Category: Theory

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Chicago Exam Questions Theory

Chicago. Economic Theory Prelim. Parts I and II. Summer 1953

 

 

Links to previously posted Chicago prelim exams.

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Economic Theory, Part I

Written examination for the Ph. D. and A.M. Degrees,
Summer Quarter 1953

Answer all questions.  Time: 4 hours.

Question 1.

Each year large sums of public funds are spent to find and make known improvements in agricultural technology.  Most rationalizations for this practice picture it as “helping the farmer.”  To what extent and under what conditions can promotion of technical improvements –

(a) increase rent of land used for agriculture?
(b) increase net incomes of farmers who are tenants?
(c) increase gross receipts of farmers as a class?

Question 2.
    1. “If the purchase tax on new cars should be reduced in the coming budget, there will be a sharp drop in all second-hand prices to bring them into line with the reduced list prices of the new cars.”(Economist, March 21, 1953, p. 821.)  Discuss, including an analysis of the channels, if any, whereby the reduction in purchase tax (in our terminology, excise tax) would affect the prices of used cars.
    2. A monopolist is initially producing 1000 units of output which he sells for $30 per unit.Assume that conditions remain unchanged except for the government actions listed below.  What can you tell about the effects of each action on output, price paid by consumers, and the return (after tax) to the monopolist?  Consider the actions as separate alternatives, no two are in effect together.  If some answers depend on special assumptions make these explicit.
      1. A tax of $10 per unit is imposed on the first 500 units produced.
      2. A tax of $10 per unit is imposed on the first 1200 units produced.
      3. A subsidy of $10 per unit is granted on all units produced in excess of 500.
      4. A subsidy of $10 per unit is granted on all units produced in excess of 1000.
      5. The price is arbitrarily set at $28.  The government guarantees sale of the monopolist’s entire output.
Question 3.

The present value of a collection of assets equals the sum of discounted gross returns that the owner expects it to yield.  Explain the determination of the discount rate: how is it related to the owner’s tastes and opportunities and to the tastes and opportunities of other people?

Question 4.

Consider a firm using several factors of production and making several products.  “There is no reason why an equal proportional increase in all factors should not enable all products to be increased in the same proportion as the factors have been increased.”  But in this case “it is not possible for the price of one factor (or product) to change, there being no change in the prices of all other factors and products, without upsetting equilibrium altogether.  If the price of a product rises, output will become infinite; if the price of a factor rises, it will become zero…  Our analysis threatens to break down altogether.”  (Hicks).  Is this conclusion correct?  If so, show a) how it follows from the premises; b) how it can be reconciled with observed facts.  (Note: You may start with the case of one factor and one product.)

Question 5.

“The operatives are perfectly right in thinking that if all worked on Sunday, seven days’ work would have to be given for six days’ wages; but so long as the great mass of employments are suspended, the small number who for the enjoyment of others must still work, obtain a proportional increase of earnings; and they are not obliged to follow those occupations if they prefer leisure to emolument.”  (J. S. Mill, in “On Liberty.”)

      1. How would Mill have justified his conclusions in terms of the economic doctrines of his time? Indicate briefly the intellectual history of the relevant doctrines.
      2. Analyze his conclusions in light of current economic theory.
Question 6.

In economic theory, the indifference maps and opportunity (transformation) functions are stated to have certain properties. Which are these properties and how can they be inferred from factual evidence?

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Economic Theory, Part II

Written examination for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees,
Summer Quarter 1953

Answer all questions.  Time: 3 hours.

Question 1.

The income velocity of circulation appears to have been falling rather steadily in the United States over the past 100 years to about one-third its initial value.  What factors might in your view explain this secular decline?

Question 2.

Assuming continuing technological progress, suppose that the practice of negotiating for real rather than money wage rates spreads over all industries of the country.  What effect would this have upon price level, employment and the distribution of income, under various assumptions about monetary policy?

Question 3.

What are the principal “automatic stabilizers” of prices and business activity now operative?  In your view, what additional step is most needed to improve the prospect that automatic stabilization will work reasonably well? Explain.

Question 4.

Does it have any practical significance whether the maximum difference or the maximum ratio between the amount of currency in circulation and the Central Bank reserve (in metal or foreign exchange) is fixed?  Give historical examples of both kinds of rules.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 76, Folder “76.10”.

Image Source:  Social Science Research Building (Lecture Hall 1). University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07482, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

__________________________

Preliminary and Field Exams from the economics graduate program of the University of Chicago

Note: The chronological ordering of quarters at the University of Chicago during a calendar year goes Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn. For this reason the following is arranged chronologically.

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Exam Questions Swarthmore Theory Undergraduate

Swarthmore. Honors Examination in Economic Theory. Coppock, 1947

Joseph David Coppock was an external examiner for the honors economic theory examination at Swarthmore. The economics department called on their alumnus (A.B., 1933 with a Columbia University Ph.D., 1940) at least three times in the 1940s. His January 1947 examination questions are transcribed for this post.

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Swarthmore Senior exams posted previously (with external examiner names)

Senior Comprehensive Examination (1931)

Broadus Mitchell (1934)

Lloyd Metzler (1943 to 1945)

Paul Samuelson (1943)

Richard Musgrave (1946)

Wolfgang Stolper (Seminar, ca. 1944)

______________________

[Handwritten note: “Examiner: Coppock”]

Swarthmore College​
Honors Examination​
Economic Theory

January 29, 1947.

