Category: Harvard

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Business School Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus and Harvard Business School Professor, Copeland, 1910

 

Another obituary for the series: Meet a Ph.D. Economist! Copeland apparently was the first to organize a collection of case studies that were later to became a hallmark of the Harvard Business School. Of particular value is the link I found to his history of the Harvard Business School that was published in 1958.

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Examination for the Degree of Ph.D.
Division of History and Political Science

Melvin Thomas Copeland.

Special Examination in Economics, Friday, December 14, 1909.
General Examination passed May 13, 1908.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Hart, Carver, Sprague, and Munro.
Academic History: Bowdoin College, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1906-09; A.B. (Bowdoin), 1906; A. M. (Harvard) 1907. Austin Teaching Fellow (Harvard), 1908-09; Instructor, 1909-10.
Special Subject: Economic History of the United States.
Thesis Subject: “The Organization of the Cotton Manufacturing Industry in the United States.” (With Professors Taussig and Gay.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Gay, Ripley, and Sprague.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1909-10”.

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Source: Harvard Business School Yearbook, 1930-31.

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From the Report of the President of Harvard College, 1975-75

Melvin Thomas Copeland, George Fisher Baker Professor of Administration, Emeritus, died March 27, 1975 in his 91st year. Although not a member of the Business faculty until 1912 when the School was four years old, “Doc” Copeland justly ranks with its founders because of his organization of the first collection of business cases for study. A 1906 graduate of Bowdoin College, Copeland came to Harvard to earn his A.M. (1907) and Ph.D. (1910) degrees. His doctoral dissertation, Cotton Manufacturing Industry of the U.S.,  won the Wells Prize and was published in 1912. While still a graduate student, he served as an Assistant in Economics and later as Instructor in Economic Resources. He then spent a year teaching on the faculty of New York University, returning to Harvard in 1912 to teach a course in business statistics at the fledgling Business School, thus beginning a career which continued until his retirement in 1953. Copeland became an Instructor in Marketing in 1914, Professor of Marketing in 1919, and was Director of the Bureau of Business Research twice (from 1916 to 1920 and from 1942 to 1953). He worked on the organization of business cases and on project research for faculty members in this latter job. He was named George Fisher Baker Professor in 1950. Over the years he earned a reputation as a distinguished editor and writer on business topics; before his retirement he produced six books, and afterwards was asked to write the Business School’s history, And Mark an Era, which appeared in 1958. His volume about the Gloucester, Massachusetts area where he lived, The Saga of Cape Ann (1960), also appeared after his retirement. In 1973, in his eighty-ninth year, Copeland received from the Business School its Distinguished Service Award.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and reports of departments, 1974-75, pp. 32-3.

Image Source: Harvard Album, 1920.

 

 

Categories
Economists Harvard Yale

Harvard. Three generations of Economics Ph.D.’s. The Ruggles Dynasty

 

 

The passing of the torch from one generation in a family to another in economics is noteworthy, but hardly a rare occurrence. Everyone has heard of James and John Stuart Mill, Neville and Maynard Keynes, Robert Aaron and Margaret S. and their economist sons Robert J. and David Gordon, Bob and Anita with their bouncing Larry Summers, Richard and Jonathan Portes, as well as Ken and Jamie Galbraith, to drop only a few names. But one can honestly say that economists are underachievers in this torch-passing respect.

After all, musicians appear to find little difficulty in getting the beat to go on in the family, medical doctors seem to fall from family trees of doctors, the clergy (for religions in which sexual reproduction is a feature and not a bug) show little difficulty in begetting future clerics, and indeed the professional military is generally successful in instilling a pride of warriorship in its young. At least we economists can console ourselves that no one has (yet) composed a song with a title like “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys”.

With all of this in mind, I present Economics in the Rear-view Mirror’s very first economics Ph.D. family trifecta: meet the Ruggles dynasty, three generations of Harvard economics Ph.D.’s who collectively span a century’s worth of economics right up to the present day.

I’ll let others assess the “relative” achievements of the dynasty founder, Clyde Orval Ruggles (“The economic basis of the greenback movement in Iowa and Wisconsin”, Harvard PhD, 1913),  vs. the middle-generation of Clyde’s son, Richard Francis Ruggles (“Price structure and distribution over the cycle”, Harvard PhD, 1942), and Richard’s first wife, Nancy Dunlap Ruggles (“Resource allocation and pricing systems”, Radcliffe PhD, 1949), vs. Clyde’s granddaughter, Patricia Ruggles (“The allocation of taxes and government expenditures among households in the United States”, Harvard PhD, 1980). Two remarks: (i) Appointments to a professorship at the Harvard Business School (Clyde) or to staff director of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress and a pair of NSF fellowships (Patricia) are hardly chopped liver according to any meaningful metric; (ii) published tributes to the work of Richard and Nancy Ruggles are easy to find.

  • Barbara M. Fraumeni “Ruggles and Ruggles—A National Income Accounting Partnership” Survey of Current Business, April, 2001, 14-15. 
  • Timothy Smeeding (December 2001), In Memoriam: Richard Ruggles—a man for all seasons (1916-2001). Review of Income and Wealth, 47: 561-563.
    James Tobin (September 2001), In Memoriam: Richard Ruggles (1916-2001). Review of Income and Wealth, 47: 405–408.
  • Edward N. Wolff (September 2001), In Memoriam: Richard Ruggles (1916-2001). Review of Income and Wealth, 47: 409–415.
  • Helen Stone Tice (June 2004), Essays in Honor of Nancy and Richard Ruggles: Editor’s Introduction. Review of Income and Wealth, 50: 149-151.

Below you will find a variety of artifacts culled from public sources with (auto-)biographical information about the members of this dynasty. 

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Biographical Note about Clyde Orval Ruggles from the Baker Library of Harvard Business School

Clyde Orval Ruggles was born in Fairfield, Iowa on December 7, 1878. He received his BA from Iowa State Teachers College in 1906, his MA from the University of Iowa in 1907, and his PhD from Harvard in 1913. He also received a Litt.D. from Suffolk University in 1938.

Ruggles was the head of the Department of History and Social Science at the Iowa State Teachers College from 1909-1913. He then served on the faculty of the Department of Economics at Ohio State University from 1913-1920. He left Ohio State for a year to take up the position of Head of the School of Commerce and the Department of Economics at the University of Iowa from 1920-1921. He then moved back to Ohio State in 1921, serving as the Head of the Department of Business Administration from 1921 to 1926, and as Dean of the College of Commerce and Journalism from 1926-1928.

In 1928 he came to HBS as a Professor of Public Utility Management (later amended to Professor of Public Utility Management and Regulation), a position he held until his retirement from HBS in 1948, when he became an emeritus professor. He also served as the Director of the Division of Research from 1940-1942. After his retirement from HBS, he continued to teach, lecturing at or serving on the faculties of Ohio State, Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, the Georgia Institute of Technology and Northeastern University.

Ruggles was a nationally known economist with diverse research interests in the areas of public utilities management and business education. In addition to his academic work, Ruggles also served as a consultant to a variety of public and private agencies and companies, including the Civil Aeronautics Board, the National Monetary Commission, the United States Shipping Board, and the Montreal Tramways Company.

Ruggles’ publications include Terminal Charges at United States Ports (1919), Problems in Public Utility Economics and Management (1933 and 1938), Aspects of the Organization, Functions and Financing of State Public Utility Commissions (1937), and numerous journal and newspaper articles.

Clyde O. Ruggles died on April 6, 1958 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

Source:   Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, Harvard University. Clyde O. Ruggles Papers, 1918-1957: A Finding Aid.

Image Source: Harvard Business School Yearbook 1938-39.

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Clyde O. Ruggles’ Daughter Catherine G. Ruggles
Radcliffe Ph.D. Conferred, June 1937

Catherine Grace Ruggles, A.M. Subject, Economics. Special Field, Public Finance. Dissertation, “The Financial History of Cambridge, 1846-1935.” Research Assistant, Harvard Department of Economics.

Source: Radcliffe College, President’s Report 1936-37, p. 20.

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American Economic Association’s Biographical Listing of Members (Dec. 1981)

Ruggles, Nancy D., 100 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511. Phone: Office (203)436-8583; Home (203) 777-4187. Fields: 220, 320. Birth Yr: 1922. Degrees: A.B., Pembroke Coll., 1943; Ph.D., Radcliffe Coll., 1948. Prin. Cur. Position: Sr. Res. Econ., Yale U., 1980-. Concurrent/Past Positions: Secy., Int’l. Assn. for Res. in Income & Wealth, 1961-; Asst. Dir., Statistical Off., United Nations, 1975-80. Research: Nat. acctg. systems & their integration with economic-social microdata.

Ruggles, Richard, 100 Prospect St., New Haven, CT 06511. Phone: Office (203) 436-4040; Home (203) 777-4187. Fields: 220, 320. [Birth Yr: 1916.] Degrees: A.B., Harvard Coll., 1939; M.A. Harvard U., 1941; Ph.D., Harvard U., 1942. Prin. Cur. Position: Prof. of Econs., Yale U., 1947-. Research: Nat. acctg. systems & their integration with economic-social microdata.

 

Source: Biographical Listing of Members in the 1981 Survey of Members (Dec., 1981) The American Economic Review, Vol. 71, No. 6. p. 354.

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Richard Ruggles (1916-2001),
Noted Economic Statistician, Dies

Richard Ruggles, a member of the Yale economics faculty for nearly 40 years who was a specialist in the fields of national economic accounting and economic theory, died March 4 at his home in New Haven of complications from prostate cancer.

Professor Ruggles, who was 84, was known for developing accounting tools for measuring national income and improving price indexes used in formulating government policy. Throughout his Yale career, he conducted research for numerous government agencies and bodies, including the United Nations, the Organization of American States, the Federal Reserve Board, the Bureau of the Census and the National Bureau of Economic Research, as well as the Ford Foundation. He also served on various governmental committees concerned with economic statistics.

The economist did much of his work with his first wife, Nancy, who died in 1987. Pricing Systems, Indexes, and Price Behavior, Macro- and Microdata Analyses and Their Integration, and National Accounting and Economic Policy, collections of their work, were published in 1999.

Born on June 15, 1916, in Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Ruggles was the son of economist Clyde O. Ruggles, who taught at and was dean [sic] of the Harvard Business School. The younger Mr. Ruggles attended Harvard for both undergraduate and graduate study, earning his B.A. in 1939, an M.A. in 1941 and his Ph.D. in 1942.

After earning his doctorate, Professor Ruggles joined the Office of Strategic Services as an economist. During World War II, he worked for the office in London, where he estimated the production rates of tanks at German factories using photographs of the serial numbers from captured or destroyed tanks. In 1945-46 he was with the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey in Tokyo and Washington.

Professor Ruggles returned briefly to Harvard as an instructor in 1946 before joining the Yale faculty a year later as an assistant professor of economics. He was named an associate professor in 1949 and a full professor in 1954. He was appointed the Stanley Resor Professor of Economics in 1954. He chaired the Department of Economics from 1959 to 1962, and also served as director of undergraduate studies in the department.

Professor Ruggles and his family traveled frequently, making trips to the Soviet Union and to various developing countries, among other places.

Professor Ruggles married Caridad Navarette Kindelán in 1989. In addition to his wife, he is survived by three children, Steven Ruggles of Minneapolis, Minnesota; Patricia Ruggles of Washington, D.C.; and Catherine Ruggles of Los Angeles, California; two sisters, Catherine Ruggles Gerrish of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Rebecca Ruggles of New York City; four grandchildren; and his wife’s seven children and 13 grandchildren.

 

Source: Yale Bulletin & Calendar, Vol. 29, No. 23 (March 23, 2001).

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Memories and Musings of Yale by Richard Ruggles (ca. 2000)

In 1939 I graduated from Harvard with my classmates, William Parker and James Tobin, and like them undertook graduate study in economics. The previous cohort of Harvard graduate students in economics was very distinguished and included Paul Samuelson, Ken Galbraith, Abe Bergson, Lloyd Reynolds, John Miller, Lloyd Metzler, Robert Triffin, Henry Wallich, and many others, including my sister Catherine Ruggles. With the outbreak of World War II, Bill Parker went into the Army and Jim Tobin went into the Navy. I managed to finish my graduate work and I went into OSS. I served in London in 1943, in Europe in 1944, and went to Japan for the Bombing Survey at the end of the war.

In 1946, I returned to Harvard as an Instructor and married Nancy Dunlap, who enrolled as a graduate student in economics at Radcliffe. At the 1946 meetings of the American Economic Association, I met John Miller, who had moved to Yale, and he invited me to give a talk at Yale. I did so and was appointed Assistant Professor. At that time Ed Lindblom, Neil Chamberlain and Challis Hall were also appointed as Assistant Professors. Although, at Harvard, Yale was viewed as a boys’ finishing school, there was a group of younger faculty members who were highly regarded. In addition to John Miller, Lloyd Reynolds had come from Harvard, and there were Max Millikan, Richard Bissell (who was always on leave) and Wight Bakke. The so-called “ice cap” consisted of pre-Keynesian economists who, for the most part, specialized in specific areas such as transportation, corporate finance, accounting, and money and banking. Generally speaking, the “ice-cap” were reasonable men, but they were oriented toward training Yale undergraduates to go out into the business world.

The newly appointed Assistant Professors were quite congenial and held Saturday night dances in the Strathcona lounge. There was, however, no role for professional women in the Economics Department so Nancy and I became consultants for the government, the United Nations, and foundations. In 1948, we went to Europe for the Economic Cooperation Administration. In the 1950s, we worked for ECA in Washington, the Ford Foundation, and the United Nations in New York. When the Korean war broke out, we were asked to create an intelligence unit for the CIA for collecting and analyzing Soviet factory markings. We hired some Yale students and employees from ECA. At Yale we developed a “Rapid Selector” project in conjunction with the Yale Electrical Engineering Department to help analyze the factory markings data collected from Korea. The “Yale Rapid Selector” was quickly made obsolete by the development of computers.

During the 1950s, Lloyd Reynolds was building up the Economics Department at Yale. He recruited Robert Triffin, Henry Wallich, and William Fellner. The Yale Economics Department was becoming known for the quality of its faculty. At that time, the Cowles Commission at the University of Chicago was unhappy with their arrangements there and approached Lloyd about coming to Yale. The arrangements for bringing Cowles to Yale were made in 1955, with Tjalling Koopmans and Jacob Marschak being appointed as Professors in the Economics Department. As part of the agreement, the Econometric Society also moved to Yale, and I agreed to serve as Secretary, with Nancy as Treasurer.

By 1959, however, friction developed between some members of the Cowles Foundation and the Chairman, Lloyd Reynolds. As a consequence I was asked to serve as chair. As Chairman I managed to recruit Joe Peck, William Parker, and Hugh Patrick, who had been an undergraduate at Yale and had participated in the CIA Korean project. However, I did not like being Chairman, and I resigned in 1962.

The Yale Economic Growth Center was established in 1961. Lloyd Reynolds and I had served as consultants to the Ford Foundation, and they had expressed an interest in establishing a center for the study of economic development at Yale. In addition, Nancy and I were actively consulting for the Agency for International Development in Washington D.C., and they also wished to foster such research. As a consequence, Lloyd Reynolds established the Yale Economic Growth Center. It had as its mission the development of “country studies” of economic development. Graduate students in economics writing their doctoral dissertations were sent to developing countries to do “country studies.” To facilitate and manage the operations, Miriam Chamberlain was appointed Executive Secretary to manage the day-to-day operations of the Growth Center. Miriam had been working at the Ford Foundation in New York and had moved back to New Haven when her husband Neil was made a Professor of Labor Economics. Mary Reynolds, wife of Lloyd Reynolds, was placed in charge of building up a library of books, documents, and data relating to developing countries. Nancy Ruggles was hired with AID funds to design the framework of data for the country studies. In addition, Nancy agreed to become the Secretary of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, which was transferred to the Economic Growth Center from the University of Cambridge, England. All three women had Ph.D.s from Radcliffe and were highly qualified for their functions.

To some members of the Economics Department, however, the hiring of faculty wives seemed inappropriate, and in 1966 the Chairman, therefore, asked for their resignations. Simon Kuznets suggested that Nancy and I could carry out our research program at the National Bureau of Economic Research in New York. For the next decade I carried out my research activities at the NBER in New York and Washington D.C. I taught the undergraduate course of the “Economics of the Public Sector,” the Senior Honors Seminar, the graduate course in “National Accounting,” and carried out the administrative tasks of Director of Undergraduate Studies or Director of Graduate Studies in Economics.

In 1978, I transferred my research activities from the NBER to the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale. Nancy had been employed as the Assistant Director of the United Nations Statistical Office, but she also became associated with ISPS in 1980. We jointly carried out our research at ISPS until the accidental death of Nancy in 1987.

 

Source:   M. Ann Judd, The Yale Economics Department: Memories and Musings of Past Leaders

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Nancy Dunlap Ruggles
Radcliffe Ph.D., 1948

When Yale’s Economic Growth Center was founded in the 1961, three women, all with Ph.D.s, were hired as researchers or administrators. All three also happened to be married to Yale economics professors.

