Author: Irwin Collier

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Exam Questions M.I.T. Suggested Reading Syllabus

M.I.T. Core Dynamic Macro Half-course. Readings and exam. Solow, 1973

 

 

Reading list and exam questions for the half-term course quantitative macroeconomics taught by Franco Modigliani  that preceded Solow’s dynamic macroeconomics course during the first term of 1927-73 were posted earlier.

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror thanks Juan C. A. Acosta who copied this course syllabus and final examination that are found in the Franco Modigliani Papers (Box T7) at the Duke University Economists’ Papers Project and has graciously shared them for transcription here. 

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14.454
MACRO THEORY IV
Fall 1973, 2nd half

I. Growth Theory

background, if necessary: Solow, GROWTH THEORY, Ch. 1, 2

Burmeister and Dobell: MATHEMATICAL THEORIES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH, Ch. 1-4

and/or

Wan: ECONOMIC GROWTH, Ch. 1, 2, 4 (sec. 3)

Kahn: “Exercise in the Analysis of Growth,”
OXFORD ECONOMIC PAPERS, New Series, Vol. 11, 1959
pp. 143-156
(reprinted in GROWTH ECONOMICS, ed. A. K. Sen, Penguin)

Wan: Ch. 4, sec. 4

II. Optimal Growth

background, if necessary: Solow, GROWTH THEORY, Ch. 5

Burmeister and Dobell: Ch. 11

and/or

Wan: Ch. 9, 10

Koopmans: “Objectives, Constraints and Outcomes in Optimal Growth Models”
ECONOMETRICA, Vol. 35, 1967
pp. 1-15
(reprinted in Koopmans, SCIENTIFIC PAPERS, pp. 548-5609)

III. Capital Theory

Malinvaud: LECTURES ON MICROECONOMIC THEORY, Ch. 10

Hirshleifer: INVESTMENT, INTEREST AND CAPITAL, Ch. 2, 3, 4, 6

Dougherty: “On the Rate of Return and the Rate of Profit”
ECONOMIC JOURNAL, December 1972
pp. 1324-1349

Burmeister and Dobell: Ch. 8, 9

Weizsäcker: STEADY-STATE CAPITAL THEORY,
pp. 1-22, 32-47, and passim

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14.454 FINAL EXAM
R. M. Solow
19 Dec 1973

ANSWER TWO QUESTIONS, total time 1½ hours

  1. Suppose an economy with effectively unlimited supply of labor in the sense that any amount of labor is available (from an agricultural pool, say) at an institutionally determined real wage \bar{w} . In other respects the economy is like the standard one-sector model.
    1. Analyze the growth of such an economy if saving and investment are proportional to output. What might correspond to the “full employment, full utilization” assumption?
    2. What if saving and investment are proportional to profits?
    3. How does a once-for-all change in \bar{w} affect the growth path, and the share of wages in total output?
  2. Sketch an analysis of an optimal-capital-accumulation problem in which the criterion function values the capital stock (per worker) as well as consumption, for prestige or power reasons, say, so that instantaneous utility is written u(c,k). In particular, is it true, as we would expect, that such a society should save more than it would if it valued consumption only?
  3. Criticize the “neoclassical” theory of growth and capital; but do not be vague—where you have a complaint you should be prepared to suggest a better way.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Franco Modigliani, T7.

Image Source: Robert Solow in his office, MIT Museum Website.

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Chicago Columbia Economists

Columbia. George Stigler reviews the department of economics, 1978

 

Somewhere between bibliometric departmental rankings and formal visiting committees lie the relatively casual responses to requests for outside opinions solicited by university administrators. In this post George Stigler provides his brief assessment of where the Columbia economics department was at the end of 1978 and what could be done to improve its relative standing.

Stigler’s message was essentially to add “More Cowbell“, i.e. outside hires of senior heavy-weights as opposed to the selection and cultivation of internal candidates for promotion.

As a former active “area expert” on the GDR economy, I am delighted to have found this explicit obiter dicta that expresses Stigler’s contempt for regional studies. 

“I also approve of [the Columbia economics department’s] conscious policy of withdrawing from the quite excessive number of special geographical area commitments into which Columbia entered.” 

Also worth noting is that Edmund Phelp’s “departure” from Columbia  lasted only 1978-79. Because of a salary dispute, Phelps left Columbia for New York University. Perhaps Stigler’s letter helped warm the Columbia administration to accepting Phelp’s terms (which they did and Edmund Phelps indeed returned the next year).

_________________________

Stigler’s View of Columbia from Chicago

December 8, 1978

Professors Louis Henkin and Steven Marcus
Columbia University
211 Low Memorial Library
New York, New York 10027

Dear Professors Henkin and Marcus:

Let me attempt to reply to your inquiries about the Department of Economics.

  1. The department was probably rated too low in 1969, and I think it is about as strong today relative to other universities, yielding a ranking around 9th or 10th. The department has suffered 2 major losses in the past decade or so (Becker and Phelps) but made a number of excellent appointments of younger people and one almost major appointment (Mundell, who dominated international trade theory in the 1960’s but has apparently stopped working). The department lacks flashy, controversial figures and this may account for its unduly low ratings. But the fact is that it is a good department.
  2. I would not quarrel with its size or general balance. I also approve of its conscious policy of withdrawing from the quite excessive number of special geographical area commitments into which Columbia entered.
  3. The department is especially strong in international trade. I consider it seriously weak in the basic fields of microeconomics and industrial organization, even though Lancaster is very good,—I would consider this its top need. There is some weakness in macroeconomics: Cagan is no longer a major figure, and Phelps’ departure emphasizes the weakness in the area. Mincer is superb in labor economics.
  4. There is strength in the intermediate levels, with good appointments such as Taylor and Calvo and Rodriguez. I do not know many of the assistant professors, and have only a mild suspicion that they are mostly not first class.

On reflection, in the last decade the department has not made a single appointment (except possibly Dhrymes and still more uncertainly Mundell) who would be considered a catch by the other major economics departments. While Harvard was getting Jorgenson and Griliches and Arrow, and Chicago was getting Becker and Lucas and Rosen, Columbia was making good junior appointments. I believe that it is a rule that a major department will make most of its senior appointments from outside, not by promotion. If I am right, the department will not rise in relative standing until it is ready and able to draw in major scholars at the height of their productive careers. It now contains major scholars such as Vickrey and Mincer—will it be able to replace them?

Sincerely,

George J. Stigler

GJS:ip

 

Source:  University of Chicago Archives. George Stigler Papers, Box 3. Folder “U of C, ECON./MISCELLANEOUS”.

