Category: Chicago

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Chicago Exam Questions Microeconomics

Chicago. Preliminary Graduate Examination in Economic Theory. Winter Quarter, 1963

 

A necessary condition for becoming a certified Chicago economist is to have cleared the hurdle of the prelim exam for price theory. With this post we fill in a gap in our fine collection of price theory prelims that has now grown to a baker’s dozen (i.e. 13).

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Chicago Price Theory
Preliminary/Core Exams
Previously Posted

Summer 1949
Summer 1951
Summer 1952
Winter 1955
Summer 1955
Winter 1957
Winter 1958
Summer 1960
Winter 1964
Winter 1965
Winter 1969
Summer 1975

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CORE EXAMINATION
Price Theory
Winter 1963

Preliminary Examination for the Ph. D. and A.M. Degrees

WRITE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON YOUR EXAMINATION PAPER:

Your Code Number and NOT your name
Name of Examination
Date of Examination

Results of the examination will be sent to you by letter.

Answer all questions.

Time 3 hours.

  1. (60 points) Indicate whether you believe each of the following statements to be true, false, or uncertain. In each case write a few sentences explaining your answer. Your grade will depend heavily on your explanation.
    1. If the rate of obsolescence is constant over time for each type of capital equipment, a rise in the rate of interest will shorten the optimal life of capital equipment.
    2. If oranges are substitutes for apples, apples are complementary to cheese, and cheese is a substitute for butter, oranges and butter are complements.
    3. If a certain commodity is rationed and subject to price control, and there is a black market price for it, the black market price is the equilibrium price of the commodity in the absence of price control.
    4. Let Σipi1xi1 and Σipi2xi2 be the expenditure of a firm on factors of production per unit of output at two points in time. If Σipi1xi2 > Σipi1xi1 and Σipi2xi1 < Σipi2xi2, the production function of the firm has changed between the two points of time.
    5. A company cannot have a monopoly if its shareholders receive only the normal rate of earnings on their stock in it.
    6. If the production function of an Industry is subject to constant returns to scale, the industry supply curve will be horizontal.
    7. If it were possible to travel backwards as well as forwards in time, everyone would be a millionaire.
    8. The development of better fertilizer will increase the value of farm land.
    9. Manufacturers frequently advertise that their products contain extra ingredients, and they generally succeed in selling “extra-ingredient” products (e.g. Bufferin) at higher prices than “similar” single-ingredient products (e.g. aspirin). This implies that consumers have a diminishing marginal rate of substitution between the ingredients.
    10. The removal of a barrier to competition anywhere in the economy must make society better off.
    11. Given:
        1. a three-product world,
        2. the cross-elasticity of demand of x with respect to the price of z is zero,
        3. the own-price elasticity of demand for x is -1,
        4. y and z are substitutes,
        5. expenditures on X occupy half of consumers’ budgets, expenditures on Y one quarter of consumers’ budgets in the initial situation,

it follows that the own-price elasticity of demand for y is greater than 1.5 in absolute value. (For this question consider all price-elasticities defined to include the substitution effect only.)

      1. The price-elasticity of demand on the part of a competitive industry for a factor of production will be greater, the smaller is the share of that factor of production in the total costs of the industry in question.
      2. If production in industry X (assumed to be competitive) is governed by a Cobb-Douglas production function, then no wage set by the trade union in that industry will produce greater total labor income than any other wage.
      3. A tax of a fixed amount per unit of output, placed upon the product of an industry with constant costs, will necessarily result in a smaller rise in price if that industry is organized (and behaves) as a monopoly than if the industry is competitive.
      4. In an industry employing just two factors of production, the elasticity of demand on the part of that industry for either factor must be less in absolute value than the elasticity of substitution between the two factors in that industry.
  1. (15 points) The University City Art Theater, a motion picture house showing foreign films, has the following price policies: The basic admission price is $1.00 for evening performances and 60 cents in the afternoon. Registered university students are admitted at half price at all times. A member of the University’s economics department has complained that the theater is a discriminating monopolist and should be required by local ordinance to follow a one-price policy. Comment on the desirability of this recommendation.
  2. (25 points)
    1. Industry X is composed of 10 firms, and organized as a cartel. The pricing policy of the cartel is determined by the following rule: each firm will produce one-tenth of the output of the whole industry, and the price set for the final product will be just equal to the marginal cost of production in the firm with the highest marginal cost. Show how you would measure the welfare cost of this arrangement, as compared with a competitive equilibrium.
    2. The firms now merge into a single monopoly firm, the previous 10 firms now becoming 10 divisions of the new company. All ten divisions continue to operate and have the same marginal cost functions as they did when operating separately. Show how you would measure the welfare costs of this new arrangement. Under what circumstances, if any, would these welfare costs be lower than those of case A?
    3. The government now intervenes to break up the monopoly. The same 10 firms as existed in case A are reconstituted; collusion is somehow prevented; and merger is precluded by a requirement that no firm shall expand the total volume of its capital. Assume that the firms begin operating under this new arrangement with each of them having the amount of capital resulting from a long-run equilibrium under case B, and that the firms behave competitively. How would you measure the welfare costs of this arrangement? Under what circumstances, if any, would these welfare costs exceed those measured under case B?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches. Box 129, Folder “Preliminary Examinations, 1957-1965.”

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions Microeconomics

Chicago. Preliminary Graduate Examination in Economic Theory. Winter Quarter, 1958

The collection of price theory prelim exams from Chicago here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has just grown by another exam. What is particularly noteworthy about the copy that I have just transcribed is that it appears to have been recycled as a problem set sometime later by Zvi Griliches when he taught the second quarter of Chicago price theory, Economics 300b.

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Chicago Price Theory
Preliminary/Core Exams
Previously Posted

Summer 1949
Summer 1951
Summer 1952
Winter 1955
Summer 1955
Winter 1957
Summer 1960
Winter 1964
Winter 1965
Winter 1969
Summer 1975

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Note in pencil at top of page:

30 copies, Griliches Weds. 
300B Griliches Feb. 
take home problems

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ECONOMIC THEORY
Preliminary Examination
for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees
Winter Quarter 1958

WRITE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON YOUR EXAMINATION PAPER:

Your Code Number and NOT your name
Name of Examination
Date of Examination

Results of the examination will be sent to you by letter after results on all preliminary examinations have been received.

Answer all questions. Time: Four hours.

Total Points: 240 (Equals number of minutes allowed for the examination.)

