Tag: Harris

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Columbia Economist Market Economists Harvard

Harvard and Columbia. President of Harvard headhunting conversation regarding economists. Mitchell and Mills, 1936

The following typed notes were based on a conversation that took place on February 21, 1936 regarding possible future hires for the Harvard economics department. President James B. Conant (or someone on his behalf) met with Columbia university professors Wesley C. Mitchell and his NBER sidekick, Frederick C. Mills. This artifact comes from President Conant’s administrative records in the Harvard Archives.

In the memo we find a few frank impressions of members of the Harvard economics departments together with head-hunting tips for established and up-and-coming economists of the day.

An observation that jumps from the paper is the identification pinned to the name Arthur F. Burns, namely, “(Jew)”. Interestingly enough this was not added to Arthur William Marget (see the earlier post Harvard Alumnus. A.W. Marget. Too Jewish for Chicago? 1927.) nor to Seymour Harris.  

________________________

[stamp] FEB 25, 1936

ECONOMICS

Confidential Memorandum of a Conversation on Friday, February 21, with Wesley [Clair] Mitchell and his colleague, Professor [Frederick Cecil] Mills (?) of Columbia

General impression is that the Department of Economics at Harvard is in a better state today than these gentlemen would have thought possible a few years ago. The group from 35-50 which now faces the future is about as good as any in the country. [Edward Hastings] Chamberlin, [John Henry] Williams,[Gottfried] Haberler and Schlichter [sic, [Sumner Slichter] are certainly quite outstanding. Very little known about [Edward Sagendorph] Mason;  he seems to have made a favorable impression but no writings. [Seymour Edwin] Harris slightly known, favorable but not exciting.

[John Ulric] Neff admitted to be the best man in economic history if we could get him. Names of other people in this country mentioned included:

[Robert Alexander] Brady — University of California, now working on Carnegie grant on bureaucracy; under 40.

Arthur [F.] Burns at Rutgers (Jew) now working with the Bureau of Economic Research and not available for 3 or 4 years. Said by them to be excellent.

Henry Schultz of Chicago, about in Chamberlin’s class and age, or perhaps a little better.

[Arthur William] Marget of Minnesota, Harvard Ph.D., I believe; well known, perhaps better than Chamberlin. Flashy and perhaps unsound. (Mitchell and Mills disagree to some extent on their estimate of his permanent value but agree on his present high visibility).

Winfield Riffler [sic, Winfield William Riefler], recently called to the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton, probably one of the most if not the most outstanding of the younger men.

Morris [Albert] Copeland of Washington; good man but not so good as Chamberlin.

Giddons [sic, Harry David Gideonse?] of Chicago, very highly thought of by Chicago people but has not written a great deal; supposed to be an excellent organizer.

C. E. [Clarence Edwin] Ayres, University of Texas, about 40; in N.R.A. at Washington. Mitchell thinks very highly of him.

England

[Theodore Emmanuel Gugenheim] Gregory, at London School of Economics, about 50, same field as Williams but not so good. Mills more favorable than Mitchell.

Other outstanding young Englishmen:

[Richard F.] Kahn, Kings College, Cambridge

F. Colin [sic, Colin Grant] Clark, of Cambridge

Lionel Robins [sic, Lionel Charles Robbins] of London, age 35, rated very highly by both Mills and Mitchell

F. A. Hayek, another Viennese now in London; spoken of very highly by both Mills and Mitchell.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Records of President James B. Conant, Box 54, Folder Economics, “1935-1936”.

Image Sources: Wesley Clair Mitchell (left) from the “Original Founders” page at the website of the Foundation for the Study of Business Cycles; Frederick C. Mills (right) from the Columbia Daily Spectator, Vol. CVIII, No. 68, 11 February 1964.

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Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Department Reports to the Dean, 1946-47 to 1949-50

 

This post adds the Chair’s annual reports on the Harvard Economics Department for the early post-WW II years to previously posted reports for 1932-33 through 1945-46. 

Reports to the Dean of Harvard
from the Department of Economics.
1932-1941
1941-1946

___________________________

1946-1947

September 29, 1947

Dear Dean Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the work of the Department of Economies for the academic year 1946-47.

This report necessarily follows much the same pattern as the report for last year. Again our work has been dominated by the number of students, undergraduate and graduate, and the lack of a trained junior staff.

The number of undergraduates of course is entirely so beyond our control. In Economies A and in most of our “middle group” courses, the elections taxed our capacity for effective instruction. Under the most propitious conditions the crowded classrooms would have presented many problems but with a dearth of trained teaching fellows and annual instructors the load carried by the senior staff was unduly heavy. Foreseeing this range of problems, the Department voted on February 19, 1946 [sic, 1947 probably correct. In December 1946 departments wereallowed to withdraw from offering tutorials] to suspend tutorial instruction for a period of two years. It may be stated here that this was probably a wise decision. Concentration in Economics appears to have resumed the trend apparent before the war. In the current year the number of concentrators will approach, or perhaps exceed 800. Even should no consideration be given to the expenditure involved, the possibility of finding and training effective tutors even for honors candidates seems somewhat remote.