Five years later, amid a flash of concern about nepotism, the three women were required to leave their positions, despite being fully qualified.

For one of the women, Nancy Ruggles, the injustice was particularly acute given that she co-authored essentially all of her tenured husband’s academic work — a partnership she and her spouse, Yale economist Richard Ruggles, acknowledged and treasured.

“The situation with Nancy Ruggles was a shame, because she was someone who had all of the necessary qualifications to be a professor, should have been, and would be under present circumstances,” Yale economist and Nobel laureate Jim Tobin would later lament.

As Yale marks Women’s History Month and continues to commemorate the 50th anniversary of coeducation in Yale College and the 150th anniversary of female students at the university, it celebrates the visible achievement of women students and faculty. There’s also fresh appreciation of scholars whose accomplishments went unrecognized because of their gender.

Nancy Ruggles was born in 1922 and grew up during the Great Depression and World War II, formative experiences that exposed her to the importance of economics. She completed her undergraduate degree at Pembroke College, the women’s college affiliated with Brown University, in 1943. Immediately afterward, she took a job with the Office of Price Administration. There, through a co-worker, she met her future husband, Harvard economics Ph.D. Richard Ruggles.

Their daughter, Patricia Ruggles ’74, said Nancy’s experiences in Washington, D.C. during the war led her to study economics, and that Richard encouraged Nancy to enroll in a Ph.D. program once the war was over. At Radcliffe College, Nancy wrote her thesis on marginal cost pricing, an innovative idea at the time, and received her doctorate in 1948.

Patricia Ruggles said her mother, like other women, was made to accept less illustrious degrees from women’s colleges.

“My mother was very insulted when she was offered to trade her [Radcliffe] Ph.D. for a Harvard one both because it implied that a Radcliffe degree was second class and because she had been denied a Harvard degree in the first place, even though all of her courses were at Harvard.”

The Ruggles moved to New Haven in 1946, after Richard was appointed a professor at Yale. Together, their main research focus was developing the rules for national income accounting, which measures economic activity in a country. In 1947, the Ruggles worked on the implementation of the Marshall Plan and helped develop assessments for measuring the aid’s effectiveness in stimulating the health of European economies. Later, the Ruggles’ framework was adopted for calculating U.S. national accounts.

“As far as I know, my father never wrote anything without my mother as a co-author during the time they were married,” Patricia Ruggles said.

In a review of the Ruggles’ work, economist Utz-Peter Reich remembers Richard’s response to a question about the authorship of their work as, “It does not matter — it’s always been both of us who have been at it anyway.”

Still, gender barriers were a common theme in Nancy Ruggles’ career. She was a founding member of the International Association for Research on Income and Wealth and its secretary for many years. Though her husband served as editor of the association’s journal, she in fact did the bulk of the editorial work with manuscripts, according to Patricia Ruggles, because Richard was dyslexic.

The pair did much of their research out of their home on Prospect Street, which Sterling Professor of Economics and Economic Growth Center founder Lloyd Reynolds remembered as a “two-person, computerized data factory.”

According to Professor Emeritus Bill Brainard, the Ruggles had installed a 24-volt system to control all electricity in the house and created a sophisticated data storage center in the home. He also recalled a Ford van the Ruggles outfitted with plumbing and communications infrastructure, allowing them to work on road trips across the country and even around the world, going as far as Russia after World War II.

The Ruggles’ dynamism as a research duo was recognized and appreciated by many of their contemporaries. Said Tobin, “[The Ruggles] were probably the best husband-wife team in the history of economics.”

Unfortunately for Nancy Ruggles, the prevailing view at Yale during her time was that appointing spouses to faculty positions was immoral nepotism, especially within the same department, Tobin said.

After being let go from Yale, she went on to work for the United Nations, where she was assistant director of the Statistical Office from 1975 to 1980. In that role, she helped develop the rules for national income accounts published by the United Nations, especially for developing countries for whom the accounting rules of developed countries were less applicable. Her work had important implications for crafting economic development policies globally. After 1980, Nancy Ruggles returned to Yale, becoming affiliated with the Institute for Social and Policy Studies as a senior research economist. Back in New Haven, she resumed her joint research with her husband. She died in 1987.

“My parents were a very effective team except for the fact that my mother got no recognition for her part of it,” said Patricia Ruggles, who earned an economics degree as a member of Yale’s second fully co-ed undergraduate class, in 1974.

Following in her parents’ footsteps, she also went on to earn a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard, in 1980.

It would not be until 2001 that Yale had its first tenured women economics professor, when the department hired Penny Goldberg from Columbia University.

Source:  Lisa Qian, “Giving economist Nancy Ruggles her due” web publication of Yale News, March 10, 2020.

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About Patricia Ruggles at the NORC website

[2018]

Pat Ruggles
Senior Fellow
Economics, Justice, and Society

B.A., Economics, Yale University
M.A., Economics, Harvard Unversity
Ph.D., Economics, Harvard Unversity

Patricia Ruggles is a Senior Fellow with the Economics, Labor and Population Studies department. She has worked throughout her career to improve the quality of the economic and social statistics used for research and policy analysis. She has been involved in the development of methods for analyzing longitudinal data sets since the 1980s, when she was a researcher at the Urban Institute. She was an early user of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), using it to create integrated longitudinal files for the analysis of income and poverty spells over time. She served on the National Academy of Sciences Panel to evaluate the SIPP in 1989 and 1990.

Patricia has held two NSF/ASA fellowships at the Bureau of the Census, both focused on improving data quality and usability.. The analyses of poverty-related issues that came out of her first NSF fellowship contributed to her book, Drawing the Line, which analyzed the impacts of alternative poverty measures. That book led to a major review of poverty measurement by the National Academy of Sciences, and Census is now issuing a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) that incorporates those recommendations. Patricia’s second NSF fellowship at Census focused on improving welfare program data in the SIPP, and led to her well-known work with Rebecca Blank on the dynamics of welfare spells. Patricia has also published many other studies based on the SIPP, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) and other longitudinal data bases.

Patricia joined the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress in 1990, where she was concerned with data and measurement issues that affect policy analysis. In addition to a series of hearings on poverty measurement, she organized hearings on price measurement, unemployment, productivity, and other major economic indicators. She also worked extensively on issues relating to health insurance, health needs, and welfare. After a break to serve in the Clinton Administration, Patricia returned to the JEC as staff director in 2000.

In 1996 Patricia became the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Income Policy and the Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In that role she was responsible for an annual budget of about $20 million to oversee research on issues relating to income and poverty.

More recently, Patricia has worked at the National Academy of Sciences on projects relating to social and economic indicators and on a re-evaluation of the SIPP. She has also consulted with the city of New York on the creation of a city-specific poverty measure and with the United Nations on tracking environmental data in the context of the System of National Accounts.

Source:NORC experts webpage for Patricia Ruggles  .

 

[2013 NORC announcement of appointment of Patricia Ruggles]

Leading Poverty Economist Patricia Ruggles Joins NORC at the University of Chicago as a Senior Fellow in the Economics, Labor, and Population Studies Department

6/12/2013, Bethesda, MD.

– Patricia Ruggles, Ph.D., a long-time advocate for better poverty measurement and other important economic and social indicators, has been named a Senior Fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago. Ruggles has worked at the highest levels in both government and higher education. She has also written books and journal articles on poverty and on improving the quality of the economic and social statistics used for research and policy analysis. She has testified frequently before Congress on these issues, and was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in recognition of her work on improving economic and social measurement.

“NORC at the University of Chicago has a strong track record in providing high-quality data and analysis on issues of social importance, and I look forward to being able to contribute to those efforts,” said Ruggles. “I will continue to work on issues relating to poverty, and will also conduct research on the accuracy and appropriateness of measures used to compute cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for Social Security and other programs. I believe that good data, accurate and appropriate statistical measures, and effective, high-quality dissemination of data and research findings are all crucial to good policy decisions.”

“Patricia Ruggles’ deep expertise studying poverty and improving the methods leading researchers employ to understand this problem is invaluable to our organization and her field,” said Dan Gaylin, Executive Vice President, Research Programs at NORC. “NORC is fortunate to have her join our staff.”

Ruggles has held two National Science Foundation (NSF)/American Statistical Association fellowships at the Bureau of the Census, both focused on improving data quality and usability. The analyses of poverty-related issues that came out of her first NSF fellowship contributed to her book, Drawing the Line, which analyzed the impacts of alternative poverty measures. Ruggles’ second NSF fellowship at the U.S. Census Bureau focused on improving welfare program data in the Survey of Income and Program Participation, and led to her well-known work with economist Rebecca Blank on the dynamics of welfare participation.

“We are excited to add an economist of Patricia Ruggles’ experience and expertise to our department,” said Chet Bowie, Senior Vice President and Director of the Economics, Labor, and Population studies department at NORC. “Here at NORC, she will continue her work on improving the quality of the data and measures policymakers use to make critical decisions on social policy.”

From 1996 to 2001, Ruggles was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Human Services Policy and the Chief Economist for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In that role she was responsible for an annual budget of about $20 million to oversee research on issues relating to income, poverty, and human services programs. Both before and after her employment at HHS, Ruggles served on the staff of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, from which she retired as Staff Director in 2003. She was also a visiting professor at Georgetown University in 2003-2004.

Source:  NORC press release.

Image Source:  Richard and Nancy Ruggles’ Tourist Card for Brazil dated 30 December 1962.

Categories
Bibliography Harvard Suggested Reading

Harvard. Debate Briefs on International Trade Policy, ca. 1886-96

 

Print from 1897 by J. S. Pughe in Punch. shows Uncle Sam sitting in a wooden tub labeled “Dingley Bill”, rowing with oars labeled “Monopoly” in a small pool labeled “Home Market” near a sign that states “Republican Goose Pond”. The title of the prints is “A self-evident fact” with the caption “Uncle Sam Say! I want you fellows to distinctly understand that I’m not racing with you!” Beyond the pond are several large steam ships, labeled “France, Germany, Italy, England, [and] Austria” steaming ahead of Uncle Sam. While Uncle Sam protects the home market through tariffs, European nations are expanding their global markets. (Library of Congress)

The inspiration for today’s posting comes from the announcement in late January, 2018 by U.S. President Donald J. Trump that steep tariffs would be imposed on washing machines and solar panels imported into the United States.

Below you will find transcriptions for Harvard University debating briefs on tariffs, subsidies and international trade from the last decade of the 19th century. While economics as a science has shown some considerable progress since that time, zombie ideas are resilient and continue to stalk the face of the earth in original and mutated strains. The literature cited in the briefs is taken largely from the popular periodical literature of the time or government and Congressional publications that conscientious scholars of the history of economics really need to be familiar with. Such stuff is not yet quite so neatly sorted and indexed for our purposes as to facilitate entry into flow of actual policy debates outside the academic realm. The collection of Harvard student debating briefs used here is really a treasure chest (Pandora’s box?) waiting to be opened, filled with good, bad, and ugly arguments regarding international commercial policy.

Also thanks to another of Trump’s policy initiatives, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror has provided transcriptions of analogous old debating briefs on the subject of immigration into the U.S.

The eight debate topics concerning international trade policy were:

Resolved, That the time has now come when the policy of protection should be abandoned by the United States.

Resolved, That a high protective tariff raises wages.

Resolved, That it would be to the advantage of the United States to establish complete commercial reciprocity between the United States and Canada.

Resolved, That foreign-built ships should be admitted to American registry free of duty.

Resolved, That the United States should establish a system of shipping subsidies.

Resolved, That sugar should be admitted free of duty.

Resolved, That a system of sugar bounties is contrary to good public policy.

Resolved, That a system of duties on wool and woollens is undesirable.

 

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Briefs for Debate on Current Political, Economic, and Social Topics.

Edited by
W. Du Bois Brookings, A.B. of the Harvard Law School
And
Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, A.B.
Assistant in Rhetoric in Columbia University

With an introduction by Albert Bushnell Hart, Ph.D.
Professor of Harvard University.
(1908)

[From the Preface:]

“The basis of the work has been a collection of some two hundred briefs prepared during the past ten years [ca. 1886-96] by students in Harvard University, under the direction of instructors. Of these briefs the most useful and interesting have been selected; the material has been carefully worked over, and the bibliographies enlarged and verified….

…” the brief is a steady training in the most difficult part of reasoning; in putting together things that belong together; in discovering connections and relations; in subordinating the less important matters. The making of a brief is an intellectual exercise like the study of a disease by a physician, of a case by a lawyer, of a sermon by a minister, of a financial report by a president of a corporation. It is a bit of the practical work of life.

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PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE.

Question: ‘Resolved, That the time has now come when the policy of protection should be abandoned by the United States.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

Frédéric Bastiat, Sophisms of the Protectionists; W. M. Grosvenor, Does Protection Protect?; Henry George, Protection or Free Trade; J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, II., Bk. V., Chap. x., § 1; article on Protection in Tariff Reform Series, IV., No. 12, p. 2 (September 30, 1891); Lalor’s Cyclopædia, II., 289; Nation, XXVIII., 161 (March 6, 1879); XXIX., 338 (November 20, 1879); XXXIV., 288 (April 6, 1882) ; LXXVI., 118 (February 8, 1883); J. G. Carlisle in Congressional Record, 1891-1892, p. 6910 (July 29, 1892); D. A. Wells in Forum, XIV., 697 (February, 1893); F. A. Walker in Quarterly Journal of Economics, IV., 245 (April, 1890); Edward Atkinson in Popular Science Monthly, XXXVII., 433 (August, 1890); Senator Vest in North American Review, Vol. 155, p. 401 (October, 1892); Harper’s Weekly, XXXVIII., 819 (September 1, 1894).

  1. Protection is unsound in theory:

J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, II., 532. — (a) It shuts out what is ours by nature: Sophisms of the Protectionists, pp. 73-80. — (b) It raises unnatural obstacles to intercourse: Sophisms of the Protectionists, pp. 84-85. — (c) It can only raise prices by diminishing the quantity of goods for sale: Sophisms of the Protectionists, pp. 7, 17. — (d) It endangers the interests it aims to promote: Nation, XXXVI., 118. — (e) It may transfer but not increase capital: Sophisms of the Protectionists, p. 93. — (f) The doctrine of protection for revenue is inconsistent: J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, II., 538. — (g) It is anti-social: Sophisms of the Protectionists, pp. 15, 127; Nation, XXXVI., 118; XXXVIII., 161.

  1. Protection is unsound in general practice.

(a) It makes capital and labor less efficient: J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, II., 532, 539. — (b) It hurts our carrying trade: Nation, XXXVI., 118. — (c) It closes against us many of the world’s best markets: J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, II., 537; Nation, XXVIII., 161; XXXVI., 118.

  1. Protection is not beneficial to any class.

(a) It raises prices to consumers: Popular Science Monthly, XXXVII., 433. — (b) It does not raise the wages of laborers: Congressional Record, 1891-1892, pp. 6910-6917; Popular Science Monthly, XXXVII., 433. — (c) It hurts farmers: Nineteenth Century, XXXII., 733 (November, 1892). — (d) It hurts the community by shutting off foreign markets: North American Review, Vol. 155, p. 401. — (e) It increases the cost of materials. — (f) It does not help us against pauper labor: Popular Science Monthly, XXXVII., 433. — (g) It does not benefit the majority: Nation, LV., 299 (October 20, 1892). — (h) Infant industries are not permanently aided: Quarterly Journal of Economics, IV., 245.

  1. Protection tends to run to extremes.

(a) It perverts taxation from its proper uses: Forum, XIV., 51 (September, 1892). — (b) It creates dangerous precedents: Ibid. — (c) Industries seek permanent protection: Nation. LV., 252 (October 6, 1892). — (d) It creates monopolies.

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

S.N. Patten, The Economic Basis of Protection; H. M. Hoyt, Protection versus Free Trade; Congressional Record, 1889-1890, p. 4248 (May 7, 1890); 1891-1892, p. 6746 (July 26, 1892); J. G. Blaine in North American Review, Vol. 150, p. 27 (January, 1890); William McKinley in North American Review, Vol. 150, p. 740 (June, 1890); R. E. Thompson, Social Science and National Economy, pp. 243-278; Lalor’s Cyclopædia, III., 413; Van Buren Denslow, Principles of Economic Philosophy, Chaps. xiii., xiv., xv., xvi.

  1. The policy of protection is sound in principle.

(a) It enables a country to fix the terms of exchange in foreign trade. — (1) Foreign demand for our commodities is necessarily great. — (2) Protection lessens our demand for foreign commodities. — (b) Protection is the best means of increasing the consumer’s rent.

  1. The policy of protection has proved beneficial in practice.

(a) Without it no country has secured a symmetrical development of its industries: Social Science and National Economy, p. 267. — (b) Every period of protection in the United States has been followed by great material prosperity.

  1. Protection secures a home market for commodities incapable of transportation abroad:

E.E. Hale, Tom Torrey’s Tariff Talks. — (a) It enhances values, especially the value of land: J. R. Dodge, How Protection Protects the Farmer.

