Categories
Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. Economic Theory Prelim Exam for PhD and AM, 1960

 

The economic theory  preliminary examination committee for the summer quarter of 1960 at the University of Chicago consisted of Milton Friedman (chairman), Martin J. Bailey and Lawrence Fisher. 

Previous posts with University of Chicago preliminary examinations for Ph.D. and A.M.  degrees:

Preliminary Exam (Money and Banking) 1956

Preliminary Exam (Money and Banking) 1959

Preliminary Exam (Price Theory) 1964

Preliminary Exam (Price Theory) 1969

Preliminary Exam (Macroeconomics) 1969

Preliminary Exam (Money and Banking) 1969

Preliminary Exam (International Trade) 1970

Preliminary Exam (Price Theory) 1975

Preliminary Exam (Industrial Organization) 1977

Preliminary Exam (History of Economic Thought) 1989

___________________

ECONOMIC THEORY (Old Rules)
Preliminary Examination for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees
Summer Quarter 1960

WRITE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON YOUR EXAMINATION PAPER:

Your Code Number and NOT your name
Name of Examination
Date of Examination

Results of the examination will be sent to you by letter.
Answer all questions. Time: 4 hours.

 

  1. [22 points, 2 each] Define briefly the following terms and indicate their use in economic theory:
    1. Backward bending supply curve
    2. Giffen effect
    3. Composite demand
    4. Elasticity of substitution
    5. Exhaustion of product
    6. Marginal value product
    7. Sunk costs
    8. Rent
    9. Firm
    10. Present value
    11. Rate of time preference
  2. [10 points] Describe the cost curves for an individual firm, explaining the relation between short-run and long-run curves, average and marginal cost curve. Explain the equilibrium of the firm for various market conditions of competition.
    b. [5 points] Describe the demand curves on the part of the individual firm for factors of production under various market conditions of competition.
    c. [5 points] Demonstrate that (a) and (b) are fundamentally translations of one another.
  3. [15 points] The U.S. Steel Corporation produces about one-third of the total ingot steel production in the United States (and a similar proportion of mill shapes and other forms of steel sold to steel-using industries). If the price elasticity of demand for steel is -0.5, what is the minimum absolute value of the elasticity of demand facing the U.S. Steel Corporation? What is the maximum absolute value? What can you conclude, without further information, about the monopoly power of the U.S. Steel Corporation? What further information, if any, would be relevant, and why?
  4. It is sometimes alleged that unionized firms are not injured by competition with non-union firms in the same industry because the presence of the union wage scale and working conditions enables the firm to obtain better quality labor, to have better labor morale and labor relations, etc.
    1. [10 points] Analytically, are these arguments well-founded? Discuss.
    2. [10 points] What data would you need on union and non-union firms to confirm or reject these arguments as an empirical proposition? In particular, would you use comparative output per man-hour, unit labor costs, or what? Why one and not another?
  5. A consumer buys in perfectly competitive markets, spending all of his income. Over a period of time his income changes and prices change, but it is our hypothesis that his tastes do not change.
    1. [10 points] Assuming no price-income situation was every exactly repeated, what possible behavior on his part, if any, could contradict our hypothesis? Why?
    2. [10 points] If the hypothesis is not contradicted, and if we then assume it to be correct, can we also assume that his indifference curves are everywhere convex to the origin? What possible behavior on his part, if any, could contradict the assumption of convexity to the origin? Why?
  6. [15 points] What are Marshall’s four propositions on derived demand? What subsequent contributions have been made concerning these propositions? In the light of these contributions, how would the propositions now be correctly and fully stated?
  7. [20 points] Write a brief essay on TWO of the following men and their contributions to economics:
    1. Hume
    2. Dupuit
    3. Von Thünen
    4. Menger
    5. Jevons
    6. Edgeworth
    7. Taussig
    8. Mitchell

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 76, Folder 2 “University of Chicago ‘Economic Theory’”.

Image Source: Milton Friedman. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-06238, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Economists Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for Economic Theory and Monetary Economics. R.G. Hawtrey, 1928-29

 

 

Sir Ralph Hawtrey (Fun fact: according to J.M. Keynes,  Alfred Marshall was his third cousin once removed) was given leave by the British Treasury to lecture at Harvard during the 1928-29 academic year. Full course outlines with assigned readings are not found in the Harvard University Archives collection of course syllabi and reading lists. Only the titles of the items for the end of semester reading periods for his graduate course “Principles of Money and Banking” could be found and are transcribed below. The first semester exam for “Problems in Economic Theory” and both semester exams for “Principles of Money and Banking” are included in this post.

_____________________

Problems in Economic Theory

Course Announcement.

[Economics] 15. Problems in Economic Theory

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 4. Mr. R. G. Hawtrey.

In this course less attention will be given to specific economic doctrines than to questions of the scope, methods, premises, and goal of economic science, and of its relations to logic and psychology and to the other social sciences.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1928-29. Published in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXV, No. 29 (May 26, 1928), p. 71.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Enrollment.

[Economics] 15. Mr. Hawtrey.— Problems in Economic Theory.

Total 6: 3 Graduates, 1 Senior, 2 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1928-29, p. 72.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

1928-29
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 15
Mid-year examination

Five questions and ONLY FIVE should be answered

  1. How does the functioning of a market depend on dealers holding stocks of the goods dealt in?
  2. By what process does the investment market maintain equilibrium between the supply of savings and the supply of fresh capital?
  3. Jevons wrote: “By free capital I mean the wages of labour either in its transitory form of money or in its real form of food and other necessaries of life.”
    Is this an improvement on the Wages fund theory? Can you improve the statement further?
  4. Explain the relation of profit to (1) compensation for risk, (2) rent of ability, (3) quasi-rent.
  5. Why is the explanation of profit as the remuneration of management and organization incomplete?
  6. What are the chief objections to the doctrine that the end of economic activity is the maximum of total utility?
  7. Can justice in distribution be regarded as a part of the subject-matter of economics?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 11, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1929. Papers printed for Mid-year Examinations in History, New Testament,…Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science, January-February, 1929.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
SPRING READING PERIOD—1928/29

Economics 15

No additional assignments.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2. Folder “Economics 1928-29”.

_____________________

Principles of Money and Banking

Course Announcement.

[Economics] 38. The Principles of Money and Banking

Tu., Th., at 10, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor. Mr. R. G. Hawtrey.

The 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.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1928-29. Published in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXV, No. 29 (May 26, 1928), p. 73.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Enrollment

[Economics] 38. Mr. Hawtrey. — Principles of Money and Banking.

Total 50: 32 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 1 Junior, 5 Radcliffe, 2 Others.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1928-29, p. 73.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
MID-YEAR READING PERIOD—1928/29

Economics 38

Select two from the following list and read about 300 pages.

  1. Keynes, J.M.: Indian Currency and Finance.
  2. Burgess, W. R.: The Federal Reserve System and the Money Market.
  3. Hargreaves, E. L. : Restoring Currency Standards.
  4. Knapp: State Theory of Money.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2. Folder “Economics 1928-29”.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

1928-29
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 38
Mid-year examination.

Six questions and ONLY SIX should be answered.

  1. What different meanings can be given to “velocity” in monetary theory?
  2. On what conditions can the use of gold coin be made to maintain a gold standard effectively?
  3. What are the essential functions of a bank? To what extent do they depend on the assignability of debts from one creditor to another?
  4. Why does a contraction of credit tend to cause unemployment?
  5. What circumstances determine the degree of sensitiveness of borrowers to the rate of discount or short-term interest?
  6. Upon what conditions does the power of a Central Bank to control credit depend? Is the issue of notes by the Central Bank essential?
  7. Describe the effect of external investment on the foreign exchange market.
  8. In what circumstances and to what extent will relatively high rates of discount and short-term interest attract balances from abroad for temporary investment.
  9. What is meant when London is called an international clearing centre?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 11, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1929. Papers printed for Mid-year Examinations in History, New Testament,…, Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science, January-February, 1929.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
SPRING READING PERIOD—1929

Economics 38

Select two from the following list and read about 300 pages.

  1. Keynes, J.M.: Indian Currency and Finance.
  2. Burgess, W. R.: The Federal Reserve System and the Money Market.
  3. Hargreaves, E. L. : Restoring Currency Standards.
  4. Knapp: State Theory of Money.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2. Folder “Economics 1928-29”.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

1928-29
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 38

Final examination.

