Category: Johns Hopkins

Categories
Economist Market Economists Johns Hopkins Yale

Yale. Evsey Domar’s Letter of Support for Promotion of Thomas Schelling to Full Professorship, 1957

For anyone whose experience in academic hiring and promotions has only been acquired over the past several decades, it might come as a shock that outside letters to support a department’s vote to offer a full professorship back in the 1950s would hardly exceed the length of a very modest thread of tweets today. To be honest, a thumbs-up emoji would have been an adequate response to Yale’s request for Evsey Domar’s opinion on the work of Thomas C. Schelling. 

Since the two letters transcribed for this post are so short, I figure that this is as good an opportunity as any to add a brief bio written for the 1962 Radcliffe Yearbook. The poor quality of the yearbook image is a pity, but at least we have a classic Harvard professorial pose complete with a bow-tie and a cigarette held à la Madmen.

_____________________________

From the 1962 Radcliffe Yearbook

THOMAS C. SCHELLING, Professor of Economics, graduated from high school just after the Great Depression. Upon entering the University of California in Berkeley, he decided to major in economics: “Somehow I felt that the social conflicts, the severe poverty, even the problems of war, were partly solvable by a knowledge of economics.” He graduated with an A.B. in 1944 and got his Ph.D. at Harvard in 1951.

Professor Schelling’s varied career background includes two years with the Marshall Plan (in Copenhagen and in Paris, 1948-50); Associate Economic Adviser to the Special Assistant to the President (1950-51); Officer-in-charge, European Program Affairs, Office of the Director for Mutual Security, Executive Office of the President (1951-53); Yale University (1953-58); the RAND Corporation (1958-59). He has been at Harvard since 1959, on the faculty and says, “Harvard students are more interesting to teach than those at Yale.”

Primarily interested in the relationship between economics and national security, Professor Shelling recently collaborated on Strategy and Arms Control, published in 1961. Other works include National Economic Behavior, International Economics, and numerous articles in various periodicals.

Although teaching and consultation in foreign policy (he is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board, U.S. Air Force) take up most of his time, Professor Shelling is now turning his research interests to the problems of bargaining and conflict management, particularly as these problems affect foreign affairs.) Professor Schelling feels that, although a nuclear test moratorium would be a good thing, test bans without some system of control or inspection are unworkable. Furthermore, he feels that cessation of tests alone is not a potent form of disarmament. As for the testing itself, we don’t really know whether testing is necessarily harmful.

Source: The 1962 Radcliffe Yearbook, p. 91.

_____________________________

Yale Requests Domar’s Opinion of Schelling

Yale University
Department of Economics
New Haven, Connecticut

Lloyd G. Reynolds, Chairman

February 18, 1957

Professor Evsey Domar
Department of Political Economy
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore 15, Maryland

Dear Evsey:

The Department here has voted to promote Thomas C. Schelling to the rank of Professor of Economics. We are now about to begin putting the appointment through the regular committee procedures. It is customary at this stage to invite a number of leading scholars in other institutions to appraise the qualifications of the candidate. I should be grateful if you could take time to write me your impression of Schelling—the quality of his thinking and scholarship, his probably contribution to economics over the long run, his professional standing in comparison with other men of about his own age, and his general suitability for a professorship here.

We shall value your judgment and I am sure will find it helpful in putting the matter before our faculty for action.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Lloyd

LGR/shd

_____________________________

Copy of Domar’s Response

25 February 1957

Professor Lloyd G. Reynolds
Chairman
Department of Economics
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Lloyd:

This is in response to your letter of February 18 regarding the qualifications of Thomas C. Schelling.

I have known him approximately since 1944 or 1945 and have read most of his writings. He is an exceptionally capable young man, endowed with creative intelligence and with common sense. I have the highest opinion of him as an economist and great hopes regarding his contribution to economics.

In comparison with other men of his age he stands out very close to the top. I would support his promotion most wholeheartedly.

Sincerely yours,

Evsey D. Domar
Professor of Political Economy
The Johns Hopkins University
(on leave, spring term, 1956-57)

EDD:am

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Evsey D. Domar Papers, Box 8, Folder “Yale University (1 of 2)”.

Image Source: Thomas Schelling portrait, 1964. Harvard University. Office of News and Public Affairs. Hollis Images olvwork369281.

Categories
Exam Questions Johns Hopkins Undergraduate

Johns Hopkins. Undergraduate economics examinations, 1921-1922

 

Mid-year and year-end exams for the undergraduate political economy courses at Johns Hopkins for the academic year 1921-1922 have been transcribed for this post. Exams for the second semester of Political Economy V and VI were not found in the department’s file of old examinations. Names of instructors with their educational backgrounds along with short course descriptions are provided below as well.

_______________________________

Previous years’ exams transcribed

Undergraduate exams for 1919-20.

Undergraduate exams for 1922-23.

Undergraduate exams for 1923-24.

_______________________________

Johns Hopkins Faculty 1921-22
For Undergraduate Courses in Political Economy

Weyforth, William Oswald, Ph.D., Associate in Political Economy.

A.B., Johns Hopkins University, 1912, and Ph.D., 1915; Instructor, Western Reserve University, 1915-17.

Mitchell, Broadus, Ph.D., Instructor in Political Economy.

A.B., University of South Carolina, 1913; Fellow, Johns Hopkins University, 1916-17, and Ph.D., 1918.

Barnett, George Ernest, Ph.D., Professor of Statistics.

A.B., Randolph-Macon College, 1891; Fellow, John Hopkins University, 1899-1900, and Ph.D., 1901.

Jacobs, Theo, A.B., Associate in Social Economics.

A.B., Goucher College, 1901; Federated Charities of Baltimore (District Assistant, 1905-07, District Secretary, 1907-10, Assistant General Secretary, 1910-17, Acting General Secretary, 1917-19).

Sources:

Academic Rank  in 1921-22 from The Johns Hopkins University Circular, New Series 1922, No. 7. Report of the President of the University 1920-1921  (November 1922), p. 70.

Academic biographical data from The Johns Hopkins University Circular, University Register 1922-1923, No. 342, January 1923. Announcements for 1923-1924.

_______________________________

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
1921-22

Political Economy I. Three hours weekly, through the year. In the first half-year the economic development of England and the industrial experience of the United States were studied. In the second half-year particular attention was given to the history of distribution and its application to leading economic problems. (Dr. Weyforth and Dr. Mitchell.)

Political Economy II. Three hours weekly, through the year. In the first half-year a preliminary study of the value and place of statistics as an instrument of investigation was made; attention was directed to the chief methods used in statistical inquiry. In the second half-year the principles of monetary· science were taught with reference to practical conditions in modern systems of currency, banking and credit. (Professor Barnett and Dr. Weyforth.)

Political Economy IV. Three hours weekly, through the year. In the first half-year the problems growing out of modern industrial employment were studied. In the second half-year the history of the industrial corporation was studied. (Professor Barnett and Dr. Mitchell.)

Political Economy VI. Three hours weekly, through the year. In the first half-year the applications of statistics to business and economic problems, such as price levels, cost of living, wage adjustments, business cycles, and business forecasting, were considered. In the second half-year the theory and practice of finance was considered, with particular reference to the problems of taxation presented in the experience of the United States. (Dr. Weyforth and Dr. Mitchell.)

Political Economy VII. Two hours weekly, through the year. History and development of social work. The responsibility of the State and private organizations toward the dependent, defective, and delinquent. (Miss Theo Jacobs.)

Source:  The Johns Hopkins University Circular, New Series 1922, No. 7. Report of the President of the University 1921-1922  (November 1922), pp. 56-57.

_______________________________

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
POLITICAL ECONOMY I
(Academic Section)

January 30, 1922 — 2-5 P.M.

  1. What was the economic situation of England during the Roman occupation?
  2. Describe the economic strength and weakness of the manorial system, and show how the feudal plan suggests the Single Tax scheme.
  3. What elements in gild life would be welcome in our present industrial order, and what elements of the medieval arrangement would be impossible with us at present?
  4. Tell what you know of trading in England in the middle ages.
  5. Suppose half the people of the United States should die inside of two or three years. What would be the chief economic consequences?
  6. Trace the gradually developing economic freedom of the lowest order of workers in England. Did peasants benefit more from the breaking up of the manorial system, or journeymen and apprentices from the collapse of the gilds?
  7. What was the economic condition of England on the eve of the Industrial Revolution?
  8. What is the significance of the Industrial Revolution? How did the factor system differ from the factory system?
  9. Define briefly: enclosures, Peasants’ revolt, Gresham’s Law, Steelyard, steward, serf or villein, apprentice, domestic system, Doomsday Book, Statute of Artificers, staple, virgate.
  10. What is the chief thing you have learned in this semester?

 

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
EXAMINATION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY I
(Academic Section)

Wednesday, May 31 — 2-5 P.M.

  1. What distinction would you draw between history, political science, and political economy? Explain fully.
  2. What facts in the industrial history of England illustrate economic principles that we have dwelt upon?
  3. Define: Wealth, capital, labor, time discount, wages of superintendence, consumer’s surplus, real wages, economic good, marginal productivity, entrepreneur.
  4. Explain carefully the differential principle of rent. With whose name do we link this theory, and how did Henry George employ the law of rent to justify the Single Tax?
  5. What was the wage-fund theory, and how was it used to discourage trade unionism?
  6. Comment fully on this passage from Adam Smith: “Nothing is more useful than water; but it will purchase scarce anything; scarce anything can be had in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use, but a very great quantity of goods may frequently be had in exchange for it.”
  7. What accounts for the phenomenon of interest?
  8. What is meant by pure profit?
  9. Comment upon the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in declaring the national act imposing a 10% tax on the net profits of industries employing children unconstitutional.
  10. Give, briefly, as many arguments as you can for and against trade unionism?
  11. State the number of firms interviewed by you in connection with the survey of the industrial life of the Negro in Baltimore.

RE-EXAMINATION
POLITICAL ECONOMY I.
[Handwritten note: Late June 1922]

  1. Define the following terms: “entrepreneur”, “marginal utility”, “capital”, “labor”, “diminishing returns”.
  2. Explain fully the differential principle of rent.
  3. Name and describe briefly four theories of wages.
  4. What in your judgment is the best justification for trade unions?
  5. What seems to you the most reasonable theory of interest?
  6. Explain the theory of value to which most emphasis was given in the lecture.

_______________________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY 1.
Dr. Weyforth

Monday — January 30, 1922 — Afternoon.

  1. Describe the chief characteristics of the economic life of the towns in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
  2. What was the industrial revolution? What new conditions and what problems in economic life resulted from it?
  3. Define the following terms: goods, free goods, economic exchange value, price,
  4. Explain the underlying principles of “scientific management” in production. State and explain the attitude of organized labor toward scientific management.
  5. Explain how market price is determined under conditions of competition. What is the relationship between market price and expenses of production?
  6. Describe the principal forms of combination that have been used in the United States. Outline the main features of Federal legislation concerning combinations.
  7. What is meant by standard money? What are the requirements of a bimetallic standard? Outline the main features of the monetary legislation of the United States.
  8. What is a corporation? How is it brought into existence? What are its advantages as compared with the partnership or individual enterprise? Describe the principal securities through the issue of which its capital is obtained.

 

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
POLITICAL ECONOMY 1
(Engineering Group)

[N.B. falsely filed as a 1923 exam]

Wednesday, May 31.

  1. Define the various types of credit. Explain how bank credit serves as a substitute for money as a medium of exchange,
  2. Explain the factors that a bank officer takes into consideration in judging of the credit standing of a borrower,
  3. What is the fallacy involved in the mercantilist theory of the desirability of a favorable balance of trade?
  4. Explain the theory that each factor in production tends to receive a share of the product corresponding to its marginal productivity.
  5. What is interest? Give an analysis of the forces that determine its rate.
  6. How do you account for inequalities in the personal distribution of wealth? Why is less inequality desirable? How could it be effected?
  7. What are some of the outstanding economic characteristics of railroad transportation? Explain their bearing upon the following: (a) practice of charging what the traffic will bear; (b) large variations in net earnings with small variations in traffic; (c) cut-throat nature of competition that sometimes develops.
  8. What is socialism? Give briefly the arguments for and against

_______________________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY II.

Thursday, February 2, 1922 — 9-12 A.M.

  1. What is the distinction between a census and a registration?
  2. Define an average. Illustrate by defining the arithmetic mean, the mode and the median.
  3. Define an index number. Explain the difference between the aggregate and the relative methods of constructing an index number.
  4. Taking the following group of figures calculate the standard deviation:
Height of men No. in Class
5.6 — 5.7 28
5.7 — 5.8 42
5.8 — 5.9 65
5.9 — 5.10 78
5.10 — 5.11 164
5.11 — 6.0 92
6.0 — 6.1 46
6.1 — 6.2 7
  1. For the same group, calculate the mode.
  2. For the same group, calculate the mean.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
POLITICAL ECONOMY II
Money and Banking
Dr. Weyforth

Friday, June 2

  1. What is bimetallism? What are the chief requisites of a bimetallic standard? What principles do the bimetallists depend for maintaining the concurrent circulation of gold and silver?
  2. Define credit. What are the various kinds of credit? Distinguish especially the difference between investment credit and mercantile or commercial credit?
  3. What is the function of the commercial paper house or note broker in present day commercial banking?
  4. What is (a) a trade acceptance and (b) a bank acceptance? Explain their use and advantages.
  5. What problems are presented to bankers (a) by seasonal fluctuations in business and (b) by cyclical fluctuations in business?
  6. Describe the organization of the Federal Reserve System.
  7. In what way does the Federal Reserve System provide for elasticity in currency and elasticity in credit?
  8. What is the principle that governs the distribution of gold among the nations of the world under normal conditions such as those existing before the war?

