Author: Irwin Collier

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“Books that the perfect Marxian must know.” W.E.B. Dubois asks Abram Harris, 1933

 

W.E.B. Dubois’ papers are digitized and online at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Dubois received his Ph.D. at Harvard in economic history in 1895 and in 1892-94 he studied in Berlin. In 1933 apparently Dubois returned to Marxian economics and asked Abram Lincoln Harris, a leading scholar of Marxian economics in the United States, for some reading suggestions. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has posted earlier a proposed for an undergraduate course description submitted to the department of economics at the University of Chicago by Harris in 1961 that did not amuse George Stigler. I have read somewhere that Frank Knight liked Harris’ work, which is consistent with Harris having published the articles linked below in the Journal of Political Economy.

Anyhow, there is more interesting material in Dubois’ papers that are easily accessible and well-organized at the above link.

____________________

Carbon copy
Letter from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

January 6, 1933.

Mr. Abram Harris,
Howard University,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Mr. Harris:

From bits which I gather from publishers and friends, I take it that you are still alive. Ben Stolberg told me that you had lost your father. I am very sorry indeed. Also, I have heard of your scholarship which is about one-fifth as large as it should be but I presume it is to be regarded as a great concession on the part of scientists.

You have perhaps seen my tentative program for a re-examination of the Negro problem which I published in January and I shall publish a revised one in February. I have been re-reading Marx recently as everyone must these days. I have the three volumes of “Capital” and the small Vanguard book by Max Eastman [I am guessing Dubois is referring to: Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1927.]. I write to ask if you will send me a list of four or five best books which the perfect Marxian must know. Please rush these.

I am coming down Sunday, January 22, on my way to Atlanta. If the spare room is vacant, I should be glad to stop.

Very sincerely yours,

WEBD/DW

 

Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Abram Harris, January 6, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

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Letter from Abram Harris to W.E.B. Dubois

 

HOWARD UNIVERSITY
Washington, D.C.

January Seventh
1933

Department of Economics

Dear Dr. Du Bois:

We will be very glad to have you stay with us when you pass through the city on your way to Atlanta. Let me know how long you plan to be here, so that I can arrange a little gathering. I read your program for re-examining the Negro problem and I want to talk with you about it.

A good Marxian ought to know the intellectual and social background of Marx’s works. This I should think is best gotten from any of the standard works on economic doctrine and the history of political thought. I would suggest your brousing [sic] through Gide and Rist, History of Economic Doctrines; Halévy, The Growth of Philosophic Radicalism; [Part I The Youth of Bentham; ] and, Dunning, Political Thought from Rousseau to Spencer. The following by Marx and Engels should be read: Marx, The Gotha Program; Wage Labor and Capital, and Value, Price and Profit (in The Essentials of Marx, Algernon Lee, Vanguard Press); The Critique of Political Economy (if Capital has not been read); and Engels Feuerbach: The Roots of Socialist Philosophy; Socialism from Utopia to Science, and The Land Marks of Scientific Socialism. After you finish with these I suggest that you look into Marx’s Revolution and Counter-Revolution; and, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.

I have just completed what I consider a new interpretation of Marx. [“Economic Evolution: Dialectical and Darwinian” Journal of Political Economy (Feb. 1934, pp. 34-79)] If I had an extra copy of the manuscript I would send it along to you. At any rate the reprint [“Types of Institutionalism“, Journal of Political Economy (December, 1932), pp. 721-749] which I am enclosing will give you some idea of what is contained in this new interpretation.

Sincerely,
[signed]
Abram Harris

Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois
69 Fifth Avenue
New York, N.Y.

 

Source: Harris, Abram Lincoln, 1899-1963. Letter from Abram Harris to W. E. B. Du Bois, January 7, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

____________________

 

Copy of Telegram from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

January 20, 1933

Mr. Abram Harris,
Howard University,
Washington, D.C.

Shall arrive Sunday afternoon about four or five Stop Must leave Monday morning before day Stop No breakfast Stop Please find a safe garage nearby for my car

W. E. B. Du Bois.

 

Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Telegram from W. E. B. Du Bois to Abram Harris, January 20, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

____________________

Carbon copy
Letter from W.E.B. Dubois to Abram Harris

Rockefeller Hall
Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia.

February 2, 1933.

Mr. Abram Harris,
Department of Economics,
Howard University,
Washington, D.C.

My dear Mr. Harris:

I have just got hold of my secretary so that I can really answer letters. I want to thank you and Mrs. Harris so much for your kind hospitality. I think I made a good getaway from your house, except that I forgot to set the alarm clock for seven and leave it for you. I hope you did not oversleep.

I spent Sunday night in Durham, Tuesday night at Spartenburg, and arrived here Wednesday.

I have read and re-read with a great deal of interest your article on Marx, Feblem [sic, dictated[?], clearly “Veblen” intended] and Mitchell. Send me anything else you have on the subject.

Very sincerely yours,

WEBD/DW

 

Source: Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963. Letter from W. E. B. Du Bois to Abram Harris, February 2, 1933. W. E. B. Du Bois Papers (MS 312). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.

Image Source: Abram Lincoln Harris (ca 1935). Guggenheim fellow. https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/abram-lincoln-harris/

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Amherst Columbia Economists Germany Wisconsin

Columbia. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, James Walter Crook, 1895

 

This posting is another in the irregular series, “Get to know an economics Ph.D. alum”. I stumbled upon Professor James Walter Crook’s photo while working on the previous autobiographical posting for John Maurice Clark who was a student of his at Amherst and later a colleague. Crook spent a year in Berlin as a student and overlapped with W.E.B. Du Bois there and to whom we see below he had been introduced.

____________________

James Walter Crook (1859-1933)
Columbia Ph.D., 1895

James Walter Crook was born Dec. 21, 1859 in Ontario, Canada. His family emigrated to the U.S. in 1868. According to the 1880 U. S. Census he was the Census Enumerator for the 1st Ward of the City of Manistee in Manistee county, Michigan where he (21 years of age) lived with his mother and six younger brothers.  While a few younger brothers were  registered employed in a saw mill, James Walter Crook was listed as attending school. He married Eva Maria Lewis Sept 16, 1881 in Manistee. His occupation was “school teacher” according to the record of marriage.

Crook received his B.A. from Oberlin College in 1891 where he stayed on as a history instructor the following year. This was followed by a year of graduate work at the University of Wisconsin where he was listed as a Fellow in Economics, 1892-93.