  1. (60 points) Develop the major aspects of the theory of a competitive firm, and compare it with the theory of consumer behavior. What are the similarities and the differences between the two theories and the concepts used in each?
  2. (50 points) Analyze briefly each of the following propositions: Marginal productivity analysis…
    1. proves that the existing distribution of income is ethically just;
    2. provides a basis for understanding the demand for factors of production;
    3. is a complete theory of the determination of the prices of production;
    4. provides a basis for understanding the supply of factors of production;
    5. does not apply in the case of fixed proportions.
  3. (50 points) Indicate briefly the meaning of each of the following phrases, identify the economist (or economists) associated with each, and state some of his major contributions to economics:
    1. Engel’s Law
    2. Say’s Law
    3. Iron Law of Wages
    4. Schumpeterian innovators
    5. Conspicuous consumption
    6. Contract curve
    7. Elasticity of demand
  4. (40 points) In calculating whether the government ought to undertake certain investment projects, a rate of interest is frequently used. How in principle would you determine what rate of interest is appropriate?
  5. (40 points) It is argued in connection with the development of underdeveloped countries that basic industries such as steel should be developed by the government, since private investors will neglect the external economies brought to other industries by low-cost steel, and therefore will underinvest. Evaluate this argument. For what general class or classes of cases is the argument correct?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches. Box 130. Folder “Preliminary Examinations, 1957-1965”.

Image Source: Social Science Research Building. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07490, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions Microeconomics

Chicago. Price Theory Core Examination. Winter 1965

Another specimen of the Chicago price theory exam featuring True/False/Uncertain questions. This copy found in the Zvi Griliches’ papers in the Harvard Archives.

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Chicago Price Theory
Preliminary/Core Exams
Previously Posted

Summer 1949
Summer 1951
Summer 1952
Winter 1955
Summer 1955
Winter 1957
Summer 1960
Winter 1964
Winter 1969
Summer 1975

____________________

CORE EXAMINATION
Price Theory
Winter, 1965

Preliminary Examination for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees

WRITE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION ON YOUR EXAMINATION PAPER:

Your Code Number and NOT your name
Name of Examination
Date of Examination

Results of the examination will be sent to you by letter.

Answer all questions. Time: 3 hours

  1. Indicate whether you believe each of the following statements to be true, false, or uncertain. In each case write a few sentences explaining your answer. Your grade will depend heavily on your explanation.
    1. A monopolist can always get more revenue from a consumer by a fixed sum plus price-per-unit system of charging than by the price-per-unit alone.
    2. A flat sum tax on the firms in an industry will never have an effect upon output in the short-run.
    3. If a demand curve is defined as the relationship between price and quantity of X, the real income and the prices and quantities of other goods held constant, it will have an elasticity of -1.
    4. If a cartel assigns quotas to its member firms on the basis of their “capacity” there will be more than the profit-maximizing amount of investment in the industry.
    5. If all commodities had positive income elasticities, there would be no merit in the present distinction between substitution and income effects.
    6. The elasticity of demand for X with respect to the price of Y never equals the elasticity of demand of Y with respect to the price of X.
    7. The short-run price elasticity of the supply of beef can be negative.
    8. The assumptions of competition, constant returns to scale, and equilibrium are inconsistent.
    9. A competitive firm will increase its output as a result of a fall in the price of one of its inputs.
    10. The own-price elasticity of demand for a commodity is no smaller, in absolute value, than the marginal propensity to consume that commodity.
    11. “The price paid for water is no indication of its true value in use because the water makes the production of additional wealth possible. Thus a farmer may pay his irrigation district $8.00 for water per acre of land, but the value of the crops grown might be in the neighborhood of $100 per acre.”
    12. “A central planning authority may or may not decide to weight equally the welfare of the future generation and the welfare of the present generation. This is essentially an ethical question. But if equal weights are to be applied, the appropriate rate of discount (interest) to use in comparing the costs and benefits from alternative public investments is a zero rate.”
    13. In equilibrium, a competitive firm has all the business (sales) it wants. Hence advertising is incompatible with either competition or equilibrium.
    14. The fact that a consumer, in equilibrium, is not consuming all of the possible commodities, implies that he gets increasing marginal utilities from the commodities that he does consume.
    15. A tax on American citizens who go abroad will reduce tourist expenditures and hence improve the U.S. balance of payments only if the demand for foreign trips is elastic.
  1. “Exploration for natural gas or oil is a form of investment. As such, like all investments, it depends on the expected level of future output (demand). Thus, a rise in the governmentally fixed (regulated) price of natural gas will decrease consumption and hence curb exploration. Conversely, lowering the price of gas will stimulate both consumption and exploration.” Appraise.
  2. Assume the following simple world, in which you are asked to determine the optimum rate of automobile accidents.
    1. The only type of accident which occurs is that a car may run into a house. The damage is then always $200.
    2. The probability of an accident will be greater,
      1. …the faster automobiles are driven
      2. …the closer houses are set to the highway.

Assume explicitly any additional information you need to define the socially optimum accident rate. What mechanism, if any, could you design to achieve it?

  1. The competitive private enterprise form of economic organization is regarded by some economists as a sort of ideal which it would be desirable to approximate in practice.
    1. On a purely theoretical level, use the tools of economic analysis to explain to a skeptic precisely in what way(s) and why the competitive private enterprise form is optimal.
State whatever assumptions and define whatever terms you require, and state explicitly the criteria of excellence that you are using.
    2. Are there any conditions under which the competitive organization form may fail to produce the results promised above?
    3. What other important economic problems of a modern state, if any, may still be unsolved despite the fact that perfect competition has been achieved? Explain in each case why the problem is important and why perfect competition does not solve it, or explain why there are no unsolved problems.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches. Box 129. Folder “Preliminary Examinations, 1957-1965”.

Categories
Chicago Cowles Economist Market Economists Stanford

Cowles Commission. Arrow declines offer for joint appointment of research director and professor of economics. 1953

 

Tjallings Koopmans declared his intention to resign his research directorship of the Cowles Commission for Economic Research at the University of Chicago effective June 30, 1954, having served in that position for six years. This necessitated a search for an economist who could satisfy the needs of both the Cowles Commission and the Chicago Department of Economics. Kenneth Arrow, a Cowles alumnus so-to-speak, was the first target of the search. In this post you will find transcriptions of some of the relevant correspondence in the matter. Arrow was offered a salary of $12,000 (approximately $140,000 at today’s prices) which was equal to that of Koopmans and $1000 less than that of the more senior Jacob Marschak.

For a history of the Cowles Commission and Foundation for Research in Economics, see Robert W. Dimand’s Cowles Working Paper (November 2019).

Plot-spoiler: Arrow declined the offer, “The activity of administration represents for me, I feel, a violation of the principle of comparative advantage, especially if one takes account of my strong subjective preferences,” to which Economics in the Rear-view Mirror can only add, “Good Choice!”

Postscript: Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has appended the September 30 announcement of Arrow’s being appointed executive head of the Stanford economics department. OK, so the comparative advantage argument could have played a role in his Chicago decision, assuming he believed a move would have increased the productivity of both the Stanford and Chicago faculties! Now I’ll  bet that having experienced winters in Chicago and Stanford, the family simply decided to stay in California.

Posted earlier: a mini c.v. for Arrow as of 1951.

________________________

COWLES COMMISSION
FOR RESEARCH IN ECONOMICS

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHICAGO 37, ILLINOIS

July 21, 1953

Professor T. W. Schultz
c/o Hotel Maury
Casilla Correo 1385
Lima, Peru

Dear Mr. Schultz:

                  The Central Administration and the Board of Trustees have now approved our recommendation with respect to Arrow. Please find enclosed a copy of my letter to Arrow. I presume that Dean Tyler will send you a copy of his letter. May I ask you, if you can find time, to write to Arrow to support this offer, and to indicate the participation the Economics Department? In case you have secretarial assistance, may we have a carbon of your letter?

