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Economics Programs M.I.T. Undergraduate

M.I.T. Economics department committee (re-)organization. 1976-78

During my second year in graduate school at M.I.T. (1975-76), the economics department professors were engaged in a discussion about reforming the administration of their department. At the time I was completely unaware of this discussion that had been provoked by the following memorandum written by then Department Head, Professor E. Cary Brown, based on his experience with the growing overload of administrative chores and responsibilities in a department with the scale of that attained by M.I.T.’s economics department.

Brown’s memo to the faculty is followed by a transcription of a copy of the letter Brown wrote to Robert Solow, who as an administrative reorganization committee member, must have been asked for some further testimony. The entire committee’s (Peter A. Diamond, Stanley Fischer, Jerry Hausman, Paul Joskow, Robert M. Solow) report was completed two months after Brown’s memo. In the same departmental file from the M.I.T. archives, one finds a copy of the actual assignment of administrative responsibilities for the academic year 1977/78.

Many, if not most, of the administrative tasks had been allocated and faithfully executed before this “reorganization”. I know that Evsey Domar had long been covering the placement of new Ph.D.’s and also proudly serving as the departmental representative for library-related affairs. I sense reading these documents that the truly neglected child all along was the undergraduate program for which some arm-twisting was required to achieve equitable burden-sharing among the faculty. But perhaps there were other specific items that had been sore points too. Maybe Brown simply wanted an explicit organization chart to forestall “whataboutism” from the mouths of relatively uncooperative colleagues. But like I wrote above, this was a discussion that was invisible to me (appropriately so) at the time.

Cf. The committee assignments in the Harvard economics department during the 1972-73 academic year

__________________________

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02139

March 12, 1976

Economics Department Faculty

Dear [blank]

For some time I have become increasingly dismayed at the increase in the administrative burden in the Department, and now find the present job as Head to be a nearly impossible one. If the job is to be made tolerable, it must have substantial additional faculty support in some form to cut it down to a scope manageable either by me or a successor.

There are two basic ways that this can be achieved: (1) by spreading the administrative activities and responsibilities more widely among the faculty; or (2) placing these tasks on essentially an associate departmental head, whose precise title could take various forms Executive Officer, Academic Officer (e.g., Tony French in Physics), or Associate Head. I personally would favor the Associate Head route, but regard it as an open question subject to further discussion and consideration, and to Administration approval. This new structure should be treated as an experiment, to last no longer than until the next Head is chosen, and to be reconsidered at that time.

My own thinking about the administrative tasks of the Department separates them into four major areas: undergraduate programs, graduate programs, research programs, and personnel and budgeting. While these can be headed by an administrator or by faculty, it seems to me that the first two programs should have formal faculty control regardless of the form the administrative reorganization takes. The graduate program nearly has that form now and largely runs itself, with the exception of a few odds and ends that now lie outside the responsibility of the graduate registration officers. The undergraduate program is a long way from this structure and will require a good deal of imagination, initiative and effort to resuscitate the Undergraduate Economics Association and provide more guidance and support for majors. The research programs (student and faculty) focus more or less clearly under the Committee on Economic Research. Personnel and budgeting are an administrative responsibility. They have involved increasing amounts of time as budgets have tightened, space has tightened, and the search for new faculty has expanded.

The administrative structure is an important matter to the Department. Because it involves departmental administration and the role of the Department Head, it concerns the Administration through Dean Hanham. He has asked me to appoint the following committee to consider these questions of reorganization and to make recommendations: Bob Solow, Peter Diamond, Stan Fischer, Paul Joskow, and Jerry Hausman. Please give your views to members of the committee as soon as you can.

Sincerely,
[signed “Cary”]
E. Cary Brown, Head

ECB/sc

__________________________

Brown to Solow

March 16, 1976

Professor Robert Solow
E52-383

Dear Bob:

I shrink from making organization charts, but the following diagram is intended to give some idea of the orders of magnitude of faculty involvement in departmental chores.

Chairman, Committee on Undergraduate Studies

  1. Faculty counselors (we have agreed with the UEA to keep members to 10 or less, and let faculty build up expertise by staying adviser for freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior year).

—10 faculty: 2 for each class. 4 for seniors

  1. Faculty adviser for humanities concentration in economics (advises and signs up students); also considers the eligibility of economics subjects, what we consider concentration, etc.
  2. Closely related to (2) is possible membership on the so-called Humanities Committee that approves and reviews the whole Humanities, Arts, and Social Science requirement and program. (We have no one on this year but as the largest concentration will surely need to have a presence.)
  3. Approval of transfer of credits from other schools to M.I.T.
  4. Advising with Undergraduate Economic Association in matters academic, professional, social.
  5. Undergraduate placement, while an Institute responsibility, could be supervised and assisted by a faculty member who would keep up to date on summer placement, interning possibilities, salaries. The experience our students have applying to graduate schools, actual jobs offered and taken.
  6. Design of curriculum, cooperative program, etc.
  7. Various activities, such as providing information to undergraduates in their choice of major (Midway in fall, seminar in spring), Open House activities, Alumni activities, etc.
  8. Relations with other Departments at undergraduate level, such as subject offerings, subject content, etc.
  9. Supervision and staffing of undergraduate subjects with multiple sections — 14.001, 14.002, 14.03, 14.04, 14.06, 14.30, 14.31.
  10. Catalog copy.

Chairman, Committee on Graduate Studies

  1. Graduate Registration Officers, so far one each for first two years, and one for thesis writers. Has been suggested that we have an additional adviser for foreign students and minority and women?
  2. Admissions Committee has, in the past, had three members.
  3. Placement, both summer and permanent.
  4. Supervision of core subjects.
  5. Ph.D. and M.S. requirements, program, size.
  6. Financial aid — coordinating various GRO; Admissions Committee, and Budget limitations.
  7. Graduate School Policy Committee meetings.
  8. Annual revision of brochure.
  9. Graduate Economics Association, Black Graduate Economics Association.
  10. Catalog copy.
  11. Various activities — professional and social that are not contained within a particular class.

Chairman, Committee on Economic Research (I faculty)

  1. Organized list of faculty projects requiring research assistants and the supply of them (both graduate and undergraduate). Assignment of R.A.’s.
  2. Assistance in research proposals.
  3. Inventory of internships and off-campus research.
  4. Supervision of unscheduled subjects, such as UROP, Undergraduate Seminar, and thesis.
  5. Supervision of M.I.T. Working Paper Series.
  6. Allocation of computer funds, developing rules, developing alternative sources.

Personnel and Budgeting (Administrative Officer and a large chunk of my time)

  1. Personnel
    1. Nonfaculty is supervised by the Administrative Officer.
    2. Faculty Personnel

(1) Employment — new Ph.D.’s and senior faculty
(2) Review and promotion
(3) Assignments, leaves, research

    1. Postdoctoral personnel
  1. Space allocations, revisions.
  2. Budget Proposals
  3. a. Proposals
    b. Implementation

Telephone
Xerox & Ditto
Supplies
Equipment

There may be other matters that I am leaving out – routine meetings average probably a day a week, and things like that. Consultations with faculty, students, and other Departments, would probably add a couple more days.

If there are questions, I’ll oblige, of course.

Sincerely,
E. Cary Brown, Head

ECB/sc

__________________________

MEMORANDUM

May 10, 1976

TO:       Department Faculty
FROM: Committee on Reorganization (PAD, SF, JH, PJ, RMS) [Peter A. Diamond, Stanley Fischer, Jerry Hausman, Paul Joskow, Robert M. Solow]

SUBJECT:         Reorganization

ECB’s [E. Cary Brown] letter of March 12, which created this committee, starts from the premise that the administrative burden on the Department Head has become essentially impossible. This seems clearly to be the case. It has happened because the department has increased in size and complexity without any corresponding adaptation of its administrative arrangements. Every new function has fallen into the Head’s lap. (Top that, anyone.) Apart from the sheer burden of work thus created, another problem is the difficulty of communications, because that is also time-consuming.

After some palaver and negotiation, we have a reorganizational package to suggest. It rests on two conditions; since it is something of an interconnected web, it will probably unravel if the two conditions can not be met. (1) Since the only way to correct an excessively centralized structure is to decentralize it, we propose to diffuse administrative responsibility more widely through the department; there will be at least one serious administrative post for everyone, or perhaps two minor posts instead, but everyone will have to participate. (2) The administrative load attached to the undergraduate program has increased with the size of the enrollment and the improvement of the curriculum; no one wants to manage an inadequately staffed program. We propose, therefore, that the normal teaching load for everyone in the department be agreed to be half graduate and half undergraduate teaching. This definition should be extended to everyone on the departmental budget: joint appointees, visiting professors, etc. As soon as there are a couple of exceptions to this understanding, there will be more. Then the management of the undergraduate program will break down, and it will revert or default to the Department Head, and that is what we are trying to stave off.

The particular organization we have in mind is as follows.

