Author: Irwin Collier

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Advanced Economic Theory, Second Term. Schumpeter, 1948

 

 

In 1947-48 the advanced economic theory sequence of two semester courses featured the pairing of Gottfried Haberler and Joseph Schumpeter in the Winter and Spring terms, respectively. In this post you will find course enrollment data along with the course outline and assigned readings for the Spring term taught by Schumpeter. Alas I could not find the final examination questions for this course in the otherwise fairly complete collection of course examinations in the Harvard Archives.

Materials from the Winter Term course 1947-48 taught by Gottfried Haberler.

__________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 103b. Professor Schumpeter.—Advanced Economic Theory (Sp).

Total 10:  8 Graduates, 1 Public Administration, 1 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1947-48, p. 90.

__________________

Advanced Economic Theory
Joseph Schumpeter

Economics 103b
Spring Term 1947-48

Plan of Course and Suggestions for Reading

The plan of the course is to start from and to build upon Professor Haberler’s lectures in the Fall Term (103a). We shall start from the statics of equilibrium and then discuss at some lengths the use and limitations of the method of Comparative Statics. After this, we shall survey various Dynamic Models. These models will be made the starting points of excursions into relevant fields of pure and applied theory.

Professor Haberler’s reading list remains in force. Wicksell’s Lectures I being particularly recommended. In addition, perusal of the following items will prove helpful. The more important ones are marked by an asterisk. The list is intended to cover also suggestions for the reading period.

J. Tinbergen*, Suggestions on Quantitative Business Cycle Theory, Econometrica, July 1935.

F. Modigliani*, Liquidity Preference, Interest, and Money, Econometrica, January 1944.

N. Kaldor*, Stability and Full Employment, Economic Journal, December 1938

F. Lavington, Approach to a Theory of Business Risks, Economic Journal, June 1925

L. Metzler, Factors Governing the Length of Inventory Cycles, Review of Economic Statistics, February 1947

M. V. Jones, Secular and Cyclical Saving Propensities, Journal of Business of the University of Chicago, January 1944

L. M. Lachmann, Uncertainty and Liquidity Preference, Economica, August 1937

M. Kalecki, A Theorem on Technical Progress, Review of Economic Studies, June 1941

P. A. Samuelson*, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 4. Folder “Economics, 1947-48 (2 of 2)”.

Image Source: Joseph Schumpeter in Harvard Class Album 1946.

 

 

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Advanced Economic Theory. Outline and readings. Haberler, 1947

 

 

In 1947-48 the advanced economic theory sequence of two semester courses featured the pairing of Gottfried Haberler and Joseph Schumpeter in the Winter and Spring terms, respectively. In this post you will find course enrollment data along with the course outline and assigned readings for the Winter term taught by Haberler. Alas I could not find the final examination questions for this course in the otherwise fairly complete collection of course examinations in the Harvard Archives.

Materials from the Spring Term course 1947-48 taught by Joseph Schumpeter.

__________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 103a. Professor Haberler.—Advanced Economic Theory (F).

Total 20:  15 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 2 Public Administration, 1 Radcliffe.

Source:Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1947-48, p. 90.

__________________

Advanced Economic Theory
Gottfried Haberler

Economics 103a
Fall Term, 1947

This course will be devoted to a discussion of some selected topics centering around the theory of capital and interest. An attempt will be made to conduct the course in a seminar-like fashion.

Content

  1. Introduction

Types of economics

Theoretical vs. non-theoretical approach.

Logical types of economic theory

Individualistic—collectivistic economics
Microscopic—Macroscopic (aggregative) theories
Psychological—behavioristic approach
Static—dynamic analysis
Equilibrium—disequilibrium
General—Partial equilibrium
Price theory—welfare theory
Pure—monetary economics

Some major schools

Classical and neo-classical economics
Marxian economics
Keynesian economics
Others

  1. Brief recapitulation of modern time-less theory

Theory of household
Theory of firm
Theory of distribution

  1. Theory of capital and interest

“Pure” vs. “Monetary” theories of capital and interest
Time preference
“Productivity” of capital
Liquidity preference theory of interest
Dynamic theory of interest
Profits and interest
Uncertainty and time

  1. Topics in the theory of capital and interest

Substitutability of “capital” and “labor”
Influence of changes in wage and interest rates or the substitution of capital for labor
The “Ricardo” effect
“Capital intensity” and the trade cycle
Theoretical problems of capital accumulation

*  *  *  *  *  *

Reading

  1. [Introduction] No definite assignments. Suggestions:

Joan Robinson: An Essay on Marxian Economics
P. M. Sweezy: “Orthodox and Marxian Economics,” Science and Society, Summer 1947.
L. R. Klein: The Keynesian Revolution
L. R. Klein: “Theory of Effective Demand and Employment,” Journal of Political Economy, April 1947.

  1. [Brief recapitulation of modern time-less theory]

Hicks: Theory of Wages, Part I.
Hicks: Value and Capital, Parts I and II.
Readings in the Theory of Income Distribution, Chs. 5, 7, 8, 12.
P. H. Douglas: The Theory of Wages, Chs. I, II, III.

  1. [Theory of capital and interest]

I. Fisher: Theory of Interest, mainly Part II and first two chapters of Part III.
F. H. Knight: Articles on Capitaland Interest in Ethics of Competitionor in Readings.
F. A. Hayek: “Mythology of Capital,” in Readings
Schumpeter: Theory of Economic Development, Chs. IV and V.
D. H. Robertson: “Mr. Keynes and the Rate of Interest,” in Readings
K. Wicksell: Lectures, Vol. I, Chs. on interest.
F. Lutz: “The Criterion of Maximum Profits in the Theory of Investment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1945.