He studied at the University of Berlin in 1893-94 where he happened to be introduced to W. E. B. Du Bois, himself an American student in Berlin. In Dubois’ papers there is a letter Crook wrote (January 21, 1905): “I suppose you do not remember me, but I recall with pleasure my meeting you in Berlin, Germany introduced by our mutual friend Knowlton, now of Fargo, N. Dakota.” In particular Crook was looking for advice regarding a sociological survey he wished to conduct among the ca. 200 African-Americans living in Amherst (population about 3,000 total).

After Germany Crook went on to do graduate work at Columbia University in 1894-95. The next year he was hired to teach Political Economy at Amherst where he worked through retirement.  Crook was awarded a Ph.D. from Columbia in 1895, publishing his dissertation as German Wage Theories: A History of Their Development. Vol. IX, No. 2 of Studies in History, Economics and Public Law. New York: Columbia University, 1898.

According to the U.S. Census reports he and his wife Eva lived at  21 Main Street in Amherst for at least the four censuses 1900-1930.

James Walter Crook, died in Springfield, MA 1933.

Source: From faculty pages in the Amherst College Yearbook, Olio, 1905, page 24. Also the Dubois papers at the University of Massachusetts and U.S. Census reports.

________________________

PROFESSORS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
Amherst College (1877-1910)

1877

 Anson Daniel Morse, LL.D. 1878
1892 John Bates Clark, Ph.D.

1895

1892

 Charles Augustus Tuttle, Ph.D., Associate Political Economy and International Law 1893
1895 James Walter Crook, Ph.D., Assistant

1899

1899

 James Walter Crook, Ph.D., Associate 1907
1907 James Walter Crook, Ph.D.

1908

 Glover Dunn Hancock, Ph.D., Assistant 1910
1910 John Maurice Clark, Ph.D., Associate

 

Source:   General Catalogue of Amherst College including the Officers of Government and Instruction, the Alumni and Honorary Graduates, 1821-1910. Amherst, Mass., p. 9.

Image Source: From faculty pages in the Amherst College Yearbook, Olio, 1905, page 24.

 

 

 

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Amherst Chicago Columbia Economists

Columbia. John Maurice Clark. Autobiographical notes, 1949

John Maurice Clark

 

The following recollections of John Maurice Clark of his earliest contacts with economic problems is found in a folder of his papers containing notes about his father, John Bates Clark. The hand-written notes are fairly clear until we come to a clear addition on the final page. Abbreviations are used there and the handwriting is not always clear. Still the pages together provide a few nice stories and short lists of J.M. Clark’s teachers and students.

______________________

June 8, 1949

J.M.C.’s recollections of his earliest contacts with economic problems.

I think my earliest contact with an economic problem came on learning that the carpenter who sometimes came to do odd jobs for us at 23 Round Hill got $2.00 a day. I had a special interest in that carpenter. He was a tall man, with a full, dark beard; and it had been my imprudent interest in his operation with the kitchen double-windows (putting on? taking off?) that led me to lean out of a hammock and over the low rail of our second-story porch, to watch him (I was between two and three at the time). Mechanical consequences—I descended rapidly, landing on my head, but apparently suffering no injury except biting my tongue. Subjective consequences – maybe it pounded a little caution into me at an early age; but the present point is that it fixed that carpenter in my memory as “the man who picked me up.” It was some time later I learned that he got $2.00 a day.

I don’t remember whether I took the initiative and asked, or not. The cost of things was often discussed in our house, and my mother often talked of the difficulty of making both ends meet. I knew my father’s salary, though I can’t be sure now whether it was $3,500 or less. Anyhow, it was maybe eight or ten times the carpenter’s pay; and I began wondering how he made both ends meet, and remarked to my father that $2.00 a day wasn’t much to live on. He answered that it was pretty good pay for that kind of work. So I learned there were two ways of looking at a daily stipend—as income to live on and as the price of the service you gave your employer. Or perhaps simply the standpoints of the recipient and the payer. But especially I learned there were people who had to adjust their ideas of what they could live on, to a fraction of the income we found skimpy for the things we thought of as necessary. In short, I had a lesson in classes and their multiple standards to ponder over; without reaching any very enlightening conclusions.

I don’t think I connected this with our friends the Willistons (of the family connected with Williston seminary in Easthampton) who lived in the big house above us and from whom we rented ours. They were evidently much richer than we. They had gone to Europe (and been shipwrecked on the way, and had to transfer at sea to a lumber-schooner, which threw its deckload of lumber overboard to enable it to take on the people from the helpless steamship. — but that’s another story.)

To return to the carpenter. I suppose today he’d get perhaps $16, more?, and a Smith College salary, for a full professor, might be $7,000 or $8,000. The discrepancy has shrunk to maybe 2/5—certainly less than half—of what it was then. That puzzling discrepancy was my first lesson in economics—the first I remember.

There was another lesson—if you could call it that—the summer we spent a while at the Stanley House (now gone) in Southwest Harbor, on Mt. Desert. The rich people went to Bar Harbor. At Southwest, there was Mr. Brierly who had a yacht. We took our outings in a rowboat, sometimes with the help of a spritsail. One time we were going up Somes Sound, and were passed by one of the biggest ocean-going steam yachts—the “Sultana”. It was a very impressive sight, in those narrow waters, and looked about as big as the “Queen Mary” would to me now. I don’t remember anybody doing any moralizing; but if they did, the impression it left was that we, in our fashion, were doing the same kind of thing they were.

My first contact with economic literature (not counting the subversive economics of Robin Hood, which we boys knew by heart, in the Howard Pyle version) was at 23 Round Hill, so I must have been less than nine. I found a little book on my father’s shelves that had pictures in it – queer pictures done in pen and ink, which puzzled me. There was a boy not much bigger than I was, in queer little knee-britches, acting as a teacher to a class of grown men (including I think a Professor Laughlin, under whom I later taught at the University of Chicago.) And there were classical females being maltreated by brutal men, and other queer things. I was curious enough to read some of the text, to find out about the pictures. It was “Coin’s Financial School,” the famous free-silver tract.

