Month: April 2020

Categories
AEA Bibliography

American Economic Association. Monographs: 1886-1896

 

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

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

A few other useful collections:

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

The Twentieth Century Economics Library

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

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

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

VOLUME I

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

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME II

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME III

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

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME IV

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME V

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

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME VI

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME VII

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME VIII

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME IX

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

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME X

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

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

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

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

 

VOLUME XI

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

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

 

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

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. Economic Theory Prelim Exam, Winter Quarter 1957

With this post the stock of old Chicago preliminary examinations for the M.A. and Ph.D. in economics transcribed for Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has grown by one to make it an even dozen.

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Previously posted prelim examinations at the University of Chicago:

Preliminary Exam (Money and Banking) 1956

Preliminary Exam (Money and Banking) 1959

Prelim Theory 1960.

Preliminary Exam (Price Theory) 1964

Preliminary Exam (Price Theory) 1969

Preliminary Exam (Macroeconomics) 1969

Preliminary Exam (Money and Banking) 1969

Preliminary Exam (International Trade) 1970

Preliminary Exam (Price Theory) 1975

Preliminary Exam (Industrial Organization) 1977

Preliminary Exam (History of Economic Thought) 1989

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ECONOMIC THEORY I
Preliminary Examination for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees
Winter Quarter 1957

WRITE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON YOUR EXAMINATION PAPER:

Your Code Number and NOT your name
Name of Examination
Date of Examination

Results of the Examination will be sent to you by letter after results on all preliminary examinations have been received.

Answer all questions: Time: Four hours.

Do section I of the examination on this paper and turn it in to the proctor with the rest of your examination. You are to do sections II-VII separately.

 

  1. Indicate whether each of the following statements is true (T), false (F), or uncertain (U). Explain briefly the basis for your answer.
    1. _____. If the market elasticity of demand for peaches is -2, a peach producer whose output accounts for 1/20th of the total supply of peaches will be faced by a demand function of elasticity -40.
    2. _____. If a constant amount of carpenters’ services is required per unit of housing constructed, and the elasticity of demand for housing is -1, the elasticity of demand for carpenters’ services used in housing must be less (in absolute value) than unity.
    3. _____. If the production possibilities for wire can be represented by a Cobb-Douglas production function, and the wire industry is competitive, a rise of 10 per cent in the wages of wire-workers will lead to a reduction of 10 per cent in their employment.
    4. _____. The elasticity of demand for a group of commodities with respect to the average price of the group can never be larger in absolute value than the largest of the individual price elasticities of the commodities which comprise the group.
    5. _____. If total consumer expenditures are the same before and after a tax, then an excise tax on a consumer good of elastic demand will lead to an increase in consumer spending on other consumer goods, while an excise tax on a consumer good of inelastic demand will lead to a decline in consumer spending on other consumer goods.
    6. _____. A tax of 10 per cent per year on the rental value (actual or imputed) of all land will in the long run lead to a lowering of the marginal productivity of labor in agriculture.
    7. _____. A technological advance opening up widespread possibilities for new investment in the electronics industry at very high rates of return will tend to lower the real value of the existing stock of residential housing in the United States.
    8. _____. A supply curve passing through the origin has an elasticity equal to unity.
    9. _____. Given certainty, no firm would hold inventories.
    10. _____. A negatively sloping supply curve of labor implies a positively sloping demand curve for leisure.
    11. _____. It is impossible to derive a supply function for a monopolist.
    12. _____. A legally enforced minimum wage for a particular occupation may increase employment in that occupation.
    13. _____. Wage rates rise while interest rates remain the same. It follows that the ratio of capital to labor will increase.
    14. _____. Engel’s laws are due to Friedrich Engels.
  2. “It is too obvious for argument that a single employee bargaining with a great corporation, or even with a moderately small employer, is under a disadvantage, except perhaps in time of serious labor shortage”. (Arthur Larsen, A Republican Looks at his Party, p. 125)
    Analyze, being sure in the process to discuss the concepts of  “bargaining disadvantage” and “labor shortage”.
  3. Derive a demand function for a factor of production. What does it depend on? What things are held constant in the derivation?
  4. a) What was Malthus’ theory of population? In answering, distinguish explicitly between the two variants of his theory, according to the character of the restraints on population.
    b) Tell how equilibrium is established under each variant.
    c) What effect did the theory have on economic theory?
  5. In the analysis of supply, an important role is played by a fourfold classification of economies or diseconomies of production: internal and external, each of these cross-classified as pecuniary and technical.
    1. What does each of the four concepts mean and what role does it play in the analysis of supply?
    2. For each of the four concepts, what would be its counterpart in the analysis of demand? If you can, illustrate by example each type of economy, each type of diseconomy.
    3. Why is so much more importance attached to these concepts in the analysis of supply than in the analysis of demand?
  6. “The interest rate measures the rate of time-preference. Therefore, in a community, the members of which are as anxious to provide for the future as for the present, the rate of interest will be zero. But the rate of interest also equals the marginal productivity of capital. It follows that in such a community the marginal productivity will be zero”.
    Discuss the validity of this argument.
  7. The U.S. government currently guarantees a large fraction of mortgages on newly-constructed houses through the Federal Housing Administration and the Veteran’s Administration. The government guarantee naturally makes these more attractive than non-guaranteed mortgages and so leads to their being available at a lower rate of interest. Recently there has been a decline in residential building. Representatives of the industry have suggested that one means of stimulating building would be to extend the government guarantee to mortgages on existing houses. They claim that the higher cost of mortgages on such houses inhibits their sale and thus prevents individuals currently owning houses from coming into the market for new houses.
    Analyze the effect that the enactment of this proposal would have on the rate of construction of residential housing. Do not discuss the desirability as a matter of public policy of either the existing guarantees or the proposed extension.

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 76, Folder 2 “University of Chicago ‘Economic Theory’”.

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

Categories
Economists Gender Radcliffe

Radcliffe. Economics Ph.D. Alumna, Ada M. Harrison, 1952

 

John Bates Clark and his student Thorstein Veblen are the two most famous economists associated with Carleton College. Less famous but having a greater direct impact on more generations of Carleton students was the Radcliffe Ph.D., Ada M. Harrison. With this post she now joins our series “Meet an economics Ph.D. alumna”.

An oral history Interview with Ada M. Harrison recorded in 1993.

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Ada M. Harrison, A.M.
Radcliffe Ph.D. in Economics, 1952

Special Field, Business Organization and Control.
Dissertation, “The Competitive Structure of the Wood Household Manufacturing Furniture Industry”.

Source: Radcliffe College. Reports of Officers Issue, 1951-52 Sessions.  Official Register of Radcliffe College, Vol. XVIII, No. 5 (December, 1952), p. 22.

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Carleton College Emerita Professor Ada M. Harrison Dies

Ada M. Harrison, one of Carleton College’s most admired and beloved professors, died Monday, Dec. 27, [1999] in Northfield, Minn. She was 85. A respected economist and devoted teacher, Harrison taught economics for 31 years at Carleton, specializing in industrial organization, economic theory, and accounting. A public memorial service was held Friday, Jan. 28, 2000, in Carleton’s Skinner Memorial Chapel.