  1. [Topics in the theory of capital and interest]

Hayek: Profit, Interest and Investment, first essay.
Hayek: “The Ricardo Effect,” Economica, May 1942.
Haberler: Prosperity and Depression, 1941, pp. 481-491.
N. Kaldor: “Capital Intensity and the Trade Cycle,” Economica, 1939.
N. Kaldor: “Professor Hayek and the Concertina-effect,” Economica, 1942.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 4. Folder “Economics, 1947-48 (2 of 2)”.

Image Source: Gottfried Haberler, Harvard Class Album 1946.

 

Categories
Austria Economists Exam Questions Johns Hopkins Methodology

Johns Hopkins. Final exam for Fritz Machlup’s methodology course, 1956

 

 

Besides the questions for the final exam in Fritz Machlup’s course on the methodology of economics from the first semester of the 1955-56 academic year at Johns Hopkins University, I include the following photo from the 1956 yearbook Hullabaloo (p. 15) that identifies neither the speaker nor the seminar. While this is about as generic a seminar photo as one can imagine, I have something more than a mere suspicion that we are looking at Fritz Machlup in action. Perhaps some visitor with a keener forensic eye can confirm or reject my tentative identification in a comparison of the above portrait of Machlup reading himself with the speaker in the mystery seminar. The third man on the right, counting from the speaker, sure looks like a young Evsey Domar.

My hunch is based on the following picture of almost certainly the same seminar room in 1963 from the Carl Christ memorial website at Johns Hopkins.

 

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THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
METHODOLOGY
18.601

Professor Fritz Machlup
January 27, 1956

Answer five questions, one from each group.
Write on loose sheets of paper; start a new sheet for each question.
Identify each sheet by the Question Number in the left corner and your Examination Number (which you draw before the examination) in the right corner; your name should appear nowhere.
You are on your honor not to use notes or to give or accept advice.

I.

  1. According to Poincaré, “a priori propositions are irrefutable because they are really firm resolutions to carry on the scientific game according to certain rules or stipulations.” Nevertheless, Morris Cohen considers a priori principles as “methodologic or regulative principles which enable us to organize our factual knowledge” and as “expressive of the fundamental nature of things,” What light does this view throw upon the methodological discussions of Hutchison, Kaufmann, Mises, and Knight?
  2. “While the deductive method might be applicable to a simple and stationary condition of industry, it becomes valueless in face of the increasing complexity of the modern economic world.” What was John Neville Keynes’ reaction to this point of view?
  3. “Just as the same proposition may express both a universal and a historical, or both a verbal and a real judgment, so it may express both a positive and a normative judgment.” (Fraser, Economic Thought and Language). First explain each of the three sets of antonyms and then explain and illustrate the statement.

II.

  1. Contrast and compare the logical nature of introspectionism and sensationalism as expounded by Felix Kaufmann or Morris Cohen.
  2. Give a reasoned explanation of Kaufmann’s distinction between three meanings of probability, one “relating to empirical knowledge as such”, another relating “to synthetic propositions undecided in a given scientific situation,” and a third referring to “the relative frequency of an attribute” within a certain collective.
  3. Felix Kaufmann, having made a distinction between empirical laws and theoretical laws, states: “Whereas we have both types of laws in natural science, there are, as I see it, no empirical laws established in social science, and even the tendency to establish such laws is not very strong. But if we consider the significance of theoretical laws in natural science, we cannot regard this as constituting a fundamental difference between the methods of natural science and those of social science.” Explain and discuss this statement in a way intelligible to someone who has not read Kaufmann’s writings.

III.

  1. Explain what Ludwig von Mises means by ”methodological apriorism”, “methodological individualism”, and “methodological singularism”.
  2. “In the history of applied Economics, the work of a Jevons, a Menger, a Bowley, has much more claim on our attention than the work of, say, a Schmoller, a Veblen, or a Hamilton.” What is Robbins driving at with this [last word cut off, “statement?” matches the spacing of the tips to the letter “t” that are still visible]
  3. Hutchison implies that pure theory may help the analyst to formulate questions to be answered by empirical studies: “The constant object of the scientist…is to compel the facts of experience to answer his questions definitely ‘yes’ or ‘no’…” Robbins appears to reverse the relationship: “Realistic studies may suggest the problem to be solved….But it is theory and theory alone which is capable of supplying the solution.” Discuss the paradox from the point of view of any of the other writers on methodology.

IV.

  1. If the description or institutional part of economics is viewed by Professor Knight as lying in the domain of cultural anthropology rather than economics proper, does this mean that in institutional inquiries sense observation assumes greater emphasis than intercommunication and interpretation? If not, why does Knight distinguish institutional from theoretical economics?
  2. “There are no better terms available to describe the difference between the approach of the natural and the social sciences than to call the former objective and the latter subjective.” (Hayek, “Scientism and the Study of Society”.) Explain the meaning of the essential terms employed and the statement as a whole.
  3. Hayek said: “It is only in so far as some sort of order arises as a result of individual action but without being designed by any individual that a problem is raised which demands a theoretical explanation.” Explain.

V.

  1. “Economics is in fact the only science which enjoys the advantage of an automatic quantification of its subject matter.” (Parsons, “Sociological Elements in Economic Thought”). Explain and discuss.
  2. Parsons distinguishes the following ideal types of criticism of abstract economic theory: (1) supplementary positivistic empiricism: (2) radical positivistic empiricism; (3) romantic empiricism; (4) supplementary non-economic sociology. Characterize each in a brief statement illustrated by examples.
  3. Discuss Veblen’s principal categories of human action—especially the “pragmatic” versus the “workmanlike” type—and compare them with the general “rational” type and the narrower “economic” type used in the abstract theories of traditional economics.
  4. On what grounds do Professors Herskovits and Knight reject and defend, respectively, the concept of the “economic man” as a useful tool of economic analysis?

