Category: Syllabus

Harvard. Syllabus of public lectures on taxation by Simon Newcomb. December 1879

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-12-05

The following outline of three lectures given by Simon Newcomb at Harvard in December 1879 was found in a grab-bag folder of undated course material from the department of economics. A quick plunge into the online newspaper archive newspapers.com was enough to find a public announcement of the lecture to nail down the date.

One of the missions of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror, is to enter such obscure artifacts into the digital record. For fun I try to imagine Newcomb giving a TED talk…or a TikTok dance video.

__________________________

Simon Newcomb’s Methodenstreit with Richard Ely in 1884 has been transcribed and posted earlier.

Links to works by Simon Newcomb can be found at The History of Economic Thought website.

Newcomb’s 1909 obituary in The Times provides a snapshot of his life.

The biographical memoir written by W. W. Campbell for the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 is of course more complete.

__________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
Lectures on Taxation.

Professor SIMON NEWCOMB of Washington will give three lectures on Taxation in Sanders Theatre, on MONDAY, Dec. 8, WEDNESDAY, Dec. 10, and FRIDAY, Dec. 12, at 7 ½ P. M.

The public is invited.

AMORY T. GIBBS, Secretary

Dec. 1, 1879.

Source: Boston Evening Transcript, 2 December 1879, p. 5

__________________________

SYLLABUS OF
MR. NEWCOMB’S LECTURES ON TAXATION.

LECTURE I

The object of the course is the study of the comparative effects of different methods of raising revenue. This study is to be conducted in the same way as if the operation of natural causes alone were to be considered.

The object of taxation is the diversion of a portion of the industrial activity of the country from private to public objects.

The questions involved are not those of the absolute merits of different systems, but only their relative merits.

The expenditure of revenue is necessarily connected with the subject, because the effect of a tax depends as much upon how it is to be expended, as upon how it is to be collected.

Distribution of Indirect Taxes

Relative advantages of direct and indirect taxation.

Problem: To what extent can a tax levied on the activities of one person be transferred by him to others with whom he exchanges services?

Classification of Taxes: —

(1.) On persons.

(2.) On Production.

(3.) On accumulated wealth.

Each of these three divisions subdivided into two classes.

(α.) Taxes on totals of persons or things.

(β.) Taxes on selected persons or things.

Taxes in class (α) whether (1) poll taxes, (2) income taxes, (3) uniform property taxes, not directly transferable, but must be borne by the payers. Hence,

Class (α) includes taxes which are commonly considered direct;

Class (β) those which are indirect.

CASE I. The full amount of a tax can be added to the price of commodities when this addition causes no falling off in the demand. Digression on relations of price and demand, and the conditions on which they depend. Put,

P, the supposed price at which an untaxed commodity C, may be sold,

Q, the corresponding demand, or quantity sold at the price P in a unit of time.

ΔP, an increment of price, added on account of the tax.

ΔQ, the corresponding decrement in the quantity which can be sold,
so that at the price P + ΔP can be sold Q – ΔQ.

If ΔQ is small compared with ΔP, we may call the commodity C insensitive; if large, sensitive.

CASE II. When the demand is sensitive to a rise of price, one of two results must follow.

(α.) Production diminished till price is restored.

(β.) Price raised by only part of the tax, and the latter divided between producer and consumer. The result which must follow depends upon how far the production is monopolized.

LECTURE II.

Digression on natural monopolies with respect to the distribution of taxation under Case II. of the preceding lecture.

Tax upon gross production reducible to an income tax.

An income tax is the fairest of all, could it be fairly assessed and collected. But, in practice, the difficulty of defining aggregate income is such that this tax is most unfair.

The ultimate general effect of taxation upon industry is nearly the same on whatever articles the tax is levied. But on special classes of persons and industries the effect may be different.

In general, the person who cannot change his employment or the articles he consumes will be most affected.

In order that the equilibrium may be least disturbed, commodities which may be substituted for each other should be equally taxed.

Is there any transfer of a tax upon a commodity beyond the producer and consumer? Answer: Not in general. A tax on tobacco, for instance, is paid entirely by the consumer of tobacco.

Taxes on Accumulation.

A tax on capital would be equivalent to one on total production if adjusted, not to the capital itself, but to the income derivable from it. But our actual taxes on capital are enormously greater than if thus adjusted.

Can a property tax be transferred? The answer is dependent on the law of accumulation of capital. Ultimately the tax is paid by the community through a discouragement of saving and a consequent raising of the rate of interest.

LECTURE III.

Hints on Systems of Taxation.

Popular delusion that a tax should be capable of being evaded because those who are least able to pay can then escape. No large class of articles consumed exclusively by the poor.

(1.) The great point in which our systems of state taxation differ from those founded on Adam Smith’s first principle is that, in the latter, ability is measured by revenue, whereas we measure it by accumulated wealth.

(2.) Abroad, municipal taxes are paid by the tenants, and not by the owners. But, owing to our short leases, it is better among us that the owner pay.

(3.) Personal property should not be taxed for municipal purposes. Is right that, in levying state taxes, general ability to pay should be considered. But our attempt to collect a uniform percentage on all kinds of property from every one is a failure.

(4.) Objects of taxation should be sought for which indicate the wealth of the owner. There is no inherent necessity that taxes should be proportioned to value.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 10, Folder “Economics, undated (5 of 5)”.

Image Source: Simon Newcomb in Leading American Men of Science, David Starr Jordan, ed. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1910. Page 363.

Tags Newcomb

Exam Questions Microeconomics Princeton Suggested Reading Syllabus

Princeton. Value and Distribution Theory. Readings, Exams, Sample Questions. Baumol, 1976

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-12-04

This post adds William J. Baumol’s reading list and examination questions to the stock of core economic theory material transcribed and posted here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. For a contemporary comparison I include links to the four half-semester courses of microeconomic theory required of my cohort at M.I.T. a half-century ago.

________________________

Cf. M.I.T. core microeconomic theory
1974-75

________________________

Core graduate economic theory courses
Princeton, 1976-77

Fall Term

Microeconomic Theory: Value and Distribution. Baumol (First class Sept. 14)
M 10:40-12:10 and Tu 10:40-12:10 in Rm 5 WWS

Macroeconomic Theory: Income Determination. Gersovitz.
W 10:40-12:10 and F 10:40-12:10 in Rm 5 WWS

Spring Term

Microeconomic Theory: General Equilibrium. G. Faulhaber
Tu 10:40-12:10 and Tu 1:00-2:30
Macroeconomic Theory: Inflation and Growth. D. Jaffee.
M 10:40-12:10 and F 10:40-12:10

________________________

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

ECONOMICS 501
Microeconomic Theory:
Value and Distribution

Fall Term 1976

Professor W. J. Baumol

*On Reserve

MAIN REFERENCES

Henderson, J. M. and Quandt, R. E., Microeconomic Theory, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958.

Baumol, W. J., Economic Theory and Operations Analysis, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965. (ETOA)

Theories of Consumption and Demand

Henderson and Quandt, Chapter 2, Sections 1 through 8.

*Hicks, J. A., Value and Capital; 2nd Ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1946, Chapters I, II, III, and pp. 302-314.

*_______, A Revision of Demand Theory, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956, Chs. VII-IX.

*_______, Malinvaud, E., Lectures on Microeconomic Theory, Amsterdam: North Holland Press, 1972, Chapter 2.

ETOA, Chapters 9 and 10.

*Linder, S. B., The Harried Leisure Class, New York: Columbia University Press, 1970, Chapter VII and pp. 150-2.

Neumann-Morgenstern Utility Theory.

Henderson and Quandt, Chapter 2, Section 9.

ETOA, Chapter 22.

Theory of Cost and Production

*Viner, Jacob, “Cost Curves and Supply Curves,” in Stigler, G. J. and K.E. Boulding, Readings in Price Theory, Chicago: Irwin, 1952, pp. 198-232.

ETOA, Chapters 11, 12 and pp. 402-405.

Henderson and Quandt, Chapter 3.

Malinvaud, Chapter 3.

Market Structure and Market Behavior

*Chamberlin, E. H., The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, 5th ed. (or later). Cambridge:  Harvard University Press, 1942, Chapters III, IV, and V.

*Sweezy, P.M., “Demand Under Conditions of Oligopoly,” in Stigler, G. J. and K. E. Boulding, eds., Readings in Price Theory, Chicago: Irwin, 1952, pp. 404-409.

*Robinson, J., The Economics of Imperfect Competition, Chapters 2, 3, 6, 7. 11. 15. 16, and 18.

ETOA, Chapter 14.

Baumol, W. J., Business Behavior, Value and Growth, rev. ed., New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1967, Chapters 3, 6, 7, 8, and 10.

Elements of Distribution Theory

ETOA, Chapters 17, 18, 19.

*Robinson, Joan, “Capital Theory up to Date,” Canadian Journal of Economics, Vol. 3, 1970, pp. 309-17.

*Kaldor, Nicholas, “Alternative Theories of Distribution,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2, 1955-6, pp. 83-100.

*Samuelson, P. A., “Parable and Realism in Capital Theory: The Surrogate Production Function,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. 39, 1962, pp. 193-206.

*_______, “A Summing Up,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 80, 1966, pp. 568-83.

*Baumol, W., “The Transformation of Values: What Marx ‘Really’ Meant,” Journal of Economic Literature,Vol. 12, pp. 51-62.

Introduction to Welfare Theory

Henderson and Quandt, Chapter 7.

ETOA, Chapter 16.

Malinvaud, Chapters 4 and 9.

________________________

Economics 501

Fall Semester, 1976

Midterm Examination

—
1. Define a quasi-concave utility function.
2. Explain why the assumption of quasi-concavity is acceptable for ordinal utility analysis while concavity is not.
3. State and prove any theorem about quasi-concave functions.
Explain in economic terms the meaning of the result that an expenditure function is concave in prices and indicate why it is plausible.
—
1. Formulate precisely a definition of economies of scale for a firm producing n outputs y₁, … , y_n and
  using m inputs r₁, … , r_m.
2. Explain why it is difficult to define the concept of declining average cost for such a firm.

________________________

Economics 501

Fall Semester, 1976

Final Examination

Explain only one of the following:
1. The reason microeconomic analysis uses demand curves all of whose points refer to the same period of time.
2. The rationale of the total differentiation step in comparative statics method.
The price elasticity of a straight line supply curve through the origin is __________. Give a proof of your answer.
Using Shepherd’s lemma and whatever other theorems you need about expenditure functions, give a brief proof of the Slutsky theorem.
Suppose wheat is produced on three parcels of land, A, B and C, and let there be fixed coefficients in the production function so that each parcel can produce exactly 100 bushels. Let the cost of producing 100 bushels on parcel A be $3, on parcel B be $5 and on C be $9. Construct a table showing average and marginal costs with and without rent for three different levels of total output.
In words, explain briefly the economic rationale of the complementary slackness conditions u_iv_i = 0 and y_jl_j =0. That is, why would we expect them to hold in an optimal production program?
A farmer expects to harvest m bushels of wheat in August and m in September. He will sell x₁ in August and x₂ in September. The price in August is p₁ per bushel and in September it is p₂. He can also store wheat from August to September at a cost of w per bushel.
1. Assuming that the farmer wishes to maximize his profits and that p₁, p₂ and m are all positive, construct the appropriate model and prove that

x₂ ≥ m

p₂= v₂ (where v₂ is the second dual variable)

x₁ = m if p₁ > p₂ – w

x₁ < m if p₁ ≤ p₂ – w.

1. In one sentence each, give an economic interpretation of the four results.

________________________

Economics 501
Sample Exercises
[Undated]

—
1. Explain the term comparative statics.
2. In outline, briefly describe in words the steps of the mathematical method used to derive a comparative statics theorem indicating in each case the purpose of the step.
3. State (do not prove) one such theorem.
—
1. What is the basic premise of revealed preference theory?
2. Use that premise to derive the Slutsky theorem diagrammatically stating explicitly where the premise enters your proof.
Define:
1. identification
2. saddle point
3. gross and net complements
4. law of diminishing returns
5. substitution effect
6. Walras’ law
7. lexicographical ordering.
Prove that for a straight line demand curve the midpoint between its two intercepts is of unit elasticity.
Draw indifference maps showing equilibrium of the consumer’s demand in each of the following cases:
1. One of the two commodities is a diamond-studded bow tie. Our consumer doesn’t buy any.
2. Our consumer is given a fixed amount of money to spend either on his stamp or his coin collection. He decides it is better to end up with a one-good collection rather than two mediocre ones, and spends all the money on stamps.
3. The price of shoelaces is lowered, but the consumer buys no more laces than he did at the old price.
—
1. Given a nonlinear demand curve, illustrate graphically how the corresponding marginal revenue curve can be constructed (no verbal explanation necessary).
2. Give a rigorous proof of the validity of your construction procedure in a.
—
1. Define the substitution effect on x of a change in the price of x.
2. Prove the Slutsky Theorem about the sign of the substitution effect.
—
1. Define quasi concavity.
2. Use the definition to prove one of the following:
  1. The indifference curves corresponding to a strictly quasi concave utility function can have no linear segment.
  2. A consumer with a strictly quasi concave utility function who purchases in a competitive market can have at most one optimum.
—
1. Define: corner maximum, local maximum, interior maximum.
2. Explain the relevance of each of these for the useability of the standard tools of marginal analysis.
3. Relate each of these to the usual second order maximum conditions.
—
1. Show how from the shape of the offer curve one can determine the elasticity of the corresponding demand curve.
2. Discuss the statistical problems involved in the empirical estimation of the demand curve as defined in economic theory.
3. What is the identification problem?
A perfectly competitive firm wishes to maximize its total profits

T = pq – c₁x₁ – c₂x₂

subject to the production function constraint

q = f(x₁, x₂)

where q is the output quantity, x₁ and x₂ are the two input quantities, and p, c₁ and c₂are the (fixed) input and output prices.
Assume now that c₁, the price of the first input, changes. Use the comparative statics methods to show that dx₁/dc₁ < 0. Why is there in this case no income effect, only a substitution effect?

The elasticity of a straight line supply curve through the origin is ______________. Prove your answer.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. William J. Baumol Papers, Box 20. Folder “Economics 506: History of Economic Thought (syllabi, book orders, library mtls. etc. 1968-1990” [Note: this folder has items such as transcribed here and not only materials for Economics 506].

Tags Baumol

Columbia Monetary economics Suggested Reading Syllabus

Columbia. Reading List for Monetary Economics. Angell, 1954-1955

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-11-25

In 1954-55 the executive officer of the department of economics, Arthur R. Burns [not Arthur F. Burns], requested his colleagues provide current reading lists for their courses to Joseph Dorfman to arrange for the library to order as many titles as possible. James Waterhouse Angell (Harvard Ph.D., 1924) obliged for his courses on monetary economics (see below), international monetary policy, and income, employment and international trade.

_______________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 121-122—Monetary economics. Professor Angell.
M. W. 10. 310 Fayerweather.

The part played by money and banking operations in the structure and movements of the general economic system. The development of monetary theory. Saving, investing, and employment. Keynesian and neo-Keynesian analysis. Current problems of monetary and general fiscal policy.

Source: Columbia University, Bulletin of Information, 54^th Series, No. 23 (June 19, 1954). Announcement of the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions 1954-1955, p. 35.

_______________________________

December 15, 1954

TO: MEMBERS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

FROM: Arthur R. Burns

Will you please send to Professor Dorfman your lists of readings with recent amendments including optional readings, in order that he may endeavor to arrange for the library to have as many as possible of the books that are being recommended. Please also forward requests for future additions to the library to Professor Dorfman.

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

ECONOMICS 121-122
READING LIST
in
MONETARY ECONOMICS

Note: Eligible veterans may purchase at government expense any four books marked “V”.

1954

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

ECONOMICS 121
REQUIRED READING

(References are to numbered sections in Reading List.)

First Semester

Section:

I (If necessary)
II-1 (Outside reading)
IV-1 (Partly for discussion in class, as indicated)
V-1 (Outside reading)

Second Semester

Section:

III (Outside reading, as indicated)
IV-2 (Partly for discussion in class, as indicated)
V-2 (Outside reading)
VI-1 (Outside reading)
VII (Look into several of the books)

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

READING LIST IN MONETARY ECONOMICS

Required reading should if possible be read in the order in which the titles are presented.

I. INTRODUCTORY

(Students who have had little or no previous work in Money and Banking are advised to read at least one title in each group.)

1. General Texts

Chandler, L. V., Economics of Money and Banking (1953). “V”

James, F. C.: Economics of Money, Credit and Banking (3rd edition, 1940)

Kent, R. P.: Money and Banking (1951). “V”

Thomas, R. G.: Our Modern Banking and Monetary System (1950), Chapters 1-30. “V”

2. Other References

Chandler, L. V.: Introduction to Monetary Theory (1940)

Mitchell, W. C.: Business Cycles (Volume I, 1927) Chapter 2

Robertson, D. H.: Money (2nd edition, 1929)

II. MONETARY AND BANKING ORGANIZATION OF THE U.S.

1. Required Reading

Thomas, R. G.: Our Modern Banking and Monetary System (1950), Chapters 18, 19

Kent, R. P.: Money and Banking (1951), Chapters 20-22,26-28

Burgess, W. R.: The Reserve Banks and the Money Market (Revised edition, 1946)

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Banking Studies (1941), Chapters 3, 17

Angell, J. W.: The Behavior of Money (1936), Chapters 1-4

Goldenweiser, E. A.: Federal Reserve Objectives and Policies (AER, June, 1947)

Thomas, W.: The Heritage of War Finance (AER, Proceedings, May, 1947)

Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Federal Reserve Policy (Post-War Economic Studies, No. 8: 1947)

Goldenweiser, E. A., American Monetary Policy (1951)

2. Other References

Beckhart, B. H., ed.: The New York Money Market (4 volumes, 1931-32)

Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Federal Reserve Bulletin (current issues)

_________________: The Federal Reserve System (1939)

_________________: Post-War Economic Studies (published serially)

Crawford, A. W.: Monetary Management under the New Deal (1940)

Currie, L.: The Supply and Control of Money in the U. 5. (1934)

Dewey, D. R.: Financial History of the U. S. (1903)

Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Monthly Review

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

Harris, S. E.: Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy (2 volumes, 1932)

Hepburn, A. B.: History of Currency in the U. S. (2nd edition, 1924)

Jacoby, N. H. and Saulnier, R. J.: Business Finance and Banking (1947)

Johnson, G. G., Jr.: The Treasury and Monetary Policy, 1933-38 (1938)

Macaulay, F. R.: Interest Rates, Bond Yields end Stock Prices in the U.S. Since 1856 (1938)

Mints, L. W., History of Banking Theory (1945) (U.S. and U.K.)

Mitchell, W. C.: History of the Greenbacks (1903)

National Monetary Commission: Reports (1910, 1911): includes volumes on various phases of money, banking and related legislation in the U.S.