Harrison was born Feb. 2, 1914, in Saskatchewan, Canada. She received her bachelor’s degree from the State College of Washington, Pullman, in 1941 and earned her Ph.D. in economics from Radcliffe College in 1952. Before coming to Carleton in 1948, Harrison was a statistician for a Chicago investment firm and served as an economist with the Office of Price Administration in Washington.

“In her many years of teaching at Carleton, Ada Harrison had a profound impact on her students,” Carleton President Stephen R. Lewis, Jr. said. “A diminutive but demanding teacher of accounting and microeconomics, she expected analytical rigor and high standards of precision. With a quick mind and sharp wit, she often struck fear in the hearts of hundreds of future business leaders, who testify abundantly to her lasting effect on their lives.”

Michael S. Hunt, a 1968 graduate of Carleton and principal with Life Science Advisors in Carmel, Ind., remembered Harrison as a great teacher of economics and a dear friend. “As a freshman in her Introductory Economics class, I felt stark terror that I will always remember because she would accept only our best, critical thought and made it painfully clear when we didn’t produce. As I got to know her during my four years at Carleton I realized that she was not only a brilliant economist but also a woman with a great sense of humor and a deep concern for our professional and personal growth after Carleton.”

In 1957-58, Harrison was the only female among five college professors in the country to be awarded a National Research Professorship in Economics by the Brookings Institution of Washington, D.C. She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and of the American Economic Association. During the 1950s and ’60s, Harrison traveled extensively to speak on economic issues. She also sponsored Carleton’s debate team for several years.

Harrison officially retired from Carleton in June 1979, but continued to teach for several years after her retirement.

George Lamson, the Wadsworth A. Williams Professor of Economics at Carleton and a friend and colleague of Harrison’s, recently asked her what she was most thankful for in her life. According to Lamson, Harrison answered without hesitation, “That I became a teacher and that I taught at Carleton.”

“Miss Harrison loved to teach, and she loved her students,” said Wally Weitz, Carleton class of 1970 and president of Wallace R. Weitz & Co. in Omaha. “She was demanding-there was no place to hide for the unprepared-and she taught us to think clearly and to express ourselves precisely. She had a major impact on me, and I am grateful.”

Source: Carleton College, Press Release of December 29, 1999.

Image Source: Carleton College Yearbook, Algol 1959, p. 24.

Categories
Courses Popular Economics Suggested Reading Syllabus

Philadelphia. Money and Banking syllabus for six lectures. Thompson, 1894

 

In an earlier post at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror we met the economist Robert Ellis Thompson who was dismissed from the Wharton School for his support of protectionist policies. He started his career as an educational administrator as president of Central High School in Philadelphia in 1894. In that same year he published the following brief syllabus for six lectures that were offered for an extension course in money and banking.

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[SERIES D.]

University Extension Lectures
UNDER THE AUSPICES OF
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY
FOR THE
EXTENSION OF UNIVERSITY TEACHING.

SYLLABUS
COURSE OF SIX LECTURES
MONEY and BANKING

BY
PROF. ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON, S.T.D.,
President of Central High School.

No. 3. Price, 10 Cents.

Copyright 1894, by
The American Society for the Extension of University Teaching.

 

The Weekly Papers. — Every student has the privilege of writing and sending to the lecturer each week, while the course is in progress, a paper containing answers to two or more questions from the lists given at the end of the syllabus. The paper should have at the head of the first sheet the name of the writer and the name of the centre.

The Class. — At the close of each lecture a class will be held. All are urged to attend it and to take an active part. The subjects discussed will ordinarily be those treated in the lecture of the same evening. Where possible a conference will be held at a different hour for the benefit of the students who write weekly papers. Where this is not feasible, a part or the whole of the regular class hour will be given to a discussion of the papers, and under such conditions the subjects discussed will be those treated in the lecture of the previous week. Students are invited to add to their papers any questions, or to suggest any topics relevant to the subject, which may seem to them to require more detailed explanation. All persons attending the lecture are invited to attend the class, whether they have sent in weekly papers or not.

The Examination. — Those students whose papers and attendance upon the class exercises have satisfied the lecturer of the thoroughness of their work will be admitted to the examination at the close of the course. Each person who passes the examination successfully will receive from the Society a certificate in testimony thereof.

Reading. — Students who are writing weekly papers will find it advisable to spend the larger part of the spare time available each week in reading on the subjects treated in the preceding lecture, thus preparing themselves for the conference, or class, and for the writing of the papers. Those who are not writing the papers will probably find it more advantageous to read consecutively one or more of the texts recommended, without particular reference to the order in which the subjects are discussed in the lectures. Students with considerable time at their disposal may be able to combine both methods of study.

Students’ Associations. — The formation of Students’ Associations for reading and study before and after the lecture course, as well as during its continuance, is strongly urged. In every case where this is done, the lecturer would be glad of any opportunity to make special suggestions in advance about books and subjects. The suggestions in this syllabus are of too general a nature for the guidance of these associations. They are intended rather for the use of individual readers whose time and previous knowledge vary widely, and to whom, therefore, no specific direction can be given.

MONEY AND BANKING.
LECTURE I.

DEFINITION AND GENERAL HISTORY OF MONEY.

Money is the instrument of association, and therefore of production, as well as of exchange; and is a standard of value only in a limited sense. Importance of economic Association. How the ordinary definition of money originated. The harm it has done.

The age of barter. Use of cattle as money. Then hides or skins (peltries): Job, colonial America and Hudson Bay territory. Silver and gold desired as ornaments by primitive man. Used as money: (1) by weight; (2) in pieces of shape and value of cattle; (3) as coins since Darius Hystaspis († 485 B.C). Phoenicians and Greeks follow Persian example.

Difficulties attending use of gold and silver: (1) diversion of labor to mining; (2) abrasion; (3) uncertainty as to values.

The two metals vary in relative value. Gold cheaper than silver for a time in some places. Adjustment of value to relative scarcity. Greek ratio 1:13; Roman 1:10. Rise of silver in middle ages. Effect of discovery of America in lowering silver and promoting Association. Ratio of 1785, 1:15.5. Lasts till our time.

Depreciation of coinage in middle ages and later. The English “pound” equals sixty-six shillings. Scotch and American parallels.

Introduction of representative money. (1) Bank notes. Bankers of antiquity. Jews and Caursins in middle ages. Venice and Genoa. English “goldsmith’s notes.” The modern bank note first issued by bank of England. (2) Bills of exchange a form of money. (3) Credit money created on the ledger of a bank. Its volume and use in wholesale trade. Panics attending its contraction and its collapse. Effect of credit and paper money on demand for coin.

Substitutes, tried or proposed, for gold and silver coin. Platinum. Goldoid. The complex unit of value (Ricardo and Andrews).

LECTURE II.
THE HUME-TORRENS THEORY OF MONEY.

The mercantilists exaggerate the importance of money. Their justification. Reaction seen in Turgot: “Money is a commodity like any other.” Hume forms a theory of its passivity in relation to the industrial movement: “More money means higher prices; less money means lower prices.” Temporary effect of increase on production admitted. Permanent denied.

Theory not verified by facts, though widely current among economists, even of the latest school. Tooke and Newmarch’s “History of Prices” disproves it for England. American experience and that of Japan and of Portugal.

Rejected by the business world. “Mercantilism of the Money Article” (Stanley Jevons). The struggle for gold.

