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Harvard. Semester exams for all economics and one social ethics course, 1893-1894

 

With this post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror adds yet another annual slice of final examinations from Harvard. Over twenty pages of exam questions (with course enrollment figures) for the 1893-94 academic year have been transcribed and are now available to the internet community of historians of economics.  For other years visitors can simply scan or search the chronological catalogue of artifacts. Alternatively using Google search constrained to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, “harvard economics exams site:irwincollier.com“, will get you links to plenty of Harvard examination postings through the years.

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Enrollment for Philosophy 5.
The Ethics of the Social Questions.
1893-94.

Enrollment.

[Philosophy] 5. Professor Peabody. — The Ethics of the Social Questions. — The questions of Charity, Divorce, the Indians, Temperance, and the various phases of the Labor Question, as problems of practical Ethics. — Lectures, essays, and practical observations. 2 hours.

Total 118: 6 Gr., 56 Se., 23 Ju., 2 So., 12 Others, 19 Divinity.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 58.

1893-94.
PHILOSOPHY 5.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Mid-Year Examination.

  1. “Political Economy ought to combine with the old question: ‘Will it pay?’ another and higher query: ‘Is it right?’” (C. D. Wright, Political Economy and the Labor Question, p. 17.) The place and value of this view of Political Economy.
  2. Spencer’s formula for conduct, explained and criticized (Data of Ethics, p. 14.)
  3. The Socialist’s view of Charity and the argument which sustains it. Mr. Spencer’s view of Charity and his practical advice. (Principles of Ethics, II. p. 376, ff.)
  4. What does Mr. Charles Booth regard as the “crux” of the Social Problem in East London? (Labour and Life of the People, I. pp. 596 and 162.) Why? The practical remedy proposed by him.
  5. The causes of poverty in East London, as analyzed by Mr. Booth, (I. 147); in their order of importance and the proportion of cases involved.
  6. The Labor Colonies of Germany compared with those of Holland, in method and intention. How far, and under what principle, is such an enterprise applicable to the condition of this country?
  7. Liberalitas” and “Caritas,” — the aim, the service, and the peril of each.
  8. The historical development and the practical rules of the English Poor-Law System.
  9. The Relation of Charity Organization in England to Poor-Law Relief. (Loch, p. 37, ff.); and the objections to Charity Organization. (Loch, p. 97, ff.)
  10. The growth of Charity Organization in the United States, its present extent and its two types (Report, pp. 1-8.) Which type is represented by the London Charity Organization Society? (Loch p. 54.) Which is the sounder principle for this country? Why? Which is the more generally accepted principle? (Appendix of Report, p. 34.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94

PHILOSOPHY 5.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Final Examination

[Omit one question.]

  1. The authorship and the historical importance of the following phrases:—
    “The value of a thing is independent of opinion and of quantity. To be valuable is to avail towards life.”
    “All commodities are only masses of congealed labor-time.”
    “The high road to a stable sufficiency and comfort among the people is through the medium of their character.”
    “Cash-payment never was or could, except for a few years, be the union-bond of man to man.”
    “Aristocracy of talent.”
    “It is easier to determine what a man ought to have for his work, than what his necessities will compel him to take for it.”
    “Ill-th.”
  2. Compare Carlyle and Ruskin in their attitudes toward the growth of democracy and in their doctrine of social progress.
  3. Compare the view of the “Social Horizon” with that of Naquet as to the effect of collectivism on enterprise and invention. (Social Horizon, pp. 112-151; Naquet, pp. 92-126.)
  4. The Anarchist’s criticism of the Socialist, the Socialist’s criticism of the Anarchist, and the Communist as he is criticised by both.
  5. Is thrift a virtue? Who doubts it? Why?
    Is competition an evil? Who doubts it? Why?
  6. Christian Socialism and its difficulties. The logical and the practical relation of Socialism to Religion.
  7. In the four ideals which are possible to Socialism and Individualism, “the normal relation would be that of cross-correspondence.” (Bosanquet. The Civilization of Christendom, p. 136.) Explain and comment on this statement.
  8. Enumerate and classify the arguments presented in the Course on the ethical aspects of Socialism, with your judgment of the weight of these suggestions.
  9. Compare the plan of profit-sharing in the Paris and Orleans Railway (Sedley Taylor, pp. 77-86) with that adopted by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.
  10. How far are we carried in the argument for abstinence from intoxicating drink by considerations drawn from the “risks of life.” Why?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1853-2001. Box 2, Volume: Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, p. 7.

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Economics 1.
Outlines of Economics.
1893-94.

Enrollment.

[Economics] 1. Professors Taussig and Ashley, Asst. Professor Cummings and Mr. Clow. — Outlines of Economics. — Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Lectures on Economic Development, Distribution, Social Questions, and Financial Legislation. 3 hours.

Total 340: 1 Gr., 35 Se., 111 Ju., 136 So., 7 Fr., 50 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 1.
Mid-Year Examination.

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

  1. “Let us consider whether, and in what cases, the property of those who live on the interest of what they possess, without being personally engaged in production, can be regarded as capital.” Illustrate by example.
  2. “Capital, though saved, and the result of saving, is nevertheless consumed. The word saving does not imply that what is saved is not consumed, nor even necessarily that its consumption is deferred.” Explain. Who is the consumer? and is the consumption usually deferred?
  3. Are wages likely to be low or high in different occupations because of (1) attractiveness, (2) unpleasantness, of the work? Why?
  4. “This equalizing process, commonly described as the transfer of capital from one employment to another, is not necessarily the slow, onerous, and almost impracticable process which it is often represented to be.” What is the equalizing process? and why is it or is it not slow and onerous?
  5. “Even if there were never any land taken into cultivation for which rent was not paid, it would be true, nevertheless, that there is always some agricultural capital which pays no rent.” Explain, and give the reasons for the statement.
  6. What are the laws of value applicable to: silver bullion, cotton-cloth, raw hides, wheat-bread, telephones?
  7. Explain what is meant by a fall in the value of money; an appreciation of gold; a depreciation of inconvertible paper; a stable standard of value.
  8. Wherein does the play of demand and supply, in determining the value of money, differ from its operation in determining the value of commodities in general? Wherein does cost of production determine the value of money and of commodities differently?
  9. What is the effect of general high wages on prices? on values? on profits? Why?
  10. “So far as rents, profits, wages, prices. are determined by competition, laws may be assigned for them. Assume competition to be their exclusive regulator, and principles of broad generality and scientific precision may be laid down, according to which they will be regulated.” Trace the historical origin of the conditions here assumed.
  11. What seems to you to be the value of economic history in relation to the study of economic theory?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94.

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 1.
Final Examination.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

I.
[One question in this group may be omitted.]

  1. Explain the connection between the law of diminishing returns the pressure of population on subsistence; the tendency of profits to a minimum.
  2. What is the nature of the remuneration received by the holder of a government bond; the holder of a railway bond; the landlord of a building let for business purposes; the landlord of land let for agricultural purposes; a manufacturer carrying on business with borrowed capital; the holder of a patent receiving a royalty for its use?
  3. How does cost of production influence tire value of (1) silver bullion, (2) oats, (3) coffee, (4) bicycles?
  4. What seems to you to be the value of economic history in relation to the study of economic theory?

II.
[One question in this group may be omitted.]

  1. In 1851, very rich deposits of gold were found in Australia. What would you expect the result to be in Australia on wages, prices, imports and exports?
  2. Is the gain from international trade to be found in the import or in the exports? Why and how?
  3. It is said that when the quantity of money is increased, prices rise precisely in proportion to the increase. What exceptions or qualifications would you make to this statement?
  4. Is the exportation of specie from a country disadvantageous?

III.
[Answer all in this group.]

  1. What sorts of advantages, in regard to wages, do Trade-unions and Coöperative Societies offer to workingmen?
  2. “Deposits are currency.” What is meant?
  3. What is the most important objection to the use of inconvertible paper money? What illustrations of its force do you find in the experience of the United States since 1860?
  4. Compare the policy followed in times of panic by the Bank of England, the Reichsbank of Germany, and the National Banks of the United States.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1853-2001. Box 2, Volume: Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, pp. 34-35.

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Economics 2.
Economic Theory from Adam Smith
to the Present Time.
1893-94.

Enrollment

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig. — Economic Theory from Adam Smith to the present time. — Examination of selections from leading writers. 3 hours.

Total 43: 12 Graduates, 16 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 4 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

1893-94
ECONOMICS 2.
Mid-Year Examination.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
Write with deliberation, but answer all the questions.]

  1. “It is no doubt true that a portion of capital is always remuneratory and not auxiliary in its nature; that is, does not consist of instruments that make labour more efficient, but of finished products, destined for the consumption of labourers and others. This part of capital continually becomes real wages (as well as real profits, interest, and rent), being purchased by the labourer with the money wages he receives from time to time. But it does not seem to me therefore correct to regard the real wages as capital ‘advanced’ by the employer to the labourer. The transaction between the two is essentially a purchase, not a loan. The employer purchases the results of a week’s labour, which thereby becomes part of his capital, and may be conceived — if we omit for simplicity’s sake the medium of exchange — to give the labourer in return some of the finished products of his industry.”
    Consider whether and how remuneratory capital continually becomes real interest and rent, as well as real wages; and give your opinion as to the closing analysis of the relation between employers and laborers.
  2. Suppose (1) that profit-sharing were universally adopted; (2) that laborers habitually saved a very large part of their income, — and consider whether any modification must be made in the reasoning of those who would maintain a Wages-Fund doctrine.
  3. It has been said that while the capital of the employing class is the immediate source from which wages are paid, the ultimate and important source is the income of the consumers who buy the goods made by the laborers for the capitalists. Consider this doctrine.
  4. Compare critically the treatment by Walker, Sidgwick, and Ricardo, of the relation between the profits of the individual capitalist and the amount of capital owned by him.
  5. State carefully Ricardo’s criticism of Adam Smith’s doctrine on labor as the measure of value.
  6. Compare Adam Smith’s reasoning with Ricardo’s as to the manner in which the progress of society in wealth affects profits.
  7. “We have seen that in the early stages of society both the landlord’s and the labourer’s share of the value of the produce of the earth would be but small; and that it would increase in proportion to the progress of wealth and the difficulty of procuring food. We have known, too, that although the value of the labourer’s portion will be increased by the high value of food, his real share will be diminished; while that of the landlord will not only be raised in value, but will also be increased in quantity.”
    Explain the reasoning by which Ricardo reached the several conclusions here summarized, and give your opinion as to the soundness of the conclusions.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Prof. F. W. Taussig, Examination Papers in Economics 1882-1935 (Scrapbook). Also: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94.

1893-94
ECONOMICS 2.
[Final Examination.]

  1. “Perhaps the most striking conflict of the Wages-Fund-theory with facts, is found in the periodical influctions and depressions of trade. After a commercial crisis, when the shock is over and the necessary liquidation has taken place, we generally find that there is a period during which there is a glut of capital, and yet wages are low. The abundance of capital is shown by the low rate of interest and the difficulty of obtaining remunerative investments.” — Nicholson, Political Economy
    How far is the theory in conflict with the facts here adduced?
  2. How is the significance of the doctrine of consumer’s rent affected by the fact that the money incomes of different purchasers vary widely?
  3. Explain Marshall’s doctrine as to the influence on wages of the standard of living among laborers; and consider how far it differs from Richard’s teaching as to the connection between wages and the price of food.
  4. Explain Marshall’s doctrine of the quasi-rent of labor; compare it with his conclusions as to the rent of business ability; and point out how far he finds in either case something analogous to economic rent as defined by the classic writers.
  5. “It is not true that the spinning of yarn in a factory, after allowance has been made for the wear-and-tear of the machinery, is the product of the labour of the operatives. It is the product of their labour (together with that of the employer and subordinate managers) and of the capital; and that capital itself is the product of labour and waiting; and therefore the spinning is the product of labour (of many kinds) and of waiting. If we admit that it is the product of labour alone, and not of labour and waiting, we can no doubt be compelled by inexorable logic to admit that there is no justification for interest, the reward of waiting.”
    How far would you accept this reasoning?
  6. “Barter, though earlier historically than buying and selling, is really a mere complex transaction, and the theory of it is rather curious than important.” — Marshall.
    “The attribute of normal or usual value implies systematic and continuous production.” — Cairnes.
    “Where commodities are made for sale, the sellers’ subjective valuations fall out altogether, and price is determined by the valuation of the last buyer.” — Böhm-Bawerk.
    Explain these statements, separately or in connection with each other.
  7. What does Böhm-Bawerk mean by the general subsistence market, or the total of advances for subsistence; and how far do the “advances” differ from the wages-fund of the classic economists?
  8. Explain Böhm-Bawerk’s views as to the connection between the prolongation of the period of production, and the increase in the productiveness of labor; and consider how far his conclusions as to interest would need to be modified, if those views were changed.
  9. Explain briefly, by definition or example, the sense in which Böhm-Bawerk uses the terms, —

social capital;
private capital;
subjective value;
marginal pairs;
technical superiority of present goods.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Prof. F. W. Taussig, Examination Papers in Economics 1882-1935 (Scrapbook). Also: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1853-2001. Box 2, Volume: Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, pp. 35-36.

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Economics 3.
Principles of Sociology.
1893-94.

Enrollment.

[Economics] 3. Asst. Professor Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 3 hours.

Total 47: 17 Gr., 19 Se., 5 Ju., 6 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

 

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 3.
Mid-Year Examination

(Arrange your answers in the order of your questions. Omit two.)

  1. “In fact, the conception of society as an organism seems to admit of more easy application to just those very views about the State which Mr. Spencer most dislikes: and, though the conception or organism has its value in helping political thinking out of the confusions of individualism, if it be taken as a final key to all mysteries, it leads to new confusions of its own, for which it would be absurd to blame Mr. Spencer.” Explain and criticise.
  2. How does Spencer account for the diverse types of political organization; and what influences determine the order in which they arise? Illustrate.
  3. What evidence of political evolution is there in the sequence of the various forms of political organization in Greek, Roman, and Medieval society? Trace the steps.
  4. According to Burke, “Society is indeed a contract. … It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” Explain. How does this differ from earlier conceptions of the social contract? From the conception of society as an organism?
  5. Upon what grounds does Spencer base his preference for the industrial rather than the militant type of society?
  6. According to Jevons, “the first step must be to rid our minds of the idea that there are any such things in social matters as abstract rights, absolute principles, indefeasible laws, inalterable rules, or anything whatever of an eternal and inflexible nature.” According to another view, “the state presupposes rights and the rights of individuals.” What is your own opinion? Why? Are there “Natural Rights”? Illustrate.
  7. “The State is after all the least of the powers that govern us.” How far is this true at different stages of social development?
  8. What is involved in the conception of Sovereignty? In whom is it rested? On what does it rest? For example, England and the United States.
  9. What is the bearing of Comte’s maxim, “Voir pour prevour,” upon the doctrine of social evolution?
  10. “The environment in our problem must, therefore, not only include psychical as well as physical factors, but the former are immeasurably the more important factors, and as civilization advances their relative importance steadily increases.”
  11. What do you mean by State Interference? By Individual liberty?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94.

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 3.
Final Examination

[Questions are in all cases to be discussed with direct reference to facts and theories presented in this course. Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. Take either the first question or six others.]

  1. Devote three hours to a discussion of “Social Evolution”;— expounding Mr. Kidd’s views, discussing his opinions and conclusions in the light of facts and theories presented in this course, and stating carefully your own reasons for agreeing or disagreeing.
  2. What, according to Mr. Kidd, are the necessary “Conditions of Human Progress”? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
  3. What are the points of resemblance and of difference between the “Scientific Socialism” of today and earlier forms of so-called socialistic propaganda which have appeared within this century?
  4. “Step by step the community has absorbed them, wholly or partially, and the area of private exploitation has been lessened. Parallel with this progressive nationalization or municipalization of industry, there has gone on, outside, the elimination of the purely personal element in business management.” Indicate briefly the character, extent and probable significance of “nationalization and municipalization” in the United States and in European Countries.
  5. What inferences may and what may not safely be drawn from American experience in municipal ownership or control of gas, of water, and of electric light plants? Discuss carefully the extent and character of the evidence.
  6. “According to them, the tribe or horde is the primary social unit of the human race, and the family only a secondary unit, developed in later times. Indeed, this assumption has been treated by many writers, not as a more or less probable hypothesis, but as a demonstrated truth. Yet the idea that a man’s children belong to the tribe, has no foundation in fact.” Indicate briefly the present state of this controversy. What significance do you attach to it?
  7. “The central fact with which we are confronted in our progressive societies is, therefore, that the interests of the social organism and those of the individuals comprising it at any time are actually antagonistic; they can never be reconciled, they are inherently and essentially irreconcilable.” State carefully the arguments for and against this position.
  8. “True Socialism of the German type must be recognized to be, ultimately, as individualistic and as anti-social as individualism in its advanced forms.” By what line of reasoning is this conclusion reached? State carefully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1853-2001. Box 2, Volume: Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, pp. 36-37.

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Economics 5 (First Semester).
Railway Transportation.
1893-994.

Enrollment.

[Economics] 51. Professor Taussig. — Railway Transportation. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 39: 3 Gr., 24 Se., 9 Ju., 1 So., 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 5.
Final [Mid-Year] Examination.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. State what important general lessons are to be learned from the early experiments of Pennsylvania and Michigan in constructing and managing transportation routes.
  2. Why the change in the attitude of the public towards the Pacific railways after 1870? And what were some consequences of the change?
  3. What was the effect of the land-grant system on the welfare of the community, and on railway profits?
  4. “These conditions [leading to financial losses] may fairly enough be described as the Interstate Commerce Commission describes them, — parallel railroad construction and wars of rates. But when the Commission goes on to say that they cannot with any justice be claimed to have resulted from the act or from its administration, they make an unwarranted assertion.” What were the conditions here referred to (give dates)? And was the assertion unwarranted?
  5. Consider the probable results of the repeal of the section of the Interstate Commerce act which prohibits pooling.
  6. “High rates on some articles are not to be regarded as a tax which could be removed if low rates on others were abandoned.” Why not?
  7. “The enormous fixed capital and the consequent impossibility of retiring from the enterprise if it becomes unprofitable; the greater or less degree of monopoly; the wide gulf between railway managers and investors, sometimes leading to consequences of its own,” consider in what manner and extent these circumstances have affected railway rates in the United States.
  8. What do you believe to be the significance and importance of the following figures (for the United States in 1891):
Revenue per passenger mile 2.142 cents
Average cost of carrying a passenger one mile 1.910 cents
Revenue per ton mile 0.895 cents
Average cost of carrying a ton one mile 0.583 cents
Revenue per freight train mile $1.63
Average cost of running a freight train one mile $1.06
  1. Compare the course of railway policy in France, Prussia, and Italy, in 1880-85.
  2. Compare the principles which underlie the natural (car-space) system of freight rates and the zone system of passenger rates.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1853-2001. Box 2, Volume: Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, pp. 37-38.

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Economics 6 (Second Semester)
History of Tariff Legislation
in the United States.
1893-94.

Enrollment.

[Economics] 62. Professor Taussig. — History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 97: 11 Gr., 33 Se., 36 Ju., 2 So., 1 Fr., 14 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 62.

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 6.
Final Examination

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

  1. Is it to be inferred from Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures that if he were now living, he would not be an advocate of protection?
  2. What grounds are there for saying that the act of 1789 was a protective measure?
  3. State the important provisions of the act of 1816, and consider whether it differs in any essentials from the act of 1824.
  4. Was Clay right in affirming, or Webster in denying, that the protective system of 1824 was “American”?
  5. How would you ascertain what were the duties, in 1840, on (1) woollen goods, (2) cotton goods, (3) silk goods, (4) bar iron?
  6. Suppose the present specific duties on woollen manufactures to be removed; the ad valorem duties to remain unchanged; wool to be admitted free; and consider how far there would ensue a change in the effective protection given on finer woollen cloths, on cheaper woollen cloths, and on carpets.
  7. Mention briefly what were the duties on tea and coffee in the successive stages of tariff legislation from 1789 to 1890; noting the significance of the changes made from time to time.
  8. Why do the effects, in recent times, of the duties on flax and hemp, and on glassware, “reduce themselves in the last analysis to illustrations of the doctrine of comparative costs”?
  9. Wherein is there resemblance, wherein difference, between the general course of tariff history in the United States after the civil war, and in France after the Napoleonic wars?
  10. What would be the probable effects of the removal of the present duties on cotton goods?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1853-2001. Box 2, Volume: Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, pp. 38-39

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Economics 8 (First Semester)
History of Financial Legislation
in the United States.
1893-94.

Enrollment.

[Economics] 81. Professor Dunbar. — History of Financial Legislation in the United States. 2 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 63: 9 Gr., 26 Se., 23 Ju., 1 So., 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 62.

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 8.
Mid-Year Examination.

Instead of answering the starred questions in this paper you may substitute, if you prefer, an essay on the subject marked A, printed at the close.

  1. *“It is sometimes said that Mr. Hamilton believed in a perpetual debt, and when one notices the form into which he threw the obligations of the United States, the only escape from this conclusion is to say that he was ignorant of the true meaning of the contracts which he created.” — [H. C. ADAMs, Public Debts, p. 161.]
    How far is the above remark confirmed by the provisions as to the payment of the debt funded by the Act of 1790?
  2. How far should you say that Gallatin, although an anti-Federalist, finally adopted Federalist measures or methods in financial matters?
  3. Give a general statement of the agreement between the banks and the Treasury for the resumption of specie payment in 1817, and show the way in which it was intended to operate.
  4. Inasmuch as Jackson’s general prepossessions were unfavorable to all banks, how are we to explain his resort to the plan of depositing Government funds in State banks after the removal of the deposits in 1833?
  5. *How serious a blow did Jackson really strike when he removed the deposits from the United States bank in 1833?
  6. What expedients were suggested for supplying the needs of the government in 1861-62 without resorting to the issue of legal-tender notes?
  7. *The “Gold Bill” of June 17, 1864, and its fate.
  8. What was the process by which the bonds issued during the war were refunded under the act of 1870 and when did the refunding take place?
  9. What signs of change in the policy of Congress as to the resumption of specie payments are to be found in the legislation between 1865 and 1876?
  10. State the provisions of the Resumption Act of 1875 as to the redemption of legal-tender notes, and show whether the act did or did not provide for the possible eventual disappearance of all the notes. What has made the amount of outstanding legal-tender notes stationary at $346,681,016?
  11. *A recent writer, discussing the question of a paper currency issued by government, says:—
    “In the United States there were twenty issues of treasury notes before the late war. Those issues were receivable in the revenues the government, and were always preferred to gold.”
    What criticism is to be made on this statement?
  12. *Describe the different kinds of paper currency now in use in the United States, stating as to each the cases in which it can be tendered for private debt, and those which it. can he received or paid out by the government.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *
A.

The change which has taken place since 1846 in the conditions affecting the Independent Treasury, and the justification of Secretary Carlisle’s statement, in the Finance Report for 1893, that “the laws have imposed upon the Treasury Department all the duties and responsibilities of a bank of issue, and to a certain extent the functions of bank of deposit.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94.

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Economics 9.
The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen in the United States and in other countries.
1893-94.

 Enrollment.

[Economics] 9. Asst. Professor Cummings. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen in the United States and in other countries. 3 hours.

Total 43: 7 Graduates, 16 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 5 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

Mid-year Examination.
ECONOMICS 9.
1893-94.

(Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries. Omit two questions.)

