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Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumna. Linked publications list. Edith Abbott, 1905

Edith Abbott by Melvin H. Sykes (1919)

The second woman to receive a Political Economy Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Edith Abbott, became the first woman dean of a U.S. graduate school in 1924 (The University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Social Service Administration). In her day there were two main paths to an academic career for women economists: home economics and “social economy”. She and her long-time collaborator, Sophonisba Breckinridge, (the first woman to receive a political science Ph.D. at the University of Chicago…note: on an economics topic “A Study of Legal Tender in England“) were fellow research directors at Jane Addams’ Hull House. 

In Germany Sozialpolitik was, like virtually all academic disciplines, Männersache. In Anglo-American academic life social policy was where women could participate.

With this post Economics in the Rear-View Mirror very proudly offers historians of economics and social policy links to well over 90% of her publications.

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Life and Career of Edith Abbott
Economics Ph.D. alumna (1905),
Department of Political Economy
University of Chicago

Thesis Title: A statistical study of the wages of unskilled labor in the United States, 1830-1900.
Published in The Journal of Political Economy (June, 1905) as “The Wages of Unskilled Labor in the United States 1850-1900”.

1876, September 26. Born in Grand Island, Nebraska.
1888-93. Graduated as valedictorian of Brownell Hall, a private school in Omaha, Nebraska.
1893-95. Taught at Grand Island High School, Nebraska.
1901. A.B. University of Nebraska.
1901-03. Graduate Student, University of Nebraska. and Instructor in Mathematics, Lincoln High School.
1902. Summer school at the University of Chicago.
1903-05.Fellow, Department of Political Economy, University of Chicago. Supported by J. L. Laughlin and Thorstein Veblen.
1905. Ph.D. in Political Economy from the University of Chicago.
1905. Post-Ph.D. she worked two jobs in Boston: (1) Secretary at the Women’s Trade Union League and (2) assisted in the U.S. industrial history research project of Carroll D. Wright for the American Economic Association funded by the Carnegie Institution. She lived at the social settlement Dennison House.
1906. Full-time work for the Carnegie Institution. Moved in January to New York City for research. Lived at College Settlement. Next moved to Washington, D.C.
1906-07. With funds from a competitive fellowship awarded by the Association of Collegiate Alumnae, supplemented by Carnegie Institution funds, she went for postgraduate study at the London School of Economics. She took a course “Methods of Social Investigation” taught by Beatrice Webb [see description of Abbott’s own methods course taught 1909-10 at the University of Chicago below]. Lived at St. Hilda’s Settlement in Bethnal Green.
1907-1908. Instructor of economics at Wellesley College.
1908-20. Resident of Hull House. Associate Director of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.
1909-10.Special Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1918-19. Vice President of the American Economic Association.
1920. Appointed Associate Professor of Social Economy in the Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.
1924-42. Dean of the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago.
1926. Established Cook County (Illinois) Bureau of Public Welfare.
1927.Together with Sophonisba P. Breckinridge co-founded Social Service Review.
1929-31.  Chaired the Committee on Crime and the Foreign Born of the Wickersham National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement
1935. Assisted in drafting the Social Security Act.
1942-1953. Dean Emeritus.
1953. Returned to Grand Island, Nebraska and lived with her brother Arthur.
1957, 28 July. Died in Grand Island, Hall County, Nebraska8

Sources:
Costin, Lela B. 1983. Two Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith Abbott. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Deegan, Mary Jo and Michael R. Hill. 1991. “Edith Abbott (1876-1957).” Pp. 29-36 in Women in Sociology: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, edited by Mary Jo Deegan. New York: Greenwood Press.

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Edith Abbott report on her year at L.S.E.
1906-07

Your [Association of Collegiate Alumnae] fellow of last year, Miss Abbott, went in September to the London School of Economics where her principal work was the study of statistical methods, taking both lecture and research work with Mr. Bowley, and also taking advantage of the opportunity of attending other lecture courses both in economic theory and in economic history and in methods of social investigation. She also found helpful work in University College, and in the spring attended some lectures at the School of Sociology. The part of the year that she counted most valuable, however, was the time spent with Miss Collet, Investigator of Women’s Trades for the English Labor Department, who for the past 20 years has been studying various questions connected with the employment of women. In the winter she made an investigation in connection with the “Outer London Inquiry,” and in the summer she had an opportunity of studying the working of the Unemployed Act. A short account of one phase of this “Municipal Employment of Unemployed Women in London” will appear in the current number of the Journal of Political Economy. Her History of the Industrial Employment of Women has made some progress. She will publish in the December number of the Journal of Political Economy, “Women in Manufactures: A Supplementary Note,” and in the January, 1907, she published a paper on “The History of the Employment of Women in Cigar-Making.” She has been appointed instructor at Wellesley College to carry on some of Professor Comane’s work during the latter’s leave of absence.

Source: The Association of Collegiate Alumnae Magazine III.17 (Jan. 1908) pp. 140-141.

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Faculty Blurb and Course Description,
University of Chicago, 1909-10

Edith Abbott, Ph.D., Special Lecturer in Political Economy.

A.B., University of Nebraska, 1901; Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1905; Fellow in Political Economy, ibid., 1903 -05; Research Work for Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1906; European Fellow of the Association of Collegiate Alumnae and Student at the London School of Economics, 1906 -7; Instructor in Political Economy, Wellesley College, 1907-8; Associate Director Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, 1908—; Special Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Chicago, 1909—.

  1. Methods of Social Investigation. A course designed primarily to acquaint students with the purpose, methods, and results of the most important work that has been done in the field of social research. Such investigations as Le Play’s Ouvriers européens, Booth’s Life and Labor of the People of London, Rowntree’s Poverty, women in the printing trades, and the recent Dundee and West Ham inquiries will be studied, as well as some selected reports of Royal Commissions and of the English and American Labor Departments. The application of statistical methods to social problems, the collection and tabulation of data, the use and misuse of averages, index-numbers, and weighting will be treated briefly; and the use and limitations of experiment, the interview, the document, and personal observation will be considered.

Students may supplement this course by practical work in investigation in connection with one of the Inquiries being carried on by the Research Department of the School of Civics and Philanthropy. An additional major’s credit will be given to students who give not less than 12 hours a week to this part of the course. Mj. or 2 Mj. Winter Quarter, 9:30, Dr. Abbott.

Source: University of Chicago. Annual Register,  July, 1908—July, 1909 with Announcements for 1909-1910 (Chicago: July 1908),  pp. 50, 237.

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Jane Adams of Hull House:
Introducing Edith Abbott

From Jane Addams’ preface to the pamphlet The Wage-Earning Woman and the State by Edith Abbott and Sophonisba P. Breckinridge published by the Boston Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government (1910)

…Miss Edith Abbott was graduated from the University of Nebraska, and later received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Economics and Law from the University of Chicago. She was for two years a Fellow of the University, and studied in Europe for one year at the University of London in the School of Economics. After teaching political economy at Wellesley College for one year, she entered the School of Civics and Philanthropy, where she has been Associate Director for the last five years. She is the author of a very authoritative work entitled « Women in Industry; A Study in American Economic » Her knowledge of the conditions surrounding working women is by no means confined to America. She is in constant correspondence with the people most interested in the conditions of working women in England and the continental countries, and by travel and correspondence has kept herself well informed concerning the legal and industrial changes which affect the lives of women the world over. Both Miss [Sophonisba P.] Breckinridge and Miss Abbott are personally acquainted with hundreds of working women. Miss Abbott has been a resident of Hull House for the last few years, and Miss Breckinridge is in residence each year during her three months’ vacation from teaching at the University. They thus add to their scholarly qualifications a keen and living interest in thousands of working women.

JANE ADDAMS.
Hull House, Chicago.

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Back story of  the Graduate School of Social Service Administration

The most recently established of the graduate schools of the University makes its entry somewhat timidly for the first time in the rather jovial surroundings and setting provided by the Cap and Gown. The School deals with almost discordantly sombre themes — pauperism, crime, drunkenness, insanity, and vice. Its laboratories are the mean streets of the West Side, the deteriorated area of “Lower North,” the industrial district to the south along the banks of the Calumet. But the School is older, in its traditions at least, than its debut would indicate.

First established more than twenty years ago as the Institute of Social Science under the auspices of the University of Chicago, University College, the School numbered among its first members of its faculty Professor Graham Taylor of the Chicago Commons, Professor Charles Richmond Henderson of the University, and Miss Julia C. Lathrop of Hull House. In May, 1908, the Institute of Social Science became the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy and maintained an independent existence from 1908 to 1920, when it was combined with the philanthropic service division that had been organized under the rapidly expanding School of Commerce and Administration, with Mr. [Leon Carroll] Marshall as the first dean of the new School. The present Graduate School of Social Service Administration is therefore the successor of the Chicago School of Civics and the Philanthropic Service Division of the School of Commerce.

The School differs from other schools in the social service field in that it offers the student not only a series of graduate professional courses but also the opportunity of combining his professional work with a wide choice of graduate courses in the Social Service departments of a great University.

Source: University of Chicago. The Cap and Gown 1924, p. 220.

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Edith Abbott’s Writings

Over 125 items in the following bibliography are accessible via the links that have been collected by the curator of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror. Alas, seven items have not (yet) been found, of which four are significant books published by University of Chicago Press and still under copyright protection.

