Author: Irwin Collier

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions

Chicago. Exams for Introduction to Money and Banking, A. G. Hart, 1932-35

 

 

In an earlier post I provided the course outline and readings for the first money and banking courses taught by Albert Gailord Hart during the depths of the Great Depression. Today’s post provides transcriptions of the final examination questions for the course. Interesting to note that the course final exam was spread over two days in 1934 and 1935.

 

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Course description

[Economics] 230. Introduction to Money and Banking.—The material in the course includes a study of the factors which determine the value of money in the short and in the long run; the problem of index numbers of price levels; and the operation of the commercial banking system and its relation to the price level and general business activity. Prerequisite: Social Science I and II or equivalent.

Source: University of Chicago, Announcements [for 1933-34], Arts, Literature and Science, vol. 33, no. 8 (March 25, 1933), p. 266.

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Econ 230
A. G. Hart

FINAL EXAMINATION, DECEMBER 21, 1932

Answer questions I, II and III.

I. (About 20 minutes).

Suppose a large manufacturing firm wants more capital. It might establish a bank with $1,000,000 capital paid in in cash and $1,000,000 in deposits transferred from other banks. Apart from legal restrictions on the amount a bank may lend to a single borrower, could the manufacturing firm borrow $20,000,000 from the bank (reckoning 10% reserve)? If not, how much could be obtained from such a bank? Explain.

II. Answer all four parts, allowing about ten minutes for each:

a) Explain the difference between a sight draft and a cable draft in foreign exchange. Which includes an interest charge? Why?

b) Suppose demand depositors of the First National Bank of Chicago transferred $1,000,000 from demand to time deposits. What would be the change in the amount of reserve deposits which the First National is required to hold at the Federal Reserve? What would be the change in required reserve brought about by a similar shift of deposits in a state bank, member of the Federal Reserve System, in Cleveland, Ohio?

c) Explain what is meant by open market operations. How do they affect the money market?

d) Define Mr. Hawtrey’s concepts of “consumers’ outlay” and “unspent margin”. How do they figure in Mr. Hawtrey’s theory of the price level?

III. Answer any two parts, allowing about twenty minutes for each:

a) Explain the difference between the price level defined by the Fisher form of the quantity equation and a cost-of-living index for the working class. What might cause these two price levels to behave differently?

b) If counterfeiters succeeded in making perfect reproductions of Federal Reserve Notes and placed $100,000,000 in circulation, how would this differ from 1) an expansion of $100,000,000 in bank loans, 2) an extra $100,000,000 in greenbacks used by the government to pay unemployment relief in the following respects: i) effect on prices; ii) effect on the total volume of production and employment; iii) effect on the direction of production; iv) “forced saving”? Give reasons.

c) If citizens of a country increase their investments abroad, what influence will this have 1) on the price of sight bills on a foreign country; 2) on the balance of trade; 3) on the prices of domestic goods in the first country? Why?

d) What is the basis of distinction between “real” and “monetary” theories of the business cycle? Mention and criticise an example of each type.

_______________________________

Econ 230
A.G. Hart

Hour Examination, August 3, 1933

 

Answer questions I, II, and III

  1. Bank Statement:

The following items make up the condensed statement of one of the great New York banks for two recent call dates (to nearest $1000):

Item June 30, 1931 June 30, 1933
(000 omitted)
1. Stock of Federal Reserve Bank
2. Undivided Profits
3. U. S. Government securities
4. Other bonds and securities
5. Dividend payable July 1
6. Customers’ acceptance liability
7. Capital
8. Acceptances
9. Real estate
10. Reserve for contingencies
11. Deposits
12. Cash and due from banks
13. Surplus
14. Other assets
15. Other liabilities
16. Loans and discounts
17. Total resources
18. Total liabilities		 $8,880
25,581
281,786
174,500
7,400
169,255
148,000
174,252
35,036
14,720
1,897,544
531,352
148,000
3,030
80,828
1,295,486
2,499,325
2,499,325		 $8,160
8,705
207,955
246,845
2,590
91,443
148,000
93,354
32,069
3,334
1,408,337
351,374
50,000
15,466
18,747
779,755
1,733,067
1,733,067

A. Reconstruct the statement, separating assets from liabilities.
B. Which of the above items represent the investment of stockholders in the back? Do you think the total of these items bears a normal relation to total resources?
C. Does any of the above items show the bank’s primary reserves? If not, try to estimate their amount. Compare primary reserves with deposits. Do you think the proportion shows the bank to be healthy? Explain.
D. Which of the asset items consist wholly or in part of “secondary reserves”?
E. What items would replace #12 in a more detailed statement?
F. Suggest explanations for the decrease between 1931 and 1933 in items 11, 8, 5, 16, and 13.

 

  1. Federal Reserve:

A. What is the “open market committee”?
B. List three of the more important powers of the Federal Reserve Board over the Federal Reserve Banks.
C. Name five cities having Federal Reserve Banks

 

  1. Quantity Theory

It is the announced policy of the Roosevelt administration to spend about $3,000,000,000 within the next year on public works, raising the funds by borrowing from the Federal Reserve and member banks. In what sense is this “inflation”? Assuming no inflationary or deflationary actio from other sources, how much might this program be expected to raise the “general price level” in the long run? Explain.

 

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FINAL EXAMINATION
Economics 230
Summer Quarter 1933

(follow link above)

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FINAL EXAMINATION
Economics 230
Winter Quarter 1933

I
(About 30 minutes)

The following was the consolidated statement of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks for March 1, 1933 in abbreviated form:

Item March 1 Feb. 21, 1933
(000 omitted)
1. Total gold reserves
2. Total Reserves
3. Discounts secured by U.S. obligations
4. Other discounts
5. Total bills discounted
6. U. S. securities
7. Total bills bought
8. Federal Reserve notes in circulation
9. Total deposits
10. Reserve ratio against notes and deposits		 $2,892,083
3,066,537
418,921
293,470
712,391
1,835,963
383,666
3,579,522
2,157,190
53.5%		 $3,118,393
3,304,644
105,102
222,036
327,138
1,834,233
179,576
3,000,248
2,399,398
61.2%

Answer parts a) to d): a) Which of the above are asset items in which liabilities? What items are missing which would appear the complete statement? b) What makes up the difference between items 1 and 2 from March 1? c) Explain the changes in items 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 in terms of the conditions of the week covered, paying special attention to interrelations of the changes. d) Calculate free gold under the regular rules and under the Glass-Steagall Act (assuming notes issued not in circulation to be $100,000,000), as of March 1.

 

II

Answer all three parts, allowing about ten minutes for each:

a) Explain what is meant by open-market operations by the Federal Reserve Banks. Under whose authority are they conducted? What is their effect on the money market?

b) Explain the method of calculating “net demand deposits” for working out the required reserves of member banks.

c) Write out the Fisher equation of exchange and define the meaning of the symbols used. (Criticism or discussion not called for.)

