Category: Columbia

Columbia. Statistics as a method not separate science. Frederick C Mills, 1924

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2026-08-12

One wonders what Professor Seligman’s motivation was for asking 32 year old associate professor of business statistics whether statistics was a “separate science” or a “method”, but since we only have Frederick C. Mills’ response, it is anyone’s speculation for what Seligman was after. I find the letter interesting because Mills names three contemporary textbooks he regarded as “standard” at that time.

Fun fact: At age 22 Frederick C. Mills performed undercover fieldwork to study hobos in the wild. His reports and field notes were compiled, edited, and published as Gregory R. Woirol compiled and edited them as In the Floating Army: F. C. Mills on Itinerant Life in California, 1914 (University of Illinois Press, 1992). And what did you do for summer vacation?

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Meet the correspondents

Frederick C. Mills (Columbia Ph.D. Dissertation, Contemporary Theories of Unemployment and of Unemployment Relief, published 1917)

Edwin R. A. Seligman (from a 1939 memorial) (and about the same man four decades earlier, 1899)

_____________________

Columbia University
in the City of New York

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

492 Engle Street,
Englewood, N.J.
Dec. 12, 1924.

Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman,
Kent Hall,
Columbia University, N.Y.

Dear Professor Seligman,

You have requested me to send you a list of references which might serve to show that Statistics is a legitimate science, rather than a method. On thinking the matter over at some length, I am afraid that I can give you no reference which might prove your point. For indicating the content of the usual courses in Statistics any of the standard text-books would serve. I might mention

Yule, G. Udney. An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics.

Kelley, Truman L. Statistical Method.

Bowley, A.L. Elements of Statistics.

In each of these, more evidence might be found for the view that Statistics is essentially a method than for the view that it is a separate science. I am inclined, myself, to consider Statistics as a method, at least in its practical bearing upon our own particular problems. Sciences, I suppose, are differentiated from each other primarily with respect to subject matter. From this viewpoint, the body of Statistics is concerned with methods of dealing with material drawn from many different fields of knowledge, the chief requirement for statistical treatment being that the data are quantitative in character.

Is it not possible to admit as much, and still have a strong plea for adequate treatment of statistical economics? The statistical method is one method, not the only one, by any means, for handling the data of economics and for investigating certain types of relationships. It is a method the application of which calls for a certain type of technical training, and instruction in this technique is essential to a well-rounded curriculum in economics. Statistics is at least a distinct discipline, and as such calls for specialized training. On such grounds, I think, a strong argument for a statistical economist might be based.

Faithfully yours,
[signed]
Frederick C. Mills.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson Collection, Box 37 (Box 100: Columbia 1924-1930).

Tags MillsFC, Seligman

Columbia Philosophy

Columbia. Ethical Issues in Economic Life. Rockefeller Foundation Sought Advice. J.M. Clark, 1948

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2026-08-01

This is a two-part post. It begins with four pages found in the papers of John Maurice Clark — a request for informal feedback regarding a new area for social science funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, “Ethical Issues in Economic Life”, followed by a two page informal response by the Columbia economics professor (son of John Bates Clark whose face appears in the rear-view mirror of our homepage).

Out of curiosity, I followed up to see what, if anything, followed this exchange of letters. The funding resulted in ten volumes published in a series “On the Ethics and Economics of Society” published by Harper & Brothers for the National Council of Churches (the National Council included the Federal Council of Churches that had received the first Rockefeller Foundation grant for the project in 1949). Participating economists included John Maurice Clark, Kenneth E. Boulding, William Vickrey, Frank H. Knight, Elizabeth E. Hoyt, Margaret G. Reid, Joseph L. McConnell, Janet M. Hooks, and Howard R. Bowen. Bowen’s notion of Corporate Social Responsibility captured the souls and minds of many business leaders of the time — of course in the era of Charles and David Koch, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg, et al. this sounds rather quaint, but it was indeed a thing! New Harmony was once a thing too.

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Brainstorming with John Maurice Clark

THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
49 WEST 49th STREET, NEW YORK 20

THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

JOSEPH H. WILLITS, DIRECTOR
LELAND G. ALLBAUGH, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
NORMAN S. BUCHANAN, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
LELAND C. DEVINNEY, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
ROGER F. EVANS, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR
BRYCE WOOD, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

CABLE ADDRESS:
ROCKFOUND, NEW YORK

July 7, 1948

Dear Clark:

I turn to you on a problem which I would very much like to think out with you. The object of this letter is to begin that process. Perhaps it is presumptuous on my part to ask to share your considered reflection on a difficult subject; but such assaults on your time are the price you pay for possessing the kind of experience and insights that men respect.

The program of The Rockefeller Foundation has emphasized support to expand knowledge. I assume it will continue to do so, since the foundation provided by such work is basic in any effort to serve human welfare. But it grows steadily more evident that illumination in the moral issues of modern society is needed, not as a substitute for, but as a building upon, the best of scientific knowledge and the facts of experience.

Each division of the Foundation has to approach this problem in terms of its own area of responsibility. In the Social Sciences division we are trying to answer the question whether Rockefeller Foundation support can function effectively in this area by examining the questions involved in this subject: “Ethical Issues in Economic Life.” In is in this connection that I would very much value your judgment.

I don’t need to elaborate this subject to you. It is evident that the ethical issues of western civilization – those growing out of corporate organization, and the organization of labor, those of individuals acting in behalf of and under the direction of others, and all those involved in the great complexities of modern social relations that lead to conflict of loyalties – are subjects of the greatest confusion in men’s minds. Studies to define these issues more clearly have the possibility of being a fruitful supplement to efforts to expand knowledge. But, I repeat, that such studies should be built upon the best of human experience and scientific knowledge and should not attempt to detour the findings from these areas.

But I am getting ahead of myself. I am asking a few men whose judgment and insights I respect whether they would assist the Foundation in its consideration of possibilities of Foundation action in the field of “Ethical Issues in Economic Life.” You are one of these.

Specifically, I am writing to ask whether you would be willing to give us, as soon as convenient, your advice on such questions as the following:

(1) Do you think this field offers a constructive opportunity for The Rockefeller Foundation?

(2) What are the objectives that could be set up to guide studies in this field?

(3) From your own study and experience, what do you consider the aspects of the problem which may most fruitfully be given attention?

(4) Do you care to suggest the names of persons who would be competent or eligible to work on the problems you indicate as important?

(5) Any suggestions as to auspices, set-up, and procedure of attack which might occur to you would be appreciated.

This sounds as though I were asking for a formal document. I do not expect that. What I am asking for is an informal, conversational letter giving your first reactions to issues in policy we are facing. I would deeply appreciate it if you would give us your views.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Joseph H. Willits

Professor J. Maurice Clark
512 Fayerweather Hall
Columbia University
New York 27, New York

JHW:DAA
Dictated by Mr. Willits but signed in his absence.

____________________________

John Maurice Clark’s Response

3-Corner Pond, R.D.6, Augusta, Maine, July 13, ’48

Dr. Joseph H. Willits;
Rockefeller Foundation;
49 West 49 St.;
New York 20, N.Y.;

Dear Joe:

Needless to say, your question about ethical issues in economic life interests me hugely. It’s a tremendous set of problems, and can be approached in a variety of ways which might make useful contributions, including some that might be superficially inconsistent with one another. It might be approached by separate studies, or merely by broadening the perspective of the ordinary kinds of studies so as to admit ethical questions. It might attempt to formulate ethical standards and apply them, or to preserve “scientific” objectivity and impartiality and merely report what judgments and standards of an ethical sort enter into the motivation of actual behavior. Or it may describe actual processes, and the alternatives involved in policy decisions, in terms of the values that enter into ethical judgments. In such cases the verdict may be fairly self-evident, or it may not. It may reveal a conflict of values which existing ethical generalizations do not resolve – for example, different kinds of “freedom” in conflict with one another. I am enough of a Dewey disciple to feel that one of the great services of the “social sciences” is to increase the detail and specific content of our knowledge of the nature of the alternatives that face us, thereby leading to inevitable modifications of the judgments we have made in the past, thereby causing ethical standards to evolve. In some cases, the verdict is plain enough so that the “social scientist” is warranted in recording it for himself, without fear of doing violence to accepted and prevailing standards; in other cases, it may constitute a problem needing to be submitted to whatever is the proper tribunal or symposium.

One form of approach would try to make a connection between two kinds of ethical standard, either of which might be taken as the initial starting-point. One is the kinds and degrees of consideration for the “rights” of others that are necessary to make our system work; the other is the existing conceptions of “rights” and obligations which people have to start with, on which to build toward the further developments that have been revealed as necessary. The result may be to put new content into the existing standards.

I tend to accept the prevailing set of standards of western or American society – the underlying ones, as I conceive them – as given data for most of our studies. I have been looking at a little book called “Advanced Economic Theory” by an Indian, J.K. Mehta, which undertakes the interesting job of tying together the neo-classical standard of maximizing utility with the Indian standard of attaining happiness through elimination of all wants, which he accepts as the highest standard, but attainable by only a select few. I don’t see that he succeeds very well – after all, even the select few have to eat, though he appears explicitly to disregard this necessity. For us, the expansion of wants seems to be dictated by the requirement of jobs, in our system; also by the requirement of economic power available for defense, as long as there is threat of war, and as long as we are incapable of living up to the ethic of non-resistance.

All of this may not be getting very close to the specific problems of Foundation studies. I think the field is tremendously important; but I have reservations about the advantage of setting it up as a distinct field, with the “ethical” label. There are undoubtedly some studies that could be set up in that way; but they make up only a part, and perhaps a relatively small part, of the whole area involved.

In the field of actual loyalties and conceptions of rights, the work that Bakke is doing at Yale seems significant, from what little I know about it. And you might get good leads from Ordway Tead and Beardsley Ruml. From the more distinctively ethical angle, I have a nephew, John Alden Clark, who is professor of philosophy at Colby College, who is trying to relate the development of ethical standards to the kind of findings as to facts and relations which the social sciences deal with; and you might be interested in getting in touch with him and finding out more than I can tell you offhand about what he is doing and whether it would fit in. There seems to be an important, and tremendously difficult job, in the field of actual motivation of business in its price and production policies, including the elements of responsibility for long-run good social policy, insofar as it may enter in. I’m thinking of the doing of a bigger and better job of the sort Hall and Hitch did in their Oxford study. The abstract theorists have given unconscious testimony to the significance of that job by the fervor with which they have attacked it. It seems to have gotten to them where they live – got under their skins. I am casually wondering whether Joel Dean would be useful in that connection.

Well, I have taken you at your word, and been thinking out loud, not too formally or systematically, and seem to have run out of constructive suggestions. There’s a lot there.

Sincerely yours;

J.M.Clark.

Source: Columbia University Libraries. Manuscript Collections. John M. Clark Collection. Box 28 (Economic Theory and Methodology). Folder “Welfare Economics”.

____________________________

MORAL AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS
IN MODERN SOCIETY
EXPLORATORY STUDIES

Thanks to grants from the Rockefeller Foundation program, the Study Committee of the Federal Council of Churches published the multi-volume series The Ethics and Economics of Society (Harper & Brothers). The first Rockefeller Foundation grant was for 1949-51, the second grant for 1952-[ca. 1955/56].

The Department of the Church and Economic Life of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America began the study of Christian Ethics and Economic Life in 1949. At the beginning of 1951 the Federal Council merged with other interdenominational organizations to form the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.

The Rockefeller Foundation in 1948 appropriated a fund of $25,000 to be used by officers of the Social Sciences in exploring opportunities for research on the moral and ethical problems in modern society.
It is planned to make a few grants to other agencies and to invite memoranda from men of affairs who have significant ideas to contribute.

Source: The Rockefeller Foundation. Annual Report 1948, p. 250.

* * * * * * *

Project Publications

Goals of Economic Life (1953) edited by A. Dudley Ward (Director of the Project, staff member of the National Council of Churches)

Editorial Committee: John Maurice Clark (economist); Theodore M. Greene (philosopher); Reinhold Niebuhr (theologian); William Vickrey (economist).

Other contributors: Kenneth E. Boulding (economist); Clarence H. Danhof (economist); Eduard Heimann (economist); Robert Morrison MacIver (sociologist/political scientist); Frank H. Knight (economist); Clark C. Bloom (economist); Walton Hamilton (jurist); Alfred E. Emerson (zoologist); Ralph Linton (anthropologist); Donald Snygg (psychologist); John C. Bennett (theologian).

The Organizational Revolution. A Study in the Ethics of Economic Organization (1953) by Kenneth E. Boulding (economist).
Social Responsibilities of the Businessman (1953) by Howard R. Bowen (economist). – Considered to be the origin of the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility.
American Income and Its Use (1954) by Elizabeth E. Hoyt (economist), Margaret G. Reid (economist), Joseph L. McConnell (economist), and Janet Montgomery Hooks (economist).
The American Economy—Attitudes and Opinions (1955) by A. Dudley Ward.
Christian Values and Economic Life (1954) by John Coleman Bennett (theologian), Howard R. Bowen (economist), William Adams Brown, Jr. (economist) and G. Bromley Oxnam (president of World Council of Churches, 1948-54).
Ethics in a Business Society (1954) by Marquis W. Childs (journalist) and Douglass Cater (journalist, later special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson). “Our volume was originally stimulated by the series itself. During our writing we have had access to both the published volumes and the manuscripts wstill to be published and other sources. What we have written, therefore, is not a part of the study series itself but rather our interpretaion and reflection on all the materials we have used.”
Social Responsibility in Farm Leadership (1956) by Walter W. Wilcox (agricultural economist).
Social Responsibilities of Organized Labor (1957) by John A. Fitch (industrial relations)
Responsibility in Mass Communication (1957) by Wilbur Schramm

* * * * * * *

Christian Principles and Assumptions for Economic Life. Adopted by the General Board of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. (September 15, 1954).