I read enough to become a convinced free-silverite. And then I had the shock of discovering that my beloved and respected father was on the wrong side of that question. I decided there must be more to it than I’d gotten out of the queer picture-book. I suppose that was my first lesson in the need of preserving an open mind and holding economic ideas subject to possible reconsideration. Davenport and Veblen gave me more extensive lessons, fifteen or twenty years later, only this second time it was my father’s ideas I had to rethink, after reluctantly admitting that these opposing ideas represented something real, that needed to be reckoned with. One had to do something about it, though the something didn’t mean substituting Veblen for my father. It was a more difficult and discriminating adjustment that was called for.

To return to my boyhood. It may have been about this time that I learned something about mechanical techniques, when my father took me to see the Springfield Arsenal. They had a museum, with broadswords that had been used in battle—one was so nicked up that its edge had disappeared in a continuous series of surprisingly deep nicks—but the mechanical process that impressed me was a pattern-lathe, rough-shaping the stocks of Krags. On one side was a metal model of the finished stock revolving, with a wheel revolving against it. On the other side was the wooden blank revolving, and a wheel like the one on the model, and linked to it so as to copy its movements, and armed with knives. So the machine could make complicated shapes following any model you put into it, and do it faster and more accurately that a hand worker.

Incidentally (and as a digression) that was our first military rifle with smokeless powder, more powerful than black; our first regular military magazine rifle of the modern kind with a bolt action and a box magazine. The regulars were just getting them. The militia still had the black-powder 45-70 Springfields at the time of the Spanish War, and a Massachusetts regiment had to be ordered off the firing-line at El Caney because their smoke made too good a target. Teddy Roosevelt had pull enough to get Krag carbines for his Rough Riders plus the privilege of using their own Winchesters if individuals preferred, and, if they had the 30-40-220, which took the Krag cartridge.

But my regular education in economic theory began at the age of 9 or 10, in our first year at Amherst, when we lived on Amity Street, opposite Sunset Ave. My father had in mind James Mill’s training of his son, John Stuart Mill, and he copied the techniques of explaining something during a walk, but he didn’t follow James Mill’s example by making me submit a written report for criticism and revision. All he did was to explain about diminishing utility and marginal utility—using the illustration of the oranges. And he was satisfied that I understood it, and concluded that the simple fundamentals of economics could be taught to secondary school or “grammar-school” students. Later, my friend and former graduate student, Leverett Lyon, pithily remarked that I probably understood it better then than I ever had since. Maybe he was right. I know when I met Professor Fetter, the year the Ec. Ass. met in Princeton, he told me I didn’t understand the theory, because I had said (in print, I think) that there were some dangers about the concept of “psychic income.” I didn’t say it was wrong, but I did think it was likely to be misleading to use a term that was associated with accountants’ arithmetic. So I did probably understand the theory “better” at the age of 9 or 10. Twenty ears later, it didn’t look so simple. This was long before I disagreed with Fetter about basing-point pricing and the rightness of the uniform FOB mill price, as the price “true” competition would bring about.

______________________

J.M.C. later history.

Amherst, C in Ec tho 85 on exam, & written work not credited. (cf French A from Wilkins, C from [William Stuart] Symington (father of present (1951) W. Stuart Symington, head of nat security Resources Board). Symie sized my attitude up as that of a gentleman & gave me a gentleman’s mark) Crook said he “didn’t get hold” of me. He was correct.

 

Columbia: Giddings, A. S. Johnson, H.L. Moore, Seligman, Seager, Hawkins [?], Chaddock, Agger, Jacobstein. indoctrinated: J. B. C. orthodoxy modified by overhead costs (catalogued as “dynamics”) Dynamics (defined as) everything statics leaves out. & much induction. Take “Essentials” on slow dictation.

Veblen: slow infiltration of its logical & progre[?] rel. to the abstractions of J.B.C.: reverse normalizing might make[?] an arguable claim to equal legitimacy.

1912 ed. of Control of Trusts

“Contribution to theory of competive price” [QJE, August 1914] forerunner of “mon-comp”, largely empirical basis.

Germs of social & inst. ec. Rich-poor, Freedom as val in ec.[??] B. M. Anderson cf. Cooley

Revs of Hobson?, Pigou, Davenport Economics of Enterprise [Political Science Quarterly, Vol 29, no. 2]

 

To Chi. 1915 Changing basis of economic responsibility [JPE, March 1916] on moving to Chi. open declar[ation] of non-Laughlinism: backfire to an Atlantic article of Laughlin’s.

Modern Psych.

1917-18. War-ec. (“basis of war-time collectivism.”)

Students: Garver oral. Slichter, Lyon, Innis, Martin [?], Goodrich, Copeland, O’Grady [John O’Grady ?]

Ayres, Knight on faculty.

Ov. C. [Studies in the Economics of Overhead Costs]

Social Control [of Business]

 

Columbia. Students, Friedman, Ginzberg, Salera, Kuznets’ oral

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. John M. Clark Collection. History of Economic Thought. Box 37, Folder “J. B. Clark, 1847-1938”.

Image Source: John Maurice Clark. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-0171.  Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

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Columbia. James Waterhouse Angell’s 1943 report to his Harvard Class of 1918

 

Today we have autobiographical scrap written by the Columbia University professor of international economics, James Waterhouse Angell,  a quarter of a century after being awarded his A.B. from Harvard in 1918. He notes that in the year 1923/24 he “acquired a charming wife, a Ph.D. degree, a hungry offspring, and a new job”. The previous posting provides transcriptions of Columbia University records concerning his initial appointment that also mention his “charming wife”. The dates of three European trips are noteworthy as are his brief remarks declaring himself a nondogmatic social and political liberal. I have added a link to the Pennsylvania report on bootleg mining that Angell refers to.

__________________________

JAMES WATERHOUSE ANGELL

Home address: 4926 Goodridge Ave., New York, N.Y.

Office address: Columbia University, New York, N.Y.

Present address: 4421 Hawthorne St., N.W., Washington, D.C.

Born: May 20, 1898, Chicago, Ill. Parents: James Rowland Angell, Marion Isabel Watrous.

Prepared at: University High School, Chicago, Ill.

Years in College: 1914-1918. Degrees: A.B. magna cum laude, 1918; A.M., 1921; Ph.D., 1924.

Married: Jane Norton Grew, Oct. 19, 1923, Wellesley, Mass. Children: James Grew, July 18, 1924; Edward Dexter, April 21, 1928.

Occupation: Professor of Economics, Columbia University, at present chief economic adviser, Office of Civilian Supply, War Production Board.