Paris, J. D.: Monetary Policies of the U.S., 1932-1936 (1938)

Riefler, W. W.: Money Rates and Money Markets in the U. S. (1930)

Saulnier, R. J., and Young, R. A.: Finance and Credit in the American Economy, 1900-1944 (1946)

U. S. Government Printing Office: Federal Reserve Act of 1913, with Amendments and Laws Relating to Banking (1940)

Westerfield, R. B.: Historical Survey of Branch Banking in the U.S. (1939)

_________________: Our Silver Debacle (1936)

Whitney, C.: Experiments in Credit Control: The Federal Reserve System (1934)

III. MONETARY AND BANKING ORGANIZATION IN OTHER COUNTRIES

(Select and read enough to understand the general organization and history of at least one country.)

Andreades, A.: History of the Bank of England (2^nd edition, 1934)

Arnold, A.T.: Banks, Credit and Money in Soviet Russia (1937)

Bagehot, W.: Lombard Street (14th edition, 1915)

Brown, W. A., Jr.: England and the New Gold Standard (1929)

Clapham, Sir John: The Bank of England (1944)

Conant, C. A.: History of Modern Banks of Issue (6th edition, 1927)

Dacey, W. M.: The British Banking Mechanism (1951)

Dulles, E. L.: The French Frano, 1914-1928 (1929)

Dupriez, L. H.: Monetary Reconstruction in Belgian (1947)

Feaveryear, A. S.: The Pound Sterling (1931)

Flink, S.: The Geran Reichsbank (1931)

Harris, S. E.: Monetary Policies of the British Empire (1931)

Hawtrey, R. G.: A Century of Bank Rate (1936)

Higgins, B. H.: Canada’s Financial System in War (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1944)

Holladay, J.: The Canadian Banking System (1938)

Hubbard, L. E.: Soviet Money and Finance (1936)

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

League of Nations: Gold Delegation: Reports, etc. (1930, ff.)

_________________: Money and Banking (periodically, 1931 ff.)

Madden, J.T., and Nadler, M.: International Money Markets (1935)

National Monetary Commission: Reports (1910, 1911): includes volumes on a series of foreign systems

Northrop, M. B.: The Control Policies of the German Reichsbank, 1924-1933 (1938)

Plumptre, A. F. W.: Central Banking in the British Dominions (1940)

Rogers, J. H.: The Process of Inflation in France, 1914-1927 (1929)

Sayers, R. S.; Modern Banking (1947). Chiefly on England

Shepherd, H. L.: The Monetary Experience of Belgium, 1914-1936 (1936)

Whale, P. B.: Joint Stock Banking in Germany (1930)

Willis, H. P.: Theory and Practice of Central Banking (1939)

Willis, H. P., and Beckhart, B. H., eds.: Foreign Banking Systems (especially on Great Britain and Canada) (1929)

IV. THE GENERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE MONETARY AND BANKING SYSTEM AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

1. Required Reading (First Semester)

(In approximate order. Titles marked with asterisk (*) should be prepared for discussion in class.)

*Layton, Sir W. T.: Introduction to the Study of Prices (3rd ed., 1938) (skim)

*Fisher, Irving: The Purchasing Power of Money (2nd ed., 1926) (skim)

*Keynes, J. M.: Monetary Reform (1924), Chapters 1 and 3 (Section 1)

Angell, J. W.: Theory of International Prices (1926), pp. 116-135, 178-186, 274-280, 308-312, 324-331

_________________: The Behavior of Money (1936), Chapters 5, 6

Ellis, H. S. German Monetary Theory, 1905-1933 (1934), Chapters 8-11

Hawtrey, R. G.: The Gold Standard in Theory and Practice (5th edition, 1947). “V”

*Hawtrey, R. G.: The Art of Central Banking (1932), Chapter 4

*_________________: Currency and Credit (3rd edition, 1927), Chapters 1-4, 10, 11

*Keynes, J. M.: Treatise on Money (2 volumes, 1930), Chapters 9-14, 30, 35-37

Klein, L. R.: The Keynesian Revolution (1947), Chapter l (on Keynes’ Treatise). “V”

Robertson, D. H.: Essays in Monetary Theory (1940), Chapters 1, 4-6, 11

*Hicks, J. R.: A Suggestion for Simplifying the Theory of Money (Economica, February, 1935) (Reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Monetary Theory, 1951)

*Keynes, J. M.: The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936). “V”

2. Required Reading (Second Semester)

Haberler, G.: Prosperity and Depression (1946), Chapter 8. 3^rd edition 1941. “V”

Hansen, A. H.: Full Recovery or Stagnation (1938), Part IV

*_________________: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles (1941), Part III. “V”

Wilson, T.: Fluctuations in Income and Employment (1942), Part I

*Burns, A. F.: Economic Research and the Keynesian Thinking of our Times (National Bureau of Economic Research, 1946)

*Hicks, J. R.: Value and Capital (1939), Chapters 9-14, 19, 23. “V”

*Lerner, A. P.: The Economics of Control (1946), Chapters 21-25. “V”

*Angell, J. W.: Investment and Business Cycles (1941), Chapters 9-11, 13. “V”

*Hansen, A. H.: Economic Policy and Full Employment (1947); Chapters 11-19

Klein, L. R.: The Keynesian Revolution (1947), Chapters 3, 4 (only pp. 110-123), 6. “V”

Harris, S. E., ed.: The New Economics (1947), Chapters 4, 9, 14, 31, 37

Ellis, H. S., ed.: Survey of Contemporary Economics (1948), Chapter 9 (article by H. H. Villard, “Monetary Theory.”) “V”

Modigliani, F.: Fluctuations in the Saving-Income Ratio (in National Bureau of Economic Research, Studies in Income and Wealth, Vol. 11, (1949), Part V)

Samuelson, P. A.: Interactions of the Multiplier Analysis and the Principle of Acceleration (RES, May 1939; reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Business Cycle Theory)

3. Other Preferences

American Economic Association, Readings in Business Cycle Theory (1944), especially Chaps. 5-9, 12, 15, 17

_________________: Readings in Monetary Theory (1951), especially Chaps. 7, 11, 13, 17. “V”

_________________: Readings in Price Theory (1952), especially Chaps. 14, 15

American Economic Review: Proceedings (May, 1948): papers on Keynes

Angell, J. W.: Keynes and Economic Analysis Today (Rev. Econ. Stat., November, 1948)

Clark, J. M.: Alternatives to Serfdom (1948), Chapter 4

_________________: Economics of Planning Public Works (1935)

Domar, E. D.: Expansion and Employment (AER, March, 1947)

_________________: The Problem of Capital Accumulation (AER, Dec. 1948)

Duesenberry, James F.: Income, Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behavior (1949)

Durbin, E. M.: Purchasing Power and Trade Depression (1934)

Eisner, R.: Underemployment Equilibrium Rates of Growth (AER, Mar. 1952). On papers by Domar and Schelling in this Section.

Ellis, H. S., ed.: Survey of Contemporary Economics (1948), Chapters 2, 5

Fellner, W.: Monetary Policies and Full Employment (1946)

_________________: The Robertsonian Evolution (AER, June 1952)

_________________: and Somers, H. M.: Alternative Monetary Approaches to Interest Theory (RES, Feb. 1941)

Gayer, A. D.: Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilization (2nd edition, 1937)

_________________, ed.: Lessons of Monetary Experience (1937)

Halm, G.: Monetary Theory (1942). Second edition 1946

Hansen, A. H., Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy (1949)

Hart, A. G.: Anticipations, Uncertainty and Dynamic Planning (1940)

Hawtrey, R. G.: A Century of Bank Rate (1938)

Hayek, F.: Prices and Production (2nd edition, 1935)

_________________: The Pure Theory of Capital (1941)

Henderson, H. D.: The Significance of the Rate of Interest (Oxford Economic Papers, October, 1938). Also see articles in later issues on interest rates and liquidity preference.

Kuznets, S.: National Product Since 1869 (1946)

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

_________________: The Theory of the Multiplier (Econometrica, July-October, 1943)

Lange, O., et al., eds.: Studies in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics (1942; in memory of Henry Schultz) papers by Lange, Mosak, Samuelson, Hart, Tinbergen

Lundberg, E.: Studies in the Theory of Economic Expansion (1937)

Machlup, F.: International Trade and the National Income Multiplier (1943)

Mack, R. P.: The Direction of Change in Income and the Consumption Function (RES, November, 1948)

Marshall, A.: Money, Credit and Commerce (1923)

Modigliani, F.: Liquidity Preference and the Theory of Interest and Money (Econometrica, January, 1944)

Myrdal, G.: Monetary Equilibrium (1939)

Niebyl, K. H.: Studies in the Classical Theory of Money (1946)

Nussbaum, A.: Money in the Law (1939). 1950 edition

Ohlin, B.: The Stockholm Theory of Savings and Investment (EJ, 1937; reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Business Cycle Theory, 1944)

Pigou, A. C.: Employment and Equilibrium (1941)

_________________: Lapses from Full Employment (1945)

Robinson, Joan: Introduction to the Theory of Employment (1939; expanded 1949)

Robertson, D. H.: Banking Policy and the Price Level (2nd edition, 1932)

_________________: Saving and Hoarding (EJ, September, 1933)

Rueff, J.: The Fallacies of Lord Keynes’ General Theory (QJE, May 1947)

Samuelson, P. A.: The Principle of Acceleration and the Multiplier (JPE, Dec. 1939)

_________________: Interactions between the Multiplier and the Principle of Acceleration (RES, May, 1939; reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Business Cycle Theory, 1944)

Saulnier, R. J.: Contemporary Monetary Theory (1938)

Schelling, T.: Capital Growth and Equilibrium (AER, Dec. 1947). On paper above by Domar

Schumpeter, J. A.: Theory of Economic Development (1934)

Symposium: Five Views on the Consumption Function (Rev. Econ. Stat., November, 1946)

Temporary National Economic Commission: Saving and Investment (Hearings, Part 9: 1939)

Terborgh, G.: The Bogey of Economic Maturity (1945)

Tinbergen, J.: Some Problems in the Explanation of Interest Rates (QJE, May, 1947)

Villard, H. H.: Deficit Spending and the National Income (1941)

Viner, J.: Studies in the Theory of International Trade (1937), Chapters 3-7

Wicksell, K.: Interest and Prices (English edition, 1936)

_________________: Lectures on Political Economy, Volume II: Money (1935); also VoI. I, Introduction

Williams, J. H.: An Appraisal of Keynesian Economics (American Economic Review, Proceedings, May, 1948)

Wood, E.: English Theories of Central Banking Control, 1819-1858 (1938)

Wright, D. McC.: The Economics of Disturbance (1947)

V. BUSINESS CYCLES

(Also see references in Section IV)

1. Required Reading (First Semester)

Mitchell, W. C.: Business Cycles: The Problem and Its Setting. Volume I (1927), especially Chapters 1, 2, and 5

Clark, J. M.: Strategic Factors in Business Cycles (1934), especially pp. 1-22, 96-123, 167-183

Ellis, H. S.: German Monetary Theory, 1905-1933 (1934); Part IV

Amer. Econ. Assoc.: Readings in Business Cycle Theory (1944), Chaps. 1, 15, 17, 21. “V”

Haberler, G.: Prosperity and Depression (1946), Part I

2. Required Reading (Second Semester)

Haberler, G.: Prosperity and Depression (1946), Part III

League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World (1945), Section I. “V”

Schumpeter, J.: Business Cycles (1939), Chapter 4

Hicks, J. R.: Value and Capital (1939), Chapter 24

Angell, J. W.: Investment and Business Cycles (1941), Chapters 7, 8, 12

Hansen, A. H.: Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles (1941), Parts I, III

Wilson, T.: Fluctuations in Income and Employment (1942), Part II (on the U.S. 1919-1937)

Metzler, L. A.: Business Cycles and the Modern Theory of Employment (AER, June 1946)

Burns, A. F., New Facts on Business Cycles (National Bureau of Economic Research, Annual Report, 1950), Part I

3. Other References

Achinstein, A.: Introduction to Business Cycles (1950)

Burns, A. F.: Production Trends in the U. S. since 1870 (1934)

Burns, A. F., and Mitchell, W. C.: Measuring Business Cycles (1946)

_________________: Hicks and the Real Cycle (JPE, Feb. 1952)

Frickey, E.: Economic Fluctuations in the U. S., 1866-1914 (1942)

Harrod, R. F.: The Trade Cycle (1936)

_________________: Notes on Trade Cycle Theory (EJ, June 1951)

Hicks, J. R.: A Contribution to the Theory of the Trade Cycle (1950)

Kaldor, N.: A Model of the Trade Cycle (EJ, 1940)

_________________: Mr. Hicks on the Trade Cycle (EJ, Dec. 1951)

Kalecki, M.: Essays in the Theory of Economic Fluctuations (1939)

Knight, F. H.: The Business Cycle, Interest and Money (RES, May, 1941)

Robbins, L.: The Great Depression (1934)

Röpke, W.: Crises and Cycles (1936)

Salant, W.: Foreign Trade Policy in the Business Cycle (in C. J. Friedrich and E. S. Mason, eds., Public Policy, 1940, vol. II)

Tinbergen, J.: Statistical Testing of Business-Cycle Theories (2 volumes, 1939)

Tinbergen, J., and Polak, J. J.: The Dynamics of Business Cycles (1950)

VI. CURRENCY AND EXCHANGE DEPRECIATION:
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY POLICIES

1. Required Reading

Gayer, A. D.: Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilization (2 ed., 1937), Chapters 1-8

Hansen, A. H.: Full Recovery or Stagnation? (1938), Chapters 10-15

Gilbert, M.: Currency Depreciation (1939), Chapters 3, 5, 6

League of Nations: Economic Stability in the Post-War World (1945), Chapter 17

Hansen, A. H.: America’s Role in the World Economy (1945), Apps. A and B. “V”

Nurkse, R.: Conditions of International Monetary Equilibrium (1945) (reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Intl. Trade, 1948)

_________________: Domestic and International Economic Equilibrium (in S. E. Harris, ed., The New Economics, 1947)

Robinson, Joan: Introduction to the Theory of Employment (1939; reprinted 1947), Chapter on The Foreign Exchanges

2. Other References

Angell, J. W.: Theory of International Prices, Chapters 7, 17 (1926)

Bloomfield, A. I.: Operations of the American Exchange Stabilization Fund (RES, May, 1944)

Bresciani-Turroni, C.: The Economics of Inflation (1937) (On Germany, 1914-24)

Brown, W. A., Jr.: The International Gold Standard Reinterpreted, 1914-1934 (2 volumes, 1944)

Cassel, G.: The Downfall of the Gold Standard (1936)

_________________: Money and Foreign Exchange After 1914 (1922)

Dulles, E. L.: The French Franc, 1914-1928 (1929)

Dupriez, L. H.: Monetary Reconstruction in Belgium (1947)

Ellis, H. S.: Exchange Control in Central Europe (1941)

Graham, F. D.: Exchanges, Prices, and Production in Hyper-Inflation: Germany, 1920-1923 (1930)

Gregory, T. E.: The Gold Standard and Its Future (1932)

Hall, N. F.: The Exchange Equalization Account (London, 1935)

Harris, S. E.: Exchange Depreciation (1926)

Heilperin, M. A.: International Monetary Economics (1939), Chapters 3, 6, 9

League of Nations: The Course and Control of Inflation (1946) (Experience after World War I)

_________________: International Currency Experience (1944)

Leavens, D. H.: Silver Money (1939)

Li, C. M.: Theory of International Trade under Silver Exchange (QJE, Aug. 1939)

Patterson, G.: Survey of U. S. International Finance (annual, 1950 ff.)

Sayers, R. S.: Modern Banking (1947), Chapters 7, 8

Southard, F. A., Jr.: Some European Currency and Exchange Experiences, 1943-1946 (1946)

U. S. Tariff Commission: Foreign Trade and Exchange Controls in Germany (1942), pp. 1-34

U. S. Treasury Department: Articles of Agreement: International Monetary Fund and International Bank for Reconstruotion and Development (1944)

Waight, L.: The Exchange Equalization Account (1939)

Westerfield, R. B.: Our Silver Debacle (1936)

Whittlesey, C. R.: International Monetary Issues (1937)

Williams, J. H.: Post-War Monetary Plans (1944)

VII. CURRENT PROBLEMS IN THEORY AND POLICY

(These references are in large part supplementary to the more recent among the titles in Section IV, above. Look into a number of them, and read carefully what interests you.)

Beveridge, Sir W.: Full Employment in a Free Society (1945)

Board of Governors, Federal Reserve System: Post-War Economic Studies (published at intervals)

Brunner, K.: Inconsistency and Indeterminacy in Classical Economics (Econometrica, Apr. 1951). On Patinkin papers listed below

Buchanan, N. S.: International Investment and Domestic Welfare (1945)

Chandler, L. V.: Federal Reserve Policy and the Federal Debt (AER, 1949; reprinted in Am. Econ. Assoc., Readings in Monetary Theory, 1951)

Clark, C.: The Economics of 1960 (1944)

Cohen, M.: Postwar Consumption Functions (RES, Feb. 1952)

Fisher, A. G. B.: International Implications of Full Employment (1946)

Fisher, Irving: 100 Per Cent Money (2 ed., 1936)

Friend, Irving: Personal Savings in the Post-War Period (Survey Current Bus., Sept. 1949 and Suppl., 1950-51

_________________ and Bronfenbrenner, J.: Business Investment Programs and their Realization (Survey of Current Business, Dec. 1950)

Hansen, A. H.: Classical, Loanable-Fund and Keynesian Interest Theories (QJE, Aug. 1951)

_________________: Income, Employment and Public Policy (1948) (Essays in honor of Hansen)

Harrod, R. F.: Toward a Dynamic Economics (1948)

International Labor Office: Public Investment and Full Employment (1946)

Lerner, A. P.: The Economics of Employment (1951)

Liu, T. C. and Chang, C. G.: U.S. Consumption and Investment Propensities (AER, Sept. 1950)

Millikan, M. F., ed.: Income Stabilization for a Developing Democracy (1953)

Morishima, M.: Consumer’s Behavior and Liquidity Preference (Econometrica, Apr. 1952)

Norton, F. E.: Capital Theory and Progressive Equilibrium (AER, Papers and Proc., May 1951)

Oxford University, Institute of Statistics: The Economics of Full Employment (1944). A symposium

Patinkin, D.: Relative Prices, Say’s Law and the Demand for Money (Econometrica, Apr. 1948)

_________________: The Indeterminacy of Absolute Prices in Classical Economic Theory (Econometrica, Jan. 1949)

_________________: The Invalidity of Classical Monetary Theory (Econometrica, Apr- 1951)

Robinson, Joan: Collected Economic Papers (1951). Parts I-III

Rosa, R.: The Revival of Monetary Policy (RES, Feb. 1951)

Schelling, T. C.: The Dynamics of Price Flexibility (AER, Sept. 1949). And see replies by Patinkin and Klein in AER, Sept. 1950

Tobin, J.: Monetary Policy and the Management of the Public Debt: The Patman Inquiry (RES, May 1953)

Tsiang, S. C.: Accelerator, Theory of the Firm and the Business Cycle (QJE, Aug. 1951). On Kaldor and Samuelson

United Nations: National and International Measures for Full Employment (Report by a group of experts: 1949)

_________________: Measures for International Economic Stabilization (Report by a group of experts: 1951)

Williams, J. H.: Money, Trade and Economic Growth (1951). (Essays in honor of Williams) Part III

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

1954-55

ECONOMICS 121-122

Add the following titles:

Sec. II-2:

Bach, G. L: Federal Reserve Policy-Making (1950).