Five questions and only five to be answered.

  1. Explain the advantages and disadvantages of the “elasticity” claimed for the fixed proportion system of gold reserve.
  2. How far is it true to say that gold reserve laws “exist to be broken”?
  3. To what extent can the phenomena of the business cycle, as experienced up to 1914, be traced to the working of the gold standard?
  4. What are the principal conditions likely to predispose a country to be the scene of a financial crisis?
  5. Compare, in respect of relative liquidity, the principal classes of assets usually held by banks. Criticise the idea of the “self-liquidating” bill.
  6. Show how speculation in the foreign exchanges may interfere with measures for the reestablishment of the gold standard in a country with an unstable currency.
  7. What grounds are there for supposing that it is practicable, through the coöperation of the central banks of gold standard countries to affect the purchasing power of gold?
  8. How, in your opinion, can the stability of the purchasing power of a currency unit best be tested statistically?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Bound volume (No. 71) Examination Papers, Finals, 1929. (Papers printed for Final Examinations in History, Church History,… , Economics,…, Military Science, Naval Science, June, 1929.

Image Source: Creative Commons image of Sir Ralph George Hawtrey by Walter Stoneman (1939) at the National Portrait Gallery.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Minnesota Suggested Reading Syllabus

Minnesota. Readings and Final Exam for National Income and Wealth. Friedman, 1946

 

 

The course materials transcribed for this post are found in a folder in Milton Friedman’s papers at the Hoover Institution with the label “University of Chicago. Econ 129”. The handwriting on the folder is that of an archivist (i.e. not Friedman) and the material in the folder is neither dated nor can the name of the university be found. The most recent publication included in the reading list is from February 1946 (“Recent Figures…”). Also there is an item in the reading list “Blakey et al., Analyses of Minnesota Incomes, Parts One and Two” that points to the state of Minnesota. Milton Friedman did teach economics and statistics at the University of Minnesota for the academic year 1945-46 and no graduate course at the University of Chicago had a course number in the 100’s. Further, the academic calendar in Minnesota, like Chicago, followed a quarter system. Thus it seems almost certain that we are dealing with a course that Milton Friedman taught at the University of Minnesota during the latter quarters of the 1945-46 academic year. I don’t have access to the course catalogue from Minnesota for that year, so this should be easy to verify conclusively down the road.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

O-M [typed in the upper left corner]

Description of proposed course in “Statistical Economics”

  1. Purpose: The course proposed is designed primarily to provide training in the quantitative analysis of economic problems. As a by-product it should also acquaint the student with some coherent body of quantitative data and some important empirical studies.
  2. Content: The emphasis in the course would be on research method: the utilization of statistical data, statistical method, and theoretical analysis to attack an economic problem. The approach to method would be via substantive empirical work in particular fields. The fields considered would shift from quarter to quarter.

For the first quarter, it is proposed to consider.

National Income and Wealth: concepts of income and wealth—problems of valuation, treatment of government contribution and of gifts, capital gains, and other borderline items; problems of measurement—techniques of measurement, sources of data, estimates for segments of the economy for which data are scanty, precision of estimates; distribution of income by industry, type of payment, final product, and region; distribution of income and wealth by size; uses and misuses of income and wealth data.

Basic text material: Simon Kuznets, National Income and its Composition; Studies in Income and Wealth; Consumer Incomes in the United States; Department of Commerce publications and British white papers on national income.

For subsequent quarters, possible topics are:

Secular movements: Statistical studies of long-run changes in economic activity in the United States; examination of evidence bearing on “mature economy” or “stagnation” thesis.

Economies of scale: Empirical work on the relation of the size of enterprises to their economic efficiency, including conceptual problems in measuring economic efficiency and in distinguishing private from social economics of scale, statistical derivation of cost curves, and studies of profits in relation to size of enterprise.

  1. Potential students: Seniors and graduate students, particularly those interested in economic research
  2. Prerequisites: B.A. 101-102; B.A. 112. Undergraduates with consent of instructor..
  3. Duration: One quarter.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Syllabus and Readings for
Economics 129: Statistical Economics

Topic: National Income and Wealth

Note: Starred readings are required; others are recommended.

  1. Recent figures on National Income and National Products

*Survey of Current Business, February 1946, pp. 4 to 9.

  1. Concepts of National Income and Wealth

General:

*Hicks and Hart, pp. 125-232.
Kuznets, National Income and Capital Formation, pp. 1-7.
*Kuznets, National Income and its Composition, pp. 1-60.
*Hicks, Value and Capital, pp. 171-181.
Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. II, pp. 1-82; *Vol. III, Preface (vii-xv).
J.E. Meade and R. Stone, “The Construction of Tables of National Income, Expenditure, Savings and Investment”, Economic Journal, June-Sept., 1941, pp. 216-33.

Capital gains:

Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. I, pp. 97-101, 159-62.

Government Services:

Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. Two, pp. 317-27; Vol. Six, pp. 1-44.
J.R. and U.K. Hicks, “Public Finance in the National Income”, Review of Economic Studies, Feb. 1939, pp. 147-55.

  1. Concept of Gross National Product

*Gilbert and Jaszi, “National Product and Income Statistics”, Dun’s Review, 1944

  1. Measurement

*Kuznets, National Income and its Composition I, pp. 96-132, Vol. II, pp. 475-537.

  1. Correction for Price Change

*Keynes, Treatise on Money, Vol. I, pp. 95-120.
Studies in Income and Wealth, Volume II, pp. 85-135.

  1. Temporal changes in National income in the United States

*Kuznets, National Income and its Composition, pp. 135-160.
Kuznets, National Income and Capital Formation, pp. 8-11.

  1. British estimates

*British White Paper Cmd. 6623. (Reprinted in Federal Reserve Bulletin, August, 1945).

  1. Distributions of income

1.  By Industry

Kuznets, National Income and Capital Formation, pp. 12-22.
*Kuznets, National Income and its Composition, pp. 161-214.

2. By type of payment

Kuznets, National Income and Capital Formation, pp. 23-28.
*Kuznets, National Income and its Composition, pp. 215-265.

3. By Final Product

Kuznets, National Income and Capital Formation, pp. 34-57.
*Kuznets, National Income and its Composition, pp. 266-291.

4. By region

F. Schwartz, “State Income Payments in 1944”, Survey of Current Business, August 1945.

5. By size

*National Resources Committee, Consumer Incomes in the United States.
Studies in Income and Wealth, Volume V, Income Size Distributions, Part I, pp. 1-98.
Blakey et al., Analyses of Minnesota Incomes, Parts One and Two.

 

Economics 129: Statistical Economics
Books on Reserve

Main Library

R.G. Blakey, Wm. Weinfeld, J.E. Dugan, A.L. Hart, Analyses of Minnesota Incomes, 1938-39.
Clark, Colin, The Conditions of Economic Progress.
Clark, Colin, National Income and Outlay.
Fabricant, Solomon, Capital Consumption and Adjustment.
Hicks, J.R., Value and Capital.
Keynes, J.M., A Treatise on Money.
Kuznets, Simon, National Income and Capital Formations.
Kuznets, Simon, National Income and its Composition (2 Volumes).
W.C. Mitchell, W.I. Kerg, F.R. Macauley, and O.W. Knauth, Income in the United States (2 volumes).
Conference on Research in Income and Wealth, Studies in Income and Wealth, Volumes I, II, III, V, VI.
National Resources Committee, Consumer Incomes in the United States.

Materials Room

Barger, Harold, Outlay and Income in the United States, 1921-38.
J.R. Hicks and A.G. Hart, The Social Framework of the American Economy.
Kuznets, Simon. National Income and its Composition.
Martin, R.F., National Income in the United States, 1799-1938.
Conference on Research in Income and wealth, Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. V, Part I.

