Month: December 2019

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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.

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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.

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[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.

Categories
Chicago History of Economics Suggested Reading

Chicago. Bibliography for History of Economic Thought. Frank Knight, 1933

 

 

Milton Friedman’s papers at the Hoover Institution Archives include the economics course notes from his student years. In an earlier post I transcribed Friedman’s own listing of his coursework in economics, statistics and mathematics by quarter/semester and academic institution. This is how we know that it was during the 1933 Winter Quarter that Milton Friedman attended Frank Knight’s course on the history of economic thought.  Friedman’s notes begin with a four page course bibliography. An image of the first page is included below. A transcription of the complete bibliography, augmented with links to almost all items, immediately follows.  

I had earlier transcribed the mimeographed course bibliography from the 1946 Winter Quarter found in Norman Kaplan’s student notes that I found in the University of Chicago archives. The 1946 course bibliography includes about twenty additional items when compared this 1933 version.

With a clear, typed bibliography to check against Friedman’s sometimes only partially legible handwritten notes, I discovered that duplication technology must have dramatically improved between 1933 and 1946 at the University of Chicago. Friedman clearly copied from a nearly identical bibliography (including Knight annotations!) that I surmise might have been only available as a single typed list posted with reserve material at the library. 

First page of Frank Knight’s bibliography for the History of Economic Thought course in Milton Friedman’s student notes at the University of Chicago, Winter Quarter 1933.

 

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Economics 302
History of Economic Thought
Frank H. Knight

Bibliography

General Works

Gray, Alexander—Development of Economic Doctrine

Haney, L.H.—History of Economic Thought

(Read both of them on classical school with care)

Ingram, J. K.—A History of Political Economy. Briefer than Haney, and usable

Spann, O. History of Economics (English Translation [of 19th German ed., 1930]) [17th ed., German original Die Hauptheorien der Volkswirtschaftslehre (1928)]

Valuable for its intense opposition to the viewpoint of the classical school, in favor of an organismic or universalistic standpoint.

Won’t make much use of:

Oncken A.—Geschichte der National Ökonomie. Very good up to Adam Smith (Knight likes)

Gide, C. and Rist, C.—History of Economic Doctrine. (Translation from French) Competent but uninspired book. (Begins with Physiocrats) (Knight does not like.)

Schumpeter, Joseph—Epochen der Dogmen- und Methodengeschichte, contained in Grundriss der Sozialökonomik, Vol. I. [English translation]

On the whole period before the classical school

Monroe, A.E.—Early Economic Thought. Lengthy excerpts from important writers

Dunning, W.A.—History of Political Theories, Ancient and Mediaeval

Dunning, W.A.—History of Political Theories, From Luther to Montesquieu

 

Greco-Roman Economics

Miss [E.] Simey—article entitled Economic Theory among the Greeks and Romans [Economic Review vol. 10 (October 1900), pp. 462-481] (On Reserve)—Best about ancient

Laistner, M.L.W.—Greek Economics, Introduction and excerpts.

 

Medieval

Ashley, W. J.—English Economic History and Theory. Volume I, Part I, Chapter 3, and Volume I, Part II, Chapter 6. Best general account.

O’Brien, George—An Essay on Medieval Economic Theory. Highly important, especially because from a Catholic point of view.

Becker Carl, The Heavenly City of the 18th Century Philosophers. Chapter 1 on the climate of opinion.

Tawney, R.H.—Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. Chapter I on the Medieval Background.

 

Physiocrats.

(Given very little attention in this course)

Ware, Norman—article on the Physiocrats in American Economic Review, 1931

Turgot, A.R.J., Formation and Distribution of Riches (Ashley Economic Classics)

 

Mercantilism

Viner, J. English Theories of Foreign Trade before Adam Smith. In Journal of Political Economy, volume 38, numbers 3 and 4. [Reprinted in Studies in the Theory of International Trade: First Part; Second Part]

Schmoller, Gustav. The Mercantile System. Invaluable, also as a specimen of the German Historical Economics.

Ashley, W. J. The Tory Origin of Free Trade. Q. J. E. Volume 11.

 

Classical School

Whitaker A. C.—Labor Theory of Value in English Political Economy. Nearly essential.

Cannan E. –Theories of Production and Distribution. Valuable, but laborious reading.

Cannan—Review of Economic Theory. Later and more available.

 

(Ought to own)

Adam Smith—Wealth of Nations. Full text, Everyman’s Library (2 volumes) most available [Volume One; Volume Two]. Abridged edition edited by Ashley gives part covered in course conveniently in one volume. Cannan Edition (2 vols.), the definitive edition, but expensive and bulky.

Ricardo, David—Principles of Political Economy. Gonnar Edition best. Available in Everyman’s.

Mill, J. S.—Principles of Political Economy. Ashley edition

 

Subjective Value or Marginal Utility School

Smart Wm.—Introduction to the Theory of Value.

Wieser, F.—Natural Value

Smart’s prefaces to Böhm-Bawerk’s two main volumes [Böhm-Bawerk Capital and Interest and Positive Theory of Capital] and to Wieser’s Natural Value.

Weinberger, Otto—Die Grenznutzenschule

Mises, Ludwig—Bemerkungen zum Grundproblem der Subjektivistischen Wertlehre, contained in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik. Band 59, Heft 1.

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives.  Milton Friedman Papers, Box 120. Notebook: “Economics

Image Source: Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-03516.

Categories
Carnegie Institute of Technology Exam Questions

Carnegie Tech. Final Exam for Advanced Economic Analysis. Modigliani, 1959 & 1960


An earlier post provided the outline for Franco Modigliani’s Advanced Economic Analysis course from the second term of the 1958-59 academic year that had been incorrectly filed in a folder of his notes for Advanced Monetary Theory III, 1953-1960″. A copy of the June 3, 1959 final examination was provided to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror for transcription by Juan Acosta.  I have added the May 27, 1960 final examination to this post as a second observation.

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June 3, 1959

Advanced Economic Analysis I – GI 581
Final Examination

Answer questions I and IV, and either II or III.

  1. Assume that the government fixes by law the price of a commodity and hands out to the public ration coupons equal in number to the number of units of the commodity produced. Assume throughout that the supply is perfectly inelastic.
    1. Use an indifference diagram to show under what conditions the consumer would not use all of his coupons.
    2. Show that consumers would be better off if they were free to buy or sell their ration coupons in a free market.
    3. Supposing now that coupons could be bought and sold in a free market, explain how one could derive an individual consumer’s demand curve for coupons. (Hint: the situation is analogous to the consumer being forced to buy his ration of the good at the legal price and then being allowed to sell it or buy more of it on a free market.)
    4. Explain the formation of the equilibrium market price of coupons.
    5. What can be said as to the relation between the legal price, the price of coupons, and the price which would prevail in the absence of price control and rationing? Under what condition would the sum of the first two be equal to the third?
  2. A producer sells in his home market, in which he has a monopoly, and in a foreign market which is perfectly competitive. How would a sales tax imposed on the home market affect
    1. total output
    2. price in the home market
    3. price in the foreign market
    4. distribution of output between the two markets
  3. A profit maximizing monopolist buys factors of production in a perfect market.
    1. Discuss the long-run effect on his demand for each of the factors he uses and on his selling price of a tax on one of the factors. (Give a graphic treatment for the case of two factors.)
    2. Suppose that one of the two factors is fixed in the short run. Contrast the change in the long-run and short-run demand for both factors when a tax is placed on either.
  4. Discuss the significance of free entry for the relation of the long-run equilibrium size of the firm to the optimum size.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Franco Modigliani Papers, Box T1, Folder “Advanced Economics,1952-1960”.

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May 27, 1960

GI-581 Advanced Economic Analysis I
Final Examination
F. Modigliani

 

  1. (Answer questions a-f; question g is elective)
    Suppose that the conditions of production for a given firm can be expressed by the production function.
    (1) X = KAaBb
    where A and B represent the inputs of two factors, X the output, and K, a, b, certain constants.

    1. Explain the meaning of a production function.
    2. Given the prices, PA, and PB of the two inputs determine the optimum input of each factor as a function of X, PA, PB.
    3. Exhibit the (minimized) total and marginal cost functions.
    4. Under what conditions is the above marginal cost increasing, decreasing or constant? Relate this result to the degree homogeneity of the production function (1) and to the notion of returns to scale.
    5. Discuss the relation between returns to scale and returns to each factor separately.
    6. How would you obtain the demand function of the firm for each factor, (i) if the firm sells in a competitive market? (ii) if the firm has a monopoly in the selling market?
    7. (Elective)
      Suppose that equation (1) describes the conditions of production for an entire industry, and assume further that the supply of factor A is infinitely elastic at the price PA while the conditions of supply of factor B can be expressed by the supply function PB = LBs, when L and s are constants, (s>0).

      1. The industry is composed of a large number of firms each of which takes the prices of the factors as given and independent of its inputs decisions;
      2. The entire industry is monopolized.
        Obtain the marginal cost for the industry in each of these two cases. What is the relation between this marginal cost and the supply functions? How is the slope of the supply function related to notion of returns to scale and of external and internal economies or diseconomies?
  2. In the figure below, X and Y denote the quantities of two commodities. Shown in the graph are four budget equations and the points chosen on each by a consumer.
    1. State the revealed preference postulate.
    2. Using this postulate, rank as far as possible the four points in order of preference.
    3. Draw a fifth budget line and observed point on it which would make possible an unambiguous ranking of the original four points.
    4. (Optional) Sketch out how the revealed preference postulate can be used to establish the slope of the Marshallian Demand function.
  1. Discuss briefly the meaning and significance of the following concepts and their interrelation in Economics:
    1. Statics;
    2. Dynamics;
    3. Comparative statics;
    4. Long and short run
      Discuss the notion of “long run,” “short run” and “reversibility” as they apply to demand functions.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Franco Modigliani Papers, Box T8, Folder “Notes on Advanced Monetary Theory III,1953-1960”.

Image Source: Franco Modigliani page at the History of Economic Thought Website.

Categories
Economics Programs Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Graduate Studies and Exams of Yukimasa Hattori, Ph.D. 1903

 

This post begins with a chronicle of the course work and seminar presentations of the Japanese graduate student of economics, Yukimasa Hattori, at the Johns Hopkins University for the academic years 1900-01 and 1901-02. I find it really remarkable that one is able to put together such a detailed timeline for an arbitrary single graduate student well over a century ago from online sources.  A transcription of the doctoral examination questions given to Hattori found in the Johns Hopkins archive and a link to Hattori’s published dissertation complete the post.

Perhaps a Japanese visitor to this blog could find and share additional biographical information about Hattori from Japanese language sources?

____________________________

Date of death of Yukimasa Hattori

In Graduates and Fellows of the Johns Hopkins University, 1876-1913. Yukimasa Hattori was listed as having died April 6, 1913.

Source: The Johns Hopkins University Circular, (April 1914). Graduates and Fellows of the Johns Hopkins University 1876-1913, p. 23.

____________________________

Coursework of Yukimasa Hattori

First Half-Year, 1900-1901

Daily except Wednesday, 11 a.m. Class B. Elementary German and German Reader. Dr. Kurrelmeyer

Minor Course, Class B. Four hours weekly. Otis, Elementary German (First Part); Brandt, German Reader (50pp.); Heyse, L’Arrabbiata; Goethe, Egmont; E. S. Buchheim, Elementary German Prose Composition; Whitney, German Grammar.

Monday and Tuesday, 9 a.m. Labor Problems. Mr. W. F. Willoughby

Labor Problems. Mr. W. F. Willoughby, of the United States Bureau of Labor, lectured on Labor Problems to ten graduate students, two hours weekly, during the first half-year.
This course was devoted primarily to a study of the group of movements having for their purpose the increase in the economic security of the laboring classes. Each of the contingencies was considered in which workingmen are unable to earn wages, as disability, sickness, accident, premature invalidity old age, and inability to obtain work, and the effort now being made in Europe and the United States for providing for them through insurance or otherwise A few lectures were also given on the organization and practical work of statistical bureaus in various countries.

Monday and Tuesday, 12 M. United States Constitutional Law. Dr. Willoughby

Advanced United States Constitutional Law. Eleven graduate students, two hours weekly, throughout the year. These lectures presupposed a general knowledge of our political history and of the elements of our public law, and were therefore devoted to the discussion of the more perplexing and as yet unsettled points in our constitutional law, the illustrations being largely drawn from the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court during the last few years. Especial attention was given to the examinations of the legal problems involved in the annexation and government of foreign territories. Carefully prepared written analyses of the leading cases considered were required of the students.

Wednesday, 9 a.m. Economic Development. Associate Professor Sherwood.

The Law of Economic Development. Eight graduate students, one hour weekly, through the year. This course was an examination of the law of evolution as applied to economic life. The basis of this application is found in the fact that social activity and organization begin in the want and will of individuals, and that these are governed by an economic or utilitarian principle which leads men to act so as to secure the greatest satisfaction with the least sacrifice. The operation of this principle was shown in military, political, and religious life, as well as in industrial activity. Individual variation, which begins change, in itself an illustration of this law and the new social organization which results, is evolved from these utilitarian choices and efforts of the individuals. Division of labor, the varying forms of industrial organization and the growth of capital are all to be explained in the same way.

Wednesday and Thursday, 12 m. History of Political Philosophy. Dr. Willoughby.

History of Political Theories, 1300 to 1750 A.D. Twelve graduate students, two hours weekly, throughout the year. The political ideals and principles of this period were analyzed and criticized. An especial effort was made to show the extent to which these theories were the outcome of the political conditions and general characteristics of the times in which they were formulated.

Alternate Thursdays, 4-6 p.m. Economic Seminary, Associate Professor Sherwood

Economic Seminary met two hours fortnightly, with eight graduate students. The special study of Commerce and Commercial Policy of the United States has been continued, in part by the preparation of papers and in part by the critical study of List’s National System of Political Economy. Papers upon other topics were also read and reviews were given of current economic literature.

Thursday and Friday, 9 a.m. Banking. Associate Professor Sherwood

Modern Banking. Two hours weekly, first half-year, with ten graduate students. A comparative study of the banking systems of England, France, Germany, and the United States was made. Attention was directed to the internal organization of the central banks and their relation to the other banking institutions of their respective countries, to the present status of the business done by the banks, and to the relation of these banks to the government. Conclusions were drawn from these studies as to the tendencies in modern banking, and certain needed reforms in the American system were pointed out.

Alternate Fridays, 8 p.m. Historical Seminary. Professor Adams.

Historical Seminar [also called “Historical and Political Science Association”] met regularly on alternate Friday evening and was attended by eighteen students and five instructors. The more important original work of the department was presented in these fortnightly meetings, and the current literature of history, economics, and political science was subjected to review and criticism. The proceedings from October 5 to March 15 are published in the University Circulars in January, March,[ and May-June] 1901.

Sources:  Johns Hopkins University Circulars Vol. XX. No. 148 (November, 1900), pp. 5-6; Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the President of Johns Hopkins University, 1901, pp. 72, 84-87.

 

Second Half-Year, 1900-1901

Daily except Wednesday, 11 a.m. Class B. Elementary German Grammar and Prose. Dr. Kurrelmeyer

Monday, 9-11 a.m. American Finance. Dr. E. D. Durand.