Brandt, Harry: U.S. Monetary and Credit Policies, 1945-50 (unpubl. Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia 1954).

U.S. Congress: Joint Committee on the Economic Report: Monetary, Credit and Fiscal Policies (1949: U.S. Cong. 81:1).The Patman-Douglas Report. On the Federal Reserve, esp. Chap. II; on fiscal policy, Chap. XI.

Sec. IV-2:

Hansen, A. H.: A Guide to Keynes (1953), Chap. 7.

Sec. VII:

Abramovitz, M.: Economics of Growth (in: Survey Contemp. Econ., vol. II; ed. B. F. Haley, 1952).

Ferber, R.: Aggregate Consumption Functions (Natl. Bur. Econ. Res., Tech, Paper #8; 1953).

Friedman, Milton: Essays in Positive Economics (1953), Part III.

Hubbard, J.C.: The Marginal and the Average Propensity to Consume (QJE, Feb. 1954).

Kalecki, M.: Theory of Economic Dynamics (1954).

Kuznets, S.: The Proportion of Capital Formation to National Product (AEA, Proc., May 1952).

Mack, Ruth P.: Economics of Consumption (Survey Contemp. Econ., vol. II; ed. B. F. Haley, 1952).

Yeager, L. B.: Some Questions about Growth Economics (AER, March 1954).

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13 (Columbia University – teaching, etc.) in an unlabeled folder.

Image Source: Harvard Class of 1918, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report. Cambridge: 1943, pp. 24-26.

Tags AngellJW, DorfmanJ

Exam Questions M.I.T. Social Insurance Suggested Reading Syllabus

M.I.T. Reading List and Final Examination for Social Insurance. Diamond and Summers, 1981

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-11-19

The following reading list and final exam were found in the Peter Diamond papers at Duke University’s Economists’ Papers Archive. No instructor is named on either the reading list or the exam. While transcribing for this post, I thought I had better base the small detail of the course instructor on some evidence. Checking the published course catalogue for the 1980-81 academic year at M.I.T., I was able to confirm my suspicion that Peter Diamond was indeed a course instructor. Not surprising in hindsight was that the course was co-taught with Lawrence H. Summers (a.k.a. “Larry” Summers) of most recent infamy.

On Summers’ Jeffrey Epstein connection: see the series of articles in the Harvard Crimson by Dhruv T. Patel and Cam N. Srivastava, Exhibit #1, Exhibit #2, Exhibit #3 (with Elise A. Spenner).

Once I go to the trouble of preparing an artifact for posting, I cannot resist the compulsion to share it. I ask my visitors to accept this post as a tribute to Peter Diamond’s contribution to graduate economics education à la M.I.T. rather than a rehabilitative look at the young Larry Summers in the Rear-view Mirror.

The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with the archival records.

_____________________________

14.476 Social Insurance

Prereq.: 14.121, 14.122
Year: G (2)

Theory of social insurance and examination of some of existing and proposed US programs including some subset of Social Security, Unemployment Compensation, Worker’s Compensation, National Health Insurance.

P. A. Diamond, L. H. Summers

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bulletin 1980-81. Courses and Degree Programs Issue 1980-81, p. 513.

_____________________________

14.476 Social Insurance
Spring 1981

(x) – optional

Introduction
1. (x) H. Kunreuther et al, Disaster Insurance Protection, Chapters 1, 10.
2. (x) P. Diamond, “A Framework for Social Security Analysis,” Journal of Public Economics, 1977, 275-98.
3. (x) Debreu, G., Theory of Value, Chapter 7. Also in P. Diamond and M. Rothschild, Uncertainty in Economics.
4. (x) Feldstein, M., “The Theory of Social Insurance,” Public Policy, 1977.
5. (x) FTC Staff Report, “Life Insurance Cost Disclosure.”
Moral Hazard
1. (x) M. Pauly, “Overinsurance and Public Provision of Insurance,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1974, 44-54. Also in Diamond and Rothschild.
2. Shavell, “On Moral Hazard and Insurance,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1979.
Adverse Selection
1. Diamond and Rothschild, Uncertainty in Economics, Chapters 14, 16.
2. Akerlof, “The Market for Lemons,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1970, 488-500. Also in Diamond and Rothschild.
3. Rothschild and J. Stiglitz, “Equilibrium in Competitive Insurance Markets,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1976, 269-650. Also in Diamond and Rothschild.
Property Insurance
1. Joskow, “Cartels, Competition and Regulation in the Property-Liability Insurance Industry,” Bell Journal, 1973, 375-427.
2. (x) Stone, J., “Opinion, Findings and Decision on 1978 Automobile Insurance Rates, Part II.” Also in Division of Insurance, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Automobile Insurance Risk Classification: Equity and Accuracy.
3. Smallwood, D., “Competition, Regulation, and Product Quality in the Automobile Insurance Industry,” in A. Phillips, ed., Promoting Competition in Regulated Markets.
4. Shavell, “On Moral Hazard and Insurance,” mimeo version, Section 6, Experience Rating.
5. State Farm Insurance Company, Research Department, “The Effect of a Suburban Driving Population on Urban Auto Insurance Premiums.”
6. DuMouchel, “Computing Territorial Relativities which Include the Effects of Travel Between Territories on Claims Costs.”
Pension and Social Security
1. (x) Munnell, A., The Future of Social Security, Brookings.
2. (x) Boskin, M., ed., The Crisis in Social Security, 1977.
3. (x) Myers, R.J., Social Insurance.
4. Pellechio, A., “Social Security Financing and Retirement Behavior,” AER, May 1979.
5. Boskin, M., “Social Security and Retirement Decision,” Economic Inquiry, 1977.
6. Quinn, J., “The Early Retirement Decision,” Journal of Human Resources, Summer 1977.
7. Bulow, J., “Analysis of Pension Findings under ERISA,” mimeo, 1979, National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
8. Hagens, J., “Social Security as Retirement Insurance,” mimeo.
9. Crawford and Lilien, “Social Security and the Retirement Decision,” mimeo.
10. Mirrlees, J., “Intended Labour Supply.”
11. Mirrlees J. and Diamond, P., “A Model of Social Insurance with Variable Retirement,” Journal of Public Economics, 1979, 295-336.
12. __________ and __________, “Payroll Tax Financed Social Insurance with Variable Retirement.”
13. __________ and __________, “Social Insurance where the Value of Retirement Varies.”
14. __________ and __________, “Social Insurance with Variable Retirement and Private Savings.”
15. HEW Task Force on the Treatment of Women Under Social Security, Report.
16. HEW, “Social Security and Changing Roles of Men and Women.
17. (x) 1979 Advisory Council on Social Security, Report.
18. (x) National Commission on Social Security, Report.
19. (x) President’s Commission Pension Policy, Interim Report.
Unemployment
1. (x) Unemployment Compensation: A Background Report, Background Paper 15, Congressional Budget Office, 1976.
2. (x) “The Economics of Unemployment Insurance: A Symposium,” Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 30:4, July 1977.
3. (x) Baily, M.N., “Unemployment Insurance as Insurance for Workers,” in J. Hight, ed., Symposium on the Economics of Unemployment Insurance.
4. (x) Shavell, S., and L. Weiss, “The Optimal Payment of Unemployment Insurance Benefits over Time,” Journal of Political Economy, December 1979.
5. (x) Hall, R., and D. Lilien, “Efficient Wage Bargains under Uncertain Supply and Demand,” AER, December 1979.
6. Feldstein, M., “Private and Social Costs of Unemployment,” American Economic Review, May 1978, 155-8.
7. Feldstein, M., “The Impact of Unemployment Insurance on Temporary Layoff Unemployment,” AER, March 1979.
8. Clark, K., and L. Summers, “Labor Market Dynamics and Unemployment: A Reconsideration,” BPEA, 1979:1.
9. Clark, K., and L. Summers, “Unemployment Insurance and Labor Market Transitions,” mimeo.
10. (x) Baily, M., “On the Theory of Layoffs and Unemployment,” Econometrica, 1977, 1043-64.
11. (x) Flemming, S., “Aspects of Optimal Unemployment Insurance, Journal of Public Economics, 1978, 403-425.
12. (x) Jovanovic, B., “Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover,” Journal of Political Economy, 1979, 972-990.
13. (x) “Firm-Specific Capital and Turnover,” Journal of Political Economy, 1979, 1246-1260.
14. (x) Burdett, K. and Mortensen, D., “Search, Layoffs, and Labor Market Equilibrium.”
15. (x) Holmstrom, B., “Equilibrium Long-Term Labor Contracts.”
16. (x) Akerlof, G. and Main, B., “Pitfalls in Markov Modeling of Labor Market Stocks and Flows.”
17. (x) __________, “Unemployment Spells and Job Tenures.”
18. (x) National Commission on Unemployment Compensation, Report.
19. Gustman, National Bureau of Economic Research working paper.
20. Nickell, S., “The Effect of Unemployment and Related Benefits on the Duration of Unemployment,” Economic Journal, 89, 1979.
21. Atkinson, A., “Unemployment Benefits and Incentives,” unpublished.

_____________________________

14.476
Spring 1981
Final Exam

Answer four questions. They all count equally.

“Unlike the case of adverse selection, with moral hazard but no adverse selection, competitive equilibrium is efficient.” Comment.
Using a two period model of labor supply with uncertain incidence of (unobserved) disability, explain the effect of private savings opportunities on the ability of the government to provide disability insurance.
Discuss the cases for and against cross-subsidization of different risk classes for automobile insurance (assuming that auto insurance as a whole breaks even).
Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of annual sharing of husband’s and wife’s earnings for Social Security purposes.
Discuss the determinants of the optimal waiting period for unemployment benefits. Be clear about the criteria you are using and the separate moral hazard problems affected by the waiting period.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Peter Diamond papers, Box 4. Folder “Teaching Material”.

Image Sources: Portrait of Peter Diamond (2003) by Donna Coveny/MIT in “An Interview with Peter Diamond”, Macroeconomic Dynamics, 11, 2007, 543-565. Portrait of Lawrence H. Summers (1982) from MIT Museum.

Tags Diamond, SummersL

Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Course Readings for Economics and Social Ethics, 1920-1921

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-11-13

Old Gate at Harvard College (August 6, 1920)

The artifact transcribed and linked for this post was found in last of ten boxes in the Harvard Archives collection “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003”. I had worked through the previous nine boxes containing folders chronologically ordered by academic year. Box 10 contained five folders of poorly sorted course materials that were undated, requiring some effort to establish a probable time range for any of the artifacts.

In the first folder I found an eight page typed list of courses, with the names and assigned readings (for most of the courses offered to both undergraduate and graduate students, though no reading lists for the courses that were primarily offered for graduate students) which was relatively easy to date by looking at the course staffing announced in the annual catalogue for the Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1920-21. There is one reference to Taussig’s third edition (Dec. 1921) in the list which would suggest that the list was probably prepared for the 1921-22 or 1922-23 year using materials gathered from the earlier 1920-21 academic year. But the perfect correspondence of course staffing between the transcribed list below and the published announcement for 1920-21 is sufficient for me to assign the 1920-21 academic year to the post.

Square brackets […] have been used to distinguish additional information from the typed list. All explicit titles have been linked, increasing the value of this post considerably.

______________________

Course Descriptions for
Economics and Social Ethics,
1920-21

Division of History, Government, and Economics, 1920-21 published in the Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XVII (May 22, 1920) No. 27.

______________________

One Harvard Graduate’s Memoir
of the 1920s

Carlson, Valdemar. “The Education of an Economist before the Great Depression: Harvard’s Economics Department in the 1920’s.” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, vol. 27, no. 1, 1968, pp. 101–12.

______________________

ASSIGNED READINGS IN ECONOMICS

A. PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS

[Assistant] Professor [Harold Hitchings] Burbank and assistants

Readings:

Taussig, [Frank William], Principles of Economics

[First Edition (1911): Volume I; Volume II]
[Second Edition, Revised (1915): Volume I; Volume II]
[Third Edition, (Dec. 1921): Volume I; Volume II]
[Fourth Edition (1939) requires readers to set up an individual account at archive.org for temporary access: Volume I; Volume II]

[Questions on the Principles of Economics by Edmund Ezra Day and Joseph Stancliffe Davis (Revised for the thrid edition of Taussig’s Principles of Economics) edition, 1922.]

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

1a. ACCOUNTING

Asst. Professor [Joseph Stancliffe] Davis

Readings:

[none listed]

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

1b. STATISTICS

Asst. Professor [Joseph Stancliffe] Davis

Readings:

Secrist, Introduction to Statistical Methods, 1-77, 116-424

King, Elements of Statistical Method, pp.1-19, 64-82, 167-196

Elderton, W. P. and E. M., Primer of Statistics, ch. 1-4

U.S. Census, The Story of the Census, 1790-1915

Field, “Some Advantages of the Logarithmic Scale in Statistical Diagrams,” Journ. Pol. Econ., Oct. 1917

Persons, W. M., Measuring and Forecasting General Business Conditions

Joint Committee on Graphic Standards, Preliminary Report
[Publications of the American Statistical Association 14, no. 112 (1915): 790–97. https://doi.org/10.2307/2965153]

Additional;

Unprescribed portions of King and Secrist

List of references appended to chapters in King and Secrist

References for Statistical Work (Prepared for Economics 1b, 1920)

Questions and Exercises in Statistics (Prepared for Economics 1b, 1920)

The Review of Economic Statistics

Lists of references in specific fields

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

2a. EUROPEAN INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

Dr. [Edmund Earle] Lincoln

Readings:

See printed bibliography on file in Tutorial Library

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

2b. ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

Dr. [Edmund Earle] Lincoln

Readings:

See printed bibliography on file in Tutorial Library

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

3. MONEY, BANKING, AND COMMERCIAL CRISES

Professor [Allyn Abbott] Young

Readings:

[none listed]

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

4a. ECONOMICS OF TRANSPORTATION

Professor [William Zebina] Ripley

Readings:

Ripley, Railroad Rates, vol. 1, (not vol. II)

Ripley, Railway Problems

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

4b. ECONOMICS OF CORPORATIONS

Professor [William Zebina] Ripley

Readings:

Ripley, Trusts, Pools, and Corporations

Haney, Business Organization and Combination

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

5a. PUBLIC FINANCE, EXCLUSIVE OF TAXATION

Asst. Professor [Harold Hitchings] Burbank

Readings:

Bastable, Public Finance

Bullock, Selected Readings in Public Finance
[Second edition, 1921]

Daniel [sic], Public Finance [Possibly: Winthrop More Daniels, Elements of Public Finance (1899)]

Adams, H. C., Public Finance [sic]
[Probably: The Science of Finance, An Investigation of Public Expenditures and Public Revenues (1912)]

Seligman, Essays in Taxation

Darwin, Municipal Trade

Stourm, The Budget

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

5b. THE PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF TAXATION

Asst. Professor [Harold Hitchings] Burbank

Readings:

Bastable, Selections on Public Finance

Bullock, Selected Readings in Public Finance
[Second edition, 1921]

Seligman, Essays in Taxation

Means, Methods of Taxation

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

6a. TRADE-UNIONISM AND ALLIED PROBLEMS

Professor [William Zebina] Ripley

Readings:

Webb, Industrial Democracy

Commons, Trade Unionism

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

7a. THEORIES OF VALUE AND DISTRIBUTION

Professor [Edmund Ezra] Day

Readings:

Marshall, Principles of Economics

Carver, The Distribution of Wealth

Taussig, Principles of Economics (1921 edition)
[Third Edition, (Dec. 1921): Volume I; Volume II]

Clark, The Distribution of Wealth

Walker, Political Economy

Fisher, The Rate of Interest

Böhm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest

Fetter, Economic Principles

Davenport, Economics of Enterprise

Veblen, The Theory of Business Enterprise

Hobson, Work and Wealth

Anderson, Social Value

Anderson, The Value of Money

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

7b. SOCIALISM, ANARCHISM, THE SINGLE TAX

Professor [Thomas Nixon] Carver

Readings:

See printed circular on file in the Tutorial Library

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

8. PRINCIPLES OF SOCIOLOGY

Professor [Thomas Nixon] Carver

Readings:

Bristol, Social Adaptation

Carver, Sociology and Social Progress

Sumner, Folkways

Spencer, Principles of Sociology [Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3]

Carver, Essays in Social Justice

Giddings, Sociology

Tardl [sic], Social Gains [sic] [Looks like a typographical error. Probably Social Laws, An Outline of Sociology by Gabriel Tarde (1899 translation from the French)[

Kidd, Social Evolution

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

9a. ECONOMICS OF AGRICULTURE

Professor [Thomas Nixon] Carver

Readings:

Carver, Principles of Rural Economics

Carver, Selected Readings in Rural Economics

Various bulletins and reports

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

9b. INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND TARIFF POLICIES

Professor [Frank William] Taussig

Readings:

Taussig, Free Trade, the Tariff and Reciprocity

Mill, Principles of Political Economy

Smith, Wealth of Nations

State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff

Taussig, Selected Readings (to appear shortly)

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

10. ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND INSTITUTIONS

Dr. [Arthur Eli] Monroe

Readings:

Aristotle, Politics, Bk. I, ch. 1-11; Bk. II, ch. 1-6; IV, ch. 11-13; V, ch. 1-9

Maine, Ancient Law, ch. 5-8

Ashley, Economic History of England, vol. I, ch. 3

Mun: England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade

Turgot, Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth

Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. I, 1-3, 5-9, 11 (secs. 1,2)

Smith, Wealth of Nations, Bk. II, 3-5; IV, 1, 2, 9

Malthus, Essay on Population, [Vol. I, 6th ed. ] Bk I, 1, 2; Bk. II, 13; [Vol. II, 6th ed.] III, 2, 3; Bk. IV, 1, 2, 3. (Or selections in Ashley’s Classics)