  1. The central functions (budgeting, space, leaves, relations with the MIT hierarchy, etc.) will be in the hands of the Department Head and an Associate Head namely PAD [Peter A. Diamond]). In addition, one of them (probably ECB [E. Cary Brown]) will be an ex officio member of the Committee on Undergraduate Studies to be proposed below, and the other will be an ex officio member of the Committee on Graduate Studies. The precise division of labor is obviously a matter of taste; for the moment, ECB [E. Cary Brown] will probably do most of the relations with the MIT structure and PAD [Peter A. Diamond] will concentrate on intra-departmental matters.
  2. There will be a Director of Undergraduate Studies (PT [Peter Temin]), who will be chairman of a Committee on Undergraduate Studies (with 2 or 3 additional members, possibly RD [Rudiger Dornbusch], PJ [Paul Joskow] and one other). This committee will be responsible for revisions of the undergraduate curriculum adding and subtracting subjects, staffing them, degree requirements, etc. In recent discussions with the Undergraduate Economics Association, the proposal has merged that there should be a larger number of Undergraduate Advisors (i.e., registration officers) than there is now, with each taking care of at most 10 students. That suggests we would need about 8 such advisors. The members of the Committee might serve as advisors, plus others. Merely serving as registration officer for 10 undergraduates is by itself not an onerous job.
  3. There seems to be no need for change in the organization of graduate studies in the department. We suggest that there be a Director of Graduate Studies (RSE [Richard S. Eckaus]) and a Committee on Graduate Studies which would, as now, consist of the other two Graduate Registration Officers. Things are going very well now with REH [Robert E. Hall] handling the first-year students. MJP [Michael J. Piore] the second-year students and RSE [Richard S. Eckaus] the thesis-writers. REH [Robert E. Hall] is prepared to take on the task or devising a scheme to keep track of post-generals students, and see that they find themselves a reasonable thesis topic in a reasonable amount of time. The scheme may need another person to look after it.
  4. We suggest the creation of Committee on Staffing whose functions would include looking after the hiring of assistant professors, the dovetailing of visiting professors with faculty leaves, and the rationing of visiting scholars. The picture we have is that the members of committee would do the interviewing and preliminary screening of new Ph.D.’s at the annual meetings, and decide which of them to invite to come and give seminars. At that stage and thereafter, the whole department faculty would be in on the act, and final decisions would be made, as they are now, in a department meeting. The main time-consumer for this committee would be the correspondence in connection with hiring. Since that would fall on the Chairman, that post would be a major one. For the other members of the committee, the burden would be relatively light. We suggest REH [Robert E. Hall] as chairman, plus perhaps 3 others.
  5. There seems to be no reason to change the way the Admissions Committee now functions.
  6. We see no need for major change in the Placement process. Our only suggestion are (a) perhaps to provide EDD [Evsey D. Domar] with another person to share the load, and (b) to have a pre-season department meeting, analogous to the post-generals meeting, at which each graduate student entering the market could be discussed by the full facuIty, and information and ideas collected.
  7. There are other details. RLB [Robert L. Bishop] is functioning as advisor to MIT undergraduates thinking about economics as part of their Humanities requirement, and we are happy to preserve that human capital. MAA [Morris A. Adelman] who has been our representative to CGSP is to begin a term on the CEP, which should count as a major administrative burden. We need his successor on CGSP.

One last point: we hope that each committee chairman will promptly send a written notice of each substantive decision to the Head and Associate Head for distribution to the department faculty, so that communications are well looked after. That plus rational expectations should do the trick.

Source: MIT Archives. MIT Department of Economics Records. Box 2, Folder “Department Organization”.

__________________________

DEPARTMENTAL ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES:
ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT 1977-78
  1. UNDERGRADUATE COMMITTEE
Chairman: Peter Temin
Members: Cary Brown Senior Faculty Counsellor, Ex Officio
Jerry Rothenberg Senior Faculty Counsellor
Peter Temin Senior Faculty Counsellor
Rudiger Dornbusch Junior Faculty Counsellor
Jeffrey Harris Junior Faculty Counsellor
Jagdish Bhagwati Sophomore Faculty Counsellor (Fall)
Henry Farber Sophomore Faculty Counsellor (Spring)

Summer Jobs: Jeffrey Harris
Humanities Adviser: Robert Bishop
Transfer of Credits: Cary Brown

  1. GRADUATE COMMITTEE
Chairman: Richard Eckaus Thesis, Graduate Registration Officer
Members: Paul Joskow/Mike Piore Second Year Graduate Registration Officer
Marty Weitzman First Year Graduate Registration Officer
Jerome Rothenberg CGSP Representative
Stan Fischer, Ex Officio

Admissions Committee:

Chairman: Robert Bishop
Members: Frank Fisher and Lance Taylor

Placement: Evsey Domar
Harvard-MIT Theory Seminar: Eric Maskin
Theory Workshop: Kevin Roberts

  1. OTHER DEPARTMENTAL ACTIVITIES

Staffing Committee: Chairman: Rudiger Dornbusch

(For New Ass’t Profs.) Members:

Paul Joskow
Jerry Hausman
Stan Fischer, Ex Officio
(Added for Temporary Visitors: Robert Solow)

Independent Activity Period: Jeffrey Harris/Marilyn Simon
Unstructured Subjects Committee: Peter Temin, Undergraduate; Richard Eckaus, Graduate
Computer Allocation: Richard Eckaus

ADDENDUM: INSTITUTE COMMITTEES

CEP: Morris Adelman
Associate Chairman of the Faculty: Michael Piore
Visual Arts: Jerry Rothenberg
Library System, Chairman: Evsey Domar

Image Source:  For this portrait of members of the M.I.T. economics department in 1975 see the Economics in the Rear-view Mirror post that provides identifications.

Categories
Carnegie Institute of Technology Chicago Economist Market Economists Harvard M.I.T.

Chicago. Three casual letters from Cambridge, Mass. regarding young talent, 1957-59

 

In the three letters to Theodore W. Schultz transcribed for this post we witness the old-boy network at work in Chicago’s search for young talent.  Mason and Harris from Harvard share the enormous respect that Harvard Junior Fellow Frank Fisher had won from the senior professors there.  Evsey Domar hedges somewhat in his assessment of Robert L. Slighton but more or less places him in a spectrum running between Marc Nerlove and Martin Bailey closer to the latter. Other now familiar (and less familiar) names are tossed in for good measure.

____________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Office of the Dean

Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

December 27, 1957

Professor Theodore Schultz
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

Dear Ted:

In addition to [John] Meyer, [James] Henderson and [Otto] Eckstein, I would also name Franklin Fisher and Daniel Ellsberg as among our really promising young men. Fisher and Ellsberg are, at present, both junior fellows. Fisher is something of a wunderkind, having graduated summa cum laude from Harvard at the age of 18. He published a mathematical article on Welfare Economics when he was a senior, and those who can understand it say it’s good. He is only 20 now, and, of course, it is difficult to say how he is going to turn out. He may be another Paul Samuelson, and on the other hand he may not. Ellsberg is another one of our summas and a very good man, indeed. I don’t think he measures up to John Meyer, but is probably in the Henderson and Eckstein category. Since I promised you six names, I will add that of [???] Miller who came to us this year from California. I have really seen nothing of him, and consequently, can no give you a first-hand judgement. My colleagues, however, think he is very good.

With best wishes, I am

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Ed
Edward S. Mason
Dean

ESM:rrl

____________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Office of the Chairman

M-8 Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

January 5, 1959

Professor Theodore Schultz
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Ted:

It was good to see you even though it was for a very short period. As you know, we include on our list of available men only those who have requested to be put on the list or who have given us their permission to have their name included in the list. It represents men who are either already Ph.D.’s or will receive their Ph.D. within the year, and who are actually available for the coming year.

[Daniel] Ellsberg will be getting his Ph.D. this year, but he is going to Rand at a salary of about $10,000. [Franklin] Fisher will not have his Ph.D. until June 1960. He is just out of college three years and has been offered an assistant professorship at Carnegie Tech. We have now promised him a similar appointment, and in fact he said he would prefer to be at Harvard.

Among other young men of talent who are now here but are not on our permanent roster are the following: Leon Moses who teaches half time in the department and does research with the [Wassily] Leontief project half time. There is a good chance that Moses will go to Pittsburgh, particularly in order to work on the metropolitan project with [Edgar M.] Hoover. Moses is an excellent man in every way and certainly of permanent quality: the same holds for Alfred Conrad who is in somewhat the same position as Moses. Incidentally, both of them have a leave for next year: There is also André Daniere who will be an assistant professor next year and who works primarily with Leontief. Daniere is another good man, though probably not quite as good as the others.

Then there are Otto Eckstein, James Henderson, Jaroslav Vanek and Louis Lefeber. They are all excellent men and in the running for a permanent appointment. Actually, during the next few years we will have but one or two openings and obviously we cannot keep all these men. There is little to choose among them and we will have a tough time making a decision. Please keep this in the highest confidence.

With kind regard, I am,

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Sey
Seymour E. Harris
Chairman

SHE/jw

____________________________

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Department of Economics and Social Science

Cambridge 39, Massachusetts

January 14, 1959

Professor Theodore W. Schultz
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Ted:

Your letter of January 6, regarding [Robert L.] Slighton is not quite easy to answer. I do not know [Daniel] Elsberg [sic] or [Franklin] Fisher well enough to make comparisons, but I will try to compare Slighton with [Martin J.] Bailey and [Marc] Nerlove. From the point of view of statistical and mathematical ability, Nerlove stands in a class all by himself, and I do not think that Slighton’s comparative advantage is in those fields. As far as Bailey is concerned, he may have flashes of ideas at times superior to Slighton’s. On the other hand, I would credit Slighton with greater solidity, more common sense and better judgment. As far as long-run contributions are concerned, I don’t know on whom of the two I would bet at the moment, but Slighton would be a serious contender in any such betting.

Lloyd [Metzler]’s session went quite well. He was greeted by the audience most warmly and was pleased about the whole works very much. I am very happy that that meeting was arranged and that I could participate in it.

Please let me know if you need any additional information.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Evsey D
Evsey D. Domar

EDD:jr

Source:  University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics, Records. Box 42, Folder 9.

Categories
Chicago Funny Business Harvard M.I.T. Princeton

M.I.T. Faculty Skit, Playing Monopoly at Lunch, 1986

 

It has been a while since I have added an artifact to the MIT economics skits wing of the Funny Business Archives here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. Apparently the following script was a, if not the sole, late-20th century MIT faculty skit not written by Robert Solow. I can believe that. In any event, today’s post is further grist to the mill for social historians of economics.

Again a grateful tip of the hat to Roger Backhouse is in order.

__________________

1986 FACULTY SKIT

(Skit opens with Dornbusch, Fischer, Diamond, Eckaus and McFadden seated around MONOPOLY board. Farber is standing alongside, watching the game. Fisher and Hausman are in the wings to make walk-on appearances).