  1. A protective tariff does not raise prices.

(a) The establishment of a new industry has invariably been followed by lower prices: Congressional Record, 1889-1890, p. 4248.—. (1) Steel rails.—(2) Glass and earthen ware.—(3) Wool.— (4) Tin-plate.

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THE TARIFF AND WAGES.

Question: ‘Resolved, That a high protective tariff raises wages.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

S. N. Patten, The Economic Basis of Protection, pp. 54-80; Lee Meriwether, ‘How Workingmen Live in Europe and America,’ in Harper’s Magazine, LXXIV., 780 (April, 1887); R. P. Porter, Bread Winners Abroad (People’s Library), Chaps. xvi., xxviii., xlix., li., liii., lvi., lxvi., lxvii., lxxxiv., civ.; Van Buren Denslow, Principles of Economic Philosophy, pp. 623-627.

  1. A high protective tariff raises wages theoretically.

(a) It causes more employers to compete for the hire of labor.—(1) By increasing the number of occupations and enterprises that can be carried on: R. E. Thompson, Social Science and National Economy, p. 248; Principles of Economic Philosophy, pp. 623-624. (b) It increases the amount of money available for the compensation of labor.—(1) By increasing the profits of manufacturers: Principles of Economic Philosophy, pp. 626-627. (c) It enables laborers to share in the natural resources of the country.—(1) By preventing competition with cheap foreign labor: The Economic Basis of Protection, pp. 64-70.

  1. A high protective tariff raises wages practically.

(a) In the United States, which furnishes the best example of a protective tariff, money wages are higher than in Europe.— (1) This is shown by the opinions of writers: Principles of Economic Philosophy, p. 527; Bread Winners Abroad; Consular Reports of the United States, No. 40, p. 304 (April, 1884). —(2) It is shown by the opinions of manufacturers: John Roach in International Review, XIII., 455 (November, 1882); J. M. Swank, Our Bessemer Steel Industry, p. 23; letters from the National Association of Wool Manufacturers and the Titus Sheard Co. in Congressional Record, 1891-1892, p. 6751 (July 26, 1892). (b) Wages have risen in other countries under a protective system. — (1) In Germany: Principles of Economic Philosophy, pp. 523-524; Consular Reports of the United States, No. 42, pp. 12, 13, 15 (June, 1884).—(2) In Canada: Principles of Economic Philosophy, pp. 666-668. (c) Real wages are higher in the United States than in Europe.—(1) An American workman can save more than a European: Consular Reports of the United States, No. 40, p. 304.—(2) His standard of living is higher: Harper’s Magazine, LXXIV., 780.

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

F. W. Taussig in Forum, VI., 167 (October, 1888); W. G. Sumner in North American Review, Vol. 136, p. 270 (March, 1883); J. Schoenhof, The Economy of High Wages, pp. 175-193; J. Schoenhof, Wages and Trade; ‘Labor, Wages, and Tariff,’ Tariff Reform Series, II., No. 21 (January 15, 1890); ‘Labor and the Tariff,’ Tariff Reform Series, I., No. 12, p. 2 (October 10, 1888).

  1. Arguments based on comparisons of wages in different countries are untrustworthy.

(a) Such comparisons prove too much: D. A. Wells, Practical Economics, p. 137. — (b) There is no uniform rate in any country. — (c) There are many local causes which must necessarily make wages higher in one country than in another. — (1) Natural advantages: D. A. Wells, The Relation of the Tariff to Wages, p. 2. — (2) Standing army service: Ibid. — (3) The question of unoccupied land: North American Review, Vol. 136, p. 270.

  1. Careful use of statistics shows that wages are relatively higher under a low tariff.

(a) The high rate of wages in the United States is determined by unprotected industries.— (1) There are more laborers connected with unprotected than with protected industries: J. L. Laughlin’s edition of J. S. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, p. 619. — (b) Wages in certain protected industries in the United States are lower than wages in the same industries in England. — (c) In protected industries in which wages are higher than abroad, they were higher before the existence of a protective tariff: Nation, XLVII., 327 (October 25, 1888). — (d) New South Wales is more prosperous than Victoria: Fortnightly Review, XXXVII., 369 (March, 1882).

  1. A protective tariff lowers wages by diminishing the amount of capital to be distributed for wages.

(a) The general productiveness of industry is less: Practical Economics, p. 135.— — (1) The effect of limiting the sale of commodities to a domestic market is evil: Practical Economics, p. 139. — (b) The proportion in which that produced is divided is less favorable to labor.—(1) The producer requires the same ratio of profit, while the number of laborers among whom the smaller wage-fund is divided is as large as before: North American Review, Vol. 136, p. 270.

  1. Real wages are less.

(a) The tariff increases the price of commodities and puts them out of the reach of the poorer classes: North American Review, Vol. 136, p. 270.

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RECIPROCITY WITH CANADA.

Question: ‘Resolved, That it would be to the advantage of the United States to establish complete commercial reciprocity between the United States and Canada.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

Goldwin Smith, Canada and the Canadian Question, pp. 281-301; Handbook of Commercial Union (Toronto, 1888); Century, XVI., 236 (June, 1889); Forum, VI., 241 (November, 1888) ; VII., 361 (June, 1889); New Englander, LIII., 1 (July, 1890); North American Review, Vol. 148, p. 54 (January, 1889); Vol. 151, p. 212 (August, 1890); Vol. 139, p. 42 (July, 1884); Harper’s Magazine, LXXVIII., 520 (March, 1889).

  1. Greater freedom of trade between the United States and Canada is desirable.

(a) It would furnish the United States with much needed raw materials: Century, XVI., 236. — (1) Coal, iron, and other mineral products are extensive and easily accessible to the northern and middle states: Handbook of Commercial Union, pp. 72-85; North American Review, Vol. 139, p. 42. — (2) Agricultural products. — (b) It would open to us a large and convenient market for our manufactures: Handbook of Commercial Union, p. 249. — (c) Closer commercial relations would remove much of the present ill feeling, and international disputes would be avoided.

  1. Reciprocity would be advantageous economically.

(a) It would open up a great field for the investment of American capital: Handbook of Commercial Union, p. 247. — (b) It would do away with the enormous expense of maintaining an unnatural customs line four thousand miles long. — (c) By the settlement of the fishery question it would give our fishermen valuable privileges.

  1. Reciprocity is practical:

Handbook of Commercial Union, p. 111. — (a) Great Britain would not raise serious objections: Handbook of Commercial Union, p. 101 .— (1) English investments in Canada would be benefited by commercial prosperity. — (2) Greater commercial activity would establish confederation on a firm basis and give assurance that Canada would remain a part of the British domain. — (b) The loyalty of Canadians would not be affected. — (1) The common tariff would not discriminate against England. — (c) A common tariff could be agreed upon. — (1) The present policy of the United States is toward a reduction of tariffs, while that of Canada is toward an increase. — (2) Canada would be willing to make concessions, such as the adjustment of internal revenue. — (d) The reciprocity treaty of 1854 was a commercial success. — (1) Trade rose from seven millions to twenty: Encyclopedia Britannica, IV., 766. — (2) The abrogation of the treaty was due to national animosity caused by acts of the English during the civil war.

 

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

James Douglas, Canadian Independence, Annexation, and British Imperial Federation; Forum, VI., 451 (January, 1889); J. N. Larned, Report to the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of Trade Between the United States and British Possessions in North America, January 28, 1871; Penn Monthly, V., 529 (July, 1874); Congressional Globe, 1864-1865, pp. 229-233 (January 12, 1865).

  1. Complete commercial reciprocity is impracticable.

(a) The commercial policies of Great Britain and the United States are conflicting. — (b) A common tariff could not be decided upon without detriment to one country. — (c) Internal revenue stands in the way.—(1) Excise taxes and internal revenue would have to be made equal; but excise is necessary to Canada, while it is not unlikely that we shall do away with our internal revenue: Forum, VI., 451.

  1. Complete reciprocity would be contrary to good public policy.

(a) It would result in loss of revenue. — (b) In case of war with Great Britain the frontier would be in a bad condition, and our whole tariff system would be torn asunder.

  1. Complete reciprocity would be economically disastrous.

(a) American and Canadian products are not supplementary, but competitory. — (b) Cheaper wages and cheaper raw material would be an inducement for our capital to move to Canada, and would also lower wages in the United States. — (c) We should lose much through emigration to Canada. — (d) It would give Canada the benefit of the market which we hav

e built up for ourselves by protection: Penn Monthly, V., 531.

  1. Historically, reciprocity with Canada has proved injurious.

(a) The United States tried commercial reciprocity with Canada in 1854, but abrogated the treaty in 1866.

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FREE SHIPS.

Question: ‘Resolved, That foreign-built ships should be admitted to American registry free of duty.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

D. A. Wells, The Decay of Our Ocean Mercantile Marine; John Codman, Free Ships; J.D.J. Kelly, The Question of Ships; North American Review, Vol. 142, p. 478 (May, 1886); House Reports, 1889-1890, No. 1210, Minority Report; 1882-1883, No. 1827, Views of the Minority; 1891-1892, No. 966; 1887-1888, No. 1874; Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 1044 (January 8, 1891); Congressional Globe, 1871-1872, Part 3, p. 2241 (April 6, 1872).

  1. A change in our navigation laws is necessary.

(a) Under their restrictions American shipping has suffered. — (1) Through heavy duties on ships. — (b) Though heavily protected, the ship-building industry has not thrived. — (1) The cost of labor is too great. — (c) American capital has been forced abroad. — (d) The present provision for the limited admission of foreign ships is inadequate. — (e) The development of inventive genius is prevented.

  1. Free ships furnish the only practicable remedy:

The Question of Ships, Chap. v. — (a) They enable Americans to compete on equal terms for world’s commerce. — (1) Ships can be bought at the lowest price. — (b) Carrying trade should not be sacrificed to ship-building.—(1) It employs fifty times as many men: The Question of Ships, p. 31. — (c) American ship-building would not be seriously affected.— (1) Only iron ships are concerned. — (d) The success of the plan is well illustrated by Germany’s policy.

  1. Subsidizing schemes are impracticable and inefficient:

The Question of Ships, Chap. iv. — (a) Subsidies large enough to be efficient would be too great a tax on the people. — (1) The cost of building ships is one-third greater than in England: John Codman, Free Ships. — (b) They must be permanent. — (c) They have already been unsuccessfully tried in the United States. — (d) They have failed in France. — (1) Ship-building has not been built up in ten years’ trial. — (e) England’s supremacy is not due to subsidizing: The Decay of Our Ocean Mercantile Marine, pp. 29-45. — (1) No payments are made to sailing vessels. — (2) Compensation is given only for carrying mails, and for building according to admiralty requirements.

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

W. W. Bates, American Marine; C. S. Hill, History of American Shipping; H. Hall, American Navigation; North American Review, Vol. 148, p. 687 (June, 1889); Vol. 154, p. 76 (January, 1892); Vol. 158, p. 433 (April, 1894); House Reports, 1891-1892, No. 966, Views of the Minority; 1887-1888, No. 1874, Views of the Minority, p. 10; 1882-1883, No. 1827; 1869-1870, No. 28; Nelson Dingley, Jr., in Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 997 (January 7, 1891).

  1. The lack of free registry was not responsible for the decline in American shipping.

(a) Under the present laws our merchant marine reached its height. — (b) The decline was due to other causes. — (1) To the destruction of commerce by English-built cruisers: American Marine, Chap. ix. — (2) To the commercial depression following war. — (3) To mechanical changes. — (x) From wood to iron. — (y) From sail to steam.

  1. Free registry offers no material advantages.

(a) American capital now invests in foreign-built ships. — (1) ‘Whitewashed’ sales: American Navigation, p. 75. — (b) The advantage of flying American flag would be subject to abuse.

  1. Free registry involves grave evils.

(a) Economic. — (1) It would annihilate ship-building in the United States. — (2) It would withdraw millions of capital from the country. — (b) National. — (1) It would cripple us in time of war. — (x) We should have no trained workmen. — (y) We should have no shipyards to build in an emergency.

  1. There are better alternatives than free registry.

(a) The removal of duties on materials. — (b) Sufficient mail subsidies to American-built ships: American Navigation, p. 77. — (c) A change in taxation from the principal invested in ships to net profits.

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SHIPPING SUBSIDIES.

Question: ‘Resolved, That the United States should establish a system of shipping subsidies.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

W. W. Bates, American Marine; House Reports, 1889-1890, No. 1210; C. S. Hill, History of American Shipping; House Reports, 1888-1889, No. 4162, Views of the Minority, p. 5; Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 997 (January 7, 1891), p. 3355 (February 26, 1891); Statement of Captain W. W. Bates in House Reports, 1889-1890, No. 1210, p. 220; Overland Monthly, I., 462 (May, 1883); H. Hall, American Navigation.

  1. The merchant marine of the United States is at present in a deplorable condition and ought to be built up:

House Reports, 1889-1890, No. 1210, pp. i-vi. — (a) A national marine is of the greatest importance to the wealth and the commercial prosperity of a nation: Lalor’s Cyclopædia, II., 987; J.D.J. Kelly, The Question of Ships, p. 108. — (1) It is essential to naval power. — (2) To the development of resources. — (3) To national unity and individualism. — (b) The United States has the necessary qualifications for the marine industry: The Question of Ships, Chap. i.; American Navigation, Chap. ii. — (1) In 1856 the United States merchant marine was the most extensive in the world. — (2) Our extensive sea-coast naturally fosters a maritime spirit. — (3) We have abundant natural resources. — (4) Extensive commerce. — (5) Great ship-building interests.

  1. The subsidy system is a desirable means of building up the marine.

(a) It is preferable to the policy of free ships. — (1) Such a policy would destroy our ship-building industry: American Navigation, Chap. vii. — (b) Subsidies given to vessels for mail service would greatly encourage commerce. — (1) By insuring regular service: American Navigation, p. 77; Congressional Record, 1885-1886, p. 4009 (April 30, 1886). — (c) Vessels subsidized could be put under contract to serve the United States in case of war: American Navigation, pp. 83-86. — (d) It is an economical system. — (1) The total payments would not exceed $5,000,000 per annum. — (2) The earnings of the foreign mail service, which amount to $10,000,000 per annum, could fittingly be used for subsidies: Congressional Record, 1889-1890, p. 6996 (July 7, 1890).

  1. Subsidies are necessary.

(a) The cost of American ships and their running expenses are greater than those of foreign vessels. — (b) The high subsidies given to foreign lines make it impossible for American lines to compete without like subsidies.

  1. Subsidies have proved successful in practice:

American Marine, pp. 325-327. — (a) We have tried such a system and found it effective: W. S. Lindsay, Merchant Shipping, IV., 194-228. — (b) Nearly all foreign nations maintain shipping subsidies: Congressional Record, 1890-1891, pp. 3359-3362 (February 26, 1891). — (c) They have been successful in France: House Reports, 1889-1890, No. 1210, pp. ix-xv. — (d) Great Britain, the foremost maritime country, has steadily adhered to a system of bounties: Congressional Record, 1890-1891, pp. 1001-1003 (January 7, 1891).

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

House Reports, 1889-1890, No. 1210, Minority Report, p. xxxix.; D.A. Wells, Our Merchant Marine; D.A. Wells, The Decay of Our Ocean Mercantile Marine; John Codman, Free Ships; John Codman, Shipping Subsidies and Bounties; Congressional Record, 1890-1891, pp. 3348, 3368, 3383 (February 26, 1891); 1889-1890, p. 6959 (July 3, 1890); House Reports, 1888-1889, No. 4162; J. D. J. Kelly, The Question of Ships.

  1. Subsidies are politically objectionable.

(a) They have proved and always will prove inducements to corrupt legislation. — (b) They create and foster a privileged class at the expense of the whole people: Our Merchant Marine, p. 141; Free Ships, p. 15. — (c) The practice would establish a bad precedent: House Reports, 1889-1890, No. 1210, pp. xl., xlii.

  1. Subsidies are economically objectionable:

Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 3352. — (a) They are merely temporizing measures: The Decay of Our Ocean Mercantile Marine, p. 25. — (b) They would be a tremendous cost: House Reports, 1888-1889, No. 4162, p. 4. — (c) They would not contribute to the general prosperity of the country: House Reports, 1888-1889, No. 4162, pp. 2-3. — (1) They would not benefit commerce. — (x) Foreign vessels now carry as cheaply as it can be done. — (2) They would benefit one industry at the expense of others. — (3) As profit would come wholly from subsidies, shippers would become uneconomical and the advantages of competition would be lost.

  1. There is no truth in the statement that shipping subsidies have built up merchant marines.

(a) Great Britain does not subsidize her vessels: The Decay of Our Ocean Mercantile Marine, p. 29; House Reports, 1889-1890, No. 1210, pp. xlii., 1. — (1) British mail subsidies are for actual service rendered as shown by the exacting rules and penalties for non-performance of contracts. — (b) The French system has not been successful: House Reports, 1888-1889, No. 4162, p. 3; 1889-1890, No. 1210, pp. 1-lx. — (c) Our own experience has been unfavorable. — (1) The Collins line in 1847: Congressional Record, 1890-1891, p. 3386.

