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Chicago Economic History Suggested Reading Syllabus

Chicago. Reading list for Economic History of Modern Europe to 1800. Hamilton, 1966

 

Some graduate course reading lists are allowed to evolve into full-blown bibliographies that provide historians of economics little idea of what the actual content of the course itself happened to be. Earl J. Hamilton was an economic historian who kept his reading lists short and sweet. I wouldn’t have put it past him or any other professor to have covered other material in his lectures, but I am still willing to bet that he really expected his students to complete this reading list.

________________________

[U.C.]
Economics 346
Economic History of Modern Europe to 1800
Earl J. Hamilton
Spring Quarter, 1966

To be read before May 6, 1966

  1. Sir John Clapham, A Concise Economic History of Britain…to 1750 (Cambridge, 1949), pp. 185-305.
  2. *J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance, pp. 19-52.
  3. *Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter VIII.
  4. N. Clark, Science and Social Welfare in the Age of Newton (Oxford, 1937), pp. 1-59.
  5. Earl J. Hamilton, “The Decline of Spain,” Economic History Review, Vol. VIII (1938), pp. 168-179.
  6. John U. Nef, Industry and Government in France and England, 1540-1640 (1940), pp. 1-157.
  7. Edwin F. Gay, “Inclosures in England in the Sixteenth Century,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. XVII, (1902—1903), pp. 576-597.
  8. *Earl J. Hamilton, “The Role of Monopoly in the Overseas Expansion and Colonial Trade of Europe before 1800,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, Vol. XXXVIII (1948), pp. 33-53.
  9. *Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (London, 1930), Chapters I-V.
  10. Eli F. Heckscher, Mercantilism (London, 1935), Vol. I, pp. 19-44; Vol. II pp. 13-30.
  11. *W. Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Third Edition, Vol. II (1903), Modern Times, pp. 494-540 (Ch. XV. Changes in the Organisation and Distribution of Industry); 540-583 (Ch. XVI. Spirited Proprietors and Substantial Tenants); 609-620 (Bk. VII, Ch. I. The Workshop of the World).
  12. L. Jones, “Agriculture and Economic Growth in England, 1660-1750,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. XXXV, No. 1 (March, 1965), pp. 1-18.
  13. H. John, “Agricultural Productivity and Economic Growth in England, 1700-1760, Journal of Economic History, Vol. XXXV, No. 1 (March, 1965), pp. 19-34.

*Read only for clearly essential facts, interpretation and point of view.

There will be an examination on May 6th.

A term paper on some important factor in the general economic development of some important country or period, some aspect of the rise of modern capitalism, some problem concerning mercantilism and economic development, or the growth of agriculture, industry, corporate organization or commerce in some significant time and place will be due on May 13th.

There will be a final examination from 8:30 to 11:30 A.M., on June 3rd on the lectures, the assigned reading and the field in which each student’s term paper falls.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Earl J. Hamilton Papers, Box 2, Folder “Correspondence. Academic and Personal”.

Image Source:  University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-02446, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

 

Categories
Economists George Mason Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech. Letter from James Buchanan to Earl Hamilton, 1983

 

Because the papers of the economic historian, Earl Hamilton, are generally an ill-sorted grab bag of documents, I figured the following letter from James Buchanan to Earl Hamilton on the eve of the former’s move to George Mason University had a small probability of being used by future Buchanan scholars if left to lie in a not-elsewhere-classified folder of Hamilton’s papers. 

The meatiest sentence in the letter for historians of economics is probably:

As for economics, I get more and more discouraged at what is being taught for and what passes for our parent discipline. It seems increasingly escapist to me, grown men playing with toys, despite the acknowledged intellectual fascination.

Womp, womp?

______________________

P.O. Drawer G
Blacksburg, VA 24060
20 May 1983

Professor and Mrs. Earl Hamilton
Oak Ridge, TN 37830

Dear Professor Hamilton and Mrs. Hamilton:

We regret very much that we cannot join with you in celebrating the grand occasion of your sixtieth anniversary. It would be very nice to see both of you again after so many years. And Oak Ridge is within reasonable driving distance of Blacksburg. I have on several occasions lectured at the federal executives institute there. If it were not that I had the earlier scheduled commitment at the Pittsburgh conference, we should surely have been in attendance.

Let us wish both of you all that should be wished on such occasions.

I get news from you occasionally when I see George Stigler, who does, apparently, get to his Flossmoor house every now and then. I have been on a Hoover Advisory Committee that George chairs for several years now. And I was at a small meeting with both George and Ronald Coase last fall in Austria.

Our news, which you may have heard, is that our whole Center for Study of Public Choice, is shifting to George Mason University, in Fairfax (the Washington suburbs) after 1 July this year. So we are in the throes of moving. We shall, personally, keep our country place down here in the mountains, but we have already sold off our town property and plan to live in a Fairfax townhouse when up there, at least until retirement when we shall come back to the mountains permanently by current plans.

I find my research and writing interests moving more and more toward political philosophy and ethics (too much Frank Knight I guess), and I have recently been involved in several papers, which will be a book soon, on the basic logic of constitutional constraints. We have a Cambridge Press commitment to publish it under the title, The Reason of Rules.

As for economics, I get more and more discouraged at what is being taught for and what passes for our parent discipline. It seems increasingly escapist to me, grown men playing with toys, despite the acknowledged intellectual fascination.

My gardening suffers terribly in this wettest of all springs, indeed no spring at all. Nothing comes up even when dry enough to plant. Asparagus at least one month late and piddling. Lettuce which should be now ready only commencing to pop out, and too wet to put in any tomatoes as yet. But we hope.

I know that your day will be a grand occasion. Again I sincerely wish that we could join you. It would be very nice to get the opportunity for a visit.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Jim Buchanan

/btr

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Earl J. Hamilton papers, Box 4, Folder “Correspondence 1920’s-1930’s; 1960’s; 1980’s; and n.d.”

Image Source: PBS webpage “American Nobel Economists”, James Buchanan Image 14

 

Categories
Economists Harvard War and Defense Economics

Harvard. Reactions to Galbraith’s call for students to boycott professors doing classified government research, 1967

 

Looking through my files of material from the Gottfried Haberler papers at the Hoover Institution Archives, I came across an unpublished, heavily sarcastic “letter to the editor” of the Harvard Crimson by the economic historian Alexander Gerschenkron in reaction to John Kenneth Galbraith’s statement at an anti-war event at Radcliffe in which he suggested that students could reasonably consider boycotting the classes of professors engaged in classified research to protest that war. One of Galbraith’s targets was clearly his colleague Arthur Smithies. (“I assume that Professor Smithies would suppress all protest. Many will doubt the wisdom of this course as also, I trust, the wickedness of the secret work on which he is engaged.”) While the rules of English grammar are such that Galbraith did explicitly state “many will doubt…the wickedness of [Smithies’] secret work…”, it is a pretty cheeky way to simultaneously mention that there are indeed some who will see Smithies’ secret work in a wicked light.

The post ends with a later Harvard Crimson article that reports on Smithies’ career, with considerable emphasis on his work for the U.S. government (including the C.I.A.) on South Vietnam’s economy. We also see below that Thomas Schelling was so little amused by Galbraith’s boycott proposal as to have written a letter for actual publication in the Harvard Crimson.

_________________________

“Galbraith Asks Campus Blacklist of Recruiters”

The Boston Globe. 14 November 1967 pp. 1,9.

            Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith urged Monday that college students oppose the Vietnam War by publicly blacklisting war-linked campus recruiting agencies and by boycotting professors engaged in classified government research.

Speaking at Radcliffe College, Galbraith explained his blacklist as a “proclamation” on which signatories would state their intention to refuse to work for agencies, such as Dow Chemical Co. or the C.I.A.

A boycott of professors engaged in classified research, he said, would be a “particularly effective way of expressing your opposition.”

The former U.S. ambassador to India, publicly backed “moderate” student demonstrations before a packed Harvard Radcliffe group in Hilles Library.

He cautioned the students against protests that are “violent or in egregiously bad taste.”

These, he said, would “provide a welcomed handle for the opposition.”

Galbraith said he had discussed his blacklist and boycott proposals with colleagues and many found them favorable. He called both courses “legitimate means of dissent within the university framework of conduct rules.”

He originated the black-list concept at talks with business and government leaders who indicated that recruiters are “greatly concerned with campus recruiting demonstrations,” Galbraith said.

Turing to anti-war referenda, Galbraith advised they would have more chances of success if they were worded “for political reality rather [than] for candor.”

The San Francisco anti-war referenda would have had a good chance for approval had it been stated in “milder” terms, he said. (This referendum, which asked: ‘should the U.S. immediately withdraw from Vietnam?’ drew a 38 percent affirmative response.)

“It would be an enormous mistake to assume your protest efforts have been futile,” he told students. Only three years ago, he said the State and Defense Departments” would have assumed wide spread acceptance of escalation.

“But now, in the wake of widespread university opposition to the war, there has been a snowballing effect of mounting opposition.”

His talk was sponsored by the Committee for Effective Action, a student group “opposed to the war but frustrated by the means of opposing it,” explained its spokesman. This was the first of an expected four or five meetings with the faculty.

_________________________

Letter from John Kenneth Galbraith

The Harvard Crimson, November 16, 1967

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

My distinguished colleague may be out of touch with recent discussion, but the issue is probably worth explaining. Students here and elsewhere have been told how they may not react to university involvement in military activities of which they disapprove. With other Faculty members I assume that this carries an obligation to say how they may react. I suggested (initially in Michigan and later here) that they organize to avoid employment in corporations of whose products they disapprove and classes of professors whose secret contracts they deplore. (I also suggested that this last was inapplicable under Harvard policy and that there be combined effort to find other forms of legitimate and effective protest.) I assume that Professor Smithies would suppress all protest. Many will doubt the wisdom of this course as also, I trust, the wickedness of the secret work on which he is engaged.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics

_________________________

Unsent, but circulated, reaction to Galbraith’s proposal
by Alexander Gerschenkron

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

M-7 Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

Alexander Gerschenkron
Walter S. Barker Professor of Economics

November 16, 1967

The Editor
The Crimson
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Sir,

It is with greatest possible interest that I have read of Professor Galbraith’s suggestion that students should boycott lectures of those members of the Faculty who are known to engage in classified research. This is a most original and stimulating idea, which is not surprising as nothing less novel and exciting could be expected from Professor Galbraith’s fertile mind.

The only thing that disturbs me are problems of implementation. Professor Galbraith abstained from discussing them, probably feeling that what mattered was to cast abroad a fine idea, while the rest could be safely left to more pedestrian minds. May I try to fill out the gap? Obviously, the first thing that is needed is to provide some machinery in order to discover just who is engaged in classified research. I suggest therefore, that the Student-Faculty Committee should immediately establish a special Sub-Committee charged with carrying out the requisite investigations. It should be called “Student-Faculty Sub-Committee on Un-Left Activities.” This Sub-Committee should interrogate members of the faculty. A difficulty to be faced will no doubt stem from the lack of subpoena powers on the part of the Sub-Committee. But the problem should not be insoluble. The Administration should be put under pressure to agree that those members of the Faculty who 1) refuse to appear before the Un-Left Sub-Committee or, 2) if appearing, refuse to name those colleagues whose connection with classified research is known to them, or 3) refuse to answer questions concerning their own classified research, should be informed by the Administration that such refusals constitute contempt of the Un-Left Sub-Committee, and, by the same token, must be regarded as acts of gross misconduct. In all fairness, the offenders should be given a fortnight to reconsider, but should they stubbornly persist in their hostile attitude, their connection with the University should be severed without further delay.

On the other hand, should the Administration hesitate to accede to the Sub-Committee’s fair and reasonable demands, which as Professor Galbraith likes to say are surely justified by the extraordinary situation in which the country finds itself, occupation of University Hall by the students should be the first natural step, if necessary, to be followed by other more stringent measures.

Thus Professor Galbraith’s idea appears to be altogether practicable. In conclusion, I cannot help praising his wise restraint. He could have suggested, for instance, that also lectures of those Faculty members who either themselves express Un-Left opinions or associate with colleagues who have expressed Un-Left opinions should be boycotted by the students. That he failed to make such suggestions agrees well with the sapient counsels of moderation which informed his speech.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
Alexander Gerschenkron

AG:dod

Note: For reasons well within this writer’s control, the foregoing epistle has failed to reach the editorial office of The Crimson.

Source: The Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Gottfried Haberler, Box 12, Folder “GH—Alexander Gerschenkron”.

_________________________

Letter from John Kenneth Galbraith

The Harvard Crimson, November 16, 1967

To the Editors of The CRIMSON:

I am persuaded that at some risk of repetition I should be sure that there is no misunderstanding of my recent remarks on legitimate and non-violent forms of student protest as these concern University involvements with military activities. Two or three weeks ago in Detroit I was asked to comment on prospective efforts to obstruct physically the Willow Run laboratories operated on contract by the University of Michigan and engaged, I am told, on development of highly secret materiel for use in Vietnam. I urged not alone the futility but the adverse public effects of such action; I said that a better remedy lay against the Faculty members who ran this enterprise. Students might organize to avoid their classes, i.e., peacefully to boycott them. Last Monday evening at the meeting in the Hilles Library arranged by [Radcliffe] President Bunting to discuss legitimate forms of protest I repeated (along with others) this suggestion and added that this particular one would not be without effect on those who sponsored such work in a university but that it did not have application at Harvard where, wisely, the Administration frowned on secret contracts. I confess that I did not think of the possible application of my suggestion to confidential or secret consulting work or research by individual Harvard professors. A member of the Faculty has since invited the attention of those who are, with sufficient reason, sensitive to the association between the University Community and this war. Additionally, my reference to boycott, which of course means peaceful abstention, was evidently taken to mean some kind of physical action.

I would like to urge in the most earnest possible fashion that there be no effort by anyone, students in particular, to identify and oppose in any manner the individual participation by Faculty members in confidential or secret tasks of the government. There is a radical difference between this varied and individual work and the classified contracts for weapons development which I had in mind. This individual work covers a wide range of matters and much, or most, has no bearing on military activity. Most of it is the work of those Faculty members with the strongest instinct for public service. An effort to discriminate between approved and disapproved work would import into the academic community an improper concern for the extra-curricular pacifists who are so engaged as to those who are otherwise disposed. It could also be a most disagreeable source of tension and suspicion.

As members of the Harvard community will be aware, I am not indifferent to the Vietnam war. I regard it as an appalling tragedy; to no other matter of my adult life have I devoted more effort than to opposing the war. But I would be profoundly and also greatly embarrassed were anyone to take my remarks at Radcliffe as an invitation to any form of opposition to the participants of individual Faculty members, on a public or confidential basis, in government activities. Needless to say, none of this impairs in any way my promise at the Radcliffe meeting to work with concerned Faculty members and students to devise other effective, legitimate and non-violent forms of protest.

John Kenneth Galbraith
Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics

_________________________

Letter from Thomas Schelling in response to Galbraith’s boycott proposal

The Harvard Crimson, December 5, 1967

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

While I’ve seen no indication that Professor Galbraith’s proposed boycott of professors who do classified research for the government is going to stimulate a new movement, it does raise important questions about the personal activities of faculty members and the ways they may be involved with the government, and about the appropriate selection of target for protest. May I explain why I think his proposal is probably not workable and, if not workable, objectionable?

Let me first point out that Professor Galbraith did not propose that students boycott those professors whose research is objectionable, nor did he clarify what research would be objectionable. His reference was merely to “classified” research. I’m sure that by almost anyone’s standards of wickedness (Galbraith’s term) some classified research would be found unobjectionable. People concerned about the dissemination of nuclear technology, about the limitation of weapons, even about ways of ending the war in Vietnam, often require classified information to do their work or, at least, have to be exposed to classified information in doing their work and cannot do it unless they are willing to safeguard what the government calls “security.” Even if the character of everybody’s classified research could be ascertained, drawing the line between the objectionable and the unobjectionable, or between what any reasonable man would consider objectionable and what some reasonable men might consider to be in the public interest, would require subjective judgments. (Most classified research, incidentally, is probably unrelated to Vietnam.)

Second, much of the unclassified research that goes on would be objectionable to people who oppose any kind of war-related research; and to exclude such unclassified research would be arbitrary discrimination.

Third, “research” itself is difficult to define. Many faculty members are occasionally consultants or members of advisory boards in various agencies, or participants in government-sponsored conferences, sometimes classified, sometimes unclassified. Whether their influence is benign or malignant would be hard to judge; so would the degree of support or implied approval in attendance at a meeting at which one criticizes a government program or decision.

And if unclassified contributions had to pass the same strict test as classified work, to qualify for boycott or immunity from it, one would have to ask whether an activity like the Peace Corps is to be treated as a propaganda arm of the Johnson administration or as a benign and constructive activity. Again a judgment depends on a complex evaluation of the different purposes that a government program may serve.

Finally, are Faculty members who are unaffiliated with the government in any fashion, classified or unclassified, but who openly support the administration’s policy toward Vietnam, to qualify for boycott? It seems strange to exclude them; but again the line would be hard to draw for those who neither wholly support the conduct or the war nor are wholly committed to one drastic alternative. (It is unclear to me on which side of the line Professor Galbraith would be placed.)

I could go on multiplying the difficulties of finding a reasonable line to draw between the non-university-administered activities of professors that are objectionable and those that are not, whatever one’s standards of wickedness; and, further, I doubt whether there is enough consensus on standards to make it possible to draw an agreed line, even if some people think they know where to draw it. If I’m right about this, any line has to be arbitrary, as Professor Galbraith’s line was arbitrary. (If Professor Galbraith interprets his original proposal as applying only to university-administered research, the line is clearer but only because more arbitrary.)

If, though, the line is arbitrary–if its purpose just to mark out an identifiable target without regard to the nature of the research itself or of the non-research activity–then, aside from the likelihood that an embarrassingly large number of angels will be caught in the netful of devils, there is the question of what is being objected to and what the purpose of the boycott is. The purpose can no longer be described as bringing pressure to bear to get objectionable activities terminated. Rather, it would look–to me, at any rate–as though a boycott were being used to induce a particular group of professors to join a boycott against the government, or to embarrass them for declining to join a boycott.

Whatever my feelings about Professor Galbraith’s protest movement, I resent his proposal that students organize to coerce me into joining it. And I hope nobody stays away from Professor Galbraith’s classes in a vain organized attempt to embarrass him into changing his politics.

T.C. Schelling
Professor of Economics

_________________________

An Academic [Arthur Smithies] in the War
By Seth M. Kupferberg

The Harvard Crimson, May 23, 1975

Edward F. Chamberlin, superintendent of Kirkland House, tells a story about a Kirkland celebration that took place some years back, when Arthur Smithies was House master. Smithies was pouring drinks for the members of the victorious House crew team, starting with the bow man and working towards the stern of the shell, and as he reached the stroke, someone brought word that he had just become a grandfather.

“He kept right on—he just said, ‘Coxswain!'” Chamberlin recalls, chuckling. ‘”Coxswain, take your wine…’ We almost died.”

Smithies–Ropes Professor of Political Economy and a long-time adviser in the Saigon bureau of the Agency for International Development—gave up his mastership—”certainly Harvard’s best job,” he says—last spring. (“You can stay on past 66 as a professor but you have to retire as a master,” he grouses. “It should be the other way around—the brain deteriorates before the body does.”) But the story of the Agassiz Cup celebration still seems characteristic of him—both in content and in style, for a certain kind of sharp, logical humor as well as, perhaps, a certain cheerful indifference to happenings that would excite or upset or change the attitudes of many people. It’s a style, arguably, that found expression in Smithies’s work in Vietnam as well as his praise of the Agassiz Cup winners—and there, it was likely to have larger effects and meanings, since it served a side in an internecine war instead of an intramural regatta.

At the simplest, most straightforward level, the Agassiz Cup story is characteristic because it’s about crew—the sport that in 1929 helped bring Smithies, a 22-year-old Australian law student, the great-grandson of the first Methodist minister in western Tasmania, a Rhodes Scholarship. Finding England “too structured for my taste,” Smithies went on to discover “the fleshpots of the United States” with a Commonwealth Fellowship and a Model A Ford, earn a quick Harvard doctorate in economics, return to Australia briefly to work in its treasury department, then settle in the United States for good.

