Category: Economists

Categories
Economists Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Faculty Skit with Peter Diamond as Sir Lancelot, 1967

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Today’s post is an excerpt from a script for a department faculty skit performed at the MIT Graduate Economics Association’s “Shawmut Follies” of 1967. The “skitwrights” were Duncan Foley and Peter Temin who adapted the lyrics from tunes taken from the popular musical Camelot (based on the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round-Table) to departmental happenings.

The backstory of this scene is that the future 2010 Nobel prize winner Peter Diamond left the University of California (Berkeley) to join the M.I.T. economics faculty in 1966. I suppose one could imagine the scene opening with the two long-haired peasants as West coast hippies speaking in a Greenwich Village beatnik-ese dialect. The casting problem for having a “chick” in a faculty solely made up of men was solved by employing the departmental administrator Del Tapley rather than by an Elizabethan substitution of male actors in female roles (We are talking Cambridge Massachusetts in the 1960’s and not Berlin in the early 1930’s!).

For those not familiar with the show-tune “C’est moi!” from Camelot, here the Robert Goulet version in the original Broadway Cast Recording at YouTube.

 

 

Dramatis Personae of Scene 2

Herald: Richard Eckaus

First Peasant: E. Cary Brown

Second Peasant: Del Tapley

Lancelot: Peter Diamond

Scene 2
(A provincial city named after an English philosopher)

A Herald: Hear ye, hear ye. Come one, come all to hearken to the Grand Proclamation of King Arthur.

First Peasant: Man, what’s his bag?

Second Peasant: Something about King Arthur.

First Peasant: Who’s this King Arthur cat?

Second Peasant: It’s some weird kick they got out East.

First Peasant: Do you know I hear there aren’t any chicks at all out there?

Second Peasant: Groovy.

First Peasant: Groovy? What’s your bag, man?

Second Peasant: I am a chick, man. No shut up and listen to the proclamation.

Herald: If you’re ready.

First Peasant: Oh, we’re ready. Don’t stand on your fancy Eastern ways out here.

Herald: King Arthur of M.I.T. offers to all young knights of intellectual errantry the opportunity to join the select long Corridor of economists sworn to uphold true theory, to rescue theorems from rape and pillage at the brutal hands of Midwestern Ph.D.’s, to form a fellowship of intellectual excellence and as much good cheer as can coexist with it.

Second Peasant: “With it” is a pretty weak way to end a sentence, if you ask me.

Herald: Admission to the Long Corridor will be by open combat in a faculty seminar, jousting with mathematical, graphical, and verbal reasoning. Come one, come all. That’s it. Break it up.

First Peasant: Gee whiz.

Second Peasant: What’s that slang jargon you’re talking, man?

First Peasant: Who’s going to go and compete with those fierce Eastern minds?

Second Peasant: Not me, man.

First Peasant: I hope somebody goes out here.

Lancelot: I will.

Second Peasant: You? Who are you?

Lancelot: I am Lancelot du Bay, academic fencer par excellence. I will go.

First Peasant: To M.I.T.? Think twice, man.

Lancelot: (sings)

M.I.T….
M.I.T….
On the West Coast I heard your call.
M.I.T….
M.I.T….
And here am I to give my all.
I know in my soul
What you expect of me
And all that and more I shall be.

A prof of the Corridor Long should be unstoppable
A mind on which less fantastic minds can lean:
Teach a class no one else can teach
Prove a theorem that’s out of reach
Run regressions without the help of a machine.

His logic and argument should be unstoppable
His papers of course always beyond compare.
But where in the world
Is there in the world
A man so extraordinaire?

C’est moi, c’est moi
I’m forced to admit
‘Tis I, I humbly reply
That Ph.D. who
These marvels can do
C’est moi, c’est moi, ‘tis I.

The students say
My lectures are keen
My proofs are fit for a king.
I’ll show a way
Through Pontryagin
To prove most any thing.
C’est moi, c’est moi
My colleagues have fits
Because I never am wrong.
Where will they find brains better than mine
Theoretically wise
Empirically fine
To serve in the Corridor Long? C’est moi.

 

Source: MIT Libraries, Institute Archives and Special Collections, Department of Economics Records, Box 2, Folder “GEA 1961-67”.

Image Source: Robert Goulet as Lancelot in the 1960 Broadway Musical Camelot at Fanpix.net. [A google search did not find an image of Peter Diamond in chain mail and a tunic]

 

 

Categories
Economists

South Dakota. Economics Staff and Courses, 1883-1919

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While trying to nail down a few items in the c.v. of the University of Chicago Ph.D. (1915) and first Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers (under President Harry Truman), Edwin G. Nourse, I stumbled across this history of the early evolution of economics at the University of South Dakota. In addition to being a stepping stone in Nourse’s career, the University of South Dakota also had on its faculty William A. Scott who later went on to become a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin.

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THE EVOLUTION OF ECONOMICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA

By Frank T. Stockton. Ph.D.
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Economics.

The history of any university is largely made up of the history of its departments. As an institution grows the character of departmental organization and instruction changes. Departments having wide jurisdiction are divided and new chairs come into existence. Professors of Latin and of Greek displace quondam professors of the classics; professors of physics, of biology and of chemistry supplant omniscient professors of natural science; professors of economics, of sociology and of history drive to cover multi-minded professors of the social sciences. The economic principle of the separation of employments and the division of labor is well exemplified in this aspect of the progress of any growing institution of learning.

Soon after his arrival at South Dakota, the writer became interested in the history of his department since it seemed desirable to know something of its background and traditions. As his investigations progressed, it appeared that their results might be worth while presenting to the readers of the Quarterly in the hope that they would add a small chapter to the history of the University. Most of the material has been gleaned from catalogues and other publications, but much assistance has also been received from older members of the faculty who are familiar with the local situation. Only incidental mention of the courses in “business” or “commerce” will be made in this article.

In the “first annual announcement” of the University of Dakota, published for the year 1882-3, no work in economics was mentioned. At that time the University was only an academy. In the catalogue for 1883-4, however, we note the rather startling fact that political economy, as it was then generally called, was a required subject of study in the third year of the English and classical courses of the preparatory department and in the fourth year of the normal course. College work at this time was scheduled for only two years, yet in the outline of courses for the college classical department, political economy was listed as a Senior subject to be taken in conjunction with civil government. Apparently this work was planned for the time when four years of college study could be given. The texts announced for student use were the well-known books of Francis A. Walker and A. L. Perry, standard works of their time. The catalogue does not name the instructor in political economy, but it is quite likely that the subject was intended to be handled by President John W. Simonds. In the early days of practically every college it was almost invariably the rule for the president to teach economics as a side line to philosophy and ethics.

The 1884-5 catalogue is missing from the University files. The catalogue for 1885-6 did not mention any special courses in social science, but it did state that work in political and social science had to be taken by all Seniors. All courses in this field were doubtless conducted by President J. H. Herrick who was also professor of the mental, moral and social sciences. Surely, President Herrick had his hands full!

In the fall of 1887 some of the social sciences fell from their high presidential estate and lodged in the hands of a professor of history and English literature. The man who handled this combination department was William A. Scott, a classmate of Dean Akeley at the University of Rochester in 1886. In Scott’s first year a course in political economy, described as “Perry, and Lectures,” was given to all Seniors. In 1888 Scott left English to its fate and became professor of history and political science. He then proceeded to add to his work in political economy by offering two new courses dealing with economic problems and the science of finance. It is interesting to observe that a reading knowledge of French was considered essential to the successful prosecution of the latter. Special study for advanced students was also announced. Instead of one course in political economy being required of all Seniors, we find that under the new scheme of things elementary economics and economic problems were made a part of the requirements for the Ph.B. degree from 1888 to 1891. During practically the same period the elementary course was taken by all advanced normal students.