  1. The best remedy for American shipping is free ships:

Our Merchant Marine, pp. 95-128; North American Review, Vol. 142, pp. 481-484 (May, 1886). — (a) Free ships would at least allow Americans to compete on equal terms for the commerce of the world.

 

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FREE SUGAR.

Question: ‘Resolved, That sugar should be admitted free of duty.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

‘Sugar and the Tariff,’ Tariff Reform Series, III., No. 12, p. 174 (July 30, 1890); Harper’s Weekly, XXXVIII., 602 (June 30, 1894), 771 (August 18, 1894), 819 (September 1, 1894); Nation, LIX., 74 (August 2, 1894), 112 (August 16, 1894); Congressional Record, 1889-1890, p. 10,631 (September 27, 1890).

  1. The question of protection does not enter.

(a) We produce only ten per cent, of the sugar we use: Princeton Review, VI., 322 (November, 1880). (b) The established industry can be more economically protected by bounties.

  1. The tariff is a burden on the poor.

(a) The poor man must pay more in proportion to his ability than the rich: C. D. Wright in Seventeenth Annual Report of Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, p. 266; W. O. Atwater in American Public Health Association, XV., 208. — (1) Carbohydrates are necessary to life. — (2) Sugar is the most economical carbohydrate. — (3) The laboring man consumes the greatest proportion of this constituent: American Public Health Association, XV., 216.

  1. The sugar tariff is a check to the country’s development.

(a) It discourages industries in which sugar is a raw material. — (1) The preserving industry. — (2) The condensed milk industry. — (3) The refining industry. — (b) It injures foreign commerce. — (1) With Brazil and Cuba. — (2) Germany has retaliated for our tariff by putting a tax on American beef: Harper’s Weekly, XXXVIII., 1058 (November 10, 1894).

  1. Sugar taxes are a great source of corruption.

(a) They enable importers to defraud the government by manipulating the grades of sugar. — (b) They give rise to political corruption such as has disgraced the Senate. — (1) By fostering the sugar trust: Nation, LVIII., 440 (June 14, 1894); LIX., 71, 93, 112; Harper’s Weekly, XXXVIII., 602, 771, 819; Tariff Reform Series, VII., No. 2, p. 28 (July 1, 1894).

  1. The sugar tax is not necessary for revenue.

(a) If the revenues fall short, the deficiency can be made up better by replacing the higher taxes on malt liquors and tobacco.

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

Congressional Record, 1893-1894, Appendix, p. 1178 (August 13, 1894), p. 634 (January 23, 1894); 1889-1890, Appendix, p. 437 (May 20, 1890); Harper’s Weekly, XXXVIII., 218 (March 10, 1894); Tariff Hearings Before the Committee on Ways and Means, 1893, pp. 505, 520, 542.

  1. A tax on sugar is a just way of raising revenue:

Congressional Record, 1893-1894, Appendix, p. 1182. — (a) It is evenly distributed: Ibid. — (1) It reaches consumers in proportion to their incomes. — (2) Sugar is to a great extent an article of voluntary consumption.

  1. It is a desirable way of raising revenue.

(a) It is the only tax which furnishes a steady, reliable revenue, capable of computation beforehand. — (b) It is an easy tax to collect. — (c) Precedent has established sugar as a fitting article for taxation: D. A. Wells in Princeton Review, VI., 323 (November, 1880); Congressional Record, 1893-1894, Appendix, pp. 1180-1186. — (1) It has heretofore furnished one-fourth of the total revenue: D. A. Wells, The Sugar Industry of the United States and the Tariff, p. 9.

  1. The tax is necessary to encourage the American sugar industry:

Congressional Record, 1893-1894, Appendix, p. 632. — (a) The beet and sugar industries are difficult to establish. — (1) They require a large outlay of capital at the beginning. — (2) The return on the investment is small. — (3) The industries are still experimental. — (b) American producers require a special protective tax to offset the large bounties which foreign countries pay to their producers.

  1. The objections to the tax are unsound.

(a) The sugar-refining trust would remain even if sugar were admitted free. — (1) As nearly all of the sugar admitted to the United States is raw, it would still have to pass through the refineries. — (b) The frauds against the government, due to the manipulation of grades, are not an inherent result of the tax.

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SUGAR BOUNTIES.

Question: ‘Resolved, That a system of sugar bounties is contrary to good public policy.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

D. A. Wells, Recent Economic Changes, pp. 295-309; Lalor’s Cyclopædia, II., 99; Fortnightly Review, XLII, 638 (November, 1884) ; Nation, XLV., 164 (September 1, 1887); XLII, 420 (May 20, 1886); Congressional Record, 1889-1890, pp. 10,712-10,716 (September 30, 1890), Appendix, p. 391.

  1. The bounty system is unconstitutional.

(a) It is legislation in favor of a class: Nation, XLVII., 24 (July 12, 1888); Congressional Record, 1889-1890, pp. 10,712-10,716, Appendix, p. 391; Loan Association v. Topeka, 120 Wallace, 663-664.

  1. The bounty system is burdensome on the people:

Nation, XLIV., 484 (June 9, 1887). — (a) The people are compelled to pay the bounty: Fortnightly Review, XLII., 638. — (b) They are compelled to pay the highest cost of production for sugar: Fortnightly Review, XLII., 638. — (c) They are compelled to pay for the expensive system of administration.

  1. The bounty system gives rise to fraud.

(a) It places a great amount of money and patronage in the hands of political parties: Congressional Record, 1889-1890, Appendix, p. 391. — (b) The intricate system of bounty payments enables producers to defraud the government: Recent Economic Changes, pp. 295-298.

  1. The bounty system is injurious to commerce.

(a) It deranges prices. — (1) The producer is led to disregard the law of supply and demand: Fortnightly Review, XLII., 638. — (b) It makes foreign exchange uncertain: Nation, XLV., 164. — (1) By causing alternate over-production and under-production: Recent Economic Changes, pp. 295-309. — (c) It enables producers to control the markets.

  1. The bounty system is unnecessary for the development of the industry.

(a) The United States has as good facilities for raising beets as any other country. — (b) The sugar industry is not an infant industry.

  1. The bounty system has proved a failure in Europe:

Nation, XLVI., 45 (January 19, 1888); Recent Economic Changes, pp. 295-309; Lalor’s Cyclopædia, II., 99. — (a) The beet-sugar industry was fostered at the expense of cane sugar: Nation, XLV., 164. — (b) International complications arose: Saturday Review, LXIV., 142 (July 30, 1887), 847 (December 24, 1887).

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

Essay on ‘Industry and Commerce’ in Works of Alexander Hamilton, III., 366; Congressional Record, 1889-1890, p. 4266 (May 7, 1890); Senators Allison and Sherman in Congressional Record, 1888-1889, pp. 888-895 (January 17, 1889).

  1. The sugar industry is highly desirable.

(a) The importance of sugar as a food is constantly increasing: Congressional Record, 1889-1890, p. 4266. — (b) The industry will be national, not sectional: Congressional Record, 1888-1889, p. 892; 1889-1890, p. 4515 (May 10, 1890). — (c) Beets do not exhaust the soil: Congressional Record, 1889-1890, p. 4266.

  1. The sugar industry would bring general economic advantages.

(a) It would keep at home money now sent abroad in payment for sugar. — (b) Capital greatly exceeding the amount of the bounty would be invested in the industry. — (c) The industry would create a new and a large demand for labor, both agricultural and mechanical.

  1. The bounty system is the best means of establishing the sugar industry.

(a) Protective duties are inadequate. — (1) Bounties paid by foreign countries tend to counteract our tariff. — (2) In the past import duties have failed. — (b) Bounties are necessary to tide the industry over the critical time of beginning: Congressional Record, 1889-1890, p. 4515. — (1) Establishment is difficult and expensive. — (2) There is small inducement for capital. — (3) Beet and sorghum sugar industries are more or less experimental. — (c) Bounties have been successful in establishing industries abroad. — (1) Beet-sugar industry in Germany: Congressional Record, 1889-1890, pp. 4266, 4431 (May 9, 1890).

  1. The bounty system is constitutional.

(a) The bounty is extended to anyone who is willing to undertake the production of sugar: American Law Register and Review, XXXI., 289 (May, 1892).

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DUTIES ON WOOL AND WOOLLENS.

Question: ‘Resolved, That a system of duties on wool and woollens is undesirable.’

Brief for the Affirmative.

General references:

F. W. Taussig in Quarterly Journal of Economics, VIII., 1 (October, 1893); North American Review, Vol. 154, p. 133 (February, 1892); ‘Wool and Tariff,’ Tariff Reform Series, III., No. 19, p. 342 (November 15, 1890); ‘The Wool Question,’ Tariff Reform Series (Report of Ways and Means Committee on the Springer Bill), V., No. 1, p. 1 (March 15, 1892).

  1. Duties on wool and woollens have failed to bring beneficient results.

(a) Wool-growing has not prospered. — (1) The United States cannot raise grades of wool that will compare in quality with the better grades of foreign countries. — (x) Owing to climate: Quarterly Journal of Economics, VIII., 18. — (b) Woollen manufacturers produce only the cheapest grades of woollens. — (c) Under the tariff American producers have succeeded in producing but a small quantity of woollens in comparison with foreign importations: Quarterly Journal of Economics, VIII., 28-29; Tariff Reform Series, III., No. 19, p. 359.

  1. The removal of duties on wool does not hurt woolgrowers.

(a) The grades of wool raised by American growers are not subject to foreign competition. — (1) In these grades the American producer has an equal advantage with foreign producers: Quarterly Journal of Economics, VIII., 5-20.

  1. Free woollens are not injurious to manufacturers.

(a) They do not injure the production of cheap grades of woollens for the American market. — (1) The American manufacturer, owing to the greater efficiency of his machinery and the small necessity for hand labor, can compete on equal terms in these grades.

  1. The removal of duties on wool is a benefit to manufacturers.

(a) It enables them to engage in the manufacture of finer grades of woollens: Quarterly Journal of Economics, VIII., 32-33. — (1) By giving them free raw material of finer grades. — (b) It gives them a larger assortment of wools from which to select their grades: Congressional Record, 1887-1888, pp. 6519-6530 (July 19, 1888). (c) It enlarges their trade with South America: Nation, XLVI., 500 (June 21, 1888).

  1. Duties are unjust to consumers.

(a) They require them to pay a high price for woolens which are not made in America. — (1) This is shown by the constant increase in the importations of the finer grades of woollens in spite of the high tariff.

Brief for the Negative.

General references:

Bulletin of National Association of Wool Manufacturers, XVIII., 1888, Nos. 2, 3; XXII., 268 (September, 1892); XXIII., 275 (December, 1893); XXII., 1 (March, 1892); XXL, 333 (December, 1891); XXII., 115 (June, 1892); W. D. Lewis, Our Sheep and the Tariff (Publications of the University of Pennsylvania), Chaps. i., vii.; Congressional Record, 1893-1894, Appendix, pp. 1064, 1172.

  1. Duties on wool are necessary to protect the sheep-raising industry:

Our Sheep and the Tariff, Chap. vii. — (a) Foreign competition is especially active in this industry. — (1) Australia and the Argentine Republic have superior natural advantages.

  1. Duties on woollens are necessary to protect manufacturers:

Bulletin of National Association of Wool Manufacturers, XXII., 133. — (a) Foreign manufacturers have an advantage in cheap labor. (b) Foreign manufacturers have as good machinery as manufacturers in the United States. — (1) American machinery is used extensively abroad. — (c) The return on investments in the United States is less than it is abroad. — (1) A larger capital is required to produce an equivalent amount of woollens: Bulletin of National Association of Wool Manufacturers, XXII., 136.

  1. The history of the United States shows that duties have been successful in building up the wool and woollen industries:

Bulletin of National Association of Wool Manufacturers, XVIII., 234. — (a) The production of wool has greatly increased since the system was begun. — (b) The woollen industry is four times as large as in 1860: Bulletin of National Association of Wool Manufacturers, XXII., 3. — (c) Under periods of high protection the industries have been most prosperous.

  1. The duties have benefited the consumers:

Bulletin of National Association of Wool Manufacturers, XXII., 119. (a) They have reduced the price of woollens to less than half what it was thirty years ago. — (1) By causing active competition and rapid improvements in machinery: Bulletin of National Association of Wool Manufacturers, XXII., 119.

 

Source: W. Du Bois Brookings and Ralph Curtis Ringwalt, eds., Briefs for Debate on Current Political, Economic, and Social Topics. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908, pp. 96-117.

Image Source:  Cartoon by John S. Pughe published in Puck , September 15, 1897. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540.

Categories
Economists Harvard History of Economics Northwestern

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus Homer Bews Vanderblue, 1915

 

Homer Bews Vanderblue (Harvard Ph.D., 1915) won his academic spurs for work on the economics of railroads. He went on to become the Dean of the School of Commerce at Northwestern. Before leaving for Northwestern in 1939 he donated his personal collection of Adam Smith materials to the Harvard Business School’s Baker Library.

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Homer Bews Vanderblue’s Ph.D. exams at Harvard

General Examination in Economics, Monday, May 11, 1914.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Turner, Sprague, Day, and Dr. Copeland.
Academic History: Northwestern University, 1907-12; Harvard Graduate School, 1912—. A.B., Northwestern, 1911; A.M. ibid., 1912. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1913—.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Statistics. 3. History of American Institutions since 1789. 4. Economic History since 1750. 5. Commercial Organization. 6. Transportation.
Special Subject: Transportation.
Thesis Subject: “Railroad Valuation.” (With Professor F. W. Taussig and Mr. E. J. Rich.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1913-14”.

Note:  Thesis published as Railroad Valuation, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1917.  It was awarded second prize ($500) in Class A of the Hart, Schaffner & Marx competition.

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From the 1941 Harvard Business School Yearbook

Homer Bews Vanderblue
Honorary Curator of Early Economic Literature

Degrees: A.B., 1911; A.M., 1912, Northwestern University; Ph.D., 1915 Harvard University.

History in Brief: Instructor in Economics, Harvard College, 1914-15; Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor of Transportation, Northwestern University, 1915-22; Research Director, Denver Civic and Commercial Association, 1920-21; Economist and Director, Harvard University Committee on Economic Research, 1922-29; Professor of Business Economics, 1922-29; Vice President, Tri-Continental Corporation, New York City, 1929-37; Member, Library Committee, College of William and Mary since 1936; Member, Committee on Economic Bibliography, British Academy since 1937; Honorary Curator of Early Economic Literature since 1936; Dean of College of Commerce, Northwestern University since 1939.

Source: Harvard University, The Harvard Business School Yearbook, 1941, page 37.

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Death notice from Harvard College President’s Annual Report

Homer Bews Vanderblue, Honorary Curator of Early Economic Literature in the Baker Library, died on July 12, 1952, in his sixty-fourth year. His first appointment at the University was as Assistant in Economics and Proctor in 1913-14. He became Instructor in Economics in 1914-15. Until 1922, he taught at Northwestern University as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor of Transportation. From 1922 until his resignation in 1929, he was Professor of Business Economics, and from 1936 until his death he filled the post of Honorary Curator of Early Economic Literature in the Baker Library. He returned to Northwestern as Professor of Business Economics and Dean of the School of Commerce (1939-49).

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and reports of departments, 1951-52, pp. 49-50.

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Vanderblue as Head of Northwestern’s School of Commerce

Homer Vanderblue becomes the fifth dean of the School of Commerce. Vanderblue proves to be a successful academic and administrative leader, keeping the school functioning during the resource shortages associated with World War II when most business schools curtailed their operations or suspended instruction entirely.

Under Dean Vanderblue, the school shifts away from technical specialization toward a broader managerial education. To accomplish this shift—which would take years to complete—Vanderblue introduces the “rotating chairs” system for academic department heads, thus sidestepping department rigidity. He recruits faculty sympathetic to his goals and ideals of “liberal business education.”

Vanderblue also works to bridge the fiscal gap between what the school generates for the university and what it earns to meet its expenses. Among other things, Vanderblue proposes raising faculty salaries, which had declined during the depression, and constructing new buildings in Evanston and Chicago. Vanderblue admits that to retain the best faculty, he has to draw upon loyalty to Northwestern by “playing on the ‘I love Evanston’ key” to retain the best senior professors, something he is able to do in many cases.

Dean Vanderblue retires due to ill health in 1949.

 

Source: Northwestern University, Webpage: “Kellogg School History: 1938-1947.”

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Adam Smith—Vanderblue Collection

Baker Library has brought together one of the most comprehensive collections of the works of Adam Smith in the world, with a special focus on The Wealth of Nations. This collection contains virtually all published editions in English of this work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Essays on Philosophical Subjects as well as translations into Chinese, French, Russian, and numerous other languages. Further, it holds many of Smith’s other published materials, manuscript letters, and several volumes from Smith’s own library. Harvard Business School Professor Homer B. Vanderblue donated the collection in 1939.

Source: https://www.library.hbs.edu/Find/Collections-Archives/Special-Collections/Collections/European-Economic-History-Philosophy-Kress-Collection/Adam-Smith-Vanderblue-Collection

Image Source: Homer Bews Vanderblue from the 1946 volume of the Northwestern University yearbook Syllabus. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Economic History Economists Harvard

Harvard. Ph.D. Economics Alumnus, Arthur Harrison Cole

 

Many Harvard Ph.D.’s in economics went on to careers across the Charles River at the Harvard Business School. The economic historian, Arthur Harrison Cole, is best known as having been the Librarian of the Business School’s Baker Library and also the executive director of the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History at the Business School. 

