In 1910 Harvard published 43 short bibliographies covering “Social Ethics and Allied Subjects”, about half of which were dedicated to particular topics in economics and economic sociology. The project was coordinated by Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Francis G. Peabody.
Trade Unionism is the “allied subject” covered in the bibliography provided by Professor William Z. Ripley and transcribed below along with links to digital copies of the items found at archive.org, hathitrust.org, as well as at other on-line archives.
Previously posted bibliographies from “Social Ethics and Allied Subjects”:
The present list represents an attempt to make this connection between the teaching of the University and a need of the modern world. Each compiler has had in mind, not a superficial reader, nor yet a learned scholar, but an intelligent and serious-minded student, who is willing to read substantial literature if it be commended to him as worth his while and is neither too voluminous nor too inaccessible. To such an inquirer each editor makes suggestions concerning the contents, spirit or doctrine of a book, not attempting a complete description or a final judgment, but as though answering the preliminary question of a student, “What kind of book is this?” The plan thus depends for its usefulness on the competency of the editors concerned, and each editor assumes responsibility for the section to which his name is prefixed.
Webb, Sidney and Beatrice.Industrial democracy. New edition in one volume. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1902, pp. lxii, 929.
The most elaborate and comprehensive treatise on the subject, sympathetic and yet well reasoned. Contains no descriptive matter of American conditions.
Webb, Sidney and Beatrice. History of trade unionism. New edition. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1902, pp. xxxiv, 558.
The best account of the struggle of the working classes for industrial rights. Confined to English experience.
The legal aspects of trade unionism are discussed in the “Reports of the United States Industrial Commission” [e.g. Volume V Labor Legislation] and in the following special articles:
Collective bargaining is best treated technically in the “Reports of the United States Industrial Commission,” and in the following monographs:
Hilbert, F. W. Trade agreements in the United States. [sic, probably Trade-Union Agreements in the Iron Molders’ Union] Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1906. [Note: Frederick William Hilbert died February 17, 1906.]
In 1910 Harvard published 43 short bibliographies covering “Social Ethics and Allied Subjects”, about half of which were dedicated to particular topics in economics and economic sociology. The project was coordinated by Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Francis G. Peabody.
Taxation is the “allied subject” covered in the bibliography provided by Professor Charles J. Bullock and transcribed below along with links to digital copies of the items found at archive.org, hathitrust.org, as well as at other on-line archives.
Previously posted bibliographies from “Social Ethics and Allied Subjects”:
The present list represents an attempt to make this connection between the teaching of the University and a need of the modern world. Each compiler has had in mind, not a superficial reader, nor yet a learned scholar, but an intelligent and serious-minded student, who is willing to read substantial literature if it be commended to him as worth his while and is neither too voluminous nor too inaccessible. To such an inquirer each editor makes suggestions concerning the contents, spirit or doctrine of a book, not attempting a complete description or a final judgment, but as though answering the preliminary question of a student, “What kind of book is this?” The plan thus depends for its usefulness on the competency of the editors concerned, and each editor assumes responsibility for the section to which his name is prefixed.
A valuable history of the internal taxes levied by our federal government.
Means, David MacGregor.The methods of taxation. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1909, pp. xi, 380.
Valuable on the critical rather than the constructive side.
Mill, John Stuart.Principles of political economy. London, 1848; [7th ed. of 1870] edited with an introduction by W. J. Ashley. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1909, pp. liii, 1013.
The chapters of the fifth book that deal with taxation are worthy of careful study.
In 1910 Harvard published 43 short bibliographies covering “Social Ethics and Allied Subjects”, about half of which were dedicated to particular topics in economics and economic sociology. The project was apparently coordinated by Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Francis G. Peabody.
Over the coming weeks, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror will be providing transcriptions to some of these bibliographies along with many links to digital copies of the items found at archive.org, hathitrust.org, as well as at other on-line archives.
We begin with Professor Frank Taussig’s list of eighteen items that he selected for the Economic Theory bibliography, along with his brief comments.
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From the Prefatory Note:
The present list represents an attempt to make this connection between the teaching of the University and a need of the modern world. Each compiler has had in mind, not a superficial reader, nor yet a learned scholar, but an intelligent and serious-minded student, who is willing to read substantial literature if it be commended to him as worth his while and is neither too voluminous nor too inaccessible. To such an inquirer each editor makes suggestions concerning the contents, spirit or doctrine of a book, not attempting a complete description or a final judgment, but as though answering the preliminary question of a student, “What kind of book is this?” The plan thus depends for its usefulness on the competency of the editors concerned, and each editor assumes responsibility for the section to which his name is prefixed.
Adam Smith’s book is a landmark in the history of thought, and justly entitled a classic. But it is not to be read as the one book on economics, if one only can be read; nor is it usually the best book to begin with. Parts are antiquated, parts to be understood only with knowledge of Adam Smith’s times. Yet in attractiveness of style, wealth of matter, epoch-making significance, its equal has not been written.
A classic, like Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations”; like that, superseded in parts, yet a noble book, with dignity of style and large views, addressed to the mature, warm in its social sympathies, severe in its reasoning; a good book to begin with, though to be supplemented with others more modern.
Marshall, Alfred. Principles of economics. Vol. I. Fifth edition. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1907, pp. xxxvi, 807. [Eighth edition, 1920]
Probably the most important book on economic theory published in English since J. S. Mill’s “Principles”; able, penetrating, stimulating. It is not easy reading, but repays careful study. The whole subject of economics is not covered; chiefly Value and Distribution, the parts of economic theory having most bearing on social questions.
A brilliant volume by an American scholar, abstract in character, setting forth in attractive style a theory of distribution according to the specific product of each of the factors in production. Its conclusions have been disputed, but the originality and interest of the reasoning are not to be denied.
A compact, clear, able statement of modern doctrines, with an introductory chapter on the principles of value.
Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen von.The positive theory of capital. Translated with a preface and analysis by William Smart. London and New York: Macmillan & Co., 1891, pp. xi, 428.
A book of the first importance, the starting point for the modern discussion of capital and interest; covering also the so called “Austrian” theory of value. The exposition is deliberate and full; the reasoning not always easy to follow, but always deserving careful study.
These two volumes present theories in some respects novel, but consistently maintained throughout. The first gives the author’s conception of capital and income; the second, his analysis of the causes determining the rate of interest. They form a good supplement to Böhm-Bawerk’s “Positive Theory.” Like that, they test the reader’s attention and powers of reasoning.
A remarkable survey of economics from the historical point of view; encyclopedic in its range, with admirable sketches of the great lines of industrial development and of present conditions, and broad-minded discussion of current social and economic problems.
Ely, Richard T. Outlines of economics. Revised and enlarged by the author and T. S. Adams, M. O. Lorenz and A. A. Young. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1908, pp. xii, 700.
These three are modern text-books, addressed to persons of the grade of college students, with special regard to American conditions. The two mentioned first are clearer and better reasoned than the third, which, however, contains a mass of information and has full and well-chosen lists of references.
Bullock, Charles J. Introduction to the study of economics. Third edition, revised and enlarged. New York, Boston, etc.: Silver, Burdett & Co., 1908, pp. 619.