 

III

Answer any two parts, allowing about twenty minutes for each:

a) Distinguish between “real” and “Monetary” theories of the business cycle. Mention and criticise an example of each.

b) Discuss: “The very process of financing increased production puts into circulation enough money to buy the added output, so that supply and demand must be equal. After all… trade is but a perfected system of barter.”

c) “In these days of serious world-wide maladjustments the importance of economic stability is likely to be over – rather than underrated.” Discuss.

d) Indicate the advantages and shortcomings of the quantity theory of money 1) for short-run analysis, 2) for predicting long-period tendencies.

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ECONOMICS 230
Final Examination, Mch. 22-23 [1934]

Part I – answer questions 1 – 3 and either 4 or 5

  1. If the Federal Reserve wishes to diminish the reserves of the member banks, what can it do? Can anything happen to make these measures ineffective? If so, what?
  2. What is a letter of credit?
  3. What differences in meaning are there between the price level of Keynes’s first equation and that of Fisher’s equation?
  4. M. (100%) Nichols, of the First National Bank of Englewood, recently wrote to the R.F.C.: “when I believe that our merchants can safely and profitably borrow money, with a reasonable assurance of paying it back, I shall tell them so… I refuse to take this responsibility as I do not believe this is a safe time either to borrow or to loan.” Discuss this in relation to the government’s claim that refusal to expand bank loans is retarded recovery.
  5. It has been said that the effects of inflation are primarily on the distribution of wealth, those of deflation on its production. Discuss.

 

Part II – Answer questions 6-8 and either 9 or 10.

  1. Distinguish between F. R. Notes and F. R. Bank notes.
  2. Explain the meaning of “velocity of circulation”.
  3. Would the following tend to raise or lower the prices of foreign-currency units in dollars: a) increased demand for sugar in this country? b) an increase in our tariff duties on English textiles? c) resumption of payments to our government on account of war debts? d) the rise of wage rates in this country brought about by NRA? Explain briefly in each case.
  4. Do you think that the Roosevelt monetary policy will succeed in raising prices appreciably? Why and How? If you do, what do you think will be its effect on the following price relationships. Salaries vs. cost-of-living? Wages vs. cost-of-living? Farm prices for crops vs. prices of things farmers buy? Explain.
  5. Which of the following groups have most to gain by inflation and which least: policeman? Owners of mortgaged down-town real estate? Exporters? Railway bondholders? Railway stockholders? Wage earners? Unemployed steelworkers? Explain in each case, and if you cannot tell whether the group would gain, explain why you cannot.

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Econ. 230
A. G. Hart

Final Examination
December 19-20, 1935

  1. Gold imports into the United States in the 22 months ending October 31, 1935 totaled nearly $2473 million (new valuation), increasing our monetary gold stocks by about one third. a) Suggest explanations for the movement. b) Estimate the effects of the inflow of total reserves of member banks; on their excess reserves. Explain your reasoning. c) Estimate the effects of the inflow on total reserves and on excess reserves of the Federal Reserve Banks, and explain.
  2. If American monetary policy brings about a substantial rise of prices within the next five years, how will this affect the interests of a) a widow with an annuity from a life insurance company; b) a railway engineer; c) a university professor; d) an unemployed carpenter; e) a postal clerk; f) an automobile mechanic. Give grounds for your answers.

 

 

  1. State and criticise the views of Gregory on the merits of the American devaluation from an international standpoint.
  2. Describes a means by which the American monetary authorities could act to stabilise: a) the dollar price of a foreign gold-standard currency, b) the volume of checking deposits in the hands of the public, c) an index number of wholesale prices. In each case what reasons are there for doubting the effectiveness of these means?
  3. (Optional – write only if time permits.) As among the three sorts of “stabilisation” mentioned, which would you prefer to see made the guide of monetary policy, and why?

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Albert Gaylord Hart Papers. Box 61, Folder “Assignments and Other Memoranda for Reserve in Harper Reading Room Econ 230, A. G. Hart”.

Image source: Ibid.

 

 

Categories
Bibliography Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Theories of Rent Readings Lists. Taussig, Schumpeter, Alan Sweezy. 1934

 

 

One page containing the course bibliographies for the topics “Urban Rent” and “Broader Aspects of Rent” from Economics 7b, Theories of Value and Distribution, jointly offered by Frank W. Taussig, Joseph A. Schumpeter and Alan R. Sweezy was found in the collection of course syllabi and reading lists in the Harvard Archives. One would have expected that there would have been separate bibliographies prepared for “Wages”, “Profits” and possibly “Interest” for this course on distribution. I find it less likely that the course was a single “topics” course that happened to be focused on “Rent” for the semester. This was confirmed after looking at the final examination questions for the course. 

Note: Alan’s brother Paul did not receive his Ph.D. until 1937 and Alan was given a three-year appointment at the rank of “faculty instructor” beginning in the Fall of 1934 following his previous year as “graduate instructor”. Hence “Dr. Sweezy” clearly refers to Alan. I have appended a 1955 article from the Harvard Crimson about the famous Sweezy-Walsh case for those who might not be familiar with that episode in the history of tenure review procedures.

 

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*Economics 7b 1hf. Theories of Value and Distribution
[from Course Announcement]

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 2, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Professors Taussig and Schumpeter, and Dr. Sweezy.

 

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1934-35 (2nd ed). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXI, No. 38 (September 20, 1934), p. 126

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Course Enrollment

*7b 1hf. Professors Taussig and Schumpeter, and Dr. Sweezy.—Theories of Value and Distribution.

Total 23: 14 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 5 Others.

 

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1934-1935, p. 81.

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Economics 7b

1934-35 [pencil note]

Urban Rent

E.H. Chamberlin, Monopolistic Competition, appen. D, pp. 200-203
W. C. Clark & J. L. Kingston, The Skyscraper: A Study of the Economic Heighth of Modern Office Buildings, esp. ch. 2, 3, and conclusion.
H. B. Dorau & A. G. Hinman, Urban Land Economics, pp. 158-223. Characteristics of Urban Land. Part V Urban Land Income and Value. (Note: The whole of the book is relevant, but much of it can be skipped over superficially for the problem in hand.)
H. J. Davenport, Economics of Enterprise, ch. 13.
R. M. Haig, “Toward and Understanding of the Metropolis”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February and May 1926
R. M. Hurd, Principle of City Land Values, especially ch. 6.
F. W. Taussig, Principles, vol. 2, ch. 43.
R. T. Ely, Outlines of Economics, 5th ed., ch. 22.

 

Broader Aspects of Rent

J. B. Clark, either Distribution of Wealth, ch. 13, or “Distribution as Determined by a Law of Rent”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 5, 1890-91
F. A. Fetter, “The Passing of the Old Concept of Rent”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 15, 1900-01.
A. S. Johnson, “Rent in Modern Economic Theory”, American Economic Association Publications, 3rd. series, vol. 3(1902).
A. E. Monroe, Value and Income, pp. 65-67, 188-194.
Joan Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, Bk. III, ch. 8, pp. 102-116

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1934-1935”.

