOLUTION
FACULTY SKIT
Christmas 1969

CAST

P. Diamond
R. Eckaus
R. Engle
F. Fisher
C. Kindleberger
M. Piore

SCRIPTWRITER-IN-CHIEF — R. Solow

HELPED BY – F. Fisher

Is it really true that Samuelson has been asleep all these years? Then how come the 13^th and 14^th editions of the textbook came out on time?

Well, I don’t know. Samuelson isn’t talking.

Careful, there. If it’s not talking it’s not Samuelson.

It’s got to be. His broker recognizes his fingerprints from soiled sell orders. Actually, there are two schools of thought about how the textbook came out while Samuelson was sleeping. Modigliani claims that the 13^th and 14^th editions were simply forecasted by the FRB-MIT model, using a long lag. But some people believe that the 13^th and 14^theditions are just the 2^nd and 3^rd editions reprinted. Can’t verify that, though. Nobody’s been able to find a copy of the early editions.

Not that it matters. Must be a shock for Paul to realize that nobody uses the text any more, except of course for the Bulgarian translation. They’re the only people reactionary enough to go for that stuff any more.

You mean even Hanoi University has dropped it?

Oh sure, they adopted Best Known Thoughts of Chairman Edel, last year. You know, the one that begins “Equilibrium grows out of a barrel…”

Out of the barrel of a gun?

No, no, a barrel of rum. Chairman Edel never got over that trip to Cuba.

Did you fellows hear that Samuelson is back? When did he disappear anyway?

Oh, a long time ago. Even before Chomsky became President. It’s hard to know the exact date. Things were pretty clear up until April 1972, when we were supposed to have 31 days of moratorium, but the month only had 30 days, so we cancelled the first day of May, only you couldn’t cancel May Day — Christmas you could cancel, but not May Day. So we cancelled the second day of May. But then we were three days short to fit in the 32 days of moratorium for that month, so we had to run into June. From then on it was chaos.

Things are still a little funny. I can’t get used to having summer vacation in the middle of winter, and Fisher pretending to go off skiing when it’s 90 degrees in the shade, when we all know he’s leading rent strikes anyway.

Don’t complain. It might have been worse. Solow claimed to have a proof that the term would never end once we got up to 32 moratorium days a month. But one of the younger mathematical economists made a brilliant application of the theory of Riemann surfaces and showed that you could pack any finite number of moratorium days into one month if you did it right.

It was the last article anyone published in this department. Can you remember when we used to write articles and hope for tenure? That was before tenure was abolished. God, life was easy then. Nowadays it’s all action, action, action. And if you’re lucky, if you happen to win a rent strike, or destroy some draft records, or win an amateur topless contest, then maybe the central committee of SPECTRE will keep you on for a year. But suppose you lose the strike, or you let a white man go to work on a construction site, boy that SPECTRE can be tough. You remember when they threw Domar into the arena with Kampf and gave Kampf the bullhorn?

I looked away. Bloodthirsty crew — they awarded Kampf both ears and the tail that day. We had to take up a collection to send Ricky and Alice [note: Evsey Domar’s daughters] to Bread and Roses Karate School. And today they’re members of SPECTRE, the Student Power Electoral Committee for Teachers of Relevant Economics. It was better in the old days when appointments went on good looks and amiability. Even publishing was better than action all the time. That last piece of work I did, keeping the recruiter for Mars Bars from getting onto the campus, it went well but it was exhausting.

Why are we against Mars Bars?

Space, military, it’s all the same.

Anyhow, now that he’s back, what’s Paul going to do around the department? He’s getting a little old for real action, and he might find it hard to pass the monthly Relevance Check.

It’s going to be a problem. He was falling behind the times when he went to sleep. Of course he looks better now, with 10-15 years growth of beard, but he doesn’t dig the revolution. El Lider Maximo of the Graduate Student Commune asked him what he could contribute, and Samuelson said he’d like to teach the History of Economic Thought.

The History of WHAT???

That’s exactly what the Commune Lider said.

Poor old Samuelson doesn’t know that Thought isn’t Relevant. In fact he didn’t even know that Economics isn’t Relevant. When El Lider explained that it was all action now, old Samuelson said he thought there should be both Thought and Action just so their marginal net productivities were equal.

Gad, I haven’t heard anything like that since the day they fired Diamond for saying “Pareto-optimal” once too often.

Whatever happened to Diamond?

What else, he’s at B.I.T., the Bulgarian Institute of Technology. Boy, if the old stuff ever comes back in style, those Bulgarians will have it made. But go on, what happened when Samuelson pulled that bourgeois bit about marginal whatnots?

Well, Solow was standing there and he muttered something to Samuelson—it sounded like “Check the second-order conditions, Paul old boy”—and then went back to trying to look hip.

That’s living dangerously. Solow just barely passed last month’s Relevance Check, and he hasn’t been on a successful action in a long time. I don’t think that went over so good when he claimed that skiing Black Mountain was a real action. He better watch out — if B.I.T. won’t take an old man like that, SPECTRE may throw him to Kampf.

Right on. Nothing gets past El Lider. When Solow whispered that to Samuelson about second-order conditions, El Lider asked him right away — Did you say something? Solow replied Negative. Definite. That’s really living dangerously — I think it’s code of some kind.

It certainly doesn’t sound Relevant. I haven’t read anything like that in Ted Behr’s Newsweek column, at least not lately.

What’s going on this week in the department?

In the Theory course we’re holding an obstructive picket line at the drug counter of the Tech Store. Somebody discovered they were selling only white pills.

If I know what the pills are for, I hope the picket line isn’t too obstructive.

Of course not; I told you it was the Theory course. Then in the Economics of Education course we’re going to burn down a school. In the Money course, Johnson, Merton, Siegel, Bonnie, and Clyde are going to rob a bank and distribute the proceeds to the C.L.F.

Is that the California Liberation front?

Oh no, Berkeley has been a free-fire zone for months; nobody is left. It’s the Center for Love and Finance, our answer to the profit motive. Has anyone told you what the Econometrics Commune is doing?

No. Last week somebody had an idea for an empirical paper, but the results only came out at the 10% Relevance Level and half the commune was purged for Type One Error.

Served them right. Any Type II Error executions?

You know we have to have public trials for Type II error.

That’s right—Power to the People…. Well, it’s nice to see that the action curriculum is moving along. Sure beats the Old Days before chairman Edel — remember when they taught about Indifference curves? INDIFFERENCE curves, mind you, with innocent people being napalmed in Laos, Birmingham, Princeton, they taught about indifference curves.

Hard to believe. Of course now, ever since we adopted Bohmer’s best-selling text Economics for Good Guys we handle all that stuff by the tangency of the Relevance Map and the Isoconcern lines. Makes all the difference in the world, takes the subject out of the mind and puts it back in the gut, where it obviously belongs.

The Admissions Commune has been meeting all day.

How does the entering Movement look?

Terrific. There’s one girl who was heavyweight sugar-cane-cutting champion of the Big Ten, and another who had already led three successful rent strikes as a junior — two of them publishable, according to her advisor. Then there are a couple of Black Belts from Bread and Roses — they come on Karate Scholarships of course.

Any amateur topless contest winners?

We’re trying for a few, but most of them will go to Harvard—ever since they hired Brigitte Bardot for the economics faculty—

She was past her peak.

Peaks. And aren’t they all? Anyhow, all the amateur topless winners go to Harvard. But we’ve got some applicants who’ve starred in home movies. Not to mention a few school-burners and a couple of guys who have specialized in destroying computers.

How are their vibrations?

Good.

Fine. If there’s anything I can’t stand it’s bad vibrations. How about GRE scores.

The Graduate Relevance Exam grades just came — most of the people we’re accepting are in the 800’s on Obstructive and at least 750 in Vituperative. Looks like a good class — I mean Movement.

Has anyone heard what the Placement and Appointments Committees have decided?

They decided to eliminate the middleman and merge. That way everybody stays forever — once a Commune always a Commune. It gives new meaning to that old phrase about departmental inbreeding.

We still have this problem about what to do with Samuelson. Here he is after all those years asleep and hardly knowing anything about action and relevance and all the new things. The Bulgarians won’t take him — B.I.T. doesn’t mind using the old textbook, but they’re overloaded with these old-timers. If we can’t find something for him to do we may have to throw him to….

Terrible news. The students are revolting again. There’s a new movement sweeping all the Communes. They want one day of classes this month, two days of classes next month, three days the month after…there’s no telling where it will end, except that nobody can count over 30 any more.

