Category: Harvard

Categories
Economists Germany Harvard Johns Hopkins Michigan Princeton Swarthmore

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Richard Abel-Musgrave, 1937

 

The German-born economist Richard Abel-Musgrave was one of many German/Austrian educated economists who came to the United States in the 1930s, much to the enrichment of economics. He was one of the many truly outstanding economists to have left Harvard in the 1930s with an economics Ph.D. Richard Musgrave wrote a principal textbook for the field of public finance.  More biographical information can be found in Hans-Werner Sinn’s lecture “Please Bring Me the New York Times: On the European Roots of Richard Abel Musgrave” (2007).

A Musgrave-artifact posted earlier at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror: 

External examination questions for honors A.B. at Swarthmore College, 1946.

_____________________

Harvard Ph.D.

RICHARD ABEL-Musgrave, DIPLOM-VOLKSWIRT (Univ. of Heidelberg, Germany) 1933, A.M. (Harvard Univ.) 1935.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Public Finance. Thesis, “The Theory of Public Finance and the Concept of ‘Burden of Taxation.’” Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1937-38, p. 155.

_____________________

Short Bio from Harvard Law School Yearbook

Richard Musgrave
H. N. Burbank Professor of Political Economy

Born: Königstein, Germany, 1910; Education: Diplom Volkswirt (Economics) U. of Heidelberg 1930, M.A. (Economics) Harvard 1936, Ph.D. (Economics) Harvard 1937; Subsequent Experience; 1941-8 Economist on the Federal Reserve Board, 1948-58 Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan, 1958-62 Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins, 1962-5 Professor of Economics at Princeton; Married: 1964 to the former Peggy Brewer, one child; Joined the Faculty; 1965; Subjects: Federal Tax Policy, Economics for Lawyers, Taxation and Economic Development; Publications: Fiscal Systems (1969), The Theory of Public Finance (1958), Public Finance in Theory and Practice (1974); Extra-legal Activites: Consultant to the U.S. Treasury, the Council of Economic Advisers, and Foreign Missions; President, Tax Reform Commission for Columbia (1969), director, Fiscal Reform Project, Bolivia; Editor Quarterly Journal of Economics. (1968-75), President, International Seminar in Public Economics.

Source: Harvard Law School Yearbook 1979, p. 63.

_____________________

Obituary from UC Santa Cruz

Musgrave, renowned pioneer of public finance, dies at 96

January 16, 2007
By Jennifer McNulty, Staff Writer

SANTA CRUZ, CA–Richard A. Musgrave, widely regarded as the founder of modern public finance and an adviser on fiscal policy and taxation to governments from Washington to Bogota to Tokyo, died Monday, Jan. 15.

Musgrave, 96, was an adjunct professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and professor emeritus of economics at Harvard University. His wife, Peggy Boswell [sic, “Brewer” was her maiden name] Musgrave, said Musgrave died of natural causes.

A staunch believer that government can play a positive and constructive role in society, Musgrave also believed deeply that economists can contribute to making government work well, thereby contributing to a better society. His work on public finance has been described as his “attempt to marry the theory and practice of good government.”

“Richard Musgrave transformed economics in the 1950s and 1960s from a descriptive and institutional subject to one that used the tools of microeconomics and Keynesian macroeconomics to understand the effects of taxes,” says Martin Feldstein, George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard and president of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

“Richard Musgrave was a giant – a towering figure who transformed the field of public economics,” adds David M. Cutler, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics and dean for the social sciences in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

An academic economist for the last 60 years, Musgrave mixed his university work with a wide range of public service and consultation. Starting in the 1940s, he advised governments in Colombia, Chile, Myanmar, Japan, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and Taiwan on taxation and fiscal policy, and led tax reform commissions in Colombia and Bolivia.

Similarly, domestic agencies and congressional committees repeatedly sought Musgrave’s advice on public finance policy questions. He worked with or as a consultant to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the U.S. Treasury, the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the World Bank.

Musgrave described the setting of tax policy as a delicate orchestration of factors including employment, inflation, economic growth, and the fair distribution of the tax burden – with the latter generally assigned outsize importance, in Musgrave’s view.

“Clearly, tax policy is not simply a matter of raising revenue in an equitable fashion,” he and his wife, then an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, wrote in the Boston Globe in 1978. “The entire performance of the economy must be allowed for as well, though this should be done with least damage to the fairness of the tax system.”

Two of Musgrave’s books became classics in their field: The Theory of Public Finance: A Study in Public Economy (1958) and Public Finance in Theory and Practice, coauthored with Peggy Musgrave (1973).

“Intelligent conduct of government is at the heart of democracy,” Musgrave wrote in the introduction to The Theory of Public Finance. “It requires an understanding of the economic relations involved; and the economist, by aiding in this understanding, may hope to contribute to a better society. This is why the field of public finance has seemed of particular interest to me; and this is why my interest in the field has been motivated by a search for the good society, no less than by scientific curiosity.”

The Theory of Public Finance transformed the study of public finance to a discipline in which questions are analyzed in general equilibrium terms, where changes in tax policy take into account the resulting changes in the economy. Musgrave’s many intellectual contributions included studies on tax incidence, tax progressivity, public goods, fiscal federalism, the effects of taxation on risk taking, and the role of fiscal policy in stabilizing the economy.

Musgrave’s influence endured throughout his lengthy career. In 1998, he was invited by the University of Munich to join his “archrival” in the study of political economy, James M. Buchanan, in a five-day debate. The results were published in 1999 as Public Finance and Public Choice: Two Contrasting Visions of the State. [At the CESifo Mediathek one can find videos from this five day conference. Search “Two visions” or “Buchanan” or “Musgrave”]

“Two towering pillars of 20th-century public economics examine the deep foundations of their own thought and their common subject,” economist Robert M. Solow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote of the work. “Who could resist the chance to eavesdrop on their reflections? Certainly not anyone who cares about the role of government in modern society.”

Born Dec. 14, 1910, in Koenigstein, Germany, Richard Abel Musgrave studied at the University of Munich, Exeter College, and the University of Heidelberg, where he received his Diplom Volkswirt (the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree) in 1933. He continued his studies at the University of Rochester and at Harvard, where he received an A.M. degree in 1936 and a Ph.D. in 1937.

Musgrave was an instructor in economics at Harvard until 1941, when he became an economist at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, a position he held until 1947. He taught economics at Swarthmore College from 1947 to 1948, following which he was an economics professor at the University of Michigan from 1948 to 1958; at Johns Hopkins University from 1958 to 1961; and at Princeton University from 1962 to 1965.

In 1965 Musgrave joined Harvard as professor of economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and at Harvard Law School. He was named H. H. Burbank Professor of Economics in 1969, when he also became chair of Harvard’s standing committee on Afro-American studies. In 1981 he was named professor emeritus at Harvard and became an adjunct professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, remaining affiliated with that campus through 2004.

Among his numerous awards and honors, Musgrave was a Fulbright professor in Germany in 1956 and held a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1959. He was named honorary president of the International Institute of Public Finance in 1978, the same year he was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economics Association. He received the Frank E. Seidman Distinguished Award in Political Economy in 1981. In 1983, 50 years to the day after he received his Diplom Volkswirt, Musgrave was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Heidelberg, his alma mater. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986, and in 1994, he received the Daniel M. Holland Medal from the National Tax Association.

Musgrave is survived by his wife, Peggy Boswell [sic,  “Brewer” was her maiden name] Musgrave, and three stepchildren: Pamela Clyne of New Jersey, Roger Richmond [sic, “Richman” is correct] of California, and Thomas Richmond [sic, “Richman” is correct] of Colorado. He is also survived by numerous nephews and nieces, including Harry Krause, the Max L. Rowe Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois College of Law. Details regarding a memorial service have not been finalized.

Source:  UC Santa Cruz. University News. January 16, 2007.

