Author: Irwin Collier

Categories
Exam Questions M.I.T. Macroeconomics Microeconomics

M.I.T. General Exams, Micro and Macro. Feb 1967

Here we have another example of the sharing that goes on among leading economics departments. For some reason Zvi Griliches at Harvard had a copy of the general examination questions for both microeconomics and macroeconomics at M.I.T.  that he kept in his files of Harvard prelim exams. Since anybody looking for M.I.T. economics exams would unlikely get all the way to Griliches’ papers (a goldmine for Chicago and Harvard exams by the way), Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has transcribed them for the digital historical record of the M.I.T. economics department.

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[Handwritten note:] MIT Prelim            Return to Z.G.

February 8, 1967

General Examination
Micro Theory — Two Hours

Answer any THREE questions (40 minutes each).

  1. In a two-factor, two-product economy with fixed stocks of L and T, both industries use L and T in the same proportion when facing the same pair of factor prices. One industry is purely competitive, with constant returns to scale; but the other is a “natural monopoly,” with moderately increasing returns to scale. Every household always divides its income equally between the two goods.
    1. What kind of transformation curve will the economy have?
    2. If the monopoly is regulated so that price equals average cost, what will this imply as to the economy’s general equilibrium? Comment on the relationships among the prices and quantities of the two goods, the real wages and rents in terms of both goods, and the labor and land quantities allocated to the two industries.
    3. Is there then any way in which the allocation of resources can then be improved? Explain.
  2. An individual has an income from property of Y0 per year. If he faces a given wage rate, at which he chooses to work t1 hours for total wages of Y1 what will be the comparative revenues of the following alternative taxes, when each would have the same effect on the individual’s own welfare:
    1. a lump-sum tax
    2. a proportional tax on his wage income
    3. a progressive tax on his wage income?
  3. A monopolist faces a linear demand for his product, which is produced with just L and T subject to fixed coefficients. What can you say about his demand for L
    1. in a short run when T is fixed in quantity, and
    2. in the long run when T is available at a fixed price? Explain fully.
  4. Discuss the welfare economics doctrines associated with at least three of the following economists:
    1. Bergson
    2. Arrow
    3. Pigou
    4. Hicks-Kaldor-Scitovsky
  5. Discuss the similarities and differences between the problems of duopoly and bilateral monopoly. You may limit your discussion to the simpler standard instances of each.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

General Examination in Macroeconomics
February 3, 1967

Answer three questions.

  1. Suppose i) Net Saving is proportional to NNP; ii) Net Investment is an increasing function of NNP and a decreasing function of the interest rate, r, with the shape illustrated.

    1. What justification is there for an investment function of this general shape?
    2. Plot the implied IS curve.
    3. Plot a conventional LM curve and discuss the determination and stability of macroeconomic equilibrium and the consequences of an increase in the money supply.
  2. “The capitalist investor is fundamentally a friend of the worker, but the technical inventor can quite often be his enemy.” (Wicksell) Discuss.
  3. Why has the average propensity to save not fallen as income per head has increased in the U.S.?
  4. Suppose investment behavior is such that all investment opportunities which offer a rate of return equal to or greater than some fixed target rate R are instantly adopted. Labor and capital are the only factors of production; constant returns to scale and diminishing returns prevail. The labor force grows exogenously at a fixed annual rate g.
    1. What saving rate, relative to national product will just maintain full employment in the steady state?
    2. How does that saving rate vary with g?
    3. What do you make of the common notion that a rapidly-increasing labor force makes it harder to maintain full employment?
  5. Suppose that scientific inventory control methods reduce the desired inventory/sales ratio. Construct a simple model of inventory cycles which will tell you the effect of this development on the damping of inventory fluctuations.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 129, Folder “Preliminary Examinations, 1957-1965”.

Image Source: The MIT beaver from the cover of the 1949 yearbook Technique.

Categories
Business Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for Elements of Accounting. W.M. Morse, 1908-1909

The department of economics did offer a couple of business related courses  to help prepare its undergraduate majors for careers in commerce, finance, and business generally. From the enrollment numbers we see that accounting was pretty popular. It had the third highest course enrollment (167), following Principles of Economics (503) and Economic and Financial History of the United States (198) in 1908-09.

With only a modest gumshoe effort I was able to track down the teaching assistants for the course. All three became lawyers, one even a judge.

Note: According to the printed course announcement for Elements of Accounting this should have been a half-course (one semester) but, as in previous years, this was in fact a full-course (two semesters).

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The Teaching Assistants

Robert Mann Johnson (cum laude, Economics, A.B. 1908, LL.B. 1911)

Jacob Joseph Kaplan (magna cum laude, A.B. 1907, LL.B.1910),

Harold Birdsall Platt (magna cum laude, Economics, A.B. 1908, LL.B. 1911)

Source: Harvard University, Quinquennial catalogue of the officers and graduates 1636-1930, pp. 458 and 460.

New York Times Obituary for Robert Mann Johnson

   Robert Mann Johnson of 58 Lynwood Road, Scarsdale, N.Y., a lawyer with the firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hope & Hadley, died of a heart attack yesterday as he enetered his firm’s office building at 15 Broad Street. His age was 60.

Born in North Weymouth, Mass., he was graduated from Boston Latin School in 1905, Harvard College in 1908 and Harvard Law School in 1911. Mr. Johnson practiced in Massachusetts before coming to New York and being admitted to the New York bar in 1921. He was with the firm of Masten & Nichols from 1928 until 1931 when he became associated with the Milbank company.

Surviving are two daughters, Marjorie Elizabeth and Hollis Ann.

Source: The New York Times, July 30, 1948, p. 18.

From the Jacob J. Kaplan Papers Collection

Judge Jacob J. Kaplan, born March 12 1889 was a prominent and well-respected Judge in Boston, Massachusetts. Born in New York, his family moved to Boston and settled in the West End. With the support of his parents, Kaplan excelled academically and at fifteen entered Harvard University. While at Harvard, Kaplan continued to prove his academic prowess. He was elected into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, graduated in three years, and attended Harvard Law School as one of the youngest members and graduates.

After graduating from law school, Kaplan spent seven years under the tutelage of Louis Brandeis, and gained skills that led to employment at the distinguished law firm of Nutter, McClennen and Fish. This notable position led to an appointment as the President of the Boston Bar Association and as a committee member on the Federal Judiciary of the American Bar Association. As a senior partner at Nutter, McClennen and Fish, Kaplan earned great respect from his colleagues and soon began his career as a judge with a seat as Justice of the Dorchester Municipal Court.

Among his many interests was the financial welfare of the city of Boston. This is reflected in his choice to serve on the boards of the Boston Finance Commission, the Federated Department Stores, Filenes’s, and the Provident Institution of Savings. Judge Kaplan also had a deep respect for the educational institutions of Boston and was a trustee of Wellesley College, Hebrew Teachers College of Boston, Boston Society of Natural History, and the Museum of Science. He was also a member of the Board of Governors of Boston University.

Judge Kaplan’s wide range of interests in the welfare of the Jewish people led to his service as a board member, director, and trustee of a variety of committees such as Beth Israel Hospital, World Peace Foundation and International Friendship League, War Emergency Council, Jewish Welfare Board, and Administrative Committee of United Palestine Appeal. He was the founder of the Boston Chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

Judge Jacob J. Kaplan died in 1960.

Source: Biographical Note to the Jacob J. Kaplan Papers. The Wyner Family Jewish Heritage Center at New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Harold B. Platt Dies After Short Illness
New York Investment Broker Was Church Treasurer.