  1. “It becomes my duty, therefore, in undertaking to interpret the social movement of our own times, to disclose, first, those changes in industrial methods by which harmony in industries has been disturbed, and then to trace the influence of such changes into the structure of society.” State carefully what these changes have been; and trace their influence.
    [Henry C. Adams. “An Interpretation of the Social Movements of our Time”, International Journal of Ethics, Vol II, October, 1891), p. 33]
  2. Discuss the effect upon wages of machinery, — (a) as a substitute for labor (b) as auxiliary to labor; (c) as affecting division of labor; (d) as concentrating labor and capital; (e) as affecting the nobility[sic, “mobility”] of labor and capital.
  3. “In my opinion, combination among workingmen is a necessary step in the re-crystallization of industrial rights and duties.” State fully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with this opinion. What forms of combination do you include?
    [Henry C. Adams. “An Interpretation of the Social Movements of our Time”, International Journal of Ethics, Vol II, October, 1891), p. 45]
  4. “Trade-unions have been stronger in England than on the Continent, and in America….” In what respects stronger? Why? Contrast briefly the history and present tendencies of the trade-union movement in the United States, England, France, Germany, and Italy.
    [Alfred Marshall, Elements of Economics of Industry: being the First Volume of Elements of Economics (London: Macmillan, 1892), Book VI, Ch. XIII. §18, p. 404]
  5. “Trade-unions have been stronger in England than on the Continent, and in America; and wages have been higher in England than on the Continent, but lower than in America.” “Again, those occupations in which wages have risen most in England happen to be those in which there are no unions.” How far do such facts impeach the effectiveness of trade-unions as a means of raising wages and improving the condition of workingmen? What do you conceive to be the economic limits and the proper sphere of trade-union action?
    [Alfred Marshall, Elements of Economics of Industry: being the First Volume of Elements of Economics (London: Macmillan, 1892), Book VI, Ch. §18, pp. 404-405.]
  6. “We saw at the beginning that in comparatively recent years the difficulties of keeping up a purely offensive and defensive organization had brought many of the unions back nearer their old allies, the friendly societies, and emphasized the friendly benefits in proportion as the expenditure for trade disputes seemed less important.” Explain carefully this earlier and later relation of trade-unions and Friendly Societies in England.
    [Edward Cummings, The English Trades-Unions, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. III (July, 1889), p. 432.]
  7. “This spirit of independent self-help has its advantages and its disadvantages. We have already had occasion to remark how slow in these Friendly Societies has been the progress of reform, and we must repeat that up to the present day it still exhibits defects.” Explain and illustrate the progress of the reform and the nature of existing defects. Does English self-help experience suggest the desirability or undesirability of imitating German methods of compulsory insurance?
  8. “Countless[sic, “Doubtless” in original] boards of arbitration and conciliation, the establishment of certain rules of procedure, agreements covering definite periods of time, may aid somewhat in averting causes of dispute or in adjusting disputes as they arise; but if we have these alone to look to, strife will be the rule rather than the exception.” Explain the various methods adopted and the results obtained. What have you to say of “compulsory arbitration?”
    [Francis A. Walker. “What Shall We Tell the Working Classes?” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 2, 1887.  Reprinted in Discussions in Economics and Statistics, edited by Davis R. Dewey. Vol. II315-316.]
  9. “The conclusion of the whole matter seems to be, that what is desirable is not so much to put a stop to sub-contracting as to put a stop to ‘sweating,’ whether the man who treats the workman in the oppressive manner which the word ‘sweating’ denotes be a sub-contractor, a piece-master, or a contractor.” Indicate briefly some of the principal forms of industrial remuneration, — giving the special merits and defects of each.
    [David F. Schloss. Methods of Industrial Remuneration (London: Williams and Norgate, 1892), p. 140.]
  10. “Now that I am on piece-work, I am making about double what I used to make when on day-work. I know I am doing wrong. I am taking away the work of another man.” State and criticize the theory involved in this view of production.
    [David F. Schloss. Methods of Industrial Remuneration (London: Williams and Norgate, 1892), p. 43-44.]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94. Transcribed and posted earlier at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Year-End Examination
ECONOMICS 9.
1893-94.

(Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries. Take the first three questions and four others.)

  1. “As soon, however, as the factory system was established, the inequality of women and children in their struggle with employers attracted the attention of even the most careless observers; and, attention once drawn to this circumstance, it was not long before the inequality of adult men was also brought into prominence.” How far is this true (a) of England, (b) of the United States? Trace briefly the legislative consequences for children and for adults in the two countries.
    [Arnold Toynbee. Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century in England (The Humboldt Library of Popular Science Literature, Vol. 13. New York: Humboldt Publishing Co.), p. 17.]
  2. “It will be necessary, in the first place, to distinguish clearly between the failure of Industrial Coöperation and the failure of the coöperative method—a method, as we have seen, adopted, even partially, by only a very small fraction of Industrial Coöperation.” Explain carefully, discussing especially the evidence furnished by France and England.
  3. “These four concerns—the Maison Leclaire, the Godin Foundry, the Coöperative Paper Works of Angoulême and the Bon Marché—are virtually coöperative; certainly they secure to the employers and stockholders the substantial benefits of purely coöperative productive enterprises, while they are still, logically, profit-sharing establishments.” State your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing. Indicate briefly the characteristic features of each enterprise.
  4. “What inferences are we to draw from the foregoing statistics? Unmistakably this, that the higher daily wages in America do not mean a correspondingly enhanced labor cost to the manufacturer. But why so?” Discuss the character of available evidence in regard to the United States, Great Britain and the continent of Europe.
    [E. R. L. Gould. The Social Condition of Labor (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, January 1893), pp. 41-2.]
  5. “The juxtaposition of figures portraying the social-economic status of workmen of different nationalities in the country of their birth and the land of their adoption furnishes lessons of even higher interest. From this we are able to learn the social effect of economic betterment.” Explain. How do the facts in question affect your attitude toward recent changes in the character and volume of our immigration?
    [E. R. L. Gould. The Social Condition of Labor (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, January 1893), pp. 35-6.]
  6. “The Senate Finance Committee issued some time ago a comparative exhibit of prices and wages for fifty-two years, from which the conclusion is generally drawn that the condition of the wage earner is better to-day than it was thirty or forty years ago. A conclusion of this kind reveals the weakness of even the best statistics. No one can doubt that the work of the Finance Committee is work of high excellence, but for comparing the economic condition of workers it is of little value.” Do you agree or disagree? Why? Indicate briefly the character of the evidence.
  7. What are the principle organizations which may be said to represent the “Labor Movement” in the United States at the present time? How far are they helpful and how far hostile to one another?
  8. “In a preceding chapter I have said that as a moral force and as a system the factory system of industry is superior to the domestic system, which it supplanted.” State your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing.
    [Carroll D. Wright. Factory Legislation from Vol. II, Tenth Census of the United States, reprinted inFirst Annual Report of the Factory Inspectors of the State of New York (Albany, 1887), p. 41.]
  9. Contrast the English and the German policy in regard to Government Workingmen’s Insurance.
  10. “Gladly turning to more constructive work, I next consider some industrial changes and reforms which would tend to correct the present bias towards individualism.” What are they?
  11. Give an imaginary family budget for American, English and German operatives in one of the following industries, — coal, iron, steel, cotton, wool, glass, indicating roughly characteristic differences in such items as throw most light on the social condition of labor.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95. pp. 39-41. Transcribed and posted earlier at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

______________________

Economics 10.
The Elements of Economic History from the Middle Ages to Modern Times.
1893-94.

[Economics] 10. Professor Ashley. — The Elements of Economic History from the Middle Ages to Modern Times. 3 hours.

Total 51: 6 Gr., 17 Se., 20 Ju., 4 So., 1 Fr., 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 10.
Mid-Year Examination.

 

  1. A modern writer has insisted upon the difference between the point of view of economic history and the point of view of constitutional history. Consider this in relation to the growth of mediaeval towns.
  2. Distinguish briefly between the various processes known as “Enclosure,” and explain their relation to the open-field husbandry.
  3. What light does the history of the English woollen industry throw upon the question as to the relation between the gild and the domestic workshop?
  4. “Only one who is unacquainted with social conditions under Henry VIll. and Edward VI. can maintain that the Reformation was not responsible for English pauperism.” Discuss this.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94.

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 10.
Final Examination.

[Candidates are requested to answer only six questions, of which the first should be one.]

  1. Translate and comment upon:
    1. Omnes isti sochemanni habent viii carrucas, et arant iii vicibus per annum. Et quisquis eorum metit in Augusto de blado domini dimidiam acram et ii vicibus in Augusto precationem.
    2. Sciatis me concessisse … civibus meis in Oxenforde omnes libertates et consuetudines et leges et quietantias quas habuerunt tempore regis Henrici avi mei, nominatim gildam suam mercatoriam cum omnibus libertatibus et consuetudinibus in terris et in silvis pasturis et aliis pertinentiis, ita quod aliquis qui non sit de gildhalls aliquam mercaturam non faciet in civitate vel suburbiis.
  2. Give some account of the changes in trade-routes during the sixteenth century.
  3. Describe the organization of industry in the middle of the reign of Elizabeth.
  4. Compare the Enclosures of the eighteenth century with those of the sixteenth.
  5. What was the condition of the mercantile marine of New England in the eighteenth century? What connection was there between this condition and the Navigation Acts?
  6. Institute a comparison between the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg and recent agrarian legislation in Ireland, or any other country with which you are familiar.
  7. What light is cast upon the teaching of (1) Adam Smith, (2) Malthus, (3) Ricardo, by contemporary economic conditions.
  8. Estimate the importance of Arthur Young in the economic history of England.
  9. What seem to you the most characteristic features of the economic development of the United States during the present century as contrasted with England.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1853-2001. Box 2, Volume: Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, pp. 42-43.

___________________________

Economics 12 (First Semester).
Banking and the History
of the leading Banking Systems
1893-94.

 Enrollment.

[Economics] 121. Professor Dunbar. — Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. 3 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 50: 10 Gr., 24 Se., 15 Ju., 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 62.

1893-94.
ECONOMICS 12[1].
Mid-Year Examination

  1. Which system of banks appears to present the greatest advantages, — (a) one with a powerful central bank as in England and Germany: (b) an aristocracy of strong banks as in Scotland; or (c) a democracy of banks as in this country?
  2. In any period of financial pressure, would the Bank of England he under any obligation, legal or moral, to act for the relief of the public, if such action involved risk or loss to its stockholders? What would be the source of such obligation, if any exists?
  3. The German bank act requires every bank to hold cash, (a) for all notes issued by it above its limit of uncovered issue: (b) and amounting to at least one third of all the notes issued Why is it that notes of other banks can be reckoned as cash in one of these cases, but not in the other?
  4. What is to be said as to the proposition frequently maintained. that “note issue is in reality a function of the State as much as coinage, and should not be delegated to corporations or to private hands?”
  5. If we hold that all note issues need to be kept under national control, in order to secure uniformity of value, what ground is there for denying that all deposit banking needs the same control for the same reason?
  6. Supposing the securities required for deposit under the national banking system to be abundant and fairly attractive as investments, — would that system afford an elastic currency?
  7. To the plan of securing notes by a safety fund (as practiced formerly in New York and now in Canada), it has been objected that it would be unjust to require well-managed banks to pay for losses incurred by weak or imprudent ones, and that a premium would be offered for bad management. How much weight is there in this objection?
  8. To the plan of making the notes of a bank a first lien on its assets it has been objected,—
    “It deprives the bank of the fund which is the basis of its credit in asking for deposits Without the deposit the banks cannot do a profitable business. It is difficult to believe that, the capital being subjected to a first lien for the amount of the notes, and there being always the possibility of an over-issue of such notes, the credit of the bank in its discount and deposit business would not be impaired. is calling upon the capital to do a double work when it is already loaded with the single task of inspiring confidence in the people who have to make deposits.”
    What is the answer to this objection?
  9. Discuss the following extract from the Commercial and Financial Chronicle of May 14th, 1892:—
    “Every prerogative and attribute even of our bank notes, and still more of our silver certificates, tends to draw them away from the interior, even when the issuer is resident in a Southern or Western State, and lodge them in an Eastern city. [The semi legal-tender quality of the national bank circulation and its redemption at the Treasury help to make its movements unnatural, artificial, and impart to it a roaming character helping to force it away from the issuer, away from the country districts where it is needed, and consequently to induce its accumulation when out of active commercial employment in the great financial centres, and while there to foster and become more or less fixed in speculative ventures — that is unresponsive to commercial influences when needed for commercial work?”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94.

___________________________

Economics 12 (Second Semester).
International Payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals.
1893-94.

Enrollment.

[Economics] 122. Professor Dunbar.—International Payments and the Flow of the Precious Metals. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 38: 12 Graduates, 18 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 62.

1893-94
ECONOMICS 122.
Final Examination.

  1. Mr. Goschen says that while a gold currency existed on both sides of the Atlantic the actual par of exchange between New York and London was about 109. What is the explanation of this method of stating the point of equilibrium?
  2. Is Clare justified in making the general statement that “the gold-points mark the highest level to which an exchange may rise, and the lowest to which it may fall?”
  3. What effect would the current rate of interest (as e.g. in a tight money market, either in the drawing or in the accepting country,) have on the rates for sixty-day bills as compared with cash bills?
  4. Clare makes the remark that “as the rate of exchange between two countries…must be fixed by the one who draws and negotiates the bill, it follows that the exchanges between England and most other countries are controlled from the other side, and that we in London have scarcely part or say in the matter.” Is the rate then a matter of indifference to those in London?
  5. Why is it that in certain trades bills are drawn chiefly, or even exclusively, in one direction, as e.g. by New York on London and not vice versa; and how is this practice made to answer the purpose of settling payments, which have to be made in one direction as well as the other?
  6. Mr. Goschen says that the primary cause which makes England the great banking centre of the world is “the stupendous and never-ceasing exports of England, which have for their effect that every country I the world, being in constant receipt of English manufactures, is under the necessity of making remittances to pay for them, either in bullion, in produce, or in bills.”
    Compare this statement with the fact that for ten years past the imports of merchandise into England have averaged about £400,000,000 annually, and the exports from England have averaged a little under £300,000,000.
  7. Suppose the exportation of specie from the United States to be prohibited (or, as has sometimes been suggested, to be slightly hindered,) what would be the effect on rates of exchange, and on prices of goods, either domestic or foreign? Would the country be a loser or not? [See Ricardo (McCulloch’s ed.) p. 139.]
  8. State Mr. Cairnes’s general doctrine as to the movement of prices which determines the normal flow of new supplies of gold from one country to another in the process of distribution over the commercial world.
  9. Cairnes argues that, as the effect of the cheapening of gold, “each country will endure a loss;” but that in particular cases “the primary loss may…be compensated, or even converted into a positive gain.” State and discuss the reasoning on which this proposition rests.
  10. Say, in his Report on the Indemnity, says:—
    La France a, en réalité, (1) fait passer à l’étranger le plus de capitaux possible, en prenant tous les changes qu’elle pouvait acquérir sur quelque pays que ce fût, et (2) a ensuite dirigé sur l’Allemagne tout ce qu’elle avait approvisionné ailleurs.

    1. What reason was there why France should prefer the course described in (1) rather than a direct transfer to Germany?
    2. What movements of trade or capital, of any sort, made the course described in (1) possible or easy?
    3. What movements of the same nature made (2) possible, or enable Germany to absorb the capital thus turned towards her?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. On either of the following topics, give an orderly and concise statement, as complete as you can make it in thirty minutes:—
    1. Sidgwick’s criticisms on Mill’s doctrine of international trade and their validity.
    2. The supply and distribution of the new gold from the United States and Australia, 1858-70.
    3. The action of the new gold in the banking countries.
    4. The absorption of new gold by the currency of France and the foreign trade of that country.
    5. The reasons for the varying ability of India to absorb silver?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Final examinations, 1853-2001. Box 2, Papers set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, pp. 44-46. Transcribed and posted earlier in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

____________________

1893-94
Enrollment for Economics 13.
The Development of Land Tenures and of Agrarian Conditions in Europe.

Enrollment.

[Economics] 13. Professor Ashley. – The Development of Land Tenures and of Agrarian Conditions in Europe. 1 hour.

Total 2: 1 Graduate, 1 Senior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

Note: No printed final examination in the collection of Harvard semester examinations.

____________________

Economics 14.
Ideal Social Reconstructions
from Plato to the Present.
1893-94.

Enrollment.

[Economics] 14. Asst. Professor Cummings. — Ideal Social Reconstructions, from Plato’s Republic to the present time. 1 hour.

Total 22: 7 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1893-94, p. 61.

ECONOMICS 14.
Mid-year examination, 1893-94.

(Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. Omit one.)

  1. What is a Utopia? and what significance do you attached to the recurrence of such literature at certain historical ethics?
  2. “For judging of the importance of any thinker in the history of Economics, no matter is more important to us than the view he takes of the laboring population.” Judge Plato, More and Bacon by this standard.
  3. “Moreover, it is hardly too much to say that Plato never got to the point of having a theory of the State at all.” In the Republic “man is treated as a micropolis, and the city is the citizen writ large.” Explain and criticize.
  4. “In More’s Utopia we have a revival of the Platonic Republic with additions which make the scheme entirely modern.… The economical element in the social body receives for the first time its proper rank as of the highest moment for public welfare.” Explain. To what extent have the ideals of Utopia been realized?
  5. “Then we may say that democracy, like oligarchy, is destroyed by its insatiable craving for the object which defines to be supremely good?” What, according to the Republic are the peculiar merits and defects of the several forms of political organization? and how are these forms related in point of origin and sequence?
  6. “Sir Thomas More has been called the father of Modern Communism.” How does he compare in this respect with Plato? How far do you trace the influence of historical conditions in each case?
  7. “But in your case, it is we that have begotten you for the State as well as for yourselves, to be like leaders and kings of the hive,– better and more perfectly trained than the rest, and more capable of playing a part in both modes of life.” Criticise the method and purpose of the educational system of the Republic. How far does Plato’s argument as to the duty of public service apply to the educated man to-day?
  8. “The religious ferment produced by the Reformation movement had begun to show signs of abatement, when another movement closely connected with it made its appearance almost at the same time in England and Italy, namely, the rise of a new philosophy.” How was this new philosophy embodied in the social ideals of Bacon and of Campanella? and what is the distinguishing characteristic of it?
  9. What essential contrast between pagan and Christian ideals have you found in schemes for social regeneration?
  10. Is there any recognition of “Social Evolution” in the Utopian philosophies thus far considered?
  11. What in a word, do you regard as the chief defect of the social reconstruction suggested in turn by Plato, Lycurgus, More, Bacon and Campanella? To what main problems suggested by them have we still to seek an answer?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year, 1893-94. Previously transcribed and posted in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

 

ECONOMICS 14.
Final examination, 1893-94.

(Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.)

  1. [“]The essential unity and continuity of the vital process which has been in progress in our civilization from the beginning is almost lost sight of. Many of the writers on social subjects at the present day are like the old school of geologists: they seem to think that progress has consisted of a series of cataclysms.” How far is this criticism true? Is the characteristic in question more or less conspicuous in earlier writers?
  2. “At the outset underneath all socialist ideals yawns the problem of population…. Under the Utopias of Socialism, one of two things must happen. Either this increase must be restricted or not. If it be not restricted, and selection is allowed to continue, then the whole foundations of such a fabric as Mr. Bellamy has constructed are bodily removed.” State carefully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing. In which of the schemes for social reconstruction, ancient or modern, do you find any adequate recognition of the part which selection plays in progress?
  3. “If it is possible for the community to provide the capital for production without thereby doing injury to either the principle of perfect individual freedom or to that of justice, if interest can be dispensed with without introducing communistic control in its stead, then there no longer stands any positive obstacle in the way of the free social order.” Discuss the provisions by which Hertzka hopes to guaranteed this “perfect individual freedom.” Contrast him with Bellamy in this respect.
  4. “I perceive that capitalism stops the growth of wealth, not – as Marx has it – by stimulating ‘production for the market,’ but by preventing the consumption of the surplus produce; and that interest, though not unjust, will nevertheless in a condition of economic justice becomes superfluous and objectless.” Explain Hertzka’s reasoning and criticise the economic theory involved.”
  5. What is the gist of “News from Nowhere”?
  6. The condition which the social mind has reached may be tentatively described as one of realization, more or less unconscious, that religion has a definite function to perform in society, and that it is a factor of some kind in the social evolution which is in progress.” How far have you found a recognition of this factor in theories of social reconstruction?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. (HUC 7000.28). Box 2, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894.

Also: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1853-2001. Box 2, Volume: Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1894, pp. 46-47. Previously transcribed and posted in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

 

Source: Left-to-right: Dunbar, Taussig, Ashley. From University and their Sons. History, Influence and Characteristics of American Universities with Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Alumni and Recipients of Honorary Degrees. Editor-in-chief, General Joshua L. Chamberlain, LL.D. Vol II (1899), pp. 159 [Dunbar], 595 [Ashley].   Vol. III (1899), p. 99 [Taussig]

Categories
Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Chair annual reports to Dean, 1932-1941

 

This post takes us from the trough of the Great Depression to the eve of the U.S. entry into the Second World War. The items below are transcriptions of copies of reports written by the Harvard economics department chairmen of the time (Harold Hitchings Burbank (a.k.a. Burbie to his Buds) and Edward Hastings Chamberlin. Some chest-thumping, some whining, no notes of irony and definitely no flashes of wit…we all know this art form. Nevertheless some raw intelligence of value for working historians of economics of the present and future.

____________________________

November 12, 1932

Dear Dean Murdock,

Under the Faculty vote of December, 1931, the Chairman of each Department is requested to report in each half year to the Dean of the Faculty on the working of the plan recommended by the Committee on Instruction concerning Hour Examinations and Other Course Requirements. My report for the Department of Economics follows.

Acting on the Report from the Committee on Instruction, the Department of Economics on January 12, 1932 voted to observe the recommendations of the Committee. Following the Department meeting, I reported to you to the effect that the requirements of the Department of Economics were substantially in accord with the principles laid down by the Committee on Instruction. Ordinarily, we require not more than one Hour Examination in any one half year; ordinarily, we require not more than one thesis or report in any one half year. It is the standing rule of the Department of Economics and of the Division of History, Government, and Economics, that Senior candidates for Honors, who are writing Honors theses, shall be excused from the writing of any theses in courses within the Division. After a long discussion and with considerable reluctance, the Department voted that for Seniors who are candidates for Honors in the Division, Hour Examinations in courses within the Department shall be optional.

The vote of the Department was made known immediately to the students and observed in all of our undergraduate course (not of an introductory nature) during the second half of last year, and it is being observed in the current half year.

In the Division of History, Government, and Economics, we have had for many years a rule that all Seniors in good standing shall be exempted from final examinations in courses within the Division in their last half year. The result has been, of course, that after the April Hour Examinations, Seniors have paid little attention to courses within in the Division, and their attendance has been hardly more than occasional. The members of the Department who are more interested in courses than in General Examinations, and who perhaps doubt the efficacy of General Examinations, view this situation with increasing criticism.

When the Department voted the making of Hour Examinations optional for Seniors who are candidates for Honors, the doubting members were highly critical, fearing that our courses elected largely by Seniors would be entirely disrupted. From all that I can learn, I cannot see that there have been any untoward or undesirable results. In most of our “Senior” courses, the attendance until the Easter recess was satisfactory. Honors candidates attended lectures and, I believe, completed most of the required readings. Their records on the General Examinations were excellent. The Honors theses were among the best we have ever had.

A number of members of my Department and not a few members of the Departments of History and Government are strongly opposed to the new order. They make the point that we have in substance permitted an additional reduction in courses, that Senior Honor candidates are simply required to register in courses, but they have nether to attend them nor to do the work. All of these allegations are true enough, but it seems to me they are beside the point. To the extent that we have confidence in our examiners and tutors, I do not believe that in effect the requirements regarding the quality and quantity or work have been reduced.

The Department of History has recommended to the other departments of the Division the consideration of a motion which would require all senior candidates for Honors to complete whatever courses in History they elect. I think that probably the departments of the Division will consider in full detail the questions this motion involves.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

1933
[not found]

A copy of the report is not found with the others included in this post: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1934

Dear Dean Murdock,

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics:

In this period of rapid economic evolution the problems presented to a group of university economists are both stimulating and perplexing. The changing pattern of our social and economic structure offers new data for analysis and at the same time calls for a testing of principle that involves new fields for both teaching and research.

There have been few periods in modern history more difficult to interpret, yet the responsibility for interpretation seems foremost among the duties devolving upon educational institutions. For many years the keystone of the introductory course in economics has been that the community has the right to expect political and economic leadership from the graduates of its colleges. Our undergraduate courses are directed toward the attainment of this end. But the teaching of political economy is an art not easily mastered even by those who give abundant evidence of intellectual leadership. In the instruction of undergraduates and in the training of teachers and scholars in our graduate school, the difficulties inherent in our subject must not be overlooked. The presentation of the data of economics makes demands upon the staff not felt in many other departments of the University. Looking toward the strengthening of our undergraduate instruction, the Department is now associating a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are now in charge of the large lecture courses. In Money and Banking, in the Relations of Government to Industry, and in Public Finance, this experiment is advanced sufficiently to indicate its desirability.

