Category: Harvard

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Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Labor Movement in Europe, Final Exams. Meriam, 1924 and 1925.

 

Harvard’s semester course “The Labor Movement in Europe” was introduced by Professor William E. Rappard in 1912-13 and 1913-14 but then not offered again until 1923-24 and 1924-25 when it was taught by Richard Stockton Meriam. The course was then once again bracketed in the annual course announcements until 1930-31 when it was “reintroduced” by Dr. William Thomas Ham.

Judging from the examination questions below, Meriam appears to have dedicated about a third of his course to socialist economics and socialist labor movements.

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Meriam’s Harvard Ph.D. record, 1921

Richard Stockton Meriam, A.B. 1914.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Social Ethics. Thesis, “Trade Unions in Germany, 1865-1914.” Instructor in Economics, and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics, Harvard University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1920-21.Page 62.

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Course Announcement

6b2 hf. The Labor Movement in Europe. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 10. Asst. Professor Meriam.

This course will deal primarily with the development of trade unionism, of the coöperative movement, and of the political labor movement in Europe from the beginning of the nineteenth century and with the trend of opinion concerning their significance. Special attention will be given to the theories of the relations of labor to industry in the state which have gained adherents among wage earners or have influenced the labor policies of European states. The development of labor legislation and of social insurance prior to the war and the labor problems of the war and reconstruction periods will also be examined.

Candidates for distinction will be given an opportunity to write theses.

Source:  Division of History, Government, and Economics 1924-25. Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. XXI, No. 22 (April 30, 1924), page 69.

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Course enrollment
2nd semester 1923-24

[Economics] 6b2 hf. Dr. Meriam.—The Labor Movement in Europe.

Total 30: 3 graduates, 12 seniors, 11 juniors, 1 sophomore, 3 others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1923-24. Page 106.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Economics 6b2
Final examination 1924

I. (One hour)

  1. Write a critical review of the Webbs’ The Consumer’s Coöperative Movement, discussing in particular
    1. the Webbs’ interpretation of the movement;
    2. their comparison of the coöperatives with private enterprise;
    3. their comparison of the coöperatives with government enterprise.

 

II. (One hour)
Answer 2 and either 3 or 4.

  1. What do you consider the most important single step to be taken in the United States either (a) to obtain for this country the benefits of the labor movement in Europe, or (b) to avoid its dangers?
  2. Do you accept Sombart’s thesis that “there is a distinct tendency in the social movement to uniformity”?
  3. Answer two.
    1. Compare the characteristics of the German labor movement in 1875, 1890, in 1913.
    2. Compare the position of trade unionism within the labor movement in France and Great Britain in the period 1905-13.
    3. Account for the peculiarities of the French labor movement prior to 1900.

 

III. (One hour)

Explain and criticize four of the following quotations.:

  1. “The books on socialism deal largely with controversies which do not proceed to the heart of the matter. This seems to me to hold of K. Marx, Das Kapital, the most famous and influential of socialist books.”
  2. “Property is theft.”
  3. “Though it (the program of the British Labor Party) lacks a single constructive feature, though it is made up exclusively of scraps of Marxian jargon, catchphrases, and shibboleths, nevertheless it is the kind of program which any class is likely to adopt in its own interest when it for the first time concludes that it can outvote other classes and controlled the state.”
  4. “Even if the state of affairs characterized by peasant protectorship is destined by fate to disappear, socialism does not have to precipitate its disappearance. Its role is not to separate property and labor, but on the contrary to reunite in the same hands these two factors of production, whose division results in the servitude and poverty of the workers who have fallen to the state of proletarians.”
  5. “All this (the schemes of guild socialists) is quite different from producers’ coöperation.”

Source: Harvard University Archives.  Examination Papers. Finals 1924.(HUC 7000.28, vol. 66). Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions,… , Government, Economics, Anthropology,… , Psychology, Social Ethics. (June 1924).

 

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Course enrollment
2nd semester 1924-25

[Economics] 6b2 hf. Asst. Professor Meriam.—The Labor Movement in Europe.

Total 34: 10 graduates, 8 seniors, 12 juniors, 1 sophomore, 3 others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1924-25. Page 75.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Economics 6b2
Final examination 1925

(Avoid duplication in selecting questions)

I. (One hour)

  1. Write an essay on one of the following subjects:
    1. Marxian socialism and the labor movement.
    2. “Democracy has forced one concession after another from the pure theory of individualism.”
    3. “Violent political passions have but little hold on those who have devoted all their faculties to the pursuit of their well-being. The ardour which they display in small matters calms their zeal for momentous undertakings.”

II. (One hour)
Answer 2 and either 3, 4, or 5

  1. (20 minutes for a or b.) What are the obstacles to the formation in the United States of the Labour Party like either (a) the British Labor Party or (b) the German Socialist Party?
  2. Does a comparison of the characteristics of the labor movement in various European countries in the period 1865-1875 with those in the period 1905-1914 support Sombart’s thesis on The Tendency to Uniformity?
  3. Do you agree with the conclusion of the following quotation from an article on the “labor banks” recently established in the United States? –

“The labor movement in America is far in advance of that in any other country. This will sound strange to ears which are tuned to the current phrases regarding labor movements. They who are still thinking in terms of the primitive tactics of class war will, of course, repudiate it at once. The labor movement of this country is passing out of the primitive fighting stage in which leadership concerned itself chiefly with the immediate tactics of battle. It is passing into a stage in which it is concerning itself with the higher strategy of maneuvering for permanent advantage. The leaders of labor in no other country show any sign of being aware of the first principles of this higher strategy, nor, for that matter, do the more vociferous self-appointed champions of labor in this country. They are fighting capital either directly or politically. They are not even encouraging laborers to become their own capitalists, or to get possession of the machinery of production by the one effective method of purchase.”

  1. Account for:
    1. The comparative results of consumers’ and producers’ coöperation.
    2. The comparative strength of consumers’ coöperation in the United States and Great Britain.
    3. The persistence of the ideal of producers’ coöperation among the wage-earners.

III. (One hour)

Explain and criticize four of the following quotations:

  1. “The final goal is nothing; the movement is everything.”
  2. “Instead of the conservative motto, ‘A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work!’ they ought to inscribe on their banner the revolutionary watchword, ‘Abolition of the wages system!’”
  3. “Universal suffrage considered by 89 to 96 per cent of the population as a question of the belly and spread throughout the entire national body with the belly’s warmth! Have no fear, gentlemen. There is no power that could withstand it long. Universal suffrage is the standard you must raise. This is the standard which will give you victory.”
  4. “We do not regard Co-operation particularly as a method by which poor men may make savings and advance their own position in the world.… To us the social and political significance of the Co-operative Movement lies in the fact that it provides a means by which, in substitution for the Capitalist System, the operations of industry may be….carried on under democratic control without the incentive of profit-making, or the stimulus of pecuniary gain.”
  5. The Bolsheviki are followers of Karl Marx, in their experiment was based upon his teachings.”
  6. “If the Co-operators would guarantee to the Trade Unionists in their employment distinctly preferential terms, and if the eight million Trade Unionists would, in return, give, not merely all their custom to the Co-operative Societies, but also absolute continuity of service, even when striking against profit-making employers, and an actual superiority in conscientiousness and skill in Co-operative employment, this ‘Direct Action’ would… transfer trade after trade to the joint control of the democracy of consumers in alliance with the democracy of producers without the necessity of paying any compensation to the capitalists.”

 

Source:Harvard University Archives.  Examination Papers. Finals 1925.(HUC 7000.28, vol. 67). Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History of Science, History,… , Government, Economics, Philosophy,… , Anthropology, Military Science. (June 1925).

Image Source: Robert Stockton Meriam in the Harvard Class Album 1925.

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Economists Harvard Northwestern

Harvard. Economics PhD alumnus, Elmo Paul Hohman, 1925

 

In the previous post Economics in the Rear-View Mirror salvaged part of a reading list for a course on labor problems from a new assistant professor of economics at Northwestern University who would go on to complete his economic history dissertation at Harvard on the American whaling industry (1785-1885). 

Below we add to our record some biographical and career information on this economics Ph.D. alumnus of Harvard.

Elmo Hohman’s wife, Helen Fisher Hohman,  was herself an economics Ph.D. alumna of the University of Chicago. Her post in our series “Get to know an economics Ph.D.” immediately follows.

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Pre-Harvard history theses at the University of Illinois

Hohman wrote his B.A. thesis in history at the University of Illinois:  “The Ku Klux Klan: Its Origin, Growth, and Disbandment” (1916).  His M.A. thesis in history at the University of Illinois is also available: “The Attitude of the Presbyterian Church in the United States Towards American Slavery” (1917).

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Traces from Harvard graduate school

“The Ricardo Prize Scholarship in Economics has been awarded to Elmo P. Hohman 1G. of Nashville, Ill” (Harvard Crimson, 4 June 1920).

“Among the men appointed tutors in History, Government, and Economics for next year is James W. Angell ’18, son of president-elect Angell of Yale. The other newly-appointed tutors are James Hart, William A. Berridge ’14, Karl W. Bigelow, Elmo P. Hohman, and Norman J. Silberling ’14.” (Harvard Crimson, 17 June 1921).

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Harvard Ph.D. awarded 1925

ELMO PAUL HOHMAN, A.B. (Univ. of Illinois) 1916, A.M. (ibid.) 1917, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1920.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Labor Problems. Thesis, “The American Whaleman: A Study of the Conditions of Labor in the Whaling Industry, 1785-1885.” Assistant Professor of Economics, Northwestern University.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1924-25. Page 100.

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Career of Elmo Paul Hohman

Assistant and tutor, department economics, Harvard, 1920-1923. Instructor economics, Northwestern University, 1923-1925, assistant professor, 1925-1931, associate professor, 1931-1938, professor since 1938. Special referee, division of unemployment compensation, Illinois Department of Labor, 1939-1942.

Regional price executive, OPA, Chicago, 1942, district price executive Chicago Metropolitan office, 1942-1944. Vice chairman, shipbuilding commission National War Labor Board, 1944, war shipping panel, 1945. Chairman advising committee, Yale Fund for Seamen’s Studies since 1946.

Observer, visiting scholar, International Labor Office, 1928-1929, 1936-1937, 1946, 1958-1959. National panel arbitrators Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Member maritime division International Labor Organization, Geneva.

Student, 3d R.O.T.C., Camp Grant, Illinois, 1918. Commander Second lieutenant infantry, 1918. Associate field director, American Red Cross transport service, 1919.

Source:  Prabook entry for Elmo Paul Hohman.

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Obituary of Elmo Paul Hohman
August 2, 1894 [in Salem,Washington County, Illinois]– January 1, 1977 [Evanston, Illinois]

Services for Elmo Paul Hohman, 82, professor emeritus of economics at Northwestern University, were pending. Mr. Hohman, of 606 Trinity Ct., Evanston, died last Saturday in Evanston Hospital. He joined the faculty of Northwestern in 1923 as an instructor of economics and retired as a professor in 1962. He wrote several books on the American Merchant Marine, among them, “The American Whale Man,” Seamen Ashore,” and “The History of American Merchant Seamen.” He is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Eleanore Wadlow, and two grandchildren. His late wife, Mrs. Helen Fisher Hohman, was also a professor of economics at Northwestern.

Transcribed from Chicago Tribune January 5, 1977 by Marsha L. Ensminger

Memorial service for Elmo Paul Hohman

A memorial service for Elmo Paul Hohman, professor emeritus of economics at Northwestern University, will be at 1:30 p.m. Sunday in the Presbyterian Home Chapel, 3131 Simpson St., Evanston. Mr. Hohman died Jan. 1. He retired as a professor at Northwestern in 1962 after 39 years on the faculty. His late wife, Helen Fisher Hohman, who died in 1972, also was a professor of economics at Northwestern. He is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Eleanore Wadlow, and two grandchildren.

Transcribed from Chicago Tribune February 26, 1977 by Marsha L. Ensminger

Source:  Genealogy Trails History Group for Washington County, Illinois

Image Source: Photo of Elmo Paul Hohman from his passport application dated 30 January 1919. Hohman applied for a passport to join the Transport Service of the American Red Cross in France and England.

 

 

 

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Harvard Northwestern

Northwestern [?]. Partial reading list for labor problems. Hohman [?], 1924

 

 

The following artifact was found all alone, an orphan in a folder in the Harvard University archives marked “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics 1923-24”. The course outline is obviously incomplete since the second semester of the academic year 1923-1924 at Harvard ran from the second week of February through  the end of April 1924. Also peculiar is the fact that the course number “B3”  on the outline does not correspond to an economics course at Harvard. The only clue we have is the handwritten (and crossed out) name Hohman in the upper right corner of the page.

It turns out that Elmo Paul Hohman (Harvard Ph.D. 1925) was appointed at Northwestern University as an assistant professor of economics in 1923-24. I have also been able to confirm that “B3” is consistent with the course numbering system used at Northwestern at that time. Based on the handwritten additions and underlining noted in the transcription below, one can reasonably conclude that someone teaching a labor economics course at Harvard added the items on British labor experience from Hohman’s outline.

Since the reading list at Northwestern was for the second semester of 1923-24, it seems likely that the reading list was forwarded to the Harvard library reserve desk for either the second semester of 1923-24 or 1924-25. The second semester of the two Harvard labor economics courses, “The Labor Movement in Europe”, was taught by Richard Stockton Meriam (Harvard, Ph.D. 1921) who briefly overlapped with Elmo Hohman as an economics tutor. Exams from 1913-1932 for the first semester labor course (Trade-Unionism and Allied Problems) taught by W. Z. Ripley have been posted earlier. Since one finds an examination question about British trade-unions in Ripley’s course, it is also possible that some of Hohman’s readings were included for Ripley’s course.