American Financial History. Dr. E. Dana Durand, Secretary of the United States Industrial Commission, on leave of absence from Stanford University, lectured…to a class of six graduate students, two hours weekly, during the second half-year. The course covered the history of the public finances of the United States Government, from the beginning of the Revolution to 1890. The development of the customs duties and of other methods of taxation was traced and the policy of debt management was discussed. The history of the currency and banking system was also considered in so far as it bears on the general subject of the administration of the public treasury. The students did collateral reading from a number of original documents and of secondary treatises, and each of them presented a paper on some phase of financial history.

Monday and Tuesday, 12 M. United States Constitutional Law. Dr. Willoughby

See First Half-year 1900-1901, above

Wednesday, 9 a.m. Economic Development. Associate Professor Sherwood.

The Law of Economic Development [Associate Professor Sherwood], with eight graduate students, one hour weekly, through the year. This course was an examination of the law of evolution as applied to economic life. The basis of this application is found in the fact that social activity and organization begin in the want and will of individuals, and that these are governed by an economic or utilitarian principle which leads men to act so as to secure the greatest satisfaction with the least sacrifice. The operation of this principle was shown in military, political, and religious life, as well as in industrial activity. Individual variation, which begins change, in itself an illustration of this law and the new social organization which results, is evolved from these utilitarian choices and efforts of the individuals. Division of labor, the varying forms of industrial organization and the growth of capital are all to be explained in the same way.

Wednesday and Thursday, 12 m. History of Political Philosophy. Dr. Willoughby.

See First Half-year 1900-1901, above

Alternate Thursdays, 4-6 p.m. Economic Seminary, Associate Professor Sherwood

See First Half-year 1900-1901, above

Thursday and Friday, 9 a.m. Theory of Credit. Associate Professor Sherwood

Theory of Credit with six graduate students, two hours weekly, second half-year. Analysis of credit was made so as to indicate the operation of credit in its economic rather than in its legal aspect. The part played by credit in productive organization and processes was then traced. The adequacy of present credit institutions to meet the requirements of the various classes of industry was also discussed, as well as the relation of credit to prices. The course was closed with a brief review of the historical development of the theory of credit.

Alternate Fridays, 8 p.m. Historical Seminary. Professor Adams

See First Half-year 1900-1901, above

Sources: Johns Hopkins University Circulars Vol. XX, No. 150 (March, 1901), pp. 40-41.; Twenty-sixth Annual Report of the President of Johns Hopkins University, 1901, pp. 72, 84-87.

 

First Half-Year, 1901-1902

Monday 9 a.m. Current Economic Literature, Associate Professor Hollander and Dr. Barnett

During the first half-year, Associate Professor Hollander also directed a journal club, in weekly meetings, for the review and discussion of current economic literature, and for exercise in the use of original sources of economic and financial information.

Monday and Tuesday 10 a.m. Germanic Civilization. Associate Professor Vincent.

No further information available.

Tuesday and Wednesday, 9 a.m. Theory and Practice of Finance. Associate Professor Hollander

Finance, [was taught by Associate Professor Hollander] two hours weekly through the year. The past financial experience and the present fiscal practice of the United States — federal, state, and local — were taken as the basis for critical and comparative study. The emergence of contemporary problems in our public economics was traced, and the concrete issues thus presented served to introduce an exposition of the fundamental theories of the science of finance. Emphasis was put upon the place of financial technique in public economics, and attention was directed to the immediate financial problems presented by our new insular possessions. A reasonable amount of collateral reading from selected texts was done in connection with the course.

Wednesday, 11 a.m. Oral Examinations in General History. Dr. Ballagh.

Oral Examinations in General History, [Dr. J. C. Ballagh, Associate in History has conducted] one hour weekly, through the year. This work is particularly designed for candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, though advanced graduates are sometimes admitted to attendance. Important fields of general history were consecutively and systematically reviewed, but especial emphasis was laid upon those in which greater concentration was needed by the individual members of the class. The special course on the political history of Greece and Rome given last year was replaced by a similar specialized course on the constitutional history of England and the political history of the United States. The sources and best exponents of the history of the periods covered were discussed and used by the class.

Wednesday and Thursday, 10 a.m. Mediaeval France. Associate Professor Vincent.

Mediaeval France [taught by Associate Professor J. M. Vincent]. Two hours weekly, first half-year. These two courses together provided a systematic treatment of the history of Europe during the early Middle Ages. Each student was required to present a syllabus of the whole subject with references to sources and authorities.

Wednesday and Thursday 12 m. Legal Aspects of Economic and Industrial Problems. Associate Professor Willoughby.

The Legal Aspects of Economic and Industrial Problems [taught by Associate Professor Willoughby] two hours weekly, throughout the year. The points of law involved in such matters as the control of interstate commerce, taxation, factory legislation and other exercises of the so-called police power, the fixing of wages and prices, the management of strikes, lockouts, boycotts, the control of industrial combinations, of labor unions, etc., were examined. The development of the present law was traced both in the common law and in statutory enactments, and proposals for its amendment outlined and discussed.

Thursday and Friday, 9 a.m. Development of Economic Theories since Adam Smith. Associate Professor Hollander

Development of Economic Theories since Adam Smith, [was taught by Associate Professor Hollander] two hours weekly through the year. A detailed historical survey was made of the development of the fundamental concepts of economic science from Adam Smith to current thought. The body of English thought was followed in the main, but other writers and schools were examined wherever direct influence or analogy was discerned. The method of treatment was topical, resulting in a series of cross-sectional views of the history of economic thought. In connection with the course, members of the class read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Thomas Robert Malthus’s Essay on Population, and John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.

Alternate Tuesdays, 8 p.m. Economic Seminary, Associate Professor Hollander and Dr. Barnett

Economic Seminary, [was led by Associate Professor Hollander] fortnightly, in two-hour sessions, through the year, with membership limited to the most advanced students, and designed to develop the use of sound methods of economic research. The general subjects of study were the commercial policies and the industrial institutions of Europe and the United States in the nineteenth century. Dr. George E. Barnett, Instructor in Political Economy, assisted in the conduct of the work. Each member of the Seminary prepared and submitted, for detailed criticism as to method and content, one or more studies within [their] field of inquiry.

Alternate Fridays, 8 p.m. Historical and Political Science Association.

 

Sources: Johns Hopkins University Circulars Vol. XXI, No. 154 (December, 1901), p. 15; Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the President of The Johns Hopkins University, 1902, pp. 58-60, 62-64.

 

Second Half-Year, 1901-1902

Monday, 9 a.m. Elements of Statistics. Dr. Barnett.

Dr. George E. Barnett, Instructor in Political Economy, gave a course of twenty lectures on the Elements of Statisticsduring the second half- year. Attention was directed chiefly to the history of statistics and to methods of statistical investigation. As illustrative material, some of the chief problems of vital statistics were discussed.

Monday and Tuesday, 10 a.m. German Reformation. Associate Professor Vincent

The German Reformation [taught by Associate Professor J. M. Vincent]. Two hours weekly, second half-year. Beginning with the causes of the Lutheran movement these lectures extended through the Swiss Reformation until the Protestant churches were firmly established. Emphasis was laid particularly upon the social and political conditions which influenced this revolution.

Alternate Tuesdays, 8 p.m. Economic Seminary, Associate Professor Hollander and Dr. Barnett

See First Half-year 1901-1902, above

Tuesday and Wednesday, 9 a.m. Theory and Practice of Finance. Associate Professor Hollander

See First Half-year 1901-1902, above

Wednesday and Thursday, 10 a.m. English Reformation. Associate Professor Vincent

England in the Sixteenth Century [taught by Associate Professor J. M. Vincent]. Two hours weekly, second half-year. This course covered the period of the Reformation in England and included the significant parts of the reign of Elizabeth.

Wednesday, 11 a.m. Oral Examinations in General History. Dr. Ballagh.

See First Half-year 1901-1902, above

Wednesday and Thursday 12 m. Legal Aspects of Economic and Industrial Problems. Associate Professor Willoughby.

See First Half-year 1901-1902, above

Thursday and Friday, 9 a.m. Development of Economic Theories since Adam Smith. Associate Professor Hollander

See First Half-year 1901-1902, above

 

Sources: Johns Hopkins University Circulars Vol. XXI., No. 157 (April, 1902), pp. 73-74; Twenty-Seventh Annual Report of the President of The Johns Hopkins University, 1902, pp. 58-60, 62-64.

____________________________

Fellowship Announced June 10, 1902

Yukimasa Hattori, of Sagaken, Japan, Tokyo College of Science, 1898. Economics.

 

Source: Johns Hopkins University Circulars Vol. XXI., No. 159 (July, 1902), p. 111.

 

____________________________

Presentations by Yukimasa Hattori

Historical and Political Science Assocation

May 10, 1901. International Private Law in Japan.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Circulars Vol. XX., No. 152 (May-June, 1901), p. 89.

February, 1902. Patten’s Theory of Prosperity.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Circulars Vol. XXI., No. 157 (April, 1902), p. 66.

Economic Seminary

December 10, 1901. Commercial Relations of Japan since 1868.

April 22, 1902. Japan’s Foreign Trade since the Restoration, (1868-1900).

Source: Johns Hopkins University Circulars Vol. XXI., No. 158 (June, 1902), p. 77.

____________________________

Ph.D. Examinations

Mr. Y. Hattori.

General Examination in Political Economy, May 27, 1903
(General)

  1. Discuss the commercial development of Japan with reference to the theory of international value.
  2. What theoretical influences contributed to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations?
  3. Trace the development of economic thought with respect to the measure of value.
  4. Describe and criticize the wage-fund theory.
  5. Discuss modern industrial combinations in the light of an assignable limit to the growth in the size of the modern industrial unit.
  6. Describe the history of the general property tax, and discuss its shifting and incidence.
  7. What successive financial measures should be taken by Japan upon the declaration of war with a foreign power?
  8. Discuss the theoretical difficulties and the practical advantages in the use of index numbers.
  9. Upon what principle should railroad rates be fixed? Discuss fully.
  10. Discuss the validity of collective bargaining with reference to industrial conditions in Japan.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mr. Y. Hattori.

SPECIAL EXAMINATION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
MAY 30, 1903.
(Money and Banking.)

  1. Discuss the relation of prices to the money supply.
  2. Define credit and describe its functions.
  3. Describe the chief stages in the history of the Bank of England.
  4. Discuss the theory of bimetallism.
  5. Describe the chief classes of banks in the United States.
  6. Compare the Bank of Japan with the German Reichsbank.
  7. Discuss the relation of deposits to reserve.
  8. Describe the history of the Japanese Currency since 1868.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

EXAMINATION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, MAY 29, 1903.
Graduate Courses, 1902-1903.

  1. Discuss credit and its service in modern economic life.
  2. What changes are desirable in the American currency system?
  3. Discuss the movement of the precious metals as a feature of international trade.
  4. Speculation and its relation to modern industrial organization.
  5. Describe the inter-relations of mercantilistic theory and practice.
  6. The forerunners of Adam Smith and their contributions to the “Wealth of Nations”.
  7. What is the genesis of the differential law of rent?
  8. Contrast the places of Adam Smith and David Ricardo in the history of economic thought.

Source:  Johns Hopkins University. Milton S. Eisenhower Library. Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy. Series 6. Box 3/1. Folder “Graduate Exams, 1903-1932”.

____________________________

Ph.D. Dissertation

Hattori, Yukimasa. The Foreign Commerce of Japan Since the Restoration, 1869-1900. In the series Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Series XXII, No. 9-10. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, September-October, 1904. (text: 71 pages)

 

JAPAN’S FOREIGN TRADE SINCE THE RESTORATION (1868-1900).
By YUKIMASA HATTORI.

[Abstract of a paper read before the Economic Seminary, April 22, 1902.]

The total amount of Japan’s exports and imports was 26 million yen in 1868; 65 million yen in 1880; 138 million yen in 1890, and from that year on, the aggregate increased by leaps and bounds—most notably after the China-Japanese War (1894-5)—until it reached the enormous sum of 491 million yen in 1900. Stated in terms of the yen, this increase is, however, more apparent than real. Since 1873 the value of silver not only relative to gold but also relative to all commodities has gradually gone down, or in other words general prices in Japan have gone up about seventy-five per cent, so that the figures above stated must be reduced according to the index number of prices in each, particular year in order to show the actual quantity of commodities.

In character, it is only since 1890 that Japan’s export trade has undergone important change. Such commodities as cotton yarn, habutaye (white silk fabric,) silk handkerchiefs, matches, straw braids, floor matting, and European umbrellas, which now form the most important exports, first appeared in the foreign trade of Japan almost simultaneously in 1890. For example, in the case of cotton yarn and habutaye,—in 1890 the export of the former was only 2,000 yen and of the latter 818,000 yen; in 1900 the corresponding figures were 20,589,000 yen and 18,314,000 yen, respectively. In other words, up to 1890, the principal articles of export were the natural products most suited to the soil of Japan such as tea, raw silk, rice, copper, coal, camphor and marine products. Since 1890, the export of manufactured goods has gradually risen to a far larger percentage than that of raw materials.

The logical consequence of this change in the character of Japan’s foreign trade has been a change in its geographical distribution. The tide of Japanese trade is moving more and more towards the eastern shores of continental Asia, namely, Russian Asia, Corea, China, Hongkong, British India and the Straits Settlement. Both exports to and imports from European countries are decreasing, relatively; while the imports from the United States show a remarkable increase.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Circulars Vol. XXI., No. 158 (June, 1902), p. 81.

Ph.D. Awarded, 1902-03:

Yukimasa Hattori, of Sagaken, Japan, Tokyo College of Science, 1898.
Subjects: Political Economy, Political Science, and History. Dissertation: The Foreign Commerce of Japan since the Restoration. Referees on Dissertation: Professor Hollander and Dr. Barnett.

Source: Johns Hopkins University, University Publications No 2, 1903-04. The Twenty-Eight Annual Report of the President with Accompanying Reports, 1903 (Baltimore, January 1904), p. 71.

Image Source: Frontpiece of the Johns Hopkins University yearbook, The Hullabaloo 1903.

Categories
Economists Gender

Women’s Suffrage. Schumpeter in the Washington Post, 1914

Staatssekret‰r f¸r Finanzen im 2. Kabinett Renner. Bildnis (: Brust, en face).

 

 

The following article by Joseph Schumpeter was published in the Washington Post (March 22, 1914) along with four other short articles by different writers on the subject of women’s suffrage. While Schumpeter briefly indicates where he ultimately stands, “…the gallant fight for equality which our women are waging,” he displays all the passion of an early twentieth century “feminist of the chair”. Still an interesting tidbit of an artifact.

_______________________

Suffrage Coming, says Economist, Because of Changing Family Life

Institution of Marriage Modified, Declares Prof. Schumpeter, and Women Have Lost Their Old Employment—Traces History.

By Prof. Joseph Schumpeter
Austrian Exchange Professor to Columbia University,
Professor of Political Economy at the University of Gratz

If any public question is in process of being thrashed out, people soon cease to do any thinking of their own about it and have a way of settling down to repeating indefinitely sets of arguments which from the very fact of their logical weakness seem to derive an emotional force.

This we can always observe when large issues are fought out. What we think about them is only handmaid to what we feel about them. But this is specially true in the particular case of the gallant fight for equality which our women are waging, for hardly anywhere else is there so much room for vague hopes and fears, and hardly another issue has so nasty a spike for the feelings of many of us.

Now, I do not wish to argue on either side. All I want is to point out that all ideas and social institutions and habits which have anything to do with the relations and relative positions of the sexes are determined by, or have a tendency to adapt themselves to the general conditions under which a nation lives. We cannot hope—much as we may want to—to keep any social institutions—marriage, for instance—what it is at a given point of the long road of social evolution, if those conditions change. As a matter of fact, though the name may remain the same, the institution of marriage and what it really means and implies is forever changing.

