Category: Harvard

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Earliest Multiple Choice Exam for Principles of Economics, 1948

 

What makes the second semester  final examination for Principles of Economics at Harvard in 1947-48 particularly interesting is that we probably discover there the introduction (at least to Harvard’s economics department) of that  art form known as the multiple choice question. For the sake of completeness I have transcribed the first semester final examination as well. Coming up soon will be the course reading list for both semesters. I challenge readers to take the multiple choice exam and send me their answers. Perhaps someone out there will get a grant fat enough to allow administering the exams to a sample of current students! 

_____________________

1947-48
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS Aa

 I.
(One hour and a half)

Answer BOTH questions

  1. Suppose that Congress approves a European Recovery Plan which would entail a $4 billion expenditure by the United States Government during the coming year. This expenditure could be financed by the sale of government bonds (a) to the public; (b) to the member banks; (c) to the Federal Reserve Banks; or by (d) taxation. Indicate the effects of each one of these alternative methods on (1) member bank reserves (2) the money supply. Illustrate b use of member bank and Federal Reserve Bank statements (balance sheets).
  2. Analyze and discuss “the process by which competition rations scarce goods, determines their values relative to each other…regulates the types and amounts of the goods and services produced, and encourages the use of the most efficient productive processes.” (Quoted from Chandler, p. 185)

II.
(One hour and a half)

Answer any THREE questions

  1. Given the following incomplete data for 1939 (rounded out to the nearest billion):

Government outlays inclusive of transfer payments………17
Corporate saving (i.e., undistributed profits)…………….……1
Total taxes…………………………………………………………………15
Gross private investment…………………………………………….10

which of the additional items listed below would be necessary in order to deduce separately,   1. Gross National Product, 2. Net National Product, 3. Personal savings.
List of additional items:

a. Total wages,
b. Total money supply at beginning of year,
c. Total money supply at end of year,
d. Net increase in inventories,
e. Consumption expenditures,
f. Depreciation,
g. Income velocity of money,
h. Transfer payments by government,
i. Net change in member bank reserves.

  1. How does the economist define profit? Why is this definition likey to differ from the concept of profit of the business man? What is the purpose of the eonomist’s definition?
  2. Analyze the effect on the price charged by a monopolist for his product of THREE of the following:
    1. A rise in the cost of labor,
    2. A percentage tax on his profits,
    3. A tax on the value of his plant and equipment,
    4. The appearance on the market of a high priced rival substitute for his product.
  3. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of attempts to use anti-trust laws to restore competitive conditions in large scale industries.

Final. January, 1948.

 

Source: Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions,…,Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science. January, 1948. Harvard University Archives, Harvard Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 15 of 284.

_____________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
THIS EXAMINATION PAPER MUST BE RETURNED TO THE PROCTOR

ECONOMICS Ab
May 17, 1948

 

The total time allowed for the three objective parts of the Examination is eighty-five (85) minutes. At the end of that time, these three objective parts of the examination will be collected.
Read carefully the instructions for marking the answer sheets.
Do not write on this paper. Use the scratch paper provided.

 

PART I

Indicate on the separate sheet the one best answer to each of the following questions. For each correctly marked answer, credit is given. For each incorrectly marked answer, credit is taken away. For each question no answered, credit is neither given nor taken away.
Allow approximately twenty (20) minutes for this part of the exam.

A vineyard produces only one output, burgundy wine, with only two inputs, unskilled agricultural labor and ten acres of land planted in grapes. The firm hires labor on a day-to-day basis, and can freely vary the quantity hired; the market for labor is purely competitive. The firm rents the land from its real owner, and has a two-year lease obligating it to pay a fixed monthly rental; moreover, it cannot increase or decrease the quantity of land which it can rent in less than two years. The price of burgundy wine is fixed by a trade association, and does not change during the entire period considered in this problem. The firm is in complete equilibrium, with optimum adjustment of inputs (land and labor) and output (burgundy wine) for maximum profit.
Now, the wage which must be paid for labor falls. There are no changes in the economy other than this fall in wages and its effects. In the firm’s new short-run equilibrium, compared to the original situation:

      1. The schedule of the marginal revenue productivity of labor to the firm
        1. is raised.
        2. is lowered.
        3. is not shifted.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      2. The schedule of the marginal cost of labor to the firm
        1. is raised.
        2. is lowered.
        3. is not shifted.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      3. The quantity of labor hired by the firm
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      4. The marginal revenue productivity of labor for the quantity now hired by the firm, compared to the marginal revenue productivity for the quantity hired in the original situation
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      5. The total payment made to labor by the firm
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      6. The output of burgundy wine produced by the firm
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      7. The profit of the firm
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.

After many years pass, in the firm’s new long-run equilibrium, compared to the original situation:

      1. The quantity of land rented by the firm for any particular output of burgundy wine produced
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      2. The quantity of labor hired by the firm for any particular output of burgundy wine produced
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      3. The schedule of the marginal revenue productivity of labor to the firm
        1. is raised.
        2. is lowered.
        3. is not shifted.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      4. The output of burgundy wine produced by the firm
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      5. The quantity of land rented by the firm
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      6. The quantity of labor hired by the firm
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      7. The rental per acre on the land rented by the firm
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.
      8. The total rent payment to the owner of the land by the firm
        1. is increased.
        2. is decreased.
        3. is not changed.
        4. Its behavior is indeterminate with the information given.

 

 

PART II

Indicate on the separate answer sheet the one best answer to each of the following questions. For each correctly marked answer, credit is given. For each incorrectly marked answer, credit is taken away. For each question not answered, credit is neither given nor taken away.
Allow approximately forty-five (45) minutes for this part of the exam.

      1. A tax is proportional if
        1. the tax rate increases as the tax base increases.
        2. the tax rate decreases as the tax base increases.
        3. the tax rate remains the same as the tax base increases.
        4. the tax rate increases at a decreasing rate as the tax base increases.
      2. The Federal government can ease the inflationary pressure created in the U.S. through the European Recovery program by
        1. requiring that all the funds sent abroad be spent in the U.S.
        2. budgeting for a surplus.
        3. financing the program by borrowings from commercial banks.
        4. financing the program by borrowings from the federal reserve banks.
      3. The International Monetary Fund reflects the desire of the member nations to
        1. restore the pre-1914 gold standard.
        2. construct a stable yet flexible exchange rate system.
        3. eliminate, or at least reduce, tariff barriers.
        4. provide funds for the reconstruction of war-devastated Europe.
      4. A larger supply of dollars can be made available to other countries by
        1. stopping U.S. gold purchases and thus ending the drain of gold from abroad.
        2. reducing U.S. purchase of foreign securities.
        3. reducing U.S. trade barriers, particularly tariffs.
        4. continuing subsidies to American agriculture.
      5. The main source of instability and disturbance in the international dealings of the U.S. during the inter-war years was
        1. the surplus in the supply of dollars made available to other countries throughout the period.
        2. caused by deficient foreign demand for U.S. products.
        3. the extraordinary amplitude of fluctuations in the U.S. domestic economic life with concomitant variations in our purchases of foreign goods and services.
        4. stability of the movements of capital, into and out of the U.S.
      6. Which of the following would tend to increase the value of the dollar relative to the British pound under a system of free exchanges?
        1. Purchase by U.S. citizens of bonds issued by a British corporation.
        2. Payment of dividends by a British firm to U.S. stockholders.
        3. Flight of short term capital from U.S. to Great Britain.
        4. Greater increase in U.S. prices than in British prices.
      7. To find the marginal physical product of a factor we
        1. divide the total product by the number of additional units of the factor.
        2. see how much the total product has increased as a consequence of having used a small additional amount of the factor in question while holding the input of other factors fixed.
        3. examine the rate of change of average product.
        4. see how much the total product has increased as a consequence of having used a small additional amount of the factor in question along with the technologically appropriate additional amounts of the cooperating factors.
      8. A depression in the U.S. would tend to spread to foreign countries
        1. through lower incomes in the U.S., therefore lower U.S. imports, therefore lower incomes in countries exporting to the U.S.
        2. through lower incomes in the U.S., therefore greater importation of foreign goods, therefore lower real incomes abroad.
        3. through low prices in the U.S. causing greater demand in the U.S. for foreign commodities because of the Law of Demand.
        4. None of the above is an acceptable answer.
      9. Equity investments (stocks) rather than ordinary lending (bonds) is preferred as an implementation of a policy of foreign investments because
        1. the return is more certain.
        2. stocks are easier to sell in this country.
        3. the return is geared to the level of economic activity in the foreign country and, therefore, doesn’t represent such a burden in times of economic stress.
        4. the return is larger.
      10. A laborer’s reservation price is that which
        1. every other unit of labor receives.
        2. is so low that he prefers not to work.
        3. is the minimum amount he will take and still work.
        4. is so high that when he gets it he will refuse to work anymore.
      11. Once economic recovery has set in, inflationary price rises are likely to occur, even before full employment is reached, provided that
        1. the supply of some factor services is inelastic.
        2. the supply of some factor services is elastic.
        3. large scale increases in productivity take place.
        4. a sudden recession occurs in several important foreign countries.
      12. “All employees who, fifteen days after April 23, 1947, are members of the Union in good standing in accordance with its constitution and by-laws and all employees who become members after that date shall, as a condition of employment, remain Union members in good standing for the duration of this Agreement.”
        The above section of a trade agreement is commonly referred to as