Military or naval record: Enlisted private Nov. 5, 1918; detailed to Field Artillery Central Officers’ Training School, Camp Zachary Taylor, Ky.; discharged Jan. 29, 1919, and commissioned 2d lieutenant Field Artillery Officers’ Reserve Corps.

Offices held: Vice-chairman, Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Industry Commission, 1937; vice-president, American Economic Association, 1940.

Member of: American Economic Association; Council on Foreign Relations; Royal Economic Society; American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Century Association (New York); Harvard Club of Boston; Authors’ Club (London).

Publications: “Theory of International Prices,” 1926; “Recovery of Germany” 1929; “Financial Foreign Policy of the United States,” 1933; “Behavior of Money,” 1936; “Investment and Business Cycles,” 1941.

ANGELL does not pretend that the following is a literary essay:

“This is obviously the occasion for an imperishable literary essay, in which the blushing author combines poking fun at himself and his times with some remote approach to a recognizable picture of what he has really done with twenty-five years, the whole nicely larded with a few well-chosen and inspiring sentiments.

“I contain no such essay, and shall not pretend to. After emerging from under the hostile hooves of Field Artillery mules in 1919, I took graduate work in economics at Chicago and Harvard and taught at both places. In one rather hectic period of twelve months I acquired a charming wife, a Ph.D. degree, a hungry offspring, and a new job. Thereafter the tempo slowed down a bit. The job was at Columbia University, where I have been ever since except when on leave, and most of my subsequent activities have been of the standard sorts associated with those who profess at institutions of learning. I have written some books and articles, all on economic questions, took a crack at trying to find an answer to the bootleg mining problem in Pennsylvania (we thought we had the answer, but the Legislature defeated our bill by two votes), and spent parts of three years in Europe. One of these trips was in 1922-1923, in the worst of the post-war inflation and collapse in continental Europe. Another one was in 1928-1929, at the height of the boom, and the third in 1938, uncomfortably close to the outbreak of the present war. In retrospect, it was a little like watching gigantic breakers build up and destroy themselves on rocks.

“Since November, 1941, I have been in Washington with the War Production Board and the antecedent O.P.M. I am now chief economic adviser in the Office of Civilian Supply. I violate no official confidence in admitting that civilian supply, as seen by the recipients, ain’t what she used to be. We don’t propose to put anyone in the hospital for lack of enough food or a roof, but the anatomical and spiritual paunches are on their way out—or off. Objections may be addressed to Berlin and Tokyo.

“We have two boys, both of whom are very fine citizens, if I do say so as shouldn’t. One is finishing up at Admiral Farragut Academy, and hopes to go thence into the Navy. The younger one has just started at Exeter, with an ultimate eye on medicine and surgery.

“I cannot lay claim to genuine hobbies, in any consuming sense, but there are many things I like and like to do as circumstances permit. I enjoy mountain climbing (I have the scalp of one major Alp, but only one), squash, swimming, small-boat sailing (in which ignorance runs pleasure a close second), drinking almost any good Burgundy, and listening to almost any allegedly humorous story. I also enjoy trying, unsuccessfully, to identify more than five of the common eastern American birds.

“My social and political views are liberal, if that term means anything, but not, I think, dogmatic. The rising pressures of the last ten or fifteen years in this country have made it impossible for us ever to return to the institutions, practices, and attitudes of, say, the middle 1920’s. The emergency of war is teaching us how to plan our economic and social operations on a national scale, for the general good and benefit yet without harmful effects on individual freedom, independence, and initiative. When this war is won and the pieces picked up, I look forward to an unprecedented era in this country, both internally and in our relations with other peoples. If we use and keep our heads, we shall reach undreamed-of levels of individual welfare, cultural and spiritual development, and general happiness.”

 

Source:   Harvard Class of 1918, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report. Cambridge: 1943, pp. 24-26.

Image Source: Ibid.

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Columbia. Appointment of James Waterhouse Angell, 1924

 

The head of the Columbia University economics department, Edwin R. A. Seligman, invested considerable effort in recruiting James Waterhouse Angell in 1924. The items below come from central administration files. There are also several letters back-and-forth between Seligman and Angell in Seligman’s papers (saved for a later posting). Clearly Angell was a red-hot prospect with “a very charming little woman” spouse.

____________________

Columbia University
in the city of New York
Faculty of Political Science

March 20, 1924.

Dean F. J. E. Woodbridge,
University Hall.

My dear Dean Woodbridge:

Following up the recommendations in my budget letter for the new Professorship in the Department of Economics, I beg to state that after much investigation and consideration the Department of Economics has come to the unanimous conclusion to recommend Dr. James Waterhouse Angell Jr. [sic, “ Jr.” is incorrect], of Harvard University, the son of President Angell of Yale University and the grandson of President Angell of the University of Michigan. Dr. Angell is a younger man, but in our opinion an abler man, than any of the others that we have considered. He is at present instructor in Harvard University, and has been offered a promotion there for next year and he has also been offered a full Professorship at the University of Michigan. On account of his comparative youth, however, we preferred to offer him, in a tentative way, only a Lectureship, at a salary of three thousand dollars, although with the distinct understanding that if he made good, he would be recommended for promotion, first in salary, and then in rank. Dr. Angell will make a distinct sacrifice—and as compared with the Michigan offer a very considerable sacrifice—in accepting our offer; but he would be very glad to accept such an offer from us because of the opportunities for research and advanced work.

Dr. Angell has had an interesting career. He has an A. B. from Harvard in 1918 and has since then received the degree of both A.M. and Ph.D. He was also Kirkland Fellow at Harvard and the incumbent of the Sheldon Traveling Fellowship at Harvard. He was assistant at the University of Chicago, 1918-1920, tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics at Harvard, 1921-22, and is at present instructor in Economics. Professors Young and Ripley agree in saying that Dr. Angell is the ablest student in Economics that they have ever had, and Professor Taussig and his other colleagues have an equally high opinion of him. Dr. Angell has written several articles of a very high order of merit in the Journal of Political Economy [“The Illinois Blue Sky Law”] and the Quarterly Journal of Economics [“International Trade under Inconvertible Paper”], and his Doctor’s thesis is entitled “The Theory of International Prices and its History”.

