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Columbia. Early Industrial Organization. Career of Arthur Robert Burns, husband of Eveline M. Burns

In the previous post we encountered social security pioneer Eveline Mabel Burns née Richardson at the point in her career when the Columbia University economics department signaled a definitive end to any hopes for promotion from the rank of lecturer to a tenure track assistant professorship in economics for her with them. In this post we follow the parallel case of her economist husband, Arthur Robert Burns (and no, not the Arthur F. Burns of Burns-Mitchell fame!), who cleared the promotion to assistant professor hurdle at Columbia relatively easily, but was stuck at that rank for nine years, in spite of repeated proposals by the department to promote him sooner.

The heart of this post can be found in the exchange between the  Arthur Robert Burns and then economics department head R. M. Haig in November 1941. Biographical and career backstories for Arthur R. Burns through 1945 can be found in excerpts posted below from budgetary proposals submitted by the economics department over the years. Burns was seen as a pillar of Columbia University’s Industrial Organization field at that time and remained at Columbia through his retirement (ca. 1965) while his wife took up a professorship in Social Work.

____________________________

From: Seligman’s 1929-30 budget recommendation to President Butler (December 1, 1928)

“During [Clara Eliot’s] absence [from Barnard College)  Mr. A. R. Burns has been acting as substitute. In our judgment he has been a valuable addition to the staff, and we recommend that he be reappointed as instructor. In Miss Eliot’s absence the course in statistics has been reduced from two semesters to one. There is a distinct demand for an additional course, though it would be on a different basis from formerly, and our proposal is that Miss Eliot be appointed solely to give two three-point courses in statistics, conducting a statistical laboratory as part of this work. This would relieve Mr. Burns from the course in statistics, and enable him to offer a new course of a somewhat more theoretical character than any now given at Barnard, on “the price-system and the organization of society”, a course which would distinctly help to round out the present offerings in Economics”.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budgets, 1915-1934 (a few minor gaps)”.

____________________________

Biographical and professional background through 1930-31
of Arthur R. Burns

…Arthur R. Burns was born in London, in 1895. He served in the army from September, 1914, to April, 1917, when he was discharged as no longer fit because of wounds. He entered the London School of Economics at once, took his B.Sc. degree with honors in 1920, taught economics in King’s College for women (University of London) for four years, and took his doctor’s degree in 1926. The award of Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fellowships brought Dr. Burns and his wife to this country, where they traveled somewhat widely for two years, studied competitive conditions in industries characterized by large business units, and where they were induced to stay by Columbia.

Dr. Burns has now been a lecturer in economics at Barnard College for three years. Members of our department have thus had an opportunity to become well acquainted with his quality. We think that he is by native ability, temperament and training an investigator, and that, given such opportunities as the graduate department affords, he will make significant contributions to economic science. His publications include several technical papers and two books: Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times, 1926, (a learned treatise on the origin and early history of coinage and monetary practices), and The Economic World, 1927 (written in collaboration with Mrs. Burns).

Source: Letter outlining plans for the future development of the economics department by Wesley C. Mitchell to President Butler. January 16, 1931. In Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-, Box 667, Folder 34 “Mitchell, Wesley Clair, 10/1930 – 6/1931”. Carbon copy also in Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budgets, 1915-1934 (a few minor gaps)”.

____________________________

Department recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
already in 1937-38
[Note: actual promotion only occurred Apr. 3, 1944]

[…] I would make the following budgetary recommendations for the coming academic year [1937-1938]:

(1) That the salary of Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be advanced from $3,600 to $4,000. In the opinion of his colleagues Mr. Burns is an indispensable member of our group whose scholarly competence and accomplishments entitle him to recognition far beyond that yet accorded him by the University. At the earliest possible moment he should be advanced to an Associate Professorship.”

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1937-1938”.

____________________________

Department again recommends promotion to Associate Professorship
[Note: Burns was given the salary increase this time]

[…] I would respectfully make the following budgetary recommendations for the coming academic year [1938-1939]:

(1) That the salary of Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be advanced from $3,600 to $4,000. In the opinion of his colleagues Mr. Burns is an indispensable member of our group whose scholarly competence and accomplishments entitle him to recognition far beyond that yet accorded him by the University. At the earliest possible moment he should be advanced to an Associate Professorship.”

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1938-1939”.

____________________________

Department then begins unsuccessfully to push for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 28, 1938]

[…] I respectfully recommend budgetary changes for the coming academic year 1939-1940, involving increase of compensation to the following members of the staff:

[…]

3. Arthur R. Burns from $4,000 to $4,500;

[…]

[Assistant] Professor Arthur R. Burns has established himself as an authority in his chosen field, and it is the desire of his colleagues that he be advanced to a full professorship as rapidly as university resources will allow. His tenure has already been long, and his advancement slow. It is our thought that he be given current recognition and enccouragement, with hope of promotion to rank commesurate with his repute among economists.”

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, “Economics Budget 1938-1939”. [note: incorrectly filed!]

____________________________

Requesting unpaid leave for a Twentieth Century Fund project

March 1, 1939

Nicholas Murray Butler, LL.D.
President of Columbia University

Dear President Butler:

Professor Arthur R. Burns has been invited to take the directorship of a study of the public utility industry, under the auspices of the Twentieth Century Fund. We of the Department think it wise that he do this and recommend that he be granted leave of absence without pay for the academic year 1939-40. I shall be prepared before long to make recommendation of some outstanding person to serve as a partial substitute for Professor Burns during the coming academic year with a stipend which will absorb approximately three-fifths of Professor Burns’ current compensation.

Very sincerely yours,

Executive Officer
Department of Economics

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1939-1940”.

____________________________

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary with a promotion to Full Professorship
[Nov. 18, 1939]

[…] I respectfully make the following recommendations affecting the budget of 1940-41:

[…]

6. That Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns be granted added compensation of $500 [i.e. from $4,000 to $4,500].

[…]

[Assistant] Professor Arthur R. Burns has served a long apprenticeship with subordinate rank in the Department. At the moment, either from the standpoint of scholarly attainment or from that of efficiency in graduate instruction he suffers not at all by comparison with the best endowed and most effective of his colleagues. Because of his merits and of the importance of the field he covers, he should be advanced rapidly to full professorial status.

[…]

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1939-1940” [note: incorrectly filed!]

____________________________

Department repeats its recommendation for an increase in salary reducing  promotion to Associate Professorship
[October 27, 1941]

MEMORANDUM
Department of Economics
October 27, 1941

[…]

Arthur R. Burns. Proposed: Advancement–assistant professor to associate professor.
Present salary $4,500
Proposed salary. $5,000

[…]

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Budget Material from July 1941-June 1942”.

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Arthur R. Burns demands promotion to the rank of professor

3206, Que Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

November 1st 1941.

Dear Professor Haig,

As I shall not be in New York this year to talk about the departmental plans for next year I must write. It seems to me that the question of my status in the department now calls for definitive action. Doubtless the unsettled times will be advanced as a reason for postponing promotion. At the outset, therefore, I wish to emphasise that I should regard any such attitude as entirely unfair. If the University is to go through hard times (as well it may) its misfortunes should be shared equitably among all the members of the faculty. To be frank, I feel that I have already been asked to bear an altogether unreasonable share of such financial stringencies as the University may have suffered. There have been many occasions in the past thirteen years on which I have been told that my promotion has been recommended (and more in which I have been told that it would have been recommended) but that no action has been taken for general financial reasons. I fully expect to bear my share of the burden of contemporary events but I feel that the time has come for my position to be given special consideration irrespective of those events, no matter how serious.

Various reasons have been given to me during my thirteen years of service to the University for its failure to promote me. But I think I am justified in believing that there has been less than the usual amount of criticism of my scholarship or my teaching capacity. The number of my students who have progressed in the outside world (sometimes already beyond my own rank and salary) indicates that I have been reasonably effective. Furthermore, I think that you will find that in recent years there has been an increasing number of graduate students coming to Columbia to work with me.

I now ask you, therefore, to have my academic status reviewed, whether or not the University wishes on principle again to avoid promotions. And after this long delay promotion only to an associate professorship will not, in my opinion, be compatible with my professional reputation and status. For six or seven years now my recognition outside the University has been widely at variance with my academic rank. My salary as Director of Research for the Twentieth Century Fund was $10,000 per annum. I have recently been invited to join the Anti Trust Division of the Department of Justice at a salary of $8,000 per annum. I am now the Supervisor of Civilian Allocation in the Office of Production Management. I suggest that this evidence justifies promotion to a full professorship. If economies are necessary, I am ready, as I have said, to accept them on the same basis as my colleagues.

I have written to you with complete frankness because I have been keenly disappointed with the disposal of suggestions for my promotion and I am anxious that you shall be clearly informed as to my feelings. I gather that for a number of years now there has been no serious objection but also no vigorous effort in my behalf. I now feel that if after all these long delays Columbia is unwilling to take special action to recognize my professional status I had better know before I am much older. I am now forty six years of age and if I must seek academic recognition elsewhere I must obviously begin to take the necessary steps without delay. I would of course prefer to stay with Columbia. I think you will agree that these long years of patient waiting are evidence of my loyalty but I think you will also agree that I cannot continue much longer to accept the present wide discrepancy between my status inside and outside the University.

Very sincerely yours,

[signed]

Arthur R. Burns

Professor Robert Murray Haig,
Chairman,
Department of Economics,
Fayerweather Hall,
Columbia University,
NEW YORK CITY

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection. Box 2: “Faculty”,  Folder: “Faculty Appointments”.

____________________________

Department responds to Burns’ demands:
Associate professorship when your rejoin the faculty

November 22, 1941

Professor Arthur R. Burns
3206 Que Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

Dear Professor Burns:

Last night our group met at dinner to consider the budget. This afforded an opportunity to comply with your request that your academic status be reviewed. I wish you could have listened to the discussion that took place. It was highly friendly and appreciative in tone, but at the same time it was pervaded by a deep sense of responsibility for the ultimate objectives for which we are striving. I am sure that it would have impressed you, as it did me, with the essential soundness of the policy of placing heavy dependence upon the deliberate, critical judgment of one’s colleagues in considering questions of promotion.

Your letter of November 1st, which I read to the brethren in full, arrived at a time peculiarly unfavorable for the consideration of finalities and ultimatums. Moreover, I regret to have to report some of the statements and implications of that letter were not altogether fortunate in the reactions they inspired. Let me elaborate on this last statement first.

(1) You state that you gather that in the past there has been “no vigorous effort” in your behalf. I can speak with full knowledge only regarding last year. If the implication is that your failure to secure more adequate recognition is ascribable to lack of vigor on the part of your colleagues as a group, or of the chairman of the Department in particular, I wish to state that I know it to be untrue with respect to last year and have reason to believe it to be untrue of several previous years. As a matter of fact, last year as the program moved forward from the Faculty Committee on Instruction, the recommendation for your promotion was placed at the very top above all others in the Faculty of Political Science. Until the very end, when the Trustees at their March meeting ruthlessly scuttled the program, I had high hopes that the effort would be successful. The only budgetary changes last year in this entire Department of 32 members were a) a $300 increase for which the College authorities had obligated themselves to secure for Barger and b) the temporary allocation of $600 to Wald for one year only from a sabbatical “windfall”.

(2) The citation of the salaries and fees you have been able to command in the government service and in the service of private research organizations as evidence that “justifies promotion to a full professorship” does not greatly impress your colleagues. We rejoice in the recognition and rewards that have come to you in return for your efforts while on leave of absence from your post at Columbia. Certainly the work of the Department has been carried on under a distinct handicap when your courses haven manned by part-time substitutes and we should like to believe that the sacrifices involved had borne rich fruits in professional and material rewards to you personally as well as to the general cause of science. However, you will readily agree, I take it, that our promotion and salary policy cannot be based on the principle you seem to suggest, viz., that the University must be prepared to match, dollar for dollar, the potential earning power of the staff on outside jobs. The rate of compensation for such outside work is, to my certain knowledge, likely to run over four or five times the rate of University compensation. Indeed, I can think of many of our colleagues who, on the basis of such a principle, could cite evidence even more convincing than your own.

(3) In the next place your letter seems to imply an understanding of the nature of the University connection that is not in complete harmony with our own. While it may be the policy elsewhere that mere length of service by a person who joins the staff at an early age, even though that service be reasonably effective and untouched by unfavorable criticism, carries assurance of promotion to the highest rank, this is definitely not the policy at Columbia University. Theoretically, at least, the University retains complete freedom of action to withhold advancement subject to a continuing critical appraisal of the individual’s value to the institution, against the background of changing circumstances, among which the University’s ability to supply funds must be listed near the top. Everyone is continually on trial to the very end of his career. This is evidenced in the practice regarding early retirement, the working of which I have recently had an opportunity to observe. Assurance regarding stability of tenure at a given level is a different point and mere humanitarian considerations are given generous weight. However, fundamentally the University connection is to be regarded as an opportunity (an opportunity, incidentally, of which you, in the opinion of your colleagues have, on the whole, made very good use) and promotion and early retirement are certainly affected and, in many cases at least, determined by the manner in which a member of the staff rises to that opportunity. Moreover, when such heavy dependence is placed upon the continuing critical appraisal by one’s colleagues, each man must have regard for his responsibility for the long-run interests of the department and of science. If, as the years roll along, the department is to contain a reasonably large percentage of intellects of the highest order, the critical appraisal must be a continuing process and sufficient freedom of action must be retained in promotion and salary policy to enable the group to make reasonably effective its collective judgment as to what is best for the department in the light of the individual’s developing record and the fluctuations of the resources available for supplying opportunities. I hope that you will forgive me for laboring this point but it is important that you understand what I am certain is the sentiment of the group of which you are a valued member, viz., that no matter on what basis of rank you may return to us, say, for example, as an associate professor, further recognition in rank or salary will be dependent upon decisions reached in harmony with the general policies outlined above.

I now revert to my earlier statement that your letter arrived at a peculiarly unfavorable time.

(1) On November 13th a letter was received from the President of the University indicating that Draconian economies were indicated for this year’s budget. Our own enrolment in the graduate department of economics has shrunk this year about 25 per cent and this shrinkage is on top of last year’s substantial shrinkage. Even in advance of the preparation of the formal budget letters, the department chairmen were summoned before a special committee at the behest of the trustees and urged by the elimination of courses and other means to contract the normal budget to smaller proportions. Consequently only in emergency cases where the interests of the University are considered to be vitally affected, will serious consideration be given to recommendations involving an increased expenditure.

(2) With the retirement of McCrea, the question of the future of the School of Business has been thrown open for discussion. Under the new Dean a radical revision of policy is being formulated, including as one item the transfer of the School to a strictly graduate level. The intimate interrelationships of staff and curriculum between our department and the school are being reexamined. Plans are still in a state of flux but your particular field of interest is involved. So highly dynamic is the situation that the budget letters of both the Department and the School are to be considered tentative documents, subject to modification as decisions of policy are taken during the weeks that lie ahead.

(3) The situation is further complicated by the fact that within our Department itself we have reached the stage, which arises every decade or so, when long-time plans require consideration. Not only are we faced with an important retirement problem, but we are also asked to have regard for the situation that will result if the present trend toward lower enrolments continues. To deal with this situation, a special committee has been set up in the department, headed by Professor Mitchell, to formulate plans for the future. A series of meetings is being held at which the present and probable future importance of the various subjects falling within the scope of the departments are being discussed and questions of staff and curriculum are being intensively studied. Here also important decisions are in the making but definite conclusions have not yet been reached.

I am writing at such length in order that you may understand clearly and fully the background against which we were called upon to consider your letter and the reasons underlying the action that was taken in your case.

The recommendation that I am instructed by our colleagues to include in the budget letter is that I renew the recommendation made last year that you be promoted to the rank of associate professor at a salary of $5,000. I realize that this will be a disappointment to you. You have stated that you consider this degree of recognition, if we are successful in securing it for you, would not be compatible with your professional reputation and status. I infer from your letter that you consider it so inadequate that you are not prepared to accept it. However, you do not make yourself unequivocally clear on this point. If your mind is definitely made up, it will simplify the procedure if you will inform me of the fact at once. On the other hand, there is no disposition to press you for an early answer in case you are not as far along toward a decision as your letter would seem to imply.

