Category: Economists

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Economists

Keynes vs. Marx. Abba Lerner responds to Daniel Bell, 1944

 

 

 

Both the economist Abba Lerner and the sociologist Daniel Bell can be seen in this 1944 exchange of letters to have considered themselves still at that time, to differing degrees of orthodoxy, of the Marxian persuasion. What caught my eye, in light of current macroeconomics debates, was Bell’s identification of “the confidence fairy” in Keynesian economics. Lerner’s response is that human psychology is something that Keynes rightly identified has a place in macroeconomic models. Lerner’s key conclusion: “If the theory of how the individual parts behave does not fit in with the theory of how the totality behaves that is evidence that at least one of the theories is wrong.”

In August 1938 Abba Lerner drove from Colorado Springs to Mexico City to meet Leon Trotsky. Lerner’s description of that encounter was transcribed earlier in Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

_____________________

Letter from Daniel Bell to Abba Lerner
[presumably July or August, 1944]

49 East Ninth Street
New York 3, N.Y.

Dear Abba:

I was reading through Joan Robinson’s Introduction to the Theory of Employment, recently to check some thoughts on Keynesian economics and one point has stuck in my mind nagging me on. So I pass it along to you in the hope of clarification.

In the emphasis that the whole Keynesian school places on the role of demand, savings and investment, it seems that the cornerstone of the structure is actually a psychological explanation of depression and unemployment. For the theory seems to hinge on the decisions of entrepreneurs to invest based on a calculation of profit. On the one hand people save, so there is a decline in demand for consumption goods on the other business concerns fear to expand because of declining demand for capital goods by consumption goods industries. The use of word[s] such as fears, calculation etc are quite irritating. A Marxian theory, largely abstract and dealing in terms of ratios of constant and variable capital and declining rate of profit, seems more satisfying because of the total and more meaningful picture of a complete situation it provides.

Anyway, I’m interested in clearing up this issue of a psychological underpinning to Keynesian economics. If so, why all we need is a good publicity firm to convince the people to cheer up and spend and our worries are solved.

Apart from the frivolity, I’d appreciate your reactions.

sincerely,

[signed]

Dan Bell

_____________________

210 W 16, NY 11, NY
August 6th 1944

Dear Dan,

You write that you are irritated by the emphasis on psychology in the Keynesian theory of employment. The use of words like fears, calculations etc annoy you and you find that in this regard the Keynesian approach is less satisfactory than the Marxian which [is]“largely abstract and dealing in terms of the ratios of constant and variable capital and declining rate of profit, seems to be more satisfying because of the total and more meaningful picture of a complete situation it provides.”

So you [are] interested in clearing up the issue of a psychological underpinning to Keynesian economics. “If so,” you write, “why all we need is a good publicity firm to convince the people to cheer up and spend and our worries are solved.”

I react quite the other way. I can see no objection to psychology nor does it seem to me to be an illegitimate underpinning to a theory to have psychological elements. On the contrary any theory that purports to explain what happens to human society without having to pay any attention to the way the people in it behave would seem to [me] prima-facie a swindle. It is of course very pretty and aesthetic to have a plan that describes the working of any economy as if it had nothing to do with the way human being[s] behave — which is psychology — but appears to deduce it from a simple manipulation of mathematical ratios. The Marxian theory does this and to that extent it is false and the detailed analysis of the falsity of the argument has been abundantly demonstrated even in cases where the conclusions happen to be true.

The same tendency to accept a simple mathematical law without going behind it to see how it fits in with the fact that what we are describing is the total behavior of millions of people is quite common in economic and probably in other studies too. One that is very similar to the Marxian preoccupation with ratios is to be found in the proposition called “the acceleration principle” out of which economists have built theories of the business cycle, more complex and aesthetically more satisfying than the Marxian theory, but which have been discarded as soon as it was pointed out the apparently simple mathematical proposition concerning the effects of changes in the ratios of current consumption to replacement were only true because of an implicit assumption about the expectations of business men about the continuation of the current level or trend of consumption. I refer to the theories of the Business cycle by Harrod.

Of course it will not do to dismiss the Keynesian theory by saying that all we need is to persuade people to spend by appropriate advertising. Functional Finance is only an application of other means, which are much more powerful than advertising, to bring about the proper level of spending. As long as we have an economy, capitalist or socialist, in which what is produced is somehow related to the public’s money demand for the output, we can regulate the level of activity by working on the demand.

There are very strict limits as to what can be done in this direction by advertising or propaganda or ballyhoo. Individual citizens might perhaps to some extent be persuaded to increase their spending at the expense of their saving, though even this is very doubtful. At the present time saving by individuals is due much more to the inability to buy what they want than to the appeals to buy bonds even though these are backed by the touching appeal that by so doing we can win the war, save the lives of our loved ones in the army, and make a good profit at the same time. As regards investment by business men the effects of ballyhoo are even more doubtful, for even if they should temporarily be effective, the results in unprofitable investments would very soon become apparent and no advertising can for long hope to overcome this influence.

The basic point that interests me in your letter is the willingness you show to accept a theory if it is so simple that there is no room for bringing in the fact of human behavior even when that is indeed the thing we are trying to explain. It shows a willingness to believe in the crudest of magic provided it is called scientific and objective and overrides all objections by a declaration that it is “abstract” and refuses to listen [to] its error in every detail by declaring that it aims to provide a picture of the complete situation. The principle is that it does not matter if every element in it is false as long as the total picture it gives has some attractiveness if only because it paints a picture we would like to believe to be true.

Of course if the Keynesian theory were based upon some special theory of psychology, which otherwise we have little use for, or if it invented a peculiar psychology ad hoc, you would have a legitimate basis for objection. But all the psychology used here consists of well known and undisputed propositions such as that when people earn more they will on the whole spend more and also save more, and that business men are more likely to invest when business is good than when business is bad.

Some very conscientious economists have made very careful attempts to prove these propositions by statistics, and with some success. I do not think I am too dogmatic in declaring that in the light of our everyday experience we could legitimately assume these propositions to be true even in the absence of these carful studies. And if the propositions about spending etc are not fitted into a theory like the Marxian theory (to a great extent I think they can be so fitted in) the latter is unsatisfactory. I get the feeling I remember having when I was an undergraduate in economics and a much more orthodox Marxist than I am now. I then had the ambition of showing how the behavior of the individuals fitted in the Marxian generalities of the laws of motion of the society as a whole. If the theory of how the individual parts behave does not fit in with the theory of how the totality behaves that is evidence that at least one of the theories is wrong.

This seems a little long-winded, but I hope my attitude will be apparent. If this is not clear perhaps we can meet sometime and talk it out.

Greetings to Nora

Yours sincerely,

Abba P. Lerner.

 

Source: Library of Congress. Abba P. Lerner Papers. Box 6, Folder 8 “’B’ miscellany”.

 

Image Source: Publicity photo of Abba Lerner from Beth Emet’s announcement of speakers in its 1958 Forum (that included besides Dr. Abba Lerner, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as the actor Theodore Bikel) in Library of Congress. Abba P. Lerner Papers. Box 6, Folder 8 “’B’ miscellany”.

Categories
Agricultural Economics Economists Harvard

Harvard. Memorial Minute for Agricultural Economist, J. D. Black, 1960

 

 

John Kenneth Galbraith was the chairman of a committee commissioned to write a faculty minute in honor of John D. Black (1883-1960) who taught courses in the economics of agriculture at Harvard from 1927 through 1959. Anyone familiar with Galbraithian prose can see that this minute was overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, the work of Galbraith. I do not think it an exaggeration to see in Galbraith’s praise of this or that aspect of Black’s career and scholarly style a projection of Galbraith’s own creed for academic life. Admiration, gratitude (Black pushed hard to get Galbraith promoted to a full professorship at Harvard), and affection all shine through this memorial minute, a genuine positive outlier in the art of the obituary.