In subsequent posts I’ll provide biographical and career information for Harvard Ph.D. alumnus Elmo Paul Hohman and for his wife, Chicago Ph.D. alumna, Helen Fisher Hohman.

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Links to Items on Homan’s Labor Problems Reading List

Watkins, Gordon S. An Introduction to the Study of Labor Problems. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1922.

Douglas, Paul H., Curtice N. Hitchcock, and Willard E. Atkins. The Worker in Modern Economic Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923.

Hammond, J.L. and Barbara Hammond. The Town Labourer, 1760-1832. The New Civilisation. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1920.

Blanshard, Paul. An Outline of the British Labor Movement. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1923.

Perlman, Selig. A History of Trade Unionism in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1922.

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[handwritten] British
[handwritten] Hohman

ECONOMICS B3.—LABOR PROBLEMS.
(Second Semester, 1923-1924)
OUTLINE OF SUBJECT-MATTER OF COURSE, WITH ASSIGNED READINGS.

I.—Historical Development of the Labor Movement in England and the United States.

1.—English Background Up to and Including the Industrial Revolution.

Feb. 11 Readings:

Watkins, 9-23.
Douglas, 89-96;101-111;121-129.
Hammond, 17-36; 144-150; 156-163; 172-182.

2.—Recent British Experience. [underlined in pencil]

Feb. 18 Readings:

Douglas, 706-718.
Blanshard[underlined in pencil with added note in margin:“look up”], 22-31; 49-90; 100-107; 156-163.

3.—Early American Labor Conditions.

Feb. 25 Readings:

Watkins, 24-40.
Perlman, 3-66.

4.—Modern development of American Labor.

Mar. 3 Readings:

Perlman, 68-80; 106-128; 130-145; 163-166; 235-261; 279-284.

 

II.—The Various Types of Activity Which Have Played a Part, Effective and Ineffective, in the Development of the Labor Movement.

A.—Self-Help; Methods Springing from and Controlled by the Laborers Themselves.

5.—Trade Unionism.

Mar. 10 Readings:

Watkins, 298-324; 330-338; 351-387; 438-444.

6.—Mutual Insurance; Demand for a Larger Share in the Control of Industry; Political Action; Workers’ Education.

Mar. 17 Readings:

Watkins, 366-369; 449-473.
Douglas, 667-668; 719-739; 761-765.
Perlman, 285-294.
Blanshard, 137-145. [underlined in pencil]

 

B.—Public and Governmental Activities.

7.—Labor Legislation.

Mar. 24 Readings:

Watkins, 592-602; 609-620; 120-144; 146-186.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1923-1924”.

Image Source: Cigar box label from the collections of the Museum of the City of New York.

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Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Reading list and final exam for course “Conflict, Coalition and Strategy”. Schelling, 1970

 

 

There are undergraduate courses, and then there are great undergraduate courses. Today we have the 49 item course bibliography for Thomas C. Schelling’s “Conflict, Coalition and Strategy” along with its ten-page final examination. This material comes to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror from one of the students who took that course, then Harvard undergraduate, Robert Dohner. I am  generally not jealous of Bob’s Harvard undergraduate education, but I’ll admit there are a good half-dozen economics and politics courses in my own Yale training that I would have gladly traded for that single Schelling semester in 1970. You can all thank Bob Dohner for sharing this memory!

The teaching assistant for the course, James T. Campen, was born 1943. He received an A.B. from Harvard in 1965, M.A. at St. John’s College, University of Cambridge in 1971 and Ph.D. from Harvard in 1976. Campen was active early on in the Union for Radical Political Economics and was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts at Boston from 1977 where he worked up into his emeritus years.

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Economics 1030
“Conflict, Coalition and Strategy”
Prof. Thomas C. Schelling
Mr. James T. Campen
Fall 1970

(*Contained in Coop package)

Introduction (13 pages)

  1. *Schelling, T. C., “Strategic Analysis and Social Problems,” Social Problems, Vol. 12 (Spring 1965), pp. 367-379.

 

I. Personal Incentives and Social Organization (56 pages)

  1. Hardin, Garrett, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science, Vol. 162, No. 3859, pp. 1243-1248.
  2. Olson, Mancur, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action (Harvard University Press, 1965), pp. 1-3,9-16, 53-57,86-87, 132-141.
  3. Luce, R. Duncan and Howard Raiffa, Games and Decisions (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1957), Chapter 5.4, “An Example: The Prisoner’s Dilemma,” and Chapter 5.5, “Temporal Repetition of the Prisoner’s Dilemma,” pp. 94-102.
  4. Demsetz, Harold, “Toward a Theory of Property Rights,” Papers and Proceedings of the American Economic Association, American Economic Review, Vol. 57 (May 1967), pp. 347-359.

 

II. Rules, Restraints, and Conventions (296 pages)

  1. Schelling, T. C., “Some Thoughts on the Relevance of Game Theory to the Analysis of Ethical Systems,” in Ira R. Buchler and Hugo G. Nutini (eds.), Game Theory in the Behavioral Sciences (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), pp. 45-60.
  2. Lorenz, Konrad, On Aggression (Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1966), pp. 68-84, 109-138. NOTE: Different pages in Bantam paperback, pp. 64-80, 104-132.
  3. Piaget, Jean, The Moral Judgment of the Child (The Free Press, 1965, and Collier Books, 1962, same translator and identical pagination in both versions), pp. 65-76, 94-100, 139-174, 197-232. NOTE: Hardcover editions dated 1932 and 1948 have these pages instead: pp. 56-69, 89-95, 135-171, 195-231. To check: the first selection begins, “Consciousness of Rules: II Third Stage.”
  4. Jervis, Robert, The Logic of Images in International Relations (Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 18, 90-110, 147-152, 197-205, 216-223.
  5. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 3, pp. 53-80, and Chapter 4, pp. 89-108.
  6. Lewis, David K., Convention: A Philosophical Study (Harvard University Press, 1969), pp. 5-8, 36-51, 83-107, 118-121.

 

III. Contests and Disputes (123 pages)

  1. Moore, Omar K. and Alan R. Anderson, “Puzzles, Games, and Social Interaction,” in David Braybooke, Philosophical Problems of the Social Sciences (The Macmillan Company, 1965), pp. 68-79.
  2. Langholm, Sivert, “Violent Conflict Resolution and the Loser’s Reaction,” Journal of Peace Research, 1965-4, pp. 324-347.
  3. Galtung, Johan, “Institutionalized Conflict Resolution,” Journal of Peace Research, 1965-4, pp. 348-383.
  4. Goffman, Erving, Interaction Ritual (Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 239-270, “Where the Action Is.”
  5. Skolnick, Jerome H., “Social Control in the Adversary System,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. XI, No. 1 (March 1967), pp. 52-70.

 

IV. Formal Processes of Collective Decision (133 pages)

  1. *Steinhaus, Hugo, “The Problem of Fair Division,” Econometrica, Vol. 16 (January 1948), pp. 101-104.
  2. *Farquharson, Robin, “Sincerity and Strategy in Voting,” mimeograph, February 5, 1955, 7 pages.
  3. Schelling, T. C., “What Is Game Theory?” in James C. Charlesworth (ed.), Contemporary Political Analysis (The Free Press, 1967), pp. 212-238.
  4. Buchanan, James M. and Gordon Tulloch, The Calculus of Consent (The University of Michigan Press, 1962), pp. 43-62, 131-145, 249-262.
  5. *Schelling, T. C., “Voting Schemes and Fair Division,” multilith, September 1970.
    [Handwritten note: 23 10th line 12th 1.27 s.b. 1.55. A gets 295 instead of 241. B gets 85]
  6. Leiserson, Michael, “Game Theory and the Study of Coalition Behavior,” in Sven Groennings, E. W. Kelley, and Michael Leiserson (eds.), The Study of Coalition Behavior (Holt, Reinhardt and Winston, 1970), pp. 255-272.
  7. Farquharson, Robin, Theory of Voting (Yale University Press, 1969), Appendix 3, pp. 77-80.

 

V. Individual and Collective Bargaining (266 pages)

  1. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 2, pp. 21-52, and Chapter 5, pp. 119-161.

[Handwritten note: Hour Exam]

  1. Fisher, Roger, International Conflict for Beginners (Harper & Rowe, 1969), Chapter 3, “Making Threats Is Not Enough,” pp. 27-59.
  2. Walton, R. E. and R. B. McKersie, A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations (McGraw-Hill, 1965), pp. 4-6, 67-125, 310-340.
  3. Ross, H. Laurence, Settled Out of Court (Aldine, 1970), Chapter IV, “Negotiation.” NOTE: Pending appearance of book, mimeograph copy on reserve, entitled “Negotiation.”
  4. *Schelling, T. C., “Communication, Bargaining and Negotiation,” Arms Control and National Security, Vol. 1 (1969), pp. 69-71.
  5. *Rapoport, Anatol and Melvin Guyer, “Taxonomy of 2 x 2 Games,” Papers, Vol. 6, 1966, Peace Research Society (International), pp. 11-26.

 

VI. Violence and Nonviolence (191 pages)

  1. Sibley, Mulford Q., The Quiet Battle (Anchor Books, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1963), pp. 9-10, 55-66.
  2. Hubbard, Howard, “Five Long, Hot Summers and How They Grew,” The Public Interest, No. 12 (Summer 1968), pp. 3-24.
  3. Nieburg, H. L., “Violence, Law and the Informal Polity,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 1969), pp. 192-209.
  4. Schelling, T. C., Arms and Influence (Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 1-18, 92-105, 116-125.
  5. Roberts, Adam (Ed.), Civilian Resistance as a National Defense (Stackpole Books, 1968), or The Strategy of Civilian Defense (Faber & Faber Ltd., 1967) (the two versions are identical), pp. 9-13, 87-105, 205-211, 302-308.
  6. Walter, Charles W., “Interposition: The Strategy and Its Uses,” Naval War College Review, Vol. XXII, No. 10 (June 1970), pp. 72-84.
  7. Nozick, Robert, “Coercion,” in Sydney Morgenbesser, Patrick Suppes and Morton White (eds.), Philosophy, Science and Method (St. Martin’s Press, 1969), pp. 440-472.
  8. Shure, Gerald H., Robert J. Meeker and Earle A. Hansford, “The Effectiveness of Pacifist Strategies in Bargaining Games,” The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. IX, No. 1 (March 1965), pp. 106-117.

 

VII. Interactive Models: Large Groups (89 pages)

  1. Penrose, L S., On the Objective Study of Crowd Behavior (H. K. Lewis & Company, Ltd., 1952), Chapter 6, “Panic Reactions,” pp. 28-35.
  2. Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense (Harper & Brothers, 1962), Chapter 6, “The Group as a Party to Conflict: The Ecological Model,” pp. 105-122.
  3. Schelling, T. C., “Neighborhood Tipping,” Harvard Institute of Economic Research, Discussion Paper No. 100, December 1969.
  4. *Schelling, T. C., “Models of Segregation,” The American Economic Review, Vol. LIX, No. 2 (May 1969), pp. 488-493.

 

VIII. Interactive Models: Two Parties (145 pages)

  1. Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense (Harper & Brothers, 1962), Chapter 2, “The Dynamics of Conflict: Richardson Process Models,” pp. 19-40.
  2. Goffman, Erving, Interaction Ritual (Anchor Books, 1967), pp. 97-112, “Embarrassment and Social Organization.”
  3. *Valavanis, Stefan, “The Resolution of Conflict When Utilities Interact,” Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 2 (June 1958), pp. 156-169.
  4. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), Chapter 9, pp. 207-229.
  5. Boulding, Kenneth E., Conflict and Defense (Harper & Brothers, 1962), Chapter 12, “International Conflict: The Basic Model,” and Chapter 13, “International Conflict: Modifications,” pp. 227-273.
  6. Schelling, T. C., “War Without Pain, and Other Models,” World Politics, Vol. 15, No. 3 (April 1963), pp. 465-487.

 

IX. Randomized Decision (55 pages)

  1. *Schelling, T. C., “Zero-Sum Games,” multilith, September 1970.
  2. Schelling, T. C., The Strategy of Conflict (Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 175-190, 201-203.

 

Total pages: 1,367

Reading period: To be assigned later [see question 6 in final examination below]

 

Economics 1030
Final Exam
January 22, 1971

There are altogether six questions. The sixth contain several alternatives, according to your choice of reading-period assignment. You are not to answer any five questions out of the six. You may not choose more than one among the alternate forms of question six. Specifically, you may answer the first five questions; you may instead answer any four among the first five and one of the alternates in question 6.

The five questions you answer will be given equal weight and are intended to require about equal time.

  1. Each of the terms, concepts or principles listed on the next page is to be identified by reference to a matrix. Several matrices are provided and are adequate, but you may prefer to construct your own. (There may be more than one matrix shown that illustrates a particular concept; some of the matrices shown may illustrate several concepts. You need not make reference to more than one–your own, or one of those shown.)
    In some cases–marked by an asterisk–you need only identify an appropriate matrix; if, for example, one of the terms were “prisoners’ dilemma,” it would be sufficient to indicate Matrix #1. In other cases–where there is no asterisk–you will have to state clearly just what it is about the indicated matrix that exemplifies the concept; for example, if “promise” were one of the terms listed, you could state that in Matrix #1, if Column had first move, Row could promise first row on condition Column choose column 1, improving the expected outcome from payoffs of 1 apiece to 2 apiece in the upper left cell.