 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Final Examination
Economics 129—Statistical Economics

The Income payments concept differs from national income in part…

  1. T or F…because the former excludes and the latter includes undistributed corporate profits;
  2. T or F …because relief benefits are included in the former and excluded from the latter;
  3. T or F …because food consumed on the farm is excluded from the former and included in the latter;
  4. T or F …because imputed rents are excluded from the former and included in the latter;
  5. T or F …and because social security taxes are excluded from the former and included in the latter.
  6. T or F Imputed rents are not included in the Department of Commerce estimates of national income but are include in Kuznets.
  7. T or F In a self-contained economy without government national income would equal gross national product.
  8. T or F In Commerce Department estimates the value of government product is measured by taxes except for education.
  9. T or F “Transfer payments” are gifts from one individual to another.
  10. T or F A major difference between national income and gross national product is dividend payments to foreigners.
  11. T or F The growth of Victory gardens was in part responsible for the rise of national product from 1940 to 1943.
  12. T or F Undistributed corporate profits plus individual savings equals net capital formation plus government deficit.
  13. T or F Product of non-profit institutions is valued at cost in national product.
  14. T or F Government savings in Kuznets’ estimates is measured by excess of receipts over expenditures.
  15. T or F Business taxes includes all taxes paid by business except excess profits taxes.
  16. T or F Capital outlays charged to current expense are items of fixed capital that become obsolete within the year.
  17. T or F Business savings are equal to undistributed profits plus expenditures on plant and equipment.
  18. T or F The adjustment for inventory revaluation is designed to eliminate changes in value due to spoilage, change of style, and fire losses.
  19. _____ Which of the following was not an important factor in our economic mobilization for war? [choose “a”, “b”, “c”, or “d”]
    (a) Curtailment of gross capital formation
    (b) Curtailment of consumers non-durable goods expenditures
    (c) Increase in average hours worked per week
    (d) Heavy government expenditures for plant and equipment
  20. T or F The basic source of profits estimates in the national income is Statistics of Income.
  21. T or F The method used to derive estimates of wages in manufacturing is number of employed multiplied by average wages.
  22. T or F Advertising is treated as investment in the national product.
  23. T or F In estimating wages allowance is made for expenses involved for transportation to and from work.
  24. T or F Gross capital formation includes all automobiles produced but no other consumers durable goods.
  25. T or F Capital gains and losses are not allowed for in the national income except in the case of security and commodity brokers.
  26. T or F Subsistence of the armed forces is included in the national income because war expenditures are in essence a type of capital formation.
  27. T or F National debt interest is included in the national income because of Hamilton’s theory that the debt would strengthen the union.
  28. T or F The British include interest on the national debt as a measure of the services of government property.
  29. T or F Income payments to individuals could be derived entirely by adding up income reported for tax purposes if everyone were required to file a return.
  30. T or F Size distribution of income must be based upon income payments rather than national income.
  31. T or F Intermediate government products are products on the borderline between current services and capital goods.
  32. T or F Income from illegal activities is excluded from the national income.

Given the following items:

Wages and salaries 100
Supplements to wages and salaries 3
Transfer payments (net) 4
Lend-lease shipments 10
Profits before dividends 8
Dividends 4
Interest on the national debt 2
Interest and rent 7
Business taxes 25
Income of proprietors 24
Imputed return on govt. property 1 1
Personal taxes 18
Depreciation 8
Consumers expenditures 90
Net capital formation 3
Savings bond sales 12
Subsistence to armed forces 10

33, 34, 35. _________ State amount of National Income.

36, 37, 38. _________ State amount of income payments

39, 40, 41. _________ State amount of gross national product

42, 43, 44. _________ State amount of individual savings

45, 46, 47. _________ State amount of Govt. expenditure for goods and services

48, 49, 50. _________ State amount of total government expenditures.

51, 52, 53. _________ State amount of government deficit.

  1. T or F Wealth is measured as a stock at a point in time while income is measured as a flow over a period of time.
  2. T or F Capital formation consists of all business purchases of producers goods except additions to inventory of finished consumption goods.
  3. _____ The gross national product for any year will consist of all the following items except [list all the items that are not included]—

(a) sales of single use consumer goods
(b) sales of single use producers goods
(c) change in business inventories
(d) sales of durable use consumers goods
(e) sales of durable use producers goods
(f) sales of consumers services
(g) sales of producers services

  1. T or F Omitting imputed rents from the national income results in too high an estimate of savings.
  2. T or F A gun purchased by a gangster is not included in the national product because it is for use in illegal activities.
  3. T or F Capital formation tends to fluctuate more widely over the business cycle than consumers expenditures.
  4. T or F In Kuznets’ estimates national income equals net national product.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Answer Key

  1. True;
  2. True;
  3. False;
  4. False;
  5. True;
  6. True;
  7. False;
  8. False;
  9. False;
  10. False;
  11. False;
  12. True;
  13. True;
  14. False;
  15. False;
  16. False;
  17. False;
  18. False;
  19. (b);
  20. True;
  21. False;
  22. False;
  23. False;
  24. False;
  25. True;
  26. False;
  27. False;
  28. False;
  29. False;
  30. True;
  31. False;
  32. True;

33/34/35. = 100+3+8+24+7=142;
36/37/38. = 142+4–4=142;
39/40/41. = 142+8+25=175;
42/43/44. = 142 – 18 – 90 = 34;
45/46/47. = 175–90–(3+8)  = 74;
48/49/50. =175–90–(3+8) +4 =78;
51/52/53. = 78 – 25 – 18 =35

  1. True;
  2. False;
  3. (b),(g);
  4. False;
  5. False;
  6. True;
  7. True.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 76, Folder 5 “University of Chicago [sic], Econ 129”.

Image Source: Columbia University, Columbia 250 Celebrates Columbians Ahead of Their Time.

Categories
Costs of education Economics Programs Harvard

Harvard. Printed Graduate Economics Brochure. (First draft was by J. K. Galbraith), 1967

 

 

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror provides transcriptions of material concerning both course content (as revealed in syllabi, reading lists, exam questions, lecture notes, etc.) as well as concerning the procedures followed in different undergraduate and graduate programs of economics.

What helps to distinguish the following graduate program brochure for Harvard that was still hot off the press in September 1967 is that the authorship of its first draft can be unambiguously attributed to John Kenneth Galbraith. Sentences like “Economics, especially in the fields of research, teaching, and the public service, is a profession of good but not munificent reward” and “There are few differences between human beings more profound than the capacity to conserve or spend money” are certainly consistent with recorded Galbraithian style.

I’ll note here that John Kenneth Galbraith was simply incapable of writing the most mundane of his administrative correspondence without turning a brilliant phrase or two. I have wondered how long he might have eluded arrest had he ever tried his hand at writing a ransom note.

It is striking that even at this relatively late date, so little effort was made to render the brochure gender-neutral. Clearly it was still a (Mad-) Man’s World.

An interesting comparison is Robert Solow’s brochure for the M.I.T. economics program in 1961.

____________________

Harvard University
Department of Economics

M-8 Littauer Center Center
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Office of the Chairman

September 19, 1967

Professor J. Kenneth Galbraith
207 Littauer

Dear Ken:

Sometime ago you were kind enough to do a first draft of a brochure describing our graduate program to prospective students. After a long delay, I solicited additional suggestions for this and prepared a revised manuscript. A copy of the printed version is enclosed for your perusal.

Thank you again for your help.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Richard E. Caves
Chairman

REC:eb

____________________

Graduate Study in Economics at Harvard

PUBLISHED BY THE DEPARTMENT

Introduction

This booklet is meant to tell the student who is considering graduate work in economics some of the things he will wish to know about work in this field at Harvard University. And it also tells something of the University and larger urban community in which he will find himself.

Harvard University, which was founded in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. It comprises Harvard and Radcliffe colleges, which give undergraduate degrees and the graduate schools. Graduate work in economics is offered under the auspices of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Undergraduate enrollment at Harvard and Radcliffe is about 6 thousand; in all graduate schools and departments about 9 thousand. Although by no means large by present-day standards, Harvard is part of what is, without doubt, the largest and most concentrated educational center in the United States. It shares residence in Cambridge and along the Charles River with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a long-standing arrangement between the two institutions allows the graduate students of each to register for courses in the other. Boston University, Boston College, Tufts University, Northeastern University, Brandeis University and Wellesley College are all within a few miles. And there are many smaller or more specialized institutions nearby. This large academic community, together with the strong cultural, artistic and literary tradition of the Boston area, brings a steady flow of visiting scholars, artists and public figures to this community from all parts of the world. The student at Harvard is identified not only with a university but with a major intellectual and cultural center. His problem, he will soon discover, is not to seize all of his opportunities —  lectures, seminars, discussion groups, debates, conferences, concerts, plays, museums, and exhibitions — but to discriminate among them.