Image Sources:  Harvard Class Album.  Taussig (1934), Schumpeter (1939), Alan Sweezy (1929).

 

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The Sweezy-Walsh Case

Harvard Crimson
January 12, 1955

In a letter elsewhere on the page, Dean Bender rightly points out that the CRIMSON has inadvertently perpetuated an untruth we have long tried to bury. Alan R. Sweezy ’29, it is true, was given a “terminating appointment,” and it was no secret that his views were to the left of most political centers. By working solely from these two facts, some liberals on the Faculty and elsewhere came to a conclusion which was long to prove embarrassing to President Conant. More important, the dropping of Sweezy and the other instructor in the case, J. Raymond Walsh, forced a reform in the University’s appointment system in one of the few instances that the Harvard Faculty has rebelled against its Administration.

Both Sweezy and Walsh were popular and able teachers in the Economics department. Both men held three-year appointments as instructors and when this period was up, In 1937, the Department strongly recommended that both men be retained. When they were not rehired, and when the Administration released a statement that its decision was reached solely on the grounds of “teaching capacity and scholarly ability,” charges accusing the University of various infringements were raised from coast to coast.

The CRIMSON immediately editorialized that, though the University’s statement was “ill-timed and impolitic,” the political views of the two men had nothing to do with the case. By that time, however, alarmists and those Communists who capitalize on such misunderstandings were off and running, joined by friends of the two men who were genuinely confused by the Administration’s actions.

Within a few weeks, the cry about their hue forced Conant to make a special report to the Overseers. The President, who at that time did not enjoy the complete confidence of the Faculty he was later accorded, held fast, arguing that the University cannot appoint a man just because his views are unorthodox. “If academic decisions are to be influenced by the fear of their being misinterpreted as interference with academic freedom,” Conant said, “then academic freedom itself, to my mind disappears.” The New York Herald-Tribune hailed Conant and his stand, describing his as a man “tolerant of everything except intolerance.”

Since even the two principals were now convinced that their politics were not the issue, the outburst began to quiet. But the Faculty, while willing to forgive, could not forget. One hundred and thirty-one of the nonpermanent teaching staff requested an entire investigation of the tenure system. Even if the financial pressures of the depression made it impossible for Conant to keep men like Sweezy, these teachers did not feel that the current methods of selecting permanent appointees were as accurate and well-defined as they might be.

It was significant, and extraordinary, that the appeal for a re-evaluation was not made to Conant but to a committee of eight respected professors including Ralph Barton Perry, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Samuel E. Morison, and Felix Frankfurter. These men wrote to Conant, suggesting what they wanted to study and making it pointedly clear that if they were not authorized to investigate, they would do so anyway.

Two separate reports were issued by this committee, one on Walsh and Sweezy, the second on the entire tenure question. The first recommendation–that the two instructors be re-appointed–was vetoed by the Corporation. The Faculty accepted this action without much comment; by that time, the second report was the chief interest among professors. Published in March, 1939, the report recommended a mathematical evaluation of departments, their concentrators and staffs, with more rigid rules about how often permanent additions could be made to the Faculty.

Conant substantially accepted this report and it was forwarded to the full Faculty and the Corporation which also agreed to its principles. The many complications were referred to the new Assistant Deans of the Faculty, W. C. Graustein and Paul H. Buck. Before his tragic death in an accident, Graustein had worked carefully on the plan and it came to bear his name. Dean of the Faculty Ferguson, who had agreed to hold an Administrative post only during this stormy interim period, soon resigned his position. With the promotion of Paul Buck to the job, the Walsh-Sweezy affair became history and Conant found that he had made his most successful appointment to the Deanship.

 

Categories
Courses Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Edward Chamberlin Lobbies to Teach a Graduate Theory Course. 1935

 

 

With the retirements of Charles J. Bullock and Frank W. Taussig in 1935 Edward H. Chamberlin saw his opportunity to start to break out of his designated field box “government and industry” and into “theory”. We have here a letter that Chamberlin wrote to the head of the economics department, Harold H. Burbank. The letter is of the putting-this-conversation-into-the-written-record variety. His deference to Burbank and recognition of the established claims of other colleagues to the theory field are complemented with a dash of false-modesty—“Perhaps I may, however,…put in my own ‘claim’ (if such it may be called) for whatever consideration it deserves.”

In any event, from the subsequent shuffle in instructional assignments for the 1935-36 academic year, we see that Chamberlin succeeded in joining Schumpeter and Leontief at the Harvard theory table.

________________________

Letter from Associate Professor Chamberlin to Chairman Burbank
Requesting to teach a graduate course in theory

 

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

14 Ash Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 26, 1935

Professor H. H. Burbank, Chairman
Department of Economics,
Harvard University,
Cambridge, Mass.

 

Dear Burby:

This is to confirm our conversation of the other day. I should like to ask if arrangements could possibly be made at this late date for me to give a graduate half course next year on “Contemporary Value Theory.”

I have been asked by several people recently why it was that, although the theoretical problems which Mrs. Robinson and myself have raised are the subject of lively controversies in numerous other universities, one finds them very much in the background at Harvard. There does seem to be a general interest in the subject, and, since I have a strong continuing interest in it myself, the occasion seems to present itself of offering to graduate students at Harvard a better opportunity than they now have to study and discuss this set of problems and others related to it.

I realize that others than myself have claims to theory courses and that the problems of fitting the members of the Department to courses are not easy. Perhaps I may, however, even for this very reason, put in my own “claim” (if such it may be called) for whatever consideration it deserves. My work in Public Utilities and Industrial Organization could be reduced without difficulty. Donald Wallace could take my part in Economics 49 with Professors Crum and Mason, and, I am sure, would do an excellent job of it. This arrangement, together with a slight reduction in my tutorial load, would give me the time for another half course and I should continue in the undergraduate 4a and 4c. I should have, even then, only one-fifth of my time in theory, the other four fifths in the practical field of government and industry.

You have recently intimated in conversation that I might soon be given a share of the work in theory. I hope it may be next year, and also that a way can be found to arrange for it without interfering with the work which others are now doing or plan to do in the field.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Edward H. Chamberlin

________________________

Copy of letter from Chairman Burbank to Dean Murdock
with changes to 1935-36 course announcements

April 17, 1935

Dear Dean Murdock,

Owing to the retirement of Professor Taussig, several changes in the Course Announcement for the coming year will have to be made. The Department recommends the following:

*Economics 7b1. Theories of Value and Distribution. [listed as “Modern Economic Thought” in Report of the President of Harvard College 1935-36, p. 82; ]

Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 11. Associate Professor Chamberlin.
[Replacing Taussig, Schumpeter and Sweezy who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 8a2. Introduction to the Mathematical Treatment of Economics.