ANNOUNCER: One of the most important unwritten rules in the Economics Department is that no one but Bob Solow writes the skit. This year, Bob reportedly outdid himself and wrote a sitcom in which Bob Lucas is struck by a blinding light while driving to work and transformed into a neo-Keynesian. The skit, titled “I’m OK, You’re OK,” follows Lucas’ attempts to explain why he is estimating Phillips curves to Lars Hansen and Tom Sargent.

Unfortunately, Bob is unable to be with us tonight, since he is delivering the presidential address to the Eastern Economic Association in Philadelphia. When we opened the envelope marked “SKIT” which Bob left for us, we were surprised to discover only a copy of his presidential address. We suspect he had a somewhat bigger surprise when he opened his envelope in Philadelphia. [Address published as “What is a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? Macroeconomics after Fifty YearsEastern Economic Journal, July-September 1986]

We were of course scared skitless when we realized our predicament, and we were tempted to re-run some of the great Solow skits of the past. There was the 1974 Watergate Skit, in which Paul Colson Joskow testifies to Senator Sam Peltzman that he would run over his grandmother to get a t-statistic above two. There was the 1978 Star Wars skit, in which Milton Vader and his minions capture the wookie Jerrybaca and hold him captive in the Chicago Money Workshop. And in the incredible 1973 MASH skit, Hawkeye Hall and Trapper Jerry Hausman find Radar Diamond and Hot Lips Friedlaender cavorting in the Chairman’s office. (If that doesn’t give Solow Rational expectations, what does?)

We guessed that you had all seen these re-runs on late-nite channel 56, however, and therefore decided to try something new and provide a partial answer to the age-old question: What Really Goes On in the Freeman Room at Lunchtime on Wednesdays? We now invite you to join us for a brief look at one of these infamous gatherings…

 

MCFADDEN: (Rolling dice). “Who owns Oriental Avenue?”

DORNBUSCH: Me. That’s six dollars.

FISCHER: My turn? (Rolls dice). Damn. Inflation tax again; Here’s ten percent of my cash balances. I passed go, didn’t I?

DIAMOND: Uh huh. Here’s $186 dollars.

FISCHER: I should get $200.

DIAMOND: Not since Gramm-Rudman. Everything’s reduced seven percent across the board.

DORNBUSCH: My turn. (Rolling dice). Four. (Reaches over and moves marker).

ECKAUS: No way, Rudi—you just moved six places. No overshooting in this game. (Hands Dornbusch Chance card)

DORNBUSCH: Ah. Go directly to Brazil. Do not return until the day classes start.

HAUSMAN: (Walking in from side of stage) How come you guys are playing MONOPOLY? I thought you usually played RISK…

DIAMOND: Oliver [Hart] took that game home. You know, his contract calls for RISK-sharing…

HAUSMAN: Can you believe the graduate students scheduled the skit party for the Friday before income taxes are due? The only people who’ll come are graduate students and people like theorists who file 1040 EZ’s. (walks off)

(FISHER walks in)

DIAMOND: (Rolling dice). My turn. Oriental again. Six more dollars for Dornbusch.

FISCHER: That’s a pretty profitable property, Rudi.

FISHER: How many times do I have to say it! You can’t possibly tell that from accounting numbers! (Pause). Why don’t we ever play fun games, like Consultant?

ECKAUS: I hear Jorgensen and Griliches play that all the time up at Harvard. Maybe you should give them a call.

FISHER: They’re never around.

DIAMOND: Of course not, Frank—that’s how you play consultant.

(FISHER exits.)

FARBER: Speaking of Harvard, how are we doing on graduate recruitment this year? I heard there was some Princeton scandal.

DIAMOND: The AEA put them on probation for recruiting violations. People could look the other way when they offered prospective students money and cars, but this year Joe Stiglitz promised to write a joint paper with all entering students.

FARBER: They’re really giving out cars?

DIAMOND: Sure. Yugo’s.

FARBER: All I got was a motorcycle…

MCFADDEN: Harvard and Princeton have been dumping all over us. Every prospective student has heard that Jerry Hausman cashed in his Frequent Flyer miles for a 727. And some even know that Marty Weitzman has a Harvard offer.

FISCHER: Well, that offer was certainly no surprise. The Harvard deans read THE SHARE ECONOMY and decided they should hire more workers.

DIAMOND: Still, we’re getting the best students. This morning I signed a Yale undergrad by offering him Solow’s office. I figured Bob can share E52-390 with Krugman, Eckaus, and Farber next year. But what happens when we run out of river-view offices?

FARBER: How’s Harvard doing on recruiting?

ECKAUS: Not too well. They’re on a big kick to look relevant. Mas-Collel’s going nuts—Dean Spence has a new rule that any agent in a theoretical model has to have a proper name. Andreu’s having real problems with his continuum papers…

MCFADDEN: I hear the Kennedy School’s helping their visibility. Have you heard about the new Meese Distinguished Service Medal?

DIAMOND: No. Who’s getting them?

MCFADDEN: Sammy Stewart for Distinguished Relief Pitching,
Martin Feldstein for Distinguished Empirical Work,
Larry Summers for Distinguished Dress,
NASA for distinction in Travel Safety,
Bob Lucas and Bob Barro for Distinguished Plausible Assumptions,
Ferdinand Marcos for Distinguished Contributions to Charity,
and John Kenneth Galbraith for Distinguished Use of Mathematics.

DORNBUSCH: Harvard’s visibility campaign’s paying off. Just last week one of their junior guys hit the cover of PEOPLE magazine with a paper about marriage rates among movie stars.

FISCHER: You read PEOPLE?

FARBER: The National Enquirer had a story about a Harvard student who claimed to have a picture of Jeff Sachs in Littauer. Just like the old days with Howard Hughes…

DORNBUSCH: Perhaps we should return to the game.

(MODIGLIANI walks on).

DIAMOND: My turn again? (Rolls dice and moves piece). Community Chest. (Looking at card) You are elected department head. Lose three turns.

(Someone walks up and hands DIAMOND a telephone message. He stands up.)

DIAMOND: I nearly forgot. I’m scheduled to join Mike Weisbach who is taking a prospective student windsurfing this afternoon. Figured it was the least I could do to convince him we were as laid back as Stanford. Franco—do you want to take my place?

MODIGLIANI: (Sitting down in Diamond’s place) So, what are the new developments on the Monopoly front? [Famous Modigliani paper “New Developments on the Oligopoly Front,” JPE, June 1958] (Pause) Now, which of these pieces is Peter’s?

MCFADDEN: The coconut. [Reference here to Diamond’s coconut model of a search economy.]

MODIGLIANI: My turn now?

FISCHER: No Franco—but go ahead. [presumably a reference to Modigliani’s propensity to talk, and talk, and talk.]

MODIGLIANI: (Rolls dice and moves marker). Chance. (McFadden hands him a card). What is this? You have won second prize in a Beauty Contest, Collect $10? This is NOT POSSIBLE. This year I win only FIRST PRIZES [reference to 1985 Nobel Prize for Economics].

DORNBUSCH: (To audience) Wait till he gets the bequest card… [cf. the JEP Spring 1988 paper by Modigliani that surveys the bequest motive]

FISCHER: Franco, I have a deal for you. I’ll trade you Mediterranean and the Water Works for North Carolina and an agreement that you never charge me rent on either property. If you renege, I’ll order Chinese food.

MODIGLIANI: No deal. But what’s this about Chinese food?

FISCHER: It’s a new thing I learned from Garth [Soloner]—it makes the deal sub-gum perfect.

MCFADDEN: My turn. (Rolls and draws a Chance card). My favorite card: Advance Token to the Railroad with the Highest Logit Probability Value. Let me see which one that is… (pulls out a calculator)

FISCHER: While we’re waiting for Dan to converge, how did we do in junior hiring? Did we get that Princeton theorist?

ECKAUS: No dice. All the Princeton guys told him not to come.

DORNBUSCH: Why?

ECKAUS: They said “Go to Yale, go directly to Yale.”

MODIGLIANI: What about senior appointments?

FARBER: Ask Peter [Temin]. He’s on the Search Committee.

MCFADDEN: (Looking up from calculator). I’m having convergence problems. Maybe we should postpone the game for a few minutes while I run down to the PRIME.

[the image of the last page at my disposal is very blurred, fortunately it is only the wrap-up by the announcer]

ANNOUNCER: As you all know, NOTHING takes a few minutes on the PRIME. So until next year, when the [?] [?] Solow who accompanied Stan, 3PO and R2D2 to [?] the [?] [?] from Chicago returns to produce another skit. Good night.

 

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

Categories
Economics Programs M.I.T. Regulations

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

 

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

________________________

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

April 28, 1975

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

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

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

I propose, therefore, the following procedures:

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

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

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

Image with identifications: Economics Faculty group portrait, 1976.

Categories
Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Economics Faculty Skit à la Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In”, December 1968

 

This post continues our series “Funny Business” that features successful and less-than-successful attempts at humor by economists. Reading one of these historical skits demands the reader to concede that the defense, “It seemed funny at the time,” might actually be valid for fifty year old jokes.  At the December 1968 Graduate Economics Association party the M.I.T. economics faculty offered its version of the wildly popular, frenetic comedy series “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” (like “Sit-in”, get it? As I just said, “it seemed funny at the time”). 

For young and non-U.S. historians of economics, remote learning of the original Laugh-In content is easy:

Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In information at IMDb.
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In highlights on YouTube.

The tag-line “Sock it to me” was a creation of the 1960s and made a meme by Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Paul Samuelson closing the skit with that line is almost up there with 1968 Presidential candidate Richard Nixon’s saying it in his cameo appearance on Laugh-In.

The skit transcript below includes some square-bracketed comments to help the reader. Of course, nothing says “joke” more than a good footnote.

