Category: Money and Banking

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Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Exams for Money and Banking. Andrew, 1906-1907

A two course sequence covering money, banking and foreign exchange became an established specialty field at the beginning of the twentieth century. Assistant Professor A. Piatt Andrew covered that field at Harvard.

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Previous course materials for
Money and Banking 

1900-01 (Meyer and Sprague)
1901-02 (Andrew, Sprague, Meyer)
1902-03 (Andrew’s money exam, Sprague’s banking exam)
1903-04 (Andrew and Sprague)
1904-05 (Andrew’s money exam, Sprague’s banking exam)
1905-06 (Andrew’s money and banking exams)

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Course Enrollment 1906-07
Money, first semester

Economics 8a 1hf. Asst. Professor Andrew. — Money. A general survey of currency legislation, experience, and theory in recent times.

Total 50: 4 Graduates, 12 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 10 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 8a
Mid-year Examination, 1906-07

  1. Why was the Latin Monetary Union instituted? Why does it continue to exist? What conclusions of general significance can be drawn from its history?
  2. When may the levying of a seignorage be expected to result in rising prices? Falling prices? Stationary prices?
  3. “It is possible to introduce either a system of bi-metallism which will make prices fall, or one which will make them rise.” Explain these two systems, and show why they would affect prices in such ways.
  4. How is the increasing gold supply likely to affect —
    1. the interests of the working classes?
    2. the prosperity of business?
    3. the income of persons living upon a salary?
    4. the price of real estate?
    5. the price of bonds?
      Explain the reasons in each case.
  5. Explain the character, merits, and defects of —
    (a) the mathematical mean, (b) the geometrical mean, (c) the median, (d) the mode, (e) weighted averages, as methods of measuring changes in the value of money.
  1. “If an ounce of gold, which would be coined into the equivalent of £3 17s 10½ d, is sold for £4 or £5 in paper, the value of the currency has sunk just that much below what the value of a metallic currency would be.” — Mill, II, p. 92. What is your opinion of this statement?
  2. What does Darwin mean by the labor standard? By the commodity standard? Explain the merits claimed for each, and show the exemplification of the two standards in the history of the precious metals between 1873 and 1896. Has either been exemplified in the history of gold or silver since 1896?
  3. Enumerate the different kinds of money now current in the United States, and explain the circumstances and conditions of their issue.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1906-07. A copy is also found in Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1906-07 (HUC 7000.25), pp. 30-31.

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Course Enrollment, 1906-07
Banking, second semester

Economics 8b 2hf. Asst. Professor Andrew. — Banking and Foreign Exchange.

Total 82: 3 Graduates, 10 Seniors, 32 Juniors, 30 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1906-1907, p. 71.

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ECONOMICS 8b
Year-end Examination, 1906-7

Omit one question
  1. Name and characterize briefly the various classes of banks existing in (a) the United States, (b) England, (c) Scotland, (d) France, and (e) Germany.
    Name when possible a few leading examples of each class.
  2. What is meant in England by the official Bank rate, the actual Bank rate, the deposit rate, the market rates?
    Suppose that the official rate is raised from 4% to 5%, to what extent will the other rates probably be affected? and why?
    Would the answer have been different thirty years ago?
  3. In what manner and to what extent does the government derive especial advantage in the way of revenue and of services from the banks in the United States? in England? in Germany?
  4. It has been said that “any amount of credit may be created … so long as the claims held by the bank are based upon actual and salable property.”
    Mention any person or persons to whom one might attribute this opinion. Would you accept it?
  5. Express and illustrate the various circumstances under which American quotations of exchange upon France may (1) exceed, and (2) fall short of the nominal gold points.
  6. In your opinion did Andrew Jackson’s policy work permanent benefit or permanent harm to the banking interests of the country? State reasons.
  7. Explain briefly the innovations made by Secretary Shaw in the relations of the Treasury with the banks, and state your opinion of the general policy involved therein.
  8. What contributions to the development of banking in England were made by the authors of (a) “The Bullion Report,” (b) “Lombard Street”?
    In what ways and how far are the principles there presented applicable to the United States?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1906-07 (HUC 7000.25), pp. 31-32.

Image Source: A. Piatt Andrew’s The Red Roof Guestbook, 1914-1930. Available at the Historic New England Website. Henry Davis Sleeper (Andrew’s neighbor on the left) and A. Piatt Andrew Jr. (right).

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Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Exams for Money and Banking. Andrew, 1905-1906

Abram Piatt Andrew

 

The financial Panic of 1907 was still a few years down the historical road when A. Piatt Andrew picked up the banking semester of the two semester sequence of money and banking at Harvard from O. M. W. Sprague who had left for Japan. This expanded scope in matters monetary no doubt came in handy when Andrew joined the staff of the National Monetary Commission established by Congress in 1908.

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Previous course materials
Money and Banking 

1900-01 (Meyer and Sprague)
1901-02 (Andrew, Sprague, Meyer)
1902-03 (Andrew’s money exam, Sprague’s banking exam)
1903-04 (Andrew and Sprague)
1904-05 (Andrew’s money exam, Sprague’s banking exam)

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Course Enrollment
1905-06

Economics 8a 1hf. Asst. Professor Andrew. — Money. A general survey of currency legislation, experience, and theory in recent times.

Total 50: 5 Graduates, 7 Seniors, 22 Juniors, 10 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1905-1906, p. 72.

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ECONOMICS 8a
Mid-year Examination, 1905-06

  1. Explain and give illustrations of
    1. the double standard;
    2. the parallel standard;
    3. the limping standard;
    4. the single standard;
    5. quasi-redemption;
    6. forced circulation.
  2. State briefly the circumstances which led to the issue and withdrawal of the American trade dollar.
  3. Trace briefly the chronology of the adoption of the gold standard throughout the world. To what extent is the fall in price of silver due to this movement? To what extent has the value of gold been affected by it?
  4. How would the adoption of international bimetallism to-day at the ratio of 32 to 1 affect (a) the circulating medium, (b) the standard of value of different countries? Consider both the immediate and the eventual results.
  5. What arguments advanced in favor of bimetallism ten years ago are inapplicable to-day?
  6. Is there any peculiar significance for the “quantity theory”
    1. of British India between 1893 and 1898;
    2. of Austria between 1878 and 1892;
    3. of Russia between 1878 and 1896;
    4. of Holland between 1873 and 1875.
      When possible give variant opinions.
  7. Would an ideal monetary standard always measure the same quantity of goods?
    1. According to Walker?
    2. According to Darwin?
    3. According to your own opinion?
      Answer both from the points of view of production and distribution.
  8. “Inasmuch as gold (before 1848) was more valuable on the world’s market than at the French mint, relatively to silver, it was impossible that gold should circulate in France.” Is this a necessary conclusion?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Mid-year Examinations, 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years 1905-06. Also a copy in Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1906), p. 33.

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Course Enrollment
1905-06

Economics 8b 2hf. Asst. Professor Andrew. — Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems.

Total 105: 7 Graduates, 12 Seniors, 56 Juniors, 22 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1905-1906, p. 72.