“Wage Statistics in the Twelfth Census.” Journal of Political Economy, 12 (June 1904), 339-61. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1833345/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Elements of Political Economy by J. Shield Nicolson. In School Review 12 (Nov. 1904), 754-755. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1075897/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Trade Unionism and British Industry by Edwin A. Pratt. Journal of Political Economy 13 (Dec. 1904), 129-132. https://archive.org/details/paper-doi-10_1086_251116

Review of Women in the Printing Trades: A Sociological Study, edited by J. Ramsay MacDonald. In Journal of Political Economy 13 (March 1905), 299-303. https://archive.org/details/paper-doi-10_1086_251145/mode/2up

“Are Women Business Failures?” Harper’s Weekly, 49 (Apr. 8, 1905) Issue 2520, 496. https://archive.org/details/sim_harpers-weekly_1905-04-08_49_2520/page/496/mode/2up

“Wages of Unskilled Labor in the United States, 1850-1900.” Journal of Political Economy, 13 (June 1905), 321-67. (Ph.D. Dissertation) https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819499/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Labor Organization among Women by Belva Mary Herron. In Journal of Political Economy 13 (Sept. 1905), 605-607. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817853/page/n1/mode/2up

“Harriett Martineau and the Employment of Women in 1836.” Journal of Political Economy, 14 (Dec. 1906), 614-26. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819994/page/n1/mode/2up

“Employment of Women in Industries: Twelfth Census Statistics.” Journal of Political Economy, 14 (Jan. 1906), 14-40 (with Breckinridge). https://www.jstor.org/stable/1817279

Review of Trade Unions by Geoffrey Drage. In Journal of Political Economy 14 (Jan. 1906), 53-56. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817284/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Clothing Industry in New York by Jesse Eliphalet Pope. In Journal of Political Economy 14(April 1906), 252-254. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817940/page/n1/mode/2up

“The History of Industrial Employment of Women in the United States: An Introductory Study.” In  Journal of Political Economy, 14 (Oct. 1906), 461-501. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817741/page/n1/mode/2up

“Woman Suffrage Militant: The New Movement in England.” The Independent, 61 (Nov. 29, 1906), 1276-78. https://archive.org/details/sim_independent_1906-11-29_61_3026/page/1276/mode/2up

“Employment of Women in Industries: Cigar Making — Its History and Present Tendencies.” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (Jan. 1907), 1-25. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1817494/page/n1/mode/2up

“Municipal Employment of Unemployed Women in London.” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (Nov. 1907), 513-30. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819109/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Women’s Work and Wages: A Phase of Life in an Industrial City by Edward Cadbury et al. In Journal of Political Economy 15 (Nov. 1907), 563-565.  https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819119/page/n1/mode/2up

“Women in Manufactures: A Supplementary Note,” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (Dec. 1907), 619-24 (with Breckinridge and Anne S. Davis). https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820425/page/n1/mode/2up

“A Study of the Early History of Child Labor in America.” American Journal of Sociology, 14 (Jul. 1908), 15-37. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762758/page/n1/mode/2up

“English Working Women and the Franchise.” Atlantic, 102 (Sept 1908), 343-46. https://archive.org/details/sim_atlantic_1908-09_102_3/page/342/mode/2up

“The Public Moralist and the Working Woman. Association of Collegiate Alumnae Magazine, III.18 (Dec. 1908), 12-18. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/iau.31858028383911?urlappend=%3Bseq=188%3Bownerid=13510798903605987-200

“History of the Employment of Women in the American Cotton Mills.” Journal of Political Economy:

Part I. 16 (Nov. 1908), 602-21; https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820913/page/n1/mode/2up

Part II. 16 (Dec. 1908), 680-92; https://archive.org/details/jstor-1821966/page/n1/mode/2up

Part III. 17 (Jan. 1909), 19-35. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819902/page/n1/mode/2up

“Women in Industry: The Manufacture of Boots and Shoes.” American Journal of Sociology, 15 (Nov. 1909), 335-60. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762515/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Where Shall She Live? The Homelessness of the Woman Worker by Mary Higgs and Edward E. Hayward. In American Journal of Sociology 16 (Sept. 1910), 272-273. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763060/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Frederick William Maitland by H.A.L. Fisher. In Journal of Political Economy 18 (Nov. 1910), 750-751. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820690/page/n1/mode/2up

Women in Industry. A Study of American Economic History. New York: Appleton and Co., 1910. https://archive.org/details/WomenInIndustryStudy/page/n4/mode/1up   

The Housing Problem in Chicago. (with Breckinridge). (parts I, VI-X written by others)

  1. Introductory Note to “Housing of Non-Family Groups of Working Men” by Milton B. Hunt. American Journal of Sociology, 16 (Sept. 1910),145-146 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763051/page/n1/mode/2up
  2. “Families in Furnished Rooms.” American Journal of Sociology, 16 (Nov. 1910), 289-308 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763087/page/n1/mode/2up
  3. “Back of the Yards.” American Journal of Sociology, 16 (Jan. 1911), 433-68 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763005/page/n1/mode/2up
  4. “The West Side Revisited.” American Journal of Sociology, 17 (July 1911), 1-34 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763253/page/n1/mode/2up
  5. “South Chicago at the Gates of the Steel Mills.” American Journal of Sociology, 17 (Sept. 1911), 145-76 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-2762945/page/n1/mode/2up

“English Poor-Law Reform.” Journal of Political Economy, 19 (Jan. 1911), 47-59. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820483/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Child Labor Legislation in Europe by C.W.A. Vedite. In American Economic Review (March 1911), 110-112. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1802931/page/n1/mode/2up

Finding Employment for Children Who Leave the Grade Schools to Go to Work: Report to the Chicago Woman’s Club, the Chicago Association of Collegiate Alumni, and the Women’s City Club. Chicago: Hollister Press, 1911 (with Breckinridge and Anne S. Davis). https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t33205206

“Women in Industry: The Chicago Stockyards.” Journal of Political Economy, 19 (Oct. 1911), 632-54 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819424/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Solution of the Child Labor Problem by Scott Nearing, in American Economic Review (Dec. 1911), 846. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1806913/page/n1/mode/2up

The Delinquent Child and the Home. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1912 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/cu31924030383214/page/n7/mode/2up

Review of Wages in the United States, 1908-1910 by Scott Nearing. In Journal of Political Economy 20 (May 1912), 529-531. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1822107/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Living Wage of Women Workers: A Study of Incomes and Expenditures of Four Hundred and Fifty Women Workers in the City of Boston by Louise Marion Bosworth. In American Economic Review (June 1912), 380-382. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1827614/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of The Prevention of Destitution by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. In Journal of Political Economy 20 (July 1912), 754-756. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1820154/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Making Both Ends Meet: The Income and Outlay of New York Working Girls by Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt. In American Economic Review (September 1912), 652-654. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1804628/page/n1/mode/2up

“The First Chief of the Children’s Bureau.” Life and Labor, 2 (Oct. 1912), 299-301. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924069101354?urlappend=%3Bseq=343%3Bownerid=27021597770090515-357

Wage-earning Woman and the State: A Reply to Miss Minnie Bronson. Boston: Equal Suffrage Association for Good Government, 1912 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/wageearningwoman00abbo

“Women’s Wages in Chicago: Some Notes on Available Data.” Journal of Political Economy, 21 (Feb. 1913), 143-58. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819961/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Progress and Uniformity in Child-Labor Legislation. A Study in Statistical Measurement by William F. Ogburn. In American Economic Review, 3 (June 1913), 397-399. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1827991/page/n1/mode/2up

“Public Pensions to Widows and Children.” American Economic Review, 3 (June 1913), 473-78. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1828023/page/n27/mode/2up

Reviews of The American Girl in the Stockyards District by Louise Montgomery; Women in Trade Unions in San Francisco by Lillian R. Matthews; Artifical Flower Makers by Mary Van Kleeck. In American Economic Review (March 1914), 164-166. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1805013/page/n1/mode/2up

“A Forgotten Minimum Wage Bill.” Life and Labor, 5 (Jan. 1915), 13-16. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015010962978?urlappend=%3Bseq=21%3Bownerid=13510798887191435-25

“Progress of the Minimum Wage in England.” Journal of Political Economy, 23 (Mar. 1915), 268-77. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819662/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Minimum Rates in the Chain-making Industry (Studies in the Minimum Wage, No. 1) by R. H. Tawney. Journal of Political Economy 23 (April 1915), 400-401. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819291/page/n1/mode/2up

“Statistics Relating to Crime in Chicago.” In Report of the City Council Committee of Chicago on Crime in the City of Chicago, pp. 17-88. Chicago: City Council Committee, 1915. https://archive.org/details/reportofcitycoun00chic/page/16/mode/2up

“The Copycat Vote.” New Republic, 2 (Apr. 24, 1915), 304. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxqfnz?urlappend=%3Bseq=366%3Bownerid=27021597764513068-380

“Education for Social Work.” In Department of Interior, Bureau of Education, Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year Ended June 30, 1915, vol. 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1915). https://archive.org/details/reportofcommissi00unit_51/page/344/mode/2up

“Field-Work and the Training of the Social Workers.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Charities and Correction at the Forty-Second Annual Session held in Baltimore, Maryland, May 12-19, 1915, pp. 615-21. Chicago: Hildmann Printing Co., 1915. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-12-19-1915_42/page/614/mode/2up

“Statistics in Chicago Suffrage.” New Republic, 3 (June 12, 1915), 151. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015086341164?urlappend=%3Bseq=191%3Bownerid=13510798902096126-219

“Are Women a Force for Good Government?” National Municipal Review, 4 (July 1915), 437-447. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106250632?urlappend=%3Bseq=497%3Bownerid=27021597765335525-549

The Real Jail Problem. Chicago: Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 1915. https://archive.org/details/realjailproblem00abbo/page/n3/mode/2up

The One Hundred and One County Jails of Illinois and Why They Ought to Be Abolished. Chicago: Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, 1916. https://archive.org/details/onehundredonecou00abbo/page/n3/mode/2up

“Cheap Clothes and Nasty.” New Republic, 4 (Jan. 1, 1916), 217-219. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hxqfp4?urlappend=%3Bseq=274%3Bownerid=27021597764513482-278

“The Woman Voter and the Spoils System in Chicago.” National Municipal Review, 5 (July 1916), 460-465. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044106250624?urlappend=%3Bseq=498%3Bownerid=27021597765323744-544

Review of Women in Modern Industry by B. L. Hutchins. In American Economic Review (June 1916), 399-400. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1813274/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Summary of the Report on Condition of Woman and Child Wage Earners in the United States, Bulletin of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In American Economic Review, 662-664. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1808551/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Old Age Pensions: Their Actual Working and Ascertained Results in the United Kingdom by H. J. Hoare. American Journal of Sociology (Sept. 1916), 277-278. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763833/page/n1/mode/2up

“Administration of the Illinois Funds-to-Parents Laws.” United States Department of Labor Bulletin 212, pp. 818-34. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1917. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.a0004011193?urlappend=%3Bseq=980%3Bownerid=13510798903282064-1000

“The Experimental Period of Widows Pension Legislation.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1917, pp. 154-65. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-6-13-1917_44/page/154/mode/2up

“Charles Booth, 1840-1916.” Journal of Political Economy, 25 (Feb 1917), 195-200. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1819721/page/n1/mode/2up

“The War and Women’s Work in England.” Journal of Political Economy, 15 (July 1917), 641-678. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1821772/page/n1/mode/2up

“Field Work Training with Social Agencies.” In Report of the Association of Urban Universities, November, 1917, pp. 92-103. Concord, N.H.: Rumford Press, 1917-18. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/iau.31858045945593?urlappend=%3Bseq=274%3Bownerid=117203284-282