In 1890 Professor Scott obtained leave of absence to study at the Johns Hopkins University. He never returned to South Dakota. After taking his doctorate at the Hopkins in 1892 he migrated to the University of Wisconsin as assistant professor of economics under Richard T. Ely. Since 1900 he has occupied the position of director of the course in commerce and professor of political economy on the Wisconsin staff. He has written widely upon financial topics and he is best known today, perhaps, for his text, “Money and Banking,” which has gone through five editions. His other books are “The Repudiation of State Debts,” “Money,” “Banking,” and “Recent Theories on Interest.” It should be a source of pride to the University of South Dakota that a man of Professor Scott’s ability and reputation has had his name linked with the formative years of the institution.

Clark M. Young, a graduate of Hiram College, was elected acting professor in Scott’s place, but he did not accept the appointment. Fred W. Speirs, A.M., was then selected for the post. Under his regime the two advanced courses in political economy were dropped and in their place was substituted the first work in sociology, a course entitled “Social Science.” Professor Speirs left the University with practically all the rest of the faculty at the conclusion of President Grose’s meteoric administration. With the restoration of stable government, Professor Young became head of the Department of History and Political Science in the spring of 1892. He made no changes in the courses inherited from his predecessor until 1896 when the course in sociology was dropped. He devoted no time to sociology thereafter until 1899, and from 1892 until he surrendered control over political economy he gave only one elementary course in the latter field.

In 1899 Garrett A. Droppers (A.B., Harvard, 1887) who had been a graduate student at Berlin under Wagner and Schmoller, became president of the University and professor of political economy and finance. For the first time economics attained the rank of a separate department. Sociology emerged from retirement and was placed under Young’s jurisdiction as an adjunct to history and political science. Droppers, it appears, had considerable interest in the history of economic thought as he immediately organized a class in this field, admitting to it those who had one year of elementary economics. He also offered courses in public finance, in economic history, in money and in banking. Elementary economics, for a year or two, was made a required study for all Juniors. Apparently at Droppers’ direction, certain economics courses were also introduced into the curriculum of the College of Business, a branch of the University originally known as the Commercial department which had been established in 1887. These courses dealt with such subjects as transportation, insurance, commercial geography and commercial legislation. In 1905, when Carl W. Thompson, a graduate of Valparaiso, was made assistant professor of economics and director of the School of Commerce, the new name for the College of Business, the courses just mentioned were brought forward in the catalogue and announced as political economy courses rather than as business courses. Accounting was the only work now classified as economics which was then left in the School of Commerce.

President Droppers resigned in 1906. While he was at the University he gained the reputation of being an excellent instructor in his field. Many of his old students now pay tribute to him for the stimulating influence he had upon their mental processes. During his regime he succeeded in raising economics from the level of a side issue to the dignity of a major line. After leaving South Dakota he became professor of economics in 1908 at Williams College where he also achieved an enviable reputation as a teacher. During his stay at Williams he was selected to serve upon some of the public commissions of the state of Massachusetts. In 1914 he was appointed by President Wilson as minister to Greece and Montenegro, a position which he now holds. He has contributed several journal articles on specific questions in economics.

Upon the resignation of President Droppers, Mr. Thompson was appointed professor of economics. It will be noted that the term “political economy” was dropped from the title. “Economics” it has been since that day. Altogether some fourteen courses were announced under Thompson, including work in accounting which was transferred from the School of Commerce. Professor Thompson had a part in establishing the Socio-Economic club, an organization composed of advanced students in economics, sociology and history. Except for a few years it would appear that this club existed only on paper. It continued to be announced in the catalogues, however, until 1918. When the long and successful work of Dean Young came to its close with his death in 1908, the courses in sociology were transferred to Professor Thompson who then became the head of a new department, that of economics and sociology. Dean Young, it should be noted, never wrote any articles or books on economics, although he published matter of considerable importance in history, government and education.

Thompson resigned from the staff of the University in 1910. After serving for a time with the University of Minnesota, he accepted a position with the federal Department of Agriculture. At present he is one of the department’s specialists in rural organization. He was succeeded at South Dakota by Edwin G. Nourse, a graduate of Cornell, who came here from the Wharton School of Commerce and Finance of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Nourse was primarily interested in agricultural economics and it was his ambition to promote courses in that field. He discovered, however, that there was a greater demand among the student body for work of a commercial character, so he was compelled to surrender his plans and continue, in general outline, what his predecessors had been offering in corporations, insurance, banking, money, labor problems, transportation, and the like. Certain courses, such as those dealing with public finance, the problems of distribution, the economics of agriculture and corporations were set off as being “primarily for Seniors and graduates.” Four courses in sociology were offered. The name of the School of Commerce was changed to that of the Department of Commerce and Finance. Professor Nourse resigned in 1912. After leaving Vermillion he took his doctor’s degree at Chicago, then served for three years as professor of economics at the University of Arkansas and then, in 1918, he became professor of agricultural economics at Iowa State College. He has written extensively upon agricultural economics, his chief publication doubtless being his “Readings in Agricultural Economics.” His other books are “Brokerage,” “Outlines of Agricultural Economics,” and “The Chicago Produce Market.” The last named publication has been awarded the Hart, Schaffner & Marx prize. He has also published valuable journal articles on agricultural economics and taxation. It is not too much to say that he is gaining recognition today as one of the leading authorities in his special line.

Following Nourse came Frederick W. Roman (A.B., Yale, 1902; Ph.D., Berlin, 1910) who remained two years. Very little change was made in the departmental announcements during his stay. In 1913 Dr. Roman was one of the prime movers in a reorganization of the Socio-Economic club under the title of the Social Science club. Upon his resignation in 1912, Professor Roman accepted a position with Syracuse University where he is now located.

Elmer K. Eyerly followed Roman as professor of economics and sociology in 1914. He was also made dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Dean Eyerly was an 1888 graduate of Franklin and Marshall who had spent several years in the state of South Dakota as a member of the Redfield, Yankton and South Dakota State faculties. Immediately prior to his coming to Vermillion he was associate professor of agricultural economics at the Massachusetts Agricultural College. The most important change made during his regime was the calling of Dr. Craig S. Thoms (A.B., Northwestern, 1888; Ph.D., Shurtleff, 1901) to be professor of applied sociology. Although Professor Thoms handled the elementary course in economics for three years and although Dean Eyerly continued to give courses in rural sociology and in social organization and control after the former’s appointment, Professor Thoms had the distinction of being the first instructor in the University’s history to be nominated as a sociologist. He is the author of two volumes: “The Workingman’s Christ,” and “The Bible Message for Modern Manhood.”

Another noteworthy thing done by Dean Eyerly was to discontinue the announcement of any courses under the Department of Commerce and Finance. All work in accounting and even the uncredited work in stenography and typewriting was brought forward in the catalogue for listing along with economics and sociology. However, a “suggested course in commerce and finance” was published and mention was also made under the head of University organization that there was a Department of Commerce and Finance. To all intents and purposes, however, that department was discontinued. In 1916 courses in economics and sociology were offered for the first time in the summer session. On account of his administrative duties Dean Eyerly was able to handle but a small amount of classroom work. Consequently, an instructor, Archie M. Peisch (A.B., Wisconsin, 1915) was engaged from 1915 to 1917 to handle courses in accounting, public finance, business barometers and commercial geography. Several correspondence courses were offered by the department at that time.

In the spring of 1917 Dean Eyerly resigned to devote his time to research. In this field he had already gained some notice through the publication of various articles on agricultural economics. Before long, however, he responded to the government need for trained men in his field and accepted a post as supervising farm help specialist with the U. S. Department of Agriculture. He was succeeded in the University by the writer. It is not the intention of the latter to expand upon his own times, but one or two facts should be stated to make our story complete. In the fall of 1917 economics was divorced from sociology and Professor Thoms was created the head of a separate department. Economics, likewise, was made to stand by itself. For the first semester of 1917-18, however, Professor Thoms continued to handle elementary economics. Since that time his work has been limited to sociology and Bible. It should also be mentioned that in the catalogue announcements for the year 1918-19 all reference to a Department of Commerce and Finance was omitted since, in fact, such a department had ceased to exist. Courses in accounting were listed in the catalogue as economics 21, economics 22, and so on, rather than accounting 1 and accounting 2, thus emphasizing the idea that accounting was to be handled from the economic rather than from the commercial or bookkeeping viewpoint. In February, 1918, Burton E. Tiffany (B. S., Greenville College, 1912) was appointed instructor in charge of accounting. Fifteen courses were announced by the department in the 1917-18 catalogue.