At the same time that our teaching problems have become intensified the need for the results of research is pressing. In periods of accelerated social evolution involving political and economic experimentation, the demand for accurate data is insistent. Relatively, economics is a young science. The foundations of fact are still being established. Investigations that may have an important bearing upon government policy should not be delayed. The economists of this University have contributed largely to their subject, but always with scant facilities in material equipment and in time.

Among the many problems confronting us as a group, that of securing the time necessary for research is perhaps the most troublesome. To our exacting teaching requirements must be added the demands for public service. Since the establishment of this Department, the requests for such service heave been continuous. Of late the increasing calls have raised a question which must be considered by the University administration. The opportunities for service to governments are gratifying. Undoubtedly these services belong among the necessary functions of a university. But obviously they do divert a considerable part of our time and energy from our strictly defined duties. Over the years the University is enriched by such services, but at any given time the responsibilities attaching to teaching and research are interrupted. If the University Includes public service among its important functions, the personnel of the staffs affected should be so adjusted that the work can be performed without overtaxing our internal activities.

During the past your, the leave of absence of Professor John M. Williams was continued to allow him to serve as Economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to advise on monetary and credit policies, and to direct research. In the latter part of the year, Professor Williams was called by the Department of State to investigate certain conditions in Brazil, Uraguay [sic], Argentina, and Chili [sic]  and to formulate policies of exchange controls. Daring the second half-year, Assistant Professor Edward H. Chamberlin was granted leave of absence to work with the Committee on Government Statistics and Information Services in Washington. Also, during the second half-year, though leave was not requested, Assistant Professor William T. Ham was in Washington frequently, serving as a member of the staff of the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. And also, though no leave was requested, Professor John D. Black devoted a substantial part of the year to public service. He served on a number of committees connected with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and land utilization. At the request of Secretary Wallace, he organized and directed the activities of committees outlining programs of economic research in (1) the marketing of farm products and (2) farm population and rural life. Also at the request of the Secretary of Agriculture, he served with two others to coordinate the work of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of the United States Department of Agriculture. In the summer months, Drs. Alan Sweezy and Lauchlin B. Currie were called to the Treasury Department to serve as special investigators.

Owing to his illness, Professor Emeritus William Z. Ripley was unable to fulfill his duties as President of the American Economic Association. In his absence, Professor Abbott P. Usher, first Vice-President of the Association, was in charge of the December, 1933 session.

Notable among our publications of the year were Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy, by S. E. Harris, and The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, by E. H. Chamberlin. Because of its significance for immediate practical application, I am including at this point the Report of the Committee on Model State and Local Taxation, by Professor C. J. Bullock’s committee of the National Tax Association. Also at this point, mention should be made of Economics of the Recovery Program, by seven members of the Department. In the course of the year, about forty-five articles were contributed to scientific journals by various members of the Department.

Within the limitations described above, the research work of the staff is going forward at a satisfactory rate. Investigations in the following subjects are well advanced: History of the Industrial Revolution; Development of Banking and Credit in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Evolution of English Company Law; Economic Fluctuations; Nature and Effects of Inflation; Index Numbers; Municipal Ownership of Public Utilities; State and Local Taxation; Unbalanced Budgets; The National Income; New England Agriculture; The Economics of Agricultural Production; German Trade Unionism; The Fundamentals of Sociology; Economics and Politics; Socialism as an International Movement.

A considerable number of these projects are nearing completion and should be ready for publication shortly. A large project on the relation of Government to Industry involving the efforts of a number of the staff is in its initial stages. This subject is of such immediate importance that other plans for research are being put aside until it can be carried to its completion. The Quarterly Journal of Economies has continued its usual high standard. During the year, five substantial volumes were added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

Again I would press the point that the potential research capacity of the Department is severely handicapped by the demands of teaching and public service.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

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October 18, 1935

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

In the report of last year the effects of the contemporary political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research were discussed briefly. More than ever we are aware of the responsibilities incumbent upon the teacher of Economics in this period of rapid and far-reaching change. Our undergraduate instruction had been, and is, receiving particular attention. A few years ago we began experimentally the association of a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are nominally in charge of the larger lecture courses. We are quite convinced that this method of instruction is most effective. Also there is a positive, although perhaps incidental, advantage in this arrangement in that it relieves the pressure for the multiplication of undergraduate courses.

I find it necessary to stress again the problem presented by the demands upon our staff for services to the public. We believe that public service belongs among the necessary functions of a university. But under existing conditions large demands for public service at any given time bring serious interruptions to both research and instruction. “If the University includes public service among its important functions the personnel of the staffs affected should be so adjusted that the additional work can be performed without taxing severely our internal activities.”

I am very happy, to write that Professor Chamberlin’s “The Theory of Monopolistic Competition”, published somewhat over a year ago, has won immediate recognition as a foremost contribution to economic theory. During the past year two books of unusual importance have appeared,—Professor John D. Black, “The Dairy Industry and the A.A.A.”, and Professor Sumner Slichter, “Towards Stability”. Six manuscripts have been completed, and should appear in book form during the present year. It is significant that five of these books have been written by the younger members of our Department whose teaching duties have been mainly of a tutorial nature. Among the publications I should note the report submitted to the Treasury Department on the “Objectives and Criteria of Monetary Policy” by Dr. Alan Sweezy, and the report to the State Department on “Foreign Exchange Control in Latin America” by Professor John Williams.

In addition to the above volumes and reports the members of the Department published somewhat over fifty articles in the scientific journals of our subject. Some of these contributions are of major importance.

The investigations of the staff are being carried forward as satisfactorily as possible with the limited facilities that are at our disposal. Two researches on a very large scale have to do with the general subject of the Trade Cycle and the Relation of Government to Industry. Numerous important, but less extensive, investigations are in process.

Perhaps I should note here that a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation enabled the Department to undertake the continuation of the Review of Economic Statistics and the fundamental research that is involved in this publication, The Quarterly Journal of Economics long published by the members of this Department, together with the Review of Economic Statistics, are among the more important activities of the Department. In the course of the year three volumes more added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

As in my last report, I would again bring to your attention the disturbing fact that the potential research capacity of the Department is handicapped severely by the demands of administration, teaching, and public service.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

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October 15, 1936

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

I find it necessary to emphasize again the effects of the contemporary political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research. It had been necessary to bring these matters to your attention in both of the preceding years, since they present such important problems to us. We feel an increasingly positive responsibility regarding out undergraduate instruction in this period of rapid and far-reaching change.

We have continued the experiment begun some few years ago of the association of a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are in charge of the large lecture courses. We believe that we are improving our instruction by this method, and at the same time this arrangement tends to relieve the pressure for the multiplication of undergraduate courses.

Perhaps as a result of the general social situation the elections of our undergraduate courses and the number of concentrators in Economics have increased very heavily. The problems of instruction presented by these overwhelming numbers are intensified perhaps by the personnel situation in which the Department finds itself. During the last dozen years the personnel of this Department—one of the largest in the University—has been changed completely. For a quarter of a century a group of eminent economists brought great prestige to the University. With the resignation of Professor Gay the active services of this group has come to an end. One cannot speak of replacing these scholars. They were unique both as individuals and as a group. Their leadership and their scholarship has left a lasting impression on the development of Economics. In the course of the passing of this group a now Department has been brought together. This new and younger Department is assuming full responsibility at the very time when questions of teaching and new methods of research are becoming insistent.

The demands upon members of our staff for public service continue. It has seemed expedient to encourage some few members to give their time and energy for public purposes. But with a minimum teaching force it has not been possible for all members of the Department to comply with the requests made. The public service relations of faculty members remains a question for the University to consider.

The Quarterly Journal of Economics celebrates this year its fiftieth anniversary. For forty years this Journal has won and held its prestige under the editorship of Professor F. W. Taussig. Professor Taussig, now emeritus, has graciously consented to continue as editor during the present year, but very shortly it will be necessary for us to provide for the editorial direction of this very important publication.

In an earlier report to you I indicated the activities of the Department in connection with the Review of Economic Statistics. The scientific work underlying this publication, as well as the journal itself, is now under the direction of a committee of the Department. The Review continues as a vehicle of publication of the results of investigations here and elsewhere regarding the business cycle. We have ambitious plans for the Review, and we have every reason to believe that its scientific usefulness will increase.

There is little question that, the research activities of practically all members of the staff have been curtailed by the heavy teaching loads which have been imposed. However, the research programs of various members and of various groups within the Department have shown marked progress in the past year. As I have indicated in an earlier report the research activities of our members are of two somewhat different types. Numerous members of the staff working altogether independently are pursuing their own researches while others working as a group are developing particular aspects of a well devised project in research. In the social sciences this latter type of work is rapidly assuming importance. In general it is this type of research which receives the support of the large foundations. Within our own group there are a number of projects of this character. Messrs. Mason, Chamberlin, Wallace, Cassels, Reynolds, and Alan Sweezy are developing Industrial Organization and Control. In the process of the exploration of this subject numerous independent volumes and studies will appear. Professors Mason, Chamberlin and Dr. Wallace are already well advanced in their study of monopolistic combinations and expect to complete it in about one year. Professor Cassels and Dr. Reynolds expect to finish their study on Canadian combinations this year, and Dr. Alan Sweezy is at work on investment policies. Dr. Wallace’s monograph, Market Control in the Aluminum Industry, is now going to press, and Dr. Abbott’s monograph on The Rise of the Business Corporation has just appeared and is being, used by our undergraduate courses. The full development of this program will take a number of years, but its completion will mark, I believe, a very significant chapter in research in the relation of government to industry.

Another cooperative project on the Farm Credit Administration is being carried on by Professors Black and Harris and Dr. Galbraith, largely with the assistance of grants from the Committee on Research in the Social Sciences. Professor Black is working on the cooperative aspects of the Farm Credit Administration’s policies. Professor Harris is working on the monetary and recovery aspects of the Farm Credit Administration’s loan operations. Dr. Galbraith is working on the structural aspects of the Farm Credit Administration and the mortgage, credit and production loan policies. Numerous articles resulting from this research have been published in scientific periodicals.

Professors Crum, Wilson, and Black are conducting a study of the relation of weather and other natural phenomena with the economic cycle. This study is partly financed by the United States Department of Agriculture.

I believe I have mentioned to you and to President Conant in conversation the plans which are being developed for large research projects in collaboration with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In addition to these cooperative projects all members of the Department are pursuing work along the lines of their individual interests. Professor Schumpeter’s study of time series and cyclical fluctuations is practically completed, and he hopes to send it to press by December. Professor Haberler’s major contribution—The Theory of International Trade and Its Application to Commercial Policy has been translated and is now available in English. For the past two years Professor Haberler has been working at Geneva on the Nature and Causes of the Recurrence of Economic Depressions which is soon to be published by the League of Nations. We are hoping to provide facilities for him so that the important research may be continued at Harvard. Professor Frickey’s study on a Survey of Time Series Analysis and Its Relation to Economic Theory is well advanced. The statistical work on the first volume has been completed, and he hopes to have it written by the middle of this present academic year. The statistical work on the second volume has been completed in part. Already two significant articles have been published. Professor Cole’s recent study in Fluctuations in American Business, written in collaboration with Professor W. B. Smith, was published late in 1935. Dr. Oakes’ investigations in Massachusetts Town Finance, the winner of the Wells Prize for 1935-36, is now being printed. Professor Chamberlin has continued to elaborate his Theory of Monopolistic Competition which is winning wide recognition among economist the world over. Numerous articles, some sixty in number, from members of the staff have appeared in various scientific periodicals in the course of the year.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

[Separate sheet following: I should have included Professor Harris’ Exchange Depreciation, Its Theory and History. We believe that this new book, which is being published today, will take Its place beside the significant contributions Professor Harris has made in the last half-dozen years, particularly his Monetary Problems of the British Empire and Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy.]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

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October 21, 1937

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

Previous reports of the Department of Economics have brought to your attention the effect of the political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research. It is still necessary to point out that the positive responsibility of the Department regarding undergraduate instruction has not lessened.

The election of our undergraduate courses remains at substantially the high level of recent years, while the number of concentrators continues to increase.

Last year I mentioned that with the resignation of Professor Gay the active services of the senior members of this Department, had come to an end. At this point it seems necessary to put into writing a matter I have discussed with you in conversation which has important ramifications. Coincident with the resignation of Professor Gay there were increased elections in certain of our courses that involve a large degree of individual instruction and also on an increase in the number of students demanding tutorial supervision. To meet these latter problems it was necessary to add to our staff a group of young men to carry on the instruction in the elementary course, Accounting, Statistics, Money and Banking, and so on. With increased numbers in courses demanding increased instruction, increased cost cannot be avoided; but it seems to us that this increasing cost because of increasing should not result in less effective intellectual leadership. To transfer a considerable part of the salary released by a retiring professor of distinguished accomplishment to the support of routine instruction in middle group courses seems to us not to be wise University policy.

Professor Taussig has resigned as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economies. For the time being, committee of the Department will undertake the editorial direction of this publication.

The Review of Economic Statistics, which appears under the direction of a committee of the Department, is financed by funds from the Rockefeller Foundation. Should the grant be continued, it is expected that the research activities of the committee will be increased.

Not less than ten members of the Department are concerned with the activities of the Graduate School of Public Administration. In some instances—as in the case of Dean Williams—their work in the School has been compensated by a reduction of work in the Department, but for the most part the activities in the new School are simply in addition to the duties of the staff members.

The Committee on Research in the Social Sciences, of which Professor Black is Chairman, is working in close cooperation with the National Bureau of Economic Research and its cooperating University agencies. Principle among them is the project upon Fiscal Policy for which Professor Crum is acting as Chairman.

The responsibilities and activities of members of the Department tend in some instances to change the direction of our research, but in only too many instances they also tend to retard our research.

In all directions, however, the research activities of the members of the Department were sustained, with six books and approximately sixty articles appearing. Special mention should he made of the following books:

Three Years of the AAA by John D. Black

A Study of Fluid Milk Prices by John M. Cassels. Wells Prize Essay of 1934-35

Professor Chamberlin’s significant volume, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition has been revised.

Prosperity and Depression by Gottfried Haberler

Exchange Depreciation by S. E. Harris. (Came from the press last fall, and mentioned a year ago.)

Studies in Massachusetts Town Finance by E. E. Oakes. Wells Prize Essay of 1935-36

Professor Schumpeter’s book on Business Cycles has been completed, and is now ready for the press.

Economic History of Europe since 1750 by Usher, Bowden, and Karpovich

Explorations in Economics. Essays in Honor of F. W. Taussig contains contributions by most of the members of the staff.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

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October 15, 1938

Dear Dean Birkhoff,

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

As in previous years I am very happy, to be able to record that the research activities of the officers of the Department have been sustained. In the last two years I have been, able to enumerate an unusually large number of books actually published together with numerous contributions to our periodical literature. In the present year the number of volumes is smaller since the research activities of our staff are still in process. The most notable volumes are Professor Hansen’s Full Recovery or Stagnation and Professor Wallace’s Market Control in the Aluminum Industry. Professor Haberler devoted the major part of the year, and spent the summer abroad, revising his Prosperity and Depression. Also the volume by Professor Crum and Associates on Economic Statistics has been revised.

In all, some fifty or sixty periodical contributions have been made by members of the staff. Notable among these contributions have been the articles by Professor Slichter on “The Downturn of 1937” in the Review of Economic Statistics for August, 1938.

It fell to the lot of the officers of this Department, together with the officers of the Department of Government, to develop instruction in the Littauer School of Public Administration during the past year. Without going into the details of the principles upon which this instruction is based, it may be noted that research courses of a very advanced nature constitute the core of the work of the School. Professors Williams, Hansen, Black, Mason, Slichter, and Wallace are devoting a considerable proportion of their time to this work. It is expected and hoped that these activities will result in an increase in our contributions.

The grant of funds from the Rockefeller Foundation to subsidize the research underlying the Review of Economic Statistics expired with the closing of the fiscal year. This contribution made it possible to continue the Review, and to maintain the scholarly level of the contributions. In the course of the year the Review published a number of the contributions of the staff. Other contributions are nearing completion, and will be published in the present year. The accomplishments or Professors Crum and Haberler as Managing Editors of the Review should be noted. They have succeeded in restoring the very high level of scholarship which characterized the Review a decade ago. We believe that the Review in its present form adds materially to the prestige of the Department and the University.

Also I am happy to note that the Quarterly Journal of Economics under its new editorial staff is maintaining its high position.

There is little to be added to the points which have been discussed in previous reports. The Department finds itself fully occupied with the continuation of its traditional activities and the assumption of such new duties as are involved in the Graduate School of Public Administration. If the personnel of the Department remains constant, it will be necessary to reduce our activities, either in research, in teaching, or in both.

Last fall at a dinner of the Committee to Visit the Department of Economics I reported in some detail regarding the increasing activities of members of the Department. This report led to the appointment of a committee to investigate the budgetary situation of the Department. The investigation conducted under the direction of Mr. George May of Price, Waterhouse, made some very interesting disclosures regarding the increasing load of the Department.

I believe that problems of undergraduate and graduate instruction, the tutorial situation, and the public service contributions of our members have been discussed sufficiently in previous reports. I can only repeat that “there is little question that the research activities of practically all members of the staff have been curtailed by the heavy loads of teaching and administration.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

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October 16, 1939

Dear Dean Ferguson:

In accord with your recent request, I submit herewith a report of the work by the Department of Economies for the past year.

Honors have been bestowed upon members of the Department as follows: Professor Schumpeter has received an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and Professor Leontief has been elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Professor Williams was elected a Vice-President of the American Economic Association.

In the field of publications, the outstanding event is the final appearance of Professor Schumpeter’s two volume work on Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalistic Process. The fruition of years of study and research, this book is of especial interest as the first major work of Professor Schumpeter in the English language, his well-known Theory of Economic Development having appeared first in German before its translation into English much later. Other books actually appearing within the academic year (the fall of 1938) were referred to in our last report, such as Professor Hansen’s Full Recovery or Stagnation?, a revision of the volume on Economic Statistics by Professor Crum and associates, and a new, enlarged and revised edition of Prosperity and Depression by Professor Haberler (published by the League of Nations). During the year arrangements have been completed for the translation into Japanese of A History of Mechanical Inventions by Professor Usher. For some years Professor Emeritus F. W. Taussig has been at work on a thorough-going revision of his textbook on the Principles of Economics. Volume I appeared last spring, Volume 2 is in the press and will appear very shortly. This much needed revision (the last was in 1921) may regain for Professor Taussig’s text some of the preeminence it held in an earlier period before it had become so badly out of date. Politics, Finance and Consequences by Professor Emeritus C. J. Bullock, the result of continuing research since his retirement, has been published during the past year in the Harvard Economic Studies. A book of which Mr. Paul M. Sweezy was a prominent co-author, An Economic Program for American Democracy, is popularly supposed to have been influential in putting the stamp of economic authority upon recent economic policies of the Federal Government. Finally, some sixty-odd articles, addresses, and reviews by members of the Department have appeared in journals, both professional and popular, during the past year.

A matter not mentioned in our last report was a new policy adopted by the Quarterly Journal of Economics of publishing at intervals of approximately one year a series of supplements devoted to articles and studies of interest to scholars but of such length as to make their publication in the regular issues impractical. These supplements are sent to subscribers without charge, and additional copies are sold separately. The first of these appeared in May 1938, Rudimentary Mathematics for Economists and Statisticians by Professor Crum. Two other manuscripts have been accepted and will appear shortly.

The Committee on Problems of the Business Cycle has carried on the publication of the quarterly Review of Economic Statistics but because of the expiration of its grant of research money many of its new research investigation have been greatly curtailed. Quarterly issues of the Review of Economic Statistics, in addition to carrying the studies of current economic history which present a quarterly record of economic statistics for the United States with their interpretation, have published a wide range of articles on various aspects of the trade cycle problem. Several of these articles have been contributed by foreign specialists but more than half were produced by American writers (in this connection we may note that about one-fourth of the subscribers are located abroad). In addition to the normal research activities involved in studying current history the Committee has financed during the year a continuation of the special investigation by Dr. J. B. Hubbard of the remarkable developments in the issuance of securities since 1933. A further article in Dr. Hubbard’s series will appear in the issue of November 1939.

Mention has been made in previous reports of the burden placed upon particular members of the Department and thus upon the group as a whole by the responsibilities of public service. These responsibilities have continued and expanded during the past year. The adjustment of this burden is a pressing problem. Its immediate influence upon both teaching and research is adverse, yet no ready solution appears at hand. The additional burden of uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration presents an even more serious problem. For the most part the seminars and other activities of this School constitute a net additional load for those members of the Department responsible for them, and inevitably throw a heavier burden of administrative and other work upon others not directly concerned. Budgetary allowance for courses given within the School is an obvious answer to this problem, whenever it may become possible.

You have asked, among other things. for an account of “any changes in the methods of instruction”, of the Department. The changes here have been revolutionary. Over a long period of years there has been built up in the Department a staff of trained instructors and tutors, carrying on established traditions of teaching and constantly experimenting in the adaptation of methods to new problems. These men were sifted constantly, and the best of them retained for a substantial period, after which, if not advanced, they were without exception placed to advantage elsewhere. In view of the singular success with which in the past the personnel problem has been handled in Economics, it is not surprising that the Department is unanimous in viewing with dismay and discouragement the situation in which we now find ourselves. Fifteen teachers and tutors at the instructor or assistant professor level have left us within the past year, seven the preceding year. The general effect upon teaching may be indicated by the tutorial situation. Sixty-seven per cent of the students concentrating in Economics this year are tutored by men of two years or less experience, forty-three per cent by men of no tutorial experience whatsoever, Furthermore, it has been our policy in the past to stagger new men as between tutoring and Economics A, having them start in with either one alone and take up the other the following year. This fall we have been obliged to take on five men who are both teaching Economics A and tutoring for the first time. It has been our policy also to provide more experienced instruction in middle group courses through a period of apprenticeship in Economics A. This fall we have been obliged to put men of no classroom experience whatever directly into middle group courses. We are already experiencing in acute form the devastating effects upon instruction of a rapid turnover, brought on by the mass exodus of last year.

It takes time (and patience on the part of someone) to train men in the discussion method of teaching Economics which has been developed with such success in Economics A at Harvard University. Much is learned by slow experience, by making mistakes and by discussing techniques with fellow instructors, especially with those who have been through the mill. It is impossible to assimilate new men unless the collective experience of the group is maintained at a fairly high level. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that anyone in the Department will be interested in training them unless a substantial portion stay long enough to make it worth while.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

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October 15, 1940

Dear Dean Ferguson:

I submit herewith a report of the work by the Department of Economics for the past year. There is very little to report—no events or changes of outstanding importance, and only a few isolated items which might be of interest.

Professor Black has been elected to honorary membership in the Swedish Royal Society of Agriculture. Professor Slichter has been honored by appointment as Lamont University Professor.

In the field of publications there is the usual long list of articles in the professional periodicals, but no major work of importance by any member of the Department. Professor Usher’s History of Mechanical Inventions was during the year translated into Japanese. Also in the field of publications it is of interest that there has been begun under the supervision of a committee in the Department and financed in part by a grant from the A. W. Shaw Fund a new series entitled The Harvard Studies in Monopoly and Competition. The first two volumes of this series appeared within the year, — the first, Corporate Size and Earning Power, by Professor W. L. Crum, and the second, Control of Competition in Canada, by Lloyd Reynolds.

The Committee on Problems of the Business Cycle has continued publication of the quarterly Review of Economic Statistics. In place of the general reviews of current economic developments in the United States, which in earlier years had been regular features of each quarterly issue, the Review introduced this past year the policy of presenting each quarter an article pertaining to some specific problem of current interest. The November 1939 issue contained a study of the impact of the war on America commodity prices; the February 1940 number included a study of the current gold problem and the American economy; a review of recent developments in agriculture and the influences of the war on American agriculture appeared in May; while the August 1940 issue presented a comparison and evaluation of various estimates of unemployment in the United States. These studies have been made by members of the Department, with the Committee staff contributing assistance, whenever it was desired, in the preparation of the articles for publication. As in previous years, the Review has also presented articles covering a wide range of studies on various trade cycle problems; and the Review staff has continued the compilation of selected current economic series which have been used in research studies by Department members and graduate student within the Department.