Relation of the theory to international trade. “Export of money secures more useful commodities in exchange.” Money the most useful of commodities. Like an irreplaceable rolling-stock. Shall we exchange power for the products of power? “Export of money makes a country a good place to buy in by lowering prices, and thus secure a readjustment.” No case given in illustration. Our present situation. The effect of an abundance of money on prices may be to lower them. Carey’s shilling in Thibet. Gold and raw materials move on same lines. “Money goes to where the demand is greatest.” “Demand” is not need, but such a need as carries with it the means of supply. Physical analogies mislead. No “abhorrence of a vacuum” in economics. “To him that hath shall be given.”

LECTURE III.
THE SILVER PROBLEM.

Meaning of value. No fixed values. Progress reduces them steadily. In other things this a gain however fast the reduction. In money, a calamity, if metals fall faster than average of commodities. Equally a calamity if rise in value.

Silver precedes gold. The coinage of the majority. First disturbed by English legislation in 1819, following Bullion Report of 1810. Imitated by the United States in 1835. Rise of a monometallist school. Gold discoveries of 1840-54 alarm economists. Chevalier and Cobden propose its demonetization. Great silver deposits found in Nevada cause a new alarm. Dr. Linderman’s exaggerated estimates. The Latin Union (1865-1881), to sustain silver. First Monetary Conference of 1867, and America’s strange attitude. The Franco-Prussian war-indemnity paid in gold (1871), and used to replace the silver coinage of Germany. Effect on the silver market. Holland and the Scandinavian States abandon silver. First attempt to retrieve silver by Bland Law of 1879. The new ratio, 1:16. Failure of the attempt. Mr. Windrim’s plan of silver certificates redeemable at market rates only partly adopted. The recent depression traced to silver, and its coinage stopped. Why this the best policy.

The Indian situation. A policy of improvements after 1858. Debt contracted in England to be paid in gold. Sale of exchange on Calcutta depends on market price of silver, so long as Indian mints are open. The mints closed to maintain price at sixteen pence for the rupee. Will the policy succeed? Hardships of public servants in India. Relief by bimetallism.

“Why not go on with gold?” Coin rises in value rapidly; amount and supply small; and military chests. All debts increased in real amount, e.g., our national debt. Hence unwillingness to borrow. Equally bad if silver alone. Effect on savings banks. Can an international ratio be maintained?

LECTURE IV.
THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH BANKING.

A bank exists to convert a portion of the property and credit of the community into the instrument of industrial Association. Sometimes the nation undertakes the work by issue of paper money. Some claim this power to borrow from the community without paying interest should be a government monopoly [sic]. Peel and Gladstone. Objections: the excessive centralization of money issues in a big country; and no government could create pure credit money.

Departments of a bank: (1) Discount (or credit) business, making advances on mercantile paper (England and America) or permanent bonds (Scotland). Interest charged and collected in advance; (2) its work as a clearing-house between its own customers, and as a branch of a larger clearing-house; (3) its issue department, supplying money for those who keep no bank account; (4) its acceptance of money on deposit to maintain its reserve. Not to be confounded with the “deposits” of the reports.

First banks simple. Venice an association of public creditors. Genoa an association of usurers. Bank of England (1694) a modern bank. Demand notes, check payments, discounts, etc. Its half-public character: “Run on the bank, and stop the Duke!” Reconstruction in 1844 by Peel’s Bank Act. Objections to that legislation and to its effects. Fear of over-issue since 1810. Helps to make panics.

Recent changes by abolishing monoply [sic]. Joint stock banks. England’s vast loans, e.g., to Argentine Confederation and Australia. The Baring panic of 1891, and its continuance.

LECTURE V.
BANKING IN SCOTLAND AND IN AMERICA.

The condition of Scotland in 1695. Thriftlessness and poverty of the people. Hot tempers. Contrast with the modern Scotchman. Change due to many influences.

The Bank of Scotland (1695), the first private banking corporation. Growth of the system. It includes agriculturists as well as trades, and creates manufactures. It supplies paper money to a moneyless country. Scott’s testimony as to its effects. Copied in Scandinavian States.

(1) Based on mutual responsibility of customers, while English banks deal with individuals or single firms. The joint-bond plan; (2) interest charged only on money used. No pressure to speculate; (3) local banks do local business. Country traders pay cash by check on home bank. No “insurance” in the prices they pay; (4) safety of the method. Three failures in two hundred years.

Scotland accepts the union on condition of keeping her own institutions. Her church and her banks peculiarly her own. England meddles with both. Proposal of 1826 defeated by Scott. Legislation of 1844 forbids extension of Scotch bank circulation.

America copies English banking. Robert Morris refuses loans to farmers. Great debate on repeal of charter of Bank of North America. First bank of the United States (1791-1811). Interregnum of State banks (1811-1816). Free trade in money. “The Little Frenchman.” The Second Bank of the United States (1816-1836) and Jackson’s war on it. Was he right? The Independent Treasury system. Second interregnum of State banks (1836-1863). “Wild cat” banks. The Bank of Athens discovered.

Bank loans to government at opening of the war. Secretary Chase issues treasury notes, convertible into bonds. Plans a banking system to sustain market for bonds. Taxes State bank circulation out of existence. Merits and defects of his plan. The decline of bank-note circulation. Demand for State banks, or for abolition of banks of issue.

LECTURE VI.
THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE.

Our actual currency: Gold coin diminishing in amount; silver coin and certificates fallen and falling in value; treasury notes fixed in amount, with the fund for redemption disappearing; national bank-notes vanishing with redemption of debt.

Proposals: (A) Unlimited issue of national notes by treasury. (B) Free coinage of silver at present ratio, involving the adoption of the silver standard. (C) The extension of the circulation of the national banks on the basis of a first lien on the bank’s capital. (D) The restoration of State banks of issue of such sort as each State may choose. (E) The establishment of local institutions of credit by the national government to accommodate farmers by loans on their crops. (F) Perseverance in the single gold standard policy and gradual elimination of silver. B and E, and C and F generally united. A and B tend to centralization: A, B, and probably D, would be as injurious to creditors as F  to debtors. C offers inadequate security.

To combine all advantages sought: A new banking system, like that of Scotland, with deposits of any kind of government bonds as security for circulation. Features of Land Banks and People’s Banks on the European continent might be included. Mutual responsibility, localization of issues and of business, adjustment of money supply to actual need, its value changing with that of commodities generally.

Works of reference: Stephen Colwell’s “Ways and Means of Payment” (Philadelphia, 1859); A.S. Bolles’s “Financial History of the United States” (New York, 1880-86) [Vol 1, 1774 to 1789; Vol 2, 1789-1860; Vol 3, 1861-1885]; J.L. Laughlin’s “History of Bimetallism in the United States” (New York, 1886); Van Buren Denslow’s “Principles of Economic Philosophy” (New York, 1888); Francis A. Walker’s “Money, Trade and Industry” (New York, 1879); R.H. Patterson’s “Economy of Capital” (Edinburgh, 1870), and “The New Golden Age” (London, 1882) [Volume I; Volume II].

 

Source: Robert Ellis Thompson, Syllabus of a course of six lectures on money and banking. Philadelphia, 1894.

Image Source: Robert Ellis Thompson, ca. 1880. University of Pennsylvania. University Archives & Record Center. Web series “Penn People”.

