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Harvard. Final Examinations for Taussig’s Course “Economic Theory. Both terms, 1922-23

 

Frank W. Taussig taught a two term economic theory course offered for both graduates and undergraduates at Harvard for nearly the entire first third of the twentieth century. Some years he taught one term and a colleague would teach the other term, but usually it was his core course in the curriculum. Today’s posting is dedicated to the 1922-23 course examinations and constitutes a first for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror by having links to the pages or sections of economic works that correspond to the questions.  

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Course Description

1921-22

[Economics] 11. Economic Theory. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professors TAUSSIG and YOUNG.

Course 11 is intended to acquaint the student with the development of economic thought since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and at the same time to train him in the critical consideration of economic principles. The exercises are conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in this discussion the students are expected to take an active part. Attention will be given to the writings of Ricardo and J. S. Mill, and to representative modern economists.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1921-22. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XVIII, No. 20 (April 21, 1921), p. 68.

1924-25

[Economics] 11. Economic Theory. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Taussig

Course 11 is intended to acquaint the student with the development of economic thought since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and at the same time to train him in the critical consideration of economic principles. The exercises are conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in this discussion the students are expected to take an active part. A careful examination is made of the writings of Ricardo and J. S. Mill, and of representative modern economists, such as Marshall, Böhm-Bawerk, Clark.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1924-25. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXI, No. 22 (April 30, 1924), p. 71.

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Midyear Final Exam

1922-23
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 11

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions

1.  (a) “Given machinery, raw materials, and a year’s subsistence for 1000 laborers, does it make no difference with the annual product whether those laborers are Englishmen or East-Indians?”

[Frank W. Taussig, Wages and Capital: An Examination of the Wages Fund Doctrine (New York, 1896), p. 292,
where Taussig discusses a passage in Francis Amasa Walker’s, The Wages Question: A Treatise on Wages and the Wages Class, (New York, 1876), p. 145.]

(b) “In some exceptional industries it happens that the employer realizes on his product in a shorter time than this (a week), so that the laborer is not only paid out of the product of his industry, but actually advances to the employer a portion of the capital on which he operates.”

[Francis Amasa Walker, The Wages Question: A Treatise on Wages and the Wages Class, (New York, 1876), pp. 134-5.]

(c) “On American whaling ships the custom is not to pay fixed wages, but a “lay,” or a portion of the catch, which varies from a sixteenth to a twelfth to the captain down to a three-hundredth to the cabin-boy. Thus, when a whaleship comes into New Bedford or San Francisco after a successful cruise, she carries in her hold the wages of her crew, as well as the profits of her owners, and an equivalent which will reimburse them for all the stores used up during the voyage. Can anything be clearer than that these wages — this oil and bone which the crew of the whaler have taken — have not been drawn from capital, but are really a part of the produce of their labor”?

[Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 25th Anniversary edition, (Garden City,1926), pp. 52-53.]

Are these three situations essentially similar? And what is the bearing of each of them on the question under debate?

  1. “The extra gains which any producer or dealer obtains through superior talents for business, or superior business arrangements, are very much of a similar kind (analogous to rent). If all his competitors had the same advantages, and used them, the benefit would be transferred to their customers, through the diminished value of the article; he only retains it for himself because he is able to bring his commodity to market at a lower cost, while its value is determined by a higher. All advantages, in fact, which one competitor has over another, whether natural or acquired, whether personal or the result of social arrangements, bring the commodity, so far, into the Third Class, and assimilate the possessor of the advantage to a receiver or of rent.” Did Walker add anything of essential significance to this statement of Mill’s?
    Mill, Principles of Pol. Econ., pp. 476-77.

[John Stuart Mill. Principles of Political Economy. Vol. I, Fifth London Edition (New York, 1864) pp. 586-87.]

  1. (a) “It is not to be understood that the natural price of labour, estimated even in food and necessaries, is absolutely fixed and constant. It varies at different times in the same country, and very materially differs in different countries. It essentially depends on the habits and customs of the people.”

[David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy & Taxation. Everyman’s Library Edition (London, 1912), p. 54.]

(b) “A tax on raw produce, and on the necessaries of the labourer, would have another effect — it would raise wages. From the effect of the principle of population on the increase of mankind, wages of the lowest kind never continue much above that rate which nature and habit demand for the support of the labourers. This class is never able to bear any considerable proportion of taxation; and, consequently, if they had to pay 8s. per quarter in addition for wheat, and in some smaller proportion for other necessaries, they would not be able to subsist on the same wages as before, and to keep up the race of labourers. Wages would inevitably and necessarily rise.”

[David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy & Taxation. Everyman’s Library Edition (London, 1912), p. 100.]

(c) “If I have to hire a labourer for a week, and instead of ten shillings I pay him eight, no variation having taken place in the value of money, the labourer can probably obtain more food and necessaries with his eight shillings than he before obtained for ten.”

[David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy & Taxation. Everyman’s Library Edition (London, 1912), p. 11.]

Are these several statements of Ricardo’s consistent?

  1. In which of the following passages is the tendency to diminishing returns treated as referring to the amount of the produce, in which as referring to the value of the produce? Which method of treatment seems to you the proper one?

(a) “Whatever rise may take place in the price of corn, in consequence of the necessity of employing more labor and capital to obtain a given additional quantity of produce, such rise will always be equalled by the additional rent or additional labor employed. . . . Whether the produce belonging to the farmer be 180, 170, 160, or 150 quarters, he always obtains the same sum of £720 for it; the price increasing in an inverse proportion to the quantity.” — Ricardo.

[David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy & Taxation. Everyman’s Library Edition (London, 1912), p. 67.]

(b) The Channel Islands obtain agricultural produce to the value of £50 to each acre of the aggregate surface of the island. Fifty pounds’ worth of agricultural produce from each acre of the land is sufficiently good. But the more we study the modern achievements of agriculture the more we see that the limits of productivity of the soil are not attained. . . . I can confirm Mr. Bear’s estimate to the effect that under proper management even a cool greenhouse, which covers 4050 square feet, can give a gross return of £180.” — Kropotkin.

[Petr Alekssevich Kropotkin. Fields, factories, and workshops, (New York, 1907), pp. 91,118.]

(c) “Ricardo, and the economists of his time generally were too hasty in deducing this inference [tendency to increased pressure] from the law of diminishing return; and they did not allow enough for the increase of strength that comes from organization. But in fact every farmer is aided by the presence of neighbours, whether agriculturists or townspeople. . . . If the neighbouring market town expands into a large industrial centre, all his produce is worth more; some things which he used to throw away fetch a good price. He finds new openings in dairy farming and market gardening, and with a larger range of produce he makes use of rotations that keep his land always active without denuding it of any one of the elements that are necessary for its fertility.” — Marshall.

[Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics, 8th ed., Book IV, Ch. III, §6 (London, 1920).]

  1. “Ricardo expresses himself as if the quantity of labour which it costs to produce a commodity and bring it to the market, were the only thing on which its value depended. But since the cost of production to the capitalist is not labour but wages, and since wages may be either greater or less, the quantity of labour being the same; it would seem that the value of the product cannot be determined solely by the quantity of labour, but by the quantity together with the remuneration; and that values must partly depend on wages.” — J. S. Mill.

[John Stuart Mill. Principles of Political Economy. Vol. I, Fifth London Edition (New York, 1864) p. 564.]

What would Ricardo say to this? and in what way, according to Mill, do wages affect value?

  1. Explain briefly external economies; internal economies.
    It has been said that internal economies cause an increase of demand, external economies result from an increase of demand. Do you agree?
    Suppose internal economies to become greater indefinitely, as output enlarges; what consequences would ensue? Suppose the same for external economies, what consequences?
  2. “There is one general law of demand: the greater the amount to be sold, the smaller must be the price at which it is offered in order that it may find purchasers. . . . The one universal rule to which the demand curve conforms is that it is inclined negatively throughout the whole of its length.”

[Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics. 8th edition, Book III, Ch. III, §5, and footnote no. 2 (London, 1920), p. 99.]

“The demand curve over short periods — which may be a matter of weeks or months — is not necessarily inclined throughout in the same direction. It may be inclined positively. And similarly the supply curve does not necessarily have that constant positive inclination which is usually assumed. In the course of the higgling of the market this in its turn may have a negative inclination.”

[Frank W. Taussig, “Is the Market Price Determinate?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, p. 402.]

Whom do you believe to be the writers of these passages? Can they be harmonized? If so, how? If not, why not?

  1. The series of hypotheses made by Marshall concerning “meteoric showers of stones harder than diamonds”; the nature of the incomes derived by those finding them in the several cases; and the general principle which is thus illustrated.

[Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics. Book V, Ch. IX, §2 (London, 1920), p. 415ff.]

Mid-Year. 1923.

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Academic Year-End Final Exam

 

1922-23
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 11

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.

  1. “Labour of different kinds differently rewarded. This no cause of variation in the relative value of commodities.” On what grounds did Ricardo reach the conclusion summarized by him in these sentences? Is it consistent with the general trend of his theory of value?

[David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy & Taxation. Everyman’s Library Edition (London, 1912), p. 11.]

  1. “This doctrine [about non-competing groups] was given its name by J. E. Cairnes. . . . He supposed it to be a rare and remarkable exception to what he believed was the general rule, that the cost-of-production regulated the price of goods — essentially a “labor-theory of value.” We regard it merely as a helpful way of presenting a particular case of the general rule that the value of agents is derived from their products when the market is viewed as a whole.”

[Frank A. Fetter, Economic Principles (New York, 1915), p. 221.]

What would Cairnes say to this? What is your own view on the “general rule” stated in the concluding sentence?

[John E. Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy, Newly Expounded, Chapter III, §7 “Nature of Reciprocal Demand as between nations and non-competing industrial groups”. (New York,1874), pp. 87ff.]

  1. “Suppose that society is divided into a number of horizontal grades, each of which is recruited from the children of its own members; and each of which has its own standard of comfort, and increases in numbers rapidly when the earnings to be got in it rise above, and shrinks rapidly when they fall below that standard. Suppose, then, that parents can bring up their children to any trade in their own grade, but cannot easily raise them above it and will not consent to sink them below it. . . .

[Quote is from Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (Second Edition, London, 1891). Vol. I, Book VI, Chapter 1, §3, pp. 557-8.
Frank W. Taussig, International Trade, pp. 53ff.]

On these suppositions, would Cairnes say that value was determined by cost? What would Marshall say?

[John E. Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy, Newly Expounded, Chapter III, §7 “Nature of Reciprocal Demand as between nations and non-competing industrial groups”. (New York,1874), pp. 87ff.]

  1. (a) “We have next to study the conditions of Business Management; and in so doing we must have in view a problem that will occupy our attention as we go on. It arises from the fact that, though in manufacturing at least nearly every individual business, so long as it is well managed, tends to become stronger the larger it has grown; and though prima facie we might therefore expect to see large firms driving their smaller rivals completely out of many branches of industry, yet they do not in fact do so.”

[Quote is from Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (Second Edition, London, 1891). Vol. I, Book IV, Chapter XII, §1, p. 349.]

(b) “Since then business ability in command of capital moves with great ease horizontally from a trade which is overcrowded to one which offers good openings for it; and since it moves with great ease vertically, the abler men rising to the higher posts in their own trade, we see, even at this early state of our inquiry, some good reasons for believing that in modern England the supply of business ability in command of capital accommodates itself, as a general rule, to the demand for it; and thus has a fairly defined supply price.”

[Quote is from Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (Eighth Edition, London, 1920). Book IV, Chapter XII, §12, p. 313.]

What is Marshall’s solution of the problem stated in the first of these passages? What sort of supply schedule do you suppose him to have in mind in the second? What would Walker say on both passages?

  1. “If the production of any, even the smallest, portion of the supply, requires as a necessary condition a certain price, that price will be obtained for all the rest. . . . The value, therefore, of an article (meaning its natural, which is the same with its average value) is determined by the cost of that portion of the supply which is produced and brought to market at the greatest expense. This is the Law of Value of the third of the three classes into which all commodities are divided. . . . Rent, therefore, forms no part of the cost of production which determines the value of agricultural produce.”

[John Stuart Mill. Principles of Political Economy. Vol. I, Book III, Chapter V §2, Fifth London Edition (New York, 1864) pp. 579-81.]

By whom do you suppose this passage to have been written? What would Marshall say to it?