 

Economics at Harvard

Graduate work in economics at Harvard is just under a hundred years old. The first successful Ph.D. candidate, Dr. Stuart Wood of Philadelphia, later a prominent civic leader and businessmen in that city, took his degree in 1875 with a thesis on the work of the pioneer and prolific American economist, Henry C. Carey. The second doctorate was awarded a few years later to Frank William Taussig, who became a dominant figure in the field and a famous Harvard teacher for the next half century. Until the beginning of the present century, faculty, students, and courses were comparatively few in number — only five men held the rank of professor before 1900, and one of these was in sociology which was then considered a branch of economics. But in the early nineteen hundreds there was a rapid expansion in faculty, students, and course offerings which, with few interruptions, has continued to this time. The Harvard Department of Economics now has 24 full professors, listed at the end of this pamphlet. The junior staff consists of about 30 instructors and assistant professors, young scholars doing teaching and research.

Throughout the years, several traits have persisted in the Department’s collective personality. It does not run to any particular ideology or methodological disposition; its members display a wide range of attitudes toward economic policy and the advancement of economic science. By long tradition, the Department sees itself not as an organization committed to a particular method, point of view or problem, but as a gathering of individuals scholars each committed to pursue the truth in accordance with his own lights. Members teach and do research as individuals and not as members of the school. The same latitude is allowed to students.

Harvard’s is a “full-line” department, concerned both with the development of economic theory and quantitative research methods, and with their use in all of the major fields of applied economics. The Department has been active in opening up teaching and research in new fields of applied economics: early in the 1950’s it began building a strong program in economic development; now work is fast expanding in such areas as urban economics and the economics of human resources.

The close association of many members of the Harvard Department of Economics with public policy has been sufficiently featured in recent history so that it requires no further comment. It is not, however, especially new. Professors Taussig and Edwin Gay held high positions in World War I in the Wilson Administration. Just before, during, and after World War II such members as Edward S. Mason, Alvin H. Hansen, John H. Williams, and Sumner Slichter likewise occupied various positions of high responsibility. In recent times, the close association between the Department of Economics and the John F. Kennedy School of Government has reinforced this interest in public service and, as a consequence, a number of Harvard Ph.D.’s continue to go into public life.

Finally, the Department prides itself on being a major research center. For many years it has published two leading professional journals, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics. Various members have maintained large-scale research projects, such as Professor Wassily Leontief’s Harvard Economic Research Project (input-output analysis), Professor John R. Meyer’s projects in transportation and urban economics, and Professor Hollis B. Chenery’s work on development planning.

Most Harvard professors engage actively in both undergraduate and graduate teaching. (Under ordinary circumstances each professor gives two courses, a course and a seminar or their equivalent each semester.) As in all universities worthy of the name, there is a primary concern among Harvard scholars for advancing the state of knowledge in their discipline. In recent years there has been a popular myth that research is somehow in conflict with good teaching. In actual fact, good teaching at the highest level is rarely done by men who are not also engaged in advancing knowledge. But the high ratio of faculty to students is designed to ensure that all students will receive the personal attention of accomplished scholars.

 

General Nature of the Graduate Program in Economics

Each year between 40 and 50 graduate students are admitted for advanced work (normally toward the Ph.D.) in economics. Usually about two-thirds of them are United States citizens; the balance come from countries scattered over much of the globe. About 180 graduate students are in residence each year, and between 30 and 35 complete their Ph.D.’s. What program do they undertake? Where do they go upon its completion?

Most students apply to begin graduate study immediately after completing their undergraduate degrees, in are judged for admission on the basis of the general promise shown by their undergraduate records. More store is set by a distinguished record in general than by the extent of undergraduate specialization in economics. Nonetheless, an undergraduate major or extensive coursework in economics is definitely helpful. So are undergraduate courses in mathematics, at least through calculus, since mathematics nowadays is a standard working tool for many economists. Undergraduate work in statistics is useful but less necessary.

Students are ordinarily admitted only for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. For those without previous graduate studies, this program requires two years of coursework (and residence at the University), followed by another year or two (usually two) of work on a doctoral dissertation.

The practice at Harvard is to think of graduate studies in economics as falling into three parts. First, there must be mastery of the general body of economic theory and history which are part of the common qualification of all economists. Second, there should be competence in standard statistical research tools which are useful or necessary in handling economic problems. Finally, there are the various specialized or applied fields of economics in which, aided by his economics theory and his tools of analysis, the student extends and deepens his knowledge in accordance with his particular interests. A typical graduate program at Harvard reflects this general delineation of the subject as a field of study.

Although there is no required course program, the student ordinarily spends his first year insuring his competence in economic theory, economic history, and quantitative methods. Should he carry four courses, which for most students is a normal load, he will also have the opportunity to begin work in an area which reflects his specialized interest. During his second year, in addition to further study in economic theory and quantitative methods, he goes more deeply into his field or fields of specialization. Then, and while writing his dissertation, he takes part in working seminars that bring him into close touch with the research of the faculty and other students. On all of these matters he has the guidance of a faculty member who serves as his adviser. There is no foreign language requirement for the Ph.D. degree, except as an alternative (not particularly recommended) to showing competence in mathematics. At the end of their second year students ordinarily take their “generals” which consists of a written examination in economic theory and an oral examination which includes economic history, statistics and quantitative methods, and two specialized fields. Thereafter, under the guidance of the faculty member, the student writes his thesis, which must demonstrate capacity for original research.

Upon completion of his degree, a wide choice of career opportunities awaits the student. Just as it is the prime function of the University to continue and enlarge man’s store of knowledge, so it will always be the function of its best students to teach their discipline and to enlarge and modernize it by research. In the past a large portion of Harvard Ph.D.’s in economics have gone on to be college and university teachers and to continue investigation in the field. So, unquestionably, will it be in the future. Without ever making it a formal goal, the Department has long considered the training of the next generation of scholars and teachers to be its primary function. At the present time, these serve an especially insistent demand.

Outside of college and university teaching, the range of career opportunities is now wider than ever before. Harvard’s traditional involvement in public policy leads to a ready demand for its graduates in the U.S. and other governments. There is an insistent and increasing demand for trained economists from the business community, including, but by no means confined to, those were skilled in statistical methods and in modern techniques of data processing in the application of economic and statistical analysis to managerial problems.

 

Programs with Other Schools and Departments

The Ph.D. in Business Economics, administered jointly with the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, enables a student to divide his fields equally between the Department and the Business School. The Ph.D. degree in Political Economy and Government permits a student to take a substantial share of his work in fields of government and law. Separate leaflets are available specifying the requirements for these degrees.

Graduate work in economics at Harvard is enriched by the opportunities for association with scholars and students in a variety of centers and programs including the area of programs in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, the Far East, the Middle East, the Harvard Development Advisory Service, the Center for International Affairs, the International Tax Program, the Joint Center for Urban Studies, the Program in Technology and Society, the Population Center, the Programs in Decision and Control, and others.

 

Physical Facilities

Universities, scholars have often warned, do not consist of bricks and mortar, although, is less frequently observed, they do not usually exist without them. Pending completion in the early 1970s’s of the John F. Kennedy complex, which will house several departments, institutes, and research centers, the Department of Economics is housed principally in the Littauer Center of Public Administration, which also contains the Department of Government, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a library serving these departments. This library contains all the books and journals assigned in graduate courses, as well as general reading, reference and research materials in the fields of economics, government, and public affairs. Littauer Center also provides the seminar rooms where many of the graduate courses meet and a coffee bar for student use.

Nearby are excellent computer facilities, and the Department makes arrangements to provide training in computer use to its graduate students and computer time for research on dissertations and major term papers. Computation facilities will be expanded considerably in the next few years as remote console stations come into use.

Littauer Center is located just outside of Harvard Yard, which contains many other facilities of interest to graduate students. The Yard is dominated by Widener Library, the main unit of the Harvard University Library, the total holdings of which run to eight million volumes. The Baker Library at the Harvard Business School, across the Charles River from the Yard, contains extensive materials of interest to economics students, including special collections in transportation and the history of economic thought. Other important libraries are the Lamont Library, in the Yard, which is used extensively for undergraduates for course reading; and the Langdell Library of the Harvard Law School, close to Littauer Center.

Harvard undergraduate upperclassmen live in residential units called Houses, each House having a staff, dining hall, a small library, and recreational facilities. A number of more advanced graduate students who have acquired teaching responsibilities are appointed to the house staffs as tutors. Unmarried tutors frequently live in the house of which they are a member.