______________________

Reminder/Invitation

December 11, 1968

Graduate Students, Faculty Members
and Secretaries

DON’T FORGET!!

            A week from today is the GEA Christmas Party—Tuesday, December 17th. The festivities will begin at 8:00 pm in the Campus Room of Ashdown House. Admission is only $1.00 and the entertainment is free.

______________________

GEA CHRISTMAS SKIT 1968
[Faculty]

 

Music

[Franklin M.] Fisher: It’s the Faculty Laugh-In.

Music

(Enter [E. Cary] Brown, [Paul A.] Samuelson and [Robert L.] Bishop,
Brown and Samuelson sit.)

Samuelson: For the first question on your advanced theory oral:
Who was the greatest economist of all time?
Bishop (After much thought) Pigou…

Music

[Morris] Adelman: It is written: when offer curve bend backwards, then is time to send [Walt] Rostow to Texas.
[For background to Rostow Affair, see Appendix below]

Music—through

[Matthew D.] Edel (carries sign) “Economics is a dismal science”

([Peter] Temin and [Duncan] Foley enter as Rowan and Martin)

Foley: It certainly was a swell idea to put on a faculty laugh-in.
Temin: It’s so much easier than thinking up a connected skit.
Foley: Well, what cute laugh-in type feature do we have coming up next?
Temin: I see by my script here that we’re going to have a “Laugh-in looks at…” next.
Foley: Yes, it says: Faculty laugh-in looks at the new [Nixon] administration.

Music

[Jerome] Rothenberg: Washington: James Reston has expressed outrage at news reports that the University of Maryland has no plans to hire Spiro T. Agnew.
[Motivation for James Reston mention here see, Appendix “Rostow Affair” below]
Temin: Meanwhile at the Council of Economic Advisers, Republicans begin to grapple with the unaccustomed complexities of the Federal budget.

(enter Bishop and Foley)

Bishop: They always said Art Okun could do it with a pencil on the back of an envelope.
[See Appendix below]
Foley: I still think we’d better wait for the computer printout.
Bishop: No, look, its easy. Let’s see, how does it go? Is it Y = C + the deficit, or does the deficit = Y + C?

Music

Temin: At the same time we hear the swan song of liberals seeking sanctuary on college campuses.
Fisher: Song “Hey Dick [Nixon]”
[presumably to the tune of “Hey Jude”, lyrics to parody not in the file]
Rothenberg: Washington: the M.I.T. economics department has again startled Washington circles by announcing that it will not hire Henry Kissinger in 1972.
[cf. Appendix below on “Rostow Affair”]
Foley: Why don’t we just use their budget?
Bishop: And give up on the job? It can’t be that hard.
Foley: We don’t even have the computer printout yet.
Bishop: Doesn’t investment come in here someplace?

Music

Rothenberg: Washington: It has just been learned that the M.I.T. economics department, responding to the furor over the Rostow affair has abolished its economic history requirement.
[see Appendix below]

Music

(Man seated, knock on door: goes to answer, returns)

Adelman: Dear, Mr. Brower is here to fix the point (calling).
[Punny reference to Brower’s fixed-point theorem  that is a building block for the proof of the existence of a general equilibrium.]

Music—through

Edel (carries sign) “Pigou Power”

(Enter Bishop, Brown, Samuelson)

Brown: Describe an Edgeworth-Bowley Box.
Bishop: (gesturing) It’s about so wide…

Music

(Enter Foley and Temin)

Foley: What movie did you see last night?
Temin: “Thoroughly Modern Miltie”
[clearly “Milton Friedman”, the film’s title was “Thoroughly Modern Miltie”]

Music—through

Fisher (carries sign) “Nest principal minors”
[Linear algebra joke, written like a creepy, even pedophilic, command here, “nested principal minors” or “nest of principal minors” would be proper.]
Rothenberg: The negative definite is equivalent to the lie direct.
[Shakespeare As You Like It, V:iv in Appendix below]

Music

Foley: The computer printout is here!

(enter tons of printout)

Bishop: I think I’ve got it!
Foley: What?
Bishop: One of Okun’s envelopes. How old do you think this is anyway?

Music

Samuelson:

A Poem
by Paul A. Samuelson

Some people cover lots more ground
But no one handles the New York Times like Carey Brown.

[Likely another reference to the Rostow Affair, see Appendix Below]

Music

(Adelman seated, door knock)

Adelman: Dear, Mr. [Evsey] Domar is here to compare the systems.
[One of Evsey Domar signature courses was “Comparative Economic Systems”]

Music

Foley: What movie did you see last night?
Temin: Ride the high Pontry
[“Ride the High Country”, 1962 Western film by Sam Peckinpah]
Foley: What Pontry again?
[A punny reference to Pontryagin’s maximum principle in optimal control theory.]

Music

(Enter Bishop, Samuelson, Brown)

Brown: What was Marshall’s greatest contribution?
Bishop: In 1903, Marshall gave £1500 to King’s College.

Music

(Enter Fisher and Temin with box)

“2 squares least stage”
(sign)
[“2-stage least squares” is the name of statistical procedure, here Fisher and Temin are the two “squares“.]

Music

Adelman: Mark Hopkins said the ideal education is a professor and a student sitting on a log, with the professor talking to the student. I sometimes think I would get the same results sitting on the student and talking to the log.

Music

Bishop: Sock it to me

Music

(Enter Temin and Foley)

Temin: Here we are out here again imitating Rowan and Martin.
Foley: Shouldn’t you be standing on the other side? What now?
Temin: Now we’re giving the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fat Award” just like on TV.
Foley: And who gets the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fat Award”?
Temin: Fate. The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award goes to…

(Music cue—fanfare)

Temin: Kenneth Boulding for receiving a vote of confidence from…himself.
[Boulding gave his Presidential address to the American Economic Association a few weeks later on “Economics as a Moral Science”. For likely background to the joke see the Appendix below.]

Music

Fisher: A Bordered hessian is a German mercenary surrounded by continentals.

Music

Samuelson:

(carries sign) “I am an external economist.”

Music

Foley: What movie did you see last night?
Temin: “Closely watched brains”
[“Closely watched trains”, 1966 Czech film directed by Jiří Menzel]

Music

Foley: (Poring over computer printout). I think the whole idea of the budget is a stupid, dumb, stupid idea. Why do we even need a budget?
Bishop: Look, we’ve got to have something to send down to the Congress tomorrow.
Foley: I’m going to hold my breath until the stupid deficit comes out right.
Bishop: Just try to remember whether capital gains are part of income or not.

Music cue

(Enter Fisher, Temin, Edel)
“3 squares least stage”
(sign)
[“3-stage least squares” is a statistical procedure, and Fisher, Temin and Edel are the three “squares“.]

Music

Brown: The students are revolting.
Bishop: Yes, I’ve though so for a long time.

Enter Everybody

Rothenberg: SDS Sam
[SDS=Students for a Democratic Society…
(wild guess) impression of Bogart saying “Play it Again Sam”?]
Foley: Well, here we are out here again, and it’s time to say…
Temin: Long joke.
Foley: Say goodnite, Peter.
Temin: Goodnite, Peter.
Samuelson: Sock it to me.

Source: M.I.T. Archives.  Folder “GEA 1967-68”.

_________________________

Appendix

 

Rostow Affair

Source: Howard Wesley Johnson, Holding the Center: Memoirs of a Life in Higher Education. From Chapter 8, pp. 189-90.

*   *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

 

Art Okun’s Reputation as an economic forecaster “on the back of an envelope”

Source: Joseph A. Pechman contribution for In Memoriam: Arthur M. Okun. November 28, 128–March 23, 1980 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1980), p. 14.

*   *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

 

From Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Act V, Scene 4.

JAQUES

Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?

TOUCHSTONE

O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven
justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the
parties were met themselves, one of them thought but
of an If, as, ‘If you said so, then I said so;’ and
they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the
only peacemaker; much virtue in If.

Source: From the Shakespeare homepage at M.I.T.

*   *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

 

Kenneth Boulding’s Vote for AEA to Meet in Chicago in 1968

 

Source:  Robert Scott, Kenneth Boulding: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

 

 

Categories
AEA Bibliography

American Economic Association. Monographs: 1886-1896

 

Besides transcribing and curating archival content for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, I occasionally put together collections of links to books and other items of interest on pages or posts that constitute my “personal” virtual economics reference library. In this post you will find links to early monographs/papers published by the American Economic Association. 

Links to the contents of the four volumes of AEA Economic Studies, 1896-1899 have also been posted.

A few other useful collections:

The virtual rare-book reading room (classic works of economics up to 1900)

The Twentieth Century Economics Library

Laughlin’s recommended teacher’s library of economics (1887)

_____________________

PUBLICATIONS OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION. MONOGRAPHS.
1886-1896

_____________________

General Contents and Index to Volumes I-XI.
Source: Publications of the American Economic Association, Vol XI (1896). Price 25 cents.

VOLUME I

No. 1 (Mar. 1886). Report of the Organization of the American Economic Association. By Richard T. Ely, Ph.D., Secretary. Price 50 cents.

Nos. 2 and 3 (May-Jul. 1886). The Relation of the Modern Municipality to the Gas Supply. By Edmund J. James, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 4 (Sep. 1886). Co-öperation in a Western City. By Albert Shaw, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 5 (Nov. 1886). Co-öperation in New England. By Edward W. Bemis, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 6 (Jan. 1887). Relation of the State to Industrial Action. By Henry C. Adams, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME II

No. 1 (Mar. 1887). Three Phases of Co-öperation in the West. By Amos G. Warner, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 2 (May 1887). Historical Sketch of the Finances of Pennsylvania. By T. K. Worthington, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 3 (Jul. 1887). The Railway Question. By Edmund J. James, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 4 (Sep. 1887). The Early History of the English Woolen Industry. By William J. Ashley, M.A. Price 75 cents.

