Category: M.I.T.

M.I.T. General Examinations in International Economics. Feb/May 1966

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-07-21

The following general exams for the field of international economics in 1966 at M.I.T. cover mainly topics related to international payments and finance as opposed to pure trade theory and commercial policy.

The general exams in international economics from 1959 have been posted earlier.

_________________________

General Examination in International Economics
February 9, 1966

Make the case for or against economic integration, as you define it, in Europe, in a particular corner of the world, or more widely.
Working Party 3 of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has been assigned the topic of balance-of-payments adjustment policy. Write a sketch of the line it should take, in your estimation, regarding speed of adjustment, approved mechanisms, responsibilities of surplus countries, etc.
In the wide ranging controversy about the adequacy of international monetary reserves, where do you inscribe yourself, and why?
Discuss the theory of international trade in terms of the empirical support which various theories have been able to muster. Does one theory survive this testing better than others?
Explain why, if it be true, that foreign trade was an effective engine of economic growth in the 19^th century, but is not in the 20^th.

_________________________

International Economics General Exam
May 1966

Write three essays, of one hour each, on Topic 1, and one each out of Groups 2 and 3 (but excluding the combination of #3 (United States) and #5).

Group 1

The Relevance of the Theory of Comparative Advantage to Problems of Development in Less Developed Countries Today

Group 2

The Role of Technological Change in Balance-of-Payments Disequilibrium
Specific Policy Recommendations (with appropriate analysis) for the Balance-of-Payments Problem of the United Kingdom, the United States, or a developing country such as India

Group 3

The Costs and Benefits of Well-Functioning International Capital Markets
International Monetary Arrangements Today

Source: Institute Archives and Special Collections, MIT Libraries. Charles Kindleberger Papers, Box 22, Folder “Examinations International Economics 1959-75”.

Image Source: Boston Public Library, Tichnor Brothers Postcard Collection. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass. Tichnor Bros. Inc., Boston, Mass., 1930.

Tags Kindleberger

Funny Business M.I.T.

MIT. Faculty Christmas Party Skit. Seven Stages of a Student, 1964

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-07-13

The following faculty skit from the M.I.T. economics department apparently had multiple authors. The last act was penned by Robert Solow–it was the only part of the script that was written in long-hand and only Act VI of this skit is found in Robert Solow’s papers in the Duke archives). Unfortunately Act V “The Thesis Defense” was not included in the Graduate Economics Association (1961-67) folder of the Economics Department Records at the M.I.T. Archives.

Attempts at racial, ethnic and gendered humor need no further comment than to note their respective shelf-lives expired two generations ago.

____________________________

GEA Christmas party 1964

Appetite of a Man; Income of a Boy
(The Seven Stages of a Student)
a play in six acts

Cast

Student—played by [blank]
Registration Officer—played by [blank]
Other students, professors, deans, etc.

Act I—The Admission Interview
Act II—Registration
Act III—Talk to the First-Year Class
Act IV—The General Examination
Act V—The Thesis Defense
Act VI—Employment: Going out into The World

TO THE CAST: IF YOU DON’T LIKE A LINE, IMPROVE ON IT.

Act I: The Admission Interview—Student and Admissions Committee

Student Applicant: Sir, I believe you have an economics department here at MIT. Can you tell me why?

Prof. 1: Why does a dog have fleas? To keep things stirred up. But how did you hear about it?

Student: Oh, I follow the basketball scores very closely. If this is the Admissions Committee, I’d like to apply.

Prof. 2: How did you do in college?

Student: I averaged 27 points a game.

Prof. 3: No, we want to know how you did in your college work. Tell us something about your grades, about your preparation, especially in economics and mathematics.

Student: We’ll get to that jazz in due course. But let me remind you, I am interviewing you, not you me. You tell me about fellowships, about student loans, and about parking stickers, how are the students fixed for the things that count.

Prof. 2: Well, you can get a Woodrow Wilson.

Student: If I was going to deal with Woodrow Wilson, I’d have gone to Princeton where they have the school and $35 million, to say nothing of $5.3 million on the side in history.

Prof. 1: There’s the National Science Foundation.

Student: Whose got the balance-of-payments disequilibrium. I am talking of how much money you are going to give me, not how much money I am going to bring to you. Now get this straight: I have expenses. These Triumphs cost money to maintain, and my girl likes steak. I also want refinance my stock market operations from my broker’s 6% to what I understand are your 2% loans for students. You give me tuition plus $5,000, plus another $5,000 loan, plus a ticket to park my car inside the Grover C. Hermann Building, or I’m on my way to Yale on a NASA.

Chorus: Nasa’s in the cole, cole groun. [Song by Stephen Foster “Masa’s in the Cold, Cold Ground”]

Act II—Registration

Reg. Off.—This stuff is pretty cut and dried: 14.121 Bishop, if you’re strong enough to turn the crank and carry the script; 14.451, mathematics, statistics, and a course like history, labor, trade, money.

Student: Whoa, back. Not so fast. First, let’s worry about the languages. There’s Spanish.

Reg. Off. We don’t let students take Spanish unless they are interested in development in Latin America, and have a need to read the limited literature.

Student: I guess I prefer Portugese.

Reg. Off. Development in Brazil.

Student: The Bossa Nova. But after the language, I think I’ll start on the minor: some of the 15 courses: Social Distance and Proximity during and After the Office Party, that sounds interesting; and maybe Design Packaging, how to get a nickel’s worth of stuff into a buck’s package; and Engineering Social Change for Chemical Engineers, or what to do after the Stink Bomb drops by mistake.

Reg. Off. And 14.121

Student: and some courses in the soft option: what is it this year, trade, labor, development? What about that course I heard about in which the students all graded each other on how they related to one another—a children’s party with an A for each kid.

Reg. Off. And 14.121.

Student: And a course at Harvard with real razz-matazz: Lady Jackson [Barbara Mary Ward, Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, a development economist], and Man Galbraith, and Senor Chenery, and Don [here the honorific title for a nobleman] Hirschman.

Reg. Off. Look pal. Everybody takes 14.121.

Student: You can’t mean that we do too, those of us here on athletic scholarships.

Act III—Reg. Off. To the First-Year Class.

Student 1 whispering to Student 2: They say it’s a terrible experience. Students faint and dragged out. Chills come over them. There’s a lot of talk of Cs and Ds, and fellowships being taken away, and students walking the plank.

Student 2, whispering to Student 1: Naw, it’s no worse than a bad cold, and you’re not a man until you’ve had it.

Reg. Off. “Look to the right of you, look to the left of you. Of the three of you, only one will be here next term.” What famous book on economics started that way and the edition had to be suppressed. You students really have it made. Appetite of a man; income of a Boy. How much better you are off than my older colleagues, with their income of a man, and appetites of a boy.

Student: What about Grades?

Reg. Off. Grades? Grades? Who pays any attention to grades? Grades are trivial; the second order of smalls; a mere epsilon, nothing. Of course you need one A to get tuition money for the second year, and a second A for every $100 of coffee-and-cakes money. But grades? Who needs ‘em? They’re for undergraduates, for grade hounds, for Phi Beta Kappa or College-Bowl kids. Concentrate on higher things like saying Stolper-Samuelson and not (repeat not) Samuelson-Stolper.

Act IV: The General Examination

Prof 1: Good morning, Mr. Mittlablook.

Prof 2: Good morning, Mr. Pswoom.

Prof 3: Good morning, Mr. Pixyquicksel

Student (aside): Isn’t it lovely, they all know my name after two years.

Prof 1: Let’s get down to business.

Student: Must we?

Prof 2: What would you like to be examined in first? I see we have economic theory, economic history, and textbook writing and consulting fees.

Student: I am afraid I am not responsible for any of those.

Prof 3: We would all like to say the same.

Student: I was told when I came that I could be examined in comparative economic systems, the difference between capitalist and socialist economies, and free enterprise sink or swim.

Prof 1: Those fields were discontinued this morning.

Prof 2: Yes, I am afraid you’ll have to take the exam in economic theory and history.

Student: I think that is dreadfully unfair.

Prof 3: Well let me start you off by asking you a question in economic history. Consider the period which used to be known as the industrial revolution. This was accompanied, as you know by a large population explosion. Would you discuss the relative roles of (a) men and (b) women, in this development?

Student: Well, I suppose you could say that they each contributed something but the truth lies somewhere in between.

Prof 1: Wrong; you are supposed to say that the roles are neither reflexive, symmetric, nor transitive.

(STAGE DIRECTION: The last time we tried that line we stepped on it. It should be read with greater expression.)

Prof 2: That question was meant to combine economic history and economic theory. Let me ask you one about the history of economic theory. Name a business cycle theorist who was also a Russian cowboy.

Student: Evsey Domar.

Prof 3: Wrong again; Tugan Baranowsky. (general groans)

Prof 1: Now we come to your third field which is, I understand, professor imitating.

Student: Yes, I have learned to make noises like a professor now and then.

Prof 2: That will be no doubt fascinating at the Christmas Party.

Prof 3: Imitate a professor.

Student: How can I imitate a professor when I am a professor imitating a student?

Prof 1: Imitate a professor imitating a student imitating a professor.

Student: I am not responsible for infinite sequences.

Prof 2: Could you leave the room while we discuss you please. You’ll hear from us in about three years Thursday. (student leaves)

Prof 3: Well, what shall we do? He is a bright boy but he didn’t do too well.

Prof 1: On the other hand, I thought he was a stupid boy but did very well.

Prof 2: I see that as usual we are in complete agreement.

Prof 3: There is only one thing we can do. Give him an excellent plus and tell him not to write his thesis.

END OF SCENE.

Act V. The Thesis Defense
[missing]

Act VI. Employment

[Handwritten mimeo, author: Robert Solow]

Student sitting grandly in chair, feet on table, cigar? Del Tapley shows in two interviewers, I₁ and I₂.

D.T.: Mr. Auster, sir, these servile wretches represent Princeton and the University of Minnesota. They have an audience, I mean appointment, with you.

Come in chaps. Sorry to have to see you two at the same time like this, but my schedule is very crowded. I have to squeeze in the rest of the Big Ten this morning; and this afternoon I’m seeing Yale, Chicago, and a representative of the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley.

I₁: You mean…

A: Yes. Radner almost made it with that beard. But somehow he was just a little too much Commander Whitehead [president of Schweppes U.S.A. and featured in the Schweppes advertisements] and not enough Fidel. Anyhow, he’s been dropped. The FSM [Free Speech Movement] has eliminated the middleman. Mario [Savio, a leader of the Free Speech Movement] may come himself. We’re sending a delegation to meet him, at the B&A [Boston and Albany Railroad] yards. Must remind Marcelle and Cynthia not to comb their hair. But what can I do for you, or vice versa?

I₂: Well, we do feel Minnesota has a lot to offer a young man…

A: Stop feeling and start offering.

I₂: Sorry, sir. Our special CRAP salaries…

A: What?

I₂: Charles River Assistant Professorships—they start at $17,500. Unfortunately since Walter [Walter Heller] got back they’re only allowed to go up at 3.2% a year, but we try to make it up in sly ways. That’s for 9 months, of course…

A: Nine months?

I₂: Well, not nine full months—we do have a special slush fund to cover the week between terms. And we send you all expenses paid to the annual Christmas meeting any time it is in Miami. Of course if it’s not in Miami, we just send you to Miami.

A: Only fair. Pretty cold out there. Of course Adelman goes to the Virgin Islands every winter.

I₁: I’ve heard that Solow curls up in a hollow tree in Concord and hibernates.

A: How can they tell? Never mind. Seventeen-five sounds reasonable. What about the teaching load?

I₂: Teaching load? I didn’t realize you were actually willing to do any teaching. In that case you begin at 20,000, naturally. What were you thinking of teaching?

A: Why near-decomposability, of course. Is there anything else? By the way, do you have a Community Antenna Television Association [CATV]?

I₂: No, but…

A: No buts. I’m not interested. But you ought to see Bridger Mitchell [MIT graduate student, a telecommunications expert with Charles River Associates] while you’re here—I understand he won’t go to any university within 100 miles of a CATV. Tell me about Princeton.

