Category: Money and Banking

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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.

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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.

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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
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 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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Course Enrollment
Economics 8b
1903-04

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.

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.

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Exam Questions Money and Banking Princeton

Princeton. Money and Banking exams. Wallich, 1950

Henry C. Wallich

Final examination questions for two courses are followed by the Ph.D. general examination  in money and banking at Princeton from the 1949-50 academic year have been transcribed below. They were found in Martin Shubick’s papers in the Economists’ Papers Archive at Duke University. Note that I have yet to determine who taught Economics 305. The other two exams indicate that Henry Wallich was responsible for the exam questions and they are identically structured, somewhat differently from the Economics 305 exam.

An earlier post in Economics of the Rear-View Mirror provided a reading list for a course in money taught by Henry C. Wallich in 1950.

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[Handwritten note: “Wallich”]

Time: 3 hours

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics and Social Institutions
Economics 505
Course examination

Spend about half of your time on Parts 1 and 2, the other half on Part 3.

Part 1 — One of the following two topics:

  1. The desirability of returning to an international gold standard system, such as existed before 1914 and between approximately 1925 and 1931. Discuss.
  2. The monetary powers of the United States Treasury and their impact effect on postwar monetary management. Discuss.

Part 2 — Two of the following four topics:

  1. What are the reasons, if any, for regarding investment as more nearly “independently determined” than consumption?
  2. What effects do you believe to be exerted by consumption upon the rate of investment?
  3. How is the plausibility of Hawtrey’s view of the cycle affected by changes in the economy during the last twenty years?
  4. Do you regard the cash balance version of the quantity theory of money or the transactions version as more closely related to the income theory of the value of money? State your reasons.

Part 3 — One of the following two topics:

  1. “The volume of money is more nearly an effect of the level of prices and incomes than a cause.” Discuss.
  2. What views were expressed during the 1920’a by leading economists about the ways in which interest rates affect investment. and how have these views stood up in the light of the experience of the ‘twenties and ‘thirties?

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PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
Economics 302 — Money and Banking
Final Examination
January 21, 1950
Time: 2½ hours

The questions can be answered in two hours actual working time, consideration will, therefore, be given organization and relevance of the material.

I

Explain briefly the following:

    1. quantity theory of money.
    2. cash balance equation.
    3. hoarding of bank deposits.
    4. clearing agreements.

II

  1. What are the major factors that can bring about an increase in the velocity of circulation of money?
  2. Is there a limit to a “velocity inflation”, i.e., could prices go on rising due to an increase in V if the volume of money remains constant? Give your reasons.

III

Suppose a country has to pay reparations. The citizens of the country are taxed and the money is turned over in form of a banking deposit to the country which receives the reparations.

  1. Assuming a gold standard, what will be the effect of the transfer of those funds from the paying country to the recipient country on:
    1. the balance between exports and imports of the paying country,
    2. on the foreign exchange rate,
    3. on gold movements.
  2. Can you think of a case where the reparation payments would have no effect on (b) and (c)?

IV

  1. What are the characteristics of the gold standard that account for its decline? Give reasons.
  2. Explain some of the alternativos that have replaced the gold standard (excluding the monetary fund).

“I pledge my honor as a gentleman that, during this examination, I have neither given nor received assistance.”

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Henry C. Wallich

Ph.D. Examination

Spend about half of your time on Parts 1 and 2, the other half on Part 3.

Part 1 — One of the following two topics:

  1. What are the relative merits of open market operations and changes in reserve requirements as instruments of central bank policy?
  2. Evaluate the contribution of income determination theories to the analysis of balance of payments adjustment.

Part 2 — Two of the following four topics:

  1. “Most theories of the price level can be reinterpreted as theories of income determination”. Discuss.
  2. “Without the stickiness of money wages, the price level would be exposed to almost unlimited fluctuations.” Discuss.
  3. Do you believe that the theory of the long-term interest rate as presented in the “General Theory” leaves that rate “hanging by its own bootstrap”? State your reasons.
  4. How far would you rely upon the acceleration principle in explaining the upper turning points of the cycle?

Part 3 — One of the following two topics:

  1. Discuss the effect upon monetary policy of the rise in our public debt.
  2. Discuss the impact of the depression of the ‘thirties upon monetary theory.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Martin Shubik Papers, Box 2. Folder “Exams, University of Toronto and Princeton 1947-50”.