Here are the items to be identified:

    1. warning
    2. inducing move
    3. altruist’s dilemma*
    4. zero-difference game*
    5. Pareto equilibrium
    6. convention*
    7. randomized commitment
    8. dominated strategy
    9. threat-vulnerable equilibrium
    10. social contract*
    11. [a first] alternative concepts of “arms agreement”
    12. [a second] alternative concept of “arms agreement”
    13. Insurance as a bargaining advantage or disadvantage

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. Explain the concept of interposition (Charles Walters, “Interposition: The Strategy and Its Uses”), and compare it with non-violent intervention (Gene Sharp, “The Technique of Non–Violent Action,” or Howard Hubbard, “Five Long Hot Summers and How They Grew”), then examine the strategic similarities and differences between (a) naval-force interposition and (b) tactics used to blockade, occupy or immobilize a campus building.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. John Stuart Mill argued that even

…if it may possibly be doubted whether a noble character is always the happier for its nobleness, there can be no doubt that it makes other people happier, and that the world in general is immensely a gainer by it. Utilitarianism, therefore, could only attain its end by the general cultivation of nobleness of character, even if each individual were only benefited by the nobleness of others, and his own, so far as happiness is concerned, were the sheer deduction from the benefit.

Assuming that the hypothesis which Mill discusses is true (that nobleness in itself detracts from individual happiness), under what conditions would you expect individuals to choose to develop noble characters? Discuss with reference to readings and lectures concerning interplay of individual incentives, social organization and moral codes.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. One of the questions on a makeup examination which you will take tomorrow will be based on either an article by Smith or an article by Jones. Your limited time in the library’s rules make it impossible for you to study both articles. If the exam question is based on the Smith article, you will have a 90 percent chance of answering it correctly if you read Smith, but will surely fail to answer correctly if you read Jones; if the exam question is based on Jones, you will have a 60 percent chance of getting it right if you study Jones, no chance otherwise. You will get the question either right or wrong; no partial credit will be given.
    You want to use your study time to maximize the probability of answering the question correctly. Your examiner will choose the exam question in such a way as to minimize the same probability. Both you and she know all of the information in this paragraph, and both of you are familiar with the basic theory of two-person zero-sum games.

A.

    1. Draw a payoff matrix to illustrate the situation, letting your payoffs be represented by the probability of getting the correct answer.
    2. What will be your strategy in this situation?
    3. What will be the teacher’s strategy be?
    4. If you use the strategy which you indicated in A2, what is the probability that you will get a correct answer?

B.

You suddenly recognize that the librarian whom you will be asking for one of the articles is also your teacher’s secretary, and knows which article the question will be based on.

    1. If you could get the secretary to tell you truthfully which article you should read, what would be your probability of getting the correct answer be? (That is, you are to estimate this probability before asking for the article, on the assumption that the librarian will know the answer and answer truthfully.)
    2. If you felt that the librarian/secretary would answer your question truthfully six chances out of 10 but there was a 40 percent chance the examiner would be told that you tried to cheat, resulting in your receiving an automatic zero on this question (but with no other negative consequences), would asking the library and increase your overall probability of getting credit for the question?

C.

If you knew (and the teacher knew that you knew) that the teacher believed that you would have .7 chance of answering either question, given that you studied the right article, but you alone knew that the chances were 90 percent and 60 percent for the two articles as mentioned above:

    1. What would your strategy be?
    2. What would be your probability of getting the question right?

D

Now consider the situation where you might be able to get the question correct even if you chose the wrong article. The chances of this are 1/5 if the question is based on Smith and 2/5 if the question is based on Jones. (Both you and the teacher correctly understand the situation.)

    1. What is your strategy in this case?
    2. What is the teacher’s strategy?
    3. What are your chances for getting the correct answer?

E.

Consider the same problem as in Part D with one change: you and the teacher both know that he wants you to do as well as possible on the exam.

    1. What is your strategy?
    2. What is the teacher’s strategy?
    3. What is your probability of getting the correct answer?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. You are one of two students in a small class who have arranged to write a paper in lieu of a final exam. You are certain that the grade your paper receives will depend not only on how much time you spend on it but also on how much time the other student spends on his. Even if the examiner tries to judge your paper on its merits alone he will be unconsciously influenced by how it compares with the other student’s paper.

You estimate…

    1. …that you will lose about 3 grade points on other exams for every 10 hours you spend on this paper;
    2. …that your grade on this paper will be:
      1. 5, 9, 12, 14 or 15 points according as you spend 10, 20, 30, 40 or 50 hours on it,
      2. plus 3, 5 or 6 points if you spend 10, 20 or 30 hours more than your rival, and minus 3, 5 or 6 points if you spend 10, 20 or 30 hours less than your rival.

When you plot a smooth graph of your overall grade, taking all three factors into account–quality of your paper, quality of the competing paper, time taken away from your other courses–you get the following “contours” of your overall net score as a function of the time you both devote to your papers.

The graph is interpreted this way. If you work 30 hours and he does nothing, you get a net score of 9 (i.e., a gross score of 12 for your paper on its merits, plus 6 for superiority, less 9 for the 30 hours taken from other courses). If you both work 30 hours you get 3 (the same 12 on your own paper, less 9 on other courses, and did nothing for superiority). If you work 20 hours and he works 10, you get 6. Every point on the graph denotes a combination of your work time and his; every point has an associated net score for you; points of equal score can be connected by “contour lines” is in the graph. (The dotted lines at 45 degrees represents equal time for the two of you.)

You are quite sure that your rival, whoever he is, has a nearly identical graph when he considers his own grade in relation to the time you both spend on your papers.

  1. Draw your “reaction curve” (otherwise called in Boulding, “partial-equilibrium curve” or “reaction function”), and explain what it means.
  2. Drawing on your knowledge that your rival reaches identical estimates with respect to his own grades, draw his reaction curve.
  3. Locate and characterize any equilibria that occur.
  4. Discuss the likely amounts of work the two of you will do on each of the following alternative assumptions:
    1. Each of you can see the other work–in the library, for example–and can keep count of each other’s time, but you are unacquainted and not permitted to consult each other.
    2. You have no idea who the other student is and no way to monitor the amount of work he does, nor does he know who you are.
    3. You do not know who he is, but are sure that he can recognize you and watches you work in the library, keeping track of how much work you do.
    4. You are well enough acquainted to get together and talk the situation over, reaching an understanding about how much work you intend to do, perhaps reaching a bargain on restraining your competition; but you are not close enough friends to be unselfish toward each other and furthermore you do not know how badly each other may need grade points.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

  1. This question is based on the reading period assignment. If you chose one of the following four books answer Part A:

Edward C. Banfield, The Moral Basis of a Backward Society
J. H. Dales, Pollution, Property and Prices
H. L. Nieburg, Political Violence: The Behavioral Process
Carl M. Stevens, Strategy and Collective Bargaining Negotiation

If you chose James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, The Calculus of Consent, answer Part B.

If you chose Erving Goffman, Interaction Ritual, answer Part C.

If you chose Robert Jervis, The Logic of Images in International Relations, answer Part D.

If you chose Mancur Olson, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action, answer Part E.

  1. Identify one or more major themes or propositions in the book which you chose is the reading period assignment. Discuss what you consider to be the most more interesting and/or important ways that these themes illuminate the body of Economics 1030 and are in turn illuminated by it. Be specific.
  2. Buchanan and Tullock
    1. Using their concept of “cost,” explain the roles ascribed by the authors to unanimity rule, majority rule, and any other competing alternatives rules.
    2. On what conditions, if any, or with what reservations, would you accept their point of view?
  3. Goffman

Goffman’s book contains the word, “ritual,” in its title, and every chapter involves some analysis of ritual in phase-to-face behavior even though the chapters were originally independent essays. Explain what “ritual” means in this context and identify its role in the following topics of Economics 1030:

      1. Personal incentives and social organization
      2. Rules, restraints and conventions
      3. Contests and disputes
      4. Formal processes of collective decision
      5. Individual and collective bargaining
  1. Jervis
    Define signals and indices, then illustrate the manipulation of indices, and the veracity and ambiguity of signals, by reference to any one of the following sources of signals and indices, which you should examine in some detail:

    1. An advertising campaign
    2. A student’s essay on a final examination
    3. The public relations involved in the year-long process of selecting a Harvard president
  2. Olson
    Most of Olson’s book is devoted to an analysis of the behavior of large groups. How important is group size? In what ways does the behavior of small groups differ systematically from that of larger ones? What are the most important reasons for this?
    With reference to college courses, speculate briefly on the location and significance of the boundary between “small” and “large.”

Source: Personal copy of course syllabus and final examination shared for transcription at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror by Robert Dohner (Harvard, 1974; M.I.T., 1980).

Image Source: From Schelling testifying before a Senate subcommittee on national security in 1966. New York Times, Dec. 13, 2016.

Categories
Agricultural Economics Economists Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Syllabus for “Consumption, Distribution and Prices” taught by PhD (1952) alumnus, Richard H. Holton, 1954-55

 

 

The Harvard course “Consumption, Distribution and Prices” was an odd amalgam. The first semester was a course in marketing and the second semester was a course in the theory of micro- and macroeconomic consumption and saving functions with an added dash of advertising economics and agricultural economic policy thrown in. The instructor for 1954-55 was an assistant professor of economics, Richard Henry Holton who had completed his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1952.  Holton went on to a successful economic policy and academic administrative career culminating in the Deanship of the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. His biography is sketched in the memorial piece reproduced below.

The syllabus for Economics 107 “Consumption, Distribution and Prices” completes this post.

_________________________

Ph.D. in Economics awarded by Harvard University in 1952

Richard Henry Holton, S.B. in Bus. (Miami Univ.) 1947, A.M. (Ohio State Univ.) 1948.

Special Field, Consumption, Distribution, and Prices. Thesis, “The Supply and Demand Structure of Food Retailing Service: a Case Study.”

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1951-1952, p. 176.

_________________________

IN MEMORIAM
Richard Holton (1926-2005)
E. T. Grether Professor of Marketing, Emeritus
Dean, Haas School of Business
Berkeley

Richard H. Holton was the E. T. Grether Professor of Marketing, Emeritus and, from 1967 to 1975, dean of the Walter A. Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Dean Holton, who joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1957, was a leader in the fields of marketing, international business and entrepreneurship and left a lasting imprint in these areas at the Haas School. Throughout his career, Dean Holton focused on teaching, campus leadership and public service. On leave from the campus from 1963 to 1965, he served as U.S. assistant secretary of commerce. He was thoughtful, considerate, self-effacing, devoted to the greater good of the school and the University, and always alert toward the welfare of colleagues, friends, and family. He was also known for his good stories to liven an occasion, and to soften conflict in an organizational setting.

Holton grew up in the small town of London, Ohio. He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1947 with honors in economics. At Miami, he met Constance Minzey, whom he married in 1947. The couple moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he earned a master’s degree in economics at Ohio State University. He then enrolled in the doctoral program in economics at Harvard University. He was a resident tutor in Adams House at Harvard, with Constance (Connie), during several years of his graduate studies.

From 1951 to 1952, Holton was assistant director of marketing projects at the Social Science Research Center at the University of Puerto Rico. His work there led to his 1955 monograph, “Marketing Efficiency in Puerto Rico,” written with the late J. K. Galbraith and others. He also was coauthor, with Richard Caves, of another study, “The Canadian Economy: Prospect and Retrospect” (1959).

He was assistant professor of economics at Harvard from 1953 to 1957, and in 1957 he came to UC Berkeley as an associate professor in the School of Business Administration (later renamed the Haas School of Business). Holton became director of the Berkeley campus’s Institute of Business and Economics Research in 1959. He reorganized it to reflect the growing interest in business science. His own research resulted in a steady flow of publications in marketing policies and competition.

From 1962 to 1963, he served as special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. President John F. Kennedy appointed him assistant secretary of commerce in February 1963, and he served until February 1965. Holton’s continuing interest in consumer protection resulted in a year’s appointment by President Lyndon B. Johnson as chairman of the President’s Consumer Advisory Council. He also served from 1968 to 1972 as chairman of the Public Advisory Committee on Truth in Lending Regulations of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

In 1967, Holton became dean of the School of Business Administration at UC Berkeley. During his tenure, he fostered stronger relationships with business leaders, and served on numerous advisory boards of business organizations. He is widely credited with launching some of the current distinctive capabilities of the Haas School in entrepreneurship and international affairs, and its part-time M.B.A. program. As dean, he also initiated a system of student ratings of all courses at the Haas School, a practice still used today to gauge teaching effectiveness and improve courses over time.

In 1970, Holton started a course in entrepreneurship and business development, one of the first such courses at any business school, enlisting a widely-experienced entrepreneur and Haas School alumnus, Leo Helzel, to co-teach the course. This association led to new support for research and teaching in entrepreneurship, and the formation, with contributions from Williams-Sonoma Chairman Howard Lester, of the Haas School’s Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. His work with the program in entrepreneurship and innovation helped to generate the school’s immensely popular annual business plan competitions. He is also credited with developing the school’s first curriculum for international business studies, another key element of the school’s current academic programs.

To reach an important new group of students, in 1972 Dean Holton initiated a part-time M.B.A. Program in San Francisco to serve qualified candidates who wanted to gain the benefits of a management degree but were not able to leave their jobs for a full-time M.B.A. program. That program has since evolved into the Berkeley Evening & Weekend M.B.A. Program, which now enrolls more students than does the full-time M.B.A. program; it is now offered on the Berkeley campus and in Silicon Valley. It has accommodated the steadily growing demand by students for a top-ranked management education on a part-time schedule.