   Harold Birdsall Platt of 11 Duryea Road, Upper Montclair, New York investment broker, died yesterday in Mountainside Hospital after a short illness. Funeral services will be held tomorrow afternoon at 2 o’clock at the Home for Services, 56 Park Street. The Rev. Dr. George C. Vincent, minister of the Union Congregational Church, will officiate. Interment will be in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Born in Brooklyn, Mr. Platt was graduated from Harvard in 1908 and Harvard Law School in 1911. After working in the office of the New York City District Attorney for several years, he left the law business to join the James M. Toolan Company, New York City securities specialists, with which firm he had been a partner for the past twenty years.

Mr. Platt was treasurer of Union Congregational Church, treasurer of the Middle Atlantic Conference of  Congregational Christian Churches, a director of the Margaret and Sarah Switzer Convalescent Home for Girls in Manasquan and a member of the National Republican Club, New Jersey Harvard Club and Harvard Engineering Club.

Surviving Mr. Platt are his wife, Mrs. Gertrude Middleditch Platt; a daughter, Mrs. Henry Guyon Kiggins Jr. of North Plainfield, and a son, Willard E. Platt of Red Bank.

Source: The Montclair Times (New Jersey), March 1, 1951, p. 4.

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Earlier Accounting Exams at Harvard

1901-02
1902-03
1903-04
1904-05
1905-06
1906-07
1907-08

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William M. Cole
His Textbook

Accounts. Their Construction and Interpretation for Business Men and Students of Affairs. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1908.

“The first issue of this book was brought out at a time when no general, non-technical, non-professional treatise on accounting had been published . The author had then been giving for eight years a course of instruction to seniors in Harvard College on the principles of accounting, and believed that many business men and students of affairs would be interested to see briefly but comprehensively how accounts are constructed and interpreted.”
Revised and enlarged edition, 1915.

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Course Enrollment
1908-09

Economics 18. Asst. Professor W. M. Cole, assisted by Messrs. Johnson, Kaplan, and Platt. — Elements of Accounting.

Total 167: 3 Graduates, 84 Seniors, 40 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 33 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1908-1909, p. 68.

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Course Announcement with Description
1908-09

COURSES ESPECIALLY PREPARING
FOR A BUSINESS CAREER

Among the courses […], those on the industrial and financial phenomena of modern times are useful for students who propose to enter on a business career. Such are the courses on Money and Banking (8a and 8b), Commercial Crises and Cycles of Trade (12). Economics of Transportation (5), Problems of Labor (9a). the Economics of Corporations (9b), the Economic and Financial History of the United States (6b), and European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century (6a). In addition, the following courses are designed more particularly to aid in the understanding of the problems likely to be met in business life, and are arranged with special regard to the needs of those looking to such a career. They are primarily for students who have reached or approached the close of their general education.

*18 1hf. Elements of Accounting. Half-course (first half-year).
Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 3.30. Asst. Professor COLE.

This course is designed to show the processes by which the earnings and values of business properties are computed.
It is not intended primarily to afford practice in book-keeping; but since intelligent construction and interpretation of accounts is impossible without a knowledge of certain main types of book-keeping, practice sufficient to give the student familiarity with elementary technique will form an important part of the work of the course. The chief work, however, will be a study of the principles that underlie the determination of profit, cost, and valuation. These will be considered as they appear in several types of business enterprise. Published accounts of corporations will be examined, and practice in interpretation will be afforded. The instruction will be chiefly by assigned readings, discussions, and written work.
This course is regularly open only to Seniors and to Graduates who have had Economics 1. Students intending to enter the Graduate School of Business Administration are expected to take this course in preparation for the advanced courses in accounting.

[The other course was Economics 21 1hf, Principles of Law governing Industrial Relations taught by Professor Wyman.]

Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. V, No. 19 (1 June 1908). History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1908-09, pp. 56-57.

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ECONOMICS 18
Mid-year Examination, 1908-09

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. Answer the exact questions asked and do the exact problems set, and no others.

  1. What is the complete function of a ledger as distinguished from that of a modern journal?
  2. Supposing a journal, a cash book, and a sales book to be kept, show (a) normal entries without duplication, and (b) ledger postings, for the transaction below.
    A partnership is dissolved, and in settlement the retiring partner is given the following:—

Cash, $20,153,
Bills receivable (notes of customers, average due in one month, with discount allowed of $25.00), $5000,
Bills payable (of the new firm, due in one month), $5000,
Merchandise (the complete line of dry goods in stock), $7550.

Indicate, by posting checks, from what source each portion would get into the ledger.

  1. The items below appear on a six-column statement.
    1. Show the closing of the ledger for the accounts named.

(Italics for red ink.)

Resources Liabilities Losses Gains
Proprietor 25,000 25,000
Real Estate 15,000 14,775 225
Merchandise 55,000 65,000 18,000 28,000
Rent 1,200 150 1,350 50
Loss and Gain 140 140
    1. Is this partial statement correct? Defend your answer.
  1. The following sorts of expenditures have been incurred.
    1. In entering, how far does good accounting allow their consolidation, i.e., what is the minimum number of accounts that may contain them? Explain the purpose of each account so to be maintained, and state why it must be maintained.
    2. What is the maximum feasible differentiation, i.e., the greatest number of accounts likely to be useful for these items? Name and defend each, and indicate which items should go to each,

Feed of delivery horse.
City directory.
New delivery harness.
Repairing wagon.
Wages of teamster.
Shoeing horse.
Subscription to “Trucking Journal.”
Delivery baskets.
Feed bag.
Bonus paid in trading an old horse for a younger one.

  1. In closing books at the end of a year
    1. what allowance, if any, should be made for interest on the notes below?
    2. Show for each note the resulting effect on the balance sheet. Assume all notes to have two months yet to run, and interest to be at 6%.
Bills receivable No. 120, bearing interest $1,000
Bills receivable No. 127, without interest 2,000
Bills payable No. 74, without interest 3,000
Bills payable No. 84, bearing interest 4,000
  1. On Dec. 28, 1908, you buy a patent right under which you can manufacture and sell annually for five years in one State 1000 desk attachments at a profit of one dollar each over the profit on the only unpatented marketable article.
    1. From the table below, determine as accurately as you can the theoretical value of that patent right when money is worth 5%.
Table of 5% ratios
0.746215 0.907029 1.102500
0.783526 0.952381 1.157630
0.822702 1.000000 1.215506
0.863838 1.050000 1.276282
1.340096
    1. Is your figure absolutely accurate for the theoretical value, or is it based on a calculable error? If the latter, how should you calculate the error?
    2. At the close of the year, shall the patent right appear on the balance sheet? If so, where and for what approximate amount?
    3.  Shall that patent right appear on a detailed balance sheet for Dec. 31, 1909, on a detailed income sheet for 1909, on both, or on neither? Defend your answer.
  1. The balance sheet of a corporation on Jan. 1, 1908, was as follows:
Merchandise $65,000 Capital stock $75,000
Bills receivable 15,000 Bills payable 10,000
Accounts receivable 8,000 Accounts payable 5,000
Fixtures 3,000 Surplus 5,000
Cash 4,000
[Total] 95,000 95,000

During the year 1908, the net income was $10,000; purchases, $200,000; sales, at 20% above cost price, $240,000; cash decrease, $3,000; bills receivable accepted, $5000 in excess of such notes collected; accounts receivable charged, $1000 in excess of accounts receivable collected; bills payable extinguished, $1000 in excess of those issued; accounts payable incurred, $2000 in excess of those paid; dividends paid, $8000.