_______________________________

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
POLITICAL ECONOMY IV
(Labor Problems)

February 2, 1922 — 9 A.M.-12M.

  1. What are the principal reasons for believing that trade unionism and employers’ associations did not originate in the medieval gilds?
  2. State in some detail who Francis Place was and explain his service to trade unionism.
  3. What present-day evidences have we of the spirit which characterized the English combination acts?
  4. State the arguments for and against the “closed shop”.
  5. What do you know of the history of strikes?
  6. Give your estimate of the purposes and progress of workers’ education in England and in the United States?
  7. In the light of what you have learned, do you believe compulsory arbitration likely to promote industrial peace? What would you make the main provisions of a compulsory arbitration law could such be passed by congress?
  8. Speak of the trade agreement and its significance.
  9. Describe briefly one of the books you read during this course.
  10. What do you think will be the next important development in the labor movement in this country?
  11. List the books you have read for this course.

 

EXAMINATION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY IV.

Friday, June 2nd, 1922, (3-5 p.m.)

  1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the partnership?
  2. Why is a complex capitalization usually superior to a simple form of capitalization?
  3. What is the distinction between preferred and common stock as to (a) income, (b) control, (c) risk?
  4. Define mortgage bonds, debenture bonds, income bonds, collateral bonds and equipment trust bonds.
  5. What is meant by amortization? Under what circumstances is some provision for amortization necessary for the protection of the bond-holders?
  6. What is the distinction between an underwriting syndicate with undivided liability and a syndicate with divided liability?
  7. Does a stock dividend theoretically increase the total value of the stock outstanding? Practically how does it frequently work and why?
  8. What are the advantages of the holding company form of organization?

 

_______________________________

POLITICAL ECONOMY VI
Dr. Weyforth.

Tuesday — January 31, 1922 — Afternoon.

  1. Explain the construction of a logarithmic chart. What are its advantages?
  2. Explain and illustrate the construction of (a) an index number of relatives, and (b) an index number of aggregates. What advantages are claimed for the latter?
  3. Describe the way in which the Bureau of Labor Statistics index number of the total cost of living is constructed
  4. What is the utility of an index number of the physical volume of production? Explain how Professor Stewart and Professor Day respectively constructed their index numbers.
  5. Explain as fully as you can the system employed by the Harvard University Committee on Economic Research for the forecasting of business conditions.

_______________________________

[POLITICAL ECONOMY VII.]
SOCIAL ECONOMICS
Miss Jacobs.

Monday — January 30, 1922  — Morning

  1. Give the arguments for and against public outdoor relief.
  2. Give the war and peace time activities of the American Red Cross.
  3. What is the Confidential Exchange of Information? What is its value to the community?
  4. What are the effects of dependency and delinquency upon the community?
  5. Give some of the causes of poverty. Tell how some of them may be lessened or eradicated.
  6. Give the objects and aims of three (3) social organizations that seem the most important to you.

 

Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library. The Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy, Series 5/6. Box No. 6/1, Folder “Exams 1907-1924.”

Image Source. Gilman Hall image from the 1924 edition of the Johns Hopkins’ yearbook Hullabaloo.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Fields Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Graduate Theory of International Trade Exam. Machlup and Harberger, 1951

 

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Theory of International Trade

Drs. Fritz Machlup and Arnold C. Harberger
May 28, 1951

Answer three questions including I.

I.

Assume that Country A has been importing 1,000,000 tons of X per period over a duty of $2.00 per ton. Domestic production has been 11,000,000 tons per period, the domestic price $6.00 per ton. Pure competition prevails among domestic and foreign producers. Demand and supply conditions remain stable everywhere; the elasticity of domestic demand is -1.0, the elasticity of domestic supply is + 0.5, and the elasticity of the foreign excess supply is infinite.

Now a tariff reduction of $1.00 per ton is granted for imports up to a certain maximum per period; imports in excess of this quota are permitted but subject to the full duty of $2.00. State the effects of the tariff reduction upon domestic price, domestic production, and total imports of X and upon customs revenue, if the tariff quote is

(a) 1,000,000 tons of X per period;
(b) 2,000,000 tons of X per period; and
(c) 4,000,000 tons of X per period.

[Your calculations need not be exact.]

 

II.

Comment on the following statements and discuss whether and under what conditions they may be true or false.

  1. A country cannot gain from imposing an export tax if the foreign demand for its exports is of greater than unit elasticity.
  2. In a country with a relative scarcity of capital the real interest rate will be higher if a general import tariff is imposed than it would be under free trade.
  3. For every situation in which trade is encumbered by tariffs, there exists a situation of unencumbered trade in which all countries involved would be better off.

 

III.

Would you expect “national welfare” in Country A to increase, decrease, or remain the same as a result of

  1. an increase in foreign demand for the export product(s) of country A?
  2. an increase in the foreign excess supply of the product(s) which country A imports?
  3. an improvement in technology in Country A?
  4. a tariff imposed on its imports by Country A?
  5. a tax imposed on its exports by Country A?
  6. a tariff imposed on imports from Country A by country B (the rest of the world)?
  7. a tax Imposed on exports to country A by country B (the rest of the world)?

Give reasons for your answers.

 

IV.

It is generally agreed that the receipt of dollar grants by a country will raise its maximum level of real consumption plus investment. Little has been said in the literature about changes in the relative shares of the increased total which go to the various factors of production. On the basis of the analysis developed in this course, what can be said about the circumstances under which these relative shares are likely to change? Are they likely to change at all? If so, in what direction? If not, why not? In your discussion, assume continuous full employment in all (both granting and receiving) countries, and assume that the grant is used fully by the receiving country.

Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library. Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives.  Department of Political Economy Series 6. Box 3/1, Folder: “Department of Political Economy. Graduate Exams, 1933-1965.”

Categories
AEA Amherst Columbia Economists Germany Johns Hopkins Smith

Columbia. Short biographical note on John Bates Clark at age 52

 

Today’s post adds to the virtual clipping file of relatively obscure biographical items for John Bates Clark. The turn of the century volumes edited by Joshua L. Chamberlain, Universities and Their Sons, serve as a who’s who with an academic twist and the source of this early-through-mid-career biography for the great John Bates Clark.

Pro-tip: At the bottom of this post you can click on the keyword “ClarkJB” to summon all the John Bates Clark related posts here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

_________________________

Other Biographical postings for John Bates Clark

From the Smith College yearbook (1894)

Columbia University Memorial Minute (1938)

_________________________

CLARK, John Bates, 1847-

Born in Providence, R. I., 1857; studied at Brown for two years; Amherst for two years, graduating in 1872; studied abroad at Heidelberg University for one and a half years and at Zurich University one-half year; Professor of Political Economy and History, Carleton (Minnesota) College, 1877-81; Professor of History and Political Science at Smith College, 1882-93; Professor of Political Economy at Amherst, 1892-95; Lecturer on Political Economy, Johns Hopkins. 1892-94; Professor of Political Economy at Columbia since 1895.

JOHN BATES CLARK, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Political Economy at Columbia, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, January 26, 1847. His parents were John Hezekiah Clark, a well-known manufacturer of Providence, and Charlotte Stoddard Huntington, a granddaughter of General Jedediah Huntington of New London, Connecticut. He received his early education in the public schools of his native place. In 1865 he entered Brown, spending two years in study there, and later entered Amherst. During an interval of absence from this College he engaged in the manufacture of ploughs, and was one of the founders of the Monitor Plow Company, of Minneapolis, Minnesota. He retired from active business in 1871, and returned to Amherst, graduating in 1872. He then went abroad and studied for a year and a half at the University of Heidelberg, for a term at the University of Zurich, and for a short period in Paris. He returned to America in 1875 and, two years later, became Professor of Political Economy at Carleton College. He retained this position for four years, and then came to Massachusetts to take the Professorship of History and Political Science at Smith College. He was with Smith in this capacity for eleven years, until, in 1893, he was made Professor of Political Economy at Amherst College. From 1892 to 1894 he was also Lecturer on Political Economy at Johns Hopkins. He left Amherst in 1895 to take a Chair of Political Economy at Columbia, and has since been in charge of the department of Economic Theory of the University. In 1893 and also in 1894 he was elected President of the American Economic Association. Professor Clark has written a number of monographs and articles on economic subjects, and a book — The Philosophy of Wealth — which presents new theories. He also published in collaboration with Professor F. H. Giddings, The Modern Distributive Process, and is now about to publish a second work on Distribution [The Distribution of Wealth; A Theory of Wages, Interest and Profits (1899)]. He is a member of the Century and Barnard Clubs. Professor Clark married, September 28, 1875, Myra Almeda Smith of Minneapolis. They have four children, three girls and a boy.

Source: Universities and their sons; history, influence and characteristics of American universities, with biographical sketches and portraits of alumni and recipients of honorary degrees, Joshua L. Chamberlain, ed., Vol. II (Boston: R. Herndon Company, 1899), p. 423.

Image Source: Same.

 

Categories
Economics Programs Exam Questions Johns Hopkins Undergraduate

Johns Hopkins. Exams for Undergraduate Political Economy Courses, 1923-1924

 

Several undergraduate course exams for the 1922-23 academic year at Johns Hopkins University in Political Economy have been posted earlier. The exams for 1919-20 have also been transcribed. A more complete (though still incomplete) sample is available the the university archives for the following year and which have been transcribed for this post.

_______________________________

Johns Hopkins Faculty
for the Undergraduate Courses in Political Economy
1923-1924

Barnett, George Ernest, Ph.D., Professor of Statistics.

A.B., Randolph-Macon College, 1891; Fellow, John Hopkins University, 1899-1900, and Ph.D., 1901.

Weyforth, William Oswald, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Political Economy.

A.B., Johns Hopkins University, 1912, and Ph.D., 1915; Instructor, Western Reserve University, 1915-17.

Mitchell, Broadus, Ph.D., Associate in Political Economy.

A.B., University of South Carolina, 1913; Fellow, Johns Hopkins University, 1916-17, and Ph.D., 1918.

Jacobs, Theo, A.B., Associate in Social Economics.

A.B., Goucher College, 1901; Federated Charities of Baltimore (District Assistant, 1905-07, District Secretary, 1907-10, Assistant General Secretary, 1910-17, Acting General Secretary, 1917-19).

Newlove, George Hills, Ph.D., Associate in Accounting, School of Business Economics.

Ph.B., Hamline University, 1914; A.M., University of Minnesota, 1915; Ph.D., University of Illinois, 1918; C.P.A. (Ill.), 1918; C.P.A. (S.C.), 1919.

Gillies, Robert Carlyle, A.B., Instructor in Political Economy.

A.B., Princeton University, 1920.

Source: The Johns Hopkins University Circular, University Register 1922-1923, No. 342, January 1923. Announcements for 1923-1924.

Biographical information for George Hills Newlove found in John J. Kahle American Accountants and their Contributions to Accounting Thought, 1900-1930. Routledge Library Editions: Accounting, 2014.

_______________________________

UNDERGRADUATE COURSES
1923-24

  1. Elements of Economics.
    Particular attention is given to the theory of distribution and its application to leading economic problems

Three hours weekly through the year. Associate Professor WEYFORTH, Dr. MITCHELL and Mr. GILLIES.

  1. Statistical Methods.

After a preliminary study of the value and place of statistics as an instrument of investigation, attention is directed to the chief methods used in statistical inquiry.

Three hours weekly, first half-year. Mr. GILLIES.

  1. Money and Banking.

The principles of monetary science are taught with reference to practical conditions in modern systems of currency, banking, and credit.

Three hours weekly, second half-year. Associate Professor WEYFORTH.

  1. American Trade Unionism.

The history, structure and functions of American trade unionism are studied.

Three hours weekly, first half-year. Professor BARNETT.

  1. Labor Problems.

The problems growing out of modern industrial employment will be studied.

Three hours weekly, first half-year. Professor BARNETT.

(Course 5 will not be given in 1923-24.)

  1. Corporation Finance.

The theory and practice of corporation finance are considered , with particular reference to the problems presented in the United States.

Three hours weekly, second half-year. Professor BARNETT.

  1. Investments.

Includes historical and analytical description of the more important forms of investments and theories of valuation and amortization.

Three hours weekly, second half-year. Professor BARNETT.

(Course 7 will not be given in 1923-24.)

  1. Applied Statistics.

The applications of statistics to business and economic problems, such as price levels, cost of living, wage adjustments, business cycles, and business forecasting, are considered.

Three hours weekly, first half-year. Associate Professor WEYFORTH.

  1. Foreign Trade and Exchange.

The economic principles of international commerce, the methods of conducting foreign trade, and the theory and practice of foreign exchange will be studied.

Three hours weekly, first half-year. Associate Professor WEYFORTH.

(Course 9 will not be given in 1923-24.)

  1. Business Organization.

This course is designed not only to show the structure of typical business entities, but their methods of formation and expansion. The common forms of securities are examined. Operation and administration of business units and the processes of marketing are studied in detail.

Three hours weekly, second half-year. Mr. GILLIES.

  1. Accounting.

This course deals with the fundamental principles underlying the recording of business transactions in the accounting books and records, and the preparation of balance sheets and statement of profit and loss for single entrepreneurs, partnerships, and corporations.

Four hours weekly, through the year. Dr. NEWLOVE.

  1. Economic History.

This course is designed to furnish a background for the study of economic principles and special phases of economic activity. It is a particular purpose of the course to show the relationship between economic fact and economic and political theory and practice.

Three hours weekly, through the year. Dr. MITCHELL.