Smithies accepted tenure at Harvard in 1949—partly “so I could take up rowing again”—and continued to work at budgetary and fiscal economics. He also demonstrated an idiosyncratic kind of firmness—”I’m a believer in strict academic requirements, but for something important, like seat-races, I would make an exception,” he once told a Kirkland House oarsman. In its more political manifestations, many students came to find Smithies’s firmness objectionable. “People used to go around screaming ‘CIA Agent!’ and things at me,” he recalls. For when anti-ROTC students occupied University Hall in April 1969 and opened the files of then dean of the Faculty Franklin L. Ford, one of the letters they released to The Old Mole, the underground Cambridge newspaper that folded in 1970, was from Smithies. Dated December 7, 1967, it read: “The Central Intelligence Agency has instructed its consultants to inform their official superiors of this connection with the Agency. I hereby inform you of my connection of ten years duration. I wish I could, add that there is something subtly interesting or sinister about it.”

The tinge of self-mockery—the impatience of a person who takes certain things for granted, maybe—was typical: the same slight aloofness you sense when Smithies says he spends his free time “rowing boats and toiling in my garden,” as though the joys of domesticity in Belmont, like England, are a little too structured for his taste. But that didn’t stop the CIA letter from kicking up a minor storm.

“The CIA is divided sharply into two parts—covert and overt,” Smithies—who says he was most recently consulted by the agency, regarding a report on the future of the Vietnamese economy, last year—explains now. “For about ten years I’d go down there and review their papers on national economic matters: I’ve never been the cloak-and-dagger type. But naturally they made a big fuss about it,” he concludes, with something close to approval. “That’s good tactics.”

It was partly an exclusive attention to improving tactics—rather than more fundamental questions about the Vietnam war—that the University Hall occupiers and other Harvard radicals objected to in Smithies, even before they discovered his CIA letter, Smithies traces his service as an Agency for International Development consultant, advising the Republic of Vietnam on its fiscal policy and rates of international exchange, to previous foreign-affairs interests that included involvement in administering the Marshall Plan. He says he was regarded as a liberal both as a young teacher at the University of Michigan, where he defended the Michigan Daily‘s right to take leftist editorial stands, and in his early years in the Harvard Economics Department, where Keynesians like him were still an embattled minority.

And he still offers qualified praise for radical economists like Stephen A. Marglin ’59 or other members of the Union of Radical Political Economists—for aiming at a historical perspective on economic systems. “I think if they’d let me I’d be more of an ally than I am,” he says. “I don’t like a narrow concentration on Marx—I think it should also include Weber and people like that. I also and not a socialist, and URPE people generally are socialists—I firmly believe in the mixed economy.” For his part, Marglin says he agrees with Smithies’s stress on “the historical nature of economic theory and the fact that neo-classical theory is not the pinnacle of economic thought.” But he claims that Smithies shares orthodox economists’ bias toward marginal improvements that don’t call basic assumptions into question—”that perspective divides him pretty fundamentally from most URPE people,” he says.

Even setting aside Smithies’s belief in a mixed economy, Marglin’s criticism isn’t too surprising—budgetary economics by definition focuses on evaluating means, not ends, which it takes more or less for granted. Smithies’s book, The Budgetary Process in the United States, begins by calling a description of the ways the government sets its priorities “quite enough for one volume and one author,” and it offers only one assumption about how the budgetary process should end up—that “government decision-making can be improved by the clear formulation of alternatives.” Like his work on the budget, Smithies’s work on Vietnamese fiscal policy took its basic political framework more or less for granted.

And like the Agassiz Cup celebration, it was carried on with a certain quiet bravado, even in defiance of what many people might think of as reflex reactions to human events. Apart from his consulting work for AID—which kept him in.

During the height of campus anti-war activity, Smithies recalls, “People used to go around screaming ‘CIA Agent!’ and things at me.” Saigon most summers—Smithies wrote several reports, comparable to other American economists’ and political scientists’ attempts to improve the Saigon government’s chances and provide scientific descriptions of its progress.

Like these other writers, Smithies’s descriptions often reflected Saigon’s assumptions and interests, and so worked to limit debate in the United States and thus to keep the Saigon government strong. Not all American analysts acknowledged this political effect of their writing, but to many of their critics. It was its most important aspect. For the politics underlying questions of Vietnamese economic development included more even than questions about who should manage development and profit from it. The human, political context AID economists could all but ignore also included the struggle over these questions that was killing people and making them homeless, the struggle in which the government AID belonged to was playing an increasingly dominant part.

In a 1971 report commissioned by the Institute for Defense Analyses, called “Economic Development in Vietnam: The Need for External Resources,” and based on a “planning assumption” of “military stalemate and withering away of the war, a process that can last for a decade or more.” Smithies called for $500 million a year in American aid to the Saigon government “during the next decade,” and $700 million more in financing, preferably from an international consortium of countries, “for the indefinite future.” And while noting some of the bad effects of the war on South Vietnam’s economy—such as an unfavorable balance of trade, governmental corruption, the destruction of bridges and the defoliation of forests—Smithies also took note of countervailing factors, such as “the increase in the expectations of the Vietnamese people,” which he suggested would remain after “the horrors of war” had faded.

“The war has provided Vietnam with paved highways from end to end, with more airfields than it can possibly use, with spectacular harbors, with an elaborate communications system, with power plants, and with potable water in Saigon,” Smithies wrote.” …While it is impossible to make an accurate inventory of the changes in the infrastructure during the war, the impression is inescapable that the plusses greatly outweigh the minuses.” It was the kind of report that led Frances Fitzgerald ’62 to call AID economics “perhaps the ultimate expression of American hubris.”

Today, Smithies—who says he grew to like Saigon very much, despite a “very rarefied atmosphere” that necessitated weekly trips to the provinces for a reminder that there was a war going on—is naturally less sanguine. “Whatever the merits of the cause. I’m deeply disturbed to see the U.S. forced into a position of unconditional surrender under any circumstances,” he says. “And it’s not clear to me that there is still a clear direction to foreign policy.”

“I wouldn’t have gone there unless I thought the objective of a free and independent South Vietnam was a worthwhile one,” he continues, “and it’s fairly obvious that we didn’t pursue that role at all effectively.” Nevertheless, Smithies stresses American advisers’ accomplishments in such areas as improving rice strains—”whatever side you’re on politically, this was a useful thing,” he says—and the importance of combating “the impression that everyone connected with Vietnam was a scoundrel.”

“I think the economic staff there was really doing a good job,” he says. “In the economic and financial areas there were some very good Vietnamese and some very devoted and sincere Vietnamese—extremely able and also extremely patriotic. I can’t say the same for some of the corps commanders—but in the welter of recriminations there’s a tendency to forget what was good.”

* * *

It took just a few days after the Provisional Revolutionary Government’s victory last month for Smithies’s acquaintances to stop asking him, as at least one had the first day, about “the end of those summers in Saigon.” In the burgeoning New England spring, Saigon seemed very far away. It seemed more appropriate to remember smaller-scale settings for imperturbability in the face of exciting or famous or upsetting people or events—the Agassiz Cup celebration, say, or the Kirkland House dinner two years ago at which Smithies gave President Bok a long, pointed introduction, replete with references to “the days when the University was interested in education—before the present administration took office.” (“These occasions can get very stolid if you don’t liven ’em up a bit,” Smithies explains now. “I think one ought to be mildly provocative—what do you think?”)

At most, it seemed in keeping with the intoxicating spring weather to remember Smithies’s 1969 visit to occupied University Hall—the only one by a master, possibly helping to inspire his belief that by playing a “civilizing role,” “the House system vindicated itself in 1969 as I haven’t seen it do before or since.” Smithies says the visit was mostly a matter of bravado, “rather foolish. I suppose,” but he still seems proud of it—he’s supposed to have informed an occupier who called him an administration spy that he had “rather more right to be here than you do.” The occupiers voted to expel Smithies, but they allowed him to speak first. “It was rather reassuring, in a way,” he said, but the occupiers evidently weren’t sympathetic—”all I remember just what he said, but the occupiers evidently weren’t sympathetic—”all I remember is that it was philosophically weird,” one of them said recently.

Meanwhile, Smithies continued to teach macroeconomic theory, scull on the Charles, lunch in the Kirkland dining hall, even be mildly provocative, if only because senior English majors in the House were taking general exams, on such moderately unlikely subjects as the poetry of T.S. Eliot ’10. “My wife and I used to be very fond of Eliot—I think we still are,” Smithies explained later, but at lunch, he didn’t seem so sure.

“But is it poetry–the broad-backed hippopotamus?” he asked his companions, a little quizzically. Then he proceeded to rattle off three or four stanzas: The broad-backed hippopotamus Rests on his belly in the mud; Although he seems so firm to us He is merely flesh and blood…

“Is that poetry–or is it just a jingle?” he asked again. No one offered an immediate answer: things were back to normal.

Steven B. Geovanis

Image Sources:  Left to right. Smithies and Galbraith from Harvard Class Album 1958; Gerschenkron from Harvard Class Album 1957.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Semester examinations in all political economy courses, 1887-1888

 

In this post we have a complete collection of the semester examinations for the eight courses in political economy taught at Harvard during the 1887-88 academic year. As an extra bonus we have the examinations for the Philosophy course “Ethics of Social Reform” that clearly included a good chunk of the normative political economy of its time.

Fun facts: Mr. Gray, who taught the less theoretical sections of the second half of the principles course, was John Henry Gray (1859-1946) who had received his A.B. from Harvard in 1887 and who went on to receive a Ph.D. in 1892 at the University of Halle-Wittenberg in Germany under Johannes Conrad. In addition to having professorships at Northwestern, Carleton College and the University of Minnesota, Gray was president of the AEA in 1914.

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Political Economy 1. Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 1. First half-year: Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.—Lectures on Banking. Profs. Laughlin and Taussig.

Total 210: 2 Graduates, 29 Seniors, 83 Juniors, 69 Sophomores, 5 Freshmen, 22 Others. (Four sections).

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

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Political Economy 1
1887-1888.
[Mid-year examination]

  1. Is productive consumption necessarily consumption of capital? Can there be unproductive consumption of capital?
  2. Distinguish which of the following commodities are capital, and, as to those that are capital, distinguish which you would call fixed capital and which circulating.
    A ton of pig iron; a plough; a package of tobacco; a loaf of bread; a dwelling-house.
    Can you reconcile the statement that one or other of these commodities is or is not capital with the proposition that the intention of the owner determines whether an article shall or shall not be capital?
  3. Suppose an inconvertible paper money to be issued, of half the amount of specie previously in circulation. Trace the effects (1) in a country carrying on trade with other countries, (2) in a country shut off from trade with other countries.
  4. Explain in what manner the proposition that the value of commodities is governed by their cost of production applies to wheat, to iron nails, and to gold bullion.
  5. Explain the proposition that rent does not enter into the cost of production. Does it hold good of the rent paid for a factory building? Of the rent paid for agricultural land?
  6. It has been said that wages depend (a) on the price of food, (b) on the standard of living of the laborers, (c) on the ratio between capital and population. Are these propositions consistent with each other? Are they sound?
  7. Suppose that
    One day’s labor in the United States produces 10 pounds of copper,
    One day’s labor England produces 8 pounds of copper,
    One day’s labor in the United States produces 5 pounds of tin,
    One day’s labor England produces 5 pounds of tin,
    Would trade arise between England and the United States, and if so, how?
    Suppose that, other things remaining as above, one day’s labor in England produced 12 pounds of copper, would trade arise, and if so, how?
  8. Explain what is meant when it is said that “there are two senses in which a country obtains commodities more cheaply by foreign trade: in the sense of value, and in the sense of cost.”
  9. Arrange in proper order the following items of a bank account: Capital, $300,00; Bonds and Stocks, $35,000; Real estate and fixtures, $20,000; Other assets, $20,000; Surplus, $80,000; Undivided Profits, $10,500; Notes, $90,000; Cash, $110,000; Cash items, $90,000; Deposits, $850,000; Loans, $1,050,000; Expenses, $5,500. ,
    Suppose loans are repaid to this bank to the amount of $100,000. One half by cancelling deposits, one quarter in its own notes, and one quarter in cash; how will the account then stand?
  10. What is the effect of the use of credit on the value of money? Wherein does credit in the form of bank deposits exercise an effect on the value of money different from that of credit in the form of bank notes?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1887-88.

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Political Economy 1A.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 1. Second half-year: Division A. Mill’s Principles.—Cairnes’s Leading Principles.—Bagehot’s Postulates of Political Economy.—Lectures on Financial Legislation. Mr. [John Henry] Gray.

Total 90: 4 Seniors, 33 Juniors, 44 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 8 Others. (Two sections).

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

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POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
DIVISION A.
[Year-end examination, 1888]

  1. From the causes now enumerated, unless counteracted by others, the progress of things (society) enables a country to obtain at less and less of real cost, not only its own productions, but those of foreign countries.”—Mill, Bk. IV, c.1.
    Explain what is meant by the “causes now enumerated,” and also what the counteracting influences are. Do the counteracting influences affect all commodities equally and at the same time?
  2. Mill says, “…if there are human beings capable of work and food to feed them they may always be employed in producing something.” Wakefield says, “Production is limited not solely by the quantity of capital and labor, but also by the extent of the field of employment.”
    Explain what is meant by the “field of employment,” and reconcile the two statements, if possible.
  3. One of the objects of the Land Tenure Association, of which Mill was President, was “To claim for the benefit of the State the interception by Taxation of the Future Unearned increase of the Rent of Land.”
    Discuss the justice of such a plan, compare it with Henry George’s proposal on the same subject, and show the difficulties in administering it.
  4. Characterize each of Adam Smith’s Canons of Taxation by a word or phrase. Explain the meaning of each, and discuss them briefly in relation to our present system of national taxation.
  5. Discuss the justice and desirability of an Income Tax. Should there be any exemptions from such a tax? If so, why? If not, why not? Are the practical difficulties in the way of an Income Tax greater now than they would have been a century ago?
  6. On what circumstances does industrial competition depend? Does the development of Industry increase or does it decrease the extent of the field over which such competition is effective?
    Point out any mistakes of the English School of Political Economy as to the importance and extent of competition.
  7. (a) “Let the price of labor in Victoria only fall to the same level as in the countries from which it imports its wheat…and it will at once become profitable to raise wheat in Victoria from soils from which it cannot now be raised with profit.”
    What would be Ricardo’s reply to this proposition? Would it be adequate?
    (b) Suppose that England could by some mechanical intervention, unknown to the rest of the world, reduce by three fourths the present cost of producing woollens, what would be the effect on her foreign trade, and on the remuneration of her labor?
  8. Suppose the United States and Great Britain in Commercial Equilibrium. Then a very large number of American citizens go to Great Britain to reside. What effect does this have on the equilibrium? How does it affect International Values as between the United States and Great Britain?
  9. How did depreciation of the currency facilitate the sale of five-twenty bonds in 1863-64?
  10. State the provisions of the Resumption Act.
    By what reasoning was Cairnes led to predict the occurrence of the conditions which favored resumption?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1887-89.  Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1888.

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Political Economy 1B.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 1. Second half-year: Division B. Mill’s Principles (selections).—Jevons’s The State in Relation to Labor.—Taussig’s Present Tariff.—Hadley’s Railroad Transportation.—Lectures on Social Questions and on Financial Legislation. Prof. Taussig.

Total 117: 2 Graduates, 25 Seniors, 49 Juniors, 25 Sophomores, 4 Freshmen, 12 Others. (Two sections).

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

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POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
DIVISION B.
[Year-end examination, 1888]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

  1. Explain what was Mill’s proposal in regard to a tax on rents, and state the reasons urged by him in its support. Point out wherein the tax proposed by him differs from a special tax on all rents from real estate.
  2. Wherein is the effect of an import duty on coffee different from that of an import duty on woolen goods? Would your conclusion be different if coffee were a monopolized article abroad? If woollen goods were a monopolized article at home?
    What are the present duties on these articles?
  3. It is said that if present duties on manufactured articles were repealed, the labor and capital engaged in producing them would turn to agriculture, and that more agricultural commodities would then be produced than there was a market for. What should you say?
  4. Give the main provisions of present English legislation on factories.
  5. A certain cooperative society in England pays (1) interest on loans, (2) a dividend to share holders, (3) a dividend to purchasers and (4) a bonus to workmen. What kind of coöperation is typified by its operations?
  6. At [sic, “As”?] common law combinations to raise or maintain prices are invalid. Explain wherein the Interstate Commerce Act makes a similar provision as to pooling by railroads, and wherein a different provision. What reasons are there why the law in regard to railroads should be different from the law in regard to other industries?
  7. Why are cheap bulky goods charged with lower freight rates on railroads than compact expensive goods? Mention an analogous case in another industry.
  8. It is said that the large fixed capital invested in railroads makes it possible for railroad charges to be so low as not to repay cost. Is this possible? Suppose it to be so; would such a state of things be inconsistent with the principle that the value of commodities is fixed by their cost of production?
  9. State the causes which affected the gold premium in 1863-64, and explain how the depreciation of the currency facilitated the sale of the five-twenty bonds in those years.
  10. State the provisions of the Resumption Act, and the circumstances which made it easy to resume specie payments at the date fixed upon.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1887-89.  Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1888.

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Political Economy 2.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 2. History of Economic Theory.—Distribution.—The Scope and Method of Political Economy.—Socialism. Lectures, preparation of theses, and discussion of selections from leading writers. Prof. Taussig.

Total 29: 4 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

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1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
[Mid-year examination. 1888.]

  1. Compare the treatment of the theory of money by Boisguillebert, Law, and Hume.
  2. What was Adam Smith’s doctrine as to rent, and wherein does it differ from that of the Physiocrats, and from that of Ricardo?
  3. Make a brief comparison between the general characteristics of the economic writings of Adam Smith and of J. S. Mill.
  4. Explain how Malthus illustrated and applied his general principles in his discussion of the movement of population in (a) Sweden and Norway, (b) Switzerland, (c) France during the Revolutionary wars. [Take one of these three.)
  5. “Mr. Malthus thinks that a low money price of corn would not be favourable to the lower classes of society, because the real exchangeable value of labour, that is, its power of commanding the necessaries, conveniencies, and luxuries of life, would not be augmented, but diminished, by a low money price. Some of his observations on this subject are certainly of great weight, but he does not sufficiently allow for the effect of a better distribution of the national capital on the situation of the lower classes. It would be beneficial to them, because the same capital would employ more hands; besides, the greater profits would lead to more accumulation; and thus a stimulus would be given to population by really high wages, which could not fail for a long time to ameliorate the condition of the laboring classes.”— Ricardo, Essay on the Influence of a Low Price of Corn.
    Explain (a) whether this states fairly Malthus’s opinion as to the effect of cheap food; (b) what Ricardo meant by “a better distribution of the national capital”; (c) what light the concluding sentence throws on Ricardo’s view of the effect on wages and profits of cheap food.
  6. “The notion that any portion of the wealth of the country should be ‘determined’ to the payment of wages seems to shock Mr. Longe’s sense of economic propriety; which is strange, seeing that his own doctrine — that it is ‘the demand for commodities which determines the quantity of wealth spent in the payment of wages’ — plainly involves this consequence. He puts the case of a capitalist who, taking advantage of the necessities of his workmen, effects a reduction of wages and succeeds in withdrawing so much, say £1000, from the Wages-Fund; and asks how is the sum thus withdrawn to be restored to the fund? On Mr. Longe’s principles the answer is simple,—‘by being spent in commodities’; for it may be assumed that the sum so withdrawn will, in any case, not be hoarded. * * * The answer, therefore, to the case put by Mr. Longe is easy on his own principles; and I am disposed to flatter myself that the reader who has gone with me in the foregoing discussion will not have much difficulty in replying to it on my own.”— Cairnes, Leading Principles.
    What is the answer on Cairnes’s principles?
  7. Would the explanation which the Wages-Fund theory gives of the causes regulating the rate of wages apply to a society in which a system of profit-sharing had been universally adopted?
  8. Wherein does Ricardo’s treatment of the manner in which profits affect value differ from Cairnes’s treatment of the same subject?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1887-88.

