Tag: Bergson

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Harvard. Readings and Final Exam for Comparative Economic Systems. Bergson, 1968

Who among us has not tried to sneak a little wit into the formulation of a final exam question? Abram Bergson was a very serious scholar who, the record has shown, was not endowed with a funny bone in his body. Still, he was capable of calling a theoretical market socialist community, “Shangri-Lange” in the exam for his course on comparative economic systems. At least he gave it a try.  

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Miscellaneous Bergsonia

A photo of Abram Bergson when he was a teen-aged undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University.

1946-47 biographical note on Bergson who was a fellow of the Social Science Research Council.

Bergson’s reading assignments for his Columbia course Structure of the Soviet Economy in 1954-55.

Bergson’s reading lists and exams for “Normative Aspects of Economic Policy” at Harvard.   Spring term 1959; Spring term 1960.

Bergson’s Harvard reading list for Economics of Socialism, Spring term 1977.

Paul Samuelson’s memorial biography of Abram Bergson for the National Academy of Sciences in 2004.

For Bergson’s work in Soviet Economic Studies see John Hardt, “Abram Bergson’s Legacy: 1914-2003”.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Economics 131
Comparative Economic Systems
Spring Term, 1967-68

Part I
INTRODUCTION

  1. Background
  2. The Theory of Socialist Economics

Paul A. Samuelson, Economics, 6th ed pp. 17-24. 620-631.

Robert Dorfman, The Price System. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1964, Ch. 6.

O. Lange, “On the Economic Theory of Socialism,” in B. Lippincott, ed., On the Economic Theory of Socialism, Minneapolis, 1938.

F. A. Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order, London, 1948, Ch. IX.

A. Bergson, Essays in Normative Economics, Cambridge, Mass., 1966, pp. 216-236.

Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, International Publishers ed., New York, 1938, pp. 3-23.

W. N. Loucks, Comparative Economic Systems, 7th ed., New York, 1965, pp. 108-120 (5th ed., pp. 98-110; 6thed., pp. 93-105.

Part II
SOCIALIST PLANNING IN THE USSR

  1. Economics of the Industrial Enterprise

J. Berliner, “The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1952; reprinted in F. Holzman, Readings on the Soviet Economy, Chicago, 1962.

A. Bergson, The Economics of Soviet Planning, New Haven, Conn., 1964, Ch. 5, and pp. 287-297.

  1. General Planning

R. W. Campbell, Soviet Economic Power, 1st ed., Cambridge, Mass., 1960, ch. 5.

A. Bergson, Economics of Soviet Planning, Chs. 1, 3, 7, 8, 13.

G. Grossman, “Scarce Capital and Soviet Doctrine,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1953, reprinted in Holzman, Readings.

M. Bornstein, “The Soviet Price System,” The American Economic Review, March 1962; reprinted in M. Bornstein and D. Fusfeld. The Soviet Economy, Homewood, Ill., 1962.

A. Nove, The Soviet Economy, New York, 1961, ch. 3.

L. Smolinski, “What Next in Soviet Planning,” Foreign Affairs, July 1954

R. W. Campbell, “Marx, Kantorovich, and Novozhilov,” in Slavic Review, October 1961; reprinted in H. Shaffer, The Soviet Economy, New York, 1963.

M. Goldman, “Economic Controversy in the Soviet Union,” Foreign Affairs, April 1963; reprinted in M. Goldman, Comparative Economic Systems, New York, 1964.

A. Bergson. “The Current Soviet Planning Reforms,” in A. Balinky et al., Planning and the Market in the USSR, Rutgers, 1967.

Part III
EASTERN EUROPEAN VARIANTS

  1. Economic Reform in Poland and Czechoslovakia

S. Wellisz, The Economics of the Soviet Bloc, New York 1964. Chs. 2 and 6.

L. Smolinski, “Reforms in Poland,” Problems of Communism, July-August 1966.

J. M. Montias, “Economic Reform in Perspective,” Survey, April 1966.

  1. Market Socialism in Yugoslavia

J. M. Fleming and V. R. Sertic, “The Yugoslav Alternative,” International Monetary Fund Staff Papers, July 1962; reprinted in Goldman, Comparative Economic Systems.

E. Neuberger, “The Yugoslav Investment Auctions,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1959.

A. Waterston, Planning in Yugoslavia, Baltimore, Md., 1962, pp. 50-82.

B. Ward, “The Nationalized Firm in Yugoslavia,” and comments on this by G. Macesich and H. G. Grubel, American Economic Review, May 1965, No. 2.

J. Vanek and J. M. Montias, “Planning in Yugoslavia,” in National Bureau of Economic Research, National Economic Planning, New York, 1967, pp. 379-381, 394-407.

Part IV
VARIETIES OF CAPITALIST EXPERIENCE

  1. The Laissez-Faire Ideal

Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, Chicago, 1962, omitting Ch. IV.

  1. The British Nationalized Enterprise

C. A. R. Crosland, “The Private and Public Corporation in Great Britain,” in E. S. Mason, The Corporation in Modern Society, Cambridge, Mass., 1959.

F. Cassell, “The Pricing Policies of the Nationalized Industries,” Lloyd’s Bank Review, October 1965; reprinted in A. H. Hanson, Nationalization: A Book of Readings, London, 1963.

  1. French Planning

Pierre Massé, “French Methods of Planning,” Journal of Industrial Economics, November 1962; reprinted in M. Bornstein, Comparative Economic Systems, Homewood. Ill., 1965.

Vera Lutz, French Planning, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., May 1965.

A. Schonfield, Modern Capitalism, New York, 1965, Ch. VIII.

  1. The Swedish Alternative

Alan G. Gruchy, Comparative Economic Systems, Boston 1966, pp. 357-375, 385-393, 395-416, 423-437.

Part V
COMPARATIVE PERFORMANCE

  1. Inequality

A. Bergson, Essays in Normative Economics, Ch. 8.

A. Bergson, The Economics of Soviet Planning, Ch. 6.

  1. Comparative Growth

A. Bergson, “Reliability and Usability of Soviet Statistics: A Summary Appraisal,” American Statistician, June-July 1953; reprinted in Holzman, Readings.

R. W. Campbell, Soviet Economic Power, 2nd ed., Boston, Mass., 1966, Ch. 6.

A. Maddison, “Soviet Economic Performance,” Banca Nazionale del Laboro Quarterly Review, March 1965.

M. Ernst, “Overstatement of Industrial Growth in Poland,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November 1965.

Y. Vanek, “Yugoslav Economic Growth and Its Conditions,” and connents by N. Spulber, American Economic Review, May 1963, No. 2.

A. Bergson, “The Great Economic Race: USSR v. USA,” Challenge, March 1963, reprinted in Goldman, Comparative Economic Systems.

Janet Chapman, Real Wages in Soviet Russia Since 1928, Cambridge, Mass.,1963, Chs, IX and X.

  1. Economic Merit

A. Nove, The Soviet Economy, New York, 1961, Ch. 12.

A. Bergson, The Economics of Soviet Planning, Ch. 14.

O. Hoeffding, “State Planning and Forced Industrialization,” Problems of Communism, November-December 1959; re-printed in Holzman, Readings.

Jan Tinbergen, “Do Communist and Free Economies Show a Converging Pattern,” Soviet Studies, April 1961.

Peter Wiles, “Convergence: Possibility and Probability,” in Balinky et al., Planning and the Market in the USSR.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003, Box 9; Folder: “Economics, 1967-68”.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Economics 131: Professor Bergson
Final Examination
June 3, 1968

Part I (counts 25%)

Answer one and only one of two.

  1. In Marxiana, a socialist community, the economy is organized in accord with the Competitive Solution except in one particular: the Central Planning Board (CPB) seeks to apply the labor theory of value rather than western marginal theory. What operating rules might the CPB be expected to establish for the manager of an industrial enterprise? How might the managers’ behavior then differ from that under the unmodified Competitive Solution? What is implied for economic efficiency?
  2. In the socialist community of Shangri-Lange, the Competitive Solution is applied without qualification. Discuss the possible economic consequences of a government decision to increase defense spending. Consider in particular the consequences for each of the following:
    1. The government budget;
    2. The rate of interest;
    3. The general level of consumers’ goods prices;
    4. Economic efficiency.

Part II (counts 50%)

Answer two and only two of four.

  1. “As the Soviet experience shows, an interest rate is really not needed for investment project appraisal. So long as one selects the project that minimizes the cost of producing the desired output, there can be no economic waste, and this the Soviet project designers have sought to do from the very beginning of the Five Year Plans.” Discuss.
  2. “That Soviet planning is highly inefficient becomes self-evident when we consider one simple fact: the gross national product per employed worker in the USSR in 1960 was but 24-40 per cent of that in the United States in the same year.” Do you agree? Explain your answer carefully.
  3. “However much or little socialism and capitalism have converged generally, there can be no question that the Yugoslavs have by now practically reverted in all but name to a form of capitalism.” Discuss with special reference to Yugoslav enterprise management.
  4. “French planning surely has been an unqualified success. The record of French post-war growth is itself sufficient evidence of this.” Discuss.

Part III (counts 25%)

  1. Explain briefly four and only four out of seven items:
    1. “Safety factor”; “simulation”
    2. Indicative planning
    3. Milton Friedman on government policy toward “technical (natural) monopolies”
    4. “Occupational wage scale” in determination of Soviet wage differentials
    5. Dynamic versus static efficiency
    6. Average versus marginal cost pricing for coal under the British National Coal Board
    7. “Horizontal” and “Vertical” Modernization Commissions in French Planning.

NOTE: Please indicate on outside cover of your first bluebook the numbers of the questions that you answer

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, Government, Economics, … ,Aerospace Studies, June 1968.

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Columbia Development Economic History Economists International Economics Socialism

Columbia. Memo of Musings Regarding Institutional Economics, Area Studies, and Economic History. Hart, 1973

A memorandum written in 1973 by 64-year old Albert G. Hart shares his laments concerning the path taken by the Columbia University department of economics to what he saw to be a grievous neglect of instruction and research into the institutional nuts-and-bolts, historical trajectories, and granular area studies of economics. A copy of the memorandum was found in the files of his colleague, historian of economics, Joseph Dorfman.

Chicago-style economics was explicitly disdained by Hart who actually wished good riddance to Gary Becker (“…he played dog-in-the-manger too much…” with a note of scorn for Milton Friedman (“… [he] ignores the risk that what passes for ‘general economic law’ may turn out to be a series of adhockeries concocted to be plausible for a very special and perhaps transitory state of society…”).

The memo closes with a question of what to do with the theoretical Wunderkinder of economics departments whose peak years have past with still another quarter century of tenure left in their respective academic life-cycles. Fortunately he stops considerably short of recommending senicide.

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Previously posted content related to Albert G. Hart

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Exams for Introduction to Money and Banking at Chicago, A. G. Hart, 1932-35

Course Outline for Introduction to Money and Banking at Chicago. A. G. Hart, 1933

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Hiring Albert Gailord Hart as visiting professor, 1946

Core Economic Theory. Hart, 1946-47

First semester graduate economic analysis. First weeks’ notes. Hart, 1955

Reading list for Economic Analysis (less advanced level). Hart and Wonnacott, 1959

Hart Memo, Economics Faculty Salaries for 15 U.S. universities. April 1961

Personal Narrative of the Columbia Crisis. A.G. Hart, May 1968

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AGH 11 July 1973

RESPONSIBILITIES AND RESOURCES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Response, addressed to:

Professor Donald Dewey, Chairman,
Professor Ronald Findlay, Director of Graduate Studies
Continuing and Incoming members of the Department

Dean George S. FRANKEL, Graduate School
Dean Harvey PICKER, School of International Affairs

Interested bystanders

to report of Committee of Instruction on the Department of Economics,
by Albert G. Hart, Professor of Economies.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

Preliminary generalities

The COI [Committee of Instruction] report is one of those papers which an informed reader finds simultaneously to be almost-excellent and almost-horrible. I can endorse with only minor reservations its conclusions that recent senior-staff recruiting has been of excellent calibre; that the intensification of workshop-patterns is very healthy; that much stress should be placed on catching good men before their qualifications known to us have become so generally know as to create a bull market; that the graduate students are only moderately happy, and that to build on the quantitative theoretical work of Lancaster, Phelps, and now Dhrymes is a promising way to rebuild morale as well as to establish Columbia again as a major professional focus.

Yet the report is so lop-sided that its net effect is likely not to be constructive. It overlooks entirely two major sides of economics in which Columbia has been, is, and ought to be prominent, and which are of major concern to students. And its lack of historical perspective and of a realistic view of the professional life-cycle may seriously distort its proposals and the reaction to the Department of the central leadership of the University. So I do not see how I can silently let this report stand as expressing real wisdom about the Department and its futures hence this “reaction”.

