Tag: Crum

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Economists Harvard

Harvard. Copy of Schumpeter’s letter to Crum regarding Samuelson’s course performance, 1936

Following the last post that provided a transcription of Joseph Schumpeter’s letter of recommendation for Marion Crawford, this post gives us a glimpse of the 20 year old “youngster” who would marry Marion Crawford a few years later.

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Schumpeter asking for instructor feedback for Samuelson’s SSRC fellowship

February 12, 1936

Prof. Leonard Crum
Holyoke 46

Dear Leonard:

You know, perhaps you don’t, that the Social Science Research Council has now adopted a policy for their pre-doctoral fellowships to ask a man to act as what they call a sponsor to the fellow. I am acting in this capacity for Samuelson and it is part of my duties to collect opinions from his other teachers to send to them so that they know how their lambs are shaping up, and notably whether they should get an extension for another year.

Samuelson seems to have done very well in your course. In any case, I would be very grateful if you would be good enough to send me or to sent [sic] the Social Science Research Council (Committee on Social Research Personnel, R. H. Shryock, 230 Park Avenue, New York City) your opinion about that youngster.

I really feel that I need not apologize for intruding upon you during your well earned rest because I believe that this little bit of official business will make you feel sweet liberty from the rest all the more intensely.

With best wishes,

J. A. Schumpeter

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers, 1930-1961. Box 21, Folder “Joseph A. Schumpeter 1933-1942”.

Image Source: Original black-and-white photo of Samuelson from the slideshow at the M.I.T. Memorial Service (April 10, 2010).  Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

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Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Department Reports to the Dean, 1946-47 to 1949-50

 

This post adds the Chair’s annual reports on the Harvard Economics Department for the early post-WW II years to previously posted reports for 1932-33 through 1945-46. 

Reports to the Dean of Harvard
from the Department of Economics.
1932-1941
1941-1946

___________________________

1946-1947

September 29, 1947

Dear Dean Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the work of the Department of Economies for the academic year 1946-47.

This report necessarily follows much the same pattern as the report for last year. Again our work has been dominated by the number of students, undergraduate and graduate, and the lack of a trained junior staff.

The number of undergraduates of course is entirely so beyond our control. In Economies A and in most of our “middle group” courses, the elections taxed our capacity for effective instruction. Under the most propitious conditions the crowded classrooms would have presented many problems but with a dearth of trained teaching fellows and annual instructors the load carried by the senior staff was unduly heavy. Foreseeing this range of problems, the Department voted on February 19, 1946 [sic, 1947 probably correct. In December 1946 departments wereallowed to withdraw from offering tutorials] to suspend tutorial instruction for a period of two years. It may be stated here that this was probably a wise decision. Concentration in Economics appears to have resumed the trend apparent before the war. In the current year the number of concentrators will approach, or perhaps exceed 800. Even should no consideration be given to the expenditure involved, the possibility of finding and training effective tutors even for honors candidates seems somewhat remote.

On the graduate level the problems of instruction were even more difficult. During the year the number of graduate students receiving instruction was approximately 286. Our course offering on this level is large. Nevertheless, the principal graduate courses were crowded to a point where the maintenance of standards was difficult. After the graduate student has completed his preliminary program and has been accepted as a candidate for the Ph.D, degree, the instruction is largely individual. In the last year we were just coming into the situation where a considerable proportion of the students were receiving such instruction. The full impact of this situation will be felt in the current year. Most members of the senior staff will be directing the theses of some 10 to 15 students. Some officers will be responsible for even larger numbers. With the numbers we are attempting to handle on the graduate level the single task of examining candidates in the general and special examinations becomes a major consideration. During the last academic year the staff conducted general and special examinations. Such an amount of examining and of individual instruction on the graduate level has its bearing on tutorial instruction for undergraduates.

The Department voted to accept the large number of graduate students now on our rolls only after considerable investigation and discussion. It is my own personal opinion that we have set our limit altogether too high. However, the pressure upon us for admission has been very strong and our obligations to the Littauer School, where the pressure is hardly less, just be observed.

This matter of the size of the Graduate School in the immediate future is one of our most difficult problems. It will receive our attention in the current year.

In the last two or three years these reports have noted certain experiments in instruction, especially in connection with Economics A. Such experiments are dependent upon the presence of a considerable number of able and mature young men with adequate teaching experience, as well as upon a margin of free time. Both of these factors are lacking to such a degree that substantial and outstanding progress could not be expected but the plans were active and some progress was made.

If full tutorial instruction is not resumed by the Department, experimentation in undergraduate courses is imperative and this we have planned. It is our expectation that a good deal in the way of individual guidance can be accomplished in connection with Economics A and some of our middle group courses. We believe that we can make our instruction more efficient with a much smaller personnel and at much less expense than the tutorial system would involve. However, a definitive decision has not been reached on all of these matters.

It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the heavy instructional demands discussed above affected our research projects. Furthermore, the officers of this Department are severely handicapped by the lack of research funds. This dearth of research funds is a question which has been placed before our Visiting Committee.

In spite of the difficulties involved, the contributions of the members of the Department were substantial. The following books were published:

Teoria de la Competencie Monopolica, by E. H. Chamberlin, Mexico, 1946. (Spanish translation of The Theory of Monopolistic Competition)

Economic Policy and Full Employment, by A. H. Hansen. McGraw-Hill. 1947.

The New Economics, S. B. Harris, editor and contributor Knopf. 1947.

The National Debt and the New Economics, by S. E. Harris. 1947.

Income and Employment, by T. Morgan. Prentice-Hall. 1947.

New enlarged edition of Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, by J. A. Schumpeter.

The Challenge of Industrial Relations, by S. H. Slichter, Cornell University Press, 1947.

Postwar Monetary Plans and other Essays, by J. Williams. Knopf, 3rd edition. 1947.

articles were published.

Although we are able to record only one new volume and one republication of an older volume in the Harvard Economic Series for the past year, four other volumes are in the hands of the printer and will appear in the current year.

In the area of distinctions or honors, I believe the only items to be noted concern Dean Edward S. Mason. Last spring he was appointed Economic Advisor to Secretary of State Marshall at the Moscow Conference. In July he was appointed a member of President Truman’s Committee on Foreign Aid.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

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1947-1948

September 30, 1948

Dear Provost Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the work of the Department of Economics for the academic year 1947-48.

The report on the work of the Department for the last year can be given in part in the same terms that have been employed in the last three reports. Our major problems have been quantitative and have presented the same difficulties that were emphasized in the other post-war reports. However, we believe that the last year did reach the peak of the load and that the pressure of numbers will abate steadily. The problem of building and maintaining an effective junior staff was hardly less than in the preceding years. Crowded classrooms and insufficiently trained assistants imposed unduly severe burdens upon the senior teachers responsible for course instruction. Some improvement, especially in the middle group courses, is in prospect for the coming year but it is probable that two to three years more will be necessary before these courses will be adequately staffed. In the introductory course which relies heavily upon a large number of young instructors and teaching fellows, the situation is still serious but latterly we have been able to utilize young men with more satisfactory preparation and training. Because of the heavy demands for the services of these young men by other institutions, the turnover is large leaving us each year with a relatively inexperienced staff.

Graduate instruction continues to make unusual demands upon the time and energy of the senior staff. During the past year we conducted 109 general examinations and 26 special examinations. Examining and the related task of directing the research of candidates for the higher degrees undoubtedly have an incidence upon undergraduate instruction which raises questions of fundamental importance. It is encouraging that the number of graduate students is, through the action of the Department, declining.

In spite of the difficulties presented by the numbers of undergraduates and graduates, the Department, perhaps belatedly, has given particular consideration to its commitments in the Areas and in General Education. A report on General Education is enclosed.

Also, the Department has considered at length and in detail various problems of instruction, particularly undergraduate instruction. These considerations will be continued in the current year. By completely revising the content of our basic courses it may be possible to increase the effectiveness of our instruction and reduce somewhat the number of courses offered. A preliminary report on this aspect of our work is included.

A year ago I noted that many of our senior officers were handicapped severely by the lack of research funds. As you know, it can now be recorded with sincere satisfaction that a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and that several projects under the auspices of the Research Marketing Act, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Charles H. Hood Dairy Foundation, the Ferguson Foundation Fund, and the Carnegie Corporation Fund, meet the situation effectively for some of our officers. The set-up of these projects promises not only to be of great value to the professors in charge of the research but it contributes heavily to the training of our most promising graduate students and younger officers.

The following books were published by members of the Department:

How Shall We Pay for Education? by Seymour Harris. Harpers.

Stabilization Subsidies by Seymour Harris. Historical Report Series, U.S. Gov’t.

Price Control of International Commodities by Seymour Harris. Archives Volume, Historical Records Office.

International Monetary Policies, by Gottfried Haberler (with Lloyd Metzler and Robert Triffin). Postwar Economic Series, Federal Reserve System Board of Governors.

Problemas de Conjuntura e de Politica Economica, by Gottfried Haberler. Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janiero.

Production in the United States, 1866-1914, by Edwin Frickey. Harvard University Press.

Seventy-eight articles have been published. Three books were published in the Harvard Economic Series during the past year. Five volumes are in the hands of the Press to be published later this year.

Professor Edward H. Chamberlin has been appointed to succeed Dr. Arthur B. Monroe as Managing Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Both the Quarterly Journal of Economies and the Review of Economic Statistics are well established intellectually and financially. With the demands of instruction and research, the editing of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics, as well as the direction of the Harvard Economic Series, raises questions regarding the adequacy of the manpower within the Department.

 In the area of distinctions or honors, Professor Joseph A. Schumpeter was chosen to be President of the American Economic Association for 1948. Dean Edward S. Mason was awarded an honorary degree, D. Litt, from Williams College, June, 1948.

Very sincerely,
H. H. Burbank

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1948-1949

September 28, 1949

Dear Provost Buck:

The pattern of the report of the Department of Economics on the work of the last year is essentially the same as the other reports for the post-war years. Indeed, not a little of the introduction to the report of a year ago could be utilized in the current report. The quantitative side of our work has been among our major problems. I think I was correct in predicting that the peak of the load would be passed in 1948-49. For the year 1949-50, numbers, particularly on the graduate level, will be approximately less although the total is still beyond the capacities of our senior staff.

Again I can repeat that the problem of building and maintaining a junior staff presents great difficulties. We have strengthened our position on the level of the assistant professor but we are unable to hold our most promising young Ph.D’s for appointment at the instructor level. All of our undergraduate instruction suffers because of this factor, but Economics 1 (the introductory course) is affected particularly. The demand for these young men by other institutions continues at a high level resulting in a high rate of turnover and leaving us sech year with a relatively inexperienced staff. [end of p. 1]

[Note: need to replace unfocussed image of page 2]

[p. 3 begins ] …expectation that we will be able to revise our general examination effectively.

In the post-war years the Department has been striving to meet its obligations to General Education and to the areas. We believe that we have made an excellent beginning in both General Education and in the Russian Area. We are still actively engaged in the attempt to strengthen our position in the Chinese Area. This is exceedingly difficult but I believe that some progress is being made.

Last year we were able to record with great satisfaction that some research projects were being established satisfactorily. These projects under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation and under the auspices of various groups interested in agriculture and marketing are now going forward successfully and up proving to be important for us not only as research projects but also because of their general effect upon a relatively large group of our graduate students. We can now give a type of training to our most promising men which would have been impossible without such projects. It should be emphasized at this point that other areas of interest need research funds.

The following books were published:

Collective Bargaining: Principles and Cases, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1949, by John I. Dunlop.

Labor in Norway by Walter Galenson. Harvard University Press, 1949.

Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy, by Alvin Hansen McGraw-Hill, 1949.

The European Recovery Program, by Seymour E. Harris. Harvard University Press.

Foreign Economic Policy for the U.S., edited by Seymour E. Harris, Harvard University Press.

Price Control of International Commodities, by Seymour E. Harris. Archives Volume for Historical Records Office.

Saving American Capitalism, edited by Seymour E. Harris. Knopf.

Economic Planning, by Seymour E. Harris. Knopf.

Post-war Monetary Plans and Other Essays, by John H. Williams. Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

The American Economy, Its Problems and Prospects, by Sumner H. Slichter. Knopf.

There were 62 articles published by members of the Department during the past year. Five books were published in the Harvard Economic Studies and two volumes are in the hands of the Press to be published later this year. There has been a total of 86 books published in the Harvard Economic Studies to this date.

It should be recorded that both the Quarterly Journal of Economics under the editorship of Professor Chamberlin and the Review of Economics and Statistics have prospered during the year. Again I do feel it necessary to refer to the fact that editing the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics and the carrying forward of the Harvard Economic Studies continues to raise questions regarding the adequacy of the manpower within the Department.

In the area of distinctions and honors, Professor Slichter was awarded honorary degrees (LL.D.) from the following universities: Lehigh University, Harvard University, University of Rochester, University of Wisconsin and Northwestern University. Professor

Haberler was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Economics (“Doktor der Wirtschaftswissenschaft honoris causa”) from Handelshochschule, St. Gallen, Switzerland. Dr. Galbraith was awarded the President’s Certificate of Merit, Medal of Merit Board, for services in Price Control and Economic Stabilization during the war.

Sincerely
[Harold H. Burbank]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean 1948-54”.

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1949-1950

[Draft] Report to Dean, October 2, 1950
Professor Burbank

In each of the reports for the last three years, emphasis has been placed upon two matters; our efforts to handle the increased numbers incident to the war, particularly on the graduate level, and our attempts to revise and improve our instruction, particularly on the undergraduate level.

With a good deal of satisfaction we are able to report that for the last year substantial progress has been made in each of these areas. Immediately after the war the number of our graduate students increased from approximately 100 to nearly 300. By raising the standards of admission and giving the most careful scrutiny to applications, the numbers on the graduate level are now well under 200, and will be reduced somewhat more for 1950-51.

The work of supervising and directing graduate students falls very unevenly upon the various members of the senior staff. Even with not over 150 graduate students some members of the staff will carry an inordinate part of individual instruction and of examining for the higher degrees. Further, large graduate classes tend to dilute the instruction.

On the undergraduate level the Department has revised its requirements for concentration, including the content of many of our key courses. This plan has been accepted by the Faculty and is now in operation. It is an ambitious scheme that involves not only a change in the content and coverage of our key courses but it also involves the strengthening the staff in these courses and an integration of course work with tutorial work. Undoubtedly it will take some years to complete this plan. Much depends upon our ability to build a strong junior staff, especially on the annual instructor level. When this reorganized instruction is in full operation it is expected that a number of courses now offered for undergraduates may be deleted.

Also it is with a good deal of satisfaction that after a period of suspension tutorial instruction has been reestablished and is developing steadily. The period of suspension was unfortunate but probably inevitable. We are now approaching a position with respect to both graduate and undergraduate instruction that at least approximates a normal situation, with a possibility of a carefully planned and well integrated system of undergraduate instruction. As a part of this plan increased attention has been given to reestablishing the General Examinations on something approximating the level of earlier years. Since we are lacking experienced tutors the establishment of tutorial instruction is a very real task but it is believed it can be done successfully.

We have been fortunate to have been able to attract to the Graduate School a group of unusually able young men. The very top of this group represents ability of the very highest order. Unfortunately only rarely can we retain the services of these young men even on the assistant professor level. However, the Department is keenly aware of the difficulties it faces in recruitment and every effort is being made to follow the progress of the product of other schools as well as the progress of our own young scholars.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1949-1950

January 5, 1951

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Provost Buck:

I am now somewhat belatedly submitting the report of the Department of Economics for 1949-50.

I. Undergraduate Instruction

Four hundred eighty-two Harvard and Radcliffe students concentrated in economics in 1949-50 as compared with 608 in the previous year. The enrolment in Economics 1 was 402 as compared with 546 in the previous year. Seventy-seven students graduated with honors; 20 obtaining magna cum laude and 57 cum laude.

The entire senior staff gave courses at the undergraduate level— a practice that distinguishes Harvard sharply from institutions such as Columbia and Chicago which restrict the activities of some of the most talented members of the staff to graduate instruction. Nevertheless, the strength of our undergraduate teaching has depended very largely on the unusually fine group of assistant professors we now have on our staff.

During the past couple of years the Department has been gradually moving toward restoration of the tutorial system and last spring it decided finally to give tutorial instruction to all honors students in their junior and senior years,

II. Graduate Instruction

Two hundred graduate students in economics were in residence last year as compared with 234 the previous year. The Department gave 58 general examinations for the Ph.D. and 47 special examinations.

The number of graduate students is still too large to handle effectively with the present staff. The students themselves justifiably complain that they cannot see enough of the members of the faculty. However if they did see as much of the faculty as they wanted to, the faculty would have little time for reading and research and the quality of instruction would decline. We are planning to deal with this problem as far as possible by making sure that more graduate students attend reasonably small seminars and do have an opportunity to get to know at least one faculty member reasonably well.

I believe that the quality of our graduate work has suffered through overemphasis on course work and preoccupation with grades. We tend to make graduate instruction too much of a prolongation of undergraduate instruction. We also tend too much in the direction of specialization and provide too little encouragement for students to become coordinated in the whole economic field. The remedy for this state of affairs depends more upon the general attitude of the Department rather than any specific measures of reorganization. We shall do whatever is possible to encourage students in the feeling that their main function here is to acquire the maturity that is essential for scholarship rather than to accumulate a collection of pieces of isolated information.

III. Research

Professors Mason, Leontief, Black, Galbraith and Dunlop are all conducting organized research projects within the Department. Apart from their substantive value, these projects give a considerable number of graduate students an opportunity to take part in organized research activity. I believe these projects have an important part to play in the future of the Department as a whole rather than as special interests of individual members. However, I do not share the view that most of our intellectual activities should be directed towards organized research. There is danger that we may become a research bureaucracy and that the merits of individual scholarship may achieve less recognition than they deserve. While the research project is invaluable in training the students in specialized activity, it does little to cultivate the maturity that should be one of the most important products of our graduate training.

IV. The Staff of the Department

Professor Schumpeter’s death has meant a loss to the Department that cannot be covered by any individual that we now have on the staff or could get from the outside. The only way to make up for his absence is for the present members of the faculty to direct part of their attention to the aspects of economic thought in which Schumpeter was particularly interested. This has in part been done. I think it is true to say that since Schumpeter’s death his own work has received more attention in Harvard classrooms than it received while he was alive.

The only new additions to the to the staff at the professorial level in 1949-50 were assistant professors Orcutt and Sawyer. Orcutt is giving a course at the graduate level and the undergraduate level on empirical economies in which he stresses the quantitative aspects of economic theory. He is also a first-class statistician. Since the resignation of Professor Crum we have had only one professional statistician in the Department, and it seems highly desirable to have at least two. Sawyer will add considerable strength to the Department’s work in economic history although he will spend half of his time in the General Education program.

