Category: Harvard

Harvard. Interdisciplinary Department of Social Ethics, 1920

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-22

The death of the benefactor of Harvard’s Department of Social Ethics, Alfred Tredway White (1846-1921), provided the Harvard Alumni Bulletin an opportunity to review the history of the origins and progress of the interdisciplinary Department of Social Ethics established in 1905 which could trace some of its roots to the sociology course offerings of the Department of Economics.

________________________

Social Ethics.

The article by Professor Cabot which we print in the present issue serves a double purpose. On the one hand it pays a ﬁtting tribute to the memory of one of Harvard’s most generous and self-forgetful benefactors. Mr. Alfred T. White did not give from love of himself, nor even from love of something that was his, such as an alma mater. He gave to a cause in which he believed, and he was concerned only that that cause might be effectively promoted.

But Professor Cabot’s article also throws light on the history and plans of one of the most interesting departments of the University. There is a sense in which this light is needed—for the Department suffers from its ambiguity. It has grown up in close relations with Philosophy, and is at present a member of the same division, and a fellow-tenant of Emerson Hall. Furthermore, Social Ethics sounds like “ethics”, and it is well known that ethics is a branch of philosophy. On the other hand, Social Ethics sounds almost equally like sociology; and that, according to our Harvard plan of organization, is a branch or dependency of Economics. Furthermore, when we come to examine the details of the Social Ethics courses we ﬁnd that they deal with poverty, immigration, labor, and the like; and these topics appear also in the courses on Economics. There is even a third affinity that confuses the identity of Social Ethics. It is edifying Social Ethics. and improving, and in that respect like Divinity. When Professor Peabody headed the Department of Social Ethics he was at the same time “Plummer Professor of Christian Morals” and preached (as happily he still does) in Appleton Chapel.

What, then, would be left of Social Ethics if its definitions of moral standards were assigned to Philosophy, its descriptions of social facts to Economics, and its devotional spirit to the Divinity School? Nothing—that is, nothing except just that peculiar thing which you get when the three are combined. But the more one thinks of it the more clear one becomes that they are well worth combining.

Consider, for example, the case of poverty. The mere philosopher will prove that it is evil; the mere economist will describe its quantity, its varieties, and its causes; the mere priest will visit the poor and pity them. But suppose you combine the three things in one and the same man. He will have a rational and defensible judgment that poverty is bad; he will be well-informed about it, especially in its broader aspects and underlying conditions; and he will seek to provide a remedy. Now it was Professor Peabody‘s idea and Mr. White’s idea that society will be best served by this thrice-armed man, and that it might well be one of the functions of a great university to arm him and send him forth.

That every college man should acquire something of this reasoned and enlightened zeal to help effectively in the ceaseless struggle of man against nature and against his own inﬁrmities, it would indeed be cynical to doubt. That there should be a special Department of the University in which this three-fold interest is focussed and nurtured is ﬁtting and desirable. But apart from this contribution to undergraduate instruction, the Department of Social Ethics promises to render an important service to the community at large in its development of instruction for professional social workers. Several such courses are announced in the new pamphlet for 1921-22 as offered by the Department itself. But more signiﬁcant of future development and possibilities is the reference to courses offered in other Departments or schools of the University, which by being systematically grouped would serve as admirable programs of professional social training. Thus, for example, courses in Social Ethics and Education (courses on play, mental hygiene, etc.) make up a varied and adequate program for workers in community centres, settlement houses, or recreation departments. It is evident in this case as doubtless in many others that the rich resources of the University may be made to serve new ends merely through being intelligently correlated with one another and with the public needs of the time.

________________________

A. T. White and the Department of Social Ethics

By Richard C. Cabot, ’89, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Professor of Social Ethics

Alfred T. White of Brooklyn, N. Y., has been the benefactor of the Department of Social Ethics at Harvard. His recent death makes it ﬁtting to sum up here and now what he has done for the University.

Other benefactors have given to Harvard larger sums. But seldom has a single department been so generously and so steadily supported by a single individual. The total amount of his gifts has now reached nearly $283,000. In 1903 he gave $50,000 to provide quarters for Social Ethics in the new Philosophy Building then projected. In 1905 he added $100,000 as an endowment of the Department. In 1917 and again in 1918 he gave $50,000 for the same purpose. His will contained a bequest for $50,000, to which should be added smaller donations for temporary needs.

In these gifts there are several unusual qualities. First,—the giver was not a Harvard graduate. He was moved to help social ethics because he believed in it and because he believed in Professor F. G. Peabody, his life-long friend. Moreover, Mr. White believed in social ethics when almost no one else did. Professor Peabody has recently pointed this out: “When Mr. White began to invest in the teaching of social ethics at Harvard University, the subject was hardly recognized as appropriate to a place of learning and was viewed by many critics with apprehension and by some with hostility. Mr. White, however, realized that the problems of social welfare and change must be, as he once said, the central matter of interest to educated .young men for the next ﬁfty years. He proceeded to create what was, I believe, the ﬁrst systematic and academic department for such instruction that this or any other University has maintained.”

Moreover, he was a remarkably persistent giver. “It was a dramatic opportunity,” says Professor Peabody, “to endow a department of social ethics, but it was a much severer test of conviction to be the anonymous source of a continuous stream of benefactions, prizes, publications, and equipment for nearly twenty years and to secure their continuance after his death.”

I do not wish to prescribe a precise application for every part of the income which will arise from this endowment, but I shall be glad to have it applied toward the provision and maintenance of material, such as books, photographs, drawings, models, etc., toward a special library and a social museum; toward the payment of further instructors, assistants, and curators; to the encouragement through prizes, fellowships, and other rewards, of special researches or publications; or for lectures or new forms of instruction. My interest in developing these studies at Harvard University is prompted largely by my observation of the courses originated and directed by Professor Peabody, and it is my desire that, while he continues to administer this instruction, the income from this endowment shall be expended, with the concurrence of the Corporation, under his direction and in fulﬁllment of the purposes which he has in mind. I would like to have the endowment known as “The Francis Greenwood Peabody Endowment” for the encouragement of the studies of the Ethics of the Social Questions.

Doubtless the adventurous and pioneering quality of Mr. White’s gifts was enhanced by the fact that he was helping another pioneer. For Professor Peabody’s courses anticipated by many years the earliest teaching of social work in this country. The Boston School for Social Workers, one of the earliest in the country, was not founded until 1904—or twenty-two years after the time when Professor Peabody began to give similar instruction at Harvard.

It was in the autumn of 1883 that there ﬁrst appeared as Philosophy II (later Philosophy 5) a course by Professor Francis G. Peabody described as: “Ethical Theories and Moral Reforms. Studies of the practical problems of temperance, charity, divorce, the Indians, labor, prison discipline, etc.” —a half-course. This course, to which there was added in 1895 a Seminary in Sociology (200), was given by Professor Peabody both in the Divinity School and in the Philosophical Department up to 1905, a period of twenty-two years. In 1904, Dr. Jeffrey R. Brackett, of the newly established Boston School for Social Workers, began to give also (as Philosophy 19) a course on “The Practical Problems of Charity, Public Aid and Correction”.

These courses, which at their inception had no parallels in any other American college, attracted the interest of Mr. White, long an intimate and valued friend of Professor Peabody. The result is best stated in his own words:

For ﬁfty years my approach to any understanding of the involved social and industrial problems of the day has been from the point of view and practical experience of a layman. It was a recognition of a dire need which led me more than forty years ago to endeavor to study housing problems, but I was forced to cross the Atlantic to obtain any guidance. Incidentally, I became interested in industrial problems, in problems of intemperance, etc. . . . . When I found some thirty years since that Professor Peabody was endeavoring to instruct classes at Harvard along the very lines on which I had been endeavoring to work or ﬁnd guidance, it seemed to me that an opportunity was presented of which it was my duty to make the most, and my contribution to the erection of Emerson Hall and the endowment of the Department of Social Ethics resulted.

This result was attained in 1905, when the Department of Social Ethics first appears in the University Catalogue, following that of Philosophy, and began to occupy its present quarters on the second ﬂoor of Emerson Hall, where space was provided (according to the plan of Professor Peabody and Mr. White) for a museum of social ethics and for a social ethics library, as well as for recitation rooms and small departmental study-rooms. Mr. White hoped that in this new building the Department might extend its usefulness and its influence:

I wish that all the teaching in the Department of Social Ethics might be of the highest possible quality, but I wish also that the Department might be made to reach the largest possible number of undergraduates. During ﬁfty years I have seen the difficulty of making sane progress which is due largely on the one side to satisﬁed ignorance and on the other to untrained theorists. Instruction which Harvard has given and is giving in its Department of Social Ethics in the way of promoting careful and sane consideration of social and industrial problems seems to me really invaluable. Not infrequently I have happened to hear testimonies to its great usefulness.

It now seems clear to me that instruction in these subjects of study will have an unprecedented opportunity of usefulness in connection with the consideration of the grave problems of reconstruction which are opening before this country.

At the close of the Civil War I rejoiced to be coming of age at a time when similar though lesser problems confronted us, and now I am almost envious of those who are coming to manhood at this time and of those who have the opportunity to instruct them.

In accordance with these hopes, the Department added to its staff in 1908 Doctors Ford, Foerster, and McConnell, the ﬁrst two of whom, after Professor Peabody’s retirement in 1913, have carried on the courses up to the present academic year.

The group of subjects which Professor Peabody could treat in the Department’s early years under the compass of a single course (at ﬁrst a half-course) have since then been developed and separated into two separate full courses and nine half-courses. Thus Dr. Rogers (1905) and later Dr. McConnell gave separate half-courses in “Criminology and Penology”. The “European Phases of Social Effort” needed special treatment in a half-course by Dr. Foerster, begun in 1909. “Rural Social Development” (Dr. Ford) was added next year, “Housing Problems” (Dr. Ford) in 1912 and a new course, “Immigration and Race Problems”, by Dr. Foerster appears in the same year. In 1913 the “Alcohol Problem” becomes under Assistant Professor Ford a topic deserving separate treatment, and Mr. Carstens comes in from his Boston work in the Prevention of Cruelty to Children to give a course in “Child Helping Agencies”.

Hitherto all the ethical problems involved in the “Labor Question” had been treated as part of the general introductory course with which Professor Peabody began. In 1915 another offshoot appears as Social Ethics 6,—“Unemployment and other interruptions of income with special reference to social insurance” (Professor Foerster), also a seminary in “labor legislation, standards of living and earning”. In 1916 “Poor Relief” becomes a separate half-course under Assistant Professor Ford, and Assistant Professor Foerster adds a half-course in “Recent Theories of Social Reform”.

In 1920 the courses ﬁtted to train professional social workers were separated from the rest as deﬁnitely professional courses, carried on by Professor Ford. An introductory course (A) and another advanced course (16) have also been added.

Mr. White assigned a very central position to the study of social ethics. He believed, as I do, that social ethics differs from most other subjects in being one that only an automaton or a maniac can wholly neglect. To direct one’s affairs at all, one must make some estimate of a better and a worse, which estimate is ethical and almost invariably social. One can neglect music and mathematics, chemistry and Latin, history and economics, if one is so foolish. But even neglect and foolishness have an ethical tinge in all but the most hare-brained people.

In one sense, then, social ethics is a subject that everyone deals with, well or ill. In this sense, like language, it is everybody’s specialty. But the question remains: Can social ethics be taught? I do not know whether Mr. White ever asked himself this question. I admit that it seems to me difficult to answer it with a conﬁdent affirmative. Each of us must, to a large extent, teach himself and ﬁnd his own way in ethics. But this is almost as true of every other important subject. Only the mechanical and mnemonic elements of music, history, or mathematics can be “taught”. The spirit of these studies and of all studies has to be found by each for himself. This belief is, I suppose, at the root of President Lowell’s advocacy of the tutorial system. How to ﬁnd out for oneself the interest of any study is perhaps possible under tutorial guidance for many who never could discover it in the class room. At any rate our chance of usefulness to the student will be as good as anyone’s when our methods of teaching are made more individual and personal through good tutors. Then the tremendous appeal of social ethics to the spirit of our time can be presented with its full force.

Source: Harvard Alumni Bulletin, Vol. 23, No. 30 (May 5, 1921) pp. 688-689, pp. 700-702.

Image: Robert Franz Foerster, Assistant Professor of Social Ethics. In Harvard Class Album 1920.

Tags Carstens, Foerster, Ford, McConnell, Peabody

Economists Harvard

Harvard. Taussig’s assessment of the French economist Charles Rist for a Harvard lectureship, 1919

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-21

After Edwin F. Gay resigned his position at Harvard, Abbott Payson Usher took over his courses in 1921-22. (e.g. Economics 2a: European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century). From the files of President Lowell of Harvard we find that the French economist Charles Rist was seriously considered for that position. Frank Taussig‘s brief letter, transcribed below, was apparently sufficient to get a green-light from the President’s Office. I don’t know (yet) what was the deal breaker or even whether an offer actually ever went out.

_______________

Letter of Economics Chairman E. E. Day to President Lowell

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts

March 4, 1920

Dear President Lowell:

I spoke to you some time ago of the Department’s wish that an invitation be extended to Professor Charles Rist to come as Lecturer in the Department for at least one half of the next academic year. I have not broached the subject again, because Mr. Gay has thought he might have other suggestions to make. It now appears that the expectations Mr. Gay had in mind will not materialize, and that he has no proposal to make which seems to him to promise better than that the Department had in mind. I consequently renew at this time the Department’s suggestion. In view of Mr. Gay’s resignation, the offering of the Department is obviously deficient. I understand that you will support the Department in its endeavor to discover a man who may be brought in permanently to fill in part the serious gap which Mr. Gay’s departure has created. The suggested invitation to Professor Rist is one of the measures in this direction which the Department thinks most promising.

Professor Taussig is the only member of the Department who has had an opportunity to become personally acquainted with Professor Rist. I enclose herewith a statement of Professor Taussig’s impressions of the man. The other members of the Department know Rist only through his publications. These appear to be of highest quality.

It is the proposal of the Department that an invitation be extended to Rist to lecture here during the first half of 1920-1921. Possibly he may be secured on an exchange arrangement. If not, the Department would like to see him appointed as Lecturer in Economics for not less than the first half of the year.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Edmund E. Day

Enc
President A. Lawrence Lowell

_______________

From a typed copy of Taussig’s statement

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Cambridge, Massachusetts
November 28, 1919

Professor Charles Rist is a member of the staff of the Sorbonne in the Department of Law. Economics is one of the subjects required of law students in France, hence there is a considerable economic staff for the law students. Rist is a man of 40-45 years, an extremely temperate, clear-headed, scholarly person. Of all the French professors with whom I came in contact in France he seemed to me the most promising. He has a most attractive personality, and is a clear as well as pleasing writer. His scholarly standing is assured. He is married, and has a family of several boys. For the sake of the boys, as well as for his own advantage, he remarked to me that he would very much like to come to the United States. If tolerable pecuniary arrangements can be made, he would doubtless come.

Rist’s command of English is not now sufficient to enable him to lecture in English. He would have to arrange to come over here a couple of months in advance and acquire a reasonable command of the spoken language. I should myself strongly advise him to do this, in case an invitation were extended.

Rist is the only man whom I saw in France who seemed to me a serious possibility for a permanent member of our staff. I think very highly of the man and his work, and have this possibility in mind in recommending him.

(Sgd) F.W. TAUSSIG

_______________

Copy of Lowell’s Response to E. E. Day

March 9, 1920

Dear Mr. Day:

It seems to me that the best thing would be to have Professor Rist sent here as the exchange professor from the University of Paris next year. We do not like to ask authoritatively to have a particular person sent, because we should not like it if they did the same to us. Therefore the best plan would be to have Professor Taussig write to him, suggesting that he should ask to be sent here next year as exchange professor, and he might add that he, M. Rist, feels confident that his selection would be acceptable at Harvard.

Very truly yours,
[name stamp] A. Lawrence Lowell

Professor E.E. Day
Department of Economics
Massachusetts Hall
Cambridge, Mass.

Source: Harvard University Archives, President Lowell’s Papers, 1919-1922, Box 155, Folder 293.

Image Source: Charles Rist at BnF Gallica website.

Tags Day, Gay, Rist, Taussig, Usher

Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Undergraduate International Trade. Enrollment, Readings, Exam. Harris, 1949

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-19

Seymour Harris was a Harvard man from his undergraduate years through his retirement from his alma mater. He served many terms as a government economic adviser and after Harvard moved on to be the chair of economics at the University of California, San Diego. This post provides a course description, enrollment data, reading list and examination questions for his winter semester course 1949-50 “International Trade”. An earlier post provides the outline the 1933 version of the course “International Trade and Tariff Policies”.

Seymour Edwin Harris was born September 8, 1897 in New York City. He received an A.B. in 1920 and a Ph.D. in 1926 from Harvard University. From 1922 to 1964, Dr. Harris taught economics at Harvard University, where he received a full professorship in 1954, and served as the chairman of the department of economics from 1955 to 1959. During World War II, Dr. Harris was involved in several wartime planning projects. From 1954 to 1956, Dr. Harris became chief economic advisor to Adlai Stevenson. He then served Senator John F. Kennedy in the same capacity and was chosen as a member of President Kennedy’s task force on the economy. In 1961, Dr. Harris was named as chief economic consultant to Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury. During the Kennedy administration. Dr. Harris, a proponent of Keynesian economics, was a member of Walter W. Heller’s New Frontiersmen, which persuaded President Kennedy that the stimulation of the economy was more important than a balanced budget and tax cuts and government spending could counter threats of a recession. In 1963, Dr. Harris became the chairman of the department of economics at the University of California at La Jolla. At the same time, he served as a chief economic advisor to the Johnson administration. [Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Finding Aid to the Papers of Seymour E. Harris]

Harris had quite a reputation for grinding out volumes of edited papers (written by others): From a 1962 or 1963 student skit: Professor Gerschenkron’s alleged advice for Matthew (the Evangelist): “I wanted Matthew to rewrite his paper for the Quarterly Journal and call it ‘Christ as a proto-Keynsian’ [sic] But no, he was a very strong-willed boy and he brought it out in a syposium [sic] edited by Seymour Harris, called the Bible, essays in honor of God.”

_________________________

Course Description

Economics 143a (formerly Economics 43a). International Trade

Half-course (fall term). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Professor Harris.

This course deals with the theory and practice of foreign trade and capital movements, including the importance of foreign trade, the manner of increasing its amount, its relation to the domestic economy, the problem of exchange rates, exchange control, international organizations in their relation to trade and capital movements. Political, economic, and administrative aspects are considered also.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Box 6, Courses of Instruction (HUC 8500.16), Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1948-49, p. 75

_________________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 143a (formerly Economics 43a). International Trade. (F) Professor Harris.

Total 120: 9 Graduates, 46 Seniors, 36 Juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 12 Radcliffe, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments, 1949-1950, p. 43.

_________________________

Course Readings

Economics 143a
International Trade

National Income and the Balance of Payments—4 weeks
Relation of domestic policies and the balance of payments; the balance of payments of the United States and the United Kingdom; capital movements and reparations problems; dollar shortage and the E.R.P.
Assignment
1. *Harris; The European Recovery Program, pp. 1-120, 185-206, 272-276
2. *Harrod; Are These Hardships Necessary? pp. 1-103
3. United Nations; A Survey of the Economic Situation and Economic Prospects for Europe, pts. 2-5
Regional Problems in the Balance of Payments—1 week
No assignment.
Industrialization and International Competition—1 week
No assignment
Monetary Aspects of International Trade—3 weeks
Assignment
1. Harris: The New Economics, pp. 246-293, 323-400
2. *Ellsworth: International Economics, Part 1, Chs. 7, 9-11
The Case for Free Trade and Obstacles to Trade—3 weeks
Division of labor; comparative costs; tariffs and other obstacles; international commodity agreements and distribution of raw materials.
Assignment
Ellsworth, Part II, Chs. 1-5, 7-9
The Problem of Allocation of Resources and Comparative Costs
Assignment
Ellsworth, Part I, Chs. 3-5

Reading Period Assignment—One of the Following:

Staley: World Economic Development
Buchanan and Lutz: Rebuilding the World Economy
Marshall: Money, Credit, and Commerce, Pt. III
Harris: Foreign Economic Policy for the United States

*To be bought.

Source: : Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 4, Folder “Economics, 1949-50 (2 of 3)

_________________________

Course Final Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 143a
International Trade

Spend forty-five minutes on each question. It is strongly suggested that you spend ten minutes assembling and organizing your thoughts before beginning each essay.