Truancy and Non-Attendance in the Chicago Schools: A Study of the Social Aspects of the Compulsory Education and Child Labor Legislation of Illinois. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1917 (with Breckinridge). https://archive.org/details/truancynonattend00abbo/page/n5/mode/2up

Democracy and Social Progress in England. University of Chicago War Papers, 8. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918. https://archive.org/details/democracysocialp00abbo/mode/2up

“The Social Case Worker and the Enforcement of Industrial Legislation.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1918, pp. 312-19. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-15-22-1918_45/page/312/mode/2up

“Pensions, Insurance and the State.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1918, pp. 388-89. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-15-22-1918_45/page/388/mode/2up

“Crime and the War.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 9 (May 1918), 32-45. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1133731/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of three works on women workers. In American Journal of Sociology 23 (Jan. 1918), 551-552. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2763523/page/n1/mode/2up

Reviews of six books on women and war work. In American Economic Review (Dec. 1918), 819-824.https://archive.org/details/jstor-1803702/page/n1/mode/2up

“Health Insurance in Great Britain.” In Report of the Health Insurance Commission of the State of Illinois, May 1, 1919, pp. 600-624. Springfield: Illinois State Journal Co., 1919. Also in Report of the Ohio Health and Old Age Insurance Commission, February, 1919, pp. 312-40. Columbus: F. J. Heer Printing Co., 1919. https://archive.org/details/cu31924002406951/page/600/mode/2up

“Probation and Suspended Sentence” (Report of Committee “B” of the Institute). Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 10 (Nov. 1919), 341-50. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1133813/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry in American Economic Review (June 1920), 358-362. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1804881/page/n1/mode/2up

Review of Italian Emigration of our Times by Robert F. Foerster. In American Political Science Review 14 (Aug. 1920), 523-524. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1946285/page/n1/mode/2up

The Administration of the Aid-to-Mothers Law in Illinois. U.S. Children’s Bureau. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921 (with Breckinridge).https://archive.org/details/administrationof00abbo/page/n3/mode/2up

Review of The Passing of the County Jail: Individualization of Misdemeanants through a Unified Correctional System by Stuart Alfred Queen. The American Journal of Sociology (May 1921), 792-793. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2764348

“The Promise and Practice of Social Legislation.” University Journal (alumni edition, University of Nebraska), 17 July 1921), 4-11. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015080407714?urlappend=%3Bseq=6%3Bownerid=13510798897152302-10

“Police Brutality in Chicago.” The Nation, 114 (Mar. 8, 1922), 286-87. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/pst.000068744618?urlappend=%3Bseq=308%3Bownerid=13510798902987282-322

“Tragedy of the Excess Quota.” New Republic, 30 (Mar. 8, 1922), 52-53. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hwqwpg?urlappend=%3Bseq=66%3Bownerid=27021597767357933-72

Review of Immigration and the Future and The Federal Administration and the Alien both by Frances Kellor. In Journal of Political Economy 30 (Apr. 1922), 312-314. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1822697/page/n1/mode/2up

Discussion of “Immigration under the Percentum Limit Law,” by W. W. Husband. In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1922, pp. 463-66. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-22-29-1922_49/page/462/mode/2up

What the Women of Illinois Ought to Know and Ought to Do about the Questions of Social Hygiene: A Report Submitted to the Committee Appointed at the Request of the Joint Conference of the Women’s Clubs of Chicago, 1922.

“Recent Statistics Relating to Crime in Chicago.” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, 13 (Nov. 1922), 329-58. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1133931/page/n1/mode/2up

“Training in Case Work and Special Administrative Problems in a University.” In The Social Service of the Courts: Proceedings of the Sixteenth Annual Conference of The National Probation Association, 1922, pp 59-68. New York: National Probation Association, 1923. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/njp.32101067578383?urlappend=%3Bseq=65%3Bownerid=27021597769832968-69

Review of The History of Public Poor Relief in Massachusetts, 1620-1920. In American Journal of Sociology(Nov. 1922), 364-366. https://archive.org/details/jstor-2764686/page/n1/mode/2up

“The English Census of 1921.” Journal of Political Economy, 30 (Dec. 1922), 827-40. https://archive.org/details/jstor-1822472/page/n1/mode/2up

“Is One Per Cent in Quarantine a Public Health Measure?” Illinois League of Women Voters Bulletin, 3 (1923), 7-9.

Review of Penology in the United States by Louis N. Robinson. In American Journal of Sociology 29 (July 1923), 105-106. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2764420

“Federal Immigration Policies, 1864-1924.” University Journal of Business, 2 (1924), (Mar. 1924), 133-56; (Jun. 1924), 347-67; (Sep. 1924), 455-80. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2354831 ; https://www.jstor.org/stable/2354665 ; https://www.jstor.org/stable/2354651

“Immigration Legislation and the Problems of Assimilation.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1924, pp. 82-91. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-25-july-2-1924_51/page/82/mode/2up

Immigration: Select Documents and Case Records. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015010521006

“English Statistics of Pauperism during the War.” Journal of Political Economy, 33 (Feb. 1925), 1-32. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1821974

Historical Aspects of the Immigration Problem. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1926. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015008786579

“Training for the Policewoman’s Job.” Woman Citizen, 10 (Apr 1926), 30. https://archive.org/details/sim_womans-journal_1926-04_10_13/page/30/mode/2up

“The Civil War and the Crime Wave of 1865-70.” Social Service Review, 1 (June 1927), 212-34. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1927-06_1_2/page/212/mode/2up

“The Webbs on the English Poor Law.” Social Service Review, 3 (June 1929), 252-69. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1929-06_3_2/page/252/mode/2up

Report on Crime and Criminal Justice in Relation to the Foreign Born, National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement (Wickersham Commission). No. 10. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1931. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b4628567

Social Welfare and Professional Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931, and ed. 1942.

“Poor People in Chicago.” New Republic, 72 (Oct. 5, 1932), 209. https://archive.org/details/sim_new-republic_1932-10-05_72_931/page/208/mode/2up

“The Fallacy of Local Relief.” New Republic, 72 (Nov. 9, 1932), 348-50. https://archive.org/details/sim_new-republic_1932-11-09_72_936/page/347/mode/2up

“The Crisis in Relief.” The Nation, 137 (Oct. 11, 1933), 400-402. https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1933-10-11_137_3562/page/400/mode/2up

“Abolish the Pauper Laws.” Social Service Review, 8 (Mar. 1934), 1-16. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1934-03_8_1

“Don’t Do It, Mr. Hopkins!” The Nation, 140 (Jan. 9, 1935), 41-42. https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1935-01-09_140_3627/page/40/mode/2up

“Evictions during the Chicago Rent Moratorium Established by the Relief Agencies, 1931-1933.” Social Service Review, 9 (Mar. 1935), 34-57 (with Katherine Kiesling). https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1935-03_9_1/page/34/mode/2up

“The Pauper Laws Still Go On.” Social Service Review, 9 (Dec. 1935), 731-56. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1935-12_9_4/page/730/mode/2up

“Jane Addams Memorial Service.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1935, pp. 3-5. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-09-15-1935/page/2/mode/2up

The Tenements of Chicago, 1908-1935. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1936 (with Breckinridge).

“Federal Relief Sold Down the River.” The Nation, 142 (Mar. 18, 1936), 346. https://archive.org/details/sim_nation_1936-03-18_142_3689/page/346/mode/2up

“Training for the Public Welfare Services.” Public Welfare News, 4 (Mar. 1936), 5.

“Public Welfare and Politics.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1936, pp. 27-45; https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-18-23-1936/page/26/mode/2up  also in Social Service Review, 10 (Sept. 1936), 395-412. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1936-09_10_3

“Public Assistance—Whither Bound?” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1937, pp. 3-25. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-23-29-1937/page/n11/mode/2up

Some American Pioneers in Social Welfare: Select Documents with Editorial Notes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1937.

“Is There a Legal Right to Relief?” Social Service Review, 12 (June 1938), 260-75. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1938-06_12_2/page/260/mode/2up

“Poor Law Provision for Family Responsibility.” Social Service Review, 12 (Dec. 1938), 598-618. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1938-12_12_4/page/598/mode/2up

“A Sister’s Memories.” Social Service Review, 13 (Sept. 1939), 351-408. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1939-09_13_3

“Unemployment Relief a Federal Responsibility.” Social Service Review, 14 (Sept. 1940), 438-52. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1940-09_14_3/page/438/mode/2up

“Relief, the No Man’s Land, and How to Reclaim It.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1940, pp. 187-98. https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_may-26-june-01-1940/page/186/mode/2up

Public Assistance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1940. Vol. I [Note: very incomplete copy at archive.org] ; Vol. II https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.544099/page/n7/mode/2up

United States, 76th Cong., 3rd Sess., House, Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens, Aug. 19, 20. and 21, 1940, pp. 1179-90. https://archive.org/details/interstatemigrat03unit/page/1178/mode/2up

“Work or Maintenance: A Federal Program for the Unemployed.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1941, pp. 332-43 https://archive.org/details/sim_national-conference-on-social-welfare-bulletin_june-01-07-1941/page/332/mode/2up ; revised in Social Service Review, 15 (Sept. 1941), 520-32. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1941-09_15_3/page/520/mode/2up

“Twenty-one Years of University Education for the Social Services, 1920-41.” A Report to the Alumni with a Register of Alumni Who Received Higher Degrees, 1920-1942, and Their Dissertation Subjects. Social Service Review, 15 (Dec. 1941), 670-705. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1941-12_15_4/page/670/mode/2up

“Juvenile Delinquency during the First World War, Notes on the British Experience 1914-1918.” Social Service Review, 17 (June 1943), 192-212. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1943-06_17_2/page/192/mode/2up

“Some Charitable Bequests in Early English Wills (1284-1580) and Statutes (1414-1601) to Protect Charitable Gifts.” Social Service Review, 20 (June 1946), 231-46. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1946-06_20_2/page/230/mode/2up

“Three American Pioneers in International Social Welfare.” The Compass, 28 (May 1947), 6.