These are shorter text-books, of a somewhat more elementary character than the three mentioned before. They have the apparatus of questions expected in a high-school text-book, as well as references and brief bibliographies. The first two are more concrete and informational; the third (Johnson’s) is more abstract and general, but not less satisfactory in its mode of exposition.
This gives a condensed statement of the doctrines of the same author’s larger book (see above), arranged with a view to use by students. It does not cover the whole subject, but only the range of topics treated in the larger book.
To the irregular series “Meet an Economics Ph.D. alumna” I am pleased to add the 1924 Ph.D. graduate of Radcliffe, Margaret Elliott. I was hard-pressed to uncover much a a publication record for her, but what could be found indicates a career-long interest in the occupational experience of women.
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Margaret Elliott’s 1924 Radcliffe Ph.D.
Margaret Elliott, A.M.
Subject, Economics. Special Field, Labor Problems. Dissertation, “Statistics of Occupation: A Study in Classification.”
Biographical Note from the University of Michigan Archives
Margaret Elliott was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1891 [28 October]. She received her A.B. degree from Wellesley in 1914, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Radcliffe in 1921 and 1924, respectively. Her dissertation was titled Earnings of Women in Business and the Professions.
Margaret Elliott was an instructor at Abbott Academy, Andover, Massachusetts from 1915 to 1917, and was appointed as an assistant professor of Personnel Management in the newly organized School of Business Administration at the University of Michigan in 1924, after she received her doctoral degree. In 1929, she was promoted to associate professor in both the business school and the Department of Economics in the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. She was promoted to full professor in 1931 in both departments. Margaret Elliott was the first woman to be a full professor at the School of Business Administration.
Margaret Elliott was an active member of several organizations, including the National Federation of Business and Professional Women, and the American Association of University Women (AAUW). After she retired from her work with the AAUW, a national fellowship was established in her name.
Margaret Elliott married Professor John Evarts Tracy of the Michigan Law School in 1933. The couple had no children of their own, but they did raise his sister’s children after her death. John Tracy died in 1959. Margaret Elliott Tracy died in 1978 [12 May] at the age of 87.
Personnel Expert Holds Chairs On Two Faculties: Margaret Elliot Tracy
The housewife who has been convinced by bouts with the family budget that men are welcome to the lion’s share of participation in economic matters would look with awe upon the achievements of Dr. MARGARET ELLIOTT TRACY, Professor of Economics in the Department of Economics and Professor of Personnel Management in the School of Business Administration.
Mrs. Tracy is the wife of Professor John E. Tracy, of the Law School. A native of Lowell, Massachusetts, where she was born on October 28, 1891, she went to Wellesley College after completing her early schooling in the Lowell public schools, and in 1914 received her Bachelor’s degree. She was Instructor at Abbot Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, from 1915 to 1917, when she determined to fit herself to teach economics.
At Radcliffe College in 1917-1918, she pursued graduate study in this field, but with American entry into World War I left college to assume personnel duties at the U. S. Ordnance Department’s Watertown Arsenal in charge of women’s work. Finding this type of occupation to her liking, she sought and obtained the position of Personnel Director for Waitt and Bond, Inc., of Newark, New Jersey, after the close of the war, staying for a year, 1919-1920, before returning to Radcliffe to complete her graduate studies. From Radcliffe in 1921, she received the M.A. degree, and in 1924, the Ph.D. degree. It was in this latter year that she took the first of the trips abroad which became her chief extra-curricular interest, although the jaunt over England and the Continent as a Whitney Traveling Fellow from Radcliffe combined much business with pleasure, since she was engaged throughout in study of European labor conditions.
In 1925, she came to Michigan as Assistant Professor of Economics, in 1929 was made Associate Professor, and assumed her present duties in the two branches of the University in 1932. While on sabbatical leave in 1931-1932, she took her longest trip, a complete globe-circling journey in which she centered her interest in the Far East and some of the remote islands of that region. Had the present war not intervened, she and Professor Tracy planned to continue sight-seeing in Egypt and the Near East on their sabbatical leave this year.
Mrs. Tracy is the author of Earnings of Women in Business and the Professions, published by the University of Michigan Press in 1930, and of a number of articles, including “Some Factors Affecting Earnings of Women in Business and the Professions,” appearing in Annals of the American Academy, May, 1929. She has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Wellesley College since 1936, and is affiliated with the American Economic Association, American Statistical Association, American Association for Labor Legislation, and the Personnel Research Federation.
The Regents of the University express to Margaret Elliott Tracy, Professor of Personnel Management, upon the occasion of her retirement from active membership on the University faculty, their kind appreciation of the contributions she has made as a brilliant scholar, a stimulating teacher, and a wise counselor of students.
Dr. Elliott received the A.B. degree from Wellesley College in 1914. From 1915 to 1917 she was Instructor at Abbot Academy, Andover, Massachusetts. In 1918, working for the United States Ordnance Department, she was in charge of Women’s Work at Watertown Arsenal. From 1919 to 1920, she was Personnel Director of Waitt & Bond, Inc. She earned the A.M. degree in 1921 and the Ph.D. in 1924 from Radcliffe College.
After studying at London University in 1924 as a Whitney Traveling Fellow of Radcliffe College, Dr. Elliott joined the faculty of the School of Business Administration of the University of Michigan as Assistant Professor of Personnel Management. Dr. Elliott held the dual appointment first as Associate Professor and later as Professor of Economics in the College of Literature, Science. and the Arts and as Professor of Personnel Management in the School of Business Administration, from 1931 to 1950.
On December 22, 1933, Dr. Elliott married John Evarts Tracy, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. She was a member of the American Statistical Association, of the American Association for Labor Legislation, and of the American Economic Association. From 1926 to 1938 she belonged to the National Federation of Business and Professional Women, acting as Research Chairman of the Association from 1926 to 1930. Professor Tracy, in addition to her teaching and research, gave much time and ability to the consideration of student problems. As a member of the first Board of Governors of Residence Halls and of the first Executive Committee of the Institute for Human Adjustment, she helped establish fundamental policies of these organizations. Her work in the American Association of University Women, particularly while she was Chairman of the National Fellowship Awards Committee from 1949 to 1951, reflected her executive capacity. She did much good work in the University community and in her city to bring them into closer harmony.
The Regents in granting Professor Tracy’s request that she retire before her seventieth birthday extend to her their sincere congratulations upon her distinguished career and confer upon her the title Professor Emeritus of Personnel Management and hope that she may enjoy the courtesies usually offered emeritus members of the faculty.
In the previous post we met the 1896 Columbia University economics Ph.D., Henry C. Emery, who went on to become a professor at Yale. In preparing that post, I came across the Page Lecture Series for the senior class of the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University and wondered who was the Sheffield alumnus who sponsored that series and so this post was born.
It appears that the series only ran from 1908-1916 with only the first eight rounds resulting in published volumes.