                  It may be winter in South America just now, but here it is mid-summer, with all that that means. Hoping that you find your trip interesting and profitable,

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Tjalling C. Koopmans

TCK:lb

Enclosure

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

[COPY]

July 21, 1953

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow
c/o The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, California

Dear Ken:

                  In this letter, which will reach you simultaneously with a letter from Dean Tyler, I am writing to express the gratification of the Cowles Commission research staff in general, and of myself in particular, at the action of the University and of the Executive Committee of the Commission, in extending to you an invitation to join our staff as Director of Research. The Executive Committee has acted on the unanimous recommendation of our faculty, which reflects our great confidence in you as an intellectual leader. We believe that, above all others in the field, you are the person capable of giving the Commission the research leadership it needs during the years just ahead. Needless to say, we hope that you will decide to accept.

                  I well remember your statement this April that you wished not to be considered for a position which like this one has administrative aspects. As illustration you mentioned that you did not wish to become chairman of your department at Stanford either.  The fact that you are now taking another view of the latter task gives us the courage to ask you to reconsider your attitude toward the former. The administrative aspects of this position are adjustable in terms of your own preferences. I think you will find Ross Cardwell capable of discharging those administrative functions which you may wish to avoid. He brings to this a real understanding and sympathy for the objectives of the group.

                  Mr. Schultz will write to you concerning the participation of the Economics Department in this offer. Since he is currently in South America, some time will go by before his letter can reach you. Let me say only that the Department is likewise unanimous in its support for a joint offer, and hopes that you will regard participation in its teaching and other activities an compatible with your primary responsibility with regard to the Commission. A tentative ratio, two-thirds Commission, one-third Department, is proposed for your consideration.

                  I am writing to Jascha [Jacob Marschak], who is currently at the Institute for Numerical Analysis, to inform him that this offer has now been approved. Please feel free to discuss the matter with him and to regard him as an additional source of information. We also hope that you will find it possible to visit Chicago some time in September so that you may inform yourself fully with regard to the opportunities and challenge of this position. The best timing of this visit depends somewhat on Mr. Schultz’ plans, on which I am not fully informed.

                  In conclusion, I want you to know that I look forward with great anticipation to the prospect of a reintensified contact with you, both in research and in a personal way. We all hope that our proposal is challenging enough to you to earn your serious consideration and, ultimately, your acceptance.

                  Please give our best regards to Selma. We hope that she will look with sympathy on our trying to get you both back to Chicago.

Cordially yours,

Tjalling C. Koopmans

cc: Executive Committee (A. Cowles, R. L Cardwell, T. W. Schultz, R. W. Tyler)
J. Marschak

________________________

COPY

The University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois
The Division of the Social Sciences

Office of the Dean

July 21, 1953

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow co The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, California

Dear Mr. Arrow:

                  I take great pleasure in inviting you to become Professor of Economics of the University of Chicago and Director of Research in the Cowles Commission. This is a regular tenure position as a full professor at a salary of $12,000 per year effective for 1954-55, on a 4-E contract. As you may have heard, the provisions of the 4-E contract have recently been liberalized so that the faculty member retains his earnings from royalties, from occasional lectures, and other occasional short-term assignments.

                  The interest in your appointment is indicated by the fact that you were the unanimous selection of the Executive Committee of the Cowles Commission, as well as the research staff of the Commission and the faculty of the department of economics. We are all anxious to have you join us and feel sure that we can provide you with excellent conditions for making an important intellectual contribution. We hope that you will come to Chicago at our expense sometime in September to look into the situation as fully as you wish and to work out conditions that are satisfactory, including the time when you would be able to join our staff.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]
R. W. Tyler
Dean

RWT:rk

________________________

[COPY]

August 24, 1953

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow
c/o The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, California

Dear Mr. Arrow:

                  I have returned from my field work in Peru and Mexico and learned with great pleasure from Dean Tyler and Professor Koopmans that the Chancellor has approved our recommendation to invite you to come to the University of Chicago as Professor of Economics and Director of Research in the Cowles Commission. Dean Tyler has already formally extended to you this invitation and Professor Koopmans has written to you at some length. May I convey to you the fact that this invitation is rare in that it is the unanimous view and wish of the members of the Department of Economics. This expresses in the strongest possible terms our own very high regard for your professional achievements as an economist and our firm wish to have you become one of us.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]
Theodore W. Schultz

TWS:jw

________________________

[COPY]

September 11, 1953

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow
c/o The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica California

Dear Ken:

                  This is further to my handwritten letter of about a month ago, in which I indicated that I would write again upon returning to Chicago. Let me again express the hope that you may be able to visit us at a time convenient to you. I continue to believe that this is the most effective procedure for you to obtain clarification on points such as those ou have raised in conversation with Jascha. However, in case you should prefer to seek clarification by correspondence, may I suggest that you write to Dean Tyler if you have questions relating to the Cowles Commission (with a carbon copy to me) and to Mr. Schultz for questions relating to the Department.

                  We had an interesting and fruitful meeting at Kingston, in which high temperature and a light program contributed to a relaxed atmosphere.

                  Looking forward to hearing from you.

Cordially,
[unsigned copy]
Tjalling C. Koopmans

TOK:lb

Cc: J. Marschak, T.W. Schultz, R.W. Tyler

________________________

The RAND Corporation
1700 Main St. • Santa Monica • California

15 September 1953

Professor Theodore W. Schultz
Department of Economics
The University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Professor Schultz:

Thank you very much for your letter of August 24. I am indeed thrilled by the evidence of approbation by my former colleagues at the University of Chicago.

However, for reasons set forth in the enclosed letter to Dean Tyler, I feel that I should not accept the offer. The activity of administration represents for me, I feel, a violation of the principle of comparative advantage, especially if one takes account of my strong subjective preferences.

Best regards to all members of the Department.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Kenneth J. Arrow

KJA: ge
encl.

________________________

[COPY]

15 September 1953

Dean R. W. Tyler
The Division of the Social Sciences
The University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Dean Tyler:

I have thought over very seriously the kind and flattering offer to serve as Research Director of the Cowles Comission. It is with a great deal of regret that I feel that I must decline.

The stimulating and vital intellectual atmosphere at the University of Chicago and the high salary offered were very strong inducements, but I feel that I am not temperamentally qualified to assume the administrative responsibilities called for. I would feel strongly the conflict between pursuing my individual research and the responsibilities of leadership, and I do not feel that I would make a satisfactory resolution. I wish to thank you again, not least, for your willingness to wait this long for me to come to a decision.