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ECONOMICS 8b
Year-end Examination, 1905-06

  1. Explain the system of “cash credits” and the importance of the £1 note in Scotland.
  2. Discuss the following:—
    1. Bank statement based on falling averages.
    2. Five per cent fund with treasurer.
    3. Bonds for circulation.
    4. Bonds for deposits.
  3. Sketch briefly the various stages in the American government’s policy of caring for its funds.
  4. How do state banks compare with national banks in the United States to-day (a) in number, (b) in size, (c) in the kinds of business done? What differences in these regards appear in different parts of the country?
  5. On what grounds is an extension of branch-banking advocated in the United States? What are the objections raised? To what extent does it already exist?
  6. Explain the ways and trace the seasons in which the New York bank reserves are apt to decline. Discuss the means which have recently been employed by the government to strengthen them.
  7. Sight exchange is quoted at 4.8550; 60-day bills at 4.8240; commercial bills at 4.8212. Explain these differences and show how each quotation will be affected, if the Bank of England raises its rate by 1%.
  8. The following are abstracted statements of the New York Associated Banks:
(1)
Aug. 5, ’93		 (2)
Feb. 3, ’94		 (3)
May 20, ’99		 (4)
May 23, ’03
Loans 409 420 763 923
Deposits 373 552 902 914
Capital 129 133 134 224
Circulation 6 13 16 44
Reserve 79 250 260 238

Compare 1 with 2, and 3 with 4, explaining in each case the changes in the relations (a) between loans and deposits, (b) between deposits and reserve.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1906-07; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1906),  p. 34.

Image Source: Picture of Abram Piatt Andrew from ca. 1909 used in a magazine article on his appointment to the directorship of the U. S. Mint. Hoover Institution Archives. A. Piatt Andrew Papers, Box 51. Retouched and colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

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Agricultural Economics Exam Questions Fields Harvard History of Economics Industrial Organization Money and Banking Public Finance Sociology Theory Undergraduate

Harvard. Division Exams for A.B., General and Economics, 1921

The Harvard Economics department was once one of three in its Division in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The Departments of History and Government shared a general division exam with the Department of Economics and also contributed their own specific exams for their respective departmental fields. This post provides the questions for the common, i.e. general, divisional exam, the general economics exam, and all the specific exams at the end of the academic year 1920-21 for those fields falling within the perview of the economics department.

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Previously posted
Division A.B. Exams

Division Exams 1916
Division Exams, January 1917
Division Exams, April 1918
Division Exams, May 1919
Division Exams, April/May 1920

Division Exams 1931

Special Exam for Money and Government Finance, 1939
Special Exam Economic History Since 1750, 1939
Special Exam for Economic Theory, 1939
Special Exam for Labor and Social Reform, 1939

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DIVISION OF HISTORY, GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMICS

EXAMINATIONS FOR THE DEGREE OF A.B.
1920-21

DIVISION GENERAL EXAMINATION

PART I

The treatment of one of the following questions will be regarded as equivalent to one-half of this examination and should therefore occupy one hour. Write on one question only. Insert before your answer to this question a sketch of your plan of treatment.

  1. Discuss the relations of civilization to climate.
  2. Does history show that the periods of a nation’s political and literary greatness tend to coincide?
  3. Was America’s entrance into the World War a consequence or a violation of her policies and traditions?
  4. Discuss the following: “One of the great difficulties, as well as one of the great fascinations of history is the constantly changing point of view; but we should beware of interpreting the past in the light of the present.”
  5. What have been and what should be the limitations upon the application of the principle of self-determination in national relations?
  6. Contrast Roman provincial, and nineteenth-century colonial relations.
  7. What should be the limits of nationalization of essential industries?
  8. What have been the marked characteristics of three great states at the time of their greatest power?
  9. “Society has departed very widely from the strict rule of non-interference with industry by the State; indeed, the policy of non-interference was never carried out logically by any State.” Comment.
  10. Discuss: “The patriotism of nations ought to be selfish.”
  11. What are the standards of social justice?

PART II

The treatment of four of the following questions in Part II is required and will be regarded as equivalent to one-half of this examination, and should therefore occupy one hour. The four questions are to be taken from the Departments in which the student is NOT CONCENTRATING; two questions from each of the two Departments.

A. HISTORY

  1. Briefly characterize, with approximate dates, five of the following: Alexander, Aristotle, Augustus, Francis Bacon, Frederick Barbarossa, Bolivar, Calvin, Chatham, Franklin, Richelieu.
  2. Give a short account of the rise of the Christian Church down to the period of the Crusades.
  3. Estimate the importance of the Netherlands in the development of Europe.
  4. Discuss the relations of England and the United States during the past one hundred years.
  5. Write a brief historical account of slavery in the Western Hemisphere.

B. GOVERNMENT

  1. Discuss: “Not independence but interdependence is the hope of nations.”
  2. Explain the evolution and significance of trial by jury.
  3. What is the significance of the following headlines in March, 1921?
    1. “Austria in dangerous unrest.”
    2. “Briand voted confidence on reparations.”
    3. “Crown prince is plotting.”
    4. “Lenin knows his Italian friends.”
  4. What are the limits of uniform state legislation?
  5. What political unities can best control:
    1. police,
    2. water supply,
    3. roads?

C. ECONOMICS

  1. “The fundamental fact in history is the law of decreasing returns. It is the cause of the origin and development of civilization. . . . It is equally, and for the same reason, the source of poverty and war.”
    State, explain, and indicate the significance of the law of decreasing (diminishing) returns.
  2. What are the fundamental features of the organization of modern industrial society?
  3. Discuss one of the following statements:
    1. “Employees have the right to contract for their services in a collective capacity, but any contract that contains a stipulation that employment should be denied to men not parties to the contract is an invasion of the constitutional rights of the American workmen, is against public policy, and is in violation of the conspiracy laws.”
    2. “In the old days, America outsailed the world. . . . I want to acclaim the day when America is the most eminent of shipping nations. . . . A big navy and a big mercantile marine are necessary to the future of the country.”
  4. Why should there be a labor party in England and not in the United States?
  5. What are the economic essentials of socialism?

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GENERAL EXAMINATION
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

I

The treatment of two of the following questions will be regarded as equivalent to one-half of the examination and should therefore occupy one hour. Write on two questions only.

  1. Give the author, approximate date, and general character of five of the following works:
    1. National System of Political Economy.
    2. Essays in Political Arithmetick.
    3. England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade.
    4. Essay on the Principle of Population
    5. Principles of Political Economy.
    6. The Wealth of Nations.
    7. Das Kapital.
    8. Lombard Street.
    9. Capital and Interest.
  2. Explain four of the following terms:
    Abstinence; Manchester School; stationary state; iron law of wages; produit net; non-competing groups; Scholasticism; Utilitarianism.
  3. Locate on an outline map:
    1. The world’s principal sources of five of the following raw materials: cotton; copper; sugar; silk; wheat; tin; rice; nitrate; petroleum; gold.
    2. The more important routes of overseas transportation.
    3. The world’s chief regions of manufacture.

II

The treatment of three of the following questions will be regarded as equivalent to one-half of the examination and should therefore occupy one hour. Write on three questions only. Be concise.

  1. Define “thrift” and discuss its social significance.
  2. Analyze the determination of normal value under competitive conditions of joint cost.
  3. What is meant by “monetary inflation”? How is it to be measured and what is its importance?
  4. What has been the course of the interest rate in modern times? What probably will be the course of the rate during the next few years? Why?
  5. What are the purposes and limits of progressive taxation?
  6. Discuss the future of public utilities in the United States.
  7. To what extent and in what respects, if at all, is labor legislation of the times a corrective of the more serious defects of the existing social order?
  8. Discuss: “Perpetual prosperity would be a national calamity.”