“Ten Books on Ethics and Economics” article in Christianity Today (22 June 1959). Full access requires subscription.

Tags Boulding, BowenH, ClarkJM, Hooks, Hoyt, Knight, McConnellJL, Reid, Vickrey, WilcoxWW

Chicago Columbia Economist Market Economists

Columbia. Background inquiry regarding John Maurice Clark. Seligman, 1925

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2026-07-31

Apparently what happened in Chicago didn’t have to stay in Chicago, judging from the casual background check on John Maurice Clark seen in the letter sent to the chairman of the political science department there, Charles E. Meriam (Columbia PhD, 1900), by Edwin R.A. Seligman, the executive officer [chairman] of the department of economics at Columbia. It would be interesting to know whether or what the colleagues at Chicago answered. In any event John Maurice Clark was appointed professor of economics as of the academic year 1926-27. I must say November 1925 seems rather late in the game to be making such discrete inquiries. Was Seligman looking to cover his backside or was he looking for evidence to possibly block Clark’s appointment. Under either interpretation, the matter would have been delicate.

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Cast of Characters

The economists have been introduced in other posts here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror:

John Maurice Clark. …graduated from Amherst in 1905 and received his Ph.D. at Columbia five years later. He taught at Colorado College, Amherst and the University of Chicago before joining the Columbia faculty in 1926. He retired in 1956.

Source: From his obituary in the New York Times (June 28, 1963).
Incidentally, the biographical notes for Clark have incorrect dates for his professorship, but for the sake of completeness I include the link to the finding guide to his papers. Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book & Manuscript Library. John Maurice Clark papers, 1920-1963. Collection Overview.

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

Edwin R. A. Seligman. Columbia A.B. 1879; A.M. 1884; L.L.B. 1884; Ph.D. 1885; L.L.D. 1904. Seligman served on the Columbia University faculty 1885-1931; the Tax Committee of New York City 1914-1916 and of New York State 1929-1931; the League of Nations committee on economics and finance 1922-1923; financial advisor to Cuba in 1931; editor of the Political Science Quarterly and the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences, among many other roles.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Edwin Anderson Seligman papers, 1750-1939. Collection Overview.

* * * * * * * * *

Ernst Freund, 1864-1932, was professor of law at the University of Chicago from 1902 to his death. Born in New York City during a brief visit by his German parents, Freund was raised in Dresden and Frankfurt-am-Main. He was educated at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, receiving a Doctor of Law degree from the latter in 1884. Soon after, Freund immigrated to the United States where he practiced law in New York City. In 1892, he expanded his career by accepting a position as acting professor of administrative law at Columbia College. This position sparked an interest in teaching, which led Freund, in 1894, to abandon his law practice in order to accept a full-time appointment on the political science faculty at the University of Chicago as instructor of Roman law and jurisprudence. During his early years at Chicago, Freund pursued a part-time graduate career at Columbia, which awarded him a Ph.D. in political science in 1897.

Ernst Freund played a significant role in the founding of the University of Chicago Law School. William Rainey Harper’s original plan for legal education at Chicago was to integrate a research-oriented institute of jurisprudence into the graduate programs of the university proper. In spite of his interest in political science and jurisprudence, Freund urged Harper to develop instead a professional graduate law school whose standards would surpass those of Harvard and Columbia. It was Freund’s argument that legal research was already being conducted in the Departments of History, Political Science, Sociology, and Political Economy. If the new Law School attracted a quality faculty interested in the teaching of law, a research relationship would naturally develop. Freund’s idea of legal curriculum incorporated traditional methods with a new emphasis on the Law School’s responsibility to the University and community at large. In addition to standard courses, Freund advocated the teaching of constitutional and international law, administrative law, and various courses under the rubric of jurisprudence, which were then being taught in other departments of the University. This curriculum broke with the Harvard plan that stressed more strictly legal subjects which was then accepted as the model for American legal education. In spite of this concept of legal education, Freund turned to Harvard for leadership in organizing the new Law School. He recommended that Harper recruit Harvard’s Joseph H. Beale, one of the foremost legal scholars in the nation, on a two-year appointment to put the new school in order. Beale accepted Harper’s offer only after making it clear that Freund’s plan would have to be modified. The resulting curriculum is described by Frank Ellsworth in his Developments in American Legal Education at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (University of Chicago Ph.D. dissertation, 1976). Ellsworth writes:

By merging the traditional technical insight of Beale with the innovative ideals of Freund, a blend of the traditional and a farsighted curriculum occured and resulted in the first significant effort to liberalize the curriculum in legal education since Langdell’s work at Harvard.

Freund joined the faculty of the new Law School as Professor in 1902. He continued in that position until 1929 when he was appointed the first holder of the John P. Wilson Professorship in Law, a position he held until his death in 1932.

Freund’s career was composed of three basic parts: teacher, scholar, and advisor. In each of these areas, he integrated traditional legal scholarship, augmented by his experience in the German university, with a new emphasis on the interdisciplinary approach to legal education. Freund taught subjects which ranged from administrative law to social legislation and domestic relations. His scholarship rested on such significant contributions as The Police Power: Public Policy and Constitutional Rights (1904) and Standards of American Legislation (1917) for which he was awarded the James Barr Ames medal of the Harvard Law School. Along with these and other major works were numerous articles in the Social Science Review, Labor Legislation Review, and the Political Science Quarterly, which dealt with subjects that ranged from health insurance to illegitimacy. Freund played a major role as advisor to legislative agencies around the United States. He served as commissioner from Illinois to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. He drafted the act creating the Illinois State Immigrant’s Commission and served as president of the Immigrant’s Protective League. His devotion to these and other social welfare activities led Jane Addams to eulogize him as one who, “never once failed to be sensitive to injustice and preventable suffering.”

Source: Guide to the Ernst Freund Papers 1882-1934. University of Chicago Library, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center.

* * * * * * * * *

Charles E. Merriam was a Political scientist and politician. A.B., Lenox College, 1893; A.B., State University of Iowa, 1895. A.M., Columbia University, 1898; Ph.D., 1900. Docent in political science, University of Chicago, 1900-1902; associate, 1902-1903; instructor, 1903-1905; assistant professor, 1905-1907; associate professor, 1907-1911; professor, 1911-1940; chairman, Department of Political Science, 1923-1940; Morton D. Hull Distinguished Professor of Political Science. Chicago alderman, 1909-1911 and 1913-1917. Candidate for mayor of Chicago, 1911 and 1919. Founder, Social Science Research Council, 1924.

Source: Guide to the Charles E. Merriam Papers 1893-1957, p. 8. University of Chicago Library, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center.

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What’s John Maurice Clark really like?… asking for a friend?

[Copy of typed letter]

Also to Professor Ernst Freund

November 4, 1925

Professor Charles E. Merriam,
University of Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois.

My dear Merriam:

I am taking the liberty of writing to you on a very private and confidential matter and I hope that you will respond in an equally frank and confidential way. The point is this: we are thinking of adding to our corps of professors in the Faculty of Political Science (and we are on the lookout for the biggest man in the United States who is available). One of the two or three men that I have in mind is Maurice Clark, who of course I know very well as an old and excellent student. I want, however, to ascertain a little more about the following points:

1) Is it true, as is sometimes stated, that he is an exceptionally poor teacher and that he does not even interest the best graduate students, for the alleged reason that he is more of a closet philosopher who takes very little interest in human beings?

2) Is it true that he does not pull his oar in the ordinary departmental and faculty work and that he is of a rather non-cooperative disposition?

As to his brilliancy and creative power, I need no advice because those qualities are perfectly familiar to me, and while I am not at all sure that even if your answers to my questions were in the affirmative, those defects would outweigh his qualities, but I do count upon your giving me confidentially your opinion about these matters.

Of course it goes without saying that things are still in the embryo condition and that all I am trying to do now is to get a little more light on the situation so that I can bring it to the attention of my colleagues.

I am by no means sure that even if we should decide that Clark was the right man for us, he could be prevailed upon to leave the place where he is so happy as he is with you, — but all that is in the distant future.

With kind regards,

Faithfully yours,

P.S. Of course you will say nothing of this to anyone else.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Seligman, Edwin Robert Anderson Collection, Box 37 (Box 100: Columbia 1924-1930).

Tags ClarkJM, Seligman

Barnard Biography Columbia Harvard

Columbia. Harvard AM becomes economics instructor. A.M. Day, 1899

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2026-06-09

This post provides a snapshot of Harvard graduate (A.B./A.M., 1892) Arthur Morgan Day who briefly held junior instructional ranks at Harvard, Columbia and Barnard Colleges. From his March 1942 obituary we learn that he left economics teaching to enter the world of finance in 1900.

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An earlier post with seven reports made by Arthur Morgan Day to his 1892 Harvard class.

_________________________

DAY, Arthur Morgan, 1867-
Born in Danbury, Conn., 1867; graduate of Harvard (both A.B. and A.M.) in 1892; Assistant in History, Harvard, 1893-94; Assistant in Economics, Columbia, 1894-99; Instructor in Economics Barnard College, since 1895; Instructor in Economics Columbia, 1899-.

ARTHUR MORGAN DAY, A.M., Instructor in Economics at Columbia, was born in Danbury, Connecticut, April 12, 1867, the son of Josiah Lyon and Ellen Louisa (Baldwin) Day. He graduated at Harvard in the Class of 1892, receiving at the same time the degree of Master of Arts, and in the following year entered the Corps of Instructors in that University as Assistant in History. In 1894 he took the position of Assistant in Economics at Columbia, advanced to Instructor in 1899, and in 1895 was made Instructor in the same branch at Barnard College.

Text and Image Source: Universities and their sons; history, influence and characteristics of American universities, with biographical sketches and of alumni and recipients of honorary degrees, Vol. II (1899), p. 453.

_________________________

Arthur M. Day Dies
Known as Economist

Danbury, March 7. (AP) Arthur M. Day, 74, widely-known economist, financial analyst, and adviser to a number of large corporations, died today at his home here.

Born in Danbury, April 12, 1867. Day was graduated from Harvard in 1892, receiving his bachelor’s and master’s degree simultaneously. He had worked five years in the insurance business after graduating from the public high school here before entering college.

Day taught economics at Harvard for two years following his graduation, and later was a member of the faculty of Barnard College and Columbia University.

He left Columbia in 1900 to become associated with the Prudential Insurance Company.

Some years later he joined Wood, Struthers and Company, New York firm.

Seven years ago he became associated with the Studley Shupert Company, Boston financial consultants.

A bachelor, Day leaves a sister, Mrs. William F. Starr, of Danbury.

Source: Hartford Courant. 8 Mar 1942, p. 46.

Tags DayAM

Columbia Economics Programs Faculty Regulations

Columbia. Graduate Degree Requirements in Economics for Faculty of Political Science, 1904-05

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2026-01-29

By the beginning of the 20th century the general structure of Ph.D. programs across the United States had gelled into a common form due to the demand for certification of college teachers and a desire to create the graduate research seminars of German universities. The relevant portions of the 1904-05 Ph.D. regulations for the Columbia Faculty of Political Science, within which the department of economics was housed, have been transcribed for this post.

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More Columbia Information from that time

Columbia University, Economics Courses with Descriptions, 1905-07

_________________________

Regulations for other economics programs

Chicago, 1904-05
Harvard, 1904-05
Wisconsin, 1904-05

__________________________

REGULATIONS
FOR THE UNIVERSITY DEGREES
1904-05

Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy

Candidates for the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy must hold a baccalaureate degree in arts, letters, philosophy, or science, or an engineering degree, or an equivalent of one of these from a foreign institution of learning.
Every candidate for a higher degree must present to the Dean of each school in which he intends to study satisfactory evidence that he is qualified for the studies he desires to undertake.
Candidates for the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy must pursue their studies in residence for a minimum period of one and two years, respectively.* The year spent in study for the degree of Master of Arts is credited on account of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Residence at other universities may be credited to a candidate. In certain cases and by special arrangement, time exclusively devoted to investigation in the field will be credited in partial fulfilment of the time required. No degree will be conferred upon any student who has not been in residence at Columbia University for at least one year. The satisfactory completion, at not less than four Summer Sessions, of courses of instruction having in all a value of eight hours’ work a week for one academic year will be accepted as fulfilling the minimum requirement of one year’s University residence.

*In practice three years of University residence subsequent to the attainment of the Bachelor’s degree, or its equivalent, are usually necessary to obtain the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

Each student who declares himself a candidate for the degrees of Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy, or either of them, shall, immediately after registration, designate one principal or major subject and two subordinate or minor subjects.
Candidates are expected to devote at least one half of their time throughout their course of study to the major subject. In the case of laboratory courses this implies two days a week, or its equivalent, as determined by each department. Each minor subject is intended to occupy approximately one fourth of the time during one year for the degree of Master of Arts, and during two years for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Minor subjects may not be changed except by permission of the Dean, to be given only on the written recommendation of the heads of the departments from which and to which the change is desired; major subjects may not be changed except by a special vote of the Faculty in each case.
Candidates for the degree of Master of Arts or Doctor of Philosophy may, with the consent of the Dean of the Faculty concerned and of the professor in charge of his major subject, select both minor subjects within the same department, and may divide a minor subject, taking parts of two subjects germane to his major subject.
The subjects from which the candidate’s selection must be made are:

[…]

UNDER THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Group I.—History and political philosophy: 1. European history; 2. American history; 3. ancient history; 4. political philosophy.

Group II.—Public law and comparative jurisprudence: 1. Constitutional law; 2. international law; 3. administrative law; 4. comparative jurisprudence.

Group III.—Economics and social science: 1. Political economy and finance; 2. sociology and statistics.

In his choice of subjects under this Faculty, the candidate whose major subject lies within its jurisdiction is limited by the following rules:

A candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy must select one minor subject within the group which includes his major subject.

A candidate for the degree of Master of Arts or Doctor of Philosophy must select one minor subject outside of the group which includes his major subject.

The choice of subjects must in every case be approved by the Dean.