In considering the problem of your probable future with us, as compared with the various flattering alternatives open to you, I feel that I should make the following statements:

(1) I have no assurance that the recommendation will be adopted. It will carry the vigorous support of the department and of the Chairman. I have already raised the question informally before the Committee on Instruction of the Faculty and am happy to be able to report that this committee is warmly friendly to your cause. Frankly, however, I am not as optimistic as I was last year at this time regarding the outlook for a favorable outcome when the trustees finally take action.

(2) I should report that, in view of all the circumstances, including the state of ferment that exists at the moment regarding future plans for the department, your colleagues would not be willing to urge your appointment to a full professorship immediately, even if they were convinced that such a recommendation would stand a chance of acceptance by the trustees. You are highly regarded and much appreciated. Your colleagues regret the harsh circumstances that have made it impossible to give you more recognition than you have already received. They consider you an excellent gamble for the long future. They consider the fields of your special interest important. However, it is hoped and believed that you have not yet reached a full development of your potentialities. When faced with the question as to whether they are convinced that, on the record to date, you are reasonably certain to be generally regarded, during the next twenty years, as one of the dozen or so most distinguished economists in active service, there is a general disposition to reply “not yet proven beyond a reasonable doubt”. Although they have no illusions about the difficulty of carrying out this policy with success, they have decided to take the position that they will henceforth recommend for a full professorship no one who does not meet such a test. They prefer to have you return with the clear understanding all around that the final issue, the question of the full professorship, shall not be decided in your case until more evidence is in. They take this position with the best of will and with a considerable degree of confidence that the final decision will be favorable. In connection with this, they feel that the important work upon which you are now engaged should contribute substantially to your “capital account” and should have a highly favorable effect upon your future record as a scholar and teacher.

You paid me the compliment of writing me a candid and forthright letter. In return I have attempted to lay before you with complete frankness all the considerations I know of that bear upon the question you have to consider.

Finally, I should like to say, speaking both in a personal capacity and as the chairman of the department, that I hope you will find it possible to send me word that you desire to continue as a member of our group under these conditions. We have an interesting and important task before us. I believe that you have a rôle to play in its accomplishment. If, unhappily for us, your decision takes you away from us, we shall sincerely regret the termination of our close association with you. To a remarkable degree you have earned for yourself not only the respect but the affection of your colleagues at Columbia.

Faithfully yours,

R.M. HAIG

P.S. At your early convenience will you be good enough to send me a note of any items that should be added to your academic record for use in my budget letter.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection. Box 2: “Faculty”,  Folder: “Faculty Appointments”.

____________________________

From: Economics Department’s Proposed Budget for 1946-1947
November 30, 1945
[Burns recommended for professorship]

[…]

We recommend that Arthur Robert Burns, now an associate professor at a salary of $5,000, be promoted to a professorship at $7,500. Professor Burns, who has been connected with the University since 1928, was appointed an assistant professor in 1935, an associate professor in 1944. He has returned this year to his academic work, after a six-year leave of absence devoted to research and to important governmental service. His war-time activities have included service as Chief Economic Adviser and deputy Director of the Office of Civilian Supply, Deputy Administrator of the Foreign Economic Administration, and a mission to Europe in 1945 as a member of the American Group of the Allied Control Commission, advising on economic and industrial disarmament of Germany.
Professor Burns is carrying one of the fundamental graduate courses on Industrial Organization. He has agreed to offer one of the courses that will be central in the curriculum of the School of International Affairs–a course on “Types of Economic Organization”. His close acquaintance with the organization of the economies of the United States, Britain, and Germany, and his scholarly background in the field are of great value in this development of systematic academic work on comparative economic systems. Burn’s scholarly reputation is high. His study of The Decline of Competition, which is accepted as a standard in the field, is one of the major products of the Columbia Council on Research in the Social Sciences. He has served the country in recent years in administrative and advisory posts of high responsibility. We believe that he should have the rank of full professor.

[…]

Annex C

ARTHUR ROBERT BURNS

Academic Record

1918. Gladstone Memorial Prize, London School of Economics, London.
1920. B.Sc. (Economics) degree with First Class Honors, University of London.
1926. Ph.D. degree, University of London.
1926-28. Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship.

Teaching

1922-26. University of London.
1928-31. Lecturer in Economics, Barnard College, Columbia University.
1931-35. Lecturer in Economics, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
1935-44. Assistant Professor of Economics, Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
1939. Special Lecturer, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Leaves of absence without salary for 1940-41 through 1944-45.
1944-45. Promoted to Associate Professor of Economics
Returned to Columbia University for 1945-46.

Published Work

“Indian Currency Reform.” Economica, about 1925.
“The Effect of Funding the Floating Debt,” Economica, about 1933.
“Money and Monetary Policy in Early Times.” London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1927. About 650 pp.
“The Economic World.” London, University of London Press, 1928. [sic: co-authorship of wife Eveline M. Burns was not included in the citation].
“The Quantitative Study of Recent Economic Changes in the United States.” Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, 31: 491-546, April, 1930.
“Population Pressure in Great Britain.” Eugenics, 3: 211-20, June, 1930.
“The First Phase of the National Industrial Recovery Act 1933”. Political Science Quarterly,  49:161, June, 1934.
“The Consumer under the National Industrial Recovery Act.” Management Review, 23:195, July 1934.
The Decline of Competition. New York, McGraw Hill, 1936. 619 pp.
[not listed: “The Process of Industrial Concentration” 47 Q.J.E. 277 (1933)]
“The Anti-Trust Laws and the Regulation of Price Competition.” Law and Contemporary Problems, June, 1937.
“The Organization of Industry and the Theory of Prices.” Journal of Political Economy, XLV: 662-80, October, 1937.
“Concentration of Production,” Harvard Business Review, Spring Issue, 1943.
“Surplus Government Property and Foreign Policy”, Foreign Affairs, April, 1945.

Unpublished Studies

1935-38. Investigation of the pricing of cement with special reference to the basing point system (in collaboration with Professor J. M. Clark).
1939. Report on the pricing of sulphur.
1938-39. Study of distribution costs and retail prices.
1939-41. Director of Research, Twentieth Century Fund study of “Relations between Government and Electric Light and Power Industry.” Has been completed and is now in hands of the Twentieth Century Fund.

Other Work

1935. Alternate member. President’s Committee to report on the experience of the National Recovery Administration.
1938-39. Chairman, Sub-Committee of Price Conference on Distribution Costs and REtail Prices.
1939-41. Member of Board of Editors, American Economic Review.
1941. Supervisor of Civilian Supply and Requirements, Office of Production Management.
1942. Chief Economic Adviser, Office of Civilian Supply, War Production Board.
1942 (July-August). Member of mission to London to study British methods of concentration of industry.
1943. Deputy Director, Office of Civilian Supply.
1943. Director of Planning and Research, Office of Civilian Requirement
1943, December to March, 1945. Special assistant to Administrator, Deputy Administrator to the Foreign Economic Administration.
1945-continuing. Consultant to Enemy Branch of the Foreign Economic Administration.
1945, Summer. In Europe with the American Group of the Allied Control Commission to advise on the economic and industrial disarmament of Germany.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Department of Economics Budget ’46-47 and related matters”.

___________________________

Obituary: “Arthur Robert Burns dies at 85; economics teacher at Columbia“, New York Times, January 22, 1981.

Image: Arthur Robert Burns.  Detail from a departmental photo dated “early 1930’s” in Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Photos”.

Categories
Barnard Columbia Economists Gender

Columbia. Eveline M. Burns parts ways with the economics department. 1941-1942

This post is the first of two-parts dealing with a married economics couple who taught at the Columbia economics department during the second quarter of the twentieth century, Eveline Mabel Burns and Arthur Robert Burns. [Warning: not Arthur F. Burns!] Both of the Burns felt themselves relatively undervalued by their Columbia colleagues, but the case for Eveline Burns is particularly clear. She was the weaker spouse but in hindsight the stronger economist of the two. This post presents the end-game correspondence for Eveline Burns with respect to the Columbia economics department. She was quite remarkable, someone who  can be credited as being the midwife for the birth of the U.S. Social Security System (to use a gendered metaphor for a gendered case). The post closes with a list of her publications and her c.v. that is conclusive (ex post) documentation of just how wrong the Columbia economics department got it in the early 1940s. Brava, Eveline Burns!

____________________________

Department to Eveline Burns
Meet your glass ceiling

Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):

December 9, 1940

Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
2121 Virginia Avenue N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Dr. Burns:

As you may have heard, Professor McCrea is retiring at the end of the current academic year and the chairmanship of our Department has been passed along to me. After extensive conferences to ascertain the sentiment of our colleagues, I have prepared my first budget letter. In fairness to you as well as to the Department, I feel that I should report to you in very definite terms the attitude of your colleagues toward your future as a member of the staff.

I understand that you are well aware that in previous years opposition has developed to the proposal to advance you from your present position as Lecturer to that of Assistant Professor, an advancement which would carry with it, of course, some intimation of an intention to promote you later to still higher rank and to a permanent career in the Department. I regret to say that in the course of the budget discussions this year it has become apparent that this opposition has not diminished. It is indeed now so substantial that clearly it will be necessary for you to plan your future on the assumption that there is no possibility of advancement to professorial rank or to permanent status in the Faculty of Political Science.

Since I share the admiration that your colleagues in the Department feel for your many admirable qualities and your many impressive achievements, it is not an easy thing to send this message, which, in spite of previous notice, will doubtless cause you pain and disappointment. The plain fact is, however, that even your most enthusiastic friends agree that viewing the situation in all its aspects, you should not be encouraged to believe that your connection can be made more permanent, or that your rank can be advanced. This conclusion has been reached after extended consideration and will not, I feel certain, be modified by further discussion or debate.

In the budget letter you are being recommended for an appointment for the academic year 1941-42 as Lecturer at a stipend of $3,000.

Faithfully yours,

ROBERT M. HAIG

Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.

____________________________

Eveline Burns was not amused

Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):

 

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
National Resources Planning Board
Washington, D.C.

January 21, 1941

Professor Robert M. Haig
Faculty of Political Science
Columbia University
New York, N.Y.

My dear Professor Haig:

I have now had an opportunity of reading with more care your letter of December 9th which you handed to me yesterday and I find it is of a nature which obviously calls for a formal acknowledgment from me. Will you therefore please accept this letter as such? Since no reasons are given for the decision you have conveyed to me there is clearly no comment that I can make, ever were any comment appropriate.

I understood you to say that it would be unnecessary for me formally to give you in writing my reasons for being unwilling to accept a full time appointment as lecturer at a stipend of $3,000, and that you would explore the possibilities of a part time arrangement.

There is, however, one phrase in your letter to which I must take exception for the purposes of the record. In the last paragraph but one of your letter you use the words “in spite of previous notice.” I should like to state formally that to the best of my knowledge no such clear statement of the intentions of the faculty has ever been given to me. On the contrary, on each occasion when I have sought a clarification of the situation from the Dean or, at his suggestion, from other members of the faculty, I have always been given to understand that the individual approached was personally sympathetic to my cause and anxious to see my position regularized but that it would take time for this result to be achieved because of certain admitted difficulties which it was hoped would ultimately be removed.

At varying times I have been informed that there were difficulties because of: (a) my sex, (b) the fact that my husband was also on the staff, (c) the personal objections of an individual faculty member; or that it was undesirable to make a formal recommendation at the time because: (a) a recommendation was being made in favor of my husband and it would be unwise to make recommendations for both husband and wife simultaneously, or (b) that there were staff members, junior to myself, whose economic situations were more pressing than mine, or (c) that it would be advisable to wait until my book on British Unemployment Relief was published, or (d) that there was a general shortage of funds in the university.

In these circumstances I feel that it was not unreasonable for me to draw the conclusion, especially in view of the evident validity of the last consideration cited, that the problem was one of “when”, rather than “whether”, my position would be regularized.

The only occasion on which I was given any indication that this might not be the correct interpretation was in December 1938 when Professor McCrea informed me that while the Department was anxious to expand the work in Social Security, there was some disposition on the part of certain members with whom he had talked to feel that they would like to bring in some outside person to head up the work. I immediately offered my resignation to the Dean, on the ground that for me to continue at Columbia University under such circumstances would not be consistent with my standing in my field and the fact that I had for so long been teaching this subject. Moreover, I pointed out that such a decision implied the negation of any hopes of promotion that I might have formed.

At the request of the Dean, I withdrew my resignation until he could call a meeting of the faculty to discuss the question of my future in the University and at his request I furnished him with a list of my professional activities and publications and the names of outstanding experts in my field from whom he could obtain an opinion as to my standing. That meeting was held in January or February of 1939 and I subsequently received a letter from the Dean (which I do not have with me in Washington) informing me that the decision had been “favorable to my cause” or words to that effect. In those circumstances I felt, wrongly as it now appears, that I was justified in not proceeding with my resignation.

I wish to make it very clear that I am calling attention to these facts solely for the purposes of the record. Even had your letter not emphasized the finality of the judgment, I feel that if my colleagues were prepared to reach such a decision after my thirteen years of service without giving me any reasons therefor, it is unrealistic to expect that their attitude would be changed by any reminder of the facts that I have reported. Nor have I any desire to claim, on the grounds of obligation, expressed or implied, a recognition which the faculty is unwilling for other reasons to give me.

May I say how very sincerely I appreciate your frankness and friendliness yesterday in performing a task which I know could not have been a pleasant one for you. I cannot but feel that had my other colleagues displayed an equal candor and courage during the last seven or eight years, the problem of planning my professional and personal life would have been greatly simplified.

Yours very sincerely,

Eveline M. Burns

Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.

____________________________

Department to Eveline Burns
Terms of ex-dearment

Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):

February 15, 1941

Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
2121 Virginia Avenue N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

Dear Eve Burns:

This is to report to you that on behalf of the Department I have today sent to the Provost of the University a recommendation that you be appointed Lecturer for the academic year 1941-1942, on a part-time basis, at a stipend of $2,500. This, I understand, conforms to your wishes. This appointment contemplates that you will offer one course and will be available for dissertation, essay, and general Departmental work within the area of your special field. It is understood that the arrangement is for a single year, with no commitment by either of us for the period beyond June, 1942.

I have placed your letter of January 21st in the University file.

I had thought of the New York School of Social Work, but I am told that, for the present at least, there is no opening there that would be attractive to you. There is, however, an opening at Hunter College (which may involve the chairmanship of the Department at $6,000 or more) and I have suggested you name to them.

Faithfully yours,

[unsigned, presumably Robert M. Haig]

Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.

____________________________

Eveline Burns to Department
Roger that.

Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):

 

EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
National Resources Planning Board
Washington, D.C.

February 27, 1941

Dr. Robert M. Haig
Faculty of Political Science
Columbia University
New York, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Haig:

I wish to thank you for your letter of February 15th stating that you have sent forward a recommendation for my appointment as Lecturer for the academic year 1941-42 on a part-time basis at a stipend of $2,500. I have also noted your statement that the arrangement is for a single year with no commitment for the period beyond June 1942.

Sincerely yours,

Eveline M. Burns

Director of Research, Committee on
Long Range Work and Relief Policies

Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.

____________________________

Department to Eveline Burns

Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (appreares to have been dictated) no signature, no printed letterhead):

November 22, 1941

Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
3206 Que [sic] Street, N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

Dear Doctor Burns:

Last January, after you had expressed your unwillingness to accept reappointment as full-time lecturer at $3,000, the part-time arrangement presently in force was made with the understanding that it involved no commitment beyond June, 1942.

In accordance with a decision reached at a conference of members of the department last night, I have included in the budget letter a recommendation that no provision be made for the continuance of your connection with the department beyond the end of the current academic year.

As I send you this communication I am certain that I speak for all of the members of the department in expressing regret for the circumstances which have prevented the realization of some of our hopes and in expressing appreciation of the contribution you have made to our joint product during the period of your association with Columbia.

With renewed assurances of my personal esteem, I am

Faithfully yours,

ROBERT MURRAY HAIG

Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 2  Folders “Faculty Appointments”.