Answer 5 questions, including No. 1

  1.  —
    1. Using your own arithmetic assumptions, derive an individual buyer’s demand curve from a set of (consumer) indifference curves. Show both schedule and graph.
    2. Using your own arithmetic assumptions, derive an individual producer’s variable cost curve from a traditional “diminishing physical returns curve.” Show both schedule and graph.
  2. —
    1. How, under classical distribution theory, would an increase in national product be distributed among the customary claimants? Explain.
    2. To what extent does your answer in (a) apply to present-day circumstances in the U. S.?
  3. Write an explanatory and critical essay on the relation of the interest rate to the level of investment in the national economy (a) under any conditions you may wish to assume and (b) under present-day conditions in the U. S.
  4. Suppose you were David Ricardo and received from the review editor of an economic journal a copy of Chamberlin’s Theory of Monopolistic Competition with a request to review it. Write a review, comparing Chamberlin’s book with your own Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.
  5. The First Annual Report of the Council of Economic Advisers states:

“It would be very simple indeed if we could rely on fiscal policy as a panacea (for unemployment). Broadly speaking, the shortcoming of this single-track doctrine….is that it does not face the complexity of our economic system.”
Develop the point.

  1. —
    1. What is economic progress?
    2. What are the conditions of it?
    3. What does a change in population have to do with it?
  2. —
    1. Point out some key differences between general equilibrium and particular [sic] equilibrium theory.
    2. How do these differences affect the application of economic theory to the real economic world?

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubinstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Wolfgang F. Stolper Papers, Box 22, Folder 1.

Image Source: Swarthmore College yearbook, Halcyon 1940, p. 11.

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions Theory

Chicago. Graduate Economic Theory Prelim Questions. Winter, 1953

 

Links to previously posted Chicago prelim exams.

_____________________

ECONOMIC THEORY I
Part I

Written examination for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees Winter Quarter, 1953
  1. I. —
    1. a. —
      1. 1.  [5 points] What will be the relation between the demand curve for a product at retail and the demand curve for the same product at the manufacturing level? Which would you expect to be the more elastic at the relevant equilibrium price and why?
      2. 2. [5 points] What, if anything, is implicitly assumed in the wording of the above question about the state of competition at either the retail or manufacturing level?
    2. b.  —
      1. 1.  [5 points] Draw a system of production indifference curves showing the alternative combinations of two factors of production (A and B) required to produce given outputs of X. What properties of the shapes of your curves can be justified in general.
      2. 2. [2 points] Show how to determine the combination of factors that will be used for a given relative price of A and B.
      3. 3. [3 points] Show how to determine the effect of changes in the relative price of A and B on the combination of factors.
  2. II.—
    1. a. [10 points] Consider two industries: X which is competitive, and Y, monopolistic. The supply curve in X is horizontal, the marginal cost curve of the monopolistic firm in Y is also horizontal (constant marginal cost). Demand declines by 25% in both industries in the sense that the quantity demanded at each price declines by 25%. The supply and cost curves are unaffected. What happens to price in X? In Y?
    2. b. [10 points]  “Rubber growers have long complained that American synthetic rubber, produced in government plants, is sold below its true cost, thus subsidising its consumption at the expense of natural rubber. Since the new Administration is expected to dispose of the synthetic plants to private owners, the growers are now hoping that an economic price will soon be charged for the product … The potential range of prices at which private industry might sell synthetic rubber … obviously … would depend to a considerable extent on the terms at which the American Government might transfer the plants. Mr. Heilman (in an article in Natural Rubber News) suggests that if the plants are leased, or sold at depreciated book values, the new operators would be able to sell ‘standard cold synthetic rubber’ at only 22 cents a lb, assuming that annual output did not exceed 600,000 tons. If the factories were to be sold at their full replacement cost, the selling price might be 25-26 cents a lb for output of up to 450,000 tons of cold rubber a year, rising to 28-30 cents a lb for output up to 600,000 tons.

“Whatever disposal arrangements are made, realistic provision against obsolescence, at replacement costs, would in Mr. Heilman’s opinion fix the long-term selling price between 25 and 30 cents … a lb.”
The Economist, January 24, 1953, p. 238 (underlinings added)

Do you agree with the underlined statement? Justify your answer.

  1. [20 points] In Chicago, as in most other large cities, taxicab fares are fixed by the municipality. Suppose, (though this is not the case), that anyone who wants to operate a taxi at these fares is automatically granted a license to do so, subject perhaps to some objective test of ability to drive, so that entry is essentially free. Analyze the equilibrium position corresponding to any given fare. Contrast the characteristics of this equilibrium position when the fare which is set relatively “high” and relatively “low”, in terms of number of cabs, income of cab drivers or owners, and any other relevant characteristics of the equilibrium.
  2. [20 points] Summarize briefly the principal contributions to economic thought of the following; indicating their approximate chronological order:
    1. Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
    2. Leon Walras
    3. Wesley C. Mitchell
    4. Joan Robinson
    5. Irving Fisher
    6. Thorstein Veblen
    7. Francois Quesnay
    8. Johann von Thünen
    9. Antoine Augustin Cournot
  3. V. [20 points] It is argued by some that a permanent program of subsidies to farmers benefits farmers at the expense of the rest of the community. It is argued by others that it benefits no one, but simply imposes a loss on the community as a whole.
    Does the difference between these two reflect an error in analysis or a difference in empirical assumptions? Explain your answer.
  4. VI. [20 points] Keynes and Knight find it necessary to define the “marginal efficiency of capital” or the “rate of return on investment”, as the rate of return that makes cumulated costs equal to discounted returns. Why do they use this indirect procedure of solving an equation instead of the direct procedure used for labor, say, of calculating the rate at which total product changes per unit change in the amount of labor for given amount of the factors of production?