I₂: But I haven’t told you about the 13/9^th summer pay, or the every-other-year sabbatical, or how you get Leo Hurwicz for a research assistant, and girls, girls, girls,…

A: Sorry. Not interested. Actually, I’m not anxious to leave the East coast anyway. To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure how to do it. Tell me about Princeton.

I₁: I do hope you will think seriously about Princeton, sir. We’re rather different from this Johnny-come-lately place, you know. More like a way of life. Gentlemen-scholars. Culture. Charm[?] Ivy. Yet intellect. We did have Einstone, you know.

A: You mean Einstein?

I₁: Well, we suggested he change his name. Don’t think we’re stuffy, however Princeton had a Negro student as long as 30 years ago. And one of these days we’re going to have another one. Our salaries may not be so high nor our teaching loads as light as those cow colleges’, but we’ve got class.

A: Even if I don’t take the job, I’ll put a tiger in my tank. But just how big is the teaching load?

I₁: Eleven hours.

A: Eleven hours a month isn’t too bad—after all, I run out of material on near-decomposability after 22 hours. But throw in a few trips to Washington, a week or two at the Bureau for decompression, Christmas in Miami, and the term is over.

I₁: The Princeton faculty doesn’t go to Miami. I’m afraid it’s eleven hours a week?

A: You are kidding. How can anybody teach eleven hours a week and still keep up his ONR [Office of Naval Research] project, his NSF [National Science Foundation] grant, and his consulting for oil companies?

I₂: The whole Minnesota department doesn’t teach 11 hours a week. Don’t be hasty, sir. We’ll buy you a Community Antenna Television set-up.

I₁: Don’t listen to him. You don’t have to lecture for 11 hours a week. You can work off some of it by discussion with graduate students.

A: I don’t see why Princeton graduate students should be treated better than MIT students. What’s the pay?

I₁: Eighty-five hundred.

A: Eighty-five hundred! Is that in 1954 dollars or something?

I₂: In Berkeley a teaching assistant gets 8500 just for picketing.

A: You’re having [?] me on.

I₁: I can see you’re not the Princeton type. Hardly anyone is.

A: How clever can you get? Well, gentlemen, thank you for dropping in. I’ll let you know in due course. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.

I₂: By the way, could you tell me what you’re writing your thesis on and how far you’ve got?

A: None of your goddamn business. But if you must know, Kuh once said that one regression is worth a thousand words. I figure 35,000 words makes a pretty fair thesis, so I’m doing 35 regressions.

I₁: On what?

A: On a computing machine, you dope. Now I’m afraid I have another appointment. I suppose some of the other students have agreed to see you. Miss Tapley will show you the way.

D.T.: Your next appointment is ready. The gentlemen from Harvard and Yale are waiting, the Wharton School has sent Albert Ando and two other people he claim are named Flend [Irwin Friend] and Klavis [Irving Kravis], there is a man from Northwestern who drove up in a Brink’s armored car he says is full of bills in small denominations, and the New York Knickerbockers claim they’ve picked the whole class in the draft.

Source: M.I.T. Libraries, Institute Archives and Special Collections. MIT Department of Economics Records. Box 2, Folder “GEA 1961-67”.

Image Source: “From the Flying Car to the Giant R2-D2: The Greates MIT Hacks of All-Time“, by Robert McMillan. Wired, March 20, 2013.

“Boston’s Harvard Bridge is 364.4 Smoots long. And the fact that anybody would remember this in 2013 was probably the furthest thing from MIT freshman Oliver Smoot’s mind on the October 1958 night that he lay himself down, time and again, along the bridge, allowing his fraternity brothers to measure its length (each Smoot is about 5 feet, 7 inches). It was a fraternity prank, but the next year the bridge’s Smoot markers were repainted. Thus, an MIT landmark — and a unique unit of measurement — was born.

Smoot himself went on to become a board member of the American National Standards Institute — a standards man through and through.”

Tags Ando, Domar, Heller, Kuh, Solow

Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Economics Faculty Skit à la Rowan and Martin’s “Laugh-In”, December 1968

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-05-15

This post continues our series “Funny Business” that features successful and less-than-successful attempts at humor by economists. Reading one of these historical skits demands the reader to concede that the defense, “It seemed funny at the time,” might actually be valid for fifty year old jokes. At the December 1968 Graduate Economics Association party the M.I.T. economics faculty offered its version of the wildly popular, frenetic comedy series “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In” (like “Sit-in”, get it? As I just said, “it seemed funny at the time”).

For young and non-U.S. historians of economics, remote learning of the original Laugh-In content is easy:

Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In information at IMDb.
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In highlights on YouTube.

The tag-line “Sock it to me” was a creation of the 1960s and made a meme by Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Paul Samuelson closing the skit with that line is almost up there with 1968 Presidential candidate Richard Nixon’s saying it in his cameo appearance on Laugh-In.

The skit transcript below includes some square-bracketed comments to help the reader. Of course, nothing says “joke” more than a good footnote.

______________________

Reminder/Invitation

December 11, 1968

Graduate Students, Faculty Members
and Secretaries

DON’T FORGET!!

A week from today is the GEA Christmas Party—Tuesday, December 17^th. The festivities will begin at 8:00 pm in the Campus Room of Ashdown House. Admission is only $1.00 and the entertainment is free.

______________________

GEA CHRISTMAS SKIT 1968
[Faculty]

	Music
[Franklin M.] Fisher:	It’s the Faculty Laugh-In.
	Music
	(Enter [E. Cary] Brown, [Paul A.] Samuelson and [Robert L.] Bishop, Brown and Samuelson sit.)
Samuelson:	For the first question on your advanced theory oral: Who was the greatest economist of all time?
Bishop	(After much thought) Pigou…
	Music
[Morris] Adelman:	It is written: when offer curve bend backwards, then is time to send [Walt] Rostow to Texas. [For background to Rostow Affair, see Appendix below]
	Music—through
[Matthew D.] Edel (carries sign)	“Economics is a dismal science”
	([Peter] Temin and [Duncan] Foley enter as Rowan and Martin)
Foley:	It certainly was a swell idea to put on a faculty laugh-in.
Temin:	It’s so much easier than thinking up a connected skit.
Foley:	Well, what cute laugh-in type feature do we have coming up next?
Temin:	I see by my script here that we’re going to have a “Laugh-in looks at…” next.
Foley:	Yes, it says: Faculty laugh-in looks at the new [Nixon] administration.
	Music
[Jerome] Rothenberg:	Washington: James Reston has expressed outrage at news reports that the University of Maryland has no plans to hire Spiro T. Agnew. [Motivation for James Reston mention here see, Appendix “Rostow Affair” below]
Temin:	Meanwhile at the Council of Economic Advisers, Republicans begin to grapple with the unaccustomed complexities of the Federal budget.
	(enter Bishop and Foley)
Bishop:	They always said Art Okun could do it with a pencil on the back of an envelope. [See Appendix below]
Foley:	I still think we’d better wait for the computer printout.
Bishop:	No, look, its easy. Let’s see, how does it go? Is it Y = C + the deficit, or does the deficit = Y + C?
	Music
Temin:	At the same time we hear the swan song of liberals seeking sanctuary on college campuses.
Fisher:	Song “Hey Dick [Nixon]” [presumably to the tune of “Hey Jude”, lyrics to parody not in the file]
Rothenberg:	Washington: the M.I.T. economics department has again startled Washington circles by announcing that it will not hire Henry Kissinger in 1972. [cf. Appendix below on “Rostow Affair”]
Foley:	Why don’t we just use their budget?
Bishop:	And give up on the job? It can’t be that hard.
Foley:	We don’t even have the computer printout yet.
Bishop:	Doesn’t investment come in here someplace?
	Music
Rothenberg:	Washington: It has just been learned that the M.I.T. economics department, responding to the furor over the Rostow affair has abolished its economic history requirement. [see Appendix below]
	Music
	(Man seated, knock on door: goes to answer, returns)
Adelman:	Dear, Mr. Brower is here to fix the point (calling). [Punny reference to Brower’s fixed-point theorem that is a building block for the proof of the existence of a general equilibrium.]
	Music—through
Edel (carries sign)	“Pigou Power”
	(Enter Bishop, Brown, Samuelson)
Brown:	Describe an Edgeworth-Bowley Box.
Bishop:	(gesturing) It’s about so wide…
	Music
	(Enter Foley and Temin)
Foley:	What movie did you see last night?
Temin:	“Thoroughly Modern Miltie” [clearly “Milton Friedman”, the film’s title was “Thoroughly Modern Miltie”]
	Music—through
Fisher (carries sign)	“Nest principal minors” [Linear algebra joke, written like a creepy, even pedophilic, command here, “nested principal minors” or “nest of principal minors” would be proper.]
Rothenberg:	The negative definite is equivalent to the lie direct. [Shakespeare As You Like It, V:iv in Appendix below]
	Music
Foley:	The computer printout is here!
	(enter tons of printout)
Bishop:	I think I’ve got it!
Foley:	What?
Bishop:	One of Okun’s envelopes. How old do you think this is anyway?
	Music
Samuelson:	A Poem by Paul A. Samuelson Some people cover lots more ground But no one handles the New York Times like Carey Brown. [Likely another reference to the Rostow Affair, see Appendix Below]
	Music
	(Adelman seated, door knock)
Adelman:	Dear, Mr. [Evsey] Domar is here to compare the systems. [One of Evsey Domar signature courses was “Comparative Economic Systems”]
	Music
Foley:	What movie did you see last night?
Temin:	Ride the high Pontry [“Ride the High Country”, 1962 Western film by Sam Peckinpah]
Foley:	What Pontry again? [A punny reference to Pontryagin’s maximum principle in optimal control theory.]
	Music
	(Enter Bishop, Samuelson, Brown)
Brown:	What was Marshall’s greatest contribution?
Bishop:	In 1903, Marshall gave £1500 to King’s College.
	Music
	(Enter Fisher and Temin with box)
	“2 squares least stage” (sign) [“2-stage least squares” is the name of statistical procedure, here Fisher and Temin are the two “squares“.]
	Music
Adelman:	Mark Hopkins said the ideal education is a professor and a student sitting on a log, with the professor talking to the student. I sometimes think I would get the same results sitting on the student and talking to the log.
	Music
Bishop:	Sock it to me
	Music
	(Enter Temin and Foley)
Temin:	Here we are out here again imitating Rowan and Martin.
Foley:	Shouldn’t you be standing on the other side? What now?
Temin:	Now we’re giving the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fat Award” just like on TV.
Foley:	And who gets the “Flying Fickle Finger of Fat Award”?
Temin:	Fate. The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Award goes to…
	(Music cue—fanfare)
Temin:	Kenneth Boulding for receiving a vote of confidence from…himself. [Boulding gave his Presidential address to the American Economic Association a few weeks later on “Economics as a Moral Science”. For likely background to the joke see the Appendix below.]
	Music
Fisher:	A Bordered hessian is a German mercenary surrounded by continentals.
	Music
Samuelson:	(carries sign) “I am an external economist.”
	Music
Foley:	What movie did you see last night?
Temin:	“Closely watched brains” [“Closely watched trains”, 1966 Czech film directed by Jiří Menzel]
	Music
Foley:	(Poring over computer printout). I think the whole idea of the budget is a stupid, dumb, stupid idea. Why do we even need a budget?
Bishop:	Look, we’ve got to have something to send down to the Congress tomorrow.
Foley:	I’m going to hold my breath until the stupid deficit comes out right.
Bishop:	Just try to remember whether capital gains are part of income or not.
	Music cue
	(Enter Fisher, Temin, Edel) “3 squares least stage” (sign) [“3-stage least squares” is a statistical procedure, and Fisher, Temin and Edel are the three “squares“.]
	Music
Brown:	The students are revolting.
Bishop:	Yes, I’ve though so for a long time.
	Enter Everybody
Rothenberg:	SDS Sam [SDS=Students for a Democratic Society… (wild guess) impression of Bogart saying “Play it Again Sam”?]
Foley:	Well, here we are out here again, and it’s time to say…
Temin:	Long joke.
Foley:	Say goodnite, Peter.
Temin:	Goodnite, Peter.
Samuelson:	Sock it to me.