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1887-88
POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
[Year-end examination. 1888.]

  1. “Cairnes, who earnestly maintained that capital is divided into wages, raw material, and fixed capital, argued that trades-unions could not increase wages in the several trades, because, if they did so, they would reduce profits below the rate which would make investment worth while. On his own doctrine, increased wages could not trench on profits. He should have argued that wages, if increased by a trades-union, could only be increased at the expense of raw material and fixed capital, which would be far more difficult than to increase them at the expense of profits. Indeed, if the trades-union movement did not coincide with a new distribution of capital into its three parts (a new distribution which would produce a rise in wages), the trades-union could not possibly force an advance at the expense of raw materials or fixed capital.” — W. G. Sumner, Collected Essays.
    Can you reconcile Cairnes’s reasoning on trades-unions with his doctrine as to the wages fund?
  2. “The railroads of the United States receive annually two hundred and ten millions of dollars for transporting passengers. Those receipts came in day by day, yet the railroad company habitually pays its employees at the close of the week or at the close of the month. Here we have a very large class of services where the employer receives the price of his product before he pays for the labor concerned in its production. The railroads of the United States also receive annually for freights five hundred and fifty millions. The greater portion of this amount is collected before the track hands and the station hands have received the remuneration for their share of the service. . . . To descend to the other end of the scale of dignity, hotel keepers and, in less degrees, boarding-house keepers collect their bills before they pay their cooks, chambermaids, and scullions. Nearly all receipts of theatre, opera, and concert companies are obtained day by day, although their staffs and troupes are borne on monthly or weekly pay-rolls.” — F. A. Walker, in the Journal of Economics, April, 1888.
    Are these facts inconsistent with the proposition that wages are paid out of capital?
  3. What should you say to the doctrine that the real source of wages is in the incomes of the consumers of the articles made by the laborers?
  4. It has been said that “Mr. Walker’s theory is, in reality, not a theory of manager’s earnings at all, but a theory of difference in manager’s earnings.” Do you think this is a sound criticism?
  5. Explain what was Bastiat’s doctrine as to value; point out wherein it was like or unlike Carey’s doctrine on the same subject; and state briefly Cairnes’s criticism on Bastiat.
  6. “There are two kinds of sociological inquiry. In the first kind, the question proposed is, what effect will follow from a given cause, a certain general condition of social circumstances being presupposed. As, for example, what would be the effect of abolishing or repealing corn laws in the present conditions of society or civilization in any European country, or under any other given supposition with regard to the circumstances of society in general; without reference to the changes which might take place, or which may be already in progress, in those circumstances. But there is also a second inquiry, namely, what are the laws which determine those general circumstances themselves. In this last the question is, not what will be the effect of a given cause in a certain state of society, but what are the causes which produce, and the phenomena which characterize, states of society generally.” — Mill’s Logic.
    What reasons are there for saying that different methods should be applied to these two kinds of inquiry? and what are the differences in method?
  7. Can the legislation of Germany on workmen’s insurance be said to be socialistic in a sense in which (a) the Christian socialist movement in England, and (b) the regulation or ownership by the state, are not socialistic?
  8. Suppose production coöperation were universally adopted; wherein would the organization of society differ from that which socialism proposes?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1887-89.  Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1888.

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Political Economy 3.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 3. First half-year. Investigation and Discussion of Practical Economic Questions.—Short theses. Prof. Laughlin.

Total 23: 1 Graduate, 12 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

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1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3
[Mid-year examination]

  1. In what way, in your opinion, is the discussion of a “standard of value” related to the questions involved in Bimetallism?
  2. How far can the figures of coinage be used to show the operation of Gresham’s Law? Illustrate by reference to the history of our coinage. Are all coins intended for circulation?
  3. Compare the production of silver in 1780-1820 with that for the period since 1872. Were the results of production the same?
  4. Distinguish between “Free coinage” and gratuitous coinage. What is “seigniorage”? Has the theory of seigniorage any connection with the circulation of our subsidiary coinage, or the silver dollar?
  5. Discuss the results of the recent legislation permitting the issue of small silver certificates.
  6. How far can legislation regulate the value of metallic money?
  7. Compare the impelling causes for the passage of the English Navigation Laws in 1651 and the American Navigation Laws of 1789 and 1817.
  8. Enumerate briefly any provisions of existing laws which operate to prevent the increase of our ocean tonnage.
  9. Distinguish between the conditions affecting our shipping before 1856, and since. If our shipping flourished in the former period, are there the same reasons to suppose it should be as prosperous in the later period?
  10. How far have the customs-duties imposed during the Civil War affected ship-building? Have they influenced ship-sailing?
  11. In what way may foreigners procure a ship built in the United States cheaper than citizens of this country can procure them? Does this affect our tonnage?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1887-88.

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Political Economy 4.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 4. Economic History of Europe and America since the Seven Years’ War.—Selections for required reading. Prof. Dunbar.

Total 102: 3 Graduates, 38 Seniors, 29 Juniors, 25 Sophomores, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

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1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4
[Mid-year examination]

[Answer all of A, and eight questions from B]

A.

  1. Why did the period of the wars 1793-1815, when England was making enormous unproductive expenditures and subjecting herself to severe taxation, nevertheless present many of the appearances of high prosperity? [See the extract from Porter, 113-115.]
  2. What was Napoleon’s Milan decree, and the occasion for its issue? [See the extract from Levi.]
  3. “The general feeling in Germany towards the Zoll-Verein is, that it is the first step towards what is called the Germanization of the people.”—[Extract from Bowring, 138.]
    Why was the Zoll-Verein more effective for this purpose than the Confederation?

B.

  1. In what way was the English colonial system less injurious to the colonies than that of any other important power of the time?
  2. English legislation on Indian cotton goods: dates, purpose, and effects, good or bad.
  3. The school of writers known as the French Economistes.
  4. How did the American Revolution tend to prepare the way for that in France?
  5. The date and cause of the English Bank Restriction and its duration.
  6. What was the pressure which compelled Prussia to adopt the emancipating edict of 1807?
  7. American manufactures before 1808 and after.
  8. Why were the years 1815-30 a period of general commercial embarrassment and irregularity?
  9. What special advantages for the cotton, woolen, and iron manufactures respectively did England exhibit prior to the great inventions?
  10. How did free trade become a commercial necessity for England?
  11. The system on which railway building was undertaken in the United States, England, Belgium, France, and Prussia respectively.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1887-88.

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1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 4
[Year-end examination]

[Answer all of A, and ten questions from B]

A.

  1. The writer in Blackwood’s [Selections, p. 248], speaking of the use of bills of exchange in the payment of the French Indemnity, says: “How came it that £170,000,000 of bills could be got at all’ [e. in what transactions were bills created so much in excess of the usual supply]?
  2. Cairnes [Selections, p. 218], says that “as the final result of the above movement [of the new gold] we find that while the metallic systems of England and the United States are receiving but small permanent accessions, those of India and China are absorbing enormous supplies.” Why?
  3. Of the two pairs of countries above named which pair gained most from the movement, and why?

B.

  1. Is it probable that England would have adopted Free Trade, if the refusal of other countries to follow her example had been foreseen?
  2. What caused the rapid growth of American navigation down to 1857-60?
  3. How are the prices, usually taken as measuring the value of gold, affected by quick transportation and telegraphs?
  4. England and the Suez Canal.
  5. Banking in France and Germany is said to be in an undeveloped condition. Illustrate this by comparison with the development of banking methods in England and the United States.
  6. Is England a gainer or a loser by the extension of our wheat area and the consequent cheapness of supply from this country?
  7. How did the payment of the French Indemnity contribute to the financial crisis of 1873 in the United States?
  8. How did the crisis of 1873 help to bring about the resumption of specie payment in this country?
  9. Compare the three cases of resumption,— the United States, France, and Italy,–as regards the kinds of currency in use and the general method adopted.
  10. Fawcett [God and Debt, p. 122] says of the public debts of the world, that “the actual liquidation of this vast sum, amounting to just about eight times the total of all the gold and silver used as money in Europe and America, is, of course, not to be contemplated — it is impossible.”
  11. How does the revived colonial enterprise of our day differ from that of the last century as regards the purposes and expectations of the colonizing nations?
  12. The great political consolidations in Europe have brought with them enormous military burdens. How should you say that this loss has been offset?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1887-89.  Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1888.

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1887-88
POLITICAL ECONOMY 5
Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France, and Germany
[ Course Omitted in 1887-88]

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Political Economy 6.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 6. Second Half-year. History of Tariff Legislation in the United States.—Lectures, required reading, and investigation of special topics. Prof. Taussig.

Total 58: 5 Graduates, 31 Seniors, 17 Juniors, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

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Topics and References in Political Economy VI.
Harvard College. Tariff Legislation in the United States. Cambridge, Mass., 1888.

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1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 6
[Year-end examination]

  1. “I will not argue the question whether, looking to the policy indicated by the laws of 1789, 1817, 1824, 1828, 1832, and 1842, there has been ground for the industrious and enterprising people of the United States, engaged in home pursuits, to expect government protection for internal industry. The question is, do these laws, or do they not, from 1789 to the present time, constantly show and maintain a purpose, a policy, which might naturally induce men to invest property in manufactures, and to commit themselves to those pursuits in life? Without lengthened argument, I shall take this for granted.”—Webster, Speech of 1846.
    Was Webster justified in taking so much for granted?
  2. Compare the treatment of the bearing of protective duties on wages in Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures with the treatment of the same topic in Walker’s Report of 1846, and give an opinion on the value of the discussion at the hands of both statesmen.
  3. What connection has been alleged to exist, and what connection in fact existed, between tariff legislation and general prosperity in 1837-39, in 1843, and in 1857?
  4. Point out wherein the duties on wool and woolens under the act of 1828 resembled, and wherein they differed from, the duties on the same articles under the act of 1867.
  5. Compare the effect of the duties on cotton goods between 1816 and 1824, with the effect of the duties on the same goods between 1864 and 1883.
  6. Point out wherein Mill’s reasoning as to the effect of an import duty on the terms of an international exchange is different from the export tax theory of 1832.
  7. Explain what conclusions you can draw as to the economic effect of the duties on pig iron between 1870 and 1888, from your knowledge of foreign and domestic prices, duties, domestic production, and imports.
  8. Explain why the duty on imported sugar has not stimulated the production of beet sugar in the United States. Apply a similar explanation to some other industry, not connected with agriculture, in which high duties have had less effect than might have been expected.
  9. Point out wherein the course of the tariff legislation of the United States between 1864 and 1883 was similar to the course of legislation in France between 1815 and 1860, and wherein it was not similar.
  10. “First, there is no sufficient market for our surplus agricultural products except a foreign market, and, in default of this, such surplus will either not be raised, or, if raised, will rot on the ground. Second, the domestic demand for the products of existing furnaces and factories is very far short of the capacity of such furnaces and factories to supply; and, until larger and more extended markets are obtainable, domestic competition will inevitably continue, as now, to reduce profits to a minimum and greatly restrict the extension of the so-called manufacturing industries….Industrial depression, business stagnation, and social discontent in the United States, as a rule, are going to continue and increase until the nation adopts a fiscal and commercial policy more liberal and better suited to the new condition of affairs.”— D.A. Wells, in the North American Review.
    Do you think the remedy of lower import duties will remove the difficulties said to arise from excessive production?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1887-89.  Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1888.

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Political Economy 7.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 7. Taxation, Public Debts, and Banking.—Lectures. Prof. Dunbar.

Total 15: 1 Graduate, 11 Seniors, 3 Juniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

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1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7
[Mid-year examination]

[Discuss three of the following topics.]

  1. What are the conditions necessary for the complete development and efficient working of a budget system?
  2. Accepting Mill’s reasoning that a tax under some circumstances, by diminishing the income from property, diminishes its selling value, and so ceases to be felt by subsequent purchasers, should you say,—
    1. That the French impôt foncier is a tax on present landholders?
    2. That the English income-tax under Schedule A, is a tax on present landholders?
      The reason for the difference, if any exists.
  3. Comparative advantages of the methods of local taxation used in the four leading countries.
  4. “It is an error, to assume that [1] all descriptions of property should be subjected to taxation in order to insure equality and uniformity. On the contrary, all experience has shown—none better than that of the United States—that the more ‘concrete’ and the less diffused a system of taxation can be made, the better for the people and the better for the State; for, with the exception of direct taxes on income, and upon those articles, like spirits and tobacco, which are consumed solely for personal gratification, taxation distributes itself with a wonderful degree of uniformity. If placed upon land, it will constitute an element of the cost of that which the land produces; if upon manufacturing industry, then of the cost of the products of such industry; upon shipping, of the cost of that which the ship transports; upon capital, of the cost, price, or interest, which is paid for the use of such capital; and if upon buildings, it will be reflected upon the income of the occupier, or upon the cost of the goods, wares and merchandise stored, exchanged or produced therein….And so [2] a tax imposed upon an article or service of prime necessity to a community, like land or buildings, for example, becomes, in effect, a tax upon all, without the vexations of infinitesimal application.”
    The same author has expressed this idea elsewhere by saying,—
    “Proportional taxes on all things of any given class will be diffused and equalized on all other property.”
    Discuss the two general principles of taxation, [1], [2], contrasted with each other in the above extracts.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1887-88.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 7
[Year-end examination]

A.

A careful examination and discussion of these two topics is desired. Not less than one half of your time should be given to this division of the paper.

  1. “In so far as bondholders live from the proceeds of their bonds, they form a class not immediately interested in current industries. At some time in the past they may have furnished the government with large sums of capital, thus averting the inconvenience of excessive taxation or of a sudden change in rates; and, in return for this service, they receive from the government the promise of an annuity until an equivalent of the original capital should be returned. Such persons are guaranteed a living without labor.
    “There is but one way in which the government may escape the necessity of supporting in idleness this class, and that is by paying its members their respective claims. The bondholders would in this manner be deprived of their secured annuity, but they would in its stead hold a sum of free capital; and if they wish to continue in the enjoyment of an income from their property they must apply their funds to some productive purpose. In this manner the country gains by bringing to bear upon industrial affairs the interested attention of those who formerly were secured a living from the proceeds of public taxes. For another reason also is the payment of a debt advantageous. No people can long retain that hopefulness so essential to the vigorous prosecution of industries if the past lays heavy claims upon the present. As a rule, they only should partake of current product who are in some way connected with present production. Carelessness and jealousy are not characteristics of efficient labor, but they are sometimes naturally engendered by the payment of taxes for the support of a favored class. It is the permanency of this payment, rather than its amount, which exerts a depressing influence upon labor, and its extinction is a first step toward the establishment of confidence and contentment.”
  2. “As the circulation of a bank is a source of profit, and as the managers are usually disposed to oblige their patrons by loans and accommodations, it can never be wise to allow banks or parties who have pecuniary interests at stake to increase or diminish the volume of currency in the country at their pleasure. Nor do I find in the condition of things a law or rule on which we can safely rely. Upon these views I form the conclusion that the circulation of the banks should be fixed and limited, and that the power to change the volume of paper in circulation, within limits established by law, should remain in the Treasury Department.
    “A degree of flexibility in the volume of currency is essential for two reasons:
    “First. The business of the Department cannot be transacted properly if a limit is fixed, and the power to raise the circulation above or reduce it below that limit is denied.
    “A rule of this nature would compel the Secretary to accumulate a large currency balance and to hold it; as, otherwise, the credit of the government, in meeting the ordinary daily claims upon it, would be at the mercy of every serious business and political revulsion in the United States or Europe….
    “Secondly. There is a necessity every autumn for moving the crops without delay from the South and West to the seaboard that they may be in hand for export and consumption as wanted. This work should be done in the main before the lakes, rivers, and canals are closed, and yet it cannot be done without the use of large amounts of currency.
    “In the summer months funds accumulate at the centres, but the renewal of business in August and September gives employment for large sums, and leaves little or nothing for forwarding the crops in October and November….
    “The crops cannot be moved generally by the aid of bank balances, checks, and letters of credit, but only by bank notes and United States notes paid at once to the producers…
    “The problem is to find a way of increasing the currency for moving the crops and diminishing it at once when that work is done. This is a necessary work, and, inasmuch as it cannot be confined to the banks, where, but in the Treasury Department, can the power be reposed?”—[Finance Report, by Secretary Boutwell, 1872.]

B.

  1. In the loan act of August 5, 1861, Congress, having previously authorized the issue of seven per cent twenty-year bonds at par, authorized the Secretary, if he thought best, to sell six per cent twenty-year bonds, “at any rate not less that the equivalent of par, for the bonds bearing seven per centum interest, authorized by said [previous] act.” What considerations should determine the choice of the Secretary in using this discretion?
  2. What is your own estimate of the merits of the English system of operating on the national debt by means of terminable annuities, as proposed by Mr. Gladstone and extended by Mr. Childers?
  3. Shadwell [System of Political Economy, 371] says:—
    “The tendency of all legislation on the subject of notes is to sacrifice the interests of the depositors to those of the note-holders, and there are some people to whom such a course appears justifiable. Banks, it is said, are imprudently managed; therefore, when one fails, its notes should be paid in full before the claims of its depositors are dealt with. It would not be more arbitrary to say that because banks are imprudently managed, therefore the depositors should be paid in full before the claims of the note-holders are dealt with.”
    What is your own conclusion of this question?
  4. Which of the three great banks, the Bank of England, the Bank of France, and the Reichsbank, appears to you to present the best model for a great national bank,— and why?
  5. It has been remarked that the expedient by which the New York banks associated themselves against a common danger, in 1860, 1873, and 1884, finds its nearest analogy in the occasional suspension of the limit which the act of 1844 places on the Bank of England. How close and real is the analogy?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1887-89.  Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1888.

_______________________

Political Economy 8.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 8. First half-year. Financial history of the United States.—Lectures. Prof. Dunbar.

Total 39: 3 Graduates, 26 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 8
[Mid-year examination]

[Take one question from A and nine from B, or both from A and seven from B.]

The questions under A are supposed to require half an hour each for careful treatment, and those under B fifteen minutes each.

A.

  1. There is disclosed in the administration of Mr. Gallatin the true policy of debt-payment. It consists in the establishment of a permanent appropriation for the service of the debt which shall be in excess of the demands of current interest. But such appropriation need not be “inviolable.” It need form no part of a “private contract,” nor be regarded as constituting “private property.” A government should always be at liberty in time of emergency to divert money held for the payment of debt to the support of new loans…The United States is indebted to Mr. Gallatin more than to any other man for the establishment of this policy. Under the guidance of his clear insight this country departed from the pernicious methods of English financiering.—H.C. Adams, Public Debts, 268.
    Discuss the above with particular reference to the suggested difference of principle between Hamilton’s sinking-fund policy and Gallatin’s.
  2. What does the experience of the United States government show as to the policy of relying upon duties on imports as the sole means of supplying the Treasury?

B.

  1. How is the fact to be explained that the Bank of the United States was so much less able to resist attack than it appeared to be in 1829?
  2. What kind of currency did the government use and where were its money kept, and under what authority of law, after the closing of the first Bank of the United States, 1811-17, and after the removal of the deposits from the second, 1833-36?
  3. In what way would the renewal of the charter of the first Bank of the United States probably have affected the finances during the war, 1812-15?
  4. What was the reason for the difference between Mr. Dallas’s proposition for a bank in 1814 and that which he made in 1815?
  5. How did the second Bank of the United States aid in the resumption of specie payment in 1817?
  6. What was the specie circular of 1836, and how was it financially important?
  7. How would it have eased the finances of 1861, if the Secretary of the Treasury had made more free use of the Act of August 5, suspending for some purposes the provisions of the Independent Treasury Act?
  8. What were the nearest approaches made to a government legal-tender paper before 1862?
  9. Why was 1865 a favorable occasion for returning to specie payment, and what then prevented the return?
  10. As a general question, apart from any special provision of law, who has authority to tax United States bonds or the income derived from them, and under what limitations, if any?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1887-88.