____________________________

Department to Eveline Burns
Repeat: you quit, you were not fired

December 22, 1941

Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
3206 Q Street N.W.,
Washington D.C.

My dear Dr. Burns:

I beg to acknowledge your letter of December 10th.

My understanding of the course of events in your case, based on the written record and upon my recollection of our conversation on January 20th, 1941, is this:

            1) You demanded promotion and expressed an unwillingness to return to us as a full time lecturer at $3,000;

            2) You were then told, both orally and in writing, that there was no possibility of advancement to professorial rank or to permanent status in the Faculty of Political Science;

            3) Thereupon you suggested a special arrangement for 1941-2, stated, both orally and in writing, to be temporary in character, and to involve no commitment on either side beyond June 30, 1942.

            It would seem to be correct to describe what happened as a voluntary withdrawal by you from your position as lecturer because of your dissatisfaction with that status and your unwillingness to continue in it in the face of the University’s inability to promise advancement. It would seem to be incorrect to describe it as a “dismissal”. We decline to regard it as such in our discussions with you and certainly shall not describe it as such in any communications with outsiders who may have an interest in you.

Since, according to my understanding, you were not dismissed, but withdrew, I cannot supply you with the reason for your “dismissal”. You insisted upon promotion. Your colleagues regretfully decided that it was not possible to encourage you to expect promotion to professorial rank and a permanent career in the department.

With respect to the confidential character of the statements at the decisive meeting, I should like to make it clear that, while we agreed not to report each others’ remarks at the meeting, there was no agreement that would preclude any individual who felt so inclined from giving you his own opinion of your qualities in such detail as he might desire.

Yours truly,

ROBERT MURRAY HAIG

Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 2  Folders “Faculty Appointments”.

____________________________

Department to Eveline Burns
We said: you weren’t fired, you quit

Appears to be a carbon copy of a typed copy of the original (no signature, no printed letterhead):

January 6, 1942

Dr. Eveline M. Burns,
3206 Q Street N.W.,
Washington, D.C.

Dear Dr. Burns:

I beg to acknowledge your letter of December 30th, 1941. [Not found in my files]

I am sorry that my recollection of what occurred at our oral interview on January 20th, 1941 does not substantiate in all particulars the statements you make in this letter. My recollection of what occurred is set forth in my letter of December 22d, 1941.

Yours truly,

ROBERT M. HAIG.

Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folder “Economics Budget, 1940-1941”.

____________________________

Salary Structure of Economics Staff at Columbia and Barnard
1941-42

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
The Budget as Adopted for 1941-42

Office or Item

 Incumbent

1941-1942
ActualAppropriations
McVickar Professor Political Economy Robert M. Haig $9,000.
Professor of Political Economy Leo Wolman $9,000.
Professor of Economic History V. G. Simkhovitch $9,000.
Professor Wesley C. Mitchell $9,000.
Professor John Maurice Clark $9,000.
Professor James Waterhouse Angell $7,500
Professor Carter Goodrich $7,500
Professor Harold Hotelling $7,500
Professor Horace Taylor $6,500
Assistant Professor Arthur R. Burns $4,500.
Assistant Professor Robert L. Carey $3,600.
Assistant Professor Boris M. Stanfield $3,600.
Assistant Professor Joseph Dorfman $3,600.
Honorary Associate Richard T. Ely ($1,000.)
Instructor Hubert F. Havlik $3,000.
Instructor C. Lowell Harriss $2,400.
($300.)
Instructor Walt W. Rostow $2,400.
Instructor Courtney C. Brown $2,700.
Instructor Harold Barger $3,000.
Instructor Donald W. O’Connell ($2,400.)
Lecturer Carl T. Schmidt $3,000.
Lecturer (Winter Session) Robert Valeur ($1,500.)
Lecturer Eveline M. Burns $2,500.
Lecturer Louis M. Hacker $3,000.
Lecturer Michael T. Florinsky $2,700.
Lecturer Abraham Wald $2,400.
($600.)
Visiting Lecturer Arthur F. Burns ($2,000.)**
Departmental appropriation $800.
Assistance $1,200.
$118,400.

** Chargeable to salary of Prof. Mitchell, absent on leave.

BARNARD COLLEGE:
Economics Budget for 1941-42

Associate Professor Elizabeth F. Baker $5,000.
Assistant Professor Raymond J. Saulnier $3,600.
Instructor Donald B. Marsh $2,400.
Instructor Mirra Komarovsky $2,700.
Lecturer Clara Eliot $2,700.
Assistant in Economics and Social Science Mary M. van Brunt $1,000
$17,400.

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collection, Box 3 “Budget, 1915-1946/1947”, Folders “Economics Budget, 1940-1941” and “Budget Material from July 1941-June 1942”.

____________________________

But don’t cry for Eveline M. Burns
She did very well for herself.

A Festschrift was published in honour of Professor Burns in 1969 under the title: Social Security in International Perspective: Essays in Honor of Eveline M. Burns, Ed. Shirley Jenkins, New York and London, Columbia University Press.

____________________________

Eveline M. Burns’ Publications:

“The French Minimum Wage Act of 1915” in Economica, III, 1923;

“The Economics of Family Endowment” in Economica, V, 1925;

Wages and the State: A Comparative Study of the Problems of State Wage Regulations, London, P. S. King and Son, 1926;

The Economic World: A Survey (with A. R. Burns), London, Oxford University Press, 1927;

“Achievements of the British Pension System” in Old-Age Security: Proceedings of the Second National Conference, New York, American Association of Old-Age Security, 1929;

“Planning and Unemployment” in Socialist Planning and a Socialist Program, Ed. H. W. Laidler, New York, Falcon Press, 1932;

“Misconceptions of European Unemployment Insurance” in Social Security in the United States: 1933, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1933;

“Lessons from British and German Experience” in Social Security in the United States: 1934, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1934;

“Can Social Insurance Provide Social Security?” in Social Security in the United States: 1935, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1935;

“The Lessons of German Experience with Unemployment Relief” in Lectures on Current Economic Problems, Washington, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Graduate School, 1936;

“Basic Principles in Old-Age Security” in Social Security in the United States: 1936, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1936;

Memorandum on “Wall Street Journal” Articles, Washington, Bureau of Research and Statistics (Memorandum No. 3), 1936

Towards Social Security: An Explanation of the Social Security Act and a Survey of the Larger Issues, London, Whittlesey House, and New York, McGraw-Hill, 1936;

“Social Realities versus Technical Obfuscations” in Social Security in the United States: 1937, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1937;

The Arguments for and against the Old-Age Reserve, Washington, Social Security Board, 1938;

“Some Fundamental Consideration in Social Security” in Social Security in the United States: 1940, New York, American Association for Social Security, 1940;

British Unemployment Programs 1920-38 (Report prepared for the Committee on Social Security), Washington, Social Science Research Council, 1941;

Security, Work and Relief Policies (Report of the Committee on Long-Range Work and Relief Policies to the National Resources Planning Board: Eveline M. Burns, Director of Research), Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1942;

“Building for Economic Security—Six Foundation Stones” in The Third Freedom: Freedom from Want, Ed. H. W. Laidler, New York, League for Industrial Democracy, 1943;

“Equal Access to Health” and “Equal Access to Economic Security” in National Resources Development Report for 1943 (Part I), Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1943;

Discussion and Study Outline on Social Security, Washington, National Planning Association (Planning Pamphlets No. 33), 1944;

“Social Security” in Economic Reconstruction, Ed. S. E. Harris, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1945;

“Economic Factors in Family Life” in The Family in the Democratic Society, New York, Columbia University Press, 1949;

“How Much Social Welfare Can America Afford?” in The Social Welfare Forum, 1949, Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, New York, Columbia University Press, 1950;

“Social Insurance in Evolution” in Readings in Labor Economics, Ed. F. S. Doody, Cambridge (Mass.), Addison Wesley Press, 1950;

The American Social Security System, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 2nd edition, 1951;

The Social Security Act Amendments of 1950: An Appendix to The American Social Security System, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1951;

“An Expanded Role for Social Work” in Social Work Education in the United States, Ed. E. V. Hollis and A. L. Taylor, New York, Columbia University Press, 1951;

“Fifteen Years under the Social Security Act: An Evaluation” in Current Issues in Social Security, Ed. L. MacDonald, New York University, Institute of Labor Relations and Social Security, 1951;

“The Doctoral Program: Progress and Problems” in Social Work Education in the Post-Master’s Program. No. 1: Guiding Principles, New York, Council on Social Work Education, 1953;

Comments on the Chamber of Commerce Social Security Proposals, Chicago, American Public Welfare Association, 1953;

Private and Social Insurance and the Problem of Social Security, Ottawa, Canadian Welfare Council, 1953;

“Significant Contemporary Issues in the Expansion and Consolidation of Government Social Security Programs” in Economic Security for Americans: An Appraisal of the Progress made from 1900 to 1953, New York, Columbia University Graduate School of Business, 1954;

“The Role of Government in Social Welfare” in The Social Welfare Forum, 1954, Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work, New York, Columbia University Press, 1954;

“The Financing of Social Welfare” in New Directions in Social Work, New York, Harper, 1954;

America’s Role in International Social Welfare (Editor), New York, Columbia University Press, 1955;

Social Security and Public Policy, New York, McGraw-Hill, 1956;

“Welfare Assistance” in A Report to the Governor of the State of New York and the Mayor of the City of New York, by the New York City Fiscal Relations Committee, New York, The Committee, 1956;

Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on Social Policy and Social Work Education, Arden House, April 1957 (Editor), New York, New York School of Social Work, Columbia University, 1957;

“Social Policy and the Social Work Curriculum” in Objectives of the Social Work Curriculum of the Future, by W. W. Boehm, New York, Council on Social Work Education, 1959;

“The Government’s Role in Child and Family Welfare” in The Nation’s Children, Vol. III: Problems and Prospects, Ed. Eli Ginsberg, New York, Columbia University Press, 1960;

“A Salute to Twenty-Five Years of Social Security” in Social Security: Programs, Problems and Policies, Ed. W. Haber and W. J. Cohen, Homewood (Illinois), R. D. Irwin, 1960;

“Issues in Social Security Financing” in Social Security in the United States: Lectures Presented by the Chancellor’s Committee on the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Social Security Act, Berkeley, University of California, Institute of Industrial Relations, 1961;

A Research Program for the Social Security Administration, Washington, U.S. Government Printer, 1961;

“Introduction” in Federal Grants and Public Assistance: A Comparative Study of Policies and Programmes in U.S.A and India, by Saiyid Zafar Hasan, Allahabad, Kitab Mahal, 1963;

“The Functions of Private and of Social Insurance” in Studi sulle assicurazione raccolti in occasione del cinquanterario dell’Istituto Nazionale della Assicurazioni, Ed. A. Giuffre, Milan, 1963;

“The Determinants of Policy” in In Aid of the Unemployed, Ed. J. M. Becker, Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1965;

“Social Security in America: The Two Systems—Public and Private” in Labor in a Changing America, Ed. W. Haber, New York, Basic Books, 1966;

“Income Maintenance Policies and Early Retirement” in Technology, Manpower, and Retirement Policy, Ed. J. M. Kreps, Cleveland, World Publishing Co., 1966;

“The Challenge and the Potential of the Future” in Comprehensive Health Services for New York City (Report of the Mayor’s Commission on the Delivery of Personal Health Services), New York, The Commission, 1967;

“Foreword” in Poor Law to Poverty Program, by Samuel Mencher, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967;

“The Future Course of Public Welfare” in Position Papers and Major Related Data for the Governor’s Conference, Albany (New York), New York State Board of Social Welfare, 1967;

Social Policy and the Health Services: The Choices Ahead, New York, American Public Health Association, 1967;

“Productivity and the Theory of Wages” in London Essays in Economics, Ed. T. E. Gregory and H. Dalton, London, G. Routledge, 1927; republished, Freeport (New York), Books for Libraries Press, 1967;

Children’s Allowances and the Economic Welfare of Children (Editor and Contributor), New York, Citizen’s Committee for Children, 1968;

“Needed Changes in Welfare Programs” in Urban Planning and Social Policy, New York, Basic Books, 1968;

“Social Security in Evolution—Towards What?” in Unions, Management and the Public, New York, Harcourt, Brace and World, 3rdedition, 1968;

“A Commentary on Gunnar Myrdal’s Essay on the Social Sciences and their Impact on Society” in Social Theory and Social Invention, Ed. H. D. Stein, Cleveland, Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1968;

“Welfare Reform and Income Security Policies” in The Social Welfare Forum, 1970, Proceedings of the National Conference on Social Welfare, New York, Columbia University Press, 1970;

“Health Care System” in Encyclopedia of Social Work, New York, National Association of Social Workers, 1971

____________________________

Eveline Mabel Burns
C.V.

Vital information:

Born: Eveline Mabel Richardson on March 16, 1900 in Norwood, London.

Married: Arthur Robert Burns (b. December 2, 1895; d. January 20 1981) of London, 1922.

U.S. Citizenship: 1937.

Died: September 2, 1985 in Newton, Pennsylvania.

Education:

B.Sc. (Econ.), Ph.D. (London), Honorary D.H.L. (Western College; Adelphi; Columbia), Honorary LL.D. (Western Reserve University). Professor Emeritus, Columbia University, since 1967; and Consultant Economist, Community Service Society, New York, since 1971.

Streatham Secondary School, 1913-16; London School of Economics and Political Science, 1916-20; London County Council Tuition Scholarship; B.Sc. (Econ.), 1st Class Honors in Economics, 1920; Ph.D., 1926; Adam Smith Medal for outstanding thesis of the year, 1926.

Positions Held

(1)  Normal Full-time Positions

Title of Position. Name of Institution/Organization. Years of Tenure. Compensation

Junior Administrative Officer. Ministry of Labor, London, England. 1917-21. £ 250

Assistant Lecturer, London School of Economics, University of London. 1921-28 (On Leave 1926-8). £ 350

Lecturer, Graduate Department of Economics, Columbia University. 1928-42 (on leave 1940-2). $ 3000-3500

Chief, Economic Security and Health Section, National Resources Planning Board, Washington, D. C. 1940-3. $ 7500

Professor of Social Work and Chairman and Administrative Officer, Doctoral Committee, New York School of Social Work, Columbia University. 1946 to [retired 1967] $ 9500

(2)  Special Assignments

London School of Economics. Asst, Editor, Economica, 1922-6.

University of London Social Security Committee. Senior Staff Officer, 1937-9. $6500

Social Science Research Council

National Planning Association, Washington, D. C. Consultant on Social Security, 1943-4. $7000

(3)  Visiting Professorships

Anna Howard Shaw Lecturer, Bryn Mawr College, 1944
Visiting Professor, Bryn Mawr College, 1945-6
Visiting Professor, Princeton University, 1951

I have also given short courses or individual lectures at the following institutions:

Department of Economics, University of Chicago
Smith College School for Social Work
Littauer Graduate School of Public Administration, Harvard Univ.
School of Applied Social Sciences, University of Pittsburgh
School of Applied Sciences, Western Reserve University

For several years I have conducted the Advanced Seminar arranged by the Social Security Administration for its senior staff, and have given brief seminars for foreign social security experts brought to this country by the Mutual Security Agency

(4)  Consultantships

Consultant, Committee on Economic Security, Washington, 1934-5
Principal Consulting Economist, Social Security Board, 1936-40
Consultant, Social Security Administration, 1948 to date

I have also served as consultant on specific issues to the:

United States Treasury
The Federal Reserve Board
The Works Progress Administration
The New York State Department of Labor

OTHER DISTINCTIONS

Adam Smith Medal for outstanding thesis of the year, 1926
Laura Spelman Rockefeller Fellowship, 1926-8
Guggenheim Fellowship, 1954-5
Florina Lasker Award (“for outstanding contributions in the field of Social Security”), 1960
Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters, Western College, 1962
Honorary LLD, Western Reserve University, 1963
Honorary Fellow, London School of Economics, 1963
Bronfman Lecturer, American Public Health Assn., 1966
Ittelson Medal (“for contributions to Social planning”), 1968
Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters, Adelphi University, 1968
Woman of Achievement Award, American Assn. of University Women, 1968
Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters, Columbia University, 1969

POSITIONS OF CIVIC OR NATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY, MEMBERSHIP OF LEARNED SOCIETIES, ETC.