No. 5 (Nov. 1887). Two Chapters on the Mediaeval Guilds of England. By Edwin R. A. Seligman, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 6 (Jan. 1888). The Relation of Modern Municipalities to Quasi-Public Works. By H. C. Adams, George W. Knight, Davis R. Dewey, Charles Moore, Frank J. Goodnow and Arthur Yager. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME III

No. 1 (Mar. 1888). Three Papers Read at Meeting in Boston: “The Study of Statistics in Colleges,” by Carroll D. Wright; “The Sociological Character of Political Economy,” by Franklyn H. Giddings; “Some Considerations on the Legal-Tender Decisions,” by Edmund J. James. Price 75 cents.

No. 2 (May 1888). Capital and its Earnings. By John B. Clark, A.M. Price 75 cents.

No. 3 (Jul. 1888) consists of three parts: “Efforts of the Manual Laboring Class to Better Their Condition,” by Francis A. Walker; “Mine Labor in the Hocking Valley,” by Edward W. Bemis, Ph.D.; “Report of the Second Annual Meeting,” by Richard T. Ely, Secretary. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 4 and 5 (Sep.-Nov. 1888). Statistics and Economics. By Richmond Mayo-Smith, A.M. Price $1.00.

No. 6 (Jan. 1889). The Stability of Prices. By Simon N. Patten, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME IV

No. 1 (Mar. 1889). Contributions to the Wages Question: “The Theory of Wages,” by Stuart Wood, Ph.D.; “The Possibility of a Scientific Law of Wages,” by John B. Clark, A.M. Price 75 cents.

No. 2 (Apr. 1889). Socialism in England. By Sidney Webb, LL.B. Price 75 cents.

No. 3 (May. 1889). Road Legislation for the American State. By Jeremiah W. Jenks, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

No. 4 (Jul. 1889). Report of the Proceedings of Third Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association, by Richard T. Ely, Secretary; with addresses by Dr. William Pepper and Francis A. Walker. Price 75 cents.

No. 5 (Sep. 1889). Three Papers Read at Third Annual Meeting: “Malthus and Ricardo,” by Simon N. Patten; “The Study of Statistics,” by Davis R. Dewey, and “Analysis in Political Economy,” by William W. Folwell. Price 75 cents.

No. 6 (Nov. 1889). An Honest Dollar. By E. Benjamin Andrews. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME V

No. 1 (Jan. 1890). The Industrial Transition in Japan. By Yeijiro Ono, Ph.D. Price $1.00.

No. 2 (Mar. 1890). Two Prize Essays on Child-Labor: I. “Child Labor,” by William F. Willoughby, Ph.D.; II. “Child Labor,” by Miss Clare de Graffenried. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 3 and 4 (May-Jul. 1890). Two Papers on the Canal Question. I. By Edmund J. James, Ph.D.; II. By Lewis M. Haupt, A.M., C.E. Price $1.00.

No. 5 (Sep. 1890). History of the New York Property Tax. By John Christopher Schwab, A.M. Ph.D. Price $1.00.

No. 6 (Nov. 1890). The Educational Value of Political Economy. By Simon N. Patten, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME VI

No. 1 and 2 (Jan.-Mar. 1891). Report of the Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. Price $1.00.

No. 3 (May 1891). I. “Government Forestry Abroad,” by Gifford Pinchot; II. “The Present Condition of the Forests on the Public Lands,” by Edward A. Bowers; III. “Practicability of an American Forest Administration,” by B. E. Fernow. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 4 and 5 (Jul.-Sep. 1891). Municipal Ownership of Gas in the United States. By Edward W. Bemis, Ph.D. with appendix by W. S. Outerbridge, Jr. Price $1.00.

No. 6 (Nov. 1891). State Railroad Commissions and How They May be Made Effective. By Frederick C. Clark, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME VII

No. 1 (Jan. 1892). The Silver Situation in the United States. Ph.D. By Frank W. Taussig, LL.B., Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 2 and 3 (Mar.-May 1892). On the Shifting and Incidence of Taxation. By Edwin R.A. Seligman, Ph.D. Price $1.00.

Nos. 4 and 5 (Jul.-Sep. 1892). Sinking Funds. By Edward A. Ross, Ph.D. Price $1.00.

No. 6 (Nov. 1892). The Reciprocity Treaty with Canada of 1854. By Frederick E. Haynes, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

 

VOLUME VIII

No. 1 (Jan. 1893). Report of the Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 2 and 3 (Mar.-May 1893). The Housing of the Poor in American Cities. By Marcus T. Reynolds, Ph.B., M.A. Price $1.00.

Nos. 4 and 5 (Jul.-Sep. 1893). Public Assistance of the Poor in France. By Emily Greene Balch, A.B. Price $1.00.

No. 6 (Nov. 1893). The First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States. By William Hill, A.M. Price $1.00.

 

VOLUME IX

No. 1 (Supplement, Jan. 1894). Hand-Book and Report of the Sixth Annual Meeting. Price 50 cents.

Nos. 1 and 2 (Jan.-Mar. 1894). Progressive Taxation in Theory and Practice. By Edwin R.A. Seligman, Ph.D. Price $1.00, cloth $1.50.

No. 3 (May. 1894). The Theory of Transportation. By Charles H. Cooley Price 75 cents.

No. 4 (Aug. 1894). Sir William Petty. A Study in English Economic Literature. By Wilson Lloyd Bevan, M.A., Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 5 and 6 (Oct.-Dec. 1894). Papers Read at the Seventh Annual Meeting: “The Modern Appeal to Legal Forces in Economic Life,” (President’s annual address) by John B. Clark, Ph.D.; “The Chicago Strike”, by Carroll D. Wright, LL.D.; “Irregularity of Employment,” by Davis R. Dewey, Ph.D.; “The Papal Encyclical Upon the Labor Question,” by John Graham Brooks; “Population and Capital,” by Arthur T. Hadley, M.A. Price $1.00.

 

VOLUME X

No. 3, Supplement, (Jan. 1895). Hand-Book and Report of the Seventh Annual Meeting. Price 50 cents.

Nos. 1,2 and 3 (Jan.-Mar.-May 1895). The Canadian Banking System, 1817-1890. By Roeliff Morton Breckenridge, Ph.D. Price $1.50; cloth $2.50.

No. 4 (Jul. 1895). Poor Laws of Massachusetts and New York. By John Cummings, Ph.D. Price 75 cents.

Nos. 5 and 6 (Sep.-Nov. 1895). Letters of Ricardo to McCulloch, 1816-1823. Edited, with introduction and annotations by Jacob H. Hollander, Ph.D. Price $1.25; cloth $2.00.

 

VOLUME XI

Nos. 1, 2 and 3 (Jan.-Mar.-May 1896). Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro. By Frederick L. Hoffman, F.S.S., Price $1.25; cloth $2.00.

No. 4 (Jul. 1896). Appreciation and Interest. By Irving Fisher, Ph.D., Price 75 cents.

 

Image Source: As of 1909 the former Presidents of the American Economic Association (S. N. Patten in the center, then clockwise from upper left are R. T. Ely, J. B. Clark, J. W. Jenks, F. W. Taussig.) in Reuben G. Thwaites “A Notable Gathering of Scholars,” The Independent, Vol. 68, January 6, 1910, pp. 7-14.

Categories
Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Faculty skit. Robert Solow as the 2000 year old economist.

 

 

A skit in economics typically involves a humor transplant of some sort. The following script from the faculty contribution to an annual M.I.T. economics skit party (ca.  1979-80 which is when Luis Tiant pitched for the Yankees) took its inspiration from  two greats in American comedy, Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks, who sometimes performed as interviewer and 2,000 year-old man, respectively.

While it is fairly clear that Robert Solow performed and probably wrote the entire skit, the identity of the interviewer still needs to be established. Hint: there is a comment box at the bottom of this post. 

The script comes from a file of such Solovian skits that Roger Backhouse has copied during his archival research and has shared with Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

_________________

 

Q: You have probably all heard the interviews with the recently discovered 2000-year-old man. We are fortunate to have with us tonight another great find, the 2000-year-old economist, Robert M. Solow. By the way, Dr. Solow, just what does the M stand for?

A: Methuselah, dummy.

Q: Dr. Solow has seen so many skit parties in his life, that he was not very happy about appearing at this one. Do you remember the first skit party you ever went to?

A: No. Skit parties are like hangovers – best thing to do is forget ’em and swear never to do it again. I do have a hazy recollection of an early skit party, I think it was what the one where I first heard the joke about bordered determinants…

Q: What is the joke about border determinants?

A: I don’t know, but they sure laugh[ed] their fool heads off.

Q: Any other recollections about that skit party?

A: Well, you could hear them building pyramids in the background, I remember, and there was this Sphinx-like object, looked a lot like Dick Eckaus… You don’t suppose that, even then???? Nah, forget it.

Q: Turning to more serious issues, what is the biggest change in economics since the old days?

A: Mechanization, by cracky. First the electric typewriter, then the computer, then the Xerox machine [handwritten insert: but not fast enough for (3 or 4 illegible words)]. Nowadays people write papers at the rate they used to wipe their… glasses. I believe Feldstein has solved the problem of hooking the typewriter directly to the Xerox machine, and the whole paper is reproduced without being touched by human hands. There is even a rumor that he has a secret way of getting the paper written without human intervention…

Q: Come come, Dr. Solow, you don’t believe that.

A: Well, have you looked at any of Feldstein’s recent papers? Now in the good old days, stand-up roll-top desks, quill pens, the main-frame abacus, a man thought twice before he wrote a paper. At least he thought once. If only old Tom were here.

Q: Tom who?

A: Tom Gresham. You know: bad working papers drive out good. Not to mention Dave Hume, the inventor of the quantity theory of working papers. As Milton used to say: any way you slice it, it’s still baloney.

Q: Is that Milton Friedman?