Answer (a) or (b):
1. It is a prerequisite for the establishment of interregional trade that relative prices would be different in one region from those in another if the regions were prevented from trading with one another. Why does this condition commonly occur, how does it lead to interregional trade, and in what way is that trade beneficial to the participating regions?
2. Much of the theory of international trade attempts to explain how equilibrium in the balance of payments will be maintained by automatic tendencies. Present as fully as you can in the allotted time a classification and explanation of the forces working to frustrate these automatic tendencies and produce persistent dis
Answer (a) or (b):
1. Exchange depreciation has been resorted to in depression for reasons very different from those advanced for its use in periods of full employment. Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of depreciation in these two situations, making use of specific illustrations.
2. The incorporation of national income analysis into international trade theory has led economists to distinguish helpfully corrective international economic policies from so-called beggar-thy-neighbor policies. How would you make such a distinction, and how effectively can it be applied?
Answer (a) or (b):
1. Comment on the relevance of the domestic policies of ERP countries for the attainment of international equilibrium by 1952.
2. Discuss the reciprocal trade agreements program of the United States with reference to (1) the general arguments for and against tariffs, and (2) the limitations of tariff policy as a means of achieving international economic equilibrium.
Answer one of the following with reference to your reading period assignment:
1. What basic changes in the world economic structure have resulted from two World Wars, and how do they obstruct the reestablishment of stable multilateral trade?
2. On what conditions does Staley base his case that, for existing industrial areas, it is possible to make the advantages of the economic development of new areas far outweigh the disadvantages? Discuss these conditions critically.
3. Diagnoses of the widespread “dollar problem” differ according to (1) the definition of equilibrium adopted, and (2) the particular country under discussion. Discuss both these sources of variation in analysis. (Treat either one at greater length than the other if you wish.)
4. Marshall is noted for his development of the theory of international supply and demand (commonly called “reciprocal demand”) as the determining influence on the barter terms of trade. Develop this part of his theory, and comment on some aspect or aspects of its relevance to current problems discussed in this course.

Final. January, 1950.

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations; History, History of Religions, Government, Economics,…,Military Science, Naval Science. February, 1950.

Image Source: Seymour Harris in Harvard Class Album 1947.

Tags Harris

Funny Business Harvard M.I.T.

Harvard or MIT. Economics graduate student skit, ca. 1963.

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-18

Because of the reference to Jaroslav Vanek’s leaving Harvard, we are able to date the following script to 1962-63 since Vanek left Harvard to work at the State Department in 1963. Almost everything about this script would lead me to conclude that it was used in a Harvard graduate student skit that somehow wound up in the folder for the Graduate Student Association at the Department of Economics of M.I.T. The folder is otherwise filled with clearly M.I.T. skit material from the 1960s. One of the students is identified as “David” another “Bob” and the third looks like “Les”.

Lester Thurow did get his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1964 and came to M.I.T. in 1968 so it is not inconceivable that the following transcription is indeed based upon his personal typed script copy with original pencil stage directions that made its way into the folder.

One thing that I find rather surprising about the text is just how many Harvard professors’ names have been misspelled.

__________________________

D—This is a review with a message—a message no economist can afford to ignore. The year is 2000 A.D. 16 years have now passed since 1984, that Armageddon of the economics profession when Professor Wassily Leontief finally established that the world really was homogeneous of degree one. The then President of the United States, Mr. Norman Mailer, immediately issued the great Marginal Product Proclamation. Everyone was to receive their marginal product.

B— But there was nothing left over for the economists. Economists became the hand-loom weavers of the 20^th. century.

L—Arthur Schlesinger Jr. vividly described their position in a 17-volume work entitled “The Coming of the Raw Deal.” Economists everywhere, after the first shock, set out upon new careers. Tonight we shall discover what happened to some of those whom we know and love.

D—Several of them went into the movie industry and we will now let you hear the soundtrack of the preview of one of their movies.

(Epic Music—Bruckner?)

[Insert: Stand]

L—Ladies and Gentlemen, 21^st Century Fox are proud to present Arthur Smithies and Joan Robinson in….The Big Push, the story of the unbalanced growth of an economist….

B—Production by Karl [sic] Kaysen

D—Copyright by Edward Hastings Chamberlain [sic]

L—All labor disputes on location and with Elizabeth Taylor arbitrated by John Dunlop.

B—Continuity by Simon Kuznets

L—Editing by Seymour Harris, of course.

D—Costumes by Robert Dorfman.

B—This is the story of Ragnar Maynard von Eckstein (his parents had always wanted him to be an economist). After many struggles at last he got to Harvard Graduate School.

L—It is a tale of ^|horror. See him now at a seminar on the economics of Medical Care…..

D—This after-noon I am going to discuss the economics of Blood-banking. One of the crucial problems in this field is what proportion to maintain of liquid assets. In this category we have blood [Insert: L. What about near blood] near-blood. We also have non-liquid assets—bonds in the form of pounds of flesh. Another problem is the current shortage of tellers, for we can only employ vampires with a strong liquidity preference. If we cannot get more it will clot up the flow of funds and reduce the velocity of circulation.

L—It is a tale of ^|ambition…..

B—Coming from a family whose marginal product was zero, Ragnar Maynard realized that to get on quickly he must publish something. But what? He had not written anything. But our resourceful hero saw a way out: he would publish his first book before it was written. It was called First Draft, a revised tentative, preliminary, provisional text. It was based on Photostat copies of his blackboard notes.

L—It is a tale of ^|love….

D—Ragnar Manyrd fell passionately in love with a beautiful capital theorist, played in the movie by ravishing Joan Robinson. His demand for her love was infinitely elastic; her supply could not meet him—at least not at his price. The price was to join him in his exhausting search over peaks and through troughs for the elusive U-shaped cost curve.

L—It is a tale of^|excitement

B—See Ragnar Maynard trying to free himself from the dreaded liquidity trap.

Insert: D—It’s true, it really is thicker than water

L—All this and more you can see in this movie—The Big Push is a take-off point in the development of the motion-picture.

B—See the exciting attempt on Professor Leontief’s life (with a 202 rifle) to try to prevent him revealing his startling discovery of a constant returns world.

D—See the world’s largest input-output table which proved it—drawn by the Economic Research project in the sand of the New Mexican desert.

L—You cannot afford to miss this motion picture. Filmed in wonderful new—Solocolor. An introducing revolutionary—Rostowscope.

(concluding epic music)

[Insert: Sit]

D—But the movies could not accommodate everybody…

[Insert: Bob in middle]

[Insert: one illegible word]

L—Professor Leontief, having escaped with his life, and using his input-output table from Scientific American as a testimonial, got into the business of designing bathroom tiles.

B—Professor Duesenbery [sic] was well qualified to go into the demonstration business. He drove Cadillacs around low-income districts to stimulate demand. And changed his name to Jones so that it would be him that everyone was keeping up with.

D—In England many economists went to work for the government where they produced a remarkable effect. Before 1984 political speeches had sounded something like this.

B—Good evening; I’m the Prime Minister. My name is….. [insert: ad lib] etc.

D—But now all this has changed…

B—Good evening…[insert: ad lib] etc.

L—Professor Tom Schelling took up a career in Madison avenue. It was he who was responsible for some of the following products…

D—Ladies, now you can wear the most powerful and alluring perfume in the world—First Strike—the only perfume with complete credibility. It also contains the only deodorant with overkill.

B—Now at last there is a product to take away the smell of deodorant—it is called Counterforce. Only Counterforce gives you 24-hour protection against odorlessness. [Insert: 5120 or S120]

[Insert: STAND]

L—For years girls have been searching for a perfume which will attract the men and yet prevent them from taking liberties—now they have it in the form of Deterrence—the perfume which is effective [Insert: only] if you don’t use it.

D—He also introduced a city wide deodorant campaign under the title of Civil defence.

L—And the only really safe method of birth control—Early Warning.

B—Meanwhile Professor Dunlop had become a truck driver and a shop steward for Jimmy Hoffa.

D—And Professor Kuznets took to selling abacuses.

[Insert: Some economists, not from Harvard opened a cafeteria.]

[Insert: Bob-Les—come forward]

L—Professor Galbraith first thought of becoming a rice farmer. But he soon saw that since there was no more need for economists he could now come into his own. After a coup d’etat he took over the Littauer building and changed it into the department of Affluent Studies. The idea was the ultra-popularization of economics; the main qualification for admission was to be a good phrase-monger. The new department published books like…

B—The Economics of Sex, with an appendix on the second derivatives of Jayne Mansfield. A geometric interpretation with diagrams.

D—The department became identified with a new theory of economic decline, published as a non-Rostovian manifesto. All countries, it said, tend to decline, and their speed of decline is determined by their relative degree of economic advancement. Its five stages of decline started with the age of mass consumption, through the age of preconditions for decline, coming then to the crucial landing stage.

B—Other books appeared like ‘The Naked Truth about Public Squalor, and so on.

[Insert: Pause—back to audience]

L—Only one of the redundant economists took the highest calling of all. Let us now eavesdrop on a sermon by [Insert: his eminence] Archbishop Gerschenkron…

[Insert: seated]

B—You know, when I was an economist one of my graduate students wrote a very good paper for my course. Matthew, [Insert: I said] why don’t you publish this paper, no, really why don’t you publish. But you know youll have to change the title. What journal is going to publish a paper called ‘the First Gospel’? But you know it really was a very good paper. There was a lot of interesting material about the farm problem in Egypt and about the almost miraculous elasticity of supply of loaves and small fishes in Gallillee [sic]. Then there was a very good section about Christ throwing the money-changers from the temple. Well, you see, the rate of interest was very high then. Don’t you think that the real reason why Christ did this was to reduce the rate of interest and to stimulate investment. You see, I wanted Matthew to rewrite his paper for the Quarterly Journal and call it ‘Christ as a proto-Keynsian’ [sic] But no, he was a very strong-willed boy and he brought it out in a syposium [sic] edited by Seymour Harris, called the Bible, essays in honor of God. But, you know, it was still required reading for my course.

D—Professor Harberler [sic] took to song writing, and here is a sample…

[Insert: stand behind table]

(tune: God bless America)

[Insert: All:] God bless free enterprise,
[Insert: MOC or HOC or NOC] System divine,
Stand beside her and guide her,
Just as long as the profits are mine.
[Insert: Salute]
Corporations may they prosper
Big business, may it grow!
[Insert: MOC or HOC or NOC] God bless Free Enterprise,
The Status quo!

L—Well, David, I guess that’s it. Do you think they’ll throw us out?

D—I dont know. But I dont suppose we’ll ever be allowed to pass generals. There are still some jobs you can get without a Ph.D.

B—No chance at all is there? I mean about generals….

D—Well they were all in it weren’t they—all the generals board.

L—What about Professor Vanek? He emerged unscathed.

D—That’s true but he’s leaving.

B—That’s fair, of course.

L—Yes, he hasn’t done much since he’s been here really.

D—Half a dozen good articles…

B—4 books, or is it 5?

L—He’s become an acknowledged expert on at least two major fields of economics…

D—A clear and stimulating teacher…
And a nice guy…

L—Not much really. [Insert: Clearly not a Harvard type]

B—Not surprised they’re letting him go

D—Well, that’s it then.

B—One more thing actually…The perpetrators of this entertainment would like it to be known that any resemblance of characters in this review to any person or persons living or half-dead is purely intentional.

L—So be it.

All—In the name of the Holy Trinity:

D—Dorfman,

L—Samuelson,

B—and Solow.

All—Amen

Source: MIT Archives. Department of Economics Records, Box 2, Folder “GEA 1961-67”.

Tags Chamberlin, Duesenberry, Dunlop, Eckstein, Galbraith, Gerschenkron, Haberler, Harris, Kuznets, Leontief, Smithies, Thurow

Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Core Economic Theory. Enrollments and Exams. Taussig. 1911-14

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-17

Examination questions spanning just over a half-century can be found in Frank Taussig’s personal scrapbook of cut-and-pasted semester examinations for his entire Harvard career. Until Schumpeter took over the core economic theory course from Taussig in 1935, Taussig’s course covering economic theory and its history was a part of almost every properly educated Harvard economist’s basic training. Taussig’s exam questions were posted for the academic years 1886/87 through 1889/90 along with enrollment data for the course; material from 1890/91 through 1893/94; 1897-1900 ; and 1904-1909 have been posted as well.

Sad backstory: The year gap in teaching that immediately preceeeded the years covered below was because Frank Taussig took a leave of absence in 1909-10 that he spent with his wife (Edith Thomas Guild, born 1861) in Saranac Lake, New York where she died on April 15, 1910.
Source: J. A. Schumpeter, A. H. Cole, and E. S. Mason “Frank William Taussig” in Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 44, No. 3 (May, 1941), p. 352.

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Course Announcement
Economics 2
1910-11

Economic Theory. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

Course 2 is intended to acquaint the student with some of the later developments of economic thought, and at the same time to train him in the critical consideration of economic principles and the analysis of economic conditions. The exercises are accordingly conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in this discussion the students are expected to take an active part. The writings of F.A. Walker, Cairnes, Clark, Marshall, Böhm-Bawerk, and other recent authors, will be taken up. Attention will be given chiefly to the theory of exchange and distribution; but other subjects, such as international trade, and free trade and protection, will also be considered.

Source: History and Political Science, Comprising the Departments of History and Government, and Economics, 1910-11. Published in the Official Register of Harvard University. Vol. VI,I No. 23 (June 21, 1910), pp. 52-3.

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Enrollment Economics 2
1910-11

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig.— Economic Theory

Total 42: 16 Graduates, 15 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1910-11, p. 49.

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ECONOMICS 2
Mid-year Examination

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

Is there a vicious circle in F. A. Walker’s reasoning on the relation between wages and business profits?
(a) “The railroads of the United States receive annually hundreds of millions for transporting passengers. These receipts come in day by day, yet the railroad company habitually pays its employees at the close of the week or the close of the month. Here we have a class of services where the employer receives the price of his product before he pays for the labor concerned in its production. . . . Hotel-keepers and, in less degree, boarding-house keepers collect their bills before they pay their cooks, chambermaids, and scullions. Nearly all the receipts of theatre, opera, and concert companies are obtained day by day, although their staff and troupes are borne on monthly or weekly pay-rolls.”
(b) “In very primitive life the work spent on capital goods and that spent on consumers’ goods are not always synchronous, but organization and the acquirement of a permanent fund of capital make them so. Work to-day, and you eat to-day food that is the consequence of the working. In point of time the canoe-makers are fed as promptly as the fishermen, and this fact is duplicated in every part of the industrial system. . . . The synchronization of labor and its reward does not appear in the industry of primitive beginnings, but is the fruit of organization.”
Explain what doctrine is attacked by these extracts; whether the reasoning is essentially the same in the two; whether you would accept it in either case; what authors you suppose to have written the passages.
(a) “Most commodities render several different kinds of service at the same time. A thing of this kind is to be regarded as a bundle of distinct utilities, tied together by being embodied in a common material object.”
(b) “A bundle, as a whole, is never a final unit of any one’s consumers wealth; but each element in it is a final utility to some class, and it is that class only whose mental estimate of it fixes its price. . . . There are, then, five prices in the canoe. Expressing the values of the five different services which the canoe renders, they are, respectively, twenty-five, twenty, fifteen, ten, and five dollars. The entire canoe, then, brings seventy-five dollars in the market.”
(c) “In every such commodity there is a marginal utility, and this is the only that counts in fixing the price of it. Every commodity, except the poorest and cheapest that can be made, is, in effect, such a bundle of service-rendering elements as we have just described. The marginal element in the bundle has a direct influence on prices, but the other elements have none.”
(d) “If the principle of final utility be applied to entire articles, it will give values that are, in most cases, many fold greater than are the actual values that the dealings of the market establish. . . . Goods of fine quality would then be, as a rule, many times dearer than they are.”
Consider which of these statements, if any, you would accede to; and whether they are consistent with each other.
A limited edition of Roosevelt’s “African Travels,” bound in pigskin, each copy inscribed by the author, is published at $20 a copy. What economic principles are illustrated?
Explain the equilibrium of demand and supply, for short periods and for long, in case of a sharp decline in the demand for a commodity made with much fixed capital, under conditions of constant return.
Is there quasi-rent, and if so, how do you measure it, in the following cases: —
(a) A manufacturing plant, whose gross earnings more than cover prime costs, but do not suffice to cover supplementary costs.
(b) A deep-water harbor site, provided with piers and docks, and let on a long lease at a rental bringing a liberal return on the expense for improvements.
(c) A handsome dwelling, in a neighborhood deserted by fashion, whose rental is less than interest on the cost of the dwelling.
(a) Suppose a tax to be levied at four per cent on the capital value (i.e. on the selling price as it was before the tax) of urban sites used for business purposes. What would be the effect on the rentals of the buildings on the sites, on the prices of things made or sold in the buildings, on the profits of tenants?
(b) Suppose owners of urban real estate to be prohibited by law from collecting in rentals more than four per cent (net) on the cost of buildings alone; what would be the effect on the prices of things made or sold in the buildings, on the tenants, on the effective utilization of the property?

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ECONOMICS 2
Final Examination
1910-1911

Arrange your nswers in the order of the questions

Explain concisely the theories of wages (general wages) set forth by

A. Walker,
J. B. Clark,
A. Marshall,
E. Böhm-Bawerk,
Your instructor, —

and indicate what you consider the weakest point in each.

Wherein is there similarity, wherein dissimilarity, between the views of Böhm-Bawerk and Clark on the productivity of Capital?
Quasi-rent;
derived utility;
the incidence of taxes on building sites and on buildings, —
among the trains of reasoning suggested by these phrases, which tend to support the doctrine that rent is a return essentially different from interest, which run counter to that doctrine?
“That part of a man’s income which he owes to the possession of extraordinary natural abilities is a free boon to him; and from an abstract point of view bears some resemblance to the rent of other free gifts of nature, such as the inherent properties of land. But in reference to normal prices, it is to be classed rather with the profits derived by free settlers from the cultivation of new land, or again with the find of a pearl-fisher.” Why? or why not? Whose doctrine do you suppose this to be?
“There is a constant tendency towards a position of normal equilibrium, in which the supply of each of these agents [of production] shall stand in such a relation to the demand for its services, as to give those who have provided the supply a sufficient reward for their efforts and services. If the economic conditions of the country remained stationary sufficiently long, this tendency would realize itself in such an adjustment of supply to demand, that both machines and human beings would earn generally an amount that corresponded fairly with their cost of rearing and training, conventional necessaries as well as those things which are strictly necessary being reckoned for.”
Whom do you believe to be the writer of this passage? and do you infer that he holds value to be determined in the end by utility or by cost?
Under what circumstances, if under any. —
(1) Will the imposition of an import duty cause the domestic price of the taxed commodity to rise permanently by the amount of the duty.
(2) Will it cause the price to rise permanently, but by an amount less than the duty;
(3) Will it cause the price to fall;
(4) Will it cause the prices of other commodities to fall?
After the passage of the tariff act of 1890, a Bohemian firm of pearl button makers transferred their business to the United States, sending over the working people and erecting a factory in the U. S. Was this to the advantage of the people of the U. S.? If so, wherein? If not, why not?

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Enrollment Economics 2
1911-12

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig.— Economic Theory

Total 54: 23 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 16 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1911-12, p. 63.

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ECONOMICS 2
Mid-year Examination
1911-12

Define concisely: —

(1) Consumer’s surplus,
(2) Producer’s surplus,
(3) Saver’s surplus.

Is Saver’s surplus analogous to the first or to the second?