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., 4-5. Asst. Professor Leontief.
[Replacing Schumpeter who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 11. Economic Theory.

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Schumpeter.
[Replacing Taussig and Schumpeter who taught in 1934-35]

Economics 14b2. History of Economic Thought since 1776.

Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11. Dr. Monroe.
[Replacing “History and Literature of Economics from the Physiocrats through Ricardo” taught by Professor Bullock in 1934-35. Bullock retired from Harvard September 1, 1935.]

Sincerely yours,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

 

 

Source: Harvard University Archives, Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 23, Folder “Course offerings 1926-1937”.

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1939.

Categories
Courses Suggested Reading Syllabus Wisconsin

Wisconsin. Milton Friedman’s Reading Assignments in Economic Theory, 1940-1

 

 

In the previous post we have the syllabus for the summer course Economics 150 (Economic Theory) taught by James S. Earley in 1940. It is interesting to compare that syllabus with the reading assignments transcribed below for the same course as taught by Milton Friedman at the University of Wisconsin sometime during the academic year 1940-41 when Earley was on leave from the university. We see significant overlap but there are differences (e.g. Smith and Mill were added by Friedman). It is also interesting to compare this to the course “The Structure of Neoclassical Economics” taught by Milton Friedman in 1939-40 at Columbia.

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Reading Assignments in Economics 150
Instructor: Milton Friedman

*Recommended but not required.

Alfred Marshall, Principles of Economics, Book III, ch. 2, 3, 4; Book V, ch. 1, 2.
F. H. Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, ch. 3.
Frederic Benham, Economics, pp. 89-100.
*J. R. Hicks, Value and Capital, pp. 11-37.
Marshall, Book V, ch. 3, 4, 5, 12, Appendix H.
A. L. Meyers, Elements of Modern Economics, ch. 5, 7, 8, 9.
Joan Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, ch. 2.
J. M. Clark, The Economics of Overhead Cost, ch. 9.
Jacob Viner, “Cost Curves and Supply Curves”, Zeitschrift fuer Nationaloekonomie, Bd. III (Sept., 1931), pp. 23-46 (in English)..
Edward Chamberlin, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Ch. 3, sec. 1, 4, 5, 6; ch. 5.
*M. Abramovitz, “Monopolistic Selling in a Changing Economy”, Q.J.E., Feb., 1938, pp. 191-214.
R. F. Harrod, “Doctrines of Imperfect Competition”, Q.J.E., May 1934 sec. 1, pp. 442-61.
Marshall, Book V, ch. 6.
J. B. Clark, The Distribution of Wealth, Preface, ch. 1, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 23.
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book II, ch. 14.
J. R. Hicks, Theory of Wages, ch. 1-6.
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, ch. 10.
Marshall, Book VI, ch. 1-5.
Simon Kuznets and Milton Friedman, “Incomes from Independent Professional Practice”, Bulletin 72-3, National Bureau of Economic Research, sec. 5, appendix.
F. H. Knight, “Interest,” in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, also in Ethics of Competition.
J. M. Keynes. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money., ch. 11-14.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman. Box 76, Folder 6 “University of Chicago Econ. 150 [sic, “University of Wisconsin 1940-41” is correct].

Image Source: Columbia University, Columbia 250 Celebrates Columbians Ahead of Their Time.

Categories
Courses Suggested Reading Syllabus Wisconsin

Wisconsin. Economic Theory Syllabus. James S. Earley, 1940

 

James S. Earley was an assistant professor of economics on leave from the University of Wisconsin during Milton Friedman’s year in Madison, 1940-41. The syllabus for his course transcribed for this post was found in Milton Friedman’s papers along with Friedman’s own syllabus for the course (next post).

____________________

James S. Earley, Life and resources.

1908 (October 16) Born, Valley City, North Dakota
1932 A.B., Antioch College
1934 M.A., University of Wisconsin
1937-67 Faculty member at the University of Wisconsin
1939 Ph.D., University of Wisconsin
1940-41 Economist, National Defense Advisory Commission and Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply
1941-45 Economist, Office of Price Administration, serving as member of the Economic Adviser’s Panel and later as Head Economist in the Office of the Economic Adviser
1945 Adviser on British Commonwealth Financial Affairs, Department of State
1967- University of California, Riverside
1997 (July 5) Died in Riverside, CA

Earley’s wartime papers (1942-1945) are available at the Harry S. Truman Library.

An Oral History Interview with James Earley was conducted in 1982 and is available on-line at the UW-Madison Oral History Program. He discusses the hiring of Milton Friedman at 41:43 of the second part of the interview.

Warren J. Samuels, (2003), Lectures by James S. Earley on the development of economics, University of Wisconsin, 1954–1955, in Warren J. Samuels (ed.) Histories of Economic Thought (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Volume 21 Part 2) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.89 – 271

 

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ECONOMICS 150S—ECONOMIC THEORY
Summer Session, 1940

James S. Earley
Syllabus

Six Week Session: Topics I-VII, inclusive
Eight Week Session: Topics I-XI, inclusive

 

(**before a reference denotes reading requires of all students. *denotes reading required of graduate students but not of undergraduates. References marked ≠ are required of undergraduate students only. Other references are for additional reading, as desired. Copies of all required works will be found in Bascom Reading Room or in the Periodical Room; most of the others will also be found in Bascom. Full titles and references are given in the appended bibliography.)

 

I. (June 25, 26)
Nature, Purposes, and Methods of Economic Analysis

**Marshall, Appendices C, D.: Book I, Chap. III.
Meyers, Chapters I, II.
Keynes, J. Neville.
Knight, Ethics of Competition, pp. 105-47.
Knight, Risk, etc., Chap. I.
McIsaac and Smith, Chap. I.
Robbins, esp. Chaps. IV, V.
Roll, Part I, Sections 1, 2, 3, 5.
Fraser.

II. (June 27, 28, 29)
Consumer Demand

**Garver & Hansen, pp. 103-110, and Chap. IX.
*Marshall, Book III, Chaps. III, IV, VI.
≠Meyers, Chaps. III, IV.
Benham, op. cit., Appendix on Indifference Curves, pp. 89-98.
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chaps. I, II, III.
Knight, Ethics, pp. 15-60.
Knight, Risk, etc., Chap. III, esp. pp. 58-73.
McIsaac and Smith, Chap. IV, pp. 51-68.
Roll, Part II, Section I.
Boddy, Stigler and Garver, pp. 4-10.

III. (July 1, 2, 3)
Average and Marginal Curves; Types of Market Situations

**Meade, pp. 101-7; “Appendix of the Graphs”, pp. 411-424.
**Meyers, Chap. V.
**McIsaac and Smith, pps. 33-50; 128-31.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 69-81.
Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chap. 17.

 

IV. (July 5, 6)
Market Price: Temporary Equilibrium of Demand and Supply under Competitive and “Monopolistic” Conditions.