To be recognized as a major subject for the degree of Master of Arts, the courses selected must aggregate at least two hours per week throughout the year, and must also include attendance at a seminar; for a minor subject for the degree of Master of Arts the attendance at a seminar is not required.

To be recognized as a minor subject for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, courses must be taken, in addition to the requirements for a minor subject for the degree of Master of Arts, aggregating two hours weekly. All the courses and seminars offered in the major subject must be taken by candidates for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.

[…]

Each student is given a registration book, to be obtained at the office of the Registrar, which should be signed by the professor or instructor in charge of each course of instruction or investigation at the beginning and end of the course. This registration book is to be preserved by the student as evidence of courses attended, and should be submitted to the Deans of the several Faculties at the end of each year that the proper credit may be given, after which the registration book becomes the permanent property of the student.
—
1. Students desiring to be examined for the degree of Master of Arts, Master of Laws, or Doctor of Philosophy shall make application to the Registrar of the University, on or before April 1 of the academic year in which the examination is desired, on blanks provided by the University.
2. Immediately after April 1, the Registrar shall notify the Deans of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science, of the names of students applying for examination for higher degrees in each of these three Faculties, together with the subjects in which the candidate offers himself for examination and the degree for which he is a candidate.
3. The examination shall be held under the authority and direction of the several Deans.
4. The results of such examinations shall be reported as soon as possible to the Registrar, who shall transmit to the Secretary of the University Council the record of each successful candidate for a degree, as soon as such record is complete.
Each candidate for the degree of Master of Arts shall present an essay on some topic previously approved by the professor in charge of his major subject. This essay must be presented not later than May 1 of the academic year in which the examination is to take place. The Faculty of Political Science requires the essay to be a paper read during the year before the seminar of which the candidate is a member.
When the essay has been approved, the candidate shall file with the Registrar of the University a legibly written or typewritten copy of it. This copy is to be written on firm, strong paper, eleven by eight and a half inches, and a space of one and a half inches on the inner margin must be left free from writing.
Each candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy shall present a dissertation embodying the result of original investigation and research on some topic previously approved by the professor in charge of the major subject. After the dissertation has been approved by the said professor, it shall be printed by the candidate, under the direction of the Dean of the Faculty, and one hundred and fifty copies shall be delivered to the Registrar of the University, unless, for reasons of weight, a smaller number be accepted by special action of the University Council. On the title-page of every such dissertation shall be printed the words: “Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, in the Faculty of—, Columbia University.”
Each dissertation shall contain upon its title-page the full name of the author; the full title of the dissertation; the year of imprint, and, if a reprint, the title, volume, and pagination of the publication from which it was reprinted; and there shall be printed and appended to each dissertation a statement of the educational institutions that the author has attended, and a list of the degrees and honors conferred upon him, as well as the titles of his previous publications.
All dissertations for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy must be submitted for approval not later than April 1 of the academic year in which examination is desired.
In case of excessive cost and delay in publishing a dissertation which has been approved by a department, and accepted for publication by a reputable journal or scientific or literary association, the degree of Doctor of Philosophy may be conferred before the publication is completed. The facts in every such case concerning the publication are to be certified to the Council by the Faculty concerned.
In cases where advanced degrees are conferred before the copies of the dissertation are deposited with the Registrar, the diploma shall be withheld until such copies shall be received.
In the Faculty of Political Science, the examination on the major and minor subjects and on languages, but not on the dissertation itself, may be held before the printed dissertation is submitted.

[…]

Every candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy must pass, besides such other examinations as the Faculty may require, an oral examination on all three subjects, and must defend his dissertation in the presence of the entire Faculty, or of so many of its members as may desire or as may be designated by the Faculty to attend. The ability to read at sight French and German, to be certified in each case by the Dean of the Faculty concerned, is required by all the Faculties. The Faculty of Political Science also requires the ability to read Latin at sight; and candidates are examined on Latin, French, and German as upon other subjects, in the presence of the Faculty.

[…]

No student shall continue to be a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy for a longer period than three years from the time he ceases to be in residence.

[…]

1904-05
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

In its course of instruction the Faculty of Political Science undertakes to give a complete general view of all the subjects of public polity, both internal and external, from the threefold point of view of history, law, and philosophy. The prime aim is therefore the development of all the branches of the political and social sciences. The secondary and practical objects are:

(a) To fit young men for the public service.

Young men who wish to obtain positions in the United States civil service—especially in those positions in the executive departments at Washington for which special examinations are held — will find it advantageous to follow many of the courses under the Faculty of Political Science — especially the courses on political history, diplomatic history and international law, government (including the governmental organization of the territories and dependencies of the United States), statistics, finance, and administration. Candidates for appointment in the administrative service of our dependencies may obtain adequate preparation by adding to the general courses on public law and on political economy and finance the special courses now offered in the School of Political Science on colonial history and administration, colonial economics, modern civil law (German, French, Italian, and Spanish), and the courses on the Spanish language and literature offered in the College and the School of Philosophy.

(b) To give an adequate economic and legal training to those who intend to make journalism their profession.

(c) To supplement, by courses in public law and comparative jurisprudence, the instruction in private municipal law offered by the Faculty of Law.

(d) To educate teachers of history, economics, sociology, public law, and jurisprudence.

To these ends courses of study are offered of sufficient duration to enable the student not only to attend the lectures and recitations with the professors, but also to consult the most approved treatises upon the political sciences and to study the sources of the same.

The courses under this Faculty are divided as follows:

GROUP I — HISTORY AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

Subjects

1. European History
2. American History
3. Ancient History
4. Political Philosophy

GROUP II — PUBLIC LAW AND COMPARATIVE JURISPRUDENCE

Subjects

1. Constitutional Law
2. International Law
3. Administrative Law
4. Roman Law and Comparative Jurisprudence

GROUP III — ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL SCIENCE

Subjects

1. Political Economy and Finance
2. Sociology and Statistics

A complete statement of the courses will be found in the bulletin of the Division of History, Economics, and Public Law the Announcement of the Faculty of Political Science) for 1903-05, which will be forwarded without charge upon application to the Secretary of the University.

Source: Columbia University, Bulletin of Information. Fourth Series, No. 11 (April 2, 1904). Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy and Pure Science, Announcement 1904-1905, pp. 7-12, 30-31.

Image Source: Roberto Ferrari, Unveiling Alma Mater [Sept 23, 1903]. Columbia University Libraries. July 15, 2104.

Columbia Economics Programs Faculty Regulations

Columbia. Requirements for M.A. and Ph.D. Degrees in Economics, 1934-35

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2026-01-05

The requirements for a graduate degree in economics at Columbia University in 1934-35 are transcribed below. First we have the common requirements of the Faculty of Political Science (of which Economics constituted one of four departments). Next we have the specific requirements set by the economics department.

Earlier, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has transcribed the analogous requirements at Harvard in 1934-35.

Columbia. Organization of Graduate Education, 1908-10
Columbia Requirements for Ph.D., 1916
Columbia Requirements for Ph.D., 1920
Columbia Requirements for Graduate Degrees, 1946-47
Columbia Requirements for Ph.D., 1954-55

_______________________

FACULTY REQUIREMENTS
[pp. 11-13]

MASTER OF ARTS

Residence. Every candidate for the degree must register for and attend courses aggregating not less than thirty tuition points distributed over a period of not less than one academic year or its equivalent.
Courses. The candidate must satisfactorily complete, from the courses for which he has registered to satisfy the residence requirements, courses aggregating not less than twenty-one tuition points, of which at least fifteen must be selected from the general courses listed in this Announcement.
Essay. The candidate must present a satisfactory essay prepared under the direction of some member of this faculty.
Departmental Requirements. For special departmental requirements see Appendix, pages 46–52, of this Announcement. Departmental requirements are in addition to, not a substitute for, the faculty requirements.

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

General. The degree will be conferred upon students who satisfy the requirements as to preliminary training, residence, languages, subjects, and dissertation.
Preliminary Training. The candidate must have received a Bachelor’s degree from Columbia University or from some other approved university or college, or have had an education equivalent to that represented by such a degree, and must have been regularly accepted as a graduate student by the University Committee on Admissions.
Residence. The candidate must have pursued graduate studies for at least two academic years, one of which must have been spent at this University, and the other of which, if not spent here, at an institution accepted as offering courses of similar standard. A year’s residence at this University is defined as registration for and attendance upon courses aggregating not less than thirty tuition points distributed over a period of not less than one academic year or its equivalent. Those desiring credit for graduate work completed elsewhere should send to the Director of University Admissions as soon as possible a request for the evaluation of such graduate work.
Languages. The candidate must have demonstrated his ability to express himself in correct English and to read at least one European language other than English and such additional languages as may, within the discretion of the Executive Officer of the appropriate department, be deemed essential for the prosecution of his studies. Normally, the language requirements for each subject are as indicated in the following paragraph.
Subjects. The candidate must have familiarized himself with one subject of primary interest and at least one subject of secondary interest, chosen from the following list of subjects:

• Ancient history (French, German, Latin, and Greek)
• Medieval history (French, German, and Latin)
• Modern European history (French and German)
• American history (two modern foreign languages — normally French and German, but substitutions may be made with the approval of the Graduate Chairman)
• History of European thought (Latin, French, and German)
• Jewish history, literature, and institutions (Hebrew and two from the following: Greek, Latin, Arabic, French, German)
• Political and social philosophy (French, German, and Latin)
• European governments (French and German)
• American government and constitutional law (French and German).
• International law and relations (French and either German or Latin)
• Roman law (Latin and either French or German)
• Comparative jurisprudence (French and German)
• Economic theory, history, and statistics (French and German)
• Public and private finance (French and German)
• Social economic problems, including labor, industrial organization, trade, transportation, etc. (French and German)
• Sociology
• Social legislation (French and German)

With the approval of the Committee on Instruction of the Faculty, the candidate may offer as a subject of secondary interest a subject not contained in the foregoing list, such as statistics, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, etc.

Dissertation. The main test of the candidate’s qualifications is the production of a dissertation which shall demonstrate his capacity to contribute to the advancement of learning within the field of his selection. Such dissertation must give evidence of the candidate’s capacity to present in good literary form the results of original researches upon some approved topic. The dissertation must be printed in a form acceptable to the Faculty before the degree will be awarded.
Departmental Requirements. For special departmental requirements see the Appendix, pages 46-52, of this Announcement. Departmental requirements are in addition to, not a substitute for, the faculty requirements.

[FACULTY] PROCEDURE
FOR FULFILLING PH.D. REQUIREMENTS

Notice of Prospective Candidacy. As soon as possible after the beginning of his graduate residence the student shall give notice of prospective candidacy to the Executive Officer of the department in which the subject of his primary interest lies, and in consultation with him make a choice of subjects.
Languages and Written Work. As soon as possible after giving notice of prospective candidacy, the student shall submit to the Executive Officer of the department concerned an essay or other paper giving satisfactory evidence of his ability to make researches and to express himself in correct English. At the same time the student shall be tested, by some officer of instruction designated by the Executive Officer of the department, as to his ability to read the required languages.
Examination on Subjects. Having pursued graduate studies in this University, or in some other institution approved by it, for the equivalent of at least six months after the satisfactory completion of the tests on languages and written work, the student, upon the advice of the professor in charge of the subject of his primary interest or of his researches, shall make application, through the Executive Officer of the department concerned, to the Dean for examination in subjects. Such application may be made at any time, but to secure the examination in any given academic year the application must be made before April 1. The applicant will be notified by the Dean of the date of his examination. This examination is an oral examination, which may be supplemented by a written examination when required by the department concerned, and is conducted by a committee of the Faculty appointed by the Dean. By it the applicant will be expected to demonstrate an adequate knowledge of the subjects of his primary and secondary interest and of the literature pertaining thereto.
Matriculation. Upon the successful passing of the required examination in his subjects, the applicant will be recommended by the Executive Officer of the appropriate department to the Dean for matriculation, which is admission to candidacy for the degree.
Dissertation. Investigations and researches for the dissertation may be pursued either in connection with the work of some research course or under the direction and supervision of some member of the Faculty independently of any course. In either case a very considerable part of the time of the candidate or prospective candidate for the degree should be devoted to work upon his dissertation. The dissertation may be completed either during the period of residence, or in absentia. In advance of its being printed for presentation to the Faculty it must be approved by the professor in charge and accepted by the Executive Officer of the department concerned. Such acceptance, however, is not to be construed as acceptance by the Faculty.
Final Examination: Defense of the Dissertation. At least one month in advance of the time at which he wishes to present himself for the defense of his dissertation, but not later than April 1 in any academic year, the candidate must make application therefor to the Dean, who will thereafter notify him of the date of the final examination. This examination is an oral examination conducted by a Committee of the Faculty appointed by the Dean. By it the candidate will be held to a defense of his dissertation in respect of its content, the sources upon which it is based, the interpretations that are made, the conclusions that are drawn, as well as in respect of the candidate’s acquaintance with the literature and available sources of information upon subjects that are cognate to the subject of his dissertation.

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

ECONOMICS
[ DEPARTMENT REQUIREMENTS]
[pp. 49-50]

As soon as possible after deciding upon economics as the subject of primary interest for the Master of Arts or Doctor of Philosophy degrees, the prospective candidate should report through the secretary of the Department of Economics, 508 Fayerweather Hall, to a designated member of the Committee directing the work of graduate students in economics to receive fuller instructions. Before being permitted to matriculate for a graduate degree in economics, the prospective candidate must satisfy the committee that his prior preparation in economics has been adequate.