Show the balance sheet for the new year.

  1. Was the business of 1908 outlined in Question 7 favorable or unfavorable? Explain in detail.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 8, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1908-09.

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ECONOMICS 18
Year-end Examination, 1908-09

Arrange answers as far as possible in tabular form.

I.
Take all.

  1. What is the purpose of the following accounts:—
Bills Receivable. Interest Due.
Capital Stock. Interest Accrued.
Insurance. Interest Earned.
Power. Discount on Bonds.
Accounts Receivable. Neglected Discounts.
  1. For additions chargeable to capital, $2,000,000 is spent out of current receipts. Two months later, notes are issued at par to recoup the treasury ready for the semi-annual payment of dividends. The dividends are paid. Six months later, capital stock is issued for the notes, exchanged on the basis of $90 in stock for $100 in notes.
    Disregard interest, and show journal entries to represent the transactions.
  2. The figures below are what a bookkeeper finds on his books at the close of the year.
Capital stock $169,000
Real estate $70,000
Mortgages payable 55,000
Bills payable 25,000
Bills receivable 15,000
Accounts receivable 17,000
Merchandise 150,000
Cash 7,000
Expenses 15,000
Interest 3,000
Taxes 2,500
Sales 30,500
$279,500 $279,500

He reports to the directors a balance sheet as follows:—

Real Estate $63,000 Capital Stock $169,000
Bills receivable 15,000 Mortgages payable 55,000
Accounts receivable 17,000 Bills payable 25,000
Merchandise 130,000 Reserve for bad debts 4,250
Cash 7,000
Profit and loss 21,250

$253,250

$253,250

Explain all apparent discrepancies between the two sets of figures.

  1. What is the significance of a debit balance, in intervals between periodical closings of the books, for the following accounts:
Expense Accumulation for Bond Discounts
Cash Patent Rights
Stores Sinking Fund
  1. You join a summer colony within easy rail communication of the city. A general organization of members of the colony controls a central club-house with grounds. The restaurant privilege is sold to outsiders. Facilities are offered to members for tennis, golf, billiards, bowling, boating, swimming. For all these privileges, fees are charged and expenses are incurred. All excess income is to be carried to a general-purpose fund. Entertainments are provided at club expense. You are chosen president of the club.
    Outline a general plan for applying the principles of accounting to assist in making the club successful. What ledger accounts should be kept, what items should be carried to each, and what statistics should be gathered?

II.
Take two.

  1. The balances of a single proprietor’s set of books kept by single entry are as follows:—
Accounts receivable $15,000
Accounts payable 20,000
Cash 7,000
Bills payable 14,000

He finds the following property:—

Merchandise $56,000
Furniture, etc. 1,500
Bills receivable 4,000

Show a balance sheet for the business when the books are converted into double entry.

  1. What is the operation of a bond sales account?
  2. A is expected to live 10 years; B, 15 years; C, 20 years. A has a life interest in property yielding $5,000 annually; B, a life interest in property yielding $3,000 annually; C is the remainder man for both properties. How could you determine the value of C’s life interest in both properties?
  3. You pay $500 for a lease entitling you to use a certain building at a rental of $1,000 a year for ten years. At the end of five years you dispose of the lease for the remaining five years. How can you tell whether you have made a profit on the sale of the lease?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1908-09; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1909), pp. 47-49.

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions Microeconomics

Chicago. Price Theory Core Examination. Winter 1965

Another specimen of the Chicago price theory exam featuring True/False/Uncertain questions. This copy found in the Zvi Griliches’ papers in the Harvard Archives.

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Chicago Price Theory
Preliminary/Core Exams
Previously Posted

Summer 1949
Summer 1951
Summer 1952
Winter 1955
Summer 1955
Winter 1957
Summer 1960
Winter 1964
Winter 1969
Summer 1975

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CORE EXAMINATION
Price Theory
Winter, 1965

Preliminary Examination for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees

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.

Answer all questions. Time: 3 hours

  1. Indicate whether you believe each of the following statements to be true, false, or uncertain. In each case write a few sentences explaining your answer. Your grade will depend heavily on your explanation.
    1. A monopolist can always get more revenue from a consumer by a fixed sum plus price-per-unit system of charging than by the price-per-unit alone.
    2. A flat sum tax on the firms in an industry will never have an effect upon output in the short-run.
    3. If a demand curve is defined as the relationship between price and quantity of X, the real income and the prices and quantities of other goods held constant, it will have an elasticity of -1.
    4. If a cartel assigns quotas to its member firms on the basis of their “capacity” there will be more than the profit-maximizing amount of investment in the industry.
    5. If all commodities had positive income elasticities, there would be no merit in the present distinction between substitution and income effects.
    6. The elasticity of demand for X with respect to the price of Y never equals the elasticity of demand of Y with respect to the price of X.
    7. The short-run price elasticity of the supply of beef can be negative.
    8. The assumptions of competition, constant returns to scale, and equilibrium are inconsistent.
    9. A competitive firm will increase its output as a result of a fall in the price of one of its inputs.
    10. The own-price elasticity of demand for a commodity is no smaller, in absolute value, than the marginal propensity to consume that commodity.
    11. “The price paid for water is no indication of its true value in use because the water makes the production of additional wealth possible. Thus a farmer may pay his irrigation district $8.00 for water per acre of land, but the value of the crops grown might be in the neighborhood of $100 per acre.”
    12. “A central planning authority may or may not decide to weight equally the welfare of the future generation and the welfare of the present generation. This is essentially an ethical question. But if equal weights are to be applied, the appropriate rate of discount (interest) to use in comparing the costs and benefits from alternative public investments is a zero rate.”
    13. In equilibrium, a competitive firm has all the business (sales) it wants. Hence advertising is incompatible with either competition or equilibrium.
    14. The fact that a consumer, in equilibrium, is not consuming all of the possible commodities, implies that he gets increasing marginal utilities from the commodities that he does consume.
    15. A tax on American citizens who go abroad will reduce tourist expenditures and hence improve the U.S. balance of payments only if the demand for foreign trips is elastic.
  1. “Exploration for natural gas or oil is a form of investment. As such, like all investments, it depends on the expected level of future output (demand). Thus, a rise in the governmentally fixed (regulated) price of natural gas will decrease consumption and hence curb exploration. Conversely, lowering the price of gas will stimulate both consumption and exploration.” Appraise.
  2. Assume the following simple world, in which you are asked to determine the optimum rate of automobile accidents.
    1. The only type of accident which occurs is that a car may run into a house. The damage is then always $200.
    2. The probability of an accident will be greater,
      1. …the faster automobiles are driven
      2. …the closer houses are set to the highway.

Assume explicitly any additional information you need to define the socially optimum accident rate. What mechanism, if any, could you design to achieve it?

  1. The competitive private enterprise form of economic organization is regarded by some economists as a sort of ideal which it would be desirable to approximate in practice.
    1. On a purely theoretical level, use the tools of economic analysis to explain to a skeptic precisely in what way(s) and why the competitive private enterprise form is optimal.
State whatever assumptions and define whatever terms you require, and state explicitly the criteria of excellence that you are using.
    2. Are there any conditions under which the competitive organization form may fail to produce the results promised above?
    3. What other important economic problems of a modern state, if any, may still be unsolved despite the fact that perfect competition has been achieved? Explain in each case why the problem is important and why perfect competition does not solve it, or explain why there are no unsolved problems.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches. Box 129. Folder “Preliminary Examinations, 1957-1965”.