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SPECIAL EXAMINATION
ECONOMIC THEORY

Answer six questions

A

Take from this group at least two and not more than four

  1. What is the concept of “justice” in the theory of the distribution of wealth?
  2. Comment on the validity and significance of the following contention: “Labor is the source of all wealth.”
  3. “Whether capital is productive depends simply on the question: Are tools useful? It matters not how much or how little tools add to the product — if they add something, capital is productive.” Do you agree? Explain.
  4. “The forces which make for Increasing Return are not of the same order as those that make for Diminishing Return. . . . The two ‘laws’ are in no sense coordinate. . . . The two ‘laws’ hold united, not divided, sway over industry.” Comment critically.
  5. What relations exist between the accounting and economic concepts of “cost of production”?
  6. “The differences in the productive powers of men due to their heredity or social position give to certain individuals the same kind of an advantage over others that the owner of a corner lot in the center of a city has over one in the suburbs. If the income from a corner lot is a surplus and can therefore be described as unearned, the income of a man of better heredity, education or opportunity must also be regarded as a surplus income and therefore unearned.”
    Discuss this statement with reference to your general theory of distribution.

B

Take from this group at least one and not more than wto

  1. Give a brief historical account of the theory of population.
  2. Trace the development of the theory of international trade.
  3. In what ways have the following influenced the history of economic thought: Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Malthus, Ricardo, J.S. Mill, Marx?
  4. Outline the evolution of the theory of economic rent.

C

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. “The profits of speculation on the Stock Exchange are just as unearned as the increment in the value of urban building sites; unlike the profits of speculation in produce, they represent no service to society.” Do you agree? Why, or why not?
  2. “There is a point beyond which advertising outlay is extravagant.” Explain.
  3. “I do not see how we can retain our home markets, upon which American good fortune must be founded, and at the same time maintain American standards of production and American standards of living unless we make other peoples with lower standards pay for the privilege of trading in the American markets.” Discuss.
  4. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the closed shop?

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DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
ECONOMIC HISTORY

Answer six questions 

A

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. “The opening of the Erie Canal affected both intensive and extensive agriculture in the United States.” Explain. Have there been analogous changes in later periods?
  2. Discuss the following statement: “The enactment of corporation laws by the various states is the most important step made during the past century in the development of American manufactures.”
  3. Analyze the important economic after-effects of the World War.
  4. Briefly explain the most satisfactory methods for separating the different types of variation in time series.

B

Take from this group at least two and not more than four

  1. Write a brief account of one of the early English trading companies.
  2. Sketch the rise of the modern factory system.
  3. Compare changes in farm ownership and tenancy during the nineteenth century in England and the United States.
  4. Outline the history of banking in the United States from 1830 to 1860.
  5. Write a brief narrative of the early development of the railroad.
  6. Give the history of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.
  7. Trace the evolution of the middle class and forecast its future.

C

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. Give a critical account of the policy of the Federal Government in its regulation of industrial combinations.
  2. Discuss the history and consequences of immigration into the United States since 1840.
  3. Review the development of German foreign trade before the War with special reference to the methods of trade promotion.
  4. Analyze the causes, extent, and consequences of changes in the price level in the United States since 1914.

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DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
PUBLIC FINANCE

Answer six questions

A

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. A law of 1691 authorizes the municipal corporations of New York “to impose any reasonable tax upon all houses within said city, in proportion to the benefit they shall receive thereby.” How far is this a correct principle of taxation and how far has it continued to be applied?
  2. Present a classification of Federal expenditures for a national budget system.
  3. Give a brief account of the financial statistics issued currently by the Federal Government.
  4. Discuss the proposal for the cancellation of all inter-allied debts.

B

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. How has the Federal Constitution influenced national and state tax systems in the United States?
  2. Trace the history of an important fiscal monopoly.
  3. Give a brief account of the financial history of one of the American states.
  4. What connections have existed between currency systems and government finance? Illustrate fully.

C

Take from this group at least two and not more than four

  1. Compare the total expenditures in the United States in normal times for (a) national, (b) state, and (c) municipal purposes. What changes, if any, in the proportions are to be expected?
  2. To what extent is it desirable to separate state and local revenues in the United States?
  3. Indicate the nature and significance of the “grant in aid” in British public finance.
  4. What arguments have been used in European countries for and against a capital levy?
  5. Should the poll tax be abolished? Why, or why not?
  6. Discuss critically the present condition of the public debt of the United States.

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DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
MONEY AND BANKING

Answer six questions

A

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. What part, if any, do commercial banks play in (a) the process of investment; (b) the increase of capital; (c) the course of industrial development; (d) leadership in the business world? In what respects, if at all, may the influence of commercial banks be economically inexpedient?
  2. Discuss the desirability of uniform bank accounting in the United States.
  3. Describe critically the more important sources of statistics of currency and credit in the United States.
  4. Analyze the successive phases of the business cycle. What are the causes of financial panics; industrial crises?

B

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. Give a brief account of the life and work of John Law.
  2. Trace the history of usury laws.
  3. Outline the political background of American monetary history from 1870 to 1900.
  4. Give a brief history of the Reichsbank.

C

Take from this group at least two and not more than four

  1. “It is quite clear that the money question no longer survives as a political issue.” Do you agree? Why, or why not?
  2. To what extent has the status of the gold standard been affected by the World War?
  3. “This little neutral country [Switzerland], surrounded by four great continental belligerents, and bordering on the two principal battle-fronts of Europe, possesses at present, curiously enough, an exceptional purchasing power. This is the consequence of the high level of Swiss currency, which is 250 per cent above the usual parity with the currency of the neighbor in the east, Austria-Hungary; 100 per cent higher than that of the neighbor in the north, Germany; 90 per cent higher than that of the neighbor in the south, Italy; and 20 per cent higher than that of the western neighbor, France. Even in overseas countries, Swiss currency has a higher buying power than the English sovereign or the American dollar.” Explain fully.
  4. What changes have been made in the original Federal Reserve System? What have been the purposes and effects of the changes? What further changes, if any, seem desirable?
  5. Compare the provisions for agricultural credit in two important countries.
  6. Comment upon the following statement: “Prosperity continued through the war, and gave the nation such a tremendous start in business activity that we would still be rejoicing in a period of great prosperity had it not been for the death-dealing blow of deflation of credit given by Mr. Wilson’s Federal Reserve Board.”

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DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
CORPORATE ORGANIZATION, INCLUDING RAILROADS

Answer six questions

 A

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. State the theory of value under conditions of monopoly. In what ways, if at all, is monopoly price affected by (a) cost of production per unit; (b) potential competition; (c) an elastic demand for the product; (d) the existence of satisfactory substitutes for the product; (e) hostile public opinion?
  2. Formulate a statistical classification of business organizations in the United States.
  3. Discuss the apportionment of railway operating expenses between freight and passenger service.
  4. Analyze the valuation of corporate assets from the standpoint of the principles of accounting.

B

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. Compare the history of business corporations in England and the United States.
  2. Trace connections between railroad construction in the United States and related political and economic events.
  3. Give a brief narrative of the trust dissolutions of the Federal Government.
  4. What provisions of the Federal Constitution have been most important in determining policies of government regulation of public utilities?

C

Take from this group at least two and not more than four

  1. Discuss the following statement: “The enactment of corporation laws by the various states is the most important step made during the past century in the development of American manufactures.”
  2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of non-par stock?
  3. Discuss the probable consequences of the Supreme Court decision that stock dividends are not income under the income tax law.
  4. What is the nature and importance of good-will in corporation finance?
  5. To what extent may there be differences in the fair valuation of public utilities for the purposes of rate-making, condemnation, taxation, and capitalization?
  6. Did the Government act wisely in returning the railroads March 1, 1920 to their corporate owners for operation? Why, or why not?