Categories
Cornell Economists Harvard Race

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Michael Francis McPhelin, S.J., 1951

 

 

This post in the series, “Get to know an economics Ph.D.”, began unintentionally with a check of the proper capitalization for the name of a relatively obscure Harvard economics Ph.D. alumnus. The crop of 1950-51 Ph.D.’s was large (41) and included Thomas Schelling, Robert M. Solow, and William Parker who already have dedicated posts here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.  I discovered that the Jesuit priest-economist, whose name I double-checked, had been awarded a bronze star as an army chaplain in World War II and later went on to become the founding faculty member of the department of economics at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. This post presents a variety of artifacts associated with Rev. Michael Francis McPhelin, S.J. that I collected after a half-day’s worth of internet trawling.

In the history of U.S. academic economics Professor McPhelin turns out to be associated with a major moment at the intersection of the politics of race and academic freedom. There are quite a few cases of external forces attempting to influence hiring decisions and curricula involving economists (e.g. Samuelson’s textbook), but McPhelin’s case was an inside-the-ivory-tower-job. He put himself in the cross-hairs of student activists who wanted him dismissed for alleged racism in the classroom. A fairly complete accounting of the “McPhelin affair” that included an occupation of the Cornell economics department offices can be found in:

Downs, Donald Alexander. Chapter 4 “Racial Justice Versus Academic Freedom” in his Cornell ’69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University. Ithaca, NY Cornell University Press, 1999. pp. 68-96.
A book review by Jon Porter. 

With respect to Father McPhelin, Downs gives the benefit of the doubt:

McPhelin was treading into an area of delicate expectations and sensitivities, and he was doing so in front of the leading advocates of Black Power on campus. Worse, McPhelin entered this fray with fewer strategic skills than other professors who managed to get away with similar remarks in class. According to Nathan Tarcov, who lived in the same house as the visiting priest, McPhelin was a friendly, decent man who had the misfortune of being obtuse. “He really just could not fully comprehend what was happening to him,” Tarcov said. “He just didn’t get it.” [Downs, p. 72]

I have included a considerably less than flattering portrayal of McPhelin by a Philippine businessman/politician/journalist who clearly bore an anti-colonial grudge against the Jesuit academics, his “Great White Father(s)”.

The former president of the Philippines (Benigno Aquino III) appears to have had a much higher opinion of McPhelin.

The post ends with a list of papers that Professor Michael McPhelin published in the journal Philippine Studies.

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Michael Francis McPhelin (Ph.D., 1950-51)

Michael Francis McPhelin, A.B. (Woodstock Coll.[Baltimore, MD]) 1935, A.M. (ibid.) 1936, S.T.L. (ibid.) 1942.

Special Field, The History of Economic Thought.
Thesis, “The Meaning and Requirements of Economic Order.”

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1950-51, pp. 111.

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New York Times obituary

The Rev. Michael F. McPhelin, a Jesuit who was a former dean of the Fordham University School of Business, died Jan. 21 in Manila. He was 70 years old.

In 1950 he was assigned to the faculty of Ateneo de Manila and had returned there for service over the last two decades. A native of New York, he completed his seminary studies at Woodstock College in Maryland. He served as a chaplain with the 275th Infantry in World War II and then received a doctorate from Columbia University [sic].

He became an assistant professor of economics at Fordham in 1950 and later taught at Gregorian University, Rome. He became dean at Fordham in 1954.

He is survived by a brother, James, and a sister, Ann Young.

Source: The New York Times, January 31, 1981, section 1, page 11.

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War record as Chaplain in the Infantry

McPhelin, Michael F. (New York)

Born: 16 May 1911. Entered Society: 14 Aug 1929. Ordained: 22 Jun 1941. Present Province: Philippines.

Appointed to the Army 6 Jan 1944. Serial number: 0543081. To the rank of Captain 9 Dec 1944; to Major 21 Aug 1946. Assignments: Harvard Chaplain School (10 Feb 1944) ; Monterey, Cal., and Camp Cooke, Cal. (1944) ; 275th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division, at Camp Adair, Ore., at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and in France (1944) ; 275th Infantry Regiment, France (1945) ; 23rd Corps Artillery, Germany (1945) ; 30th Infantry Regiment, Germany (1946) ; Division Artillery, 3rd Infantry Division (1946). Reverted to inactive status 20 Oct 1946. Award: Bronze Star.

Source: Woodstock Letters, vol. 89, no. 4 (November 1, 1960), p. 402.

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War Anecdote

Jan 7, 1945 (-4 to +5 deg F!!!)

…following is the story of Father Michael McPhelin…This being Sunday, he is making his rounds to say Mass. In the daylight, the men cannot stick their heads up without being shot at from Germans on higher ground. When he arrives at Co F in the forward-right sector below Baerenthal, he is told that the men could not possibly risk coming together for Mass. Chaplain McPhelin replied, “Well, if that’s the case, I will have to go to them. That’s my job.” While there is every expectation that the Germans will shoot him, since they can clearly see him move from foxhole to foxhole, they don’t.”

Source: Timothy McG. Millhiser and Ross R. Millhiser (June, 2000) “Operation Northwind” History of Company A, 275th  Regiment, 70th Division.

Cf. Charles Whiting. The Other Battle of the Bulge: Operation Northwind. The History Press (2007). Chapter 3.

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Ateneo Economics Department:
A BRIEF HISTORY

Over the past fifty years, the Ateneo Economics Department has distinguished itself with its rich history and the countless contributions its alumni have made to Philippine society.

The Economics Department started out as a subdepartment of Social Science. Although it was recognized as a separate department, Economics had no official head and was under control of the chair of Social Science. When the Economics Department was finally established in 1953, it had only Rev. Michael McPhelin, S.J. as its lone faculty member. He became the first moderator of the Economics of the Ateneo (ESA) when it was founded in 1962.

In the school year 1957-1958, the Economics Department achieved greater autonomy with the appointment of a chair separate from that of the Department of Social Science. This was Rev. William J. Nicholson, S.J., who was one of four faculty members in 1955. A notable faculty member who also became chair of the Department was Dr. Vicente Valdepeñas, who would subsequently become the director-general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). He is currently a member of the Monetary Board of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

The year 1970 was significant for the Economics Department. For the first time, it acquired female faculty, among them Victoria Valdez, Ellen Palanca, and later Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The last two would go on to acquire doctorates and continue teaching in the Department. Mrs. Macapagal –Arroyo would eventually leave the academe to become a member of the Aquino cabinet, senator, vice president, and President of the Republic.

Today, the Ateneo Economics Department is widely recognized as one of the most important academic groups in the country. It boasts of faculty members who not only provide analytical assistance to government agencies, multilateral organizations and non-government organizations, but also lead their students into careers that are dedicated to the improvement of the national economy and national well-being.

The Department tirelessly and resolutely charts new directions for growth and development. It continues to offer the bachelor’s and master programs begun in 1951, the Management Economics Program introduced in 1984, and the Ph.D. program initiated in 2002. Three thousand men and women have graduated with degrees in the Department’s various courses, and thousands more will follow in the coming years.

Indeed, the Economics Department of the Ateneo de Manila is keeping alive the Jesuit tradition of academic excellence and service to God and the Filipino people.

Source: Ateneo de Manila University Economics Department website.

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The Great White Father
by Hilarion M. Henares, Jr.