Image Source: George J. Stigler, University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-13366, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

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Economists

CUNY, Queens College. Reviewing Minsky on Keynesian Economics, Abba Lerner, 1977

 

This post is in the spirit of “restoring the director’s cut” for a commercial film, except for a book review. Abba Lerner was given only two pages to review Hyman Minsky’s 1975 book John Maynard Keynes in the popular economics magazine Challenge. Lerner identified Minsky’s value-added to the Keynesian tradition of macroeconomics with the model of “how optimisim leads to a fragility of the financial economic structure through the accumulation of enormous ratios of debt to equity financing [and how] the ‘double risk’ of borrowers and lenders amplifies movement in both directions.” Lerner’s basic criticism of the “intractable instability” thesis of Minsky is that Lerner believes “an intelligent Keynesian monetary and fiscal policy would […] be able to prevent the normal myriad disturbances throughout the economy from developing into general expansions or contractions large enough to start up Minsky’s intractable oscillations.” [I’ve taken the liberty to drop Lerner’s double negative in the interest of simplicity of expression].

It turns out that Lerner had a further laundry list of objections and quibbles that I transcribe below.

Review of John Maynard Keynes by Hyman P. Minsky. New York: Columbia University Press, 1975.  Challenge, May-June 1976, pp. 69-70.

At the time of publication of the review, Abba Lerner was Distinguished Professor of Economics at Queens College, City University of New York.

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Lerner’s Critical Laundry List

The following is a list of items which I had to omit from my review of Minsky’s “John Maynard Keynes” to keep it within the limits demanded by Challenge.

  1. The misunderstanding of user cost as if it were equivalent to the expected future return on capital or in some uses to the mark up over variable cost.
  2. The misunderstanding of Keynes’ repudiation of Viner’s argument in 1937 Journal of Political Economy where Keynes was not repudiating the logic of the neo-classical “synthesis” but rather was objecting to Viner’s confusion about “voiding” in particular Viner’s claiming that voiding could not be very important because there were no great changes in the quantity of money in existence. Keynes point was that it showed itself not in changes in the quantity of money, but in changes in the price of money for the rate of interest.
  3. Minsky’s toying with the Cambridge post-Keynesian tautologies. Minsky used these under the title of “Budget Constraints.”
  4. To object to his calling the marginal efficiency schedule a caricature. What is a caricature? is to suppose as Minsky does that this goes suppose not to move [sic].
  5. To point out that there is also uncertainty about the current demand and that there is essential part in explaining the setting of a price with a markup up in a society where the price is in about [sic, above?] the marginal cost which is why there exists the profession of salesmanship.
  6. A possible confusion between marginal user cost and average user cost
  7. A discussion of the relevance or irrelevance of the “joylessness” of American affluence.
  8. A discussion of what is meant by debt deflation sometimes it seems to be the argument that this is necessary for the health of the economy, and other times it seems to be merely pointing out that we have a depression in which some firms go broke. In this way some of the debts disappear. There is possible also a suggestion that the damage done by the accumulating debts could be washed away by inflation.
  9. The carrying over of the Cambridge post-Keynesian tautologies in the form of budget restraints to what becomes a repetition of the ancient tautologies of MV=PT especially where he uses delta M as being the cause of a change in income where delta M Keynes describes as being due either to a change in the quantity of money or to a change in the velocity of circulation. This becomes especially tautological in which it changes in [illegible] may changes in M or V.[sic]
  10. In reference to Keynes’ occasional stress on instability of the boom carrying in itself the seeds of its own destruction taken by Minsky as being a universal truth where as I understand it only as describing what happens in the absence of a policy for regulating the level of economic activity.
  11. In connection with the tautologies the use of the [a blank here] in places where they are not necessary at all when what he is proving is the same as the Robinson definition in which an excess of investment [over?] saving is not the cause or even the result of a change in income but merely another way of saying that there is or has been or will be a change in income. The result is [the difference?] between income [of the current?] period of the income of the next period and there is no meaning left to the distinguishing of the one [from the other?].
  12. Some comment on his declaration that “the fundamental unemployment is the unemployment of capital assets”
  13. The emphasis on the construction unions has been the moving element in causing stagflation. i.e. inflation in times of depression. This confuses the causes of inflation with the ideal of monopoly. A monopoly can raise a price or a wage relative to other prices and wages. It could conceivably be the beginning of an upward movement of prices when other prices and wages tried to keep up with an increase originally started by a monopoly but this is important only in the beginning. The further increases in the monopoly (construction workers) is now in the course of the progress of exactly the same kind as of the competitive wages which tried to keep up with the construction wages.

This is the end of my list of items omitted in my reviews of Minsky’s “John Maynard Keynes”.:

Abba P. Lerner
February 26, 1967 [sic, should be 1977].

Source: U. S. Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The Papers of Abba P. Lerner. Box 15, Folder 4 “Minsky, Hyman P. 1972-76”.

Image Sources:  Hyman P. Minsky page at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. Abba Ptachya Lerner chapter, web edition, in Biographical Memoirs, vol. 64, p. 208, The National Academies Press, 1994.

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Exams for the three courses in political economy. Laughlin and Taussig, 1882-1883

 

 

After Professor Charles Dunbar stepped down from his Harvard Deanship, he took sabbatical leave to go to Europe in 1882-83. Frank William Taussig was appointed instructor to help J. Laurence Laughlin cover the three course offerings for political economy that year. In Taussig’s course scrapbook in the Harvard archive, we find that he listed grades for 71 students in Political Economy 1 (1882-83), i.e., about half of the reported enrollment for that course. Thus we may presume that Laughlin and Taussig taught separate sections of the course with a common final examination.

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Course Announcements

Political Economy.

1.  Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Lectures on Banking and the Financial Legislation of the United States. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Mr. Taussig and Dr. Laughlin .

2.  Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — History of Political Economy. – McKean’s Condensation of Carey’s Social Science. — Lectures. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Dr. Laughlin.

As a preparation for Course 2, it is necessary to have passed satisfactorily in Course 1.

3.  Economic Effects of Land Tenures in England, Ireland, France, Germany, and Russia. Once a week, counting as a half-course. Dr. Laughlin.

Source:  The Harvard University Catalogue, 1882-83, pp. 89-90.

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Course Enrollments

1.  Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. — Lectures. Dr. Laughlin and Mr. Taussig.

Total 155: 1 Graduate, 22 Seniors, 113 Juniors, 13 Sophomores, 6 Others. 3 hours/week.

2.  Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy. — History of Political Economy. — McKean’s Condensation of Carey’s Social Science. — Lectures. Dr. Laughlin. 3 hours/week.

Total 35: 2 Graduates, 24 Seniors, 8 Juniors, 1 Other.

3.  Studies in Land Tenures of England, Ireland, and France. — Theses. Dr. Laughlin. 1 hour/week.

Total 7: 1 Graduate, 6 Seniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1882-1883, p. 66.