Some historical correctives

To clear the ground, let me disabuse the reader of the notion that the Department is only now beginning to work on the problems central to the COI report. In the first place, the fact that the workshop pattern of faculty-student interaction (taking in professional visitors) is central to the learning process in economics has been well understood for a long time. At the moment when I became chairman (in 1958), the Department was granted $250,000 by the Ford Foundation specifically to make a major shift toward workshop groupings. The deservedly-praised labor workshop (which non-accidentally had a Becker/Mincer leadership with experience in workshop endeavors at the University of Chicago) was one; we launched also an “Industrial Countries Workshop” (led by Carter Goodrich and Goran Ohlin) which developed a very useful line of publications, a Public Finance Workshop led by Carl Shoup and W. S. Vickrey, and an Expectational Economics workshop under my leadership which was clearly the least successful of the cluster, for reasons I won’t bother the reader with, but for all that far from useless). Presently we had a very lively and constructive International Economics workshop (led by Peter Kenen), which continued under Ronald Findlay; and for a number of years we have had a good-if-not-superlative Monetary Economics workshop (managed by Philip Cagan with partnership of Hart and Barger). In 1972/73 we tried a “Development/Regional” shop, which has been floundering somewhat — partly because it is hard to find a real focus with so many students not in the habit of working together, partly because of its natural leaders, Findlay had to put his main energy into the international field and Wellisz was absent on leave.

What is new in the workshop situation is in the first place the effort (led by Findlay, with enthusiastic support of most of the rest of the Department) to make it work for virtually everybody in the Department, faculty or student — and in the second place serious recognition by the Administration that this is an appropriate-if-expensive way to work, deserving serious backing even if no more Ford funds can be had.

A second consequential historical point (hinted at but not spelled out in the COI report) is that the Department has been working for years at the kind of staffing the COI report now indicates as appropriate. When I was chairman, for example, we had a deal arranged to recruit Svi [sic] Griliches —  which was frustrated by what I am bound to call sabotage at the ad hoc committee stage. In Carl Shoup’s chairmanship, we successfully recruited at the assistant professor level two key men who beautifully exemplify the application of quantitative theory and econometric research techniques to economics —  Peter Kenen and Gary Becker, both of whom were full professors very young, and were regarded as stars in the profession. In my chairmanship and afterwards, much of the work of the chairman went into nursing these two men’s careers and working conditions. Kenen contributed among other things a distinguished job as departmental leader — first Informally leading a curricular reform, then taking over as chairman for a term-and-a-fraction; had the 1968 not disrupted his strategy, he’d have brought us out as one of the two or three leading departments of economics. Becker, with all his virtues, was unlivable and not available as Departmental leader — being too much centered in his own work, too much inclined to insist that the only desirable recruits were quasi-Beckers, too narrow in his views of the profession’s responsibilities (despite his astounding record of success in applying his own apparently-narrow approach to an unexpectedly wide range of problems). Frankly, I felt it unburdened the Department when he moved to Chicago, because much as we must regret the loss of his lively influence on campus, he played dog-in-the-manger too much and helped foster the impression that economics was devoted to “apologetics for the system” rather than to a search for ways to guide constructive social policies.

Agreeing with the COI that we should recruit young and staff the tenure levels largely from local people, I would point out that we have been working at this with a remarkable lack of effective cooperation from outside the Department. As I just mentioned we did acquire Kenen and Becker as assistant professors; but we had no luck in persuading the Administration and ad hoc committees to let us repeat this success. In my time as chairman, we caught a star by converting Albert Hirschman (who accidentally was here without tenure as one-year replacement for Nurkse, on leave), and who was not at the time widely-enough appreciated in the profession. We were unable to hold David Landes on economic history. Two people who in the end proved to be very highly valued outside though when we acquired them they were rank outsiders are Alexander Erlich and Charles Issawi (both of whom were given tenure in my time as chairman). We should remember also that Vickrey (and earlier Barger and Shoup) started at Columbia in Junior ranks. Dewey, Hart, Cagan, Mincer (who however had filled in earlier), Lancaster, Findlay, Phelps, and now Dhrymes, represent recruiting-with-tenure.

What lends poignancy to the question of recruiting-young is that we now have a very distinguished collection of assistant professors — I think the best we’ve had simultaneously in my time at Columbia. But our uniform lack of success with ad hoc committees on promotions of such men (I think Nakamura has been our only promotion to tenure at all recently) creates a situation where we must tell them frankly that we have little hope of keeping them. Such anomalies as two successive years of leave for young Heckman (with serious problems of continuity for students, and loss of the experiential value of a disastrous first-try at reforming the econometrics curriculum) is an extreme example of the kind of handicap for the Department created by the fact that we are morally bound to help our assistant professors make the kind of showing that will get them goods jobs elsewhere — Columbia being unwilling to back us in getting deserved promotions.

Major areas disregarded

Two major areas of professional responsibility in which Columbia has had and must maintain great distinction are simply not mentioned in the COI report. These are the areas of “institutional economics” and of international/regional/developmental economics.

Traditionally, economics in the United States was split into two main camps —those of theoretical and those of “institutionalist” orientation — which maintained an uneasy partnership in the American Economic Association and in many departments. While the titular headquarters of institutionalism was at Wisconsin, its leading center was actually Columbia; and before the sudden recruitment at the end of World War II of a cluster of theoretically-oriented men (Vickrey, Stigler and myself) there was almost a vacuum in Columbia research and instruction on the theoretical side. J. M. Clark (a most distinguished mind whose personals shyness prevented him from being a major influence in face-to-face contact) was a distinguished theoretical thinker, but regarded himself as an institutionalist and had little curricular influence. Hotelling, who was just leaving at the time I came in 1946, was the nearest thing to an active theorist.

A merger of the theoretical and institutionalist schools began to shape up during the 1930’s and was to a considerable extent accomplished during and just after World War II. The terms of merger were much like those for the two meetings of Quakers in New York City, who obviated what might have been an awkward problem of merging properties by having each member of one meeting become a member also of the other! In the 1940’s and 1950’s, it began to look as if nobody could make a career as theorist without also doubling in some other area, and nobody could make a career as institutionalist without also paying serious attention to the theoretical aspects of his problem. But in the end the merger turned out to be slanted in favor of the theorists: it is again possible to make a career by pursuing problems that are trivial variations on theoretical themes; and large elements of the institutional side of economics are allowed to die out. Students doing quantitative work with data have no tradition of asking what their numbers mean in the context of wider social processes and problems.

At Columbia, the tradition that study of law-cases is one important way to understand the economic subject-matter is preserved chiefly by the fortunate fact that we have Dewey teaching “industrial organization”. Economic history was allowed to die out; and while at present we have in assistant professors Edelstein and Passell two excellent specimens of economic historians who are also competent theorists and econometricians, we have no assurances that economic history will not again be blanked out. Some institutional aspects of “economics of human resources” are very much alive in the labor workshop; but large parts of that tradition (including the tradition of trying to understand trade unions and more generally economic organizations other than business firms) seem to have evaporated. History of thought as an approach to economics is now represented almost entirely by Alexander Erlich (who is also our only member who is expert in Marxist economics and in the functioning of European communist economies). While in terms of professional fashions the lack of “institutionalist” instruction will not cause us to lose face in the profession, we should ask whether in bringing up a new generation of economists we should be willing to see the positive aspects of the institutionalist tradition simply evaporate.

The other major aspect of economics which is disregarded in the COI report — though in fact it absorbs much of our staff manpower and is of fundamental importance for many of our students, especially from overseas — is concern with the world outside the United States. We are seriously understaffed in the pivotal area of formal economics of international-trade-and-finance, where Ronald Findlay is saddled with both the responsibilities handled by Kenen and those which were handled by Hirschman. The problems of economic development (or its lack) in the world’s poor countries need and get a lot of attention. [Incidentally, since USA is rapidly evolving “backwards” into a state of underdevelopment, the insights one gets in studying Latin America or Asia become disconcertingly applicable at home!]

The presence at Columbia of a cluster of “regional institutes” has had an important impact on our work in economics. On the whole, the Department has resisted successfully pressures to recruit people who were expert on some “region” but lacked general professional competence. [Before Riskin fortunately turned up, we were under pressure to recruit an economist who combined Chinese language and willingness to function largely as librarian a combination of qualifications which didn’t seem to coexist with all-round professional competence. Bergson, who for years was our “Soviet specialist” was also a distinguished welfare-theorist. Erlich was originally recruited on “soft money” to be an East-Central-Europe specialist; when Bergson left, there was a closing-of-ranks operation which gave him the Russian field —  and it has turned out that his knowledge of Marxist economics and of economic thought, and the fact that he is regularly sought out by East European visitors in USA make him a major factor of general departmental strength. At present the nearest equivalents of “mere” area specialists are Issawi (who also handles general instruction in economics in the School of International Affairs, and a good deal of development-and-history work at the dissertation stage), Nakamura and Riskin — all men of great general usefulness. The roles of European and Latin American “regional specialists” are filled by two of our senior general economists —  Barger and myself.

While one could imagine a budgetary situation such that one must recommend reducing to a token scale a University’s involvement in this area (except for basic international-trade-and-finance courses), it is hard to believe that Columbia specifically should withdraw from this kind of work. Surely the economic profession in USA has as part of its responsibility an understanding of the economic processes of other countries. [True, I have heard Milton Friedman say that to have a different economics for Brazil as against USA makes no more sense than to have a different science of chemistry; but he simply disregards the ethnocentric character of the economics which inward-looking economists develop for USA, and ignores the risk that what passes for “general economic law” may turn out to be a series of adhockeries concocted to be plausible for a very special and perhaps transitory state of society.] This responsibility surely comes home to Columbia. For one thing, New York is the natural focus of such work, what with its outward-looking tradition and the presence of the UN. Besides, we incur a special responsibility because we have so many overseas students. I would add that to educate overseas students too exclusively in economics-for-USA is dysfunctional: one of the major handicaps of development has been the attempt of US-trained economists overseas to apply Keynesian remedies to unemployment problems of non-Keynesian type, for example.

Economics and the SIA [School of International Affairs]

If the University were very strong financially, it seems to me plain that one would recommend developing the Economics Department in a way that would greatly strengthen the general work on international relations and on the understanding of societies outside USA which is represented by the School of International Affairs. The SIA could advantageously be much more of a research body and center of workshop activity.

I would not recommend developing an economics department within the SIA (even if SIA eventually develops a distinct and separately-recruited faculty, which I don’t think I would recommend either). To set up standards of recruiting, teaching and publication for “SIA economists” that will pass muster with the general profession is an essential safeguard, and the generally low standards of economic thinking in the UN and in overseas universities outside Europe, Japan and Australasia should be a warning that a separate international economics might not be a genuine “discipline”. But it will be a major defeat if Columbia cannot maintain and improve its standard of keeping a stable of economists for whom understanding of outside economies (and especially of the economies of poor countries) is a major concern.

A question which interacts with this, of course, is whether the SIA can develop its own sources of financing, as seemed so probable a few years ago. If not, the general financial debility of the University will mean that we must stop far short of optimum in the whole area represented by SIA, and hence also on its economic side. Specifically, it may make a great difference whether or not SIA can finance workshop activity in this area, and make a role for research posts for young economists (for example, teaching two-thirds time in the Department and working one-third-time-plus-summer in a research branch of SIA).

If the University’s policy toward economics is primarily to develop its mathematical-economics core, the contribution the Department can make on the SIA side may suffer. And reciprocally, failure to develop strength on this side may be a handicap to SIA in its efforts to get backing for a really strong program.

A postscript on professional life-cycles

One of the most valuable pieces of education I picked up in my earlier years at Columbia was a comment by Isador Rabi at a University Seminar about the problems of a field like physics where the most impressive men “peak” very young and the work regarded as important by the profession is done largely by youngsters. It would be a tremendous waste to throw men on the scrap-heap after their “peak” years, or to regard them as living on the benefits of tenure, as non-producers, for most of their profession lifetimes. The solution, Rabl indicated, was surely to be found in an appropriate division of labor between colleagues at different stages of life-cycle, working out what economists call an area of comparative advantage for the older men.

The COI report seems to me to ignore this problem, and to frame problems as if we could hope to recruit good men between age 25 and age 30 and have them conveniently remove themselves (suicide recommended?) along about age 40 — significant activities being described as those appropriate to men aged 25-40. In good part, I think the “problem” of life-cycle (once recognized) and the “problems” of maintaining strength in institutional economics and in the development/regional areas exist largely because we don’t integrate our approaches to different aspects of economics work. To a considerable degree, the natural life-cycle of the economist is to be obsessed with very abstract problems in youth, and mature into a person more concerned with and more knowledgeable about the real world. To a very large degree, the staffing of the institutional fields and of the SIA-type activities should then be handled by shifting over of people who have graduated from being pure theorists. If we don’t do this, the channels of recruiting and promotion for the continuation of the supposedly -central mathematical-economics core are apt to get clogged. It is very tricky to suppose that giving tenure to a theoretically creative young man is to acquire forty years of theoretically creative activity. Most of the relevant people have their key ideas very young, and develop them as fully as is profitable by age 40. If they continue to preempt the key teaching roles in these fields, they will keep the young from advancing and will impair the freshness of the curriculum offered to graduate and undergraduate students. [It was because of this view that I allowed myself to be pushed out of micro-teaching by Becker and Co. in the early 1960’s.] But to suck the tenured men out of these lines and make room for their successors, a Department needs a lot of roles for the maturing older man. Unless we can do well with the institutional and SIA aspects of the field, I conclude, we can’t do well in the long run with the “core” aspects.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13 (Columbia University-teaching, etc.); Folder “Economic H…P…”

Image Source:  Obituary in The Columbia Spectator, October 3, 1997.