Facts Change Faster Than Ideals.

There is as much difference between what it is to be married now and what it was to be married a few hundred years ago as there is between the Twentieth Century Limited and a saddle horse, although our legal definitions and our ideals of marriage have changed much less rapidly and thoroughly than the facts have. And there is some use in glancing over the historical evolution of the position of women to see how the necessities under which we have lived have sharpened, together with everything else, also this particular element of our lives.

Women in Primitive Times.

In primitive conditions the precariousness of the existence of the small clans that roamed about very much like herds of deer imposed on them the necessity of the strongest members of the group being always ready to fight an enemy or to hunt for food, specializing, as it were, in the profession of warrior and hunter and leaving everything else to the women.

This accounts for the position of women in primitive times. It is not quite exact to speak of their “subjection” or to style them “beasts of burden.” They simply had a sphere of activity cut out for them, from which men were debarred just as much as they were debarred from joining his hunting expeditions.

Family life as we know it came into existence only much later, when people settled down on the land. It owes its origin to the fact that the house had become an economic point, and that the ties of clanship lost steadily in importance. This, by the way, disposes of the argument that the family is the “cell” of the social group. The contrary is true. The family evolved out of a bigger group, it appeared comparatively late, and social groups have been able to get along without it for a very long spell of time.

No Old Maids Then.

Well, when the family, in our sense of the word, did come into existence, the place of the wife was again determined by inexorable necessities. And this meant, at that time, that the social position of women in general was so determined, for practically all of them were wives, a spinster being just as exceptional a phenomenon as a bachelor then was. They were, indeed, most unhappy exceptions, because married life was then the necessary basis of everything outside the walls of a convent. In their homes wives were supreme rulers.

They managed the whole of all those industrial functions which the rural household of the Middle Ages implied. They did what manufacturers and tradesmen do for them today.

Needless to say, those conditions have passed away or are passing away, and they will never return. What I have called their industrial function has been taken away from women and has been reduced, or is being reduced, to fussing about menus, table decorations, and similar problems. The peasant’s wife is happier in this respect, for she still lives, to some extent, under those old conditions. The laborer’s wife has never had much of a home. But all these women who have not got to go out to work now offer the most tragic case of unemployment ever witnessed, with all its effects on happiness and character.

Suffrage Bound to Come.

Whatever our works and ideals, it is absurd to call the women’s movement a whim, which will pass, provided only it is not taken seriously and provided its symptoms are sternly put down. It is a movement which it may be possible to guide, but which it is imperative to guide only toward its goal, for it will get there, anyway. Let us apply this to the particular question of suffrage, which is only one element of the much broader problem I have been speaking about and a comparatively insignificant one. Yet it is a step on a long road—a step which is absolutely unavoidable. The more men fight the suffrage the better the cause will prosper. All the resistance is good for is to show the power of the trend of things and to make the victory—which is sure to come—the more significant and dramatic.

 

Source:  The Washington Post, 22 March 1914. Copy in the on-line Schumpeter Archive.

Image Source: Josef Schumpeter portrait.  Austrian National Library. Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung.

Categories
Columbia Economists Methodology New School

Columbia. Wesley Clair Mitchell’s remarks at Conference on Methods in Philosophy and the Sciences, 1937

 

In brief remarks intended to give non-economists a sense of the major methodological schools of economics at a 1937 conference at the New School for Social Research, Columbia professor Wesley Clair Mitchell distinguishes (i) orthodox economics dedicated to the understanding of the “pecuniary logic” of an agent within a capitalist market environment, (ii) institutional economics dedicated to the understanding of the evolution of economic organization, and (iii) a new, yet unnamed, type of economic theory that is clearly recognizable as being “behavioral economics”.

____________________

Conference Program

CONFERENCE ON METHODS IN PHILOSOPHY AND THE SCIENCES

New School for Social Research
66 West 12th Street
New York City, N.Y.

Saturday, May 22 and Sunday, May 23, 1937

PROGRAM

Saturday, May 22

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

9:30 A.M. – 11:00 A.M – Registration, Room 24, Fee – $1.00

11:00 A.M. – 1:00 P.M. – First Session – Room 25

Chairman:  H. M. Kallen
Sidney Hook: The Current Philosophical Scene
John Dewey: A Possible Program for Libertarians and Experimentalists

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

2:30 – 4:00 P:M: – Second Session – Room 25

Brief statements on various departments of philosophy and the sciences: Their assumptions, methods, histories of the different schools, etc.

Ernest Nagel: The Position in LOGIC and METHODOLOGY
W.M. Malisoff: The Position in the PHYSICAL SCIENCES

DISCUSSION

4:00 – 5:30 P.M. – Second Session Continued – Room 25

S. E. Asch: The Position in PSYCHOLOGY
Wesley C. Mitchell: The Position in ECONOMICS

DISCUSSION

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

7:00 P.M. – DINNER, Gene’s 71 West 11th Street

Speakers: Bacchus, Dionysus, the Holy and other Spirits.
Appointment of Committees

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

Sunday, May 23

10:00 A.M. – 12 M. – Third Session, Room 25

Julius Lips: The Position in ANTHROPOLOGY
Meyer Schapiro: The Position in AESTHETICS
R. M. MacIver: The Position in SOCIOLOGY

DISCUSSION

12M. – 1:00 P.M. – Business Meeting

Election of Officers
Appointment of Permanent Committees
Unfinished Business
Adjournment

 

____________________

Handwritten Remark by Wesley Clair Mitchell
Economics

 

Conference on Methods in Philosophy and the Social Sciences

New School
May 22, 1937

Economics like Philosophy and the other Social Sciences is still in the stage of development marked by the existence of fairly distinct schools of thought, or as I like better to say Types of Theory.

These schools differ in method. But these differences in method arise from differences in the problems which are taken as the central concern of economics.

 

Orthodox economics concerns itself primarily with what I like to call pecuniary logic — what it is to the economic advantage of men to do under a capitalistic organization — and the ‘purer’ this theory becomes the more exclusive concentration on that problem becomes.

In dealing with pecuniary logic, the investigator employs the method of imaginary experimentation. That is, he sets up certain assumptions and seeks to think out what it is to the interest of men to do under the conditions supposed.

The theory is developed by varying these assumptions with reference to such matters as the factors in theory set which are allowed to change the length of the period considered in the problem, the degree of competition supposed, elasticities of demand, relations between unit costs and volume of output.

How far the conclusions apply to the actual world depends upon the character of the assumptions made. The correspondence between these assumptions and actual conditions is seldom investigated.

Hence the doubts about this type of theory are usually doubts, not about the correctness of the reasoning, but about how far they apply to the facts we wish to understand. May have uncertain ‘operational significance’.  Defence.—tool makers. Question about applicability not relevant.

This description applies less strictly to Marshall than to many of his pupils, to the later Austrians, and to mathematical economists.

 

Institutional economics concerns itself primarily with the evolution of economic organization.

To Veblen this meant study of the widely prevalent habits of thought.

To Commons it means study of social controls over induced action—primarily through the courts.

Methods employed combine ethnology or historical research with reasoning about how men with a certain set of habits ingrained in them by the social environment in which they have grown up and by the work they do will behave or how the social controls over induced behavior may be expected to work out.

Again there may be doubts about how far the reasoning concerning economic behavior applies to actual conditions.

 

A third type of economics seems to be developing though not represented as yet by systematic theoretical treatises.

It endeavors to learn by analytic studies of actual behavior how men conduct themselves. Its methods are closer kin to those of animal psychologists than to those of introspective psychologists.

Though these men show no reluctance to account for their observations by supposing that their subjects know the rules of the money-making and money-spending games. Here they go beyond outlook[?] of physical science— Supposes men have purposes: that they plan for future .

Large use of the mass observations afforded by statistics

Considerable emphasis upon method[?] analysis of these records.

Not confined to statistics.

Doubts here concern representative value [or volume?] of the data

Trustworthiness of the mathematical analysis.

Extent to which factors that are not recorded statistically may modify conclusions drawn. Work of this sort is primarily monographic. Since social phenomena are interdependent, the question concerning what is left out is highly important

Can’t be applied well except when mass observations are available.

Promises to develop in future because statistical observation is covering a wider range.

Danger of ‘mere fact finding’ Dewey. Yes, but the facts may have deep ‘operational’ significance. Relation to questions of policy.

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. W. C. Mitchell Collection. Box 3, Folder “5/22/37 A”.

Image Source: Wesley Clair Mitchell from Albert Arnold Sprague’s and Claudia C. Milstead’s Genealogical Website.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Syllabus and final exam for National Income and its Distribution. Conrad, 1958

 

 

For this post I have transcribed the syllabus with reading assignments together with the final exam questions for Alfred H. Conrad’s undergraduate semester course, “National Income and its Distribution,” taught at Harvard during the 1958-59 academic year. As utterly important as the national income accounts have proven themselves to be, the data from these accounts are generally just taken for granted by the overwhelming majority of economists and woe be the instructor who tries to introduce such material in more than one or two sessions in their macroeconomics course. But I have always liked the stuff and so this course enters the Economics in the Rear-view Mirror collection.

While I can recall having heard of his pioneering econometric work on American slavery with John R. Meyer in an American economic history course I took many decades ago at Yale, I really knew nothing about Conrad’s career, other work, or his personal life. The biographical data from the members’ survey of the American Economic Association are undoubtedly the truth, but not the whole truth, which is why I have provided the link to his New York Times obituary and a story about his wife, the poet Adrienne Rich. Suicide sadly cut his career short but I am happy to enter these few artifacts into the historical record in his memory.

_______________

On Alfred H. Conrad and his wife, poet, Adrienne Rich

New York Times obituary for Alfred H. Conrad: October 20, 1970.

The Guardian article “Poet and Pioneer” by John O’Mahoney (15 June 2002) that provides a review of the work of Conrad’s wife, the poet Adrienne Rich, with a dozen paragraphs about their lives together.

_______________

American Economic Association
Member Biographic Entry, 1969

CONRAD, Alfred Haskell, academic; b. New York City, 1924; A.B., Harvard, 1947, M.A., 1949, Ph,D., 1954.

DOC. DIS. The Redistribution of Income and the Matrix Multiplier, 1953.

FIELDS 2ab, 3ab, Ic.

PUB. The Economics of Slavery and other studies in econometric history (with John R. Meyer), 1964; The Impact of Education and Research on Efficiency in CES Production Relations (with Murray Brown), 1967; Econometric Models and Development Planning, 1968.

RES. The Diffusion of Technological Innovations.

Asst. prof., Northwestern, 1955-56; asst. prof. econ., Harvard, high, 1956-59, mem. sr. research staff, Econ. Research Project, 1952-59, lectr. bus. adm., 1959-61, asso. prof. bus. adm., Grad. Sch., 1962-66; vis. prof., Netherlands Sch. Econ., 1961-62; prof. econs., City Coll., City U. of New York since 1966, exec. officer of Grad. Program since 1969.

Source: American Economic Association. Biographical Listings of Members. The American Economic Review, Vol. 59, No. 6, 1969. Handbook of the American Economic Association (Jan., 1970), p. 84.

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Course Description

Economics 124. National Income and its Distribution

Half course (fall term). M., W., F., at 10. Assistant Professor Conrad.

Measurement of national income and income inequality; theories of distribution among factors and individuals; factor-shares and inequality in a general equilibrium explanation; inequality and growth in mature and in underdeveloped economies; government redistribution; testing the hypotheses.

Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. LV, No. 24 (November 28, 1958), General Catalogue Issue, 1958-1959, p. 123.

_______________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 124. National Income and its Distribution. Assistant Professor Conrad. Half course (Fall).

Total, 12: 3 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1958-59. Page 71.

_______________

Economics 124
NATIONAL INCOME AND ITS DISTRIBUTION
Fall, 1958

  1. National Income and Social Accounting.
    1. Introduction; conceptual framework for income accounting.

The definition and measurement of national income. Income inequality, growth, and ethical norms. The production accounts of the firm and the income accounts of the economy.

Readings:

Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution, Kuznets, “National Income,” pp. 3-33.
Ruggles and Ruggles, National Income Accounts and Income Analysis, Chs. 1-4, pp. 3-68.
Hicks, Hart, and Ford, Social Framework of the American Economy, Chs. 16, 17, pp. 209-234.

    1. The construction of the national income accounts.

The problems of valuation and aggregation.

Readings:

Ruggles and Ruggles, Chs. 5-8, pp. 69-186.
U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Income, 1954 Edition, pp. 30-60, 160-165.
Hicks, Hart, and Ford, Ch. 15, pp. 198-208.

    1. Two special problems.

Maintaining capital intact.
The product of government.

Readings:

Hicks, Hart, and Ford, Ch. 10 and Appendix Note C, pp. 117-130, 296-300, and Ch. 13, pp. 173-185.

Reference:

Income and Wealth, Series I, ed. E. Lundberg, “Government Product and National Income” (Kuznets), pp. 178-245.

    1. A review of aggregate income trends and analysis.

Readings:

Ruggles and Ruggles, Chs. 10-12, pp. 213-303.
Income and Wealth, Series II, ed. S. Kuznets, “Long-Term Changes in the National Income of the United States Since 1870” (Kuznets), pp. 29-241. This study should be read by the time we reach section 8, below—not later than November 14.

  1. The Theory of Income Distribution.
    1. Introduction; income distribution in economic analysis.

Readings:

Readings, J. M. Clark, “Distribution,” pp. 58-71.
M. A. Copeland, “Social and Economic Determinants of the Distribution of Income,” AER, March 1947, pp. 56-75.

    1. The distribution of the product among the factors of production.

The classical descriptions and Marx.
The marginalists.
Market position and monopoly; the effectiveness of unions.
General equilibrium and employment theories.

Readings:

Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy, Chs. 4, 5, 6, pp. 88-127 (Sraffa edition).
Sweezy, Theory of Capitalist Development, Chs. 4, 5, pp. 56-95.
Hicks, Theory of Wages, Chs. 1-5, pp. 1-111.
The Impact of the Union (ed. Wright), Samuelson, Ch. 15, pp. 312-342, and Friedman, Ch. 10, pp. 204-234.
Readings, R.A. Gordon, “Enterprise, Profits, and the Modern Corporation,” pp. 558-570.
L. C. Reynolds, “Impact of Collective Bargaining on Wage Structure,” Theory of Wage Determination, ed. J. T. Dunlop, pp. 194-221.

Reference:

Dalton, The Inequality of Incomes, esp. Parts II and III.
Douglas, Theory of Wages, esp. Part I and Ch. 8.
Wootton, The Social Foundations of Wage Policy.
Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution.

    1. The distribution of income among individuals.

The possession of skills and property.
Normal curves, Pareto’s Law, and chance.

Readings:

Studies in Income and Wealth, Volume XV, Garvy, “Inequality of Income; Causes and Measurement,” pp. 25-47.
A. D. Roy, “The Distribution of Earnings and of Individual Output,” Econ Journal, Sept. 1950, pp. 489-505.
A. D. Roy, “Some Thoughts on the Distribution of Earnings,” Oxford Econ Papers, 1951, pp. 135-

Reference:

Dalton, Part IV.

