Category: Harvard

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Galbraith’s Business Organization and Control. Syllabus and Exams. 1949-50

 

 

Materials for the undergraduate course “Business Organization and Control” taught by Sidney Alexander in 1948-49 has been transcribed and posted earlier. The course was taught the following year by John Kenneth Galbraith and others. Below you will find enrollment data followed by transcriptions of  the syllabi for both semesters along with the mid-year and final examinations for the course.

_______________________

 Course Enrollment

[Economics] 161 (formerly Economics 61a and 62b). Business Organization and Control. (Full Co.) Dr. Galbraith

(F) Total 179: 2 Graduates, 61 Seniors, 75 Juniors, 32 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 8 Radcliffe.
(Sp) Total 160:  2 Graduates, 56 Seniors, 70 Juniors, 24 Sophomores,  7 Radcliffe, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of the Departments for 1949-59, p. 73.

_______________________

[Fall Term, 1949-50]

Economics 161
Business Organization and Control
Dr. Galbraith

Date

 Topic Lecturer

Reading
Sept. 28 Preview Galbraith Bain, Ch. 1,2 (omitting pp. 26-41), 4, 5, 6, 8.

TNEC No. 21, pp. 20-48, 113-121.
Sept. 30 Applied Theory of Markets Galbraith
Oct. 3

“

 Galbraith
Oct. 5

“

 Galbraith
Oct. 7 Section
Oct. 10 Section
Oct. 12 HOLIDAY
Oct. 14 Forms of Business Enterprise Gordon Guthmann & Dougall, Chapter 2
Oct. 17 24 The Corporation: Origin and Legal Characteristics Gordon Buchanan, Ch. 3; Berle & Means, Book II, Ch. 1; Dewing, Book I, Ch. 1-2.
Oct. 19 26

“

 Gordon
Oct. 21 28 Section
Oct. 24 31 Concentration & Market Organization: The Role and peration of the Large Corporation Galbraith Gordon, Chapters 2, 4, 5.
Berle and Means, Book I, Ch. 1;
Book IV, Chapters 1-4.
Oct. 26
Nov. 2

“

 Galbraith
Oct. 28
Nov. 4		 Section
Oct. 31
Nov. 7		 Concentration & Market Organization: Holding companies and interest groups Galbraith Purdy, Chapter 7. Structure of the American Economy, Part I, Appendix 13
Nov. 2
Nov. 9		 Concentration & Market Organization: Trade Associations Gordon TNEC No. 18, pp. 45-67
TNEC No. 21, pp. 234-258
Nov. 4

Nov. 11

 Section

 

Bain, Joe S., Pricing, Distribution, and Employment, 1948.

U.S., Temporary National Economic Committee Monographs:

No. 18, Trade Association Survey;
No. 21, Competition & Monopoly in American Industry.

Guthmann, H. G., & Dougall, H. E., Corporate Financial Policy, 1948.

Buchanan, N. S., The Economics of Corporate Enterprise.

Berle, A. A., & Means, G. C., The Modern Corporation and Private Property, 1932.

Dewing, A. S., Financial Policy of Corporations, 1941, 2-volume edition.

Gordon, R. A., Business Leadership in the Large Corporation, 1945.

Purdy, H. L., Lindahl, M.L., and Carter, W. A., Corporate Concentration & Public Policy, 1942.

U.S., National Resources Committee, Structure of the American Economy, Part I, “Basic Characteristics.

_______________________

[Fall Term (cont.), 1949-50]

Economics 161
Business Organization and Control
Messrs. Galbraith and Gordon

Topic

 Lecturer

Reading
November 14 Price Leadership and Market Sharing Gordon Burns, Ch. III (ex. pp. 118-140), and Ch. IV.
November 16 Patents and Trademarks Gordon T.N.E.C. Monograph No. 21, pp. 158-165; Edwards, pp. 216-248.
November 18 Section
November 21 Advertising Galbraith Burns, Ch. VIII
November 23 Price Discrimination Gordon Boulding, pp. 533-43
November 25 Section
November 28 Basing Point System—Exposition Galbraith Machlup, Ch. 1 (ex. Appendix) and Ch. 3;

Kaysen, “Basing Point Pricing and Public Policy”
November 30 Basing Point System—Consequences Kaysen
December 2 Section
December 5 Economic Norms of Public Policy Duesenberry Hansen, Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, Ch. XV
December 7

“

 Duesenberry
December 9 Section Galbraith, Essay on Monopoly and Concentration of Economic Power in Ellis, Review of Contemporary Economics
December 12 Economic Norms of Public Policy Duesenberry
December 14 Promoting Competition: The Anti Trust Laws Gordon Purdy et al., Chs. 16, 17, 18 (omitting pp. 354-360), 20 (omitting pp. 393-401), 28;

Adelman, “Effective Competition and the Anti Trust Laws”;
Mason, “The Current Status of the Monopoly Problem in the United States
December 16 Section
December 19 Promoting Competition: The Anti Trust laws
December 22

“

 

Adelman, M. A., “Effective Competition and the Anti Trust Laws,” M.I.T., Publications in the Social Sciences, Series No. 1, Reprint from Harvard Law Review, Sept. 1948.

Boulding, Kenneth, Economic Analysis, Revised Edition.

Burns, A. F., The Decline of Competition, 1936.

Edwards, Corwin, Maintaining Competition, 1949.

Kaysen, Carl, “Basing Point Pricing and Public Policy,” Q.J.E., August, 1949, pp. 289-314.

Machlup, Fritz, The Basing Point System, 1949.

Mason, Edward S., “The Current Status of the Monopoly Problem in the U.S.,” Harvard Law Review, June, 1949, pp. 1265-1285.

Purdy, H. L., Lindahl, M. L., and Carter, W. A., Corporate Concentration & Public Policy, 1942.

U.S., T.N.E.C. Monograph No. 21, Competition and Monopoly in American Industry, 1940.

Hansen, Alvin, Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles, 1941, First Edition.

Ellis, Howard, Review of Contemporary Economics, 1948.

_______________________

Final Examination, Fall Term 1949-50

1949-50
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 161

I.
(one hour)

Required

  1. A book published a couple of years ago entitled The American Individual Enterprise System, has the following to say about “the meaning of competition”;

“How a seller chooses to exercise his freedom, as long as he is independent, does not furnish a test of competition. The only true test, and the basic distinguishing feature of competition, is whether there are at least two suppliers of a market who make independent decisions on the prices and conditions at which they will offer their goods and services.”

Using the word “competition” in this sense, the book’s authors stat that “competition serves the public in the following ways”:

“It tends to assure that goods and services will be produced and distributed at the lowest possible cost.
“It tends to assure that profits will be held to the minimum.
“It tends to assure that the energy and raw materials and productive capacity of the nation will be used for providing those goods and services which the public wants, and in proportion to the relative demands of the public.
“It assures freedom of opportunity. Anyone at any time, if he has the necessary capital, can enter any line of business he desires.”

Questions:

(a) Do you concur in this definition of competition? Why or why not?

(b) Would an economic system which is “competitive” in the sense of the above quotation necessarily produce the results which the authors mention? Consider in turn each of the “results” mentioned above. Be specific, and make certain that you explain each step in your reasoning.

 

II.
(Seventy-five minutes)

Answer any three of the five.

  1. Give a concise, clear explanation of the mechanics of a multiple-basing point pricing using graphs if you wish.
  2. Under what circumstances and why are business firms likely to prefer non-price to price competition? Define your terms precisely.
  3. In what ways may it be argued that the American patent system is a stimulus and in what ways a deterrent, to invention and to realized technical progress in American industry?
  4. What is price discrimination? Outline a set of conditions under which discriminatory pricing operates to the advantage of buyers.
  5. State definitely but concisely the way in which each of the following cases affected the development of antitrust law.

C. Knight Case
Standard Oil Case
U. S. Steel Case
Aluminum Case

III.
(Forty-five minutes)

Required.

  1. Schumpeter and Clark appear to agree in advocating (or condoning) certain restraints on competition. Develop fully and discuss the lines of argument by which they arrive at their respective conclusions.

 

Mid-Year. January 1950.

_______________________

[Spring Term, 1949-50]

Economics 161
Business Organization and Control
Professor Galbraith and Mr. Gordon

Subject

 Lecturer

Reading
Feb. 8 Promoting Competition: Cartel Policy Gordon Mason, Controlling World Trade, Ch. 1, 2.
Feb. 10 Promoting Competition: The Recent Antitrust Cases Gordon Oppenheim, Cases on Federal Antitrust Laws, Ch. 5.
Nicholls, “The Tobacco Case of 1946,” American Economic Review, May 1949, pp. 284-96.
Feb. 13 Regulating Competition: Retail Trade and Regulation Galbraith TNEC Monograph 35, pp. 5-14, 145-160.
Adelman, “The A & P Case,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1949.
Feb. 15 Regulating Competition: Retail Trade and Regulation Galbraith
Feb. 17 Section
Feb. 20 Limiting Competition: Agriculture Galbraith Black, Parity, Parity, Parity, Ch. 5, 20, 21.
Schultz, Production and Welfare of Agriculture, Ch. 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15.
Feb. 22 HOLIDAY
Feb. 24 Limiting Competition: Agriculture Galbraith
Feb. 27 Limiting Competition: Agriculture Galbraith
Mar. 1 Regulated Monopoly: The Public Utility Concept Gordon Lyon, Abramson et al, Government and Economic Life, Vol. II, Ch. 21.
Mar. 3 Section
Mar. 6 Regulated Monopoly: Power and Transport Gordon
Mar. 8 Regulated Monopoly: Power and Transport Gordon Locklin, Economics of Transportation, Ch. VIII, XV, XVI.
Mar. 10 Section
Mar. 13 Regulated Monopoly: Power and Transport Gordon
Mar. 15 Corporate Financial Structure Gordon Dewing, Financial Policy of Corporations, Bk. I, Ch. 4 to p. 83, Ch. 7, 8, 9 to p. 218, and pp. 230-42; Bk. III, Ch. 1, 2.
Merrill, Lynch, How to Read a Financial Report (entire pamphlet)
Mar. 17 Section
Mar. 20 Corporate Financial Structure Gordon
Mar. 22 Corporate Financial Structure Gordon
Mar. 24 Section
Mar. 27 Regulation of Securities and Markets Gordon Stein, Government and the Investor, Ch. 2, 3, 4, 6.
Mar. 29 Regulation of Securities and Markets Gordon
Mar. 31 Section
Recess from April 2 through 9
Apr. 10 Conservation: Forest Products Nixon Jensen, Lumber and Labor, Ch. 1,2.
Apr. 12 Conservation: Oil and Gas Manne Rostow, A National Policy for the Oil Industry, Ch. 1-9, 13-15.
Apr. 14 Section
Apr. 17 Conservation: Oil and Gas Manne
Apr. 19 HOLIDAY
Apr. 21 Public Development: Housing Galbraith Fortune Magazine: The Industry Capitalism Forgot, August 1947, & Editorial, September 1947.