Gad, we may have to go back to teaching again. Well, at least that gives something for Samuelson to do.

Oh didn’t they tell you. When Samuelson saw what the new system was like, he went back to sleep. Better get the Bulgarians on the phone.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Robert M. Solow, Box 83.

Image Source: Robert Solow in his office, MIT Museum Website.

Tags BehrT, Diamond, Domar, Eckaus, EdelMD, Engle, FisherF, JohnsonKH, Kindleberger, MertonRK, Modigliani, Piore, Samuelson, ScheffmanD, SiegelJ, Solow

Funny Business Gender M.I.T. Policy Popular Economics

M.I.T. Washington Post op-ed by Samuelson on Sound Debt Policy, 1963

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-12-19

Source: Paul A. Samuelson, “We can have sound debt policy” from the Washington Post, included with Extention of remarks of Hon. Jeffery Cohelan of California in the House of Representatives, Friday, May 31, 1963 in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates. Volume 109, part 25—Appendix, May 31, 1963, p. A3510

Also found as a mimeographed copy in Harvard University Archives. Papers of Alvin Harvey Hansen, Box 1, Folder “Business Cycles.”

Image Source: Samuelson Memorial Information Page/Photos from Memorial Service. Accessed via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Tags Samuelson

Exam Questions M.I.T.

M.I.T. General Examination in Advanced Economic Theory. Sept 1962 and May 1963

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-12-14

Edwin Burmeister received an M.A. from Cornell in September 1962 before going on to M.I.T. to complete his Ph.D. in economics in 1965. His papers at the Duke Economists’ Papers Archive include a folder of advanced economic theory general examinations at M.I.T. (May and September 1962; May 1963). The copy of the May 1962 exam has been transcribed and posted earlier. This post adds the remaining two exams to the collection of artifacts. Pro-tip: Burmeister’s papers includes his solutions to the September 21, 1962 exam, most likely prepared during his preparation for the May 1963 exam.

I should mention that on none of the three exams is “M.I.T.” actually written. However, since Samuelson and Solow’s names are typed on the copy of the Sept 1962 exam and since Burmeister was a M.I.T. graduate student for certainly the May 1963 examination (and, like many before and after him, cast an eye on previous exam questions), it is pretty obvious where the exam questions must have come from.

________________________

General Examination
Advanced Economic Theory

Professors P. A. Samuelson and R. M. Solow
Friday, September 21, 1962

Do as many problems as you have time.

Derive the demand function, X_i = Dⁱ(I, p₁, …, p_n) ≥ 0 for a consumer with income I and having positive prices and having respectively preferences satisfying the following utility functions:
1. 1. U = k₁ log X₁ + … + k_n log X_n
  2. U = mX₀ +logX₁ [Be careful!]
  3. U = a₁X₁ + a₂X₂ + … + a_nX_n [where] a_i≥0

Extra credit

1. 1. U = Min (X₁/b₁, X₂/b₂, …, X_n/b_n)

A firm owning some fixed and non-transferable “capital” has a production function

Q = f(labor, land) = 20L^.5T^.25

It sells in a competitive market at $P_q. It rents labor in a competitive factor market at $W and rents land at $R.
What are its demand relations for factors, and its supply relation for output? What are its “profits” or “quasi-rents to owned capital.”
It will suffice for you to write down all the relations that define these desired functions and describe how they could be solved. (In other words, you don’t have to do the explicit solving.)

In a Hicksian general equilibrium model all income effects turn out to be negligible. Comment decisively on its

(a) Property of dynamic stability (or possible instability)
(b) Property of imperfect stability (or possible instability)
(c) Property of perfect stability (or possible instability)

Let H(X,y) be a function of non-negative vectors X(of dimension m) and y (of dimension n). Define X*, y* as a saddle point of H if

H(X*,y) ≥ H(X*,y*) ≥H(X,y*)

For all non-negative (X,y).
Prove that X* and y* are optimal vectors for a pair of dual linear programs if and only if they provide a saddle point for the function

H(X,y) = C’X+b’y – y’AX.

Show that a simple Leontief model is capable of producing any positive vector final demands (given enough labor) if and only if (I-A)^-1 is non-negative.

Consider the von-Neumann model with 3 activities and 4 commodities and with input matrix

$\text{A}=\left[ \begin{matrix} 0 & 1 & 0 \\ 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \\ 0 & 1 & 0 \\ \end{matrix} \right]$ and output matrix $\text{B}=\left[ \begin{matrix} 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \\ 0 & 2 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1 \\ \end{matrix} \right]$

Find the optimal activity and price vectors in the von-Neumann sense, and the associated expansion rate.

________________________

General Examination in Advanced Economic Theory: May 1963

Answer any 4 questions.

Suppose all of the N people in a market have identical indifference maps, that are homothetic (i.e., with unitary income elasticities everywhere). Let each j^th man have his endowment

$\left( \bar{Q}_{1}^{j},\bar{Q}_{2}^{j},\ldots ,\bar{Q}_{r}^{j} \right)$

1. 1. Show that the final equilibrium of exchange is quite independent of the distribution among men of the fixed totals
$\begin{array}{l}\bar{Q}_{1}^{1}+\bar{Q}_{1}^{2}+\ldots +\bar{Q}_{1}^{N}={{A}_{1}}\\...................................\\\bar{Q}_{r}^{1}+\bar{Q}_{r}^{2}+\ldots +\bar{Q}_{r}^{N}={{A}_{r}}\end{array}$
1. Show that the equilibrium prices can be found by treating any man as the single Robinson-Crusoe living under autarky.
2. What can you, therefore, state about the i) Imperfect, ii) Perfect, and iii) Dynamic stability of the equilibrium?
A Kaldor-Goodwin model defines[sic]
$\text{a}\frac{\text{dK}}{\text{dt}}=\beta \text{Y}-\text{K, }\left( \text{a,b,}\beta \right)>0$
$\text{b}\frac{\text{dY}}{\text{dt}}=\frac{\text{dK}}{\text{dt}}-\text{S}\left( \text{Y} \right)$
(i) Explain the meaning of each equation. (ii) Give an equation for its stationary equilibrium solution. (iii) What does its local stability and oscillation depend on? (iv) What shape for the only arbitrary function will give rise to unique-amplitude oscillation?
In Mitopia
$\text{C}+\frac{\text{dK}}{\text{dt}}=\sqrt{\text{KL}}\text{ and L = }{{\text{L}}_{0}}{{\text{e}}^{\text{gt}}}$ .
How must K(t) grow if C/L, per capita consumption, is to remain at a maximum constant level? What will then be the interest rate, and the relative share of labor?
A machine with a length of life T costs $f(T). The machine is known with certainty to yield a net income stream of $a per year steadily throughout its lifetime. Find the equation determining the optimal length of life of a machine under each of the following assumptions.
1. The instantaneous rate of interest in a perfect capital market is r; the length of life is chosen to maximize the present value of net cash flow (including initial cost).
2. The interest rate r is used to discount net income, and durability is chosen to maximize the capital value of a new machine per dollar of initial cost.
3. The internal rate of return (i.e. the discount rate that equates capital value and initial cost) is maximized.

Suppose that in cases (a) and (b) the interest rate is such that the capital value of the machine equals its initial cost. Show that all three solutions then coincide. Which is the “right” way to look at the problem?

In a Leontief system with n commodities and one primary factor, labor, let P_i be the money price of commodity i, P₀ the money wage, a_oithe direct labor input per unit output of commodity i, X_i the output of commodity i, and C_i the final demand for commodity i. Show that the increase in P_j/P₀ resulting from a unit increase in a_0iequals the increase in X_ineeded for a unit increase in C_j.
Consider an individual whose life is divided into two periods, Present and Future. He is endowed with some physical good in each period.
1. Show how to construct a supply curve relating the amount of saving he will do in the Present as a function of the rate of interest.
2. Show that in a society of identical individuals with no time preference, the equilibrium rate of interest is zero if corresponding to each individual with endowment X in the Present and Y in the Future, there is another individual with endowment Y in the Present and X in the Future.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Edwin Burmeister papers. Box 23, (unlabeled) Folder.

Tags Burmeister, Samuelson, Solow

Funny Business Harvard

Harvard. ‘Twas a Night in the Sixties. Poem by Martin Feldstein, 1980

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-12-04

1997 Feldstein — (Cambridge, MA - March 9, 1997) Faculty portrait of Professor Martin Feldstein. Staff Photo Mary Lee/Harvard University News Office.

