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Harvard. Fiscal Seminar Bibliography and Topics. Williams and Hansen, 1946-47

Alvin Hansen and John H. Williams’  Fiscal Policy Seminar at Harvard was a major parade ground for Keynesian policy ideas in the United States. This post provides a transcription of all 29 pages of bibliography provided for the seminar along with three pages of fiscal policy topics, presumably suggestions for student papers/presentations. An earlier post includes lists of speakers for the first eight years of the seminar.

Harvard’s Fiscal Seminar, speakers 1937-44

_________________________

Seminar Enrollment

[Economics] 148a. (fall term) Professors J. H. Williams and Hansen. — (A seminar offered by the Graduate School of Public Administration.) Fiscal Policy.

Total 26: 9 Graduates, 17 Public Administration.

[Economics] 148b. (spring term) Professors J. H. Williams and Hansen. — (A seminar offered by the Graduate School of Public Administration.) Fiscal Policy.

Total 22: 7 Graduates, 1 Graduate Business, 14 Public Administration.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1946-47, p. 71.

_________________________

ECONOMICS 148
FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR
1946-1947

BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. The National Income and Its Composition:
    1. Books:

Barger, Harold — Outlay and Income in the United States, 1942.

Basic Facts on Employment and Production, U. S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 19th Congress, First Session, (Committee Print No. 4).

Bowley, A. L. — Studies in the National Income, 1942.

Clark, C. — National Income and Outlay, 1938.

Fabricant, S. — Capital Consumption and Adjustment, 1938.

Friedrich, C. J. and Mason, E. S., editors — Public Policy, Volume II, Chapters VII, 1941.

Hicks, J. R. — The Social Framework, Oxford, 1942.

Hicks and Hart — The Social Framework of the American Economy, Oxford, 1945.

Kuznets, S. — National Income and Capital Formation, 1919-1935, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1937.

Kuznets, S. — National Income and its Composition, 1919-1938, 2 volumes, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1941.

Lindahl, Dahlgren, and Koch — National Income of Sweden, 1861-1930, 1937.

Livingston, S.M. — Markets After the War. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 1943.

Martin, R. F. — National Income in the U.S., 1799-1938, National Industrial Conference Board, 1939.

Meade and Stone, National Income and Expenditure, (Oxford, 1944).

National Wealth and Income —Report by the Federal Trade Commission.

Readings in Income Distribution, Blakiston Co. (1945).

Seventh Report of Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion, July 1, 1946.

Studies in Income and Wealth, National Bureau of Economic Research, 3 volumes, 1937, 1938, and 1939.

    1. Articles:

Gilbert, M. — “Measuring National Income as Affected by the War”, Journal of American Statistical Association, June 1942.

Chawner, L. J. — “Capital Expenditure in Selected Manufacturing Industries”, Survey of Current Business, December 1941.

Kaldor, N. — “The 1941 White Paper on National Income and Expenditure”, Economic Journal, June-September 1942.

Kaldor, N., “The 1943 White Paper on National Income and Expenditure,” Economic Journal, June-September 1943.

Harris, S. E. — “The British White paper on War Finance and National Income and Expenditure”, Journal of Political Economy, February 1942.

Copeland, M.A. — “The Defense Effort and the National Income Response Pattern”, Journal of Political Economy, June 1942.

Survey of Current Business — Articles on National Income and Gross National Product, Various Issues, 1942-46.

Stone, Richard — “National Income in the United Kingdom and the United States of America”, Review of Economic Studies, Winter 1942-1943.

Stone, R. — “Two Studies in Income and Expenditure in the U.S.”, Economic Journal, April 1943.

Stone, Richard —“The National Income Output and Expenditure of U.S.A., 1929-1941”, Economic Journal, June-September 1942.

Painter, Mary S. — “Estimates of Gross National Product, 1919-1928”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, September 1945.

Kalecki, M. — “The White Paper on the National Income and Expenditure in the years 1938-43”, Oxford Institute of Statistics Bulletin, July 1, 1944, Volume 6, No. 9.

Dacey, W. M. — “The 1944 White Paper on National Income and Expenditure”, Economic Journal, June-September 1944.

Bangs, R. B. — “The Changing Relation of Consumer Income and Expenditure”, Survey of Current Business, April 1942.

Gilbert, M. and Bangs, R. B. — “Preliminary Estimates of Gross National Product, 1929-1941”, Survey of Current Business, May 1942.

Gilbert, M. — “War Expenditure and National Production”, Survey of Current Business, March 1942.

Gilbert, M. — “U. S. National Income Statistics”, Economic Journal, April 1943.

Gilbert and Jaszi — “The 1945 White Paper on National Income and Expenditure”, Economic Journal, December 1945.

Smith, T. and Merwin, C. — “Corporate Profits and National Income Estimates, Quarterly, 1938-42”, Survey of Current Business, June 1942.

Hance, W. D. — “Estimates of Annual Business Inventories, 1928-1941”, Survey of Current Business, September 1942.

British White Paper on War Finance, Cmd. 6520 (reprinted in Federal Reserve Bulletin, July 1944.)

Stern, E. H. — “Public Expenditure in the National Income”, Economica, May 1943.

Gilbert, Milton; Staehle, Hans; Woytinsky, W. S. — “National Product, War and Prewar: Some Comments on Professor Kuznets’s Study”, Review of Economic Statistics, August 1944.

Hagen, Everett E. — “Postwar Output in the United States at Full Employment”, Review of Economic Statistics, May 1945.

Hagen, E. E. and Kirkpatrick, N. B. — “The National Output at Full Employment in 1950”, American Economic Review, September 1944.

Hoffenberg, M. — “Estimates of National Output, Distributed Income, Consumer Spending, Saving and Capital Formation”, Review of Economic Statistics, May 1943.

“Consumer Incomes and Expenditures in Wartime”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, April 1944.

  1. Fiscal Policy, Income and Employment
    1. Books.

Arndt, H. W. — The Economic Lessons of the Nineteen Thirties, Oxford, 1944.

Beveridge, W. H. — Full Employment in A Free Society, 1945.

Burchardt and Others — The Economics of Full Employment: Six Studies in Applied Economics, Oxford University Institute of Statistics, 1944.

Burns, A. E. and Watson, D. S. — Government Spending and Economic Expansion, 1940.

Copland, D. B. — The Road to High Employment, Harvard University Press, 1945.

deChazeau, Hart and Others — Jobs and Markets, McGraw-Hill, 1946.

Financing American Prosperity, A symposium (Anderson, Clark, Ellis, Hansen, Slichter, Williams) Twentieth Century Fund, 1945.

Giblin, L. F. — The Problem of Maintaining Full Employment, Melbourne University, 1943.

Hansen, A. H. — Full Recovery or Stagnation, 1938.

Hansen, A. H. — Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, 1941.

Hansen, A. H. — Economic Policy and Full Employment, 1946.

Harris, S. E. (editor) — Postwar Economic Problems, McGraw-Hill, 1943.

Harris, S. E. (editor) — Economic Reconstruction, McGraw-Hill, 1945.

Hayes, H. Gordon — Spending, Saving, and Employment, Knopf, 1945.

Keynes, J. M. — General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, Harcourt, 1936.

Lerner, A. P. — The Economics of Control, Macmillan, 1944.

Nathan, Otto — Mobilizing for Abundance, McGraw-Hill, 1944.

National Budgets for Full Employment, National Planning Association.

National Resources Planning Board — The Structure of the American Economy, Part II, Toward Full Use of Resources, 1940.

Pigou, A. C. — Lapses from Full Employment, Macmillan, 1945.

Pigou, A. C. — Employment and Equilibrium, Macmillan, 1941.

Polanyi, M. — Full Employment and Free Trade, Cambridge University Press, 1945.

Pierson, J. H. G. — Full Employment, 1941.

Robertson, D. H. — Essays in Monetary Theory, King, 1940.

Ruml, B. and Sonne, H. C. — Fiscal and Monetary Policy, National Planning Association, 1944.

Seven Harvard and Tufts Economists — An Economic Program for American Democracy, 1938.

Williams, John H. Postwar Monetary Plans, 2nd, 1945.

Wilson, T. — Fluctuations in Income and Employment, 1942.

Wright, D. McC. — Creation of Purchasing Power, 1942.

Committee on National Expenditure (May Committee) Cmd. 3920 (1931)

N.E.C. — Final Report of the Executive Secretary, Chapters 5, 7-13, 16.

Postwar Economic Studies, Nos. 1, 3, and 6, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, 1945-6.

    1. Articles:

Lerner, Simons, and Others — “Planning and Paying for Full Employment”, International Postwar Problems, October 1945 and January 1946.

Hardy, C. O. — “Fiscal Policy and National Income: Review”, American Economic Review, March 1942.

Slichter, S. H. — “The Conditions of Expansion”, American Economic Review, March 1942.

Clark, J. M. — “The Relation of Government to the Economy of the Future”, Journal of Political Economy, December 1941.

Temporary National Economic Committee — Review of the Monographs, pp. 573-601, American Economic Review, September 1941.

Gayer, A. D. — “Fiscal Policies”, American Economic Association Proceedings, 1938.

MacGibbon, D. A. — “Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles”, Canadian Journal of Economic and Political Science, February 1943.

Mitchell, W. C. — “Economic Resources in Economic Theory”, University of Pennsylvania Bicentennial Conference, Studies in Economics and industrial Relations, 1941.

Clark, J. M. — “Investment in Relation to Business Activity and Employment”, University of Pennsylvania Bicentennial Conference, Studies in Economics and Industrial Relations, 1941.

Kuznets, S. — “Capital Formation, 1879-1938”, University of Pennsylvania Bicentennial Conference, Studies in Economics and Industrial Relations, 1941.

Slichter, S. H. — “The Development of National Labor Policy”, University of Pennsylvania Bicentennial Conference, Studies in Economics and Industrial Relations, 1941.

Brown, J. D. — “Is Unemployment Inevitable?”, University of Pennsylvania Bicentennial Conference, Studies in Economics and Industrial Relations, 1941.

Berridge, W. A. — “Is Unemployment Inevitable?”, University of Pennsylvania Bicentennial Conference, Studies in Economics and Industrial Relations, 1941.

Clark, J. M. — “An Appraisal of the Workability of Compensatory Devices”, American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1939.

Gayer, A. D. — “Fiscal Policies”, American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1938.

Myrdal, G. — “Fiscal Policy in the Business Cycle”, American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1939.

Seltzer, L. H. — “Direct vs. Fiscal and Institutional Factors”, American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1941.

Simons, H. C. — “Hansen on Fiscal Policy”, Journal of Political Economy, April 1942.

Williams, J. H. — “The Implications of Fiscal Policy for Monetary Policy and the Banking Systems”, American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1942.

Hansen, A. H. — “Income, Consumption, and National Defense”, Yale Review, Autumn, 1941.

Hardy, C. O. — “Fiscal Policy and National Income: Review”, American Economic Review, March 1942.

Somers, H. M. — “The Impact of Fiscal Policy on National Income”, Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, August 1942.

Abbott, C. C. — “Administration of Fiscal Policy”, Harvard Business Review, Autumn, 1944.

Abrahamson, A. G. — “The Problem of Full Employment,” Harvard Business Review, Spring, 1944.

Anderson, Clay J. — “The Compensatory Theory of Public Works Expenditure”, The Journal of Political Economy, September 1945.

Beveridge, Sir W. — “The Government’s Employment Policy”, Economic Journal, June-September 1944.

Copeland, Morris A. — “How Achieve Full and Stable Employment”, American Economic Review, March 1944.

Garland, J. M. — “Some Aspects of Full Employment”, Economic Record, December 1944.

Goldenweiser, E. A. — “Postwar Problems and Policies”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, February 1945.

Pigou, A. C. — “The Classical Stationary State”, Economic Journal, December 1943.
(See also comment by M. Kalecki in Economic Journal, April 1944.)

Gragg, C. I. and Teele, S. F. — “The Proposed Full Employment Act”, Harvard Business Review, Spring 1945.

Hansen, A. H. — “Fiscal Policy: A Clarification”, American Economic Review, June 1945.

Hansen, A. H. — “Three Methods of Expansion Through Fiscal Policy”, American Economic Review, June 1945.

Hansen, Harris, Haberler, Slichter, McNair — “Five Views on the Murray Full Employment Bill”, Review of Economic Statistics, August 1945.

Harrod, R. F. — “Full Employment and Security of Livelihood”, Economic Journal, December 1943.

Herrick, L. — “Employment and Postwar Prosperity”, Yale Review, December 1944.

Hirsch, Julius —“Facts and Fantasies Concerning Full Employment”, American Economic Review, March 1944.

Klein, Lawrence R. — “The Cost of a Beveridge Plan in the United States”, Quarterly Journal, May 1944.

Langer, H. C., Jr. — “Maintaining Full Employment”, American Economic Review, December 1943.

McNair, Malcolm P. — “The Full Employment Problem”, Harvard Business Review, Autumn 1945.

Pierson, J. H. G. — “The Underwriting of Aggregate Consumer Spending as a Pillar of Full-Employment Policy”, American Economic Review, March 1944.

Smithies, Arthur — “Full Employment in a Free Society”, American Economic Review, June 1945.

Smullyan, E. B. — “Seventeen Postwar Plans — The Pabst Postwar Employment Awards”, American Economic Review, March 1945.

Wallich, H. C. — “Income-Generating Effects of a Balanced Budget”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1944.

Warburton, C. — “Normal Production, Income, and Employment, 1945-1965”, Southern Economic Journal, January 1945.

Welcker, J. W. — “The Federal Budget: A Challenge to Businessmen”, Harvard Business Review, Summer 1944.

Williams, John H. — “The Postwar Monetary Plans”, American Economic Review, March 1944.

Williams, R. S. — “Fiscal Policy and Propensity to Consume”, Economic Journal, December 1945.

Woytinsky, W.S. and Halasi, A. — “Prospects of Permanent Full Employment”, International Postwar Problems, September 1944.

Wright, D. McC. — “The Future of Keynesian Economics”, American Economic Review, June 1945.

Wright, D. McC. — “Hopes and Fears — The Shape of Things to Come”, Review of Economic Statistics, November 1944.

Yntema, Theodore O. — “Full Employment in a Private Enterprise System”, American Economic Review, March 1944.

“Employment Policy in Great Britain: The Government’s White Paper”, International Labor Review, August 1944.

Beattie, J. R. — “Some Aspects of the Problem of Full Employment”, Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, August 1944.

Joseph, J. F. W., “The British White Paper on Employment Policy”, American Economic Review, September 1944.

  1. Saving and Investment
    1. Books:

Angell, J. W. — Investment and Business Cycles, 1941.

Hansen, A. H. — N. F. C. Hearings, Part IX, 1939.

Long, C. D. — Building Cycles and the Theory of Investment, 1940.

Machinery and Allied Products Institute — Savings and American Progress, December 1937.

Machinery and Allied Products Institute — Savings and Investment in the American Enterprise System, July 1939.

Moulton, H. G. — The Formation of Capital, Brookings, 1935.

National Industrial Conference Board — Capital Formation and Its Elements, 1939.

Postwar Economic Studies, No. 5., Federal Reserve Board, 1946.

Private Capital Requirements, Postwar Economic Studies, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, 1945.

Williams, John H., Postwar Monetary Plans, 2nd, 1946.

N.E.C. Monograph No. 37, Saving, Investment and National Income.

    1. Articles:

Freeman and Barre — “Saving and Spending Pattern,” American Economic Review, June 1944.

Ezekiel, M. — “Saving, Consumption and Investment,” American Economic Review, March and June 1942.

Abramovitz, M. —“Savings and Investment: Profits vs. Prosperity,” American Economic Review, Supplement, June 1942.

Silberling, N. J. — “Some Aspects of Durable Consumer Goods Financing and Investment Fluctuations,” American Economic Review, September 1938.

Slichter, S. H. — “The Conditions of Expansion,” American Economic Review, March 1942.

Hoover, C. B. (Chairman) — “Durable Consumers Goods,” American Economic Association Proceedings, 1938.

Weintraub, D. — “Effects of Current and Prospective Technological Developments Upon Capital Formation,” American Economic Association Proceedings, 1939.

Deibler, F. S. (Chairman) — “The Effects of Industrial and Technological Developments Upon the Demand for Capital,” American Economic Association Proceedings, 1939.

Crum, W. L. (Chairman) — “Income and Capital Formation,” American Economic Association Proceedings, 1939.

Ruggles, C. — “Corporate Surpluses, Income and Employment,” American Economic Review, December 1939.

Dirks, F. C. — “Durable Goods Expenditures in 1941,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, April 1942.

Gilboy, E. W. — “The Propensity to Consume,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1938.

Gilboy, E. W. — “Changes in Consumption Expenditures and the Defense Program,” Review of Economic Statistics, November 1941.

Humphrey, D. D. — “The Relation of Surpluses to Income and Employment During Depression,” American Economic Review, June 1938.

Shackle, G. L. S. — “A Means of Promoting Investment,” Economic Journal, June-September 1941.

Simpson, K. — “Securities Markets and the Investment Process,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1938.

“Status and Role of Private Investment in the American Economy,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1941.

Tucker, R. S. — “Estimates of Savings of American Families,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1942.

Weintraub, D. — “Effects of Current and Prospective Technological Developments Upon Capital Formation,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1939.

Isard, W. A. — “A Neglected Cycle: The Transport-Building Cycle,” Review of Economic Statistics, November 1942.

Hicks, J. R. — “Maintaining Capital Intact: A Further Suggestion,” Economica, May 1942.

Wright, D. McC. — “The interpretation of the Kuznets-Fabricant Figures for ‘Net’ Capital Consumption,” Journal of Political Economy, June 1942.

Fulcher, G. S. — “Annual Saving and Underspending of Individuals 1926-37,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1941.

Gilbert, R. V. and Perlo, V. — “The Investment Factor Method of Forecasting Business Activity,” Econometrica, July-October 1942.

O’Leary, J. J. — “Malthus and Keynes,” Journal of Political Economy, December 1942.

Terborgh, G. — “Estimated Expenditures for Durable Goods, 1919-1938,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, September 1939.

Anderson, Montgomery, “A Formula for Total Savings,” Quarterly Journal, November 1943.

Jones, M. V. — “Secular and Cyclical Saving Propensities,” Journal of Business, University of Chicago, January 1944.

Leontief, W. W. — “Output, Employment, Consumption, and Investment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1944.

Neisser, Hans— “Government Net Contribution and Foreign Balance As Offset to Savings,” Review of Economic Statistics, November 1944.

Wright, D. McC. — “Limits to the Use of Capital,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1944.

  1. Technology, Population, and Investment:
    1. Books:

Gourvitch, Survey of Economic Theory on Technological Change and Employment, W.P.A. National Research Project, Report No. G-6 (1940).

Hearings, Temporary National Economic Committee, Part IX, 1939.

Lederer, E. — Technical Progress and Unemployment, International Labour Office, 1938.

Machinery and Allied Products Institute — Ten Facts on Technology and Employment, February 1936.

Machinery and Allied Products Institute — More Facts on Technology and Employment, April 1936.

Moulton, H. G. et al. — Capital Expansion, Employment and Economic Stability, 1940.

Myrdal, G. — Population, a Problem for Democracy, 1940.

National Resources Committee — Technological Trends and National Policy, 1937.

National Resources Committee — The Problem of a Changing Population, 1938.

Reddaway, W. B. — The Economics of a Declining Population, 1939.

Terborgh, G. — The Bogey of Economic Maturity, Machinery and Allied Products Institute, 1945.

Weintraub, D. — Effects of Technological Developments Upon Capital Formation, National Research Project, Report g-4 (1939).

T.N.E.C. Hearings, Part 30, Technology and Concentration of Economic Power.

T.N.E.C. Monograph, No. 22, Technology in Our Economy.

    1. Articles:

Neisser, H. P. — “Permanent Technological Unemployment,” American Economic Review, March 1942.

Dulles, E. — “War and Investment Opportunities: An Historical Analysis,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, March 1942.

McLauchlin, G. E. and Watkins, R. J. — “The Problem of Industrial Growth in a Mature Economy,” American Economic Association Proceedings, 1939.

DuBrul, S.M. (Chairman) — “Expansion and Contraction in the American Economy,” American Economic Association Proceedings, 1939.

Fleming, J. M. — “Secular Unemployment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1939.

Hansen, A. H. — “Extensive Expansion and Population Growth,” Journal of Political Economy, August 1940.

Hawley, A. H. and Bogue, D. J. — “Recent Shifts in Population: 1930-40,” Review of Economic Statistics, August 1942.

Round Table on Population Problems, American Economic Association Proceedings, 1940, pp. 283-298.

Weintraub, D. (Director) — “Unemployment and Increasing Productivity,” National Research Project, W.P.A., 1937.

Weintraub, D. (Director) — “Summary of Findings to Date,” National Research Project, W.P.A., March 1938.

Weintraub, D. — “Effects of Current and Prospective Technological Developments Upon Capital Formation,” National Research Project, 1939.

Gill, C. — “Unemployment and Technological Change,” National Research Project, W.P.A., 1950.

Gourvitch, A. — “Survey of Economic Theory on Technological Change and Employment,” National Research Project, W.P.A., 1940.