Hilarion

Philippine Daily Inquirer
September 24, 1986

…Abrasive in manner and speech, a cruel glint in his eyes, inveterate party goer, he was a racist who was thrown out of Cornell University for lectures telling the Negroes they were bioogically inferior to the whites. He was Father Michael McPhelin, head of the Economics Department of Ateneo University, suspected CIA agent, a hanger-on at Malacañang as some sort of Rasputin, and the beloved mentor of NEDA Director Vince Valdepeñas…

The first time I met Father McPhelin was as a young businessman just fresh out of college invited to speak before the Ateneo Economic Society. He was the rudest person I ever met, he kept interrupting me, making insulting remarks about the integrity and competence of Filipino businessmen, and made no bones about his conviction that American multinationals should be given free rein to exploit our country…

Finally, I spoke to him thus: “McPhelin, you have me at a disadvantage. In the first place, you are a priest; that means God must be on your side. In the second place, you are a Jesuit priest, which means that you are probably one of the most brilliant of holy men. Above all, you are an American Jesuit priest, which makes you in the worst and most ominous sense of the term, a Great White Father about whom we Ateneans and Filipinos have a colonial mentality. But mark this, McPhelin, from here on, there will be no public forum you will ever attend that I will not grace with my presence.  And I promise you when we meet in debate, I will wipe the floor with the two protuberances of your ischia–that is, with your butt!” He was shocked out of his wits at the first Pinoy that ever talked back to him.

This big bully Father McPhelin browbeat an entire generation of Ateneo students into being Little Brown Brothers, without pride of race or faith in the Filipino. I hounded him for years, challenging him to a debate, questioning him in the open forum period, till he developed diarrhea at the very sight of me. Everywhere he went, he brought his assistant with him, a nice harmless young man named Vicente Valdepeñas Jr.; and when he saw me, he rushed out leaving poor Vince to face me as I complained: “Must I spend the rest of my life debating with altar boys?” And golly I still am….

Source:  From Hiarion M. Henares, Jr. Make My Day. 

For a personal report about Henares: see the blogpost in honor of his 88th birthday by Bel Cunanan “How to solve a problem like Larry Henares” from April 10, 2013.

__________________

President (2010-2016) Benigno Aquino III
recalls his economics professor

President Aquino “…was the keynote speaker at the opening program of the Ignatian Festival 2013 on his alma mater’s [Ateneo de Manila University] campus in Loyola Heights, Quezon City, with the theme “Lahing Loyola Para sa Kapwa (A Loyola Race for Others)…

…He said he “owed a debt of gratitude” to his former teachers and mentors for molding his character.

Ateneo teaches that “I am in the position to help” improve the lives of others, he said, without adding that state universities and other schools also do the same.

Repeating the age-old dichotomy between success and public service (or servant leadership, as Ateneans like to call it), Mr. Aquino asked: “Isn’t this more sensible than the other institutions’ drive to enhance their students ability to quickly ascend the ladder of wealth and prestige?”

He cited the pivotal role played by his economics professor, Fr. Michael McPhelin, a Harvard alumnus, in enriching his knowledge of the subject.

He recalled debating with McPhelin matters dealing with economics and statistics during the “last 15 minutes of each and every class” held three times a week.

After passing the course, he was told by McPhelin that “he just wanted me to be like my father so he pressured me… into getting used to going through a lot of tests,” Mr. Aquino said.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer Sunday July 21, 2013.

__________________

Papers by Michael F. McPhelin
published in Philippine Studies

Vol 7, No 4 (1959) The Margin Act

Vol 7, No 4 (1959) Economic Freedom: Adam Smith vs. The Papacy

Vol 8, No 1 (1960) Political Transmission 15 I. Economics of the Transmission

Vol 8, No 2 (1960) The “Filipino First” Policy

Vol 8, No 3 (1960) Post-Summit Reflections

Vol 8, No 3 (1960) Inducement to Invest: The United States Investment Guaranty Program and Foreign Investment

Vol 9, No 1 (1961) Financial Achievement of 1960

Vol 9, No 2 (1961) The Chinese Question

Vol 9, No 2 (1961) Where Angels Fear To Tread: Too Many Asians

Vol 9, No 3 (1961) The Purchase of Meralco

Vol 10, No 2 (1962) Not One But Ten: Southeast Asia Today and Tomorrow

Vol 10, No 4 (1962) Boeke’s Thesis Examined: Indonesian Economics

Vol 12, No 2 (1964) A Philippine Economic Geography: Shadows on the Land

Vol 12, No 4 (1964) The Economic Development Foundation

Vol 13, No 2 (1965) A Practical Man’s Economics Guide: The Planning and Execution of Economic Development

Vol 13, No 4 (1965) National Development and Human Resources: Manpower and Education

Vol 14, No 1 (1966) Wages and Justice

Vol 14, No 1 (1966) A Source Book For Economic Geography: World Economic Development

Vol 14, No 4 (1966) Philippine: International Trade and Problems of Modernization

Vol 17, No 2 (1969) Economic Dilemma of Asian Countries Asian Drama

Vol 17, No 3 (1969) On the Diversity of Philippine Geography: The Philippine Island World

Vol 17, No 4 (1969) Manila: The Primate City

Vol 18, No 1 (1970) Economic Nationalism and Planned Stagnation

Vol 18, No 3 (1970) An Inquiry into Economic Nationalism

Vol 20, No 4 (1972) The Philippines: Problems and Prospects

Vol 20, No 4 (1972) Sicat: Economic Policy and Philippine Development

Vol 24, No 4 (1976) The Philippines: An Economic and Social Geography

Vol 24, No 4 (1976) Foreign Trade Regimes and Economic Development: The Philippines

Vol 25, No 4 (1977) The Tropics and Economic Development A Provocative Inquiry into the Poverty of Nations

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Economics of Social Security. Reading list and exam. Harris, 1951

 

While the following syllabus was filed with the Harvard economics syllabi for 1951-52, Seymour Harris’ course on the economics of social security was actually not offered that year. It was offered during the spring term of 1950-51 for which there is a final exam to be found. Both the course reading list and the exam are transcribed below.

____________________

Course Announcement

Economics 186 (formerly Economics 86a). Economics of Social Security

Half-course (spring term). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Professor Harris.

Economics 286 (formerly Economics 186b). Social Security and its Relation to Fiscal and Cycle Problems

Half-course (spring term). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Professor Harris.

This course treats of the United States Social Security programs primarily, and foreign areas secondarily. Unemployment, health, old age insurance, education receive much attention; also assistance programs. Methods of finance, relations to economic activity, effects on income distribution are also considered.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Courses of Instruction, Box 6. Official Register of Harvard University vol. 47, no. 23 (September, 1950). Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1950-51, pp. 82-83, 89.

____________________

Prof. S. E. Harris

Economics 186 and 286
1951

I. Social Security and the National Economy—Four weeks

Philosophy; problems of distribution; monetary, financial and cyclical aspects; broad outlines of the American and British systems.