MASTER OF ARTS

General Requirements. Students whose subject of primary interest is in the field of economics must include graduate courses in economics aggregating not less than fifteen points among the courses aggregating not less than twenty-one points, which they are required to complete before being recommended for the degree. Of these twenty-one, not less than eighteen points must be chosen from the general courses listed in this Announcement. It is also desirable, when the candidates’ own qualifications permit, that they should attend research courses aggregating six points.
Essay. The candidate must select his essay subject and submit it to the appropriate professor within two months after registration as a candidate for the degree. The selection of a subject of importance within the field of his interests must be made by the student himself, and the ability to make a proper choice will normally be regarded as an essential qualification for the degree. The completed essay must be submitted for approval not later than four weeks before the date on which copies of the approved essay are to be filed with the Registrar. Under no circumstances should the candidate proceed beyond the preparation of his detailed program of investigation and the completion of a preliminary chapter or section without submitting his work to his adviser. In the approval of an essay attention will be paid to excellence of presentation and to expression in correct English as well as to specific content and to ability to use original material.

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Every candidate must satisfy the Department of his grasp of seven of the subjects listed below. The candidate will be expected to show a thorough knowledge of the facts, principles, and literature of the subjects. Three of these subjects must be economic theory, economic or industrial history, and statistics. The procedure for meeting this requirement is as follows :

The candidate must offer himself for oral examination in four of the subjects listed below. Of these four, one must be economic theory. The examination will be on subjects, not on courses;
Before making formal application for this oral examination on subjects, the candidate must satisfy the appropriate professors that he has done work which is adequate both in scope and in quality in three other subjects, also chosen from those listed below, and different from the four subjects which the candidate proposes to offer in his oral examination. This requirement may be met in any manner satisfactory to the professors concerned — by taking courses, by formal or informal examination, or in other ways ; but when the requirement has been met, the candidate must secure corresponding written certification from the professors concerned. It will be noted that if the candidate does not propose to offer economic or industrial history on his oral examination, he must satisfy the requirement for that subject in the manner specified in this paragraph; and that the same requirement also applies to statistics

The subjects are as follows :

1. Accounting
2. Agriculture
3. Corporation and trust problems
4. Economic or industrial history
5. Economic theory
6. Insurance
7. International trade
8. Labor problems and industrial relations
9. Marketing
10. Mathematical economics
11. Money and banking
12. Public finance
13. Socialism
14. Statistics
15. Transportation
16. Any other approved topic within the field of economics. Optional subject may be outside of the Department. In such case this subject must be one of the four presented for the oral examination.

The candidate will be expected to show acquaintance with the main trends in economic thought, as well as intimate acquaintance with the writings of one prominent economist, the candidate’s selection to be approved by the Committee directing graduate work in economics. Before applying for the oral examination on subjects, the candidate must again consult the Committee.

Except when special permission has been granted by the Department, the candidate must satisfy these requirements on subjects before proceeding with the preparation of a dissertation.

Source: History, Economics, Public Law, and Social Science: Courses Offered by the Faculty of Political Science for Winter and Spring Sessions, 1934-1935. Published as Columbia University, Bulletin of Information (34th series, No. 33) May 19, 1934.

Columbia Development Economic History Economists International Economics Socialism

Columbia. Memo of Musings Regarding Institutional Economics, Area Studies, and Economic History. Hart, 1973

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-11-26

A memorandum written in 1973 by 64-year old Albert G. Hart shares his laments concerning the path taken by the Columbia University department of economics to what he saw to be a grievous neglect of instruction and research into the institutional nuts-and-bolts, historical trajectories, and granular area studies of economics. A copy of the memorandum was found in the files of his colleague, historian of economics, Joseph Dorfman.

Chicago-style economics was explicitly disdained by Hart who actually wished good riddance to Gary Becker (“…he played dog-in-the-manger too much…” with a note of scorn for Milton Friedman (“… [he] ignores the risk that what passes for ‘general economic law’ may turn out to be a series of adhockeries concocted to be plausible for a very special and perhaps transitory state of society…”).

The memo closes with a question of what to do with the theoretical Wunderkinder of economics departments whose peak years have past with still another quarter century of tenure left in their respective academic life-cycles. Fortunately he stops considerably short of recommending senicide.

__________________________

Previously posted content related to Albert G. Hart

University of Chicago

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

Course Outline for Introduction to Money and Banking at Chicago. A. G. Hart, 1933

Columbia University

Hiring Albert Gailord Hart as visiting professor, 1946

Core Economic Theory. Hart, 1946-47

First semester graduate economic analysis. First weeks’ notes. Hart, 1955

Reading list for Economic Analysis (less advanced level). Hart and Wonnacott, 1959

Hart Memo, Economics Faculty Salaries for 15 U.S. universities. April 1961

Personal Narrative of the Columbia Crisis. A.G. Hart, May 1968

__________________________

AGH 11 July 1973

RESPONSIBILITIES AND RESOURCES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Response, addressed to:

Professor Donald Dewey, Chairman,
Professor Ronald Findlay, Director of Graduate Studies
Continuing and Incoming members of the Department

Dean George S. FRANKEL, Graduate School
Dean Harvey PICKER, School of International Affairs

Interested bystanders

to report of Committee of Instruction on the Department of Economics,
by Albert G. Hart, Professor of Economies.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Preliminary generalities

The COI [Committee of Instruction] report is one of those papers which an informed reader finds simultaneously to be almost-excellent and almost-horrible. I can endorse with only minor reservations its conclusions that recent senior-staff recruiting has been of excellent calibre; that the intensification of workshop-patterns is very healthy; that much stress should be placed on catching good men before their qualifications known to us have become so generally know as to create a bull market; that the graduate students are only moderately happy, and that to build on the quantitative theoretical work of Lancaster, Phelps, and now Dhrymes is a promising way to rebuild morale as well as to establish Columbia again as a major professional focus.

Yet the report is so lop-sided that its net effect is likely not to be constructive. It overlooks entirely two major sides of economics in which Columbia has been, is, and ought to be prominent, and which are of major concern to students. And its lack of historical perspective and of a realistic view of the professional life-cycle may seriously distort its proposals and the reaction to the Department of the central leadership of the University. So I do not see how I can silently let this report stand as expressing real wisdom about the Department and its futures hence this “reaction”.

Some historical correctives

To clear the ground, let me disabuse the reader of the notion that the Department is only now beginning to work on the problems central to the COI report. In the first place, the fact that the workshop pattern of faculty-student interaction (taking in professional visitors) is central to the learning process in economics has been well understood for a long time. At the moment when I became chairman (in 1958), the Department was granted $250,000 by the Ford Foundation specifically to make a major shift toward workshop groupings. The deservedly-praised labor workshop (which non-accidentally had a Becker/Mincer leadership with experience in workshop endeavors at the University of Chicago) was one; we launched also an “Industrial Countries Workshop” (led by Carter Goodrich and Goran Ohlin) which developed a very useful line of publications, a Public Finance Workshop led by Carl Shoup and W. S. Vickrey, and an Expectational Economics workshop under my leadership which was clearly the least successful of the cluster, for reasons I won’t bother the reader with, but for all that far from useless). Presently we had a very lively and constructive International Economics workshop (led by Peter Kenen), which continued under Ronald Findlay; and for a number of years we have had a good-if-not-superlative Monetary Economics workshop (managed by Philip Cagan with partnership of Hart and Barger). In 1972/73 we tried a “Development/Regional” shop, which has been floundering somewhat — partly because it is hard to find a real focus with so many students not in the habit of working together, partly because of its natural leaders, Findlay had to put his main energy into the international field and Wellisz was absent on leave.

What is new in the workshop situation is in the first place the effort (led by Findlay, with enthusiastic support of most of the rest of the Department) to make it work for virtually everybody in the Department, faculty or student — and in the second place serious recognition by the Administration that this is an appropriate-if-expensive way to work, deserving serious backing even if no more Ford funds can be had.

A second consequential historical point (hinted at but not spelled out in the COI report) is that the Department has been working for years at the kind of staffing the COI report now indicates as appropriate. When I was chairman, for example, we had a deal arranged to recruit Svi [sic] Griliches — which was frustrated by what I am bound to call sabotage at the ad hoc committee stage. In Carl Shoup’s chairmanship, we successfully recruited at the assistant professor level two key men who beautifully exemplify the application of quantitative theory and econometric research techniques to economics — Peter Kenen and Gary Becker, both of whom were full professors very young, and were regarded as stars in the profession. In my chairmanship and afterwards, much of the work of the chairman went into nursing these two men’s careers and working conditions. Kenen contributed among other things a distinguished job as departmental leader — first Informally leading a curricular reform, then taking over as chairman for a term-and-a-fraction; had the 1968 not disrupted his strategy, he’d have brought us out as one of the two or three leading departments of economics. Becker, with all his virtues, was unlivable and not available as Departmental leader — being too much centered in his own work, too much inclined to insist that the only desirable recruits were quasi-Beckers, too narrow in his views of the profession’s responsibilities (despite his astounding record of success in applying his own apparently-narrow approach to an unexpectedly wide range of problems). Frankly, I felt it unburdened the Department when he moved to Chicago, because much as we must regret the loss of his lively influence on campus, he played dog-in-the-manger too much and helped foster the impression that economics was devoted to “apologetics for the system” rather than to a search for ways to guide constructive social policies.

Agreeing with the COI that we should recruit young and staff the tenure levels largely from local people, I would point out that we have been working at this with a remarkable lack of effective cooperation from outside the Department. As I just mentioned we did acquire Kenen and Becker as assistant professors; but we had no luck in persuading the Administration and ad hoc committees to let us repeat this success. In my time as chairman, we caught a star by converting Albert Hirschman (who accidentally was here without tenure as one-year replacement for Nurkse, on leave), and who was not at the time widely-enough appreciated in the profession. We were unable to hold David Landes on economic history. Two people who in the end proved to be very highly valued outside though when we acquired them they were rank outsiders are Alexander Erlich and Charles Issawi (both of whom were given tenure in my time as chairman). We should remember also that Vickrey (and earlier Barger and Shoup) started at Columbia in Junior ranks. Dewey, Hart, Cagan, Mincer (who however had filled in earlier), Lancaster, Findlay, Phelps, and now Dhrymes, represent recruiting-with-tenure.

What lends poignancy to the question of recruiting-young is that we now have a very distinguished collection of assistant professors — I think the best we’ve had simultaneously in my time at Columbia. But our uniform lack of success with ad hoc committees on promotions of such men (I think Nakamura has been our only promotion to tenure at all recently) creates a situation where we must tell them frankly that we have little hope of keeping them. Such anomalies as two successive years of leave for young Heckman (with serious problems of continuity for students, and loss of the experiential value of a disastrous first-try at reforming the econometrics curriculum) is an extreme example of the kind of handicap for the Department created by the fact that we are morally bound to help our assistant professors make the kind of showing that will get them goods jobs elsewhere — Columbia being unwilling to back us in getting deserved promotions.

Major areas disregarded

Two major areas of professional responsibility in which Columbia has had and must maintain great distinction are simply not mentioned in the COI report. These are the areas of “institutional economics” and of international/regional/developmental economics.

Traditionally, economics in the United States was split into two main camps —those of theoretical and those of “institutionalist” orientation — which maintained an uneasy partnership in the American Economic Association and in many departments. While the titular headquarters of institutionalism was at Wisconsin, its leading center was actually Columbia; and before the sudden recruitment at the end of World War II of a cluster of theoretically-oriented men (Vickrey, Stigler and myself) there was almost a vacuum in Columbia research and instruction on the theoretical side. J. M. Clark (a most distinguished mind whose personals shyness prevented him from being a major influence in face-to-face contact) was a distinguished theoretical thinker, but regarded himself as an institutionalist and had little curricular influence. Hotelling, who was just leaving at the time I came in 1946, was the nearest thing to an active theorist.

A merger of the theoretical and institutionalist schools began to shape up during the 1930’s and was to a considerable extent accomplished during and just after World War II. The terms of merger were much like those for the two meetings of Quakers in New York City, who obviated what might have been an awkward problem of merging properties by having each member of one meeting become a member also of the other! In the 1940’s and 1950’s, it began to look as if nobody could make a career as theorist without also doubling in some other area, and nobody could make a career as institutionalist without also paying serious attention to the theoretical aspects of his problem. But in the end the merger turned out to be slanted in favor of the theorists: it is again possible to make a career by pursuing problems that are trivial variations on theoretical themes; and large elements of the institutional side of economics are allowed to die out. Students doing quantitative work with data have no tradition of asking what their numbers mean in the context of wider social processes and problems.

At Columbia, the tradition that study of law-cases is one important way to understand the economic subject-matter is preserved chiefly by the fortunate fact that we have Dewey teaching “industrial organization”. Economic history was allowed to die out; and while at present we have in assistant professors Edelstein and Passell two excellent specimens of economic historians who are also competent theorists and econometricians, we have no assurances that economic history will not again be blanked out. Some institutional aspects of “economics of human resources” are very much alive in the labor workshop; but large parts of that tradition (including the tradition of trying to understand trade unions and more generally economic organizations other than business firms) seem to have evaporated. History of thought as an approach to economics is now represented almost entirely by Alexander Erlich (who is also our only member who is expert in Marxist economics and in the functioning of European communist economies). While in terms of professional fashions the lack of “institutionalist” instruction will not cause us to lose face in the profession, we should ask whether in bringing up a new generation of economists we should be willing to see the positive aspects of the institutionalist tradition simply evaporate.

The other major aspect of economics which is disregarded in the COI report — though in fact it absorbs much of our staff manpower and is of fundamental importance for many of our students, especially from overseas — is concern with the world outside the United States. We are seriously understaffed in the pivotal area of formal economics of international-trade-and-finance, where Ronald Findlay is saddled with both the responsibilities handled by Kenen and those which were handled by Hirschman. The problems of economic development (or its lack) in the world’s poor countries need and get a lot of attention. [Incidentally, since USA is rapidly evolving “backwards” into a state of underdevelopment, the insights one gets in studying Latin America or Asia become disconcertingly applicable at home!]