Hopkins, J. A. — “Changing Technology and Employment in Agriculture,” National Research Project, W.P.A., 1941.

Fellner, W. — “The Technological Argument of the Stagnation Thesis,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1941.

Lonigan, E. — “The Effect of Modern Technological Conditions Upon the Employment of Labor,” American Economic Review, June 1939.

Staehle, H. — “Employment in Relation to Technical Progress,” Review of Economic Statistics, May 1940.

Hansen, A. H. — “Economic Progress and a Declining Population Growth,” American Economic Review, March 1939.

Keynes, J. M. — “Some Consequences of a Declining Population,” Eugenics Review, Volume XXX, No. 1, April 1937.

Spengler, J. J. — “Population Movements and Economic Equilibrium in the United States,” Journal of Political Economy, April 1940.

Sweezy, A. R. — “Population Growth and Investment Opportunity,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1940.

Hansen, A. H. — “Some Notes on Terborgh’s ‘The Bogey of Economic Maturity,’” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1946.

Wright, D. M. — “Terborgh vs. Hansen,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1946.

Samuelson, P. A. — “Dynamics, Statics, and the Stationary State,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1943.

King, W. I. — “Are We Suffering From Economic Maturity?” Journal of Political Economy, October 1939.

Jones, M. V. — “Secular Trends and Idle Resources,” Journal of Business, October 1944.

  1. The Role of Public Investment
    1. Books:

Bretherton, Burchardt, Rutherford — Public Investment and the Trade Cycle in Great Britain, 1941.

Duffus, R. L. — The Valley and Its People: A Portrait of TVA, 1945.

Gayer, A. D. — Public Works in Prosperity and Depression, 1935.

Hansen, A. H. and Perloff, H. S. — Regional Resource Development, National Planning Association, 1942.

Housing, Social Security and Public Works, Postwar Economic Studies, No. 6, Federal Reserve Board, 1946.

International Development Loans, National Planning Association, 1942.

Lilienthal, David — V.A. Democracy on the March, (Harpers, 1944).

National Resources Committee — Public Works Planning, Report of the Committee, 1937.

National Resources Planning Board — The Structure of the American Economy, Part II, Toward Full Use of Resources, 1940.

National Resources Planning Board — The Economic Effects of the Federal Public Works Expenditures, 1833-1938, November 1940.

National Resources Planning Board — National Resources Development Report for 1942, January 1942.

Staley, E. — World Economic Development, 1944.

    1. Articles:

Government Expansion in the Economic Sphere,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November 1939.

Lewis, B. W. — “Government Competition and Private Investment,” American Economic Review, June 1939.

Copeland, M.A. — “Public Investment in the United States,” American Economic Association, Proceedings, 1939.

Blakey, R. G. (Chairman) — “The Role of Public Investment and Consumer Capital Formation,” American Economic Association Proceedings, 1939.

“Economic Planning,” pp. 247-280, American Economic Association Proceedings, 1940.

Gibson, A. H. — “Will Banking Eventually Become Nationalized?” Bankers’ Magazine, March 1944.

Hansen, A. H. and Kindleberger, C. — “World Institutions for Stability and Expansion,” Foreign Affairs, January 1944.

Smithies, Arthur — “The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development,” American Economic Review, December 1944.

Benedict, M. R. — “The Relation of Public to Private Lending Agencies (in Agriculture) and Recent Trends in Their Development,” Journal of Farm Economy, February 1945.

  1. Urban Redevelopment and Housing:
    1. Books:

Colean, Miles L. — American Housing, Problems and Prospects, 1944.

Greer, G. and Others — The Problem of Urban Redevelopment, Institute on Postwar Reconstruction, 1944.

Greer and Hansen — Urban Redevelopment and Housing, National Planning Association, 1942.

Housing, Social Security, and Public Works, Postwar Economic Studies, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, 1946.

Housing Costs, Bulletin No. 2, National Housing Agency, 1944.

Housing Needs, Bulletin No. 1, National Housing Agency, 1944.

Housing After World War I, Bullentin No. 4, National Housing Agency, 1945.

Hearings on S. 1592, Committee on Banking and Currency, U.S. Senate, 79th Congress, 1st

Land Assembly for Urban Redevelopment, Bulletin No. 3, National Housing Agency, 1945.

National Resources Committee — Housing Monographs, Nos. 1-3, 1939.

National Resources Planning Board — Housing, the Continuing Problem, June 1940.

Postwar Economic Studies, No. 6, Federal Reserve Board, 1946.

Simon, Sir Ernest, Re-building Britain —A Twenty-year Plan (Victor Gollancz, 1945).

Uthwatt Report, Cmd. 6386 (1942).

The Problem of the Cities and Towns — Conference on Urbanism, Harvard University, 1942.

S. 1592, 70th Congress, 2nd Session — An Act to Establish a National Housing Policy.

T.N.E.C. Monograph No. 8, Toward More Housing.

    1. Articles:

Greer, Guy — “Housing,” Fortune, November 1944.

Greer, Guy — “A New Start for Cities,” Fortune, September 1944.

Husband, W. H. — “Interest Rates for Home Financing,” American Economic Review, June 1940.

French, D. M. — “The Contest for a National System of Home-Mortgage Finance,” American Political Science Review, February 1941.

“Call of Our Cities, Redevelopment and Postwar Housing,” Survey Graphic, April 1944.

Grebler, L. — “Housing Policy and the Building Cycle,” Review of Economic Statistics, May 1942.

Isard, W. and Isard C. — “The Transport-Building Cycle in Urban Development: Chicago,” Review of Economic Statistics, November 1943.

  1. Income Distribution, Consumption, and Saving:
    1. Books:

Bangs, R. B. — The Changing Relation of Consumer Income and Expenditure, April 1942.

Department of Agriculture — Consumer Purchases Studies, on Family Income and Expenditures, 1939-1941.

Family Spending and Saving in Wartime, Bulletin No. 822, U.S. Department of Labor, 1945.

Fisher, A. G. B., Economic Progress and Social Security (Macmillan, 1945).

Haberler, G. — Consumer Instalment Credit and Economic Fluctuations, 1942.

Leven, Moulton and Warburton — America’s Capacity to Consume, Brookings, 1934.

Leven, M. — The Income Structure of the U.S., 1938.

Moulton, H. G. — Income and Economic Progress, Brookings, 1935.

National Resources Committee — Consumer Expenditures in the U.S., 1933-36, 1939.

National Resources Planning Board — Family Expenditures in the U.S., Statistical Tables and Appendices, June 1941.

Nourse, E. G. — America’s Capacity to Produce.

T.N.E.C. Monograph No. 4, Concentration and Composition of Individual Incomes, 1918-1937.

    1. Articles:

Tucker, R. S. — “Estimates of Savings of American Families,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1942.

Green, A. R. — “Social Reconstruction by the Regulation of Incomes,” Economic Journal, April 1942.

Stauffacher, C. — “The Effect of Governmental Expenditures and Tax Withdrawals Upon Income Distribution, 1930-1939,” Public Policy, Volume II, 1941.

Tucker, R. S. — “The National Resources Committee’s Report on Distribution of Income,” Review of Economic Statistics, November 1940.

Gilboy, E. W. — “Income-Expenditure Relations,” Review of Economic Statistics, August 1940.

Pancoast, O., Jr. — “Malthus vs. Ricardo: The Effects of Distribution on Production,” Political Science Quarterly, March 1943.

Samuelson, P. A. — “Fiscal Policy and Income Determination,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1942.

Metzler, L. A. — “Effects of Income Distribution,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1943.

Pigou, A. C. — “Comparisons of Real Income,” Economica, May 1943.

Rhodes, E.C. — “The Distribution of incomes,” Economica, August 1942.

Smullyan, E. B. — “Net Investment, Consumption and Full Employment,” American Economic Review, December 1944.

Sweezy, A. R. — “Reply (to E. B. Smullyan),” American Economic Review, December 1944.

  1. Wages, Costs, and Prices:
    1. Books:

Abramovitz — Price Theory for a Changing Economy (Columbia U. Press, 1939).

Clark, J. M. — Demobilization of Wartime Economic Controls (McGraw-Hill, 1944).

de Chazeau, and others — Jobs and Markets (McGraw-Hill, 1944).

Financing American Prosperity, 20th Century Fund (1945).

Harris, S. E. — Inflation and the American Economy (McGraw-Hill, 1945).

Harris, S. E. — Price and Related Controls in the U.S. (McGraw-Hill, 1945).

Lange, O. — Price Flexibility and Employment, 1944.

National Bureau of Economic Research — Cost Behavior and Price Policy, 1943.

Oxford institute of Statistics, The Economics of Full Employment (Blackwell, 1944).

Pigou, A. C., Lapses from Full Employment (Macmillan, 1945).

Prices, Wages, and Employment, Postwar Economic Studies, no. 4, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, 1946.

T.N.E.C. Hearings, Part 5, Monopolistic Practices in Industries.

National Resources Planning Board, The Structure of the American Economy, Part II (1940).

    1. Articles:

Mund, V. A. — “Monopolistic Competition Theory and Public Price Policy,” American Economic Review, December 1942.

Bangs, R. B. — “Wage Reductions and Employment,” Journal of Political Economy, April 1942.

Ezekiel, M. — “Productivity, Wage Rates, and Employment,” American Economic Review, September 1940.

Sweezy, A. — “Wages and Investment,” Journal of Political Economy, February 1942.

Weintraub, S. — “Monopoly Equilibrium and Anticipated Demand,” Journal of Political Economy, June 1942.

Bergson, A. — “Price Flexibility and the Level of Income,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1943.

Keynes, J. M. — “Relative Movements of Real Wages and Output,” Economic Journal, March 1939.

  1. Taxation, Investment, and Consumption:
    1. Books:

Butters, J. K. and Lintner, J. — Effect of Federal Taxes on Growing Enterprises, Study No. 2, Polaroid Corporation, 1945.

Colm, G. and Lehmann, F. — Economic Consequences of Recent American Tax Policy, 1939.

Committee on National Debt and Taxation (Colwyn Committee) Cmd. 2800 (1927).

Curran, Kenneth J. — Excess Profits Taxation, 1943.

Groves, H. M. — Production, Jobs, and Taxes, McGraw-Hill, 1944.

Groves, H. M. — Postwar Taxation and Economic Progress, McGraw-Hill, 1946.

Hazelett, C. W. — Incentive Taxation, 1939.

Hicks, J. R. and U. K. — The Incidence of Social Rates in G. B., (Occasional Paper No. 8 of National Institute of Economic and Social Research, Cambridge U. Press, 1945).

Koch, Albert R. — The Financing of Large Corporations—1929-39, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1943.

Machinery and Allied products Institute — Taxes and American Progress, March 1938.

Mering, O. — The Shifting and Incidence of Taxation, (Blakiston, 1942).

Newcomer, M. — A Tax Policy for Postwar America, Postwar Goals and Economic Reconstruction, Series 2, No. 6, 1943.

Tarasov, Helen, Who Does Pay the Taxes? Supplement IV, Social Research, (1942).

T.N.E.C. Monograph, No. 3, Who Pays the Taxes?

T.N.E.C. Monograph, No. 9, Taxation of Corporate Enterprise.

T.N.E.C. Monograph, No. 12, Profits and New Investment.

    1. Articles:

Benham, F. — “What is the Best Tax System?” Economica, May 1942.

Bradley, P. D. — “The Direct Effects of a Corporate Income Tax,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1942.

Gilbert, D. W. — “Taxation and Economic Stability,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1942.

Pettengill, R. B. — “Division of the Tax Burden Among Income Groups in the United States in 1936,” American Economic Review, March 1940.

Kuznets, S. — “National Income and Taxable Capacity,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, March 1942.

Colm, G. — “Full Employment Through Tax Policy? Social Research, November 1940.

Gilbert, D. W. — “Taxation and Economic Stability,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1942.

Paul, R. E. — “Redesigning Federal Taxation,” Harvard Business Review, Winter 1941.

Friedman, M. and Poole, K. E. — “The Spending Tax,” American Economics Review, March 1943.

Boulding, K. E. — “The Incidence of a Profits Tax,” American Economic Review, September, 1944.

Brown E. C. and Patterson, G. — “Accelerated Depreciation: A Neglected Chapter in War Taxation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1943.

Buehler, A. G. — “The Sales Tax,” Bulletin National Tax Association, February 1945.

Buehler, A. G. — “The Taxation of Business,” Bulletin National Tax Association, December 1944.

Burkhead, J. V. — “Property Tax as a Burden on Shelter,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics, August 1944.

Ciriacy-Wantrup, C. — “Taxation and the Conservation of Resources,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1944.

Domar, E. D. and Musgrave, R. A. — “Proportional Income Taxation and Risk-Taking,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1944.

Dowell, A. A. and Toben, G. E. — “Some Economic Effects of Graduated Income Tax Rates on Investors in Farm Capital,” Journal of Farm Economics, May 1944.

Dowsett, W. T. — “The Tax Lag Myth,” Economic Record, December 1944.

Ebersole, J. F. — “Banks Can Make More Postwar Jobs,” Harvard Business Review, Part I, Autumn 1943.

Goode, R. — “The Corporate Income Tax and the Price Level,” American Economic Review, March 1945.

Hubbard, J. C. — “Income Creation by Means of Income Taxation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1944.

Macy, C. W. — “The Corporation Net Income Tax and the Cost-Price Structure,” Bulletin of National Tax Association, May 1944.

Magill, R. — “Business, Investment and Taxation,” Trusts and Estates, October 1943.

May, G. O. — “Corporate Structures and Federal Income Taxation,” Harvard Business Review, Part I, Autumn 1943.

Wald, H. P. — “A Comparative Analysis of Three Variations of Retail Sales Taxes,” American Economic Review, June 1944.

Ballantine, A. A. — “The Corporation and the Income Tax,” Harvard Business Reivew, Spring 1944.

  1. The Public Debt and Debt Management
    1. Books:

Cadman, F. F. — National Income and Deficit Financing, 1939.

Colwyn Report, Committee on National Debt and Taxation, Cmd. 2800, (1927).

Ellis, P. W. — The World’s Biggest Business —American Public Spending, 1914-1944, 1944.

Fine, Sherwood — Public Spending and Postwar Economic Policy, 1944.

Moulton, H. G. — The New Philosophy of Public Debt, Brookings, 1943.

Phillips, C. F. and Garland, J. V. — Government Spending and Economic Recovery, 1938.

Public Finance and Full Employment, Postwar Economic Studies, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System, 1946.

Seckler-Hudson, C. (Editor) — The Evolution of the Budgetary Concept in The Federal Government, 1944.

Villard, H. H. — Deficit Spending and the National Income, 1941.

Williams, J. H. — Post War Monetary Plans, (2nd 1945).
(See also titles in other sections)

    1. Articles:

Ratchford, B. U. — “The Burden of a Domestic Debt,” American Economic Review, September 1942.

Haley, B. F. — “The Federal Budget: Economic Consequences of Deficit Financing,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1941.

Hansen, A. H. and Greer, Guy — “The Federal Debt and the Future, Harpers, April 1942.

Higgins, B. and Musgrave, R. A. — “Deficit Finance —The Case Examined,” Public Policy, Volume II, 1941.

Smith, D. T. — “Is Deficit Spending Practical?” Harvard Business Review, Autumn 1939.

Williams, J. H. — “Federal Budget: Economic Consequences of Deficit Spending,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1941.

Williams, J. H. — “The Implications of Fiscal Policy for Monetary Policy and the Banking System,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1942.

Mitnitzky, M. — “Aspects of Government Borrowing,” American Economic Review, March 1943.

Roberts, R. O. — “Ricardo’s Theory of Public Debts,” Economica, August 1942.

Domar, E. D. — “The ‘Burden of the Debt’ and the National Income,” American Economic Review, December 1944.

Hansen, A. H. — “National Debt, Flexible Budget and Tax Cut,” Bulletin of National Tax Association, May 1944.

Poindexter, J. C. — “Fallacies of Interest-Free Deficit Financing,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1944.

Stettner, Walter F. — “Sir James Stewart on the Public Debt,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1945.

Warburton, Clark. — “The Monetary Theory of Deficit Spending,” Review of Economic Statistics, May 1945.

Wright, D. McC. — “Interest-Free Deficit Financing: A Reply,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1944.

Bell, E. V. — “Consequences of $300,000,000,000 Debt,” Savings Bank Journal, February 1945.

Lanston, A. G. — “Crucial Problems of the Federal Debt,” Harvard Business Review, Winter 1946.

Leland, S. E. — “The Government, the Banks, and the Debt,” Commercial and Financial Chronicle, January 17, 1946.

Slater, A. — “U.S. Debt Pattern,” (Public and Private Debt), Survey of Current Business, September 1945.

Shoup, Carl — “Postwar Federal Interest Charge,” Supplement of American Economic Review, Part 2, June 1944.

Simons, H. C. — “On Debt Policy,” Journal of Political Economy, December 1944.

Simons, H. C. — “Debt Policy and Fiscal Policy,” Rev. of Econ. Stat., May 1946.

Abbott, Charles C. — “Management of the Federal Debt,” Harvard Business Review, Autumn 1945.

Leland, Simeon E. — “Management of the Public Debt After the War,” American Economic Review Supplement, Part 2, June 1944.

Symposium on Fiscal and Monetary Policy, Rev. of Econ. Stat., May 1946.

  1. Fiscal Policy and the War Economy:
    1. Books:

Crowther, G. — Ways and Means of War, 1940.

Crum, Fennelly, Seltzer — Fiscal Planning for Total War, 1942.

Durbin, E. F. M. — How to Pay for the War, 1941.

Harris, S. E. — Economics of American Defense.

Hart and Allen — Paying for Defense, 1941.

Hicks, J. R., Hicks, U. K., and Rostas, L. — The Taxation of War Wealth, 1941.

Keynes, J. M. — How to Pay for the War, Harcourt, 1940.

Parkinson, J. F. — Canadian War Economics, 1941.

Seidemann, H. P. — Curtailment of Non-Defense Expenditures, Brookings Institution Pamphlet No. 30, 1941.

Spiegel, H. W. — The Economics of Total War, 1942.

Stein and Backman (Editors) — War Economics, 1942.

Tax Institute Symposium — Financing the War, 1942.

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics — Study of Consumer Purchases, 1939-1941.

    1. Articles

“Billions for Defense,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, March 1941.

“Bank Credit and War Finance,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, June 1942.

Clark, J. M. — “Further Remarks on Defense Financing and Inflation,” Review of Economic Statistics, August 1941.

Crum, W. L. — “Paying for the War,” Academy of Political Science Proceedings, May 1942.

Douglas, M. — “Limitations of the Financial Factor in a War Economy,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, August 1942.

Eccles, M. S. — “How Shall We Pay for the War?”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, March 1942.

George, C. O. — “British Public Finance in Peace and War,” Journal of Royal Statistical Society, Part III, 1941.

Hansen, A. H. — “Monetary and Fiscal Controls in Wartime,” Yale Review, Winter 1940.

Hansen, A. H. — “Defense Financing and Inflation Potentialities,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1941.

Hansen, A. H. — “Some Additional Comments on the Inflation Symposium,” Review of Economics Statistics, May 1941.

Hansen, A. H. and Others — “Some Economic Problems of War, Defense, and Postwar Reconstruction,” American Economic Review, February 1941.

Hansen, A. H. — “We Can Pay the War Bill,” The Atlantic, October 1942.

Hart, A. G. — “Flexible Taxes to Combat Inflation,” American Economic Review, March 1942.

Hart, A. G. — “What It Takes to Block Inflation,” Review of Economic Statistics, August 1942.

Feiler, A. — “‘Full Employment of Resources’ and War Economy,” (Note) Social Research, February 1942.

Mackintosh, W. A. — “Canadian War Financing,” Journal of Political Economy, August 1942.

Polak, J. J. — “Rationing of Purchasing Power to Restrict Consumption,” Economica, August 1941.

Roberts, G. and Others — “War Finance and Inflation,” Academy of Political Science Proceedings, May 1942.

Villard, H. H. — “The Effect of the War Upon Capital Markets,” American Economic Review Proceedings, March 1942.

Viner, J. — “Inflation: Menace or Bogey?” Yale Review, Summer 1942.

Blakey, R. G. and G. C. — “The Revenue Act of 1941,” American Economic Review, December 1941.

Weintraub, S. — “Compulsory Savings in Great Britain,” Harvard Business Review, Autumn 1941.

Hansen, A. H. — “Changes in Economic Structure Arising Out of the War and Their Implications for Public Policy,” Part III, Chapter IV, Public Policy, Volume III, Harvard University, 1942.

Fellner, W. — “War Finance and Inflation,” American Economic Review, June 1942.

Salant, W. A. — “The Inflationary Gap,” American Economic Review, June 1942.

Pigou, A. C. — “Types of War Inflation,” Economic Journal, December, 1941.

Nathan, O. and Fried, M. — “Consumer Spending, Inflation and the Wage Earner in the United States,” International Labour Review, February 1942.

Blakey, R. G. and C. C. — “Federal Revenue Legislation, 1943-44,” American Political Science Review, April 1944.