 

Source:  Johns Hopkins University. The Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy, Series 6. Box 3/1. Folder: “Department of Political Economy, Graduate Exams, 1933-1965”.

Image Source:  Johns Hopkins University yearbook, Hullabaloo, 1957, p. 28.

Categories
Columbia Economic History Race

Columbia. John W. Burgess charged with “anti-Negro thought” by W.E.B. Du Bois, 1935

 

Preparing for class tomorrow, I was reading the concluding chapter of W.E.B. Du Bois‘s book, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880, that includes the following unflattering portrait of the founder of Columbia University’s School of Political Science, John W. Burgess. Since Burgess’s School of Political Science was the home of graduate economics education at Columbia University and the boundaries between the disciplines of law, history, political science, economics, and sociology were much less well-defined then than today, I think it is worth including W.E.B. Du Bois’s observations here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. 

Image Source: W.E.B. Du Bois (ca. 1919 by C. M. Battey) in Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

_____________________

Excerpt from
Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880
by W.E.B. Du Bois.

The real frontal attack on Reconstruction, as interpreted by the leaders of national thought in 1870 and for some time thereafter, came from the universities and particularly from Columbia and Johns Hopkins.

The movement began with Columbia University and with the advent of John W. Burgess of Tennessee and William A. Dunning of New Jersey as professors of political science and history.

Burgess was an ex-Confederate soldier who started to a little Southern college with a box of books, a box of tallow candles and a Negro boy; and his attitude toward the Negro race in after years was subtly colored by this early conception of Negroes as essentially property like books and candles. Dunning was a kindly and impressive professor who was deeply influenced by a growing group of young Southern students and began with them to re-write the history of the nation from 1860 to 1880, in more or less conscious opposition to the classic interpretations of New England.

Burgess was frank and determined in his anti-Negro thought. He expounded his theory of Nordic supremacy which colored all his political theories:

“The claim that there is nothing in the color of the skin from the point of view of political ethics is a great sophism. A black skin means membership in a race of men which has never of itself succeeded in subjecting passion to reason, has never, therefore, created any civilization of any kind. To put such a race of men in possession of a ‘state’ government in a system of federal government is to trust them with the development of political and legal civilization upon the most important subjects of human life, and to do this in communities with a large white population is simply to establish barbarism in power over civilization.” [Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p.133 ]

Burgess is a Tory and open apostle of reaction. He tells us that the nation now believes “that it is the white man’s mission, his duty and his right, to hold the reins of political power in his own hands for the civilization of the world and the welfare of mankind.”4

4 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, pp. viii, ix.

For this reason America is following “the European idea of the duty of civilized races to impose their political sovereignty upon civilized, or half civilized, or not fully civilized, races anywhere and everywhere in the world.”5

5 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 218.

He complacently believes that “There is something natural in the subordination of an inferior race to a superior race, even to the point of the enslavement of the inferior race, but there is nothing natural in the opposite.”6 He therefore denominates Reconstruction as the rule “of the uncivilized Negroes over the whites of the South.”7 This has been the teaching of one of our greatest universities for nearly fifty years.

6 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, pp. 244-245.
7 Burgess, Reconstruction and the Constitution, p. 218.

Dunning was less dogmatic as a writer, and his own statements are often judicious. But even Dunning can declare that “all the forces [in the South] that made for civilization were dominated by a mass of barbarous freedmen”; and that “the antithesis and antipathy of race and color were crucial and ineradicable.”7a The work of most of the students whom he taught and encouraged has been one-sided and partisan to the last degree. Johns Hopkins University has issued a series of studies similar to Columbia’s; Southern teachers have been welcomed to many Northern universities, where often Negro students have been systematically discouraged, and thus a nation-wide university attitude has arisen by which propaganda against the Negro has been carried on unquestioned.

7a Dunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic, pp. 212, 213.

The Columbia school of historians and social investigators have issued between 1895 and the present time sixteen studies of Reconstruction in the Southern States, all based on the same thesis and all done according to the same method: first, endless sympathy with the white South; second, ridicule, contempt or silence for the Negro; third, a judicial attitude towards the North, which concludes that the North under great misapprehension did a grievous wrong, but eventually saw its mistake and retreated.

These studies vary, of course, in their methods. Dunning’s own work is usually silent so far as the Negro is concerned. Burgess is more than fair in law but reactionary in matters of race and property, regarding the treatment of a Negro as a man as nothing less than a crime, and admitting that “the mainstay of property is the courts.”

In the books on Reconstruction written by graduates of these universities and others, the studies of Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Louisiana are thoroughly bad, giving no complete picture of what happened during Reconstruction, written for the most part by men and women without broad historical or social background, and all designed not to seek the truth but to prove a thesis. Hamilton reaches the climax of this school when he characterizes the black codes, which even Burgess condemned, as “not only … on the whole reasonable, temperate and kindly, but, in the main, necessary.”8

8 Hamilton, “Southern Legislation in Respect to Freedmen” in Studies in Southern History and Politics, p. 156.

 

Source:   W.E. Burghardt Du Bois, Black Reconstruction. An Essay Toward a History of the Part which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880, pp. 718-720.

Image Source: John W. Burgess in Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2. Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1899,  p. 481.