Image Source: Portrait of Henry Christopher Wallich, 1962 Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

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Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Final examination and enrollment for international trade and payments. Sprague, 1902-1903

Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague

Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr. and Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague were the instructor team that picked up and ran with the baton for the field of money and banking at Harvard after Charles Dunbar had died in 1900. Their division of labor was for Andrew to cover money and for Sprague to teach banking.

Both semester courses continued to be offered in 1902-03. The examination questions with enrollment data for Sprague’s course have been transcribed for this post.

A timeline for his life has been added to “really tie the room together.”

For a recent view of Sprague, see Hugh Rockoff’s NBER Working Paper (October 2021) “O.M.W. Sprague (the man who ‘wrote the book’ on financial crises) meets the Great Depression”.

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O.M.W. Sprague

1873,
Apr. 22		 Born in Somerville, Massachusetts
1894 A.B., summa cum laude, Harvard
1894-95 University Scholar, Harvard
1895 A.M., Harvard
1895-96 Henry Lee Memorial Fellow, Harvard
1896-97 Thayer Scholar, Harvard
1897 Ph.D. (Political Science), Harvard. Thesis: The English woolen industry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
1897-98 Study of economic history in London, England as Rogers Fellow
1898-99 Assistant in Economics, Harvard
1899-1900 Austin Teaching Fellow in Political Economy, Harvard
1900-04 Instructor in Political Economy, Harvard
1904-05 Assistant professor of economics (five year appointment), Harvard
1905,
June 12		 Married Fanny Knights Ide (2 children)
1905-08 Professor of Economics, Imperial Univ. of Tokyo
1908-13 Asst. Professor, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard
1913-41 Edmund Cogswell Converse Professor of Banking and Finance, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard
1929 Member of the Gold Delegation of the League of Nations in a final effort to maintain the gold standard
1930-33 Economic adviser to Bank of England
1933 Financial and executive adviser to Secretary of Treasury
1937 39th President of the American Economic Association
1938 Litt.D., Columbia University
1941-1953 Professor emeritus, Harvard
1953,
May 24		 Died in Cambridge, Massachusetts

Sources:

Cole, Arthur H., Robert L. Masson, and John H. Williams. Memorial [for] O.M.W. Sprague, 1873-1953. American Economic Review, Vol. 44 (1), March 1954, pp. 131-132.

Committee on the History of the Federal Reserve System, Register of Papers: Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague (1873-1953), 1 November, 1955, p. 2.

Reports of the President of Harvard College.

Obituary in The Boston Globe May 25, 1953.

Books:

Economic Essays by Charles Dunbar, edited by O.M.W. Sprague. New York: Macmillan, 1904.

History of Crises Under the National Banking System. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1910. (Prepared for National Monetary Commission)

Banking Reform in the United States: A Series of Proposals including a Central Bank of Limited Scope. Cambridge: Harvard University, 1911.

Theory and History of Banking by Charles F. Dunbar, Fifth edition, with supplementary chapter presenting the record of the Federal Reserve System by Henry Parker Willis. Revised and in part rewritten with additional material by Oliver M. W. Sprague. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1929.
[Original 1st edition by Charles F. Dunbar, 1891; 2nd edition, 1901; 3rd edition, 1917; 4th edition, 1921]

Recovery and Common Sense. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934.

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Course Description.

International Trade and Payments
1902-03, first semester

  1. a 1hf. *International Trade and International Payments. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 9. Dr. Sprague.

Course 12a begins with a careful study of the theory of international trade, and of the use and significance of bills of exchange. The greater portion of the time will be devoted to an analysis of the foreign trade of the United States in order to distinguish the various factors, permanent and temporary, which determine the growth and direction of international commerce. With this purpose, also, a number of commodities important in foreign trade and produced in more than one country will be studied in detail. Each student will be given special topics for investigation which will familiarize him with sources of current information upon trade matters, such as trade journals, consular, and other government publications. In conclusion certain topics of a general nature will be considered, among which may be mentioned, foreign investments, the effects of an unfavorable balance of payments under different circumstances, and colonial trade.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science [Comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics], 1902-03. Published in The University Publications, New Series, no. 55. June 14, 1902.

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Course Enrollment.

International Trade and Payments
1902-03, first semester

Economics 12a. 1hf. Dr. Sprague. — International Trade and International Payments.

Total 10: 1 Gr., 3 Se., 5 Ju., 1 So.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 68.