Arthur Harrison Cole’s doctoral examination fields can be found at this post. His dissertation is included in this list of Harvard economics Ph.D.’s through 1926.

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From the Report of the President of Harvard College, 1973-74

Arthur Harrison Cole, who died November 10, 1974 in his 85th year, was Professor of Business Economics, Emeritus and former Librarian of the Baker Library at the School of Business Administration. Called a “pivotal figure” in the growth of the Library, Cole boldly reorganized and reclassified its collections, transforming it into a distinguished, scholarly institution. He presented to the Library the records of the first cotton manufacturing concern in this country which he had discovered in Webster, Massachusetts while a doctoral student. From this experience came his long professional interest in the changing ways of American business. His two-volume work, The American Wool Manufacture (1926), is still an important source book on the subject, and the Research Center in Entrepreneurial History at the School of Business Administration was largely his project — he was executive director from 1948 to 1958. After graduation from Bowdoin College in 1911 Cole received the A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard in 1913 and 1916. In 1913 he was appointed Assistant in Economics in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and in 1916 Instructor in Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government and Economics. He became an Assistant Professor in 1926 and Associate Professor in 1928. His service at the Business School commenced in 1929 when he was made Administrative Curator of the Baker Library. In 1932 he became Librarian of Baker and in 1933 was elected Professor of Business Economics. His activity in his field continued after his retirement in 1956. He was an editor and a prolific writer who published in many journals. A slight but charming evidence of his editorship was Charleston Goes to Harvard, the diary of a Harvard student from South Carolina during one term in 1831. Cole’s most recent book was The Birth of a New Social Sciences Discipline: The Achievements of the First Generation of American Business Historians, 1893-1974. A room in Baker Library devoted to corporate publications is scheduled to be dedicated to his memory this spring.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments, 1973-74, pp. 32-3.

Image Source: Harvard Business School Yearbook 1930-1931, p. 39.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Graduate Core Economic Theory Exams and Enrollments. Taussig, 1923-1925

 

Examination questions spanning just over a half-century can be found in Frank Taussig’s personal scrapbook of cut-and-pasted semester examinations for his entire Harvard career. Up to the time when Schumpeter took over the core economic theory course from Taussig in 1935, Taussig’s course covering economic theory and its history was a part of almost every properly educated Harvard economist’s basic training. Taussig’s exam questions have been previously posted for the academic years 1886/87 through 1889/90 along with enrollment data for the course;  material for this course (including semesters when taught with/by other instructors) from 1890/91 through 1893/94; 1897-1900 ; 1904-1909 ; 1911-14 ; 1915-1917; 1918-1919 ; 1920-22 have been posted as well.  

This post begins with the printed course description from 1924 and a link to a list of reading assignments from 1923-24 taken from a student’s notes of the lectures and then addes the enrollment data and three years of semester final examinations for the years 1922-23 through 1924-25.

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Course Description: Economics 11
1924-25

ECONOMIC THEORY AND METHOD

Economic Theory. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Taussig.

Course 11 is intended to acquaint the student with the development of economic thought since the beginning of the nineteenth century, and at the same time to train him in the critical consideration of economic principles. The exercises are conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in this discussion the students are expected to take an active part. A careful examination is made of the writings of Ricardo and J. S. Mill, and of representative modern economists, such as Marshall, Böhm-Bawerk, Clark.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Government. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXI, No. 22 (April 30, 1924), p. 71.

The course reading assignments for Economics 11 according to Frank W. Fetter’s student notes from 1923-24 was posted earlier.

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1922-23

Course Enrollment: Economics 11, 1922-23

[Economics] 11. Professor Taussig.—Economic Theory

Total 42: 36 Graduates, 3 Graduate Business, 2 Seniors, 1 Junior

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1922-23, p. 92.

  

1922-23
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 11
Midyear-Exam

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions

  1. (a) “Given machinery, raw materials, and a year’s subsistence for 1000 laborers, does it make no difference with the annual product whether those laborers are Englishmen or East-Indians?”
    (b) “In some exceptional industries it happens that the employer realizes on his product in a shorter time than this (a week), so that the laborer is not only paid out of the product of his industry, but actually advances to the employer a portion of the capital on which he operates.”
    (c) “On American whaling ships the custom is not to pay fixed wages, but a “lay,” or a portion of the catch, which varies from a sixteenth to a twelfth to the captain down to a three-hundredth to the cabin-boy. Thus, when a whaleship comes into New Bedford or San Francisco after a successful cruise, she carries in her hold the wages of her crew, as well as the profits of her owners, and an equivalent which will reimburse them for all the stores used up during the voyage. Can anything be clearer than that these wages — this oil and bone which the crew of the whaler have taken — have not been drawn from capital, but are really a part of the produce of their labor”?
    Are these three situations essentially similar? And what is the bearing of each of them on the question under debate?
  2. “The extra gains which any producer or dealer obtains through superior talents for business, or superior business arrangements, are very much of a similar kind (analogous to rent). If all his competitors had the same advantages, and used them, the benefit would be transferred to their customers, through the diminished value of the article; he only retains it for himself because he is able to bring his commodity to market at a lower cost, while its value is determined by a higher. All advantages, in fact, which one competitor has over another, whether natural or acquired, whether personal or the result of social arrangements, bring the commodity, so far, into the Third Class, and assimilate the possessor of the advantage to a receiver or of rent.” Did Walker add anything of essential significance to this statement of Mill’s?
    Mill, Principles of Pol. Econ., pp. 476-77.
  3. (a) “It is not to be understood that the natural price of labour, estimated even in food and necessaries, is absolutely fixed and constant. It varies at different times in the same country, and very materially differs in different countries. It essentially depends on the habits and customs of the people.”
    (b) “A tax on raw produce, and on the necessaries of the labourer, would have another effect — it would raise wages. From the effect of the principle of population on the increase of mankind, wages of the lowest kind never continue much above that rate which nature and habit demand for the support of the labourers. This class is never able to bear any considerable proportion of taxation; and, consequently, if they had to pay 8s. per quarter in addition for wheat, and in some smaller proportion for other necessaries, they would not be able to subsist on the same wages as before, and to keep up the race of labourers. Wages would inevitably and necessarily rise.”
    (c) “If I have to hire a labourer for a week, and instead of ten shillings I pay him eight, no variation having taken place in the value of money, the labourer can probably obtain more food and necessaries with his eight shillings than he before obtained for ten.”
    Are these several statements of Ricardo’s consistent?
  4. In which of the following passages is the tendency to diminishing returns treated as referring to the amount of the produce, in which as referring to the value of the produce? Which method of treatment seems to you the proper one?

(a) “Whatever rise may take place in the price of corn, in consequence of the necessity of employing more labor and capital to obtain a given additional quantity of produce, such rise will always be equalled by the additional rent or additional labor employed. . . . Whether the produce belonging to the farmer be 180, 170, 160, or 150 quarters, he always obtains the same sum of £720 for it; the price increasing in an inverse proportion to the quantity.” — Ricardo.
(b) The Channel Islands obtain agricultural produce to the value of £50 to each acre of the aggregate surface of the island. Fifty pounds’ worth of agricultural produce from each acre of the land is sufficiently good. But the more we study the modern achievements of agriculture the more we see that the limits of productivity of the soil are not attained. . . . I can confirm Mr. Bear’s estimate to the effect that under proper management even a cool greenhouse, which covers 4050 square feet, can give a gross return of £180.” — Kropotkin.
(c) “Ricardo, and the economists of his time generally were too hasty in deducing this inference [tendency to increased pressure] from the law of diminishing return; and they did not allow enough for the increase of strength that comes from organization. But in fact every farmer is aided by the presence of neighbours, whether agriculturists or townspeople. . . . If the neighbouring market town expands into a large industrial centre, all his produce is worth more; some things which he used to throw away fetch a good price. He finds new openings in dairy farming and market gardening, and with a larger range of produce he makes use of rotations that keep his land always active without denuding it of any one of the elements that are necessary for its fertility.” — Marshall.

  1. “Ricardo expresses himself as if the quantity of labour which it costs to produce a commodity and bring it to the market, were the only thing on which its value depended. But since the cost of production to the capitalist is not labour but wages, and since wages may be either greater or less, the quantity of labour being the same; it would seem that the value of the product cannot be determined solely by the quantity of labour, but by the quantity together with the remuneration; and that values must partly depend on wages.” — J. S. Mill.
    What would Ricardo say to this? and in what way, according to Mill, do wages affect value?
  2. Explain briefly external economies; internal economies.
    It has been said that internal economies cause an increase of demand, external economies result from an increase of demand. Do you agree?
    Suppose internal economies to become greater indefinitely, as output enlarges; what consequences would ensue? Suppose the same for external economies, what consequences?
  3. “There is one general law of demand: the greater the amount to be sold, the smaller must be the price at which it is offered in order that it may find purchasers. . . . The one universal rule to which the demand curve conforms is that it is inclined negatively throughout the whole of its length.”
    “The demand curve over short periods — which may be a matter of weeks or months — is not necessarily inclined throughout in the same direction. It may be inclined positively. And similarly the supply curve does not necessarily have that constant positive inclination which is usually assumed. In the course of the higgling of the market this in its turn may have a negative inclination.”
    Whom do you believe to be the writers of these passages? Can they be harmonized? If so, how? If not, why not?
  4. The series of hypotheses made by Marshall concerning “meteoric showers of stones harder than diamonds”; the nature of the incomes derived by those finding them in the several cases; and the general principle which is thus illustrated.

 

 

1922-23
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 11
Year-end Final Exam

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.

  1. “Labour of different kinds differently rewarded. This no cause of variation in the relative value of commodities.” On what grounds did Ricardo reach the conclusion summarized by him in these sentences? Is it consistent with the general trend of his theory of value?
  2. “This doctrine [about non-competing groups] was given its name by J. E. Cairnes. . . . He supposed it to be a rare and remarkable exception to what he believed was the general rule, that the cost-of-production regulated the price of goods — essentially a “labor-theory of value.” We regard it merely as a helpful way of presenting a particular case of the general rule that the value of agents is derived from their products when the market is viewed as a whole.”
    What would Cairnes say to this? What is your own view on the “general rule” stated in the concluding sentence?
  3. “Suppose that society is divided into a number of horizontal grades, each of which is recruited from the children of its own members; and each of which has its own standard of comfort, and increases in numbers rapidly when the earnings to be got in it rise above, and shrinks rapidly when they fall below that standard. Suppose, then, that parents can bring up their children to any trade in their own grade, but cannot easily raise them above it and will not consent to sink them below it. . . .
    On these suppositions, would Cairnes say that value was determined by cost? What would Marshall say?
  4. (a) “We have next to study the conditions of Business Management; and in so doing we must have in view a problem that will occupy our attention as we go on. It arises from the fact that, though in manufacturing at least nearly every individual business, so long as it is well managed, tends to become stronger the larger it has grown; and though prima facie we might therefore expect to see large firms driving their smaller rivals completely out of many branches of industry, yet they do not in fact do so.”
    (b) “Since then business ability in command of capital moves with great ease horizontally from a trade which is overcrowded to one which offers good openings for it; and since it moves with great ease vertically, the abler men rising to the higher posts in their own trade, we see, even at this early state of our inquiry, some good reasons for believing that in modern England the supply of business ability in command of capital accommodates itself, as a general rule, to the demand for it; and thus has a fairly defined supply price.”
    What is Marshall’s solution of the problem stated in the first of these passages? What sort of supply schedule do you suppose him to have in mind in the second? What would Walker say on both passages?
  5. “If the production of any, even the smallest, portion of the supply, requires as a necessary condition a certain price, that price will be obtained for all the rest. . . . The value, therefore, of an article (meaning its natural, which is the same with its average value) is determined by the cost of that portion of the supply which is produced and brought to market at the greatest expense. This is the Law of Value of the third of the three classes into which all commodities are divided. . . . Rent, therefore, forms no part of the cost of production which determines the value of agricultural produce.”
    By whom do you suppose this passage to have been written? What would Marshall say to it?
  6. “‘Rent is not an element in price’ — such is the classical statement on the subject. . . . But, if one defines rent as product imputable to a concrete agent, the impossibility of maintaining such a claim becomes apparent. Even if one were to restrict the term rent to the product created by land, the claim that it is not an element in adjusting market values would be absurd; for it would amount to saying that a certain part of the output of every kind of goods has no effect on their market value. The ‘price’ referred to in the formula is, of course, the market value expressed in units of currency.” What do you say?
  7. “When the artisan or professional man has once obtained the skill required for his work, a part of his earnings are for the future really a quasi-rent of the capital and labour invested in fitting him for his work, in obtaining his start in life, his business connections, and generally his opportunity for turning his faculties to good account; and only the remainder of his income is true earnings of effort. But this remainder is generally a large part of the whole. And here lies the contrast. For when a similar analysis is made of the profits of the business man, the proportions are found to be different: in his case the greater part is quasi-rent.” Why? or why not?
  8. (a) “Capital-goods imply waiting for the fruits of labor. Capital, on the contrary, implies the direct opposite of this: it is the means of avoiding all waiting. It is the remover of time intervals, — the absolute synchronizer of labor and its fruits. It is the means of putting civilized man in a position which, so far as time is concerned, is akin to that in which the rude forester stood, when he broke off limbs of dead trees and laid them on his fire. The very appliances which, in their extent and complexity, seem in one view to mean endless waiting, in another view mean no waiting at all but the instantaneous appearance of the final fruits of every bit of labor that is put forth.”
    (b) “Tools are productive, but time is the condition of getting tools — this is the simple and literal fact. The roundabout or time-consuming mode of using labor insures efficient capital-goods. . . . When the hatchet has worn itself completely out, and the fruits of using it are before the man in the large dwelling, he may look backward to the beginning of the process, when he faced nature empty-handed, and say: ‘Labor has done it all. Work and waiting have given me my goods.’ The working and the waiting have, indeed, insured the hatchet, as an incidental result of this way of working. Production that plans to put its fruits into the future will create capital-goods as an immediate effect, but labor and time are enough to make the ultimate effect certain. Let the man work intelligently through an interval of time, and the production of consumers’ wealth is sure.”
    (c) “The effort of postponement, or the preference of uncertain future for certain present consumables, necessary for supplying capital, if it is an effort, is a continuous one lasting all the time the capital is in use. The critic who asks, why a single ‘act of abstinence’ which is past and done with should be rewarded by a perpetual payment of annual interest, fails to realise that, so far as saving involves a serviceable action of the saver, it goes on all the time that the saver lies out of the full present enjoyment of his property, i.e. as long as his savings continue to function as productive instruments.”
    What would Clark say to the three propositions here stated? What are your own views?
    By whom do you suppose the passages to have been written?

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 1923-24

Course Enrollment: Economics 11, 1923-24

[Economics] 11. Professor Taussig.—Economic Theory

Total 51: 37 Graduates, 5 Graduate Business, 3 Seniors, 6 Radcliffe

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1923-24, p. 107.

 

 

1923-24
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 11
Mid-year Exam

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions

  1. What bearing has the turn-over of retail shops on the question whether the reward of labor is derived from the contemporaneous product of labor?
  2. “Suppose I employ twenty men at an expense of £1000 for a year in the production of a commodity, and at the end of the year I employ twenty men again for another year, at a further expense of £1000 in finishing or perfecting the same commodity, and that I bring it to market at the end of two years, if profits be 10 per cent, my commodity must sell for [?]. Another man employs precisely the same quantity of labour, but he employs it all in the first year; he employs forty men at an expense of £2000, and at the end of the first year he sells it with 10 per cent profit, or for [?].
    Give the figures which Ricardo put into the bracketed spaces, and explain in what way he reached his figures.
    What principle does he mean to illustrate by examples of this kind?
  3. “Thus, in a charitable institution, where the poor are set to work with the funds of benefactors, the general prices of the commodities, which are the produce of such work, will not be governed by the peculiar facilities afforded to these workmen, but by the common, usual, and natural difficulties which every other manufacturer will have to encounter. The manufacturer enjoying none of these facilities might indeed be driven altogether from the market if the supply afforded by these favoured workmen were equal to all the wants of the community; but if he continued the trade, it would be only on condition that he should derive from it the usual and general rate of profits on stock; and that could only happen when his commodity sold for a price proportioned to the quantity of labour bestowed on its production.”
    What principle was Ricardo trying to elucidate in this passage? Is his reasoning sound?
  4. “The amount of produce raised, and therefore the position of the margin of cultivation (i. e., the margin of the profitable application of capital and labour to good and bad land alike) are both governed by the general conditions of demand and supply. They are governed on the one hand by demand; that is, by the numbers of the population who consume the produce, the intensity of their need for it, and their means of paying for it: and on the other hand by supply; that is, by the extent and fertility of the available land, and the numbers and resources of those ready to cultivate it. Thus cost of production, eagerness of demand, margin of production, and price of the produce mutually govern one another: and no circular reasoning is involved in speaking of any one as in part governed by the others.”
    Is this different from Ricardo’s doctrine on the relation between cost of production, value, rent? Is it inconsistent with Ricardo’s doctrine?
  5. “In short periods, that is, in periods short relatively to the time required to make and bring into full bearing improvements . . . no such direct influence on supply price is exercised by the necessity that such improvements should in the long run yield net incomes sufficient to give normal profits on their cost. And therefore when we are dealing with such periods, these incomes may be regarded as quasi-rents which depend on the price of the produce.”
    Would you regard “these incomes” as quasi-rents, in Marshall’s sense? Would you consider this a good definition of quasi-rents?
  6. Indicate summarily Mill’s doctrines regarding

the law of the accumulation of capital;
the factors on which the rate of profits depends;
the tendency of profits to a minimum.