*Marshall, Book V, Chap. II.
≠Meyers, Chap. VI, pp. 63-75, and Chap. VII.
Davenport, Chap. V.
Garver & Hansen, Chap. VIII, pp. 110-125; 128-131.
Knight, “Cost of Production”, Sections I, II.

 

V: (July 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16)
“Normal” Price: The Time Analysis; Costs of Production; The Economics of the Firm; “Normal” Equilibrium Under Competitive Conditions

**Marshall, Book V, Chaps. III, V.
**Meyers, Chap. VIII.
*Knight, “Cost of Production—“, Sections I-IV inc
*Robinson, Imperfect Competition, pp. 92-97.
Boddy et al, pp. 11-18; 19-23.
Chamberlin, Chap. II.
Garver and Hansen, Chap. X, esp. pp. 160-167.
Henderson, Chap. X.
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chaps. IV, V, VI.
Knight, Risk, etc., Chap. III.
Marshall, Book V, Chap. IV.
Meade, Part II, Chap I, pp. 107-116.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 85-110; 114-27; 163-78.
Taussig, Vol. I, Chaps. 12-16.
Viner, “Cost Curves and Supply Curves”.

First Examination, Wenesday, July 17.

VI. (July 18, 19, 22, 23, 24)
“Normal Equilibrium Under Monopolistic Conditions; Competitive vs. Monopolistic Conditions and Economic Welfare

**Meade, Part II, Chaps. II, III, VI.
**Meyers, Chaps. IX.
Chamberlin, Chaps. IV, V.
Dennison and Galbraith, Chaps. I-VI.
Garver and Hansen, Chap. XII, XIII.
Harrod.
Marshall, Book V, Chap. XIV.
Meade, Part II, Chaps. VII, VIII.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 128-62; 178-86.
Pigou.
Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chaps. 3, 11, 13.
Taussig, Vol. I, Chaps. 17, 18.
Meyers, Chap. X.

VII. (July 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, August 1)
The Theory of Distribution: General Principles, Competitive and Monopolistic

**Meade, Part II, Chap. V.
**Meade, Part III, Chap. I.
*Chamberlin, Chap. VIII. (3rd edition).
*Marshall, Book V, Chap. VI.
≠Meyers, Chap. XI.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 248-59.
McIsaac and Smith, Chap. X.
Henderson, Chap. V.
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chaps. VII, VIII.
Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chaps. 20, 21, 22, 27.

 

Final Exam for Six Weeks Students, Second Exam for Eight Weeks Students: August 2.

 

VIII. (August 5, 6)
Rent

**Marshall, pp. 415-424.
*Holland.
*Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chap. 8, sections 1-7 inclusive.
≠Garver and Hansen, Chap. XXV.
Henderson, Chap. VI.
Marshall, Book V, Chaps. VIII, IX, X; Book VI, Chap. IX.
Meyers, Chap. XIV.
McIsaac and Smith, pp. 278-94.

 

IX. (August 7, 8, 9)
Wages

*Dobb, pp. 70-108.
*Marshall, Book VI, Chap. III, IV, V.
≠Meyers, Chap. XII.
≠Marshall, Book VI, pp. 559-73.
Garver and Hansen, Chap. XXVI.
Hicks, J. R., Theory of Wages, esp. pp. 8ff.
Meade, Part IV, Chap. II.
Robinson, Imperfect Competition, Chaps. 25, 26.
Robertson.

 

X. (August 12 13)
Profits

**Meyers, Chap. XV.
*Knight, Article on “Profit” in Encyclopedia S.S.
Knight, Risk, etc., esp. pp. 22-48; 264-90.
Garver and Hansen, Chap. XXVII.
Marshall, Book VI, Chap. VII.
McIsaac and Smith, Chap. XIV, pp. 344-57; 374-8.

 

XI. (August 14, 15)
Interest

**Meyers, Chaps. XIII, XVI.
**Robinson, Introduction, Chaps. VIII, IX.
*Keynes, J. M., Chaps. 13, 14.
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chaps. XI, XII, XIII.
Lerner.
McIsaac and Smith, Chaps. XII, XIII.
Meade, Part I, Chaps. II, III.
Meade, Part IV, Chap. III.
Marshall, Book VI, Chap. VI.

 

Final Examination for Eight Weeks Students: Friday, August 16.

 

Bibliography

Frederic Benham. Economics, especially Appendix to Chap. VI, “Indifference Curves”, pp. 89-100.
F.M. Boddy, G. J. Stiger and F. B. Garver. Materials for Advanced General Economics.
E. Chamberlin. Theory of Monopolistic Competition (3rd edition).
H. J. Davenport. Economics of Enterprise.
H. S. Dennison & J. K. Galbraith. Modern Competition and Business Policy.
Maurice Dobb. Wages.
L. M. Fraser. Economic Thought and Language.
Garver and Hansen. Principles of Economics (1937 edition).
Lewis Haney. Value and Distribution.
R. F. Harrod. “Doctrines of Imperfect Competition”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1934, pp. 442 ff.
H. D. Henderson. Supply and Demand.
J. R. Hicks. Theory of Wages.
J. R. Hicks. Value and Capital.
M. Tappan Holland. “Marshall on Rent”, Economic Journal, Sept. 1930, pp. 369-383.
J. M. Keynes. General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.
J. Neville Keynes. Scope and Method of Political Economy.
W. H. Kiekhofer. Economic Principles, Problems and Policies.
F. H. Knight. Article entitled “Cost of Production and Price Over Long and Short Periods” in Ethics of Competition (pp. 186-216) or in Journal of Political Economy for 1921 (pp. 304-35).
F. H. Knight. Article on Profit in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
F. H. Knight. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit.
A. P. Lerner. “Alternative Formulations of the Theory of Interest”, Economic Journal, June 1938. (pp. 211-30)
Alfred Marshall. Principles of Economics (5th to 8th eds.)
Albert L. Meyers. Elements of Modern Economics.
J. E. Meade & C. J. Hitch. Introduction to Economic Analysis and Policy (American Edition, 1938).
McIsaac and Smith. Introduction to Economic Analysis.
A. C. Pigou, Economics of Welfare.
D. H. Robertson. “Wage Grumbles” and “Economic Incentive” in Economic Fragments.
Joan Robinson. Economics of Imperfect Competition.
Joan Robinson. Introduction to the Thoery of Employment.
Lionel Robbins. Nature and Significance of Economic Science.
Erich Roll. Elements of Economic Theory.
F. W. Taussig. Principles of Economics (Fourth Edition, 1939).
Jacob Viner. Article on “Cost” in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.
Jacob Viner. “Cost Curves and Supply Curves”, Zeitschrift für National-Ökonomie, 1932, (pp. 23-46). The Article is in English.

 

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman. Box 81, Folder 10 “Economics Miscellaneous”.