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Course Final Examination

International Trade and Payments
1902-03, first semester

ECONOMICS 12a
  1. Compare the English Consular Reports with those of the United States.
  2. Explain carefully the reasons which render possible permanent differences in the general level of prices between countries, assuming (1) free trade, (2) a high general tariff in one country and free trade in the other. How would the removal of tariff barriers probably affect prices in the United States?
  3. The temporary effects of an unfavorable balance of foreign payments.
  4. Characteristics and advantages of trade with the tropics.
  5. Exports of manufactures from the United States.
  6. Analyze the effects to each country of complete reciprocity between Cuba and the United States. Would there be any advantage which the United States does not gain from unrestricted trade with Porto Rico?
  7. The effect of the growth of the foreign trade of other countries upon the absolute amount of British exports.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year Examinations 1852-1943. Box 6. Papers (in the bound volume Examination Papers Mid-years 1902-1903).
Also included in Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College, June 1903 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1902-1903).

Image Source: O.M.W. Sprague in the Harvard Class Album, 1915, colorized by Economics in the Rear-View Mirror.

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Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Banking and its history. Enrollment and final exam. Sprague, 1902-1903

Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague

Money and banking were the subjects in a two semester sequence of distinct courses at Harvard in 1902-03. Material for the money course taught by Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr. can be found in the previous post. Here we have a description, enrollment figures, and the final exam questions for economics instructor O.M.W. Sprague’s banking course in the sequence.

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8b2hf. Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems. Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10. Dr. 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], 1902-03. Published in The University Publications, New Series, no. 55. June 14, 1902.

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Economics 8b. 2hf. Dr. Sprague. — Banking and the History of the leading Banking Systems.

Total 133: 2 Gr., 38 Se., 52 Ju., 27 So., 1 Fr., 13 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 68.

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ECONOMICS 8b

Answer the questions strictly in their order.

  1. (a) Why does a fall in the prices of stock exchange securities tend to reduce the loans and the deposit liabilities of the New York banks?
    (b) Why is the rate for call loans subject to greater fluctuations than those for time loans or on commercial paper?
  2. (a) Explain the relation between the supply of commercial bills of exchange and the rates for bankers’ sterling.
    (b) Explain the usual method by which a profit is realized from the export of gold from New York to Paris.
  3. Define or explain—
    1. Due to approved reserve agents.
    2. Bills payable.
    3. Cable transfers.
    4. The bank price of gold.
  4. Changes in the charter of the Reichsbank in 1899.
  5. What changes in other items would involve a change in the amount of deposits?
  6. Discuss the advantages of a central reserve bank and consider its applicability to the United States.
  7. Give some account of failures of the national banks.
  8. How do loans in Europe serve to reduce the credit liabilities of the New York banks?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College, June 1903 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1902-1903).

Image Source: Portrait of Oliver Mitchell Wentworth Sprague in the Harvard Class Album 1915, colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Reading list and final exam for Survey of Currency Regulation. Andrew, 1902-1903

Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr. (1911)

Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr. sprang from an assistant professorship of economics at Harvard (following his Ph.D. in 1900) to playing a key staff role in the preparation of the reports of the National Monetary Commission. Ultimately he became a Republican Congressman from Massachusetts, serving from September 1921 until his death in June 1936.

______________________

Official Congressional Biography of
Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr.

ANDREW, Abram Piatt, Jr., a Representative from Massachusetts; born in La Porte, La Porte County, Ind., February 12, 1873; attended the public schools and the Lawrenceville (N.J.) School; was graduated from Princeton College in 1893; member of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences 1893-1898; pursued postgraduate studies in the Universities of Halle, Berlin, and Paris; moved to Gloucester, Mass., and was instructor and assistant professor of economics at Harvard University 1900-1909; expert assistant and editor of publications of the National Monetary Commission 1908-1911; director of the Mint 1909 and 1910; Assistant Secretary of the Treasury 1910-1912; served in France continuously for four and a half years during the First World War, first with the French Army and later with the United States Army; commissioned major, United States National Army, in September 1917 and promoted to lieutenant colonel in September 1918; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-seventh Congress to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Willfred W. Lufkin; reelected to the Sixty-eighth and to the six succeeding Congresses and served from September 27, 1921, until his death; delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1924 and 1928; member of the board of trustees of Princeton University 1932-1936; died in Gloucester, Mass., June 3, 1936; remains were cremated and the ashes scattered from an airplane flying over his estate at Eastern Point, Gloucester, Mass.