In conclusion, it is interesting to note that at least three of the men in charge of economics at the University have been primarily interested in agricultural questions. Yet not one of these men was able to create much demand for agricultural economics among his students, even though South Dakota is primarily an agricultural state. Again, it is rather remarkable to what extent the economists of the University have filled its administrative posts, either as presidents or as deans. Finally, attention should be called to the fact that practically all of the men named above have achieved distinction in the economic world as teachers, as writers, or as members of the public service. A heavy responsibility rests upon the existing departmental personnel in living up to the standards set by those who have, in times past, guided the department along its winding path.

 

Source: The Alumni Quarterly of the University of South Dakota. Vol. XIV, No. 4 (January, 1919), pp. 99 -105.

 

 

Categories
Chicago Cornell Economists

Chicago. Labor Economics Professor Robert Franklin Hoxie. Suicide, 1916

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While working on a list of University of Chicago Ph.D.’s in economics, I came across the press report (transcribed below) of the tragic death of an early pioneer in the field of labor economics (then known as “labor problems”) at the University of Chicago.

What might have been, had this scholar’s life not ended so early?

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Hoxie, Robert Franklin in the Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.)

Charles Robert McCann, Jr. and Vibha Kapuria-Foreman. “Robert Franklin Hoxie: The Contributions of a Neglected Chicago Economist” in Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology 34(B), September 2016: 210-304.

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Robert Franklin Hoxie: Life and Career

 

1868, April 29. Born in Edmeston, New York.
1893. Ph.B., University of Chicago.
1893-6. Fellow in Political Economy.
1897-8. Acting Professor of Political Economy, Cornell College, Iowa.
1898-1901. Instructor in Economics, Washington University.
1901-2. Acting Professor of Political Economy and Political Science, Washington and Lee University.
1903. Fellow in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1905. Ph.D., University of Chicago. An analysis of the concepts of demand and supply in their relation to market price. Published as The Demand and Supply Concepts. An Introduction to the Study of Market Price. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1906.
1903-6. Instructor in Economics, Cornell University.
1906-8. Instructor in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1908-12. Assistant Professor in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1915. Scientific Management and Labor. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
1912-16. Associate Professor in Political Economy, University of Chicago.
1914-15. Appointee of United States Commission on Industrial Relations.
1916, June 22. Died [suicide].

1917. Publication of Hoxie’s notes and lectures on trade unionism by Lucie B. Hoxie and Nathan Fine:   Trade Unionism in the United States, with an Introduction by E. H. Downey. New York: D. Appleton and Company.
2006. Publication of “Robert Hoxie’s Introductory Lecture on the Nature of the History of Political Economy [1915]: The History of Economic Thought as the History of Error.” Edited by Luca Fiorito and Warren J. Samuels in  Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 24-C, 49-97.

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TEACHER SUICIDE
Professor Takes Life While Suffering Mental Collapse

Prof. R. F. Hoxie Takes His Life

University of Chicago Student of Labor Problems Cuts His Throat

Robert Franklin Hoxie, associate professor of political economy in the University of Chicago, committed suicide yesterday.

Prof. Hoxie had been for years the subject of a nervous depression, his associates said yesterday upon learning of his death. He was constantly in charge of a physician.

While worry over the justice of his economic conclusions was not a direct cause of his act, his desire to view labor problems scientifically was regarded as the keynote of his career. He has been charged with bias resulting from labor affiliations and socialistic leanings. He denied this, and seemed overanxious to maintain a position of scientific neutrality in his studies.

He was to have delivered his first lecture of the summer term yesterday. He had asked his physician, Dr. Archibald Church, if he would be permitted to meet his classes. Dr. Church told him he could do so with safety. When it came time to leave his home at 6021 Woodlawn avenue for the university he was unable to go.

Unable to Meet Class.

“I haven’t the power to meet the pupils,” he told Mrs. Hoxie. “I think you had better have a notice to that effect posted on the bulletin board.”

Mrs. Hoxie left the house, and in a few moments had placed on the bulletin board the note saying that Prof. Hoxie would not lecture. She returned home, and upon entering found her husband lying on the floor. He had cut his throat and severed the veins of his wrist. Mrs. Hoxie’s screams brought neighbors.

There was an inquest in the afternoon, at which it was determined that the professor had taken his own life in a fit of insanity.

Praise from Judson.

“He was a very enthusiastic student of his subject,” said President Harry Pratt Judson of the university, “and a very able student of labor conditions. His death is a distinct loss to the university. He had been in ill health for years and it is a tribute to his will power that he forced himself to continue in his work as he did.”

Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of Labor, who was in the city yesterday, said Prof. Hoxie had done more toward the study of labor problems than any other man.

Prof. Hoxie left besides his widow a son of 4 and a daughter 2 years old.

He was statistician for the United States commission on industrial relations and was associate editor of the Journal of Political Economy. He was the author of a work on political economy and numerous articles. He had been a member of the faculties of Cornell college, Washington and Lee university, and Cornell university. His most recent work was a study of scientific management.

 

Source: Chicago Tribune, June 23, 1916, p. 1.

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-02878, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Economists

Cambridge. Alfred Marshall on Economics at American Universities, 1893

by Walter Stoneman, platinotype, 1917

_________________

Actually the admiration turns out to have been mutual.

_________________

Perhaps I may be allowed to end with an Englishman’s expression of admiration, tinged perhaps a little with envy, at the generous opportunities which the rapidly growing number of American universities is offering for advanced economic study, and at the zeal and ability with which these opportunities are being turned to account.

Alfred Marshall

Cambridge, England.

 

Source: Concluding paragraph of Alfred Marshall’s response to an article by Simon Patten: “Consumer’s Surplus,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 3 (March, 1893), pp. 90-93.

Image Source: Alfred Marshall by Walter Stoneman (1917). National Portrait Gallery,   NPG x25013. Creative Commons license.

Categories
Economists Exam Questions M.I.T. Suggested Reading Syllabus

MIT. Robert Solow’s Advanced Economic Theory Course, 1962

Robert Solow taught the course Advanced Economic Theory at MIT in the Spring of the 1961/62 academic year. Of the dozen graduate students who took the course for credit were a future Nobel prize winner (Peter Diamond), a future Princeton professor and later member of Jimmy Carter’s Council of Economic Advisers (Stephen Goldfeld), a future professor at University of Pennsylvania/Washington University (Robert Pollak), a future professor and later chairman of Hebrew University (David Levhari), and a professor of economics and the first woman to head an MIT academic department, economics! 1984-1990 and MIT’s first female academic dean, School of Humanities and Social Science (Ann Friedlaender).

The three A’s awarded in the course went to Diamond, Levhari and Goldfeld.

The comprehensive exam questions for advanced economic theory from May 1962 were transcribed in the previous post.

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14.123—Advanced Economic Theory
Spring 1962—Professor Solow

FIRST READING LIST: LINEAR PROGRAMMING AND RELATED SUBJECTS

This should occupy 6-9 weeks. Most of the reading is in Gale: The Theory of Linear Economic Models and Dorfman, Samuelson, Solow: Linear Programming and Econmic Analysis, referred to below as G and D respectively.

  1. Mathematical background: I hope to avoid spending any time on this. Mainly elements of matrix algebra—14.102 should be enough. For review, see D (Appendix B) and G (Ch. 2, more difficult).
  2. Elements of Linear Programming; D (Ch. 2,3), G (Ch. 1,3).
  3. Algebra and Geometry of Linear Programming, Simplex Method; D (Ch. 4, Sec. 1-11), G (Ch. 4).
  4. Applications; D (Ch. 5-7), Manne: Economic Analysis for Business Decisions (Ch. 4,5).
  5. Two-person zero-sum games; D (Ch. 15), G (Ch. 6,7).
  6. Leontief and similar systems; G (Ch. 8, 9 Sec. 1-3), D (Ch. 9, 10).
  7. Activity analysis; G (Ch. 9, Sec. 4), Koopmans: Three Essays on the State of Economic Science (pp. 66-104).
  8. Von Neumann’s model; D (Ch. 13, Sec. 6), G (Ch. 9, Sec. 5-7).
  9. Sraffa: Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities.
    Robinson: “Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory”, Oxford Economic Papers, February 1961, 53-58.
  10. If time permits, the turnpike theorem; D (Ch. 12), Hicks: “Prices and the Turnpike”, Review of Economic Studies, February 1961, 77-88.
    Radner: “Paths of Economic Growth that are Optimal, etc.”, Review of Economic Studies, February 1961, 98-104.