 

Graduate student finances

Economics, especially in the fields of research, teaching, and the public service, is a profession of good but not munificent reward. And many graduate students have passed the stage in life when they can continue to call heavily on their families for financial assistance. Finally, the Cambridge community is not inexpensive and Harvard, a private foundation, still draws a large share of its revenues from tuition. For all of these reasons it is recognized that many students will require financial help. The Department of Economics believes that, in recent years, no student of energy and ability has had to withdraw for purely financial reasons.

A large number of students come to the University with National Science Foundation, Danforth, and other fellowships from outside sources. The Department naturally expects all students offered such awards to except and use them.

Harvard fellowships, including “Graduate Prize Fellowships,” are the main reliance for support of graduate studies. They are designed to allow the highly qualified students to work uninterruptedly up to his degree with knowledge that his basic financial needs are assured. Up to seventeen of the “Graduate Prize Fellowships” are awarded each year, and assuming satisfactory progress, are held by the student for four years. During the first year these Fellowships pay $4,000 of which $2,000 is for tuition and $2,000 for stipend. In the second year the stipend rises to the $2,200. In the third and fourth years, while working on the dissertation, the student holds a teaching Fellowship: he gives two fifths of his time to teaching and receives a stipend of $2,400 together with tuition. Graduate students in the latter years of their training play an important and valued role in Harvard’s undergraduate instruction, and nearly 60 of them hold Teaching Fellowships each year. This enables them, in turn, to show substantial experience in seeking teaching positions after completion of their degrees.

In the award of Teaching Fellowships, as in all other aspects of its work, the Department of Economics accords equal opportunity, depending only on qualification, to women students. It does not encourage the student to assume a teaching burden that interferes with steady and substantial progress toward the completion of his coursework and dissertation; Teaching Fellowships are therefore not available to first-year students, and not usually in the second year.

There are few differences between human beings more profound than the capacity to conserve or spend money. These differences are enlarged by wives, children, travel, and other requirements. Hence, it is nearly impossible to answer the question: how much does a student in Cambridge need? In general, it is the experience of unmarried graduate students that the funds provided by a Graduate Prize Fellowship adequately cover minimum needs. Loan funds are, of course, available in case of emergency. For married students some auxiliary income, such as a wife’s earnings, is unquestionably important. (Like most universities Harvard is willing to finance students but reluctant to support a student household.) Accordingly the problem of employment opportunity, with which that of housing is closely associated, is important. To these we now turn.

 

Housing and Employment

For the unmarried student, housing presents few problems. There are dormitories for both men and women — old ones with large rooms and thick walls and new ones with less space and better design. Current rates for dormitory rooms and for meals — these are not excessive — are given in a special supplement to the General Catalogue which may be obtained, along with an application blank, from the Registrar, Harvard University.

In earlier times graduate students at Harvard, as at other universities, lifter rather bleak boarding house existence and saw a little of each other as a community. Harkness Commons and the Radcliffe Graduate Center, both built since World War II, provide a congenial social atmosphere for all students who are so disposed. Both have good cafeterias. The student who wants solitude for his own work can still find it at Harvard, but it is a matter of choice and not of necessity or conformity.

The problems of the married student, especially the student with a young family, are more complex. Cambridge is a comparatively old city surrounded by the numerous other cities and towns which comprise the Greater Boston area. Housing in the area as a whole can best be described as ample, expensive, and generally unsatisfactory. One exception is provided by Harvard itself, which has over nine hundred apartments available for married students in buildings which it owns. These are closely convenient to the university and residence thus have ready access to the functions and activities of the University community. They obviate the need for a car. But, like privately owned dwellings in Cambridge, this convenience has a cost — but not an out-of-line one. Dwellings at a greater distance from the University generally provide more space at a lower price period

The University Housing Office, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, provides listings and guidance to housing. It also receives applications for university-owned housing. Married student should get in touch with this office as soon as they are admitted and use its services on arrival in Cambridge. The Housing Office strongly urges married students who have not previously obtained Harvard or other housing to come early — if possible in August — to look for accommodations. “Usually the only way of obtaining an apartment,” it advises in its bulletin, “is by persistent personal search.”

The University community, in its varied activities, is a substantial employer, and the Boston area offers the manifold job opportunities of the large metropolitan area. The wife who has teaching, secretarial, stenographic, nursing, statistical, library, or other skills can be fairly certain of finding employment. And even the wife who is limited in her opportunities by pregnancy or young children can usually arrange some additional income by caring for the children of working parents. The chances of finding and the convenience of holding a job increase with proximity to the University and may help offset some of the higher costs of such close-in living. As in all imperfect markets time must be allowed to find employment, so, as with those must find housing, an early arrival in Cambridge is urged. A special office at Harvard, that of The Adviser for Harvard Wives, counsels on job opportunities as well as on doctors, dentists, shopping information and other practical questions facing the newly-arrived at family.

Students who are in need of assistance on any matter, academic, financial or personal, should not hesitate to appeal to the Dean of the Graduate School, the Chairman of the Department or to a senior professor for help and counsel.

 

Graduate Student Life

Although the Harvard community is large and urban, it seeks not to be distant and impersonal. It is certainly not dull.

Economics graduate students come into contact with each other through their courses, informal meetings in library and coffee room, in social affairs organized by the Department and the Graduate Economics Club (which undertakes to represent student interests before the Department, invites outside speakers, and otherwise looks after graduate-student well-being).

Although the rigors of graduate course work leave most people with only limited time for recreation, the cultural advantages of Harvard in the Cambridge and Boston areas generally are unmatched. The Old New England character of Harvard Square and its immediate environs is increasingly spiced by a lively “Village” atmosphere. Cambridge and Boston cater to cultural taste running from low-brow to high-brow. At the latter end of the spectrum come much local theater (both pre-Broadway and off-Broadway), the strikingly original Boston Opera Group, the Boston Symphony Orchestra (especially its bargain series of open rehearsals, populated mostly by students), and many individual concerts, art exhibitions, and the like. The years spent earning a Ph.D. at Harvard will be filled with new experiences, contacts, and horizons, as well as solid and satisfying work.

 

Sources of Additional Information

Courses are listed in Courses of Instruction for Harvard and Radcliffe common commonly called the Course Catalogue; it is issued in September for each academic year. Formal requirements for the Ph.D. in economics are outlined in the leaflet “Higher Degrees under the Department of Economics,” Supplement to the General Announcement. A similar leaflet describes “The Ph.D. in Business Economics.” One issued by the Committee on Higher Degrees in Political Economy and Government outlines “Requirements for the Degrees in Political Economy and Government.” A few graduate students find it useful to attend the Harvard Summer School, in which a very limited range of graduate economics courses is offered each year; a Preliminary Announcement listing all courses is available shortly after the beginning of the calendar year.

 

Professors and Associate Professors
Department of Economics, 1967

Abram Bergson
Richard E. Caves
Hollis B. Chenery
Robert Dorfman
James S. Duesenberry
John T. Dunlop
Otto Eckstein
J. Kenneth Galbraith
Alexander Gerschenkron
Gottfried Haberler
Albert O. Hirschman
Hendrik S. Houthakker
Simon Kuznets
Harvey Leibenstein
Wassily Leontief
John Lintner
Edward S. Mason
John R. Meyer
Richard A. Musgrave
Dwight H. Perkins
Howard Raiffa
Henry Rosovsky
Thomas C. Schelling
Arthur Smithies

Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. John Kenneth Galbraith Personal Papers.  Series 5. Harvard University File, 1949-1990. Box 526, Folder “Harvard Department of Economics: Graduate Student Brochure (JKG wrote 1st draft), September 1967”.

Image Source: Littauer Center (July 1970). Harvard University Archives.

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

________________________

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.

 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

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.”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

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.

 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

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.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

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.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

1932-33
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

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

[copy not yet recovered]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

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
Amherst Barnard Berkeley Brown Chicago Colorado Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Duke Harvard Illinois Indiana Iowa Johns Hopkins Kansas M.I.T. Michigan Michigan State Minnesota Missouri Nebraska North Carolina Northwestern NYU Ohio State Pennsylvania Princeton Radcliffe Rochester Stanford Swarthmore Texas Tufts UCLA Vassar Virginia Washington University Wellesley Williams Wisconsin Yale

U.S. Bureau of Education. Contributions to American Educational History, Herbert B. Adams (ed.), 1887-1903

 

I stumbled across this series while I was preparing the previous post on the political economy questions for the Harvard Examination for Women (1874). I figured it would be handy for me to keep a list of links to the monographs on the history of higher education in 35 of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Maybe this collection will help you too.

Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams

  1. The College of William and Mary. Herbert B. Adams (1887)
  2. Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. Herbert B. Adams (1888)
  3. History of Education in North Carolina. Charles L. Smith (1888)
  4. History of Higher Education in South Carolina. C. Meriwether (1889)
  5. Education in Georgia. Charles Edgeworth Jones (1889)
  6. Education in Florida. George Gary Bush (1889)
  7. Higher Education in Wisconsin. William F. Allen and David E. Spencer (1889)
  8. History of Education in Alabama. Willis G. Clark (1890).
  9. History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education. Frank W. Blackmar (1890)
  10. Higher Education in Indiana. James Albert Woodburn (1891).
  11. Higher Education in Michigan. Andrew C. McLaughlin. (1891)
  12. History of Higher Education in Ohio. George W. Knight and John R. Commons (1891)
  13. History of Higher Education in Massachusetts. George Gary Bush (1891)
  14. The History of Education in Connecticut. Bernard C. Steiner (1893)
  15. The History of Education in Delaware. Lyman P. Powell (1893)
  16. Higher Education in Tennessee. Lucius Salisbury Merriam (1893)
  17. Higher Education in Iowa. Leonard F. Parker (1893)
  18. History of Higher Education in Rhode Island. William Howe Tolman (1894)
  19. History of Education in Maryland. Bernard C. Steiner (1894).
  20. History of Education in Lousiana. Edwin Whitfield Fay (1898).
  21. Higher Education in Missouri. Marshall S. Snow (1898)
  22. History of Education in New Hampshire. George Gary Bush (1898)
  23. History of Education in New Jersey. David Murray (1899).
  24. History of Education in Mississippi. Edward Mayes (1899)
  25. History of Higher Education in Kentucky. Alvin Fayette Lewis (1899)
  26. History of Education in Arkansas. Josiah H. Shinn (1900)
  27. Higher Education in Kansas. Frank W. Blackmar (1900)
  28. The University of the State of New York. History of Higher Education in the State of New York. Sidney Sherwood (1900)
  29. History of Education in Vermont. George Gary Bush (1900)
  30. History of Education in West Virginia. A. R. Whitehill (1902)
  31. The History of Education in Minnesota. John N. Greer (1902)
  32. Education in Nebraska. Howard W. Caldwell (1902)
  33. A History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania. Charles H. Haskins and William I. Hull (1902)
  34. History of Higher Education in Colorado. James Edward Le Rossignol (1903)
  35. History of Higher Education in Texas. J. J. Lane (1903)
  36. History of Higher Education in Maine. Edward W. Hall (1903)

Image Source: Cropped from portrait of Herbert Baxter Adams ca. 1890s. Johns Hopkins University graphic and pictorial collection.

Categories
Exam Questions Gender Harvard Radcliffe

Harvard. Examination for Women. Political Economy (Optional Advanced Exam), 1874

 

During a recent visit to the Harvard archives I was frustrated when I found that in a volume with the title “Examinations for Women” that pages for advanced examinations, of which political economy would have been one according to an overview of the examinations, had been ripped out. Perhaps an advantage of our age of easy photocopying is that such acquisatory vandalism in libraries has been significantly reduced. Today I thought I would trawl the net and see if I could find any Harvard political economy exams for women in the days before there was even a Radcliffe.  Following an excerpt from a U.S. Bureau of Education report and a New York Times account (the examination questions are “far too hard”), Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is happy to provide a transcription of the questions for the advanced examination in political economy for 1874.

Political Economy exams for the Harvard men of this period have been posted earlier.

_________________________

HARVARD’S EXAMINATION FOR WOMEN

This was originally intended as a careful test of proficiency in a course of elementary study of a liberal order, arranged for persons who might, or might not, afterwards pursue an advanced curriculum of studies. It differed, therefore, both in its purpose and in its selection of subjects from any college examination, whether for admission or for subsequent standing. But it applied the highest standard of judgment in determining the excellence of the work offered. It furnished a test of special culture in one or more of five departments. It was not intended to be taken as a whole, and did not, therefore, represent the studies of a college course, but was adapted to persons of limited leisure for study, such as girls who had left school and were occupied with home cares, or teachers engaged in their professional labors.

In Scribner’s Monthly for September, 1876, the purposes of the new movement are set forth, and an idea given of the reception which has been accorded it. The writer says:

Harvard has undertaken to do for this country what Oxford and Cambridge are doing for England;

and he might have added, “and Edinburgh for Scotland.” Its faculty held examinations for women at Cambridge first in June, 1874, 1875, and 1876. In 1874 Harvard gave only four certificates; in 1875 only ten candidates entered, and in 1870 only six. In the latter year it was decided that examinations should be held also in New York. A local committee was formed there, with Miss E. T. Minturn as secretary. This committee went to work at once to procure candidates for examination after the manner pursued in England, on the establishment of a new center, and met with much encouragement.

The examination took place in June of 1877. The examinations (held in a private house, or in some room hired by the committee) were almost entirely in writing. No one was permitted to be present but ladies of the local committee, and a representative officer from the university, who brought the question papers, took the answers as soon as the time allowed for each paper had expired, and carried the answers at the close of the examinations back to the university, when they were inspected by the examiners and reported upon to the candidates through the local committee. This is the English mode of proceeding.

The examination, as in the preceding years, was of two grades. The first was a preliminary examination for young women who were not less than 17 years old; the second an advanced examination for those who had passed the preliminary examination and who were not less than 18 years old. The preliminary examination embraced English literature, French, physical geography, with elementary botany, or elementary physics, arithmetic, algebra through quadratic- equations, plane geometry, history, and any one of three languages — German, Latin, or Greek. The advanced examination was divided into five sections, in one or more of which the candidate could present herself:

(1) Languages. In any of the following: English, French, German. Italian, Latin, or Greek.

(2) Natural science. In any of the following: Chemistry, physics, botany, mineralogy, and geology.

(3) Mathematics. Solid geometry, algebra, logarithms and plane trigonometry, and any one of the three following : Analytic geometry, mechanics, spherical trigonometry, and astronomy.

(4) History. For the first year, 1876, candidates could offer either of the two following: The history of Continental Europe during the period of the Reformation, 1517-1648; or English and American history from 1688 to the end of the eighteenth century.

(5) Philosophy. Candidates might offer any three of the following: Mental philosophy, moral philosophy, logic, rhetoric, political economy.

Notice of intention to be candidates must be sent to the secretaries on or before April 1 preceding the examination. The fee for the preliminary examination was $15, for the advanced examination $10.

At the New York examination, referred to above, 18 candidates presented themselves, and the examination lasted a week, and was under the conduct of Professor Child. With the exception of a short oral exercise to test pronunciation of the modern languages, the examination was wholly in writing.

The committee were careful to lay stress upon the fact that they did not consider the preparation for these examinations equivalent to a course in Harvard, or other first-class colleges, and that they did not place the same value on a Harvard diploma and a Harvard certificate.

These examinations have now become a part of the regular work of the university, and are held every year simultaneously in New York and Cambridge (or Boston), in Philadelphia, and in Cincinnati, beginning on the last Wednesday in May. Since 1879 instruction as well as examination has been provided for by a new organization incorporated under the name of the “Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and other Instructors of Harvard College.”

The first intimation of this movement for the private instruction of women by professors of Harvard University was made in a circular signed by the seven ladies who became the first managers of the annex, and was dated Washington’s Birthday, 1879.

The terms of the circular were somewhat vague, but they were taken as evidence that privileges which had before been the right of men only were to be offered to women. The intention of the promoters of the scheme was, in fact, to provide for women, outside of the college, instruction of the same grade that men receive in it, united to tests of progress as rigid as those which are applied in the college.

The next step was the publication of a circular, giving the terms of admission to the courses of instruction to be offered the first year. This was done in April. The Harvard examinations for women being in successful operation, they were made the basis upon which fitness for ad mission was to be determined.