Source: M.I.T. Archives. Folder “GEA 1967-68”.

_________________________

Appendix

Rostow Affair

Source: Howard Wesley Johnson, Holding the Center: Memoirs of a Life in Higher Education. From Chapter 8, pp. 189-90.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Art Okun’s Reputation as an economic forecaster “on the back of an envelope”

Source: Joseph A. Pechman contribution for In Memoriam: Arthur M. Okun. November 28, 128–March 23, 1980 (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1980), p. 14.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

From Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Act V, Scene 4.

JAQUES

Can you nominate in order now the degrees of the lie?

TOUCHSTONE

O sir, we quarrel in print, by the book; as you have
books for good manners: I will name you the degrees.
The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the
Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the
fourth, the Reproof Valiant; the fifth, the
Countercheque Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with
Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All
these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may
avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven
justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the
parties were met themselves, one of them thought but
of an If, as, ‘If you said so, then I said so;’ and
they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the
only peacemaker; much virtue in If.

Source: From the Shakespeare homepage at M.I.T.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Kenneth Boulding’s Vote for AEA to Meet in Chicago in 1968

Source: Robert Scott, Kenneth Boulding: A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Tags Adelman, Bishop, Boulding, BrownHG, Domar, EdelMD, FisherFM, Foley, Okun, RostowWW, Rothenberg, Samuelson, Temin

Berkeley Economics Programs M.I.T. Race

M.I.T. Economics Chair’s Account of Early Efforts of Affirmative Action for Black Graduate Students. Cary Brown, 1974

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-04-26

Starting with the 1970/71 academic year, the M.I.T. economics department launched an initiative to increase the enrollment of black students in its graduate program. E. Cary Brown, the head of the M.I.T. economics department described the first four years experience of the initiative in his response to an inquiry from the chairperson of the Berkeley economics department, Albert Fishlow.

For considerably more on this subject, see:

William Darity, Jr. and Arden Kreeger. The Desegregation of an Elite Economics Department’s PhD Program: Black Americans at MIT in MIT and the Transformation of American Economics (Annual Supplement to Volume 46 of History of Political Economy, edited by E. Roy Weintraub. Duke University, 2014) pp. 371-335.

____________________________

M.I.T. Economics Department’s Experience With Expanding Graduate Enrollment of Black Students, 1970-74

September 18, 1974

Professor Albert Fishlow, Chairman
Department of Economics
University of California
Berkeley, California 94720

Dear Professor Fishlow:

This letter is in reply to your letter of August 9, 1974, requesting information on our procedures with respect to qualified minority students.

As background, you should know that we had no special programs for minority candidates (although we had a few such students) until the entering class of 1970. At that time we took seriously an experiment to see if the number in our student body could be expanded. In the admissions process we set aside criteria we had used in the past, on the assumption that they were not as relevant to minority candidates. With the help and advice of several of our Deans for Minority Students and our own contacts with minority groups, we selected three students that first year (1970-71). Subsequently we admitted 3 blacks in 1971, 4 in 1972, 2 in 1973 and 4 this year.

Initially we organized a summer tutorial program that worked on the development of their mathematical skills and gave them a serious taste of what was to come in theory and statistics. This was supervised and participated in by several faculty and graduate students. We now make this a standard offering at students’ options, and this summer, for example, only one entering student requested this special help.

The tutorial program was extended into the regular academic year when students required it. We are still prepared to carry this out, but, in general, it has diminished essentially to zero.

There has been no modification in the academic program or requirements for minority students, nor any tempering of standards. They have been urged to take a less heavy program than the ordinary student—to stretch out preparation for their examinations. Typically they added about a year to the preparations time, but that, too, seems to be less necessary.

We have had many discussions with black students to try to achieve better communication and awareness of mutual problems. What started as essentially a student-faculty committee has evolved into a Black Graduate Economics Association. This association, on its own volition, prepared a video tape presentation for the purposes of encouraging minority high school students to go on to college in economics, to encourage minority college student to go on to graduate school, and to encourage this group to come to M.I.T. There was much informal recruiting by the black students. When admitted candidates visited Cambridge to determine what graduate school to attend, the program would be essentially organized by some of our black students. They have been extremely important in establishing an environment congenial to black students, and conveying their enthusiasm about the program.

The relations have been good with the black students, especially as between faculty and black students. There have been some student problems, feelings of exclusion and the like, that existed last year. The precise source of these difficulties we have not been able to ascertain. We are also aware that black women have had special complaints that neither the black males nor the faculty could fully understand. Our keeping communications open has perhaps depended on luck, but certainly also depended heavily on particular black students here and on particular faculty and the administrative officer who have made substantial amounts of time available to them and who have helped with their social and living problems.

One problem should be pointed out to you. Much of graduate instruction is self instruction by students in study groups. The black students complained at first that they had no leader, no one they could emulate, no one who could answer their problems. This has changed as the quality of preparation has improved, but it is something that I would urge you to keep in mind. A second problem with high incidence is the difficulty of family adjustment (and most of our minority students have families) to the demands of academic life (including work for many of the wives).

We have no special departmental resources for minority students. M.I.T. has some resources, usually for new students, and there are the national minority fellowships that many of our students have won. Otherwise, they are supported by general graduate financial aid at M.I.T. or in the Department.

Finally, you might look briefly at the record of the minority students. Of the three who entered in 1970, on went to another University to get a Master’s degree (after two years here), another transferred to a Master’s program in Urban Studies at M.I.T. (after two years). The third passed his general examinations a year ago, but has made little progress on his dissertation. Of the second year admittees, two have passed generals and are at work on theses, the third is still in school after being out for a year. The 1972 group includes two who partially failed their generals, two who will be taking them this year. Of the 1973 group, one transferred to another graduate school and one will take generals this year.

I am not sure how I would describe our program. It is viable; there are enough students as a group so they do not feel they should drop out or transfer; morale seems to be high. On the other hand, we have put much time and resources into the program and do not yet have candidates who have completed the program. We have had the satisfaction of seeing the quality of preparation and the enthusiasm rise. We are also sure that we will have a half dozen Ph.D.’s from this minority group in the next three or four years.

I am sending you a copy of our current graduate brochure which contains more detailed information than the catalogue. Professor Robert L. Bishop is Chairman of the Graduate Committee on Admissions, and Professor Peter A. Diamond is Chairman of the Graduate Committee.

Sincerely yours,

E. Cary Brown, Head

ECB/ss
Enclosure

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Institute Archives and Special Collections. Department of Economics Records. Box 1, Folder “Women + Minorities”.

Image Source: “E. Cary Brown, fiscal policy expert, dies at 91“. M.I.T. News. June 27, 2007.

Tags BrownEC, Fishlow

Economics Programs M.I.T.

M.I.T. Graduate Economics Association’s info-welcome letter to new cohort, April 1965

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-03-16

Sloan Building
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge 39, Massachusetts
April 21, 1965

Dear New Students:

On behalf of the Graduate Economics Association, I would like to welcome you to M.I.T. and Cambridge. This letter will try to tell you a little about your prospective surroundings at M.I.T. and in Boston, and about the GEA itself. If, after reading this letter, you have some unanswered questions, I heartily encourage your writing to me for more information. My address is on the last page of this letter.

M.I.T.

You have probably studied the Sears-sized catalogue of the Institute and found it an impressive document, if a bit forbidding. You will find that the Institute means business, but is run to make things reasonably smooth for the large body of students and staff. This means that it pays to read the notices, check mail boxes and announcements to meet deadlines, but that rules are made to be broken, given a good and sufficient reason. The idea is to ask the right person and keep asking until you get an authoritative answer.

The Economics Department

You will find that most of the time you spend and the contacts you make at M.I.T. will be within the department, especially if you do not live in the Graduate House. The department is located in the Sloan Building at the extreme east end of the campus, on the second and third floors (the latter housing the graduate registration officer and the head of the department). In the same building are the Sloan School of Management and the Faculty Club. Dewey Library, the Political Science Department and the Center for International Studies will be moving next door to quarters in the new Hermann Building. This may cause some confusion so be prepared to ask twice to find something. To reach the Sloan Building via public transportation you may either take a Massachusetts Avenue bus to any of the stops at the Institute, then proceed east along Memorial Drive (along the Charles River) about seven minutes walk; or you may take the Harvard-Ashmont MTA line to Kendall Square, then follow Wadsworth Street south (toward the River), and you are there.

You are about to begin graduate work with some of the finest economists in the world. We also like to feel that the group of graduate students here is an unusually stimulating and interesting one. There is an Institute rule that in effect requires residence until the thesis is completed. This rule is largely for your benefit, so that you can work alongside more advanced students. They are happy to talk to new students and should prove the best sources of more-or-less reliable information on all sorts of subjects. Incidentally, while you may feel that the most highly developed science among your colleagues is baseball, do not hesitate to ask for help in clearing up a point in economics. Some of us remember back to first-year courses.

The faculty are busy, but not too busy to see you if you have a question. Your initial faculty contact will be with Professor Kindleberger on Registration Day (September 20), whom you will deal with throughout the rest of the term regarding schedules, course changes, and other departmental affairs. Shortly after the beginning of the first term, we will arrange a short session for all first-year graduate students with one of the members of the department to enter your questions about department policy on graduate study in economics at M.I.T.

Most of the economics books and journals you will need can be found in Dewey Library. On Registration Day, beginning at about 3:00 p.m., Miss Klingenhagen, the head librarian will give entering students her Grand Tour of the library. You will find that it is quite easy to make use of Dewey’s reading and research facilities. You will also find that the freedom of individual movement is relatively greater than in most large institutional libraries (including some other M.I.T libraries). This, of course, behooves students to comply with a few wishes of the library staff regarding (the relative absence of) noise and the process of checking out, caring for, and returning books. If you have questions, suggestions, or complaints, see Miss Klingenhagen, Mr. Presson, or anyone else on the library staff. Do not hesitate to ask the library to get any books relating to economics which they do not have, or of which more copies are required. Of course, the longer lead time you give on your requests for books, the better the library is able to serve you.

The huge library resources of Harvard have become less accessible recently, but they can be used on occasion given sufficient ingenuity and a modicum of determination. Widener is the most attractive and of course the most restricted library at Harvard. Littauer (economics and public administration) and Baker (business school) are both available without much trouble, at least for in-room use and certain stack privileges. The surest way to gain access to all this wealth is to take a course at Harvard. Short of this direct (and perhaps painful?) approach, more devious and less certain means must be employed.

The Graduate Economics Association

As you may have guessed, the GEA is comprised of all graduate students in economics. Its functions are to provide services involving external economies. This includes a lounge, economics seminars, social functions, student-faculty liaison, and the present opus. All this is run on the paltry sum of $2.00 per member per year, payable at the cocktail party to be held on:

Registration Day, September 20, 1965

On Registration Day, the GEA will sponsor a cocktail party to celebrate your entrance and the beginning of classes the next day. TIME: 4:00 p.m. PLACE: Faculty Club Penthouse on the 6-1/2 floor of the Sloan Building. The first two drinks will be subsidized to the amount of $0.50; anyone who thinks he can stand a third (or fourth…) will have to subsidize himself (note we said “sponsor” a cocktail party). The primary purpose of the party is to afford everyone an opportunity to meet his colleagues, both new and “old” students and faculty.

Earlier in the day, from 10-12 a.m., the GEA will provide (not sponsor) a free advisory service to clear up confusion and to give life and meaning to catalogue course descriptions. GHQ for this service will be the Economics Lounge on the second floor of the Sloan Building.