Source: Abram Piatt Andrew, Jr. entry at the internet Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

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Economics 8a
Course Description
1902-1903

8a1hf. Money. — A general survey of currency legislation, experience, and theory in recent times. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., Fri., at 10. Dr. 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 also be reviewed, and the influence of such issues upon wages, prices, and trade examined. Some attention, moreover, will be given to the non-monetary means of payment and to the large questions of monetary theory arising from their use.

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

Course 8a1 is open to students 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], 1902-03. Published in The University Publications, New Series, no. 55. June 14, 1902.

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Economics 8a
Course enrollment
1902-1903

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

Total 99: 4 Gr., 34 Se., 40 Ju., 14 So., 1 Fr., 6 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Annual Report of the President of Harvard College, 1902-03, p. 68.

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Reading List
Economics 8a
1902-03

BOOKS TO BE PROCURED

Francis A. Walker: International Bimetallism.

J. Laurence Laughlin: History of Bimetallism in the United States.

Leonard Darwin: Bimetallism.

REQUIRED READING

October

Walker: 1-110, 118-183.

Laughlin: 109-206.

Macaulay: History of England, ch. XXI. (Passages concerning the currency and its reform.)

The Bullion Report in Sumner, History of American Currency, Appendix; or in Sound Currency pamphlet, Vol. II, No. 14.
In connection with the Bullion Report consult Macleod: Theory of Credit, 738-760, 551-573; or Theory of Banking, I, 516-539,II, 1-95; or Sumner, American Currency, 231-310.

November

Laughlin: 1-105, 209-280.

Walker: 110-117, 183-9, 217-224.

Darwin: 1-154.

December

Taussig: Recent. Investigations on Prices in the United States, in the Yale Review for November, 1893.

Walker: 190-288.

Darwin: 157-280.

Taussig: The International Silver Situation in the Quarterly Journal of Economics for October, 1896.

January

(To be assigned later.)

Hour examinations will be held Nov. 7 and Dec. 5.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “1902-1903.”

Cf. the richer bibliography for this course from the first term 1901-1902.

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ECONOMICS 8a
Mid-year Examination
1902-1903

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

  1. Why did England adopt the gold standard? Why have other countries adopted it?
    State Walker’s and Laughlin’s opinions as well as your own.
  2. In a country with an inconvertible paper currency what are the conditions which control the premium on gold?
    1. according to the Bullion Report.
    2. according to Tooke.
    3. according to your own opinion.

Illustrate from English or American experiences with inconvertible paper.

  1. Trace the general changes in the value of gold in the United States from 1850 to the present time, analyzing so far as possible the reasons for these changes.
  2. Explain what you consider to be the merits and defects in the plans for the Phillipine currency adopted last year by the Senate and the House respectively? What lesson of significance for the Phillipine currency can be drawn from the history of the Latin monetary Union?
  3. Suppose that owing to the increasing gold supply the ratio between gold and silver were to fall, how would Mexican prices and the foreign trade of Mexico tend to be affected?
  4. How would you expect the fall in the value of silver to have affected (a) the trade relations of England and India before 1893? (b) the trade relations of India and China after 1893? How far is theory confirmed by actual experience?
  5. How according to Walker did monetary conditions affect the interests of the American working classes during the last quarter of the 19th century? Explain and criticise the nature of our evidence upon this subject.
    How did Walker and Marshall differ with regard to the effect of monetary conditions upon productive enterprise?
  6. 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.
  7. Under what circumstances might a higher level of prices be maintained by means of book credits? Under what circumstances might a continuous rise in prices be effected by means of such credits?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Mid-year Examinations 1852-1943. Box 6. Papers (in the bound volume Examination Papers Mid-years 1902-1903).
Also included in: Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1873-1915. Box 6. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, History of Religions, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College, June 1903 (in the bound volume Examination Papers 1902-1903).

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

 

Categories
Exam Questions Johns Hopkins Money and Banking

Johns Hopkins. Final exams for undergraduate money and banking. Weyforth, 1937-1938

 

Brief biographical information William Oswald Weyforth can be found in the earlier post that has includes the 1930-31 exam questions in money and banking.

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Course Description
for Money and Banking
1937-1938

3 B. Money and Banking. Associate Professor Weyforth. Three hours weekly through the year. M., Tu., W., 9.30. Gilman Hall 311.

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

Prerequisite: Political Economy 1 C.

Source: The Johns Hopkins University Circular (1937).