VI. [sic] Distinctions

Members of the Department received the following distinctions:

Professor Edward Chamberlin — An honorary degree (Dr.) awarded by the Universita Catholica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy. December 1949.

Professor Sumner Slichter — President, Industrial Relations Research Association.

Professor Gottfried Haberler — President, International Economic Association for 1950 (held by Professor Schumpeter at the time of his death).

I am attaching a bibliography of the writings of the members of the Department. [not included in this folder]

Sincerely yours,
Arthur Smithies

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean 1948-54”.

Images Source: Burbank (left) from the Harvard Class Album 1946, Smithies (right) from the Harvard Class Album 1952.

Categories
Economics Programs Harvard Teaching

Harvard. Haberler and Chamberlin fight over last-minute course changes, 1942-43

Exogenous shocks are really useful for finding out how the economy works. They also help dear colleagues reveal themselves when their private interests conflict with those of other colleagues in particular or with departmental needs in general. The U.S. entry into the Second World War forced several adjustments in the graduate and undergraduate instructional staffing at the Harvard economics department.

This post provides some light on the time Gottfried Haberler was asked to teach the first of the two term graduate economic theory sequence for the academic year 1942-43. The course was a direct descendent of Frank Taussig’s Economics 11 (the expansion of course offerings over the decades required moving into 3 digits for some course numbers and a zero was dropped into the middle of “Economics 11” to obtain “Economics 101”). At the last minute Chairman Edward Chamberlin decided that he wanted “his” course back for both semesters but Gottfried Haberler was clearly not one to go quietly. And so we witness the performance of an academic drama before colleagues, of Professor X and Professor Y claiming conflicting rights to a particular course.

The record presented here is incomplete. I have been unable to find Haberler’s written plea on his own behalf. Reading the material one might think that Chamberlin got his way and Haberler was left to find another course to satisfy his annual teaching obligation. However, a look into the annual report of the President of Harvard College for 1942-43 finds that as far as the staffing of Economics 101 in 1942-43 goes, ex ante equals ex post. The course was ultimately divided that year between Messrs. Haberler and Chamberlin.

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Economics 101: syllabi (with links to most readings) and examinations for fall and spring terms 1941-42 taught by Edward Chamberlin.

___________________________

Who ended up teaching what 1942-43

Edward Chamberlin

Economics 1a. First term, undergraduate course “Economic Theory”.

Economics 102b. Second term, graduate course “Monopolistic Competition and Allied Problems”.

Co-taught Economics 101 with Gottfried Haberler. Full-year graduate course “Economic Theory”. Presumably Haberler taught the first term and Chamberlin taught the second term.

Gottfried Haberler

Economics 18b. Second term, undergraduate course on the Economic Aspects of War,

Co-taught Economics 45a with Alvin Hansen. First term, undergraduate course  “Business Cycles”.

Economics 144. Graduate School of Public Administration Seminar “International Economic Relations”.

Co-taught Economics 101 with Edward Chamberlin. Full-year graduate course “Economic Theory”. Presumably Haberler taught the first term and Chamberlin taught the second term.

___________________________

Ex Ante Course Announcement

Economics 101. Economic Theory

Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructors) Fri., at 12. Professors Chamberlin and Haberler.

Source: Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1942-43. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXIX, No. 53 (September 23, 1942), p. 55.

___________________________

Ex Post Course Enrollment and Staffing

[Economics] 101. Professors Chamberlin and Haberler. — Economic Theory.

Total 24: 16 Graduates, 4 School of Public Administration, 1 Graduate Business School, 3 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1942-1943, p. 47.

___________________________

Presumably the statement prepared by Edward Chamberlin (referring to himself in the third person)

October 9, 1942

Course Economics 101 was announced in the catalogue for 1942-3 to be given jointly by Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler. This arrangement was never considered as final but was subject to adjustment at the beginning of the college year in view of the general uncertainty as to the status of such of the graduate instruction until enrolments in various courses were known. (In particular, it seemed likely that either 102b or 163 or both might be bracketed, thus freeing either one half or one full course of Mr. Chamberlin’s time). It was, however, agreed between Mr. Haberler and Mr. Chamberlin that, in case the course were given jointly, Mr. Haberler would give the first half year and Mr. Chamberlin the second. Several times prior to the opening of college Mr. Haberler asked Mr. Chamberlin about the status of the course and was told that unfortunately nothing final could be decided until enrolments were known; it was agreed, however, that Mr. Haberler would take the first meeting, or meetings, of the course until a decision was reached. The matter was mentioned on Friday morning, October 2, at a casual meeting between classes at which time, since no final decision had been taken, Mr. Chamberlin said that it was still possible that the arrangement might stand. On Saturday, October 3, a final decision to take back the course was communicated to Mr. Haberler after considering a number of factors, among which were the following:

  1. The enrolment in Economics 102b was only two, plus five auditors. This course had always been given in the second semester, thereby opening it to the first year students who had had the first semester of 101. The bracketing of 163 made it possible to revert to this disposition of 102b, (or to bracketing it later on if this seemed necessary). The chief obstacle to Mr. Chamberlin’s giving the first half and therefore all of 101 was thereby removed.
  2. The class list of 101, received Friday afternoon, revealed that of 16 [or 18?] student then enrolled in the course all but two were foreigners. Many of these would have serious problems of adaptation to academic work in a new language and in a new country, and it seemed for the reason especially desirable to unify the introductory course in theory under one direction during the current year.
  3. During the past, two years the course had, for better or worse, been split both vertically and horizontally, not by action of the department but on the initiative of Mr. Chamberlin. This was done in part to open greater possibilities for discussion through smaller sections, and in part to share the course with others who wanted very much to teach theory. At no time during that period had Mr. Chamberlin given less than a full year of the course, and its outline and organization had always been his. It was his sincere belief that now that the course was again of manageable size the department would wish it to be given as it had directed earlier, and that he was fully competent to make the decision. At that time the work of the year had not really begun.

However, Mr. Haberler objected so strongly to the change that in order to settle the matter amicably, Mr. Chamberlin proposed on Sunday afternoon, and Mr. Haberler agreed, that the matter be left to a committee composed of Professor Crum as Chairman and other members to be chosen by Professor Crum. As this Committee could not possibly be assembled and give a decision before the Monday meeting of the course it was agreed that Mr. Haberler would take that meeting and that the Committee shouId render a decision before the Wednesday meeting. The decision was in fact rendered Tuesday afternoon and was unanimous that Mr. ChamberIin should give the course, When apprized of this decision, Mr. Haberler said he would like time to consider whether or not he was willing to accept it. From this point on Mr. Chamberlin became a passive duopolist, leaving all initiative to Mr. Haberler, who proposed that he take the Wednesday meeting of the course, finishing matters which he had begun on Monday, give a cut on Friday (there was a holiday the following Monday), and decide sone time before the Department meeting whether or not he would like to bring the matter before the Department. Meanwhile, the Committee had decided that certain questions which it had discussed apart from the immediate issue should be brought before the Department at its meeting October 13th. Mr. Haberler’s final decision on Thursday was that if the Department is going into the whole theory question anyway, they should also decide on the present status of Economics 101.

___________________________

Chairman Chamberlin announces his attention to return statement with statement

October 10, 1942

Dear Leonard [Crum]:

It has occurred to me that, since Haberler has given you in writing a statement of the facts as he sees them, I might, even at this late date do the same. My own statement will add some details and perhaps present a different emphasis at one or two points It may be used at your discretion in whatever way you think best, (including, of course, the possibility of no use at all beyond your own reading). I am sending a copy to Haberler.

Sincerely,

E. H. Chamberlin

___________________________

Chairman Chamberlin makes his written statement available to the department

October 17, 1942

To Members of the Department of Economics:

In view of the fact that Professor Haberler’s statement with respect to Economics 101 had some circulation prior to last Tuesday’s meeting and was also read in the meeting, whereas my own statement has to this moment been seen only by Professor Crum and one other member of the Department, I should like now to make both equally available to any who may wish to consult them. Accordingly, they will both be found in the blue folder in Mrs. Arnold’s office. Also in the blue folder are: (1) The minutes of the last three meetings, and 2) The report of the Chairman to the Dean of the Faculty covering the work or the Department for the past year.

Chairman [Chamberlin]

___________________________

Special Committee sides with Chamberlin

CONFIDENTIAL

(for use of Department
of Economics officers
only)

Report of a Special Committee
on the assignment for teaching Economics 101.

13 October, 1942

On Monday, October 5, the Chairman of the Department brought to my notice a personal disagreement between himself and Mr. Haberler concerning the assignment for teaching Economics 101, and asked that I serve as Chairman of a Special Committee to “arbitrate” in the case, and report before the meeting of Economics 101 on Wednesday the 7th. I was instructed to associate with myself such members of the Department as I saw fit in making up the Committee. I asked Mr. Burbank, formerly Chairmen of the Department, to be a member, and also four other members of the Department who have at present no active part in the teaching of economic theory and whose views on the matter at issue were unknown to me. One of these individuals was unable to serve because of his inability to meet with the Committee at any time available for meeting within the interval during which action had to be taken. The Committee, therefore, was made up as follows: Crum, Chairman, Black, Burbank, Dunlop, and Usher.

The Committee met and considered to the best of its ability all aspects of the case, and herewith reports certain recommendations to the Department for such action as it wishes to take. The Chairman of the Committee reported on Tuesday afternoon the 6th to Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler the findings of the Committee in outline form because the Chairman thought that the two individuals concerned might have agreed to abide by the finding of the “arbitration” and might be willing to put the findings into effect immediately. The Chairman of the Committee did, however, report to both participants in the controversy that he did not regard the Committee as being clothed with any conclusive authority and that unless the participants in the controversy both accepted the findings of the Committee those findings would have to go to the Department as recommendations and would be subject to such action as the Department saw fit to take.

Statement of the issues.

Course Economics 101 is announced in the spring issue of the current Courses of Instruction pamphlet as to be given jointly Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler, and I am informed that they had during the summer agreed among themselves that, in case the course was given jointly, Mr. Haberler would give the course during the first half year and Mr. Chamberlin during the second. Late in the week in which instruction of the present half year began Mr. Chamberlin indicated to Mr. Haberler that he thought the entire course should be given by Mr. Chamberlin. Mr. Haberler objected to any such change and insisted that he continue to give the course during the first half year. The issue, accordingly, was whether the conduct of the course should go forward on the basis of joint responsibility of Mr. Haberler in the first half year and Mr. Chamberlin in the second half year, or should be restored to the basis prevailing for several years in which Chamberlin gave the full course.

History of the case.

After the retirement of Professor Taussig, Course 101 (formerly called Course 11) was given for several years by Mr. Schumpeter by an arrangement which was understood to be provisional and subject to later change. At the end of this interim, after extended consideration of the needs and purposes of the Department with respect to the teaching of the several courses in economic theory, the Department took specific action directing Mr. Chamberlin to teach Course 101. At the same time arrangements were agreed upon by which several other specialists in economic theory in the staff of the Department participated in the instruction in economic theory. Presently the enrolmont in Course 101 became so large that its conduct as a single course by the discussion method became difficult; and, without specific vote of the Department, the course was divided into two sections, with one conducted by Mr. Chamberlin and Mr. Taylor in 1940-41 and by Mr. Chamberlin and Mr. Leontief in 1941-42, the other by Mr. Haberler and Mr. Chamberlin in both years.

With the decline in enrolment which has occurred, no occasion for such splitting of the course persists, and it has long been forseen that Economics 101 would be conducted as a single section during the present year. In recognition of this, an arrangement was made, without specific action by Department vote, to announce Economics 101 for the present year as to be given jointly by Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler. At the time this arrangement was made the expectation was that Mr. Chamberlin would be giving during the first half year Economics 1a and Economics 102b and that he should not be called upon to carry the additional instruction involved in teaching Economics 101 during the first term.

The initial enrolment in Economics 102b was so small that the course has been withdrawn from the first term offering, and although it is announced for the second term doubt remains whether the enrolment will be sufficient even then to warrant giving it. In recent months, various changes in personnel of the Department and the necessity of distributing the teaching and other load in all branches of the Department work as fairly and efficiently as possible have resulted in various changes in the assignments of particular officers to particular duties. In these circumstances it became possible for Mr. Chamberlin to resume during the first term instruction in Economics 101 without making his course load excessive.

In connection with the controversy, the Chairman of the Committee had a conversation with Mr. Chamberlin in which the latter presented his own views concerning the history of the case and the points at issue. Mr. Haberler submitted a written statement to the Chairman of the Committee setting forth his ideas on the matter. Those items were brought to the attention of the Committee by its Chairman. Following the meeting of the Committee, Mr. Chamberlin also submitted a written statement to the Chairman of the Committee. Either or both of the written statements will be laid before the Department on request.

Meeting of the Committee.

The Committee met on Tuesday, October 6. The Chairman gave the Committee a history of the case and a summary of the information available bearing upon the point at issue. The Chairman also informed the Committee that he did not understand that the Committee had any conclusive powers and would be obliged to report its findings in the form of recommendations to the Department.

The Chairmen specifically urged the Committee, therefore, in proceeding toward its findings to consider the wisdom of bringing in findings which, in its opinion, would probably be supported by the Department. The Chairman reminded the Committee that adequate treatment of the particular matter at issue might well involve (a) recommendations by the Committee concerning certain related matters affecting other courses; and (b) recommendations by the committee concerning certain longer run matters relating to the general question of our offering in economic theory. The Chairman discussed with the Committee certain basic principles bearing upon the case, and received the concurrence of all the members of the Committee in these principles. They are outlined below.

The Committee then proceeded to discuss the matter at issue and various related matters. Discussion by the members of the Committee was free and active and the Chairman made a special effort to call forth the views of each member of the Committee. After this discussion the Committee agreed upon a set of recommendations to be made to the Department, and to be reported to Messrs. Chamberlin and Haberler in the hope they would accept the findings. The agreement of the Committee was unanimous. Those recommendations are presented below.

Basic principles.

In approaching a set of findings with respect to the issues raised the Committee had in mind a series of basic principles in which members of the Committee concurred. Those are as follows:

(a) Because of its compressed personnel in wartime and because of the extraordinary wartime adjustments needed in its work: the Department has a peculiarly difficult task of assigning functions to its various officers with a view to getting the essential work of the Department done with such distribution of the burden as will be primarily efficient from the point of view of the Department and secondarily fair from the point of view of the individuals.

(b) Even in peacetime the needs of the Department and the objective of securing maximum efficiency in the performance of Department work transcend the interests and preferences of individual officers. Although in peacetime many concessions can be made with a view to accommodating the preferences and interests of individual officers and with a view to protecting the rights or supposed rights of individual officers, the Department would in general not recognize that such individual interests can overrule the general interest of the Department. In wartime this condition is even more emphatically true, and in such time the individual preferences and interests may be obliged to give way to the general interest of the Department more frequently and more extensively than in normal times. Throughout the duration of the war many if not all of the officers of this Department will be doing work which they prefer not to do and will be denied the opportunity to do work which they would like to do. Without such sacrifices the essential work of the University cannot be effectively handled in wartime.

(c) The Department and the University cannot afford to allow the general interest to be sacrificed because of informal commitments or quasi agreements made among individual officers when such agreements fail to take adequate account of the general interest of the Department, even though those who made the agreements acted in good faith. That agreements thus made may from time to time have to be set aside in the interest of the Department, and that such setting aside may involve some sacrifice by one or more individuals involved must be accepted as one of the costs of giving primary importance to the general interest of the Department. Ordinarily it is to be expected that individuals will refrain from making arrangements for which they have no power under the law of the Department; but ever if such arrangements are entered into under a grant of power, the individuals concerned must recognize that the Department itself has a clear right to final determination at one of its meetings.

(d) To the best knowledge of the Committee, the purpose of the Department with respect to the assignment of instruction in Course 101 remains as it was last officially determined by Department vote several years ago, namely, that Course 101 should be given by Mr. Chamberlin.

(e) Under the stress of war the Department may be obliged to sacrifice in part some branches of its work, and the Committee believes that graduate instruction will probably need to be sacrificed before instruction in undergraduate courses, tutorial instruction, and other Department work directed toward the teaching of undergraduates. A policy which exposes graduate instruction to the principal sacrifices is also likely to result in the most frequent disregard of personal preferences and even of supposed rights of individual officers; but presumably the Department would nevertheless feel that such a policy must be adopted and maintained.

Recommendations to the Department.

After considering the facts laid before it in connection with the matters at issue and in the light of its own agreement on basic principles, the Committee agreed unanimously to present the following recommendations to the Department at its meeting on Tuesday, October 13, and to report these recommendations at once to the parties in the controversy:

(a) That during the present year Mr. Chamberlin be assigned to conduct the entire Course 101.

(b) That, in view of chancing conditions which may mean that the Department’s present total offering in economic theory covering the entire range of courses in that field does not most satisfactorily meet the needs of instruction in that field, the Department promptly and earnestly reconsider the total offering with a view to making such changes as may be necessary in the next announcement of courses. The Committee makes no recommendation as to how the reconsideration should be conducted, whether by the appointment of a committee or by general Department discussion or by a combination. It also makes no specific recommendation as to any changes in the present offerings of courses, but merely notices that such a general reconsideration may well cover the possibility that Mr. Haberler might be asked to give work in economic theory.

(c) The Committee recommends that the Department consider asking Mr. Haberler to take charge of an additional half course during the present academic year, with a view to replacing the first half of Course 101 in rounding out his teaching assignment. The Committee specifically recommends that Course 18b be considered as one of the possibilities for additional instruction by Mr. Haberler; and makes this recommendation because on the one hand the Committee feels that the hurried arrangement by which that course was assigned jointly to four officers won Mr. Harris withdrew may have been ill-advised in that use of too numerous instructors in such a course may damage the continuity from the point of view of the student; and on the other hand the Committee believes that Mr. Haberler’s areas of specialization would enable him to handle this particular course very effectively.

(d) The Committee recommends that the Department consider carefully the question whether in determining that the enrolment in a course is so small that the course should be withdraw only those enrolled for credit should be counted, or whether in addition the auditors should be counted (this question was raised before the Committee in connection with Course 102b in which the first term enrolment was two members for credit plus five others. Course 102b has been withdrawn from the first term offering, but will be announced again for the second term, and the question posed above may at that time again be raised).