Ensley, G. W. — “Budget for the Nation,” Social Research, September 1943.

Haig, R. M. — “The Background of Our War Finance,” Political Science Quarterly, September 1943.

Harris, C. L. — “Revenue Implications of a Progressive-Rate Tax on Expenditure,” Review of Economic Statistics, August 1943.

Mosak, J. L. and Salant, W. S. — “Income, Money, and Prices in War-Time,” American Economic Review, December 1944.

Newcomer, M. — “Congressional Tax Policies in 1943,” American Economic Review, December 1944.

Seligman, H. L. — “Patterns of Wartime Borrowing in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, November 1944.

Allen, E. D. — “Treasury Tax Policies in 1943,” American Economic Review, December 1944.

Hansen, A. H. — “A General View of the Institutional Effects of the War,” American Economic Review Supplement, March 1942.

Musgrave, R. A. and Seligman, H. L. — “The Wartime Tax Effort in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, January 1944.

  1. Fiscal Policy in the Post War:
    1. Books:

Clark, C. — The Conditions of Economic Progress, 1940.

Eccles and Others — Curbing Inflation Through Taxation, Symposium, Tax Institute, 1944.

Galloway, G. B. and Associates — Planning for America, 1941.

Galloway, G. B. — Postwar Planning in the U.S., 1942.

Hansen, A. H. — After the War — Full Employment, National Resources Planning Board, January 1942; Revised, February 1943.

National Planning Association, Pamphlet No. 15 — International Development Loans, September 1942.

Shoup, C. — Federal Finances in the Coming Decade, 1941.

Shoup, Carl; Friedman, Milton; and Mack, Ruth P. — Taxing to Prevent Inflation, 1943.

Financing American Prosperity; 20th Century Fund (1945).

    1. Articles:

Hansen, A. H. — “Wanted: Ten Million Jobs”, Atlantic Monthly, September 1943.

Hansen, Alvin H., and Guy Greer — “Toward Full Use of Our Resources”, Fortune, November 1942.

“From War to Work”, (Articles by Sir Arthur Greenwood, Marriner Eccles, B. Ruml, Sidney Hollman, Walther Nash, Alvin Hansen) Survey Graphic, May 1943.

Clark, J. M. — “Economic Adjustments After Wars: The Theoretical Issues”, American Economic Review Supplement, March 1942.

Blakey, R. G. — “State and Local Postwar Financial Policies”, Bulletin of National Tax Association, March 1944.

Burrell, O. K. — “The Pattern of Postwar Federal Taxes”, Oregon Business Review, December 31, 1944; January 31, 1945.

Butters, J. Keith — “An Appraisal of Postwar Tax Plans”, Harvard Business Review, Winter 1945.

Butters, J. Keith — “Tax Revisions for Reconversion Needs”, Harvard Business Review, Spring 1944.

Eccles, M. S. — “Statement on a Capital Gains Tax to Curb Rising Prices of Capital Values”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, March 1945.

Groves, Harold M. — “Revising the Postwar Federal Tax System”, American Economic Review Supplement, Part 2, June 1944.

Haygood, T. F. — “Federal Fiscal Measures and Agricultural Prosperity”, Agricultural Financial Review, November 1944.

Heer, C. — “Styles in Postwar Taxation”, (Review Article), Bulletin of National Tax Association, December 1944.

Houston, G. S. — “Postwar Taxes: Individuals vs. Corporate Tax Reduction”, Trusts and Estates, December 1944.

Howenstine, E. J., Jr. — “Methods of Federal Financing of Postwar Public Works”, Bulletin of National Tax Association, February 1945.

Lerner, A. P. — “Government Spending, Public Debt and Postwar Taxation”, International Postwar Problems, January 1945.

Lutz, H. L. — “A Postwar Tax Program”, Bulletin of National Tax Association, June 1944.

Musgrave, R. A. — “Three Plans for Postwar Taxation: A Comparison of the CED, Twin Cities and Ruml-Sonne Tax Proposals”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, December 1944.

Shoup, C. — “Three Plans for Postwar Taxation”, American Economic Review, December 1944.

Slichter, S. H. — “Present Savings and Postwar Markets”, Harvard Business Review, Part II, Autumn 1943.

Spero, H. and Leavitt, J. A. — “Inflation as a Postwar Problem”, Journal of Political Economy, August 1943.

Wolman, Leo — “Policies of Postwar Employment”, Political Science Quarterly, December 1943.

“Possibilities of Postwar Inflation and Suggested Tax Action”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, March 1944.

“Slowing Down of Credit Expansion”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, June 1944.

“War Finance and Banking”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, August 1944.

“The Wartime Expansion of Liquid Assets”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, October 1944.

Bell, D. W. — “Financing the War and the Postwar Readjustment”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, January 1944.

Hansen, A. H. and Kindleberger, C. P. — “The Economic Tasks of the Postwar World”, Foreign Affairs, April 1942.

Hansen, A. H. — “Changes in Economic Structure Arising Out of the War and Their Implications for Public Policy”, Public Policy, Volume III, 1942.

Slichter, S. H. — “Postwar Boom or Collapse”, Harvard Business Review, Autumn 1942.

Thorp, W. L. — “Postwar Depressions”, American Economic Review Proceedings, 1941.

Gustin, R. P. and Holme, S. A. — “An Approach to Postwar Planning”, Harvard Business Review, Summer 1942.

  1. Inter-governmental Relations:
    1. Books:

Federal, State, and Local Government Fiscal Relations, U.S. Treasury Department, 1943.

Hansen and Perloff — State and Local Finance in the National Economy, 1944.

Hicks, J. R. and U. K. — Standards of Local Expenditure, Macmillan, New York, 1943.

Silver, A. N. — The Reform of Local Government Finance, 1945.

    1. Articles:

Blakey, R. G. (Chairman) — “Coordination of Federal, State and Local Fiscal Systems”, American Economic Review Supplement, March 1942.

Blakey, R. G. — “State and Local Taxation of Federal Property”, Bulletin of National Tax Association, January 1945.

Graves, W. B. and Scholz, K. W. H. — “Meeting the Needs for State and Local Revenues in the Postwar Era”, American Political Science Review, October 1944.

Haig, R. M. — “Federal-State Financial Relations: A Conscientious Governor Studies a Senate Document,” Political Science Quarterly, June 1944.

Heer, C. — “State and Local Finance in the Postwar Plans of the South,” Southern Economic Journal, January 1945.

Hicks, J. R. and U. K. — “The Beveridge Plan and Local Government Finance”, Review of Economic Studies, Winter, 1943.

Kaiser, A. R. — “Coordination of Federal and Local Revenue Sources”, Bulletin of National Tax Association, November 1944.

Pond, C. B. — “Impact of the War on State Tax Systems”, Bulletin of National Tax Association, November 1943.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 4, Folder “Economics 1946-47 (2 of 2)”.

_________________________

ECONOMICS 128
FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR
1946-1947
TOPICS ON FISCAL POLICY

  1. Fiscal policy as a business-cycle control measure contrasted with fiscal policy as a means for structural readjustment.
  2. The fiscal problems growing out of war and depression contrasted.
  3. Deficit spending and its limits.
  4. A high-consumption economy vs. a high-savings economy.
  5. The dual economy and its relation to stability and full employment; the role of the government corporation (T.V.A., R.F.C., etc.); the program of the British Labor Party.
  6. The relation between income, output, and employment in the short run and in the long run.
  7. The public debt as an instrument of fiscal policy.
  8. The economic background of war-time expansion in the United States compared with that in Great Britain.
  9. Increased production vs. reduced consumption as war-time anti-inflation measures.
  10. Consumption, investment, income, and national expenditure in war time.
  11. The relation and importance of the various war-time control schemes (direct controls, monetary controls, fiscal controls).
  12. The timing of the various control measures in the transition period.
  13. Federal non-armament expenditures during the war.
  14. The control of non-essential investments in war time.
  15. A sharply progressive income tax vs. consumption taxes as a means to reduce war-time consumption.
  16. The relation between taxation and borrowing at different stages in the war and transition periods.
  17. Fiscal policy and the control of inflation in the postwar.
  18. “Easy money” and the role of monetary control in the prevention of postwar inflation.
  19. The taxation of war wealth.
  20. The Keynes plan of deferred wage payments as a means to prevent war-time inflation.
  21. Accumulation of social security reserves as a means to prevent war-time inflation.
  22. Forecasting and the timing of fiscal control measures in the postwar.
  23. Fiscal policy as a measure against:
    1. a postwar inflation,
    2. a postwar slump.
  24. Public investments and relief expenditures in the postwar period.
  25. Fiscal policy and the redistribution of income.
  26. The shift from a “free market” to a planned economy.
  27. British discussions on postwar debt and the wisdom of a capital levy.
  28. British and American postwar debt problems contrasted.
  29. Establishment of a monetary and fiscal authority to administer a flexible fiscal policy.
  30. Effective fiscal policy as a means of securing international stability.
  31. Trends in intergovernmental fiscal relations since the first World War.
  32. The shift of functions toward the central government in Canada and the U.S. and fiscal implications of this development.
  33. Efforts toward limiting the property tax and substituting other tax sources.
  34. A reorganized system of federal, state, and local taxation.
  35. The relation between the spending unit and the revenue-raising unit as a test of financial efficiency.
  36. Administrative reorganization as a prerequisite for intergovernmental fiscal reorganization.
  37. State control of local finance.
  38. Methods of revenue sharing between federal, state, and local government.
  39. The relation between federal, state, and local debt.
  40. Federal fiscal policy and the redistribution of income among the various states.
  41. The impact of the war on the fiscal relations between federal, state, and local government.
  42. War prosperity and the financial situation of the local governmental units.
  43. Trends in federal-local fiscal relations in Australia, Canada, and Great Britain.
  44. The relation between the federal debt and liquid assets.
  45. The relation between the public debt and the money supply.
  46. The public debt and the commercial banks.
  47. The relation between public debt retirement and the maintenance of private savings.
  48. The monetization of the debt.
  49. Interest-free financing proposals.
  50. Debt retirement and the “100 per cent money” proposal.
  51. Recent trend among some economists to emphasize monetary rather than fiscal policy.
  52. The inter-relations between monetary and fiscal policy.
  53. The effect of increased taxation on new enterprise.
  54. The effect of increased taxation on investment.
  55. The effect of increased taxation on consumption.
  56. The effect of modern progressive tax structures (England, Canada, U.S.) on income distribution.
  57. Comparison of the effects of:
    1. capital gains tax,
    2. inheritance tax,
    3. income tax,
      …on enterprise and investment.
  58. Comparison of postwar federal tax plans.
  59. The proposal to tax idle money.
  60. The proposal to underwrite private consumer expenditures.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Alvin Harvey Hansen. Lecture Notes and Other Course Material. Box 1 [might be box 3], Folder “Econs. 148”.

Image Source: Hansen (left), Williams (right). Harvard Class Album, 1942.

 

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Readings and Exams for undergraduate money, banking, and crises. Harris and Williams, 1941-42

 

A staple of the undergraduate economics program at Harvard throughout the first half of the 20th century covered both money/banking and commercial crises. For this academic year that included the entry of the United States into World War II, I have only been able to locate the first semester course outline and the final exam for both semesters. If I ever come across the course outline for the second semester, I will be sure to post it!

_________________________

Course Material from
Other Years

1937-38
1938-39 (Paper topics)
1940-41

______________________

Course enrollment

Economics 41. Professor Williams and Associate Professor Harris. — Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 81: 18 Seniors, 50 Juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 School of Public Administration, 1 Other

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1941-42, p. 63.

______________________

1941-42
Readings in Economics 41 (First Term)

  1. Introductory Survey
    1. “The Federal Reserve System—Its Purposes and Functions”
      (Published by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; a good brief statement of our deposit banking and Federal Reserve mechanism.)
  2. Nature and Functions of Banking
    1. Dunbar, “Theory and History of Banking”, Chs. 1,2,3,4, pp. 1-60.
    2. White, “Money and Banking”, Ch. 16, pp. 349-372.
  3. Note Issue
    1. Currie. “Supply and Control of Money”, Ch. 10, pp. 110-115.
    2. Longstreet, “Currency System of United States”, in Banking Studies by Members of the Staff, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, pp. 65-83.
  4. Creation of Deposits
    1. Phillips, “Bank Credit”, Ch. 3., pp. 32-77.
    2. Currie, op. cit., Chs. 6, pp. 65-68.
  5. Commercial Loan Theory
    1. Robertson, “Money”, Ch. 5, pp. 92-117.
    2. Currie, op.  cit., Ch. 4, pp. 34-46.
  6. Central Banking; Federal Reserve System
    1. “Banking Studies”, pp. 1-476.
    2. Federal Reserve Bulletin, July 1935: “Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds,” pp. 419-428.
    3. Langum, “The Statement of Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds,” Review of Economic Statistics, August, 1939, pp. 110-115.
    4. Williams, “The Banking Act of 1935”, American Economic Review Supplement, March 19366, pp. 95-105.
  7. Some Current Problems of Reserve Organization
    Excess reserves; 100 per cent reserves; special reserves against inter-bank deposits; “ceiling plan”, et cetera; branch banking
  8. International Monetary Organization and Policy; The “Gold Problem”
    1. Graham and Whittlesey, “Golden Avalanche”.
    2. Hansen, “Gold in a Warring World”, Yale Review, June, 1940, pp. 668-686.
    3. Williams, “The Adequacy of Existing Currency Mechanisms Under Varying Circumstances”. American Economic Review Supplement, March, 1937, pp. 151-168.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1941-42”.

Reading Period
Jan. 5-14, 1942
Economics 41

Read one of the following:

  1. Hardy, Federal Reserve Policy.
  2. Hawtrey, Art of Central Banking, pp. 116-303.
  3. Keynes, Treatise on Money, Vol. II, Book VII.
  4. Sprague, Crises under the National Banking System.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1941-42”.

______________________

1941-42
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 41
Money, Banking and Commercial Crises
Mid-Year Examination

Please put the day and hour of your section meeting on the cover of your first blue book.

Part I
(Answer all three questions.)

  1. Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds.
(millions of dollars)
Nov. 19— Nov. 19—
Bills discounted 2,762 1,228
Bills bought 276 79
U.S. Government securities 320 208
Other Reserve bank credit 109 29
Monetary gold stock 2,586 3,308
Treasury and National bank currency, 1,711 1,835
Money in circulation 5,375 4,386
Treasury cash and deposits with the Federal Reserve banks 236 260
Non-member deposits 27 28
Other Federal Reserve accounts 344 350
Member bank reserve balances 1,782 ?
    1. For each of the above items, give the meaning, indicate the manner in which it influences the volume of member bank reserve balances, and state in figures what its actual effect was on these balances in the period covered by the example.
    2. Calculate what member bank reserve balances were at the later date and explain in words their change from the earlier.
    3. To what years do you think the statement might apply?
    4. What can you deduce from these figures about monetary changes and central bank policy during this period?
  2. What is meant by the difference between “compensated” and “uncompensated” deposits or withdrawals, and how do their effects differ? Describe briefly all the types of “uncompensated” payments.
  3. Reading period. Answer one of the following:
    1. Hardy: Give a résumé of the problem of “qualitative” vs. “quantitative” credit control by the Federal Reserve. What was its meaning and importance?
    2. Sprague: “Somewhere in the banking system of a country there should be a reserve of lending power.” Discuss with relation to any one of the crises prior to 1914.
    3. Hawtrey or Keynes: Contrast the more significant differences between the working of the Federal Reserve System and the Bank of England. Assess their importance in practice.
    4. Keynes: Can the banking system control the rate of investment?

Part II
Answer any TWO questions.

  1. Discuss: “The cost of acquiring [gold] imposes a heavy burden; the purchase constitutes a subsidy to producers; the chief benefit goes to foreigners.” Do you regard this as a correct analysis of the cost of our huge gold imports during the last eight years?
  2. What, in your view, are the chief merits and defects of the 100% reserve plan?
  3. Discuss the significance of “liquidity” for the operation of the commercial banking system.
  4. Discuss: “Whereas the lack of a banking crisis in 1920 or 1929 led us to believe the Federal Reserve System a satisfactory cure for the evils of the national banking system, the bank holiday in 1933 proved that this is not the case.”
  5. Would you agree that the function of the central bank is to enable the banking system “to accommodate the needs of trade”?
  6. What limitations are placed on domestic monetary policy by external considerations?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-term Examinations, 1852-1943, Box 15. Papers Printed for Mid-Year Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …,Military Science, Naval Science. January-February, 1942.

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Reading Period.
May 4-23, 1942

Economics 41. Read one of the following:

  1. Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Chs. 1-19, omit appendices.
  2. Hawtrey, Capital and Employment, all but Chs. 8, 9, 11.
  3. Hawtrey, Art of Central Banking, Chs. 1, 2, 4, 8.
  4. Durbin, The Problem of Credit Policy.
  5. Hansen, Full Recovery or Stagnation.
  6. K. Wicksell, Interest and Prices, and Keynes, Treatise, I, Chs. 2-5, 7, 14.
  7. G. Haberler, Prosperity and Depression (1939 ed.), Part I.
  8. E. Wood, English Theories of Central Banking Control.
  9. Paper Pound of 1797-1821 (Cannan edition), and
  10. Heckscher, Sweden in the World War, Part III.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1941-42”.

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1941-42
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 41
Final Examination

Answer five questions, one in Part I, the question in Part II, and three in Part III.

Part I
(Take one hour. Answer one question only.)

  1. “The gold standard limits the discretion and fetters the independent action of the Government or Central Bank of any country which has bound itself to the international gold standard. It may not be the ideal system, but it maintains a certain standard of efficiency and avoids violent disturbances and gross aberrations of policy.” Discuss this point and assess its importance in the advantages and disadvantages of the gold standard.
  2. Can the banking system control the price level?
  3. “The question now arises whether the magnitude of this velocity of circulation can be regarded as determined by independent factors; or whether, rather as is sometimes maintained, it is not merely the resultant, given the quantity of goods exchanged and of available money, of the particular level of commodity prices, themselves determined by quite different ” What does Wicksell say about this? If you disagree on any points give your reasons.

Part II
(Answer one question.)

  1. Write an essay on some one topic discussed in the book you took as the reading period assignment. Do notwrite a summary of the book.

Part III
(Answer any three questions.)

  1. What is the relation of the gold standard and the quantity theory of money? Discuss the relationship as a factor contributing towards the breakdown of the gold standard? Mention briefly some other factors contributing towards the collapse of the gold standard.
  2. What kind of foreign exchange policy would you advocate for the U.S. after the war? Support your recommendations.
  3. “The real cause of a rise in prices is to be looked for, not in the expansion of the amount of money as such but in the provision by the Bank of easier credit, which is itself the cause of the expansion.”
  4. What is the nature of the relations between the quantity of money and interest and prices?
  5. “The problem of war finance is simple. If the government wishes to avoid inflation, it must not allow any increase in the quantity of money.” Do you agree?
  6. Is Chandler a Keynesian?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations, 1853-2001, Box 6, Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …,Military Science, Naval Science. June, 1942.

Image Source: John H. Williams (left) and Seymour Harris (right) from Harvard Class Album 1939.

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Graduate Money and Banking. Williams and Hansen, 1941-42

 

This post adds to the growing stock of course materials for the money and banking field taught in the Harvard economics department.

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Course materials for graduate money and banking taught by John Williams and Alvin Hansen for other years posted at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Course Enrollment

Economics 141. Professors Williams and Hansen.—Principles of Money and Banking.

Total 37: 24 Graduates, 7 School of Public Administration, 2 Radcliffe, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1941-42, p. 64.

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ECONOMICS 141
Principles of Money and Banking
1941-1942

  1. Pre-requisite reading. (For those who have not had advanced undergraduate course in Money and Banking.)
    1. Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Banking Studies — 1941
    2. Escher, Franklin: Modern Foreign Exchange — Macmillan, 1935
  1. Minimum required Reading (It is recommended to begin with Robertson’s book on Money, and then the chapters indicated in Wicksell’s Interest and Prices and Hawtrey’s A Century of Bank Rate. This may be followed by the chapters required in Keynes’ A Treatise on Money.)
  1. Books:
    1. Angell, James W.: Investment and Business Cycles — McGraw-Hill, 1941
    2. Haberler, Gottfried:  Prosperity and Depression — League of Nations, 1939), Chapter 8.
    3. Hansen, Alvin H.: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles — Norton, 1941
    4. Hansen, Alvin H.: Full Recovery or Stagnation? — Norton, 1938
    5. Hansen, Alvin H.: Business Cycle Theory — Ginn 1927. Chapter IV.
    6. Hawtrey, R.G.: A Century of Bank Rate — Longmans, 1938
    7. Hayek, F. A.: Prices and Production — Routledge, 1935 (rev. ed.)
    8. Keynes, J. M.: Treatise on Money — Harcourt, Brace, 1930. Chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 30.
    9. Keynes, J. M.: General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money — Harcourt, Brace, 1936.
    10. Lindahl, Erik: Studies in the Theory of Money and Capital — Allen and Unwin, 1939. Part II. Chapters III, IV, V, VI.
    11. Myrdal, G.: Monetary Equilibrium — Hodge, 1939. Chapters I, II, III
    12. Robertson, D. H.: Money — Harcourt, Brace, 1929. (2nd ed.)
    13. Robertson, D. H.: Essays in Monetary Theory — King, 1940
    14. Schumpeter, J. A.: Business Cycles — McGraw-Hill, 1939. Chapters 14, 15
    15. Wicksell, K.: Interest and Prices — Macmillan, 1936. Introduction by Bertil Ohlin, Author’s Preface, and Chapters 5, 7, 8, 11
  1. Articles:

See articles marked * in general reference list below.