_____________________

Harvard Crimson Obituary

Renowned Economist Musgrave Dead at 96
Former professor ‘transformed’ public sector economics

By Tina Wang, Crimson Staff Writer
January 19, 2007

During the lifetimes of most Harvard undergraduates, Richard A. Musgrave—a founder of modern public sector economics—was in retirement.

Musgrave, who died Monday at age 96, also came from an era preceding current economics faculty. But his ideas about the state’s role in the economy left a lasting impact felt by Harvard faculty and alums today.

Having taught public finance at Harvard for about two decades, Musgrave had been an emeritus professor since 1981.

“The training I received well after he had retired was different because he was around,” said Dean for the Social Sciences David M. Cutler ’87.

Concerned with the government’s equitable and efficient distribution and redistribution of resources through taxation and spending, “he transformed the whole way people thought about public economics,” said one of Musgrave’s former students, James M. Poterba ’80, who now chairs the economics department at MIT.

Born in 1910 in Germany, Musgrave, who received a Ph.D in political economy from Harvard, taught here from 1937 until 1941, when he left for a post at the Federal Reserve.

After various teaching stints, including at Princeton, Musgrave returned to Harvard in 1965 with tenured appointments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and at Harvard Law School.

He also took prominent economic advising roles in Washington, as well as with foreign governments, from Colombia to South Korea.

Musgrave died in Santa Cruz, Calif., where he and his wife had moved to teach at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

‘THE MUSGRAVE TRICHOTOMY’

In his senior year of college—and the last year Musgrave taught at Harvard—Poterba audited Musgrave’s graduate course, co-taught with Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein ’61.

“He didn’t just study the tax system or government policies in an abstract classroom, or in a theoretical way. He studied these questions because he believed they were incredibly important in making the lives of individual citizens better,” Poterba said.

The ground-breaking “Musgrave trichotomy” identified three separate roles of government—redistributing income, allocating resources, and stabilizing the macroeconomy, Cutler and Poterba said.

“Everything that’s taught in public economics now is completely different than what was taught from before,” said Cutler, who co-teaches Economics 1410, “Public Sector Economics.” “You look at textbooks before him and you wouldn’t even recognize them.”

Cutler said that when he teaches his students to think about questions of efficiency and redistribution in public sector economics separately, “all of that comes from Musgrave.”

“Generations of students who used his textbook [The Theory of Public Finance] think about the world very differently,” Cutler said.

Musgrave strove for much of his life to find ways for the state to play a positive role in the economy, which entailed understanding the trade-offs between allowing the government to provide some goods versus allowing the private sector to provide them.

As a student who came to Harvard in the mid-1930s during the Great Depression, when Keynesian views about the benefits of government intervention in the economy were starting to enter economic discourse, “Musgrave was always very deeply of the view that the government could make things better,” Poterba said.

ECONOMIC OUTLIER

Musgrave’s economic principles, particularly with their focus on social equity, did not always square perfectly with mainstream thinking in his field.

“He was probably a little bit frustrated that the profession has moved as far as it has toward the efficiency direction,” said Cutler. “Although I think it would’ve moved even farther had he not been around.”

An emphasis on equity may have eroded in conventional economics discourse, partially because “it’s really hard to say how equitable should things be,” Cutler said. “You’re saying, ‘gee, what’s the right distribution of income.’”

Contrary to trends in his field, Musgrave “probably moved a bit in the direction of thinking there was an activist role of government,” Poterba said.

The German school of thought— “thinking about the whole community almost as though it was one actor”—was another influence that Musgrave brought to bear on U.S. economic thinking, Poterba said.

“That was a perspective that was somewhat different from what most U.S. economists were using,” Poterba said.

Concerned with questions of how to set up an equitable tax system, Musgrave was a vocal critic of President Reagan’s conservative economic program.

In 1982, Musgrave, with 33 other economists, sent a letter to the White House criticizing Reagan’s economic policy as “extremely regressive in its impact on our society, redistributing wealth and power from the middle-class and poor to the rich,” The Crimson reported.

“One never knows if this will have any effect on the President, but we felt it was important to speak out,” Musgrave told The Crimson at the time.

‘DEEPLY COMMITTED’

Cutler said he first met Musgrave in the early 1990s when Musgrave was on the East Coast and had contacted him, saying he had heard Cutler had joined the Harvard faculty and wanted to meet him.

They met about every other year through much of the 1990s to chat about economics research and the goings-on of the department, according to Cutler, who joined the Harvard economics faculty in 1991.

“Every time after meeting him, I would think, ‘I hope I’m in as good a shape at 40 as he is at 80,’ ” Cutler said.

“Even though Musgrave was in his 80s and 90s at the time, he kept very well up-to-date…not very many people will do that,” he said.

He was still “very interested in the world of economics and how it could be used in policy areas,” he said.

Poterba has fond memories of Musgrave’s energy as well.

In Musgrave’s class, “even at that stage, one of his last years at Harvard, he was incredibly energetic and enthusiastic about the whole study of government and taxation, deeply committed to training students, and maintained long connections and ties to students,” Poterba said.

A stone in Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge will bear Musgrave’s name, his wife, Peggy Brewer Musgrave, told The Boston Globe.

Source:  Tina Wang. Renowned Economist Musgrave Dead at 96. Harvard Crimson(January 19, 2007).

Image Source: Harvard Law School Yearbook 1970, p. 31.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Mid-year exam. Principles of Money and Banking. Hansen and Williams, 1948-49.

 

Syllabi, reading assignments, bibliography and examinations for the Hansen-Williams money and banking course at Harvard have been transcribed and posted earlier for 1947-48; 1949-50. This post helps to fill the gap of course examinations.

____________________________

Enrollment

[Economics] 241 (formerly Economics 141a and 141b). Principles of Money and Banking. Professors Hansen and Williams.

(F) Total 73: 44 Graduates, 18 Public Administration, 1 MIT, 2 Juniors, 6 Radcliffe, 2 Others.
(S) Total 66: 43 Graduates, 15 Public Administration, 1 MIT, 4 Radcliffe, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1948-49, p. 78.

____________________________

1948-49
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 241a
Final Exam. January, 1949

PART I (Required)

Outline and discuss the current problems (relating to monetary and banking policy) disclosed, for example, in the last three Annual Reports of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Among other things show why the current problems are different from those of the decades of

(a) the twenties
(b) the thirties.

PART II (Answer ANY THREE questions)

  1. Compare Wicksell and Keynes with respect to their theories of money and prices, showing, among other things, in what respects Keynes draws on the Wicksellian analysis and in what respects Keynes’s contribution is more complete.
  2. Write an essay on the monetary theories of any twoof the following:

(a) Robertson
(b) Hawtrey
(c) Hayek
(d) Fisher
(e) Marshall
(f) Henry Simons
(g) Lerner

  1. Explain by the aid of the modern theory of income determination the conditions under which monetary policy may be

(a) fully effective
(b) a necessary supplement to fiscal policy as means of raising real income and employment.

  1. Explain (by making use of the modern tools of analysis) the role of wages in the theory of price-level determination.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 16, Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions, …,Government, Economics, Anthropology,…, Naval Science. February, 1949.

Image Source: Alvin H. Hansen and John H. Williams in Harvard Class Album 1942.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Core graduate economic theory exams. Schumpeter, 1938

 

This post provides three examinations found for the year-long graduate economic theory course taught by Joseph Schumpeter. Reading lists as well as the examinations for the immediately preceding two years have been posted earlier (see links below).

_________________

Related posts for core graduate economic theory
Reading lists, examinations

1935-36 Schumpeter
1936-37 Schumpeter

_________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 101 (formerly 11). Professor Schumpeter.—Economic Theory.

Total 36: 25 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 3 School of Public Administration, 3 Radcliffe, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1937-38, p. 85.

_________________

Mid-year Examination, 1938.