‘Tis the Season to be Jolly so it is time to share this 39-year old economics parody composed, and one imagines performed, by Harvard Professor, Reagan economics adviser, and long-time president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Martin Feldstein (1939-2019).

I have inserted first or last names between square brackets for the benefit of any non-economist or young economist (Boomer says, “You’re Welcome”) that has somehow landed on this page.

__________________

‘Twas a Night in the Sixties
by Martin Feldstein

Cambridge, Massachusetts
December 1980

‘Twas a night in the sixties
And all through the land
Unemployment was falling
Inflation at hand.

The stock market was rising,
Without any care,
In hopes a Dow thousand
Soon would be there.

The Keynesians were snuggled
Secure in their Chairs,
While visions of multipliers
Allayed all their cares.

Paul [Samuelson] with his textbook
And Art [Okun] with his gap
Had settled their brains
For a long postwar nap.

When out in the land
There arose such a clatter,
A voice that was crying
That money could matter.

Away from their desks
They flew in a flash
To see who was claiming
Such power for cash.

They looked at their models
With equations precise,
That gave semblance of proof
To conclusions so nice.

When what to their wondering
Eyes should appear
But a miniature sleigh
With eight tiny reindeer

With a little old driver
Who was having such fun
They knew in a moment
It must be Milton [Friedman]

More numerous than eagles
His supporters they came
And he whistled and shouted
And called them by name.

First John [sic, Jean-Baptiste] Say and then [David] Hume
Then [Alfred] Marshall and [John Stuart] Mill,
Now [Karl] Brunner and [Alan] Meltzer
And Anna [Schwartz] and Phil [Cagan].

From the U. of Chicago
To Minneapolis-St. Paul
Then dash away! Dash away!
Dash away all!

As economic theories with which economists play
When they meet with an obstacle
Assume it away,

So off to the journals,
Their papers they flew,
With monetarist theorems,
Rational expectations too.

And even in Cambridge
Was heard the new truth,
The theorems and lemmas
Of each little proof.

The Keynesian thinkers
Were spinning around
When onto the scene,
Milton came with a bound.

He was dressed all in gold
From his head to his foot
And his ideas were polished
And ready to put.

“Velocity’s stable,
M1 and M2,
Which shows what the Fed
Shouldn’t be trying to do.”

“That curve by Phillips
It really is straight
And the cost of funds
Is the real interest rate.”

He wrote many a word,
And with evidence too.
At the NBER
His volumes they grew.

His ideas how simple.
He puts them so well.
It would be no wonder
When he got his Nobel.

A wink of his eye
And a nod of his head
Soon gave Keynesians to know
They had something to dread.

Then turning his talents
To the writing of prose
TV and best seller
He did with wife Rose.

Then he sprang to his sleigh
To his team gave a whistle
And away they all flew
Like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim
As he drove out of sight,
“Keep freedom for all,
and keep money tight.”

Source: Ancient, analogue copy found in Irwin Collier’s personal papers.

Image Source: Faculty portrait of Martin Feldstein in 1997 in The Harvard Gazette, June 13, 2019.

Tags Brunner, Cagan, Feldstein, Friedman, Meltzer, Okun, Samuelson, Schwartz

M.I.T. Wing Nuts

M.I.T. Wingnut inspiration for Du Pont’s crusade against Paul Samuelson’s textbook, 1947

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-12-01

What is the natural habitat of wing-nuts and fanatical partisans of zombie economic ideas? While Economics in the Rear-View Mirror specializes in the collection and curation of artifacts bearing on the general academic environment within which economists have been trained in the United States since about 1870, there are moments when a field trip to the lunatic fringe is warranted. It is there where we can observe the margins of the chattering class, working politicians, and wealthy businessmen as they poke their noses into curriculum decisions and professional debates regarding the scope and methods of economics. As the vaudeville comedian Jimmy Durante cracked, “Everyone wants ta get inta da act.”

Executive summary:

Members of the M.I.T. Corporation hostile to Paul Samuelson’s textbook and even the President of M.I.T. appear to have found a kindred spirit in Rose Wilder Lane whose anti-Keynesian review of Lorie Tarshis’ textbook was published in 1947 by the Franco admirer and later John Birch activist Merwin K. Hart.

This post began innocently enough when I selected an exchange of letters concerning the teaching of the principles of economics at M.I.T. in general and the new textbook by Paul Samuelson in particular. The famous controversy involved members of the M.I.T. Corporation, the M.I.T. Administration, and the M.I.T. department of economics and social science and has been most ably presented by Yann Giraud and Roger Backhouse and in the literature they cite.

Yann Giraud. Negotiating the “Middle-of-the-Road” Position: Paul Samuelson, MIT, and the Politics of Textbook Writing, 1945-55. Paper included in MIT and the Transformation of American Economics, Annual Supplement to Volume 46, History of Political Economy edited by E. Roy Weintraub. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2014, pp. 134-152.

Earlier draft: The Political Economy of Textbook Writing: Paul Samuelson and the Making of the first Ten Editions of Economics (1945-1976). Working Paper 2011-18 of Université de Cergy Pontoise (France).

Giraud’s blog: https://ygiraud.wordpress.com

Also: Roger Backhouse’s Becoming Samuelson (Oxford University Press, 2017), chapter 26.

This post provides a few letters from four of the individuals involved in the Samuelson controversy to provide a taste of that discussion. What caught my eye and what I call the reader’s attention to in this post is the repeated reference to an unnamed critical review of another unabashedly Keynesian textbook, The Elements of Economics by Lorie Tarshis of Stanford University. It is worth noting that Samuelson’s textbook was already receiving incoming fire from members of the M.I.T. Corporation before that review was published in August 1947, so the attack on Tarshis was merely adding water to the Anti-Samuelson mill. The head of the economics department, Ralph Freeman, notes in his defense of Samuelson that the organization that had published the Tarshis review was known to have “a fascist flavor” and was run by a man named Hart who was “involved in some way in a treason charge during the war”. Seeing the words “fascist” and “treason”, I could not resist donning my investigative garb to uncover the back-story of the man Hart, his organization and the anti-Tarshis screed by the author unnamed in the letters. But first I share the sample letters from 1947 in the Samuelson controversy at MIT.

Dramatis Personae

Walter J. Beadle (Vice President, Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors at Du Pont and life member of the M.I.T. Corporation, 1943-88)

Lammot du Pont II (President of Du Pont (1926-40), Chairman of the Board of Directors and former member of the M.I.T. Corporation (1928-33))

President of M.I.T. Karl T. Compton (b. 14 September, 1887; d. 22 June, 1954)

Head of M.I.T.’s department of economics and social science, Ralph Evans Freeman (b. 23 July 1894; d. 12 May 1967)

Source (DuPont officers): “DuPont Officers Reelected, James New Treasurer Aide” in The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware) April 22, 1947, p. 12.

Fun Fact:

The great-great grandfather of Lammot Du Pont, the chairman of the Board of Directors at Dupont in 1947, was Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a disciple of the Physiocrat author of the Tableau Oeconomique, François Quesnay.

The genealogical line from the Physiocrat du Pont de Nemours to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of DuPont in 1947.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (b. 14 Dec 1739; d. 7 Aug 1817)

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (b. 24 June 1771; d. 31 Oct 1834)

Alfred V. du Pont (b. 11 Apr 1798; d. 4 Oct 1856)

Lammot du Pont I (b. 13 Apr 1831; d. 29 Mar 1884)

Lammot du Pont II (b. 12 Oct 1880; d. 24 Jul 1952)

Image Sources: Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours (Wikipedia Commons); Lamott Du Pont II in Du Pont: The Autobiography of an American Enterprise. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952. (Lammot Du Pont, p. 86).

_______________________

Beale to Compton
(original)

Walter J. Beadle
DuPont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

September 15, 1947

Dr. Karl T. Compton, President
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Compton:

When you were on vacation, Mr. C. E. Spencer, Jr. sent me a copy of the Economic Council Review of Books for August 1947. Since this seemed to point up better than anything I have read the general problem in connection with teaching of economics in this country, I sent it to Jim Killian in advance of our luncheon meeting and he in turn passed it on to Professor Freeman.

On the chance that you have not seen this review, I attach a copy of it which has just come to me from Mr. Lammot du Pont. I enclose also Mr. du Pont’s letter of transmittal dated September 12^th which I am sure will be of interest to you. As I told Jim at our Boston meeting, I acquainted Mr. du Pont with the developments in connection with the teaching of economics at M.I.T. because I know of his very sincere interest in the Institute as a life member of the Corporation.[sic, not listed as a Life Member At MIT’s website]

I hope that your vacation proved to be a very enjoyable and refreshing one.