Willard W. Cochrane wrote a profile “Remembering John D. Black” that was published in Choices (Magazine published by the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association in the 1st Quarter 1989 issue) pp. 31-32.

______________________

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on October 18, 1960, the following minutes were placed upon the records.

JOHN DONALD BLACK

John D. Black, Henry Lee Professor of Economics, was the nation’s leading student of the economics of agriculture, and, to a greater extent than any other man, he gave the modern dimension and form to this branch of economics. His books, monographs, and papers were more widely and attentively read than those of any other scholar in the field; he was a premier source of ideas and a leader in research; his students have held and still hold a large proportion of the professorships in this subject; they have been equally influential in the United States Department of Agriculture and influential also in the colleges and departments of agriculture in foreign countries; and Black himself had a marked influence on the agricultural legislation passed in 1933 and thereafter. The price paid for milk in this community is set in accordance with a complex formula devised by Black. Not the least of his achievements was to make Harvard, an institution with no very intimate ties to farming, a major center during his lifetime of agricultural research and instruction.

Black’s first interest in life was as a teacher of advanced students — students who would find their career in one or another branches of his subject. His teaching had little style; preparation was at best an afterthought. But his students soon came to realize that they were, incomparably, the most important people in his life. They could count, literally, on his unlimited time and his impersonal but equally unlimited affection. And they discovered that beneath his formless lecturing were solid theoretical premises, a strong scientific attitude, and a profound contempt for anything suggestive of cant or pretense. He was immensely tolerant of students of average ability and was content if they became, in his hands, a little better than average. But he rejoiced in his good students and saw in all their achievements his own. Black’s students were his students for life. He knew them all by name; he expected to be consulted when they changed jobs; and he liked to be informed on their personal life. He was deeply concerned with the quality of instruction in agricultural economics not alone at Harvard but throughout the country. High level instruction he identified, not inaccurately, with this own students. So for many years he carried with him a small black book containing a list of former students and in his mind a list of college and university departments where he felt his influence could be enhanced. A vacancy in any of these institutions led promptly to a recommendation of a man who could be counted upon to extend what he did not hesitate to call “the Black point of view.”

Though subordinate in its claim on his time (during his nearly thirty years at Harvard his door was always open to students from nine until five) Black’s research and writing was of first importance and was prodigious in volume. His Production Economics, published in 1926, though unfinished in some respects, was a landmark in the development of the production function and in the theory of the competitive firm. It led Black to develop an entirely new approach to farm management research and instruction, one that reflected far more adequately the conceptual character of the farm firm and which in time largely supplanted the older methods based on comparative accounting data. Marketing, agricultural co-operation land tenure, land economics, price analysis, forestry, population theory, food and nutrition, farm labor, and national policy were among the subjects which engaged his attention at one period or another. A selection from his writings published last year by the Harvard University Press was from nearly three hundred books, papers, pamphlets, congressional submissions, reports, and manuscripts. Black had little patience with refinement in economic theory or method; he made no effort to conceal his opinion that much discussion of finer points was pretentious nonsense. He spoke often of the need to “open up a subject”—to initiate investigation and to offer the preliminary findings. This repeatedly he did. The results were never well formed or polished. But they were always supremely relevant, and they usually paved the way for the more detailed efforts of less original men.

Throughout his life Black was a trusted adviser on a wide range of matters concerning agricultural policy. He could not be readily typed either as a liberal or as a conservative. But he was sympathetic and pragmatic. He mistrusted the men who resolved matters on general theoretical grounds, and he was profoundly interested in results. Thus during the thirties, when many economists opposed the farm legislation of the period as an improper interference with the free market, Black was concerned only with how it might be made to work. Similarly on other matters. As a result, he was called on constantly by a succession of Secretaries of Agriculture, by agricultural officials, farm leaders, congressional committees and, especially in recent years, by foreign governments.

John Donald Black was born in 1883 in the log house on the original family homestead in Cambridge, Wisconsin. He was fourth in a family of talented children — one that include three teachers, a distinguished chemist, and a leading businessman. Black made his way through normal school, became a high school teacher of algebra, botany, and physical geography and the coach of the high school athletic teams. With earnings from teaching, he proceeded to the University of Wisconsin and to a degree in English. He taught English first at Western Reserve University and then for four years at the Michigan College of Mines (as it then was) on the upper Michigan peninsula. This latter college was in a raw and bitter community; in the neighboring copper mines bitterness and strife were endemic. He became impressed, especially after a long strike in 1915, with the urgency of the social problems. It seems likely, also, that he had become increasingly less impressed by the urgency or even the feasibility of teaching English grammar to these engineers for, in any case, he had begun to smuggle economics into his courses in the form of assignments in English composition. But on returning to study labor economics at a University of Wisconsin summer school, his attention was caught by the fledgling work in farm economics of Henry C. Taylor. He turned to this subject and took his Ph.D. degree with a thesis on land tenure in Wisconsin. On completion of his degree in 1918, he went to the University of Minnesota. His academic progress there may well serve as a model for the ambitious young scholar. He was assistant professor for six months, associate professor for two years, and the head of his department from the beginning.

In the ensuing ten years, the University of Minnesota became by far the most interesting center for research and discussion of the social problems of agriculture in the United States. A brilliant group of scholars gathered to work with Black. From them came a striking series of pamphlets and monographs — those on empirical methods and the nature of market supply responses were especially noteworthy. Before long, Black had a disproportionate share of both graduate students and budget — a development which he never found it in his heart to deplore.

By the late twenties his work was widely known and, at the behest of Thomas Nixon Carver, he was invited to visit Harvard for a term. This he did in 1927, and the visit was soon followed by an offer of a professorship. Now the students came to Cambridge instead of St. Paul. Few of them had funds to afford Harvard tuition, and by an incredible exercise of energy and resourcefulness Black found them money with which to study and do research. In 1929 and the years following the Social Science Research Council awarded one hundred twenty scholarships to improve the level of teaching and research in agricultural economics and rural sociology. Of the recipients, no fewer than forty-five came to Harvard to work with Black. In some subsequent years as many as a quarter of all the students in economics belonged to what came to be called “the Black Empire.”

In 1917 Black married Nina Van Steenberg, a woman of serene good humor and keen intelligence who, with their three children — Guy, Margaret, and Alan — survives him. The Black house in Belmont was for hundreds of graduate students nearly as much a part of Harvard as were his rooms in Widener or (later on) in Littauer. Black, to the wonder of all who knew him, worked prodigiously, imperturbably, and without evident strain. The serenity, charm, and quiet good humor of his household is surely a part of the explanation.

In his relations to colleagues and university, Black was the epitome of the inner-directed man. His view of what he needed and wanted was extremely clear. Since, in the end, it invariably prevailed, the Department eventually adopted the wise course of acceding to his wishes at the outset. Where he found university rules inconvenient, he unhesitantly ignored them. The rule that members of the faculty, though sound in body and mind, should retire at some specified age, struck him as especially absurd. He continued to teach until last December when he was seventy-six. He had a certain quiet pride in the devices by which he accomplished this defeat of authority, and it was his belief that no one in the modern history of the university had approached his record.

Black was an early President of the American Farm Economic Association and one of the life Fellows of that organization. He had a founding role in the organization of the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, and in 1955 he was President of the American Economic Association.

Last January he was stricken by the first of a series of severe heart attack. He died on April 12.

Edward S. Mason
Arthur Smithies
John Kenneth Galbraith, Chairman.

 

Source: Harvard University Gazette, Vol. LVI, No. 7 (October 29, 1960), p. 36-8. Copy in the Papers of John Kenneth Galbraith (Box 527), John F. Kennedy Presidential Library.

Image Source: Harvard University. Class Album 1945.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Appointment of Leontief as Economics Instructor in 1932

 

 

Wassily Leontief was appointed in April, 1932 at Harvard for a three year appointment as instructor, beginning September 1, 1932. In light of current Rube Goldberg procedures and a Noah’s ark of bureaucratic species required to sign off at each stage of the hiring process in universities today, one wonders at this ease of instructor appointment in 1932 as reflected in the following two letters. Of course, in all fairness I should try to fish out similar appointments that were made for lesser lights endowed with stronger personal relations to the departmental and university movers-and-shakers, but visitors to Economics in the Rear-View Mirror might excuse me for oversampling at the top of the scientific significance distribution. Certainly in this case, merit mattered.