“Work of Thomas H. Gallaudet and the Teaching of the Deaf.” Social Service Review, 21 (Sept. 1947), 375-86. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1947-09_21_3/page/374/mode/2up

“Sophonisba P. Breckinridge Over the Years.” Social Service Review, 22 (Dec. 1948), 417-23. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1948-12_22_4/page/n7/mode/2up

“Grace Abbott and Hull-House, 1908-21. Social Service Review 24, Part I, (Sept. 1950), 374-94. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1950-09_24_3/page/374/mode/2up; and Part II, (Dec. 1950), 493-518. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1950-12_24_4/page/492/mode/2up

“The Survey Award: Acceptance Speech.” In Proceedings of The National Conference of Social Work, 1951, pp. ix-x. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/n/ncosw/ACH8650.1951.001/16?rgn=full+text;view=image

“The Hull-House of Jane Addams.” Social Service Review, 26 (Sept. 1952), 334-38. https://archive.org/details/sim_social-service-review_1952-09_26_3/page/334/mode/2up

Sources:
Rachel Marks, The Published Writings of Edith Abbott: A Bibliography, American Journal of Sociology 32 (March 1958), 51-56;
Lela B. Costin (1983). Two Sisters for Social Justice: A Biography of Grace and Edith Abbott. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, pp. 287-293.

Image Source: Portrait of Edith Abbott by Melvin H. Sykes (1919). University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-00004, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. Image colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Chicago Curriculum Statistics

Chicago. Report of the Committee on Mathematical Statistics. Henry Schultz, 1938

Henry Schultz

 

The following report on the work of the Committee on Mathematical Statistics by economics professor Henry Schultz to President Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago was written shortly before he left Chicago to go on sabbatical leave at the University of California at Los Angeles. Schultz had just published his magnum opus, The Theory and Measurement of Demand, earlier that Spring. 

Henry Schultz, his wife and both daughters tragically died November 26, 1938 in a horrific automobile accident about sixty miles east of San Diego on U.S. highway 80, near Laguna Junction. 

_____________________________

The University of Chicago
Department of Economics

Aug. 6, 1938

President Robert M. Hutchins,
University of Chicago.

Dear Mr. Hutchins:

            The Committee on Mathematical Statistics, which was organized on March 6, 1936, and which began to work in the Autumn Quarter of 1936, completed its first series of courses in the Spring Quarter of 1938. It is, therefore, appropriate that I give a brief report of our activities.

            During the last two years the Committee gave six courses in which there were enrolled a total of 104 students from seven different departments. The courses and the professors in charge were:

Course

Professor
Statistics 301—Survey of Mathematical Statistics I.
The Elements (Autumn 1936)
1 Major		 Thurstone
Statistics 302—Survey of Mathematical Statistics II.
Probability and Least Squares (Winter 1937)
1 Major		 Bartky
Statistics 301—Survey of Mathematical Statistics I.
The Elements (Autumn 1937)
1 Major		 Bartky
Statistics 302—Survey of Mathematical Statistics II.
Probability and Least Squares (Winter 1937)
1 Major		 Bartky
Statistics 311—Correlation and Curve-fitting
(Winter 1937)
2 Majors		 Schultz
Statistics 312—Probability, Sampling, and Frequency Distributions
(Spring 1938)
2 Majors		 Schultz and Bartky

            The courses given did not, and were not intended to, avoid such duplication as may exist in the teaching of statistics on the campus. As is clearly stated in the Committee’s announcement, the instruction for which this Committee takes a co-ordinating responsibility is intended for those who have the conventional courses in analytic geometry and in the differential and integral calculus as well as a good introductory course in statistics, preferably one given in the Department in which the student intends to do his major work.

It is this policy of the Committee which is the source of its strength and of its weakness. It is a source of strength, because the prerequisite of a course in statistics in the Department in which the student intends to do his major work, has made it clear to the various Departments that the Committee was not interfering with the courses in elementary statistics given by them and has secured for it the good will of the statisticians on the campus. The policy is also a source of weakness, because it makes the Committee dependent on the various Departments for students and for providing them with the necessary prerequisites. Unless a Department is liberal in granting credits to its students for courses taken with the Committee the student cannot, as a rule, afford to take the entire sequence of courses offered.

This is probably the most important factor in the requests which we have received for a separate degree in statistics. We believe, however that the time is not yet ripe for a serious consideration of this question. In the first place, there are no positions for “pure statisticians” except to teach other “pure statisticians,” i.e., mathematicians. The demand is generally for a statistically trained biologist, psychologist, or economist but not for a ”pure” mathematical statistician. The situation in this respect is, however, likely to change.

In the second place, we are not prepared to grant degrees even if we wished to, and had the authority of the three members constituting this Committee, one is primarily an economist, the other is primarily a psychologist, and the third is primarily a mathematical astronomer.

            The economist and the psychologist have so much to do in their respective fields that they will be compelled, before long, to give up the attempt to keep in intimate touch with the very rapid developments in probability and mathematical statistics. This would leave only one person, Professor Bartky who could be counted upon to follow the developments in mathematical statistics and probability and do research in this field. What we need, therefore, ls at least one additional mathematician who has the ability and is qualified by training and experience to make the field of statistical inference his life work, and who is also at home in at least one empirical science. We believe that Professor S. S. Wilks of Princeton University comes close to meeting excellently all these requirements. We recommend that you look into his qualifications for work on this Committee and for consultation with the various statisticians on matters falling within his field of competence.

            The field of statistical inference is expanding at a very rapid rate. The University of California, Iowa State College, the University of Iowa, Princeton University, George Washington University, and other institutions have recently appointed men to develop their work in statistics. If the University of Chicago is to continue to do distinguished work in this field it will have to attract the most promising men it can find and to provide them with favorable conditions for their creative activities.

            The Committee requests that a sum of $300 be appropriated to it for the part-time services of a qualified graduate student to assist in the preparation of lecture and text materials. This sum requested is to supplement that obtained for mimeographing from the Social Science Division. It is understood that the money will not be used unless a qualified person can be obtained for the work.

Sincerely yours,

[signed]
Henry Schultz, Chairman,
Committee on Mathematical Statistics.

HS DH

_____________________________

Carbon Copy of President Hutchins Reply

September 9, 1938

Dear Mr. Schultz:

            I have read with much interest your report of August 6 on the first series of courses given by the Committee on Mathematical Statistics. The Committee is to be congratulated on the splendid progress which has been made.

            The financial aspect of this matter will have to be deferred until preparation of the budget for the year 1939-40. Your request for an appropriation for the part-time services of a graduate student to assist in the preparation of lecture and text materials will be considered at that time.

Sincerely yours,
ROBERT M. HUTCHINS

Professor Henry Schultz
404 Social Science Research Building
FACULTY EXCHANGE

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Office of the Presdient. Hutchins Administration. Records. Box 283, Folder10, “Economics”.

Categories
Chicago Faculty Regulations

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. requirement. Either linear algebra or foreign language reading comprehension, 1968

 

At the University of Chicago in the mid-1950s one economics Ph.D. requirement was to demonstrate an effective reading knowledge of either French or German or some other foreign language approved by the department..

The 1968 memo to graduate students transcribed below announced that the “satisfaction of either a mathematics or foreign language requirement” would be the rule for a Ph.D. in economics.

_________________________

History of Foreign Language Requirement for Ph.D.

January 12, 1968

To: Faculty, Division of the Social Sciences
From: D. Gale Johnson, Dean [of the] Division of the Social Sciences

In re: Foreign language requirements for the Ph. D

At a meeting of the faculty of the Division of the Social Sciences held November 18, 1931, the following Statement was adopted as one of the requirements for admission to candidacy for the Ph.D.:

“The ability, demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Board of Examiners, to read two foreign modern languages approved by the department or interdepartmental committee, one of which must be French or German. It is advised that this requirement be met as early as possible in the student’s program of study.”

On January 15, 1943, the faculty of the Division modified the language requirement and made it read as follows:

“Demonstration of the ability to use one or more foreign languages effectively toward the objective of the student’s academic program. This ability in the case of at least one language will be tested by: (I) the passing of an examination administered and evaluated by the board of Examinations; and (II) in addition to the examination, the writing of a paper or series of papers, or oral work, judged satisfactory by the Department in connection with the student’s program of study, in which extensive use is made of works in the foreign language. Departments may at their discretion specify the particular foreign language or languages required of their candidates for the doctorate. Exceptions in individual cases may be made by the Dean of Students on the recommendation of a Department.”

At its meeting on December 4, 1967, the faculty of the Division approved the following motion:

“That each Department or Committee in the Division should have the right to substitute for the divisional language requirement for the Ph.D. degree a requirement that the student demonstrate proficiency in a substantive field other than that of the department in question. The degree of proficiency to be required in such a field should be comparable or superior to that represented by the present divisional language requirement. The department at its option, may require that proficiency be demonstrated in a particular substantive field or may leave to the student, in some or all cases, the option of deciding whether to demonstrate proficiency in a language or a substantive field.”

If a department or committee wishes to act under the motion approved by the faculty of the Division, Mr. Zimring and I urge that it do so with reasonable promptness to permit students to make their plans with full information concerning the requirements. Until a department or committee has taken action and so informs the Office of the Dean it will be assumed that the language requirement as it existed on December 1, 1967, shall continue in force.

At the time a department or committee takes action, if any, to modify its language requirement, it should indicate the date on which any changes become effective and that date could be within a few days after action has been taken. I feel that before a departmental or committee action is made effective that Mr. Zimring should be given time to study it and to determine if his interpretation is the one that has been intended.

Mr. Zimring and I strongly urge that departments and committees accept a self-denying ordinance, namely that changes in the requirements will not be made more than once a year and that changes affecting 1968-69 be made by March 15, 1968.

The action taken with respect to the Divisional language requirement does not change current procedures with respect to examination if a department retains a language requirement. It is my interpretation that while departments can require a supplementary or additional examination to be administered by the department, it cannot dispense with the examinations given by the Office of the University Examiner.

DGJ:bp

Source:  Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 194, Folder 4, “Economics Dept A-G”.

_________________________

Linear Algebra
or a Foreign Language

Department of Economics  University of Chicago
May, 1968

To: Graduate Students, Department of Economics
From: Arnold C. Harberger. Chairman

Re: Revision in Foreign Language/ Mathematics Requirement

Foreign Language and Mathematics Requirement

Each Ph.D. candidate, before admission to candidacy for the Ph.D., must demonstrate effective command of relevant mathematical tools, including calculus and matrix algebra. The Department of Economics will accept three courses in calculus (mathematics 151, 152, and 154, or equivalent), and one course in linear algebra (mathematics 250, 252, Business 372, or equivalent) as meeting, respectively, the calculus and matrix algebra requirements.