__________________________

Semester Examinations for Money and Banking
1937-1938

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
MID-YEAR EXAMINATION
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3 B
(Money & Banking)

February 1, 1938

  1. What are the essential features of a gold standard? Distinguish between a gold specie and a gold bullion standard. Is the United States on a gold standard at the present time? Give the reasons for your answer.
  2. What is bimetallism? What were the forces responsible for the demand for bimetallism after 1873. Criticize the recent silver policy of the United States government.
  3. Distinguish the international “balance of trade” and the “balance of payments” of any country. What are the more important types of transactions that enter into the balance of payments? Explain the forces through which equilibrium in the international balance of payments of a country is maintained under an international gold standard.
  4. When two countries are both on a gold standard why do market rates of exchange between the two currencies remain close to the mint par of exchange? Explain fully the circumstances under which bankers will undertake shipments of gold.
  5. Explain the relation between the quantity of money and the general level of prices. Will an increase in the quantity of money always result in an increase in the general level of prices? Explain fully.
  6. Explain the type of financing under which large government expenditures might lead to inflation. How might such expenditures be financed without bringing inflation?
  7. Explain the relationship between the purchasing power and the exchange rates of two currencies. Is the equilibrium rate between two paper currencies necessarily the purchasing power parity? Explain.
  8. Distinguish between a bill of exchange and a promissory note. Explain the significance of negotiability.
  9. Show how demand deposits in banks serve as money. Explain how banks create deposits. How is the power of banks limited in this respect? Explain the difference between the power of the banking system as a whole and that of a single bank that is one among a number in the system.
  10. What is meant when it is said that the pound sterling was overvalued when England returned to the gold standard in 1925; and that the franc was undervalued when France returned to gold in 1928? What are the economic effects of a country’s overvaluation or undervaluation of its gold currency?

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

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
FINAL EXAMINATION
IN
POLITICAL ECONOMY 3 B

Dr. Weyforth

May 31, 1938
9 a.m.

  1. What factors have been responsible for the decline of commercial loans in the United States since the end of the world war? What is the nature of the problem that this development has presented to commercial banks?
  2. In what way has speculation in securities been financed by commercial banks? Explain fully. What specific powers have been conferred upon the Federal Reserve Board by the Banking Act of 1933, and by the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 so as to give the Board greater control over speculation in securities?
  3. What factors have been responsible for the large excess reserves of member banks during the depression? Why have these excess reserves not led to a commensurate expansion of loans and investments?
  4. What justification is there for saying that we have a managed currency in the United States at the present time?
  5. What methods may be employed by the Federal reserve system at the present time for the purpose of credit control? Distinguish between quantitative control and qualitative control.
  6. In determining its policy of credit control what consideration should be given by the Federal Reserve officials to the following factors: (a) the state of the gold (gold certificate) reserves of the Federal reserve banks; (b) the general level of commodity prices; (c) the movement of security prices; (d) the volume of employment?
  7. What are the limits of the effectiveness of easy credit conditions as a means of stimulating business activity during a depression? How effective do you believe that government spending may be for this purpose? Explain fully.
  8. State the arguments pro and con for branch banking in the United States.
  9. What is meant by sterilized gold in the United States Treasury? What was the mechanism by means of which this sterilization was accomplished.

Source: Johns Hopkins University, Eisenhower Library. Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy. Curricular Materials. Series 6. Box 2. Folder “Department of Political Economy — Exams, 1936-1940”.

Image Source: William Oswald Weyforth (ca. 50 years of age). Johns Hopkins University graphic and pictorial collection, Sheridan Libraries. Colorized by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Chicago Economists Money and Banking

Chicago. Ph.D. Thesis Committees in Monetary Economics. Patinkin’s Research, 1968

The first boxes of archival material that I examined as my research project on the evolution of graduate economics training was beginning to take shape came from Don Patinkin’s papers back when Duke’s Economists’ Papers Archive still bore the modest descriptor of “Economists’ Papers Project”.

This post transcribes some of the research material collected by Patinkin in his survey of Chicago style monetary economics. Fun Fact: his research assistant while on leave at M.I.T. was the graduate student Stanley Fischer, from whom incidentally I was to take my first graduate macroeconomics course (Patinkin’s book was on the reading list, surprise, surprise).

Doctoral theses advisers were identified for a dozen and a half Chicago theses that drew Don Patinkin’s attention. This is the sort of information that doesn’t normally jump at you in digitised form through a duly diligent internet search, so I thought it worth my time to file this information for now in a blog post. Minor additions have been added in square brackets for the sake of completeness.

______________________________

List of Patinkin’s copy request for Chicago Ph.D. theses

Author

 Article Details of parts photographed

Box No.