W. L. Crumm

___________________________

Thus spake the Dean

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

Paul Herman Buck, Dean
Henry Chauncey, Assistant to the Dean
Jeffries Wyman, Jr. Assistant Dean

5 University Hall

January 12, 1943

To the Senior Members of the Department of Economics:

After considerable contemplation of the issue which has arisen between Professors Chamberlin and Haberler and which I have undertaken to arbitrate, I find I am in complete accord with the Report of a Special Committee on the assignment for teaching Economics 101, dated October 13, 1942. I commend especially as sound, the basic principles outlined on page 3 of that report and I accept as my official decision the recommendations to the Department given on page 4 of that report.

Frankly, it seems to me most unfortunate that the issue should have descended into personalities. The department should be prepared to face the large problems of policy which I have outlined in a letter to your Chairman which, I trust, will be read at your meeting tonight. Obviously those problems will not be solved intelligently and equitably if they are not approached with a vision directed to the loyalties of one’s subject and university rather than to self. Is it asking too much to relegate the personal aspects of this issue to oblivion?

It seems to me very important so to do. I have taken a great deal of pride in the distinction of the Department of Economics at Harvard and I have spoken in many circles boastfully of having what seems to me one of the very few remaining great departments of economics in the world. Certainly the responsibility of keeping that department great and of enabling it to develop continuing leadership should be the major loyalty to which every other consideration is subordinate. The awareness of this responsibility and the opportunities it presents will preoccupy your time and energies. Let me conclude by saying that I have always had and retain confidence in the intelligence, initiative, devotion. and cooperative spirit of your membership. I write this with all the more assurance because I know so many of you intimately and appreciate from personal friendship the qualities I have mentioned.

Very truly yours,
[signed]
Paul H. Buck

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 25. Folder “Graduate Instruction in Theory. Economics 101. 1942-43.

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Economics Programs Harvard

Harvard. Meeting of the Visiting Committee with the Economics Department. January 1944

 

Maybe attending to the routine business of the Harvard economics department was seen as a welcome respite amidst the Sturm und Drang of the Second World War. Maybe the consensus was simply shared that the transistory shock of the war would soon be over and it was time to worry again about the core missions of Harvard and its economics department. In any event, the following report outlines a “Research Program for the Department of Economics” presented to the visiting committee by the chair of the department’s Committee on Research Program, Professor John D. Black. 

____________________________

Visiting Committee Reports available at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror

Visiting Committee Report 1915

Visiting Committee Report 1974

____________________________

Meeting of the Visiting Committee of the Department of Economics with the Department, on Monday, January 10, 1944.

The Visiting Committee of the Department of Economics met with the Department at seven o’clock on Monday, January 10, 1944, at the Harvard Club in Boston. There were present for the Visiting Committee: Roger N. Baldwin, Albert F. Bigelow, Paul M. Herzog, George Rublee (chairman), Charles E. Spencer, and Orrin G. Wood. For the Department: John D. Black, H. H. Burbank, W. L. Crum, John T. Dunlop, Edwin Frickey, Seymour E. Harris, Arthur E. Monroe, Wassily Leontief, Abbott P. Usher, John H. Williams, and Edwin B. Wilson. Mr. Rublee presided.

 

Mr. Rublee called on Professor Burbank, the chairman of the Department of Economics, to make an opening statement.

Professor Burbank said that in previous years we had at these dinners talked about our teaching difficulties, especially those connected with the junior staff. Last year we discussed Professor Slichter’s experiment with the labor-union representatives. This year the Department had suggested to Mr. Rublee that we consider our most pressing problem of the present, as well as the immediate and long-run future. Fundamentally, this problem is concerned with the Department’s research. We must have a vigorous and effective program of research if we are to have a dominant Department of Economic in the University or, indeed, if the University itself is to maintain its high standing. The Department of Economics has recently appointed a Committee on Research Program. Professor Black is the chairman of this committee.

Professor Black then presented the following report:

RESEARCH PROGRAM FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

A department of economics in a large university has three functions to perform:

  1. To teach and train students,
  2. To contribute to an understanding of the current problems of private enterprise and public affairs,
  3. To help develop the science of economics.

In a small college a good job of teaching is about all that can be expected of a department of economics. In a great university the second and third functions are as important as the first.

Fortunately those three functions not only need not interfere with each other, but in a large university can be performed in such a way that each strengthens the other. This does not mean that all can be performed in the same time, but rather that each is better done if the other two are also being strongly carried. As a matter of fact, however, much time and energy is saved if all three are combined. Thus what is learned from the study of current problems can be used very effectively in the classroom and at the same time furnishes needed and valuable inductive material for the development of economic science. One’s teaching, in turn, especially one’s graduate instruction, is a constant source of ideas and suggestions to be developed in research. Only, therefore, if the staff of a department of economics is large enough and well enough financed so that it can work along all three of these lines, is it able to yield a large return upon the investment in it. Only if thus set up and thus functioning is it able to realize the possible economies of combination of these functions.

The Department of Economics of Harvard University has been performing on all of these fronts ever since it was organized. But in the period while the members of this committee have been associated with it, it has by no means measured up to its opportunities on the last two of them, and what is more important, unless some action is taken in the near future, it will miss out still more on its opportunities after the war. It will not only do less well the job it has been trying to do, for reasons to be indicated presently, but also will not reach out and encompass the larger needs of the years ahead. Needless to state, society and the nation are going to be faced with major tasks of adjustment in the years just ahead and over the next decade or two and likewise breath-taking possibilities for social advancement. So important is the role of economies in these developments that if the Department of Economies of Harvard University does not contribute its part to them, this alone will almost be enough to shrink Harvard University in toto into a second- rate institution. This, therefore, is a moment for stock-taking and laying out plans.

It is not part of the assignment of this committee to consider the teaching function of the Department. But some reference must be made to it for the reasons just given. the present course offerings and methods of instruction are not well fitted to the present and the impending future. The function of teaching in a field like ours is primarily to train students to apply economics, and the methods of economic analysis, to the situations which confront them after they leave college. For Harvard undergraduates, most of these situations are situations in private enterprise, although having important public relations. A limited proportion are assignments in the public service itself. The program of teaching needs to be organized in anticipation of the kinds of jobs, mostly private, that the graduates of Harvard University get to do. The graduate teaching program needs to envisage e wide range of working assignments, a large fraction of them in the public service. Training teachers of economics is only one of the functions of graduate teaching. Because the teaching is not organized as needed, there are some large gaps in the present program, and these gaps, it will appear presently, coincide with gaps in the research activities of the department.

The other two functions, contributing directly to an understanding of current situations, and developing economic science, are orginarily considered as research. There is considerably more to the first of these than just research, but since good research is basic to it, we will here consider them both as research and treat them under one head from this point on.

The deficiencies in the research activities of the Department of Economics, considered especially from the standpoint of the postwar can be designated under the following heads:

  1. Not enough research is being done
  2. There are gaps in it
  3. Some of it is not of enough significance.

The reasons for these deficiencies are as follows:

  1. Lack of resources to carry on the needed volume of research.
  2. This includes resources in research personnel as well as in the expenses of clerical assistants, field study, publication, and the like.
  3. Inadequate staff, or none at all, in some important fields.
  4. Very little in the way of leadership. Staff not organized in such a way as to promote research.

Let us now consider briefly these four reasons. When an economist does not have financial resources with which to do significant research, he may put in his spare energy on library work on the writings of his predecessors, the Congressional Record, and the like. For this he needs only someone to type his manuscript. If in addition, he has a little money to hire a computer, he may go to work on the census records and other official statistics. Those two descriptions about cover all the research now being done by the Harvard Department of Economics as such.

Lacking funds for anything more, two developments have followed. First, a goodly number of the staff members have taken on research or related assignments with other agencies. Merely to list these agencies tells the story. (We are purposely omitting the wartime agencies), the Treasury Department, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Resources Planning Board, the Food and Nutrition Board, the Bureau of Economic Research, the League of Nations, the Twentieth Century Fund, the National Planning Association, the National Industrial Conference Board, etc. While most of those assignments are important, to have as many of them disorganizes the research and teaching of the Department. Also the Department as such does not get adequate recognition for work done under other auspices. Finally, there is great need for having research done that is largely independent of government agencies. This point cannot be too strongly emphasized.

The second development has been that several members of the Department have started projects that they have not been able to complete thus far. They have learned by sad experience that they cannot swing ambitious projects without the help of trained younger associates who can direct the detail of the analysis and help with the writing. As a result, a number of important projects are now left suspended.

If the Department is to have a vigorous research program of its own, there must be funds with which to employ a dozen or two of these younger research associates, as well as funds for computers, clerical help, drafting, travel and field study.

The Committee is also disposed to think that a clearer recognition should be given to research duties in the total program of the Department. It would suggest that consideration be given to a plan which would differentiate teaching loads according to research carried. Staff members who do very little research, because not inclined that way, or having small capacity for it, would handle more classes under such a plan.

The nature of the gaps in the present program may be judged from a following incomplete survey of fields of research and teaching and the needs of each.

  1. Money and credit. Staff ample, but research associates, clerical and other help much needed. High time that a research showing be made.
  2. Business cycles. Staff ample. Funds to continue the program that was under way before the war.
  3. International economic relationship. Staff probably not entirely adequate and great need of developing a well-rounded research program suited to the postwar world. This program should include work on Inter-American relationships, development of resources of Latin America, international food supply and distribution and related population problems. Research associates and other financial help.
  4. Public finance. Staff ample. Research associates and other help needed.
  5. Economic history. A teaching as well as research associate needed. One professor now working alone in the field.
  6. Labor and industrial relations. The principle problem is to develop a workable program for using the research funds now available.
  7. Agriculture. A teaching associate needed, and probably two research associates with necessary supplementary funds.
  8. Commodity distribution. Needs complete staffing. An undergraduate and a graduate course are now being given on a makeshift basis. No research under way.
  9. Production economics. Courses now bracketed. Needs complete staffing.
  10. Forestry economies. A slight beginning has been made on a program in this field in collaboration with the Harvard Forest. An opportunity for an important contribution here. Needs a man to develop teaching and research with such financial support as required.
  11. Concerning the several other present fields of teaching and research in the Department, no statement is being made at this time.

The present research funds available for the Department are:

  1. A share with three other departments in the remnants of grant that will expire in June 1946. (About $40,000 left, most of which must be reserved for publication expenses.)
  2. Remnants of three other small grants, totaling about $6000, for special projects.
  3. The Wertheim fund, yielding about $3000 a year, for research in industrial relations, to be shared with other divisions of the University.

The committee suggests as a method of approach to the situation outlined that the Department set up a committee to draft a research program for the Department, and another one to develop a procedure for securing the necessary support for the program.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Professor Black added that in the natural sciences the idea of large laboratories is well established. In Economics also we need extensive laboratories and personnel therefor. Further, we need funds for field workers and for traveling expenses.

Mr. Bigelow asked whether there were any project being worked on in the School of Public Administration which could be coordinated with the research of the Economics Department. Professor Black answered that the idea of combining has already been carried as far as possible. The School of Public Administration funds are sufficient only to take care of the assembling of materials and other routine connected with the seminars.

Mr. Baldwin asked what the Department did with its research funds in the past when such funds were available. Professor Black answered that we made small grants to individual professors to help them finish projects in which they were engaged. These grants covered such activities as preliminary research, computing, and typing, but in general not much was available for field work or for traveling. Some eight or ten books have been published as a result of these projects. The publication of these books, as well as the research behind them, depended largely on research grants. Our research funds are now almost exhausted; we have very little money available for the future.

Professor Usher pointed out that in these earlier grants the modes and procedures were laid down by the donors. The Department did not have a free hand in organizing and planning research.

Mr. Baldwin asked whether the Economics Department today has a claim for research funds superior to that of other departments. Professor Burbank urged that a very strong case can be made out for such a position.

Professor Wilson observed that in days gone by great emphasis was laid on “inter-disciplinary” research. A second-rate “interdisciplinary” project would be given preference over a first-rate piece of restricted research. Professor Wilson further remarked that the research programs of the natural sciences were well set up thirty or forty years ago. Our social sciences, on the other hand, were for a long time treated as mere teaching departments. The movement away from this stand received a great impetus from an article by the late Professor Charles J. Bullock, in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for June 1915. This article called attention to the need of more generous and systematic provision for economic research. Our research program for Economics needs to be extended to a scale comparable with that of the natural sciences—unless, indeed, the United States government is to handle all the economic research in this country!

There was some discussion regarding the relation of university research in Economics to governmental research. Professor Usher pointed out that university research can be the basis for developing techniques of analysis which government bureaus can later put into “mass production.” Mr. Bigelow suggested that the development of techniques is more difficult in the social sciences than in the natural sciences. Professor Leontief predicted that the Economies Department’s research will set the direction for larger-scale governmental or “foundation” research, and emphasized that independent research, especially in its earlier stages, can never be reproduced in the “rough and tumble” conditions of governmental work. Dean Williams supported this view: a situation has been developing for some time—not just in connection with the War emergency—in which men are pulled out of university work to become mere administrators, to “run” projects; furthermore, working under governmental supervision may mean a certain loss of independence of thought, for consciously or unconsciously a men may be affected by considerations of “official policy.” Dr. Dunlop declared that you simply cannot do fundamental research under governmental auspices, there are always too many pressing current problems.

Mr. Herzog urged that the Department’s next step is to present cogent arguments to support its contentions regarding research needs. In this connection, it will be quite important to show people what contributions the Department has made in the past with the research grants allotted to it—what, for example, has resulted for practical use of the Government. Professor Burbank responded that we might take as an example the history of the statistical work on the Balance of International Payments. At the end of the last war the government and business men were vitally interested in this subject. Dean Williams was a pioneer in the field. Dean Williams briefly outlined the record. He began with an examination of the balance of payments for Argentina. Then, under the auspices of the Harvard Economics Society he, together with Professor Bullock and Mr. Tucker, made and presented a historical study of the Balance of Payments of the United States from 1789 to 1920. He kept this study up to date for several years and then turned it over to the Department of Commerce, working with them for a transition period of one year. The Department of Commerce has subsequently carried on the study currently.

As a suggestion regarding further possibilities of this sort, Professor Burbank referred to the problems connected with the incidence of taxation; these are most certainly current issues of the utmost importance. The country needs evidence for the formulation of governmental policy. We have in the Department a young man of high ability who has made a start on the investigation of these problems. We have no funds to help him, not even money for clerical and mechanical assistance.

Professor Burbank indicated that the Department would work a report along the lines of Mr. Herzog’s suggestion.

Mr. Wood urged that the Department visualize its projects and lay them out fully, with an indication of minimum and maximum amounts of money needed. Very little will be gained by talking in generalizations; the program must be concrete. Incidentally, with the Federal tax situation as it is, the present is a propitious time to obtain money for research—with reference both to individuals and to corporations.

Mr. Rublee raised question as to the exact significance of the title “Research Associate.” Professor Black answered that we have something in mind beyond a mere statistical clerk. Between the man in charge of a project and those doing the mechanical work, we need trained young economists who can assume the burden of direct supervision and also can help in writing up the results. Other Research Associates are needed to do traveling and field work. Professor Leontief suggested that the appointment of Research Associates is important for still another reason. Many of the young men thus appointed will become leaders in the economic developments of the future. The experience gained on our projects will be extremely valuable to them.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mr. Rublee asked Dr. Dunlop to say a few words about the progress of the trade-union experiment which was described by Professor Slichter in this meeting last year. Dr. Dunlop said that this year we have gone ahead with the program, although of necessity on a reduced scale because of man power shortage in the various unions. We have six union representatives who, on the whole, are superior to the group we had last year. We have continued the development of techniques of instruction and we have widened our range of contacts with the unions. The unions are supporting the program and we are establishing new connections with certain important unions. In spite of the fact that the teaching staff has been somewhat depleted and we have had to furnish instruction on the basis of special arrangements, we feel that the year has been decidedly profitable and worth while, both for the union representatives and for us.

Mr. Herzog urged that by all means the work should continue, even though it had to be on a reduced scale. It is much easier to keep on with a going concern than to start afresh. He confirmed Dr. Dunlop’s impressions as to the high quality of the union personnel. He also reported the sincere testimony of a leading member of the labor-union group that the work at Harvard was felt to be highly worth while—to be a vital and crucial experience.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The meeting closed with general expressions of appreciation for Mr. Rublee’s work as chairman of the visiting Committee during the past few years and of the deep indebtedness which the Department feels to him for this work.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961 (UAV 349.11). Box 25. Folder: “Visiting Committee Correspondence, 1943-45.”

Image Source: Cropped image of  John D. Black (1938). Harvard Library, Digital Collections.

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Economics Programs Harvard Teaching Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Department Reports to the Dean, 1941-1946

This post adds the Chairman’s annual reports on the Harvard Economics Department for the World War II years to the series:

Department of Economics Reports to the Dean of Harvard, 1932-1941

More about Harvard during WWII: Coreydon Ireland, “Harvard Goes to War,” The Harvard Gazette (November 10, 2011).

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1941-42

October 15, 1942

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith a report on the work of the Department of Economics covering the past year.

The only honor conferred upon a member of the Department during this period has been the election of Professor Leontief to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Several books have been published by members of the Department, including Professor Harris’s two major works (appearing, I believe, not more than a month apart), The Economics of American Defense and Economics of Social Security; Professor Black’s Parity, Parity, Parity; Professor Hansen’s Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles; and Professor Haberler’s Consumer Credit and Economic Fluctuations. Professor Haberler’s Prosperity and Depression has also gone through a third edition. Professor Crum was co-author of Fiscal Planning for Total War. The list of articles, pamphlets, reviews, and other items seems unusually long. Professor Hansen has listed thirteen items, Professor Slichter eight, and Professor Black six. The Harvard Economic Studies has expanded from 70 to 72 volumes during the year.

The contribution of the Department to the war effort has been substantial. Professor Mason continues on leave of absence with the Office of Strategic Services, and Professor Harris has recently been granted full time leave to serve as Director of the Division of Export-Import Price Control in the Office of Price Administration. Among those in the Department who are more or less active as Consultants or in other part time war activities are Professors Black, Crum, Hansen, Leontief, and Slichter, and Dr. Butters. Numerous younger men have, of course, entered the war services or have declined possible reappointment at Harvard in order to accept administrative and research positions in Washington.

The problem of maintaining instructional standards has, of course, been aggravated by the war. Fortunately, exceptions to the two-thirds rule have been granted in many cases; otherwise it would have been literally impossible in the face of competing wartime opportunities to recruit a staff of younger men at all. Out of the present staff of fifteen teaching fellows eleven are on more than two-thirds time, and almost without exception these men would not have been available (that is, not even at two-thirds time) if exceptions to the rule had not been made. The average experience of the Economics A staff has improved owing to a policy of putting more experienced men into Economics A and breaking in new men either in tutorial work or in the Statistics and Accounting courses. 36% of concentrators in Economics are tutored by new men this year; 60% by men of one year or less experience. The very sizeable staff in Statistics and Accounting is made up almost entirely of new appointees.