The presence at Columbia of a cluster of “regional institutes” has had an important impact on our work in economics. On the whole, the Department has resisted successfully pressures to recruit people who were expert on some “region” but lacked general professional competence. [Before Riskin fortunately turned up, we were under pressure to recruit an economist who combined Chinese language and willingness to function largely as librarian a combination of qualifications which didn’t seem to coexist with all-round professional competence. Bergson, who for years was our “Soviet specialist” was also a distinguished welfare-theorist. Erlich was originally recruited on “soft money” to be an East-Central-Europe specialist; when Bergson left, there was a closing-of-ranks operation which gave him the Russian field — and it has turned out that his knowledge of Marxist economics and of economic thought, and the fact that he is regularly sought out by East European visitors in USA make him a major factor of general departmental strength. At present the nearest equivalents of “mere” area specialists are Issawi (who also handles general instruction in economics in the School of International Affairs, and a good deal of development-and-history work at the dissertation stage), Nakamura and Riskin — all men of great general usefulness. The roles of European and Latin American “regional specialists” are filled by two of our senior general economists — Barger and myself.

While one could imagine a budgetary situation such that one must recommend reducing to a token scale a University’s involvement in this area (except for basic international-trade-and-finance courses), it is hard to believe that Columbia specifically should withdraw from this kind of work. Surely the economic profession in USA has as part of its responsibility an understanding of the economic processes of other countries. [True, I have heard Milton Friedman say that to have a different economics for Brazil as against USA makes no more sense than to have a different science of chemistry; but he simply disregards the ethnocentric character of the economics which inward-looking economists develop for USA, and ignores the risk that what passes for “general economic law” may turn out to be a series of adhockeries concocted to be plausible for a very special and perhaps transitory state of society.] This responsibility surely comes home to Columbia. For one thing, New York is the natural focus of such work, what with its outward-looking tradition and the presence of the UN. Besides, we incur a special responsibility because we have so many overseas students. I would add that to educate overseas students too exclusively in economics-for-USA is dysfunctional: one of the major handicaps of development has been the attempt of US-trained economists overseas to apply Keynesian remedies to unemployment problems of non-Keynesian type, for example.

Economics and the SIA [School of International Affairs]

If the University were very strong financially, it seems to me plain that one would recommend developing the Economics Department in a way that would greatly strengthen the general work on international relations and on the understanding of societies outside USA which is represented by the School of International Affairs. The SIA could advantageously be much more of a research body and center of workshop activity.

I would not recommend developing an economics department within the SIA (even if SIA eventually develops a distinct and separately-recruited faculty, which I don’t think I would recommend either). To set up standards of recruiting, teaching and publication for “SIA economists” that will pass muster with the general profession is an essential safeguard, and the generally low standards of economic thinking in the UN and in overseas universities outside Europe, Japan and Australasia should be a warning that a separate international economics might not be a genuine “discipline”. But it will be a major defeat if Columbia cannot maintain and improve its standard of keeping a stable of economists for whom understanding of outside economies (and especially of the economies of poor countries) is a major concern.

A question which interacts with this, of course, is whether the SIA can develop its own sources of financing, as seemed so probable a few years ago. If not, the general financial debility of the University will mean that we must stop far short of optimum in the whole area represented by SIA, and hence also on its economic side. Specifically, it may make a great difference whether or not SIA can finance workshop activity in this area, and make a role for research posts for young economists (for example, teaching two-thirds time in the Department and working one-third-time-plus-summer in a research branch of SIA).

If the University’s policy toward economics is primarily to develop its mathematical-economics core, the contribution the Department can make on the SIA side may suffer. And reciprocally, failure to develop strength on this side may be a handicap to SIA in its efforts to get backing for a really strong program.

A postscript on professional life-cycles

One of the most valuable pieces of education I picked up in my earlier years at Columbia was a comment by Isador Rabi at a University Seminar about the problems of a field like physics where the most impressive men “peak” very young and the work regarded as important by the profession is done largely by youngsters. It would be a tremendous waste to throw men on the scrap-heap after their “peak” years, or to regard them as living on the benefits of tenure, as non-producers, for most of their profession lifetimes. The solution, Rabl indicated, was surely to be found in an appropriate division of labor between colleagues at different stages of life-cycle, working out what economists call an area of comparative advantage for the older men.

The COI report seems to me to ignore this problem, and to frame problems as if we could hope to recruit good men between age 25 and age 30 and have them conveniently remove themselves (suicide recommended?) along about age 40 — significant activities being described as those appropriate to men aged 25-40. In good part, I think the “problem” of life-cycle (once recognized) and the “problems” of maintaining strength in institutional economics and in the development/regional areas exist largely because we don’t integrate our approaches to different aspects of economics work. To a considerable degree, the natural life-cycle of the economist is to be obsessed with very abstract problems in youth, and mature into a person more concerned with and more knowledgeable about the real world. To a very large degree, the staffing of the institutional fields and of the SIA-type activities should then be handled by shifting over of people who have graduated from being pure theorists. If we don’t do this, the channels of recruiting and promotion for the continuation of the supposedly -central mathematical-economics core are apt to get clogged. It is very tricky to suppose that giving tenure to a theoretically creative young man is to acquire forty years of theoretically creative activity. Most of the relevant people have their key ideas very young, and develop them as fully as is profitable by age 40. If they continue to preempt the key teaching roles in these fields, they will keep the young from advancing and will impair the freshness of the curriculum offered to graduate and undergraduate students. [It was because of this view that I allowed myself to be pushed out of micro-teaching by Becker and Co. in the early 1960’s.] But to suck the tenured men out of these lines and make room for their successors, a Department needs a lot of roles for the maturing older man. Unless we can do well with the institutional and SIA aspects of the field, I conclude, we can’t do well in the long run with the “core” aspects.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13 (Columbia University-teaching, etc.); Folder “Economic H…P…”

Image Source: Obituary in The Columbia Spectator, October 3, 1997.

Tags Barger, Becker, Bergson, Cagan, ClarkJM, DeweyDJ, Dhrymes, EdelsteinM, Erlich, Findlay, Friedman, Goodrich, Griliches, HartAG, Hirschman, Hotelling, Issawi, Kenen, Lancaster, Landes, Mincer, Nakamura, Nurkse, OhlinG, Passell, Phelps, Riskin, Shoup, Stigler, Vickrey, Wellisz

Columbia Monetary economics Suggested Reading Syllabus

Columbia. Reading List for Monetary Economics. Angell, 1954-1955

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-11-25

In 1954-55 the executive officer of the department of economics, Arthur R. Burns [not Arthur F. Burns], requested his colleagues provide current reading lists for their courses to Joseph Dorfman to arrange for the library to order as many titles as possible. James Waterhouse Angell (Harvard Ph.D., 1924) obliged for his courses on monetary economics (see below), international monetary policy, and income, employment and international trade.

_______________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 121-122—Monetary economics. Professor Angell.
M. W. 10. 310 Fayerweather.

The part played by money and banking operations in the structure and movements of the general economic system. The development of monetary theory. Saving, investing, and employment. Keynesian and neo-Keynesian analysis. Current problems of monetary and general fiscal policy.

Source: Columbia University, Bulletin of Information, 54^th Series, No. 23 (June 19, 1954). Announcement of the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions 1954-1955, p. 35.

_______________________________

December 15, 1954

TO: MEMBERS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

FROM: Arthur R. Burns

Will you please send to Professor Dorfman your lists of readings with recent amendments including optional readings, in order that he may endeavor to arrange for the library to have as many as possible of the books that are being recommended. Please also forward requests for future additions to the library to Professor Dorfman.

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

ECONOMICS 121-122
READING LIST
in
MONETARY ECONOMICS

Note: Eligible veterans may purchase at government expense any four books marked “V”.

1954

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

ECONOMICS 121
REQUIRED READING

(References are to numbered sections in Reading List.)

First Semester

Section:

I (If necessary)
II-1 (Outside reading)
IV-1 (Partly for discussion in class, as indicated)
V-1 (Outside reading)

Second Semester

Section:

III (Outside reading, as indicated)
IV-2 (Partly for discussion in class, as indicated)
V-2 (Outside reading)
VI-1 (Outside reading)
VII (Look into several of the books)

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

READING LIST IN MONETARY ECONOMICS

Required reading should if possible be read in the order in which the titles are presented.

I. INTRODUCTORY

(Students who have had little or no previous work in Money and Banking are advised to read at least one title in each group.)

1. General Texts

Chandler, L. V., Economics of Money and Banking (1953). “V”

James, F. C.: Economics of Money, Credit and Banking (3rd edition, 1940)

Kent, R. P.: Money and Banking (1951). “V”

Thomas, R. G.: Our Modern Banking and Monetary System (1950), Chapters 1-30. “V”

2. Other References

Chandler, L. V.: Introduction to Monetary Theory (1940)

Mitchell, W. C.: Business Cycles (Volume I, 1927) Chapter 2

Robertson, D. H.: Money (2nd edition, 1929)

II. MONETARY AND BANKING ORGANIZATION OF THE U.S.

1. Required Reading

Thomas, R. G.: Our Modern Banking and Monetary System (1950), Chapters 18, 19

Kent, R. P.: Money and Banking (1951), Chapters 20-22,26-28

Burgess, W. R.: The Reserve Banks and the Money Market (Revised edition, 1946)

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Banking Studies (1941), Chapters 3, 17

Angell, J. W.: The Behavior of Money (1936), Chapters 1-4

Goldenweiser, E. A.: Federal Reserve Objectives and Policies (AER, June, 1947)

Thomas, W.: The Heritage of War Finance (AER, Proceedings, May, 1947)

Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Federal Reserve Policy (Post-War Economic Studies, No. 8: 1947)

Goldenweiser, E. A., American Monetary Policy (1951)

2. Other References

Beckhart, B. H., ed.: The New York Money Market (4 volumes, 1931-32)

Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Federal Reserve Bulletin (current issues)

_________________: The Federal Reserve System (1939)

_________________: Post-War Economic Studies (published serially)

Crawford, A. W.: Monetary Management under the New Deal (1940)

Currie, L.: The Supply and Control of Money in the U. 5. (1934)

Dewey, D. R.: Financial History of the U. S. (1903)

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Monthly Review

Hardy, C. O.: Credit Policies of the Federal Reserve System (1932)

Harris, S. E.: Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy (2 volumes, 1932)

Hepburn, A. B.: History of Currency in the U. S. (2nd edition, 1924)

Jacoby, N. H. and Saulnier, R. J.: Business Finance and Banking (1947)

Johnson, G. G., Jr.: The Treasury and Monetary Policy, 1933-38 (1938)

Macaulay, F. R.: Interest Rates, Bond Yields end Stock Prices in the U.S. Since 1856 (1938)

Mints, L. W., History of Banking Theory (1945) (U.S. and U.K.)

Mitchell, W. C.: History of the Greenbacks (1903)

National Monetary Commission: Reports (1910, 1911): includes volumes on various phases of money, banking and related legislation in the U.S.

Paris, J. D.: Monetary Policies of the U.S., 1932-1936 (1938)

Riefler, W. W.: Money Rates and Money Markets in the U. S. (1930)

Saulnier, R. J., and Young, R. A.: Finance and Credit in the American Economy, 1900-1944 (1946)

U. S. Government Printing Office: Federal Reserve Act of 1913, with Amendments and Laws Relating to Banking (1940)

Westerfield, R. B.: Historical Survey of Branch Banking in the U.S. (1939)

_________________: Our Silver Debacle (1936)

Whitney, C.: Experiments in Credit Control: The Federal Reserve System (1934)

III. MONETARY AND BANKING ORGANIZATION IN OTHER COUNTRIES

(Select and read enough to understand the general organization and history of at least one country.)

Andreades, A.: History of the Bank of England (2^nd edition, 1934)

Arnold, A.T.: Banks, Credit and Money in Soviet Russia (1937)

Bagehot, W.: Lombard Street (14th edition, 1915)

Brown, W. A., Jr.: England and the New Gold Standard (1929)

Clapham, Sir John: The Bank of England (1944)

Conant, C. A.: History of Modern Banks of Issue (6th edition, 1927)

Dacey, W. M.: The British Banking Mechanism (1951)

Dulles, E. L.: The French Frano, 1914-1928 (1929)

Dupriez, L. H.: Monetary Reconstruction in Belgian (1947)

Feaveryear, A. S.: The Pound Sterling (1931)

Flink, S.: The Geran Reichsbank (1931)

Harris, S. E.: Monetary Policies of the British Empire (1931)

Hawtrey, R. G.: A Century of Bank Rate (1936)

Higgins, B. H.: Canada’s Financial System in War (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1944)

Holladay, J.: The Canadian Banking System (1938)

Hubbard, L. E.: Soviet Money and Finance (1936)

King, W. T. C.: History of the London Discount Market (1936)

League of Nations: Gold Delegation: Reports, etc. (1930, ff.)

_________________: Money and Banking (periodically, 1931 ff.)

Madden, J.T., and Nadler, M.: International Money Markets (1935)

National Monetary Commission: Reports (1910, 1911): includes volumes on a series of foreign systems

Northrop, M. B.: The Control Policies of the German Reichsbank, 1924-1933 (1938)

Plumptre, A. F. W.: Central Banking in the British Dominions (1940)

Rogers, J. H.: The Process of Inflation in France, 1914-1927 (1929)

Sayers, R. S.; Modern Banking (1947). Chiefly on England

Shepherd, H. L.: The Monetary Experience of Belgium, 1914-1936 (1936)

Whale, P. B.: Joint Stock Banking in Germany (1930)

Willis, H. P.: Theory and Practice of Central Banking (1939)

Willis, H. P., and Beckhart, B. H., eds.: Foreign Banking Systems (especially on Great Britain and Canada) (1929)

IV. THE GENERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE MONETARY AND BANKING SYSTEM AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

1. Required Reading (First Semester)

(In approximate order. Titles marked with asterisk (*) should be prepared for discussion in class.)