    1. The data on functional and personal distribution of income in the U.S.

Readings:

D. G. Johnson, “Functional Distribution of Income in the U.S.,” RES, May 1954, pp. 175-183.
G. H. Moore, “Secular Changes in the Distribution of Income,” AER, Papers and Proceedings, May 1952, pp. 527-544.
E. F. Denison, “Income Types and the Size Distribution,” AER, Papers and Proceedings, May 1954, pp. 254-269.
S. Goldsmith, et al, “Size Distribution of Income since the Mid-Thirties,” RES, February 1954, pp. 1-32.
H. Miller, Income of the American People, Chs. 3, 8, 9, pp. 16-33, 97-123.

References:

U. S. Dept. of Commerce, Income Distribution in the United States, Washington, 1953.
Kuznets, Shares of Upper Income Groups in Income and Savings.
M. J. Bowman, “A Graphical Analysis of Personal Income Distribution in the United States,” Readings, pp. 72-99.

III. [No section title]

    1. Income Inequality and Growth

Income, consumption and investment.
Technical change, capital formation, and income shares.
Income shares and industrial structure.

Readings:

Baumol, Economic Dynamics, Chs. 2, 3, pp. 11-35.
Duesenberry, “Income-Consumption Relations and their Implications,” in Income, Employment, and Public Policy, pp. 54-81.
Kurihara, “Distribution, Employment, and Secular Growth,” in Post-Keynesian Economics, Ch. 10, pp 251-273.
Kuznets, “Economic Growth and Income Inequality,” AER, March 1955, pp. 1-28.
Hicks, Theory of Wages, Ch. 6, pp. 112-135.
E. H. Phelps-Brown, “The Long-Term Movement of Real Wages,” in Theory of Wage Determination, ed. J. T. Dunlop, pp. 48-65.

Reference:

F. A. Hanna, “Contribution of Manufacturing Wages to Regional Differences in Per-Capita Income,” RES, February 1951.

    1. Inflation and Income Inequality.

Readings:

Keynes, “Social Consequences of Changes in the Value of Money,” Essays in Persuasion, pp. 80-104.
Bach and Ando, “Redistributional Effects of Inflation,” RES, February 1957, pp. 1-13.

Reference:

D. Seers, Changes in the Cost of Living and the Distribution of Income, Oxford, 1949.
Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Low-Income Families and Economic Stability, 1949.

    1. The State and the Distribution.

Who pays the taxes?
Redistribution through public expenditures.

Readings:

Conrad, “Redistribution through Government Budgets in the U.S.,” in Income Redistribution and Public Policy, pp. 178-267.
Conrad, “On the Calculation of Tax Burdens,” Economica, November 1955, pp. 342-348.

    1. Conclusion.

Readings:

Kuznets, in Studies in Income and Wealth, Volume XV, pp. 203-213.
Tinbergen, “Welfare Economics and Income Distribution,” AER, Papers and Proceedings, May 1957, pp. 490-503.

Reference:

Lampman, “Recent Thoughts on Egalitarianism,” QJE, May 1957, pp. 234-266.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 7. Folder “Economics, 1958-1959 (1 of 2)”.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 124
FINAL EXAMINATION
January 16, 1959

Answer Question 1 and any four others.

  1. (a) or (b):

(a) The Council of Economic Advisers, in their report to the President in January, 1953, stated:

“…the preferable general formula—once wages, prices and profits are in a workable relationship—is for money wages to increase with productivity trends in the whole economy.”

Discuss this suggestion in the light of your reading period assignment, bringing in relevant recent data on the effect of inflation upon factor shares to illustrate your argument.

(b) Describe briefly the law of proportional effect and discuss its application to the income generating process. Be careful to consider the economic relevance of the conditions and results of the statistical model.

  1. Describe the tendencies toward a falling rate of profit in (1) the “classical”, (2) the Marxian, and (3) neo-classical description of capital accumulation. How would the possibility of technological change affect this tendency?
  2. Who are the poor in the post-World War II United States?
  3. You are hired as a technical expert on national income accounts to advise a country in which economists, among other basic resources, are in short supply. In detail, discuss the statistics you will need to answer the following questions: (1) who saves? (2) what has been the trend the savings/income ratio?
  4. “One might thus assume a long swing in the inequality characterizing the secular income structure: widening in the early phases of economic growth when the transition from the pre-industrial to the industrial civilization was most rapid; becoming stabilized for awhile; and then narrowing in the later phases.” Write a concise explanation, in outline form if you like, for the declining inequality suggested here.
  5. How would you reconcile the marginal productivity theory of wages (as presented, say, by Hicks) with the collective bargaining explanation of Lloyd Reynolds or the inertia-displacement theory of Phelps Brown? You may include in your argument any other readings that seem to be relevant.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Social Sciences. Final Examinations, January 1959. (HUC7000.28, 122 of 284). Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, Government, Economics, …, Naval Science, Air Science. January, 1959.

Image Source: Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Fellows page for Alfred Haskell Conrad.

Categories
Funny Business Harvard

Harvard. ‘Twas a Night in the Sixties. Poem by Martin Feldstein, 1980

1997 Feldstein
(Cambridge, MA - March 9, 1997) Faculty portrait of Professor Martin Feldstein. Staff Photo Mary Lee/Harvard University News Office.

 

‘Tis the Season to be Jolly so it is time to share this 39-year old economics parody composed, and one imagines performed, by Harvard Professor, Reagan economics adviser, and long-time president of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Martin Feldstein (1939-2019).

I have inserted first or last names between square brackets for the benefit of any non-economist or young economist (Boomer says, “You’re Welcome”) that has somehow landed on this page. 

__________________

‘Twas a Night in the Sixties
by Martin Feldstein

Cambridge, Massachusetts
December 1980

‘Twas a night in the sixties
And all through the land
Unemployment was falling
Inflation at hand.

The stock market was rising,
Without any care,
In hopes a Dow thousand
Soon would be there.

The Keynesians were snuggled
Secure in their Chairs,
While visions of multipliers
Allayed all their cares.

Paul [Samuelson] with his textbook
And Art [Okun] with his gap
Had settled their brains
For a long postwar nap.

When out in the land
There arose such a clatter,
A voice that was crying
That money could matter.

Away from their desks
They flew in a flash
To see who was claiming
Such power for cash.

They looked at their models
With equations precise,
That gave semblance of proof
To conclusions so nice.

When what to their wondering
Eyes should appear
But a miniature sleigh
With eight tiny reindeer

With a little old driver
Who was having such fun
They knew in a moment
It must be Milton [Friedman]

More numerous than eagles
His supporters they came
And he whistled and shouted
And called them by name.

First John [sic, Jean-Baptiste] Say and then [David] Hume
Then [Alfred] Marshall and [John Stuart] Mill,
Now [Karl] Brunner and [Alan] Meltzer
And Anna [Schwartz] and Phil [Cagan].

From the U. of Chicago
To Minneapolis-St. Paul
Then dash away! Dash away!
Dash away all!

As economic theories with which economists play
When they meet with an obstacle
Assume it away,

So off to the journals,
Their papers they flew,
With monetarist theorems,
Rational expectations too.

And even in Cambridge
Was heard the new truth,
The theorems and lemmas
Of each little proof.

The Keynesian thinkers
Were spinning around
When onto the scene,
Milton came with a bound.

He was dressed all in gold
From his head to his foot
And his ideas were polished
And ready to put.

“Velocity’s stable,
M1 and M2,
Which shows what the Fed
Shouldn’t be trying to do.”

“That curve by Phillips
It really is straight
And the cost of funds
Is the real interest rate.”

He wrote many a word,
And with evidence too.
At the NBER
His volumes they grew.

His ideas how simple.
He puts them so well.
It would be no wonder
When he got his Nobel.

A wink of his eye
And a nod of his head
Soon gave Keynesians to know
They had something to dread.

Then turning his talents
To the writing of prose
TV and best seller
He did with wife Rose.

Then he sprang to his sleigh
To his team gave a whistle
And away they all flew
Like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim
As he drove out of sight,
“Keep freedom for all,
and keep money tight.”

Source: Ancient, analogue copy found in Irwin Collier’s personal papers.

Image Source: Faculty portrait of Martin Feldstein in 1997 in The Harvard Gazette, June 13, 2019.

Categories
Columbia Suggested Reading Syllabus

Columbia. New Seminar. Outline with readings, Economic Theory and Change. Mitchell and Ginzberg, 1937

 

Wesley Clair Mitchell left voluminous course lecture notes found with his other papers at the Columbia University Archives. On the whole his notes are very neatly written by hand so that any typed pages among his lecture notes immediately catch the attention of the tired eyes of this archival junkie working the boxes. My presumption was that this typed material was probably someone else’s work and the pencilled “Eli Ginzberg” on one of the course outlines provided an obvious lead. Ginzberg received his Ph.D. from Columbia in 1934 and held the rank of Lecturer in economics at Columbia at the time of this course. Chapter 2 (“The Education of an Economist”) in his book The Skeptical Economist (1987) provides the necessary back-story for the course materials transcribed for this post.

From Mitchell’s notes to the first session from the Winter session of the course in 1937-38, we learn that a dress rehearsal was held as a seminar during the Spring 1937 course for which we have the following list of participants. Definitely worth noting is that William Vickrey and Anna Jacobson Schwartz participated in that preliminary seminar.

____________________

Handwritten: Economics Seminar. March-May 1937
(Signatures of student participants. Note: “not complete”)

William Vickrey, Ruth Cleve [?], Pauline Arkus, Anna Jacobson [Note: this is Milton Friedman’s collaborator Anna Schwartz], [First name illegible] Louise Boggen, Konrad Bekker, Mark S. Massel, Eileen M. Conly, John I. Griffin, Alan Pope, Bela Gold, Burnham P. Beckwith, Herman Zap, Moore

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “3-5/37 A”.

____________________

Origin of the seminar

“In 1932-1933, a group of us brought about the first change in the curriculum: We persuaded Mitchell, Clark, and Angell to offer a seminar on economic theory. In the mid-1930s, when I had begun to teach as an assistant in the School of Business, I was instrumental in establishing several further reforms, largely through persuading its dean, Roswell C. McCrea, who also served as chairman of the Economics Department, to do the following: to reduce the number of subjects on which doctoral candidates were examined from seven to six, to invite Milton Friedman to give a course on ‘Neoclassical Economics,’ to have Wesley Mitchell substitute for his lectures on ‘Current Types of Economic Theory’ a new seminar on ‘Economic Theory and Economic Change,’ in which I would serve as his assistant. Furthermore, McCrea obtained the consent of the Committee on Instruction in the School of Business for me to offer a new course on ‘Economics and Group Behavior,’ which was cross-listed in the Department of Economics’ offerings. This was probably the first course in what later became known as ‘human resources.’”

 

Source: Eli Ginzberg, The Skeptical Economist (Westview Press, 1987), p. 16.

____________________

Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy
From Mitchell’s handwritten notes for the first meeting
Sept. 28, 1937

An experimental course. 1st time given, aside from a brief trial run in seminar last spring.
Title not felicitous: perhaps it will prove not very accurate. Explanation of view[?] called for.

Past 2 generations have seen vigorous development of three or four different approaches to study of economic behavior.

Economic theory of several types ranging from mathematical economics on one flank to institutional economics on other flank.

Economic history of recent and more remote past

Economic statistics have multiplied in the leading commercial nations and technique of using them has been improved.

Relation of these approaches to one another

Difficult to find investigation in which one approach only is used.

Economic theorist seldom disregards wholly the historical setting of his problem, or quantitative importance of its components. Whether they recognize it or not, these factors count in their thinking.

Economic historians and statisticians cannot dispense wholly with qualitative analysis.

Their selection and arrangement of materials imply classification: they take materials that are pertinent and pass on others that are not. What is pertinent in their judgment is decided whether they realize it or not, by the organization of their ideas.

Can find many investigations in which an attempt is made to use all three approaches

Schmoller’s Allgemeine Vokswirtschaftslehre, Webbs’ History of British T. U.‘s and Industrial Democracy.Marshall’s Industry and Trade. Cassel’s Social Economics. Keynes‘ Theory of Money, Pigou’s Industrial Fluctuations, Sombart’s Moderne Kapitalismus. A brilliant older example Marx’s Capital; indeed Wealth of Nations except that Adam Smith had a poor opinion of ‘political arithmetic’.

 

But, to a large extent, the theoretical, historical, and statistical approaches have been developed by three groups of workers

Each of whom is especially adept in one approach and makes incidental rather than systematic and thorough use of the other approaches

And there are

Economic theorists
Economic historians
Economic statisticians

who seem not to realize the extent to which their thinking is influenced by elements derived from the other approaches.

In general we cannot claim that the three approaches have been perfectly blended

Schmoller a particularly good example because he tried as hard to use all three. He knew certain phases of economic history well: but not all the phases on which he touched. He was a slovenly theorist and a gullible statistician.

Hence one of the great tasks before the generation of economists to whom members of this class belong is to utilize the knowledge of economic processes provided by the 3 approaches more effectively than their predecessors have done.

Primary aim of the course is to aid in that effort.

Method is to take up certain economic processes that have been studied for both the theoretical angles and for the historical or statistical angles or for both and to inquire whether the realistic approaches call for modification of the theoretical analyses: quite as much

Whether the theoretical approach calls for modification of the realistic investigations.

How much we can get out of this experiment for the improvement of our own investigations remains to be seen.

Will depend not only upon the industry with which we are ready to devote to study of the materials assigned but also upon the ability to think we are able to develop.

 

Mode of conducting course

Dr. G. and I will select problems, at least at beginning, and assign readings. Members of class will present reports to the class Written or oral. Discussion in class.

As work goes on we may well turn up problems of which Dr. Ginzberg and I have not thought in advance.

Interest of the meetings and value of the work are necessarily conditioned by the clarity of the reports made by the members of the group.

Please try hard to get your notes[?] well organized and lucidly presented. So well presented that other members who listen once only can understand and expect questions of others as you present reports.

So much for the general aims of the course and how it will be conducted. Begin work with an attempt to characterize broadly the conceptions of economic change that are held by investigators.

Or rather, what types of movements occur in economic life.

 

1st assignment

Let each member of class consult one or more of the statistical treatises that deal with time-series analysis to find out what types of movements are recognized.

What is basis of classification used? In what are these movements all alike? In what do the types differ? Are all of these types recognized by economic theory? For what types do economic theorists offer explanations? What relation if any do the movements of the statisticians bear to the ‘disturbing circumstances’ of economic theory and to the movements by which economic equilibrium is restored after a disturbance, and maintained in the absence of further disturbances (equilibrating movements)? Are the criteria used by economic statisticians in classifying movement like those used by time-series analysts? Can we expect inductive testing of economic laws?

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “9/28/37 A”.

____________________

Handwritten draft of course announcement

December 19, 1936
Announced for 1936-37

Cumulative Changes in Economic Processes

A critical survey of realistic studies of population growth, natural resources, occupations, capacity to produce, standards of living, national income and its distribution, ownership of property, business organization and methods, labor conditions, capital accumulation, the role played by government in economic affairs, and national planning, accompanied by study of the relations of the findings to economic theory.

Readings, reports and class discussions. Limited to twenty students. Admission by permission of the instructor.

2 hours a week, both semesters.
4-6 Thursdays.

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “12/19/36 A”.

____________________

Course Announcement
1937-38

Economics 201-202—Secular and structural changes in a modern economy.  3 points each session. Professor Mitchell with the assistance of Dr. Ginzberg.

Tu., 4:10-6. 102 Low.

The theoretical, institutional, historical, and statistical approaches to the study of economic changes. Critical survey of investigations into recent changes in important factors. Relations of the findings to current economic theory.
Readings, reports, and class discussions.
Admission only with permission of the instructor.

Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information (July 23, 1938). Courses offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions, 1937-1938, p. 30.

____________________

Course Announcement
1938-39

Economics 201-202—Economic changes and economic theory.  3 points each session. Professor Mitchell assisted by Dr. Ginzberg.

Tu., 4:10-6. 502 Business.

The theoretical, institutional, historical, and statistical approaches to the study of economic changes. Critical survey of investigations into recent changes in important factors. Relations of the findings to current economic theory. Readings, reports, and class discussions.

Admission only with permission of the instructor.

Source: Columbia University. Bulletin of Information (July 23, 1938). Courses offered by the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions, 1938-1939, p. 31.

____________________

Jan. 14, 1937

TENTATIVE OUTLINE FOR COURSE ON CUMULATIVE CHANGES IN ECONOMIC PROCESSES

Introduction: The theoretical, the historical, and the statistical approaches to the study of Economic Changes.

  1. The concepts of economic ‘statics’ and economic ‘dynamics’ in the work of J. S. Mill, Marx, J. B. Clark, Alfred Marshall, Gustav Cassel.
    What ‘dynamic’ problems are treated by these writers? How far does the treatment build upon ‘static’ theory?
    Theoretical treatment of cumulative changes in institutions by Marx, Veblen and Commons.
  2. Historical accounts of economic changes.
    What ‘explanations’ are given of significant changes by such writers as Ashley, Schmoller, the Webbs, Sombart, Clapham?
  3. Time-series analysis
    Types of changes commonly recognized: seasonal variations, random perturbations, cyclical fluctuations, secular trends.
    The problem of ‘long cycles’. Kondratieff, Simiand, Kuznets, Burns.
    The problem of structural changes.
    What types of these changes have been explained theoretically?
    What relations have these explanations to economic theory at large?
    What relations exist between secular, cyclical, random, seasonal and structural changes?
  4. Relations among the three approaches
    The injunction to combine causal analysis with statistical description.
    Dangers of statistical work not guided by theoretical concepts.
    Dangers of theoretical speculation not checked by statistical observation
    Difficulties in fusing the two approaches
    Causal analysis of problems in which many variables are interrelated, and in which effects become causes in a process of cumulative change
    The theoretical uses of history.
    The historical applications of theory.
    Statistics and history.

Classification of investigations available for the study of economic changes

  1. Studies of recognized types of economic changes
    The abundant literature upon business cycles
    A few studies of seasonal variations
    A few studies of secular trends and of long cycles
    No systematic literature upon random perturbations; but many casual references in books on business cycles.
    Many studies of structural changes, particularly those produced by legislations—for example, the Independent Treasury system, tariff acts, etc. Also numberless discussions under next heading.
  2. Studies of changes in single economic factors
    A vast literature is available upon such subjects as
    Growth of population and its geographical distribution
    Developments of the arts of production: histories of industries
    Natural resources of different districts; their exploitation; problems of conservation
    Changes in business organization: rise of corporations, different forms of corporate organization, banking systems; histories of particular business enterprises, and so on.
    Organization of labor
    Shifting importance of agriculture, transportation, manufactures, trade, finance in the national economy.
    Changes in economic relations among nations:: commercial policies, international investments, shifts from debtor to creditor position.
    Changes in the system of prices: their relations to monetary laws and practices; the relative importance of competitive versus regulated prices, private versus public regulation; the degree of flexibility in prices
    Changes in standards of living
  3. Economic changes during certain periods
    Most of the books on economic history might be listed here, in so far as they do not belong under previous heading.
    Also a few studies primarily statistical in character, such as
    Recent Economic changes
    Recent Social Trends
    Social England—Booth’s survey and the recent many-volume study.
    Mills’ Economic Tendencies in the U.S.
  4. Work to be undertaken by the members of the course
    To read critically and report upon significant studies of recent economic changes.
    Avoid so far as feasible the subjects that are treated elaborately in other courses, for example money and banking, labor problems, business cycles, public utilities.
    Stress the effort to grasp the inter-relations among the changes studied.
    In each case consider in how far the changes are or can be ‘explained’, and what relation these explanations have or should have to economic ‘theory’.

Among the books to be consider for assignment the following are possibilities:

W. S. Thompson and P. K. Whelfton, Population Trends in the U.S. N.Y. 1933
R. D. McKenzie, The Metropolitan Community, N.Y., 1933
Carter Goodrich and others, Migration and Economic Opportunity, Philadelphia, 1936
Wyand, Economics of Consumption, N.Y., 1937
C. C. Chapman, Development of American Business and Banking Thought, 1913-1936. New York, 1937
Twentieth Century Fund, Big Business: Its Growth and its Place. N.Y., 1937
A. A. Berle and G. C. Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, N.Y., 1932
A. R. Burns, The Decline of Competition, N.Y., 1936
R. C. Epstein, Industrial Profits in the U.S., N.Y., 1934
Harry Jerome, Mechanization in Industry, N.Y., 1934
F. C. Mills, Prices in Recession and Recovery, N.Y., 1936
‘The Brookings Study’, Washington, 1934 and 1935

America’s Capacity to Produce
America’s Capacity to Consume
The Formation of Capital
Income and Economic Progress

H. G. Moulton and Associates, The American Transportation Problem, Washington, 1933
National Resources Board, Report December 1, 1934, Washington 1934.
W. I. King, The National Income and Its Purchasing Power, N.Y., 1930
(S. Kuznets), National Income, 1929-32, Washington, 1934
Our Natural Resources and their Conservation, A symposium edited by A. E. Parkins and J.R. Whitaker. N.Y., John Wiley & Sons, 1936
A. F. Burns, Production Trends in the U.S. Since 1870. N.Y. 1934. See review by F. A. Fetter JPE Feb. 1937
W. Sombart, Hochkapitalismus
W. H. Lough, High-Level Consumption, N.Y., 1935
W. V. Bingham. Aptitudes and Aptitude Testing, N.Y., 1937.

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “1/14/37 A”.

____________________

[Handwritten note at top of page: “Eli Ginzberg Jan 18 1937”]

CUMULATIVE CHANGES IN A MODERN ECONOMY

Introduction

  1. The Method of the Classicists

Ricardo—Chapter I ff.
Marshall—Book V

Supplementary:

Knight—Introduction to Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit—2d ed.
Ibid—The Ethics of Competition and Other Essays
Robbins—Nature and Significance of Economic Science
Clark, J. M. Preface to Social Economics (the essay on “Statics and Dynamics”)
Moore, H.L.—
Hotelling, H.—

  1. Historical-Statistical Approach

(a) Case study of: Industrial Revolution

Toynbee
Hammonds
Webbs
Lipson
Clapham

Supplementary: see

Mantoux—
Nef—in Economic History Review.
Reconstructions, in Economic History Review

(b) Case study of: Profits and Wages in the United States

    1. Profits

Epstein
Patten
Mills

Supplementary:

Knight—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences—article on Profits
Knight—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences—article on Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit
Reports of the S.E.C.
Senate Committee on Foreign Bonds

    1. Wages

Douglas—Recent Economic Changes
Wolman, L.—R.E.C. and 3 Bulletins Bureau of Labor Statistics

Supplementary:

Douglas—Theory of Wages
Beveridge—Unemployment
Clay, H.—Essays in Industrial Relations

  1. Institutional-Theoretical

Marx—Communist Manifesto
Ibid.—Capital—vol. I
Veblen—Theory of Business Enterprise
Mitchell—Business Cycles
Clark, J.M.—Economics of Overhead Costs

Supplementary:

Souter-Prolegomena to Relativity Economics
Hamilton—Encyclopedia of the Social sciences Article on “Competition”
Knight—Ethics of Competition, etc.
Clark, J. M.—Preface to Social Economics
American Economic Association—Round Tables

  1. Conclusion: Methodology

Cohen—Reason and Nature
Weber, Max—Wissenschaftslehre
Whitehead—Adventure in Ideas
Simkhovitch—Approaches
Sombart—Drei Nationalökomien
Carnap—Unity of Science
MacIver—Harvard Lecture

 

PART I—Cumulative Changes in Economic Institutions

(General aim to study changes in degree and kind in the institutional setting explicit and implicit in neo-classicists; to gauge interrelations in these changes).

  1. The Large Corporation

Berle and Means—The Modern Corporation
Twentieth Century Fund: Big Business
A. R. Burns—Decline of Competition

Supplementary:

Commons—Legal Foundations of Capitalism
Holmes, O. W.—Representative Opinion
Brandeis, L.—Social and Economic Views
Hamilton, W.—Industries affected with the Public Interest
Clark, J. M.—Social Control of Business
Handler—Trade Regulation

  1. The Credit System

Annual Reports of Federal Reserve Board
Moulton—The Formation of Capital
Brookings—The Recovery of Business
Hardy—Credit Policies of the F. R. S.
Keynes—The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
Angell—The Behavior of Money
Reports of Senate Sub-committee on Banking
Reports of Senate Committee on S. E. C.
Reports of Senate Committee on Foreign Bonds
Clark, J. M.—Economic of Planning Public Works
Chapman, C. C.—American Business and Banking Thought
Currie, L.—The Supply of Money

Supplementary:

Articles in Economic Journal, Q.J.E., S.[sic, J.?] of P. E.

  1. The Problem of Consumption

(a) Numbers

Thompson and Whelfton—Population Trend
McKenzie—Metropolitan Community
Goodrich—Migration and Economic Opportunity
Recent Social Trends

(b) Psychology

Veblen—The Theory of the Leisure Class
Hearings on Pure Foods Drug Act
Reports of Federal Trade Commission
Bulletins of Consumers Research
Schlink—
Chase, Stuart—

(c) Economics—

Brookings—America’s Capacity to Consumer
Brookings—Income and Economic Progress
Wyand—Economics of Consumption
Recent Social Trends
Seligman—Installment Selling
Keynes—Appendix to General Theory

 

PART II—Cumulative Changes in the Short-Run

(Contrast with equilibrium approach of neo-classicists).

Case Study: Post-War Expansion

  1. The automobile: building and new industries

(a) Source of capital
(b) Entrepreneurs’ expectations
(c) Exploitation of demand

  1. Secondary Results: Structural Changes

(a) Relocation of Industry
(b) Urbanization—suburbs
(c) Standard of living—mores—instalment credit
(d) Incidence of Transportation
(e) Complex of Industry—of steel, glass, gasoline

Literature

Recent Economic Changes
Recent Social Trends
Goodrich et al—
Epstein, R.—Automobile Industry
Facts and Figures—Automobile Industry-1919 ff.
Clark, J. M.—Strategic Factors in Business Cycles
Warburton, C.—In Mitchell volume
Moulton et al—The American Transportation Problem
National Resources Board—Report 12/1/34
Burns, A. F.—Production Trends
Trade Journals—Steel, distribution, etc.
Annalist

PART III: The Interrelations of Economic Institutions and Market Phenomena

How do the existing legal, banking, and distributive institutions help to condition—and how are they conditioned by the following?

1. Capital accumulation
2. Profitability of industry
3. National income—wages—agriculture
4. Behavior of prices and costs

Literature

Mills—Economic Tendencies
Mills—Prices in Recession and Recovery
King—National Income and its Purchasing Power
Kuznets, S.—National Income. 1929-32
Mitchell—Business Cycles
Clark, J. M.—Strategic Factors in Business Cycles
Keynes, J. M.—General Theory of Employment
Brookings—Recovery of Business
Brookings—N. R. A.

 

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “1/18/37 A”.

____________________

OUTLINE
Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy

[Handwritten: Eli Ginzberg]

February 23, 1937

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

OUTLINE
Secular and Structural Changes in a Modern Economy.

INTRODUCTION: The theoretical, the historical, the institutional, and the statistical approaches to the study of economic changes.

  1. “Statics and Dynamics” in the works of:
    J. S. Mill, J. B. Clark, Alfred Marshall, Gustav Cassel.
  2. “Explanation” of economic changes by:
    Ashley, Schmoller, Webbs, Sombart, Clapham
  3. Cumulative changes in institutions:
    Marx, Veblen, Commons.
  4. Time-Series Analysis: seasonal variations, cyclical fluctuations, secular trends and random perturbations. “Long cycles”:
    Kondratieff, Simiand, Kuznets, Burns.

Summary: The limitations of isolated techniques and the difficulties of fusion

  1. Theory and statistics; history and theory; statistics and theory
  2. Multiple variables in a process of cumulative change.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Secular changes in the industrial unit, the financial system, the organization of labor, and the ideology of the public during the periods:

1870-1890
1890-1914
1914-1937

 

  1. The Industrial Unit: The changing pattern of competition
    1. Economic aspects
      1. Adjustment to technology and to a national market
      2. Location of plant and transportation
      3. Integration: to raw materials; to distribution; to finance
    2. Law and Social Control
      1. Trademarks and Patents
      2. Governmental Regulation: License, taxes, etc.
      3. Trade Associations
      4. Management vs. Ownership

*Emphasis to be placed upon changing relative positions of the industrial unit to the total economy; upon the influence of size to competitive behavior; upon economic implications of individual vs. corporate forms.

  1. Financial System—The rôle of money in a modern economy.
    1. The Changing Structure of Banking
      1. Loans and investments
      2. Active money
    2. The Problems of Debt and Liquidity
      1. Private vs. Public Debt
      2. Collateral for private debt
      3. Insurance—private and public
    3. Implications: Economic and Social
      1. Economic: The interrelations of interest rates, savings, and the formation of capital.
      2. Social: The political control over the creation of money and the use of this control for the eradication of the business cycle.
  1. Labor: not solely a commodity
    1. Unionization
      1. Members
      2. Objectives
      3. Potential threats and consequences
    2. Supply
      1. Changes in requirements of skill
      2. The relative shrinkage in agriculture
      3. The additions from women of the middle class
      4. Mobility
    3. Rôle of the Government
      1. Free Services
      2. Enforcement of minimum standards
      3. Relief payments and work creation
      4. Re Bargaining between Labor and Capital

*Emphasis: Implication of these changes for

    1. Rate of wages
    2. Total wages—cf. monopoly analysis
    3. Class-struggle analysis
  1. The Changing Ideology: The influence of money making upon the attitudes of people—
    Upon their behavior in

    1. Spending: price vs. quality; advertising; women as buyers
    2. Accumulating: liquid vs. fixed assets; speculation; insurance; goods vs. family
    3. Playing: The esoteric vs. the stable; Wanderlust; the shift from church and home to club and movie.
    4. Occupational adjustment: sensitivity to monetary stimuli; civil service; money and the arts.

Conclusions: An approach to isolating and treating the strategi9c factors in a dynamic economy—

    1. The emergence of profitability
    2. The cumulative process and the breakdown
    3. The absorption of technological developments and the tendency towards retardation of growth.
    4. The closely allied patterns of change; their interaction with the economic. 1. Political/2. Legal/3. Ideological

 

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “2/23/37 A”.