1937-38
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 101

Answer FIVE questions

  1. The Marshallian law of demand states that falling price is associated with increasing quantity demanded. But we often find that, on the contrary, quantity sold increases and decreases with price. How would you explain such cases?
  2. In what sense are decreasing average unit costs incompatible with perfect competition?
  3. What is meant by elasticity of expenditure, and how is this concept related to the ordinary elasticity of demand?
  4. Do you think that monopoly price should be more “rigid” than competitive price? Explain your answer.
  5. To what extent is it true that conditions deviating from perfect competition tend to produce excess capacity?
  6. Is it correct to say that there is one and only one price to every oligopolistic situation because the only rational course for oligopolists to adopt is to combine and thus to set up a simple monopoly?
  7. How are prices determined in the case of a discriminating monopolist selling in two separate markets? In general would you expect output to be larger or smaller under discriminating monopoly than under simple monopoly?

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Llloyd Appleton Metzler, Box 7, “H. C. S. Easy Clasp File”.

_________________

ECONOMICS 101
Make-up Examination, March 1938

(Answer FIVE questions)

  1. What is the difference between the Marshallian supply curve and the particular expenses curve?
  2. What do we mean by saying that under conditions of perfect competition firms produce “up to the optimal point” while under conditions of the imperfect competition they do not?
  3. Given the indifference map of an individual, how can a demand curve be deduced therefrom? Is this a Marshallian demand curve?
  4. Define bilateral monopoly and indicate conditions under which price is, and conditions under which price is not, determinate.
  5. What is the difference between monopolistic competition and oligopoly?
  6. Discuss the relation between cost curves and supply curves.
  7. Discuss the relation between the elasticity of demand and the elasticity of substitution.

Source:Harvard University Archives. Papers of Joseph Schumpeter. Lecture Notes, Box 10, Folder “Ec 101”.

_________________

Final Examination, 1938.

1937-38
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 101

Answer FIVE questions

  1. If the elasticity of substitution of a factor is greater than the elasticity of demand for the product, then the elasticity of demand for that factor will be smaller, the greater is the proportion of that factor to the others. Prove, assuming that there are only two factors.
  2. It has been held that in a socialist society income should consist of two parts: a wage fixed much as it would be under perfectly competitive capitalism, and a “dividend” out of the surplus of the total national product over the sum total of wages. It has also been held that the size of dividends should be proportional to wages received. Do you think that such a policy would secure optimal allocation of resources, assuming free choice of occupations?
  3. Profits have sometimes been defined as a “rent of ability.” Do you think this satisfactory? Why or why not?
  4. “The extent and direction in which the amount of the factor employed in any use differs from the ideal amount varies directly with the divergence between the fraction

\frac{\text{marginal revenue to the individual firm}}{\text{price}}

in the particular use and in the alternative use from which the factor has to be drawn .… The magnitude of the elasticity of demand is an inverse measure of the degree of imperfection of competition. We may conclude that it is socially desirable to expand those industries in which competition is more imperfect than the industry with which they compete for their factors of production and to contract those in which the opposite condition prevails.” Explain.

  1. What would you expect the effective technological change (“invention”) on the rate of interest to be?
  2. How would you measure the loss inflicted on consumers by the imposition of an import duty? Must there necessarily be a loss? Would your conclusions be affected if the commodity were controlled in the exporting country by a monopolist?
  3. “The Marxist’s claim to superiority for his economics is that ‘bourgeois’ economics has utterly failed to explain the fundamental tendencies of the development of the capitalist system.” Do you think this claim is justified in so far as it concerns “bourgeois” economics? How does the Marxist attempt to provide a theoretical explanation of the “fundamental tendencies of the development of the capitalist system?”

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Llloyd Appleton Metzler, Box 7, “H. C. S. Easy Clasp File”.

Image Source: Joseph A. Schumpeter in Harvard Class Album, 1939.

 

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Statistics Suggested Reading

Harvard. Final exam for course on national income accounting. Crum, 1938

 

William Leonard Crum (1894-1967) taught economic statistics at Harvard from 1923-1948 before finishing his career at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught an undergraduate one-semester course, “The National Income”, only twice. In the extensive but incomplete Harvard archival collection of course final examinations I have only been able to find the final for the second term of the 1937-38 academic year. Full course reading lists were not in the course syllabi and outlines collection, but the reading period assignments for both years could be found.

_________________

Course Enrollments,

1937-38

[Economics] 21b2 hf. Professor Crum — The National Income.

Total 7: 1 Graduate, 4 Seniors, 2 Juniors.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1937-38, p. 85.

 

1938-39

[Economics] 21b2 hf. Professor Crum — The National Income.

Total 3: 2 Graduates, 1 Senior.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1938-39, p. 98.

_________________

Reading Period

May 9- June 1, 1938

Economics 21b: Read either of the following:

Colin Clark, National Income and Outlay, Chs. I-V, and VII.
R. F. Martin, National Income and Its Elements (entire).

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1937-1938”.

 

May 8- May 31, 1939

Economics 21b: Choose one of the following:

National Industrial Conference Board, National Income in the United States, 1799-1938 (entire book).
Simon Kuznets, Commodity Flow and Capital Formation, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1938 (Part II and Part III).

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1938-1939”.

_________________

Final exam, 1938

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Economics 21b2

(Omit two of the first six questions, and omit one of the last two)

  1. (a) Outline the main items, listing as plus and minus, which must be covered in estimating national income by the net value product method.
    (b) Discuss the chief theoretical and practical points relating to the estimated allowance for depreciation.
  2. (a) Comment upon the main problems encountered in determining the net value product of “government”, considered as an “industry”.
    (b) Name two chief “transfer” items, and indicate – for each – how it should be treated in national income estimates, and why.
  3. (a) Discuss with care the way in which the accounting practice relative to inventory valuation affects estimates of national income.
    (b) Comment upon the place of “additions to business surplus” in the simple concepts of national income. Indicate whether this surplus-additional item can be estimated directly, or only indirectly.
  4. (a) What is meant by “entrepreneurial withdrawals”, and on what basis are they in general estimated? Give your view of the validity of such estimates, with reasons.
    (b) To what extent do the methods customarily employed in estimating the distribution of national income according to particular categories give a satisfactory appraisal of any oneof the four main types discussed in economic theory – wages, interest, rent, profits?
  5. (a) Discuss the place of capital gains in national income estimates.
    (b) What is meant by capital formation? What are the leading obstacles to a satisfactory measurement thereof?
  6. (a) Given an online account of the relation between size of income (of individuals) and the main sources from which income is derived. How, in general, does the business cycle affect these relationships?
    (b) What is meant by real income? Name and discuss two chief obstacles to the measurement thereof.
  7. (Clark) Name, and common briefly upon, the chief differences in method of estimating national income, as between Great Britain and the United States.
  8. (Martin) Four main types of entrepreneurs are distinguished – farmers, retail-store proprietors, service establishment owners, professional practitioners. Comment upon the data available for estimating incomes of these groups, and give your views as to the validity of such estimates.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001. Box 3, Folder “Final examinations, 1937-1938”.

Image source: Portrait of William Leonard Crum from the Harvard Class Album, 1946.

 

Categories
Economist Market Gender Harvard Statistics

Harvard. Placement suggestions Philip G. Wright or Anne C. Bezanson for Bryn Mawr, 1916

 

The archival artifact that begins this post is a straight-forward response to a letter requesting possible leads for a junior faculty appointment in statistics at Bryn Mawr. It was written by Harvard assistant professor of economics Edmund Ezra Day (who would later go on to be the president of Cornell University–see link below) to a historian colleague at Bryn Mawr who had likewise done his graduate work at Harvard.

Two persons were identified by Day as eligible candidates, the Radcliffe graduate Anne C. Bezanson (about whom more can be found in an earlier post dedicated to her remarkable career) and a 54 (!) year-old economics graduate student Philip Green Wright. It turns out that Wright (with some collaboration with his son, the statistical geneticist Sewall Wright) is the rightly celebrated discoverer of instrumental-variables estimation. Relevant links to the story of Philip Green Wright and instrumental variables, including those to presentation materials as well as videos from a Tufts University Celebration of the 150th anniversary of Philip Green Wright’s birth,  will be found below after Day’s letter.