_______________________

Political Economy 9.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Political Economy 9. First half-year. Management and Ownership of Railways. Prof. Laughlin.

Total 19: 1 Graduate, 14 Seniors, 3 Juniors, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 62.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

1887-88.
POLITICAL ECONOMY 9
[Mid-year examination]

  1. In what way is railway transportation related to the general principles of economic theory?
  2. Wherein is there any opposition between the interests of the shareholders and the directors of railways?
  3. How far are railway rates regulated by the competition of railways with each other?
  4. Discuss the reasons for and against equal mileage rates.
  5. What gave rise to pooling in the United States? What have been the practical effects of pooling on railway rates in this country?
  6. Explain: Cost of service, differential rates, a “differential,” the evening system, preferred stock, the Joint Executive Committee, the Petroleum Pool.
  7. Is classification the necessary consequence of any one theory of rates? How does classification in the United States compare with that of European railways?
  8. Compare the Railway Commissions of Georgia and Massachusetts.
  9. Do you regard the Granger legislation as having accomplished any permanent results?
  10. Discuss the interpretation of the Fourth Section of the Inter-State Commerce Act by the National Commission.
  11. What arguments in favor of State ownership of railways by the United States can be drawn from the experience of Germany and Italy?
  12. Do you find any part of the railway system of England which would be worthy of adoption by the United States?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1887-88.

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Philosophy 11.
Course Description and Enrollment
1887-88

Philosophy 11. The Ethics of Social Reform. The questions of Charity, Divorce, the Indians, Labor, Prisons, temperance, etc., as problems of practical ethics.—Lectures, essays, and practical observations. Prof. Peabody.

Total 84: 3 Graduates, 51 Seniors, 23 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1887-1888, p. 71.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

1887-88
PHILOSOPHY 11.
THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL REFORM.
[Mid-year examination]

[Omit one question]

  1. Inductive ethics. Explain and illustrate this phrase, as applied to the study of the social questions.
  2. The various possible relations between one’s own life and the life of society. Illustrate by the history of ethical theory.
  3. “The whole question of the relation of ethics to political economy resolves itself into a bare question of classification. Shall our nomenclature be such as to make the term political economy include the ethical sphere or not?”—(C.F. Dunbar, Quarterly Journal of Economics, October, 1886, p. 25.)
    What is your answer to this question of classification?
  4. “No one doubts that a man who improves the current morality of his time must be something of an Idealist. He must have an idea which moves him to seek its realization. That idea cannot represent any experienced reality.”.-(T.H. Green, Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 325.)
    Illustrate this in the conduct of a social reform.
  5. “I fully believe that to-day the next most pernicious thing to vice is charity in its broad and popular sense.”—(W.G. Sumner, What Social Classes owe to each other, p. 157.)
    What is there in modern charity which tends to justify this view and in what way can such a danger be met?
  6. “Among the means toward a higher civilization I unhesitatingly assert that the deliberate cultivation of public amusement is a principal one.”—(W.S. Jevons, Methods of Social Reform, p. 7.) Why?
  7. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of a Constitutional Amendment as a remedy for existing evils in the divorce question.
  8. “Without the circumstances of infancy…the phenomena of social life would have been omitted from the history of the world and with them the phenomena of ethics.”—(John Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy, II. 363) Why?
  9. “The most ancient system”—of family life—“was a system of kinship through females only.”—(McLennan,Studies in Ancient History, p. 85.)
    What was the origin of this matriarchal type and why is it supposed to have preceded the patriarchal family?
  10. “The movement of progressive societies has been uniform in one respect. Through all its course it has been distinguished by the gradual dissolution of family dependency and the growth of individual obligation. The individual is steadily substituted for the family as the unit of which civil laws take account.”—(Sir Henry Maine, Ancient Law, p. 163.)
    Consider the history, the tendencies, and the risks of this evolution of the individual.
  11. Illustrate the interdependence of the question of Marriage and Divorce with other social questions.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 2, Bound volume Examination Papers, Mid-Year 1887-88.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Philosophy 11.
THE ETHICS OF SOCIAL REFORM.
[Year-end examination]

[Omit two questions.]

  1. Have you discovered any philosophical principles underlying this course of study, and can you suggest any change of method in the course which will make these underlying principles more clear?
  2. Why has the Indian been hitherto so impervious to civilization?
  3. Explain the “Dawes Bills.” What supplementary legislation is needed for their successful administration?
  4. Contrast the economic doctrines of Carlyle and of Ruskin and consider modern illustrations of each.
  5. Enumerate some of the ways in which an employer seems to have a natural advantage in a conflict with his employed.
  6. On what principle would wages be paid if the “Democratic Federation” should carry out its programme?
  7. “Socialists regard colossal corporations and the wealthy bosses that direct them as the greatest pioneers of their cause.”-Kirkup, An Inquiry into Socialism, p. 169.—Why?
  8. “There are certain establishments nominally coöperative, which have little significance as bearing on the Labor Question. The chief of these is the Rochdale form of the cooperative store.”—J.B. Clark, The Philosophy of Wealth, p. 190.—Why is this, and what are some of the obstacles to more complete coöperation?
  9. Illustrate by several instances the tendency of the State to infringe upon the liberty of the individual. How far do you think that this tendency can be wisely encouraged?
  10. On what principle would you distinguish the various forms of liquor legislation, and what considerations would determine your vote in your own state or town?
  11. “Society is not an aggregate of independent units, not a mechanical whole, but, in the true sense of the word, an organism.”—Prof. Edward Caird, The Moral Aspect of the Economical Problem, p. 16.—If this is true, how does it affect your duty as to temperance, and your understanding of the argument from “example”? 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 3, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, 1887-89.  Papers Set for Final Examinations in Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College. June, 1888.

Image Source: John Harvard Statue (1904). Library of Congress. Photos, Prints and Drawings.

 

Categories
Economics Programs M.I.T. Regulations

MIT. Revising Economics Ph.D. General Examinations. E.C.Brown, 1975

 

What makes this memo from E. Cary Brown particularly useful is that it provides us with a list of the graduate economics fields along with the participating faculty members as of 1975. Also the major revision proposed was to have a system of two major fields (satisfied with general examinations) and two minor fields (satisfied by course work). Interesting to note that graduate student input was clearly integrated into the revision procedure.

________________________

Memo from Chairman E. Cary Brown
on a Revision of General Exams, 1975

April 28, 1975

To: Economics Department Faculty and Graduate Students
From: E. C. Brown
Re: Revision of General Examinations

While it has been left that a Committee would be appointed to review the procedures of the general examination (see minutes of the Department Meeting of April 23, 1975), further informal discussion has moved toward a proposed concept of these examinations that I am submitting for consideration and agreement.

  1. There seems reasonable satisfaction about the structure of the present examinations, subject to clarification of the final 2 field examinations and their relationship to the 2 field write-offs.
  2. It is proposed that the 2 fields satisfied by passing the “general” examinations be designated major The examination will be offered in a field, will cover the field in a general way, and will be separated from course examinations. Minor fields will be satisfied by course work. A somewhat lower standard will be imposed in minor fields than in major fields. The “generals” examination, therefore, would apply to the fields of the candidate’s expected expertise, and emphasis would be on a broad coverage of the field.
  3. Each field should, therefore, describe its general requirements for the field as a major one, and list the subjects that may reasonably be offered as a write-off to satisfy the field as a minor one. There should also be some details on the requirements when fields are closely linked (e.g., the proposal for the transportation field and its relationship to urban economics).
  4. Assuming this proposal to be agreeable, the question of term papers still needs settling.

I propose, therefore, the following procedures:

  1. Would each of you give Sue Steenburg a list of your graduate subjects for this academic year, with an indication of whether or not a term paper was required and, if so, the percentage of final grade it represented.
  2. Would faculty in each field submit a list of subjects that may be used to satisfy major and minor requirements in their field as it would ultimately appear in the brochure. The fields to be covered are as follows, the faculty in the field are listed, and the responsible member underlined.
Advanced Economic Theory Bishop, Diamond, Solow, Fisher, Samuelson, Varian, Hausman, Weitzman
Comparative Economic Systems Domar, Weitzman
Economic Development Eckaus, Bhagwati, Taylor
Economic History Kindleberger, Temin, Domar
Finance Merton
Fiscal Economics Diamond, Friedlaender, Rothenberg, Brown
Human Resources and Income Distribution Thurow, Piore
Industrial Organization Adelman, Joskow
International Economics Kindleberger, Bhagwati
Labor Economics Piore, Myers, Siegel
Monetary Economics Fischer, Modigliani
Operations Research Little, Shapiro
Russian Economics Domar, Weitzman
Statistics and Econometrics Hall, Hausman, Fisher, Kuh
Transportation Friedlaender, Wheaton
Urban Economics Rothenberg, Wheaton

If there are any difficulties with these suggestions, let me know right away. If we can proceed along these lines, it appears to be simply a clarification of our recent past and a substantial timesaver. The reports can be looked at this summer by a student-faculty group, with responsibility for faculty on me and for students on Dick Anderson.

Source:  M.I.T. Archives. Department of Economics Records, Box 2, Folder “Grad Curriculum”.

Image with identifications: Economics Faculty group portrait, 1976.

Categories
Chicago Suggested Reading Syllabus

Chicago. Reading list for Money. Meiselman, 1961

 

David Israel Meiselman (1924-2014)  was awarded a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1961. His thesis “The Term Structure of Interest Rates” won the Ford Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Series Award. 

Interview of David Meiselman conducted by Robert L. Hetzel (March 28, 1995)” can be downloaded from the Robert Hetzel Oral History Collection at the FRASER website.

Following the Virginian House Resolution in his honor, the reading list for the graduate money course taught by assistant professor David Meiselman from the Autumn quarter of 1961 can be found. Milton Friedman’s reading list for the same course in 1963 has been posted earlier.

______________________

STATE OF VIRGINIA
HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 294
Offered February 24, 2015
Celebrating the life of David I. Meiselman.
2015 SESSION

––––––––––
Patron––Rust
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WHEREAS, David I. Meiselman of Fairfax County, a distinguished economist and retired professor in the graduate economics program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a highly regarded teacher and researcher, a veteran of the United States military, and a devoted husband and father, died on December 3, 2014; and
WHEREAS, after serving in the United States Army during World War II, David Meiselman received a bachelor’s degree from Boston University and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Chicago; and
WHEREAS, David Meiselman’s doctoral thesis, “The Term Structure of Interest Rates,” won a prize from the Ford Foundation and was instrumental in the creation of futures markets and other financial concepts that today are in wide use; and
WHEREAS, David Meiselman conducted pioneering research in many different economic disciplines and on public policy issues; he taught at the University of Chicago, the Johns Hopkins University, Macalester College, and the University of Minnesota; and
WHEREAS, David Meiselman was the author of five books and more than 100 articles; he had wide-ranging interests in economic policies and issues, and his work has been cited in many academic and research publications; and
WHEREAS, in 1971, David Meiselman moved to Merrybrook in Fairfax County; he helped build Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University’s graduate level economics program in Northern Virginia; in all, he taught in the Commonwealth for more than 25 years; and
WHEREAS, during an outstanding career, David Meiselman was a senior economist for the United States Treasury, the United States House of Representatives, and the Organization of American States and served as a visiting scholar and later senior economist in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; and
WHEREAS, David Meiselman worked at several research and educational institutions, including the Manhattan Institute, where he was a founder and member of the board of directors, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, and the American Enterprise Institute; and
WHEREAS, in great demand for his expertise and insight, David Meiselman was a consultant to the United States Secretary of the Treasury, the World Bank, the New York Stock Exchange, and other government agencies and private companies; and
WHEREAS, in retirement, David Meiselman and his wife, Winifred, spent much time working to preserve their antebellum home, Merrybrook, near Herndon, which is a historic Civil War site and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places; and
WHEREAS, in addition to his wife, Winifred, David Meiselman will be greatly missed and fondly remembered by his children, Shmuel “Sam,” Ellen, and Nina, and their families, and by many other family members and friends; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That the House of Delegates hereby note with great sadness the loss of David I. Meiselman of Fairfax County, a distinguished economist and retired professor in the graduate economics program at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a highly regarded teacher and researcher, a veteran of the United States military, and a devoted husband and father; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to the family of David I. Meiselman as an expression of the House of Delegates’ respect for his memory.

Source: https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+ful+HR294+pdf 

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ECONOMICS 331 — MONEY
Autumn, 1961
D. Meiselman

(Note: selections are in the suggested order for reading. Readings marked with an asterisk (*) are required.)

I. The Supply of Money

The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions

Robert V. Roosa, Federal Reserve Operations in the Money and Government Securities Markets

A.J. Meigs, Free Reserves and Interest Rates in a Theory of Money Supply Determination, chapters 1, 3, 4, pp. 77-82.

*G. Horwich, “Elements of Timing and Response in the Balance Sheet of Banking,” Journal of Finance (May, 1957).

P. Cagan, “The Demand for Currency Relative to the Total Money Supply,” Journal of Political Economy (August, 1958).

Albert G. Hart, “The Chicago Plan of Banking Reform,” in Readings in Monetary Theory.

*Milton Friedman, A Program for Monetary Stability, chapter 2.

Edward Simmons, “The Relative Liquidity of Money and Other Things,” in Readings in Monetary Theory.

Roland N. NcKean, “Liquidity and a National Balance Sheet,” in Readings in Monetary Theory.

II. Classical Quantity Theory and the Rate of Interest

*Irving Fisher, The Purchasing Power of Money, chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 8.

*Alfred Marshall, Official Papers, “Evidence Before the Indian Currency Committee (1849)” questions 11758-11762; and “Evidence Before the Gold and Silver Commission (1887-88),” questions 9629-86. Testimony to Royal Commission on The Depression of Trade and Industry (1886), answers to question 8(i).

*A.C. Pigou, “The Value of Money,” in Readings in Monetary Theory.

Knut Wicksell, Interest and Prices, chapter 4.

___________, “The Influence of the Rate of Interest on Prices,” Economic Journal, V (17) June, 1907.

*J.M. Keynes, Tract on Monetary Reform, pp. 74-87, 41-73.

*Irving Fisher, The Theory of Interest, chapters 1-3.

*F.H. Knight, “Interest” in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences; also in Ethics of Competition.

Irving Fisher. Appreciation and Interest.

J.M. Keynes, Treatise on Money, Vol. 2, pp. 198-208.

*J.R. Hicks, “A Suggestion for Simplifying the Theory of Money,” in Readings in Monetary Theory, and Economica (1935).

III. The Keynesian Revolution

A. The Demand for Money, and the Rate of Interest

*J.M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, chapters 11-17.

James Tobin, “The Interest-Elasticity of Transactions Demand for Cash,” Review of Economics and Statistics (August, 1956).

__________, “Liquidity Preference as Behavior Towards Risk,” Review of Economic Studies (August, 1956), pp. 241-47.

*W.J. Baumol, “The Transactions Demand for Cash: An Inventory Theoretic Approach,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (November, 1952).

*Joan Robinson, “The Rate of Interest” Econometrica, Vol. 19; reprinted as chapter I of The Rate of Interest and Other Essays.

Abba Lerner, “On the Marginal Product of Capital and the Marginal Efficiency of Investment,” Journal of Political Economy (February, 1953), pp. 1-14.

B. The Theory of Income and Employment

*J.M. Keynes, The General Theory, chapters 1-4; chapter 6, section 2; chapters 7-10, 18-21, 24.

*Paul A. Samuelson, “The Simple Mathematics of Income Determination,” chapter 6 in Lloyd Metzler, et al, Income, Employment and Public Policy.

IV. The Wake of the Revolution

*J.R. Hicks, “Mr. Keynes and the Classics,” Econometrica (April, 1937). Reprinted in Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution.

*F. Modigliani, “Liquidity Preference and the Theory of Interest and Money,” Econometrica (January, 1944) and reprinted in Readings in Business Cycle Theory.

Jacob Marschak, Income, Employment and the Price Level, Lectures 1, 3, 12-20.

*D.H. Robertson, “Mr. Keynes and the Rate of Interest,” in Essays in Monetary Theory, and Readings in Theory of Income Distribution.

J.R. Hicks, Value and Capital, pp. 115-27, 130-62.

*H.G. Johnson, “Notes on Some Cambridge Controversies in Monetary Theory,” and D.H. Robertson, “Comments on Mr. Johnson’s Notes,” Review of Economic Studies (1951-52), pp. 90-110.

*Harold Somers, “Monetary Policy and the Theory of Interest,” in Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution.

*Don Patinkin, “Price Flexibility and Full Employment,” in Readings in Monetary Theory.

O.H. Brownlee, “The Theory of Employment and Stabilization Policy,” Journal of Political Economy (October, 1950).

Lloyd Metzler, “Wealth, Saving, and the Rate of Interest,” Journal of Political Economy (April, 1951).

*H.G. Johnson, “The General Theory After 25 Years,” copies on reserve. Also, American Economic Review (May, 1961).

*Milton Friedman, “Price, Income and Monetary Changes in Three Wartime Periods,” and Whittlesey’s discussion, pp. 614-25 and 642-43, American Economic Review Supplement 42 (May, 1952).

*Milton Friedman and David Meiselman, “The Relative Stability of Monetary Velocity and the Investment Multiplier in the U.S., 1897-1958,” sections 1, 2, 3, 5. Copies on reserve.

V. The Demand for Money and General Equilibrium Theory

*Don Patinkin, Money, Interest and Prices, Introduction and chapters 1-4, 8, and quotations on pp. 420, 435.

____________, “Liquidity Preference and Loanable Funds: Stock and Flow Analysis,” Economica, 1958.

*G.C. Archibald and R.G. Lipsey, “Monetary and Value Theory: A Critique of Lange and Patinkin,” Review of Economic Studies 26 (1), pp 1-22.

*Milton Friedman, “The Quantity Theory of Money: A Restatement,” in Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money, ed., M. Friedman.

*H. Makower and J. Marschak, “Assets, Prices, and Monetary Theory,” Readings in Price Theory and Economica (1938), pp. 261-88.

*M. Friedman, “The Demand for Money: Some Theoretical and Empirical Results,” Journal of Political Economy (August, 1959), pp. 327-51.

Philip Cagan, “The Monetary Dynamics of Hyperinflation,” esp. pp. 25-35 and 86-91 in Studies in the Quantity Theory of Money, ed., M. Friedman.

H.A. Latane, “Cash Balances and the Interest Rate—A Pragmatic Approach,” Review of Economics and Statistics (November, 1954), and supplementary article in Review of Economics and Statistics (November, 1960).

D. Meiselman, “Expectations, Errors, and the Term Structure of Interest Rates,” copies on reserve.

G.L.S. Shackle, “Recent Theories Concerning the Nature and Role of Interest,” Economic Journal (June, 1961).

John G. Gurley and Edward S. Shaw, Money in a Theory of Finance, chapters 1, 2, and summaries at the ends of succeeding chapters.

Don Patinkin, “Financial Intermediaries and Monetary Theory,” American Economic Review (March, 1961).

Alvin Marty, “Gurley and Shaw on Money in a Theory of Finance,” Journal of Political Economy(February, 1961).

*M. Friedman and D. Meiselman, op. cit., pp. 58-68.

VI. The Monetary Standard and International Monetary Adjustments

*Lloyd Mints, Monetary Policy for a Competitive Society, chapters 4,5.

*H.G. Johnson, International Trade and Economic Growth, chapters 6,7.

*J.M. Keynes, Tract on Monetary Reform, pp. 87-138.

___________, “Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill,” in Essays in Persuasion.

*Milton Friedman, “The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates,” in Essays in Positive Economics.

Alan Holmes, The New York Foreign Exchange Market, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 77, Folder “2. University of Chicago, Econ. 331”.

Image Source: David Meiselman 1979 portrait from Wikimedia Commons.