(Further references may follow.)

 

SECOND READING LIST: PUBLIC INVESTMENT CRITERIA

  1. Hirshleifer: “On the Theory of Optimal Investment Decision”, Journal of Political Economy, August 1958, pp. 329-352.
  2. Graaff: Theoretical Welfare Economics, Chs. 6-8.
  3. Eckstein: “A Survey of the Theory of Public Expenditure Criteria”, in Public Finances: Needs, Sources and Utilization, with “Comments” by Hirshleifer.
  4. Margolis: “The Economic Evaluation of Federal Water Resource Development”, AER, March 1959, pp. 96-111.
  5. Steiner: “Choosing Among Alternative Public Investments”, AER, Dec. 1959, pp. 898-916.
  6. Maass, al.: Design of Water-Resource Systems, Chs. 2, 13 (and passim).
  7. Eckstein: Water Resource Development, Ch. 1-4.

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April 11, 1962

14.123—Exam

Answer all questions.

  1. A function f of vectors x,y,… is called subadditive if f(x+y) ≤ f(x) + f(y) for all vectors x, y, and called superadditive if the inequality is reversed.
    Consider the LP problem of maximizing C′x subject to Ax ≤ b. The value of the maximum is a function of C, b, and A. Show that it is a subadditive function of C and a superadditive function of b.
  2. A firm can produce n commodities with a linear technology involving one activity for each commodity. Production involves only fixed factors, m in number, m<n, of which specified amounts are available. The output is sold at market prices p, and the firm chooses non-negative vector x of outputs to maximize p′x subject to the fixed-factor limitations.
    (a) Prove that the supply curve is not negatively sloped; that is, prove that if p1 increases, other prices constant, the optimal x1 must increase or remain unchanged, but cannot decrease. (Hint: a straightforward procedure is to consider closely the final simplex tableau, the signs of various elements, and what can happen to require further iteration if p1 There is a much simpler proof, comparing the before-and-after optima.)
    (b) State and interpret the dual to the theorem just proved.
  3. Consider a simple linear model of production, with 2 goods, and with 2 fixed factors, land and labor, available in specified amounts.
    (a) Sketch possible shapes for the set of feasible net outputs, or net production-possibility curve.
    (b) Suppose demand conditions are such that consumption expenditures on the two commodities are always equal. Give a complete analysis of the determination of the prices of the two goods and also the rent of land and the wage of labor. Graphical methods will help. (Hint: at one key point the construction of an isosceles triangle is very useful.)

 

Source: Duke University. Rosenstein Library. Robert M. Solow Papers, Box 67, Folder “14.123 Final Exam Fall-1969[sic|”.

Image Source: Robert Merton Solow at the M.I.T. Museum website.

Categories
Chicago Economists

Chicago. Alumnus, economics Ph.D. Harold Glenn Moulton, 1914

 

 

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Besides being of interest to us as the first President of the Brookings Institution, Harold Glenn Moulton started his career on the faculty of the University of Chicago after having earned a doctorate there in 1914. This post provides a time line of his career followed by links to some of his early books, a few of which (Principles of Money and Banking, Exercises and Questions for Use with “Principles of Money and Banking”, and The Financial Organization of Society) clearly include course readings used in the Department of Political Economy and the School of Commerce and Administration (i.e. Business School) of the University of Chicago at the time.

Another posting provides interesting anecdotes of a biographical nature up to the time that Moulton moved from Chicago to Washington, D.C. in 1922.

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Harold Glenn Moulton: Life and Career

1883. Born November 7, in Rose Lake Township (later LeRoy), Michigan.

1903-5. Student, Albion College.

1905-7. Student, University of Chicago. Ph.B. (1907)

1908-1909. Teacher at Evanston Academy.

1909-10. Fellow in Political Economy, University of Chicago.

1910. Travelling Fellow (to Europe for research on transportation systems).

1910-11. Assistant in Political Economy at the University of Chicago.

1911-14. Instructor in Political Economy at the University of Chicago.

1914. Ph.D. awarded, University of Chicago. Thesis title: Waterways vs. railways.

1914-18. Assistant Professor of Political Economy at the University of Chicago.

1918-22. Associate Professor of Political Economy at the University of Chicago.

1921. Head of the Institute of Economics, Washington, D.C.

1922. Professor of Political Economy at the University of Chicago.

1927-52. President, The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.

1952. Retirement. Brookings President emeritus.

1965, December 14. Died in Charles Town West Virginia.

 

Selected early (i.e. downloadable) works by Moulton

Principles of Money and Banking: A Series of Selected Materials, with Explanatory Introductions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1916.

Exercises and Questions for Use with “Principles of Money and Banking”. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1916.

Readings in the Economics of War. J. Maurice Clark, Walton H. Hamilton and Harold G. Moulton (eds.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1918.

The War and Industrial Readjustments. In The University of Chicago War Papers, No. 5. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, April 1918.

The Financial Organization of Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1921.

America and the Balance Sheet of Europe (together with John Foster Bass). New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1921.

The Control of Germany and Japan (together with Louis Marlio). Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1944.

 

Image Source: The University of Chicago Magazine, Volume V, No. 4 (February 1913), p. 115

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Funny Business

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. (1903), Canadian Humorist Stephen Leacock.

It is not every day that one stumbles upon a history-of-economics arc connecting Thorstein Veblen to Groucho Marx and Jack Benny. The economist that connected the iconoclast economist to those veterans of vaudeville comedy is the Canadian humorist and Chicago student of Thorstein Veblen, Stephen Butler Leacock.

First I post here some data (the actual starting point of my background check of Leacock, the Chicago Ph.D.) found in the University of Chicago’s registers of its Ph.D.’s and annual catalogues.

The author’s autobiographical Preface to Leacock’s greatest hit, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912) follows. The stories themselves strike most, if not all, of the same chords that Garrison Keillor’s News from Lake Wobegon has played over the past decades. 

Finally I will allow myself the short-cut of quoting Wikipedia to complete the sketch of both sides of this most interesting fellow. 

The McGill economics department entry for Stephen Leacock.

 

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Stephen Butler Leacock
University of Chicago Ph.D. in Political Economy, 1903.

Thesis Title: The doctrine of laissez faire.

 A.B. University of Toronto, 1891.

1889-99. Instructor in French and German, Upper Canada College.
1899-1900. Graduate Student, University of Chicago.
1921. Head of Department of Economics and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
1931, April 1. Professor and Head of Department of Economics and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
1938, April 1. Professor Emeritus of Economics and Political Science, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

 

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Author’s Preface to Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912)

               I KNOW no way in which a writer may more fittingly introduce his work to the public than by giving a brief account of who and what he is. By this means some of the blame for what he has done is very properly shifted to the extenuating circumstances of his life.

I was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England, on December 30, 1869. I am not aware that there was any particular conjunction of the planets at the time, but should think it extremely likely. My parents migrated to Canada in 1876, and I decided to go with them. My father took up a farm near Lake Simcoe, in Ontario. This was during the hard times of Canadian farming, and my father was just able by great diligence to pay the hired men and, in years of plenty, to raise enough grain to have seed for the next year’s crop without buying any. By this process my brothers and I were inevitably driven off the land, and have become professors, business men, and engineers, instead of being able to grow up as farm labourers. Yet I saw enough of farming to speak exuberantly in political addresses of the joy of early rising and the deep sleep, both of body and intellect, that is induced by honest manual toil.