Are they consistent with each other? Which of them, if any, is in accord with Ricardo’s doctrine on profits?

  1. “An increase in the aggregate volume of production of anything will generally increase the size, and therefore the internal economics possessed by a representative firm; it will always increase the external economies to which the firm has access; and thus it will enable it to manufacture at a less proportionate cost of labour and sacrifice than before.”
    Why “generally” in the first case? Why “always” in the second? or why not in either case?
  2. Explain

cost of production,
expenses of production,
supply price,
contemporaneous costs curve,
successive costs curve.

  1. “Among 1317 farms in one county in New York, 13 farms yielded labor incomes of over $2000. . . . Part of this difference was due to the soils being better than the average, and part was due to better management.” In the book from which this passage is taken, “labor income” is ascertained by deducting from the farm receipts (a) expenses incurred in operating the farm, (b) the interest which the farmer would have got if, instead of investing in the farm, he had lent his money at the current rate. Would you accept this definition of labor income?
    Does “economic rent” appear in the analysis? If so, where and how?

 

 

1923-24
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 11
Year-end Final Exam

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions

  1. What is left, in the present stage of economic theory, of Ricardo’s doctrine of value? of wages? of profits?
  2. “When considering costs from the social point of view, when inquiring whether the cost of attaining a given result is increasing or diminishing with changing economic conditions, then we are concerned with the real costs of efforts of various qualities, and with the real cost of waiting. If the purchasing power of money in terms of effort has remained about constant, and if the rate of remuneration for waiting has remained about constant, then the money measure of costs corresponds to the real costs; but such a correspondence is never to be assumed lightly.” — Marshall.
    Consider separately the two propositions stated in these sentences, and give your opinion on them.
  3. “Let us now drop the supposition that labour is so mobile as to ensure equal remuneration for equal efforts, throughout the whole of society, and let us approach much nearer to the actual conditions of life by supposing that labour is not all of one industrial grade, but of several. Let us suppose that parents always bring up their children to an occupation in their own grade; that they have a free choice within that grade, but not outside it. Lastly, let us suppose that the increase of numbers in each grade is governed by other than economic causes: as before it may be fixed, or it may be influenced by changes in custom, in moral opinion, etc.” — Marshall.
    On these suppositions, is value determined by “real costs.”? Wherein, if at all, do the suppositions differ from those made by Marshall in earlier editions?
  4. “While we [the Austrians] say that the value of means of production, that is of cost-goods, is determined by the value of their products, the usual way of interpreting the law is to say that the value of their products, the usual way of interpreting the law is to say that the value of the products is determined by the amount of their costs, — by the value of the means of production out of which they are made.” — Böhm-Bawerk.
    What are grounds of this conclusion? What is your own view?
  5. “The difference between land and other durable agents is mainly one of degree; and a great part of the interest of the study of the rent of land arises from the illustration it affords of a great principle that permeates every part of economics.” — Marshall.
    Why is the difference mainly one of degree? and what is the great permeating principle?
  6. State the precise point on which Böhm-Bawerk rests his contention that there is no specific productivity of capital.
  7. Böhm-Bawerk remarks that the theory put forth by him bears a certain resemblance to the wage fund doctrine of the older English school, but differs from it in essentials. Explain the resemblance; point out the difference which Böhm-Bawerk believes to be essential; and give you instructor’s comment on that point of difference.
  8. Under the regulation for administering the Excess Profits Tax, while it was levied in the United States, an individual business man liable for this tax was allowed, when declaring his profits, to deduct from his receipts not only all outlays incurred but also (a) eight per cent on his invested capital, (b) a reasonable salary for his own labor of management.
    Were these two allowances in accord with the theoretic treatment of business profits by Clark? by Marshall? by your instructor?

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Course Enrollment: Economics 11, 1924-25

 

[Economics] 11. Professor Taussig.—Economic Theory

Total 59: 43 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 8 Graduate Business, 6 Radcliffe

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1924-25, p. 75.

 

 

1924-25
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 11
Mid-Year Exam

 

  1. “When the labourer maintains himself by funds of his own, as when a peasant-farmer or proprietor lives on the produce of his land, or an artisan works on his own account, they are still supported by capital, that is, by funds provided in advance. The peasant does not subsist this year on the produce of this year’s harvest, but on that of the last. The artisan is not living on the proceeds of the work he has in hand, but on those of work previously executed and disposed of. Each is supported by a small capital of his own, which he periodically replaces from the produce of his labour.” J. S. Mill.
    Are the two situations here described essentially similar? and what general proposition or propositions do they illustrate?
  2. “In a charitable institution, where the poor are set to work with the funds of benefactors, the general prices of the commodities, which are the produce of such work, will not be governed by the peculiar facilities afforded to these workmen, but by the common, usual, and natural difficulties which every other manufacturer will have to encounter. The manufacturer enjoying none of these facilities might indeed be driven altogether from the market if the supply afforded by these favoured workmen were equal to all the wants of the community; but if he continued the trade, it would be only on condition that he should derive from it the usual and general rate of profits on stock; and that could only happen when his commodity sold for a price proportioned to the quantity of labour bestowed on its production.”

(a) What principle was Ricardo trying to elucidate in this passage?
(b) It has been argued that labor in a “charitable institution” is usually inefficient, and that nothing of the sort described by Ricardo happens. What would you say? What would Ricardo say?
(c) Trade-unions are opposed to the employment of convict labor, on the ground that it takes work from their members and tends to lower wages. Is their attitude inconsistent with the sort of reasoning Ricardo applies?

  1. It has been said:

(a) that the law of diminishing returns refers to the physical quantity of the produce obtained from land, not to the value of the produce;
(b) that the law of diminishing returns refers to the yield from each several piece of land, not to the yield from land at large;
(c) that if all land were equally endowed by nature, and if all were used, the income of the land-owners would be in the nature of a monopoly gain.

Which of these statements would you accept, which reject?

  1. “In estimating the exchangeable value of stockings, for example, we shall find that their value, comparatively with other things, depends on the total quantity of labour necessary to manufacture them and bring them to market. First, there is the labour necessary to cultivate the land on which the raw cotton is grown; secondly, the labour of conveying the cotton to the country where the stockings are to be manufactured, which includes a portion of the labour bestowed in building the ship in which it is conveyed, and which is charged in the freight on the goods; thirdly, the labour of the spinner and weaver; fourthly, a portion of the labour of the engineer, smith, and carpenter, who erected the buildings and machinery, by the help of which they are made; fifthly, the labour of the retail dealer, and of many others, whom it is unnecessary further to particularise.”
    What is the bearing of this enumeration on Ricardo’s theory of value? on his theory of profits?
  2. “The cause of profit is that labour produces more than is required for its support.”
    “The capitalist may be assumed to make all the advances and receive all the profit. His profit consists of the excess of the produce above the advances.”
    Are these two statements inconsistent with each other?
    Which, if either, was Ricardo’s doctrine? Which Mill’s? Which, if either, comes near the truth?
  3. What is the short-period point of view, what the long-period point of view, in the discussion of value at the hands of Mill? of Marshall?
  4. Under what circumstances, if under any, would you expect to find

(a) a demand curve positively inclined;
(b) a successive costs curve negatively inclined;
(c) a contemporaneous costs curve negatively inclined?

  1. Wherein is the incidence of a tax on dwellings significant as regards the doctrine of quasi-rent? That of a tax on printing-presses?
  2. Would you expect an increase of demand for an article to lead to external economies in its production? to internal economies?

 

 

1924-25
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 11
Year-end Final Exam

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions
Questions 1, 2, 3 may be answered as one, if you prefer

  1. Explain summarily

“real” costs of production,
money costs of production,
expenses of production,
supply price,
derived supply price.

  1. Would you reckon “economic rent” among the expenses of production of a commodity? Quasi-rent?
  2. (a) When a supply curve is laid out for the purpose of representing conditions of diminishing returns, is it supposed to indicate gradations in real costs or in money costs?
    (b) When a supply curve is constructed for a manufactured commodity, on the basis of data furnished by cost accountants, does it indicate gradations in real costs or in money costs?
  3. (a) “The ordinary bargain between labour and capital is that the wage-receiver gets command over commodities in a form ready for immediate consumption, and in exchange carries his employer’s goods a stage further towards being ready for immediate consumption. But while this is true of most employees, it is not true of those who finish the process of production. For instance, those who put together and finish watches, give to their employers far more commodities in a form ready for immediate consumption, than they obtain as wages. And if we take one season of the year with another, so as to allow for seed and harvest time, we find that workmen as a whole hand over to their employers more finished commodities than they receive as wages.”
    (b) There is, however, a rather forced sense in which we may perhaps be justified in saying that the earnings of labour depend upon advances made to labour by capital. For — not to take account of machinery and factories, of ships and railroads — the houses loaned to workmen, and even the raw materials in various stages which will be worked up into commodities consumed by them, represent a far greater provision of capital for their use than the equivalent of the advances which they make to the capitalist, even when they work for a month for him.”
    (c) “The whole question, whether goods are advanced by one class of persons to another, in order to tide that other class over an interval of waiting, clearly has reference, not to the relation of capitalists in general to laborers in general, but to the relation of certain sub-groups to other sub-groups in the producing series. It is the sub-group A´´´ [those making finished goods] that must advance the stock of the article A´´´ to all the sub-groups that are below it in the series, if any advances at all are needed; but does it actually make any advances? . . . Nothing of this kind, however, takes place. The stocks of A´´´, B´´´ and C´´´ are drawn upon and replenished simultaneously, like water in a full pipe, with an inflow at one end and an outflow at the other.”

Explain whom you believe to be the writers of these passages; what Böhm-Bawerk would say on the general propositions here laid down; what your own views on them are.

  1. “When an artisan or a professional man has exceptional natural abilities, which are not made by human effort, and are not the result of sacrifices undergone for a future gain, they enable him to obtain a surplus income over what ordinary persons could expect from similar exertions following on similar investments of capital and labour in their education and start in life; a surplus which is of the nature of rent.” Would Marshall agree to this as regards (a) the incomes of professional men; (b) business profits? Would you?
  2. Explain briefly whether anything in the nature either of a producer’s surplus or of a consumer’s surplus appears as regards (a) instruments made by man and the return secured by their owners; (b) unskilled labor and the wages paid for it.
  3. Is interest “earned”? Are business profits “earned”?
  4. Are there grounds for maintaining that Clark’s doctrine of the “zone of indifference” is inconsistent with his doctrine of the specific productivity of labor and capital?
  5. “Suppose a poor man receives every day two pieces of bread, while one is enough to allay the pangs of positive hunger, what value will one of the two pieces of bread have for him? The answer is easy enough. If he gives away the piece of bread, he will lose, and if he keeps it he will secure, provision for that degree of want which makes itself felt whenever positive hunger has been allayed. We may call this the second degree of utility. One of two entirely similar goods is, therefore, equal in value to the second degree in the scale of utility of that particular class of goods. . . . Not only has one of two goods the value of the second degree of utility, but either of them has it, whichever one may choose. And three pieces have together three times the value of the third degree of utility, and four pieces have four times the value of the fourth degree. In a word, the value of a supply of similar goods is equal to the sum of the items multiplied by the marginal utility.” — Wieser.
    What is meant by “value” in this passage? Do you think the analysis tenable? and do you think it inconsistent with the doctrine of total utility and consumer’s surplus?

 

Source for examination questions: Harvard University Archives. Prof. F. W. Taussig, Examination Papers in Economics 1882-1935 (Scrapbook).

Image Source: Frank W. Taussig, Harvard Class Album, 1925.

Categories
Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. International Economic Relations Seminar. Haberler and Harris, 1940-45

 

The most famous economics seminar at Harvard University in the history of economics is undoubtedly the fiscal policy seminar run by John Williams and Alvin Hansen. A list of that seminar’s speakers and their topics was included in an earlier post. Below I provide the reported speaker’s and topics for the “younger” international economic relations seminar jointly organized by Gottfried Haberler and Seymour Harris during the War years.

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EXPANSION OF THE SEMINAR PROGRAM

Several additions have been made in the seminar program of the School [of Public Administration] for the year 1940-1941. Professors Haberler and Harris are presenting a seminar on international economic relations. We planned our seminar program in 1937 on the assumption that it was wise to begin with domestic problems despite the fact that a number of the Faculty had special interests in the international field. In view of the events of the last few years, it seems highly important to develop these interests. The seminar given by Professors Haberler and Harris deals with the application of the principles of international trade to current problems…

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1939-40, p. 306.

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1940-41
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
[partial list]

[Seven of the meetings of the Fiscal Policy Seminar were held jointly with other seminars – four with the International Economic Relations Seminar and three with the Agricultural, Forestry, and Land Policy Seminar.]

 

October 11. SVEND LAURSEN, Student, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University.

Subject: International Trade and the Multiplier. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy Seminar.)

February 21. HARRY D. WHITE, Director, Division of Monetary Research, United States Treasury Department.

Subject: Blocked Balances. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy Seminar.)

March 21. RICHARD V. GILBERT, National Defense Advisory Commission.

Subject: The American Defense Program. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy Seminar.)

May 2. GUSTAV STOLPER, Financial Adviser.

Subject: Financing the American Defense Program. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy Seminar.)

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1940-41, p. 323 ff.

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INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR:
1941-1942. Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Harris

In 1941-42 the seminar devoted its attention to war and post-war problems in the field of International Economic Relations. A few meetings were spent on the discussion of fundamental theoretical problems. During the first semester all meetings were taken up by papers of outside consultants and their discussion. In the second semester student reports were presented and discussed, and a few extra meetings were arranged for outside speakers. The consultants and their topics were as follows:

 

October 1. EUGENE STALEY, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Economic Warfare.

October 8.[**] CHARLES P. KINDLEBERGER, Federal Reserve Board. Canadian-American Economic Relations in the War and Post-War Period.

October 15.[**] A. F. W. PLUMPTRE, University of Toronto. International Economic Position of Canada in the Present Emergency.

October 22. HEINRICH HEUSER, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Exchange Control.

October 29. FRITZ MACHLUP, University of Buffalo. The Foreign Trade Multiplier.

November 5. HENRY CHALMERS, United States Department of Commerce. Trade Restrictions in Wartime.

November 12. ARTHUR R. UPGREN, United States Department of Commerce. International Economic Interest of the United States and the Post-War Situation.

November 19. OSKAR MORGENSTERN, Princeton University. International Aspects of the Business Cycle.

November 28.[*] NOEL F. HALL, British Embassy. Economic Warfare.

December 5.[*] ROBERT BRYCE, Department of Finance, Canada. International Economic Relations with Special Reference to the Post-War Situation.

January 26.[*] PER JACOBSSEN, Bank for International Settlements. The Problem of Post-War Reconstruction.

February 13.[*] JACOB VINER, University of Chicago. Monopolistic Trading and International Relations.

February 18. H. D. FONG, Director, Nankai Institute of Economics, Chungking, China. Industrialization of China.

February 25. MICHAEL HEILPERIN, Hamilton College. International Aspects of the Present and Future Economic Situation.

March 11. JACOB MARSCHAK, New School for Social Research. The Theory of International Disequilibria.

March 14.[*] RICHARD M. BISSELL, JR., Yale University and the United States Department of Commerce. Post-War Domestic and International Investment.

March 18. ANTONIN BASCH, Brown University. International Economic Problems of Central and Southeastern Europe.

March 20.[*] ALBERT G. HART, University of Iowa. The Present Fiscal Situation.

April 10. ABBA P. LERNER, University of Kansas City. Post-War Problems.

May 8. HORST MENDERSHAUSEN, Bennington College. International Trade and Trade Policy in the Post-War Period.

 

Six of these were joint meetings with the Fiscal Policy Seminar [*] and two were joint meetings with the Government Control of Industry Seminar[**].

Student reports were presented on the following subjects:

Argentine International Trade.
Exchange Control in Argentina.
Some Aspects of Sino-Japanese Trade.
International Effects of Price Ceilings.
Location Theory and the Reconstruction of World Trade.
Some Post-War Politico-Economic Problems of the Western Hemisphere.
Economic Problems and Possibilities of a Pan Europe, Pan America and Similar Schemes.
The Balance of Payments of China.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1941-42, pp. 344-346.