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Reading list for Mathematical Approaches to Economic Theory. Houthakker, 1960-1961

 

Hendrik Houthakker joined the Harvard economics faculty in 1960. One of the courses he taught in his first academic year at Harvard was “Mathematical Approaches to Economic Theory”. Following the Faculty Memorial Minute, this post provides the course enrollment numbers along with the two-semester syllabus. Exams for the course were not found in the bound, printed collection of final examinations for 1960-61 at the Harvard University Archives.

______________________

Hendrik Samuel Houthakker
Faculty of Arts and Sciences — Memorial Minute

At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences March 10, 2009, the following Minute was placed upon the records.

Hendrik Samuel Houthakker, the late Henry Lee Professor of Economics, Emeritus, at Harvard University, lived a very rich and full life that brought him into contact with some of the great events of our time. He was born in Amsterdam in 1924 and lived through the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands. He received his doctorandus degree in economics at the University of Amsterdam in 1949 and immediately joined the Department of Applied Economics at the University of Cambridge.

In 1950 Houthakker published a paper that assured him a permanent place in the history of economic thought, presenting his famous Strong Axiom of Revealed Preference. The force of this stunning contribution is well captured by Robert Pollak in the following words: “Economics, unlike mathematics, has relatively few classic well-posed problems whose solutions can make professional reputations. The original revealed preference problem was one of them.” Houthakker’s paper was cited in 1963 when he received the John Bates Clark Medal of the American Economic Association, awarded every other year to that economist under 40 who has made the most significant contribution to economics. The paper was one of two major themes in Pollak’s essay, “Houthakker’s Contributions to Economics,” written on the occasion of his election as Distinguished Fellow of the Association in 1988.

From Cambridge Houthakker went to the Cowles Commission on Economics at the University of Chicago. His contributions to economics continued at a breathtaking pace and included the first of his important empirical studies of consumer demand, The Analysis of Family Budgets, with S. J. Prais. Houthakker’s empirical findings, like his theoretical work, have become an enduring part of economics. He moved to Stanford in 1954, where he met his wife, Anna-Teresa, and then to Harvard in 1960.

It would be difficult to exaggerate Houthakker’s contributions to the Department of Economics at Harvard. He was a mentor to generations of junior faculty. He taught a wide variety of courses, beginning with econometrics and mathematical economics and later including international economics and financial economics. He served for twenty-one years as the sole editor of the Review of Economics and Statistics, then as now one of Harvard’s two leading journals of economics. Houthakker read many of the manuscripts himself, assigned the best to referees, and made the final editorial decisions. When he stepped down he was replaced by a committee. He was also acting chairman of the Department of Economics in 1987–88.

A short description of Houthakker, written on the occasion of his passing by his friend and former colleague Andreu Mas-Colell, now professor of economics at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, captures him well:

“I was privileged to be his colleague at Harvard, where he received me with much kindness and I discovered a gentle man with very broad intellectual and social interests. My own proclivities led to many exchanges on revealed preference and aggregation theory. I distinctly recall them as most enlightening.”

Houthakker was appointed to be a Member of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1969 to 1971 by President Richard Nixon. This period included the collapse of Bretton Woods, the system of fixed parities for international currencies established after World War II. Writing about the secrecy with which the policies to resolve the financial crisis were formulated and implemented, Houthakker penned the following words, which now seem prescient:

“In any democracy it is difficult to carry out policies without public awareness, public criticism, and public cooperation wherever possible. Under the U.S. Constitution, congressional involvement is even more essential, no matter how time-consuming and politically hazardous.”

One of Houthakker’s interests, known to only a few of his colleagues and friends, was the social and ethical aspects of economics. In 1992 he organized a symposium on the centennial of the papal encyclical, Rerum Novarum, translated by the Vatican as “Capital and Labor.” This was written by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 and presented the papal view of capitalism, socialism, and the role of the state. In 1991 Pope John Paul II wrote the encyclical, Centesimus Annus (“In the Hundredth Year”). This brought the papal view up to date through the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the ongoing collapse of the Soviet Union. Chapter 5 presented an emphatic and elaborate statement of approval for the transition to democracy and a market economy then under way.

Pope John Paul II had been a close friend of Anna-Teresa and Hendrik Houthakker since the 1970s, a story recounted in the biography His Holiness by Carl Bernstein of Bernstein and Woodward, and Marco Politi, the Italian journalist. The authors quote Houthakker on his conversations with John Paul II, then the Cardinal Archbishop Karol Wojtyla, “I tried to talk with him about the merits of capitalism and democracy, but I had a feeling I wasn’t getting anywhere.” The conversations between Houthakker and the Cardinal, later the Pope, eventually bore fruit. The symposium was a success and led to a book, Social and Ethical Aspects of Economics: A Colloquium in the Vatican, published in 1992.

The symposium was among the services to the church acknowledged in Houthakker’s election as Knight Commander with Star in the Papal Order of Saint Gregory in 2003. The papal knighthood was added to the long list of honors he received, including Presidency of the Econometric Society in 1967, Vice Presidency of the American Economic Association in 1972, membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, corresponding membership in the Netherlands Academy of Sciences and honorary degrees from his alma mater, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Fribourg. He was devoted to economic research from his youth in Amsterdam until the very end of his life, and he received the honors that his originality, depth, and breadth of interests merited. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Anna-Teresa, and his children Louis, Jan Nicholas, and Isabella Romana.

Respectfully submitted,

Guido Imbens
Andreu Mas-Colell
James Stock
Dale Jorgenson, Chair

Source (including portrait): Harvard Gazette website. April 30, 2009.

______________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics 214] Mathematical Approach to Economic Theory. Professor Houthakker. Full Course.

(F) Total 13: 9 Graduates, 1 Junior, 2 Radcliffe, 1 Other.
(S) Total 10: 7 Graduates, 1 Junior, 2 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1960-1961, p. 78.

______________________

Note for the Fall reading list, an asterisk (*) denotes a “supplementary or alternative reading”; for the Spring semester reading list it designates a “recommended reading” (presumably as opposed to a “required reading”). So it  appeasr the “non-asterisked” items constituted the required readings for the course.

______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 214, First Semester

Reading List
Fall 1960
Professor Houthakker

The first semester of the course will be devoted mostly to static microeconomics. The classical approach is discussed first to be followed by lectures on linear and nonlinear programming. The mathematical knowledge assumed is equivalent to one year of calculus and some versatility in high school algebra. Titles marked * are supplementary or alternative readings.

1. Mathematical background: Matrix algebra and constrained maxima and minima of several variables.

* Henderson & Quandt, Microeconomic Theory, Appendix.

* Dorfman, Samuelson and Solow, Linear Programming and Economic Analysis, Appendix B.

* Perlis, Theory of Matrices.

* Aitken, Determinants and Matrices.

* Thrall and Tornheim, Matrices and Vector Spaces.

*Allen, Mathematical Economics, Chs. 12-14.

*Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis, Appendix A.

* Debreu and Herstein, “Non-negative square matrices,“ Econometrica, 1953.

* Ferrar, Algebra.

2. Classical theory of the consumer

Henderson & Quandt, Microeconomic Theory, Ch. 2.

Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis, Chs. 5-7.

Hicks, Value and Capital, Chs. 1-3 and Math. Appendix, Sections 3-12.

*Hicks, A Revision of Demand Theory.

Bushaw & Clower, Introduction to Math. Economics, Ch. 5.

Allen and Bowley, Family Expenditure, Ch. 3 and Math. Appendix.

*Allen, Mathematical Analysis for Economists, Ch. 19.

*Allen, Mathematical Economics, Ch. 19.

*Wold, Demand Analysis, Part II.

Samuelson, “The Problem of Integrability in Utility Theory,” Economica, 1950.

*Tobin and Houthakker, “The Effects of Rationing on Demand Elasticities,” Review of Economic Studies, 1950-1.

*Houthakker, “Compensated Changes in Quantities and Qualities Consumed,” Review of Economic Studies, 1951-52.

*Ichimura, “A Critical Note on the Definition of Related Goods,” (with comment by Hicks), Review of Economic Studies, 1950-51.

*Friedman, “Professor Pigou’s Method for Measuring Elasticities of Demand from Budgetary Data,” QJE, 1935-36.

Houthakker, “Additive Preferences,” Econometrica, April 1960.

*Frisch, “A Complete Scheme for Computing All Direct and Cross Demand Elasticities in a Model with Many Sectors,” Econometrica, April 1959.

3. Classical Theory of the firm

Henderson & Quandt, Microeconomic Theory, Ch. 3.

Samuelson, Foundations, Ch. 4.

Hicks, Value and Capital, Chs. 6-7 and Math. Appendix.

Allen, Mathematical Analysis for Economists, Ch. 19.

*Allen, Mathematical Economics, Ch. 18.

*Bushaw & Clower, Introduction to Math. Economics, Ch. 6.

4. Linear Programming and Input-Output Analysis

Dorfman, Samuelson, and Solow, Linear Programming and Economic Analysis, Ch. 1-7, 9-10.

*Koopmans, Activity Analysis of Production and Allocation, Ch. III.

Leontief, The Structure of American Economy, Part II.

Chenery & Clark, Interindustry Economics, Ch. 1-4, *11, *12.

*Manne, Scheduling of Petroleum Refinery Operations.

*Allen, Mathematical Economics, Chs. 16-17.

*Lefeber, Allocation in Space.

*Houthakker, “On the Numerical Solution of the Transportation Problem,” Journal of Operations Research Society of America, May 1955.

*Henderson, The Efficiency of the Coal Industry.

*Farrell, “An Application of Activity Analysis to the Theory of the Firm,” Econometrica, 1954.

Houthakker, “The Pareto Distribution and the Cobb-Douglas Production Function in Activity Analysis,” Review of Economic Studies, 1955-56.

Klein, “On the Interpretation of Professor Leontief’s System,” Review of Economic Studies, 1952-53 (also discussion by Morishima and Klein in 1956-7 volume).

*Koopmans, Three Essays on the State of Economic Science, Ch. 1.

5. Nonlinear programming

Dorfman, Samuelson, and Solow, Linear Programming and Economic Analysis, Ch. 8.

*Kuhn and Tucker, “Nonlinear Programming,” Proceedings of the Second Berkeley Symposium on Math. Stat. and Prob.

Houthakker, “The Capacity Method of Quadratic Programming,” Econometrica, Jan. 1960.

*Markowitz, Portfolio Selection. Ch. [no number given]

*Wolfe, “The Simplex Method for Quadratic Programming,” Econometrica, July 1959.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 214, Math. Approach to Economic Theory

Reading List
Spring 1961
Professor Houthakker

Items marked * are recommended

General Equilibrium

Arrow & Debreu, “Existence of Equilibrium for a Competitive Economy,” Econometrica, July, 1954.

Wald, “On some systems of equations of mathematical economics” (transl.), Econometrica, Oct. 1951.

Von Neumann, “A model of general economic equilibrium (transl.), Review of Economic Studies, No. 33, 1945-46, (also note by Champernowne following this paper).

*Debreu, Theory of Value, Ch. 1-5.

Gale, Theory of Linear Economic Models, Ch. 6-9.

Dorfman, Samuelson, Solow, Linear Programming and Economic Analysis, Ch. 13.

*Malinvaud, “Programmes d’Expansion et Taux d’Intérêt,” Econometrica, April ’59.

Stability of Equilibrium

Arrow & Hurwicz, “On the Stability of the Competitive Equilibrium, Econometrica, October 1958 (see also Econometrica, July 1960).

*Arrow, Block & Hurwicz, “On the Stability of the Competitive Equilibrium,” Econometrica, Jan. 1959.

*McKenzie, “Stability of Equilibrium and the Value of Positive Excess Demand,” Econometrica, July 1960.

Henderson & Quandt, Microeconomic Theory, Ch. 4-5.

Bushaw & Clower, Introduction to Mathematical Economics, Ch. 3-4.

*Arrow & Nerlove, “A Note on Expectations and Stability,” Econometrica, April 1958.

Dynamic Micro-theory

Tintner, “Maximization of Utility over Time,” Econometrica, 1938.

Strotz, “Myopia and Inconsistency in Dynamic Utility Maximization,” Review of Economic Studies, No. 62, 1955-56.

*Cramer, “A Dynamic Approach to the Theory of Consumer Demand,” Review of Economic Studies, No. 64, Feb. 1957.

Neisser, “The Pricing of Consumers’ Durables,” Econometrica, Oct. 1959.

Bushaw & Clower, Ch. 5, Section 7-8; Ch. 6 Section 8-9.

Growth Models; Dynamic Input-Output Analysis

Leontief, “Dynamic Analysis,” Studies in the Structure of the American Economy.

Hawkins & Simon, “Some Conditions of Macro-economic Stability,” Econometrica, July-Oct. 1949.

Dorfman, Samuelson & Solow, Ch. 11-12.

Solow, “Competitive Valuation in a Dynamic Input-Output System,” Econometrica, Jan. 1959.

*Wurtele, “Note on some stability properties of Leontief’s dynamic models,” Econometrica, Oct. 1959.

Solow, “A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth,” QJE, Feb. 1956.

Jorgensen, “Growth and Fluctuation: a causal interpretation,” QJE, Aug. 1960.

Jorgensen, “A dual stability theorem,” Econometrica, Oct. 1960.

Malinvaud, “Capital Accumulation and Efficient Allocation of Resources,” Econometrica, April 1953.

Business Cycles

Baumol, Economic Dynamics, Ch. 7-11, 13-16.

Goodwin, “The Nonlinear Accelerator & the Persistence of Business Cycles,” Econometrica, Jan. 1951.

Allen, Mathematical Economics, Ch. 7-9.

Source: Harvard University Archives.  Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 8, Folder “Economics, 1960-1961 (2 of 2).”

Categories
Berkeley Suggested Reading

Berkeley. Harsanyi Seminar Reading List, ca. 1976-1977

 

While in all likelihood there is a copy of the seminar reading list from John C. Harsanyi’s seminar “Rule Utilitarianism and Decision theory” in the Bancroft Library at Berkeley where John C. Harsanyi’s papers are to be found, I don’t know when or if I will be in Berkeley anytime soon. Furthermore I figure it is doubtful that many people interested in rule utilitarianism would happen to search Abba Lerner’s papers at the Library of Congress where I found the copy transcribed below. So duty called and the seminar reading list will now be entered here into the digital record.

For what it’s worth, I was mildly amused to see an apology for including books, books I say!, on Harsanyi’s reading list.

___________________________

Nobel Laureate John C. Harsanyi, UC Berkeley economist and game theory pioneer, dies at 80
11 August 2000

Berkeley – John C. Harsanyi, winner of the 1994 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and a longtime professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and its Department of Economics, died of a heart attack at his home in Berkeley on Wednesday, Aug. 9.

He was 80 and had been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease.

Harsanyi was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in game theory, a mathematical theory of human behavior in competitive situations that has become a dominant tool for analyzing real-life conflicts in business, management and international relations.

He shared the award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences with fellow game theorists Reinhard Selten of Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet in Bonn, Germany, and John Nash of Princeton University.

When Harsanyi, an immigrant from communist Hungary, won the Nobel Prize, he expressed hope that game theory would help public and private institutions make better decisions. In the long run, he said, he hoped this would lead to a higher standard of living and to more peaceful and more cooperative political systems.

“Professor Harsanyi’s life-long work probed the idea of rationality in human affairs, and he was a scholar who cared deeply about the human condition. We will miss him at Berkeley, where his years of devoted teaching and his ground-breaking research inspired us all,” said Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl.

Harsanyi began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1964 as a visiting professor in the business school. He became a full professor in 1965 and remained on the faculty of the Haas School of Business until his retirement in 1990. Harsanyi accepted a joint appointment on the economics faculty in 1966.

“John Harsanyi dedicated his life to employ the science of economics and game theory for the betterment of the human race,” said Haas School Dean Laura Tyson. “He was a brilliant thinker, a gracious man, and a gentle soul, ever concerned with the well-being of others. We will all miss him dearly.”

“The passing of John Harsanyi is a great loss to the economics profession and to his many friends and colleagues on this campus,” said John Quigley, UC Berkeley professor of economics and former chair of the department. “Harsanyi’s work was instrumental in making economic theory ‘fit’ the imperfect world in which we live. His development of game theory showed how differences in the information available to economic actors affected market outcomes and economic welfare. His seminal works form the basis for all modern analyses of industrial organization, and they have real practical implications in business and government policy.

“John was a gentle and shy man, but a bold and powerful intellectual presence. We will miss his grace and charm.”

Game theory uses mathematics to try to predict the outcome of games, such as chess or poker, and is increasingly being applied to political and economic conflict situations, including labor negotiations, price wars, international political conflicts, and even federal auctions, such as bandwidth auctions.

Harsanyi’s principal contributions to the field addressed the prediction of outcomes in games or situations in which the players lack complete information about each other or the rules of the game.

In 1964, Harsanyi was asked to be one of 10 game theorists to advise the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency on its negotiations with the Soviet Union. The team found that it could not advise the U.S. negotiators effectively because neither side knew much about the other – it was a game of incomplete information.

Harsanyi subsequently developed a systematic procedure to convert any incomplete-information game into an equivalent complete-information game containing random moves, thereby significantly expanding the applicability of game theory to political and economic conflicts. In the late 1960s, Harsanyi described this theory in a three-part article, “Games with Incomplete Information Played by Bayesian Players,” which is now the basis for all work on games with incomplete information.

Harsanyi was born on May 29, 1920, in Budapest, Hungary, as the son of a Catholic pharmacist of Jewish descent and was educated at the University of Budapest. His main interests were in mathematics and philosophy, but because of the uncertain political situation and the impending Nazi danger, Harsanyi opted to obtain a degree in pharmacology so he could work in his father’s pharmacy.

In 1944, the Germans occupied Hungary, and Harsanyi, being of Jewish descent, was drafted into a forced-labor unit near Budapest. Shortly thereafter, the Nazis started deporting these laborers to mines and concentration camps. Harsanyi narrowly escaped deportation and found refuge with three friends at a Jesuit monastery in Budapest.

After the war, Harsanyi earned a PhD in philosophy at the University in Budapest where he later taught as an assistant professor of sociology and also met his future wife, Anne. In 1948, a Stalinist regime seized power in Hungary and became increasingly intolerant of Harsanyi’s liberal views. Eventually, he had to resign from the university and return to work in his father’s pharmacy.

Pressure on Harsanyi persisted and, in 1950, the family decided it was too dangerous for him to remain in Hungary. Harsanyi and his soon-to-be wife, Anne, escaped across the border to Austria, and emigrated to Australia, as the waiting list of the Hungarian immigration-quota to the United States was full. The couple were married on January 2, 1951, three days after arriving in Sydney.

In Sydney, Harsanyi worked in factories during the day while earning an MA in economics at the University of Sydney at night. In 1954, he was appointed lecturer in economics at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.

Harsanyi soon realized he was too isolated in Australia to be effective in his field. In 1956, he enrolled in the PhD program in economics at Stanford University, writing his dissertation on game theory under the guidance of the future Nobel Laureate Kenneth Arrow.

Before arriving at UC Berkeley in 1964, he taught economics at the Australian National University in Canberra from 1958 to 1961 and at Wayne State University in Detroit from 1961 to 1963. At Berkeley, he continued his path-breaking work in game theory and also made important contributions to the fields of ethics, social choice and welfare economics. Harsanyi was awarded seven honorary doctorates by universities around the world. Harsanyi is survived by his wife, Anne, of Berkeley, and son, Tom, of Somerville, Mass.

When Harsanyi was interviewed in Budapest after being awarded the Nobel Prize, he said his family and his work were the most important things in his life. He took frequent trips all over the world with his family.

A memorial service for the campus community will be held at 4 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 31, in the Great Hall of UC Berkeley’s Faculty Club.

Donations in John Harsanyi’s memory may be sent to the Alzheimer’s Association of the Greater Bay Area, 2065 West El Camino Real, Mountain View, CA 94042.

Source: University of California. Press Release 11 Aug 2000.