_____________________

ECONOMIC THEORY, PART II

Written examination for the Ph.D. and A.M. Degrees
Winter Quarter, 1953

Write on questions 1, 2, and 1 other.  Time: 2½ hours.

Do not place your name on your paper.  Give only your number.

  1. How are the following concepts related to each other and what role do they play in explaining the level of prices and of national income?
    1. Velocity of circulation
    2. Average proportion of individuals’ wealth held in cash
    3. Average ratio of individuals’ cash to their income
    4. Liquidity preference
    5. Effect of expected change in prices upon cash balances
    6. Effect of the interest rate upon cash balances
  2. What are the relative merits of a national monetary system with free exchange rates, and an international gold standard? Why should not each of the 48 states have its own monetary system?

Answer any one of the following:

  1. Discuss the points of view in the following statement on the decontrol of prices:

What the long-range effect of decontrol will be nobody knows. Some members of Congress say wage increases will now start another inflationary spiral, but others think the country’s productive capacity will effectively control prices unassisted by a tightening of government credit and money policies.

  1. There has been some agitation in recent years for raising the buying price of the U. S. Treasury for gold. What are the arguments in favor of such action? What would be the probable effects on the following countries: Great Britain, South Africa, the United States, Russia?
  2. Outline the outstanding monetary and banking legislation in the United States from 1861 to 1935.

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Papers of Milton Friedman, Box 76, Folder “76.10”.

Image Source: Social Science Research Building. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07490, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

__________________________

Preliminary and Field Exams from the economics graduate program of the University of Chicago

Note: The chronological ordering of quarters at the University of Chicago during a calendar year goes Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn. For this reason the following is arranged chronologically.

 

Categories
Exam Questions M.I.T. Theory

M.I.T. General Examination in Economic Theory. May, 1956

[M.I.T.]

GENERAL EXAMINATION
IN ECONOMIC THEORY

May 14, 1956

Answer FIVE questions in all. If you have studied mathematical economics you are urged to take at least one, but not more than two questions from Part II.

PART I
  1. “Within the restrictions of static-equilibrium analysis, an increase of demand will normally increase price, whether the good is produced under conditions of pure competition or monopoly.” Explain fully why you agree or disagree.
  2. It is sometimes implied that the duopoly problem has a unique solution provided that the duopolists fully recognize their mutual interdependence. What can be said for and against this view?
  3. “Under the complex conditions of the real world, marginal productivity concepts are relevant in explaining the factor quantities that an individual firm will use, but those concepts have no relevance in explaining the distribution of income.” Discuss.
  4. Treating each situation separately identify the underlying conditions that are implied such that each of the following will be possible:
    1. a redistribution of given total quantities of goods such that all consumers are better off;
    2. a reallocation of given total quantities of factors such that greater quantities of all goods can be produced;
    3. a reallocation of given total quantities of factors such that more of one good and less of another will make all consumers better off;
    4. an increase of the working day such that more goods and less leisure will make all laborers better off.
  5. In a truly competitive economy with just two goods (food and clothing) and two factors (labor and land), assume that the food industry is unambiguously the relatively land-intensive one. Supposing now that an innovation makes it possible to produce more food than before with any given factor quantities, discuss the alternatively possible effects on the welfare of both laborers and landlords.
  6. It has been suggested that the main result of the pure theory of consumer demand is the following proposition: if demand for a commodity increases when income increases, the demand will also increase when its price falls.
    1. Prove that this proposition is indeed true.
    2. Do you agree that this is the main consequence of the pure theory of demand?
    3. How important a part of economic theory is the theory of demand?
  7. An apple orchard and a bee-keeper exist next to each other. The more carefully the orchard is cultivated, the more honey the bees can extract from the blossoms. The more bees there are in the apiary, the more they pollinate the apple blossoms and the higher the yield of fruit. What kinds of misallocations of resources are likely to occur in this situation? How could they be corrected? Does this situation have any important parallel in the modern world?
  8. Compare the interest theories of Böhm-Bawerk, Fisher, and Keynes. Are they fundamentally compatible?
Part II
  1. Crusoe maximizes

U = ⅓ log x₁ + ⅔ log x₂

subject to
p₁x₁ + p₂x₂ = I

Derive his econometric demand functions.

  1. What is the difference between Hicksian stability and “true dynamic stability”? Assuming income effects can be neglected, show that the concepts turn out to be identical.
  2. State Euler’s theorem on homogeneous functions and give two or three different economic applications. Show that a Cobb-Douglas function is the only first degree homogeneous function for which relative shares are constant. Deduce the elasticity of demand for labor for a C-D function.

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Economists’ Papers Archive. Paul Samuelson Papers, Box 33, Folder “Teaching Exams. 1952 and 1956”.

Image Source: The M.I.T. beaver featured on the cover the cover of Technique 1949.

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions Theory

Chicago. PhD Exam in Economic Theory. Autumn 1946

 

Links to previously posted Chicago prelim exams.

_____________________

ECONOMIC THEORY

Written Examination for the Ph.D. Degree
Autumn Quarter, 1946

Ph.D. Candidates:  4 hours.  Answer all the questions.  Papers will be taken up after 10 or 15 minutes warning.