Suppose all persons to have the same income; would it be easier or more difficult to measure consumer’s surplus?
(a) “It has sometimes been suggested that if all land were equally advantageous and all were occupied, the income derived from it would partake of the nature of a monopoly rent; but this seems to be an error.” Do you think it an error?
(b) “Suppose, for instance, that all the meteoric stones in existence were equally hard and imperishable; and that they were all in the hands of a single authority; further, that this authority decided, not to make use of its monopolistic power to restrict production so as to raise the price of its services artificially, but to work each of the stones to the full extent it could be profitably worked (that is up to the margin of pressure so intensive that the resulting product could barely be marketed at a price which covered, with profits, its expenses without allowing anything for the use of the stone),” — would there be “rent”? would there be “monopoly rent”?
“There are many infra-marginal savers. As to these, the appropriation of part of their income by the state would not lessen accumulation. The same principle is applicable as in the case of rent proper. A tax on rent falls definitely on the owner, and has no further effect on the supply or the utilization of the source of rent. From this point of view there may be ground for progressive taxation of large funded incomes.” Do you think this well-reasoned?
Draw diagrams illustrating (1) the effects of a bounty on a commodity produced under conditions of increasing returns; (2) the effects of a tax on a commodity produced under the same conditions; and consider whether, taking account of consumer’s surplus, there is likely to be a net gain or loss in either case.
Explain the distinction between external and internal economies; and consider wherein a tendency to increasing returns has different consequences according as it is due to external or to internal economies.
Explain what is meant by “two-sided competition,” and the determination of price by the subjective valuations of marginal pairs; and consider the significance of the following passage: “In the present conditions of industry, most sales are made by men who are producers and merchants by profession. . . . For them, the subjective use-values of their own wares is for the most part nearly nil. . . . In sales by them, the limiting effect which, according to our theoretical formula, would be exercised by the valuation of the last seller, practically does not come into play.”
Wherein is there resemblance, wherein difference, between Böhm-Bawerk’s analysis of “two-sided competition” and Marshall’s reasoning concerning the equilibrium of demand and supply?
An eminent German economist has written: “As against Thornton, George, and the apostles of trade-unions, I believe that the wages-fund doctrine, rightly stated and rightly understood, is at bottom true; but I should add the qualification, to which Hermann called attention, that the payments by those who demand the finished goods from the source from which, in the long run, the capitalists are enabled to employ labor, or to maintain a demand for labor, from their wages-fund.”
What do you say of the mode of dealing with the wages-fund doctrine involved in this qualification?

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ECONOMICS 2
Final Examination
1911-12

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

“Suppose that society is divided into a number of horizontal grades, each of which is recruited from the children of its own members, and each of which has its own standard of comfort, and increases in number rapidly when the earnings to be got in it rise above, and shrinks rapidly when they fall below that standard. Suppose, then, that parents can bring up their children to any trade in their own grade, but cannot easily raise them above it and will not consent to sink them below it. . . . On these suppositions the normal wage in any trade is that which is sufficient to enable a laborer, who has normal regularity of employment, to support himself and a family of normal size according to the standard of comfort that is normal in the grade to which his trade belongs; it is not dependent on demand except to this extent, that if there were no demand for the labor of the trade at that wage, the trade would not exist. In other words the normal wage represents the expenses of production of the labor according to the ruling standard of comfort.”
Does Cairnes reason on these suppositions? Does Marshall? Granting them, would you conclude that value in the end was determined by utility or by cost?
Explain briefly (50 words under each head), in which of the following cases, if in any, you think there is reasoning in a circle:

(a) The residual theory of wages, as stated by Walker;
(b) The proposition that the value of commodities produced by a particular grade (non-competing group) of laborers depends on the rate of wages paid in that grade;
(c) The proposition that general wages depend on the marginal product of labor discounted at the current rate of interest.

Does “quasi-rent” form a constituent part of supply-price? Does “supplementary cost” form a constituent part of supply-price?
“‘Rent is not an element in price’ — such is the classical statement on the subject. It even expresses a view that is now prevalent. The expression itself, however, is vague. It seems to mean that the fact of rent plays no part in the adjustment of values, and that things would exchange for one another in exactly the ratios in which they now do, if there were no such thing as rent. But, if one defines rent as product imputable to a concrete agent, the impossibility of maintaining such a claim becomes apparent. Even if one were to restrict the term rent to the product created by the land, the claim that it is not an element in adjusting market values would be absurd; for it would amount to saying that a certain part of the output of every kind of goods has no effect on their market value. The ‘price’ referred to in the formula is, of course, the market value expressed in units of currency.”
What do you think?
“Goodwill taken in its wider meaning comprises such things as established customary business relations, reputation for upright dealing, franchises and privileges, trademarks, brands, patent rights, copyrights, exclusive use of special processes guarded by law or by secrecy, exclusive control of particular sources of materials. All these items give a differential advantage to their owners, but they are of no aggregate advantage to the community. They are wealth to the individual concerned, — differential wealth; but they make no part of the wealth of nations.” Why? Or why not?
“The workmen have a natural right to the value which their work, of itself and aside from the aid furnished by others, imparts to the material that is put into their hands, and when they sell their labor, they are really selling their part of the product of the mill. In like manner, paying interest is buying the share which capital contributes to the product. The owners of the capital have an original right to what the machines, the tools, the buildings, the land, and the raw materials, of themselves and apart from other contributions, put into the joint product.”
Whom do you believe to be the writer of the passage? What would Böhm-Bawerk say to it? Veblen?
“It is not true that the spinning of yarn in a factory, after allowance has been made for the wear-and-tear of the machinery, is the product of the labor of the operatives. It is the product of their labor, together with that of the employer and subordinate managers, and of the capital employed; and that capital itself is the product of labor and waiting: and therefore the spinning is the product of labor of many kinds, and of waiting. If we admit that it is the product of labor alone, and not of labor and waiting, we can no doubt be compelled by inexorable logic to admit that there is no justification for interest, the reward of waiting; for the conclusion is implied in the premises.”
Whom do you think the writer of this passage? What would be said of the conclusions by Clark? By Böhm-Bawerk? What is your own view?
“The English theory has it that the rate of wages is simply got by dividing the wage fund by the number of existing workers. This is entirely wrong. In any event the laborers get the wage fund wholly and entirely as wage: but that does not say wage for what time; for one year, or two years, or three years, or more. . . . The English Wage Fund theory has thus a core of truth, but it is wrapped up in a quite overpowering mass of error.”
Explain what Böhm-Bawerk means; and give your opinion on the question involved.

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Enrollment Economics 11
1912-13

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 11 (formerly 2). Professor Taussig.— Economic Theory

Total 31: 20 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1912-13, p. 57.

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ECONOMICS 11
Mid-year Examination
1912-13

“If there really were a national fund, the whole of which must necessarily be applied to the payment of wages, that fund could be no other than an aggregate of smaller similar funds possessed by the several individuals who compose the employing part of the nation. Does, then, any individual employer possess any such fund? Is there any specific portion of any individual’s capital which the owner must necessarily expend upon labor? . . . May he not spend more or less on his family and himself, according to his fancy — in the one case having more, in the other less, left for the conduct of his business? And of what is left, does he or can he determine beforehand how much shall be laid out on buildings, how much on materials, how much on labor? . . . It sounds like mockery or childishness to ask these questions, so obvious are the only answers that can possibly be given to them; yet it is only on the assumption that directly opposite answers must be given that the Wages-fund can for one moment stand.”
What answers would Mill have given to such questions? What would be your own answer?
“On the ranches of Montana cattle are breeding, among the forests of Pennsylvania hides are tanning, in the mills of Brockton shoes are finishing; and, if the series off goods in all stages of advancement is only kept intact, the cow-boy may have today the shoes that he virtually creates by his efforts. . . . With sheep in the pastures, wool in the mills, cloth in the tailoring shops, and ready-made garments on the retailers’ counters the labor of the people can, as it were, instantaneously clothe the people.”
“It is not necessary to the production of things that cannot be used as subsistence, or cannot be immediately utilized, that there should have been a previous production of the wealth required for the maintenance of the laborers while the production is going on. It is only necessary that there should be, somewhere within the circle of exchange, a contemporaneous production of sufficient subsistence for the laborers, and a willingness to exchange this subsistence for the thing on which the labor is being bestowed. . . . The subsistence of the laborers engaged in production which does not directly yield subsistence comes from the production of subsistence in which others are simultaneously engaged.”

Do you see any difference between the propositions stated in these extracts?
By whom do you think they were written?
Do you accept the conclusions?

“Though there are few commodities which are at all times and for ever unsusceptible of increase of supply, any commodity whatever may be temporarily so; and with some commodities this is habitually the case. Agricultural produce, for example, cannot be increased in quantity before the next harvest; the quantity of corn already existing in the world is all that can be had for sometimes a year to come. During that interval corn is practically assimilated to things of which the quantity cannot be increased. In the case of most commodities, it requires a certain time to increase their quantity; and if the demand increases, then, until a corresponding supply can be brought forward, that is, until the supply can accommodate itself to the demand, the value will so rise as to accommodate the demand to the supply.”
Wherein, if at all, is this way of dealing with the temporary equilibrium of demand and supply different from Marshall’s?
Is it true that the first effect of increased demand for a commodity is to raise its supply price, and that the ultimate effect is to lower its supply price? If so, under what conditions in either case?
Explain briefly: —

(a) internal economies,
(b) external economies,
(c) increased returns.

It has been said that the tendency to increase of effectiveness because of large-scale production should be distinguished from the tendency to increasing returns. Why, or why not?

“The last three chapters examined the relation in which cost of production stands to the income derived from the ownership of the ‘original powers’ of land and other free gifts of nature, and also to that which is directly due to the investment of private capital. There is a third class, holding an intermediate position between these two, which consists of those incomes or rather those parts of incomes, which are the indirect result of the investment of capital and labour by individuals for the sake of gain.”
What is the third class? and why does it hold an intermediate position?
Explain what Clark means by the “extensive margin of indifference” and the “intensive margin of indifference”; and give your opinion on the significance of the conception in both aspects.
“That part of a man’s income which he owes to the possession of extraordinary natural abilities is a free boon to him; and from an abstract point of view bears some resemblance to the rent of other free gifts of nature, such as the inherent properties of land. But in reference to normal prices, it is to be classed rather with the profits derived by free settlers from the cultivation of new land, or again with the find of the pearl-fisher.”
Why? or why not?

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ECONOMICS 11
Final Examination
1912-1913

[Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions]

Explain the connection between

(a) the rent of mines;
(b) Carey’s doctrine that the total rent received by landowners is less than interest on the total investment for improving land;
(c) the earnings of barristers or opera-singers;
(d) the earnings of “successful” business men.

“Men are not equal. . . . Those capable of organizing and leading industrial enterprise are in a minority, and are indeed few; hence they can put a price on their services which would be impossible if there were many. Their services are not worth more on this account, but they can get more for them. Because the community needs their services, and cannot perhaps get along without them, they can, if they like, put “famine prices” on the commodity (organizing and directing talent) which they have to sell; while, on the other hand, those who have only labor or physical skill, though they are just as necessary, are many, and hence can about as readily be taken advantage of as the others can take advantage.”
What have you to say? Can the “famine prices” be justified?
(a) “There are, in fact, few no-rent men in actual employment; and the reason for this is clear, since work involves a sacrifice, and it does not pay to incur the sacrifice unless the earnings be a positive quantity. In those times and places in which child labor has been employed, with little regard for the welfare of the victims, labor that was not at the no-rent point, but very near it, has been pressed into service. But, where the sacrifice entailed by labor is, in some way, neutralized by a benefit that work confers, labor which created literally nothing may sometimes be employed. Lunatics and prisoners may be kept at work, in order that they may secure fresh air and exercise, even though the amount of capital that they use, if it were withdrawn from their hands and turned into marginal capital, would produce as much as it does when it is used by them. In such a case the product imputable to their labor is nil.
The existence of any no-rent labor enables us to make the rent formula general and to apply it to every concrete agent of production.”
(b) “The productivity of any capital, whether human or external, will differ with the capital. Men differ in quality, i.e., in productive power, as truly as lands or other instruments differ. Some men have a high degree of earning power and some have not. Some men can work twice as fast as others. Some men can do higher grades of work than others. The result is that we find men classified as common manual laborers, skilled manual laborers, common mental workers, superintending workers, and enterprisers. Just as we can measure the rent of any land by the difference in productivity between that and the low-rent, or no-rent, land, in exactly the same way we can measure the difference in productivity between men. There is no grade of workmen called the “no-wages men,” but there would be such a grade if it were customary for their employer to pay for their cost of support (as the employer of land pays for its cost), so that only the excess above this cost were to be called wages.”
Compare the two trains of reasoning; give your opinion; and state by what authors the passages were written.
“If the proprietor of superior land were to say, ‘I will take no rent for it,’ this would not make wheat cheaper. The supply would not be changed; for the same quantity would be raised, the marginal amount raised on the no-rent land would be needed and would be bought at the former price, and all other parts of the supply would command the same rate. . . . It is a striking fact — but one hitherto much neglected — that similar conclusions apply to the product of every other agent” [capital and labor].
Do similar conclusions apply? Who do you think is the author of this passage?
What three grounds explain, according to Böhm-Bawerk, the preference for present goods over future? Which of them does he conclude to be the most important? State Fisher’s criticism; and give your own opinion on the controverted question.
“In the present condition of industry, most sales are made by men who are producers and merchants by profession. . . . For them, the subjective use value of their own wares is, for the most part, very nearly nil. . . . In sales by them the limiting effect which, according to our theoretical formula, would be exerted by the valuation of the last seller, practically does not come into play.” — BÖHM-BAWERK.
What is the “theoretical formula”? and what is the importance of the qualification here stated?
In what sense are the terms “demand” and “increase of demand” used in the following passages: —

(a) “The democratization of society and the aping of the ways of the well-to-do by the lower classes have greatly increased the demand for silk fabrics.”
(b) “The lower price of sugar after 1890, when sugar was admitted free of duty, at once caused an increase of demand.”
(c) “The cheapening of a commodity may mean an increased demand such that the total sum spent on it will be as great as before, even greater than before.”

Explain the essentials of Veblen’s theory of crises, and state wherein you think it most tenable, wherein least so.

___________________________

Course Announcement: Economics 11
1913-14

Primarily for Graduates
I
ECONOMIC THEORY AND METHOD

[Economics] 11. Economic Theory. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

Course 11 is intended to acquaint the studeent with some of the later developments of economic thought, and at the same time to train him in the critical consideration of economic principles and the analysis of economic conditions. The exercises are accordingly conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in this discussion the students are expected to take an active part. The writings of J. S. Mill, Cairnes, F. A. Walker, Clark, Marshall, Böhm-Bawerk, and other recent authors, will be taken up. Attention will be given chiefly to the theory of exchange and distribution.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics 1913-14 in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. X, No. 1, Part X (May 19, 1913), p. 65..

___________________________

Enrollment Economics 11
1913-14

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 11. Professor Taussig.— Economic Theory

Total 39: 23 Graduates, 11 Seniors, 2 Juniors, 2 Others, 1 Radcliffe.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1913-14, p. 55.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 11
Mid-year Examination
1913-14

Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. One question may be omitted.

“The distinction, then, between Capital and Not-capital, does not lie in the kind of commodities, but in the mind of the capitalist — in his will to employ them for one purpose rather than other; and all property, however ill adapted in itself for the use of labourers, is a part of capital, so soon as it, or the value to be received from it, is set apart for productive reinvestment. The sum of all the values so destined by their respective possessors composes the capital of the country.”
What is to be said for this doctrine, what against it? By whom was it maintained?
“Prices of commodities in great measure are fixed by supply and demand, but, except temporarily, they cannot be less than all costs, including wages and taxes, entering directly or indirectly into their production and distribution, together with some profit for the use of the capital employed. Hence an increase of the wages or cost of labor usually must be paid by consumers. A general increase of the wages of all labor would cause an equivalent increase of the price of nearly every product of labor and a general increase of the cost of living. The increased wages of the laborers then would not buy more than did their former wages and they would be no better off than before the increase. For this reason the economic welfare of the masses in the aggregate cannot be materially improved by the simple expedient of raising generally the wages of labor.”
What would Ricardo say to this? J. S. Mill? Your own view?
Marx’s doctrine, that value is embodied labor, has been said to be essentially the same as Ricardo’s doctrine that value rests on the labor given to producing an article. Why or why not?
Suppose an increase in the demand for a commodity, in the schedule sense: —

(a) For short periods, under what conditions, if under any, would you expect supply price to rise? to fall?
(b) For long periods, under what conditions, if under any, would you expect supply price to rise? to fall?

Note whether your answer differs in any particular from that to be expected from Marshall.

“The part played by the net product at the margin of production in the modern doctrine of distribution is apt to be misunderstood. In particular many able writers have supposed that it represents the marginal use of a thing as governing the value of the whole. It is not so; the doctrine says we must go to the margin to study the action of those forces which govern the value of the whole; and that is a very different affair.”
Explain.
“It has sometimes been argued that if all land were equally advantageous and all were occupied, the income derived from it would not be a true rent, but a monopoly rent.”
Under what conditions, if under any, would there be true rent in such a case? Under what conditions, if under any, would there be a monopoly rent?
“The derived supply price [of one of a group of things having a joint supply price] is found by a rule that it must equal the excess of the supply price for the whole process of production over the sum of the demand prices of all the other joint products.”
Explain, illustrating by diagram.
State the corresponding rule for the derived demand price of one of a group of commodities for which there is a joint demand.
(a) “In hundreds and thousands of suburban homes the question is asked every day, “How much milk shall we take in today, ma’am?” or “How much bread?” and the housewife knows without consideration that if she ordered one loaf of bread and one pint of milk, the marginal significance of bread and milk would be higher than their price, and if she said six loaves and five quarts of milk, the marginal loaf and pint would not be worth their price. Such orders, therefore, never enter into her head. But she deliberates, perhaps, whether she will want three loaves of bread or four, or three loaves and a twist, or three white loaves and a half-loaf of brown, and whether she shall take three quarts of milk or a pint more or less. Thus, whatever the terms on which alternatives are offered to us may be, we detect in conscious action at the margin of consideration the principles which are unconsciously at work in the whole distribution of our resources.”
Do you find anything to criticize in this?
(b) “When the supply (of a given commodity) is limited, the diminishing utility of each increment will be arrested at a point below which the consumer will prefer to abandon the use of an increment for something else. The margin here is a margin of indifference between an increment of one commodity and an increment of another commodity. Since these increments are not necessarily the same, the margin of indifference may be reached at a point where the tenth increment of one commodity balances the twentieth of another, where, in other words, the marginal utility of the first commodity is twice that of the second.”
Explain what you think is meant; and give your opinion on the conclusion stated in the last clause of the final sentence.
“An English ruler who looks upon himself as the minister of the race he rules (say in India) is bound to take care that he impresses their energies in no work that is not worth the labor that is spent on it; or, to translate the sentiment into plainer language, that he engages in nothing that will not produce an income sufficient to defray the interest on its cost.”
Would Marshall question this principle? On what grounds, if at all? Would you?

___________________________

ECONOMICS 11
Final Examination
1913-14

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

“What about the ‘supply curve’ that usually figures as a determinant of price, coördinate with the demand curve? I say it boldly and baldly: there is no such thing. When we are speaking of a marketable commodity, what is usually called the supply curve is in reality the demand curve of those who possess the commodity; for it shows the exact place which every successive unit of the commodity holds in their relative scale of estimate.”
Is this criticism just if directed to (1) the temporary equilibrium of supply and demand, as analyzed by Marshall for a grain market; (2) the “price zone determined by marginal pairs,” as analyzed by Böhm-Bawerk; (3) the long period equilibrium of supply and demand, as analyzed by Marshall.
“The rent of land is no unique fact, but simply the chief species of a large genus of economic phenomena; and the theory of rent is no isolated economic doctrine, but merely one of the chief applications of a particular corollary from the general theory of demand and supply.”
Explain this statement of Marshall’s; mention other species which he assigns to the large genus; and consider wherein, if at all, the general doctrine differs from that of Clark, and from that of Böhm-Bawerk.
“As is true of good will and credit extensions generally, so with respect to the good will and credit strength of these greater business men: it affords a differential advantage and gives a differential gain. In the traffic of corporation finance this differential gain is thrown immediately into the form of capital and so added to the nominal capitalized wealth of the community. . . . This capitalization of the gains arising from a differential advantage results in a large ‘saving’ and increase of capital.”
Does this resemble in essentials Walker’s doctrine? If so, wherein? If not, why not?
In what sense, if in any, is it true that the differential gains lead to an increase of capital?
“It may be conceded that if a certain class of people were marked out from their birth as having special gifts for some particular occupation, and for no other, so that they would be sure to seek out that occupation in any case, then the earnings which such men would get might be left out of account as exceptional, when we are considering the chances of success or failure for ordinary persons.”
Consider whether, given the premise, the conclusion here stated would follow; what the bearing of the reasoning is on Walker’s theory of business profit; what Marshall would say of premise and conclusion.
In what sense, if in any, is a “productivity” theory of wages put forth by Walker? by Clark? by your instructor?
“All apital goods — tools, machines, and the like — were explained [by the economists of the British School] as merely so much stored-up labor, or as the stored-up wages paid for it; the capitalist, as a laborer gone to seed; and thereby the product of capital as indirectly the product of the earlier wage-paid labor; interest being thus mere indirect wages. It was implied in this that the interest payments are for mere wear-out of the principal invested, and that the sum of all the interest payments upon a given investment can normally or regularly equal only the original capital sum invested in wages; and that sometime a given capital investment must cease its career of earning interest.”
Consider whether this was the doctrine of the British economists; whether it is the doctrine of Böhm-Bawerk; of your instructor; and give your own opinion.
“In the main, the way in which the increase of savings can find escape from its difficulties is through the parallel advance in the arts, calling for more and more elaborate forms of capital. . . . Given continued improvements calling for more and more elaborate plant, — more of time-consuming and roundabout applications of labor, — than savings can heap up, and a return will be secured by the owner of capital.”
What are the “difficulties” here referred to? What should be said of this way of escape by Böhm-Bawerk? by your instructor? by Veblen?