There appears no expression of irony when Day writes “…if you are ready to appoint a woman, it will repay you to consider Miss Bezanson carefully”.  Bryn Mawr was after all one of the so-called “Seven Sisters” (the Ivy League of women’s colleges).

________________________

Copy of Reference Letter from E. E. Day (Harvard) to H. L. Gray (Bryn Mawr)
re: Philip Wright and Anne C. Bezanson

March 21, 1916

Dear Howard,

Your recent letter was most welcome despite its obviously professional intent and largely professional content! I am glad to learn that you find life bearable in Bryn Mawr. That will serve as a preliminary report; in time I expected more exciting and promising announcement!

Regarding candidates for the new position in prospect in your department, I find it difficult to write anything at all definite. [John Valentine] Van Sickle is hardly available yet; he is still a couple of years from his degree and will probably not go out until he can take his Ph.D. with him. Furthermore, there is every prospect that, when he is fully prepared, he will command substantially more than the $1200 you mention.

The two students who would seem to be eligible for the position you describe are Philip G. Wright, rather an instructor than a student, and (if you would consider a woman), Miss Annie C. Bezanson. Neither holds the doctor’s degree, but both are very thoroughly capable students. Both are entirely capable of giving the instruction in statistics. Wright is a man well along in years, who for twenty-odd years taught mathematics and economics at Lombard College, Illinois, and, despite that fact, retains his intellectual vitality remarkably. He is perhaps a bit lacking in aggressiveness in classrooms, but is none-the-less an effective instructor. (You would probably have to pay $2000 to get him)

Miss Bezanson is a Radcliffe student whom I have had in both the elementary theory and graduate statistics courses. In the latter, last year, she did “A” work. She comes this year for her “generals “and any recommendation would be conditional upon her passing the examination credibly; but the staff expects her to pass with a large margin. It seems to me that, if you are ready to appoint a woman, it will repay you to consider Miss Bezanson carefully. Prof. [Frank] Taussig will write further details regarding both Wright and Miss Bezanson if you are interested. [Edwin Francis] Gay, too, has seen a good deal of Miss Bezanson’s work.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance to you, Howard. Mrs. Day joins me in warm regards.

Cordially yours,

[copy unsigned, Edmund Ezra Day]

Professor Howard L. Gray

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961 and some earlier. Boxt 26, Williams–Young. Folder “Wright, Philip Green”.

 

______________________

Biographical sketch of Philip Green Wright

“At Lombard, Philip taught economics, mathematics (including calculus), astronomy, fiscal history, writing, literature and physical education; he also ran the college printing press. Philip had a passion for poetry and used the press to publish the first books of poems by a particularly promising student of his, Carl Sandburg….

“…In 1912, Philip and Sewall [Philip’s son, a statistical geneticist] moved to Massachusetts. Philip took a visiting position teaching at Williams College, and Sewall entered graduate school at Harvard. In 1913, Philip took a position at Harvard, first as an assistant to his former advisor, Professor Frank W. Taussig, then as an instructor. Taussig was subsequently appointed head of the U.S. Tariff Commission in Washington, D.C. In 1917, Philip left Harvard for a position at the Commission, then in 1922 took a research job at the Institute of Economics, part of what would shortly become the Brookings Institution….

“…While at Harvard, in addition to his 1915 review of Moore’s book, he wrote a number of articles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and while at Brookings, he wrote several books and published articles and reviews in the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Journal of Political Economy and the American Economic Review. Some of his writings used algebra and calculus, typically following graphical expositions. Although Philip wrote on a wide range of topics, the identification problem was a recurrent theme in his work (P. G. Wright, 1915, 1929, 1930). In his later years, Philip was particularly concerned about tariffs, and he wrote passionately about the damage being done by recent tariff increases to international relations (P. G. Wright, 1933).

“…In our view, this evidence points toward Philip as being both the author of Appendix B and the man who first solved the identification problem, first showed the role of “extra factors” in that solution and first derived an explicit formula for the instrumental variable estimator. Yet, as historians of econometrics like Christ (1985) and Morgan (1990) point out, a greater mystery remains: Why was the breakthrough in Appendix B ignored by the econometricians of the day, only to be reinvented two decades later?”

Source: James H. Stock and Francesco Trebbi. “Who Invented Instrumental Variable Regression?” Journal of Economic Perspectives. Vol. 17, No. 3 (Summer, 2003), pp. 177-194.

______________________

Three Worthwhile Links

Philip G. Wright, The Tariff on Animal and Vegetable Oils, 1928.

Philip Green Wright’s c.v.

James Stock’s webpage: “The History of IV Regression”.

______________________

Philip Green Wright, Double Jumbo and Inventor of IV Regression
Sesquicentennial of the birth of Philip G. Wright
Tufts University Economics Department, October 3, 2011

Presentations

James Stock’s slides “Philip Green Wright, the Identification Problem in Econometrics, and its Solution“.

Joshua D. Angrist’s slides “Instrumental Variables in Action“.

Kerry Clark’s slides “Philip and Sewall Wright: The Invention of Instrumental Variables Regression“.

“Remembrances” by Philip Green Wright’s Grandchildren.

Video of the event
(Warning: poor audio)

Part 1:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INbip-UFluo

Opening remarks by Chairman of the Tufts economics department: Professor Enrico Spolaore
Welcome by the President of Tufts University. Anthony Monaco
James Stock begins at 8:20

Part2:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvcfNk7rBn0

James Stock continues up to 9:20
Kerry Clark (AB Economics, Harvard 2012) begins at 10:30 [Ms. Clark’s other Harvard activities: Women’s Varsity Lacrosse, Center for History and Economics, Quincy Grille Manager, and Harvard University Women in Business. According to Linked In, she works at Citi)

Part 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NWWCRaj4_Q

Kerry Clark continues to 5:20
Joshua Angrist begins at 7:30

Part 4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp7g-L69MNU

Joshua Angrist continues for entire part 4

Part 5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3BPifHzex4

Brief Q&A
Grandchildren remember from 7:45 to 22.30

Image: Portrait of Philip G. Wright from James Stock presentation

 

Categories
Economists Gender Harvard Radcliffe Vassar

Harvard/Radcliffe. Economics Ph.D. alumna, Ethelwynn Rice Beckwith, 1925

 

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is conceived as a long-term project. I am seeking artifacts and information about the curriculum that has shaped young economists as well as the about the “products” of the curriculum, i.e. the undergraduate economics majors and Ph.D. graduates.

Yesterday I randomly went into the annual report of the President of Radcliffe College to begin to follow another career of a woman Ph.D. in economics. And so the post for today was born. Who was Ethelwynn Rice Beckwith, Radcliffe Ph.D. 1925?

The first item below is  all that is easy to know about her biography and career. From that point it takes some digging into genealogical archives (www.ancestry.com) and luck. Her vital dates: b. January 7, 1879 in Hartford, Connecticut; d. August 31, 1955 in Manitawoc, Wisconsin. She was married right out of college to William Erastus Beckwith [b. October 17, 1870 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts; d. June 26, 1904 in Wailuku, Hawaii] on July 2, 1900 in Lorain County Ohio. The couple moved to Hawaii where William was a “clerk at Custom House” at least as early as 1898. In 1905 she was living alone as a teacher at the Emma Willard School in Troy, N.Y. In the U.S. Census of 1910 she was recorded as a widow, living in Cleveland, Ohio as a boarder (April 16, 1910). To make things more complicated I have found a ship manifest that indicates Ethelwynn Beckwith was a cabin passenger, designated as “married”, on a ship from Yokohama (!) that arrived in Honolulu September 16, 1910 (with her ultimate destination given as San Francisco). We can go on to follow the young woman mathematician moving from Bryn Mawr to Western Reserve University to Göttingen in Germany and to Vassar before going for her graduate work at Radcliffe. From mathematics to economics, but then back to mathematics and astronomy at the Milwaukee women’s Downer College. 