With kind regards, I am

Sincerely,
[signed] Walter
Walter J. Beadle

WJB:k
enc.

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Lammot Du Pont to Beadle
(copy)

LAMMOT DU PONT
Du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

September 12, 1947

Mr. Walter J. Beadle;
B u i l d i n g.

Dear Walter:

Your file is returned herewith, and there is also enclosed a leaflet of the National Economic Council, giving a review of college textbook, “The Elements of Economics,” by Lorie Tarshis. You can get an idea of the nature of the review by reading the few paragraphs on the first page, which I have marked.

I take it that this textbook is an aggravated example of what the M.I.T. professor [Paul Samuelson] has done in a milder way. You will note on page 7 a list of the colleges which have adopted this textbook, and I am pleased to note that M.I.T. is not among them. Will you use your judgment as to sending this copy of the review to Dr. Compton as an illustration of what can happen?

Recently, I was talking with an Economist, who is a professor at a well-known university in the east. I have entire confidence in this Economist’s truthfulness and accuracy, but maybe I did not understand him exactly right. The gist of what he told me was as follows:

At this university there are 11 professors in the Department of Economics. Of these, 7 are Leftist. Four, including himself, are what I would call “sound.” There are two vacancies among the 11 professorships, and it is indicated that they will be filled only with men who meet with the approval of the present 9 incumbents. This is called “a democratic process.” With the odds 7 to 2, it is a foregone conclusion that another Leftist will be added.

In addition to the above, my friend tells me that he has been advised by a man acting as Assistant to the President of the University, with respect to faculty appointments, that he, my friend, had better withdraw from the University, or look for a position elsewhere. My friend informs me that he does not intend to withdraw, and does not think they can oust him. He believes that it is his duty to remain at the University and do what he can to expound to students sound economics. The University is among those listed on page 7 of this leaflet.

I am not urging that you send this review to Dr. Compton, or that you send him this letter, but if you care to do so, you have my permission, for I don’t think I have violated any confidence in what I have written.

Yours sincerely,
(s) Lammot du Pont

LduP/MD

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Compton to Beadle
(copy)

September 18, 1947

Mr. Walter J. Beadle
du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, D.C. [sic]

Dear Walter:

Thanks ever so much for sending me the copy of the Economic Council Review of Books for August, which discusses the book by Professor Tarshis of Stanford University.

My brother Wilson showed me a copy of this while we were together at our family camp, and I had made a memorandum to send for a copy for my own use. It seems to me to be an exceedingly effective statement.

Incidentally, have you noticed the comment among the book reviews in the September issue of Fortune with reference to another book by one of Samuelson’s students [Lawrence Klein]?

I am just getting squared away after return from vacation and the process is somewhat delayed because I got mixed up in a fire and am still somewhat bandaged up,–nothing permanently serious, however.

With best regards,

Very sincerely yours
[unsigned]
President

KTC/L

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

December 15, 1947

Personal

Professor R.E. Freeman
Dept. of Econ. and Soc. Sci.

Dear Ralph:

Apropos of the discussions which we had some weeks ago about Professor Samuelson and the textbook on economics, I have accidentally run into several interesting discussions recently concerning the Keynesian theories of economics on the part of several groups of top economists. From these I gained the impression that Keynes’ theories were brilliant and stimulating but inclined to be based more on a logic derived from a limited set of postulates than on actual test from all the factors involved. The comment was made that Lord Keynes himself was sufficiently flexible to modify his views when the facts indicated to him that this was necessary, but that many of Keynes’ disciples have been so wedded to the beautiful logic that they have had a tendency to base their faith on this logic rather than on an objective evaluation of factors by which the conclusions might be tested.

The work of the American Economic Council [sic], (I am not sure that I have the name just right), was described as especially valuable and effective because of its objective search for facts, as opposed to argument on theory.

At a meeting with Harold Moulton some weeks ago I asked his opinion of Samuelson and he replied that Samuelson is a very brilliant young man but that he is a “dogmatist”. In this connection Moulton dug out the enclosed reprint which he thought might be helpful to us in our evaluation of economic research methods. I thought you might be interested in this, though you have perhaps already read it. Please return it at your convenience,

Very sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
President.

KTC/L

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Freeman to Compton
(original)

Personal

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of
Economics and Social Science

Cambridge, Mass.
17 December 1947

Dr. Karl T. Compton
Room 3-208
M.I.T.

Dear Dr. Compton:

Many thanks for your comments regarding Keynes, Samuelson et al. I was interested in Moulton’s brochure which I am returning herewith.

A good deal of misunderstanding has arisen because of a failure to distinguish between Keynesianism as a conceptual apparatus and Keynesianism as a policy. It is the former which has been adapted by the younger economists of this country such as Paul Samuelson—and many of the older ones as well. I use the word adapted, because some of the ideas of Keynes have been rejected. On the policy level two Keynesians may arrive at quite different conclusions.

The charge that such thinkers base their faith on logic rather than on facts, is to my mind unjustified. The classical economists built up their whole system on the assumption of full employment. The modern approach is not only to question this assumption but also to try to understand why our economy so often fails to provide full employment.

It has been a common belief in the past that because the rate of saving was assumed to vary with the interest rate, there could be no under or over savings—that changes in the interest rate would provide the necessary correction. A study of the facts indicates that this position was erroneous. Much of “modern economics” is concerned with the implications of under-saving and over-saving.

I have taken the liberty of enclosing a recent bulletin of the United Business Service for which I write the first page every week. This brief article designed for popular consumption entitled “How Inflation Could Be Halted” illustrates the use of the savings concept in analyzing current problems. Incidentally, Moulton in the latter part of the pamphlet you sent me indicates that he has incorporated into his thinking the Keynesian approach to the saving process.

It is significant, I believe, that the new approach to economic problems has developed as our knowledge of the facts of the economic process has become more extensive. Today we know vastly more about what is going on in economic society than we did a half or even a quarter of a century ago. The young men who have been and are now the main fact gatherers are in overwhelming numbers using the Keynesian concepts as tools of analysis.

The “American Economic Council” [sic] to which you refer in your letter is I believe an organization with a Fascist flavor which is of course opposed to the “new economics.” If I have identified the organization correctly, it is a front for a man named Hart who was involved in some way in a treason charge during the war. It recently issued a review of a book by Tarshish [sic]—a review which was grossly unfair to the writer.

I am not sure what Moulton means by referring to Paul Samuelson as “dogmatic.” Paul certainly is capable of supporting his views with factual data and reasoned arguments. Moulton’s effort to defend a recent Brookings publication—“A National Labor Policy”—against the criticism of Wayne Morse was not an effort which would inspire confidence in Moulton’s own objectivity.

I don’t know whether Bob Caldwell passed to you the information that Paul will be presented with the John Bates Clark Medal at the coming meetings of the American Economic Association in Chicago. This medal is being presented for the first time by the Association to the living economist under 40 “who has made the most distinguished contribution to the main body of economic thought and knowledge.” The name of the recipient of the award will not be published until December 28.

Probably you will agree with me that we don’t need to worry too much about what the economists of the country think about Paul Samuelson.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Ralph
Ralph E. Freeman

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

December 19, 1947

Professor Ralph E. Freeman
Department of Economics and Social Science
M. I. T.

Dear Ralph:

Thanks ever so much for your letter and the enclosed copy of United Business Service.

One way or another I seem to be getting some elements of an education in economics, long deferred. At least no one can criticize my own education in this field on the ground that it has not brought contact with plenty of divergent points of view.

I was glad to have your distinction between conceptual apparatus and policy in reference to the influence of Lord Keynes.

I am delighted to know that Paul Samuelson is to receive the John Bates Clark Medal. That, coming from the American Economic Association, is certainly an honor and should be a reassurance to some of our “worriers”.

With many thanks,

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
President

KTC/h

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Back to the Chase

Thanks to my reading of Giraud and Backhouse, it didn’t take much effort to establish the identity of the unnamed reviewer of Tarshis, none other than the libertarian diva, Ms. Rose Wilder Lane (b. 5 December 1886; d. 30 October 1968). Economics in the Rear-View Mirror has posted the story of Rose Wilder Lane’s 1946 report for the Foundation of Economic Education on Milton Friedman and George Stigler’s famous pamphlet on rent-control, Roofs or Ceilings. Lane was certain that Messrs. Friedman and Stigler were communists in deep disguise…really. Interested readers can find out more about her together with the complete text to the third printing of her 1947 review of Tarshis in the rich paper with its document-filled appendix by Levy, Peart and Albert (2012).