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DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
ECONOMICS OF AGRICULTURE

Answer six questions 

A

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. Analyze the doctrine of economic rent from agricultural land.
  2. What are the functions of organized speculation in staple agricultural products?
  3. Describe the methods to be employed in making an annual farm inventory.
  4. What subjects are covered by the decennial Federal census of agriculture? What is the statistical value of the results of the several inquiries?

B

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. Trace the history of the relations between landlords and tenants in England.
  2. What have been the most important changes in American agriculture since 1890?
  3. Give a critical account of the land policies of the Federal Government.
  4. Outline the development of the beet sugar industry in Europe.

C

Take from this group at least two and not more than four

  1. What factors determine the most efficient size of farms?
  2. What are the advantages of diversification of crops?
  3. Discuss the future of the meat supply of the United States.
  4. Describe and estimate the advantages and disadvantages of the different methods of marketing farm produce.
  5. State and defend a forest conservation policy for the United States.
  6. Compare the provisions for agricultural credit in two important countries.
  7. What are the principal problems of rural community life in the United States?

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DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
LABOR PROBLEMS

Answer six questions

 A

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. Discuss the proposal to restrict immigration into the United States by limiting the number of each nationality admitted each year to 3 per cent of the foreign-born of that nationality resident in this country in 1910.
  2. Describe the technique of statistical measurement of the high cost of living.
  3. What are the principal difficulties encountered in the collection of wage statistics?
  4. Analyze the relations between high money wages and high commodity prices.

B

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. Describe the early development of the factory system.
  2. Trace the origins of trade-unionism in the United States.
  3. Write a brief narrative of the movement for a shorter working day.
  4. Review the relations between organized labor and the steel industry in the United States.

C

Take from this group at least two and not more than four

  1. What is “the labor problem”?
  2. Compare American and British labor leadership. How do you account for the differences?
  3. “Employers must be free to employ their work people at wages mutually satisfactory, without interference or dictation on the part of individuals or organizations not directly parties to such contracts.” Comment.
  4. Discuss a proposed law providing that “in the establishment of salaries for school teachers in the city of—, there shall be no discrimination based on sex or otherwise, but teachers and principals rendering the same service shall receive equal pay.”
  5. “The principle that each industry shall support its own unemployed is one that must be established if a real solution of unemployment is to be made.” Do you agree? Why, or why not?
  6. Discuss the relation of shop committees to trade-unionism.

_______________________________

DIVISION SPECIAL EXAMINATION
ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY

Answer six questions

A

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. Discuss the following contention: “The landlord is a parasite since he consumes without producing.”
  2. What is the meaning of “over-population”?
  3. “Hitherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being.” Comment critically.
  4. What are the interactions of human instincts and modern factory labor?
  5. Discuss the nature and bases of economic prosperity.

B

Take from this group at least one and not more than two

  1. Describe the evolution of language.
  2. Trace the history of the middle class and forecast its future.
  3. Give a brief historical account of the status of women.
  4. What have been the chief cultural consequences of the machine process?

C

Take from this group at least two and not more than four

  1. What is the province of sociology?
  2. Discuss the family as a necessary social unit.
  3. Describe the leading forms of conflict and their effect upon group life. Why are some forms to be preferred to others? What are the factors which determine the forms actually prevailing at any time?
  4. Analyze the sources of prestige and influence in modern society.
  5. “From the standpoint of progress, the value of the individual depends on the excess of his production over his consumption.” Discuss.
  6. What are the criteria and causes of racial superiority?

_______________________________

Examinations not transcribed for this post

History:

General Examination
Special Examinations: Mediaeval History; English History; Modern European History to 1789; Modern History since 1789; American History

Government:

General Examination
Special Examinations: American Government; Municipal Government; Political Theory; International Law

_______________________________

Source: Harvard University Archives. Divisional and general examinations, 1915-1975 (HUC 7000.18). Box 6, Bound Volume (stamped “Private Library Arthur H. Cole”) “Divisional Examinations 1916-1927”.

Categories
Exam Questions Johns Hopkins Money and Banking

Johns Hopkins. Semester Exams for Monetary Economics. Musgrave, 1959-1960

 

From 1958 through 1962 Richard Musgrave was Professor of Economics at Johns Hopkins. One thinks of him today as a giant in the history of public finance but the examination below reminds us that he was also an economist who still taught graduate courses in monetary economics/policy at least into the early 1960s.

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More about Richard Musgrave

All posts with the tag “Musgrave” here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

In particular one post with biographical and career information.

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Richard Musgrave
Faculty of Arts and Sciences — Memorial Minute

At a Meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences April 8, 2008, the following Minute was placed upon the records.

Richard Musgrave, the Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, Emeritus, was the leading public finance economist of his generation. He died on January 15, 2007, at the age of 96.

Richard Abel-Musgrave was born in Königstein, Germany, and educated in Munich and Heidelberg. He was of half Jewish ancestry, his paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother both being Jews who had converted to the Christian faith.

He came to the United States in 1933 as an exchange student at Rochester University but soon transferred to Harvard where he received his PhD in 1937. He decided not to return to Germany and applied for U.S. citizenship in that same year. At that time he dropped the hyphen in his family name, becoming Richard Abel Musgrave. He was known thereafter as Richard Musgrave.

After completing his PhD, Musgrave worked at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve until 1948. He then taught at Johns Hopkins, the University of Michigan and Princeton before joining the faculty at Harvard in 1965. He held simultaneous appointments in the economics department and in the Harvard Law School, the first person to hold a joint appointment in both the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Law School. Professor Musgrave took emeritus status in 1981 and moved to California where he was an adjunct professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Although the 19th-century giants of political economy, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill, wrote extensively about the theory of taxation, by the middle of the 20th century the teaching and writing on public finance in the United States was largely descriptive and institutional. Richard Musgrave changed all of that with his major volume, The Theory of Public Finance, published in 1959.

The Theory of Public Finance was both a theoretical research monograph and a text book. It applied the analytic tools of price theory and of Keynesian macroeconomics to the issues of tax incidence (i.e., who bears the burden of taxes), of efficiency (i.e., measuring the losses caused by the distorting effects of taxes), and of achieving full employment. All of this was done in a very readable and accessible way that made the book very widely studied. The book proved to be a particularly significant resource for tax law professors in their teaching and writing about federal tax policy.

A key feature of Musgrave’s Theory of Public Finance was the division of the problem of public finance into what Musgrave called three “branches.” One “branch” was devoted to the problem of achieving full employment. Here Musgrave applied the ideas of Keynesian fiscal policy to using tax reductions and government spending to increasing aggregate demand. A second “branch” focused on economic efficiency, i.e., on the design of taxes that would raise revenue with the least distortion to incentives and therefore the least loss of real incomes. The third “branch” then dealt with issues of redistribution to achieve a politically acceptable distribution of income. These branches were of course just pedagogical devices and not a way of organizing the actual making of policy.

Richard Musgrave was an inspiring teacher. It was clear to his students that he cared about both the analytic science in public finance and the practical implications of that analysis for improving our tax system. He taught students to think about the impact of taxes on economic efficiency while not losing sight of their distributional consequences. Or, as he might have said, to think about the distribution of the tax burden and the use of taxes and transfers to redistribute income while not losing sight of the consequences of the progressive tax and transfer structure on economic efficiency.

In the weekly graduate seminar in public finance, graduate students and visiting faculty would present their latest research. The seminar brought together not only graduate students and faculty from the department of economics, but also tax specialist members of the Harvard Law School faculty. Their presence added a greater degree of practical focus to the seminar’s discussion of tax reform. Musgrave’s questions and insights kept the seminar focused on the substantive importance of the problems rather than on the more abstract methodological issues. Many of the students taught by Richard Musgrave went on to do important work in public finance.