 

Image Source: Detail from a photograph in Wisconsin State Journal (May 6, 1948) at the Wisconsin Historical Society.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Sweezy and Stolper’s Outline for a “good Text”. 1940

 

 

Three handwritten pages of notes taken by Wolfgang Stolper sometime late in 1940 from what appears to have been a brain-storming session with his buddy Paul Sweezy were important enough to Stolper to have been saved by him in a folder filled with economics honors exams and course syllabi from his early years at Swarthmore.

Anyone who has taught an introductory economics course has probably drawn up a rough outline of one’s own ideal course. Stolper actually attached a handwritten title page that was stapled to the three pages “Outline for a good Ec A course or good Text”. I think there is a note of irony in this description, but maybe not, there really was not an abundance of good modern texts of economics at the time. Paul Samuelson’s own text Economics was only published in 1948.

The significance of the outline is to have a glimpse at what other young Harvard economists around Samuelson were thinking at that critical juncture in modern economics.

Note.  I have highlighted my conjectures for the very few illegibilities/ambiguities in the text.

_______________________________

 

Outline for a good Ec A course or good Text.
by Paul M. Sweezy and W. F. Stolper
about Nov. or Dec. 1940

  1. Nat[tional] Income
    1. explanation of what it is
    2. how received
    3. how spent
      poverty even of U.S.
    4. difference betw[een] inc[ome] prod[uced] & paid out.
  2. Conditions of Equil[ibrium]
    1. Full employment
    2. Savings & investment
      period analysis
  3. Secular Trends in investment
    1. Industr[ial] Revol[ution] today
    2. Kondratieff waves
    3. cycle
  4. Capital Formation
    Rel[ation] betw[een] investment & Nat[ional] income
    Hoarding & dishoarding
    Variation in effective Dem[and]
    Credit creation
    Fed[eral] Reserve System
    “Say’s Law”
  5. Full employment & Fiscal Policy
    thorough awareness of (8a)
  6. Assuming Full Employment
    how should factors of prod[uction] be allocated most effectively
    perf[ect] compet[ition] & rel[ative] optimum
    MP conditions
  7. Modifications of compet[ition]
  8. Corpor[ations] & unions, how effect terms of the foregoing analysis
    1. level of ec[onomic] activity
    2. the effectiveness of ec[onomic] activity
  9. The interrelationship of markets
    Interrel[ationship] betw[een] nat[ional] inc[ome] & for[eign] trade
    allocation of resources betw[een] agr[iculture] & ind[ustry]
    bal[ance] of payments, & rel[ationship] of monetary systems for trade multipliers
    cap[ital] movementsState activity designed to modify & improve working of the system

    1. Fiscal Policy & distrib[ution] of income
    2. Publ[ic] utilities, R[ail]R[oad] rates
    3. antitrust & monop[oly] regul[ation] Gov[ernment] Corp[orations,] TVA etc.
  10. [Welfare economics]
    Criteria for overall planning

    1. to increase level of activity
    2. to increase welfare
      1. meanings of welfare
      2. Taxation problems:
        shifting of taxes
        stimulating taxes
  11. Alternat[ive] Ec[onomic] Systems—Overall Planning
    State Cap[italism]—Socialism—Fascism
    Feudalism

 

 

Source: Duke University, Rubenstein Library. Papers of Wolfgang F. Stolper, 1892-2001, Box 22, Folder 1.

Image Sources: Paul Sweezy (left) from Harvard Class Album 1942; Wolfgang F. Stolper (right) from  John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (Fellow, 1947).

 

 

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economists

The Collected Works of Milton Friedman Website

 

Link to: COLLECTED WORKS OF MILTON FRIEDMAN

Formerly known as Milton and Rose Friedman: An Uncommon Couple

This website is dedicated to the work of Nobel laureate and Hoover Institution fellow Milton Friedman. It contains more than 1,400 digital items, spanning seventy-seven years, including:

  • Transcripts from the Collected Works of Milton Friedman Project, a collection of material housed at the Hoover Institution Archives compiled and edited by Deputy Director Emeritus of the Hoover Institution Charles Palm and former Hoover National Fellow Robert Leeson
  • Text, streaming video and audio, and personal images from Friedman’s personal papers and other Hoover Archives collections
  • Links to Milton Friedman content hosted on other websites

Visitors to the site can access articles and other writings by both Milton and Rose Friedman; stream the entirety of Friedman’s groundbreaking PBS series Free to Choose; and listen to hundreds of his speeches and lectures, including 206 episodes of the Economics Cassette Series, Friedman’s biweekly commentary on economic events. The site also includes links to Friedman’s writings on other websites, bibliographic citations for works by Friedman that are not currently available on the web, and more than a hundred articles and videos created in memory of Friedman on the occasion of his death in 2006 and in celebration of his hundredth birthday in 2012.

Categories
Curriculum Economists Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Undergraduate Economics and WWII, 1942

Harvard Commencement, 1943. Military copy work from the Harvard ArchivesHarvard University. . Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer

 

 

In an earlier post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror provided the syllabus and readings for the Harvard course Economics 18b “Economic Aspects of War” offered in the Spring term of 1940. Today’s post provides information about course changes and faculty leaves that were early parts of “broad plans to orient its [i.e., the Department of Economics] program to the nation’s wartime needs” two years later.

Marking the 70th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Harvard Gazette (Nov 10, 2011) posted a bullet point list “to recount Harvard’s role in World War II“.

_____________________

Harvard Crimson
March 18, 1942

Training for War Work Offered by Economics
By J. ROBERT MOSKIN

This is the sixth in a series of articles to appear during the coming weeks discussing the effects of the present war on the departments of concentration, their courses, enrollment, and Faculties.

Pointing directly at the preparation of undergraduates for war work in Washington and in the quartermaster corps of the armed services, the Economics Department has developed broad plans to orient its program to the nation’s wartime needs. Although in the blueprint stage now, concrete advancements will be made this summer and next fall.

Economics, of all the non-scientific fields, has organized most fully to adapt its students to the emergency. Upon receiving their bachelor degree, students will be ready to take Civil Service examinations for such positions as junior economist, which pays $2,000 annually, or to complete further graduate work and then enter the supply division of the armed services. There is a large demand for college trained men in both these fields.

Prepared for Peace

Students in the war preparation course for government jobs, the department insists, will not be unfit for peacetime work. They will receive the usual foundation in economics but on a more concentrated and demanding scale with added emphasis on techniques. All students studying for government work, for example, will probably be required to take Math A and courses in Statistics and Accounting. At the present time, these courses are entirely voluntary.

Under the proposed plan, concentrators who wish to prepare along pre-war lines will find the field little altered and a full opportunity to study as in the past. The demands of the current crisis, however, have thrown business as usual into the background and opened the way for the development of an objective service branch in Economics.