Member American Economic Association (Member of Executive Ctte, 1951-3  and Vice-President, 1953-4)
National Conference on Social Welfare (Secretary, 1955, First-Vice President, 1956 and President, 1957-58)
American Public Health Association (Vice-President, 1969-70)
Vice-President and President, Consumers’ League of New York, 1935-8
Member and Chairman of various committees, Federal Advisory Council on Employment Security, 1952-70
Member, Legislative Policy Committee, American Public Welfare Assn., 1956-68
Member, Steering Committee, White House Conference on Children, 1959-60
Member, Federal Advisory Committee on Area Redevelopment, Subsequently the National Committee on Regional Economic Development, 1961-69
Member, Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Hobby’s Advisory Committee on Coverage Extension of the Social Security Act, 1953-4
American Delegate to International Conference on Social Welfare, 1958, and member of Steering Ctte and Vice-Chairman of Commission I
Chairman, Social Security Administration Advisory Committee on Long Range Research, 1961-5
Member, President Johnson’s Task Force on Income Security Policy, 1964
Member of Sub-Committee on Social Policy for Health Care and member of its Executive Committee, N. Y. Academy of Medicine 1964 to date
Member, Mayor Lindsay’s Commission on Delivery of Health Service in New York City, 1967-8
Member, National Council, American Assn. of University Professors 1961-4

Original Source: Eveline Burns Papers. Box 1. University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Social Welfare History Archives. Minneapolis, MN.

Transcribed and posted on line: Davidann, J. & Klassen, D. (2002). Eveline Mabel Richardson Burns (1900-1985) — Social economist, author, educator and contributor to the development of the Social Security Act of 1935. Social Welfare History Project.

Image: Eveline Mabel Burns.  Detail from a departmental photo dated “early 1930’s” in Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Photos”.

Categories
Columbia Economists Statistics

Columbia. Promotions and Memorial Minute for Abraham Wald

 

 

Abraham Wald (1902-1950) got his foot into the Columbia economics department door thanks to a grant from the Carnegie Foundation arranged for him by Harold Hotelling in 1938. In this post we follow Wald’s Columbia career up through the faculty memorial minute that followed his tragic, untimely death in an airplane accident during a lecture tour in India in December 1950.

___________________

Promotion to Assistant Professor

From the November 26, 1941 letter to President Nicholas Murray Butler from Robert M. Haig, Chairman of the department of economics (pp. 3-5 and supporting annex B).

“…We feel that it is important, if at all possible, that the following action be taken.

  1. Appoint Abraham Wald to an assistant professorship at $3,600 (Wald is now a lecturer at $3,000, of which $2,400 is financed by a special grant, the continuance of which is not assured.
    (See Annex B)

A recent development in the case of Wald is an offer of a permanent post (presumably an assistant professorship) at Queens College. This post will be open to him in case it proves impossible for us to give him the status recommended. Our enthusiasm for him has increased since last year when I wrote as follows:—

“The position of this recommendation at the very head of our list is attributable primarily to a conviction that Abraham Wald is an unusually interesting gamble. By risking a moderate stake, the University can put itself in a position where it may (and in our judgment probably will) be rewarded a hundred-fold. For Wald is not only a young scholar whose attainments are of a high order of merit, but one whose potentialities are obviously large.

“When Wald came to us two years ago, as a lecturer whose stipend was supplied by a special and presumably temporary grant, we were frankly apprehensive lest we should presently find ourselves indirectly committed, without adequate consideration, to a permanent addition to our staff concerning whom we might not be enthusiastic. Consequently care was exercised to make it clear to all concerned that his appointment as a lecturer supported by a special grant carried with it no future obligation. Fortunately then, we are able to approach the consideration of his case at this juncture free from any pressure of old commitments, express or implied.

“Our recommendation of Wald should be interpreted then as a free and fresh expression of our admiration for his accomplishments and of our faith in his future. As a result of our contacts with him and with his work, we are convinced that here is a man whose contributions are reasonably certain to continue to break new ground on a section of the frontier of knowledge where notable progress seems imminent.

“We recognize that Wald’s field is one that is of interest and significance to several departments of the University and that there are unsettled questions as to whether ultimately it should be attached to our own or to some other department or whether it should constitute a separate department in its own right. Irrespective of the answers that may ultimately be given to such questions of structural organization, we, in the Department of Economics, desire to express the hope that it will prove possible for the University to provide for the further development of teaching and research in statistics on a high level and we wish to take this opportunity to make it clear that, pending a final decision as to organization, we should consider it an honor to be permitted to shelter and to stand sponsor for scientific work such as that of Wald.”

[…]

ANNEX B.
BIOGRAPHIC MEMORANDUM OF ABRAHAM WALD

I was born in Cluj, October 31, 1902. I studied at the University in Cluj and at the University of Vienna, and obtained my doctor’s degree in mathematics at the University of Vienna in 1930. The subject of my doctor’s thesis was the Hilbert system of axioms of Geometry.

For the next four years I did mathematical research at the University of Vienna and collaborated with Professor Karl Menger. I was co-editor with him of “Ergebnisse eines mathematischen Kolloquiums.” During this time my interests were chiefly in general abstract and metric geometry, theory of probability, and mathematical economics, in which fields my papers were written.

In 1934 I became in addition a research associate of the Institute for Business Cycle Research in Vienna and published several papers in mathematical economics. My interest in statistics and its application in economics dates from this time, when I became the statistical expert of the Institute.

After the annexation of Austria, I came to the United States and was for several months a fellow of the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics. Thereafter I became a lecturer at Columbia University which is the position I hold at present. Since my arrival in the United States I have been interested chiefly in statistics and mathematical economics and have published a series of papers in these fields. I have been elected a fellow of both the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Econometric Society.

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

  1. Abstract and metric geometry
    1. Über den allgemeinen Raumbegriff, Ergebnisse eines math. Kolloquiums, Heft 3, Vienna. [1931]
    2. Axiomatik des Zwischenbegriffes in metrischen Räumen, Mathematische Annalen, Vol. 104. [1931]
    3. Der komplexe euklidische Raum [Komplexe und indefinite Räume], Erg. eines mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    4. Indefinite euklidischen Räume, Erg. eines mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    5. Vereinfachter Beweis des Steinitzschen Satzes, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    6. Bedingt konvergente Reihen von Vektoren, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    7. Riehen in topologischen Gruppen, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 5, Vienna.
    8. Eine neue Definition der Flächenkrümmung, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 6, Vienna
    9. Sur la courbure des surfaces, C. R. [Acad. Sci.] Paris, 1935.
    10. Aufbau [Begründung] einer kooridinatenlosen Differentialgeometrie der Flächen, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 7, Vienna.
    11. Eine Characterisierung des Lebesgueschen Masses, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 7, Vienna.
  1. Probability, Statistics and Mathematical Economics.
    1. Sur la notion de collectif dans le calcul des probabilités, C.R. [Acad. Sci.] Paris, 1936.
    2. Die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Kollektivbegriffes, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 8, Vienna.
    3. Die Widerspruchsfreiheit des Kollektivbegriffes, Actualités Scientifiques, 1938, Paris.
    4. Berechnung und Ausschaltung von Saisonschwankungen, Julius Springer, Vienna, 1936.
    5. Zur Theorie der Preis Indexziffern, Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, Vienna, 1937.
    6. Über die Produktionsgleichungen der ökonomischen Wertlehre, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 6, Vienna.
    7. Über die Produktionsgleichungen der ökonomischen Wertlehre, zweite Mitteilung, Erg. mathem. Kolloquiums, Heft 7, Vienna.
    8. Über einige Gleichungssysteme der mathematischen Ökonomie, Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie, Vienna, 1936. [translated into English by Otto Eckstein, Econometrica, 1951, pp. 368-403]
    9. Extrapolation des gleitenden 12-Monatsdurchschnittes, Beilage zu den Berichten des Öster. Institutes für Konjunkturforschung, Vienna, 1937.
    10. Grundsaetzliches zur Berechnung des Produktionsindex, Beilage zu den Berichten des Öster. Institutes für Konjunkturforschung, Vienna, 1937.
    11. Generalization of the inequality of Markoff, The Annals of Math. Statistics, December, 1938.
    12. Long Cycles as a result of repeated integration, American Mathem. Monthly, March, 1939.
    13. Confidence limit for continuous distribution functions (co-author J. Wolfowitz), The Annals of Math. Statistics, June, 1939.
    14. Limits of a distribution function determined by absolute moments, Transact. of the Amer. Mathem. Society, September, 1939.
    15. A new formula for the index of cost of living, Econometrica, October, 1939.
    16. Contributions to the theory of statistical estimation, The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, December, 1939.
    17. A note on the analysis of variance with unequal class frequencies, The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, March, 1940.
    18. The approximate determination of indifference surfaces, Econometrica, April, 1940.
    19. On a test whether two samples are from the same population (with J. Wolfowitz), The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, June, 1940.
    20. Fitting of straight lines when both variables are subject to error, The Annals of Mathem. Statistics, September, 1940.
    21. Asymptotically most powerful tests of statistical hypotheses, Annals of Mathem. Statistics, March, 1941.
    22. Some examples of asymptotically most powerful tests will appear in the December, 1941 issue of the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    23. Asymptotically shortest confidence intervals paper presented at the meeting of the Amer. Math. Soc., September, 1940. Accepted for publication in the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    24. On the distribution of Wilks’ statistic for testing the independence of several groups of variates (in collaboration with R. Brookner), Annals of Mathem. Statistics, June, 1941.
    25. The large sample distribution of the likelihood ratio statistics, paper presented at the meeting of the Institute of Mathem. Statistics, September, 1941, Chicago. It will be published in the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    26. On testing statistical hypotheses concerning several unknown parameters, paper presented at the meeting of Amer. Mathem. Society, February, 1941, New York City. It will be published in the Annals of Mathem. Statistics.
    27. On the analysis of variance in case of multiple classifications with unequal class frequencies, Annals of Mathem. Statistics, September, 1941.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890—Box 386, Folder “Haig, Robert Murray 7/1941-6/1942”

Cf: “The Publications of Abraham Wald” [1931-1952] was published in The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 23:1 (March 1952, pp. 29-33.

___________________

Aliens in the Department of Economics

December 19, 1941

Mr. Philip M. Hayden, Secretary,
213 Low Memorial Library.

Dear Mr. Hayden:

In reply to the request contained in your recent Memorandum to executive officers, I report the following aliens from the Department of Economics:

Harold Barger

29 West 8th Street, New York City

Nationality: British
Age: 34
Alien Registration No.: 3239174

 

Donald Bailey Marsh

106 Morningside Drive, New York City

Nationality: Canadian
Age: 30
Alien Registration No.: 1152252

 

Robert Valeur

40 Barrow Street, New York City

Nationality: French
Age: 38
Alien Registration No.: 5061531

 

Abraham Wald

241 West 108th Street, New York City

Nationality: born in Kolozsvar [Note: Hungarian spelling of Cluj-Napoca], Transylvania, Alien Registration officials were in doubt how to describe nationality.
Age: 39
Alien Registration No.: 4506027

Very truly yours,
Chairman, Department of Economics

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Department of Economics Collections, Faculty. Box 2, Folder “Faculty Beginning Jan 1, 1944 [sic]”.

___________________

Promotion to Associate Professor

February 7, 1944

Professor Abraham Wald,
608 Fayerweather.

Dear Professor Wald:

I am authorized by the Provost of the University to inform you that in the provisional budget for the academic year 1944-45 you are designated associate professor of Statistics at an annual stipend of $5,000. This provisional budget goes to the Trustees with the approval of the Committee on Educational Policy. While your promotion is not final until it is adopted by the Trustees at their meeting on the first Monday in April, the Provost and I agree that there is no reason whatsoever to doubt that the recommendation for your advancement will be approved, and that you run hardly an risk in declining the offer of an associate professorship at the University of Chicago.

As an associate professor you would hold your position at the pleasure of the Trustees, i.e., you would no longer be subject to year-to-year appointment and would, in effect, have continuing tenure. The position of associate professor in this respect is the same as that of a full professor.

I should like to add my personal assurance that the Department and the Administration stand behind the recommendation for your advancement. The reputation that you have won for yourself at Columbia is a very high one indeed. You have the friendship and warm support of all of your associates in the graduate faculties. I believe that you will have here a rich and promising career of creative scholarship.

Sincerely yours,

[copy unsigned, Frederick C. Mills?]

Source Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 3 Budget, 1915-1946-47, Folder “Budget Material 1944-1945”.

___________________

Promotion to Professor

April 23, 1945

President Nicholas Murray Butler,
Columbia University.

Dear Mr. President:

A recent development makes it necessary for me to supplement my letter of November 30th, 1944, in which I submitted to you a provisional budget for the Department of Economics for the year 1945-46. Professor Abraham Wald, who occupies a place of strategic importance in our work in Mathematical Statistics, has received a very attractive offer from another institution. If we are to hold him at Columbia we must give him some advancement here. Although I am reluctant to approach you at this time, to request that you re-open the Department budget for next year, it is my strong opinion that this should be done. This opinion is shared by my colleagues who are interested in Columbia’s past and prospective accomplishments in Mathematical Statistics.

Work in Mathematical Statistics in American universities is in a pioneering stage. The fundamental bases of statistics, in mathematics and logic, have recently been materially extended. New horizons have been opened. We may expect in the next several decades further fruitful advances bearing upon the whole range of inquiry in the social and the natural sciences and in the arts of production and administration. In this field Columbia has already, through the work of Hotelling and Wald, achieved a leading position, one that is recognized throughout the world. Some indication of Columbia’s standing, and of the scientific and practical fruitfulness of our work in this field, I given by the accomplishments of the Statistical Research Group now serving the Army and the Navy as part of Columbia’s contribution to the war effort.

Columbia must hold and extend the position of preeminence we have won. We believe that in Hotelling and Wald we have men of intellectual vigor and established scientific competence who will be in the forefront of future advances in Mathematical Statistics. Their work will supplement and strengthen that of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory, in which Columbia will cooperate with the International Business Machines Corporation, as the work of that Laboratory will enhance the effectiveness of our efforts in Mathematical Statistics.

The scholarly record of Professor Wald is set forth in an attached statement. I need only add here that Wald’s researches in statistical theory have been fundamental in character and seminal in their influence. A recent outstanding example of the fertility of his thought is provided by his contribution of a new mathematical basis for techniques of quality control in manufacturing production, techniques that have been widely adopted in the control of war production. The sequential methods utilized in Dr. Wald’s procedures are capable of application in scientific experiments, and in a wide variety of other fields.

In the conviction that Columbia should reinforce success, in planning for the future, and should build where firm foundations have already been laid, I urge that the position of the University in the field of Mathematical Statistics be maintained, and strengthened. Dr. Abraham Wald’s continuance here is crucial in such a program. I recommend, therefore, that Dr. Wald, who is now Associate Professor of Statistics at an annual salary of $5,000, be appointed Professor of Mathematical Statistics, at a salary of $7,500 a year, the appointment to be effective July 1, 1945.

Respectfully submitted,

FREDERICK C. MILLS

Source Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Box 3 Budget, 1915-1946-47, Folder “Budget Material 1944-1945”.

___________________

April 27, 1951

Memorial Minute for Professor A. Wald

Professor Wolfowitz then presented a minute memorializing the late Professor Abraham Wald. It was adopted by a rising vote, and a copy was ordered sent to Professor Wald’s family.

ABRAHAM WALD

Abraham Wald, Professor of Mathematical Statistics and a distinguished member of this Faculty, was killed in an airplane accident in India on December 13, 1950. He had been on a lecture tour of Indian universities and research centers. Mrs. Wald was killed in the same accident.

