This post is able to match the examination questions to the corresponding reading list for one semester of Bela Balassa’s international trade theory course that he taught at Johns Hopkins in 1968-69. Alas, the archival box did not have the reading list for the second semester, but at least the exam questions for the second semester, also transcribed below, give us a good idea of the main course content during the spring of 1969.
I am also delighted to have found a picture of Bela Balassa to replace the one I had found on a webpage that, as it turns out, happens to be of an entirely different Balassa (see note at the bottom of the post for details). Professor M. Ali Khan of Johns Hopkins tipped me off about the previous picture (used in other posts) not being quite right.
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Note: the reading list for the fall semester course was transcribed and posted earlier.
EXAMINATION
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS 18.641
Thursday, January 16, 1969
Dr. Balassa
- Answer two questions (80 minutes)
- Discuss the meaning of the expressions “labor” and “capital” in the Heckscher-Ohlin framework and indicate the implications that the recent interpretations of these concepts have for the theory of international trade.
- Analyze the relationship between country size and the commodity composition of exports and imports.
- Discuss the applicability of alternative theories of specialization to trade among industrial countries.
- Answer two questions (80 minutes)
- Examine the usefulness of a general equilibrium approach to trade theory.
- Consider the implications of introducing intermediate goods in trade models.
- Show the applicability of the theory of duopoly and bilateral monopoly to the theory of tariffs.
- Answer one question (40 minutes)
- State briefly the Stolper-Samuelson and the Rybczynski theorems and indicate the relationship between the two.
- What welfare consequences can be derived from the following results if subscript 2 refers to the after-trade and subscript 1 to the before-trade situation:
ΣP2Q2 < ΣP2Q1
ΣP1Q2 > ΣP1Q1
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Note: the reading list for the spring semester course was not included in the collection of course outlines for the department of political economy in the Johns Hopkins University archives.
Final Examination
International Trade Theory 18.642
May 21, 1969
Professor Balassa
Give approximately equal time to all questions.
- Answer two questions.
- It has been customary to consider separately internal and external balance and to examine the effects of the use of various policy instruments on each. How can this be reconciled with Johnson’s proposition that “the balance-of-payments is the difference between aggregate receipts and payments in the domestic economy:”
- Reformulate the exchange stability problem if the devaluation is regarded as a transfer.
- Indicate the effects of a devaluation on the non-merchandise items of the balance of payments.
- Answer two questions.
- Examine the welfare implications of alternative means for attaining balance-of-payments equilibrium, including devaluation, restrictions on trade, restrictions on capital movement, and domestic deflation.
- Milton Friedman has recently argued that the introduction of the two-tier gold market has placed the world on a dollar standard and thus the United States no longer has a balance-of-payments problem. Similar conclusions have been reached by Depres-Kindleberger-Salant on the grounds that the U.S. plays the role of the world banker. Discuss.
- Discuss the implications of fixed and flexible exchange rates for national monetary and fiscal policies under the assumption of perfect capital mobility.
Source: Johns Hopkins University. Eisenhower Library, Ferdinand Hamburger, Jr. Archives. Department of Political Economy Series 6. Box 3; Folder: “Graduate Exams, 1933-1965”.
Image Source: Portrait of Bela Balassa in the Johns Hopkins University Yearbook, Hullabaloo 1976.