In place of demonstration of competence in matrix algebra, students may opt to demonstrate proficiency at a high level in a foreign language by means of an examination administered by the Office of the University Examiner and must demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Department ability to translate at sight with reasonable ease material in economics in the foreign language. Any foreign language other than Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, or Swedish must be approved by the Department.

Source:  Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 194, Folder 4, “Economics Dept A-G”.

Categories
Chicago Economists Money and Banking

Chicago. Ph.D. Thesis Committees in Monetary Economics. Patinkin’s Research, 1968

The first boxes of archival material that I examined as my research project on the evolution of graduate economics training was beginning to take shape came from Don Patinkin’s papers back when Duke’s Economists’ Papers Archive still bore the modest descriptor of “Economists’ Papers Project”.

This post transcribes some of the research material collected by Patinkin in his survey of Chicago style monetary economics. Fun Fact: his research assistant while on leave at M.I.T. was the graduate student Stanley Fischer, from whom incidentally I was to take my first graduate macroeconomics course (Patinkin’s book was on the reading list, surprise, surprise).

Doctoral theses advisers were identified for a dozen and a half Chicago theses that drew Don Patinkin’s attention. This is the sort of information that doesn’t normally jump at you in digitised form through a duly diligent internet search, so I thought it worth my time to file this information for now in a blog post. Minor additions have been added in square brackets for the sake of completeness.

______________________________

List of Patinkin’s copy request for Chicago Ph.D. theses

Author

 Article Details of parts photographed

Box No.

1.
Bach, George [Leland]

 Price Level Stabilization: [Some Theoretical and Practical Considerations]

[blank]

[blank]

2.
Bloomfield, Arthur [Irving]

 International Capital Movement and the American Balance of Payments 1929-1940 Title, Contents, Bibliography.
pp. 513-514, 578-579.

T-304

3.
Bronfenbrenner, Martin

 Monetary Theory and General Equilibrium Title, Preface, Bibliography.
Chaps. 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

T-10250

4.
Brooks, Benjamin [Franklin]

 A History of Monetary Theory in the United States Before 1860 Contents, Preface, Bibliography.
Chap. 11.

T-9885

5.
Caplan, Benjamin

 The Wicksellian School—A Critical Study of the Development of Swedish Monetary Theory, 1898-1932 Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-7847

6.
Cox, Garfield V.

 Business Forecasting in the United States 1919-1928 Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-17-91

7.
Daugherty Marion [Roberts]

 The Currency-Banking Controversy Title, Contents, Bibliography
pp. 41, 54, 130, 133, 246, 316.

T-10282

8.
Harper, [William Canaday] Joel

 Scrip and Other Forms of Local Money Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-145

9.
Leigh, Arthur Hertel

 Studies in the Theory of Capital and Interest Before 1870 Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-554

10.
Linville, Francis [Aron]

 Central Bank Co-operation Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-11508

11.
McEvoy, Raymond H.

 The Effects of Federal Reserve Operations 1929-1936 Title, Contents, Preface Bibliography.

T-7731

12.
McIvor R. Craig

 Monetary Expansion in Canadian War Finance, 1939-1946 Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-10268

13.
McKean, Roland Neely

 Fluctuations in Our Private Claim-Debt Structure and Monetary Policy Title, Contents, Bibliography.
Chaps. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

T-90

14.
Reeve, Joseph [Edwin]

 Monetary Proposals for Curing the Depression in the United States 1929-1935 [blank]

T-11022

15.
Shaw, Ernest Ray

 The Investment and Secondary Reserve Policy of Commercial Banks Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-8322

16.
Snider, Delbert [Arthur]

 Monetary, Exchange, and Trade Problems in Postwar Greece Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-1031

17.
Tongue, William [Walter]

 Money, Capital, and the Business Cycle Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-670

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Don Patinkin Papers, University of Chicago School of Economics Raw Materials, Box 2, Folder “Chicago, general (?). from binder: “U. Chicago Ph.D. Theses”, folder 1 of 2”.

______________________________

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

August 21, 1968

Professor Don E. Patinkin
Economics Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Professor Patinkin:

            I am listing below the information (Committee members) you requested in your letter of July 8, 1968. I am also hoping that you have received your microfilm by now. The Photoduplication department was to have mailed them to you on August 13.

Bach, George [Leland] 1940 S. E. Leland
C. W. Wright
H. C. Simon
Bloomfield, Arthur [Irving] 1942 J. Viner
Lloyd W. Mints
O. Lange
Bronfenbrenner, Martin 1939 Frank Knight, chr.
S. E. Leland
Brooks, Benjamin [Franklin] 1939 Frank Knight, chr.
Lloyd Mints
[Viner also thanked in thesis preface]
Caplan, Benjamin 1942 J. Viner
O. Lange		 L. W. Mints
H. C. Simons
Cox, Garfield [V.] 1929 Lionel D. Edie, chr.
Jacob Viner
Chester W. Wright
Daugherty, Marion [Roberts] (Mrs.) 1941 Jacob Viner, chr.
Garfield Cox
Lloyd Mints
Harper, Joel [William Canady] 1949
[Summer 1948]		 F. Knight
O. Lange
H. Simons		 C. W. Wright
L. Mints
S. Leland
Leigh, Arthur [Hertel] 1946 Frank Knight, chr.
Jacob Viner
Oskar Lange
McEvoy, Raymond [H.] 1950 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Earl J. Hamilton
Lloyd A. Metzler
McIvor, Russel [Craig] 1947 Roy Blough, chr.
J. K. Langum
L.W. Mints [in thesis acknowledgement Mints as the doctoral committee chair]
McKean, Roland [Neely] 1948 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Lloyd A. Metzler
Earl J. Hamilton
A. Director
Reeve, Joseph [Edwin] 1939 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Garfield V. Cox
Jacob Viner
Shaw, Ernest [Ray] 1930 Lionel D. Edie, chr.
Lloyd W. Mints
Stuart P. Meech (Bus. School)
Snider, Delbert [Arthur] 1951 L. Metzler, chr.
R. Blough
Bert Hoselitz
Tongue, William [Walter] 1947 L. W. Mints, chr.
Frank H. Knight
H. Gregg Lewis

            As you can see in some instances the Chairman was not listed, but the examining committee was listed. I wrote to Professor Cox, 660 W. Bonita, Apt. 24 E, Claremont, California 91711, to get the committee members for him and for Professor E. Shaw. Professor Cox also gave me the address of Professor Lloyd W. Mints, 618 E. Myrtle St., Ft. Collins, Colorado, should you have any interest. I hope this is sufficient.

Yours truly,
[signed]
(Mrs.) Hazel Bowdry
Sec. to Professor Telser

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

October 23, 1968

Professor Don Patinkin
Department of Economics
The Eliezer Kaplan School of
Economics and Social Sciences
The Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel

Dear Professor Patinkin:

            In answer to your letter of October 4, I have rechecked the files and find the below listed information.

George Bach’s committee members:

L. W. Mints, chr.
S. E. Leland
C. W. Wright
Oskar Lange
F. H. Knight
H. C. Simons
Jacob Viner
Jacob Left
Maynard Krueger

This is the order in which the examining committee is listed.

Martin Bronfenbrenner:

Henry Schultz chr.
J. Viner
L. W. Mints
F. Knight
A. G. Hart
H. C. Simon

Joel Harper:

S. E. Leland, Chr.
H. Simons
L. W. Mints
Mr. Chatters

Benjamin Brooks:

L. Mints, chr.
J. Viner
F. Knight

            I checked Faculty records with Mrs. Mosby, and found a re-appointment for Henry Simons dated June 3, 1930.

            I hope this information is helpful, and I am sorry I cannot give more definite committee members in the case of Bach.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
(Mrs.) Hayzel Bowdry

P.S. I hope you have received the microfilm by now. It was mailed via airmail yesterday.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Don Patinkin Papers, University of Chicago School of Economics Raw Materials, Box 2, Folder “Chicago, general (?), Simons, Mints, Knight materials”.

Image Source: Don Patinkin article at Gonçalo L. Fonseca’s History of Economic Thought website. Colorized at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Chicago Economists Germany Harvard Principles

Chicago. Decennial Harvard Class Report of associate professor of political economy James A. Field, ABD, 1913.

College alumni reports often provide a glimpse into career paths of academic, business and government economists. I stumbled across the following tenth year report of the Harvard graduate James Alfred Field who ultimately achieved a professorship at the University of Chicago even though his highest academic degree was an A.B. from Harvard College in 1903. The next post will share some of his Harvard graduate record.  

____________________________

JAMES ALFRED FIELD

Born Milton, Mass., May 26, 1880.
Parents James Alfred, Caroline Leslie (Whitney) Field.
School Milton Academy, Milton, Mass.
Years in College 1899-1903.
Degrees A.B., 1903.
Unmarried  
Business University professor.
Address University of Chicago, Chicago, Ill.

       The opportunity to teach economics at Harvard came to me, quite to my surprise, near the close of our senior year. That autumn found me a graduate student, installed as proctor in Apley Court, and section hand in Economics 1. The next year I was appointed Austin Teaching Fellow in Economics, and took up, in addition to my duties in Economics 1, the work of assisting Professor Carver in his course on social problems, Economics 3. I sailed for Europe in August, 1905; studied during the winter semester at the University of Berlin, and rounded out nearly a year abroad by attending lectures in Paris and by reading in the British Museum library. From September, 1906, to June, 1908, I was instructor in economics at Harvard. In the summer of 1908 I accepted the offer of an instructorship at the University of Chicago, where I have since been teaching economics, specializing in statistics and the theory of population. I was made assistant professor of political economy in 1910, and am to advance this year (1913) to the rank of associate professor. Three years ago I revisited the British Museum and delved in manuscript records of a social reform propaganda of the early nineteenth century. I have written a little on the results of that study and on the related subject of eugenics, and have coöperated with my associates, Professor L. C. Marshall, 1901, and Professor C. W. Wright, 1901, in the preparation of two text-books embodying a method of teaching elementary economics which we have been working out together for the past five years. On the side, I am managing editor of the Journal of Political Economy; and I find myself involved in some of the minor executive duties with which a vigorous university contrives to keep folks busy. Books and articles which I have written: Outlines of Economics developed in a Series of Problems (joint author with L. C. Marshall and C. W. Wright) (third edition, 1912), The Early Propagandist Movement in English Population Theory(American Economic Review, April, 1911), The Progress of Eugenics (Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1911; also reprinted as a pamphlet, Harvard University, 1911) ; also other lesser articles. Member: Harvard Club of Chicago; Harvard Club of Keene, N.H., Harvard Club of New York, Quadrangle Club of Chicago, University Club of Chicago, City Club of Chicago, American Economic Association, American Statistical Association, American Sociological Society, Western Economic Society, American Association for Labor Legislation, National Child Labor Committee, Playground and Recreation Association of America, American Breeders Association, American Society for the Judicial Settlement of International Disputes, Art Institute of Chicago, University Orchestral Association of Chicago, Immigrants Protective League of Chicago, National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, Harvard Travellers Club.