If Dr. Angell comes to us he proposes to devote his energies to the general subjects of International Trade and International Investments, which are precisely the topics mentioned in my budget letter as constituting the most serious gap now existing in the University. It is the judgment of the Department of Economics that there is no one in the country better calculated to do good work in this subject than Dr. Angell and I may add that the recommendation of the Department has already been unanimously approved by the Committee on Instruction of the Faculty of Political Science. Dr. Angell has a very pleasing personality and has recently married, as we are informed, a very charming wife.

I should like to urge favorable action on our recommendation, not only because we shall thus be filling a long-felt gap in the Department, but because, with the impending absence next year of Professor Seager, an additional instructor in the Department of Economics becomes imperatively necessary.

Now that Professor Chaddock is to go over to the Department of Sociology, — a transfer that is being made with the full assent of the Department of Economics, it will become absolutely impossible for Professor Mitchell, Professor Simkhovitch, and myself to attend next year to the administrative work of the Department and the needs of our graduate students. At no time in the past few decades have we felt the pressure of work as we are feeling it now and unless this addition is made to our forces, either our scientific work or the carrying on of our academic duties will be seriously jeopardized.

I venture, therefore, to hope that the recommendation of the Department will be approved. If the approval can take place speedily there will yet be time to insert the announcement of the new courses in the forthcoming bulletin, which will be of considerable advantage in attracting students who are interested in that particular field of international economic relations.

Respectfully,
[signed]
Edwin R. A. Seligman

__________________________

 

Columbia University
in the City of New York
Faculty of Political Science

April 16, 1924

President Nicholas Murray Butler,
Columbia University.

My dear Mr. President:

I have received word from Dean Woodbridge of the approval of the Angell proposition by the committee on education and the committee of finance of the Trustees. I want to thank you personally for your kindness in this entire matter and I want to express the confident expectation that young Angell will make good. His wife is a very charming little woman and took tea with us the other day.

With kind regards,

Faithfully yours,
[signed]
Edwin R. A. Seligman

__________________________

May 14, 1924

Professor E.R.A. Seligman

Department of Economics

Dear Professor Seligman:

I beg to advise you that at the meeting of the trustees held on May 5, the Budget for the Department of Economics for the next academic year was amended by inserting provision for a Lecturer in Economics at $3,000, and that Dr. James Waterhouse Angell, Jr. [sic, “ Jr.” is incorrect] was appointed to this post for the academic year 1924-25.

Very truly yours,

Frank D. Fackenthal

Source: Columbia University Archives. Central Files. Box 338; Folder 16, “Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson”

Image Source: College Photo of James Waterhouse Angell in Harvard Class of 1918, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report. Cambridge: 1943.

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Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Industrial organization. Reading List, Kaysen and Peck, 1955

 

I have had the enormous good fortune of having excellent mentors during the course of my own economics education. The first was Professor Merton J. Peck who taught the double credit course “Early Concentration Economics” during the fall semester of my freshman year at Yale (1969-70). He liked a paper I wrote enough to show it to his colleague James Tobin who thought it was good enough to be written by a graduate student, or at least so I was told. With such a boost to my self-esteem, how could I not have continued in economics?

Mr. Peck (at Yale professors are addressed without the honorific “Professor”) offered me a job to be his bursary boy, a 10 hour a week student assistantship, with a variety of tasks spanning photocopying articles and chapters to editing his rough drafts (what humility, allowing a sophomore/junior at Yale to improve his writing!) When I complained to Mr. Peck once that there was no course in the History of Economics at Yale at that time, he told me to give “Willy Fellner” a call. That led to my second Yale mentor and the beginning of my education in the history of economics (a two semester tutorial reading economic classics). There were two major projects that Mr. Peck was working on during my years working for him: on industrial/technological policy in Japan for a Brookings book Asia’s New Giant and Economic Aspects of Television Regulation (with Roger Noll and John McGowan). 

Incidentally, in Robert Litan’s book (Trillion Dollar Economists, p. 103) I discovered to my delight that my mentor had spotted the talent in the young Frank Fisher and forwarded Fisher’s undergraduate paper to his colleague Carl Kaysen. 

As I was looking at my collection of syllabi from Harvard this evening, I spotted the course below co-taught by Carl Kaysen and Merton J. Peck. This syllabus is my first tribute to the memory of my mentor Joe Peck. I have appended his official Yale obituary. He is also of interest for my project on graduate education, having received a Harvard Ph.D. (1954).

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Spring Term 1955

Economics 161
Professor Kaysen and Dr. Peck

 

  1. Markets of Large Numbers (2 Feb. – 28 Feb.)

General introduction
Agriculture
Crude oil
Women’s clothing

R. Schickele, Agricultural Policy, Ch. 9-11, 13-17.
J.K. Galbraith, Basic Factors in Farm Price Policy (mimeo.)
K. Brandt, Farm Price Supports, Rigid or Flexible?
N. Ely, “The Conservation of Oil,” Ch. 11 in Readings in the Social Control of Industry.
E.V. Rostow, A National Policy for the Oil Industry, Part II.
“Adam Smith on 7th Avenue,” Fortune, Jan. 1949.

 

  1. The Regulated Industries (2 March – 30 March)

Electric Power
Transportation

Twentieth Century Fund: Electric Power and Government Policy, Ch. I-IV, X
M.L. Fair and E.W. Williams, Jr., Economics of Transportation, Ch. 18-23, 25, 30, 32.

  1. Economic Mobilization (11 April – 18 April)

D.H. Wallace and L.V. Chandler, Economic Mobilization and Stabilization, Ch. 1-5, 23-26.

 

  1. Nationalization and Planning (20 April – 27 April)

J.E. Meade, Planning and the Price Mechanism.
R.W. Lewis, British Planning and Nationalization, Ch. 1-3.
H.A. Clegg and F.E. Chester, The Future of Nationalization, Ch. 1, 3.

 

Reading Period

A.A. Berle, 20th Century Capitalist Revolution.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 6, Folder “Economics, 1955-1956 (2 of 2)”.

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In memoriam: Merton Joseph Peck

YaleNews, March 6, 2013

Merton Joseph Peck, the Thomas DeWitt Cuyler Professor Emeritus of Economics, died March 1, at age 87. He resided in Florida and had been ailing for quite some time, according to his family.

Peck was a specialist in industrial organization, and wrote on a variety of topics including the aluminum industry, transportation, the defense industries, and cable and television. He also wrote about the transition to a market economy in the Soviet Union, as well as technological change.