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Course Examinations

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-year 1882-83

I.
(Answer briefly all of the following.)

  1. What distinction does Mill draw between productive and unproductive labor? Discuss the value of this distinction. Distinguish between productive and unproductive consumption.
  2. What is the distinction between fixed and circulating capital? Is money part of the fixed or of the circulating capital of a country? Why?
  3. What are the classes among whom the produce is divided? Are these classes necessarily or usually represented in as many different sets of persons? How could you classify the peasant proprietor?
  4. Of what commodities are the values governed by the law of cost of production? Explain the process by which that law operates.
  5. “Rent does not enter into the cost of production of agricultural produce.” Explain.
  6. What regulates the value of an inconvertible paper currency? What cause it to depreciate? Discuss briefly the results of depreciation.
  7. Arrange the following items on the proper sides of the account:—

Circulation

315.0
Due to Bans

259.9
Legal Tender Notes

63.2
Loans

1,243.2
Bond for circulation

357.6
Due from Banks

198.9
Deposits

1,134.9
Specie

102.9

Compute just how much circulation is permitted by our laws; and give in figures both the (1) reserve required at 25%, and the (2) difference between the actual and required reserve, on the basis of the above account.

  1. Compare the plans of our National Bank system with those of the Bank of England and the Imperial Bank of Germany in regard to the security of note-issues.

II.
(Answer more fully three of the following.)

  1. What are the constituent elements of what Mill calls “profits”? Explain what is meant in common language by the word “profits,” and discuss the nature of profits in this sense.
  2. “The laws of the production of wealth partake of the nature of physical truths…It is not so with the distribution of wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely.” Explain the distinction, and show its connection with the subjects of communism and socialism.
  3. Mention the methods by which it is attempted to keep gold and silver concurrently in circulation. Explain why “a double standard is alternately a single standard.” Does this tend to be the case now in the United States?
  4. Distinguish between real and proportional wages, and illustrate the distinction. In what sense is the word wages used when it is said that the profits depend on wages, rising as wages fall, and falling as wages rise?
  5. It is not a difference in the absolute cost of production which determines the international cost of exchange, but a difference in the comparative” Explain this proposition, and apply it to the trade between the United States and European countries. Is the trade between tropical and temperate countries based, in the main, on a difference of absolute or of comparative cost?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Mid-Year Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (February, 1883), pp. 8-10.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Year-end 1882-1883

I.
(Take all of this group.)

  1. Explain what is meant by a bill of exchange. What causes bills on a foreign country to be at a premium or discount? Show in what way the premium (or discount) is prevented from going beyond a certain point.
  2. Is there any connection between the rate of interest and the abundance or scarcity of money? Explain and illustrate the following: “The rate of interest determines the price of land and of securities.”
  3. Describe the three different kinds of cooperation, and say something of the success attained by each. What are the two classes of distributive cooperation, and wherein do they differ?
  4. Show under what circumstances the increase of capital brings about the tendency of profits to fall. What influences counteract this tendency?
  5. Explain what is meant by the rapidity of circulation of money. What is the effect of great rapidity of circulation on prices and on the value of money? What is the effect of the use of credit? Mention the more important methods in which credit is used as a substitute for money.

II.
(Omit one of this group.)

  1. Discuss the effect of the introduction of a new article of export from a given country on the course of the foreign exchanges in that country, on the flow of specie, and on the terms of international trade (i.e. on international values).
  2. What are the causes which enable one country to undersell another? Do low wages, or a low cost of labor, form one of those causes?
  3. Discuss the immediate and the ultimate effects on rents of the introduction of agricultural improvements. Do those ultimate effects which Mill describes necessarily take place?
  4. What is the immediate and what the ultimate incidence of a tax on houses? Show in what manner the incidence of a tax on building-ground differs, according as the tax is specific (so much on the unit of surface), or rated (so much on the value).

III.
(Omit one of this group.)

  1. Describe the situation which caused the banks in the United States to suspend specie payments in 1861.
  2. What is the difference between bonds and Treasury notes? Name and explain the different kinds of bonds issued during the war.
  3. Explain the causes which made possible the great sales of five-twenty bonds in 1863.
  4. What arguments were advanced for the continuance of the National Bank System in 1882?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1883), pp. 7-8.

 

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Course Examinations

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Mid-year 1882-83

  1. Give a careful statement of Mr. Cairnes’s theory of market and normal value.
  2. How far is it right to suppose that the competition of (1) capital and (2) of labor is effective?
  3. Explain and discuss the statement that “the wages-fund expands as the supply of labor contracts, and contracts as the supply expands.”
  4. Agricultural products in England are as dear as one hundred years ago; in the meantime there has been extraordinary industrial progress. What conclusion is to be drawn as to the increase of wages and profits from the first fact, and who has ultimately gained by the second?
  5. Mill thinks that, although “the great efficiency of English labor is the chief cause why the precious metals are obtained at less cost by England,” the “somewhat higher range of general prices in England” is accounted for by the foreign demand, and the unbulky character of her commodities.
    What different explanation is offered by Mr. Cairnes?
  6. Examine the following:—
    “It seems to me that protection is absolutely essential to the encouragement of capital, and equally necessary for the protection of the American laborer….He must have good food, enough of it, good clothing, school-houses for his children, comforts for his home, and a fair chance to improve his condition. To this end I would protect him against competition with the half-paid laborers of European countries.”— Cong. Globe.
  7. If there should be a considerable falling off in the foreign demand for the products of one group of industries, such as our bread-stuffs, how would that affect wages in this country?
  8. What is the argument against the theory that the Bank of England brought about resumption of specie payments in England in 1821 by a contraction of its note-issues?
  9. In what period in the history of economic doctrines would you place the writer of the following passage?
    “The strength of a community declines with increase in the rate of interest. That increase results from efflux of the precious metals.” Explain.
  10. Comment on the main doctrines held by Cantillon and Storch.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Mid-Year Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (February, 1883), pp. 10-11.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Year-end 1882-1883

[Do not change the order of the questions.]