  1. General reference reading

Angell, J.W.: Behavior of Money — McGraw-Hill, 1935

Armstrong, W.E.: Saving and Investment — Routledge, 1936

Beach, W.E.: British International Gold Movements and Banking Policy — Harvard U. Press, 1935

Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Twenty-Fifth Annual Report

Bresciani-Turroni, C.: The Economics of Inflation — Allen & Unwin, 1937

Brookings Institution: The Recovery Problem in the United States — 1936

Burgess, W.R.: The Reserve Banks and the Money Market — Harpers, 1936

Cassel, G.: The Downfall of the Gold Standard — Clarendon Press, 1936

Cassel, G.: On Quantitative Thinking in Economics — Clarendon Press, 1935.

Cassel, G.: Money and Foreign Exchange after 1914 — Macmillan, 1923.

Chandler, L.V.: An Introduction to Monetary Theory — Harper, 1940

Clark, Colin: National Income and Outlay — Macmillan, 1938

Clark, J.M.: Economics of Planning Public Works — Gov’t .Printing Office, 1935

Clark, J.M.: Strategic Factors in the Business Cycle — National Bureau of Economic Research, 1934

Cole, G.D.H.: What Everybody Wants to Know about Money — Knopf, 1933

Committee on Finance and Industry: Macmillan Report — H.M.S.O., 1931

Copland, Douglas: Australia in the World Crisis, 1929-1933 — Macmillan, 1934

Coulborn, W, A. L.: An Introduction to Money — Longmans, 1938

Crowther, G.: An Outline of Money — Nelson, 1941

Currie, L.: Supply and Control of Money in the United States — Harvard U. Press, 1934

Durbin, E.F.M.: Purchasing Power and Trade Depressions — Cape, 1933

Durbin, E.F.M.: The Problem of Credit Policy — Van Nostrand, 1935

Economic Essays in Honour of Gustav Cassel — Allen & Unwin, 1933

Economic Reconstruction — Report of Columbia Commission, Columbia U. Press, 1934

Einzig, Paul: World Finance, 1939-40 — Kegan, Paul, 1940

Ellis, H.S.: German Monetary Theory — Harvard U. Press, 1934

Ellsworth, P.T.: International Economics — Macmillan, 1938

Fisher, Irving: Purchasing Power of Money — Macmillan, 1911

Fisher, Irving: Booms and Depressions — Adelphi, 1932

Fisher, Irving. 100 Per Cent Money — Adelphi, 1935

Foster and Catchings: Money — Houghton, Mifflin, 1930

Foster and Catchings: Profits — Houghton, Mifflin, 1925

Gayer, A.D.: Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilization — Macmillan, 1935

Gayer, A.D.: Public Works in Prosperity and Depression — N.B.E.R., 1935

Gilbert, Milton: Currency Depreciation and Monetary Policy — U. of Penn. Press, 1939

Graham, F.D.: Exchange, Prices and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany, 1920-1923 — Princeton U. Press, 1930

Graham, F.D. and Whittlesey, C.R.: Golden Avalanche — Princeton U. Press, 1939

Gregory, T.E.: The Gold Standard and its Future — Dutton, 1935

Greidanus, T.: The Development of Keynes’ Economic Theories — King, 1939

Hall, N.F.: The Exchange Equalization Account — Macmillan, 1935

Hamilton, E.J.: American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain — Harvard U. Press, 1934

Hansen, Alvin H.: Economic Stabilization in an Unbalanced World — Harcourt, Brace, 1932

Hansen, Alvin H.: International Economic Relations, Part III — Hutchins Commission, U. of Minnesota Press, 1934.

Hardy, C.O. Credit Policies of the Federal Reserve System — Brookings, 1932

Hardy, C.O. Is There Enough Gold? — Brookings, 1936

Harris Institute Lectures: Gold and Monetary Stabilization — U. of Chicago Press, 1932

Harris, S.E.: Assignats — Harvard U. Press, 1930

Harris, S.E.: Monetary Problems of the British Empire-Macmillan, 1931

Harris, S.E.: Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy — Harvard U. Press, 1933

Harris, S.E.: Exchange Depreciation — Harvard U. Press, 1936.

Harris, S.E.: Economics of the American Defense Program — Norton, 1941

Harrod, R. F.: The Trade Cycle — Clarendon Press, 1936.

Harrod, R. F.: International Economics — Nisbet, 1939.

Hawtrey, R.G.: Currency and Credit — Longmans, 1928

Hawtrey, R.G.: Art of Central Banking — Longmans, 1932

Hawtrey, R.G.: A Century of Bank Rate — Longmans, 1939

Hayek, F.A.: Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle — Harcourt, Brace, 1933

Hayek, F.A.: Beiträge zur Geldtheorie — Springer, 1933

Hayek, F.A.: Monetary Nationalism and International Stability — Longmans, 1937

Hayek, F.A.: Profits, Interest and Investment — Routledge, 1939

Hayek, F.A.: The Pure Theory of Capital — Macmillan, 1941

Heilperin, M.A.: International Monetary Economics — Longmans, 1939

Hicks, J.R.: Value and Capital — Oxford U. Press, 1939

Iversen, Carl: International Capital Movements — Oxford U. Press, 1936

Johnson, G.G.: The Treasury and Monetary Policy, 1933-38 — Harvard U. Press, 1939

Kalecki, M.: The Theory of Economic Fluctuations — Farrar and Rinehart, 1939

Kemmerer, E.W.: The A B C of the Federal Reserve System — Princeton U. Press, 1938

Kemmerer, E.W.: The Gold Standard — its Nature and Future — Economists Nat’l Com. On Monetary Policy, 1940

Keynes, J.M.: A Tract on Monetary Reform — Macmillan, 1923

Keynes, J.M.: Unemployment as a World Problem — U. of Chicago, 1931 (pp. 1-42)

Keynes, J.M.: Means to Prosperity — Harcourt, Brace, 1933

Keynes, J.M.: How to Pay for the War — Harcourt, Brace, 1940

King, W.T.C.: History of the London Discount Market — Routledge, 1936

Knight, A.W.: What is Wrong with the Economic System — Longmans, 1939

Kuznets, S.S.: National Income and Capital Formation, 1919-1935 — Nat’l Bureau of Econ. Research, 1937

League of Nations: Final Report on Gold–1932

League of Nations: World Economic Survey (Annual)

League of Nations: Money and Banking; Monetary Review, Commercial and Central Banks (Vols. I and II) Annual

Lester, R.A.: Monetary Experiments — Princeton U. Press, 1939

Lundberg, E.: Economic Expansion — King, 1937

Machlup, Fritz: The Stock Market, Credit, and Capital Formation — Hodge, 1940

Madden, J.R. and Nadler, M.: International Money Markets — Prentice-Hall, 1935

Marget, A.W.: The Theory of Prices — Prentice-Hall, 1938

Marshall: Money, Credit, and Commerce — Macmillan, 1923

Marshall: Official Papers — Macmillan, 1926

Meade, J.E.: An Introduction to Economic Analysis and Policy — Oxford U. Press, 1938

Meade, J.E.: Consumers’ Credits and Unemployment — Oxford U. Press, 1938

Mises, L.: The Theory of Money and Credit — Harcourt, Brace, 1935

Moulton, H.G.: The Formation of Capital — Brookings, 1935

Moulton, H.G.: Income and Economic Progress — Brookings, 1935

Moulton, H.G.: Financial Organization and the Economic System — McGraw-Hill, 1938

Myers, Margaret G.: Paris as a Financial Centre — Columbia U. Press, 1936

National Industrial Conference Board: The Availability of Bank Credit, 1933-38 — 1939

Northrup, Mildred B.: Control Policies of the Reichsbank — Columbia U. Press, 1938

Ohlin, B.: Penningpolitik, Offentliga Arbeiten, etc., — Nordstedt, 1934

Ohlin, B.: Interregional and International Trade — Harvard U. Press, 1933

Ohlin, B.: Editor of issue of The Annals, May 1938 on Some Problems and Policies in Sweden

Paris, J.D.: Monetary Policies of the U.S., 1932-38 — Columbia U. Press, 1938

Phillips, C.A.; McManus, T.F. and Nelson, R.W.: Banking and the Business Cycle — Macmillan, 1939

Pigou, A.C.: The Theory of Unemployment — Macmillan, 1933

Pigou, A.C.: Employment and Equilibrium — Macmillan, 1941

Plumptre, A.F.W.: Central Banking in the British Dominions — U. of Toronto Press, 1940

Prather, C.L.: Money and Banking — Irwin, 1940

Riefler, W.W.: Money Rates and the Money Market — Harper, 1930

Robbins, Lionel: The Great Depression — Macmillan, 1934

Robinson, Joan: Introduction to the Theory of Employment — Macmillan, 1937

Roll, Erich: About Money — Faber and Faber, 1934

Saulnier, R.J.: Contemporary Monetary Theory — Columbia U. Press, 1938

Sayers, R.S.: Modern Banking — Oxford U. Press, 1937

Schumpeter, J.A.: The Theory of Economic Development — Harvard U. Press, 1934

Shackle, G.L.S.: Expectations, Investment and Income — Oxford U. Press, 1938

Shepherd, Henry L.: The Monetary Experience of Belgium, 1914-1936 — Princeton U. Press, 1936

Spahr, Walter E.: The Case for the Gold Standard — Economists’ Nat’l Com. On Monetary Policy, 1940

Thornton, Henry: An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1802) — Farrar and Rinehart, 1939 (Introduction by Hayek)

Thorp, Willard L.: Economic Problems in a Changing World — Farrar and Rinehart, 1939

Timoshenko, V.: World Agriculture and the Depression — U. of Michigan, Bureau of Business Research, 1933

Turner, R.C.: Member-Bank Borrowing — Ohio State U., 1938

Veblen, T.: Theory of Business Enterprise — Scribner’s, 1904

Veblen, T.: The Engineers and the Price System — Huebsch, 1921

Villard, H.H.: Deficit Spending and the National Income — Farrar and Rinehart, 1941

Vineberg, P.F.: The French Franc and the Gold Standard — McGill U., 1938

Viner, Jacob: Studies in the Theory of International Trade — Harper, 1937

Warren and Pearson: Gold and Prices — Chapman and Hall, 1935

Warren and Pearson: World Prices and the Building Industry — Wiley, 1937

Westerfield, R.B.: Our Silver Debacle — Ronald Press, 1936

Westerfield, R.B.: Money, Credit and Banking — Ronald Press, 1938

Whitaker, A.C.: Foreign Exchange — Appleton-Century, 2nd ed., 1933

White, Horace: Money and Banking — Ginn, 1936 (revised edition by Tippetts and Froman)

Whittlesey, C.R.: International Monetary Issues — McGraw-Hill, 1937

Wicksell, K.: Lectures on Political Economy, Money — Macmillan, 1935

Williams, J.H.: Argentine Trade under Inconvertible Paper — Harvard U. Press, 1920.

Willis, H.P., and Beckhart, B.H.: Foreign Banking System — Holt, 1929

Wood, Elmer: English Theories of Central Banking Control, 1819-1858 — Harvard U. Press, 1939

Articles

Angell, J.W.: “The 100% Reserve Plan” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1935

Angell, J.W.: “Foreign Exchange” Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Volume 6

Beveridge, W. H.: “Unemployment in the Trade Cycle”, Economic Journal, March, 1939.

Clark, Colin: “The Determination of the Multiplier from National Income Statistics”, Economic Journal, September, 1938.

Currie, L.: “The Failure of Monetary Policy to Prevent the Depression of 1929-32”, Journal of Political Economy, April 1934.

Curtis, Myra: “Is Money Saving Equal to Investment?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1937

Duncan, A.J., and Gilboy, E.W.: “Propensity to Consume” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1939

Eddy, George A.: “The Present Status of New Security Issues”, Review of Economic Statistics, August 1939.

Ellis, Howard: “Some Fundamentals in the Theory of Velocity”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1939.

Ellis, Howard: “Notes on Recent Business-Cycle Literature”, Review of Economic Statistics, August, 1938.

Ellis, Howard: “Exchange Control in Austria and Hungary” Quarterly Journal of Economics November 1939. Part II.

Graham, F.D.: “100% Reserves: comment”, American Economic Review, June, 1941.

Haberler, G.: “Mr. Kahn’s Review of ‘Prosperity and Depression’”, with rejoinder by R.F.Kahn, Economic Journal, June 1938

Hansen, Alvin H.: “Progress and Declining Population” American Economic Review, March 1939

Hansen*, Alvin H.: “Gold in a Warring World,” Yale Review, Summer, 1940

Hansen*, Alvin H.: “Monetary and Fiscal Controls in War Time” Yale Review, Winter, 1940

Hansen, Alvin H.: “Income, Consumption, and National Defense” Yale Review, Winter, 1940

Harris*, S.E.: “American Gold Policy and Allied War Economics”, Economic Journal, September, 1940.

Harrod R.F.: “An Essay in Dynamic Theory”, Economic Journal, March, 1939.

Hicks*, J.R.: “Mr. Keynes’ Theory of Employment”, Economic Journal, June, 1936.

Hicks*, J.R.: “Mr. Keynes and the ‘Classics’”: a Suggested Interpretation” Econometrica, April 1937

Hicks*, J.R.: “Mr. Hawtrey on Bank Rate and the Long-Term Rate of Interest,” The Manchester School, Vol. X, no. 1, 1939

Holden, G.R.: “Rationing and Exchange Control in British War Finance” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1940

Horsefield, J.K.: “Currency Devaluation and Public Finance, 1929-37” Economica, August 1939

Kaldor, Nicholas: “Capital Intensity and the Trade Cycle”, Economica, February, 1939.

Kaldor*, Nicholas: “Stability and Full Employment”, Economic Journal, December, 1938.

Kalecki, M.: “The Short-Term Rate of Interest and Velocity of Cash Circulation”, Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1941.

Keynes*, J.M.: “Alternative Theories of the Rate of Interest”, Economic Journal, June, 1937.

Keynes*, J.M.: “Relative Movements in Real Wages and Output” Economic Journal, March 1939

Kondratieff, M.D.: “The Long Waves in Economic Life”, Review of Economic Statistics, November, 1935.

Lange*, Oscar: “The Rate of Interest and the Optimum Propensity to Consume”, Economica, February 1938

Langum, J.K.: “The Statement of Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds”, Review of Economics Statistics, August, 1939.

Lehmann, Fritz: “One Hundred Per Cent Money”, Social Research, February, 1936.

Lerner*, A.P.: “Mr. Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”, International Labour Review, October 1936 and November 1937.

Lerner, A.P.: “Saving Equals Investment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1938.

Lerner, A.P.: Alternative Formulations of the Theory of Interest,” Economic Journal, June, 1938.

Lerner*, Lange, Curtis, Lutz: “Saving and Investment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1939.

Long, C.D.: “Long Cycles in the Building Industry, 1856-1935”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1939.

Lutz, F.A.: “The Outcome of the Saving-Investment Discussion”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1938.

Lutz, F.A.: “Velocity Analysis and the Theory of the Creation of Deposits”, Economica, May 1939.

Machlup*, F.: “Period Analysis and the Multiplier Theory”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1939.

Machlup, F.: “The Theory of Foreign Exchanges”, Economica, November, 1939.

Marget, A.W.: “The Monetary Aspects of the Walrasian System”, Journal of Political Economy, April 1935.

Marget, A.W.: “Leon Walras and the ‘Cash-Balance’ Approach to the Problem of the Value of Money”, Journal of Political Economy, October, 1931.

Morgenstern, O.: “Professor Hicks on Value and Capital” Journal of Political Economy, June 1941

Ohlin, Robertson, Hawtrey: “Alternative Theories of the Rate of Interest: Three Rejoinders”, Economic Journal, September, 1937.

Ohlin*, B.: Some Notes on the Stockholm Theory of Savings and Investment”, Economic Journal, March 1937, June, 1937.

Ohlin, B.: “Mechanism and Objectives of Exchange Control”, Supplement to American Economic Review, March 1937.

Pigou, A.C.: “Mr. J.M. Keynes’ ‘General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money” Economica, May 1936

Plumptre, A. F. W.: “Interest Rates and Bank Credit in the British Dominions”, Economic Journal, June, 1939.

Poole, K.H.: “Tax Remission as a Means of Influencing Cyclical Fluctuations” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1939

Robinson*, Joan: The Concept of Hoarding”, Economic Journal, June, 1938.

Samuelson*, P.: “Interactions between the Multiplier Analysis and the Principle of Acceleration”, Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1939.

Samuelson, P.: “The Rate of Interest under Ideal Conditions”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1939.

Schumpeter, J. A.: “An Analysis of Economic Change”, Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1935.

Shirras, G. F.: “The Position and Prospects of Gold,” Economic Journal, June-September, 1940.

Simmons*, E. C.: “Treasury Deposits and Excess Reserves”, Journal of Political Economy, June, 1940.

Simons, H. C.: “Rules versus Authority in Monetary Policy”, Journal of Political Economy, February, 1936.

Somers, H. M.: “Monetary Policy and the Theory of Interest”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1941.

Viner, Jacob: “Mr. Keynes on the Causes of Unemployment: A Review” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1936.

Watkins, L. L.: “The Expansion Power of the English Banking System,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1938.

Williams, J.H.: “The Adequacy of Existing Mechanisms under Varying Circumstances” Supplement to American Economic Review, March, 1937.

Williams*, John H.: “Fiscal Policy and Preparedness”, Proceedings, Academy of Political Science, May, 1939.

Williams, John H.: “Economic and Monetary Aspects of the Defense Program”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, February, 1941.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003, Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1941-1942”.

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1941-42
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 141
Principles of Money and Banking
Mid-Year Examination

(Three hours)

  1. Choose any three from questions I-IV.
    1. Compare the formulations of (a) Robertson and (b) Keynes (Treatise and General Theory) with respect to the following:
      Equality or inequality of Saving and Investment (give equations and define terms).
      2. The role of investment as a determinant of income and employment.
    2. Develop Keynes’ theory of interest and compare with the theories (a) of the classicals and (b) of Wicksell and others belonging to his school.
      2. What is the role of the rate of interest as a determinant of income and employment?
    3. “The validity of the multiplier theory rests upon the stability of the consumption function.” Explain and evaluate this statement.
    4. Give a compact summary statement describing the most significant monetary events of the two decades 1920-1940, and indicate the lessons to be learned from each.
  1. Choose one from questions V and VI.
    1. According to Angell: (1) what are the inter-relations of (a) anticipations, (b) investment, and (c) income, and what are the determinants of each; (2) what are the determinants and the role of (a) market rates of interest, (b) the money supply, an (c) money hoards?
    2. Critically state and evaluate the central thesis in Hayek’s Prices and Production.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Mid-term Examinations, 1852-1943, Box 15. Papers Printed for Mid-Year Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …,Military Science, Naval Science. January-February, 1942.

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1941-42
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 141
Principles of Money and Banking
Final Examination

(Three hours)

Discuss THREE topics.

  1. The relation of consumption to income and its significance for fiscal policy.
  2. The implications of fiscal policy for monetary policy and the banking system.
  3. The ideas of Foster and Catchings and of Hayek regarding the “paradox of savings.”
  4. Fellner’s analysis of the “technological argument of the stagnation thesis.”
  5. Milton Gilbert’s analysis of war expenditures and national production.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations, 1853-2001, Box 6, Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …,Military Science, Naval Science. June, 1942.

Images Source:  Hansen and Williams from Harvard Classbook 1942.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for Undergraduate and Graduate Money and Banking. Williams, 1932-33.

John Henry Williams taught the money and banking/monetary policy courses at Harvard over several decades. Material for more years will be transcribed soon! This post takes us to the trough of the Great Depression. Joseph Schumpeter and Lauchlin Currie joined in teaching the undergraduate course this one time.

 

Principles of Money and Banking (graduate course, 1946-47)

Economics 141a, Reading Assignments and Exam (co-taught with Alvin Hansen) 1946-47

Economics 141b, Reading Assignments and Exam (co-taught with Richard Goodwin) 1946-47

Economics 141, thirteen pages of general course bibliography, 1946-47

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Brief Undergraduate Course Description

[Economics] 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Williams.

The course will be conducted by means of lectures and discussions and (in the second half-year) a thesis based on work in the library. Certain subjects, such as the monetary and banking history of the United States, will be covered almost wholly by assigned reading.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics, containing an Announcement for 1932-33. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol XXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), pp. 72, 81.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Enrollment

[Economics] 3. Professor Williams and Schumpeter and Dr. Currie — Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 151: 32 Seniors, 103 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1932-33, p. 65.