  1. Define or explain:
    1. Elasticity of Demand; point and arc elasticity; income elasticity; cross elasticity.
    2. Demand curve; utility curve; indifference curve; indifference map; marginal rate of substitution.
    3. Substitution effect and income effect.
    4. Complementary goods.
    5. Real vs. alternative cost.
    6. Price-determined vs. price-determining cost.
    7. Rent and quasi-rent.
    8. Profit.
  2. In what sense and under what conditions (if at all) does cost of production determine price, (a) in the long run, (b) in the short run.(If it never does, explain the fallacy.)
  3. Briefly describe the three or four main contributions (naming the chief author of each) to the development of the concept of capital and theory of interest, beginning with Ricardo and ending with what you consider “correct” doctrine.In each case bring out the relation of capital to other “productive factors” and to money, and that of its yield to other forms of income.
  4. —
    1. Define profit for the purpose of distribution theory.
    2. Discuss the social advisability of a legal limitation, in advance from the beginning, on the rate of return on investment in fields where it is highly uncertain (such as public utilities and explorative and development of natural resources – i.e. single tax).
    3. Comment on the ethics and policy of imposing such a limitation, by regulation or taxation, on enterprises already proven highly profitable.
  5. Discuss the wisdom of the policy described in the following quotation:

“In conversations with gold mining engineers a phrase glibly and frequently repeated is ‘sweetening the ore.’ By this phrase reference is made to the practice of diverting production in profitable periods to the poorer ores and perhaps restricting output in the richer fields. Under this practice the better ores are preserved for periods in which mining costs have risen so that over a long period of time output can be held more steady. Contributing also to a policy of sweetening the ores is the reluctance of producers to install capital equipment in a period in which the tendency is for mining expenses to increase with the general advance of wages and living costs. By the time the equipment is installed it might be expected that wages and price levels would be adjusted to the increased price of gold.”

Source: Hoover Institution Archives. Milton Friedman Papers, Box 76, Folder “76.2 “University of Chicago ‘Economic Theory’”.

Image Source: Detail from the Social Science Research Building. University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07448, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

__________________________

Preliminary and Field Exams from the economics graduate program of the University of Chicago

Note: The chronological ordering of quarters at the University of Chicago during a calendar year goes Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn. For this reason the following is arranged chronologically.

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions Theory

Chicago. Economic Theory Prelim Exam. Summer Quarter, 1958

Element from Social Science Research Bldg at U of Chicago

 

Links to previously posted Chicago prelim exams.

___________________________

ECONOMIC THEORY PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION

SUMMER, 1958
AUGUST 1, 1958

ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS

The true-false-uncertain questions, as a group, and the essay questions, as a group, are to be given equal weight in grading the examination.

GROUP I

Indicate in the space provided the correct answer–True (T), False (F), or Uncertain (U). Explain your answer in the space provided on the pages following. Do not write more than can be included in the space provided. [Note: four T-F-U questions fit on a single page]

True (T), False (F), Uncertain (U)

  1. _____ A negative income elasticity of demand implies a positive price elasticity.
  2. _____ The demand curve for leisure is upward sloping.
  3. _____ Steel prices and output usually move together during business cycles. This means that the income effect of a rise in price is greater than the substitution effect.
  4. _____ If the price elasticity of demand is -1.0 each for commodities A and B separately, then the price elasticity of A and B taken together, the price elasticity of the joint demand for A and B, can be higher than -1.0 in absolute value.
  5. _____ When average costs are increasing, marginal costs are also increasing.
  6. _____ Prices that change only rarely constitute evidence of monopoly power.
  7. _____ A proportional income tax will have no effect on occupational choice, while a progressive income tax (same total revenue) does have an effect.
  8. _____ The price elasticity of demand for an input depends mainly upon the elasticity of demand for the final product and the relative share of total costs represented by payments for the specific input.
  9. _____ Inputs A and B are used in the production of the same product. An increase in the price of A (due to a shift in the supply function for A) will result in a decline in the price of B.
  10. _____ If the rate of interest is stable over time, firms may change the ratio of machines to labor.
  11. _____ When the borrowing and lending rates facing a firm differ, a firm may make the appropriate investment decision by maximizing the present value of the firm.
  12. _____ If the amount of capital which a firm can invest is fixed, it will choose the same investment whether it maximizes the average internal rate of return or the present value of the investment.
  13. _____ The long-run elasticity of supply of labor per person (supply measured in hours of work per lifetime) cannot exceed unity numerically.
  14. _____ The white persons who gain the most by market discrimination against Negroes are those with the greatest tastes for discrimination against Negroes.
  15. _____ If a union succeeds in raising wages, it will cause the ratio of the costs of the union labor to total costs to rise.
  16. _____ An effective minimum wage law will tend to cause labor to move out of employments having relatively great net non-pecuniary advantages.
  17. _____ Since the marginal productivity of labor rises as the ratio of capital to labor rises, wages will be higher in industries with high capital-labor ratios than in industries with low capital-labor ratios.
  18. _____ Long-run marginal cost cannot exceed short-run marginal cost.
  19. _____ If the price of wheat in market A is $2.00 per bushel and the cost of transporting a bushel of wheat from market A to market B is $0.10, the price of wheat in market B is $2.10.
  20. _____ If equal percentage changes in labor and land lead to the same percentage change in the output of wheat, and if labor yields increasing average products, the world’s wheat could be grown in a flower pot, if the pot were small enough.

GROUP II

  1. Describe briefly the major contributions of the following economists:

(1) W.S. Jevons
(2) A.A. Cournot
(3) V. Pareto
(4) Irving Fisher

  1. —
    1. The demand function for a product is P = 115-Q. The total cost of producing Q units in one plant is given by
      TC = 40Q – 10Q² + Q³. Only one-plant firms are allowed.