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To President Lowell from Dean Murdock, February 23, 1932

Harvard University
Cambridge

Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Office of the Dean
20 University Hall

February 23, 1932.

Dear Mr. Lowell:

The Department of Economics is very eager to have appointed as Instructor for three years, beginning September 1 next, Mr. Wassily Leontieff. They would like to have his salary for the first year $3600, for the second, $4000, and for the third, $4400. At present they are budgeted for a member of their staff with a salary of $5,000, who would be replaced by Leontieff, so that there would be a decrease rather than an increase in the salary budget. In talking to Mr. Burbank, I have been very hesitant about encouraging him in regard to the appointment of Leontieff, since it seems to me that ordinarily, and particularly in these times, a new and untried man should come on a one-year appointment. Leontieff, however, will not consider a one-year appointment. The more I hear about him, the more I think that he is, as the Department feels, a young man of unusual brilliance and promise, and that we should miss a real opportunity if we did not appoint him now. Professor Burbank has not only got testimony about him from various people who know him, and examined his publications, but he has also had him here in Cambridge and has interviewed him. Professor Schumpeter, who is probably coming next year and who did not know that we were considering Leontieff, wrote to Professor Taussig the other day, and in his letter included a passage about Leontieff which I send you with this letter.

I realize that this sort of case creates a possibly dangerous precedent; but, on the other hand, since it involves no increase in our expenses for the next few years, and since Leontieff seems to be a thoroughly unusual person I am inclined to think that we might well take whatever risk there is involved. If you approve, perhaps you will be willing to consider this letter as my formal recommendation. If you wish to discuss the matter with me, or, if you disapprove, I hope you will let me know, since I must give Mr. Burbank some report at once, as Leontieff is considering offers elsewhere.

The following information about Mr. Leontieff has been sent to me by Professor Burbank:

“Wassily Leontieff was born in St. Petersburg in 1906, the son of a professor of Political Economy in the University of St. Petersburg. He began his university training in 1921 in the Faculty of Social Sciences in the University of Leningrad, and in 1925 received the degree of Learned Economist. For one year he remained at the University as an Instructor in Economic Theory. He then went to Berlin to continue his studies, and received the degree of Ph.D. from that university in 1928. While at Berlin he worked particularly with Professor L. von Bortkiewicz and with Professor Werner Sombart. In the fall of 1928 he was appointed a member of the research staff at the University of Kiel. After spending two years at Kiel he went to China as an adviser in the economic planning of the prospective railway system of that country. Since 1931 he has been a research associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York.”

Very truly yours,

(signed)

Kenneth B. Murdock
[Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences]

 

President A. Larence Lowell,
5 University Hall.

________________________

To Professor Taussig from Professor Schumpeter, February 6, 1932.

“Leontief has been to Harvard (i.e. on a visit here). He will, under present circumstances, hardly be reappointed at the National Bureau of Econ. Research; and I despair of getting anything for him in Germany. What about Harvard? The great argument in favor of appointing him to some teaching or research position, seems to me to be, that, whatever we think of his two papers on statistical demand and supply curves (and I not only accept some of the criticisms leveled against his method, but I also have a few of my own), yet they are so striking proofs of brilliant gifts and they have made so much impression, that his is one of those cases in which it is to the interest of a great University to have a given man on her staff and under her wings. If a man makes himself internationally known by one paper at 23 as L. did, he almost certainly will go a considerable way, and I should think it good policy for Harvard to use the present opportunity, quite apart from the fact, that I should be glad to have him near me. I am sure he would do good work, the results of which would then be associated with Harvard’s name.”

Source: Harvard Archive, President Lowell’s Papers Oct 1930—Sept. 1933. UAI.5.160. Box 301, Folder 676.

Image Source: Wassily Leontief in Harvard Class Album, 1934.

Categories
Economists

Abba Lerner’s Roadtrip to Meet Trotsky, 1938

 

 

In August 1938 at age 34 Abba Lerner took his legendary road-trip from Colorado Springs to Mexico City and then back to Chicago where he wrote a slightly more than three page travel letter that includes a description of his two “lengthy interviews” with Leon Trotsky.

The typescript I found in Lerner’s papers at the Library of Congress was formatted as presumably a round-robin letter with a temporary return address. I limit myself to the economic content–the impressions and adventures on the road must wait. 

It turns out that a woman graduate student from Chicago who was a co-driver on the road-trip was later to receive an acknowledgment in a footnote to a famous paper written by my dissertation adviser, Evsey Domar. (I score that three degrees of separation between Leon Trotsky and the curator of Economics in the Rear-View Mirror!)

A tip of the hat to Olav Bjerkholt for his helpful comment to this posting:  at the 4th Annual Research Conference on Economics and Statistics of the Cowles Commission at Colorado Springs, July 20, 1938 there is a wonderful group picture where Abba Lerner (wearing his legendary sandals) is to be seen less than two weeks before heading out on his road-trip to Mexico City.

In August 1944 the sociologist Daniel Bell and Abba Lerner exchanged two letters in which Lerner, while considering himself a marxist, defends the elements of human psychology introduced by Keynes into his macroeconomic model. Interestingly, Daniel Bell saw where the “confidence fairy” fits into the Keynesian model.

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Excerpts from Lerner’s letter

c/o Oskar Lange
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

August 31, 1938

I left Colorado Springs with Alice on August 2nd or 3rd for Mexico…

…We spent ten days in and around Mexico City. Had two lengthy interviews with Trotsky in which we discussed Dialectics, the Syllogism, the French Turn and the possible significance of work on the economics of socialism and the use of the price mechanism. Trotsky is very good-looking, appeared to be in very good health, and is a most charming and tolerant person in discussion. He uses the word Dialectical of any argument as I would use the word sensible, or adequate or legitimate. He is not guilty of any of the false or superstitious uses of the concept on which I tested him. He appears to be ignorant of modern symbolic logic and regard [sic] my interpretation of the syllogism as a sophistication which the Aristotelian concept could not bear. He was extremely witty. My insistence on the universal validity of the Syllogism reminded him of the first sentence of the Gospel of St. John, “In the beginning was Logos”, and my explanation that the law of contradiction was merely an agreement among sensible people not to use the same symbol for contradictory propositions reminded him of the fiction of the historical social contract. He immediately recognized my interest in price mechanisms in a socialist society as a symptom of my undialectical thinking, but was sufficiently impressed with some arguments I put forward on this and other subjects to grant that they were quite dialectical. Finally he declared that although skeptical he would read some of my articles on socialist policy since there might be something to them. He seemed to be particularly moved when I said that the chief value of a price system is to provide some principles in place of the elaboration of arbitrary precedents and thereby to lessen the importance of the bureaucracy and the danger of their development into a beaurocratic [sic] caste. I am not very hopeful of converting him on this subject but I shall continue to try – using Lange’s book. I enjoyed the discussions immensely. Alice [Lerner’s first wife, Alice Sendak (divorced May 1958)] says I was in good form and Mary [Mary Wise (Smelker), a research student from Northwestern University met by Abba Lerner at the Cowles Commission meetings at Colorado Springs to help with the driving since Alice did not know how to drive] considered my argument to be less witty than Trotsky’s but more cogent. However she agreed with me on the matters in the first place – except for the matter of the French Turn of which, as she says, she is a living example won from the S. P. in Chicago.

We also had a series of discussions with some minor Trotskyists, devotees, secretaries and guards of the Old Man, Joe Hanson, Sarah and some others. These were were [sic] much more dogmatic and difficult to argue with than the Old Man himself.