Although Musgrave felt strongly about tax policy and about transfer programs like Social Security and unemployment insurance, he was not an activist who tried to influence outcomes in Washington. He appeared to believe that he was most effective in developing the analysis and teaching students who would carry this material into practice.

An important exception to this was a major report on fiscal reform in Columbia that Musgrave prepared jointly with Malcolm Gillis in 1971. This report, prepared under the auspices of the Harvard International Tax Program of the Harvard Law School, was based on extensive and detailed work in Columbia.

Richard Musgrave was elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association in 1978. Musgrave was one of the organizers of the International Seminar in Public Economics which brought together American and European faculty members who specialized in public finance. He also served as an honorary president of the International Institute of Public Finance.

Professor Musgrave collaborated with his wife, Peggy Musgrave, in writing a popular undergraduate text book, Public Finance in Theory and Practice, which was published in 1973. The Musgraves also found time to reach out to young colleagues and their wives at their homes in Belmont and in Vermont.

Respectfully submitted,

Lawrence Summers
Bernard Wolfman
Martin Feldstein, Chair

Source: The Harvard Gazette. June 12, 2008.

______________________

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY

Economics 611
Final Examination
Prof. R. A. Musgrave
January 22, 1960

I

Write for forty-five minutes.

There is by now pretty general agreement, among monetary theorists, regarding the various relationships by which the supply of money may affect the level of output and prices. Nevertheless, there remains a division between those who prefer to study the role of money in the framework of an income-expenditure approach, and those who prefer the quantity theory of equation of exchange tradition. What, if any, substantive justification is there for retention of this dichotomy? If there is none, which approach is to be retained? If there is, what distinct purposes are served by the two approaches?

II

Write on two out of the following three questions, thirty minutes each,

  1. Various writers, including Wicksell, Fisher and Keynes, have treated the problem of monetary disequilibrium and the nature of the equilibrating process, in terms of the differential between two rates of interest. Discuss these approaches and compare the concepts of interest used therein.
  2. Where do you stand on the loanable funds—liquidity preference controversy? In particular, are you satisfied that the distinction between the stock and the flow approach to monetary theory is purely terminological?
  3. “It was a great misfortune for the development of monetary theory, that Marshall and Pigou did not stick with their initial intent to relate k to wealth, but proceeded to relate it to income. Thereby was postponed the recognition — so essential for a fruitful approach to monetary theory — that the demand for money must be dealt with in the context of a general portfolio theory.” Discuss.
III

Write on the following three statements, for fifteen minutes each. Indicate whether the statement is right or wrong and why.

  1. “The real balance effect implies that the demand schedule for money has unit elasticity, from which it follows that the price level changes proportionately with the money supply.”
  2. “The liquidity trap is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for under-employment equilibrium.”
  3. “Classical theory was mistaken in assuming that the rate of interest is determined by income independent of money supply. As Keynes has shown, interest is determined by money supply and then determines income.”

______________________

Dr. R. A. Musgrave
Friday, May 20, 1960

ECONOMICS 611
  1. The following changes occur: Bill holdings at the Federal Reserve rise by 100 million, while bond holdings fall by 80 million. Also, bank holdings of bills fall by 70 million, non-bank holdings of bills fall by 30 million, and non-bank holdings of bonds rise by 80 million. What is the resulting change in excess reserves, assuming a reserve ratio of 20%, and why? (Assume that the system retains such changes in excess reserves as result, without reacting with corresponding changes in loans.)
  2. Assume that the system is always loaned up. What will be the effects on member bank reserves and demand deposits of (a) an increase in vault cash by 100; (b) a decrease in currency in circulation by 200; (c) a gold outflow of 300; (d) a decrease in treasury deposits at commercial banks by 500. The reserve ratio is again 20%.

Source: Johns Hopkins University. The Eisenhower Library. Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy [Records], Series 6/7, Box 3, Folder “Department of Political Economy, Graduate Exams 1933-1965”.

Image Source: Richard A. Musgrave page at the University of Michigan’s Faculty History Project.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking Public Finance

Harvard. Course description, enrollment, exam questions for history of public finance. Bullock, 1904-1905

Step by step, inch by inch, course by course we transcribe and file away course materials from academic years gone by. Again we encounter Harvard assistant professor of economics, Charles Jesse Bullock, this time wearing his public finance hat. Note that at the turn of the twentieth century monetary and fiscal issues were taught as two sides of a single financial history.

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Previously…

1903-1904 enrollment and final exam questions.

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Course Enrollment
1904-05

Economics 16 1hf. Asst. Professor Bullock. — Financial History of the United States.

Total 6: 4 Seniors, 1 Junior, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 75.

__________________________

Course Description
1904-05

[Economics] 16 1hf. The Financial History of the United States. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and(at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 1.30. Asst. Professor Bullock.

This course will deal mainly with the history of the finances of the federal government; but will include some study of the financial experience of the colonies, and will treat of the development of the finances of the states from 1775 to 1850.
Each student will be required to prepare a thesis upon some special topic.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1904-05 (May 16, 1904), p. 46.

__________________________

ECONOMICS 161
Mid-year Examination, 1904-05

FINANCIAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES.
  1. Describe the development of colonial tax systems.
  2. State the main facts concerning the Continental paper money.
  3. Describe Hamilton’s funding system.
  4. Describe and criticise the sinking-fund act of 1795.
  5. What are the main facts in the history of the Second Bank of the United States?
  6. Describe the tariffs of 1828, 1838, and 1846.
  7. What are the main facts in the history of the greenbacks?
  8. Discuss the suspension of specie payments in December, 1861.
  9. Describe the refunding of the national debt after the Civil War
  10. What were the chief provisions of the resumption act? How was resumption actually accomplished?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1905), p. 36.

Source: Williams College, The Gulielmensian 1902, Vol. 45, p. 26. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Business Cycles Distribution Economic History Exam Questions History of Economics Industrial Organization International Economics Johns Hopkins Labor Money and Banking Public Finance Public Utilities Statistics Theory

Johns Hopkins. General Written Exam for Economics PhD. 1956

 

One is struck by the relative weight of the history of economics in this four part (12 hours total) general examination for the PhD degree at Johns Hopkins in 1956. Also interesting to note just how many different areas are touched upon. Plenty of choice, but no place to hide.

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Other General Exams from Johns Hopkins

________________________

GENERAL WRITTEN EXAMINATION FOR THE PH.D DEGREE
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

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

PART I
June 4, 1956, 9-12 a.m.

Answer two questions, one from each group.

Group I.
  1. Write an essay on the theory of capital. It should include a discussion of the place of capital theory in economic analysis: for what purposes, if any, we need such a theory, Do not omit theories or issues which were important in the history of doctrines, even if you should regard them as irrelevant for modern analysis.
  2. Discuss and compare the capital theories of Böhm-Bawerk, Wicksell, and Hayek.
  3. Write an essay on the theory of income distribution. Organize it carefully, as if it were designed for an article in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Include discussions of alternative theories such as imputation theories, residual theories, surplus value theories, etc.
Group II.
  1. The following statements attempt to show that marginal productivity theory is inconsistent with factual observation. Accepting the stated facts as given, discuss whether they call for the rejection or major modification of the theory. If so, how? If not, why not?
    1. “In the most important industries in the United States wage rates are set by collective bargaining and are largely determined by the bargaining strength of the parties. Marginal productivity of labor is neither calculated nor mentioned in the process.”
    2. “In many industries competition among employers for workers is so limited that most firms are able to pay less than the marginal productivity of labor.”
    3. “Workers in some trades — say, carpenters or bricklayers — work essentially the same way as their predecessors did fifty years ago; yet their real wages have increased greatly, probably not less than in occupations where productivity has improved considerably over the years.”
  2. The determination of first-class and second-class passenger fares for transatlantic ocean transportation involves problems of (a) joint or related cost, (b) related demand, and (c) discriminatory pricing. Discuss first in what ways these three phenomena are involved here; then formulate a research project to obtain the factual information required for an evaluation of the cost relationships and demand relationships prevailing in the case of two-class passenger ships; and finally state the criteria for judging whether the actual rate differential implies conscious discrimination in favor of first-class passengers, conscious discrimination against first-class passengers, wrong calculation and faulty reasoning on the part of the shipping lines, or any other reason which you may propose.