The sponsor of the lecture series, Edward Day Page (1856-1918) was an 1875 graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale and a successful business man who closed down his dry goods commission partnership and retired from active business in 1911. Included below is an excerpt from an 1886 letter by Page to The Nation that provides a comparison between political economy taught at Yale and Harvard claiming the superiority of Harvard’s broader use of elective courses. This is followed by obituaries for his firm and him, respectively. Finally, we discover that his New Jersey estate was one of the list of places that have a legitimate claim to George Washington having had slept there.
Edward Day Page was a rare sort of business man (now an endangered species) who appears to have thought deeply about what constitutes ethical behavior in the conduct of business.
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Page Lecture Series.
Addresses delivered before the Senior Class of the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University.
“For some time prior to [1908] the authorities of the Sheffield Scientific School had been considering the possibility of a course of five lectures dealing with the question of right conduct in business matters, to be given to the members of the Senior Class toward the end of their college year. While these addresses were to be in a sense a prescribed study for members of the Senior Class, it was intended that the course should not be restricted to them but should be open to all members of the University who might desire to attend. Through the generosity of Mr. Edward D. Page, of New York City, a graduate of the Sheffield Scientific School in the Class of 1875, this course, now named for the founder, was established in the summer of 1907; and in the spring of 1908 the first lectures in the series were delivered…”
Source: Morals in Modern Business, addresses delivered in the Page lecture series, 1908, before the senior class of the Sheffield scientific school, Yale university. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1909. Publisher’s note, p. 5
The Morals of Trade in the Making. Edward D. Page
Production. George W. Alger
Competition. Henry Holt
Credit and Banking. A. Barton Hepburn
Public Service. Edward W. Bemis
Corporate and Other Trusts. James McKeen
Journalism. Norman Hapgood
Accountancy. Joseph E. Sterrett
Lawyer and Client. John Brooks Leavitt
Transportation. Charles A. Prouty
Speculation. Henry C. Emery
“This book is the outgrowth of a course of lectures delivered to the graduating class at the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University in the spring of 1911. Their object was to show in some consecutive form the growth of trade morals from the social and mental conditions which form the environment of business men, and to illustrate their meaning and purpose in such a way as to clarify if not to solve some difficulties by which the men of our time are perplexed. The lecturer took for granted a basis of knowledge such as is possessed by undergraduate students of the natural and social sciences, and the effort was made to carry minds so prepared one step further along toward the interpretation of some of the problems with which they would soon be compelled to cope. Nearly all of them were shortly to come into contact with business — to engage in it, in fact — and he felt that it was important that they should make this start with some definite notion of the values and problems involved in the business side of their vocational career.
The Character and Influence of Recent Immigration. Jeremiah W. Jenks
The Essential and the Unessential in Currency Legislation. A. Piatt Andrew
The Value of the Panama Canal to this Country. Emory R. Johnson
The Benefits and Evils of the Stock Exchange. Willard V. King.
Ethics in Service by William Howard Taft. (1914 Lectures, published in 1915).
The second cause which has determined the progress of Harvard is the great extension of optional studies which has taken place under the administration of President Eliot. It is not my purpose to enter into any argument of the merits of the optional system. It has existed at Harvard for forty-five years, during the last fifteen of which it has had broad extensions and thorough trial. Facts speak for it. It is undeniably popular among both students and instructors. It has been denounced by Yale’s venerable triumvirate and their backers as wasteful and demoralizing. Yet they yielded so far to popular clamor, some five years since, as to formulate the system of limited election which now prevails in the two upper classes. If elective studies are good, why were they not adopted years ago? If, on the contrary, they are bad, why adopted at all?
The following table shows, for the college year 1885-86, the number of hours weekly which the student can devote to the studies of his own choice:
HOURS OF ELECTIVE STUDIES (PER WEEK).
Yale.
Harvard.
Freshman Class
None
9
Sophomore Class
None
All
Junior Class
9
All
Senior Class
13
All
In this respect, then, Yale stood till five or six years ago just where she stood in the eighteenth century, and stands to-day almost exactly where Harvard stood in 1841. Of course the opportunities of choice are far greater at Yale to-day than they could be at any American college forty-five years ago: but they are still far inferior to the advantages which Cambridge now affords.
Subjoined is a table showing the courses given in the Academical Department of each university, and the number of hours of instruction offered weekly in each course:
Yale.
Harvard.
Semitic Languages
1
17
Indo-Iranian Languages
4
12
Greek
13 ½
39 ½
Latin
17 ½
37 ½
Greek and Latin Philology, etc.
…
6
English and Rhetoric
10
24
German
15
20
French
18
26
Italian
6
10 ½
Spanish
6
10 ½
Philosophy and Ethics
11
25
Political Economy
4 ½
14
History
11 ½
24
Roman Law
1 ½
4 ½
Fine Arts
…
10 ½
Music
…
14
Mathematics
30 ½
42 ½
Physics
4
23 ½
Chemistry
2
24
Natural History
11
49 ½
International Law, etc.
1 ½
…
Linguistics
½
…
Hygiene
1
…
170
434 ½
In other words, the Harvard undergraduate has the allurement and opportunity of over two and a half times the amount of instruction that is offered by Yale. In this respect the latter is somewhat behind where Harvard was in 1871, when 168 hours were offered in the elective courses alone.
Thoroughness of instruction is a more difficult factor to estimate, and one which I approach with great diffidence. I shall be contented with a table of comparison showing the courses given in political economy, which, in importance to the citizen, yields to no other science. At Harvard the instruction is given by a professor, an assistant professor, and an instructor. At Yale one man performs all these functions and is Professor of Social Science as well. The time occupied by each course is reduced to the number of hours per week annually offered:
YALE.
HARVARD.
Elementary course.
1 ½ hrs.
Elementary course.
3 hrs.
Longer elementary course
2 hrs.
History of economic theory
3 hrs.
Economical history of America and Europe
3 hrs.
Tariff legislation
1 hr.
Financial legislation
1 hr.
Discussion and investigation
1 hr.
Discussion and investigation
3 hrs.
Independent research say
3 hrs.
For Seniors
4 ½ hrs.
For Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors.
17 hrs.
From this it is apparent that something more is offered at Harvard than a merely superficial knowledge of a subject which few men have the time to pursue in after life. Yale now devotes scarcely more time to the subject than Harvard did in 1872.
It may be well to note in passing that while psychology is a required study for four terms at Yale, political economy is an optional study, which can be pursued at utmost for but two. It is difficult to discern the principle on which this discrimination is based, unless, indeed, that otherwise a smaller attendance would flatter the one course given by the President of the University!
Old Dry Goods Firm to Quit
Faulkner, Page & Co., in Business 78 Years, to End with the Year. The New York Times. 9 October 1911
Conformable to the wishes of the two senior partners, who are eager to retire, the dry goods commission firm of Faulkner, Page & Co., of 78 Worth Street and 80 Fifth Avenue, will go out of business at the end of the current year, after seventy-eight years of activity.
The business was founded in Boston in 1834, by Charles Faulkner, who had been a salesman for Thomas Tarbell, a dry goods jobber of Boston. Faulkner’s family operated several woolen mills, and he united the agency for these mills with the business of Mr. Tarbell, under the namerof Thomas Tarbell & Co.