…Another interesting man we met was Fritz Bach, an economist and sort of new dealer adviser to the Government. We had been trying to get in touch with him for a long time and finally we woke him up early in the morning after a most adventurous search into the suburbs where the pavements were all pulled up and we had to go through great mud holes, some of the mud getting onto my shirt collar. Bach then had lunch with us and with Josue Saenz and economist (research student) who is studying in London. Lunch lasted from 1 till 5 with Bach speaking most of the time about Mexican Economics and occasionally about Mexican Politics. His most wonderful story is about Manuilsky who came up to Mexico a number of years ago to instruct the C. P. on how and when to make the revolution. When he had been in the country three weeks he saw a servant maid in Rivera’s house and asked how she came to look so dark. When told she was Indian he expressed surprise that there were still any Indians in Mexico.

…Here [Chicago] I settle down to write this letter, glad to stop travelling for a bit and itching to get some work done, interrupted every few minutes by Lange who brings some new member of the department to be introduced to me, impressing on me the conviction that I am going to have a grand time here.

Source:  Library of Congress, Papers of Abba P. Lerner, Box 25, Folder 3 (1937-39).

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WHO’S WHO

Mary Wise Smelker born 18 March 1914 in Chicago, died 23 February 2000 in Colorado.

In his famous paper Evsey Domar “Capital Expansion, Rate of Growth, and Employment” Econometrica, Vol. 14, No. 2 (April, 1946) mentions her. In the first footnote to the paper he thanks the fellow members of the “Little Seminar” that included among others Paul Baran, James S. Duesenberry, Lloyd A. Metzler, Richard A. Musgrave, Melvin W. Reder and Tiber de Scitovszky as well as Mary Wise Smelker.

Smelker, Mary Wise, government; b. Chicago, 1914; B.S., Northwestern, 1937, M.S., 1939; stud., Chicago, 1939-40. FIELDS 2d, 4b. PUB. The Impact of Federal Direct Taxes on the Distribution of After Tax Increase, National Tax Jour., Editor, Bur. of National Affairs, 1955-59; analyst, Bur. of the Budget, 1962-63; sr. economist, Bur. of Labor Stats., 1963-67, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System since 1967. ADDRESS Bus. Conditions Section, Research Div., Bd. of Govrs. of the Federal Reserve System, Watergate Bldg., Rm. 1010, 20th and Constitution Ave., Washington, DC 20551.

Source: Handbook of the American Economic Association, Biographical Listings of Members, American Economic Review, Vol. 59, No. 6. (Jan., 1970)p. 407.

 

Fritz Bach
For Spanish readers, the book by Maneul López de la Parra, El pensamiento económico de Fritz Bach, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Facultad de Economía, 2005.

 

Josué Sáenz
According to Sarah L. Babb in her Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberalism (Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 83), Josué Sáenz received his B.A. from Swarthmore College in the 1930s and became the director of the Department of Credit of the Finance Ministry in 1946.

 

Dimitri Manuilsky (1883-1959
Head of Comintern from 1929 to 1934. He was later the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco (1945) and served as the foreign minister of Ukraine (1944-1952).

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Image Source: Group photograph, dated 1938, from the Library of the London School of Economics with Abba Lerner seated right.

Categories
Cornell Economists Statistics

Cornell. Life of Walter F. Willcox, economic statistician

 

Following up the previous posting about the department of political science at Cornell University in 1900, now I add two items of interest relating to the professor of economic statistics at that time, Walter F. Willcox, who lived to the ripe old age of 103(!). At the tender age of 93 Willcox was asked to read a short statement about his personal creed for a radio show hosted by the legendary Edward R. Murrow. That statement is included below, followed by the Cornell’s Faculty Memorial Statement issued after his death in 1964.

Available on line is an excerpt from the article “Walter F. Willcox: Statist” from The American Statistician (February, 1961).

 

Research Hint: From Anderson through Zellner, over 70 short biographies at the American Statistical Association website’s “Statisticians in History” webpage.

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This I Believe
Walter F. Willcox

In his 93rd year, i.e. most likely in 1956, Walter F. Willcox read the following statement in the “This I Believe” radio program hosted by Edward R. Murrow.

I have been asked to state what I believe, or in other words, my creed. It consists mainly of selections from the writings of others woven into a loose fabric on which I have come to stand. Seventy years ago, a college teacher told us “a man’s creed is a monument set up to show where he stopped thinking.” He might have gone on to add: you are supposed to be scholars and a scholar never stops thinking, so you can set up no such a monument as a destination, but only as a temporary camp carrying, perhaps, a date to show when you tarried a while at that point.

I believe that each person is born into what seems to him a chaos and given his share in mankind’s task of transforming that chaos into a cosmos. I believe that modern science is beginning to reveal the skeleton of the cosmos but that emotion and action are needed to give it flesh and life. I believe that the aim of all life is “life more abundant,” that life on this planet has steadily become richer, and that in this tiny corner of the cosmos and this bit of unending time there has been irregular progress towards a more abundant life.

I believe with John Dewey, that “Humanity cherishes ideals which are neither rootless nor completely embodied in existence,” and that these cherished ideals form the basis for man’s conception of a God. I believe with Goldwin Smith, that “Above all nations is humanity.” I believe that man receives, through heredity and environment, influences which his own efforts modify, and passes them on to uncounted future generations. Or, as Browning words it, “All that is at all/ lasts ever past recall/ Earth changes/ but thy soul and God stand sure/ What entered into thee/ that was, is, and shall be/ time’s wheel runs back or stops/ Potter and clay endure.”

I believe that human freedom to experiment and to initiate is the most potent of all the forces working for the progress of mankind. I believe that the spread of human freedom and the resultant decrease of fear, at least until 1914, form the best evidence of man’s advance in civilization. I believe with Becker, that “All values are inseparable from the love of truth and the search for it,” and that truth can be discovered only if the mind is free; and with Justice Holmes, that “Truth is best discovered and defended in the marketplace of ideas.”

I believe with Johnson, that “A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.” I believe with Becker, that “Knowledge and the power it gives should be used for the relief of man’s estate,” and that the best form of government yet devised is one which seeks to be “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” I believe with Sherrington, that “We have, because human, an inalienable prerogative of responsibility which we cannot devolve, as once was thought even upon the stars. We can share it only with each other.”

Source: The actual recording of Walter F. Willcox reading his statement can also be found at the website: “This I Believe: A public dialogue about belief—one essay at a time.”.

_____________________________

 

Cornell University Faculty Memorial Statement
Walter Francis Willcox
March 22, 1861 — October 30, 1964

Walter Francis Willcox died at his home, after a brief illness, October 30, 1964. On March 22 he had celebrated his one hundred and third birthday. At the time of his death he was the oldest living alumnus of Phillips Andover Academy, of Amherst College, from which he received degrees of A.B., A.M. and LL.D., and (it was believed) of Columbia University, from which he received the LL.B. and Ph.D. He was also the oldest Professor Emeritus of Cornell and the only one known to have a son also a Professor Emeritus of the same institution.

Born in Reading, Massachusetts, in 1861, he was the son of a Congregational clergyman. Both his mother and father hoped that he, too, would enter the ministry but, after a passing interest in Greek, he turned instead to philosophy. Even before completing his graduate work, however, he found his attention drawn to those human and social problems that were to be his principal concern for the rest of his life. Although he came to Cornell in 1891 on a temporary appointment as an instructor of philosophy, the following year he accepted a position in the Department of Economics, rapidly making statistics his special field and himself a recognized authority and important innovator in that subject.