 

Categories
Columbia Regulations

Columbia. Latin and Ancient Greek are too much of a good thing. Munroe Smith, 1891

 

A long time before economics graduate degree programs in the United States were to completely abolish requirements for demonstrating a basic competency in some language other than English [e.g. M.I.T. in 1969], there was a battle over the number of ancient languages expected. In this post we have a member of Columbia University’s Faculty of Political Science, Prof. Munroe Smith (legal historian), giving his opinion on the matter to President Low back in 1891.

I have included brief biographical material from an 1899 publication along with the Columbia University newspaper’s report of Smith’s funeral service in 1926.

Fun Fact:  Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and Hewlett Packard and unsuccessful candidate for Governor of California in 2010, happens to be a great-grandaughter of Munroe Smith.

__________________

Letter from Legal Historian Munroe Smith to Columbia President Seth Low

Columbia College,
October 7, 1891

Dear Sir:

In reply to your circular letter of June 12, I have to say that I heartily endorse the plan proposed by the University Council—as far as it goes. I should prefer to see an election permitted in the entrance examinations also between Greek and some equivalent. But I accept the plan of the Council as meeting the immediate necessities of the situation at Columbia.

It is impossible longer to insist on both the ancient languages in our undergraduate curriculum. We have ourselves made it impossible. For the degree of Ph.D., two of our own University faculties already demand a reading knowledge of Latin, French and German. It does not seem possible for the student to acquire this knowledge in the School of Arts as long as he is held to Greek. At least, we constantly find graduate students who are obliged to give up the hope of attaining this degree, unless they are able and willing to go back into undergraduate courses and there make good their linguistic deficiencies. But this seems hardly fair to them.

I am opposed to the proposal to confine the A.B. degree to those who have studied Greek in college. It seems to me a reactionary suggestion. Whatever may have been the case a generation ago. A.B. does not now, in our most progressive and popular colleges, imply any knowledge of Greek. It does not even imply that the bearer has forgotten Greek. Even at Columbia we have broken with the older tradition as regards the higher degree of A.M. We have conferred the degree of A.M. upon men who not only have no Greek, but who have neither Greek nor Latin, or at least have not studied either language within the preceding five years. This I consider too great an innovation. I think we shall best combine healthy progress with sound conservatism by requiring for all academic (non-technical) degrees a good knowledge of one ancient language. But I do not think we can insist on two.

I am opposed to the suggestion that the degree of Ph.B. be conferred in all cases where Greek has not been studied in college, because in the common opinion this is an inferior degree. The distinction proposed casts a slur upon all other liberal studies and unduly exalts the older as opposed to the newer humanities.

Respectfully
[signed]
Munroe Smith

President Seth Low, LL.D.

 

Source: Columbia University, Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-. Box 339. Folder: “1.1.19; Smith, Munroe; 5/1891-11/1909”.

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SMITH, Munroe. 1854-[1926]

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y. 1854 educated at Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. Amherst College (A.B. 1874), Columbia Law School, and Universities of Berlin, Leipzig and Göttingen (J.U.D 1880); Lecturer and Instructor at Columbia 1880-83; Adjunct Professor and Lecturer 1883-90; Professor 1890-; Managing Editor Political Science Quarterly 1887-92, 1898-99.

MUNROE SMITH, J.U.D., Professor of Roman Law and Comparative Jurisprudence at Columbia, was born in Brooklyn, New York, December 8, 1854, son of Dr. Horatio Southgate and Susan Dwight (Munroe) Smith. His ancestors were English and Scotch settlers in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Maine. Having acquired his preparatory education in the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, he entered Amherst College in 1870 and was graduated in 1874. After a year in post-graduate work at Amherst with Professor John W. Burgess, he spent the next two years (1875-1877) at the Law School of Columbia, and continued his studies in Germany, at the Universities of Berlin, Leipzig and Göttingen, for the three years 1877-1880, taking the degree of Doctor of Civil Law at Göttingen in the latter year. On returning  from abroad he became Lecturer on Roman Law and Instructor in History at Columbia, and filled that position for three years. In 1883 he was made Adjunct Professor of History and Lecturer on Roman Law, and after officiating in that capacity for seven years, was in 1890 transferred to the Chair of Roman Law and Comparative Jurisprudence, which he now holds. Professor Smith while filling his Chair with thoroughness and ability, has devoted some measure of his time to literary work, and besides being Managing Editor of the Political Science Quarterly, for several years, has been a contributor to various journals, and to Lalor’s and Johnson’s Encyclopædias. He published in 1898: Bismarck and German Unity, An Historical Outline. He married April 17, 1890 Gertrude Huidekoper, and has one daughter, Gertrude Munroe Smith.

 

Source: Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 399-400.

__________________

DOCTOR E. M. SMITH TO BE BURIED TODAY

Bryce Professor Emeritus Victim of Pneumonia—Funeral Services from St. Paul’s.

Dr. Edmund Monroe Smith [18]77 L, Bryce Professor Emeritus of European History, died at his home Tuesday, a victim of pneumonia. Professor Smith was a member of the Columbia Faculty since 1880. Funeral services will be held this afternoon at 2 P.M. from St. Paul’s Chapel. Dr. Smith was born in Brooklyn in 1854. He entered Amherst College in the Class of 1874, and after receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree he enrolled in Columbia in the Class of ’77 Law. After graduation from Law School, Doctor Smith went abroad and studied at the University of Göttingen, where he was awarded a J.U.D. He also received the honorary degrees of Doctor of Law from Columbia, in 1904 and Amherst in 1916, and Doctor of Jurisprudence from Louvain University in 1909.

Author of Many Books.