  1. Examine the following doctrine:—
    “If invention and improvement still go on, the efficiency of labor will be further increased, and the amount of labor and capital necessary to produce a further increased, and the amount of labor and capital necessary to produce a given result further diminished. The same causes will lead to the utilization of this new gain in productive power for the production of more wealth; the margin of cultivation will be again extended, and rent will increase, both in proportion and amount, without any increase in wages and interest. And so,…will…rent constantly increase, though population should remain stationary.”—Henry George, Progress and Poverty (p. 226).
  2. What is meant by the “comparative costs of production,” on which international values are said to depend, and how is that dependence to be reconciled with the fact that any given sale of goods is found to be an independent transaction, determined by the price of the commodity?
  3. How does the doctrine of reciprocal demand between different industries apply to the argument in favor of a diversity of employments in a new country, as laid down by Hamilton in his Report on Manufactures?
  4. Of the economic doctrines generally accepted to-day which would you consider as having originated with Adam Smith?
  5. Discuss the following words of Mr. Carey:—
    “From 1810 to 1815 mills and furnaces were built, but with the return of peace, their owners…were everywhere ruined…From 1828 to 1834, such establishments were again erected, and the metallic treasures of the earth were being everywhere developed; but, as before, the protective system was again abandoned, with ruin to the manufacturers.” (Vol. II, p. 224.)
  6. Explain the relation, in Mr. Carey’s system, between “wealth,” “utility,” “value,” and “capital.” State clearly the “harmony of interests” between labor and capital, and the connection of this with the wages question.
  7. Point out Mr. Carey’s objections to the doctrine of Malthus. How far does his position on this question affect his acceptance of Ricardo’s law of rent?
  8. Discuss the following statement:—
    “If such [a] league be formed on a permanent basis between a considerable number of important commercial countries, even though it does not embrace all countries, the relative value of gold and silver will be kept close to the mint ratio so established.”—A.Walker, Political Economy (p. 408).
  9. Examine this position:—
    “The rent of mines is not governed wholly by the economic law of rent which, as stated, has reference to the native and indestructible powers of the soil….By the very nature of such deposits [i.e. in mines], the enjoyment of mining privileges diminishes the sum of the mineral in existence. The mine may be ‘worked out’ in ten years or in twenty….The rent must be increased sufficiently to compensate for the ultimate exhaustion of the deposits: the destruction of the value of the estate.”
  10. Describe the form in which Germany actually received the payment of the indemnity from France.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1883), pp. 8-9.

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Course Examinations

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Mid-year 1882-83

  1. What is the usual legal conception of property in the increased value of land? How far is this justified?
  2. In the claims of tenants for compensation for unexhausted improvements what weight do you give to the argument of landlords that legislation on this subject would be an interference with freedom of contract?
  3. What was the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875? What were its results?
  4. Discuss the present length of leases in England, and compare with that of a century ago. Are there any political causes affecting the question?
  5. What is the aim of the Registration of Titles Act of 1875? What is the system of transferring property in England now actually in use?
  6. State some of the effects of the practice of entails on the application of capital to land. Point out how this question has been discussed in its relation to wages.
  7. What change has been going on in the character of English agriculture within the last thirty years? What influences do you attribute to American competition in this matter?
  8. In the depression of English agricultural interests, which class connected with the land seems to have suffered most?
  9. What has been the relation of the agricultural laborer to the land, and how far has it been possible for him to improve his position?
  10. It is said that farmers can use their capital more profitably in farming hired land than in sinking it in the purchase of the soil. What do you think on the advantages to the cultivators of owning the land in England?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Mid-Year Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (February, 1883), pp. 11-12.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY 3.
Year-end 1882-1883

  1. State what you believe to be the most important effects of the Repeal of the Corn Laws upon agriculture and the present system of land-holding in England.
  2. It has been asserted that “a peasant population, raising their own wages from the soil, and consuming them in kind, are universally acted upon very feebly by internal checks, or by motives disposing them to restraint. The consequence is, that unless some external cause, quite independent of their will, forces such peasant cultivators to slacken their rate of increase, they will, in a limited territory, very rapidly approach a state of want and penury, and will be stopped at last only by the physical impossibility of procuring subsistence.” What testimony on this question is offered by the experience of France and Germany?
  3. How does absenteeism (1) affect the production of agricultural wealth? (2) Does it modify the laws of distribution?
  4. Give an explanation of the fact that in Ireland custom forces the tenant, not the landlord, to carry out the improvements on the soil. How far does this affect the question of compensation for unexhausted improvements.
  5. To what do you ascribe the “land-hunger” and rack-rents in Ireland? Why have manufactures not aided the agricultural classes, as they have in the north of England?
  6. What were the “Bright clauses” of the Irish Land Act of 1870, and their results? Describe briefly the provisions of the Irish Land Act of 1881.
  7. In view of new legislation in favor of English tenants, it is stated by the journals that to-day the Irish stands on a better legal footing than the English tenant. If this is true, point out the different advantages by the former.
  8. Under the old régime in France it is clear not only that there were many peasant proprietors, but also that agriculture was not flourishing. What other economic forces were at work, and what causes would you assign as the ones unfavorable to agriculture?
  9. What were the facts as to the increase of population (1) under the old régime, and (2) after the extension of small holdings? What light does this throw on the Irish land question?
  10. Discuss the evils supposed to arise from the French law of equal partition of property among the heirs at the death of the owner.
  11. Describe briefly the reforms of Stein and Hardenberg in the land legislation of Germany. What parallel is drawn between this plan and the course followed by France?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 2. Bound volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Papers Set for Final Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1883), pp. 9-10.

Image Source:  Harvard Library, Hollis Images. James Laurence Laughlin (left) and Frank W. Taussig (right).

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Examinations for both political economy courses. Dunbar and Laughlin, 1881-1882

 

Course offerings in economics at Harvard were pretty meager at the start of the 1880s. Two instructors covered two courses in 1881-82. Professor Charles Dunbar was serving his last year as Dean which probably explains why a young Ph.D., J. L. Laughlin (Harvard PhD, 1876), was even needed to share the burden of teaching the large introductory course.

Note: the mid-year examinations appeared to have been missed during my last visit to the Harvard archives, so  I’ll need to try to fill that gap during a future visit.

______________________

Course Announcement

POLITICAL ECONOMY.
ELECTIVE COURSES.

1. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.—Financial Legislation of the United States.—Lectures. Three times a week. Professor Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin.

Course 1 may be taken twice a week, if notice to that effect is given in advаnсе.

2. Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy.—Giffen’s Essays in Finance.—Lectures. Three times a week. Professor Dunbar.

As a preparation for Course 2, it is necessary to have passed satisfactorily in Course 1 (three hours).

Source: Harvard University Catalogue, 1881-82, p. 84.

______________________

Course Enrollments

Political Econ. 1. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.— Lectures on Banking and the Financial Legislation of the United States (3 hours, 2 sections). Prof. Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin.

Total 147: 23 Seniors, 97 Juniors, 17 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 8 Others.

Political Econ. 2. Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy.— Giffen’s Essays in Finance.— Lectures and Theses. (3 hours, 1 section). Prof. Dunbar.

Total 32: 2 Graduates, 21 Seniors 9 Juniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1881-82, p. 5.

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Course Examination

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Year-end 1881-1882

(Omit one question from each group.)

I.

  1. What conclusion is reached by Mr. Mill respecting the objections to the use of labor-saving machinery?
  2. Are railway shares, stocks of wine, wheat, munitions of war, and land considered capital, or not?
  3. Explain fully why it is that capitalists cannot compensate themselves for a general high cost of labor through any action on values and prices.
  4. What determines the rate of interest on loanable funds? Is the “current [or ordinary] rate of interest the measure of the relative abundance or scarcity of capital”?