In 1899 he was asked to serve as chief statistician of the Twelfth Census of the United States, a post that took him to Washington until 1901. Part of his assignment consisted in preparing the new apportionment tables for the Congress; this brought to his attention the alarming rate at which the House had been growing as new seats were added to provide representation for the country’s expanding population, and the unsound method by which seats were apportioned. The House, he felt, could never realize its potentialities as a constructive political institution unless it were reduced to a manageable size—he considered three hundred the optimum number; but he also recognized the virtually insuperable obstacles in the way of any revision that would require incumbent representatives to vote some of their own seats out of existence. He did think, however, that it should be feasible to stem the previously unchecked growth of the body by a law fixing its existing size and providing for automatic reapportionment following each census. He even hoped that this technique might be used to reduce the size of the House by ten seats with each successive census. That proved too Utopian but in 1931, after a very long campaign, Congress finally did fix the size of the House at its existing 435 seats and also provided for regular reapportionment according to a plan Dr. Willcox himself had derived from the principle of “major fractions” originally formulated by Daniel Webster. Walter Willcox’ contribution to this achievement received unprecedented tribute from Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the sponsor of the bill, in a letter to Cornell President Jacob Gould Schurman. Some of Dr. Willcox’ personal satisfaction in this accomplishment was diminished, however, when a group of Harvard mathematicians persuaded Congress to adopt a rival statistical formula for reapportionment. Never convinced of the validity of the “Harvard method,” he continued throughout the remainder of his life to perfect and advocate his own system, and to urge to apparently hopeless cause of reducing the size of the House. His last appearance before a Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing on this subject was in 1959 when he was ninety-eight.

The role Walter Willcox played in national and international organizations can only suggest the nature and extent of his influence in the developing field of statistics. In 1892 he joined the American Statistical Association, becoming its president in 1912 and a fellow in 1917. In addition, he was instrumental in bringing the United States into effective membership in the International Statistical Institute, which he himself had joined in 1899. He served as the United States delegate to its session in Berlin in 1903, and to most of its subsequent biennial meetings in various capitals throughout the world until his final appearance at Paris in 1961. Having been a vice president of the Institute since 1923, he took the lead in reviving it after World War II, and served as its president at the first post war meeting, held in Washington, D.C., in 1947. From that time until his death he held the title of honorary president. In addition, he was a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and an honorary member of the Statistical Society of Hungary, the Czechoslovakian Statistical Society, and the Mexican Society for Geography and Statistics. He served as a member or adviser of innumerable statistical commissions and boards, the Census Advisory Commission, the New York State Board of Health, the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography (1912), and the World Statistical Congress.

Although each of his four books—The Divorce Problem, A Study in Statistics, 1897, Supplementary Analysis and Derivative Tables, Twelfth Census, 1906; Introduction to the Vital Statistics of the United States 1900-1930, 1933; and Studies in American Demography, 1940—made a significant contribution, it was through his innumerable articles, letters to the editor, and personal written and oral communications that he exerted his surprising influence, not only in the fields of statistics and economics but in the general affairs of the nation. If his attention was habitually attracted by the “facts,” he had an extraordinary instinct for the right facts and great persistence in calling them and the problems and injustices they represented to the attention of his fellow citizens. Characteristically he was one of the very first to study the economic and social conditions of our Negro citizens; and it has been widely recognized that the recent Supreme Court decision establishing the principle of equal representation in state as well as national government reflects his efforts and influence. Both the problems of world government and the United Nations and the affairs of Ithaca and New York State were for him serious preoccupations. When on the occasion of his one hundredth birthday he was asked to comment on his life, he astonished his audience by saying, “If I were to start all over again I think I would go into politics. I don’t think I would have been so successful at that profession, but I would have enjoyed it more.”

In spite of his extensive professional interests and accomplishments and wide travels, the focus of his life, at least next to his family, was surely the University. Having come early enough to know most of the great personalities in Cornell’s early history and notably, all of its presidents from Andrew D. White to James A. Perkins, he had an insatiable interest in anything that pertained to the history, growth, or welfare of Cornell. From 1902-1907 he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, from 1916 to 1920 faculty representative on the Board of Trustees, and from 1931 Professor Emeritus.

An inveterate attender of faculty meetings, he also sought and made informal occasions for faculty discussion. He took a major part in reviving the Faculty Club after World War II, serving as its first president and making a substantial donation to its library. It was in one of the club’s small dining rooms, most fittingly named the Willcox Room, that he met regularly twice a week with luncheon groups. He himself had founded one of these groups nearly forty years ago, and modeled it after a “round table” which he had been invited to attend at the Library of Congress during his stay in Washington at the turn of the century. Although he always referred to it as the Becker luncheon group because, as he explained, he had begun it to serve as an occasion for Carl Becker’s conversation, it has long since been known to others as the Willcox group. Its members have included many of Cornell’s most distinguished citizens from Carl Becker to Liberty Hyde Bailey, Dexter Kimball, and Miss Francis Perkins, to mention a very few. We all, guests and new members, came to appreciate the unobtrusive skill with which the quiet figure of Walter Willcox drew out and directed the conversation.

Walter Willcox was throughout his long life not merely a distinguished economist and citizen; he was a model of a nineteenth-century gentleman and scholar concerned with the fate of his fellow man. He managed the rare feat of keeping his interest up to date without relinquishing his hold on his original values. As nearly as any one man could, he seemed to embody the ideal around which Ezra Cornell and Andrew White had established the University.

Mario Einaudi, Felix Reichmann, Edward W. Fox

 

Source: Cornell University eCommons. Cornell University Faculty Memorial Statement.

Image Source: Cornellian 1919, p. 128.

Categories
Economists Exam Questions Suggested Reading Syllabus Williams

Williams College. Joan Robinson’s (last) course reading list, 1982

After a glorious three week archive/library tour that has taken me from the Library of Congress in Washington to the Harvard Archives to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library to the Johns Hopkins Archives and back to the Library of Congress, I have time before my flight back to Berlin for a post.

Less than a year before her death, Joan Robinson taught at Williams College in the Autumn/Winter of 1982. Her lectures at Williams were attended by a former colleague of mine from the University of Houston, Dr. D. Andrew Austin, now at the Library of Congress. Andrew shared with me the reading list for her lectures “Problems in Economic Analysis” along with a list of questions for a paper/take-home (exam).

Robinson’s chosen readings are taken from her books:

  • Economic Heresies: Some Old-fashioned Questions in Economic Theory. London: Macmillan, 1971.
  • Contributions to Modern Economics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1978.
  • Aspects of Development and Underdevelopment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
  • Collected Economic Papers (5 vols.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1951-79; reprinted by MIT Press in 1980.
  • What are the Questions? An Other Essays: Further Contributions to Modern Economics. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 1981.

_________________________

 

Professor Joan Robinson

PROBLEMS IN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
[Williams College, 1982]

OUTLINE OF TOPICS AND REFERENCES

  1. Economics: Ideas and Ideology
    “Marx, Marshall, and Keynes” (Contributions to Modern Economics, Ch. 7)
    “Economics Today” (Collected Economic Papers, Vol. 4, p. 122-127)
    “The Second Crisis of Economic Theory” (Collected Papers, 4, Ch. 10)
  2. What are the Questions?
    “What are the Questions?” (Further Contributions, Ch. 1)
    “The Age of Growth” (Further Contributions, Ch. 2)
    “Stagflation” (Further Contributions, Ch. 3)
  3. and 4. Effective Demand and Employment
    “Prices and Money” (Economic Heresies, Ch. 6)
    “Obstacles to Full Employment” (Contributions, Ch. 3)
    “The Rate of Interest” (Contributions, Ch. 5)
  4. Prices
    “The Philosophy of Prices” (Contributions, Ch. 14)
    “Imperfect Competition Revisited” (Contributions, Ch. 15)
    “The Theory of Value Reconsidered” (Contributions, Ch. 16)
    “The Theory of the Firm” (Economic Heresies, Ch. 7)
  5. Capital, Distribution, and Growth
    “The Meaning of Capital” (Contributions, Ch. 11)
    “Marginal Productivity” (Collected Papers, Vol. 4, Ch. 14)
    “Interest and Profit” (Economic Heresies, Ch. 3)
    “Surplus and Accumulation” (Aspects of Development & Underdevelopment, Ch. 2)
  6. International Trade
    “Beggar-My-Neighbour Remedies for Unemployment” (Contributions, Ch. 17)
    “The New Mercantilism” (Contributions, Ch. 18)
    “Trade in Primary Commodities” (Aspects of Development, Ch. 4)
  7. Economic Development
    “The Poverty of Nations” (Collected Papers, Vol. 4, Ch. 11)
    Aspects of Development and Underdevelopment
  8. Capitalism and Socialism
    “Latter-Day Capitalism” (Contributions, Ch. 21)
    “Has Capitalism Changed” (Contributions, Ch. 20)
    “Socialist Affluence” (Contributions, Ch. 22)

 

Econ. 353 Paper/Take Home
Professor Joan Robinson

Do the following three questions:

  1. Experience in the 1980s seems to be fulfilling Kalecki’s prediction of a political trade cycle. Comment.
  2. a) Explain Keynes’ theory of employment.
    b) Keynes failed to make clear whether this theory was intended to apply to a closed or open economy. Does it matter? Why or why not?
  3. What is the meaning of capital as a factor of production?