____________________

[Pencil: “April 1937”]

SECULAR AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES
IN A
MODERN ECONOMY

OUTLINE

    1. The Study of Economic Change
    2. Population
    3. Migration and Location
    4. The Business Unit
    5. Psychology and Social Classes
    6. Technology
    7. The Legal Framework
    8. Government
    9. Dynamics of the Market
    10. Cumulative Factors

 

I

THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC CHANGE

  1. Introduction
  2. The Classicists and the Institutionalists

*Preface to First and 8th editions of Marshall’s Principles and Bk. V—Chapter XV
*Marx—Communist Manifesto—Part I

    1. The Classicists

J. S. Mill—Principles of Political Economy—Bk IV
J. B. Clark—Essentials of Economic Theory—Preface, Chapters XII, XIII, XIV, XV, and XXX
Marshall—Principles—Bk I—Chap. III; Bk V—Chaps. I, II, III, V, and XV
Cassel—Social Economy—Bk I, Chaps. I #5,6; Bk. IV

    1. The Institutionalists

Marx—Communist Manifesto—Part I
Veblen—Business Enterprise—Chpas. II, VII, IX, X
Commons—Legal Foundations of Capitalism—Chapters I, II, III, VII, IX, vi

  1. The Historians and the Statisticians

*Heckscher, Eli—“Aspects of Economic History” in Essays in Honor of Gustav Cassel
*Mitchell—“Business Cycles”—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

    1. The Historians

Webbs—History of Trade Unionism—Chapters II, III
Clapham—Economic History of Modern Britain—Vol I, Chapter XIV
Sombart—Der Moderne Kapitalismus—Vol. III, Part I—Chapters 22-25

    1. The Statisticians

Simiand—La Crise Mondiale—pages 1-14; pages 114-35
Burns, A. F.—Production Trends—Foreword; Chapters III;ii, iii; IV: iv; V:v, vi.
Mitchell—“Business Cycles”—Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
Kuznets—Seasonal Variations in Industry and Trade—Chapter I, Concluding Notes—pp. 355 ff.

  1. Theory, History, and Statistics
    *J. M. Clark—“Statics and Dynamics” in Preface to Social Economy
    *F. H. Knight—New Introduction to Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit
    *W. C. Mitchell—“Quantitative Measurement” in Backward Art of Spending Money and Other Essays
    1. Cohen and Nagel—Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method Bk II: Chaps. X, XI, XVI, XVII, XIX sec. 3
    2. Robbins—Nature and Significance of Economic Science. Chapters II 4,5; III 4,5; IV; VI 5,6
    3. J. M. Clark—“Socializing Theoretical Economics” in Preface to Social Economics

 

II

POPULATION

  1. The Data, Method, and Deductions about population in economic theory
    *Malthus—Population—Chapters I, II
    *Marshall—Bk IV, Chapters IV, V

    1. Ricardo—Principles II, V, XXXII
    2. J. S. Mill—Principles—Chapter X, 2, 3
    3. Pigou—Economics of Welfare—Part I, chapters IX, X
  2. The Contemporary Data, Methods, Deductions as to Trends
    *“Population”—Encyclopedia of Social Sciences

    1. Thompson and Whelpton—Population Trends in U. S.—Chapters I: pp. 2267;257-61;288-91; IX, X, and XI
    2. Carr-Saunders—World Population (1936)—Chapters I, II, XVI, XVII, XXII, Note on Overpopulation
    3. Kucyznski—Births and Death, Vol I. Chaps. I, II, III, IV; II. Chaps. I, VI
  3. The Economic Implications of the Population Problem
    *Myrdal—“Industrialization and Population” in Essays in Honor of Gustav Cassel

    1. On Unemployment
      Beveridge—Unemployment—Chapter XVII
    2. On Imperialism
      W. S. Thompson—Danger Spots in World Politics—Chapters X, XII, XIII, XIV
    3. On Consumption
      Lynd—Middletown—Chapters V, XI
      J. M. Keynes. Economic Consequences of a Declining Population. Eugenics Review, April 1937, vol. XXIX, 13-17.

 

III

MIGRATION AND LOCATION OF PEOPLE AND INDUSTRY

*Marshall—Principles—pp. 199-203, Book IV—Chapter X, Appendix A-#13
*Weber, A.—Theory of Location of Industries—

Editor’s Introduction
Author’s Introduction
Chapters I, VII

*Semple—American History, its Geographic Conditions—Chapters XV, XVI, XVII

    1. Goodrich—Migration and Economic Opportunity—Introduction: Chapters I, VI, VII, IX, XII
    2. Mackenzie—The Metropolitan Community—Chapters I, III, V, VI, XII, XVII, XXIII

 

IV

THE BUSINESS UNIT

*Marshall—Principles—Bk IV—Chapter XII
*Twentieth Century Fund—Big Business—Summary

    1. Distribution of the Working Population

The National Income in the United States (1929-35). Department of Commerce

    1. The Problem of Control: Private

Berle and Means—Modern Corporation and Private Property, Bks I, VI
Twentieth Century Fund—Big Business Summary, Chaps. I, VIII
Laidler—Concentration of Control in American Industry, Parts I, VI.

    1. The Problem of Control: Public

Jones and Bingham—Principles of Public Utilities—Chapters I, II, and XII
Moulton Associates—American Transportation Problem—Report of Committee—Chapters I, II, XII, XXI, XXIV, XXV, XXX, XXXI

    1. Planning

Parkins and Whitaker—Our Natural Resources and their Concentration—Chapters I, II, IX, X, XI, XVI, XVIII
National Resources Board—1934—Part I—Sec. I, Sec. V.

 

V

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL CLASSES

*Marshall—Principles—Bk I—Chapter II
*Weber—General Economic History—Chapter XXX

    1. The Spirit of the Capitalist

M. Weber—The Protestant Ethic—Foreword, Introduction, Chapters II, III, V

    1. Modern Psychology and Aggression

Abrahams, K.—Selected Essays on Psycho-Analysis—Chapters XXIII, XXIV, XXV
Horney, K.—The Neurotic Personality of Our Times—Chapters [blank]
Mead, M.—Competition and Cooperation in Primitive Societies. Interpretive Statement.

    1. The American Scene

Veblen—Absentee Ownership—chapters VI, VII I, ii, iii
Parker—The Casual Laborer and Other Essays—Recent Social Trends—Chapter VIII
Taussig and Joslyn—American Business Leaders—Chapters X, XI, XVI, XVII, XIX, XX

 

VI

TECHNOLOGY

*Marshall—Principles—Bk IV—Chapter IX
*Veblen—Theory of Business Enterprise—Chapter IX

    1. America’s Capacity to Produce—Introduction, Chapters VI, XIV, XV, XVI, XIX, XX

Jerome—Mechanization in Industry—Introduction, Summary, Chapters III, IV

    1. –Recent Social Trends—Volume I—Chapter III

Weintraub and Posner—Technological Tendencies and their Social Implications
Jerome—Mechanization—Chapters IX, X

 

VII

THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK

*J. S. Mill—Principles of Political Economy—Bk II—Chapter II
*Veblen—Theory of Business Enterprise—Chapter VIII

    1. Commons—Legal Foundations of Capitalism. Chaps. I, II, III, VII, IX
    2. Handler—Trade Regulation, Chapters I, II
    3. Bonbright—The Valuation of Property—Chapters I, II, III, IV, V, XXX, XXXII

 

VIII

THE GOVERNMENT

*J. S. Mill—Principles of Political Economy—Bk V—Chapter XI
*H. Laski—The State—Chapter IV

    1. Re Taxes

Shoup—Facing the Tax Burden—Chaps 2, 3, 6, 7, 8
Recent Social Trends—Volume II—Chapters XXV, XXVI

    1. Re Banking

Willis—Central Banking—Part I, Chapters XVI, XVII, XVIII, XXVI
Hardy—Credit Policies of the Federal Reserve System—Part I

    1. Re Labor

Commons and Associates—History of Labor in the U.S.

Volume III, Section I, Chapters XI, XII, Labor legislation
Volume IV, Chapters I, II, XVI, XXXII, XXXVIII, XLIV, XLV

Epstein—Insecurity—Parts I, X, XI

 

IX

DYNAMICS OF THE MARKET

*Marshall—Principles—Book V
*J. M. Clark—Economics of Overhead Costs—Chapters XXIII, XXIV

    1. Production: 1922-36

Mills—Economic Tendencies—Chapters VI, X

    1. Prices: 1922-36

Mills—Economic Tendencies—Chapter VII
Prices in Recession and Recovery—Chapters I, III, V, VI, IX

    1. Wages: 1922-36

Douglas—Real Wages in the United States—Chapters XXII, XXVI, XXX, XXXI
Recent Economic Changes—Volume II—Chapter VI
Wolman—N.B.E.R. Bulletins #46, 54, 63

    1. Profits: 1922-36

Epstein—Industrial Profits in the United States—Introduction, Book I, Book IV

    1. Money: 1922-36

Currie—The Supply and Control of Money in the United States—Chapter III
Fed. Res. Board—Annual Reports. 1934, 1935, 1936

 

X

CUMULATIVE FACTORS

*Marshall—Principles—Book VI—Chapters XI, XII, XIII
*J. M. Clark—Strategic Factors in Business Cycles—Parts I and VI

    1. The War, Changing Attitudes, and the Economy
    2. The Automobile and the Economy
    3. The Creation and Destruction of Bank Deposits and the Economy

Source:  Columbia University Archives. Papers of Wesley Clair Mitchell. Box 3, Folder “4/?/37 A”.

Image Source: From the cover of Eli Ginzberg’s book The Eye of Illusion (Transactions Publishers, 1993).

 

 

Categories
M.I.T. Wing Nuts

M.I.T. Wingnut inspiration for Du Pont’s crusade against Paul Samuelson’s textbook, 1947

 

 

What is the natural habitat of wing-nuts and fanatical partisans of zombie economic ideas? While Economics in the Rear-View Mirror specializes in the collection and curation of artifacts bearing on the general academic environment within which economists have been trained in the United States since about 1870, there are moments when a field trip to the lunatic fringe is warranted. It is there where we can observe the margins of the chattering class, working politicians, and wealthy businessmen as they poke their noses into curriculum decisions and professional debates regarding the scope and methods of economics. As the vaudeville comedian Jimmy Durante cracked, “Everyone wants ta get inta da act.”

Executive summary:

Members of the M.I.T. Corporation hostile to Paul Samuelson’s textbook and even the President of M.I.T. appear to have found a kindred spirit in Rose Wilder Lane whose anti-Keynesian review of Lorie Tarshis’ textbook was published in 1947 by the Franco admirer and later John Birch activist Merwin K. Hart.

This post began innocently enough when I selected an exchange of letters concerning the teaching of the principles of economics at M.I.T. in general and the new textbook by Paul Samuelson in particular. The famous controversy involved members of the M.I.T. Corporation, the M.I.T. Administration, and the M.I.T. department of economics and social science and has been most ably presented by Yann Giraud and Roger Backhouse and in the literature they cite.

Yann Giraud. Negotiating the “Middle-of-the-Road” Position: Paul Samuelson, MIT, and the Politics of Textbook Writing, 1945-55. Paper included in MIT and the Transformation of American Economics, Annual Supplement to Volume 46, History of Political Economy edited by E. Roy Weintraub. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2014, pp. 134-152.

Earlier draft: The Political Economy of Textbook Writing: Paul Samuelson and the Making of the first Ten Editions of Economics (1945-1976). Working Paper 2011-18 of Université de Cergy Pontoise (France).

Giraud’s blog: https://ygiraud.wordpress.com

Also: Roger Backhouse’s Becoming Samuelson (Oxford University Press, 2017), chapter 26.

This post provides a few letters from four of the individuals involved in the Samuelson controversy to provide a taste of that discussion. What caught my eye and what I call the reader’s attention to in this post is the repeated reference to an unnamed critical review of another unabashedly Keynesian textbook, The Elements of Economics by Lorie Tarshis of Stanford University. It is worth noting that Samuelson’s textbook was already receiving incoming fire from members of the M.I.T. Corporation before that review was published in August 1947, so the attack on Tarshis was merely adding water to the Anti-Samuelson mill. The head of the economics department, Ralph Freeman, notes in his defense of Samuelson that the organization that had published the Tarshis review was known to have “a fascist flavor” and was run by a man named Hart who was “involved in some way in a treason charge during the war”. Seeing the words “fascist” and “treason”, I could not resist donning my investigative garb to uncover the back-story of the man Hart, his organization and the anti-Tarshis screed by the author unnamed in the letters. But first I share the sample letters from 1947 in the Samuelson controversy at MIT.

Dramatis Personae

Walter J. Beadle (Vice President, Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors at Du Pont and life member of the M.I.T. Corporation, 1943-88)

Lammot du Pont II (President of Du Pont (1926-40), Chairman of the Board of Directors and former member of the M.I.T. Corporation (1928-33))

President of M.I.T. Karl T. Compton  (b. 14 September, 1887; d. 22 June, 1954)

Head of M.I.T.’s department of economics and social science, Ralph Evans Freeman (b. 23 July 1894; d. 12 May 1967)

Source (DuPont officers): “DuPont Officers Reelected, James New Treasurer Aide” in The Morning News (Wilmington, Delaware) April 22, 1947, p. 12.

Fun Fact:

The great-great grandfather of Lammot Du Pont, the chairman of the Board of Directors at Dupont in 1947, was Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, a disciple of the Physiocrat author of the Tableau Oeconomique, François Quesnay.

The genealogical line from the Physiocrat du Pont de Nemours to the Chairman of the Board of Directors of DuPont in 1947.

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours (b. 14 Dec 1739; d. 7 Aug 1817)

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours (b. 24 June 1771; d. 31 Oct 1834)

Alfred V. du Pont (b. 11 Apr 1798; d. 4 Oct 1856)

Lammot du Pont I (b. 13 Apr 1831; d. 29 Mar 1884)

Lammot du Pont II (b. 12 Oct 1880; d. 24 Jul 1952)

 

Image Sources: Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours (Wikipedia Commons); Lamott Du Pont II in Du Pont: The Autobiography of an American Enterprise. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1952. (Lammot Du Pont, p. 86).

_______________________

Beale to Compton
(original)

Walter J. Beadle
DuPont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

September 15, 1947

Dr. Karl T. Compton, President
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Dr. Compton:

When you were on vacation, Mr. C. E. Spencer, Jr. sent me a copy of the Economic Council Review of Books for August 1947. Since this seemed to point up better than anything I have read the general problem in connection with teaching of economics in this country, I sent it to Jim Killian in advance of our luncheon meeting and he in turn passed it on to Professor Freeman.

On the chance that you have not seen this review, I attach a copy of it which has just come to me from Mr. Lammot du Pont. I enclose also Mr. du Pont’s letter of transmittal dated September 12th which I am sure will be of interest to you. As I told Jim at our Boston meeting, I acquainted Mr. du Pont with the developments in connection with the teaching of economics at M.I.T. because I know of his very sincere interest in the Institute as a life member of the Corporation.[sic, not listed as a Life Member At MIT’s website]

I hope that your vacation proved to be a very enjoyable and refreshing one.

With kind regards, I am

Sincerely,
[signed] Walter
Walter J. Beadle

WJB:k
enc.

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Lammot Du Pont to Beadle
(copy)

LAMMOT DU PONT
Du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, Delaware

September 12, 1947

Mr. Walter J. Beadle;
B u i l d i n g.

Dear Walter:

Your file is returned herewith, and there is also enclosed a leaflet of the National Economic Council, giving a review of college textbook, “The Elements of Economics,” by Lorie Tarshis. You can get an idea of the nature of the review by reading the few paragraphs on the first page, which I have marked.

I take it that this textbook is an aggravated example of what the M.I.T. professor [Paul Samuelson] has done in a milder way. You will note on page 7 a list of the colleges which have adopted this textbook, and I am pleased to note that M.I.T. is not among them. Will you use your judgment as to sending this copy of the review to Dr. Compton as an illustration of what can happen?