Dr. Wald arrived in the United States in the summer of 1938, a refugee from Nazi persecution. In the fall of 1938 he came to Columbia as a fellow of the Carnegie Corporation. He became a member of this Faculty in 1942 and professor of Mathematical Statistics in 1945. Much of his statistical work was done here. It shed luster on Columbia and largely helped to make Columbia an important center of mathematical statistics. His work changed the whole course and emphasis of modern mathematical statistics. In addition to many other contributions the theory of statistical decision functions and the theory of sequential analysis were founded by him. He also made important contributions to mathematical economics, the theory of probability, and metric geometry.

He was a good friend to many, a genial colleague, and an inspiring teacher. By his death the University and science have sustained a grievous loss.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1950-1962.

Image Source: Naval Ordnance Test Station, Inyokern, California from the obituary by J. Wolfowitz published in The Annals of Mathematical Statistics 23:1 (March, 1952), pp. 1-13.

 

Categories
Bibliography Columbia Suggested Reading

Columbia. Bibliography on Government Debt for Fiscal Policy Course. Shoup, 1948

 

Government debt was the subject of this first installment of a planned (perhaps completed later) bibliography for a course on fiscal policy that was prepared by Carl Shoup (New York Times obituary). This draft with a few hand-corrections was found in the papers of his colleague in public finance, Robert Haig.

_____________________

Economics b160—Fiscal policy. 3 points. Spring Session. Professor Shoup. M. W. 9. 710 Business.

A study of the reasons why governments choose to follow a policy of deficit financing, balanced-budget financing, or surplus financing, as the case may be, with emphasis on the economic forces that influence these decisions and on the economic results of the various policies. Topics discussed include war finance, compensatory spending in a depression, public finance aspects of theories of long-term investment stagnation, and the problems of the interest charge on the budget and the growing stock of money that may be associated with a great increase in the public debt.

Source: Columbia University. Announcement of the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions, 1947-1948, p. 50.

_____________________

[Pencilled Note: “For Dr. Haig. (Parts II, III, IV to follow)”]

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

BIBLIOGRAPHY, ECONOMICS b160,
FISCAL POLICY
February, 1948

This bibliography is divided into four parts, and each part is further divided into sections. The four parts are:

Part I. Government Debt
Part II. Taxation
Part III. Government Expenditures
Part IV. Fiscal Policy in the United States and Abroad in Recent Years

Most of the sections are directly concerned with government debt, taxation, and expenditures; for these sections an attempt has been made to present a fairly comprehensive coverage of the periodical and book literature of the past three or four years. The readings that are particularly important for purposes of the present course are marked with an asterisk. The asterisked readings have been put on reserve in the School of Business library.

A few sections are concerned with topics that are only collateral to fiscal policy: for example, the technique of bank deposit expansion, and data on recent changes in amount of currency outstanding. In these sections the references are highly selective, being designed only to assist the student to refresh his background, or to suggest a minimum of reading.

PART I: GOVERNMENT DEBT

  1. Technique of Credit Creation by the Banking System
  2. Technical Characteristics and Pattern of Ownership of Each Type of Federal Security
  3. Non-Negotiable Securities; Securities Ineligible for Bank Holding
  4. Currency
  5. Gold and Silver
  6. Bank Holdings of Government Bonds, and Data on Bank Deposits
  7. Total Interest Charge on Government Debt
  8. Interest Rates
  9. “Burden” of Debt
  10. Debt Management
  11. Debt Management and Credit Control

 

1. Technique of Credit Creation by the Banking System. –The creation of credit by commercial banks is well described in a general way by Bowman and Bach, Economic Analysis and Public Policy (1943), 589-99; but to get a thorough understanding, the student should read J. Brooke Willis, The Relation of Bank Deposits to War Finance (Chase National Bank, November 18, 1942, mimeographed). A description of the Federal Reserve System is given on pp. 636-53 of Bowman and Bach. See also J. E. Horbett, “Banking Structure of the United States,” in Banking Studies, by members of the staff, Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System (1941). Some brief discussions in the Federal Reserve Bulletin may aid in avoiding elementary misconceptions: “Central Banking” (December 1940), “Federal Reserve Bank Lending Power…” (February 1941), “Bank Credit and…Reserves”- (July 1941), “Bank Deposits [and]…Savings Bonds” (August 1941). An explanation of how credit is created under the British banking system, with particular attention to wartime developments, is given in Norman Crump, Facts about British Banks and the War (1943).

 

2. Technical Characteristics and Pattern of Ownership of Each Type of Federal Security.— The types of security issued by the Federal Government, and the relative importance of each, are given in the monthly Bulletin of the Treasury Department, in the section headed “General Fund Position and Debt Outstanding” (consult any recent issue). Note the names of the different kinds of obligations, their respective interest rates and periods to maturity, as shown in the tables headed “Offerings of Marketable Issues of Treasury Bonds, Notes, and Certificates of Indebtedness” “Offerings and Maturities of Treasury Bills,” “Sales and Redemptions of United States Savings Bonds.—Table 1, Summary…,” and “Sales and Redemptions of Treasury Savings Notes.—Table 1, Summary…” Then study the tables headed “Public Debt and Guaranteed Obligations of the United States Government Outstanding”: “Table 1, Summary;” and “Table 2, Interest-Bearing Public Debt;” then the table headed “Computed Interest Charge and Computed Interest Rate….” Note the data on who owns the federal debt, in the section headed “Ownership of Government Securities.” Study the charts on “Yields of Treasury Securities….”

See also:

Hargreaves, H. W. H., “The Guaranteed Security in Federal Finance,” J.P.E., Aug., 1942.

Mann, F. K., “The Dual-Debt System as a Method of Financing Government Corporations,” J.P.E., Feb., 1947, 39-56.

Simmons, E. C., “The Position of the Treasury Bill in the National Debt,” J.P.E., Aug., 1947, 333-45.

“Treasury Financing Operations,” statement on first page of each issue of Treasury Bulletin in recent issues.

“Direct Exchange of Maturing Treasury Bills for New Issues,” Fed. Res. Bull., May, 1947.

“Treasury Bills and Certificates as Outlets for Idle Funds,” Fed. Res. Bull. July, 1942.

“The Tax Savings Plan,” Red. Res. Bull., Aug., 1941.

 

3. Non-Negotiable Securities; Securities Ineligible for Bank Holding.—

Secretary of the Treasury, “Spreading the Public Debt,” Treasury Bulletin, May, 1947.

Secretary of the Treasury, “The Role of Savings Bonds in Public Debt Management,” Treasury Bulletin, May, 1947.

Tostlebe, A. S., “Estimate of Series E Bond Purchases by Farmers,” J.A.S.A., Sept., 1945.

“Bank Purchases of Restricted Treasury Bonds,” Treasury Bulletin, July, 1946.

 

4. Currency.—The wartime rise in currency is described by G. L. Bach, “Currency in Circulation,” Federal Reserve Bulletin, April, 1944. See also the following unsigned articles in the Federal Reserve Bulletin: “The Currency Function of the Federal Reserve Banks,” July, 1940; “Recent Changes in the Demand for Currency,” April, 1942; and “Relation between Currency and Bank Deposits,” May, 1943.

For a historical treatment: V. M. Longstreet, “Currency System of the U.S.” in Banking Studies, Federal Reserve System, 1941. For terminology; I. B. Cross, “A Note on the Use of the Word ‘Currency,’” J.P.E., December, 1944.

 

5. Gold and Silver.—The vast literature in recent years on the gold situation in general will not be considered here; however, reference by be made to F. D. Graham and C. R. Whittlesey, Golden Avalanche, 1939. For the place of gold in the present U.S. money and credit system, see Bowman and Bach, Economic Analysis and Public Policy, Chapter 42, “Gold and the Price Level,” and a series of notes in the Federal Reserve Bulletin: “Ownership of the Monetary Gold Stock” (May, 1940), “Utilization of the Monetary Gold Stock” (June, 1940), “The Gold Stock” (September, 1940), “Definition of Lawful Money” (July, 1941), and “Money and Inflation” (March, 1944). The Treasury position on gold was stated by Secretary Morgenthau in two press releases, March 23, 1939 (reply to Senator Wagner’s questions) and May 3, 1940 (address before National Institute of Government).

 

6. Bank Holdings of Government Bonds, and Data on Bank Deposits—An appreciation of the quantitative aspects of the bank-credit expansion of the war and postwar years can be obtained from “The Wartime Expansion of Liquid Assets,” Fed. Res. Bull., Oct., 1944, and from “Estimated Liquid Asset Holdings of Individuals and Business,” Fed. Res. Bull., Sept., 1947, and earlier reports on the same subject in the issues of June, 1945; Feb., 1946; and Nov., 1946.

See also:

Robinson, Roland I., “Money Supply and Liquid Asset Formation,” A.E.R., March, 1946.

Warburton, Clark, “Quantity and Frequency of Use of Money in the United States, 1919-45,” J.P.E., Oct., 1946.

“Ownership of Demand Deposits [as of Feb. 26, 1947],” Fed. Res. Bull., June, 1947.

* “Assets and Liabilities of Commercial Banks and Mutual Savings Banks, December 31, 1939-1946.” Treasury Bulletin, July, 1947.

“Measurement of Factors Influencing the Volume of Deposits and Currency,” Fed. Res. Bull., June, 1944.

“Wartime Monetary Expansion and Postwar Needs,” Fed. Res. Bull., Nov. 1945. For the growth in deposits prior to the war, see “Factors Responsible for Increase in Bank Deposits,” Fed. Res. Bull., March, 1941.

 

7. Total Interest Charge on Government Debt.—

“Transfer to Treasury of Excess Earnings of Federal Reserve Banks,” Fed. Res. Bull., May, 1947, 518-19.

Rolph, Earl R., “The Payment of Interest on Series E Bonds,” A.E.A. Proceedings., May, 1947, 318-21.

Shoup, Carl, “Postwar Federal Interest Charge,” A.E.R., Supplement to June, 1944 issue (“Implemental Aspects of Public Finance”).

 

8. Interest Rates.—The average rates (including the case of zero interest) and the structure of interest rates of the public debt are discussed particularly in the following articles. The recent United States experience is analyzed in:

Coleman, G. W., “The Effect of Interest Rate Increases on the Banking System,” A.E.R., Sept. ’45.

Harris, S. E., “A One Per Cent War?” A.E.R., Sept. ’45.

*Samuelson, Paul A., “The Effect of Interest Rate Increases on the Baking System,” A.E.R, March, 1945.

Samuelson, P. A. “The Turn of the Screw [Interest Rates and the Banks],” A.E.R., Sept. ’45.

Seligman, H. L., “The Problem of Excessive Commercial Bank Earnings,” Q.J.E., May, 1946.

*Seltzer, L. H., “Is a Rise in Interest Rates Desirable or Inevitable?” A.E.R., Dec., 1945.

Wallich, Henry C., “The Changing Significance of the Interest Rate,” A.E.R., Dec. 1946.

Willis, J. Brooke, “The Case against the Maintenance of the Wartime Pattern of Yields on Government Securities,” A.E.A. Proceedings, May, 1947.

“Yields on United States Government Securities—Revision of Averages,” Fed. Res. Bull., Oct., 1947.

The wartime position of the United States Treasury on interest rates was stated by Secretary Morgenthau in three addresses printed in the Treasury Bulletin, Nov. 1944.

Recent British discussion includes:

Henderson, H., “Cheap Money and the Budget,” E.J. Sept., ’47.

Paish, F. W., “Cheap Money Policy,” Economica, Aug., 1947.

The particular case of interest-free financing has been the subject of some debate recently; see:

Poindexter, Julius C., Proposals for Interest-Free Deficit Financing. Ph.D. Virginia, 1944 (May be obtained on inter-library loan).

Poindexter, J.C., “Fallacies of Interest-Free Deficit Financing,” Q.J.E., May, 1944.

Wright, D. McC., “Interest-Free Deficit Financing: a Reply,” Q.J.E., Aug., 1944.

Poindexter, J. C., “Interest-Free Deficit Financing: Rejoinder [to Wright’s article],” Q.J.E., Nov. 1945.

Poindexter, J. C., “A Critique of Functional Finance through Quasi-Free Bank Credit,” A.E.R., June, 1946.

Benoit-Smullyan, Emile, “Interest-Free Deficit Financing and Full Employment [Poindexter’s article],” A.E.R., June, 1947.

Pritchard, L. J., “The Nature of Bank Credit [Poindexter’s article]: A Comment,” A.E.R., June, 1947.

In view of the recent changes in the interest rate structure, the forecasts of a few years ago are worth reviewing:

Morgan, E. V., “The Future of Interest Rates,” E.J., Dec., 1944.

Round Table, “The Future of Interest Rates,” A.E.A. Proceedings, March, 1943.

Riddle, J. H., “The Future of Interest Rates,” Bankers Magazine, March, 1943.

 

9. “Burden” of Debt.—Interest and amortization requirements on the public debt lead to a discussion of the degree to which a domestically held debt is a burden. On this topic, see:

*Kalecki, M., “The Burden of the National Debt,” Bull., Oxford Inst. Stat., April 3, 1943.

Ratchford, B. U., “The Burden of a Domestic Debt,” A.E.R., Sept., 1942.

Wright, D. Mc., “Mr. Ratchford on the Burden of a Domestic Debt: Comment,” A.E.R., March, 1943.

*Hansen, A. H., “The Growth and Role of Public Debt,” Ch. IX, especially pp. 135-44, 152-61, 175-85, in Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles.

Harris, S. E., “Postwar Public Debt,” Chapter X in Postwar Economic Problems;

Mitnitzky, Mark, “Some Monetary Aspects of Government Borrowing” A.E.R., March, 1943.

Hahn, A., “Should a Government Debt, Internally Held, Be Called A Debt at All?” Banking Law Journal, July, 1943.

Domar, E. D., “The ‘Burden of the Debt’ and the National Income,” A.E.R., Dec., 1944.

Ratchford, B.U., “Mr. Domar’s ‘Burden of the Debt,” and rejoinder by Domar, A.E.R., June, 1945, 411-14.

 

10. Debt Management.—More comprehensive discussions of the problems posed by the public debt are found in writings on “debt management,” “limits to the debt,” etc. (see also the references in No. 11 below):

*Abbott, Charles C., Management of the Federal Debt, McGraw-Hill, 1946, 187 pp., Rev. in A.E.R., March, ’47.

*Committee on Public Debt Policy, National Debt Series, Nos. 1 to 4 issued in 1947. 12 to 22 pp. each.

Garritsen, Margaret M., Some Theoretical and Practical Problems in the Management of the Federal Debt in the Postwar Period. Ph.D., Mass. Inst. of Tech. 1946. (May be available on inter-library loan.)

*Hansen, A. H., “Federal Debt Policy,” Proceed., N.T.A., 1944, 256-67, 295-97.

Leland, Simeon E., “Management of the Public Debt after the War,” A.E.R., Supplement to the June 1944 issue (“Implemental Aspects of Public Finance”), and discussion by D. T. Smith and L. H. Seltzer.

Leonard, Norman H., Public Debt Management. Ph.D. Yale (no date given). (May be available on inter-library loan.)

Mehta, J. K., “Some Problems of Public Debt,” South Indian Journal of Economics, Feb., 1946.

Neale, E. P., “The Growth of New Zealand’s General Government Debt,” Eco. Record, Dec. 1945.

Neumark, F., “Limite de la dette publique ou deficit permanent?” L’Egypte Contemp., March, 1946.

Ratchford, Benjamin U., “History of the Federal Debt in the United States,” A.E.A. Proceedings, May, 1947, 131-41; discussion by L. Wilmerding Jr. and C. C. Abbott, 151-56.

Suiter, William O., “Some Questions Relative to the Management of the National Government Debt,” Bull. N.T.A., June, 1946.

Wallich, H. C., “La dueda publica y el ingreso nacional de Estados Unidos,” El Trimestre Econ., Jan. and April, 1946.

*Wallich, H. C., “Debt Management as an Instrument of Economic Policy,” A.E.R., June, 1946.

Wickens, Aryness Joy, “The Public Debt and National Income,” A.E.A., Proceedings, May, 1947.

Woodward, Donald B., “Public Debt and Institutions,” A.E.A. Proceedings, May, 1947, 157-83. Discussion by L. H. Seltzer, Susan S. Burr, R. J. Saulnier and E. A. Goldenweiser.