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

PART II
June 4, 1956, 2-5 p.m.

Answer three questions, at least one from each group.

Group I.
  1. There is a running debate on the question whether trade unions are labor monopolies. This debate obviously turns on the meaning of monopoly and on what effects union have had on their members’ wages, output, and conditions of work. Give both sides of the argument.
  2. Write an essay on the demand for labor.
  3. Write down everything you know about the incidence of unemployment among various classes of workers and about the fluctuations of unemployment over time. Discuss some of the problems of developing a workable concept of unemployment. Indicate whether the statistical behavior of unemployment throws any light on its causation.
Group II.
  1. What is a “public utility”? According to accepted regulatory principles, how are the “proper” net earnings of a utility company determined? And, finally, what factors are considered in setting an “appropriate” rate structure?
  2. What is the major purpose of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act of 1890? What are some of the more significant problems in determining what constitutes “restraint of trade”? What tests would you apply? Why?
  3. Analyze the economic effects of a corporate income tax. Be as comprehensive as you can.
  4. What are flexible agricultural price supports? Explain how they are determined and applied. Evaluate their use in the light of reasonable alternatives.

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

PART III
June 5, 1956, 9-12 a.m.

Answer three questions, one from each group.

Group I.
  1. Describe briefly Schumpeter’s theory of economic development, and comment upon the possibility of testing it empirically.
  2. Describe briefly Keynes’ general theory of employment, interest and money; state its assumptions, structure, and conclusions; and evaluate it critically in the light of more recent theoretical and empirical findings.
Group II.
  1. What characteristics of economic cycles would you consider important in a statistical study of business cycles?
  2. In the study of long-term trends, what criteria would you use in constructing index numbers of production?
  3. What measures of economic growth of nations would you us? Consider carefully the various characteristics that you would deem indispensable in measurements of this sort.
Group III.
  1. Give a brief definition, explanation and illustration for each of the following:
    1. variance;
    2. confidence interval;
    3. coefficient of regression;
    4. coefficient of correlation;
    5. coefficient of determination;
    6. regression line.

[Note: Indicate where you have confined yourself to simple, linear correlation.]

  1. Write an essay on statistical inference by means of the following three techniques:
    1. chi square;
    2. analysis of variance;
    3. multiple regression.

Indicate the types of problem in which they are used, and how each type of problem is handled.

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

PART IV
June 5, 1956, 2-5 p.m.

Answer four questions, one from each group.

Group I.
  1. Political arithmetic is a term that is applied to certain writings that appeared from roughly 1675 to 1800. What gave rise to such writings? What were the contributions of the different members of the “group”? Why should Political Arithmetic be given a terminal date?
  2. Discuss Quesnay’s Tableau Économique, Do you see in it anything of significance for the subsequent development of economic theory?
  3. Present arguments for the contention that J. B. Say was far more than “a mere disciple of Adam Smith”.
Group II.
  1. Discuss the relations between the English economic literature of the first half of the 19th century and the events, conditions, and general ideas of that time.
  2. Select three episodes in American economic history, and use your knowledge of economic theory to explain them.
Group III.
  1. Analyze the economic effects of a large Federal debt. Be as comprehensive as you can.
  2. At one time or another each of the following has been proposed as the proper objective or goal of monetary policy: (1) The stabilization of the quantity of money; (2) The maintenance of a constant level of prices; (3) The maintenance of full employment.
    Explain for each policy objective (a) what it means, that is, exactly what in “operational” terms might be maintained or stabilized; (b) how the objective could be achieved, that is, what techniques could be used to achieve it; and (a) the difficulties with or objections to the proposal.
  3. Irving Fisher and others have proposed that all bank be required to hold 100% reserves against their deposits. This was designed to prevent bank failures and, more important, to eliminate the perverse tendency of money to contract in recessions and expand in booms.
    Explain whether the proposal would have the effects claimed for it, and if so, why, and discuss what other effects it might have.
Group IV.
  1. Discuss the “law of comparative advantage” in international trade.
  2. Discuss “currency convertibility”.
  3. Discuss the “transfer problem”.
  4. Discuss the “optimum tariff”.
  5. Discuss the “foreign-trade multiplier”.
  6. Discuss alternative concepts of the “terms of trade”.
  7. Discuss the “effects of devaluation upon the balance of trade”.

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

Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library. Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy Series 5/6.  Box No. 6/1. Folder: “Comprehensive Exams for Ph.D. in Political Economy, 1947-1965”.

Image Source: Fritz Machlup in an economics seminar. Evsey Domar visible sitting third from the speaker on his right hand side. Johns Hopkins University Yearbook, Hullabaloo 1956, p. 15.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Historical and comparative look at banking systems. Enrollment, course description, final exam. Sprague, 1904-1905

The run on the bank: a crisis in the affairs of the great financial institution. The most animated and realistic scene ever shown on the stage.

Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague taught the banking course that together with Andrew Piatt Andrew’s currency course constituted the money and banking sequence at Harvard’s economic department in the first decade of the twentieth century. Both economists later made major contributions to the work of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich’s National Monetary Commission. 

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Related, earlier posts

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Course Enrollment
1904-05

Economics 8b 1hf. Asst. Professor Sprague. — Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems.

Total 82: 5 Graduates, 24 Seniors, 37 Juniors, 13 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 75.

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Course Description
1904-05

[Economics] 8b 1hf. Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. Half-course (first half-year).Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Asst. Professor Sprague.

In Course 8b, after a summary view of early forms of banking in Italy, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, a more detailed account is given of the development, to the middle of the nineteenth century, of the system of banking in which notes were the principal form of credit and the chief subject of discussion and legislation. The rise and growth of the modern system of banking by discount and deposit is then described. The work is both historical and comparative in its methods. The banking development, legislation, and present practice of various countries, including England, France, Germany, Scotland, and Canada, are reviewed and contrasted. Particular attention is given to banking history and experience in this country: the two United States banks; the more important features of banking in the separate states before 1860; the beginnings, growth, operation, and proposed modification of the national banking system; and credit institutions outside that system, such as state banks and trust companies.

The course of the money markets of London, Paris, Berlin, and New York will be followed during a series of months, and the various factors, such as stock exchange dealings, and international exchange payments, which bring about fluctuations in the demand for loans, and the rate of discount upon them will be considered. In conclusion the relations of banks to commercial crises will be analyzed, the crises of 1857 and 1893 being taken for detailed study.

Written work, in the preparation of short papers on assigned topics, and a regular course of prescribed reading will be required of all students.

The course is open to those who have taken Economics 1.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1904-05 (May 16, 1904), pp. 42-43.