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Annual report on the department of economics. Dunlop, 1961-1962

John T. Dunlop

An overview of the annual comings and goings of a department are typically chronicled in a report prepared by the department chair. Such low circulation documents are sometimes targeted to a specific readership, e.g. a visiting committee, a dean, the alumni, but the report transcribed in this post for the Harvard economics department in 1961-62 does not appear to have had a particular audience in mind.

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About  Chairman John T. Dunlop
(Harvard Album, 1960)

Sallying forth from an office in the farther reaches of Littauer to Washington, D.C., JOHN THOMAS DUNLOP, Professor of Economics and faculty member in the Graduate School of Public Administration, is certainly one of the university’s most travelled professors. Dunlop, a labor expert, teaches an undergraduate course on unionism and public policy applying to labor relations and problems; in the grad school he conducts two seminars, in one of which he had worked closely with the late Professor Slichter. But in addition to his teaching, Professor Dunlop is one of the country’s leading strike arbitrators, and he figures that he travels in the vicinity of 150,000 miles a year on this outside work. The occasion for a weekly trip to the nation’s capital is his post as the impartial chairman of a joint committee in the construction industry, comprising representatives of the eighteen major unions and contracting firms. In this position Professor Dunlop must mediate disputes between the union and management. He is also a permanent umpire for the women’s garment industry and in the past has served in similar capacities for the brass companies of Connecticut and the bituminous coal producers. The dispute in 1955 involving the complexities of the ratio of required conductors to the length of a freight train called him back to the role of mediator, following a long term with the Atomic Energy Labor panel. At present he edits the Wertheim series on the histories of various big corporations and unions, and he also administers a Ford Foundation grant to study the functionings of labor and management in the underdeveloped countries of Asia.

Professor Dunlop was born in the Forty-Niner gold region and graduated from the University of California in 1935. He has been with Harvard since 1938, when he joined the faculty as an instructor. He gets back to California at least once a year, and the last time he returned he did so by travelling eastward via Indonesia. Professor Dunlop lives in Belmont, and, when not compiling mileage, he devotes his time to his wife and three children, and concentrates on his tennis game.

Source: The Harvard Album, 1960, p. 29.

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Previously posted departmental reports

Department Reports to the Dean (1932-41)
Department Reports to the Dean (1942-1946)
Department Reports to the Dean (1947-1950)
Department Report to the Dean (1955-56)
Department Newsletter (June 1960)

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June 26, 1962

Report
Department of Economics, 1961-1962

1. Staff

Professor Gerschenkron was Taussig Research Professor for the year, and Professor Albert J. Meyer, lecturer in the Department, was also on leave. Professor Galbraith and Kaysen continued on leave in government appointments. During the spring term Professor Harris was on sabbatical leave; Professor Bergson held a Ford Faculty Research Fellowship, and Professor Leontief was Visiting Professor at the College du France, Paris. Assistant Professors Gill and Vanek were also on leave throughout the year.

As a consequence of the number of senior members on leave, the Department included this year a relatively large number of visiting professors and lecturers. Professor Jesse Markham of Princeton University taught the courses in industrial organization; Dr. Frank Spooner was in charge of economic history; Professor William H. Nicholls of Vanderbilt instructed in agriculture and economic development. Professor Jacob Viner was Taussig Research Professor, and while he taught no courses, we were delighted to have him with us for the year. Professor Schmookler of Minnesota was associated with the science and public policy seminar of the Littauer School, and was a visiting lecturer in the Department. In addition, Professor Domar of M.I.T. taught a course in the Soviet economy in the spring term. Mr. Langley gave courses ordinarily taught by Professor A.J. Meyer, and Professor Caleb Smith of Brown University continued to teach the accounting course.

2. New Appointments

       The Executive Committee unanimously recommended the appointment of Professor Richard Caves as a permanent addition to the Department. Following the established procedures, the governing boards on May 14, 1962 voted his appointment as Professor of Economics effective July 1, 1962. Professor Caves completed his Ph.D. degree in the Department in 1958 and has been on the staff at the University of California (Berkeley) since 1957. He has been vice-chairman of the Berkeley Department. The appointment of Professor Caves will materially strengthen the Harvard Department, particularly in the fields of international trade and industrial organization. Moreover, he is regarded as an excellent undergraduate teacher.

       The Department unanimously recommended and the President and governing boards approved the appointment of four new assistant professors starting July 1, 1962: Clopper Almon, Jr., Elliot Berg, Phoebus Dhrymes, and Thomas Wilson. It is planned that these assistant professors in the Department will devote part time to research and be paid in part from research budgets. Such arrangements, combined with the higher salary scales starting July 1, 1962, should facilitate the recruitment of first rate assistant professors; it has often been difficult in the past to fill this rank in this Department.

       In approving these four appointments on March 5, 1962, President Pusey stated:

“It is my understanding that these four new Assistant Professors will devote part of their five-year tenure to special research projects and that an appropriate fraction of their salaries during these periods will be charged against the project budgets. I approve in principle the idea of experimenting in this way with charging portions of the salaries of assistant professors to grants or contracts, provided these grants or contracts are of sufficient duration to avoid the danger of funds running out when there are still large salary commitments in excess of our normal academic salary budget. Thus I feel that we should move with caution in this direction, treating the above appointments as experimental, and waiting for the results to become apparent before venturing further along this road.”

3. Chair in Modern China Studies and Economics

       The primary responsibility for filling this chair has now been placed in the Department of Economics. After a series of conferences with the East Asia Research Center of Harvard University, President Pusey approved the arrangements under which the Department will seek a permanent appointment competent in Economics and with a command of the Chinese language. In the meanwhile, the Department is to be responsible for providing some instruction on term appointments in the field and is to have the use of the income of the endowment for such instruction and to develop promising scholars in this field.

       Professor Kuznets is to be Chairman of the Committee of the Department to seek appropriate appointments. It is expected that Mr. Dwight Perkins, a graduate student in the Department, will provide a half course of instruction on the Economy of China in the spring term, 1963.

4. Undergraduate Program

       The enrollment in the undergraduate courses in the Department has grown in the last several years. The aggregate enrollment in undergraduate courses was 926 in the fall of 1959 and 1375 in the fall of 1961; the aggregate enrollment was 1080 in the spring term of 1960 and 1281 in the spring of 1962. These figures include the enrollment in Economics 1 which averaged 540 in 1959 and 628 in 1962. It is thought that these increases in part reflect the reorganization of the undergraduate program placed into effect in the fall of 1960 following several years of work on the part of the committee on undergraduate instruction. The division of full year courses into half year courses, the arrangement of courses into four groups according to prerequisites and level of difficulty, the lectures in Economics 1 and the addition to the curriculum of a few new courses is thought to have stimulated enrollment.

       Despite the increases in enrollment in undergraduate courses, the Department faces a serious continuing problem to maintain and to increase the number of concentrators in the field. The percentage of all concentrators who elect the field of Economics has declined from 7.7 percent in 1956-57 to 6.0 percent in 1960-61. The low concentration in Economics at Radcliffe is of particular concern to the Department, and conferences seeking to increase interest among the students have been held with President Bunting and other members of the Radcliffe staff.

       In order to improve the quality of our instruction, Economics 98 (junior tutorial) is to be reorganized. The adoption of the Gill plan by the Faculty materially increased the number of students in Economics 98 from 40 or 50 to more than 80. The instruction in economic theory by lectures has proven to be inappropriate with the larger group. Next year, 1962-63, it is planned to divide the group into three or four seminars, each of approximately 20 students; each seminar is to be under the direction of a senior member of the Department or an assistant professor. In addition, tutorial groups of four or five students will meet with individual tutors. Professor Caves has been given overall responsibility for this important part of the undergraduate program.

5. Graduate Instruction

       There was a total of 48 first year graduate students in the Department this year including 5 women and 3 enrolled through Littauer. There were 88 continuing graduate students including 6 women, 6 from Littauer, and 2 in joint degrees, for a total of 136 graduate students; in addition, the Department had 10 special students and 10 special auditors. A total of 21 Ph.D. degrees were awarded to students in the Department of Economics.

       The competition for places in the graduate schools for work in the Department of Economics has grown more severe in recent years. From the more than 260 applications for admission to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences received in the spring of 1962, there will only be about 45 new graduate students in the fall of 1962. Almost half of these students will be from outside the United States and Canada. For the fall of 1962 we have been able to obtain the admission of 8 out of the first 10 on our list, a considerably higher fraction than in recent years.

       The Department faces strong conflicting pressures in making decisions on the number of new graduate students to be admitted. On the one hand, the Department is anxious to provide individual instruction particularly after the first year of graduate study for the highest quality students. A greater enrollment would also complicate materially the teaching of the required graduate courses in economic history, statistics and theory, and after a point would require further manpower so that two senior members of the Department might give parallel courses or sections. On the other hand, the Department is anxious to make its contribution to the increased demands for economists particularly for developing countries. Moreover the quality of a number of the students rejected for admission (perhaps as many as 15 to 20) appears to be very good. In the selection of students from abroad it is particularly difficult to know whether one has made the best selections. When students are admitted whose records turn out to be poor, there are often many complications for both the student and the University. The Department has spent considerable energy in reviewing the records of students admitted during the past decade; a careful statistical study was made under the direction of Professor Houthakker. The Department is continuing to seek to improve admission procedures.

         Financial resources available to the Department for its own use for scholarships and fellowships is a serious problem since the money made available by the generous gift of Mr. Roger Kyes has now been exhausted.

6. Organization of the Department

The Department now performs much of its routine business through committees. The two major committees are on Undergraduate Instruction under Professor Eckstein and on Graduate Instruction under Professor Dorfman.

7. Research

         A very large amount of research activity is carried out by members of the Department of Economics. In addition to individual research by senior members, an increasing number of research projects which employ a number of graduate students and junior staff are being conducted under the direction of senior members. These research projects often provide opportunities for training of graduate students in research methods and afford topics and financing for Ph.D. dissertations.

         Among these research projects with financial support are the following:

Professor Leontief Harvard Economic Research Project which has recently been refinanced for a period of years.
Professor Mason The relations of government and business in economic development.
Professor Mason and Dr. Papanek Overseas operations and training
(Center for International Affairs)
Professor Kuznets Economic growth
Professor Eckstein Economics of public expenditures
Professor Houthakker Forecasting consumers’ expenditures
Professor Harris Education and Public Policy
Professor Schelling Defense studies and Experimental Study of Bargaining
Professor Dunlop Labor-Management History and Economics of Medical Care
Professor Duesenberry Capital Markets
Professor Meyer Business Decisions
Professor Bergson Soviet Economics
Professor Gerschenkron Economic History Workshop

8. Public and Professional Activities

         A number of members of the Department were engaged in a wide variety of professional activities and public service during the year. A few instances may be of interest; no attempt is made for a complete listing.

         The president of the American Economic Association comes from this Department two years in a row. Professor Mason is president for 1962, and Professor Haberler is president-elect.

         Professor Leontief was chairman of the International Conference on Input-Output Techniques held in Geneva, Switzerland in September 1961 and sponsored by the Harvard Economic Research Project in association with the U.S.[sic] Secretariat. He was also a member of the Commission of Experts for the United Nations which reported on the Social and Economic Consequences of Disarmament.

         Professor Dorfman served as a member of the President’s Scientific Advisory Committee team on Waterlogging and Salinity in West Pakistan. He is also a member of the President’s Committee to Appraise Employment and Unemployment Statistics.

         Professor Harris is serving as Economic Advisor to the Secretary of the Treasury and is a member of the Public Advisory Board of the Area Redevelopment Program.

         Professor John R. Meyer served as a consultant in connection with the President’s message on Transportation Policy.

         Professor Kuznets is Chairman of the Committee on the Economy of China of the Social Science Research Council.

         Professor Bergson is a member of this same Committee and chairman of the Joint Committee of Slavic Studies of the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies. His study, The Real National Income of Soviet Russia Since 1928, was published in 1961 by the Harvard University Press.

         Professor Mason is Chairman, Advisory Committee, A.I.D.

         Professors Duesenberry, Eckstein and Smithies have been consultants to the Council of Economic Advisors. Professor Duesenberry was on the staff of the Commission on Money and Credit and was chairman of the Joint Economic Committee’s Inventory Study Committee.

         Professor Schelling has been a consultant to the Department of Defense and to the Scientific Advisory Board of the Air Force. His study Strategy of Arms Control (with Morton J. Halperin), was published by the Twentieth Century Fund in 1961.

         Professor Houthakker has worked on revenue forecasting problems for the Department of the Treasury.

         Professor Dunlop was a member of the Presidential Railroad Commission (1960-1962), and is a member of the President’s Missile Sites Labor Commission. He was Chairman of the International Conference on Labor Productivity under the auspices of the International Economic Association held August-September 1961.

9. Visiting Committee

         A series of meetings this year with the Chairman of the Visiting Committee, and others of its members, have improved the relations between the Visiting Committee and the Department of Economics. I believe these new attitudes are reflected in the annual report of the Committee. There is a genuine desire on the part of both the Department and the Committee for a constructive relationship.

___________________
John T. Dunlop
Chairman

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: The Harvard Class Album 1960, p. 29.