I was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, of which I was head boy in 1887. From there I went to the University of Toronto, where I graduated in 1891. At the University I spent my entire time in the acquisition of languages, living, dead, and half- dead, and knew nothing of the outside world. In this diligent pursuit of words I spent about sixteen hours of each day. Very soon after graduation I had forgotten the languages, and found myself intellectually bankrupt. In other words I was what is called a distinguished graduate, and, as such, I took to school teaching as the only trade I could find that needed neither experience nor intellect. I spent my time from 1891 to 1899 on the staff of Upper Canada College, an experience which has left me with a profound sympathy for the many gifted and brilliant men who are compelled to spend their lives in the most dreary, the most thankless, and the worst paid profession in the world. I have noted that of my pupils, those who seemed the laziest and the least enamoured of books are now rising to eminence at the bar, in business, and in public life; the really promising boys who took all the prizes are now able with difficulty to earn the wages of a clerk in a summer hotel or a deck hand on a canal boat.

In 1899 I gave up school teaching in disgust, borrowed enough money to live upon for a few months, and went to the University of Chicago to study economics and political science. I was soon appointed to a Fellowship in political economy, and by means of this and some temporary employment by McGill University, I survived until I took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1903. The meaning of this degree is that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last time in his life, and is pronounced completely full. After this, no new ideas can be imparted to him.

From this time, and since my marriage, which had occurred at this period, I have belonged to the staff of McGill University, first as lecturer in Political Science, and later as head of the department of Economics and Political Science. As this position is one of the prizes of my profession, I am able to regard myself as singularly fortunate. The emolument is so high as to place me distinctly above the policemen, postmen, street-car conductors, and other salaried officials of the neighbourhood, while I am able to mix with the poorer of the business men of the city on terms of something like equality. In point of leisure, I enjoy more in the four corners of a single year than a business man knows in his whole life. I thus have what the business man can never enjoy, an ability to think, and, what is still better, to stop thinking altogether for months at a time.

I have written a number of things in connection with my college life — a book on Political Science, and many essays, magazine articles, and so on. I belong to the Political Science Association of America, to the Royal Colonial Institute, and to the Church of England. These things, surely, are a proof of respectability. I have had some small connection with politics and public life. A few years ago I went all round the British Empire delivering addresses on Imperial organization. When I state that these lectures were followed almost immediately by the Union of South Africa, the Banana Riots in Trinidad, and the Turco-Italian war, I think the reader can form some idea of their importance. In Canada I belong to the Conservative party, but as yet I have failed entirely in Canadian politics, never having received a contract to build a bridge, or make a wharf, nor to construct even the smallest section of the Transcontinental Railway. This, however, is a form of national ingratitude to which one becomes accustomed in this Dominion.

Apart from my college work, I have written two books, one called “Literary Lapses” and the other “Nonsense Novels.” Each of these is published by John Lane (London and New York), and either of them can be obtained, absurd though it sounds, for the mere sum of three shillings and sixpence. Any reader of this preface, for example, ridiculous though it appears, could walk into a bookstore and buy both of these books for seven shillings. Yet these works are of so humorous a character that for many years it was found impossible to print them. The compositors fell back from their task suffocated with laughter and gasping for air. Nothing but the invention of the linotype machine or rather, of the kind of men who operate it made it possible to print these books. Even now people have to be very careful in circulating them, and the books should never be put into the hands of persons not in robust health.

Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward Island. But to write something out of one’s own mind, worth reading for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, I would sooner have written “Alice in Wonderland ” than the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica.

In regard to the present work I must disclaim at once all intention of trying to do anything so ridiculously easy as writing about a real place and real people. Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, it is about seventy or eighty of them. You may find them all the way from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square streets and the same maple trees and the same churches and hotels, and everywhere the sunshine of the land of hope.

Similarly, the Reverend Mr. Drone is not one person, but about eight or ten. To make him I clapped the gaiters of one ecclesiastic round the legs of another, added the sermons of a third and the character of a fourth, and so let him start on his way in the book to pick up such individual attributes as he might find for himself. Mullins and Bagshaw and Judge Pepperleigh and the rest are, it is true, personal friends of mine. But I have known them in such a variety of forms, with such alternations of tall and short, dark and fair, that, individually, I should have much ado to know them. Mr. Pupkin is found whenever a Canadian bank opens a branch in a county town and needs a teller. As for Mr. Smith, with his two hundred and eighty pounds, his hoarse voice, his loud check suit, his diamonds, the roughness of his address and the goodness of his heart, all of this is known by everybody to be a necessary and universal adjunct of the hotel business.

The inspiration of the book, —a land of hope and sunshine where little towns spread their square streets and their trim maple trees beside placid lakes almost within echo of the primeval forest, is large enough. If it fails in its portrayal of the scenes and the country that it depicts the fault lies rather with an art that is deficient than in an affection that is wanting.

STEPHEN LEACOCK.

McGill University,
June, 1912.

Source: Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, London: John Lane, 1912, pp. vii-xii.

 

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Academic and political life

Disillusioned with teaching, in 1899 he began graduate studies at the University of Chicago under Thorstein Veblen, where he received a doctorate in political science and political economy. He moved from Chicago, Illinois to Montreal, Quebec, where he eventually became the William Dow Professor of Political Economy and long-time chair of the Department of Economics and Political Science at McGill University.

He was closely associated with Sir Arthur Currie, former commander of the Canadian Corps in the Great War and principal of McGill from 1919 until his death in 1933. In fact, Currie had been a student observing Leacock’s practice teaching in Strathroy in 1888. In 1936, Leacock was forcibly retired by the McGill Board of Governors—an unlikely prospect had Currie lived.

Leacock was both a social conservative and a partisan Conservative. He opposed giving women the right to vote, disliked non-Anglo-Saxon immigration and supported the introduction of social welfare legislation. He was a staunch champion of the British Empire and the Imperial Federation Movement and went on lecture tours to further the cause.

Although he was considered as a candidate for Dominion elections by his party, it declined to invite the author, lecturer, and maverick to stand for election. Nevertheless, he would stump for local candidates at his summer home.

Literary Life

Early in his career, Leacock turned to fiction, humour, and short reports to supplement (and ultimately exceed) his regular income. His stories, first published in magazines in Canada and the United States and later in novel form, became extremely popular around the world. It was said in 1911 that more people had heard of Stephen Leacock than had heard of Canada. Also, between the years 1915 and 1925, Leacock was the most popular humorist in the English-speaking world.

A humorist particularly admired by Leacock was Robert Benchley from New York. Leacock opened correspondence with Benchley, encouraging him in his work and importuning him to compile his work into a book. Benchley did so in 1922, and acknowledged the nagging from north of the border.

Near the end of his life, the American comedian Jack Benny recounted how he had been introduced to Leacock’s writing by Groucho Marx when they were both young vaudeville comedians. Benny acknowledged Leacock’s influence and, fifty years after first reading him, still considered Leacock one of his favorite comic writers. He was puzzled as to why Leacock’s work was no longer well known in the United States.

During the summer months, Leacock lived at Old Brewery Bay, his summer estate in Orillia, across Lake Simcoe from where he was raised and also bordering Lake Couchiching. A working farm, Old Brewery Bay is now a museum and National Historic Site of Canada. Gossip provided by the local barber, Jefferson Short, provided Leacock with the material which would become Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town (1912), set in the thinly-disguised Mariposa.

Although he wrote learned articles and books related to his field of study, his political theory is now all but forgotten. Leacock was awarded the Royal Society of Canada’s Lorne Pierce Medal in 1937, nominally for his academic work.

Source: From the Wikipedia article “Stephen Leacock”.

Image Source: PMA Productions, Extraordinary Canadians. Margaret Macmillan’s Episode on Stephen Leacock.

Categories
Columbia Curriculum Economists Fields

Columbia. Paul Douglas petitions to allow sociology courses for his second minor. 1916

The minutes of this meeting of the Columbia Faculty of Political Science’s Committee on Instruction caught my eye because of Paul Douglas‘ petition to substitute  a pair of sociology courses offered by Professor Franklin Giddings for a couple of intellectual history courses that would satisfy the distribution requirements for the second minor.

It appears that Douglas thus managed to have his major and both minors all in Group III (i.e., political economy and finance; sociology and statistics; social economy).