Sincerely yours,
[unsigned copy]
Kenneth J. Arrow

KJA:ge
cc: Prof. T. C. Koopmans, Prof. T. W. Schultz [checkmark]

________________________

[COPY]

The University of Chicago
The Division of the Social Sciences

Office of the Dean

September 21, 1953

Mr. Kenneth J. Arrow
The RAND Corporation
1700 Main Street
Santa Monica, California

Dear Mr. Arrow:

                  We are greatly disappointed that you feel it unwise to accept our invitation to become Director of Research for the Cowles Commission. We think you have an important contribution to make to our University. Hence, I hope we can work out some other position here that would appeal to you.

Sincerely yours,
R. W. Tyler
Dean

RWT:rk

cc:  Mr. T. W. Schultz  [checkmark], Mr. T. C. Koopmans

Source: University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics, Records. Box 42, Folder 4.

________________________

Postscript

New Economics Executive Named

Kenneth J. Arrow, professor of economics and statistics at Stanford, has been appointed executive head of the University’s Department of Economics, President Wallace Sterling announced yesterday.

Nationally known for his work in the analysis of criteria for economic decisions, Dr. Arrow has been on the Stanford faculty since 1949. As department head he replaces Professor Edward S. Shaw, who has resigned to devote full time to teaching and research.

Dr. Arrow heads a project at Stanford supported by the Office of Naval Research to study the efficiency of economic decision-making.

As a post-doctoral fellow of the Social Science Research Council, Dr. Arrow traveled extensively in Western Europe for nine months of 1952, studying statistical problems of national economic planning.

He lectured at Oxford University and the Institute of Applied Economics in Paris and was one of a small group of distinguished American economists invited to participate in a colloquium on the theory of risk. The colloquium was conducted in Paris by the National Center of Scientific Research of the French Ministry of Eduaction.

Professor Arrow was graduated by the College of the City of New York in 1940 with Phi Beta Kappa honors and as winner of the Pell medal for highest scholastic proficiency.
He served as assistant professor at the University of Chicago in 1948-49. Appointed acting assistant professor at Stanford in 1949, he became associate professor in 1950 and this year was promoted to full professor.

[Note: the promotion was announced April 28, effective September 1, 1953.]

Source: The Stanford Daily, 1 October 1953.

Image Source:  Kenneth J. Arrow as Guggenheim Fellow (1972)  John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Categories
Amherst Chicago Economists

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, George Rogers Taylor. 1929

The economics Ph.D. alumnus featured in today’s post was awarded his doctorate in 1929 by the University of Chicago. George Rogers Taylor had a long and distinguished career at Amherst College as a leading U.S. economic historian. He was the author of  the history of economics at Amherst College from 1832 to 1932 transcribed for the previous post.

Taylor was an early pioneer in the interdisciplinary field of American Studies.

__________________________

George Rogers Taylor
Life and Career

1895. Born June 15 in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin.

1914. Graduates from Wayland Academy at Beaver Dam.

Fun Fact: The school was named after Francis Wayland (1796-1865), Baptist minister, economist, and president of Brown University.

1916. Graduates from Oshkosh Normal School. “He earned his way through college by waiting on tables, mowing lawns and tending furnaces. He credits the late Prof. F. R. Clow for his life-long interest in economics, Prof. M. H. Small for getting him a job as a steward in a boarding club where he received his meals and Prof. J. O. Frank, whose furnace he tended.” Source: The Oshkosh Northwestern, May 10, 1971, p. 3.

1916-17. Principal of an Blair School with ca. five teachers at Waukesha, Wisconsin. He taught seventh grade and half of the sixth grade.

The original school was established in 1847, rebuilt at new locations in 1889 and 1966 and finally closed in June 2019. Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (June 4, 2019).

1917-19. Petty Officer in the U.S. Navy, aviation operations. Assigned to wireless telephony.

1919. Summer. Worked at the post office at Beaver Dam.

1919-20. Taught eighth grade for one year at Wayland Academy.

1921. Ph.B., University of Chicago. Attended two summer school sessions plus an academic year to complete degree requirements in one year. College credit was given for some of his Navy service.

Taylor had received a four year scholarship which covered his tuition for his Chicago training. There was a long-time close connection between the Wayland Academy and Chicago. The main prize at Wayland Academy’s commencement was a four year scholarship to Chicago.

1921-22. Taught at University of Iowa. Taylor was asked by Frank Knight to go there as an instructor for a year.

Taught public speaking for part of spring term at a Hammond, Indiana high school at some point during graduate school.

1923. Taught economics at Earlham College for a semester.

1924. August 23 marries Mary Leanah Henderson in Mooresville, Indiana. He met her when she was a senior at Earlham College.

1923-24. Instructor, University of Chicago.

1924. Joins the faculty of Amherst College at the rank of instructor, coming along with Professor Paul Douglas.

1927. Promotion to assistant professor, Amherst College.

1929. Ph.D. University of Chicago.

1929. Promotion to associate professor, Amherst College.

1929-30. First semester visiting professorship at Mount Holyoke.

1930. Visiting professor at Smith College.

1930-31. Research for the International Committee on Price History.

1930. “Prices in the Mississippi Valley Preceding the War of 1812,” Journal of Economic and Business History, Vol. III, pp. 148-163.

1931. “Agrarian discontent in the Mississippi valley preceding the war of 1812,” (subject of the doctoral dissertation) Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 39, No. 4 (August 1931), pp. 471-505.

1932. “Wholesale Commodity Prices at Charleston, S.C.,” Journal of Economic and Business History, (two parts). Vol. IV (February and August).

1932. Arrived August 3 at the port of New York aboard the S.S. Europa that sailed from Southampton.

1934-35. Second semester. Visiting professor of economics at Mount Holyoke.

1937. (with Louis Morton Hacker and Rudolf Modley). The United States: A Graphic History. New York: Modern Age Books, Inc.

1938. Senior agricultural economist, U.S. Department of Agriculture.

1939. (with Edward Albertus and Lawrence Z. Waugh). Internal Barriers to Trade in Farm Products. Department of Commerce. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

1939. M.A. (hon.) Amherst College.

1939. Promotion to professor of economics, Amherst College.

1940. Spring semester. Visiting professor, Mount Holyoke College.

1940. “State Laws which Limit Competition in Agricultural Products,” Journal of Farm Economics Vol. 22, No. 1 (February).

1941-46. Office of Price Administration and War Production Board.

1943. Adviser on price and control and rationing to the Republic of Paraguay.

1948-68. General editor of the Amherst College’s American studies program book series “Problems in American Civilization” (D.C. Heath Co.). This was a part of Amherst’s “New Curriculum” introduced in 1947. Amherst was a pioneer of the field of American Studies.

1949. Jackson versus Biddle; the struggle over the second Bank of the United States. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1950. Hamilton and the National Debt. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1951. The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860. Vol. IV of The Economic History of the United States.Rinehart and Co.

1952. Visiting Professor, Columbia University.

1953. The Great Tariff Debate, 1820 to 1830. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1955-60. Editor of Journal of Economic History.

1956. The Turner Thesis concerning the Role of the frontier in American History. Rev. ed. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1956. (with co-author Irene Neu). The American railroad network, 1861-1890. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.

1956-58. President of the American Studies Association.

1959-62. Chairman of the Council on Research in Economic History.