Sources:

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 1913, pp. 50-53.
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 1914, pp. 51-52.
Harvard University Archives. Prof. F. W. Taussig, Examination Papers in Economics 1882-1935 (Scrapbook).

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

Tags Taussig

Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. Alumnus William Thomas Ham, 1926

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-16

_________________

Today’s post provides biographical information about a fresh Harvard economics Ph.D. contained in a memo (ca. 1930) filed along with correspondence between that alumnus, William Thomas Ham, and Harvard economics department chair (1927-1939) Professor Harold H. Burbank.

From genealogical data bases I have assembled a few additional items: William Thomas Ham was born 8 Jan 1893 in Chasewater, Cornwall, England; his family arrived in New York Sept. 22, 1899 on the St. Louis from Southhampton, England.

Ham originally came to Harvard in 1920 to do work in entymology but due to an eye problem was unable to work with microscopes so he switched to graduate work in industrial relations in the department of economics (social ethics). He received a Ph.D. in economics in 1926 with the dissertation “Employment relations in the construction industry of Boston.” In the Harvard Classbook of 1937 under his faculty picture is printed “Former Assistant Professor of Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics”.

According to the 1940 U.S. Census, he and his family lived at 3618 Wisconsin Ave. , Washington, D.C. His occupation was listed at that time as economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. From the Social Security death records we learn that he died in November 1973 and Washington, D.C. was reported to be his last residence.

_________________

MEMO.
William T. Ham.

Period prior to coming to Cambridge

1893, Jan. 8,	date of birth
1905-09	Tuolumne County High School, California.
1909-13	College of the Pacific, San Jose, California.
1913	A.B.
1913-15	Graduate student (part-time) Stanford University, and teacher, College of the Pacific, San Jose, California
1915-16	Instructor (part time) Stanford University. [penciled in: “Eng.”]
1916	A. M., Stanford
1916-17	Instructor, State College of Washington, Pullman, Washington, and assistant to the State Entomologist.
1917-20	Scientific Assistant and Field Agent in Oregon and Washington, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Entomology. Worked under the direction of the State Entomologist.

Period of Residence in Cambridge, 1920-.

1920.	Came to Harvard from the state of Washington, where I had been stationed, under the Civil Service, as Scientific Assistant and Field Agent of the Bureau of Entomology, United States Department of Agriculture. Entered the Bussey Institution for work in genetics and entomology, but was forced to discontinue in the spring of 1921 owing to the recurrence of an old eye trouble, arising in connection with microscopic work.
1921, Autumn.	Began work in Economics and Social Ethics, at first under the direction of Prof. Robert Foerster. This change was due to a felling that, if I was debarred from a microscope, the next best thing I could do would be to get to the bottom of certain problems in industrial relations which had attracted my attention during my years of sojourn in the northwest.
1921-22.	Assistant in Social Ethics under Prof. James Ford.
1922-26.	Instructor in Social Ethics. (1925-26, Tutor.)
1924, April.	Passed General Examination in Economics (Social Ethics.)
1924-25.	Taught Social Ethics 1b (Labor, Industrialism, Social Reform.)
1925-26.	Taught Social Ethics 1b and also S. E. 4 (Problems of Population and Immigration) and S. E. 6 (Problems of Unemployment and Social Insurance.)
1924	Summer School: Taught two courses (Social Ethics 1 a and 1 b.)
1926	Summer School: Taught two courses (Social Ethics 1 b and 4.)
1926	Ph.D. in Economics (Social Ethics.)
1926-27	Instructor and Tutor in the Division of history, Government and Economics.
1927-29	Fellow of the Social Science Research Council, studying the labor situation in England and Germany.
1929-30	Instructor and Tutor in the Division of History, Government and Economics. Courses: Economics A; Economics 6 b. (Appointed in 1928, but given leave of absence for the year 1928-29.)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence & Papers, 1902-1950 (UAV349.10). Box 5, Folder “H”.

Image Source: William Thomas Ham “Former Assistant Professor of Economics and Tutor in the Division of History, Government, and Economics”, in Harvard Classbook 1937.

Tags Burbank, Foerster, Ham

Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Undergraduate microeconomics reading list. Marglin, 1969-70

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-10

In the year after being granted tenure at Harvard, Stephen A. Marglin taught an undergraduate microeconomics course to which he invited Professors Galbraith, Arrow, Gintis and Dorfman for a discussion with his students. He included a copy of his reading list in his invitation to Galbraith which are both transcribed below.

Marglin’s biography was featured in a few Harvard Crimson articles over the years (the common theme to these articles is “What’s a nice radical economist like you doing in a place like this?”): May 12, 1975; March 12, 1980 ; May 21, 1982 ; June 1, 2009.

____________________________________

Invitation from Marglin to Galbraith to participate in a discussion with his microeconomics students in January 1970

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Stephen A. Marglin
Professor of Economics

1737 Cambridge Street, Room 410
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
(617) 868-7600 Ext. 3759

December 19, 1969

Professor J. Kenneth Galbraith
Littauer Center 207
Harvard University
Cambridge, Mass. 02138

Dear Ken:

The “confrontation” you kindly agreed to participate in for the benefit of Ec 20 and Ec 21 students has been fixed for Friday January 9, 1970 2-4 PM, in Emerson 105. In addition to yourself Ken Arrow and Herb Gintis have agreed to participate. Bob Dorfman, who teaches Ec 21, has agreed to help guide the discussion.

The meeting will rely heavily on students’ questions, but not completely. To get the ball rolling, I am working with my section-men to prepare questions that they will ask in the beginning. These will hopefully elicit from each of your short statements on the issues we believe to be most important. I expect these questions and your answers will occupy the first 45 minutes or so of the meeting, with the rest of the time for the students.

I am enclosing a copy of the reading list to give you an idea of the scope and depth of the course. I appreciate very much your willingness to participate in this meeting. I expect it will be extremely worthwhile for my students, the teaching fellows, and for me personally.

Yours sincerely,
[Signed: “Steve”]
Stephen A. Marglin

cc: Robert Dorfman
SM:lw
(enclosure)

____________________________________

Harvard University
Economics 20a
Microeconomic Theory

Fall 1969-70
Professor Marglin

Reading List I

Consumption
1. Scitovsky, Welfare and Competition, pp. 29-50
2. Baumol, Economic Theory and Operations Analysis, (2^nd edition), pp. 169-202
Production
1. Dorfman, The Price System, pp. 14-42
2. Scitovsky, Welfare and Competition, pp. 109-147
3. Dorfman, “Mathematical or ‘Linear’ Programing: A Nonmathematical Exposition,” reprinted in Kamerschen, Readings in Microeconomics, (abbreviated DRK henceforth), pp. 547-576
4. Coase, “The Nature of the Firm,” reprinted in Boulding and Spivey, AEA Readings in Price Theory, (henceforth abbreviated AEA), pp. 331-351
Competitive Markets
1. Dorfman, The Price System, pp. 76-88
2. Viner, “Cost Curves and Supply Curves,” reprinted in DRK, pp. 197-228, and in AEA, pp. 198-232
Restricted Competition
1. Sraffa, “The Laws of Returns Under Competitive Conditions,” reprinted in AEA, pp. 180-197
2. Scitovsky, Welfare and Competition, pp. 319-337, 373-396
3. Dorfman, The Price System, pp. 89-104
4. Modigliani, “New Developments on the Oligopoly Front,” DRK, pp. 355-378
Capital and Interest
1. Fisher, The Theory of Interest, pp. 61-287
2. Scitovsky, Welfare and Competition, pp. 189-216
3. Duesenberry, Business Cycles and Economic Growth, pp. 49-133
General Equilibrium
1. Dorfman, The Price System, pp. 105-125
2. Lange and Taylor, On the Economic Theory of Socialism, pp. 59-129
Welfare
1. Dorfman, The Price System, pp. 126-146
2. Scitovsky, Welfare and Competition, pp. 338-370
3. Bator, “The Simple Analytics of Welfare Economics,” reprinted in DRK, pp. 503-544
Income Distribution
1. Budd (editor), Inequality and Poverty, Introduction
2. Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ch. 5 (“Of Property”)
3. Clark, J.B., The Distribution of Wealth, ch. 1
4. Budd (editor), Inequality and Poverty, Part 1, pp. 1-49
Criticisms of Conventional Theory
1. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, ch. 2, 4, and 5
2. Galbraith, The Affluent Society, ch. 10 and 11.
3. Berle and Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, Skim Book 1; read Book IV more carefully.
4. Nordquist, “The Break up of the Maximization Principle,” reprinted in DRK pp. 278-295
5. Veblen, “The Limitations of Marginal Utility,” reprinted in Mitchell (editor), What Veblen Taught, pp. 151-175
6. Cohen and Cyert, Theory of the Firm, pp. 329-351
7. Simon,” A Behavioral Model of Economic Choice,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1955 (omit appendix). Reprinted in Simon, Models of Man, pp. 241-256
8. Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, pp. 1-36, 108-160
9. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, Part II, pp. 61-163
10. Galbraith, The New Industrial State
11. Baran and Sweezy, Monopoly Capital
12. Rawls, “Distributive Justice”, pp. 58-72, 79-82

Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. John Kenneth Galbraith Personal Papers. Series 5. Harvard University File, 1949-1990. Box 526, Folder “Harvard University Department of Economics: General Correspondence, 1967-1974 (2 of 3)”.

Image Source: Stephen A. Marglin from Harvard Crimson June 1, 2009.

Tags Arrow, DorfmanR, Galbraith, Gintis, Marglin

Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Core economic theory. Enrollments and final exams. Taussig, 1904-1909

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-09

For the academic years 1900/01 through 1902/03 the course was taught by Thomas Nixon Carver. Taussig was on a leave of absence for the academic year 1902-03 [Source: Harvard University Catalogue 1902/1903, p. 297.] Taussig himself wrote that he was “compelled by ill health to withdraw from teaching” (1901-03). [Chapter IX Economics (1871-1929) by The Development of Harvard University since the Inauguration of President Eliot, 1869-1929 Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1930. p. 191]. Schumpeter wrote “We speak of nervous breakdown in such cases, which indeed are more frequent in the academic profession than one would infer from the general conditions of a professor’s life. He took leave and went abroad for two years, relaxing completely and spending one winter at Meran in the Austrian Alps, another on the Italian Riviera, and the summer between (1902) in Switzerland. Catastrophe was thus avoided, and in the fall of 1903 he was able to resume his teaching and the editorship of the Quarterly Journal.” [ Joseph A. Schumpeter, Chapter 7 Frank William Taussig (1859-1940) in Ten Great Economists from Marx to Keynes. p. 206.]

During the first term of 1903/04 Taussig taught the core economic theory course and Carver taught the second term. Beginning 1904/05 Taussig taught the course by himself again.

___________________________

Enrollment Economics 2
1900-01

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Asst. Professor Carver.— Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century.

Total 45: 6 Graduates, 15 Seniors, 16 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 3 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1900-01, p. 64.

Link to reading list for the course:

https://www.irwincollier.com/harvard-economics-economics-2-carver-1900-01/

___________________________

Enrollment Economics 2
1901-02

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Asst. Professor Carver.— Economic Theory.

Total 32: 5 Graduates, 6 Seniors, 17 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 2 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1901-02, p. 77.

___________________________

Course Description Economics 2
1902-03
[Carver and Taussig actually first shared the course during the following year]

For Undergraduates and Graduates

[Economics] 2. Economic Theory. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professors Taussig and Carver.

Course 2 is intended to acquaint the student with some of the later developments of economic thought, and at the same time to train him in the critical consideration of economic principles and the analysis of economic conditions. The exercises are accordingly conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in this discussion the students are expected to take an active part. Lectures are given at intervals outlining the present condition of economic theory and some of the problems which call for theoretical solution. Theories of value, diminishing returns, rent, wages, interest, profits, the incidence of taxation, the value of money, international trade, and monopoly price, will be discussed. Marshall’s Principles of Economics, Böhm-Bawerk’s Positive Theory of Capital, Taussig’s Wages and Capital, and Clark’s Distribution of Wealth will be read and criticised.

Course 2 is open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1.

Source: Harvard University. The University Publications, New Series, No. 55. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1902-03. Cambridge, Mass. (June 14, 1902), pp. 40-41.

___________________________

Enrollment Economics 2
1902-03

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Asst. Professor Carver.— Economic Theory.

Total 25: 5 Graduates, 8 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 2 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 67.

___________________________

Enrollment Economics 2
1903-04

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professors Taussig and Carver.— Economic Theory.

Total 23: 9 Graduates, 4 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 2 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1903-04, p. 66.

___________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-Year. 1904]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
One question may be omitted.

Do you conceive wages to be determined in amount by capital, or to be paid from capital, in these cases:—
1. a railway which collects its receipts before pay-day comes around;
2. a farmer who pays his laborers after the crop has been harvested and sold;
3. a workingmen’s society for coöperative production which makes advances to members from week to week, and adds a final payment when the season’s or year’s operations have been concluded?
State carefully how you conceive Walker to define the “no-profits” line; how he distinguishes between business profits and wages; and whether there is a vicious circle in his reasoning as to the residual element in distribution.
Suppose a tax to be levied on a commodity subject to the law of diminishing returns, and the proceeds to be used for a bounty on a commodity produced under conditions of increasing return, — how would the welfare of the community presumably be affected?
Assume now that the first commodity is an article of comfort, the second an article of luxury, — would your conclusion be different?
Reverse the assumption, and suppose the first commodity to be one of luxury, the second one of comfort, — would your conclusion be still different?
“We might as reasonably dispute whether it is the upper blade of a pair of scissors or the lower that cuts a piece of paper, as whether value is governed by utility or cost of production. It is true that when one blade is held still, and the cutting is effected by moving the other, we may say with careless brevity that the cutting is done by the second; but the statement is not strictly accurate, and is to be excused only so long as it claims to be merely a popular and not a strictly scientific account of what actually happens.”
Explain, with reference to commodities produced under the conditions of

monopoly;
constant returns;
increasing returns.

Explain prime cost, total cost, supplementary cost; and consider their relation to quasi-rent.
Would Marshall say that there was true rent in the case of, —

a very profitable silver mine;
a valuable site in a town like Pullman;
a successful business man.

Why or why not in each case?

Suppose it were provided by law that the rent of premises used for wholesale or retail trading should not exceed interest on the cost of the buildings (with due allowance for depreciation and the like), what would be the effects on landlords and tenants, and on the prices of the articles sold?
“A rich man abstains from the consumption of his superfluous wealth, and is scarcely conscious, perhaps quite unconscious, of having suffered any deprivation whatever. On the other hand, the same or a much smaller amount of wealth reserved from personal consumption by an artisan or a small tradesman will frequently demand the most rigorous self-denial….And it is similar with labor. The laborious effort fitted to produce a given result does not represent the same sacrifice for different people: it is one thing for the strong, another for the weak; one for the trained workman, another for the raw beginner. This being so, the questions arises — How are such differences to be dealt with in computing cost of production? The answer must be that the sacrifices to be taken account of, and which govern exchange value, are not those undergone by A, B, or C, but the average sacrifices undergone by the class of laborers or capitalists to which the producers of the commodity belong.”— Cairnes. Would you accede to this conclusion as to capitalists? as to laborers?

___________________________

Enrollment Economics 2
1904-05

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig.— Economic Theory.

Total 22: 6 Graduates, 2 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 1 Sophomores, 2 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1904-05, p. 74.

___________________________

Course Description Economics 2
1904-05

[Economics] 2. Economic Theory. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Taussig.

Course 2 is intended to acquaint the student with some of the later developments of economic thought, and at the same time to train him in the critical consideration of economic principles and the analysis of economic conditions. The exercises are accordingly conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the leading writers; and in this discussion the students are expected to take an active part. Lectures are given at intervals outlining the present condition of economic theory and some of the problems which call for theoretical solution. Theories of value, diminishing returns, rent, wages, interest, profits, the incidence of taxation, and monopoly price, will be discussed. Marshall’s Principles of Economics, Clark’s Distribution of Wealth, and selections from the writings of Walker, Cairnes, and others, will be read and discussed.
Course 2 is open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1904-05 (May 16, 1904), pp. 38-39.

___________________________

ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year 1905]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

“The United States government collects its postal revenues day by day, yet postpones the payment of its clerks and carriers to the end of the month. To descend to the other end of the scale of dignity, hotel keepers and, in a less degree, boarding-house keepers, collect their bills before they pay their cooks, chambermaids, and scullions. Nearly all the receipts of theatre, opera, and concert companies are obtained day by day, although their staffs and troupes are borne on monthly or weekly pay-rolls.”
“I have before me a considerable collection of accounts from the books of farmers as late as 1851. These show the hands charged with advances of the most miscellaneous character. . . . In general, the amount of such advances does not exceed one-third, and it rarely reaches one-half of the stipulated wages of the year. It is idle to speak of wages thus paid as coming out of capital.”
In your view, is there a payment of wages out of capital, partial or whole, in these cases?
“On the relation between the money funds or proceeds held by the immediate employer, and the food, clothes and enjoyments, constituting the community’s real circulating capital, he [J. S. Mill] gave ambiguous and unsatisfactory statements, from which only a sympathetic interpreter could patch up a consistent and tenable doctrine.”
Explain the grounds on which this judgment of Mill rests; and consider whether your judgment on F. A. Walker, on the same point, would be more favorable or less.
“Under the conditions which prevail so preponderantly in the modern industrial world, the true residual sharer, certainly in the first instance, is the active capitalist, the business man. . . . The hired laborer gets his fixed wages, the investor his stipulated income; the managing business man takes the rest.”
Does this view seem to you sound? and, whether sound or not, does it seem to you necessarily inconsistent with Walker’s view as to the place of business profits in the theory of distribution?
Consider in what manner the doctrine of consumer’s rent is affected by (1) differences in the incomes of individuals and of classes; (2) the satisfactions derived from articles of necessity; (3) those derived from articles of luxury and display.
Mill’s statement of the equation of supply and demand, and Marshall’s analysis of the temporary equilibrium of supply and demand, — wherein different, how reconcilable?
Explain briefly: producer’s surplus, rent, monopoly rent, quasi rent, prime cost, supplementary cost.
“The so-called rent of buildings, exclusive of ground-rent, is not governed at all by the economic law of rent, but by the principles which regulate the interest of capital.” F. A. Walker.
Would Marshall accede to this view? If so, why? If not, why not? Your own view?
“Independently of any change in the suitability of the prevailing crops and methods of cultivation for special soils, there is a constant tendency towards equality in the value of different soils. In the absence of any special cause to the contrary, the growth of population and the wealth will make the poorer soils gain on the richer.”
Explain (1) why there is this tendency towards equality; (2) whether it is inconsistent with the doctrine of difference in the “original and indestructible powers” of the soil; (3) what is its bearing on the proposal to appropriate through taxation the rent of agricultural land.
Suppose that in a given industry, with an increase of output, there was continuing gain in the way of internal economics; what result would ensue in the organization and scale of production? Suppose there was continuing gain, but solely in external economies, what result would ensue? Suppose that a gradual increase in demand [and output] were to “increase gradually the size and efficiency of the representative firm; and to increase the economies, both internal and external, which are at its disposal,” — what then?
Consider (1) the short-period and the long-period effects of an increase of demand for a commodity subject to the law of diminishing returns; (2) the short-period and the long-period effects of a decrease in demand for a commodity subject to the law of increasing returns.