In view of the desperate need for trained economists in the expanding activities of the United States Government, the Department has announced for the current year an Undergraduate Training Program in Economics for Government Service which has attracted a substantial enrolment. The program has been opened to non-honors as well as to honors candidates. It has been carefully designed to give advanced training of a type which will enable them to undertake with a minimum of delay and adaptation administrative and research positions in the government service. It includes, in addition to a substantial corps of standard courses in Economics, three new courses, namely, Economics 7a and 7b, Research in Market Organization, Commodity Distribution, and Prices; Economics 19a, Research in Money and Finance; and Economics 22b, Government Statistics. One striking indication of the merits of this program might appear in the fact that a program of training announced by the Department of Government seems to consist essentially in normal concentration Government plus an election from these new courses in Economics.

Sincerely yours,

E. H. Chamberlin

Dean Paul H. Buck

_______________________

1942-43

October 21, 1943

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith the report on the work of the Department of Economics for the academic year.

The war effort has continued to deplete our staff. Since the opening of the academic year Professors Chamberlin and Haberler and Dr. Dunlop have been granted leave of absence to undertake work in war agencies in Washington. However, Professor Crum resumes his work with the Department after leave of absence from the University to conduct an investigation on Fiscal Planning for the National Bureau of Economic Research of which he is currently the Chairman. Also Associate Professor Seymour Harris has returned to the University after a year and a half of service with the Office of Price Administration where he served as Director of the Office of Import-Export Price Control. A very small fraction of the once large junior staff now remains. By the end of the coming term it is expected that not more than four Annual Instructors will be active in instruction.

The incidence of war activities on research and publication has been two-fold. In some instances long-time research projects have been put aside, but concurrently much effort has been applied to projects concerned with war and post-war problems. Having in mind the inevitable interruptions of the war period, it is gratifying to be able to report that the books, scientific articles, addresses and reports have been in about the same number as the average of the immediately preceding years.

Of the major publications during the year the following should be mentioned:

J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy

P. M. Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development

Edwin Frickey, Economic Fluctuations in the United States: a Systematic Analysis of Long-Run Trends and Business Cycles, 1866-1914

S. E. Harris, Economics of America at War

S. E. Harris, Editor, Postwar Economic Problems

A. P. Usher, The Early History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe has just left the press.

J. T. Dunlop, Cost Behavior and Price Policy

It is also indicative of the demands of war activities that some forty or fifty articles directly related to the war and post-war economy have been published by members of the Department. In addition numerous reports have been issued to or under the auspices of various war agencies such as Professor Harris, “O.P.A. Manual of Price Control” and his “Reports on Anti-Inflationary Programs in South America,” and Professor Crum’s memorandum on Fiscal Planning for Reconstruction and Peace for the National Bureau of Economic Research. The Quarterly Journal of Economics has continued successfully through another year, bringing the total volumes of this publication to 57. The Review of Economic Statistics now in its 25th volume is continuing under the editorship of Professor Harris. The Harvard Economic Studies is now publishing its 75th volume.

The rapid reduction in the numbers of the teaching staff has been met in part by the increased activity of those remaining. With the very active cooperation of the members of the staff we have been able to offer a reasonably full and well balanced program of instruction. On the graduate level flexibility of instruction has been more necessary than in previous years because of the cosmopolitan group now in attendance –not less than a dozen different nationalities are represented. This flexibility is being achieved largely by increased individual supervision and instruction.

The sharp decline in the undergraduate body together with the presence of a small but able and experienced staff of teachers has made possible a degree of experimentation in the introductory course in Economics which should lead to significant changes in the conduct of this course in the post-war period. Also at the present time some attention is being given to a question which has been in the minds of a number of members of the staff for some year—the so-called quiz section. It has been a quite common practice, in the conduct of middle group courses to provide for two lectures and one section meeting each week. On occasion five lectures are followed by the section meeting. For many years the usefulness of the section meeting has been in question. It is to be admitted that it does relieve the instructor of a lecture, but whether or not it provides equivalent or better instruction is debatable. At the present time Professor Crum and Dr. Smith are conducting a controlled experiment in the section meetings connected with their offering Government Control of Industry and Public Utilities. In the course time they will report their findings to the Department.

At this point I should like to mention the interesting and valuable “experiment” which Professor Slichter has called The Trade Union Fellowship Project. I am enclosing Professor Slichter’s report on this project which, I believe, you will find of interest. We regard the experiment as not only highly successful from both the point of view of the University and the Unions, but the experience furnishes a good deal of evidence regarding educational processes which may prove to be highly significant.

Very sincerely yours,

H. H. Burbank

_______________________

1943-44

October 13, 1944

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith a brief report on the work of the Department of Economies for the academic year.

In the main, this report is a continuation of the report sent to you a year ago. In spite of the multifarious wartime activities of the member of the staff, the Department has maintained a well balanced offering of courses on both the undergraduate and graduate level. Course elections have continued to be surprisingly large, but I believe that the decline we have been expecting will actually begin with the Winter Term. The large proportion of foreign students on the graduate level, together with our inability to give complete offerings each Term, has necessitated an unusual amount of individual instruction.

Professors Mason and Chamberlin and Drs. Sweezy and Dunlop were on leave for the entire year. Professor Haberler resumed his work with us for the Summer Term.

I can repeat from my report of last year that the incidence of war activities on research and publication has been twofold. Most of our long time research projects have been put aside, but currently many projects concerned with war and postwar problems have been initiated and some of them completed. Although publication has been diminished by war activities, it is still gratifying to be able to report that the books, scientific articles, addresses, and reports—although not in quite the same quantity as in the prewar years—have nevertheless appeared in substantial numbers. Progress on the publication of books has shown a more definite interruption, but four books have been published during the year and not less than six books are now either actually in the press or are nearing form for publication. The books published during the year were:

J. D. Black, Food Enough

A. H. Hansen, (with H. S. Perloff), State and Local Finance in the National Economy

S. H. Slichter, Present Savings and Postwar Markets

J. H. Williams, Postwar Monetary Plans and Other Essays

Both of our periodicals — the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Statistics — have been able to continue publication without interruption and have been able to maintain their high standards. The difficulties encountered by scientific periodicals during these years are very real. One other volume has been added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

In my last report I mentioned the experimentation, particularly in the Introductory course, which had been initiated. I am very happy to be able to report that this experimentation has continued through another year with very gratifying results. A very interesting problem is involved in the attempt to present adequately the introductory material in Economies. Most of us who have been intimately concerned with the problem believe that a single course can serve both for those who will concentrate in Economics and for those whose main, interest lie elsewhere. The content of such a course, and the effective presentation of the material, is now being studied.

I might add here—because fundamentally it is experimentation in methods and relationships—that the Trade Union Fellowship Project has been conducted successfully for another year. At various times I have sort you Professor Slichter’s reports on these projects. We believe that a very interesting and productive educational experiment is being carried on with the Trade Union men.

Also in the sane connection I should like to record that during the last year we were presented with a variety of problems by the numerous South American students who came to us on the graduate level.We gave these students particular attention. By the end of the year we had learned that it would be highly profitable to develop for such students some specialized instruction which would overcome the difficulties under which all of them labored in their first term or two of residence. Their educational background, following European patterns, is such that it is necessary for us to present to them in concentrated form certain types of qualitative and quantitative analysis with which they are unfamiliar and which is not now offered on the graduate level.

The members of the Department have continued to discuss and to arrive at decisions regarding course instruction in the postwar years. In sone respects, we will strengthen the instruction offered mainly for the specialist in Economics, but we are more concerned with broader offerings which will prove to be desirable, and we hope necessary, for the college at large. Our permanent staff is large and versatile. We hope to be able to utilize to the full the resources we possess. In connection with the enrichment of our teaching, we expect to utilize more effectively in our instruction the material forthcoming from a number of proposed seminars.

It seems unnecessary to mention in detail the wartime activities of our staff members. Practically every member of the staff is actively engaged in some type of war activity. Without exception, each officer is utilizing his special aptitudes and training in connection with the various Federal agencies concerned with economic problems.

Very sincerely,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck
University Hall 5
Cambridge, Massachusetts

_______________________

1944-45

October 24, 1945

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith a brief report on the Department of Economics for the last year.

As in the preceding war years, the Department has been able to present a very respectable offering of courses, both on the graduate and undergraduate level. The number of graduate students continued to be unexpectedly large, necessitating a rather more elaborate course offering for them than we had planned. To a somewhat larger extent than in the two preceding years the students enrolled represent such a diverse background of training and experience that sone new types of instruction were involved. Some seventeen nationalities were represented. We are inclined to believe that this is not altogether a temporary and war situation. Even after the European universities are reestablished, we expect to draw many students with foreign background and training. If this expectation is fulfilled, our wartime experience with foreign students will have been of considerable value.

Even before the war the Department was concerned with the reorganization of its instruction. Our discussions continued throughout the year materializing in a curriculum in theoretical and applied Economics which tends to utilize to the full the unusual capacities of the members of the staff. Our present position, however, is by no means definitive. We have always relied heavily upon the stimulating intellectual activities of the younger members of the staff. When recruitment is again possible we expect to strengthen our position markedly through the cooperation of these younger members.

The reorganization of instruction has been concerned mainly with the content and coverage of courses, but in some cases it has dealt with the actual methods of classroom instruction. The introductory course has been completely recast, involving new types of material and new methods of presentation. The full effects of these changes will have to wait upon the enlargement of our junior staff. Also, some of our plans involving quantitative instruction necessarily are held in abeyance until the questions regarding a statistical laboratory have been settled.

The war effort of many officers of the Department continued through the year. Professor Mason and Drs. Sweezy and Dunlop were on leave from the University devoting their entire time to their respective wartime assignments. Professor Chamberlin returned to Cambridge in February from his post with the office of Strategic Services. Other members of the Department, particularly Professors Hansen, Slichter, Harris, Leontief and Black, while meeting their University obligations also served in various capacities with wartime agencies.

The incidence of this wartime service upon research and publishing activities of the group was marked. Both books and articles were fewer in number than in the normal year and in the main reflected the particular war activities of the authors. However, in all some

34 articles and 7 books were published. It should be noted that at least three volumes which the authors had expected to complete in the last year are now being prepared for the press.

The difficulties involved in the publication of scientific journals have been great but not insurmountable. We have been able to continue the publication of the Quarterly Journal of Economies and the Review of Economic Statistics without reduction in size and without omission of numbers. In the Harvard Economic Series [rest of line blank] that some four volumes either in the hands of the press or the Department were ready for publication but because of the war restrictions were not actually published.

Latterly the Department has been concerned with the vexing problems of the definition of objectives of students on the graduate level and the adjustment of these objectives to the various higher degrees offered. We are concerned with the administration not only of the Ph.D. degree in Business Economies, the Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government, and in part with the Ph.D. in Public Administration which may be conferred through the Littauer School of Public Administration. The problems involved in defining and administering each of these degrees will receive continued attention.

Although no honorary degrees have been reported by members of the staff, Professor E. H. Chamberlin was elected Membre Correspondent de L’Institut de Science Économique Appliquée, May 1945, and Professor S. E. Harris was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Very sincerely,

[H.H. Burbank]

_______________________

1945-46

September 30, 1946

Dear Dean Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the Department of Economics for the academic year 1945-46.

Although the Department of Economics had anticipated to a considerable extent the problems that would be presented by the post-war situation, it found the academic year 1945-46 presenting difficulties for which there, was no immediate solution.

Fortunately we had devoted a great deal of time and thought to our course offering and to methods of instruction. We were moderately well prepared to take up the new work involved in new instruction and also the work involved in changing the content of, old courses. Again we were fortunate in being able to meet most of the difficulties presented by the unprecedented number of graduate students. With all of the permanent members of the staff in residence, we were able to meet the graduate situation although it taxed our resources to the limit. Many of our most insistent problems were concerned with the difficulties we met in assembling and training an adequate junior staff. We began the fall term with 2 Assistant Professors (Faculty Instructors), 3 Annual Instructors, and 7 Teaching Fellows. The staff was increased during the year but it was far from adequate to meet the course work, involved in our offering. However, this would seem to be a problem of relatively short duration. A few young scholars are being brought from other institutions and occupations and our Graduate School contains a number of most promising young scholars whose development is proceeding rapidly.

During the fall of 1945 the Department surveyed repeatedly the obligations it had undertaken. We were committed to an elaborate course offering. He realized that the permanent personnel of the Department could not be expanded and we recognized that in the range of the junior staff immediate and extensive increases in personnel also were impossible. Because of the irreducible demands upon our limited resources, we reconsidered repeatedly our efforts in the area of tutorial instruction and eventually voted to suspend tutorial instruction for a period with the stipulation that the subject be reconsidered at such time as the Department might see fit and in no event not later than two years.

The foregoing remarks have indicated that all members of the staff are carrying much heavier loads than in pre-war days. The burden necessarily is apportioned unevenly but all are affected. The main incidence of this situation is on research. For some officers it means that research must be put aside temporarily. For others, less than ordinary progress is being made. However, as the following titles indicate, the contributions have been substantial:

Black, John D., and a committee consisting of M. R. Benedict, S. T. Dana, and L. K. Pomeroy; Credit for Small Timberland Owners, Including Farmers with Woodlands; A Report on Forest Credit. (In press)

Black, John D., with some guidance from Jorge Ahumada of Chile, Roberto Arellano Bonilla of Honduras, and Jorge Alcazer of Bolivia; Farm Cost Analysis, with Some Reference

Black, John D.; Clawson, Marion; Sayre, C.F.; Willcox, W. W.; Farm Management. The Macmillan Company (in press).

Chamberlin, E. H.; Fifth edition of the Theory of Monopolistic Competition (Chapter added). Translation of the above book into Spanish.

Crum, W. L., and Schumpeter, J. A.; Rudimentary Mathematics for Economists and Statisticians. McGraw-Hill.

Hansen, A. H.; America’s Role in the World Economy. W. W. Norton.

Hansen, A. H.; The United States After the War. Cornell Uiv. Press.

Hansen, A. H.; Financing American Propsperity. 20th Century Fund.

Harris, S. E.; Price Control in the International Field. (In press)

Harris, S. E.; National Debt. (In press)

Mason, E. S.; Controlling World Trade; Cartels and Commodity Agreements. McGraw-Hill.

Morgan, T.; The Development of the Hawaiian Economy, 1778-1876. Stanford Press. (In press)

In addition to the above books, some 72 articles have been contributed to scientific journals. We feel particularly happy in having been able to carry our publications, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Statistics, through the war period without serious alterations. Both publications are in sound financial condition. Actually, the Review of Economic Statistics will be in a much sounder position financially at the end of the current fiscal year than at the beginning of the war. However, increased publication costs are a matter for concern.

We have added two volumes to the Harvard Economic Series and published a revision of one. Three more volumes are now in the press. Again, increasing publication costs constitute a serious problem.

As mentioned above, all of the permanent officers of the Department had returned to active duty in Cambridge at the beginning of the year. A few officers have maintained contacts with various Washington departments and on occasion are called upon for consultation. In this connection, Professor John D. Black has served as Chairman of the Committee on Food Supplies for the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council and also has served actively with at least four other agencies. Professor John T. Dunlop has served as Consultant in the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Professor Seymour E. Harris has served as Consultant for the office of Price Administration. Professor Edward S. Mason has served as Consultant for the Department of State.

Very sincerely,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

_______________________

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961 (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

Image Source: A Harvard Army ROTC unit on parade along Memorial Drive, July 1943. From the Harvard Archives published in: Coreydon Ireland,  “To Honor the Living and Dead“, The Harvard Gazette (November 10, 2011).

Categories
Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Chair annual reports to Dean, 1932-1941

 

This post takes us from the trough of the Great Depression to the eve of the U.S. entry into the Second World War. The items below are transcriptions of copies of reports written by the Harvard economics department chairmen of the time (Harold Hitchings Burbank (a.k.a. Burbie to his Buds) and Edward Hastings Chamberlin. Some chest-thumping, some whining, no notes of irony and definitely no flashes of wit…we all know this art form. Nevertheless some raw intelligence of value for working historians of economics of the present and future.

____________________________

November 12, 1932

Dear Dean Murdock,

Under the Faculty vote of December, 1931, the Chairman of each Department is requested to report in each half year to the Dean of the Faculty on the working of the plan recommended by the Committee on Instruction concerning Hour Examinations and Other Course Requirements. My report for the Department of Economics follows.

Acting on the Report from the Committee on Instruction, the Department of Economics on January 12, 1932 voted to observe the recommendations of the Committee. Following the Department meeting, I reported to you to the effect that the requirements of the Department of Economics were substantially in accord with the principles laid down by the Committee on Instruction. Ordinarily, we require not more than one Hour Examination in any one half year; ordinarily, we require not more than one thesis or report in any one half year. It is the standing rule of the Department of Economics and of the Division of History, Government, and Economics, that Senior candidates for Honors, who are writing Honors theses, shall be excused from the writing of any theses in courses within the Division. After a long discussion and with considerable reluctance, the Department voted that for Seniors who are candidates for Honors in the Division, Hour Examinations in courses within the Department shall be optional.

The vote of the Department was made known immediately to the students and observed in all of our undergraduate course (not of an introductory nature) during the second half of last year, and it is being observed in the current half year.

In the Division of History, Government, and Economics, we have had for many years a rule that all Seniors in good standing shall be exempted from final examinations in courses within the Division in their last half year. The result has been, of course, that after the April Hour Examinations, Seniors have paid little attention to courses within in the Division, and their attendance has been hardly more than occasional. The members of the Department who are more interested in courses than in General Examinations, and who perhaps doubt the efficacy of General Examinations, view this situation with increasing criticism.

When the Department voted the making of Hour Examinations optional for Seniors who are candidates for Honors, the doubting members were highly critical, fearing that our courses elected largely by Seniors would be entirely disrupted. From all that I can learn, I cannot see that there have been any untoward or undesirable results. In most of our “Senior” courses, the attendance until the Easter recess was satisfactory. Honors candidates attended lectures and, I believe, completed most of the required readings. Their records on the General Examinations were excellent. The Honors theses were among the best we have ever had.

A number of members of my Department and not a few members of the Departments of History and Government are strongly opposed to the new order. They make the point that we have in substance permitted an additional reduction in courses, that Senior Honor candidates are simply required to register in courses, but they have nether to attend them nor to do the work. All of these allegations are true enough, but it seems to me they are beside the point. To the extent that we have confidence in our examiners and tutors, I do not believe that in effect the requirements regarding the quality and quantity or work have been reduced.