A: No, Milton Horowitz, the inventor of the pastrami sandwich. I believe he appears in a footnote in Joskow’s classic mustard-stained work on the subject.

Q: Let’s come to your recent impressions. What do you see as the most important recent development in economics?

A: That’s easy – the increase in the mandatory retirement age to 70. Of course it’s got a long way to go before it does me any good, but I underestimate the DRI Mandatory Retirement Age Monitor estimates the retirement age to be rising at 1.73 years per year, so time is on my side.

Q: Apart from its effects on you personally, why do you think this is an important development?

A: It saves a lot of time at department meetings never to have to make a tenure appointment again. And you know what department meetings are like – even worse than skit parties.

Q: How do you think the change will affect students?

A: They’ll love it. Courses will be the same year after year. Reading lists will never change. Textbooks will go on and on and on. Can you imagine the 200th edition of Dornbusch and Fischer? I hope it’s printed on better paper than the low-grade papyrus of the first edition… I do wonder about Eckaus and that Sphinx…… Exams will be the same year after year. Students hate change. Look at what happened when you fellows tried to change 14.121 this year.

Q: Turning to economic theory, what has been the most important development you have witnessed in the last 2000 years?

A: The two-dimensional diagram.

Q: Be serious.

A: I am serious. Can you imagine Bhagwati, the Picasso of the Production Possibility Locus, trying to fit all those curves in a one-dimensional diagram, which was all we had in the old days? There wasn’t hardly room for anything besides the axis.

Q: Come, come. Bhagwati would find a solution for that little difficulty. Who needs an axis?

A: Maybe so, but can you imagine four-color one-dimensional diagrams? How could we have expensive textbooks without four-color diagrams? How could we have expensive professors without expensive textbooks? How could……

Q: OK, OK. What is the second most important development in economic theory in your lifetime?

A: The subscript.

Q: Don’t you know the difference between trivia and serious economic theory?

A: Sure. Trivia are worth remembering, but serious economics is OK to forget.

Q: Maybe we better stick to trivia…

A: I was just kidding. I really know the answer. There is no difference between trivia and serious economic theory.

Q: Tell us about the most interesting experience you ever heard of an economist having?

A: Easy. Happened to an agricultural economist I knew, feller named Samuelson, farm boy from Gary, Indiana. He was digging on the farm one day, checking out the law of diminishing returns, and he found a potato growing with a nickel in it. Marvelous thing. Folks came from miles away to see a potato with a nickel in it. Old Samuelson frittered away the rest of his life looking for another potato with the nickel in it. Never could find one. He did find a couple with three cents in them, but somehow it wasn’t the same. Never accomplished another thing, old Samuelson. Wonder whatever became of him? He’d be 2009, I reckon. By the way, whatever became of that other farmer, Weitzman?

Q: You mean Chaim Weitzman, the founding father of Israel? His last words were: you don’t have to convince me, Professor [Frank] Fisher, I’m Jewish too.

A: No, I mean Marty Weitzman, old quick and dirty, the lion of Levittown.

Q: Why do you ask?

A: Reminds me of the fellow I used to know, a Secretary of the Treasury named Hamilton……

Q: Reminds you of who? Oh, I get it, they both got killed in the dual.

A: Watch out, Buster – the agreement was that I tell the jokes and you prove the theorems.

Q: All right. Let’s get away from personalities. What do you think of recent macro theories?

A: Not much.

Q: What about rational expectations?

A: If there were any truth in that, it would have been thought up long ago.

Q: Not necessarily. The old-timers could have thought that someone would think of it, without thinking of it themselves.

A: That’s true, but the old-timers were too sensible to think that anyone would think a thought like that.

Q: How about the quantity theory?

A: Ingenious.

Q: Really?

A: Imagine saying that velocity is so stable that only money matters, and so unstable that no use can be made of the theory, and imagine getting away with both statements.

Q: But what is macroeconomics left with then?

A: Well, the old Ioto-Sigma Lamba-Mu [Greek for “IS-LM”] curves were good enough for Aristotle, it’s good enough for me.

Q: Would you care to comment on the theory of built-in stabilizers?

A: If you’re not going to be serious, we might as well go watch a ballgame. I understand Louis Tiant, the 2000-year-old pitcher is going for the Yankees.

Q: Use your 2000-year-old imagination. I’ll give you an example of built-in stabilization – Social Security.

A: How so?

Q: The less likely it is that anyone will ever be able to collect benefits, the likelier it becomes that they make even more money consulting on Social Security. Take [Peter] Diamond, for example.

A: You take Diamond.

Q: No thanks. Imagine a man leaving a perfectly good career in public finance to go into law and economics and make a hash out of both fields.

A: Stick to the straight-man lines, please.

[Handwritten insert begins here]

Q: What do you think of the proliferation of journals?

A: I think it is terrific. Of course it has been going on for a long time – ever since BJEA, the Babylonian Journal of Economic Analysis was challenged by the SEJ, the Sumerian Economic Journal.
What I particularly like is the increased specialization. Like JHR, the Journal of Human Regressions and JME, the Journal of Mathematical Existence.

Q: The Journal of Mathematical Existence – isn’t that the one that started with the famous 2-line proof: I count, therefore I am?

A: Yes and was followed by a 47 page proof that without continuity existence was still generic.
I also like this trend toward paired journals.

Q: Paired journals?

A: Yes, like the two Harvard journals – one publishes theory without measurement and the other measurement without theory.
And then there’s the 2 JPE’s – the Journal of Public Economics and the Journal of Private Enterprise.

[handwritten insert ends]

Q: What do you see as the greatest danger facing the economics profession?

A: The threatened extension of truth-in-lending legislation to truth-in-teaching. We could have the biggest rash of malpractice suits since Nicky Kaldor retired.

Q: I think you’re onto something there. How foresighted of this department to have hired an expert on malpractice like Marilyn Simon [joined faculty 1977-78 academic year], the world-famous author of Unnecessary Surgery – The View from the Inside.

A: Simon only writes about malpractice – [Jeffrey E.] Harris actually does it, I understand.

Q: You seem to have discovered a lot since you turned up around here. Anything else new on the malpractice front?

A: There’s a rumor that the University of Chicago has had to recall all the degrees issued during the last five model years.

Q: You mean…

A: Right. Defective transmission mechanisms.

Q: Gad. Are there any good defenses against malpractice suits in your long and varied experience?

A: You can hire a mathematician for the faculty.

Q: What good does that do?

A: How the hell would I know? All I can say is that every department seems to be hiring mathematicians these days. It’s got to be for something.

Q: I’m looking for some more tried and true defense.

A: There’s always the Long-and-Variable Lags defense. See the Supreme Court decision in Tobin versus Friedman, in which Friedman successfully argued that first it’s true, second he never said it, and third wait till next year.

Q-: How about the Roy Lopez Defense?

A: You mean P–K4, P-K4; N-KB3, N-QB3; B-QN5, P-QR3?

Q: No, I mean Roy Lopez, the middle line-backer for the Princeton Economics Department – anyone sues for malpractice, he breaks their legs.

A: Sounds good. There’s also the classic defense due to Stanley Fischer, that truth should be indexed. Today’s malpractice is tomorrow’s conventional wisdom.

Q: Speaking of conventional wisdom, have you spoken with Professor Galbraith since your return?

A: No, but I have been reading his latest book: Why Are People Poor?

Q: I’ll bite; why are people poor?

A: Not enough income, according to Galbraith.

Q: Does he have a remedy?

A: Move to Switzerland.

Q: I see.

A: I can’t wait until the news reaches Calcutta.

Q: One last question, to return to the subject with which we started. Do you see any trends in student skits?

A: Longer.

Q: Longer and funnier?

A: Longer.

Q: Any final comment?

A: Let me ask you a question. What do you consider the most remarkable thing in this interview?

Q: That’s easy. We never mentioned IBM.

 

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

Image Source:  Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks performing the 2000 year old man from NPR KNAU, Arizona public radio article “Could You Talk To a Caveman?” (May 9, 2013) .

Categories
Exam Questions M.I.T. Problem Sets Syllabus Undergraduate

M.I.T. Principles of Microeconomics, course materials. 1994-2005

 

Today’s post takes Economics in the Rear-view Mirror on a short journey to the very recent past.  Instead of transcribing archival material and publications from the period 1870-1970, I thought I would see what trawling the 341 billion web pages in the internet archive, Wayback Machine, might yield us.

On Christmas eve of 1996 Wayback Machine first captured webpages for the principles of microeconomics course taught to undergraduates at M.I.T. (14.01). Below you will find links to the archived lecture plans, problem sets and questions/answers for midterm and final examinations that I have been able to find. Spoiler alert: there are gaps in this archival record, but still one finds plenty of useful items, now more conveniently ordered. 

But first I share a few paragraphs from my paper “Syllabi and Examinations” that suggest the method in my madness. 

 

_________________

On the virtual informational frontier in the history of economics

…historians of recent economics are facing information-engineering challenges of learning to harness the power from the enormous current of weblog postings, tweets, working papers, media transcripts and exploding data bases to study the processes of scientific innovation and diffusion.  The pedagogy of walk-talk-and-chalk has almost become relegated to the stuff of legend, and successive waves of duplication technologies have been forced to yield to the “pdf-ing” of lecture notes, syllabi, spreadsheets, and problem sets. Video and audio recordings of lectures, panel discussions, and interviews also contribute to a genuine curse of dimensionality confronting historians of contemporary economics.

Now we can imagine a virtual divide in our informational past that marks a frontier between the methodological problems associated with the relative scarcity of written artifacts relevant for the study of the earlier evolution of the education and training of economists and the current problems of judiciously sampling from an ever expanding big data universe.  But whether as historians we are working one side of this frontier or the other, it makes great sense to embed our specific empirical concerns within a common framework, assuming a great arc of continuity (nobody said smooth!) that connects 1918 with, say, 2018 with respect to the scope and methods of economics. Without a common framework, our respective narratives would resemble tunnel building from opposite sides of a mountain with the most likely result being two noncommunicating parallel tunnels in the end. Does anyone really think there is a parallel Harvard, Chicago, Columbia, Wisconsin, Michigan universe? Of course not, we really did get here from there.