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INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
1942-43. Professor Haberler

A larger portion of the time of the seminar than usual was devoted to the discussion of fundamental principles of international trade and finance. This was due to the fact that the graduate course on international trade (Economics 143) was not offered, and the seminar had to take over to some extent the functions of the graduate course.

There were eleven meetings with outside consultants, of which eight were joint meetings with the Fiscal Policy seminar. The smaller number of students made it advisable to combine the two seminars more frequently than usual. The consultants and the topics discussed with them were as follows:

 

November 13. Professor FRITZ MACHLUP, University of Buffalo. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: National Income, Employment and International Relations; the Foreign Multiplier.

November 18. Dr. THEODORE KREPS, Economic Adviser, Board of Economic Warfare, Office of Imports.

Subject: Some Problems of Economic Warfare.

November 27. Hon. GRAHAM F. TOWERS, Governor, Bank of Canada. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Canadian War Economic Measures.

December 4. LYNN R. EDMINSTER, Vice-Chairman, U. S. Tariff Commission. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Post-War Reconstruction of International Trade.

December 11. Professor SEYMOUR E. HARRIS, Director, Office of Export-Import Price Control, Office of Price Administration. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Trade Policy in Wartimes.

February 12. THOMAS MCKITTRICK, President, Bank for International Settlements. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: The Bank for International Settlements.

February 24. Dr. LEO PASVOLSKY, State Department. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Post-War Problems in International Trade.

March 3. P. T. ELLSWORTH, War Trade Staff, Board of Economic Warfare.

Subject: The Administration of Export Control.

April 12. EMILE DESPRES, Office of Strategic Services, Washington, D. C. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: The Transfer Problem and the Over-Saving Problem in the Pre-War and Post-War Worlds.

April 16. Dr. ALBERT HAHN. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Planned or Adjusted Post-War Economy.

April 20. Dr. ALEXANDER LOVEDAY, League of Nations.

Subject: European Post-War Reconstruction.

 

Student reports were presented on the following subjects among others: practice and theory of an international bank; post-war industrialization of China; coordination of fiscal policy in different countries; international position of the Brazilian economy; international commodity agreements; international implications for fiscal policy; British exchange equalization account; and Argentine exchange control.

Twelve students were enrolled in the seminar of which four were Littauer fellows, seven graduate students from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and one from the College.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1942-43, pp. 246-247.

 

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INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
1943-44. Associate Professor Harris

A new approach was tried in the International Economic Relations Seminar this year. We paid particular attention to the international economic problems of Latin America and especially to the problems raised by the great demand for Latin American products for war, the expansion of exports and of money, and the resulting inflation. Attention was also given to the transitional problems in the postwar period, particularly to the adjustments that will be required in exports, imports, capital movements, exchange rates, and the allocation of economic factors. In the course of the year leading government authorities on Latin American economic problems were invited to address meetings of the seminar, which were frequently joint meetings with the Fiscal Policy Seminar or the students of the graduate course in international organization.

The schedule of meetings for 1943-44 was as follows:

 

November 12. Professor HARRIS.

Subject: Inflation in Latin America.

December 9. Dr. CORWIN EDWARDS, Chairman, Policy Board of the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice and Chief of Staff of the Presidential Cooke Commission to Brazil.

Subject: Brazilian Economy.

December 17. Dr. HARRY WHITE, Director of Monetary Research, Treasury Department.

Subject: Problems of International Monetary Stabilization.

January 6. Professor HARRIS.

Subject: International Economic Problems of the War and Postwar Period.

January 10. Professor HABERLER.

Subject: Reparations.

January 14. Dr. N. NESS, Member, Mexican-U. S. Economic Commission.

Subject: Mexico.

January 17. Dr. BEARDSLEY RUML, Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Subject: Economic Budget and Fiscal Budget.

January 21. Dr. P. T. ELLSWORTH, Economic Studies Division, Department of State.

Subject: Chile.

January 24. Dr. DON HUMPHREY, Special Advisor on Price Control to Haitian Government; Chief, Price Section, O.P.A.

Subject: Haiti.

January 31. Dr. ROBERT TRIFFIN, Member, U. S. Economic Commission to Paraguay.

Subject: Money, Banking, and Foreign Exchanges in Latin America.

February 4. Dr. MIRON BURGIN, Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.

Subject: Argentina.

February 9. Dr. FRANK WARING, Director, Research Division, Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.

Subject: Broad Aspects of Latin-American Economics.

February 10. Dr. BEN LEWIS, Head of Price Control Mission to Colombia, Special Assistant to the Price Administrator.

Subject: Colombia.

March 9. Dr. HENRY CHALMERS, Department of Commerce.

Subject: Inter-American Trade Practices.

March 31. Mr. HENRY WALLICH.

Subject: Fiscal Policy and International Equilibrium.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1943-44, pp. 271-2.

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INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Harris

The seminar meetings in the year 1944-1945 may be arranged under the following headings:

  1. Exchanges, Controls, and International Trade (8 meetings)
  2. Regional Problems (8 meetings).
  3. Regional and International Aspects of Domestic Problems (8 meetings).
  4. Lectures and Discussions on International Trade by Professors Haberler and Harris (8 meetings).

Four of the papers presented at these meetings were subsequently published in economic journals.

The schedule of meetings for 1944-1945 was as follows:

November 16. Dr. RANDALL HINSHAW, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: American Prosperity and the British Balance-of-Payments Problem. (Published in the Review of Economic Statistics, February 1945.)

December 11. EDWARD M. BERNSTEIN, Assistant Director, Division of Monetary Research, Treasury Department.

Subject: The Scarcity of Dollars. (Published in The Journal of Political Economy, March 1945.)

December 15. Dr. FRANCIS MCINTYRE, Representative of the Foreign Economic Exchange on Requirements Board of the War Production Board.

Subject: International Distribution of Supplies in Wartime.

December 21. Dr. ALEXANDER GERSCHENKRON, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: Some Problems of the Economic Collaboration with Russia.

January 11. Dr. WOLFGANG STOLPER, Swarthmore College.

Subject: British Balance-of-Payments Problem After World War I.

January 22. Dr. WALTER GARDNER, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: Some Aspects of the Bretton Woods Program.

January 26. Dr. WILLIAM FELLNER, University of California.

Subject: Types of Expansionary Policies and the Rate of Interest.

January 29. Professor WALTER F. BOGNER, Dr. CHARLES R. CHERINGTON, Professors CARL J. FRIEDRICH, SEYMOUR E. HARRIS, TALCOTT PARSONS, ALFRED D. SIMPSON, and Mr. GEORGE B. WALKER.

Subject: The Boston Urban Development Plan.

March 5. Dr. ROBERT TRIFFIN, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: International Economic Problems of South America.

March 19. Dr. LOUIS RASMINSKY, Foreign Exchange Control Board, Ottawa, Canada.

Subject: British-American Trade Problems from the Canadian Point of View. (Published in the British Economic Journal, September I945.)

March 22. Dr. ROBERT A. GORDON, War Production Board.

Subject: International Raw Materials Control: War and Postwar.

March 26. Dr. HERBERT FURTH, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: Monetary and Financial Problems in the Liberated Countries.

April 2. Dr. LLOYD METZLER, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: Postwar Economic Policies of the United Kingdom. (An article based on this paper and written in collaboration with Dr. RANDALL HINSHAW was published in The Review of Economic Statistics, November 1945.)

April 16. Professor EDWARD S. MASON, State Department, Washington.

Subject: Commodity Agreements.

April 23. Dr. ABBA P. LERNER, New School for Social Research, N. Y.

Subject: Postwar Policies.

April 27. Professor JOHN VAN SICKLE, Vanderbilt University.

Subject: Wages and Employment: A Regional Approach.

May 14. Dr. E. M. H. LLOYD, United Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, British Treasury.

Subject: Inflation in Europe.

May 28. Professor LEON DUPRIEZ, University of Louvain, Belgium.

Subject: Problem of Full Employment in View of Recent European Experience.

May 29. Professor SEYMOUR E. HARRIS, Professor WASSILY W. LEONTIEF, Professor GOTTFRIED HABERLER, Professor ALVIN H. HANSEN.

Subject: The Shorter Work Week and Full Employment.

 

Source:   Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1944-45, pp. 285-6.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. International Trade and Commercial Policy. Haberler, Harris, Leontief 1940

 

Of the fields with a deep bench at Harvard in the immediate pre-WWII era, international trade could boast three faculty members and two post-docs of great distinction: Gottfried Haberler, Wassily Leontief, Seymour Harris; and Wolfgang Stolper and Heinrich (a.k.a. “Henry”) Heuser. This post has the course outlines with assigned readings for both the trade theory and commercial policy semesters and the final examination questions for commercial policy. 

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Henry Heuser from AEA List of Members 1948

HEUSER, HENRY KARL-MARIA, 1747 F St., N.W., Washington, D.C. (1942) Int. Monetary Fund, econ., res., govt serv.; b. 1911; B.A., 1932, McGill; M.A., 1933, Ecole des Science Economiques et Politiques (Paris); Ph.D., 1938, Univ. of London. Fields 10, 1a, 7. Doc. dis.  Economics of exchange control. Pub. Control of international trade (Rutledge, London, 1938; Blakiston, Philadephia, 1939).

Source:  Alphabetical List of Members (as of June 15, 1948) in the 1948 Directory of the American Economic Association (Jan., 1949). American Economic Review, Vol. 39, No. 1.p. 85.

 

Obituary for Henry Heuser (1911-95) from the Washington Post
April 21, 1995

Henry K. Heuser, 83, an economist who retired in the early 1970s from the Agency for International Development, died of cancer April 18 at the Washington Hospice.

Mr. Heuser was born in Berlin. In the mid-1920s, he immigrated to Canada. He graduated from McGill University and also studied at Ecole des Sciences Economiques in Paris and at the London School of Economics, where he received a doctorate.

In the late 1930s, he taught economics and international trade at the University of Minnesota, Harvard University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He was author of a book, “Control of International Trade,” which was published in 1939.

During World War II, he was an intelligence officer with the Office of Strategic Services, then after the war he worked in Paris on the Marshall Plan for the economic rehabilitation of postwar Europe.

In the late 1940s, he worked for the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund, then joined U.S. foreign assistance programs. He served in Italy, Korea, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan and the Ivory Coast.

On retiring from AID, Mr. Heuser lived in the Tuscany region of Italy, where he restored a 16th-century monastery and grew grapes for Chianti wine. He returned to Washington about 1987.

Survivors include his wife of 48 years, Maria Heuser of Washington; five children, Chilla Heuser-Rousselle of Paris, Alice Heuser of Potomac, Stephen Heuser of London, Tayo Heuser Shore of Narragansett, R.I., and Michael Heuser of Beverly Hills, Calif.; and 13 grandchildren. MARK LEE PATTEN Carpenter

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Course Enrollment
1940-41

[Economics] 43a 1hf. Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Leontief.—International Economic Relations, I. Theory of International Trade.

Total 22: 1 Graduate, 13 Seniors, 3 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 3 Others.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1940-41, p. 63.

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Course Description
1940-41

Economics 43a 1hf. International Economic Relations, I. Theory of International Trade. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructors) Fri., at 9. Professor Haberler and Dr. Stolper.

The course will deal with the following subjects: Monetary problems of international trade; the pure theory of international trade.

 

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics Containing an Announcement for 1940-41. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), p. 56.

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Economics 43a
International Trade and Commercial Relations
[1939-40]

During the first half of the term the monetary problems of International Trade will be discussed in the following order:

The theory and measurement of the balance of payments
Gold Standard
Paper standard and purchasing power parity theory
Exchange Depreciation
The transfer problem and capital movements
The present gold problem
Problems of exchange control

Assignments of the first six weeks:

Haberler, Theory of International Trade, pp. 1-117.
Whale, International Trade, Chs. 17-19, 21-23
Department of Commerce, The Balance of International Indebtedness of the United States for 1938.
Graham and Whittlesey, “The Gold Problem,” Foreign Affairs, January, 1938.
Meade and Hitch, Economic Analysis, Part V, pp. 307-355.

 

The second half of the term will be devoted to the pure theory of international trade and to some of its applications. The classical theory will be discussed and confronted with Ohlin’s approach. The concept of the terms of trade will be taken up and some applications of monopoly theory, especially to the problem of dumping, will be treated.

Assignments for the second half of the term:

Meade and Hitch, Economic Analysis, Part V, pp. 356-408.
Haberler, International Trade, Chs. IX-XII, and Ch. XVIII.
Ohlin, Interregional and International trade, Parts I and II.
Viner, J., Memorandum on Dumping (League of Nations).

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1940-1941”.

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Final Examination
Economics 43a 1hf.
1940-41

[Not found (yet).]

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Course Enrollment
1939-40

[Economics] 43b 2hf. Associate Professor Harris , Drs. Heuser and Stolper.—International Economic Relations, II. Commercial Policy.

Total 18: 11 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 1 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1939-40, p. 99.

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Course Description
1940-41

[Economics 43b 1hf. International Economic Relations, II. Commercial Policy.] Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., at 12, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Professor Haberler, Associate Professor Harris, and Dr. Stolper.

Omitted in 1940-41.

 

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics Containing an Announcement for 1940-41. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), p. 56.

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Economics 43b
1939-40

Week Subject Reading
Feb. 5-10 General case for free trade and criticism
(Dr. Stolper)		 Haberler, Chs. 13, 14.
Robertson, “The Future of International Trade,” Economic Journal, March, 1938.
Feb. 12-17 General effect of tariffs, partial analysis. Preferential tariffs.
(Dr. Stolper)		 Haberler, Ch. 15
Feb. 19-March 9 Special tariff arguments. Discussion of some of the Hutchins Committee Report. Schüler and Keynes arguments. Foreign Trade Multiplier.
(Dr. Stolper)		 Beveridge, Tariffs, the Case Examined, Chs. 5, 9, 10, 13.
Haberler, Chs. 16, 17, and Ch. 12, §4 review Macmillan Report, Addendum I.
Copland, D.B., “A Neglected Phase of Tariff Controversy,” Q.J.E., 1931.
Anderson, Karl, “Protection and the Historical Situation,” Q.J.E., 1938.
Samuelson, Marion Crawford, “The Australian Case for Protection Re-examined,” Q.J.E., 1939.
Taussig, Chs. 13 and 16.
Suggested reading: Taussig, Chs. 14, 15.
March 11-16 Dumping, anti-dumping duties
(Dr. Stolper)		 Haberler, Ch. 18, omitting the graphs.
Robinson, J., Economics of Imperfect Competition, Ch. 15, sec. 1-4.
Viner, J., Memorandum on Dumping (League of Nations).
March 18-April 20 Other measures, particularly quotas. Exchange Control and Clearing. Exchange Agreements, etc.
(Dr. Heuser)		 Haberler, Chs. 19, 20, 21.
Heuser, Control of International Trade, Ch. VI.
Ellis, Exchange Control, Supplement to Q.J.E., 1939, Ch. I.
Ellsworth, Chs. IX, X.
April 22-27 Tariff History: The glass industry.
(Dr. Davis)		 Probably Taussig, Tariff History.
April 29-May 4 Reciprocal Trade Agreements
(Dr. Stolper)		 Tasca, Reciprocal Trade Policy, selected chapters.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 2, Both in Folders “Economics, 1939-1940 (2 of 2)” and “Economics, 1940-1941”.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 43b2
1939-1940

Part I
(One hour and a half)

Take both questions. Write one hour on one of them and one-half hour on the other.

  1. “Territorial jurisdiction over a particular area can never be of economic advantage as long as there is free trade in commodities.” Do you agree?
  2. Discuss the relative merits of general depreciation, discriminating exchange rates, and export subsidies as means of restoring equilibrium after a period of strict exchange control.

Part II
(One hour and a half)

Answer question 3 and two other questions.

  1. Take (a), (b), (c), or (d) only.
    1. Do you think that Marshall’s argument for free trade are applicable to the United States of to-day?
    2. Outline the reciprocal trade agreements program of the U. S. A. and its probable effects on various sectors of the American economy. Do you think the program leads towards increased bilateralism or towards greater free trade?
    3. “Increased competition from newly industrialised countries compels the older industrial countries to choose between higher tariffs or lower standards of living.”
    4. It has been claimed that the protective effect of an import quota and a tariff combined are cumulative. Discuss with regard to the effects in the importing country as well as in the exporting countries.
  2. If a country’s exports are subject to foreign tariffs it cannot improve its position by levying tariffs on its imports. Give your considered opinion of this assertion.
  3. Under conditions conducive to a flight of capital [,] restrictions on capital exports may fail completely to bring about a permanent improvement in the balance of payments. Discuss.
  4. The total volume of trade between two countries under exchange clearing is just as likely to increase as to decrease. Discuss with respect to clearings between (a) a free country and a control country, (b) two control countries.
  5. “The operation of the foreign trade multiplier necessitates reconsideration of the proposition that employment and national income can never be increased by the introduction of tariffs.” Discuss.

Final. 1940.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions,…Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science (June, 1940) in Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28) Box 5.