David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart and Margaret Albert. Economic Liberals as Quasi-Public Intellectuals: The Democratic Dimension in Marianne Johnson (ed.) Documents on Government and the Economy Vol. 30-B (2012) of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, pp. 1-116.

Especially the transcription of the Rose Wilder Lane review of the textbook The Elements of Economics by Lorie Tarshis published in Economic Council Review of Books, Vol. IV, No. 8, August 1947), pp. 49-64.

More about Merwin Kimball Hart can be found at:

Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy. F. A. Hayek and the “Individualists”, Chapter 2 in F. A. Hayek and the Modern Economy: Economic Organization and Activity, eds. Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), especially pp. 30-37.

_______________________

But wait, there’s more

For those wanting to learn even more about the publisher of the National Economic Council’s Review of Books, Mr. Merwin Kimball Hart (b. 25 June 1881; d. 30 November 1962), U.S. government files are available at archive.com that were obtained through Ernie Lazar’s FOIA applications. There you will find around six hundred pages of F.B.I. investigative reports, letters, and newspaper clippings regarding the Merwin Hart case that are easily consulted on line.

The tidbit that I find that ties this post together is the clear evidence that Lammot Du Pont was a financial supporter of Hart’s National Economic Council precisely at the time that he and the Du Pont vice-president and lifetime member of the M.I.T. corporation were on a crusade against Paul Samuelson’s textbook. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Links to the Merwin Kimball Hart files

Hart, Merwin K.—NYC 100-21056 (243 pages)

14 page New York City F.B.I. investigative report November 17, 1942
6 page Albany F.B.I. report Jan 22, 1943 on Utica background of Merwin K. Hart

Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials (278 pages)

[note:it is necessary to view the file in single-page mode, when in double page mode only the odd numbered pages are displayed.]

Hart, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142 (58 pages)

Hart, Merwin K.—Army Intel Report (48 pages)

A selection from these FOIA files now follows:

_______________________

A Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (February 8, 1940) prepared by E. A. Tamm

The FBI report refers to a woman informant working within the New York State Economic Council.

“From what can be gathered from the informant the Council was apparently originally engaged in a fight against Communism. It then became involved in the fight to support the Franco rebellion in Spain, and has now passed into not only opposition to the present Federal administration but has gone further and become actually opposed to the existing form of government in this country. The inner circle of the NYSEC in one way or another is now considering setting up an independent union movement to combat the CIO and other so-called radical unions, and to set up what would amount to company-controlled unions.

The informant advises [deletion of 2/3 line] Hart, John Eoghan Kelly, Jane Anderson, and various Catholic priests, she is convinced of the existence of a plot, presumably centering around the Council and directed by Catholic church leaders to reestablish the Holy Roman Empire with certain nations so aligned as to make it possible for the Catholic church to control the balance of power through its control of the government of Spain.” Page 3 of memo

[…]

“Hart is general manager of the Cream of Wheat Corporation, and his home is understood to be at Utica, New York…The informant expresses her belief that Hart is a sincere, fiery patriot who honestly believes the country is in serious danger from a “red menace.” However, she stated he is being used by certain Fordham University clerics who decide on certain action in conferences with John Eoghan Kelly, Allen Zoll and similar persons, and then prevail on Hart to make such contacts, presumably Protestant, as will facilitate the promotion of the action desired.

“Hart has written a book entitled ‘America—Look at Spain’, and from purported copies of correspondence exhibited by the informant it would appear that this book was partly edited by the Catholic clergy in so far as that portion of it which treats the Catholic church is concerned. Hart has visited Spain, Germany and Italy and has made an intensive study of conditions in these places. He has communicated with the Bureau in the past relative to cooperating on matters pertaining to the national defense. By letter dated April 10, 1939 he wrote the Bureau requesting a copy of the report on the German-American Bund investigation, and was advised that same was not available, and his letter was referred to the Department.

It is impossible to fully set out all the connections that Hart may possibly have, but it is probably safe to say from those he is known to have that he is connected at least with every group of any prominence in the United States whose aims are anti-administration or anti-Communist.” Page 5 of memo.

[…]

“DuPonts of Wilminton, Delaware:

The informant advises that these persons were at one time strong financial supporters of the NYSEC but have not contributed recently.” Page 21 of memo.

Source: Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (19 February 1940) in the Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation, N.Y.C. Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials.

_______________________

From an investigative report dated July 2, 1942

“…On January 27,1940 Confidential Informant [deleted] was interviewed by Assistant Director E. J. Connelley regarding any information informant might have concerning MERVIN K. HART. Informant informed [ca. 2 lines deleted] whose offices are located in Room 417, 17 East 442 Street, New York City. Informant advised that she met subject HART through [deleted] who was an acquaintance of HART as a customer of the bank [deleted] started to work for HART [line deleted] HART advised informant that he had just returned from Spain where he was in touch with the Nationalist Leader and believed that they were saving the world form Communism. He wanted to write a book to show that the same thing might occur here in the United States.

She advised that HART had published a book entitled AMERICA LOOKS AT SPAIN which was published by Kennedy and Company. HART advised informant that in this book he wanted to show that Communism was overthrowing the world and that something must be done about it in this country. In connection with the luncheon held for MARTIN DIES, which was mentioned previously, [one line deleted] this luncheon for Dies was given by the New York State Economic Council at the Bellmore Hotel, New York City. Informant advised that JAMES WHEELER-HILL, Second in Command of the German-American Bund, was there along with [deleted] The luncheon was open to the public. She stated that the presence of [deleted] and JAMES WHEELER-HILL did not mean that they were connected with the Economic Council as tickets were on sale to the public; however, informant said that the people actively working for HART considered [deleted] and WHEELER-HILL as martyrs fighting for a cause.

Informant said [deleted] he formed the American Union for Nationalist Spain and, in that connection, was constantly in touch with various religious leaders. Informant, continuing, said that the Council is financed through subscriptions and donations made by the Texas Company and by Lamont [sic] Dupont. According to informant, HART’s most intimate associate is Captain JOHN T. TRAVER, the head of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Report date: 2 July 1942.

_______________________

From November 17, 1942 FBI Internal Security Case Report
Merwin K. Hart

…Confidential Informant [deleted] stated that she first met HART during the winter of 1938-1939 at a party at the home of [deleted] of the famous [deleted] of China. HART at that time had just returned from Spain. [Deleted] had just returned from Munich and was disgusted with the Chamberlain appeasement policy. She thereafter disliked HART’S theories from the start. For quite some time HART continued to send her a copy of his Economic Letter, which she said she tore up and refused to pay any attention to it. According to [deleted] HART has constantly criticized the ROOSEVELT administration; is violently anti-Communistic; has said that HITLER has done some good things for Germany; that the German American Bund is a harmless organization; and that the Franco Policy is satisfactory. She said further, however, that since December 7, 1941 HART has been openly advocating unity withi9nAmerica. He confines his criticism now only to Government spending and then only to expenditures which are not for the war effort. However, she believes he is still a Fascist in his theories of Government but is smart enough to hold his tongue now. She said that a while ago he was so anti-Communistic he was literally seeing “a Communist under every chair.” She believes he might still be regarded as dangerous in that his constant criticisms creates a disturbing element. She does not believe that he is subsidized by foreign funds. She said further that HART had told her in the past of attending some Bund meetings simply to find out what went on in the meetings. [Deleted] was of the opinion that HART’S theories are too extreme, and that HART has been and in her opinion still is against labor agitation…”

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Report date: 17 November 1942.

_______________________

Memo for J. Edgar Hoover Jan 26, 1944.

Item in summary table of correspondence with Merwin K. Hart:

From Lammot du Pont to M.K.H. 1/2/42. Encloses check for $4,000. “Subscription to the work of the organization for 1942”

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Memo to Hoover (26 January, 1944).

_______________________

Newspaper clipping, syndicated columnist Marquis W. Childs

Marquis W. Childs. The State of the Nation.
[FBI time stamp: Jan 15, 1948]

Washington.

The self-appointed thought police are on the loose again, their attack this time is directed against a textbook on economics used in many of the leading universities of the country.

The attack began with the National Economic Council, whose head, Merwin K. Hart, has been one of the principal American supporters of Spain’s dictator, Franco. It took the form of a so-called review of the book—“The Elements of Economics” by Prof. Lorie Tarshis of Stanford University.