Categories
Fields Harvard

Harvard. Report on Long-range Plans for the Department of Economics. 1948

The following transcribed report of a special committee regarding the future of the Harvard economics department looking forward from 1948 is fascinating. Eight senior professors would be retiring over the coming decade and there was a serious discussion of the economists needed to replace them. For my money the most interesting comparison is the one made between Arthur Smithies and Paul Samuelson. I’ll let you or your AI of choice fish that out of the report. But there is much more to be found.

_____________________________

The Provost is not amused
[No letterhead, unsigned.
Apparently a copy.]

December 22, 1947

Dear Mr. Burbank:

I am not at all happy with the recommendation sent me by the Department of Economics and the School of Public Administration for the appointment at professorial rank of a man to serve jointly in the Department and in the School. As you realize, the five votes taken by the group reveal a confused picture in which no clear preference is indicated. Nor have I been successful in clarifying the situation by requesting from each member of the group a letter addressed to me in which he explained fully his vote. Hence I believe it necessary to suggest a different procedure from that which has been followed.

One source of the difficulty, it occurs to me, is that the recommendation for the joint appointment has not been studied sufficiently in relation to the other vacancies which are to be filled within the next year or two. As you know, the Department has, in addition to the joint professorship, a vacancy in the rank of full professorship created by the resignation of Professor Crum, and one in the rank of associate professorship. It also has due it in 1950-51 a second vacancy as associate professor. Hence it appears that within a short span, the Department has four major appointments to make. It goes without saying that those appointments will influence in great measure the future of economics at Harvard for many years to come. The importance of making wise selections cannot be lost sight of.

It seems to me that we must consider all these appointments as a related problem. Consequently I shall take no action on the recommendation for the joint appointment until the Department has thought through its entire slate. No evidence has been given me yet which suggests that the Department has worked out a consistent plan or program into which all these appointments can be fitted and which meets, within the resources available, the demands which the Faculty as a whole may properly make upon the Department of Economics.

I have no desire to lecture the Department as to its obligations, but I do have certain responsibilities to discharge as Dean of the Faculty. Hence I venture to suggest that there are certain questions which may reasonably and properly be directed to the Department for an answer. Among those questions are the following:

  1. What is your concept of teaching and research within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences?
  2. What fields will you cover, within the resources at your command, in carrying out the answer to the first question?
  3. Are you properly discharging your obligations to your sister departments of the Faculty and to the programs which the Faculty has legislated as common ventures?
  4. Do your specific recommendations harmonize with a general plan and program?

I understand fully that these are no easy questions to answer and that the difficulty of finding an answer is a prime factor in creating the present state of confusion. But I suspect that more preliminary efforts to answer the questions might have reduced the degree of confusion. Certainly so long as the basic issues are not clarified, the discussion of individuals to be appointed breaks down into fragmentary views.

I am also distressed by the fact that many of the professors in the Department have informed me that they do not consider themselves either willing or competent to serve as Chairman of the Department when your term expires in June. One conclusion which might be drawn from this situation is that the Department as now constituted needs some recruitment from men competent and willing to think of economics in general, and of the relation of economics to the faculty at large and to the world outside the university.

I must also report a sense of uneasiness among members of the Faculty in other Departments, that the Department of Economics is showing a tendency not to give due weight in the filling of its vacancies to common programs. If there is cause for this apprehension, I should be quite dismayed. At a time when the Faculty as a whole gives indication of the need in teaching and research for ever greater cooperation between disciplines of learning, it would be regrettable if the Department of Economics adhered to narrow and vertical procedures. To make the point quite specific, I might inquire what the Department of Economics plans to do in regard to Economic History and to the Area Program in Russian.

I also wonder whether in your immediate desire to fill the vacancies with men now available, you have given proper consideration to the range of younger men coming to maturity in your field. I have, for example, observed two young economists now in the Society of Fellows who seem to me to have ultimate promise of achievement greater than that of at least some of the men now available. There must be many other such men in the University and elsewhere. It would seen wise in any general approach to the problem to give assurance that proper consideration had been made in our appointment schedule for the generation of economists now coming to maturity.

These are some of the matters I have in mind, both general and particular, which incline me to the decision that we should follow an approach in handling these appointments different from the one followed to date. I fear that the approach followed so far is leading into an impasse from which the only escape will be the making of something less than the wisest appointments. Hence I suggest a change of procedure and ask first that the Department present me, in advance of any specific recommendation, with a statement which deals with the questions raised earlier in this letter. Recommendations may accompany this document, but they will not be accepted without it and unless they are shown to have meaning in relation to it.

Finally, the time has come, I believe, when I must personally associate myself with the development of this program. I am therefore arranging a dinner and evening meeting in the rooms of the Society of Fellows on January 21 at 6:30 p.m. to which I shall invite each member of the Executive Committee (all Professors and Associate Professors) of the Department. I shall preside at this meeting, and we shall begin then discussion of the issues outlined in this letter. Needless to say that because of the urgency of the matter, I shall expect a full attendance of the Executive Committee at the dinner.

I am sending a copy of this letter to each Professor and Associate Professor of the Department.

Sincerely yours,
[Unsigned by Paul H. Buck]
Provost

Professor H. H. Burbank
Littauer Center

_____________________________

C O N F I D E N T I A L

REPORT ON LONG-RANGE PLANS
FOR THE
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
(REVISED EDITION)

February 25, 1948
  1. The Task of the Committee

In his letter of December 22, 1947, to the Chairman of the Department of Economics [Professor Harold H. Burbank], the Provost [Professor Paul H. Buck] raised a series of questions concerning the long-run plans for the growth and development of the Department. Any future appointments clearly ought to be related to a comprehensive study of the needs and objectives of the Department.

The questions posed by the Provost were as follows:

    1. What is your concept of teaching and research within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences?
    2. What fields will you cover, within the resources at your command, in carrying out the answer to the first question?
    3. Are you properly discharging your obligations to sister departments of the Faculty and to the programs which the Faculty has legislated as common ventures?
    4. Do your specific recommendations harmonize with a general plan and program?

Following an evening meeting on January 21, 1948, with the Executive Committee of the Department, the Provost appointed a committee of five to consider the above questions and to prepare a report on long-run plans for the Department. The Committee was also directed to recommend appointments for existing vacancies in the light of such a comprehensive survey of long-range problems. Four appointments are under consideration at this time: (1) a full professor replacement for Professor Crum, (2) a full professor to be appointed jointly in the Department and in the Littauer School of Public Administration, (3) an associate professor available July 1, 1948, and (4) an associate professor normally not available until July 1, 1951, but who might be appointed at an earlier date.

  1. The Prospective Situation in the Department

The growth of the Department in recent years is indicated in the following tabulation of the number of permanent positions and the number of undergraduate and graduate students for selected years since 1925.

Year

 Permanent Positions Undergraduate Concentrators

Graduate Students*

1925-26

10

 324

75

1930-31

14

 397

82

1935-36

13

 376

47

1940-41

 16 321

102

1947-48

 17 726

264

* Prior to 1940, graduate students with Corporation appointments were not required to register in the Graduate School. The graduate figures for 1940-41 and 1947-48 include Joint Degree and Littauer School candidates who take most of their work in Economics.
Radcliffe students are included in the figures only for 1947-48.

The Department of Economics may reasonably anticipate the retirement of one-half of its present permanent members by June 30, 1958. On the normal assumption that retirement takes place at age sixty-six, eight of the sixteen present permanent members may be expected to become emeritus during the next ten years. The members of the Department who are, and are not, expected to retire before 1958 are indicated in the following lists. (The dates of birth are given after each name.)

Expected Retirement by 1958

 Active Status Expected, Fall 1958
A.P. Usher January 13, 1883 E. Frickey

August 20, 1893

J.A. Schumpeter

 February 8, 1883 S.E. Harris September 8, 1897
J.D. Black June 6, 1883 O.H. Taylor

December 11, 1897

A.E. Monroe

 August 2, 1885 E.S. Mason February 22, 1899
J.H. Williams June 21, 1887 E.H. Chamberlin

May 18, 1899

H.H. Burbank

 July 3, 1887 G. Haberler July 20, 1900
A.H. Hansen August 23, 1887 W.W. Leontief

August 5, 1905

S.H. Slichter

 January 8, 1892 J.T. Dunlop

July 5, 1914

The Department can look forward, under the existing rules of the University, to a total of six new permanent appointments, including the four now under consideration during this ten-year period. The Department can also expect the appointment of an economist to the Lamont University Professorship upon the retirement of Professor Slichter. Accordingly, the Department can expect to retain a total of fifteen permanent appointments in the academic year 1958-59 in comparison with the seventeen permanent members during the current academic year (the above list plus Professor Crum). (The number of permanent members of the staff may at any given time be larger than retirement dates would indicate by reason of extension of normal term of service.)

These expected changes in the personnel of the Department over the next ten-year period indicate clearly the decisive nature of the appointments now under deliberation. Four of the six expected appointments are under study. The distinction and reputation of the Department for many years to come is at stake. It is imperative that every effort be made to appraise the needs and opportunities of the Department during the next decade and to canvass with insight all possible candidates.

  1. The Place of the Department in the Faculty

The first question posed by the Provost in his letter of December 22, 1947, was: “What is your concept of teaching and research within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences?” The Committee makes the following points in a re-examination of the role of the Department.

(a) The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has embarked on programs of General Education and Area Studies [e.g., Russian Studies]. The Department of Economics has a substantial and distinctive contribution to make to each of these experiments: the development of a common core of a liberal education and the integration of different disciplines around the problems of a significant geographical area.

 (b) The past twenty years have witnessed an unprecedented expansion in the need for economists in a variety of positions outside the academic world — government service, business concerns, research organizations, labor and farm groups, consulting practice and economic reporting. The Department of Economics needs to develop a more flexible graduate program to meet this more diversified demand in cooperation with other Departments in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and with various Graduate Schools in the University. The recognition of these broader objectives will supplement rather than detract from the training of economists for academic posts.

(c) The balance between graduate and undergraduate instruction in Economics is always a delicate adjustment. Indeed, the Provost has recently indicated that the strength and prestige of Harvard College lies in the fact that we are truly a “University College.” The Committee has analyzed the relative proportion of the time of its permanent members devoted to graduate and undergraduate course instruction for selected years since 1925. The permanent staff of the Department gave more courses for undergraduates in 1947-48 than in 1925-26. The proportion of all course time devoted to undergraduate instruction, however, has been reduced in this same period from a half to little more than a third. In other words, the increased permanent manpower of the Department over this period (permanent positions increased from ten to seventeen) has been devoted largely to graduate instruction.

The following table compares the number of courses “taught” or “supervised” by permanent members of the Department for undergraduates with the offering of courses for graduate students for selected dates. Comparative figures are also presented for the History and Government Departments.

Courses of Instruction by Permanent Staff
Economics History

Government
Dates Undergrad. Grad. Undergrad. Grad. Undergrad. Grad.

1925-26

8 ½

 8 ½ 14 12 6 ½

8

1930-31

 9 11 ¾ 14 22 ¾ 5

9 ½

1935-36

 8 ¾ 12 15 ¼ 31 5 ¼

10 ¼
1940-41 9 ¾ 19 ½ 14 13 ½ 7 ¼

19 ¾

1947-48

 12 ½ 22 15 10 ½ 9

9

These figures would appear to indicate that graduate course instruction has expanded in Economics relatively to undergraduate course instruction and also relative to the experience of graduate instruction in other departments. It should be noted, however, that the large increase in graduate courses after 1935/36 was associated with the establishment of the Graduate School of Public Administration which affected both the Department of Economics and the Department of Government.

These data on course offering need to be interpreted in terms of graduate enrollment and undergraduate concentration. The following table presents this information. The figures indicate the incidence of the postwar expansion in University enrolment upon the burden of instruction in Economics and allied departments.

Undergraduate Concentrators and Graduate Students

Economics History Government
Dates Undergrad. Grad. Undergrad. Grad. Undergrad.

Grad.

1925-26

 324 75 190 — 113 45
1930-31 397 82 254 138 130

56

1935-36

 376 47 283 104 292 38
1940-41 321 102 272 146 314

76

1947-48

 726 264 321 207 763

129

The Committee believes that undergraduate instruction in Economics in the past two years has suffered materially by the suspension of the tutorial system. The assistant professor rank in which there is normally considerable contact with undergraduates has not been fully manned in recent years. The Committee believes that undergraduate instruction needs to receive more attention in the Department, not so much by more courses given by permanent members but by rebuilding a strong group of younger teachers in the assistant professor and annual instructor rank.

Assuming the number of the permanent staff at present contemplated to be fixed, the size of the graduate student body in Economics must be reduced from its present size of more than 260 if members of the Department are to fulfill their total obligations to the University and if a more diversified graduate student body is to receive adequate instruction and supervision. The Committee suggests a figure of 200 graduate students — twice the pre-war level — as a normal standard for the period under review. The rate of admission planned for the Fall term, 1948, will eventually yield a student body close to this figure. It is impossible at this time to foresee whether the numbers of qualified graduate students seeking economic instruction at Harvard will substantially exceed 200 after the special circumstances accounting for the present large numbers have been eliminated. If, as may well happen, the demand on the part of first-rate men and women for graduate instruction in economics exceeds the capacity of the staff as at present planned, it may indicate a need for revision of plans of instruction in economics.