1959. (with Ethel Hoover) Statement at Hearings before the Joint Economic Committee: Employment, Growth and Price Levels, 86th Congress, 1st Session, April 9, 1959.

1960. “Railroad Investment before the Civil War: Comment,” Trends in the American Economy in the Nineteenth Century, National Bureau of Economic Research, Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. XXIV.

1961. Summer. Visiting professor at the University of Hawaii.

1962-64. President of the Economic History Association.

1963. The War of 1812: Past Justifications and Present Interpretations. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company.

1963. Visiting Professor, Tokyo University.

1964. Presidential address before the Economic History Association annual meeting “American Economic Growth before 1840: An Exploratory Essay,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. XXIV (December, 1964), 427-444.

1965. Retires from Amherst College.

1964. March 12. Public lecture at the University of Delaware published in “The National Economy Before and After the Civil War,” in David T. Gilchrist and David Lewis eds., Economic Change in the Civil War Era (Greenville, Delaware, 1965).

1966. “The Beginnings of Mass Transportation in Urban America, Part I,” The Smithsonian Journal of History. Part I (Summer); Part II (Autumn).

1965-70. Senior resident scholar at the Eleutherian Mills Historical Library (Wilmington, Delaware). Taught graduate seminars in economic history at the University of Delaware.

1967. “American Urban Growth Preceding the Railway Age,”Journal of Economic History, Vol. XXVII (September).

1969. Introduction to the reprint of Introduction and Early Development of the American Cotton Textile Industry to 1860 (1863) by Samuel Batchelder. New York: Harper & Row.

1969. American Economic History before 1860 (Goldentree Bibliographies in American History, ed. Arthur S. Link) compiled by George Rogers Taylor. New York: Appleton Century Croft.

1983. Died April 11 in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Sources:

Obituary, Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Massachusetts), April 12, 1983, p. 4.

Scheiber, Harry N., and Stephen Salsbury. “Reflections on George Rogers Taylor’s ‘The Transportation Revolution, 1815-1860’: A Twenty-Five Year Retrospect.” The Business History Review, vol. 51, no. 1, 1977, pp. 79–89.

May 19, 1978 interview of George Rogers Taylor from the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections, Oral History Project.

Hugh G. J. Aitken’s memorial note in The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 44, No. 2, pp. 626-629.

Image Source: Amherst College, The Olio 1930, p. 45.

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Stanford. Kenneth Arrow’s mini-cv at age thirty. 1951

This post repackages the information contained in the mini-c.v. for the Social Science Research Council fellow of 1951-52, Kenneth Arrow, then a thirty year old freshly minted Columbia economics Ph.D. and associate professor of economics at Stanford. Fellows were asked to limit their cited publications to ten. It is interesting to note that Arrow could have easily added three other items but didn’t. It is also interesting to see that he gave a citation to the French translation of a chapter he published in English. Does any one have a clue to why Arrow might have made that choice? 

The data below come from the publication Fellows of the Social Science Research Council, 1925-1951  that is simply chock-full of mid-career biographical information for other economists as well

______________________

ARROW, KENNETH (JOSEPH)
Research Training Fellow 1951-52

[Personal:]

b. New York, N. Y. August 23, 1921.
m. Selma Schweitzer 1947.

[Education:]

B.S. 1940, City College, New York;
M.A. in mathematics 1941, Ph.D. 1951, Columbia, economics.

[Employment:]

Actuarial clerk 1941, Guardian Life Insurance Company;

USAAF 1942-46, captain;

Instructor in economics, summer 1946, City College, New York;

Research associate 1947-49, Cowles Commission for Research in Economics;

Assistant professor of economics 1948-49, University of Chicago;

Acting assistant professor 1949, associate professor of economics and statistics 1950—, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.

Home: 4 Aliso Way, Menlo Park, Calif.

Consultant:  Bureau of the Budget 1948;
Rand Corporation 1948-51.

Publications:

“On the Use of Winds in Flight Planning,” J. Meteorology 1949; in Econometrica: (with D. Blackwell and M. A. Girshick) “Bayes and Minimax Solutions of Sequential Decision Problems” 1949; “Homogeneous Functions in Mathematical Economics: Comment” 1950. “A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare,” J. Polit. Econ. 1950; “L’Utilisation des Modèles Mathématiques dans les Sciences Sociales” in Les “Sciences Politiques” aux États-Unis (ed. D. Lerner and H. A. Lasswell) 1951 [Original english version (?) as Chapter 8 in “Mathematical Models in the Social Sciences” in Daniel Lerner and Harold D. Lasswell (eds.), The Policy Sciences: Recent Developments in Scope and Method (Stanford University Press, 1951)]; “Alternative Proof of the Substitution Theorem for the Leontief Model in the General Case” in Activity Analysis of Production and Allocation (ed. T. C. Koopmans) 1951; Social Choice and Individual Values 1951.

Fellowship program: study in Western Europe of statistical problems arising in economic planning.

Current research: welfare economics; foundation of statistical inference; index number theory; statistical problems in “model building”; theory of economic behavior under conditions of uncertainty.

Source: Fellows of the Social Science Research Council, 1925-1951. pp. 11-12.

Image Source: From the book ad placed by the bookstore La Memoire du Droit (Paris) at the AbeBooks website. As of this posting it is available for US$ 50.30 + shipping cost. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is here solely for educational and research purposes and provides such information solely to satisfy the pecuniary curiosity of its visitors.

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U.S. Economics Graduate Programs Ranked, 1957, 1964 and 1969

Recalling my active days in the rat race of academia, a cold shiver runs down my spine at the thought of departmental rankings in the hands of a Dean contemplating budgeting and merit raise pools or second-guessing departmental hiring decisions. 

But let a half-century go by and now, reborn as a historian of economics, I appreciate having the aggregated opinions of yore to constrain our interpretive structures of what mattered when to whomever. 

Research tip: sign up for a free account at archive.org to be able to borrow items still subject to copyright protection for an hour at a time. Sort of like being in the old reserve book room of your brick-and-mortar college library. This is needed if you wish to use the links for the Keniston, Carter, and Roose/Andersen publications linked in this post.

___________________________

1925 Rankings

R. M. Hughes. A Study of the Graduate Schools of America (Presented before the Association of American Colleges, January, 1925). Published by Miami University at Oxford, Ohio. (See earlier post that provides the economics ranking from the Hughes’ study)

1957 Rankings

Hayward Keniston. Graduate Study and Research in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (January 1959), pp. 115-119,129.

Tables from Keniston transcribed here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror:
https://www.irwincollier.com/economics-departments-and-university-rankings-by-chairmen-hughes-1925-and-keniston-1957/

1964 Rankings

Allan M. Cartter, An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Education Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1966.

1969 Rankings

Kenneth D. Roose and Charles J. Andersen, A Rating of Graduate Programs. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1970.

Tables transcribed below.