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Harvard University

ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1905]

Suppose ordinary manual laborers to become very few, other workers and other factors in production remaining the same; what consequences would ensue as to the production of wealth, and as to the earnings of such laborers and of other workers?
Suppose persons having in high degree the qualities needed for business management to become very numerous, other things still remaining the same; what consequences would ensue as to the production of wealth, and as to the earnings of such managers and of other workers?
Suppose the quantity of capital to be very greatly increased, the other factors of production remaining the same; what consequences would ensue as to the production of wealth, as to the returns to capital, and as to the earnings of the other factors?
(a) “Let us suppose that every one owns whatever capital he uses . . . and is not only of equal capacity, but of equal willingness to work, and does in fact work equally hard; also that all work is unskilled, — or rather, unspecialized in this sense, that if any two people were to change occupations, each would do as much and as good work as the other had done.”
(b) “Let us suppose that labor is not of one industrial grade, but of several; that parents always bring up their children to an occupation of their own grade; that they have a free choice within that grade, but not outside it. Let us suppose, further, that the increase of population in each grade is governed by other than economic causes; it may be fixed, or may be influenced by changes in custom, in moral opinion, etc.”
State what causes would govern relative wages under each of these suppositions.
State which of the suppositions just described is believed to be in accord with the actual conditions of modern societies by Cairnes, by Marshall, by Seager; and give your own view.
Compare Marshall’s conclusions as to the causes which govern earnings of management with Walker’s and with Seager’s; and give your own conclusion.
The advantages and disadvantages of the English system of land tenure; and the qualifications which must be remembered when applying to it the Ricardian analysis.
Set forth briefly what questions of principle should receive most attention in an exposition for elementary students of (a) foreign trade; (b) money; (c) labor problems; (d) railway problems.
[Discuss two only of these topics]

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Enrollment Economics 2
1905-06

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig.— Principles of Economics (second course).

Total 34: 13 Graduates, 7 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1905-06, p. 72.

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ECONOMICS 2
[Midyear 1906]

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

“(a) The draughtsman, who, shut up in some dingy office on the banks of the Thames, is drawing the plans for a great marine engine, is in reality devoting his labor to the production of bread and meat as truly as though he were garnering the grain in California or swinging a lariat on a La Plata pampa; (b) he is as truly making his own clothing as though he were shearing sheep in Australia or weaving cloth in Paisley, and just as effectually producing the claret he drinks at dinner as though he gathered the grapes on the banks of the Garonne.” Consider whether there is any difference between the two statements here quoted, and to which, if to either, you could accede.
“(a) The ordinary bargain between labor and capital is that the wage-receiver gets command over commodities in a form ready for immediate consumption, and in exchange carries his employer’s goods a stage further toward being ready for immediate consumption. (b) But while this is true of most employees, it is not true of those who finish the processes of production. For instance, those who put together and finish watches, give to their employers far more commodities in a form ready for immediate consumption, than they obtain as wages. (c) And if we take one season with another, so as to allow for seed and harvest time, we find that workmen as a whole hand over to their employers more finished commodities than they receive as wages.”
What do you say of the several statements in this passage?
Walker’s reasoning as to the relation of wages to profits, and of profits to wages: is there a vicious circle?
Are high wages in a particular employment (or group of employments) to be regarded as effects or causes of the value of the commodities made by the laborers who receive the high wages? What is Cairnes’s view? Your own?
“Mill allows that when land capable of yielding rent in agriculture is applied to some other purpose, the rent which would have been yielded in agriculture is an element in the cost of production of other commodities. But wherefore this distinction between agriculture and other branches of industry? Why does not the same principle apply between two different modes of agricultural employment?” What would be your answer?
Consider in what way, if at all, the principle of quasi-rent is applicable to the operations of (1) a bank; (2) a railway; (3) a building erected for business purposes on an urban site.
Suppose it were provided by law that the rental paid by tenants in buildings erected on urban sites should not exceed interest at current rates on the capital invested in the buildings (allowance being made depreciation, insurance, taxes, and the like); what would be the result for the owners of land and buildings, for tenants, and for the purchasers of things made or sold in the buildings?
Explain (briefly) total utility; marginal utility; consumer’s surplus; the application of the principle of consumer’s surplus to the utilities derived from commodities produced with increasing and with diminishing returns.
A recent writer discussing the principle of marginal utility with reference to a wayfarer supposed to possess a stock of apples, remarks that, — “if in the case of five apples, the marginal utility of each is five units of satisfaction, that of the stock will be five times five, or twenty-five; but if in the case of eight apples, the marginal utility of each falls to three, that of the stock will be eight times three, or twenty-four. Yet the total utility of eight apples is certainly more than that of five.” What do you say?
How serviceable do you consider Marshall’s device of a “representative firm” for the study of the effect of changes in supply and demand?

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ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1906]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

I
Answer three questions.

“There is a constant tendency towards a position of normal equilibrium, in which the supply of each of the agents of production shall stand in such a relation to the demand for its services, as to give to those who have provided the supply a sufficient reward for their efforts and sacrifices. If the economic conditions of the country remained stationary sufficiently long, this tendency would realize itself in such an adjustment of supply to demand, that both machines and human beings would earn generally an amount that corresponded fairly with their cost of rearing and training, conventional necessaries as well as those things which are strictly necessary being reckoned for.”
Whom do you believe to be the writer of this passage? and what do you think his conclusion as to non-competing groups?
“A rich man abstains from the consumption of his superfluous wealth, and is scarcely conscious, perhaps quite unconscious, of having suffered any deprivation whatever. On the other hand, the same or a much smaller amount of wealth reserved from personal consumption by an artisan or a small tradesman will frequently demand the most rigorous self-denial. . . . And it is similar with labor. The laborious effort fitted to produce a given result does not represent the same sacrifice for different people: it is one thing for the strong, another for the weak; one for the trained workman, another for the raw beginner. This being so, the question arises: How are such differences to be dealt with in computing cost of production? The answer must be that the sacrifices to be taken account of, and which govern exchange value, are not those undergone by A, B, or C, but the average sacrifices undergone by the class of laborers or capitalists to which the producers of the commodity belong.” — Cairnes.
Would you accede to this conclusion as to capitalists? as to laborers?
It is true that “the rent of rare natural ability may be regarded as a specially important element in the incomes of business men . . . and of exceptionally successful barristers, and writers, and painters, and singers, and jockeys”?
What is Walker’s view? Marshall’s? your own?
“The sudden appropriation by the State of any incomes from property, the private ownership of which had once been recognized by would destroy security and shock the foundations of society. But if from the first the State had retained these rents in its hands, the vigour of industry and accumulation need not have been impaired; and nothing at all like this can be said of the incomes derived from property made by man (quasi-rents).”
Explain and consider how far, if at all, the principles stated are applicable to the rent or royalty of mines.

II
Answer two questions.

“Abstinence is confined to the genesis of true capital; none of it is involved in maintaining an endless series of capital goods, and there is no abstinence in a static state.”
What are the grounds on which this doctrine rests? and what is your own view?
“The whole question whether goods are advanced by one class of persons to another, in order to tide over an interval of waiting, clearly has reference, not to the relations of capitalists in general to laborers in general, but to the relations of certain sub-groups to other sub-groups in the producing series.”
Explain; and give your own opinion.
“In the same sense in which the interest on artificial capital and the rent of land are not elements in price, wages have no effect on price. If good workers were to relinquish their claims against employers and work for nothing, the price of goods would still conform to their marginal utility. . . . In the same inaccurate sense in which it may be said that the rent of land is not an element in price, the rents of tools, etc., and those of men themselves, or interest and wages, are not elements in price. It makes no difference who gets them.”
Explain what is the doctrine here summarily stated, and the grounds on which you accept it or reject it.

III
Answer both questions.

(a) Is a high rate of money wages and advantage to a country? If so, wherein? if not, why not?
(b) Is a high rate of money wages an obstacle to the successful conduct of industry in competition with countries where money wages are low?
What do say to the plan of so adjusting duties on imports as to equalize the “labor cost” of imported and domestic commodities, through the levy of duties which will just offset the higher wages paid by the American employer?

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Enrollment Economics 2
1906-07

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig.— Principles of Economics (second course).

Total 33: 12 Graduates, 6 Seniors, 9 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 4 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1906-07, p. 70.

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ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-Year 1907]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

“On the ranches of Montana cattle are breeding, among the forests of Pennsylvania hides are tanning, in the mills of Brockton shoes are finishing; and, if the series of goods in all stages of advancement is only kept intact, the cow-boy may have to-day the shoes that he virtually creates by his efforts . . . With sheep in the pastures, wool in the mills, cloth in the tailoring shops, and ready-made garments on the retailers’ counters, the labor of the people can, as it were, instantaneously clothe the people.”
What would be said as to this by Walker? by Marshall? by the instructor in the course? What is your own view?
Explain what Cairnes means by “cost of production,” and what his conclusion is as to the relation between cost of production and value.
Explain what Marshall means by (1) prime cost, (2) supplementary cost, (3) total cost; what his general conclusion is as to the relation between cost and value; and wherein, if at all, his conclusion differs from Cairnes’s.
Is there quasi-rent, in Marshall’s view, in times of activity, when profits are above the normal range? If so, how would he measure it?
Is there quasi-rent, in Marshall’s view, in times of depression? If so, how would he measure it?
“It may be conceded that if a certain class of people were marked out from their birth as having special gifts for some particular occupation, and for no other, so that they would be sure to seek that occupation in any case, then the earnings which such men would get might be left out of account as exceptional, when we were considering the chances of success or failure for ordinary persons.”
Does Marshall concede this much? and what is the bearing of his conclusion (affirmative or negative) on his reasoning as to business profits?
Suppose it were provided by law that the rental paid by tenants in buildings used for business on urban sites should not exceed interest on the amount invested in the buildings alone (allowance being made for repairs, depreciation, insurance, taxes, and the like); what would be the result for the owners of land and buildings, for tenants, and for the purchasers of things made and sold in the buildings?
“A rich man abstains from the consumption of his superfluous wealth, and is scarcely conscious, perhaps quite unconscious, of having suffered any deprivation whatever. On the other hand, the same or a much smaller amount of wealth reserved from personal consumption by an artisan or a small tradesman will frequently demand the most rigorous self-denial. . . . And it is similar with labor. The laborious effort fitted to produce a given result does not represent the same sacrifice for different people: it is one thing for the strong, another for the weak; one for the trained workman, another for the raw beginner. This being so, the question arises: How are such differences to be dealt with in computing cost of production? The answer must be that the sacrifices to be taken account of, and which govern exchange value, are not those undergone by A, B, or C, but the average sacrifices undergone by the class of laborers or capitalists to which the producers of the commodity belong.” — Cairnes.
Would you accede to this conclusion as to capitalists? as to laborers?
There is prima facie reason for believing that the aggregate satisfaction, so far from being already a maximum, could be much increased by collective action in promoting the production and consumption of things in regard to which the law of increasing return acts with especial force.”
Why and how?

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ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1907]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
One question may be omitted.

“The rate of interest is limited and determined by the productiveness of the last extension of process economically permissible, and of the further extension not permissible. . . . Assuming that these two marginal limits are very near each other, one of them may be left out of account without any serious inaccuracy, and the law may be simply formulated thus: the rate of interest is determined by the surplus return of the last permissible extension of production.” — Böhm-Bawerk.
“The addition to the product caused by the last unit of capital fixes the rate of interest. Every unit of capital can secure for its owner what the last unit produces, and it can secure no more.” — Clark.
In what essential do these two doctrines differ?
The conclusions of (1) Clark (2) Böhm-Bawerk (3) Marshall, as to the relation between “abstinence” and the accumulation of capital.
“In pure theory one might even measure wages in the concrete way in which we are measuring the product of instruments; for he might apply the rent formula to men of different personal qualities…. The existence of any no-rent labor enables us to make the rent formula general and to apply it to every concrete agent of production.” Explain what Clark here means; and wherein his doctrine differs from or resembles Walker’s doctrine as to the no-profits business man, and Marshall’s “quasi-rent of labor.”
“Is there any capital that is simply ‘a fund for the maintenance of labor’? Is it true, as Adam Smith said, and as a hundred others have repeated, that the natural way to originate capital is to heap up food enough to live on for a long period, and then, during that period, to make something useful, like a boat, a hut, or a tool? Is stored food the original capital?” How would this question be answered by Böhm-Bawerk? By Clark? What is your own view?
Explain the three grounds on which Böhm-Bawerk bases the superiority of present goods over future, and give your opinion as to their relative importance.
“In the present condition of industry, most sales are made by men who are producers and merchants by profession. . . . For them, the subjective use-values of their own wares, is for the most part nearly nil. . . . In sales by them, the limiting effect which, according to our theoretical formula, would be exerted by the valuation of the last seller, practically does not come into play.” — Böhm-Bawerk. Explain; and consider the consequences as to the formula that price is determined by the valuations of marginal pairs.
“In every case the difference between the price at which the similar foreign article might have been previously purchased and that at which the domestic manufacture can be sold with a reasonable profit, is to the whole extent of that manufacture a loss to the community. That difference is equal, or nearly equal, on each yard of cloth, to the duty laid on a yard of the similar foreign article, whenever that duty is not too high to prevent partial foreign importations: it is less per yard than the duty, when this is higher than is necessary for the encouragement of the domestic manufacture, and becomes prohibitory; but in this case, the whole amount consumed being of domestic manufacture, the aggregate public loss is greater than when the duty admitted is of foreign competition.” Explain; and give your grounds for accepting or rejecting these conclusions.
State concisely what you consider to be the strongest argument which can now be advanced in favor of restrictive duties in (1) Great Britain, (2) Germany, (3) the United States.

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Enrollment Economics 2
1907-08

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig.— Principles of Economics (advanced course).

Total 32: 12 Graduates, 3 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1907-08, p. 66.

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ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-Year 1908]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

“It is not necessary to the production of things that cannot be used as subsistence, or cannot be immediately utilized, that there should have been a previous production of the wealth required for the maintenance of the laborers while the production is going on. It is only necessary that there should be, somewhere within the circle of exchange, a contemporaneous production of sufficient subsistence for the laborers and a willingness to exchange this subsistence for the thing on which the labor is being bestowed. The subsistence of the laborers engaged in production which does not directly yield subsistence, comes from the production of subsistence in which others are simultaneously engaged.”
Whom do you believe to be the author of this passage? and what is your opinion of the doctrine stated in it?
Walker’s reasoning as to the relation of wages to business profits and of business profits to wages; is there a vicious circle?
“If we are accurately to express what takes place in simple types of industry, we shall say, not that ‘the whole produce of industry goes to the laborer,’ but that the whole produce of industry goes to the independent man who is both laborer and capitalist.”
“The absurdity of making the occasional squatter dictate the amount of every laborer’s pay is patent on the face of the illustration.”
What doctrines are here alluded to? and what is their relation to Clark’s doctrine of the “Zone of indifference.”
In what way, if at all, does Marshall modify the theory of rent as to (a) agricultural land in a new country; (b) agricultural land which has been long used in an old country; (c) urban sites in towns like Pullman; (d) buildings of permanent character in old towns? (Answer concisely.)
Suppose a tax at the rate of 4% on the capital value to be imposed on all urban real property (both land and buildings used for business purposes); what would be the effect on the prices of goods made or sold on the premises? On the rentals of the premises when leased? Would your answers be different if the tax were imposed on the sites alone?
“The middle and especially the professional classes have always denied themselves much in order to invest capital in the education of their children; while a great part of the wages of the working classes is invested in the physical health and strength of their children. The older economists took too little account of the fact that human faculties are as important a means of production as any other kind of capital; and we may conclude, in opposition to them, that any change in the distribution of wealth which gives more to the wage receivers and less to the capitalists is likely, other things being equal, to hasten the increase of material production, and that it will not perceptibly retard the storing-up of material wealth.”
“There are many kinds of work which can be done as efficiently by an uneducated as by an educated workman: and the higher branches of education are of little direct use except to employers and foremen and a comparatively small number of artisans. . . . . We must look in another direction for a part, perhaps the greater part, of the immediate economic gain which the nation may derive from an improvement in the general and technical education of the mass of the people.”
Explain what is meant; and consider whether there is any inconsistency between the two passages.
“A ratio between demand and supply is only intelligible if by demand we mean the quantity demanded, and if the ratio intended is that between the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied. But again, the quantity demanded is not a fixed quantity, even at the same time and place; it varies according to the value; if the thing is cheap, there is usually a demand for more of it than when it is dear. The demand, therefore, partly depends on the value. But it was before laid down that the value depends on the demand. From this contradiction how shall we extricate ourselves? How solve the paradox, of two things, each depending upon the other?”
Who is the writer of this passage? What is the solution of the paradox (a) in your own opinion, (b) in Marshall’s treatment of the subject?
What do you understand Marshall’s conclusion to be as to the doctrine of non-competing groups?

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ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1908]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

“Economists have learned to recognize diversity of nature in those composite things to which the names of rent, profits, wages, etc., are given in popular language; they have learnt that there is an element of true rent in the composite product that is commonly called wages, an element of true earnings in what is commonly called rent, and so on.” Is this true, in your opinion, as to wages? as to rent? What would be Marshall’s opinion?
What reasoning does Clark apply on the suppositions (1) that landlords forego rent, (2) that capitalists forego interest, (3) that laborers forego wages? How far do you accept the reasoning, how far not?
“Most commodities render several different kinds of service at the same time. A thing of this kind is to be regarded as a bundle of distinct utilities. . . . If the principle of final utility be applied to entire articles [i.e. that is, to such bundles of utilities], it will give values that are, in most cases, many fold greater than are the actual values that the dealings of the market establish.”
What do you say as to these propositions?
Explain the grounds in which Böhm-Bawerk arranges tabulations like the following, and indicate the conclusions which he draws from them.

A Month’s labor Available in 1888 Yields:

For the Period.	Units of Product.	True Mar-ginal Utility of Unit.	MarginalUtility Reduced in Perspective.	Value of Entire Product.
1888	100	5.	5.	500
1889	200	4.	3.8	760
1890	280	3.3	3.	840
1891	350	2.5	2.2	770

“The doctrine of the invariable gain from using present goods as a means of spreading labor advantageously over time, has a clear resemblance to the doctrine of a ‘productivity’ of capital.” What two doctrines are here referred to? Is there such resemblance between them, or substantial difference?
“Workmen and capital goods not only coöperate, but compete. Lifting may be done by capital goods in the form of elevators, cranes, etc., requiring only human guidance, or by workmen laboriously climbing ladders with loads on their backs.”
“The increased competition of capital in general for employment is of a different character from the competition of machinery for employment in a given trade. The latter may push a particular kind of labor out of employment altogether; the former cannot displace labor in general, for it must cause an increased employment of the makers of those things which are used as capital. And in fact, the substitution of capital for labor is really the substitution of labor combined with much waiting, in the place of labor combined with little waiting.”
Are the statements in these passages consistent? Whom do you guess to be their authors? Which, if either, would Böhm-Bawerk accept?
What grounds are there for saying that duties on imports are borne in part or in whole by the producers in the foreign country? Would you distinguish in this regard between revenue duties and protective duties?
What grounds are there for saying that duties on imports are borne in part or in whole by consumers in the foreign country? Would you distinguish in this regard between revenue duties and protective duties?
Suppose Country A (say Japan) to be able to bring all commodities to market at lower expenses of production than Country B (say the United States); what consequences would ensue from unfettered trade between the two?

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Enrollment Economics 2
1908-09

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig.— Economic Theory

Total 34: 5 Graduates, 13 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 2 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1908-09, p. 67.