 

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Minutes of Committee on Instruction, February 21, 1916

A meeting of the Committee on Instruction of the Faculty of Political Science was held in Professor Seligman’s office on Monday, February 21, 1916.

Present: Professors Seligman, Giddings, Dunning, Shotwell and Dean Woodbridge.

The Chairman presented the following petitions, which were approved and referred by the Committee to the Dean for further action:

Petition from Miss Dorothy Stimson to divide her second minor for the doctor’s degree between Public Law and Politics.

Petition from Mr. Paul H. Douglas to offer Sociology 257 and 258, under the heading History of Thought and Culture, as a second minor for the Ph.D.

A statement from Mrs. H. L. Hollingworth, submitting the courses which she is offering for the Ph. D. Degree in Sociology, as follows:

Sociology 251-252 (2 full courses) Taken in 1912-13.
Psychology 263 (1 full course)        Taken in 1912-13.
(Social Psychology)
Educational Sociology 107-8 (2 half courses) Taken in 1912-13.
Sociology 257 (1 full course)           Taken in 1913-14
Sociology E1 43-4 (24 courses)       Taken in 1915-16
One more full course in Sociology to be taken next semester.

The statement was accepted as satisfactory.

A petition of Mr. Ahmed Shukri to substitute Arabic in place of Latin was granted.

The Chairman read the letter from the Secretary of the Faculty concerning the routine to be followed in the reporting of changes of courses vt [sic] students. After consider[ation] of the matter, it was decided that only those cases which involve changes of subjects, with their regular combinations, should be reported to the Faculty, and that they should be reported by the Dean, not by the Committee, the Committee in every case referring the petition to the Dean.

The Committee then took up the changes in courses for the following year as attached:

[…]

            The change in Economics is as follows:

PROFESSOR MITCHELL

Course on “Types” changed from one-term to two-term course.
Course on “Crises” withdrawn

[…]

Source: Columbia University Archives. Department of Economics Collection. Box 1, Folder “Committee on Instruction”.

 

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Catalogue Listings of Sociology Courses Petitioned by Paul Douglas

Sociology 257—The Evolution of Progressive Society. Professor Giddings.

Full or half course. F. at 2.10 and 3.10 515 K.

Factors of social evolution in Western Europe. Elements of progressive society; English civilization as example of evolution of progressive society; its ethnic elements; economic factors; folk thought, folk ways and mores; early family and tribal organization; development of a people with distinctive habits and characteristics.

(Identical with History 257.)
Given in 1915-16 and in alternate years thereafter.

 

Sociology 258—The Evolution of Progressive Society. Professor Giddings.

Full or half course. F. at 2.10 and 3.10 515 K.

Achievement of civil liberty in combination with social order; rise of industrial democracy; problems of social justice; individualism; collective responsibility for human progress.

(Identical with History 258.)
Given in 1915-16 and in alternate years thereafter.

Source:   Columbia University. Bulletin of Information (July 3, 1915). History, Economics, and Public Law: Courses offered by the Faculty of Political Science, 1915-16, p. 36.

 

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From the 1915-16 Regulations for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy. — Each student who declares himself a candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy shall designate one principal or major subject and two subordinate or minor subjects. Candidates are expected to devote about one-half of their time throughout their course of study to the major subject, and about one-quarter to each minor subject. Except by vote of the Executive Committee of the University Council, upon the recommendation of the Dean and the head of the department concerned, no candidate may choose his major and both minor subjects under one department. Major and minor subjects may not be changed except by permission of the Dean, on the approval of the head of the departments concerned. Both the professor in charge of the major subject and the Dean must pass upon the student’s qualifications for the course of study he desires to pursue, and approve his choice of subjects before registration can be effected. 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) Ancient and oriental history; (2) medieval history and church history; (3) modern European history from the opening of the 16th century; (4) American history; (5) history of thought and culture.

Group II. — Politics, public law and comparative jurisprudence: (1) Politics; (2) Constitutional Law and Administrative Law; (3) International Law; (4) Roman Law and Comparative Jurisprudence.

Group III. — Economics and social science: (1) Political economy and finance; (2) sociology and statistics; (3) social economy.

            A candidate for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy whose major subject lies within the jurisdiction of this Faculty must select one minor subject outside of the group which includes his major subject, and one minor subject within the group which includes his major subject. He must take, in his major subject, courses occupying at least four hours weekly during each required year of residence (provided that this number of hours be offered in the subject), and must also attend a Seminar during the period of residence. In each minor subject he must take courses occupying at least two hours weekly during each required year of residence.

Source: Columbia University, Catalogue, 1915-16, pp. 214-5.

Image Source: Paul H. Douglas’ college yearbook entry. The Bowdoin Bugle (1913).

Categories
Columbia Economic History Economists Yale

Columbia Economics Ph.D. alumnus. John M. Montias, 1958

The history of economics would be duller fare should we fail to add a portion of ancestor worship as seasoning. Since my motto is “Economists are not born but they are made” and that for well over a century economists have been made in graduate schools, I would be remiss in not using Economics in the Rear-View Mirror to erect shrines from time to time to those economists who trained me.

During the academic year 1973-74 while an undergraduate at Yale, I took a graduate course taught by John Michael Montias on comparative economic systems.  Having been born in Paris, he volunteered out of interest in the topic to be the second reader of my senior essay about French mercantilism and the Physiocrats. I recall him as a thoughtful scholar and a kind man. He was one of four professors (the others were Raymond Powell, Abram Bergson and Evsey Domar) who in different courses valiantly tried to teach me the lessons of Richard H. Moorsteen’s article “On Measuring Productive Potential and Relative Efficiency” Quarterly Journal of Economics (1961) 75 (3): 451-467. The teaching efforts of Montias et al. did ignite in me a long professional interest in the economic theory of index numbers though I do not recall them exactly cracking the code in class for us. Montias’ own ambition was less on the bean-counting side of empirical comparative economics as on the theoretical side in pursuit of a formal systematization of a “macro”-institutional economics. We began his course by reading his essay co-authored with Tjalling Koopmans published in Comparison of Economic Systems: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches, Alexander Eckstein (ed.), Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. I believe we can all agree that economic outcomes depend jointly on the economic environment, economic system and economic policies within the system. I also believe that the last sentence reads no better when expressed in mathematical notation. 

John Michael Montias’ greatest hits in economics were to appear after I had moved on. He had a passion for Dutch and Flemish art that led to seminal contributions in the history of 17th century Dutch art markets. Tulip bubbles are cool, but I’d say Vermeer is hot.

P.S.  Fun Fact: The U.S. Embassy official in Hungary who had to deal with Montias’ expulsion from Hungary in the early 1960’s, Edward Alexander, was in charge of the Press and Culture department of the U.S. Embassy in East Berlin during my  seven month IREX stay in 1978. There I fell in love and became engaged to an economist at the Central Institute of Economics in the GDR Academy of Sciences. Until my East German fiancée (Kerstin Rüdiger) was allowed to leave East Germany at the end of 1979 (and perhaps afterwards too), Edward Alexander had to deal with any diplomatic fall-out from our case.

_____________________________

 

From the 1989 Survey of AEA Members

Montias, John M.

Fields: 050, 110
Birth Yr: 1928
Degrees: B.A., Columbia U., 1947; M.A., Columbia U., 1950; Ph.D., Columbia U., 1958
Prin. Cur. Position: Prof. of Econs. Yale U., 1964
Concurrent/Past Positions: Assoc. Prof., Yale U., 1963-64; Asst. Prof., Yale U., 1958-63.
Research:  Economic systems

Source: American Economic Association. Biographical Listing of Members, American Economic Review, Vol. 79, No. 6, (Dec. 1989) p. 334.

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New York Times obituary

John Montias, 76, Scholar of Economics and of Art, Is Dead
By KATHRYN SHATTUCKAUG. 1, 2005

John Michael Montias, an economist who became one of the foremost scholars on the painter Johannes Vermeer and a pioneer in the economics of art, died on Tuesday at a hospice in Branford, Conn. He was 76 and lived in New Haven.

The cause was complications from melanoma, said his son, John-Luke Montias.