 

11. Debt Management and Credit Control.—The complex relations that link debt management and credit control have received increasing attention in recent years as evidenced by the following articles. The discussion is chiefly in terms of inflationary rather than deflationary conditions.

Abbott, Charles C., “The Commercial Banks and the Public Debt”; discussion by H. H. Preston, A.E.A. Proceedings, May, 1947.

Arndt, H. W., “The Monetary Theory of Deficit Spending: A Comment on …. Warburton’s Article [in RES, 1945, 74-84].” R.E.Stat., May, 1946.

Bach, George L., “Monetary-Fiscal Policy, Debt Policy, and the Price Level,” A.E.A. Proceedings, May, 1947.

Carr, Hobart C., “The Problem of Bank-Held Government Debt,” A.E.R., Dec. 1946.

Chamberlain, N. W., “Professor Hansen’s Fiscal Policy and the Debt”; rejoinder by Hansen, A.E.R., June, 1945.

Cluseau, M., “De quelques definitions necessaires,” Rev. de Sci. et Législ. Fin., April, 1947.

Eccles, M. S., “Sources of Inflationary Pressures,” Fed. Res.Bull., Feb. 1946.

*Eccles, M., “Methods of Restricting Monetization of Public Debt by Banks,” Fed. Res. Bull., April, 1947.

Eccles, M. S., “The Current Inflation Problem—Causes and Controls,” Fed. Res. Bull. Dec., 1947.

Goldenweiser, E. A., “Federal Reserve Objectives and Policies: Retrospect and Prospect,” A.E.R., June 1947.

Hauge, Gabriel, Banking Aspects of Treasury Borrowing in World War II. Ph.D., Harvard, 1947 (Available only on inter-library loan.)

*Hardy, C. O., “Bank Policy versus Fiscal Policy as an Economic Stabilizer,” Proceed. Nat. Tax Assn., 1946.

Lerner, Abba P., “Money as a Creature of the State,” A.E.A. Proceedings, May, 1947.

Mikesell, Raymond F., “Gold Sales as an Anti-Inflationary Device,” R.E.Stat., May, 1946.

Mints, Lloyd W., Hansen, A. H., Ellis, Howard S., Lerner, A. P. and Kalecki, M. “A Symposium on Fiscal and Monetary Policy,” R.E.Stat., May, 1946.

Robinson, R. I., “The Reserve Position of the Federal Reserve Banks,” Fed. Res. Bull., March, 1945.

Seltzer, Lawrence, “The Changed Environment of Monetary-Banking Policy”; discussions by D. B. Woodward and R. A. Young, A.E.A. Proceedings, May, 1946.

*Simons, Henry C., Economic Policy for a Free Society, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1948, 353 pp. espec. Chs. VII, “Rules versus Authorities in Monetary Policy,” VIII, “Hansen on Fiscal Policy,” IX, “On Debt Policy,” X, “Debt Policy and Banking Policy” and XIII, “The Beveridge Plan: an Unsympathetic Interpretation.”

Sproul, Allan, “Monetary Management and Credit Control,” A.E.R., June, 1947.

Sweezy, Alan R., “Fiscal and Monetary Policy”; discussion by J. H. G. Pierson, W. J. Fellner, and Clark Warburton; A.E.A. Proceedings, May, 1946.

Villard, H. H., “The Problem of Bank-Held Government Debt: Comment [on Carr’s article],” A.E.R., Dec. 1947.

Wallace, Robert F., “The Federal Debt and Inflation,” Bull. N.T.A., June, 1947.

Wallich, H. C., “The Current Significance of Liquidity Preference,” Q.J.E., Aug., 1946.

*Warburton, Clark, “The Monetary Theory of Deficit Spending,” R.E.Stat., May, 1945, 74-84.

Warburton, Clark, “Monetary Theory, Full Productivity, and the Great Depression,” Econometrica, April, 1945.

Warburton, Clark, “The Volume of Money,” J.P.E., June 1945.

Whitaker, T. K., Financing by Credit Creation, Dublin, 1947, 67pp. (E.J., Sept. ’47.)

Whittlesey, C. R., “Federal Reserve Policy in Transition,” Q.J.E., May, 1946.

“Treasury Finance and Banking Developments,” Fed. Res. Bull., May, 1946.

* “Debt Retirement and Bank Credit,” Fed. Res. Bull., July, 1947.

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Robert M. Haig Collection. Box 16, Folder “Bibliography”.

Image Source: The Columbia Spectator Archive. March 8, 1967.

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Business School Columbia Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. (1923) alumnus and Columbia Business School Dean, J. E. Orchard Memo on Galbraith, 1946.

 

John Ewing Orchard (b. 19 July 1893 in Exeter, Nebraska; d. 28 January 1962 in Charlottesville, Virginia) wrote the following summary of a telephone conversation with his former boss, Edward R. Stettinius, Jr. (who supervised the work of John Kenneth Galbraith at the Lend Lease Administration during WWII) and incidentally went on to serve as the Secretary of State). From this memo it is clear that Galbraith’s name came up for consideration for the Deanship of the Columbia School of Business. Orchard, a Harvard economics Ph.D. (1923), might have had ulterior motives in entering this document into the record — it can be found in the papers of then chairman of the economics department, Robert Haig, that have been deposited in the Central Files of the Columbia University administration. We see below that Orchard himself was later appointed to the Deanship of the business school…coincidence?

In any event, in case there might be any doubt in somebody’s mind, John Kenneth Galbraith had done nothing in government service that would have enhanced his prospects to become an academic Dean. His comparative advantage was to be found in other endeavors. Whether John Kenneth Galbraith indeed had “poison in his soul” as noted by Stettinius is left to his legions of admirers and detractors to determine. However, given Galbraith’s life motto “Modesty is a most overrated virtue”, I presume Stettinius had confused poison with an ego of legendary proportion.

____________________

Kenneth Galbraith

Stettinius on Galbraith

Telephone conversation with Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., concerning Galbraith, October 23, 1946.

Galbraith worked with Stettinius on the National Defense Council in 1940. Stettinius stated that there was no question but that Galbraith was a brilliant economist, but he was a difficult person to work with. He seemed always to be taking a belligerent left wing position and never was in the middle of the road. I gathered that there was little give and take as far as Galbraith was concerned. Stettinius also said he seemed to have “poison in his soul”.

After Galbraith left OPA, Stettinius, as a result of considerable pressure, took him into the Lend Lease Administration. His experience with him there was not satisfactory, for after Stettinius had assigned him to a responsible position, Galbraith did not establish friendly working relations with his associates. He did not seem to be interested in the work or in the organization and after a couple of months he quit. Stettinius stated that he did not believe that Galbraith would make a good dean.

John E. Orchard

Source:  Columbia University.  Central Files. Box 386, Folder 7/7 “Haig, Robert Murray”.

____________________

John Ewing Orchard,
Harvard economics Ph.D. 1923

John Ewing Orchard, A. B. (Swarthmore Coll.) 1916, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1920.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Economic Resources. Thesis, “The World’s Coal Resources and some of their Influences on National Economy.” Instructor in Economic Geography, Columbia University.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1922-1923, p. 52.

____________________

Guggenheim Fellowship, 1931

JOHN E. ORCHARD
Fellow: Awarded 1931
Field of Study: Economic History
Competition: US & Canada

As published in the Foundation’s Report for 1931–32:

ORCHARD, JOHN EWING:  Appointed to study the transition that is occurring in China from agriculture and from household industries to modern manufacturing, investigations to be carried on chiefly in China; tenure, eight months from June 20, 1931.

Born July 19, 1893, at Exeter, Nebraska. Education:  Swarthmore college, A.B., 1916; Harvard University, M.A., 1920, Ph.D., 1923; University of Pennsylvania, 1917–18; University of Chicago, Summer, 1920.

Assistant in Geography and Industry, 1917–18, University of Pennsylvania; Assistant Mine Economist, United States Bureau of Mines, 1918–19; Instructor in Economic Geography, 1920–24, Assistant Professor, 1924–29, Associate Professor, 1929—, Columbia University.

Publications: Japan’s Economic Position: The Progress of Industrialization, 1920; chapter on Marine Insurance in Influence of the Great War on Shipping, by J. Russell Smith, 1919; chapter on Gold in Political and Commercial Geology, edited by J. E. Spurr, 1920. Articles in Quarterly Journal of Economics, Geographical Review, Journal of Geography, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

 

Source:  John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Website. Fellow page: John E. Orchard.

____________________

Dr. Orchard New Business School Dean
[Columbia Daily Spectator, 9 January 1947]

Dr. John E. Orchard, professor of economic geography at Columbia and one of the country’s outstanding authorities on the Far East, will replace Dean Robert D. Calkins as director of the School of Business, it was announced yesterday by Dr. Frank D. Fackenthal, acting president of the University.

Dean Calkins, who has been the head of the Business School since 1941, resigned in order to accept an appointment as vice president and director of the General Education Board in New York City.

Professor Orchard, a graduate of Swathmore and Harvard Universities, has been a member of the teaching staff of the School of Business since 1920.

Active In Government

From May 1941 until January 1946, he served as a member of several important government agencies in Washington D. C. He was senior assistant administrator to Edward Stettinius when the latter was Lend-Lease Administrator. Later Dr. Orchard was appointed special assistant to Mr. Stettinius when he was Under Secretary of State. Dean Orchard served as special assistant to William Clayton, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for Economic, Affairs. His last Washington assignment was as senior consultant to the Foreign Liquidation Commissioner, Thomas B. McCabe. He spent the years of 1926-27, 1931-32, and 1938-39 in Asia and in 1930 published a book entitled “Japan’s Economic Problem”.

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LXIX, Number 34, 9 January 1947.

Image Source: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Website. Fellow page: John E. Orchard.

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Columbia Economist Market Economists Harvard

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, Clement Lowell Harriss, 1940.

 

In this post we have a nice pair of bookends for the career of Columbia economics Ph.D. (1940) and later Columbia professor, C. Lowell Harriss:  a letter from 1946 recommending his appointment to an assistant professorship and a memorial webpage from the Columbia economics department.

________________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

November 26, 1946

Dr. Frank D. Fackenthal, Acting President,
213 Low Memorial Library

Dear Mr. President:

On recommendation of the College Committee appointed in accordance with your letter of October 3d and with the approval of the Committee on Instruction of Columbia College, the Department of Economics requests the promotion of C. Lowell Harriss from instructor to assistant professor, effective January 1, 1947.

The Department considers that this promotion would be a well earned recognition of ability and service. The reasons set forth in the enclosed letter from Professor Horace Taylor, chairman of the College Committee, in our judgment amply justify our request that this action be taken at an exceptional time.

Dr. Harriss’ salary as instructor is $3,300 for the year. We recommend that his salary as assistant professor should be at the rate of $3,600. Funds for the additional $2150 required on the 1946-47 budget are available in the unexpended salary of Carl T. Schmidt.

Respectfully yours,
[signed]
Carter Goodrich
Executive officer, Department of Economics

*  *  *  *  *  *

________________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

November 26, 1946

Professor Carter Goodrich
Fayerweather Hall
Columbia University

Dear Professor Goodrich:

The newly constituted Committee on Economics Instruction in Columbia College held its first meeting on October 28. I have reported separately the formal action taken at this meeting with regard to the nomination of a Departmental Representative.

Its most urgent matter of regular business in the view of the Committee is its unanimous recommendation that Dr. C. Lowell Harriss, instructor in Economics, be promoted to Assistant Professor of Economics. It is the opinion of the Committee that Dr. Harriss has reached a maturity and a competency in this field that cause him to be considerably underranked in his present position. The Committee not only recommends promotion for Dr. Harriss, but strongly urges that the promotion be made immediately and to take effect January 1, 1947. This recommendation is made both because it would provide immediate recognition to a man who, in the Committee’s judgment, thoroughly deserves it, and also because we believe that action of this kind would have distinct morale value, both for Dr. Harriss, and for other members of the College staff who feel as we do about Dr. Harriss as a teacher, a scholar, and a person.

Dr. Harriss is thirty-four years old. He joined this Department as an instructor in economics in 1938. He is a man of such broad intellectual background and training that he has been extraordinarily well qualified for work in the course in Contemporary Civilization, and has made substantial contributions to the planning and teaching of this difficult course. He also has contributed materially to the Departmental work in the College, and one of our plans for the next academic year is that Dr. Harriss will offer an undergraduate course in his speciality [sic], which is Public Finance. During the current year, he is giving a course in this field designed for University Undergraduates. If Dr. Harriss receives the promotion that is recommended, it is planned that he will be a member of the Faculty of Columbia College and also of the Faculty of the new School for General Studies. One of the reasons that we strongly believe that we should, in the interests of the University, increase the number of young men of professorial rank is that the College Faculty will be expected to provide members to the Faculty of the School for General Studies.

Dr. Harriss’s intellectual attainments are extraordinarily high. He received the B.S. degree at Harvard Summa Cum Laudein 1934, having majored in history. My impression is that the degree with highest distinction is awarded to a major student in a particular department only once in several years at Harvard or, at least, it averages out about this way. On graduating from Harvard, Dr. Harriss was awarded the highest scholarship (one for travel in Europe) that is given to a graduate of Harvard College. He then became a Council for Research in the Social Sciences Fellow in economics and pursued graduate studies at both Chicago and Columbia. He was awarded our Ph.D. in 1940. As a graduate student, he won the high opinion of his professors. His dissertation on “Gift Taxation in the United States” was written under the direction of Dr. Haig. This dissertation was of such excellence that it immediately established Dr. Harriss as an authority on this subject. This was pointedly demonstrated when he was made head of the Gift Tax Section in the Division of Research of the United States Treasury Department. He held this post from November 1941, until April, 1943. He then entered the Army and rather rapidly rose to the rank of Captain. His distinction as a student was continued in the fact that he was the first ranking man in his class in Officers Candidate School. During his service in the Army, he was in charge of important work connected with procurement for the Army Air Forces, and was stationed at Air Force Headquarters, Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio. For his work there, he received the Army Commendation Award. He returned to his work with us at the beginning of the Spring Term.

Last summer Dr. Harriss received a firm offer of an Associate Professorship at Syracuse University at a salary of $4,000. He also received inquiries which appear to anticipate firm offers from both Rice Institute and the University of Indiana. Both of these institutions talked with him in terms of an Associate Professorship at a salary of about $4,000. Dr. Harriss declined to consider the inquiries and turned down the offer made by Syracuse. I believe that I am not exaggerating when I say that there is not a young man in this country of greater competence or promise in the field of public finance than Dr. Harriss, and I believe that Professors Haig and Shoup rate him at about the same level.

During his time with us and the period that he was in the Army, Dr. Harriss has outgrown his academic rank. Our Committee believes that his appointment in the fashion we have recommended will be in the long-run interest of education and scholarship in Columbia College and in the University at large.

Sincerely yours,

[signed]
Horace Taylor

HT:mdl

Source:Columbia University Archives. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Central Files 1890-, Box 406, Folder “Goodrich, Carter 1/4”.

________________

C. Lowell Harriss (1912-2009)
In Memoriam

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATOR, ECONOMIST AND ADVOCATE OF LAND TAX REFORM DIES

C. Lowell Harriss, an economist whose groundbreaking theories on land tax reform led to a widening of public spaces and improved quality of life in domestic and international urban and rural areas, died on December 14, 2009 at his home in Bronxville, N.Y. He was 97.

He died from natural causes.

An author of 16 books on economics and hundreds of articles, Professor Harriss was one of the last living economists to experience the Depression. He was known for his seminal work on taxation of land, property tax, finance reform, land values and planning land use.

He was a professor emeritus of economics at Columbia University, where he taught for 43 years, from 1938 to 1981. He also taught at Stanford University, UC-Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, The Wharton School, the New School for Social Research and Pace University. He earned Fulbright professorships from the Netherlands School of Economics (now Erasmus University), Cambridge University, and the University of Strasbourg, France.