 

Choose one of the following two questions:

  1. The orthodox doctrines of economics which were dominant in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had a clear message. They supported laisser faire, free trade, the gold standard, and the universally advantageous effects of the pursuit of profit by competitive private enterprise. This was acceptable to the authorities in an expanding and flourishing capitalist world, especially to the authorities in England, which was still felt to be the dominant center and chief beneficiary of the system. Comment.
  2. The so-called Quantity Theory of Money consists in mistaking a symptom for a cause. Comment.

 

 

Source: Copy provided to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror by D. Andrew Austin of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

Image Source: Joan Robinson at Williams College, Fall 1982 in Joan Robinson and the Americans by Marjorie Shephard Turner, p. 112 (ebook price: $9.99). Published by M. E. Sharpe , 1989.

 

 

Categories
Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Thirteen Economics Ph.D. Examinees, 1908-09.

 

 

This posting lists the five graduate students in economics who took their subject examinations for the Ph.D. at Harvard from March 12 through May 21, 1908. The examination committee members, academic history, general and specific subjects are provided along with the doctoral thesis subject, when declared. Lists for 1903-04, 1904-05, 1906-07, 1907-08, 1915-16, and 1926-27 were posted previously. In the same archival box one finds lists for the academic years 1902-03 through 1904-05, 1906-07 through 1913-14, 1915-16, 1917-18 through 1918-19, and finally 1926-27. I only include graduate students of economics (i.e. not included are the Ph.D. candidates in history and government).

Titles and dates of Harvard economic dissertations for the period 1875-1926 can be found here.

________________________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.

1908-09

Edmund Thornton Miller.

General Examination in Economics, January 7, 1909.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Gay, Sprague, and Mitchell.
Academic History: University of Texas, 1897-1901; Harvard Graduate School, 1902-03, 1907-09; A.B. (University of Texas) 1900; A.M. (ibid) 1901; A.M. (Harvard) 1903. Instructor in Political Science, University of Texas, 1904-; Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1908-09.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Money, Banking and Transportation. 5. Public Finance and Financial History. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance and the Financial History of the United States since 1789.
Thesis Subject: “The Financial History of Texas.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Charles Edward Persons.

General Examination in Economics, February 25, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Gay, MacDonald, and Ripley.
Academic History: Cornell College (Iowa), 1898-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-05, 1906-09; A.B. (Cornell College) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1905. Instructor in Economics at Wellesley College, 1908-.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History from 1750. 4. Sociology and Social Reform. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Industrial History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the Ten-Hour Law in Massachusetts.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Frank Richardson Mason.

Special Examination in Economics, May 3, 1909.
General Examination passed May 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Bullock, Ripley, Mitchell, and Sprague.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-08; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906. Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1906-08.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Silk Industry in America.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Bullock, and Sprague.

 

Robert Franz Foerster.

Special Examination in Economics, May 12, 1909.
General Examination passed May 21, 1908.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Peabody, Carver, Ripley, and Bullock.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-05; University of Berlin, 1905-06 (Winter Semester); Harvard Graduate School, 1906-09; A.B. (Harvard) 1906. Assistant in Social Ethics (Harvard), 1908-09.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Thesis Subject: “Emigration from Italy, with special reference to the United States.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Ripley, and Gay.

 

David Frank Edwards.

General Examination in Economics, May 13, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Ripley, MacDonald, Mitchell, and Sprague.
Academic History: Ohio Wesleyan University, 1899-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1905-06; A. B. (Ohio Wesleyan) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1906. Teacher, High School of Commerce (Boston), 1907-.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization (and Social Reform). 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 4. Commercial Geography and Foreign Commerce. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: International Trade and Tariff Problems.
Thesis Subject: “The Glass Industry in the United States.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Harley Leist Lutz.

General Examination in Economics, May 14, 1909.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Carver, Gay, MacDonald, and Sprague.
Academic History: Oberlin College, 1904-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09; A. B. (Oberlin) 1907; A.M. (Harvard) 1908. Assistant (Oberlin), 1906-07; Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1908-09.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750, with especial reference to England. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 5. Public Finance and Financial History. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance and Financial History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “State Control over the Assessment of Property for Local Taxation.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Joseph Stancliffe Davis.

General Examination in Economics, May 17, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Bullock, Ripley, Mitchell, and Dr. Tozzer.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1908-09; A. B. (Harvard) 1908; Assistant in Economics (Harvard) 1908-09.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Progress. 4. Money, Banking, and Industrial Organization. 5. History of American Institutions, especially since 1783. 6. Anthropology, especially Ethnology.
Special Subject: Corporations (Industrial Organization).
Thesis Subject: “The Policy of New Jersey toward Business Corporations.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

James Ford.

Special Examination in Economics, May 19, 1909.
General Examination passed May 16, 1906.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Peabody, Ripley, Taussig, and Bullock.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1901-04; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-06, 1907-09; A.B. (Harvard) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906. Robert Treat Paine Travelling Fellow, 1906-07; Assistant, Social Ethics (Harvard), 1907-09.
Special Subject: Social Reform (Socialism, Communism, Anarchism).
Thesis Subject: “Distributive and Productive Coöperative Societies in New England.” (With Professor Carver.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Carver, Peabody, and Taussig.

 

Edmund Ezra Day.

Special Examination in Economics, May 20, 1909.
General Examination passed May 23, 1907.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Ripley, Munro, and Mr. Parker.
Academic History: Dartmouth College, 1901-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-07, 1908-09; S.B. (Dartmouth) 1905; A.M. (ibid) 1906. Instructor in Economics, Dartmouth College, 1907-.
Special Subject: Public Finance and Financial History of the United States since 1789.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the General Property Tax in Massachusetts.” (With Professor Bullock.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, and Ripley.

 

Clyde Orval Ruggles.

General Examination in Economics, May 20, 1909.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Carver, Taussig, Gay, and MacDonald.
Academic History: Hedrick Normal School, 1895-96; Iowa State Normal School and Teachers’ College of Iowa, 1901-06; State University of Iowa, 1906-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09; A. B. (Teachers’ College) 1906; A.M. (State Univ.) 1907.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Statistics. 4. Economic History to 1750, with especial reference to England. 5. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Money and Banking.
Thesis Subject: “The Greenback Movement with especial Reference to Wisconsin and Iowa.” (With Professors Andrew and Mitchell.)

 

Edmund Thornton Miller.

Special Examination in Economics, May 21, 1909.
General Examination passed January 7, 1909.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Mitchell, and Sprague.
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, and Mitchell.
(See first item for Academic History etc.)

 

Emil Sauer.

General Examination in Economics, May 21, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Carver, Gay, Mitchell, Munro, and Ripley.
Academic History: University of Texas, 1900-03, 1904-05; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09; Litt.B. (University of Texas) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1908.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 5. Transportation and Industrial Organization. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 and the Relations between the United States and Hawaii, 1875-1900.” (With Professor Taussig.)

 

Charles Edward Persons.