        1. a union ship clause.
        2. a closed shop clause.
        3. bargaining for members only.
        4. None of these.
      13. A businessman produces a product using only one variable input, labor, and one fixed input, machinery. He pays his labor under a piece rate system and hires it in a competitive market. In the short run, if he increases his output
        1. his average variable cost will fall.
        2. his average variable cost will rise.
        3. his average variable cost will remain the same.
        4. his average variable cost will first fall and then rise.
      14. It is commonly believed that taxes upon economic profits are not shifted in the short run because
        1. redistribution of income and consequent changes in demand which occur are negligible.
        2. profit taxes are not business costs and hence do not alter the adjustment of output (therefore supply) which maximizes profits.
        3. neither the “marginal” firm nor individual ever pays taxes on profits.
        4. migration of capital occurs so speedily that the readjustment does not necessitate price changes.
      15. All but one of the following are disadvantages of a system of free or flexible exchange rates. That one is:
        1. encouragement to speculation in the exchanges.
        2. sacrifice of autonomy in a country’s internal economic policy.
        3. tendency toward retaliatory action by countries concerned.
        4. discouragement to traders and investors in the international field.
      16. The greater the divergence between a country’s opportunity cost ratio before trade and the international exchange ratio after trade,
        1. the less will be that country’s gain from international trade.
        2. the greater will be its gain.
        3. the less will be the extent of its specialization.
        4. the less vulnerable will it be to external deflationary influences.
      17. Under monopolistic condition an entrepreneur will hire more of a factor so long as
        1. its marginal physical product continues to be positive.
        2. the value of the marginal physical product is greater than the cost of the additional amount of the factor.
        3. he can sell the extra amount produced.
        4. None of the above is an acceptable answer.
      18. If an industry employs units of a factor with relatively high transfer earnings side by side with other units (of equal quality) whose transfer earnings are lower and if all units of the factor receive the same payment
        1. the former may be said to enjoy a rent-like return.
        2. the latter may be said to enjoy a rent-like return.
        3. the industry may be said to enjoy a rent-like return.
        4. the concept of rent doesn’t apply here.
      19. A necessary condition for “forced saving” is
        1. an expansion of credit resulting in the employment of men and resources previously unemployed.
        2. some people having incomes which don’t rise as rapidly as prices.
        3. banks being completely loaned up.
        4. None of the above is an acceptable answer.
      20. To determine whether the U.S. terms of trade improved between 1940 and 1947, which of the following would you need to know?
        1. The amount of gold imports during the period.
        2. The price (in the same currency) of U.S. imports and exports in 1940 and 1947.
        3. The rate of exchange between the dollar and some other important currencies (say the pound) in 1940 and 1947.
        4. The price level in the U.S. in 1940 relative to that in the rest of the world.
      21. A larger volume of government deficit expenditure will be required to bring about a given increase in employment
        1. the greater the elasticity of the supply of labor.
        2. the greater the velocity of money.
        3. the less the elasticity of supply of all factors of production.
        4. the greater the confidence of businessmen in the effectiveness of the government policy.
      22. A U.S. corporation may pay a net income tax when it has made an “economic loss” rather than “economic profits” because:
        1. the corporate income tax and excess profits tax together may exceed 100% of statutory net income.
        2. the corporate income tax rate structure is regressive.
        3. all interest payments but no dividends are deductible as costs before computing net income.
        4. the corporate income tax is a “benefit tax” on the privilege of doing business in the corporate form and hence takes no account of losses.
      23. A building and lot are valued at $20,000, and it is expected that the property will yield annual net income after taxes of $800 for an indefinite future period. Subsequently, a 2% rise in the tax rate on real property occurs which is expected to be permanent. The tax is capitalized if:
        1. the property is then sold for $10,000.
        2. the property is then sold for $12,000.
        3. the property is then sold for $30,000.
        4. the income from the property increases $400 annually because the tax is shifted.
      24. Assume that in 1937 the equilibrium rate of exchange between the U.S. and Great Britain was $5 to one pound, and that since that time the American price level has doubled and the British price level trebled. According to the theory of “purchasing power parity,” the new equilibrium rate of exchange will be:
        1. $3.33 to one pound.
        2. the same as the old rate.
        3. $7.50 to one pound.
        4. $6.25 to one pound.
      25. Great Britain imports raw materials in order to manufacture finished goods for exports. A devaluation of the pound sterling would
        1. tend to raise the price of British exports in foreign markets because the price of raw materials in Britain would rise.
        2. tend to lower the price of British exports in foreign markets because of the lower cost of pounds in terms of foreign currencies.
        3. have an indeterminate effect because both the above tendencies would exist.
        4. None of the above is an acceptable answer.
      26. Government deficit expenditures will fail to increase the money national income unless
        1. prices rise rapidly as a result of the policy.
        2. the difference between government expenditures and taxation is more than any reduction in private investment that may take place.
        3. wages of workers rise enough to prevent any profits which would be the direct result of the expenditures.
        4. None of the above is an acceptable answer.
      27. Suppose a firm uses 1,000 machines to produce 100,000 units of product per year. Suppose the machines have a useful life of five years, and that the machines are replaced in regular annual amounts. Then the normal demand for machines by this firm will be 200 per year.
        If the demand for the firm’s product rises 10% in some year, what will be the increase in its demand for machinery for this year?

        1. 20%
        2. 10%
        3. 50%
        4. 500%
      28. In general the elasticity of supply of agriculture products is less than that of manufactured products. In the early 1930’s the demand for virtually all goods declined. This would cause
        1. an improvement in the terms of trade of Great Britain who imports agriculture goods and exports manufactured goods.
        2. the opposite.
        3. the terms of trade of countries exporting agricultural products to improve.
        4. None of the above is an acceptable answer.
      29. Given the requirement that all individuals are to sacrifice equally in bearing the burden of taxation, then it follows that the maximum degree of progression which may be introduced into the income tax is limited only by
        1. the rate at which marginal utility decreases with increases in income.
        2. the size of income.
        3. the needs of government for revenue.
        4. the rate at which marginal utility increases with increases in income.
      30. Given: the same amount of labor (taken as representative of all the factors which in country A produces either 80 T or 160 L, in country B produces either 60 T or 50 L. One day’s labor in A produces one T or two L and receives a wage of $10.00. The wage of a day’s labor in B is $6.00. We assume that each country has a constant opportunity cost relationship between the two goods and, therefore, specializes completely in the production of one good. The terms of trade will be:
        1. 10 T for 8 L
        2. 3 T for 8 L
        3. 5 T for 8 L
        4. 3 T for 8 L

 

PART III

[Note: It appears that the typesetting of Part III that starts a new page in the original mistakenly numbered questions from  16 to 22]

Indicate on the separate answer sheet the one best answer to each of the following questions. For each correctly marked answer, credit is given. For each incorrectly marked answer, credit is taken away. For each question not answered, credit is neither given nor taken away.
Allow approximately twenty (20) minutes for this part of the exam.

The following items represent all the available information on the balance of payments for Ruritania in the year 194x. The Ruritanian monetary unit is the dollar.

Interest on foreign bonds owned by Ruritanians $15
Expenditures of foreign tourists in Ruritania $10
Exports (merchandise) $440
Profits on Ruritania’s direct investments abroad $55
Imports (merchandise) $225
Expenditures of Ruritanian tourists abroad $80
Net increase in short-term commercial loans made by Ruritanians $50
Profits on foreigners’ direct investment in Ruritania $10
Fees on insurance written for foreigners $10
Interest on net increase in short-term commercial loans made by Ruritanians $5
Interest on Ruritanian bonds owned by foreigners $70
Net long-term loans made by Ruritanians $85

 

      1. On the basis of these items, the total number of dollars supplied by Ruritania in 194x is
        1. $470
        2. $475
        3. $520
        4. $530
        5. $535
      2. On the basis of these items, the total number of dollars demanded on current account (trade and service items) in 194x is
        1. $515
        2. $520
        3. $530
        4. $535
        5. $585
      3. On the basis of these items, the total number of dollars supplied by Ruritania on capital account (capital items) in 194x is
        1. $0
        2. $85
        3. $115
        4. $135
        5. $155
      4. On the basis of these items, the total number of dollars demanded on capital account in 194x is
        1. $0
        2. $85
        3. $115
        4. $135
        5. $155
      5. If Ruritania were on the gold standard, her balance of payments in 194x would result in
        1. an increase in her gold reserves of $115.
        2. an increase in her gold reserves of $105.
        3. an increase in her gold reserves of $15.
        4. a decrease in her gold reserves of $5.
        5. a decrease in her gold reserves of $15.
      6. If Ruritania were on an inconvertible paper standard, her balance of payments in 194x would result in
        1. depreciation of the currency.
        2. inflation of the currency.
        3. devaluation of the currency.
        4. appreciation of the currency.
        5. deflation of the currency.
      7. From the balance of payments data, one can infer that Ruritania is a
        1. debtor country on long-term account.
        2. debtor country on short-term account.
        3. creditor country on long-term account.
        4. creditor country on short-term account.
        5. One cannot infer that Ruritania is in any of the above positions.

Final. May, 1948.

_____________________

 

1947-48
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

This part of the examination is to be written in the blue book AFTER you have finished the multiple choice test.

I
(Forty minutes)

      1. Outline and explain the monetary and fiscal policies appropriate to the several phases of the business cycle.

II
Answer any TWO questions
(Twenty-five minutes each)

      1. Describe and discuss the principal economic factors influencing the wage policy adopted by the trade unions in the hosiery industry in the period from 1920 to 1940.
      2. Explain the differences between rent, quasi-rent, and interest, and give specific illustrations of each.
      3. Discuss the possible defects of a progressive tax levied upon personal income. In your opinion do these defects arise from progressive personal income taxation as such, or from the particular form of the federal tax in the United States? Explain.

 

Final. May, 1948.

 

Source: Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences. papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions,…,Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science. May, 1948. Harvard University Archives, Harvard Final Examinations, 1853-2001. Box 15 of 284.

Categories
Economists Harvard Kansas

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus, John Christopher Ise, 1914

 

The Ph.D. alumni of a department typically provide their alma mater with talent-spotting services for future graduate students. The University of Kansas professor (and Harvard economics Ph.D., 1914) John C. Ise spotted Edward S. Mason, Lloyd A. Metzler (cf. the ERVM post of the Metzler memorial service) and  John Lintner and sent them to Harvard for graduate school in economics. Quite the rate of return!

_________________________________

John Christopher Ise
1996 Inductee of the Osborne County Hall of Fame

One of the foremost Kansas educators of the twentieth century was born June 5, 1885, in western Ross Township of Osborne County. Named after his maternal grandfather, John Christopher Ise was the seventh of twelve children born to Henry and Rosena (Haag) Ise on the homestead Henry had claimed in June 1871. As an infant John was stricken with polio, which caused his right leg to become withered and nearly useless. His parents decided early that his best chance at success in life was for him to become a scholar.

John attended the nearby one-room Ise School and learned to play the guitar and the violin. With the latter he occasionally gave recitals in the area. In 1902 he taught a term at the Prairie Bell School in Bethany Township, receiving thirty dollars a month in pay. Later he also taught at the Rose Valley School in Ross Township. In 1903 his damaged leg was amputated and he was fitted with an artificial one, after which he could walk almost normally.