His professional interests beyond education were extensive, including: Executive Director of The Academy of Political Science; President, National Tax Association-Tax Institute of America; Vice President, International Institute of Public Finance; Chairman, Robert Schalkenbach Foundation, Inc.; Trustee, American Institute for Economic Research; Advisory Member, American Enterprise Institute; Academic Advisor, Center for the Study of the Presidency; and Advisor, Thomas Jefferson Research Center. He was a fellow at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and a board member of the American Institute of Economic Research in Cambridge, both institutions that serve as leading resources for policy makers and practitioners including the use, regulation and taxation of land.

He advised state, federal and foreign governments on tax policy including the U.S. Department of Treasury; the City of New York; New York State; the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; the Federal District of Venezuela; the Ministry of Finance, Republic of China; the United Nations; and the Agency of International Development of the U.S. Department of State.

In addition to his academic and professional pursuits and achievements, Professor Harriss was well known for his great respect of the role that humor has in making daily life enjoyable and more civilized. He often said that “a smile costs nothing.” He was known for his frequent compilations of cartoons, which he distributed in his mailings to colleagues and friends. As he said, “they get people’s attention”.

Clement Lowell Harriss was born Aug. 2, 1912, in Fairbury, Nebraska. He attended Harvard College and graduated summa cum laude in 1934. Upon graduation, he received a Sheldon Fellowship which enabled him to travel for 13 months throughout Europe, the Balkans, Turkey and Northern Africa, before arriving in Berlin the day Hitler assumed the presidency. This experience was the beginning of a lifetime of travel that would take him around the world nine times and stimulate his academic and personal curiosity and inquiry.

Professor Harriss met and married Agnes Bennett Murphy in 1936. While pursuing graduate studies at the University of Chicago and Columbia University, he began his teaching career in 1938 at and received his Ph.D. in 1940 from Columbia University.

Professor Harriss served as an officer in the Army Air Corps from 1943 to 1946, working on aircraft and manpower procurement, later on the economic problems of the shift of fighting to the Pacific, and finally, on the problems of economic demobilization and the postwar aircraft industry.

He is the namesake of the C. Lowell Harriss Scholarship at Columbia College, the C. Lowell Harriss Chair of Economics at Columbia University, and the Professor C. Lowell Harriss Scholarship at the School of General Studies at Columbia University. In 1996 he accepted the Nobel Prize in Economics on behalf of long-time Columbia colleague William Vickrey, who had died shortly before the ceremony.

He is survived by his sister, Marion Engelhart, of Gross Pointe, Michigan, his four children, L. Gordon Harriss, of Bronxville, New York; Patricia Harriss, of Bronxville, New York, Martha Harriss, of New York, and Brian Harriss, of Greenwich, Connecticut, five grandchildren, and by his two daughters in law, Elizabeth Harriss, Bronxville, New York, and Lucinda Harriss, Greenwich, Connecticut. His wife died in 1992.

Source:  Columbia University. Department of Economics. Webpage: In Memoriam; C. Lowell Harriss (1912-2009).

 

________________

In Memoriam: from Columbia College Today

C. Lowell Harriss ’40 GSAS, professor emeritus of economics, died on December 14, 2009, at his home in Bronxville, N.Y. He was 97.

Born in Fairbury, Neb., on August 2, 1912, Harriss graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1934. Upon graduation, he received a Sheldon Fellowship, which enabled him to travel for 13 months throughout Europe, including Berlin and the Balkans, as well as Turkey and Northern Africa. This trip was the beginning of a lifetime of travel that would take him around the world nine times.

Harriss served as an officer in the Army Air Corps from 1943–46, working on aircraft and manpower procurement, on the economic problems of the shift of fighting to the Pacific, and finally on the problems of economic demobilization and the postwar aircraft industry. He began teaching at Columbia in 1938 while pursuing a Ph.D. in economics at GSAS and remained at Columbia until retiring from teaching in 1981.

University Trustee Mark E. Kingdon endowed, in 1998, the C. Lowell Harriss Professorship of Economics in honor of “my teacher, mentor and friend.”

“I took Professor Harriss’ public finance course in the late 1960s, when it was not cool to be a conservative, especially at Columbia,” said Kingdon. “I remember Professor Harriss warning us about the extraordinary power of the government: ‘Nothing can be as cruel as the government.’

“During the 1970 student strike, I learned later, a classmate was picketing a building that the professor wanted to enter. ‘You can’t go in,’ my friend declared. ‘Why not?’ Professor Harriss asked. ‘Because then you would be a scab.’ In response, Professor Harriss brushed by and entered the building while declaring, ‘A scab is part of the natural healing process.’

“Teachers in the department on both the left and right loved the man. He was soft-spoken, tolerant, smart, non-dogmatic but firm in his beliefs. His classroom style was brusque, informative and clear. He committed many random acts of kindness, such as writing a complimentary note about me to my father, and helped students with letters of recommendation to his many friends that led to jobs or entry into grad school.

“I watched him age gracefully almost to the very end, vigorous in mind, body and spirit, an inspiration to us all. I miss him very much.”

Harriss also taught at Stanford, UC Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, The Wharton School, the New School for Social Research and Pace. He earned Fulbright professorships from the Netherlands School of Economics (now Erasmus University), Cambridge and the University of Strasbourg, France.

One of the last living economists to have experienced the Depression, Harriss authored 16 books on economics and hundreds of articles. He was known for his seminal work on taxation of land, property tax, finance reform, land values and planning land use.

Harriss also had advised state, federal and foreign governments on tax policy including the Depart- ment of Treasury; the City of New York; New York State; the Common- wealth of Puerto Rico; the Federal District of Venezuela; the Ministry of Finance, Republic of China; the United Nations; and the Agency of International Development of the U.S. Department of State.

Harriss met and married Agnes Bennett Murphy in 1936. She predeceased him in 1992. Harriss is survived by his children, L. Gordon ’68, Patricia, Martha and Brian; five grandchildren; and sister, Marion Engelhart.

Source: In Memoriam. Columbia College Today, March/April 2010.

Image Source:  In Memoriam. Columbia College Today, March/April 2010.

 

 

Categories
Columbia Economists

Columbia. Economics department in WWII. Excerpt from letter to President Butler, Nov. 1942

 

There is a lot of information packed into the annual budget requests submitted by an economics department. Below I have limited the excerpt from the November 30, 1942 budget submission by the head of the economics department to Columbia President Nicholas Murray Butler to a brief introduction that provides an executive summary of the state of staffing and enrollment one year into the Second World War for the U.S. 

_____________________

Excerpt from R. M. Haig’s Budgetary Requests for 1943-44

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

File: R. M. Haig
November 30, 1942

President Nicholas Murray Butler
Columbia University

My dear Mr. President:

[…]

Introductory

Before turning to the detailed proposals, it may be helpful to outline certain facts regarding the general situation we face.

  1. The war has made heavy inroads on both our staff and our students. Two ([James W.] Angell and [Arthur R.] Burns) of our ten regular professor offering graduate instruction are in Washington on war service and most of those who remain are devoting a substantial portion of their time to the war effort. The staff of Columbia College has been even more heavily hit. Of the men giving instruction in the college in 1940-1941, [Carl Theodore] Schmidt and [Charles Ashley] Wright are now army officers, [Hubert Frank] Havlik, [Clement Lowell] Harriss, [Walt Whitman] Rostow and [Donald William] O’Connell are in war work in Washington, and [Robert] Valeur is devoting most of his time to aiding the Free French. However, we have been exceedingly fortunate in the substitutes we have been able to secure and (especially as compared with other institutions) we present a strong front in spite of our losses.
  2. It was apparent a year ago that the demand from Washington for persons with graduate training would sweep large numbers of our students from their classrooms before the completion of their courses. Requisitions for economists continue to arrive in almost every mail although we have long since placed in positions everyone on our eligible lists. Yet, as we anticipated last year, our body of graduate students still remains at a figure that makes it desirable and necessary to offer substantially all of our fundamental courses. The decline in the number of our students since our peak year (1938-1939, when 340 were registered) has been very great. However, we still are the largest graduate department of economics in the country by a wide margin. I am told that at Harvard, where there were 115 students last year, only 33 are in attendance this semester, and that at Chicago a similar loss has been suffered. In my letter dated December 30, 1941, it was suggested that we might have as many as 150 graduate students registered in our department this year. The latest count shows 130, with a fair prospect that the figure of 150 will be reached in the Spring session. A poll of the staff shows that, in the opinion of some, the number will be fully as large next year and the consensus is that the number will not be less than 100. Moreover all agree that with the coming of peace we shall be faced with an influx of students which may easily swamp the facilities of our graduate staff. For Columbia College, where this year the enrollment has been large, the outlook for economics in 1942-1943 is very obscure. At this time, it appears probable that the regular offering of courses, at least in skeleton form, will be required to serve a small number of regular students. Fortunately the commitments of the University to individuals on the College staff are such that the situation is highly flexible and can be accommodated with relative ease to whatever special program may be adopted for the undergraduates. In this budget, request is made for appropriations in blank for several instructorships, to be utilized only in case the need for them develops as plans for the college become more definite.
  3. Because of retirements, actual or more or less immediately impending, the department is faced with a serious problem of wise replacement of staff in its graduate division, if we are to maintain in the future the position of eminence we have held in the past. In view of this problem, it has seemed wise to make a virtue of our necessities and to utilize the need for temporary replacements for professors absent on leave during the emergency as an opportunity to invite as visiting professors certain men whom we rate high in the list of possible future staff members. This year we have three such men on the campus ([Oskar] Lange, Arthur F. Burns and [Clarence Arthur] Kulp). We believe that it will be wise to continue this policy of exploration and experimentation next year with funds released from the appropriations for the salaries of [James W.] Angell and Arthur R. Burns, in case the war continues and they do not return to their regular posts.
  4. As an incident to the policy referred to in the preceding paragraph, we have been able this year to offer a remarkably strong series of courses in the field of economic theory. However, we are this year relatively weak in economic history, socialism and industrial organization, offering no courses at all in the last-named subject. The chief embarrassment experienced this year by the unsettled staff situation has been in connection with the supervision of student research. Some of our students who have dissertations in progress have been seriously inconvenienced by the absence of the professors under whom they initiated their studies.

[…]

Source: Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-. Box 386, Folder “Haig, Robert Murray 7/1942—1/1943”.

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Chicago Columbia Cornell Economists Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania. Ph.D. Alumnus, William H.S. Stevens, 1912

 

The following letter from E.R.A. Seligman that recommended the appointment of three young economists to junior positions in Columbia College for 1912/13 was the starting point for this post.  B. M. Anderson, Jr. and R. M. Haig were already well known to me.  The third economist, W. S. Stevens, was completely new however, even though I have become reasonably familiar with the comings and goings of people who had taught economics at Columbia during the first half of the 20thcentury. And so I went to work to figure out the future career (with respect to this April 23, 1912 letter) of Mr. W.S. Stevens.  My results are found below, following the letter and they present a teachable moment about the use of the subscription genealogical website ancestry.com in tracking down economists of yore. Incidentally many research and public libraries provide access to ancestry.com for their users. That site together with the digital archives of hathitrust.org and archive.org were used to follow this economist’s career. 

What did I learn from this exercise? Well, a reprint of a single QJE article represented a dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania in 1912. Also the life of an itinerant scholar is a real challenge to reconstruct, but especially for those cases when the absorbing state turns out to be a job outside of academia. An obituary or a tip from a death certificate pointing to the last employment is extremely useful should you be able to find one.

Incidentally, for those with more of a genealogical interest in this economist: W. S. Stevens was married three times: to Edyth Josephine Frost (1911-1922, divorce; one child, Joseph Libby Stevens b. 1913, d. 2000); to Mary E. Laird (1923-?); and to Rachel Bretherton (?-1966, died in 1966). 

_________________

Copy of Seligman letter recommending three instructional appointments to Columbia College

April 23, 1912

Mr. F. P. Keppell
Dean, Columbia College.

My dear Dean Keppel:-

I take pleasure in nominating herewith the following gentlemen for positions in the College:-

Dr. B. M. Anderson, Jr., [A.B., Missouri, 1906; A.M., Illinois, 1910; Ph.D., Columbia, 1911] instructor, reappointment.

W. S. Stevens, Colby College, A.B., 1905; George Washington University, A.M., 1909; Chicago University, Summer, 1910; Cornell University, 1910-11; Chicago University, Summer, 1911; University of Pennsylvania, 1911-12; Fellow in Economics and Political Science, George Washington University, 1908-1909; Fellow in Economics, Cornell, 1910-1911; Assistant in Economics, Pennsylvania, 1911-12, lecturer in Economics.

R. M. Haig, A.B., Ohio Wesleyan University, 1908; A.M., University of Illinois, 1909; Secretary and Research Assistant to the Dean of Graduate School, University of Illinois, 1909-11; Garth Fellow, Columbia, 1911-12, lecturer in Economics. (Will receive degree of Ph.D. this autumn).

If there is any further information that I can give you about these gentlemen, pray command me.

Faithfully yours,

SE-S

Source:  Columbia University Archives.  Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman Collection, Box 36, Folder “Box 98A, Columbia (A-Z) 1911-1913”.

_________________

 

William Harrison Spring Stevens, 1885-1972
Publications

William Harrison Spring Stevens (University of Pennsylvania). The powder trust, 1872-1912. [cover: “Ph.D. Thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1912. Reprint of QJE article].

William S. Stevens (William S. Stevens). The powder trust, 1872-1912. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 26, No. 3 (May, 1912), pp. 444-481.

W. S. Stevens (Columbia University). A group of trusts and combinations. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 26, No. 4 (August, 1912), pp. 593-643.

William S. Stevens (Ph.D. Columbia University), ed. Industrial combinations and trusts. New York: Macmillan, 1914.

William H. S. Stevens (Ph.D. Sometime Professor of Business Management in the Tulane University of Louisiana). Unfair Competition: A Study of Certain Practices. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1917. [Dedication: “To Professor James C. Egbert of Columbia University with pleasant recollections of my experience in administrative work as his subordinate”]

 

_________________

William Harrison Spring Stevens, 1885-1972
C.V.

Born April 15, 1885 [3, 4] in Eau Claire, Wisconsin [4]

Colby College, A.B., 1905 [1]

George Washington University, A.M., 1909 [1]

Chicago University, Summer, 1910 [1]

Cornell University, 1910-11 [1]

Chicago University, Summer, 1911 [1]

University of Pennsylvania, 1911-12 [1]

Fellow in Economics and Political Science, George Washington University, 1908-1909; [1]

Fellow in Economics, Cornell, 1910-1911 [1]

Assistant in Economics, Pennsylvania, 1911-12, lecturer in Economics. [1]

University of Pennsylvania. Ph.D., 1912 [2]

Instr. in econ., Columbia Univ., 1912-15 [2]

Prof. bus. management, Tulane Univ. of La., 1915-16 [2]

Special expert, Federal Trade Commission, 1917 [2]

Assistant chief economist, Federal Trade Commission [3]

Economist at Interstate Commerce Commission, 1942 [4]

Last occupation. “Dr. of Econ., Fed Government” [5]

Died September 14, 1972 in Alexandria Virginia [5]

Sources:

[1] Seligman letter (above) April 23, 1912

[2] General Alumni Catalogue, University of Pennsylvania, 1917, p. 474.

[3] World War I, Draft Registration Card. September 12, 1918.

[4] World War II, Draft Registration Card, April 27, 1942

[5] Death Certificate, State of Virginia September 20, 1972

_________________

William Harrison Spring Stevens, 1885-1972
Fun Fact: Son of the American Revolution

“John Boyes, my great grandfather, enlisted in April 1777 in the 6thCompany, 3d N.H. regiment; Daniel Livermore Capt., Alex Scammell Col. He served three years, participated in battles of Hubbardstown, Stillwater, first and second Monmouth and was in Gen. Sullivan’s expedition against the six Indian Nations (Iroquois). He was wounded in the arm at Stillwater and later was captured and transported to Limerick, Ireland, and thence to Mill Prison in England where he was confined for one year. He was honorably discharged after three years service, on April 6, 1790.”

Source: Application by William H. S. Stevens (September 24, 1962) for Membership in the Virginia Society of the National Society, Sons of the American Revolution. as great-grandson of John Boyes (27 September 1760 in Boston, died 2 May 1833 in Madison Maine).