*Layton, Sir W. T.: Introduction to the Study of Prices (3rd ed., 1938) (skim)

*Fisher, Irving: The Purchasing Power of Money (2nd ed., 1926) (skim)

*Keynes, J. M.: Monetary Reform (1924), Chapters 1 and 3 (Section 1)

Angell, J. W.: Theory of International Prices (1926), pp. 116-135, 178-186, 274-280, 308-312, 324-331

_________________: The Behavior of Money (1936), Chapters 5, 6

Ellis, H. S. German Monetary Theory, 1905-1933 (1934), Chapters 8-11

Hawtrey, R. G.: The Gold Standard in Theory and Practice (5th edition, 1947). “V”

*Hawtrey, R. G.: The Art of Central Banking (1932), Chapter 4

*_________________: Currency and Credit (3rd edition, 1927), Chapters 1-4, 10, 11

*Keynes, J. M.: Treatise on Money (2 volumes, 1930), Chapters 9-14, 30, 35-37

Klein, L. R.: The Keynesian Revolution (1947), Chapter l (on Keynes’ Treatise). “V”

Robertson, D. H.: Essays in Monetary Theory (1940), Chapters 1, 4-6, 11

*Hicks, J. R.: A Suggestion for Simplifying the Theory of Money (Economica, February, 1935) (Reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Monetary Theory, 1951)

*Keynes, J. M.: The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). “V”

2. Required Reading (Second Semester)

Haberler, G.: Prosperity and Depression (1946), Chapter 8. 3^rd edition 1941. “V”

Hansen, A. H.: Full Recovery or Stagnation (1938), Part IV

*_________________: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles (1941), Part III. “V”

Wilson, T.: Fluctuations in Income and Employment (1942), Part I

*Burns, A. F.: Economic Research and the Keynesian Thinking of our Times (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1946)

*Hicks, J. R.: Value and Capital (1939), Chapters 9-14, 19, 23. “V”

*Lerner, A. P.: The Economics of Control (1946), Chapters 21-25. “V”

*Angell, J. W.: Investment and Business Cycles (1941), Chapters 9-11, 13. “V”

*Hansen, A. H.: Economic Policy and Full Employment (1947); Chapters 11-19

Klein, L. R.: The Keynesian Revolution (1947), Chapters 3, 4 (only pp. 110-123), 6. “V”

Harris, S. E., ed.: The New Economics (1947), Chapters 4, 9, 14, 31, 37

Ellis, H. S., ed.: Survey of Contemporary Economics (1948), Chapter 9 (article by H. H. Villard, “Monetary Theory.”) “V”

Modigliani, F.: Fluctuations in the Saving-Income Ratio (in National Bureau of Economic Research, Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 11, (1949), Part V)

Samuelson, P. A.: Interactions of the Multiplier Analysis and the Principle of Acceleration (RES, May 1939; reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Business Cycle Theory)

3. Other Preferences

American Economic Association, Readings in Business Cycle Theory (1944), especially Chaps. 5-9, 12, 15, 17

_________________: Readings in Monetary Theory (1951), especially Chaps. 7, 11, 13, 17. “V”

_________________: Readings in Price Theory (1952), especially Chaps. 14, 15

American Economic Review: Proceedings (May, 1948): papers on Keynes

Angell, J. W.: Keynes and Economic Analysis Today (Rev. Econ. Stat., November, 1948)

Clark, J. M.: Alternatives to Serfdom (1948), Chapter 4

_________________: Economics of Planning Public Works (1935)

Domar, E. D.: Expansion and Employment (AER, March, 1947)

_________________: The Problem of Capital Accumulation (AER, Dec. 1948)

Duesenberry, James F.: Income, Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behavior (1949)

Durbin, E. M.: Purchasing Power and Trade Depression (1934)

Eisner, R.: Underemployment Equilibrium Rates of Growth (AER, Mar. 1952). On papers by Domar and Schelling in this Section.

Ellis, H. S., ed.: Survey of Contemporary Economics (1948), Chapters 2, 5

Fellner, W.: Monetary Policies and Full Employment (1946)

_________________: The Robertsonian Evolution (AER, June 1952)

_________________: and Somers, H. M.: Alternative Monetary Approaches to Interest Theory (RES, Feb. 1941)

Gayer, A. D.: Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilization (2nd edition, 1937)

_________________, ed.: Lessons of Monetary Experience (1937)

Halm, G.: Monetary Theory (1942). Second edition 1946

Hansen, A. H., Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy (1949)

Hart, A. G.: Anticipations, Uncertainty and Dynamic Planning (1940)

Hawtrey, R. G.: A Century of Bank Rate (1938)

Hayek, F.: Prices and Production (2nd edition, 1935)

_________________: The Pure Theory of Capital (1941)

Henderson, H. D.: The Significance of the Rate of Interest (Oxford Economic Papers, October, 1938). Also see articles in later issues on interest rates and liquidity preference.

Kuznets, S.: National Product Since 1869 (1946)

Lange, O.: Price Flexibility and Employment (1944)

_________________: The Theory of the Multiplier (Econometrica, July-October, 1943)

Lange, O., et al., eds.: Studies in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics (1942; in memory of Henry Schultz) papers by Lange, Mosak, Samuelson, Hart, Tinbergen

Lundberg, E.: Studies in the Theory of Economic Expansion (1937)

Machlup, F.: International Trade and the National Income Multiplier (1943)

Mack, R. P.: The Direction of Change in Income and the Consumption Function (RES, November, 1948)

Marshall, A.: Money, Credit and Commerce (1923)

Modigliani, F.: Liquidity Preference and the Theory of Interest and Money (Econometrica, January, 1944)

Myrdal, G.: Monetary Equilibrium (1939)

Niebyl, K. H.: Studies in the Classical Theory of Money (1946)

Nussbaum, A.: Money in the Law (1939). 1950 edition

Ohlin, B.: The Stockholm Theory of Savings and Investment (EJ, 1937; reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Business Cycle Theory, 1944)

Pigou, A. C.: Employment and Equilibrium (1941)

_________________: Lapses from Full Employment (1945)

Robinson, Joan: Introduction to the Theory of Employment (1939; expanded 1949)

Robertson, D. H.: Banking Policy and the Price Level (2nd edition, 1932)

_________________: Saving and Hoarding (EJ, September, 1933)

Rueff, J.: The Fallacies of Lord Keynes’ General Theory (QJE, May 1947)

Samuelson, P. A.: The Principle of Acceleration and the Multiplier (JPE, Dec. 1939)

_________________: Interactions between the Multiplier and the Principle of Acceleration (RES, May, 1939; reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Business Cycle Theory, 1944)

Saulnier, R. J.: Contemporary Monetary Theory (1938)

Schelling, T.: Capital Growth and Equilibrium (AER, Dec. 1947). On paper above by Domar

Schumpeter, J. A.: Theory of Economic Development (1934)

Symposium: Five Views on the Consumption Function (Rev. Econ. Stat., November, 1946)

Temporary National Economic Commission: Saving and Investment (Hearings, Part 9: 1939)

Terborgh, G.: The Bogey of Economic Maturity (1945)

Tinbergen, J.: Some Problems in the Explanation of Interest Rates (QJE, May, 1947)

Villard, H. H.: Deficit Spending and the National Income (1941)

Viner, J.: Studies in the Theory of International Trade (1937), Chapters 3-7

Wicksell, K.: Interest and Prices (English edition, 1936)

_________________: Lectures on Political Economy, Volume II: Money (1935); also VoI. I, Introduction

Williams, J. H.: An Appraisal of Keynesian Economics (American Economic Review, Proceedings, May, 1948)

Wood, E.: English Theories of Central Banking Control, 1819-1858 (1938)

Wright, D. McC.: The Economics of Disturbance (1947)

V. BUSINESS CYCLES

(Also see references in Section IV)

1. Required Reading (First Semester)

Mitchell, W. C.: Business Cycles: The Problem and Its Setting. Volume I (1927), especially Chapters 1, 2, and 5

Clark, J. M.: Strategic Factors in Business Cycles (1934), especially pp. 1-22, 96-123, 167-183

Ellis, H. S.: German Monetary Theory, 1905-1933 (1934); Part IV

Amer. Econ. Assoc.: Readings in Business Cycle Theory (1944), Chaps. 1, 15, 17, 21. “V”

Haberler, G.: Prosperity and Depression (1946), Part I

2. Required Reading (Second Semester)

Haberler, G.: Prosperity and Depression (1946), Part III

League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World (1945), Section I. “V”

Schumpeter, J.: Business Cycles (1939), Chapter 4

Hicks, J. R.: Value and Capital (1939), Chapter 24

Angell, J. W.: Investment and Business Cycles (1941), Chapters 7, 8, 12

Hansen, A. H.: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles (1941), Parts I, III

Wilson, T.: Fluctuations in Income and Employment (1942), Part II (on the U.S. 1919-1937)

Metzler, L. A.: Business Cycles and the Modern Theory of Employment (AER, June 1946)

Burns, A. F., New Facts on Business Cycles (National Bureau of Economic Research, Annual Report, 1950), Part I

3. Other References

Achinstein, A.: Introduction to Business Cycles (1950)

Burns, A. F.: Production Trends in the U. S. since 1870 (1934)

Burns, A. F., and Mitchell, W. C.: Measuring Business Cycles (1946)

_________________: Hicks and the Real Cycle (JPE, Feb. 1952)

Frickey, E.: Economic Fluctuations in the U. S., 1866-1914 (1942)

Harrod, R. F.: The Trade Cycle (1936)

_________________: Notes on Trade Cycle Theory (EJ, June 1951)

Hicks, J. R.: A Contribution to the Theory of the Trade Cycle (1950)

Kaldor, N.: A Model of the Trade Cycle (EJ, 1940)

_________________: Mr. Hicks on the Trade Cycle (EJ, Dec. 1951)

Kalecki, M.: Essays in the Theory of Economic Fluctuations (1939)

Knight, F. H.: The Business Cycle, Interest and Money (RES, May, 1941)

Robbins, L.: The Great Depression (1934)

Röpke, W.: Crises and Cycles (1936)

Salant, W.: Foreign Trade Policy in the Business Cycle (in C. J. Friedrich and E. S. Mason, eds., Public Policy, 1940, vol. II)

Tinbergen, J.: Statistical Testing of Business-Cycle Theories (2 volumes, 1939)

Tinbergen, J., and Polak, J. J.: The Dynamics of Business Cycles (1950)

VI. CURRENCY AND EXCHANGE DEPRECIATION:
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY POLICIES

1. Required Reading

Gayer, A. D.: Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilization (2 ed., 1937), Chapters 1-8

Hansen, A. H.: Full Recovery or Stagnation? (1938), Chapters 10-15

Gilbert, M.: Currency Depreciation (1939), Chapters 3, 5, 6

League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World (1945), Chapter 17

Hansen, A. H.: America’s Role in the World Economy (1945), Apps. A and B. “V”

Nurkse, R.: Conditions of International Monetary Equilibrium (1945) (reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Intl. Trade, 1948)

_________________: Domestic and International Economic Equilibrium (in S. E. Harris, ed., The New Economics, 1947)

Robinson, Joan: Introduction to the Theory of Employment (1939; reprinted 1947), Chapter on The Foreign Exchanges

2. Other References

Angell, J. W.: Theory of International Prices, Chapters 7, 17 (1926)

Bloomfield, A. I.: Operations of the American Exchange Stabilization Fund (RES, May, 1944)

Bresciani-Turroni, C.: The Economics of Inflation (1937) (On Germany, 1914-24)

Brown, W. A., Jr.: The International Gold Standard Reinterpreted, 1914-1934 (2 volumes, 1944)

Cassel, G.: The Downfall of the Gold Standard (1936)

_________________: Money and Foreign Exchange After 1914 (1922)

Dulles, E. L.: The French Franc, 1914-1928 (1929)

Dupriez, L. H.: Monetary Reconstruction in Belgium (1947)

Ellis, H. S.: Exchange Control in Central Europe (1941)

Graham, F. D.: Exchanges, Prices, and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany, 1920-1923 (1930)

Gregory, T. E.: The Gold Standard and Its Future (1932)

Hall, N. F.: The Exchange Equalization Account (London, 1935)

Harris, S. E.: Exchange Depreciation (1926)

Heilperin, M. A.: International Monetary Economics (1939), Chapters 3, 6, 9

League of Nations: The Course and Control of Inflation (1946) (Experience after World War I)

_________________: International Currency Experience (1944)

Leavens, D. H.: Silver Money (1939)

Li, C. M.: Theory of International Trade under Silver Exchange (QJE, Aug. 1939)

Patterson, G.: Survey of U. S. International Finance (annual, 1950 ff.)

Sayers, R. S.: Modern Banking (1947), Chapters 7, 8

Southard, F. A., Jr.: Some European Currency and Exchange Experiences, 1943-1946 (1946)

U. S. Tariff Commission: Foreign Trade and Exchange Controls in Germany (1942), pp. 1-34

U. S. Treasury Department: Articles of Agreement: International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruotion and Development (1944)

Waight, L.: The Exchange Equalization Account (1939)

Westerfield, R. B.: Our Silver Debacle (1936)

Whittlesey, C. R.: International Monetary Issues (1937)

Williams, J. H.: Post-War Monetary Plans (1944)

VII. CURRENT PROBLEMS IN THEORY AND POLICY

(These references are in large part supplementary to the more recent among the titles in Section IV, above. Look into a number of them, and read carefully what interests you.)