So why didn’t Ethelwynn do mathematics at Radcliffe? I’ll leave that to a historian of U.S. mathematics. Feel free to leave a comment below.

The maternal genealogy of William Erastus Beckwith (p. 80) is covered back to 1635. The best I can determine through the ancestry.com, William Erastus Beckwith was no close relation to Holmes Beckwith (Columbia Ph.D., 1913).

___________________

Radcliffe Ph.D., 1925

Ethelwynn Rice Beckwith, A.M.

Subject, Economics. Special Field, Statistics. Dissertation, “Inequalities in the Distribution of Income, their Meaning and Measurement.”

Source: Radcliffe College. Report of the President of Radcliffe College 1924-25, p. 26.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Dissertation included in the bibliography of Arthur Lyon Bowley (ed.) Studies in the National Income, 1924-1938,  (Cambridge UK, 1942), p. 218.

___________________

C.V. through 1925

Ethelwynn R. Beckwith, A.B., M.A. Assistant Professor of Mathematics

A.B., Oberlin, 1900; [Ph.B.]
M.A., Western Reserve University, 1909;
Principal of Wauluku, Hawaiian Islands, 1902-03
Teacher of Mathematics, Emma Willard School, 1905-07 [Troy, New York]
Graduate Student, Bryn Mawr, 1907-08
Graduate Student, Western Reserve University, 1908-09
Graduate Student, University of Göttingen, 1912-13
Instructor, Western Reserve University, 1913-17; Assistant Professor, 1917-20
Acting Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Vassar, 1921-.
Member Mathematic Association of America.

Source: Vassar College Yearbook, The 1922 Vassarion, vol. 34. p. 25.

Note:  In the Poughkeepsie City Directory of 1925, Ethelwynn R. Beckwith was still listed as assistant professor at Vassar.

___________________

Downer College (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy
1925-1947

Lawrence University (Appleton, Wisconsin) Archives

Milwaukee-Downer College People Files, 1850-1964. Series 1: A-L
Folder 15: Beckwith, Ethelwynn Rice, professor of Mathematics 1925-1947.

Finding aid on line.

___________________

Died as a result of an automobile accident

From a Sheboygan Press (Wisconsin) article published Saturday, August 27, 1955.

Mrs. Ethelwynn R. Beckwith, 77, of 2827 N. Farwell Ave., Milwaukee…was reported still in critical condition this morning at Holy Family Hospital in Manitowoc.

A retired professor of mathematics and astronomy at Milwaukee-Downer College, Mrs. Beckwith was still unconscious 28 hours after the accident. She sustained a skull fracture.

Driver of the other car, Louis Leischow, 66, of Forestville, died several hours after the accident. The coroner attributed death to a crushed chest.

Killed outright in the two-car collision was Miss Elizabeth Rossberg, 67, of 2512 E. Harford Ave., Milwaukee…

…The accident occurred shortly before 9 a.m. Friday [August 26] when cars driven by Leischow and Mrs. Beckwith collided head on on Highway 141, 1 1/2 miles south of Newton.

Sheriff deputies said the crash occurred when Mrs. Beckwith’s northbound car veered across the center line into the path of an auto driven by Leischow.

Miss Rossberg, professor of German at Milwaukee-Downer since 1912 and chairman of the curricula committee of the women’s college, was a passenger in the Beckwith auto.

She and Mrs. Beckwith had left Milwaukee early Friday morning to spend a week with friends near Ellison Bay in Door County, according to officials of the college….

___________________

Image Source: Two faculty portraits of Ethelwynn Rice Beckwith from the Yearbook for Wilwaukee-Downer College, Cumtux (1930, 1931).

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Socialism

Harvard. Exams on European labor movement and history of socialism. Rappard, 1912-13.

 

William Emmanuel Rappard (b. April 22, 1883; d. April 29, 1958) was the co-founder and director of the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva. At the 1947 inaugural meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society, Rappard gave the opening address.  

You can see below from the excerpt from the 2000 article by Richard M. Ebeling about Rappard that he taught at Harvard during the 1911/12 and 1912/13 academic years. Besides a course “Economic Resources and Commercial Policy of the Chief European States” for students of business, William Rappard also taught courses on the European labor movement and the history of socialism in the economics department. Rappard left Harvard to accept a professorship at the University of Geneva following the death of d’Eugène de Girard.

This post provides course enrollments, descriptions and the final exams for these last two courses. From the examination questions it is clear that one important text for the courses was the published University of Chicago economics doctoral dissertation of Oscar D. Skelton, Socialism: A Critical Analysis (1911). [bibliography posted here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror].

_______________________

Brief  Pre-war Biography

“…William Emmanuel Rappard was born in New York City on April 22, 1883, of Swiss parents, his father working in the United States as a representative of various Swiss industries. William Rappard did his graduate studies in economics at Harvard University from 1906 to 1908. During the academic year 1908-1909 he did additional study at the University of Vienna in Austria-Hungary, attending the seminars of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk and Eugen Philippovich von Philippsberg, two of the leading figures of the Austrian school of economics before the First World War. And from 1911 to 1913, he was an adjunct professor [sic. Rappard’s first year was at the rank of instructor and his second year at the rank of assistant professor] of political economy at Harvard.

“In 1913 he was appointed professor of economic history and public finance at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. He also served as rector of the University of Geneva during 1926-1928 and 1936-1938. From 1917 to 1919, Rappard was a member of various Swiss diplomatic missions to Washington, D. C., London, and Paris, including service with the Swiss delegation to the peace conference in France that ended the First World War. He made a strong impression on President Woodrow Wilson and was highly influential in persuading him to choose Geneva as headquarters of the League of Nations beginning in 1920.

“From 1920 to 1925 he was the director of the Mandates Division of the League for overseeing the administration of colonial territories lost by the Central Powers at the end of the war, and was a member of the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League from 1925 to 1939. From 1928 to 1939 he also served as a member of the Swiss delegation to the annual meetings of the League’s General Assembly….”

*  *  *  *  *  *

The [above] brief summary of Rappard’s professional life draws from Albert Picot, Portrait de William Rappard(Paris: Editions de la Baconnière, 1963) and Victor Monnier, William E. Rappard: Défenseur des Libertés, Serviteur de Son Pays et de la Communauté Internationale (Geneva: Edition Slatkine, 1995).

Source: Richard M. Ebeling. “William E. Rappard: An International Man in an Age of Nationalism,” article posted at the Foundation for Economic Education Website (January 1, 2000).

_______________________

THE LABOR MOVEMENT IN EUROPE

ECONOMICS 6b
Course Description
1912-13

[Economics] 6b 2hf. Dr. Rappard. The Labor Movement in Europe. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 10.

After an introductory sketch of the Industrial Revolution and of its social consequences, a summary review will be made of the thought of the leading social reformers and Utopian socialists before 1848. The attitude of the chief European states towards the new problems of industrial life and the beginnings of factory legislation will be briefly examined. The Communist Manifesto will then be made the basis for a study of the aims and policies of the national and international socialist movement. The positive political and institutional achievements of the social movement of the nineteenth century will be summed up in conclusion.

Source: Harvard University. Division of History, Government, and Economics, Courses of Instruction, 1912–13, p. 62

_______________________

Economics 6b.
Course Enrollment
Spring term 1912-13

Economics 6b 2hf. The Labor Movement in Europe. Asst. Professor Rappard.

Total 30: 5 Graduates, 12 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 3 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1912-13, p. 57.

_______________________

Final Exam 1912-13
ECONOMICS 6b

Arrange answers in order of questions. Students who wrote theses will omit the first three questions.