The review twists the meaning of the book to try to show that its author supports the government spending theories of the late Lord Keynes. Therefore, the review concludes, the book must be subversive and un-American.

Wide circulation of this review through the mails was only the first step. In Arkansas, an American Legion post and something called the Arkansas Free Enterprise association have taken the next step. They have demanded an investigation of the textbook, used in economics classes at the University of Arkansas.

President Lewis W. Jones of the university replied that he thought the sanest procedure would be to submit the book to an impartial group capable of judging it, such as the American Economics [sic] association. He added that he saw nothing subversive in the text, which he considered a thoroughly objective study of the economic system.

Here is a pattern of behavior that endangers fundamental American freedoms of speech and thought. The concept of thought police, whether amateur or professional, is repugnant to free Americans.

The American legion recently held here in Washington a counter-subversive seminar. Seventy-five representatives from Legion posts around the country attended the three-day session. They heard lectures by some so-called experts on Communism. It is interesting incidentally, that among these experts are several men who were once Communists. Having at one time embraced a totalitarian faith, they now make a profession of denouncing it.

Seven State Legion organizations have held or will hold such seminars, taking their cue from the National organization. Both Georgia and Indiana have just had two-day sessions on subversion.

If one is to judge from the speech made by Georgia’s Rep. James C. Davis at the meeting in Atlanta, it was given over entirely in the subversion of communism. They might well have devoted part of their time to such home-grown subversion as the Ku Klux Klan. It is a fairly safe guess that there are more Klansmen than Communists in Georgia.

Training Legionnaires to “spot and counter subversive activities, as National Commander O’Neil put it, is a hazardous business. The FBI gives its agents months of instructions in such matters, and they are told to avoid possible infringement of fundamental rights of speech and thought. Yet here we have amateurs turned loose after two days to do sleuthing on their own.

An example of what this can mean occurred in California at about the time the Legion was holding its counter-subversive seminar in Washington. Twenty-five men wearing Legion hats bearing the insignia of Glendale, Cal., Post No. 127 invaded the meeting of a Democratic club and demanded that it break up immediately.

A slight error had been made. The club was duly chartered by the County Democratic Central committee. In the midst of the indignation and the corresponding embarrassment that followed, State Legion Commander Harry L. Foster condemned the act.

“The rights of free speech and assembly,” he said, and it might be a good idea to frame these words in every Legion hall, “are part of our cherished Bill of Rights and we of the Legion should be the first to insist on these rights. Should there is an unlawful meeting, it should be reported to the duly constituted civil authorities for their action.

“Thought police on the Japanese model are an insult to American integrity. That is especially true when zealous guardians of pure thought seek to protect the young. If young men and women in college who have grown up under the advantages of the American system cannot use judgment for themselves, then the system has failed. The generation that fought the recent war does not need to be sheltered by meddling zealots. They are a lot more clear-eyed and clear–headed than most of their elders.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. N.Y.C. File No. 100-21056 page 179. Copy from the FOIA file is partially illegible and the newspaper was not identified. A less edited version of the article was published in The Eau Claire Leader (Wisconsin), Sunday, January 18, 1948, p. 12.

_______________________

J. Edgar Hoover’s Memo
March 29, 1948

100-128996-94

Date: March 29, 1948

To: [deleted]

BY SPECIAL MESSENGER

Attention: Reading Center

From: John Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Subject: MERWIN KIMBALL HART, wa,
Mervin Kimball Hart
National Economic Council, Inc.
INTERNAL SECURITY-X

Reference is made to your communication of March 17, 1948 your [deleted] where you informed that [deleted] was en route to New York City at the invitation of the National Economic Council.

[paragraph deletion]

Biographical information, the accuracy of which is unknown, reflects that Merwin Kimball Hart was born on June 21, 1881, at Utica, New York. He graduated from Harvard in 1904, receiving an A. B. degree. In 1906 he was elected for a two year term to the General Assembly of the State of New York. Hart, by this time, was married to Catherine Margaret Crouse of Utica. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1911 and became a member of the law firm Hart and Senior. In 1914 Hart and several prominent businessmen in Utica organized the Utica Mutual Insurance Company. A few years later when the United States entered the war, Hart, although possessing defective eyesight, enlisted in the Army and when released in 1918 he had attained the rank of Captain in a non-combatant unit. After the war Hart devoted several years attempting to place the Hart and Crouse Company in Utica on a sound financial basis. This firm, which manufactures furnaces and heating equipment, was founded by Hart’s father and Hart’s wife’s father. The firm is presently owned by other persons. Following this, Hart became active in numerous movements to reduce expenditures in the State government of New York. Subsequently in about 1932 he organized the New York State Economic Council, now known as the National Economic Council, Inc., with offices in New York City and Utica, New York. His annual salary from the inception thereof was reported to be $10,000. The organization was originally financed by manufacturing and financial concerns located in the State of New York.

Hart was described by an old acquaintance as having come from one of the old established families in Utica, was a brilliant and well educated man was thoroughly patriotic and loyal, and taken part in numerous business enterprises, and was one time a member of one of the leading law firms in Utica. In this latter connection this informant stated it was not known whether Hart went to law school or that he ever appeared in court as a lawyer.

Another source stated Hart was very influential and respected in his own community, but had few intimate friends. He said Hart was known as the type who knew “everybody that counted” and acted in a formal and aloof manner. His personal unpopularity in Utica was attributed in part to the fact that he was too outspoken, tactless, bull-headed, and possessing a peculiar type of personality.

Hart was described as believing in the capitalistic system and particularly opposed to Communism and the New Deal Administration. It was said that the citizens of Utica generally considered him sincere and 100% American in spite of his unfavorable publicity. Some people, it was claimed who did not know him, might think him to be opposed to the country’s war aims at that time.

Information of a current nature regarding the National Economic Council, Inc., is not known. From various sources in the past it was described as being an organization of about 17,000 members drawn from throughout the State of New York. Its headquarters were said to have been located at 17 East 42^nd Street, New York City, with a branch office at Utica. A folder distributed by the Council in 1940 described as the Council’s purposes: 1. To curb Government spending; 2. To reduce oppressive tactics; 3. To oppose subversive groups; 4. To oppose stifling restrictions of private enterprises, and 5. To promote true recovery. The officers of the Council as listed in the folder are as follows: President—Merwin K. Hart; Treasurer—George D. Graves; Vice-President— [name missing] Chase National Bank, New York City; Chairman of the Finance Committee—William Fellows Morgan, New York City; Vice-Presidents—Elon Hooker—President Hooker Electrochemical Company, New York City; Thomas M. Peters, New York City; Alexander D. Falck, Chairman, Corning Glass Works, Elmira, New York.

A confidential source advised that early in 1940 the headquarters of the Council seemed to be a meeting place for groups of people who were apparently interested in setting up a totalitarian form of government. This organization was also said to furnish material to Reverend Charles Coughlin for his use. Starting in late 1939 it was reported that the Council devoted about 90% of its efforts to the distribution of propaganda on behalf of the Spanish Republican Government.

The answer to question “d.” is not known to this Bureau. Accordingly, appropriate inquiry is being instituted in an effort to ascertain the desired information. Upon receipt of the results of this inquiry I shall promptly advise you.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation, N.Y.C. Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials. pp. 187-189.

_______________________

WASHINGTON CITY NEWS SERVICE
[teletype]
File Time Stamp: August 14, 1950

MERWIN K. HART, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, INC., SAID TODAY THE WORD “DEMOCRACY” IS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH COMMUNISM AND SHOULD BE DISCARDED.

HE TOLD THE SPECIAL HOUSE COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING LOBBYING THAT THE U.S. IS A REPUBLIC AND THAT “IT IS TIME FOR US TO RETURN TO THAT CONCEPTION.”

THE TERM “DEMOCRACY” GAINED ITS CURRENT STATUS AFTER IT WAS USED BY GEORGEI DIMITROV AT A MEETING OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL IN MOSCOW IN 1935, HART SAID.

REPEATING WHAT HE SAID IN A SPEECH TO THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB OF NEW YORK IN 1940, HART TOLD THE COMMITTEE:

“I WONDER SOMETIMES IF ONE OF THE CAUSES OF OUR TROUBLE TODAY DOES NOT ARISE FROM THE FACT THAT WE HAVE BEEN OVER-DRILLED INTO BELIEVING WE ARE A DEMOCRACY, THIS, TOO, MAY BE ONE OF THE LATEST ‘INSIDIOUS WILES OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE…IT IS TIME TO BRUSH ASIDE THIS WORD WITH ITS ‘CONNOTATIONS.’”