      1. What is the long run competitive solution (price and quantity)? [Handwritten margin note: “…and the number of firms in the industry”]
      2. What would be the approximate price charged and the quantity produced if there was only one one-plant firm and it maximized its profits. (Work only with round figures.) How much profit would it make?
    2. Assume now that a firm may have more than one plant. What is the monopoly solution? [Handwritten addition: “How much profit will it make?”]
  1. The C.E. Company, a mining company, currently operates a commissary at which employees of the company may obtain free of charge a variety of food and clothing items. The amount of each item that an employee may obtain per week may not exceed a specified amount (ration), the same for all employees. The company proposes to close the commissary next month and simultaneously to give the employees an increase in weekly wages equal to half the market value of the ration. The company, learning that you are an economist, has asked you whether the putting into effect of their proposal would increase, decrease, or leave unchanged the real weekly wages of its employees.
    1. Could you give them a definite answer without additional information? Explain.
    2. If your answer to (A) is “no”, what additional information, if any, would enable you to be certain that their proposal would decrease real weekly wages? Would increase real weekly wages? Would leave real weekly wages unchanged? Explain your answers.
  2. A study of the relationship between changes in employment by industry groups and changes in wage rates for the period from 1929 to date in the United States does not reveal a significant positive relationship between the two variables, i.e., larger changes in employment were not associated with larger changes in wage rates.
    Comment on this result in terms of the degree of competition in labor markets and the effect of wage differentials in inducing labor transfers.
    What would have been the implications if there had been a positive correlation between the variables? If there had been a negative relationship?

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 130, Folder “Preliminary Examinations, 1957-1965.”

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf2-07449, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

__________________________

Preliminary and Field Exams from the economics graduate program of the University of Chicago

Note: The chronological ordering of quarters at the University of Chicago during a calendar year goes Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn. For this reason the following is arranged chronologically.

 

Categories
Distribution Exam Questions Harvard Theory

Harvard. Wealth Distribution. Course description, enrollment, and final exam. Carver, 1911-1912

In preparing this post I found myself pursuing the c.v. of Thomas Nixon Carver’s teaching assistant in 1911-12, Arnold Warburton Lahee. Turns out that Lahee switched careers at age fifty, becoming a landscape painter en plein air. His path to the completion of the requirements for the economics PhD at Harvard was long (about 22 years between his A.B. and PhD) due to work-(PhD) life balance issues.

Carver’s course content can be gleaned from the final examination questions at the end of the post. 

Links to previous Harvard exams on distribution
1904-05 to 1910-11.

____________________________

Meet the Course Teaching Assistant
Arnold Warburton Lahee (1888-1976)

Arnold Warburton Lahee.
General Examination Passed, February 1914

General Examination in Economics, Wednesday, February 25, 1914.
Committee: Professors Bullock (chairman), Taussig, Gay, Ripley, Anderson, and R. B. Perry.
Academic History: Harvard College, 1907-11; Harvard Graduate School, 1911-12, 1913—. A.B., Harvard, 1911; A.M. ibid., 1912. Assistant in Economics, Harvard, 1911-12; Professor of Economics, University of Vermont, 1912-13.
General Subjects: 1. Economic Theory and its History. 2. Economic History since 1750. 3. Sociology. 4. Statistics. 5. Public Finance. 6. Philosophy.
Special Subject: Public Finance.
Thesis Subject: “Municipal Expenditures in Massachusetts.”

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University, Examinations for the Ph.D. (HUC 7000.70), Folder “Examinations for the Ph.D., 1913-14”

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

ARNOLD WARBURTON LAHEE
From the 10th year report Class of 1911.

Born at Hingham, Mass., May 7, 1888.
Parents: Henry Charles Lahee, Selina Ida Mary Long.
School: Cambridge Latin School, Cambridge, Mass.
Degrees: A.Β. 1911; Μ.Α. 1912.
Married: Gladys Hughes Livermore, Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 21, 1914.
Child: Katharine Livermore, Dec. 11, 1915.
Occupation: Economist.
Address: (Home) 28 Hamilton Road, Glen Ridge, N. J. (Bus.) Mechanics & Metals Nat’l Bank, 20 Nassau St., New York, N.Y.

THE first four years after graduation I spent in study and teaching: 1911-1912, I obtained my M.A. at Harvard; 1912-1913, I taught at the University of Vermont; 1912-1913, passed my general examinations for Ph.D. (February) and started to prepare for finals, specializing in public finance; and 1914-1915, taught at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh. I then turned to active economic investigation, spending two years in the New York Bureau of Municipal Research. During this time I was employed in connection with the New York City Central Purchasing Commission, the New York State Senate Committee investigation of the Civil Service, and a study of the New York City Budget system under the Mitchell administration.

When the United States entered the War, I found that, in spite of Plattsburgh training (summer of 1916), deficient eye-sight disqualified me for active service. After joining for a while in the promotion of the Patriotic Service League in New York and Boston, and spending three or four months with the New Jersey State Chamber of Commerce, I seized the first opportunity to go to Washington, with the U.S. Tariff Commission. Shortly after my arrival, however, the War Trade Board requested my services and I entered the Bureau of Research as special economist on the Central Powers. After the Armistice, the State Department persuaded me to continue my work in the office of the Foreign Trade Advisor, but in June 1919 I accepted an attractive offer of the Mechanics and Metals National Bank, where I am now located in charge of its Department of Foreign Trade Extension.

Everyone has his pet regret. Mine is that in college I worked my way through on scholarship instead of being satisfied with Bs and Cs, spending more time in college activities, and earning my way through drudgery and hard knocks — but real experience (e.g., canvassing, etc.). Better to take more time, perhaps, but build up a broad foundation of practical experience and valuable friendships. Scholarship is only one factor out of several in the secret of success.

Source: Decennial Report of the Secretary of the Harvard Class of 1911 (1921), pp. 241-242.