(d) There is imperative need for more systematic development of research plans in Economics and for financial arrangements whereby permanent members may be relieved of all duties for periods of a term to pursue research on a full-time basis. Research grants should be used in part to secure substitute instruction. Several research projects which provide a practicable model for the expansion of research have recently been undertaken by members of the Department. Individual members of the Department should be encouraged to organize specific research projects and solicit support, in cooperation with the University administration. These projects should make provision for full-time leave for a term whenever possible. Such projects, moreover, may well become a training center for the most advanced students.

(e) The Department of Economics should expect a continuation of the distinguished tradition of participation by many of its members in wider forms of service to the community — government service, consultation to business and industry, private arbitration, private research organizations, etc. A danger exists, however, that these activities may consume too large a proportion of the time and energy of members of the staff. A devotion to productive scholarship should be an indispensable requirement of every appointee.

In making appointments the Department must be concerned to choose men with the energy and capacity for developing these outside interests and contacts. The Department has not only an obligation to the world of scholarship but also a unique responsibility for leadership at the many points where Economics has a contribution to make to the world of affairs.

  1. The Urgent Needs of the Department

The second question posed by the Provost in his letter of December 22, 1947, asked: “What fields will you cover, within the resources at your command, in carrying out the answer to the first question?” When the objectives for the Department outlined in the preceding section are considered in conjunction with the present personnel and the retirement pattern outlined in Section 2 above, the following needs of the Department appear to be the most urgent. (The listing of these requirements at this point does not imply any particular hierarchy of urgency.)

(a) Economic History. This field has been a required part of the graduate program in Economics for many years. Moreover, for over half a century instruction in this area has been located in the Economics Department. The retirement of Professor Usher requires that provision be made for this field in any comprehensive plan for the Department.

(b) Agriculture and Marketing. Professor Black has developed work in two fields: (1) The Economics of Agriculture and Land Use Planning, and (2) Marketing and Distribution. Ideally two men would be required to carry on this work.

(1) Agriculture. The Committee is of the opinion that work in the Economics of Agriculture and Land Use Planning is indispensable. Research and training in this field have constituted a major contribution of the Department. Moreover, the agricultural field is of particular concern in the School of Public Administration.

(2) Marketing. The Committee reluctantly concludes that, under present prospects and despite the importance of work in marketing and distribution, it is unlikely that one of the few appointments available can be allocated in this field. It may be that the field of Business Organization can be reorganized to permit the inclusion of some portion of the work in the present field of Marketing and Distribution.

(c) General Education and the Area Program. It is imperative that the Department take an active part in the formulation and development of these new programs. The availability of half-time appointments from the General Education and Area budgets would permit the Department of Economics to make two appointments (of half-time each) for one budget vacancy. That is, the appointment of two men, a half time of one in an Area and of the other in General Education, might fill one of the vacancies in the Economics Department.

(d) Business Organization. The resignation of Professor Crum and the administrative responsibilities of Professor Mason make an appointment in this area urgent. Moreover, the field constitutes one of the largest areas of undergraduate and graduate concentration.

(e) Public Policy. The systematic development of the field of the Economic Aspects of Public Policy is essential to the growth of the Graduate School of Public Administration. One of the appointments available at this time has been explicitly earmarked for this purpose.

(f) Public Finance. The retirement of Professor Burbank in the period indicates the necessity for providing for work in this area. The field is indispensable both to the Economics Department and the Graduate School of Public Administration.

(g) Statistics. The burden of instruction in the field of Statistics is heavier than one man should be asked to assume. In addition to undergraduate and graduate courses, this required field involves participation in virtually all general examinations. Ideally instruction should be provided in the field of national income and mathematical statistics. If an additional appointment is not devoted exclusively to this field, consideration should be given to the recruitment of men able to develop such statistical instruction as a part of their program.

(h) Department Chairman. The Department is required to give serious weight in making appointments to qualities which make for a successful Chairman. The Department is so large as to place very heavy administrative responsibilities on its Chairman. The Department should have in its ranks a number of persons qualified to perform the duties of Chairman so that the burden on one individual over the years is not unreasonable.

The Committee believes that the Department should examine its internal operations to determine whether an administrative reorganization might not facilitate the effectiveness of the work of the Department. A systematic survey could be made of such duties as: counselling graduate students, placement, recruitment of superior students, and the supervision of Economics A and the junior teaching staff. Careful study should be given to the possibility of delegating more responsibility to standing committees of the Department.

While the Committee has emphasized, and it believes properly, certain specific needs of the Department, the overriding need, which should take precedence in all appointments, is for able men. If a first-rate man cannot be found in a specific field, it is better either to neglect the field or to divert the attention of existing personnel to this field than to fill the vacancy with second-rate material.

The Committee believes that the answer to the Provost’s third question, “Are you properly discharging your obligations to sister departments of the Faculty and to the programs which the Faculty has legislated as common ventures?”, must, at present, be “no.” It considers, however, that the addition of the personnel suggested below will, together with some reallocation of the time of present officers, enable the Department to meet these obligations.

A consideration of the Provost’s fourth question, “Do your specific recommendations harmonize with a general plan and program?” leads directly to a discussion of the proposed appointments.

  1. Recommendations

(a) The Committee recommends that one appointment at the associate professorship level be utilized in the following manner: that Alexander Gerschenkron be invited on the understanding that the Department assume the responsibility for half his salary, the Russian area assuming responsibility for the other half; that John Sawyer, now a Junior Fellow, be appointed to an assistant professorship at the end of 1948-49, on the understanding that the responsibility for half his salary be assumed either by General Education or the Department of History.

Gerschenkron is one of the two best economists in the country now working on Russian problems, the other being Abram Bergson of Columbia University. Gerschenkron has the advantage of being an economic historian. Consequently, his appointment would enable the Department to take care not only of instruction and research in Russian economics but also to replace Professor Usher’s work in European economic history on his retirement.

Sawyer is an historian of an intellectual ability fully equal to that of our own Junior Fellows, Tobin and Kaysen. He has evinced an interest in cultivating the field of American economic history and also of working in General Education. Since Sawyer’s prospects in the History Department are extremely good, it would be necessary to assure him, on appointment as an assistant professor, that a clear road to advancement exists in the Department, if he shows the competence the Department expects of him.

These two appointments, which would fill one vacancy, would go far towards meeting the Department’s obligations toward the Russian area and toward General Education as well as taking care of economic history.

(b) The Committee feels that the vacancy left by the resignation of Professor Crum must be filled and that the best candidate available is Sidney Alexander, now an assistant professor. Although Alexander’s publication to date does not justify promotion, he has an impressive series of contributions due for publication during the next year which will make him an eminently qualified candidate for promotion by the end of the academic year 1948-49. The Committee therefore believes that one of the vacancies at the associate professorship level should be reserved for the advancement of Professor Alexander.

(c) In many ways the most serious and difficult problem confronting the Committee concerns the replacement of the work now carried on by Professor Black. The research and training program in agricultural economics and land use is an asset of great worth both to the Department of Economics and to the Graduate School of Public Administration.

The Committee understands that before the date set for Professor Black’s retirement the Administration will request him to continue his services to the University for a number of years. It therefore believes that some four to five years are available in which to select a man fully capable of carrying on Professor Black’s work. The Committee believes that there are a number of able young men in the field of agricultural economics who might be secured at the assistant professorship level. The Committee therefore recommends that one or more of these candidates be brought to Harvard and that the next two or three years be utilized to survey the field, including such men as are brought here at lower than permanent rank, to assure the selection of the best possible man.

(d) If one position is filled by Gerschenkron and Sawyer, and another is reserved for Alexander, there remain two positions at the professorial level. These positions might be treated in any one of the following ways:

(1) Both positions could be filled at once;

(2) One position could be filled now and the other held vacant for Professor Black’s successor;

(3)  One position could be filled, the other held vacant pending the appearance of a suitable candidate not necessarily in the field of agricultural economics. In this case it must be assumed that the vacancy caused by Professor Black’s retirement would be filled from the appointment accruing to the Department in 1954, which appointment might be advanced in time. It should also be recognized that this appointment might have to be at the professorial level which would involve a departure from present University policy.

In considering the possibility of filling both vacancies now, the Committee was heavily influenced by the desirability of maintaining balance in the Department not only as among various fields of interest but as among types of mind and of methodological approaches to economic problems. In this connection the Committee considered carefully the qualifications of both Smithies and Samuelson. While of the opinion that each of these men might individually be considered intellectually superior to the rest of the field, the Committee feels strongly that the addition of both would give a particular stamp to the Department that should, if possible, be avoided. Both of these men are, in a sense, system builders, concerned with the logical and mathematical interrelations of the elements of their systems. Neither has done much empirical work. Smithies has shown recently a concern for, and an interest in, institutional developments and public policy. Moreover, he has had extensive experience in government service. The Committee believes that while each of these men is pre-eminent in his type of work the two together do not make a satisfactory combination.

The problem then narrows down to the question of Samuelson or Smithies and someone else. The Committee considers that the interests and type of mind represented either by Richard Bissel or Colin Clark would effectively supplement the Smithies-Samuelson characteristics. No effective way of communicating with Clark suggested itself to the Committee, and there is certain evidence to support the view that he would not be available. It appears that Bissel may not be available at this time. If his views change in the near future, the Committee considers him its first choice.

Of other possibilities the Committee discussed at length the qualifications of Galbraith, Yntema, David Wright, Albert Hart, Donald Wallace, and others. For various reasons, too lengthy here to enumerate, none of these candidates seemed first-rate possibilities.

The Committee therefore recommends that one of the professorial positions be held vacant for the time being pending the appearance of a satisfactory candidate. As to the relative merits of Smithies and Samuelson, the Committee, after deliberating at length, favors Smithies. While recognizing that Samuelson has in his field of activity a better record than anyone near his age in any field, the Committee was heavily influenced by the probability that Smithies’ contribution to the needs of the Department would be substantially greater. He appears to be an ideal man to develop the work in the School of Public Administration on Economic Analysis and Public Policy; he appears to be an eminently satisfactory man to take over the work in Public Finance on Professor Burbank’s retirement; he is clearly a man who would make an able Departmental Chairman. In addition he is competent to develop work in advanced statistics should the Department consider this desirable. For these reasons, and others, the Committee recommends the appointment of Smithies.

Paul H. Buck, Chairman
John T. Dunlop
Wassily Leontief
Edward S. Mason
John H. Williams

Source: Duke University, Economists’ Papers Archive, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Edward H. Chamberlin Papers. Box 17, Folder “Economics Department Faculty, 1944-47.”

Image Source:  Harvard Seal detail from the cover of the Harvard Law School Yearbook 1949.

Categories
Economists Yale

Yale. Meet an assistant professor of economics. Montias, 1960

One of the first professors to lead me into the field of comparative economic systems was John Michael Montias (1928-2005). He provided me an early exposure to the economic theory behind the indexes of comparative productivity computed by Abram Bergson (see Chapter 6 by Bergson and also Chapter 7 by Evsey Domar published in Alexander Eckstein (ed.), Comparison of Economic Systems: Theoretical and Methodological Approaches. U. of California Press, 1971).

The portrait shows Mike Montias in his early thirties, a beaming assistant professor at Yale. I include the short biographical clip from The Yale Banner of 1960 that accompanied the portrait. I can confirm that he was very much “a genial person” and will add a “a very learned scholar.”

____________________

From: The Yale Banner of 1960

An authority on Soviet economics, JOHN M. MONTIAS, Assistant Professor of Economics, came to Yale in 1958 after extensive study at Columbia. As an undergraduate, Professor Montias studied both Russian and economics and decided to combine them in his later career. After serving three years as an economic analyst for the United Nations in Geneva, Beirut, and New York, Mr. Montias traveled extensively in central Europe, working as a consultant for the Ford Foundation on the Polish Fellowship Program and holding several fellowships and grants for research. In addition to co-authoring a book on the Polish economy, Professor Montias has written for numerous professional magazines. Mr. Montias likes to play chess, study languages and travel. A genial person, Mr. Montias is well liked in his undergraduate course on the Soviet economy and his graduate course on central planning.

Source: The Yale Banner 1960, p. 35.

Categories
Computing Socialism Suggested Reading Syllabus

Columbia. Structure of the Soviet Economy, Reading assignments. Bergson, 1954-1955

Abram Bergson was forty-years old and well on the way to becoming the “Dean of Soviet Economics” in the United States when he taught the following course on the structure of the Soviet Economy at Columbia University.

Bergson, along with my Yale professors Mike Montias and Ray Powell together with my M.I.T. dissertation supervisor Evsey Domar, got me hooked on the economic theory of index numbers. For my fellow index number nerds I link to a draft of my homage à Bergson “The ‘Welfare Standard’ and Soviet Consumers” that I presented at the Abram Bergson memorial conference (published in Comparative Economic Studies, 2005, vol. 47, issue 2, pp. 333-345).

The reading list for Bergson’s Economics of Socialism (Harvard, 1977) has been posted earlier at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror.