Ise entered the University of Kansas (KU) and graduated with a degree in music in 1908. He followed this with Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Law degrees. In 1911 he was admitted to the Kansas bar. The next year he received his master’s degree from Harvard University, where in 1914 John also became a Doctor of Philosophy. He was an assistant professor of economics at Harvard and Iowa State College before joining the faculty at the University of Kansas in 1916. He became a full professor there in 1920.

Dr. Ise’s interest in natural resources economics made him internationally known and internationally debated. “As crusty as the Kansas sod, Ise had the self-imposed mission of shocking both students and the public from their intellectual lethargy,” wrote Clifford Griffin in his The University of Kansas: A History (1983). Then-radical ideas such as conserving national oil reserves against future shortages and restricting drilling and mining in national parks and other federal lands caused Ise to be branded a Communist by some. But as time went on his ideas and writings earned him lasting respect both as a resource conservationist and a prophet of the energy crisis of the 1970s.

On August 4, 1921, John married Lillie Bernhard in Lawrence, Kansas. They had two sons, John Jr. and Charles. John was an independent in politics and a charter member of the League for Independent Political Action. He also served as president of the American Economics Association, the Mid-West Economic Association and on the editorial board of the American Economic Review. He was given life membership in the Kansas Illustriana Society in 1933 and later was named to Who’s Who in America.

John was a member of several local organizations in the Lawrence area. He and his wife gave $25,000 in 1955 to the Lawrence Humane Society for an animal shelter in memory of their son Charles, who had died in a plane crash, and spent much more time with this cause. Dr. Ise’s efforts in this area were recognized in 1968 by the American Humane Association.

John’s eight books ranged in subject matter from a comprehensive test on economics to a collection of humorous comments on current condition, interspersed with the classic story of his pioneer family in Osborne County. The United States Forest Policy (1920), The United States Oil Policy (1926), and Our National Park Policy: A Critical History (1961) all reflected his economic views on the nation’s natural resources. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, better known as OPEC, was formed in 1961 based on Ise’s conclusions in his Oil Policy book. Economics (1940) was a classroom textbook by Ise that was used at KU and several other colleges and universities from 1940 to 1965. Sod and Stubble (1936), a look at his parents’ life on the Kansas prairie in nineteenth century Osborne County, is still in print over 75 years after its initial publication. Ise also edited Howard Ruede’s critically-acclaimed Sod-House Days: Letters from a Kansas Homesteader (1937). These latter two books are considered to be the finest literature ever written about homesteading life on the Great Plains of North America, and have made Osborne County a focal point for scholarly study of the region. Ise’s final book, The American Way, was actually a present to him by his colleagues at KU upon his retirement in 1955 and is a collection of his finest speeches and letters.

Ise kept in touch with his boyhood home in Downs, whether giving the commencement address at the high school graduation or just visiting old friends. It was also customary for him to hold in Lawrence a yearly dinner for all Osborne County students attending KU.

John retired in 1955 with more earned degrees than any other KU faculty member. Up to fifteen thousand students had passed through his classes in thirty-nine years of teaching. He retired a world-renowned economist and is considered one of the three greatest professors in University of Kansas history. Currently the John Ise Award is given annually to recognize the student with the most outstanding achievement by the University of Kansas Department of Economics. John continued in the post of professor emeritus and also taught as a visiting professor of economics at Amherst College in Massachusetts, Groucher University in Baltimore, Maryland, Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and at Harvard University.

John Ise passed away March 26, 1969, at Lawrence and was buried there in the Oak Hill Cemetery. His legacy of teaching and his writings will continue to shape and inspire the world we live in for many years to come.

JOHN ISE
MEMORIES OF MY FATHER

“I was asked to write a brief summary of my father’s life as it pertained to Osborne County. Of his early life I know little beyond his own story of his parents’ life as set forth in his book Sod and Stubble. This book, which I understand is being reissued in 1996, delineates the hardships, sorrows, and joys experienced by Rosa and Henry Ise (nee Eisenmanger) as early settlers near Downs. It ends with the selling of the Ise farm and the move of the family to Lawrence following Henry’s death.

It became abundantly clear to me how much my father’s early farm life had affected him, since for as far back as I can remember (I was born in 1923, in Lawrence, Kansas) he always owned a couple of farms. These were both quarter-sections, one near Richland and the other near Doniphan. He let neighbors farm these in exchange for half the wheat crop, which I remember as yielding (at least during the 1930s) a modest negative return. And just after my brother was born, in March 1926, he moved our family from the rented house on Louisiana Street to a farmhouse a few miles west of Lawrence on Highway 40. His nostalgia for the farm had apparently overweighed my mother’s misgivings, but after about a year she prevailed and they moved back to 1208 Mississippi Street, where he spent the rest of his life.

He had extremely broad interests in life. Thus at KU he earned bachelor’s degrees from three schools – the School of Fine Arts in 1908 (in music), the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in 1910, and the School of Law in 1911. He subsequently earned Master’s and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard in economics, which became his consuming interest from then on, particularly the study of conservation and farm economics. He wrote several books on these subjects, U.S. Oil Policy, U.S. Forest Policy, and U.S. National Park Policy, in addition to Sod and Stubble.

His early life on a Kansas farm had imbued him with several traits that I always found very admirable. He was scrupulously honest – I can remember once when he found that a sales clerk at the old Woolworth’s store on Massachusetts had given him a nickel too much change, whereupon he walked a block and a half in a light snowfall to return the nickel. This was not an easy task for a man who had to drag along a heavy artificial leg (prosthetics have come a long way since he had his withered leg cut off in 1903).

He loved animals with an unqualified love. He had worked his way through college by serving as a mounted officer for the Lawrence SPCA. His stories of how he had rescued dogs and horses from what seemed to my brother and me as incredible brutality and cruelty made a deep impression on both of us. After losing the use of his leg at the age of two to polio he had to get to school (half a mile) in a little wagon pulled by his faithful dog, Coalie. When my brother was killed in a light plane crash in 1955 my father donated money for the Charles Ise Animal Shelter in Lawrence.

And he seemed to have an uncanny way with animals. During the months that we spent on the farm west of Lawrence a neighboring farmer gave him a large and savage Airedale that had so badly bitten several of the farmer’s hired hands that he had to get rid of the dog. I can still remember Dad taking me and the dog by the scruff of the neck and saying, ‘Pal, this is Johnboy – you two are going to be friends.’ Not a growl from the fierce-looking dog, who did indeed become my fast friend, twice saving my life (as I still believe), once from a huge sow who had broken down her pen – this pig had actually eaten two of her own piglets – and once when I got stuck in quicksand in a wash near the farmhouse. These incidents may have hastened our move back to Lawrence!

My father was also a firm believer in the Biblical injunction ‘By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy daily bread’ and he worked harder than anyone I knew. He would teach all morning ‘up on the Hill,’ come home for lunch and then immure himself in his office, or ‘Library,’ as we called it. This was the downstairs room in our three story house, which contained many hundreds of books, mostly in his own field. All the rooms of the house, except for the kitchen, had bookcases, all full and almost all read. Dad worked, grading papers, preparing lectures, or writing some book or other, all afternoon and for three or four hours after dinner. This was a daily routine, except on Saturday afternoon when the Metropolitan Opera was playing, or when my parents either went out to dinner at friend’s homes or entertained friends themselves. My mother was an excellent cook; once being written up in Clementine Paddleford’s Sunday column for her Black Walnut Cake, but no wine or liquor was ever served in her house. Her father had been a Methodist minister and she and her nine brothers and sisters had been raised quite strictly. Dad’s parents had actually drunk beer and wine on rare occasions, to the considerable embarrassment of all their eleven children, most of whom remained strict teetotalers.

There were many things Dad could not teach me and my brother, because of his artificial leg. Thus there was no ball throwing or family bicycling trips. But he showed us things that to me were more important. As a child in Kansas he had had to be very inventive in the matter of playtime activities. He had learned to whittle with his jackknife–I still have a little box in which he carried his flute, carefully crafted from about a dozen types of wood native to Kansas. He showed Charlie and me how to crack a long bullwhip, and how to make shingle darts, launched with a stick with a knotted piece of string which fit into a notch in the body of the dart. He was incredibly precise with those things, and could hit targets at fifty yards as well as my brother and I could with our BB guns. Because of his missing leg he had had to compensate by using his arms more and had such strength in his arms and hands that he could chin himself with one hand, holding onto the exposed ceiling joists, a feat that his athletic older brothers could not duplicate. But the most important things he could and did teach us were attitudes and beliefs. We learned to love the outdoors, what is now called ‘the environment.’ Summer vacations were always spent camping in the western national parks. We picked up a love of great art, good music and great literature. His favorite author was always Mark Twain. He was fiercely loyal to Kansas and to the United States, which belies his frequently controversial views about many things. He was widely considered to be a Communist sympathizer for many years and the chancellor and even the governor received occasional letters from Kansas businessmen complaining about “that radical John Ise, infecting the young minds in our University.” This amused Dad greatly, but infuriated me and my brother. And thanks to a tolerant administration he remained at KU for thirty-nine years and I believe he taught at least a few thousand students how to think for themselves.

During my postdoctoral Fulbright fellowship to France in 1950 I was working with Jean Daudin, then a leading physicist in the field of cosmic rays. He also happened to be one of the leaders of the Communist Party in southern France and we worked together at the Pic du Midi, on the Spanish border, where he frequently entertained Spanish Loyalists hostile to Franco. Dad was teaching that summer at a seminar in Salzburg, sponsored by Harvard University, and I can remember the bitter argument he had with Daudin about communism, when the two of them met in Paris, for by 1950 the grim reality of Stalin’s dictatorship was obvious to all. I had to translate for the two of them for Dad spoke no French and Daudin no English and it was difficult for me to translate Dad’s cusswords into the kind of French I had learned from Mademoiselle Crumrine at KU!