Mill, Political Economy [Vol. I], Bk. I, 5; Bk: II, 11; Bk. III, 1-5

Mill, Political Economy [Vol. II], Bk. IV, 3,4; Bk. V, 8, 10, 11 (sec. 1-9)

List, National System of Political Economy, Bk. II, 2-5, 7

Carlyle, Past and Present (selected chap.) or
Ruskin, Unto this Last, ch. 1, 3

Bücher, Industrial Evolution, chs. 3, 4

Ashley, Economic Organization of England, ch. 1-7

Wells, Mankind in the Making

(Several optional assignments to be announced later)

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

11. ECONOMIC THEORY

Professor [Frank William] Taussig
[“Maurice Beck Hexter’s notes from Harvard University, 1921-22” and “Supplemental notes from F.W. Taussig’s Course in economic theory with contributions by A.A. Young” edited by Marianne Johnson and Warren J. Samuels in Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 28-C (2010), pp. 11-176]

Readings:

Ricardo, Principles of Political Economy
[Third edition, 1821]

Mill, Principles of Political Economy

Marshall, Principles of Economics

Clark, Distribution of Wealth

Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital

Fetter, Principles of Economics

Hobson, Work and Wealth

Veblen, Theory of Business Enterprise

Divers separate articles and chapters in other books

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

9a. THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

Professor [Thomas Nixon] Carver

Readings:

Carver, Distribution of Wealth

Marshall, Principles of Economics

Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital

Fisher, The Rate of Interest

Clark, The Distribution of Wealth

Taussig, Work [sic] and Capital [Wages and Capital]

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

14. HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF ECONOMICS TO THE YEAR 1848

Professor [Charles Jesse] Bullock

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

15. MODERN SCHOOLS OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT

Professor [Allyn Abbott] Young

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

31. PUBLIC FINANCE

Professor [Charles Jesse] Bullock

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

32. ECONOMICS OF AGRICULTURE, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO AMERICAN CONDITIONS

Professor [Thomas Nixon] Carver

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

33. INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND TARIFF PROBLEMS

Professor [Frank William] Taussig

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

34. PROBLEMS OF LABOR

Professor [William Ripley] Ripley

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

35a. BUSINESS CORPORATIONS

Asst. Professor Davis

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

35b. BUSINESS COMBINATIONS

Asst. Professor [Joseph Stancliffe] Davis

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

36a. PUBLIC OWNERSHIP: HISTORICAL, THEORETICAL, AND PRACTICAL ASPECTS

Dr. [Edmund Earle] Lincoln

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

36b. PUBLIC REGULATION AND CONTROL OF PRIVATE INDUSTRY WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO PUBLIC SERVICE INDUSTRIES

Dr. [Edmund Earle] Lincoln

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

37. COMMERCIAL CRISES

Professor [Warren Milton] Persons

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

38. SELECTED MONETARY PROBLEMS

Professor [Allyn Abbott] Young

PRIMARILY FOR GRADUATES

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

[ASSIGNED READINGS]
IN SOCIAL ETHICS

1. SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND SOCIAL POLICY

Asst. Professor [Robert Franz] Foerster and Asst. Professor [James] Ford

Readings:

Booth, Life and Labour of the People of London, vol. 1 of Series 1, 3-8, 24-73, 131-171

Conklin, Heredity and Environment, rev. ed. pp.197-242, 256-258, 297-306, 416-456, 475-497

Dewey, and Tufts, Ethics, ch. 15, pp. 297-304; ch. 18-26, pp. 364-606

Flexner, and Baldwin, Juvenile Courts and Probation, Pts.1, 2, pp. 3-78

Oppenheimer, The Rationale of Punishment, pp. 1-4, 171-175, 234-295

Spencer, Principles of Sociology, vol. 1, pt. 3, ch. 9 and 12, pp. 686-724, 745-756

Warner, American Charities, 3rd ed., ch. 4, 6-10, 12, 14-15, 17-22, pр. 64-90, 113-225, 248-284, 305-346, 363-476

Wines, Punishment and Reformation, ch. 8, 10, 12-14 (3rd ed.) pp. 133-167, 199-234, 265-412

Committee of Fifty to Study the Liquor Problem, Summary of Investigations, pp. 15-134

Burritt, Dennison, Gay, Heilman, and Kendall, Profit Sharing, pp. 159-257

Commons and Andrews, Principles of Labor Legislation, pp. 1-414, 454-464

Fay, Cooperation at Home and Abroad, pp. 273-285, 310-354

Foerster, A Promising Venture in Industrial Partnership, Annals American Academy of Political and Social Science, Pub. 703, November 1912, pp. 97-103

Hoxie, Scientific Management and Labor, pp. 25-139

King, Industry and Humanity, ch. 7, 8, pp. 167-303; ch. 10, pp. 364-390

British Labor party, Sub-committee on Reconstruction, report, Labor and the New Social Order, reprint from the New Republic, Feb. 16, 1918, pp. 12

Lee, Play in Education, pp. 319-391, 423-494

Schaeffle, Quintessence of Socialism, pp. 39-127

Schloss, Industrial Remuneration, pp. 286-309

Spargo, Applied Socialism, pp. 87-325

Veiller, Housing Reform, pp. 3-190

Williams, Profit-sharing, pp. 17-42, 146-171

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

4. AMERICAN POPULATION PROBLEMS: IMMIGRATION AND THE NEGRO

Asst. Professor [Robert Franz] Foerster

Reading:

Byington, Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town, ch. 9-11, pp.131-157

Fairchild, Immigration, ch. 1-5, 7, 9, 10, 12-14, 16, pp. 1-105, 123-143, 163-212, 233-368, 393-415

Foerster, The Italian Emigration of Our Times, ch. 21-24, pp. 415-525

Ibid. Quarterly Journal of Economics, Aug.1913, Review of Hourwich’s book on immigration, pp. 656-671

Hourwich, Immigration and Labor, ch. 4, 5, 12-15, 18, 23, pp. 82-112, 284-352, 375-383, 489-501, 414-431 and in chapter 21, Report of the MASS. COMMISSION ON IMMIGRATION, 1914, pp. 54-104

Millis, The Japanese Problem in the United States, ch. 1, pp. 1-29

Reely, Selected Articles on Immigration (Debaters’ Handbook) pp. 131-134, 200-204, 219-222, 225-229

Roberts, The New Immigration, ch. 9, 11-13, pp. 124-138, 156-199

Ross, The Old World in the New, ch. 1-4, 6, 11, pp. 1-92, 120-140, 259-281

U. S. Immigration Commission, vol. 39, pp. 5-81, 127-129

Walker, Discussions in Economics and Statistics, vol. 2, pp. 417-426

Warne, Slav Invasion, pp. 28-38, 47-83

U. S. Immigration Commission, vol. 1, pp. 491-541; vol. 4, pp. 239-281, 337-348

Ovington, Half a Man, ch. 4-8, pp. 75-217

Shaler, The Neighbor, pp. 278-336

Stone, Studies in the American Race Problem, pp. 149-208

Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, Amer. Econ. Review, May 1902, pp. 28-45, 60-79, 102-170

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

6. UNEMPLOYMENT AND RELATED PROBLEMS OF THE WORKING CLASSES

Asst. Professor [Robert Franz] Foerster

Readings:

Beveridge, Unemployment, pp. 1-237

Webb, Seasonal Trades, ch. 1, 2, pp. 1-90

U. S. Bureau of Labor, Report on Women and Child Wage-Earners, vol. 7, pp. 43-60, 64-67, 177-192

Barnes, The Longshoremen, pp. 55-92, 199-206, 210-227

Chicago, Report of the Mayor’s Commission on Unemployment, 1914, pp. 107-165

U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Bulletin 206, B. Lasker, British System of Labor Exchanges, pp. 1-56

Kellor, Out of Work, Ch. 6, pp. 157-193

Gibbon, Unemployment Insurance, pp. 187-203

Dawson, Vagrancy Problem, ch. 4, 11, pp.104-132; 229-249

Ibid. Social Insurance in Germany, ch. 2-4, 7-9, pp. 22-127,182-265

Gibbon, Medical Benefit …Germany and Denmark, ch. 2, 6, 9, 12, 18 pp. 10-14, 43-52, 81-106, 125-131, 192-203

Rubinow, Standards of Health Insurance, Ch. 5-9, pp.67-152

Belloc, The Servile State, pp. 155-189

24th Annual Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Labor, 1909, Vol. 2, pp. 1499-1530, 1540-1544

Foerster, The British National Insurance Act, Q. J. of Econ., Feb. 1912, pp. 275-298, 305-312

Bernhard, Undesirable Results of German Social Legislation, pp. 39-75

Mass. Commission on Old Age Pensions, 1910 Report, pp. 112-122, 164-203, 224-259, 268-284, 300-344

U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin 195, Unemployment in the United States, 1916

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 10, Folder “Economics, undated (1 of 5)”.

Image Source: Old Gate at Harvard College (Leon H. Abdalian, photographer). Boston Public Library Arts Department. [No Copyright – United States]

Tags Burbank, Carver, DavisJS, Day, Foerster, Ford, Lincoln, Monroe, Ripley, Taussig, Young

Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Theory

Harvard. Advanced Economic Theory. Reading lists and exams. Schumpeter, 1948-1949

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-10-15

With the 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics honoring work that has expanded upon Joseph Schumpeter’s felicitous description of economic innovation as a process of “creative destruction”, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is happy to add the following Schumpeter teaching artifacts from the 1948-49 academic year at Harvard from his course on advanced economic theory. Keeping on the subject of Nobel prizes, it is worth noting that nine future economics laureates were included in Schumpeter’s reading lists for the course.

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Previous Posts:
Schumpeter’s Courses on Economic Theory

Economics 11. Economic Theory, Second Semester, 1934-35. [taken by Wolfgang Stolper]

Economics 11. Economic Theory, 1935-36. [taken by Paul Samuelson]

Economic 101. Economic Theory, 1936-37. [formerly 11]

Economics 101. Economic Theory, 1937-38.

Economics 103. Advanced Economic Theory, 1941-42.

Economics 103b. Advanced Economic Theory, 1947-48. [103a taught by Gottfried Haberler]

_______________________

Course Enrollment
1948-49

[Economics] 203 (formerly Economics 103a and 103b). Advanced Economic Theory (Full Course). Professor Schumpeter

Fall Term:
Total 21. 17 Graduates, 2 Public Administration, 2 Radcliffe.

Spring Term:
Total 10. 8 Graduates, 2 Public Administration.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1948-49, p. 77.

_______________________

1948-49
Economies 203a
Fall Term

The primary object of this course is to train the students in the art of conceptualizing the salient features of the economic process. But discussion of individual problems will give the opportunity of rehearsing critically large parts of traditional theory, old and new. The program for this term includes, first, a preliminary survey of certain fundamental nations, especially determinateness and stability, second, the general dynamics of economic aggregates, third, the general theory of the behavior of households and firms. Though some knowledge of the calculus and of differential equations is desirable, purely mathematical aspects will not be stressed.

The student is supposed to be familiar with such standard works as Marshall’s Principles, Wicksell’s Lectures, Vol. I, Keynes’ General Theory,* Chamberlin’s Monopolistic Competition, Hicks’ Value and Capital, and Fisher’s Theory of Interest (out of print). To these, which are also required in several other courses, and part of every student’s equipment, should be added.

*(not available until October 29)

E. Lundberg, Studies in the Theory of Economic Expansion (King & Son, 1937) and for students with adequate mathematical preparations.

P. A. Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis, 1947.

Students must use their own judgments as regards the extent to which they will avail themselves of the following additional suggestions which also stand instead of reading-period assignments:

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

J. Tinbergen, “Suggestions on Quantitative Business Cycle Theory,” Econometrica, July 1935.

F. Modigliani, “Liquidity Preference, Interest, and Money,” Econometrica, January, 1944.

Allen and Bowley, Family Expenditure, 1935.

Colin Clark, The Conditions of Economics Progress, 1940.

Arthur Smithies, “The Boundaries of the Production Function and the Utility Function” (in Explorations in Economics, Essays in Honor of F. W. Taussig, 1936, II, Ch. 11).

T. De Scitovszky, “Price under Monopoly and Competition,” Journal of Political Economy, October, 1941.

T. Haavelmo, “The Interdependence between Agriculture and the National Economy,” Journal of Farm Economics, November, 1947.

G. Cooper, “The Role of Econometric Models in Economic Research,” Journal of Farm Economics, February 1948.

M. Reder, “Monopolistic Competition and the Stability Conditions,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. VIII, No. 2.

N. Kaldor, “A Classificatory Note on the Determinateness of Equilibrium,” Review of Economic Studies, Vol. I, No. 2.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 4, Folder: “Economics, 1948-49 (2 of 2)”.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 203a
February 1949

One question may be omitted. Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.

Consider the concept of the Stationary State both as a state of society that is to be expected in the near or distant future and as a methodological tool. When considering it in the latter sense, contrast it with the concepts of Economic Statics and of Static Equilibrium.
Analyze the profit item of the usual income statement of a corporation.
State the theory of interest which you prefer to others and give your reasons for this preference; then discuss, from the standpoint of this theory, how “technological progress” affects the rate of interest.
Discuss Cournot’s Duopoly and explain the shortcomings of this schema.
What has been, in your opinion, the upshot of the recent controversy on the “marginal-productivity theory of wages?”
What are the reasons for expecting that monopoly prices are more “rigid” than competitive prices?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Final examinations 1853-2001. Box 16, Bound volume Examinations, Social Sciences Feb. 1949.

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Spring Term
1948-49
Economics 203b

Reference is made to the Reading List for the preceding term, both as regards the general scope of this course and as regards certain fundamental works with which students are supposed to be, or to make themselves, familiar (Marshall, Wicksell, Keynes, Chamberlin, Fisher, Lundberg, and Samuelson) and all of which are available in the Harvard libraries, although sone are out of print. The topics to be dealt with in this term are grouped into four approximately equal parts, each of which is to cover about three weeks. Of the books and papers to be mentioned below, three are taken over from the fall term list.

Restatement, with some additions and further illustrative applications, of the essentials treated in the Fall Term.

American Economic Association, H. S. Ellis ed., Survey of Contemporary Economics, Chs. 10 (Samuelson) and 11 (Leontief).

The Process of Accumulation and the idea of Balanced Advance

R. F. Harrod, Towards a Dynamic Economics, 1948

R. G. Hawtrey, “Mr. Harrod’s Essay in Dynamic Theory,” Economic Journal, September, 1939

E. D. Domer, “Capital Expansion,” Econometrica, April, 1946

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

H. Froehlich, “Income Determination and Investment,” ibid. March, 1948

T. C. Schelling, “Capital Growth and Equilibrium,” ibid. December, 1947

L. R. Klein, “Notes on the Theory of Investment,” Kyklos, International Review of the Social Sciences, Bern, Volume II, 1948, fasc. 2

J. M. Keynes, “The Process of Capital Formation,” Economic Journal, September, 1939

Money and Real Income. Wages and Employment

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

S. C. Tsiang, “Professor Pigou on Real Wages and Employment,” Economic Journal, December 1944

T. Haavelmo et al., “Multiplier Effects of a Balanced Budget,” Econometrica, October, 1945, and April, 1946

H. M. Somers, “The Impact of Fiscal Policy on National Income,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, August, 1942

J. L. Mosak, “Wage Increases and Employment,” American Economic Review, June, 1941

J. T. Dunlop, “The Demand and Supply Functions for Labor,” American Economic Review, May, 1948

J. T. Dunlop, “Productivity and the Wage Structure,” Income, Employment and Public Policy (Norton & Company, 1948)

H. W. Singer, “Wage Policy in Full Employment,” Economic Journal, December, 1947

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

Transformation or Disintegration of Capitalism

C. Clark, The Conditions of Economic Progress, 1940

G. J. Stigler, Trends in Output and Employment (National Bureau Publ. 1947)

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 4, Folder: “Economics, 1948-49 (2 of 2)”.

_______________________

1948-49
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 203b

One question may be omitted. Arrange your answers in the order of the questions.

Prove and discuss Haavelmo’s theorem that the imposition of a tax may lead to an increase of gross national income by an amount exactly equal to the tax.
Discuss Kaldor’s proposition that a state of full employment is essentially unstable.
In what sense is it true (a) that capital accumulation tends to exhaust investment opportunities and (b) that exhaustion of investment opportunities induces not only stationary conditions but also depression (underemployment)?
Analyze the relation between employment and a general variation (e.g. an increase) of (a) money wage rates (b) real wage rates. What has either case to do with the so-called Ricardo effect?
Discuss Harrod’s “dynamical schema.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. . Harvard University, Final examinations 1853-2001. Box 16, Papers Printed for Final Examinations, History, History of Religions, Government, Economics,….June 1949.

Image Source: Joseph Schumpeter in his Harvard office published in the Harvard Class Album 1946.

Tags Schumpeter

Development Economic History Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Economic Development of China and Japan. Readings and Exam. Rosovsky and Perkins, 1966-1967

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-09-14

True confession: today’s post was inspired by something less than the purest of motives to advance our understanding of the history of economics. Indeed current events inspired me to check my files of Harvard educational materials to see if I had anything related to Henry Rosovsky who rose from mild-mannered economics professordom to the status of an academic mover-and-shaker at the pinnacle of the Harvard administrative hierarchy. But wait, there’s more. Like pre-President Donald J. Trump, Dean Rosovsky was among the contributors to the 50th Birthday Album of Jeffrey Epstein and it is there that we find the specially commissioned piece of art of Annie Sprinkle, “Tit Print ’2002”.

Image from House Oversight The First Fifty Years, pp. 167-168.
“Request No. 1.pdf” as long as supplies last.

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Now that Economics in the Rear-view Mirror’s click-bait has you on its line, read on to find something about the course on the economic development of China and Japan jointly offered by Henry Rosovsky and his colleague Dwight Perkins during the fall term of 1966-67 at Harvard.

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Memorial Minute —
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Henry Rosovsky, 95

At a meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on May 2, 2023, the following tribute to the life and service of the late Henry Rosovsky was spread upon the permanent records of the Faculty.

Henry Rosovsky, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Emeritus, died on Nov. 11, 2022, at the age of 95. Twice dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), twice acting president of the University, and the only active faculty member to serve on the Harvard Corporation since the 1880s, Henry was one of Harvard’s great leaders in the 20th century and probably the most important dean of the FAS ever.

Born in 1927 in the Free City of Danzig, Henry fled the Nazi occupation and arrived in America in 1940. Immediately following the war, he served in the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps in occupied Germany, where he interviewed former Wehrmacht officers under the Allied-imposed denazification program and attended the Nuremberg trials. Returning to the U.S., he graduated from William and Mary on the G.I. Bill. Returning to the army, he served in wartime Korea and then in occupied Japan, where he learned Japanese and had his interest piqued by the country’s economic and cultural modernization.