Assignment:

E. Burns: The American Social Security System, Chs. 1-3

Haber and Cohen: Readings in Social Security, Chs. 1-3

Suggested readings:

*The Beveridge Report (Social Insurance and Allied Problems)

+*W.R. Robson (Ed.): Social Security

R.C. Davison: The Unemployed

*R.C. Davison: British Unemployment Policy

S.E. Harris: Economics of Social Security, pp. 1-161

A.H. Hansen: Full Recovery or Stagnation? pp. 137-192

III. Attacks on Insecurity

The Old Age Problem—Two weeks

Assignment: Burns, Chs. 4,5; Haber-Cohen, pp. 249-322

Assistance—One week

Assignment: Burns, Chs. 11, 12

Unemployment—Two weeks

Assignment: Burns, Chs. 6,7; Haber-Cohen, Ch. 4

Sickness and Health Insurance—Two weeks

Assignment: The Practitioner, pp. 1-61; Haber-Cohen, Ch. 6

Veterans

Assignment: Burns, Ch. 10

 

Suggested Readings:

H.M. Stationary Office: Social Insurance, Part I, 1944

The Final Report of the Committee on the Costs of Medical Care, 1932

Backman and Meriam: The Issue of Compulsory Health Insurance (The Brookings Institution)

+S.E. Harris: Economics of Social Security, pp. 162-443

*Recommendations for Social Security Legislation: Reports of the Advisory Council on Social Security to the Senate Committee on Finance, 1949.

The Nation’s Health: A Ten Years Program

+Millis and Montgomery: Labor’s Risk and Social Insurance

*Report to the President of the Committee on Economic Security, 1935

*Reading period: Any one of these items.

+Graduate students: Read 300 pages additional from one of these three items (but exclusive of your reading period choice) and write a 2500-word comment on the additional reading.

Source: Harvard University Archives, Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 5, Folder “Economics, 1951-1952 (2 of 2)”.

____________________

1950-51
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 186 AND 286
[Final Examination. June, 1951]

Economics 186: Answer five questions, including number 6.

Economics 286: Answer four questions, including numbers 5 and 6.

Indicate Class next to your name.

  1. “Under the British National Health Service Act, the relative position of practitioners, nurses, specialists, dentists, obstetricians, and the relative outlays on various services have been affected.” Discuss this quotation on the basis of your reading in The Practitioner and lectures.
  2. Compare the present status of British and American programs of social security.
  3. Give the main provisions, major weaknesses, and suggest methods of improvement of the U.S. Unemployment Insurance Program.
  4. Under Old Age Insurance (U.S.A.), the problem of appropriate benefits is a difficult one. Consider some of the crucial problems raised in developing appropriate benefits.
  5. Relate the problem of economic fluctuations to the American Social Security program.
  6. Summarize and comment on the reading period assignment. (30 Minutes.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 27. Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions,…,Economics,…, Air Sciences, Naval Science. June, 1951.

Image Source: Seymour Harris in the Harvard Class Album 1957.

Categories
Columbia Economists Statistics

Columbia. Promotions and Memorial Minute for Abraham Wald

 

 

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

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Promotion to Assistant Professor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

ANNEX B.
BIOGRAPHIC MEMORANDUM OF ABRAHAM WALD

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

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

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

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

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

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

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

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

___________________

Aliens in the Department of Economics

December 19, 1941

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

Dear Mr. Hayden:

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

Harold Barger

29 West 8th Street, New York City

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

 

Donald Bailey Marsh

106 Morningside Drive, New York City

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

 

Robert Valeur

40 Barrow Street, New York City

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

 

Abraham Wald

241 West 108th Street, New York City

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

Very truly yours,
Chairman, Department of Economics

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

___________________

Promotion to Associate Professor

February 7, 1944

Professor Abraham Wald,
608 Fayerweather.

Dear Professor Wald:

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

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

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

Sincerely yours,

[copy unsigned, Frederick C. Mills?]

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

___________________

Promotion to Professor

April 23, 1945

President Nicholas Murray Butler,
Columbia University.

Dear Mr. President:

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

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

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

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

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

Respectfully submitted,

FREDERICK C. MILLS

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

___________________

April 27, 1951

Memorial Minute for Professor A. Wald

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

ABRAHAM WALD

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Columbia Economists Pennsylvania Statistics

Columbia. Statistics PhD alumnus. Robert E. Chaddock, 1908

 

The post provides another life/career overview of a Ph.D. alum. Today’s Ph.D. went on to become professor of sociology and statistics at Columbia University, Robert Emmet Chaddock.

__________________________

Previous posts at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror
with Chaddock content…

Request for funding for his statistical laboratory in 1911 (with a newspaper account of his 1940 suicide).

E.R.A. Seligman’s recommendation for Chaddock’s promotion to Associate Professor in 1912.

__________________________

Chaddock obituaries by…

Frederick E. Croxton in Journal of the American Statistical Association 36:213 (March, 1941), pp. 116-119.

William F. Ogburn in American Journal of Sociology 46:4 (January, 1941), p. 595.

__________________________

Robert E. Chaddock (1879-1940)

1879 born April 16, in Minerva, Ohio

1900 A.B. Wooster College

1900-05. Taught at Wooster College

1906 M.A., Columbia University

1906-08. University Fellow in Sociology, Columbia University

1908 Worked with the boy’s club of the Union Settlement (New York City)

1907-09. Instructor, Columbia University

1908 Ph.D. Columbia University.

1909-11. Assistant Professor of Economics and Statistics. Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

1911-12. Assistant Professor of Statistics, Columbia University

1912-22. Associate Professor of Statistics, Columbia University

1917-24. Secretary-Treasurer of the American Statistical Association

1925 Publication of Principles and Methods of Statistics.

1922-40. Professor of Sociology and Statistics.

1925 President of the American Statistical Association

1925-1940. Member of the Joint Advisory Committee to the Director of the Census.

1928 Represented the Social Science Research Council as delegate to the International Conference on Population in Paris (July).

1929 LL.D. awarded by Wooster College

1933-36. Member of the Committee on Government Statistics and Informational Services (jointly established by the American Statistical Association and the Social Science Research Council)

1937 Chairman of the Joint Advisory Committee to the Director of the Census

1940 October 21. Death by suicide.

Other memberships

Member of the American Committee of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population Problems.

Chairman of the Research Committee, member of the Executive Committee of the Research Bureau of the Welfare Council of New York City.

Consultant statistician of the Commonwealth Fund

Member of the Advisory Council of the Milbank memorial Fund.

Member and Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Research in Medical Economics. Member of the editorial board of the quarterly journal Medical Care.

Fellow of the American Public Health Association

Member of the International Statistical Institute

Member of the American Sociological Society

Member of the Century Club (New York)

Phi Beta Kappa.

__________________________

Political Science Faculty Memorial Minute
Columbia University

Dec. 13, 1940

Robert Emmet Chaddock

Professor Robert Emmet Chaddock served his University for over thirty years. Born at Minerva, Ohio, 1879, he took his A.B. at Wooster College in 1900. From the time he first came to Columbia as a graduate student in 1905, his association with the University was broken only for two years, during which he was Assistant Professor of Economics and Statistics at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. At Columbia he was in turn University Fellow in Sociology, Instructor in Economics, Assistant Professor of Statistics, Associate Professor, and from 1922 until his death Professor of Sociology and Statistics. In these various capacities he fulfilled his duties with unsparing devotion, giving attention to his students, whole-heartedly cooperating with his colleagues, freely participating in various organizations for the advancement of public welfare, and contributing always to the improvement of statistical application to social problems, especially those connected with population and public health. He was the author of numerous articles and reports on these and other subjects, and his work on Principles and Methods of Statistics has given guidance to a large number of students throughout the country. His recognition as a leader in this field was shown by the many calls made upon his services, from the Bureau of the Census, the Milbank Foundation, the Welfare Council of New York City, the Cities Census Committee, and the International Statistical Institute, and other bodies. To these calls Professor Chaddock never failed to respond. He won the regard of all who knew him. His death removes a man who gave himself without limit and without afterthought, to his University, to his family, to the community. His colleagues tender their respectful sympathy to those who intimately mourn for him, his wife and daughter.