  1. “‘Rent is not an element in price’ — such is the classical statement on the subject. . . . But, if one defines rent as product imputable to a concrete agent, the impossibility of maintaining such a claim becomes apparent. Even if one were to restrict the term rent to the product created by land, the claim that it is not an element in adjusting market values would be absurd; for it would amount to saying that a certain part of the output of every kind of goods has no effect on their market value. The ‘price’ referred to in the formula is, of course, the market value expressed in units of currency.” What do you say?

[John Bates Clark, The Distribution of Wealth Chapter XXIII, (1899, reprint New York, 1908), p. 358.]

  1. “When the artisan or professional man has once obtained the skill required for his work, a part of his earnings are for the future really a quasi-rent of the capital and labour invested in fitting him for his work, in obtaining his start in life, his business connections, and generally his opportunity for turning his faculties to good account; and only the remainder of his income is true earnings of effort. But this remainder is generally a large part of the whole. And here lies the contrast. For when a similar analysis is made of the profits of the business man, the proportions are found to be different: in his case the greater part is quasi-rent.” Why? or why not?

[Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics (Eight Edition, London, 1920). Book VI, Chapter VIII, §8, p. 622.]

  1. (a) “Capital-goods imply waiting for the fruits of labor. Capital, on the contrary, implies the direct opposite of this: it is the means of avoiding all waiting. It is the remover of time intervals, — the absolute synchronizer of labor and its fruits. It is the means of putting civilized man in a position which, so far as time is concerned, is akin to that in which the rude forester stood, when when he broke off limbs of dead trees and laid them on his fire. The very appliances which, in their extent and complexity, seem in one view to mean endless waiting, in another view mean no waiting at all but the instantaneous appearance of the final fruits of every bit of labor that is put forth.”

[John Bates Clark, The Distribution of Wealth, Chapter XX, (1899, reprint New York, 1908), p. 311.]

(b) “Tools are productive, but time is the condition of getting tools — this is the simple and literal fact. The roundabout or time-consuming mode of using labor insures efficient capital-goods. . . . When the hatchet has worn itself completely out, and the fruits of using it are before the man in the large dwelling, he may look backward to the beginning of the process, when he faced nature empty-handed, and say: ‘Labor has done it all. Work and waiting have given me my goods.’ The working and the waiting have, indeed, insured the hatchet, as an incidental result of this way of working. Production that plans to put its fruits into the future will create capital-goods as an immediate effect, but labor and time are enough to make the ultimate effect certain. Let the man work intelligently through an interval of time, and the production of consumers’ wealth is sure.”

[John Bates Clark, The Distribution of Wealth, Chapter XX, (1899, reprint New York, 1908), p. 309.]

(c) “The effort of postponement, or the preference of uncertain future for certain present consumables, necessary for supplying capital, if it is an effort, is a continuous one lasting all the time the capital is in use. The critic who asks, why a single ‘act of abstinence’ which is past and done with should be rewarded by a perpetual payment of annual interest, fails to realise that, so far as saving involves a serviceable action of the saver, it goes on all the time that the saver lies out of the full present enjoyment of his property, i. e. as long as his savings continue to function as productive instruments.”

[J. A. Hobson, Work and Wealth: A Human Valuation (New York, 1914), p. 92.]

What would Clark say to the three propositions here stated? What are your own views?
By whom do you suppose the passages to have been written?

Final. 1923.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers in Economics, 1882-1935. Prof. F. W. Taussig. (HUC 7882).

Image Source:  Frank W. Taussig in Harvard Class Album 1925.

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Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final Exams in Economics. 1913-14.

 

 

This posting merges information from three sources: brief course descriptions from the annual course announcement published for the Division of History, Government and Economics for the academic year 1913-14 in the Harvard Register; final examination questions published by Harvard in June 1914; and the mid-year (i.e. February) examination questions for two courses taught by Frank Taussig and pasted in a file scrapbook containing what appears to be all of his Harvard examinations.

At hathitrust.org there are online copies of the annual June publication of examination questions for 1912-13 through 1915-16. A transcription of the 1912-13 economics examinations has been posted earlier.

While sixteen courses have published  final examinations that are transcribed below, there were still some seven or so economics courses not included in the published June volume. Further the mid-year (i.e. February) final exams for year long courses were not included in the published collection.

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Principles of Economics

Course Description
Economics A

[Economics] A. (formerly 1). Principles of Economics. Tu., Th., Sat., at 11.

Professor TAUSSIG and Asst. Professor DAY, assisted by Messrs. Burbank, J. S. Davis, R. E. Heilman, and others.

Course A gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It undertakes a consideration of the principles of production, distribution, exchange, money, banking, international trade, and taxation. The relations of labor and capital, the present organization of industry, and the recent currency legislation of the United States will be treated in outline.

The course will be conducted partly by lectures, partly by oral discussion in sections. A course of reading will be laid down, and weekly written exercises will test the work of students in following systematically and continuously the lectures and the prescribed reading. Course A may not be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor.

 

Mid-Year Exam
Economics A

Arrange your answers strictly in in the order of the questions. Answer all the questions.

  1. State concisely the distinctions between the following (omit one): —

(a) free goods and public goods;
(b) saving, investment, the creation of capital;
(c) subsidiary coinage and limping standard;
(d) industrial crisis and financial panic;
(e) deposits in commercial banks and deposits in savings banks.

  1. Which among these distinctions is important for the understanding of the following, and wherein? (Omit one.)

(a) the influence of credit on prices;
(b) the benefits to be expected from a centralized banking system;
(c) the rates which a municipality charges for water supplied to consumers;
(d) the effects of public borrowing (government debts);
(e) silver certificates.

  1. (a) Suppose a great and lasting increase in the demand for skates: what would you expect to be the immediate, what the ultimate effects on the value of skates?
    (b) Suppose a great and lasting increase in the demand for Indian corn: what would you expect to be the immediate, what the ultimate effects on the value of Indian corn?
    (c) Suppose a great and lasting increase in the demand for wheat straw: what would you expect to be the immediate, what the ultimate effects on the value of wheat?
  2. “Here cost is supposed to be uniform but not constant, — it becomes less per unit as the number of units increases.” Explain the terms “uniform” and “constant,” and the conditions of production described in the extract. How is value determined under these conditions (illustrate either by diagram or by example)?
  3. In which direction and by what process would the following tend to affect the price to the consumer in the United States of a bushel of wheat: (1) adoption of bimetallism by the United States at the ratio of 16 to 1; (2) development of organized speculation; (3) a successful corner in wheat?
  4. Explain: —

Central Reserve City Bank;
Federal Reserve Bank;
U.S. Treasury Gold Reserve;
Bank of England Reserve.

  1. Suppose the people of one country to lend, through a long period, large sums annually to the people of another country; trace the effects in the lending country, immediate and ultimate, on

the flow of specie;
merchandise imports and exports;
the price of foreign exchange.

Would you expect such a lending country to have a “favorable” or an “unfavorable” balance of trade?

  1. Suppose the following course of prices: —

 

Price of silver
per oz.		 Price of wheat
per bushel		 Index numbers of general prices
1873 $1.30 $1.32 130
1895 0.65 0.67 80
1912 0.61 1.10 110

Would the figures indicate that the value of silver changed between 1873 and 1895? The value of gold? of wheat?

Would they indicate that the value of silver changed from 1895 to 1912? of gold? of wheat?

 

Final Exam
Economics A

  1. Arrange the following items in the form of a bank statement showing in parallel columns the liabilities and resources: —

Real estate, $30,000; Surplus, $30,000; Deposits, $283,000; Loans, $300,000; Reserve, $65,000; Undivided profits, $12,000; Other assets, $10,000; Capital stock, $100,000; Bonds and stocks, $80,000; Notes, $75,000; Due from banks, $15,000.

Draw up a similar statement showing condition after each of the following operations: —

(a) The bank makes a new loan of $1000 for 3 months at the discount rate of 4% per annum. Proceeds are taken 1/3 in specie, 1/3 in the bank’s own notes, and the balance in a deposit account.

(b) The bank adds $5000 to its surplus, and declares a dividend of 2%. Stockholders take half of the dividend in gold, and leave half on deposit with the bank.

  1. What would be the immediate effect, what the ultimate effect, of a large increase in the supply of money on (a) money wages, (b) real wages, (c) business profits, (d) the bank rate of discount?
  2. “The principle of protection is to build up our home industries by manufacturing our own products. This gives our people employment, keeps the money in the country, and makes this country an independent and self-reliant nation.”

Wherein are these arguments valid? Wherein invalid? Give your reasons.

  1. “The outcome of the discussion of demand and supply (with reference to capital and interest) can be stated in simple form under the theory of value. The several installments of savings can be had at various rates, some for a small reward, some for a larger reward. The case is thus one of varying supply price, coming under the principle of increasing costs.”

Explain, and illustrate by diagram.

  1. “The effect of high prices for land and high rents is apparent. Industries will be slow to locate in Pittsburgh if rents or prices of land are higher than in other cities. A higher rent or interest on higher-price of land bought for building, will be a constant added charge on cost of operation. Consequently, industries will tend to shun a city where this higher cost is incurred.” Do you think this consequence will ensue?

Suppose a tax in this city (not levied in other cities) on the future increase of land values; would industries shun the city?

  1. Explain wherein the problems would be different in fixing minimum wages (a) for common unskilled labor, (b) for various grades of skilled labor, (c) for women.
  2. How great has been the development of coöperation in production? What explanation can you give?

What is the ground for saying that “maturity” makes an industry more proper for public management?

“The inevitable attitude of the hired workman is to favor arrangements that seem to make work and to oppose those that seem to lessen work.”

Why should this attitude be thought “inevitable”?

  1. Explain, and give in each case, if possible, an illustration drawn from American or British experience in the taxation of land:

Increment tax;
Stoppage at the source;
Incidence of a tax;
Progressive tax.

 

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Statistics

Course Description
Economics 1

[Economics] 1 1hf. Statistics. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Asst. Professor DAY.

This course will deal primarily with the elements of statistical method. The following subjects will be considered: methods of collecting and tabulating data; the construction and use of diagrams; the use and value of the various types and averages; index-numbers; dispersion; interpolation; correlation. Special attention will be given to the accuracy of statistical material.

In the course of this study of statistical method, examples of the best statistical information will be presented, and the best sources will be indicated. Population and vital statistics will be examined in some measure, but economic statistics will predominate.

Open only to those who, having passed satisfactorily in Economics A, secure the consent of the instructor.

 

Final Exam
Economics 1

  1. Indicate two methods of correcting death-rates for age- and sex-distribution.
  2. What are the different methods of collecting workmen’s budgets? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each of these methods?
  3. What are the chief difficulties encountered in the use of statistics of imports and exports?
  4. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of the mode and arithmetic average as statistical types.
  5. Describe and criticise the different methods of presenting wage statistics. Cite instances of the use of each.
  6. Define correlation. What is Pearson’s coefficient of correlation? Indicate its use and interpretation.
  7. Explain briefly: ogive; lag; probable error; Galton graph; standard deviation; logarithmic curve; ratio of variation; Lorenz curve.

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European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century

Course Description
Economics 2a

[Economics] 2a 1hf. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Professor GAY, assisted by —.

Course 2a undertakes to present the general outlines of the economic history of western Europe since the Industrial Revolution. Such topics as the following will be discussed: the economic aspects of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic régime, the Stein-Hardenberg reforms, the Zoll-Verein, Cobden and free trade in England, labor legislation and social reform, nationalism and the recrudescence of protectionism, railways and waterways, the effects of transoceanic competition, the rise of industrial Germany.

Since attention will be directed in this course to those phases of the subject which are related to the economic history of the United States, it may be taken usefully before Economics 2b.

 

Final Exam
Economics 2a

  1. When did the Industrial Revolution take place in Germany? Why did it come later there than in England? In how far was it brought about by analogous causes?
  2. Compare the scale of production and specialization in the cotton, shoe, and wool manufacturing industries in England and France. Give reasons for contrasts.
  3. Discuss the part which the banks have played in the promotion of industrial concentration in the electrical, chemical, and mining industries in Germany. What other factors have encouraged the development of these industries.
  4. (a) Account for the relatively high capitalization of the railways in England.
    (b) How has the “cost of service” principle been applied in the fixing of freight rates on the Prussian railways?
  5. What have been the periods of prosperity in English agriculture in the nineteenth century? And what have been the causes? How have these periods of prosperity affected the agricultural laborer?
  6. What interests have supported the recent tariff reform movement in England? Why? Do you think that from the English standpoint such a change in policy is desirable? Why or why not?

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Economic and Financial History of the United States

Course Description
Economics 2b

[Economics] 2b 2hf. Economic and Financial History of the United States. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Professor GAY, assisted by —.