In 1981, Holton expanded on a longtime personal interest in international business when he became dean of visiting faculty of the newly established National Center for Industrial Science and Technology Management Development, which was part of the Dalian Institute of Technology in the People’s Republic of China. Holton and his wife commuted between Berkeley and Dalian for the following five years, while he continued his regular faculty duties at UC Berkeley. Between 1980 and 1992, Holton wrote a number of articles on the emergence of a modern, market-based economy in China, writing about international joint ventures and their financing, China’s state planning as compared to market-driven behavior, economic reform of the distribution sector of China, and China’s prospects as an industrialized country. He also coedited a book, United States-China Relations (University of California Press, 1989). Holton traveled extensively in China and led California Alumni Association-sponsored Bear Trek trips there.

Holton was awarded the Berkeley Citation, the campus’s highest honor, at his retirement in 1991. Even after his retirement, for three years until spring of 2005, when his health began to fail, he taught a freshman seminar, “The Economic Development of Modern China”.

Holton kept taped to his desk lamp at home a quote from Thomas Carlyle, reflecting Holton’s belief in his calling as an educator: “There is nothing more fearsome than ignorance in action.” Holton’s love for the campus community was expressed in his enthusiasm for Cal Bears football, his participation in a campus photography club, and his membership in the all-male Monks Chorus, a group of faculty, alumni and others with campus ties who, clad as Franciscan monks, perform at The Faculty Club Christmas feast. Holton joined the Monks (whose history goes back to 1902) in the early 1960s, and sang bass.

Holton loved the mountains, and took every opportunity to take backpacking trips in the Sierra Nevada. He often made these trips with his friend and colleague of more than 40 years, Fred Balderston, an emeritus UC Berkeley professor at the Haas School.

A generous philanthropist and devoted member of public interest organizations, within a year of moving to Berkeley Holton joined the board of directors of the Consumers Cooperative of Berkeley. His board membership with Alta Bates Hospital spanned nearly four decades. He was to be named a 2006 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Alta Bates Summit Foundation. He also served on the board of the Berkeley Public Library Foundation, the Council of Better Business Bureaus, The World Affairs Council of Northern California, and the board of trustees at Mills College. He and his family shared a longtime commitment to the Point Reyes peninsula and the village of Inverness, California.

As his health failed, he was surrounded by his wife and children. He died peacefully at home in Berkeley on Monday, October 24, 2005, after battling cancer and Parkinson’s disease. Holton is survived by Constance, his wife of nearly 60 years; brother, David, of Washington, D.C.; daughters, Melissa Holton, of Moss Landing and Inverness, and Jane Kriss, of Inverness; son, Tim, of Berkeley; and three grandchildren.

Raymond Miles
Frederick Balderston

Source: Senate of the University of California. In Memoriam—Richard Holton (1926-2005).

_________________________

Course Enrollment
1954-55

[Economics] 107. Consumption, Distribution and Prices. Assistant Professor Holton. Full course.

(F) Total 38: 11 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 1 Other.
(S) Total 36: 11 Seniors, 23 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 1 Freshman.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1954-55, p. 89.

_________________________

Economics 107
Consumption, Distribution and Prices
Fall Term, 1954-55

Texts:

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Elements of Marketing, Prentice-Hall, 5thedition
Clewett, Marketing Channels, Irwin

  1. Survey of the distributive sector. September 28-October 7.

Compass of the distributive sector; its quantitative importance in the economy; capital coefficients and value added in the distributive sector; the problem of measuring “efficiency” in distribution in contrast with manufacturing; pressures increasing and pressures decreasing distribution costs; distribution and economic growth.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 1
Stewart and Dewhurst, Does Distribution Cost Too Much? Chapters 1, 2, 5, 10, 11
Black and Houston, Resource-Use Efficiency in the Marketing of Farm Products, pp. 22-47
Westing, Readings in Marketing, Readings 1, 2, 3.

  1. The nature of marketing channels. October 14-October 26.

Alternative types of marketing channels; factors affecting the nature of the channel; vertical integration and quasi-integration; recent changes in distribution channels.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 4, 5, 13, 15-20, 23, 24.
Clewett, Chapters 2-17
Westing, Readings in Marketing, 19-21, 23, 25
McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing: General Mills, p. 199; Whalen, p. 215; National Rock Drill Co., p. 225; Atlas, p. 254.

OCTOBER 28—MID-TERM EXAMINATION

  1. Costs and products of firms in distribution. November 2-November 30.

Empirical cost studies of retail firms; a priori analysis of cost conditions in retailing and wholesaling; selling costs and the advertising budget; cost allocation and cost control in distribution; the nature of the product in distribution; the problem of selecting the product “mix”; the product mix and price discrimination.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 27, 28, 29, 31, 32.
Clewett, Chapters 18 and 19
Dean, Managerial Economics, Chapters 3 and 6 (pp. 351-375)
Chamberlin, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Chapter 7
Cary Company case (on reserve in Lamont)
McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing: Richwell, p. 117

  1. Price policy of firms in distribution. December 2-December 18.

Retailers’ pricing practices; role of cost in distributors’ price policy; the determination of trade discounts; price discrimination under the Robinson Patman Act; resale price maintenance.

Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Chapter 26
Q. F. Walker, “Some Principles of Department Store Pricing,” Journal of Marketing, January 1950
O. Knauth, “Considerations in the Setting of Retail Prices,” Journal of Marketing, July 1949
R. Alt, “The Internal Organization of the Firm and Price Formation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1949
Dean, Managerial Economics, Chapter 9
S.D. Rose, “Your Right to Lower Your Prices,” Harvard Business Review, September 1951
E. R. Corey, “Fair Trade Pricing, A Reappraisal,” Harvard Business Review, September-October 1952
McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing: Dewey and Almy, p. 575; Canners’ League, p. 581; Boothby, p. 608

Reading Period: Margaret Hall, Distributive Trading, Hutchinson’s University Library

 

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Economics 107
Consumption, Distribution and Prices
Spring Term, 1954-55

It is suggested, but not required, that students buy Heller, Boddy and Nelson, Savings in the Modern Economy.

  1. The demand for consumer goods; Feb. 3-Feb. 24
    1. Consumption expenditures in the aggregate: consumption expenditures and savings in the national income data; the consumption function, long run and short run; determinants of the savings to income ratio; consumer demand, economic growth, and the business cycle.

Readings:

(Review Samuelson, Economics, Ch. 13)
Richard Ruggles, National Income and Income Analysis, Ch. 4, pp. 67-78
Heller, Boddy and Nelson, Savings in the Modern Economy, contributions by Goldsmith, Woodward and Bryce, pp. 133-155; Duesenberry, pp. 195-203; Morgan and Reid, pp. 213-220; Hansen, pp. 47-55; and Slichter, pp. 64-72.
Arthur Burns, The Instability of Consumer Spending, 32nd Annual Report of the National Bureau of Economic Research, pp. 3-20
James S. Duesenberry, Income, Saving and Consumer Behavior, Ch. 3

    1. The theory of consumer demand and the demand for classes of consumer goods: The theory of consumer demand reviewed; the utility approach and the indifference curve approach evaluated; income elasticity, budget studies and Engel’s law; psychological analysis of consumer behavior; trends in U.S. consumption.

Readings:

(Review Samuelson, Ch. 23 and Appendix)
Ruby Norris, The Theory of Consumer’s Demand, Ch. 3
Converse, Huegy and Mitchell, Ch. 2
Talcott Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory, Ch. 3, “The Motivation of Economic Activity.”
George Katona, Psychological Analysis of Economic Behavior, Ch. 5
Lerner and Lasswell (ed), The Policy Sciences, Ch. 12, “Expectations and Decisions in Economic Behavior,” by G. Katona
“The Changing American Market,” Fortune, August, 1953

Section Meetings:

Feb. 8: National income and the consumption function reviewed
Feb. 15: Consumption function in the current literature
Mar. 1: Marginal utility; indifference curves

  1. The demand for producer goods; March 1-March 8

Investment expenditures and the theory of income determination; investment expenditures in the national income data; the determinants of investment expenditures; fluctuations in inventory investment; the firm’s demand for producers’ goods; the determinants of corporate savings.

Readings:

R.A. Gordon, Business Fluctuations, Ch. 5
Tinbergen and Polak, The Dynamics of Business Cycles, Ch. 13, pp. 163-182
Joel Dean, Managerial Economics, Ch. 10, pp. 549-600
Heller, Boddy and Nelson, Savings in the Modern Economy, contribution by John Lintner, pp. 230-255

Section Meetings:

March 8: Producer demand

  1. Identifying demand conditions for the individual firm; March 10-March 15

Survey of market research and sales forecasting methods

Readings:

Dean, Managerial Economics, Ch. 4, pp. 141-220 only

Section meetings:

March 15: Market research; read Canner’s League of California case in McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing, p. 581

  1. Marketing and public policy issues; March 17-March 24

Economic effects of advertising; the problem of consumer information; FTC and FDA control of labeling, standards, and truth in advertising; consumer research and consumer cooperatives as solutions; resale price maintenance and advertising.

Readings:

L. Gordon, Economics for Consumers, Ch. 24 and 26
Neil Borden, Economic Effects of Advertising, Ch. 28, pp. 837-882

Section meetings:

March 22: Review
March 29: Economic effects of advertising

MARCH 29: MID-TERM EXAMINATION

  1. Marketing of farm products; March 31-April 14

The impact of imperfect markets in agriculture; fluctuations in marketing margins over time; futures market; the functioning and control fo futures markets.

Readings:

Converse, Heugy and Mitchell, Ch. 21 and 22
G. Shepherd, Marketing Farm Products, Ch. 9 and 10
W. H. Nicholls, Imperfect Competition within Agricultural Industries, Ch. 4 to p. 81

Section meetings:

April 12: Impact of price support operations on the marketing of farm products

  1. Federal farm policy; April 21-May 3

The goals of an agricultural policy; predecessors of the present program; details of the present policy; advantages and disadvantages of the present policy; the alternatives

Readings:

T. Schultz, Production and Welfare of Agriculture, Ch. 5, 7, 8
Schickele, Agricultural Policy, Ch. 3, 9-17

Section Meetings:

April 26: Mechanics of parity and price supports
May 3: Review

Reading Period Assignment: Ruth Mack, “Economics of Consumption,” in Survey of Contemporary Economics, Vol. II, plus readings to be assigned; and Editors of Fortune, Why Do People Buy, Ch. 1.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 6, Folder “Economics, 1954-1955”.

Image Source:  “Happy 120th Birthday, Berkeley Haas!” Webpage from Summer 2018.

Categories
Economists Gender Harvard Transcript

Harvard/Radcliffe. Economics PhD alumna and Wharton professor, Anne C. Bezanson, 1929

 

The materials in this post are presented in the opposite order that they were actually assembled. I began with three pieces of correspondence and a transcript of economics courses for a Radcliffe graduate who was ABD (= “all but dissertation”) and still interested in submitting a thesis more than a decade after her last course work at Harvard. The economics department chairman, Harold H. Burbank, made no fuss and we can see from the record that Annie Catherine Bezanson was indeed awarded an economics Ph.D. in 1929.

After I filled in the course titles and professors for her transcript, I then proceeded to gather biographical/career information for Bezanson. It of course did not take very long to discover that shortly after being awarded her Ph.D. she was promoted to a  professorship with tenure, the first woman to have cleared that professional hurdle at the University of Pennsylvania. What turned out to be more challenging was to find any photo whatsoever. Fortunately I stumbled upon a genealogical site that posted a picture of Anne Catherine Bezanson along with the obituary that begins the content portion of the post…

_______________________

Obituary from Bezansons of Nova Scotia

Died, Feb. 4, 1980, Dr. Anne Bezanson bur. Riverside Cemetery, Upper Stewiacke. Professor Emeritus, Wharton School of Finance & Commerce, U. of Pennsylvania, d… Hanover, Mass.

Born Mt. Dalhousie, N.S. daughter of the late John and Sarah (Creighton) Bezanson. Dr. Bezanson went to the United States in 1901, where she received her A.B. degree, A.M. & PhD. from Radcliffe…member of the Phi Beta Kappa…awarded an honourary doctor of science degree from University of British Columbia and from the University of Pennsylvania…served as Director of the Industrial Research Dept., Wharton School of Finance and Commerce; was professor at the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania…served on the staff of the U.S. Coal Commission..member of Conference of Price Research, advisor to the Social Services Research Project, Rockefeller Foundation…wrote numerous articles in various professional economic journals …member American Economic Associationn; Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Economic History Association., serving as President from 1946-1948; American Statistical Association; Econometrics Society; Vice-President Delta Chapter Phi Beta Kappa, University of Pennsylvania.

Source: From the Website: Bezansons in North America

_______________________

PIONEER IN ACADEMIC BUSINESS RESEARCH
ANNE BEZANSON, PROFESSOR

ANNE BEZANSON had not yet completed her PhD in economic history in 1921, yet she was about to make history herself. At Wharton, the young Canadian helped establish the first business school research center, the Industrial Research Unit (later known as Industrial Research Department or IRD), with Professor Joseph Willits. The founding marked Wharton’s shift toward becoming an academic business research hub — defining a new role for business schools that continues today.

Bezanson’s 1921 article on promotion practices became the first product of the IRD. Bezanson continued her practical research in the early 1920s, writing a series on personnel issues, focusing on turnover, worker amenities, and accident prevention.

Willits and Bezanson designed an ambitious research program to explore and help civilize industrial working conditions, with the goal of social change. In 1922, Bezanson and Willits spent a year studying the earnings of coal miners at the U.S. Coal Commission. Employer associations, government agencies, and international organizations continued to look to the IRD for timely and practical knowledge.