Robert M. MacIver
Carlton J. H. Hayes
Roswell C. McCrea

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1940-1949, p. 881.

Image Source: Robert Emmet Chaddock from Barnard College, Mortarboard, 1919.

 

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Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Readings, exams for business cycles. Hansen and Haberler, 1942-44

Materials from the 1941-42 course in business cycles co-taught by Gottfried Haberler and Alvin Hansen have been posted earlier. This post adds material for the same courses offered in the next two years.

______________________

Enrollment, 1942-43

45a. [and 145a] (winter term) Professors Hansen and Haberler.—Business Cycles.

Total 45: 10 Graduates, 15 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 1 Public Administration, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1942-43, pp. 47.

___________________

SPECIFIC READING ASSIGNMENTS IN ECONOMICS 45a
1943

  1. Types of Cycles and Statistical Materials(about 3 weeks)
    1. Haberler: Prosperity and Depression, Chapters 1, 9, 10,11
    2. Hansen: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Chapters 1,2
    3. Schumpeter: Business Cycles, pp. 325-351
    4. Schumpeter: “Analysis of Economic Change,” Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1935
    5. Kondratieff: “The Long Waves in Economic Life,” Review of Economic Statistics, November 1935
    6. Federal Reserve Chart Book (Available at the Coop. 50¢)
  2. General Theoretical Analysis
    1. Hansen: Full Recovery or Stagnation?, Chapters 1-2
    2. Haberler: Prosperity and Depression, Chapters 2-4: 7-8; 13
    3. Hansen: Business Cycle Theory, Chapter 4
    4. Hansen: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Chapters 11,12
    5. Wilson, T., Fluctuations in Income and Employment, (Pitman) 1942.
    6. Hansen: Full Recovery or Stagnation?, Chapters 16-20
  3. Reading Period (Choose A or B):
    1. 1. Mitchell: “Business Cycles,Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 3, pp. 92-106.
      2. Hansen: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Chs. 3-5; 16-17; 23-24.
    2. Clark, J.M.: Strategic Factors in Business Cycles (entire book).

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1942-1943 (2 of 2)”.

___________________

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
Reading Period
April 26-May 8, 1943

Economics 45a: Choose A or B:

A.

(1) Mitchell, “Business Cycles, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 3, pp. 92-106.
(2) Hansen, Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Chs. 3-5; 16-17; 23-24.

B. Clark, J.M., Strategic Factors in Business Cycles(entire book).

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1942-1943 (1 of 2)”.

___________________

1942-43
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 45a
[Final examination, May 1943]

I
(Answer any four questions in Part I)

  1. If the downward movement is cumulative why should it ever come to an end short of zero employment?
  2. Discuss cycles of different length and their possible interrelation and causation. Say something about the literature and state your own opinion.
  3. How is the business cycle as a whole, or particular phases of it, likely to be influenced by the widespread existence of monopolies? State your own opinion and give your reasons for it and, if you like, report about other people’s views.
  4. Is it circular reasoning to say that consumption depends on investment as explained by the multiplier and that investment depends on consumption as stated by the acceleration principle?
  5. “The kind of wave-like movement, which we call the business cycle, is incident to industrial change and would be impossible in an economic world in which there are no industrial innovations and discoveries.” Discuss.
  6. Why is it that the production of durable goods shows wider percentage fluctuations than that of perishable goods? Is this a cause or consequence of the cycle? Suppose by social security payments or otherwise, consumer spending were kept on an even keel (constant or steadily rising), could fluctuations in output and employment then arise?

II
(Answer either A or B)

  1. Discuss the relation of population growth to the business cycle.
  2. What are Clark’s findings about the amplitude of fluctuation in various series? Are these useful in explaining the business cycle?

Source:Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 7. Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions,…, Economic,…, Military Science, Naval Science. May, 1943.

______________________

Enrollment, 1943-44

45a. (winter term) Professor Hansen.—Business Cycles.

Total 34: 4 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen 3 Public Administration, 6 Radcliffe, 9 Navy V-12, 2 ROTC.

145a. (winter term) Professor Hansen.—Business Cycles and Economic Forecasting.

Total 8: 4 Graduates, 3 Public Administration, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1943-44, pp. 56, 58.

______________________

1943-44
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 45 and 145
[Final examination, February 1944]

  1. Discuss and compare the explanations of the cycle as developed by the following writers:
    1. Schumpeter
    2. Spiethoff
    3. Keynes
  2. Give a full discussion of the factors that bring about a termination of the boom—in short, an explanation of the upper turning point in the cycle. In this connection introduce the views of different cycle theorists, and consider the role of the acceleration principle.
  3. (Undergraduates should choose one of the following; graduates must write on )
    1. What are the strategic factors in business cycles according to Clark?
    2. With respect to Mitchell, discuss:
      1. “specific cycles” and “business cycles”
      2. The various phases of the business cycle.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 8. Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions,…, Economic,…, Military Science, Naval Science. February, 1944.

Image Source:  Alvin Hansen and Gottfried Haberler in the Harvard Class Album, 1942.

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Uncategorized

Harvard. Final exam and possible reading list for mathematical business cycle theory. Goodwin, 1944.

 

The following reading list for what certainly appears to have been a course on business cycles was found in Joseph Schumpeter’s papers. The original typed copy (it is not a carbon copy) is four pages long and lacks a heading with a course name or number, date, or instructor’s name so we cannot even be 100% confident that it can be associated with any Harvard course. It is simply included in a folder with miscellaneous Schumpeter notes (above my pay-grade to extract any more than a random word or two per page from Schumpeter’s scribble cum shorthand).

One important fact is that the latest item on the reading list is an August 1942 Q.J.E. article by Samuelson. So my theory of the case leads me to assume that this artifact comes from a business cycle course taught at Harvard during the 1942-43 or perhaps 1943-44 academic year. I note that Schumpeter taught the courses “Economic of Socialism”, “History and Literature of Economics since 1776”, and “Advanced Economic Theory” in both those years. Neither of the first two titles is anywhere close to a dedicated course on business cycles. A look at the reading lists and exams for the 1941-42 version of “Advanced Economic Theory” finds that economic dynamics (both micro- and macrodynamics)  was one of several topics covered in the second semester, but nothing like the exclusive focus on the theory of business cycle as seen in the reading list below.

Alvin Hansen taught an undergraduate course “Business Cycles” (Economics 45a) and a graduate course “Business Cycles and Economic Forecasting” (Economics 145a), but a reading list with the title “Specific Reading Assignments in Economics 45a” for 1943 and the exams for both Economics 45a and 145a do not give multiplier-accelerator topics as much emphasis as seen in the reading list transcribed in this post.