Part of the Annales school of economists and historians, Mr. Montias was among those who, in the early and mid-20th century, promoted a new form of history by replacing the examination of major leaders and events with the microstudy of ordinary people and occurrences.

Through the scrupulous analysis of common documents ranging from notes and letters to receipts and legal papers, Mr. Montias peeled back the layers in the life of Vermeer, one of his favorite artists — and one of the world’s most enigmatic. His work opened the door for a new genre of art history in which artists were analyzed in the context of their societal and economic surroundings and not merely their works.

“I think he was important for all of us,” said Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, the John Langeloth Loeb professor emeritus at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts. “When he started this in the 1960’s and 70’s, there was no one who approached the history of art from that point of view. His work was pioneering — accurate, extremely convincing, with many novel insights. What was not considered to be relevant to the work of art in the past, we all have subsequently used.”

Mr. Montias’s research was a primary source for Tracy Chevalier’s 2000 novel “Girl With a Pearl Earring,” about Vermeer’s relationship with the model for his iconic work, and for the 2003 film adaptation.

Mr. Montias began teaching at Yale University in the late 50’s, where he specialized in the economic systems of the Soviet bloc during the 1960’s and 70’s and served as a consultant to high-ranking government officials. His analysis of the economies of Eastern European countries at times drew suspicion, perhaps never more so than during his visits to Czechoslovakia and Hungary from 1963 to 1965; he was shadowed and eventually expelled from Hungary on suspicion of espionage. But if his work was economics, his passion was art, particularly that of the 16th- and 17th-century Netherlands.

“I came to Vermeer ‘sideways,”‘ he said in a 2003 interview for the Essential Vermeer Web site (www.essentialvermeer.20m.com), explaining the genesis of his second career. Having won a summer grant in 1975 to write a comparative study of Dutch art guilds, he traveled to Delft, where he discovered that no in-depth study of a guild existed.

“In the course of this research, I realized that, contrary to my expectations, previous scholarship on Vermeer’s life had not exhausted the subject,” he said.

And so began his quest to uncover the life of one of the world’s most mysterious artists, with Mr. Montias unearthing and poring over 454 documents related to Vermeer and his family that lay, long undisturbed, in the archives of no fewer than 17 Dutch and Belgian cities.

In 1989 he published “Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History” (Princeton University Press), in which he revealed secrets of Vermeer’s life: that Vermeer’s grandfather was a convicted counterfeiter; that his grandmother ran illegal lotteries; and that the artist himself fathered 13 children and died at the age of 43, destitute.

Reviewing the book in The New York Times, the art critic John Russell wrote that Mr. Montias had previously “proved that there is a great deal more to art history than shuffling slides in a library.”

“His new book does not crack the code of Vermeer’s personality, let alone the code of his inner experience,” the review continued. “But as detective work, and as a portrait of an era, it ranks high.”

In fact, Mr. Montias’s midlife obsession had adolescent roots. Born on Oct. 3, 1928, in Paris, he was sent in 1940, alone and by ship, by his Jewish parents to the safety of the United States — and an Episcopalian baptism — just as the Germans were preparing to invade France. He boarded at the Nichols School in Buffalo, where as a 14-year-old volunteer in the small library of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, he came across Wilhelm Bode’s gilt-edged folio volume of Rembrandt and was immediately captivated.

Mr. Montias’s curiosity resurfaced in 1954 when, as a Ph.D. candidate in the economics department at Columbia University, he considered writing his dissertation on the prices of Dutch paintings at auction. He failed to get financial support for his project, perhaps thought frivolous during the cold war.

Things changed when Mr. Montias met Mr. Begemann in the mid-1960’s, when they were both at Yale. A specialist in Dutch and Flemish art, Mr. Begemann gave Mr. Montias his first lessons in connoisseurship, and soon after he began to study the genre’s history methodically. His first project in the field — the 1975 summer grant — required Mr. Montias, already a gifted linguist, not only to learn modern Dutch but also to read 17th-century manuscript sources in old Gothic script.

“He decided to attack the archives in Delft, knowing that they had been scoured for information on Vermeer,” recalled Otto Naumann, a Manhattan art dealer who studied under Mr. Montias. “With the confidence that only a true genius can posses, he decided that he could do better, without first learning Dutch.”

It took Mr. Montias one week to find an unpublished document that mentioned Vermeer and but another to decipher it, Mr. Naumann said.

Mr. Montias published three more books about the 17th-century Dutch art market: “Artists, Dealers, Consumers: On the Social World of Art” (Hilversum: Verloren, 1994); “Public and Private Spaces: Works of Art in 17th-Century Dutch Houses” (Zwolle, 2000), with John Loughman; and “Art at Auction in 17th-Century Amsterdam” (Amsterdam University Press, 2003).

In addition to his son, of Manhattan, he is survived by his wife, Marie, of New Haven, and his mother, Giselle de la Maisoneuve, of Paris.

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Yale Bulletin & Calendar obituary

Yale Bulletin & Calendar. September 2, 2005. Vol. 34, Number 2.

John-Michael Montias, economist and expert on Vermeer

John-Michael Montias, one of the world’s foremost scholars on the life of 17th-century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer and professor emeritus of economics at Yale, died July 26 of complications from melanoma. He was 76.

Montias, who joined the Yale faculty in the late 1950s, was a specialist in the economic systems of the Soviet bloc. He researched the economies of many Eastern European countries during the 1960s and 1970s. During the Cold War, he served as a consultant to some of the highest officials of the U.S. government. His publications from that period include “Central Planning in Poland” and “The Structure of Economic Systems,” both published by the Yale University Press.

Although his academic work was in the field of economics, Montias’ passion was art, specifically 16th- and 17th-century Dutch painting. While on a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Social Studies in 1978, he combined the two interests by writing a comparative study of Dutch art guilds during the 16th century, poring over 16th- and 17th-century archival records in the process of teaching himself gothic Dutch. The result was his 1982 book “Artists and Artisans in Delft, a Study of the 17th Century.”

During the course of his research, Montias was surprised to learn that the scholarship on one of his favorite artists, Vermeer, was far from exhausted. He began a quest to uncover the life of the artist, considered one of the most enigmatic and mysterious. In 1989 he published the critically acclaimed “Vermeer and His Milieu: A Web of Social History.” In this book, Montias traced the artist’s life through notary records, discovering that Vermeer’s grandfather was a convicted counterfeiter; that his grandmother ran illegal lotteries; and that the artist himself fathered 13 children and died at the age of 43, completely destitute. Today, it is estimated that there are only about 35 Vermeer paintings still in existence, and the most recent work sold at auction was purchased for $26 million in London last July.

Montias published three more books about the 17th-century Dutch art market: “Artists, Dealers and Consumers: The World of Social Art” (1994), “Public and Private Spaces: Works of Art in 17th-Century Dutch Houses” (2000) and “Art at Auction in 17th-Century Amsterdam” (2002).

Born Oct. 3, 1928 in Paris, France, Montias came to the United States when he was 12. At 16 he matriculated as an undergraduate at Columbia University. After serving in the Army during the Korean War, he returned to Columbia, earning both his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics. He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1961.

Montias is survived by his wife, Marie, of New Haven; his mother, Giselle de la Maisoneuve, of Paris, France; and his son John-Luke, and his fiancé, Samantha, both of New York City.

The Yale economist was buried in Grove Street Cemetery.

 

Image Source: Montias as Guggenheim Fellow (1961) John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Detail from “Montias at the launching party at Amsterdam University Press of his book Art at auction in 17th-century Amsterdam, 10 September 2002 (Photo: Gary Schwartz)“

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Chicago Columbia Economists Stanford Syllabus

Chicago. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus Simon James McLean, 1897

It all began as a humble search for a single mosaic tile — where did Simon James McLean study before going to the University of Chicago and becoming one of its first four Ph.D.’s in Political Economy? Before getting an answer to that question, I uncovered many other details of a life begun in Brooklyn (1871) with first academic degrees from the University of Toronto (A.B., 1894; LL.B., 1895), then A.M. at Columbia (1896) and finally Ph.D. from the University of Chicago (1897).