Source: Harvard College Class of 1903. Decennial Report (1913), pp. 161-2.

Image Source: James A. Field. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-06081, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. The black and white image has been cropped and colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Chicago Economists Faculty Regulations

Chicago. No French, no Economics Ph.D. Case of Robert Russ Kern, 1909

This post provides a case demonstrating that the foreign language requirement for getting a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Chicago was indeed a constraint during the first decade of the 20th century. At the time a reading knowledge of French and German was required for admission to Ph.D. degree candidacy. In the following transcribed letter (June 2, 1909) to President Harry Pratt Judson, the Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature, sociology professor Albion Woodbury Small, recounted his encounter with a political economy graduate student, Robert Russ Kern, whose self-confessed lack of French reading skills had disqualified him from admission to his planned Ph.D. examination in economics and psychology.

It turns out that Kern never received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago or in fact anywhere else. This was reason enough to don my historian’s gumshoes and find out where Robert Russ Kern came from and how his post-Chicago career turned out. But first I’ll put into the record the letter from the University of Chicago archives that caught my attention.

Fun fact: in 1909 one apparently wrote “ ‘phone” with a leading apostrophe.

Fun with old photos: this is the first post at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror that provides a colorised black and white image from yore.

[Handwritten: June 2-09]

The President,
My dear Chief:

I do not remember that I have ever had a more painful scene in the Graduate Office than occurred this morning with Mr. Kern. In a word Mr. Kern was expecting to take his examination for the Doctor’s degree in Economics and Psychology tomorrow. At the last meeting of the Graduate Faculty it was voted that he be allowed to take the examination, provided the Examiner and the Dean were meanwhile assured that he had complied substantially with our requirement. Yesterday Mr. Williamson reported to me that Mr. Kern confessed to him that he had forgotten all the French he ever knew, but asked him to certify to his knowledge of French. I thereupon notified Mr. Kern that as he could not satisfy our French requirement his admission to the examination was automatically closed. This morning he came to my office in a very intense state of mind, to express it within limits, and as I summed up for him his demands it was that the University should substitute its judgment for his of what was a reasonable requirement for a Doctor’s degree. He stated that for years it had been notorious that men had been passed by the French Department without knowing any more French than he does. When I asked him if he was willing to present evidence to support that statement he declined on the ground that it would make trouble for men still in the University. I told him that it was beyond my power to do anything if I wanted to in the face of the plain statement of fact about his knowledge of French. I told him further, however, that if he would put in writing any statement which he was willing to lay before the President I would put it in your hands today. I told him however that I saw no way in which you could feel called upon to interfere with the regular operation of our rules, but that he would hear from you if you saw any way to deal more favorably with his case.
I have talked over the ‘phone since the interview with Mr. Laughlin and he agrees with me that it would be a demoralizing variation from our precedents to withdraw from the position the rules required me to take. I have therefore sent the following notice to the members of the examining committee “Unless you receive word from the President reversing this decision, Mr. Kern’s examination will not be held Thursday, June 3rd.”

Sincerely,
[signed] Small

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Office of the President. Harper, Judson, and Burton Administrations. Records. Box 38. Folder „Dean of Graduate School, 1909-20. 38/12 Pres.“

The Life and Career
of Robert Russ Kern

Life Data

Robert Russ Kern was born in Kansas City, Missouri on April 9, 1878 (date from draft registration) and died April 19, 1958 in Washington, D.C.

From his obituary in the April 20, 1958 edition of the Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), p. 34 we also learn the following professional and personal facts:

Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Missouri.
Surviving wife, Jeanette G. Kern, and daughter, Jean Russ Kern.
He retired from George Washington University in 1934.

About his wife: Jeanette Kern, née Geschickter, graduated in 1912 with an A.B. from GWU.  They married June 10, 1912 in the District of Columbia.

University of Missouri Years
(A.B. 1905)

Rollins Junior scholarship winner 1903-1904. Kern “made a higher average grade since his entrance to the university than any other student in the last ten years. He is said to be the best student of philosophy in the history of the university.”
Kansas City Star, June 2, 1904, p. 5.

Some uncertainty whether he would be the valedictorian of his class because he was confined in Parker Memorial Hospital for three weeks and unable to take final examinations. St. Joseph News Press (June 5, 1905), p. 5.

Valedictorian of the academic department of the University of Missouri. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 8, 1905, p. 10.

Cornell University Year

Graduate student at Cornell in 1907.
Source: Cornell Alumni Directory (May 15, 1922) p. 175

University of Chicago Years

Robert Russ Kern, graduate student in the department of political economy

Fellow (1907-08)
Assistant in Political Economy (1908-09)

Source: Twenty-five years of the Department of Political Economy (1916).

From the fifth list of dissertations in progress:

Robert Russ Kern, University of Chicago. The formation of the prices of consumers’ goods (probable date of completion, 1908). The Economic Bulletin, vol I, Nr. 1 (April 1908), p. 73.

From the sixth list of dissertations in progress

Robert Russ Kern, University of Chicago. Industrial finance (probably date of completion, 1909). The Economic Bulletin, vol II, Nr. 1 (April 1909), p. 21.

George Washington University Years

Instructor of Economics (listed as “Dr. (sic) Kern”) in 1909.

George Washington University Bulletin (1909), p. 13 “Robert R. Kern, Ph.D (sic)…..Instructor in Economics
Dr. (sic) Kern graduated at the University of Missouri, taught in Columbia University (Note: I have not verified his Columbia University affiliation) and Cornell University and came to this University from the Chicago University.”

Listed  in George Washington University Bulletin as Professor of Economics and Sociology only with a A.B. (1920)

Professor of Urban Sociology, GWU.

Publications

The Supervision of the Social Order. The American Journal of Sociology, 1918/1919
Part I. Part II.

The Super City. The World‘s Most Efficient and Beautiful City. Washington, D.C., 1924. By Robert Russ Kern, Professor of Economics and Sociology in the George Washington University.

Image Source: University of Missouri, The MU Yearbook Savitar (1905), p. 23. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Chicago Economists Funny Business

Chicago. The School of Chicago 1972 by Roger Vaughan (Ph.D. 1977). IDs by Gordon, McCloskey & Grossbard

The 1500th artifact added to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror deserves to be a celebratory post for visitors. For this honor I have chosen a  pastiche drawn by a Chicago economics graduate student in 1972. Roger Vaughan (Ph.D. 1977) was the principal, if not only, illustrator for the student-produced satirical publication P.H.A.R.T., an issue of which has been transcribed for an earlier post.

I first saw a copy of Roger Vaughan’s reworking of Raphael’s “School of Athens” added to a photo from a Tweet of a few years back. At that time it did not occur to me to engage in a serious search for the backstory to the drawing. And yet, serendipity turned out to be kind to me when, on a visit to the Harvard Archives last year, I stumbled upon a folded, mint-condition copy of  Vaughan’s “The School of Chicago 1972” in the papers of Zvi Griliches. Of course I had this masterpiece of economics funny business copied and it now has pride of place in my home study.

A few identifications of the figures seen in “The School of Chicago 1972” are obvious (e.g. Milton Friedman and George Stigler, duh) and others could be identified from other Vaughan caricatures that likewise are found in Griliches’ papers (e.g. Marc Nerlove, Stan Fischer, and Robert J. Gordon). Still, most of the renderings remained unidentified. My first idea was to seek out the artist himself, but alas I could only confirm that he had passed in October 2021. The next idea was to seek a living eye-witness to the Chicago economics department of a half-century ago. Here I was luckier, the Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences at Northwestern University, Robert J. Gordon, responded to my inquiry almost immediately and as quickly forwarded my request for further information to Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Deirdre McCloskey, for her confirmation and further commentary. Following the initial posting of this artifact, Professor Shoshana Grossbard of San Diego State University spotted a few misspelled names (mea culpa), but, more importantly, was able to identify Margaret Reid by her beret(!).We can all be grateful to these colleagues for their identifications provided below. There remains one unidentified man in the back-row standing to George Stigler’s left plus a couple of yet-to-be identified graduate students. Peeps, Economic in the Rear-view Mirror needs your help! You can leave comments at the end of this post.

___________________________________

About the artist, Roger Vaughan

From his 1981 AEA Biographical Listing, p. 421

Vaughan, Roger J, 421 Hudson St., Apt. 406, New York, NY 10014. Birth Yr: 1946

Degrees: B.A., U. of Oxford, 1968; M.A., Simon Fraser U., 1970; Ph.D. U. of Chicago, 1977. Prin. Cur. Position: Dep.Dir., Off. Of Develop. Planning, State of New York, 1980-

Concurrent/Past Positions: Econ., Citibank, 1978-80; Econ. The Rand Corp. 1974-78. Research: Urban Policy, finance, taxation training.

Roger J. Vaughan’s Rand Reports,
1974-1980

• The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 1, Overview 1980
• Federal Activities in Urban Economic Development 1979
• Recent Contributions to the Urban Policy Debate 1979
• The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 4, Population and Residential Location 1979
• Assessment of Countercyclical Public Works and Public Service Employment Programs. 1978
• Regional Cycles and Employment Effects of Public Works Investments. 1977
• The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 2, Economic Development 1977
• The value of urban open space 1977
• The Economics of Urban Blight. 1976
• Getting People to Parks. 1976
• Public Works as a Countercyclical Device: A Review of the Issues 1976
• The Use of Subsidies in the Production of Cultural Services. 1976
• The Application of Economic Analysis to the Planning and Development of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. 1975
• The Economics of Expressway Noise Pollution Abatement. 1975
• The Economics of Recreation: A Survey. 1974

Source: Rand Reports. Published Research by Author, Roger J. Vaughan.

Sage. Research Methods.

Communicating Social Science Research to Policymakers
By: Roger J. Vaughan & Terry F. Buss
Published: 1998
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412983686

___________________________________

Raphael’s Scuola di Atene (1509-1511)

For some explanation of what we see in the original, cf. “The Story Behind Raphael’s Masterpiece ‘The School of Athens'” by Jessica Stewart at the Modern Met Website.