From 1891 to 1922, during his forty-five years of teaching at Columbia, Doctor Smith was Professor of Roman Law and Comparative Jurisprudence. He was also a lecturer on Roman Law at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. Doctor Smith was the author of numerous books, among which are, “Bismark and German Unity”, “Out of Their Own Mouths” and “Militarism and Statecraft” which was published during the World War. He edited several publications, one of the most important of which is, “The Political Science Quarterly”.

Dr. Smith is survived by his wife, formerly Miss Gertrude Huidkoper of Philadelphia, and a daughter, Mrs. Cushing Goodhue of Boston. The honorary pallbearers this afternoon will be President Nicholas Murray Butler, Frederick Coudert, Brander Matthews, Judge John Bassett Moore of the Permanent Court at The Hague, George A. Plimpton, Franklin H. Giddings, Lyman Beecher Stowe, Charles D. Havens, Rev. Dr. Willam Adams Brown, George Northrop, Algernoon S. Frissell, Carlton J. Hayes, B. M. Anderson, Howard Lee McBain, Frederick Keppel, Justice Harlan Fiske Stone of the United States Supreme Court, and President John H. Goodnow, of John Hopkins University.

 

Source:  Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. XLIX, No. 135 (April 15, 1926), p. 1.

Image Source: Universities and their Sons, Vol. 2 (1899), pp. 399-400.

 

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Exam Questions M.I.T.

M.I.T. Midterm and Final exams. Income and Employment Theory. Domar, 1968-69

 

Previously posted are the outlines, readings, and exams for Domar’s national income and employment courses taught at the University of Chicago in 1948 and at M.I.T. in 1965. Also of interest here are the MIT student evaluations for this and other core theory courses in the late 1960s.

There is little doubt in my mind that MIT economics graduate students during the first term of the 1968-69 academic year responded to Evsey Domar’s attempts to get them interested in the details of national income and product accounting and productivity indexes with an enthusiasm to rival the high-school kids’ reaction to the Hawley-Smoot lesson attempted by a high-school teacher in the cult-film Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Fun-fact: the boring teacher in the movie was played by Ben Stein, son of economist, Herbert Stein. One more piece of fun: watch an older Ben Stein talk about getting that role.

In Domar’s defense, national accounting and index numbers have never been the stuff of a great TED talk. Anyone? … Anyone?

__________________

THE THEORY OF INCOME AND EMPLOYMENT
14.451
E. D. Domar

MIDTERM EXAMINATION
November 27, 1968

Seventy-five minutes

Please answer all questions. Note their weights. Use a separate book for each question.

  1. [30%] “One of the basic defects of the American economic system lies in the presence of a large number of persons who receive legal incomes and yet perform no useful services. The inclusion of their incomes in the national income total (according to accepted methods) undoubtedly exaggerates this total.”
    Discuss this statement carefully. Distinguish different kinds of income and different sources. In each case indicate how national income (or product) will be affected if these persons were employed productively. (What does “productively” mean in this context?)
  2. [30%] In national income comparisons between the Soviet Union and the U.S. (or other pairs of less developed and advanced countries) it is usually thought that existing methods of social accounting understate the ratio of Russian to American income, particularly if official rates of exchange are used for conversion.
    1. Evaluate this statement critically and indicate whether or not you agree with it and why.
    2. Suppose the comparison was made first in Russian prices (for both countries) and then in American prices (again for both countries). Which one should give the Russians a more favorable ratio and why? (Hint: consider comparisons over time in the same country.)Note: Disregard the complexities of the Russian price system: remember that the Russian ruble is not freely convertible into other currencies.
  3. [25%] a. What role or roles does the so-called “Money Illusion” play in the Classical and Keynesian systems?

b. If a country is suffering from inflation, will an increase in output brought about by the reduction in unemployment (assuming that it existed) intensify or reduce the inflation? Why? (Hint: this is not an easy question; consider carefully the nature of output to be produced.)

  1. [15%] If you wanted to measure labor or other factor productivity would you or would you not use the Federal Reserve Index of Industrial Production? Why or why not?

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Evsey D. Domar Papers. Box 17, Folder “Macroeconomics Examinations (1 of 3)”.

__________________

THE THEORY OF INCOME AND EMPLOYMENT
14.451
E. D. Domar

FINAL EXAMINATION
Jan. 28, 1969

Three hours

Please answer Question 1 and any FOUR out of the five remaining questions. Use a separate book for each question.

  1. [24%] An overheard argument among students in 14.451 about measures required to increase investment:

Student A: Increase the quantity of money in order to reduce the rate of interest.

Student B: No, an increase in the quantity of money will merely raise prices.

Student C: A fall in the rate of interest will not have any appreciable effect on investment in any case.

Student D: A fall in the rate of interest will reduce savings, and thus reduce rather than increase investment.

Student E: To increase investment we should increase savings by increasing income inequality.

Student F: On the contrary, greater income equality will increase savings.

Student G: You are both (That is, E and F) wrong: the fraction of income saved is independent of income distribution and of the size of a person’s income.

Student H: To increase investment we should increase demand by increasing consumption and thus reducing saving.

Student I: Nothing will help unless you reduce the prices of machinery and construction.

Student J: You (that is, Student I) are wrong: your suggestion will merely reduce the amount of investment.

Please set this poor, confused group straight (if you can). In so doing, explain clearly the assumptions and conditions implied in each statement and evaluate it critically. Try to identify the opera (and its author) from which each aria is taken. How would you go about increasing investment?