 

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1932-33
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 3

Money, Banking and Commercial Crises
Mid-year Examination, 1933

  1. Combined Statement of the Federal Reserve Banks

($000,000 omitted)

Sept. 1931

 Feb. 1933

June 1932
Total Reserves

3371

 3211

2844
Bills Discounted

328

 828

440
Bills bought

469

 109

67
U.S. Securities

742

 740

1784
Other Federal Reserve Securities

39

 31

19
Federal Reserve Notes

2098

 2651

2795
Member Bank Deposits

2364

 1849

1982
Government Deposits etc.

143

 76

34

Discuss the significance of the changes in each of the above items between September, 1931, and February, 1932, and between February, 1932, and June, 1932. How do you account for the changes in member bank deposits with the reserve banks? What conclusions do you draw regarding Federal Reserve policy in the two periods covered by the above statement?

  1. In how far do the Federal Reserve Act and Federal Reserve policy reveal an acceptance of the commercial loan theory of banking?
  2. Trace the evolution of the bank note in (a) the United States, (b) England, (c) Germany or What are the merits and defects of our present system and how could it be improved?
  3. Discuss one of the following:
    1. Burgess’ “Gold Paradox.”
    2. American Experience with bimetallism.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 10. Folder “Mid-year examinations, 1932-1933.”

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1932-33
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 3

Money, Banking and Commercial Crises
Final Examination, 1933

  1. Explain the equation P=\frac{E}{O}+\frac{{I}'-S}{R}. Can the course of business during the past five years be interpreted in terms of this equation?
  2. “A managed standard is incompatible with a world standard.”
    “Avoidance of monetary disturbances can be achieved only under a managed standard.”
  3. Compare the effects of
    1. Purchase of one billion dollars of securities b the Reserve Banks.
    2. Redemption of one billion dollars of government bonds by the issue of paper money.
    3. Reduction of the gold content of the dollar by one-hald.
    4. Adoption of bimetallism.
  4. Can the concepts of demand and marginal utility be applied in an explanation of the value of money?
  5. Is business stability compatible with stable prices? Compare the views of Foster and Catchings, Keynes and Hayek on this point.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard Univ. Examination Papers. Finals, 1933. (HUC 7000.28) Volume 75. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions,…, Economics,…, Military Science, Naval Science. January-June, 1933.

 

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Brief Graduate Course Description

[Economics] 38. Principles of Money and Banking

Tu., Th., at 3, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Professor Williams.

This course is intended to afford training in analysis and research in the field of money and banking. The subject as a whole will be systematically reviewed. Selections from important writings dealing with monetary principles will be read and critically discussed. Particular attention will be given to the theory of the value of money and to the policy and operations of central banks.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics, containing an Announcement for 1932-33. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol XXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), pp. 72, 81.

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Enrollment

[Economics] 38. Professor Williams and Schumpeter. — Principles of Money and Banking.

Total 61: 36 Graduates, 16 Seniors, 1 Juniors, 5 Radcliffe, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1932-33, p. 66.

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1932-33
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 38
Principles of Money and Banking
Mid-year Examination, 1933

[copy not yet recovered]

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1932-33
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 38
Principles of Money and Banking
Final Examination, 1933

  1. Discuss “Hayek concludes…that the necessary condition of avoiding credit cycles is for the banking system to maintain the effective quantity of money…absolutely and forever unaltered.”
    Is this a correct interpretation of Hayek? Just what is involved, in the way of central bank action, in a “neutral” money policy? Would you favor such a policy?
  2. Discuss:
    1. The concept of international equilibrium.
    2. The mechanism of adjustment of departures from equilibrium under conditions of gold standard.
    3. The relation of gold standard to central banking.
  3. Discuss the effects of:
    1. A devaluation of the dollar relative to the pound sterling and the franc.
    2. An all-round devaluation of currencies.
    3. An all-round abandonment of the gold standard or of any other mechanism for providing stability of exchanges.
    4. The proposal to widen the zone between gold points to five per cent.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard Univ. Examination Papers. Finals, 1933. (HUC 7000.28) Volume 75. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions,…, Economics,…, Military Science, Naval Science. January-June, 1933.

Image Source:  John Henry Williams in the Harvard Album, 1932.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Lecture Notes

Harvard. Tobin’s notes to lecture by Alvin Hansen on Keynes’ General Theory, May 1938

 

The following notes were taken by James Tobin at the end of his junior year at Harvard. The notes for this lecture by Alvin H. Hansen on Keynes’ General Theory were “filed” as loose-leaf pages inserted into a bound volume of Tobin’s handwritten course notes for Economics 41 (Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises, taught by John H. Williams and Seymour Harris). Hansen’s lecture might have been a guest lecture for that course since only a recitation section taught by Kenyon Edward Poole was included in the notes for that date.  

Also on that date in history at Harvard: Gunnar Myrdal held the second lecture in his four-lecture Godkin public lecture series “The Population Problem and Social Security”.

__________________

Lecture
5/4/38
Prof. Alvin H. Hansen of Garver & Hansen
Littauer Professor of Political Economy

Keynes’ General Theory.

Not mainly concerned with trade cycle. Ch[apter] on trade cycle not very original. Cycle consists in fluctuation of rate of investment-purchase of capital-goods. Keynes holds that fluctuations in rate of invest[ment] due to fluctuations in the rate of prospective profits, in the marg[inal] efficiency of capital. Keynes emphasizes the rôle of expectations—psychology. Quick shift from prosperity to depression due to violent shifts in expectation from optimism to pessimism.

Mainly concerned with larger problem of full empl[oyment] of labor and the other factors of production. Could still have trade cycle but its booms would hit full employment. But also conceivable is a society in which ceiling of fluctuations is below full empl[oyment]—permanent under-employment. This long-run under-empl[oyment] Keynes mainly concerned with. Modern societies tend to be in a situation of chronic under-employment. He accuses classicals of working on assumption that society has long-run tendency to full empl[oyment]. Classical writers were concerned with pricing system and returns to different factors, and how much labor, etc., was used. R[ate] of int[erest] for example determined amount of saving cped [compared?] to consumption out of given income. This according to K[eynes] only goes with full empl[oyment] assumption. Rise in consumption in condition of under-empl[oyment] will lead to rise in investment as well. These are not alternatives until there is full empl[oyment]. This well realized by bus[isness] cycle theorists. Keynes applies it to long-run analysis.

What determines the volume of employment?

1) Rate of interest
2) Marg[inal] efficiency of capital. (Prospective rate of profit anticipated by bus[iness] man.)
3) Propensity to consume.

Nothing new about introducing rate of int[erest] as a determinant. Wicksell 1898 set forth determinants of expansion as prospective rate of profit on one side and r[ate] of int[erest] on the other side. Keynes adds the propensity to consume. dC/dY >0, <1, decreases. Rich societies have tendency to fail to maintain level of income once achieved. A society which consumes all of its income would have no difficulty in maintaining its level, because no deficiency in income-spending from incomes pd [paid] out to factors. If some part is not spent on consumers’ goods—just saved without a purchase of capital-goods – those who save are not actual investors-entrepreneurs—and there is not an equal amount of new investment, there is a tendency for incomes to fall. If propensity to consume is low, other determinants of employment must be very strong—high prospective rate of profit, low r[ate] of int[erest]—in order to balance saving.

“Classical” relation of r[ate] of int[erest] to saving. Later classical writers qualified argument: if r[ate] of int[erest] is very high, more saving; if low, less. But in between, there are the fixed-income savers. Keynes: determinant is level of incomes. Wouldn’t say no relation of saving to r[ate] of int[erest]. Given r[ate] of int[erest], determinant is level of incomes. There is for K[eynes] then no minimum r[ate] of int[erest], such as Cassel found: if int[erest] falls there because of shortness of human life people will say int[erest] is so low that not much income from it. Hence they will consume capital. At this p[oin]t tendency for saving to decrease, & consumption [to] increase. For K[eynes] there is another minimum point, below which there is not decrease of saving but an increase of hoarding. K[eynes] distinguishes mkt [market] & pure rates of int[erest]. Special risk in buying long-term commitment—risk is that r[ate] of int[erest] will rise a little bit in future, price of bond will drop so as to wipe out all int[erest] gain on it. Hence there is pt[point] where we won’t bother to buy securities but will hold cash. R[ate] of int[erest]not driven down below point of consump[tion] ncrease. What people will do is hold savings in liquid forms.

In rich community, marg[inal] efficiency of capital low; propensity to consume low; but rate of int[erest] can’t keep falling because of liquidity-preference. Hence there is not adequate volume of new invest[ment] to maintain full employment. R[ate] of int[erest] doesn’t drop to point where people stop saving & consume more, & rectify the difficulty; but is held up by liquidity preference.

Emphasizes largely r[ate] of int[erest]; Spiethoff thinks important thing in expansion is marg[ignal] efficiency of capital, which K[eynes] largely takes for granted. Spiethoff’s factors influencing prospective rate of profit on new invest[ment]: expanding market, increasing population, inventions & giant industries. All these associated with a young & growing capitalism, as in 19th.—unique century, conquering the world and revolutionizing the industrial technique and expanding population. Now decline in population, and no new mkts [markets]. K[eynes] assumes this exploitation of opportunities & emphasizes the monetary rate of int[erest], not as Spiethoff on non-monetary influences on marg[inal] efficiency. Risk & uncertainty of modern world decrease the will to invest—and perhaps also the tendency to save w[oul]d be greater. Failure of invest[ment] outlet.

K[eynes]’s solutions:

1) Artificially create a low rate of interest.
2) Stimulate consump[tion] by redistribution of income.
3) Enlarge volume of public investment.

[Qualifications]

1) How far will stimulate invest[ment] doubtful.
2) Effects of taxation for this purpose may hurt private invest[ment]
3) Public invest[ment] may be offset by private invest[ment] decline.

            Economic policies are choice among evils.

 

Source: Yale University Archives. Papers of James Tobin.  Box 6, Loose pages in bound lecture notes for Economics 41 taken by James Tobin during the 1937-38 academic year at Harvard University.

Image Source: James Tobin senior year portrait in Harvard Class Album, 1939.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Mid-year exam. Principles of Money and Banking. Hansen and Williams, 1948-49.

 

Syllabi, reading assignments, bibliography and examinations for the Hansen-Williams money and banking course at Harvard have been transcribed and posted earlier for 1947-48; 1949-50. This post helps to fill the gap of course examinations.

____________________________

Enrollment

[Economics] 241 (formerly Economics 141a and 141b). Principles of Money and Banking. Professors Hansen and Williams.

(F) Total 73: 44 Graduates, 18 Public Administration, 1 MIT, 2 Juniors, 6 Radcliffe, 2 Others.
(S) Total 66: 43 Graduates, 15 Public Administration, 1 MIT, 4 Radcliffe, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1948-49, p. 78.

____________________________

1948-49
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 241a
Final Exam. January, 1949

PART I (Required)

Outline and discuss the current problems (relating to monetary and banking policy) disclosed, for example, in the last three Annual Reports of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Among other things show why the current problems are different from those of the decades of

(a) the twenties
(b) the thirties.

PART II (Answer ANY THREE questions)

  1. Compare Wicksell and Keynes with respect to their theories of money and prices, showing, among other things, in what respects Keynes draws on the Wicksellian analysis and in what respects Keynes’s contribution is more complete.
  2. Write an essay on the monetary theories of any twoof the following:

(a) Robertson
(b) Hawtrey
(c) Hayek
(d) Fisher
(e) Marshall
(f) Henry Simons
(g) Lerner

  1. Explain by the aid of the modern theory of income determination the conditions under which monetary policy may be

(a) fully effective
(b) a necessary supplement to fiscal policy as means of raising real income and employment.

  1. Explain (by making use of the modern tools of analysis) the role of wages in the theory of price-level determination.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 16, Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions, …,Government, Economics, Anthropology,…, Naval Science. February, 1949.

Image Source: Alvin H. Hansen and John H. Williams in Harvard Class Album 1942.

Categories
Columbia Economists Harvard NBER Stanford

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. alumnus. Moses Abramovitz, 1939

 

 

The professional career of Moses Abramovitz shows what a blend of Harvard and Columbia training in economics crowned by an NBER post-doc could get you back in the day. His contributions to the study of long-term growth and to the Stanford economics department’s rise to prominence are truly important legacies.

The first item of the post gives us Abramovitz’s personal quarter-century report to his Harvard classmates of 1932. This is followed by excerpts from Abramovitz’s memoir for his family that provide a rich account of his economics training at Harvard and then Columbia. A link to download the entire memoir is provided below. The post closes with a memorial resolution written by Abramovitz’s Stanford colleagues. But the real treat, is found in Moses Abramovitz’s description of his economics education and economists important for his development. Among other things we learn, the chairman of the Harvard economics department, Harold Burbank, was indeed anti-Semitic enough for Abramovitz not to have dignified him by name. Also we learn that in 1934 “Milton [Friedman] was much less ideological then than he later became, so he was a very pleasant and agreeable companion.”

_______________________

From the 25th reunion report of the Harvard Class of 1932

MOSES ABRAMOVITZ

Home address: 543 W. Crescent Drive, Palo Alto, Calif.
Office address: Dept. of Economics, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
Born: Jan. 1, 1912, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Parents: Nathan Abramovitz, Betty Goldenberg.
Prepared at: Erasmus Hall High School, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Years in College: 1928-1932.
Degrees: A.B. summa cum laude, 1932; Ph.D. (Columbia Univ.), 1939.
Married: Carrie Glasser, June 13, 1937, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Child: Joel Nathan, July 19, 1950.
Occupation: Professor of economics, Stanford University; member research staff, national Bureau of Economic Research.
Offices Held: Member editorial board, American Economic Review, 1951-54.
Member of: American Economic Association; American Statistical Association; American Economic History Association; Royal Economic Society; American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Publications: Price Theory for a Changing Economy; Inventories and Business Cycles; The Economics of Growth; “Capital Formation and Economic Growth,” editor; The Growth of Public Employment in Great Britain (with Vera Eliasberg).

I LEFT Harvard supported by a Sheldon Fellowship and exhilarated by the prospect of a year in Europe—no small piece of luck at any time and a pot of good fortune in 1932. Together with Dave Popper, I saw Paris and the Rhine country as they were before the second deluge. We saw our first Storm Trooper rallies in Heidelberg and, if we were not too innocent, we were certainly too full of good spirits to be greatly disturbed. But those charming days were suddenly cut short. From Nuremberg, I was called home by my father’s death.

Back in New York I began graduate work in economics at Columbia and continued there until 1935. In 1936, I was lucky enough to be brought back to Harvard as an instructor for two years and had the fun and satisfaction of being again in Cambridge as a teacher while my memories of life at college were still warm. At Columbia I had met another young economist whom I had known years before. I shall stick to the essentials. The young economist was a woman. We were married in 1937, so Carrie has had a year at Harvard, too.

In 1938, we were back in New York again, this time to work at the National Bureau of Economic Research. In the years that followed I learned what I know about scientific investigation from Wesley Mitchell and Arthur F. Burns. Together they were in the midst of their wide-ranging investigation of business cycles. They set me to work studying inventory fluctuations. In the fullness of time I got some results and published a book, a hefty volume called Inventories and Business Cycles. It got some notice and caused some controversy, and a certain number of copies continue to serve as ballast for bookcases that might otherwise be disturbed by a fresh breeze.

Early in 1942, I went to Washington to help Bob Nathan and the W.P.B. Planning Committee, first to goad the military into laying out programs big enough to make use of a national productive capacity they could not believe existed, and then to keep them from losing the munitions they really needed under the load of programs too large for even our capacity. A year later I was at O.S.S. working for Professor Langer and Dean Mason on German economic intelligence. My particular job was probably of little use during the war itself, but it produced a collection of materials and a few more or less knowledgeable individuals, and both were needed after the German defeat. I became involved in the negotiations about German reparations and in that way came to see Moscow in the months right after V-E Day. Our work, as we all now know, foundered in the general wreck of American-Soviet relations. Together with many other stalemated delegations on many other subjects, ours eventually came to Potsdam to be witnesses at the beginning of the partition of Germany and Europe.

Since 1948 I have been a professor at Stanford. We have one child, a boy now six. We think living here near San Francisco as comfortable and delightful as it can be; so I rush back east as often as I can to disgorge the lotus and discharge my guilt.

My chief activity is still, as it has been for many years, research in economics—a stubborn, unyielding, frustrating and altogether exasperating subject from which I don’t know how to shake loose. What do I believe? One’s bent of mind is shaped by one’s work. Mine is inclined to skepticism, not beliefs, still less belief. Very likely I have much to learn. Oh yes! I believe both parties are right – in what each says about the other.

Source:  Harvard Class of 1932, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report (1957), pp.6-8.

_______________________

Undergraduate and graduate student days: memories of Harvard and Columbia

…My fourth course [freshman year at Harvard] was different. It was elementary economics. I was lucky. I drew an excellent instructor named Bigelow. Using Frank W. Taussig’s Principles, he introduced us to the general logic of the neoclassical theories of relative prices of commodities and of the factors of production, land, labor, and capital, to the distribution of income among these primary factors, to the theory of international trade, and to the virtues of free markets. He offered us a list of supplementary readings, one of which was called simply Supply and Demand, by an English economist, H.D. Henderson. It was a thin book, but it was a notable example of the lucid presentation of the logic of the economics of value and distribution. One could see all around one examples in ordinary life of the validity and importance of the theory. The way in which the various parts of the subject hung together in an interdependent system seemed not only analytically deep; it emerged as a beautiful structure, an aesthetic as well as a logical and tested structure. More than any other experience, it was this little book that drew me to go on with economics. When I returned to Harvard in September 1929, therefore, I chose economics as my field of concentration. And, indeed, when the economy began its collapse in October of that year, it confirmed me in my choice. It was a decisive experience.

Concentrating in Economics

Having chosen to concentrate in economics, I was assigned a tutor. Here again I was lucky. He was Edward S. Mason, then a still young assistant professor. But he was destined for both academic leadership and, as my story unfolds, for a real influence on practical affairs. Even more important for me, however, was the fact that this young man was already recognizably “wise,” a man of good judgment in both scholarly decisions and practical matters. He took a liking to me, and he remembered his friends! He was due to turn up with support and help at several critical junctures in my story.

My very first meeting with Mason was an exciting moment. It was late September or early October in 1929, that fateful year. We chatted, and then, more brash than usual, I said, “Well, Professor, when is the stock market going to break?” He answered, without hesitation, “Almost immediately.” And when I returned for our second meeting, it had happened. And then, still brash, I said, “Well, Professor, you must have made a mint of money.” And then I learned something about him and perhaps most academics of the time. He said, “Are you crazy? I have never owned a share of stocks in my life.”

… Like many, but not all, of the young economists of the time, who had no deep commitment to mainstream economics, I saw clearly enough that mainstream theory offered us no guidance in understanding the Great Contraction and Depression, and it was consequently a poor basis for public policy. Something new was needed, a theory that dealt more adequately with recurrent recessions and expansions of business and particularly with the very serious depressions and eventual recoveries which in the U.S. had succeeded one another at intervals of about 15 to 20 years since the 1830s. For the moment, I did not get beyond dissatisfaction with the older wisdom, Real enlightenment came only in 1936 with the publication of J.M. Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. When I had absorbed Keynes’s reasoning, I became an enthusiasticKeynesian and I remain so to this day.

There was also a quite personal effect of these developments on my own work history. They prepared me to join the National Bureau of Economic Research when the chance came in 1937 and to do empirical research on business cycles under the direction of Wesley Mitchell and Arthur Burns, the most notable people doing such work at that time.

Still an undergraduate in 1929, however, at the beginning of the economic contraction and depression, I still had three years of undergraduate work to do. Guided by Mason and later by Douglas V. Brown, I took Taussig’s famous course in price theory at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Taussig was then the leading American price theorist of his time and by far the most influential person in the Economics Department. In these courses, conducted by Socratic methods, he clearly formed a good opinion about me. I am sure he was of help to me behind the scenes at several junctures. I also remember two enlightening courses, Sumner Slichter on Labor Economics and John Williams on Money and Banking. In Williams’s course, I read Keynes’s earlier books and began to become familiar with his way of thinking. Anyhow, I did well in all these courses and in others in economics, history, and in one really interesting course in literature. That was Irving Babbett on Rousseau and Romanticism. I was apparently a natural-born good student and exam taker. The upshot was that I was graduated summa cum laude and I was given a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship.

For me, this last was more than an honor and more than a year of support and European travel and study at a time when money was so scarce and jobs for new college graduates almost nonexistent. My tutors and professors, including the influential Taussig, had already been encouraging me to think about going on to graduate study in economics and to an eventual academic career. To my parents and my brother, such a course was strange and uncertain. Abe began to call me “meshugana Moishele.” But it was clear that in the end they would support me in any decision I made. And the fellowship, which was tangible proof of the good opinion of the Harvard faculty, confirmed me in a career choice I had already more than half made: It was a decisive event.