 

Source:  Irwin L. Collier. Syllabi and Examinations in History of Political Economy, Vol. 50, No. 3 (September 2018), pp. 587-595.

_________________

MIT 14.01
PRINCIPLES OF MICROCONOMICS

Spring 1994
Professor Jeffrey Harris

Final Exam and Alternate Final Exam (questions)

Fall 1994
Professor Franklin Fisher

Midterm Exam 1 (questions and answers)

Final Exam & Alternate Final Exam (questions)

Spring 1995
Professor Jeffrey Harris

Problem Sets with Solutions

Midterm Exam 1 (questions and answers)

Midterm Exam 2 (questions and answers)

Final and Conflict Final Exams (questions)

Fall 1995
Professor Franklin Fisher

Problem Sets with Solutions

Midterm Exam 1 (questions and answers)

Final and Alternate Final Exams (questions)

Spring 1996
Professor Jeffrey Harris

Problem Sets with Solutions

Midterm Exam 1 (questions and answers)

Midterm Exam 2 (questions and answers)

Final and Conflict Exam (questions)

Fall 1996
Professor Jeffrey Harris

Textbook:  Earl L. Grinols, Microeconomics (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1994). “The textbook differs from that assigned in recent past semesters.”

Course home page

Syllabus

Additional Course Information

Schedule

Problem sets and Solutions

Midterm 1 (with answers)

Midterm 2 (questions and answers)

Midterm 2, alternate (questions and answers)

Final and Conflict Exams (questions)

Spring 1997

No Wayback Machine captures found…yet!

Fall 1997
Professor Jeffrey Harris

Probable Textbook: Earl L. Grinols, Microeconomics (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1994).

Course home page

[For some reason all the links go back to Fall 1996]

Spring 1998

No Wayback Machine captures found…yet!

Fall 1998
Professor Jeffrey Harris

Textbook: Earl L. Grinols, Microeconomics (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1994).

Course home page

Syllabus

Schedule

Spring 1999
Professor Jonathan Gruber

Textbook: Jeffrey M. Perloff, Microeconomics (Addison Wesley Longman, 1999).

Course home page

Syllabus

Fall 1999
Professor Jeffrey Harris

Textbook: Jeffrey M. Perloff, Microeconomics (Addison Wesley Longman, 1999).

Syllabus

Spring 2000
Professor Jonathan Gruber

Textbook: Jeffrey M. Perloff, Microeconomics (Addison Wesley Longman, 1999).

Syllabus

Schedule

Fall 2000
Professor Jonathan Gruber

Textbook: Perloff, Jeffrey M. Microeconomics. 1st Edition. Addison-Wesley.

Course home page

Syllabus

Schedule

Spring 2001
Professor Christopher Snyder

Textbook: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, Microeconomics, 5th ed.

Course home page

Syllabus

Schedule

Fall 2001
Professor Jeffrey Harris

Textbook: Pindyck & Rubinfeld, Microeconomics, 5th Edition (Prentice Hall, 2001).

Course home page

Syllabus

Schedule

Midterm 1 with answers

Spring 2002
Professor Paul Joskow

Textbook: Pindyck & Rubinfeld, Microeconomics, 5th Edition (Prentice Hall, 2001).

Course home page

Syllabus

Schedule

Fall 2002
Professor Jonathan Gruber

Textbook: Jeff Perloff, Microeconomics, 2nd Edition (Addison Wesley Longman, 2001).

Course home page

Syllabus

Schedule

Midterm 1 with answers

Spring 2003
Professor Paul Joskow

Textbook: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, Microeconomics, 5th Edition.

Course home page

Syllabus

Schedule

Fall 2003
Professor Jonathan Gruber

Textbook: Jeffrey M. Perloff, Microeconomics, 3rd Edition.

Course home page

Syllabus

Schedule

Midterm 1 (Solutions)

Midterm 2 (Solutions)

Spring 2004
Professor Paul Joskow

Textbook: Pindyck and Rubinfeld, Microeconomics, 5th Edition.

Course home page

Syllabus

Schedule

Fall 2004
Professor Jonathan Gruber

Textbook: Jeffrey M. Perloff , Microeconomics, 3rd Edition.

Course home page

Syllabus

Midterm 1 (questions)

Spring 2005
Professor Jeffrey Harris

Textbook: Microeconomics, Robert S. Pindyck, Daniel L. Rubinfield, Prentice Hall, June 30, 2004 (6th edition).

Course home page and syllabus

Schedule

 

Image:  Mr. Peabody (dog) and Sherman (boy) activating the original WABAC Machine.

Categories
Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. “The Greatest Faculty Skit Ever Written”, ca. 1974

 

The following faculty skit comes from the M.I.T. department of economics when memories of the Senate Watergate Hearings (summer of 1973) were still very fresh in everyone’s memories.  This skit was likely presented at the 1973-74 annual skit party.  Frederick Mishkin received his B.S. in 1973 from M.I.T. and his first year as a graduate student at M.I.T. was in 1973-74. Other graduate students named were either second year or thesis-writers.

I presume “E. Hausman Hunt” was a blend of the names of the MIT econometrician Jerry Hausman and the Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt.

“Bob Dean” was likely a blend of the names of Robert Hall (who taught the course 14.123) and Nixon’s special counsel John Dean (wife’s name Maureen).

“Paul Colson” might have been a blend of the names of Paul Joskow and Charles Colson, Nixon’s man for “dirty tricks” and who claimed he would have walked over his own grandmother to get Nixon reelected.

“F.” would appear with the remark about not understanding “goyim” to have been Frank Fisher.

Roger Backhouse graciously made his copy of this skit available for transcription. I have corrected many typos in the original text. If I ever identify the author, I shall update this post. 

__________________

The Greatest Faculty Skit Ever Written
(in 1 hour, 15 minutes)

F. This here meeting will now come to order. Let the minutes show that this is the 732nd meeting of the Special Subcommittee of the Econometrics [sic] Society investigating the notorious Westgate affair.

M1: Mr. Chairman, a point of personal privilege—

F. Yes, Mr. Solow.

M2: I’ve been out of town testifying for IBM in Tulsa for the last 7 months. Could you fill me in on what’s been happening?

F. On the night of June 20, 1972 several graduate students were apprehended breaking into Gary Becker’s office. It appeared that these students were after Prof. Becker’s manuscript on a theory of marriage. Several pieces of evidence point [to] the fact that these students were after Prof. Becker’s manuscript on a theory of marriage. Several pieces of evidence point [to] the fact that a well known Eastern economist (with initials PAS) may have funded this break-in for as yet unknown reasons. This committee has been called to investigate this matter.

M1Thank you Mr. Chairman.

F. Will the first witness step forward to testify?
Please state your name.

EHH   E. Hausman Hunt.

F. What have you been doing for [the] last 3 months?

EHH.  I’ve spent the last 3 months in Charles St. Jail polishing up my lecturing technique. If I could only speak a little faster during my lecture, just think how much more material I could cover.

F. Is it true that you were in charge of organizing the burglary of Becker’s office?

EHH. Yes; I used several graduate students from MIT: my first choices were Rick Kasten and Roger Gordon but we had to reject them since we were afraid they were too talkative. However I finally settled on Rick Mishkin and Glenn Loury; Mishkin because he was so calm and organized; and Louryto comply with equal opportunities satisfy HEW.

F. Is it true that you write econometrics papers under a pseudonym?

EHH. Yes, I’ve just produced my 43rdpaper on the identification problem using the pseudonym “Franklin M. Fisher”

F. Well, I may be an old country bullfrog, but…
Next witness, please

(BH steps forward; Maureen sits in his lap; F. gives the eyebrows to the audience)

F. State your name, rank.

BD. I’m Bob Dean, special assistant professor.

F. And whom do you assist?

BD. Prof. Paul Anthony Samuelson, BA, PhD, L.H.D, L.L.D, Litt.D. (hon), LSD.

F. Can you describe briefly your part in the Westgate affair?

BD. Prof Samuelson was working on a theory of marriage at the same time as Prof. Becker. He had just succeeded in developing the formal first order conditions for the optimal marriage (using the LeChatelier principle) when he discovered Prof Becker’s work. He asked me to arrange for him to get a look at Prof. Becker’s manuscript.

F. Isn’t it true that you got married on or about this same period?

BD. Yes, that was also part of Prof Samuelson’s theory of marriage. He had also arranged for an empirical part of this work; after deriving the first order conditions, he hired a computer programmer to search for the optimal marriage in the department. Maureen and I were chosen. Pressured by Samuelson we agreed to get married.

F. How did you afford your honeymoon on an assistant prof’s salary?

BD. I borrowed some money from a departmental slush fund.

F. What is the source of this slush fund?

BD. It was accumulated for the sale of lecture notes from 14.123; why else do you think we sell those notes?

F. (eyebrows) I see. When did you again meet with Prof Samuelson?

BD. March 21, 1973;

F. What happened at that meeting?

BD. We received instructions from Prof. Samuelson on how to behave on our honeymoon. We asked Prof. Samuelson if it would be OK if our marginal utilities were not equalized; he said that “it would be wrong.”

F. Why was Prof Samuelson taking such an interest in your honeymoon?

BD. He wanted to be sure that his theory involved only “empirically refutable propositions”. He was also worried that we might behave too formally.

F. I don’t think I’ll ever understand you goyim.

F. Next witness. Please state your name.

PC. Paul Colson.

F. For what purpose were you hired by Prof Samuelson?

PC. I was supposed to ghost write the empirical part of the paper.