Categories
Business Harvard

Harvard. Visiting Committee for Instruction in Political Economy Report. 1875

Here we see a very early attempt to establish a beachhead for business education, or at least some business education for undergraduates. A liberal arts education in college was long recognised as a prep-school for the traditional professions (save one) of  law, medicine, or the theology in 1875, and here we see the business camel sticking its nose into the political economy tent. Merchants and manufacturers of the world unite!

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For more about the visiting committee:

Edward Atkinson
Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 42, No. 29 (Aug., 1907), pp. 761-769.

Alexander H. Rice

William C. Endicott

James Munson Barnard
Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 41, No. 35 (Jul., 1906), pp. 837-841 (5 pages)

Joseph S. Ropes [see below]

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JOSEPH S. ROPES

As one reviews even a moderately long business career, it is a pathetic thing to see how men who have filled the largest places in the business life of their time, or who have been conspicuous in the philanthropic or the religious movements of their generation, after a few years of retirement, pass away and leave so few memorials behind them.

Forty years ago the house of William Ropes & Co. had reached the leading position in our American trade with Russia. A generation before that time, the senior William Ropes had established a house in St. Petersburg. with other branches in London and New York, while here in Boston, no great commercial establishment was more honored or better known. Their ships sailed many seas, and large enterprises both at home and abroad were carried forward with such high honor and integrity of soul on the part of this noble group of men, that it became an example and an inspiration to the younger generation of merchants who were about them.

Mr. Joseph S. Ropes whose life here in Boston is but a memory to his friends, was one of the leading members of this great firm. His death was announced in your paper on Saturday. He was educated in Russia. His training and accomplishments were of the highest order. He had a singularly acute mind and in the great financial movements of his time he was a recognized authority. During his residence and business life in Russia he had mastered nearly all of the languages of Northern Europe, and I have often seen the eagerness with which he would talk in his Boston office with stranded sailors from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland or Russia, with the same facility with which he would use his own mother tongue. He was always tender, considerate and generous with the unfortunate and with strangers landed here from foreign ports.

I remember also when Prince Alexis of the royal house of Russia visited Boston with the group of noblemen and officers of the Russian navy many years ago. Mr. Joseph Ropes was sought for as the only man in Boston who knew the Russian tongue. He surprised and delighted his visitors by his rare accomplishments and knowledge of their language and literature, and it was said that he was the only man, not a native, they had ever met in any land who spoke and thought in Russian as if it were his mother tongue.

There was another side of his character besides that of the merchant and man of letters. He was of gentle and heroic mould. Those who knew him will recognize this as true. How few men stricken with sudden blindness have met that sad fate as he met this dreadful going out of the light of day. With his brilliant, tireless, mental activity, with his insatiable thirst for knowledge, his passion for books, giving up every active Interest in life and forced to sit with folded hands in darkened room for months, facing the years as he did afterwards in dependence upon others — his sublime patience and heroism of soul through all this was something to be remembered by those who knew him.

The source and centre of it all was his religious faith. It was a well-spring within him. Sorrow, loss, broken companionships, old age, failing strength, never could quench the undying flame of his spiritual life. The morning dawned for him at last, with the heavenly vision, as he entered through the gates into the city.

W.H.R.

Source: Boston Evening Transcript (May 19, 1903), p. 9.

Funeral of Joseph S. Ropes

              Funeral services for Hon. Joseph S. Ropes were held yesterday afternoon at the Immanuel Congregational Church, Roxbury. Rev. Charles H. Beale, D. D., pastor of the church, officiated. Among the mourners were the deacons and members of the church, business men, members of the Board of Trade and men who sat in the State Legislature with him. Burial was in Forest Hills Cemetery.

Source: Boston Evening Transcript (May 20, 1903), p. 8.

Joseph S. Ropes.

Joseph S. Ropes, for many years a resident of Norwich, died Saturday morning at the home of his niece, Miss Huntington, in Norwich Town, aged 84 years. He was born in Boston, Mass., and early in his boyhood went to St. Petersburg, Russia, with his father, the founder of the American-Russian firm of William Ropes & Co., who imported from Russia cargoes of hemp, cordage, iron, etc. While in Russia Mr. Ropes entered the University of St. Petersburg, where after a full course of studies he graduated with honors. He then went into business with his father. After the death of his father and brother, William Ropes, he became the head of the firm, making his home in Boston. He was gradually obliged through loss of eyesight to withdraw from business cares and up to the time of his death spent his time in Christian work and missionary enterprises.

Source: Hartford Courant, March 16, 1903.

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Copy of a letter in the Atkinson Collection in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Volume VI, p. 418.

Boston, July 21, 1875

Honorable Richard H. Dana, Jr., Chairman

Sir:

The committee appointed to visit Harvard University for the purpose of observing the instruction given and the progress of the students in the department of political science have attended the duty assigned to them and report with pleasure that the instruction given by Professor Dunbar is thorough and excellent;— that the election of the study of political economy and the attendance of the students indicate a hearty interest in this course and a degree of application and intelligence which promises much usefulness both to the graduates and to the public when the former shall come to the application of their lessons to the practical affairs of life.

Your committee respectfully submit the following reasons for enlarging the scope of the instruction given in the department of political science — the country is now suffering depression and loss, not more from the direct consequences than from the disturbed relations of economic and fiscal interests. Had more attention been paid to the simplest principles of economic science in the schools, colleges, and universities it is not to be doubted that many of the disasters and losses that have marked the last few years might have been avoided.

The costly and ineffective system of slave labor has disappeared from the southern states: — rarely has there been greater progress in the applied sciences than in the last few years — improvements and invention in the tools of production and the apparatus of distribution have caused an immense increase in production to become possible, relatively to the population: — but the methods of distributing this abundance which the advance in mechanical and agricultural science has brought forth have been restricted by fiscal causes and bad methods of administration: — evils which it falls within the province of political science to remove.

The instruction given by Professor Dunbar is admirable but more work might be done to meet the case. Your committee consists of men who are or have been engaged in business pursuits and as merchants they may suggest whether the function of the university should not be to train young men to become good merchants as well as able professional men, and whether the means for obtaining such an education as a merchant might find most useful, have been as carefully provided for as they have been in other branches. They fully admit that a thoroughly trained man need not have been technically taught in the undergraduate department, yet that it would be well if those whom choice or necessity may direct toward active business life could elect studies during the latter part of their college course that would fit them more directly for their future occupation.

To this end it would seem to your committee that more opportunity might be offered to undergraduates to obtain instruction in the principles and history of international and commercial law and in commercial and physical geography as to the last named studies it may be urged that they are important in themselves and their relation to political and commercial history and to political science.

What are called “business colleges” attract a great many young men and are believed to be pecuniarily, very profitable in many instances to those who control them. May not the university offer to do thoroughly what is elsewhere done superficially and thus abate even the shadow of foundation for the charge sometimes made, that the four years of college life are apt to unfit young men for business pursuits. Your committee urge that a broad and liberal course of study could be mapped out, no more subject to the charge of being merely utilitarian than the course which a young man would elect who intended to become a lawyer, physician or clergyman and which would enable men to become better merchants and manufacturers and to begin the necessary work of their lives more fully prepared than it is now possible for them to be.

Respectfully submitted,

Committee:
Edward Atkinson
Alex Rice [Alexander H. Rice]
Jos. S. Ropes
Wm. Endicott, Jr.
Jas. M. Barnard
by E.A.