________________________

Course Announcement

Economics 145 (Russian Institute)—Structure of the Soviet Economy. 2 pts. Professor Bergson
Tu. Th. 11. 403 Schermerhorn.

Analytical and statistical survey of the growth, operating principles, and organization of the economy of the Soviet Union under the Five-Year Plans, with attention to resources, population and labor, agriculture, industry, and domestic and foreign trade.

Source: Announcement of the Faculty of Political Science for the Winter and Spring Sessions, 1954-1955. Printed as Columbia University, Bulletin of Information. Vol. 54, No. 123 (June 19, 1954), p. 36.

________________________

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
RUSSIAN INSTITUTE

Winter Session, 1954-55

Economics 145
Structure of the
Soviet Economy

  1. THE RATE OF ECONOMIC GROWTH UNDER THE FIVE YEAR PLANS: ALTERNATIVE MEASURES.

Assigned Reading

Clark, C.; Gerschenkron, A.: “Russian Income and Production Statistics,” Review of Economic Statistics, Nov. 1947.

Dobb, M., “A Comment on Soviet Economic Statistics,” Soviet Studies, June 1949.

Gerschenkron, A., A Dollar Index of Soviet Machinery Output, The RAND Corporation 1951, Chs. 1-4.

Jasny, N., The Soviet Economy during the Plan Era, Stanford 1951.

Kaplan, N.M., “Arithmancy, Theomancy and the Soviet Economy,” Journal of Political Economy, April 1953.

Bergson, A., “Reliability and Usability of Soviet Statistics: Summary Appraisal,” American Statistician, June-July 1953.

Chapman, J. “Real Wages in the Soviet Union, 1928-52, Review of Economics and Statistics, May 1954.

Other References:

Baykov, A., “Postwar Economic Development….”, Univ. of Birmingham Bulletins, May 1953.

Bergson, A., “Soviet National Income: and Product in 1937,” New York 1953.

Clark, C., “The Valuation of Real Income in the Soviet Union,” Review of Economic Progress, Feb. and Mar. 1949.

Dobb, M., “A Comment on Soviet Statistics,” Review of Economic Statistics, Feb. 1948.

Harris, S.E.; Gerschenkron, A.; Bergson, A.; Baran, P.; and Yugow, A.: “Appraisals of Russian Economic Statistics,” Nov. 1947.

Hodgman, D., “Industrial Production,”;and Galenson, W., “Industrial Labor Productivity,” in Bergson, A., ed., Soviet Economic Growth, Evanston, Ill., 1953.

Kasdan, S., “Relationship between Machinery and Steel Production in Russia and the United States,” Review of Economics and Statistics, Feb. 1952.

Rice, S.; Schwartz, H.; Lorimer, F.; Gerschenkron, A.; Volin, L., “Reliability and Usability of Soviet Statistics,” American Statistician, April-May, June-July 1953.

Wyler, J., “The National Income of the Soviet Union,” Social Research Dec. 1946.

  1. SOVIET ECONOMIC GROWTH: SURVEY OF CONDITIONS AND PERSPECTIVES.

Assigned Reading

Grossman, G., “National Income”; Kaplan, N.M., “Capital Formation and Allocation”;

“Industrial Resources”; and Comments on foregoing in Bergson, Soviet Economic Growth.

“Directives on the Fifth Five Year Plan,” pp. 21-28, Malenkov Report, pp. 106-115, in L. Gruliow, ed., Current Soviet Policies, New York, 1953.

Dobb, M., “Rates of Growth under the Five Year Plans,” Soviet Studies, April 1953.

Other References

Balzak et al., Economic Geography of the USSR, New York 1949.

Blackman, J.A., „Transportation,” and comments on this essay in Bergson, Soviet Economic Growth.

Hoeffding, O., Soviet National Income and Product in 1928, New York 1954.

Bergson, A. and Heymann, H., “Soviet National Income and Product 1940-48.”

Schwartz, H., Russia’s Soviet Economy, 2nd ed. New York 1954, Ch. XV.

Shimkin, D., Minerals—A Key to Soviet Power, Cambridge, 1953.

Wiles, Peter, “Soviet Russia Outpaces the West,” Foreign Affairs, July 1953.

  1. AGRICULTURE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: THE DECISION ON COLLECTIVIZATION.

Assigned Reading

Dobb, M., Soviet Economic Development since 1917, New York 1948, Chs. VIII-IX.

Erlich, A., “Preobrajenski and the Economics of Soviet Industrialization, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Feb. 1950.

Stalin, J.V., Selected Writings. “On the Grain Front,” “Right Danger,” “Right Deviation,” “Problems of Agrarian Policy,” “The Policy of Eliminating the Kulaks as a Class,” “Dizzy with Success.”

Other References

Baykov, A., Development of the Soviet Economic System, New York, 1946, Ch. XII.

Dobb, M. Soviet Economic Development since 1917, Ch. X.

Maynard, J., Russia in Flux, New York 1948, Chs. XVI, XIX.

  1. AGRICULTURE AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: TRENDS UNDER THE FIVE YEAR PLANS: PERSPECTIVES.

Assigned Reading

Schwartz, H. Russia’s Soviet Economy, Chs. VIII, IX.

Jasny, N., The Socialized Agriculture of the USSR, Stanford 1949, pp. 1-99.

Timoshenko, V.P., “Agricultural Resources”; Kershaw, J., “Agricultural Output and Employment”; and comments on these essays in Bergson, Soviet Economic Growth.

Volin, L., “The Malenkov-Khrushchev New Economic Policy”, Journal of Political Economy, June 1954.

Other References

Baykov, Development of the Soviet Economic System, Ch. XVII.

Baykov., A., “Agricultural Development in the USSR,” Univ. of Birmingham, Bulletins on Soviet Economic Development, December 1951, May 1953.

in, G.; Schwarz, S.; and Yugow, A., Management in Russian Industry and Agriculture, New York 1944. Ch. X – XVII.

Finegood, I.M., “A Critical Analysis of Some Concepts Concerning Soviet Agriculture,”

Soviet Studies, July 1952.

Hubbard, L.E., Economics of Soviet Agriculture, London 1939.

Maynard, Russia in Flux, Ch. XX.

Schlesinger, R.A.J., “Some Problems of Present Kolkhoz Organization, Soviet Studies, April 1951. See also the further discussion by Jasny, Nove and Schlesinger in Soviet Studies, Oct. 1951, Jan. 1952.

Volin, L., “Turn of the Screw in Soviet Agriculture,” Foreign Affairs, Jan. 1952.

  1. LABOR RECRUITMENT AND WAGE POLICY; INEQUALITY

Assigned Reading

Bergson, A., Structure of Soviet Wages, Cambridge, Mass., 1944 Chs. IV, X – XIV, Conclusion and Appendix F.

Inkeles, A., “Social Stratification and Mobility in the Soviet Union: 1940-1950,” American Sociological Review, August 1950.

Deutscher, I., Soviet Trade Unions, New York 1950.

Gsovski, V., Soviet Labor Law, Monthly Labor Review, March, April 1951.

Other References

Barker, G.R., “Soviet Labor,” Univ. of Birmingham, Bulletins on Soviet Economic Development, June 1951.

Baykov, Development of the Soviet Economic System, Chs. XIII, XVIII.

Bergson, “On Inequality of Incomes in the USSR,” American Slavic and East European Review”, April 1951.

Bienstock, Schwarz and Vugow, Management in Soviet Industry and Agriculture, Ch. VIII.

Dobb, Soviet Economic Development since 1917, Ch. XVI.

Eason, W.W., “Population and Labor Force,” and comments in Bergson, Soviet Economic Growth.

Gordon, M. Workers before and after Lenin, New York 1941.

Hubbard, L.E., Soviet Labor and Industry, London 1942.

Schwartz, Russia’s Soviet Economy. Ch. XIII.

Schwarz, Solomon, Labor in the Soviet Union, New York 1952.

  1. FISCAL POLICY AND THE PRICE LEVEL

Assigned Reading

Berliner, J. S., “Monetary Planning in the USSR,” American Slavic and East European Review, Dec. 1950.

Dobb, Soviet Economic Development since 1917. Ch. XIV.

Holzman, F.D, “Commodity and Income Taxation in the Soviet Union,” Journal of Political Economy, Oct. 1950.

Holzman, F.D, “The Soviet Budget, 1928-1952,” National Tax Journal, Sept. 1953.

Other References

Arnold, A.Z., Banks, Credit and Money in Soviet Russia. New York 1937.

Baran, P.A., “Currency Reform in the USSR,” Harvard Business Review, March 1948.

Baykov, Development of the Soviet Economic System. Ch. XIX.

Baykov, A. and Barker G.R. “Financial Developments in the USSR,” Univ. of Birmingham, Bulletins on Soviet Economic Development, August 1950.

Bergson, A., Soviet National Income and Product in 1937. New York 1953.

Holzman, F.D., “The Burden of Soviet Taxation,” American Economic Review, Sept. 1953.

Bogolepov, M.I., The Soviet Financial System. (Pamphlet) London 1945.

Hubbard, L.E., Soviet Money and Finance, London 1936.

Reddaway, W.B., The Russian Financial System, London 1935.

Schwartz, Russia’s Soviet Economy. Ch. XII.

Davies, R.W., “Finance,” Univ. of Birmingham, Bulletins on Soviet Economic Development, December 1952.

  1. THEORY OF SOCIALIST ECONOMICS

Assigned Reading

Dobb, Soviet Economic Development since 1917, Ch. I.

Lange, O., “On the Economic Theory of Socialism,” In B. Lippincott, ed., O. Lange, F. Taylor, On the Economic Theory of Socialism, Minneapolis 1938.

Other References

Bergson, A., “Socialist Economics,” in H. Ellis, ed. A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Philadelphia 1948.

Dickinson, H.D., Economics of Socialism, Oxford 1939.

Dobb, M., Political Economy and Capitalism, New York 1940.

Hayek, F.A., ed., Collectivist Economic Planning, London 1935.

Lenin, V.I. State and Revolution.

Marx, K., Critique of the Gotha Programme, Political Economy in the Soviet Union (Pamphlet) New York, International Publishers, 1944.

Stalin, J., Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, Moscow, 1952.

  1. ECONOMICS OF THE FIRM

Assigned Reading

Bienstock, Schwarz and Yugow: Management in Russian Industry and Agriculture, Chs. I — VI, IX.

Granick, D., “Initiative and Independence of Soviet Plant Management,” Plant Management, American Slavic and East European Review, Oct. 1951.

Berliner, J., “The Informal Organization of the Soviet Firm,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1952.

Other References

Arakelian, A., Industrial Management in the USSR, Washington, D.C. 1950.

Baykov, Development of the Soviet Economic System, Chs. XI, XVI.

Granick, D., Management of the Industrial Firm in the USSR, New York 1954.

Hubbard, L.E., Soviet Labor and Industry.

  1. GENERAL PLANNING

Assigned Reading

Baykov, Development of the Soviet Economic System, Chs. XIV, XV, XX.

Dobb, Soviet Economic Development since 1917, Ch. I, XIII.

Hunter, H., “Planning of Investments in the Soviet Union,” Review of Economic Statistics, February 1949.

Grossman, G., “Scarce Capital and Soviet Doctrine,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Aug. 1953.

Jasny, N., The Soviet Price System, Stanford 1951, Chs. I-IV.

Other References

Bettleheim, C., “On the Problem of Choice between Alternative Investment Projects,” Soviet Studies, July 1950.

Brutzkus, B., Economic Planning in Soviet Russia, London 1935.

Dobb, M., “The Problem of Choice between Alternative Investment Projects,” Soviet Studies, January 1951.

Eason, W., “On Strumilin’s Model,” Soviet Studies, April 1950.

Jasny, N., Soviet Prices of Producers’ Goods, Stanford 1952.

Kaplan, N., “Investment Alternatives…,” Jour. of Polit. Econ., April 1952.

Kursky, A., The Planning of the National Economy of the USSR, Moscow 1949.

Lange, O., The Working Principles of the Soviet Economy, New York 1943. (Pamphlet)

Miller, J., “Some Recent Developments in Soviet Economic Thought,” Soviet Studies, September 1949.

Miller J., ed., “Three Articles on the Effectiveness of Investments,” Soviet Studies, April 1950.

“Problems of Planning Capital Investment,” The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. II, No. 1, Feb. 18, 1950. “Planning Capital Investment II,” The Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. II, No. 3, March 4, 1950.

Schwartz, Russia’s Soviet Economy, Ch. V.

Zauberman, “Economic Thought in the Soviet Union,” Review of Economic Studies, 1949-1950, Nos. 39-40.

Zauberman, A., “Prospects for Soviet Investigations into Capital Efficiency,” Soviet Studies, April, 1950.

  1. FOREIGN ECONOMIC RELATIONS

Assigned Reading

Gerschenkron, A., Economic Relations with the USSR (The Committee on International Economic Policy in Cooperation with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), New York 1943.

Hoeffding, O., “Soviet Economic Relations with the Orbit”; Schwartz, H., “East-West Trade”; and comments on these essays in Bergson, Soviet Economic Growth.

Other References

Baykov, A., Soviet Foreign Trade, Princeton 1946, Chs. II – VI.

Condoide, M.V., Russian-American Trade, Columbus, Ohio 1946.