There have been no important changes in policy in the year by the Quarterly Journal of Economics. The policy begun the previous year of publishing occasional supplements sent to subscribers without charge has been continued. Two supplements appeared during the year, Exchange Control in Austria and Hungary and Exchange Control in Germany, both by Professor Howard S. Ellis. Through an arrangement with the Harvard Economic Studies they will shortly appear in that series as a single volume.

During the year Professor Emeritus Frank W. Taussig attained his eightieth birthday. A tribute and greeting was presented to him on this occasion signed by some two hundred of his former students.

I call attention again to the continuing problem of the added burden to members of the Department for uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration. The situation here remains substantially as described in my last report. It remains one of the most serious problems which the Department has to meet in maintaining the standards of its instruction.

The quality of instruction given by the Department continues to suffer from the heavy losses in the junior personnel during the past few years. Sixty-four per cent of the students concentrating in Economics this year are tutored by men of two years or less experience, fifty-five per cent by men of one year or less. The difficulties of maintaining satisfactory instruction with such a rapid turnover remain almost insuperable, and concentration in Economics which has fallen off steadily over the past four years slumped most disastrously for the year 1940-41. Although most of the liquidation of our more experienced instructors and tutors had taken place before the year on which I am reporting, we have during that year again lost a number of our best men because of the limited inducement which could be offered for them to remain with us even for a short period.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

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October 15, 1941

Dear Dean Ferguson:

I submit herewith a report on the work of the Department of Economics covering the past year.

Professor Slichter has been elected President of the American Economic Association. This is the third time in the past five years that this honor has gone to an economist from Harvard, Professor Sprague having been elected in 1937-38 and Professor Hansen in 1938-39.

In the field of publications there have appeared, in addition to the usual long list of articles, several books of possible importance. I should mention especially Professor Slichter’s Union Policies and Industrial Management, Professor Leontief’s The Structure of American Economy: An Empirical Application of Equilibrium Analysis, and Dr. Triffin’s Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium Theory. The latter appeared in the Harvard Economic Studies of which there have now been published 70 volumes, four within the past year. The new series of Harvard Studies in Monopoly and Competition has been augmented by two new volumes during the past year, bringing the total to four. Professor Usher’s History of Mechanical Inventions has again been translated, this time into Spanish. During the past year an arrangement was made with the Rockefeller Foundation (for the current year only) which if continued may prove to be of real importance to the members of our Department. Professor Crum has been relieved of one-half of his teaching duties for research through the payment by the Foundation of the salary of someone to replace him in his teaching assignment. In addition to providing possibilities for research to members of the Department, such an arrangement would have the added advantage of making it possible to invite to Harvard for short period either possible candidates for permanent appointments or others whose presence here for one year would prove stimulating to our students.

Again I call attention to the problem of the added burden to members of the Department for uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration. This has been from the beginning a serious matter in maintaining standards of instruction. It is especially a factor in concentrating the activities of the older members of the Department in the graduate field, leaving undergraduate instruction to be taken care of in undue degree by younger men whose experience on the average seems to decline further each year.

The quality of instruction by the junior staff continues to be a grave concern to our Department. Last year I mentioned that 64 per cent of the students concentrating in Economics were tutored by men of two years or less experience. This year the percentage has increased to 72, and the problem of finding enough experienced and competent tutors in the right fields for distinction seniors has become impossible to solve. The general situation is reflected also in Economics A where the percentage of new instructors has jumped alarmingly for the current year. For the five years 1936-41 the sections taught by new men averaged 24 per cent of the total. For the current year 39 per cent of the sections are taught by new men. For the same five years the sections taught by men of one year or less experience averaged 45 per cent of the total. For the current year this figure has advanced to 61 per cent. The large volume of complaints on the part of students as to the inexperience of their tutors and Economics A section instructors leaves no doubt in the minds of the Department that the continuing decline in concentration in Economies is mainly a reflection of this situation. In view of the competing opportunities for our younger men which have repeatedly been pointed out the problem for our Department continues to be not to maintain a high rate of turnover as the present rules of tenure seem designed to do, but to be able through more flexible arrangements both with respect to tenure and to salaries to maintain a staff sufficiently experienced to give satisfactory instruction to our undergraduates. Such instruction is clearly not being given at the present time.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

Image Source: Harold Hitchings Burbank from the Harvard Class Album 1934.

 

Categories
Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. Economics Seminary and Public Lectures. Speakers and Topics, 1913-1914

The economics seminary at Harvard featured a dozen speakers over the course of the 1913-14 academic year.  The department invited 27 year-old Josef Schumpeter (Theory of Crises) from the University of Vienna.

I have included the dates for two sets of major public guest lectures that were given by Wesley C. Mitchell (Business Cycles) and E. Dana Durand (Anti-trust and regulation), respectively.

Earlier posts with information on the Seminary of Economics at Harvard:

Seminary of Economics 1897-1898.

Seminary of Economics 1891/92-1907/08.

Request by Radcliffe Women to attend the Seminary of Economics, 1926.

Seminary of Economics 1929-1932.

_______________________

Monday, Sept. 29, 1913

Seminary of Economics. Meeting for Organization. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m. All Graduate Students in Economics are invited to attend.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 2. Sept. 26, 1913, p. 7.

Monday, Oct. 20, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “The Administration of the State-Owned Railways of Prussia.” Professor W. J. Cunningham. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 5. Oct. 18, 1913, p. 27.

Monday, Nov. 3, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “The Organization of the Grain Trade on the Pacific Coast.” Mr. Wilfred Eldred. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 7. Nov. 1, 1913, p. 39.

Monday, Nov. 17, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “The German Potash Syndicate.” Mr. H. R. Tosdal. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 9. Nov. 15, 1913, p. 57.

Monday, Dec. 1, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “Pisan Industry in the Early Fourteenth Century.” Mr. F. C. Dietz. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 11. Nov. 29, 1913, p. 65.

Thursday/Friday, Dec. 4/5, 1913

Lectures. “Business Cycles. I and II.” Dr. Wesley C. Mitchell, formerly Professor of Political Economy at the University of California. (I) Emerson A, 4.30 p.m.; (II) Emerson A, 4.30 p.m.
These lectures, though addressed primarily to graduate students of Economics and students in the Graduate School of Business Administration, will be open to the public.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 11. Nov. 29, 1913, p. 66.

Monday, Dec. 13, 1913

Seminary of Economics. “New Jersey Business Corporations and Corporation Policy, 1791-1820.” Dr. J. S. Davis. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 13. Dec. 13, 1913, p. 81.

Monday, Jan. 12, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “The Development of Capital and National Wealth in Germany.” Professor Karl Rathgen, of the University of Hamburg. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 17. Jan. 10, 1914, p. 109.

Monday, Feb. 9, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Some Aspects of the Quantity Theory of Money.” Professor Anderson. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 21. Feb. 7, 1914, p. 131.

Monday, Mar. 2, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Some Aspects of the Quantity Theory of Money.” Professor Taussig. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 24. Feb. 28, 1914, p. 153.

Monday, Mar. 16, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “The Theory of Crises.” Professor Josef Schumpeter, of the University of Vienna. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 26. Mar. 14, 1914, p. 167.

Monday, Mar. 23, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “Recent Experience in Railroad Construction Finance.” Professor Ripley. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 27. Mar. 21, 1914, p. 173.

Monday, Apr. 6, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “International Trade Balances.” Dr. G.W. Nasmyth. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 29. Apr. 4, 1914, p. 185.

Monday/Tuesday, Apr. 13/14, 1914

Lectures. “What Shall We do with the Trusts? I. The Necessity of Regulation of Prohibition.” (Emerson D, 8 p.m.)  and II. “Possibility of Preventing Combination and Difficulties of Regulation.” (Emerson D, 11 a.m.) Professor E. Dana Durand, of the University of Minnesota.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 30. Apr. 11, 1914, p. 195.

Monday, May 25, 1914

Seminary of Economics. “United States Forest Policy.” Mr. John Ise. Upper Dane, 4.30 p.m.

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. IX, No. 36. May 25, 1914, p. 231.

Image Source: Karl Rathgen: Fotosammlung des Geographischen Institutes der Humboldt-Universität Berlin.    Schumpeter: Ulrich Hedtke, Joseph Alois Schumpeter. Archive.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Transcript for Edward Hastings Chamberlin, 1922-1927

In the previous post we have the academic backstory found in Edward Hastings Chamberlin’s application to the economics graduate program at Harvard. This post provides the academic record of Chamberlin while a graduate student at Harvard. He entered Harvard with an M.A. degree in economics from the University of Michigan which probably is sufficient explanation for his seemingly light graduate coursework at Harvard.

Edward Hastings Chamberlin’s papers can be consulted at Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s Economists’ Papers Archive. It is interesting to note that he seems to have audited Allyn Young’s Ec 15 course (which does not appear on his graduate transcript) since notes to that course are included in Chamberlin’s papers.

___________________________

Ph.D. in Economics Awarded 1927

Edward Hastings Chamberlin, S.B. (State Univ. of Iowa) 1920, A.M. (Univ. of Michigan) 1922, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1924.
Subject, Economics. Special Field, Economic Theory. Thesis, “The Theory of Monopolistic Competition.”
Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics, Harvard University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1926-1927, p. 102.

___________________________

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Record of Edward Hastings Chamberlin

Years: 1922-23, 1923-24, 1924-25, 1925-26, 1926-27

[Previous] Degrees received. Where? When?

S.B. State Univ. of Iowa 1920
A.M. Univ. of Michigan 1922

First Registration: 25 Sept. 1922

1922-23

Grades
First Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 11

A

Economics 41

A-

Division: Economics
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship:
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year:

 

1923-24

Grades
Second Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 14

inc./exc.

Economics 23

exc.

Government 6

exc.

Marketing Problems

85%

Passed General Exam. in Economics,
22 May 1924

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship: Henry Lee Mem’l Fellow
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship:
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year: A.M.

 

1924-25

Grades
Third Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 20 (A.A.Y.)

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: in Economics
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year:

 

1925-26

Grades
Fourth Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 20 (A.A.Y.)

A

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: in Economics.

Tutor in the Div. of History, Government, and Economics

Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year:

 

1926-27

Grades
Fifth Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 20 (A.A.Y.)

A

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship: $1500
Instructorship: in Economics.

Tutor in the Div. of History, Government, and Economics $1200.

Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year: Ph.D.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Record Cards of Students, 1895-1930, Burtt—Cook. Record Card of Edward Hastings Chamberlin.

___________________________

Course Names and Instructors

Pro-tip for linking course numbers to course names and instructors.

Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Course of instruction. 1879-2009.

1922-23

Economics 11. Economic Theory. Professor Frank W. Taussig

Economics 41. Statistical Theory and Analysis. Professors Allyn Abbott Young and Edmund Ezra Day

1923-24

Economics 14. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. Professor Charles Jesse Bullock

Economics 23. Modern Economic History since 1750. Assistant Professor Abbott Payson Usher

Government 6. History of Political Theory. Professor Charles Howard McIlwain.

Marketing Problems. [First Year, First Half course at the Graduate School of Business Administration]

1924-27.

Economic Research. Graduate students pursuing research may register in the following course, which has the same status as any of the other graduate courses in Economics. Such research will be under the direction of members of the Department, and may lie within any of the fields recognized as appropriate for candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Economics 20. Professors Taussig, Carver, Ripley, Gay, Bullock, Young, and Persons. Members of the Faculty of the Graduate School of Business Administration will also guide research lying within their respective fields

___________________________

Image Source: Faculty picture of Edward H. Chamberlin from the Harvard Class Album, 1932.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final Examinations in Economics courses, 1892-1893

The economic historian William J. Ashley joined the Harvard economics department in 1892-93, joining Professors Charles F. Dunbar and Frank W. Taussig and the instructors Edward Cummings and William M. Cole. This post gives us a complete set of semester examinations for all the economics courses offered at Harvard and, as extra bonus, exams for the Social Ethics course taught in the philosophy department by Francis G. Peabody.

_________________________

1892-93.
PHILOSOPHY 5. ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.

Enrollment

[Philosophy] 5. Professor F. G. PEABODY. — The Ethics of the Social Questions. — The questions of Charity, Divorce, the Indians, Temperance, and the various phases of the Labor Question, as problems of practical Ethics. — Lectures, essays, and practical observations. 2 hours.

Total 131: 5 Graduates, 60 Seniors, 25 Juniors, 6 Sophomores, 24 Divinity, 11 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-93.
PHILOSOPHY 5.
[Mid-Year Examination]

  1. Explain and illustrate the “correlation” of the Social Questions and the doctrine of Social Energy.
  2. How does the history of ethical theory illustrate the philosophy of the Social Questions?
  3. Compare the principles of the English Poor-Law with the principles of the Elberfeld System.
  4. The plan, scope, and results of Mr. Charles Booth’s Study of East London.
  5. The character of the migration to London and its effect on
    1. social conditions in London (Charles Booth, I. 501, II. 444);
    2. the problem of municipal charity.
  6. How do the Germans deal with the problem of unemployed tramps?
  7. One year of General Booth’s Social Scheme, — its achievements and its possible limitations.
  8. Define the modern Labor Question and note its special characteristics.
  9. What does Carlyle mean by:
    Gospel of Mammonism? (Bk. III. ch. 2.)
    Gospel of Dilettantism? (Bk. III. ch. 3.)
    Captains of industry? (Bk. IV. ch. 4.)
    Plugson of Undershot? (Bk. III. ch. 10.)

What is his lesson drawn from:
Gurth, the thrall of Cedric? (Bk. III. ch. 13; Bk. IV. ch. 5.)

  1. Ruskin’s doctrine of wealth, of wages, and of exchange. How far, in your opinion, is Ruskin’s view of Political Economy justifiable?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

 

1892-1893
PHILOSOPHY 5.
[Year-End Final Examination]

  1. State the Labor Question in terms of Ethics, arranging the various industrial propositions of the day in the order of their ethical sufficiency. Explain your arrangement.
  2. Why does the Anarchist find encouragement in the philosophy of Herbert Spencer?
  3. What is the philosophy of history which encourages the Socialist?
  4. The practical advantages which the Socialist anticipates under his programme, his reasons therefor, and your own judgment of their probability.
  5. The substitute for money proposed by Marx; with Schäffle’s criticism of the proposal. (Schäffle, pp. 77-90).
  6. The German system of insurance against old age and invalidism, — its plan, scope and difficulties.
  7. The Familistère at Guise and its lessons for socialism.
  8. Why has Coöperation gained so large a place in English industry and had such meagre success in the United States?
  9. The method of Profit-Sharing adopted in the Maison Leclaire, the secret of its success and the limits of its application in other cases. (Sedley Taylor, pp. 13-20).
  10. The special characteristics of the latest liquor Legislation proposed in Germany, in England and in the United States.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 1. PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS

Enrollment

[Economics] 1. Professors [Frank W.] TAUSSIG and [William J.] ASHLEY, and Messrs. [Edward] CUMMINGS and [William M.] COLE. —

First half-year:

Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

Second half-year:

Division A (Theoretical): Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

Division B (Descriptive): Labor and Capital, Coöperation. — Hadley’s Railroad Transportation. — Dunbar’s Chapters on Banking. — Financial Legislation. 3 hours.

Total 322: 1 Graduate, 50 Seniors, 114 Juniors, 116 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 38 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 1.
[Mid-Year Examination]

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. “Production, and productive, are of course elliptical expressions, involving the idea of something produced; but this something, in common apprehension, I conceive to be, not utility, but wealth.” Why should not all labor which produces utility, be accounted productive?
  2. “The distinction, then, between Capital and Non-Capital, does not lie in the kind of commodities, but in the mind of the capitalist.” Does pig-iron cease to be capital when the owner sells it and buys a country-house?
  3. What is meant when it is said that rent is no burden on the consumer?
  4. Why are the earnings of the professional classes higher than the wages of mechanics? Why are the wages of mechanics higher than those of day-laborers?
  5. Explain the connection between:

The tendency of profits to a minimum.
The law of diminishing returns.
The effective desire of accumulation.

  1. Is a general rise in prices advantageous to the community as a whole? to any part of it?
  2. Specie, bank-notes, inconvertible paper, checks, —are they or are they not “money”?
  3. “It is when the metals are completely superseded and driven from circulation that the difference between convertible and inconvertible paper begins to be operative.” Explain.
  4. Does foreign trade tend to bring about the same level of (1) money wages, (2) prices, in the trading countries?
  5. In what manner does a country gain when its exports increase?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 1.
[Year-End Final Examination]

Division A.
[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. What is meant when it is said that the rent paid for the use of a factory building enters into cost of production, while that paid for the use of the site does not?
  2. What determines the limits within which the foreign exchanges may fluctuate?
  3. According to Mill, “The universal elements of cost of production are the wages of labor and the profits of the capital.” Cairnes on the contrary says, “I repeat, therefore, that not only do wages not constitute the laborer’s share in the cost of production, but these can not be taken in any sense to represent that cost.”
    Why not?
  4. “It appears, therefore, that the fund available for those who live by labor tends, in the progress of society, while growing actually larger, to become a constantly smaller fraction of the entire national wealth.”
    Why?
  5. “The illusion which I am combatting, that Demand and Supply are independent economic forces, sometimes assumes another form in the notion that producers and consumers are distinct classes, and that production and consumption are acts which may go on irrespective of each other.”
    Explain the illusion.
  6. How is the price of wool in Australia likely to be affected by the shipment of frozen mutton to England?
  7. “In the language of Mr. Mill, ‘the produce of a country exchanges for the produce of other countries at such values as are required in order that the whole of her exports may exactly pay for the whole of her imports.’ Now, as a matter of fact, it very rarely happens that the whole exports of a country, even if we take an average of many years, exactly pay for the whole of its imports; nor can it be truly said that there is any tendency in the dealings of nations toward this result.” Why not?
  8. At what rate of interest did the United States borrow, when it exchanged 5-20 bonds for legal tender notes at par, in 1862-63?
  9. What do you infer from the success of distributive coöperation in Great Britain, as to the future development of coöperation in general?
  10. What are the grounds for saying that the general fall in prices in the United States in the period immediately after the civil war, had an effect on debtors different from that of the fall in prices since 1879?

 

Division B.
[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. Does the benefit of international trade lie in the exports? in the imports?
    Why?
  2. Is a general fall in prices harmful to debtors? to creditors?
  3. Will an increase in the quantity of money in the community affect the rate of interest?
  4. How would you estimate the minimum reserve required by law to be anywhere held for deposits in country national banks of the United States?
  5. How would you explain the close correspondence in the banks of the United States between the amount of loans and the amount of deposits?
  6. Explain the decline in the volume of national bank notes in recent years.
  7. Explain why the original limit of uncovered issue for the Bank of England was put at £14,000,000.
  8. How would an act for the free coinage of silver in the United States at the present mint ratio, affect the price of silver bullion?
  9. Compare the attitude of the Latin Union toward the use of both metals in 1866 with its attitude in 1878.
  10. Compare carefully, as to the character and quantity of the issues of money provided for, the legislation of the United States in 1878 with that of 1890.
  11. Point out wherein profit-sharing is similar to coöperative production, wherein different.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

 

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 2. ECONOMIC THEORY
 

Enrollment

[Economics] 2. Professor TAUSSIG. — Economic Theory. — Examination of selections from leading writers. 3 hours.

Total 38: 11 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 6 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year Examination]

  1. State George’s doctrine as to the cause of interest, and give an opinion of its soundness.
  2. “It may be said, we grant that wages are really paid out of the product of current industry, and that capital only affects wages as it first affects production, so that wages stand related to product in the first degree, and to capital in the second degree only; still, does not production bear a certain and necessary ratio to capital? and hence may not the measure of wages be derived from capital virtually, — though not, it is true, directly, — through its determination of product?” Consider whether so much would be granted by one holding to the wages-fund doctrine; and answer the questions.
  3. “The employer [in the West and South] advances to the laborer such provisions and cash as are absolutely required from time to time: but the ‘settlement’ does not take place until the close of the season or the year, and the final payment is often deferred until the crop is not only harvested but sold.” Under such conditions is it true that wages are paid out of capital, or limited in amount by the quantity of previously accumulated capital?
  4. What do you conceive President Walker’s opinion to be as to the effect on business profits of the possession of large means by the business man at the outset of his career?
  5. Are there grounds for saying that in a socialist community the conception of capital would be different from that in communities as now organized?
  6. Compare Adam Smith’s doctrine as to the relation of capital and wages with Ricardo’s.
  7. Compare Adam Smith’s conclusions with Ricardo’s as to the propriety of import duties levied to countervail internal taxes on necessaries consumed by laborers.
  8. “No extension of foreign trade will immediately increase the amount of value in a country, though it will very powerfully contribute to increase the mass of commodities, and therefore the sum of enjoyments.” What does Ricardo mean?
  9. “There is only one case, and that will be temporary, in which the accumulation of capital with a low price of food may be attended with a fall in profits.” What is the case, and why did Ricardo think it would be temporary?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 2.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[One question in each of the three groups may be omitted.]

I.

  1. What is the meaning and importance of the proposition that demand for commodities is not demand for labor?
  2. How far is Ricardo’s doctrine as to the connection between labor and value similar to Marx’s doctrine that value consists of the labor incorporated in commodities?
  3. What is meant when it is said that the connection between value and expenses of production depends on the mobility of capital, while the connection between value and cost of production depends on the mobility of labor and capital?
  4. “The ideal of justice in distribution, applicable both to individual producers and to the different factors in production (land, labor, capital), may be stated thus: each should have a share in net income proportionate to the contribution which, by labor or by the use of material means of production, he has made to the product.”
    What should you say as to the feasibility of carrying out such a principle?

II.

  1. Explain briefly what is meant by total utility, marginal utility, and consumer’s rent.
    “Subject to these corrections, then, we may regard the aggregate of the money measures of the total utility of wealth as a fair measure of that part of the happiness which is dependent on wealth.” Mention one or two corrections.
  2. Give your opinion on the objection raised by Carey to the theory of rent, that the total rent paid for the use of land does not exceed interest at current rates on the total capital sunk in land.
  3. How far is it an answer to the proposition that rent and business profits are analogous, when it is said that the losses of some business managers must be set off against the larger gains of others?
  4. Explain Professor Marshall’s opinion as to the bearing on the relative wages of different laborers of
    1. The “rent” of labor;
    2. the standard of living among laborers;
    3. the expenses of production of labor;

and point out the connection between his views on these subjects.

III.

  1. Explain the distinctions (1) between private capital and social capital, (2) between historico-legal capital and national capital; and point out how far the two distinctions run on the same lines.
  2. “In the present condition of industry, most sales are made by men who are producers and merchants by profession. . . . For them, the subjective use-values of their own wares is, for the most part, very nearly nil. . . . In sales by them, the limiting effect which, according to our theoretical formula, would be exerted by the valuation of the last seller, practically does not come into play.”
    Explain what is meant, and consider the consequences as to the importance of the law that price is determined by the valuations of the marginal pairs.
  3. “Our whole interest is centred in the question as to the position which the law (of cost of production), so well accredited by experience, takes in the systematic theory of price. Does it run counter to our law of marginal pairs or not? Our answer is that it does not. It is as little of a contradiction as we before found to exist between the proposition that the marginal utility determines the height of subjective value, and the other proposition that the costs determine it.”
    In what way is the apparent contradiction removed in the two cases referred to by Böhm-Bawerk?
  4. Explain the three grounds on which Böhm-Bawerk bases the superiority of present over future goods, and give your opinion as to their relative importance and significance.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 3. PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY

Enrollment

[Economics] 3. Mr. CUMMINGS. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 3 hours.

Total 22: 5 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 3.
[Mid-Year Examination]

Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit two.