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

Image Source: The Harvard Graduates’Magazine, Vol. VIII, No. 32 (June, 1900), Frontspiece. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Teaching Undergraduate

Harvard. Annual Economics Newsletter. 1 June 1960

This three page departmental newsletter for Harvard economics from the end of the academic year 1959-60 is found in Edward H. Chamberlin papers curated at the Economists’ Papers Archive at Duke University. Among other things we learn from this newsletter is that a year’s course “Mathematics for Economists” was able to satisfy the foreign language requirement, or expressed differently, the punishment for receiving a grade less than B in the first semester of the math course was being required to pass a rigorous foreign language examination. 

Of course, finding this I wonder where I can find the first four issues of the Harvard Economics Newsletter.

___________________________

ECONOMICS NEWSLETTER
Fifth Annual Issue, June 1, 1960

UNDERGRADUATE INSTRUCTION:

The Department has been engaged in a study of its undergraduate curriculum over the past year and has now adopted a substantial series of changes in concentration requirements and, more particularly, in the undergraduate course offerings. The basic principles underlying the revisions were set out in a report of the Committee on Undergraduate Instruction under the chairmanship of Professor John Dunlop. These principles, briefly, were that the undergraduate program is “part of a liberal education” and, except in very special cases, is “not designed as professional training in Economics”; that the undergraduate program should be “clearly differentiated” from the graduate program; that the undergraduate should have as much flexibility as possible in choosing courses of interest to him; that close attention should be given to the teaching of Economics courses and to the balance of analytic and institutional material in each.

These principles clearly indicate a concern on the part of the Department that the undergraduate program may tend to become subordinate to the graduate program unless specific attention is paid to the particular interests and objectives of the younger student. The revisions, therefore, are in the direction of making a greater number of courses (particularly half-courses) open to undergraduates; breaking the traditional parallelism between graduate and undergraduate courses; and emphasizing historical, institutional and policy questions which will be of interest not only to the Economics concentrator but to able concentrators in other fields. To make certain that this greater freedom of choice does not lead to a lack of coherence, a certain “progression” has been introduced in the course offering and Honors candidates are required to take at least one “advanced” course in the area of their choice.

The sum total of these changes gives us a field of concentration which we believe will better serve the purposes of a liberal arts college. So far as undergraduate reaction is concerned, it will not be until the changes have gone into effect next year that we will be able to judge the response effectively. It is of interest, however, that the Crimson, not an altogether silent critic in the past, has called the new program a “model” which other departments might wisely study.

MATHEMATICS- LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT:

Realizing that mathematical competence is growing more important in most branches of economic work than linguistic ability, the Department has revised the language requirement in the following manner:

A full course entitled “Mathematics for Economists” has been established. All graduate students are now required to take and pass the first half of this course or pass an equivalent mathematics examination. Those who pass with at least a B may take the second half of the course, and no language will be required.

Those students who desire fluency in a foreign language or who receive a grade less than B in the first half of the mathematics course must complete the mathematics-language requirement by passing a rigorous language examination.

THE ECONOMICS OF HIGHER EDUCATION:

Professor Seymour E. Harris has been on leave this year on a Ford Fellowship, to complete the study of the Economics of Higher Education. He has visited more than 100 colleges and universities, and has submitted the following report for inclusion in this year’s Newsletter:

There were three resultant manuscripts:

  1. More Resources for Education (John Dewey Lecture), Harpers, 1960
  2. Economics and Educational Value. Edited volume based on seminar in 1958-59 for College Administrators. (Assisted by Richard Cooper and Reginald Green). Harvard University Press, 1960.
  3. Economics of Higher Education, McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1961.

A questionnaire sent to about 200 economists revealed attitudes towards higher education.  A considerable sentiment for:

    1. Higher tuition if accompanied by improved financing methods. But fear expressed of resultant excessive gains of enrollment for public institutions, increased recourse to colleges near home, a tendency to favor high income groups and endanger the position of many vulnerable private institutions.
    2. General agreement that much greater recourse to loans is practical. But some economists expressed dissatisfaction with the idea that young men and women should be encouraged to borrow. Furthermore, they are unaccustomed to seeking large credits.
    3. Economists generally envisaged the possibility of substantial economies — better use of plant, reduced number of courses, etc. But it was hoped that small discussion groups would not be eliminated.
PERSONNEL:

Professor Simon KUZNETS, now at Johns Hopkins, and Professor Hendrik HOUTHAKKER, now at Stanford, will join our staff next year.

Professor Otto ECKSTEIN has recently been promoted to Associate Professor of Economics. This fall he was in Washington, where he was Technical Director for the Douglas Committee investigating prices, wages, productivity, etc. Now he is in Europe working for the O.E.E.C. Professor GALBRAITH has been on leave in Switzerland for the spring term, working on a new book on corporation organization. Professor KAYSEN been working for Doxiadis Associates in Athens this year, making a study of Greek economy.

Professor James McKIE from Vanderbilt and Professor Henri THEIL from the Econometric Institute in the Netherlands have been visiting members of our staff this year.

Professor DUNLOP is President of the Industrial Relations Research Association for 1960. He has also been appointed to the President’s Committee investigating non-operating unions on the railroads.

Professor MASON has edited a book, Corporation and Modern Society. Professor DUESENBERRY has been working on his Capital Markets Project, supported by a grant from the Merrill Foundation to the Business School. Professor GERSCHENKRON’s Economic History Workshop, under a grant from the Ford Foundation, began operation in the fall of 1959.

Professor LEONTIEF gave three public lectures as Hitchcock Professor at the University of California in November 1959. Now he is in Argentina at the invitation of the University of Buenos Aires, where he is giving some lectures. He has been sent by ICA and will be there about two weeks. On the way back he will be stopping in Rio de Janeiro to give a lecture at the invitation of the Getulio Vergas Foundation.

Professor DORFMAN will be on leave next year, when he will be at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California.

The Department was saddened by the deaths of Professor SLICHTER in September 1959 and of Mrs. John H. WILLIAMS and Professor BLACK in April 1960.

Source: Economists’ Papers Archive, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Edward H. Chamberlin Papers, Box 17, Folder “Economics Department 1960-62”.

Image Source: “Overhead of empty Harvard Sq.” (1961) Cambridge Historical Commission, Cambridge Photo Morgue Collection. Digital Commonwealth, Massachusetts Collections Online.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Public Finance

Harvard. Examinations in Public Finance, especially Taxation. Bullock, 1908-1909

In addition to his instructional responsibility for the history of economic thought, Charles Jesse Bullock was the faculty member with expertise in the applied economics field of taxation. 

Fun fact: Charles Jesse Bullock edited Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Volume 10 in the series The Harvard Classics, a.k.a., “Five-foot Shelf of Books” (New York: P. F. Collier and Sons, Co., 1909).

________________________

Bullock’s earlier public finance exams
at Harvard

1901-02. Economics 7a and 7b. Financial administration; taxation [undergraduate]

1903-04. Economics 16.  Financial history of the United States

1904-05. Economics 7a. Introduction to public finance [undergraduate]

1904-05. Economics 7b. Theory and methods of taxation [undergraduate]

1904-05. Economics 16. Financial history of the United States.

1905-06 Economics 7.  Public finance [undergraduate]

1905-06 Economics 16. Public finance [advanced]

1906-07 Economics 16. Public finance and taxation

1907-08 Economics 16. Public finance and taxation

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

From 1906: Selected Readings in Public Finance edited by Charles Jesse Bullock (Boston: Inn & Company).

From 1910: Short bibliography on public finance “for serious minded students” by Bullock

________________________

Course Enrollment
1908-09

Economics 16. Professor Bullock. —Public Finance (advanced course).

Total 11: 7 Graduates, 1 Senior, 1 Junior, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1908-1909, p. 68.