___________________________________

Roger Vaughan’s Pastiche

Open the image in a new window to see a larger image

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 129. Folder “Posters, ca. 1960s-1970s”.

Background

The statues standing in the upper alcove are of the President and Vice-President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon (holding a lyre, a sweet visual pun) and Spiro T. Agnew (with the pennant “Effete Snobs”, abridged from his description of self-characterized intellectuals as an “effete core of impudent snobs” in his  “Generation Gap” speech given in New Orleans on October 19th, 1969.)

“1126” refers to the street address of the Social Science Research Building, 1126 E. 59th St.

“MV=PT” inscribed in the center of the dome is the Equation of Exchange (cf. Irving Fisher’s The Purchasing Power of Money). Cf. at the left of the back-row of Chicago economists, Arnold Zellner is carrying papers with “MV=PY“. Milton Friedman’s vanity license plates on his red cadillac used “MV=PQ” for the Equation of Exchange. Everyone seems to have agreed on the notational virtues of “M”, “V”, and “P”. Does anyone know whether there was any substantive reason for differences regarding the choice of “T”, “Y”, and “Q” for the final term?

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror comment: Though his arm is blocking part of the equation, Zellner is clearly displaying the equation of exchange, MV = PY.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “Underneath Nixon is Marc Nerlove pointing into the ear, by the way of insult, of Hans Theil the great Dutch econometrician (the four great econometricians at Chicago, which had included Zvi Griliches, who had just moved to Harvard, hated each other).”

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror comment: Robert J. Gordon served as an editor of the Journal of Political Economy (J.P.E.) from 1971-1973.

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror comment: Stigler’s position corresponds to that of Aristotle’s in Raphael’s fresco. There Aristotle holds a copy of his own Nicomachean Ethics. Stigler is seen here holding a book by [Adam] Smith, presumably Wealth of Nations.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “George Tolley [is] in a garbage can because he did urban economics (Vaughan was his student).”

Shoshana Grossbard’s comment: “[Margaret Reid]…not only [wore] the dark beret, but also [has] her hair in a bun, under the beret. that was her typical look. She and I attended Becker’s workshop in applications of economics in the years 1974-76.”

And guess what a casual search just turned up…

Margaret Gilpin Reid, professor emeritus of Home Economics and Economics

Source:  University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07052, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror’s comment: On the high-resolution hard-copy hanging on my study wall, the beret looks sort of like an ink blot and I regreted that imperfection. But now, thanks to Shoshana Grossbard’s careful observation combined with her memory of Reid’s “typical look” and an archival sighting of said beret, I am convinced and grateful that we now have another positive identification!

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “D. Gale Johnson…has a pitchfork because he was an agricultural economist. ”

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: Ted Schultz […] is pointing down to say “This is where the true Chicago School is, where I am!”.

Foreground

The identification of Robert F. Pollard was made by Roger Vaughan’s work and life partner, Anna Nechai.

 

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “…Dick Zecher [is] sticking his finger through an IBM card because he was in charge of the Department’s mainframe computer access.”

Another visual pun: Harry Johnson is portrayed writing on a literal Edgeworth-Bowley-box, a two-dimensional representation of allocations that could be Pareto efficient exchange equilibria. The two tradeable goods are measured in Edgeworth and Bowley units, respectively.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “Mary Jean Bowman, one of two tenured women in a small department; she did educational and demographic economics.  The other woman was Margaret Reid, the inventor of household economics…”

The triangle seen in the previous detail is Arnold Harberger’s measure of deadweight loss (efficiency cost resulting from a natural or policy induced distortion of markets).  See Robert J. Gordon’s historical photo of Al Harberger stripping down to reveal himself as “Triangleman” ca. December 1970. In Raphael’s fresco Harberger’s place was that of Euclid.

Robert  J. Gordon’s comment: “I think the bearded student is Dan Wisecarver”

Robert  J. Gordon’s comment: “The woman holding the ball is Carolyn Mosby, the head of the department staff.”

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs Economists Harvard UCLA War and Defense Economics

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Jack Hirshleifer, 1950

 

This UCLA economics department obituary of Jack Hirshleifer is so good that Economics in the Rear-view Mirror keeps a copy for its “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumnus/a” series. Hirschleifer was Brooklyn born and Harvard bred, but his scientific fruit definitely ripened in the California sun.

__________________________

Harvard Ph.D. 1950

Jack Hirshleifer, S.B. [Harvard] 1946 (1945), A.M. [Harvard] 1948.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Labor Problems. Thesis, “Price Flexibility and General Interdependence.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1949-50, p. 197.

__________________________

UCLA
Department of Economics
Obituary of Jack Hirshleifer

Education:

Ph.D. Harvard University

Research Areas:

Economic analysis of conflict; bioeconomics with particular reference to sources of cooperative behavior and the nature of evolutionary equilibrium; voluntary provision of public goods.

Biography:

Jack Hirshleifer, professor emeritus of economics, died July 26, 2005, bringing to a close a career marked by wide- ranging interests and brilliant contributions to the subfields of information economics, investment and capital theory, bioeconomics, and the economic theory of conflict.

After active duty in the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II, Hirshleifer completed his A.B. degree at Harvard, magna cum laude. Five years later he had earned his doctorate in economics, also at Harvard. From 1949 to 1955 he worked as an economist at the Rand Corporation. Before coming to UCLA in 1958, he took a postdoctoral fellowship in statistics and economics at the University of Chicago where he also taught for five years.

His extensive publications included seven books and close to a 100 scholarly articles. From his first study, Water Supply: Economics, Technology, and Policy [Chicago, 1960] to The Dark Side of the Force: Economic Foundations of Conflict Theory [Cambridge, 2001], Professor Hirshleifer in his scholarship has demonstrated a clarity of analysis and probing for fundamental assumptions which set him apart as one of the most distinguished economists of his generation.

Elected a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, Professor Hirshleifer also served on the editorial boards of the American Economic Review, the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, and the Journal for Bioeconomics. In 2000 he was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. He also served as president of the Western Economic Association and as vice- president of the American Economic Association.

Professor Hirshleifer was deeply respected by all his fellow faculty members during his 33 years as a member of the UCLA economics department. His door was always open for any colleague, graduate student or undergraduate who might feel like “popping- in.” While a giant among researchers, Professor Hirshleifer was also deeply committed to the teaching of economics. As a teacher he always strove to give his students a sense of his own deep fascination with the role of competitive markets. This led him to write a revolutionary and best- selling textbook in intermediate microeconomics, Price Theory and Applications. While prior books focused on modeling and theory, the new text added dozens of intriguing real world illustrations of economics forces at work. Through his own text- book and through the many texts that have copied his approach, Professor Hirshleifer continues to influence tens of thousands of undergraduates each year.

Tribute by David Levine

Jack Hirshleifer was an economic theorist with broad-ranging interests. Two areas in economics have especially felt the impact of his work. Early in his career, he was instrumental in the information economics revolution; late in his career, he expanded the domain of economic discourse with his work on evolutionary economics and conflict resolution.

Hirshleifer spanned a broad range of issues in his early work as one of the founding fathers of information economics. He made the abstract ideas of contingent claims concrete through his examples and applications. In the process, he helped develop fundamental tools, such as the covariance of risks, the analysis of gambling and insurance, the Modigliani-Miller Theorem, and the analysis of public investment. He also expanded the range of information economics with two fundamental contributions. His work on the private and social value of information clearly shows that competitive markets need not reflect the social value of information. His example of an inventor who can invest based on the knowledge of the impact of his invention shows that there can be an oversupply of inventive activity. This “race to be first” has its reflection in the current literature on patent races, and represents a fundamental problem in intellectual property law that the profession is only now coming to grips with. His second fundamental contribution showed that differences in taste are not enough to explain speculation. He was the first to analyze speculation in a full general-equilibrium model, with different structures of market completeness carefully considered. Although not generally recognized as such, this is also the first paper to point out the indeterminacy of equilibrium when markets are incomplete.

In addition to his founding contributions in information economics, Hirshleifer had a lifelong interest in conflict, beginning with his earliest work on war damages. Late in his career this area became the focus of his contributions, and he was a leader in extending economic methods to problems more traditionally studied in political science. He wrote broadly on expanding the domain of economic discourse to include the “rational” evolutionary analysis of altruism and spite. His work on conflict showed how “Peace is more likely to the extent that the decisiveness of conflict is low, or … if the stakes are small or the technology favors the defense. More surprisingly, perhaps, increased productive complementarity between the parties does not systematically favor peace…the poorer side is generally motivated to invest more heavily in fighting effort. So conflict can become an income-equalizing process.” Finally, his weakest link/best shot experiment (with Glenn Harrison) demonstrates that economic incentives play a key role in determining how much people will contribute to a public good.

Tribute by Roger Farmer

I was approached last month by Junyao Ying, a UCLA alum who is now working in China. Junyao and his wife Weiyi Qiu have recently translated Jack’s book, Investment Interest and Capital into Chinese. Junyao asked me to write a few words about Jack for the translation. This is what I wrote.

The economics department at UCLA was a very exciting place in the 1980s, not least because of Jack Hirshleifer.  Many of us ate lunch every day in the Faculty Center, and being in Southern California, most days we ate outdoors in the sunshine.  Jack would arrive at 12.00 sharp with an economic question for the day that he would pose to the table. Jack’s questions would be from the news of the day and the analysis he expected would be in the UCLA style.

The department had a unique approach to economics and Jack, along with Harold Demsetz, Armen Alchian, Ben Klein and later, Al Harberger, were a huge part of that. Their economics was intuitive, often verbal, but always incisive.  One story, relayed to me by another UCLA  giant of the era, Axel Leijonhufvud, expresses well the Socratic teaching style that permeated the UCLA curriculum. As Axel relays it, he was sitting in on Armen’s first graduate micro class when the master appeared, paced back and forth for a few minutes, and then boomed loudly: “So why don’t we sell babies anyway?”

Jack had the same approach. Many of our discussions would end up around one of his favorite topics: the economics of disasters. Earthquakes were never far from our minds and Jack was an expert on what today we might call black swan events. LA earthquakes are relatively frequent but they typically register less than 5.0 on the Richter Scale, enough to shake the floor, but usually not to do much damage. Sometimes we see larger quakes and every century or so, an 8.0 magnitude quake brings significant loss of life. Jack pointed out that, if you go far enough back in the fossil record, there have been earthquakes large enough to cause a slippage in the earth’s crust large enough to move two points that were previously next to each other five miles apart!