In 1850 the name of the firm was changed to Faulkner, Kimball & Co., Thomas Tarbell retiring, and M. Day Kimball and Robert C. Billings being admitted. The importing end of the business was dropped at the outbreak of the civil war, and the house went more largely into the sale of goods, both woolen and cotton, manufactured by New England mills. On Jan. 1, 1859, Henry A. Page, a nephew of Mr. Kimball, who had been brought up in the retail dry goods business in Haverhill, Mass., was admitted to partnership. Mr. Page came to New York and opened a branch office, the business of which grew rapidly, and within three years its sales had passed those of its Boston parent. On the death of Mr. Kimball in 1871 the name of the firm was changed to Faulkner, Page & Co. In 1870 Joseph S. Kendall, formerly senior partner of Kendall, Cleveland & Opdyke, had been admitted, and in 1878 Alfred W. Bates, formerly of Leland, Allen & Bates, and George M. Preston, a nephew of Mr. Faulkner, became members of the firm.
Edward D. Page, now the senior partner, entered its employ as an office boy in 1875, upon his graduation from Yale. He was admitted to the firm in 1884. Charles Faulkner died later in the same year.
Shortly after the death of Henry A. Page in 1898, and of Robert C. Billings in 1899, the firm was reorganized. George W. Bramhall, formerly of Bramhall Brothers & Co., joined on Jan. 1, 1900, and on Jan. 1, 1903, Nathaniel B. Day, formerly of H.T. Simon & Gregory of St. Louis, but at that time selling agent for the Mississippi Mills, was admitted to partnership. Alfred W. Bates died in 1892; Joseph S. Kendall died in 1903.
Satisfactory arrangements haven made for transferring the mill accounts of the retiring firm to other well established houses.
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Obituary for Edward Day Page The Morning Call (Patterson, New Jersey). 26 December 1918. Pages 1, 9.
STRICKEN FATALLY AT DINNER TABLE
Edward Day Page, Scientist and Art Patron, Dies While Entertaining Friends.
ESTATE AT OAKLAND.
Was Known in This City for His wonderful collection of Paintings and His Library.
Edward Day Page, known in the mercantile and scientific circles of this country and Europe, died of heart failure yesterday afternoon while eating a Christmas dinner with his family and guests at his residence in Oakland. Mr. Page, a graduate of the Sheffield scientific school of Yale university, class of 1875, was a member of forty-two scientific societies and other organizations In the United States and European countries. The library attached to his late home contains 40,000 volumes.
For the past three weeks Mr. Page had been suffering from influenza and pleurisy. His physician reported that he was on the road to recovery, therefor his sudden death yesterday came as a great shock to the family. News that Mr. Page had passed away brought forth many expressions of deep regret in Oakland, where the deceased man was the leading and wealthiest citizen.
The deceased man was born in Haverhill, Mass., in 1856. He was a resident of Oakland for several years and was known in Paterson. At the outbreak of the war between this country and Germany. Mr. Page was appointed as chairman of the civilians’ advisory committee to the quartermaster’s department and acted also as the expert on textiles for the department. He continued in this service until the quartermaster’s department was reorganized. In New York Mr. Page was a member of the Century club, Merchants’ club, and up to the time of his death took an active interest in the affairs of the Merchants’ association of New York. Mr. Page published several books on political and economical subjects which were well received throughout the country. At the time of his death he was editor-in-chief of the Sussex Register, part of the estate of his late son, Harry S. Page, who passed away about a year ago. Until several years ago, Mr. Page was a member of the late firm of Falkner, Page & Co., commission merchants, of New York.
The Page property, consisting of 700 acres of ground and the most up-to-date equipment and buildings, was looked upon by residents and farmers throughout the northern part of the state as an ideal farm. It has been said that the Page home has no equal In beautiful surroundings. The residence holds an exceedingly valuable collection of paintings, Mr. Page having been a connoisseur of the art, and a magnificent organ. Mr. Page’s library of 40,000 books is believed to have no equal as a private collection in the country.
In naming his property Mr. Page selected “Die Tweeligen,” which, in the German language, means “The Twins.” This name was chosen because of two great boulders found on the property. Mr. Page named his farm “The Vygeberg.”
Mr. Page was a resident of Oakland since 1896. His son, Lee Page, is a professor of civics in Yale college. The first wife of the deceased man, who was Miss Nina Lee, of Orange, died in 1915. He married again less than a year ago, to the present Mrs. Page, who formerly was Miss Mary Hall, of Newton, by whom he is survived. A daughter, Mrs. Nelson Deitch, of Oakland, and son, Lee Page, also survive him. Funeral arrangements have not been completed.
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Fun Fact: Washington Slept There
“It was a mere 235 years ago that General George Washington temporarily used the then-home of Hendrick Van Allen as his headquarters on July 14 and 15, 1777. The home’s history begins in 1748, when Hendrick Van Allen, his wife Elizabeth, and their ten children moved to what is today Oakland. Hendrick was a deacon at the Ponds Church, which was located approximately one mile west of his home. The stone masonry home that Hendrick built consisted of four rooms. Its architecture reflects the Dutch design of the period…
Hendrick Van Allen lived in the home with his wife and children until his death in July 1783, at the age of 76. Van Allen’s property was divided amongst his children. Records indicating the ownership of the property between 1788 and 1864 are illegible. Between 1864 and 1900, three other families owned the property.
In 1900 the property was transferred to Edward Page, a successful merchant and businessman. Edward Day Page was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts in 1856, but by 1860 was living in South Orange, New Jersey with his family. Because of his father’s business connections, Page became a partner at the wholesale dry goods firm Faulkner, Page & Co., located in New York. Page began his employment as an office boy and became a full member of the firm in 1884, eventually working his way to senior partner. The business continued until December 1911.
Edward Page’s purchase of the property in 1900 corresponds with a period in the region’s history when many wealthy New York merchants and industrialists moved from the urban centers to the rural countryside and modern suburbs of northeastern New Jersey. The 700 acres of land that Page purchased became the Vygeberg Estate, which he built for himself and his family. The estate was a working farm that encompassed almost all of the Mountain Lakes section of Oakland. Seeing the need for fresh dairy products in Oakland, the farm was primarily a dairy farm with several cow barns. As part of the estate, Page constructed a family mansion, known as De Tweelingen, barns and other necessary outbuildings, including the Vygeberg Office (Stream House), which was built in 1902 on the Van Allen House property….
Page belonged to a number of organizations and served several elected positions in Oakland including councilman from 1902 to 1908, mayor from 1910 – 1911, recorder in 1912 and as vice president of the Board of Education in 1913. Page passed away at his home in Oakland on December 25, 1918 at the age of 62.”
Time to meet another economics Ph.D. alumnus. Henry Crosby Emery was awarded his doctorate from Columbia University in 1896. His dissertation was on the economics of speculation. Professor at Yale, chairman of the U.S. Tariff Board, professor at Wesleyan among other stations, including being a witness to the Russian Revolution. He died relatively young in 1924 at age 51.