He served in the U.S. Defense Department under Robert McNamara 1961–1963 as director of systems analysis, and he was designated by Time Magazine as one of the “Pentagon Whiz Kids” in 1962. Peck returned to Washington in 1968 to serve on Lyndon Johnson’s Council of Economic Advisors.

At Yale he served as department chair in various years throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, setting a record for number of years in that post. He also served as director of graduate studies, director of undergraduate studies, and acting dean of the Yale School of Management. He was a fellow of Pierson College at Yale.

Peck was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1925. Much of his very early youth was spent in Germany and Strasbourg in Alsace France. His father, Kenneth Peck, was head of European production for American Rake and Hoe. Both his parents died before he was 12, and he was subsequently raised by his aunts and grandmother in various small towns in Ohio. During World War II, Peck served in the Army Signal Corp and participated in the occupation of Japan. After leaving the army, he attended Oberlin College and graduated in 1949. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1954 under the tutelage of Edward Mason.

Peck taught at Michigan (1955-1956) and Harvard (1956-1962) before coming to Yale, where he served on the faculty 1963–2002. He was also associated with the Rand Corporation and Brookings Institution.

He is survived by his children Richard, Katherine, Sarah, and David; and four grandchildren. His wife of 55 years, Mary Bosworth Peck, predeceased him in 2004.

Source:  YaleNews, March 6, 2013.

Image Source:  ditto.

Categories
Economists Gender M.I.T. Northwestern

M.I.T. Complaint about ill-treatment of woman in job interview, 1982

 

With the current discussion of economist men acting badly with respect to their women colleagues and students in mind, I have transcribed the following letter by the long-time head of the M.I.T. economics department to complain about the positively unprofessional treatment of a woman graduate student interviewed by the Northwestern economics department. E. Cary Brown’s letter is a fine example of what senior male colleagues can do to support their women students. Perhaps someone knows how the letter was received at Northwestern.

Brown’s MIT obituary has been appended to this posting.

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Chair to Chair Complaint
E. Cary Brown to Dale Mortensen

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Department of Economics
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139

January 9, 1982

Professor Dale T. Mortensen
Department of Economics
Northwestern University
2750 Ridge Avenue
Evanston, IL 60201

Dear Professor Mortensen:

It is no pleasure to report to you that one of our graduate students was extremely upset by the interview given her by the Northwestern delegation at the recent American Economic Association meetings, and so are we.

She reports that there were six people in the room, three of whom were lying on the bed for the whole time of the interview; she was introduced to no one; she was sat down in a low chair with the sun shining in her face; she was questioned in a desultory way with what seemed to her to be an elaborate lack of interest in anything she had to say. Naturally she suspects that she was part of a pro forma affirmative action charade, and the evidence makes it difficult to deny.

We are all aware that job interviews are an extraordinarily tense time for graduate students, even when conducted with courtesy and consideration. My colleagues join me in hoping that the reported experience was a major deviation from Northwestern policy.

Sincerely yours,

[signed]

E. Cary Brown
Head

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Archives. Department of Economics. Records, 1947—, Box 3, Folder “N”.

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E. Cary Brown, fiscal policy expert, dies at 91

June 27, 2007

E. Cary Brown, a leading expert on fiscal policy and the economics of taxation and a member of the MIT economics faculty for more than 60 years, passed away on June 8. He was 91.

As a professor of economics at MIT, Brown taught a wide range of graduate and undergraduate courses on tax policy design, statistical methods for economics and the economics of fiscal policy.

Brown was born on April 14, 1916, in Bakersfield, Calif. He received the B.A. degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1937 and pursued graduate work in economics at Berkeley and Harvard. His graduate studies were interrupted by World War II. Brown served as an economist at the War Production Board in 1940-41 and as an economist at the Division of Tax Research at the U.S. Treasury Department between 1942 and 1947. He received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in 1948.

Brown joined the MIT faculty in 1947 and was promoted to full professor in 1958. He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a Ford Foundation Faculty Fellow and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as department head for Economics for 18 years, presiding over a period of departmental expansion and a time when MIT achieved recognition as one of the world’s leading economics departments. He retired from the MIT faculty in 1986 and served as an emeritus professor until his death.

Brown was widely acclaimed for his seminal research on the design of depreciation allowances, the income tax provisions that permit corporations and other investors who purchase long-lived assets to claim tax deductions as these assets decay. In a classic 1948 study, “Business Income Taxation and Investment Incentives,” Brown outlined a fundamental set of relationships between the investment credit a firm receives when it makes an investment, the present discounted value of subsequent depreciation allowances and the effective tax burden on new investments. His insights have remained a touchstone for virtually all subsequent research on this issue and still feature in the public policy debate on the choice between income and consumption taxation.

Brown was also an expert on broader issues of fiscal policy. His 1956 paper on “Fiscal Policy in the Thirties: A Reappraisal” was one of the first applications of the full-employment budget deficit concept. In contrast to the then-prevailing wisdom, the study suggested that fiscal policy had not been particularly expansionary through much of this period, thereby calling into question the extent to which fiscal policy could have contributed to the U.S. economy’s recovery from the depths of the Great Depression.

Brown was a leader in the post-World War II research effort to understand the economic effects of different tax instruments and to design an equitable and efficient tax system. Policy-makers often sought his advice on questions of tax policy, and he was a frequent consultant to the U.S. Treasury Department. In the early 1960s, he was actively involved in the Kennedy Administration’s consideration of proposals for accelerated depreciation for capital goods, and he was one of the architects of the 1962 investment tax credit.

Brown was an avid tennis player throughout his life. After his retirement from MIT, he played on the Super Seniors Tennis circuit, competing throughout the United States and winning several competitions in various age groups. He remained an active tennis player until he was 88.

A long-time resident of Concord, Brown is survived by three sisters, Phyllys Ohanian of Newton, Mass., Molly Canan of Philomath, Ore., and Constance Morse of Plymouth, Mich.; and one brother, Lewis Brown of New York City. He is also survived by his daughters, Rebecca Brown Corwin of Roslindale, Mass., and Gretchen Brown Rossman of Amherst, Mass.; two granddaughters, three great-grandchildren and two stepchildren.

His first wife, Tomlin E. (Edwards) Coggan, died in 1994; they were divorced. His second wife, Margaret Durham, resides in Evergreen, Colo.; they were divorced.