Upon the eighth examination held in Cambridge, New York, and Cincinnati, June 30, 1881, in accordance with the wishes of the Woman’s Educational Association, the candidates who presented themselves for examination were examined upon the subjects required for admission to Harvard College, with the exception, that the candidate could, if she chose, substitute French and German in place of Greek. The time and method of examinations and the papers used were the same as for the examination for admission to Harvard College, and the same privilege of passing a preliminary examination on a part of the subjects and of completing the course in a subsequent year was allowed.

Certificates were given, bearing the signature of the president, and specifying the subjects in which the candidate had passed.

The old order of examinations was then abolished except for such candidates as had passed on a part of the work required. The Woman’s Educational Association took charge of the examination in Cambridge, and local committees had charge of the examinations in New York, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. The certificate given to a candidate who passes upon all the subjects required for admission to the college entitles her to admission to the courses of instruction given in Cambridge by instructors in Harvard University, under the direction of the Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women. It is also accepted, if presented within a year of its date, by Vassar, Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr Colleges as the equivalent for examinations in such subjects, whether preparatory or collegiate, as are covered by it.

Source: United States Bureau of Education. Circular of Information No. 6, 1891. George Gary Bush, History of Higher Education in Massachusetts, pp. 176-178. [No. 13 in Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams]

 

HARVARD EXAMINATIONS FOR WOMEN
from a New York Times report in 1877

…The objects specially held in view by the ladies who have promoted this movement were to afford persons desirous of becoming teachers in schools such a diploma of competency for their task as would be received on all hands with respect, and, further, to promote a higher standard of attainments in the private schools attended by the wealthier classes, by thus securing them thoroughly qualified teachers. The radical defect in women’s education generally, more especially in the case of women educated at a fashionable school, is, that while they have a smattering of many subjects, they do not know one thoroughly….

…At present it appears to us that the questions are far too hard…

…[the illustrative questions cited from physical geography and history] are merely in the “preliminary” examination, and surely are well calculated to convey a lively apprehension as to the stiffness of the queries to follow; and we are not, therefore, surprised to read in the report that only three of the eighteen New-York candidates took up the whole number of subjects required for a certificate, and that of these, but two were successful.”

Source: The New York Times, December 30, 1877, p. 6.

_________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
EXAMINATIONS FOR WOMEN, 1874.

ADVANCED EXAMINATION. POLITICAL ECONOMY.

The examination will be based on Fawcett’s “Manual of Political Economy” [1874] and Blanqui’s “Histoire de l’Économie Politique en Europe.” [4e èd. Rev. et annot. (1860). Tome Premier; Tome Second]

SPECIMEN EXAMINATION-PAPER.

I. Fawcett’s Manual.

  1. Define, with illustrations, Wealth, Capital, and Money; and state the distinctions between them.
  2. How is the rapid recovery of a country from a devastating war explained?
  3. Define and distinguish Value and Price.
  4. What causes regulate the price of articles of vertu, of agricultural produce, and of manufactured articles respectively?
  5. Explain Ricardo’s theory of rent, the law of production from land on which it rests, and how the conclusion is drawn that agricultural rent is not a component of price.
  6. What causes the tendency of profits to fall as a nation advances?
  7. What principles determine the rate of wages, and what remedies are suggested for low wages?
  8. State the distinction between industrial partnership, complete coöperation, and the coöperative store; and explain the system of the Rochdale Pioneers and its advantages.
  9. What arguments can you give for or against peasant proprietorship?
  10. What effect have the discoveries of gold in California and Australia had on the value of gold, and what has tended to counteract that effect in England and the United States?
  11. What will determine the amount of money which a country will keep in circulation?
  12. “What will happen if the circulating medium is increased beyond its natural amount, by the introduction (1) of more gold or silver? or, (2) of bank notes which are redeemed in gold on presentation? or, (3) of inconvertible notes?
  13. Do the United States gain or lose by the constant exportation of the gold mined in California; and why?
  14. Can two countries trade with each other profitably, when every commodity exchanged might be produced by one cheaper than by the other?
  15. In the example given of an exchange of iron and wheat by England and France, what will be the effects of an improvement which cheapens the production of iron in England?

II. Blanqui’s Histoire de l’Économie Politique en Europe.

  1. Give the names and geographical positions of some of the chief of the Hanseatic cities, and briefly explain their rise and the organization of their trade.
  2. What important changes took place in the economical condition of Europe in the reign of Charles the Fifth? Give the leading dates of his reign, and name some of his contemporaries.
  3. What social changes, good or bad, were produced in Europe in the fifteenth century, by the discovery of gold and silver in the New World?
  4. When was the Bank of Amsterdam established, and on what plan was it conducted?
  5. When did the school of the French economists flourish, who were some of its leading writers, and what were its characteristic doctrines?
  6. Who was Adam Smith, when did he live and publish his chief work, and what service did he render in the development of political economy?
  7. What economical effects had the establishment of American independence?
  8. When and for how long a time did the Bank of England suspend specie payments?
  9. What were the characteristic views of Sismondi, and by what circumstances of his time was he led to them?
  10. Give some account of Robert Owen and of his system of social reform.
  11. How have the peculiar situation and industrial conditions of England probably influenced the views of her writers on political economy?

Source: Harvard University. Examinations for Women, 1874, p. 70-71.  Also, a copy at the Radcliffe Archives.

 

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Salaries

Chicago. Selected salaries. Hayek visiting, Friedman as associate professor, 1946

 

 

Since economists put much store in the notion of people putting their (own or other people’s) money where their mouths are, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror provides from time to time some historical faculty salaries to shine a little light on where those professors of economics before us stood in the willingness-to-pay of their respective departments and university administrations. In this post we see how the brief visiting professorship of Friedrich Hayek and the tenured associate professorship of Milton Friedman fit into the 1946 salary structure at the Univerity of Chicago’s department of economics.

Note: For his half-quarter service Hayek was offered $2,000 (quoted in a January 23, 1945 note  from the director of the U of Chicago Press to VP E. C. Colwell). I presume the $4,000 figure includes $2,000 compensation from (or on behalf of) Stanford University.

_______________________

Comparison: Selected 1945-46 Chicago Salaries
(and recommendations for 1946-47)

Jacob Viner. $10,000
Frank Knight. $9,000 ($10,000)
S.E. Leland. $9,000 ($9,500 Note: resigned to go to Northwestern)
T.W. Schultz. $9,000 ($9,000)
John U. Nef. $8,000 ($8,000)
Jacob Marschak. $8,000 ($8,500)
Paul H. Douglas. $7,000 ($8,000)
Oscar Lange. ($6,000) ($6,000) on leave 1 Oct 1945 to 30 June 1947
Henry Simons. $6,000 ($6,000)
L. W. Mints. $5,500 ($6,000)
Tjalling Koopmans $5250 ($6,740. Note: new salary effective 1 January 1946)

Source:  “Budget and Appointment Recommendations 1946-47 (December 7, 1945)”

_______________________

Hayek’s Half-Quarter, Spring 1946

 

May 10, 1946

Mr. Robert Redfield Social Sciences
R. G. Gustavson Central Administration

On May 9, 1946 the Board of Trustees approved the following recommendations:

It is recommended that Friedrich A. Hayek be appointed Visiting Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics for the period April 8, 1946 to May 11, 1946. For this service and a similar period of service at Stanford University it is recommended that an honorarium of $4,000 be approved.

cc:
Mr. T. W. Schultz
Mr. L. A. Kimpton)      Salary not mentioned
Mrs. K. Turabian)        Salary not mentioned

 

Board—5/9/46:

It is recommended that Friedrich a. Hayek be appointed Visiting Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics for the period April 8, 1946 to May 11, 1946. For this service and a similar period of service at Stanford University it is recommended that an honorarium of $4,000 be approved.

Form sent to Comptroller—5/13/46

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Milton Friedman’s tenured associate professorship
Effective October, 1946

March 19, 1946

Mr. Robert Redfield Social Sciences
R. G. Gustavson Vice President

On March 28, 1946 the Committee on Instruction and Research approved the following recommendation:

It is recommended that Milton Friedman be appointed Associate Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics on indefinite tenure on a 4E Service basis at an annual salary of $6,000 effective October 1, 1946.

cc:
Mr. T. W. Schultz
Mr. L. A. Kimpton)      Salary not mentioned
Mrs. K. Turabian)        Salary not mentioned

 

I & R. 28 March 1946:

It is recommended that Milton Friedman be appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Economics on indefinite tenure on a 4E service basis at an annual salary of $6,000 effective October 1, 1946.