II.

  1. How is it that some agricultural capital pays rent, even if resort is not had to different grades of land?
  2. What connection exists between the rate of wages in any country and the productiveness of its soil?
  3. Explain what is meant by the tendency of profits to a minimum, and by the stationary state.
  4. In what cases would duties on imported commodities fall on the producers?

III.

  1. What are the reasons for the change in the normal values of manufactured and of agricultural commodities, respectively, during the progress of society?
  2. In trying to explain high prices (as at the present time), point out what other factor than quantity of money is to be taken into account. As a matter of fact, how does the importation of specie enter the channels of trade and affect prices?
  3. Why is it necessary to make any different statements of the laws of value for foreign than for domestic products? What is the law of international value?
  4. In what way are gold and silver distributed among the different trading countries? Between different parts of the same country?

IV.

  1. How did depreciation of the currency facilitate the sale of five-twenty bonds in 1863-64?
  2. What advantage did the government obtain by giving the five-twenty form to so many of its bonds?
  3. What provision was made in the original National Bank Act as to reserves to protect circulation and deposits, and what reserves are now required by law
  4. In what cases can payments be legally made in greenbacks and in national bank-notes respectively?

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1914, Box 2, Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Annual Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1882), pp. 7-8.

______________________

Course Examination

POLITICAL ECONOMY 2.
Year-end 1881-1882

In answering the questions do not change their order.

  1. What is the reason for Adam Smith’s proposition that “the price of corn, in the progress of society, reaches a maximum, beyond which it cannot advance”? Can you work out the same result by a different course of reasoning from that given by Cairnes?
  2. Explain the statement that “the high scale of industrial remuneration in America, instead of being evidence of a high cost of production in that country, is distinctly evidence of a low cost of production.”
  3. If the common saying that “the value of gold is the same all the world over” has no foundation, how does a supply of new gold distribute itself over all countries and over all commodities in each country?
  4. Malthus, Ricardo, Mill, Cairnes:—State their relation to each other in the development of economic science.
  5. How did the payment of the French indemnity to Germany affect the economic condition of Austria and of the United States?
  6. In a speech made in April, 1876, Senator Sherman says that, after the introduction of the gold standard by Germany in 1873 and the limitation of the coinage of silver by the Latin Union,—
    “A struggle for the possession of gold at once arose between all the great nations, because everybody could see that if $3,200,000,000 of silver coin were demonetized, and $3,500,000,000 of gold coin made the sole standard, it would enormously add to the value of gold, and the Bank of France, the Bank of England and the Imperial Bank of Germany at once commenced grasping for gold in whatever form. Therefore, what we have observed recently is not so much a fall of silver as it is a rise of gold, the inevitable effect of a fear of the demonetization of silver.”
    In what form would the process of “grasping for gold” manifest itself, and how do the facts bear out the above statement?
  7. To what extent is it, in the long run, a misfortune for England that her agriculture should be in part superceded by supplies of cheap food poured in from America?
  8. State your views as to the economic significance and probable permanence of the present excess of exports from the United States.
  9. How is the supposed accumulation of capital by England in the period from 1875 to 1881 to be reconciled.
    (1), with the great depression of business for most of the time;
    (2), with the remarkable excess of imports?
  10. Examine the reasoning of the following extract:—
    “About $11,000,000 is now spent in the United States annually for new ships, wooden and iron, and about $2,000,000 more for the repair of old ones….Under a policy of government encouragement, expenditures for iron and wooden ships would be increased at least to $40,000,000 a year….[and] the expenditures for American labor and supplies, in operating the ships, would be increased by $10,000,000 or $15,000,000, perhaps considerably more. That is to say, there would then be expended in the United States an immense sum of money not now expended, which might be as large as $40,000,000, which would diffuse itself throughout the community, and bless and quicken every department of human industry. Best of all, the money, thus spent, would be principally obtained from the foreigner. It would come from the earnings of the ships, which, in the export trade at least, are paid by consumers in foreign lands. In the import trade the money is paid by consumers here and is carried away from the country. The larger part of the money, therefore, would be a pure gain to the United States…These lines would save to the country at least one half of the $50,000,000 of freight money now paid on imported goods, and they would earn at least one half of the large sum paid by foreign nations on the goods exported from this country. Then, they would give encouragement to tens thousands more of American citizens on land and sea.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1914, Box 2, Bound Volume Examination Papers, 1881-83. Annual Examinations in Rhetoric, Philosophy, Political Economy, History, Roman Law, Fine Arts, and Music in Harvard College (June, 1882), pp. 8-9.

Image Source:  Harvard Library, Hollis Images. Charles F. Dunbar (left) and James Laurence Laughlin (right).

Categories
Exam Questions Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Doctoral exams taken by Helen Potter, 1942

 

The previous post introduced us to the life and professional career of Helen Potter, Vassar (AB, 1933) and Johns Hopkins (PhD, 1942). One is hard-pressed to explain the purpose of such (rather easy) exit exams administered six weeks before commencement. Perhaps as a crude way to document that the submitted dissertation was not merely bought and paid by someone with abolutely no knowledge of economics. Anyone have a clue?

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EXAMINATION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
(Economic Theory)

Miss Helen Potter
April 21, 1942

  1. Explain Keynes’ theory concerning the factors that determine the volume of employment.
  2. Discuss the origin and development of four concepts that are basic in modern economic thinking.
  3. What are some of the more important forms of an equation of exchange showing the relationship between money and prices? Explain the meaning of the various forms and discuss critically.
  4. Discuss briefly: backward sloping supply curves; kinked demand curves; pure competition; indifference curves; monopsony; the coefficient of acceleration; the widening and deepening of capital; Hayek’s concept of the lengthening of the period of production.
  5. Explain the fundamental economic theories involved in the working of an international gold standard, and show their application to the problem of reestablishing such a standard.
  6. Discuss equilibrium.
  7. Explain the main features of Schumpeter’s theory of business cycles.
  8. Discuss price under monopolistic competition.

_____________________

EXAMINATION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY
(Applied Economics)

Miss Helen Potter
April 22, 1942

  1. Is there any justification for price increases in a war economy? Explain the more important problems involved in any attempt to put into effect a program of price-fixing.
  2. From an economic point of view wherein is the corporation superior to other forms of business organization?
  3. Explain the problem of war financing. What factors need to be taken into consideration? Suggest a program that you think meets the requirements.
  4. How does trading on the equity by a bank differ from trading on the equity by a public utility? How is a bank to protect itself when trading on the equity?
  5. Explain the nature of the control over credit exercised by the Federal Reserve System. Contrast the relative importance of Federal Reserve policy and fiscal policy under the New Deal. Consider only the situation prior to the inauguration of the defense program.
  6. What is the role of probability in the formulation of scientific laws?
  7. Analyze the probable effect of a general increase in wages upon business activity during a period of depression.
  8. Define: an average; an index number; frequency distribution; a trend; seasonal variation; random sampling:
  9. Discuss the most important problems that would arise in connection with national planning.