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ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-Year 1909]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions

“Given machinery, raw materials, and a year’s subsistence for 1000 laborers, does it make no difference with the annual product whether those laborers are Englishmen or East Indians? Certainly if one quarter of what has been adduced under the head of the efficiency of labor be valid, the differences in the product of industry arising out of differences in the industrial qualities of distinct communities of laborers are so great as to prohibit us from making use of capital to determine the amount that can be expended in any year or series of years in the purchase of labor.” Explain the conclusions which Walker draws from this illustrative case; and give your own.
“No business man would admit that his capital was consumed by the wear and tear of machinery, and was periodically replaced by saving. The wearing away of particular material embodiments of capital is automatically repaired by a process which is not saving, in the industrial or economic sense.” Do you agree? and whom do you believe to be the author of the passage?
“We must distinguish between the total utility and the marginal utility of the stock. the total utility of a stock is obtained by adding the utility of each additional apple to that of its predecessor. It will accordingly grow until the point of satiety has been reached. Ten apples possess more total utility than five. The marginal utility of the stock, however, is always equal to the marginal utility of the final unit multiplied by the number of units. . . . If in the case of five apples the marginal utility of each is five units of satisfaction, that of the stock will be five times five, or twenty-five; but if in the case of eight apples the marginal utility of each falls to three, that of the stock will be eight times three, or twenty-four. Yet the total utility of eight apples is certainly more than that of five.” What do you say to this way of dealing with marginal utility and total utility?
“Though there are few commodities which are at all times and for ever unsusceptible of increase of supply, any commodity whatever may be temporarily so; and with some commodities this is habitually the case. Agricultural produce, for example, cannot be increased in quantity before the next harvest; the quantity of corn already existing in the world is all that can be had for sometimes a year to come. During the interval, corn is practically assimilated to things of which the quantity cannot be increased. In the case of most commodities, it requires a certain time to increase their quantity; and if the demand increases, then until a corresponding supply can be brought forward, that is, until the supply can accommodate itself to the demand, the value will so rise as to accommodate the demand to the supply.” What would Marshall say to this reasoning? Mill? What is your own view?
“If the principle of final utility be applied to certain articles, it will give values that are, in most cases, many fold greater than are the actual values that the dealings of the market establish. . . . Goods of fine quality would then be, as a rule, many times dearer than they are.” What doctrine is here referred to? and do you think that the conclusion as to goods of fine quality follows?
Do you believe that there is, —

No-rent land used for agricultural purposes;
No-rent land used as an urban site;
A zone of indifference as to “capital goods”;
A no-profits zone as to business management?

Suppose a tax of 50 per cent. to be imposed on the rental value of urban sites (buildings and improvements being disregarded); what would be the effect on the rentals of the sites when leased, what on the prices of goods made or sold in them?
Suppose a tax of 50 per cent. to be imposed on the rental values of buildings placed on urban sites (the sites being disregarded); what would be the effect on the rentals of the buildings when leased, what on the prices of goods made or sold in them?
“If the proprietor of superior land were to say, ‘I will take no rent for it,’ this would not make wheat cheaper. The supply would not be changed; for the same quantity would be raised, the marginal amount raised on the no-rent land would be needed and would be bought at the former price, and all other parts of the supply would command the same rate. . . . It is a striking fact — but one hitherto much neglected — that similar conclusions apply to the product of every other agent. . . . If the capitalist says, ‘I will take none of this interest,’ the earnings of the instruments simply remain in the hands of the entrepreneur. . . . The entrepreneur will now keep the rent that the capitalist makes over to him, but the value of the goods produced will not be changed. . . . Exactly this can, however, be shown to be true of wages. In the same sense in which the interest on artificial capital and the rent of land are not elements in price, wages have no effect on price. If good workers were to relinquish their claims against their employers and work for nothing, the price of the goods would still conform to their marginal utility.” Do you think the analogy between the three cases — as to land, instruments, labor — holds good? If so, why? If not, why not?

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ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1909]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

“Natura non facit saltum.” How is this motto, which appears on the title-page of Marshall’s Principles of Economics, applicable to his treatment of the temporary and the normal equilibrium of demand and supply; of business profits and wages; of non-competing groups?
What contribution of permanent value did Cairnes make to the theory of value?
“Wages are determined by the residual product of labor.”
“Wages are determined by the specific product of labor.” “Wages are determined by the discounted marginal product of labor.” Explain what doctrines are described by these phrases; what writers hold the doctrines; and how far, if at all, they differ in essentials.
Is there “quasi-rent” in such cases as these: —

(a) The population of a town is declining; dwellings in it command a rental which is less than interest at current rates on what it would cost to replace the dwellings.
(b) The earnings of an artisan or professional man who has once obtained the skill required for his work.
(c) The profits of business men.

“Net rent is, then, nothing more than interest regarded from another point of view: it is an aggregate of lump sums, each of which represents the net earnings of some instrument. It is identical in amount with interest, and it becomes interest the moment that we reduce it to a fraction of the value of the instruments that earn it.” What writer maintains this doctrine? What would Marshall say of it? What is your own opinion?
Explain what is meant by the “technical superiority of present goods.”
“Wasteful expenditure on a scale adequate to offset the surplus productivity of modern industry is nearly out of the question. Private initiative cannot carry the waste of goods and services so nearly to the point required by the business situation. . . . Something more to the point can be done, and indeed is being done, by the civilized governments in the way of effectual waste, through armaments, public edifices, courtly and diplomatic establishments, and the like. . . . . But however extraordinary this public waste of substance latterly has been, it is altogether inadequate to offset the surplus productivity of the machine industry.”
“Barring accidents and untoward cultural agencies from outside of politics, business, or religion, there is nothing in the logic of the modern situation that should stop the cumulative war expenditures short of industrial collapse and universal bankruptcy.”
Explain the doctrines referred to in these extracts, give your opinion as to whether they are sound, or consistent with each other.
“Duties on importation may, then, be divided into two classes: those which have the effect of encouraging some particular branch of domestic industry and those which have not. The former are purely mischievous, both to the country imposing them, and to those with whom it trades. . . . . A protection duty can never be a source of gain, but always and necessarily of loss, to the country imposing it, just so far as it is efficacious to its end. A non-protecting duty, on the contrary, would in most cases be a source of gain to the country imposing it.”
Would you admit that a non-protecting duty is commonly a source of gain, and that this gain is never secured by a protecting duty?

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

Image Source: Frank W. Taussig, Harvard Album 1906.

Tags Carver, Taussig

Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. History of Economic Theory. Final exam questions, Taussig, 1897-1900

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-05

Examination questions spanning just over a half-century can be found in Frank Taussig’s personal scrapbook of cut-and-pasted semester examinations for his entire Harvard career. Until Schumpeter took over the core economic theory course from Taussig in 1935, Taussig’s course covering economic theory and its history was a part of every properly educated Harvard economist’s basic training. In an earlier posting you will find Taussig’s exam questions for the academic years 1886/87 through 1889/90 along with enrollment data for this course; analogous material from 1890/91 through 1893/94 has also been posted.

Note: Taussig did not teach Economics 2 1894/95 and 1895/96. Instead it was taught by William James Ashley, A.M., Professor of Economic History and Silas Marcus Macvane, Ph.D., McLean Professor of Ancient and Modern History. Taussig was on leave from Harvard 1894-95 [Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1894-95, p. 76.]

_______________________

Course Enrollment
1894-95

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professors Ashley and Macvane. — Economic Theory from Adam Smith to the Present Time. — Selections from Adam Smith and Ricardo. — Modern Writers. — Lectures. 3 hours.

Total 34: 9 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 1 Sophomore, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1894-95, p. 62.

_______________________

Course Enrollment
1895-96

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professors Ashley and Macvane. — Economic Theory from Adam Smith to the present time. — Selections from Adam Smith and Ricardo. — Modern Writers. — Lectures. 3 hours.

Total 37: 5 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 4 Sophomore, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1895-96, p. 63.

_______________________

Course Enrollment
1896-97

For Graduates and Undergraduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig. — Economic Theory from the Middle of the Nineteenth Century to the Present Time. — English Writers. — The Austrian School. 3 hours.

Total 42: 12 Graduates, 12 Seniors, 13 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 3 Other.

Source: Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1896-97, p. 65.

_______________________

1896-97.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year. 1897.]

“According to Ricardo, the exchange value of commodities contains neither return to capital nor rent, but simply labor.” Why? or why not?
Sketch concisely the development of the general theory of value at the hands of Ricardo, Mill, Cairnes.
“Skill, as skill, produces no effect on value; in other words, commodities do not under any circumstances exchange for each other in proportion to the degree of skill bestowed on them. Skill, though in itself inoperative on value, nevertheless affects it indirectly in two distinct ways; first, where competition is effective among producers, through the cost which must be undergone in acquiring the skill; . . . and secondly, in the absence of competition, through the principle of monopoly.” — Cairnes.
Explain and illustrate.
“If there really was a national fund the whole of which must necessarily be applied to the payment of wages, that fund could be no other than an aggregate of smaller similar funds possessed by the several individuals who compose the employing part of the nation. Does, then, any individual employer, possess any such fund? Is there any specific portion of any individual’s capital which the owner must necessarily expend upon labour? . . . May he not spend more or less on his family and himself, according to his fancy, — in the one case having more, in the other less, left for the conduct of his business? And of what is left, does he or can he determine beforehand how much shall be laid out on buildings, how much on materials, how much on labour? . . . Be it observed, fixity of definiteness is the very essence of the supposed wages-fund. No one denies that some amount or other must within any given period be disbursed in the form of wages. The only question is, whether that amount be determinate or indeterminate.” — Thornton, On Labour.
State carefully, and consider critically, the answers Cairnes made to these questions.
Would you accede to the statement that “President Walker’s theory is, in reality, not a theory of manager’s earnings at all, but a theory of differences in manager’s earnings”?
“For an understanding of the machinery by which distribution is accomplished, the classification of sources of income should thus be different from that to be adopted for an explanation of the fundamental causes.” — Taussig.
Wherein different?
Explain what is meant by Consumer’s Rent; and consider how its significance is affected by inequalities in wealth.
“As a rule, the poorer soils rise in value relatively to the richer, as the pressure of population increases.” — Marshall. Why?

_______________________

1896-97.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Final. 1897.]

Do you believe that a permanent gain for the theory of wages has been made by Walker’s discussion of that subject? If so, wherein? if not, why not?
Does Marshall’s analysis of the different grades of labor, and of the barriers between them, differ in essentials from Cairnes’s? from Mill’s?
Explain what “quasi-rent” is, wherein it differs from true rent, wherein resembles true rent; and state whether the conception seems to you a helpful one, deserving to be permanently embodied in economic theory.
What do you conceive the difference to be between what Walker calls “current product,” Marshall “the national dividend,” and the instructor in the course “real income”?
On what grounds does Marshall maintain that “the extra income earned by natural abilities may be regarded as a rent, when we are considering the sources of the income of individuals, but not with reference to the normal earnings of a trade”? What is your own opinion?
“The attribute of normal value implies systematic and continuous production.” CAIRNES. Would Böhm-Bawerk accede to this proposition? Why, or why not? Give your own opinion.
Explain what Böhm-Bawerk means by (subjective) “value”; and consider his analysis of the relation between value and cost.
Enumerate the grounds on which Böhm-Bawerk maintains that “present goods have greater value than future goods of like kind and quantity”; consider to which of these grounds he gives most attention; and give your opinion as to the justice of this emphasis.

_______________________

Course Enrollment
1897-98

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig. — Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. 3 hours.

Total 32: 9 Graduates, 9 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 3 Sophomores.

Source: Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1897-98, p. 77.

_______________________

Detailed Course Description
1897-98

*2. Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2.30. Professor Taussig. (V)

Course 2 is designed to acquaint the student with the history of economic thought during the nineteenth century, and to give him at the same time training in the critical consideration of economic principles. The exercises are accordingly conducted mainly by the discussion of selected passages from the important writers; and in this discussion students are expected to take an active part. Lectures are given at intervals, tracing the general movement of economic thought and describing its literature. Special attention will be given to the theory of distribution.

The course opens with an examination of Ricardo’s doctrines, selections from Ricardo’s writings being read and discussed. These will then be compared with the appropriate chapters in Mill’s Principles of Political Economy, and further with passages in Cairnes’ Leading Principles. The theory of wages, and the related theory of business profits, will then be followed in the writings of F. A. Walker, Sidgwick, and Marshall, and a general survey made of the present stage of economic theory in England and the United States. The development on the continent of Europe will be traced chiefly in lectures; but toward the close of the year a critical examination will be made of the doctrines of the modern Austrian school.

Course 2 is taken with advantage in the next year after Course 1 [Outlines of Economics taught by Professor Frank Taussig, Assistant Professor Edward Cummings and Dr. John Cummings]; but Course 15 [The History and Literature of Economics to the Close of the Eighteenth Century taught by Professor William James Ashley] may also be taken with advantage after Course 1, and then followed by Course 2, or taken contemporaneously with it.

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science, 1897-98, p. 34.

_______________________

1897-98.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-year. 1898.]

[Arrange your answers in the order of the questions. One question may be omitted.]

According to Ricardo, what is the effect, if any, of a rise in the price of food on wages? on profits? on the prices of commodities?
“Ricardo expresses himself as if the quantity of labor which it costs to produce a commodity and bring it to the market, were the only thing on which its value depended. But since the cost of production to the capitalist is not labor but wages, and since wages may be greater or less, the quantity of labor being the same; it would seem that the value of the product cannot be determined solely by the quantity of labor, but by the quantity together with the remuneration; and that values must depend on wages.” — Mill.
What do you conceive Ricardo would have said to this?
“We have therefore remarked that the difficulty of passing from one class of employments to a class greatly superior, has hitherto caused the wages of all those classes of laborers who are separated from one another by any very marked barrier, to depend more than might be supposed upon the increase of population of each class, considered separately; and that the inequalities in the remuneration of labor are much greater than could exist if the competition of the laboring people generally could be brought practically to bear on each particular employment. It follows from this that wages in each particular employment do not rise or fall simultaneously, but are, for short and sometimes even for long periods, nearly independent of each other. All such disparities evidently alter the relative costs of production of different commodities, and will therefore be completely represented in the natural or average value.” — Mill.
What has Cairnes added to this?
“He [Mr. Longe] puts the case of a capitalist who, by taking advantage of the necessities of his workmen, effects a reduction in their wages; and asks how is this sum, thus withdrawn, to be restored to the fund? . . . The answer to the case put by Mr. Longe is easy on his own principles; and I am disposed to flatter myself that the reader who has gone with me in the foregoing discussion will not have much difficulty in replying to it on mine.” — Cairnes.
Give the reply.
“Fixity or definiteness is the very essence of the supposed wages-fund. No one denies that some amount or other must within a given period be disbursed in the form of wages. The only question is whether that amount be determinate or indeterminate.” — Thornton.
What is Cairnes’s answer to the question put in this passage?
What would you expect the relation of imports to exports to be in a country whose inhabitants had for a long time been borrowing, and were still borrowing, from the inhabitants of other countries?
Are general high wages an obstacle to a country’s exporting?
“Granted a certain store of provisions, of tools, and of materials for production, sufficient, say, for 1000 laborers, those who hold the wage-fund theory assert that the same rate of wages (meaning thereby the actual amount of necessaries, comforts, and luxuries received by the laborer) would prevail whether these laborers be Englishmen or East Indians. . . . On the contrary, it is not true that the present economical quality of the laborers, as a whole, is an element in ascertaining the aggregate amount that can now be paid in wages; that as wages are paid out of the product, and as the product will be greater or smaller by reason of the workman’s sobriety, industry, and intelligence, or his want of these qualities, so wages may and should be higher or lower accordingly?”
Give your opinion.
What do you conceive to be the “no profits class of employers” in President Walker’s theory of distribution?

_______________________

1897-98.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Final. 1898.]

The answer to one question may be omitted.

The analysis of capital in its relation to labor and wages at the hands of Ricardo and of Böhm-Bawerk, — wherein the same? wherein different?
The contributions of permanent worth for economic theory by Cairnes? by F.A. Walker? [Consider one.]
The position of Carey and Bastiat in the development of economic theory.
“If the efficiency of labor could be suddenly doubled, whilst the capital of the country remained stationary, there would be a great and immediate rise in real wages. The supplies of capital already in existence would be distributed among the laborers more rapidly than would otherwise be the case, and the increased efficiency of labor would soon make good the diminished supplies. The fact is that an increase in the efficiency of labor would bring about an increase in the supply of capital.” — Marshall. Why? or why not?
“The capital of the employer is by no means the real source of the wages even of the workmen employed by him. It is only the intermediate reservoir from which wages are paid out, until the purchasers of the commodities produced by that labor make good the advance and thereby encourage the undertaker to purchase additional labor.” W. Roscher.
What do you say to this?
“If the rate of profit falls, the laborer gets more nearly the whole amount of the product. But if the rate of wages falls, we have a corresponding fall in prices and little change in the relative shares of labor and capital.” Hadley.
Why, or why not, in either case?
“In the present condition of industry, most sales are made by men who are producers or merchants by profession, and who hold an amount of commodities entirely beyond any needs of their own. Consequently, for them the subjective use-value of their own wares is, for the most part, very nearly nil; and the figure which they put on their own valuation almost sinks to zero.” Explain the bearing of this remark on the theory of value as developed by Böhm-Bawerk.
What, according to Böhm-Bawerk, is the explanation of interest derived from “durable consumption goods”? And what is your own view?
How far do you conceive that there is a “productivity” of capital, serving to explain the existence of interest, and the rate?

_______________________

Course Description and Enrollment
1898-99

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig. — Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. Discussion of selected paassages from leading writers. The history of theory. Lectures and recitations (3 hours).

Total 67: 5 Graduates, 27 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 10 Others.

Source: Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1898-99, p. 72.

_______________________

1898-99.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year. 1899.]

Are the high wages earned by some kinds of skilled laborers cause or effect of high prices of commodities made by them?
Many Americans annually visit European countries, and there spend freely. Supposing this to be the only cause, beside the imports and exports of merchandise, affecting the international trade of the United States, what would you expect the usual relation of its imports and exports to be? and what the usual flow of specie to or from the country?
“What a nation is interested in is, not in having its prices high or low, but in having its gold cheap — understanding by cheapness not low value, but low cost — a small sacrifice of ease and comfort; and it generally happens that cheap gold is accompanied by a high scale of prices.”
How does a country gain from having its gold cheap? and why need cheap gold not be accompanied by a high scale of prices?
“The distinction, then, between capital and non-capital does not lie in the kind of commodities, but in the mind of the capitalist — in his will to employ them for one purpose rather than another; and all property, however ill adapted in itself for the use of laborers, is a part of capital, so soon as it, or the value to be received from it, is set apart for productive reinvestment.” Is this true?
“The multitudes who compose the working class are too numerous and too widely scattered to combine at all, much more to combine effectually. If they could do so, they might doubtless succeed in diminishing the hours of labor, and obtaining the same wages for less work. But if they aimed at obtaining actually higher wages than the rate fixed by demand and supply — the rate which distributed the whole circulating capital of the country among the working population — this could only be accomplished by keeping a part of their number permanently out of employment. . . . The workpeople collectively would be no better off than before, having to support the same numbers out of the same aggregate wages.”
Whom do you suppose to be the writer of this passage? What would Cairnes say to it? Professor Taussig?
“If the efficiency of labor could be suddenly doubled, whilst the capital of the country remained stationary, there would be a great and immediate rise in real wages. The supplies of capital already in existence would be distributed among the laborers more rapidly than would otherwise be the case, and the increased efficiency of labor would soon make good the diminished supplies. The fact is that an increase in the efficiency of labor would bring about an increase in the supply of capital.” — Marshall.
Why? or why not?
Do you believe Walker’s discussion of the theory of wages has promoted the better understanding of the causes affecting the welfare of laborers? If so, how? If not, why not?
“The extra gains which any producer or dealer obtains through superior talents for business, or superior business arrangements, are very much a similar kind [to rent]. If all his competitors had the same advantages, and used them, the benefit would be transferred to their customers, through the diminished value of the article: he only retains it for himself because he is able to bring his commodity to market at a lower cost, while its value is determined by a higher. All advantages, in fact, which one competitor has over another, whether natural or acquired, whether personal or the result of social arrangements . . . . assimilate the possessor of the advantage to a receiver of rent.” Mill.
Wherein does Walker’s doctrine differ from this?

_______________________

1898-99.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Final. 1899.]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

I.

Three questions from this group.

J. S. Mill’s contributions to economic theory, and his position as regards the development of theory.
“Cost of production” and “expenses of production”: what Marshall designates by these phrases; whether he believes that “expenses” measure “cost”; and how far Cairnes and Mill believed “expenses” to measure “cost.”
It has been said that the wages-fund doctrine grew out of the industrial conditions of England during the Napoleonic wars, — capital having then been accumulated to such an extent as to enable employers to pay their laborers by the month, week, or day, without waiting for the marketing of the product. It has been said also that its general acceptance was favored by the fact that it afforded a complete justification, as to wages, for the existing order of things. — Give your opinion as to the historical accuracy of these statements as to the origin and the ready acceptance of the doctrine.
Marshall’s conclusions on the relation of cost and of utility to the value of a commodity, —

(a) for long periods, if it be subject to the law of constant returns;
(b) for short periods, if it be subject to the law of constant returns;
(c) for long periods, if it be subject to the law of increasing returns.

Which among these conclusions has been heretofore most dwelt on by economists? and which is applicable to the greatest range of phenomena?

II.

Three questions from this group.