Students in this latter portion of the field will also be required to take more economics courses. Now they must have History I, Government I, and four Economics courses including Ec A. While retention of the History and Government requisites is being debated, this minimum will surely be raised.

Two New Courses Planned

Two new courses, bearing directly on war problems, are already scheduled for next fall under the direction of Professor Abbott P. Usher. Bracketing Economic History 1750-1914, 36, Professor Usher will offer two half courses in successive semesters: Location of Economic Activity, General Principles and Current Problems, 65a, and Economic Imperialism and Allied Problems, 44b. Moreover, the contents of current courses will be supplemented to answer questions arising from the war.

The 12-week summer program presents the department with a more complicated situation. Under serious consideration both here and in Washington is a plan to extend instruction in Economics to government workers during the summer term. Courses for these men will be open to undergraduates and in fact will be very often the usual department subjects. The program will probably feature such courses as Money and Banking, Economics of War, and a new course in Commodity Consumption, Distribution and Prices.

Changes Few So Far

But all the planning is still “on order.” While the Economics Department has developed a more revolutionary and extensive war program than many others, its adjustments already in effect are much less extensive.

In the past three years there has been a violent reduction in the number of concentrators in Economics with the 372 of November 1939 down to 267 last November. The department attributes the drop, in the main, to the parallel decline of long terms for younger staff members. This rapid turnover has made for a less experienced Faculty and a slackening of student interest.

This year the department has suffered the loss of two important professors to the war effort. Professor William L. Crum is now working for the Navy and the Treasury and Professor Edward S. Mason is in the Office of the Coordinator of Information in Washington. To replace Mason, who has been absent the entire year, Corwin D. Edwards of the Department of Justice and now visiting lecturer on Economics is giving graduate Instruction in Industrial Organization and Price Policies.

Neither graduate nor undergraduate Instruction has as yet been radically affected by the war, but drastic reductions in graduate enrollment are predicted by the department. Among undergraduate courses, Economics of Agriculture, 71, has been dropped from the roster because Visiting Instructor Albert A. Thornbrough was called to Washington last September. Instructor Lloyd A. Metzler is replacing Professor Mason in Industrial Organization and Control, 62b, while Economic Aspects of War and Defense, 18b, offered in the first half year, has been extended to this semester as 18c and made available to men whether or not they have completed the previous half year’s work.

Image Source.“Harvard goes to war, University’s key role in World War II helped the Allies to triumph” Harvard University Archives, Harvard’s 1943 Commencement. Included in: Corydon Ireland,  Harvard Gazette, November 10, 2011.

Categories
Chicago Economists Wing Nuts

Wing-nuts. Rose Wilder Lane on Stigler and Friedman, 1946

 

Visitors to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror today have a special treat: the very first artifact in a gallery of this virtual museum dedicated to the many wing-nuts who have felt a calling to reveal the true error(s) in the ways of economists. 

At the Hoover Archives I found some fascinating letters written to the Foundation for Economic Education’s chief economist, Vervon Orval Watts  (1898-1993). Watts received his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1932 with the doctoral thesis “The Development of the Technological Concept of Production in Anglo-American Thought”.  The letters transcribed below were written by the daughter of Laura Ingalls Wilder (author of Little House on the Prairie), Rose Wilder Lane, who was asked if she would review the famous Friedman-Stigler pamphlet published by the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946, “Roofs or Ceilings? The Current Housing Problem”.

From the Stigler-Friedman correspondence scholars have been long aware of the difficulties the FEE editors had with Friedman and Stigler’s use of the word “rationing” in the context of market allocation and their willingness to discuss income distribution policy at all.  George Stigler was absolutely outraged and puzzled at such an attempt at editorial control. I am sure he would have been at least as amused as shocked by the accusations that he and Milton Friedman had been found guilty of writing a “most damnable piece of communist propaganda”.

 

On Vervon Orvall Watts:

V. Orval Watts’ obituary in the Los Angeles Times (April 1, 1993).

Watts’ 1952 Book Away from Freedom: The Revolt of the College Economists was republished by the Ludwig von Mises Institute (Auburn, Alabama) in 2008. “This book had a powerful impact on a generation — a kind of primer on Keynesian fallacies that still pervade the profession if not by that name.“

On Rose Wilder Lane:

Judith Thurman, “A Libertarian House on the Prairie, The New Yorker, August 16, 2012.

Judith Thurman, “Wilder Women: The Mother and Daughter behind the Little House Stories”, The New Yorker, August 10 & 17, 2009.

Ayn Rand’s Reception

For Ayn Rand’s reception of Rents and Ceilings, see Jennifer Burns. Goddess of the Market. Ayn Rand and the American Right. (2009), pp. 116-8.

 

____________________

From Rose Wilder Lane letter to V. Orval Watts
October 11, [1946]

“…I have re-read RENTS AND CEILINGS with the intention of reviewing it. I am appalled, shocked beyond words. This is the most damnable piece of communist propaganda I have ever seen done. And I can prove that it is, sentence by sentence and page by page. What is the Foundation doing, good God, and WHY? Honest American writers in this country are hungry and desperate, blacklisted by the solid communist front holding the publishing field; why in decency (or lack of it) does the Foundation feed a couple of borers-from-within?…the Foundation writes checks for two of the most damnably clever communist propagandists that I’ve read for a long time. I’m physically sick about it.”

 

From Rose Wilder Lane’s letter to Orval Watts,
October 22, 1946

“…As to ROOFS OR CEILINGS, I think, from internal evidence, that the authors are consciously collectivists; I suspect, from the same evidence, that they intentionally did a piece of propaganda, a piece of “infiltration.” I did not see any of this at first; it seems clear to me now. If you will remember the pictures we used to see when we were children, a picture of trees and flowers that you suddenly saw was a picture of faces or of animals, that was the change in this piece of writing. I think those two men are dangerous. I have no other evidence, I know nothing whatever about them; I am convinced that they have had communist training. I say this confidentially at present, because I have only the internal evidence of this pamphlet.

I can of course explain in detail, and will if necessary. It is a laborious job, however, to analyze and explain the argument hidden under the surface argument and to put it so clearly that you will see it, when it is done to be concealed and in so skillfully done that it is concealed and works into a reader’s mind only by its implications. It is this skill which convinced me that it was not done accidentally, that it was done by trained men. The training is intended to defeat persons like me. It does; and I am not too hopeful that it won’t, in this instance. If you feel that you can ask Ayn Rand to do this job for you, I am sure she can do it much better than I.”

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of V. Orval Watts, Box 13.

Image Source: Rose Wilder Lane, 1942. Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Museum, in Boston Globe series “Little Libertarians”.

 

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. A. Piatt Andrew appointed Director of Mint, Loses Manuscript(s), 1909

 

 

The Harvard assistant professor of economics Abram Piatt Andrew played an enormous role in the preparation of the reports of the National Monetary Commission 1908-11, but today’s post is limited to a newspaper report announcing his appointment as Director of the Mint, a short biographical note from his memorial service from 1938, and a letter (August 14, 1909) from his former teacher and colleague Frank W. Taussig responding to the news of a lost book draft or materials for a manuscript.