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

Lahee’s Book

Arnold W. Lahee. Consultant on Foreign Markets; Former Head of the Department of Foreign Trade Extension of the Mechanics and Metals, National Bank of New York. Our Competitors and Markets: An Introduction to Foreign Trade. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1924.

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

From Charles H. Haskins 1 Apr 1924 letter to Frank W. Taussig: “Lahee’s first thesis on the New York City Budget was turned down [by Bullock, Day and Munro] some years ago [1917], and this work [Note: his book Our Competitors and Markets (1924)] has been done more or less commercially without the supervision of any member of the Department.”

The thesis was approved by Young, Williams and Copeland in April 1924. He failed his Special Examination on June 4, 1924. He passed his second try on October 11, 1932 (Examined by Taussig, Williams and Harris). Frank W. Taussig was the committee chairman for both examinations.

Source: Harvard University Archives. PhD Candidates Receiving Degrees in 1933 A-Z. Box 13. Folder “A. W. Lahee”.

Lahee Submitted his Book for his PhD Thesis

ARNOLD WARBURTON LAHEE, A.B. 1911, A.M. 1912. Subject, Economics. Special Field, International Relations. Thesis, “Our Competitors and Markets.” 72 High Street, Glen Ridge, N.J. [Degree awarded in February 1933]

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1932-1933, p. 127.

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

Lahee Becomes a Painter

The Times-Argus. Barre-Montpelier, Vt. (July 23, 1969), p. 23.

Agile And Artistic At 81
Dr. Lahee Bound To Climb The Hump

By STEVE McLEOD

NORTHFIELD — Dr. Arnold Lahee of Winch View Road, Northfield, is 81 but he doesn’t believe it. He will admit that climbing Camel’s Hump with art equipment on his back is becoming difficult now, but in the same breath he vows “I’m going to get to the top of Camel’s Hump this year or bust.”

Dr. Lahee combines a knowledge and appreciation of the outdoors with considerable artistic talent and an unusual painting style to produce some excellent landscape paintings.

His paintings have been exhibited in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., in Europe and in several art museums around the United States. Currently he has a revolving exhibit at the Northfield Savings Bank and a thirty-six painting exhibit at the Chittenden Trust Co. in Burlington. The State Capitol dining room and Vermont Technical College are among other Vermont locations where his work has been exhibited.

Dr. Lahee, an economist by profession, has received several awards in connection with his artistic ventures, including most recently the Tercentennial Medallion from the A.A.P.L. when he retired as president “for the promotion of American Art during his administration.”

He did not begin painting until he was 50 and he began then only through “pure chance and three lucky circumstances.”

An underexposed picture provided the spark for his preliminary artistic ambition. His first paintings were on photos. This practice is frowned upon in artistic circles, but Dr. Lahee is glad he started in that fashion.

The second lucky circumstance occurred when he found some oil paints in the home of his deceased aunt.

After he produced a number of paintings with the oil paints, he became acquainted with an art photographer when — not saying that the photographer was an expert — he offered to show him how to take better pictures. The photographer belonged to an art club of some kind, and invited Dr. Lahee to display his paintings to the club where they were well-received.

Finally, the Wagner Act “threw me [Dr. Lahee] out of a job and I went to art class.” The class sealed the marriage between Dr. Lahee and painting. Once he had begun painting, Dr. Lahee wished that he had started years earlier.

He said that he did pretty well in grammar school art other than that; he had never noticed that he had any artistic talent until after he returned to painting.

The only other time Dr. Lahee thought of taking up painting before he was 50 was when he briefly considered entering the field of illustrated advertising.

“I started with the idea that portrait painting required more skill than landscape painting,” said Dr. Lahee, “and I was going into painting portraits but a few bad experiences switched me to landscape painting.”

The bad experiences involved people who requested portraits and later tried to keep them without paying Dr. Lahee.

“I still have those paintings in the cellar,” chuckled the hearty Northfield resident.

“Incidents like those sicken me so and I love nature and camping so I turned away from doing people,” explained Dr. Lahee.

Dr. Lahee still etches portraits occasionally, but the majority of his work is of the landscape variety.

He admires all aspects of nature. Recently, he has been fascinated by the beauty of clouds and is intent on capturing that beauty on his easel soon as possible.

“I’m frustrated up here because there are so many chores,” he says. “I keep vowing that I’m going to make a painting of the clouds but by the time I get my paints out the formations have moved.”

Dr. Lahee has rigged up a knapsack in such a way that his art equipment, easel and all fits in it.

Thus, he paints many of his landscapes from unusual vantage points from deep within nature’s kingdom, instead of painting them as a detached observer. His painting acquires a rugged naturalness through the use of these vantage points.

Would you believe Dr. Lahee is a radical? In the art world, he is anyway. Instead of using a brush for his landscapes, he uses a knife.

“With a brush you can paint every twig and leaf,” he explains. “With a pallet knife you just slap it on. It gives you a freedom and a thrill, I don’t know many who do that but that doesn’t matter.”

When asked if he considered himself a commercial painter, Dr. Lahee chuckled, “I paint mostly for my own pleasure. I’d starve if I had to rely on painting for my livelihood.”

He added that he also enjoys activities that complement painting, such as art demonstrations for ladies’ clubs and the like.

However, he has sold several paintings. Selling a painting which he deeply admires gives him mixed feelings.

“Sometimes it hurts me that they’re gone,” he says. “I painted one with a lot of memory and people wanted to purchase it so I let it go and have been kicking myself ever since. Later I had another that was saturated with memory and I turned down an offer for that one.