LIVING IN THE BOSTON AREA

Geography

Boston, like all great metropolitan areas, is a slum-infested city surrounded by hundreds of suburbs. You will quickly find that each landlord sells the combination of housing and location, and that a good location may come dear. Yet it will also be discovered that the good locations and the popular may differ markedly, especially for you. The Sloan Building is located in an industrial district, and there is little in the way of living quarters in that part of Cambridge. On the other hand, just across the “Pepperpot” Bridge is Beacon Hill. This famous address is actually a paradoxical combination ranging from the homes of some of Boston’s venerable old families, to near-slums with various degrees in between which are acceptable to a struggling graduate student. The whole riverside area from there up to the Fenway lies within possible walking distance and abounds with possible living accommodations. Moving further back, rents become cheaper and flats more modest as we go into the Back Bay area. The adjacent suburbs such as Allston, Brighton, Brookline, Somerville, Watertown, and, for that matter, the other parts of Cambridge itself offer still more in the way of apartments, remodeled homes, and, for the single person, rooming houses. (There are some good rooming houses for singles just off Central Square.) Cambridge, especially in the Harvard Square area, tends to charge for location. Obviously you can evaluate this in terms of the time and money that the distance involves. Whether you have a car or whether you can get into a car pool with a fellow student will contribute to this decision. But don’t plan on parking privileges at M.I.T. The parking lot next to the Sloan Building is filled with construction. Even in better days students seldom qualify for “a parking sticker.” it would be wise to write the Campus Patrol for an application, but the general rule is you must live outside of Cambridge and off the MTA routes. Then available spaces are allotted by seniority (leaving Graduate Students next to last). The public transportation in Boston is probably more adequate than those who suffer with it like to think. Fares are 20 cents for the subway, and 10 cents for most surface transit.

Housing

Housing in the areas listed above is a problem for everyone, especially those who are on a tight budget (i.e., everyone). For unmarried students, the solutions are: the Graduate House, a room, or an apartment. The alternatives to the new M.I.T. housing for married students are an apartment or a house. Some sources of information on available accommodations are:

–the M.I.T. housing office in Building 7, Room 7-102. Up-to-date listings are available.

–Phillips Brooks House at Harvard (supposedly for Harvard students, but no questions are asked). Up-to-date listings are available.

–bulletin boards, at M.I.T.: Graduate House, Dewey Library (in Sloan Building), Building 10; at Harvard: ask bearded students; and at the Stop & Shop Supermarket on Memorial Drive, Cambridge.

–local newspapers, especially the Sunday Globe, Tech Talk, Harvard Crimson.

–real estate agents, pavement pounding, asking everyone, putting up notices, etc.

You will find that rents may be found in the neighborhood of $70 per month and (mostly) up for good apartments, $110 to $150 (for two persons), and that rooms may go for a little as $10 per week. If you can, come up early and spend a day or two looking. Don’t get discouraged by the places or prices, since there are good places available, particularly before the first week of September. Anyone who waits until after September first, however, will almost certainly find his choice limited. Most leases run for 12 months, expiring the end of August. As you shall probably have to pay for the entire month of September, this is an additional incentive to arrive early, whenever possible.

Furniture

Here again the situation is confusing. The extra cost of a furnished apartment may be far greater than the value in use of the furniture. There are numerous ways to obtain furnishings. First, check the bulletin boards, although these are the most fruitful in May and June. Second, call the M.I.T. Dames who hold a furniture sale each fall (M.I.T. Student Furniture Exchange, Ext. 4293). Rental services can be a good value, and there are a large number of secondhand dealers. Massachusetts Avenue, in Cambridge, between Central and Harvard Squares, is lined with these places. Charitable groups such as the Salvation Army, the Morgan Memorial, and the Saint Vincent de Paul Society also sell second-hand furniture. On the other hand, judicious shopping in the legitimate new furniture stores and discount houses such as Sears or Lechmere Sales may yield better values in the long run. As might be expected, those firms specializing in the student trade raise prices come September—therefore, early arrival and use of more general sources is advisable. Last fall I became the Chippendale of amateur furniture makers and would be happy to give advice on this, if requested.

Graduate House

For unmarried students who want to avoid housekeeping, the Graduate House may be the answer. On paper the House, with its activities, dining room, and proximity to campus, seems ideal. Prices range from $160 to $235 a semester, and it is quite likely that you will be paying the higher prices, as there are many more rooms available in this range—all triples. Singles are almost impossible to obtain as a first-year student; further, the chances of rooming with a fellow economist are quite small. However, it has been possible in the past to switch roommates and/or rooms during the year if desired.

The rooms are fully furnished, which is a help, and contain lamps, beds, desks, easy chair, and bureaus. With the latest rent increase, the Institute also cut down janitorial service and stopped providing linen. There are washing machines in the basement, where the showers are also located. It is an old but well-kept-up building. Some of the rooms are on the dingy side, but they are large if nothing else (except for some of the singles, which look like converted closets).

There is a cafeteria-dining room in the Graduate House, which serves somewhat-better-than-average institutional food on a pay-as-you-eat basis; meal costs here are likely to run close to $3.00 per day (for three meals). You can contract for commons meals, arranging for these either at the Grad House or at Walker Memorial, or a combination of the two (breakfast at the Grad House, lunch and dinner at Walker, has proven convenient for Grad House residents who spend their life in the relative isolation of the Sloan Building). Walker Memorial is close to 5 minutes walk from the Grad House, but on the way to the Sloan Building, and provides a gathering spot for many economics students at lunch and dinner. For the single student, these gatherings can be a valuable aspect of life around M.I.T. The Grad House sponsors assorted dances, teas, and lectures, and is equipped with ping-pong, television, a record player, and a darkroom. There are intramural sports and you are allowed to entertain guests at any time. There is generally a long waiting list for entry into the Grad House, but students who have lived there recommend it highly, and well worth the effort of applying. A check at the House on arrival may reveal that the waiting list has shortened considerably as people changed their mind, went elsewhere, or otherwise dropped out.

Parking around the Graduate House is quite difficult, but not impossible. Parking permits to the House parking lot are next to impossible to obtain unless there is a special reason. The lot is open to all, however, on weekends, and occasional weekday parking in the lot usually leads to no difficulty.

Roomates

While normally considered a personal problem, we sympathize with the desire of some incoming graduate students to make contact with other members of your class in hopes of sharing an apartment (sounds like a lonely hearts club). Therefore, for your convenience (and to satisfy your curiosity), we have included a list of students admitted for next fall. If any of you want to make contact with classmates, send your name back to me by the end of May, plus your summer address, and I will compile a short list of those desiring roommates. This will be returned to the interested parties. All further action must be initiated by you. Correspondence during the summer might more safely be addressed to Myra Strober. (See last page)

The Coop

You are entitled to be a member of the nation’s most successful consumers’ cooperative—the Harvard Cooperative Society (or Coop). Its main store in Harvard Square stocks a full line of clothing, supplies, books and other needed items, and its Technology Store—to be located on the first floor of the new M.I.T. Student Union—on Massachusetts Avenue across from the main building of M.I.T.—carries a moderate number of these items and can, if feasible, have others transferred. The big advantage is that you get a 10 per cent discount on your purchases payable the following fall. (Economists have often wondered how all the bookstores in Harvard Square meet this competition. Apparently they can survive without following the same course; but one, the Mandrake, does give a 10 per cent spot discount which is, of course, even better than the Coop’s deferred 10 per cent. However, some negotiating may prove that the practice is more widespread than that.)

Employment for Students

Summer jobs and part-time jobs are handled through the Placement Office and/or the Department of Economics. See Professor Kindleberger or Miss Tapley for this.

Employment for Wives

The search for jobs for students’ wives can be something of a struggle. As in all cities women will find:

–employers are more interested in secretarial skills than higher education

–the fields where women can use their special training are those in which there is a shortage of men—the sciences in particular

–the average Boston company has little faith in the career girl, and she is likely to get passed over in favor of the male

The large employers in Boston are the insurance companies and banks, and the schools such as M.I.T. and Harvard. They are all constantly searching for qualified people, though the emphasis is generally on secretarial and clerical rather than professional or administrative jobs. At the Institute, both the Office of Personnel Relations and the Technology Dames are particularly interested in helping students’ wives find jobs.

There are commercial employment agencies which charge a week’s salary (or more) for placement, but they tend to be fee-happy and should be a last resort. However, the Women’s Educational and Industrial Union at 264 Boylston Street, Boston, is said to combine real counseling, consideration of your interests, and wide variety of jobs. The Boston Globe has the best listing of employment opportunities of all the papers.

Another field worth exploring, as we are told, is teaching in one of the private schools which may be open to women with college degrees even if they have had no formal training in education. However, they may require experience. The public school systems are a mass of prejudices, arbitrary rules, and other impediments to hiring. As a start, on requires American citizenship and certification by the Massachusetts Department of Education. For such work you will obviously need education courses and may find bars against you due to lack of experience or because of marriage. Surprising as it may seem, the suburban public school systems, which are the more attractive from a teacher’s standpoint, seem to be more willing to hire working wives of students than do the Boston or Cambridge Systems.

Miscellaneous

Harvard and M.I.T. students put out various unofficial guides to graduate school life, full of information on the worldly temptations of the area (music, women, restaurants, etc.). These are worth reading even if you are sure you will never stray from the path of duty. A copy of M.I.T.’s guide is sent to American students only, with admissions material. We will have copies of the guide available for those who did not receive them at the desk of the registration officer’s secretary (room 52-380) on registration day.

Owning a car here is extremely expensive and inconvenient, but the alternatives do not appeal to many people. Since Massachusetts auto registration and insurance in the Cambridge-Boston area are very expensive, you will be well advised to maintain your home-state registration. Daytime parking around M.I.T. is difficult, unless you arrive by 8:00 a.m. or are prepared to pay or walk. As was noted above, Tech parking lots are for staff, employees, and those who live far away (in the past this has meant outside Cambridge and off the M.T.A. routes) or are disabled. If you get lost frequently while driving in Boston, you are normal, but otherwise traffic is no heavier than in other cities. The style of driving takes some getting used to, but you can stand up to anyone except taxis and pedestrians.

Finally, here is a way to be one-up around M.I.T. The secret is numbers. Buildings, courses (i.e. fields of study), subjects, rooms, and books carry numbers, as do students. Example: your number is 658350, as you find out from your registration card. You are in Course XIV (Economics and Social Science), you are taking 14.121 (a first-semester, graduate economics subject), which meets in room 52-143 (Sloan Building, first floor, room 43.)

If you have any questions in the meantime, I would be happy to hear from you: my address is listed below. When you arrive at M.I.T., others will be pleased to answer any questions, and I will usually be available around the Dewey Library or the Economics Department on weekdays. The place is small enough that there should be no difficulty finding me there.

In closing, let me once again encourage you to write me if you have any questions, problems—or just to say hello. In any case, I look forward to seeing you come September.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
Lovell S. Jarvis

GEA Officers

President	Secretary-Treasurer	Seminar Chairman
Lovell S. Jarvis 417 East Tenth Street Winfield, Kansas (During April and May, Room 52-371, M.I.T.)	Myra H. Strober 368 Riverway Boston, Massachusetts	William M. Vaughn, III

Source: M.I.T. Archives. Department of Economics Records. Box 2, Folder “1969 G.E.A. 1970”

Source: Historical Working Papers on the Economic Stabilization Program …, Part 3, By United States. Department of the Treasury. Office of Economic Stabilisation, p. 1496.

Tags Jarvis, Kindleberger, Strober, Vaughn

Amherst Barnard Berkeley Brown Chicago Colorado Columbia Cornell Dartmouth Duke Harvard Illinois Indiana Iowa Johns Hopkins Kansas M.I.T. Michigan Michigan State Minnesota Missouri Nebraska North Carolina Northwestern NYU Ohio State Pennsylvania Princeton Radcliffe Rochester Stanford Swarthmore Texas Tufts UCLA Vassar Virginia Washington University Wellesley Williams Wisconsin Yale

U.S. Bureau of Education. Contributions to American Educational History, Herbert B. Adams (ed.), 1887-1903

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-02-22

I stumbled across this series while I was preparing the previous post on the political economy questions for the Harvard Examination for Women (1874). I figured it would be handy for me to keep a list of links to the monographs on the history of higher education in 35 of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. Maybe this collection will help you too.

Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams

The College of William and Mary. Herbert B. Adams (1887)
Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia. Herbert B. Adams (1888)
History of Education in North Carolina. Charles L. Smith (1888)
History of Higher Education in South Carolina. C. Meriwether (1889)
Education in Georgia. Charles Edgeworth Jones (1889)
Education in Florida. George Gary Bush (1889)
Higher Education in Wisconsin. William F. Allen and David E. Spencer (1889)
History of Education in Alabama. Willis G. Clark (1890).
History of Federal and State Aid to Higher Education. Frank W. Blackmar (1890)
Higher Education in Indiana. James Albert Woodburn (1891).
Higher Education in Michigan. Andrew C. McLaughlin. (1891)
History of Higher Education in Ohio. George W. Knight and John R. Commons (1891)
History of Higher Education in Massachusetts. George Gary Bush (1891)
The History of Education in Connecticut. Bernard C. Steiner (1893)
The History of Education in Delaware. Lyman P. Powell (1893)
Higher Education in Tennessee. Lucius Salisbury Merriam (1893)
Higher Education in Iowa. Leonard F. Parker (1893)
History of Higher Education in Rhode Island. William Howe Tolman (1894)
History of Education in Maryland. Bernard C. Steiner (1894).
History of Education in Lousiana. Edwin Whitfield Fay (1898).
Higher Education in Missouri. Marshall S. Snow (1898)
History of Education in New Hampshire. George Gary Bush (1898)
History of Education in New Jersey. David Murray (1899).
History of Education in Mississippi. Edward Mayes (1899)
History of Higher Education in Kentucky. Alvin Fayette Lewis (1899)
History of Education in Arkansas. Josiah H. Shinn (1900)
Higher Education in Kansas. Frank W. Blackmar (1900)
The University of the State of New York. History of Higher Education in the State of New York. Sidney Sherwood (1900)
History of Education in Vermont. George Gary Bush (1900)
History of Education in West Virginia. A. R. Whitehill (1902)
The History of Education in Minnesota. John N. Greer (1902)
Education in Nebraska. Howard W. Caldwell (1902)
A History of Higher Education in Pennsylvania. Charles H. Haskins and William I. Hull (1902)
History of Higher Education in Colorado. James Edward Le Rossignol (1903)
History of Higher Education in Texas. J. J. Lane (1903)
History of Higher Education in Maine. Edward W. Hall (1903)

Image Source: Cropped from portrait of Herbert Baxter Adams ca. 1890s. Johns Hopkins University graphic and pictorial collection.

Funny Business M.I.T.

M.I.T. Dystopian Faculty Skit by Solow,1969

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-02-19

The current events of the late ‘sixties are the clear inspiration for this somewhat dark, dystopian skit for the M.I.T. economics departmental Christmas party of December 1969. According to the cover page, it was written by Robert Solow with input from Frank Fisher.

The skit was transcribed from the typed text [that includes a short handwritten addition] from Robert Solow’s papers in the Economists’ Papers Archive at Duke University. A grateful tip of the hat to Roger Backhouse for this artifact that should keep a cultural historian of economics busy for a few hours and be worth a few minutes of procrastination for working economists.

Pro-tip: you can summon all of the Economics in the Rear-view Mirror posts with economic humor content using the keyword “Funny Business”:

https://www.irwincollier.com/category/funny-business/

_______________________

Back-story for selected references in the text

SPECTRE. In Ian Fleming’s world of James Bond the acronym for the organization of international evil [Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion].

Chairman Edel. Assistant Professor Matthew D. Edel (Yale, Ph.D.) taught the course Economic Growth and Development. Presumably pronounced to rhyme with “Fidel”. Edel was a regional expert for Latin America, spoke at a colloquium February 4, 1970 on “The Strategy of Cuban Economic Development”

14.463 Monetary Economics in term I, 1969-70 was taught by four instructors.

According to the staffing report for that term in the departmental records at the MIT archive.

Karen H. Johnson, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1973),
Robert K. Merton, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1970), advisor Paul Samuelson
David T. Scheffman, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1971), advisor Paul Samuelson
Jeremy J. Siegel, M.I.T. Ph.D. (1971)

There is no record that Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were ever graduate students of economics in M.I.T.

Bread and Roses. Reference to the Women’s Liberation Organization in Boston, 1969-1971. The name chosen in memory of the Great Lawrence Strike of 1912.

Ted Behr. An M.I.T. Ph.D. (1969) who by 2009 had already gone through seven career changes and twelve jobs. Must have been quite a character judging from this interview.

I think we may assume that no Bulgarians were injured in the writing or performance of this skit.

_______________________

Some Obvious Context

Fall 1964. Berkeley Free Speech Movement

Wikipedia Entry on the Protest Year 1968

April 1968. Columbia Student Strike ; Harvard Student Strike

February 1969. Black student strike at the University of Wisconsin

_______________________

RIP VAN SAMUELSON RETURNS TO MIT AFTER THE REVOLUTION
FACULTY SKIT
Christmas 1969

CAST

P. Diamond
R. Eckaus
R. Engle
F. Fisher
C. Kindleberger
M. Piore

SCRIPTWRITER-IN-CHIEF — R. Solow

HELPED BY – F. Fisher

Is it really true that Samuelson has been asleep all these years? Then how come the 13^th and 14^th editions of the textbook came out on time?

Well, I don’t know. Samuelson isn’t talking.

Careful, there. If it’s not talking it’s not Samuelson.

It’s got to be. His broker recognizes his fingerprints from soiled sell orders. Actually, there are two schools of thought about how the textbook came out while Samuelson was sleeping. Modigliani claims that the 13^th and 14^th editions were simply forecasted by the FRB-MIT model, using a long lag. But some people believe that the 13^th and 14^theditions are just the 2^nd and 3^rd editions reprinted. Can’t verify that, though. Nobody’s been able to find a copy of the early editions.

Not that it matters. Must be a shock for Paul to realize that nobody uses the text any more, except of course for the Bulgarian translation. They’re the only people reactionary enough to go for that stuff any more.

You mean even Hanoi University has dropped it?

Oh sure, they adopted Best Known Thoughts of Chairman Edel, last year. You know, the one that begins “Equilibrium grows out of a barrel…”

Out of the barrel of a gun?

No, no, a barrel of rum. Chairman Edel never got over that trip to Cuba.

Did you fellows hear that Samuelson is back? When did he disappear anyway?

Oh, a long time ago. Even before Chomsky became President. It’s hard to know the exact date. Things were pretty clear up until April 1972, when we were supposed to have 31 days of moratorium, but the month only had 30 days, so we cancelled the first day of May, only you couldn’t cancel May Day — Christmas you could cancel, but not May Day. So we cancelled the second day of May. But then we were three days short to fit in the 32 days of moratorium for that month, so we had to run into June. From then on it was chaos.

Things are still a little funny. I can’t get used to having summer vacation in the middle of winter, and Fisher pretending to go off skiing when it’s 90 degrees in the shade, when we all know he’s leading rent strikes anyway.

Don’t complain. It might have been worse. Solow claimed to have a proof that the term would never end once we got up to 32 moratorium days a month. But one of the younger mathematical economists made a brilliant application of the theory of Riemann surfaces and showed that you could pack any finite number of moratorium days into one month if you did it right.

It was the last article anyone published in this department. Can you remember when we used to write articles and hope for tenure? That was before tenure was abolished. God, life was easy then. Nowadays it’s all action, action, action. And if you’re lucky, if you happen to win a rent strike, or destroy some draft records, or win an amateur topless contest, then maybe the central committee of SPECTRE will keep you on for a year. But suppose you lose the strike, or you let a white man go to work on a construction site, boy that SPECTRE can be tough. You remember when they threw Domar into the arena with Kampf and gave Kampf the bullhorn?

I looked away. Bloodthirsty crew — they awarded Kampf both ears and the tail that day. We had to take up a collection to send Ricky and Alice [note: Evsey Domar’s daughters] to Bread and Roses Karate School. And today they’re members of SPECTRE, the Student Power Electoral Committee for Teachers of Relevant Economics. It was better in the old days when appointments went on good looks and amiability. Even publishing was better than action all the time. That last piece of work I did, keeping the recruiter for Mars Bars from getting onto the campus, it went well but it was exhausting.

Why are we against Mars Bars?

Space, military, it’s all the same.

Anyhow, now that he’s back, what’s Paul going to do around the department? He’s getting a little old for real action, and he might find it hard to pass the monthly Relevance Check.

It’s going to be a problem. He was falling behind the times when he went to sleep. Of course he looks better now, with 10-15 years growth of beard, but he doesn’t dig the revolution. El Lider Maximo of the Graduate Student Commune asked him what he could contribute, and Samuelson said he’d like to teach the History of Economic Thought.

The History of WHAT???

That’s exactly what the Commune Lider said.

Poor old Samuelson doesn’t know that Thought isn’t Relevant. In fact he didn’t even know that Economics isn’t Relevant. When El Lider explained that it was all action now, old Samuelson said he thought there should be both Thought and Action just so their marginal net productivities were equal.

Gad, I haven’t heard anything like that since the day they fired Diamond for saying “Pareto-optimal” once too often.

Whatever happened to Diamond?

What else, he’s at B.I.T., the Bulgarian Institute of Technology. Boy, if the old stuff ever comes back in style, those Bulgarians will have it made. But go on, what happened when Samuelson pulled that bourgeois bit about marginal whatnots?

Well, Solow was standing there and he muttered something to Samuelson—it sounded like “Check the second-order conditions, Paul old boy”—and then went back to trying to look hip.

That’s living dangerously. Solow just barely passed last month’s Relevance Check, and he hasn’t been on a successful action in a long time. I don’t think that went over so good when he claimed that skiing Black Mountain was a real action. He better watch out — if B.I.T. won’t take an old man like that, SPECTRE may throw him to Kampf.

Right on. Nothing gets past El Lider. When Solow whispered that to Samuelson about second-order conditions, El Lider asked him right away — Did you say something? Solow replied Negative. Definite. That’s really living dangerously — I think it’s code of some kind.

It certainly doesn’t sound Relevant. I haven’t read anything like that in Ted Behr’s Newsweek column, at least not lately.

What’s going on this week in the department?

In the Theory course we’re holding an obstructive picket line at the drug counter of the Tech Store. Somebody discovered they were selling only white pills.

If I know what the pills are for, I hope the picket line isn’t too obstructive.

Of course not; I told you it was the Theory course. Then in the Economics of Education course we’re going to burn down a school. In the Money course, Johnson, Merton, Siegel, Bonnie, and Clyde are going to rob a bank and distribute the proceeds to the C.L.F.

Is that the California Liberation front?

Oh no, Berkeley has been a free-fire zone for months; nobody is left. It’s the Center for Love and Finance, our answer to the profit motive. Has anyone told you what the Econometrics Commune is doing?

No. Last week somebody had an idea for an empirical paper, but the results only came out at the 10% Relevance Level and half the commune was purged for Type One Error.

Served them right. Any Type II Error executions?

You know we have to have public trials for Type II error.

That’s right—Power to the People…. Well, it’s nice to see that the action curriculum is moving along. Sure beats the Old Days before chairman Edel — remember when they taught about Indifference curves? INDIFFERENCE curves, mind you, with innocent people being napalmed in Laos, Birmingham, Princeton, they taught about indifference curves.

Hard to believe. Of course now, ever since we adopted Bohmer’s best-selling text Economics for Good Guys we handle all that stuff by the tangency of the Relevance Map and the Isoconcern lines. Makes all the difference in the world, takes the subject out of the mind and puts it back in the gut, where it obviously belongs.

The Admissions Commune has been meeting all day.

How does the entering Movement look?

Terrific. There’s one girl who was heavyweight sugar-cane-cutting champion of the Big Ten, and another who had already led three successful rent strikes as a junior — two of them publishable, according to her advisor. Then there are a couple of Black Belts from Bread and Roses — they come on Karate Scholarships of course.

Any amateur topless contest winners?