Special Examination in Economics, May 24, 1909.
General Examination passed February 25, 1909.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Peabody, Bullock, Ripley, and Sprague.
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Bullock, and Ripley.
(See second item for Academic History etc.)

 

Carl William Thompson.

General Examination in Economics, June 2, 1909.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Taussig, Sprague, Ripley, Cole, and MacDonald.
Academic History: Valparaiso College, 1899-1901; University of South Dakota, 1902-03; Harvard Graduate School, 1903-04; A.B. (Valparaiso) 1901; B.O. (ibid) 1901; A.B. (South Dakota) 1903; A.M. (ibid.) 1903; A.M. (Harvard) 1904. Professor of Economics and Sociology, University of South Dakota.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 4. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 5. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization.. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: (undecided).
Thesis Subject: (undecided.)

 

Arthur Norman Holcombe.

Special Examination in Economics, June 7, 1909.
General Examination passed April 8, 1907.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Bullock, Cole, and Munro.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-09; A.B. (Harvard) 1906; Assistant in Economics (Harvard), 1906-07; Rogers Travelling Fellow, 1907-09
Special Subject: Public Service Industries.
Thesis Subject: ”The Telephone Situation.” (with Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Ripley, and Munro.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D. 1908-09”.

Image Source:  Harvard Gate, ca. 1899. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

Categories
Columbia Economists Harvard Stanford

Columbia Ph.D. alumnus. Two images of Kenneth Arrow.

Kenneth Arrow, one day before turning 90 years old

 

Many economists are sharing their personal memories of Kenneth Arrow. Today I’ll just share the photo heading this post that I took on August 22, 2011, one day before his 90th birthday. Taking a break from working in the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford, I visited Kenneth Arrow in his office to interview him about his own graduate education and memories of Columbia University. 

Those same intense eyes can be seen in his 1936 high-school yearbook photo (Townsend Harris High School in Flushing, NY).

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. J.L. Laughlin Reminisces About Coming to Chicago, 1892

 

 

Another copy of the following brief memoir by the first head of the University of Chicago’s department of political economy is found in the Goodspeed papers at the University of Chicago Archives. The copy transcribed in this post comes from a copy in J. Laurence Laughlin’s papers at the Library of Congress. As persuasive a university president as Chicago’s Harper clearly was, it is pretty clear from below that the generous financial package offered to Laughlin was a necessary part of getting to yes.

___________________________

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE FOUNDING OF THE UNIVERSITY.
J. Laurence Laughlin.

I had left business in Philadelphia and accepted the professorship at Cornell University vacated by E. Benjamin Andrews who had just been elected President of Brown University. I went to Cornell in the Fall of 1890 and remained there during two academic years. In the Fall of 1891 President Harper made a visit to Cornell University, and I first met him at a little reception given at the house of Professor Hale. Later I had a walk with him about the campus, in which we discussed universities and men. Of course, there never entered my head at that time the idea of leaving Cornell. On this occasion I remember President Harper asked me what I thought of Edmond J. James. I happened to be able to sum up my judgment concisely in a number of adjectives which covered the whole case, and I recall President Harper’s interested surprise at the concise characterization.

Later, I think it was in the first week of December, 1891, the Baptist Social Union, of New York City, had a debate on “Silver”, in which Ex-secretary Fairchild and Horace White were on one side, and Senator Stewart, and Representative Newlands, of Nevada, were on the other side. A few days before the meeting I had a telegram saying Ex-secretary Fairchild was ill, and asking me to take his place in the debate. I agreed to do so, and very distinctly recall the occasion which was held at Delmonico’s. The debate evidently stirred up Senator Stewart. I did not know at the time that president Harper was seated at one of the tables below. At the end of the affair President Harper joined me and suggested a long walk before we should feel like retiring. To walk off the effects of my coffee, I agreed. We walked for several hours, bringing up, in the basement restaurant, I think, of the Murray Hill Hotel. While we were disposing of a little supper there the President proposed to me that I should come to Chicago in charge of the Department of Political Economy. It was, of course, a great surprise to me, but I agreed to take it under careful consideration.

A little later I found out that Professor Hale, at Cornell, had also been invited. Then I was urged by the President to come to Chicago and look the situation over. At that time no great endowment had been made for the University, and it might be supposed, as was said by Benjamin Ives Wheeler, that there would be “hard sledding ahead”. Or, as it was expressed by another, “We must have great faith, for it would be like hitching our fortunes to a star”. I recall the interest of Henry W. Sage, who expressed his admiration of Harper as “a man of great faith”, and later when he came to see me in Chicago he wanted to meet the President for that reason. In December, at some time before the Holidays, I came to Chicago, visiting the President at the Grand Pacific Hotel. I believe I also called upon him at the then offices of the University in the Chamber of Commerce building. I was placed in the charge of Frank Frost Abbott to be shown the site of the University. By an unfortunate fate he took me out on the Cottage Grove street cars when a partly melted snow on the ground, blackened by coal soot, gave an impression of Chicago more disagreeable than could now be imagined. Mentally I vowed that a team of wild horses could not drag me to live in such a city. When we reached the grounds the scene was, if possible, still more desolate. Cobb Hall and the Divinity dormitories were then built only to the top of the basement, and this was filled nearly to the brim with green, stagnant , swampy water. It was too swampy to pass eastward across the middle of the present campus. There was no drainage system then, and wide stretches of water extended in pools over the surface here and there. The present site of Haskell was a small pond. Another pond spread out in front of what is now Walker. The only way of getting eastward was to go into the Midway and jump from hummock to hummock. Abbbott had been instructed by the President to show me the progress on the building of the Fair; but the desolate external appearance of the University campus removed all interest in the Fair. I asked to be told the height of the level of this land above the surface of Lake Michigan. Abbott then conducted me to the house of Judge Shorey, who told me the land was eight feet above the level of the lake, and in general removed my depression.

President Harper made strenuous efforts to induce me to accept the appointment before I left Chicago. He brought every possible pressure to bear. I had, by the way, meanwhile lunched with him and Dr. Eri B. Hulburt. Finally I left Chicago without having made up my mind. Some differences arose in regard to what the salary of the head professor should be. After I returned to Ithaca, in consultation with Professor Hale, we felt that we would do a service to the professorial body by trying to put the salaries on a higher basis that had before existed. it was in this way that the salary was fixed at $7,000. I believe that this was not arrived at until we met Messrs. Ryerson and Hutchinson in New York City on their way to Europe. On condition that the salary should be $7,000 both Professor Hale and myself accepted.

In this connection I was consulted regarding Professor von Holst coming from Europe. It happened that I then knew very well Mr. and Mrs. Henry Villard. Mr. Villard was at that time at the height of his railway career. A short time before he had brought over a number of scholars and distinguished men from Europe at the driving the last spike on the Northern Pacific Railroad. Professor von Holst was one of this invited body. I soon discovered that Professor von Holst was getting Mr. Villard’s opinion as to the wisdom of accepting the Chicago position. Then Mr. Villard came to me to know what advice should be given to Professor von Holst. We then canvassed the situation, discussing all the advantages and disadvantages. I think some of these interviews went on before I had signified my own acceptance. One of the things which affected my decision was the policy of President Harper in trying to call the strongest men he could find, whether in Europe or America. This policy undoubtedly affected the acceptance by von Holst, as it did that of many others, no doubt. I was thereby thrown into terms of intimacy with Professor von Holst which continued with increasing ties of affection and friendship until his departure for Europe and his death.

During the following Winter some serious difficulties arose. The graduate bulletin had been put out and some of the proposed plans struck us as possibly undesirable from the point of view of the best development of the University. Of course, opinions must differ. Professor Hale and I might have been right or wrong. At any rate, some differences arose between us and President Harper. He then came to Ithaca at once, and we had long and serious conferences about the fundamental organization of the University. I can remember distinctly when sitting in Professor Hale’s house with him and President Harper, I said, “We have been deciding here very large questions of University policy. It is not right that these far-reaching conclusions should be arrived at on the judgment of two or three professors in consultation with the President. These matters ought to go properly to a body composed of the heads of all the departments of the University, and their opinions should be decisive in forming the University organization with which we should begin work.” I remember clearly how the President, sitting at the end of a sofa, looked up at me and in a flash said, “That’s right! It should be the Senate”. And the Senate was born then and there.