It is interesting to read of the data back-up problem a century ago and Taussig’s personal solution (safe deposit boxes in banks!).

Syllabus and links to the readings from his money and banking course at Harvard offered in the Fall semester of 1901.

Note: The American Field Service has a page full of anecdotes from the life of A. Piatt Andrew.

______________________________

Biography

ABRAM PIATT ANDREW, Jr., was born in La Porte, La Porte County, Ind., February 12, 1873; attended the public schools and the Lawrenceville (N. J.) School; was graduated from Princeton College in 1893; member of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1893-98; pursued postgraduate studies in the Universities of Halle, Berlin, and Paris; moved to Gloucester, Mass,, and was instructor and assistant professor of economics in Harvard University 1900-1909; expert assistant and editor of publications of the National Monetary Commission 1908-11; Director of the Mint 1909 and 1910; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 1910-12; served in France continuously for 4-1/2 years, during the World War, first with the French and later with the United States Army; commissioned major, United States National Army, in September 1917 and promoted to lieutenant colonel September 1918; awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor medal by the Republic of France in 1917 and the distinguished service medal by the United States Government in 1918; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Willfred W. Lufkin; reelected to the Sixty-eighth and to the six succeeding Congresses, and served from September 27, 1921, until his death; delegate to the Republican National Conventions at Cleveland in 1924 and at Kansas City in 1928; member of the board of trustees of Princeton University 1932-36; died in Gloucester, Mass., June 3, 1936; remains were cremated and the ashes scattered from an airplane flying over his estate at Eastern Point, Gloucester, Mass.

 

Source: Memorial Service Held in the House of Representatives of the United States, Together with Remarks Presented in Eulogy of Abram Piatt Andrew, Late a Representative from Massachusetts. Seventy-fifth Congress, First Session. Washington, D.C. GPO, 1938. Archived transcription at the American Field Service website.

______________________________

DIRECTOR OF MINT
Professor Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr., Appointed by President Taft—Will Resign from Harvard

Cambridge Tribune, August 7, 1909

On Thursday, President Taft sent to the senate the nomination of Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr., of Massachusetts, to be director of the mint.

Professor Andrew was born in La Porte, Ind., on February 12, 1873. His early education was received at the Lawrenceville School, a private institution at Lawrenceville, N. J. In 1894 he was graduated from Princeton University and then studied at Harvard one year, later spending two years more study at Berlin and Paris. In 1900 the degree of Ph.D. was conferred upon him by Harvard, and that same year he was called to that university as an instructor in the department of economics. Since 1903 he has been assistant professor of economics at Harvard, having for several years conducted the general course in economics for a class of more than five hundred students, and also courses on money, the theory and history of money, theory and history of banking and commercial crises.

In 1906 the Minister of Public Instruction in France conferred upon Professor Andrew the title of “Officer d’Academie,” a high honor given by the French people to men of scholarly attainments and notable achievements at home and abroad. It was conferred in this instance for the professor’s work at Harvard and his writings on economics, particularly financial matters.

For a year Professor Andrew has been expert adviser to the National Monetary Commission, the chairman of which is Senator Aldrich, of Rhode Island, and in order to perform this work he had been given a two years leave of absence from his duties at the college. Professor Andrew went abroad last summer with some of the members of the commission, visiting London, Berlin, Paris and other important financial centres of Europe for the purpose of studying their methods of conducting business and to get information regarding the national and other laws governing banks and stock transactions. Since his return to this country Professor Andrew has been in Washington, where he has been in charge of the editing of the commission’s forthcoming report. This report, which will occupy about twenty volumes, will soon begin to issue from the printer’s hands, and it is believed that it will be the most comprehensive and valuable publication dealing with the world’s banking and financial interests ever published. Professor Andrew’s duties at Washington have included arranging for the contribution of special articles by men of the highest standing in their particular lines.

Numerous articles, many of which have since been republished as pamphlets, have been contributed by Professor Andrew to leading publications. Among those which have attracted wide attention was his “Study of Secretary Shaw’s Policies,” issued at the time of the retirement of the former secretary of the treasury. He has published several articles on currency questions as they concern Oriental countries, notably one on the adoption of the gold standard in India. He also wrote a history of the Mexican dollar. One interesting contribution to American financial literature was a pamphlet dealing with the crisis of 1907, in which the author described the different substitutes then used for money, mentioning more than two hundred varieties.

Professor Andrew arrived at his cottage at Eastern Point, Gloucester, where he has spent his summers for eight years on Wednesday, coming on from the capital especially to attend the pageant. He will remain there only a few days before returning to Washington, where he will spend a month or six weeks in completing some of his work with the Monetary Commission before assuming his new duties as director of the mint. He will continue as adviser to the commission. Although only one year of his leave from Harvard has expired, it is probable that Professor Andrew will soon resign as assistant professor of economics, in order that the college may fill his place permanently.

Source: Cambridge Tribune, Vol. XXXII, No. 23, 7 August, 1909, p. 1.

______________________________

Letter from Taussig to Andrew (14 Aug 1909)

Harvard University
Department of Economics
Cambridge, Massachusetts

F. W. Taussig
T. N. Carver
W. Z. Ripley
C. J. Bullock
E. F. Gay
A. P. Andrew
W. M. Cole
O. M. W. Sprague

August 14, 1909

Cotuit, Massachusetts

Dear Andrew:

I have your letter of August 13th, and am truly sorry to hear of the tragedy with your papers. It is nothing less than a tragedy, for however completely one may have the subject at command, the labor of arrangement, compilation, and actual writing must all be done over again. I have been uneasy about my own manuscript, and this summer put it in safe deposit vaults for fear lest possibly my house should burn up. Your mishap almost is like burning your bridges behind you; it is as if you were completely cut loose from your past career.

I note what you say about the memorandum on the work of the Monetary Commission and shall be glad to have it at an early date.

The probabilities are that I shall not spend the coming winter in Cambridge, for Mrs. Taussig’s condition is such that she is ordered away. She spent last winter—as you may remember—in the South and is not so much recovered that a winter in Cambridge can be risked. Although the Departmental situation is by no means such as to make it easy, I am arranging to take a year’s leave of absence. I hope during that time to finish my book and get some other literary chores out of the way. I send you a separate letter on the subject of the Tariff Commission, written in such form that you can show it to Secretary McVeagh and to others to whom you may care to show it.

Very sincerely yours,
[signed]
F. W. Taussig

Enclosure
A. P. Andrew, Esq.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of A. Piatt Andrew. Box 15, Folder 15.13 “Correspondence. Taussig, F. W.”

Image Source: A. Piatt Andrew at Red Roof, his home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, 1910.  Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of A. Piatt Andrew.(Box 47, folder 9).