TNEC Monograph #8, Towards More Housing, Ch. IV, V, IX.
Apr. 24 Public Development: Housing Galbraith
Apr. 26 Economic Mobilization Galbraith Galbraith, “The Disequilibrium System,” American Economic Review, 1947.

Johnson, G. G., Economic Stabilization Program.
Apr. 28 Section
May 1 Economic Mobilization Galbraith
May 3 Reconciliation of Policy Galbraith
May 5 Summary Galbraith
Reading Period begins May 8

 

Mason, Edward S., Controlling World Trade, 1946.

Oppenehim, S. C., Cases on Federal Antitrust Laws.

Nicholls, W. H., “The Tobacco Case of 1946” in American Economic Review, May 1949, pp. 284-96.

Lyon, Abramson, et al, Government and Economic Life 1940.

Dewing, Arthur S., Financial Policy of Corporations, 1941, 2-volume edition.

Merrill, Lynch, Pierce, Fenner, and Beane, How to Read a Financial Report (pamphlet).

Stein, Emanuel, Government and the Investor.

Locklin, D. Philip, Economics of Transportation, 1947.

TNEC Monograph #8, Toward More Housing.

TNEC Monograph #35, Large-Scale Organization in the Food Industries.

Adelman, M. A., “The A & P Case. A Study in Applied Economic Theory,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. LXIII, No. 2, May 1949.

Schultz, T. W., Production and Welfare of Agriculture, 1949.

Black, J. D., Parity, Parity, Parity, 1942.

Jensen, Vernon, Lumber and Labor.

Rostow, Eugene V., A National Policy for the Oil Industry, 1947.

Galbraith, J. K., “The Disequilibrium System,” American Economic Review, Vol. XXXVII, #3, June 1947.

Fortune Magazine, “The Industry Capitalism Forgot,” August 1947, “Editorial,” September 1947.

Johnson, G. G., Suggestions for the Development of an Economic Stabilization Program for a War Emergency, National Security Resources Board, Document 47.

_______________________

Economics 161
[Midterm] Examination
April, 1950

  1. Retailing and agriculture are both industries composed of many small firms. What are the similarities in government policy toward these industries? What are the important differences?
  2. What were the principal provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934? Discuss briefly in light of the abuses they were designed to remedy.

_______________________

Spring Term, Final Examination

1949-50
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 161

I.
(Forty-five minutes)

Required

  1. The special appeals court, which heard the Alcoa case in 1945, said that Congress, in passing the federal antitrust laws, “was not necessarily actuated by economic motives alone.” “It is possible,” the court said, “because of its indirect social or moral effect, to prefer a system of small producers, each dependent for his success upon his own skill and character, to one in which the great mass of those engaged must accept the direction of a few.”

Does this point of view seem to you to provide a persuasive argument for the fair trade laws, Robinson-Patman Act and the position of the government in the A & P cases? Explain.

II.
(Ninety minutes)

Answer three out of four.

  1. Explain the importance of the following in relation to public regulation of the petroleum industry:
    1. The rule of capture.
    2. The Connally “Hot Oil” Act.
    3. The Interstate Compact.
    4. Marginal well Acts.
    5. Compulsory unit operation.
  2. What are the Acts of Congress administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission? Outline the principal provisions of any three of them and the ends they were designed to achieve.
  3. Under what circumstances do you believe a certificate of convenience and necessity should be required for entry into a business? What industries would you add (or delete) from a list where such certificates are required and why?
  4. “The pricing system is not an appropriate means for stabilizing income from farming over time. To place this burden on the pricing system, as has been done in recent years can only reduce greatly its capacity [for allocating resources between alternative employments in agriculture and between agricultural and non-agricultural enterprise].”

What is the general character of the legislation “of recent years” to which Professor Schultz refers? Do you agree that it has inhibited resource allocation? Does the same objection hold for the Brannan Plan?

III.
(Forty-five minutes)

Required.

  1. Before signing or vetoing important legislation, the President customarily requests the Bureau of the Budget—or occasionally some other Executive department or agency—to prepare a confidential memorandum setting forth the main features of the proposed legislation, the principal groups favoring and opposing it together with their arguments and motives, a careful statement of the economic consequences of the legislation; and the recommendation to the President, properly defended, as to whether he should accept or veto the legislation.
    Would you prepare such a memorandum on the amendments to the Natural Gas Act of 1938 (the Kerr Bill), as passed by the Eighty-first Congress and keeping in mind the following:

    1. That you are asked to pass only on the economic questions posed by the legislation. You are at liberty to ignore any purely legal issues that may have been involved.
    2. That your concern is solely with the public welfare. You may ignore any political problems which the legislation poses for the President or his party.
    3. That the President is a busy man and should not be burdened with an unnecessarily long-winded discourse.

(The quality of your memorandum and its economic analysis and argument, not the particular recommendation you make, will be the guiding factor in marking your paper.)

Final. May 1950.

 

Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Papers of John Kenneth Galbraith. Box 519, Folder “Economics 161, 1949-50.”

Image: John Kenneth Galbraith in Harvard Class Album 1952.

Categories
Curriculum Harvard

Harvard. Economics Education of Theodore Roosevelt, 1878-80

 

The founding head of the University of Chicago’s Department of Political Economy, James Laurence Laughlin, was originally trained at Harvard where he taught for five years. He moved on to Cornell for two years before going to Chicago. During Laughlin’s early years at Harvard, one of his economics students was Theodore Roosevelt (Harvard Class of 1880, better known as the 26th President of the United States of America). Roosevelt was eight years younger than Laughlin and died in 1919. Five years later Laughlin published an essay on “Roosevelt at Harvard”. An original typed draft of the essay can be found in his papers at the Library of Congress. While Laughlin spends much of the essay going through Roosevelt’s transcript with interesting comments and observations on Harvard personalities of the late 1870’s, I have only included those parts that deal with the economic education of the future President.

I have not yet compared this draft to the published version, but I have corrected obvious typing errors and inserted some material from what appears to be an earlier draft of page 9 of the typed manuscript.

________________________________

From “Roosevelt’s College Days”
by James Laurence Laughlin

…As a freshman Roosevelt entered the university in 1876 just as a new régime inaugurated by President Eliot had got fairly into working order. The new captain had already introduced the elective system and had enlisted some forward-looking members of his faculty such as C. C. Langdell, Charles F. Dunbar, and Henry Adams. The potentialities of this situation are so interesting that one might be tempted to linger too long on them. They involved epoch-making changes for the nation in education for law, economics, and history. The appointment of Dean Langdell in the Law School brought in the case-system, revolutionized the teaching of law throughout the country, and attracted the attention of foreign jurists. With the creation of the first professorship in economics at Harvard for Dunbar in 1871 there then began the modern teaching in economics which has had so remarkable a development for the last thirty years in all the universities of the country. While Gurney and Torrey were princes of the blood in History, Henry Adams came as the paladin of new adventure. He had the dash and spirit of the crusader. He held the first seminar for research in history in this country. He tied up American history not only with British institutions but also with those of our Teutonic forebears. Such men as these added a new touch to the temple of learning by which Harvard had already won distinction an on which she is till receiving credit….

…For the first time [Roosevelt’s] mind turned from the languages and natural history to those of public interest with which his future was to be so much occupied [during his junior year, 1878-79]. He selected a course in Political Economy then known as Philosophy 6. Although Professor Dunbar had been appointed in 1871, there was no separate department of Political Economy until 1879-80. Previously economics had been briefly taught by Francis Bowen, the professor of philosophy, and for a time the new subject found shelter in his department. Roosevelt’s first introduction to that field was announced in the catalogue as: “Political Economy. –J. S. Mill’s Political Economy.—Financial Legislation of the United States. Prof. Dunbar and Dr. Laughlin.” Professor Dunbar gave lectures on the public finance of the Civil War in which he was a master. To me fell the duty of conducting recitation and discussions on Mill’s original two-volume treatise. [Laughlin’s own Abridged version of Mill’s Principles] Inasmuch as the work was exacting, Roosevelt’s mark for the year of 89 was high.…

[In his senior year, 1879-80…] In Political Economy he studied with Professor Dunbar Cairnes’s Leading Principles of Political Economy, McLeod’s Elements of Banking, and Bastiat’s Harmonies Économiques in which he got 78.

During his junior year, in order to widen the interest of my students in applying economics to public questions, I suggested to a group of them the advantage of forming a Finance Club for the purpose of inviting outside economists to speak at the university. Besides Roosevelt there were George Hoadley, J. G.Thorp, A. B. Hart, F. J. Ranlett, W. H. Rhett, Josiah Quincy and Charles G. Washburn. The plan evidently appealed to Roosevelt, for he writes to his sister in the autumn of 1878 as follows:

‘I have begun studying fairly hard now, and shall keep it up until Christmas. I am afraid I shall not be able to come home for Thanksgiving; I really have my hands full, especially now that my Political Economy Professor wishes me to start a Finance Club, which would be very interesting indeed, and would do us all a great deal would of good, but which will also take up a great deal of time”.

The President of the club was J. G. Thorp (of 1879) and the Secretary was A. B. Hart. The meetings were held in the rooms of the department on the first floor of University Hall, on the window sills of which along side the wide front steps was placed the “shingle” of the club as a means of announcing a meeting to members. That “shingle” is now hanging on the wall of Professor Hart’s office in the Widener Library.

The lecturers invited by the club stirred up a wide interest in economics. Few of us had known William G. Sumner personally. The vigor of his writing had given us the impression of a very austere personality. At Yale a student who had been invited to supper with Sumner’s family came bursting into his chum’s room late on a wintry night, shouting: “Fellows, Billy Sumner is kind to his family.” Any such impression was dispelled by a very interesting lecture [on “The Relation of Legislation to Money”] marked by Sumner’s usual felicity of style. It was a pleasure, also, to come into contact with the unusually agreeable personality of Gen. Francis A. Walker, another lecturer [on “The Principles of Taxation”]. His experience in the army with Hancock, his administrative ability, his work on the census, and his suggestive economic mind created a desire to know him. Likewise, in the case of Edward Atkinson we came to know an active business man who without academic training had attempted to formulate economic theory. [He had a genius for lucid exposition, so that his lectures on “American Competition with Europe”, “Capital and Labor”, “Railways”, and “The National Banking System”, attracted many students. Later, the one lecture which stirred up the most permanent interest was that by Col. T. W. Higginson on “Young Men in Politics”, which led to the formation of a Harvard Union after the example of the one at Oxford. Another result of the new interest in economics was the action of the university authorities in bringing Hugh McCulloch and Simon Newcomb each to give a course of three lectures.]