The Department of History has recommended to the other departments of the Division the consideration of a motion which would require all senior candidates for Honors to complete whatever courses in History they elect. I think that probably the departments of the Division will consider in full detail the questions this motion involves.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

1933
[not found]

A copy of the report is not found with the others included in this post: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1934

Dear Dean Murdock,

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics:

In this period of rapid economic evolution the problems presented to a group of university economists are both stimulating and perplexing. The changing pattern of our social and economic structure offers new data for analysis and at the same time calls for a testing of principle that involves new fields for both teaching and research.

There have been few periods in modern history more difficult to interpret, yet the responsibility for interpretation seems foremost among the duties devolving upon educational institutions. For many years the keystone of the introductory course in economics has been that the community has the right to expect political and economic leadership from the graduates of its colleges. Our undergraduate courses are directed toward the attainment of this end. But the teaching of political economy is an art not easily mastered even by those who give abundant evidence of intellectual leadership. In the instruction of undergraduates and in the training of teachers and scholars in our graduate school, the difficulties inherent in our subject must not be overlooked. The presentation of the data of economics makes demands upon the staff not felt in many other departments of the University. Looking toward the strengthening of our undergraduate instruction, the Department is now associating a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are now in charge of the large lecture courses. In Money and Banking, in the Relations of Government to Industry, and in Public Finance, this experiment is advanced sufficiently to indicate its desirability.

At the same time that our teaching problems have become intensified the need for the results of research is pressing. In periods of accelerated social evolution involving political and economic experimentation, the demand for accurate data is insistent. Relatively, economics is a young science. The foundations of fact are still being established. Investigations that may have an important bearing upon government policy should not be delayed. The economists of this University have contributed largely to their subject, but always with scant facilities in material equipment and in time.

Among the many problems confronting us as a group, that of securing the time necessary for research is perhaps the most troublesome. To our exacting teaching requirements must be added the demands for public service. Since the establishment of this Department, the requests for such service heave been continuous. Of late the increasing calls have raised a question which must be considered by the University administration. The opportunities for service to governments are gratifying. Undoubtedly these services belong among the necessary functions of a university. But obviously they do divert a considerable part of our time and energy from our strictly defined duties. Over the years the University is enriched by such services, but at any given time the responsibilities attaching to teaching and research are interrupted. If the University Includes public service among its important functions, the personnel of the staffs affected should be so adjusted that the work can be performed without overtaxing our internal activities.

During the past your, the leave of absence of Professor John M. Williams was continued to allow him to serve as Economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to advise on monetary and credit policies, and to direct research. In the latter part of the year, Professor Williams was called by the Department of State to investigate certain conditions in Brazil, Uraguay [sic], Argentina, and Chili [sic]  and to formulate policies of exchange controls. Daring the second half-year, Assistant Professor Edward H. Chamberlin was granted leave of absence to work with the Committee on Government Statistics and Information Services in Washington. Also, during the second half-year, though leave was not requested, Assistant Professor William T. Ham was in Washington frequently, serving as a member of the staff of the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. And also, though no leave was requested, Professor John D. Black devoted a substantial part of the year to public service. He served on a number of committees connected with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and land utilization. At the request of Secretary Wallace, he organized and directed the activities of committees outlining programs of economic research in (1) the marketing of farm products and (2) farm population and rural life. Also at the request of the Secretary of Agriculture, he served with two others to coordinate the work of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of the United States Department of Agriculture. In the summer months, Drs. Alan Sweezy and Lauchlin B. Currie were called to the Treasury Department to serve as special investigators.

Owing to his illness, Professor Emeritus William Z. Ripley was unable to fulfill his duties as President of the American Economic Association. In his absence, Professor Abbott P. Usher, first Vice-President of the Association, was in charge of the December, 1933 session.

Notable among our publications of the year were Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy, by S. E. Harris, and The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, by E. H. Chamberlin. Because of its significance for immediate practical application, I am including at this point the Report of the Committee on Model State and Local Taxation, by Professor C. J. Bullock’s committee of the National Tax Association. Also at this point, mention should be made of Economics of the Recovery Program, by seven members of the Department. In the course of the year, about forty-five articles were contributed to scientific journals by various members of the Department.

Within the limitations described above, the research work of the staff is going forward at a satisfactory rate. Investigations in the following subjects are well advanced: History of the Industrial Revolution; Development of Banking and Credit in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Evolution of English Company Law; Economic Fluctuations; Nature and Effects of Inflation; Index Numbers; Municipal Ownership of Public Utilities; State and Local Taxation; Unbalanced Budgets; The National Income; New England Agriculture; The Economics of Agricultural Production; German Trade Unionism; The Fundamentals of Sociology; Economics and Politics; Socialism as an International Movement.

A considerable number of these projects are nearing completion and should be ready for publication shortly. A large project on the relation of Government to Industry involving the efforts of a number of the staff is in its initial stages. This subject is of such immediate importance that other plans for research are being put aside until it can be carried to its completion. The Quarterly Journal of Economies has continued its usual high standard. During the year, five substantial volumes were added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

Again I would press the point that the potential research capacity of the Department is severely handicapped by the demands of teaching and public service.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 18, 1935

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

In the report of last year the effects of the contemporary political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research were discussed briefly. More than ever we are aware of the responsibilities incumbent upon the teacher of Economics in this period of rapid and far-reaching change. Our undergraduate instruction had been, and is, receiving particular attention. A few years ago we began experimentally the association of a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are nominally in charge of the larger lecture courses. We are quite convinced that this method of instruction is most effective. Also there is a positive, although perhaps incidental, advantage in this arrangement in that it relieves the pressure for the multiplication of undergraduate courses.

I find it necessary to stress again the problem presented by the demands upon our staff for services to the public. We believe that public service belongs among the necessary functions of a university. But under existing conditions large demands for public service at any given time bring serious interruptions to both research and instruction. “If the University includes public service among its important functions the personnel of the staffs affected should be so adjusted that the additional work can be performed without taxing severely our internal activities.”

I am very happy, to write that Professor Chamberlin’s “The Theory of Monopolistic Competition”, published somewhat over a year ago, has won immediate recognition as a foremost contribution to economic theory. During the past year two books of unusual importance have appeared,—Professor John D. Black, “The Dairy Industry and the A.A.A.”, and Professor Sumner Slichter, “Towards Stability”. Six manuscripts have been completed, and should appear in book form during the present year. It is significant that five of these books have been written by the younger members of our Department whose teaching duties have been mainly of a tutorial nature. Among the publications I should note the report submitted to the Treasury Department on the “Objectives and Criteria of Monetary Policy” by Dr. Alan Sweezy, and the report to the State Department on “Foreign Exchange Control in Latin America” by Professor John Williams.

In addition to the above volumes and reports the members of the Department published somewhat over fifty articles in the scientific journals of our subject. Some of these contributions are of major importance.

The investigations of the staff are being carried forward as satisfactorily as possible with the limited facilities that are at our disposal. Two researches on a very large scale have to do with the general subject of the Trade Cycle and the Relation of Government to Industry. Numerous important, but less extensive, investigations are in process.

Perhaps I should note here that a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation enabled the Department to undertake the continuation of the Review of Economic Statistics and the fundamental research that is involved in this publication, The Quarterly Journal of Economics long published by the members of this Department, together with the Review of Economic Statistics, are among the more important activities of the Department. In the course of the year three volumes more added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

As in my last report, I would again bring to your attention the disturbing fact that the potential research capacity of the Department is handicapped severely by the demands of administration, teaching, and public service.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1936

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

I find it necessary to emphasize again the effects of the contemporary political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research. It had been necessary to bring these matters to your attention in both of the preceding years, since they present such important problems to us. We feel an increasingly positive responsibility regarding out undergraduate instruction in this period of rapid and far-reaching change.

We have continued the experiment begun some few years ago of the association of a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are in charge of the large lecture courses. We believe that we are improving our instruction by this method, and at the same time this arrangement tends to relieve the pressure for the multiplication of undergraduate courses.

Perhaps as a result of the general social situation the elections of our undergraduate courses and the number of concentrators in Economics have increased very heavily. The problems of instruction presented by these overwhelming numbers are intensified perhaps by the personnel situation in which the Department finds itself. During the last dozen years the personnel of this Department—one of the largest in the University—has been changed completely. For a quarter of a century a group of eminent economists brought great prestige to the University. With the resignation of Professor Gay the active services of this group has come to an end. One cannot speak of replacing these scholars. They were unique both as individuals and as a group. Their leadership and their scholarship has left a lasting impression on the development of Economics. In the course of the passing of this group a now Department has been brought together. This new and younger Department is assuming full responsibility at the very time when questions of teaching and new methods of research are becoming insistent.

The demands upon members of our staff for public service continue. It has seemed expedient to encourage some few members to give their time and energy for public purposes. But with a minimum teaching force it has not been possible for all members of the Department to comply with the requests made. The public service relations of faculty members remains a question for the University to consider.

The Quarterly Journal of Economics celebrates this year its fiftieth anniversary. For forty years this Journal has won and held its prestige under the editorship of Professor F. W. Taussig. Professor Taussig, now emeritus, has graciously consented to continue as editor during the present year, but very shortly it will be necessary for us to provide for the editorial direction of this very important publication.

In an earlier report to you I indicated the activities of the Department in connection with the Review of Economic Statistics. The scientific work underlying this publication, as well as the journal itself, is now under the direction of a committee of the Department. The Review continues as a vehicle of publication of the results of investigations here and elsewhere regarding the business cycle. We have ambitious plans for the Review, and we have every reason to believe that its scientific usefulness will increase.

There is little question that, the research activities of practically all members of the staff have been curtailed by the heavy teaching loads which have been imposed. However, the research programs of various members and of various groups within the Department have shown marked progress in the past year. As I have indicated in an earlier report the research activities of our members are of two somewhat different types. Numerous members of the staff working altogether independently are pursuing their own researches while others working as a group are developing particular aspects of a well devised project in research. In the social sciences this latter type of work is rapidly assuming importance. In general it is this type of research which receives the support of the large foundations. Within our own group there are a number of projects of this character. Messrs. Mason, Chamberlin, Wallace, Cassels, Reynolds, and Alan Sweezy are developing Industrial Organization and Control. In the process of the exploration of this subject numerous independent volumes and studies will appear. Professors Mason, Chamberlin and Dr. Wallace are already well advanced in their study of monopolistic combinations and expect to complete it in about one year. Professor Cassels and Dr. Reynolds expect to finish their study on Canadian combinations this year, and Dr. Alan Sweezy is at work on investment policies. Dr. Wallace’s monograph, Market Control in the Aluminum Industry, is now going to press, and Dr. Abbott’s monograph on The Rise of the Business Corporation has just appeared and is being, used by our undergraduate courses. The full development of this program will take a number of years, but its completion will mark, I believe, a very significant chapter in research in the relation of government to industry.

Another cooperative project on the Farm Credit Administration is being carried on by Professors Black and Harris and Dr. Galbraith, largely with the assistance of grants from the Committee on Research in the Social Sciences. Professor Black is working on the cooperative aspects of the Farm Credit Administration’s policies. Professor Harris is working on the monetary and recovery aspects of the Farm Credit Administration’s loan operations. Dr. Galbraith is working on the structural aspects of the Farm Credit Administration and the mortgage, credit and production loan policies. Numerous articles resulting from this research have been published in scientific periodicals.

Professors Crum, Wilson, and Black are conducting a study of the relation of weather and other natural phenomena with the economic cycle. This study is partly financed by the United States Department of Agriculture.

I believe I have mentioned to you and to President Conant in conversation the plans which are being developed for large research projects in collaboration with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In addition to these cooperative projects all members of the Department are pursuing work along the lines of their individual interests. Professor Schumpeter’s study of time series and cyclical fluctuations is practically completed, and he hopes to send it to press by December. Professor Haberler’s major contribution—The Theory of International Trade and Its Application to Commercial Policy has been translated and is now available in English. For the past two years Professor Haberler has been working at Geneva on the Nature and Causes of the Recurrence of Economic Depressions which is soon to be published by the League of Nations. We are hoping to provide facilities for him so that the important research may be continued at Harvard. Professor Frickey’s study on a Survey of Time Series Analysis and Its Relation to Economic Theory is well advanced. The statistical work on the first volume has been completed, and he hopes to have it written by the middle of this present academic year. The statistical work on the second volume has been completed in part. Already two significant articles have been published. Professor Cole’s recent study in Fluctuations in American Business, written in collaboration with Professor W. B. Smith, was published late in 1935. Dr. Oakes’ investigations in Massachusetts Town Finance, the winner of the Wells Prize for 1935-36, is now being printed. Professor Chamberlin has continued to elaborate his Theory of Monopolistic Competition which is winning wide recognition among economist the world over. Numerous articles, some sixty in number, from members of the staff have appeared in various scientific periodicals in the course of the year.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

[Separate sheet following: I should have included Professor Harris’ Exchange Depreciation, Its Theory and History. We believe that this new book, which is being published today, will take Its place beside the significant contributions Professor Harris has made in the last half-dozen years, particularly his Monetary Problems of the British Empire and Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy.]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 21, 1937

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

Previous reports of the Department of Economics have brought to your attention the effect of the political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research. It is still necessary to point out that the positive responsibility of the Department regarding undergraduate instruction has not lessened.

The election of our undergraduate courses remains at substantially the high level of recent years, while the number of concentrators continues to increase.

Last year I mentioned that with the resignation of Professor Gay the active services of the senior members of this Department, had come to an end. At this point it seems necessary to put into writing a matter I have discussed with you in conversation which has important ramifications. Coincident with the resignation of Professor Gay there were increased elections in certain of our courses that involve a large degree of individual instruction and also on an increase in the number of students demanding tutorial supervision. To meet these latter problems it was necessary to add to our staff a group of young men to carry on the instruction in the elementary course, Accounting, Statistics, Money and Banking, and so on. With increased numbers in courses demanding increased instruction, increased cost cannot be avoided; but it seems to us that this increasing cost because of increasing should not result in less effective intellectual leadership. To transfer a considerable part of the salary released by a retiring professor of distinguished accomplishment to the support of routine instruction in middle group courses seems to us not to be wise University policy.

Professor Taussig has resigned as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economies. For the time being, committee of the Department will undertake the editorial direction of this publication.

The Review of Economic Statistics, which appears under the direction of a committee of the Department, is financed by funds from the Rockefeller Foundation. Should the grant be continued, it is expected that the research activities of the committee will be increased.

Not less than ten members of the Department are concerned with the activities of the Graduate School of Public Administration. In some instances—as in the case of Dean Williams—their work in the School has been compensated by a reduction of work in the Department, but for the most part the activities in the new School are simply in addition to the duties of the staff members.

The Committee on Research in the Social Sciences, of which Professor Black is Chairman, is working in close cooperation with the National Bureau of Economic Research and its cooperating University agencies. Principle among them is the project upon Fiscal Policy for which Professor Crum is acting as Chairman.

The responsibilities and activities of members of the Department tend in some instances to change the direction of our research, but in only too many instances they also tend to retard our research.

In all directions, however, the research activities of the members of the Department were sustained, with six books and approximately sixty articles appearing. Special mention should he made of the following books:

Three Years of the AAA by John D. Black

A Study of Fluid Milk Prices by John M. Cassels. Wells Prize Essay of 1934-35

Professor Chamberlin’s significant volume, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition has been revised.

Prosperity and Depression by Gottfried Haberler

Exchange Depreciation by S. E. Harris. (Came from the press last fall, and mentioned a year ago.)

Studies in Massachusetts Town Finance by E. E. Oakes. Wells Prize Essay of 1935-36

Professor Schumpeter’s book on Business Cycles has been completed, and is now ready for the press.

Economic History of Europe since 1750 by Usher, Bowden, and Karpovich

Explorations in Economics. Essays in Honor of F. W. Taussig contains contributions by most of the members of the staff.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1938

Dear Dean Birkhoff,

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

As in previous years I am very happy, to be able to record that the research activities of the officers of the Department have been sustained. In the last two years I have been, able to enumerate an unusually large number of books actually published together with numerous contributions to our periodical literature. In the present year the number of volumes is smaller since the research activities of our staff are still in process. The most notable volumes are Professor Hansen’s Full Recovery or Stagnation and Professor Wallace’s Market Control in the Aluminum Industry. Professor Haberler devoted the major part of the year, and spent the summer abroad, revising his Prosperity and Depression. Also the volume by Professor Crum and Associates on Economic Statistics has been revised.

In all, some fifty or sixty periodical contributions have been made by members of the staff. Notable among these contributions have been the articles by Professor Slichter on “The Downturn of 1937” in the Review of Economic Statistics for August, 1938.

It fell to the lot of the officers of this Department, together with the officers of the Department of Government, to develop instruction in the Littauer School of Public Administration during the past year. Without going into the details of the principles upon which this instruction is based, it may be noted that research courses of a very advanced nature constitute the core of the work of the School. Professors Williams, Hansen, Black, Mason, Slichter, and Wallace are devoting a considerable proportion of their time to this work. It is expected and hoped that these activities will result in an increase in our contributions.

The grant of funds from the Rockefeller Foundation to subsidize the research underlying the Review of Economic Statistics expired with the closing of the fiscal year. This contribution made it possible to continue the Review, and to maintain the scholarly level of the contributions. In the course of the year the Review published a number of the contributions of the staff. Other contributions are nearing completion, and will be published in the present year. The accomplishments or Professors Crum and Haberler as Managing Editors of the Review should be noted. They have succeeded in restoring the very high level of scholarship which characterized the Review a decade ago. We believe that the Review in its present form adds materially to the prestige of the Department and the University.

Also I am happy to note that the Quarterly Journal of Economics under its new editorial staff is maintaining its high position.

There is little to be added to the points which have been discussed in previous reports. The Department finds itself fully occupied with the continuation of its traditional activities and the assumption of such new duties as are involved in the Graduate School of Public Administration. If the personnel of the Department remains constant, it will be necessary to reduce our activities, either in research, in teaching, or in both.

Last fall at a dinner of the Committee to Visit the Department of Economics I reported in some detail regarding the increasing activities of members of the Department. This report led to the appointment of a committee to investigate the budgetary situation of the Department. The investigation conducted under the direction of Mr. George May of Price, Waterhouse, made some very interesting disclosures regarding the increasing load of the Department.