___________________________

Selected Publications on Rule Utilitarianism
by John C. Harsanyi

John C. Harsanyi. “Rule Utilitarianism and Decision Theory,” Erkenntnis, 11 (1977), 25-53.

____________. “Rule Utilitarianism and Decision Theory,” Decision Theory and Social Ethics, 1978, Volume 17, pp. 3-31.

____________. “Bayesian Decision Theory, Rule Utilitarianism, and Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem,” Theory and Decision, 11 (1979), 289-317.

____________. “Rule Utilitarianism, Equality, and Justice,” Social Philosophy and Policy, 2 (1985), 115-127.

___________________________

[Lerner’s Attached Label “HARSANYI WORKSHOP”]

Rule Utilitarianism and Decision Theory.
John C. Harsanyi

Background References.

In economics, it is customary to publish important results at first in journal articles, even if these later are expanded into books. In contrast, in philosophy, important ideas are often presented immediately in books (often in much greater detail than most economists care to read). This is why so many books had to be included with the references listed below.

Items marked by —> will have xerox copies distributed to members of the Seminar. It would be helpful if people could read as many of these as possible. But my own presentation will be largely self-contained and independent of these references.

1. Morality as the Viewpoint of an Impartial Observer.

Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759.

—> John C. Harsanyi, “Ethics in Terms of Hypothetical Imperatives”, Mind, 67 (1958), pp. 305-316.

2. Classical Utilitarianism.

Jeremy Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1789.

John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1863.

Henry Sidgwick, Methods of Ethics, 1874.

3. Ideal Utilitarianism.

George E. Moore, Principia Ethica, 1903.

4. Rule Utilitarianism.

—> R. F. Harrod*, “Utilitarianism Revised”, Mind, 45 (1936), pp. 137-156. Harrod has been the first proponent of rule utilitarianism as an alternative to act utilitarianism.

Richard B. Brandt, “Towards a Credible Form of Utilitarianism”, in Morality and the Language of Conduct (H.D. Castañeda, editor), 1963.

David Lyons, Forms and Limits of Utilitarianism, 1965. Brandt and Lyons tried to show that rule utilitarianism is logically equivalent to act utilitarianism and, therefore, has no real advantage over the latter.

5. Defense of Act Utilitarianism against Rule Utilitarianism.

J. J. C. Smart, An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics. First Edition, 1961. Second Edition (with a critical essay by B. Williams), 1973.

6. A Utilitarian Theory based on Bayesian Decision Theory.

W. S. Vickrey, “Measuring Marginal Utility by Reactions to Risk”, Econometrica, 13 (1945), pp. 319-333.

—> John C. Harsanyi, “Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility”, Journal of Political Economy, 63 (1955), pp. 305-316. (Omit Section II.)

7. An Ordinalist Approach to Social Welfare.

Kenneth J. Arrow, Social Choice and Individualistic Values. First Edition, 1951. Second Edition, 1963.

Kenneth J. Arrow, “Extended Sympathy and the Possibility of Social Choice”, Harvard Institute of Economic Research, Discussion Paper No. 484 (June 1976).

8. Egalitarian Critiques of Utilitarianism (Rawls, Diamond, Sen) and Utilitarian Rebuttals.

—> John Rawls, “Justice as Fairness”, Philosophical Review, 67 (1958), pp. 164-194.

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 1971.

—> John C. Harsanyi, “Can the Maximin Principle Serve as a Basis for Morality? A Critique of John Rawls’ Theory.” American Political Science Review, 69 (1975), pp. 594-606.

—> Peter Diamond, “Cardinal Welfare, Individualistic Ethics, and Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility: A Comment”, Journal of Political Economy, 75 (1967), pp. 765-766.

—> A. K. Sen, “Welfare Economics, Utilitarianism, and Equity”, Chapter 1 of A. K. Sen, On Economic Inequality, 1973.

—> John C. Harsanyi, “Nonlinear Social Welfare Functions: Do Welfare Economists Have a Special Exemption from Bayesian rationality?” Theory and Decision, 6 (1975), pp. 311-332.

*The well-known economist.

 

Source: United States Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The Papers of Abba P. Lerner, Box 12, Folder “5. ‘H’ miscellany 1976-1977”.

Image Source: John C. Harsanyi – Facts. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Media AB 2021. Fri. 5 Feb 2021. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/1994/harsanyi/facts/>

Categories
Economics Programs Fields Harvard

Harvard. Report of Economics Department Visiting Committee. Brimmer, 1974

 

The first African American to have served as a governor of the Federal Reserve System  (1966-1974) was the Harvard economics Ph.D. (1957), Andrew F. Brimmer (1926-2012). Brimmer was a loyal alumnus who served his doctoral alma mater on the Harvard Board of  Overseers and as a member/chair of the visiting committee for the economics department

This post provides the 37 page text of the 1974 Visiting Committee Report on conditions in the Harvard economics department. The topics of radical economics, hiring, tenure and promotion, and the deep dissatisfaction of about half of the economics graduate students with Harvard’s Ph.D. curriculum are all covered in this fairly remarkable document.

_________________________

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE TO VISIT THE
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

[Andrew F. Brimmer, Chairman (April 15, 1974)]

I. Introduction

General Impression: The Committee found the Department of Economics under a great deal of stress, and it left with considerable concern for its future effectiveness. The Committee observed some disagreements within the senior faculty, but the major division appears to be between the latter as a group and perhaps half the graduate students. The factors giving rise to this division are numerous and complex, but one element stands out above all others: a substantial proportion of the graduate students are convinced that the senior faculty has little interest in teaching them and is not concerned with their welfare. A strong sense of alienation pervades the Department, and the frustration is evident on the part of a significant number of nontenured faculty members as well as among graduate students. On the other hand, the undergraduate concentrators seem to be much more contented than they were a few years ago.

The Committee was deeply troubled about this state of affairs—because on previous visits it had found a far different situation. For example, in its Report for the academic years 1969-71, it concluded:

“…The Department of Economics is in excellent condition. In addition to first-class leadership and fine internal condition, it enjoys the best of reputations. Its graduate school received the top rating in the recent canvas made by the American Council on Education. As we were able to see for ourselves during the visitations, the standard of teaching is very high and the work produced impressive….” 1/

1/ “Report of the Committee to Visit the Department of Economics for the Academic Years, 1969-71,” November 22, 1971, Number Two, p. 7

Against that background, the condition of the Department at the time of the last visit was particularly disturbing. A significant proportion of the members had served on the Committee during previous visits, and they were able to compare the present atmosphere to that which prevailed on previous occasions. For them, the sharpness of the deterioration in attitudes and relationships within the Department was particularly distressing.

Having reported these pessimistic impressions at the very outset, it must also be stressed that the Department of Economics at Harvard remains at the very forefront of the economics profession, For instance, at the time of the Committee’s visit, a senior member of the faculty [Wassily Leontief] was absent—because he was in Europe to accept the 1973 Nobel Prize in Economics, thus joining two other colleagues in the Department [Simon Kuznets (1971), Kenneth Arrow (1972)] who have received this signal honor. In a number of fields (especially in Economic Theory and Econometrics), the Department is at or close to the apex of the profession. Its members are also conducting first-class work in most of the applied fields. Moreover, as discussed more fully below, the Department has appointed a number of committees to re-examine its program. The expected recommendations—if adopted—will undoubtedly correct some of the deficiencies noted in this report. Thus, while economics at Harvard is going through a number of strains, it is by no means on the edge of dissolution.

The Visitation: The Committee met in Cambridge on the evening of December 10 and all day December 11, 1973. Fifteen of the 20 members of the Committee were present for all or a substantial part of the visit. An agenda identifying the main topics to be covered—along with supporting material—had been distributed in advance.

The issue of “Radical Economics” at Harvard was a matter of considerable interest to a number of Committee members, and several had requested that it be given a high priority on the agenda. Reflecting this interest, a number of contemporary items of information were circulated. In addition, an excerpt, “Much Ado About Economics,” from James B. Conant’s My Several Lives, was sent to Committee members. In this chapter, Dr. Conant discussed the controversy evoked by the report of the Committee which visited the Department of Economics in 1950. In its public report, the Committee (through its chairman) criticized the Department for a lack of “balance with respect to the viewpoints of its members.” In essence, The Committee at that time found that the Department had a number of “Socialists,” “Keynesians,” and “advocates of Government control of the economy”; but it found no one on the faculty with opposing views. It concluded that the situation should be corrected. The criticism against the Department which attracted the present Committee’s interest was the charge that political bias on the part of senior members of the faculty influenced the decision not to give tenure to one or more younger members identified as “radical economists.” So, while the specific facts were different, the basic issues were quite similar.

Several other specific issues had been identified in advance, and one or more members of the Visiting Committee had been asked to take responsibility to see that they were not overlooked. Among these were: (1) the quality of undergraduate teaching; (2) the quality of instruction in the first-year graduate courses, and (3) the Department’s affirmative action program.

During its visit, the Committee met separately with representatives of the tenured and non-tenured-faculty. It also met separately with undergraduates. The Committee was invited to a specially-called meeting of the Graduate Economics Club, and a number of faculty members also attended. Several of the Committee members also attended some of the classes which were then in session. On the basis of these contacts, the Committee formed a number of impressions and reached a number of conclusions. These are discussed in the following sections. The Committee also made several suggestions to the Department, and some of these are indicated in the text. Finally, the Committee weighed several recommendations, but agreement could not be reached on some of them. The outcome of that discussion is reported in the final section of this report. At the Chairman’s request, several of the Committee members prepared written accounts of their impressions, and others communicated orally with him following the visit. The Chairman drew extensively on these accounts — as well as on notes taken during the visit — in the preparation of this report.

 

II. Structure of the Department

The Department of Economics at Harvard is a fairly large organization. As shown in Table 1, there were 132 persons holding appointments in the Department during the 1973-74 academic year. Fifty-two of these had primary appointments in the Department, and seven held joint appointments with other units of the University. Three were visitors from other institutions. There were also 70 teaching fellows all of whom were graduate students. There were also 11 persons from other faculties offering instruction in the Department. Four of these had their primary appointments in the Kennedy School and two in the Business School.

Table 1. Faculty of the Department of Economics
Academic Year, 1973-74
Economics Faculty Other Faculty Offering Instruction
Professional Chairs 10 Kennedy School
Professors 10 Professors 2
Associate Professors 6 Associate Professors 1
Assistant Professors 14 Lecturer 1
Lecturers 12 Sub-Total 4
Sub-Total 52
Joint Faculty Business School
Professors 5 Professor 1
Assistant Professors 2 Assistant Professor 1
Sub-Total 7 Sub-Total 2
Visiting Faculty Other Schools
Professor 2 Professors 3
Lecturers 1 Associate Professors 2
Sub-Total 3 Sub-Total 5
Total 62 Total 11
Teaching Fellows 70
Grand Total 132

The size of the Department has been fairly stable in recent years — following a noticeable expansion during the first half of the 1960’s. For example, in the Fall of 1959-60, there were 55 members; by the Fall of 1966-67, there were 118. So the 132 in the Department during 1973-74 represented a gain of 12 per cent over the last seven years. It should be noted, however, that all of the members reported do not devote full time to the Department. The average teaching fellow spends about one-third of this time in the classroom while the remainder is devoted to research (primarily in the preparation of dissertations). Most of the Assistant Professors teach roughly half time and are involved in some variety of research for the remainder. Those members holding joint appointments are also engaged in on-going research for a significant part of their work load. Finally, during any given period, a number of the members will be on leave to pursue independent projects. For the 1973-74 academic year, eight faculty members were scheduled to be on leave for the full year. Three others were to be absent in the Fall term and four others during the Spring. A number of faculty members also had reduced teaching loads because they had bought off a fraction of their time via research grants. The figures in Table 2 show the number of faculty members on a full-time equivalent basis for each rank.

As indicated in Table 3, roughly half of the Economics Department’s faculty (excluding teaching fellows) have tenure. However, quite contrary to the impression frequently gotten by casual observers—the tenured members of the Department carry a sizable share of the teaching load at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Moreover, as shown in Table 4, the proportion of undergraduate courses taught by the tenured faculty has risen significantly over the last ten years. In contrast, the proportion of graduate courses taught by the senior members has declined somewhat. During the 1972-73 academic year (not shown in Table 4), tenured faculty taught 20 of the 36 undergraduate courses offered. There were 18 tenured members in residence during the year, and 16 of them taught at least a one-semester course offered primarily for undergraduates. Moreover, all of them were available to advise on theses and to supervise independent work. Nevertheless, teaching fellows still carry a significant share of the total teaching load in the Department.

Table 2. Number of Economics Faculty Members on a Full-Time Equivalent Basis,
By Rank
Academic
Year
Full
Professors
Assoc. & Ass’t. Professors Lecturers Teaching
Fellows
1973-74 15.75 11.05 4.25 2.6
Est. for 1974-75 14.25 12.00 2.00 19.1

 

Table 3. Tenure Status of the Economics Faculty
Academic Years 1970-71 and 1971-72
Academic
Year
Total
Faculty
Tenured Professors Non-Tenured Professors
Number Per Cent Number Per Cent
1970-71 71 29 41 42 59
1971-72 53 25 47 28 53

 

Table 4. Number of Economics Courses Taught, By Status of Faculty,
Selected Academic Years
Term and Status
of Faculty
Number of Undergraduate Courses
(Exc. Junior & Senior Tutorials)
Number of Graduate
Courses
1953-54 1962-63 1971-72 1953-54 1962-63 1971-72
Fall Term
Tenured 6 8 14 23 25 25
Non-Tenured 8 6 11 5 5 12
Total 14 14 25 28 30 37
Tenured as per cent of total 43 57 56 82 83 68
Spring Term
Tenured 7 6 15 24 29 27
Non-Tenured 10 11 11 5 5 11
Total 17 17 26 29 34 38
Tenured as per cent of total 41 35 58 83 85 71

 

III. Trends in Enrollment

Undergraduates: The Department has continued to attract a substantial proportion of all undergraduates to its courses. For example, it is estimated that nearly half of all undergraduates were attracted at least to Economics 10—the introduction to economics. Fall term enrollment in this course in recent years is shown in Table 5.

Table 5. Fall Term Enrollment in Economics 10
Year Number Year Number
1965 774 1970 553
1966 828 1971 570
1967 734 1972 706
1968 732 1973 987
1969 535

These figures indicate that enrollment in the introductory course has surpassed the previous peak set in the Fall of 1966. In fact, while enrollment declined by over one-third between 1966 and 1969, the recovery in enrollment since the low point was reached amounted to more than four-fifths through the Fall of 1973.

The Department continues to attract about 7 per cent of all undergraduates as concentrators. Trends over recent years are shown in Table 6.

Table 6. Undergraduate Enrollment
Academic
Year
Number of Economics Concentrators
(3 years)
Per Cent of All Concentrators Harvard/
Radcliffe
Ratio
Course Enroll. Below 300 Level
(Student Sem.)
Economics as Per Cent of Arts & Sciences
1968-69 346 7.4 4.4 3,510 6.4
1969-70 292 6.4 5.5 3,437 6.4
1970-71 288 6.2 4.2 3,588 6.8
1971-72 301 6.4 4.5 3,542 7.0
1972-73 315 6.7 3.8 N.A. N.A.

These results have been achieved in the face of expanding competition from new concentration options offered elsewhere in Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges. The Department’s share of concentrators has been rising somewhat in recent years. However, it still remains well below what it was in the past-for example, 9.8 per cent in 1953 and 8.6 per cent in 1966. Moreover, economics continues to appeal substantially less to Radcliffe students than it does to those in Harvard College. Thus, the figures reported above suggest that men are about four times as likely to concentrate in economics as are women. This situation has existed for many years, and the presence of several women on the economics faculty seems not to have enhanced the Department’s appeal to women undergraduates. In the years ahead, the Department plans to place special emphasis on broadening enrollment of Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates.

The figures presented above also show that the Department’s courses above the introductory (but below the graduate) level have been competing reasonably well in comparison with other undergraduate offerings.

Graduate Students: The figures in Table 7 show trends in graduate student enrollment and doctorates granted in recent years.

Table 7. Graduate Enrollment and Doctorates Awarded
Academic Year Graduate Students Doctorates Awarded
1968-69 159 28
1969-70 183 28
1970-71 171 33
1971-72 151 37
1972-73 161 28
1973-74 158

These data suggest that roughly one-sixth to one-fifth of the graduate students enrolled complete the requirements and receive the doctorate each year. As a rule, the typical Ph.D. candidate spends about two years taking courses and in other ways preparing for the generals examinations—normally taken toward the end of the second year. The next phase of the work involves the preparation of a dissertation and a special examination. The median time covered by this phase was in the neighborhood of 32 months for the group completing the Ph.D. degree in 1964-65, compared with 57 months for those doing so in 1954-55. Since the mid-1960’s, the median time probably has been shorted further.

As shown in Table 8, the range of specialization of those completing the Ph.D. in economics at Harvard continues to be quite wide. Among the various fields, however, Economic Development continues to be the most popular field. It accounted for about one-fifth of degrees granted during the four years shown. Money and Banking and Econometrics (the next most popular fields) each accounted for about one-tenth of the degrees awarded. Several of the traditional fields (such as Economic Theory, International Trade, Labor Economics, and Public Finance) each accounted for about 5 per cent of the total number of degrees. The emergence of several newer fields of interest—such as Urban Economics, Environmental Economics, and Socio-Economic Structure—should also be noted.

Table 8. Fields of Specialization of Ph.D. Recipients, Selected Years
Special Field 1965-66 1967-68 1971-72 1972-73
TOTAL 29 35 37 28
1. Agriculture 1 1
2. Chinese Studies 1 1
3. Comparative Economic Systems 1
4 Economic Development 4 12 6 6
5. Economic Growth 2
6. Economic History 1 2 3 1
7. Economic Theory 2 1 2 3
8. Econometrics 4 5 3
9. Environmental Economics 1
10. Health Economics 1 1
11. Industrial Organization 1 1 3
12. Input-Output Economics 2
13. International Trade 3 2 2 1
14. Labor Economics 2 2 3
15. Managerial Economics 1
16. Mathematical Economics 2 1
17. Money and Banking 1 3 4 4
18. Public Finance 2 2 2 1
19. Public Utilities 1
20. Regional Economics 1 2
21. Socio-Economic Structure 1
22. Soviet Economics 1 1
23. Statistics 1
24. Transportation 2 1 1
25. Urban Economics 4 2
26. Water Resources 1

 

IV. Departmental Atmosphere

As I have indicated above, the Committee encountered a greatly disturbed environment. One member of the Committee, who had participated in several previous visits, took special note of the strengths as well as the weaknesses within the Department:

“…As for the divisions in the department, the major one by far is between the senior faculty and about 50% of the graduate students. This is the problem that particularly distressed me, and the one which really threatens the future effectiveness of the department. There are, to be sure, disagreements within the senior faculty on issues dramatized by the decision (not to grant tenure to Professor Samuel Bowles). But I do not believe that — absent the unrest of the graduate students — they are beyond normal academic expectations or outside the capacity of the department for accommodation and compromise. Within the senior faculty there is still the civility and mutual respect needed for a functioning, self-governing department. I say this partly because I have recently visited another economics department where this condition does not obtain.

“The undergraduates seemed reasonably content with the program. …A minority of them are concerned about the loss of radical economists, but there was not as strong an undergraduate voice on this issue as might have been expected. As elsewhere, undergraduate radicalism is much weaker than it was five years ago.

“The complaints of junior faculty seemed to me much the same in kind and intensity as on previous visits. They have to do with the impersonality of the place, the lack of community, the inaccessibility of senior faculty, the division of the department into research empires which communicate very little with each other. In addition, junior faculty often express sympathy with the complaints of graduate students about the curriculum and the quality of instruction. At the same time, junior faculty do recognize the very great advantages of the Harvard environment for their own research and intellectual development. And they also participate with devotion and enthusiasm in the teaching programs of the department, and in the work of the various committees for curricular reform.