  1. “We have just seen that a one-sided application of the conception that society is of organic growth leads to difficulties, as well as the conception of artificial making. These we can only escape by recognizing a truth which includes them both.”
    What are these difficulties, and what is this truth?
  2. “If societies have evolved, and if that mutual dependence of parts which coöperation implies, has been gradually reached, then the implication is that however unlike their developed structures may become, there is a rudimentary structure with which they all set out.”
    What evidence do you find of such a structure?
  3. According to Aristotle, “Man is by nature a political” According to Thomas Aquinas, “homo est animal sociale et politicum.” How far is this insertion of “sociale” alongside of “politicum” significant of the different way in which the State presented itself to the mind of the Greek and to the mind of the medieval philosopher?
  4. “The theory of the social contract belongs in an especial manner to the political philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But it did not originate with them. It had its roots in the popular consciousness of medieval society. As a philosophical theory, it had already been anticipated by the Greek Sophists.”
    Indicate briefly some of the important changes which the doctrine underwent.
  5. “In primitive societies the person does not exist, or exists only potentially, or, as we might say, in spe. The person is the product of the State.” Explain. What is the theoretical and historical justification of this doctrine, as against the contention that the individual loses what the State gains?
  6. Discuss the relative preponderance of free and of un-free elements at different stages of social development.
  7. It has been remarked by Spencer that those domestic relations which are ethically the highest, are also biologically and sociologically the highest. Discuss the historical evidence on this point. What is the test of this ethical superiority?
  8. To what extent is there ground for saying that the influence of militant and of industrial organization is traceable in the status of women and the duration of marriage in the United States and in other countries?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 3.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Answer the questions in the order in which they stand. Omit one.]

  1. “The different forms of the State are specifically divided, as Aristotle recognized, by the different conceptions of the distinction between government and subjects, especially by the quality (not the quantity) of the ruler.” Explain. Indicate briefly the relation of the different forms of the State to one another.
  2. “If there is any one principle which is clearly grasped in the present day, it is that political power is a public duty as well as a public right, that it belongs to the political existence and life of the whole nation, and that it can never be regarded as the property or personal right of an individual.” How far did this principle secure recognition in Greek, in Roman, and in medieval times?
  3. “The past seems to prove that kings and aristocracies make States, and that left to themselves, the people unmake them.” State carefully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the political philosophy here involved.
  4. “This is one of curious phases of the railway problem in Europe, which has a tendency to show how multiform and various are the influences at work to modify and change the conditions of the railway problem, and how little can be gathered from mere government documents and laws to shed light upon this most interesting and intricate of all modern industrial questions.” What light does Italian, French and Austrian experience with railroads throw on the general question of State control?
  5. “Expediency and the results of experience must determine how far to go. They seem to justify public ownership of gas works, water works and electric lights. The same would doubtless be true of the telegraph and telephone.” Discuss the evidence.
  6. “We will first concentrate our attention on the economic kernel of socialism, setting aside for the moment the transitory aspect it bears in the hands of agitators, its provisional passwords, and the phenomena and tendencies in religion by which it is accompanied.” State and criticise this “economic kernel.”
  7. “The philanthropic and experimental forms of socialism, which played a conspicuous role before 1848, perished them[sic, “then”?] in the wreck of the Revolution, and have never risen to life again.” What were the characteristics of these earlier forms; and what was their relation to the movements which preceded them and followed them?
  8. How are the socialistic teachings of Lasalle and Marx related to the economic doctrines of Smith and Ricardo?
  9. What ground do you find for or against the contention that “socialism is the economic complement of democracy”?
  10. “Not only material security, but the perfection of human and social life is what we aim at in that organized co-öperation of many men’s lives and works which is called the State. . . . But where does protection leave off and interference begin?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 4. ECONOMIC HISTORY OF EUROPE AND AMERICA

Enrollment

[Economics] 4. Mr. COLE. — Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours.

Total 116: 41 Seniors, 59 Juniors, 45 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 18 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-93. ECONOMICS 4.
[Mid-Year Examination]

I.
[Take all.]

  1. State at least three parallels in the lives of Watt and George Stevenson.
  2. From an economic point of view, and assuming that a revolution must have come sooner or later, was the occurrence of the disturbances in France between 1785 and 1815 opportune or inopportune for France?
  3. Was there any necessary connection between the economic and the military reforms of Prussia between 1807 and 1812? If so, what?
  4. Why was the United States helped more than any other country by the introduction of steam navigation?

II.
[Omit one.]

  1. What was the origin and what were the main provisions of the English Corn Law of 1815?
  2. What were the main provisions of the French railway law of 1842?
  3. What were the main features of Gallatin’s plan for internal improvements in 1807?
  4. What was the social status at the beginning of this century of poor immigrants into America?
  5. What was the cause of the suspension of specie payments by the Bank of England in 1797?
  6. What was the effect of the Continental wars of 1793-1815 upon the English laborers? How was it manifested?
  7. What was the influence on French manufactures of Napoleon’s rise to power? Cite examples.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 4.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. What sort of wealth did France actually sacrifice in paying the German indemnity? What was the process?
  2. Explain the influence of the Civil War upon our tariff legislation.
  3. Explain whether or not England can obtain cheap coal from abroad after her own supplies become scarce.
  4. What motives had Congress for granting lands to Western railroads, — other than the Union Pacific? What was the system of grants adopted?
  5. It has been said that after 1850 England could not well maintain duties upon any class of imports, and hence free trade was inevitable. What do you think of the statement?
  6. Was the Zollverein an experiment in free trade or in protection? Why do you think as you do?
  7. How did the extraordinary demand for gold between 1871 and 1873 affect the rate of bank discount? How do you explain the effect?
  8. Show at least three important benefits arising from improved means of transportation.
  9. Explain carefully, but concisely, why the southern soils of the United States were rapidly exhausted before the war. Could resort have been made successfully to rotation of crops, to more careful cultivation, to the use of better tools?
  10. Using only the materials which have been furnished by Economics IV, show what in your opinion, after careful thought, England would have gained or lost up to the present time if the American colonies had not won their independence.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 5. RAILWAY TRANSPORTATION

Enrollment

[Economics] 5. Professor TAUSSIG. — Railway Transportation. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 26: 7 Graduates, 12 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 5.
[Mid-Year Final Examination]

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions].

  1. “A more powerful force than the authority of the courts was working against the Granger system of regulation. The laws of trade could not be violated with impunity. The effects were most sharply felt in Wisconsin. . . . In the second year of its operation [that of the law reducing rates], no Wisconsin road paid a dividend; only four paid interest on their bonds. Railroad construction came to a standstill. . . . Foreign capital refused to invest in Wisconsin; the development of the State was sharply checked; the very men who most favored the law found themselves heavy losers. . . . The very men who passed the law in 1874 hurriedly repealed it after two years trial.” State the essential features of the legislation here alluded to, and give an opinion as to this explanation of its effects.
  2. “The principle of tolls [rates based on cost of service] keeps rates up. If it is strictly applied, it makes it necessary that each item of business should pay its share of the fixed charges.” Why? or why not?
  3. What is meant when it is said that railway rates are governed by value of service?
  4. Compare :
    1. The natural system of rates.
    2. The German reform tariff.
    3. The maximum rates of the Granger legislatures.
  5. Is it true that the prohibition of pooling in the Interstate Commerce Act increases the severity of the long and short haul clause?
  6. What were the causes of the depression of 1888-90?
  7. Should you say that the approaching maturity of the Government debt gives a favorable opportunity for an experiment in public management, by the assumption of federal ownership of the Pacific roads?
  8. Give an opinion on two among the suggestions made by Mr. Clark as to future legislation on railways by the states.
  9. Sketch the history of railway policy in Italy.
  10. What have been the financial results of public railway management in Prussia?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 6. HISTORY OF U.S. TARIFF LEGISLATION

Enrollment

[Economics] 6. Professor TAUSSIG. — History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 50: 7 Graduates, 19 Seniors, 17 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 6.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Answer all the questions, however briefly.]

  1. Sketch the industrial history of the country, and its bearing on tariff legislation, from 1816 to 1824.
  2. How far do protective duties account for the growth of the cotton manufacture from 1830 to 1840? Of the iron manufacture from 1840 to 1850? Of the silk manufacture from 1860 to 1880?
  3. What do you believe the state of public opinion to have been on tariff legislation in 1800? In 1824? In 1850?
  4. State the important provisions of the tariff act of 1857.
  5. Are there grounds for saying that the duty on pig iron since 1870 has proved a successful application of protection to young industries? State carefully what you think the test of success in such a case.
  6. What can be said for, what against, the change in the duties on sugar made in 1890?
  7. Compare the general character of the tariff act of 1883 with that of the act of 1890.
  8. Assume that, on the imposition of a duty on tin-plates, domestic production should so develop that tin-plates were made with less labor in the United States than in foreign countries. What would happen if thereafter the duty were removed?
  9. Explain what is the object, what the effect of minimum duties; and give two instances of their application, one before 1860, the other after.
  10. Explain briefly in what manner the connection between the tariff and wages was discussed by Webster in 1824, by Clay in 1824, and by Walker in 1845.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 71. THEORY AND METHODS OF TAXATION

Enrollment

[Economics] 71. Professor DUNBAR. — The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special references to local taxation in the United States. 3 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 21: 7 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 7[1].
[Mid-Year Final Examination]

[Let your answers stand in the order of the questions.]

  1. What is Mr. Bastable’s theory (pp. 339-342) as to the incidence of a tax on a commodity, and what are the conditions on which he finds that any shifting of the tax will depend? How far does his doctrine in this particular differ from that of Ricardo?
  2. Discuss the following extract from Leroy-Beaulieu (Science des Finances, II. 303):—
    So the land tax, unless it is extraordinarily high or very badly assessed, has no influence on the price of agricultural products: it merely diminishes what in scientific language is called the rent of land, — that is the net income of the landowner after deducting the expenses of cultivation and the profits of the farmer. This proposition is generally true in all countries where the land is completely occupied: it does not apply, on the contrary, to new countries where a large part of the soil is not yet under cultivation, like the United States or Australia. In these countries the land tax acts as an increase of the general cost of working new lands, and consequently retards their reduction to cultivation.
  3. In answer to the demand for taxes resting exclusively or chiefly on land and its great unearned increment of value, it is sometimes urged that gains are often offset by losses, and that individuals can hardly be called on to give up their surplus gains unless they are guaranteed against possible loss. How much weight is to be attached to this answer?
  4. Discuss Bastable’s remark that,—
    It may be urged that progressive taxation is not in fact likely to weaken the disposition to save. It will only affect those who possess a good deal already, and such persons save as much from habit as from conscious motive. There is, too, the further fact that the heavier taxation on the rich will leave the poor a larger disposable sum, part of which they may save, and to that extent increase the store of wealth.
  5. What do you say to the proposition maintained by Mill (Book V., ch. ii. §4) and discussed by Bastable (p. 297), that the part of income which is saved should be exempt from taxation?
  6. W. is credited with having laid down two propositions: First, that “any income tax which permits of any exemption whatever is a graduated income tax”; and, secondly, that “a graduated income tax to the extent of its discrimination is an act of confiscation.”
  7. State the general plan on which the French Contribution des Patentes is levied, and then discuss the following:—
    1. Bastable says (p. 411):—
      The Patente is very far from being a proportional tax on industrial gains. It rather resembles a charge on certain necessaries of the business, such as buildings, labor, or motive power.
    2. Leroy-Beaulieu (Science des Finances, I. p. 396) says:—
      The manufacturer being taxed by the general tax on rents [personelle-mobilière] there is evident injustice in loading him with an additional tax on his habitation.
    3. And in general he says (ibid., p. 380):—
      In countries like France where incomes in general are not subject to any special direct tax, it is indisputable that a tax on the profit of manufacturers, of merchants, and of the liberal professions, has no reason for existence and can only be explained by the brutal law of fiscal necessity.
  8. Describe the changes which the Prussian income tax has gone through and the distinctive characteristics of the law of 1891.
  9. Describe the plan on which the English “death duties” are now arranged.
  10. What are the methods used in different countries for the taxation of tobacco, and how far does each appear applicable in the United States?
  11. Which of the following taxes are best fitted for national use and which for local, and why?

Excise;
Income;
Real Estate;
Stamps on deeds, commercial paper and legal instruments;
Successions.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 72. FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC DEBTS

Enrollment

[Economics] 72. Professor DUNBAR. — Financial Administration and Public Debts. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 23: 10 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 3 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-1893
ECONOMICS 7[2].
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Give one half of your time to a careful treatment of the questions under A.]

A.

  1. Discuss the conditions necessary for maintaining a thoroughgoing budget system, and show what changes (if any) of constitution, law, or political practice would be required, in order to set such a system in operation in the United States.
  2. When the United States issued the 5-20 bonds (principal and interest payable in gold), they had the choice between three courses, viz:
    1. To sell the bonds for par in gold and make the rate of interest high enough to attract buyers;
    2. to sell the bonds for gold at such discount as might be necessary, their interest being fixed at six per cent;
    3. to sell the bonds for their nominal par in depreciated paper.
      Which of these courses now seems to you the best, and why?
  3. Discuss the following:
    “Viewed as a purely financial question, it is no occasion for congratulation that a debt is widely diffused. Not only is its management necessarily more expensive, but the facility offered to politicians to use the debt for party and personal ends often defeats the best purposes of the financier. . . .France, for example, continued to pay for a number of years a higher rate of interest than was necessary, because the government feared the voting power of the holders of rentes. Nor do industrial considerations necessarily lead to the approval of widely-diffused debt. The unfailing indication of healthy state of industries is found in the personal attention of all members of society to business affairs. and this can only come with personal interest in some particular form of product. In so far as the private income of individuals arises from payments of interest by the state, the public is deprived of the beneficial workings of that solicitous care which insures success in industrial ventures. —Adams, Public Debts, p. 43.

B.

  1. State the manner in which the selling value of bonds is influenced, by, —
    1. annual drawings by lot for payment;
    2. reserved right to pay at pleasure;
    3. agreement to pay at or after some distant date;
    4. arrangement like that of the “Five-twenties.”
  2. The distinction between a bond reimbursable from the date of issue and one which is secured against redemption for ten or twenty years, is said to be “one of the most fundamental that presents itself in the entire course of credit operations,” because,—
    “A bond reimbursable from the date of its issue shows great carelessness on the part of the administration as to ultimate payment; on the other hand, a bond guaranteed against immediate payment is evidence of an intention to escape the evils of perpetual indebtedness.” — Adams, Public Debts, p. 161.
    Give your reasons for agreeing or for disagreeing with this statement.
  3. Under what conditions is the use of terminable annuities as a species of sinking fund advisable, and on what principle should the extent to which their use is carried be limited, if at all?
  4. What do you say to the following dictum as to buying public debt:
    “Payment by purchase (of bonds) upon the market at market prices is defensible when bonds are below par, but not when above par and so conditioned as to be payable, within a reasonable time, at their nominal value.”
  5. Describe the operation by which the French government converted the Morgan Loan in 1875 and state any criticism to be made upon this conversion.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 8. HISTORY OF U.S. FINANCIAL LEGISLATION

Enrollment

[Economics] 8. Professor DUNBAR. — History of Financial Legislation in the United States. 2 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 34: 3 Graduates, 19 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 1 Sophomore.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 8.
[Mid-Year Final Examination]

[Let your answers stand in numerical order.]

  1. Hamilton has sometimes been charged with favoring the policy of a perpetual public debt. Discuss the grounds for this charge.
  2. The act of 1790 for assuming the debts of the States did not wait for the settlement of accounts between the States and the Union. Did this failure to wait necessarily affect the result?
  3. What is a “direct tax” of the United States and on whom and how is it laid? Give instances.
  4. What were the provisions of law or the practices in use, regulating the kinds of currency received and paid by the Treasury, between 1789 and 1846?
  5. What was the Specie Circular, and what were its effects?
  6. What is Mr. Gallatin’s view of the part played by the United States Bank and of its influence, in the disastrous period 1837-1841?
  7. Describe the Independent Treasury Act of 1846, and state any modifications that the system has undergone.
  8. Give some account of the treasury notes issued 1837-46, and show how they resembled or differed from notes now issued by the United States.
  9. What considerations are there which tend to create doubt as to the necessity of the first Legal Tender Act?
  10. State the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on the constitutionality of the Legal Tender Acts.
  11. Sketch the legislation which has established the national banking system.
  12. Describe the change which has taken place in the meaning attached to the word “resumption,” and the circumstances which have given us a legal tender currency of fixed amount.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 9. SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITION OF WORKINGMEN

An earlier post to this course with valuable links to the works quoted in the exams.

Enrollment

[Economics] 9. Mr. CUMMINGS. — The Social and Economic Condition of Workingmen in the United States and in other countries. 3 hours.

Total 24: 3 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 68.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 9.
[Mid-Year Examination]

[Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience of different countries. Omit two questions.]

  1. “In a society adjusted to manual labor, it is absolutely impossible that a labor problem, as a class problem, should take its origin; but in a society adjusted to machinery, provided the English law of property be maintained, the development of class lines will surely make its appearance in industries.”
    State fully your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with these assertions.
  2. “First, government must regulate the plane of competition, for without legal regulation the struggle between men for commercial supremacy will surely force society to the level of the most immoral man who can maintain himself.”
    What evidence does the history of factory legislation furnish upon these points?
  3. Comment upon the following passage: “The object held in view by workmen, when they organized themselves into unions, was to gain again that control over the conditions of labor which they lost when machinery took the place of tools.”
  4. “The English public has had the courage and strength to leave workingmen’s associations full freedom of movement, at the risk even of temporary excesses and acts of violence, such as at one time stained the annals of trades-unions.” Explain.
    How far is this true of France? Of the United States?
  5. Describe briefly the origin, growth, and present tendencies of the English Friendly Society movement.
  6. To what extent do trade organizations and friendly societies constitute an aristocracy of labor?
  7. To what forms of remuneration can the evils of “sweating” be traced?
  8. “The aim of Coöperation is at the same time the aim of Trade Unionism.” In what sense?
  9. Sketch briefly the course of factory legislation during the present century either in England or in the United States.
  10. Comment on the following passage: “The fact that the ignorant masses are enabled by the factory to engage in what it once took skilled labor to perform has given the widespread impression that factory labor has degraded the skilled, when in truth it has lifted the unskilled; and this is the inevitable result of the factory everywhere.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 9.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Arrange your answers in the order in which the questions stand. So far as possible illustrate your discussions by a comparison of the experience different countries. Omit two questions.]

  1. How is the burden of contribution distributed in each of the three departments of the German system of compulsory insurance? What theoretical or practical objections have you to the system?
  2. “In England especially the State is not in a position to compete effectively with energetic Insurance Companies or with the Friendly Societies, pulsating with the vigour of social life; and still less can it so compete when hampered by restrictions which handicap its powers.” Discuss the evidence on this point furnished by English experience with government workingmen’s insurance. Are there any indications that German ideas are gaining ground in England?
  3. “What, we will ask, is the relation of Profit-sharing to the ordinary wage system; and to what extent does Profit-sharing constitute an improvement upon the ordinary wage system?” Are there grounds for the assertion that Profit-sharing is “inferior in point of equity and expediency to the ordinary non-coöperative wage system“?
  4. “Besides the militant trade unionist workmen, that very shrewd class of workingmen, the coöperators, regard Profit-sharing with marked disapprobation; so much so that, although Profit-sharing forms an essential part of the professed principles of Industrial Coöperation, yet by far the greater part of Industrial Coöperation is carried on upon the system of altogether excluding the employees from participation in profits.” What are the facts referred to, and how do you account for them?
  5. “Here it is necessary to interpolate a protest against the assertion almost universally made by previous writers on this subject, that ‘Industrial Coöperation has succeeded in distribution, but has failed in production,’ — an assertion generally coupled with the explanation that ‘production’ is too difficult to be, as yet, undertaken by workingmen.” What are the facts?
  6. “But the enthusiastic Coöperator will ask: why not develop the voluntary system of democratic Coöperation until it embraces the whole field of industry?” What do you conceive to be the economic limits to such extension by consumers’ associations?
  7. “Having considered the social and economic position of workers in the coal, iron and steel industries in several countries, let us now by proper combination ascertain the average conditions prevailing in the two continents.” What are the probable conclusions to be drawn from these comparative statistics of family budgets in the United States and other countries?
  8. “The Hungarians, Italians, Bohemians and Poles, who throng our gates give most concern. . . . Up to the present time there seems no ground to fear that such new comers have wielded a depressing influence. There seems rather reason for congratulation in the fact that instead of their having lowered the American standard of living, the American standard of life has been raising them.” Discuss the evidence. What light do recent changes in the character and volume of migration from different countries throw on this problem?
  9. Indicate briefly the course of short-hour legislation in Massachusetts. How does it compare with the legislation in other states and other countries?
  10. Indicate carefully how far there has been any approximation to compulsory arbitration in Massachusetts; in New York; in other countries. What are the objections to compulsory arbitration?
  11. What do you conceive to be the significance of the Farmers’ Alliance and the Single Tax movements in the United States? And how are they related to each other?
  12. Precisely what evidence is there for and against the contention that the employment of “private armed forces” has been largely responsible for violence and bloodshed during strikes? Give concrete examples. 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 10. U.S. AND EUROPEAN ECONOMIC HISTORY TO 1763

Enrollment

[Economics] 10. Professor ASHLEY. — The Economic History of Europe and America, to 1763. 3 hours.

Total 20: 6 Graduates, 7 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 3 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 10.
[Mid-Year Examination]

N.B. — Not more than seven questions must be attempted.

  1. Present the substance of recent suggestions as to the origin of the Celtic Sept, and compare them with earlier views.
  2. Describe the Roman villa system, and compare it with mediaeval manorial agriculture and with modern American farming.
  3. Discuss the value of the Domesday Survey for economic history.
  4. Explain the importance of “Commutation.”
  5. State and criticize Mr. Thorold Rogers’ view of the causes of the Peasant Revolt of 1381.
  6. Describe the character of internal trade in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
  7. To what extent was the mediaeval regulation of industry justified?
  8. Trace the history, and comment on the significance, of Journeymen’s Societies.
  9. “Capital is a historical category.” statement in the light of medieval history. Explain and criticize this statement in the light of mediaeval history.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1892-93.

 

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 10.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Candidates are requested to attempt only six questions, — of which six one at least must be chosen from the first set.]

  1. Compare the position of the Roman coloni with that of the peasants of the Middle Ages.
  2. “The reign of Edward I appears to mark the turning-point in the history of the craft-gilds.” Explain and criticize this.
  3. Estimate the importance of the work of M. Fustel de Coulanges in relation to Economic History.
    ________________________________
  4. How did the Reformation affect the English craft companies?
  5. Describe the “domestic system” of industry, and compare it with earlier and later systems.
  6. Narrate the later fortunes of the Hanseatic merchants in England.
  7. State and discuss the principles involved in the Poor Law of the sixteenth century.
  8. Give some account of the various discussions concerning economic policy occasioned by the East India Company.
  9. Compare a New England town with an English manor.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

_________________________

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 11. HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THEORY BEFORE ADAM SMITH
 

Enrollment

[Economics] 11. Professor ASHLEY. — History of Economic Theory, down to Adam Smith. 2 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 8: 7 Graduates, 1 Senior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1892-1893, p. 63.

1892-93.
ECONOMICS 11.
[Year-End Final Examination]

[Candidates are requested to attempt only six questions.]

  1. Explain Aristotle’s view of chrematistics.
  2. What has been the economic influence of the Roman law?
  3. Compare the fundamental ideas of the Canonists with those of the Socialists.
  4. Explain the Canonist doctrine of Partnership.
  5. What were the principles involved in the discussion concerning Montes Pietatis?
  6. Consider the influence of the Reformation on Economic opinion.
  7. Sketch briefly the various stages in the history of Mercantilism.
  8. Explain briefly the significance for the history of economic thought of either Bodin, or Sir Josiah Child.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 4, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1893-95, “Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, History, Government and Law, Economics, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College, June 1893”.

 

Categories
Bibliography Harvard

Harvard. Short Bibliography of Economic Theory for Serious-minded Students”, Taussig, 1910

 

In 1910 Harvard published 43 short bibliographies covering “Social Ethics and Allied Subjects”, about half of which were dedicated to particular topics in economics and economic sociology. The project was apparently coordinated by Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Francis G. Peabody.

Over the coming weeks, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror will be providing transcriptions to some of these bibliographies along with many links to digital copies of the items found at archive.org, hathitrust.org, as well as at other on-line archives.

We begin with Professor Frank Taussig’s list of eighteen items that he selected for the Economic Theory bibliography, along with his brief comments.