  1. Social Economics.

The history and development of charitable and social agencies are traced. Causes and treatment of cases of dependency and delinquency are discussed.

Two hours weekly, through the year. Miss JACOBS.

Source: The Johns Hopkins University Circular, University Register 1922-1923, No. 342, January 1923. Announcements for 1923-1924, pp. 255-256.

_______________________________

Examinations for
Undergraduate Political Economy Courses
Johns Hopkins University
1923-1924

POLITICAL ECONOMY I “A”

February 5th, 1924—9-12 A.M.

  1. Compare the manorial system with farming at the present time. Compare the system of industry in towns during the middle ages with the modern industrial system.
  2. What is meant by the “industrial revolution”? What theories in regard to the proper relationship of the state to industry, developed at this time? Explain. Compare these new ideas with the theory and practice preceding. What is the tendency of present theory and practice as regards state interference with industry?
  3. (a) “Labor alone is the producer of wealth; take away labor and not all the capital in the world could produce anything.” Allowing the second clause to be true as a statement of fact, does it prove the proposition contained in the first? Explain.
    (b) “Discovery and invention have doubtless played a very large part in securing our present high industrial efficiency. But they are not the whole thing. The increase of capital has been equally necessary; for, without capital, invention could have accomplished little or nothing.” Defend and illustrate the last sentence.
  4. Explain how market price is the result of the forces of supply and demand. Illustrate by tables and diagrams showing supply and demand. At what point does price tend to be fixed? Why?
  5. Define the following: (a) utility; (b) diminishing utility, (c) marginal utility. Why can we say that the market price of a good corresponds to the marginal utility of that good to the marginal consumer?
  6. In general, what is the relationship between cost of production and market price? What is the relationship between the cost of production of two goods produced under conditions of joint cost and the selling prices of those goods? If the price of cotton seed oil should rise, what would tend to be the effect upon the price of cotton fibre? Why?
  7. What are the functions of money? What is meant when it is said that we have a “gold standard” in the United States? What are the actual kinds of money in use in the United States?
  8. What is credit? What service does it perform in the modern economic system? What is the difference between a promissory note and a bill of exchange? What use does the business man make of a commercial bank?

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY I “A”
[Dr. Weyforth]

Thursday; May 29, 1924—9 a.m.

  1. Explain the economic factors that must be taken into consideration in determining Germany’s capacity to pay reparations. How will Germany obtain funds abroad with which to make such payments?
  2. What policy should be pursued by the business man during a period of cumulating prosperity? What would be the policy of banks during such a period?
  3. Explain the principles determining the rent of land. If the price of wheat is $1.50 per bushel, what rent could be paid for the use of an acre of land that yielded 30 bushels at an average cost in labor and capital of $1.25 per bushel? Would the tendency be for any of these bushels to cost the producer $1.50? Explain.
  4. How do you account for the great differences in the wages of railroad presidents and of unskilled laborers? Suggest a general program for our society that would tend to bring about a much greater degree of equality in the returns for labor service than now prevails.
  5. Explain why interest can be paid and why it must be paid. What is the effect upon the rate of interest of (a) increased saving, (b) inventions making possible the use of more elaborate machinery, (c) war? Explain.
  6. What is the nature of the railroad problem in the United States? Describe briefly the history of our governmental policy toward railroads. What possible methods of handling the problem are open to us at the present time?
  7. Distinguish socialism from anarchism and syndicalism. What would you say is the fundamental idea in socialism? What criticisms do the socialists make of our present economic system? Give a critical estimate of socialism.
  8. What would you expect to be the relation between the goods exports and the goods imports of a country during the following periods:
    1. When it is first open to settlement or to industrial enterprise;
    2. When it has become quite well supplied with imported capital goods;
    3. When its citizens begin to make investments in other countries;
    4. When a relatively large amount of such foreign investments have been made.

Explain the reasons for your answer. In which of the above stages is the United States? England? Mexico?

POLITICAL ECONOMY I “B” [Mitchell.]

Tuesday, February 5th, 1924—9-12 A.M.

  1. What are the distinctions between the physical sciences and the social sciences?
  2. Why is our interest turning at this time to production?
  3. Define briefly: consumer’s surplus, capital, wealth, “unearned increment”, diminishing returns.
  4. What is the chief criticism to be made of cost theories of value?
  5. (a) Why is it sometimes to the advantage of an individual landowner to withhold his land from use?
    (b) How does the withholding of land from use affect the incomes of landlords as a class?
    (c) Can a tax on land be shifted from owner to occupier?
  6. What do you understand by Ricardo’s “iron law of wages”?
  7. (a) Why is interest paid? (b) Why did the schoolmen of the Middle Ages object to interest?
  8. What is the justification of a progressive income tax?
  9. State all you know about the personnel of the new labor government in Great Britain.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY I “B”
Elements of Economics

Thursday, May 29, 1924

  1. Discuss the several sorts of monopoly.
  2. What are the advantages of the corporate form of business enterprise?
  3. (a) What is the justification for a progressive income tax?
    (b) Compare the advantages of financing a war by taxation and by borrowing.
  4. Describe briefly the Federal Reserve System.
  5. What are the economic and social effects of inflation?
  6. Discuss the main doctrines of Karl Marx.
  7. What are the chief benefits and drawbacks of a cooperative system as opposed to a competitive system?
  8. (a) Discuss the origin of trade unionism.
    (b) Distinguish between the purposes and methods of the I.W.W. and the unions affiliated with the A.F. of L.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY I “C”

February 5th, 1924—9-12 A.M.

  1. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the present economic system? What are its present tendencies? Under what conditions should the state interfere in our economic processes, and how?
  2. Summarize the case for competition as opposed to (a) private monopoly; (b) state ownership. In what type of cases would private monopoly under state regulation offer the best solution?
  3. How is the price of labor affected by changes in the volume of immigration? By shifting of the negro population? What classes of labor would be affected? Relate your answer to the fact that wages rose constantly in the United States from 1897-1921.
  4. (a) Given the following data:
Price (Dollars)
3.00 4.00 5.00
Demand (units) 52 46 30
Supply (units) 24 35 56

Calculate the elasticity of demand at $4.00.
(b) What are the conditions that make for a slow rate of diminishing utility?

  1. Is there any necessary connection between monopoly and “big business”? What is the difference between a partnership and a corporation in (a) legal requirements and liability, (b) structural organization, (c) comparative advantages?
  2. Define non-cumulative-participating-preferred stock; holding company; general-mortgage bond. Give the principal features of the Sherman Act. Name some methods of unfair competition.
  3. Would wheat be a satisfactory money commodity? Would diamonds? Give reasons for your answers. What is meant by the “gold standard”? What has been our experience with bimetallism? Can it work?
  4. What is meant by “fiat” money? Were the greenbacks fiat money? Were the Federal Reserve notes issued during the World War fiat money? Why did prices go up during both wars? Is this necessary? Why?
  5. Describe the Federal Reserve System, its chief functions, changes it produced in our money and banking system, etc. How are checks cleared under the system?
  6. What is the quantity theory of money? What would be the effect upon prices of (a) adopting bimetallism, (b) increased bank reserve requirements, (c) a national fad for gold ornaments, (d) a higher rediscount rate, (e) enforcing seigniorage?
    If the quantity of metallic money has not changed, nor the level of prices, how do you reconcile this fact with a change in the volume of business over the same period?

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY I “C”
[Mr. Gillies]

May 29, 1924—9  A.M.

  1. Whom do you consider the most important factor in modern business, the landlord, the laborer, the capitalist, or the entrepreneur? Give reasons for answer.
    What other elements must be separated from price movements before the business cycle can be recorded? How can you tell when business is near a crisis?
  2. What is the purpose of the finance bill, and how does it operate? Discuss the merits and limitations of the doctrine of purchasing power parity, and tell what effect the maintenance of a high tariff by the United States against England has in the working of the doctrine as between these two countries.
  3. Validate the statement that the only way Germany can pay her indemnity is by an excess of exports over imports.
    Show how the mechanism of foreign exchange and international trade tends to produce like price movements all over the world.
  4. Outline the argument for the utility theory of value as opposed to the cost of production theory of value and show the application of these arguments to the determination of the share of industrial earnings going per unit to land and to capital.
  5. How is rent determined when the same land may be used for a number of different purposes? What has the varying intensivity [sic] of cultivation to do with rent?
    What is the economic justification of labor unions?
  6. Distinguish the attitude of British law and the Clayton Act in regard to labor disputes. What place does the concept of conspiracy play in the treatment by the courts of labor troubles in this country? Do you consider it just for the employer to bear the whole cost of industrial accidents? Is this the effect of our compensation laws?
  7. How large a return must be imputed to capital goods in order that they may truly pay for themselves? Does the fact that the price of consumption goods, when traced back, ultimately resolves into rent, wages and interest mean that there is no such thing in the long run as profits? (Reasons)
    Show roughly how income is distributed among our population. What can be done to improve this distribution.
  8. Is an increasing percentage of the national income spent for governmental activity a sign of increasing extravagance? (Reasons) To what extent should a government borrow and to what extent should it support itself by taxation? What constitutes justice in taxation?
  9. Distinguish direct and indirect taxes. Name some taxes of each kind. What taxes can be shifted? What determines the amount of shifting? What are the objections to a general property tax?

 

Examination in Statistics
(Pol. Econ. II)

January 31, 1924

  1. What are some of the common sources of secondary data? Given the relative advantages and disadvantages of collecting data by (a) personal investigation, (b) questionnaires, (c) enumerators. Give examples where possible in all cases.
    20 minutes.
  2. Give the number and total capacity of box cars, coal cars, and other cars in the Eastern, Southern, and Western Districts of the United States, tabulate so as to show average capacity of these three types and of all cars in each district and in all districts; use letters with subscripts to represent data, e.g. capacity coal cars in the Southern District = Ccs.
    30 minutes.
  3. Sow the various ways in which the above data could be presented diagrammatically, pictorially, or graphically.
    20 minutes.
  4. Given the following data:
Article of Food Consumption, 1901, per family Average Retail Price per Unit
1913 1917 1920
Sirloin steak 70 lbs. $0.25 $0.32 $0.35
Eggs 80 doz. 0.35 0.48 0.70
Milk 350 qts. 0.09 0.11 0.17
Potatoes 15 bu. 1.00 2.60 3.80

Show (do not compute) how an index number for these four commodities would be made up on

      1. Bradstreet’s method,
      2. Dun’s method.
      3. Compute the index number for 1917 and 1920 according to the method of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (base = 1913).
      4. What is the chief objection to an “average of relatives” index number?
        25 minutes.

5.  (A or B).

    1. How is an ogive constructed? Illustrate by sketch and show how the mode and the eighth decile may be determined from it. How is a percentage histogram constructed? What is its purpose?
    2. Prove the general validity of the short-cut method of computing the standard deviation.
      15 minutes.

 

  1. Given the following data:
Operating Revenues of Class I Carries
Eastern District—1920
In Millions of Dollars
1 2 3 4 7 15 24 74 492
1 2 3 4 8 15 26 75 —
1 2 3 5 10 15 30 76 —
1 2 3 5 10 16 35 81 —
1 2 4 5 11 17 39 94 —
1 2 4 5 11 19 45 94 —
2 2 4 6 12 19 51 107 —
2 2 4 6 12 22 65 [?] 200 —
2 3 4 7 14 23 70 314 —
Arithmetic Average $32,268.

Calculate, showing operations, the quartile coefficient of dispersion and skewness (series is theoretically continuous).
Compute, in tabular form, the coefficient of dispersion based on the median (to nearest whole number of millions).
How many places are justified in the above arithmetic average, on basis of data shown? Calculate the coefficient of skewness based on the mode.
30 minutes.

  1. Inflation of money is accompanied, or followed, by higher prices. Price fluctuations are measured roughly by index numbers. To the extent that inflation in one country exceeds that in another, its exchange in terms of the currency of the other country will depreciate. The following exercise is designed to test the tenth [sic, “truth”] of this doctrine.
    Given the following data:
1920 Index Numbers Sterling Cables
New York
Value £ in Dollars
B.L.S.*
(United States)		 Statist+
(England)
January 248 288 $3.68
February 249 306 3.39
March 253 307 3.72
April 265 313 3.93
May 272 305 3.85
June 269 300 3.95
July 262 299 3.86
August 250 298 3.63
September 242 292 3.52
October 225 282 3.47
November 207 263 3.43
December 189 243 3.63
* Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wholesale Prices.
+ The Statist, English journal of finance, Wholesale Prices.

Reduce the B.L.S. indices to relatives of the corresponding statist indices, and correlate these relatives with the price of sterling by Pearson’s method. Does result confirm the above theory? How would you modify the method to correlate the short time changes in the two variables? Compute the standard deviation for one variable in your table.
Explain log. How would you plot a logarithmic historigram of the B.L.S. index numbers?
40 minutes.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY III

Monday, May 26, 1924—9 a.m.