Recently, I was talking with an Economist, who is a professor at a well-known university in the east. I have entire confidence in this Economist’s truthfulness and accuracy, but maybe I did not understand him exactly right. The gist of what he told me was as follows:

At this university there are 11 professors in the Department of Economics. Of these, 7 are Leftist. Four, including himself, are what I would call “sound.” There are two vacancies among the 11 professorships, and it is indicated that they will be filled only with men who meet with the approval of the present 9 incumbents. This is called “a democratic process.” With the odds 7 to 2, it is a foregone conclusion that another Leftist will be added.

In addition to the above, my friend tells me that he has been advised by a man acting as Assistant to the President of the University, with respect to faculty appointments, that he, my friend, had better withdraw from the University, or look for a position elsewhere. My friend informs me that he does not intend to withdraw, and does not think they can oust him. He believes that it is his duty to remain at the University and do what he can to expound to students sound economics. The University is among those listed on page 7 of this leaflet.

I am not urging that you send this review to Dr. Compton, or that you send him this letter, but if you care to do so, you have my permission, for I don’t think I have violated any confidence in what I have written.

Yours sincerely,
(s) Lammot du Pont

LduP/MD

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Compton to Beadle
(copy)

September 18, 1947

Mr. Walter J. Beadle
du Pont Building
Wilmington 98, D.C. [sic]

Dear Walter:

Thanks ever so much for sending me the copy of the Economic Council Review of Books for August, which discusses the book by Professor Tarshis of Stanford University.

My brother Wilson showed me a copy of this while we were together at our family camp, and I had made a memorandum to send for a copy for my own use. It seems to me to be an exceedingly effective statement.

Incidentally, have you noticed the comment among the book reviews in the September issue of Fortune with reference to another book by one of Samuelson’s students [Lawrence Klein]?

I am just getting squared away after return from vacation and the process is somewhat delayed because I got mixed up in a fire and am still somewhat bandaged up,–nothing permanently serious, however.

With best regards,

Very sincerely yours
[unsigned]
President

KTC/L

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 192, Folder 9 “Samuelson, Paul, 1942-1947”.

_______________________

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

December 15, 1947

Personal

Professor R.E. Freeman
Dept. of Econ. and Soc. Sci.

Dear Ralph:

Apropos of the discussions which we had some weeks ago about Professor Samuelson and the textbook on economics, I have accidentally run into several interesting discussions recently concerning the Keynesian theories of economics on the part of several groups of top economists. From these I gained the impression that Keynes’ theories were brilliant and stimulating but inclined to be based more on a logic derived from a limited set of postulates than on actual test from all the factors involved. The comment was made that Lord Keynes himself was sufficiently flexible to modify his views when the facts indicated to him that this was necessary, but that many of Keynes’ disciples have been so wedded to the beautiful logic that they have had a tendency to base their faith on this logic rather than on an objective evaluation of factors by which the conclusions might be tested.

The work of the American Economic Council [sic], (I am not sure that I have the name just right), was described as especially valuable and effective because of its objective search for facts, as opposed to argument on theory.

At a meeting with Harold Moulton some weeks ago I asked his opinion of Samuelson and he replied that Samuelson is a very brilliant young man but that he is a “dogmatist”. In this connection Moulton dug out the enclosed reprint which he thought might be helpful to us in our evaluation of economic research methods. I thought you might be interested in this, though you have perhaps already read it. Please return it at your convenience,

Very sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
President.

KTC/L

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Freeman to Compton
(original)

Personal

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of
Economics and Social Science

Cambridge, Mass.
17 December 1947

Dr. Karl T. Compton
Room 3-208
M.I.T.

Dear Dr. Compton:

Many thanks for your comments regarding Keynes, Samuelson et al. I was interested in Moulton’s brochure which I am returning herewith.

A good deal of misunderstanding has arisen because of a failure to distinguish between Keynesianism as a conceptual apparatus and Keynesianism as a policy. It is the former which has been adapted by the younger economists of this country such as Paul Samuelson—and many of the older ones as well. I use the word adapted, because some of the ideas of Keynes have been rejected. On the policy level two Keynesians may arrive at quite different conclusions.

The charge that such thinkers base their faith on logic rather than on facts, is to my mind unjustified. The classical economists built up their whole system on the assumption of full employment. The modern approach is not only to question this assumption but also to try to understand why our economy so often fails to provide full employment.

It has been a common belief in the past that because the rate of saving was assumed to vary with the interest rate, there could be no under or over savings—that changes in the interest rate would provide the necessary correction. A study of the facts indicates that this position was erroneous. Much of “modern economics” is concerned with the implications of under-saving and over-saving.

I have taken the liberty of enclosing a recent bulletin of the United Business Service for which I write the first page every week. This brief article designed for popular consumption entitled “How Inflation Could Be Halted” illustrates the use of the savings concept in analyzing current problems. Incidentally, Moulton in the latter part of the pamphlet you sent me indicates that he has incorporated into his thinking the Keynesian approach to the saving process.

It is significant, I believe, that the new approach to economic problems has developed as our knowledge of the facts of the economic process has become more extensive. Today we know vastly more about what is going on in economic society than we did a half or even a quarter of a century ago. The young men who have been and are now the main fact gatherers are in overwhelming numbers using the Keynesian concepts as tools of analysis.

The “American Economic Council” [sic] to which you refer in your letter is I believe an organization with a Fascist flavor which is of course opposed to the “new economics.” If I have identified the organization correctly, it is a front for a man named Hart who was involved in some way in a treason charge during the war. It recently issued a review of a book by Tarshish [sic]—a review which was grossly unfair to the writer.

I am not sure what Moulton means by referring to Paul Samuelson as “dogmatic.” Paul certainly is capable of supporting his views with factual data and reasoned arguments. Moulton’s effort to defend a recent Brookings publication—“A National Labor Policy”—against the criticism of Wayne Morse was not an effort which would inspire confidence in Moulton’s own objectivity.

I don’t know whether Bob Caldwell passed to you the information that Paul will be presented with the John Bates Clark Medal at the coming meetings of the American Economic Association in Chicago. This medal is being presented for the first time by the Association to the living economist under 40 “who has made the most distinguished contribution to the main body of economic thought and knowledge.” The name of the recipient of the award will not be published until December 28.

Probably you will agree with me that we don’t need to worry too much about what the economists of the country think about Paul Samuelson.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Ralph
Ralph E. Freeman

 

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Compton to Freeman
(copy)

December 19, 1947

Professor Ralph E. Freeman
Department of Economics and Social Science
M. I. T.

Dear Ralph:

Thanks ever so much for your letter and the enclosed copy of United Business Service.

One way or another I seem to be getting some elements of an education in economics, long deferred. At least no one can criticize my own education in this field on the ground that it has not brought contact with plenty of divergent points of view.

I was glad to have your distinction between conceptual apparatus and policy in reference to the influence of Lord Keynes.

I am delighted to know that Paul Samuelson is to receive the John Bates Clark Medal. That, coming from the American Economic Association, is certainly an honor and should be a reassurance to some of our “worriers”.

With many thanks,

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned]
President

KTC/h

 

Source: MIT Archives. Office of the President Box 93, Folder 7 “Freeman, R.E. 1940-1944”.

_______________________

Back to the Chase

Thanks to my reading of Giraud and Backhouse, it didn’t take much effort to establish the identity of the unnamed reviewer of Tarshis, none other than the libertarian diva, Ms. Rose Wilder Lane (b. 5 December 1886; d. 30 October 1968). Economics in the Rear-View Mirror has posted the story of Rose Wilder Lane’s 1946 report for the Foundation of Economic Education on Milton Friedman and George Stigler’s famous pamphlet on rent-control, Roofs or Ceilings. Lane was certain that Messrs. Friedman and Stigler were communists in deep disguise…really. Interested readers can find out more about her together with the complete text to the third printing of her 1947 review of Tarshis in the rich paper with its document-filled appendix by Levy, Peart and Albert (2012).

David M. Levy, Sandra J. Peart and Margaret Albert. Economic Liberals as Quasi-Public Intellectuals: The Democratic Dimension in Marianne Johnson (ed.) Documents on Government and the Economy Vol. 30-B (2012) of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, pp. 1-116.

Especially the transcription of the Rose Wilder Lane review of the textbook The Elements of Economics by Lorie Tarshis published in Economic Council Review of Books, Vol. IV, No. 8, August 1947), pp. 49-64.

More about Merwin Kimball Hart can be found at:

Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy. F. A. Hayek and the “Individualists”, Chapter 2 in F. A. Hayek and the Modern Economy: Economic Organization and Activity, eds. Sandra J. Peart and David M. Levy (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), especially pp. 30-37.

_______________________

But wait, there’s more

For those wanting to learn even more about the publisher of the National Economic Council’s Review of Books, Mr. Merwin Kimball Hart (b. 25 June 1881; d. 30 November 1962), U.S. government files are available at archive.com that were obtained through Ernie Lazar’s FOIA applications. There you will find around six hundred pages of F.B.I. investigative reports, letters, and newspaper clippings regarding the Merwin Hart case that are easily consulted on line.

The tidbit that I find that ties this post together is the clear evidence that Lammot Du Pont was a financial supporter of Hart’s National Economic Council precisely at the time that he and the Du Pont vice-president and lifetime member of the M.I.T. corporation were on a crusade against Paul Samuelson’s textbook.  “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

 Links to the Merwin Kimball Hart files

Hart, Merwin K.—NYC 100-21056 (243 pages)

14 page New York City F.B.I. investigative report November 17, 1942
6 page Albany F.B.I. report Jan 22, 1943 on Utica background of Merwin K. Hart

Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials (278 pages)

[note:it is necessary to view the file in single-page mode, when in double page mode only the odd numbered pages are displayed.]

Hart, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142 (58 pages)

Hart, Merwin K.—Army Intel Report (48 pages)

A selection from these FOIA files now follows:

_______________________

A Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (February 8, 1940) prepared by E. A. Tamm

The FBI report refers to a woman informant working within the New York State Economic Council.

“From what can be gathered from the informant the Council was apparently originally engaged in a fight against Communism. It then became involved in the fight to support the Franco rebellion in Spain, and has now passed into not only opposition to the present Federal administration but has gone further and become actually opposed to the existing form of government in this country. The inner circle of the NYSEC in one way or another is now considering setting up an independent union movement to combat the CIO and other so-called radical unions, and to set up what would amount to company-controlled unions.

The informant advises [deletion of 2/3 line] Hart, John Eoghan Kelly, Jane Anderson, and various Catholic priests, she is convinced of the existence of a plot, presumably centering around the Council and directed by Catholic church leaders to reestablish the Holy Roman Empire with certain nations so aligned as to make it possible for the Catholic church to control the balance of power through its control of the government of Spain.” Page 3 of memo

[…]

“Hart is general manager of the Cream of Wheat Corporation, and his home is understood to be at Utica, New York…The informant expresses her belief that Hart is a sincere, fiery patriot who honestly believes the country is in serious danger from a “red menace.” However, she stated he is being used by certain Fordham University clerics who decide on certain action in conferences with John Eoghan Kelly, Allen Zoll and similar persons, and then prevail on Hart to make such contacts, presumably Protestant, as will facilitate the promotion of the action desired.

“Hart has written a book entitled ‘America—Look at Spain’, and from purported copies of correspondence exhibited by the informant it would appear that this book was partly edited by the Catholic clergy in so far as that portion of it which treats the Catholic church is concerned. Hart has visited Spain, Germany and Italy and has made an intensive study of conditions in these places. He has communicated with the Bureau in the past relative to cooperating on matters pertaining to the national defense. By letter dated April 10, 1939 he wrote the Bureau requesting a copy of the report on the German-American Bund investigation, and was advised that same was not available, and his letter was referred to the Department.

It is impossible to fully set out all the connections that Hart may possibly have, but it is probably safe to say from those he is known to have that he is connected at least with every group of any prominence in the United States whose aims are anti-administration or anti-Communist.” Page 5 of memo.

[…]

“DuPonts of Wilminton, Delaware:

            The informant advises that these persons were at one time strong financial supporters of the NYSEC but have not contributed recently.” Page 21 of memo.

 

Source: Memorandum for the Director of the F.B.I. (19 February 1940) in the Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation, N.Y.C. Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials.

_______________________

From an investigative report dated July 2, 1942

“…On January 27,1940 Confidential Informant [deleted] was interviewed by Assistant Director E. J. Connelley regarding any information informant might have concerning MERVIN K. HART. Informant informed [ca. 2 lines deleted] whose offices are located in Room 417, 17 East 442 Street, New York City. Informant advised that she met subject HART through [deleted] who was an acquaintance of HART as a customer of the bank [deleted] started to work for HART [line deleted] HART advised informant that he had just returned from Spain where he was in touch with the Nationalist Leader and believed that they were saving the world form Communism. He wanted to write a book to show that the same thing might occur here in the United States.

She advised that HART had published a book entitled AMERICA LOOKS AT SPAIN which was published by Kennedy and Company. HART advised informant that in this book he wanted to show that Communism was overthrowing the world and that something must be done about it in this country. In connection with the luncheon held for MARTIN DIES, which was mentioned previously, [one line deleted] this luncheon for Dies was given by the New York State Economic Council at the Bellmore Hotel, New York City. Informant advised that JAMES WHEELER-HILL, Second in Command of the German-American Bund, was there along with [deleted] The luncheon was open to the public. She stated that the presence of [deleted] and JAMES WHEELER-HILL did not mean that they were connected with the Economic Council as tickets were on sale to the public; however, informant said that the people actively working for HART considered [deleted] and WHEELER-HILL as martyrs fighting for a cause.

Informant said [deleted] he formed the American Union for Nationalist Spain and, in that connection, was constantly in touch with various religious leaders. Informant, continuing, said that the Council is financed through subscriptions and donations made by the Texas Company and by Lamont [sic] Dupont. According to informant, HART’s most intimate associate is Captain JOHN T. TRAVER, the head of the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies.

 

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Report date: 2 July 1942.

_______________________

From November 17, 1942 FBI Internal Security Case Report
Merwin K. Hart

…Confidential Informant [deleted] stated that she first met HART during the winter of 1938-1939 at a party at the home of [deleted] of the famous [deleted] of China. HART at that time had just returned from Spain. [Deleted] had just returned from Munich and was disgusted with the Chamberlain appeasement policy. She thereafter disliked HART’S theories from the start. For quite some time HART continued to send her a copy of his Economic Letter, which she said she tore up and refused to pay any attention to it. According to [deleted] HART has constantly criticized the ROOSEVELT administration; is violently anti-Communistic; has said that HITLER has done some good things for Germany; that the German American Bund is a harmless organization; and that the Franco Policy is satisfactory. She said further, however, that since December 7, 1941 HART has been openly advocating unity withi9nAmerica. He confines his criticism now only to Government spending and then only to expenditures which are not for the war effort. However, she believes he is still a Fascist in his theories of Government but is smart enough to hold his tongue now. She said that a while ago he was so anti-Communistic he was literally seeing “a Communist under every chair.” She believes he might still be regarded as dangerous in that his constant criticisms creates a disturbing element. She does not believe that he is subsidized by foreign funds. She said further that HART had told her in the past of attending some Bund meetings simply to find out what went on in the meetings. [Deleted] was of the opinion that HART’S theories are too extreme, and that HART has been and in her opinion still is against labor agitation…”

 

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Report date: 17 November 1942.

_______________________

Memo for J. Edgar Hoover Jan 26, 1944.

 

Item in summary table of correspondence with Merwin K. Hart:

From Lammot du Pont to M.K.H. 1/2/42. Encloses check for $4,000. “Subscription to the work of the organization for 1942”

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. NY File No. 100-21056. Memo to Hoover (26 January, 1944).

