Being a scavenger for old economics exams, I just had to transcribe the following three comprehensive subject examinations from the Harvard Division of History, Government, and Economics battery of comprehensive exams from 1931. These exams were selected and published in a supplement to the Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges dedicated to the subject of comprehensive exams. The subjects examined were History of Economic Thought, Public Finance, and Labor Problems.
For some strange reason two of the questions were omitted, with a note that the questions were presented “elsewhere”. I have identified what I think to be the likely missing questions from a list of 65 questions discussed earlier in the monograph. These two questions are placed in square brackets in the public finance and labor problems examinations.
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History of Economic Thought
Harvard University, 1931
(Three hours)
Answer either FOUR or FIVE questions, including TWO from each group. If you answer FOUR questions, write about an hour on one of them and mark your answer “Essay.” This question will be given double weight.
A
Use a separate blue book for the questions in this part.
- Discuss the economic policies of one of the following in the light of theory and contemporary conditions: Colbert, Hamilton, Turgot, Bismarck, Andrew Jackson, Gladstone, Cromwell.
- Compare the part played by economic theories in the French Revolution and the Russian Revolution.
- In what ways do you think the economic thought of the Greeks reflects the social, intellectual, and political conditions of the period?
- Discuss the influence of economic fallacies upon public policy during the past hundred years.
- To what extent do you think the social and economic organization of medieval towns is reflected in the economic views of medieval thinkers?
- “Mercantilism is, in substance, the sum of all efforts to bring about a self-sufficient empire.” Discuss.
- How did contemporary writers explain the price revolution of the sixteenth century? Were these new or already accepted doctrines?
- Discuss the importance of economic theory for an understanding of British colonial policy during the period from 1783 to 1867.
B
Use a separate blue book for the questions in this part.
- What were some of the more widely held theories of wages during the nineteenth century?
- Discuss one of the following topics: The Medieval Doctrine of Just Price; The “Dismal Science”; Economic Stages.
- “Though the real problem of Distribution was sometimes approached by the Classical Economists, it was never properly presented, nor was an attempt made at its solution.” Discuss.
- What were the chief contributions to economic thought of one of the following writers: Senior, J. B. Clark, Walker, Cantillon?
- Explain the meaning of three of the following terms and tell with what writer or group they are chiefly associated: produit net, lucrum cessans, preventive check, productive forces, non-competing groups.
- ” There are no terms in economics which bear about them more palpable traces of the conflicts through which they have gone than ‘production’ and ‘productive.'” Discuss.
- What were the principal doctrines of the Austrian school of economics?
- Discuss the relation between the work of one of the following writers and the work of earlier thinkers: Smith, J. S. Mill, Marshall.
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Public Finance
Harvard University, 1931
(Three hours)
Part I
(About one hour)
- White an essay on one of the following topics:
(a) The general property tax,
(b) British budget principles since 1860,
(c) The sales tax,
(d) Postal rate problems in the United States,
(e) Financial problems of highway construction and maintenance.
Part II
(About one hour)
Answer TWO questions only.
- Do you think it wise for a government to exempt its own bonds and notes from taxation? Why, or why not?
- Indicate the nature and significance of the “grant in aid” in British public finance.
- Discuss recent tendencies in state and municipal expenditure.
- Discuss the fiscal aspects of a system of protective tariff duties.
- [In what ways do the problems of government finance affect currency systems and the control of currency?]
Part III
(About one hour)
Discuss THREE of the following quotations.
- “Modern taxation or tax making in its most characteristic aspect is a group contest in which powerful interests vigorously endeavor to rid themselves of present or proposed tax burdens.”
- “Though differential rents of land have complete ability to bear taxation directly imposed upon them, and cannot shift such taxation, they cannot be reached by a tax imposed upon their produce.”
- “To tax investment income at a higher rate would seem to be trebly unjust; for ‘savings’ are first taxed as ‘earned income’; the income derived from them is then taxed as ‘investment income’; and, thirdly, a portion of the invested capital, is confiscated by the ‘death duties’—a triple penalty upon thrift.”
- “It must not be supposed that a government’s safe borrowing power is anything like its national wealth, for the wealth belongs to the people and can be taken from them only by law and the laws are made by the people indirectly and eventually.”
- “Taxes should fall proportionately to the wealth of the taxed, that is, the sacrifice should be equally felt by all. This rule is easy to keep when taxation is light; but when taxation must be heavy, the rule is difficult to keep.”
[Note: Part II, Question 6 has been identified from a list of 65 questions as likely. It was appears to be the better “fit” of two optional, 20-minute public finance questions.]
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Labor Problems
Harvard University, 1931
Part I
(About one hour)
- Write an essay on one of the following topics:
(a) the legal status of trade unions in Great Britain,
(b) unemployment and the business cycle,
(c) standard wage rates,
(d) the family allowance system,
(e) the policy of organized labor towards new machinery.
Part II
(About one hour)
Answer TWO questions only.
- To what extent does welfare work contribute to the solution of the labor problem?
- What is a sweated industry? What are the best correctives for this abuse?
- Compare the policies of the trade unionists in any two of the following countries:
(a) United States,
(b) France,
(c) Germany,
(d) Australia.
- Discuss the policy and objectives of the British Labor Party.
- Discuss the tendencies of judicial interpretations of “liberty of contract” in labor cases in the United States.
Part III
(About one hour)
Discuss THREE of the following questions.
- “Only the most formal conception of the idea of equality and the most unrealistic attitude toward groups in our community could think of the ordinary forms of labor legislation as class legislation.”
- “If no general fund exists which can be diverted from some other form of surplus income into wages, trade unionism becomes a mere device for adding to certain well organized groups of workers a scarcity wage paid by less favorably placed workers.”
- “Wages are more of a question for business than they are for labor. Low wages will break business far more quickly than they will labor.”
- “Scientific management, properly applied, normally functioning, should it become universal, would spell the doom of effective unionism as it exists today.”
- [“As long as there is liberty there will be strikes, for a strike is nothing more or less than liberty to stop work and to wait for a bargain.”]
[Note: Part III, Question 11 has been identified from a list of 65 questions as an optional optional labor question for about 20 minutes and that fits the discuss the quotation format]
Source: Edward S. Jones. Comprehensive Examinations in the Social Sciences, Supplement to the December, 1933 Bulletin of the Association of American Colleges, pp. 33-36.