“The critical problem is the alienation of the graduate students. The most distressing thing is not that there are radicals among them, but that the general shortcomings of graduate instruction have alienated so many students of all persuasions. The radicals have evidently been able to capitalize on this discontent to make recruits among successive waves of students. Otherwise it is hard to understand how a movement which has waned rapidly in economics on other campuses and in other departments at Harvard continues to be so strong. It may also be true that some of the appeal of Bowles et. al. was that they cultivated a solicitude for students in contrast to the indifference perceived in “straight” faculty.

“In my own department radical dissent regarding the methodology of economics, the organization of our program, and the substance of economics has been expressed with emphasis but almost never with hostility and distrust toward the faculty as individuals or as an institution. So I found the tone of hostility and distrust at the Harvard (Graduate Economic Club) meeting very distressing. And of course I was quite impressed that about half of the graduate students were there, and that among them only one person said he was having a really good educational experience. I realize that the 50% present were not representative, but that’s a lot of students in itself and evidently the satisfied students didn’t have strong enough feelings to show up.

“The criticisms of first year courses are not new. We heard a couple of years ago that the theory course was a heavy dose of technical mathematics with no attempt at elucidation of basic economic content. Since then the course has shifted teachers again (frequent shifting is one of its problems), but remains a problem. It is much too large (maybe 80) for effective teaching. For the richest university, that is disgraceful.

“The general reputation of the senior faculty is that they are inaccessible, unapproachable, that they know and see only the few students who have gained access to their empires. No one serves for graduate students the functions performed by junior faculty for undergraduates, as teachers, advisers, tutors, friends. This really must be changed, even at some expense in research output and in outside activities of faculty. As things stand, I would not advise a bright … senior to go to the Harvard department unless he was of such a specialized interest and talent that he clearly could become a student protégé of one of the giants of the Harvard department.

“Perhaps the reduction in size of the graduate student body and the appointment of more non-tenure associate professors who will be active in graduate instruction will improve the situation. But that will not be enough. The senior faculty seems to me overly complacent about the situation, perhaps because they have been so close to it so long that they have forgotten what a decent and civilized community of faculty and graduate students is like.

“Unfortunately it will take time to recreate one at Harvard even if the faculty tries to do so. I don’t think it takes a drastic reformation of the curriculum so much as greater dedication to teaching, the use of smaller classes, assistants in first year courses, etc.”

Still another member of the Visiting Committee addressed himself to the atmosphere in the Department:

“…At the very outset, I think (one must not get) the impression of a deeper split within the senior faculty than actually exists. The division of opinion over Bowles involved only a small minority (not-by the way—a bloc that would hold together on many issues) and represented the sort of difference of opinion that any large faculty must expect to have. Had it not been for the size and intensity of the reaction from graduate students, nothing much would have followed from the Bowles decision. The real split in the department is between most of the senior faculty and a substantial fraction of the graduate student body. That, in turn, is a compound of radical dissidence and much broader student discontent with the teaching and conduct of the graduate program. The most striking aspect of the situation, in some ways, is how little the senior faculty seems to care. To give a clear picture of the department, I think (one must note) the contrast between the turbulence down below and the disaffection of some assistant professors on the one hand, and the fact that at the top things are really quite serene, large amounts of excellent research are getting done, and the faculty is justifiably pleased with its place and performance in the profession. That dichotomy is very important. The Overseers should realize that actions taken to fix some of the bad things may have unexpected effects on the good things…”

In a letter written following the visit, another member of the Committee also captured the essence of the prevailing conditions:

“… The distressing morale situation in the Economics Department shook me profoundly. I know enough to recognize the normal level of gripes in the special pleadings to which one is always open in such a situation, but the reactions of the various academic people on the Committee and that Law School professor at the (Graduate Economics Club) meeting confirm to me that things are really bad.

“…The argument about the radical professors probably pinpoints the entire problem, which is one of alienation between the tenured faculty (most of them, anyway) and all the rest of the department – faculty and students. There is a feeling that nobody cares…. Add to that the clear and unhappy failure to cope with the challenges it must meet (and perhaps was itself the cause of these problems), and the impatience and frustration of the younger people with the conventional … ‘received doctrine’ is only natural.

“…I have never heard the word ‘disappointment’ used so often. One shocking comment at the lunch with the non-tenured faculty was that, ‘It’s almost impossible to get a senior faculty person to read our research papers, but that’s easy in comparison with getting them to look at a reading list of a course we are preparing.’ The conscious and persistent rejection of discussion or Socratic teaching techniques in the classroom is hardly the proper way to help students to master a complex and essentially analytical rather than descriptive subject.

“The contrast with my days as an undergraduate is striking. We knew, took classes with, and spent time with all the great stars of our time—Hansen, Williams, Schumpeter, Mason, Leontief, Chamberlin, Haberler, Machlup, etc. All but the largest classes were full of active discussion and argument. The younger faculty was in ferment about Keynesianism and was just jamming it down the throats of the older faculty—who listened, argued, and clarified. I have never stopped going back to my class notes or the annotations in our books. The whole thing has never lost its relevance, fascination, or utility over the … years. This is what Harvard should do and must do to justify its reputation and importance, but that is precisely what it is not doing now.”

One member (who has visited the Department on several other occasions) focused on another impression shared by a number of others on the Committee. Following the visit, he wrote:

“…For the first time (in several years of) visitations (they were annual prior to the recent innovation)…I feel that the department is in great need of leadership. This conclusion is the result of a number of factors. Among them:

“1. While the department is unquestionably the finest in the country, the aura of leadership stems primarily from research activities. Teaching is another and a considerably spottier story. While the samples we observed were highly selective, they were not good.

“2. The furor over the radical economists does not seems to me to be related nearly as much to the facts as to the way in which the situation has been handled. That Harvard is alone among all universities in being in this position would tend to support this conclusion.

“3. The Harvard Economic Research Institute was a device for channeling research funds to the department. It has been allowed to run down completely. As much as faculty members may like the idea of additional funds being available, there seems no plan for replacing this source. Without such a plan and organized approach, it seems unlikely to me they will be replaced.

“4. I gather Ed Mason’s international activity is about to go out of business. I do not know the full story.

“5. The feeling persists among students (and this is not new) that the Economics Department lacks a ‘personality’ and interest in the student as an individual. As a result, they feel ‘at sea’.

“6. The impression I had from the students, at least, is that the number of socially relevant policy courses is limited (probably wrong) and that it is only the radical economists who are interested in teaching them (probably also wrong) and that these are the kinds of subjects on which students want to spend their time (with which I completely sympathize). If the students are right, this is a bad state of affairs. The fact that this is their perception of reality also seems to me a poor state of affairs.

“I am sure that each of these has its rationale and history. Yet, however much each requires the kind of careful handling one normally associates with management of professional staffs, none of these situations is necessary. Taken together, they worry me. My impression is that if we had time to study the issues truly important to the department’s future, we might well find they lacked the kind of forceful handling they should have….”

The assessment of the Department by a new member of the Committee was as follows:

“…My impression of the concern expressed by both the undergraduate and graduate students was threefold: (1) radical economics; (2) ‘relevant’ courses; and (3) a demonstrated concern for and interest in teaching and students. It seemed that the ‘radical’ economists were lecturing on topics of great interest to the students and were good, concerned teachers. Thus, I would like to emphasize that the Department not only broaden its course offerings but make evident, in a visible, systematic and continuing fashion that a priority function is teaching undergraduates and graduates…”

Again, it must be emphasized that the Committee’s exposure was necessarily short, and it may not have gotten a fully rounded picture of the prevailing situation. On the other hand, the fact that Committee members who have seen the Department over several years got the same impression must be given a great deal of weight.

 

V. Undergraduate Instruction Program

The Committee encountered few criticisms with respect to the undergraduate program offered by the Department of Economics. This was in noticeable contrast to the situation just a few years ago. At that time, students complained about the quality of tutorial programs and the lack of an opportunity to pursue joint majors with other substantive fields. During the 1972-73 academic year, the Department greatly expanded the amount of instruction provided on an individual or small group basis. As part of the initial effort, 20 sophomores received individual tutoring with highly favorable results. As a consequence, individual tutorial will become a permanent option — while group instruction will also be available for those students who prefer it. All concentrators have the option to participate in junior tutorial, and the option is being elected by an increasing number of such students. A senior thesis workshop has been in operation for more than a year. This program (led by a senior faculty member) provides an opportunity for seniors pursuing honors to explain and defend their research proposals well in advance of the March date on which the theses are due.

For the last few years, the Undergraduate Instruction Committee (UIC) has circulated questionnaires in all undergraduate courses in Economics to permit students to evaluate each course. The questions have focused on matters such as (1) the lecturer’s ability to hold interest; (2) overall evaluation of lectures; (3) overall evaluation of reading material; (4) helpfulness of sections; (5) preparation of section leaders; (6) fairness in grading; (7) attainment of initial expectations, and (8) overall impression of course. Each of these elements is rated on a scale of 9 for excellent, 7 for good, 5 for average, etc. The mean evaluation of undergraduate courses (weighted by enrollment) taught in the Fall term of 1971-72 was 6.65. (The standard deviation was 1.63) The highest score was achieved by junior tutorial groups, and several intermediate lecture courses followed fairly closely behind. A rough summary of the students’ evaluation of courses taught in the academic year 1972-73 (unweighted by enrollment) suggests that the overall assessment was about the same as in the previous year.

During the Committee’s visit, however, representatives of the Undergraduate Instruction Committee made two recommendations affecting the undergraduate program. The first related to the procedures of the Faculty Subcommittee on the Undergraduate Curriculum. The UIC expressed apprehension over the possibility that the Faculty Subcommittee might recommend major changes in the objectives and curriculum of the Economics Department without providing an ample opportunity for economics concentrators to discuss the proposals. The UIC strongly urged against such a course. After meeting with UIC, members of the Visiting Committee reported this concern to the chairman of the Faculty Subcommittee and were assured that no definitive action would be taken without proper consultation with undergraduate concentrators.

The second recommendation concerned the place of “radical” economics at Harvard. The UIC stated that:

“…it is clear to the committee that the Department of Economics should provide opportunities for undergraduate study in all major areas of economic theory. ‘Radical’ (Marxist) economic theory, as taught by Professors Bowles, Gintis, MacEwan, and Marglin, is a major alternative to neoclassical economic theory. The possibility exists that none of these faculty members will be teaching at Harvard during the academic year 1974-75. In light of this fact, this committee urges that the Department of Economics make certain that “radical” professors of economics be present on the Harvard Department of Economics faculty for 1974-75.”

In assessing the status of the undergraduate program, a member of the Committee observed:

“…The undergraduate program seems to be in better shape, perhaps because some of the assistant professors and teaching fellows are, against all odds, devoted to teaching. It seems to me that there is a genuine issue to be faced in the (recommendation)…. I have only little sympathy for the notion that “radical” or Marxian economic theory deserves a major place in the curriculum. But I do think that a department that goes in one or two years from a complement of four actively teaching radicals to none is in grave danger of violating a legitimate expectation of continuity held by students. If any number of undergraduates were attracted into the field by the hope of doing some specifically “radical” courses and research, then it is perhaps unfair to them to withdraw that opportunity so suddenly. If that is the content of the UIC recommendation, I think there is merit in it. There may be a similar point to be made on behalf of graduate students.

The Visiting Committee assured the representatives of UIC that their recommendations would be included in its report.

 

VI. Graduate Instruction Program

The Visiting Committee heard the most vocal expressions of discontent from graduate students. The strident tone of these comments was new—even to persons who had been on the Committee for several years. In explaining the apparent sharpness of the changed environment, one must give weight to the observations made by the chairman of the Department of Economics: since the Committee did not meet during the 1972-73 academic year, it perhaps had not kept abreast of emerging graduate student attitudes. Moreover, when the Committee visited the Department during the last few years, the “radical” students had boycotted the Committee’s meeting with graduate students. This time they chose to participate in the discussion through the Graduate Economic Club (G.E.C.).

In fact, the special meeting called by that organization (and to which the Committee and faculty members were invited) was the best session of the entire visit—at least in the opinion of several members of the Committee. The co-chairman of the G.E.C. had obviously worked hard to organize the meeting, and a substantial proportion of the graduate students enrolled participated. Three key issues were listed on the agenda: (1) the first-year program (including the Economic History requirement, theory courses, mathematics instruction, class size, and teaching quality); (2) curriculum content and the “firing” of radical professors, and (3) the structure and control of the Department. The presentations were crisp, and the discussion — while full — was highly focused.

The meeting took place against the background of considerable student unhappiness over the graduate program. One expression of that attitude is embodied in a long letter prepared by the Graduate Economics Club and addressed to entering graduate students. The opening section of that letter sets the general tone:

“The Graduate Economics Club is an organization open to all economics graduate students, whose purpose is to represent, and provide a forum for, the views of students in the department. We are writing to welcome you to the Economics Department. We only wish we could report that it was a more pleasant experience. In general, most of us have found that the first year at Harvard was the worst year of our lives. The teaching is often terrible, the professors distant and uninterested in new students. Many of us found that we were forced to work extremely hard at courses that were poor by any standard. The department makes little attempt to ease new students’ adjustment to Cambridge, so many entering graduates find the initial months are alienating and lonely. Student-faculty relations are often poor, in part as a result of academic and political disputes which have riven the department in the last three or four years.

“Harvard can be a very exciting place to work. Cambridge is a lively, stimulating city: the intellectual and cultural resources available here are extremely broad ranging. Once they come to know the department and the city, most students find Harvard an enjoyable place to study. It is largely the first few terms here that prove so difficult. In an effort to make the first year somewhat better for you than it was for us, a fair number of students have discussed how we might have treated our first year here differently. This letter is an attempt to condense what we now that might help you. Not all of us agree with all of what is included, but most of us agree with most of it….”

The letter then took up three main subjects: (1) the formal academic requirements and the older students’ collective judgment as to the best way to handle them; (2) housing and living arrangements, and (3) an account of the “political” conflicts evident in the Department of Economics in the last few years. The first and third of these subjects were also dominant themes of the G.E.C.’s meeting in which the Visiting Committee participated.

The formal requirements for the Ph.D. established by the Department of Economics specify that candidates must pass examinations in five fields: Economic Theory, Economic History; Quantitative Methods, and two “special” fields chosen by the student. By long-standing practice, many students “write-off” the Economic History and Quantitative Methods requirements by taking specified courses. An additional requirement is enrollment in one working seminar in which a paper must be prepared.

These requirements—and the way in which they have been administered—have engendered numerous complaints by graduate students. In response, the Graduate Instruction Committee was instructed by the faculty of the Department of Economics to review a number of aspects of the doctoral program and to recommend improvements. Six curriculum review committees (which included student members as well as both tenured and non-tenured faculty) were established for this purpose. These were: (1) Committee on the Structure of the Doctoral Program and Examinations; (2) Committee on the First-year Program; (3) Committee on Economic Theory and its History; (4) Committee on Economic History; (5) Committee on Special Fields, and (6) Committee on the Relations Between the Economy and Society. The Graduate Instruction Committee prepared several memoranda to give guidance to the various review committees and to identify the main issues and questions on which it was hoped the latter would focus. At the same time, however, it was made clear that the review committees should not feel constrained by such memoranda but should feel free to define the scope of their own deliberations and recommendations. The key issues on which the committees were urged to focus are summarized in Appendix I to this report.

It was thought unnecessary and unduly complicated to require formal coordination of the work of the various review committees. However, consultation among them was encouraged. This was especially true of the committees dealing with the structure of the doctoral program and relations between economics and society. Most of the committees were asked to report during the Fall term. The tasks were well underway at the time the Visiting Committee was at Harvard, and the Department expects to consider the various recommendations before the end of the 1973-74 academic year. It was generally expected that significant changes will be recommended in several of the areas under review.

 

VII. Controversy over Radical Economics

As indicated above, the debate over Harvard’s receptivity to the presence of “radical” professors on the faculty and the inclusion of “radical economics” in the curriculum held a great deal of interest for members of the Visiting Committee. Background material on the subject had been shared with committee members in advance, and a considerable amount of time during the visit was spent on the issues involved.

To put the matter in perspective, it might be well to summarize the emergence of the debate in the Economics Department in recent years. Apparently in the mid-1960’s, a number of younger faculty members and graduate students concluded that conventional training in economics (in which Harvard was in the forefront) did not address most of the social problems of the day which they thought important. Acting on this conviction, they began to work within the Department for a reform of the curriculum. Some of the senior faculty members were sympathetic with these goals. Partly as a result of these efforts, students were added to the Graduate Instruction Committee (G.I.C.)—first two students and then three on a committee of 13 members. Evidently these changes did little to resolve the student’s discontent. It is reported that recommendations by the G.I.C. favorable to students were not endorsed by the faculty as a whole.

In the generally unsettled atmosphere at Harvard during 1969-70, graduate student protest over the economics curriculum also rose considerably. To meet the criticism, the form of the general examination requirements was relaxed somewhat. Yet, many students still found the content of the curriculum unsatisfactory. Again, it seems that some faculty members (not all of them without tenure) shared this feeling. By the Spring of 1971, this continuing disappointment led to the Graduate Economics Club (GEC) to pass “…a resolution calling for full democratization of the economics department. As the first steps towards implementation the GEC demanded equal representation on the Graduate Instruction Committee and the non-tenured faculty committee….” The faculty (after what was apparently a vigorous debate) turned down these propositions in late March, 1971.

In the wake of this outcome, discussions were held among small groups of students and faculty which focused on the general examination requirements and on the graduate program generally. One of the committees formed at that time addressed itself to the role of “socio-economic structure” and Marxist theory in the curriculum. These two subjects were later approved by the faculty (in the Spring of 1971) as special fields in the Ph.D. program. However, no major changes were made in the content of the generals examinations, and no commitment was made to invite any Marxist economists to join the permanent faculty. Also in the Spring of 1971, the student representatives left the Graduate Instruction Committee—protesting what they considered token representation and lack of influence. Finally, in the Fall of 1971, the Graduate Economics Club adopted a resolution specifying that “… a Marxist theorist shall be hired to teach a curriculum in Marxist theory, to begin no later than the Fall of 1972….”

The faculty made no immediate response to this resolution. However, the issue came into sharp focus during the early months of 1972. At that time, a debate got underway over the question of the tenure of Associate Professor Samuel Bowles—a question which the Department had to answer by the end of the calendar year. The term appointment of Assistant Professor Arthur MacEwan was also moving to the stage at which a decision with respect to his future status would have to be made by the same deadline. These two men were viewed by the students as “…the last two remaining non-tenured radical faculty members….” A campaign to win tenure for them was launched by both undergraduate and graduate students. As part of this effort, a petition urging that they be retained and that more radical economists be brought to Harvard was circulated in the Spring of 1972. More than 700 persons signed the petition. In the Fall of that year, a substantial proportion of Professor Bowles former students (reportedly 75 per cent of them—virtually all of those who could be reached) orally or in writing supported the effort to obtain tenure for him. But, after a long (and apparently sometimes divisive) debate, the majority of the Department voted against a tenure appointment for Professor Bowles. A few weeks later, Professor MacEwan’s term appointment was not renewed, and he was not promoted to Associate Professor. Previously two other “radial” economists (Herbert Gintis and Thomas Weisskopf) had failed to receive promotions.

Immediately, these decisions were attacked as “politically” motivated by many of the students and some of the faculty. These charges of bias were denied vigorously by members of the senior faculty. However, the reverberations of those actions reached well beyond the boundaries of Harvard University. For example, at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association (AEA) in Toronto in late December, 1972, a resolution was proposed condemning the action of the Harvard economics faculty. The chairman and other representatives of Harvard spoke against the resolution which was not adopted. However, a modified version was approved. It held that:

  1. The American Economic Association urges that hiring decisions in economics departments be free of political bias. The Association strongly condemns political discrimination in hiring decisions against radical economists or any others.
  2. The American Economic Association urges all departments to set up university procedures whereby allegations of discrimination on the basis of political differences can be systematically investigated.
  3. The American Economic Association strongly opposes discrimination in government grant allocation on the basis of political views.