He was a very good economist, serving as president of the American Economic Association, and an excellent teacher. His textbook on economics was for a time used by the majority of state universities, and I am glad that I was able to take his course in Economics 90, although I was too shy to ever open my mouth in class. When he retired from the KU faculty in 1955 his colleagues expressed their admiration by publishing a collection of his essays in a book, The American Way. In 1963 he was very proud to receive KU’s highest honor, the Citation for Distinguished Service, awarded at Commencement exercises. He remained a true son of Kansas all his life, which was inexorably shaped by his early upbringing in Downs. In one short essay reproduced in The American Way, entitled ‘No Time To Live’, he recalled one episode of his college days, when the family was still living in Downs, in the following manner:

‘When we went to Lawrence to college we did not expect to make the trip in four hours but rode the unhurried Central Branch, changed trains a time or two, making connections if we were lucky – if not, lounging around the depot for some hours or perhaps all night. I remember well the evening my sister and I missed connections at Beloit and sat out behind the depot most of the night, reciting poetry and talking of our plans and ambitions and theories of the good life. It was full moon, and there was a mist on the field of ripening wheat across the fence, and the frogs were croaking from the creek nearby. Sister has been gone these many years, but I can still close my eyes and see that lovely, peaceful scene as if I had been there only yesterday. An interruption of our long journey which I, no doubt, cursed with vigor, had enriched my life with an unforgettable experience. It was enforced leisure, but how rich and enduring.’

One final remark he made about the early settlers among whom he was raised is still relevant: ‘They had what it took, and it took a lot.’ That about sums it up.” – John Ise, Jr., November 1995.

 

Source: The Osborne County Hall of Fame, Presenting The Notable Past and Present Citizens of Osborne County, Kansas. 1996 Inductees.

_________________________________

Excerpt from Edward S. Mason’s Autobiography

            John Ise, then an Associate Professor of Economics, was a remarkable man and he came from a remarkable family. His father, Henry Eisenmenger, had come to this country from Wurttemberg, Germany in 1857. As his son later recounted, the father “joined the Union arising at the outbreak of the Civil War, helped guard the Mississippi, fought around Chattanooga, marched with Sherman to the sea, and at the close of the war, returned to Illinois, with a new name, ‘Ise’ – because the captain could not remember his full name.”* He moved west after the war, took up a “free” claim of 160 acres in western Kansas, made it into a thriving farm and, with the help of an indomitable wife, raised 12 children, of whom 11 lived. All of them attended college and a few became significant figures in the life of their communities. John was one of the younger ones. He was stricken with infantile paralysis in his youth but, although crippled, he was a powerful man and full of energy. He was also a most engaging teacher.

John Ise had taken his, doctor’s degree at Harvard in 1914 with a dissertation on the History of the Forestry Policy of the United States which foreshadowed later interest in natural resources and land policy**. Ise was much impressed by the Harvard Economics Department – a little too much impressed I later thought when studying under some of the same teachers and – it led him to send his good students there for graduate training. Among others, Lloyd Metzler, now Professor at the University of Chicago, and John Lintner, now Professor at Harvard, passed through his hands. Although Ise could not be called an eminent economist he was an eminent teacher and I received a thorough grounding in Alfred Marshall’s Principles that later stood me in good stead. But he was much more than a teacher and economist. He was a liberal influence in the University and throughout the state. Indeed his very effective speeches in public affairs acquired for him the reputation of having somewhat of a “socialist tinge” which was unusual, to say the least, in Republican Kansas. Whether socialist or not he was the only teacher I ever had who significantly influenced the course of my development.

*John Ise, Sod and Stubble: The Story of a Kansas Homestead. New York, Barnes and Noble, Inc. 1940, p. 10

**His dissertation was later published in part by the Ames iowa Forester. Among subsequent publications were: The United States Oil Policy, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1926. Our National Park Policy, Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1961. He also published a textbook, Economics, Harper, N.Y., 1946.

Source: Edward S. Mason, A Life in Development: An Autobiography (privately published by his son Edward H. L. Mason, 2004) p. 14. [Available in the Harvard University Archives Box 1 of Papers of Edward Sagendorph Mason

_________________________________

Ise’s account (1922) of the undergraduate principles of economics course

…Most departments of economics, nevertheless, follow the plan of giving an all-inclusive course in Elements or Principles to freshmen or sophomores, and make this course prerequisite to most other work in economics. This arrangement can probably be explained, if not excused, by the power of academic tradition. Not many decades ago, only one or two courses in economics were given in most universities — Principles of Political Economy, and perhaps one or two other courses. New courses were gradually added to the curriculum, but the course in Principles was retained as a fundamental introductory course. As long as there were only a few other courses, there was justification for a broad course in the Principles, even if there was little reason for making it the first course; but when enough advanced courses were added to cover the entire field of economics, the course in Principles represented little but duplication. It was not changed much, in character or in scope, as the other courses were added. This is revealed by examination of some of the textbooks used in the United States during the past half century or more. Wayland, Bowen, Amasa Walker, Perry, Meservey, Newcomb, Macvane, Osborne — all cover somewhat the same general ground. Wayland’s Elements of Political Economy, published in 1837, strikingly resembles many recent texts.

John Stuart Mill’s Principles is not very different from many texts now in use, except that it is somewhat superior to most of them.…

There has been a widespread appreciation of the fact that underclassmen do not have the basis of information necessary to a thorough grasp of the course in Principles ; and at least twenty institutions have provided one or two, or even as many as three courses, to precede the Principles and lay a foundation for it. The courses most commonly prescribed are largely historical or descriptive — Economic History of England, Economic History of the United States, Commercial Geography, Commercial Industries, Economic Resources, American Economy, The Economic Order, Modern Economic Life, Industrial Society, Industries and Commerce, Descriptive Economics, etc…

Source: John Ise. The Course in Elementary Economics. American Economic Review, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Dec. 1922), pp. 614-623.

_________________________________

Kansapedia article
[Yes, there is a Kansapedia]

John C. Ise

Born: June 5, 1885, Ross Township, Osborne County, Kansas. Married Lillie Bernhard, 1921.
Died: March 26, 1969, Lawrence, Douglas County, Kansas.

John Ise was born June 5, 1885, in June 5, 1885, in Ross Township, Osborne County, Kansas, to Henry and Rosena (Haag) Ise, where the family had homesteaded in 1871. He was the eighth of 12 children.

Ise attended the University of Kansas and earned bachelor’s degrees in 1908, 1910, and 1911. He earned a master’s degree in 1912 and doctoral degree in 1914 from Harvard University. In 1916 Ise joined the faculty of the University of Kansas in the economics department and reached full professor status in 1920. He married Lillie Bernhard in 1921. They had one child.

Ise retired from the University of Kansas in 1955. He authored eight books that include humorous anecdotes, economics textsbooks, and pioneer family stories. Ise was a philanthropist who supported the animal shelter in Lawrence. He served on numerous boards related to economics and became known around the world for his work as an economist. He was still considered among the three greatest professors in the history of the University of Kansas for many years.

Sod and Stubble is Ise’s most well-known work. The story tells of pioneer life on the Kansas plains in the late 19th century. His mother inspired the character of the pioneer woman who at the age of 17 married a young German farmer and settled in north central Kansas and raised a large family.

 

Source: “Ise, John, C.” in Kansas Historical Society, Kansapedia. Webpage created June 2014 and modified December 2015.

_________________________________

From: John Ise Papers at the University of Kansas

…Over the course of his career he authored eight books, served as president of the American Economics Association and the Mid-West Economic Association, and served on the editorial board of the American Economic Review. Sod and Stubble is Ise’s best known work, recording his childhood as a child of homesteaders in Osborne County in the late 19th century. Other volumes written by Ise include Economics, Our National Park Policy: A Critical History, The American Way, The United States Forest Policy, and The United States Oil Policy.

Ise was also a generous philanthropist, notably supporting and for a time serving as president of the Lawrence Humane Society in Lawrence, Kansas…

Research Tip: Box 19 “Clippings, letters, published materials, class notes” would almost certainly have course materials from Harvard, but perhaps also from his own student days:

Source: Excerpt from short biography in University of Kansas Libraries, Kenneth Spencer Research Library. Guide to the John Ise Collection.

 

Image Source: The Osborne County Hall of Fame, Presenting The Notable Past and Present Citizens of Osborne County, Kansas. 1996 Inductees.

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Harvard Yale

Harvard. Mason, Domar and Samuelson at Metzler Memorial Service, 1980

 

These memorial remarks for Lloyd Metzler come from Evsey Domar’s papers. Edward S. Mason and Evsey D. Domar’s remarks have been transcribed in full. I have only provided excerpts of those by Paul Samuelson that were published later in Vol. V of his Collected Scientific Papers. The common denominator of all three remembrances is that Metzler was an outlier among economists both with respect to his analytical abilities and contributions to economics as well with respect to his uncommon utter decency. It appears even back then, nice guys in economics attracted as much attention as an albino moose today. Samuelson’s speculative remark regarding Metzler’s assignment to the “Burbank ghetto” is priceless as is his recounting of Keynes’ less than sage advice to Sidney Alexander.

___________________

LLOYD A. METZLER
1913-1980
by Edward S. Mason

We are here to celebrate the life of Lloyd Metzler who gave comfort and pleasure not only to his family but to a host of friends. In the six short years he was at Harvard, he made a name for himself as a scholar of promise and a man to whom others turned for help and companionship.

Lloyd took his first degree at the University of Kansas and studied under a man who was my own teacher and who taught John Lintner and a number of others who later came to Harvard. I’d like to say a word about this man, John Ise, who left his imprint on Lloyd, on me, and on all those who passed through his hands. Ise was one of five children who grew up on the Kansas prairies just after the Sod House days that he later wrote about. All of these children went through the University and all made their mark in life. He was a strong man who fought for his unpopular opinions and encouraged his students to strike out for themselves. I know he impressed Lloyd as much as he did me.

After teaching two years at Kansas, Lloyd came to the Graduate School at Harvard in 1936. It was an interesting period in Cambridge and in the Department of Economics. The old guard was leaving the Department and a new crew coming in. Taussig, Carver, and Bullock retired; Ripley died; and Gay left for the Huntington library. These were the stalwarts who had dominated the Department since 1900. Early in the 1930s, Schumpeter, Leontief, and Haberler joined the Department and, later, Hansen, Schlichter, and Black. They were a vigorous crew. Lloyd early discovered his major interest in international trade and worked, in particular, with Hansen and Haberler. Harvard economics was also fortunate in attracting during that period a number of exceptional graduate students, a number of whom are here with us today. I am sure that Lloyd learned as much from them as from his teachers and, in the process, gave as much as he took.