Source:  MIT News, June 27, 2007.

Image Source:  E. Cary Brown portrait from the MIT Museum Website.

Categories
Brookings Chicago Economists

Chicago. Harold Moulton (Ph.D. 1915) leaves for the Institute of Economics in Washington, D.C., 1922

 

 

After leaving the University of Chicago in 1922, Harold Glen Moulton (1883-1965) went on to head the Brookings Institution for 30 years.  The following report comes from the University of Chicago Magazine that provided a biographical sketch along with the announcement of Moulton’s moving on to Washington, D.C.

_________________

Prominent Alumni
Harold G. Moulton, ’07, Ph.D. ’15

This biographical sketch, as may be noted, is in the nature of a farewell. Although but recently elected full professor in political economy, Harold G. Moulton, ’07, Ph.D. ’15, will leave the University in September, to become the head of The Institute of Economics now being created by the Carnegie Corporation and to be established at Washington, D. C. We feel it most fitting, therefore, that, on the “eve of his departure,” we pass on to our readers some details about the life of H. G.

He was born at LeRoy, Michigan, November 7, 1883. After the usual home-town preliminaries, he attended Albion College, Michigan, for two years, distinguishing himself in debating and baseball, and then entered the University of Chicago. At Chicago he continued his debating activity with pronounced success, and, in his senior year, won his “C,” playing left field on the 1907 baseball team. He was a member of Washington House and of Delta Sigma Rho honorary fraternity. Harold Moulton stood out as one of the real leaders of his class and was always popular throughout his college career.

For several years after graduation he taught at University High School and at Evanston Academy, also coaching the high school baseball, football and track teams. He once boasted, “My football team went through an entire season and never once crossed anybody’s goal line.” However plus nevertheless, he always maintained keenest interest in athletics, and today is known as “Dope” Moulton, because nobody, outside of the Old Man, knows as much “dope” about Chicago athletics and athletes. In fact, but recently Tom Eck said, “He can tell the time to within one-fifth of a second simply by feeling his pulse.” He has dispensed interesting information to our alumni clubs on a number of occasions.

In 1911 Harold returned to the University, to complete his graduate work, and obtained his Ph.D. in economics in 1915. During this period he was the debating coach—a task in which he won notable victories for Chicago. On June 17, 1912, he married Frances C. Rawlins. The Moultons have two children, Jack, aged 9, and Barbara, aged 7.

He began teaching political economy at Chicago in 1911, as an instructor, and because of his brilliant lectures and writings rose rapidly in his profession. In 1912 he won the Hart, Schaffner & Marx economic essay prize with a volume on Waterways Versus Railways. He is joint-author of Readings in the Economies of War, author of Principles of Money and Banking, of The Financial Organization of Society, and, this year, co-author with John F. Bass of America and the Balance Sheet of Europe. He has also written numerous pamphlets on economic subjects and articles in scientific, business and literary magazines. He writes the Weekly Analysis of general business conditions for the Chicago Association of Commerce. Moulton represented the Chicago Association at the London Conference last year, is on finance committees of both the Chicago and the United States Chamber of Commerce, and has lectured at Columbia and other universities.

The new Institute of Economics, which he has been appointed to organize and direct, has two aims: (1) Seek the truth; (2) present it so that a layman can understand it. It is not a government bureau, but will cooperate with various departments of the government and with the United States Chamber of Commerce. Its library will accommodate 100,000 volumes, and students, while working there as assistants, will have an opportunity to write and publish pamphlets, monographs and special reports. The University and the alumni regret to see H. G. Moulton leave, but a great honor, a great opportunity has been extended to him, and he leaves with our heartiest best wishes for fullest success; indeed, with our complete confidence that it will require but a very brief time to prove that the right man has been selected.

Source: The University of Chicago Magazine, Vol. XIV, No. 8 (June, 1922),  p. 297.

Image Source: The University of Chicago Magazine, Volume V, No. 4 (February 1913), p. 115

 

 

Categories
Columbia Computing

Columbia. Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory, 1948

 

 

Columbia professor of economics and statistics and NBER researcher Frederick C. Mills was sent the following invitation to visit an open-house at Columbia’s Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory followed by a dinner in honor of Thomas J. Watson (IBM) that was to take place April 20, 1948. [In absence of evidence to the contrary, I presume for now that the dinner took place as announced.] A link is provided below to a history of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory. My favorite illustration is a photo of a “grandfather type clock” that synchronized all clocks throughout the laboratory.

 

_______________

Carbon Copy of Invitation from Frank Diehl Fackenthal to Frederick C. Mills

[handwritten note:] 3.30.48

Professor Frederick C. Mills
401 Fayerweather

Dear Professor Mills:

I am inviting you to join a small group of approximately fifty scientists who are interested in modern calculating devices to dine with me on April 20 to honor Mr. Thomas J. Watson for his outstanding leadership in the development of mathematical calculating machines and laboratories which has stimulated research in many fields of science. The dinner will be at Faculty House, 400 West 117th Street, at six-thirty p.m. The Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory, at 612 West 116th Street, will be open for inspection from five to six-fifteen p.m., and you are invited to visit that laboratory just before the dinner.

Mr. Watson’s interest in scientific calculating machines began twenty years ago with a series of adaptations of IBM tabulating machines for complex statistical computations which were first applied on a large scale in the Columbia University Statistical Bureau. In 1934 Mr. Watson set up the computing laboratory which has become the Thomas J. Watson Astronomical Computing Bureau. In 1940 came the Matrix Multiplier adaptation of the IBM Test Scoring Machine announced in 1936. In 1944 several projects came to dramatic fruition in the IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, The Relay Calculators, and the Automatic Recording and Computing Equipment for the wind tunnel laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. In 1945 the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory was established, and in January 1947 the great IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator was dedicated to science.

It will give me and my colleagues much pleasure to have word that you will be our guest on April 20.

Sincerely yours,

Frank Diehl Fackenthal
Acting President

(Business dress at the dinner)

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Central Files 1890-. Box 396, Folder “Mills, Frederick Cecil”

Image Source: First home of the Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory was a renovated former fraternity house. Illustration on page 15 from The IBM Watson Laboratory at Columbia University—A History by Jean Ford Brennan. 1971.