 

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

Image Source: Gilman Hall, Johns Hopkins University from the 1924 yearbook Hullabaloo.

Categories
Economists Gender Home Economics Johns Hopkins Vassar

Johns Hopkins University. Economics Ph.D. Alumna, social economist/home economist, Helen Potter, 1942

 

Looking for examination artifacts to transcribe, I went through my files for the Johns Hopkins University Department of Political Economy and decided (arbitrarily) to sample from the 1941-42 academic year’s graduate examinations. The exams in the folder were tailored as exit exams for those candidates for the PhD  who had completed dissertations. The name of the PhD candidate for two of the exams (transcribed in the next post) was Helen Potter. I figured this was serendipity begging for an addition to the Meet-an-economics-PhD-alumna/us gallery. And so the hunt was on to find out what ever became of Helen Potter.

While I have not been able to double-check every academic claim listed in the materials included below, in particular confirmation of degrees from New York University and Purdue (perhaps honorary), the main stations of Helen Potter’s professional career can indeed be verified. One may presume her 1969 AEA biographical listing would have included an assistant professorship at Johns Hopkins, if she ever had one (It doesn’t! But her Lafayette obituary does.).

Helen Potter, a 1933 Vassar graduate, almost immediately became active in the newly founded Catholic Economists’ Association (later re-named Association for Social Economics) upon receiving her PhD from Johns Hopkins in 1942. Her service included decades of editorial work for the Association’s journal as well as the establishment of the Helen Potter award in 1975 which turns out to harvest most of the Google-hits found when conducting a search on her name. The Association for Social Economics can be fairly characterised as one of the older heterodox bins of economics. Ultimately Helen Potter was able to return home to Lafayette, Indiana for a professorship in Home Management and Family Economics at Purdue University.

Helen Potter’s papers at Purdue: included in the collection of her father’s (Andrey A. Potter) papers:   Personal Papers of Dr. Helen C. Potter, ca. 1920’s-1986

Fun-fact: Helen Potter’s parents were personal friends of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth of Cheaper by the Dozen fame. Frank Gilbreth, a scientific management guru, was a colleague of Helen’s father on the faculty at Purdue University.

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AEA Biographical Listing 1969

POTTER, Helen Catherine, academic; b. Manhattan, Kan., 1911; A.B., Vassar Coll., 1933; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins U., 1942. DOC. DIS. Federal Protection for the Consumer, an Economic Analysis, 1942; History of Life Insurance Companies in the U.S., 1934 [published in volume 8 of the Vassar Journal of Undergraduate Studies].  FIELDS 10b, 4a, 6b. PUB. “Consumption,” Chapt. 27, Modern Econs., 1952; Money Management and Mental Health, Jour. of Psychiatric Therapy, 1969; Guidelines for Consumer Education-one of authors of this curriculum guide line for high schools of Illinois, 1969. RES. Evaluation of Consumer Education Today—Purdue Grant from U.S. Office of Ed.; Family Financial Management—Grant Purdue Experiment Station. Asso. prof. econs., Seton Hill Coll., 1943-51; asso. specialist family econs., U. Calif., Davis, 1951-53; asso. prof. fin., Loyola U., 1953-68; prof. family econs., Purdue U. since 1968. ADDRESS 517 Russell St., W. Lafayette, IN 47906.

Source: Biographical Listings of Members, The American Economic Review, Vol. 59, No. 6, 1969 Handbook of the American Economic Association (Jan., 1970), p. 349.

___________________________

PURDUE STUDENT KILLED IN WRECK NEAR LAFAYETTE
(September 1933)

Raymond H. Hilb, 21, of Chicago, a Senior in the mechanical engineering school at Purdue, was instantly killed, and Miss Helen Potter, 18, student at the Lafayette Business College was severely injured last Friday night on the new Delphi-Lafayette paved road, 25, when an automobile in which they were riding with two other persons, was struck by another car driven by George Weckerly, of Delphi, and occupied by Glen Clark, 16-year-old high school student, and Misses Dorothy Gerbens and Mildred Bowman, Delphi high school students. According to Clark’s version of the accident the car in which Hilb was riding drove onto the highway from the Black and White filling station and barbecue, where the car had been filled with gasoline. It was hit in the rear by the car driven by Weckerly. The collision came with terrific force and Hilb was thrown to the pavement, suffering a fractured skull. In the car with Hilb and Miss Potter were Bernard Amber of Gary, and Miss Mary Mitchell, of Lafayette. Hilb was manager of the Purdue University base ball team and was very popular on the college campus.

Source: Flora Hoosier Democrat of Flora, Indiana (September 23, 1933).

___________________________

Work for the National Catholic Community Service
(& Consumers League of NY, BLS, Wells College, Western College)

“Miss Helen Potter, West Lafayette, Ind., has recently taken up her duties as Resource Secretary for the Division.” [Women’s Division of the National Catholic Community Service]…”Miss Potter has served as field worker for the Consumers League of New York, Social Economist in the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Instructor of Economics at Wells College Aurora, N.Y., and Western College, Oxford, O.”

Source: Catholic News Service, Newsfeeds, 30 June 1941.

___________________________

Ph.D. 1942, Johns Hopkins University

Helen Potter of the District of Columbia, A.B. Vassar College, 1933.

Political Economy. Thesis: “Federal protection for the consumer: an economic analysis”.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Commencement. June 2, 1942.

___________________________

Miss Potter Joins Purdue Faculty as Prof
(Feb. 21, 1968)

Miss Helen C. Potter has been appointed professor in the Department of Home Management and Family Economics at Purdue university effective Sept. 1.

Miss Potter, a native of Kansas, grew up in West Lafayette where her parents, Dean Emeritus and Mrs. A. A. Potter, still reside. She received her AB degree at Vassar College and her PhD degree from Johns Hopkins University in Political Economy.

She is professor in the Department of Finance at Loyola University in Chicago. Prior to her appointment to Loyola, Miss Potter taught at the University of California at Davis; Seton Hill College in Pennsylvania; Western College in Ohio, and Wells College in New York.

She has been an associate economist in the Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics in the U.S. Department of Agriculture. She also has been associated with the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the U.S. Department of Labor.

[…]

Source:   Journal and Courier of Lafayette, Indiana (Feb. 21, 1968), p. 26.

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Prof. Helen Potter Comes Home to Teach
(Dec. 4, 1968)

[…]

Prof. Potter grew up in West Lafayette where her father — Dean Emeritus A. A. Potter — still resides. She received her AB degree at Vassar and her PhD from Johns Hopkins University in political economy.