I believe that problems of undergraduate and graduate instruction, the tutorial situation, and the public service contributions of our members have been discussed sufficiently in previous reports. I can only repeat that “there is little question that the research activities of practically all members of the staff have been curtailed by the heavy loads of teaching and administration.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 16, 1939

Dear Dean Ferguson:

In accord with your recent request, I submit herewith a report of the work by the Department of Economies for the past year.

Honors have been bestowed upon members of the Department as follows: Professor Schumpeter has received an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and Professor Leontief has been elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Professor Williams was elected a Vice-President of the American Economic Association.

In the field of publications, the outstanding event is the final appearance of Professor Schumpeter’s two volume work on Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalistic Process. The fruition of years of study and research, this book is of especial interest as the first major work of Professor Schumpeter in the English language, his well-known Theory of Economic Development having appeared first in German before its translation into English much later. Other books actually appearing within the academic year (the fall of 1938) were referred to in our last report, such as Professor Hansen’s Full Recovery or Stagnation?, a revision of the volume on Economic Statistics by Professor Crum and associates, and a new, enlarged and revised edition of Prosperity and Depression by Professor Haberler (published by the League of Nations). During the year arrangements have been completed for the translation into Japanese of A History of Mechanical Inventions by Professor Usher. For some years Professor Emeritus F. W. Taussig has been at work on a thorough-going revision of his textbook on the Principles of Economics. Volume I appeared last spring, Volume 2 is in the press and will appear very shortly. This much needed revision (the last was in 1921) may regain for Professor Taussig’s text some of the preeminence it held in an earlier period before it had become so badly out of date. Politics, Finance and Consequences by Professor Emeritus C. J. Bullock, the result of continuing research since his retirement, has been published during the past year in the Harvard Economic Studies. A book of which Mr. Paul M. Sweezy was a prominent co-author, An Economic Program for American Democracy, is popularly supposed to have been influential in putting the stamp of economic authority upon recent economic policies of the Federal Government. Finally, some sixty-odd articles, addresses, and reviews by members of the Department have appeared in journals, both professional and popular, during the past year.

A matter not mentioned in our last report was a new policy adopted by the Quarterly Journal of Economics of publishing at intervals of approximately one year a series of supplements devoted to articles and studies of interest to scholars but of such length as to make their publication in the regular issues impractical. These supplements are sent to subscribers without charge, and additional copies are sold separately. The first of these appeared in May 1938, Rudimentary Mathematics for Economists and Statisticians by Professor Crum. Two other manuscripts have been accepted and will appear shortly.

The Committee on Problems of the Business Cycle has carried on the publication of the quarterly Review of Economic Statistics but because of the expiration of its grant of research money many of its new research investigation have been greatly curtailed. Quarterly issues of the Review of Economic Statistics, in addition to carrying the studies of current economic history which present a quarterly record of economic statistics for the United States with their interpretation, have published a wide range of articles on various aspects of the trade cycle problem. Several of these articles have been contributed by foreign specialists but more than half were produced by American writers (in this connection we may note that about one-fourth of the subscribers are located abroad). In addition to the normal research activities involved in studying current history the Committee has financed during the year a continuation of the special investigation by Dr. J. B. Hubbard of the remarkable developments in the issuance of securities since 1933. A further article in Dr. Hubbard’s series will appear in the issue of November 1939.

Mention has been made in previous reports of the burden placed upon particular members of the Department and thus upon the group as a whole by the responsibilities of public service. These responsibilities have continued and expanded during the past year. The adjustment of this burden is a pressing problem. Its immediate influence upon both teaching and research is adverse, yet no ready solution appears at hand. The additional burden of uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration presents an even more serious problem. For the most part the seminars and other activities of this School constitute a net additional load for those members of the Department responsible for them, and inevitably throw a heavier burden of administrative and other work upon others not directly concerned. Budgetary allowance for courses given within the School is an obvious answer to this problem, whenever it may become possible.

You have asked, among other things. for an account of “any changes in the methods of instruction”, of the Department. The changes here have been revolutionary. Over a long period of years there has been built up in the Department a staff of trained instructors and tutors, carrying on established traditions of teaching and constantly experimenting in the adaptation of methods to new problems. These men were sifted constantly, and the best of them retained for a substantial period, after which, if not advanced, they were without exception placed to advantage elsewhere. In view of the singular success with which in the past the personnel problem has been handled in Economics, it is not surprising that the Department is unanimous in viewing with dismay and discouragement the situation in which we now find ourselves. Fifteen teachers and tutors at the instructor or assistant professor level have left us within the past year, seven the preceding year. The general effect upon teaching may be indicated by the tutorial situation. Sixty-seven per cent of the students concentrating in Economics this year are tutored by men of two years or less experience, forty-three per cent by men of no tutorial experience whatsoever, Furthermore, it has been our policy in the past to stagger new men as between tutoring and Economics A, having them start in with either one alone and take up the other the following year. This fall we have been obliged to take on five men who are both teaching Economics A and tutoring for the first time. It has been our policy also to provide more experienced instruction in middle group courses through a period of apprenticeship in Economics A. This fall we have been obliged to put men of no classroom experience whatever directly into middle group courses. We are already experiencing in acute form the devastating effects upon instruction of a rapid turnover, brought on by the mass exodus of last year.

It takes time (and patience on the part of someone) to train men in the discussion method of teaching Economics which has been developed with such success in Economics A at Harvard University. Much is learned by slow experience, by making mistakes and by discussing techniques with fellow instructors, especially with those who have been through the mill. It is impossible to assimilate new men unless the collective experience of the group is maintained at a fairly high level. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that anyone in the Department will be interested in training them unless a substantial portion stay long enough to make it worth while.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1940

Dear Dean Ferguson:

I submit herewith a report of the work by the Department of Economics for the past year. There is very little to report—no events or changes of outstanding importance, and only a few isolated items which might be of interest.

Professor Black has been elected to honorary membership in the Swedish Royal Society of Agriculture. Professor Slichter has been honored by appointment as Lamont University Professor.

In the field of publications there is the usual long list of articles in the professional periodicals, but no major work of importance by any member of the Department. Professor Usher’s History of Mechanical Inventions was during the year translated into Japanese. Also in the field of publications it is of interest that there has been begun under the supervision of a committee in the Department and financed in part by a grant from the A. W. Shaw Fund a new series entitled The Harvard Studies in Monopoly and Competition. The first two volumes of this series appeared within the year, — the first, Corporate Size and Earning Power, by Professor W. L. Crum, and the second, Control of Competition in Canada, by Lloyd Reynolds.

The Committee on Problems of the Business Cycle has continued publication of the quarterly Review of Economic Statistics. In place of the general reviews of current economic developments in the United States, which in earlier years had been regular features of each quarterly issue, the Review introduced this past year the policy of presenting each quarter an article pertaining to some specific problem of current interest. The November 1939 issue contained a study of the impact of the war on America commodity prices; the February 1940 number included a study of the current gold problem and the American economy; a review of recent developments in agriculture and the influences of the war on American agriculture appeared in May; while the August 1940 issue presented a comparison and evaluation of various estimates of unemployment in the United States. These studies have been made by members of the Department, with the Committee staff contributing assistance, whenever it was desired, in the preparation of the articles for publication. As in previous years, the Review has also presented articles covering a wide range of studies on various trade cycle problems; and the Review staff has continued the compilation of selected current economic series which have been used in research studies by Department members and graduate student within the Department.

There have been no important changes in policy in the year by the Quarterly Journal of Economics. The policy begun the previous year of publishing occasional supplements sent to subscribers without charge has been continued. Two supplements appeared during the year, Exchange Control in Austria and Hungary and Exchange Control in Germany, both by Professor Howard S. Ellis. Through an arrangement with the Harvard Economic Studies they will shortly appear in that series as a single volume.

During the year Professor Emeritus Frank W. Taussig attained his eightieth birthday. A tribute and greeting was presented to him on this occasion signed by some two hundred of his former students.

I call attention again to the continuing problem of the added burden to members of the Department for uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration. The situation here remains substantially as described in my last report. It remains one of the most serious problems which the Department has to meet in maintaining the standards of its instruction.

The quality of instruction given by the Department continues to suffer from the heavy losses in the junior personnel during the past few years. Sixty-four per cent of the students concentrating in Economics this year are tutored by men of two years or less experience, fifty-five per cent by men of one year or less. The difficulties of maintaining satisfactory instruction with such a rapid turnover remain almost insuperable, and concentration in Economics which has fallen off steadily over the past four years slumped most disastrously for the year 1940-41. Although most of the liquidation of our more experienced instructors and tutors had taken place before the year on which I am reporting, we have during that year again lost a number of our best men because of the limited inducement which could be offered for them to remain with us even for a short period.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1941

Dear Dean Ferguson:

I submit herewith a report on the work of the Department of Economics covering the past year.

Professor Slichter has been elected President of the American Economic Association. This is the third time in the past five years that this honor has gone to an economist from Harvard, Professor Sprague having been elected in 1937-38 and Professor Hansen in 1938-39.

In the field of publications there have appeared, in addition to the usual long list of articles, several books of possible importance. I should mention especially Professor Slichter’s Union Policies and Industrial Management, Professor Leontief’s The Structure of American Economy: An Empirical Application of Equilibrium Analysis, and Dr. Triffin’s Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium Theory. The latter appeared in the Harvard Economic Studies of which there have now been published 70 volumes, four within the past year. The new series of Harvard Studies in Monopoly and Competition has been augmented by two new volumes during the past year, bringing the total to four. Professor Usher’s History of Mechanical Inventions has again been translated, this time into Spanish. During the past year an arrangement was made with the Rockefeller Foundation (for the current year only) which if continued may prove to be of real importance to the members of our Department. Professor Crum has been relieved of one-half of his teaching duties for research through the payment by the Foundation of the salary of someone to replace him in his teaching assignment. In addition to providing possibilities for research to members of the Department, such an arrangement would have the added advantage of making it possible to invite to Harvard for short period either possible candidates for permanent appointments or others whose presence here for one year would prove stimulating to our students.

Again I call attention to the problem of the added burden to members of the Department for uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration. This has been from the beginning a serious matter in maintaining standards of instruction. It is especially a factor in concentrating the activities of the older members of the Department in the graduate field, leaving undergraduate instruction to be taken care of in undue degree by younger men whose experience on the average seems to decline further each year.

The quality of instruction by the junior staff continues to be a grave concern to our Department. Last year I mentioned that 64 per cent of the students concentrating in Economics were tutored by men of two years or less experience. This year the percentage has increased to 72, and the problem of finding enough experienced and competent tutors in the right fields for distinction seniors has become impossible to solve. The general situation is reflected also in Economics A where the percentage of new instructors has jumped alarmingly for the current year. For the five years 1936-41 the sections taught by new men averaged 24 per cent of the total. For the current year 39 per cent of the sections are taught by new men. For the same five years the sections taught by men of one year or less experience averaged 45 per cent of the total. For the current year this figure has advanced to 61 per cent. The large volume of complaints on the part of students as to the inexperience of their tutors and Economics A section instructors leaves no doubt in the minds of the Department that the continuing decline in concentration in Economies is mainly a reflection of this situation. In view of the competing opportunities for our younger men which have repeatedly been pointed out the problem for our Department continues to be not to maintain a high rate of turnover as the present rules of tenure seem designed to do, but to be able through more flexible arrangements both with respect to tenure and to salaries to maintain a staff sufficiently experienced to give satisfactory instruction to our undergraduates. Such instruction is clearly not being given at the present time.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

Image Source: Harold Hitchings Burbank from the Harvard Class Album 1934.

 

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs Economist Market Economists

Chicago. Memos discussing guests to teach during summer quarter, 1927

 

 

Apparently the 1926 summer quarter course planning at the Chicago department of political economy in 1926 was so wild that the head of the department, Leon C. Marshall, decided to start the discussion for 1927 on the second day of Summer, 1926. Four of the seven colleagues responded with quite a few suggestions.

This post provides the first+middle names where needed in square brackets. Also links to webpages with further information about the suggested guests have been added.

______________________

Copy of memo from
Leon Carroll Marshall

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Department of Economics

Memorandum from L. C. Marshall. June 22, 1926

To: C. W. Wright, J. A. Field, H. A. Millis, J. Viner, L. W. Mints, P. H. Douglas, W. H. Spencer

We really must break through the morass we are in with respect to our summer quarter. Partly because of delayed action and partly because of an interminable debating society in such matters we finally get a patched up program which is not as attractive as it should be.

I shall proceed on the basis of the homely philosophy that the way to do something is to do something. I shall try to secure from every member of the group a statement of his best judgment concerning the appropriate course of action for the summer of 1927 and then move at once toward rounding out a program.

Won’t you be good enough to turn in to E57 within the next few days your suggestions and comments with respect to the following issues.

  1. Do you yourself expect to be in residence the summer quarter of 1927?
  2. If you do, what courses do you prefer to teach? Please list more than two courses placing all of the courses in your order of preference. In answering this question, please keep in mind the problem of guiding research. Should you offer a research course?
  3. What are your preferences with respect to hours? Please state them rather fully and give some alternatives so that a schedule may be pieced together.
  4. What courses or subject matter should we be certain to include in the summer of 1927?
  5. What men from outside do you recommend for these courses which we should be certain to include? Please rank them in the order of your preference.
  6. Quite aside from the subject matter which you have recommended above, what persons from the outside ought we try to make contact with if our funds permit? This gives an opportunity to aid in making up the personnel of the summer quarter in all fields.
  7. Please give any other comments or suggestions which occur to you.

Yours very sincerely,

LCM:G

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Response from
Jacob Viner

The University of Chicago
Department of Political Economy

July 1, 1926

Dear Mr. Marshall

I will want to offer 301 (Neo-class Ec.) & 353 (Int Ec. Pol) as usual next summer, though if we have a good outside theorist to give 301, I would like to give a course on Theory of Int Trade in addition to 353. I think we need someone especially in Banking, next in theory. Beyond these we should offer work in some of the following, if we can get first rankers: statistics, private finance, transportation, economic history of Europe & ec. Hist. of U.S.

I suggest the following from which selections could be made:

Banking

 Theory Statistics Transportation

Ec. Hist.
[Eugene E.]
Agger

 

[Benjamin Haggott] Beckhart

 

[Allyn Abbott]
A.A. Young

 

[Chester Arthur]
C. A. Phillips

 

[Oliver Mitchell Wentworth]
Sprague

 

[James Harvey] Rogers

 

[Ernest Minor] E.M. Patterson

 [Allyn Abbott]
Young

 

[Jacob Harry]
Hollander[Frank Hyneman] Knight

 

[Albert Benedict] Wolfe

 

[Herbert Joseph] Davenport

 [Henry Roscoe] Trumbower

 

[Homer Bews] Vanderblue

 [Melvin Moses] M.M. Knight

 

[Abbott Payson] A.P. Usher

As other possibilities I suggest [George Ernest] Barnett, [James Cummings] Bonbright, [Edward Dana] Durand, [Edwin Griswold] Nourse, [Sumner Huber] Slichter, John D. [Donald] Black, Holbrook Working, [Alvin Harvey] Hansen.

[signed]
J Viner

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Response from
Paul Howard Douglas

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration

June 29, 1926

Professor L. C. Marshall
Faculty Exchange

Dear Mr. Marshall:

You have hit the nail on the head in your proposal to get under way for next summer, and I am very much pleased at your action. Answering your questions specifically may I say—

  1. That I do not expect to be in residence for the summer quarter of 1927.
  2. &3. Since I shall not be in residence no answers to these questions are, I take it, necessary.

 

  1. We should, I think, be certain to include adequate work in the following fields (a) Economic theory, (b) Monetary and banking theory, (c) Labor problems, (d) Statistics and quantitative economics, (e) Taxation and Public finance, (f) Economic history.
  2. As regards men from outside, I would recommend the following in each field: (a) Economic theory—[Herbert Joseph] H. J. Davenport, [John Rogers] J. R. Commons, [Frank Hyneman] F. H. Knight; (b) Monetary and banking theory—[Allyn Abbott] A. A. Young, [Oliver Mitchell Wentworth] O.M.W. Sprague, [James Waterhouse] James W. Angell; (c) Labor problems—Selig Perlman, Alvin [Harvey] H. Hansen; (d) Statistics and quantitative economics—[Frederick Cecil] F. C. Mills, [Robert Emmet] R. E. Chaddock, [William Leonard] W. L. Crum; (e) Taxation and public finance—[Harley Leist] H. L. Lutz, [William John] William J. Shultz; (f) Economic history—[Norbert Scott Brien] N. S. B. Gras.
  3. As people from outside to try for, might it not be possible to secure some one from England, such as [John Atkinson] John A. Hobson, Henry Clay, or [Dennis Holme] D. H. Robertson? Might it not also be possible to get Charles Rist from France or [Werner] Sombart from Germany?

Faithfully yours,
[signed]
Paul H. Douglas

P.S. The news that [Henry] Schultz and [Melchior] Palyi are to be with us next year is certainly welcome. Should we not let everyone know that they are coming, and should not a news note to this effect be sent on to the American Economic Review? [Handwritten note here: “Mr. Wright doing this”]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Response from
Lloyd Wynn Mints

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration

July 16, 1926

Memorandum to L. C. Marshall from L. W. Mints, concerning the work of the summer quarter, 1927.

  1. It is my present intention not to be in residence during the summer quarter, 1927, although I will be in the city, I suppose.
  2. It appears to me that we should attempt to get men from the outside who would represent some of the newer points of view rather than the orthodox fields. I should suppose that it would be desirable to have a man in statistics and, if he could be found, somebody to do something with quantitative economics. For the statistics I would suggest [William Leonard] Crum, [Frederick Cecil] Mills, [Frederick Robertson] Macaulay, [Willford Isbell] King, [Bruce D.] Mudgett, [Robert] Riegel. I am ignorant of the particular bents of some of the statistical men, but I should suppose that in quantitative economics [Holbrook] Working, [Alvin Harvey] Hansen, or [William Leonard] Crum might do something. Perhaps [Edmund Ezra] Day should be added to the men in Statistics.
    In economic history, as I remember it, we have had no outside help for a long time. I should like to see either [Noman Scott Brien] Gras or Max [Sylvius] Handman give some work here in the summer.
    Particular men who represent somewhat new points of view, and who might be had for the summer, I would suggest as follows: [Lionel Danforth] Edie, [Oswald Fred] Boucke, [Morris Albert] Copeland, [Sumner Huber] Slichter.
    In addition I should like very much to see either [Edwin Robert Anderson] Seligman or [John Rogers] Commons here for a summer.