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EMERY, Henry Crosby (view from 1900)
Harvard A.M 1893 — Columbia, Ph.D. 1896.
Born in Ellsworth, Me., 1872; graduated Bowdoin, 1892; Harvard A.M., 1893; Columbia, Ph.D., 1896; Instructor in Political Economy, Bowdoin, 1894-96, and Professor, 1897-1900; succeeded Pres. Hadley in Chair of Political Economy at Yale, August 1, 1900.
Henry Crosby Emery, Ph.D., Political Economist, was born in Ellsworth, Maine, December 21, 1872. His father, the Hon. L. A. Emery, is Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of that state. Henry C. Emery was graduated at Bowdoin College in 1892, took a post-graduate course at Harvard in the following year, where he received the degree of Master of Arts in 1893, and pursued his studies further at Columbia, being made a Doctor of Philosophy by that University in 1896. From 1894 to 1896 Mr. Emery taught at Bowdoin as Instructor in Political Economy and was advanced to a Professorship there in 1897, upon his return from Germany, where he had gone to complete his studies in that branch at the University of Berlin. Professor Emery has attained and holds a place among the political economists of this country of unusual distinction for one of his years. His contributions to economic literature, published in periodicals devoted to that science, have attracted wide attention, especially those dealing with modern methods of speculative business. His studies have been largely directed to this specialty, his Doctor’s thesis covering in detail the subject of stock and produce speculation on the exchanges in this country, and at the Convention of the American Economic Association at Ithaca in 1899 the subject of his address was The Place of the Speculator in Distribution. The election of Professor Arthur T. Hadley to be President of Yale making a vacancy in the Professorship of Political Economy in that University, Professor Emery was appointed to that Chair to assume its duties August 1, 1900.
Had Held Chairs At Yale and Wesleyan Before Taking China Post
Dr. Henry Crosby Emery whose body was buried at sea following death aboard ship while en route to America, according to wireless dispatches from Peking, was well known In Connecticut, having held the chair of political economy at Yale, and at one time was professor of economics and social science at Wesleyan. He also served as acting mayor of Middletown for two years. Pneumonia was the cause of his death which occurred while he was traveling from Kobe to Tientsin. His wife was with him when he died. Dr. Emery was formerly a member of the Peking Branch of the Asia Banking Corporation of New York and once served as chairman of the United States tariff board.
Professor at Yale.
New Haven, Feb. 7. — Death of Dr. Henry Crosby Emery, while on the way to San Francisco from Shanghai, China, caused regret at Yale where he was well known, having been for nine years professor of political economy at the university. Prof. Emery came to Yale from Bowdoin College in 1899, having held the chair of political economy at that institution from which he graduated in 1882. In 1909 he left Yale to accept the chairmanship of the United States tariff board, to which position he was appointed by President Taft.
Taught at Wesleyan.
In 1913 Dr. Emery was appointed professor of economics and social science at Wesleyan University to succeed Willard C. Fisher, who resigned after holding the post for many years and was serving mayor of Middletown for two terms. Prof. Emery was a son of former Chief Justice L. A. Emery of the state of Maine. After leaving Wesleyan Prof. Emery sailed for Russia in 1916 to make a study of the commercial, industrial and financial conditions there for the Guaranty Trust Company in New York. While in Russia he married Miss Susanne Carey Allinson of Providence, R. I., who traveled to Russia alone for the wedding.
Imprisoned by Germans.
On his departure from Russia in 1918 Prof. Emery was taken prisoner by the Germans in the Aland Islands, a part of Finland. He was held in a barbed wire stockade for a time and later given his freedom in a small Pomeranian town. He was released and left Germany for America the fall of 1918.
The Place of the Speculator in the Theory of Distribution, Publications of the American Economic Association, 3rd Series, Vol. 1, No. 1, Papers and Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual Meeting, Ithaca, N. Y., December 27-29, 1899 (Feb., 1900), pp. 103-122.
“Speculation” in Every-Day Ethics, Addresses delivered in the Page Lecture Series, 1909, before the Senior Class of the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University. New Haven: Yale University Press (1910), pp. 107-139.
Politician, Party and People, Addresses delivered in the Page Lecture Series, 1912, before the Senior Class of the Sheffield Scientific School, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1913.
Henry Crosby Emery (Bowdoin 1892) was born December 21, 1872, in Ellsworth, Me., the son of Lucilius Alonzo and Annie Stetson (Crosby) Emery. His father was chief justice of Maine, a member of the state senate, professor of medical jurisprudence at Medical School of Maine, and lecturer on Roman law at the University of Maine. An 1892 graduate of Bowdoin, the younger Emery also received his masters from Harvard (1893) and a doctorate from Columbia (1896).
An economist and professor at Bowdoin (1897-1900) and at Yale (1900-15), Emery was married in St. Petersburg, Russia (1917) to Suzanne C. Allinson, daughter of Francis G. Allinson of Providence, RI. The Emerys toured Russia (1917-18) to make a study of the industrial and financial conditions of that country, and while there, observed the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and fled the country, only to be taken prisoner by the Germans on their way to Sweden. The women of the party were allowed to go on, but the men were detained in Danzig and later in Berlin. With the collapse of the German monarchy Emery was released.
The Emerys also resided in China (1920-24), where he was manager of the Peking branch of the Asia Banking Corporation of New York. He died of pneumonia aboard the steamship “President Lincoln” between Shanghai and Japan (1924), on his way back to the United States from China, and was buried at sea.
Emery’s study of Speculation on the Stock and Produce Exchanges of the United States(1896), his Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia, was the authoritative analysis of the economics of exchanges.
Scope and Content
Letters (1917-1924), diaries (1917-1918), articles and speeches (1908-1924) written by Henry C. Emery and his wife, Suzanne, during their travels in China and Russia. Also included are photographs and clippings (1905-1985). Material from the collection was used in Ernest C. Helmreich’s article (Lewiston sun-journal, March 30, 1985) entitled, “A Maine couple’s account of the November, 1917 Russian Revolution.”
The papers center on two aspects of Emery’s activities: his teaching career at Yale and his service as chairman of the U.S. Tariff Board (1909-1913). Papers relating to the Board include correspondence, reports, statistics, and cloth samples collected in connection with the board’s investigation of the carpet, wool, and cotton manufacturing industries, ca.1911-1912. Principal correspondents are members of the board, among them Alvin H. Sanders, James B. Reynolds, L. M. Spier, N. I. Stone, R. B. Horrow, and Charles A. Veditz.
Today’s post adds to the virtual clipping file of relatively obscure biographical items for John Bates Clark. The turn of the century volumes edited by Joshua L. Chamberlain, Universities and Their Sons, serve as a who’s who with an academic twist and the source of this early-through-mid-career biography for the great John Bates Clark.
Pro-tip: At the bottom of this post you can click on the keyword “ClarkJB” to summon all the John Bates Clark related posts here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.