Presently, she is a professor in the Department of Home Management and Family Economics at Purdue, but the road home for her was a long one by way of New York, California and Washington, not to mention a great portion of the Midwest where she taught or consulted in the exciting and complex world of finance.

Her professional experience includes many years as a professor of economics, at several American universities including Loyola of Chicago. In addition she has had government posts with the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Labor.

What’s a professor of finance doing in Purdue’s School of Home Economics? “It’s simple,” explains Miss Potter. “Consumer economics and the relations between business and customer are extremely important parts of our curricula.”

At the core of this education it is the individual who looks at himself to see what he wants out of life and how he can most effectively attain it. “It teaches the consumer how to make decisions for using limited resources to satisfy unlimited wants,” says the fragile looking professor who’s spent the last 15 years teaching male executives from some of the largest businesses about their dependence on society and their reciprocal responsibilities.

Equally important to Miss Potter is teaching the consumer how to use his time, energy and money to obtain a better life. “While showing him the relevance of economic principles to personal economic competence, it gives him the basic understanding which is a requisite for citizenship,” she added.

[…]

In addition to her teaching, Prof. Potter is involved in the research assignment of cataloging present consumer education in this country — a gigantic task. For her, it is tremendously exciting. “You might even say it’s a hobby,” she muses, “for all my life I’ve collected materials in consumer education.”

Looking thoroughly relaxed, surrounded by hundreds of volumes on property insurance, statistical methods and investments, the animated professor speaks warmly about her homecoming. “I’ve found life here very exciting both in the community and at the university. The inter-disciplinary activity among the schools is splendid, and I find my students to be the best I’ve ever had.”

Having taught men for so many years, Miss Potter had the notion that women would be less interested in the subject matter and that they would be weighted down with insurmountable family problems, since all are graduate students some returnees with growing children and much family responsibility. Instead, she finds them hardworking, studious and dedicated.

[…]

Source: Journal and Courier of Lafayette, Indiana (Dec. 4, 1968), p. 12.

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Helen C. Potter, 75, retired Purdue professor
Obituary (October 23, 1986)

Helen C. Potter, 75, a, retired professor of home management and family economics at Purdue University, died at 9:46 a.m. Tuesday in St. Elizabeth Hospital, where she had been a patient one week. Miss Potter, 814 S. 14th St., was the daughter of the late Professor A.A. and Eva Burtner Potter. He was a former dean of engineering at Purdue. The new engineering building was named in his honor.

Miss Potter was born March 18, 1911, in Manhattan, Kan. She received degrees from Vassar College, Johns Hopkins University, New York University and Purdue. She graduated from West Lafayette High School in 1928.

She taught and lectured at the University of California, Davis, was an associate professor and chairman of -the department of economics at Seton Hill College in Greensburg, Pa., was assistant professor at St. Francis College in Lafayette, was an instructor and chairman of the department of economics at Western College in Oxford, Ohio, was an assistant professor in the Department of political economy at Johns Hopkins University.

She also was an assistant at the College of Notre Dame in Baltimore, taught at Wells College in Aurora, N.Y., and was an associate professor in the Department of Finance at Loyola University.

Besides her teaching responsibilities, Miss Potter spent one year at the Library of Congress doing research on economics, worked for the Better Business Bureau in Pittsburgh, Pa., was an associate economist of human nutrition and home economics for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C., was a statistician and director of personnel for the National Catholic Community Service, and was a junior social economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor.

She organized and served as chairman of the Tippecanoe Consumers Council, worked with the League of Women Voters, National Council of Catholic Women, the American Association of University Women, and was active in the National Association for Social Economics.

Miss Potter was a member of St. Boniface Catholic Church, Mary L. Mathews Home Economics Club and the Parlor Club. She also served as deanery president of the National Council of Catholic Women in the Lafayette Diocese.

Surviving is a brother, James G. Potter of Indialantic, Fla.

Source: Journal Courier of Lafayette, Indiana (October 23, 1986), p. 22.

___________________________

A Memorial Tribute from the Association for Social Economics

Member of the first (May 1948) board of editors of the journal Review of Social Economy, associate editor up to her death October 21, 1986. Also an official portrait Helen C. Potter in included with the brief note.

Source: “IN MEMORIAM.” Review of Social Economy 45, no. 3 (1987).

___________________________

Helen C. Potter Scholarship, Johns Hopkins University

This scholarship is awarded to students in the field of political economy.

________________________

Helen Potter Award of the the Association for Social Economics

The Helen Potter Award was created and endowed in 1975. It is presented each year to the author of the best article in the Review of Social Economy by a promising scholar of social economics. Award recipients receive a plaque and a $500 prize.

Recent recipients:

2019 Céline Bonnefond & Fatma Mabrouk
2018 C. W. M. Naastepad & Jesse M. Mulder
2017 Michael J. Roy & Michelle T. Hackett
2016 Caroline Shenaz Hossein
2015 Karen Evelyn Hauge
2014 Peter-Wim Zuidhof
2013 Ayman Reda
2012 Pavlina Tcherneva
2011 Adel Daoud
2010 Aurelie Charles
2009 Huascar F. Pessali
2008 Sebastian Berger
2007 Nuno Martins
2006 Mark Hayes
2005 Benedetta Giovanola
2004 Ellen Mutari
2003 Geoffrey E. Schneider
2002 Stephen T. Ziliak
2001 Wilfred Dolfsma
2000 John E. Murray

Source: The Association for Social Economics website.

 

Image Source:  Portrait of Helen C. Potter, A.B., Instructor of Social Science.  Western College for Women (Oxford, Ohio) Yearbook, Multifaria 1941.

Categories
Bibliography Gender Socialism Sociology

New Bibliographic Resource. Links to the Swan Sonnenschein Social Science Series, 1884-1912

 

 

The Social Science series of the London publisher Swan and Sonnenschein comprised 120 books back at the turn of the 20th century. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror now has a page with links to 116 of the titles! 

Categories
Cambridge Chicago Economists LGBTQ Northwestern

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, “gay godfather” and mentor. Roger Weiss, 1955

Milton Friedman wrote a recommendation for two University of Chicago economics graduate students to receive fellowships from the Earhart Foundation in 1953. Friedman’s letter was transcribed for the previous post that focussed on Gary Becker, who was the unambiguous first choice in Friedman’s eyes. In addition to adding to our stock of economics Ph.D. alumna/us stories, Economics in the Rear-View Mirror introduces the LGBTQ label here with Friedman’s second candidate for an Earhart Foundation fellowship, Roger William Weiss (Chicago, Ph.D., 1955). 

_____________________

Roger William Weiss. (1930-1991) Dissertation “Exchange Control in Britain, 1939-1952”, Ph.D. awarded Winter Quarter 1955.