After his second army stint, Henry entered graduate school at Harvard to study economics and was elected to the Society of Fellows. Writing his dissertation on Japanese capital formation between the Meiji Restoration and World War II, he earned his Ph.D. in 1959 and joined the Department of Economics at Berkeley. Dismayed by Berkeley’s student unrest, however, in 1965 he returned to Harvard as a professor of economics.

Back at Harvard, Henry played an increasingly central role within the FAS. In 1968 he chaired a committee that recommended a program to grant degrees in African and Afro-American Studies. The next year he became chairman of the Department of Economics. In 1973 President Derek Bok appointed him Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

For Henry, serving as dean was akin to an art form. His approach to the job was intensely personal. He understood that he was managing not Ford or IBM but a medium-sized (just over 400 tenured professors) collection of highly motivated individuals. He spent his time engaging with his faculty, not his staff. When he needed to make decisions regarding proposals not already within his sphere of direct knowledge, he would ask which half-dozen professors most wanted it to happen. He figured he would already know some of them well enough to understand their motivation and would sit down over lunch to talk with the others; then he would decide. He intuitively understood human aspirations and ambitions, and they fascinated him. He saw his role as fostering his faculty’s individual aims and nurturing their talent, while, nonetheless, maintaining a harmonious setting for a group enterprise.

Crucially for Harvard at that time, this personal approach built trust among his faculty. When Henry became dean, the divisions left from the 1960s student uprising were still bitter. Within the FAS, separate liberal and conservative “caucuses” met regularly, and tension between them impeded progress on multiple fronts. With Henry as dean, both groups soon disbanded. As many faculty members explained, “We all trust Henry.” Once the divisiveness dissipated, Henry was able to advance important educational reforms, most notably the Core Curriculum — the first restructuring of Harvard’s undergraduate General Education since its introduction in 1949. Another key achievement was reducing graduate school admissions in response to the end of the extraordinary post-war growth surge in American higher education.

Part of what made Henry’s personal touch so effective was his keen awareness of his own unusual insider/outsider status: his experience of having had his life turned upside down; the humiliation of flight and refugee rejection; the irony of a Jew standing at the top of one of America’s premier bastions of WASP privilege. In a story that he sometimes recounted, usually with a sardonic yet elegiac tone, one of the former Wehrmacht officers he interviewed after the war asked him, “Sergeant, where did they teach you German? You speak perfectly, but you have the vocabulary of a 10-year-old.” It was vintage Henry: funny, yes, but aching with unspoken loss — of a civilization and the people who created it; of a refugee achiever who had lost a golden youth to hatred.

Another key trait of Henry’s leadership was courage. The African and Afro-American Studies proposal was controversial enough within the academy, but also elicited passions, sometimes ugly ones, more broadly. Al Capp, the newspaper cartoonist long associated with the Li’l Abner strip and a Cambridge resident, launched a vicious campaign to oppose Harvard’s initiative and, in the process, to vilify Rosovsky personally. Henry did not cower before Mr. Capp. His public bravery was a welcome mark of integrity and dedication on the part of American higher education. Years later, when Henry returned as dean for President Bok’s last year, together they went to extraordinary efforts to make two distinguished appointments that cemented the department’s preeminence in the field.

Henry was exceptionally loyal to Harvard as well. In 1977 he was offered the presidency of Yale. At the time, to pick as president someone without a Yale degree — and a Jew besides — was unprecedented. Yet Henry declined, choosing to remain at Harvard and complete the Core Curriculum review, which he guided to faculty approval the next spring. Beyond loyalty, Henry had a deep and abiding love for Harvard, an infectious emotional pull that proved especially effective in his efforts as dean to recruit new faculty members.

Henry was also a stalwart supporter of Harvard’s Jewish community. As dean he helped Harvard Hillel move from Bryant Street to Mount Auburn Street, first in a recently vacated building and then on a plot of open ground where in 1994 Hillel erected a new building: Rosovsky Hall. As Henry famously put it, Hillel at Harvard thereby moved “from the periphery to the center.” Some two decades later, Hillel launched its new capital campaign with a grand dinner celebrating Henry’s 90th birthday.

Henry was devoted to his family: Nitza, his wife of 66 years, who was born a seventh-generation Jerusalemite, and their children, Leah, Judy, and Michael.

Respectfully submitted,

Derek C. Bok
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Michael McCormick
Benjamin M. Friedman, Chair

Source: The Harvard Gazette, 4 May 2023.

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Meet Dwight H. Perkins

Dwight Heald Perkins’ Vita.

Dwight H. Perkins is the Harold Hitchings Burbank Research Professor of Political Economy of Harvard University, where he joined the faculty in 1963. Previous positions at Harvard include Harold Hitchings Burbank Professor of Political Economy, 1963-2006; Associate Director of the East Asian (now Fairbank) Research Center, 1973-1977; chairman of the Department of Economics, 1977-1980; Director of the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), the University’s former multi-disciplinary institute for research, teaching, and technical assistance on development policy,1980-1995; and Director of the Harvard University Asia Center, 2002-2005.

Source: Harvard Square Library. Digital library of Unitarian Universalist biographies, history, books, and media.

Dwight Perkins has authored or edited twelve books and over one hundred articles on economic history and economic development, with special references to the economies of China, Korea, Vietnam and the other nations of east and southeast Asia. Topics include the transition from central planning to the market, long-term agricultural development, industrial policy, the underlying sources of growth in East Asia, and the role of economic and legal institutions in East Asian growth. He has served as an advisor or consultant on economic policy and reform to the governments of Korea, China, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. He has also been a long-term consultant to the World Bank, the Ford Foundation, various private corporations, and agencies of the U.S. government, including the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (then chaired by Senator Henry M. Jackson). He has been a Visiting Professor or Scholar at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo, the University of Washington, and Fudan University in Shanghai. He also served as a Phi Beta Kappa Lecturer at eight colleges and universities around the U.S. in 1993-94. In 1997 he taught for a semester at the Fulbright Economic Training Program in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and has continued to teach in that program for several weeks each year since 1997. He and has given individual lectures to numerous audiences in the U.S., Asia, Europe, and elsewhere. Dwight Perkins served in the U.S. Navy (active duty 1956-58), received his B.A. from Cornell University in Far Eastern Studies in 1956, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 1961 and 1964. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and of various professional organizations in the fields of economics and Asian Studies.

7/2006

Source: Harvard biography page for Dwight H. Perkins from 2016.

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Course Announcement and Description

Economics 146. The Economic Development of China and Japan

Half course (fall term). Tu., Th., S., at 9. Professor H. Rosovsky and Associate Professor D. H. Perkins.

Contrasting problems of economic development in China (pre-Communist and Communist periods) and Japan. Among the topics covered are the role of government in economic development, strategies of development, planning, measurement of national income, and the effect of monetary and fiscal policies on development.

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Courses of Instruction for Harvard and Radcliffe, 1966-1967, p. 113.

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Department of Economics
Economics 14

THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
OF CHINA AND JAPAN

Fall Term, 1966

Professor Henry Rosovsky
Professor Dwight Perkins

Students who haven’t taken Economics 1 or its equivalent or have not taken it recently should read B. Higgins, Economic Development, Chapters 1 and 8 (Section II); P. Samuelson, Economics: An Introductory Analysis (5th Edition), Chapters 32 (Section III), 11 (Section IV), 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 (Section IX); and C. P. Kindleberger, International Economics, Chapter 5.

I. STRATEGY OF DEVELOPMENT

READINGS

China

A. Eckstein, Communist China’s Economic Growth and Foreign Trade, pp. 1-86.

Japan

H. Rosovsky, Capital Formation in Japan, Chapter IV, pp. 55-104.

REFERENCES

China

C. M. Li, Economic Development of Communist China.

Y. L. Wu, The Economy of Communist China.

W. W. Rostow, The Prospects for Communist China (1954).

T. J. Hughes and D.E.T. Luard, The Economic Development of Communist China.

N. R. Chen, The Economy of Mainland China, 1949-1963: A Bibliography of Materials in English.

H. T. Patrick and P. Schran, “Economic Contrasts: China, India and Japan,” Journal of International Affairs, 1963, No. 2, pp. 168-184.

II. PREREQUISITES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

A. The Role of Government

READINGS

China

P. Balazs, Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy, Chapters 1, 3, 4, pp. 3-12, 28-54.

M. Wright, The Last Stand of Chinese Conservatism, Chapters 1, 2, 8.

A. Feuerwerker, China’s Early Industrialization, Chapters 1, 2, 4, 7.

Japan

W. W. Lockwood, The Economic Development of Japan, Chapters 1, 10.

D. S. Landes, “Japan and Europe: Contrasts in Industrialization,” in W. W. Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan, pp. 93-182.

H. Rosovsky, “Japan’s Transition to Modern Economic Growth,” in Rosovsky, ed., Industrialization in Two Systems (1966).

T. C. Smith, Political Change and Industrial Development in Japan (1955).

R. P. Dore, Education in Tokugawa Japan (1965), Chapter X.

B. Entrepreneurship and Other Sociological Prerequisites of Economic Growth.

READINGS

China & Japan

M. J. Levy, “Contrasting Factors in the Modernization of China and Japan,” Kuznets et al., eds., Economic Growth: Brazil, India, Japan, pp. 496-536.

Japan

J. Hirschmeier, “Shibusawa Eiichi: Industrial Pioneer,” in Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan, pp. 209-248.

T. C. Smith, “Landlords’ Sons in the Business Elite,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, IX, I, Part II, October 1960.

G. Ranis, “The Community Centered Entrepreneur in Japanese Development,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, December 1955.

K. I. Choi, “Tokugawa Feudalism and the Emergence of the New Leaders of Early Modern Japan,” Explorations in Entrepreneurial History, Dec. 1956.

REFERENCES

China

T. Metzger, “Ch’ing Commercial Policy,” Ch’ing-Shih Wen-t’i, February 1966.

Japan

W. W. Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Modern Japan, Chapters I, IV, V, VIII.

C. D. Sheldon, The Rise of the Merchant Class in Tokugawa Japan (1958).

H. Passin, Society and Education in Japan (1965), Part II.

J. Hirschmeier, The Origins of Entrepreneurship in Modern Japan (1964).

Elichi Kiyooka (trans.) The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi.

III. EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

READINGS

China & Japan

G. C. Allen, Western Enterprise in Far Eastern Economic Development, Part II.

China

C. M. Hou, “External Trade, Foreign Investment, and Domestic Development: The Chinese Experience, 1840-1937,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. X, No. 1, October 1961, pp. 21-41.

A. Eckstein, op. cit., pp. 135-182.

Japan

W. W. Lockwood, The Economic Development of Japan, Chapters 6, 7.

M. Shinohara, “Economic Development and Foreign Trade in Japan,” in C.D. Cowan, ed., The Economic Development of China and Japan.

REFERENCES

China

C. M. Hou, Foreign Investment and Economic Development in China, 1840-1937.

S. Ishikawa, “Strategy of Foreign Trade Under Planned Economic Development with Special Reference to China’s Experience,” Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, January 1965, pp. 27-57.

IV. NATIONAL INCOME MEASUREMENT

READINGS

China

R. W. Campbell, Soviet Economic Power, Chapter 3.

T. C. Liu and K. C. Yeh, The Economy of the Chinese Mainland, pp. 17-70.

Japan

K. Okawa and H. Rosovsky, “A Century of Japanese Economic Growth,” in Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise in Japan, pp- 47-92.

A. Maddison, “Japanese Economic Performance,” Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, No. 75, December 1965.

REFERENCES

China

A. Eckstein, The National Income of Communist China (1952).

W. W. Hollister, China’s Gross National Product and Social Accounts 1950-1957.

K. Chao, The Rate and Pattern of Industrial Growth in Communist China.

C. M. Li, The Statistical System of Communist China.

S. Ishikawa, National Income and Capital Formation in Mainland China.

Japan

K. Okawa and H. Rosovsky, “Economic Fluctuations in Prewar Japan,” Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, October 1962.

K. Okawa, The Growth Rate of the Japanese Economy.

H. Rosovsky, “The Statistical Measurement of Japanese Economic Growth,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, October 1958.

V. AGRICULTURE

READINGS

China

R. H. Tawney, Land and Labour in China (entire).

D. Perkins, Market Control and Planning in Communist China, Chapters III-IV, pp. 21-98.

Japan

K. Ohkawa and H. Rosovsky, “The Role of Agriculture in Modern Japanese Economic Development,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. IX, No. 1, October 1960, pp. 43-67.

W. W. Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise…, Chapter VI.

R. P. Dore, “Agricultural Improvement in Japan, 1870-1900,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, IX, I, Part II (October 1960).

B. F. Johnston and R. W. Melor, “The Role of Agriculture in Economic Development,” American Economic Review, September 1961.

REFERENCES

China

K. R. Walker, Planning in Chinese Agriculture: Socialization and the Private Sector, 1956-1962.

Japan

T. C. Smith, The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan.

R. P. Dore, Land Reform in Japan.

Japan FAO Organization, A Century of Technical Development in Japanese Agriculture.

VI. CAPITAL

READINGS

R. Nurkse, Problems of Capital formation in Underdeveloped Countries, Introduction, Chapters I-III.

Japan

G. Ranis, “The Financing of Japanese Economic Development,” Economic History Review, XI, 3 (1959), pp. 440-454.

H. Rosovsky, “Capital Formation in Prewar Japan,” in Cowan, ed., The Economic Development of China and Japan.

REFERENCES

China

W. W. Hollister, “Capital Formation in Communist China,” The China Quarterly, January-March 1954, pp. 39-55.

Japan

H. Rosovsky, Capital Formation in Japan, Chapters I-III.

J. C. Abegglen, The Japanese Factory.

T. Watanabe, “Economic Aspects of Dualism in the Industrial Development of Japan,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, April 1965.

VII. PLANNING

READINGS

R. W. Campbell, Soviet Economic Power, Chapter 5.

O. Lange and F. M. Taylor, On the Economic Theory of Socialism, pp. 55-129.

Chou En-lai, “Report on the Proposals for the Second Five-Year Plan for Development of the National Economy,” Bowie and Fairbank, eds., Communist China 1955-1959, Document 11, pp. 216-242.

Li Fu-chun, “On the Big Leap Forward in China’s Socialist Construction,” Bowie and Fairbank, eds., op. cit., Document 47, pp. 587-596.

D. Perkins, Market Control and Planning in Communist China, Chapters V-VI, pp. 99-135.

B. G. Hickman, ed., Quantitative Planning of Economic Policy, Chapters IX & X.

S. Tsuru, “Rapid Growth with Formal Planning Divorced from Action: Japan,” in E. E. Hagen, ed., Planning Economic Development.

REFERENCE

Japanese Government, Economic Planning Agency, New Long-Range Economic Plan of Japan, 1961-1970 (Doubling National Income Plan).

VIII. MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICY

READINGS

China

Chang Kia-ngau, The Inflationary Spiral, The Experience of China, 1939-1950, Chapters 1-5.

D. Perkins, Market Control and Planning in Communist China, Chapter VIII, pp. 154-176.

Japan

H. T. Patrick, “Cyclical Instability and Fiscal-Monetary Policy in Postwar Japan,” in Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise…, pp. 555-618.

H. T. Patrick, “External Equilibrium and Internal Convertibility,” Journal of Economic History, June 1965.

REFERENCES

China

S. H. Chou, The Chinese Inflation, 1937-1949.

A. N. Young, China’s Wartime Finance and Inflation, 1937-1945.

F.H.H. King, Money and Monetary Policy in China, 1845-1895.

Japan

H. T. Patrick, Monetary Policy and Central Banking in Contemporary Japan.

IX. POSTWAR GROWTH IN JAPAN

READINGS

Ohkawa and Rosovsky, “Recent Japanese Growth in Historical Perspective,” American Economic Review, May 1963.

Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise…, Chapter X.

REFERENCES

London Economist, Consider Japan.

G. C. Allen, Japan’s Economic Expansion.

Lockwood, ed., The State and Economic Enterprise…, Chapters XIII, XIV, XV.

S. B. Levine, Industrial Relations in Postwar Japan.

J. B. Cohen, Japan’s Economy, in War and Reconstruction.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 9, Folder “Economics, 1966-1967”.

____________________________

Economics 146
Final Examination
January 1967

Part I

Answer either 1 or 2; 45 minutes

Okawa and Rosovsky have made frequent use of the notion of a “differential structure”. Explain the meaning of the term, and critically discuss the explanatory value and empirical validity of the concept for Japanese economic growth in the twentieth century, and also in the future.
“’There is nothing new under the sun’ does not apply to economics. What has happened to the Japanese economy in the post World War II period is in almost all respects ‘new’.” Discuss both the true and false aspects of this statement.

Part II

Answer question 3; no choice; 45 minutes

The word planning covers many different ways of organizing and controlling an economy. In what sense are China and Japan’s post-war economies planned? How is balance (coordination of inputs and outputs) achieved in the two systems? How is efficiency (more output for a given input or less input for a given output) achieved in the two systems?

Part III

Answer question 4; no choice; 60 minutes

Write an essay on the relevance of the Japanese developmental experience for China. Be specific and make reference to your readings, and make perfectly clear what historical periods are referred to for each country.

Part IV

Write a short paragraph on any four of the following; 30 minutes

1. T’ung Chih Restoration
2. Matsukata Deflation
3. Economic Planning Agency (Keizai Kikaku-Cho)
4. Rural People’s Commune
5. Industrial and commercial tax, i.e., “turnover tax”
6. Treaty Tariff (China)

Source: Harvard University. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Mid-Year Examinations. History, History of Religions, Government, Economics,…, January, 1967.

Image Source: “Henry Rosovsky, Former Harvard FAS Dean, Remembered for Contributions to Undergrad Education and African American Studies,” The Harvard Crimson, 5 December 2022. Cropped and polished by Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

Tags Perkins, Rosovsky

Economic History Exam Questions Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. European and U.S. Economic History. Reading Lists and Exams. Gay, 1908-09

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-03-04

This post provides the double dose of economic history taught by Professor Edwin Francis Gay at Harvard in the 1908-09 academic year. I have transcribed the reading lists and final exams for the courses covering 19th century European economic history and United States economic history below.

A short bibliography for “serious students” of economic history assembled by Gay and published in 1910 was posted earlier.

__________________________

Economic History Materials
Posted Earlier

Economic History of the United States

1901-02. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague and J.H. Patten]

1902-03. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1903-04. Economics 6. Economic History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1904-05. Economics 6. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [O.M.W. Sprague]

1905-06. Economics 6. Economic and Financial History of the United States [with Frank W. Taussig]

1906-07. Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 6b. Economic and Financial History of the United States. [E.F. Gay]

European Economic History

1902-03. Economics 10. The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1904-05. Economics 10. The Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay, only one student enrolled, no printed exam available]

1905-06. Economics 10. Mediaeval Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1906-07. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1908-09. Economics 6a. European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century. [E.F. Gay]

1902-03. Economics 11. Economic History of Europe since 1500. [E.F. Gay]

1903-04. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1904-05. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1905-06. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

1907-08. Economics 11. Modern Economic History of Europe. [E.F. Gay]

Other Economic History Material

1903-04. Economics 24. General Outlines of Agrarian History. [E.F. Gay]

E.F. Gay and A. P. Usher’s economic history exams from 1930 through 1949.