We’re trying for a few, but most of them will go to Harvard—ever since they hired Brigitte Bardot for the economics faculty—

She was past her peak.

Peaks. And aren’t they all? Anyhow, all the amateur topless winners go to Harvard. But we’ve got some applicants who’ve starred in home movies. Not to mention a few school-burners and a couple of guys who have specialized in destroying computers.

How are their vibrations?

Good.

Fine. If there’s anything I can’t stand it’s bad vibrations. How about GRE scores.

The Graduate Relevance Exam grades just came — most of the people we’re accepting are in the 800’s on Obstructive and at least 750 in Vituperative. Looks like a good class — I mean Movement.

Has anyone heard what the Placement and Appointments Committees have decided?

They decided to eliminate the middleman and merge. That way everybody stays forever — once a Commune always a Commune. It gives new meaning to that old phrase about departmental inbreeding.

We still have this problem about what to do with Samuelson. Here he is after all those years asleep and hardly knowing anything about action and relevance and all the new things. The Bulgarians won’t take him — B.I.T. doesn’t mind using the old textbook, but they’re overloaded with these old-timers. If we can’t find something for him to do we may have to throw him to….

Terrible news. The students are revolting again. There’s a new movement sweeping all the Communes. They want one day of classes this month, two days of classes next month, three days the month after…there’s no telling where it will end, except that nobody can count over 30 any more.

Gad, we may have to go back to teaching again. Well, at least that gives something for Samuelson to do.

Oh didn’t they tell you. When Samuelson saw what the new system was like, he went back to sleep. Better get the Bulgarians on the phone.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Papers of Robert M. Solow, Box 83.

Image Source: Robert Solow in his office, MIT Museum Website.

Tags BehrT, Diamond, Domar, Eckaus, EdelMD, Engle, FisherF, JohnsonKH, Kindleberger, MertonRK, Modigliani, Piore, Samuelson, ScheffmanD, SiegelJ, Solow

Exam Questions Fields M.I.T.

M.I.T. General exams for international economics, 1959

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-02-13

It seems safe to assume that Charles Kindleberger was the principal author of these general exams for the field of international economics (i.e. international trade and finance) since the exams come from his papers at the M.I.T. archive. I don’t know whether he had been the sole author. Maybe Samuelson contributed an international trade question or two, but that is much more speculative than Kindleberger’s likely authorship.

The general exams in international economics for 1950-51 have been transcribed and posted earlier.

_____________________

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
February 16, 1959

Part I

Write an essay on any two or three of the following topics.

The gains from trade.
The effect of foreign trade on the distribution of income.
Structural disequilibrium in the balance of payments.
What determines the commodities and services a country will export and import?
Elasticity conditions in international trade.

Part II

Answer any two or three of the following questions.

A distinguished economist has stated that an underdeveloped country which is not developing balance of payments trouble, is not trying very hard to develop. Explain this view and discuss it critically.
The New York Times recently had an article explaining that the present favorable position of the British and other West European balances of payments was really a bad sign because it was accompanied by a reduction in the volume of world trade. In particular, the improvement in the British balance of payments was due to a sharp improvement in the terms of trade which could not help worsen the situation after a few months.
What have favorable or unfavorable terms of trade to do with the matter?
What is the purpose of two of the following. How well have they filled, or are they filling, that purpose?
1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
2. The International Monetary Fund.
3. The Colombo Plan.
4. The Marshall Plan.
5. The European Payments Union.
The following is a real quotation from a distinguished economist: “Under a system of free trade there would be conflicts in interests neither among different nations nor among corresponding classes of different nations.”
Discuss critically.
“If all countries pursued full employment policies and at the same time avoided inflationary pressures, the balance of payments would present no problem.” Discuss theoretically.
“There is no reason why a country could not pursue any domestic policy it liked provided it did not care about exchange stability.”
“A country could have any fixed exchange rate it chose provided it pursued the correct domestic policy.”
Discuss these quotations critically.
Write an essay on the advantages and disadvantages of aiding underdeveloped countries through private capital movements, governmental loans and gifts on a bilateral basis or through multilateral aid.
“It is frequently stated that aid should be given ‘with no strings attached.’ And this is a meaningless statement, because you can’t just send an anonymous check and say: do what you want.”
What is meant by such a statement? What conditions could be attached to aid to make it effective?
Write an essay on the instruments of commercial policy and discuss the effectiveness of each.

* * * * * * * * *

General Examination in International Economics
May 20, 1959

Answer any five questions

Discuss the relevance of the factor-price equalization theorem to the observed facts of international trade.
It has been said that the theory of international trade is peculiarly static and that this vitiates its applicability to the problems of growing economies. Do you agree or disagree? Discuss.
Analyze the relevance of international trade (and tariffs) to wages and employment in as many contexts as are significant.
What differences exist between internal trade in a single country, economic integration between sovereign countries, and international trade between unintegrated countries? Is there more content to economic integration than customs union?
Discuss the relative roles of income and price in international adjustment, not in theoretical models, but as they have operated in the real world as observed by historians, by econometricians, or by casual empiricists. What generalizations, if any, can be drawn from this experience regarding the efficacy of exchange depreciation in producing adjustment?
Argue for or against central bank intervention in the forward exchange market.
What can the economist say about foreign aid?
Compare and contrast the impact of foreign trade and lending on economic stability in a developed country and in an export economy? What monetary and commercial policy devices are available to the latter to promote stability?
Write brief didactic essays setting forth the “correct view” (conventional wisdom) of international trade economists on two of the following subjects:
1. the long-run terms of trade facing underdeveloped countries;
2. the persistent surplus in the German balance of payments;
3. the regional vs the universal approach to commercial policy and intergovernmental lending;
4. commodity price stabilization;
5. multiple exchange rates: blessing, menace, crutch for the feeble?
Argue the case for modifying the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund, or its procedures under the present articles, or for leaving both Articles and Procedures alone.

Source: M.I.T. Libraries. Institute Archives and Special Collections. Papers of Charles Kindleberger, 1934-99. Box 22, Folder “Examinations. International Economics, 1959-75”.

Image Source: M.I.T. Yearbook Technique, 1950.

Tags Kindleberger

Exam Questions Johns Hopkins M.I.T. Suggested Reading Syllabus

M.I.T. Readings and exam questions for fiscal and monetary policy. Domar, 1957

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2020-01-24

Evsey Domar’s first semester at M.I.T. was as a visiting professor according to the teaching records of the economics department. He taught one seminar on Russian Economics (14.292) and a graduate course with the nominal title “Fiscal Policy”. That course had been taught previously by E. Cary Brown (Spring 1954, 1955) and R. A. Musgrave, visiting Professor (Spring 1956).

Inspection of the ten-page course bibliography and the final examination questions along with two note-cards filed with these course materials, it appears that well over half the course was in all likelihood dedicated to fiscal policy topics with monetary policy for stabilization topics accouting for perhaps one-third of the course. Just as the length of the course bibliography (typical for Domar) is daunting, his use of asterisks to designate recommended reading was exceedingly liberal. An examination of the final examination questions leads me to conclude that it should be rather easy to reduce the course reading list (for examination purposes!) to less than two pages.

___________________________

Course Enrollment
(Second term, 1956-57

Instructor	Domar, E. D.
Rank	Prof. (Visit.)
Subj. No.	14.472
Subj. Title	Fiscal Policy
No. Class Hours/Week	3
No. Students	22

Source: M.I.T. Archives, Department of Economics Records 1947-, Box 3, Folder “Teaching Responsibility”.

___________________________

Typed notecards for an introduction to or a review of course.

The traditional arguments regarding the purposes of Monetary Policy:

Stabilization of general prices or of factor earnings—the Wicksell-Davidson controversy. The instrument was the relation between the natural and the market rates.
Stabilization of prices or of employment. Recent literature is full of this.
Stabilization of the general prices or of prices of Federal securities. See Douglas’s and other reports on this recent controversy.
Stabilization of employment or the achievement of growth. Any conflict?
Discretionary methods or automatic provisions? See Simons’ article in Readings in Monetary Theory.
To provide credit and currency, sound and in sufficient quantity.
To protect the international position of the country.
To have special effects, such as:

a. by region
b. by industry
c. by commodity consumed (such as tobacco) or housing
d. on population (by giving exemptions or subsidies for dependents)

Provide revenue [handwritten addition]
Distribution of income [handwritten addition]

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

The following limitations, some real, other imaginary, explain why Fiscal Policy is not as simple as Lerner makes it:

Income distribution
Size of the deficit
Size of the budget
Balance of payments
Special regional and industrial effects
Effects on incentives to work (in inflation)
Automaticity of the system (built-in-flexibility)
Monetary effects (on reserves, deposits)
Long-run effects (on growth and development)

Their presence complicates things and explains all the ingenious articles and tax devices frequently suggested. If not for them, fiscal policy would be very simple indeed: cut taxes or increase taxes, and the same with expenditures.

___________________________

READING LIST
14.472 Fiscal Policy
Spring Term 1956-57

Professor E. D. Domar

PART I—MONETARY POLICY

The purpose of this list is to suggest to the student the sources in which the more important topics in Monetary Policy are discussed from many points of view. His objective should be the understanding of these topics and not the memorization of who said what.

Most of the sources listed here, and particularly the Congressional materials, discuss a number of questions not only in Monetary but in Fiscal Policy as well. Hence it is difficult to classify them.

Items marked with an * are strongly recommended. (I don’t like to use the expression “required” in a graduate reading list.)

Factual Materials on Monetary Problems

Federal Reserve Bulletin.

Treasury Bulletin.

Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury and of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789-1945, and the Continuation to 1952.

Congressional Hearings, Reports and other Materials listed below.

Introduction

Hart, Albert Gailord, Money, Debt and Economic Activity, New York 1948.

Hicks*, J. R., “A Suggestion for Simplifying the Theory of Money,” Economica, 1935; reprinted in Readings in Monetary Theory.

Lerner*; Abba P., “Functional Finance and the Federal Debt,” Social Research, 1943, and Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 468, also Chapter 24 in his Economics of Control, New York, 1944.

Poole, Kenyon E., ed. Fiscal Policies and the American Economy.

Sproul* Allan, “Changing Concepts of Central Banking,” Money, Trade and Economic Growth in Honor of John Henry Williams, New York, 1951.

Monetary Theory and Growth

Gurley*, John G. and Shaw, E. S., “Financial Aspects of Economic Development,” American Economic Review, September 1955, pp. 515-538.

Effectiveness of the Interest Rate

Ebersole*, J. F., “The Influence of Interest Rates,” Harvard Business Review, XVII, i, 1938, pp. 35-39.

Henderson*, R. D., “The Significance of the Rate of Interest,” Oxford Economic Papers, October 1938, I, pp. 1-13.

*Meade, J. E. and Andrews, P. W. S., “Summary of Replies to Questions on Effects of Interest Rates,” Oxford Economic Papers, October 1938, I, pp. 14-31.

Sayers, R. S. “Business Men and the Terms of Borrowing,” Oxford Economic Papers, Feb. 1940, III, pp. 23-31.

Andrews, P. W. S., “A Further Inquiry into the Effects of Rates of Interest,” Oxford Economic Papers, Feb. 1940, III, pp. 32-73.

White*, William H., “Interest Inelasticity of Investment Demand—The Case from Business Attitude Survey Re-Examined,” American Economic Review, September 1956, pp. 565-87.

Lutz, Friedrich A., “The Interest Rate and Investment in a Dynamic Economy,” American Economic Review, Dec. 1945.

General Surveys of Monetary Policy

Federal Reserve Board*, Tenth Annual Report for 1923. See pp. 29-39 particularly.

Chandler*, Lester V., “Federal Reserve Policy and the Federal Debt,” American Economic Review, 1949, and Readings in Monetary Theory, p. 394.

Hardy, Charles O., “Fiscal Operations as Instruments of Economic Stabilization,” American Economic Review, Supplement, 1948, pp. 395-403 and Readings in Monetary Theory, p. 394.