Beveridge, Sir W.: Full Employment in a Free Society (1945)

Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Post-War Economic Studies (published at intervals)

Brunner, K.: Inconsistency and Indeterminacy in Classical Economics (Econometrica, Apr. 1951). On Patinkin papers listed below

Buchanan, N. S.: International Investment and Domestic Welfare (1945)

Chandler, L. V.: Federal Reserve Policy and the Federal Debt (AER, 1949; reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Monetary Theory, 1951)

Clark, C.: The Economics of 1960 (1944)

Cohen, M.: Postwar Consumption Functions (RES, Feb. 1952)

Fisher, A. G. B.: International Implications of Full Employment (1946)

Fisher, Irving: 100 Per Cent Money (2 ed., 1936)

Friend, Irving: Personal Savings in the Post-War Period (Survey Current Bus., Sept. 1949 and Suppl., 1950-51

_________________ and Bronfenbrenner, J.: Business Investment Programs and their Realization (Survey of Current Business, Dec. 1950)

Hansen, A. H.: Classical, Loanable-Fund and Keynesian Interest Theories (QJE, Aug. 1951)

_________________: Income, Employment and Public Policy (1948) (Essays in honor of Hansen)

Harrod, R. F.: Toward a Dynamic Economics (1948)

International Labor Office: Public Investment and Full Employment (1946)

Lerner, A. P.: The Economics of Employment (1951)

Liu, T. C. and Chang, C. G.: U.S. Consumption and Investment Propensities (AER, Sept. 1950)

Millikan, M. F., ed.: Income Stabilization for a Developing Democracy (1953)

Morishima, M.: Consumer’s Behavior and Liquidity Preference (Econometrica, Apr. 1952)

Norton, F. E.: Capital Theory and Progressive Equilibrium (AER, Papers and Proc., May 1951)

Oxford University, Institute of Statistics: The Economics of Full Employment (1944). A symposium

Patinkin, D.: Relative Prices, Say’s Law and the Demand for Money (Econometrica, Apr. 1948)

_________________: The Indeterminacy of Absolute Prices in Classical Economic Theory (Econometrica, Jan. 1949)

_________________: The Invalidity of Classical Monetary Theory (Econometrica, Apr- 1951)

Robinson, Joan: Collected Economic Papers (1951). Parts I-III

Rosa, R.: The Revival of Monetary Policy (RES, Feb. 1951)

Schelling, T. C.: The Dynamics of Price Flexibility (AER, Sept. 1949). And see replies by Patinkin and Klein in AER, Sept. 1950

Tobin, J.: Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt: The Patman Inquiry (RES, May 1953)

Tsiang, S. C.: Accelerator, Theory of the Firm and the Business Cycle (QJE, Aug. 1951). On Kaldor and Samuelson

United Nations: National and International Measures for Full Employment (Report by a group of experts: 1949)

_________________: Measures for International Economic Stabilization (Report by a group of experts: 1951)

Williams, J. H.: Money, Trade and Economic Growth (1951). (Essays in honor of Williams) Part III

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

1954-55

ECONOMICS 121-122

Add the following titles:

Sec. II-2:

Bach, G. L: Federal Reserve Policy-Making (1950).

Brandt, Harry: U.S. Monetary and Credit Policies, 1945-50 (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia 1954).

U.S. Congress: Joint Committee on the Economic Report: Monetary, Credit and Fiscal Policies (1949: U.S. Cong. 81:1).The Patman-Douglas Report. On the Federal Reserve, esp. Chap. II; on fiscal policy, Chap. XI.

Sec. IV-2:

Hansen, A. H.: A Guide to Keynes (1953), Chap. 7.

Sec. VII:

Abramovitz, M.: Economics of Growth (in: Survey Contemp. Econ., vol. II; ed. B. F. Haley, 1952).

Ferber, R.: Aggregate Consumption Functions (Natl. Bur. Econ. Res., Tech, Paper #8; 1953).

Friedman, Milton: Essays in Positive Economics (1953), Part III.

Hubbard, J.C.: The Marginal and the Average Propensity to Consume (QJE, Feb. 1954).

Kalecki, M.: Theory of Economic Dynamics (1954).

Kuznets, S.: The Proportion of Capital Formation to National Product (AEA, Proc., May 1952).

Mack, Ruth P.: Economics of Consumption (Survey Contemp. Econ., vol. II; ed. B. F. Haley, 1952).

Yeager, L. B.: Some Questions about Growth Economics (AER, March 1954).

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13 (Columbia University – teaching, etc.) in an unlabeled folder.

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

Tags AngellJW, DorfmanJ

Chicago Columbia Economists Gender

Columbia. Meet an ABD economics alumna. Dorothy Beal Christelow, 1937-1940

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-06-04

The combination of government service during the Second World War and marriage followed by the birth of a daughter and son was probably sufficient to have gotten in the way of Dorothy Beal Christelow completing an economics Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia.

I stumbled across Dorothy Beal in an economics department request for emergency funding on her behalf in 1938 (transcribed below). This led me to conduct my own background check on her life and career, the results of which are included in this post. Her obituary in the Springfield Reporter provides most of the details.

__________________________

Almost certainly related to
Dorothy Beal’s Family’s
“Financial Catastrophe”

“Henry S. Beal, president of the Sullivan Machinery company since March, 1933, resigned his position Friday at a meeting of the directors in Boston. Preston Upham of Boston, grandson of one of the company’s founders, was named as chairman of the board…Mr. Beal assumed the presidency of the Sullivan Machinery company March 6, 1933.

Source: From the Springfield Reporter (Springfield, VT, 13 October 1938, p. 1.

__________________________

Emergency Funding Request
on Behalf of Dorothy Beal

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

September 27, 1938

Committee on Education,
Board of Trustees,
Columbia University.

Gentlemen:

One of our outstanding students in Economics, Miss Dorothy Beal, very suddenly finds herself facing a financial emergency, due to a financial catastrophe which has just struck her family. Instead of having her year’s work financed, as she expected, she finds herself completely without resources. Inasmuch as she is one of the strongest students we have had in the Department from the standpoint of social and scholastic background, as well as in terms of work done with us during the past year, it is my hope that your Committee may find it possible, out of accumulated funds, to make a grant which will relieve her necessities sufficiently to enable her to go on to complete this year’s academic work. I know her personally, and colleagues with whom she has studied confirm my judgment that she is a very exceptional person. At the moment she is engaged on one piece of scientific research which Professor Wolman pronounces so promising that he is eager to have it pushed to successful completion. If an award could be made her which would cover tuition and a meagre allowance for living expenses for about eight months, I am sure that such action would be not only generous but wise. [handwritten insert:] $800 in all.

I might add that if the grant-in-aid fund had not already been exhausted, Miss Beal would unquestionably have received recognition from that quarter.

Yours faithfully,
[signed] Roswell C. McCrea

* * * * * * * * * * *

Copy of letter

October 8, 1938

Professor Roswell C. McCrea
Department or Economics

Dear Professor McCrea:

Pursuant to the recommendation contained in your recent letter, the Trustees at their meeting today made available for a special award to Miss Dorothy Beal for the current academic year the sum of $800, chargeable to the accumulated income of the Garth Fellowship Fund.

Very truly yours,
[unsigned]
Frank D. Fackenthal

* * * * * * * * * * *

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

October 6, 1938

Mr. Philip M. Hayden,
213 Low Memorial Library.

Dear Mr. Hayden:

Thank you for the information that the Trustees had acted favorably on my request that $800 from the accumulated income in the Garth Fellowship be given to Miss Dorothy Beal, candidate for the degree of Ph. D. in the Department of Economics. I now wish formally to nominate Miss Beal for a Special Fellowship from the fund mentioned above.

Will you kindly arrange with the Bursar to have made available to Miss Beal now, at his office, a check for $400, and another check for $400 on Wednesday, February 1st. Miss Beal’s present address is 220 East 73d Street, New York.

With appreciation of your cooperation, I am

Yours faithfully,
[signed] Roswell C. McCrea

Source: Columbia University Archives. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Central Files 1890-, Box 329, Folder “McCrea, Roswell C., 7/1938 — 5/1942”.

__________________________

Cherchez l’homme!

“[Miss Beal] attended Mont Choisi in Lausanne and Wellesley college. She was graduated from the University of Chicago and after graduate work at Columbia university has been on the research staff of a division of the Treasury Department in Washington.” … [Mr. Allan] Christelow studied at the University of Leeds, Oxford university and the University of California, and has been on the teaching staff of Oxford [Tutor in Queens College Oxford in 1939] and of Princeton university [1940]. He is with the British Advisory Council in Washington.”

Source: From the wedding announcement published in the Springfield Reporter (Springfield VT), 14 May 1942, p. 7.

__________________________

Background of Dorothy’s husband,
Allan Christelow

b. January 31, 1911, Bradford, Yorkshire, England
d. August 8, 1975, New Canaan, Connecticut
A.B. University of Leeds, 1932.
B. Litt. Oxford University, 1934
Commonwealth Fund Fellow, History.

__________________________

Obituary of Dorothy Beal Christelow

HANOVER — Dorothy Beal Christelow, 89, died May 28, 2005, in Hanover.

Mrs. Christelow was an economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s. specializing in Japanese economics. She was the author of When Giants Converge: The Role of U.S.-Japan Direct Investment, which was published by M.E. Sharpe in 1995, as well as many articles.

She was born in Springfield. Vt., on March 19, 1916. the oldest of three daughters of Henry Starr Beal and Alice Ada (Colburn) Beal. On graduating from Springfield High School, she began studies at Wellesley College. She received a bachelor’s degree in 1937 from the University of Chicago.

She was accepted into Columbia University’s graduate program in journalism. While in New York City, about to embark on this new stage of her life, a family friend asked her what she was interested in writing about. When she replied “economics,” he recommended that she study economics rather than journalism. She took his advice to heart and entered Columbia’s economics program instead. She was a student there from 1937 to 1940, with the exception of a year of work as a researcher at Fortune magazine. She ultimately completed all of the requirements for a doctorate except for a dissertation.

In 1941, she moved to Washington, D.C., to work as an economist for the U.S. Treasury Department, Division of International Monetary Research. Over the next six years she went on to work for the U.S. Offices of Price Administration and of War Mobilization and Reconversion. During this period. she was introduced by a friend to Allan Christelow, an Englishman who was working in Washington, D.C. for the British Treasury. They were married in 1942, in Westerly, R.I.

In 1953. Mr. Christelow went to work for Standard Vacuum Oil Co. and the family moved to New Canaan, Conn. His work took him to Asia frequently, and the family moved to Japan for a year in 1957. Four years later, with their two children in college and boarding school, they returned to Tokyo. A series of strokes incapacitated Mr. Christelow, leaving him an invalid until his death in 1974 [sic, death was August 8, 1975]. They returned to New Canaan, and Mrs. Christelow to the work force, to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

On retirement from the Federal Reserve in 1986, she continued to work for it as a consultant for a time while also embarking on the writing of her book. She was an active member of the Yale China Association, acting as a trustee from 1983 to 1988 and from 1990 to 1995, and traveling to China on a trip organized by that organization. She served on the town of New Canaan’s board of finance from 1976 to 1992.

Mrs. Christelow maintained close ties to Vermont throughout her life. On retirement her parents purchased a farm in Windsor. The family spent a portion of each summer there. In 1996, she moved to Kendal at Hanover, where she continued to be active in fiscal affairs, serving on the community’s finance committee for several years.

Mrs. Christelow is survived by a daughter, Eileen Christelow of East Dummerston, Vt., a son, Allan Christelow of Pocatello, Idaho; and two grandchildren.

Source: Valley News (West Lebanon, N.H.), 11 June 2005, p. 4.

Image Source: Picture of Eileen, Dorothy, and Allan Christelow. From the “About Me” page of the website of Eileen Christelow, Picture Book Author & Illustrator. Image mildly enhanced by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Tags ChristelowD, McCrea, Wolman

Columbia Regulations Teaching

Columbia. List of suggestions for improving graduate education in economics. 1939

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-05-29

This post provides a 1939 students’ eye view of the graduate program in economics at the Columbia University Faculty of Political Science. Milton Friedman’s course on neo-classical economic theory gets very favorable mention and statistical methods are completely overlooked (the German proverb “The farmer only eats what the farmer knows“ probably captures the sentiment).

________________________

All four students became professors

WYLLIS BANDLER: b. July 3, 1916 in White Plains, N.Y.; d. December 22, 1995 in Tallahassee, Florida.
B.A. (1937), M.A.(1938) in economics from Columbia. Ph.D. (1962) in mathematics from the University of Zurich. Professor of Computer Science at Florida State University, 1984-1995.

DICKSON RECK: b. April 13, 1904 in Rockford, Illinois; d. April 10, 1955 in Berkeley, California.
B.A. (1927) University of Illinois, Ph.D. (1951) in economics from Columbia University. Associate Professor of Business Administration, University of California (Berkeley), 1954-55.

VAN DUSEN KENNEDY: b. October 4 in Darjeeling, India; d. May 28 2015 in Santa Cruz, California.
B.A. (1935) Swarthmore College. Ph.D. (1945) in economics from Columbia University. Assistant Professor to Professor of industrial relations at the University of California (Berkeley), 1947-1977.

FRANK COOK PIERSON: b. November 4, 1911 in Denver, Colorado; d. November 30, 1995 in Haverford Township, Pennsylvania.
B.A. (1934) Swarthmore College. Ph.D. (1942) in economics from Columbia University. On the Swarthmore College faculty from 1940 to 1979.

________________________

Cover letter to Dean McCrea
from the students

Columbia University
May 9, 1939

Dean R. C. McCrea,
Columbia University,
New York City.

Dear Dean [Roswell Cheney] McCrea:

As we agreed at luncheon with you and Professor [Frederick Cecil] Mills the other day, we are sending you the typed notes of student suggestions to the Department of Economics. We believe that these represent the concurrence of general student opinion, plus the thought we have given these matters.

Hoping that the notes will prove useful to you,

Sincerely yours,

WYLLIS BANDLER
DICKSON RECK
VAN DUSEN KENNEDY
FRANK PIERSON

________________________

Notes on some student suggestions
for the operation
of the Department of Economics, Columbia Graduate Faculty.
5/7/39.

The suggestions concern chiefly gaps that are felt to exist in the offering of the department. There are also a few notes on the method of conducting various types of courses, and on the requirements placed on students, and on the allotment of credits.

1) History of Economic Thought. Intrinsic interest in this subject is amplified by a) Oral requirement, and b) the fact that many students feel that they will some day be called upon to teach it. Some feel that the subject is already overemphasized. In any case, there is the feeling that students should not be held responsible for so large a topic unless it is offered.