__________________________

Course Enrollment
19th Century European Economic History, 1908-09

Economics 6a ¹hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. M. T. [Melvin Thomas] Copeland — European Industry and Commerce in the Nineteenth Century.

Total 109: 11 Graduates, 28 Seniors, 48 Juniors, 19 Sophomores, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1908-1909, p. 67.

__________________________

Reading List
19th Century European Economic History, 1908-09

ECONOMICS 6a (1908)

Required Reading is indicated by an asterisk (*)

GENERAL CONDITIONS. – COLONIAL POLICY.

*Smith, Colonial Policy of Europe, in Rand (4th ed.), pp. 1-30.

*Seeley, Expansion of England (ed. 1883), pp. 98-160.

Warner, Landmarks in English Industrial History, pp. 281-300.

Mantoux, La Révolution Industrielle, pp. 73-125.

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.

*Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, pp. 32-93,

*Hobson, Evolution of Modern Capitalism, pp. 10-82.

Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. III, pp. 609-619.

Walpole, History of England, Vol. I, pp. 50-76. (Rand, pp. 31-54.)

Wallas, Life of Francis Place, pp. 197-240.

Hutchins and Harrison, History of Factory Legislation, pp. 14-42.

Webb, History of Trade Unionism, pp. 1-101.

Mantoux, La Révolution Industrielle, pp. 349-502.

AGRARIAN MOVEMENT. – CONTINENT.

*Von Sybel, French Revolution, in Rand, pp. 55-85.

*Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, Vol. I, pp. 287-297. (Rand, pp. 86-98.)

*Morier, Agrarian Legislation of Prussia, in “Systems of Land Tenure,” pp. 267-275. (Rand, pp. 98-108.)

Colman, European Agriculture (2d ed.), Vol. I1, pp. 371-394.

Flour de St. Genis, La Propriétée Rurale, pp. 80-164.

De Foville, Le Morcellement, pp. 52-89.

Goltz, Agrarwesen und Agrarpolitik, pp. 40-50.

AGRARIAN MOVEMENT. – ENGLAND.

*Taylor, Decline of Land-Owning Farmers in England, pp. 1-61.

Brodrick, English Land and English Landlords, pp. 65-240.

Prothero, Pioneers and Progress of English Farming, pp. 64-103.

Caird, English Agriculture in 1850, pp. 473-528.

Colman, European Agriculture (2d ed.), Vol. I, pp. 10-109, 133-174

THE FREE TRADE MOVEMENT. – ENGLAND.

*Levi, History of British Commerce, pp. 218-227, 261-272, 292-303. (Rand, pp. 207-241.)

*Morley, Life of Cobden, Vol. I, pp. 140-172, 355-389.

Ashworth, Recollections of Cobden and the League, pp. 32-64,

296-392.

Prentice, History of the Anti-Corn Law League, Vol. I, pp. 49-77.

Parker, Sir Robert Peel from his Private Letters, Vol. II, pp. 522-559; Vol. III, pp. 220-252.

THE TARIFF. – CONTINENT.

*Ashley, Modern Tariff History, pp. 3-62, 301-312, [267-300]

Worms, L’Allemagne Economique, pp. 57-393.

Amé, Les Tarifs de Douanes, Vol. I, pp. 21-34, 219-316.

Perigot, Histoire de Commerce Français, pp. 77-185.

FINANCE.

*Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Vol. III (ed. 1903), pp. 689-703, 822-829, 833-840.

*Hobson, Evolution of Modern Capitalism, pp. 167-219.

Tugan-Baranowsky, Studien zur Theorie und Geschichte der Handelskrisen in England, pp. 38-54, 62-121.

Giffen, Growth of Capital, pp. 115-134.

Macleod, Theory and Practice of Banking (4th ed.), Vol. I, pp. 433-540; Vol. II, pp. 1-197

Bastable, Public Finance, Bk. V, chaps. 3 and 4 (3d ed.), pp. 629-657

THE NEW GOLD.

*Cairnes, Essays, pp. 53-108. (Rand, pp. 242-284.)

*Chevalier. On Gold (3d English ed.), pp. 1-9, 40-71, 99-106.

Jevons, Investigations in Currency and Finance, pp. 34-92.

Leroy-Beaulieu, Traité d’Economie Politique, Vol. III, pp. 192-238.

Giffen, Economic Inquiries and Studies, Vol. I, pp. 75-97.

TRANSPORTATION. – ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

*Hadley, Railroad Transportation, pp. 146-202, 236-258.

Ross, British Railways, pp. 1-36.

—— The Railway Clearing House, pp. 7-28.

Findlay, Working and Management of an English Railway (6th ed.), pp. 262-322.

Meyer, Governmental Regulation of Railway Rates, pp. 123-132.

Colson, Legislation des Chemins de Fer, pp. 3-20, 133-182.

Kaufmann, Die Eisenbahnpolitik Frankreichs, Vol. II, pp. 178-284.

Guillamot, L’Organisation des Chemins de Fer, pp. 82-120.

Forbes and Ashford, Our Waterways, pp. 107-137.

Colson, Transports et Tarifs, pp. 80-145.

Léon, Fleuves, Canaux, Chemins de Fer, pp. 1-70.

TRANSPORTATION. – GERMANY AND RUSSIA.

*Meyer, Governmental Regulation of Railway Rates, pp. 93-122, 133-188.

Hadley, Railroad Transportation, pp. 203-235.

Mayer, Geschichte und Geographie des Deutschen Eisenbahnen, pp. 3-14.

Leuschau, Deutsche Wasserstrassen, pp. 9-56, 95-162.

De Koulomzine, Le Transsibérien, pp. 1-53, 261-312.

COMMERCE AND SHIPPING.

*Meeker, History of Shipping Subsidies, pp. 1-95.

*Bowley, England’s Foreign Trade in the Nineteenth Century (ed. 1905), pp. 55-107.

Fry, History of North Atlantic Steam Navigation, pp. 55-106, 207-249.

Cornewall-Jones, British Merchant Service, pp. 252-260, 306-317.

Day, History of Commerce, pp. 373-379, 399-405.

LeRoux de Bretagne, Les Primes à la Marine Marchande, pp. 93-224.

Rossignol, Le Canal de Suez, pp. 23-148.

AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.

*Report on Agricultural Depression, 1897, pp. 6-87.

Pratt, Organization of Agriculture, pp. 1-104, 269-391.

Haggard, Rural England, Vol. I1, pp. 536-576.

Channing, Truth about the Agricultural Depression, pp. 1-59, 311-320.

Arch, Autobiography, pp. 65-144, 300-345.

Fillmore, Agricultural Laborer, pp. 12-24.

Winfrey, Progress of Small Holdings Movement, Econ. Jour., Vol. XVI, pp. 222-229.

Plunkett, Ireland in the New Century (ed. 1905), pp. 175-209.

Bastable, Some Features of the Economic Movement in Ireland, Econ. Jour., Vol. XI, pp. 31-42.

Imbart de la Tour, Le Crise Agricole, pp. 24-34, 127-223.

Bretano, Agrarian Reform in Prussia, Econ, Jour., Vol. VII, pp. 1-20, 165-184.

RECENT TARIFF HISTORY.

*Smart, Return to Protection, pp. 7-44, 136-185, 284-259.

Ashley, W. J., Tariff Problem, pp. 53-167.

Ashley, P., Modern Tariff History, pp. 78-112, 313-358.

Dawson, Protection in Germany, pp. 17-160.

Dietzel, German Tariff Controversy, Q.J.E., Vol. XVII, pp. 365-417.

Zimmermann, Deutsche Handelspolitik, pp. 218-314.

Fisher, Protectionist Reaction in France, Econ. Jour., Vol. VI, pp. 341-355.

Meredith, Protection in France, pp. 54-129.

INDUSTRIAL COMBINATION.

*Macrosty, Trust Movement in British Industry, pp. 24-56, 81-84, 117-154, 284-307, 329-345.

*Report of Industrial Commission, Vol. XVIII, pp. 7-13, 75-88, 101-122, 143-165.

Report of Industrial Commission, Vol. XVIII, pp. 14-38.

Smith, New Trades Combination Movement, pp. 1-96.

Walker, Monopolistic Combinations in Europe, Pol. Sci. Quart., Vol. XX, pp. 13-41.

———, Combinations in German Coal Industry, pp. 38-111, 175-289, 322-327.

Liefmann, Kartelle und Trusts, pp. 22-32.

Baumgarten und Meszlény, Kartelle und Trusts, pp. 83-152.

LABOR, COÖPERATIVE MOVEMENT.

*Bowley, Wages in the United Kingdom, pp. 22-57, 81-127.

*Ashley, W. J., Progress of German Working Classes, pp. 60-65, 74-141, [1-52].

Shadwell, Industrial Efficiency, Vol. II, pp. 307-350.

Giffen, Essays in Finance (2d series), pp. 372-474.

Howell, Labor Legislation, pp. 447-499.

Webb, Trade Unionism, pp. 344-478.

Willoughby, Workingmen’s Insurance, pp. 29-87.

Gide, Productive Coöperation in France, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 30-66.

Bertrand, Le Mouvement Coopératif en Belgique, Rev. d’Econ. Pol., Vol. XIII, pp. 668-694.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 394-397, 407-413.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1908-1909”.

__________________________

ECONOMICS 6a
19th Century European Economic History
Mid-year Examination, 1908-09

Toynbee says concerning the English yeomanry: “It was not till about 1760 that the process of extinction became rapid. … It was the political conditions of the age, the overwhelming importance of land, which made it impossible for the yeoman to keep his grip upon the soil.”
Von Sybel states that in France prior to the Revolution “a middle class of proprietors, substantial enough to derive from their land a sufficient livelihood, and yet humble enough to be bound to constant and diligent labor, was entirely wanting. … But what the movement of 1789 did produce is this middle class of proprietors.”
Comment on these statements. How, furthermore, do you account for the divergence of development between French and English agrarian conditions
(1) Criticise the following statements:
“Il est évident que nous serious plus riches si nos exportations avaient été plus considérables et nos importations moines fortes.” — Méline.
“It is a mathematical truth that if imports come into this country of manufactured goods which we can make as well as any other nation, they must displace labor.” — Mr. Chamberlain.
(2) “What brings great changes of policy is the shifting and readjustments of interests, not the discovery of new principles.” — John Morley.
Illustrate this from the tariff history of Germany, France, and England.

“Ability to compete in the world’s market is a vital matter for Germany. …To this achievement the State railways have contributed in the past practically nothing. … Nor will the railways be able to do much more in the future than they have done in the past.” Who says this? Give the arguments for and against this view.
Discuss the recent agricultural depression in England.
(1) Compare concisely the trust movement in England, Germany, and France.
(2) What were the provisions of the Austrian bill of 1897 to regulate industrial combinations?
The Report of the Industrial Commission says that “France is less developed industrially than England and Germany.” What does this mean? Can such a statement be verified by the comparison of statistics? If so, what statistics would you use? What are the chief factors which have determined industrial development in the nineteenth century, and why, in your opinion, have they not operated equally in the three countries named?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examination Papers, 1873-1915. Box 8, Bound vol. Examination Papers 1908-09; Papers Set for Final Examinations in History, Government, Economics,…,Music in Harvard College (June, 1909), pp. 37-38.

________________________

Course Enrollment
United States Economic History
1908-09

Economics 6b ²hf. Professor Gay, assisted by Mr. M. T. [Melvin Thomas] Copeland — Economic and Financial History of the United States.

Total 198: 15 Graduates, 41 Seniors, 87 Juniors, 41 Sophomores, 7 Freshmen, 7 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1908-1909, p. 68.

________________________

Reading List
United States Economic History
ECONOMICS 6b (1909)

Required Reading is indicated by an asterisk (*)

COLONIAL PERIOD.

*Ashley, Commercial Legislation of England and the American Colonies, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 1-29; printed also in Ashley’s Surveys, pp. 309-335.

*Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, pp. 36-51.

McMaster, History of the People of the United States, Vol. I, pp. 1-102.

Eggleston, Transit of Civilization, pp. 273-307.

Beer, Commercial Policy of England, pp. 5-158.

Rabbeno, American Commercial Policy, pp. 3-91.

Lord, Industrial Experiments in the British Colonies of North America, pp. 56-86, 124-139.

1776-1860.

COMMERCE, MANUFACTURES, AND TARIFF.

*Taussig, Tariff History of the United States, pp. 68-154.

*Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, in Taussig’s State Papers and Speeches on the Tariff, pp. 1-79, 103-107, (79-103).

Bolles, Industrial History of the United States, Book II, pp. 403-426.

Bishop, History of American Manufactures, Vol. II, pp. 256-505.

Pitkin, Statistical View of the Commerce of the United States (ed. 1835), pp. 368-412.

Gallatin, Free Trade Memorial, in Taussig’s State Papers, pp. 108-213.

Rabbeno, American Commercial Policy, pp. 146-183.

Hill, First Stages of the Tariff Policy of the United States, Amer. Econ. Assoc. Pub., Vol. VIII, pp. 107-132.

INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.

*Callender, Early Transportation and Banking Enterprises, Q.J.E., Vol. XVII, pp. 111-162; printed also separately, pp. 3-54.

Tenth United States Census (1880), Vol. IV, Thos. C. Purdy’s Reports on History of Steam Navigation in the United States, pp. 1-62, and History of Operating Canals in the United States, pp. 1-32.

Chevalier, Society, Manners and Politics in the United States, pp. 80-87, 209-276.

Ringwalt, Development of Transportation Systems in the United States, pp. 41-54, 64-166.

Phillips, History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt, pp. 46-131.

Bishop, State Works of Pennsylvania, pp. 150-261.

Gallatin, Plan of Internal Improvements, Amer. State Papers, Misc., Vol. I, pp. 724-921 (see especially maps, pp. 744, 762, 764, 820, 830).

Pitkin, Statistical View (1835), pp. 531-581.

Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, Vol. II, pp. 417-424.

AGRICULTURE AND LAND POLICY. — WESTWARD MOVEMENT.

*Hart, Practical Essays on American Government, pp. 233-257 printed also in Q.J.E., Vol. I, pp. 169-183, 251-254.

*Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 67-119.

*Semple, American History and its Geographic Conditions, pp. 52-74.

Turner, Significance of the Frontier in American History, in Report of Amer. Hist. Assoc., 1893, pp. 199-227.

Donaldson, Public Domain, pp. 1-29, 196-239, 332-356.

Hibbard, History of Agriculture in Dane County, Wisconsin, pp. 86-90, 105-133.

Sanborn, Congressional Grants of Land in Aid of Railways, Bulletin of Univ. of Wisconsin Econ., Pol. Sci. and Hist. Series, Vol. II, No. 3, pp. 269-354.

Hart, History as Told by Contemporaries, Vol. III, pp. 459-478.

THE SOUTH AND SLAVERY.

*Cairnes, The Slave Power (2d ed.), pp. 32-103, 140-178.

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 34-66.

Russell, North America, its Agriculture and Climate, pp. 133-167.

De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (ed. 1838), pp. 336-361, or eds. 1841 and 1848, Vol. I, pp. 386-412.

Helper, Compendium of the Impending Crisis of the South, pp. 7-61.

Ballagh, Land System of the South, Publications of Amer. Hist. Assoc., 1897, pp. 101-129.

FINANCE, BANKING AND CURRENCY.

*Dewey, Financial History of the United States, pp. 34-59, 76-117, 224-246, 252-262.

*Catterall, The Second Bank of the United States, pp. 1-24, 68-119, 376 map, 402-403, 464-477.

Bullock, Essays on the Monetary History of the United States, pp. 60-93.

Hamilton, Reports on Public Credit, Amer. State Papers, Finance, Vol. I, pp. 15-37, 64-76.

Kinley, History of the Independent Treasury, pp. 16-39.

Sumner, Andrew Jackson (ed. 1886), pp. 224-249, 257-276, 291-342.

Ross, Sinking Funds, pp. 21-85.

Scott, Repudiation of State Debts, pp. 33-196.

Bourne, History of the Surplus Revenue of 1837, pp. 1-43, 125-135.

Conant, History of Modern Banks of Issue, pp. 310-347.

1860-1900.

FINANCE, BANKING AND CURRENCY.

*Mitchell, History of the Greenbacks, pp. 3-43, 403-420.

*Noyes, Thirty Years of American Finance, pp. 1-72, 234-254, (73-233).

Taussig, Silver Situation in the United States, pp. 1-157.

Dunbar, National Banking System, Q.J.E., Vol. XII, pp. 1-26; printed also in Dunbar’s Economic Essays, pp. 227-247.

Howe, Taxation and Taxes in the United States under the Internal Revenue System, pp. 136-262.

Tenth United States Census (1880), Vol. VII; Bayley, History of the National Loans, pp. 369-392, 444-486.

TRANSPORTATION.

*Hadley, Railroad Transportation, pp. 1-23, 125-145.

*Johnson, American Railway Transportation, pp. 24-68, 307-321, 367-385.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 466-481.

Adams, Chapters of Erie, pp. 1-99, 333-429.

Davis, The Union Pacific Railway, Annals of the Amer. Acad., Vol. VIII, pp. 259-303.

Villard, Memoirs, Vol. II, pp. 284-312.

Dixon, Interstate Commerce Act as Amended, Q.J.E., Vol. XXI, pp. 22-51.

COMMERCE AND SHIPPING.

*Meeker, History of Shipping Subsidies, pp. 150-171.

Meeker, Shipping Subsidies, Pol. Sci. Quart., Vol. XX, pp. 594-611.

Soley, Maritime Industries of the United States, in Shaler’s United States, Vol. I, pp. 518-618.

McVey, Shipping Subsidies, J. Pol. Ec., Vol. IX, pp. 24-46.

Wells, Our Merchant Marine, pp. 1-94.

Day, History of Commerce, pp. 553-575.

AGRICULTURE AND OPENING OF THE WEST.

*Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 43-123, 134-167.

*Noyes, Recent Economic History of the United States, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 167-187.

Twelfth United States Census (1900), Vol. V, pp. xvi-xlii.

Hammond, Cotton Industry, pp. 120-226.

Quaintance, Influence of Farm Machinery, pp. 1-103.

Adams, The Granger Movement, North American Review, Vol. CXX, pp. 394-424.

Bemis, Discontent of the Farmer, J. Pol. Ec., Vol. I, pp. 193-213.

INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION.

*Twelfth United States Census (1900), Vol. VII, pp. clxx-clxxviii.