  1. Enumerate five of the effects which Engels says the Industrial Revolution had on the manufacturing population of England. What were Engel’s chief sources of information?
  2. How does Sombart distinguish between (a) Rational Socialism (Utopian Socialism and Anarchism) and (b) Historical Socialism?
  3. What effect, according to Marx, does machinery have
    1. Upon real wages?
    2. Upon nominal wages?
    3. Upon “relative surplus-value”?
    4. Upon “absolute surplus-value”?
  4. Why is it customary to mention the English enclosure movement in dealing with the history of labor in Europe in the 19th century?
  5. What were the historical relations between the doctrines of Godwin, Malthus and Darwin?
  6. What was Chartism? Saint-Simonism? Which was more radical? More socialistic? Give reasons.
  7. Write a biography of Marx (300 to 500 words).
  8. Compare the views of Marx and Vaudervelde on “Capitalist Concentration.”
  9. Give chapter headings of a thesis on “The Socialist Movement in Germany, 1860-1890” in six or more chapters.
  10. Distinguish between (a) Socialism (b) Anarchism (c) Syndicalism.
  11. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs … To every laborer the entire product of his labor … At first sight, these two formulas are absolutely contradictory. We believe, however, that it is possible and necessary to reconcile them and to complete each by the other.” — Vaudewelde.
    How does the author do this? What practical suggestions does he make for arranging distribution in the socialist state?
  12. What difficulties does Skelton think a socialist state would encounter
    1. In administering the government?
    2. In determining what commodities should be produced?
    3. In distributing wealth?

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers set for final examinations in history, history of science, government, economics, philosophy, social ethics, education, fine arts, music in Harvard College. June, 1913. Cambridge, MA., pp. 45-46.

_______________________

THE HISTORY OF MODERN SOCIALISM

Course Description
Economics 16. The History of Modern Socialism

This course will be divided into three parts. First, the works of Marx and Engels will be minutely analyzed and discussed. Then their sources will be studied with a view to ascertaining the historical origin of the different elements of scientific socialism. Finally the various recent interpretations, restatements, and criticisms of the Marxian doctrine will be examined.
The course will be conducted by means of reports and informal discussions. It will involve reading in German and French as well as in English.

Source: From the Division of History, Government, and Economics 1912-13. Official Register of Harvard University, p. 64.

Course Enrollment
Spring term, 1913

Economics 16. The History of Modern Socialism. Asst. Professor Rappard.

Total 4: 4 Graduates.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1912-13, p. 58.

Mid-year Exam 1912-13
ECONOMICS 16

  1. (a) When and where was Marx born? Where did he spend his childhood? Where did he receive his secondary school training?
    (b) What do you know of his ancestry? of his immediate family surroundings? of his relations to the Westphalens?
    (c) What were his first strong intellectual interests? Where and how were they aroused and stimulated?
    Discuss briefly the influence of these various factors on his later social philosophy.
  2. Give a chronological bibliography of Marx’s and Engels’s works down to 1870.

Answer any 4 of the following 6 questions.

  1. Is there any part of the Communist Manifesto which may with certainty be exclusively attributed to Marx? to Engels? State your reasons.
  2. When and how was Marx’s attention first called to economic matters? How do we know it?
  3. In which of Marx’s works would you look for the following passages?
    (a) “If the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labor required to produce it, it naturally follows that the value of labor, or wages, must be equally determined by the quantity of labor which is necessary to produce the wages.”
    (b) “In order to take place, revolutions must have a passive element a material basis. Theory is never realized in a people, except in sofar as it is the realization of the wants of the people.
    State your reasons.
  4. Where, in Marx’s works, do we find the first clear statement of the class struggle theory? Do you recall any case or cases in which he attempted to apply it to the actual interpretation of history? Did these attempts in any particular modify the doctrine as he first expounded it?
  5. How does Marx explain:—
    (a) the value: of unimproved land? of diamonds? of commodities produced by highly skilled labor?
    (b) the relation between higher prices and more abundant money, consequent upon the increased production of gold in the sixteenth century?
  6. To which work or works of Marx would you refer a student who, having a week at his disposal for the task, wished to become acquainted with his fundamental doctrines? State your reasons.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 9, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years. 1912-13.

Final Exam 1912-13
ECONOMICS 16
June, 1913

  1. Fill out the blanks in the following table according to the Marxian phraseology and theory.
Con-
stant capital		 Vari-
able capital		 Rate of surplus value Capital con-sumed Indi-vidual rate of profit Value of commo-dities pro-duced Cost price of commodities produced Average rate of profit Price of com-modities Deviation of price from value
90 10 50% 20
80 20 50% 10
70 30 50% —
  1. “The theory of value which Marx presents is a variation of the familiar labor-value doctrine.” Discuss.
  2. State the Marxian theory of rent.
  3. What is meant by the Bernstein-Kautsky controversy? State three of the principal points involved, with the arguments advanced on both sides.
  4. What, according to Skelton, are the distinctive features of Utopianism? How does Skelton classify the Utopian doctrines?
  5. What, according to Skelton, are the two “quite distinct interpretations” of which the Marxian materialist conception of history is susceptible?
  6. “In spite of himself, Marx was the last of the classical economists.” How does Skelton justify this assertion?
  7. “Had the third volume of ‘Capital’ appeared at the same time as the first, little would have been heard about ‘exploitation’ from socialist platforms.” Why not, according to Skelton?

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers set for final examinations in history, history of science, government, economics, philosophy, social ethics, education, fine arts, music in Harvard College. June, 1913. Cambridge, MA., pp. 54-5.

Image Source: William Emmanuel Rappard in the Harvard Class Album, 1912.

Categories
Economists Germany Harvard

Harvard. Thomas Nixon Carver’s German Summer of 1902.

 

Preparing the previous blog post which provides the syllabus with reading assignments for Thomas Nixon Carver’s 1902-03 Harvard course, Economics 14 “Methods of Social Reform, including Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.”, I came across the following brief description of his trip with his family to Germany during the summer of 1902. In his autobiography, Carver briefly recounted his contact with colleagues at economic seminars in Halle and Berlin.

For visitors who can read German, I strongly recommend the website “Die Geschichte der Wirtschaftswissenschafte an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin”. During the Winter Semester of 2012, Till Düppe harnessed raw student seminar power to assemble much interesting material about people, organizational structures and the developing curriculum in the Berlin University and its East Berlin successor, the Humboldt University.

________________

Thomas Nixon Carver’s European Summer Vacation (1902)

I had never been abroad and had always wanted to see something of Europe. At the end of the academic year 1901-1902 we decided to make the trip. I got permission from President Eliot to leave Cambridge as soon as examinations were over without waiting for commencement. Just a few days before sailing, I came down with the grippe, as it was then

called. It looked for a day or two as though we might have to cancel the trip, but with Dr. F. W. Taylor’s help I recovered sufficiently to undertake it. I had a Ph.D. examination to conduct during the afternoon of the evening we had to start. The rest of the family called at the University for me with a hack, on the way to the South Station, where we took the train for New York, from which we sailed for Antwerp.

… We went armed with a supply of Baedeckers, American Express Company checks, and several letters of introduction….

Our destination was Germany where we planned to spend a few weeks first at Eisenach and then to Berlin….At Eisenach we stayed at a pension which had been recommended by Professor Albert Bushnell Hart. …

After a week or two I … went on to Berlin, stopping for a few days at Halle, where I visited Professor [Johannes] Conrad and attended one meeting of his seminar. There I met George Thomas, who had been at Harvard but was about to take his Ph.D. at Halle and who has since become president of the University of Utah. One afternoon I went with him to call on Professor Conrad at his home. He offered us beer or cold tea, both in bottles. He had been in America, had a daughter living in Buffalo, New York, and knew that many Americans did not drink liquor. He himself drank no liquor except wine.

I also took time to visit the breeding farm attached to the University of Halle where they were experimenting with all sorts of crossbreeding of animals brought from the ends of the earth.