[Of especial value was the writing and discussion of papers by the members themselves. Early in the first year five papers had been read. In February, 1879, one of them was by Robert Bacon and Theodore Roosevelt on “Taxation.”]

There was an interesting meeting of the Finance Club on the occasion of the presence of Henry George. I can recall the small group of members gathered in University Hall to whom George spoke informally. After his talk there was a general discussion, in which the students freely exchanged arguments with the speaker. They had had a fairly good grind in the fundamental principles of economics. As a consequence, George did not show to advantage in the give-and-take. It is an interesting coincidence that only seven years after (in 1886) Theodore Roosevelt was the Republican candidate for Mayor of new York city against Henry George, the Labor candidate, and Abram S. Hewitt, the candidate of the United Democracy.

There was a reason why George did not fare well in this discussion. It is a curious fact that George’s system was almost always regarded as a problem in taxation, and in the discussion of it attention was only directed to the matter of so taxing land value that there would be no object in holding land in private property ownership. Strangely enough, the course of the arguments by which he reached this conclusion, the very supports on which his system of taxation rested, were generally disregarded, or what is more likely were little understood. To this day there is no adequate study of the logic of “Progress and Poverty”. It does not seem to be realized that his plan of taxation depended on the dictum that payment of rent was a subtraction from wages, and that abolition of rent for land would remove the existence of low wages and wipe out poverty. Such an outcome was reached only by granting as proved that payment of interest on capital could be eliminated. This part of this theorizing was extremely weak. if his reasoning was wrong, his system of taxation had no supports.

In the copy of the first edition of “Progress and Poverty” [Link to Fourth Edition, 1881] now lying on my table, I find a request for a review of it from the editor of the International Review as follows:

Jan. 11., 1880

“My dear Laughlin:

About 2pp. on this book, please. I should suppose from glancing at it that it was rubbish. But there may be ideas in it.

Truly yrs.

H.C-Lodge.”

Senator Lodge had ceased to be an instructor in history after 1878-79, and when Roosevelt was a senior he had become editor of the International Review….

…In his junior year I had an interesting conference with [Roosevelt]. He came to me to discuss whether it would be better for him to specialize on natural history or to take more economics. He gave no indication that he was thinking of a public career. My advice was that the country at that time especially needed men trained to think correctly on public questions and that these questions were nine-tenths economic. I can no say, of course, that my advice influenced him, but he did continue his economics in his senior year. Nor could one say that in after life he always thought correctly on economics. in public office, in order to get things done, it is too often supposed that economic considerations must be sacrificed to political expediency. Yet he did not forget his college courses in economics. After he had left the presidency and was contributing editor on the Outlook, when I was in charge of the campaign of education for the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, I had an interview with him in order to secure his support of the measure. On sending in my card, he appeared at the other end of the open floor entirely covered with desks, holding up my card at arm’s length, and shouting: “Where’s the fellow that taught me Political Economy”. In conference, after explaining the measure and asking him for advice how to proceed, he said “Have it associated as little as possible with Aldrich’s name. Have it come up from the small bankers of Florida or Oregon.” Then, as we finished, he added: “I will do all I can to help you. I wish I could do more. I could make a speech on the free coinage of silver; but when you get me into compound differentials and finance”—here his voice rose into his characteristic falsetto—“I am all up in the air.” To which I replied “That does not speak well for your teaching at the university”. “On the contrary, Mr. Laughlin, patting me cordially on the knee, “that was the best course I had at the university”. It was a bit of kindly good fellowship…

 

Source: Library of Congress, The Papers of James Laurence Laughlin. Box 7, Folder “Roosevelt at Harvard Oct/24” published as J. L. Laughlin, “Roosevelt’s College Days,” American Review of Reviews, October, 1924.

Image Source:  Library of Congress, The Papers of James Laurence Laughlin. Box 7, Folder “Roosevelt at Harvard Oct/24”.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus 1909. Arthur Norman Holcombe, 1956

 

Arthur Norman Holcombe (1884-1977) was awarded a Ph.D. in economics at Harvard in 1909. In the Preface to his doctoral thesis he thanked “Professor Gustav Schmoller of Berlin, Professor Lujo Brentano of Munich, and above all Professor F. W. Taussig of Harvard.” 

Thesis title: Public ownership of telephones on the continent of Europe. Boston, etc., Houghton, Mifflin, 1911, 8°. pp. xx, 482 (Harv. Econ. Stud., 6).

It is an indicator of the porousness of the borders between the disciplines making up the Harvard Division of History, Government, and Economics in the early 20th century that Holcombe moved so easily from the department of economics to the government department where he went on to have a distinguished career. 

__________________

Arthur Norman Holcombe was born in Winchester, Massachusetts, on November 3, 1884. He graduated from Harvard with an AB in 1906, and a Ph.D. in 1909. On August 30, 1910, he married Carolyn H. Crossett; they had five children. In 1964, he married Hadassah Moore Leeds Parrot. Holcombe split his career between public service and teaching. He was credited with establishing political philosophy and theory as basic disciplines in Harvard’s government curriculum. Among his students were Henry A. Kissinger and Henry Cabot Lodge. In 1949, he assisted Chiang Kai Shek in the drafting of a constitution for the Republic of China. In 1955, he retired as Eaton Professor of the Sciences of Government to become chairman of the Committee to Study the Organization of Peace, an affiliate of the American Association for the United Nations. He died on December 9, 1977.

Source:  “Biographical Note” from Guide to the Arthur N. Holcombe Personal Papers at the John F. Kennedy Library.

__________________

ARTHUR NORMAN HOLCOMBE

Address: (home) 21 Follen St., Cambridge, Mass.; (business) Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Occupation: University Professor.
Married: Carolyn Hawley Crossett, Warsaw, N.Y., August 30, 1910.
Children: Waldo Hawley, born July 25, 1911; Mary, born September 1, 1914; Robert Crossett, born January 28, 1916; Jane, born August 11, 1917; Richard Maynard, born February 2, 1920.
War Record: Investigator U. S. Bureau of Efficiency, 1917-18; Investigator War Industries Board, 1918; acting member Wire Control Board, U. S. Telegraph and Telephone Administration, 1918-19.

At the time of our Decennial I was assistant professor of government at Harvard and was serving my second term as Massachusetts Minimum Wage Commissioner. The following Winter I published my book on State Government and was nominated at the primary for the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, but was defeated for election. In June, 1917 I went to Washington as a specical Investigator for the U.S. Bureau of Efficiency, with which I remained during the greater part of the War. My principal assignment was to the Bureau of Internal Revenue to assist the Commissioner in organizing the administration of the war income and excess-profits tax law. In 1918 I was assigned to the War Industries Board, where I remained until the Armistice. Thereafter I was appointed by the Posmaster General to the Committee on Standarization of Telephone Rates and acted as a member of the Wire Control Board in charge of the telegraphs and telephones of the United States until the return of the properties to their owners in the Summer of 1919. Returning to Harvard I was presently appointed professor of government and chairman of the department of government, positions which I still hold. During the War I declined reappointment as Minimum Wage Commissioner for a third term, but after my return was appointed by Governor Coolidge a member of the Special Commission on Teachers’ Salaries. I have also been a member of the Council of the American Political Science Association and have written vor various periodicals on political and economic subjects.

Have written: “Public Ownership of Telephones” (1911); “State Government in the United States” (1916).

Member: Cambridge Club; Boston City Club; American Political Science Association; American Economic Association.

Source:    Harvard College Class of 1906, Fifteenth Anniversary Report (No. 4, 1926), pp. 167-8.

__________________

ARTHUR NORMAN HOLCOMBE

Address: (home) 20 Berkeley St., Cambridge, Mass.; (business) Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Occupation: University Professor.
Married: Carolyn Hawley Crossett, Warsaw, N.Y., August 30, 1910.
Children: Waldo Hawley, born July 25, 1911; Mary, born September 1, 1914; Robert Crossett, born January 28, 1916; Jane, born August 11, 1917; Richard Maynard, born February 2, 1920.

Since the last report I have remained at Harvard as professorof government and chairman of the department of government. I have lectured also at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Stanford University, and the Furman Institute of Politics at Greenville, S. C. I have published two more books and sundry articles in various periodicals. I am secretary of the Harvard Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, chairman of the Policyholders’ Committee of the Teachers’ Insurance and Annuity Association of America, and a member of the Committee on Research Agencies of the Social Science Research Council, organized by the leading national aossociations for the advancement of the social sciences. I am also chairman of the Troop Committee, Troop 6 of Cambridge, Boy Scouts of America, a director of the Tuckerman School, Boston, and a member of the National Committee for a Department of Education, which is working for a reorganization of the educational activities of the Federal Government. I have been treasurer of the Cambridge Public School Association, chairman of the Sunday School Committee of the First Parish Church, Cambridge, and chairman of the Massachusestts Legislative Council, organized by sundry associations interested in social welfare measures of various kinds. I am a member of the Council for the National Economic League, and have also been more or less active in divers other organizations, particularly the Proportional Representation League, the Massachusetts Civic League, the National Municipal League, and teh League of Nations Non-Partisan Association.

Have written (since 1921): “The Foundations of the Modern Commonwealth” (1923); “The Political Parties of Today” (1924; 2d edition, 1925).

Source:   Harvard College Class of 1906, Twentieth Anniversary Report (No. 5, 1926), pp. 136-7.

__________________

ARTHUR NORMAN HOLCOMBE, Old Cove Road, Duxbury, Mass. Chairman, Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, American Association for the United Nations, U. N. Plaza, New York, N.Y.

I now have nineteen grandchildren, nine grandsons and ten granddaughters.

Lectured on American Government at the College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium, in 1952. Lectured on same subject at Claremont Men’s College, Claremont, Calif., in 1955-56. Became Eaton Professor of the Science of Government, emeritus, in June, 1955. L.H.D., Columbia University, 1954.

Several papers of mine have been published since 1951 in various technical volumes. With my retirement from teaching in January, 1956, I shall give my working time to my avocation, planning and agitating for a stronger United Nations Orgnaization.

Source:   Harvard Class of 1906, 50th Anniversary Report (Cambridge: Cosmos Press, 1956), p. 91.