 

Source: University of Chicago Library. Department of Special Collections. Office of the President. Hutchins Administration Records. Box 284. Folder “Economics, 1943-1947”.

Image Source: National Portrait Gallery. Photographs Collection. NPG x187289. Friedrich August von Hayek by Walter Stoneman, half-plate glass negative, June 1945. The portrait has been cropped to fit the format of this webpage.
Creative Commons License Creative Commons license. Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Categories
Funny Business M.I.T.

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

 

 

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

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

 

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

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

_______________________

Back-story for selected references in the text

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_______________________

Some Obvious Context

Fall 1964. Berkeley Free Speech Movement

Wikipedia Entry on the Protest Year 1968

April 1968. Columbia Student Strike ; Harvard Student Strike

February 1969. Black student strike at the University of Wisconsin

_______________________

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

CAST

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

SCRIPTWRITER-IN-CHIEF — R. Solow

HELPED BY – F. Fisher

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

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

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

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

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

You mean even Hanoi University has dropped it?

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

Out of the barrel of a gun?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why are we against Mars Bars?

Space, military, it’s all the same.

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

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

The History of WHAT???

That’s exactly what the Commune Lider said.

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

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

Whatever happened to Diamond?

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

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

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

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

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

What’s going on this week in the department?

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

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

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

Is that the California Liberation front?

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

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

Served them right. Any Type II Error executions?

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

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

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

The Admissions Commune has been meeting all day.

How does the entering Movement look?

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

Any amateur topless contest winners?

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

She was past her peak.

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

How are their vibrations?

Good.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

Categories
Duke Economics Programs

Duke. A history of economics instruction in Durham, 1996.

The following short history of economics instruction at Trinity College and Duke University in Durham, NC was written by the once chairperson of the Duke department (1957-74), Professor Frank T. de Vyver. [correction: This narrative was begun by Robert Smith (who died in 1969), expanded by Frank de Vyer in 1979, and updated by Forrest Smith in 1992.] From my trawling the internet archive The Wayback Machine, I was also able to preserve the iconic 1990s color bar separator found on the original webpage.

An earlier Duke-related artifact  from the pre-internet age transcribed for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror:

Career information for a quarter-century of Duke Economic PhDs, 1957.

After I completed this post I found the following expanded version of the material posted here (with a picture).

 

______________________

  History

In 1899-1900 Jerome Dowd, Professor of Political Economy and Sociology, taught a two-semester course in “Economics” for juniors. Two years later Trinity College had a Department of History and Economics, and Professor John Spencer Basset gave three courses: “Principles of Political Economy,” “Principles of Finance,” and “Industrial Development of England and America.” Bassett, as everyone who ever attended Trinity knew, was the historian who aroused the wrath of many Southerners by comparing Booker T. Washington with Robert E. Lee.

William Henry Glasson, holding a Ph.D. from Columbia University, came to Durham in 1902 as Professor of Political Economy and Social Science and Head of the Department of Economics and Social Science. For many years Glasson was the Department. The number of economics courses listed in the catalogue soon jumped to ten, although it seems unlikely that all were offered every year. Juniors could take “Principles of Political Economy” and “Economic and Social History of England and the United States.” Seniors were offered “Social Science” and “Economics and Social Problems,” while “Money and Banking” and “Public Finance” were senior-graduate courses. Four courses were reserved for graduate students: “History of Political Economy,” “Development of Economic Theories,” “The State in Its Relations to Industry,” and “Socialism and Other Plans for Social Reconstruction.” In the 1903-04 curriculum the latter two courses were dropped in favor of “Modern Industrial Organization” and “Railway Transportation.”

In 1908 Glasson became head of the Department of Economics and Political Science, and “Principles of Political Science” and “Municipal Government” were added to the undergraduate curriculum. Apparently, no new staff appointment was made until Bascom W. Barnard came to Trinity in 1919 as assistant professor of economics. Four years later, when the number of courses in economics and government had increased to seventeen, the teaching staff included Professors William J. H. Cotton and Alpheus T. Mason, and Jesse T. Carpenter, a part-time instructor. In 1924 thirteen courses in the Department were listed under “Economics and Business Administration” and seven under “Political Science.”

In December, 1924, Trinity College became an undergraduate college of Duke University, and in the fall of 1926 the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences was inaugurated with Professor Glasson as Dean. A year earlier (1925) Calvin B. Hoover came to Duke as assistant professor of economics and Robert R. Wilson was appointed assistant professor of political science. In 1926 Charles E. Landon joined the Department as assistant professor of economics and John H. Shields became an instructor in accounting; in 1927 Earl J. Hamilton accepted the position of assistant professor of economics and Robert S. Ranking, assistant professor of political science. Professor Joseph J. Spengler joined the faculty in 1932. He was a central figure in developing the graduate program. Currently the Department’s graduate student association, the “Spengler Club,” honors his name.

Glasson served as Dean of the Graduate School until 1938 and as Chairman until 1939. Professor Hoover, who succeeded him in both positions, held the deanship until 1947 and the chair until 1957.

Professor Frank T. de Vyver, who came to Duke in 1935, served as chairman from 1957 to 1974. His successor, Professor Robert S. Smith, was chairman of the Department of Economics and Business Administration in 1964-67. In 1967, the University divided the Department of Economics and Business Administration into two departments, and Smith continued as chairman of the Economics Department until 1968.

Professor John O. Blackburn, following service to Duke University as its chancellor, assumed the chair of the Economics Department in 1968, serving until 1970. He was followed by Professor David G. Davies, 1970-73, Professor Allen Kelley, 1973-1980, and Professor T. Dudley Wallace, 1980-83. Following Professor Wallace as department chairperson were Professor E. Roy Weintraub, 1983-87, Professor John M. Vernon, 1987-89, and Professor Henry G. Grabowski, 1989-92. Professor Neil B. de Marchi was appointed chairperson of the Department of Economics in 1992. Professor Marjorie B. McElroy was Acting Chair from May 1995 through August 1996, while Professor de Marchi is on sabbatical; she has been appointed Chair through August 1999.

 

Graduate Studies in Economics

The history of graduate studies in Economics goes back to the turn of the century. The Trinity College Catalogue for 1899-1900 lists S. W. Sparger as a graduate student in Political Economy and English; and in 1900-01 Joseph P. Breedlove, for many years University Librarian, was also a graduate student in Political Economy and English. The following year Breedlove was a graduate student in Political Economy only and in 1902 was awarded the M.A. degree. Henry R. Dwire, who received his M.A. in 1903, was a graduate student in Social Science, Economics, English, and History; and A. B. Bradsher, an M.A. in 1905, was a graduate student in Political Economy, Chemistry, English, and Law. In 1911-1915 there were graduate students who combined Political Economy and Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, or (in one case) Greek, Latin, and Education.

Although Marion S. Lewis, who received his M.A. in 1921, was a graduate student in Economics, even after the opening of the Graduate School few students were enrolled in just one discipline. Jesse T. Carpenter was a graduate student in Economics, Philosophy, and English (1923-24), and Julian P. Boyd was a graduate student in Economics and Political Science (1925- 26). In 1926-27 Richard A. Harvill and Benjamin U. Ratchford were graduate students in Economics and History. Both received the M.A. degree in 1927. Harvill continued graduate work at Northwestern University, from which he received his Ph.D. in 1932. Ratchford, who retired in 1967 as Vice-President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, received his Ph.D. from Duke in 1932.

The emphasis on the level of post-graduate achievement in the department has vacillated. In the 1970s, virtually every student who matriculated did so with the intent of earning a Ph.D. Resultant class sizes then were predictably small: the entering class of 1978 consisted of only seven students. There are currently 87 students in the Ph.D. program, and 20 students working toward an M.A. Currently the graduate program offers specialized training in over a dozen fields and programs.

Since 1932, the Department has awarded over 407 doctoral and 255 Master of Arts degrees in Economics.

Frank T. de Vyver

Source: Duke University. Department of Economics History webpage (last revised, August 29, 1996). Archived at the Wayback Machine internet archive.

Image Source:  Duke University, 1938. Photographed by Frances Benjamin Johnston. From the Carnegie Survey of the Architecture of the South, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.