1.
Bach, George [Leland]

 Price Level Stabilization: [Some Theoretical and Practical Considerations]

[blank]

[blank]

2.
Bloomfield, Arthur [Irving]

 International Capital Movement and the American Balance of Payments 1929-1940 Title, Contents, Bibliography.
pp. 513-514, 578-579.

T-304

3.
Bronfenbrenner, Martin

 Monetary Theory and General Equilibrium Title, Preface, Bibliography.
Chaps. 1, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.

T-10250

4.
Brooks, Benjamin [Franklin]

 A History of Monetary Theory in the United States Before 1860 Contents, Preface, Bibliography.
Chap. 11.

T-9885

5.
Caplan, Benjamin

 The Wicksellian School—A Critical Study of the Development of Swedish Monetary Theory, 1898-1932 Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-7847

6.
Cox, Garfield V.

 Business Forecasting in the United States 1919-1928 Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-17-91

7.
Daugherty Marion [Roberts]

 The Currency-Banking Controversy Title, Contents, Bibliography
pp. 41, 54, 130, 133, 246, 316.

T-10282

8.
Harper, [William Canaday] Joel

 Scrip and Other Forms of Local Money Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-145

9.
Leigh, Arthur Hertel

 Studies in the Theory of Capital and Interest Before 1870 Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-554

10.
Linville, Francis [Aron]

 Central Bank Co-operation Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-11508

11.
McEvoy, Raymond H.

 The Effects of Federal Reserve Operations 1929-1936 Title, Contents, Preface Bibliography.

T-7731

12.
McIvor R. Craig

 Monetary Expansion in Canadian War Finance, 1939-1946 Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-10268

13.
McKean, Roland Neely

 Fluctuations in Our Private Claim-Debt Structure and Monetary Policy Title, Contents, Bibliography.
Chaps. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

T-90

14.
Reeve, Joseph [Edwin]

 Monetary Proposals for Curing the Depression in the United States 1929-1935 [blank]

T-11022

15.
Shaw, Ernest Ray

 The Investment and Secondary Reserve Policy of Commercial Banks Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-8322

16.
Snider, Delbert [Arthur]

 Monetary, Exchange, and Trade Problems in Postwar Greece Title, Contents, Bibliography.

T-1031

17.
Tongue, William [Walter]

 Money, Capital, and the Business Cycle Title, Contents, Preface, Bibliography.

T-670

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Don Patinkin Papers, University of Chicago School of Economics Raw Materials, Box 2, Folder “Chicago, general (?). from binder: “U. Chicago Ph.D. Theses”, folder 1 of 2”.

______________________________

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

August 21, 1968

Professor Don E. Patinkin
Economics Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Professor Patinkin:

            I am listing below the information (Committee members) you requested in your letter of July 8, 1968. I am also hoping that you have received your microfilm by now. The Photoduplication department was to have mailed them to you on August 13.

Bach, George [Leland] 1940 S. E. Leland
C. W. Wright
H. C. Simon
Bloomfield, Arthur [Irving] 1942 J. Viner
Lloyd W. Mints
O. Lange
Bronfenbrenner, Martin 1939 Frank Knight, chr.
S. E. Leland
Brooks, Benjamin [Franklin] 1939 Frank Knight, chr.
Lloyd Mints
[Viner also thanked in thesis preface]
Caplan, Benjamin 1942 J. Viner
O. Lange		 L. W. Mints
H. C. Simons
Cox, Garfield [V.] 1929 Lionel D. Edie, chr.
Jacob Viner
Chester W. Wright
Daugherty, Marion [Roberts] (Mrs.) 1941 Jacob Viner, chr.
Garfield Cox
Lloyd Mints
Harper, Joel [William Canady] 1949
[Summer 1948]		 F. Knight
O. Lange
H. Simons		 C. W. Wright
L. Mints
S. Leland
Leigh, Arthur [Hertel] 1946 Frank Knight, chr.
Jacob Viner
Oskar Lange
McEvoy, Raymond [H.] 1950 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Earl J. Hamilton
Lloyd A. Metzler
McIvor, Russel [Craig] 1947 Roy Blough, chr.
J. K. Langum
L.W. Mints [in thesis acknowledgement Mints as the doctoral committee chair]
McKean, Roland [Neely] 1948 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Lloyd A. Metzler
Earl J. Hamilton
A. Director
Reeve, Joseph [Edwin] 1939 Lloyd W. Mints, chr.
Garfield V. Cox
Jacob Viner
Shaw, Ernest [Ray] 1930 Lionel D. Edie, chr.
Lloyd W. Mints
Stuart P. Meech (Bus. School)
Snider, Delbert [Arthur] 1951 L. Metzler, chr.
R. Blough
Bert Hoselitz
Tongue, William [Walter] 1947 L. W. Mints, chr.
Frank H. Knight
H. Gregg Lewis