In Berlin I took rooms in a pension and found it pretty well filled with American students, with a few from Russia, Romania, and Hungary. Edwin F. Gay had been recommended for a position in economic history, to follow Professor Ashley, at Harvard. He was in Berlin finishing his work for the Ph.D. degree at the university. I looked him up almost at once, called on him, and we had several talks. He had made a distinguished record at the university and was soon to take his final examination, which he passed with flying colors. His appointment as instructor at Harvard was confirmed by the Governing Boards and he began his teaching the following autumn.

While in Berlin I attended seminars by Professors [Adolph] Wagner in taxation, Schmoller in economic history, Ausserordentlich Professor [Adolph von] Wenckstern on socialism, and Professor [Max] Zering on Agrarpolitik. Wenckstern, a young man, had been in the army and still held the rank of lieutenant. One night after one of our sessions he invited me with the seminar group to his country place. We left the university about 10 p.m., took a train and traveled nearly half an hour, got off at a country station, walked a mile or so through fields and came to a sizable country house. …

Professor Wagner was getting along in years but seemed fairly vigorous. He was reasonably courteous when he was convinced that I was really an assistant professor at Harvard. My visiting card had merely said “Mr. Thomas N. Carver,” after the American custom, whereas a German would have had all his titles and degrees embossed on his visiting card. Schmoller was genial but dignified. His classes were crowded and he was very busy conferring with his students.

After about four weeks Flora and the children joined me in Berlin. Soon after they arrived Professor and Mrs. Charles J. Bullock turned up in Berlin, also a Miss McDaniels of Oberlin, who had been one of my students. Together we visited Dresden, mainly for the purpose of seeing the famous Art Gallery….

Source:   Thomas Nixon Carver, Recollections of an Unplanned Life (1949), pp. 135-139.

Image Source: The Friedrich Wilhelm University in the old Palace of Prince Heinrich (ca. 1820)

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Socialism Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Readings and Exams for Methods of Social Reform. Carver, 1902-03

Thomas Nixon Carver

 

“The trouble with radicals is that they only read radical literature, and the trouble with conservatives is that they don’t read anything.”

Thomas Nixon Carver quoted by John Kenneth Galbraith (A Life in Our Times)

This conservative Harvard economic theorist regularly taught the course on schemes of economic reform at Harvard early in the 20th century. He was certainly more forgiving than sympathetic to his radical subjects. 

Variations of this course syllabus have been transcribed earlier here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror:

___________________

Course Description

[Economics] 14. Methods of Social Reform, including Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc. Tu.,Th, at 1.30. Professor Carver.

The purpose of this course is to make a careful study of those plans of social amelioration which involves either a reorganization of society, or a considerable extension of the functions of the state. The course begins with an historical study of early communistic theories and experiments. This is followed by a critical examination of the series of the leading socialistic writers, with a view to getting a clear understanding of the reasoning which lies back of socialistic movements, and of the economic conditions which tend to make this reasoning acceptable. A similar study will be made of Anarchism and Nihilism, of the Single Tax Movement, of State Socialism and the public ownership of monopolistic enterprises, and of Christian Socialism, so called.

Morley’s Ideal Commonwealths, Ely’s French and German Socialism, Marx’s Capital, Marx and Engels’s The Communist Manifesto, and George’s Progress and Poverty will be read, besides other special references.

The course will be conducted by means of lectures, reports, and classroom discussions.

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics 1902-03. The University Publications, New Series, No. 55 (June 14, 1902), p. 42

___________________

Course Enrollment
(Harvard, 1902-03)

[Economics] 14. Professor Carver.— Methods of Reform. Socialism, Communism, the Single Tax, etc.

Total 15: 2 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 67.

___________________

Course Enrollment (Radcliffe, 1902-03)

[Economics] 14. Professor Carver.— Methods of Social Reform.

Total 6: 4 Undergraduates, 2 Others.

Source: Radcliffe College. Report of the President of Radcliffe College, 1902-03, p. 43.

___________________

Economics 14
[handwritten note: 1902-03]

Topics and References
Starred references are prescribed

COMMUNISM

A
Utopias
1. Plato’s Republic
2. *Sir Thomas More.   Utopia.
3. *Francis Bacon.   New Atlantis.
4. *Tommaso Campanella.   The City of the Sun. (Numbers 2, 3, and 4 may be found in convenient form in Morley’s Ideal Commonwealths.)
5. Etienne Cabet.   Voyage en Icarie.
6. Wm. Morris.   News from Nowhere.
7. Edward Bellamy.   Looking Backward.

 

B
Communistic Experiments
1. *Charles Nordhoff.   The Communistic Societies of the United States.
2. Karl Kautsky.   Communism in Central Europe in the Time of the Reformation.
3. W. A. Hinds.   American Communities.
4. J.H. Noyes.   History of American Socialisms.
5. J. T. Codman.   Brook Farm Memoirs.
6. Albert Shaw.   Icaria.
7. G.B. Landis.   The Separatists of Zoar.
8. E.O. Randall.   History of the Zoar Society.

 

SOCIALISM

A
Historical
1. *R. T. Ely. French and German Socialism.
2. Bertrand Russell. German Social Democracy.
3. John Rae. Contemporary Socialism.
4. Thomas Kirkup. A History of Socialism.
5. W. D. P. Bliss. A Handbook of Socialism.
6. Wm. Graham. Socialism, New and Old.
7. [Jessica Blanche] Peixotto. The French Revolution and Modern French Socialism.

 

B
Expository and Critical
1. *Albert Schaeffle. The Quintessence of Socialism.
2. Albert Schaeffle. The Impossibility of Social Democracy.
3. *Karl Marx. Capital.
4. *Karl Marx and Fredrick Engels. The Manifesto of the Communist Party.
5. Frederick Engels. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
6. E. C. K. Gonner. The Socialist Philosophy of Rodbertus.
7. E. C. K. Gonner. The Socialist State.
8. Bernard Shaw and others. The Fabian Essays in Socialism.
9. The Fabian Tracts.
10. R. T. Ely. Socialism: An Examination of its Nature, Strength, and Weakness.
11. Edward Bernstein. Ferdinand Lassalle.
12. Henry M. Hyndman. The Economics of Socialism.
13. Sydney and Beatrice Webb. Problems of Modern Industry.
14. Gustave Simonson. A Plain Examination of Socialism.
15. Sombart. Socialism and the Social Movement in the Nineteenth Century.
16. Vandervelde. Collectivism [and Industrial Evolution].

 

ANARCHISM

1. *Leo Tolstoi. The Slavery of Our Times.
2. Wm. Godwin. Political Justice.
3. Kropotkin. The Scientific Basis of Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 21: 238.
4. Kropotkin. The Coming Anarchy. Nineteenth Century, 22:149.
5. Elisée Reclus. Anarchy. Contemporary Review, 45: 627. [May 1884]

 

RELIGIOUS AND ALTRUISTIC SOCIALISM

1. Lamennais. Les Paroles d’un Croyant.
2. Charles Kingsley. Alton Locke.
3. *Kaufman. Lamennais and Kingsley. Contemporary Review, April, 1882.
4. Washington Gladden. Tools and the Man.
5. Josiah Strong. Our Country.
6. Josiah Strong. The New Era.
7. William Morris, Poet, Artist, Socialist. Edited by Francis Watts Lee. A collection of the socialistic writings of William Morris.
8. Ruskin. The Communism of John Ruskin. Edited by W. D. P. Bliss. Selected chapters from Unto this Last, The Crown of Wild Olive, and Fors Clavigera.
9. Carlyle. The Socialism and Unsocialism of Thomas Carlyle. Edited by W. D. P. Bliss. Selected chapters from Carlyle’s various works. [Volume 1; Volume 2]

 

AGRARIAN SOCIALISM

1. *Henry George. Progress and Poverty.
2. Henry George. Our Land and Land Policy.
3. Alfred Russell Wallace. Land Nationalization.

 

STATE SOCIALISM

An indefinite term, usually made to include all movements for the extension of government control and ownership, especially over means of communication and transportation, also street lighting, etc.