The following are among the subjects considered: aspects of the Revolution and commercial relations during the Confederation and the European wars; the history of the protective tariff policy and the growth of manufacturing industries; the settlement of the West and the history of transportation, including the early canal and turnpike enterprises of the states, the various phases of railway building and the establishment of public regulation of railways; banking and currency experiences; various aspects of agrarian history, such as the public land policy, the growth of foreign demand for American produce and the subsequent competition of other sources of supply; certain social topics, such as slavery and its economic basis, and the effects of immigration.

 

Final Exam
Economics 2b

  1. Discuss the bearing of the mercantile theory upon American commercial history before 1860.
  2. Comment on the following statements by William McKinley:

(a) “A low tariff or no tariff has always increased the importation of foreign goods until our money ran out; multiplied our foreign obligations; produced a balance of trade against our country; supplanted the domestic producer and manufacturer; impaired the farmer’s home market without improving his foreign market; decreased the industries of the nation; diminished the value of nearly all our property and investments and robbed labor of its just rewards. This is the verdict of our history.”

(b) “Periods of low tariff synchronize with industrial depression ” [in American history].

  1. “In the twenty years [after 1816] institutions were arising and changing, and centers of social gravity shifting. It was essentially a time of realignment of interests.”

State your grounds of agreement or disagreement with this view, and compare these changes with those in the period since 1890.

  1. Illustrate with three examples the problem of localization of industry in the United States.
  2. “The Civil War was won by the McCormick reaper.” How far was this true, and why?
  3. Write briefly on the following topics: —

(a) The competition between anthracite and coke in the iron industry.
(b) Willoughby’s estimate of the future of integration in industry.

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Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises

Course Description
Economics 3

[Economics] 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 1.30. Asst. Professor DAY, assisted by —.

This course aims to analyze the principal problems of money and credit. An examination is first made of the more important existing monetary systems. This is followed by a careful review of the more instructive chapters in the monetary history of England, Germany, France, the United States, Austria, British India, Mexico, and the Philippines.

The nature, origin, and early growth of commercial banking are considered. An investigation of present banking practice in England, France, Germany, and Canada is followed by a study of banking history and present banking problems in the United States. In this connection foreign exchange and the money markets of London, Paris, Berlin, and New York are examined.

Finally attention is turned to those problems of money and credit which appear most prominently in connection with economic crises. Though emphasis is thrown upon the financial aspects of the trade cycle, the investigation covers the more fundamental factors causing commercial and industrial fluctuations.

Short papers upon assigned topics will be required of all students.

 

Final Exam
Economics3

  1. Suppose the United States were to permit the free coinage of our present silver dollar. How would this tend to affect the (1) monetary stock of the United States; (2) mint price of silver; (3) value of the dime; (4) price of gold jewelry; (5) value of gold certificates; (6) prices in England; (7) balance of international payments; (8) rates of foreign exchange? Give explanations throughout.
  2. How is the value of irredeemable paper money to be measured? What determines the value of such money? What are the most important questions in the resumption of specie payments after a period of irredeemable paper? If possible, illustrate your points from the experience of the United States.
  3. Define discount market. Describe the English discount market. How has the absence of such a market affected banking in the United States? What provisions of the Federal Reserve Act are designed to develop a discount market in this country?
  4. How and why have panics and crises in the United States tended to affect (1) aggregate bank loans; (2) reserves of the national banks; (3) amount of bank notes in circulation; (4) quotations of stocks and bonds on the New York Stock Exchange; (5) rates of foreign exchange in New York?
  5. Briefly describe the following phenomena in the panic of 1907; (1) currency premium; (2) hoarding; (3) the domestic exchanges; (4) substitutes for cash.
  6. By what means and to what extent, if at all, does the Federal Reserve Act provide for an effective centralized control of credit in the United States?

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Economics of TransportationCourse Description
Economics 4a

[Economics] 4a 1hf. Economics of Transportation. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor RIPLEY, assisted by —.

A brief outline of the historical development of rail and water transportation in the United States will be followed by a description of the condition of transportation systems at the present time. The four main subdivisions of rates and rate-making, finance, traffic operation, and legislation will be considered in turn. The first deals with the relation of the railroad to shippers, comprehending an analysis of the theory and practice of rate-making. An outline will be given of the nature of railroad securities, the principles of capitalization, and the interpretation of railroad accounts. Railroad operation will deal with the practical problems of the traffic department, such as the collection and interpretation of statistics of operation, pro-rating, the apportionment of cost, depreciation and maintenance, etc. Under legislation, the course of state regulation and control in the United States and Europe will be traced.

 

Final Exam
Economics 4a1

  1. Railroad A. is capitalized at $50,000 per mile, — $35,000 in five per cent bonds and the rest in stock. Railroad A. earns about $2500 net per mile. Railroad B. earns about $4000 net per mile on a capitalization of $90,000 per mile, — $50,000 in four per cent bonds, the balance in stock. Which is the stronger road financially? What about the relative ability of the two roads to give service at low rates?
  2. Describe the general plan by which competition in Trunk Line territory was eliminated within the last decade. What has since happened?
  3. What has been in general the course of prices of railway securities since 1890? Briefly state the causes.
  4. What was the final plan adopted for dissolution of the Union-Southern Pacific combination?
  5. How was the question of land valuation for railroad purposes in the Minnesota Rate Case treated?
  6. What is the gist of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States? Merely name a few of the most important cases applying it to railroads since 1870, and in a sentence in each case outline the point covered.
  7. Outline a typical case, real or hypothetical, showing how Federal and State authority may come in conflict in the matter of rate-making.
  8. When and why was the Commercial Court created? Outline the result of the experiment.
  9. It has been urged that railroad monopoly under adequate Government regulation may serve the public as well as competition. Do you agree with this view? State your reasons and cite instances.

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Economics of Corporations

Course Description
Economics 4b

[Economics] 4b 2hf. Economics of Corporations. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Professor RIPLEY, assisted by —.

This course will treat of the fiscal and industrial organization of capital, especially in the corporate form. The principal topic considered will be industrial combination and the so-called trust problem. This will be broadly discussed, with comparative study of conditions in the United States and Europe. The development of corporate enterprise, promotion, and financing, accounting, liability of directors and underwriters, will be described, not in their legal but in their economic aspects; and the effects of industrial combination upon efficiency, profits, wages, prices, the development of export trade, and international competition will be considered in turn.

 

Final Exam
Economics  4b

Answer in order — omitting any one question.

  1. What are the principal advantages of a stable rate of dividends? What influences tend to cause departure therefrom?
  2. Outline two ways at least of securing temporary relief by appeal to stock-holders in case of threatened insolvency of a corporation.
  3. What is the most important economy incident to production under monopoly of the market, as distinct from mere large-scale production?
  4. Why is the financial experience of the American Mercantile Marine Company significant?
  5. Outline the course of enforcement of the Sherman Act. How largely did underlying economic causes, as distinct from purely personal ones, play a part?
  6. Outline the device, in case of corporate promotion, for making an issue of stock full-paid in order to relieve investors against further assessments.
  7. Would price regulation — as by the American Publishers Association — fixing the retail price of books and excluding cut-rate dealers from supplies, seem to be debarred by the Standard Oil decision?
  8. Are financial abuses such as an excessive issue of securities as characteristic of German industrial combinations as of those in the United States?
  9. Contrast price fixing by law for monopolized commodities with the regulation of railroad rates. How may such an issue arise in connection with amendment of the Sherman Act?

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Public Finance

Course Description
Economics 5

[Economics] 5. Public Finance, including the Theory and Methods of Taxation. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professor BULLOCK.

This course covers the entire field of public finance, but emphasizes the subject of taxation. After a brief survey of the history of finance, attention is given to public expenditures, commercial revenues, administrative revenues, and taxation, with consideration both of theory and of the practice of various countries. Public credit is then studied, and financial legislation and administration are briefly treated.

Systematic reading is prescribed, and most of the exercises are conducted by the method of informal discussion. Candidates for distinction will be given an opportunity to write theses.

Graduate students are advised to elect Economics 31.

 

Final Exam
Economics 5

  1. Discuss the different definitions of a tax.
  2. Discuss Adam Smith’s maxims of taxation.
  3. Discuss the incidence of an exclusive tax on land.
  4. Discuss the incidence of taxes upon mortgages in the United States.
  5. Compare the working of the general property tax in the United States with its working in Switzerland.
  6. Discuss the proposition that income is the normal source of taxation.
  7. Discuss the leading arguments for and against progressive taxation.
  8. Discuss the leading arguments of Shearman and Seligman for and against the single tax.

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Trade Unionism and Allied Problems

Course Description
Economics 6a

[Economics] 6a 1hf. Trade Unionism and Allied Problems. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor RIPLEY, assisted by —.

This course will deal mainly with the economic and social relations of employer and employed. Among the topics included will be: the history of unionism; the policies of trade unions respecting wages, machinery, output, etc.; collective bargaining; strikes; employers’ liability and workmen’s compensation; efficiency management; unemployment, etc., in the relation to unionism, will be considered.

Each student will make at least one report upon a labor union or an important strike, from the original documents. Two lectures a week, with one recitation, will be the usual practice.

 

Final Exam
Economics 6a

  1. Outline the principal phases of development of organized labor in the United States, with especial reference to conditions at the present time. In conclusion name five or six of the most significant events which define the present situation.
  2. What are the three most essential features of a collective bargain between workmen and employers?
  3. What is the feature in common of all minimum wage laws, as in Victoria and of compulsory arbitration statutes like those of New Zealand? Wherein does the policy differ most profoundly from ours?
  4. Name in a sentence in each of as many of the following cases as possible, the essential point at issue.

(a) The Danbury hatters.
(b) Allen v. Flood.
(c) New York Bakeshop law.
(d) Bucks Stove Co. case.
(e) Taff Vale Railway.
(f) Holden v. Hardy. (Utah.)

  1. How, other than by incorporation, is a greater measure of legal responsibility of trade unions to be attained?
  2. Discuss scientific management from the viewpoint of organized labor.
  3. What is the significant feature of the new type of state labor bureau, like the Wisconsin Industrial Commission?
  4. Compare the present legal status of the non-union man in England and the United States.

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Theories of Distribution and Distributive Justice

Course Description
Economics 7

[Economics] 7. Theories of Distribution and Distributive Justice. Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Professor CARVER and an assistant.

Course 7 undertakes an analysis of the laws of value, as applied to consumable goods and to agents of production, including labor, land, capital, and management; the laws determining wages, rent, interest, and profits; and an examination of the relation of the laws of value to the problem of social adjustment; the social utility of various forms of property; also a critical reading of various works on the distribution of wealth, on socialism, on the single tax, and other special schemes for attaining the ideals of economic justice.

 

Final Exam
Economics 7

  1. What have you read for this course during the year? What parts of the reading interested you most? What parts interested you least? What parts gave you most difficulty?
  2. State and criticise in detail Fisher’s theory of the value of money.
  3. State and criticise Laughlin’s theory of the value of money.
  4. A well-secured note of a good corporation for $100 has four years to run. It pays 7 per cent interest. It is taxed at 1 per cent. The prevailing rate of interest on such paper is 5 per cent. What is the note worth?
  5. What is your own theory of crises?
  6. A law requiring proprietors of saw-mills to insure their workmen against accident would lead to increased cost of production, and higher prices, for lumber. Would a law requiring all employers similarly to insure lead to higher prices all around? Why or why not?
  7. What do you think of the single-tax contention that all taxes except land-taxes are burdens on industry, and restrict production?
  8. Summarize and criticise Shearman’s arguments for the single tax.
  9. State and criticise Clark’s argument to prove that ” unearned increments ” in land values off-set depreciation on buildings, and so increase the amount of building.

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Principles of Sociology

Course Description
Economics 8

[Economics] 8. Principles of Sociology. — Theories of Social Progress. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10. Professor CARVER and an assistant.

An analytical study of social life and of the factors and forces which hold society together and give it an orderly development. The leading social institutions will also be studied with a view to finding out their relation to social well-being and progress.

The reading will be selected from various writers who have treated the problems of human progress and social adjustment.

Course 8 is open only to students who have passed in Economics 1.