            As you can see in some instances the Chairman was not listed, but the examining committee was listed. I wrote to Professor Cox, 660 W. Bonita, Apt. 24 E, Claremont, California 91711, to get the committee members for him and for Professor E. Shaw. Professor Cox also gave me the address of Professor Lloyd W. Mints, 618 E. Myrtle St., Ft. Collins, Colorado, should you have any interest. I hope this is sufficient.

Yours truly,
[signed]
(Mrs.) Hazel Bowdry
Sec. to Professor Telser

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois 60637

Department of Economics

October 23, 1968

Professor Don Patinkin
Department of Economics
The Eliezer Kaplan School of
Economics and Social Sciences
The Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel

Dear Professor Patinkin:

            In answer to your letter of October 4, I have rechecked the files and find the below listed information.

George Bach’s committee members:

L. W. Mints, chr.
S. E. Leland
C. W. Wright
Oskar Lange
F. H. Knight
H. C. Simons
Jacob Viner
Jacob Left
Maynard Krueger

This is the order in which the examining committee is listed.

Martin Bronfenbrenner:

Henry Schultz chr.
J. Viner
L. W. Mints
F. Knight
A. G. Hart
H. C. Simon

Joel Harper:

S. E. Leland, Chr.
H. Simons
L. W. Mints
Mr. Chatters

Benjamin Brooks:

L. Mints, chr.
J. Viner
F. Knight

            I checked Faculty records with Mrs. Mosby, and found a re-appointment for Henry Simons dated June 3, 1930.

            I hope this information is helpful, and I am sorry I cannot give more definite committee members in the case of Bach.

Sincerely yours,
[signed]
(Mrs.) Hayzel Bowdry

P.S. I hope you have received the microfilm by now. It was mailed via airmail yesterday.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Don Patinkin Papers, University of Chicago School of Economics Raw Materials, Box 2, Folder “Chicago, general (?), Simons, Mints, Knight materials”.

Image Source: Don Patinkin article at Gonçalo L. Fonseca’s History of Economic Thought website. Colorized at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Money and Banking

Harvard. Money, Banking, and International Payments. Exams. Andrew, Sprague, Meyer 1901-1902

 

 

The reading list for the first semester (4 pages) of the money, banking, and international payments course taught at Harvard in 1901-02 along with some biographical information for one of the instructors, Abram Piatt Andrew, has been posted earlier.

While I have not found a reading list for the second semester of the course, it is safe to assume that the enlarged second edition of  Dunbar’s Chapters on the Theory and History of Banking, edited by O.M.W. Sprague (1901) was assigned as the primary text. 

______________________________

Course Enrollment

For Undergraduates and Graduates:—

[Economics] 8. Drs. [Abram Piatt] Andrew [Jr.] and [Oliver Mitchell Wentworth] Sprague, and Mr. [Hugo Richard] Meyer. — Money, Banking and International Payments.

Total 78: 5 Graduates, 35 Seniors, 30 Juniors, 4 Sophomores, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1901-1902, p. 78.

______________________________

Course Description

  1. Money, Banking, and International Payments. Tu., Th., Sat., at 11. Drs. Andrew and Sprague, and Mr. Meyer.

The first part of the year will be devoted to a general survey of currency legislation, experience, and theory. The course will begin with a history of the precious metals, which will be connected, in so far as possible, with the history of prices, and with the historical development of theories as to the causes underlying the value of money. The course of monetary legislation in the principal countries will be followed, with especial attention to its relation to the bimetallic controversy; but the experiences of various countries with paper money will also be reviewed, and the influence of such issues upon wages, prices, and trade examined. Some attention, moreover, will be given in this connection to the non-monetary means of payment and to the large questions of monetary theory arising from their use.

The second part of the course will begin with an historical account of the development of banking. Existing legislation and practice in various countries will be analyzed and compared. The course of the money markets of New York, London, Paris, and Berlin will be followed during a series of months, and the various factors, such as stock exchange operations and foreign exchange payments, which bring about fluctuations in the demand for loans and the rate of discount upon them, will be considered. The relations of banks to commercial crises will also be analyzed, the crises of 1857 and 1893 being taken for detailed study.