The 1930s were also a period of upheaval in the country and in the University. In some respects it resembled the late 1960s though the protagonists and antagonists were not as strident or violent. It was a period when new ideas percolated the environment and questions of public policy were much to the fore. The influence of Keynes dominated the last few years of the decade, and Lloyd soon found himself in the middle of Keynesian controversies.

After leaving Harvard in 1942, he spent a year as a Guggenheim Fellow and then joined the Office of Strategic Services for a year. Although OSS had a good stable of economists, I am sure that he felt more at home at the Federal Reserve Board where he served from 1944 to 1946. After that a brief period at Yale, and then the University of Chicago where he was a distinguished member of the Economics Department for the rest of his life.

I leave it to others to comment on his considerable scholarly accomplishments, but want to say something about how Lloyd impressed me as a young man. He was obviously much more than an economist, with deep interests in music and literature. He was a cultivated man who in some respects reminded me of Allyn Young who also had a great interest in music and who, for a brief moment in the 1920s, shed his light on Harvard. Young looked more like a poet than an economist though I admit it is difficult for me to describe just what an economist is supposed to look like. Lloyd was a sensitive gentleman with a gift for friendship. Everyone who knew him like him and all of us join Edith in deeply mourning his departure.

 

ON LLOYD METZLER
by Evsey D. Domar

Last Sunday, The New York Times reviewed another book on President Truman. He is a gold mine for historians. A man of modest ability, yet a good president. Well, perhaps not quite so good… On the other hand, by comparison with our presidents in the recent past and, may I add, expected in the near future, a giant indeed… Many contradictions in his character and performance and so on. Could you find a better man to write about?

Lloyd Metzler does not offer such wonderful opportunities. As I look back over nearly forty years since I first met him, I don’t find contradictions either in his character nor in his actions; what stands out is a man of rare intellectual ability, remarkable modesty and much kindness.

Over my lifetime I have known a number of very bright people, including some economists; and a number of very modest and kind people, also including some economists. But I have never met one who could excel Lloyd in the combination of ability, modesty and kindness.

This was true at Harvard where he was finishing his thesis when I first met him in 194’ [sic]. If a visitor asked then, “Who is your brightest graduate student?” the answer, without any hesitation was “Lloyd Metzler, of course.” If the question was, “Who is your nicest graduate student?” the answer was once again, “Lloyd, of course.” Ant the same was true at the Federal Reserve where he spent a couple of years during the War. It was true in his office, in the cafeteria, in the afternoon math class which he gave for the staff, and outside of that marble building which has lately appeared several times on TV. (Hard to believe now that in those days the interest rate of government securities was something like 2½ per cent.)

As Solzhenitsyn said, he “was the one righteous person without whom, as the saying goes, no city can stand. Neither can the whole world.”

 

LLOYD METZLER
(April 3, 1913—October 26, 1980)
by Paul A. Samuelson

[Excerpts]

That we should hold this memorial service in the Harvard Yard is fitting. Widener Library was Lloyd’s first stamping grounds after he came to Harvard in 1937 from Kansas. Later, when the Littauer building was new, he switched his battleground to the other side of where we now meet. In my mind’s eye, I can still see Lloyd Metzler walking across the Harvard Yard, with his little dachshund in tow, engaged in animated badinage with Bob Bishop or Dan Vandermeulen. A young resident of Winthrop House, destined to be president of the United States [John F. Kennedy], used to be disturbed in his studies by our revels in Lloyd’s Winthrop House tutorial suite.

…To be near K.U., the family finally moved to Lawrence, Kansas. There the spellbinder populist, John Ise, rescued Lloyd from the swamp of the business school. Just as Ise had done with Ed Mason, and as he was to do with John Lintner, Challis Hall, and a host of other sons of the middle border, Ise sent Metzler on to his old graduate student at Harvard.

Harold Hitchings Burbank, noting the Germanic “z” in Lloyd’s name and recognizing his egregious talent, probably mistook him for a Jew…Like other able people Burbank didn’t favor, Lloyd was put in the galleys of Frickey and Crum, to serve as assistant in the undergraduate courses in statistics and accounting. Since I never had that honor, I can with good grace report that the cream of the graduate school, those who have won the Wells Prizes and top honors of our profession, all came from this Burbank ghetto.

…What is in order is to speak of Wassily Leontief and E.B. Wilson We few mathematical economists at Harvard were blessed by these great teachers…Wilson spotted Metzler’s genius. One of President Conant’s few stupid decisions was to retire Wilson at the earliest possible age, and this in a period of teacher shortages, thereby depriving the post-Metzler generations of the consumers’ surplus that Metzler, I, Bergson, Tsuru, Alexander, and some other happy few enjoyed.

That, however , was par for the critics of mathematical economics. In the year that Metzler came to Harvard, Sidney Alexander was Keynes’s last tutee at Cambridge University. Keynes seriously advised Alexander not to waste his time with mathematical economics…

…All in all, Lloyd Metzler added enormously to economic science. And that sense of humor and sweet nature lives on in our happy memories.

Note: Samuelson’s complete remarks at the memorial service were published in The Collected Scientific Papers of Paul A. Samuelson, Vol. V (Kate Crowley, ed.) pp. 827-830. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1986.

 

Source: Duke University. Rubenstein Library. Papers of Evsey Domar, Box 6, Folder “Correspondence: Lloyd Metzler etc.”

Image Source: “Lloyd A. Metzler/Fellow: Awarded 1942/Field of Study: Economics”John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Webpage .

Categories
Columbia Economic History Economists Harvard Illinois Johns Hopkins Minnesota Yale

Columbia. Seligman Recommends Three Harvard Colleagues for English Visiting Professorship, 1925

 

The Sir George Watson Chair of American History, Literature, and Institutions was administered by the Anglo-American Society for a distinguished visiting professor to lecture in several English universities. The inaugural lecture was given in 1921 by Viscount Bryce. That lecture, “The Study of American History” was published along with an account of the establishment of the Sir George Watson Chair. The first full course of lectures, “Economic Problems of Democracy” was given the following year by the economist and President-Emeritus of Yale University, Arthur T. Hadley. 

From the following exchange of letters between the president of Columbia University and economist, E.R.A. Seligman, we harvest Seligman’s ranking of four economics professors (three from Harvard and one from Johns Hopkins) regarded by Seligman to dominate the leading specialists in American economic history for this prestigious visiting position in “American History, Literature, and Institutions”. I have been unable at this time to determine who was actually appointed in 1925 or 1926

______________________________

Columbia President Butler Requests E.R.A. Seligman to Propose Names of Distinguished Economists for a British Chair in American History

Columbia University
in the City of New York
President’s Room

January 6, 1925

Professor E. R. A. Seligman
Department of Economics

My dear Professor Seligman

The electors to the Watson Chair of American History in British Universities contemplate acting upon a suggestion of mine and naming in the not distant future a competent American scholar to present the subject of our economic history and development. The topics that I have in mind include the migration West and the settlement of the large land areas there, the development of government aid in internal improvements, the building up of the railway and other transportation systems, the struggles over the tariff, the development, both industrially and geographically, of our manufacturing system, and the growth and character of foreign trade. There would, of course, also have to be treatment, although in general fashion, of the high points of our financial history.

Can you out of your wide acquaintance with American economists suggest a few names that I might send to the electors for consideration when they come to make their choice? The man ought to have enough standing at home to make his appointment abroad significant. He ought to be a good lecturer before a general academic audience and he ought to have a sufficiently philosophic cast of mind to avoid plunging into a morass of facts and statistics when what is needed is philosophic exposition of principles, happenings and trends of events.

With cordial regards an all the compliments of the season, I am

Faithfully yours
[signed]
Nicholas Murray Butler

______________________________

Copy of Seligman’s Response to Butler’s Request

January 7, 1925.

President Nicholas Murray Butler,
Columbia University.

My dear President Butler:

In reply to your letter of January 6th I would say that the professed economic historians are not of the very first rank. The best of them are Clive Day, of Yale, who is, I am afraid, a bit ineffective as a speaker; E. L. Bogart, of Illinois, who is a much more impressive personality and who is a fine fellow, although not a scholar of the first rank; and, finally, Professor Gras, of Minnesota, who is a younger man. It would be far better, it seems to me, to choose some prominent economist, many of whom either give courses in economic history as an incidental matter or who may be assumed to have a competent knowledge of American history. In this rank I should put first Professor E. L.(sic) Gay, of Harvard, with whom no doubt you are acquainted, and who was formerly editor of the Evening Post; then either Ripley or A. A. Young, of Harvard, would do very well, as they are both men of distinction and personality. Other men, like Hollander of Johns Hopkins, occasionally gives courses similar to the one that I give every few years, on economic and fiscal history. Taking it all in all, the order of my choice would be Gay, Young, Ripley, Hollander.

If you desire more detailed information about any of these and their characteristics or standing, I should be glad to talk it over with you.

Faithfully yours,
[E.R.A. Seligman]

 

Source: Columbia University Archives. Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman Collection, Box 37, Folder “Box 100, Seligman, Columbia 1924-1930”.

Image Source: E.R.A. Seligman portrait in  American Economic Review, 1943.

Categories
Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. 13 Ph.D. Candidates, General or Special Examinations by Field, 1912-13

 

For thirteen Harvard economics Ph.D. candidates this posting provides information about their respective academic backgrounds, the six subjects of their general examinations along with the names of the examiners, the subject of their special subject, thesis subject and advisor(s) (where available). This transcribed announcement is for the academic year 1912-13.

________________________________________

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.
1912-13

Notice of hour and place will be sent out three days in advance of each examination.
The hour will ordinarily be 4 p.m.

Charles Edward Persons.

Special Examination in Economics, Wednesday, January 15, 1913.
General Examination passed February 25, 1909.
Academic History: Cornell College (Iowa), 1898-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1904-05, 1906-09. A.B., Cornell, 1903; A.M., Harvard, 1905. Instructor in Economics, Wellesley, 1908-09; Preceptor in Economics, Princeton, 1909-10; Instructor in Economics, Northwestern, 1910-12; Assistant Director, St. Louis School of Social Economy, Washington University, 1913-.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Sociology and Social Reform. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Transportation.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Bullock, Ripley and Rappard.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the Ten-Hour Law in Massachusetts.”
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Bullock, and Ripley.