Image Source:  William H. S. Stevens class portrait from the his college yearbook, Colby Oracle, 1906.

 

Categories
Bibliography Chicago Columbia Yale

Chicago. French/German/Italian Public Finance Bibliography. Bloch, ca. 1944

 

The backstory to the following list of French, German, and Italian works on public finance that was given to students at the University of Chicago sometime in the early to mid-1940s is illustrative of the forensic effort to prepare such posts. 

Henry Simon Bloch (1915-1988)  was born in Kehl (Germany) and emigrated to the U.S. in 1937 after having received his doctorate from the University of Nancy for a dissertation on Carl Menger.  I ran across two bibliographies he had put together in the files of Robert M. Haig at Columbia University. Both cover letters were written by Bloch on University of Chicago economics department stationary. The bibliography transcribed for this post came without a date, but the course number and senior faculty member,  Simon Leland, were easy to confirm. Still, Bloch only appears once or twice in the departmental list of faculty (at the rank of instructor), but never actually listed as an instructor for Economics 360 “Government Finance”.    

Bloch left Chicago in 1945 about the same time that Oskar Lange did. Because Bloch wrote in the cover letter to the bibliography below that it hardly seemed as though four years had passed since he had visited New York and his other bibliography had been mailed in January 1940, it seems reasonable to assume that the today’s list was sent in 1944.

Last speculation: in the New York Times obituary linked above it mentions that Bloch was honorary associate fellow of Berkeley College of Yale University. Robert Triffin  was master of that residential college at Yale from 1969 until 1977. This likely connection is perhaps related to Bloch’s honorary doctorate from the Universite Libre de Bruxelles?

__________________

 Partial timeline
of Henry Simon Bloch

1915. Born April 6 in Kehl, Germany.
1937.  Dr. en Droit (Econ) at the University of Nancy with the dissertation La théorie des besoins de Carl Menger.
1937. Emigration to the United States.

University of Chicago

1938. Research assistant.
1941-42. Lecturer, Institute for Military Studies.
1943. Instructor economics, Institute for Military Studies.
1943-45. Research supervisor, Civil Affairs Training School (CATS) for Army and Navy Officers.

1945. Consultant, Foreign Economics Administration.
1945-46. Economist, Treasury Department.
1946. Member Treasury delegate for tax treaty negotiations, Treasury Department, France, United Kingdom, Benelux.
1947-49. Section chief, United Nations.

[gap to be filled]

1955. Visiting professor economics Yale University.
1955-62. Director fiscal and financial branch, United Nations.
1958-1959. Acting director, Bureau Economics Affairs.
1959-1962. Director, Bureau Technology Assistance.
1961-1962. Deputy commissioner for technical assistance, Bureau Technology Assistance.
1962-1966. President, Zinder International Ltd.
1967-1970. Vice-president, director, Engineer of Mines Warburg & Company, Inc.
1970-1975. Senior vice president, Engineer of Mines Warburg, Pincus & Company, Inc.
1976-1981. Executive vice president, Engineer of Mines Warburg, Pincus & Company, Inc.
1982-1988. Managing director, Engineer of Mines Warburg, Pincus & Company, Inc.
1988. Died in Manhattan, February 28.

Columbia University

Lecturer, 1955-1963.
Adjunct Professor law and international relations, 1963-1985.
Professor emeritus, 1985-1988.
Member international advisory board School International and Public Affairs, 1986-1988.

Source:   From the Henry Simon Bloch page at the Prabook website of biographies of professionals.

__________________

Budget and Appointment Recommendations 1944-45
February 21, 1944
Economics Department
Item 16

It is recommended that the appointment of Henry S. Bloch as instructor [10/1/1943-9/30/44, $3,600] be renewed [10/1/44 to 9/30/45, $3,600]. Bloch at present is devoting his time exclusively to the CATS program, where his salary is charged. Should that training program be liquidated, Bloch’s services can be transferred immediately to Departmental teaching, research, and assistance in advising students. During the past year such needs have arisen, but because of the demands of the miitary program Bloch has not been able to assist the Department in its civilian program. Attention is called to the fact that Bloch’s salary is on a four-quarter basis.

Source:  University of Chicago Archives. Records of the Hutchins Administration, Office of the President, Box 284, Folder “Economics , 1943-47”.

___________________

Course Description 1944-45

[Economics] 360. Government Finance. A survey course covering the main topics dealt with in standard treatises, but emphasizing analysis of the economic effects of various fiscal practices. Prereq: Two years’ work in the Division of the Social Sciences, or equiv. But: MWF 8; Leland.

Source:  Annual Register of the University of Chicago. Announcements: The College and the Divisions, Sessions of 1944-45. Volume XLIV, No. 8 (May 15, 1944), p. 279.

___________________

The University of Chicago
Department of Economics
Oct 1

Dear Professor Haig,

I thought this might be of interest to you. It is just a list for our students.

It seems as if I had seen you only yesterday and when I was out at Riverdale it seemed as if there had not been more than 4 years interval. It was so nice.

I assume that you met Oscar Lange in the meanwhile.

Regards,

Henri.

___________________

Economics 360
SELECTED LIST OF FRENCH, GERMAN AND ITALIAN WORKS ON PUBLIC FINANCE

by
S. E. Leland and H. S. Bloch

Authors of the French language group

Allix, E. Traité élémentaire de science des finances et de législation financière française, 4th ed., 1921. Paris, 1931.

Allix, E., and Lecerclé, M. L’impôt sur le revenu. Paris, 1927.

Colson, Clément. Les finances publiques et le budget de la France. Cours d’économie politique, vol. v (2d rev. ed.). Paris, 1931.

De Greeff, Guillaume. L’économie publique et la science des finances. Bruxelles, 1907.

Denis, M. H. L’Impôt sur le revenu. Brussels, 1881.

Garnier, Joseph. Traité de Finance, 3d ed. Paris, 1872.

Jèze, Gaston. Cours élémentaire de science des finances et de législation financière française. Paris, 1912.

__________. Cours de science des finances (Théorie de l’impôt). 1936/37.

__________. Cours de finances publiques. Théories générales sur les phénomènes financiers, les dépenses publiques, le crédit public, les taxes, l’impôt. Paris, 1931.

__________. Théorie générale du budget. Paris, 1922.

__________. Cours élémentaire de science des finances et de législation financière française. Paris, 1932.

__________. Cours de science de finances et de législation financière française. Technique du Crédit Public. Paris, 1923.

__________. «Le rôle du ministre des finances dans une démocratie, » Revue de Science et de Législation Financières, Vol. XXVII (1929), pp. 7-24.

__________. Le remboursement des emprunts publics d’état. Paris, 1927.

Jèze-Boucard, M. Éléments de la science des finances et de la législation financière française, 2 vols. 1902.

Leroy-Beaulieu, Paul. Traité de la science des finances. 2 vols. 1899.

Marion, Marcel. Histoire financière de la France, depuis 1715, 6 vols. Paris, 1914/1931.

Marquis de Mirabeau. Théorie de l’impôt. 1760.

Say, Jean Baptiste. Cours complet d’économie politique pratique. 1828-9.

Say, Léon. Les finances. Paris, 1892.

__________. Dictionnaire des finances, 2 vols. Paris : Nancy, 1891/1894.

__________. Les Solutions démocratiques de l’impôt. 1886.

Stourm, R. Cours des finances. 1906.

__________. Le budget. Tr. in English—The Budget. 1917.

Trotabas, L. Précis de science et législation financières. Paris, 1936.

Vauban. Dixme royale. 1707.

Walras, L. Théorie critique de l’impôt. Paris, 1861.

 

Authors of the German language group

Büsch, Johann Georg. Abhandlung vom dem Geldumlauf in anhaltender Rücksicht auf die Staatswirtschaft und Handlung. Hamburg, 1780. [2nd edition, 1800]

Cohn, Gustav. Finanzwissenschaft, 1889. The Science of Finance (tr. by T. B. Veblen). Chicago, 1895.

__________. System der Finanzwissenschaft. 1889.

Colm, G. Volkswirtschaftliche Theorie der Staatsausgaben. Tuebingen, 1927.

Eheberg, Karl. Finanzwissenschaft, 18th ed. Berlin, 1930.

Földes, B. Finanzwissenschaft. 1920.

Gerloff, W. Steuerwirtschaft und Sozialismus. Leipzig, 1922.

Gerloff, W., and Meisel, F. Handbuch der Finanzwissenschaft. Tübingen, 1926.

Goldscheid, Rudolf. Handbuch der Finanzwissenschaft. Tübingen, 1926.

Hock, Karl V. Öffentliche Abgaben und Schulden. 1862.

Jecht, Horst. Wesen und Formen der Finanzwissenschaft. Jena, 1928.

Jèze-Neumark, F. Allgemeine Theorie des Budgets. 1927.

Lindahl, E. R. Die Gerechtigkeit der Besteuerung. Lund, 1919.

Lotz, W. Finanzwissenschaft. 1917.

Mann, Fritz Karl. « Steuerpolitische ideale, » Finanzwissenschaftliche Forschungen. Jena, 1937.

__________. Deutsche Finanzwirtschaft. Jena, 1929.

Moll, Bruno. Lehrbuch der Finanzwissenschaft. Berlin, 1930.

Nebenius, Karl Friedrich. Der öffentliche Kredit. 1820.

Neumark, Fritz. Reichshaushaltplan. 1929.

Rau, Karl. Lehrbuch der politischen Oekonomie. 1826-37.

Ritschl, Hans. Theorie der Staatswirthschaft und Besteuerung. Bonn, 1925.

Sax, Emil. Grundlegung der theoretischen Staatswirtschaft. Vienna, 1887.

Schaeffle, Albert, E.F. Die Steuern. Leipzig, 1895.

Roscher, Wilhelm. System der Finanzwissenschaft. 1886.

Schanz, G. V. Der Einkommensbegriff und die Einkommensteuergesetze, Finanzarchiv. 1896.

Stein, L. V. Lehrbuch der Finanzwissenschaft, 4 vols. 5th ed. 1885/1886.

Sultan, H. Die Staatseinnahmen: Versuch einer soziologischen Finanztheorie als Teil einer Theorie der politischen Oekonomie. 1932.

Tehralle, Fritz. Finanzwissenschaft. Jena, 1930.

Teschemacher, Hans. Handbuch der Finanzwissenschaft. Tübingen, 1927.

Wagner, A. Finanzwissenschaft. 1889.

Wicksell, K. Finanztheoretische Untersuchungen. Jena, 1896.

 

Authors of Italian language group

Barone, Enrico. Principii di economia finanziaria. Rome, 1920.

Conigliani, Carlo. De diritto pubblico nei sistemi finanziari; Studi di teoria finanziaria; e’indrezzo teorico nella Scienza finanziaria. Turin, 1903.

__________. Le leggi scientiche della finanza. 1903.

Cossa, L. “Scienze delle finanze”—Translated excerpts, by H. White. Taxation: Its principles and methods. New York and London, 1893.

Del Vecchio, Gusatavo. Lezioni di scienze delle finanze, 2d ed. Padua, 1923.

De Viti de Marco. Il carattero teorico della economia finanziaria. 1890.

De Viti de Marco, Antonio. Principii di economia finanziaria. Turin, 1934. Translation: First Principles of Public Finance, by Edith Pavlo Marget. New York, 1936.

Einaudi, L. Corso di scienza della finanza, 3rd ed. Turin, 1914.

__________. Principii di scienza della finanza. Turin, 1932.

Fasolis, G. Scienza delle finanze e diritto finanziario. 1933.

Flora, F. Manuale della scienze delle finanze, 6th ed. 1921.

Graziani, A. Istituzioni di scienza delle finanze. Torino, 1897.

Griziotti, B. Considerazioni sui metodi; limiti e problemi della Scienze pure delle Finanze. 1912. Pp. 39.

__________. Principii di politica, diritto e scienza delle tinanze. 1929.

__________. Studi di diritto tributario. 1931.

Loria, Achille. The Economic Synthesis: A study of the laws of income. Tr. by Eden Paul. London, 1914.

Mazzola. Dati scientifica della finanza pubblica. 1890.

Murray, Roberto. Principi fondamentali di scienza pura delle finanze. 1914.

Nitti, F. S. Principi di scienze delle finanze, 5th ed. Rome, 1922.

Pantaleoni, Moffea. Teoria della pressione tributaria. 1887.

Pareto, Vilfredo. “I debiti pubblici dopo la guerra,” (Rivista di Scienze Bancaria—February-March, 1916), Fatti e Teorie, p. 57-62. Firenze, 1920.

Pugliese, Mario. L’imposizione delle imprese di carattere internazionale. 1930.

Ricca-Salerno, G. Scienza della finanze. 1888.

__________. Storia delle Dottrine Finanziane in Italia. Translated. Rome, 1881.

__________.History of Fiscal Doctrines in Italy. Translated. 1890.

Rignano, Eugenio. Social Significance of the Inheritance Tax. Translated by Wm. J. Shultz. New York, 1924.

Rignano, Eucenid. Una Riforma socialista del diritto successorio. Bologna. 1920.

Roncali, A. Corso elementari di scienza finanziaria. Parma, 1887.

Tangorra, V. Trattato di Scienza delle Finanza.

Vanoni, Ezio. Natura ed interpretazione delle leggi tributarie. 1932.

 

Source: Columbia University Archive. Robert M. Haig Papers. Box 16, Folder “Bibliography”.

Image Source: Social Science Research Building. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07466, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Columbia Curriculum Fields

Columbia. J. M. Clark on Teaching “modern tools of economic thinking”, 1942

In my examination of department archives I have been somwhat surprised at the relative scarcity of paper traffic with regard to curriculum reform. Here a short note from Maurice Clark to the executive officer of the economics department (i.e. chairman) Robert M. Haig about Columbia’s hiring strategy and whether two “math. Ec’ist[s]” aren’t enough for the task of teaching the “modern tools of economic thinking.” Looking at the faculty list for that year, I presume Clark meant Harold Hotelling and Abraham Wald. The note sounds as though Clark is looking for a way to get out of the “Current types of economic theory” course that he had taken over from Wesley Clair Mitchell and to teach instead a core theory course again.

_____________________________________

 

COPY

January 9, 1942

Dear Bob [R. M. Haig]:

I heard Lange’s paper. Impressions very favorable per se: but he’s one more high-power mathematical economist, and with three, wouldn’t we be unbalanced? And if it takes a math. Ec’ist to do the job of “modern tools of economic thinking” we had in mind, aren’t two enough?

Another unmatured impression: that part of the gap we’re thinking of would be met by a development and more up-to-date and adequate treatment of the sort of thing I used to do in the course I quit giving when I took Mitchell’s “Types” course:–more specifically, the second half-year where I dealt with the concepts of demand, supply and cost curves in an attempt to relate them to actual behavior. I adumbrated the possibility of treating the distinction between competition and monopoly in terms of slopes of “individual demand schedules” (before Chamberlin’s book). Had ‘em read Foster & Catchings to get the “Income-flow” approach, before Keynes’ books appeared. (I note Neisser of Penn. still finds use for F. & C. in teaching.) Suggested the discrepancy between saving and investment (without, I freely admit, seeing the significances that Keynes developed). And of course I had played with “multipliers”.

A course in which I ruthlessly condensed what used to be my first half-year into two or three lectures, and developed the other kind of material more adequately and systematically, might be considered, while we’re considering things.

Yours,

J. M. Clark

_____________________________________

 

January 13, 1942

Professor John Maurice Clark,
Fayerweather Hall.

Dear Maurice:

Many thanks for your note of January 9th. I am assuming that you have no objection to my showing it to Mitchell, Angell, and Goodrich.

Faithfully yours,

[R.M. Haig]

_____________________________________

January 13, 1942

Memorandum to Professors Angell, Goodrich and Mitchell
from Professor R. M. Haig:

You will be interested in the enclosed comments from Maurice Clark

_____________________________________

 

Source: Columbia University Libraries. Manuscript Collections. Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection. Faculty. Box 2. Folder “Department of Economics—Faculty Beginning January 1, 1944 (sic)”.

Image Source:  John Maurice Clark at The History of Economic Thought Website.