HART WAS CALLED BEFORE THE LOBBY COMMITTEE BECAUSE OF THE EFFORTS MADE BY HIS ORGANIZATION TO INFLUENCE LEGISLATION IN WHICH IT IS INTERESTED. THE COUNCIL IS CLASSIFIED BY BOTH DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN AS RIGHT-WING.

IN ONE OF SEVERAL PREVIOUS STATEMENTS MADE BY HART, WHICH WERE PUT INTO THE COMMITTEE RECORD, HE SAID THERE IS AN “EXTREMELY ACTIVE GROUP” ATTEMPTING TO CONVERT THE UNITED STATES FROM A REPUBLIC TO A DEMOCRACY—“THAT IS, FROM A REPRESENTATIVE FORM OF GOVERNMENT INTO A MOBOCRACY, GOVERNED EVENTUALLY BY A DICTATOR.”

ALSO PUT INTO THE COMMITTEE RECORD WERE NUMEROUS EXCHANGES OF LETTERS IN WHICH CONTRIBUTIONS AND GIFTS TO THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL WERE DISCUSSED.

THE LETTERS SHOWED THAT TWO OF THE ACTIVE CONTRIBUTORS TO THE COUNCIL ARE LAMMOT DU PONT AND IRENEE DU PONT, BOTH OF WILMINGTON, DEL. THE RECORDS SHOWED THAT IRENEE DU PONT GAVE THE COUNCIL $11,000 IN 1948 TO PAY FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO PAMPHLETS THAT WERE SENT TO COLLEGES, CHURCHES AND LIBRARIES.

HART SAID IN ONE LETTER TO FORMER U.S. SEN. JOESPH R. GRUNDY, OF BRISTOL, PA., THAT THE COUNCIL’S LEGAL STAFF HAD FOUND A METHOD OF HELPING ITS CONTRIBUTORS SAVE ON THEIR INCOME TAX PAYMENTS.

“MAY I SAY THAT WHILE UNDER A RULING OF THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT OUR NON-NEW DEAL NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL IS NOT ABLE TO OFFER THE DEDUCTIBILITY PRIVILEGE TO ITS CONTRIBUOTRS, YET WE ARE ABLE TO GET SUBSTANTIAL BENEFIT FROM THE FACT THAT A CONTRIBUTION MADE TO US OF MONEY TO PURCHASE SUBSCRIPTIONS AT $10 EACH TO OUR COUNCIL PUBLICATIONS TO GO TO EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IS DEDUCTIBLE UNDER THE INCOME TAX LAW,” HART WROTE GRUNDY.

HART’S LETTER SAID THAT FROM TIME TO TIME GRUNDY HAD SHOWN INTEREST IN THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL. THE FORMER PENNSYLVANIA SENATOR WAS INVITED TO MAKE A “FAIRLY SUBSTANTIAL” CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL.

THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE PRODUCED AT THE COMMITTEE HEARING TO SHOW WHAT GRUNDY’S REPSONSE WAS.

6/21—N122P

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

ADD 1 LOBBYING (122P)

THE HOUSE LOBBY INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE DISCLOSED THAT CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION ABOUT ONE OF ITS SECRET MEETINGS HAD LEAKED OUT TO A LOBBY WHICH IT IS INVESTIGATING.

HARRY S. BARGER, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, DECLINED TO TELL THE COMMITTEE HOW HE GOT INSIDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMMITTEE’S JANUARY 17 MEETING.

IN A MEMO FROM BARGER TO ERWIN K. HART, NEC PRESDIENT, BARGER SAID “A FRIEND OF MINE” SAW A REPORT OF THE MEETING. BARGER DECLINED TO NAME THE FRIEND AND ASKED THE COMMITTEE FOR A RULING ON WHETHER HE WOULD BE COMPELLED TO ANSWER.

CHAIRMAN BUCHANAN SAID THE PROBLEM WOULD BE TAKEN UP IN CLOSED SESSION.

IN BARGER’S MEMO, INTRODUCED AS EVIDENCE, HE WROTE HART THAT THE COMMITTEE HAD FOUND THAT $90,000 HAD BEEN CONTRIBUTED TO NEC “FROM THE DUPONTS,” AND THAT THE COMMITTEE THOUGHT NEC WAS “SOMEWHAT SUBVERSIVE IN CHARACTER.”

BARGER WROTE THAT “THE CIO AND KINDRED SPIRITS” WERE RUNNING THE COMMITTEE AND “THAT THE SETUP SHOULD BE VERY CAREFULLY EXPOSED IF AND WHEN REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COUNCIL ARE CALLED BEFORE THE BUCHANAN COMMITTEE X X X.”

REVELATION OF THE MEMO BROUGHT SHARP COMMENTS FROM COMMITTEE MEMBERS, ESPECIALLY REP. CLYDE DOYLE, D., CAL., WHO DECLARED “I EMPHATICALLY RESENT” THE CHARGE THAT THE COMMITTEE IS UNDER DOMINATION OF ANY ONE.

BARGER SAID THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMMITTEE’S SECRET MEETING “WAS GIVEN TO ME IN CONFIDENCE” AND COULD HAVE COME FROM ANY ONE OF “THREE OR FOUR FRIENDS.”

“I DON’T THINK I SHOULD BE CALLED UPON TO NAME MY SOURCES ANY MORE THAN A NEWSPAPER MAN SHOULD BE,” HE SAID.

6/21—WM611P

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

_______________________

And no counterrevolution would be complete without the guns
Reported June 1950 in the Washington Post

It was brought out, however, that Hart warned subscribers in his economic council letter in January, 1948, to arm themselves with pistols and rifles to resist the Communist threat.

“We have one concrete suggestion to make to every citizen who is impressed by the potential danger,” he wrote. “Let him possess himself of one or more guns making sure they are in good working condition and that other members of his family know how to use them.”

After the letter was read, Hart explained it had been written after a trip to Europe. He said it seemed to him that laws against the possession of firearms discriminate against law-abiding citizens because Communists and others ignore them.

Washington Post clipping “circa 6/_/50, p. 5.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

Tags FreemanRE, HartMK, Samuelson, Tarshis, Wilder Lane

Exam Questions History of Economics M.I.T. Suggested Reading Syllabus

M.I.T. History of Economic Thought. Misc. Readings and exams. Samuelson, 1973-78

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-04-27

Scattered across several folders in the Paul Samuelson Papers at Duke are course materials from the graduate history of economic course regularly offered by Samuelson in the 1970s. Not included below are a few class lecture handouts and class lists also in the folders. Instead I have just transcribed the suggested reading lists or Dewey library course reserve lists and two final exams found in the folders.

I did not take this course, once having sat in on a Marxian economics lecture that consisted of Paul Samuelson commenting on his textbook’s appendix “Rudiments of Marxian Economics”. Perhaps the arrogance of my youth got the better of me, but I thought there were other courses that were going to teach me something that I had not already learned so I am now condemned to trying to reconstruct his course content from such scraps as these we find in his archival record. Maybe a visitor to this page of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has saved notes from the course?

_________________

14.132 FALL 1973
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
P. SAMUELSON

14.132 FALL 1974
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
P. SAMUELSON E 52-394

14.132 Fall 1975
STORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
P. A. SAMUELSON E52-394
FRIDAY 1:30-3:30

Samuelson
To be placed on reserve for 14.132

Mass. Inst. Tech.
FEB 14 1977
DEWEY RESERVE

McLellan. Karl Marx: His Life and Thought

Luxemburg. Accumulation of Capital

Sweezy. Theory of Capitalist Development

Robinson. An Essay on Marxian Economics

Dobbs. History of Theories of Distribution [sic, Theories of Value and Distribution since Adam Smith: Ideology and Economic Theory]

Morishima. On Marxian Economics [sic, Marx’s Economics]

Schumpeter. History of Economic Analysis

Roll. History of Economic Thought

Alexander Gray. The Development of Economic Doctrine

[Metzler Lloyd] Festschrift. (Trade, Stability and Macroeconomics) edited by G. Horowitz and P. Samuelson.

Reprints

Samuelson

Samuelson’s “Reply on Marxian Matters”

Insight and Detour in the Theory of Exploitation: A Reply to Baumol

Understanding the Marxian Notion of Exploitation: A Summary of the So-Called Transformation Problem Between Marxian Values and Competitive Prices

Marx as a Mathematical Economist

Journals

Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 2, 1934-35

American Economic Review, March 1938.