F. It says here (looking at notes) that you are one of the most dedicated of the applied econometricians?

PC. Yes, I’d run over my own grandmother to get a t-statistic greater than 2.

F. What were Prof. Samuelson’s instructions?

PC. As you know, Prof Samuelson was worried that Bob and Maureen Dean might be too formal on their honeymoon; I was sent along to collect data on their performance.

F. What happened? (eyebrows)

PC. As I peered into their motel room, I saw Bob come out of the bathroom dressed in pajamas and say to Maureen: I offer my honor. Maureen came out in her nightgown and replied I honor your offer.

F. (eyebrows) What happened next?

PC. From then on it was just honor and offer all night.

F. What went wrong?

PC. We forgot to check the second-order conditions and it was only a saddle point.

 

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

Image Source: Photo from U.S. Senate Watergate hearings. From left to right: minority counsel Fred Thompson, ranking member Howard Baker, and chair Sam Ervin of the Senate Watergate Committee.

Categories
Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Economics Christmas skit with basketball theme, 1961

 

Spoiler alert: you are about to encounter one of the least funny economics skits in the history of the genre, so this artifact is regrettably low on entertainment value.  Still the six acts have a certain seven-acts-of-man structure: Act I (the department recruits), Act II ( advising the first-year student), Act III (graduate student complaints), Act IV (choosing guest speakers), Act V (general examinations), Act VI (job market). 

After reading the skit, you might need a palate cleansing or better: for that purpose here are a few links to the key word “Funny Business” at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror that take you to some of the greatest hits of economics skits.

____________________

ANOTHER TWO POINTS FOR THE FACULTY,
ANOTHER FOUL ON THE STUDENTS

A Christmas Drama (with suggestions for a cast), December 15, 1961

ACT I

(The curtain rises on a scene of [Edgar Cary] Brown, [Franklin Marvin] Fisher, [Charles Poor] Kindleberger and [Abraham J.] Siegel seated around a table reading applications.

SIEGEL: Here’s a guy who may be OK…No…the place is no good. A cow college. They average only 50 points a game.

BROWN:  Here’s a good one.

FISHER: What’s his record?

BROWN: Pretty darn good. Worth at least tuition plus $500. Maybe $750.

FISHER: What’s his record?

BROWN: Pretty darn good. He’s from Podunk. And they’re pretty good. He was the best they had.

FISHER: How did he score, for crying out loud?

BROWN: He’s six-feet-five, weighs 195 pounds, and fast; he averaged 23.7 points a game. He has a great set shot, never misses from the foul line, and superb off the backboard. He’s just what we need in Graduate Economics at M.I.T.

 

ACT II

(An office: Siegel is advising a student.)

SIEGEL: For the first year I would take pretty standard fare: theory, history, statistics, finance, and international, plus of course the workshop. There’s no use trying to take too much. Pace yourself.

STUDENT (perhaps [Stephen Herbert] Hymer?): I don’t have much math. Why do I need to take statistics?

SIEGEL: Ando is very good. He doesn’t always make things completely clear, but you have to take statistics if you want to be able to handle averages, to work out the point per game and point per shot records; and you need probability to help compute odds on all the league games. Statistics is a must.

STUDENT: Why the history, finance and international?

SIEGEL: International is important. You ought to know how to schedule the Harlem Globetrotters, and who has the best chance in the Olympics. One of our best graduates played on the Oxford team against Poland and Czechoslovakia. That was Chuck Cooper, and it got him a job as Walter Heller’s assistant at the Council. Finance is important. When the gamblers start bribing players you need to know how to invest the funds. And history is vital. On the general exams they always ask who was James Naismith, the man who invented basketball. That’s for every student. The good students they ask when it was invented…of course 1891. And the very best students they ask where…past, Springfield, Mass. Remember, it’s not Springfield, Illinois. That’s Abe Lincoln.

STUDENT: OK. But tell me about the last one.

SIEGEL: Theory isn’t much. [Paul Anthony] Samuelson teaches about how to make inputs for two points, and when to dribble.

STUDENT: Samuelson teaches drivel?

 

ACT III

(A group of students, griping.)

STUDENT 1 (Francis Michel Bator?): This place is no good. It’s theory, theory, theory all the way. Anyone knows that the way to win at basketball is to practice. Practice makes perfect. Theory makes perfect fools. All you do is study and take exams. “Who was James Naismith? Who was Adam Yea-Smith? When do you chop down the tree?” Bah! I say we ought to study policy. With a two-point lead and three minutes to go, should you freeze the ball or plop in an input for an output of two points?

STUDENT 2 ([Paul Narcyz] Rosenstein-Rodan?): They tell me [Robert Merton] Solow has been converted from theory to policy. He is no longer interested in questions like whether the best set shot is an inverted rectangular parabola, but real issues, like the queuing problem: how many substitutes does a team need to field five men for an hour, with one personal foul every six minutes and four personal fouls per man disqualifying. If you have too many players on the bench you get unemployment. The team needs growth. Maybe you ought to add a man and play six.

STUDENT 3 ([Robert] Evans?): What’s bad is to have to play far away from the Sloan building. Those workshops on top on Walker and over in the Armory are OK, but they are too far away. We need the Ford Foundation to give us a workshop right here.

STUDENT 1: Haven’t you heard? The talk is that the new building to go up in the back lot is a library. But as I see its dimensions unfold- 90 feet by 50 – and transparent backboards and netting and grandstands, I can’t believe it’s a library. It must be a basketball court.

 

ACT IV

(A meeting of the G.E.A.)

RALPH BULL (played by [Robert Lyle] Bishop?): Do any of you fellows have suggestions for speakers besides Cousy, Russell, Jungle Jim Lusketoff, and that 6.8 outstanding economist, [John Kenneth] Galbraith, who can stand with his head coming up through the basket?

STUDENT B: What about Milton Friedman? He is under the five feet which some say is the minimum allowable in a monetary theorist, but he sure is good at the far-fetched shot.

STUDENT B: Why not get Clifford Odets?

RALPH BULL: Clifford Odets? Why him?

STUDENT B: Don’t you remember the famous line in “Awake and Sing”? “My brother Sam joined the Navy. He don’t know from nothin’, that dumb basketball player.” I want to know whether the emphasis is “that dumb basketball player” or “the [sic] dumb basketball player”. Are there any smart basketball players?

 

ACT V

KINDLEBERGER: As chairman of this exam, let me tell you that you have the right to pick the order of your exam. Do you want to start with Theory, or Statistics?

STUDENT (Samuelson?): I think I’ll start by jumping against Fisher, your professorship, sir. Ando’s the smaller, so I’ll take him last when I’m tired.

KINDLEBERGER: All right. (Student and Fisher face each other. Kindleberger blows whistle and throws imaginary ball. Cheers of amazement from faculty.)

FISHER: Very well. I have decided to let you combine Theory and Economic History.

STUDENT: Hey, Ref, your Ph.D.ship, sir, I’m not responsible for History. Isn’t that a foul?

KINDLEBERGER: I didn’t see nuthin’.

FISHER: Consider the population explosion of the last 150 years. Discuss the relative roles of (a) men and (b) women in this affair.

ANDO [Albert Keinosuke] : Good shot. That’s two points for our side.

STUDENT: I don’t know that, your cap-and-gownship, sir, but I know the roles are neither reflexive, symmetric, or transitive.

KINDLEBERGER: (blows whistle) Foul. You used big words in a generals. That’s only permitted the faculty.

FISHER: I’ll give Albert my free throw.

ANDO: (taking the foul shot) Please discuss the role of the nearly decomposable take-off in the application of a priori oligopoly theory to the A&P case.

STUDENT: Hey! You guys are ganging up on me.

ANDO: Well, you outnumber us in class.

STUDENT: (driving hard for basket) It can be set up as a nine-dimensional matrix problem and the latent roots dispensed with. I think the take-off is fine if done along the turnpike, watching out for model changes in passing cars.

ANDO: Fantastic! (Faculty huddle.)

KINDLEBERGER: That was a good answer. We’ve decided to give you an Excellent minus for being a good scorer, but to ask you to leave the Institute for fouling out on personals.

KINDLEBERGER, ANDO, FISHER: Rah, team!

 

ACT VI

DOMAR [Evsey David]: Well, you have the degree wrapped up, and now want a job. Not bad. You got a good grade on the orals, and would have gotten a top grade if you hadn’t thought that Stilt Chamberlain played for the Celtics and failed to distinguish Slippery Sam Jones from Casey Jones. Your thesis was entirely satisfactory, on a good topic: How to Get to the Boston Garden from Madison Square Garden: An Application of the Turnpike Theorem. And you even did languages: basketball communication in the Ivy League, or basketball with a broad A. Now the job. What do you think? Big Ten? Ivy League? Small liberal arts? Girls’ rules like Wellesley or Vassar? Or maybe the real big time: Kentucky, Long Island University, St. Joseph’s in Brooklyn, Notre Dame. L.I.U. is to economics like M.I.T. was to economics.

STUDENT (perhaps [Max Franklin] Millikan?): I don’t now if I’m ready for the Big Time.

DOMAR: What about applying some of your basketballmetrics for the government? They need our graduates. Or for an oil company. Maybe you would like to take a ball and a whistle and go abroad, demonstrating technical assistance to underdeveloped countries. There are jobs like that.

STUDENT: No. I guess I’m fussy. What I’d like is just what all the gang would like, to stay here at Cambridge with Harvard and the Celtics, and to referee like you and [Robert Lyle] Bishop and Samuelson, always blowing off your whistle and shouting foul, going first class to conferences, and shouting foul, foul, foul at the students.

 

Source:  M.I.T. Archives. MIT Department of Economics records, Box 2, Folder “GEA 1961-67”.

Image Source:  Boston Celtics players Tom Heinsohn, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Bill Sharman and Frank Ramsey in 1960. “Twelve of the greatest Celtics players of all time”  from Boston.com website (March 18, 2018)