[late June of 1932 left for Europe but Moses Abramovitz’s father died in September 1932]

… I resigned my scholarship and in that September of 1932 walked along Nostrand Avenue to Eastern Parkway and took the subway (IRT, Broadway and 7th Avenue Line) to Broadway and 116th Street. Half a block away, one entered Columbia. I walked in and registered and began three years of graduate work in economics. This was a big departure from the program I had thought lay before me, but I cannot remember any feeling of distress or resistance. I was glad to provide some degree of solid continuity for my mother, and I felt confident about the future. Columbia would also be a good start.

 

Columbia as a School of Economics

By forgoing Vienna, Cambridge, and Harvard, I had made a bigger change than I realized when I started in Columbia. Vienna, Cambridge, and Harvard were all centers in which understanding of the domestic economy of a country and of its international economic relations was squarely based on theoretical economics. This, in turn, was a doctrine logically derived from certain basic primary assumptions: that economic agents (consumers, savers, business firms, investors generally) were well informed, foresighted, and rational, and acted to promote their own individual interests, that they faced competitive markets and, as business firms, acted under the pressures of competition; they operated subject to the constraints of income and wealth and of market prices which they could not by their own actions significantly influence. Actions in this context were perceived as leading to an equilibrium of prices, wages, profits, etc., and of consumer satisfactions in which change might be harmful to some but would be more than offset by benefit to others. Thus, there was no room or occasion for public action except such as was necessary to enforce contracts, maintain competition, prevent or punish fraud and generally keep the peace. Changes in technology and in consumer tastes would lead to a new equilibrium of prices, rewards, incomes, etc., but such changes were viewed as “exogenous,” not the result of economic action or motivation and beyond the ken of economics.

The Columbia economists, however, rejected this structure of theory or, at least, its general application. They conceded its usefulness in explaining very simple matters: why a grand piano cost more than a pair of shoes, and, in general, why there is a rough association between the prices of commodities and their costs of production. They were skeptical, however, about the theoretical assumptions that agents were foresighted, well-informed, and rational. They saw markets as characterized by various degrees of monopoly power, with business firms capable not only of profiting by constraining production and raising prices more than costs alone would justify; they also often had the power to shape consumer tastes, for example by advertising, and, most important, to invest in research and development and so to advance and sometimes to retard—technological progress. They tended to see the economy as a whole, not as tending to an equilibrium, but as generating long-term growth of productivity, income, and wealth. This tendency did not, however, emerge continuously and at a stable rate but subject to recurrent fluctuations, loosely called “cyclical,” in which advance was sometimes fast,sometimes slow, and sometimes negative.

As I absorbed all this, I saw the justice of the Columbia outlook and came to appreciate its radical departure from the economics in which I had been trained as a Harvard undergraduate. Columbia economics, as it stood in the Thirties, however, had its own serious limitations. It was well advanced in its understanding of two subjects. One was in the study of the behavior of firms that had acquired and enjoyed various kinds and degrees of monopoly power. This was the province of Arthur Robert (“Columbia”) Burns—not the Arthur Frank (“Bureau”) Burns with whom I later did research on business cycles.

The other subject was another sphere of monopoly power, that of labor unions. Why were they so much less important in the U.S.A. than in Europe? What activities were successfully unionized and which not? And why? This was the area over which Leo Wolman ruled. Wolman later played a considerable role in the Roosevelt Administration, especially in connection with the disorders in the labor market stemming from the organizing drives of the AFL/CIO. He worked as chairman of the Automobile Labor Board, where he tried to keep the peace in that important industry—an effort that won him no friends in the unions. Wolman’s teaching, however, was as far from academic as can be imagined. It came directly from his own experience with labor unions. Although a professor at Columbia, he also worked as the economic advisor of Sidney Hillman, the president of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, the men’s clothing union. Wolman learned as much as he advised. He saw clearly that in the flexible and mobile population conditions of the American continent, the only unions that could exercise strong and stable monopoly power were those operating in industries frozen in location. The newsprint industry was an example. The book print industry was not. Where the industry could move, it could flee from a union whose wage and other demands were excessive. Such a condition faced the Amalgamated, and Wolman used his influence to restrain labor’s demands. Even so, the industry moved from New York City to upstate New York, then down South, then to Chicago and on to California. It was the barrier to movement posed by small nation-states that made European unions stronger and more stable than America’s.

These subjects then were well taught at Columbia, and I felt I learned much from A.R. Burns and Leo Wolman. The basic academic tone of the faculty, however, stemmed from Wesley Mitchell. He had been the dominating influence on the faculty since he joined it just before the First World War. According to Mitchell’s own view of himself, his outlook stemmed in part from his early Midwestern origins. He was the son of a physician who was a small town practitioner in central Illinois. The down-to-earth pragmatism of the neighboring family farmers ran strongly in his personality. It was quite natural, therefore, that he should have been drawn to the philosophical schools of William James and John Dewey when these became prominent. Experience, not the logical implications of some generalized ideal, had to be our guide to life. He told about teasing his good Baptist grandmother and her conception of a God of Love who could yet condemn unbaptized infants to the torments of Hell.

[…]

Mitchell carried out his scheme and reported his findings, together with his evidence, in a large book with the simple title, Business Cycles. The book began with a summary of earlier work relevant to the subject together with the “speculations” (one of Mitchell’s favorite characterizations of largely theoretical but inadequately verified ideas). He used these as suggestions of subjects needing investigation. There followed Mitchell’s own quantitative studies of these and other subjects: production (agricultural and other), income, sales, retail, wholesale, manufacturing, etc., commodity prices, the prices of stocks and bonds, and the profits and interest rates they paid. Mitchell’s quantitative descriptions involved tracing the fluctuations of the behavior in these activities and of their long-term trend and seasonal fluctuations so that the fluctuations connected with business cycles could be seen free of the influence of trends and seasonal factors. The book ended with a statement of Mitchell’s views of how the concatenation of the behavior of the separate activities led to expansions of business activities in general followed by similarly general contractions, which in turn produced the conditions that generated another business expansion.

Mitchell’s book made a notable impression on economists. This was partly because now, for the first time, students of economics could base their attempts to explain business cycles and to develop a theoretical model based on definite quantitative information about the typical behavior of the major business activities. But it was partly, perhaps mainly, because it gave economists at large a new vision of how economic research could be carried on. It need not mainly consist of logical deductions from a set of preannounced assumptions. It could instead take the form of observed behavior, together with empirical tests of the hypotheses so formed based on fresh observations independent of those from which the hypotheses originally proposed had been drawn. It was this vision of an empirically based economics that was the spirit of the Columbia program, and it stood in sharp contrast to the program at Harvard, where I was introduced to the subject, and, indeed, with the economics then taught in the other leading universities.

I did not give up my allegiance to Harvard easily. Two episodes illustrate my resistance. Mitchell gave a course on business cycles. I chose to take it. It was a course that, in a sense, was a duplicate of his 1913 book, refreshed by data not available in 1913. But as I listened to Mitchell’s “analysis” of one time series after another—amplitude, lead or lag relative to the “reference” peak or trough (that is, relative to the peak or trough of the general business cycle), rates of expansion or contraction in successive thirds of the fluctuations, and more—I could make nothing of it. After some weeks I dropped the course. Mitchell signed the necessary form without demur and, apparently, never held it against me—a characteristic of his liberal and tolerant attitude.

In other respects, my year was pleasant and rewarding. I found Eli Ginzberg and began a lifelong friendship, the closest and most intimate in my life. Like other graduate students, I occupied a “cubicle” on the top floor of the new Butler Library—just enough space for a table, chair, and file cabinet. A friend said: “It’s all right if I am in there alone, but if I get an idea, I have to move into the corridor.” One day, there was a knock on my door, and in walked Eli. He had just returned from a scholarship, traveling the country and interviewing business executives, union bosses, politicians, etc. On his return, he asked Mrs. Stewart, the all-knowing department secretary, what new people were interesting. She mentioned me, and there he was. He sat down and began to tell me about his travels, the first of many sessions on the same subject.

One early reward of my new friendship was to come to know his parents. They occupied an eighth-floor apartment on 114th Street, directly behind the Butler Library. Eli’s father, Louis Ginzberg, was a professor in the Jewish Theological Seminary at 120th Street. He was perhaps the most notable Jewish scholar of his time, a specialist in Talmudic history and interpretation based on a wide knowledge of ancient Middle Eastern languages and in the history of its peoples. Eli began to bring me to their Friday evening suppers. I found old Louis to be a wise and humorous man, a fine companion and host for a pleasant evening.

On one of my first visits, Eli took me into Louis’s study to show me a lampshade that one of Louis’s students had made. The parchment shade was decorated. All around the shade were drawn the spines of books, and on each spine there appeared the title of one of Louis’s books, perhaps 14 or 15 in all. And then the student had an inspiration. He added one more spine and on it drew the title of Eli’s first book, his Ph.D. dissertation, The House of Adam Smith. At the time, we wondered whether Eli could duplicate his Father’s achievement. In fact, he did so many times over, in quantity at least, if not always in depth—something to which Eli did not aspire.

[…]

Now back to my struggle between Harvard and Columbia economics. In that second year at Columbia, the internal conflict found two new exponents. On the Columbia side was Eli. He was someone of great personal interest to me, but as an economist, he was an eccentric. He was a skeptic about anything theoretical and served mainly as an exemplar of Columbia’s tolerance for talent in whatever way it showed itself. On the Harvard side, there now appeared a powerful supporter. He was Milton Friedman, who had come to Columbia on a scholarship for a year of graduate work. We soon became good friends. It emerged that we two were the only Columbia students who had had a real training in neoclassical price theory, the very bedrock of the economics of the time. The faculty, moreover, refused to sanction a course in the subject, and the students realized what they were missing. Milton and I undertook to do something to fill the gap. We organized a student-run seminar, worked out a list of topics, assigned students to prepare papers, and guided the presentation and discussion. The other students benefitted and so did we. We were having our first teaching experience. For the moment, however, it helped keep my mind running in the grooves of my Harvard training

My friendship with Milton was solidified when a Columbia classmate invited us to join him in a long holiday in his family’s fishing camp on the French River in Northern Ontario, still a wild and unsettled area. It turned out, however, that our friend was ordered to work in his family’s business concern for the summer. We were invited to use the camp ourselves, and we did. So we spent a wonderful six weeks together. We drove north in my Model A Ford roadster until we reached a tiny settlement on the French River called Bon Air. There we parked the car at a general store where we hired some cots, some cooking utensils, a gasoline cookstove, and a canoe, and where we bought some canned and packaged foods as well as eggs and Canadian back bacon. The general store owner piled all these objects in his motorboat and, with the canoe in tow, took us out to our camp 3½ miles down the river on a tiny island in the stream. We were the only inhabitants. There he literally threw our stuff on the shore and took his leave. From now on, we had to depend on our canoe to get back and renew supplies at Bon Air.

Neither of us at first knew anything about canoeing, but we had good teachers by example in the Indians from a reservation across the river. Watching them, we soon learned the J stroke and became fairly competent. We canoed to Bon Air twice weekly and soon organized our camp. We had a privy some 50 yards away. We had the usual first experience trying to cook rice, but we learned to get along. We swam twice a day, and, as we gained confidence in the canoe, took overnight canoe trips down the river. These were fun, especially because of occasional rapids which we could run going down the river but had to portage around on the way back. The one thing we did not try was fishing. In fact, we became known along the river as those strange boys who did not fish, so many men returning in the late afternoon would throw us a fish or two. We had a valuable supplement to our diet of canned goods.

The thing we did do all day long, every day, was talk—about everything, but mostly economics. Milton was much less ideological then than he later became, so he was a very pleasant and agreeable companion; that was especially important in 1934, in the depths of the Depression when Roosevelt’s New Deal was just taking shape, when it included so much that was controversial, and when the menace of Hitler was becoming clearly visible.

As things turned out, however, the most important thing for me in that academic year of 1933-34 was the advent of Carrie [whom he would marry]. But that belongs in a chapter of its own.

…When I finished my graduate course work in 1935, I was given an instructorship at Harvard, I owed it to the sponsorship of Ed Mason, my old tutor. With all this arranged, we determined to get married. I was to have a first year to get started at Harvard, and Carrie was to have a year to complete her Columbia course. We would marry in June 1937. We told our parents and friends. Everyone was pleased.

…You will recall that on completing my graduate work at Columbia, I returned to Harvard as an instructor and tutor in 1936. I spent the first year on my own; then, following our marriage, Carrie joined me there. We lived in a comfortable little apartment at 31 Concord Avenue, near the RadcliffeYard.

It turned out to be an unsatisfactory time, which brought each of us into our only serious confrontations with discrimination. For Carrie it was a brush with what would now be called “sexism.” She heard that Wellesley was looking for a young instructor. She thought correctly that her graduate work and teaching experience qualified her. She appeared for an interview, which was conducted by John Dunlop, a Harvard professor. They reviewed her background, and, he conceded, she was qualified. And then he told her, with expressions of regret, that her application could go no further. Wellesley, a women’s college, wanted only a male.

My own problem was an example of that anti-Semitism that still infected Harvard and most other universities. During my time back at Harvard, I had taught Ec A and a course in Labor Market Economics, and I had tutored a full quota of economics majors in my tutorial rooms in Dunster House. I thought it had gone pretty well.

To this I should add the tale of an amusing development. When I returned to Cambridge in September 1937 together with Carrie, I was told by the department chairman that my salary, then $2,500 a year, would be raised by $200. And then he carefully explained that that was not because, as a married man, my expenses were higher. It was because I was married that he could add Radcliffe girls to my list of tutees. Needless to say, the relation of women to men has since changed radically. Harvard and Radcliffe are now fully merged. Women and men are now equally Harvard professors and Harvard students. The days when Radcliffe girls were thought to be at special and intolerable risk if they met an unmarried tutor have long gone.

In the spring of 1938, I received another summons from the chairman [Harold Burbank]. He received me cordially, and after the usual preliminary politenesses, he explained that it was time we discussed my future at Harvard. His opening was itself a warning about what was to come. “Now, Moe, we are both men of the world.” And then he went on to say that I had done well. I had a promising future. “But you must understand; we could not promote Jakey, so you must not expect to stay on here.” I had formed no such expectation, but I understood perfectly. “Jakey” was Jacob Viner, a truly notable economist. He had done brilliant theoretical work early. He was Taussig’s favorite student. Clearly, Harvard’s president at the time was a bar. He would not accept the appointment of Jews, something widely whispered. They might be scholars, but, by Lowell’s Boston Brahmin standards, they could not be gentlemen. So all this was hardly a complete surprise. But my chairman’s quiet but open expression of anti-Semitism was a shock.

I have often wondered whether it was not really a subtle way of ending my appointment without saying that I simply had not measured up. Perhaps, but that could hardly apply to Viner, who went on to do brilliant work, and who ended his career as a colleague of Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. Had a Nobel Prize for Economics existed at the time, he would certainly have been a Nobel laureate.

So I left the interview knowing that I had to make plans to move. My opportunity was not long in coming. Later that same spring, I appeared again at Columbia for the defense of my dissertation, the last step on the way to the doctorate. The committee was chaired by Wesley Mitchell, the man whose course on business cycles I had dropped six year earlier. It made no difference to the examination. Apparently, I passed easily. Indeed my thesis won the Seligman Prize for the best of the year. When the committee adjourned, Mitchell asked me to stay behind. He wanted to ask me whether I would be willing to join the National Bureau to work with him on the Bureau’s business cycles project. My salary would be $3,500 year, a thousand dollars above my Harvard salary. In my circumstances it did not take me long to decide. In a couple of days he had my answer. I would be delighted. So now, after our first summer in Maine, Carrie and I moved to New York. I can guess now how the Bureau appointment had come about. My friend Milton Friedman (see Chapter Six), had just joined the Bureau with an appointment like my own, but to work on another subject. Milton was a friend and also the favorite student of Arthur F. Burns, at the time Mitchell’s chief assistant, who was already the really effective head of the business cycles work. My guess is that Milton became aware of Burns’s interest in finding an associate for business cycles to work especially on the cyclical role of inventories. My dissertation included a chapter on inventories. So he probably told Burns, and then events took their course.

 

Source:  Moses Abramovitz, Days Gone By: A Memoir for my Family (2001), pp. 32-34, 41-49, 77-79. (Link to download the memoir as .pdf)

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Stanford Faculty Memorial Resolution

MOSES ABRAMOVITZ
(1912-2000)

Moses Abramovitz, William Robertson Coe Professor of American Economic History Emeritus, died December 1, 2000, at Stanford University Hospital, just one month before reaching his eighty-ninth birthday.

Known by his family, friends, and colleagues as “Moe,” Abramovitz was one of the primary builders of Stanford’s Department of Economics. He taught at Stanford for almost thirty years, taking leave only during 1962-63 to work as economic advisor to the secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. He served as chair from 1963 to 1965, and from 1971 to 1974, both critical junctures in the department’s history. During his tenure at Stanford and after his retirement in 1976, Moe gained international renown and admiration for his pioneering contributions to the study of long-term economic growth.

Moe was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Romanian Jewish immigrant family. After graduating from Erasmus Hall High School, he entered Harvard in 1928. Like many of his generation, Moe’s interest in economics was stimulated by the experience of the Great Depression. So, in 1932 he continued his undergraduate studies of the subject at Columbia University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1939. At Columbia, Moe began a lifelong friendship with Milton Friedman. In later years, Moe liked to joke that he had been debating with Friedman for more than fifty years, and consistently winning — except when Milton was present. Columbia connections also led Moe to join the National Bureau of Economic Research in 1937, where he helped to launch the business cycle studies for which the Bureau became famous, working with such figures as Wesley Mitchell, Simon Kuznets and Arthur Burns.

Also at Columbia, Moe became re-acquainted with his Erasmus classmate Carrie Glasser, who was also working for her doctoral degree in economics. Moe and Carrie were married in June of 1937, and were devoted to each other until Carrie’s death in October 1999. When Moe came to Stanford in 1948, Carrie began what became a highly satisfying and successful career as a painter, sculptress and collage artist. Their only son, Joel, born in 1946, is a practicing neurosurgeon in Connecticut.

During World War II, Moe served first at the War Production Board, working with Simon Kuznets to analyze the limits of feasible production during wartime. He then moved to the Office of Strategic Services as chief of the European industry and trade section. During 1945 and 1946, he was economic advisor to the United States representative on the Allied Reparations Commission. Moe’s modest but strong character was well displayed in an episode during the postwar reparations debate. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau had proposed a plan to deindustrialize the German economy. An OSS research team headed by Moe wrote a memorandum arguing that this plan would destroy Germany’s capacity to export, leaving it unable to pay for food and other essential imports. At a meeting with Moe and two other OSS economists, Ed Mason and Emile Despres, Morgenthau angrily asked: “Who is responsible for this?” Moe recalled: “Mason looked at Despres, and Emile looked at me. I had no one else to look at. The buck stopped with me. So, rather meekly, I said I was responsible.”

This anecdote and many others may be found in a charming memoir that Moe completed shortly before his death, “Days Gone By,” accessible on the Stanford Economics Department website.

At Stanford Moe began the studies of long-term economic growth that established his reputation among professional economists. A 1956 paper provided the first systematic estimates showing that forces raising the productivity of labor and capital were responsible for approximately half of the historical growth rate of real U.S. GDP, and close to three quarters of the growth rate of real GDP per capita. Subsequently he made seminal contributions in identifying the factors promoting and obstructing convergence in levels of productivity among advanced and developing countries of the world. For these studies and others, Moe received many academic honors. He was elected to the presidency of the American Economic Association (1979-80), the Western Economic Association (1988-89), and the Economic History Association (1992-93). From abroad came honorary doctorates from the University of Uppsala in Sweden (1985), and the University of Ancona in Italy (1992); he took special enjoyment from an invitation to become a fellow of the prestigious Academia Nazionale de Lincei in 1991 — “following Galileo with a lag,” he said, with a characteristic self-deprecatory twinkle.

Committee:

Paul A. David
Ronald McKinnon
Gavin Wright

Source: Stanford Report, July 9, 2003.

Image Source: Harvard Class of 1932, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report (1957).

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Undergraduate course on Money, Banking, and Crises, 1940-41

 

This course was one of the staples of the Harvard undergraduate economics experience. In this year that was to mark the official entry of the United States into the Second World War, we have complete course outlines, assigned readings and exam questions.

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Course Material from the Other Years

1937-38
1938-39 (Paper topics)
1941-42

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Course Description

Economics 41. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructors) Fri., at 2. Professor Williams and Associate Professor Harris.

The course will be conducted by means of lectures and discussions and (in the second half-year) a thesis based on work in the library. Certain subjects, such as monetary and banking history of the United States, will be covered almost wholly by assigned reading.

Source: Harvard University, Division of History, Government, and Economics. Announcement for 1940-41. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), p. 56.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 41. Professor Williams and Associate Professor Harris. — Money Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 107: 3 Graduates, 18 Seniors, 58 Juniors, 27 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1940-41,p. 58.