Dewar, M., Soviet Trade with Eastern Europe, New York 1951.

Gerschenkron, A., “Russia’s Trade in the Postwar Years,” The Annals, May 1949.

Kerblay, B.H., “Economic Relations of the USSR…,” Univ. of Birmingham, Bulletins on Soviet Economic Development, March 1951.

Schwartz, Russia’s Soviet Economy, Ch. XIV.

Yugow, A., Russia’s Economic Front for War and Peace, Ch. V.

Source: Columbia University Libraries, Manuscript Collections. Joseph Dorfman Collection, Box 13, Unlabeled Folder containing miscellaneous course reading lists.

Image Source: Tourist Card for Citizens of American Countries for a Thirty-Day Stay in Brazil (20 Aug. 1962) of Abram Bergson.

Categories
Harvard Socialism Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Reading list for Economics of Socialism. Bergson, 1977

The list of readings and final exam for Abram Bergson’s Harvard course “Normative Aspects of Economic Policy” (1960) were posted earlier. In this post Economics in the Rear-view Mirror provides the course outline and assigned readings for his “Economics of Socialism”. I encountered his 1961 book The Real National Income of Soviet Russia Since 1928 in four of my courses (taught by Raymond Powell and John Michael Montias at Yale; Evsey Domar at M.I.T.; and from Bergson himself at Harvard).

_____________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics
Economics 1200:
Economics of Socialism
Spring Term, 1976-77
Professor Bergson

Note
The following will be the principal texts for the course:

Abram Bergson, The Economics of Soviet Planning, Yale, New Haven, Conn., 1964.

Nai-Ruenn Chen and Walter Galenson, The Chinese Economy Under Communism, Aldine, Chicago, 1969

Joel B. Dirlam and James L. Plummer, An Introduction to the Yugoslav Economy, Merrill, Columbus, Ohio, 1973.

Paul R. Gregory and Robert C. Stuart, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance, Harper and Row, New York, 1974.

Note that the Bergson, Gregory and Stuart, and Dirlam and Plummer books are available in paperback.

Items Marked with an asterisk are optional.

I. Introduction
  1. What is Socialism?

“Socialism” (by Daniel Bell), in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Vol. 14, 1968, pp. 506-516.

Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, International Publishers, 1938, pp. 3-23.

V. I. Lenin, State and Revolution, Ch. 5, “The Economic Base of the Withering Away of the State.”

Paul M. Sweezy, “Alternative Conceptions of Socialist Development” (Processed).

Alec Nove, “Market Socialism and Its Critics,” Soviet Studies, July 1972.

II. Comparative Development Strategy
  1. The Soviet Model

Gregory and Stuart, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance, Chs. 1-3, 12 (pp. 417-428 only).

A. Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, London, 1969, Chs. 6-8.

A. Erlich, “Preobrazhenski and the Economics of Soviet Industrialization,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1950.

I.V. Stalin, “On the Grain Front,” “Right Danger,” “Right Deviation,” in Selected Writings, New York, 1942.

  1. Variants

Oleg Hoeffding, “Soviet State Planning and Forced Industrialization as a Model for Asia,” Problems of Communism, Nov.-Dec., 1959; reprinted in F. Holzman, Readings on the Soviet Economy, Chicago, 1962.

Chen and Galenson, The Chinese Economy under Communism, Chs. 1, 2.

A. Eckstein, China’s Economic Development, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1975, pp. 9-22, 47-51.

See Sweezy under Topic 1.

III. Economic Organization and Planning
  1. Socialist Planning: Contents and Issues

O. Lange “On the Economic Theory of Socialism” including Appendix, in B. Lippincott ed., On the Economic Theory of Socialism, Minneapolis, 1938; New York, 1964.

A. Bergson “Market Socialism Revisited,” Journal of Political Economy, October 1967 (Section on “Cooperative Variant” optional).

W. N. Loucks, Comparative Economic Systems, 7th ed., New York, 1965, pp. 108-120 (5th ed., pp. 98-110; 6th ed., pp. 93-105).

Joan Robinson, An Essay on Marxian Economics, 2nd ed., New York, 1966, pp. 10-28.

Note: As a preliminary to the foregoing readings, you may wish review relevant theoretic foundations in, say, Robert Dorfman, Prices and Markets, New Jersey, 1967, Chs. 7-8.

  1. Centralist Planning in the USSR: The Industrial Enterprise and Collective Farm

Bergson, The Economics of Soviet Planning, Ch. 5 and pp. 287-297; Chs 9 and 10.

J. Berliner The Innovation Decision in Soviet Industry, Cambridge, Mass., 1976, Chs. 14-16.

Gregory and Stuart, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance, Chs. 7 (pp. 232-253), 10.

D. Granick*, “Managerial Incentives in the USSR and in Western Firms,” Journal of Comparative Administration, August 1973.

Emily C. Brown, Soviet Trade Unions and Labor Relations, Cambridge, Mass., 1966, Chs. 7, 9.

E. G. Liberman*, Economic Methods and the Effectiveness of Production, New York, 1973, pp. 21-47.

  1. Centralist Planning in the USSR: Coordination

Bergson, Economics of Soviet Planning, Chs. 1, 3,4, 7, 8,(*) 11.

Liberman*, Economic Methods and the Effectiveness of Production, pp. 75-116.

H. S. Levine, “Pressure and Planning in the Soviet Economy,” in H. Rosovsky, ed., Industrialization in Two Systems, New York 1966; reprinted in M. Bornstein and D.R. Fusfeld, eds., The Soviet Economy, 3rd ed., Homewood, Ill., 1970.

G. Grossman*, “Scarce Capital and Soviet Doctrine,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 1953, reprinted in Holzman, Readings.

A. Nove, The Soviet Economy, New York, 1961, Rev. ed., Ch. 3, Ch. 7 (pp. 231-240).

R. W. Campbell, “Marx, Kantorovich, and Novozhilov,” in Slavic Review, October 1961; reprinted in H. Schaffer, The Soviet Economy, New York, 1963; and in George Feiwel, New Currents Soviet-Type Economies: A Reader, Scranton, PA, 1968.

G. Schroeder, “The 1966-67 Soviet Industrial Price Reform,” Soviet Studies, April 1969.

H. Kohler, Welfare and Planning, New York, 1966, pp. 82-95, 102-105.

M. Goldman, “Externalities and the Race for Economic Growth in the USSR: Will the Environment ever Win?” Journal of Political Economy, March/April 1972.

  1. Market Socialism in Hungary and Yugoslavia

Bela Balassa. “The Firm in the New Economic Mechanism in Hungary,” in M. Bornstein, ed. Plan and Market, New Haven, Conn., 1973.

D. Granick, “The Hungarian Economic Reform,” World Politics, April 1973, reprinted in M. Bornstein, ed., Comparative Economic Systems, 3rd ed., Homewood, Ill., 1974.

J. Vanek, The Participatory Economy, Ithaca, New York, 1971, Chs. 2-3.

Dirlam and Plummer, An Introduction to the Yugoslav Economy Chs. 2, 3, 4 (pp. 88-99), 5 (pp. 122-141), 7 (pp. 165-177).

D. D. Milenkovich, Plan and Market in Yugoslav Economic Thought,New Haven, Conn., 1971, pp. 187-211.

D. D. Milenkovich*, “Plan and Market: The Case of Yugoslavia” (Processed).

  1. Planning in China: How Different?

Chen and Galenson, The Chinese Economy Under Communism, Ch. 6

Barry Richman. “Capitalists and Managers in Communist China,” Harvard Business Review, January/February 1967.

D. Perkins, “Industrial Planning and Management,” in A. Eckstein, W. Galenson and T. C. Liu, eds., Economic Trends in Communist China, Chicago, 1968.

Eckstein, China’s Economic Development, Ch. 12.

IV Foreign Economic Relations
  1. Foreign Economic Relations

F. D. Holzman, Foreign Trade Under Central Planning, Cambridge, Mass., 1974, Chs. 2, 6 (analysis of Fig. 6.1, p. 146 and section on foreign trade discrimination, pp. 150-152 are optional).

F. L. Pryor, The Communist Foreign Trade System, Cambridge, Mass., 1963, Chs. 1, 5 (pp. 131-139).

E. A. Hewett, Foreign Trade Prices in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance, Cambridge, Eng., 1974, Ch. 2.

R. F. Dernberger, “Prices, the Exchange Rate and Economic Efficiency in the Foreign Trade of Communist China,” A. A. Brown and E. Neuberger, eds., International Trade and Central Planning, Berkeley, California, 1968.

V. Performance
  1. Comparative Productivity and Growth

S. Cohn, Economic Development in the Soviet Union, Lexington, Mass., 1970, Chs. 4, 6.

A. Bergson, Planning and Productivity Under Soviet Socialism, New York, 1968 Chs. 1-3.

R. W. Campbell, Soviet Economic Power, 2nd ed. Boston, Mass., 1966, Ch. 6.

A. Bergson “Development Under Two Systems: Comparative Productivity Growth Since 1950,” World Politics, July, 1971; reprinted in Bornstein, Comparative Economic Systems, 3rd ed.

B. Ward, “Capitalism vs. Socialism: A Small Country Version,” in G. Grossman, ed., Essays in Socialism and Planning in Honor of Carl Landauer, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Chen and Galenson, The Chinese Economy Under Communism, Ch. 9.

Eckstein, China’s Economic Development, Ch. 1.

John G. Gurley, “Capitalist and Maoist Economic Development,” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, April-July 1970, pp. 42ff.

Reading Period:

Wage Determination and Inequality

Bergson, The Economics of Soviet Planning, Ch. 6.

Bergson, The Structure of Soviet Wages, Cambridge, Mass., 1944, Chs. 2, 13, 14.

M. Matthews*, “Top Incomes in the USSR: Towards a Definition of the Soviet Elite,” Survey, Summer, 1975.

Charles Hoffman, “Work Incentives in Chinese Industry and Agriculture,” in Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, An Economic Profile of Mainland China, Vol. 2, Washington, D.C., February 1967.

Convergence?

J. K. Galbraith, The New Industrial State, Boston, 1967, Ch. XXXV.

Bertram Wolfe, “Russia and the USA: A Challenge to the Convergence Theory” and J.K. Galbraith, “Reply,” American Humanist, September/October 1968.

Peter Wiles, “Convergence: Possibility and Probability” in Balinky et al., Planning and the Market in the USSR, Rutgers, 1967.

Source: Personal copy of Irwin Collier.

Portrait of Abram Bergson. See Paul A. Samuelson, “Abram Bergson, 1914-2003: A Biographical Memoir”, in National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, Volume 84 (Washington, D.C.: 2004).

Categories
Columbia Economist Market Economists

Columbia. Major wave of economics appointments. Stigler, Polanyi, Hart, Nurkse, Bergson. 1947

 

The economics department of Columbia University could rightly boast of its bumper crop of faculty appointments for the 1947-48 academic year. I’ll be surprised if I ever come across a press release announcing a correspondingly large wave of resignations anywhere. However, it is not uncommon for members of rival departments to comment on the movement of colleagues from one department to another as the result of such movement raising the average in both departments. But no doubt, quite a proud moment for economics at Columbia.

_______________________________

Columbia University Press Release
August 28, 1947

Public Information Office
Columbia University
Morningside Heights
New York 27, N.Y.
———————–
Robert Harron, Director

Appointments of several noted scholars in the field of economics, effective with the new academic year, were announced yesterday (Wednesday) by Dr. Frank D. Fackenthal, acting president of Columbia University.

Dr. George Joseph Stigler, who has been a member of the faculty of Brown University, has been appointed professor of economics. Dr. Stigler was graduated from the University of Washington in 1931, and received advanced degrees from Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He has held research positions with The National Resources Committee and the National Bureau of Economic Research, and is the author of “Production and Distribution Theories: the Theory of Price.” [sic, actually two different books: Production and Distribution Theories, The Formative Period (1941) and The Theory of Price (Revised 1952)]

Dr. Karl Polanyi, former lecturer at Oxford, the University of London, and Bennington College, has been named as visiting professor of economics. Dr. Polanyi, who was born in Vienna and was from 1924 to 1934 on the staff of the “Oesterreichische Volkswirt”, then a leading financial weekly, has been a naturalized British citizen since 1940. In 1944 he wrote “The Great Transformation, [1944]” which attracted international attention. It is an analysis of free enterprise capitalism as it affects western society. He was at Columbia during the recent Spring Session.

Three who were visiting professors during the past year have accepted permanent status. They are Albert Gailord Hart, visiting professor of economics; Ragnar Nurkse, visiting professor of international economics, and Abram Bergson, visiting associate professor of economics.

Professor Hart was educated at Harvard and the University of Chicago, has taught at Iowa State and the University of Chicago, and has served as research economist for the Committee for Economic Development. He is the author of “Anticipations, Uncertainty, and Dynamic Planning,” “Debts and Recovery, 1929-1937,” “The Social Framework of the American Economy” (with J.R. Hicks) and, with collaborators, “Paying for Defense.”

Professor Nurkse, a native of Estonia, worked with the economic and financial section of the League of Nations and has had major responsibility for a number of its publications, notably the volume, “International Currency Experience.” He holds an advanced degree from the University of Edinburgh. His work will be largely in the School of International Affairs.