Clyde Orval Ruggles.

Special Examination in Economics, Friday, January 17, 1913.
General Examination passed May 20, 1909.
Academic History: Hedrick Normal School, 1895-96; Iowa State Normal School and Teachers’ College of Iowa, 1901, 1903-06; State University of Iowa, 1906-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09. A.B., Teachers’ College, 1906; A.M., State University, 1907. Professor of Economics, State Normal School, Winona, Minn., 1909-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology and Social Reform. 3. Statistics. 4. Economic History to 1750, with especial reference to England. 5. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Money and Banking.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Sprague, Turner, and Dr. Day.
Thesis Subject: “The Economic Basis of the Greenback Movement in Iowa and Wisconsin.”
Committee on Thesis: Professors Sprague, Turner, and Dr. Day.

Harold Hitchings Burbank.

General Examination in Economics, Monday, April 28, 1913.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Channing, Taussig, Gay, and Dr. Day.
Academic History: Dartmouth College, 1905-10; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-13. A.B., Dartmouth, 1909; A.M. ibid., 1910. Instructor in Economics, Dartmouth, 1910-11; Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1911-12; Instructor in Economics, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Money, Banking, and Crises. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Tariff History and International Trade. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Taxation.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the General Property Tax in Massachusetts since 1775.” (With Professor Bullock.)

John Alvin Bigham.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, April 30, 1913.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Bullock, Cole, Fite, and Dr. Copeland.
Academic History: University of Kansas, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1908-10, 1911-12. A.B., Kansas, 1908; A.M., Harvard, 1909. Instructor in Economics, St. Augustine’s School, Raleigh, N.C., 1910-11.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Economics of Agriculture. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Economics of Agriculture, with especial reference to American conditions.
Thesis Subject: (undecided).

John Ise.

General Examination in Economics, Friday, May 2, 1913.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Wyman, Carver, Sprague, and Dr. Copeland.
Academic History: University of Kansas, 1904-11; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-13. MUS.B, Kansas, 1908; A.B., ibid., 1910; LL.B., ibid., 1911; A.M., Harvard, 1912. Assistant in Economics, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Money, Banking, and Crises. 6. Jurisprudence.
Special Subject: Public Finance.
Thesis Subject: “The Government Land Policy since 1880.” (With Professor Bullock.)

Lloyd Morgan Crosgrave.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 7, 1913.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Bullock, Fite, and Dr. Copeland.
Academic History: Indiana University, 1905-09; Harvard Graduate School, 1910-13. A.B., Indiana, 1909; A.M., Harvard, 1911. Teacher of History, Decatur High School, Ill., 1909-10; Instructor in Economics, Harvard, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Public Finance and Railroads. 5. Labor Problems, including Social Reforms. 6. History of American Institutions since 1789.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Thesis Subject: “The American Glass Industry.” (With Professor Taussig.)

Lucius Moody Bristol.

Special Examination in Economics (Social Ethics), Thursday, May 8, 1913.
General Examination passed May 4, 1911.
Academic History: University of North Carolina, 1894-95; Boston University School of Theology, 1896-99; Harvard Divinity School, 1909-10; Harvard Graduate School, 1910-11. A.B., North Carolina, 1895; S.T.B., Boston University, 1899; A.M., Harvard, 1910. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1911-13; Instructor in Sociology and Applied Christianity, Tufts, 1910-12; Assistant Professor of Applied Christianity, Tufts, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Ethical Theory. 2. Economic Theory. 3. Labor Problems. 4. Social Reforms. 5. Sociology. 6. Statistics.
Special Subject: Sociology.
Committee: Professors Carver (chairman), Taussig, Bullock, and Dr. Brackett.
Thesis Subject: “The Development of the Doctrine of Adaptation as a Theory of Social Progress.” (With Professor Carver.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Carver, Sprague, and Dr. Brackett.

Yamato Ichihashi.

Special Examination in Economics, Friday, May 12, 1913.
General Examination passed May 1, 1912.
Academic History: Leland Stanford Junior University, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1910-12; A.B., Leland Stanford, 1907; A.M., ibid., 1908. Assistant in Economics, Leland Stanford, 1908-10.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Statistics. 5. Anthropology. 6. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Taussig, Carver, and Dr. Day.
Thesis Subject: “Emigration from Japan, and Japanese Immigration into the State of California.” (With Professor Ripley.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Ripley, Turner, and Carver.

George Henry von Tungeln.

General Examination in Economics (Social Ethics), Wednesday, May 14, 1913.
Committee: Dr. Ford (chairman), Professors Taussig, Turner, R.B. Perry, Drs. Brackett and Foerster.
Academic History: Central Wesleyan College, 1904-06, 1907-09; Northwestern University, 1909-10; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-13. Ph.B., Central Wesleyan, 1909; A.M., Northwestern, 1910.
General Subjects: 1. Ethical Theory. 2. Economic Theory. 3. Poor Relief. 4. Social Reforms. 5. Sociology. 6. Criminology and Penology.
Special Subject: Criminology and Penology.
Thesis Subject: “Boston Juvenile Offenders in their Economic and Moral Relations.” (With Professor Peabody and Dr. Ford.)

Eliot Jones.

Special Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 15, 1913.
General Examination passed May 19, 1910.
Academic History: Vanderbilt University, 1900-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-10, 1911-12; A.B. Vanderbilt, 1906; A.M., Harvard, 1908. Austin Teaching Fellow, 1909-10, 1911-12; Instructor in Economics, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Money, Banking, and Industrial Organization. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Railroad Transportation.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Carver, Sprague, and Dr. Copeland.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the Anthracite Coal Industry, with especial reference to the Development of Combination.” (With Professor Ripley.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Ripley, Taussig, and Sprague.

Joseph Stancliffe Davis.

Special Examination in Economics. Friday, May 16, 1913.
General Examination passed May 17, 1909.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1908-12; A.B., 1908. Assistant in Economics, 1908-10, 1911-12; Instructor in Economics and Sociology, Bowdoin College, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Progress. 4. Money, Banking, and Industrial Organization. 5. History of American Institutions, especially since 1783. 6. Anthropology, especially Ethnology.
Special Subject: Business Corporations, with especial Reference to the Development of Corporate Enterprise in the United States.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Ripley, Carver, and Schaub.
Thesis Subject: “Corporations in the American Colonies.” (With Professor Bullock.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Channing, and Taussig.

Ralph Emerson Heilman.

Special Examination in Economics (Social Ethics), Monday, May 19, 1913.
General Examination passed May 11, 1911.
Academic History: Morningside College, 1903-06; Northwestern University, 1906-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1909-13; Ph.B., Morningside, 1906; A.M., Northwestern, 1907. Instructor in Economics, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Ethical Theory. 2. Economic Theory and its History. 3. Poor Relief. 4. Social Reform. 5. Sociology. 6. Labor Problems.
Special Subject: The Control of Municipal Public Service Corporations.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Sprague, and Dr. Copeland.
Thesis Subject: “Chicago Traction—A Study in the Efforts of the City to Secure Good Service.” (With Professor Taussig.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Taussig, Ripley, and Munro.

Rufus Stickney Tucker.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 28, 1913.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Turner, Ripley, Sprague, and Dr. Gray.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1907-11; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-13. A.B., 1911; A.M., 1912.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Statistics. 3. Money and Banking. 4. Economic History since 1750. 5. History of American Institutions. 6. Public Finance.
Special Subject: Public Finance.
Thesis Subject: “The Incidence of Real Estate Taxation.” (With Professor Bullock.)

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1912-13”.

 

Image Source: Harvard University, card catalogue in Widener Library (ca 1915). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

 

Categories
Columbia Economists Harvard Illinois Missouri Research Tip UCLA

Columbia Ph.D. Alumnus. Benjamin M. Anderson, 1886-1949

 

 

While the bulk of my internet trawling time for Economics in the Rear-View Mirror is devoted to tracking down curricular material and texts, serendipity occasionally takes me to biographically interesting places. Benjamin Anderson is of interest to ERVM both as having earned an economics Ph.D. from the Columbia School of Political Science and later as an economics professor at Harvard and UCLA. 

Research Tip: The University of California’s series of In Memoriam volumes.

____________________

Benjamin McA. Anderson, Economics: Los Angeles
(1886-1949)

Earl J. Miller, Marvel Stockwell, John Clendenin, Vern O. Knudsen

BENJAMIN MCALESTER ANDERSON (May 1, 1886-January 19, 1949), son of Benjamin McLean and Mary Frances (Bowling) Anderson, was born in Columbia, Missouri. He married Margaret Louis Crenshaw May 27, 1909. He is survived by his wife and three children, John Crenshaw, William Bent, and Mary Louise (Brown). A fourth child, Benjamin M. Anderson III, died in 1919.

Professor Anderson received the A.B. at the University of Missouri in 1906, the A.M. at the University of Illinois in 1910, and the Ph.D. in Economics at Columbia in 1911. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and an active member of the American Economic Association, in which he served as vice-president and a member of the Executive Committee. He served as Professor of History in the State Normal School at Cape Girardeau, Missouri, in 1905; Professor of English Literature and Economics at Missouri Valley College, Marshall, Missouri, in 1906; Professor of History and Economics at the State Teachers College, Springfield, Missouri, from 1906 to 1911; Instructor in Economics at Columbia from 1911 to 1913; Assistant Professor of Economics at Columbia, 1913; Assistant Professor of Economics, Harvard, 1913-1918; economic advisor in the National Bank of Commerce in New York, 1918-1920; economist for the Chase National Bank of New York, 1920-1939; Professor of Economics in the University of California at Los Angeles, 1939-1949 (Connell Professor of Banking, 1946-1949).

Professor Anderson enjoyed a rich experience as a youth in his home at Columbia, Missouri. His father was for many years a prominent member of the Missouri State Legislature. Their home was the scene of innumerable political conferences to which Dr. Anderson was invited and from which he developed a keen interest in the then current political and economic problems.