_____________________________

From the Prefatory Note:

The present list represents an attempt to make this connection between the teaching of the University and a need of the modern world. Each compiler has had in mind, not a superficial reader, nor yet a learned scholar, but an intelligent and serious-minded student, who is willing to read substantial literature if it be commended to him as worth his while and is neither too voluminous nor too inaccessible. To such an inquirer each editor makes suggestions concerning the contents, spirit or doctrine of a book, not attempting a complete description or a final judgment, but as though answering the preliminary question of a student, “What kind of book is this?” The plan thus depends for its usefulness on the competency of the editors concerned, and each editor assumes responsibility for the section to which his name is prefixed.

Source: Prefatory Note by Francis G. Peabody. A Guide to Reading in Social Ethics and Allied Subjects, Lists of Books and Articles Selected and Described for the Use of General Readers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1910, p. vi.

_____________________________

2. ECONOMIC THEORY
F. W. TAUSSIG

Smith, Adam. An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. (1776.) Edited, with an introduction, notes, marginal summary and an enlarged index, by Edwin Cannan. 2 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904; (Harvard Classics, edited by C. W. Eliot) edited by C. J. Bullock, with introductory notes and illustrations. New York: P. F. Collier & Son, 1909, pp. 590.

Adam Smith’s book is a landmark in the history of thought, and justly entitled a classic. But it is not to be read as the one book on economics, if one only can be read; nor is it usually the best book to begin with. Parts are antiquated, parts to be understood only with knowledge of Adam Smith’s times. Yet in attractiveness of style, wealth of matter, epoch-making significance, its equal has not been written.

 

Mill, John Stuart. Principles of political economy, with some of their applications to social philosophy. (1848.) Edited, with an introduction by W. J. Ashley. London, New York, etc.: Longmans, Green & Co., 1909, pp. liii, 1013.

A classic, like Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”; like that, superseded in parts, yet a noble book, with dignity of style and large views, addressed to the mature, warm in its social sympathies, severe in its reasoning; a good book to begin with, though to be supplemented with others more modern.

 

Marshall, Alfred. Principles of economics. Vol. I. Fifth edition. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907, pp. xxxvi, 807. [Eighth edition, 1920]

Probably the most important book on economic theory published in English since J. S. Mill’s “Principles”; able, penetrating, stimulating. It is not easy reading, but repays careful study. The whole subject of economics is not covered; chiefly Value and Distribution, the parts of economic theory having most bearing on social questions.

 

Clark, John Bates. The distribution of wealth; a theory of wages, interest and profit. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1899, pp. xxviii, 445.

A brilliant volume by an American scholar, abstract in character, setting forth in attractive style a theory of distribution according to the specific product of each of the factors in production. Its conclusions have been disputed, but the originality and interest of the reasoning are not to be denied.

 

Carver, Thomas Nixon. The distribution of wealth. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1904, pp. xvi, 290.

A compact, clear, able statement of modern doctrines, with an introductory chapter on the principles of value.

 

Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen von. The positive theory of capital. Translated with a preface and analysis by William Smart. London and New York: Macmillan & Co., 1891, pp. xi, 428.

A book of the first importance, the starting point for the modern discussion of capital and interest; covering also the so called “Austrian” theory of value. The exposition is deliberate and full; the reasoning not always easy to follow, but always deserving careful study.

 

Fisher, Irving. The nature of capital and income. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1906, pp. xxi, 427.
Fisher, Irving. The rate of interest; its nature, determination, and relation to economic phenomena. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907, pp. xxii, 442.

These two volumes present theories in some respects novel, but consistently maintained throughout. The first gives the author’s conception of capital and income; the second, his analysis of the causes determining the rate of interest. They form a good supplement to Böhm-Bawerk’s “Positive Theory.” Like that, they test the reader’s attention and powers of reasoning.

 

Schmoller, Gustav. Grundriss der allgemeinen Volkswirtschaftslehre. 2 Teile. Leipzig, 1900–04 [Erster, größerer Teil, 1900; Zweiter Teil, 1904]; Fr. par G. Platon. 5 vols. Paris: Giard et Brière, 1905-08 [Tome 1; Tome 2; Tome 3; Tome 4; Tome 5].

A remarkable survey of economics from the historical point of view; encyclopedic in its range, with admirable sketches of the great lines of industrial development and of present conditions, and broad-minded discussion of current social and economic problems.

 

Landry, Adolphe. Manuel d’économique, à l’usage des facultés de droit. Paris: Giard et Brière, 1908, pp. 889.

A recent French manual, clearly written, ably thought out, a good representative of modern thought.

 

Philippovich, E. von. Grundriss der politischen Oekonomie. 2 Bde. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1906; 1 Bd., 8 rev. Aufl., 1909; 2 Bde., 4 rev. Aufl., 1908.  [2. Band, 1. Teil, 6. Rev. Aufl.]

A German treatise, much used, of the kind meant for university students, covering the whole subject, eclectic in its views and mode of treatment.

 

Seager, Henry Rogers. Introduction to economics. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1904, pp. xxi, 565.
Ely, Richard T. Outlines of economics. Revised and enlarged by the author and T. S. Adams, M. O. Lorenz and A. A. Young. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1908, pp. xii, 700.
Seligman, E. R. A. Principles of economics, with special reference to American conditions. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1905, pp. xlvi, 613.

These three are modern text-books, addressed to persons of the grade of college students, with special regard to American conditions. The two mentioned first are clearer and better reasoned than the third, which, however, contains a mass of information and has full and well-chosen lists of references.

 

Bullock, Charles J. Introduction to the study of economics. Third edition, revised and enlarged. New York, Boston, etc.: Silver, Burdett & Co., 1908, pp. 619.
Ely, Richard T., and Wicker, G. R. Elementary principles of economics, together with a short sketch of economic history. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1905, pp. xi, 338.
Johnson, A. S. Introduction to economics. Boston: D. C. Heath & Co., 1909, pp. xii, 404.

These are shorter text-books, of a somewhat more elementary character than the three mentioned before. They have the apparatus of questions expected in a high-school text-book, as well as references and brief bibliographies. The first two are more concrete and informational; the third (Johnson’s) is more abstract and general, but not less satisfactory in its mode of exposition.

 

Marshall, Alfred. Elements of economics of industry, being the first volume of elements of economics. London: Macmillan & Co., 1892; third edition, ibid., 1899.

This gives a condensed statement of the doctrines of the same author’s larger book (see above), arranged with a view to use by students. It does not cover the whole subject, but only the range of topics treated in the larger book.

Source: Teachers in Harvard University, A Guide to Reading in Social Ethics and Allied Subjects, Lists of Books and Articles Selected and Described for the Use of General Readers. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, 1910, pp. 6-9.

Image Source: Frank Taussig in Harvard Album 1915.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final examinations in Political Economy courses, 1891-1892

 

HARVARD. ECONOMICS EXAMINATIONS, 1891-1892

With the start of the 2021-22 academic year Economics in the Rear-view Mirror resumes the careful transcription of documents for the digital record of the development of economics education.

The Harvard archives are full of exam materials across time and fields so I pick up with where I left off in that series. Edward Cummings joined the teaching staff that in 1891-92 only consisted of two professors (Dunbar and Taussig) and a pair of instructors (Edward Cummings and William M. Cole).

_______________________

Note to self: Still Missing for 1891-92.

Political Economy 3. Edward Cummings. Mid-year examination, 1892
Political Economy 4. William M. Cole. Mid-year examination, 1892
Political Economy 7. Charles F. Dunbar. Mid-year examination, 1892

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Course Description and Enrollment.

Primarily for Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 1. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig, Mr. [William M.] Cole, and Mr. [Edward] Cummings.

— First half-year: Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

— Second half-year:

Division A (Theoretical): Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

Division B (Descriptive): Lectures on Finance, Labor and Capital, Coöperation. — Hadley’s Railroad Transportation.—Dunbar’s Chapters on Banking. 3 hours.

Total 288: 1 Graduate, 47 Seniors, 102 Juniors, 91 Sophomores, 7 Freshmen, 40 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-Year Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.]

I.
[Omit one.]

  1. Mill says that “the laws and conditions of the production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. . . . Whatever mankind produces must be produced in the modes, and under the conditions, imposed by the constitution of external things, and by the inherent properties of their own bodily and mental structure.” Is this true of the laws and conditions of production from land? of the laws and conditions of the accumulation of capital?
  2. Of things limited in quantity, it is said that “their value depends on the demand and the supply. . . . But the quantity demanded is not a fixed quantity, even at the same time and place; it varies according to the value; if the thing is cheap, there is usually a demand for more of it than when it is dear. The demand therefore partly depends on the supply. But it was before laid down that the value depends on the demand. From this contradiction, how shall we extricate ourselves? How solve the paradox, of two things, each depending on the other?”
  3. “Every fall in profits lowers in some degree the value of things made with much or durable machinery, and raises that of things made by hand; and every rise in profits does the reverse.” Explain.
  4. Is there any inconsistency between the propositions that the value of money depends,
    (1) on its cost of production at the mines;
    (2) on its quantity;
    (3) on the expansion and contraction of credit;
    (4) on the terms on which a country gets its imported commodities.
  5. Explain Mill’s reasoning (1) as to the manner in which an issue of inconvertible paper money drives specie out of circulation; (2) as to the manner in which, under a double standard, one metal [which one?] disappears from circulation. Are the results, in fact, brought about in the manner described by Mill?
  6. Explain carefully how a decrease in the foreign demand for a country’s exports causes loss to those who consume its imports.

II.
[Answer all, briefly.]

  1. Does nature give more aid to man in one kind of industry than in another?
  2. Are there grounds for saying that the necessity of restraining population is confined to a state of inequality of property?
  3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of a currency composed of specie, as compared with one of equal amount composed of inconvertible paper money?
  4. What are the laws of value applicable to (1) silver bullion; (2) iron nails; (3) wool; (4) eighteenth century furniture?
  5. Does the benefit of foreign trade consist in its affording an outlet for the surplus produce of a country?
  6. Mill says the superiority of reward in certain occupations may be the consequence of competition, and may be due to the absence of competition. Explain which explanation holds good of the high wages (1) of laborers in whom much confidence is reposed; (2) of laborers in disagreeable employments; (3) of laborers whose education has been expensive.
  7. What is the nature of the remuneration received by (1) a manufacturer on a large scale; (2) an independent artisan; (3) a farmer tilling land which he has leased at a fixed rent; (4) the owner, of a building who receives rent from those using the building.

Source: J. L. Laughlin, Economics 1: A Synopsis of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (Cambridge, MA: W.H. Wheeler, 1892), pp. 101-103.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Division A.

Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

I.
[Omit one.]

  1. “It will be remembered that in a former portion of this work I criticized at some length the received doctrine of Cost of Production, which, as expounded by Mr. Mill and others, is represented as consisting in, and varying with, the wages and profits of producers. I stated then that this conception of cost was not reconcilable with the doctrine of international values upheld by the same authorities, which refers these phenomena, not to cost of production, but to the reciprocal demand of exchanging nations.” Why not reconcilable?
    [John Elliott Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874), p. 343. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t85h88k6k?urlappend=%3Bseq=351]
  2. “The actual price, therefore, of any given commodity will, it is evident, be the composite result of the combined action of these several agencies”—namely, reciprocal international demand, reciprocal domestic demand, and cost of production. Explain.
    [John Elliott Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874), p. 94. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t85h88k6k?urlappend=%3Bseq=102]
  3. “Assuming a certain field for investment, and the prospect of profit in this such as to attract a certain aggregate of capital, and assuming the national industries to be of a certain kind, the proportion of this aggregate capital which shall be invested in wages is not a matter within the discretion of capitalists, always supposing they desire to obtain the largest practical return upon their outlay.” Why?
    [John Elliott Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874), p. 186. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t85h88k6k?urlappend=%3Bseq=194]
  4. “We see, then, within what very narrow limits the possibilities of the laborer’s lot are confined, so long as he depends for his well-being upon the produce of his day’s work. Against these barriers Trades-unions must dash themselves in vain.” What, according to Cairnes, are the barriers?
    [John Elliott Cairnes, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy Newly Expounded (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874), p. 283. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t85h88k6k?urlappend=%3Bseq=291]
  5. “Saving (for productive investment), and spending, coincide very closely in the first stage of their operations.” Explain Mill’s meaning.

II.
[Answer all.]

  1. Why is there a tendency of profits to a minimum?
  2. What is the effect of a rise in the value of money on debtors and on creditors?
  3. “Though laborers in certain departments of industry are practically cut off from competition with laborers in other departments, the competition of capitalists, as I have already pointed out, is effective over the whole field.” How is this consistent with the existence of large amounts of Fixed Capital?
  4. “And here this remark may at once be made: that as the course of price in the field of raw products is, on the whole, upward, so in that of manufactured goods the course is, not less strikingly, in the opposite direction. The reasons of this are exceedingly plain.” (Cairnes.) What are they?
  5. What would be the effect on wages and profits of the universal adoption of coöperative production? of profit-sharing ?
  6. How far did the premium on gold during the civil war measure the real depreciation of the paper?
  7. Compare Mill’s attitude on coöperation with Cairnes’s.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

Also J. L. Laughlin, Economics 1: A Synopsis of John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (Cambridge, MA: W.H. Wheeler, 1892), pp. 106-108.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Division B.

Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions]

  1. What is the fundamental objection to the issue of inconvertible paper money? What light is thrown on it by the experience of the United States during the civil war?
  2. Is a rise in the value of money advantageous to debtors or to creditors, or to neither? Why?
  3. What is the cause of the tendency of the rate of interest to fall?
  4. What would be the effect upon the price of food, and upon rent, of a tax of a fixed sum per acre upon agricultural land?
  5. Taking the two following accounts as representing the condition of a bank at different dates, state (1) what operations are most likely to have given rise to the changed condition, and (2) whether the bank is American or foreign, city or country, with your reasons for thinking so:—
I.
Capital 100,000 Government securities 5,000
Surplus 10,000 Other securities 50,000
Profits 3,000 Loans 255,000
Notes 20,000 Expenses 2,000
Deposits 250,000 Cash 71,000
383,000 383,000

 

II.

Capital 100,000 Government securities 5,000
Surplus 12,000 Other securities 50,000
Profits 2,000 Loans 260,000
Notes 20,000 Expenses 1,000
Deposits 270,000 Cash 88,000
404,000 404,000

 

  1. What is the sliding scale of discount? Name two countries in which it is used.
  2. Point out wherein there are differences, wherein similarities, in the legal provisions of the United States, England, and France, for the security, immediate and ultimate, of bank notes.
  3. Give a brief history of the small change (under one dollar) in the United States since 1850.
  4. What would be the effect upon the price of silver bullion of an act for free coinage of silver?
  5. What was the nature and purpose of the original restriction upon the amount of national bank notes in the United States? When and why was it repealed?
  6. Compare the main features of the silver acts of 1878 and 1890.
  7. How are profits divided in schemes for distributive coöperation? For credit coöperation? What is the important difference?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Course Description and Enrollment

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 2. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — Economic Theory. — Examination of selections from leading writers. 3 hours.

Total 38: 9 Graduates, 17 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Freshman, 2 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Mid-Year Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions]

  1. Are laborers paid out of the product of their own labor in cases where the employer sells the product before pay-day and pays the laborers out of the proceeds?
  2. “Whether wages are advanced out of capital in whole, or in part, or not at all, it still remains true that it is the product to which the employer looks to ascertain the amount which he can afford to pay: the value of the product furnishes the measure of wages. . . .
    It is the prospect of a profit in production which determines the employer to hire laborers; it is the anticipated value of the product which determines how much he can pay them.”
    Is this consistent with the wages-fund theory?
  3. Consider the following: —

“Given machinery, raw materials, and a year’s subsistence, does it make no difference with the annual product whether the laborers are Englishmen or East-Indians? Certainly if one quarter part of what has been adduced under the head of the efficiency of labor be valid, the difference in the product of industry arising out of differences in the industrial quality of distinct communities of laborers are so great as to prohibit us from making use of capital to determine the amount that can be expended in any year or series of years in the purchase of labor.”

  1. How does President Walker prove the existence of a no-profits class of business men?
  2. Wherein does President Walker’s theory of distribution differ from Professor Sidgwick’s?
  3. What grounds are there for saying that Political Economy is distinctly a modern science?
  4. “Let us suppose, for example, that in the greater part of employments the productive powers of labour had been improved to ten-fold, or that a day’s labour could produce ten times the quantity of work which it had done originally; but that in a particular employment they had been improved only to double, or that a day’s labour could produce only twice the quantity of work it had done before. In exchanging the produce of a day’s labour in the greater part of employments for that of a day’s labour in this particular one, ten times the original quantity of work in them would purchase only twice the original quantity in it. Any particular quantity in it, therefore, a pound weight, for example, would appear to be five times dearer than before. In reality, however, it would be twice as cheap.” — Wealth of Nations, Book I. ch. viii.
    Explain what Adam Smith meant; and what Ricardo would have said as to this passage.
  5. Explain Adam Smith’s conclusions as to the effect on wages, profits, and rent, of the progress of society; noting briefly the reasoning which lead to the conclusion in each case.
  6. Examine the following criticisms on Malthus: —
    1. that there is no such difference of law between the increase of man and of the organic beings which form his food, as is implied in the proposition that man increases in a geometrical, food in arithmetical ratio;
    2. that the adaptation of numbers to the means available for their support is effected by the felt or anticipated pressure of circumstances and the fear of social degradation, within a tolerable degree of approximation to what is desirable.
  7. Explain carefully Ricardo’s doctrine as to the effect of profits on value.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Frank Taussig’s Scrapbook of his examinations. Posted earlier in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions]

  1. Does the example of a laborer hired by a farmer, and paid by him at the close of the season, after the crop has been harvested and disposed of, present a case of labor paid, not out of capital, but out of the product of current industry?
  2. What do you conceive the relation of political economy to laissez faire to have been with Adam Smith? with Ricardo and his contemporaries? How would you state the relation yourself?
  3. “Ricardo never fairly appreciated that his notion of the laborer’s ‘necessaries’ stood for something subject to wide variation in different stages of civilization. It is true that in one passage he says with emphasis that the necessaries, which determine the natural rate of wages, depend on habits which vary with time and place; but elsewhere he sets up a distinction between gross and net income, which is tenable only if we put the laborer’s necessaries side by side with other elements of cost of production. The distinction loses its practical harshness, when he admits that the laborer may at times receive, over and above natural wages, some part of the community’s net income; but its theoretic shortcomings then become the more obvious.” (Cohn, National-oekonomie.)
    Explain Ricardo’s conception of natural wages and net income, here referred to; and examine the justice of this criticism.
  4. “The average rate of profits is the real barometer, the true and infallible criterion of national prosperity. A high rate of profit is the effect of industry having become more productive, and it shows that the power of society to amass capital, and to add to its wealth and population, has been increased.” (M’Culloch’s Political Economy.) What led to the adoption of this test by M’Culloch? Should you accept it?
  5. What were Ricardo’s views as to the effect of foreign trade on profits?
  6. “In the actual period of production, on a wages system, the existing supplies for laborers are distributed to laborers in wages, while they, with the help of fixed capital, till the ground and work up the raw materials, transforming the old capital into a new product. . . . The product is divided at the end of the period of production into the replacement of capital (support of laborers, raw material, and wear of fixed capital), profits, and rent. . . . Hence it is clear that wages and profits are not parts of the same whole. Wages were in capital at the beginning of the period of production; profits are in product at its close.” (W. G. Sumner.)“We may suppose that share of the National Dividend which goes as rent to be set on one side; and then there remains what would be produced by labour and capital if they were all applied under conditions no more favourable than those under which they were applied at the margin of profitable employment; and a proposal was made by the present writer, in the Economics of Industry, that this should be called the Wages-and-Profits Fund, or the Earnings-and-Interest Fund. These terms were suggested in order to emphasize the opinion that the so-called Wages-Fund theory, however it might be purified from the vulgar errors which had grown around it, still erred in suggesting that earnings and interest, or wages and profits, do not stand in the same relation to the National Dividend.” (Marshall.)
    Which of these seems to you the sounder view?
  7. Explain what is meant by Consumer’s Rent; and examine the effect on Consumer’s Rent and on the aggregate satisfaction of the community, of a tax on a community subject to the law of Diminishing Returns.
  8. Explain the grounds which lead Professor Marshall to believe that the forces by which the wages of different grades of laborers are determined, work by a process similar to that by which the expenses of production determine the value of commodities.
  9. Examine carefully Professor Marshall’s view of the part played by rent of natural ability in determining manager’s earnings.
  10. Wherein is there similarity, wherein difference, in the positions of Carey and Bastiat in the history of economic theory?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

Also found in Frank Taussig’s Scrapbook of his examinations. Posted earlier in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Course Description and Enrollment

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 3. Mr. [Edward] Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. 3 hours.

Total 25: 8 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Mid-year Examination, 1892.

[Not yet found]

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. Omit one.]

  1. “The liberty of the subject is only a means towards an end; hence, when it fails to produce the desired end, it may be set aside, and other means employed.”
    What do you conceive to be this “desired end”? On what is the prerogative in question founded?
  2. “When everything has been done to deter from crime or reform the criminal there will still remain a certain class whom it is hopeless to influence, and who must be dealt with in course of law, not for much result on themselves, but to carry out the principle of justice, and mainly to deter others.”
    Discuss the theoretical and practical validity of the principles of penal legislation here affirmed.
  3. “There are still two more weaknesses, which are peculiar to all states, not only to the modern elective State. From the strictly professional point of view, in the technical works which they direct; public functionaries have neither the stimulus nor the restraint of personal interest.”
    “Nearly every present acknowledged function of government has once been intrusted to private enterprise….Now, of all the enterprises which the state has thus appropriated to itself, there is not one which is not managed better and more wisely than it had been managed before by private parties. Most of them are such that the world has entirely forgotten that they were ever private enterprises.”
    What light is thrown on this controversy by the experience of continental governments in the management of railroads? Do the same arguments apply to railroads as to the telegraph, and the post? Why?
  4. State an criticize the theory of “surplus value.”
  5. “Let us suppose the whole field of industry covered by syndicates….Competition complained of by the Socialists would be largely gone, being merged within the syndicate; useless middlemen displaced; the employing capitalist with his too high wages replaced by a manager: all steps towards the Socialist goal. What is wanting chiefly?”
    Give a general outline of the Collectivist scheme, from the point of view of production, distribution and value.
  6. “But the bare labor-cost value, as it has been formulated up to now, invests the whole economy of socialism for the present with the character of a Utopia….It is remarkable, and even comforting, that all which is required to make socialism so much a matter of practical discussion, urges it to preserve, and even to intensify, the brighter elements of the liberal economic system.”
  7. “Moreover it is not difficult to deduce the necessity of State interference from Mr. Spencer’s own fundamental principles….The inspector is himself in fact, as Prof. Jevons says, a necessary product of social evolution and the division of labor.”
    Does expansion of public and municipal industry necessarily indicate the “gradual triumph of socialism”?
  8. Compare briefly the political and economic tendencies in Glasgow, London, and New York.
  9. What ground do you find for De Laveleye’s assertion that Socialism is pessimistic, while Political Economy is optimistic?
  10. State the arguments for and against municipal manufacture of gas in the United States.
  11. The systems of state education in the United States have been devised by the several states of the Union, and are exceedingly heterogeneous and defective. In certain States scarcely anything worthy of the name of education exists, while in others the systems have attained a high degree of perfection.”
    How in this respect does the United States compare with European countries.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

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1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Course Description and Enrollment

Primarily for Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 4. Mr. [William M.] Cole. — Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours.

Total 132: 35 Seniors, 40 Juniors, 40 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 16 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Mid-year Examination, 1892.

[Not yet found]

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Answer both the questions in Roman numerals, and eight of the nine in Arabic numerals.]