Explain “consumers’ rent” (or “surplus,”) “producers’ rent,” “savers’ rent,” “quasi-rent”; and consider how far any or all of these conceptions are analogous to the traditional one of “economic rent.”
The effect on consumers’ rent of a tax on a commodity subject to the law of diminishing returns; and the mode in which the reasoning would be affected according as the commodity were tobacco or diamonds.
Admitting that interest is the reward of “abstinence,” does it follow that the rate of interest is a measure of the “abstinence” undergone by the several receivers of interest? Why or why not?
The rent of rare natural abilities may be regarded as a specially important element in the income of business men, so long as we consider them as individuals. In relation to normal value, the earnings even of rare abilities are, as we have seen, to be regarded rather as a quasi rent than as a rent proper.” Is the rent of rare abilities specially important in the case of business men? if so, why? and why not to be regarded as rent in relation to normal value?

III.

Two questions in this group.

“ The instructed man of today desires that the world generally and all other countries should have a full circulation, while he would like for his own country, if that were possible, a trifle less than its distributive share of that supply, so that it may be a good country to buy in and not a very good country to sell in. He desires to have prices everywhere sustained, in order that trade may be good. He would like, if that were possible, to have prices in his own country permanently lower, though only a shade lower, than anywhere else, in order that his countrymen may get the largest share of that trade.’ Walker
Would you agree?
Your conclusion as to whether in general a régime of falling prices is a cause of depression and an obstacle to prosperity; and whether the actual fall in prices during the past generation has had ill effects of this sort.
The compensatory action of bimetallism, in regard to the ratio between the metals, and in regard to their stability in value: is it made out in either way? in both ways?

_______________________

Course Description and Enrollment
1899-1900

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 2. Professor Taussig. — Economic Theory in the Nineteenth Century. Lectures and discussions (3 hours); required reading.

Total 65: 8 Graduates, 17 Seniors, 27 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 9 Others.

Source: Harvard University, Annual Reports of the President and Treasurer of Harvard College, 1899-1900, p. 69.

_______________________

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year. 1900.]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. One question may be omitted.

“That high wages make high prices, is a popular and widely-spread opinion. The whole amount of error involved in this proposition can only be seen thoroughly when we come to the theory of money.”
“It is another common notion that high prices make high wages; because the producers or dealers, being better off, can afford to pay more to their labourers.”
What would Cairnes say was the “amount of error” in the opinions here stated by Mill?
“What was Cairnes’s answer to the question put by him: “Are these grounds for a separate theory of international trade?”
Suppose country A to have to remit regularly a tribute to country B: trace the effects on imports and exports, on the usual rates of foreign exchange, on the level of prices in the two countries.
Is Cairnes’s reasoning as to the effect which trade unions may exercise on wages consistent with his reasoning as to “a certain proportion of the sums invested, which must go to the payment of wages”?
(a) “The tiller of the soil must abide in faith of a harvest, through months of ploughing, sowing, and cultivating; and his industry is only possible as food has been stored up from the crop of the previous year . . . To the extent of a year’s subsistence, then, it is necessary that some one should stand ready to make advances to the wage-laborer out of the products of past industry. All sums so advanced came out of capital.”
(b) ”But how largely, in fact, are wages advanced out of capital?. . . In some exceptional industries [e.g. transportation companies] it happens that the employer realizes on his product in a shorter time than once a week, so that the labourer is not only paid out of the product of his industry, but actually advances to the employer a portion of the capital on which he operates.”
(c) “In new countries . . . the wages of labor are paid only partially out of capital . . . A collection of accounts from the books of farmers in different sections before 1851 shows the hands charged with advances of the most miscellaneous character. Yet in general the amount of such advances does not exceed one third, and it rarely reaches one half, of the stipulated wages of the year. Now it is idle to speak of wages thus paid as coming out of capital. At the time these contracts were made the wealth which was to pay those wages was not in existence.”
Consider whether an advance from capital, or the absence of an advance, is made out in the cases here described by Walker.
How far you regard wages and other incomes as predetermined, — i.e. determined by causes that have operated in the past; and how far your conclusion is affected by the saving and investment of a part of current money income.
Your conclusion as to what share in distribution is “residual” (a) over short periods, (b) over long periods.
Is the doctrine of a rigid and predetermined wages-fund set forth by Ricardo? by Mill?
The “laissez-faire” and “natural rights” theory at the hands of Adam Smith, of Bastiat, of John Stuart Mill.

_______________________

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Final. 1900.]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

a) “The analysis of consumer’s surplus, or rent, gives definite expression to familiar notions, but introduces to new subtlety.”
Explain.
b) Consider qualifications to be borne in mind in measuring consumer’s surplus; and give your conclusion as to helpfulness of the doctrine thus qualified.
“When we speak of the national dividend, or distributable net income of the whole nation, as divided into the shares of land, labour, capital, we must be clear as to what things we are including, and what things we are excluding . . . The labour and capital of the country, acting on its natural resources, produce annually a certain net aggregate of commodities, material and immaterial, including services of all kinds. This is the true net annual income, or revenue, of the country; or, the national dividend.”
“It is to be understood that the share of the national dividend, which any particular class receives during the year, consists either of things that were made during the year, or the equivalents of those things. For many of the things made, or partly made, during the year are likely to remain in the possession of capitalists and undertakers of industry and to be added to the stock of capital; while in return they, directly or indirectly, hand over to the working classes some things that had been made in previous years.“
Consider as to these passages, (1) their relation to the doctrine of total utility and consumer’s rent, (2) whether you would accede to either statement, or to both.
Define monopoly revenue; and consider the effect on monopoly and on the prices of the monopolized article of (1) a tax proportional to monopoly revenue, (2) a tax fixed in total amount, (3) a tax proportional to quantity produced.
“We might reasonably dispute whether it is the upper blade of a pair of scissors or the lower that cuts a piece of paper, as whether value is governed by utility or cost of production. It is true that when one blade is held still, and the cutting is effected by moving the other, we may say with careless brevity that the cutting is done by the second; but the statement is not strictly accurate, and is to be excused only so long as it claims to be merely a popular and not a strictly scientific account of what actually happens.” Explain; and consider whether Mill or Cairnes would have accepted this conclusion.

5, 6, 7 (answer separately, or as one question, at your pleasure).

Rent and quasi-rent;
Producer’s rent and saver’s rent;
Producer’s rent and business profits, —

wherein like, wherein unlike; with a consideration of the helpfulness of the distinctions for the solution of economic problems.

Compare the conclusions of Mill, Cairnes, Marshall, as to the causes of the differences in remuneration in different social strata.
Suppose France, Germany, and the United States had not legislated as they did in 1873-75, what would have been, in your opinion, the course of the price of silver?

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

Image Source: The Harvard Portfolio. Volume VI, Class of 1895.

Tags Ashley, Macvane, Taussig

Courses Gender Harvard Radcliffe

Harvard. Pre-Radcliffe economics instruction for women, 1879-1893

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2017-12-03

Before there was a Radcliffe College, there was “A Society for the Private Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and other Instructors of Harvard College”. Below are excerpts mostly relating to political economy and economics courses from the fourteen reports that preceeded the official establishment of Radcliffe College in 1893/94. I have highlighted the economics references but definitely recommend reading the other text as well. For several years early on enrollments in economics were actually zero. By 1892 seventeen women were enrolled in the introductory economics course. The course descriptions get more detailed in the last half-dozen or so reports.

________________________

REPORT OF THE WORK OF THE FIRST YEAR.
[1879-80]

The Managers of the plan for the Private Collegiate Instruction for Women by Professors and other Instructors of Harvard College take pleasure in making the following Report to the supporters of the undertaking. Funds amounting to more than sixteen thousand dollars were subscribed, by a small number of persons payable at various times within four years from the beginning of the work, according to the needs of the Managers. The Report of the Treasurer, given below, shows the sums paid in, and the mode of their expenditure during the year. The movement was first brought to public notice by a circular issued February 22, 1879. The requisites for admission to the courses of instruction were published in a second circular, issued April 19, and the first examination was held at Cambridge, September 24-27, after which the classes began to receive instruction immediately. Twenty-seven ladies began the year, one of whom soon after left to study abroad, and another withdrew on account of the difficulty of coming to Cambridge regularly while living in another town. The remaining twenty-five continued through the year. At the examination four ladies were examined on a preparatory course the same as that required for admission to college, one on a course akin to that of the Women’s Examination and the remainder in one or more branches. Three began a regular course, the studies taken being the same as those of a first year’s course in college. Another began a four years’ course of advanced studies. The others were special students, of whom thirteen took one study, four took two, and four took four.

Of the different departments of study,

Greek was taken by 6;
Latin by 9;
Sanskrit by 1;
English by 5;
German by 5;
French by 6;
Philosophy by 4;
Political Economy by 6;
History by 4;
Music by 1;
Mathematics by 7;
Physics by 3;
Botany by 5.

In Greek, three read Lysias, Plato, and Homer with Mr. L. B. R. Briggs.

One studied Greek Composition and Written Translation with Mr. White.

Two read the Agamemnon and Eumenides of Aeschylus, and Thucydides with Mr Goodwin.

In Latin, five read Livy and the Odes of Horace with Mr. Hale.

Three studied Latin Composition and Translation at Sight with Mr. Gould.

Two read Pliny’s Letters and Tacitus with Mr. Lane.

In Sanskrit, one studied with Mr. Greenough.

In English, four studied Composition with Mr. Hill.

In German, four took the elementary course with Mr. Bartlett.

One studied German Composition and Oral Exercises, and German Literature from Luther to Lessing, with Mr. Sheldon.

Two studied Goethe and German Literature of the XIX. Century with Mr. Bartlett.

In French, three took Mr. Bôcher’s course in La Fontaine, Racine, Taine, and Alfred de Musset.

Two studied the Literature of the XIX. Century with Mr. Jacquinot.

In Philosophy, three studied Metaphysics and Logic with Mr. Palmer.

In Political Economy, six studied with Mr. [James Laurence] Laughlin.

In History, one studied the period of the Revival of Learning and the Reformation with Mr. Emerton.

Two studied the period of the French Revolution with Mr. Bendelari.

In Music, one studied Harmony and Counterpoint with Mr. Paine.

In Mathematics, two studied Solid Geometry, Plane Trigonometry, and Advanced Algebra with Mr. G. R. Briggs.

Three studied Analytical Geometry with Mr. Byerly.

Two studied the Differential and Integral Calculus with Mr. J. M. Peirce.

One received instruction from Mr. Benjamin Peirce in Quaternions.

In Physics, three studied Descriptive Physics, — Mechanics, Light, and Heat with Mr. Willson.

In Natural History, three received Laboratory Instruction in the Microscopic Anatomy, Physiology, and Development of Plants with Mr. Goodale.

Regular examinations were held in the middle and at the end of the year, which were passed by the students with credit.

Recitation rooms were rented in two private houses on Appian Way, and there was also provided a separate apartment for the convenience of students who need a place where they can spend the intervals between recitations. Here some of the instructors have left books of reference from time to time. The students have been encouraged to make free use of this room. Blackboards, tables, etc., have been provided for there citation rooms

During the year the Secretary has kept a list of the names of those private families in which students could find board and lodging. On this list only such names were recorded as were approved by the Managers.

There has been no difficulty in finding comfortable and suitable homes for those students who were not provided for by their friends.

There are now forty-two ladies in the following classes:—

In Greek,	4 classes, and	18 students.
In Latin,	4 classes, and	15 students.
In English,	2 classes, and	10 students.
In German,	3 classes, and	10 students.
In French,	1 class, and	2 students.
In Italian,	1 class, and	2 students.
In Philosophy,	2 classes, and	8 students.
In Pol. Econ’y,	1 class, and	1 student.
In History,	3 classes, and	8 students.
In Mathematics,	4 classes, and	10 students.
In Physics,	1 class, and	4 students.
In Botany,	1 class, and	2 students.
In Astronomy,	2 classes, and	3 students.

The twenty-nine classes are taught by seven Professors, four Assistant Professors and twelve Instructors.

Ten ladies are pursuing the regular course of four years. Of the remainder, twenty-one take one course, seven take two curses, and four take four courses.

ARTHUR GILMAN,
Secretary.

Cambridge, Nov. 10, 1880

Source: Private Collegiate Instruction for Women in Cambridge, Mass. Courses of Study for 1880-81, with Requisitions for Admission and Report of the First Year. Cambridge, Mass.: William H. Wheeler, 1880. Pages 12-15.

________________________

Courses of Study for the Year 1880-1881

Two hours of instruction a week will be given in all courses not otherwise designated.

VIII. POLITICAL ECONOMY.

Principles of Political Economy. Financial Legislation of the United States. Mr. Laughlin
Advanced Course. Cairnes’ Leading Principles of Political Economy. Blanqui’s History of Political Economy. Mr. Laughlin

________________________

WORK OF THE SECOND YEAR
[1880-81]

During the second year of the operation of the plan for the Private Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and other Instructors of Harvard College, forty-seven ladies were connected with the classes.

Numbers in the Classes.

The following table exhibits the numbers in the different classes: —

In Greek,	4 classes, and	21 students.
In Latin,	4 classes, and	17 students.
In English,	2 classes, and	9 students.
In German,	3 classes, and	11 students.
In French,	1 class, and	2 students.
In Italian,	1 class, and	2 students.
In Philosophy,	2 classes, and	9 students.
In Pol. Econ’y,	1 class, and	1 student.
In History,	3 classes, and	12 students.
In Mathematics,	4 classes, and	11 students.
In Physics,	1 class, and	5 students.
In Botany,	1 class, and	2 students.
In Astronomy,	2 classes, and	4 students.

The twenty-nine classes were taught by eight Professors, three Assistant-Professors and twelve Instructors of Harvard College, and the instruction given is a repetition of that of the College in the different departments.

Work in the Class Room.

There were four classes in Greek. Three ladies read in Aeschylus, Pindar and Aristotle with Mr. Goodwin.

Three studied Greek Composition and Written Translation at Sight with Mr. White.

Four read from Plato (Phaedo), Sophocles (Ajax) and Euripides (Medea) with Mr. Wheeler.

Ten read Plato’s Apology and Crito, and Homer’s Odyssey with Mr. Briggs.

The Latin classes were the following: – Mr. Lane had three in Pliny’s Letters, Horace, Plautus and Cicero.

Mr. J.H. Wheeler had three in Composition and Translation at Sight.

Mr. Greenough had three in Cicero’s Epistles, Terence and the Epistles of Horace.

Mr. Gould had nine in the Odes and Epodes of Horace, Cicero de Amicitia and Composition.

In English, Mr. Hill had four in Composition and five in Literature.

In German, Mr. Bartlett had three in Parzival and other mediaeval poems, and five in Elementary German.

Mr. Sheldon had three in the Romantic School, Lyric Poetry and the practice of writing German.

In French Mr. Jacquinot had two in the study of French Prose.

In Italian, two took the elementary course under Mr. Bendelari.

In Philosophy, Mr. Palmer had six in Metaphysics and Logic and three in the study of Locke, Berkeley and Hume.

In Political Economy, Mr. [James Laurence] Laughlin gave the advance course to one student who had begun the study the previous year.

In History, Mr. Emerton had three in the European History of the Middle Ages.

Mr. MacVane had one in the Mediaeval and Modern History of France and England, who had begun the previous year.

Mr. Young had eight in an Introduction to the Study of History. This was a course of lectures begun by Mr. Emerton, but resigned to Mr. Young on account of an unexpected pressure of other work.

In Mathematics, Mr. Peirce had one student in Quaternions.

Mr. Byerly had two in the Differential Calculus.

Mr. H.N. Wheeler had two in Analytic Geometry.

Mr. Briggs had six in Solid Geometry, Plan Trigonometry and Algebra.

In Physics, Mr. Willson had five in Descriptive Physics, — Mechanics, Light and Heat.

In Botany, Mr. Goodale had four in Laboratory Instruction in the Microscopic Anatomy, Physiology and Development of Plants.

In Astronomy, Mr. Waldo had two students in Descriptive and Practical Astronomy.

Readings and Lectures.

The Calendar of the University has been regularly posted upon our bulletin-board, and the students thus notified of the Lectures by the Professors, and the Readings from classical authors, to which they were privileged to go. A number of them have been present at the readings by Professor Child from Chaucer, at the lectures of Professor Lanman on the Veda, and at the Greek readings of Professors Goodwin, White, and Palmer, and of Mr. Dyer and Mr. Briggs. The performance of the Oedipus Tyrannus in Sanders Theatre was an extraordinary opportunity for becoming acquainted with a phase of Greek literature and life which was of as great advantage to the young ladies as to the students of the University.

Courses Offered but not Called For.

A comparison of the studies actually pursued by the young ladies and the electives offered in the circular at the beginning of the year shows that thirty-one courses of instruction, offered by twenty-three instructors, were not called for by actual students. Though some of the present students will take some of these courses at other stages of their progress, the comparison seems to indicate on the part of women seeking the higher education a tendency towards the traditional classical curriculum and not towards science, and that the preparatory schools offer advantages for obtaining a knowledge of French and Italian sufficient for most women. All the courses in Greek were taken.

The following list shows the courses not called for:—

LATIN. Latin Poetical Literature, Lectures on the Latin Poets. MR. SMITH. – Cicero, Lucretius and Seneca. MR. GOULD.

SANSKRIT and Comparative Philology. MR GREENOUGH.

ENGLISH. Milton. Lectures on English Literature. MR. PERRY. – Elocution. MR. TICKNOR.

GERMAN. Niebelungenlied or Gudrun. Selections from Goethe or Schiller. MR. LUTZ. — German Literature (Goethe, Schiller and Jean Paul). DR. HEDGE.

FRENCH. Elementary Course. French Prose. MR. JACQUINOT. – Romance Philology. MR. SHELDON and MR. BENDELARI.

ITALIAN. Elementary Course. MR. BENDELARI. — Dante. MR. NORTON.

SPANISH. Course by MR. BENDELARI.

PHILOSOPHY. Psychology. DR. JAMES. – German Philosophy (Critical Study of Kant, Hegel or Schopenhauer). DR. EVERETT. – Ethics. DR. PEABODY. – Advanced Logic. DR. PEABODY.

POLITICAL ECONOMY. Principles. Financial Legislation of the United States. MR. [James Laurence] LAUGHLIN.

HISTORY. The French Revolution. MR. BENDELARI. – The First Ten Christian Centuries or Catholic Civilization of the Middle Ages. Mr. ALLEN.

MUSIC. Harmony and Counterpoint. History of Music. The Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and their successors. (Three distinct courses.) MR. PAINE.

MATHEMATICS. Cosmical Physics. Prof. BENJAMIN PEIRCE.

PHYSICS. Experimental Physics. (Mayer’s Treatise on Light and Sound.) MR. TROWBRIDGE.

MINERALOGY. Crystallography. Mineralogy. MR. MELVILLE.

NATURAL HISTORY. Physical Geography, Structural Geology and Meteorology. MR. DAVIS. – Elementary Botany. Under direction of MR. GOODALE. – Zoology. Lectures by MR. MARK. – Laboratory Work in the Anatomy and Histology of Animals. MR. MARK

[…]

The Future.

The Managers do not make prognostications regarding the future. Their simple purpose from the beginning has been to try the experiment of offering to women advantages that had previously been given to men only. They have in no way endeavored to attract students, but have merely proposed to supply the demands made upon them by duplicating the courses of instruction given in the College. Their success has been beyond their expectations. They have proved that there exists in the community a class of women capable of taking this grade of instruction, and requiring it. The co-operation of the Instructors of the College has been so cheerfully rendered and their work so carefully done that nothing is left to be desired in that direction.

The students have conducted themselves in a manner so exemplary and in all respects satisfactory, notwithstanding the almost entire freedom to which they have been left, that they have rendered the work of both Managers and Instructors pleasant, and have prepared the public to support the movement with heartiness.

The preparatory schools find that there is an increase in the number of young women taking the classical course, and they will soon become more effectual feeders to our classes. The prospect seems to be that the number of students entering for the course of four years will regularly increase, but a rapid augmentation of numbers can hardly be expected.

The Managers raised funds at the beginning of their work, sufficient, in their opinion, to carry it forward four years. Two of those have passed and the funds have not been drawn upon to so great an extent as was anticipated. It may be that the work can be continued for six years, but at the end of that time the Managers will consider that their work has been accomplished.

If, at that time, it appears that it is desirable to make the work permanent, the responsibility will be laid upon the public. Large funds will be required, and the Managers doubt not that they will be contributed.