  1. What is standard money? State the requisites of (a) a gold standard; (b) a bimetallic standard; (c) a paper standard. State the advantages and disadvantages of each.
  2. Explain the functions of a commercial bank, showing what economic services it performs. Distinguish the functions of a commercial bank from those of (a) a savings bank; (b) an investment banker.
  3. Define, illustrate and explain the use of the following types of credit instruments: (a) promissory note; (b) bill of exchange; (c) trade acceptance; (d) bank acceptance.
  4. Explain the connection between the loans and deposits of commercial banks. To what extent ordinarily can an individual bank increase its loans as the result of a cash deposit of $100,000? To what extent can the loans of the banking system as a whole be increased as the result of such an addition to the cash deposits of the system? Explain.
  5. How does the Federal Reserve System provide for elasticity in currency and in credit? What is the need for such elasticity?
  6. What is the need for the control of bank credit? How may this control be effected under the Federal Reserve System?
  7. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York receives $8,000,000 of gold deposits.
    1. If member banks take all their rediscounts in federal reserve notes, how much additional paper can the reserve bank rediscount for its members, assuming that it does not borrow at other reserve banks? Make no allowance for discount charges.
    2. Answer the same question, assuming that member banks leave all their rediscounts on deposit.
    3. Answer the same question, assuming that member banks take 1/5 of their rediscounts in federal reserve notes and leave the remainder on deposit.
    4. Explain the quantity theory of money, showing the effect upon prices, of changes in the quantity of money, and of bank credit.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY IV

January 31, 1924—9-12 A.M.

  1. Define a trade union and indicate the distinctions between trade unions and other analogous associations such as cooperative societies, societies of physicians, etc.
  2. Classify trade unions according to the character of the employer.
  3. Sketch the historical development, by periods, of American trade unionism.
  4. Describe the present structure of American trade unionism, indicating the relation of the national union to the other forms of organization.
  5. Classify American national trade unions from the point of view of function.
  6. Classify and discuss the methods of enforcement used by trade unions.
  7. What is meant by collective bargaining? What is the economic justification for collective individual bargaining?
  8. Describe the system known as scientific management and indicate why it has been opposed by trade unions.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY VI
Corporation Finance

Monday, May 26, 1924

  1. Define a “bond”. Describe the following classes of bonds: divisional bonds, guaranteed bonds, income bonds, convertible bonds.
  2. Distinguish the capitalization, the capital, and the capital stock of a corporation.
  3. Distinguish equipment bonds and equipment trust certificates.
  4. Distinguish repairs, depreciation, and obsolescence.
  5. Discuss the relative advantages of serial bonds and sinking fund bonds.
  6. State and illustrate the law of balanced returns.
  7. Describe the various financial devices which have been used in the expansion of American railways.
  8. What is usually the nature of the agreement among the members under which an underwriting syndicate is formed?
  9. A corporation with common stock of $1,000,000 wishes to secure additional capital. The stock has a par value of $100 and is selling at $150. The corporation offers additional stock at par to the amount of $200,000, or one share of the new for each five shares held. What will be the value of the rights? What will be the value of the stock after the issue is consummated? Explain your answer.
  10. Define a “reorganization”, a “receivership”.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY X
Business Organization

Monday, May 26, 1924—9 A.M.

Lectures

  1. Discuss the relation between the problem of distribution and the density of population, proportion of inhabitants living in cities, etc. What part does credit play in this problem? Is it a cause or an effect?
  2. What gains could be made in efficiency of our distribution system by the general state ownership and control of industry? Do you consider these possible gains sufficient grounds for the adoption of such a plan? (Reasons)
  3. What is meant by scientific management? Why is the present a logical time for its introduction into business? What is the purpose of motion study, and what does it consist of?
  4. Discuss the elements to be considered in locating an establishment. What is the proper balance between fixed and circulating capital (including investment in labor)? Why is (or is not) the cost-plus method of letting building contracts to be preferred to the lump sum method?
  5. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of profit-sharing as a method of stimulating employee efficiency.

Text: Stockder

  1. What are securities? When is an industry said to be in the securities-capital stage? What are factors’ agreements? Why is it proper for railways to issue long term mortgage bonds, without sinking fund or serial retirement provisions, even to an amount exceeding the par value of stocks, and not for an ordinary industry to do so?
  2. Describe the joint-stock company operating structure. Why is the business trust said to be superior to all other forms of business organizations? Are these two forms of organization common law or statute law?
  3. Tell what you would do to organize a holding company which also to operate as an industrial company; including principal terms of agreements, regulations, etc.
  4. Describe the formation of the Standard Oil trust of 1882, using sketch. Is Federal Incorporation an effective or desirable remedy for commercial abuses? (Reasons)
  5. Have you completed the auxiliary reading, including supplementary forms in Stockder and pamphlets from U.S. Chamber of Commerce? If not, to what extent have you completed this reading?

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY XI
Accounting 1

January 30, 1924—9-12 A.M.

  1. [Given the following items:]
Cash $2,320
Inventory $12,000
Accounts Receivable $21,000
Reserve for Bad Debts $1,500
Store $20,000
Reserve for Depreciation $7,000
Accounts Payable $2,500
Capital Stock $20,000
Surplus $23,940
Insurance $120
Wages $500
$55,440 $55,400

Purchased on credit $20,000; paid creditors $21,500. Credit sales were $30,000; collected from customers $45,000. Estimated amount of uncollectable accounts receivable on books $1,750. Depreciation for period was $2,000. Other cash disbursements: Wates $6,000, Dividends $10,000. At the end of the year the unexpired insurance was $60, inventory $11,000, accrued wages $400.
From the above starting point—closing trial balance and the interim adjustments given, prepare a closed ledger, a final balance sheet, and a profit and loss statement.

  1. Describe two different ways of recording cash discounts on sales in the cash books. Do not mention any accounting books except the cash books.
  2. Define the different kinds of indorsements used with negotiable instruments.
  3. A note for $1,000, dated June 10, for 4 months, with interest at 7 per cent, was discounted July 30, at 8 per cent. Find the net proceeds under the rules of bank discount.

 

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY XI
Accounting 1
[Dr. Newlove]

May 28, 1924—9-12 a.m.

  1. A and B start in partnership investing $10,000 and $8,000, respectively, on January 1. A withdrew $2,000 on May 1 and invested $2,000 on November 1. B invested $3,000 on March 1 and withdrew $3,000 on July 1. Give the entries for the above transactions together with the allocation of a net profit of $5,000 on the average investment basis.
  2. X and Y, partners, sell their business to a new corporation, whose authorized stock of $50,000 is all paid to the partners. The balance sheet of X and Y is:
Cash $5,000 Accounts Payable $15,000
Merchandise 30,000 X, Capital 15,000
Accounts Receivable 25,000 Y, Capital 30,000
$60,000 $60,000

Give the detailed closing entries of the partnership.

  1. Give the detailed opening entries for the corporation in Problem 2.
  2. (a)
Accounts Receivable Reserve for Bad Debts
$75,000 $5,000

Make entry for a customer owing $500 who becomes bankrupt and pays 10 cents on the dollar.
(b)

Machinery Reserve for Depreciation
$50,000 $4,000

A machine, which cost $1,000 five years ago, is sold for $400. The recorded depreciation on the machine is $500. Give the entry for sale.

  1. C and D entered on January 1 a joint venture each contributing merchandise costing $5,000. C paid expenses of $1,000 on the same date. On July 1 C received a draft from the consignee for $15,000. Interest was allowed at the rate of 6 per cent per annum. Show the accounts on C’s books affected by the venture, if C settled with D on July 1.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY XII
ECONOMIC HISTORY

January 29, 1924—9-12 A.M.

  1. How does economic history differ from political history?
  2. What did the Romans accomplish economically for Britain?
  3. (a) What were the rights and obligations of the various classes under the manorial system
    (b) Did William the Norman change the manorial plan fundamentally?
  4. How were goods exchanged in England of the Middle Ages?
  5. What were the facts which rendered the guilds suitable to the economic needs of the country at the time they flourished?
  6. (a) What were the consequences of the “Black Death”?
    (b) Of the “Peasants’ Revolt”?
  7. What were the main facts of the Industrial Revolution, and what was the economic theory upon which it rested?
  8. Tell something of (a) chartism; (b) the Factory Acts; (c) the rise of trade unions.
  9. What is the present status of child labor legislation in the United States?
  10. What have been the forces that have brought the Labor Party into power in England?

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY XII
ECONOMIC HISTORY

Saturday, May 24, 1924

  1. What were the colonial policies of Great Britain?
  2. (a) Give the chief economic doctrines of Alexander Hamilton.
    (b) What was the connection between economic interests and the formation of the Constitution?
  3. What were the chief economic causes and effects of the Civil War?
  4. Discuss the economic and political consequences of the opening of the West.
  5. What were the main routes covered by canals and railroads, and why were these selected?
  6. Discuss the growth of trusts.
  7. Why is the Federal Government gaining in power while the individual State Governments are losing power?
  8. A factory needing 500 operatives is located in a farming community. What will be the likely economic results?
  9. Discuss the tariff vs. free trade.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY XIII
SOCIAL ECONOMICS

February 4th, 1924—9-12 A.M.

  1. Why are delinquency and dependency community problems?
  2. Give the laws regulating school attendance in Maryland. Are they adequate?
  3. Give the Child Labor Laws of Maryland.
  4. Give the significance of the White House Conference of 1909. State the recommendations made. Give what you think the most important outcome of this conference.
  5. Give the names of the social agencies in the Alliance of Charitable and Social Agencies. Describe the work of the Family Welfare Association and one other social organization in the federation.

 

POLITICAL ECONOMY XIII
SOCIAL ECONOMICS

Friday, May 30, 1924—9 a.m.

  1. What are the functions of a Charities Endorsement Committee?

  2. On what principles is social case work based? What is the difference in the meaning of social case work and social work?
  3. Of what value is knowledge of social economics to the professional and business man?
  4. Give the social functions of recreation.

 

Source:  Johns Hopkins University. Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy, Series 5/6, Box 6/1, Folder “Exams, 1907-1924”.

Image Source: Gilman Hall, Johns Hopkins University. Hullabaloo 1924.

Categories
Exam Questions Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Midyear and Final Exams for Five Economics Courses, 1932-1933

While on the whole I find these examination questions uninspired, I do wonder how one would have answered the last of the mid-year examination in economic history “Why is it that England had a socialist prime minister while the United States has an individualist president?”

_________________________

1C. Elements of Economics.

Three hours weekly through the year. Section 1: Dr. [George H.] Evans [Jr.], Thurs., Fri., Sat., 8.30, Maryland Hall 110; Section 2: Associate Professor [Broadus] Mitchell, Mon., Tues., Wed., 8.30, Gilman Hall 313; Section 3: Associate Professor [William O.] Weyforth, Mon., Tues., Wed., 11.30, Gilman Hall 314.

Particular attention is given to the theory of distribution and its application to leading economic problems.

Required of all students before graduation.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 1C
Mid-year Examination
Dr. Evans
February 1, 1933

  1. Under what conditions do lower prices mean higher profits?
  2. How do overhead costs affect the nature of competition?
  3. A country innkeeper hires a man to cripple the automobiles of passers-by. Is this man a producer? Explain.
  4. If each of our states were a separate nation, would we have less specialization than we have today? Explain.
  5. “The marginal utility of a ton of coal to a householder is $7.20.”
    1. Explain just what is meant by this statement.
    2. Why is the marginal utility of coal different now from what it was during the war? Explain carefully.
  6. Trace the history of bimetallism in the United States. What classes would be benefited if bimetallism were adopted in the United States in the near future?
  7. “The price of each good is determined by the willingness of buyers to purchase the last unit of the supply that is sold.” Discuss.
  8. A manufacturer buys out all his competitors. Assuming demand to be unchanged, can he now sell the former aggregate output at an advanced price? Explain.
  9. From the following figures for three firms which constitute the only producers or possible producers in the field, construct the combined long run supply curve and also the combined average cost curve which would prevail in the long run
  Average Costs of Production for Each Firm
No. of Units X Y Z
1 5 7 9
2 4.5 6 7.5
3 4.67 6 7.33
4 5 6.25 7.5
5 5.4 6.6 7.8
6 5.83 7 8.17

If the price in the market remains at $8 for a long period of time, how many articles will be supplied; what quantity will be produced by each firm? Suppose the price dropped to $7 and remained there.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 1C
Mid-year Examination
Dr. Mitchell
February 6, 1933

  1. Give a definition of Political Economy.
  2. What are the relative importances today of Production, Exchange, Distribution, and Consumption of wealth?
  3. Is the enterpriser gaining or losing in importance as an economic agent?
  4. Define capital and discuss the capitalistic method of production and exchange of wealth.
  5. Explain the marginal utility concept of value.
  6. Explain how market price is determined under conditions of competition.
  7. Discuss (a) monopoly price; (b) class price.
  8. What would be your definition of money?
  9. What is the argument of the inflationists at the present time?
  10. Give the organization and functions of the Federal Reserve System.
  11. Tell what you know of Technocracy, with your comment upon it.
  12. What are the main indictments which the present depression brings against the capitalist economic system?
  13. What are some reasons for believing that there is a decided drift toward collectivism in the United States now?

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 1C
Mid-year Examination
Dr. Weyforth
February 2, 1933

  1. Describe the more important changes that came about in the economic life of England as a result of the industrial revolution.
  2. How under a system of free enterprise is the overproduction of any article remedied? How is underproduction remedied?
    “Free enterprise is a self-regulating device for producing maximum satisfaction with a minimum of sacrifice.” Explain and criticize this statement.
  3. What is meant when it is said that modern industry is a capitalistic organization?
    A municipality which owned a street railway might find it desirable to give service at less than cost. Why? Could a capitalistically controlled company do this? Explain.
  4. “The use of machinery is limited by the extent of the market.” Why? In what sense is it equally true that the extending of markets has depended upon the development of the machine technique?
  5. Explain the nature of a corporation. How does it come into existence? Who owns it? How is it controlled and managed? What are some of its advantages and disadvantages?
  6. What functions do trade unions perform in our present economic system? Why did they not exist during the middle ages? What is meant by the “closed shop”? What justification is there for unions employing this device?
  7. In what way do commercial banks provide a medium of exchange? Why may it be said that banks create deposits? The national banking laws require that national banks maintain a certain reserve against deposits How does this limit the ability of banks to make loans?