After getting the Ph.D. McLean’s career literally went south, namely to the University of Arkansas (1897-1902), then west to Stanford (1902-05), and then back north to the University of Toronto (1906) at the age of 35.

From the University of Chicago’s registers of its Ph.D’s. for the years 1921, 1931, and 1938 I discovered that McLean morphed from a leading academic light regarding the economics of railroad regulation into a policy mover-and-shaker on the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada (1908-1938). The man covered a lot of territory in his life.

But wait, there’s more. While on McLean’s trail through Fayetteville, Arkansas, I came across the course descriptions at the University of Arkansas for economics and sociology that included his textbook choices. Since there is no indication of anyone else offering any of these courses, it would appear the young professor had a teaching load for each semester of 14 hours per week. I think it is reasonable to assume that his choices of topics and texts represent an average of his own earlier coursework at Columbia and Chicago. I have added links to all the texts given in the course descriptions.

 

Sources:

Theses of the University of Chicago, Doctors of Philosophy. June 1893—December 1921. Chicago: Harper Memorial Library, University of Chicago.

University of Chicago Announcements, Register Number, Doctors of Philosophy. June, 1893—April, 1931. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 122-127.

University of Chicago Announcements, Register of Doctors of Philosophy. Jan, 1893—April, 1938. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 139-144.

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McLean, Simon James.
University of Chicago thesis (1897):
The railway policy of Canada.

McLean’s Ph.D. thesis does appear to have been published as such. However, he did write a series of articles for the Journal of Political Economy that together account for much of his dissertation work.

An early chapter in Canadian railroad policy. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 6 (June 1898), 323-352.
Canadian railways and the bonding question. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 7 (September 1899), pp. 500-542.
The railway policy of Canada, 1849 to 1867: I. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 9 (March 1901), pp.
The railway policy of Canada, 1849 to 1867: II. Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 9 (June 1901), pp. 351-383.

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Arkansas University.—Dr. Simon James McLean has been appointed Professor of History and Political Economy at the University of Arkansas. He was born at Brooklyn, N.Y., June 14, 1871. After passing through the public schools of Quebec and Cumberland, Canada, and the Ontario Collegiate Institute of Ottawa, he entered the Toronto University. Here he obtained the degree of A.B. in 1894 and that of LL.B. in 1895. He then pursued further graduate studies at Columbia, receiving his A.M. in 1896, and at Chicago, where, in 1897, he obtained the degree of Ph.D. In the same year he was appointed Professor of Economics and Sociology at the University of Arkansas. Professor McLean has published:

“Tariff History of Canada.” University of Toronto Studies, 1895. Pp.53.
“The University Settlement Movement.” Canadian Magazine, March, 1897,
“Early Railway History of Canada.” Ibid., March, 1899.
“Early Canadian Railway Policy.” Journal of Political Economy, June, 1898.
“Canadian Railways and the Bonding Question.” Ibid., September, 1899.

 

Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 14 (September 1899) p. 64 [page 220 in printed volume].

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Course offerings in economics and sociology at the University of Arkansas
1899-1900

ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY.
S. J. McLean, Professor.

 

The courses offered in this department are designed to afford such instruction as will be advantageous to those who intend to enter public life, or those callings which will bring them closely in touch with the activities of citizenship. Course 1 is required before more advanced courses in this department are taken.

  1. Principles of Economics (both terms)……….2

Recitations, prescribed readings, reports and debates. Text-book: Walker, Political Economy [3rd edition, 1888 ].

  1. Industrial History of America and Europe since 1763 (first term)……….3

The leading industrial facts of this period are considered, including panics and trusts. A detailed study of some of the more important industries will also be made. Lectures, reports, and prescribed readings. Selected portions of Rand’s Economic History [Selections Illustrating Economic History since the Seven Years’ War 3rd ed., 1895]will be studied.

  1. Banking (first part of second term)……….3

The principles of Banking and the history of Banking Systems. [Chapters on the theory and history of banking. 1st ed., New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1891. ] Lectures, recitations, reports, and readings. Text-book: Dunbar, Chapters in the Theory and History of Banking.

  1. Money (latter part of second term)……….3

The principles of Money and the history of Monetary Systems are considered. [From 1898-99 Catalogue: “Text-books: Walker and Jevons” [Francis A. Walker, Money (1878). William Stanley Jevons, Money and the mechanism of exchange (1875).]

  1. Tariff History and Problems (first term)……….2

United States, England, France and Germany. Special attention will be devoted to the tariff history of the United States. Text-book: Taussig, Tariff History of the United States. [1888] This will be supplemented by lectures and use of government documents.

  1. History of Economic Thought, from Plato and Aristotle to the Present (second term) ……….2

Text-book: Ingram’s History of Political Economy [1887]; supplementary readings and reports will also be required.

  1. Public Finance (first term)……….3

Principles and history of taxation, management of public debts, consideration of governmental activities, etc. Text-book: Plehn, Introduction to Public Finance [1896]. Lectures, readings and use of government documents.

  1. Transportation. Its History and Problems (second term)……….3

The economic aspects of water transportation, the great lakes, canal systems, and the Mississippi; the evolution of the railroad system, railroad geography, state versus private ownership, methods of government control, railroad finances, etc. Lectures, prescribed readings, and use of original material. Text-book: Hadley, Railroad Transportation. [1885]

  1. Principles of Sociology (first term)……….2

This course considers the elements and conditions of social growth and progress. Recitations, lectures and reading of assigned chapters in Spencer’s Principles of Sociology [Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3.] and in Gidding’s Principles of Sociology [1896]. Text-book: Fairbanks’s Introduction to Sociology [1896].

  1. Problems of Social Growth (second term)……….2

Trade-unionism, arbitration and conciliation, socialism, communism, co-operation and profit-sharing. Lectures and reports. For reference: Ely, The Labor Movement in America [1886], and Ely, French and German Socialism [1883].

  1. Commerce (first term)……….2

Theory of foreign commerce; investigation of the commercial resources of the leading countries of the present. Students will be expected to acquaint themselves with the United States Consular Reports. Text-book: Chisholm, Smaller Commercial Geography [1897 Handbook of Commercial Geography.].

  1. Labor Legislation (second term)……….2

History and critical investigation of the attitude of the State towards Labor; apprenticeship laws, combination laws, trade union recognition, factory legislation, etc. For reference, Stimson, Handbook to the Labor Law of the United States. [1896]

 

Source: Catalogue of the University of Arkansas, 1899-1900. Fayetteville, Ark., pp. 77-79.

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PROF. M’LEAN [sic] RESIGNS
HEAD OF ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT TO GO TO TORONTO.

Will Leave Stanford in January to Take Professsorship in Economics of Commerce and Transportation.

Professor Simon James McLean, present head of the Department of Economics, has tendered his resignation and will leave Stanford at the end of the present semester. He goes to accept the professorship of economics of commerce and transportation at the University of Toronto in Canada. Professor McLean has been contemplating this step for some time, as, aside from the fact that the work at Toronto will be along lines offering him better opportunities for advancement, the call from his alma mater was one which he felt he could not refuse. Dr. Jordan has accepted Professor McLean’s resignation and in his letter accepting it speaks as follows: “We recognize your ripe scholarship, your high ideals in education, your calmness of judgment, and your possession of those traits of character and thought which mark the gentleman among other men. As a teacher in a line of work so much afflicted by hasty judgment, by sensationalism and emotionalism, you have always held the attitude of a careful and patient investigator, one of the most solid and accurate within the range of my acquaintance.” It is still too early for any definite statement regarding the filling of Professor McLean’s place in the Department of Economics, as he will continue in charge of his classes until the twenty-second of December. Professor McLean came to Stanford in 1902 from the University of Arkansas, where he was professor of economics and sociology. He took his A. B. at the University of Toronto in 1884 and his degree of LL.B. in 1895 from the same university. The degrees A. M. from Columbia and Ph.D. from Chicago came in 1896 and 1897. Professor McLean is a recognized authority on the subject of railway rates, and has been a member of several special commissions appointed by the government to investigate conditions along this line.

 

Source: The Stanford Daily, Vol. XXVII, Issue 66, November 28, 1905.