Categories
Bibliography Harvard

Harvard. General Bibliography for Hansen and Williams’ Money and Banking, 1946-47

 

Today’s post is the last of three devoted to the year long graduate sequence “Principles of Money and Banking” taught by Alvin H. Hansen, John H. Williams, and Richard M. Goodwin (second semester) at Harvard in 1946-47. 

The thirteen typed pages (!) of “General Reference Reading” for both semesters has been transcribed below.

The first post includes Hansen’s first semester’s list of readings and final examination (Econ 141a) and course enrollments in each semester. The previous post provides Williams’ second semester reading list along with its final examination.

__________________________

ECONOMICS 141
PRINCIPLES OF MONEY AND BANKING

GENERAL REFERENCE READING

(Books listed in minimum and supplementary reading lists are not included here.)

Books:

Allen, A. M. and others: Commercial Banking Legislation and Control. Macmillan, 1938.

Angell, J. W.: Behavior of Money. McGraw-Hill, 1935.

Angell, J. W.: Investment and Business Cycles. McGraw-Hill, 1941.

Bladen, V. F.: Money and the Price System. Univ. of Toronto Press, 1942.

Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Annual Reports.

Bresciani-Turroni, C,: The Economics of Inflation. Allen and Unwin, 1937.

Bretterton and others: Public Investment and the Trade Cycle in G. B. Clarenden Press, 1941.

Burgess, W. R.: The Reserve Banks and the Money Market. Harpers, 1936.

Butters and Lintner: Effect of Federal Taxes in Growing Enterprises. Harvard University Press, 1945.

Cassel, G.: On Quantitative Thinking in Economics. Clarendon Press, 1935.

Cassel, G.: Money and Foreign Exchange after 1914. Macmillan, 1923.

Clapham, Sir John: The Bank of England, Cambridge University Press, 1944.

Clark, Colin: National Income and Outlay. Macmillan, 1938.

Clark, Colin: The Conditions of Economic Progress, 1940.

Clark, Colin: The Economics of 1960. Macmillan, 1942.

Clark, J. M.: Economics of Planning Public Works. Gov’t. Printing Office, 1935.

Clark, J. M.: Strategic Factors in the Business Cycle. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1934.

Cole, G. D. H.: Money: Its Present and Future. Cassell and Co., 1944.

Committee on Finance and Industry: Macmillan Report. H.M.S.C., 1931.

Copland, D. B.: The Road to High Employment. Harvard University Press, 1945.

Currie, L.: Supply and Control of Money in the United States. Harvard University Press, 1934.

Docker, F. J.: Foreign Exchange, 1939.

Economic Essays in Honour of Gusav Cassel. Allen and Unwin, 1933.

Economic Reconstruction. Report of Columbia Commission, Columbia University Press, 1934.

Einzig, Paul: World Finance, 1939-40. Kegan, Paul, 1940.

Ellis, H. S.: German Monetary Theory. Harvard University Press, 1934.

Ellis, H. S.: Exchange Control in Central Europe. Harvard University Press, 1941.

Ellis, P. W.: The World’s Biggest Business. American Public Spending, 1914-44, National Industrial Conference Board, 1944.

Fellner, W. A.: A Treatise on War Inflation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1942.

Fine, S. M.: Public Spending and Postwar Economic policy. Columbia University Press, 1944.

Fisher, Irving: Purchasing Power of Money. Macmillan, 1911.

Foster and Catchings: Money. Houghton, Mifflin, 1930.

Foster and Catchings: Profits. Houghton, Mifflin, 1925.

Gilbert, Milton: Currency Depreciation and Monetary Policy. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939.

Goldschmidt, R. W.: The Changing Structure of American Banking, Routledge, 1933.

Graham, F. D.: Exchange, Prices and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany, 1920-1923. Princeton University Press, 1930.

Hamilton, E. J.: American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain. Harvard University Press, 1934.

Hansen, Alvin H.: Economic Stabilization in an Unbalanced World. Harcourt, Brace, 1932. Part I.

Hansen, Alvin H.: International Economic Relations, Part III. Hutchins Commission, University of Minnesota Press, 1934.

Hansen, Alvin H.: (a) Fiscal Policy and Full Employment, N. Y. University Institute in Postwar Reconstruction, 1946. (b) How Shall We Deal with the Public Debt? N. Y. University Institute in Postwar Reconstruction, 1943.

Hansen, A. H., and Perloff, H. S.: State and Local Finance in the National Economy, Norton, 1944.

Hardy, C. O.: Credit Policies of the Federal Reserve System. Brookings, 1932.

Harris Institute Lectures: Gold and MonetaryStabilization. University of Chicago Press, 1932.

Harris, S. E.: The Assignats. Harvard University Press, 1930.

Harris, S. E.: Monetary Problems of the British Empire. Macmillan, 1931.

Harris, S. E.: Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy. Harvard University Press, 1933.

Harris, S. E.: Economics of the American Defense Program. Norton, 1943.

Harrod, R. F.: The Trade Cycle. Clarendon Press, 1936.

Harrod, R. F.: International Economics. Nisbet, 1939.

Hawtrey, R. G.: Capital and Employment. Longmans, 1939.

Hayek, F. A.: Profits, Interest and Investment. Routledge, 1939.

Hayek, F. A.: The Pure Theory of Capital. Macmillan, 1941.

Hearings, U. S. Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 79th Congress, 1st Session.

Hicks and Hart: The Social Framework of the American Economy. Oxford Press, 1945.

Hicks, J. R.: The Problem of Valuation for Rating. Macmillan, 1944.

Hicks, J. R., and U. K.: Standards of Local Expenditure. Macmillan, 1943.

Higgins, B. H.: Canada’s Financial System in War, Occasional Paper No. 19, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1944.

Institute of International Finance, New York University, Bulletin Numbers 101, 112, 122, 124, 132, 137, 141, 142 dealing with current banking and central bank problems.

Kalecki, M.: The Theory of Economic Fluctuations. Farrar & Rinehart, 1939.

Kalecki, M.: Studies in Economic Dynamics. Farrar & Rinehart, 1944.

Kemmerer, E. W.: The ABC of Inflation. McGraw-Hill, 1942.

Kjellstrom, Erik T. H. and others: Price Control—the War Against Inflation. Rutgers University Press, 1942.

Kjellstrom: Managed Money. Columbia University Press, 1934.

Keynes, J. M. Unemployment as a World Problem. University of Chicago, 1931 (pp. 1-42).

Keynes, J. M.: Means to Prosperity. Harcourt, Brace, 1933.

Keynes, J. M.: How to Pay for the War. Harcourt, Brace, 1940.

King, W. T. C.: History of the London Discount Market. Routledge, 1936.

Kuznets, S.: National Income and Capital Formation, 1919-1935. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1937.

Kuznets, S.: National Income and its Composition, 1919-38. 1941.

League of Nations: World Economic Survey. (Annual).

League of Nations: Money and Banking: Monetary Review, Commercial and Central Banks (Vols. I and II). Annual.

Lange, O.: Price Flexibility and Employment, 1944.

Lester, R. A.: Monetary Experiments. Princeton University Press, 1939.

Long, C. D.: Building Cycles and the Theory of Investment, Princeton University Press, 1940.

Lundberg, E.: Economic Expansion. King, 1937.

Lutz, Friedrich: International Monetary Mechanisms: The Keynes and White Proposals (July 1943) Department of Economic and Social Institutions, Princeton University.

Machlup, Fritz: International Trade and the National Income Multiplier, 1943.

Mackenzie, K.: The Banking Systems of Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States, Macmillan, 1945.

Madden, J. R. and Nadler, M.: International Money Markets. Prentice Hall, 1935.

Marshall, Alfred: Money, Credit, and Commerce. Macmillan, 1923.

Meade, J. E.: An Introduction to Economic Analysis and Policy. Oxford University Press, 1938.

Meade, J. E.: Consumer’s Credit and Unemployment. Oxford University Press, 1938.

Morton, W. A.: British Finance 1930-40. University of Wisconsin Press, 1943.

Moulton, H. G.: The New Philosophy of Public Debt. Brookings, 1943.

Moulton, H. G.: Income and Economic Progress. Brookings, 1935.

Myers, Margaret G.: Paris as a Financial Centre. Columbia University Press, 1936.

Nathan, Otto: Nazi War Finance and Banking. Occasional Paper No. 20. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1944.

Nathan, Robert, Mobilizing for Abundance. McGraw-Hill, 1944.

Northrup, Mildred B.: Control Policies of the Reichsbank. Columbia University Press, 1938.

Ohlin, B.: Interregional and International Trade. Harvard University Press, 1933.

Ohlin, B.: Editor of issue of The Annals, May 1938 on Some Problems and Policies in Sweden.

Paris, J. D.: Monetary Policies of the U. S. 1932-38. Columbia University Press, 1938.

Pierson, J. H. G.: (a) Full Employment, Yale University Press, 1941. (b) Full Employment in Practice, N. Y. University Institute on Postwar Reconstruction, 1946.

Pigou, A. C.: The Theory of Unemployment. Macmillan, 1933.

Pigou, A. C.: Employment and Equilibrium. Macmillan, 1941.

Plumptre, A. F. W.: Central Banking in the British Dominions. University of Toronto Press, 1940.

Robinson, Joan: Introduction to the Theory of Employment. Macmillan, 1937.

Roll, Erich: About Money. Faber and Faber, 1934.

Saulnier, R. J.: Contemporary Monetary Theory. Columbia University Press, 1938.

Schumpeter, J. A.: The Theory of Economic Development. Harvard University Press, 1934.

Shackle, G. L. S.: Expectations, Investment and Income, 1938.

Shepherd, Henry L.: The Monetary Experience of Belgium, 1914-1936. Princeton University Press, 1936.

Shirras and Rostas: The Burden of British Taxation. Macmillan, 1943.

Taus, E. R.: Central Banking Functions of the U. S. Treasury. Columbia University Press, 1945.

Timlin, Mabel: Keynesian Economics, 1942.

Thornton, Henry: An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1802). Farrar and Rinehart, 1939 (Introduction by Hayek).

Timoshenko, V.: World Agriculture and the Depression. University of Michigan, Bureau of Business Research, 1933.

Veblen, T.: Theory of Business Enterprise. Scribner’s, 1904.

Veblen, T.: The Engineers and the Price System. Huebsch, 1921.

Villard, H. H.: Deficit Spending and the National Income. Farrar and Rinehart, 1941.

Vineberg, P. F.: The French Franc and the Gold Standard. McGill University, 1938.

Westerfield, R. B.: Our Silver Debacle. Ronald Press, 1936.