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 1C
Final Examination
Dr. Mitchell
June 5, 1933

  1. Explain and discuss the underlying economic theory and the proposals of the Single tax. Tell something of the life of Henry George.
  2. State and discuss three theories of wages.
  3. Distinguish between “pure profits” and “wages of superintendence”. In what ways do pure profits arise?
  4. Explain the time discount theory of interest.
  5. “The business cycle is inherent in the capitalist economic system.” Discuss this statement.
  6. What are the main arguments for and against fiat money inflation?
  7. Explain the difficulties in combining economic planning with the price-and-profit system.
  8. What developments in American economic life appear to recommend socialism today?
  9. Enumerate and discuss the conditions under which trade and labor unions may raise the wages of their members without being injured by the boomerang of unemployment due to decreased demand for their products.
  10. Identify: Nassau Senior, John Stuart Mill, Charles Kingsley, Robert Owen, Friedrich Engels, Richard Arkwright, Charles Fourier, Samuel Gompers, David Ricardo, Mathew Carey.
  11. Discuss economic nationalism as applicable to the present day.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 1C
Final Examination
Dr. Evans
May 31, 1933

  1. What is meant by monetary inflation in the United States?
    How is it to be effected; what are its advantages and disadvantages?
  2. To raise revenue to pay the interest on a three billion dollar loan for the purpose of carrying out a public works program, it has been proposed that the federal government increase the income and gasoline taxes. A general manufacturer’s sales tax has apparently been rejected. Criticize the plan.
  3. The wages of federal employes were recently cut by approximately the same per cent that the Bureau of Labor Statistics index of the cost of living has fallen. What theory of wage determination was involved in this action? What theory of wages seems to you to explain wages most completely?
  4. What is meant by the incidents of ownership? Discuss them in connection with the various legal forms under which business units operate.
  5. If the prices of commodities rise in the near future, what will probably happen to rates of interest? Why? What is your prediction concerning the future of pure interest?
  6. Criticize some of the arguments for the tariff.
  7. Do the credit structure and the type of organization under which business units operate have anything to do with determining the recipient of profits?
  8. Is it necessary to give special assistance to the agriculturists in order to pull this country out of the depression? What characteristics of agriculture make it so difficult to do much for the farmers? What program should the government follow in its efforts?

_________________________

2C. Statistics. Dr. Evans.

Three hours weekly through the year. Th., Fri., Sat., 10.30, Gilman Hall 314.

In the first half-year attention is directed to the value and place of statistics as an instrument of investigation, and study is made of the chief methods used in statistical inquiry. In the second half-year the application of statistics to business and economic problems, such as price levels, cost of living, wage adjustments, business cycles, and business forecasting, are considered.

Prerequisite: Mathematics 1 C or 2 C.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 2C
Mid-year Examination
February 3, 1933

  1. The average deposit per individual depositor in savings banks in the United States was $437.89 in 1913. By 1926 this figure had risen to $633.10 per depositor, indicating that savings bank depositors were noticeably more thrifty than at the earlier date. Is the conclusion a sound one?
  2. Upon the following data construct price indices of the simple geometric type for 1901 and 1902, using 1900 as the base.
Commodity 1900
Price		 1901
Price		 1902
Price
A 1 2 3
B 3 3 3
C 1 1.5 2

In which year is the dispersion of the price relatives the larger? What is the significance of your observations upon the dispersions.

  1. A Japanese speaker argued recently that the apparently high birth rate of the Japanese in California was due to the fact that an unusually large proportion of the Japanese population was between the ages of 15 and 45, and that later this high birth rate would be reduced as the age distribution of the population became more normal. Discuss the validity of this argument.
  2. How would you verify the law of statistical regularity and the principle of inertia of large numbers?
  3. Without constructing what is technically called a ratio chart, plot the following figures so as to give the same effect as that produced by the ratio chart.
1900 2.4
1903 5.8
1904 7.3

How could your chart be converted into a ratio chart?

  1. Draw up in the rough a table with title, captions, stubs, etc., to provide for a complete cross-classification of the population of a city according to color, sex, marital status and age. (Note: emphasize the characteristics in the order named.)

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 2C
Final Examination
June 2, 1933

  1. Discuss the limitations upon the use of statistical method.
  2. Describe how and when the estimation of the value of one variable can be made from a known value of another variable by the use of the scatter diagram.
  3. How can the period of lag of one series in relation to another be determined.
  4. What is meant by “normal” business conditions and how may mathematical measurements of normal be made?
  5. In obtaining a seasonal index, can cyclical and erratic influences be largely eliminated? How? Describe two methods of eliminating the effects of seasonal variation from time-series data.
  6. Explain “mathematical methods of trend fitting are not fool-proof”. What are the various methods of determining a line of trend?
  7. What kinds of situations make necessary the use of index numbers? Give the methods of constructing index numbers.

_________________________

3B. Money and Banking.
Associate Professor Weyforth.

Three hours weekly through the year. Mon., Tues., Wed., 9.30, Gilman Hall 311.

In this course an analysis of the functions of money, credit and banking in our modern economic life will be made. There will be a description of various types of monetary systems, of the forms of credit and of banking and financial institutions. Particular attention will be given to the relationship between money, bank credit and prices; to the effects of price fluctuations upon individuals and upon general business conditions; to the problems of stabilizing prices and controlling business fluctuations by means of a deliberately directed monetary and credit policy. The Federal Reserve System will be studied with special emphasis upon its problem of credit control. Some time will also be devoted to the relationship between the money market and the stock market, to the problem of brokers’ loans, and to the financial operations involved in our international trade.

Prerequisite: Political Economy 1 C.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 3B
Mid-year Examination
January 31, 1933

  1. Describe the functions performed by money and explain its importance in our present economic system.
  2. What is meant by “standard” money? Describe as many types of standard money as you can. Explain the difference between standard money and legal tender money. Illustrate the latter by examples from the United States currency.
  3. What factors were responsible for the rapid depreciation of German currency after the war? Why did prices rise more rapidly than the volume of currency? Can this be reconciled with the quantity theory of money? Explain.
  4. Explain the difference between fixed and circulating capital. What problems does this distinction create in regard to the financing of business enterprises? Explain fully.
  5. What is meant by the value of money? How do we measure changes in it? Explain the economic consequences of changes in the value of money.
  6. Distinguish between the functions of an investment banker and of a commercial bank. Explain how the commercial banks create deposits and show the limitations upon their powers in this respect.
  7. Describe the history of the monetary standard in the United States.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 3B
Final Examination
May 30, 1933

  1. Describe the more important types of loans and investments made by commercial banks. Describe the changes in the nature of their business since the war and the reasons for these changes.
  2. Explain the defects in our banking system prior to the establishment of the Federal reserve system and give a brief description of the steps toward reform.
  3. Explain the circumstances under which shipments of gold occur between two countries both of which are on a gold standard.
  4. Is there any limit to the extent to which the market rate of exchange may fluctuate between two countries when one or both of them does not provide for redemption of its currency in gold? Explain the operation of the factors involved.
  5. What is the importance of an elastic currency? What provision was made in the Federal Reserve Act for such a currency? What are the provisions of the laws passed during the present depression enlarging the note issues of national banks and Federal reserve banks?
  6. Explain the various methods which Federal reserve banks may employ to control credit and show how they operate.
  7. Explain and criticize the various principles that may be employed by Federal reserve banks as guides to their credit policy.
  8. What do you think of inflation as a means of promoting recovery from the depression?

_________________________

4B. Labor Problems. Professor [George E.] Barnett.

Three hours weekly through the year. Mon., Tues., Wed., 10.30, Gilman Hall 314.

In the first part of this course the problems growing out of modern industrial employment will be studied, e.g., child labor, industrial accidents, unemployment. It includes a critical discussion of the ameliorative measures which have been adopted in the leading industrial countries. Special attention will be given to an analysis of the principles underlying the schemes of social insurance against sickness, old age, and unemployment, so generally put into effect in recent years in European countries. In the second part of the course the history, structure and functions of American trade unionism are considered. Particular attention will be given to the working of representative systems of collective bargaining and an analysis of the conditions under which these systems have attained their greatest strength. An appraisal of rival forms of wage fixation, such as individual bargaining governmental intervention and shop committees will conclude the course.

Prerequisites: Political Economy 1 C and 12 B.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 4B
Mid-year Examination
January 30, 1933

  1. On what principles, should an economic man divide his income between expenditure and saving?
  2. On what principles, should he divide his expenditure among different objects of expenditure?
  3. How and why should he divide his savings between investment and insurance?
  4. Describe briefly the various causes of unemployment.
  5. Discuss the effects of shortening the hours of labor.
  6. Why are the risks of unemployment, old age, etc. a part of the labor problem?

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 4B
Final Examination
May 29, 1933

  1. Define “trade union” and distinguish trade unions from such associations as medical societies, bar associations.
  2. Describe the relations among the various units (local union, national unions, etc.) making up the structure of American trade unionism.
  3. Classify and discuss the methods of enforcement used by trade unions against employers.
  4. Discuss “picketing”.
  5. What is the object of trade unions to the injunction?
  6. What is “scientific management” and how has it influenced the employer in his attitude toward labor?
  7. Outline the chief lines of approach to the governmental adjustment of industrial disputes.
  8. Is the labor market a good market?

_________________________

12B. Economic History. Associate Professor Mitchell.

Three hours weekly through the year. Mon., Tues., Wed., 1 p.m., Gilman Hall 314.

In the first part of this course a study is made of English economic history, the purpose being to show not only the industrial development of the English people as such but the way in which the economic motive has influenced the whole of social life. Particular attention is given to the characteristic forms of economic organization—the manorial system, the guild system, the entrance of capitalism and the causes and consequences of the Industrial Revolution. Special reference is made to those features of English economic history which have influence industrial life in the United States. The second part of the course is a survey of the economic history of our own country. Here the same effort is made, as in the case of England, to show the bearing of economic considerations on political evolution, especially in the direction of the growing importance of the Federal Government.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 12B
Mid-year Examination
Dr. Mitchell
February 3, 1933

  1. What is meant by the economic interpretation of history?
  2. Describe the manor and the main steps in its disappearance.
  3. Contrast Wat Tyler and George Washington.
  4. How did the medieval city under the craft gilds differ from Baltimore today, economically, socially, and politically?
  5. What was Mercantilism? Are there tendencies toward a return to Mercantilism now? If so, is this movement wise or unwise, and why?
  6. What developments preceded the Industrial Revolution?
  7. Describe the Industrial Revolution.
  8. Make an argument that mankind would be better off had the inventors of the eighteenth century never lived.
  9. Why is it that England had a socialist prime minister while the United States has an individualist president?

    *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
Political Economy 12B
Final Examination
June 2, 1933

  1. State and discuss what you consider to have been the main tendencies in American economic life.
  2. Give an outline history of the tariff until the time of the Civil War.
  3. Sketch the history of banking in the United States from 1791 to 1863.
  4. “The essential cause of the Civil War was the difference in economic pursuits of North and South.” Explain this statement.
  5. Describe the causes of the panics of 1837 and 1873.
  6. In what respects have Hamilton’s policies been borne out by American economic and political development?
  7. What considerations have turned the American people from approval of Theodore Roosevelt’s policy of “trust busting” to Franklin Roosevelt’s policy of relaxing the anti-trust acts?
  8. Give the main developments in “internal improvements” to the present time.
  9. State briefly what you think you will recall from this course twenty-five years from now.

Sources:

Course announcements from The College of Arts and Sciences, 1932-33 (February, 1932). The Johns Hopkins University Circular, New Series 1932, No. 2, Whole Number 434, pp. 38-39.
Course examinations from Johns Hopkins University, Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy. Series 6, Curricular materials. Box 2, Folder “Exams 1930-1935.”

Image Source:  Photo of Gilman Hall from the 1924 Johns Hopkins yearbook, Hullabaloo.

 

 

 

Categories
Johns Hopkins Popular Economics Syllabus

Chautauqua University Extension. Three Lectures on Labor Movement. Ely, 1889

While preparing a later post on the economics component of the 1889-90 C. L. S. C. (Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle), I came across a reference to a syllabus for a series of lectures given by Richard T. Ely in Chautauqua, New York. I tracked down the three reports of the syllabus (transcribed for this post below) in the Chautauqua Assembly Herald which can be consulted on-line from what appear to be scans of microfilm images.

For a brief history of the Chautauqua Education Movement in the United States.

________________________

Chautauqua University Extension.
Lectures on the Labor Movement in the Hall of Philosophy
by Dr. Richard T. Ely.