“At the same time it gives me a kick to get offers for my favorite paintings, though, because then I know people like what I like.”

Dr. Lahee can’t choose a standout painting from his collection.

“Oh I like some better than others,” he reminisced, “but I like several for different reasons. Almost every painting I make relates to an incident in my life and each evokes its own beautiful memories. And I don’t think I could judge the quality of my individual paintings any way.”

Dr. Lahee lives with his wife, Gladys, in a ranch home nestled among several trees high above the Northfield valley. Their only child, Katherine, lives next door.

“We’ve been married only about 51 years,” says Dr. Lahee, “or maybe it’s more, I don’t know. It could be 54 years.”

When you’re climbing mountains, camping and painting at age 81, a few years don’t make much difference.

 

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Course Description
1911-12

14a1hf. The Distribution of Wealth. Half-course (first half-year). Tu., Th., at 1.30. Professor Carver. (XIV)

This course begins with an analysis of the theory of value. The attempt is then made to formulate a positive theory of distribution helpful in explaining the actual incomes of the various classes of producers. Finally the question of justice in distribution is considered. This course is open only to students who have passed in Economics 1.

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics: 1911-12 (1st ed.). Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. VIII, No. 23 (June 15, 1911), p. 59.

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Course Enrollment
1911-12

Economics 14a 1hf. Professor Carver, assisted by Mr. A. W. Lahee. — The Distribution of Wealth.

Total 94: 6 Graduates, 32 Seniors, 40 Juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 4 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1911-1912, p. 63.

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ECONOMICS 14a
Mid-year Final Examination
1911-12

Read all the questions carefully before beginning to answer any of them.

  1. Is there any reason to expect that the means of satisfying human desires should always exist in just the right proportions to satisfy those desires? What bearing does your answer to the above question have upon the problem of value?
  2. Is there any reason to expect that the supply of the various kinds of human talent should always be proportionate to the need for them? What bearing does your answer to this question have upon the problem of wages?
  3. Is there any reason to expect that the supply of other factors of production should always be proportionate to the need for them? What bearing does your answer to this question have upon the problem of rent and interest?
  4. Why does the value of a consumable article tend, other things equal, to fall as its supply increases?
  5. Why does the value of a productive agent tend, other things equal, to fall as its supply increases?
  6. What is the effect on the value of a given productive agent when the supply of other productive agents increases, other things equal? Why?
  7. Is there any connection between such terms as “non-competing groups” “supplementary goods,” and “wages fund”?
  8. How would you distinguish between diminishing returns from land and the economy of large scale production?

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University — Examination papers, 1873-1915. Box 6. Bound volume, Examination Papers, 1912. Harvard University Examinations. Papers Set For Examinations in History, History of Science, Government, Economics […], p. 57.

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From earlier semesters

1904-05
1905-06
1907-08
1908-09
1909-10
1910-11

’The course content is undoubtedly captured in Carver’s 1904 book The Distribution of Wealth which was reprinted several times during his lifetime.

Image Source: 1964 painting by Arnold W. Lahee (Harvard PhD, 1933).

 

Categories
Chicago Exam Questions Theory

Chicago. Preliminary Exam in Economic Theory, Summer 1956

One oddity in the economic theory preliminary examination from the summer quarter of 1956 transcribed below is that the True-False-Uncertain section consisted of 23 questions for a total of 140 points.

The mimeographed copy of the exam was fished from the papers of Zvi Griliches (U. Chicago Ph.D., 1957) at Harvard University Archives.

_________________________

Previously transcribed and posted Preliminary and Field Exams from the economics graduate program of the University of Chicago

Note: The chronological ordering of quarters at the University of Chicago during a calendar year goes Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn. For this reason the following is arranged chronologically.

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ECONOMIC THEORY
Preliminary Examination
Summer Quarter 1956

Write your number and not your name on your examination paper. Answer all questions. Time: 4 hours.
Total points: 240.

I. (140 points) True, False, or Uncertain. Explain your answer in each case. Your score will depend heavily on your explanations.
  1. If a firm is producing in the region of rising marginal costs, the firm is realizing profits.
  2. If a commodity has a negative income elasticity, the function relating price and quantity consumed may have a positive slope.
  3. If two goods are substitutes in consumption, a fall in the price of one will always result in a fall in the price of the other.
  4. A demand schedule for labor shows the amount of labor in physical units that will be taken at each wage. A demand schedule for capital shows the amount of capital in physical units that will be taken at each interest rate.
  5. For a single consumer, the sum of the income elasticities of demand for all commodities is unity, while the sum of their price elasticities is zero.
  6. An excise tax affects the allocation of resources among different uses, whereas an income tax does not.
  7. The competitive firm attempts to equalize price, marginal cost and average cost.
  8. The marginal cost of producing a commodity is equal to the price of any one factor divided by its marginal physical product, even though many factors are used in producing the commodity.
  9. An effective price ceiling on cotton, i.e., one that holds its price below the free market level, will decrease the market price of textiles.
  10. A subsidy of a fixed number of dollars per unit of output might be used as part of a program to control a monopoly in the public interest.
  11. If the “true cost of living” for a consumer is interpreted to mean the cost of staying on a given indifference surface, then upper and lower limits for the change in a consumer’s true cost of living between period 0 and period 1 are given respectively by the Laspeyres and Paasche indexes using the consumer’s own purchases as weights.
  12. The supply curve for the output of a monopolist is inelastic at the point of maximum monopoly profit.
  13. Resources are seriously misallocated in the broadcasting industry in the U.S., through the fact that the cost of broadcasts is borne by advertisers rather than by listeners and viewers directly.
  14. The rate of interest in a stationary state would be zero.
  15. It is a convention in economics to draw consumption indifference curves convex to the origin, but we have no way of knowing whether they really are.
  16. Assume that if the prices of farm products fall farmers will expend more effort in an attempt to maintain their income. Under these circumstances, a reduction in effective farm price supports will increase the volume of farm surpluses.
  17. If a worker’s utility function in the two dimensions, (1) leisure and (2) all other goods and services, is homogeneous of first degree, then his supply curve of labor will be backward sloping.
  18. If it takes one day to catch a beaver and two to catch a deer, one deer will exchange for two beavers.
  19. Almost all railroads are reported to have gross revenues from dining car service that are less than the direct expenses of providing the service. In their own interest the railroads should increase the price of dining car meals.
  20. Because of the facts stated in number 19, the railroads should discontinue dining car service.
  21. The elasticity of a linear supply function that passes through the origin is always unity.
  22. The price of haircuts in Chicago is approximately 40 per cent higher than in New York; therefore, average earnings of barbers in Chicago are higher than in New York.
  23. Take it as a fact that grade one cocoa commands a premium on world markets over inferior grades; that the Nigerian Cocoa Marketing Board (which is the sole purchaser from producers) has set a differential between grades in prices paid to producers wider than the world market differential; and that they have succeeded in this way in raising sharply the proportion of Nigerian production which is grade one. By so doing, they have greatly improved the efficiency of the Nigerian economy.
II. (60 points)