Whittlesey, C. R.: (a) The Banking System and War Finance. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1943. (b) The Effect of War on Currency and Deposits. National Bureau, 1943. (c) Bank Liquidity and War. National Bureau, 1945.

Williams, J. H.: Argentine Trade under Inconvertible Paper. Harvard University Press, 1920.

Willis, H. P., and Beckhart, B. H.: Foreign Banking Systems. Holt, 1929.

Willis, J. B.: The Functions of the Commercial Banking System. New York: Kings Crown Press, 1943.

Wood, Elmer: English Theories of Central Banking Control, 1819-1858. Harvard University Press, 1939.

Youngman, A.: The Federal Reserve System in Wartime. National Bureau of Economic Research, 1945.

 

Articles:

Allen, Newcomer and Shoup: “Taxation Problems”, Am. Econ. Rev., June, 1945.

Anderson, B. M.: “Keynes and Morgenthau Foreign Exchange Stabilization Plans”, Bankers Magazine, May 1943.

Angell, J. W.: “The 100% Reserve Plan”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1935.

Angell, J. W.: “Foreign Exchange”, Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Volume 6.

Belae, W. T. M. Jr., Kennedy, M. T., and Winn, W. J.: “Commodity Reserve Currency,” Journal of Political Economy, August, 1942.

Benham, F.: “Wartime Control of Prices”, Economica, Feb. 1942.

Bennion, E. G.: “Unemployment and the Theories of Schumpeter and Keynes”, Am. Econ. Rev., June, 1943.

Bergson, A.: “Prices, Wages, and Income Theory”, Econometrica, July-October, 1942.

Beveridge, W. H.: “Underemployment in the Trade Cycle”, Economic Journal, March, 1939.

Bloomfield, A. I.: “The Mechanism of Adjustment of the American Balance of Payments: 1919-1929”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1943.

Bronfenbrenner, M.: The Role of Money in Equilibrium Capital Theory”, Econometrica, January, 1943.

Bronfenbrenner, M.: “Some Fundamentals in Liquidity Theory”, Quarterly Journal of Econ., May, 1945.

Clark, Colin: “The Determination of the Multiplier from National Income Statistics”, Economic Journal, September, 1938.

Copeland, M. A.: “The Capital Budget and the War Effort”, Am. Econ. Rev., March, 1943.

Currie, L.: “The Failure of Monetary Policy to Prevent the Depression of 1929-32”, Journal of Political Economy, April 1934.

Dolley, J. C.: “Ability of the Banking System to Absorb Government Bonds”, Journal of Political Economy, February, 1943.

Domar, E.: “The Burden of the Debt and the National Income”, Am. Econ. Rev., December, 1944.

Ebersole, J. F.: (a) “Banks can make more Postwar Jobs.” Harvard Business Review, Autumn, 1943. (b) “Government can Help Banks make more Jobs.” Harvard Business Review, Winter, 1944.

Eddy, George A.: “The Present Status of New Security Issues”, Review of Economic Statistics, August 1939.

Ellis, Howard: “Some Fundamentals in the Theory of Velocity”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 1939.

Ellis, Howard: “Notes on Recent Business-Cycle Literature”, Review of Economic Statistics, August, 1938.

Federal Reserve Bulletin: “The Money and Banking System in War-time, Dec., 1943.

Fellner, William: “Monetary Policies and Hoarding in Periods of Stagnation”, Journal of Political Economy, June 1943.

Freeman and Bans, “Saving and Spending Patterns”, Am. Econ. Rev., June, 1944.

Friedman, Milton and Poole, K. E.: “The Spendings Tax,” Am. Econ. Rev., March 1943.

Goodwin, R. M.: “Keynesian and Other Interest Theories”, Review of Economic Statistics, February, 1943.

Graham, Benjamin: “The Critique of Commodity-Reserve Currency: A Point-by-Point Reply”, Journal of Political Economy, February, 1943.

Graham, F. D.: “100% Reserves: Comment”, American Economic Review, June, 1941.

Graham, F. D.: Keynes vs. Hayek in a Commodity Reserve Currency”, Econ. Journal, Dec., 1944. (See also Note by Lord Keynes)

Graham, F. D.: “Commodity-Reserve Currency: A Criticism of the Critique”, Journal of Political Economy, February, 1943.

Hagen and Kirkpatrick, “The National Output at Full Employment in 1950”, Am. Econ. Rev., Sept., 1944.

Hart, A. G.: “Model Building and Fiscal Policy”, Am. Econ. Rev., September, 1945.

Harris, S. E.: “American Gold Policy and Allied War Economics”, Economic Journal, September, 1940.

Harrod R. F.: “An Essay in Dynamic Theory”, Economic Journal, March, 1939.

Hayek, F. A.: “A Commodity-Reserve Currency”, Economic Journal, June-Sept., 1943.

Hansen, Alvin H.: “Three Methods of Expansion through Fiscal Policy”, Am. Econ. Rev., June, 1945.

Hansen, Musgrave and Chamberlain, “Notes on Fiscal Policy”, Am. Econ. Rev., June, 1945.

Henderson, J. S.: “Regional Differentials in Interest Rates”, So. Econ. J., Oct., 1944.

Hinshaw, “American Prosperity and the British Balance of Payments Problem”, Rev. of Econ. Stat., Feb., 1945.

Hicks, J. R.: “Mr. Keynes’ Theory of Employment”, Economic Journal, June, 1936.

Hicks, J. R.: “The Monetary Theory of D. H. Robertson”, Economica, February, 1942.

Hicks, J. R.: “Maintaining Capital Intact”, Economica, May, 1942.

Hicks, J. R.: “Saving and the Rate of Interest in War-time,” The Manchester School of Econ. and Soc. Studies, April, 1941.

Holden, G. R.: “Mr. Keynes’ Consumption Function and the Time-Preference Postulate”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1938; see Keynes’ Reply, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1938.

Horsefield, J. K.: “Currency Devaluation and Public Finance, 1929-1937”, Economica, August, 1939.

Jacobi, N. H.: “Government Loan Agencies and Commercial Banking”, Supplement, Am. Econ. Rev., March, 1942.

Joseph, M F. W.: “The British White Paper on Employment Policy, Am. Econ. Rev., Sept., 1944.

Kaldor, Nicholas: “Capital Intensity and the Trade Cycle”, Economica, February, 1939.

Kaldor, Nicholas: “Stability and Full Employment”, Economic Journal, December, 1938.

Kalecki, M.: “The Short-Term Rate of Interest and Velocity of Cash Circulation”, Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1941.

Kalecki, M.: The Short-Term and the Long-Term Rate”, Oxford Economic Papers, No. 4, Sept., 1940.

Keynes, J. M.: “Alternative Theories of the Rate of Interest”, Economic Journal, June, 1937.

Keynes, J. M.: “The Objective of International Price Stability”, Economic Journal, June-September 1943.

Kondratieff, M. D.: “The Long Waves in Economic Life”, Review of Economic Statistics, November, 1935.

Lange, O.: “Is the American Economy Contracting”, Am. Econ. Rev., 1939, pp. 503-513.

Langer, H. C.: “Maintaining Full Employment”, Am. Econ. Rev. Dec., 1943.

Langum, J. K.: “The Statement of Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds”, Review of Economics Statistics, August, 1939.

Lanston, A. G.: “Crucial Problems of the Federal Debt”, Harvard Business Review, Winter, 1946.

Lehmann, Fritz: “One Hundred Per Cent Money”, Social Research, February, 1936.

Leland, S. E.: “Management of the Public Debt after the War”, Supplement, Am. Econ. Rev. June, 1944.

Leland, S. E.: “The Government, the Banks, and the Debt”, Commercial and Financial Chronicle, January 17, 1946.

Lerner, A. P.: “Mr. Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”, International Labour Review, October 1936 and November 1937.

Lerner, A. P.: “Saving Equals Investment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1938.

Lerner, A. P.: Alternative Formulations of the Theory of Interest,” Economic Journal, June, 1938.

Lerner, Lange, Curtis, Lutz: “Saving and Investment”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1939.

Lerner, Simons, Graham and Others: “Planning and Paying for Full Employment”, Int’l Postwar Problems, October, 1945 and January, 1946.

Leser, C. E. V.: “The Consumer’s Demand for Money”, Econometrica, April, 1943.

Long, C. D.: “Long Cycles in the Building Industry, 1856-1935”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1939.

Lusher, D. W.: “The Structure of Interest Rates and the Keynesian Theory of Interest”, Journal of Political Economy, April, 1942.

Lutz, F. A.: “The Interest Rate and Investment in a Dynamic Economy, “ Am. Econ. Rev., December, 1945.

Lutz, F. A.: “The Outcome of the Saving-Investment Discussion”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1938.

Lutz, F. A.: “Velocity Analysis and the Theory of the Creation of Deposits”, Economica, May 1939.

Machlup, F.: “Period Analysis and the Multiplier Theory”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1939.

Machlup, F.: “The Theory of Foreign Exchanges”, Economica, Nov., 1939.

Marget, A. W.: “The Monetary Aspects of the Walrasian System”, Journal of Political Economy, April 1935.

Marget, A. W.: “Leon Walras and the ‘Cash-Balance’ Approach to the Problem of the Value of Money”, Journal of Political Economy, October, 1931.

McLeod, G. N.: “The Financing of Employment Maintaining Expenditures”, Am. Econ. Rev., Sept., 1945.

Metzler, L. A.: “Underemployment Equilibrium in International Trade,” Econometrica, April, 1942.

Millikan, M.: “The Liquidity Preference Theory of Interest”, Am. Econ. Rev. 1938, pp. 247-260.

Millikan, M., and others: “General Interest Theory”, Am. Econ. Rev., Supplement, 1938, pp. 69-72.

Moonitz, Maurice: “The Risk of Obsolescence and the Importance of the Rate of Interest”, Journal of Political Economy, August, 1943.

Morgan, E. V.: “The Future of Interest Rates”, Economic Journal, Dec., 1944.

Morgan, Theodore: “Interest, Time Preference and the Yield of Capital”, Am. Econ. Rev., March, 1945.

Morgenstern, O. “On the International Spread of Business Cycles”, Journal of Pol. Econ., August, 1943.

Mosak, J.: “National Budgets and National Policy”, Am. Econ. Rev., March, 1946.

Nussbaum, A.: “The Meaning of Inflation”, Political Science Quarterly, March, 1943.

Ohlin, Robertson, Hawtrey: “Alternative Theories of the Rate of Interest: Three Rejoinders”, Economic Journal, September, 1937.

Ohlin, B.: Some Notes on the Stockholm Theory of Savings and Investment”, Economic Journal, March 1937, June, 1937.