I.
The Nature of the Labor Problem, August 7, 1889.
SYLLABUS OF TOPICS

  1. Introductory Remarks
    1. University Extension lectures are primarily for instruction and not for entertainment. They are to give popular presentations of serious subjects. Those who do not care for this sort of lectures are advised to remain away rather than annoy the lecturer and disturb the rest of the audience by coming and going.
    2. The character of the present course, which is an adaptation of class-room work.
    3. The examination at the close of the course.
  2. Comments on the Annotated Bibliography.
  3. The Existence of Social Classes.
    1. What is meant by classes? Stormonth gives this definition: “A number of persons in society supposed to have the same position with regard to means, rank, etc.” Webster’s definition is as follows: A group of individuals ranked together as possessing common characteristics.” Modern classes are industrial, especially in republics, but industrial pursuits are everywhere acquiring increasing importance in class-formation.
    2. Ancient and modern classes compared. The influence of occupation in early times seen in the castes of India. “Sir Henry Maine.”
    3. Law and industry as a basis of classes compared. Economic forces often more powerful than legal forces. Illustrated by the contrast between nominal and actual freedom. “The Tribe of Ishmael.”
    4. It is a mistake to shut our eyes to the fact of the existence of classes in the United States, and to the further fact that with us class lines are becoming more inflexible and difficult to cross. America is becoming more like European countries.
    5. The good and evil effects of the existence of classes. The ideal is the harmonious and helpful co-existence of classes. “For…the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that body being many are one body…But God hat tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor so that part which lacked, that there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; if one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.”—St. Paul, First Epistle to the Corinthians. This bring us naturally to
  4. The solidarity of social classes.
    Modern society cannot prosper unless all parts participate in this prosperity, but wealth may increase while society decays. The oneness of society and the oneness of social life, illustrated by Professor Burrough’s Chautauqua sermon of Sunday, July 7, of this year.
    “While there is a single guilty person in the universe, each innocent one must feel his innocence tortured by that guilt”—Hawthorne in the Marble Faun.
  5. The labor problem, a problem of such real living importance that it may be called the problem of problems, but it must never be regarded as a class-problem.
    The error of the more radical forms of socialism in treating the labor problem as merely a class-problem, thereby promoting class-hatred and delaying social reform.
    The emancipation of the laboring classes can never be accomplished by the laboring classes alone.
  6. The true meaning of this phrase of Gladstone. The individual and social standpoint contrasted. The social standpoint illuminated by the labor problem.
    “A sense of wrong is a mighty strong eyewash. It will clear out a lot of sophisms which blind men’s eyes.”—Dr. Heber Newton—Also true of love. Illustrations taken from American and English experience, of social benefits from the agitation of the labor problem.

Source: Chautauqua Assembly Herald. Vol. XIV, No. 13 (August 7, 1889), p. 3.

________________________

II.
The Causes of Existence of the Modern Labor Problem
August 8, 1889.
SYLLABUS OF TOPICS

  1. Introductory Remarks
    The multiplicity of causes render their comprehension difficult.
  2. The organic character of all forms of social life, and the youthful features of the present politico-economic organism in civilized nations.
    The hopefulness of this view.
  3. Movement the law of life.
    The newness of our present economic life. Illustrations.
    1. Transportation one hundred years ago.
      Adam Smith, in 1776, assumes that beef and grain are too bulky to be transported with profit from Ireland to England. These are his words:
      “Even the breeding countries of Great Britain never are likely to be much affected by the free importation of Irish cattle. *** Even the free importation of Irish corn could very little affect the interests of the farmers of Great Britain. Corn is a much more bulky commodity than butchers’ meat. *** The small quantity of foreign corn imported, even in times of greatest scarcity, may satisfy our farmers that they have nothing to fear from the freest importation.” With this, contrast American competition in the supply of wheat and beef in 1889, in its effects on European agriculture.
    2. Banks One Hundred Years Ago.
      Banks have increased in number, and their functions have changed within fifty years.
      “in [illegible] the fourth bank was established, the Bank of Maryland, in the city of Baltimore, if I am not mistaken; and that bank was open one year before a single depositor came to its counters. Bagehot, the English authority, says that as late as 1880 all the discussions of bankers were upon the circulation and not at all upon the deposits of their banks. *** I looked at the bank statements of the banks of New York the other day, and the figures were these: The circulation of all banks was $5,000,000; the deposits of the banks in the same week were over $400,000,000.
      Seth Low in a speech before Boston Merchants’ Association, January 8, 1889.
    3. Corporations one hundred years ago compared with corporations and trusts to-day.
      One hundred years ago Adam Smith expressed the belief that corporations could not succeed on account of their inability to hold their own in competition with individuals and private firms. Now, the conviction is expressed that the individual as such is disappearing in industrial life, and Mr. Seth Low holds that this must be offset by increasing the importance of the individual in political life.
    4. Free Trade in Land a modern fact.
      Former system of land tenure in Europe and America.
    5. The Relative freedom of Trade and Commerce likewise Recent.
    6. The Free Choice of Occupations a new right.
    7. The freedom of migration a nineteenth century right.
      Illustrations of the former condition of the law taken from Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations.”
    8. The right of free combinations of labor and capital likewise a modern fact.
    9. The universal, personal freedom of the manual laboring classes, in all civilized lands, is a fact not a generation old.
      The opinion of Aristotle on slavery quoted.
    10. Capital, as we understand it, a force peculiar to modern times.
      “Such war cries as we find, Lassalle raising against capital would not have been understood among the ancients and the oppressed classes of the middle ages.”—Kaufman.
      Confirmation of this view found in Aristotle. The word “capital” not found in the index of Jowett’s Aristotle’s “Politics.”
    11. Railroads, telegraphs, telephones and other applications of steam and electricity very recent facts.
    12. The division of labor as now understood a recent fact.
    13. Our present manufacturing class a recent creation.
      The use of the word “manufacturer” in 1776.
    14. Some common materials are new discoveries.
      Cotton, anthracite coal, and protection.
  1. A new industrial world requires a new industrial organization and a new industrial science, but both the organization and the science are incomplete.
    As a consequence of the foregoing, progress produces long-continued social distress.
  2. Some of the results of the above described changes on the laboring classes.
    The changes a condition without which the labor problem would be an impossibility.

    1. Deterioration in the condition of the masses may be relative or absolute.
      The condition of the masses must be examined in both respects.
    2. Diminished security of [illegible word, “asistence”?]
      Illustrations taken from North and South.
    3. Irregularity of employment and income, and attended evils.
    4. Increased reparation of classes.
    5. Changed and deteriorated environment of the majority of wage-earners.
      “Beyond a doubt, sickness is the greatest foe of the poor. It absorbs their savings, creates poverty and pain, and fills our public and private institutions. It is the tenement house system that creates or fosters most of the prevalent disease, degradation, misery and pain. It invites pestilence and destroys morals.”— F. Wingate. [Charles F. Wingate]
      Father Huntington’s testimony quoted.
    6. Industrial and moral evils attendant on frequent migrations of wage-earners.
    7. Machinery both a blessing and a curse.
    8. Increased wants and their effect on the industrial situation.
      Character of these increased wants, some good, some bad.
      Table showing comparative percentage expenditure of working men’s families in Illinois and Massachusetts.
Items. ILLINOIS. MASS.
Subsistence 41.38 49.28
Clothing 21.00 15.95
Rent 17.42 19.74
Fuel 5.63 4.30
Sundries 14.57 10.73
[Totals] [100.00] [100.00]

Source: Chautauqua Assembly Herald. Vol. XIV, No. 14 (August 8, 1889), p. 3.

Cf. Table on p. 282 of Ely’s An Introduction to Political Economy (1889) .

________________________

III.
Industrial Evils and Their Remedies,
August 9, 1889.
SYLLABUS OF TOPICS

  1. Child Labor.
    “The number of males over sixteen engaged in manufacturing in 1880 was 2,019,035, an increase in ten years of 24.97 per cent. The number of females over fifteen was 531,639, an increase in the same time of 64.2 per cent. and of children 181,921, an increase of 58.79 per cent. ** The employment of women in all gainful occupations is increasing fifty per cent. faster than the population, or than the employment of men, and the same is true to still greater degree of the employment of children, save in the very few states which have stringent factory laws and make any genuine effort to enforce them.”— W. Bemis in the article “Workingmen in the United States,” in the American edition of the Encylopaedia Britannica. A workingman’s paper quoted on child labor in the coal mining regions. The testimony of President Crowell.
  2. The increasing number of women wage-
  3. The dwellings of the laboring classes in cities.
  4. Sunday work an evil of increasing magnitude.
    The opinion of workingmen on the “abolition of Sunday.” Is there any law of New Jersey in defense of Sunday? If so, why is it not enforced against the railroad corporations? When laboring men violate any law of the money power it is anarchy, and the law breakers are imprisoned or hanged. But when the money power violates all laws, both human and divine there is neither penalty nor remedy.
    “Look at the Central Railroad of new Jersey running coal trains every Sunday, compelling its employes to work upon that day. ** God knows it is hard enough to work for a mere pittance six days in the week, but it is intolerable to be compelled to work on Sunday for nothing as we do—to desecrate the Sabbath and to be deprived even of the boon of preaching. If this is not anarchy, what is it? And how much longer shall the Golden Calf rule in New Jersey?—Correspondence of John Swinton’s Paper.” Comment on the statement, “work on Sunday for nothing.”
    The agitation for a free Sunday on the part of the bakers in New York and Philadelphia. Remarks of the former secretary of the Journeyman Bakers’ National Union in a letter to the lecturer.
    The agitation of the Sunday question by other workingmen in New York; also in Chicago. Editorial in the “Knights of Labor” on Sunday slavery.
    The American Sabbath Union and the testimony of its secretaro, Rev. Wilbur F. Crafts.
    The true spirit of Sunday observance and the Sunday reform socially considered.
  5. Over-work and night-work:
  6. Excessive mortality of the wage-earning classes, especially of their children.
    This evil economically and socially considered. The principal causes of death are social. “Some 16,000 children under five die every year in New York—just twice the normal mortality for a large city. ** If viewed rightly, this would be called simply massacre.”— F. Wingate.
    Mortality among the white and colored people of the South:
WHITE. COLORED.
Memphis, 1888 19 37
Average for nine years 19 37
Chattanooga, 1888 16 33
Knoxville, 1888 13 29
Average for 8 years 14 31
Clarksville, av. for 2 years 13 28
Columbia, av. for 2 years 13 16

These cities are in Tennessee. Statistics for Columbus, Savannah and Atlanta, Georgia, for Richmond, Mobile and Charleston, are similar in significance.
Dr. G. W. Hubbard, of Meharry Medical School, gives four causes of the large mortality of colored people, viz., poverty, ignorance of the laws of health, superstition and lack of proper medical attendance.
“At present the average age at death among the nobility, gentry and professional classes in England and Wales was 55 years; but among the artisan classes of Lambeth it only amounted to 29; and while the infantile death rate among the well-to-do classes was such that only eight children died in the first year of life out of 100 born, as many as 30 per cent. succumbed among the children of the poor in some districts of our large cities. The only real cause of this enormous difference in the position of the rich and the poor with respect to their chances of existence lay in the fact that at the bottom of society wages were so low that food and other requisites of health were obtained with too great difficulty.”
Dr. C. H. Drysdale, in report of Industrial Remuneration Conference, 1885. Investigations of Joseph Korosi, director of municipal statistics of Buda Pesth. Comments on other data.

  1. Intemperance as an Industrial Evil
    Intemperance must be regarded both as with cause and effect.
    Music as a remedy for intemperance. Experiments in London where oratorios like “St. Paul,” the “Messiah,” “Elijah,” and Spohr’s “Last Judgment” have been appreciated by “crowds of the lowest classes, some shoeless and bonnetless, and all having the savor of the great unwashed; who sat in church for two hours ‘quietly and reverently.’” See Barnett’s “Practicable Socialism” p. 56. Testimony: “If I could hear music like that every night I should not need the drink.” A New York experiment.
    Positive measures required for the cure of intemperance and not merely negative. Working-men’s halls. The efforts of working-men in Baltimore. Modified Prohibition considered.
  2. Other Evils.
    “Pluck-me Stores.” Excessive immigration, monopolies, accidents, a wide-spread spirit of lawlessness, pauperism.

Source: Chautauqua Assembly Herald. Vol. XIV, No. 15 (August 9, 1889), pp. 6-7.

Image Source: The University of Wisconsin yearbook, The Badger 1894.

 

Categories
Economics Programs Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Activities of department of political economy, 1935-1936

 

Annual reports by university presidents often include chapters submitted by individual faculties, schools, and/or departments about their instructional, research, and outreach activities. Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is as good a place as any to serve as a digital depository of such dispersed material that can document time-lines for individual economics departments and economists. It would be boring for both the curator and subscribers to be subject to a long continuous stream of such material from any one department, so from time to time, I’ll just add additional years and gradually complete the time-series of reports.

_____________________

1935-1936
POLITICAL ECONOMY
[at Johns Hopkins University]

The instruction in Political Economy was directed by Professor Hollander, who met students daily in seminary organization for formal study and for cooperative research. The courses were designed to afford systematic instruction in general economic principles, intimate acquaintance with special fields of economic activity, and, most important of all, knowledge of and ability to employ sound methods of economic research. Dr. George E. Barnett, Professor of Statistics; Dr. William O. Weyforth, Associate Professor of Political Economy; Dr. Broadus Mitchell, Associate Professor of Political Economy; Dr. George H. Evans, Jr., Associate Professor of Political Economy; Dr. Howard E. Cooper, Associate in Political Economy; and Dr. Roy J. Bullock, Associate in Political Economy, assisted in the conduct of the work.

ECONOMIC SEMINARY

The papers and reports presented to the Seminary were as follows: Gregory King, the Political Arithmetician, by Professor Barnett; The History of British Preference Shares, by Dr. Evans; The Baltimore Wholesale, Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Market, by Mr. Deupree; Tench Coxe and the Federal Constitution, by Mr. Hutcheson; Hamilton’s Early Financial Papers, by Dr. Mitchell; Constitutional Restrictions on Economic Liberty, by Dr. Kahn; The Historical Development of the Massachusetts Municipal List, by Mr. Hickman; Food Marketing and Public Policy, by Dr. Bullock; The Baltimore Clearing House Association, by Mr. Hales; Real Property Tax Delinquency in Maryland, by Miss Wolman; The Trade Acceptance in America, by Mr. Wilcox; The Banking Principle and the Currency Principle, by Dr. Weyforth; The Settlement of Frederick County, Maryland, by Mr. Douglas; The Literary and Economic Influences upon Alexander Hamilton, by Mr. Rappeport; Tench Coxe’s Plea for a National Economy, by Mr. Hutcheson; Real Property Tax Delinquency in Baltimore, by Miss Wolman; Administrative Control of Labor Relations, by Mr. Ziskind; The Fiduciary Nature of the Savings Bank, by Mr. Hickman; The Street Railway Industry, by Mr. Saks; The History of Marsh Market, by Mr. Deupree; The Origin of the Baltimore Clearing House, by Mr. Hales; Industrial Corporate Surplus, by Dr. Cooper; The Concept of Self Interest in Adam Smith and Related Writers, by Mr. Lovenstein; The Growth of Municipal Indebtedness in the United States, by Mr. Shattuck; Investment Affiliates in Recent American Banking, by Mr. Peach; Small Scale Enterprise in the Anthracite Coal Fields, by Mr. Lanyon.