Various treatments are possible. a) A mere recital of doctrines. b) A tracing of current ideas. c) A combination with Economic History, concerned with the influence of the times on the theories, and vice versa. Treatment (c) is that followed by Professor [Wesley Clair] Mitchell in his former course, and in the extremely useful Lecture Notes made from it.

Student feeling la against being held for “all the doctrines, man by man, and all the men, doctrine by doctrine”. A combination of (b) and (c) above would probably be well received.

2) Economic theory. Statements in the first paragraph under (1) above hold here. This topic is understood to include (a) Systematic presentation of current schools of thought, and (b) in particular, the structure of Neo-Classical (and derivative) Theory. The material under (b) is very well handled by Milton Friedman’s Extension course. Convenience would be served by bringing this into the Graduate Catalogue, so that it would count, without special action, for the 15 central points for Master’s candidates.

Further particular large branches include c) Socialist Theory and d) Institutionalism. Student objection to the existing offering of Socialist Theory falls under two heads. First. It is claimed that the subject matter is not covered adequately in class, that the treatment is diffuse, incomplete and wandering. Second, it is protested that the treatment is not either so fair or so sympathetic as that given, say, Neo-Classical Doctrine.

Institutionalism is handsomely handled by Dr. [Joseph] Dorfman. There is some feeling that the materiel might be expanded to cover modern Institutionalists and their work and problems more intensively.

3) Economic History. Dr. [Louis Morton] Hacker’s treatment of American Economic History is very popular, as is Professor [Arthur Robert] Burns’s course in modern capitalism. A course in Modern European Economic History, from the breakdown of Feudalism, would be very well received in addition, although the Burns course could be expanded to fill this need.

There is dissatisfaction with the existing Seminar. Auspices that would concentrate more closely on the material are rather widely held to be desirable. Professor [Archibald Herbert] Stockder’s seminar might fill this gap were it admitted to graduate economics standing. A suggestion for procedure should this prove impossible is included under “Catalog” below.

4) Labor. This may be discussed under two heads, a) Offering for the student specializing elsewhere, and b) Specialization in Labor Economics.

a) A General Survey Course in Labor Economics under capable, sympathetic auspices will be subject to very wide demand. Students whose major interest is elsewhere seem to feel quite generally that so important a branch of economics should not be left blank in their education. A large demand will also be forthcoming from first-year students who have not previously studied labor, either at all or adequately, whether or not they intend to specialize here. Such a course is of necessity a large lecture type, and requires in its instructor the specific technique relevant.

A counter-suggestion by the Faculty is that Professor [Leo] Wolman expand the subject-matter of his course. A very wide and almost unopposed sector of student feeling would prefer bringing in an outsider more cordial to the material and more tolerant of the viewpoints and questions of the members of the class.

b) A Seminar in Labor Relations for the specialist would find many applicants. Student desires as to the auspices are in agreement with the above comments. No university adequately specializes in training labor economists, and it is suggested that Columbia might consider filling this more than local gap.

5) Public Economic Policy. It is safe to day that no subject arouses wider interest among students. At present, public policy is dealt with piecemeal among the several courses, with by no means all the most important aspects being covered at all. (The most thoroughly considered section is monetary policy, both existing and proposed.) It is submitted that this is an important need which Columbia is well fitted to meet without much extra trouble.

Suggestions on this score represent the fusion of two streams of thought; a) The proposal of a joint seminar to explore specific areas of planning and policy, and to be conducted by academic experts in the various fields ([James Waterhouse] Angell, [James Cummings] Bonbright, [Arthur David] Gayer, [John Ewing] Orchard, [Arthur Whittier] Macmahon, [Robert Staughton] Lynd, etc.); b) The feeling that contact with people actually engaged in forming and executing public policy would provide a realistic knowledge of problems actually faced (economically, politically, administratively, etc.), as well as valuable personal relations. The suggestion under (b) would involve the invitation to Columbia for one, several, or all meetings of the seminar such men as [Adolf Augustus, Jr.] Berle, [Mordecai] Ezekiel, [Lauchlin] Currie, [Rexford Guy] Tugwell, [Lewis?] Mumford, [Schuyler Crawford?] Wallace, etc. etc.

Experience with the more importation of outside lecturers, as is an instance in the Public Law Department, seems to show that a course so built lacks continuity and depth in grappling with such problems would be considered under (a) above.

Yet to define the benefits of (b) to the membership of a seminar of manageable size would be wasteful and otherwise undesirable. Two solutions have been advanced, which are not mutually exclusive. The first involves the holding of “public” and “private” meetings in the manner of the Banking Seminar. This could be assisted by co-operation with the Economics Club, that is, the visitors could partially be drained off into luncheon meetings. This solution suffers from several difficulties including the discontinuity of having each outsider only once. The second solution is embodied in the suggestion for Panel Seminars below.

Students would greatly like to co-operate in the organization of this seminar.

6) Agricultural Economics. While this is already a subject of inter-university [sic, “intra-university” is almost certainly meant here] specialization, a survey course is part of a rounded general offering.

7) Population. Students do not feel that this is ably handled. The suggestion has been made that Professor [Carter] Goodrich’s course in Internal Migration could be expanded to cover this, and also Regionalism (see under (8) below).

8) Economic Geography. The offering in the School of Business is excellent, and needs only to be given graduate economic status. See also under (7) above and “Catalogue” below.

9) Method and Techniques of Research. This includes a thousand little troublesome maters that each professor assumes that the student learns elsewhere. What are the Journals in economics and related fields? How do we keep up with current developments in economics? What are the basic sources in various branches? Where are all these things scattered in the library? How do we begin the investigation of a new topic? How do we prepare a bibliography? And many others.

The suggestions here fell under three heads. First, it is felt that a booklet answering the above and related questions would prove extremely helpful. Second, instructors should keep this need in mind, and clarify the portions of techniques and bibliography that fall in their sphere. Third, careful bibliographies already existing for various courses, and others that may arise, could be assembled and sold at cost.

10) Panel Seminar. This refers to a method of conducting seminars that shows promise of solving the dilemma of the unwieldiness of large numbers on the one hand, and the wastes of exclusiveness on the other. The discussion is conducted by a panel, consisting of one or more instructors and visitors and a carefully selected small group of students. Where student reports are to be presented, the selection is keyed to guaranteeing excellence and pointedness. An “audience” of students interested in the topic may ask occasional questions from the floor, but does not act to lower the tone of the discussion nor to encumber its progress. The “audience” may be regularly enrolled, receiving attendance credit, or may vary with the particular meeting’s content. Large and varying “audiences” are probably too much for this structure to carry.

It is felt that this method would meet the need in several situations. It should operate to raise the quality of the reports, doing away with the boredom and consequent loss of enthusiasm and tempo that so often assails large seminars now. But at the same time, it would avoid the narrow exclusiveness that operates to keep interested students from an organized study of subjects offered only in seminars.

The seating arrangements suggested by the above description seen rather stiff and stilted and disruptive. In point of fact, they are not a necessary corollary of this division of labor. Ordinary seminar seating can be used, the only requirement being that there is a staff of students who are considered capable, intelligible and interesting, and who do the reporting.

The panel seminar method is especially suggested for the discussion of public economic policy advocated in (5) above, where it le felt that side student interest would be aroused and should be encouraged.

11) Doctor’s Oral Examinations. Under existing conditions, orals engender a period of rather heavy strain in most students. This period is of the order of two weeks or so, and is not related to the quantity of work being done, but rather to the crisis quality of the examinations. No useful purpose is served by this strain, in fact it is generally considered a hindrance to efficiency.

The remedy seems to be a removal of some of the critical focus upon orals. This may be accomplished, with no loss of academic standards or relevant rigor, by the process of having the true examination take place informally with each of the professors involved before the formal oral is taken. The formal assembled examination then assumes the character of a more official formality, in which passing is nearly certain barring a strong reason to the contrary. This division between the investigation of proficiency and ability on the one hand, and the ceremonial opportunity to forbid the banns on the other, should not only relieve most of the strain on the candidate, but also afford the faculty a more intensive chance to satisfy itself as to the student’s competence.

There are some indications that the present situation approximates this suggestion more closely than appears on the surface. Insofar as this is true, all that is necessary is to let this true state of affairs become clear to the candidates. In any event, more could be done along these lines with benefit and relief to all concerned.

12) Training for Careers. It is Important periodically to review the types of career for which students in economics at Columbia are acquiring training, and at the same time to survey the curriculum with respect to the kind of training it chiefly affords. The student body is divided in proportions unknown at present [Footnote: One of the questions on this year’s questionnaire will be directed to this problem.] mainly among those preparing for teaching for research, and for government service. The curriculum is skewed in the direction of training research workers. This fundamental educational divergence is worth noting, and worth investigating in its effects upon the value of the Economics offering to the students.

Many of the curricular suggestions above are directed as much to the problem “what kind of work” as to the problem “research in what field”, and are worthy of reconsideration in this light.

13) Catalog. The arrangement of the catalog, and the standing given by it to various courses, can prove a powerful aid in broadening the area of endeavor for which preparation may be secured here, as well as filling many of the lesser holes mentioned above.

In regard to the standing given courses in other departments, particularly in the School of Business, the effort has been made above to mention fields in which benefit would accrue to Master’s candidates if Graduate Economics Standing were given to certain courses. Particularly does this apply to the offerings of [Paul Frederick] Brissenden, [Archibald Herbert] Stockder, perhaps Morgen, and to the advanced courses in Economic Geography. Where this is not feasible, something can be done by way of the advisory committee, see below.

Positive encouragement rather than permission can be given to students to broaden the scope of their studies if the catalog, or if necessary a separate printed or mimeographed announcement, would list as fully as possible all courses in related fields, or isolated courses of interest, that would be profitable to economists. In this way many gaps that the Economics Department cannot hope to fill itself would be plugged, and the benefits of intra-University division of labor would be received.

14) Advisory Committee. This has proved itself useful this year, and should certainly be continued. Its mention here is in connection with the potentialities of cooperation between it and the administration and faculty.

Many of the suggestions in these notes that may prove impossible of fulfillment, particularly those which come together under “Catalog”, may be aided by the unofficial action of the Advisory Committee. If the committee is in possession of information concerning related courses, for instance, then even in the absence of official action the broadening of courses of study can be advanced. In this and many similar cases, the worthwhileness of the Department to new students can be increased.

Source: Columbia University Libraries Manuscript Collections, Columbiana. Department of Economics Collection, Box 1, Folder “Committee on Instruction”.

Image Source: Alma Mater, Columbia University. Columbia College Today, Winter 2017-18.

Tags Bandler, KennedyVD, PiersonF, Reck

Meet the correspondents

Brainstorming with John Maurice Clark

THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION 49 WEST 49th STREET, NEW YORK 20

John Maurice Clark’s Response

MORAL AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS IN MODERN SOCIETY EXPLORATORY STUDIES

Project Publications

Cast of Characters

What’s John Maurice Clark really like?… asking for a friend?

Arthur M. Day Dies Known as Economist

More Columbia Information from that time

Regulations for other economics programs

REGULATIONS FOR THE UNIVERSITY DEGREES 1904-05

Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy

FACULTY REQUIREMENTS [pp. 11-13]

MASTER OF ARTS

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

[FACULTY] PROCEDURE FOR FULFILLING PH.D. REQUIREMENTS

ECONOMICS [ DEPARTMENT REQUIREMENTS] [pp. 49-50]

MASTER OF ARTS

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Previously posted content related to Albert G. Hart

University of Chicago

Columbia University

RESPONSIBILITIES AND RESOURCES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Other blog posts for James Waterhouse Angell

Course Announcement

ECONOMICS 121-122 READING LIST in MONETARY ECONOMICS

1954

ECONOMICS 121 REQUIRED READING

READING LIST IN MONETARY ECONOMICS

IV. THE GENERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE MONETARY AND BANKING SYSTEM AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

V. BUSINESS CYCLES

VI. CURRENCY AND EXCHANGE DEPRECIATION: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY POLICIES

VII. CURRENT PROBLEMS IN THEORY AND POLICY

ECONOMICS 121-122

Almost certainly related to Dorothy Beal’s Family’s “Financial Catastrophe”

Emergency Funding Request on Behalf of Dorothy Beal

Columbia University in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

Copy of letter

Columbia University in the City of New York

Faculty of Political Science

Cherchez l’homme!

Background of Dorothy’s husband, Allan Christelow

Obituary of Dorothy Beal Christelow

All four students became professors

Cover letter to Dean McCrea from the students

Notes on some student suggestions for the operation of the Department of Economics, Columbia Graduate Faculty. 5/7/39.

THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
49 WEST 49th STREET, NEW YORK 20

MORAL AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS
IN MODERN SOCIETY
EXPLORATORY STUDIES

Arthur M. Day Dies
Known as Economist

REGULATIONS
FOR THE UNIVERSITY DEGREES
1904-05

FACULTY REQUIREMENTS
[pp. 11-13]

[FACULTY] PROCEDURE
FOR FULFILLING PH.D. REQUIREMENTS

ECONOMICS
[ DEPARTMENT REQUIREMENTS]
[pp. 49-50]

RESPONSIBILITIES AND RESOURCES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Other blog posts for
James Waterhouse Angell

ECONOMICS 121-122
READING LIST
in
MONETARY ECONOMICS

ECONOMICS 121
REQUIRED READING

VI. CURRENCY AND EXCHANGE DEPRECIATION:
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY POLICIES

Almost certainly related to
Dorothy Beal’s Family’s
“Financial Catastrophe”

Emergency Funding Request
on Behalf of Dorothy Beal

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Columbia University
in the City of New York

Background of Dorothy’s husband,
Allan Christelow

Cover letter to Dean McCrea
from the students

Notes on some student suggestions
for the operation
of the Department of Economics, Columbia Graduate Faculty.
5/7/39.