The endowment at Cambridge of an Institution for Women of the high grade that the Managers have in view would be an honor to women, and women will be found ready to make it sure.

ARTHUR GILMAN.
Secretary

Cambridge, Mass.
December 10, 1881.

Source: Private Collegiate Instruction for Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Second Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary. Cambridge, Mass.: William H. Wheeler, 1881. Pages 3-6, 10.

________________________

THE SOCIETY FOR THE COLLEGIATE INSTRUCTION OF WOMEN.
THIRD YEAR.
[1881-82]

The year that has just closed marks an era in the history of the instruction of women by the Professors and other Instructors of Harvard College, for during it the. Managers have obtained a Charter under the seal of the State of Massachusetts, and a legal name, “The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women.”

The Charter states the objects of the organization to be to promote the education of women with the assistance of the Instructors in, Harvard University, “and for this purpose it empowers the Society to “employ teachers, furnish instruction, give aid to deserving students, procure and hold books, suitable apparatus ,and lands and buildings for the accommodation of officers, teachers and students,” to “perform all acts appropriate to the main purpose of the Association.” and to transfer “the whole or any part of its funds or property to the President and Fellows of Harvard College,” whenever the same can be so done as to advance the purpose for which the Society is chartered, in a manner satisfactory to the Association.

The Charter is ample for the present needs of the Society, and places it in a position to receive funds and to hold and administer them legally for the purposes of the collegiate instruction of women. It makes it practicable for the Society to raise a proper endowment to establish the work upon a permanent basis, and it seems that the moment has arrived when the contribution of an adequate fund will found an institution that will give women advantages in Cambridge equal to those enjoyed from time immemorial by their more favored brothers. The students are here in considerable numbers, and they are properly prepared for the instruction that is offered for them. Others are now passing through preparatory courses with the intention of coming here, and there is a prospect that the classes will be kept up year by year by a succession of earnest women who will go out to raise the average of intelligence throughout various portions of the land.

It may be said with some confidence that a fund of one-tenth the size of that represented by the property and endowments of Harvard University, contributed to this Society now, will give women greater privileges than are within their reach in America, and will make them permanent.

The Society not Creating, but Satisfying a Demand.

It is not the purpose of the Society to stimulate a demand for the education that it offers. Its directors have never held the doctrine that it is the duty of every young woman to pass through a regular course of study such as is represented by the four years’ course of the candidates for the Bachelor’s degree in College. It is their wish simply to offer to women advantages for this highest instruction, and to admit to the privileges of the Society any who may actually need them.

The teachers of America are to a large degree women, and it is desirable that all women who select this profession should be as well prepared to perform its duties as the men are who are engaged in similar work. But it is not teachers only who wish the highest cultivation of the mental powers. Many women study with us for the sake of the general addition to their knowledge. It is not demanded that every man who takes a collegiate course shall become a teacher, and more must not be expected of women.

Numbers of Students in the Different Classes.

Department	No. of Classes.	No. of Students.
Greek	4	23
Latin	4	16
English	4	25
German	4	14
French	2	4
Italian	1	1
Fine Arts	1	1
History	2	11
Mathematics	4	12
Physics	1	3
Botany	1	5

[…]

Courses Offered but not Taken

Latin. One course offered was not called for.
Sanskrit. Two courses.
English. One course.
French. Two courses.
Italian. One course.
Spanish. One course.
Philosophy. One course.
Political Economy. Two courses.
History. Three courses.
Fine Arts. One course.
Music. Three courses.
Astronomy. Two courses.
Mineralogy. Two courses.
Physical Geography. One course.
Meteorology. One course.
Botany. One course.
Zoology. Two courses. (One of Lectures and one of Laboratory Work.)

It appears that twenty-eight courses were given during the year, and twenty-seven that were offered were not given. This shows that the courses offered are for the present beyond the immediate demand for any one year, but, as the demand varies from year to year, with the progress of the different classes and the differing tastes and needs, of the students, the list of electives cannot be curtailed to advantage.

It will be seen that the managers have endeavored to use a liberal discretion in the application of the privilege reserved to them, of withholding any course not applied for by three properly prepared candidates. They have waived the rule in the case of any student whose stage of progress made any special course a necessity for her during the year. It must at times happen that the highest courses will be applied for by small numbers, and in such cases the rule must be occasionally waived, or the most advanced students discouraged.

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Third Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary. Cambridge, Mass.: William H. Wheeler, 1882. Pages 3-5 ,7-8.

________________________

From Fifth Year [1883-84] Annual Report

Department	No. of Classes.		No. of Students
	1882-83.	1883-84.	1882-83.	1883-84.
Sanskrit	0	1	0	1
Greek	5	6	23	43
Latin	4	4	22	27
English	3	4	15	38
German	3	3	14	18
French	1	1	4	5
Philosophy	1	2	5	11
Music	0	1	0	3
History	3	2	9	12
Mathematics	2	2	11	10
Physics	1	1	8	5
Astronomy	2	0	4	0
Botany	2	1	5	9
Totals	27	28	120	182

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Fifth Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1884. p. 9.

________________________

From Sixth Year [1884-85] Annual Report

Department	No. of Classes. 1884-85.	No. of Students. 1884-85.
Greek	4	25
Latin	5	31
English	4	59
German	3	16
French	2	12
Philosophy	3	16
Political Economy	1	9
History	4	20
Mathematics	3	16
Physics	1	6
Zoology	1	4
Totals	31	214

[…]

Political Economy.

Nine heard lectures from Professor [James Laurence] Laughlin on Banking and on Finance, and studied under him Mill’s Principles of Political Economy.

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Sixth Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1885, p. 9, 11

_______________________

From Seventh Year [1885-86] Annual Report
November 16, 1886

[…]

Political Economy.

Professor [James Laurence] Laughlin. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. Lectures on Banking and the Financial Legislation of the United States.—6 [students].

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Seventh Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1886, p. 12

________________________

From Eighth Year [1886-87] Annual Report
October 25, 1887

[…]

Political Economy.

Professor [James Laurence] Laughlin. Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. Dunbar’s Chapters on Banking. Lectures.—7 [students].

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Eighth Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1887, p. 11.

________________________

From Ninth Year [1887-88] Annual Report
November 5, 1888

[…]

Political Economy.

Professor [James Laurence] Laughlin and Mr. Coggeshall. — Mill’s Principles of Political Economy. Dunbar’s Chapters on Banking. Lectures on Money, Finance, Labor and Capital, Coöperation, Socialism and Taxation.—5 [students].

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Ninth Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1888, p. 18.

________________________

From Tenth Year [1888-89] Annual Report
October 29, 1889

[…]

Political Economy.

Professor [Frank William] Taussig and Mr. [Francis Cleaveland] Huntington. 1^st half year. “Principles of Political Economy.” J. S. Mill (Laughlin’s Edition) Books I, II, III, and IV. Lectures on Co-operation (Mr. Taussig). 2^nd half year, “Some Leading Principles of Political Economy.” J. E. Cairnes. The whole book except Chapters 4 and 5 of Part I. “History of Bimetallism in the United States.” J. L. Laughlin.—7 students.

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Tenth Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1889, p. 16.

________________________

From Eleventh Year [1889-90] Annual Report
October 28, 1890

[…]

Political Economy.

Mr. [Edward Campbell] Mason. First half year. Principles of Political Economy. J. S. Mill. Books I, II (omitting Chapters V-X), III (Chapters I-XVI). Second half-year. The working Principles of Political Economy, by S. M. Macvane. Chapters XXV XXVI. Principles of Political Economy. J. S. Mill. Books III (Chapters XVII, XVIII), V (Chapters I-VII). Some Leading Principles of Political Economy, by J. E. Cairnes. The whole book except Chapter 5, Part I.—5 students.

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Eleventh Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1890, p. 25.

________________________

From Twelfth Year [1890-91] Annual Report
October 27, 1891

[…]

Political Economy.

Mr. [Edward Campbell] Mason and Mr. [William Morse] Cole — Mill’s Principles of Political Economy: Book I; Book II, Chap. XI et seq; Book III, to chap. XXIV; Book IV, to chap. VII. Cairnes’s Some Leading Principles of Political Economy. Lectures: Socialism; Banking; Recent Financial History in U. S. During the first half year attention was given to the main principles of Political Economy. In the second half-year the object was to illustrate the application of principles dealt with in the first half-year, and to give general information on certain economic questions of practical importance. The work was mainly descriptive and historical and was carried on partly by lectures and partly by the discussion of the books mentioned above.—8 students.

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Twelfth Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1891, p. 23.

________________________

From Thirteenth Year [1891-92] Annual Report
October 25, 1892

[…]

Political Economy.

(Primarily for Undergraduates.)

Professor [Frank William] Taussig and Mr. [William Morse] Cole. — Mill’s Principles of Political Economy: Production; Wages, Profits, Rent; Value; Money and Credit; International Trade; Progress of Society; Taxation. Cairnes’s Some Leading Principles of Political Economy. Lectures; Social Questions, Banking, Recent Financial History in the United States. During three-quarters of the year attention was given to the main principles of Political Economy. During the remainder of the year the work consisted of the application of principles and the description of some leading economic features of society. — 17 students.

(For Graduates and Undergraduates.)

Mr. [Edward] Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions.

An introductory course in sociology, intended to give a comprehensive view of the structure and development of society in relation to some of the more characteristic ethical and industrial tendencies of the present day.

The course began with a hypothetical consideration of the relation of the individual to society and to the State-with a view to pointing out some theoretical misconceptions and practical errors traceable to an illegitimate use of the fundamental analogies and metaphysical formulas found in Comte, Spencer, P. Leroy Beaulieu, Schaeffle, and other publicists.

The second part followed more in detail the ethical and economic growth of society. Beginning with the development of social instincts manifested in voluntary organization, it considered the genesis and theory of natural rights, the function of legislation, the sociological significance of the status of women and of the family and other institutions — with a view to tracing the evolution of certain types of society based upon a more or less complete recognition of the social ideals already considered.

The last part dealt with certain tendencies of the modern state, discussing especially the province and limits of state activity, with some comparison of the Anglo-Saxon and the continental theory and practice in regard to private initiative and state intervention in relation to public works, industrial development, philanthropy, education, labor organization, and the like.

Each student selected for special investigation some question closely related to the theoretical or practical aspects of the course; and a certain amount of systematic reading was expected. — 6 students.

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Thirteenth Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1892, pp. 25-26.

________________________

From Fourteenth Year [1892-93] Annual Report
October 31, 1893

[…]

History

(Primarily for Graduates.)

Professors [William J.] Ashley and [Abert Bushnell] Hart.— Seminary in Economic and American History. The purpose of this research course was to train students in the use of sources, in the collection of material, and in reaching independent results on important questions. Each student had frequent conferences with one or other of the instructors; the general exercises were lectures on methods by the instructors, and papers prepared by the students as reports of their work. The subjects studied were Manumission in America; the early phases of the Anti-slavery movement; the Freedman’s Bureau; Serfdom in England; the Black Death; and the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381. The students had the use of the Harvard College Library and of the various Boston libraries. — 6 students (1 graduate).

[…]

Economic [sic].

(Primarily for Undergraduates.)

Professor [William J.] Ashley and Mr. [William Morse] Cole. — The first half-year was devoted to a consideration of the main conceptions of Political Economy, and the work took the form of recitations based upon Mill’s Principles.
The class read the chapters on the functions of labor, capital and land and the laws governing their increase; on the distribution of produce among laborers, capitalists and landholders; on the exchange value, both domestic and international, of commodities; on the functions of money and the laws governing its value; on the influence of progress upon the production and distribution of wealth. The class-room work consisted of general informal discussion suggested by the chapters read, with the intent that the students should acquire facility in independent thinking upon economic subjects.
The second half-year was chiefly occupied by lectures on Socialism, Methods of Industrial Remuneration, Taxation, Protection, Banking and Currency. Students were required to read certain portions of Rae, Contemporary Socialism, Schloss, Methods of Industrial Remuneration, Dunbar, Banking, Taussig, Silver Situation, and other works. — 8 students.

Professor [William J.] Ashley. — The Economic History of Europe and America, down to the Eighteenth Century. This course of lectures and exercises dealt with the following topics, among others; the scope and purpose of economic history; the agricultural and industrial organization of the Roman Empire, — the villae and collegia; the tribal system of the Celts, Teutons, and Slavs; the problem of the origin of the manor; the manor in its complete form, and its subsequent transformation; the rise of commerce and industry, and the history of merchant gilds and craft gilds in relation thereto; the organization of international trade in the Middle Ages; the agricultural changes of the Sixteenth Century in England and elsewhere; the great trading companies; the woollen trade of England, and the domestic system of industry; the transition from English to American agrarian conditions. — 8 students.

(For Graduates and Undergraduates.)

Mr. [Edward] Cummings. — The Principles of Sociology. — Development of the Modern State, and of its Social Functions. An introductory course in sociology, intended to give a comprehensive view of the structure and development of society in relation to some of the more characteristic ethical and industrial tendencies of the present day.
The course began with a hypothetical consideration of the relation of the individual to society and to the State — with a view to pointing out some theoretical misconceptions and practical errors traceable to an illegitimate use of the fundamental analogies and metaphysical formulas found in Comte, Spencer, P. Leroy Beaulieu, Schaeffle, and other publicists.
The second part followed more in detail the ethical and economic growth of society. Beginning with the development of social instincts manifested in voluntary organization, it considered the genesis and theory of natural rights, the function of legislation, the sociological significance of the status of women and of the family and other institutions — with a view to tracing the evolution of certain types of society based upon a more or less complete recognition of the social ideals already considered.
The last part dealt with certain tendencies of the modern state, discussing especially the province and limits of state activity, with some comparison of the Anglo-Saxon and the continental theory and practice in regard to private initiative and state intervention in relation to public works, industrial development, philanthropy, education, labor organization, and the like.
Each student selected for special investigation some question closely related to the theoretical or practical aspect of the course; and a certain amount of systematic reading was expected. — 3 students.

Source: The Society for the Collegiate Instruction of Women by Professors and Other Instructors of Harvard College. Fourteenth Year Reports of the Treasurer and Secretary, 1893, pp. 34-38.

Image Source: Fay House, Radcliffe College Archives W359459_1.

Tags Ashley, Coggeshall, ColeWM, CummingsEdward, Huntington, Laughlin, MasonEC, Taussig

Social Ethics.

A. T. White and the Department of Social Ethics

By Richard C. Cabot, ’89, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Professor of Social Ethics

Letter of Economics Chairman E. E. Day to President Lowell

HARVARD UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

From a typed copy of Taussig’s statement

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Copy of Lowell’s Response to E. E. Day

Course Description

Course Enrollment

Course Readings

Economics 143a International Trade

Course Final Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY ECONOMICS 143a International Trade

Course Announcement Economics 2 1910-11

Enrollment Economics 2 1910-11

ECONOMICS 2 Mid-year Examination

ECONOMICS 2 Final Examination 1910-1911

Enrollment Economics 2 1911-12

ECONOMICS 2 Mid-year Examination 1911-12

ECONOMICS 2 Final Examination 1911-12

Enrollment Economics 11 1912-13

ECONOMICS 11 Mid-year Examination 1912-13

ECONOMICS 11 Final Examination 1912-1913

Course Announcement: Economics 11 1913-14

Primarily for Graduates I ECONOMIC THEORY AND METHOD

Enrollment Economics 11 1913-14

ECONOMICS 11 Mid-year Examination 1913-14

ECONOMICS 11 Final Examination 1913-14

MEMO. William T. Ham.

Invitation from Marglin to Galbraith to participate in a discussion with his microeconomics students in January 1970

HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Harvard University Economics 20a Microeconomic Theory

Fall 1969-70 Professor Marglin

Reading List I

Enrollment Economics 2 1900-01

Link to reading list for the course:

Enrollment Economics 2 1901-02

Course Description Economics 2 1902-03 [Carver and Taussig actually first shared the course during the following year]

Enrollment Economics 2 1902-03

Enrollment Economics 2 1903-04

HARVARD UNIVERSITY ECONOMICS 2 [Mid-Year. 1904]

Enrollment Economics 2 1904-05

Course Description Economics 2 1904-05

ECONOMICS 2. [Mid-Year 1905]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

ECONOMICS 2 [Final 1905]

Enrollment Economics 2 1905-06

ECONOMICS 2 [Midyear 1906]

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

ECONOMICS 2 [Final 1906]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

I Answer three questions.

II Answer two questions.

III Answer both questions.

Enrollment Economics 2 1906-07

ECONOMICS 2 [Mid-Year 1907]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

ECONOMICS 2 [Final 1907]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions. One question may be omitted.

Enrollment Economics 2 1907-08

ECONOMICS 2 [Mid-Year 1908]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

ECONOMICS 2 [Final 1908]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

Enrollment Economics 2 1908-09

ECONOMICS 2 [Mid-Year 1909]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions

ECONOMICS 2 [Final 1909]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.

Course Enrollment 1894-95

Course Enrollment 1895-96

Course Enrollment 1896-97

1896-97. ECONOMICS 2. [Mid-Year. 1897.]

1896-97. ECONOMICS 2. [Final. 1897.]

Course Enrollment 1897-98

Detailed Course Description 1897-98

1897-98. ECONOMICS 2. [Mid-year. 1898.]

1897-98. ECONOMICS 2. [Final. 1898.]

Course Description and Enrollment 1898-99

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Economics 143a
International Trade

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 143a
International Trade

Course Announcement
Economics 2
1910-11

Enrollment Economics 2
1910-11

ECONOMICS 2
Mid-year Examination

ECONOMICS 2
Final Examination
1910-1911

Enrollment Economics 2
1911-12

ECONOMICS 2
Mid-year Examination
1911-12

ECONOMICS 2
Final Examination
1911-12

Enrollment Economics 11
1912-13

ECONOMICS 11
Mid-year Examination
1912-13

ECONOMICS 11
Final Examination
1912-1913

Course Announcement: Economics 11
1913-14

Primarily for Graduates
I
ECONOMIC THEORY AND METHOD

Enrollment Economics 11
1913-14

ECONOMICS 11
Mid-year Examination
1913-14

ECONOMICS 11
Final Examination
1913-14

MEMO.
William T. Ham.

Harvard University
Economics 20a
Microeconomic Theory

Fall 1969-70
Professor Marglin

Enrollment Economics 2
1900-01

Enrollment Economics 2
1901-02

Course Description Economics 2
1902-03
[Carver and Taussig actually first shared the course during the following year]

Enrollment Economics 2
1902-03

Enrollment Economics 2
1903-04

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-Year. 1904]

Enrollment Economics 2
1904-05

Course Description Economics 2
1904-05

ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year 1905]

ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1905]

Enrollment Economics 2
1905-06

ECONOMICS 2
[Midyear 1906]

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

ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1906]

I
Answer three questions.

II
Answer two questions.

III
Answer both questions.

Enrollment Economics 2
1906-07

ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-Year 1907]

ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1907]

Arrange your answers strictly in the order of the questions.
One question may be omitted.

Enrollment Economics 2
1907-08

ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-Year 1908]

ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1908]

Enrollment Economics 2
1908-09

ECONOMICS 2
[Mid-Year 1909]

ECONOMICS 2
[Final 1909]

Course Enrollment
1894-95

Course Enrollment
1895-96

Course Enrollment
1896-97

1896-97.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year. 1897.]

1896-97.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Final. 1897.]

Course Enrollment
1897-98

Detailed Course Description
1897-98

1897-98.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-year. 1898.]

1897-98.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Final. 1898.]

Course Description and Enrollment
1898-99

1898-99.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year. 1899.]

1898-99.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Final. 1899.]

Course Description and Enrollment
1899-1900

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Mid-Year. 1900.]

1899-1900.
ECONOMICS 2.
[Final. 1900.]

REPORT OF THE WORK OF THE FIRST YEAR.
[1879-80]

WORK OF THE SECOND YEAR
[1880-81]

THE SOCIETY FOR THE COLLEGIATE INSTRUCTION OF WOMEN.
THIRD YEAR.
[1881-82]

From Seventh Year [1885-86] Annual Report
November 16, 1886

From Eighth Year [1886-87] Annual Report
October 25, 1887

From Ninth Year [1887-88] Annual Report
November 5, 1888

From Tenth Year [1888-89] Annual Report
October 29, 1889

From Eleventh Year [1889-90] Annual Report
October 28, 1890

From Twelfth Year [1890-91] Annual Report
October 27, 1891

From Thirteenth Year [1891-92] Annual Report
October 25, 1892

From Fourteenth Year [1892-93] Annual Report
October 31, 1893