  1. Compare the facilities for transportation by land as they existed in 1700 with those of 1830 and those of 1890.
    Do the same, for the same periods, for water transportation, for cotton manufacturing, and for banking.
  2. Compare the growth in the numbers of population in the United States since 1790 with the growth in the density of population per square mile. If you find any discrepancies, explain them.
  1. How far has England’s policy regarding free trade been affected by the policy of other nations?
  2. What, in your opinion, would have been the status in the United States of slavery, as a system of producing wealth, if emancipation had not taken place? State your reasons.
  3. Explain the change in the position of the American merchant marine at about the time of the Civil War.
  4. What influence has the extensive investment of capital in foreign countries upon the need, for the world’s commerce, of specie?
  5. By what process, and in what way, did the payment of the German indemnity by France affect the Crisis of 1873?
  6. How was the United States able to accumulate enough gold for Resumption in 1879?
  7. Was the indemnity demanded of France by Germany in 1871 just? Give your reasons.
  8. By what sort of processes has the United States reduced the annual burden of its debt faster than the principal?
  9. Why has England become the natural clearing-house for the world?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

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1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 5.
Course Description and Enrollment

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 5. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — Railway Transportation. — Lectures and written work. 3 hours. 2d half-year.

Total 42: 3 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 6 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 5.
Final Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. Compare the modes in which New York and Pennsylvania tried to secure communications with the West in 1825-1840.
  2. Sketch the salient events in the history of the New York Central Railway to the present time.
  3. Sketch the important provisions of the Thurman Act of 1878 in regard to the Pacific railroads, and the results which have ensued.
  4. Why was the railway mileage constructed in the United States in 1887 the largest yet reached?
  5. Why has the railway beaten the canal?
  6. Does the practice of charging what the traffic will bear result from the fact that railways present a case of industrial monopoly? Would it cease if competition were fully effective in railway operations?
  7. Discuss separately or together,
    (a) Whether the prohibition of railway pools is wise;
    (b) Whether there are grounds for permitting or prohibiting such combinations, which do not apply to attempts to bring about combination and monopoly in other industries.
  8. Point out wherein the schedules of maximum rates fixed by the State of Iowa resemble the German Reform Tariff, and wherein they differ from it.
  9. Explain what is the state of legislation as to long and short haul rates in the United States, England, France, and Germany; and state your opinion as to the desirability of preventing lower charges on the longer haul.
  10. Sketch the history of railway policy in Belgium.
  11. Why are railway pools and traffic agreements more stable in England than in the United States?
  12. Point out wherein the Railway Commission under the English Act of 1888 differs from the Interstate Commerce Commission.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

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1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.
Course Description and Enrollment

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 6. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. 3 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 64: 7 Graduates, 32 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 10 Others.

 

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.
Mid-year Examination, 1892.

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Be concise. Answer all questions.]

  1. Criticize the arguments by which Hamilton endeavored to show (1) that agriculture was not more productive than manufactures; (2) that the greater division of labor and use of machinery in manufactures made the introduction of manufacturing industries peculiarly advantageous to a country.
  2. How do you explain the change, between 1820 and 1840, in the arguments as to the bearing of high wages on the protective system?
  3. Sketch the growth of the international trade of the United States from 1820 to 1860.
  4. Are there good grounds for saying that the tariff act of 1846 led to a period of general prosperity?
  5. In what way have the duties on fine woolens been higher in recent years than those on cheap woollens? Does the difference explain the fact that the domestic production is confined mainly to the cheaper goods? Give your reasons carefully.
  6. Explain the difference (1) in character, (2) in probable effects, between the Continental sugar bounties and the present United States bounty.
  7. Wherein would there probably be differences between the effects of reciprocity treaties (1) with Great Britain, admitting iron free; (2) with Great Britain, admitting wool from Australia free; (3) with Germany, admitting refined sugar free?
  8. How far is it true that the high level of wages in the United States is an effective obstacle to the successful prosecution of manufacturing industries?
  9. What were the duties on coffee, cotton goods, pig-iron, and wool, in 1799, 1819, 1839, 1859, 1879? (Use tabular form, if you wish.)
  10. How far did the South secure what it aimed at from the tariff act of 1833?
  11. Sketch the tariff legislation of 1872.
  12. Is it true that the adoption of a policy of free trade in England dates from the abolition of the corn-laws?

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1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Course Description and Enrollment.

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 7. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar.

— First half-year:

The Theory and Methods of Taxation, with special references to local taxation in the United States. 3 hours.

Total 30: 2 Graduates, 20 Seniors, 8 Juniors.

— Second half-year

Banking, and the History of the leading Banking Systems. 3 hours.

Total 38: 2 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 10 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 3 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Mid-year examination (first half-year), 1892.

[not yet found]

 

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Final examination (second half-year), 1892.

A.
Of these five questions one may be omitted.

  1. Which of the three great banks, the Bank of England, the Bank of France, and the Reichsbank, appears to you to present the best model for a great national bank, — and why?
  2. What peculiarities in the Scotch banking system account for the high credit and extended usefulness of the Scotch banks, and make their issue of £1 notes both necessary and safe?
  3. The value of a currency is said to depend on (a) its quantity, rapidity of circulation, and the amount of transactions to be effected, and (b) on the cost of the precious metals. How is this reasoning to be made applicable to deposits, considered as a part of the currency?
  4. A recent pamphlet contains the following:—
    “The ‘Currency Principle’ was advocated by Lord Overstone and others, and held that, under a system of free banking, over-issue [of convertible notes] is possible and likely to occur, inflating the currency. In England, the principle of limiting the issues was adopted in the Bank Act of 1844. A different application of the same principle obtains in this country under the National Bank system.”
    Discuss the closing statement in the above extract.
  5. As saving banks and banks of deposit and discount are alike bound to pay their depositors on demand, on what ground can investments be treated as safe or suitable for one of these classes of banks and not for the other? This may be illustrated by reference to investments in mortgages, in bank stock, and in commercial paper.

B.
Of these five questions one may be omitted.

  1. Describe Mr. Goschen’s proposals for increasing the stock of gold in the Bank of England and issuing £1 notes, and state the objects to be gained by the plan and the objections to it.
  2. Discuss the propositions, laid down by Mr. Buckner, in his speech of April, 1882, in opposition to the Bank Charters Extension Bill,—
    1. That the currency ought to be issued by the government;
    2. That an elastic currency is mischievous, as introducing an element of uncertainty, and that the government should therefore issue a fixed amount of convertible notes.
  3. It is urged that the characteristics which insure the high credit and universal currency of the national bank circulation,—
    “are qualities which help to make its movements unnatural, artificial, and impart to it a roaming character, helping to force it away from the issuer, away from the country districts where it is needed, and consequently to induce its accumulation when out of active commercial employment in the great financial centres, and while there to foster and become more or less fixed in speculative ventures—that is, unresponsive to commercial influences when needed for commercial work.”
    Discuss the question whether issues having only local credit would remedy the difficulties suggested above?
  4. Discuss the following proposition for the issue of bank-notes under State authority:—
    1. Take off the present 10 per cent. tax from the notes of any bank complying with the following regulations:—
    2. Permit any State to tax circulation, in order to accumulate a fund to redeem notes of such of its own banks a may fail.
    3. Forbid any bank to issue notes in excess of two-thirds of its capital.
    4. Make notes a first lien on all assets of the issuing bank.
    5. Require coin redemption by the banks and a coin reserve of 25 per cent. of outstanding notes.
    6. Leave any State free to forbid or permit the issue of notes under the above regulations by banks within its jurisdiction.
      [Commercial and Financial Chronicle, May 14.]
  5. Discuss the following propositions for completely free banking, made by Courcelle-Seneuil (Traité des Opérations de Banque, Book IV., ch. ix., §3):—
    “Il vaudrait mieux donner au premier venu le droit d’émettre des billets à vue et au porteur sous certaines conditions définies par la loi….On doit supposer que le banquier sait mieux son métier que le législateur; celui-ci ne doit point réglementer ce qui est du métier; il doit se borner à prévenir la fraude, et il ne peut mieux y parvenir qu’en imposant au banquier un fort cautionnement envers le public, c’est-à-dire un fort capital….Les vérifications officielles de portefeuille ne peuvent présenter au public aucune garantie.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

_______________________

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.
Course Description and Enrollment.

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Political Economy] 8. Professor [Charles F.] Dunbar. — History of Financial Legislation in the United States. 3 hours. 2d half-year

Total 50: 7 Graduates, 22 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 8 Others.

Source:   Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1891-92, p. 54.

1891-92
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.
Final Examination, 1892.

Two questions may be omitted.

  1. What were the terms on which the different portions of the revolutionary debt were made redeemable by the act of August 4, 1790, and when and how was their redemption actually undertaken?
  2. What are the leading cases of suspension of specie payments in the United States since 1789, and what were the general causes in each case?
  3. What was the method by which specie payments were resumed in 1817?
  4. Von Holst says (II., p. 32), “Jackson did not come to Washington resolved to wipe out the bank.” What is probably the truth as to Jackson’s attitude towards the bank when he was inaugurated, and as to the breaking out of the bank war?
  5. What were the “branch drafts” issued by the branches of the second United States Bank, the reasons for their issue, and the objections thereto?
  6. What is the history of the following item in the general account of the Treasurer of the United States:—
    “Unavailable amount on deposit with the States, $28, 101,645.”
  7. What were Mr. Chase’s reasons for urging the establishment of the national banking system?
  8. How does the legal tender decision in Juillard vs. Greenman differ in principle from that in the earlier case of Knox vs. Lee?
  9. What were Mr. McCulloch’s reasons for wishing to establish the policy of contracting the currency without delay in 1865?
  10. What influences led Congress to restrict, and finally annul, Secretary McCulloch’s authority for retiring United States notes? Give approximate dates of the Acts.
  11. President Grant wrote, in 1874:—
    “I would like to see a provision that…the currency issued by the United States should be redeemed in coin…and that all currency so redeemed should be cancelled and never be re-issued.” [ To Jones.]
    How does this compare with the redemption actually practiced under the Resumption Act, and how came the present practice to be adopted?
  12. Sherman, speaking of the first Legal Tender Act, said:—
    “We agreed in that act that we would apply one per cent. of the principal of the debt to the payment of the debt. The debt is now $2,5000,000,000. One per cent. is $25,000,000, and that must not only be applied every year, but it must be applied in the nature of a sinking fund.” [Speeches p. 264.]
    How far has the government followed this interpretation of the act?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1892) in the bound volume: Examination Papers 1890-92.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Schumpeter opines on Germany’s future under Hitler, 1933

 

If memory serves me correctly, Larry Summers once commented on a paper by Bob Hall to the effect that the biggest home-run hitters also strike out the most (or did Hall say that about Summers? … whatever). In any event Joseph Schumpeter certainly went down swinging as a political pundit before setting sail to Europe in 1933 with Frank Taussig and his daughter.

 

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SAYS NAZI GERMANY TO “SETTLE DOWN”
Prof Schumpeter, Harvard, Sails With Prof Taussig

Germany, under Hitler, “looks much worse than she actually is; in a few months the Nazi Government will settle down to a more rational, conservative routine—and then Germany will become a power not only to respect but also, possibly, to fear,” asserted Prof Joseph A. Schumpeter, economics professor at Harvard and Minister of Finance in Austria in 1919, last night before he sailed for two months in Europe.
Boarding the Cunarder Scythia, in company with his superior in the Harvard economics department, Prof Frank W. Taussig, Dr Schumpeter declared that Hitler can conduct the Government on a sounder financial basis than would be possible under a parliamentary setup.
The two professors will spend the Summer visiting scholars and universities on the Continent. Prof Taussig is accompanied by his daughter, Dr Helen B. Taussig.

Source: The Boston Globe, May 27, 1933, p. 13.

Image Source: Harvard University Archives, from Schumpeter’s 1932 German passport.

Categories
Economists Gender Harvard

Radcliffe. Economics Ph.D. alumna, Elizabeth Boody, 1934

 

Joseph Schumpeter’s third wife, Romaine Elizabeth Firuski née Boody (1898-1953), was the first Radcliffe woman to be awarded the distinction of receiving a summa cum laude A.B. in economics. This post provides a few items from her undergraduate years as well as a brief biography that the Find-A-Grave website clearly copied from somewhere else, but which for our purpose here is still a useful summary. The wedding announcement “Mrs. E.B. Firuski Wed to Educator” from the New York Times (August 17, 1937) provides a wonderful detail regarding the location of the wedding luncheon–the Viennese Roof Garden of the St. Regis in Manhattan.

For much more detail about Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter’s life, career, and her personal and professional partnership with Joseph Schumpeter, see:

Robert Loring Allen, Opening Doors: The Life and Work of Joseph Schumpeter. Volume 2: America. London and New York: Routledge, 1991.

Richard A. Lobdell, “Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter (1898-1953)” in A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists, Edited by Robert W. Dimand, Mary Ann Dimand, and Evelyn L. Forget. London: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2000, pp. 382-385.

Richard Swedberg, Joseph A. Schumpeter: His Life and Work. Polity Press, 1991.

Elizabeth Boody received her Ph.D. in economics from Radcliffe in 1934. Her doctoral dissertation had the title “Trade Statistics and Cycles in England, 1697-1825”.

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Radcliffe College Yearbook, 1920

Source: Elizabeth Boody’s senior picture from the Radcliffe Yearbook 1920, p. 36

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Brief biography from the Find-a-Grave Website

Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter was an economist and expert on East Asia.

Born Romaine Elizabeth Boody on 16 August 1898 in Lawrence, Massachusetts, she was the daughter of Maurice and Hulda (Hokansen) Boody. She lived there with her family until she enrolled at Radcliffe College in the Fall of 1916.

At Radcliffe, Boody majored in economics, pursuing a special interest in labour problems. In the spring of 1920, she was awarded the college’s first summa cum laude AB degree in economics. After graduation, Boody worked as an assistant labour manager for a clothing firm in Rochester, New York. She returned to Radcliffe for graduate studies in economics, including coursework in statistics as well as economics, reflecting the field’s increasing interest in quantitative data and statistical techniques. Boody published her first scholarly article in 1924 in the Review of Economic Statistics, eventually becoming the first woman to serve as a contributing editor of that journal. She earned an M.A. in 1925 and joined the Harvard University Committee on Economic Research, where she was particularly interested in the statistical analysis of time series data and their use in forecasting business cycles. Resuming doctoral studies at Radcliffe, Boody spent 1926 and 1927 collecting English trade statistics for her thesis in London, where she was strongly influenced by Harold Laski and others at the London School of Economics.

Boody was appointed an Assistant Professor of Economics at Radcliffe. She also taught at Vassar (1927-1928) and at Wheaton College (1938-1939, 1948-1949). As a lecturer and author of articles on East Asian economics and politics, she advocated a “moderate isolationist” policy in the Pacific during the years preceding World War II. She was an assistant editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Boody completed her Ph.D. in 1934. From 1935 to 1940 she worked for the Bureau of International Research at Harvard University. There she directed two studies: one of English trade during the 18th century, and one on the industrialization of Japan and Manchukuo. These resulted in the publication of two books, one of them posthumous: The Industrialization of Japan and Manchukuo (1940) and English Overseas Trade Statistics, 1697-1808 (1960).

In 1937 she married fellow Harvard economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter. He died 08 January 1950 at their residence in the hamlet of Taconic, Town of Salisbury, Litchfield County, CT, where she ran a small nursery. She edited their posthumously published magnum opus, History of Economic Analysis (1954), based on his research.

Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter died of cancer 17 July 1953.

Her personal and professional papers, dating from 1938-1953, are archived at the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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THE THIRD DIVISION

Sarah Wambaugh, A.B. 1902, A.M. 1917
Romaine Elizabeth Boody, A.B. 1920

Sarah Wambaugh, author of “A Monograph on Plebiscites” and temporary member of the Administration Commission and Minority Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations, is now an instructor in Political Science at Wellesley College. Romaine Elizabeth Boody graduated summa cum laude in Economics, and became Assistant Employment Manager for the Hickey-Freeman Company of Rochester, New York.

[High likely that Elizabeth Boody is one of the Radcliffe women in the picture below.]

A VISITOR in Cambridge having supper at the Cock Horse, once the home of Longfellow’s “Village Blacksmith,” may occasionally encounter a group of girls in deep discussion. They may be eagerly arguing some point with a man, whom one instantly labels a Harvard professor. The visitor is probably privileged to gaze upon an evening meeting of the Third Division Club of Radcliffe College. The issue may be the League of Nations, the tariff, a decision of the disarmament conference, or any other topic of the day.

The Third Division from which the Club takes its name includes the Departments of History, Government, and Economics. Students concentrating in these departments formed the club some three years ago with a double purpose — to increase the pleasant social intercourse of students and professors interested in the division and to prepare members to pass their final General Examination. When this examination was uppermost in mind, the Club was often unofficially known as the “Third Degree Club.”

Both to Harvard and to Radcliffe large numbers of students have always been drawn from far and wide by the authority and record for public service of the men who give instruction in these departments. But at Radcliffe, interest in these courses has increased greatly during the last few years, until in 1920 approximately one fourth of the Senior class chose this field of concentration. This impetus is traceable in part to the war and to the larger place women are occupying in industrial and social life, but especially to the stimulus of the chance to work under the guidance of men whose names are always in the public print, whose opinions have been anxiously sought at every juncture of the Great War and of the readjustment period.

Regardless of the actual quality of the instruction, is it not human nature to listen the more eagerly to the well-known expert who may come to class occasionally directly from the train from Washington where he has been acting as adviser to a congressional committee? The privilege of hearing and questioning a Thomas Nixon Carver robs the name “sociology” of any impractical flavor it may have had in pre-college days. The labor situation seems to require immediate attention when a Ripley stands ready to interpret it. The newspaper-reading undergraduate who finds Radcliffe her natural habitat is pulled with equal urgency to International Law with George Grafton Wilson, and Municipal Government with William Bennett Munro.

When making up the courses of study for the year it is evident that the fare provided by the Third Division is tantalizing to say the least. How hard it is to choose. How can failure to study under Albert Bushnell Hart, Professor Holcombe, or Professor Day be explained to parents, old teachers, or the neighbors at home? Will one regret the rest of one’s days the omission of Professor Taussig’s course? Most likely. Certain alluring pages in the catalogue must be hurried over. The world seems nothing but one renunciation after another.

In addition to Harvard instruction, Radcliffe students of History, Government, and Economics have the use of the great Harvard Library. They have access to the Boston Public Library and its splendid Americana, to the Boston Athenaeum, famous for its Washingtonia, the Massachusetts State Library, strong on foreign law, and the Library of the Massachusetts Historical Society, rich in local history and manuscript material.

These departments were the first to adopt the tutorial system and the general final examination. Useful as the new plan has proved in other departments, it is especially suited to the study of these subjects. In a literal sense these are living subjects, changing their aspect with each day’s news — news which cannot be correctly interpreted by isolated study but only by discussion. The wide reading necessary must be judiciously assimilated in order to develop the student’s appreciation and critical faculties. This can be done only with the help of some one who had already mastered the subject.

Under the new plan tutors guide and assist the students in preparing for the final examination, meeting those in their charge individually every week. The tutor is in no sense a coach, rather a friendly counselor whose aid is an enormous encouragement to the student in learning how to learn.

It would be interesting to know what these women concentrating in Division Three do after leaving college. After discussing the problems of our present political and industrial structure in the Liberal Club, the Debating Club, and the Third Division Club, do they ever apply their conclusions in practical work? After studying under men of ripe scholarship and wisdom, are they better qualified to take upon themselves the duties of citizenship? These questions are best answered by telling of the work of a few Radcliffe women.

The courses in International Law at Radcliffe have attracted a considerable number of those holding fellowships in the subject from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Two of these graduate students, Bernice V. Brown and Eleanor W. Allen, have subsequently held the Commission for Relief in Belgium Fellowship which means a year’s study in Brussels. A third, Alice Holden, is this year a member of the Department of Government at Smith College, and is giving the course in International Law at that institution.

Many students of economics are engaged in various forms of educational and service work in factories and other industrial establishments, and in administering philanthropies. Elizabeth Brandeis, 1918, is secretary of the Minimum Wage Board of the District of Columbia. Nathalie Matthews, 1907, is the Director of the Industrial Division of the Children’s Bureau at Washington.

The strength of the Third Division lies not alone in the unrivaled quality of the instruction and the stimulus of being in touch with the tide of current history, but also in the type of student it brings to Radcliffe.

SourceWhat We Found at Radcliffe. Boston, McGrath-Sherrill Press, ca. 1921, pp. 7-10.

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Wedding Announcement

Mrs. E.B. Firuski Wed to Educator

Radcliffe College Research Fellow Married here to Joseph A. Schumpeter

Mrs. Elizabeth Boody Firuski of Windy Hill, Taconic, Conn., was married yesterday at noon to Dr. Joseph A. Schumpeter of Cambridge, Mass., Professor of Economics at Harvard University, in the Community Church of New York by the associate minister, the Rev. Leon Rosser Land.

The ceremony was followed by a luncheon in the Viennese Roof Garden of the St. Regis.

The bride, formerly Assistant Professor of Economics at Vassar College is a research fellow at Radcliffe College, working under the auspices of the Bureau of international Research of Harvard University. Her marriage [1929] to Maurice Firuski was terminated by divorce in Reno in 1933.

Dr. Schumpeter, a widower, was born in Austria, where he was Finance Minister in 1919. He formerly was a professor at the University of Bonn.

Dr. and Mrs. Schumpeter will make their home at Windy Hill until the reopening of the Fall session at Harvard.

Source: The New York Times, August 17, 1937, p. 22.

 

Image Sources: Elizabeth Boody’s senior picture from the Radcliffe Yearbook 1920, p. 36; Portrait of Elizabeth Boody Schumpeter, November 18, 1941. Harvard University Archives.

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for Political Economy Courses and Ethics of Social Questions, 1890-1891

 

With the academic year 1890-91, a new instructor joined the Harvard political economy team, William Morse Cole who co-taught Political Economy 1 with Frank Taussig and  Political Economy 8, History of Financial Legislation in the United States. Cole went on to have a successful career as professor of accounting at Harvard Business School. 

The previous year’s exams have been transcribed and posted earlier:

Harvard. Final exams in political economy and ethics of social reform, 1889-1890

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1890-1891. Philosophy 14.

Enrollment

[Philosophy] 11. Professor F. G. Peabody. — The Ethics of Social Questions. — The questions of Charity, Divorce, the Indians, Temperance, and the various phases of the Labor Question (Socialism, Communism, Arbitration, Cooperation, etc.), as questions of practical Ethics. — Lectures, essays, and practical observations. 3 hours.

Total 103: 4 Graduates, 53 Senior, 28 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 11 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 57.

 

 

PHILOSOPHY 14.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Mid-year examination (1890-91)

[Omit one question.]

  1. The attitude of political economy toward the questions of social reform.
  2. Consider the possible relations in which your own life may stand to the life of society, and their ethical significance.
  3. Examine a special case of moral heroism and state what, in your opinion, was its motive.
  4. What, according to Professor Sumner, are the duties toward others of “a free man in a free democracy”? Why? And with what result, in your opinion, to society?
  5. Enumerate and illustrate some of the practical rules of good charity which issue from the philosophy of charity.
  6. The relation of the labor question in France and England to the political history of those countries.
  7. Compare the conditions of wealth and the possibilities of revolution in England and in this country.
  8. Consider Carlyle’s doctrine of the “Captain of Industry” as a solution of the modern labor question.
  9. What does Ruskin mean by: Roots of honor; veins of purple; non-competitive just exchange; ad valorem?
  10. What is there in religion which encourages the Socialist and what is there which repels him, and what relation between socialism and religion is, in your judgment, likely to be the result?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

 

 

 

PHILOSOPHY 14.
THE ETHICS OF THE SOCIAL QUESTIONS.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

[Omit one question.]

  1. “All wealth is due to labor; therefore to labor all wealth is due.” What, in your opinion, is the economic importance, and the justice, of this proposition?
  2. Compare the views of the Socialist, the Individualist and the “Opportunist” as to the tendency toward State interference. What is your own view of the merits of this kind of legislation?
  3. “Well may Prince Bismarck display leanings toward State Socialism.” Why does Mr. Spencer make this remark, and with what justice?
  4. On what principle would a Professor be paid, under the Socialist programme?
  5. Consider the commercial advantages and hindrances of an establishment like the Hebden Bridge Fustian Mill.
  6. Compare the principle of profit-sharing formerly used in the American Fisheries with that represented by the firm of Billon et Isaac.
  7. Describe the general features and the main intention of the Dawes Indian Bill; and the supplementary legislation now proposed.
  8. What is meant by the “Philosophy of the Family,” and what is its relation to the modern Divorce Question?
  9. If you should enter the retail liquor business in Boston, what legal restrictions would you find hampering the freedom of your trade?
  10. Apply the doctrine of the “Social Organism” to the question of Temperance.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3.  Papers Set for Final examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1891) in bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1890-91.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 1. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig and Mr. [William Morse] Cole.