In 1929, Bezanson finished her Harvard PhD and became the first female faculty member of Penn’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Under her leadership as co-director (which continued until 1945), the IRD had many women on its team and pursued research into the economic status of workers, revealing for the first time hard proof of the disparities in salaries and promotions for women and minorities across many industries.

Bezanson became the first woman to get full tenure at Penn, and in the 1930s sat on the National Bureau of Economic Research Price Conference. From 1939 to 1950 Bezanson was a part-time consultant at the Rockefeller Foundation, where she organized the first-ever roundtable on economic history in 1940. As a result of this involvement, Bezanson played a crucial role in the creation of the Economic History Association in the early 1940s, serving as president between 1946–1947. She died in 1980.

Source:  University of Pennsylvania. The Wharton School.Wharton Alumni Magazine, 125th Anniversary Issue (Spring 2007).

_______________________

Harvard/Radcliffe Academic Record

A.B. magna cum laude in economics.

 Source:  Report of the President of Radcliffe College for 1914-1915, pp. 10,13.

 

A.M. Annie Bezanson….Southvale, N.S. [Nova Scotia]

Source:   Report of the President of Radcliffe College for 1915-1916, p. 12.

 

June 1929 Doctor of Philosophy

Annie Catherine Bezanson, A.B. (Radcliffe College), 1915; A.M. (ibid.), 1916. Subject, Economics. Special Field, Labor Problems. Dissertation, Earnings and Working Opportunity in the Upholstery Weavers’ Trade.

Source: Report of the President of Radcliffe College 1928-29, p. 321.

_______________________

Economics Coursework

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
(Inter-Departmental Correspondence Sheet)

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Miss Anne Bezanson, A.B., Radcliffe 1915; A.M., 1916.

1911-12

Ec 1….B [Principles of Economics, Prof. Taussig et al.]
Ec 5….B, A- [Economics of Transportation, half course. Prof. Ripley]

1912-13

Ec 23….A- [Economic History of Europe to the Middle of the Eighteenth Century. Dr. Gray]

1913-14

Ec 11….B [Economic Theory. Prof. Taussig]
Ec 24….A [Topics in the Economic History of the Nineteenth Century. Prof. Gay]

1914-15

Ec 7….. [Theories of Distribution. Prof. Carver, Excused for Generals.]

1914-15

Ec 13….A [Statistics: Theory, Method and Practice. Asst. Prof. Day]
Ec 34….A [Problems of Labor. Prof. Ripley]
Ec 12….B+ [Scope and Methods of Economic Investigation. Half-course. Prof. Carver]
Ec 33….B [International Trade and Tariff Problems in the United States. Half-course. Prof. Taussig]
Ec 20….A- [Course of Research. Probably Economic History with Prof. Gay]
Ec 14….A [History and Literature of Economics to the year 1848. Prof. Bullock]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 3.

_______________________

Handwritten letter from Bezanson to Burbank

January 2, 1928 [sic]

My Dear Prof. Burbank:

A long time ago, I talked with Professor Young, as well as Professors Carver and Gay about submitting one of my studies in part fulfillment of the requirement for a doctor’s thesis. This request is the result of the difficulty of leaving my present work to complete the study upon which I was at work from 1915 to 1918 on the Industrial Revolution in France. This month when I completed the first analysis of the Earnings of Tapestry Weavers, I sent it to Professor Gay with the hope that it would be, or could be, made acceptable to the Department of Economics.

All this discussion has been informal and, of course, unofficial. I am now writing to you for advice about the official steps: should I apply to the Dean of the Graduate School for permission to change the thesis subject? or should this request go from you? Do you advise such a request and if so can it be made without changing my field of concentration?

Briefly my difficulty is that though I passed the General Examination in October, 1916, I have since not completed the thesis and final examination requirements. A degree seems to have some value in promotion here. Yet, I am engaged on studies which I cannot drop and go back to a subject as remote as French conditions. Dean Gay has been in touch with the progress of Tapestry Earnings and I am acting upon his suggestion in asking for an opinion upon the possibility of offering that study as a thesis.

Very sincerely yours
[signed]
Anne Bezanson

Industrial Research Department
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pa.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 3.

_______________________

Copies of responses by H.H. Burbank to Bezanson

 

January 7, 1929

Miss Anne Bezanson,
Index Research Department,
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pa.

Dear Miss Bezanson:

I see no reason why the program which you have offered for the Ph.D. cannot be changed to allow you to present your study on “Earnings in the Upholstery Weavers Trade”.

There will be some red tape about it. I expect I shall have to secure the consent of the Dean of the Graduate School and of the Department, but I foresee no difficulties in either direction.

I will write you as soon as there is a definite decision.

One question that is certain to be raised is whether or not the research is entirely your own work or whether it was carried on by an organization. I should like to have your reply to this as soon as possible. Your preface throws some light on this. I note that you say: “All analysis and interpretation of material has been made by the Index Research Department”. Does this mean that your own work was strictly limited to the writing of the report in the preparation of the material on which the investigation was based?

Very sincerely,
[H.H. Burbank]

 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

January 9, 1929

Miss Anne Bezanson,
Index Research Department,
University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pa.

Dear Miss Bezanson:

This is more or less a continuation of the note I sent to you yesterday. Last evening I talked to the members of the Department regarding your request. I think something can be worked out for you without very much trouble.

For your General Examination you presented Theory, Statistics, International Trade, Labor, and American History, reserving Economic History as your special field. It is my guess that you have done very little indeed with the literature of the field of Economic History during the last ten years, and that to prepare this field for a special examination would involve an inordinate amount of work. Further, it would require quite a stretch of the imagination to include your study of “The Upholstery Weavers” as Economic History.

Would it not be more within your general field of interest to present Labor problems as the subject for intensive examination. In spite of the fact that you presented this subject in your General Examinations it could be included as a special field. By a stroke of good fortune the Department put into effect this fall a ruling whereby candidates for the PhD may present an honor grade in an approved course in lieu of an oral examination in a subject. Ordinarily you would be required to stand for examination in Economic History as well as in Labor Problems, but under this new ruling we are able to accept the grade of A in Economics 24 taken in 1915.

Briefly then, it is my suggestion that your special field be Labor Problems, within which the dissertation which you are now presenting naturally would fall.

Please let me know if this meets with your approval.

Very sincerely,
H. H. Burbank.

HHB:BR

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics. Correspondence & Papers 1902-1950. Box 3.

Image Source: Website Bezansons in North America.

 

 

 

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Syllabus and assigned readings for interdisciplinary course, Social Sciences 2, 1970-71.

 

Regular followers of this blog will have noticed a recurring theme of economics education within a broader historical/social scientific curriculum. This post looks at a long-time staple of Harvard’s undergraduate General Education course offerings, Social Sciences 2 “Western Thought and Institutions” that was conceived and taught by government professor Samuel H. Beer over three decades assisted by a changing stable of “section men”[sic! Theda Skocpol was a section leader in 1970-71]. 

I am a firm believer in the virtues of building a broad interdisciplinary foundation before allowing (compelling?) economics majors and graduate students to turn their attention to the technical methods of the discipline. The former promotes the capacity to pose interesting questions and the latter creates a capacity to seek solutions to those questions. 

Following the two Harvard Crimson articles on Professor Beer and his course, Economics in the Rear-View Mirror is delighted to provide the course syllabus with its reading assignments from the academic year 1970-71. Students had to write three papers each term and according to the source for this syllabus (see below), he spend “as much work for SocSci 2 as [he] did for the other three courses combined”.

__________________

Beer’s Soc Sci 2 Comes to A Close With Last Lecture
by Jaleh Poorooshasb
The Harvard Crimson, May 5, 1978

A chapter of Harvard history ended yesterday as Samuel H. Beer, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, delivered his last Harvard lecture before retiring.

Beer spoke before a packed hall of about 300 students, admirers and colleagues, some of whom had come as far as a thousand miles to hear the grand finale of Social Sciences 2, “Western Thought and Institutions.”

Although Beer will take advantage of retirement regulations that allow him to teach on a half-time basis, Soc Sci 2, which Beer has taught for 30 years, will be gone from Harvard forever.

“In this case, the man made the course and we would not presume to replace him,” John H. Harvey, assistant director of General Education, said yesterday.

In the lecture, which received thunderous applause and a standing ovation, Beer discussed Nazi Germany and ended with a quote from a prison camp survivor saying good and bad people exist everywhere.

Then, before the audience realized the lecture was over, and began clapping and cheering, Beer bounded out the door. He was halfway down Divinity Ave. before Michael Walzer, professor of Government and a former sectionman for Soc Sci 2, caught up with him and invited him to the Faculty Club, where more than 20 former sectionmen attended a luncheon in Beer’s honor.

The list of former sectionmen in Soc Sci 2 includes such notables as Henry A. Kissinger ’50 and James R. Schlesinger ’50.

Old Soldiers?

“Good courses never die,” Walzer said yesterday, adding that Beer’s influence will continue through his former students.

Beer, who is best known for his work in British politics and federalism in America, will continue to study and write books in both fields, Beer said yesterday.

He will teach two government courses at Harvard next fall and will repeat them during the winter quarter at Dartmouth, he added. One course is entitled “American Federalism” and the other “Modern British Politics and Policy.”

One of a Kind

Beer, former chairman of the Government Department at Harvard and author of several major works, “is a rich scholar of the type that is not created any more,” in a world geared toward specialization,” Sidney Verba ’53, chairman of the Government Department, said yesterday.

Beer said he is “quite content to terminate Soc. Sci. 2.”

“My father took it when he was here but I didn’t sign up because he told me it’s too hard,” one freshman, who wished to remain anonymous, said yesterday.

Beer made no personal observations during the lecture. He began by saying, “I really have changed my lectures over the years. I’ve even changed the jokes. But this lecture I haven’t changed. There’s such an air of finality about it.”

Beer has long been considered one of the foremost American experts on the theory of federalism. His writings include “The Modernization of American Federalism.”

Sam Beer, Legendary Gov Prof, Dies at 97
By Huma N. Shah
The Harvard Crimson, April 14, 2009

Last year, when the Harvard government department organized a meeting for alumni, current professors were asked to give a presentation on their projects and research. One participant was former professor and department chair Samuel H. Beer, who gave a short statement about the nuances of political science during his tenure at Harvard from 1946 to 1982.

“He completely stole the show,” said government professor Stanley Hoffmann, a former student of Beer’s. “[The current professors] were all preempted by the master, who spoke without notes, remembering everyone and everything. No one believed the man was 96 years old at the time.”

Beer, a noted scholar of British and American politics, passed away on April 7, at the age of 97.

“He was a spectacularly good teacher because his classes were all in the form of questions he addressed to himself and his students, for which he had all sorts of arguments before coming to his own conclusion,” said Hoffman. “It was very different from the typical top-down sort of lecturing. It was as if he was struggling with his own opinions.”

Beer, the chair of the Harvard government department from 1954 to 1958, served as the Eaton Professor of the Science of Government for years before moving to Boston College in 1982 to be a professor of American politics.

Receiving his B.A. from the University of Michigan, Beer went to England on a Rhodes Scholarship before receiving his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard in 1943. He was later granted an honorary doctorate from the University in 1997 in recognition of “his scholarship and [the] enormous impact his teaching had on undergraduates for over three decades,” said Peter A. Hall, Beer’s former student, who is currently a European studies professor at Harvard.

Beer was most famous for his self-designed course Social Studies 2: “Western Thought and Institutions,” which he taught for 30 years. Students studied six key moments in the development of Western Civilization, and “used theoretical lenses to understand the historical process,” said former teaching fellow Judith E. Vichniac, the current director of the fellowship program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

“Everywhere he went he was stopped on the streets by people who have taken that course,” Hall said. “It was one that inspired thousands of Harvard students.”

The teaching fellows who worked with Beer often went on to careers as academics or public service officials. Some of his famous students included Henry A. Kissinger ’50, Michael Walzer, and Charles H. Tilly ’50.

Before studying at Harvard, Beer was a staff member of the Democratic National Committee, and occasionally wrote speeches for former President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935 and 1936.

Active in American politics, Beer was chairman of Americans for Democratic Action during his tenure at Harvard from 1959 to 1962. He also actively opposed student rebellions at Harvard during the late sixties.

Beer was elected president of the American Political Science Association in 1977, and was also appointed as a fellow of the British Academy in 2000.

After earning his Ph.D., Beer earned a Bronze Star fighting with the U.S. Army in Normandy. During his time at Oxford in the 1930s, he travelled to Germany, where he saw Hitlerism first hand, according to Government professor Harvey C. Mansfield ’53, another of Beer’s former students.

“He wanted to know how Germany could have fallen so far to embrace these vicious totalitarian ideas,” Mansfield said. “His courses were often directed to that subject.” Beer described the influence of these travels on his graduate work at Harvard in the Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions.

“By the time I came to Harvard in the fall of 1938, I was a fierce anti-communist, a fervent New Dealer, a devotee of Emerson, and ready to try to put it all together….[in] a defense of liberalism against the totalitarian threat,” Beer wrote. Many of his former students praised Beer’s engaging personality and dedication to teaching.

“He had a very good eye for the most important questions in politics and was intensely engaged with the thinkers over the ages who had worked with those questions,” Hall said. “When you talked to Sam Beer you were engaging in a dialogue with Marx, Weber, or Augustine. He had read an enormous amount, and he thought deeply about the big social and political questions throughout his life.”

“He would come to class wearing his military outfit and pump his fist, and tell us what to think about,” Mansfield said.

__________________

SOCIAL SCIENCES 2
READING LIST
Fall Term 1970-71

The work of the Fall Term consists of three essays, one for each topic, and the mid-year examination. Section men will make specific assignments and suggest additional reading for these essays.