___________________________

Graduate Programs in Economics
(1957, 1964, 1969)

Percentage of Raters Who Indicate:
Rankings “Quality of Graduate Faculty” Is:
1957 1964 1969 Institution Distiguish-
ed and strong		 Good and adequate All other Insufficient Information
Nineteen institutions with scores in the 3.0 to 5.0 range, in rank order
1 1* 1* Harvard 97 – – 3
not ranked 1* 1* M.I.T. 91 – – 9
2 3* 3 Chicago 95 – – 5
3 3* 4 Yale 90 3 – 7
5* 5 5 Berkeley 86 9 – 5
7 7 6 Princeton 82 9 – 10
9 8* 7* Michigan 66 22 – 11
10 11 7* Minnesota 65 19 – 15
14 14* 7* Pennsylvania 62 22 – 15
5* 6 7* Stanford 64 25 – 11
13 8* 11 Wisconsin 63 26 – 11
4 8* 12* Columbia 50 37 – 13
11 12* 12* Northwestern 52 32 – 16
16 16 14* UCLA 41 38 – 21
not ranked 12* 14* Carnegie-Mellon Carnegie-Tech (1964) 39 35 – 26
not ranked not ranked 16 Rochester** 31 39 1 29
8 14* 17 Johns Hopkins 31 56 – 13
not ranked not ranked 18* Brown** 20 52 1 27
15 17 18* Cornell** 21 56 2 21
*Score and rank are shared with another institution.
**Institution’s 1969 score is in a higher range than ist 1964 score.

 

Ten institutions with scores in the 2.5 to 2.9 range, in alphabetical order
(1969)
Duke
Illinois
Iowa State (Ames)
Michigan State
North Carolina
Purdue
Vanderbilt
Virginia
Washington (St. Louis)
Washington (Seattle)

 

Sixteen institutions with scores in the 2.0 to 2.4 range, in alphabetical order
(1969)
Buffalo*
Claremont
Indiana
Iowa (Iowa City)
Kansas
Maryland
N.Y.U.
North Carolina State*
Ohio State
Oregon
Penn State
Pittsburgh
Rice*
Texas
Texas A&M
Virginia Polytech.*
* Not included in the 1964 survey of economics

 

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Chicago. Economics Ph.D. Alumna Emily Clark Brown, 1927

 

EMILY CLARK BROWN

1895. Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1917. B.A. Carleton College.

1917-19. High school teacher in Delavan, Minnesota.

1919-20. Graduate study in social work at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.

1920-25. Research assistant with the United Typothetae of America.

1923. M.A. University of Chicago.

1927. Ph.D. University of Chicago.

1927-28. Research Fellow of the Social Science Research Council. Study in England and in New York, Boston, and Baltimore of industrial relations in book and job printing.

1928-29. Industrial economist. Department of Labor, Women’s Bureau.

1929-32. Assistant professor, Wellesley College.

1932-33. Assistant Professor. Vassar College.

1933-39. Associate Professor. Vassar College.

1936. Trip to the Soviet Union as a tourist.

1937, 1938. Teacher at the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers.

1938. Researcher. National Resources Committee.

1939-1961. Professor. Vassar College.

1942. Teacher at the Hudson Shore Labor School (summer).

1942-44. Operating analyst. National Labor Relations Board.

1944-45. Public panel member. National War Labor Board.

1946. Member of the panel of arbitrators, American Arbitration Association.

1950-54. Chairman of the Economics Department at Vassar.

1955. Vassar faculty fellowship. November-December. 30 day visit to Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, and Kharkov to study the Soviet labor market. Five factory tours.

1959. Social Science Research Council grant. January-February. Research visit to Soviet Union. 10 weeks, 17 factory trips. Tours of Alma Ata, Tashkent, Samarkand, Rostov, and Tbilisi.

1961. Retired from Vassar College.

1962. Awarded grant from the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council to finance a trip to the Soviet Union to study labor relations. [newspaper account that she was a resident of Minneapolis following retirement from Vassar]

1967-1976. Volunteer librarian for the Twin Cities Opportunities Industrialization Center.

1980. Died October 13 in Minneapolis.

Publications:

Joint Industrial Control in the Book and Job Printing Industry, Bureau of Labor Statistics Bul. 481, 1928.

Book and Job Printing in Chicago, 1931. (Ph.D. Dissertation 1927)

“The New Collective Bargaining in Mass Production,” J. Polit. Econ., 1939.

“The Employer Unit in NLRB Decisions,” J. Polit. Econ., 1942.

“Book and Job Printing” in How Collective Bargaining Works (ed. H. A. Millis), 1942.

“Free Collective Bargaining or Government Intervention?” Harv. Bus. Rev.,1947.

“Union Security” in N.Y.U. 2nd Ann. Conf. on Labor, 1949.

(with H. A. Millis) From the Wagner Act to Taft-Hartley, 1950.

National Labor Policy: Taft-Hartley after Three Years and the Next Steps, 1950.

“The Soviet Labor Market,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review (January 1957).

“Labor Relations in Soviet Factories” Industrial and Labor Relations Review (January 1958)

“The Local Union in Soviet Industry,” Industrial and Labor Relations Review (January 1960).

“The Current Status of the Soviet Worker: Not Good—But Better,” Problems of Communism, 1960.

Soviet Trade Unions and Labor Relations. (Harvard University Press, 1966).

[Some other titles can be found in: A Bibliography of Female Economic Thought to 1940 By Kirsten Kara Madden, Janet A. Seiz, Michèle A. Pujol p. 80.]

Sources: Fellows of the Social Science Research Council, 1925-1951. p. 49.

Vassar Miscellany News, Volume XXXXV, Number 23 (26 April 1961), p. 3.

Image Source: Vassar College, The Vassarion 1940, p. 36

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Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Melvin Gardner de Chazeau. 1930

Melvin Gardner de Chazeau’s graduate school record at Harvard (Economics Ph.D. 1930) is documented fully in this post that also includes a fairly complete c.v. for him (visitors can hunt down his many book reviews at jstor.org). 

Research Tip: There are 2.3 cubic feet of personal papers of Melvin Gardner de Chazeau at the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library.

_______________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS

Application for Candidacy for the Degree of Ph.D.

[Note: Boldface used to indicate printed text of the application; italics used to indicate the handwritten entries]

I. Full Name, with date and place of birth.

Melvin Gardner de Chazeau. Olympia, Wash.; March 20, 1900.

II. Academic Career: (Mention, with dates inclusive, colleges or other higher institutions of learning attended; and teaching positions held.)

University of Washington 1921-25.
Teaching Fellow (Econ.) 1924-25.
Harvard University 1925-6. Instructor & Tutor (Econ. A) 1926-27.

III. Degrees already attained. (Mention institutions and dates.)

A.B. U. of Washington. Dec. 1924.
M.A. U. of Washington. Aug. 1925.
A.M. Harvard. 1927.

IV. General Preparation. (Indicate briefly the range and character of your undergraduate studies in History, Economics, Government, and in such other fields as Ancient and Modern Languages, Philosophy, etc.)

Econ.: Courses in Standards of Living, History and Theory of Labor in U.S. and Europe, Marketing and Advertising, History of Econ. Thought, Econ. Theory. (Taught General Econ.)
Gov.: General course, American Gov’t., Readings in Political thought.
Phil.: Hist. of Phil., Social Ethics & Ethical Theory, Logic, Phil. of Religion, Modern Schools.
Languages: Spanish, French & Latin (High School).