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AEA Profile from 1969

WEISS, Roger William, academic; b. Bronxville, N.Y., 1930 stud., Northwestern U., 1946-48; M.A., U. Chicago, 1951, Ph.D. 1955; stud., Cambridge U., Eng., 1951-52. COC.DIS. “The British Exchange Controls, 1939-52,” 1954. PUB. “Economic Nationalism in Britain in the Nineteenth Century” (H.G. Johnson, Ed.), Econ. Nationalism in Old and New States, 1967; The Economic System, 1969; “The Case for Federal Meat Inspection Examined,” Jour. Of Law and Econs., Oct. 1964. RES. American Colonial Monetary System. Asst. prof., Vanderbilt U., 1953-57; pres., N. Weiss & Co., Inc., 1957-63; asso. Prof., U. Chicago since 1966. ADDRESS 1415 E. 54th St., Chicago, IL 60615.

Source: The American Economic Review, Vol. 59, No. 6, 1969 Handbook of the American Economic Association (Jan., 1970), p. 467.

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U. of Chicago obit for Roger W. Weiss

Roger Weiss, AM’51, PhD’55, professor in the social sciences since 1963, died March 7. His specialty was the role of economics in the arts and the international trade of art works. His books included The Economic System and The Weissburgs: A Social History, a history of his own family. He was also a member of the governing board of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Survivors include his mother, Irene, and a brother, John.

Source: University of Chicago Magazine, Vol. 83, No. 5, June 1991, p. 44.

_____________________

Roger Weiss and his partner, Howard Brown, in the University of Chicago gay community

Roger Weiss AM 1951, PhD 1955. Professor in the College and division of social sciences. Partner Howard Mayer Brown (1930-1993), Ferdinand Schevill distinguished service professor of music.

Professors Howard Brown and Roger Weiss were “out” by many standards. The University agreed to a “spousal hire” for the couple in the 1960s, and the two hosted parties for gay students and faculty in their home until Roger’s death in 1991, and Howard’s death in 1993. Bob Devendorf (AB 1985, AM 2004) remembered Howard and Roger as “gay godfathers” and mentors, while John DelPeschio (AB 1972) treasured the intergenerational community they fostered: “I felt as if I were entering a more adult world.”

However, Brown and Weiss’ refusal to participate in political actions and “come out” in the broader public sphere sometimes frustrated younger gay men like Wayne Scott (AB 1986, AM 1989), as he describes in this article. Jim McDaniel (AB 1968) remembers Howard saying “I don’t really care what anybody knows, I just care what I have to admit.”

Source: Closeted/OUT in the Quadrangles. A History of LGBTQ Life at the University of Chicago

 

Image Source: Senior year picture of Roger W. Weiss from the 1946 Hyde Park High School Yearbook, The Aitchpe.

 

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Friedman recommends Becker and Weiss for Earhart Fellowships, 1953

 

The following letter of recommendation by Milton Friedman provides us a glimpse of the young Gary Becker. It is also interesting to observe the language used to describe potential superstardom as opposed to more conventional stardom in economics. The next post will provide career information for the “other candidate”, Roger Weiss.

______________________

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Chicago 37, Illinois
Department of Economics

January 27, 1953

Mr. James A. Kennedy
Earhart Foundation
First National Bank Building
Ann Arbor, Michigan

IN RE: BECKER, Gary S.

Dear Mr. Kennedy:

I am writing at the suggestion of Professors William Paton [University of Michigan] and John Van Sickle [Wabash College] to propose two young men for Earhart fellowships in economics: Gary Becker and Roger Weiss.

Gary Becker is a young man who received his A.B. from Princeton. He was recommended to us by his Princeton teachers for a departmental fellowship in terms that we found hard to take really seriously—the best person that we have had in the last ten years; the best student that I have ever had, and the like. After observing him closely for the past year and a half, I am inclined to use similar superlatives: there is no other student that I have known in my six years at Chicago who seems to me as good as Becker or as likely to become an important and outstanding economist. Though only twenty two years old now, Becker has already published one paper in the American Economic Review[*] and has collaborated with one of his teachers at Princeton in a paper published in Economica.[**] Both are first rate papers. Becker needs to do one more full year of graduate work to fulfill his requirements for his Ph.D. Our department has granted him a fellowship in the past and will again; in addition I believe he is applying for a Social Science Research Fellowship. I have asked him to summarize briefly his plans for next year, and enclose his brief statement. [not in this Hoover file]

Becker has a brilliant, analytical mind; great originality; knowledge of the history of economic thought and respect for its importance; a real feeling for the interrelationships between economic and political issues; and a profound understanding of both the operation of a price system and its importance as a protection of individual liberty. This is one of those cases in which there is just no question at all about Becker’s being preeminently qualified for one of your fellowships. I wish I could look forward to being able to find a candidate this good every year, but that is asking for too much.

Roger Weiss, the other candidate I would like to propose, is also an extremely able young man—he is not in Becker’s class, but that is a measure of Becker’s extraordinary qualities, not a reflection of Weiss. He is of the quality of the very top group of our graduate students.—the best half-dozen or so each year out of our 125 to 175 graduate students. He did some of his undergraduate work here; spent last year at Cambridge, England on a fellowship, and returned here this year for further graduate work. Another year should see him with his Ph.D. He has just turned twenty three.

Weiss has been working on a topic that he got interested in in England, namely, the operation of British Exchange controls in the post-war period. He came to the conclusion that their effectiveness was greatly overrated and their adverse effects on the efficiency of British industry greatly underrated. He is trying to see how far a more detailed study will support these judgments and permit them to be spelled out.

Weiss has an excellent mind and a thorough knowledge of price theory and monetary theory. His major interest is in problems connected with money and international trade. He is hardworking, conscientious, and productive. Perhaps his strongest quality is his ability to organize material well and to present it both in writing and speech lucidly and with some distinction. I expect Weiss to become a productive scholar and to have a most desirable influence through his writings on public policy. I have asked him, too, to prepare a brief statement of his plans, which I enclose. [not in this Hoover file]

I may say that I have checked these recommendations with my colleagues H. Gregg Lewis and Frank H. Knight, who concur in them.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Milton Friedman

MF-FF

[Handwritten:] P.S. This letter was written just prior to receiving yours of the 23rd. Both men do of course plan to go into University teaching.

[* “…taken from a larger essay originally submitted as a senior thesis in the department of economics and social institutions of Princeton University.” A Note on Multi-Country Trade. The American Economic Review, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Sep., 1952), pp. 558-568.]

[** The Classical Monetary Theory: The Outcome of the Discussion (with William J. Baumol). Economica, New Series, Vol. 19, No. 76 (Nov., 1952), pp. 355-376.]

Source:  Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 194, Folder “Earhart Foundation…”.

Image Source:  Becker-Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago. Webpage “About Our Legacy”.