The course will conclude with a discussion of the movement of goods, securities, and money, in the exchanges between nations and in the settlement of international demands. After a preliminary study of the general doctrine of international trade, it is proposed to make a close examination of some cases of payments on a great scale, and to trace the adjustments of imports and exports under temporary or abnormal financial conditions. Such examples as the payment of the indemnity by France to Germany after the war of 1870-71, the distribution of gold by the mining countries, and the movements of the foreign trade of the United States since 1879, will be used for the illustration of the general principles regulating exchanges and the distribution of money between nations.

Course 8 is open to students who have passed satisfactorily in Course 1. With the consent of the instructors, it may be taken by Seniors and Graduates as a half-course in either half-year.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Official Register of Harvard University 1901-1902, Box 1. Bound volume: Univ. Pub. N.S. 16. History, etc. Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Division of History and Political Science comprising the Departments of History and Government and Economics (June 21, 1901), pp. 42-43.

______________________________

Mid-year Examination, 1901-02
ECONOMICS 8

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

  1. Describe and illustrate with two examples (giving approximate dates): (a) the double standard, (b) the limping standard, (c) the parallel standard, (d) the single standard.
  2. Explain some of the different motives which in earlier centuries led to the debasement of the coins, and show the measure of their justification.
  3. Show how the levying of a seignorage will affect the value of money (a) if the owner of bullion is given back the same number of coins but of lighter weight, (b) if he receives fewer coins but of the same weight.
  4. During the entire century which preceded England’s adoption of gold as her single standard, less than one million pounds sterling of silver were issued from her mints, while in a period of less than a hundred years since then the silver coinage has amounted to fifty millions.
    How do you explain (a) the small amount of silver coined before its “demonetization”? (b) the larger amount coined subsequently?
  5. Before 1873 the United States had coined only about eight million silver dollars ($8,031,238) but since that year, which is often assumed to mark the beginning of demonetization, we have coined over five hundred millions ($522,795,065).
    Explain these two facts.
  6. “No experiment of bimetallism has ever been inaugurated under circumstances more favorable for its success… No fairer field for its trial could have been found.” Describe the conditions under which bimetallism was tried in the United States, and give your opinion of the passage quoted as a characterization of American monetary history.
  7. “Inasmuch as gold [before 1848] was more valuable in the market than at the French mint, relatively to silver, it was impossible that gold should circulate in France.”
    Is this a necessary conclusion?
  8. 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.
  9. What were the reasons which induced Europe to abandon the free coinage of silver during the seventies (a) according to Laughlin? (b) according to Walker? (c) in your own opinion?
  10. State the factors that increased India’s power to purchase in the international markets in the period from 1850 to 1870, and explain what use India made of that increased power, together with the reasons for the use made.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Mid-year examinations, 1852-1943. Box 6. Bound Volume: Examination Papers, Mid-years 1901-1902.

______________________________

Year-end Examination, 1901-02
ECONOMICS 8

  1. The strength or weakness of the United States in the so-called struggle for the world’s stock of gold.
  2. Applying Mill’s reasoning upon international trade to the situation in the United States, state what you would expect to be the course of prices of imports and exports in the years immediately following.
  3. Why is long exchange quoted at lower rates than sight exchange? If sight is $4.84 and long $4.80, what will be the effect (1) of a reduction of 1% in English rates for money? (2) of the increase of the price of eagles at the Bank of England?
  4. New York Bank Statement, May 31, 1902:—
Loans

$855.60

Increase

15.1
Deposits

$948.30

Increase

16.6
Reserve

$249.00

Increase

1.8

Complete the statement and explain the probable reasons for the increase of deposits and reserve.

  1. Comment on the following: —
    1. 3 per Mills against us.
    2. Bank statement based on falling averages.
    3. U.S. Bond account.
    4. National gold banks.
    5. Recepisse.
  2. Discuss the following:—
    1. The limitation of note issue to capital.
    2. The retirement of the legal tender notes as an essential part of any plan for an asset currency.
  3. Compare the safety fund and the free banking systems of New York.
  4. Regulations of the national banking system other than those of note issue.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 6, Bound volume: Examination Papers, 1902-03. Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics, Philosophy, Education, Fine Arts, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Music in Harvard College (June, 1902), p. 28.

Image Sources:
Left to right: Andrew (Harvard Classbook 1906, p. 6), Sprague (Harvard Classbook 1912), Meyer, The Minneapolis Messenger, October 12, 1905, Page 4, from Wikipedia.