Books for Purchase

Students should own the following books, available at the Harvard Coop, or elsewhere as announced:

  1. Bunyan, John, THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS
    Paperback: New American Library: Signet Classics
  2. DOCUMENTS FOR CLASS USE (Assize of Clarendon, Writs from the treatis called “Glanville” Magna Carta, and the Constitutions of Clarendon). Pamphlet: University Printing Office. On sale in General Education office, 1737 Cambridge St., Rm. 602.
  3. Hill, Christopher, THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION 1603-1714
    Paperback: W. W. Norton
  4. Marx and Engels, BASIC WRITINGS ON POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY
    Edited by Lewis S. Feuer. Paperback: Doubleday (Anchor)
  5. Marx and Engels, COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
    Edited by Samuel H. Beer. Paperback: Appleton-Century-Crofts (Crofts Classics)
  6. SOCIAL CONTRACT: ESSAYS BY LOCKE, HUME, AND ROUSSEAU
    Introduction by Ernest Barker. Paperback: Oxford (Galaxy Books)
  7. Tierney, Brian, THE CRISIS OF CHURCH AND STATE 1050-1300
    Paperback: Prentice-Hall (Spectrum)
  8. Weber, Max, THEORY OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION, translated by A. Herderson and T. Parsons.
    Paperback: MacMillan Free Press.
  9. Walzer, Michael, THE REVOLUTION OF THE SAINTS
    Paperback: Atheneum

 

Attention of members of the course is directed to the new book written by former section men in Social Sciences too, Melvin Richter (Ed.), Essays in Theory and History: An Approach to Social Sciences (Harvard University Press 1970)

Assigned Reading

Everything on the following list is on “closed reserve” in Lamont and Hilles Libraries. The date suggested here will vary during the semester; lectures and section discussions should be your guides.

TOPIC 1: TRADITIONALISM AND THE MEDIEVAL POLITY

  1. Week of September 28: THE SOCIOLOGY OF AUTHORITY
    Weber, Max, THE THEORY OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION, pp. 324-392.
  2. Weeks of October 5, 12, and 19: FEUDAL MONARCHY IN ENGLAND
    Bloch, Marc, FEUDAL SOCIETY, pp. 59-92, 103-120, 270-274.
    Poole, Austin Lane, FROM DOMESDAY BOOK TO MAGNA CARTA 1087-1216, chaps, I, II, V, X-XIV.
    Jolliffe, J.E.A., THE CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND, pp. 139-263.
    John of Salisbury, THE STATEMAN’ S BOOK (from the POLICRATICUS), translated by John Dickinson, Introduction, Text: IV:1, 2, 3, (pp. 9-10), 4, 11; V:1, 2, 5; VI:18, 20, 21, 24; VII:17-19; VIII:17 (pp. 335-9), 18, 20, 23, (pp. 398-9; 405-10)
    DOCUMENTS FOR CLASS USE: Assize of Clarendon, Writs from the Treatis called “Glanvill,” Magna Carta.

Optional: ENGLISH HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS 1042-1189 (Vol. II of series) edited by David C. Douglas and George W. Greenaway. Nos. 1 (years 1135-154), 10, 12, (pp. 322-4, 331-3, 335-8), 16, 19, 58-9, 268.

TOPIC II: DYNAMICS OF MEDIEVAL DEVELOPMENT

  1. Week of October 26: THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION
    Weber, Max, FROM MAX WEBER: ESSAYS IN SOCIOLOGY, edited by H. Gerth and C. W. Mills, “THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF WORLD RELIGIONS,” pp. 267-301.
    Weber, Max, THE SOCIOLOGY OF RELIGION, edited by Talcott Parsons, chaps. VIII, XI, XIII.
  2. Weeks of November 2: THEORIES OF SPIRITUAL AND TEMPORAL POWER.
    Lovejoy, Arthur O., THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING, A STUDY OF THE HISTORY OF AN IDEA, pp. 24-77.
    Tierney, Brian, THE CRISIS OF CHURCH AND STATE 1050-1300, pp. 1-95, 127-138.
    Brooke, Z. N., LAY INVESTITURE AND ITS RELATION TO THE CONFLICT OF EMPIRE AND PAPACY (article listed separately in the libraries)
    Tellenbach, Gerd, CHURCH, STATE, AND CHRISTIAN SOCIETY IN THE TIME OF THE INVESTITURE CONTEST, Introduction, chap. 1 (sections 1 and 3), chap. 2, chap. 5 (section 3) and Epilogue.
  3. Week of November 9: THE GREGORIAN REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND
    Duggan, Charles, “From the Conquest to the Death of John,” THE ENGLISH CHURCH AND THE PAPACY IN THE MIDDLE AGEs, edited by C. H. Lawrence, pp. 65-115.
    Poole, A. L., FROM DOMESDAY BOOK TO MAGNA CARTA, chaps. VI, VII.
    DOCUMENTS FOR CLASS USE: Assize of Clarendon.
    Knowles, David, THE EPISCOPAL COLLEAGUES OF ARCHBISHOP THOMAS BECKET, chap. V.

TOPIC III: RELIGIOUS REVOLT AND POLITICAL MODERNIZATION

  1. Weeks of November 16 and 23: Analytical Perspectives
    Marx and Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy, edited by Louis S. Feuer, pp. 1-67, 82-111.
    Marx, Karl, CAPITAL, Modern Library edition, pp. 784-837 (chaps. 26-32). In some editions this is chap. 24, entitled, “Primary Accumulation.”
    Beer, Samuel H., Introduction to Marx and Engels, COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, pp. VII-XXIX,.
    Weber, Max, THE PROTESTANT ETHIC AND THE SPIRIT OF CAPITALISM, translated by Talcott Parsons, pp. 35-c. 62, 79-128, 144-183.
  2. Weeks of November 30, and December 7, 14: THE PURITAN REVOLUTION
    Hill, Christopher, THE CENTURY OF REVOLUTION 1603-1714, chaps. 1-11.
    Bunyan, John, THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, portions of the First Part: in Signet edition, pp. 17-30, 66-110, 131-148.
    Hexter, J.H., “Storm Over the Gentry,” in Hexter’s REAPPRAISALS IN HISTORY.
    Walzer, Michael, THE REVOLUTION OF THE SAINTS, chaps. I, II, IV, V (pp. 148-171), and IX.
    Walzer, Michael, “The revolutionary uses of repression,” in Richter (Ed.), ESSAYS IN THEORY AND HISTORY.
    Locke, John, AN ESSAY CONCERNING…… CIVIL GOVERNMENT, chaps. 1-9, 19. Available in SOCIAL CONTRACT: ESSAYS BY LOCKE, HUME AND ROUSSEAU.

 

SOCIAL SCIENCES 2
READING LIST
SPRING TERM 1971

Students are asked to buy the following books, which are available at the Harvard Coop, or, in the one case, at the General Education Office.

  1. BRIGGS, Asa, The Making of Modern England
    Paperback: Harper Torch books. Hardcover title: The Age of Improvement.
  2. BURKE, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France
    Paperback: Bobbs-Merrill: The Library of Liberal Arts
  3. HOBBES, Thomas, Leviathan
    Paperback: Penguin
  4. MILL, John Stuart, On Liberty
    Paperback: Appleton-Century-Crofts: Crofts Classic
  5. NIETZSCHE, Friedrich, The Genealogy of Morals
    Paperback: Vintage
  6. RUDÉ, George, Revolutionary Europe, 1783-1815
    Paperback: Harper Torchbook
  7. de TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis, The Old Regime and the French Revolution
    Paperback: Anchor Books

Everything on the following list is on “closed reserve” in Lamont and Hilles Libraries. The date suggested here will vary during the semester; lectures and sections should be your guides.

TOPIC IV: IDEOLOGY AND REVOLUTION

Weeks of February 8 & 15

HOBBES, Thomas, Leviathan, esp. Intro., Chaps. 11, 13-15, 17-21, 26, 29-30, and Review and Conclusion.
ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques, The Social Contract, especially Book I; Book II; Book III, chaps. 1-4, 12-18; and Book IV, chaps. 1-2, 7-8 (in the Galaxy paperback edition used for Locke’s SECOND TREATISE in the Fall Term).
BEER, Samuel, “The Development of the Modern Polity,” chap. 3 (Typescript on reserve).

Weeks of February 22 & March 1

RUDÉ, George, Revolutionary Europe, pp. 65-241
de TOCQUEVILLE, Alexis, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, Forward, pp. 1-211.
RICHTER, Melvin, “The uses of theory: Tocqueville’s adaptation of Montesquieu” in Richter, Essays in Theory and History, pp. 94-102.
TILLY, Charles, The Vendee, chaps. 1, 2, 4, 9, 13.

TOPIC V: MODERNIZATION WITHOUT REVOLUTION

Week of March 8:

BURKE, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France, especially 3-4, 18-129, 138-144, 169-200, 233-266, and 286-291 (Page citations to the Library of Liberal Arts paperback edition).

Weeks of March 15, 22, & 29:

BRIGGS, Asa, The Making of Modern England (Hardcover title, The Age of Improvement), chaps. I, II (sections, 2-3), III (section 5), IV-VI, VIII (sections 1-3, through p. 416), and IX (section 3).
DICEY, A. The Lectures on the Relations Between Law and Opinion in England During the 19th century, Lectures 4, 6, 9, 12 (pt. 1).
BEER, Samuel H., British Politics in the Collectivist Age, Introduction, Chaps. I-II, Epilogue (391-409).
MILL, John Stuart, On Liberty, chaps. 1-2, 4

TOPIC VI: THE CRISIS OF MODERNITY

Week of April 12:

NIETZSCHE, Friedrich, The Genealogy of Morals (trans. W. Kaufmann; Vintage paperback).

Weeks of April 19, 26, & May 3:

PINSON, Koppel S., Modern Germany: Its History and Civilization, chaps. 15-21 (First or Second Edition).
EPSTEIN, Klaus, “Three Types of Conservatism” in Richter, Essays in Theory and History, pp. 103-121.
BULLOCK, Alan, Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, chaps. 1-4, 7.
REICHSTAG, Election Statistics, 1919-1933, Mimeographed. To be distributed.
PARSONS, Talcott, “Certain Primary Sources and Patterns of Aggression in the Social Structure of the Western World”, Mimeographed. (This essay also appears in Parsons, Essays in Sociological Theory).
VIERECK, Peter, Metapolitics: From the Romantics to Hitler (Capricorn paperback subtitle: The Roots of the Nazi Mind), Prefatory Note (or, in paperback, “New Survey,” sections 3-4, & chaps. 1-2, 5-7, 11-13).
ERIKSON, Erik H., “The Legend of Hitler’s Childhood” in Childhood and Society, chap. 9.
ECKSTEIN, Harry, A Theory of Stable Democracy.

Reading Period Extra: Nazi Films
Wednesday, May 12, at 7 p.m., Lowell Lecture Hall

FINAL EXAMINATION June 4

Source: Personal copy of course syllabus shared for transcription at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror by one my longest, dearest economics and personal chums, Robert Dohner (Harvard, 1974; M.I.T., 1980).

Image Source:  Samuel H. Beer, 1953 Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. J.S. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. Laughlin and Taussig, 1882-83

 

 

James Laurence Laughlin and Frank William Taussig were both appointed at the rank of “Instructor in Political Economy” for 1882-83. The final exams for the first and second terms of the course come from Taussig’s personal scrapbook that he kept of his printed final examinations at Harvard. Reading assignments for the course almost certainly came from the following three books in one form or other.

Here is an earlier post that describes the content of Political Economy 1 taught in the 1884-85 academic year.

____________________

Published texts where Course Readings Can Probably Be Found

Principles of Political Economy by John Stuart Mill, abridged and edited by J. Laurence Laughlin. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1884.

Charles F. Dunbar (ed.) Extracts from the Laws of the United States Relating to Currency and Finance. Cambridge: 1875.

Charles F. Dunbar. Chapters on Banking. Cambridge: 1885. [First four chapters as bases of a short course of lectures on banking, written 1882, given annually to classes in the elements of political economy.]

____________________

Course Announcement

Political Economy.

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

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

____________________

Course Enrollment

Elective Studies
Political Economy

Instructors

 Course of Instruction Hours per week.

Students

Dr. Laughlin and
Mr. Taussig

1. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.—Lectures

3

Total 155:
1 Graduate, 22 Seniors, 113 Juniors, 13 Sophomores, 6 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1882-83, p. 66.

____________________

Course Examinations

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Mid-year. Feb. 9, 1883.

I.
(Answer briefly all of the following.)

  1. What distinction does Mill draw between productive and unproductive labor? Discuss the value of this distinction. Distinguish between productive and unproductive consumption.
  2. What is the distinction between fixed and circulating capital? Is money part of the fixed or of the circulating capital of a country? Why?
  3. What are the classes among whom the produce is divided? Are these classes necessarily or usually represented in as many different acts of persons? How could you classify the peasant proprietor?
  4. Of what commodities are the values governed by the law of cost of production? Explain the process by which that law operates.
  5. “Rent does not enter into the cost of production of agricultural produce.” Explain.
  6. What regulates the value of an inconvertible paper currency? What causes it to depreciate? Discuss briefly the results of depreciation.
  7. Arrange the following items on the proper sides of the account:—
Circulation 315.0
Due to Banks 259.9
Legal Tender Notes 63.2
Loans 1,243.2
Bond for circulation 357.6
Due from Banks 198.9
Deposits 1,134.9
Specie 102.9

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

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

 

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

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

    ____________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Final examination. June 15, 1883.

I.
(Take all of this group.)

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

II.
(Omit one of this group.)

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

III.
(Omit one of this group.)

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

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers in Economics 1882-1935. Prof. Frank W.Taussig Scrapbook, pp. 2-3.