  1. [19%] “Thus the rate of interest is what it is because it is expected to become other than it is; if it is not expected to become other than it is, there is nothing left to tell us what it is…”
    1. Can you identify the author of this famous statement?
    2. Can you recognize whose interest theory he referred to?
    3. Explain and evaluate that theory critically.
    4. Present your own (original or otherwise) theory of interest.
  2. [19%] a. Assume that all expenditures on education and training, both private and public, are to be treated as investment. Explain the modifications that you would make in existing methods of national income, (and product) and wealth accounting and the reasons for these changes.

b. In computing national product, each commodity (or service) is multiplied by its price in order to compute the total. What is the rationale for this method? What assumptions is it based on? Are these assumptions realistic?

  1. [19%] Suppose Project I has a higher internal rate of return, while Project II has a larger discounted value. Assume that the projects are mutually exclusive, and that both are being considered by a private firm.
    1. Explain the rationale of each method and the assumptions it is based on.
    2. Which method (that is, the internal rate vs. present value) would you use under what conditions and why?
    3. How will your calculations be changed if the projects are undertaken by a government of some underdeveloped country?
  2. [19%] a. “A high ratio of depreciation to investment is a sign of old age.”

b. “If the measured distribution of income remained the same in the U.S. over the last fifty years, the distribution of permanent income has become less equal.”
Comment. Explain your conclusion thoroughly.
c. “If the Balanced-Budget Theorem is correct, is Say’s Law also correct?”
Comment. Explain what is meant by each part of this statement.

  1. [19%] a. “What is the proper definition of money required in the Price-Flexibility (Patinkin-like) problems? Why and how does it differ from the usual definition?
    Explain what elements of American money supply and of other relevant assets you would include or exclude in the proper (for this purpose) definition of money.

b. Explain how Patinkin’s conclusions regarding the effects of an increase (say, of doubling) in the quantity of money “by magic” on the price level and on the rate of interest are modified by the existence of the money illusion in the labor market.
c. Assume the absence of money illusion and explain why the effects of creating money by open market operations differ from those when money is created “by magic.”

 

Source:Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Evsey D. Domar Papers. Box 17, Folder “Macroeconomics Examinations (2 of 3)”.

Image Source: Evsey D. Domar at the MIT Museum.

Categories
Bibliography Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Course outlines and reading lists. Business Cycles and Economic Forecasting, Haberler & Hansen, 1955-56

 

The pairing of Gottfried Haberler and Alvin Hansen at Harvard for business cycle teaching spanned decades.

For comparison, the reading list and final exam for the course 17 years earlier:   Haberler and Hansen, 1938.

________________

Economics 245a
Business Cycles

Professor Haberler — Fall Term, 1955

Part I. Basic Facts and Concepts.

Types of economic changes and fluctuations

Definition of business cycles

Constant and varying characteristics

Income, production, employment, unemployment
Prices, wages, interest rates, etc.

Cyclical phases

Amplitude, length

Short cycles, intermediate cycles, long waves

Cycles and crises

Cycle history

Approaches to the study of business fluctuations

Descriptive and historical
Statistical and econometric
Theoretical

Part II. Explanation of Business Cycles

Theory of business cycles and theory of employment

Economic fluctuations and long-term growth

Formal characteristics of cycle theories

Statics-dynamics
Exogenous-endogenous theories

Older Cycle Theories

“Monetary” theories vs. “real” theories
Savings — investment
Inventions, innovations; Schumpeter’s theory
Psychological factors: Pigou, Keynes
Agriculture and the business cycle

Modern Cycle Theories

Keynesian contribution
Multiplier — acceleration models
Harrod, Hansen, Samuelson, Kaldor, Kalecki, Metzler
Hicks’ “Contribution to the Theory of the Trade Cycle”
Inventory cycles
The role of wage and price rigidity in the cycle
Competition and monopoly and the business cycle
Many-cycle hypothesis
Is there still a business cycle?

Part III. Economic Growth

Part IV. Business Cycle Policy

Cycle Policy and Employment Policy

Can and should the Cycle be suppressed?

Have depressions a useful function?

Should business booms be prevented?

Preventive and curative depression policy?

Instruments of Policy

Monetary and credit policies
Fiscal policies
Price and wage policies
The role of business forecasting
Other measures

International aspects of business cycles and business cycle policy

Business cycles in planned economies

 

General Texts and Comprehensive Monographs

A. F. Burns, The Frontiers of Economic Knowledge (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1954)

Hansen, Business Cycles and National Income

Schumpeter, Business Cycles

Achinstein, Introduction to Business Cycles

Mitchell, Business Cycles

Bratt, Business Cycles and Forecasting

Pigou, Industrial Fluctuations (2ndedition, 1929)

Tinbergen and Polak, Dynamics of Business Cycles

Haberler, Prosperity and Depression

Gordon, Business Fluctuations

Readings in Business Cycle Theory (Blakiston)

Hansen-Clemence, Readings in Business Cycles and National Income

Readings in Monetary Theory (Blakiston)

N.B.E.R., Conference on Business Cycles

Speithoff, in International Economic Papers, III

Post Keynesian Economics. Kurihara, editor, Rutgers University Press, 1955.

 

Specific Readings

Part I.

Blakiston, Readings in Business Cycle Theory, Chs. 1, 2, 3.