*Noyes, Thirty Years of American Finance, pp. 113-152, 182-233.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIX, pp. 485-519, 544-569.

Twelfth Census, Vol. IX, pp. 1-16; Vol. X, pp. 725-748.

Wells, Recent Economic Changes, pp. 70-113.

Sparks, National Development, pp. 37-52.

THE TARIFF.

*Taussig, Tariff History, pp. 155-229, 321-360.

Stanwood, American Tariff Controversies, Vol. II, pp. 243-394.

Taussig, Iron Industry, Q.J.E., Vol. XIV, pp. 143-170, 475-508.

Taussig, Wool and Woolens, Q.J.E., Vol. VIII, pp. 1-39.

Taussig, Sugar, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CI, pp. 334-344.

Wright, Wool-growing and the Tariff since 1890, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, p. 610-647.

Robinson, History of Two Reciprocity Treaties, pp. 9-17, 40-77, 141-156.

Laughlin and Willis, Reciprocity, pp. 311-487.

INDUSTRIAL CONCENTRATION.

*Willoughby, Integration of Industry in the United States, Q.J.E., Vol. XVI, pp. 94-115.

*Noyes, Recent Economic History of the United States, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 188-209.

Twelfth Census, Vol. VII, pp. cxc-ccxiv.

Industrial Commission, Vol. XIII, pp. v-xviii.

Bullock, Trust Literature, Q.J.E., Vol. XV, pp. 167-217.

THE LABOR PROBLEM.

*Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 502-547.

United States Bureau of Labor Bulletins, No. 18 (Sept., 1898), pp. 665-670; No. 30 (Sept., 1900), pp. 913-915; No. 53 (July, 1904), pp. 703-728.

Levassesur, American Workman, pp. 436-509.

Mitchell, Organized Labor, pp. 391-411.

Twelfth Census, Special Report on Employees and Wages, p. xcix.

National Civic Federation, Industrial Conciliation, pp. 40-48, 141-154, 238-243, 254-266.

POPULATION, IMMIGRATION AND THE RACE QUESTION.

* United States Census Bulletin, No. 4 (1903), pp. 5-38.

*Industrial Commission, Vol. XV, pp. xix-lxiv.

Adams and Sumner, Labor Problems, pp. 68-112.

Mayo-Smith, Emigration and Immigration, pp. 33-78.

Walker, Discussions in Economies and Statistics, Vol. II, pp. 417-451.

Hoffmann, Race Traits and Tendencies of the American Negro, pp. 250-309.

Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America, pp. 102-228.

Twelfth Census Bulletin, No. 8.

United States Bureau of Labor Bulletins, Nos. 14, 22, 32, 35, 37, 38, 48.

Washington, Future of the American Negro, pp. 3-244.

Stone, A Plantation Experiment, Q.J.E., Vol. XIX, pp. 270-287.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics 1895-2003. Box 1, Folder “Economics, 1908-1909”.

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United States Economic History
ECONOMICS 6b
Year-end Examination, 1909

Compare the financial history of the United States during the period 1829-1840 with that of the period 1880-1896.
Trace briefly the relation between tariff legislation and the public revenue since the establishment of the Independent Treasury.
—
1. Comment on the following (from President Grant’s message of 1870):—
  “Building ships and navigating them utilizes vast capital at home; it creates a home market for the farm and the shop; it diminishes the balance of trade against us precisely to the extent of freights and passage money paid to American vessels, and gives us a supremacy of the seas of inestimable value in case of foreign war.”
2. Was the balance of trade before 1870 “favorable” or “unfavorable” to the United States? Why?
Sketch the history of wheat-growing in the United States: changes in geographical location, markets, and prices.
What is meant by the integration of industry? How far has it affected, and how far do you think it will affect, the following industries: Cotton; woolen; iron; sugar; tobacco; boots and shoes? Give reasons.
(a) The distribution of immigrants in the different industries as shown by the Industrial Commission report. (b) The alien contract labor law.
State briefly what you consider to be the most significant point brought out in your thesis for this course.

Image Source: John George Brown, The Longshoremen’s Noon, 1879, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase, Gallery Fund), 2014.136.2. From the National Gallery of Art’s web-page “Industrial Revolution.”

Tags Gay

Exam Questions International Economics Northwestern Problem Sets Syllabus

Northwestern. Reading List and Exams for International Trade and Finance. Harwitz, 1962

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2025-03-03

The following course materials were found in Robert Clower’s papers at Duke University’s Economists’ Papers Archive. Clower collaborated with Mitchell Harwitz (MIT Ph.D., 1959) on a few papers and kept some of Harwitz’s course materials from their years together at Northwestern.

The course offers us some insight into International Economics à la Charles Kindleberger as taught by one of his former M.I.T. doctoral students.

____________________________

AEA Members Listing 1991

HARWITZ, MITCHELL, SUNY Buffalo, Dept. Econ, Buffalo, NY 14260.
Birth Yr: 1934.
Degrees: B.A., Brandeis U. 1954; Ph.D. M.I.T., 1959
Prin. Cur. Position: Assoc. Prof., SUNY at Buffalo, 1964
Concurrent/Past Positions: Asst. Prof., Northwestern U., 1958-64
Research: Temporal-spatial choice theory, labor coops with complex contracts.

Source: AEA Biographical Listing, 1993, p. 205

____________________________

Economics Ph.D., M.I.T. 1959

Dissertation: On Some Problems in the Dynamic Theories of International Trade and Economic Growth

Advisor: Charles Poor Kindleberger

Source: Mathematics Genealogy Project.

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LECTURE AND READING LIST

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Economics B-60
International Trade and Finance

Winter, 1962
Mr. Harwitz

There are a total of 36 class hours, of which two are devoted to mid-term examinations and three remain for reviews. The mid-term grades will constitute about 40% of the final grade.

The text is C. P. Kindleberger, International Economics, hereafter called K.

There will be a homework exercise on balance of payments accounting handed out after the January 11 lecture.

Date of Lecture	Topic				Reading
1/8	Introduction and review				K, Ch. 1 Optional: Samuelson, Economics, Ch. 31, Ch. 32 and Appendix
	I. Balance of Payments and FX Markets
1/9,10		A. Balance of Payments
			1. Relation of B of P to National Income Accounts		K, Ch. 2
			2. Relation of items of B of P to FX markets
		B. FX Markets			K, Ch. 3
1/11			1. Equilibrium in FX markets		K, Ch. 24
1/15-17			2. Dynamics of FX market adjustment		K, Ch. 4
				a. Fixed exchange rates
				b. Fluctuating exchange rates
				c. Exchange control
	II. Current Account: Trade Theory
1/18,22		A. Supply			K, Ch. 5. – handout
1/23-4		B. Demand			K, Ch. 6
1/25		C. Trends in Supply and Demand			K, Ch. 7
1/29-30		D. Comparative Statics of FX equilibria			K, Ch. 9
1/31-2/1		E. Comparative statics of income equilibria			K, Ch. 10
2/5	[FIRST] EXAMINATION
	III. Current Account: Commercial Policy
2/6,7		A. Tariffs			K. 12
2/8		B. Selected alternative devices			Handout
	IV. Capital Account
2/12		A. Short-term capital movements			K, Ch. 17
2/13-14		B. Private and public lending			K, Ch. 19
2/15,19		C. Direct investment			K, Ch. 20
2/20		D. Capital accounts in the course of development			K, Ch. 21
	V. Transfers and government assistance
2/21-2					K, Ch. 23
2/25	[SECOND] EXAMINATION
	VI. Disequilibria and adjustment mechanisms
2/27		A. Reprise on equilibrium			K, Ch. 24
2/28, 3/1,5		B. Types of disequilibria and related adjustment			K, Ch. 28
3/12	FINAL EXAMINATION, 8-10 A.M.

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Exercise in Balance of Payments Accounting

Economics B-60
DUE: JANUARY 18

Winter, 1962
January 11, 1962

From the information that follows, construct a balance of payments statement for the U.S. for the month of January, 1962, during all these transactions take place. Write out the statement showing both debits and credits, as well as the net figures, classified in the format used in Table 2.2 of the text. In addition, provide a memorandum note justifying each of your entries.

Transactions

An American clothing manufacturer buys $5000 worth of English tweed for suiting, paying with a ninety-day draft on the sterling account of his own American commercial bank.
An American automobile dealer buys $10,000 worth of English Ford carss from a distributor in New York, paying to the distributor’s bank in New York.
An individual American buys a Rolls-Royce for delivery in England, paying in advance with a check in dollars to the English dealer, in the amount of $6,000.
An American electric power producer contracts to purchase an electric generator costing $100,000 from an English engineering firm, with delivery to be made in June. A down payment of $100,000 is made in dollars to the New York account of the British firm.
An English appliance dealer buys American refrigerators worth $25,000, paying with dollars purchased fron its English bank.
An English film distributer rents a Hollywood film for £10,000, paying the sterling into the English account of the Holywood producer.
An American sugar broker sells a ninety day future on Cuban sugar to a British importer for $15,000, taking payment in dollars from the New York account of the importer.
An English steel making consortium pays its current share, $100,000, into a dollar account to help defray the expenses of a new mining venture. $50,000 is provided out of the group’s own dollar holdings, and the rest is purchased from the dollar holdings of British banks.
An American investor buys 90-day British treasury bills on the London market with £5,000 bought in New York banks and £10,000 bought from London banks.
The British Exchequer makes a special repayment of lend-lease debt of $100,000 by turning over earmarked gold in New York.
An American bank decreases its hedged working balances in London by $50,000.
An Englishman receives, in England, interest coupons worth $1,000, showing accumulated interest on part of his holding of U.S, railroad bonds. He discounts them with his bank.

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NOTES ON THE
BALANCE OF PAYMENTS PROBLEM

Economics B-60

January 24, 1962
Mr. Harwitz

Apparently standard errors

Impors and exports are recorded as they clear ports. Thus, the Rolls-Royce represents an increase in assets owned abroad by Americans, not an import. A similar remark holds for the signing of the generator contract. Such timing errors should not throw the Balance of Payments out of balance, but they should affect the accuracy of your division between the current and the capital accounts.
There was a very clear correlation between working out a careful debit and credit account for each transaction and getting a consistent set of accounts. The resulting accounts might, of course, differ from mine on grounds of interpretation or timing. But they would balance.
Misuse of “errors and omissions” account. This account is non-zero only because reporting in the real world does not cover both ends of every transaction. Since both ends of every transaction were given to you, it should have been clear that no balancing account was necessary.

The Balance of Payments Exercise

I shall indicate how each of the transactions should be handled, and then draw up the resulting accounts. There are no errors and omissions, so there will be no such entry in the accounts. (-) means debit and (+) means credit.

The purchase of tweed is an import, and therefore a debit, and the matching credit is an increase in U.S. obligations abroad, a capital inflow. The inflow would be cancelled, and replaced by a credit arising from a decrease in U.S. assets abroad, when the draft is actually cashed at the importer’s bank.

Import: – $5000
Increase in s/t liabilities to abroad: + $5000

There are two alternative ways to treat this transaction. The first is to assume that the distributor is an American firm, in which case the transaction is purely internal to the U.S. if the cars have already been brought into New York by the distributor. The second is to assume that the distributor is British, and that the American buyer is taking delivery in New York, or, equivalently, that the American buyer is placing an order that actually required an import by the distributor doing business in New York. In my own accounts, I shall use the first (lazy man’s) interpretation, but the second, if used, would lead to:

Import: -$10,000
Increase in s/t liabilities to abroad: + $10,000

Since the Rolls has not crossed the border of the U.S., the appropriate debit entry is an increase in U.S. assets abroad. The matching credit entry is an increase in s/t liabilities to abroad (the increase in British holdings of U.S. dollars).

Increase in s/t assets abroad: – $6000
Increase in s/t liabilities to abroad: + $6,000

There was an error in my original typescript, and the total cost of the machinery should have read $1,000,000, not $100,000 as it did. I don’t think this affects the balance of payments very seriously, however. I would be inclined to treat this transaction as made up of an increase in a l/t assets abroad (consisting of the paid-up portion of the contract) and a matching credit arising from an increase in British holdings of U.S. dollars. Thus

Increase in l/t assete abroad: – $100,000
Increase in s/t liabilities to abroad: + $100,000

One could argue, however, that with the correct cost figure the entry should be an increase in l/t assets abroad of $1,000,000, with a matching credit entry of $1,000,000, arising 10% from an increase in British holdings of dollars and 90% from the contractual promise to pay the remaining $900,000.

This transaction is perfectly simple. The export is a credit, and the matching debit is a decrease in s/t liabilities to abroad, which arises from the “repatriation” of U.S. dollars.

Export: +25,000
Decrease in s/t liabilities to abroad: -$25,000

The export of sevices is a credit, and the matching debit is an increase in U.S. assets abroad (in this case an increase in American ownership of English pounds), that is, a capital outflow.

Export of services: +$28,000
Increase in s/t assets abroad: – $28,000

Here, as elsewhere in the exercise, I convert figures in pounds sterling into dollars at the official rate of $2.80/£.

Here, a short-tern foreign asset of the U.S. (a claim for future delivery of non-U.S. sugar) is sold, giving rise to a credit. The matching debit is the decrease in foreign-owned U.S. government liabilities.

Decrease in s/t U.S. assets abroad: + $15,000
Decrease in s/t liabilities to abroad: – $15,000

There are two alternatives here. The first is to assume that the dollar account of the consortium or joint venture is held in the U.S. In this case, the debit entry is a decrease in dollar holdings abroad ($50,000 held by banks, $50,000 held in private banking accounts by members of the consortium), matching a $100,000 increase in U.S. liabilities to abroad. The liabilities are short-term if the joint venture is a U.S. corporation giving shares for the $100,000 payment. I take this alternative, with the second interpretation. The second alternative is to assume that the dollar account is actually held in London. The transaction then washes out of the U.S. Balance of Payments, being only a transfer of continuing U.S. obligations between foreign owners. On my interpretation, the transaction is recorded thus:

Increase in l/t liabilities to abroad: + $100,000
Decrease in s/t liabilities to abroad: – $100,000

The increase ih assets abroad (a capital inflow) is a debit, valued at $42,000 at the official exchange rate. The matching credits are the decrease in U.S. holdings of pounds sterling ($14,000) and an increase in U.S. obligations to abroad ($28,000 in dollars acquried by British banks).

Increase in s/t assets abroad: – $42,000
Decrease in s/t assets abroad: + $14,000
Increase in s/t Iiabilities to abroad: +28,000

The debit entry is clear: an inflow of monetary gold to the U.S. The matching credit entry is perhaps a little artificial, but the standard procedure would, I think, be a decrease in foreign l/t liabilities (Lend-Lease debts) to the U.S.

Decrease in l/t assets abroad: + $100,000
Import of Monetary Gold: – $100,000

This transaction washes out, since it involves a spot sale of pounds worth $50,000, a sale that would be used to fulfill the futures contract for delivery of pounds. That is the meaning of a “decrease in hedged balances”. I chose not to record it, but if it were recorded it would give rise to a credit from the acquisition of dollars and a debit from the fulfillment of the futures contract.
The interest payment is itself a debit, and enters the current account. The matching credit is the increase in dollar obligations owned abroad (in this instance by the British bank).

Interest payment_ – $1,000
Increase in s/t liabilities to abroad: +$1,000

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

THE U.S. BALANCE OF PAYMENTS (Cf. K, Table 2.2)

				Transaction Number
A. Goods and services			+ $47,000
	1,2.	Merchandise exports	+ $53,000	5,6
		Merchandise imports	– $ 5,000	1
	6.	Investment income: debits	– $ 1,000	12
C. Capital and Monetary Gold			– $47,000
	11,15.	Long-term liabilities	+ $100,000
		(Other	+ $100,000)	8
	12, 16.	Short-term liabilities	-0-	1,3,4,5,7,8,9,12
	13, 17.	Long-term assets	-0-
		(U.S. Govt loans repaid	+ $100,000)	10
		(Other Private and banks	– $100,000)	4
	14, 18.	Short-term assets	– $47,000
		(Private and banks)	– $47,000)	3,6,7,9
	19.	Monetary Gold	– $100,000	10
		Net errors and omissions	-0-

Notes to the Balance of Payments Table

The lines in parenthesis are subtotals, and should not be counted in checking to see that the addition and subtraction are correct. A simple check on the accuracy of the presentation (one that will not work all the time) is to note that each transaction number appears exactly twice. In general, the transaction numbers would appear at least twice, and in any case never only once.

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FIRST HOUR EXAMINATION

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Economics B-60
International Trade

February 7, 1962
Mr. Harwitz

Directions, notes, and hints. Please write on every other page of your blue books, to make marking the examinations easier for me. The total time allowed is 50 minutes, and the set of True-False questions should take twelve minutes. The point count of the questions is the suggested number of minutes. Answer all the true-false questions and two of the remaining four; that is, answer five questions in all. If you answer more than two of the last four questions, I shall choose two of the answers arbitrarily and mark you on them.

If I ask you to comment In detail, I mean that you should set out an explicit theoretical model on which to base your answer. The point of the question, obviously, is to test whether you can handle the theory. In answering the true-false questions, your explanation can be kept to a couple of sentences at most. Be very careful in reading these questions!

True-False. Mark true or false, and explain your choice briefly. (12 minutes)
1. Multiple exchange rates are prevented by arbitrage because arbitrageurs take long positions in foreign currencies.
2. Interest arbitrage between two countries (say, the U.S. and Great Britain) serves to keep short-term interest rates in New York and London from diverging.
3. The very large size of the hedged balances of foreign exchange held by banks as working balances introduces a possible element of instability in the foreign exchange market.
Answer two of the following four questions. They all weigh equally.
1. “One trouble with the theory of international trade is that it puts too much emphasis on one blade of the Marshallian scissors — the supply side — by trying to determine the direction of trade solely in terms of comparative costs.” Comment in detail.
2. “The idea that trade will take place between two countries because trading will benefit the countries as a whole is clearly wrong, since trade really takes place between individual firms, regardless of whether or not the countries of which the firns are residents benefit from the individual trading.” Comment in detail, using the concept of the production-possibility locus.
3. An underdevloped country that trades on an international gold standard undertakes a development project (say, a road-building program) with the aid of an IBRD loan covering the direct foreign exchange requirements of the program. Show what is likely to happen to the balance of trade on current account and to the gold reserves of the country. (Certain assumptions have to be made. Make then explicitly!)
4. The Phillipines have just gone on a freely-fluctuating exchange rate. Suppose a direct competitor in sales of tropical food crops to the United States (say, Panama) produces a bumper crop, which the competitor cannot store and must try to sell immediately. What happens to the balance of trade and the foreign exchange rates of the Phillipines? (Hints: you can make things easier for you and for me if you restrict your attention to the Phillipines and the United States. Again, certain assumptions need to be made explicitly.