That evening, while sitting in my library until rather late, we found that our differences had been composed. At first they had seemed to us so serious that we had wished to withdraw our acceptances. I mention this because it brought out a special characteristic of the President. It was his open-mindedness. After the most thorough and frank discussion, he was willingly to make adjustment with others. Moreover, difficulties of that sort never left and scars.

In all the days after that, in Ithaca and after I came to Chicago in June, 1892, his enthusiasm and confidence in the future of the University was infectious. His dominating thought in those early days, often expressed to me, was, “Now we must all stand together.”

 

Source: Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. Papers of J. Laurence Laughlin. Box 7, Folder “Recollections of the Founding of the University”.

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-03687, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

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Columbia Economists

Columbia. Faculty of Political Science Minute in Memory of E.R.A. Seligman, 1939

 

This Columbia Faculty of Political Science minute dedicated to the memory of E.R.A. Seligman is the second biographical item posted for him in Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. The earlier item was published in Universities and Their Sons (vol. 2) in 1899.

 

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Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, 1861-1939

Through the death of Professor Seligman on July 18, the Faculty of Political Science has lost a colleague distinguished in many ways and beloved for many qualities. No member of the University except President Butler has served Columbia for so many years, and none had contributed more as investigator, teacher, editor, and counsellor to its work. What he did for science and for education grew out of a keen interest in social welfare and grew into multiform activities as a philanthropist, a citizen, and an adviser to lawmakers and public officials. Our sorrow at his passing is mingled with pride in his career a life-long effort to make learning help toward solving problems that confront mankind.

Inheritance and environment combined to produce Professor Seligman’s alert intellect and his social sympathies. Born in New York City on April 25, 1861, eleven days after Fort Sumter fell, he was christened Edwin Robert Anderson in honor of its defender. Growing up in a family of vitality, wealth, and wide cultural interests, he responded to the stimulating influences of his circle with remarkable precocity. Even more remarkable was his industry. After studying in the Columbia Grammar School, he entered Columbia College at fourteen. In his senior year the teaching of Professor John W. Burgess focussed his interests upon political science. On graduating at eighteen he chose a scholar’s life despite his father’s wish that he enter the family bank – a choice the more noteworthy because he possessed a quickness in analyzing complicated problems, and ability in negotiation, and drive toward incessant activity that would have won success in business.

In 1879, still only eighteen, he went abroad for post-graduate study. Two years in Germany, and one in France, supplemented by vacations in Italy and England, gave him a broad view of European work in the fields he wished to cultivate and acquainted him with many of the workers. Returning to New York in 1882, he entered this School of Political Science that had just been formed at Columbia, and, at the same time, begin the study of law. Within two years he was awarded the degrees of M.A. and LL.B. and in one year more that of Ph.D.

Promptly appointed to a prize lectureship in the School of Political Science, young Dr. Seligman began his career as a teacher in 1885 – a career that continued for forty-six years. His early courses dealt with the history of economics, railway problems, and tariffs. Presently what he’d like to call a “mere accident of departmental organization” led him to take up public finance. It proved to be a subject admirably suited to one who united capacity for analysis with extraordinary mastery of realistic detail, and unflagging energy.

A notice in the Political Science Quarterly sense of his work in this field:

“Professor Seligman early recognized the practical importance in the scientific interest of incidence and progression and he made these two subjects peculiarly his own province, pushing the analysis to borders far beyond those reached by earlier writers. His monographs in dealing with these topics served as the foundation stones of his reputation. However, as he was drawn into the discussion of the many important fiscal issues that arose during his lifetime, he wrote the luminously on almost every aspect of public finance – on the income tax, the general property tax, the inheritance tax, on war finance, and international double taxation, and on many other topics, dignifying and illuminating every subject he discussed.

“It has been an occasion for regret, particularly by his host of students, that Professor Seligman never published a systematic treatise covering the general field of public finance. His reason for not doing so reveals one of his most appealing characteristics, that in his constant and passionate questing for new truth. He made plans for such a treatise and carried the work forward to an advanced stage; but no draft was ever satisfactory, judged by his own high standard, for he was always modifying and adjusting his views and his analysis in the light of further observation, study and reflection. Only five years before his retirement he published in this Quarterly a remarkable series of articles, entitled “The Social Theory of Fiscal Science”, in which he radically modified many of the fundamental concepts and definitions used in his earlier work. The mind of Professor Seligman continued to grow until the very end. It would not be surprising if his monumental theory of fiscal science, the fruit of his last seven years since retirement, should prove, when published, to be the most valuable and significant of his contributions.”

In addition to the enormous amount of work devoted to his “specialty”, Professor Seligman somehow found time and energy for other undertakings that would have overtasked most mortals. He helped to organize the first university settlement in this country, and later served both Greenwich House and the Neighborhood Guild. He took an effective share in fighting the spoils system in local government, and was among the founders of the City Club of New York and the Bureau of Municipal Research. Housing reform was one of his life-long interests. The Society for Ethical Culture counted him among its staunchest supporters. Though he grew up in a great city and made his home there, he loved nature, and labored with the characteristic shrewdness and vigor for the preservation of wildlife.

Economists are grateful to Professor Seligman not only for his scientific contributions but also for the active party took in founding the American Economic Association, for the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences which he did more than anyone else to turn from a dream into an accomplishment, and for the loving care with which he assembled his great collection of books relating to the development of economics. Purchased by Columbia, the Seligman Library ranks high among the University’s treasures, and will be used for generations to come by scholars who are interested in the gradual unfolding of men’s thoughts about their social institutions.

All who believe in liberty of thought are indebted to him for wise and forceful championship of academic freedom. Long before the American Association of University Professors was founded, he had defended scholars who were under fire for expressing what they held to be true, and he kept this course through praise and blame after many others had rallied to his side. What he said carried weight because he stressed the duty of a teacher to maintain a scientific attitude in discussing controversial issues not less strongly than he stressed the duty of administrators and trustees to remember the Bill of Rights.

As the years went on, the calls for his help multiplied beyond any man’s power to meet. Especially was his advice sought upon questions of public finance. No one has contributed so much directly and through pupils, to improve the fiscal systems of American governments, local, state and national. Generously as he gave time to philanthropic and public service, he never neglected his university duties. Year after year he taught classes that grew in size, and carried the burden of administration for his department. He served long terms as editor of the Political Science Quarterly and of the Columbia Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law. His acts of kindness to youthful colleagues and his students are memories treasured by many in our circle, and by more who are far away.

Recognition came to him in abundance – honorary degrees, medals, membership in foreign academies, decorations. His numerous books were translated into many tongues. And every quarter of the globe he had devoted pupils and friends, from Ambedkar of the Untouchables in India, to Lord Stamp in Great Britain and the Chief Justice of the United States. We who had the privilege of working by his side wherever the qualities to which his friendship, fame, and honors were spontaneous tributes, and shall seek to emulate as best we can the example he set of on resting search for knowledge.

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Minutes of the Faculty of Political Science, 1920-1939. November 17, 1939, pp. 856-859.

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Columbia Honors Late Dr. Seligman

The late Dr. Edwin R. A. Seligman, economist and tax authority will be honored at a Memorial meeting sponsored by Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler and trustees of Columbia University in Low Memorial Library at 4:30 P, M. today.

Dr. Butler will read a letter from Charles Evans Hughes, Chief Justice of the United States, extolling Professor Seligman, who died July 18. Dr. Seligman was a member of the Columbia teaching staff for fifty-four [sic, 45] years, and was professor emeritus from 1931 until his death.

 

Source: Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume LXIII, Number 52, 13 December 1939.

Image Source: Clipping from portrait in American Economic Review, 1943.