Dr. Anderson’s publications were extensive, including four books and many articles and reviews. Outstanding among them were his books, Social Value, 1911; The Value of Money, 1917; Effects of the War on Money, Credit and Banking in France and the United States, 1919; Financing American Prosperity (coauthor with J. M. Clark, Columbia; A. H. Hansen, Harvard; S. H. Slichter, Harvard; H. S. Ellis, California at Berkeley; and J. H. Williams, Harvard), 1945. Much of his time during the last few years of his life was devoted to the writing of another book entitled Economics and the Public Welfare, a financial and economic history of the United States, 1914-1946. This extensive work was ready for proofreading at the time of his death. The book has now been published. It is a further major contribution to the field of economic literature comparable in quality to the high standard set in his previous works.

He contributed articles to many magazines and journals. Among them were the American Economic Review; Annals of the American Academy; Political Science Quarterly; Quarterly Journal of Economics; The New York Times; The Commercial and Financial Chronicle; The Bankers Magazine (London); The London Times; and the Wall Street Journal. During the past ten years he has published eight issues of the Economic Bulletin under the sponsorship of the Capital Research Company of Los Angeles. He associated himself for many years with a group of well-known economists in the organization known as the Economists’ National Committee on Monetary Policy, and served as President of that organization. Several of his articles were reprinted and circulated on a wide basis by that organization.

While economist for the Chase National Bank of New York, Professor Anderson published over two hundred issues of the Chase Economic Bulletin, which was distributed and read extensively in government, banking and educational circles in many countries. Representing the Chase National Bank he traveled extensively in foreign countries to conduct negotiations with leading government and banking officials. He was called on numerous occasions to testify before committees of the U.S. Congress and the New York State Legislature on questions of state, national and international policy relating to the fields of money and banking. These activities together with the wide circulation of his books, and of his articles in professional and financial journals and magazines, made him one of the best-known and most distinguished economists of his generation in both the national and international fields.

The firsthand contact with practical banking, with American and foreign banking officials, and with government agencies concerned with our economic and monetary affairs, which Dr. Anderson had enjoyed through many years, greatly enriched the content of his teaching and enabled him to provide for his students a sound and thoroughly practical experience. He originally possessed a scholarly command of history, literature, and languages which added impressively to his work, and he brought to his teaching and advisory tasks a broad perspective and keen judgment which made his pronouncements on economic affairs surprisingly accurate and wise.

Professor Anderson was a modest and distinguished scholar and a man esteemed by his colleagues for his personal qualities of kindly manner, stimulating humor, sympathetic appreciation and helpful cooperation. As a scholar and as a man he made a memorable contribution to the community in which he lived.

Source: Calisphere website: University of California, In Memoriam 1949, pp. 1-4.

Image Source: Benjamin M. Anderson in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Introductory Economics, Final Exams. Taussig, 1914-1915

 

Frank W. Taussig played a central role in Harvard’s economics at two important stages. He was the lecturer for the entry-level Principles of Economics course for undergraduates and the core economic theory course for graduate students. In addition he covered the field of international economics.

The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions for his principles course come from four different sources, three of which are available on-line. Over the past few weeks, I have posted corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered at Harvard during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

The following year (1915) Edmund E. Day and R. S. Davis (who belonged to the team of instructors and assistants for this principles course) published their Questions on the Principles of Economics (New York, Macmillan) that was arranged by topics to follow Taussig’s own textbook Principles of Economics (Second, revised edition of 1915: Volume One; Volume Two).

______________________ 

Course Announcement

Economics A. (formerly 1). Principles of Economics. Tu., Th., Sat., at 11.
Professor Taussig and Asst. Professor Day and five assistants.

Course A is introductory to the other courses. It is intended to give a general survey of the subject for those who take but one course in Economics, and also to prepare for the further study of the subject in advanced courses. It is usually taken with most profit by undergraduates in the second year of their college career. It may not be taken by Freshmen without the consent of the instructor. History 1 or Government 1, or both of these courses, will usually be taken to advantage before Economics A. [p. 61]

Course A gives a general introduction to economic study, and a general view of Economics for those who have not further time to give to the subject. It undertakes a consideration of the principles of production, distribution, exchange, money, banking, international trade, and taxation. The relations of labor and capital, the present organization of industry, and the recent currency legislation of the United States will be treated in outline.

The course will be conducted partly by lectures, partly by oral discussion in sections. A course of reading will be laid down, and weekly written exercises will test the work of students in following systematically and continuously the lectures and the prescribed reading. [p. 62]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

______________________ 

Course Enrollment

[Economics] A. Professor Taussig and Asst. Professor Day, assisted by Dr. J. S. Davis, and Messrs. P. G. Wright, Burbank, Vanderblue, W. C. Clark, and Monroe.—Principles of Economics.

Total 491: 1 Graduate, 30 Seniors, 137 Juniors, 260 Sophomores, 11 Freshmen, 52 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

______________________ 

Mid-year Examination

ECONOMICS A

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. Answer all the questions; be concise; plan your answers with care; and leave time for revision at the close.]

  1. In what ways, if at all, is the development of the complex division of labor connected with (a) the monotony of labor; (b) the Industrial Revolution; (c) integration of industry; (d) the recurrence of industrial crises?
  2. Explain: external economies; internal economies. Which set of economies is most significant for the explanation of (a) the localization of industry; (b) increasing returns; (c) the development of monopoly?
  3. If possible distinguish between

(a) diminishing returns and diminishing utility;
(b) by-product and joint product;
(c) joint cost and joint demand;
(d) “corners” and monopolies;
(e) median and arithmetical mean.

  1. Explain briefly the immediate and the ultimate effects (if any) which each of the following changes, taken separately, will tend to have on the price of cotton, cotton-seed oil, and cotton-mill machinery; (a) prohibition of organized speculation; (b) a change of fashion toward greater use of cotton fabrics; (c) doubling of the population of the country. (Assume for all three cases that there is no international trade, and that the quantity of money remains the same.)
  2. In what direction and by what process, if at all, would the following tend to affect the value of money in the United States; (a) increased demand for gold ornaments; (b) increasingly lavish expenditures by spendthrifts; (c) a continued drain of specie to the East; (d) a larger output of silver in the United States; (e) abolition of all legally required banking reserves?
  3. Under what conditions does inconvertible paper money circulate as readily as specie? Under what conditions, not as readily?
    Under what conditions is the value of inconvertible paper money as great as that of specie? Under what conditions is its value less than that of specie?
    State two indications of its having less value than specie. Which of the two is the more significant? Which is the more easily ascertained?
  4. State points of similarity, points of difference, between the Federal Reserve system and the English banking system as regards (a) centralization of reserves; (b) centralization of note issue; (c) measures available for preventing panics.
  5. Under what circumstances, if any, can a country have a permanent excess of imports? Under what circumstances, if any, a permanent outflow of specie? Does an excess of imports lead to an outflow of specie?
    Wherein, if at all, does a country gain or lose in its foreign trade (a) if prices and money incomes are higher than in foreign countries; (b) if prices and money incomes are lower?

Mid-Year. 1915.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers in Economics, 1882-1935. Prof. F. W. Taussig. (HUC 7882). Scrapbook, p. 106.

______________________ 

Final Examination

ECONOMICS A

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
Answer all the questions.

  1. Explain concisely: —

diminishing returns,
margin of cultivation,
equilibrium of supply and demand,
economic rent.

  1. Construct a simple index number of prices for 1914, using 1908 as the base.

 

1908

1914
Wheat, bbl.

$8.00

$12.00
Coal, ton

8.00

8.00
Iron, ton

18.00

9.00
Lumber, 1000 feet

20.00

15.00
Meat, lb.

.20

.30
Sugar, lb.

.10

.10

(1) Would the index-number point to a rise or a fall in the value of money? (2) Would a Board of Arbitration be justified in recommending a change in wages? If so, on what basis? If not, why not?

  1. Under what circumstances, if under any, will the imposition of a import duty cause the price of the dutiable commodity to fall? Under what will it fail to affect the price? Under what will it cause the price to rise?
  2. To what cause or causes should you ascribe: —

(a) the high level of general wages in the United States;
(b) the high wages of skilled workmen such as plumbers;
(c) the high wages of domestic servants in the United States;
(d) the high wages of trained nurses.

  1. Why is saving no less advantageous for laborers than lavish expenditure? Why do laborers usually favor ” making work “?
  2. “The standard of living affects wages not directly, but ” — how?
    What evidence of varying standards of living appears in the statistics of births and deaths for different countries? for different social classes?
  3. “The special question presented in this regard by the trust movement seems to be whether large-scale management adds something to the gains from large-scale production in the narrower sense. Here, too, it would appear at first sight that the matter may be allowed to settle itself. Let them fight it out and let that form of organization survive which does the work most cheaply.”
    Explain (a) what is meant by large-scale management and large-scale production; (b) what grounds there are for saying that they should be allowed to fight it out, what grounds for saying that they should not; (c) what legislation has recently been enacted in the United States on this subject.
  4. “Important distinctions exist between full-fledged socialism and public management of selected industries.” What are the distinctions?

Final. 1915.

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, pp. 39-59.

Image Source: Frank W. Taussig in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Statistics Final Exam. Day, 1914-15

 

 

Harvard’s 1914-15 statistics course in the department of economics was open to both undergraduate and graduate students. It was taught by Harvard Ph.D. (1909) and assistant professor, Edmund Ezra Day. The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions come from three different sources, all of which are available on-line. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 1a1. Statistics. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 11.  Asst. Professor Day, assisted by Mr. F. E. Richter.

This course will deal primarily with the elements of statistical method. The following subjects will be considered: methods of collecting and tabulating data; the construction and use of diagrams; the use and value of the various types and averages; index-numbers; dispersion; interpolation; correlation. Special attention will be given to the accuracy of statistical material.

In the course of this study of statistical method, examples of the best statistical information will be presented, and the best sources will be indicated. Population and vital statistics will be examined in some measure, but economic statistics will predominate.

Laboratory work in the solution of problems and the preparation of charts and diagrams will be required. [p. 62]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 1a 1hf. Asst. Professor Day, assisted by Mr. F. E. Richter.—Statistics.