________________________

Course Announcement
1908-09

[Economics] 16. Public Finance (Advanced Course). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Professor Bullock.

This course is designed for graduate students and for undergraduates who are especially interested in public finance. It cannot be elected by students who have taken Economics 7, except by express consent of the instructor.

The course is devoted to the examination of the financial institutions of the principal modern countries, in the light of both theory and history. One or more reports calling for independent investigation will ordinarily be required. Special emphasis will be placed upon questions of American finance.

Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. V, No. 19 (1 June 1908). History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1908-09, pp. 55-56.

________________________

ECONOMICS 16
THE THEORY AND METHODS
OF TAXATION

Mid-year Examination, 1908-09
  1. Discuss briefly the writings of Carafa, Bodin, Petty, and the Cameralists.
  2. Discuss briefly the views of Adam Smith concerning public revenues.
  3. Discuss the following: “A government, unlike an individual or a private corporation, regulates its receipts by its expenditures.”
  4. Discuss the financial significance of the post-office, state railroads, and municipal industries.
  5. What can be gained by a careful study of public expenditures?
  6. What is the theoretical outcome of the discussion of the normal source of taxation? Has the discussion any practical value?
  7. What does Adam Smith say about the incidence of taxes on wages, profits, and rent?
  8. State and criticize three methods of classifying public revenues?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 8, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1908-09.

________________________

ECONOMICS 16
THE THEORY AND METHODS
OF TAXATION

Year-end Examination, 1908-09 
  1. What are the arguments for and against a federal inheritance tax?
  2. Describe three different methods of taxing railroads, and state the advantages or disadvantages of each method.
  3. What methods of taxing mortgages are employed in the United States? What do you think of each method?
  4. Write a brief account of national and local taxation in France.
  5. Compare English national and local taxation with French.
  6. Discuss the financial situation of the German Empire.
  7. What constitutional difficulties do the American States encounter in taxing corporations?
  8. Discuss the subject of the national debts of Great Britain, France, the German Empire, and the United States at the present time.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1908-09; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1909), p. 46.

Categories
Faculty Regulations Harvard Regulations

Harvard. Changes in A.M. and Ph.D. economics degree requirements, 1956

The explicit rules of the game of paper chase to an advanced degree in economics at Harvard have evolved over the years. This post adds to our collection of the rules and regulations, interpretations and exceptions that defined the procedural world faced by the earlier cohorts of economics graduate students at Harvard. 

_________________

Department of Economics

August 1, 1956

CHANGES IN DEGREE REQUIREMENTS

MASTER OF ARTS DEGREE

These changes are to take effect for students taking their General Oral Examinations after February 1, 1957.

  1. The requirements for the M.A. shall be identical with those for the Ph.D., with the following exceptions:
    1. No thesis or special oral examination shall be required.
    2. The language requirement shall remain as it was: a fluent reading knowledge, to be tested by a rigorous two-hour written examination, of advanced economic texts in one of the following languages: French, German, Italian, Dutch, Spanish, a Scandinavian language, or Russian.

The above [sic, below] involves the following major changes in the M.A. requirements:

  1. Two years’ residence (no exceptions); one of these may be taken elsewhere, as for the Ph.D.
  2. Five fields are now to be presented, including economic theory, economic history, and statistics.
  3. The requirement regarding the fifth field of study is usually fulfilled by the passing of the equivalent of a full-year graduate course offered in the Department of Economics at Harvard and completed with the grade of B plus or higher. Seminars offered by the Graduate School of Public Administration are not acceptable for such “write-off” purposes. If the requirement for the write-off is not met prior to the General Oral Examination, the candidate will be examined in all five fields in the Generals. One half-course must have been completed in the write-off field with a grade of B plus or higher before the General Examination.
  4. Candidates for the Master’s degree may be excused from final examinations in courses on the same basis as candidates for the Ph.D.
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEGREE.

General Oral Examination:

  1. If the requirements for the write-off field have not been met prior to the General Oral Examination, all five fields must be included in the General Oral Examination.

Thesis:

  1. The thesis should be written in one of the fields taken in the General Oral Examination. The candidate will obtain written consent for his proposed topic from the faculty member who has agreed to supervise his thesis and submit it to the Chairman within six months after passing the General Oral Examination. The student must make a report of progress on his thesis to the Department once a year until the thesis is submitted finally for approval.
  2. Beginning in the year 1957-58, theses will be due in the Department Office in final bound form on December 1st for a degree at Midyear and on March 1st for a degree at Commencement.

Special Oral Examination:

  1. The Special Oral Examination will consist of an extensive examination in the student’s special field as well as in a defense of his thesis. It will normally last one hour to one-and-one-half hours, not less than one-half hour to be devoted to intensive examination in the special field without primary reference to the thesis. This ruling is to take effect for Specials taken after September 1, 1957.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961 and some earlier (UAV 349.11). Box 13, General Exams to Haberler. “Graduate Degree Requirements”.

Image Source: Clipped and borrowed from the blog Disorder of Things.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard History of Economics

Harvard. Exams for the history of economics up to 1848. Bullock, 1908-1909

Xenophon

“Economic Theory and its History” was the designation of the only mandatory subject for the economics Ph.D. general examination at Harvard in the early 20th century [there were still another five elective subjects to be examined in!] so it is not surprising that this full year course taught by Charles J. Bullock actually went all the way back to Aristotle and Xenophon. 

__________________________

Earlier versions of the course
by year and instructor

1899-1900. The History and Literature of Economics to the close of the Eighteenth Century. [William James Ashley]

1901-02. History and Literature of Economics, to the opening of the Nineteenth Century. [Charles Whitney Mixter]

1903-04. History and Literature of Economics to the opening of the Nineteenth Century [Charles Jesse Bullock]

1904-05. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. [Charles Jesse Bullock]

1905-06. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. [Charles Jesse Bullock]

1906-07. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848 [Charles Jesse Bullock]

1907-08. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848 [Charles Jesse Bullock]

__________________________

Course Enrollment
1908-09

Economics 15. Professor Bullock. — History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848.

Total 6: 6 Graduates.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1908-1909, p. 67.

__________________________

Course Announcement
1908-09

[Economics] 15. History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri, at 11. Professor Bullock.

The purpose of this course is to trace the development of economic thought from classical antiquity to the middle of the nineteenth century. Emphasis is placed upon the relation of economics to philosophical and political theories, as well as to political and industrial conditions.

A considerable amount of reading of prominent writers will be assigned, and opportunity given for the preparation of theses. Much of the instruction is necessarily given by means of lectures.

No undergraduates will be admitted to the course who are not candidates for honors in economics.

Source: Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. V, No. 19 (1 June 1908). History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1908-09, p. 50.

__________________________

ECONOMICS 15
THE HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF ECONOMICS

Mid-Year Examination, 1908-09
  1. By what processes did the western world’s stock of economic ideas grow during the period you have studied?
  2. Compare the economic opinions of Xenophon with those of Aristotle.
  3. What did the Roman Law derive from previous economic thought and what did it contribute to subsequent thought?
  4. What do you think of Ingram’s account of economic thought during the Middle Ages?
  5. Where would you look for materials relating to the economic ideas of Europe from 500 A.D. to 1100 A.D.?
  6. What traces of the influence of Aristotle do you find in the economic doctrines of the Schoolmen?
  7. Describe the progress of economic thought in Italy from 1300 A.D. to 1500 A.D.
  8. What opinions concerning commercial policy do you find in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 8, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1908-09.