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Economics 41
[First semester]
1940-41

  1. The nature and function of banking
    1. Dunbar, Theory and History of Banking, Chs. 1,2,3,4, pp. 1-60.
    2. White, Money and Banking, Ch. 16, pp. 349-372.
  2. Creation of Deposits
    1. Phillips, Bank Credit, Ch. 3., pp. 32-77.
    2. Currie, Supply and Control of Money, Chs. 5, 6, 7, pp. pp. 46-83.
  3. Note Issue
    1. Dunbar, op. cit., Ch. 5, pp. 50-81.
    2. Currie, op. cit., Ch. 10, pp. 110-115.
  4. Commercial Loan Theory
    1. Robertson, Money, Ch. 5, pp. 92-117.
    2. Currie, op.  cit., Ch. 4, pp. 34-46.
  5. U.S. Banking history
    1. White, op. cit., Chs. 18-23, pp. 387-529.
  6. The Federal Reserve System
    1. Dunbar, op. cit., Ch. 6, pp. 81-139.
    2. Federal Reserve Bulletin, July 1935: “Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds,” pp. 419-428.
    3. Langum, “The Statement of Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds,” Review of Economic Statistics, August, 1939, pp. 110-115.
    4. Burgess, Federal Reserve Banks and the Money Market, pp. 1-327.
    5. Currie, op. cit., Chs. 8, 9, pp. 83-110.
  7. Recent Banking Changes
    1. White, op. cit., Chs. 29-30, pp. 670-738.
    2. Moulton, Financial Organization and the Economic System, Ch. 5 [or 6?].
  8. Foreign Banking Systems
    1. Dunbar, op. cit., pp. 139-235, Chs. 8, 9, 10.

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Box 2, Folder “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1940-41”.

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Reading Period
Jan. 6-15, 1941
Economics 41

Read one of the following:

  1. Hardy, Federal Reserve Policy.
  2. Hawtrey, Art of Central Banking, pp. 116-303.
  3. Keynes, Treatise on Money, Vol. II, Book VII.
  4. Sprague, Crises under the National Banking System.

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Box 10, Folder “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1940-41”.

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1940-41
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 41

MONEY, BANKING, AND COMMERCIAL CRISES

Please put the day and hour of your section meeting on the cover of your first blue book.

Part I

Answer questions 1 and 5 and one other.

  1. Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds.
    (Figures are net change for year, in millions of dollars.)
Bills discounted -4
Bills bought -1
U.S. government securities -305
Industrial advances -3
Other reserve bank credit +81
Monetary gold stock +4,310
Treasury currency +119
Money in circulation +1,154
Treasury cash and deposits -369
Non-member bank deposits and other Fed. Res. accounts +1,067
Member bank reserve balances ?
  1. State briefly how the above statement of supply and use of member bank reserves funds is derived.
  2. What is the meaning of each of the above items?
  3. Describe the process by which each of the items influences the volume of member bank reserve funds.
  4. By use of a balance sheet, calculate and explain the change in member bank reserve funds for the period in question.
  5. What does the statement suggest with respect to the condition of the money market, member bank policy, and Federal Reserve policy?
  6. To what year or years do you think the statement given might apply?
  1. Discuss the significance of the more important weapons of control of the central bank.
  2. What are the important factors determining the volume of bank deposits:
    1. When a ready market for loans exists and banks are always loaned up?
    2. When banks have excess reserves?
  3. Discuss the 100 per cent reserve plan:
    1. In its relation to the “commercial loan theory” controversy.
    2. In its relation to fluctuations in the volume of deposits.
  4. Reading period. Answer one of the following:
    1. Keynes or Hawtrey: From Keynes’ or Hawtrey’s analysis, would you say that English or American central banking practice provides the more effective monetary control? Support your opinion by reference to your reading.
    2. Hardy: Basing your opinion on Hardy’s discussion, would you say that the credit policies pursued by the Federal Reserve System from 1928 to 1931 were the best possible under the circumstances?
    3. Sprague: Do you find in Sprague’s analysis of crises under the National Banking System reasons for the abandonment of that system in favor of the Federal Reserve System in 1913?

 

Part II

Answer TWO questions.

  1. Discuss the problems of reserves of member banks and of reserve banks in the United States.
  2. Compare the American banking system as it existed under the first and second Bank of the United States with the National Banking System or with the present system. Which system do you think was better adapted to the problems with which it had to deal?
  3. In view of the large excess reserves in existence at the present time, and of other factors in the existing situation, would you favor a return to the currency provisions of the National Banking Act, and extension of similar reserve provisions to bank deposits?
  4. Outline the main revisions of the Federal Reserve Act from 1931 to 1936.
  5. What revisions of the existing banking law seem most essential in view of present and impending economic conditions?
  6. Describe the experiences of the Federal Reserve System in 1914-1921, or in 1922-1929.

Mid-Year. 1941.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Wolfgang F. Stolper Papers, Box 22.

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ECONOMICS 41
Second Semester
1940-41

Outline of Lectures and Readings

Part I. International Aspects of Money (4 weeks)

Lecture

  1. Types of Monetary Standards
  2. Theory of the Gold Standard
  3. The Gold Standard in Practice.
  4. What is to Be Done about Gold?
  5. The Case for Variable exchanges.
  6. Prices under Variable Exchanges.
  7. Stabilisation Funds and Free Exchanges.
  8. Control of Exchanges.

Assignment:
Gayer, Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilisation, pp. 1-180.

Part II. Money in Relation to Prices and the Rate of Interest (4 weeks)

Lecture

  1. Definition of the Price Level.
  2. The Fisherian Approach.
  3. Velocity and Hoarding.
  4. Cambridge Approaches.
  5. Money and Forced Savings.
  6. Money and the Rate of Interest.
  7. Money and the Rate of Interest (cont.).
  8. The Significance of the Rate of Interest.

Assignment:
Chandler, Introduction to Monetary Theory, pp. 1-147.
Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 8-73.
Keynes*, Treatise on Money, Vol. I, Chs. 2-5, 7, 14.
Mises*, Theory of Money and Credit, Part II, Ch. II.
Robertson, Money, chs. 1-3, 6-8.
Schumpeter*, Business Cycles, pp. 449-483.
Wicksell, Interest and Prices, Chs. 5-6, 7-9.

*Important but not assigned.

Part III. Money and the Economic System (4 weeks – 7 lectures)

Lecture

  1. Monetary and Non-Monetary Aspects of Economic Fluctuations.
  2. Objectives and Limitations of Monetary Control.
  3. Supplementary Instruments—Fiscal Policy.
  4. Supplementary Instruments—Fiscal Policy (cont.).
  5. Supplementary Policies—Wage, Price Policies, etc.
  6. The Monetary System under a War or Defense Economy.
  7. Various Proposals to Improve the Monetary System.

Assignment:
Chandler, Introduction to Monetary Theory, pp. 148-205.
Hayek, Profits, Interest and Investment, pp. 1-71.
Hawtrey*, Trade Depression and the Way Out.
Macfie*, Theories of the Trade Cycle, Chs. III-V.
Robbins, The Great Depression, Chs. I, II, III, VII, VIII.
Robertson, Essays on Monetary Theory, pp. 39-67, 98-113, 122-153.
Robinson, Introduction to the Theory of Employment.
Roll*, About Money, pp. 103-248.
Schumpeter, Business Cycles, pp. 109-23.

*Important but not assigned.

 

Reading Period. Read one of the following:

  1. Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Chs. 1-19, omit appendices.
  2. Hawtrey, Capital and Employment, all but Chs. 8, 9, 11.
  3. Hawtrey, Art of Central Banking, Chs. 1, 2, 4, 8.
  4. Durbin, The Problem of Credit Policy.
  5. Hansen, Full Recovery or Stagnation.
  6. Wicksell, Interest and Prices, and Keynes, Treatise, I, Chs. 2-5, 7, 14.
  7. Haberler, Prosperity and Depression (1939 ed.), Part I.
  8. Myers, Monetary Proposals for Social Reform.
  9. Wood, English Theories of Central Banking Control.
  10. Paper Pound of 1797-1821 (Cannan edition), and Heckscher, Sweden in the World War, Part III.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Box 2, Folder “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1940-41”.

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1940-41
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 41

Answer ONE question in each part

Part I

  1. Outline and evaluate alternative solutions of the American gold problem.
  2. What are the relative merits of
    1. An international gold standard?
    2. Free exchanges?
    3. Managed currencies?

Part II

  1. Analyse the factors determining velocity of circulation of money.
  2. What are the main determinants of the general price level according to Fisher, Wicksell, Robertson, and Keynes? Are their approaches incompatible with one another? Which seems to you more valid or useful?

Part III

  1. Do you think the distinction between “monetary” and “non-monetary” theories of the trade cycle is justified, or useful? Illustrate from the literature.
  2. Apply the theories of Keynes or Robbins, or Robertson to the American Economy in one of the following periods:
    1. 1920’s
    2. 1930’s
    3. 1940’s
  3. Are we facing inflation? How can inflation be prevented or controlled?

Part IV (Reading Period)

  1. Show how the material you have covered in your reading period assignment can be applied to current economic problems.

Part V (First Semester)

  1. Discuss the 100% Reserve Plan in relation to the monetary theory of the trade cycle.
  2. Can you suggest any revisions of the Federal Reserve System which would simplify the problems of defense finance?
  3. Assuming borrowing to be a necessary part of our defense finance, analyse in detail the relative merits of borrowing from Federal Reserve Banks, member banks, the general public, and from abroad, at various stages in the defense program.

Final. 1941.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations 1853-2001. Box 14. Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions…, Economics, … , Military Science, Naval Science, May, 1947.

Image Source:  John Henry Williams and Seymour Edwin Harris in Harvard Album 1939.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Year-end exams. Money, Banking, Commercial Crises. Young, 1921-27

 

Today’s artifacts come from the roaring ’20s. Besides his courses in economic theory, Allyn A. Young taught a year long course at Harvard, “Money, Banking and Commercial Crises”. Before presenting enrollment figures and the exams for Young’s Economics 3, I have assembled a chronology that identifies the course instructors over the entire period 1911-1946. Links are provided to the related artifacts that have been transcribed here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. 

The chronology is followed by Young’s course description for 1924-25. Presumably there was a mid-year exam for the course, but these were not included in the printed collection of final course examinations. It is possible that the questions have been limited to the second-semester’s course content. This is something that definitely deserves checking.

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Chronology of the Harvard economics course
“Money, Banking and Commercial Crises”

This two semester course was the product of merging the one semester course “Commercial Crises and Cycles of Trade” (Economics 12) with the two semester sequence “Money” and “Banking and Foreign Exchange” (Economics 8a and 8b, respectively).

The new course “Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises” (Economics 8, then 3, and later 41) was a staple of economics course offerings for the next 35 years.

Economics 8

1911-12 taught by E.E. Day

Economics 3

1912-13, 1913-14 taught by E.E. Day.

Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises (1914-15) taught by Benjamin M. Anderson.

1915-16 taught by Norman John Silberling

Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises (1917-18) taught by Benjamin M. Anderson.

1918-19, 1919-20 taught by A. E. Monroe.

1920-21 through 1926-27 taught by Allyn A. Young. Year-end exams transcribed below.

1927-28 through 1931-32 taught by John H. Williams

1932-33 taught by John H. Williams, Joseph Schumpeter and Lauchlin Currie.

1933-34 [course title: Money, Banking, and Cycles] Seymour Harris

1934-35, 1935-36 taught by John H. Williams and Seymour Harris

Economics 41

1936-37  taught by John H. Williams and Seymour Harris

Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises (1937-38) John H. Williams and Richard V. Gilbert.

1938-39 to 1941-42 taught by John H. Williams and Seymour Harris

1942-43, 1943-44 taught by Alvin Hansen and John H. Williams

1944-45 first semester taught by Schumpeter, second semester by Hansen and Williams

1945-46 Economics 41 morphed back into a two semester course “Money and Banking” taught by John H. Williams with a new one term course “Business Cycles” taught by Alvin Hansen.

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Course Description, 1924-25

[Economics] 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Young.

In this course money and credit will be studied with special reference to the part they play in the present economic system. The principal problems of public policy with respect to the control of money and banking will be discussed. Foreign exchange, organized speculation in its relation to the money market, and the characteristic phenomena of commercial crises will be considered in some detail. The course will be conducted by means of lectures, discussions, frequent short reports or exercises on assigned topics, and (in the second half-year) a thesis based on work in the library. Certain subjects, such as the monetary and banking history of the United States, will be covered almost wholly by assigned reading, tested by written papers.

Source:  Division of History, Government and Economics 1924-25 published in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. 21, No. 22 (April 30, 1924), p. 67.

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Enrollment, 1920-21

[Economics] 3. Professor Young —Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 148: 6 Graduates, 34 Seniors, 67 Juniors, 26 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 30 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1920-21, p. 19.

 

Year-end examination, 1920-21
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

  1. What is a dollar?
  2. In what manner and why were bank reserves inelastic under the national banking system? What were the consequences?
  3. Discuss the relation of overproduction to crises, distinguishing carefully different types of overproduction.
  4. Outline the sequence of events in a typical business cycle.
  5. Define: federal reserve bank note, gold-exchange standard, “value of money.”
  6. In what different ways may federal reserve notes be issued?
  7. Explain and discuss the “equation of exchange.”
  8. Describe and explain the dominating position the London money market held before the war.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1921 (HUC 7000.28, No. 63), Papers Set for Final Examinations [in] History, Church History,…,Economics,…, Fine Arts, Music. June, 1921, p. 56.

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Course announcement, 1921-22

[Economics] 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 1.30. Professor Young.

Source:  Harvard University, Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year, 1921-22 (Third Edition),p. 109.


Year-end examination, 1921-22
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

  1. Draw up a statement showing the condition of a national bank. Explain the meaning of the various items.
  2. Under what conditions is a large surplus an indication of a bank’s strength? How may it be an indication of weakness?
  3. To what classes of persons are rising prices advantageous? To what classes are they disadvantageous?
  4. Define: gold exchange standard, banker’s acceptance, finance bill, bimetallism, index number.
  5. What do you take to have been the causes of the fall of prices between 1874 and 1896?
  6. Why were “surplus reserves” under the national banking system normally exceedingly small?
  7. State and explain the Ricardian theory of gold movements. Are the recent movements of gold from Europe to the United States explainable by the Ricardian principle?
  8. What relation was there between the Bank Act of 1844 and the controversies of the restriction period?
  9. If the weight of the gold dollar were reduced by half would prices be doubled? Explain your reasoning.
  10. “The bulk of the acceptance business arising out of the foreign trade of the entire world has for many years been conducted in London.” Explain what this statement means and why it is true.

Final. 1922

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1922 (HUC 7000.28, No. 64), Papers Set for Final Examinations[in] History, Church History,…,Economics,…, Social Ethics, Education. June, 1922.

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Enrollment, 1922-23

[Economics] 3. Professor Young—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 129: 6 Graduates, 33 Seniors, 75 Juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 3 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1922-23, p. 92.


Year-end examination, 1922-23
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

  1. Define: money of account, standard of deferred payments, inflation, gold-exchange standard, discounting.
  2. Give an account of the life-history of a typical commercial long bill of exchange, as used in international trade.
  3. Discuss the nature and significance of the par of exchange between two countries when one has a gold standard and the other has (a) a gold standard, (b) a silver standard, (c) inconvertible paper.
  4. Is New York City likely to become the center of the world’s foreign exchange markets? Discuss.
  5. In what ways are federal reserve notes and clearing-house loan certificates alike? In what ways are they unlike?
  6. Professor W. C. Mitchell holds that prosperity breeds a crisis because of (a) the gradual increase in the costs of doing business, and (b) the accumulating tension of the investment and money markets. Explain and discuss.
  7. Was the federal reserve system responsible for the rise of prices between 1917 and 1920 and for the subsequent drop? Discuss.
  8. In what ways do the federal reserve banks effect (a) regional and (b) national clearings?
  9. On what grounds is it generally held that a larger use of bank acceptances in this country is desirable?

Final. 1923.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1923 (HUC 7000.28, No. 65), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions,…,Economics,…, Social Ethics, Anthropology. June, 1923.

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Enrollment, 1923-24

[Economics] 3. Professor Young—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 119: 2 Graduates, 25 Seniors, 81 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 5 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1923-24, p. 106.

 

Year-end examination, 1923-24
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

Answer nine questions.

  1. Explain the first and either the second or the third of these theories of the business cycle: (1) the “banking theory”; (2) Hobson’s theory of over-saving; (3) Fisher’s theory of the lagging adjustment of interest.
  2. “It thus appears that the Bank of England’s official rate is often through long periods a mere empty symbol, leaving no actual relation to the real price of money in London; and only becomes effective, and a factor in the monetary position when…” When?
  3. Draw up a statement showing the principal items which enter into the balance of payments.
  4. What conditions must be fulfilled if New York is to become the center of the world’s foreign exchange markets?
  5. State and discuss the doctrine of purchasing-power parity.
  6. Discuss the open-market operations of the federal reserve banks, with special reference to (a) the provisions of the law, (b) the purposes of such operations, (c) their relation to possible changes in prevalent types of commercial paper.
  7. Why did national bank notes constitute an inelastic currency? in just what manner do federal reserve notes constitute an elastic currency?
  8. Discuss the effect of organized speculation on prices, taking account of the fact that different types of price variations cover different periods of time.
  9. G. Moulton lists as “fallacies,” (1) the notion that a nation’s capacity to pay a foreign debt (such as reparations) is measured by the excess of its annual production over its annual consumption, and (2) the notion that a country can pay such a debt by selling securities to other countries. Do you agree? Explain.
  10. “In the main, banks do not lend their deposits, but rather, by their own extensions of credit, create the deposits.” Explain.

Final. 1924.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1924 (HUC 7000.28, No. 66), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions,…, Economics,…, Psychology, Social Ethics. June, 1924.

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Enrollment, 1924-25

[Economics] 3. Professor Young—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 111: 1 Graduate, 22 Seniors, 72 Juniors, 12 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 3 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1924-25, p. 75.

 

Year-end examination, 1924-25
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

Answer eight questions.

  1. Some writers hold that business cycles are caused by the expansion and contraction of bank credit. Why and how, in their view, does bank credit expand and contract?
  2. “A country can pay a foreign debt only by exporting more than it imports.” Explain and discuss critically.
  3. What was the major defect of the old national banking system?
  4. Define: rediscount, trust company, par collections, gold standard, purchasing power parity.
  5. “The Bank of England has power to exert a decisive influence over the magnitude of the gold movements to and from England.”—Furniss.
  6. What are the distinguishing characteristics (economic or legal, not physical characteristics) of the following types of money: silver dollars, United States notes, national bank notes, federal reserve notes?
  7. What are the prerequisites to the stabilizing of a depreciated paper currency?
  8. In what measure was the federal reserve system responsible for the rapid rise of prices in 1919 and 1920 and for the subsequent collapse?
  9. The federal reserve banks hold nearly $3,000,000,000 in gold, amounting to about 75 per cent of their liability on account of deposits and note issues combined, and constituting a large idle investment. Under what conditions would a considerable part of this gold be exported to other countries?

Final. 1925.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1925 (HUC 7000.28, No. 67), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History of Science, History, …, Economics,…, Anthropology, Military Science. June, 1925.

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Enrollment, 1925-26

[Economics] 3. Professor Young—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 110: 31 Seniors, 64 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 6 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1925-26, p. 77.

 

Year-end examination, 1925-26
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

Answer eight questions.

  1. Define deposits, discount, monetary standard, bimetallism.
  2. Formulate the “quantity theory” in any way that you prefer, and discuss it critically.
  3. A Brazilian firm draws a 90-day bill upon a London banker on account of a shipment of coffee to Boston.

(1) Why should the London bill be preferred to a bill upon New York or Boston?
(2) What is done with the bill after it reaches London?
(3) How is the bill finally settled?

  1. Some writers hold that when a government issues inconvertible paper money it obtains what is virtually a “forced loan.” Others hold that such an issue is more like taxation. What is your opinion, and why?
  2. Give an account of one of the following:

The socialist theory of crises.
Hobson’s theory of over-saving.
The “banking theory” of crises.

  1. Explain briefly the meaning of any two of the following phrases:

Par-collections controversy.
Open market policy.
Gold settlement fund.
Rediscounting

  1. Compare the Bank of England and either the Bank of France or the Reichsbank with respect to

(a) restrictions on note issue;
(b) discount policy.

  1. Was the federal reserve system responsible for the inflation of 1919-20 and the ensuing collapse? Explain.
  2. Just why, in your opinion, did the mark (or the franc, or the greenback) depreciate?

Final. 1926.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1926 (HUC 7000.28, No. 68), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics,…, Social Ethics, Military Science. June, 1926.

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Enrollment, 1926-27

[Economics] 3. Professor Young and Mr. Marget.—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 125: 2 Graduates, 27 Seniors, 74 Juniors, 14 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 6 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1926-27, p. 74.

 

Year-end examination, 1926-27
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

Answer eight questions.