 

Final Exam
Economics 8

Sociology

  1. Make a two-page topical outline of the course as a whole.
  2. What topics in the course would you wish to have treated more fully? What topics seemed to you to have proportionately too much attention? What parts of the reading interested you most? What parts of the reading did you find most helpful? What parts of the reading gave you most difficulty? What parts of the reading would you prefer to see omitted?
  3. In what respects does the imitation theory fall short of an adequate social psychology?
  4. Discuss the economic interpretation of history.
  5. Discuss the “color line.”
  6. Summarize Spencer’s theory of the origin of religion. In what respects is it deficient?
  7. To what does Giddings attribute the rise of democracy? In what ways does he think that democracy changes the functions of government?
  8. State and illustrate Giddings’ “three stages of civilization.” Compare this conception with the rival views of Hegel, Comte and Spencer.
  9. Summarize John Dewey’s “Interpretation of Savage Mind.”
  10. Summarize the theory of progress developed in the lectures. What is your own view?

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Principles of Accounting

Course Description
Economics 9

[Economics] 9. Principles of Accounting. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Associate Professor Cole, assisted by Messrs. and —.

This course is designed to show the processes by which the earnings and values of business properties are computed. It is not intended primarily to afford practice in book-keeping; but since intelligent construction and interpretation of accounts is impossible without a knowledge of certain main types of book-keeping, practice sufficient to give the student familiarity with elementary technique will form an important part of the work of the course. The chief work, however, will be a study of the principles that underlie the determination of profit, cost, and valuation. These will be considered as they appear in several types of business enterprise. Published accounts of corporations will be examined, and practice in interpretation will be afforded. The instruction will be chiefly by assigned readings, discussions, and written work.

Course 9 is not open to students before their last year of undergraduate work. For men completing their work at the end of the first half-year, it may be counted, with the consent of the instructor, as a half-course. It is regularly open only to Seniors and to Graduates who have passed in Economics A. Students intending to enter the Graduate School of Business Administration are expected to take this course in preparation for the advanced courses in accounting.

 

Final Exam
Economics 9

PRINCIPLES OF ACCOUNTING
Associate Professor Cole

  1. Illustrate, by imaginary entries, any book from which posting may be made in lump sum not only for many items to be debited to one account, but also for many items to be credited to each of various other accounts. [Show at least three items to be posted in lump sum for each of three accounts, and show at least two items that must be posted individually.]
  2. Two successive condensed balance sheets show the following figures: —

January 1, 1913

Real Estate $50,000 Capital Stock $100,000
Merchandise 75,000 Bills Payable 25,000
Accounts Receivable 30,000 Accounts Payable 30,000
Miscellaneous Assets 7,000 Surplus 7,000
$162,000 $162,000

 

January 1, 1914

Real Estate $53,000 Capital Stock $100,000
Merchandise 77,000 Bills Payable 25,000
Accounts Receivable 12,000 Accounts Payable 20,000
Miscellaneous Assets 7,000 Surplus 7,000
Reserve for Depreciation 5,000
Dividends 7,000
$149,000 $149,000

Assuming that no dividends were paid, what were the profits for the year?
Where are they?

  1. Should you charge against revenue or to capital (giving your reason in each case) the cost of the following : —

(1) An extra wheel, carried ready for emergency, for an automobile truck.
(2) Wages of an extra watchman employed because construction work has removed a part of the wall of a store.
(3) Installation of an automatic sprinkler system required because during a strike fanatics have threatened incendiarism.
(4) Repairs of a building after a slight collapse due to the disintegration of concrete frozen during construction.
(5) Directories, handbooks, encyclopedias, etc., in the office of a professional firm that must keep informed of the latest scientific and professional news.

  1. What is the probable explanation of the following entries?
Good Will $25,000
To Andrew Jackson $25,000
Subscriptions 200,000
To Stock Subscribed 175,000
Premium Surplus 25,000
Cash 50,000
Andrew Jackson 150,000
To Subscriptions 200,000
Stock Subscribed 175,000
To Capital Stock 175,000

 

  1. How should you distribute the following general expenses over the departments of a department store, grouping the expenses as far as feasible: —
Rent,
Light,
Heat,
Insurance,
Taxes,		 General Administration,
Correspondence,
Accounting,
Advertising,
Welfare Work.
  1. The estimated wear and tear on machinery in a shop is $12,000 a year. The profits are figured monthly and $1,000 is taken into the cost accounts for wear and tear on the last day of every month. The amount spent (in cash) for repairs and renewals is as follows: February 15, $500; March 15, $1,200; June 15, $2,500; August 15, $8,000; December 15, $1,500. Show the entry or entries for wear and tear for (1) each last day of the month, (2) the five dates given above, (3) closing at the end of the year. [Show either journal or ledger, with dates.]
  2. Bonds are issued to the amount of $12,000,000, payable in twenty-five years, with interest at 5 per cent annually (in semiannual payments). The credit of the issuing company is not good enough to warrant investors in lending on a basis of less than 5½ per cent. The bonds are accordingly sold for $11,190,084.90. Where will the discount appear on the issuer’s statements — income sheet, balance sheet, both, neither? If either or both, how and where?

Bond tables give the value of such bonds six months later as $11,197,812.23. When the first interest, of $300,000, is paid, what entry or entries should be made? Write the explanation portion of such entries.

  1. Suppose that the cost accounts of a manufacturing business are carried through the general ledger, and that the accounts have been closed so far as to show on the ledger all the figures for the operating statement. This statement is as follows: —

Operating statement, May 1, 1913, to April 30, 1914

Sales $297,000
Raw materials on hand, 5/1/13 $26,000
Raw materials bought 107,000
Raw materials handled 133,000
Raw materials on hand, 4/30/14 18,000
Raw materials consumed 115,000
Wages paid $54,000
Less balance due, 5/1/13 2,000
52,000
Wages due, 4/30/14 900
Wages cost 52,900
Taxes 1,500
Interest prepaid, 5/1/13 600
Interest paid in and for year 1,000 1,600
General manufacturing expenses 30,000
Manufacturing cost 201,000
Goods in process, 5/1/13 10,000
Cost of goods for year 211,000
Goods in process, 4/30/14 7,000
Cost of goods finished in year 204,000
Stock on hand, 5/1/13 60,000
Cost of finished goods handled 264,000
Stock on hand, 4/30/14 20,000
Cost of goods sold 244,000
Selling cost 10,000 254,000
Net profits 43,000

Show the trial balance of ledger totals (not balances) for the cost accounts, supposing that the net balance of all accounts not involved in the cost accounting is $1100 on the credit side.

  1. Below are four columns of a six-column statement which were drawn up for a special purpose (sometimes waiving proper classifications) with the intention of filling out the remaining columns. Fill out the other two columns, and then present a proper form of balance sheet and income sheet (so far as the facts are known to you) for the railroad whose operations are covered by the figures, assuming that dividends of 6 per cent are declared, but not paid, at the end of the year.
Capital Stock 50.0 50.0
Bonded Debt 150.4 150.4
Accounts Receivable 12.5 12.5
Accounts Payable 2.0 2.0
Road and Equipment 101.3 101.3
Investments 102.7 102.7
Cash 14.7 14.7
Supplies 5.7 5.7
Advances 12.5 12.5
Transportation 13.9 46.7 2.5
Maintenance of Way and Structures 5.5 .4 1.2
Maintenance of Equipment 6.8 1.6
Traffic 1.1
General Expense 1.2 .4
Taxes 1.5 3.0
Other Income 6.5
Interest 6.0 1.5
Miscellaneous Expense 4.4 1.9 1.8
Surplus _______ 33.4 ______ 33.4
289.8 289.8 251.3 247.4

 

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Economic Theory

Course Description
Economics 11

[Economics] 11. Economic Theory. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor TAUSSIG.

Course 11 is intended to acquaint the student with some of the later developments of economic thought, and at the same time to train him in the critical consideration of economic principles and the analysis of economic conditions. The exercises are accordingly conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in this discussion the students are expected to take an active part. The writings of J. S. Mill, Cairnes, F. A. Walker, Clark, Marshall, Böhm-Bawerk, and other recent authors, will be taken up. Attention will be given chiefly to the theory of exchange and distribution.

 

Mid-Year Exam
Economics 11

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. One question may be omitted.

  1. “The distinction, then, between Capital and Not-capital, does not lie in the kind of commodities, but in the mind of the capitalist — in his will to employ them for one purpose rather than other; and all property, however ill adapted in itself for the use of labourers, is a part of capital, so soon as it, or the value to be received from it, is set apart for productive reinvestment. The sum of all the values so destined by their respective possessors composes the capital of the country.”

What is to be said for this doctrine, what against it? By whom was it maintained?

  1. “Prices of commodities in great measure are fixed by supply and demand, but, except temporarily, they cannot be less than all costs, including wages and taxes, entering directly or indirectly into their production and distribution, together with some profit for the use of the capital employed. Hence an increase of the wages or cost of labor usually must be paid by consumers. A general increase of the wages of all labor would cause an equivalent increase of the price of nearly every product of labor and a general increase of the cost of living. The increased wages of the laborers then would not buy more than did their former wages and they would be no better off than before the increase. For this reason the economic welfare of the masses in the aggregate cannot be materially improved by the simple expedient of raising generally the wages of labor.”

What would Ricardo say to this? J. S. Mill? Your own view?

  1. Marx’s doctrine, that value is embodied labor, has been said to be essentially the same as Ricardo’s doctrine that value rests on the labor given to producing an article. Why or why not?
  2. Suppose an increase in the demand for a commodity, in the schedule sense: —

(a) For short periods, under what conditions, if under any, would you expect supply price to rise? to fall?
(b) For long periods, under what conditions, if under any, would you expect supply price to rise? to fall?

Note whether your answer differs in any particular from that to be expected from Marshall.“The part played by the net product at the margin of production in the modern doctrine of distribution is apt to be misunderstood. In particular many able writers have supposed that it represents the marginal use of a thing as governing the value of the whole. It is not so; the doctrine says we must go to the margin to study the action of those forces which govern the value of the whole; and that is a very different affair.”

Explain.

  1. “It has sometimes been argued that if all land were equally advantageous and all were occupied, the income derived from it would not be a true rent, but a monopoly rent.”

Under what conditions, if under any, would there be true rent in such a case? Under what conditions, if under any, would there be a monopoly rent?

  1. “The derived supply price [of one of a group of things having a joint supply price] is found by a rule that it must equal the excess of the supply price for the whole process of production over the sum of the demand prices of all the other joint products.”

Explain, illustrating by diagram.

State the corresponding rule for the derived demand price of one of a group of commodities for which there is a joint demand.

  1. (a) “In hundreds and thousands of suburban homes the question is asked every day, “How much milk shall we take in today, ma’am?” or “How much bread?” and the housewife knows without consideration that if she ordered one loaf of bread and one pint of milk, the marginal significance of bread and milk would be higher than their price, and if she said six loaves and five quarts of milk, the marginal loaf and pint would not be worth their price. Such orders, therefore, never enter into her head. But she deliberates, perhaps, whether she will want three loaves of bread or four, or three loaves and a twist, or three white loaves and a half-loaf of brown, and whether she shall take three quarts of milk or a pint more or less. Thus, whatever the terms on which alternatives are offered to us may be, we detect in conscious action at the margin of consideration the principles which are unconsciously at work in the whole distribution of our resources.”

Do you find anything to criticize in this?

(b) “When the supply (of a given commodity) is limited, the diminishing utility of each increment will be arrested at a point below which the consumer will prefer to abandon the use of an increment for something else. The margin here is a margin of indifference between an increment of one commodity and an increment of another commodity. Since these increments are not necessarily the same, the margin of indifference may be reached at a point where the tenth increment of one commodity balances the twentieth of another, where, in other words, the marginal utility of the first commodity is twice that of the second.”

Explain what you think is meant; and give your opinion on the conclusion stated in the last clause of the final sentence.

  1. “An English ruler who looks upon himself as the minister of the race he rules (say in India) is bound to take care that he impresses their energies in no work that is not worth the labor that is spent on it; or, to translate the sentiment into plainer language, that he engages in nothing that will not produce an income sufficient to defray the interest on its cost.”

Would Marshall question this principle? On what grounds, if at all? Would you?

 

Final Exam
Economics 11

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.
Answer all the questions.

  1. “What about the ‘supply curve’ that usually figures as a determinant of price, coördinate with the demand curve? I say it boldly and baldly: there is no such thing. When we are speaking of a marketable commodity, what is usually called the supply curve is in reality the demand curve of those who possess the commodity; for it shows the exact place which every successive unit of the commodity holds in their relative scale of estimate.”

Is this criticism just if directed to (1) the temporary equilibrium of supply and demand, as analyzed by Marshall for a grain market; (2) the “price zone determined by marginal pairs,” as analyzed by Böhm-Bawerk; (3) the long period equilibrium of supply and demand, as analyzed by Marshall.