Professor Bergson, who came to Columbia a year ago as a member of the Russian Institute staff, was trained at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, and has taught at the University of Texas. During the war he served with the office of Strategic Services as Chief of the Economic Subdivision, U.S.S.R. Division. He was also consultant on Russian financial questions to the Department of State and a member of the U.S. Reparations Delegations to the Moscow and Potsdam conferences.

Newly appointed to the department, whose executive officer is Professor Carter Goodrich, are Lawrence Abbott, a graduate of Harvard who has taught at Hotchkiss School, and Aaron W. Warner, former instructor in labor law at the University of Denver. Mr. Abbott will be an instructor in Columbia College. Mr. Warner will be in charge of economics in the School of General Studies.

Source: Columbia University Archives. Historical Subject Files, Series I: Academics and Research,  Box 23, Folder 5 “Economics, Dept. of, 1915—”.

Image Source: George Stigler (left) at the 1947 Mt. Pelerin Society meeting from the Milton Friedman Papers at the Hoover Institution Archives. Karl Polanyi (1947)  (right) picture found multiple times on webpages without attribution.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Socialism Suggested Reading Syllabus Undergraduate

Harvard. Readings and Final Exam for Normative Aspects of Economic Policy. Bergson, 1960

 

The reading list and final exam questions from 1959 for Abram Bergson‘s Harvard undergraduate course “Normative Aspects of Economic Policy” have been posted earlier. This post provides material for the same course taught in the spring term of 1960. The reading lists are completely identical, but this time I have gone to the trouble of providing links to most of the course readings.  The exam questions for the 1960 do indeed differ from those of 1959 while covering broadly the same material.

_________________

Enrollment

[Economics] 111a. Normative Aspects of Economic Policy. Professor Bergson. Half course. (Spring)

Total 36: 3 Graduates, 14 Seniors, 7 Juniors, 7 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 3 Radcliffe, 1 Other.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1959-1960, p. 82.

_________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Economics 111a
Normative Aspects of Economic Policy
Spring Term: 1959-60

  1. The concept of economic efficiency.

Scitovsky, Welfare and Competition, Chicago, 1951, Chapter I.

  1. Consumers’ goods distribution and labor recruitment: the efficiency of perfect competition: other forms of market organization.

Scitovsky, Chapters II-V, XVI (pp. 338-41), XVIII, XX (pp. 423-427).
A. P. Lerner, Economics of Control, New York, 1946, Chapter 2.

  1. Conditions for efficiency in production.

Scitovsky, Chapters VI-VIII.
Lerner, Chapter 5.

  1. Production efficiency under perfect competition; monopolistic markets.

See the readings under topic 3.
Scitovsky, Chapter X, XI, XII, XV, XVI (pp. 341-363), XVII, XX (pp. 428-439).
Lerner, Chapters 6, 7.

  1. The optimum rate of investment.

Scitovsky, Chapter IX (pp. 216-228).
A. C. Pigou, Economics of Welfare, fourth ed., London, 1948, pp. 23-30.”Wa

  1. Price policy for a public enterprise.

Lerner, Chapter 15.
I. M. D. Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1957, Chapter XI.
O. Eckstein, Water Resource Development, Cambridge, 1958, pp. 47-70, pp. 81-109.

  1. Socialist economic calculation.

O. Lange, On the Economic Theory of Socialism, Minn., 1938, pp. 55-141.
F. Hayek, Socialist Calculation: Economica, May 1940
A. Bergson, Socialist Economics, in H. Ellis, ed., A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Philadelphia, 1948.
M. Dobb, Economic Theory and Socialism, New York, 1955, pp. 41-92.

  1. Economic calculation in underdeveloped countries.

A. Datta, Welfare versus Growth Economics, Indian Economic Journal, October 1956.
T. Scitovsky, Two Concepts of External Economics, Journal of Political Economy, April 1954.
J. Tinbergen, The Design of Development, Balto., Md., 1958.

  1. The concept of social welfare.

The writings of Bergson and Dobb under topic 7.
Pigou, Economics of Welfare, Chapters I, VIII.
Lerner, Chapter 3.
J. R. Hicks, Foundations of Welfare Economics, Economic Journal, December 1939.
Arthur Smithies, Economic Welfare and Policy, in A. Smithies et al., Economics and Public Policy, Washington, 1955.

 

Other References on the Concept of Social Welfare and Optimum Conditions

M. W. Reder, Studies in the Theory of Welfare Economics, New York 1947.

P. A. Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis, Cambridge, 1947, Chapter VIII.

K. Boulding, Welfare Economics, in B. Haley, A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Homewood, Illinois, 1952.

H. Myint, Theories of Welfare Economics, Cambridge, Mass., 1948.

J. A. Hobson, Work and Wealth, London, 1933.

J. M. Clark, Guideposts in Time of Change, New York, 1949.

J. de V. Graaf, Theoretical Welfare Economics, Cambridge, 1957.

F. M. Bator, The Simple Analytics of Welfare Maximization, American Economic Review, March 1957.

A. Bergson, A Reformulation [of Certain Aspects] of Welfare Economics, Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1938.

P. A. Samuelson, Evaluation of Real National Income, Oxford Economic Papers, January 1950.

A. C. Pigou, Some Aspects of Welfare Economics, American Economic Review, June 1951.

T. Scitovsky, The State of Welfare Economics, American Economic Review, June 1951.

J. E. Meade, Trade and Welfare, New York, 1955, Part I.

[Note: no additional assignment for the reading period]

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. Box 7, Folder “Economics, 1959-60”.

_________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Economics 111a
Final Examination

June 2, 1960

Answer four and only four of the following six questions.

  1. Explain the “price-consumption” curve for a single household in a perfectly competitive consumers’ goods market. What determines the shape of the curve? By use of this curve, show how the household’s consumption might be affected by a percentage sales tax on one commodity. What determines the total taxes paid by the household?
  2. In an economy which otherwise is perfectly competitive, a trade union arbitrarily limits entry of workers into a single industry. In equilibrium, what conditions for an economic optimum are violated?
  3. “Under ‘free’ competition it is true that individual firms have monopoly power and hence charge prices above marginal costs. But since there is free entry, there hardly can be any serious economic waste on this account, for prices cannot long exceed average cost.” Discuss.
  4. For purposes of fixing prices for a public enterprise, what arguments might be advanced for and against acceptance of each of the following theoretic principles:
    1. Maximization of profits;
    2. Pricing at average cost, including a “normal” competitive return on invested capital;
    3. Pricing at marginal cost;
    4. Pricing at minimum average costs.
  5. Explain briefly:
    1. Parametric function of prices;
    2. “Technological” versus “pecuniary” external economies;
    3. “Accounting prices” in economics of development;
    4. “Defective telescopic faculty.”
  6. Discuss the different approaches employed in welfare economics to the problem of income distribution.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …,Naval Science, Air Science. June 1960. In Social Sciences, Final Examinations, June 1960 (HUC 2000.28, No. 128).

Portrait of Abram Bergson. See Paul A. Samuelson, “Abram Bergson, 1914-2003: A Biographical Memoir”, in National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, Volume 84 (Washington, D.C.: 2004).

Categories
Harvard Socialism Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Welfare economics and policy. Readings and exam. Bergson, 1959

 

Before he began to be known as the (Western) Dean of Soviet Economic Studies, Abram Bergson’s greatest hit “A Reformulation of Certain Aspects of Welfare Economics” (QJE, 1938) earned him an honored place in the pantheon of welfare economics theorists. Thus it is not surprising that besides courses on socialist economics and the economics of the Soviet Union, he also taught the following course involving the application of welfare economics to policy. 

The reading list and final exam questions for the same course offered in the Spring term of 1960 has been posted later. The reading list didn’t change at all between the two years, but I have provided links to most of the readings in the later post as well as the new exam questions.

__________________

Course Enrollment

[Economics] 111a. Normative Aspects of Economic Policy. Professor Bergson. Half course. (Spring)

Total, 21: 1 Graduate, 8 Seniors, 4 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 3 Radcliffe, 3 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1958-59, p. 70.

__________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
Department of Economics

Economics 111a
Normative Aspects of Economic Policy
Spring Term: 1958-59

  1. The concept of economic efficiency.

T. Scitovsky, Welfare and Competition, Chicago, 1951, Chapter I.

  1. Consumers’ goods distribution and labor recruitment: the efficiency of perfect competition: other forms of market organization.

Scitovsky, Chapters II-V, XVI (pp. 338-41), XVIII, XX (pp. 423-427).

A. P. Lerner, Economics of Control, New York, 1946, Chapter 2.

  1. Conditions for efficiency in production.

Scitovsky, Chapters VI-VIII.

Lerner, Chapter 5.

  1. Production efficiency under perfect competition; monopolistic markets

See the readings under topic 3.

Scitovsky, Chapters X, XI, XII, XV, XVI (pp. 341-363), XVII, XX (pp. 428-439).

Lerner, Chapters 6, 7.

  1. The optimum rate of investment.

Scitovsky, Chapter IX (pp. 216-228).

A. C. Pigou, Economics of Welfare, fourth ed., London, 1948, pp. 23-30.

  1. Price policy for a public enterprise.

Lerner, Chapter 15.

I. M. D. Little, A Critique of Welfare Economics, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1957, Chapter XI.

O. Eckstein, Water Resource Development, Cambridge, 1958, pp. 47-70, pp. 81-109.

  1. Socialist economic calculation.

O. Lange, On the Economic Theory of Socialism, Minn., 1938, pp. 55-141.

F. Hayek, “Socialist Calculation,” Economica, May 1940.

A. Bergson, “Socialist Economics,” in H. Ellis, ed., A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Philadelphia, 1948.

M. Dobb, Economic Theory and Socialism, New York, 1955, pp. 41-92.

  1. Economic calculation in underdeveloped countries.

A. Datta, “Welfare versus Growth Economics,” Indian Economic Journal, October 1956.

T. Scitovsky, “Two Concepts of External Economics,” Journal of Political Economy, April 1954.

J. Tinbergen, The Design of Development, Balto., Md., 1958.

  1. The concept of social welfare.

The writings of Bergson and Dobb under topic 7.

Pigou, Economics of Welfare, Chapters I, VIII.

Lerner, Chapter 3.

J. R. Hicks, “Foundations of Welfare Economics,”Economic Journal, December 1939.

Arthur Smithies, “Economic Welfare and Policy,” in A. Smithies et al., Economics and Public Policy, Washington, 1955.

 

Other References
on the Concept of Social Welfare and Optimum Conditions

M. W. Reder, Studies in the Theory of Welfare Economics, New York, 1947.

P. A. Samuelson, Foundations of Economic Analysis, Cambridge, 1947, Chapter VIII.

K. Boulding, Welfare Economics, in B. Haley, A Survey of Contemporary Economics, Homewood, Illinois, 1952.

H. Myint, Theories of Welfare Economics, Cambridge, Mass., 1948.

J. A. Hobson, Work and Wealth, London, 1933.

J. M. Clark, Guideposts in Time of Change, New York, 1949.

J. de V. Graaf, Theoretical Welfare Economics, Cambridge, 1957.

F. M. Bator, The Simple Analytics of Welfare Maximization,” American Economic Review, March 1957.

A. Bergson, “A Reformulation of Welfare Economics,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1938.

P. A. Samuelson, “Evaluation of Real National Income,” Oxford Economic Papers, January 1950.

A. C. Pigou, “Some Aspects of Welfare Economics,” American Economic Review, June 1951.

T. Scitovsky, “The State of Welfare Economics,” American Economic Review,” June 1951.

J. E. Meade, Trade and Welfare, New York, 1955, Part I.

[Note: no additional assignment for the reading period]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1). Box 7, Folder “Economics, 1958-1959 (1 of 2)”.

__________________

Harvard University
Department of Economics

Economics 111a
Final Examination
June 1, 1959

Answer four and only four of the following six questions.

  1. Explain the “contract curve” that is employed in the analysis of the optimum allocation of different consumers’ goods between households. In what sense does the curve define an economic optimum?
  2. Under perfect competition how is the efficiency of resource allocation affected by:
    1. The levying of a sales tax on the output of a single industry;
    2. A government policy of making capital available to one industry at an interest charge that is less than the market rate.
  3. “As distinct from perfect competition, free competition tends in the long-run to cause the individual firm to make insufficient use of its fixed resources and to operate with excess capacity.” Discuss.
  4. How are the volume of investment and the rate of interest determined in the Competitive Solution of Socialist Planning? What arguments might be advanced for and against the policies and procedures involved?
  5. Explain briefly each of the following:
    1. Variation Cost
    2. Price-offer curve for labor
    3. Lerner’s Rule
  6. “When all is said and done, if there are very heavy overhead costs, public ownership may often make possible rational determination of the scale of output in an industry where this could not be achieved under any of the usual alternatives, such as competition, monopoly or even public rate regulation, if unaccompanied by ownership.” Discuss.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations, 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28). Box 37. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions,.., Economics,…, Naval Science, Air Science (June, 1959).

Portrait of Abram Bergson. See Paul A. Samuelson, “Abram Bergson, 1914-2003: A Biographical Memoir”, in National Academy of Sciences, Biographical Memoirs, Volume 84 (Washington, D.C.: 2004).