  1. Explain and discuss critically some form of the “banking” or “credit” theory of business cycles.
  2. “If prices are rising” Hawtrey observes, “the mere holding of commodities in stock yields an additional profit over and above the usual dealer’s percentage on the turn-over. If traders are to be deterred from borrowing money to buy commodities, the rate of discount must be high enough to offset the additional profit. But, it may be asked, how is this possible when prices are rising at the rate of 30 per cent per annum?” Hawtrey’s answer? Your own?
  3. Discuss critically either (a) Fisher’s proposals for stabilizing the price level, or (b) proposals for attaining the same end by controlling the supply of bank credit.
  4. Select two of the following and discuss their significance as “causes” of the depreciation of inconvertible paper money: (1) excessive quantity; (2) ultimate redemption uncertain; (3) unbalanced budget; (4) adverse balance of foreign payments; (5) speculation.
  5. Define: rediscounts, purchasing-power parity, invisible exports, monetary standard, par collections.
  6. Compare the note-issue system of the Bank of England (as established by the Act of 1844) with the note-issue system of the federal reserve banks, with particular reference to (a) separation of “banking” and “issue” departments, and (b) the type of assets by which the notes are “covered.”
  7. In what way or ways do purchases and sales of government securities in the New York money market by the federal reserve banks affect the state of that market?
  8. If you were Dictator of France, and took account of considerations of justice as well as of expediency, would you plan to stabilize the franc at its present (gold) value? Or would you plan for a gradual recovery of its pre-war value? Why?
  9. Discuss the relation of international gold movements to changes of (a) relative price levels, (b) relative discount rates.

Final. 1927.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1927 (HUC 7000.28, No. 69), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics,…, Social Ethics, Military Science. June, 1927.

Image Source: Allyn Young in Harvard Classbook 1925.

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Principles of Money and Banking. Reading lists and semester exams. Williams and Hansen, 1949-50

 

Money and Banking was a graduate field that John H. Williams and Alvin Hansen dominated for over a decade at mid-20th century Harvard. Reading lists and exams for other years (e.g. 1946-47) have been posted, allowing us gradually to get a real time sense of the evolution of that field. This post was updated March 27, 2020 to include the final exam from the second semester.

Most recently course materials for 1941-42 have been posted as well.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 241 (formerly Economics 141a and 141b). Principles of Money and Banking.

(F) Professor J. H. Williams; (Sp) Professor Hansen.

(F) Total 61:  33 Graduates, 1 Senior, 21 Public Administration, 5 Radcliffe, 1 Other.
(S) Total 54: 31 Graduates, 18 Public Administration, 2 Radcliffe, 3 Others.

 

Source:  Report of the President of Harvard College, 1949-50, p. 75.

 

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PRINCIPLES OF MONEY AND BANKING
Economics 241
Fall Term—1949-1950

I. International Monetary Theory and Policy

Books

  1. American Economic Association (H. S. Ellis and L. A. Metzler, eds.): Readings in the Theory of International Trade.Philadelphia, Blakiston, 1948.
  2. Graham, Frank D.: The Theory of International Values. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1948.
  3. Harris, S. E. (ed.): Foreign Economic Policy for the United States. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1948.
  4. Harris, S. E. (ed.): The New Economics. New York, Knopf, 1947.
    1. Bloomfield, A. I., “Foreign Exchange Rate Theory and Policy,” Chapter XXII; and
    2. Nurkse, Ragnar, “Domestic and International Equilibrium,” Chapter XXI.
  5. Harrod, Roy F.: Are These Hardships Necessary?London, Rupert Hart-Davis, 2nd, 1947.
  6. Keynes, J. M.: A Treatise on Money. New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1930, Vol. I, Chapter 21; Vol. II, Chapters 34-38.
  7. Nurkse, Ragnar: International Currency Experience. Geneva, League of Nations, 1944.
  8. Organisation for European Economic Co-operation:Interim Report on the European Recovery Programme.Paris, December 1948.
  9. United Nations, Economic Commission for Europe:
    1. Survey of Economic Situation and Prospects in Europe. Geneva, March 1948.
    2. Economic Survey of Europe in 1948. Geneva, 1949.
  10. Williams, John H.: Post-War Monetary Plans and Other Essays.English edition. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 4th, 1949 (American edition. New York, Knopf, 3rded., 1947).

Articles

  1. Balogh, T.: “The Concept of a Dollar Shortage,” The Manchester School, XVII, May 1949, pp. 186-201.
  2. _______________ “Britain’s Economic Problem,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LXIII, Feb. 1949, pp. 32-67.
  3. _______________ “Britain, O.E.E.C., and the Restoration of a World Economy,” Bulletinof the Oxford Institute of Statistics, XI, Feb.-March 1949.
  4. _______________ “Exchange Depreciation and Economic Readjustment,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXX, Nov. 1948, pp. 276-285.
  5. _______________ “The United States and the World Economy,” Bulletinof the Oxford Institute of Statistics, VIII, Oct. 1946.
  6. Ellis, H. S.: “The Dollar Shortage in Theory and Fact,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XIV, Aug. 1948, pp. 358-372.
  7. Graham, F. D.: “The Cause and Cure of ‘Dollar Shortages’,” (Essays in International Finance, No. 10). Princeton, Princeton University Press, Jan. 1949.
  8. Haberler, G.: “Some Economic Problems of the European Recovery Program,” American Economic Review, XXXVIII, Sept. 1948, pp. 495-525.
  9. Hawtrey, R. G.: “The Function of Exchange Rates,” Oxford Economic Papers, I, June 1949, pp. 145-56, and “A Comment” by Sir H. D. Henderson, Ibid., pp. 157-158.
  10. Henderson, Sir Hubert D.: “The International Problem,” (Stamp Memorial Lecture). London, Oxford University Press, 1946.
  11. _______________ “The Function of Exchange Rates,” Oxford Economic Papers, I, January 1949.
  12. _______________ “A Criticism of the Havana Charter,” American Economic Review, XXXIX, June 1949, pp. 605-17.
  13. Keynes, J. M.:“The Balance of Payments of the United States,” Economic Journal, LVI, June 1946, pp. 172-87.
  14. _______________ “National Self-sufficiency,” The Yale Review, XXII, Summer 1933.
  15. MacDougall, D. A.: “Further Notes on Britain’s Bargaining Power,” Oxford Economic Papers, I, Jan. 1949.
  16. _______________ “Britain’s Foreign Trade Problem,” Economic Journal, LVII, March 1947, pp. 69-113; and “A Reply (to T. Balogh), Ibid., LVIII, March 1948, pp. 96-98.
  17. _______________“Britain’s Bargaining Power,” Economic Journal, LVI, March 1946.
  18. _______________ “Notes on Non-discrimination,” Bulletinof the Oxford Institute of Statistics, IX, Nov. 1947.
  19. Meade, J. E.: “National Income, National Expenditure and the Balance of Payments,” Parts I-II, Economic Journal, LVII, Dec. 1948, and LVIII, March 1949.
  20. Metzler, L. A.:“The Theory of International Trade,” Chap. 6 in A Survey of Contemporary Economics(ed. by H. S. Ellis) Philadelphia, Blakiston, 1948.
  21. Mikesell, R. F.: “International Disequilibrium,” ,” American Economic Review, XXXIX, June 1949, ppp. 618-45
  22. Nurkse, Ragnar: “International Monetary Policy and the Search for economic Stability,” American Economic Review, XXXVII, May 1947, pp. 560-80.
  23. Polak, J. J.: “Exchange Depreciation and International Monetary Stability,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXIX, Aug. 1947, pp. 173-83.
  24. Robertson, D. H.: “Britain and European Recovery,” Lloyds Bank Review, July 1949, pp. 1-13.
  25. Triffin, Robert: “National Central Banking and the International Economy,”; see also comments by G. Haberler and L. A. Metzler, Postwar Economic Studies, No. 7. Washington, D. C. 1947; and further comments by H. D. Henderson, T. Balogh, R. Harrod, and Joan Robinson, Review of Economic Studies, XIV, 1946-47, pp. 53-97.
  26. Williams, J. H.: “The Task of Economic Recovery,” Foreign Affairs, July 1948.
  27. _______________ “Europe After 1952: The Long-term Problem,” Foreign Affairs, April 1949.
  28. _______________ “The British Crisis. A Problem in Economic Statesmanship,” Foreign Affairs, October 1949.

 

II. Monetary and Fiscal Theory and Policy

Books

  1. American Economic Association (H. S. Ellis, ed.): A Survey of Contemporary Economics. Philadelphia, Blakiston, 1948.
  2. _______________ (W. Fellner and B. F. Haley, eds.): Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution.Philadelphia, Blakiston, 1946.
  3. _______________ (G. Haberler, ed.): Readings in Business Cycle Theory. Philadelphia, Blakiston, 1944.
  4. Fellner, William: Monetary Policies and Full Employment. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2nd, 1947.
  5. Haberler, G.: Prosperity and Depression. Geneva, United Nations, rev. ed., 1946.
  6. Hansen, A. H.: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles. New York, Norton, 1941.
  7. _______________ Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy, New York, McGraw Hill, 1949.
  8. Harris, S. E. (ed.): The New Economics, New York, Knopf, 1947.
  9. Harrod, R. F.: Towards a Dynamic Econmics, London, Macmillan, 1948.
  10. Hawtrey, R. O.: Currency and Credit, London, Longmans, 3rd, 1928.
  11. _______________ Capital and Employment, London, Longmans, 2nd
  12. _______________ The Art of Central Banking, London, Longmans, 1932.
  13. Hayek, F. A. von: Prices and Production. London, Routledge, 1935.
  14. Keynes, J. M.: A Tract on Monetary Reform, New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1924.
  15. _______________ A Treatise on Money(2 vols.). New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1930.
  16. _______________ The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1936.
  17. Klein, L. R.: The Keynesian Revolution. New York, Macmillan, 1946.
  18. Robertson, D. H.: Essays in Monetary Theroy.London, King, 1940.
  19. _______________ Money. London, Nisbet, rev. ed., 1948.
  20. Simons, H. C.: Economic Policy for a Free Society, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1948.
  21. Terborgh, George: The Bogey of Economic Maturity. Chicago, Machinery and Allied Products Institute, 1945.
  22. Wicksell, Knut: Interest and Prices. London, Macmillan, 1936.
  23. Wright, D. M. The Economics of Disturbance. New York, Macmillan, 1946.

Articles

  1. Burns, Arthur F.: “Economic Research and the Keynesian Thinking of Our Times,” (26thAnnual Report). New York, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1947.
  2. _______________ “Keynesian Economics Once Again,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXIX, Nov. 1947, pp. 252-265.
  3. Clark, Colin: “Public Finance and Changes in the Value of Money,” Economic Journal, LV, Dec. 1945, pp. 371-89.
  4. Hayek, F. A. von: “The ‘Paradox’ of Saving,” Economica, XI, March 1931, pp. 125-69. (Reprinted as an Appendix in Profits, Interest and Investment, London, Routledge, 1939).
  5. Hicks, J. R.: “Mr. Keynes and the Classics: A Suggested Interpretation,” Econometrica, V, 1937 (Reprinted in Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution. Philadelphia, Blakiston, 1946).
  6. Kuznets, Simon: Book Review: “Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles” by A. H. Hansen, Review of Economics and Statistics, Feb. 1942, pp. 31-36.
  7. _______________ “Capital Formation, 1879-1938,” in Studies in Economics and Industrial Relations. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1941.
  8. Mints, L. W. and others: “A Symposium on Fiscal and Monetary Policy,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXVIII, May 1946, pp. 60-84.
  9. Modigliani, F.: “Liquidity Preference and the Theory of Interest,” Econometrica, XII, Jan. 1944, pp. 45-88.
  10. _______________ “Fluctuations in the Saving-income Ratio: A Problem in Economic Forecasting,” Studies in Income and Wealth, XI. New York, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1949.
  11. Tobin, James: “Liquidity Preference and Monetary Policy,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXIX, May 1947, pp. 124-31.
  12. Wallich, H. C.: “Public Debt and Income Flow,” in Postwar Economic Studies, No. 3. Washington, D.C., Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Dec. 1945, pp. 84-100.
  13. _______________ “The Changing Significance of the Interest Rate,” American Economic Review, XXXVI, Dec. 1946, pp. 761-87.
  14. Williams, John H.: “An Appraisal of Keynesian Economics,” American Economic Review, Supplement, XXXVIII, May 1948.
  15. Wright, D. M.: “The Future of Keynesian Economics,” American Economic Review, XXXV, June 1945, pp. 284-307.

 

III. Current Problems and Policies—Federal Reserve Policy and Debt Management

Book

  1. Homan, P. T. and F. Machlup (eds.): Financing American Prosperity. New York, Twentieth Century Fund, 1945.

Articles

  1. Carr, Hobart C.: “The Problem of Bank-held Government Debt,” American Economic Review, XXXVI, Dec. 1946, pp. 833-42.
  2. Chandler, L. V.: “Federal Reserve Policy and the Federal Debt,” American Economic Review, XXXIX, March 1949.
  3. Federal Reserve Board:
    1. Annual Reports for the years 1945-48.
    2. Postwar Economic Studies, No. 8, Nov. 1947.
  4. Ratchford, B. U. “The Economic and Monetary Effects of Public Debts,” Public Finance, [sic, “The Monetary Effects of Public Debts,” Openbare Financiën] No. 4, 1948 and No. 1, 1949.
  5. Seltzer, L. H.: “The Changed Environment of Monetary-banking Policy,” American Economic Review, XXXVI, May 1946.
  6. _______________ “Is a Rise in Interest Rates Desirable or Inevitable?” American Economic Review, XXXV, Dec. 1945, pp. 831-50.
  7. Sproul, Allan: “Monetary Management and Credit Control,” American Economic Review, XXXVII, June 1947, pp. 339-50.
  8. Symposium: “How to Manage the National Debt,” Review of Economics and Statistics, XXXI, Feb. 1949.
  9. Whittlesey, C. R.: “Federal Reserve Policy in Transition,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, LX, May 1946, pp. 340-50.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003, Box 5, Folder “Economics, 1949-50 (3 of 3)”.

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1949-50
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 241
PRINCIPLES OF MONEY AND BANKING

Mid-Year Examination. January, 1950.

(Three Hours)

Discuss ONE question in EACH group.

I

(1) “Hawtrey was never a Keynesian, but Keynes was formerly a Hawtreyan.”
(2) The relation of Keynes’ income theory to the quantity theory of money.
(3) The propensity to consume.

 

II

(1) Fixed versus flexible exchange rates.
(2) Classical international trade theory and the problems of the postwar world.

 

III

(1) The sterling problem since the war.
(2) “Chronic dollar shortage.”
(3) Western European “integration.”
(4) Devaluation and European recovery.
(5) The Intra-European Payments Plan.
(6) Europe after 1952: the long-term recovery problem.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Final Exams—Social Sciences, etc. Feb. 1950. (HUC 7000.38, 81 of 284).

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[PRINCIPLES OF MONEY AND BANKING]
Reading List
[Economics 241, Spring 1949-50]
[Professor Hansen]

  1. The Role of Money in Current World Developments
    1. Books
      1. Balogh, T., Dollar Crisis: Causes and Cure, (Blackwell), 1949.
      2. Busschau, W. J., The Measure of Gold, (Central New Agency, Ltd.) South Africa, 1949.
      3. Goldenweiser, E. A., Monetary Management, (McGraw-Hill), N.Y., 1949. Chapters IV and VIII.
      4. Harris, S. E., The New Economics, (Knopf), N.Y. 1947. Chapters 20-29.
      5. Harris, S. E., Foreign Economics Policy of the United States, (Harvard University Press), 1948, Chapters 18-25.
      6. Williams, John H., Postwar Monetary Plans, (Knopf), 1947 or English edition (Blackwell), 1949.
    2. Pamphlets
      1. Inflationary and Deflationary Tendencies, 1946-48(United Nations), Department of Economic Affairs, 1949.
      2. International Capital Movements during the Inter-war Period, (United Nations), Department of Economic Affairs, 1949.
    3. Articles
      1. Burns, A. R., Lutz, F. A., and Clough, S. B., “The European Program in Operation,” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, January 1950.
      2. Robbins, Lionel, “The Sterling Problem,” Lloyds Bank Review, October, 1949.
      3. Robertson, D. H., “Britain and European Recovery,” Lloydds Bank Review, July, 1949.
      4. Sayers, R. S. “Central Banking in the Light of Recent British and American Experience,”Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1949.
  2. Theory of Money, Liquidity Preference, Interest, Wages and Prices
    1. Books
      1. Clark, Kaldor, Smithies, et al., National and International Measures for Full Employment, (United Nations), Department of Economic Affairs, December 1949.
      2. Ellis, H. S., (ed.), Survey of Contemporary Economics, (Blakiston), Philadelphia, 1948, Chapter 2 “Employment Theory”, by Fellner.
      3. Fellner, William, Monetary Policies and Full Employment, Berkeley, 1946. Chapter 6, (pp. 174-209).
      4. Hansen, Alvin H.
        1. Economic Policy and Full Employment, (McGraw-Hill), 1947. Chapters 18, 19, and 22, (pp. 202-232, 261-287).
        2. Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, (Norton), 1941. Chapters 1-5; 11-15; (pp. 13-105; 225-338).
        3. Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy, (McGraw-Hill), 1949.
      5. Harris, S. E., (ed.), The New Economics, (Knopf), 1947. Part III (The General Theory: Five Views; Chapters XI-XV).
      6. Keynes, J. M., Monetary Reform, (Harcourt), 1924, pp. 81-95; pp. 152-191.
      7. Keynes, J. M., A Treatise on Money, (Harcourt), 1930, Chapters 9-13 and 30 (Volume I, pp. 123-220; Volume II, pp. 148-208).
      8. Keynes, J. M., General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, (Harcourt), 1936, pp. 3-45; 61-65; 74-221; 245-271; 292-332; 372-384.
      9. Klein, Lawrence, The Keynesian Revolution, Chapters 1-3, (pp. 1-90) Macmillan, 1947.
      10. Marshall, Alfred, Money, Credit and Commerce, (Macmillan), 1923. Book I, Chapter IX, pp. 38-50.
      11. Robertson, D. H. Essays in Monetary Theory(King), 1940. Chapters 1, 6, 11; (pp. 1-38; 92-97; 113-153).
      12. Wicksell, K., Interest and Prices(Macmillan), 1936; Introduction by Bertil Ohlin; also Author’s Preface; Chapters 5, 7-8, 11; (pp. 38-50; 81-121; 165-177).
      13. Wicksell, K., Money: Lectures on Political Economy, Volume II, (Macmillan), 1935, Chapter IV (pp. 127-222).
      14. Income, Employment and Public Policy, (Norton), 1948, Chapter VI, “The Simple Mathematics of Income Determination,” by Paul Samuelson.
      15. Macmillan Report, Royal Commission on Finance and Industry, Cmd., 3897 (1931), Part I, Chapter 11, (pp. 92-105).
      16. The Economic Report of the President, January 1950.
    2. Articles
      1. Hansen, A. H., and Burns, Arthur F., “Keynesian Economics Once Again,” Review of Economics Statistics, Nov. 1947.
      2. Hansen, A. H., “The Robertsonian and Swedish Systems of Period Analysis,” Review of Economics and Statistics, Feb. 1950.
      3. Hicks, J. R., “Mr. Keynes and the Classics: A Suggested Interpretation,” Econometrica, April 1937.
      4. Lerner, A. P., “Interest and Theory: Supply and Demand for Loans or Supply and Demand for Cash,” Review of Economics and Statistics, May 1944.
      5. Modigliani, F., “Liquidity Preferences and the Theory of Interest and Money,” Econometrica, January 1944.
      6. Mints, Hansen, Ellis, Lerner, Kalecki, “A Symposium on Fiscal and Monetary Policy,” Review of Economic Statistics, May 1946.
      7. Scott, Ira O. Jr., “Professor Leontief on Lord Keynes,” and “Comments” by Professors Leontief and Haberler, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1949.
      8. Simons, H. C., “Debt Policy and Banking Policy,” Review of Economic Statistics, May 1946.
      9. Tobin, James, “Liquidity Preference and Monetary Policy,” The Review of Economic Statistics, May 1947.
      10. Williams, John H., “An Appraisal of Keynesian Economics,” American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May 1948, pp. 273-290.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003, Box 5, Folder “Economics, 1949-50 (3 of 3)”.

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1949-50
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 241

Principles of Money and Banking
Final Examination (June, 1950)

(Three Hours)

Answer any FOUR questions.

I.

Discuss:

(a) the causes of the increase in the quantity of money (currency and deposits) in:

(1) the Thirties,
(2) the Second World War; and

(b) appraise the role of this increase:

(1) in the rise in income from 1933 to 1937; and
(2) in war-time financing.

II.

Compare the monetary theories of Wicksell and Marshall (or more broadly the Cambridge cash-balance approach).

III.

“An increase in the quantity of money is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the expansion of income and employment.” Show carefully why you agree, partially agree, or disagree in whole or in part with this statement. Give a technical discussion in terms of modern monetary theory.

IV.

Discuss and evaluate Treasury and Federal Reserve policies after 1945 with respect to

(a) inflation,
(b) interest rates,
(c) debt management,
(d) full employment.

V.

Discuss the changing role of Central Banking:

(a) in the 19th century,
(b) in the nineteen-twenties, and
(c) following the Second World War.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations, 1853-2001, Bound Volume Final Exams—Social Sciences June 1940 (HUC 7000.28, 84 of 284), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …,Military Science, Naval Science. June, 1950.

Image Source: Alvin H. Hansen and John H. Williams in Harvard Class Album 1942.