[signed]
L.W.M.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Response from
Harry Alvin Millis

Answers to questions re Summer Teaching, 1927

  1. Yes, I feel that I must teach next summer unless that plan you have been interested in goes through.
  2. 342 [The State in Relation to Labor] and 440 [Research].
  3. 342 at 8; 440 hour to be arranged.
  4. 5. 6.: Should get a better rounded program than we have had. Should have an outstanding man in economic theory and another in Finance. For the former I would mention [John] Maurice Clark, [John Rogers] Commons, and [Frank Hyneman] Knight—in order named. For the latter I would mention [Allyn Abbott] Young, [James Harvey] Rogers. If we can get the money I should like to see [George Ernest] Barnett brought on for statistics and a trade union course.

 

  1. Would it be possible to have a seminar which would bring together the outside men and some of the inside men and our mature graduate students—these hand-picked? It might be made very stimulating.

[Signed]
H. A. Millis

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Response from
Chester Whitney Wright

The University of Chicago
The Department of Political Economy

Memorandum to Marshall from Wright

Summer 1927
First term some aspects of economic history
1:30 or 2:30
May have to teach the whole summer but hope I can confine it to first term.
Can teach any phases of subjects in any fields suitable for term.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Response from
James Alfred Field

[No written answer in the folder: however L. C. Marshall noted that Field would not be teaching in the summer term of 1927]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Response from
William Homer Spencer

The University of Chicago
The School of Commerce and Administration
Office of the Dean

July 12, 1926

Mr. L. C. Marshall
The Department of Political Economy

My dear Mr. Marshall:

As Mr. [Garfield Vestal] Cox does not wish to teach during the Summer Quarter of 1927, I wish the Department of Political Economy would try to get Mr. [Edmund Ezra] Day of Wisconsin [sic, Michigan is correct] who could give both a course in statistics and a course in forecasting. Forecasting is not given this summer and unless we get someone from the outside to give it, I presume it will not be given next summer.

Why does not the Department of Political Economy for the coming summer get someone like Mr. [Leverett Samuel] Lyon to give an advanced course in economics of the market for graduate students? The Department of Political Economy could handle half of his time and I perhaps could handle the other half for market management

Now that it appears that the Department of Political Economy cannot get any promising young men in the Field of Finance, why do you not try for [Chester Arthur] Phillips of Iowa? He will give good courses and will draw a great many students from the middle west to the University.

So far as my own program is concerned, I have not made much progress. I tried to get [Roy Bernard] Kester of Columbia, but he turned me down. I am placing a similar proposition before [William Andrew] Paton of Michigan. In the Field of Marketing, I am trying for [Frederic Arthur] Russell of the University of Illinois to give a course in salesmanship primarily for teachers in secondary schools. Otherwise I have made no progress in getting outside men for next summer.

Yours sincerely,
[signed]
W. H. Spencer

WHS:DD

Source:  University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics. Records. Box 22, Folder 7.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Readings and Exams. Public Utilities and Transportation. 1935-37.

This post has been assembled around a list of books used in courses on transportation that were taught at Harvard in the mid-1930s. While the courses covered public utility regulation for the most part, I have not yet found complete course outlines or syllabi for the two courses considered. So paired with the final examinations for the course, the partial reading lists are all we can go on for now regarding the course content.

In the following post we meet the economics Ph.D. alumnus (Harvard, 1931), Donald Holmes Wallace who assisted Edward H. Chamberlin in teaching these courses at the time. Wallace put the lists together in response to an inquiry from a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission (see below).

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Related Harvard Course Posts

1931. Economics of Transportation

1934. The Corporation and its Regulation Syllabus

1939-40. Regulation of Public Utilities and Transportation

1940-41.  

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Course Announcements

1935-36

Economics 4c 2hf. Public Utilities (including Transportation)

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Associate Professor Chamberlin and Drs. Wallace and Abbott.

Economics 4a [The Corporation and its Regulation] is a prerequisite for this course.

[Economics 48. Economics of Public Utilities]

Wed., 4 to 6 (and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor). Professor Crum and Associate Professors Mason and Chamberlin.

Omitted in 1935-36.

Source: Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1935-36, in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. 32, No. 7 (March 4, 1935), pp. 135, 139.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

1936-37

Economics 63b 2hf. (formerly 4c). Public Utilities (including Transportation)

Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Associate Professor Chamberlin and Drs. Wallace and Abbott.

Economics 61a [The Corporation and its Regulation] is a prerequisite for this course.

Economics 163. (formerly 48). Economics of Public Utilities

Wed., 4 to 6 (and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructor). Professor Crum and Associate Professors Mason and Chamberlin.

Source: Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1936-37, in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. 33, No. 5 (March 2, 1936), pp. 141,145.

_____________________________

Course Enrollments

[Economics] 4c 2hf. Associate Professor Chamberlin and Drs. Wallace, Abbott and Baker. — Public Utilities (including Transportation).

Total 74: 2 Graduates, 30 Seniors, 40 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1935-36, p. 82.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

[Economics] 63b 2hf. (formerly 4c) Associate Professor Chamberlin and Dr. Wallace. — Public Utilities (including Transportation).

Total 43: 1 Graduate, 25 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Other.

[Economics] 163. (formerly 48). Associate Professors Mason and Chamberlin and Dr. Wallace.—Economics of Public Utilities (including Transportation).

Total 10: 4 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 2 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1936-37, pp. 92, 94.

_____________________________

Harvard University
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Department of Government

Cambridge, Massachusetts
October 19, 1936

Miss C. C. Tatnall
Department of Economics
41 Holyoke House
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Miss Tatnall:

Professor [William Y.] Elliott has had an inquiry from a member of the Interstate Commerce Commission about the books which are being used in the courses on transportation in the University. Have you a bibliography, or could a bibliography be prepared, of the material in use in the courses Economics 63b and 163? We shall appreciate any material you are able to collect.

Do you know if there are any other courses in the College which deal with transportation?

Thanks so much for your trouble.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
[first name?] Dolan

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

List of Books used in Economics of Transportation
October, 1936
D. H. Wallace

Undergraduate course entitled Public Utilities including Transportation:

Locklin: Economics of Transportation

Mosher and Crawford: Public Utility Regulation

Daggett: Principles of Inland Transportation

Owen: Highway Economics

Bauer and Gold: Public Utility Valuation for Purposes of Rate Control

Bonbright and Means: The Holding Company

Reports of the Federal Coordinator.

Graduate course students make use of the following

Cunningham: American Railroads

Grodinsky: Railroad Consolidation

Jones: Principles of Railway Transportation

Miller: Inland Transportation

Ripley: Railroads 

Ripley: Report on Consolidation for I.C.C.

Sharfman: American Railway Problem

Sharfman: Interstate Commerce Commission

Simnett: Railway Amalgamation in Great Britain

Vanderblue and Burgess: Railroads

I.C.C.: Annual Reports

I.C.C.: Decisions

Clark: Economics of Overhead Costs

Chamberlin: Theory of Monopolistic Competition (Duopoly and oligopoly)

Pigou: Economics of Welfare (Discrimination)

Robinson: Economics of Imperfect Competition (Discrimination)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 25. Folder “Suggested Readings”.

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Reading Period Assignment
May 4-26, 1936

Economics 4c: Read one of the following:

  1. First Report of the Federal Coordinator of Transportation, pp. 1-37.
    Third Report of the Federal Coordinator of Transportation, pp. 3-129.
  2. Stuart Daggett, Principles of Inland Transportation (revised edition), Chs. 36-38
    and H.E. Dugall, two articles on French railways, Journal of Political Economy, June, 1933, pp. 289-333 and June, 1934, pp. 385-392.
  3. Bauer, J. and Gold, N., Public Utility Valuation for Purposes of Rate Control, pp. 155-362.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1935-36”.

_____________________________

1935-36
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 4c2
[Final Examination]

Answer questions 1 and 5 and TWO others. All questions are of equal weight.

  1. Answer the question appropriate to your Reading Period choice.
    1. Discuss the alternatives for a national policy toward the transportation problem in this country and explain which measures should in your opinion be included in such a program.
    2. Compare the chief developments in railway regulation in France and the United States during the past fifteen years.
    3. “The concept of ‘present value’ represents an unreal combination of judicial prejudice and economic abstraction.” Discuss.
  2. The economic surgery required by the provisions of the Public Utility Holding Company Act compelling realignment of companies into integrated regional systems is no less deplorable than an appendicitis operation upon a boy who has eaten too many green apples. A much more sensible policy was adopted in the consolidation provisions of the Transportation Act of 1920 which enabled a judicious mixture of private and public planning of combination.” Discuss.
  3. “The original cost method of valuation cannot provide a satisfactory way of determining rate bases in the case of competing railroads built at different times over different terrains. Under such circumstances the use of original cost will result either in robbing the stockholders of one road of the advantages of perspicacious management, or in forcing shippers to reward the stockholders of the other for building an expensive road.” Discuss.
  4. You are asked by one of the political parties to prepare a memorandum to serve as a basis for a plank concerning public utilities. It is requested that you explain specifically: (1) the economic criteria which seem to be the most useful for distinguishing industries which should be subjected to public ownership and operation or public regulation of investment, prices, and earnings; and (2) the legal principles used by the courts in recent cases involving the rights of Federal or state governments to regulate investment, prices, or earnings.
  5. Discuss two of the following quotations.
    1. “The ordinary consumer of utility services is interested only in price and quality of service. His disposition to leave to investors all concern over security structures, holding companies, and service charges finds a sound basis in the fact that these things affect only the division of the profits.”
    2. “Whatever may be urged to the contrary, regulation of transportation agencies in the United States has been imposed as a result of unfair treatment of the shipping public.”
    3. “Personal discrimination is bad enough in that it confers an unwarranted favor upon one of two producers located in the same place; long and short haul discrimination is worse because it gives an undue advantage to the producer who is located farther away from raw materials or markets.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, Finals 1936. (HUC 7000.28, Vol. 78).

_____________________________

Reading Period Assignment
May 10-June 2, 1937

Economics 63b: Read one of the following:

  1. First Report of the Federal Coordinator of Transportation, pp. 1-37,
    and
    Third Report of the Federal Coordinator of Transportation, pp. 3-129.
  2. Stuart Daggett, Principles of Inland Transportation (revised edition), Chs. 36-38
    and H.E. Dugall, two articles on French railways, Journal of Political Economy, June, 1933, pp. 289-333 and June, 1934, pp. 385-392.
  3. Bauer, J. and Gold, N., Public Utility Valuation for Purposes of Rate Control, pp. 155-362.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1936-37”.

_____________________________

1936-37
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 63b2
[Final Examination]

Write on four questions, including the first and the last. Divide your time about equally between them.

  1. Choose either (a) or (b):
    1. “The fact that ‘charging what the traffic will bear’ develops under unregulated competition is no excuse for permitting the practice when rates are regulated by public authority. It is simply another form of discrimination which it is the duty of the I.C.C. to put down.” Discuss.
    2. Comment on the following figures for the electrical industry for 1935:

 Customers
Per cent		 Consumption
Per cent		 Revenue
Per cent
Domestic: 82.6 18.0

36.6
Commercial:
   Retail

14.9

 18.3

28.0
   Wholesale

2.0

 53.1

27.5
Municipal, Street railways and miscellaneous

0.5

 10.6

7.0

100.0

 100.0

100.0
  1. “With the Act of 1920 the policy of regulation of railroads reached its highest development. If that policy fails, the only alternative is public ownership.” Discuss.
  2. Discuss the merits and defects of the policies adopted in in this country for public planning of operating systems either in electricity supply or in railroad transportation.
  3. “In the last analysis, it has been the presence or absence of monopoly which determined whether or not an industry was held to be a public utility. Actually, there are several other elements which ought to be given important consideration.” Discuss.
  4. Answer the question appropriate to your reading period choice:
    1. (Eastman report.) Do you think that all agencies of transport should be subjected to the same or to different sorts of regulation? Explain.
    2. (Bauer and Gold.) Explain briefly what you understand by “fair value” according to the law of the land and discuss its significance for the regulation of earnings of public utilities.
    3. (Foreign railways.) What significant comparisons may be made between the post-war railroad problems of France, Germany and England? What light has your reading here thrown upon the problems of this country?

Source: Harvard University, Examination Papers, Finals 1937. (HUC 7000.28, Vol. 79).

_____________________________

Reading Period Assignment
January 4-20, 1937

Economics 163: Read the following:

Bonbright and Means, The Holding Company.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1936-37”.

_____________________________

1936-37
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 163
[Mid-Year Examination]

All six questions are of equal weight. Answer the first question, the last question, and any two among questions 2 to 5.

  1. The Public Utility Act of 1935 authorizes an examination of holding company systems with a view to determining “the extent to which such holding company systems and the companies therein may be simplified, unnecessary complexities therein eliminated, voting power fairly and equitably distributed among the holders of securities thereof, and the properties and business thereof confined to those necessary or appropriate to the operations of integrated public utility systems.” What facts with respect to these questions would you expect such an examination to disclose?
  2. Discuss either of the following statements by Burns:
    (a) “Vertical integration thus dictated by the opportunity to secure technical economies of production is not directly caused by the decline of price competition although it may contribute to that decline.”
    (b) “In common with all forms of integration, however, this type (of the production of commodities requiring similar selling organizations) hinders the comparison of costs and prices for each separate branch of production.”
  3. Discuss either of the following statements:
    (a) “Closely related and also a chief point of controversy, was the effect of limitation of liability upon the position of the creditor.” Hunt (commenting upon the Royal Commission Report of 1854).
    (b) “It is to be noted that hardly anywhere in these reports (those of 1837, 1850, 1851, and 1854) was a pure measure of limited liability discussed. What was discussed at great length was this mixed form (of the en commandite type) with unlimited and limited partners.” Shannon.
  4. (a) Discuss the significance and usefulness of either ratio analysis, with illustrative comment upon important types of ratios, or analysis by use of so-called statements of source and disposition of funds.
    (b) Outline the major arguments against enforced publicity of corporate accounts.
  5. (a) Discuss the effect of each of the following devices in bringing about separation of control from ownership in corporations: (i) the stockholder’s proxy, (ii) classification of stock.
    (b) Outline the main considerations determining a corporation’s dividend policy.
  6. Write on either (a) or (b):
    (a) What difficulties, if any, are created by the corporate form of organization for the theory of profits?
    (b) What effect do you think a sizeable tax on the transfer of securities (say 1 or 2 per cent of the market price) would have on the behavior of security prices?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 13, Folder “Mid-year examinations, 1936-1937”.

_____________________________

Reading Period Assignment
May 10—June 2, 1937

Economics 163: No additional assignment.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1936-37”.

_____________________________

1936-37
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 163
[Final Examination]

Write on four questions, including number 6. Divide your time about equally between them.

  1. “To justify the principle of discrimination is not to justify either particular instances or particular types of discrimination.” Discuss.
  2. Discuss the possibilities for regulating the earnings of public utilities either (a) with, or (b) without, valuation.
  3. Discuss the possible effects of regulation upon efficiency. What suggestions as to public policy can you make for strengthening the incentives towards efficient operation?
  4. “The arguments for and against public ownership are the same as the arguments for and against regulation.” Discuss.
  5. Discuss the problems of public planning for the size and structure of operating units and the relations between them, with reference to either (a) railroad transport, or (b) electricity supply.
  6. Write on transport coordination: its meaning, significance and possibilities.

Source: Harvard University, Examination Papers, Finals 1937. (HUC 7000.28, Vol. 79).

Image Source: Cover of the 1946 Harvard Album.

 

Categories
Economists Gender Harvard NBER Radcliffe Smith Vassar

Radcliffe.Economics Ph.D. Alumna, Dorothy Carolin Bacon, 1928

 

This post began after I noticed that it has been some time since I posted biographical and career information for a economics Ph.D. alumna. I figured it would be good to search for a candidate that Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has already caught in an earlier archival trawling expedition but for whom the details of post-doc life had not been added. Dorothy Carolin Bacon was awarded her Radcliffe economics Ph.D. in 1928 and the following item was what I had to start with.

Dorothy Carolin Bacon.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 26, 1927.
Committee: Professors Persons (chairman), Carver, Crum, Gay and Holcombe.
Academic History: Simmons College, 1918-19; Radcliffe College, 1919-22, 1923-24, 1926-. A.B., Radcliffe, 1922; A.M., ibid., 1924. Assistant in Economics, Vassar College, 1924-25. Instructor in Economics, ibid., 1925-26.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory. 2. Sociology. 3. History of Political Theory. 4. Statistics. 5. Economic History. 6., Money, Banking and Crises.
Special Subject: Money, Banking and Crises.
Thesis Subject: A Study of the Dispersion of Wholesale Commodity Prices, 1890-1896.  (With Professor Persons.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1926-1927”.

________________________

One of the items that came up after searching for a Google search was an advertisement for her handwritten Radcliffe student journal notes from her Physics course in 1922. Besides being surprised to see a list price of $750.00 for this notebook, I was intrigued by the relatively detailed information provided about Dorothy Bacon. While everything about the text struck me as fully plausible, I thought it worth some due diligence to confirm what I could from the bookseller’s bio-blurb. I have added links wherever possible to sources that confirm the details below. It would appear that information from the above item in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror as well as from the Dzuback chapters in Madden and Dimand (eds.)  and Margaret A. Nash (ed.) have provided some (or even much) of what was included in the D. Anthem advertisement that follows.

The section on Smith College in Mary Ann Dzuback’s chapter “Women economists in the academy: struggles and strategies, 1900-1940” in the Routledge Handbook of the History of Women’s Economic Thought, Kirsten Madden and Robert W. Dimand (eds.) provides information on Dorothy Bacon from the faculty files of the Smith College Archives [Office of President William Allan Neilson Files, Box 364, Folder 34]:

Bacon came to Smith a year before finishing her Ph.D. at Radcliffe in 1928. She took research and service sabbatical leaves to work for the Works Progress Administration and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the 1930s. She focused her research on money flows during the 1930s, cost price problems, and the development of federal level credit institutions. By the 1940s, she was working with the federal Office of Price Administration. By the 1950s, she was consulting with the Brookings Institution, had been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and received grants from the SSRC. She published a monograph on the recent economic history of five towns around Northampton, Massachusetts, in the late 1930s, and was completing a book on the development of Philippine credit institutions by 1970.

________________________

Another paragraph by Mary Ann Dzuback

From: Mary Ann Dzuback. Chapter 7. Research at Women’s Colleges, 1890-1940. Women’s Higher Education in the United States (Historical Studies in Education), edited by Margaret A. Nash. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

Dorothy Bacon (1927–54) arrived in 1928, eventually taking an endowed chair. She investigated the flows of currency during the Depression, cost price problems, and the growth of credit institutions, and was in great demand by private research agencies and the federal government. A sometime consultant with the National Bureau of Economic Research, in the 1920s and 1930s she worked with a range of government and research agencies. She was awarded grants by the Social Science Research Council and published regularly. Bacon’s record of research and service, and her sabbaticals, suggest that women social science scholars at Smith were encouraged to use their research to inform policy at the federal and international levels.