Jack was an economic imperialist. He believed passionately that the economic method can and should be applied to all of the social sciences. While we may not all share that opinion, in this time of crisis, we can nevertheless benefit from Jack’s insights. He may not be here in person to opine on how to deal with black swan events,  but we can still learn from Jack by reading his written words.

Publications

“War Damage Insurance,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 35, No. 2. (May 1953), pp. 144-153. Argues that vulnerability rated war damage insurance would create private incentives to make property less vulnerable to enemy bombing, and that this would be superior to administrative fiat.

“On the Theory of Optimal Investment Decision,” The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 66, No. 4. (Aug 1958), pp. 329-352. Examines different internal rate of return and present value rules when there is a divergence between borrowing and lending rates, and shows that while the problem can be solved by careful consideration of the budget constraint,  neither of these rules gives the correct answer all the time.

“Risk, The Discount Rate, and Investment Decisions,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 51, No. 2(May 1961), pp. 112-120. Discusses how covariance of new risks with the existing portfolio makes it desirable to diversify by adding new risks.

“Investment Decision Under Uncertainty: Choice-Theoretic Approaches,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 79, No. 4. (Nov 1965), pp. 509-536; and “Investment Decision under Uncertainty: Applications of the State-Preference Approach,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 80, No. 2. (May 1966), pp. 252-277. These two paper develop the time-state-preference approach (what we now call the state-contingent model) applied to traditional problems in economics: gambling and insurance; Modigliani-Miller Theorem and evaluation of public projects.

“Urban Water Supply: A Second Look,” (with  J. W. Milliman) The American Economic Review, Vol. 57, No. 2 (May 1967), pp. 169-178. In a famous earlier work with J.C. DeHaven Water Supply: Economics, Technology and Policy(University of Chicago Press, 1960) alternative methods of supplying water to Southern California were subject to cost-benefit analysis. This paper review what actually happened: policy makers ignored the advice, and chose what both prospectively and retrospectively was the worst economic choice. They conclude: “It appears that the agenda for economists, at this point, should place lower priority upon the further refinement of advice for those efficient and selfless administrators who may exist in never-never land. Rather, it should focus on devising institutions whereby fallible and imperfect administrators may be forced to learn from error.”

“The Private and Social Value of Information and the Reward to Inventive Activity,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 61, No. 4. (Sep 1971), pp. 561-574.   Makes the simple yet crucial point that the benefit of receiving information first bears no necessary relationship to the social value of the information. For example, inventive activity may be oversupplied because the inventor can make investments based upon knowledge of the invention. This paper also makes careful use of an infinitesimal deviant individual in a representative individual world.

“Speculation and Equilibrium: Information, Risk, and Markets,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 89, No. 4. (Nov 1975), pp. 519-542. This paper shows that differences in taste are not enough to explain speculation – differences in beliefs are required. Unlike earlier work on speculation that ignores the endogeneity of prices, the setup here is a full general equilibrium model, with different structures of market completeness carefully considered. In particular, market incompleteness alone cannot explain speculation.  Although not generally recognized as such, this is the first paper to point out the indeterminacy of equilibrium in an incomplete market setting.

“Competition, Cooperation, and Conflict in Economics and Biology,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 68, No. 2 (May 1978), pp. 238-243. This paper draws connections between the economics and sociobiology literature, and marks the beginning of Hirshleifer’s interest in sociobiology and conflict.

“The Expanding Domain of Economics,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 75, No. 6. (Dec 1985), pp. 53-68. This paper is a broad overview of the application of economic logic to a variety of “non-economic” problems. Hirshleifer begins by examining endogeneity of preferences. He identifies the different between altruistic preferences, and what would now be called the “warm-glow” effect of participation. He reviews Becker’s “rotten kid” theorem, which says that an altruistic parent can actually gain from altruism. As an alternative theory of preferences, models of status, such as the rat-race are examined. The underlying point of view is that of “as-if” rationality – altruism must provide some benefit to the altruist. From this perspective, Hirshleifer examines models such as the psychological model of “anger, gratitude, response” and argues that seemingly irrational behavior does indeed benefit the individual. The final topic is once again that of conflict. A narrow range of possible settlements it is argued increases the potential for conflict. Increasing returns followed by diminishing returns explains the monopoly on military force within the state, while also explaining the multiplicity of states.

“An Experimental Evaluation of Weakest Link/Best Shot Models of Public Goods,” (with Glenn W. Harrison) The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 97, No. 1. (Feb 1989), pp. 201-225. This experimental contribution to the public goods literature explores how the increasing incentives to free ride lead to greater free riding. This paper also introduces the “best-shot” game, a public goods contribution game in which only the largest contribution to the public good matters. In this type of game it is socially and individually optimal for only one player to contribute, and unlike many other types of public goods games, this theoretical prediction is exactly what happens in the laboratory.

“The Technology of Conflict as an Economic Activity,” The American Economic Review, Vol. 81, No. 2  (May 1991), pp. 130-134. “Peace is more likely to the extent that the decisiveness of conflict is low, or … if the stakes are small or the technology favors the defense. More surprisingly, perhaps, increased productive complementarity between the parties does not systematically favor peace…the poorer side is generally motivated to invest more heavily in fighting effort. So conflict can become an income-equalizing process.”

Source: Jack Hirshleifer UCLA page archived by the Wayback Machine.

Image Source: The 1946 Harvard Class Album, p. 153.

Categories
Chicago Funny Business Harvard M.I.T.

Chicago. Lyrics from “With a Little Bit of Luck”, ca. 1962

 

The following number comes as the last sheet of a stapled collection of skit numbers, beginning with an economics version of “Dear Officer Krupke” from West Side Story, already posted. That number was written about 1962 and My Fair Lady ran on Broadway from 1956 through 1962, so this too could have been written sometime around 1962 as well.

_____________________________

FINALE
(To the tune of “With a Little Bit of Luck”
from My Fair Lady)

Oh we are all perpetually students
Because the army we would like to shirk
Oh we are all perpetually students
But with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
We will never have to go to work

With a little bit, with a little bit
With a little bit of bloomin’ luck

The men upstairs harass us with their prelims
To write the answers always makes us fret
The men upstairs harass us with their prelims
But with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
We will pass them all without a sweat

(Repeat Chorus)

Ingersoll and Earhart pay us money
And the reason we don’t understand
Oh Ingersoll and Earhart pay us money
But with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
They’ll increase it by another grand

(Repeat Chorus)

Oh we have spent long years in these damn workshops
Hearing all the young professors shout
Oh we have spent long years in these damn workshops
But with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
They’ll have pity and they’ll let us out

(Repeat Chorus)

The MIT men get the best job offers
The Harvard men get all the business dough
The MIT men get the best job offers
But we just never get the luck, we just never get the luck
All that’s left for us is Chicago

We just never get, we just never get
We just never get the bloomin’ luck

Oh everybody thinks that we are madmen
And we have no say in policy
Oh everybody thinks that we are madmen
But with a little bit of luck, with a little bit of luck
We will publish in the J-P-E.

No final Chorus

Source: Harvard University Archive. Papers of Zvi Griliches. Box 129, Folder “Faculty Skits, ca. 1960s.”

Image Source: Stanley Holloway (center) as Alfred P. Doolittle from the Broadway presentation of My Fair Lady. At left is Gordon Dillworth and at right, Rod McLennan. From Wikimedia Commons.

Categories
Chicago Policy Suggested Reading

Chicago. Governmental Price Fixing Reading List. Friedman, 1972

President Richard Nixon’s peacetime wage and price controls were less than a year old when Milton Friedman used the teachable moment to discuss “governmental price fixing” in a course of his at the University of Chicago.

______________________________

Spring, 1972

Economics 496
Selected Topics in Contemporary Economic Problems
Dr. M. Friedman

Reading List

General Note: The special topic that will be considered this semester is governmental price fixing. We shall examine three general categories of price fixing: fixing of prices of specific commodities or services; general price and wage controls; fixing of exchange rates. The basic theoretical tools required to analyze these problems have presumably been studied in courses in price theory, monetary theory, and income and employment theory but will be reviewed in class lectures. This reading list therefore covers mostly applied material.

I. Fixing of Specific Prices

HD1761
H6

 Houthakker, Hendrik, Economics Policy for the Farm Sector, American Enterprise Institute, 1967

HD1761
P13

 Paarlberg, Don, American Farm Policy, Wiley, 1964

HB171.5
A34
1967

 Alchian, A. & Allen, W., University Economics, pp. 92-99, 402-404

HD4918
P47

 Peterson, J. M. & Stewart, C T. Employment Effects of Minimum Wage Rate, American Enterprise Institute, 1969

HD4918
F74

 Friedman, M. & Brozen, Y. The Minimum Wage Rate, Who Really Pays?

HC106.5
B83

 Burns Arthur F., The Management of Prosperity, pp. 45-48

 

II. General Wage and Price Controls

Campbell, Colin (ed.), Wage Price Controls in World War Il, U.S. and Germany, American Enterprise Institute

HB
B24
H1

 Ullman, I. & Flanagan, R. J. Wage-Restraints: Study of Incomes Policies in Western Europe, University of California Press, 1971

HC106.5
S435

 Shultz, G. P. & Aliber, R. Z. (eds.), Guidelines, Informal Controls, and the Market Place, University of Chicago Press

HB236
A3
G3

 Galbraith, J. K., A Theory of Price Control. Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1952

HB236
U5H35

 Hardy, C. O., Wartime Control of Prices, Washington, Brookings Institute, 1940
Wallis, W. A., How to Ration Consumers’ Goods and Control Their Prices, American Economic Review, Sept. 1942, pp. 501-512
Gorter, W. & Hildebrand, G. H., “Is Price Control Really Necessary?”  American Economic Review, March 1951, pp. 77-81

III. Control of Exchange Rates

HG3883
U7 F7

 Friedman, M. & Roosa, R. L., The Balance of Payments: Free vs. Fixed Exchange Rates

HB33
F7

 Friedman, M., “The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates,” Essays in Positive Economics, University of Chicago Press

HG538
F856

 Friedman, M., Dollars and Deficits

HG3821
A66

 Halm, G. (ed.), Approaches to Greater Flexibility of Exchange Rates, Princeton University Press, 1970

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers. Box 78, Folder 5 “University of Chicago, Econ. 496”.

Image Source:  Milton Friedman (undated) from University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-06231, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.