Image:  Haberler, Leontief and Harris from Harvard Album 1942.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Theory of Monopolistic Competition, Final Examinations. Chamberlin, 1936-37

 

Having recently published his magnum opus in 1933, Harvard economist Edward H. Chamberlin taught a one semester graduate economic theory course devoted to the theory of monopolistic competition three successive years (1935/6 through 1937/8) before going on to teach the core graduate theory course. In the Harvard archives I have been able to find copies of the final examination questions for the first two years which along with course enrollment data are transcribed below.

Chamberlin, Edward Hastings. The Theory of Monopolistic Competition–A Re-orientation of the Theory of Value. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1933.

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Course Announcement
1935-36

Economics 12 1hf. Monopolistic Competition and Allied Problems in Value Theory

Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 3, and a third hour to be arranged
Associate Professor Chamberlin

 

Source: Harvard University. Announcement of the Course of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1935-36 (Second Edition), p. 139.

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Course Enrollment
1935-36

[Economics] 12 1hf. Associate Professor Chamberlin.—Monopolistic Competition and Allied Problems in Value Theory.

Total 8: 8 Graduates.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1935-1936, p. 83.

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1935-36
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 121
[Final exam]

Answer either four or five questions.

  1. Discuss the influence of the number of producers in an industry upon the elasticity of demand for the product of the individual firm.
  2. Discuss the difficulties inherent in the concept of a “group equilibrium.” In what degree do you regard the concept as valid? useful?
  3. Discuss either (a) excess capacity, or (b) “product” variation under imperfect knowledge.
  4. Discuss alternative methods of treating selling costs, giving your preference and the reasons for it.
  5. In what respects do the theories of monopolistic and imperfect competition alter the case both for and against interfering with the “free play of competitive forces,” as developed by traditional economic theory?

Mid-Year. 1936.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers Finals, 1936 (HUC 7000.28 vol. 78 of 284)

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Course Enrollment
1936-37

[Economics] 102a 1hf. (formery 12). Associate Professor Chamberlin.—Monopolistic Competition and Allied Problems in Value Theory.

Total 6: 4 Graduates, 1 Senior, 1 Radcliffe.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1936-1937, p. 93.

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1936-37
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 102a1
[Final exam]

  1. Discuss the question of “free entry” into an industry and its significance for the theory of monopolistic competition.
  2. “The problem of the individual demand curve bears on the questions whether we can discuss the competitive position of an isolated firm at all; a demand curve of a single firm is drawn, which presupposes that the other firms do not change their supply, or change it in a distinct way…Must we not make it clear that such a curve is valid only for a short interval?” Discuss.
  3. To what extent do you regard the standardization of products as a remedy for the ignorance of buyers as to their qualities? Discuss briefly any other remedies you might wish to propose.
  4. “The production cost curve and the selling cost curve are really nothing more than alternative techniques for treating what is essentially the same problem.” Discuss.
  5. “Value productivity, and nothing but value productivity, is what matters in distribution theory.” Discuss.
  6. Discuss one of the following:
    1. Monopsony.
    2. Monopolistic competition and the theory of profits.
    3. Monopolistic competition and the business cycle.
    4. The definition of a “commodity.” 

Final. 1937. 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers Finals, 1937 (HUC 7000.28 vol. 79 of 284)

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Course Enrollment
1937-38

[Economics] 102a 1hf. (formerly 12). Professor Chamberlin.—Monopolistic Competition and Allied Problems in Value Theory.

Total 6: 2 Graduates, 2 School of Public Administration, 1 Radcliffe.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1937-1938, p. 86.

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1937-38
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 102a1
[Final exam]

[Not (yet) found.]

 

Image Source: Edward H. Chamberlin from the Harvard Class Album, 1939.

Categories
Curriculum Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Report on the Tutorial System in History, Government and Economics. Burbank, 1922

 

Harold Hitchings Burbank (1913-1951) will probably best be remembered in the history of economics for topping Paul Samuelson’s “Dishonor Roll” for antisemitism in the Harvard economics department ca. 1939 (the list is reproduced on p. 281 of Roger E. Backhouse’s first volume Becoming Samuelson, OUP 2017) as well as for being an all around bête noire in matters regarding mathematical economics at Harvard, though Backhouse (pp. 421-2) has at least been able to acquit Burbank of the charge of the premeditated “killing of the type” for Foundations of Economic Analysis [Plot spoiler: the printer did it (metal shortage)].

Burbank has in fact left a fundamental institutional legacy at Harvard College, having played a major role in the establishment and running management of the tutorial system that was set up to prepare undergraduates for the general examinations in their respective divisions of study. Many a Harvard economics graduate student, instructor, and  faculty member have served as economics tutors so that no study of the education of economists would be complete without a serious examination of Harvard’s tutorial system in which economists have been active from the very beginning.

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Harvard College President Lowell on the undergraduate general examination for divisions and the Tutorial System (1922)

The effect of the general examination upon the choice of subjects for concentration is interesting. When first introduced for History, Government, and Economics it diminished the number of students electing those studies as their main field of work, presumably frightening away the faint-hearted. But the dread soon passed off, and at present seems to have little influence.

[…]

The framing of general examination papers which shall be comprehensive enough to cover the subject, at the same time shall be fair, and which give the student a chance to show his knowledge or ignorance, his comprehension or vacuity, demands much skill, ingenuity and labor. Moreover, a great deal of time is required to read the books, or conduct the oral examinations, in any department where the candidates are numerous. Clearly members of the instructing staff cannot be expected to do this in addition to their ordinary work. Some provision ought, therefore, be made in such cases for relieving them of a part of their teaching; and in the Division of History, Government, and Economics, where the plan has been in operation much longer than in any other, the examiners are relieved of about half their courses, either by reducing these throughout the year, or by exemption from course instruction in the second half-year, that being the period when by far the heaviest burden of the examinations falls. In conducting them the committee in charge is really examining not only the candidates, but also the instructors in courses and the tutors if any, because they can hardly avoid forming some impression of the thoroughness with which teaching is done by the different members of the staff; and although they make no report upon the matter, the opinions they form cannot fail in the long run to have an effect upon the instruction in the departments of which they are members. Moreover, their examinations determine the requirements for a degree in the various subjects of concentration, and the standard of attainment on the part of undergraduates. Their selection is therefore a matter of the utmost importance. In those departments that have recently adopted the plan, and where the number of candidates is too large to be examined by the instructors as a whole, a committee is appointed by the department itself; but in the Division of History, Government, and Economics it is appointed by the Corporation. The first members of this committee, Professors G. G. Wilson, R. B. Merriman, and E. E. Day, were the pathfinders, and to their wisdom and labor is due from the outset the success of the project.

When the general examination was introduced for History, Government, and Economics, it was perceived that in these subjects it could not work well unless the students were provided with the assistance of tutors in correlating what they had learned in their courses, and in mastering the parts of the field which courses do not cover. At first it was difficult to find men qualified for this task, quite unknown as it was in American college education, since no one had any experience in doing it. A new form of instruction had to be devised; new men had to teach themselves a new art. They have done so, until at present an excellent corps of tutors is working systematically in this division. No doubt experience will still farther perfect their methods, and by frequent conferences they are seeking constant improvement. A tutor, who by the way may be of any academic grade, is by no means wholly confined to tutorial work. A number of them are also conducting courses, and that is a distinct advantage. The only college work which they cannot do is obvious. They should not be on the committee in charge of the examinations. There is no better way of stating what they strive to do, and what they have accomplished, than by inserting as an appendix hereto the report of Assistant Professor H. H. Burbank, the Chairman of the Board of Tutors for the division.

Source: President’s Report in Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1921-1922, p. 13-4.

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Report on the Tutorial System in the Division of History, Government and Economics at Harvard University, 1922

To THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY:

SIR, — I have the honor to submit a report on the Tutorial System in the Division of History, Government and Economics.

The tutorial system of the Division of History, Government and Economics was made possible and necessary by the introduction of the general examinations. When this Division accepted the principle of these examinations it declared that they could be made effective and, at the same time, just to the student only by the development of a system of individual guidance. Tutorial instruction began in 1914 with a staff of six tutors supervising the work of some one hundred and fifty students. At that time the Division expected the number of concentrators would not at any time exceed four hundred. During the present academic year sixteen tutors have given instruction to six hundred and forty-eight students.

When provision was made for tutors, the Division contemplated only indefinitely their functions and the scope of their work. There were no examples to be followed; no system of like nature had been established in any American university and the precedents afforded by Oxford and Cambridge could give little guidance. During the first three years many experiments were necessary. The place of the tutor’s work in the general system of instruction had to be found, methods of work had to be developed. These problems could be met only by a process of trial and selection. At first there were many false starts; undoubtedly there was some lost effort, but there was also appreciable growth and development. The War brought an abrupt cessation of activities. With the resumption of normal academic conditions in 1919-20, tutorial work was reorganized, and it is from this time that the more important growth of the system is to be recorded.

Different methods of tutorial instruction are still being tried and probably will continue for some time, but the experience of the years since 1914 has been sufficient to give a definite indication of the processes which are best suited to our needs. Because of the several experiments which different tutors are undertaking, all generalizations regarding tutorial work are open to some exceptions.

Each tutor has under his supervision approximately forty students, selected in about equal proportions from the senior, junior and sophomore concentrators. The tutor meets his students regularly, usually once each week, in individual conferences. In some few instances, especially with sophomores, groups of two or, at the most, three students are found advantageous, but such group conferences are used sparingly; the characteristic method is the individual conference. Usually the conference lasts for about half an hour, but here the exceptions are many. The student is never limited in the matter of time. If he wishes to see his tutor with greater frequency it is his privilege to do so and he is encouraged to take full advantage of the unusual opportunities offered to him by individual instruction. The unwilling students — and they are so few that they leave no mark on the system — are obliged to do a minimum amount of work and to give a minimum amount of time to the tutor. The interested students can have about all they desire in time and instruction.

The introduction of the tutorial system was not accompanied by any change in course requirements. The student who elects to concentrate in History, Government or Economics, and thereby comes under the direction of the tutor, carries the usual number of courses from which he secures the groundwork for his general and special concentration. But courses are not synonymous with subjects; they cut through or across subjects. The first work of the tutor is to help the student organize and correlate this course material so that his chosen field of study appears to him as continuous and homogeneous rather than as groups of data or ideas with little or no relation. For seven years the tutors proceeded on the principle that class instruction could be taken for granted, that the material offered in courses had been accepted and assimilated by the students. The results of the examinations lessened confidence in the validity of this position and pointed directly to the need for further instruction along the same line. Many of the courses in this Division have very large numbers; the majority of those which are elected by undergraduates are conducted by the lecture method with little or no opportunity for discussion or for a thorough test of the student’s grasp of the subject matter. Further study and emphasis in the tutorial conference of material already presented in courses is proving of inestimable value. The data frequently is the same, — an historical period, a theory of government, a principle of economics, — the point of view is different, the stimulus is different. In the tutorial conference there is no question of marks or discipline; the one important object is to understand something which appears to be important.

Thus the tutor’s work deals in part with the materials already presented in class instruction — correlating it, focusing it, teaching it. But to arrive at the standards imposed by the general examinations requires a very considerable amount of additional reading. The tutor must and does expand the field of study by assigning and discussing problems not within the limits of courses now offered. In this connection as well as in the reconsideration of course material the tutor strives to interest his students in general reading. This is a very great opportunity. The student at Harvard as well as at the other colleges of this country has been so beset with textbooks, books of selected readings, page assignments and the like, that the reading habit not only has gone undeveloped but has tended to become stultified. Through conferences with his tutor and by means of his reading, the student gains a familiarity with his subjects of study that courses alone cannot impart. Furthermore, if he responds adequately to tutorial direction, he forms, largely unconsciously, a reading habit, a critical judgment and a discriminating taste that the established system of college education seldom produces. Another phase of this subject, or perhaps a by-product of this tendency, is found in the matter of general reading during the vacations. Ten years ago the student was rarely found who did not regard the final examinations in June as the terminus of his educational effort for that year. By small degrees this is changing. With the inauguration of tutorial instruction students were urged to continue their reading during the vacations, especially during the summer months. The cumulative effect has been important. Students in sufficient numbers are undertaking this work, to call for facilities to direct their reading between June and September. A plan is now under consideration whereby tutors will be in Cambridge during the summer either to take personal charge of students or to direct their work by correspondence. The significance of this development is apparent when the reader is reminded that such work is not only voluntary but receives no credit in terms of grades or courses.

The tutor has still another function, less tangible perhaps, but no less important than those already mentioned. A cursory study of the college records of undergraduates is sufficient to indicate that a relatively small proportion achieve anything above mediocrity — that is, above a “C” grade. This is not because of limitation of capacity. Undergraduates are capable of accomplishment far beyond that registered in courses. But they have many interests other than those which find their expression in the class-room. Their interests and their efforts are scattered; much time and energy are wasted. A tutor of the type sought by this Division has the power and capacity to stimulate the undergraduate to real intellectual achievement. When a student comes to him with a predominating intellectual curiosity — the type of student who is usually a candidate for distinction — he has but to mould the material into finished form. The more difficult, but possibly the more important, task is to stimulate the less eager student, to make his subject of study real and alive, to make it attractive, to inspire the student to want to learn not because of the record that may be involved nor because of any particular honors that may be granted, but for the sake of the achievement itself. To do this on an increasingly larger scale is one of the main objects of the tutorial system. During the last three years there has been perceptible progress in this direction. A great deal remains to be done, but very definite limitations are imposed by the inflexible requirements of university instruction. Without any substantial change in these requirements considerably more can be accomplished. It depends upon securing the unusual type of tutor. With more flexibility and perhaps with some reasonable reduction of the requirements in terms of courses, progress is possible and probable that will be significant in the trend of American college education.

One might expect that the improvement in academic interest which the tutorial system has been able to stimulate would express itself in an increase in the number of candidates for distinction. To some extent such an increase has appeared; students have become candidates who would not have done so without the stimulation of individual direction and instruction. But there has been a concurrent counter effect. Candidacy for distinction is dependent upon grades in courses. Unfortunately, intellectual interest, sustained work and broad accomplishment are not always synonymous with a high grade in the particular course which covers a part of the field of study. Undergraduates in appreciable numbers are showing a distinct preference for tutorial rather than for class work — less effort is given to courses, more is devoted to the more intimate work with the tutor. No attempt is being made to pass upon the desirability of this tendency. It is simply presented as a tendency which is showing increasing strength.

Among the various experiments which the tutors have made in the effort to secure broader and better preparation for the general examinations have been those connected with written work. For some time it has been clear to the tutors that one of the most effective methods of instruction is found in the construction and repeated criticism of written reports, essays and theses. Incidentally, very few of the students do not need the added instruction in composition and expression that written work entails. Recently this Division, recognizing and emphasizing the value of written work, has voted that a satisfactory thesis shall be required of all candidates. To provide more adequate opportunity for writing of this character, each Department is now offering a course in thesis work.

The most significant development in connection with the tutorial system has been the very favorable response of the students. Tutorial instruction is an addition to the usual requirements for the degree. At the minimum this increase is equivalent, in terms of courses, to about one course a year or, during the three years of concentration, it approaches an additional requirement of a year’s work. At the maximum the only limitations are those set by the available time of the student and the tutor. Each year there are some students who give considerably more time to their tutorial instruction than to their more formal requirements. These, however, are exceptional instances. Yet, as a group, the majority of concentrators accept tutorial instruction as an educational opportunity rather than as a demand for additional hours of study. In spite of the very considerable increase in the work involved, concentration in this Division has increased steadily. When the system of general examinations and tutorial instruction was announced, concentration in the Division, especially in Economics, declined heavily. Almost immediately, however, the Division proceeded to win back the numbers it had lost through the additional requirements. In part, this may be explained by the introduction of general examinations in other Divisions, but there is reason to believe that concentration in this Division would have approximated its present position if the examinations had been confined to History, Government and Economics. Although this increase in numbers has been gratifying, a more pronounced reason for satisfaction is found in the distinct improvement in the quality of the student and in the level of accomplishment. To a large degree this is due to the failure of the unwilling or the less capable student to choose this Division as the field for his special study. In part, also, it is due to the increasingly effective work of the tutor. Indifferent students still choose this field, but in decreasing numbers, and as the sophomore and junior years pass by they are weeded out in considerable proportions or, responding to the efforts of the tutor, their work improves. After a trial, more or less prolonged, the indifferent student seeks other Departments, but during the last two years transfers to this Division have more than filled these vacancies.

Another aspect of tutorial work is indicative of the attitude of the student. Attendance at the conferences is not compulsory. There is no system of monitoring or reports of absences to the college office. The fear of disciplinary action cannot serve as a stimulus to meet appointments or to prepare assignments. It is true that the authority to employ disciplinary measures can be invoked if the occasion arises, but in eight years no resort to such measures has been necessary. Yet the cutting of tutorial appointments is comparatively rare, far less than the cutting of courses. The majority of concentrators, well over ninety per cent, seldom fail to meet their engagements. The tradition of tutorial work has become firmly established.

H. H. BURBANK.

Source: Harvard University. Reports of the President and the Treasurer of Harvard College, 1921-22, pp. 34-38.

Image Source: Assistant Professor of Economics Harold Hitchings Burbank in Harvard Class Album, 1920.