As indicated above, strong voices were heard on both sides of the debate over the Bowles appointment. The formal view of the faculty majority was given by Professor James Duesenberry, Department Chairman, in his report covering the 1972-73 academic year:

“…Our pleasure…was marred by criticism, from students and others, of the department’s failure to recommend Associate Professor Samuel Bowles for a tenure appointment. The non-tenure associate professorship is a new rank at Harvard and Professor Bowles was the first person appointed to it and therefore the first to reach the time at which a decision as to a tenure recommendation had to be made. There was perhaps some misapprehension as to the likelihood of tenure appointments for associate professors. There are at present six associate professors and it is a source of regret that only a fraction of this extraordinarily able group of economists can be offered tenure appointments. In Professor Bowles’ case it was alleged that the Executive Committee’s decision was biased because of Professor Bowles’ ‘radical’ views. Since bias like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that is a difficult charge to answer. I can only say that in my twenty years on the Executive Committee the primary consideration has always been the search for persons who could be expected to maintain and enhance the outstanding professional position of the department. Failure to recommend a particular associate professor for a tenure appointment is not an indication of bias unless it can be alleged that the person in question has scholarly abilities and accomplishments which are obviously superior to those of any other persons—at Harvard or elsewhere—who might be appointed.

“Alternatively it might be argued that ‘radical economics’ should receive more attention. The department already has one ‘radical’ full professor (appointed before his conversion to be sure, but here none the less). The amount of weight to be given to any subfield or approach in our discipline is always a matter of opinion and dispute, but it does not seem obvious that the accomplishments of the relatively new radical approach are so overwhelming as to outweigh the many other claims on our limited number of appointments….”

Several other senior faculty members who thought Bowles should have been given tenure—although their reasons differed—have also spoken on the issue. Professor Stephen A. Marglin (a member who was voted tenure before he began to identify with the “radical” economists) urged his colleagues to give Bowles a tenure appointment—and also to bring more radicals to Harvard. By so doing, he though radical economics would have a chance to develop. Professors Kenneth J. Arrow, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Wassily Leontief were also willing to give radical economics an opening: and they, too supported tenure for Bowles. Professor Arrow has been quoted as saying that Bowles’ appointment would broaden the Department, and he felt that his work was “good enough” judged by standard that “hardly had anything to do with radicalism.”

Partly as a response to this debate, Herbert Gintis (who was lecturing in the School of Education after he failed to win reappointment three years earlier) was invited back to the Department of Economics as an Assistant Professor, with the understanding that he would be recommended for promotion effective with the 1974-75 academic year. Beginning in September, 1974, Gintis and Bowles (along with two other “radical” economists — Stephen A. Resnick and Richard Wolff) will go as a team to the Economics Department of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.1/With their departure, Stephen Marglin will be the only “radical” economist with tenure — in a Harvard community numbering more than 60 economists. Moreover, he is scheduled to be on leave for the 1974-75 academic year.

1/ Subsequent to the Committee’s visit, it was learned that Gintis may remain at Harvard. As this report was being written, the matter was still uncertain.

 

VIII. Continuing Controversy Over the Scope of Economics at Harvard

Aside from the debate over the role of radical economists at Harvard, a number of faculty members (both tenured and non-tenured) are concerned about the scope and content of the curriculum—and think it should be broadened considerably. The curriculum review committees discussed above were appointed for this purpose. Several tenure appointments will become available to the Department in the next few years, but opinions differ as to how they should be filled. The Department chairman, in his report covering the 1972-73 academic year, identified the fields of labor, industrial organization, economic development, and economic history as ones in which additional strength is needed.

More fundamentally, however, at least a few senior faculty members apparently believe that the differences in view with respect to the content of the economics program are so wide that a basic reorganization of the Department may be in order. So far, Professor Galbraith is the only one to express his views in writing. However, Professors Arrow, Albert Hirschman, Leontief, and Marglin are reported to have thought — during the Spring of 1973 — that the possibility of forming a new department or a separate track within the existing Department was worth exploration2/By late fall, Professor Galbraith (who chairs the Committee on the First-Year Graduate Program) had in circulation a proposal to establish an Experimental Program and Committee within the existing Department of Economics. If adopted, this program would provide students an alternative path to the Ph.D. paralleling the more traditional route. Under the umbrella of the new faculty Committee which would oversee the alternative route, appointments would be made and associated research would be conducted. Subject matter of interest to faculty and students working in the Committee’s area might include problems of the arts, discrimination, income maintenance, and poverty. Perhaps one-quarter of the graduate students might elect to pursue this new track. The proposal also visualizes that the committee would have the right to recommend appointments — tenure and non-tenure — about in proportion to its share of the teaching load (both undergraduate and graduate). While the Executive Committee of the Department would vote on such recommendations, there would be a broad presumption that the Committee’s recommendations would be accepted.

2/ A member of the Visiting Committee thought the report should note that this group of senior faculty “…is the group that supported Bowles, and that it is in fact a group that has very little else in common. Galbraith’s and Hirschman’s view of economics has very little overlap with Arrow’s and Leontief’s, and Marglin is his own kind of (man). This appears to more an alliance based on political attitude and temporary happenstance than a genuine current of thought.”

At the time the Visiting Committee was in Cambridge, this proposal had generated considerable reaction. It had apparently won strong support among some of the senior faculty as well as among the non-tenured group and graduate students. But it apparently had also encountered strong opposition — especially on the part of some of the tenured members. Since a version of the proposal will probably be submitted to the Graduate Instruction Committee this spring, the Department may have to vote on it before the end of the 1973-74 academic year.

 

IX. Affirmative Action Program

The Visiting Committee made a special effort to appraise the effort being made by the Department of Economics (in keeping with University policy) to recruit women and members of minority groups. The subject was discussed primarily with the Department Chairman, but other senior members of the faculty also contributed. The non-tenure recruitment procedures used during 1972-73 were described by the Department Chairman as follows:

“The Department of Economics normally plans to hire 4 or 5 assistant professors each year. In the 1972/73 recruiting season, the non-tenure appointment committee obtained names and short vitas of prospective new Ph.D.’s from over twenty leading departments of economics. Additional names were supplied to us on an informal basis by a number of smaller graduate departments. Members of the committees and other members of the department then contacted department chairmen, placement officers, and others to develop a shorter list of the outstanding prospects from this year’s Ph.D. crop. In making these inquiries chairmen and placement officers were pressed as to the availability of women and minority candidates. At the time of the 1972 Christmas meetings of the American Economics Association the “short list” included 40 names of which 6 were women. There were no minority candidates who seemed suitable for our department. At the AEA meetings members of our department interviewed all candidates on the short list who could be contacted, as well as others who requested interviews.

“On the basis of interviews and further correspondence with other universities, a number of candidates were included in these invitations. In the end five offers of assistant professorships were made and accepted through these procedures, of whom one was a woman. It may be worth noting that it was necessary for us to make a considerable effort to find a post for her husband at another university in the city in order to obtain the services of the one woman we have recommended for an assistant professor appointment.

“In addition to the appointments made through these procedures, we have recommended that two persons now holding lectureships in the university be appointed assistant professors. One of these is our head tutor who had been teaching in Social Studies but will now undertake an important teaching assignment in our department. In his case we feel that he should assume professorial status. Because of the importance of continuity in his post as head tutor, we have not considered any other candidates.

“A second appointment has been recommended for a lecturer in the School of Education who has previously taught in our department but who will now switch the bulk of his teaching from the School of Education to the Department of Economics.

“We have also recommended two associate professor appointments. One of these is to be promoted from assistant professor upon completion of his term. We had no women assistant professors reaching the review point this year. The other recommendation is for an appointment to associate professor in the field of labor economics as a stop-gap replacement for Professor Dunlop. An extensive search by a special committee did not reveal any women or minority candidates who could be seriously considered for this position.”

On balance, several members of the Visiting Committee thought that the Department’s procedures (while clearly aimed in the right direction) did not show the kind of vigorous effort required to achieve the Harvard goal. At least one academic member of the Committee thought that the Department’s efforts fell appreciably short of those made by several other institutions — which had also been much more successful in competing for an admittedly scarce supply of women and minority group economists.

Another member of the Committee, who had been asked to give special attention to the matter, observed as follows:

“…The first evening… we discussed … Affirmative Action Plan. But I had a strong feeling that it was a farce. The message seemed to be: Look how hard we’ve tried. We’ve done everything we could, but there simply aren’t any qualified women or blacks. As (another member) said to me informally, they really seem to believe women are inferior. This member of the Visiting Committee would urge a much stronger effort to recruit women at the assistant professor level so as to increase the number in the pipeline for higher level positions later….”

 

X. Concluding Observations

At the conclusion of its visit and after considerable discussion — the Visiting Committee decided not to draw up a list of specific recommendations. Instead, it chose to describe as fully as possible the situation it encountered in the Economics Department. It was assumed that the Harvard faculty itself is best suited to cope with its own problems.

On the other hand, several general observations should be made. In the first place, it was obvious to virtually every member of the Committee that the curriculum being offered by the Department of Economics is greatly in need of reformation.3/ The subject matter ought to be broadened to provide greater scope for students and faculty to work on problems — and search for solutions to them — that are not easily encompassed within the corpus of traditional economics as taught at Harvard. It was realized, of course, that the Department of Economics at Harvard is far less narrow than almost any other department in the forefront of the profession. Yet, a number of the men who have provided this broad thrust over the years have recently retired and others are scheduled to do so in the near future. Consequently, the Visiting Committee thinks it is vital that the upcoming opportunities to make tenure appointments be used to assure that Harvard’s historic concern for economic welfare (broadly defined) be kept alive in the years ahead.

3/ A member of the Committee noted that “…the Harvard curriculum is not atypical for university departments aspiring to high status in the profession’s pecking order. So it is a problem of the criteria by which the profession judges, not specifically of the Harvard Department. Nevertheless, there may be good reason for Harvard to assume some leadership in searching for a broader curriculum. Of course, there may be no good answer….”

The Visiting Committee refrained from expressing a judgment on the appropriateness of the decision not to give tenure appointments to specific members of the faculty identified as radical economists. The reason was simple: in the final analysis, the faculty itself has to decide who will be given status and the right to enjoy its privileges and carry on its responsibilities. On the other hand, the Committee feels strongly that “political” bias or other forms of discrimination should have no weight in judging candidates for tenure. Again, however, these judgments have to be made by the faculty.

But one member of the Visiting Committee also felt strongly that some kind of machinery should be created that would enable some outside body (perhaps even outside the University) to review faculty decisions in which those affected adversely feel they are the victims of discrimination — “political” or otherwise. Two or three other members of the Committee expressed some sympathy with this general view — although not necessarily with the specific elements outlined. On balance, however, the Committee decided not to endorse the proposition or transmit it as a recommendation. 4/ Nevertheless, everyone was sensitive to the difficult issues involved. Several members thought that the general position on political bias embodied in the resolution adopted by the American Economic Association (reported above) is one the Harvard Economics Department might well adopt as its own.

4/ The tone of the opposition to the proposal was captured by one member: “…I have my doubts about any proposal for outside review….Appointments may in fact sometimes be made on a discriminatory basis, and I would be interested in suggestions for protective machinery. I fear, however, that the solution mentioned here may be so open to abuse as to be worse than the problem. I wish I had a better alternative to suggest….”

The Committee was deeply impressed with the criticism of the graduate curriculum which it heard. For that reason, it was pleased to note the work now underway in the various review committees to reassess the program. It appears that a number of important recommendations will be made to the faculty — which if adopted could significantly enhance the appeal and usefulness of the program to graduate students. At the same time, it is also obvious that the senior faculty members in the Department must devote far more time directly to the education of the students who look to them for inspiration and guidance.

Finally, the Committee is convinced that a much greater — and far more systematic — effort should be made to seek out promising women and members of minority groups as potential faculty members. The Committee is under no illusions that this is an easy task. But, unless the Department’s procedures are revamped and more resources devoted to the assignment—it appears doubtful that the Department of Economics will make a significant contribution toward helping Harvard University achieve the goals established in its affirmative action program.

Andrew F. Brimmer
Chairman

April 15, 1974

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

APPENDIX I
SUMMARY OF ASSIGNMENTS OF CURRICULUM REVIEW COMMITTEES

[Incomplete]

As indicated above, the Department of Economics has established six curriculum review committees to work on the improvement of a number of aspects of the doctoral program. The principal guidance given to these task forces by the Graduate Instruction Committee is summarized below.

Committee on Structure of the Doctoral Program and Examinations: This committee “will be responsible for reconsidering the procedure whereby a candidate becomes a doctor of philosophy and is expected to contemplate if not to recommend very fundamental changes in the organization of the program.” Its mandate includes:

  1. Reconsideration of the length and chronology of the doctoral program.
    1. Currently the Economic Department expects candidates to take general examinations at the end of their second year and special examinations one and a half to two years later. What is the actual chronology in recent years? Is this norm sound, or should the Department develop a program of different length and segments?
    2. Should candidates be involved in teaching and research sooner than at present, say during the second year, although this may require some extension of the time devoted to preparing for the general orals?
  2. Consideration of possible course requirements. At present there are none (formally), but it may be advisable to require candidates to take a specified minimum number of courses for letter grades.
  3. Reconsideration of the offering of advanced courses and seminars. There are now a large number of advanced courses and seminars, many with small enrollments. Who takes these courses: second-year students, post-generals students, students from outside the Department? Would it suit the needs of the faculty and students better if some or all of them were replaced by less formal and more flexible tutorials, group or individual?
  4. Is the Department meeting the needs of post-generals students with respect to advanced instruction, stimulation, and guidance? How should that phase of the program be strengthened?
  5. Reconsideration of the role and concept of the thesis. Current legislation is intended to encourage theses that are more like a long paper or short monograph than like a comprehensive treatise, but this seems to be largely a dead letter. Which concept is sound, and how can it be implemented?
  6. Reconsideration of the final examination. For the last few years, the grading and conduct of the special examination have been separated from the acceptance and grading of the thesis. Has this change made the special examination a more useful educational experience than previously? Would other changes improve it further?
  7. Finally, is the graduate program properly attuned to the job market or the requirements for a career in economics? What kinds of jobs do Harvard graduates find, and have they been equipped properly for such jobs? Are any procedures needed for adjusting the program to meet the changing demands on economists?

This list of topics, though long and demanding, was not meant to be exhaustive. The committee was encouraged to feel free to raise questions of its own and to make recommendations about any aspects of the program.

 

Committee on the First-Year Program: Some matters and questions that this committee was asked to consider are:

  1. The efficacy and adequacy of the current procedures for advising first-year students.
  2. Whether the courses and programs now available to entering students provide enough flexibility in view of their widely varying levels of preparation and fields of interest. Is the first year concentrated excessively on the three required fields?

 

  1. [sic, “3.” apparently skipped over or omitted] Whether there is need for more information about the level and contents of graduate courses than is provided by the catalog listing and, if so, how to provide it. Are the current pamphlets about the general nature of the program and the degree requirements adequate? Indeed, should the organization and contents of the catalog listing being revised substantially?
  2. Is there need for additional physical facilities, in particular, for a common room?

 

Committee on Economic Theory and Its History: Some of the issues called to the committee’s attention are:

  1. Level of the requirement. At present the instructors and examiners in economic theory and its history do not have any guidance except vague traditions for determining the level of attainment to expect. It is somewhere between the acquaintance with fundamental concepts expounded in the intermediate undergraduate economic theory course and the highly technical proficiency (also vaguely conceived) expected of a candidate who offers advanced economic theory as a special field.
    A clear, and if possible, operational definition would be highly desirable. This task consists, really, of two parts: first, a policy decision on the appropriate level of advancement, and second, the discovery of a way to express that decision in clear and operational terms, perhaps a syllabus.
  2. The scope of the field. Just what topics are to be included in the field of economic theory and its history is nowhere laid down. It is not at all clear how much acquaintance the faculty expects candidates to have with the present of economic doctrine, either first-hand or second-hand. There is considerable disagreement about how much [… end of copy]

 

NOTE:  PAGES STARTING WITH A-5 ARE MISSING.

Missing are “(4) Committee on Economic History; (5) Committee on Special Fields, and (6) Committee on the Relations Between the Economy and Society.”

Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. John Kenneth Galbraith Papers. Series 5. Harvard University File, 1949-1990. Box 527. Folder “Harvard Department of Economics Report of the Visiting Committee, 1975”.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Readings and Exam for Business Cycles. Schumpeter 1949-50

Joseph Schumpeter died January 8, 1950. The final examination questions transcribed in this post come from an official printed collection of final examinations, so that it seems likely and certainly possible, given required lead times for printing, that these were among Schumpeter’s last questions for his students.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 245a (formerly Economics 145a). Business Cycles and Economic Forecasting.
(F) Professor Schumpeter.

Total 31: 26 Graduates, 3 Seniors, 1 Public Administration, 1 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1949-1950, p. 75.

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Course Reading List

Economics 245a
Fall Term, 1949-50

This course will divide up into two parts: The first and smaller part will serve as a general introduction to the history, techniques, and bearings of business-cycle analysis and will be made longer or shorter according to the needs (or previous selected topics and give as much opportunity as possible for discussions and essays. Some knowledge of advanced theory and some training in statistics are necessary in order to reap full benefit from this course. Individual requirements will be taken care of in consultation.

  1. Books:

G. v. Haberler, Prosperity and Depression, 1941.

J. M. Clark, Strategic Factors in Business Cycles (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1934)

Readings in Business-Cycle Theory (Vol. II of the American Economic Association series of republished articles, Blakiston, 1944.

E.C. Bratt, Business-Cycle Forecasting (3rd ed., 1948; a textbook that may help less advanced students).

A.C. Pigou, Industrial Fluctuations, 1929.

E. Frickey, Economic Fluctuations in the U.S. (Harvard Economic Studies No. 73)

A.H. Hansen, Fiscal Policy and the Business Cycle, 1941.

Burns and Mitchell, Measuring Business Cycles (1946) (National Bureau).

F. C. Mills, Price-Quantity Interactions in Business Cycles, 1946 (Nat’l. Bureau).

  1. Articles:
    1. (a) H.L. Beales, “The Great Depression,” Economic History Review, October, 1934.
      (b) W.W. Rostow, “Explanations of the Great Depression,” Economic History Supplement to Economic Journal, February, 1940.
    2. (a) J. Tinbergen: “Suggestions on Quantitative Business-Cycle Theory,” Econometrica, 1935.
      (b) J. Tinbergen: Econometric Business-Cycle Research,” Review of Economic Studies, February, 1940.
    3. R. F. Harrod, “Imperfect Competition and the Trade Cycle,” Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1936.
    4. N. Kaldor, “A Model of the Trade Cycle, Economic Journal, March, 1940.
    5. (a) L.A. Metzler, “Business Cycles and the Modern Theory of Employment,” American Economic Review, June, 1946.
      (b) L.A. Metzler, “Nature and Stability of Inventory Cycles,” Review of Economic Statistics, 1941.
      (c) L. A. Metzler, “Factors Governing the Length of Inventory Cycles,” Review of Economic Statistics, February, 1947.
      (d) M. Abramowitz, “The Role of Inventories in Business Cycles,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Occasional Paper No. 26, May, 1948.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reding lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 5, Folder “Economics, 1949-1950 (3 of 3)”.

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1949-40
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 245a
[Final Examination. January, 1950]

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

  1. Discuss briefly the National Bureau method of measuring business cycles.
  2. Many authors have asserted that economic progress is “unstabilizing.” What does this mean precisely?
  3. Discuss briefly the main “price-quantity interactions in business cycles.”
  4. State, and give your opinion about the explanatory value of, the acceleration principle.
  5. “In a progressive economy, the rate of interest which stabilizes the price level is below the rate which keeps the flow of money incomes constant.” Explain and criticize.
  6. It is often asserted that agriculture is not an active element in business cycles. It is “the football of business.” Do you agree?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, … , Military Science, Naval Science, February 1950 in Final Exams—Social Sciences, etc. Feb. 1940 (HUC 7000.28, Vol. 81).

Image Source:  Harvard Classbook 1947.