Categories
Exam Questions Suggested Reading Syllabus Tufts

Tufts/Fletcher. International Economics, Readings and Final Exam. Samuelson, 1944

 

 

During the mid-1940s Paul Samuelson regularly taught courses at Tufts University in international economics and policy. Transcribed below are two reading lists and a final exam from the second term of the 1943-44 academic year. All the material comes from a single folder but at least the sections of the reading lists match well the exam questions for international economics so we can be reasonably sure that they belong together for Samuelson’s course at the Fletcher School. Unlike international economics courses today that typically start with real trade theory and commercial policy and then move on to international monetary/macroeconomics, the sequence in this course was clearly reversed. Also interesting to note that the first reading list here is nearly identical to that from M.I.T. from February 1943.

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READING LIST
January, 1944
P. A. Samuelson

Asterisks indicate required reading, other items suggested reading.

  1. NATIONAL INCOME, EMPLOYMENT & PRODUCTION

M. Gilbert, “War Expenditures & National Production,” Survey of Current Business, March, 1942.
S. S. Kuznets, National Income & Its Composition, 1919-1938, Vol. I.
W. L. Crum, J. F. Fennelly, L. J. Seltzer, Fiscal Planning for Total War.
S. Fabricant, Productivity of American Manufacturing Industries.
Federal Reserve Board Bulletin, August & September, 1940.
R. A. Nixon & P. A. Samuelson, “Estimates of Unemployment in the U. S.,” Review of Economic Statistics, August, 1940.

  1. NATURE OF BUSINESS CYCLE

(*) A. H. Hansen, Fiscal Policy & Business Cycles, Ch. 1-4.
(*) Wesley C. Mitchell, Business Cycles, 1941 Reprint of 1913 Edition, Ch. V, Part I.
(*) J. P. Wernette, The Control of Business Cycles, pp. 3-23 and Conclusion.
(*) J. R. Meade & H. Hitch, Economic Analysis & Policy, Ch. I.
(*) G. Haberler, Prosperity & Depression, Ch. IX, I & II.
(*) S. H. Slichter, Towards Stability, Ch. I.
A. H. Hansen, Business Cycle Theory, Chs. I, II, IV, & VI.
S. H. Slichter, Towards Stability, Chs. II & IV.
G. Haberler, Prosperity & Depression, any part, especially Ch. 8.
S. Harris, Postwar Economic Problems, Chs. by Hansen, Samuelson, Bissell and Kindleberger.

  1. SAVING AND INVESMENT

(*) Joan Robinson, Introduction to the Theory of Employment.
(*) T.N.E.C. testimony of Hansen and Currie.
(*) A. H. Hansen, Fiscal Policy, Chs. 11, 12, 15 & 24.
(*) L. V. Chandler, Introduction to Monetary Theory, Chs. VI & VII.
O. Altman, T.N.E.C. Monograph #37, Saving & Investment.

  1. THE PROPENSITY TO IMPORT & THE FOREIGN TRADE MULTIPLIER

(*) R. F. Harrod, International Economics, (Rev. Ed.) Ch. 6, 7, (8 & 9 optional).
(*) W. A. Salant, “Foreign Trade Policy in the Business Cycle,” in Public Policy II (editor E. S. Mason).
(*) J. M. Keynes, General Theory, Preface, Chs. 23 & 24.
(*) F. Machlup, International Trade & the National Income Multiplier, Chs. I-IV, IX.
I. DeVegh, Review of Economic Statistics, 1940.
C. Clark & J. Crawford, National Income of Australia.
L. Metzler, Journal of Political Economy, 1942.

  1. INTERNATIONAL PROPAGATION OF BUSINESS CYCLES

(*) G. Haberler, Prosperity & Depression, Ch. XII, pp. 455-473.
(*) J. Viner, Studies, pp. 432-436.
(*) League of Nations, Annual Survey, 1939-40.
(*) Sir A. Salter, Recovery, pp. 27-66, (101-195 optional).
R. Bennett, National Bureau, manuscript.
P. Einzig, Bankers, Statesmen & Economists.
League of Nations, B. Ohlin, Course & Phases of the World Economic Depression, especially pp. 116-215.
O. Morgenstern, Journal of Political Economy, August, 1943, “On the International Spread of Business Cycles.”

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[Handwritten note: “Fletcher”]

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
Reading List
March, 1944

  1. Mercantilism

Viner, Studies, Chs. I and II.
E. F. Heckscher, Mercantilism, Vol. I, Introduction, Vol. II, Chs. I and II of Part II.
A. Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chs. I and II, Introduction, and glance through Ch. VIII.

  1. Tariffs and Import Quotas

G. Haberler, Theory of International Trade, pp. 169-174, and Chs. XV, XVI, XVII, XX, XXI.
F.W. Taussig, Some Aspects of the Tariff Question, Part I and one other part of your own choosing.
Sir W. Beveridge and others, Tariffs: The Case Examined, Chs. II-XI.
H. Heuser, Control of International Trade, Chs. I, II, V, VII, VIII, IX, X, XII, and pp. 150-151, 155-156, 158-159, 161-162.

  1. Exchange Control and Trade Agreements

P. Einzig, Exchange Control, Chs. I, II, VII, X, XI, XII, XIII, XVIII.
P. Einzig, Economic Warfare, Chs. VI, IX, X, XI.
H. S. Ellis, Exchange Control in Central Europe, Chs. I, IV, V.
Hearings before the Ways and Means Committee on Extension of Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, 76th Congress, 3rd Session, H.J. Res. 407 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1940), Vol. I. Go through testimony of Hull (4-15, 31-33), Wallace (116-122, 125, 142-143), Noble (169-171), Fox (491-503), Grady (713-750, 899-910) and anything else that interests you.

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ECONOMICS 1
Final Examination
May 18, 1944
Professor Samuelson

3 hours
Answer 3 out of 4 questions

  1. To what extent has the business cycle been international? Discuss the mechanisms whereby the cycle may be transmitted between countries.
  2. Analyze the pros and cons of one of the advantages claimed for the tariff, with specific reference to some American industry.
  3. Describe the successive steps by which a country extends exchange control. What problems is each designed to meet?
  4. Bring to bear the tools of analysis developed in this course upon some anticipated postwar problem of international economic relations.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Paul Samuelson Papers, 1930s-2009, Box 33, Folder “Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, 1944-1947”.

Image Source:  Paul Samuelson faculty photo in MIT Technique 1950.