  1. “The rent of land is no unique fact, but simply the chief species of a large genus of economic phenomena; and the theory of rent is no isolated economic doctrine, but merely one of the chief applications of a particular corollary from the general theory of demand and supply.”

Explain this statement of Marshall’s; mention other species which he assigns to the large genus; and consider wherein, if at all, the general doctrine differs from that of Clark, and from that of Böhm-Bawerk.

  1. “As is true of good will and credit extensions generally, so with respect to the good will and credit strength of these greater business men: it affords a differential advantage and gives a differential gain. In the traffic of corporation finance this differential gain is thrown immediately into the form of capital and so added to the nominal capitalized wealth of the community. . . .This capitalization of the gains arising from a differential advantage results in a large ‘saving’ and increase of capital.”

Does this resemble in essentials Walker’s doctrine? If so, wherein? If not, why not?
In what sense, if in any, is it true that the differential gains lead to an increase of capital?

  1. “It may be conceded that if a certain class of people were marked out from their birth as having special gifts for some particular occupation, and for no other, so that they would be sure to seek out that occupation in any case, then the earnings which such men would get might be left out of account as exceptional, when we are considering the chances of success or failure for ordinary persons.”

Consider whether, given the premise, the conclusion here stated would follow; what the bearing of the reasoning is on Walker’s theory of business profit; what Marshall would say of premise and conclusion.

  1. In what sense, if in any, is a “productivity” theory of wages put forth by Walker? by Clark? by your instructor?
  2. “All capital goods — tools, machines, and the like — were explained [by the economists of the British School] as merely so much stored-up labor, or as the stored-up wages paid for it; the capitalist, as a laborer gone to seed; and thereby the product of capital as indirectly the product of the earlier wage-paid labor; interest being thus mere indirect wages. It was implied in this that the interest payments are for mere wear-out of the principal invested, and that the sum of all the interest payments upon a given investment can normally or regularly equal only the original capital sum invested in wages; and that sometime a given capital investment must cease its career of earning interest.”

Consider whether this was the doctrine of the British economists; whether it is the doctrine of Böhm-Bawerk; of your instructor; and give your own opinion.

  1. “In the main, the way in which the increase of savings can find escape from its difficulties is through the parallel advance in the arts, calling for more and more elaborate forms of capital. . . . Given continued improvements calling for more and more elaborate plant, —more of time-consuming and roundabout applications of labor, — than savings can heap up, and a return will be secured by the owner of capital.”

What are the ” difficulties ” here referred to? What would be said of this way of escape by Böhm-Bawerk? by your instructor? by Veblen?

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History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848

Course Description
Economics 14

[Economics] 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. Mon.,

Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Professor BULLOCK.

The purpose of this course is to trace the development of economic thought from classical antiquity to the middle of the nineteenth century. Emphasis is placed upon the relation of economics to philosophical and political theories, as well as to political and industrial conditions.

A considerable amount of reading of prominent writers will be assigned, and opportunity given for the preparation of theses. Much of the instruction is necessarily given by means of lectures.

 

Final Exam
Economics 14

  1. What significant analyses of economic structure were made by Aristotle, the Schoolmen, John Hales, Cantillon, and Smith?
  2. What do you consider the most significant analyses of economic functions made by Aristotle, the Schoolmen, Mun, Cantillon and the Physiocrats?
  3. Trace the development, in economic theory, of the idea of a beneficent natural order.
  4. What elements contributed to the economic system of Adam Smith, and what was Smith’s own contribution?
  5. Compare Ricardo’s economic theories with those of Smith.
  6. Trace the development of theories of money in the writings of Aristotle, the Schoolmen, the Mercantilists, and Ricardo.

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Topics in the Economic History of the Nineteenth Century

Course Description
Economics 24

[Economics] 24. Topics in the Economic History of the Nineteenth Century.

Two consecutive evening hours per week, to be arranged with the instructor. Professor GAY.

This course is designed to offer an opportunity for further study to graduate students who have taken or are taking Economics 2a and 2b. Reading will be assigned and reports presented for discussion on such topics as the spread of the Industrial Revolution to the Continent and the United States, the agrarian changes in England in the first half of the century, and in the second half-century the effects of American agricultural competition on the chief European countries, the history of transportation, with especial reference to problems of government ownership in Europe. Emphasis will be given to the comparative development of typical industries both in Europe and the United States, and changes in wholesale and retail organization.

Students who are taking at the same time this course and the lectures in Economics 2a and 2b may receive credit for one and a half courses.

 

Final Exam
Economics 24

  1. “Such has been the rage for Western immigration for the last twenty years that the soil of New England has, in the estimation of good judges, been greatly undervalued.” (From address before the Essex Agricultural Society, 1833.)

Is this statement true, and, if true, what were the chief causes?

  1. Outline the chief topics you would discuss in writing a monograph on agriculture in the United States during the period 1825 to 1845. Characterize the chief available sources of evidence.
  2. Describe briefly the canal systems of Massachusetts and New York. Compare the reasons for their construction and for their decline.
  3. Explain the Suffolk Banking System and discuss its effectiveness from 1830 to 1843.
  4. What statistical material would you use in studying the crisis of 1837-39? How does it compare in extent and value with that available for the crisis of 1907?

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Public Finance

Course Description
Economics 31

[Economics] 31. Public Finance. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 10. Professor BULLOCK.

The course is devoted to the examination of the financial institutions of the principal modern countries, in the light of both theory and history. One or more reports calling for independent investigation will ordinarily be required. Special emphasis will be placed upon questions of American finance. Ability to read French or German is presupposed.

 

Final Exam
Economics 31

  1. How far, in your opinion, does the general income tax conform to Smith’s canons of taxation?
  2. Compare local taxation in Great Britain with local taxation in either France or Germany.
  3. Discuss the incidence of taxes upon real estate.
  4. What, in your opinion, are the leading principles that should govern the distribution of taxation?
  5. What opinions concerning indirect taxation are held by the following writers: Smith, Bastable, and either Leroy-Beaulieu or Eheberg?
  6. Outline what you would consider a practicable plan for the reform of state and local taxation in the United States.
  7. Discuss the theory and practical operation of sinking funds.
  8. Describe the German system of product taxes. What does Eheberg think of the system?
  9. What is Leroy-Beaulieu’s opinion of the changes effected in French taxation during the last twenty years, and what changes does he advocate?

Answer the questions in order. Omit either the eighth or ninth question.

 

 

Sources:

Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College (June, 1914), pp. 38-54.

Mid-year exams for Economics A and Economics 11 from Harvard University Archives: Examination papers in economics, 1882-1935, Scrapbook of Prof. F. W. Taussig. (HUC 7882).

Harvard University. Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1913-14. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. X, No. 1, Part X (May 19, 1913).

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Taussig/Schumpeter/A.Sweezy’s final examination in value and distribution theory, 1935

 

 

In an earlier posting the course readings for the topics “Urban Rent” and “Broader Aspects of Rent” were transcribed for the team-taught course at Harvard of Taussig and Schumpeter, assisted by Alan Sweezy, on theories of value and distribution (first term, 1934-35). From the final examination questions below, we can see that the reading lists from the Harvard Archives collection of course outlines is indeed incomplete for this course. It is entirely likely that other assignments were simply written on the board as needed.

When Taussig taught the course himself in 1932-33 the course description notes “Course 7b undertakes a critical examination of current theories of wages, interest, rent, and profits, particular attention being given to Marshall’s treatment. The course is carried on mainly by discussion. It is meant primarily, though not solely, for candidates for the degree with honors. Students who have attained a grade of A or B in Economics A are admitted without further inquiry. Others must secure the consent of the instructor.”

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Final Examination
Theories of Value and Distribution
Professors Taussig and Schumpeter, Dr. A. Sweezy

1934-35
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 7b1

  1. Are the earnings (rental) of an urban site used for retail trade a cause or an effect of prices of goods there sold? Are the earnings of a skilled craftsman cause or effect of the prices of the goods made (or services rendered) by him? Are the earnings of a business man?
  2. Does Marshall’s distinction between “situation value” and “site value” bear upon the problems of monopolistic competition? If so, why and how? If not, why not?
  3. “In estimating the utility of an entire supply of apples, we must distinguish between the total utility and the marginal utility of the stock. The total utility of a stock is obtained by adding the utility of each additional apple to that of its predecessor. It will accordingly grow until the point of satiety has been reached. Ten apples possess more total utility than five. The marginal utility of the stock, however, is always equal to the marginal utility of the final unit multiplied by the number of units. The marginal utility of two apples will be twice that of the second, of four apples four times that of the fourth.”
    Do you agree?
  4. “Real costs,” “money costs,” “expenses of production,” “supply price.” The same? If different, wherein?
  5. Are “profits,” as defined by

(1) Marshall
(2) Clark
(3) Schumpeter

to be reckoned among the expenses of production?

  1. Explain briefly two of the following:

(1) Difference between selling and production costs.
(2) Determination of equilibrium of the individual firm under conditions of monopoly and competition.
(3) Effect of product differentiation on price, costs, output of the individual firm, and profits.

 

Final. 1935.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final Examinations, 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28, 77 of 284). Examination Papers, June, 1935.

Image Source: Harvard Class Albums: Taussig (1923), Schumpeter (1939), A. Sweezy (1929).

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final Exam Questions for Taxation Course. Taussig, 1898

 

 

Economics in the Rear-View Mirror already has a posting of the list of readings by topic for Frank W. Taussig’s course at Harvard on taxation from the first term of 1897-98. He had taken over the course from Professor Charles Dunbar in the previous academic year. The examination questions for the final examination in the course were transcribed from a printed  copy of the exam that was pasted in Taussig’s scrap book that includes, it would appear, the old examinations for all of his Harvard courses.

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Final Examination
The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with Special Reference to Local Taxation in the United States
Professor Frank W. Taussig

1897-98
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 71

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Give and answer, however brief, to each question]

  1. Consider which of the following combinations, if any, bring about “double taxation”: (1) the impôt sur la propriété batie and the personelle-mobilière, in France; (2) local rates and schedule A of the income tax, in Great Britain; (3) the taxation of mortgaged property and of mortgages, as commonly provided for in American States.
  2. It has been said that the taxation of merchants’ stock in trade in Massachusetts, by assessors’ estimate, if effect proceeds in a somewhat similar fashion to that of the French impôt des patentes and of the Prussian business tax. Why? or why not?
  3. Are there good reasons for taxing funded incomes at a higher rate than unfunded?
  4. It has recently been proposed in Great Britain to impose a general tax on property, based on the income tax returns, and levied at the rate of (say) five per cent. on the income derived from the property; reducing at the same time the income tax to one-half its present rate. Point out what important changes in the British tax system would result; consider what examples in other countries may have suggested the proposal: and give an opinion as to its expediency.
  5. What do you conceive to be the “compensatory theory” in regard to progressive taxation?
  6. What reasoning pertinent in regard to the principle of progression in taxation is also pertinent in regard to taxes on successions? in regard to the single tax?
  7. As between owner and occupier of real estate who is responsible for local rates in England? for local taxes in the United States? Do you believe that the differences have important consequences in the incidence of these taxes?
  8. Consider points of resemblance, points of difference, in the modes in which the States of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania tax (1) domestic corporations (2) the securities issued by foreign corporations.
  9. What grounds are there in favor, what against, the imposition of income taxes by the several States?

 

Mid-Year. 1898.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers in economics 1882-1935, Prof. F. W. Taussig. Scrapbook. (HUC 7882), p. 61.

Image Source: Frank W. Taussig in Harvard Class Album 1900.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Examination Questions for Taussig’s Economic Theory Course, 1924

 

A rough outline with assigned readings was posted during the early days of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror for Frank W. Taussig’s year long graduate economic theory course for 1923-24. Here we add both the enrollment figures as well as the examinations for mid-year (February 1924) and the final (June 1924).

____________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 11. Professor Taussig–Economic Theory.

Total 51:  of which 37 Graduates, 5 Business School, 3 Seniors, 6 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University, Report of the President of Harvard College for 1923-24, p. 107.

____________________________

1923-24
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 11
Mid-Year. 1924.

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions

  1. What bearing has the turn-over of retail shops on the question whether the reward of labor is derived from the contemporaneous product of labor?
  1. “Suppose I employ twenty men at an expense of £1000 for a year in the production of a commodity, and at the end of the year I employ twenty men again for another year, at a further expense of £1000 in finishing or perfecting the same commodity, and that I bring it to market at the end of two years, if profits be 10 per cent, my commodity must sell for [?]. Another man employs precisely the same quantity of labour, but he employs it all in the first year; he employs forty men at an expense of £2000, and at the end of the first year he sells it with 10 per cent profit, or for [?].
    Give the figures which Ricardo put into the bracketed spaces, and explain in what way he reached his figures.
    What principle does he mean to illustrate by examples of this kind?

