Yale. American Economic History. Topics and final exam. Parker and Joskow, 1972

 

If my extremely fuzzy recollection of the graduate course in American economic history taught at Yale in the spring semester of 1972 by William Parker and Paul Joskow is to be trusted, many if not most of the readings came from these two texts:

• American Economic Growth: An Economist’s History of the United States, Lance E. Davis, Richard A. Easterlin and William N. Parker (editors). New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
• Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman (eds.). The Reinterpretation of American History. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

The topical outline and final examination questions for the course are transcribed below. 

One of the graduate students taking the course was the brilliant Willem Buiter who left a deep impression (that was probably reinforced and made permanent by Robert Solow having taught the Cowles Foundation Discussion paper by Tobin and Buiter (1974) to my cohort at M.I.T.). 

Careful readers will note the distinctly Yale custom of not displaying academic rank. We addressed our professors with Mr./Miss/Mrs./Ms. [it was a transition time for gender honorifics].

William Parker had a well-honed wit. His Adam-Smith inspired lyrics to the tune of the evergreen spiritual “Rock of Ages” has been posted earlier here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Economics 133b—American Economic History
Spring 1972

Mr. Parker
Mr. Joskow

Schedule of Topics

1. Establishing the National Economy
   1. The colonial economy.
   2. Problems of colonial and early national policy
   3. Regional economies to the Civil War
2. Natural Sources of National Wealth
   4. Relations between Resources and Technology
   5. Population Growth and Organization of Labor Force
3. The Process of Extensive Expansion
   6. Westward Movement and Agrarian Expansion
   7. Extension of Transportation and its Effects
4. The Growth of Manufactures
   8. Expansion and Transformation of Light Industries
   9. Heavy Industry: Shifts in Location and Scale
5. Economic Organization within the Market Economy
   10. Money, Finance and Controls over Investment
   11. The U.S. in the International Economy
   12. Economic Fluctuations through the Great Depression
6. Non-market Organization and Controls
   13. Large Organizations in the American Economy
   14. Political Issues and Public Policies

 

Economics 133b
Final Examination
May 17, 1972

Take any three questions including at least one from each Part of the examination.

I.

1. Trace the major developments in the economic history of one of the three major regions of the United States from 1750 through the 1830’s.
2. What problems appear in measuring the economic growth of the United States before 1860? Distinguish between problems of source materials and problems of definition and concepts. What do the data most probably show about the growth rate between 1800 and 1850?
3. The major sources of growth of agricultural productivity are: (1) Westward movement to new lands, (2) regional specialization deriving from market growth and transport improvements, (3) technical change. Discuss the influence of any one of these sources on agricultural productivity in 19^thCentury United States.
4. “Government policy toward the economy before 1860 was not controlled by the philosophical issue of laissez-faire vs. intervention, but by the political issue of federal-state relations.” Discuss with reference to specific policy areas (land policy, banking, tariffs, public works, etc.)
5. Slavery and cotton go together in the sense that neither could have flourished in the South without the other. Do you agree? Explain.
6. “The relative scarcity of labor in the American economy in the first half of the 19^thCentury gave a labor-saving bias to the technology invented and introduced in that period.
   Analyze and discuss this statement, giving specific examples.

II.

7. “The efficiency of a monetary and banking system can be judged by several criteria, notably: (1) elimination of the risk of individual losses, (2) variety of monetary and credit instruments available to supply individual preferences with respect to wealth holding, (3) effects on the volume of investment, (4) effects on the trend of prices and the stability of such a trend.
   Evaluate the American monetary and banking institutions with respect to these criteria over some 25-30 period in American history.
8. What do you consider to be the main factors causing the increase in scale of firm in manufacturing industry between 1840 and 1890?
9. Describe the major changes in the evolution of the balance of payments of the United States between colonial times and 1929. Do you think that phases in the growth process in the United States can be dated from turning points in the relation of the various items in the balance to one another.
10. “The railroad is the mother of trusts.” Explain. Is this true for the United States?
11. “Large organizations developed not just in manufactures, but in all sections of American economic life after 1880. The phenomenon therefore cannot be simply derived from the economies of large scale manufacture and the technological changes which produced them.” Do you agree? Discuss with specific reference to one industry and to one type of non-industrial organization (Labor, government, politics etc.)
12. Increased government regulation of the economy between 1887 and 1914 was a response to the concerns of progressive elements in the country regarding the increasing concentration of American industry. Discuss the validity of this statement by looking at the causes and effects of several attempts by the federal government to regulate industrial structures or practices.

 

Source:  Irwin Collier, personal papers.

Image Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 151, No. 2, June 2007.