V. Department of Study. (Do you propose to offer yourself for the Ph.D., “History,” in “Economics,” or in “Political Science”?)

Economics.

VI. Choice of Subjects for the General Examination. (State briefly the nature of your preparation in each subject, as by Harvard courses, courses taken elsewhere, private reading, teaching the subject, etc., etc.)

  1. Econ. Theory and its History. (Special emphasis since 1776).
    Econ. 11; Econ. 15 (audit); Econ. 33
    Grad. Seminars (U. of W.) in Price Determination, Theory, International Finance.
  2. Econ. History since 1750.
    Econ. 2.
  3. Statistics.
    Econ. 41; Econ. 1a.
  4. Money and Banking.
    Econ. 38. Also matter connected with Econ. 33.
  5. Ethics.
    Two undergraduate courses: Social Ethics and Ethical Theory (U. of W.) Extensive undergraduate and one year’s graduate work in Phil. Private reading.
  6. Regulation of Public Utilities.
    Grad. Seminar (U. of W.) in Rate Regulation.
    Econ. 36 (audit).

VII. Special Subject for the special examination.

Regulation of Public Utilities.

VIII. Thesis Subject. (State the subject and mention the instructor who knows most about your work upon it.)

Details of subject not yet determined upon. F. W. Taussig.
[Insert written in pencil:] Some Chapters in the Regulation of the Electric Industry in Massachusetts

IX. Examinations. (Indicate any preferences as to the time of the general and special examinations.)

Closing weeks of first, or first few wseeks of second, semester
[Insert written in pencil:] 1926-27. February 21, 1927.

X. Remarks

[Left blank]

Signature of a member of the Division certifying approval of the above outline of subjects.

[signed] F. W. Taussig

*   *   *   [Last page of application] *   *   *

[Not to be filled out by the applicant]

Name: Melvin Gardner de Chazeau

Approved: November 12, 1926

Ability to use French certified by Professor A. E. Monroe, October 21, 1926.

Ability to use German certified by Professor A. E. Monroe, October 21, 1926

Date of general examination February 21, 1927

Thesis received April 1, 1930

Read by [left blank]

Approved [left blank]

Date of special examination [left blank]

Recommended for the Doctorate [left blank]

Degree conferred  [left blank]

Remarks.  [left blank]

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Certification of reading knowledge
of French and German for Ph.D.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts
Oct. 21, 1926

Mr. M. G. De Chazeau has this day passed a satisfactory examination in the reading of French and German, as required of candidates for the doctor’s degree.

[signed]
A.E. Monroe

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Passed General Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts
February 24, 1927

To the Division of History,
Government, and Economics,

As chairman of the committee appointed to conduct the general examination in economics of Melvin Gardner de Chazeau, I have to report that the examination was accepted by the committee [Taussig, Crum, Young, Cole, Demos (Ethics)] as satisfactory. It was not as high in quality as the previous record of the candidate had led the committee to expect, and a more than respectable showing at the time of the candidate’s special examination is desirable. The committee had no doubt, however, about accepting the present examination as satisfactory.

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

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Passed Special Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 20, 1930

Dear Professor Carver,

As chairman of the committee appointed to conduct the special examination in Economics of Mr. M. G. de Chazeau, I beg to report that Mr. De Chazeau passed the examination to the entire satisfaction of the committee.

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

Professor T. N. Carver
772 Widener Library
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Division of History, Government & Economics, Ph.D. Degrees Conferred 1929-30. (UA V 453.270), Box 10.

__________________________

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Record of
Melvin Gardner de Chazeau

Years: 1925-26, 1926-27, 1927-28, 1929-30.

[Previous] Degrees received.

A.B. Univ. of Washington, 1924,
A.M. Univ. of Washington, 1925.

First Registration: 24 September 1925

1925-26

Grades
First Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 1a1

A-

Economics 2

A

Economics 11

A

Economics 38

A

Economics 412

A+
Division: History, Government, & Economics
Scholarship, Fellowship: Ralph Sanger Scholar
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship:
Proctorship:
Degrees received: A.B. Univ. of Washington 1924, A.M. ibid. 1925

 

1926-27

Grades
Second Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 20 (F.W.T.) (2d. hf.)

A

Economics 331

A

Economics 392

A
Summer School 1927

Public Utilities S36 (GBA)

A

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: $700 in Economics. Tutor in Division of History, Government, and Economics, $900
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year: A.M.
Accepted for Ph.D., except for French (H.S. only) and German . Oct-16, 1925.

 

1927-28

Grades
Third Year Course

Half-Course

Economics 20

 A

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: in Economics. Tutor in the Div. of H. G. + E. $2500
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year: 

 

1929-30

Fourth Year

Economics 20 (F.W.T.) 1 co.

 A

Division:
Scholarship, Fellowship:
Assistantship:
Austin Teaching Fellowship:
Instructorship: in Economics. Tutor Hist, G. + Econ  $2700
Proctorship:
Degree attained at close of year:  Ph.D.
Home Address: Nov. 1930. 27 University Circle, University, Virginia.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Record Cards of Students, 1895-1930, Cooke—Dyson (UAV 161.2722.5). Box 4, Record Card of Melvin Gardner de Chazeau [formerly, De Shazo].

__________________________

Course Names and Instructors

1925-26

Economics 1a. Principles of Economics. Prof. Taussig and other members of the department for lectures.

Economics 2. Economic History from the Industrial Revolution. Professor Gay.

Economics 11. Economic Theory. Professor Taussig.

Economics 38. Principles of Money and Banking. Professor Young.

Economics 412. Statistical Theory and Analysis. Asst. Professor Crum.

1926-27

Economics 20. Research in Economics (with Professor Frank William Taussig) (2d. hf.)

Economics 331. International Trade. Professor Taussig.

Economics 392. International Finance. Associate Professor Williams.

1927 (Summer)

S36 (GBA). Public Utilities. Professor Philip Cabot.

1927-28

Economics 20. Research in Economics.

1929-30

Economics 20. Research in Economics (with Frank William Taussig) 1 co.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College for 1925-26, 1926-27, 1927-28, 1929-30.

__________________________

Melvin Gardner
de Chazeau
Timeline of his life and career

1900. Born March 20 in Olympia, Washington.

1924. B.A. University of Washington. Summa cum laude. Phi Beta Kappa. [Chicago Tribune, 25 Aug 1946]

1925. M.A. University of Washington.

1927. M.A. in economics, Harvard University.

1930. Ph.D. in economics, Harvard.

1929. Married Eunice Storey (daughter Marian, born 1937).

1930-46. University of Virginia. Assistant professor 1930, associate professor 1931, professor, 1946.

1932-33. Study in England, Scotland, and South Wales of the rationalization of electricity supply in Great Britain as research fellow, Social Science Research Council.

1940-41. National Defense Advisory Commission and Office of Production Management. Steel expert.

1941-42. Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply. Consultant to Director.