Born in Providence, R. I., 1857; studied at Brown for two years; Amherst for two years, graduating in 1872; studied abroad at Heidelberg University for one and a half years and at Zurich University one-half year; Professor of Political Economy and History, Carleton (Minnesota) College, 1877-81; Professor of History and Political Science at Smith College, 1882-93; Professor of Political Economy at Amherst, 1892-95; Lecturer on Political Economy, Johns Hopkins. 1892-94; Professor of Political Economy at Columbia since 1895.
JOHN BATES CLARK, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy at Columbia, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, January 26, 1847. His parents were John Hezekiah Clark, a well-known manufacturer of Providence, and Charlotte Stoddard Huntington, a granddaughter of General Jedediah Huntington of New London, Connecticut. He received his early education in the public schools of his native place. In 1865 he entered Brown, spending two years in study there, and later entered Amherst. During an interval of absence from this College he engaged in the manufacture of ploughs, and was one of the founders of the Monitor Plow Company, of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He retired from active business in 1871, and returned to Amherst, graduating in 1872. He then went abroad and studied for a year and a half at the University of Heidelberg, for a term at the University of Zurich, and for a short period in Paris. He returned to America in 1875 and, two years later, became Professor of Political Economy at Carleton College. He retained this position for four years, and then came to Massachusetts to take the Professorship of History and Political Science at Smith College. He was with Smith in this capacity for eleven years, until, in 1893, he was made Professor of Political Economy at Amherst College. From 1892 to 1894 he was also Lecturer on Political Economy at Johns Hopkins. He left Amherst in 1895 to take a Chair of Political Economy at Columbia, and has since been in charge of the department of Economic Theory of the University. In 1893 and also in 1894 he was elected President of the American Economic Association. Professor Clark has written a number of monographs and articles on economic subjects, and a book — The Philosophy of Wealth — which presents new theories. He also published in collaboration with Professor F. H. Giddings, The Modern Distributive Process, and is now about to publish a second work on Distribution [The Distribution of Wealth; A Theory of Wages, Interest and Profits (1899)]. He is a member of the Century and Barnard Clubs. Professor Clark married, September 28, 1875, Myra Almeda Smith of Minneapolis. They have four children, three girls and a boy.
The following exam comes from a graduate course in the price theory and distribution sequence at the University of Chicago taught in the Autumn quarter of 1960. This copy was found in Milton Friedman’s papers at the Hoover Institution Archives in the folder “Econ. 301” which also includes exams from 1959 and 1964 that can be attributed to Friedman. Still, I am not yet certain who was the author of the exam questions for autumn 1960. More than likely it was indeed Milton Friedman, but this needs to be checked.
_________________________
Economics 301
Final Examination
December, 1960
I. Indicate which alternatives, if any, are correct or fill in the indicated blanks. Where you think it required, briefly justify your answer.
Marginal revenue (a) cannot (b) may (c) must rise as output increases.
A monopolized product initially sells for $1. A tax is imposed on the product. A tax of t cents per unit will reduce marginal revenue at the pre-tax output (a) more, (b) less, (c) the same amount, (d) sometimes more sometimes less than a tax of t per cent.
In the preceding example, the imposition of a tax of t cents will lead the monopolist to reduce output (a) more, (b) less, (c) the same amount, (d) sometimes more sometimes less than a tax of t per cent.
A reduction in demand for a product is followed by a rise in quantity sold despite no change in conditions of supply. It follows that the product is being produced (a) in a competitive industry with increasing returns, (b) in a competitive industry with external diseconomies, (c) by a monopolist, (d) this result is impossible under any of the preceding conditions.
Assume that the government has been supporting the price of wheat by buying any wheat offered to it at its support price. Suppose it abandons the program. In the new position of long period equilibrium the total amount received by producers will rise (a) only if the market demand for wheat is inelastic in the range between the support and new price, (b) only if the market demand for wheat is elastic in this range, (c) whatever the demand elasticity, (d) under no circumstances.
An individual buys four commodities, W, X, Y, and Z, currently spending one-quarter of his income on each. The income elasticity of W and X are 2; of Y, 1. The income elasticity of Z is _________?
Consider three demand curves for commodity X: A, for given money income and other prices; B for given apparent real income in Slutsky’s sense; C, for given real income in Hicks’ sense. Let all three curves go through the point (po, xo). If X is a superior good, then for a price higher than po, the quantity demanded will be larger for ____ than for ____ than for ____ (Insert A, B, C, in correct spaces).
Suppose po = $2, xo = 40, the corresponding money income is $200, and the income elasticity of demand for x is unity. Suppose that at a price of $2.50, the quantity demanded on Curve A is 20. Then the income compensation required to pass from A to B is $ _____ (be sure to indicate sign of change) and the quantity demanded on curve B is _____.
If long run average cost (LRAC) equals short run average cost (SRAC) at an output on the falling segment of the LRAC curve then short run marginal cost (SRMC) (a) exceeds, (b) equals, (c) is less than long run marginal cost (LRMC) at that output.
If LRAC is rising and less than SRAC, then SRMC is (a) rising, (b) falling, (c) greater than SRAC, (d) less than SRAC.
In a discussion of the World Series last fall, Jones offered to take either side of a bet with Smith involving a payment of $2 by one party if the Pirates won, of $1 if the Yankees did. It follows that Jones’ estimate of the probability that the Yankees would win is _____ and that his utility function of income is (a) concave upward, (b) linear, (c) concave downward, (d) not concave upward, (e) not concave downward.
Alternatively, Jones refuses to take either side of the preceding bet but offered to take either side of a bet involving a payment of $200 by one party if the Pirates won or of $100 if the Yankees did. This behavior (a) contradicts or (b) is consistent with the expected utility hypothesis.
II. Translate the following quotations into economics and discuss:
“Costs are down partly because contractors expanded their equipment to get ready for the Federal Government’s enlarged program. But it was cut back in 1959. … Some contractors needed work to pay for their expensive equipment, and they began making low bids, often at cost, to get the work. They complain bitterly about the price-chopping competition.” (Time, Dec. 12, 1960)
“Most foods will be much more abundant and a bit cheaper in 1959 than they were this year [1958]. This optimistic forecast was made by the Agriculture Department which warned, however, that retail price cuts won’t be as deep as the prospect of plenty would seem to indicate. Higher marketing and processing costs, officials explained, will partly offset the expected decline in food prices at the farm.”
III. A consumer in a three commodity market buys the following quantities at the following prices:
Situation
Price of Commodity
Quantity of Commodity
X
Y
Z
X
Y
Z
A
1
1
1
1
2
5
B
1
1
2
7
0
0
C
3
2
1
0
7
0
Prove that this behavior is consistent with his having constant tastes and an ordinal utility index.
IV. State briefly what seem to you the central features of Chamberlin’s analysis of monopolistic competition and Stigler’s criticism of the analysis.
In the three letters to Theodore W. Schultz transcribed for this post we witness the old-boy network at work in Chicago’s search for young talent. Mason and Harris from Harvard share the enormous respect that Harvard Junior Fellow Frank Fisher had won from the senior professors there. Evsey Domar hedges somewhat in his assessment of Robert L. Slighton but more or less places him in a spectrum running between Marc Nerlove and Martin Bailey closer to the latter. Other now familiar (and less familiar) names are tossed in for good measure.