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ECONOMICS 8b
Year-end Examination, 1904-05

  1. What influences gave the Bank of England its “monarchical” position? What was Bagehot’s explanation?
  2. Why does New York exchange on London, on Paris, and on Berlin tend to move in the same direction?
  3. French banks of issue other than the bank of France.
  4. The relation of “Other Deposits” to the market rate of discount in London.
  5. The use of certified checks in connection with Stock Exchange dealings.
  6. Did the establishment of the national banking system create a demand for government bonds?
  7. Discuss the proposal to repeal the ten per cent. tax on State bank notes.
  8. Reasons for depositing the money of the government with the banks.
  9. The history and present practice of note redemption under the national banking system.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05;  Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1905), p. 29.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Course enrollment, description, and final exam for currency legislation, experience, and theory. Andrew, 1904-1905

Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr. (1911)

 

The field of monetary economics used to be called “Money and Banking” where money in earlier times was understood to mean currency used for payment as opposed to the checkable deposits held in commercial banks. Abram Piatt Andrew was to money as Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague was to banking in theHarvard economics department at the start of the 20th century. I don’t know why the courses 8a for money and 8b for banking were offered in the reverse order (8b in the fall term, 8a in the spring term). If I ever find out why that was the sequence in 1904-05, I’ll update this post.

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Related, previous posts

Abram Piatt Andrew’s home and private life was the subject of an earlier post.

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Course Enrollment
1904-1905

Economics 8a 2hf. Asst. Professor Andrew. — Money. A general survey of currency legislation, experience, and theory in recent times.

Total 68: 5 Graduates, 5 Seniors, 28 Juniors, 22 Sophomores, 4 Freshmen, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1904-1905, p. 75.

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Course Description
1904-05

[Economics] 8a 2hf. Money. — A general survey of currency legislation, experience, and theory in recent times. Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Asst. Professor Andrew.

In this course the aim will be to show how the existing monetary systems of the principal countries have come to be, and to analyze the more important currency problems. The course will begin with a brief history of the precious metals, which will be connected, in so far as possible, with the history of prices and the development of monetary theory. The history of coinage legislation in England and Europe and the United States will be traced, and will lead to an extended consideration of the various aspects of the bimetallic controversy. At convenient points, the experiences of various countries with paper money will be reviewed, and the influence of such issues upon wages, prices, and trade examined. Attention will also be given to the non-monetary means of payment and the questions of monetary theory arising from their use. Among other subjects treated will be the several methods of measuring exchange value, various aspects of the labor and commodity standards, the explanation of price movements, the relations between prices and the rate of interest, and the reasons for the divergence in the value of money in different countries.

Systematic reading will be expected and will be tested by monthly examinations.

Course 8a is open to those who have taken Course 1.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Division of History and Political Science Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics, 1904-05 (May 16, 1904), p. 42.

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ECONOMICS 8a
Year-end Examination, 1904-05

Omit one question.

  1. “The cost of production of money being given, the quantity will depend upon the rapidity of circulation.” How far is this true? and why?
  2. Suppose the single gold standard universally adopted. How then would the universal authorization of free silver coinage at the ratio of 16 to 1 affect (a) the circulating medium, (b) the standard of value?
    Consider both the immediate and the eventual results.
  3. What conclusions of general significance are to be drawn from the history of the Latin monetary union?
  4. State briefly the circumstances which led to the issue and the withdrawal of the American trade dollar.
  5. What influences in brief caused the cessation of free silver coinage in
    (a) England?
    (b) the United States?
    (c) Germany?
  6. Suppose the market ratio between gold and silver were to decline to 22 to 1, what would be the effect upon the currency of
    (a) Great Britain.
    (b) British India.
    (c) The United States.
    (d) The Philippines.
  7. Do falling prices “necessarily enhance the burden of all debts and fixed charges”?
    Illustrate by the experience of the United States during the period from 1873 to 1896, pointing out possible differences between agricultural and mercantile debts.
  8. Explain the respective merits of the labor standard, and the commodity standard, and show their exemplification in the history of the precious metals between 1873 and 1896.
  9. What conditions favorable to bimetallism existed ten years ago which do not exist today?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05;  Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1905), p. 28.

Image Source: 1911 portrait of Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr. by Anders Born at Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Wikimedia Commons.

Categories
Economists Harvard LGBTQ Money and Banking Policy

Harvard. A. Piatt Andrew at his home “Red Roof”. Gloucester, MA. 1910

Abram Piatt Andrew taught monetary economics at Harvard before becoming a key player in the National Monetary Commission, Director  of the U.S. Mint, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, founder of the American Field Service, and a Republican member of the United States Congress from 1921-36. Much more has been posted about him here at Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

This post deals with his home and private life.

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This photograph features A. Piatt Andrew at his home in Gloucester, Massachusetts, before World War I began. Prior to founding the American Field Service during the war, Andrew served as an assistant professor of economics at Harvard, director of the U.S. Mint, and assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. “Red Roof,” as his home was called, was designed and built under Andrew’s direction in 1902. Red Roof contained secret rooms, one of which necessitated dismantling a sofa to access and contained a Prohibition-era wet bar and a player piano. Guests in the living room could therefore hear the music but didn’t know its source. Another secret room contained a dugout that was later filled with AFS artifacts from the war, including posters, AFS recruitment slides, shell fuses (a favorite souvenir of AFS Drivers), and trench art.

Andrew created elaborate entertainment for guests at Red Roof by organizing themed dinner parties, musical performances, and skits in full costume. Guests to Red Roof included interior decorator and longtime AFS supporter Henry Sleeper, the portrait painter John Singer Sargent, art collector and philanthropist Isabella Stewart Gardner, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt [May 2-4, 1903].

Source: Nicole Milano, “A. Piatt Andrew and Red Roof, 1910.” American Field Service Website.

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But wait, there’s more

A blog dealing exclusively (no kidding) with “A. Piatt Andrew and Red Roof“.

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Research tips:

At the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (now called “Historic New England“) one can find “A. Piatt Andrew Guest Books, 1902-1930” among other items. These guest book pages have, in addition to the signatures, close to 700 photographs.  You can page through the pictures online (1902-1912) and (1913-1930).

At the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum you will find online 249 items (photographs, correspondence from A. Piatt Andrew).

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Henry Davis Sleeper and
A. Piatt Andrew Jr.

Plot spoiler: They were more than friendly neighbours.

Source: A. Piatt Andrew’s The Red Roof Guestbook, 1914-1930. Available at the Historic New England Website.

 Sleeper’s frail constitution prevented him from participating in the rough-and-tumble games and amusements favored by Andrew and his young male friends, mostly Harvard undergraduates. [p. 90]

Mrs. Jack

Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840-1924) was a legend in her own time. Starting with the untimely death of her husband, John Lowell Gardner, in 1898, his widow, called Mrs. Jack, embarked on an ambitious program of art acquisition which culminated in the transformation of her fabulous Venetian-style palazzo, Fenway Court, into a beloved cultural institution. She accomplished this feat largely by relying on the skills, expertise and companionship of the coterie of attractive and talented homosexual men-mostly artists, collectors, and curators-that she gathered around her…. [p. 90]

Society Painter

By 1908 Mrs. Jack’s circle included the society painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). Born in Italy to American parents, Sargent had first come to Boston in 1887. After a solo exhibition in 1888 at the St. Botolph Club, he was commissioned in 1890 to design murals for the new Boston Public Library in Copley Square. Along with other commissions-for the Museum of Fine Arts and Harvard’s Widener Library-Sargent was almost fully occupied in Boston for the next twenty-five years. While circumspect about his private life, an album of male nudes that Sargent, a bachelor, kept for his own enjoyment offers insight into his predilections. [p. 91]

Seaside shenanigans

In the years preceding World War I, Isabella Stewart Gardner, John Singer Sargent, and others in their circle were drawn into the wealthy summer enclave at Eastern Point, Gloucester, where Harvard professor (later U.S. congressman) A. Piatt Andrew Jr. (1873-1936) and his neighbor, interior designer Henry Davis Sleeper (1878-1934), had homes. The letters from Sleeper to Andrew provide evidence of the intensity of his feelings.