Hart, Albert Gailord, “Monetary Policy for Income Stabilization,” Income Stabilization for a Developing Democracy, ed. by Max F. Millikan, New Haven, 1953.

Williams, John H., “The Implications of Fiscal Policy for Monetary Policy and the Banking System,” AER Proceedings, March 1942; Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 185.

Smith*, Warren L., “On the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy,” American Economic Review, September 1956, pp. 588-606.

Suggested Objectives and Policies

Hammarskjold, Dag, “The Swedish Discussion on the Aims of Monetary Policy,” reprinted in International Monetary Papers, No. 5, pp. 145-154.

Simons*, Henry C., “Rule versus Authorities in Monetary Policy,” JPE, 1936, and Readings in Monetary Theory, p. 337.

Simons, Henry, “On Debt Policy,” JPE, Dec. 1944, and Readings in Fiscal Policy.

Mints*, Lloyd, W., “Monetary Policy,” Review of Econ. and Stat., 1946 and Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 344.

Bach*, G. L., “Monetary-Fiscal Policy Reconsidered,” JPE, Oct. 1949, and Readings in Fiscal Policy.

Friedman*, Milton, “A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability,” American Economic Review, 1949, and Readings in Monetary Theory, p. 369.

*United Nations. National and International Measures for Full Employment. Report by a group of experts appointed by the Secretary-General (Lake Success, New York, December 1949).

Viner*, Jacob, “Full Employment at Whatever Cost,” QJE, August 1950, pp. 385-407. Reproduced with omissions in Economic Policy, Readings in Political Economy, edited by William D. Grampp and Emanuel T. Weiler, Homewood, Ill., 1956, pp. 54-65.

Samuelson* Paul A., “Principles and Rules in Modern Fiscal Policy: A New-Classical Reformulation,” Money, Trade and Economic Growth in Honor of John Henry Williams, New York, 1951.

Seltzer* Lawrence H., “Is a Rise in Interest Rates Desirable or Inevitable,” American Economic Review, Dec. 1945; Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 202.

Roosa, Robert V., “Interest Rates and the Central Bank,” Money, Trade and Economic Growth in Honor of John Henry Williams, 1951.

Roosa*, Robert V., “Integrating Debt Management and Open Market Operations,” American Economic Review, 1952, and Readings in Fiscal Policy, p. 265.

Hansen*, Alvin H., “Monetary Policy,” The Review of Economics and Statistics, May 1955, pp. 110-119.

Commodity Money

Graham, Benjamin, World Commodities and World Currency, New York 1944.

Graham*, Frank D., “Full Employment without Public Debt, Without Taxation, Without Public Works, and without Inflation,” Planning and Paying for Full Employment, edited by Abba P. Lerner and Frank D. Graham, 1946.

Congressional Materials

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Money, Credit, and Fiscal Policies. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit and Fiscal Policies of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 81^st Congress, First Session, September 23, November 16,17,18,22,23 and December 1,2,3,5,7, 1949.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies. A Collection of Statements Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit and Fiscal Policies by Government Officials, Bankers, Economists, and Others. 1949.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report (The Douglas Subcommittee). A Compendium of Materials on Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies. A Collection of Statements Submitted to the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies by Government Officials, Bankers, Economists, and Others. 81^st Congress, 2^ndSession, Senate Document No. 132, 1950.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report*. Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies. Report of the Subcommittee on Monetary, Credit, and Fiscal Policies of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report. 81^st Congress, 2^ndSession, Senate Document No. 129, 1950.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt Hearings before the Subcommittee on General Credit Control and Debt Management of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 81^st Congress, 2^nd Session, March 1952.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt. Their Role in Achieving Price Stability and High-Level Employment. Replies to questions and other material for the use of the subcommittee on general credit control and debt management. 82^nd Congress, 2^nd Session, Senate Document No. 123, 1952.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt Report of the Subcommittee on General Credit Control and Debt Management of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report, 82^nd Congress, 2^nd Session, 1952.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. United States Monetary Policy: Recent Thinking and Experience Hearings before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Joint Committee on the Economic Report. 83^rd Congress, 2^nd Session, December 6 and 7, 1954.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report. January 1956 Economic Report of the President. Hearings before the Joint Committee on the Economic Report. 84^th Congress, 2nd Session, January 31, February 1,2,3,6,7,8,9,14,15,17 and 28, 1956.

Joint Committee on the Economic Report*. Conflicting Official Views on Monetary Policy; April 1956. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization of the Joint Committee on Economic Report, 84^thCongress, 2^nd Session, June 12, 1956.

Readings for Amusement

Outside Readings in Economics, second edition. Selected by Hess, Arleigh P. Jr., Gallman, Robert E., Rice, John P., and Stern, Carl, New York, 1956. The “Dialogue on Money,” by D. H. Robertson; “The Island of Stone Money,” by William H. Furness III; “The Paper Money of Kubla Khan,” by Marco Polo; and “The Edict of Diocletian,” by Humphrey Mitchell, pp. 314-335 are very amusing and instructive.

PART II—FISCAL POLICY

See the remarks in Part I.

Factual Materials of General Character

Joint Committee on the Economic Report.* The Federal Revenue System: Facts and Problems, 1956

Treasury Bulletin

Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Treasury and of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Statistical Abstract of the United States

Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789-1945 (published by the U. S. Bureau of the Census)

U. S. Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income (an annual publication in two volumes)

U. S. Bureau of the Census, Summary of Governmental Finances (annual series)

The Budget of the U. S. Government

Commerce Clearing House, Inc., Tax Systems

West Publishing Co., Federal Tax Regulations, 1956

Congressional Hearings and Reports, listed in Part I and below

Textbooks on Public Finance and Fiscal Policy

Historical Studies

Ratner, S., American Taxation: Its History as a Social Force in a Democracy, New York, 1942

Fabricant*, S., The Trend of Government Activity in the United States since 1900, New York, 1952, Chapters 1, 6, 7

Studenski, P. and H. E. Kroos, Financial History of the United States, New York, 1952

Musgrave*, R. A. and J. M. Culbertson, “The Growth of Public Expenditures in the United States,” National Tax Journal, June, 1953, pp. 97-115

Paul, R. E., Taxation in the United States, Boston, 1954

Fundamental Assumptions

Hansen*, A. H., “The Stagnation Thesis,” Fiscal Policy and the Business Cycle, New York, 1941, pp. 38-46, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Schumpeter*, J. A., “Economic Possibilities in the United States,” Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, 1947, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Domar*, E. D., “The Problem of Capital Accumulation,” The American Economic Review, December, 1948

Fellner*, W., “Relative Emphasis in Tax Policy on Encouragement of Consumption or Investment,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D.C., November 9, 1955, p. 210

Hansen*, A. H., “Economic Stability and Growth,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 14

Smithies*, A., “Economic Growth as a Policy Objective,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 32.

General Objectives and Policies

Keynes* J. M., “An Open Letter,” The New York Times, 1933, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Lerner*, A. P., “Functional Finance and the Federal Debt,” Social Research, 1943, and Readings in Fiscal Policy. Also Chapter 24 in his Economics of Control, New York, 1944

Hart, A. G., “’Model-Building’ and Fiscal Policy,” American Economic Review, 1945, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Committee for Economic Development, “Taxes and the Budget: A Program for Prosperity in a Free Economy,” Readings in Fiscal Policy, 1947

Colm* G., “The Government Budget and the Nation’s Economic Budget,” Public Finance, 1948, and Readings

Friedman*, M., “A Monetary and Fiscal Framework for Economic Stability,” American Economic Review, 1948, and Readings

National Planning Association, “Federal Expenditure and Revenue Policy for Economic Stability,” 1949, Readings

Bach*, G. L., “Monetary-Fiscal Policy Reconsidered,” Journal of Political Economy, October, 1949, and Readings

United Nations*, National and International Measures for Full Employment (report by a group of experts appointed by the Secretary-General), Lake Success, New York, December, 1949

Simons*, H. C., Federal Tax Reform, Chicago, 1950

Viner*, J., “Full Employment at Whatever Cost,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1950

Samuelson*, P. A., “Principles and Rules in Modern Fiscal Policy; A Neoclassical Reformulation,” Money, Trade, and Economic Growth: in Honor of John H. Williams, New York, 1951

Millikan, M., ed., Income Stabilization for a Developing Democracy, Yale, 1953

Rolph, E.R., The Theory of Fiscal Economics, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1954

U. S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, December, 1955, Hearings

American Economic Association* Readings in Fiscal Policy, Homewood, Illinois, 1955

National Bureau of Economic Research, Policies to Combat Depression, a conference of the Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, 1956

Council of Economic Advisers*, the latest Annual Report

Institutional Factors

Bailey, S. K., Congress Makes a Law: the Story behind the Employment Act of 1946, New York, 1950

Bailey, S. K. and H. D. Samuel, Congress at Work, New York, 1952

Blough, R., The Federal Taxing Process, New York, 1952

Smithies*, A., The Budgetary Process in the United States, Committee for Economic Development, New York, 1955

Tax Incidence

Musgrave*, R. A., et al, “Distribution of Tax Payments by Income Groups,” National Tax Journal, March, 1951

Little, I. M. D., “Direct versus Indirect Taxes, Economic Journal, September, 1951

Musgrave*, R. A., “On Incidence,” Journal of Political Economy, August, 1953

Bach*, G. L., “The Impact of Moderate Inflation on Income and Assets of Economic Groups,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 71

Musgrave*, R.A., “Incidence of the Tax Structure and its Effects on Consumption,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 96

Cyclical Aspects

Slichter*, S. H., “The Economics of Public Works,” American Economics Review, 1934, and Readings in Fiscal Policy

Lutz, H. L., “Federal Depression Financing and its Consequences,” Harvard Business Review, 1938, and Readings

Myrdal* G., “Fiscal Policy in the Business Trade,” American Economic Review Supplement, 1939, and Readings

Hagen, E. E., “Timing and Administering Fiscal Policy,” American Economic Review, May, 1948

Committee on Public Issues of the American Economic Association*, “The Problem of Economic Instability,” American Economic Review, 1950, and Readings

Smithies*, A., “The American Economic Association Committee Report on Economic Instability,” American Economic Review, 1951, and Readings

Phillips, A. W., “Stabilization Policy in a Closed Economy,” The Economic Journal, June, 1954, pp. 290-323

Committee for Economic Development*, Problems in Anti-Recession Policy, September 1954

Alternative Budgets for Full Employment

Kaldor*, N., Appendix C in W. H. Beveridge, Full Employment in a Free Society, 1945

Musgrave*, R. A., “Alternative Budget Policies for Full Employment,” American Economic Review, 1945, and Readings

Musgrave*, R. A. and M. H. Miller, “Built-In Flexibility,” American Economic Review, 1948 and Readings

Bishop*, R. L., “Alternative Expansionist Policies,” Income, Employment and Public Policy: Essays in Honor of Alvin H. Hansen, New York, 1948

Stein, H., “Budget Policy to Maintain Stability,” Problems in Anti-Recession Policy, Committee for Economic Development, September, 1954

Hagen*, E. E., “Federal Taxation and Economic Stabilization,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, November 9, 1955, pp. 58-70

Lusher, D. W., “The Stabilizing Effectiveness of Budget Flexibility,” Policies to Combat Depression, a conference of the Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, Princeton, 1956

Balanced Budget Multiplier

Wallich*, H. C., “Income-Generating Effects of a Balanced Budget,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1944

Haavelmo*, T., “Multiplier Effects of a Balanced Budget,” Econometrica, 1945, and Readings

Haberler, G., “Multiplier Effects of a Balanced Budget,” Econometrica, April, 1946

Baumol, W. J. and M. H. Preston, “More on the Multiplier Effects of a Balanced Budget under Full Employment,” American Economic Review, March, 1955

The National Debt

Studenski, P., “The Limits of Possible Debt Burdens—Federal, State, and Local,” American Economic Review, Supplement, 1937

Haley*, R. F., “The Federal Budget: Economic Consequences of Deficit Financing,” American Economic Review, 1941, and Readings