_______________________

Newspaper clipping, syndicated columnist Marquis W. Childs

Marquis W. Childs. The State of the Nation.
[FBI time stamp: Jan 15, 1948]

Washington.

The self-appointed thought police are on the loose again, their attack this time is directed against a textbook on economics used in many of the leading universities of the country.

The attack began with the National Economic Council, whose head, Merwin K. Hart, has been one of the principal American supporters of Spain’s dictator, Franco. It took the form of a so-called review of the book—“The Elements of Economics” by Prof. Lorie Tarshis of Stanford University.

The review twists the meaning of the book to try to show that its author supports the government spending theories of the late Lord Keynes. Therefore, the review concludes, the book must be subversive and un-American.

Wide circulation of this review through the mails was only the first step. In Arkansas, an American Legion post and something called the Arkansas Free Enterprise association have taken the next step. They have demanded an investigation of the textbook, used in economics classes at the University of Arkansas.

President Lewis W. Jones of the university replied that he thought the sanest procedure would be to submit the book to an impartial group capable of judging it, such as the American Economics [sic] association. He added that he saw nothing subversive in the text, which he considered a thoroughly objective study of the economic system.

Here is a pattern of behavior that endangers fundamental American freedoms of speech and thought. The concept of thought police, whether amateur or professional, is repugnant to free Americans.

The American legion recently held here in Washington a counter-subversive seminar. Seventy-five representatives from Legion posts around the country attended the three-day session. They heard lectures by some so-called experts on Communism. It is interesting incidentally, that among these experts are several men who were once Communists. Having at one time embraced a totalitarian faith, they now make a profession of denouncing it.

Seven State Legion organizations have held or will hold such seminars, taking their cue from the National organization. Both Georgia and Indiana have just had two-day sessions on subversion.

If one is to judge from the speech made by Georgia’s Rep. James C. Davis at the meeting in Atlanta, it was given over entirely in the subversion of communism. They might well have devoted part of their time to such home-grown subversion as the Ku Klux Klan. It is a fairly safe guess that there are more Klansmen than Communists in Georgia.

Training Legionnaires to “spot and counter subversive activities, as National Commander O’Neil put it, is a hazardous business. The FBI gives its agents months of instructions in such matters, and they are told to avoid possible infringement of fundamental rights of speech and thought. Yet here we have amateurs turned loose after two days to do sleuthing on their own.

An example of what this can mean occurred in California at about the time the Legion was holding its counter-subversive seminar in Washington. Twenty-five men wearing Legion hats bearing the insignia of Glendale, Cal., Post No. 127 invaded the meeting of a Democratic club and demanded that it break up immediately.

A slight error had been made. The club was duly chartered by the County Democratic Central committee. In the midst of the indignation and the corresponding embarrassment that followed, State Legion Commander Harry L. Foster condemned the act.

“The rights of free speech and assembly,” he said, and it might be a good idea to frame these words in every Legion hall, “are part of our cherished Bill of Rights and we of the Legion should be the first to insist on these rights. Should there is an unlawful meeting, it should be reported to the duly constituted civil authorities for their action.

“Thought police on the Japanese model are an insult to American integrity. That is especially true when zealous guardians of pure thought seek to protect the young. If young men and women in college who have grown up under the advantages of the American system cannot use judgment for themselves, then the system has failed. The generation that fought the recent war does not need to be sheltered by meddling zealots. They are a lot more clear-eyed and clear–headed than most of their elders.

 

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. N.Y.C. File No. 100-21056 page 179.  Copy from the FOIA file is partially illegible and the newspaper was not identified. A less edited version of the article was published in The Eau Claire Leader (Wisconsin), Sunday, January 18, 1948, p. 12.

_______________________

J. Edgar Hoover’s Memo
March 29, 1948

100-128996-94

Date: March 29, 1948

To: [deleted]

BY SPECIAL MESSENGER

Attention: Reading Center

From: John Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Subject: MERWIN KIMBALL HART, wa,
Mervin Kimball Hart
National Economic Council, Inc.
INTERNAL SECURITY-X

Reference is made to your communication of March 17, 1948 your [deleted] where you informed that [deleted] was en route to New York City at the invitation of the National Economic Council.

[paragraph deletion]

Biographical information, the accuracy of which is unknown, reflects that Merwin Kimball Hart was born on June 21, 1881, at Utica, New York. He graduated from Harvard in 1904, receiving an A. B. degree. In 1906 he was elected for a two year term to the General Assembly of the State of New York. Hart, by this time, was married to Catherine Margaret Crouse of Utica. He was admitted to the New York State Bar in 1911 and became a member of the law firm Hart and Senior. In 1914 Hart and several prominent businessmen in Utica organized the Utica Mutual Insurance Company. A few years later when the United States entered the war, Hart, although possessing defective eyesight, enlisted in the Army and when released in 1918 he had attained the rank of Captain in a non-combatant unit. After the war Hart devoted several years attempting to place the Hart and Crouse Company in Utica on a sound financial basis. This firm, which manufactures furnaces and heating equipment, was founded by Hart’s father and Hart’s wife’s father. The firm is presently owned by other persons. Following this, Hart became active in numerous movements to reduce expenditures in the State government of New York. Subsequently in about 1932 he organized the New York State Economic Council, now known as the National Economic Council, Inc., with offices in New York City and Utica, New York. His annual salary from the inception thereof was reported to be $10,000. The organization was originally financed by manufacturing and financial concerns located in the State of New York.

Hart was described by an old acquaintance as having come from one of the old established families in Utica, was a brilliant and well educated man was thoroughly patriotic and loyal, and taken part in numerous business enterprises, and was one time a member of one of the leading law firms in Utica. In this latter connection this informant stated it was not known whether Hart went to law school or that he ever appeared in court as a lawyer.

Another source stated Hart was very influential and respected in his own community, but had few intimate friends. He said Hart was known as the type who knew “everybody that counted” and acted in a formal and aloof manner. His personal unpopularity in Utica was attributed in part to the fact that he was too outspoken, tactless, bull-headed, and possessing a peculiar type of personality.

Hart was described as believing in the capitalistic system and particularly opposed to Communism and the New Deal Administration. It was said that the citizens of Utica generally considered him sincere and 100% American in spite of his unfavorable publicity. Some people, it was claimed who did not know him, might think him to be opposed to the country’s war aims at that time.

Information of a current nature regarding the National Economic Council, Inc., is not known. From various sources in the past it was described as being an organization of about 17,000 members drawn from throughout the State of New York. Its headquarters were said to have been located at 17 East 42nd Street, New York City, with a branch office at Utica. A folder distributed by the Council in 1940 described as the Council’s purposes: 1. To curb Government spending; 2. To reduce oppressive tactics; 3. To oppose subversive groups; 4. To oppose stifling restrictions of private enterprises, and 5. To promote true recovery. The officers of the Council as listed in the folder are as follows: President—Merwin K. Hart; Treasurer—George D. Graves; Vice-President— [name missing] Chase National Bank, New York City; Chairman of the Finance Committee—William Fellows Morgan, New York City; Vice-Presidents—Elon Hooker—President Hooker Electrochemical Company, New York City; Thomas M. Peters, New York City; Alexander D. Falck, Chairman, Corning Glass Works, Elmira, New York.

A confidential source advised that early in 1940 the headquarters of the Council seemed to be a meeting place for groups of people who were apparently interested in setting up a totalitarian form of government. This organization was also said to furnish material to Reverend Charles Coughlin for his use. Starting in late 1939 it was reported that the Council devoted about 90% of its efforts to the distribution of propaganda on behalf of the Spanish Republican Government.

The answer to question “d.” is not known to this Bureau. Accordingly, appropriate inquiry is being instituted in an effort to ascertain the desired information. Upon receipt of the results of this inquiry I shall promptly advise you.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation, N.Y.C. Hart, Merwin K.—HQ 100-128996, Misc. Serials.  pp. 187-189.

 

_______________________

WASHINGTON CITY NEWS SERVICE
[teletype]
File Time Stamp: August 14, 1950

MERWIN K. HART, PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, INC., SAID TODAY THE WORD “DEMOCRACY” IS CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH COMMUNISM AND SHOULD BE DISCARDED.

HE TOLD THE SPECIAL HOUSE COMMITTEE INVESTIGATING LOBBYING THAT THE U.S. IS A REPUBLIC AND THAT “IT IS TIME FOR US TO RETURN TO THAT CONCEPTION.”

THE TERM “DEMOCRACY” GAINED ITS CURRENT STATUS AFTER IT WAS USED BY GEORGEI DIMITROV AT A MEETING OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL IN MOSCOW IN 1935, HART SAID.

REPEATING WHAT HE SAID IN A SPEECH TO THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB OF NEW YORK IN 1940, HART TOLD THE COMMITTEE:

“I WONDER SOMETIMES IF ONE OF THE CAUSES OF OUR TROUBLE TODAY DOES NOT ARISE FROM THE FACT THAT WE HAVE BEEN OVER-DRILLED INTO BELIEVING WE ARE A DEMOCRACY, THIS, TOO, MAY BE ONE OF THE LATEST ‘INSIDIOUS WILES OF FOREIGN INFLUENCE…IT IS TIME TO BRUSH ASIDE THIS WORD WITH ITS ‘CONNOTATIONS.’”

HART WAS CALLED BEFORE THE LOBBY COMMITTEE BECAUSE OF THE EFFORTS MADE BY HIS ORGANIZATION TO INFLUENCE LEGISLATION IN WHICH IT IS INTERESTED. THE COUNCIL IS CLASSIFIED BY BOTH DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMEN AS RIGHT-WING.

IN ONE OF SEVERAL PREVIOUS STATEMENTS MADE BY HART, WHICH WERE PUT INTO THE COMMITTEE RECORD, HE SAID THERE IS AN “EXTREMELY ACTIVE GROUP” ATTEMPTING TO CONVERT THE UNITED STATES FROM A REPUBLIC TO A DEMOCRACY—“THAT IS, FROM A REPRESENTATIVE FORM OF GOVERNMENT INTO A MOBOCRACY, GOVERNED EVENTUALLY BY A DICTATOR.”

ALSO PUT INTO THE COMMITTEE RECORD WERE NUMEROUS EXCHANGES OF LETTERS IN WHICH CONTRIBUTIONS AND GIFTS TO THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL WERE DISCUSSED.

THE LETTERS SHOWED THAT TWO OF THE ACTIVE CONTRIBUTORS TO THE COUNCIL ARE LAMMOT DU PONT AND IRENEE DU PONT, BOTH OF WILMINGTON, DEL. THE RECORDS SHOWED THAT IRENEE DU PONT GAVE THE COUNCIL $11,000 IN 1948 TO PAY FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS TO PAMPHLETS THAT WERE SENT TO COLLEGES, CHURCHES AND LIBRARIES.

HART SAID IN ONE LETTER TO FORMER U.S. SEN. JOESPH R. GRUNDY, OF BRISTOL, PA., THAT THE COUNCIL’S LEGAL STAFF HAD FOUND A METHOD OF HELPING ITS CONTRIBUTORS SAVE ON THEIR INCOME TAX PAYMENTS.

“MAY I SAY THAT WHILE UNDER A RULING OF THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT OUR NON-NEW DEAL NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL IS NOT ABLE TO OFFER THE DEDUCTIBILITY PRIVILEGE TO ITS CONTRIBUOTRS, YET WE ARE ABLE TO GET SUBSTANTIAL BENEFIT FROM THE FACT THAT A CONTRIBUTION MADE TO US OF MONEY TO PURCHASE SUBSCRIPTIONS AT $10 EACH TO OUR COUNCIL PUBLICATIONS TO GO TO EDUCATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS CORPORATIONS IS DEDUCTIBLE UNDER THE INCOME TAX LAW,” HART WROTE GRUNDY.

HART’S LETTER SAID THAT FROM TIME TO TIME GRUNDY HAD SHOWN INTEREST IN THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL. THE FORMER PENNSYLVANIA SENATOR WAS INVITED TO MAKE A “FAIRLY SUBSTANTIAL” CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORK OF THE COUNCIL.

THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE PRODUCED AT THE COMMITTEE HEARING TO SHOW WHAT GRUNDY’S REPSONSE WAS.

6/21—N122P

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

ADD 1 LOBBYING (122P)

THE HOUSE LOBBY INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE DISCLOSED THAT CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION ABOUT ONE OF ITS SECRET MEETINGS HAD LEAKED OUT TO A LOBBY WHICH IT IS INVESTIGATING.

HARRY S. BARGER, WASHINGTON REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, DECLINED TO TELL THE COMMITTEE HOW HE GOT INSIDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMMITTEE’S JANUARY 17 MEETING.

IN A MEMO FROM BARGER TO ERWIN K. HART, NEC PRESDIENT, BARGER SAID “A FRIEND OF MINE” SAW A REPORT OF THE MEETING. BARGER DECLINED TO NAME THE FRIEND AND ASKED THE COMMITTEE FOR A RULING ON WHETHER HE WOULD BE COMPELLED TO ANSWER.

CHAIRMAN BUCHANAN SAID THE PROBLEM WOULD BE TAKEN UP IN CLOSED SESSION.

IN BARGER’S MEMO, INTRODUCED AS EVIDENCE, HE WROTE HART THAT THE COMMITTEE HAD FOUND THAT $90,000 HAD BEEN CONTRIBUTED TO NEC “FROM THE DUPONTS,” AND THAT THE COMMITTEE THOUGHT NEC WAS “SOMEWHAT SUBVERSIVE IN CHARACTER.”

BARGER WROTE THAT “THE CIO AND KINDRED SPIRITS” WERE RUNNING THE COMMITTEE AND “THAT THE SETUP SHOULD BE VERY CAREFULLY EXPOSED IF AND WHEN REPRESENTATIVES OF THE COUNCIL ARE CALLED BEFORE THE BUCHANAN COMMITTEE X X X.”

REVELATION OF THE MEMO BROUGHT SHARP COMMENTS FROM COMMITTEE MEMBERS, ESPECIALLY REP. CLYDE DOYLE, D., CAL., WHO DECLARED “I EMPHATICALLY RESENT” THE CHARGE THAT THE COMMITTEE IS UNDER DOMINATION OF ANY ONE.

BARGER SAID THE INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMMITTEE’S SECRET MEETING “WAS GIVEN TO ME IN CONFIDENCE” AND COULD HAVE COME FROM ANY ONE OF “THREE OR FOUR FRIENDS.”

“I DON’T THINK I SHOULD BE CALLED UPON TO NAME MY SOURCES ANY MORE THAN A NEWSPAPER MAN SHOULD BE,” HE SAID.

6/21—WM611P

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.

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And no counterrevolution would be complete without the guns
Reported June 1950 in the Washington Post

It was brought out, however, that Hart warned subscribers in his economic council letter in January, 1948, to arm themselves with pistols and rifles to resist the Communist threat.

“We have one concrete suggestion to make to every citizen who is impressed by the potential danger,” he wrote. “Let him possess himself of one or more guns making sure they are in good working condition and that other members of his family know how to use them.”

After the letter was read, Hart explained it had been written after a trip to Europe. He said it seemed to him that laws against the possession of firearms discriminate against law-abiding citizens because Communists and others ignore them.

Washington Post clipping “circa 6/_/50, p. 5.

Source: Ernie Lazar FOIA Collection at archive.org. Federal Bureau of Investigation. HART, Merwin Kimball, HQ 100-128996, 139-142.