____________________________
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
Office of the Dean
Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts
December 27, 1957
Professor Theodore Schultz
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
Dear Ted:
In addition to [John] Meyer, [James] Henderson and [Otto] Eckstein, I would also name Franklin Fisher and Daniel Ellsberg as among our really promising young men. Fisher and Ellsberg are, at present, both junior fellows. Fisher is something of a wunderkind, having graduated summa cum laude from Harvard at the age of 18. He published a mathematical article on Welfare Economics when he was a senior, and those who can understand it say it’s good. He is only 20 now, and, of course, it is difficult to say how he is going to turn out. He may be another Paul Samuelson, and on the other hand he may not. Ellsberg is another one of our summas and a very good man, indeed. I don’t think he measures up to John Meyer, but is probably in the Henderson and Eckstein category. Since I promised you six names, I will add that of [???] Miller who came to us this year from California. I have really seen nothing of him, and consequently, can no give you a first-hand judgement. My colleagues, however, think he is very good.
With best wishes, I am
Sincerely yours,
[signed] Ed
Edward S. Mason
Dean
ESM:rrl
____________________________
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
Office of the Chairman
M-8 Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts
January 5, 1959
Professor Theodore Schultz
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois
Dear Ted:
It was good to see you even though it was for a very short period. As you know, we include on our list of available men only those who have requested to be put on the list or who have given us their permission to have their name included in the list. It represents men who are either already Ph.D.’s or will receive their Ph.D. within the year, and who are actually available for the coming year.
[Daniel] Ellsberg will be getting his Ph.D. this year, but he is going to Rand at a salary of about $10,000. [Franklin] Fisher will not have his Ph.D. until June 1960. He is just out of college three years and has been offered an assistant professorship at Carnegie Tech. We have now promised him a similar appointment, and in fact he said he would prefer to be at Harvard.
Among other young men of talent who are now here but are not on our permanent roster are the following: Leon Moses who teaches half time in the department and does research with the [Wassily] Leontief project half time. There is a good chance that Moses will go to Pittsburgh, particularly in order to work on the metropolitan project with [Edgar M.] Hoover. Moses is an excellent man in every way and certainly of permanent quality: the same holds for Alfred Conrad who is in somewhat the same position as Moses. Incidentally, both of them have a leave for next year: There is also André Daniere who will be an assistant professor next year and who works primarily with Leontief. Daniere is another good man, though probably not quite as good as the others.
Then there are Otto Eckstein, James Henderson, Jaroslav Vanek and Louis Lefeber. They are all excellent men and in the running for a permanent appointment. Actually, during the next few years we will have but one or two openings and obviously we cannot keep all these men. There is little to choose among them and we will have a tough time making a decision. Please keep this in the highest confidence.
With kind regard, I am,
Sincerely yours,
[signed] Sey
Seymour E. Harris
Chairman
SHE/jw
____________________________
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Department of Economics and Social Science
Cambridge 39, Massachusetts
January 14, 1959
Professor Theodore W. Schultz
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois
Dear Ted:
Your letter of January 6, regarding [Robert L.] Slighton is not quite easy to answer. I do not know [Daniel] Elsberg [sic] or [Franklin] Fisher well enough to make comparisons, but I will try to compare Slighton with [Martin J.] Bailey and [Marc] Nerlove. From the point of view of statistical and mathematical ability, Nerlove stands in a class all by himself, and I do not think that Slighton’s comparative advantage is in those fields. As far as Bailey is concerned, he may have flashes of ideas at times superior to Slighton’s. On the other hand, I would credit Slighton with greater solidity, more common sense and better judgment. As far as long-run contributions are concerned, I don’t know on whom of the two I would bet at the moment, but Slighton would be a serious contender in any such betting.
Lloyd [Metzler]’s session went quite well. He was greeted by the audience most warmly and was pleased about the whole works very much. I am very happy that that meeting was arranged and that I could participate in it.
Please let me know if you need any additional information.
Sincerely yours,
[signed] Evsey D
Evsey D. Domar
EDD:jr
Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics, Records. Box 42, Folder 9.
For some reason, Paul Samuelson was asked to help out with the teaching of Edward H. Chamberlin’s graduate theory course during the 1956-57 academic year. In Paul Samuelson’s papers at Duke I was able to find a letter from the Harvard economics chair, Seymour Harris, confirming his appointment as “Visiting Professor” for co-teaching Economics 201. The actual “allocation of subject matter” between Chamberlin and Samuelson is not clear from Samuelson’s papers, nor from the course outlines. Since the second semester reading list only has Chamberlin’s name on it, it seems likely that Samuelson’s participation was limited to the first semester of the course. Because Robert Bishop’s manuscript on Economic Theory (taught to generations of M.I.T. graduate students) was included in the first section of the fall semester reading list and we find questions for a one hour mid-term exam in Samuelson’s folder for the course, I am led to conjecture that Samuelson taught most or all of the first half of the fall semester of the course. As we can see from the internal M.I.T. department teaching records included below, Paul Samuelson continued teaching his courses at “Tech” that year.
Perhaps a future trip to Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Rare Book Manuscript Library to consult the Edward H. Chamberlin papers that were donated in 2019 will help to establish why Samuelson was needed at Harvard that year.
_________________________
Letter from Chairman Seymour Harris to Paul Samuelson
May 25, 1956
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
Office of the Chairman
M-8 Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts
May 25, 1956
Professor Paul A. Samuelson
Department of Economics and Social Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge 39, Massachusetts
Dear Paul:
Economics 201 meets Tuesday, Thursday, and at the pleasure of the instructor Saturday at 10. It would be hard to change that hour because of the arrangement of other courses, and also because we must have the same hour for the second semester.
I hope that you would get together with Ed and discuss the allocation of subject matter. You can have [Richard] Gill as an assistant, and he would, I am sure, be willing to meet the class once a week when you think it necessary. You will find him a most adequate assistant.
I may add that the Dean has agreed to recommend your appointment as a Visiting Professor, which is an unusual appointment, for most appointments of this kind, inclusive of Tech, are Visiting Lecturers. This suggests the high regard in which we hold you.
Sincerely yours,
[signed] Sey
Seymour E. Harris
Chairman
SEH/c
cc: Professor Chamberlin
P.S. I hope you will remember to bring my article on Saturday and any comments.
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Paul Samuelson, Box 33, Folder “Ec201 Harvard Course, 1955-1956 [sic]”.
_________________________
From the M.I.T. economics department records for 1955-56
Paul Samuelson was teaching full time 1956-57. He taught Economics and Industrial Management (14.117) and Mathematical Approach to Economics (14.151) in the fall semester and Economic Analysis (14.122) and Economics Seminar (14.192) in the Spring semester.
Source: M.I.T. Archives. M.I.T. Department of Economics Records, 1947—. Box 3, Folder “Teaching Responsibility”.
_________________________
Enrollment figures from Harvard President’s Report
[Economics] 201. Economic Theory. Professor Chamberlin and Professor Samuelson (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Full course.
(F) Total 38: 26 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 1 Junior, 4 Radcliffe, 5 Others.