The only other candidate (assuming that this reading list had been prepared for a Harvard economics course) appears to be the undergraduate course “Introduction to Mathematical Business Cycle Theory” that I believe was taught once and only once at Harvard by Richard M. Goodwin. I find that the “goodness of fit” of the final examination questions to the reading list sufficiently adequate to consider the following reading list and examination questions at least a tentative match for now.

_____________________

Reading list,
tentatively matched to Economics 46,
Mathematical Business Cycle Theory

  1. Over-All Picture of the Business Cycle.

Schumpeter, J.A., “The analysis of economic change,” R.E.S., XVII (May, 1935), pp. 2-10.

Knight, F.H., “The business cycle, interest, and money: a methodological approach,” R.E.C., XXIII (1941), pp. 53-67.

  1. Types of Cycles.

Kondratieff, N.D., “The long waves in economic life,” R.E.S., XVII (Nov., 1935), pp. 105-15.

Kitchin, J., “Cycles and trends in economic factors,” R.E.S., V (Jan., 1923), pp. 10-16.

Frickey, Edwin, “The problem of secular trend,” R.E.S., XVI (1934), pp. 199-206.

  1. Econometric Approach.

Tinbergen, J., “Econometric business cycle research,” R.Ec.Stud., VII (1940), pp. 73-90.

Keynes, J.M., “The statistical testing of business-cycle theories,” E.J., XLIX (Sept., 1939), pp. 558-68; and Tinbergen-Keynes, “On a method of statistical research,” E.J., L (March, 1940), pp. 141-156.

  1. Saving and Investment.

Lutz, F.A., “Outcome of the saving-investment discussion,” Q.J.E., LII (1937-38).

Lerner, A.P., “Saving and investment: definitions, assumptions, objectives,” Q.J.E., LIII (1938-39), pp. 611-19.

Lange, O., “Saving in process analysis,” ibid., pp. 620-22.

Ohlin, Bertil, “Some notes on the Stockholm theory of saving and investment,” E.J., XLVII (1937), pp. 53-69; 221-40.

  1. Keynesian Economics.

Hicks, J.R., “Mr. Keynes’s theory of employment,” E.J., XLVI (1936), pp. 238-53.

Lange, O., “The rate of interest and the optimum propensity to consume,” Economica, V (new series, 1938), pp. 12-32.

  1. Spending Policy and Multiplier.

Kahn, R.F., “The relation of home investment to unemployment,” E.J., XLI (1931), pp. 173-98.

Clark, J.M., “An appraisal of the workability of compensatory devices,” A.E.R., (1939, Suppl.), pp. 194-209.

Williams, J.H., “Deficit spending,” A.E.R., XXX (Feb., 1941, Suppl.), pp. 52-66.

Machlup, F. “Period analysis and multiplier theory,” Q.J.E., LIV (1939-40), pp. 1-27.

Samuelson, P.A., “Fiscal policy and income determination,” Q.J.E., LVI (Aug., 1942), pp. 575-605.

  1. Acceleration Principle.

Aftalion, A., “The theory of economic cycles based on the capitalistic technique of production,” R.E.S., IX (1927), pp. 165-70.

Clark, J.M., “Business acceleration and the law of demand: a technical factor in economic cycles,” J.P.E., Vol. 25 (March, 1917), pp. 217-35. Reprinted with additional note in Preface to Social Economics.

Tinbergen, J., “Statistical evidence on the acceleration principle,” Economica, V (1938, new series), pp. 164-176.

  1. Dynamic Models Involving Multiplier and Acceleration Principle.

Samuelson, P.A., “A synthesis of the principle of acceleration and the multiplier,” J.P.E., XLVII (1939), pp. [no pages given]

Kaldor, N., “Model of the trade cycle,” E.J., March, 1940.

  1. Monetary Theory of the Business Cycle.

Hawtrey, R.G., “The trade cycle,” Dutch Economist and reprinted in Trade and Credit, London, 1928, pp. 82-104.

Hayek, F.A., “Price expectations, monetary disturbances and malinvestments,” first published in German in Nationalökonomisk Tidskrift, Vol. 73, No. 3, 1935. Reprinted in Profits, Interest and Investment, London, 1939, pp. 135-57.

  1. Overconsumption Theory and Secular Stagnation Thesis.

Robertson, D.H., “A survey of modern monetary controversy,” Manchester School, 1938.

Hansen, A.H., “Progress and declining population,” A.E.R., XXIX (1939), pp. 1-15.

Neisser, Hans, “General overproduction,” J.P.E., XLII (1934), pp. 433-65.

Kaldor, N., “Stability and full employment,” E.J., XLVIII (1938), pp. 642-57.

Ellis, H.S., “Monetary policy and investment,” A.E.R., XXX (1940), pp. [no pages given]

  1. Harvest Cycles and Other Special Cycles.

Jevons, H.S., “The causes of fluctuations of industrial activity and the price level,” J.R.S.S., XCVI (1933), pp. 545-88. Discussion, ibid., pp. 588-605.

Derksen, J.B.D., “Long cycles in residential building, an explanation,” Econometrica, VIII (1940), p. 10.

Long, C.D., “Long cycles in the building industry,” Q.J.E., LIII (1938-39), pp. 371-403.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Joseph Schumpeter Papers. Lecture Notes Box 2, Folder “Notes”.

______________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 46. (spring term) Dr. Goodwin.—Introduction to Mathematical Business Cycle Theory.

Total 4: 3 Navy V-12, 1 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1943-44, p. 56.

_____________________

1943-44
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 46
Introduction to Mathematical Business Cycle Theory
[Final examination, June 1944]

Part I
Answer both questions.

  1. Suppose an economic system completely characterized by the multiplier and acceleration principles. Further suppose all data in annual terms and a one year lag in the expenditure of income. If the system shows oscillations with an 8.5 year period, and an amplitude increasing continuously at a .02 rate, what are the values of \alpha , the marginal propensity to consume, and of \gamma , the acceleration coefficient? Secondly, suppose, being a New Dealer with a difference, you desire to abolish economic cycles. If the values of \alpha and of \gamma were open to governmental control, state one pair of values for \alpha and \gamma , at which you might aim and why.
  2. Describe cursorily as many as possible types of ‘dynamization’ useful in business cycle theory and indicate, where you can, your evaluation of their relative importance.

 

Part II
Answer any two, or three, or four questions.

  1. Explain the economic meaning of the following terms: endogenous, initial conditions, phase constant (epoch), stationary, static, amplitude, dynamic, and over-damped.
  2. Discuss thoroughly the role of damping in quantitative cycle theories.
  3. Do you consider it a correct appraisal of Tinbergen’s statistical work to say: “The method is one neither of discovery nor of criticism”?
  4. What economic assumptions are involved in the use of second order, homogeneous, linear differential and difference equations with constant coefficients?
  5. “Is it possible that there could be a cyclical fluctuation in a system, all the ultimate independent determinants of which had fixed regression coefficients and were in linear correlation with their consequences, except in the case where one of the ultimate determinants is itself a periodic function of time (e.g. sun spots)? Where and how does the element of reversal come in?….I should like to know the answer?” How would you answer Lord Keynes? Be concrete.
  6. Give one example of how inventories may be introduced into cycle analysis and show the more important consequences.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 9. Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions,…, Economic,…, Military Science, Naval Science. June, 1944.

Image Source: Richard M. Goodwin, in the Harvard Album, 1946.