[David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy & Taxation. Everyman’s Library Edition (London, 1912), p. 23.]

  1. “Thus, in a charitable institution, where the poor are set to work with the funds of benefactors, the general prices of the commodities, which are the produce of such work, will not be governed by the peculiar facilities afforded to these workmen, but by the common, usual, and natural difficulties which every other manufacturer will have to encounter. The manufacturer enjoying none of these facilities might indeed be driven altogether from the market if the supply afforded by these favoured workmen were equal to all the wants of the community; but if he continued the trade, it would be only on condition that he should derive from it the usual and general rate of profits on stock; and that could only happen when his commodity sold for a price proportioned to the quantity of labour bestowed on its production.”
    What principle was Ricardo trying to elucidate in this passage? Is his reasoning sound?

[David Ricardo, The Principles of Political Economy & Taxation. Everyman’s Library Edition (London, 1912), p. 37.]

  1. “The amount of produce raised, and therefore the position of the margin of cultivation (i. e., the margin of the profitable application of capital and labour to good and bad land alike) are both governed by the general conditions of demand and supply. They are governed on the one hand by demand; that is, by the numbers of the population who consume the produce, the intensity of their need for it, and their means of paying for it: and on the other hand by supply; that is, by the extent and fertility of the available land, and the numbers and resources of those ready to cultivate it. Thus cost of production, eagerness of demand, margin of production, and price of the produce mutually govern one another: and no circular reasoning is involved in speaking of any one as in part governed by the others.”
    Is this different from Ricardo’s doctrine on the relation between cost of production, value, rent? Is it inconsistent with Ricardo’s doctrine?

[Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics, 8th ed., Book V, Ch. X, §1 (London, 1920), p. 427.]

  1. “In short periods, that is, in periods short relatively to the time required to make and bring into full bearing improvements . . . no such direct influence on supply price is exercised by the necessity that such improvements should in the long run yield net incomes sufficient to give normal profits on their cost. And therefore when we are dealing with such periods, these incomes may be regarded as quasi-rents which depend on the price of the produce.”
    Would you regard “these incomes” as quasi-rents, in Marshall’s sense? Would you consider this a good definition of quasi-rents?

[Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics, 8th ed., Book V, Ch. X, §1 (London, 1920), p. 426.]

  1. Indicate summarily Mill’s doctrines regarding

 the law of the accumulation of capital;
the factors on which the rate of profits depends;
the tendency of profits to a minimum.

Are they consistent with each other? Which of them, if any, is in accord with Ricardo’s doctrine on profits?

  1. “An increase in the aggregate volume of production of anything will generally increase the size, and therefore the internal economics possessed by a representative firm; it will always increase the external economies to which the firm has access; and thus it will enable it to manufacture at a less proportionate cost of labour and sacrifice than before.”
    Why “generally” in the first case? Why “always” in the second? or why not in either case?

[Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics, 8th ed., Book IV, Ch. XIII, §2 (London, 1920), p. 318.]

  1. Explain

cost of production,
expenses of production,
supply price,
contemporaneous costs curve,
successive costs curve.

  1. “Among 1317 farms in one county in New York, 13 farms yielded labor incomes of over $2000. . . . Part of this difference was due to the soils being better than the average, and part was due to better management.” In the book from which this passage is taken, “labor income” is ascertained by deducting from the farm receipts (a) expenses incurred in operating the farm, (b) the interest which the farmer would have got if, instead of investing in the farm, he had lent his money at the current rate. Would you accept this definition of labor income?
    Does “economic rent” appear in the analysis? If so, where and how?

[George F. Warren, Farm Management (New York, 1913), p. 167.]

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1923-24
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 11
Final. 1924.

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions

  1. What is left, in the present stage of economic theory, of Ricardo’s doctrine of value? of wages? of profits?
  1. “When considering costs from the social point of view, when inquiring whether the cost of attaining a given result is increasing or diminishing with changing economic conditions, then we are concerned with the real costs of efforts of various qualities, and with the real cost of waiting. If the purchasing power of money in terms of effort has remained about constant, and if the rate of remuneration for waiting has remained about constant, then the money measure of costs corresponds to the real costs; but such a correspondence is never to be assumed lightly.” — Marshall.
    Consider separately the two propositions stated in these sentences, and give your opinion on them.

[Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics, 8th ed., Book V, Ch. III, §7 (London, 1920), p. 350.]

  1. “Let us now drop the supposition that labour is so mobile as to ensure equal remuneration for equal efforts, throughout the whole of society, and let us approach much nearer to the actual conditions of life by supposing that labour is not all of one industrial grade, but of several. Let us suppose that parents always bring up their children to an occupation in their own grade; that they have a free choice within that grade, but not outside it. Lastly, let us suppose that the increase of numbers in each grade is governed by other than economic causes: as before it may be fixed, or it may be influenced by changes in custom, in moral opinion, etc.” — Marshall.
    On these suppositions, is value determined by “real costs.”? Wherein, if at all, do the suppositions differ from those made by Marshall in earlier editions?

[Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics, 8th ed., Book VI, Ch. I, §6 (London, 1920), pp. 513-4.]

  1. “While we [the Austrians] say that the value of means of production, that is of cost-goods, is determined by the value of their products, the usual way of interpreting the law is to say that the value of their products, the usual way of interpreting the law is to say that the value of the products is determined by the amount of their costs, — by the value of the means of production out of which they are made.” — Böhm-Bawerk.
    What are grounds of this conclusion? What is your own view?

[Eugen v. Böhm-Bawerk,  The Positive Theory of Capital (New York, 1891), p. 184.]

  1. “The difference between land and other durable agents is mainly one of degree; and a great part of the interest of the study of the rent of land arises from the illustration it affords of a great principle that permeates every part of economics.” — Marshall.
    Why is the difference mainly one of degree? and what is the great permeating principle?

[Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics, 8th ed., Appendix K, §2 (London, 1920), p. 832.]

  1. State the precise point on which Böhm-Bawerk rests his contention that there is no specific productivity of capital.
  1. Böhm-Bawerk remarks that the theory put forth by him bears a certain resemblance to the wage fund doctrine of the older English school, but differs from it in essentials. Explain the resemblance; point out the difference which Böhm-Bawerk believes to be essential; and give your instructor’s comment on that point of difference.
  1. Under the regulation for administering the Excess Profits Tax, while it was levied in the United States, an individual business man liable for this tax was allowed, when declaring his profits, to deduct from his receipts not only all outlays incurred but also (a) eight per cent on his invested capital, (b) a reasonable salary for his own labor of management.
    Were these two allowances in accord with the theoretic treatment of business profits by Clark? by Marshall? by your instructor?

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. (HUC 7882) Examination papers in economics 1882-1935, Prof. F.W. Taussig.

Image Source: Frank Taussig from Harvard Class Album 1925.

Categories
Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Thirteen Economics Ph.D. Examinees, 1908-09.

 

 

This posting lists the five graduate students in economics who took their subject examinations for the Ph.D. at Harvard from March 12 through May 21, 1908. The examination committee members, academic history, general and specific subjects are provided along with the doctoral thesis subject, when declared. Lists for 1903-04, 1904-05, 1905-06, 1907-08, 1915-16, and 1926-27 were posted previously. In the same archival box one finds lists for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. I only include graduate students of economics (i.e. not included are the Ph.D. candidates in history and government).

Titles and dates of Harvard economic dissertations for the period 1875-1926 can be found here.

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DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.

1908-09

Edmund Thornton Miller.

General Examination in Economics, January 7, 1909.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Gay, Sprague, and Mitchell.
Academic History: University of Texas, 1897-1901; Harvard Graduate School, 1902-03, 1907-09; A.B. (University of Texas) 1900; A.M. (ibid) 1901; A.M. (Harvard) 1903. Instructor in Political Science, University of Texas, 1904-; Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1908-09.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Money, Banking and Transportation. 5. Public Finance and Financial History. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance and the Financial History of the United States since 1789.
Thesis Subject: “The Financial History of Texas.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Charles Edward Persons.

General Examination in Economics, February 25, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Gay, MacDonald, and Ripley.
Academic History: Cornell College (Iowa), 1898-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-05, 1906-09; A.B. (Cornell College) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1905. Instructor in Economics at Wellesley College, 1908-.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History from 1750. 4. Sociology and Social Reform. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Industrial History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the Ten-Hour Law in Massachusetts.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Frank Richardson Mason.

Special Examination in Economics, May 3, 1909.
General Examination passed May 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Bullock, Ripley, Mitchell, and Sprague.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-08; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906. Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1906-08.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Silk Industry in America.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Bullock, and Sprague.

 

Robert Franz Foerster.

Special Examination in Economics, May 12, 1909.
General Examination passed May 21, 1908.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Peabody, Carver, Ripley, and Bullock.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-05; University of Berlin, 1905-06 (Winter Semester); Harvard Graduate School, 1906-09; A.B. (Harvard) 1906. Assistant in Social Ethics (Harvard), 1908-09.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Thesis Subject: “Emigration from Italy, with special reference to the United States.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Ripley, and Gay.

 

David Frank Edwards.

General Examination in Economics, May 13, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Ripley, MacDonald, Mitchell, and Sprague.
Academic History: Ohio Wesleyan University, 1899-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-06; A. B. (Ohio Wesleyan) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1906. Teacher, High School of Commerce (Boston), 1907-.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization (and Social Reform). 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 4. Commercial Geography and Foreign Commerce. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: International Trade and Tariff Problems.
Thesis Subject: “The Glass Industry in the United States.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Harley Leist Lutz.

General Examination in Economics, May 14, 1909.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Carver, Gay, MacDonald, and Sprague.
Academic History: Oberlin College, 1904-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09; A. B. (Oberlin) 1907; A.M. (Harvard) 1908. Assistant (Oberlin), 1906-07; Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1908-09.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750, with especial reference to England. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 5. Public Finance and Financial History. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance and Financial History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “State Control over the Assessment of Property for Local Taxation.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Joseph Stancliffe Davis.

General Examination in Economics, May 17, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Bullock, Ripley, Mitchell, and Dr. Tozzer.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1908-09; A. B. (Harvard) 1908; Assistant in Economics (Harvard) 1908-09.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Progress. 4. Money, Banking, and Industrial Organization. 5. History of American Institutions, especially since 1783. 6. Anthropology, especially Ethnology.
Special Subject: Corporations (Industrial Organization).
Thesis Subject: “The Policy of New Jersey toward Business Corporations.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

James Ford.

Special Examination in Economics, May 19, 1909.
General Examination passed May 16, 1906.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Peabody, Ripley, Taussig, and Bullock.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-04; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-06, 1907-09; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906. Robert Treat Paine Travelling Fellow, 1906-07; Assistant, Social Ethics (Harvard), 1907-09.
Special Subject: Social Reform (Socialism, Communism, Anarchism).
Thesis Subject: “Distributive and Productive Coöperative Societies in New England.” (With Professor Carver.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Carver, Peabody, and Taussig.

 

Edmund Ezra Day.

Special Examination in Economics, May 20, 1909.
General Examination passed May 23, 1907.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Ripley, Munro, and Mr. Parker.
Academic History: Dartmouth College, 1901-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-07, 1908-09; S.B. (Dartmouth) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906. Instructor in Economics, Dartmouth College, 1907-.
Special Subject: Public Finance and Financial History of the United States since 1789.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the General Property Tax in Massachusetts.” (With Professor Bullock.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, and Ripley.

 

Clyde Orval Ruggles.

General Examination in Economics, May 20, 1909.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Carver, Taussig, Gay, and MacDonald.
Academic History: Hedrick Normal School, 1895-96; Iowa State Normal School and Teachers’ College of Iowa, 1901-06; State University of Iowa, 1906-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09; A. B. (Teachers’ College) 1906; A.M. (State Univ.) 1907.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Statistics. 4. Economic History to 1750, with especial reference to England. 5. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Money and Banking.
Thesis Subject: “The Greenback Movement with especial Reference to Wisconsin and Iowa.” (With Professors Andrew and Mitchell.)

 

Edmund Thornton Miller.

Special Examination in Economics, May 21, 1909.
General Examination passed January 7, 1909.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Mitchell, and Sprague.
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, and Mitchell.
(See first item for Academic History etc.)

 

Emil Sauer.