First half-year: —

Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours

Second half-year: —

Division A (Theoretical): Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. 3 hours.

Division B (Descriptive): Lectures on Finance, Labor and Capital, Coöperation. — Hadley’s Railroad Transportation. —  Laughlin’s Bimetallism. 3 hours.

Total 201:

A: 10 Seniors, 53 Juniors, 50 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 19 Others.
B: 12 Seniors, 31 Juniors, 15 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

 

Student notes available at the Harvard Archives

Kennedy, Frank Lowell, Notes on lectures by Frank W. Taussig and William M. Cole on Political Economy 1, 1890-1891. Harvard University Archives HUC 8890.371.1

 

1890-91.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-year examination.

[Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.]

I.
[Omit two.]

  1. “Whether men like it or not, the unproductive expenditure of individuals will pro tanto tend to impoverish the community, and only their productive expenditure will enrich it.”
    “It would be a great error to regret the large proportion of the annual produce which in an opulent country goes to supply unproductive consumption.”
    Can you reconcile these two statements of Mill’s?
  2. “Hardly any two dealers in the same trade, even if their commodities are equally good and equally cheap, carry on their business at the same expense, or turn over their capital in the same time. That equal capitals give equal profits, as a general maxim of trade, would be as false as that equal age or size give equal bodily strength, or that equal reading or experience give equal knowledge.” Can you reconcile this statement of Mill’s with the doctrine of the tendency of profits to an equality?
  3. How far is it true that a general rise or fall in wages would not affect values?
  4. Suppose a country having a metallic currency to issue inconvertible paper to one-half the amount of the coin, and trace the effects on prices and on the circulating medium (1) in an isolated country, having no international trade; (2) in a country having international trade.
  5. On the same supposition, trace the effects, in the country having international trade, on the foreign exchanges, on the course of international trade, and on the terms of international exchange.
  6. “If consumers were to save and covert into capital more than a limited portion of their income, and were not to devote to unproductive consumption an amount of means bearing a certain ratio to the capital of the country, the extra accumulation would be merely so much waste, since there would be no market for the commodities which the capital so created would produce.” Is this true?

II.
[Answer all.]

  1. “Capital is not the result of saving; it is not an accumulation. Its nature is that it should be consumed almost as fast as it is produced. … Saving or accumulation would necessarily defeat the end of its existence. How can materials or tools be saved?” Answer the question.
  2. Explain why rent is not an element in the cost of production of the commodity which yields it.
  3. Connect the law of the increase of labor with the law of production from land.
  4. What is the effect of gratuitous education for a profession on the wages of those engaged in it?
  5. Why does the durability of the precious metals give stability to their value?
  6. What are the laws of value applicable to (1) iron ore, (2) watch-springs, (3) wool and mutton, (4) patented bicycles?
  7. How does the rate of interest bear on the price of land and of securities?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Year-end examination (June 1891)
Division A.

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

  1. Wherein is the effect of a change in the demand for commodities on the wages-fund different (1) if competition among laborers is effective? (2) if it is not effective?
  2. On what grounds does Cairnes reach the same conclusions, as to the possible effects of Trades Unions on general wages, for England and for the United States?
  3. Examine Cairnes’s reasoning as to the possibility of maintaining the accumulation of capital in a socialist community.
  4. Why are the wages of women, according to Mill, lower than the wages of men? Accepting Mill’s explanation, what would Cairnes say as to the laws of value applicable to the exchange of the products of women’s labor with the products of men’s labor?
  5. What is the error in saying that high wages make high prices?
  6. “Gold may be cheap, and prices at the same time be low.” Explain.
  7. Is it true that the benefit of foreign trade lies in its affording an outlet for the surplus produce of the community?
  8. Suppose the people of the United States to borrow annually large sums from Europe; and suppose them also to have large interest payments to make on loans contracted in previous years; would you expect our foreign trade to show an excess of imports or of exports?
  9. Mill says that an emission of inconvertible paper money, equal in amount to the specie previously circulating, will drive out the whole of the metallic money; “that is, if paper be issued of as low a denomination as the lowest coin; if not, as much will remain as convenience requires for the smaller payments.” What light is thrown on this statement by the experience of the United States in 1862?
  10. Why did the circumstance that an exceptionally large part of the country’s business was done for cash in the period immediately after the civil war make the time favorable for a speedy contraction of the currency?
  11. Is payment for capital sunk in the soil, rent, or profit?

Division B.

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

  1. Why have pools and traffic agreements been more stable in England than in the United States?
  2. Why does a railroad charge more per ton per mile on cotton goods than on coal?
  3. “A government enterprise may be managed on any one of four principles: 1. as a tax; 2. for business profits; 3. to pay expenses; 4. for public service, without much regard to the question of expenses.” Explain, giving an example under each head.
  4. Wherein is there a resemblance between the legislation of France as to railways and as to banking?
  5. Arrange in proper order the following items of a bank account: Capital, 300; Loans, 1150; Bonds and Stocks, 50; Surplus, 85; Undivided Profits, 10; Cash, 110; Cash items, 90; Notes, 90; Real Estate, 25; Other Assets, 20; Deposits, 960.
    Do you see any reason for believing this bank to be or not to be a national bank of the United States? To be a city or a country bank?
  6. Suppose the national banks of the United States ceased to issue notes, their other operations remaining as now; how great would be the effect of the change on the circulating medium of the community? Compare the effect with that which would ensue in Germany if the note issue of the German banks were to cease.
  7. Under the national bank act, how does the action of our banks, when their reserves are suddenly lowered, differ from that of the Bank of England in like case?
  8. Wherein is the mode of dividing profits among members of the coöperative stores in England different from that of the coöperative building associations of the United States?
  9. Wherein does bimetallism as now practiced in France differ from bimetallism as it was in France in 1850? Wherein does it differ from bimetallism as it is in the United States now?
  10. Compare the legislation of Germany on coinage in 1873 with that of the United States in 1853.
  11. Mill divides commodities into three classes, according to the laws of value applicable to them. In which class would you put silver bullion?
  12. Describe carefully the act for the resumption of specie payments, stating when it was passed, when it went into effect, and how far it was successful in accomplishing the desired object.
  13. Will a general rise in wages affect values? prices? profits?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Papers Set for Final examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1891) in bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-92.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 2. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig and Mr. [John Graham] Brooks. — History of Economic Theory. — Examination of selections from Leading Writers. — Socialism. 3 hours.

Total 23: 4 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

 

Previously Posted

https://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-history-of-economic-theory-final-exam-questions-taussig-1891-94/

Fun fact: W.E.B. Dubois was enrolled in Economics 2 in 1890/91 as a graduate student and was awarded a grade of A (one of six awarded to the twenty-two who received grades,  as recorded in Taussig’s scrapbook).

1890-91.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Mid-year examination.

[Divide your time equally between the two parts of the paper.]
[Omit one question.]

  1. It has been suggested that the real source from which wages are paid is not the product of the laborer, nor the capital of the employer, but the income of the consumer. What should you say?
  2. To which of the following cases, if to any, is the reasoning of the wages fund theory applicable? (1) The farmer tilling his own land with his own capital; (2) the fisherman working for a share of the catch; (3) the independent artisan working on his own account with borrowed capital; (4) the employer who habitually sells his product before pay-day, and pays his laborers with the proceeds.
  3. Wherein does President Walker’s view of the source from which wages are paid differ from George’s?
  4. “The extra gains which any producer or dealer obtains through superior talent in business, or superior business arrangements, are very much of a similar kind [to rent.] If all his competitors had the same advantages, and used them, the benefit would be transferred to the consumers, 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…. Wages and profits represent the universal elements in production, while rent may be taken to represent the differential and peculiar; any difference in favor of certain producers, or in favor of production in certain circumstances, being the source of a gain, which, though not called rent, unless paid periodically by one person to another, is governed by laws entirely the same with it.”—Mill, Political Economy, book iii., ch. v., §4.
    What has President Walker added to this in his discussion of business profits?
  5. “It is true that money does not beget money; but capital does manifestly beget capital. If a man borrows a thousand ducats and ties them up in a bag, he will not find any little ducats in the bag at the end of the year; but if he purchases with the ducats a flock of sheep, he will, with proper attention, have lambs enough at the end of the year to make a handsome interest on the loan, and make a handsome profit for himself. If the turns the ducats into corn, he will find it bringing forth, some thirty, some sixty, some an hundred fold…Very seldom does a man borrow money to use it, as money, through the term of his loan. When he does so, as brokers for example sometimes do, he may to Antonio’s question, ‘Is your gold and silver rams and ewes?’ return Shylock’s answer, ‘I cannot tell; I make it breed as fast.’”
    Discuss this explanation of interest. Whom do you suppose to be the writer of the extract?
  6. “The natural history of the notion on which it [the wages-fund doctrine] rests, is not obscure. It grew out of the conditions which existed in England during and immediately subsequent to the Napoleonic wars. Two things were then noted. First, capital had become accumulated in the island to such an extent that employers found no (financial) difficulty in paying their laborers by the month, week, or day, instead of requiring them to await the fruition of their labor in the harvested or marketed product. Second, the wages were, in fact, generally so low that they furnished no more than a bare subsistence, while the employment offered was so restricted that an increase in the number of laborers had the effect to throw some out of employment or to reduce the wages for all. Out of these things the wages-fund theory was put together.”
    Examine this account of the rise of the wages-fund doctrine.
  7. Discuss the method of reasoning followed by Adam Smith, and illustrate by his treatment of two of the following topics: (1) the causes which bring about high wages; (2) the effects on domestic industry of restraints on importation; (3) the origin and effects of the division of labor.
  8. Explain how Ricardo’s conception of wages bears on his conclusions as to the effects of taxes on wages, and as to the net income of society.
  9. What can be said in justification of the views of the writers of the mercantile school?

Source: Harvard University Archives. In Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

 

Second semester taught by John Graham Brooks.

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

  1. From Rousseau to the Fabians, what have been the chief historic changes in the Philosophy of Socialism?
  2. In detail, state the differences between the Marx type of Socialism and that of the Fabians.
  3. With reference to the “three rents” what are the most important objections to Socialism?
  4. What reasons can you give to show that Socialism is likely to have much further development in our society?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Papers Set for Final examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1891) in bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-92.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 3. Mr. [John Graham] Brooks. Investigation and Discussion of Practical Economic Questions. — Social Questions. — Short theses. 1st half-year. 3 hours.

Total 10: 1 Graduate, 7 Seniors, 1 Junior, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

 

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Mid-year examination

  1. State the general objects of the German State Insurance, with reasons why it is likely, or not likely, to reach its objects.
  2. State in detail the strong points and the weak points of Trades Unions.
  3. What is the effect of Trades Unions upon their own wages, as distinguished from wages in general?
  4. What advantages has Profit Sharing over the present forms of the wages system?
  5. Are there reasons to believe that Profit Sharing will have much larger influence in the future?
  6. With special reference to the work of the half year, what “social remedies” appear to you most promising?

Source: Harvard University Archives. In Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 4. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar. — Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War. —Lectures and written work. 3 hours.

Total 103: 29 Seniors, 28 Juniors, 25 Sophomores, 4 Freshmen, 17 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

Other course material available at the Harvard Archives

Topics and references in political economy IV [1891?]. Student’s copy belonging to C. King Morrison, ’91. with manuscript notes. Harvard University Archives HUC 8890.371

Larrabee, Ralph Clinton (A.B. 1893). Notes in Political Economy 4: lectures by Prof. Dunbar, 1890-1891. Harvard University Archives HUC 8890.371.4.48

Principle text for Political Economy 4

From the prefatory note to Benjamin Rand’s (ed.) Selections illustrating economic history since the Seven Years’ War (Cambridge, MA: Waterman and Amee, 1889):

These selections have been made for use as a text-book of required reading to accompany a course of lectures on economic history given at Harvard College.

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Mid-year examination

Lay out your time carefully, reserving 15 minutes for review and correction.

A.
Give half of your time (say 80 minutes) to A, omitting one question.

  1. Make a careful statement of the leading provisions of the English navigation and colonial system.
  2. Adam Smith’s reasons for saying that the policy of Great Britain towards her colonies had, upon the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive than that of other countries towards theirs. [Rand, pp. 12-26.]
  3. Contrast the effects of the French revolutionary period upon the holding and distribution of land, in France and Germany respectively.
  4. Describe the current of opinion and the industrial conditions which made free trade inevitably the policy for England.
  5. State the reasons for the logical and political importance of the corn laws in the English free trade movement.
  6. The essential differences between the French and the Anglo-American methods of managing railway construction and ownership, and the effect and advantages of each.

B.
Give 80 minutes to B, omitting two questions.

  1. The trade between the United States and the British West Indies, before our revolution, and after.
  2. The inventions or improvements which made the development of the cotton States possible.
  3. The condition of commerce and manufactures in the United States in the two periods, 1794-1808, and 1808-1815.
  4. The successive enterprises for opening communication with the territory north of the Ohio, and their importance.
  5. The English legislation respecting cotton goods in the last century and the reasons for it.
  6. What was the effect of the Napoleonic wars upon the introduction of manufactures on the continent of Europe?
  7. The comparative state of preparation of England, France, Germany, and the United States for undertaking the modern industries when the peace of 1815 came.
  8. Give what account you can of the career and opinions of Turgot, with dates.
  9. The contributions of Stein and Hardenberg respectively to the reform in the Prussian system of land-holding.
  10. On what plan was the Zollverein organized?
  11. What are the differences in industrial characteristics which make it natural for England and France to adopt different policies as to protection and free trade?

Source: Harvard University Archives. In Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

 

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

Lay out your time carefully, reserving 15 minutes for review and correction

A.
Give half of your time to A. omitting one question.

  1. The establishment of the Zollverein is spoken of [Rand, page 138] as “the first step towards what is called the Germanization of the people” and to have “prepared the way for a political nationality.” Show how it had this effect.
  2. Cairnes, in his discussion of the new gold, [Rand, page 197] shows that “a given addition to the metallic stock of Great Britain and the United States … will cause a greater expansion of the total circulation, and therefore will support a greater advance in general prices, that the same addition to the currency of … France … and that again, the effect in countries like France will be greater than in countries like India or China.” Why is this, and how much effect did this difference in sensitiveness produce in the years after 1850?
  3. Cairnes lays down [Rand, page 209] that “every country is interested in raising as rapidly as possible the prices of its productions,–in other words, in the most rapid possible depreciation in the local value of its gold.” What are the grounds for this proposition?
  4. The writer in Blackwood’s, [Rand, page 228] says that the most important point in the payment of the French indemnity is “How came it that £170,000,000 [4,250,000,000 francs] of bills could be got at all”? What is the explanation of this fact?
  5. What are the reasons for looking upon Italy as a possible serious competitor in ocean navigation, and what are her great drawbacks in such competition?

B.

  1. What are the marked differences between the great change in the production and value of the precious metals in the sixteenth century, and that in the nineteenth?
  2. Why was an additional supply of gold especially important to the world in the years 1850-60?
  3. How does the mere saving of time in transportation, or in the transmission of intelligence, produce an effect upon commerce?
  4. How far was the civil war the cause of the decline of American shipping after 1860?
  5. What reasons made the breaking out of a financial crisis in the United States in 1873 easier than usual?
  6. Why did the payment of the French indemnity disturb the financial quiet of other countries than France and Germany?
  7. What are the great cases of resumption of specie payment in the years 1875-85, and how were they brought about respectively?
  8. Why is the trade between countries so often “triangular,” and why is England so generally one of the parties concerned?
  9. How does the modern theory of the utility of colonies differ from that of a century or two ago?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Papers Set for Final examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1891) in bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-92.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 6. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — History of Tariff Legislation in the United States. 2 hours. 2d half-year

Total 43: 1 Graduate, 28 Seniors, 12 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

 

 

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

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

  1. Explain wherein France and the United States were in similar positions, as regards customs policy, in 1814-15; and state briefly the legislation to which these situations led in the two countries.
  2. What was the argument, discussed in Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures, which rested on the supposed exceptions productiveness of agriculture? What was Hamilton’s answer? What is the sound view?
  3. How did Gallatin propose in 1831 to fix customs duties without regard to their protective effect? Walker in 1845?
  4. Was there any ground in 1832 for saying that the duties on imports were equivalent to duties on exports? Is there now?
  5. How did the general fall in prices after 1819 affect the growth of manufactures in the United States?
  6. “The climate, soil, and conditions generally in the Northwest, are very favorable to the cultivation of flax fibre as well as of the seed. After a short experience as to the primary manipulation and handling of the flax fibre, our farmers would produce flax which would compare favorably with the best varieties of the fibre. It seems strange that a practical people like ourselves should for years have been satisfied to cultivate seed for flax at a value of about $15 per acre, and at the same time allow 600 pounds of flax fibre per acre to rot on the ground, this fibre having a value, after being manipulated, of $186 per ton.”
    Can you explain the anomaly?
  7. Describe the process by which the duties on woollen cloths, as they stand in the act of 1890, were arrived at.
  8. What ground is there for saying that the protective movement in the United States is part of a general reaction towards protection which has appeared in most civilized countries in recent years?
  9. It has been said that the tariff act of 1789 began the protective policy of the United States; that the act of 1816 was the first giving serious protection; that the act of 1824 was the first strictly protective act. Which statement, if any, do you think true?
  10. Which of the important tariff acts between 1835 and 1859 were passed quite without regard to financial considerations?
  11. What does the continued importation of clothing wool indicate as to the effect of the duty on the domestic price? of pig iron? of silks?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Papers Set for Final examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1891) in bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-92.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 7. Professor [Charles Franklin] Dunbar. — Public Finance and Taxation. — Cohn’s Finanzwissenschaft. 3 hours.

Total 7: 2 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 1 Junior.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

 

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

It is recommended that at least a third of the time be given to B.

A.

  1. Accepting the usual reasoning that a tax under some circumstances, by diminishing the income from property, diminishes its selling value, and so ceases to be felt by subsequent purchasers, should you say,—
    1. That the French impôt foncier is a tax on present landholders?
    2. That the English income-tax under Schedule A. is a tax on present landholders?
      The reason for the difference, if any exists.
  2. What is your final conclusion as to the sale of bonds or annuities at a discount, — is it defensible or not, and on what grounds?
  3. Explain the English method of using terminable annuities for the reduction of the public debt, as in 1867 and 1883, and discuss its advantages and drawbacks.
  4. “The administrator of local finances is permitted to found a sinking-fund at the time of issuing bonds, a permission, it will be remembered, contrary to sound rules of national financiering.”
    Does the distinction here made between local and national finances give solid ground for difference of treatment? Are the propositions as to the propriety of establishing sinking-funds in the two cases respectively tenable?
  5. Say remarks that the French government, in providing for the indemnity, bought any kind of foreign bills of exchange, “prenant tous les changes qu’elle pouvait acquérir sur quelque pay que ce fût.” How did this purchase of a bill, say upon Russia, facilitate the payment of the indemnity any more than the purchase of a bill upon Marseilles would have done, seeing that in either case the government had to collect the proceeds in order to use them?

B.

  1. In 1872 Herr Bamberger, in his pamphlet die Fünf Milliarden, regretted that Germany had not been allowed more time to absorb the indemnity, so as to avoid the risk of over-stimulated enterprise, rise of prices, and speculation.
    Discuss the probably effects, in Germany or elsewhere, (1) of longer time allowed to France; (2) of more cautious introduction of the wealth into Germany, effected

    1. By longer deposit (say) in London,
    2. By payment in securities, to be sold by Germany by degrees.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Papers Set for Final examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1891) in bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-92.

_____________________________

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 8. Mr. [William Morse] Cole. — History of Financial Legislation in the United States. 2 hours. 1st half-year.

Total 46: 1 Graduate, 29 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

 

1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8.
Mid-year examination

I.

  1. “That the public credit was much better during the Civil War than during the War of 1812 is proved by the fact that during the former war the bulk of the loans were sold at par, whereas during the latter the larger part were sold below par.”
    Comment on this statement.
  2. Under what authority does the Secretary of the Treasury purchase bonds in the market? Why does he not redeem them at par?
  3. Explain: “Five-twenties”; “Seven-thirties”; and tell why they were made seven-thirties; “Deferred sixes,” “5% redemption fund.”
  4. When were the first legal tenders under the present constitution authorized?
  5. What have been the express legal exemptions of government obligations from taxation since the outbrake of the Civil War?
  6. In what different capacities was each of the following men connected with the finances of the nation: Hugh McCulloch, Levi Woodbury, William Pitt Fessenden, John Tyler?

II.
(Omit two.)

1, 2. [Counts as two questions.] Compare the causes of the suspensions of 1814, 1837, and 1861.

3, 4. [Counts as two.] Mention the different systems which have been in vogue since 1789 for caring for public funds, and tell why each change was made.

    1. It was said that the bill which finally became the act for resumption in 1875 really provided for nothing in particular, and therefore ought not to be put upon the statute book. Did the provisions of the bill warrant the remark? Did subsequent history justify the remark?
    2. In what way were the French Spoliation Claims connected with the Second-Bank Struggle?
    3. Hamilton wished to have a system of internal taxation in working order as a resource in case of emergency. Does history throw any light upon the wisdom or folly of such a policy?
    4. What were the causes of Gallatin’s retirement from the Treasury?
    5. What history would you cite as an argument upon a proposition to replace bonds exempt from all taxation by bonds taxed to a moderate extent, and to distribute the receipts from the tax among the States according to the federal ratio?
    6. In a speech on the refunding bill it was said that the government made no threat, but merely promised certain privileges to those who presented bonds to be refunded at a lower rate. “No one proposes…the alternative adopted by our own Government under Hamilton’s plan of reducing the interest.”
      Is this implication regarding Hamilton’s funding justified by the facts?

11, 12. [Counts as two.] Mention as many as possible of the kinds of obligations which have been contracted by the government; i.e. character of obligation (bond or what), length of time to run, and rate of interest. Give one example under each kind,—giving period of issue, but not necessarily the exact date.

Source: Harvard University Archives. In Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2. From bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-91.

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1890-91
POLITICAL ECONOMY 9.

Enrollment.

[Political Economy] 9. Professor [Frank W.] Taussig. — Railway Transportation. —Lectures and written work. 3 hours. 2d half-year

Total 20: 14 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College 1890-1891, p. 58.

 

1890-91.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 9.
Year-end examination (June 1891)

[Answer all the questions, and arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.]

  1. Can it be fairly said that the early experience of the States of the Union supplies strong arguments against State ownership of railways? Can it be fairly said of the experience of France since 1878?
  2. State the salient events in the history of the federal land grants to railways.
  3. How do you explain the rapidity with which the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads were completed?
  4. Wherein did the so-called Granger legislation on railway rates resemble the “natural” system advocated in Germany after 1871? Wherein did it differ from it?
  5. Sketch the history and machinery of the Southern Railway and Steamship Association.
  6. Explain the difference in the working of the Trunk Line Association before and after the passage of the Interstate Commerce Act.
  7. What ground is there for saying that the prohibition of pooling in the Interstate Commerce Act is inconsistent with its prohibition of discrimination between individuals?
  8. Suppose a railway to be built and used exclusively for coal traffic; would its rates be arranged on a plan essentially different from that in use with ordinary railways, having a varied traffic?
  9. It has been said that the principle of tolls, or rates based on cost of service, makes it necessary that each item of business should pay its share of the fixed charges. Why, or why not?
  10. Sketch the history of government management of railways in Italy.
  11. “Property has reached an ideal perfection. It is felt and treated as the national lifeblood. The rights of property nothing but felony and treason can override. The house is a castle which the King cannot enter. The Bank is a strong box to which the King has no key. Whatever surly sweetness possession can give is tasted in England to the dregs. Vested rights are awful things, and absolute possession gives the smallest freeholder identity of interest with the duke.”—Emerson, English Traits.
    Wherein does the trait here described make the railroad situation in England different from that in the United States?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3. Papers Set for Final examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1891) in bound volume Examination Papers, 1890-92.