__________________________

ECONOMICS 15
HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF ECONOMICS.
Year-end Examination, 1908-09
  1. Write an essay of about 1,000 words upon the progress of economic thought in England from 1500 to 1770.
  2. What were the elements that contributed to Smith’s system of economic thought?
  3. Compare briefly the development of economic thought in France from 1500 to 1770 with the development of English thought during the same period.
  4. What is the attitude of Schmoller and Oncken toward the mercantilists?
  5. What significance have the Physiocrats for the history of economic thought?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1908-09; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1909), p. 46.

Image Source: Xenophon. From the statue of Xenophon by Hugo Haerdtl that is located on the southern entry ramp to the Austrian Parliament (Dr.-Karl-Renner-Ring 3, im 1. Wiener Gemeindebezirk Innere Stadt).

Categories
Exam Questions Fields Money and Banking UCLA

UCLA. PhD Money Qualifying Examinations. Klein, Thompson, Clower, Darby. 1973

While material for the Harvard economics department has and will dominate the flow of content at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, I will try to post items from other colleges and economics, if for no other reason than to get a change of scenery. So in this post we head out to UCLA to see what Ph.D. candidates who selected Money as a subject for a comprehensive examination were asked. The exam is transcribed from a personal copy of Robert Clower found in this papers. So from UCLA to Duke to you via Berlin.

Note the examination committee for May 1973 has been identified, one might presume that most if not all members also were involved in the October 1973 examination transcribed below.

Previously posted:

May 1971 Field Exam 

______________________________

Meet the members of the Ph.D. Comprehensive Field Exam for Money
(UCLA, Spring, 1973)

Chairman, Benjamin Klein (b. 1943. Ph.D. University of Chicago)

Earl Thompson (b. 1938; d. 2010. Ph.D. Harvard University, 1961)

Michael Darby (b. 1945. Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1970)

Robert W. Clower (b. 1926; d. 2011.  D.Litt. Oxford University 1978)

For much, much more:  The Essential UCLA School of Economics by David R. Henderson and Steven Globerman.

______________________________

Memo on Comprehensive Field Exams
in the UCLA Economics Department

April 5, 1973

TO: Economics Department Faculty
FROM: The Graduate Committee and the Acting Chairman
SUBJECT: Comprehensive Field Examinations

Some faculty members have indicated to members of the Graduate Committee uncertainty about their roles and responsibilities in the examination process. The following notes may serve to lessen those uncertainties.

Each of the eleven areas designated as “fields” by the Department has a committee charged with the responsibility for composing the examination and measuring the accomplishments of our students. While the duties involved with conducting these examinations are onerous, the exams have played a central part in the graduate curriculum and are, therefore, worthy of considerable effort.

Typically, the person named chairman of the field solicits questions for the examination from all the other members of the committee. In some cases, his solicitation may go beyond the committee to other department members as well. Usually, he then composes the examination and, before submitting it to the graduate secretary to be typed, circulates a draft copy among the committee members to seek their consensus about balance and format. In particular, it is not intended that the chairman have unilateral authority with respect to the exam’s content.

After the examination has been administered to the students, the results are evaluated. All committees, to our knowledge, have at least two members read every answer. In fields in which the number of students is small, all members read all the answers.

Finally, in order to grade the examination, most committees schedule a meeting at which some consensus about grades is forged. At such meetings, a member who has strong feelings about the qualities (or lack thereof) of any given question or examination may convince the other members. For most committees this procedure has proven more useful than that of simply handing the chairman a score sheet before any dialogue about the results has occurred.

Clearly, modes of behavior with respect to the conduct of the examinations will vary among the field committees. However, to the extent that committees can standardize their actions along the lines indicated above, student and faculty uncertainty about the examinations will diminish, with an accordingly greater emphasis on more substantive matters.

______________________________

Comprehensive Field Examinations for the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees — May 1973

Field Committees:

Economic Theory. Hirshleifer (chairman), Thompson, Clower, Demetz, Leijonhufvud

Urban and Regional Economics. Hirsch (chairman), Ellickson, Chen

Public Finance. Somers (chairman), Chen, Lindsay, Vandermeulen

Government and Industry (industrial organization). Demetz (chairman), Peltzman, Hilton, Klein

Mathematical Economics. Thompson (chairman), Britto, Clower

Econometrics. Dhrymes (chairman), Ellickson, McCall

Money. Klein (chairman), Thompson, Clower, Darby

International Economics. Baird (chairman), Chu, Rugg

Economic Development. Herrick (chairman), Britto, Wolf

Labor Economics. Herrick (chairman), Lindsay, Hilton

Economic Institutions (economic history). Murphy (chairman), Shetler, Leijonhufvud

______________________________

Ph.D. Money Qualifying Examination
October 15, 1973

Four Hours

Answer six of the following seven questions. Be as specific and rigorous as possible.

There is plenty of writing time to answer all of the questions satisfactorily so try to spend a sufficient amount of time thinking before beginning to write. Irrelevant material presented, however correct, will be penalized.

1. In his 1942 article on “Say’s Law: A Restatement and Criticism,” O. Lange defines “Walras’ Law” by the identity

\sum_{i=1}^{i=N} p_{i}X_{i}\equiv 0,

where Xi denotes the sum of all individual excess demands for the ith conmodity (“collective excess demand”), and Pi denotes the price (expressed in units of the Nth commodity) of the ith commodity. In the same article, Lange defines “Say’s Law” by the identity

\sum_{i=1}^{i=N-1} p_{i}X_{i}\equiv 0,

where pi and Xi are defined precisely as before. Calling the Nth commodity “money,” Lange then asserts that if collective excess demands in an economic system A simultaneously satisfy both Walras’ Law and Say’s Law, then:

    1. Money prices are indeterminate;
    2. Individuals will never desire to change their money balances;
    3. Money is merely a worthless medium of exchange and standard of value in economy A.
    4. The economic system A is “equivalent to a barter economy.”

Critically evaluate each of the assertions a) through d).

2. a) The rapid rise in short-term interest rates during the first half of 1973 produced what is commonly called commercial bank “disintermediation” and thereby differential movements in the rates of growth of M1 compared to M2.

Clearly describe this process and how it affects the two definitions of the money supply. In such circumstances, is the rate of growth of M1 or of M2 a better indicator of monetary policy? Can you suggest a superior monetary aggregate to use as an indicator?

b) During the past year the rate of growth of money has deviated at times substantially from the rate of growth of the base or high-powered money (i.e., there has been a change in the money multiplier) due to large changes by the Treasury in the amount of demand deposits they hold at commercial banks. This led one observer to ask whether it was the Treasury or the Federal Reserve who was making monetary policy.

Clearly describe how changes in government demand deposits affect the money supply. How can the Federal Reserve offset such changes? If the Treasury decided to become a “monetary authority” and tried to control the money supply in this way, how would they fare in competition with the Fed if the two authorities adopted different money supply goals?

3. An Englishman holidaying on a small Mediterranean island paid all his expenses with checks on his English bank. The inhabitants were so impressed by his gentlemanly bearing that instead of cashing his checks, they used them thereafter as money. Who paid for the Englishman’s holiday?

Answer this question in terms of (a) fixed exchange rates and (b) floating exchange rates. Explain how different macroeconomic views of the world affect the answers.

4. There has been much discussion about the exogeneity or endogeneity of the money supply. Explain the different meanings of these terms for policy analysis and for statistical estimation and how these differences have been a source of confusion.

5. Discuss the following proposition: The rate of unemployment is affected primarily by deviations of the actual rate of change of money or government spending from their expected rates of change, and not by the rate of change or level of money or government spending.