1942. Production Board, Bureau of Planning and Statistics, Materials Division. Director.

1943-45. War Production Board, Program Bureau, Non-military Division. Director.

1945-47. Committee for Economic Development. Research staff.

1946-48. University of Chicago. School of Business. Professor of business economics and marketing.

1949-50. Brookings Institution. economic research.

1948-1967. Cornell University. School of Business and Public Administration. Founding member and Professor of economics and business policy. Retired 1967.

1954-55. Fulbright lecturer at the Copenhagen Graduate School of Business, Denmark.

Represented Cornell at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) for more than a decade (1950s)

1967-70. Taught at Dartmouth College and Cornell.

1985. Died November 28 in Arlington, Virginia.

Consultant (various dates): Treasury Department, Department of Justice, War Production Board, Housing Administration, Council of Economic Advisers (1953), Department of Commerce, Economic Cooperation Administration.

Selected Publications:

1934. “The Rationalization of Electricity Supply in Great Britain,”  J. Land & Pub. Util. Econ. (Part I. August; Part II, November).

1937. (with C. R. Daugherty and S. S. Stratton) Economics of the Iron and Steel Industry.

1937. “The Nature of the Rate Base in the Regulation of Public Utilities,” Quarterly J. Econ.

1938. “Public Policy and Discriminatory Prices of Steel : A Reply to Prof. Fetter,”  J. Polit. Econ.

1938. “Revision of Railroad Rate Structures,” Southern Econ. J.

1939. (with S. S. Stratton) Price Research in the Steel and Petroleum Industries.

1941. “Electric Power as a Regional Problem,” Southern Econ. J.

1945. “Employment Policy and Organization of Industry after the War,” Am. Econ. Rev.

1946. (with others) Jobs and Markets.

1954. (editor). Regularization of Business Investment.

1956. “Some Gains from Unit Size in Industry,” Social Science.

1973. (with Alfred E. Kahn). Integration and Competition in the Petroleum Industry.

Source: Fellows of the Social Science Research Council, 1925-1951. pp. 87-88. Also see the Cornell University Faculty Memorial Statement.

Image Source: Cornell University Library. Portrait credited to Otis A. Arnst appeared in The Ithaca Journal (29 January 1952; 8 December 1953).

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Johns Hopkins. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, later University of Chicago professor. Marc Nerlove, 1933-2024

 

Caricature by Roger Vaughan in The Journal of Progressive Hedonists Against Radical Thought [P.H.A.R.T.], Special All-Picture Issue (1973). Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches. Box 129, Folder “Posters, ca. 1960s-1970s.”

________________________

The life and career of Marc Nerlove
b. 12 Oct 1933, d. 10 Jul 2024

Marc Leon Nerlove (born 1933) is a white American agricultural economist and econometrician who was born on 12 October 1933 in Chicago, Illinois to Dr. S. H. (Samuel Henry; 1902-1972) and Evelyn (1907-1987) Nerlove. S. H. Nerlove was born in Vitebsk, Russia (now Belarus) and brought to the US by his parents in 1904, and he became a professor of business economics at the University of Chicago (circa 1922-1965) then the University of California, Los Angeles (1962-1969). Evelyn Nerlove was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts and worked at the University of Chicago hospital and taught in the School of Social Service Administration until a university nepotism policy forced her to resign after their marriage in 1932 (although she “returned to her profession” in the 1950s). S. H. and Evelyn had two other children: Harriet Nerlove (circa 1937-2019), who became a clinical psychologist at Stanford University then in New York City, and Sara “Sally” Nerlove (born circa 1942), who became an anthropologist before spending most of her working life as a program officer at the National Science Foundation.

Marc Nerlove attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools from 1939-1949, earned a BA with honors in mathematics and general honors in 1952, and was a Research Assistant at the Cowles Commission for Research in Economics in 1953. He then earned a MA in 1955 and a PhD in economics with distinction in 1956 from the Johns Hopkins University (JHU), where Carl Christ supervised his dissertation. Nerlove’s other teachers included Milton Friedman, Theodore Schultz, Ta-Chung Liu, Fritz Machlup, and Jacob Marschak.

Nerlove’s teaching career began in 1958 as a visiting lecturer then lecturer at JHU before he was appointed to his first professorship in 1959 at the University of Minnesota. From there, he made stops at Stanford (1960-1965), Yale University (1965-1969), Chicago (1969-1975), Northwestern University (1974-1982), and the University of Pennsylvania (1982-1993) before retiring from the University of Maryland (1993-2016). He also held many visiting appointments, including at Harvard University (1967-1968), four universities and research centers in Germany, the University of British Columbia (1971), Fundação Getulio Vargas in Brazil (1974-1978), and Australian National University (1982).

Nerlove’s employment history also includes federal service. He was an analytical statistician in the Agricultural Marketing Service at the US Department of Agriculture from 1956-1957, then a lieutenant in the US Army from 1957-1959. He was drafted in 1957, then on loan from the Chemical Corps to the (US) Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly as an economist at the request of Chairman Estes Kefauver in 1958. In addition, Nerlove consulted for the RAND Corporation (1959-1989), Southern Pacific Company (1961), (US) President’s Committee to Appraise Employment and Unemployment Statistics (1962), World Bank (1979-1985), and International Food Policy Research Institute (1981-1986).

Nerlove’s history of professional service includes the Econometric Society (President, 1981), American Economic Association (Executive Committee, 1977-1979), American Statistical Association (advisory committees to the Bureau of the Census, 1964-1969, and Civil Aeronautics Board, 1966-1968), International Economic Association (Chair, Econometrics Section, 1989), National Academy of Sciences (National Research Council Committee on Social Sciences in the NSF, 1975-1976), NSF (proposal reviewer, 1960-1974), and Social Sciences Research Council (Director, Mathematical Social Science Board Summer Workshop on Lags in Economic Behavior, 1970).

Nerlove’s awards include the 1969 John Bates Clark Medal, a Fulbright Research Grant (1962-1963), and two Guggenheim Fellowships (1962-1963; 1978-1979), and he is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association (1993) and American Economic Association (2012).

Nerlove married Mary Ellen Lieberman (died 2011) in the 1950s and they had two daughters, Susan Nerlove (born circa 1958) and Miriam Nerlove (born circa 1960). Miriam Nerlove become an author and illustrator of children’s books, including Who Is David with Evelyn Nerlove in 1985. Marc and Mary Ellen Nerlove divorced in the 1970s, then he married Dr. Anke Meyer (born 1955), a German environmental economist who spent 23 years at the World Bank (1991-2014) and collaborated with him on some of his writings during this time.

Source:  From the Marc L. Nerlove papers, 1930-2014 webpage,  David M.Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

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Backstory for The Journal of Progressive Hedonists Against Radical Thought at the University of Chicago:

Chicago. The Journal of Progressive Hedonists Against Radical Thought (P.H.A.R.T.), Rodney Smith & Roger Vaughan, 1971

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For Roger Vaughan’s Meisterstück The School of Chicago, see:

Chicago. The School of Chicago 1972 by Roger Vaughan (Ph.D. 1977). IDs by Gordon, McCloskey & Grossbard