General Examination in Economics, May 21, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Gay, Mitchell, Munro, and Ripley.
Academic History: University of Texas, 1900-03, 1904-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09; Litt.B. (University of Texas) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1908.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 5. Transportation and Industrial Organization. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 and the Relations between the United States and Hawaii, 1875-1900.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Charles Edward Persons.

Special Examination in Economics, May 24, 1909.
General Examination passed February 25, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Peabody, Bullock, Ripley, and Sprague.
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Bullock, and Ripley.
(See second item for Academic History etc.)

 

Carl William Thompson.

General Examination in Economics, June 2, 1909.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Taussig, Sprague, Ripley, Cole, and MacDonald.
Academic History: Valparaiso College, 1899-1901; University of South Dakota, 1902-03; Harvard Graduate School, 1903-04; A.B. (Valparaiso) 1901; B.O. (ibid) 1901; A.B. (South Dakota) 1903; A.M. (ibid.) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1904. Professor of Economics and Sociology, University of South Dakota.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 4. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 5. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization.. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: (undecided).
Thesis Subject: (undecided.)

 

Arthur Norman Holcombe.

Special Examination in Economics, June 7, 1909.
General Examination passed April 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Bullock, Cole, and Munro.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-09; A.B. (Harvard) 1906; Assistant in Economics (Harvard), 1906-07; Rogers Travelling Fellow, 1907-09
Special Subject: Public Service Industries.
Thesis Subject: ”The Telephone Situation.” (with Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Ripley, and Munro.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D. 1908-09”.

Image Source:  Harvard Gate, ca. 1899. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

Categories
Columbia Economists Harvard

Harvard and Columbia. The Role of University Presidents in the US. Economist, 1909.

 

 

Today’s post provides a glimpse of the major American universities as seen by the eyes of an Englishman (presumably F. W. H. was both English and a man). While the article highlights the role played by the university presidents, there are other differences noted, e.g. “all-pervading atmosphere of work” observed in the Harvard Law School and the “much greater popularity of politics and political economy”.

For fun I have appended the short-story referred to in the Economist article: “What the College Incubator Did for One Modest Lambkin.” It provides some nice examples of early 20th century American vernacular. Does anyone out there know what the “Harvard walk” looks like?

 

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AMERICAN IMPRESSIONS.—THE UNIVERSITIES AND THEIR PRESIDENTS.

            Although my primary object in visiting America was to get some insight into the commercial and financial system, and to inform myself about the prevalent notions of commercial policy and monetary reform, it was desirable and even indispensable for the objects I had in view to see as much as possible of University men. If the average American university is less powerful than either Oxford or Cambridge as a medium for colouring society, it is perhaps for that reason a stronger element in the national life. The rather exclusive caste with its innumerable degrees that files out of Oxford and Cambridge is but faintly reproduced in the American system by Harvard and Yale, whose mannerisms are sometimes imitated by the youthful universities of the West, and often caricatured by the American humorist. No one who has read it could easily forget George Ade’s description of the grey-haired agriculturist of the Middle West who took his son to a cheap provincial university in the hope that he would “soak up all the knowledge in the market,” and qualify for an inspectorship of schools [George Ade, Breaking into Society (New York: Harper & Brothers,1904), pp. 21-30.]. When the first vacation came, the old man discovered with horror that his young scholar had only acquired the Harvard walk, a passion for athletics, and the habit of large expenditure upon dress. As a matter of fact, universities like Harvard, Yale, Colombia [sic], Cornell, the John Hopkins at Baltimore, and Jefferson’s University of Virginia, have a very high average standard of work. Diligence, as Mr Bryce puts it, is the tradition of the American colleges, partly because “in all but a few universities the vast majority of the students come from simple homes, possess scanty means, and have their way in life to make.” Even at Harvard, with all its rich endowments, its old traditions, and its association with Boston as the home of American men of letters, there is far less of the dilettantism and indifference to the practical business of life than is to be found in the extravagant sets at our fashionable colleges. But this may be partly due to the absence of the college system—a system which has its advantages as well as its defects.

When Professor Lawrence Lowell, who has just been unanimously elected president of Harvard, took me over the law school, I was immensely impressed by the all-pervading atmosphere of work. The ample libraries were filled not only with books, but with students, all engrossed in study, and each apparently convinced that he had not a moment to lose in the race after knowledge. But then, the Harvard law school is justly famous as the largest and best in the English-speaking world. The connection of law with business and of the universities with law is much more close and more real in the states than at home; the chief reason, I think, being the diversity of State legislation upon which all the corporations depend, and the consequent impossibility of carrying on the business of large concerns without constant advice from lawyers. The reliance of business men upon lawyers brings legal firms into far more intimate relations with business conditions than is the case in our own country. Moreover, as there is no distinction between barrister and solicitor, the eminent pleaders and jurists of the United States are not secluded and screened by an intermediate profession from real contact with their real client.

Another evidence of what may be called the actuality of academic life in America is the much greater popularity of politics and political economy. At Harvard, for example, Professor Lowell’s lectures on politics and Professor Taussig’s lectures on economics are regularly attended by three or four hundred students. The large universities have quite a number of economic lecturers, who often specialize on live subjects, such as railways, banking, or industrial corporations. Thus the students are constantly reminded of the various lines of business into which they can enter in order to earn a living after they have taken their degrees.

Lastly, the American university, while it resembles the Scottish or the German more than the English in many respects, differs from all European institutions in the singular importance that it attaches to the office of president. In the words of Mr Bryce, the position is one of honour and influence: “No university dignitaries in Great Britain are so well known to the public, or have their opinions quoted with so much respect, as the heads of the seven or eight leading universities in the United States.” President Eliot, of Harvard, for example, who has just resigned after a long and brilliant career, and Professor Butler, of Colombia[sic], who is still in the prime of life, are two of the most popular orators in the best sense of the word—one should perhaps say popular instructors—in the United States. Most of the presidents of universities are excellent business men, skilled in the arts of advertising their institution, and of attracting students and endowments. When they happen also to be gifted and erudite, their moral and intellectual influence over public opinion is naturally enormous. I was only when I began to realize all this that I could quite understand why the people one met in Boston and New York were often more excited about the presidential election for Harvard than about the Presidential election for the United States. It is probably not generally known that the president-elect, Professor Lowell, whose recently published work on our Constitution is already a classic, has been a successful director of large cotton mills, and is the sole manager of the Lowell Trust. A scholar and a business man with an aptitude for public speaking and liberal views of education should prove an ideal president for Harvard.

F. W. H.

Source: The Economist, January 16, 1909, pp. 105-6.

Image Source:  Abbott Lawrence Lowell, photographic portrait (1904) in Harvard University Archives Photograph Collection: Portraits; The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library. Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, the new President of Columbia University, New York.

 

_______________

What the College Incubator Did for One Modest Lambkin.

from George Ade, Breaking into Society (New York: Harper & Brothers,1904), pp. 21-30.

ONE Autumn Afternoon a gray-haired Agriculturist took his youngest Olive Branch by the Hand and led him away to a Varsity. Wilbur was 18 and an Onion. He had outgrown his last year’s Tunic, and his Smalls were hardly on speaking terms with his Uppers. He had large, warty Hands, which floated idly at his sides, and his Wrists resembled extra Sets of Knuckles. When he walked, his Legs gave way at the Hinge and he Interfered. On his Head was a little Wideawake with a Buckle at the Side. Mother had bobbed his Hair and rubbed in a little Goose-Grease to make it shine. The Collar that he wore was size 13, and called the Rollo Shape. It rose to a Height of a half-inch above his Neck-Band. For a Cravat he had a Piece of watered Silk Ribbon with Butterflies on it.

Wilbur had his Money tied up in a Handkerchief, and he carried a Paper Telescope loaded down with one Complete Change and a Catalogue of the Institution showing that the Necessary Expenses were not more than $3.40 per Week.

As the Train pulled away from Pewee Junction Wilbur began to Leak. The Salt Tears trickled down through the Archipelago of Freckles. He wanted to Crawfish, but Paw bought him a Box of Crackerjack and told him that if he got an Education and improved his Opportunities some day he might be County Superintendent of Schools and get his $900 a Year just like finding it. So Wilbur spunked up and said he would try to stick it out. He got out the Catalogue and read all of the copper-riveted Rules for the Moral Guidance of Students.

The Curriculum had him scared. He saw that in the next four Years he would have to soak up practically all the Knowledge on the Market. But he was cheered to think that if he persevered and got through he would be entitled to wear an Alpaca Coat and a Lawn Tie and teach in the High-School, so he took Courage and began to notice the Scenery.

Wilbur was planted in a Boarding-House guaranteed to provide Wholesome Food and a Home Influence. Father went back after making a final Discourse on the importance of learning most everything in all of the Books.

Nine Months later they were down at the Depot to meet Wilbur. He had written several times, saying that he could not find time to come Home, as he was in pursuit of Knowledge every Minute of the Day, and if he left the Track, Knowledge might gain several Laps on him. It looked reasonable, too, for the future Superintendent of Schools had spent $400 for Books, $200 for Scientific Apparatus, and something like $60 for Chemicals to be used in the Laboratory.

When the Train suddenly checked itself, to avoid running past the Town, there came out of the Parlor Car something that looked like Fitz, on account of the Padding in the Shoulders. Just above one Ear he wore a dinky Cap about the size of a Postage Stamp. The Coat reached almost to the Hips and was buttoned below. The Trousers had enough material for a suit. They were reefed to show feverish Socks of a zigzag Pattern. The Shoes were very Bull-Doggy, and each had a wide Terrace running around it. Father held on to a Truck for Support. Never before had he seen a genuine Case of the inflammatory Rah-Rahs.

Wilbur was smoking a dizzy little Pipe from which the Smoke curled upward, losing itself in a copious Forelock that moved gently in the Breeze. Instead of a Collar, Wilbur was wearing a Turkish Towel. He had the Harvard Walk down pat. With both Hands in his Pockets, the one who had been pursuing Knowledge teetered towards the Author of his Being and said, ” How are you, Governor?”

Father was always a Lightning Calculator, and as he stood there trying to grasp and comprehend and mentally close in, as it were, on the Burlap Suit and the Coon Shirt and the sassy Pipe, something told him that Wilbur would have to Switch if he expected to be County Superintendent of Schools,

“Here are my Checks,” said Wilbur, handing over the Brasses.” Have my Trunks, my Golf Clubs, my portable Punching-Bag, the Suit-Case and Hat-Boxes sent up to the House right away. Then drive me Home by the Outside Road, because I don’t want to meet all these Yaps. They annoy me.”

“You’d better git out of that Rig mighty quick if you don’t want to be Joshed,” said his Parent. “Folks around here won’t stand for any such fool Regalia, and if you walk like a frozen-toed Hen you’ll get some Hot Shots or I miss my Calkilations.”

“Say, Popsy, I’ve been eating Raw Meat and drinking Blood at the Training-Table, and I’m on Edge,” said Wilbur, expanding his Chest until it bulged out like a Thornton Squash.” If any of these local Georgie Glues try to shoot their Pink Conversation at me I’ll toss them up into the Trees and let them hang there. I’m the Gazabe that Puts the Shot. Any one who can trim a Policeman and chuck a Hackman right back into his own Hack and drive off with him doesn’t ask for any sweeter Tapioca than one of these Gaffer Greens. The Ploughboy who is muscle- bound and full of Pastry will have a Proud Chance any time that he struts across my Pathway. In my Trunks I have eight suits a little warmer than this one and 47 pairs of passionate Hose. I’m out here to give the Cornfields a Touch of High Life. It’s about time that your Chaws had a Glimpse of the Great Outside World. Any one who gets Fussy about the Color-Combinations that I spring from Day to Day will be chopped up and served for Lunch. To begin with, I’m going to teach you and Mother to play Golf. If these Mutts come and lean over the Fence and start to get off their Colored- Weekly Jokes we’ll fan the Hill-side with them.”

“What do they teach up at your School — besides Murder?” inquired Father. ” I thought you wanted to be County Superintendent of Schools.”

“I’ve outgrown all those two-by-four Ambitions,” was the Reply. “I’m going to be on the Eleven next Fall. What more could you ask?”

That very week Wilbur organized a Ball Team that walloped Hickory Crick, Sand Ridge, and Sozzinsville. He had the whole Township with him. Every Cub at Pewee Junction began to wear a Turkish Towel for a Collar and practise the Harvard Walk.

MORAL : A Boy never blossoms into his full Possibilities until he strikes an Atmosphere of Culture.