Does this proposition have any implications about the relative and absolute possibilities of the persistent use of fiscal or monetary policy to achieve a low rate of unemployment?

Cite any empirical evidence with which you are familiar for or against the proposition (e.g., consider the Andersen & Jordan weights on the effects of changes in government spending on changes in nominal income).

6. The Federal Reserve recently adopted a rule change where required reserves instead of being calculated on the basis of current deposits is now based on commercial bank deposits two weeks earlier (which are obviously given at the time of the calculation).

This rule change has produced a situation where the Fed can no longer affect, in any given week, the total reserves of the banking system and where the major short-run effective policy tool of the Fed is how much it “forces” commercial banks to borrow from them each week — a very crude instrument by which to control the money supply.

Do you agree or disagree? Explain carefully.

Source: Economists’ Papers Archive, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Robert W. Clower Papers, Box 4, Folder “Monetary Economics, PhD exams, Reading list, exams UCLA 1971-1988”.

Image Sources: Benjamin Klein, Earl Thompson, Robert Clower, Michael Darby.

Categories
Economist Market Economists Harvard

Harvard. Haberler pushes hiring Caves rather than Chenery or Arrow in 1961

 

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has already posted two artifacts revealing Gottfried Haberler’s unfiltered opinions of other economists that he put into writing.

re: John Kenneth Galbraith vs. Paul Samuelson
re: Samuel Bowles

In my reading of the memo transcribed below I get the sense that Haberler was not shy of overstating his case for the  appointment of Richard Caves by diminishing Arrow’s virtues: “I cannot help feeling that some of his [Arrow’s] work is fanciful and esoteric in the extreme and its chance of survival is very low.”

Personal note: I once paid my Yale mentor William Fellner a courtesy call when he was a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. in the 1970s. Fellner was a lunch-buddy of Gottfried Haberler and he invited me to join the two of them for lunch at the Mayflower Hotel. I confess (with a combination of understanding for myself and shame) that I hadn’t a clue who the frail old man wolfing down his lunch across the table from me was and he displayed no interest in conversation with me either. And now here I sit, posting a 63 year old Haberler memo for the historical record.

____________________

All three were eventually given
Harvard professorships anyway

Kenneth Arrow (1951 Ph.D. Columbia, Harvard appointment 1968)

Richard Caves (1958 Ph.D. Harvard, Harvard appointment 1962)

Hollis Chenery (1950 Ph.D. Harvard, Harvard appointment 1965)

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Haberler’s Protest:
Preface to his Colleagues

To the Senior Members of the Department:

I am going to send the attached letter to the President unless anybody strongly objects. For the members of the Department I should like to add that I somewhat resent the surprise tactic used in bringing up the name of Arrow in yesterday’s discussion. Let me confess that this was not immediately clear to me — which on reflection causes me to deplore it all the more. I have reason to believe that others too were taken by surprise.

December 13, 1961

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Haberler’s Protest in Full

CONFIDENTIAL.

MEMO TO: The President, the Senior members of the Department of Economics, the Dean of the Graduate School of Public Administration

FROM: Gottfried Haberler

In my opinion, the Department of Economics is making a serious mistake in filling up the Department too much with mathematical and econometric economists through the proposal to appoint Arrow and Chenery. May I say by way of introduction that, although I am not myself a mathematical economist, I have a high appreciation of the mathematical and econometric method and have consistently shown that by my votes in the Department.

I do believe, however, that at the present time the Department is well supplied with talent in this field. Five members of the permanent staff belong to that category — Dorfman, Houthakker, Leontief, Meyer, Schelling. True, all of them have developed strong interests in policy problems and have worked on applied problems. None of them is a “pure” theorist in the sense that he works exclusively in the theoretic-mathematical-econometric field, but all of them (with the exception of Schelling) have been appointed for their theoretical, mathematical, econometric skills.

In addition to the permanent members, there are always non-permanent members in that category, at present especially Clopper Almon [Obituary].

No two of these five men are quite alike and Arrow is different from all of them. As far as I know, Arrow has not yet developed an active interest in policy questions. I do not criticise him for that — it may well be an asset. All I want to say is that we are well supplied in his general field of competence. He certainly is a most competent man and he, rightly, has a high reputation in the profession. But I cannot help feeling that some of his work is fanciful and esoteric in the extreme and its chance of survival is very low. On earlier occasions when he was discussed in the Department, Professor Leontief expressed precisely the same doubts and reservations. Now he thinks that a large department, such as ours, should have men of that type even if — as he still readily concedes — the permanent value of his ideas is problematic. My point is that we are well supplied with this sort of talent and that we are tilting the balance of the Department too strongly in one particular direction.

The fact that we propose to the School of Public Administration the appointment of Chenery fortifies in my opinion the above criticism.

Chenery too is a mathematical-econometric economist of high quality and great energy. His special field is input-output analysis in its application to less developed countries. He is not, of course, a “pure” theorist. On the contrary, application of the theoretical-statistical tools is his strength, especially of input-output analysis. He has also developed administrative talents. At this time, he holds an important position in Washington which makes him look especially attractive to Littauer, I am not in a position to evaluate his suitability for his government assignment. But I should like to say this: I feel strongly that input-output is of no use for the less developed countries, because their basic statistics are woefully inadequate. This does not mean that Chenery will be a poor administrator. It is possible that for him, in his present position, input-output will be a mere ritual. I assume, however, that Littauer does not appoint him for his administrative capabilities, but rather for his scholarly talents, and these latter belong to the same general field — mathematical-econometric analysis — as Arrow’s and the five members of the Department whom I mentioned.

I feel all the more strongly that the Department is making a grave mistake, because we are passing up a rare opportunity to appoint another man who fits into our Department better than either of the two men mentioned and who has other talents which we urgently need, namely, Richard Caves.

The Department has unanimously voted to recommend the appointment of Caves if Arrow is not available. I therefore need not argue his high competence and standing in this profession. Let me only say this: Caves has shown that he not only understands and appreciates the modern mathematical, statistical and econometric methods of analysis, but also — which is a different thing — that he knows how to use them. He has shown himself at the same time to be a master of traditional economic theory and of modern quantitative analysis, a very rare combination indeed. In addition to that he has become a very effective and stimulating undergraduate teacher, which neither one of the other two men is. We are often criticised for neglecting undergraduate teaching. We have tried to remedy this situation, but the difficulty has always been to find a man who measures up to our standards of scholarship and is at the same time an effective undergraduate teacher. Here we have the very rare opportunity, the opportunity of a lifetime, to appoint a man who is both at the same time — an accomplished scholar who is thoroughly familiar with the history of his science and wields modern quantitative methods of analysis effectively, and is also an inspiring undergraduate teacher. It would be inexcusable to let that opportunity pass.

It should be added that Caves is younger than the other two and is being considered by two leading universities for a permanent position. If we do not get him now we will in all probability have lost him forever.

I should also like to say that I disagree with the view that Chenery is better suited for Littauer than Caves. True, being older he has more administrative experience. But this should not be decisive, in my opinion, except that from a superficial public relations standpoint it may look appropriate to appoint someone to Littauer who has held a high position in Washington. Both men are intensely interested in policy problems, but both will always feel that they are primarily economists and neither will want to lecture only on policy problems or only to Littauer students.

December 13, 1961

Source: Economists’ Papers Archive, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. Edward H. Chamberlin Papers, Box 17, Folder “Economics Department 1960-62”.

Image: Radcliffe Archives. Portrait of Gottfried Haberler. (1965).