Williams*, H. H., “Deficit Spending,” American Economic Review, February, 1941 and Postwar Monetary Plans and other Essays, 1944

Ratchford, B. U., “The Burden of a Domestic Debt,” American Economic Review, 1942, and Readings

Williams, J. H., “The Implications of Fiscal Policy for Monetary Policy and the Banking System,” Proceedings of the American Economic Association, 1942, and Readings

Domar*, E. D., “The ‘Burden of the Debt’ and the National Income,” American Economic Review, 1944, and Readings

Simons*, H., “On Debt Policy,” Journal of Political Economy, 1944, and Readings

Seltzer, L. H., “Is a Rise in Interest Rates Desirable or Inevitable?” American Economic Review, 1945, and Readings

Wallich, H. C., “Debt Management as an Instrument of Economic Policy,” American Economic Review, June, 1946

Roosa, R. V., “Integrating Debt Management and Open Market Operations,” American Economic Review, 1952, and Readings

Burkhead*, J., “The Balanced Budget,” Quarterly Journal of Economic, 1954, and Readings

Inflation and War Finance

Sprague, O. M. W., “Loans and Taxes in War Finance,” American Economic Review, Proceedings, 1917, and Readings

Keynes*, J. M., How to Pay for the War, London, 1940

Smithies*, A., “The Behavior of Money National Income under Inflationary Conditions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1942, and Readings

Fellner*, W. J., “Postscript on War Inflation: A Lesson from World War II,” American Economic Review, 1947, and Readings

Fetter*, F., “The Economic Reports of the President and the Problem of Inflation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1949, and Readings

Wald, H. P., “Fiscal Policy, Military Preparedness, and Postwar Inflation,” National Tax Journal, 1949, and Readings

Hart, A. G., Defense Without Inflation, New York, 1951

Effect on Incentives: Incentive Taxation

Domar*, E. D., and R. A. Musgrave, “Proportional Income Taxation and Risk Taking,” Quarterly Journal of Economic, May, 1954

Butters, J. K., and J. Lintner, Effect of Federal Taxes on Growing Enterprises, Boston, 1945

Groves*, H. M., Postwar Taxation and Economic Progress, New York, 1946, Chapter 11

Shelton, J. P., and G. Ohlin, “A Swedish Tax Provision for Stabilizing Business Investment,” American Economic Review, June, 1952

Brown*, R. S., “Techniques for Influencing Private Investment,” Income Stabilization in a Developing Democracy, M. Millikan, ed., 1953, pp. 416-432

Domar*, E. D., “The Case for Accelerated Depreciation,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1953

Butters*, J. K., “Taxation, Incentives, and Financial Capacity,” American Economic Review, Supplement, 1954, and Readings

Brown, E. C., “The New Depreciation Policy under the Income Tax: An Economic Analysis,” National Tax Journal, March, 1955

Goode*, R., “Accelerated Depreciation Allowances as a Stimulus to Investment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1955

Break*, G. F., “Effects of Taxation on Work Incentives,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 192

Brown*, E. C., “Weaknesses of Accelerated Depreciation as an Investment Stimulus,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 495

Butters*, J. K., “Effects of Taxation on the Investment Capacities and Policies of Individuals,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 126

Greenewalt*, C. H., “Effect of High Tax Rates on Executive Incentive,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 185

Long*, C. D., “Impact of Federal Income Tax on Labor Force Participation,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 153

Kaldor*, N., “An Expenditure Tax,” London, 1955

Particular Taxes

Simons, H., Personal Income Taxation, Chicago, 1938

Brown*, E. C., “Analysis of Consumption Taxes in Terms of the Theory of Income Determination,” American Economic Review, March, 1950

Goode*, R., Corporation Income Tax, New York, 1951

Royal Commission on the Taxation of Profits and Income, First Report, February, 1953; Second Report, April, 1954; Final Report, June, 1955

Due, J. F., “Economics of Commodity Taxation and the Present Excise Tax System,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 547

Keith*, G., “Economic Impact of the Corporation Income Tax,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 658

Goode, R., “The Corporate Income Tax in a Depression,” Policies to Combat Depression, a conference of the Universities-National Bureau Committee for Economic Research, 1956

Merriam, I. C., “Social Security Programs and Economic Stability,” Policies to Combat Depression

Pechman, J. A., “Yield of the Individual Income Tax During A Recession,” Policies to Combat Depression

Inter-Governmental Fiscal Relations

Maxwell*, J. A., “Intergovernmental Fiscal Devices for Economic Stabilization,” Federal Tax Policy for Economic Growth and Stability, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Washington, D. C., November 9, 1955, p. 807

Heer*, C., “Stabilizing State and Local Finance,” Policies to Combat Depression, 1956

U. S. Treasury Department, Committee on Inter-Governmental Fiscal Relations, Federal, State, and Local Government Fiscal Relations, 78^th Congress, 1^st Session, Senate Document No. 69, 1943

U. S. Bureau of the Census, Compendium of State Government Finances (an annual series)

Same source, Compendium of City Government Finances (an annual series)

Tax Institute, Federal-State-Local Tax Correlation (A Symposium), December, 1953

The Council of State Governments, Federal Grants-in-Aid, 1949

Growth and Economic Development

Bernstein*, E. M. and I. G. Patel, “Inflation in Relation to Economic Development,” International Monetary Fund, Staff papers, II, 1951-52

United Nations*: Fiscal Division, “Taxation and Economic Development in Asian Countries,” Economic Bulletin for Asia and the Far East, Vol. IV, November, 1953

Gurley, J. A., “Fiscal Policy in a Growing Economy,” Journal of Political Economy, December, 1953

Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on Agricultural Taxation and Economic Development, H. P. Wald, and J. N. Froomkin, eds., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1954 (Harvard University Law School, International Program in Taxation)

Special Problems

Clark*, C., “Public Finance and Changes in the Value of Money,” The Economic Journal, December, 1945

Clark*, C., “The Danger Point in Taxes,” Harper’s Magazine, December, 1950

Goode*, R., “An Economic Limit on Taxes: Some Recent Discussion,” National Tax Journal, September, 1952

Caplan, B., “A Case Study: The 1948-1949 Recession,” Policies to Combat Depression, 1956

Fox, K. A., “The Contribution of Farm Price Support Programs to General Economic Stability,” Policies to Combat Depression, 1956

Gordon, R. A., “Types of Depressions and Programs to Combat Them,” Policies to Combat Depression

Grebler, L., “Housing Policies to Comat Depression,” Policies to Combat Depression

Johnson, D. G., “Stabilization of International Commodity Prices,” Policies to Combat Depression

Owen, W., “Self-Liquidating Public Works to Combat Depression,” Policies to Combat Depression

Source: Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Box 17, Folder “Fiscal and Monetary Policy”.

___________________________

FINAL EXAMINATION
14.472 Fiscal Policy
Monday, May 20, 1957

E. D. Domar

ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS. THE QUALITY OF YOUR REASONING IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR ANSWERS.

[35%] Compare and contrast monetary and fiscal policies as methods of achieving a steadily expanding economy (without inflation or depression). Include, but don’t limit yourself to, the following points:
1. 1. The theoretical foundation of each.
  2. Methods used.
  3. Effects on distribution of income and wealth.
  4. Social and political repercussions of each.
  5. The effectiveness and limitations of each.

Do they overlap? Can you work out a synthesis?

[20%] “Government spending tends to be like a drug, in that it takes larger and larger doses to get results, and all the time debt and taxes get higher and higher.”
Analyze this statement and comment as fully as you can. Compare the effect of government expenditures with that of private.
[15%] “The best cure against inflation is increased production.”
Analyze this statement and comment on it. Include in your comments the monetary and fiscal implications of this statement.
[15%] What are the so-called “Built-in-Stabilizers?” Discuss fully and indicate how they operate in (a) depression and (b) inflation.
[15%] “The purpose of taxation is never to raise money but to leave less in the hands of the taxpayer.”
Comment fully and indicate the limitations of this statement. Can you identify the author? (No great penalty if you cannot.)

Source: Duke University, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Box 16, Folder “Examination. Public Finance and Fiscal Policy”.

Notes on Final Exam:

Question II comes from a review of Stuart Chase, Where’s the Money Coming From? Published in the Monthly Bulletin of the National City Bank of New York that I was fortunate to find inserted into the Congressional Record Volume 93—Part 4 (May 8, 1947, p. 4827);

Question III. Domar liked this question enough to have used it at least twice. See January 23, 1958 Exam at Johns Hopkins; January 26, 1966 at M.I.T.;

Question V. The sentence quoted comes from Abba Lerner’s The Economics of Control, p. 307.

___________________________

Image Source: Evsey D. Domar at the MIT Museum legacy website.

Tags BrownEC, Domar, Musgrave

Funny Business Gender M.I.T. Policy Popular Economics

M.I.T. Washington Post op-ed by Samuelson on Sound Debt Policy, 1963

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2019-12-19

Source: Paul A. Samuelson, “We can have sound debt policy” from the Washington Post, included with Extention of remarks of Hon. Jeffery Cohelan of California in the House of Representatives, Friday, May 31, 1963 in Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates. Volume 109, part 25—Appendix, May 31, 1963, p. A3510

Also found as a mimeographed copy in Harvard University Archives. Papers of Alvin Harvey Hansen, Box 1, Folder “Business Cycles.”

Image Source: Samuelson Memorial Information Page/Photos from Memorial Service. Accessed via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

Tags Samuelson

General Examination in International Economics February 9, 1966

International Economics General Exam May 1966

GEA Christmas party 1964

Appetite of a Man; Income of a Boy (The Seven Stages of a Student) a play in six acts

Cast

Act I: The Admission Interview—Student and Admissions Committee

Act II—Registration

Act III—Reg. Off. To the First-Year Class.

Act IV: The General Examination

Act V. The Thesis Defense [missing]

Act VI. Employment

Reminder/Invitation

GEA CHRISTMAS SKIT 1968 [Faculty]

Appendix

Rostow Affair

Art Okun’s Reputation as an economic forecaster “on the back of an envelope”

From Shakespeare’s As You Like It Act V, Scene 4.

Kenneth Boulding’s Vote for AEA to Meet in Chicago in 1968

M.I.T. Economics Department’s Experience With Expanding Graduate Enrollment of Black Students, 1970-74

M.I.T.

The Economics Department

The Graduate Economics Association

Registration Day, September 20, 1965

LIVING IN THE BOSTON AREA

Geography

Housing

Furniture

Graduate House

Roomates

The Coop

Employment for Students

Employment for Wives

Miscellaneous

GEA Officers

Contributions to American Educational History, edited by Herbert B. Adams

Back-story for selected references in the text

Some Obvious Context

RIP VAN SAMUELSON RETURNS TO MIT AFTER THE REVOLUTION FACULTY SKIT Christmas 1969

CAST

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS February 16, 1959

Part I

Part II

General Examination in International Economics May 20, 1959

Course Enrollment (Second term, 1956-57

Typed notecards for an introduction to or a review of course.

The traditional arguments regarding the purposes of Monetary Policy:

The following limitations, some real, other imaginary, explain why Fiscal Policy is not as simple as Lerner makes it:

READING LIST 14.472 Fiscal Policy Spring Term 1956-57

Professor E. D. Domar

FINAL EXAMINATION 14.472 Fiscal Policy Monday, May 20, 1957

E. D. Domar

General Examination in International Economics
February 9, 1966

International Economics General Exam
May 1966

Appetite of a Man; Income of a Boy
(The Seven Stages of a Student)
a play in six acts

Act V. The Thesis Defense
[missing]

GEA CHRISTMAS SKIT 1968
[Faculty]

From Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Act V, Scene 4.

RIP VAN SAMUELSON RETURNS TO MIT AFTER THE REVOLUTION
FACULTY SKIT
Christmas 1969

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
February 16, 1959

General Examination in International Economics
May 20, 1959

Course Enrollment
(Second term, 1956-57

READING LIST
14.472 Fiscal Policy
Spring Term 1956-57

FINAL EXAMINATION
14.472 Fiscal Policy
Monday, May 20, 1957