(S) Total 39: 27 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 1 Junior, 3 Radcliffe, 6 Others.
Economics 201
Economic Theory
Fall 1956
READING LIST
I. Supply, Demand, Revenue and Cost
Marshall, Principles (4th edition or later), Book III, Ch. 3, 4, 6
Mill, Principles, Book III, Ch. 1-6
Chamberlin, Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Ch. 2
Schultz, H., Theory and Measurement of Demand, pp. 5-12
Bishop, Economic Theory Ms., Book II, Ch. 1, 2, 3
Viner, Cost Curves and Supply Curves (1930), AFA or Clemence Readings
Robinson, Economics of Imperfect Competition, Ch. 2
Suggested:
Ricardo, Political Economy (Gonner Edition or Sraffa Edition), Chapter I
Mills’ Autobiography or the Introduction to the Ashley edition of the Principles
Jevons, Theory of Political Economy, Chapters 3, 4
Keynes, “Alfred Marshall,” Economic Journal, September 1924 (Also in Keynes, Essays in Biography)
II. Production and Consumption Analysis
A. Production and Cost
Chamberlin, Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Ch. 8, Appendix B
Knight, Risk, Uncertainty and Profit, pp. 94-109.
Stigler, Production and Distribution Theories, Introduction
Stigler, Theory of Price, Chs. 7, 8
Suggested:
Douglas, P. Theory of Wages
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chs. 6, 7
Carlson, Sune, Theory of Production
Cassels, J. H, “On the Law of Variable Proportions,” in Explorations in Economics, essays in honor of Taussig
Schneider, E., Pricing and Equilibrium
B. Utility and Consumption Theory
Hicks, Value and Capital, Chs. 1, 2, 3
Stigler, Theory of Price, Chs. 5, 6
III. Welfare Economics
Boulding, K., “Welfare Economics,” Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. II
Hicks, J.R., “Foundations of Welfare Economics,” Economic Journal, 1939
Pigou, A.C., Economics of Welfare, Preface, Part I., Chs. 3, 7, 8; Part II, Introductory, Ch. 9
Lerner, A. P., Economics of Control, Chs. 3, 5, 6, 7, 9
Source: Harvard University Archives, Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003”, Box 6, Folder “Economics, 1956-1957 (2 of 2)”.
_________________________
Economics 201
Hour Exam
November 3, 1956
Define “external” and “internal” economies. What do we mean when we say these economies are (a) “pecuniary,” (b) technological”? (10 min.)
What are the conditions of stable equilibrium of supply and demand as analyzed by (a) Walras and (b) Marshall? Explain the “apparent contradiction” between the Walrasian and Marshallian stability conditions. (20 min.)
In the “Ricardian increasing cost” case, as described by Viner, what would be the effect on price, output, and rent to the fixed factor, of a tax of “x” cents per unit of output? Illustrate graphically. (20 min.)
Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Paul Samuelson, Box 33, Folder “Ec201 Harvard Course, 1955-1956 [sic]”.
_________________________
1956-57
HARVARD UNIVERSITY Economics 201
Midyear examination. January, 1957.
Answer the first two (2) questions and any three (3) of the others. Be sure to allocate your time approximately as indicated.
(Forty-five minutes). Assume two individuals (who act as pure competitors) and two commodities. Given the “production-possibility” or “transformation” curve for each individual and also his indifference map, indicate graphically: a) the equilibrium price; b) the equilibrium quantities of each good produced by each individual; and c) the quantity of each good exchanged.
(Forty-five minutes). Discuss the scope and limitations of “Welfare Economics.” Illustrate your discussion with reference to one or two specific theoretical problems (e.g., the box-diagram).
(One-half hour). A production function relates product (Q) to two factors, labor (L) and capital (C). Distinguish the “three stages” for each factor, and give an interrelations among them in a) the case of constant returns to scale (homogeneous production function) and b) the general case.
(One-half hour). Distinguish “internal” and “external” economies and analyze the possibility of equilibrium under pure competition in each case.
(One-half hour). A monopolistic firm can buy labor and land at fixed prices but sells its output in an impurely-competitive market. Now let it be subject to a tax of $X per unit of its output. On the oversimplified assumption that the tax leaves its factor prices, the consumer demand for its product, and its production function unchanged, compare the new equilibrium of output, price, and factor hirings with the old.
(One-half hour). Define the “income” effect and “substitution” effect of a price change. Indicate, in terms of these effects, the likelihood of a) a backward-bending supply curve, and b) a positively-sloping demand curve.
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 25. Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Naval Science, Air Science. January, 1957.
_________________________
A twitter prayer.
_________________________
Economics 201
Spring Term, 1956-57
Economic Theory—Professor Chamberlin
Triffin, Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium T-heory, pp. 78-108.
Hall and Hitch, “Price Theory and Business Behavior,” Oxford Economic Papers, No. 2 (1939). (Also in Oxford Studies in the Price Mechanism, T. Wilson, Editor).
Chamberlin, “‘Full Cost’ and Monopolistic Competition,” Economic Journal, May 1952.
_________, “The Product as an Economic Variable,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1953.
Schumpeter, Theory of Economic Development, Chapters 1-4.
Suggested:
1. Readings, 27, 29.
Source: Harvard University Archives, Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003”, Box 6, Folder “Economics, 1956-1957 (2 of 2)”.
_________________________
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 201
Final Examination
May, 1957
A. Choose two of the following questions, allowing one-half hour for each.
Write a brief article on the subject of “oligopoly” designed for an encyclopedia of the social sciences, and therefore to be consulted and used mainly by non-specialists in the subject. (Consider well your objective before you begin.)
Discuss excess capacity in the economy, its meaning and its compatibility with “equilibrium.” What are the chief forces tending (a) to bring about, and (b) to eliminate, excess capacity?
(a) Discuss the issues involved in distinguishing between production costs and selling costs, and defend your own conclusions. (b) Are selling outlays, like production outlays, subject to the law of diminishing returns? Discuss, and illustrate your conclusion graphically.
B. Choose four of the following questions, allowing one-half hour for each.
“It is inappropriate to say that the marginal productivity of a certain type of labor determines its wage; wages, like the prices of all economic goods, are determined by both supply and demand.” Discuss with particular reference to the role of supply factors in an adequate theory of wages.
Develop the role which you would give to either (a) monopoly, or (b) rent, in your own theory of wages.
“Waiting is certainly not an element of the economic process in a static state, because the circular flow, once established, leaves no gaps between outlay or productive effort and the satisfaction of wants. Both are, following Professor Clark’s conclusive expression, automatically synchronized.” Discuss the several aspects of this quotation.
Outline your own theory of land rent, with some critical discussion of writers with whom you are familiar. (Restrict your discussion to the problem of land income, without extending the analysis to other factors.)
Write on risk as an element in the theory of profits, choosing such subdivisions or aspects of the problem as seem to you most significant. In what respects, if at all, would you regard a risk theory of profits as inadequate?
Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Naval Science, Air Science. June, 1957. In bound volume Final Exams—Social Sciences—June 1957 (HUL 7000.28, 113 of 284).