Appreciable progress has been made by members of the Seminary in the study of special aspects of the several questions chosen for investigation. The income of the Lessing Rosenthal Fund for Economic Research has been of aid in connection with Mr. W. Braddock Hickman’s study of “The Legal Control of Savings Bank Investments in Massachusetts” and with Mr. Harold Hutcheson’s study of “Tench Coxe.” The Fund was also drawn upon for temporary advances toward defraying the cost of publication by the Johns Hopkins Press of Dr. Evans’ “British Corporation Finance,” of Dr. Wyckoff’s “Tobacco Regulation in Colonial Maryland,” and also a second impression of five numbers of the Economic Tracts, out of print.

The Hutzler Collection has continued to add to its works disclosing the development of American economic thought and American economic history. During the present session we have also acquired an admirable copy of the rare first edition of Graunt’s “Bills of Mortality,” and photostat copies of important writings of Gregory King and Charles Davenant for use in the forthcoming series of Economic Tracts. The recataloguing and the rearrangement of the collection, in progress for the past two years, will be completed in the coming months.

Professor Hollander lectured one hour a week on the Development of Economic Theory and one hour a week on Theory and Practice of Public Expenditure.

Professor Barnett lectured one hour a week throughout the year on American Trade Unionism.

Associate Professor Weyforth lectured one hour a week throughout the year on Industrial Fluctuations.

Associate Professor Mitchell lectured one hour a week throughout the year on The Slave South.

Associate Professor Evans lectured one hour a week during the first half-year on Index Numbers.

Dr. Cooper gave a series of lectures in the second half-year on The Interpretation of Financial Statements.

Dr. Bullock gave a series of lectures in the second half-year on Marketing of Consumers’ Goods by Manufacturers.

Members of the staff were called upon for public service in various capacities. Professor Barnett continued his service as a representative of the American Economic Association on the Advisory Committee of the Census. He was also appointed chairman of the Nominating Committee of the American Economic Association and Vice-President of the American Statistical Association. Dr. Weyforth was reappointed to the Maryland State Board of Examiners of Public Accountants. Dr. Mitchell served as consultant to the Director, Division of Review of the N. R. A. from November 1935 to March 1936. He was elected for the second time to membership on the Executive Committee of the American Economic Association.

The following undergraduate courses were given:

1. Elements of Economics. Three hours weekly, through the year. Associate Professor Weyforth, Associate Professor Mitchell, and Associate Professor Evans.

2. Statistics. Three hours weekly, through the year. Associate Professor Evans.

3. Money and Banking. Three hours weekly, through the year. Associate Professor Weyforth.

6. Corporation Finance and Investments. Three hours weekly, through the year. Professor Barnett.

11. Principles of Accounting. Three hours weekly, through the year. Dr. Cooper.

12. Economic History. Three hours weekly, through the year. Associate Professor Mitchell.

14. Advanced Principles of Accounting. Three hours weekly, through the year. Dr. Cooper.

16. The Money Market. One hour weekly, through the year. Professor Hollander.

18. Wages and Employment. One hour weekly, through the year. Professor Barnett.

20. Marketing. Three hours weekly, through the year. Dr. Bullock.

21. Advanced Marketing. Three hours weekly, through the year. Dr. Bullock.

22. Commercial Law. Two hours weekly, through the year. Dr. Howell.

23. Mathematics of Finance and Statistics. Three hours weekly, through the year. Dr. Richeson.

 

EVENING COURSES IN BUSINESS ECONOMICS

During the past twenty years The Johns Hopkins University has offered a series of Evening Courses in Business Economics under the general direction of the Department of Political Economy. Such instruction is made available at hours and under conditions designed to meet the convenience of those likely to make use thereof. While designed in the main to offer instruction to young men and women actually engaged in or contemplating entrance into business, industry and commerce, the courses are planned to meet the needs also of those who have a more general interest in the subjects. The following courses were offered during the year:

Current Economic Problems, Professor Hollander; Investments, Professor Barnett; Money and Banking, Associate Professor Weyforth; Political Economy, American Economic History, Associate Professor Mitchell; Business Statistics, Corporation Finance, Associate Professor Evans; Corporation Accounting, Dr. Cooper; Elements of Business Administration, Marketing, Dr. Bullock; Elementary Accounting, Dr. Bryan; Mercantile Credit, Mr. Clautice; Auditing Principles and Practice, Federal and State Tax Accounting, Mr. Baker; Advanced Commercial Law, Dr. Watkins; Salesmanship and Salesmanagement, Mr. Ramsen; Advanced Auditing and Accountant’s Working Papers, Mr. Stegman; Applications of Psychology to Business, Dr. Bentley; Advanced Accounting Problems, Mr. McCord; Principles of Advertising, Mr. Corner; Commercial Law, Mr. Thomsen; Specialized Accounting, Cost Accounting, Mr. Smith; Business English, Public Speaking, Dr. Lyons.

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ECONOMICS

The academic year 1935-36 marked the fourteenth year of operation of the School of Business Economics. The School was established to take care of the increasing need of specialized academic training for men contemplating a business career. In planning the curriculum of the School of Business Economics there was kept in mind the need for an adequate training in certain fundamental subjects, as well as for specialized instruction in economics and business subjects. Accordingly, during the first two years the studies are rather closely prescribed and are selected so as to furnish an essential background for a career in any field of business. In these years the curriculum is very similar to that which would be taken in the College of Arts and Sciences. In the third year greater latitude is allowed the student in the selection of subjects, and in the fourth year nearly all the subjects are elective. During these last two years it is intended that there should be intensive specialization in studies in business economics.

Students in the School of Business Economics are called upon, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Economics, to submit in the last year of residence an essay dealing with some business or economic subject. A wide range of choice is permitted to students in the selection of subjects. A suggested list of topics is submitted to them, but they are not restricted to such topics. It is believed that one of the principal benefits that a student may derive from the writing of such an essay is the experience obtained in the independent gathering and organization of material; and the industry and zeal of the student is likely to be enhanced if the subject on which he is working is one of special interest to him. The subjects on which essays were written in the year 1935-36 included the following: Interest as a Cost to Manufacture; The Chain Store Movement in Men’s Wear Merchandising; Control and Planning of Department Store Merchandising; Accounting Presentation for the Executive; Production Indexes; Should Public Utility Holding Companies be Eliminated?; Advertising Agencies in the United States; Investment Value of Low, Medium, and High Priced Common Stocks; Public Policy Toward Chain Stores; The Federal Securities Act of 1933 and Its Amendments; Revaluation of Fixed Assets; The American Paper Industry; The Baltimore Consumer Market. Several students wrote on the Analysis of Financial Statements, each one selecting a different corporation as the basis of his study.

In 1936, 17 students were graduated. These students were awarded the degree of Bachelor of Science in Economics.

PUBLICATIONS

George E. Barnett.

Review of History of Labor in the United States, 1896-1932, volumes III and IV, in American Economic Review, June 1936, pp. 339-342.

George Heberton Evans, Jr.

British Corporation Finance 1775-1850; A Study of Preference Shares. (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press), pp. 208.

Jacob H. Hollander.

Two Letters on the Measure of Value by John Stuart Mill, 1822 (Editor). Fourth number of fourth series of Reprint of Economic Tracts. (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1936), pp. 24.

Broadus Mitchell.

American Radicals Nobody Knows, in South Atlantic Quarterly, October 1935, pp. 394-401.

Economists and the Depression, in Social Frontier, April 1936, pp. 215-217.

Articles in Dictionary of American Biography, as follows: vol. XV—Enoch Pratt, pp. 171-172; John Rae, pp. 321-322; vol. XVI—Edward Van Dyke Robinson, pp. 42-43; Jacob Schoenhof, pp. 450-451; XVII—Stephen Simpson, pp. 183-184; Lysander Spooner, pp. 466-467; XVIII—Philip Evan Thomas, pp. 442-443; Robert Ellis Thompson, pp. 469-470; Daniel Augustus Tompkins, pp. 581-583.

—and reviews as follows:

Parmelee, Farewell to Poverty, in Social Frontier, January 1936, p. 122.

Lawrence, Stumbling into Socialism, in The Annals, January 1936, pp. 281-282.

Ely and Bohn, The Great Change, in The Annals, November 1935, pp. 191-192.

Douglas, Controlling Depressions, and Fledderus and van Kleeck, On Economic Planning, in New Republic, August 28, 1935, p. 81.

Harvey, Samuel Gompers, in Journal of Political Economy, February 1936, pp. 106-107.

Baker, Concerning Government Benefits, in The Survey, June 1936, p. 188.

Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, in Virginia Quarterly Review, July 1936, pp. 453-457.

William O. Weyforth.

Review of A New Monetary System of the United States (Related Studies), in Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv, November 1935, pp. 308-309.

Jacob H. Hollander,
Abram G. Hutzler Professor of Political Economy.

 

Source: Johns Hopkins University. University Circular. Annual Report of the President, 1935-1936, Vol. 481, (November 1936), pp. 99-103.

Categories
Economists Exam Questions Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins. Career of economics Ph.D. alumnus (plus doctoral exams), George H. Evans, 1925

 

This post began as a straightforward transcription of the final Ph.D. examinations of George Heberton Evans, Jr. who was to stay on at Johns Hopkins, becoming professor of political economy, then long serving chairman of the department (1942-1960), and finally serving as Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy (1959-1966).  But as I was typing the questions below, I had the feeling that I had seen these questions before and began to fear that maybe I was senselessly duplicating a previous post at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. 

It turns out that the Johns Hopkins Department of Political Economy engaged in a fairly vigorous recycling of final Ph.D. examination questions over the years. I remember wondering what sense there was in having written final doctoral examinations in May for a degree to be awarded in June, literally weeks away. This practice of posing virtually identical examination questions would seem to indicate that the department did not regard the examinations as much more that an academic formality.

Cf. the very high correspondence of questions with those of the 1933 examinations. Incidentally the economic theory questions below are completely identical to those of the May 19, 1927 exam and in the applied economics questions below six of the questions are the same as the May 21, 1927 exam.

_______________________

Vital dates, George Heberton Evans, Jr.

Born January 20, 1900 and died October 12, 1979 in Baltimore, Maryland.

_______________________

Awarded the Ph.D. at the 1925 Commencement
of Johns Hopkins University

George Heberton Evans, Jr., of Maryland, A.B. Johns Hopkins University 1920. Political Economy, Political Science, Psychology

Dissertation Title: Apartment Rents in Baltimore, January 1917 Through October 1923.

Source: Johns Hopkins University, Conferring of Degrees at the Close of the Forty-Ninth Academic Year (June 9, 1925), p. 8.

_______________________

AEA 1969 Biographical Listing

Evans, George Heberton, Jr., academic; b. Baltimore, Md., 1900; A.B., Johns Hopkins U., 1920, Ph.D., 1925. DOC DIS. Apartment Rents in Baltimore January 1917 through October 1923, 1925. FIELDS 1bc, 7a, 6b. PUB. Business Incorporations in the United States, 1800-1943, 1948; Principles of Investment, 1940; British Corporation Finance, 1775-1850: A Study of Preference Shares, 1936. RES. History of American Business Corporations, 1800-1950. Prof. political economy, Johns Hopkin U. since 1942, dean, Faculty of Philosophy, 1959-66. ADDRESS Political Economy Dept., Johns Hopkins U., Gilman Hall 411, Charles and 34th Sts., Baltimore, MD 21218.

Source: American Economic Review, Vol. 59, No. 6. 1969 Handbook of the American Economic Association (January, 1970), p. 127.

_______________________

G.H. EVANS, JR.
May 21, 1925

EXAMINATION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY AS A PRINCIPAL SUBJECT
(Principles of Political Economy)

  1. What is the relation of Political Economy to economic history in scope and method of investigation?
  2. What important economic doctrines had been clearly formulated prior to the year 1600? [sic, in several other exams with nearly identical content “1800” so probably “1800” is correct]
  3. Discuss the personal contacts and doctrinal contrasts of Quesnay and Adam Smith.
  4. Contrast the theories of distribution formulated by (a) Adam Smith, (b) David Ricardo, (c) Alfred Marshall.
  5. What has been the development of the principle of population since the time of Malthus?
  6. Discuss the origin and development of the wage fund theory.
  7. What have been the most important contributions of the Austrian economists?
  8. What scientific theory of wages have your own studies of wage conditions tended to confirm?
  9. What assignable limit is there to the size of the modern industrial unit?
  10. What would be the theoretical effects of a horizontal increase of ten per cent in general wages upon the several classes of society?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

G.H. EVANS, JR.
May 22, 1925

EXAMINATION IN POLITICAL ECONOMY AS A PRINCIPAL SUBJECT
(Applied Economics)

  1. What principles should govern the governmental commission in the fixture of railway rates?
  2. Outline the history of (a) metallic and (b) paper money in the United States since the adoption of the federal constitution.
  3. Discuss the history, the defects and the incidence of the General Property Tax.
  4. State and criticize the Quantity Theory of Money.
  5. On what grounds can the sale of protected manufactures in foreign markets at less than domestic prices be justified?
  6. Discuss modern industrial combinations in the light of an assignable limit to the growth in the size of the modern industrial unit.
  7. Trace the progress of the U.S. Tariff since the Civil War.
  8. State the theory of large numbers and explain the relation of the theory to the logic of chance.
  9. Compare the administrative organization of the Bank of France and the Reichsbank.
  10. What is the relation of labor legislation to economic organization? What are the natural limits of labor legislation?

Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives, Department of Political Economy. Series 6. Box 3/1, “Graduate Exams 1903-1932.”

Image Source: Johns Hopkins University, Sheridan Libraries, Graphic and Pictorial Collection. George Heberton Evans at approximately 40 years old.

 

Categories
Johns Hopkins Suggested Reading Syllabus

Johns Hopkins. International Economics Reading List. Balassa, 1968

 

The content of the course titled “International Economics” taught by Bela Balassa at Johns Hopkins University in 1968 was actually limited to pure trade theory, commercial policy and economic integration. The reading list for Balassa’s other course at Johns Hopkins University, “Trade and Economic Development“, was posted earlier. 

___________________

Department of Economics
International Economics 641
Fall, 1968
Dr. Balassa

Bibliography and Reading List

Abbreviations of Books

Books are referred to by authors unless otherwise noted.

RIT, Readings in International Economics

RTIT, Readings in the Theory of International Trade

Balassa, B., The Theory of Economic Integration

Baldwin et al, Trade, Growth and the Balance of Payments

Caves, R., Trade and Economic Structure

Haberler, G., The Theory of International Trade

Johnson, H.G., International Trade and Economic Growth

Linder, S.B., An Essay on Trade and Transformation

Marshall, Money, Credit, and Commerce

Meade, J. E., Trade and Commerce

_________, A Geometry of International Trade

Mill, J. S., Principles of Political Economy

Ohlin, B., Interregional and International Trade

Ricardo, D., The Principles of Political Economy

Scitovsky, T., Economic Theory and Western European Integration

Travis, W.P., The Theory of Trade and Protections

Vanke, J., International Trade: Theory and Economic Policy

Viner, J., I, Studies in the Theory of International Trade

_________ II, The Customs Union Issue

Abbreviations of Periodicals

AER, American Economic Review

BOUIS, Bulletin of Oxford University Institute of Statistics

Econ., Economica

EI, Economia Internazionale

EJ, Economic Journal

ER, Economic Record

IEP, International. Economic Papers

JPE, Journal of Political Economy

Ky, Kyklos

OEP, Oxford Economic Papers

QJE, Quarterly Journal of Economics

RES, Review of Economics and Statistics

RESt, Review of Economic Studies

WA, Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv

NOTE: The non-starred items are assigned, the starred ones recommended .

General Surveys

Haberler, G., A Survey of International Trade Theory, Special Papers in International Economics, No. 1, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

Corden, W.M., Recent Developments in the Theory of International Trade, ibid., No. 7

Bhagwati, J., “The Pure Theory of International Trade,” Economic Journal, March, 1964

Chipman, J.S., “A Survey of the Theory of International Trade,” Econometrica, July, October,1965, January, 1966

Caves, R.E., Trade and Economic Structure

Kemp, M.C., The Pure Theory of International Trade

I. The Classical Theory of International Trade

Ricardo, ch. 7

Mill, Book III, ch. 17, 18, 25

Marshall, Appendix J.

Haberler, ch. IX-XII

Viner, I, ch. VIII

*Mynt, H., “The Classical Theory of International Trade and the Underdeveloped Countries,” EJ, June, 1958.

*Vanek, J., “An Afterthought on the ‘Real Cost-Opportunity Cost’ Dispute and some Aspects of General Equilibrium Under Conditions of Variable Factor Supplies,” RESt, June, 1959.

*Walsh, V.C., “Leisure and International Trade,” Econ., August, 1959

II. Criticisms and Extensions of the Classical Theory

Williams, J.H., “The Theory of International Trade Reconsidered,” RTIT, ch. 12

Graham, F.D., “The Theory of International Values Re-Examined,” RTIT, ch. 14

Whitin, T.M., “Classical Theory, Graham’s Theory, and Linear Programming in International Trade,” QJE, November, 1953.

Ohlin, ch. I-VI, Appendix III.

Robinson, R., “Factor Proportions and Comparative Advantage,” RIT, ch. 1

Kenen, P.B., “Nature, Capital, and Trade,” JPE, October, 1965

*Metzler, L., “Professor Graham’s Theory of International Values,” AER, June, 1950

*Posner, M.V., “International Trade and Technical Change,” OEP, October, 1961

*Becker, G.S., “A Note on Multi-Country Trade,” AER, September, 1952.

*Kravis, I.B., “Availability and Other Influences on the Commodity Composition of Trade,” JPE, April, 1956

*Michaely, M., “Factor Proportions in International Trade: Current State of the Theory, ” Ky, 1964 (4)

III. Comparative Costs and International Trade: Further Developments

Leontief, W., “The Use of Indifference Curves in the Analysis of Foreign Trade,” RTIT, ch. 10

Samuelson, P., “Social Indifference Curves,” QJE, February, 1956

Haberler, G., “Some Problems in the Pure Theory of International Trade,” RIT, ch.13

Isard, W., and M.J. Peck, “Location Theory and International and Interregional Trade,” QJE, February, 1954

Linder, ch. 3

Balassa, B., “Tariff Reductions and Trade in Manufactures Among Industrial Countries,” AER, June, 1966

*Lösch, A., “A New Theory of International Trade,” IEP, Vol. 6

*Posner, M.V., “International Trade and Technical Change,” OEP, October, 1961

*Grubel, H.G., “Intra-Industry Specialization and the Pattern of Trade,” CJEPS, August, 1967

*Matthews, R.C.O., “Reciprocal Demand and Increasing Returns,” RESt (1949- 50)

*Vanek, ch. XII-XIV

*Ohlin, ch. X-XII

*Meade, II, ch. I-III

IV. Comparative Cost Theory: Empirical Verification

Leontief, W., “Domestic Production and Foreign Trade,” RIT, ch. 30 and RES, November, 1956

Vanek, J., “The Natural Resource Content of Foreign Trade, 1870-1955, and the Relative Abundance of Natural Resources in the United States,” RES, May, 1959

Keesing, D.B., “Labor Skills and International Trade,” RES, August, 1965

Gruber, W., Mehta, D., and Vernon, R., “The R & D Factor in International Trade and International Investment of United States Industries,” JPE, February, 1967

MacDougall, G., “British and American Exports: A Study Suggested by the Theory of Comparative Costs,” EJ, December, 1951

Balassa, B., “An Empirical Demonstration of Comparative Cost Theory,” RES, August, 1963

*Comments on the Leontief-Paradox:

Ellsworth, RES, August, 1954
Swerling, RES, August, 1954
Valavanis-Vail, JPE, December, 1954
Buchanan, EI, November, 1955
Valavanis, Robinson, Elliott, Vaccale, Leontief, RES, February, 1958
Kreinin, AER, March, 1965

*Minhas, B.S., An International Comparison of Factor Costs and Factor Use.

*Moroney, J.R., and Walker, J.M., “A Regional Test of the Heckscher-Ohlin Hypothesis,” JPE, December, 1966

V. Factor-Price Equalization and Income Distribution

Heckscher, E., “The Effect of Foreign Trade on the Distribution of Income,” RTIT, ch. 13

Samuelson, P., “International Factor Price Equalization Once Again,” RIT, ch. 3

Johnson, H.G., “Factor Endowments, International Trade and Factor Prices,” in Johnson, ch. 1 and RIT, ch. 5

Balassa, B., “The Factor-Price Equalization Controversy,” WA, Vol. 87, No. 1 (1961)

Rybczynski, T.M., “Factor Endowments and Relative Commodity Prices,” RIT, ch. 4

Stolper, W., and Samuelson, P., “Protection and Real Wages” RTIT, ch. 15

*Lancaster, K., “Protection and Real Wages: A Restatement,” EJ, June, 1967

*Bhagwati, J., “Protection, Real Wages and Real Income,” EJ, December, 1959

*Pierce, I., McKenzie, L.W., and Samuelson, P., “More About Factor Price Equalization,” IER, October, 1967

*Samuelson. P., “Equalization by Trade of the Interest Rate Along With the Real Wage,” in Baldwin, pp. 35-52

*Jones, R.W., “The Structure of Simple General Equilibrium Models,” JPE, December, 1965

*Minabe, N., “The Stolper-Samuelson Theorem, the Rybczynski Effect, and the Heckscher-Ohlin Theory of Trade Pattern and Factor Price Equalization,” CJEPS, August, 1967

Travis, ch. II, III

VI. Gains from Trade

Viner, J, ch. IX (up to p. 565)

Samuelson, P., “The Gains from International Trade,” RTIT, ch. 2

Samuelson, P., “The Gains from International Trade Once Again,” EJ, December, 1962

Meade, I , ch. IX

Baldwin, R.E., “The New Welfare Economics and Gains in International Trade,” RIT, ch. 12

*Giersch, H., “The Trade Optimum,” IEP, Vol. 7

*Kenen, D.B., “On the Geometry of Welfare Economics,” QJE, August, 1957

*Kemp, M.C., “The Gains from International Trade,” December, 1962

*Vanek, ch. XV

VII. The Theory of Tariffs

Scitovsky, T., “A Reconsideration of the Theory of Tariffs,” RTIT, ch. 16

Metzler, L.A., “Tariffs, International Demand, and Domestic Prices” RIT, ch. 2

Johnson, “Optimum Tariffs and Retaliation,” in Johnson, ch. II

_________, “The Cost of Protection and the Scientific Tariff,” JPE, August, 1960

Balassa, B., “Tariff Protection in Industrial Countries : An Evaluation,” RIT, ch. 3

Corden, W.M., “The Structure of the Tariff System and the Effective Protective Rate,” JPE, June, 1966

*Meade II, ch. VI

*Vanek, ch. XVI

*Lerner, A.P., “The Symmetry Between Import and Export Taxes,” RIT, ch. 11

*Fleming, J.M., “The Optimal Tariff from an International Point of View,” RES, February, 1956

*Baldwin, R.E., “The Effect of Tariffs on International and Domestic Prices,” QJE, February, 1960

*Johnson, H.G., “A Model of Protection and the Exchange Rate,” RESt, Vol XXXIII No. 2

*Bhagwati, J., “On the Equivalence of Tariffs and Quotas,” in Baldwin, pp. 53-67

VIII. Trade and Factor Movements

Mundell, R.A., “International Trade and Factor Mobility,” RIT, ch. 7

McDougall, G.D.A., “The Benefits· and Costs of Private Investment from Abroad: A Theoretical Approach,” RIT, ch. 10

Corden, W.M., “Protection and Foreign Investment,” ER, May, 1967

Vernon, R., “International Investment and International Trade in the Product Cycle,” QJE, May 1966

Johnson, H.G., Comparative Cost and Commercial Policy Theory in a Developing World Economy (Stockholm, Alqvist and Wiksell, 1968)

Jones, R. W., “International Capital Movement and the Theory of Tariffs and Trade,” QJE, February, 1967

*Olivera, J.H.G., “Is Free Trade a Perfect Substitute for Factor Mobility?”, EJ, March, 1967

*Corden, W.M., “The Economic Limits of Population Increase,” ER, November, 1955

*Jasay, A.E., “The Social Choice between Home and Overseas Investment,” EJ, March, 1960

*Frankel, M., “Home vs. Foreign Investment,” BOUIS, August, 1960.

*Penrose, E., “Foreign Investment and the Growth of the Firm,” EJ, June, 1956

*Kemp, M.C., “Foreign Investment and National Advantage,” ER, March, 1962

IX. Economic Integration

Viner, II, ch. I-IV, VII

Balassa, B., ch. 1-12

Scitovsky, ch. I, III

Lipsey, R.G., “The Theory of Customs Unions: A General Survey,” EJ, September·, 1960

Spraos, “The Conditions for a Trade Creating Customs Union,” EJ, March, 1964;

Mishan, “Comment,” March, 1965; Spraos, “Rejoinder,” September, 1965

Johnson, H.G., “An Economic Theory of Protectionism, Tariff Bargaining, and the Formation of Customs Unions,” JPE, June, 1965

Balassa, B., “Trade Creation and Trade Diversion in the European Common Market,” EJ, March, 1967

*Lipsey, R.G. and Lancaster, K., “The General Theory of the Second Best,” RESt, 1956-57 (1)

*Dosser, D., “Welfare Effects of Tax Unions,” RESt, June, 1964

*Meade, J.E., The Theory of Customs Unions

*Cooper, C.A., and Massell, B.V., “A New Look at Customs Union Theory,” December, 1965

*Michaely, M., “On Customs Unions and the Gains from Trade,” EJ, September, 1965

*Flanders, June, “Measuring Protectionism and Predicting Trade Diversion,” JPE, April, 1965

*Krause, L.B., The Meaning of European Economic Integration for the United States, Ch. 2-3

Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives, Department of Political Economy. Series 5/6. Box 6/1, Folder “Course Outlines and Reading Lists c. 1900, c. 1950, 1963-68”.

Image Source: Portrait of Bela Balassa in the Johns Hopkins University Yearbook, Hullabaloo 1976. Note that the image posted on the Béla Belassa page at the website Alchetron mistakenly uses a photo of Balassa Sándor Erkel Ferenc.