Haberler, Prosperity and Depression, Ch. 9

Hansen, Business Cycles and National Income, Part I

Hansen-Clemence, Readings, Chs. 2, 3, 4 (for Part II: Chs. 11, 12, 16; for Part III: Chs. 28, 33, 36)

Mitchell, What Happens During Business Cycles? Chs. 2, 3, 4, 8, 10

N.B.E.R., Conference on Business Cycles, Gordon, Klein

Tinbergen-Polak, Dynamics of Business Cycles, Part I

H. L. Beales, “The Great Depression,” Economic History Review, October 1934

Slichter, “The Period 1919-1936….,” RES, 1937

Gordon, R. A., “Investment Behavior and Business Cycles,” RES, (to be published)

Ames, “A Theoretical and Statistical Dilemma—the Contributions of Burns, Mitchell, and Frickey to Business Cycle Theory, Econometrica, October 1948

K. D. Roose, “The Empirical Status of Business Cycle Theory,” Journal of Political Economy, October 1952

K. D. Roose, The Economics of Recession and Revival, New Haven, 1954

Part II.

(1) Haberler, Chs. 3, 8, 13
Hansen, Part III

(2) Schumpeter, Theory of Economic Development, Ch. 6
Frisch, “Propagation Problems and Impulse Problems….,” in Economic Essays in Honor of G. Cassel
Goodwin, “Innovations and Irregularity…,” RES, 1946

(3) Harrod, Toward a Dynamic Economics
Baumol, Economic Dynamics, Ch. 4

(4) Hicks, Trade Cycle
Goodwin, “Secular and Cyclical Aspects of Multiplier and Accelerator” in Income, Employment and Public Policy
Goodwin, “A Nonlinear Theory of the Cycle,” RES, Nov. 1950
Alexander, “Issues of Business Cycle Theory,” AER, Dec. 1951
Duesenberry, “Hicks on the Trade Cycle,” QJE, August 1950
Chenery, “Overcapacity and the Acceleration Principle,” Econometrica, Jan. 1952
Alexander, “Accelerator as a Generator of Steady Growth,” QJE, May 1949
Matthews, “Capital Stock Adjustement—Theories of the Trade cycle and the Problem of Policy” in Post-Keynesian Economics, Kurihara, ed.
Kaldor, “Economic Growth and Cyclical Fluctuations,” Economic Journal, March 1954
Meyer and Kuh, “Acceleration and Related Theories: An Empirical Inquiry,” RES, August 1955

(5) Keynes, General Theory…, Ch. 22
New Economics, Harris, ed., Ch. 36 (Goodwin), Ch. 39 (Smithies), Ch. 40 (Tobin)
Readings, Ch. 5 (Ohlin), Ch. 12 (Samuelson)
Kaldor, “A Model of the Trade Cycle,” Economic Journal, 1940
Kalecki, Essays in Theory of Economic Fluctuations
Fellner, “Employment Theories and Business Cycles,” in Survey of Contemporary Economics, 1948, Vol. I, Ellis, editor.

(6) Metzler, “Nature and Stability of Inventory Cycles,” RES, 1941
Abramovitz, Inventories and Business Cycles (and in Conference, above)
Nurkse, “The Cyclical Pattern of Inventory Investment,” QJE, August 1952

(7) Readings, Part IV, Monetary Theory
Haberler, Ch. 2
Wicksell, Lectures, II, pp. 209 ff.
Fisher, “Debt-Deflation…,” Econometrica, 1933

Part III.

Domar, “Capital Expansion, Rate of Growth and Employment,” Econometrica, April 1946
Harrod, Dynamic Economics
Harrod, “An Essay in Dynamic Theory,” in Harrod, Economic Essays
N.B.E.R., Studies in Income and Wealth, No. 16, Long-Range Economic Projection
L. B Yeager, “Some Questions about Growth Economics,” AER, March 1954
Meier, “Some Questions about Growth Economics—Comment,” and Yeager, “Reply,” AER, December 1954

Part IV.

Bishop, “Alternative Expansionist Fiscal Policies…,” in Income, Employment and Public Policy
Readings in Monetary Theory (Friedman)
Hansen, Part IV
N.B.E.R., Conference on Regularization of Business Investment, 1951
N.B.E.R., Studies in Income and Wealth, No. 17, Short-term Economic Forecasting Readings in Fiscal Policy (Richard Irwin).

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

BUSINESS CYCLES AND ECONOMIC FORECASTING
Economics 245b
Spring 1956
Professor Hansen

  1. Archibald, G.C., “Inventory Investment and the Share of Wages”, THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, June, 1955.
  2. Brems and Ozga, “Economic Growth and the Price Level”, THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, March, 1955.
  3. Kaldor, N., “The Relation of Economic Growth and Cyclical Fluctuations”, THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, March, 1954.
  4. Blyth, C.A., “The 1948-49 American Recession”, THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, September, 1954.
  5. Marris, R.L., “The Position of Economics and Economists in the Government Machine”, THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL, December, 1954.
  6. Gordon, R.A., “Investment Behavior and Business Cycles”, REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS, February, 1955.
  7. Matthews, R.C.O., “The Saving Function and the Problem of Trend and Cycle”, REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES, Vol. XXII, 1954-55.
  8. Stigler, George J., “The Early History of Empirical Studies of Consumer Behavior”, THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, April, 1954.
  9. Brems, Hans, “Business Cycles and Economic Policy”, THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, June, 1954.
  10. Lewis, John P., “The Lull that Came to Stay”, THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, February, 1955.
  11. Brown, E. Cary, “The Static Theory of Automatic Fiscal Stabilization”, THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, October, 1955.
  12. Nurkse, Ragnar, “Period Analysis and Inventory Cycles”, OXFORD ECONOMIC PAPERS, September, 1954.
  13. Mills, E.S., “Professor Nurkse on Inventory Cycles”, OXFORD ECONOMIC PAPERS, June, 1955.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