________________________

From: Advertisement for “Economist Dorothy Bacon’s 1922 Physics 2 Journal from Radcliffe College (1922)

Dorothy Carolin Bacon was born in 1902 to George Preston Bacon, a professor of Physics and Dean of both the Tufts Engineering School and the Bromfield-Pearson School, and Hannah Churchill Bacon, a trained nurse. Her sister, Ruth Bacon, also attended Radcliffe College and later became the first female officer of a State Department geographical bureau (Bureau of Eastern Affairs). Bacon attended Simmons College from 1918-19 before transferring to Radcliffe, the former women’s liberal arts college that fully merged with Harvard in 1999. She earned her B.A. (1922), M.A. (1924) and Ph.D (1927) [sic, 1928] there with her dissertation concerning A Study of the Dispersion of Wholesale Commodity Prices, 1890-1896. While at Radcliffe she also worked for the Federal Reserve Board’s Division of Research and Analysis [as a Statistical Clerk starting 1 July 1922] earning an annual salary of $1600 before resigning [May 10] in 1923.

She was hired as an assistant professor [sic, “Assistant” is a lower rank than “Assistant Professor”] in economics at Vassar in 1924 [cf. AER, Vol. 14, No. 4 (Dec. 1924), p. 829 “Miss Dorothy C. Bacon is assistant in economics at Vassar College.”], but was recruited by Esther Lowenthal, Dean of the Faculty and chair of the economics department at Smith, to join Smith’s faculty in 1927. At Smith she focused her research on money flows during the 1930s, cost price problems, and the development of credit institutions at the federal level. In 1930, she was one of three research associates selected for the National Bureau of Economic Research where she studied the relation of current stock prices to earnings per share from the twenty corporations comprising the Index of Industrial Stock Prices of the Harvard Economic Service. Her monograph, Recent Economic History of the Five Towns (1937) was published by the Works Progress Administration. In 1942, Bacon left her post at Smith [sic, only temporary leave] to work under Leon Henderson at the Office of Price Administration. It was there that she wrote a study of the scrap metal market in Syracuse, NY. By the 1950s, she was consulting with the Brookings Institution and was publishing her research in the Review of Economic Statistics, the Journal of the American Statistical Association and the National Encyclopedia. She appears to have never married [she wasn’t]  and when she died in 1998 she was buried at Shawsheen Cemetery in Bedford, MA, alongside her parents and sister.

Source: D. Anthem, Bookseller advertisement for “Economist Dorothy Bacon’s 1922 Physics 2 Journal from Radcliffe College (1922) [posted price: $750.00!]

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A.E.A. Biographical Listing, 1969

BACON, Dorothy Carolin, academic; b. Beloit, Wis., 1902; student Simmons Coll., 1918-19; A.B., Radcliffe Coll., 1922, A.M., 1924, Ph.D., 1928. FIELDS 2c, 5e, 4a. Research asso., Nat. Bur. Econ. Research, 1930-31; formerly sr. research asso., Fed. Deposit Ins. Corp.; fed. Dir. Research project, Work Progress Adm., 1935-36; asst. div. economist, food price div., OPA [Office of Price Administration], 1943-47, OPS [Office of Price Stabilization], 1951; Fulbright prof., U. Philippines, 1956-57; mem. Faculty, Smith Coll. Since 1927, prof. since 1938, Robert A. Woods prof. since 1956. ADDRESS Smith Coll., 115 Elm St., Northampton, MA 01060.

Note. Fields: 2c (Economic Development Studies); 5e (General International Economics); 4a (Monetary and Financial Theory and Institutions).

Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 59, No. 6, 1969. Handbook of the American Economic Association (January 1970), p. 17.

________________________

Bachelor of Arts, Radcliffe (1922)

With Distinction in Special Subjects
Cum Laude

Dorothy Carolin Bacon [of] Medford. In Mathematics.

Source: Report of the Dean in Annual Report of Radcliffe College for 1920-1923, p. 43.

________________________

Master of Arts, Radcliffe (1924)

Dorothy Carolin Bacon, A.B.

Source: Report of the Dean in Annual Report of Radcliffe College for 1923-1924, p. 31.

________________________

Doctor of Philosophy, Radcliffe (1928)

Dorothy Carolin Bacon A.M.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Money and Banking. Dissertation, “Maladjustment of Prices with Special Reference to the Wholesale Prices of Commodities in the United States; 1890-1896”

Source:  Report of the Dean in Annual Reports of Radcliffe College for 1927-1928, p. 23.

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Publications of Dorothy C. Bacon

A Monthly Index of Commodity Prices, 1890-1900. Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol. 8, No. 4 (October 1926), pp. 177-83.

The Significance of Fixed-base and Link Relatives in Studies of Price Stability: A Comment on the Behavior of Prices. Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 23 (September 1928), pp. 274-81.

Maladjustment of Prices with Special Reference to the Wholesale Prices of Commodities in the United States, 1890-1896. Ph.D. thesis, Radcliffe College.

Encyclopedia articles in the National Encyclopedia.

Recent Economic History of Five Towns. Northampton, Mass.: Smith College, 1937.

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Vital Dates and Miscellaneous Information

Born:  25 February 1902 in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Last Residence: Niceville, Okaloosa, Florida [Socal Security death index].

Died: 8 November in Meriden, New Haven County, Connecticut. [Apparently visiting: the Connecticut Death Index notes her address 2475 Virginia, Residence Andover, District of Columbia].

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Image Source: Senior year picture of Dorothy Carolin Bacon in the  Radcliffe Year Book 1922, p. 23.

 

 

 

Categories
Curriculum Economics Programs Fields Harvard Statistics

Harvard. Report on statistics and national income courses. Crum and Frickey, 1945

Crum Frickey

 

William Leonard Crum and Edward Frickey taught Harvard’s economic statistics courses in the 1930s and 1940s.  Paul Samuelson recounted his second semester (Spring 1936) as a graduate student following his previous semester’s worth of Crum: “…I was able to learn genuine modern statistics from E. B. Wilson, bypassing Edwin Frickey (who with Leonard Crum taught at Harvard courses against modern statistics!)” [On this, Roger E. Backhouse’s Vol I: Becoming Samuelson, 1915-1948, p.101].

Reading the following intradepartmental report on economic statistics courses and how to integrate national income and product accounting into the graduate curriculum that was written by a committee of two (Crum and Frickey), one discovers that even a decade after Samuelson’s experience, the proper preparation of “ink charts” was a subject that warranted faculty discussion.  Harvard Ph.D. Robert Solow later went to Columbia to play catch-up ball with respect to statistical analysis before starting his M.I.T. contract.  Harvard economics was a full generation behind the times with respect to statistical method at mid-20th century.

A 1947 Crum/Frickey  joint memo regarding preparation for taking the comprehensive field exam in statistics has been posted earlier.

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6 March 1945

Report on the course offerings in Statistics, and in National Income

At the Department meeting of 13 February, 1945, the undersigned were named a committee to study course offerings and proposed offerings in Statistics and in National Income, discuss their findings with the Chairman, and report to the Department. Attached are the two reports: I, on Statistics; II, (page 10) on National Income.

W.L. Crum
Edwin Frickey

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

I. The Offering in Statistics

At the meeting of the Harvard Economics Department on 13 February, 1945. W. L. C. and E. F. sought opinions from colleagues as to additional instruction needed in statistics and as to changes needed in existing instruction. The following is in part a report of the informal discussion, in part an indication of what W. L. C. and E. F. think can advisedly be done. The present statement is preliminary; a more definitive report will be prepared, after consultation with H. H. B., for submission to the Department at a later meeting.

  1. Opinion was expressed that many of our graduate students show conspicuous lack of ability to present statistical material in the form of chart or table, for example, in theses. Instruction in statistics here has for several years relied upon capacity of students to learn by emulation—they have abundant opportunity to acquaint themselves with good statistical presentation, both tabular and graphic, in our courses in statistics and in the source materials of other courses. In course 21a, some instruction is incidentally given in orderly tabulation of limited sorts, but we make no attempt to teach students to prepare ink charts. Apparently, something more is needed; and three suggestions, perhaps all to be followed together, are made:
    1. By compressing some other parts of the work, we can include a small amount of instruction on presentation in course 21a. This should help put those graduate students who are required to take that course here on the right track.
    2. For students not required to take 21a, because they have had the “equivalent” elsewhere, one possibly helpful device is to require in course 121b a written report involving presentation in tabular and graphic form. Such report could be graded if sufficient funds are available to cover the grading, and the instructors could make a moderate effort to advise particular students about defects in their reports. The reports would presumably be required of all students in 121b, whether or not they had had 21a.
    3. The Department’s specialists in statistics could advise any graduate student, whose thesis involved matters of statistical presentation, concerning such matters. When the Department acquires a general research laboratory, with a regular supervisor, the supervisor could give such advice. In the meantime, the instructors in statistics could stand ready to give such advice in appropriate cases. The undersigned emphasize that this advice should be understood to concern presentation of statistical materials: they do not feel but they should be called upon ordinarily to advise such as student about sources of statistics for his thesis, or about the methods of analyzing the statistics, or about their interpretation. They have often given advice on such matters in certain cases, and will continue to do so, but take the stand that they should not be regarded as under the obligation to give such advice to all comers. The point is that; if the candidate proposes to write a statistical thesis in any field of economics, a vital part of his job is to obtain, analyze, and interpret his data. We see no reason why faculty specialists in statistics should make an extraordinary contribution to a thesis which happens to have quantitative aspects.
  2. Little emphasis appeared, in any opinions expressed, on the need for laboratory instruction in statistics in our graduate offering. Some suggestion was advanced that the “homework” type of problem task could helpfully be employed. W. L. C. and E. F. have a little faith that much could be accomplished in this way – the great advantage of the supervised laboratory is that the supervisor can get students actively started on the task and can catch and clear away difficulties as they arise. (We assume, of course, any problem work of this sort, in graduate courses, should be on an advanced – not elementary – level.) To meet this suggestion, we propose only that point A2 above be put into effect, and that the following change in present operations be considered. At present, course 121a includes two home-work problems, which stretch over several weeks, but are not graded and are not used as bases for specific advice to individual students. The proposed change is that these problems be handed in, and treated like the problem described in A2. (In these cases, as in that case, grading of the reports would be feasible if funds are available for the purpose.)

An emphatic suggestion was made that graduate students have the use of laboratory equipment, and be made welcome in the laboratory. We do not believe this can be managed with the laboratory facilities of course 21a. We note, however, that a moderate chance now exists that the University will presently provide the Department with a research laboratory in statistics, adequately equipped, and under competent supervision. If and when this is done, no difficulty will arise in making ample place for work by graduate students on any statistical tasks in which they may properly be interested. We remark that the arguments in favor of a general research laboratory in statistics are much more likely to bring conviction in responsible quarters that the argument, however strongly put, in favor of facilities merely for the occasional use of graduate students.

  1. Supposing we are to give an additional half graduate course in statistics, opinions pointed toward three alternatives:
    1. A course in theory, intermediate between course 121a and Prof. Wilson’s course 122b. This does not appear a good use of our manpower, for the election in such a course would inevitably be small, especially as the mathematics prerequisites would necessarily be much more severe than those – almost nil – on which we now limp through 121a.
    2. A further course was suggested – beyond 121b and perhaps alternating with it – in topics in the application of statistics to economic fields. Economics 121b now includes a selected list of such topics, which varies moderately from year to year; but it is by no means a comprehensive coverage of all even of the major possibilities. We could readily prepare an additional half course to be called 121c of further topics in the applied fields, and many students would probably like such a course. Such a course can be described as follows:

Economics 121c will be a half-course which might be entitled Topics in Applied Economic Statistics. Economics 21a or its equivalent will be a prerequisite. Properly qualified undergraduates may, with the consent of the instructor, be admitted to economics 121c.

Economics 121c will deal with statistical problems arising in connection with the use of basic statistical data in a selected list of economic topics. (As compared with 121b this course will lay more emphasis on the basic material and less emphasis on statistical theory.)

On each topic each student will be expected to familiarize himself with the immediate and the basic sources of the main materials, through actual examination of such materials, and to present a critical appraisal of these fundamental statistics. The instructor will give a succinct historical background – an outline of the principal work which is already been done on the topic. The instructor and the class will work out together conclusions as to what are the leading issues involved, and will consider what it is that statisticians are trying to measure and what they should be trying to measure.

Such topics as the following will be included:

Consumption
Commodity prices
Cost-of-living
Employment and unemployment
Wages
Money and Banking
Production and Trade (certain phases)
Balance of international payments
Public Finance

        1. The subordinate suggestion that, in this case, basic preparation for the oral exam and also the write-off field might consist of 121a and either 121b or 121c, was advanced. A strong objection to this appears in the fact that 121b, although made up largely of topics in applied statistics, now includes – and should continue to do so – certain topics which need to be covered by every general economist (we do not here have in mind the statistical specialist) who is to have “literacy” in the field of economic statistics today. Several of the “applied” topics now in 121b include in fact fundamental matters of statistical theory needed by all economists, and not elsewhere covered in our instruction. These include, for example: the theory of index numbers, statistical deflation, secular trends in business cycles, the basic theory of measuring production and income, and at least demand and cost curves not to mention more sophisticated matters of econometrics. These essentially theoretical topics in statistics should remain part of the basic graduate year course in statistics. (This goes also for our present topic of national income: even if the Department offer a course in that subject, the course will not be taken by all students, and all should have at least the brief survey now in 121b). For the foregoing reason, we emphatically urge that 121a and 121b stand as the basic year course in the field, and that the new course 121c be regarded as an additional – but not an alternative–half course.
        2. The subordinate suggestion at 121b and 121c be given in alternate years appears to fall for the same reason given in C2a.

 

    1. Instead of the course described under C2 suggestion was made that we introduce a course in administrative (we use this word provisionally, for want of a better) statistics – mainly, but not exclusively, governmental statistics. We have not outlined such a course in full, but can suggest its nature by indicating that it would emphasize the problems encountered in actually doing statistical work in government or private agencies. Such topics as the preparation and use of index numbers of prices and production; the compilation and use of data on employment and the labor force; statistics of farm production and operation; the gathering of and analysis of facts concerning trade, both foreign and domestic; financial data such as are developed by the treasury, the S. E. C, the F. R. B., and private agencies; statistics used in the analysis of particular enterprises; the rapidly developing field of quality control in industry, suggest themselves for inclusion. The nature of the course can also be indicated by somewhat loose contrast with the course described under C2 above: in that course, the point of view is of the user (economist, or other analyst) of statistics, and attention is given to the origin of the statistics only in so far as it is needed to guide and inform the user. In this course, the point of view is of the maker of statistics, and attention is given to the use of the statistics only in so far as it is needed to guide the maker in his work. This course would go far toward meeting the contention that our students, while well founded in statistical theory, are not ready to handle the kind of statistical tasks which they encounter in government or other research agencies.

At the moment we are not ready to choose between the courses described under C2 and C3, the former (and obviously the latter) being understood as in addition to, and not alternative to, 121b.

 

  1. No opinion was expressed concerning course 122b, and we think it should continue to be given in alternate years.

No opinion was offered concerning the content of course 121a. We have in mind some compression of one of the topics know given. This, plus the longer term under the peace-time schedule, will enable us to give more satisfactory attention to the topic of small samples.

We were commissioned to report also on national income. This is covered in a separate memorandum.

 

  1. We layout now, in tentative form and subject to revision by the Department, our recommendation as to the entire offering in statistics in the early post-war years.

21a. Substantially as at present, but with the change outlined in A1.

121a. Substantially as at present, but with the change outlined in B and the change noted in D.

121b. Substantially as at present, but with the change outlined in A2.

(Courses 121a and 121b to be regarded as the core of the preparation in the field of statistics, and to be recommended to the candidates for the general oral in statistics as the most helpful unit in their preparation.)

121c. A new half course, either that described under C2 or that under C3. To be open to graduate students who have had 21a or by consent of the instructor to those who have had the equivalent of 21a, and by consent of the instructor to properly qualified undergraduates who have had 21a.

122b. Substantially as at present, and to be given in alternate years as at present.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

II. Offering in National Income

The suggestion is made that a half course, at the graduate level, in National Income be offered. The main purpose of such a course would be to give our students an extensive factual basis for their use of national income concepts and data in a wide range of our theoretical and applied fields. The course by itself could provide only a beginning for specialization the subject of national income for its own sake, and we do not understand that the Department contemplates recognizing the field in that subject.

While the course should be concerned primarily with the facts of national income, we understand that some attention could properly be given to the interpretation of those facts into their economic and social implications. Moreover, even to handle properly the factual side, the course would need give much attention to matters of definition and concept, matters which actually stand at the root of most of the “problems” of measuring national income and its chief constituents.

The core of the course would consist of the presentation, discussion, and criticism of the existing statistical facts on the national income and its constituents. These materials would presumably be limited to the United States; although some of the critical portions of the course, dealing with concepts and the like, would necessarily make large drafts on studies in certain other countries. Emphasis would be on the problems of measurement, the effectiveness and validity of the methods used, and the appropriateness of the results obtained as answers to questions posed by the economist.

In addition to the over-all aggregate of national income, viewed in real and money terms and in its variations over time, the course would examine the chief constituents of national income. These would include:

  1. Contributions to national income by various types of economic activity.
  2. Contributions from various geographical regions (much less is known on this.)
  3. Allocation, so far as it is known, to the several factors of production.
  4. Distribution according to size of income (money income) received by individuals.
  5. Distribution of income according to use: consumption expenditures of individuals (perishable, semi-durable), consumption through government, savings (by individuals, by enterprises, by government).
  6. Capital formation, and its relation to savings.
  7. Relation of taxes and public expenditures to the flow of income.

Your committee makes no recommendation as to the personnel to be assigned the task of conducting such a course. It does recommend: that the course be limited to graduate students, and to those advanced concentrators who receive permission from the instructor(s); that all students who take the course be required to have completed one half year course at the graduate level in economic theory and in statistics; that the course be given each year, rather than in alternate years; that the course be considered as a pro-seminar in statistics for the purpose of excuse – under our existing rules for reducing the oral examination to three fields – from the oral examination in statistics.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers, 1902-1950. Box 23. Folder “Course Announcement 1945-46”.

Image Source: Crum and Frickey in the Harvard Class Album, 1942 and 1950.