Categories
Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Five Economics Ph.D. examinees, 1907-08

 

This posting lists the five graduate students in economics who took their subject examinations for the Ph.D. at Harvard from March 12 through May 21, 1908. The examination committee members, academic history, general and specific subjects are provided along with the doctoral thesis subject, when declared. Lists for 1903-04, 1904-05, 1905-06, 1915-16, and 1926-27 were posted previously. In the same archival box one finds lists for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. I only include graduate students of economics (i.e. not included are the Ph.D. candidates in history and government).

Titles and dates of Harvard economic dissertations for the period 1875-1926 can be found here.

______________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.

1907-08

Walter Wallace McLaren.

Special Examination in Economics, Thursday, March 12, 1908.
General Examination passed April 10, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), McLean (University of Toronto), Gay, Bullock and Munro.
Academic History: Queen’s University (Canada), 1894-99; Queen’s University Theological College, 1899-1902; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-08; A.M. (Queen’s Univ.) 1899; B:D. (ibid) 1902.
Special Subject: Canadian Economic History.
Thesis Subject: “History of the Canadian Tariff.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Gay, Munro. 

Edmund Thornton Miller.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 6, 1908.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Hart, Ripley, Gay, and Andrew.
Academic History: University of Texas, 1897-1901; Harvard Graduate School, 1902-03, 1907-08; A.B. (University of Texas) 1900; A.M. (ibid) 1901; A.M. (Harvard) 1903.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Money, Banking and Transportation. 5. Public Finance and Financial History. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance and the Financial History of the United States since 1789.
Thesis Subject: “The Financial History of Texas.” (With Professor Bullock.)

Melvin Thomas Copeland.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 13, 1908.
Committee: Professors Gay (chairman), Taussig, Carver, Hart, Ripley, and Andrew.
Academic History: Bowdoin College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-08; A.B. (Bowdoin) 1906; A.M. (Harvard) 1907.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Statistics. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “Cotton Manufacturing in the United States since 1860.” (With Professor Taussig.)

Frank Richardson Mason.

Special Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 14, 1908.
General Examination passed May 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Gay, Bullock and Andrew.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-07; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Silk Industry in America..” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Carver, and Gay.

Robert Franz Foerster.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 21, 1908.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Royce, Carver, Ripley, Gay, and Bullock.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-05; University of Berlin, 1905-06; A.B. (Harvard) 1906.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Statistics. 5. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 6. Philosophy.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Thesis Subject: “Emigration from Italy, with special reference to the United States.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1907-1908”.

Image Source: Memorial Hall, ca. 1900. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

 

Categories
Bibliography Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Theories of Rent Readings Lists. Taussig, Schumpeter, Alan Sweezy. 1934

 

 

One page containing the course bibliographies for the topics “Urban Rent” and “Broader Aspects of Rent” from Economics 7b, Theories of Value and Distribution, jointly offered by Frank W. Taussig, Joseph A. Schumpeter and Alan R. Sweezy was found in the collection of course syllabi and reading lists in the Harvard Archives. One would have expected that there would have been separate bibliographies prepared for “Wages”, “Profits” and possibly “Interest” for this course on distribution. I find it less likely that the course was a single “topics” course that happened to be focused on “Rent” for the semester. This was confirmed after looking at the final examination questions for the course. 

Note: Alan’s brother Paul did not receive his Ph.D. until 1937 and Alan was given a three-year appointment at the rank of “faculty instructor” beginning in the Fall of 1934 following his previous year as “graduate instructor”. Hence “Dr. Sweezy” clearly refers to Alan. I have appended a 1955 article from the Harvard Crimson about the famous Sweezy-Walsh case for those who might not be familiar with that episode in the history of tenure review procedures.

 

__________________________

 

*Economics 7b 1hf. Theories of Value and Distribution
[from Course Announcement]

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 2, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Professors Taussig and Schumpeter, and Dr. Sweezy.

 

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1934-35 (2nd ed). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXI, No. 38 (September 20, 1934), p. 126

__________________________

Course Enrollment

*7b 1hf. Professors Taussig and Schumpeter, and Dr. Sweezy.—Theories of Value and Distribution.

Total 23: 14 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 5 Others.

 

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1934-1935, p. 81.

__________________________

 

Economics 7b

1934-35 [pencil note]

Urban Rent

E.H. Chamberlin, Monopolistic Competition, appen. D, pp. 200-203
W. C. Clark & J. L. Kingston, The Skyscraper: A Study of the Economic Heighth of Modern Office Buildings, esp. ch. 2, 3, and conclusion.
H. B. Dorau & A. G. Hinman, Urban Land Economics, pp. 158-223. Characteristics of Urban Land. Part V Urban Land Income and Value. (Note: The whole of the book is relevant, but much of it can be skipped over superficially for the problem in hand.)
H. J. Davenport, Economics of Enterprise, ch. 13.
R. M. Haig, “Toward and Understanding of the Metropolis”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February and May 1926
R. M. Hurd, Principle of City Land Values, especially ch. 6.
F. W. Taussig, Principles, vol. 2, ch. 43.
R. T. Ely, Outlines of Economics, 5th ed., ch. 22.

 

Broader Aspects of Rent

J. B. Clark, either Distribution of Wealth, ch. 13, or “Distribution as Determined by a Law of Rent”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 5, 1890-91
F. A. Fetter, “The Passing of the Old Concept of Rent”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 15, 1900-01.
A. S. Johnson, “Rent in Modern Economic Theory”, American Economic Association Publications, 3rd. series, vol. 3(1902).
A. E. Monroe, Value and Income, pp. 65-67, 188-194.
Joan Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, Bk. III, ch. 8, pp. 102-116

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1934-1935”.

Image Sources:  Harvard Class Album.  Taussig (1934), Schumpeter (1939), Alan Sweezy (1929).

 

__________________________

The Sweezy-Walsh Case

Harvard Crimson
January 12, 1955

In a letter elsewhere on the page, Dean Bender rightly points out that the CRIMSON has inadvertently perpetuated an untruth we have long tried to bury. Alan R. Sweezy ’29, it is true, was given a “terminating appointment,” and it was no secret that his views were to the left of most political centers. By working solely from these two facts, some liberals on the Faculty and elsewhere came to a conclusion which was long to prove embarrassing to President Conant. More important, the dropping of Sweezy and the other instructor in the case, J. Raymond Walsh, forced a reform in the University’s appointment system in one of the few instances that the Harvard Faculty has rebelled against its Administration.

Both Sweezy and Walsh were popular and able teachers in the Economics department. Both men held three-year appointments as instructors and when this period was up, In 1937, the Department strongly recommended that both men be retained. When they were not rehired, and when the Administration released a statement that its decision was reached solely on the grounds of “teaching capacity and scholarly ability,” charges accusing the University of various infringements were raised from coast to coast.

The CRIMSON immediately editorialized that, though the University’s statement was “ill-timed and impolitic,” the political views of the two men had nothing to do with the case. By that time, however, alarmists and those Communists who capitalize on such misunderstandings were off and running, joined by friends of the two men who were genuinely confused by the Administration’s actions.

Within a few weeks, the cry about their hue forced Conant to make a special report to the Overseers. The President, who at that time did not enjoy the complete confidence of the Faculty he was later accorded, held fast, arguing that the University cannot appoint a man just because his views are unorthodox. “If academic decisions are to be influenced by the fear of their being misinterpreted as interference with academic freedom,” Conant said, “then academic freedom itself, to my mind disappears.” The New York Herald-Tribune hailed Conant and his stand, describing his as a man “tolerant of everything except intolerance.”

Since even the two principals were now convinced that their politics were not the issue, the outburst began to quiet. But the Faculty, while willing to forgive, could not forget. One hundred and thirty-one of the nonpermanent teaching staff requested an entire investigation of the tenure system. Even if the financial pressures of the depression made it impossible for Conant to keep men like Sweezy, these teachers did not feel that the current methods of selecting permanent appointees were as accurate and well-defined as they might be.

It was significant, and extraordinary, that the appeal for a re-evaluation was not made to Conant but to a committee of eight respected professors including Ralph Barton Perry, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Samuel E. Morison, and Felix Frankfurter. These men wrote to Conant, suggesting what they wanted to study and making it pointedly clear that if they were not authorized to investigate, they would do so anyway.

Two separate reports were issued by this committee, one on Walsh and Sweezy, the second on the entire tenure question. The first recommendation–that the two instructors be re-appointed–was vetoed by the Corporation. The Faculty accepted this action without much comment; by that time, the second report was the chief interest among professors. Published in March, 1939, the report recommended a mathematical evaluation of departments, their concentrators and staffs, with more rigid rules about how often permanent additions could be made to the Faculty.

Conant substantially accepted this report and it was forwarded to the full Faculty and the Corporation which also agreed to its principles. The many complications were referred to the new Assistant Deans of the Faculty, W. C. Graustein and Paul H. Buck. Before his tragic death in an accident, Graustein had worked carefully on the plan and it came to bear his name. Dean of the Faculty Ferguson, who had agreed to hold an Administrative post only during this stormy interim period, soon resigned his position. With the promotion of Paul Buck to the job, the Walsh-Sweezy affair became history and Conant found that he had made his most successful appointment to the Deanship.

 

Categories
Courses Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Edward Chamberlin Lobbies to Teach a Graduate Theory Course. 1935

 

 

With the retirements of Charles J. Bullock and Frank W. Taussig in 1935 Edward H. Chamberlin saw his opportunity to start to break out of his designated field box “government and industry” and into “theory”. We have here a letter that Chamberlin wrote to the head of the economics department, Harold H. Burbank. The letter is of the putting-this-conversation-into-the-written-record variety. His deference to Burbank and recognition of the established claims of other colleagues to the theory field are complemented with a dash of false-modesty—“Perhaps I may, however,…put in my own ‘claim’ (if such it may be called) for whatever consideration it deserves.”

In any event, from the subsequent shuffle in instructional assignments for the 1935-36 academic year, we see that Chamberlin succeeded in joining Schumpeter and Leontief at the Harvard theory table.

________________________

Letter from Associate Professor Chamberlin to Chairman Burbank
Requesting to teach a graduate course in theory

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

14 Ash Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 26, 1935

Professor H. H. Burbank, Chairman
Department of Economics,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.

 

Dear Burby:

This is to confirm our conversation of the other day. I should like to ask if arrangements could possibly be made at this late date for me to give a graduate half course next year on “Contemporary Value Theory.”

I have been asked by several people recently why it was that, although the theoretical problems which Mrs. Robinson and myself have raised are the subject of lively controversies in numerous other universities, one finds them very much in the background at Harvard. There does seem to be a general interest in the subject, and, since I have a strong continuing interest in it myself, the occasion seems to present itself of offering to graduate students at Harvard a better opportunity than they now have to study and discuss this set of problems and others related to it.

I realize that others than myself have claims to theory courses and that the problems of fitting the members of the Department to courses are not easy. Perhaps I may, however, even for this very reason, put in my own “claim” (if such it may be called) for whatever consideration it deserves. My work in Public Utilities and Industrial Organization could be reduced without difficulty. Donald Wallace could take my part in Economics 49 with Professors Crum and Mason, and, I am sure, would do an excellent job of it. This arrangement, together with a slight reduction in my tutorial load, would give me the time for another half course and I should continue in the undergraduate 4a and 4c. I should have, even then, only one-fifth of my time in theory, the other four fifths in the practical field of government and industry.

You have recently intimated in conversation that I might soon be given a share of the work in theory. I hope it may be next year, and also that a way can be found to arrange for it without interfering with the work which others are now doing or plan to do in the field.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Edward H. Chamberlin

________________________

Copy of letter from Chairman Burbank to Dean Murdock
with changes to 1935-36 course announcements

April 17, 1935

Dear Dean Murdock,

Owing to the retirement of Professor Taussig, several changes in the Course Announcement for the coming year will have to be made. The Department recommends the following:

*Economics 7b1. Theories of Value and Distribution. [listed as “Modern Economic Thought” in Report of the President of Harvard College 1935-36, p. 82; ]

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Associate Professor Chamberlin.
[Replacing Taussig, Schumpeter and Sweezy who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 8a2. Introduction to the Mathematical Treatment of Economics.

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., 4-5. Asst. Professor Leontief.
[Replacing Schumpeter who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 11. Economic Theory.

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Schumpeter.
[Replacing Taussig and Schumpeter who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 14b2. History of Economic Thought since 1776.

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. Monroe.
[Replacing “History and Literature of Economics from the Physiocrats through Ricardo” taught by Professor Bullock in 1934-35. Bullock retired from Harvard September 1, 1935.]

Sincerely yours,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

 

 

Source: Harvard University Archives, Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 23, Folder “Course offerings 1926-1937”.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1939.