Social life on Eastern Point revolved around ceaseless entertaining. One of Gardner’s biographers hints at the goings-on at Andrew’s home, Red Roof: “Gossip had it that often all the guests were men, their pastimes peculiar. Yet all the ladies on Eastern Point were fascinated by Piatt.” Portrait painter Cecilia Beaux (1863-1942) spent summers at her Gloucester home, Green Alley, where she enjoyed hosting evening gatherings of her neighbors. She never married. “Faithful in attendance were Harry Sleeper and Piatt Andrew, whose brilliancy of repartee has never been excelled” according to an observer. Concealment and ambiguity characterized the lives of many of the women and men who moved through this exclusive world of polite manners and material luxury. [p. 92]

Source: The History Project. Improper Bostonians: Lesbian and gay history from the Puritans to Playland. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998. [Note: you need to register at archive.org to access (borrow) the book for an hour at a time]

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October 6, 1910. A. Piatt Andrew and Isabella Stewart Gardner at “Red Roof”. Photo by Thomas E. Marr from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Cleaned and cropped by Economics in the Rear View Mirror

From Isabella Stewart Gardner’s biography

A. Piatt Andrew lived next door to Miss Davidge under his “Red Roof” – nearer the mainland than Miss Davidge and Miss Beaux, and with one more maiden lady beyond him….

Harry Sleeper, whom Mrs. Gardner already knew fairly well, lived just beyond. … Harry was sweet, gentle, affectionate. He was devoted to his mother, who protected him from the ladies when he feared they had designs on his celibacy. Still more was he the devoted slave to Piatt….

…A. Piatt Andrew had an organ installed in the passage between the living room and a recently added study. Here, Isabella sat on the couch (with a bearskin and two leopard skins on it) to listen to his music. She was probably unaware of a hidden space above the books – too low to stand up in but equipped with mattress and covers where some of Andrew’s guests could listen in still greater comfort. She had seen the Brittany bed in the living room but that there was a small hole over it, perhaps no one had told her. The sound of organ music could be heard the better through the hole – and was it just a coincidence that a person in the hidden alcove above could look down through it? Gossip had it that often all the guests were men, their pastimes peculiar. Yet all the ladies on Eastern Point were fascinated by Piatt and one especially keen observer thought that Miss Beaux was “sweet on him”.

When the fog lifted and the sun came out, the whole atmosphere at Red Roof changed. Gloucester harbor sparkled bright and blue. Isabella’s spirits lifted, macabre impressions vanished, and Isabella went out on a stone seat to be photographed with Piatt – or “A,” as she liked to call him, referring to herself as “Y,” amused to find herself at the opposite end of the alphabet.

Isabella wore a linen suit with leg o’mutton sleeves, long coat and wide gored skirt. She had on a toque with a black dotted veil over her face. Beside her, A. Piatt sat – head turned toward her, his handsome profile toward the camera.

A. Piatt Andrew had been chosen by President Eliot to work in Senator Aldrich’s monetary commission and he planned to go to Europe during the summer of 1908 to make preliminary studies. Mrs. Gardner told him to be sure to get in touch with Matthew Stewart Prichard – late of the Boston Art Museum. This Andrew did, Prichard showing him beautiful Greek and Roman coins which gave him ideas for new designs for American currency.

Source: Louise Hall Tharp, Mrs. Jack: A Biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner, Little, Brown and Company, 1965, pp. 276-278.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Semester exams for money and banking. Andrew and Sprague, 1903-1904

 

Abram Piatt Andrew (b. 1873, Princeton A.B. 1893; Harvard  Ph.D. 1900) and Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague (b. 1873, Harvard A.B. 1894; A.M. 1895; Ph.D. 1897) were rising stars in the department of economics at Harvard in the 1903-04 academic year. Together they covered the bases of money, banking, and international payments. 

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Related, previous posts

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Course Enrollment
Economics 8a and 8b
1903-04

Economics 8a 2hf. Asst. Professor Andrew. — Money. A general survey of currency legislation, experience, and theory in recent times. [note: taught second semester]

Total 91: 8 Graduates, 13 Seniors, 39 Juniors, 24 Sophomores, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 66.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Economics 8b 1hf. Dr. Sprague. — Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. [note: taught first semester]

Total 77: 6 Graduates, 30 Seniors, 30 Juniors, 9 Sophomores, 2 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1903-1904, p. 67.

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ECONOMICS 8a
Year-End Examination
1903-04

Arrange answers in the order of the questions.
Omit one question.

  1. Explain the character, merits, and defects of
    1. the arithmetical mean;
    2. the geometrical mean;
    3. the median;
    4. the mode;
    5. weighted averages.
      Discuss Pierson’s criticism of index numbers.
  2. When a government issues inconvertible notes, is the premium on gold apt to measure the depreciation of the notes
    1. at the beginning of the issue?
    2. in the course of a war?
    3. at the restoration of peace?
    4. if the crops fail?
    5. “in the long run”?
      Give reasons, and where possible, illustrations.
  3. What justification is there for the respective claims that the United States adopted the gold standard
    1. by the act of 1834?
    2. by the act of 1853?
    3. by the act of 1873?
    4. by the act of 1874?
    5. by the act of 1900?
  4. To what extent was England’s adoption of the gold standard the result of a policy deliberately adopted and intentionally pursued? To what extent was it the result of unforeseen conditions?
  5. Suppose that owing to the increasing gold supply the ratio between gold and silver were to fall again below 32 to 1 how would foreign trade and the price level be affected
    1. in Mexico?
    2. in the Philippines?
  6. Would an ideal monetary standard always measure the same exchange value?
    1. according to Darwin?
    2. according to Walker?
    3. in your own opinion?
      Answer both from the points of view of production and of distribution.
  7. Is there any significance for “the quantity theory” in the currency history
    1. of India between 1893 and 1898?
    2. of Austria between 1878 and 1892?
    3. of Russia between 1878 and 1896?
    4. of Holland between 1873 and 1875?
      Where possible give variant opinions.
  8. Trace the general changes in the value of money in the United States from 1830 to the present time, analyzing the reasons for these changes.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1904-05; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, … in Harvard College, pp. 30-31.

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ECONOMICS 8b
Mid-Year Examination.
1903-04

  1. Sight exchange, $4.86; sixty-day bills, $4.83; commercial bills, $4.82. What would be the probable effect of an advance of one per cent of the market rate of discount in London? Consider each quotation separately.
  2. The government of the Bank of England.
  3. Why does the existing system of note issue in the United States tend to check the expansion of credit in the form of deposits?
  4. Discuss briefly:—
    1. The payment of interest upon deposits by commercial banks.
    2. The significance of statistics relative to clearing-house transactions.
    3. The publication of weekly reports by the trust companies of New York.
    4. The use of certified checks in Stock Exchange dealings.
    5. The taxation of national banks.
  5. Contrast the value for purposes of reserve of call loans in New York made by the Canadian banks with those made by the banks of the city.
  6. The Suffolk Bank system.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Mid-year examinations 1852-1943. Box 7, Bound volume: Examination Papers, Mid-Years, 1903-04.

Image Sources: Portrait of Abram Piatt Andrew from the Hoover Institution archives posted at the Federal Reserve History website. Portrait of Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague from the Harvard Classbook 1912. Images colorized and edited by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.