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SECOND HOUR EXAMINATION

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Economics B-60
International Trade

February 28, 1962
Mr. Harwitz

Directions. Please write on every other page of the blue books.

Short answer questions. Answer 6 of the following 8 questions. Each question is worth four points.
1. Show that an import of goods on current account, taken by itself, will in fact reduce the domestic money supply of the importing country. (HINT: examine the effect of payment for the transaction on the balance sheet of the domestic banking system.)
2. Show that an increase in the forward exchange rate between dollars and pounds, with the short-term interest rates in the U.S. and Great Britain fixed, will cause a rise in the current spot rate.
3. “The fact that Nigeria had a large export surplus vis-a-vis Great Britain during World War II, and that the sterling proceeds of the surplus were blocked in British banks, meant that Nigeria did less domestic investing during that period than she might otherwise have done.” True or false, and why?
4. Why would a “successful” protective tariff be a poor revenue tariff? (Please draw a picture illustrating the point.)
5. Under what circumstances may one country in a 2-country world increase its share of the gains from trade by the imposition of an import tariff?
6. Back in the dear dead days of the “dollar shortage” (the late 1940’s), it was suggested that Europe was justified in imposing tariffs or quotas against American goods because the United States had an advantage in every line of production as a result of the War. What’s wrong with the suggestion?
7. Define a “beggar-thy-neighbor” tariff policy, and show the effects of such a policy on the country imposing the tariff.
8. “The protective effect of a tariff is independent of the elasticity of domestic demand in the country imposing the tariff.” True or false, and why?

Medium-long answers. Answer 2 of the following 3 questions. Each question is worth 13 points.
1. It is not unreasonable to argue that any effect achievable by means of a tariff could equally well be achieved by means of a subsidy for import-competing industries. (a) Is this always true? (b) What in fact is the basis of the argument if and when it is true?
2. Suppose that in 1946 the U.S. decided to lend Great Britain $50,000,000 to help the British recover from the destruction of its capital stock consequent upon World War II. What criteria should be applied for deciding whether the loan should be in the form of capital goods or in the form of dollars that could be used to finance imports of either capital goods or consumer goods? (Assume in this case a 2-country world.) What application does this kind of argument have in evaluating the usefulness of our present policy of embargoing trade in strategic materials with the Communist bloc, while allowing free trade in “non-strategic materials”?
3. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of direct investment versus long-term lending from the point of view of the receiving country.

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FINAL EXAMINATION

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Economics B-60
International Trade

March 12, 1962
Mr. Harwitz

Instructions. Please write on every other page of your blue books, as usual. The point count on the questions is equal to the suggested time you should take to answer them, As before, I shall choose the appropriate number of answers and grade you on them in sections where you answer more questions than I ask you to.

I. Definitions. Answer 10 of the following 15. (3 minutes each)
Note an example or draw a picture if it seems helpful.

1. Foreign trade multipliers.
2. Elasticity optimism and pessimism.
3. Hedging function of the foreign exchange market.
4. Exchange control system.
5. Errors and omissiors in the balance of payments accounts.
6. Bill of exchange.
7. Gold sterilization.
8. Protective effect of a tariff.
9. Revenue effect of tariff.
10. Redistibutive effect of a tariff.
11. Balance of trade.
12. Multilateral exchange clearing.
13. Interest arbitrage.
14. Multiple cross rates.
15. Purchasing power parity.

II. Answer one of the following two. (10 minutes.)

1. (a) Show that the excess demand for foreign currency is exactly equal to the excess of imports over exports when there are no autonomous movements in capital or gold.
  (b) Define the excess demand for foreign currency when there may be autonomous movements on capital account. What is the effect on the domestic money supply of positive excess demand for foreign currency?
2. In current terminology, the United States Balance of Payments is said to be in deficit condition if there are compensating outflows of gold or inflows of capital. Show that this can happen even if the balance of trade is in surplus condition on the usual definition. Relate this to the U.S. experience in the last decade.

III. Answer one of the following two. (15 minutes)

1. F. P. Graham has argued that reciprocal demand has no influence on the relative prices of internationally traded commodities. In the context of a 2-country, 2-good, constant-opportunity-cost model, he is right in the special circumstance that one country is exceedingly large relative to the other. Show why, and show why this may be considered a rather special case.
2. One can characterize naive comparative cost doctrine as saying that factor endowments determine the goods that a country will import and those it will export. Sophisticated doctrine, like mine, says that a country will export goods the prices of which are relatively lower before trade (in isolation) in the potential exporting country than they are in the potential importer.

IV. Answer one of the following two. (15 minutes)

1. It has been argued that an examination of the historical evidence indicates that the 19th century adjustment mechanism under the gold standard was not the classical price-specie-flow mechanism. Indicate another mechanism under which the draining-off of gold in a deficit country and the build-up of gold reserves in a surplus country would give rise to an equilibrating counter-flow of capital items[?] in the balance of payments and/or a shift in the determinants of the balance of trade in the equilibrating direction.
2. (a) Define the term “gold points” (or the equivalent “gold-import and gold-export points”).
  (b) What is the effect on the U.S. gold points if the Treasury imposes a charge for the conversion of goid into currency and vice-versa?
  (c) Keynes proposed, in the Treatise on Money (Vol. II, Ch. 34, Sec. iii), that it would be useful for a country that wished to isolate its domestic money market as much as possible from the repercussions of international situations to introduce a wide spread between the gold points. Precisely what do you think he meant, and in what way do you think the proposal would accomplish its purpose? What combination of adjustment mechanisms did he apparently have in mind?

V. Answer one of the following two, (15 minutes)

1. Quote from Mr. Louis d’Or, president of the Mercantile Bank of Upper Lower: “The United States would be much healthier economically if, like Germany, she competed hard in international markets, kept inflation down, and built up a healthy surplus in the balance of trade. Right now, the country is in bad shape as an international competitor because of the spend-thrift policies of the current” Is Louis right about Germany being healthy or about the desirability of the U.S. getting like Germany (economically, that is)? Comment in detail on the logic, the definitions, the facts.
2. Quote from T. Tock, president of the Worthless Watch Company, Waltham, Massachusetts: “I don’t approve of this Unamerican (spelling?) scheme of direct subsidies to business. All we watchmakers want and need is a chance to compete on even terms with the cheap foreign labor. A small, scientific tariff will do for us. That’s the best way.” Is it? Yes or no, why, and from who’s point of view?

VI. Answer one of the following two.
(15 minutes)

1. A not entirely accurate description of the English international trade position of the early 1920’s would suggest that she had structural unemployment in one of her most important export industries, shipbuilding. At that time, Mr. Churchill re-established the gold standard at the pre-war par, which was in effect an appreciation of the pound relative to other currencies. Evaluate the decision in terms of the remedies appropriate to structural disequilibrium in the export industries. Justify the remedies you say are appropriate, of course.
2. Consider a case in which there are 2 goods, 2 factors, and 2 countries. One of the countries is relatively well endowed with capital, the other relatively well endowed with labor. Furthermore, the capital-rich country is running a continuing trade surplus with the other country, which is underdeveloped (of course), and is lending to the underdeveloped country on a regular basis. Classical theory then leads to the conclusion that, eventually, trade between the two countries must cease, as the endowment of capital in the underdeveloped country is sufficiently increased. Comment in detail.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Robert W. Clower Papers, Box 4, Folder “B-60. International Trade Exams, 1962.”

Image Source: Pierre S. DuPont High School senior portrait of Mitchell Harwitz in the yearbook Pierrian 1950.

Tags HarwitzM

Exam Questions Microeconomics Suggested Reading Syllabus Theory UCLA

UCLA. Price theory. Course outline and reading list. Hirshleifer, 1972

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2024-12-10

A copy of the syllabus for Jack Hirshleifer’s UCLA price theory course taught in 1972 comes as a serendipitous find in the papers of Robert Clower at Duke’s Economist Papers Archive.

_________________________

Posted Earlier

Harvard. Economics Ph.D. alumnus, Jack Hirshleifer, 1950

_________________________

Winter 1972

Econ 201B
Mr. Hirshleifer

COURSE OUTLINE AND READING LIST

Pre-requisite: The student is presumed to have completed Econ 201A prior to undertaking this course; only in exceptional circumstances will this requirement be waived. Acquaintance with the elements of calculus remains a practical necessity.

Procedures: As in 201A, we will have lectures, class discussions, and problems. Students are reminded that classroom contributions and homework performances enter into the final grade.

Readings: The officially required texts are Stigler, THEORY OF PRICE (3rd ed.), Friedman, PRICE THEORY, and Lerner, ECONOMICS OF CONTROL. However, substantial readings are assigned in a number of other books that would make useful additions to one’s library. These include: (1) Baumol, ECONOMIC THEORY AND OPERATIONS ANALYSIS. (But note that while chapters assigned refer to 2nd edition, a new 3rd edition is expected shortly.) (2) Becker, ECONOMIC THEORY. (3) Bronfenbrenner, INCOME DISTRIBUTION THEORY. And there are also a number of books of collected readings that are advantageous to own.

The Graduate Library has been asked to place all assigned materials on reserve. Insofar as possible, readings should be studied in order as listed. The fundamental readings for our purposes are starred below; unstarred items may provide basis for lectures and discussions.

PRODUCTION AND DEMAND FOR FACTORS

*Stigler, THEORY OF PRICE, Ch. 6-9, 14.

*Hirshleifer, “Exposition of the Equilibrium of the Firm,” ECONOMICA, August 1962. [Reprinted in Kamerschen, READINGS IN MICROECONOMICS.]

*Allen, MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS FOR ECONOMICS, pp. 284-289, 315-322, 340-343.

*Lerner, ECONOMICS OF CONTROL, Ch. 11-17.

*Friedman, PRICE THEORY, Ch. 6-9.

*Becker, ECONOMIC THEORY, Ch. 7-8.

Hicks, VALUE AND CAPITAL, Ch. 6-7.

Marshall, PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS (8th ed.) Book V, Ch. 6.

V. L. Smith, INVESTMENT AND PRODUCTION, Ch. 2, Appendix on Kuhn-Tucker Conditions.

*Dorfman, “Mathematical or Linear Programming,” AER v. 43 (Dec., 1953)

*Baumol, ECONOMIC THEORY AND OPERATIONS ANALYSIS (2nd ed.), Ch. 5-6 (omit appendix), 11-12.

Douglas, “Are There Laws of Production?”, AER v. 38 (March, 1948).

*Arrow, Chenery, Minhas, Solow, “Capital-Labor Substitution and Economic Efficiency”, Rev. Ec. and Stat., August 1961 (to p. 234).

SUPPLY OF FACTORS; FACTOR MARKETS; ROLE OF THE FIRM

*J. Robinson, “Rising Supply Price” in AEA READINGS IN PRICE THEORY, Ch. 11.

Marshall, Book VI, Ch. 1-11.

*Stigler, THEORY OF PRICE, Ch. 15-16.

*Chiswick, “The Economic Value of Time and the Wage Rate”, WEJ (June, 1967).

*Lerner, ECONOMICS OF CONTROL, Ch. 18.

*Friedman, PRICE THEORY, Ch. 10-11.

*Becker, ECONOMIC THEORY, Ch. 9.

*Bronfenbrenner, INCOME DISTRIBUTION THEORY, Ch. 9-10.

Hilton, “The British Truck System,” JPE v. 65 (June 1957).

*Alchian and Allen, UNIVERSITY ECONOMICS, Ch. 20.

Schumpeter, THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT, Ch. 1, 2, 4.

*AEA READINGS IN PRICE THEORY, Ch. 16, 17 (Coase, Scitovsky).

Hicks, THEORY OF WAGES, Ch. 6

*Cheung, “Private Property Rights and Sharecropping,” JPE (Nov./Dec., 1968).

*Lindsay, “Measuring Human Capital Returns” (on reserve).

WELFARE ECONOMICS AND GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM

Bronfenbrenner, INCOME DISTRIBUTION THEORY, Ch. 1-5.

*Lerner, ECONOMICS OF CONTROL, Ch. 6, 9.

*B. Hansen, A SURVEY OF GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM SYSTEMS, Ch. 3,4.

*Baumol, ECONOMIC THEORY AND OPERATIONS ANALYSIS, Ch. 16.

AEA READINGS IN PRICE THEORY, Ch. 12 (Ellis-Fellner).

*Bator, “The Simple Analytics of Welfare Maximization,” AER, March 1957
[Reprinted in Kamerschen, READINGS IN MICROECONOMICS, also in Breit and Hochman, READINGS IN MICROECONOMICS.]

*Arrow, “The Organization of Economic Activity,” in Haveman and Margolis, PUBLIC EXPENDITURES AND POLICY ANALYSIS.

Houthakker, “Economics and Biology: Specialization and Speciation,” KYKLOS, v. 9 (1956).

*Vickrey, “Some Objections to Marginal-Cost Pricing,” JPE, (June 1948).

Demsetz, “Why Regulate Utilities?”, JLE (1968).

*Coase, “The Problem of Social Cost,” JLE (Oct., 1960) [Reprinted in Breit and Hochman, READINGS].

Gordon, “The Economic Theory of a Common-Property Resource: The Fishery,” JPE (April, 1954).

*Worcester, “Pecuniary and Technological Externalities”, AER (Dec., 1969).

*Mishan, “The Postwar Literature on Externalities,” JEL (March, 1971).

*Demsetz, “The Private Production of Public Goods,” JLE (Oct., 1970).

Hochman and Rodgers, “Pareto Optimal Redistribution,” AER (Sept., 1969).

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archive. Robert W. Clower Papers, Box 4, Folder “Econ 170-171: Org. of Enterprise + Industry”.

Image Source: Seal of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) at the Wikimedia Commons.

Tags Hirshleifer

HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Lectures on Taxation.

SYLLABUS OF MR. NEWCOMB’S LECTURES ON TAXATION.

LECTURE I

LECTURE II.

LECTURE III.

Cf. M.I.T. core microeconomic theory 1974-75

Core graduate economic theory courses Princeton, 1976-77

Fall Term

Spring Term

ECONOMICS 501 Microeconomic Theory: Value and Distribution

Midterm Examination

Final Examination

Economics 501 Sample Exercises [Undated]

Other blog posts for James Waterhouse Angell

Course Announcement

ECONOMICS 121-122 READING LIST in MONETARY ECONOMICS

1954

ECONOMICS 121 REQUIRED READING

READING LIST IN MONETARY ECONOMICS

IV. THE GENERAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE MONETARY AND BANKING SYSTEM AND ECONOMIC ACTIVITY

V. BUSINESS CYCLES

VI. CURRENCY AND EXCHANGE DEPRECIATION: INTERNATIONAL MONETARY POLICIES

VII. CURRENT PROBLEMS IN THEORY AND POLICY

ECONOMICS 121-122

14.476 Social Insurance

14.476 Social Insurance Spring 1981

14.476 Spring 1981 Final Exam

Course Descriptions for Economics and Social Ethics, 1920-21

One Harvard Graduate’s Memoir of the 1920s

ASSIGNED READINGS IN ECONOMICS

[ASSIGNED READINGS] IN SOCIAL ETHICS

Previous Posts: Schumpeter’s Courses on Economic Theory

Course Enrollment 1948-49

1948-49 Economies 203a Fall Term

HARVARD UNIVERSITY ECONOMICS 203a February 1949

Spring Term 1948-49 Economics 203b

1948-49 HARVARD UNIVERSITY ECONOMICS 203b

Memorial Minute — Faculty of Arts and Sciences Henry Rosovsky, 95

Meet Dwight H. Perkins

Course Announcement and Description

Department of Economics Economics 14

THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF CHINA AND JAPAN

I. STRATEGY OF DEVELOPMENT

II. PREREQUISITES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH

B. Entrepreneurship and Other Sociological Prerequisites of Economic Growth.

III. EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

IV. NATIONAL INCOME MEASUREMENT

V. AGRICULTURE

VI. CAPITAL

VII. PLANNING

VIII. MONETARY AND FISCAL POLICY

IX. POSTWAR GROWTH IN JAPAN

Economics 146 Final Examination January 1967

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Economic History Materials Posted Earlier

Economic History of the United States

European Economic History

Other Economic History Material

Course Enrollment 19th Century European Economic History, 1908-09

Reading List 19th Century European Economic History, 1908-09

ECONOMICS 6a (1908)

ECONOMICS 6a 19th Century European Economic History Mid-year Examination, 1908-09

Course Enrollment United States Economic History 1908-09

Reading List United States Economic History ECONOMICS 6b (1909)

1776-1860.

1860-1900.

United States Economic History ECONOMICS 6b Year-end Examination, 1909

AEA Members Listing 1991

Economics Ph.D., M.I.T. 1959

LECTURE AND READING LIST

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Exercise in Balance of Payments Accounting

NOTES ON THE BALANCE OF PAYMENTS PROBLEM

FIRST HOUR EXAMINATION

SECOND HOUR EXAMINATION

FINAL EXAMINATION

Posted Earlier

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
Lectures on Taxation.

SYLLABUS OF
MR. NEWCOMB’S LECTURES ON TAXATION.

Cf. M.I.T. core microeconomic theory
1974-75

Core graduate economic theory courses
Princeton, 1976-77

ECONOMICS 501
Microeconomic Theory:
Value and Distribution

Economics 501
Sample Exercises
[Undated]

Other blog posts for
James Waterhouse Angell

ECONOMICS 121-122
READING LIST
in
MONETARY ECONOMICS

ECONOMICS 121
REQUIRED READING

VI. CURRENCY AND EXCHANGE DEPRECIATION:
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY POLICIES

14.476 Social Insurance
Spring 1981

14.476
Spring 1981
Final Exam

Course Descriptions for
Economics and Social Ethics,
1920-21

One Harvard Graduate’s Memoir
of the 1920s

[ASSIGNED READINGS]
IN SOCIAL ETHICS

Previous Posts:
Schumpeter’s Courses on Economic Theory

Course Enrollment
1948-49

1948-49
Economies 203a
Fall Term

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 203a
February 1949

Spring Term
1948-49
Economics 203b

1948-49
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 203b

Memorial Minute —
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Henry Rosovsky, 95

Department of Economics
Economics 14

THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
OF CHINA AND JAPAN

Economics 146
Final Examination
January 1967

Economic History Materials
Posted Earlier

Course Enrollment
19th Century European Economic History, 1908-09

Reading List
19th Century European Economic History, 1908-09

ECONOMICS 6a
19th Century European Economic History
Mid-year Examination, 1908-09

Course Enrollment
United States Economic History
1908-09

Reading List
United States Economic History
ECONOMICS 6b (1909)

United States Economic History
ECONOMICS 6b
Year-end Examination, 1909

NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

NOTES ON THE
BALANCE OF PAYMENTS PROBLEM

Econ 201B
Mr. Hirshleifer