[Appendix: Rudiments of Marxian Economics (from Samuelson Economics, pp. 858-)]

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Paul Samuelson Papers, Box 33, Folder “14.132 Spring 1977”.

_________________

14.132 Final Exam
History of Economic Thought
P. A. Samuelson
May 20, 1977

ANSWER (1) OR (2) QUESTIONS.

Describe any aspects of the classical economists’ system that primarily interests you.
Describe the doctrines of some one historical economist or school in which you have an interest.
Analyze any aspects of Marxian economics that you think are of relevance to economic history and policy.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Paul Samuelson Papers, Box 33, Folder “14.132 Spring 1977”.

_________________

Reserve List, MIT Libraries
14.132 History of Economic Thought
Spring 1978

D. L. Thomson, Adam Smith’s Daughters, Exposition Press, 1973.

L. Robbins. An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science. Macmillan, 1935 and 1962.

M. Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect. Richard D. Irwin, 1962.

I. H. Rima. Development of Economic Analysis. Irwin, 1972.

H. W. Spiegel,The Growth of Economic Thought. Prentice-Hall, 1971.

Alexander Gray, Development of Economic Doctrines. Longman, Green and Co. 1934.

T. W. Hutchinson, A Review of Economic Doctrines, 1870-1929. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1953.

Thomas Sowell, Classical Economics Reconsidered, Princeton U. Press, 1974.

Eric Roll, A History of Economic Thought. Faber and Faber, 1973.

Eric Roll, The World After Keynes, Praeger, 1968.

J. A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis. Oxford U. Press, 1954.

G. L. S. Shackle. The Nature of Economic Thought. Cambridge U Press, 1966.

J. A. Schumpeter, Ten Great Economists. Oxford, 1965.

R. L. Meek. Precursors of Adam Smith. Dear (London), 1973.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Paul Samuelson Papers, Box 33, Folder “14.132 Spring 1978”.

_________________

14.132 Take-Home Exam
Spring 1978

Answer any one of these questions or any two or all three.

Describe some topic covered in this course that you find to be of interest. Discuss its broad significance; or concentrate in depth on any aspect of the problem that you believe to be worth exploring. Do not hesitate to let your imagination soar.
Describe some aspect or aspects of what we call neoclassical economics. If you wish, compare and contrast it with earlier classical economics; or with later Keynesian economics; or with the Marx-inspired economics that developed around the same time.
Thomas Kuhn attempted to throw light on how the natural sciences tend to develop. If any part of his paradigms seems to you useful in any part of the history of economic thought, describe the use. If you have criticisms to make of the Kuhnian methodology, feel free to enlarge on them.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Paul Samuelson Papers, Box 33, Folder “14.132 Spring 1977”.

Image Source: Capture of the photos page from the Paul Samuelson memorial webpages at the MIT economics department (date of Wayback Machine capture May 22, 2011)

Tags Samuelson

Memo from Chairman E. Cary Brown on a Revision of General Exams, 1975

Also from 1961

From the President’s Report 1961, M.I.T.

Dean Reminding Economics Department about Information Request

Economics Department’s First Response to Dean’s Request for Information

Follow-up Request by Dean

Economics Department’s Response to Follow-up Request by the Dean

Reminder/Invitation

GEA CHRISTMAS SKIT 1968 [Faculty]

Appendix

Rostow Affair

Art Okun’s Reputation as an economic forecaster “on the back of an envelope”

From Shakespeare’s As You Like It Act V, Scene 4.

Kenneth Boulding’s Vote for AEA to Meet in Chicago in 1968

Back-story for selected references in the text

Some Obvious Context

RIP VAN SAMUELSON RETURNS TO MIT AFTER THE REVOLUTION FACULTY SKIT Christmas 1969

CAST

General Examination Advanced Economic Theory

Professors P. A. Samuelson and R. M. Solow Friday, September 21, 1962

General Examination in Advanced Economic Theory: May 1963

‘Twas a Night in the Sixties by Martin Feldstein

Executive summary:

Dramatis Personae

Fun Fact:

The genealogical line from the Physiocrat du Pont de Nemours to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of DuPont in 1947.

Beale to Compton (original)

Walter J. Beadle DuPont Building Wilmington 98, Delaware

Lammot Du Pont to Beadle (copy)

LAMMOT DU PONT Du Pont Building Wilmington 98, Delaware

Compton to Beadle (copy)

Compton to Freeman (copy)

Freeman to Compton (original)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Economics and Social Science

Compton to Freeman (copy)

Back to the Chase

But wait, there’s more

Links to the Merwin Kimball Hart files

A selection from these FOIA files now follows:

A Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (February 8, 1940) prepared by E. A. Tamm

From an investigative report dated July 2, 1942

From November 17, 1942 FBI Internal Security Case Report Merwin K. Hart

Memo for J. Edgar Hoover Jan 26, 1944.

Newspaper clipping, syndicated columnist Marquis W. Childs

Marquis W. Childs. The State of the Nation. [FBI time stamp: Jan 15, 1948]

J. Edgar Hoover’s Memo March 29, 1948

WASHINGTON CITY NEWS SERVICE [teletype] File Time Stamp: August 14, 1950

And no counterrevolution would be complete without the guns Reported June 1950 in the Washington Post

14.132 FALL 1973 HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT P. SAMUELSON

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. FOR BACKGROUND

2. BASIC BACKGROUND REFERENCE

14.132 FALL 1974 HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT P. SAMUELSON E 52-394

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. FOR BACKGROUND

FOR BIOGRAPHY

2. BASIC BACKGROUND REFERENCE

3. First Topic of land and the interest rate: Turgot, Böhm-Bawerk and Keynes-Modigliani

14.132 Fall 1975 STORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT P. A. SAMUELSON E52-394 FRIDAY 1:30-3:30

SUGGESTED READINGS

1. FOR BACKGROUND

FOR BIOGRAPHY

2. BASIC BACKGROUND REFERENCE

3. First topic of Quesnay’s Tableau Economique:

4. Topic of land and the interest rate: Turgot, Böhm-Bawerk and Keynes-Modigliani

5. Modern model of Ricardo

6. Transformation problem of Marx

7. Smith, Adam

8. ….

Samuelson To be placed on reserve for 14.132

Mass. Inst. Tech. FEB 14 1977 DEWEY RESERVE

Reprints

Journals

14.132 Final Exam History of Economic Thought P. A. Samuelson May 20, 1977

Reserve List, MIT Libraries 14.132 History of Economic Thought Spring 1978

14.132 Take-Home Exam Spring 1978

Memo from Chairman E. Cary Brown
on a Revision of General Exams, 1975

GEA CHRISTMAS SKIT 1968
[Faculty]

From Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Act V, Scene 4.

RIP VAN SAMUELSON RETURNS TO MIT AFTER THE REVOLUTION
FACULTY SKIT
Christmas 1969

General Examination
Advanced Economic Theory

Professors P. A. Samuelson and R. M. Solow
Friday, September 21, 1962

‘Twas a Night in the Sixties
by Martin Feldstein

Beale to Compton
(original)

Walter J. Beadle
DuPont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

Lammot Du Pont to Beadle
(copy)

LAMMOT DU PONT
Du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

Compton to Beadle
(copy)

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

Freeman to Compton
(original)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of
Economics and Social Science

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

From November 17, 1942 FBI Internal Security Case Report
Merwin K. Hart

Marquis W. Childs. The State of the Nation.
[FBI time stamp: Jan 15, 1948]

J. Edgar Hoover’s Memo
March 29, 1948

WASHINGTON CITY NEWS SERVICE
[teletype]
File Time Stamp: August 14, 1950

And no counterrevolution would be complete without the guns
Reported June 1950 in the Washington Post

14.132 FALL 1973
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
P. SAMUELSON

14.132 FALL 1974
HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
P. SAMUELSON E 52-394

14.132 Fall 1975
STORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
P. A. SAMUELSON E52-394
FRIDAY 1:30-3:30

Samuelson
To be placed on reserve for 14.132

Mass. Inst. Tech.
FEB 14 1977
DEWEY RESERVE

14.132 Final Exam
History of Economic Thought
P. A. Samuelson
May 20, 1977

Reserve List, MIT Libraries
14.132 History of Economic Thought
Spring 1978

14.132 Take-Home Exam
Spring 1978