BUSINESS CYCLES AND ECONOMIC FORECASTING
Economics 245b
Spring 1956
Professor Hansen

  1. National Bureau of Economic Research, Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 16, LONG-RANGE ECONOMIC PROJECTIONS.
  2. Goldsmith, A STUDY OF SAVINGS IN THE U.S. 1955.
  3. Dewhurst, AMERICA’S NEEDS AND RESOURCES, 1955.
  4. Creamer, PERSONAL INCOME DURING BUSINESS CYCLES, (National Bureau of Economic Research), 1956.
  5. Fellner, TRENDS AND CYCLES IN ECONOMIC GROWTH, (Holt), 1956.
  6. Schumpeter, HISTORY OF ECONOMIC ANALYSIS.
  7. Klein, ECONOMIC FLUCTUATIONS IN THE U.S.
  8. Tinbergen, ECONOMETRICS.
  9. Abramovitz, INVENTORIES AND BUSINESS CYCLES.
  10. Baumol, ECONOMIC DYNAMICS.
  11. Harrod, TOWARDS A DYNAMIC ECONOMICS.
  12. Ricardo, Vol. II, NOTES ON MALTHUS, (ed. by Sraffa).
  13. Colean and Newcomb, STABILIZING CONSTRUCTION, (McGraw-Hill).
  14. Smithies, THE BUDGETARY PROCESS IN THE U.S.
  15. Smithies and Butters, READINGS IN FISCAL POLICY.
  16. Colm, ESSAYS IN PUBLIC FINANCE AND FISCAL POLICY.
  17. Burns, THE FRONTIERS OF ECONOMIC KNOWLEDGE.
  18. Hicks, THE TRADE CYCLE.
  19. Kurihara, POST-KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS.
  20. Lundberg, THE BUSINESS CYCLE IN THE POST-WAR WORLD.
  21. Wallich, MAINSPRINGS OF THE GERMAN REVIVAL.
  22. National Bureau of Economic Research, BUSINESS CONCENTRATION AND PRICE POLICY.
  23. Svenniloson, GROWTH AND STAGNATION IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY.
  24. Joint Committee on the Economic Report, (Nov. 9, 1955), FEDERAL TAX POLICY FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH AND STABILITY.
  25. PRESIDENT’S ECONOMIC REPORT, 1956.
  26. Lane and Riemersma, ENTERPRISE AND SECULAR CHANGE.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 6, Folder “Economics, 1955-56 (2 of 2)”.

Image Source:  Hansen (left) and Haberler (right). Harvard Class Album, 1942.

Categories
Chicago Columbia Cornell Economics Programs Harvard Johns Hopkins Wisconsin Yale

Graduate economics enrollments in the seven leading departments (U.S.), 1909

 

The following tabulation of enrolled graduate students in economics and sociology at Columbia University and its “six leading competitors” in 1909 is striking because of  1) the modest scale of the graduate enrollments and 2) the fact that economics and sociology are reported together (an indication of their continued academic proximity). 

Ouch:  Due diligence in avoiding posting a second copy of an archival artifact was wanting. Jan 30, 2016 was the first time I transcribed and posted this artifact.

_______________

Letter from E.R.A. Seligman to Chairman of the Trustees of Columbia University

No. 324 West 86 street,
New York, February 13, 1909

My dear Sir:

You may be interested in the enclosed statistics which have been compiled by me from answers to questions sent out to the various universities. It shows the relative position of Columbia compared to its six leading competitors, and it is a curious coincidence that the totals of Columbia on the one hand, and of the six universities together on the other, should be precisely the same.

Faithfully yours
[Stamp] Edwin R. A. Seligman

(Enclosure)

To Mr. George L. Rives,
New York City

*  * *  *  *  *

 

STUDENTS WITH DEGREES ENROLLED IN
GRADUATE COURSES, Dec. 1909

Economics

 Sociology

Total of Economics and Sociology
Harvard

27

 —

27
Yale

16

 12

28
Cornell

10

 4

14
Johns-Hopkins

12*

 —

12*
Chicago

12

 19

31
Wisconsin

22

 4

26
Total in the 6 universities

99

 39

138
 

Columbia

  

67

  

71

  

138

*including duplications.

 

Source:  Columbia University Rare Book and ManuscriptLibrary. Columbia University Archives. Central Files, 1890-. Box 338. Folder “2/5; Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson; 7/1904-12/1910”.

Image Source:  The Library of Columbia University, New York. H.C. White Co., Publishers, 1909. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

 

Categories
Columbia Economist Market Economists Harvard

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

 

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

________________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

November 26, 1946

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

Dear Mr. President:

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

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

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

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

*  *  *  *  *  *

________________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

November 26, 1946

Professor Carter Goodrich
Fayerweather Hall
Columbia University

Dear Professor Goodrich:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely yours,

[signed]
Horace Taylor

HT:mdl

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

________________

C. Lowell Harriss (1912-2009)
In Memoriam

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

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

He died from natural causes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

________________

In Memoriam: from Columbia College Today

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Categories
Funny Business M.I.T.

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

__________________

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

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

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

F. Yes, Mr. Solow.

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

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

M1Thank you Mr. Chairman.

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

EHH   E. Hausman Hunt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

F. State your name, rank.

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

F. And whom do you assist?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

F. What is the source of this slush fund?

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

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

BD. March 21, 1973;

F. What happened at that meeting?

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

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

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

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

F. Next witness. Please state your name.

PC. Paul Colson.

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

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

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

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

F. What were Prof. Samuelson’s instructions?

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

F. What happened? (eyebrows)

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

F. (eyebrows) What happened next?

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

F. What went wrong?

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

 

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

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