Total 53: 23 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

________________________

Final Examination

ECONOMICS la1

  1. Formulate, if possible, practical definitions for use in statistical enumerations of the following: (a) cities; (b) farms; (c) manufacturing establishments; (d) the insane; (e) the blind. What are the essentials of a satisfactory statistical unit?
  2. What three sorts of evidence may be employed to prove the inaccuracy of census enumerations of population? Which of the three is generally most effectively used?
  3. Describe the different methods of estimating the growth of population. Under what circumstances is each method applicable? preferable? What method should you recommend for estimating the population of (a) Hartford, Connecticut; (b) Seattle, Washington; (c) the United States; (d) the United Kingdom?
  4. In computing a crude birth-rate what disposition is made of (a) still-births; (b) multiple births; (c) illegitimate births? On what different bases may a crude birth-rate be refined? What are the objections to refining birth-rates? When is refining desirable?
  5. What subjects are covered by the Census of Manufactures in the United States? What is the statistical value of the different results secured?
  6. In the construction of index-numbers of prices, what are the advantages and disadvantages of (a) the weighted arithmetic mean; (b) the median? What are the more important difficulties in the construction of price indexes?
  7. Discuss the reporting of crops in the United States with reference to (a) the bureaus engaged; (b) methods of securing data; (c) publication of results; (d) accuracy of results.
  8. Define and briefly explain the uses of (a) the index-number; (b) logarithmic curve; (c) coefficient of dispersion; (d) coefficient of correlation.

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, p. 41.

Image Source: Edmund Ezra Day in Harvard Class Album, 1915.

 

 

 

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Accounting, Final Examination. J.S. Davis, 1914-15

 

 

Harvard’s accounting course was open to both undergraduate and graduate students. It was taught by the Harvard Ph.D. (1913) and instructor of economics, Joseph Stancliffe Davis. The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions come from three different sources, all of which are available on-line. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

The course syllabus was transcribed  and is available in a later posting.

An obituary for Davis written by Joseph H. Willits, “Joseph Stancliffe Davis, (1885-1975)” , was published in The American Statistician 30, no. 4 (1976), p. 199.

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 1b. Accounting. Half-course (second half-year). Lectures, Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 1.30; problems and laboratory practice, two hours a week. Dr. J. S. Davis, assisted by Mr. F. E. Richter and —.

This course will deal with the construction and the interpretation of accounts of various types of business units, designed to show the financial status at a particular time, the financial results obtained during a period of time, and the relation between the results and the contributing factors. In other words, it will be concerned with the measurement, in terms of value, of economic instruments, forces, products, and surpluses.

Some attention will necessarily be given to the fundamentals of book-keeping, but emphasis will be placed chiefly upon the accounting principles underlying valuation and the determination of profits and costs. Problem work will be regularly assigned, and published reports of corporations will serve as material for laboratory work. [p. 63]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 1b 2hf. Dr. J. S. Davis, assisted by Mr. F. E. Richter.—Accounting.

Total 119: 2 Graduates, 62 Seniors, 49 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

________________________

Course Final Exam

ECONOMICS 1b

  1. Explain concisely five of the following: —

(a) “a controlling account”;
(b) “charging to capital”;
(c) “a sinking fund”;
(d) “a life insurance reserve”;
(e) “the five normal elements in cost”;
(f) “stores ledger.”

  1. “The Depositors’ Guarantee Fund of Nebraska is to accumulate up to one and one-half per cent of the average daily [bank] deposits for the whole state, at the rate of one-half of one per cent for each of the first two years, then one-tenth of one per cent until the limit is reached, at which time assessments are to stop. No money is actually paid out by any bank except its proportionate share of losses arising from failures; the assessments are simply charged off from its profits and entered to the credit of the Depositors’ Guarantee Fund, which can be drawn upon by the State Banking Board.”

(a) What journal entries should a bank make (1) when an assessment of $5000 falls due? (2) when at the call of the State Banking Board it pays over $3000 as its share of a loss arising from the failure of another bank?
(b) Should a bank show “ Depositors’ Guarantee Fund “ on its balance sheet as an asset, a liability, or a proprietorship item?

  1. From the following condensed but essentially complete statements, ascertain (taking each statement separately) the profits earned or the loss sustained during the year. Indicate the title each statement should bear.

(A)

Dr.

 Cr. Assets

Liabilities
Real Estate and Plant $40,000 $35,000
Merchandise $15,000 10,000
Accounts Payable 10,000 $10,000
Cash 30,000 30,000
Capital 60,000 60,000
Expense 15,000 2,000

 

(B)

Jan. 1

 Dec. 31 Jan. 1

Dec. 31
Plant $80,000 $70,000 Capital Stock $100,000 $100,000
Receivables 45,000 50,000 Payables 65,000 75,000
Merchandise 30,000 25,000 Wages Accrued 5,000 5,000
Cash 50,000 60,000 Reserve for Ins. … 10,000
Int. Prepaid 5,000 10,000 Surplus 40,000 25,000
(NOTE.—No dividends have been paid.)

 

(C)

Purchases $100,000 Net Sales $130,000
Wages 10,000 Interest Earned 4,000
Depreciation 6,000 Commission 6,000
Interest Expense 2,000
Miscel. Expense 12,000
Proprietor 10,000

 

  1. Show journal entries for the first-named concern in each of the following transactions:—

(a) A department store raises cash by discounting at the First National Bank its 3-months’ note for $100,000, at 4%.
(b) Enterpriser having exhausted his personal credit, gets Goodfellow to accommodate him with a $5000 60-day note bearing interest at 6%, which Enterpriser immediately gets discounted at 5%.
(c) Retailer settles a bill of Manufacturer’s dated June 1, for goods listed at $150,000 and sold subject to a trade discount of 20% on terms ” 30 days net,” paying with a note maturing July 1.
(d) A railroad company buys steel freight cars at a cash price of $480,000, but pays for them with an issue of 4% 10-year bonds at 80.

 

  1. Balance Sheet, January 1,1915.
Fixed Assets $500,000 Capital Stock $300,000
Current Assets 250,000 Bonds 300,000
Deficit 50,000 Current Liabilities 200,000
$800,000 $800,000

You are asked what is the capital of a company showing the above balance sheet, which is assumed to be correct. What four possible correct answers might you give? In each case explain what the term “capital” signifies.

  1. “The prospective investor in railroad securities should scrutinize very carefully any radical reduction in expenses that is made in either maintenance of way or maintenance of equipment; but a reduction in transportation expenses without any falling off in the revenue of the road may be fairly safely accepted as a reflection of increased efficiency.”

(a) Why this difference?
(b) Wherein would the company’s financial statements be falsified by excessive reductions in charges to maintenance?

  1. “No rate of depreciation is at present prescribed by the commission, and although the companies are supposed to report to the Interstate Commerce Commission the rate which they use, they are at liberty to make this rate as low as they want to and are permitted to vary the rate from year to year. Furthermore, no charge for retirements is necessary until a locomotive is actually scrapped or sold. Let us assume, for a moment, that a road wishes to make a good showing by holding down maintenance of equipment expenses. Cars and engines which have become worn out or obsolete may be put on side tracks and neither scrapped nor sold, but new equipment bought. There is no way in which this can be detected from the maintenance . . . accounts.”

(a) How does this practice enable the roads to make “a good showing”?
(b) By what supplementary statistics, if any, can the practice be detected?
(c) Why should no rate of depreciation be prescribed?

  1. “As the premium [on a bond] is nothing but the present worth of an annuity of the ‘difference of interest,’ so the various amortisations are nothing but the present worths of the different instalments of annuity.”
    Explain the italicized terms and the statement.
  2. What are the principal defects in present-day municipal accounting? What steps have been taken toward improvement?
  3. State concisely the four most important accounting facts or principles which you have learned in this course. (Accuracy of statement and wisdom in selection will be considered in grading answers.)

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, pp. 42-44.

Image Source: Joseph Stancliffe Davis, Harvard Class Album, 1916.

 

Categories
Courses Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. U.S. Economic History, Final Exam. Gay, 1915

 

 

“Economic and Financial History of the United States” was a course open to both undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard taught by Edwin F. Gay. The course announcement, enrollment figures, and the final examination questions come from three different sources, all of which are available on-line. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting corresponding material from the twenty economics courses offered during the 1914-15 year for which the final examination questions had been printed and subsequently published.

The course outline and reading assignments for this course in 1911 has been transcribed earlier here at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 2b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. Half-course (second half-year). Tu., Th., Sat., at 9. Professor Gay, assisted by —.

The following are among the subjects considered: aspects of the Revolution and commercial relations during the Confederation and the European wars; the history of the protective tariff policy and the growth of manufacturing industries; the settlement of the West and the history of transportation, including the early canal and turnpike enterprises of the states, the various phases of railway building and the establishment of public regulation of railways; banking and currency experiences; various aspects of agrarian history, such as the public land policy, the growth of foreign demand for American produce and the subsequent competition of other sources of supply; certain social topics, such as slavery and its economic basis, and the effects of immigration. [pp. 63-4.]

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1914-15. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XI, No. 1, Part 14 (May 19, 1914).

________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 2b 2hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. A. H. Cole.—Economic and Financial History of the United States.

Total 131: 30 Graduates, 17 Seniors, 44 Juniors, 30 Sophomores, 10 Others.

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College, 1914-15, p. 59.

________________________

Final Examination

ECONOMICS 2b

  1. (a) In the War of 1812, as well as in the embargo period, American shipping suffered; but with peace it nourished again. So too American shipping suffered in the Civil War; while afterwards shipping declined. How do you account for this?

   (b) What justification, if any, is there for the following assertion: —

“In the case of England, the mail subvention system a wise and liberal policy, while in that of the United States it was a tax on the people to support a mistaken policy.”
Is a ship subsidy policy desirable for the United States at the present time?

  1. Outline briefly your views as to the immediate influence of the Civil War on (a) land policy, (b) banking, (c) tariff, and (d) industrial progress North and South.
  2. “The currency legislation from the close of the Civil War was a series of compromises.” What compromises? Why? Resulting in what legislative Acts?
  3. In how far has the protective tariff been a factor in the development of the textile industries of the United States? What other factors have been operative?

Take two of the following questions.

  1. “Surpluses have spelled disaster to the United States.” Do you agree? When and how?
  2. Do you defend or oppose the movement toward industrial combination? State your reasons.
  3. (a) Trace the relation between the competition of the coastal cities and the development of transportation.
    (b) Summarize the important provisions of the amendments to the Interstate Commerce Act?

 

Source: Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Psychology, Social Ethics, Education, Fine Arts, Music in Harvard College. June 1915, pp. 45-46.

Image Source:  Edwin F. Gay in Harvard Class Album, 1915.