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Harvard. Principles of Money and Banking, Midyear Exam. Schumpeter, 1927-1928

 

 

I just returned from a recent trip that included 5.5 working days in the Harvard University Archives. Among the images of treasures for transcription that I have brought back are the mid-year examinations for several decades of Harvard’s year-long economics courses. My first order of business now  has been to add the corresponding mid-year examinations to material already posted for Harvard courses here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

We now add a course taught by the ever popular and ultimate click-bait, Joseph Schumpeter. The final examination questions for his 1927-28 course, Principles of Money and Banking, have been posted earlier. Now we also learn something about what was covered in the first semester of that course.

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1927-28
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 38

Mid-Year Examination

  1. Write as fully as possible on either one or the other of the following subjects:
    1. What is the monetary system set up by the English Gold Standard Act of 1925, and how does its working differ from either an unrestricted gold system or the gold exchange standard?
    2. If a bank creates new credit in order to grant a loan, then, so long as the loan remains outstanding, it acts like a tax or compulsion to save imposed on the community jointly by the borrower and the bank. (D. H. Robertson, Money. p. 90) Explain and criticize.
  2. Answer shortly two out of the four following questions:
    1. Some authors think that a system of paper circulation would work more, others that it would work less in accordance with the quantity theorem than the gold standard. Which view is the correct one?
    2. What is the difference between the ‘equation of exchange’ as constructed respectively by Irving Fisher and by Marshall-Pigou-Keynes?
    3. Why and in what sense is bimetallism unstable?
    4. What difference is there between choosing some commodity as a ‘standard of value’ and actually using it as a means of exchange, which physically changes hands?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1927-28 (HUC 7000.55), Papers Printed for Mid-Year Examinations. History, History of Religions,… , Economics,… , Military Science, Naval Science. January-February, 1928.

Image Source: Harvard University Archives. “Joseph A. Schumpeter seated on bench in forested area, ca. 1931“.