Ohlin, B.: “Mechanism and Objectives of Exchange Control”, Supplement to American Economic Review, March 1937.

Palmer, P. F.: “The Control of Post-War Inflation”, Bulletin of National Tax Association, February, 1943.

Pierson, J. H. G.: “The Underwriting of Aggregate Consumer Spending as a Pillar of Full Employment Policy”, Am. Econ. Rev., March, 1944.

Pigou, A. C.: “The Classical Stationary State”, Econ. Journal, December, 1943, (See also comment by Kalecki in Economic Journal, April, 1944.)

Plumptre, A. F. W.: “Interest Rates and Bank Credit in the British Dominions”, Economic Journal, June, 1939.

Polak, J. J.: “Balance of Payment Problems of Countries Reconstructing with the Help of Foreign Loans”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1943.

Pumphrey, L. M.: “The Exchange Equalization Account of Great Britain”, American Economic Review, December, 1942.

Robinson, Joan: The Concept of Hoarding”, Economic Journal, June, 1938.

Robinson, Joan: “The International Currency Proposals”, Economic Journal, June-September, 1943.

Robinson, R. I.: “Money Supply and Liquid Asset Formation”, Am. Econ. Rev., March, 1946.

Salant, W. S.: “The Demand for Money and the Concept of Income Velocity”, Journal of Political Economy, June, 1941.

Samuelson, P.: “Interactions between the Multiplier Analysis and the Principle of Acceleration”, Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1939.

Samuelson, P.: “Dynamics, Statics, and the Stationary State”, Review of Economic Statistics, February, 1943.

Samuelson, P.: “Fiscal Policy and Income Determination”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1942.

Samuelson, P.: “The Rate of Interest under Ideal Conditions”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1939.

Savage, T. E.: “Banks and Consumer Credit”, Bankers Magazine, February, 1943.

Schumpeter, J. A.: “An Analysis of Economic Change”, Review of Economic Statistics, May, 1935.

Seltzer, L.H.: (a) “Direct versus Fiscal and Institutional Factors”, Supplement, Am. Econ. Rev., Feb., 1941. (b) “Postwar Domestic Monetary Problems”, Supplement, Am. Econ. Rev., March, 1944. (c) “The Changed Environment of Monetary and Banking Policy”, Supplement, Am. Econ. Rev. May, 1946.

Shapiro, S.: “The Distribution of Deposits and Currency in the United States, 1929-1939”, Journal of the American Statistical Association. Dec. 1943.

Shirras, G. F.: “The Position and Prospects of Gold,” Economic Journal, June-Sept., 1940.

Shoup, Carl: “Problems in War Finance”, Am. Econ. Rev., March, 1943.

Simmons, E. C.: “Treasury Deposits and Excess Reserves”, Journal of Political Economy, June, 1940.

Simons, H. C.: “Rules versus Authority in Monetary Policy”, Journal of Political Economy, February, 1936.

Simons, H. C.: “Hansen on Fiscal Policy”, Journal of Political Economy, April, 1942.

Smithies, A.: “The Quantity of Money and the Rate of Interest”, Review of Economic Statistics, February, 1943.

Smithies, A.: “The Behavior of Monetary National Income Under Inflationary Conditions”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1942.

Smithies, A.: “Full Employment in a Free Society”, Am. Econ. Rev. June, 1945.

Somers, H. M.: “Rules versus Authority in Monetary Policy”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1941.

Spere, Herbert, and Leavitt, John A.: “Inflation as a Post-War Problem”, Journal of Political Economy, August, 1943.

Stettner, W. F.: “Sir James Stewart on the Public Debt”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1945.

Stolper, W. F.: “Monetary Equilibrium and Business-Cycle Theory”, Review of Economic Statistics, February, 1943.

Stone, R.: “National Income in the United Kingdom and the United States of America,” Review of Economic Studies: Winter, 1942-43.

Stone, R.: “The National Income, Output, and Expenditure of U.S.A. 1929-41,” Economic Journal, June-Sept., 1942.

Viner, Jacob: “Mr. Keynes on the Causes of Unemployment: A Review” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1936.

Viner, Jacob: “Inflation: Menace or Bogey?” Yale Review: Summer, 1942.

Watkins, L. L.: “The Expansion Power of the English Banking System,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1938.

Whittlesey, C. R.: “Problems of Our Domestic Money and Banking System”, Supplement, Am. Econ. Rev., March, 1944.

Whittlesey, C. R.: “Reserve Requirements and the Integration of Credit Policies,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1944.

Williams, John H.: “The Adequacy of Existing Mechanisms under Varying Circumstances” Supplement to American Economic Review, March, 1937.

Williams, John H.: “Fiscal Policy and Preparedness”, Proceedings, Academy of Political Science, May, 1939.

Williams, John H.: “Economic and Monetary Aspects of the Defense Program”, Federal Reserve Bulletin, February, 1941.

Williams, John H.: “Economic Consequences of Deficit Financing”, Am. Econ. Rev., Supplement, 1940, pp. 52-66.

Williams, John H.: “The Keynes and White Plans”, Foreign Affairs, July, 1943.

Williams, John H., and Jacoby, N. H.: “The Changing Position of the Banking System and its Implications for Monetary Policy”, Supplement to American Economic Review, March, 1942.

Williams, R. S.: “Fiscal Policy and Propensity to Consume”, Econ. Journ., Dec., 1945.

Winn, Willis J.: Commodity-Reserve Currency: A Rejoinder”, Journal of Political Economy, April, 1943.

Wright, D. McC.: “The Future of Keynesian economics,” Am. Econ. Rev., June, 1945.

Wright, D. McC., “Moulton’s: The New Philosophy of Public Debt”, Am. Econ. Rev., Sept., 1943.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 4, Folder “Economics, 1946-47 (2 of 2)”.

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

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Graduate Money and Banking, Reading List, Final Exam. Williams and Goodwin, 1947

 

Today’s post is the second of three devoted to the year long graduate sequence “Principles of Money and Banking” taught by Alvin H. Hansen, John H. Williams, and Richard M. Goodwin (second semester) at Harvard in 1946-47.

The reading list for Econ 141b is transcribed below, along with the corresponding final examination questions. The previous post provided  transcriptions for the first semester’s list of readings and final examination (Econ 141a) and course enrollments in each semester. The next post will have the “General Reference Reading” list for both semesters.

____________________________

SECOND SEMESTER
ECONOMICS 141b: PRINCIPLES OF MONEY AND BANKING

III. International Monetary Equilibrium:

  1. Cassel, G., The Downfall of the Gold Standard (1936).
  2. Copland, Douglas, Australia in the World Crisis (1934).
  3. Ellis, H. S., Exchange Control in Central Europe (1941).
  4. Graham and Whittlesey, Golden Avalanche (1939).
  5. Hall, M. F., The Exchange Equalization Account (1935).
  6. Hahn, George, International Monetary Cooperation (1945).
  7. Hansen, Alvin, H., America’s Role in the World Economy (1945).
  8. Hardy, C. O., Is There Enough Gold (1936).
  9. Harris, S. E., Exchange Depreciation (1936).
  10. Harris, S.E., Economic Problems of Latin America (1944).
  11. Iverson, Carl, International Capital Movements (1936).
  12. Kindelberger, C. P., International Short-term Capital Movements (1937).
  13. League of Nations: Final Report on Gold (1932).
  14. League of Nations: Economic Fluctuations in the United States and the United Kingdom, 1918-22 (1942).
  15. Nurkse, R., International Currency Experience (1944).
  16. Warren and Pearson: (a) Gold and Prices (1935);
    (b) World Prices and the Building Industry (1937).
  17. Williams, John H., Postwar Monetary Plans (Second Edition, 1945)

IV. Monetary and Fiscal Policy:

  1. Beveridge, Sir William, Full Employment in a Free Society (1945).
  2. British White Paper on “Employment Policy” (1944).
  3. de Chazeau, Hart, and Others, Jobs and Markets (1946).
  4. Economics of Full Employment. Six Oxford Economists (1945).
  5. Fellner, W., Monetary Policies and Full Employment (1946).
  6. Financing American Prosperity, Twentieth Century Fund (1945).
  7. Groves, H. M.: (a) Production, Jobs and Taxes (1944).
    (b) Postwar Taxation and Economic Progress (1946).
  8. Hansen, Alvin, H., Economic Policy and Full Employment (1946).
  9. Harris, S. E., Postwar Economic Problems (1943).
  10. Harris, S. E., Economic Reconstruction (1945).
  11. Hayes, H. Gordon, Spending, Saving and Employment (1945).
  12. League of Nations: Anti-Depression Policy (1945).
  13. Langum, John K., Postwar Banking Problems (1946).
  14. Postwar Economic Studies No. 3, Public Finance and Full Employment (1945).
  15. Postwar Economic Studies No. 8, Federal Reserve Policy (1946).
  16. Ruml and Sonne, Fiscal and Monetary Policy (1944).
  17. Terborgh, George, The Bogey of Economic Maturity (1945).
  18. Williams, John H. Postwar Monetary Plans (Second Edition, 1945), Chapters 4, 5.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Alvin Harvey Hansen Papers. Box 1 of Lecture Notes and Other Course Material, Folder “Econs 141”. Also found in Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 4, Folder “Economics, 1946-47 (2 of 2)”.

____________________________

1946-47
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 141b

PRINCIPLES OF MONEY AND BANKING

(Three hours)

Discuss one question in each part.

I

  1. Your own appraisal of Keynes’ “General Theory.”
  2. The consumption function as a guide to monetary and fiscal policy.

 

II

  1. The treatment of the interest rate in modern monetary theory.
  2. Hayek’s criticism of the Foster and Catchings thesis.
  3. Hawtrey’s theory of the business cycle.

 

III

  1. The problem of international monetary and trade adjustment in the postwar world.
  2. One of the following:

(a) The International Monetary Fund;
(b) The International Bank for Reconstruction and development;
(c) The ITO Charter.

  1. Keynes’ paper on the “Balance of Payments of the United States,” Economic Journal, June, 1946.

 

Final. May, 1947.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations 1853-2001. Box 14. Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions…, Economics, … , Military Science, Naval Science, May, 1947.

Image Source: John H. Williams in Harvard Class Album, 1950.

 

Categories
Economists Fields Harvard

Harvard. Ph.D. Examination Candidates in Economics, 1913-1914

 

 

For seventeen Harvard economics Ph.D. candidates this posting provides information about their respective academic backgrounds, the six subjects of their general examinations along with the names of the examiners, the subject of their special subject, thesis subject and advisor(s) (where available).