The competitive private enterprise form of economic organization is regarded by many economists as a sort of ideal which it would be desirable to approximate in practice.

(a) On a purely theoretical level, use the tools of economic analysis to explain to a skeptic precisely in what way(s) and why the competitive private enterprise form is so good. State whatever assumptions and define whatever terms you require, and state explicitly the criteria of excellence that you are using.

(b) Assume an economy that is perfectly competitive. What important economic problems, if any, may still be unsolved despite the fact that perfect competition has been achieved? Explain in each case why the problem is important and why perfect competition does not solve it, or explain why there are no unsolved problems.

III. (40 points)

Some prominent manufacturers such as Sunbeam, Eastman Kodak, and Bayer Aspirin, set minimum prices below which retailers may not resell their products. In most states an agreement to this effect between a manufacturer and some retailers is legally enforceable on all retailers.

(a) What is the probable effect of this practice on the net rate of return on factors of production used in retailing?

(b) What is the probable effect of this practice on the net profits of the manufacturers concerned?

Explain your answers fully.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches. Box 129. Folder “Preliminary Examinations, 1955-1957”.

Image Source: University of Chicago Photographic Archive, Zvi Griliches portrait (undated), apf1-06565, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus Theory

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

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]

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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.

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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.

  1. 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.
  2. Analyze the profit item of the usual income statement of a corporation.
  3. 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.
  4. Discuss Cournot’s Duopoly and explain the shortcomings of this schema.
  5. What has been, in your opinion, the upshot of the recent controversy on the “marginal-productivity theory of wages?”
  6. 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.

  1. 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).

  1. 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

  1. 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

  1. 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)”.

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1948-49
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 203b

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

  1. 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.
  2. Discuss Kaldor’s proposition that a state of full employment is essentially unstable.
  3. 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)?
  4. 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?
  5. 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.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Theory

Harvard. Graduate Economic Theory Exam. November 1961

Harvard Square in 1961

Edward Chamberlin was a member of the graduate examination committee of the Harvard economics department in the early 1960s and in his files I have found copies of theory exams from 1961, 1962, and 1963 along with a few memos that  circulated among members of the committee that together provide a description of the procedures used for grading.

_________________________________

Harvard Written Exams
in Economic Theory
Posted Earlier

April 14, 1960
November 3, 1960
April 11, 1961
April 10, 1962
November 13, 1962
April 8, 1963

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Written Examination in Economic Theory
November 7, 1961

Answer six questions; all questions have equal weight.

  1. Describe and discuss Ricardo’s theory of economic growth; and discuss its relevance if any to problems now confronting ‘underdeveloped’ countries or economies.
  2. What are the chief differences in the conclusions reached by analyzing an area of the economy (say, an “industry”) under the assumptions of (a) pure competition, on the one hand, and (b) monopolistic competition on the other. Elaborate the explanation of one of the differences mentioned.
  3. To what extent may the concept of economic rent be generalized beyond its original application to land? Discuss fully, making clear what you mean by “rent” in each case.
  4. Identify and illustrate the main kinds of uncertainty that arise in economic decisions. Can problems of choice involving uncertainty be analyzed in terms of ordinal utility?
  5. Give an economic appraisal of the effects of “indivisibility” on the results of competitive resource allocation.
  6. Set up an example of a simple static general equilibrium system with three goods and two factors of production, for example, land and labor.
  7. How can technological change cause unemployment? What market forces tend to eliminate the unemployment? What factors may impede the operation of these forces?
  8. What is the theoretical justification of the “competitive ideal”? How is the validity of the argument that competition produces ideal results affected by recognition of the phenomenon of product differentiation?
  9. Describe the von Neumann Model of an expanding economy, and the principal results yielded by the model. Discuss the relevance of these results to real economic systems.
  10. Outline and criticize the theory of economic growth, of one of the following authors: Solow, Joan Robinson, Kaldor, Tobin.

Source: Duke University. Economists’ Papers Archive. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Edward H. Chamberlin Papers, Box 17, Folder “Economics Department 1960-62”.

Image Source: Harvard Square, 1961. From the Cambridge Historical Commission, image in the Photo Morgue Collection. Online: Digital Commonwealth.