1. R. T. Ely. Problems of To-day. Chs. 17-23.
2. J. A. Hobson. The Social Problem.

 

WORKS DISCUSSING THE SPHERE OF THE STATE IN SOCIAL REFORM

1. Henry C. Adams. The Relation of the State to Industrial Action.
2. *D. G. Ritchie. Principles of State Interference.
3. D. G. Ritchie. Darwinism and Politics.
4. *Herbert Spencer. The Coming Slavery.
5. W. W. Willoughby. Social Justice.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1902-1903”.

______________________

Economics 14
Mid-year Examination, 1902-03

  1. Give an account of More’s Utopia.
  2. Is there any ground for supposing that Utopian schemes have influenced social development? Give reasons.
  3. What were the periods of greatest activity in the founding of communistic settlements in America? What stimulated the activity in each period, and what were the general conditions favorable to such activity?
  4. Does the history of communistic experiments in America throw any light on the probable success or failure of socialism on a large scale? Give reasons.
  5. Give an account of the communistic plans and activities of Etienne Cabet.
  6. Describe the Communist Manifesto. What place does it hold in socialistic literature, and why?
  7. Compare the socialism of Rodbertus with that of Karl Marx.
  8. Outline Marx’ theory of surplus value.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year Examinations 1852-1943. Box 6. Papers (in the bound volume Examination Papers Mid-years 1902-1903).

______________________

Economics 14
Year-End Examination, 1902-03

  1. Give some account of Fourier and the Fourieristic experiments in the United States.
  2. Distinguish between Utopian and Scientific Socialism.
  3. What part has religion played in the history of Communistic Experiments?
  4. How does Karl Marx explain the existence of poverty?
  5. Trace briefly the history of the German Social Democratic Party.
  6. Distinguish between land and other forms of property.
  7. How do you account for the share of the capitalist in distribution?
  8. Is there any relation between the unequal distribution of workers among different occupations and the unequal distribution of wealth?
  9. What is meant by the term “Natural Monopolies.”
  10. Define “Christian Socialism” and explain how it differs from Marxian Socialism.

Source:  University Archives. Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College, June 1903 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1902-1903).

Image Source: Harvard Class Album, 1906.

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Location of Economic Activity. Readings. Usher, 1942

 

 

With this course taught by Abbott P. Usher we can see that the economics of transportation and location continued as standard fare in the economics curriculum at least up to the middle of the 20th century. The final exam for the course was transcribed and posted subsequent to this post.

___________________

Course Announcement

Economics 65a1hf. The Location of Economic Activity. General Principles and Current Problems

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Professor Usher.

Source: Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1942-43. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. 39, No. 53 (September 23, 1942), p. 54.

___________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 65a 1hf. Professor Usher. — The Location of Economic Activity. General Principles and Current Problems.

Total 15: 8 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 2 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1942-43, p. 47.

___________________

Course Description

Economics 65a 1hf. The Location of Economic Activity. General Principles and Current Problems.Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Sat., at 9. Professor Usher.

Regional differentiation of resources and its significance. Topography and its influence upon patterns of urban settlement. Progressive revaluation of resources through technological change. Power resources of the modern world. Areas of primary industrialization, present and potential. Areas of secondary industrialization. Agricultural areas. The economic foundations of power politics, old and new.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics containing an Announcement for 1942-43.  Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. 39, No. 45 (June 30, 1942), p. 54.

___________________

1942-43
ECONOMICS 65a
Reading Assignments

  1. History of Population. (To Oct. 8)

Usher, A.P., History of Population and Settlement in Eurasia, Geographical Review, XX, pp. 110-132.

Willcox, W.F., Increase in the Population of the Earth, International Migrations, II, pp. 33-92.

  1. Resources as factors in the localization of economic activity. (To Oct. 31)

Dean, W.H., Jr., The Theory of the Geographic Location of Economic Activity, pp. 1-35.

Nef, J.U., The Rise of the British Coal Industry, I, pp. 109-261.

Zimmermann, Erich W., World Resources and Industries, pp. 178-399, 429-583.

  1. Topography as a locational factor. (To Nov. 21)

Dean, W.H., Jr., The Theory of the Geographic Location of Economic Activity, pp. 36-45.

Mackinder, H.J., Britain and the British Seas, pp. 231-259.

Weber, A.F., The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 1-19, 155-229.

Federal Housing Administration, The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhood in American Cities, 1939. pp. 15-25, 96-111.

Dagett, S., Principles of Inland Transportation, 3rd Edition. pp. 173-190, 301-427.

Vanderblus and Burgess, Railroads: Rates, Service, Management, (1924) pp. 139-156.

Daniels, W.M., The Price of Transportation Service, 1-86.

  1. Location of the heavy industries. (To Dec. 12)

Daugherty, De Chazeau, and Stratton,Economics of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States, I, 9-111, 309-370.

Zimmermann, Erich W. World Resources and Industries, pp. 584-781.

  1. Markets and Market Structure. (To Dec. 22)

Hoover, E.M., Jr., Location Theory and the Shoe and Leather Industries, pp. 3-59.

Daugherty, De Chazeau, and Stratton, Economics of the Iron and Steel Industry in the United States, I, pp. 533-578.

___________________

Special Topics
Economics 65a

Students will select 200-250 pages of readings from one or two titles. This reading should be used as the basis for an essay of one hour written as part of the examination.

  1. Cities and City Planning.

Lewis Mumford, The Culture of Cities, 1938.

Regional Survey of New York and its Environs: esp. Vol. I, Major Economic Factors in Metropolitan Growth and Arrangement, 1927.
Vol. II, Population, Land Values and Government, 1929.

Regional Plan of New York, The Graphic Regional Plan, I, 1929.

Committee on the Regional Plan of New York, From Plan to Reality, 1933.

Great Britain, Royal Commission on the Distribution of the Industrial Population, (1940) Cmd. 6153.

  1. Development of Power Systems.

Ernest R. Abrams, Power in Transition, 1940.

National Resources Committee, Energy Resources and National Policy, 1939.

  1. Studies of Special Industries and their Price Policies.

T.N.E.C. Monograph Number 42. The Basing Point System.

E.M. Hoover, Location Theory and the Shoe and Leather Industries.

Guthrie, John A. The Newsprint Paper Industry.

A.H. Cole and H.F. Williamson, The American Carpet Industry.

John M. Cassels, Study of Fluid Milk Prices.

  1. Railway Development.

I.L. Sharfman, The Interstate Commerce Commission, vol. III, B, pp. 309-771.

R.D. Tiwari, Railway Rates in Relation to Trade and Industry in India. 1937.

N.B. Mehta, Indian Railways: Rates and Regulations, 1927.

A. Paillard, Les Tarifs de Chemin de Fer en Matière de Marchandises.

  1. Air and Motor Transport.

Federal Coordinator of Transportation, Public Aids to Transport.

O.J. Lissitzyn, International Air Transport and Public Policy

H.A. Smith, Airways: The History of Commercial Aviation in the United States, 1942.

S.B. Smith, Air Transportation in the Pacific Area, 1941.

  1. Water Transport and Canals.

Federal Coordinator of Transportation. Public Aids to Transport.

A. Siegfried, Suez and Panama.

N.J. Padelford, The Panama Canal in Peace and War.

Joseph G. Broodbank, The Port of London.

E.J. Clapp, The Port of Hamburg.

E.J. Clapp, The Port of Boston.

  1. VIII. Economic Geography.

Eugene Staley, World Economy in Transition.

Mikhailov, N. Soviet Geography: the new industrial and economic distributions of the U.S.S.R.

W. Rickmer Rickmers, The Duab of Turkestan.

Ellsworth Huntington, Civilization and Climate.

_______________ Palestine and its Transformation.

_______________ The Pulse of Asia.

Guy Le Strange, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate.

_______________ Baghdad under the Abbasid Caliphate.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 3, Folder “Economics, 1942-1943 (2 of 2)”.

Image Source: Abbott P. Usher in Harvard Class Album 1947-48.