________________________________________

 

DIVISION OF HISTORY AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF PH.D.
1913-14

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

 

Arnold Warburton Lahee.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, February 25, 1914.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Gay, Ripley, Anderson, and R. B. Perry.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1907-11; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-12, 1913—. A.B., Harvard, 1911; A.M. ibid., 1912. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1911-12; Professor of Economics, University of Vermont, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology. 4. Statistics. 5. Public Finance. 6. Philosophy.
Special Subject: Public Finance.
Thesis Subject: “Municipal Expenditures in Massachusetts.”

 

Rufus Stickney Tucker.

Special Examination in Economics, Thursday, April 30, 1914.
General Examination passed May 29, 1913.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1907-11; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-13. A.B., 1911; A.M., 1912. Assistant in Economics, 1913—.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory. 2. Statistics. 3. Money and Banking. 4. Economic History since 1750. 5. History of American Institutions. 6. Public Finance.
Special Subject: Public Finance.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Sprague and Day.
Thesis Subject: “The Incidence of Taxes on Real Estate.” (With Professor Bullock).
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Taussig, and Day.

 

John Ise.

Special Examination in Economics, Friday, May 1, 1914.
General Examination passed May 2, 1913.
Academic History: University of Kansas, 1904-11; Harvard Graduate School, 1911—. Mus.B., Kansas, 1908; A.B., ibid., 1910; LL.B., ibid., 1911; A.M., Harvard, 1912. Assistant in Economics, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Money, Banking, and Crises. 6. Jurisprudence.
Special Subject: Economics of Agriculture.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Turner, Gay, Carver, and James Ford.
Thesis Subject: “History of the Forestry Policy of the United States.”
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Turner, and R. T. Fisher.

 

Harry Rudolph Tosdal.

General Examination in Economics, Monday, May 4, 1914.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Taussig, Bullock, Sprague, and Holcombe.
Academic History: St. Olaf College, 1906-09; Universities of Berlin and Leipsic, 1911-12; Harvard Graduate School, 1913 (Jan.)—. S.B., St. Olaf College, 1909. Assistant in Economics, 1913.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Public Finance. 3. Economic History since 1750. 4. Transportation. 5. Municipal Government. 6. Industrial Organization.
Special Subject: Industrial Organization.
Thesis Subject: “The German Kartell Movement.” (With Professor Ripley.)

 

Robert Campbell Line.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 6, 1914.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Turner, Ripley, Day, and Anderson.
Academic History: University of Montana, 1906-10; Harvard Graduate School, 1910-12. A.B., Montana, 1910; A.M. Harvard, 1911. Instructor in Economics, Mt. Holyoke College, 1912—.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory. 2. Sociology. 3. Agricultural Economics. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 6. History of American Institutions since 1789.
Special Subject: Agricultural Economics.
Thesis Subject: “The Meat Supply of the United States.” (With Professor Carver.)

 

William Clifford Clark.

General Examination in Economics, Thursday, May 7, 1914.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Gay, Ripley, Munro, and Anderson.
Academic History: Queen’s University, 1906-12; Harvard Graduate School, 1912—. A.M., Queen’s, 1910. Tutor in Latin, Queen’s, 1910-12.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology. 4. Modern Government. 5. International Trade and Tariff Policy. 6. Labor Problems.
Special Subject: International Trade and Tariff Policy.
Thesis Subject: “The Canadian Grain Trade.”

 

Harley Leist Lutz.

Special Examination in Economics, Friday, May 8, 1914.
General Examination passed May 14, 1909.
Academic History: Oberlin College, 1904-07; Harvard Graduate School, 1907-09. A.B., Oberlin, 1907; A.M., Harvard, 1908. Austin Teaching Fellow, Harvard, 1908-09; Sheldon Travelling Fellow, 1911-12; Associate Professor of Economics, Oberlin, 1909—.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History to 1750, with special reference to England. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. 5. Public Finance and Financial History. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Sprague, and Day.
Thesis Subject: “State Control over the Assessment of Property, with special reference to the State Tax Commissions.” (With Professor Bullock.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Bullock, Day, and Holcombe.

 

Louis August Rufener.

General Examination in Economics, Monday, May 11, 1914.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Bullock, Gay, Munro, and Anderson.
Academic History: University of Kansas, 1907-12; Harvard Graduate School, 1912—. A.B., Kansas, 1911; A.M. ibid., 1912. Assistant in Economics, 1913—.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology. 4. Public Finance. 5. Labor Problems. 6. Municipal Government.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Thesis Subject: “The Work of the Massachusetts State Board of Conciliation and Arbitration.” (With Professor Ripley.)

 

Homer Bews Vanderblue.

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

 

Eugene Mark Kayden.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 13, 1914.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Bullock, Gay, Ripley, and R. B. Perry.
Academic History: University of Colorado, 1908-12; Harvard Graduate School, 1912-13; Princeton Graduate School, 1913—. A.B., Colorado, 1912; A.M. Harvard, 1913.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Money and Banking. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Philosophy. 6. Labor Problems and Labor History.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Thesis Subject: “The Labor Movement in the United States, 1890-1912.” (With Professors Taussig and Ripley.)

 

Percy Gamble Kammerer.

General Examination in Economics (Social Ethics), Thursday, May 14, 1914.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Day, Anderson, Foerster, and R. B. Perry.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1904-06, 1910-12; Harvard Graduate School, 1913(Feb.)—. A.B., 1908 (1913).
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Ethical Theory. 3. Poor Relief. 4. Social Reforms. 5. Sociology. 6. The Labor Questions.
Special Subject: Sociology.
Thesis Subject: (undecided).

 

Hermann Franklin Arens.

General Examination in Economics, Friday, May 15, 1914.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Sprague, Anderson, Foerster, and Yerkes.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1903-06; Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, 1906-08; General Theological Seminary, New York, 1908-09; Harvard Graduate School, 1912—. A.B., Harvard, 1907; A.M. ibid., 1913. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1912-13; Assistant in Social Ethics, 1913—.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Sociology. 3. Socialism and Labor Problems. 4. Philosophy. 5. Agricultural Economics. 6. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.
Special Subject: Sociology.
Thesis Subject: (undecided).

 

Yamato Ichihashi.

Special Examination in Economics, Monday, May 18, 1914.
General Examination passed May 1, 1912.
Academic History: Leland Stanford Junior University, 1904-08; Harvard Graduate School, 1910-12. A.B., Stanford, 1907; A.M., ibid., 1908. Assistant in Economics, Stanford, 1908-10; Instructor in History and Government, ibid., 1913—.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Statistics. 5. Anthropology. 6. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Committee: Professors Ripley (chairman), Taussig, Bullock, James Ford, and Foerster.
Thesis Subject: “Emigration from Japan, and Japanese Immigration into the State of California.” (With Professor Ripley)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Ripley, Turner, and Carver.

 

Frederic Ernest Richter.

General Examination in Economics, Monday, May 18, 1914.
Committee: Professors Sprague (chairman), Turner, Gay, Day, and Anderson.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1909-13; Harvard Graduate School, 1913—. A.B., 1913. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1912—.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Statistics. 4. Money, Banking and Commercial Crises. 5. Economics of Corporations. 6. History of American Institutions since 1783.
Special Subject: Economics of Corporations.
Thesis Subject: “Underwriting and Marketing Securities in the United States and England.” (With Professor Sprague.)

 

Wesley Everett Rich.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 20, 1914.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Turner, Gay, Foerster, and Mr. W. C. Fisher.
Academic History: Wesleyan University, 1907-11; Harvard Graduate School, 1911—. A.B., Wesleyan, 1911; A.M. ibid., 1912. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology. 4. Public Finance. 5. Labor Problems and Socialism. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Public Finance.
Thesis Subject: “The History of the United States Post Office.”

 

Ralph Cahoon Whitnack.

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, May 20, 1914.
Committee: Professors Taussig (chairman), Ripley, Sprague, Day, and Anderson.
Academic History: Brown University, 1902-06; Harvard Graduate School, 1909-11, 1913—; Universities of Paris and Munich, 1912-13. A.B., Brown, 1906; A.M., Harvard, 1911. Austin Teaching Fellow in Economics, 1910-11; Instructor in Economics, Brown, 1911-12.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Money, Banking, and Crises. 4. Transportation and Foreign Commerce. 5. Ethics. 6. Sociology.
Special Subject: Theories of Distribution.
Thesis Subject: “Social Stratification.” (With Professors Taussig and Anderson.)

 

Johann Gottfried Ohsol.

Special Examination in Economics, Monday, May 25, 1914.
General Examination passed May 6, 1911.
Academic History: Polytechnic Institute of Riga, 1899-1903; Harvard Graduate School, 1909-11, 1912-13. Candidate in Commerce, Riga, 1903; A.M., Harvard, February, 1914.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology and Social Reform. 4. Public Finance and Financial History. 5. Labor Problems and Industrial Organization. 6. History of American Institutions.
Special Subject: Labor Problems.
Committee: Professors Gay (chairman), Ripley, Foerster, and Holcombe.
Thesis Subject: “The Recent Agrarian Movement in Russia and its Historical Background.” (With Professor Gay.)
Committee on Thesis: Professors Gay, Ripley, and Wiener.

 

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

Image Source: Harvard Yard (between 1913 and 1920). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

 

Categories
Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Principles of Economics. Enrollment, Staffing, Readings, 1947-48

 

The previous post provided transcriptions of the mid-year and end-year final examinations for Harvard’s principles of economics course for the academic year 1947-48. The second-term examination included over fifty multiple choice questions, which appears to me to be the first use of that examination format in the Harvard economics department. Today’s post gives additional information for the course: the course announcements, staffing, enrollment and reading lists. Should I ever come across the printed Course Syllabus: Economics A, I will try to get at least portions of it transcribed.

_____________________________

Course Announcements

Economics Aa. Principles of Economics

Half-course (fall term). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Depending on enrolment, sections will also be arranged at other hours. Radcliffe sections will meet Tu., Th., Sat., at 11 and at such other times as the enrolment may justify.
Professor Burbank, Assistant Professor Bradley, Dr. Papandreou, and other Members of the Department.

Economics Aa may be taken by properly qualified Freshmen with the consent of the instructor.

Economics Ab. Principles of Economics

Half-course (spring term). Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Depending on enrolment, sections will also be arranged at other hours. At Radcliffe Tu., Th., Sat., at 11 and at such other times as the enrolment may justify.
Professor Burbank, Assistant Professor Bradley, Dr. Papandreou, and other Members of the Department.

Economics Aa is a prerequisite for this course.

 

Source: Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences during 1947-48, published in Official Register of Harvard University , Vol. XLIV, No. 25 (September 9, 1947), p. 69.