Image Sources: J. Laurence Laughlin (left) from Marion Talbot. More Than Lore: Reminiscences of Marion Talbot, Dean of Women, The University of Chicago, 1892-1925. Chicago: University of Chicago (1936). Frank W. Taussig (right) from E. H. Jackson and R. W. Hunter, Portraits of the Harvard Faculty (1892).

Categories
Exam Questions Fields Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Three Undergraduate Economic Field Exams, 1942

 

The Harvard undergraduate economics departmental exam and the essay topics for 1942 were transcribed for the previous post. Below we have three field exams for money & finance, market organization & control, and labor economics & social reform from the same year. In the Randall Hinshaw papers at Duke I did not find field exams for statistics & accounting or economic history that I suspect would have also been offered (judging from Part II of the economics departmental exam).

________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 6, 1942

DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
Money and Finance
(Three hours)

PART I
(About one hour)

  1. Write an essay on ONE of the following topics:
    1. monetary conditions of full employment equilibrium,
    2. the functions and importance of the Federal Reserve System in the 1920’s, the 1930’s, and today,
    3. investment banking by commercial banks – theory and practice in the past and future,
    4. international monetary problems after the last war, and after this war,
    5. modern improvements on the classical theory of international trade,
    6. ideas for post-war liberation and control of international trade – conditions of progress in respect of justice to all nations and prosperity for all,
    7. modern federal taxation in peace and war times – functions, and types of taxes and tax programs required,
    8. ways of mitigating the undesirable future consequences of our mounting national debt,
    9. effects of the war on financial problems of state governments,
    10. the background of the modern vogue of monetary management and deficit finance, in fundamental economic changes over recent decades,
    11. prospective war-time and immediate post-war changes in America, in demand and supply conditions for investment funds and real capital,
    12. post-war problems and prospects in Anglo-American economic relations.

 

PART II
(About one hour)

All students must answer TWO questions. If you are a candidate for honors, at least ONE of these two must be a starred question.

  1. (*) “The spectre of ‘secular stagnation’, which threatened the capitalist world of the 1930’s, is being exorcised by this war and will probably not return after it, at least for some decades.”
  2. (*) Outline succinctly, and explain and discuss as fully as your time allows, what you regard as the best analysis – either one writer’s or your own compilation – of the fundamental causes of the business cycle.
  3. Explain, and discuss critically, several different concepts of “velocity” and “hoarding” found in the modern literature of monetary theory.
  4. “Just as banking policy was unable, in the 1930’s, to play any important part in producing recovery, it is now unable, for opposite and parallel reasons, to play any important part in combating war inflation.”
  5. (*) Discuss the economic and other causes of the world-wide growth of new nationalistic restrictions on international trade, in the interval between the last war and the present war.
  6. (*) “As a stabilizer of the monetary basis of international trade, nothing short of one world currency under the management of a central, international authority, can be an effective substitute for the 19 century’s international gold standard.”
  7. Discuss the effects which the “lend-lease” arrangements through which this country is aiding its allies in the war, are likely to have on our foreign trade, economic relations with the outer world, and economic position in the post-war period.
  8. “If country A has strong labor unions which force up and hold up wage-costs in all its industries, while country B enjoys cheap labor together with industries as modern and well mechanized as those of A, progressive depreciation by A of the external value of its currency is its only means of maintaining competition with B in world markets.”
  9. (*) Discuss the relative merits of compulsory savings plans, a further lowering of exemptions from the personal income tax, and a general sales tax, as methods of diverting a larger share of war-time wages from consumption expenditure to investment in the war effort.
  10. (*) “Federal expenditures on welfare projects, or benefaction’s to the under-privileged, are a national luxury which must be sacrificed to the war effort.”
    “No; on the contrary, the war increases our obligation to all we can for the well-being of our poorest citizens; for in relation to the war effort, their morale is more important than are all economies, which would benefit only the over-privileged – whose patriotism, we hope, will stand the strain.”
  11. Discuss the merits of the view that in wartime the income tax should be supplemented by a special, progressive tax on all increases of individual incomes above the average levels of the same incomes in a group of pre-war years.
  12. “The chief danger in severe taxation of business profits in wartime is that of causing under maintenance of industrial plant, to the extent of making the country pay for the war to largely by consuming its capital.”

 

PART III
(About one hour)

(Answer TWO questions)

  1. “Future alternations of prosperity and depression are unlikely to occur with the nearly exact regularity or periodicity, which has made the term ‘business cycle’ appropriate in the past. The ‘cycle’ in that sense was one of the regularities peculiar to a quasi–automatic, laissez-faire capitalism.”
  2. “Money and finance are of no importance in modern war; only physical resources and production count. The Axis countries are already bankrupt, but it makes no difference. And we, in order to win the war, will have to give our physical production experts – not our monetary and fiscal experts – a free hand.”
  3. “America is sure to have, before the war ends, an inflation that will largely wipe out the real incomes and wealth of all its professional people and small savers – the backbone of the middle-class – and divide the spoils between rich speculators and skilled, industrial wage-earners. And that will make impossible the future maintenance of the country’s conservative-liberal, political tradition.”
  4. “The effort to knit the Latin American economies into ours, and make the Western Hemisphere a largely unified and self-sufficient, regional economy, cannot succeed in any large and lasting way. Our principal, natural economic ties are with Europe, and so are those of the Latin American countries; and these old, natural tendencies will reassert themselves after the war.”
  5. “By ending the imperialism of the white race in the Orient, the war is ending what have been essential factors in the prosperity of England, Holland, and America – exploitation of cheap Oriental labor and rich natural resources acquired at little cost, and a market for ‘dumping’ industrial surpluses, so as to make something near to full employment in the Western countries compatible there with excessive prices for the same industrial products.”
  6. “The spread of industrialism throughout the world does not merely alter the incidence everywhere of ‘comparative advantage’, and the international division of labor; it increases the diversity of productive powers and the self-sufficiency of every country, and thus radically diminishes the total importance of international trade.”
  7. “Financial, or monetary and fiscal manipulations cannot save capitalism. They could, if the right manipulators could work freely and not be defeated by a ‘strike’ on the part of Capital. But every attempt, in a time of depression, to redistribute money income and thus restore consumption and employment, always will be defeated by the further decline of investment due to the fears of the capitalists, who fear what immediately attacks their positions more than they fear the eventual, socialist revolution that is certain to result in time from an unrelieved, severe depression.”
  8. “In opposition to the nineteenth century orthodox explanation and defense of interest as a payment necessary to induce, through saving, enough creation of real capital, Keynes in effect revives the basic idea and resulting attitude of Aristotle and the medieval writers against ‘usury’. Like them, he sees in the demand for interest only the reluctance of the rich to part with their money hoards, and thus makes it the villain of the economic drama.”
  9. “In the economic world, the ‘real’ in contrast with the ‘monetary’ factors do indeed determine, as the older economists thought, what everyone must do in order to reach true equilibrium. Where they went wrong was in supposing that everyone always does fairly soon reach true equilibrium, that is, adjustment to realities; that deceptive, monetary changes have only very brief, transitional, or ‘short run’ consequences. Money is much more important than they thought it was, because the truth is that activities supported only by illusions, of monetary origin, prolong and aggravate those illusions and themselves in a cumulative fashion until unreality, or non-adjustment to reality, becomes so drastic that it collapses violently and then gives way, only, to a like, prolonged departure from reality in the opposite direction.”

________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 6, 1942

DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
Market Organization and Control
(Three hours)

PART I
(About one hour)

  1. Write an essay on ONE of the following topics:
    1. corporate profits,
    2. the problem of converting plants to war production,
    3. some recent developments in the study of costs of production,
    4. the war and American agriculture,
    5. why farmers are poor,
    6. the “parity” concept in agricultural policy,
    7. a wartime plan for the railroads,
    8. the future of private and public ownership in the public utility field,
    9. public utility rate-making: science or art?
    10. the relation of price control and rationing to fiscal policy,
    11. bureaucracy in industry and government,
    12. the Supreme Court and the regulation of economic life.

 

PART II
(About one hour)

All students must answer TWO questions. If you are a candidate for honors, at least ONE of these two must be a starred question.

  1. (*) Select any two American industries and compare their respective pricing methods and policies. Which seems to you more desirable from a public standpoint? Explain.
  2. Suppose you were put in charge of a trust fund with the duty of investing funds in corporate stock. What factors would you take into account in deciding which stocks to buy? Why?
  3. (*) Explain the relation, if any, between industrial price policies and the size of the national income.
  4. “The recent downward trend in the stock market is an utter absurdity from an economic point of view.” What facts and theories underlie this statement? Do you agree with it? Explain.
  5. (*) “We are now experiencing an agricultural revolution no less profound than the industrial revolution of 150 years ago.” Do you agree? Why or why not?
  6. (*) Discuss the chief problems of public policy connected with the growing and marketing of cotton.
  7. Discuss critically the recent agricultural policy of one foreign country.
  8. What are the principal changes that have been introduced in the methods and living conditions of American farmers by the internal combustion engine?
  9. (*) “Whenever you tried to define a public utility you will always come down finally to one and only one factor: discriminating monopoly.” What is a discriminating monopoly and what conditions favor its existence? Do you agree that discriminating monopoly is the distinguishing characteristic of public utilities? Explain.
  10. (*) What justification, if any, can be offered for the principle of railroad rate-making which attempts to equalize the competitive position of producers over a wide area?
  11. What conditions in the field of public utilities led to the passage of the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935?
  12. Discuss the relative merits of water-power and steam-power in the generation of electricity. Should it be public policy to favor one against the other (a) as a war measure, (b) in the post-war period? Explain.

 

PART III
(About one hour)

Answer TWO questions

  1. “It is an odd circumstance that capital fought for the right to incorporate, while labor fights against the compulsion to incorporate.” Discuss.
  2. “From an economic standpoint there is little to be said for excess profits taxation. As a method of controlling inflation it is obviously quite inadequate. Hence the only important consequence is an undermining of the financial position of precisely those corporations which are most essential in war production.” Discuss.
  3. Discuss the methods which have been employed in financing plant expansion requirements necessitated by the defense and war efforts. Why were these methods adopted? What is their significance for the post-war period?
  4. “The technical and managerial classes are slated to succeed the owners in the sequence of ruling classes.” Discuss.
  5. Some experts believe there is likely to be a great increase in the number and importance of corporate farms in the relatively near future. What are the reasons for this belief? Explain why you agree or disagree.
  6. Do you think direct control over wages is necessary to effective price control? Why or why not?
  7. Sketch the traditional policy of our government toward participation by American businessmen in international cartels and combines. Discuss the reasons for this policy and its results.
  8. “From the standpoint of economic organization, the Nazi economy represents the uninterrupted continuation of trends in German society which reach back at least to the 1870’s.” Discuss.

________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 6, 1942

DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
Labor Economics and Social Reform
(Three hours)

PART I
(About one hour)

  1. Write an essay on ONE of the following topics:
    1. wages and war inflation,
    2. the closed shop,
    3. should the 40-hour week be abolished during the war?
    4. the problem of migratory labor,
    5. an ideal system of unemployment insurance,
    6. a population policy for America,
    7. class struggle – reality or propaganda slogan?
    8. the probable effect of the war on American movements of social reform,
    9. can socialism be achieved by a gradual process of reform?
    10. labor and the anti-trust laws,
    11. trade unions and political action,
    12. labor in World War I.

 

PART II
(About one hour)

All students must answer TWO questions. If you are a candidate for honors, at least ONE of these two must be a starred question.

  1. (*) Discuss the benefits which one important C.I.O. union has won for its members, and the methods and policies by which it has won them.
  2. (*) Assume that a new industrial union enrolls all the workers in a particular industry, and succeeds in raising their wages. Make, and stayed clearly, your assumptions about all the main economic conditions (supply and demand conditions in the various markets) relevant to this problem; and on your assumptions, analyze the determination of the shares of the cost of paying for this wage-increase, which will be born in the end respectably by (1) the employers in the industry, (2) the consumers of the product, and (3) groups connected with other industries as workers, employers, or consumers.
  3. Discuss the history, methods, and achievements of union-management coöperation in one American industry where it has become established.
  4. What principles, as to policy and procedure, would you advise the federal war labor Board to adopt as its guiding principles in dealing with industrial disputes during the war period? Explain your reasons for each principal you propose.
  5. (*) Is the Malthusian theory of population wrong? If so, in what respects and why? If not, what is the evidence to support it?
  6. (*) Explain and evaluate the theory of non-competing groups.
  7. Can fascism (including Nazism) be called the “revolution of the middle class”? Explain.
  8. What, in your opinion, would be the chief economic effects of a cessation in population growth? Why?
  9. (*) Discuss critically Marx’s theory of capitalist crises.
  10. (*) What kind of a “new order” from an economic standpoint do the Nazis want to create?
  11. Discuss the main characteristics and results of economic planning in the Soviet Union.
  12. According to a number of economists, the price policy of a socialist society should be based on one single principle: equate price to marginal cost. Explain the meaning of this rule and argue for or against its general validity.