_____________________________

Course Enrollments and Staffing

[Economics] Aa. Professor Burbank, Assistant Professor Bradley, and Messrs. Brecher, Campbell, M.G. Clark, Duesenberry, Farrell, Fels, Ferguson, Garbarino, Heany, Hunter, Kahn, Meredith, Passer, Powelson, Schelling, Thompson, Ulman.—Principles of Economics (F).

Total 834: 1 Graduate, 52 Seniors, 134 Juniors, 453 Sophomores, 184 Freshmen, 10 Other.

 

[Economics] Ab. Professor Burbank, Assistant Professor Bradley, and Messrs. Brecher, Campbell, M.G. Clark, P. Clark, Cochrane, Eckley, Farrell, Fels, Ferguson, Garbarino, Heany, Hirchleiger, Hunter, Kahn, McClelland, Margolis, Meredith, Morgan, Passer, Powelson, Reynolds, Thompson, Ulman.—Principles of Economics (Sp).

Total 747: 1 Graduate, 57 Seniors, 209 Juniors, 358 Sophomores, 109 Freshmen, 13 Other.

 

Source: Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1947-48,p. 89.

_____________________________

Course Readings

ECONOMICS Aa
Fall, 1947

Benham and Lutz Economics, American Edition (1941)
Bowman and Bach Economic Analysis and Public Policy (1944)
*Chandler, L. V. A Preface to Economics (1947)
*Federal Reserve System Federal Reserve Charts on Bank Credit, Money Rates and Business
Federal Reserve System Its Purposes and Functions (1939)
Luthringer, Chandler and Cline Money, Credit, and Finance (1938)
*Staff Members Syllabus: Economics A

*To be purchased by the students.

 

PART I. INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMICS (1 week)
A. THE INSTITUTIONAL BACKGROUND
Chandler, Ch. 1, The Scope of Economics 16
Chandler, Ch. 2, Production and Exchange; Their Meaning and Structure 21
Chandler, Ch. 3, Technology and Economics 28
Chandler, Ch. 4, Business Firms 29
Chandler, Ch. 5, Some Implications of the Industrial Revolution 14
103
B. THE COORDINATION OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY
Chandler, Ch. 8, The Social Control of Economic Processes 20
Chandler, Ch. 9, Laissez-Faire and Competition 18
Chandler, Ch. 10, Competitive Control of Rationing, Price and Production 19
57
PART II. THE NATIONAL INCOME, MONEY, AND PRICES
A. THE NATIONAL INCOME
Syllabus, The National Economy

Ch. 1, National Income

 48
48
B. MONEY
Syllabus, The National Economy
Ch. 2, Nature and Functions of Money 4
Ch. 3, The Existing Supply of Money in the United States 1
Ch. 4, The Banking System of the United States 9
Ch. 5, The Federal Reserve Banks and the Money Supply 4
Luthringer, Ch. 6, Quantitative Control of Bank Credit
Fed. Res. System
Ch. 1, A General Outline of the Federal Reserve System 12
Ch. 2, The Service Functions of the Federal Reserve Banks 14
Ch. 7, Federal Reserve Powers and Limitations 11
Ch. 8, Member Bank Reserves and Related Items 9
81
C. MONEY, PRICES AND THE NATIONAL INCOME
Syllabus, The National Economy

Ch. 6, Money, Prices, and the National Income

 41
41
PART III. MARKET DETERMINATION OF THE RELATIVE PRICE OF CONSUMER GOODS AND SERVICES (4 weeks)
A. MARKETS
Benham, Ch. 2, Markets, omit Appendix A. 21
B. CONSUMER DEMAND
Benham, Ch. 3, Demand 16
Benham, Ch. 4, Price with a Fixed Demand, pp. 71-74 4
Benham, Ch. 5, Changes in Demand 11
31
C. THE BUSINESS FIRM—COST AND REVENUE
Bowman and Bach, Ch. 4, The Unit of Business Enterprise 15
Syllabus, Value
Ch. 1, Problems of the Firm 17
Ch. 2, Problems of Production, Real Input and Real Output 16
Ch. 3, Problems of Production: Money Costs and Money Returns 18
66
D. THE INDUSTRY—DEMAND AND SUPPLY
Bowman and Bach
Ch. 14, Pure Competition and the Law of Supply and Demand 9
Ch. 15, The Firm and Short-run Market Adjustments, pp. 216-220 4
Ch. 16, Long-run Price and Output Adjustments 14
27
E. MODIFICATIONS OF COMPETITION
Chandler, Ch. 12, Competition Today 27
PART IV. PUBLIC CONTROL OF MARKETS (2 weeks)
Bowman and Bach
Ch. 26, Foundations of Power 29
Ch. 27, Some Monopolistic Price Policies 17
Ch. 28, Public Policy Attacking Restraints of Trade in Business 18
Ch. 29, Public Utility Regulation 21
Ch. 56, Agriculture: A Case Study 31
Chandler, Ch. 13, Laissez-Faire Today 21
137

 

ECONOMICS Ab
Spring 1948

Benham and Lutz Economics, American Edition (1941)
Bowman and Bach Economic Analysis and Public Policy (1944)
Committee for Economic Development Taxes and the Budget
*Hoover, C. B. International Trade an Domestic Employment
*League of Nations Economic Stability in the Post-War World (1945)
Slichter, S. H. Basic Criteria Used in Wage Negotiations
Slichter, S. H. Trade Unions in a Free Society
*Staff Members Syllabus: Economics A
Twentieth Century Fund How Collective Bargaining Works
Williamson and Harris Trends in Collective Bargaining
Witte, Edwin Labor-Management Relations Under Taft-Hartely Act
*U.S. Dept. of Commerce The United States in the World Economy

*To be purchased by the students.

 

PART V. THE MARKETS FOR FACTOR SERVICES
(15 sessions including Part VI)
A. PRINCIPLES GOVERNING FACTOR COMBINATIONS
Review Syllabus: VALUE
Ch. I—Problems of the Firm 16
Ch. II—Problems of Production 16
Ch. III—Problems of Production 18
50
B. GENERAL THEORY OF DISTRIBUTION
Syllabus: DISTRIBUTION
Ch. I—Definitions 3
Ch. II—General Theory of Distribution 15
Benham & Lutz
Ch. 18: Rent 13
Ch. 17: Interest 31
62
C. PERSONAL DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME
Class Discussion: No assignment
PART VI LABOR ORGANIZATION AND LABOR MARKET
Bowman & Bach
Ch. 30: History and Philosophy of Trade Unionism 16
Williamson & Harris
Ch. 1: What is Collective Bargaining 8
Ch. 2: Bargaining Agencies for the Workers 11
Ch. 3: Employer Bargaining Agencies 11
Ch. 4: Union Recognition 14
Ch. 5: Collective Agreements 11
Ch. 6: Wages 17
Slichter
Sections I and II: Basic Criteria Used in Wage Negotiations 34
20th Century Fund
How Collective Bargaining Works 47
Slichter
Trade Unions in a Free Society 31
Witte
Labor-Management Relations Under the Taft-Hartley Act 22
222
PART VII. INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF MARKETS AND FINANCE
(7 sessions)
Benham & Lutz
Ch. 25: The Theory of International Trade 22
Ch. 26: Balances of Payments 10
Ch. 27: Free Exchange Rates 10
Ch. 28: The Gold Standard 22
Ch. 29: Exchange Control 8
Ch. 30: Import Duties and Quotes 9
The United States in the World Economy
Summary and Recommendations 26
Ch. 1: The Setting of the Problem 9
Hoover
Ch. 1: The Determination of National Policy and National Trade 17
Ch. 2: The International Monetary Fund 16
Ch. 3: The Problem of International Loans and Investments 19
Ch. 4: The Newer Forms of Trade Barriers 15
Ch. 5: Our Tariff Policy 15
198
PART VIII. PUBLIC FINANCE AND THE ECONOMIC PROBLEM
(7 sessions)
Bowman & Bach
Ch. 46: Introduction to the Public Economy 11
Ch. 47: Public Expenditures 13
Ch. 48: Public Revenues: Taxation 26
Ch. 49: Taxation (continued) 29
C.E.D., Taxes and the Budget
II. Tax Program for Nineteen-Fifty-X 25
III. Tax Policy for 1948 5
Bowman & Bach
Ch. 50: Fiscal Policy and the National Income 18
Ch. 51: Social Security 16
143
PART IX. PROSPERITY AND DEPRESSION
(7 sessions)
Section I: The Nature of Depressions
League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World
Ch. 1: The Nature of Depression 16
Ch. 2: Types of Depression 5
Bowman & Bach
Ch. 44: General Business Fluctuations 24
League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World
Ch. 4: The Strategic Role of Investment 26
Ch. 5: Depressions and Primary Production 11
Ch. 6 International Spread of Booms and Depressions 23
125
Section II: Anti-Depression Policies
League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World
Ch. 7: Regulation of Total Expenditure 9
Ch. 8: Constituents of national Expenditures 6
Ch. 9: Private Consumption Expenditure 10
Ch. 10: Private Investment 17
Ch. 11: Credit Policy and the Stabilization of Total Expenditure 10
Ch. 12: Public Expenditure and Fiscal Policy 26
Ch. 13: Foreign Investment 12
Ch. 14: Employment and Inflation 14
104

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1). Box 4, Folder “1947-48, (1 of 2)”.

Image Source:  Harold H. Burbank in Harvard Class Album, 1934.

 

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

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

 

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

_____________________

1947-48
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS Aa

 I.
(One hour and a half)

Answer BOTH questions

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

II.
(One hour and a half)

Answer any THREE questions

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

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

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

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

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

Final. January, 1948.

 

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

_____________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
THIS EXAMINATION PAPER MUST BE RETURNED TO THE PROCTOR

ECONOMICS Ab
May 17, 1948

 

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

 

PART I

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

PART II

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

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

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

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

 

PART III

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

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

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

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

 

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

Final. May, 1948.

_____________________

 

1947-48
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

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

I
(Forty minutes)

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

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

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

 

Final. May, 1948.

 

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

Categories
Economists Harvard Kansas

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

 

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

_________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JOHN ISE
MEMORIES OF MY FATHER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

_________________________________

Excerpt from Edward S. Mason’s Autobiography

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

_________________________________

Kansapedia article
[Yes, there is a Kansapedia]

John C. Ise

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

_________________________________

From: John Ise Papers at the University of Kansas

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

Categories
Chicago Economists Harvard Yale

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

 

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

___________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

ON LLOYD METZLER
by Evsey D. Domar

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

[Excerpts]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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