 

PART III
(About one hour)

Answer TWO questions

  1. Discuss the relative advantages and disadvantages, from the workingman’s standpoint, of the sales tax and a tax on wages deducted at the source as methods of closing the gap between outstanding purchasing power in the quantity of consumer goods available in the war economy.
  2. “Whether profit-sharing be but a slight modification of the ordinary capitalist system or contained within itself the germs of a true coöperative system need hardly be discussed in view of the fact that its history has been a record of repeated failure. The cause of failure in almost every case has been the apparent incompatibility of profit-sharing with trade unionism.” Discuss.
  3. What is to be said for stabilization of money wages as a goal of monetary policy?
  4. “Can even the most ardent free-trader doubt that in the post-war world American labor will continue to demand and deserve protection from cheap foreign labor?” Discuss.
  5. Discuss the economic problems of the construction industry, placing the kind of unionism which prevails there in its proper setting.
  6. Discuss the structure, problems and policies of the labor movement in backward or colonial countries.
  7. “There is no mistaking the economic foundations of race prejudice in the contemporary world.” Discuss.
  8. “Historically the connection between freedom of enterprise and freedom in other fields of thought and action is obvious. Must we not, then, assume that the destruction of free enterprise would likewise deprive us all our cherished liberties?” Discuss.

 

Source:  Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Randall Hinshaw. Box 1, Folder “Schoolwork, 1940s”.

Image Source: Harvard Square from the Tichnor Brothers Collection of postcards. Boston Public Library, Print Department.

Categories
Exam Questions Fields Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Undergraduate Departmental Examination and Essay Questions, 1942

 

 

The next post will provide transcriptions of three division special (i.e. field) examinations from 1942.

The 1939 departmental examination and  essay questions have been posted earlier.

______________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 1, 1942

ESSAY PAPER
(One hour and a half)

Candidates for honors may write on ONE topic only. Others may, if they prefer, write on TWO topics. Please note on the front cover of the bluebook the number of each topic upon which you write.

  1. Economic imperialism.
  2. The pre-requisites of lasting peace.
  3. The economist who has most influenced your thinking.
  4. Some unsettled questions of economic science.
  5. Welfare economics.
  6. The relation of economics to sociology and political science.
  7. The distribution of wealth and income.
  8. The classical economists and their legacy.
  9. The nature and significance of general equilibrium analysis.
  10. Economic warfare.
  11. If Great Britain loses her empire.
  12. What killed laissez-faire?
  13. “The rise of political centralism is largely the product of economic centralism.”
  14. The relations and roles of the economic interests, and the social and cultural traditions, movements, and ideals, which are in conflict in the war.
  15. The American war effort and the profit system.
  16. Government controls which the American economy requires during the war, and those which it will require in the period of post-war adjustment.
  17. The applicability of traditional economic theory in explaining the course of economic life in totalitarian states.
  18. The future of capitalism.
  19. “The claim of economics to be a true science, like the modern physical sciences, must be given up as untenable.”
  20. Planned economies and human liberties.
  21. The value of training in economics, for success in business, and for good citizenship.
  22. “The physiologist’s task is not the physician’s; analysis and therapy are different; and economists, like physiologists, should confine themselves to explaining what happens, and leave the giving of advice to others.”

Source:  Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Randall Hinshaw. Box 1, Folder “Schoolwork, 1940s”.

___________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT, AND ECONOMICS
Department of Economics
May 4, 1942

DEPARTMENTAL EXAMINATION
(Three hours)

Answer SIX questions; at least ONE question must be answered in each part, but not more than THREE questions may be taken in Part II. A senior may not take more than ONE question in that section of Part II which covers his special field.

PART I

  1. Define: elasticity of demand, unit elasticity, elastic demand, inelastic demand. Say weather, and explain why, you would expect the demand for each of the following commodities (in normal times) to be elastic or inelastic: automobiles, milk, tobacco, fur coats, window glass, oriental rugs, quinine, coal.
  2. Suppose that industries A, B, and C are all “purely competitive”, and that A has constant costs, B increasing costs, and C decreasing costs, for increasing outputs. If all three of these industries experience rapid, marked, and lasting increases of the public’s demands for their products, what will be (a) the immediate and (b) the ultimate effects upon the prices of the three different products? Explain your answers, and illustrate each case by the appropriate diagram. If now a cost-reducing invention (new method or machine) is generally adopted in each industry, show on your diagrams the effects of this on their cost conditions, outputs, and prices, and explain.
  3. Suppose a firm to be operating under these conditions:

Its total fixed cost is $1000 per day.
Its total operating cost for 1 unit output per day is $1000.00; for 2 units, $1800.00; for 3, $2550.00; 4, $3400.00; 5, $4500.00; 6, $6600.00. It can sell at price $1800.00, 1 unit; at $1500.00, 2 units; at $1250.00, 3 units; at $1100.00, 4 units; at $1000.00, 5 units; at $925.00, 6 units.

Infer from those figures, and draw on a diagram (as smooth curves) this firm’s average total unit cost, marginal cost, demand, and marginal revenue curves.
Now show on your diagram, and explain, the price and output required to maximize the firm’s profits.
Now assume “free entry” to the field, and that new competitors of this firm appear.
Show on your diagram, and explain, the ultimate effects of the new (increased) competition on this firm’s demand curve, output, average total unit cost, selling price, and profits.

  1. Explain as fully as you can, in terms of the relevant conditions of demand, supply, and marginal productivity, the present high wages of skilled workers in American war industries.
    To what extent, and how, do you think the efforts of trade unions make these wage-rates higher than they would be otherwise?
  2. In what principal ways do you think the war is affecting and likely to affect, while it lasts, the aggregate demand for and supply of capital and the level of interest rates within this country?
    What developments in the same respects do you think are most likely in the post—war period? Explain fully.
  3. Explain and discuss the significance of each of the following: total utility, law of diminishing utility, average and marginal utility, and consumers’ surplus.
  4. How would competition, if universally “pure”, tend to allocate resources, in a state of equilibrium of the whole economy?
    How is the equilibrium allocation altered by general prevalence of “monopolistic competition”?
    Explain concisely.
  5. Suppose that economic conditions in a country over a certain decade undergo the following changes. (1) The country’s population increases rapidly, while no additions are made to its territory or known natural resources. (2) Technological progress in all branches of production is steady and substantial; all innovations are capital-using, labor-saving inventions; physical outputs per man-hour of labor increase substantially. (3) A constant, rather high percentage of the national money income is annually saved and invested within the country. (4) Credit expansion is continually greater than the increase of total physical production, hence the price-level rises throughout the decade.
    Explain and discuss the probable, separate and joint effects of those developments on the absolute and relative shares of the national, real income respectively allotted, at the end as compared with the beginning of the decade, to (real) wages, economic rent, interest, and business profits. If you need to make assumptions more definite than those stated above, or additional assumptions, in order to reach definite conclusions, make clear the uncertainties in the problem as stated, and resolve them by explicit assumptions chosen as you please, at appropriate points in your discussion.

 

PART II
A
Statistics and Accounting

  1. Is it possible to devise an “ideal”, all-purpose, formula for price index numbers? Why or why not?
  2. What, in your judgment, are the greatest dangers that have to be guarded against in applying statistical methods to the available data of economic life?
  3. “Currently practiced accounting methods lead almost invariably to either overestimation or underestimation of true net earnings.” Explain carefully, indicating what is meant by “true net earnings” and why accepted accounting principles may lead to their misrepresentation. Do you think that in wartime, net earnings are likely to be overstated or understated?
  4. Answer concisely the following questions: (a) A corporation issues $100,000 par value stock to the promoters for nothing. In order to make the totals of the balance sheet equal, an item of “goodwill $100,000” is placed on the asset side. Assuming there is no reasonable ground for considering the “goodwill” to be actually valuable, how would you correct the balance sheet? (b) The amount of fixed assets – buildings and machinery – is less at the end of the year than at the beginning. What other changes would you expect to find on the balance sheet? Why? (c) In case a reappraisal of fixed assets shows a value in excess of value and it is desired to bring the appreciation into the books, how may this be done?

B
Modern Economic History

  1. What role would you assign to the National Banking System in the pattern of American business fluctuations from 1870 to 1914?
  2. Describe and explain the development of American tariff policy during the 19th century.
  3. Argue for or against the proposition that the Nazi economy is no more than the logical outcome of German economic policy from the time of Bismarck on.
  4. “The depression (1876-86) is, indeed, the watershed between the era of British industrial supremacy in the era of international competition.” Discuss.

 

C
Money and Finance

  1. Imagine that someone with no knowledge of economics asks you to explain to him, fully and clearly, why as an element of war finance government borrowing from the banks is peculiarly “inflationary”; and write out the explanation you would give.
  2. “Since government spending has become the main regulator of the volume and tempo of economic activity, Federal Reserve policy has become an academic subject of no real importance.”
  3. In a world at peace, with international trade proceeding normally, but with all countries on independent “paper standards” and exchanges “free” (with no fixed parities”, a position of general equilibrium and stable exchange rates has been reached. Now country A embarks, alone, on an internal monetary expansion which raises its price level.
    Trace and explain what effects, if any, this will tend to have on the balances of payments of A and other countries, foreign exchange rates, international transfers of products, factors, and “purchasing power”, and price levels in other countries. At what point, and how, will a new position of equilibrium be reached?
  4. “In the development of trade between an industrial nation, A, and an agricultural nation, B, both nations will gain by the trade, but the division of the gain will become unequal, in favor of A. The elastic demand for A’s products in B, and the inelastic demand for B’s products in A, will cause the terms of trade to shift in favor of A, as production in both countries in the trade between them expand.”
    Give a full and careful explanation of the concepts, assumptions, and reasoning suggested, and state any criticisms or qualifications that occur to you.
  5. Discuss the meaning and validity of the statement that a general sales tax is “regressive”; and the principal arguments for and against the view that this type of tax, even if undesirable in peace times, is peculiarly appropriate in wartime.
  6. “Our immense and upward-zooming federal debt is a prelude either to national bankruptcy, or else to socialism.”

 

D
Market Organization and Control

  1. Sketch the background, provisions, and chief consequences of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.
  2. Is it possible for a Board of Directors to pursue a dividend policy which will consistently harmonize the interests of the corporation, its stockholders, and society as a whole? Explain.
  3. What are the methods which may be adopted to control war-time profits? What policy do you favor in this respect and why?
  4. “In the pricing of electrical energy no case can be made out on economic grounds for differential charges unless they are likely to lead to an improvement in the load factor, i.e., To a more uniform distribution of demand through time.” State your reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with this proposition.
  5. “Only a socialist has a right to complain about crop-restriction and price-raising in the field of agricultural production.” Discuss.
  6. “There seems to be little doubt that the complete ‘trustification’ of the economy, with the relative stability of prices which would follow therefrom, would go a long way toward eliminating business fluctuations.” Discuss.
  7. “Price stability is prima facie evidence of monopoly.” Discuss.

 

E
Labor Economics and Social Reform

  1. Outline and defend what you would advocate as the best national war-time policy in regard to wages, and whatever else you think must be controlled in order to control wages effectively.
  2. What principal, lasting effects do you think the war is likely to have on the American labor movement – union structures, strength, status, and policies? Explain your predictions and the evidence and reasoning on which you base them.
  3. “The current outcry against federal centralization of unemployment insurance, and in favor of ‘states rights’ in this field, is without merit, and a mere device of employer interests to limit the development of unemployment insurance and keep it as innocuous as possible.”
  4. “American labor unions are deluding themselves in blaming only the false propaganda put out against them by unprincipled opponents, for the better anti-union feelings of some millions of middle and lower-middle-class Americans. Real faults of union leadership and policy have done a great deal to cause and justify this public hostility, and the unions in their own interests can and must assuage it by putting their own houses in order.”
    Discuss this, as far as you can, in terms of concrete, illustrative situations and evidence of which you have some knowledge.
  5. “The Marxian theory that all property-incomes, or non-labor incomes, originate in exploitation of labor, is entirely compatible with the ‘marginal productivity’ theory of income distribution.” Explain and discuss.
  6. Outline, and discuss critically, what you regard as the logical, Marxist explanation of the origins and issues of the present war.
  7. What do you think American Labor, in supporting the war-effort, should put first among its “peace aims”, or aims in respect of the post-war settlement? Explain and defend your answer.

 

PART III

  1. “Economics can either explain the quasi-automatic operation of a true free enterprise economy, or devise a blue-print for rational planning in the socialist economy. But in a half-way house like our present society, where both private and public decisions must respond more often to political than to economic facts, economics can neither explain events nor guide public policy.”
  2. “After the last war, the reaction of business and the public against the war-time government controls gave a new lease of life to laissez-faire, with disastrous results; and there is danger that a like relapse will occur at the end of this war.”
  3. “The proper work of the economists, in helping to solve the problems of industry and society, may be said to begin where that of the engineers or technicians ends.”
  4. “If the opportunity for the employment of idle men and idle money is to be found in a free, private enterprise system then, obviously, we must find a way to stimulate new, private enterprises by encouraging the investment of private savings in them.”
  5. “The causes which bring trade barriers into existence and produce centralism in every form of economic activity must be attacked if a real system of free enterprise is to be re-established.”
  6. “To maintain and improve labor’s position economically is the traditional task of the unions. Today, not only the growth but even the existence of the unions has become in large measure a political problem.”
  7. “The last war, in its impact on the American economy, produced war-time overexpansion and post-war depression chiefly in agriculture. This time, it is the industrial sector of our economy which is threatened with that sequence, on a much more disastrous scale.”
  8. “The patriots who denounce, in war-time, all self-interested demands or actions on the part of business, labor, or farm groups, generally do not recognize the fact that rivalry of all interest-groups over distribution of war-time prosperity is inevitable under our profit-system, and cannot be eliminated unless we are willing to replace that system entirely, while the war lasts, with a governmental dictatorship of all economic life as complete is that now practiced in Germany, Japan, and Russia.”

Source:  Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Randall Hinshaw. Box 1, Folder “Schoolwork, 1940s”.

Image Source: John Harvard Statue from the Tichnor Brothers Collection of postcards. Boston Public Library, Print Department.