On the graduate level the problems of instruction were even more difficult. During the year the number of graduate students receiving instruction was approximately 286. Our course offering on this level is large. Nevertheless, the principal graduate courses were crowded to a point where the maintenance of standards was difficult. After the graduate student has completed his preliminary program and has been accepted as a candidate for the Ph.D, degree, the instruction is largely individual. In the last year we were just coming into the situation where a considerable proportion of the students were receiving such instruction. The full impact of this situation will be felt in the current year. Most members of the senior staff will be directing the theses of some 10 to 15 students. Some officers will be responsible for even larger numbers. With the numbers we are attempting to handle on the graduate level the single task of examining candidates in the general and special examinations becomes a major consideration. During the last academic year the staff conducted general and special examinations. Such an amount of examining and of individual instruction on the graduate level has its bearing on tutorial instruction for undergraduates.

The Department voted to accept the large number of graduate students now on our rolls only after considerable investigation and discussion. It is my own personal opinion that we have set our limit altogether too high. However, the pressure upon us for admission has been very strong and our obligations to the Littauer School, where the pressure is hardly less, just be observed.

This matter of the size of the Graduate School in the immediate future is one of our most difficult problems. It will receive our attention in the current year.

In the last two or three years these reports have noted certain experiments in instruction, especially in connection with Economics A. Such experiments are dependent upon the presence of a considerable number of able and mature young men with adequate teaching experience, as well as upon a margin of free time. Both of these factors are lacking to such a degree that substantial and outstanding progress could not be expected but the plans were active and some progress was made.

If full tutorial instruction is not resumed by the Department, experimentation in undergraduate courses is imperative and this we have planned. It is our expectation that a good deal in the way of individual guidance can be accomplished in connection with Economics A and some of our middle group courses. We believe that we can make our instruction more efficient with a much smaller personnel and at much less expense than the tutorial system would involve. However, a definitive decision has not been reached on all of these matters.

It is hardly necessary to emphasize that the heavy instructional demands discussed above affected our research projects. Furthermore, the officers of this Department are severely handicapped by the lack of research funds. This dearth of research funds is a question which has been placed before our Visiting Committee.

In spite of the difficulties involved, the contributions of the members of the Department were substantial. The following books were published:

Teoria de la Competencie Monopolica, by E. H. Chamberlin, Mexico, 1946. (Spanish translation of The Theory of Monopolistic Competition)

Economic Policy and Full Employment, by A. H. Hansen. McGraw-Hill. 1947.

The New Economics, S. B. Harris, editor and contributor Knopf. 1947.

The National Debt and the New Economics, by S. E. Harris. 1947.

Income and Employment, by T. Morgan. Prentice-Hall. 1947.

New enlarged edition of Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, by J. A. Schumpeter.

The Challenge of Industrial Relations, by S. H. Slichter, Cornell University Press, 1947.

Postwar Monetary Plans and other Essays, by J. Williams. Knopf, 3rd edition. 1947.

articles were published.

Although we are able to record only one new volume and one republication of an older volume in the Harvard Economic Series for the past year, four other volumes are in the hands of the printer and will appear in the current year.

In the area of distinctions or honors, I believe the only items to be noted concern Dean Edward S. Mason. Last spring he was appointed Economic Advisor to Secretary of State Marshall at the Moscow Conference. In July he was appointed a member of President Truman’s Committee on Foreign Aid.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1947-1948

September 30, 1948

Dear Provost Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the work of the Department of Economics for the academic year 1947-48.

The report on the work of the Department for the last year can be given in part in the same terms that have been employed in the last three reports. Our major problems have been quantitative and have presented the same difficulties that were emphasized in the other post-war reports. However, we believe that the last year did reach the peak of the load and that the pressure of numbers will abate steadily. The problem of building and maintaining an effective junior staff was hardly less than in the preceding years. Crowded classrooms and insufficiently trained assistants imposed unduly severe burdens upon the senior teachers responsible for course instruction. Some improvement, especially in the middle group courses, is in prospect for the coming year but it is probable that two to three years more will be necessary before these courses will be adequately staffed. In the introductory course which relies heavily upon a large number of young instructors and teaching fellows, the situation is still serious but latterly we have been able to utilize young men with more satisfactory preparation and training. Because of the heavy demands for the services of these young men by other institutions, the turnover is large leaving us each year with a relatively inexperienced staff.

Graduate instruction continues to make unusual demands upon the time and energy of the senior staff. During the past year we conducted 109 general examinations and 26 special examinations. Examining and the related task of directing the research of candidates for the higher degrees undoubtedly have an incidence upon undergraduate instruction which raises questions of fundamental importance. It is encouraging that the number of graduate students is, through the action of the Department, declining.

In spite of the difficulties presented by the numbers of undergraduates and graduates, the Department, perhaps belatedly, has given particular consideration to its commitments in the Areas and in General Education. A report on General Education is enclosed.

Also, the Department has considered at length and in detail various problems of instruction, particularly undergraduate instruction. These considerations will be continued in the current year. By completely revising the content of our basic courses it may be possible to increase the effectiveness of our instruction and reduce somewhat the number of courses offered. A preliminary report on this aspect of our work is included.

A year ago I noted that many of our senior officers were handicapped severely by the lack of research funds. As you know, it can now be recorded with sincere satisfaction that a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and that several projects under the auspices of the Research Marketing Act, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Charles H. Hood Dairy Foundation, the Ferguson Foundation Fund, and the Carnegie Corporation Fund, meet the situation effectively for some of our officers. The set-up of these projects promises not only to be of great value to the professors in charge of the research but it contributes heavily to the training of our most promising graduate students and younger officers.

The following books were published by members of the Department:

How Shall We Pay for Education? by Seymour Harris. Harpers.

Stabilization Subsidies by Seymour Harris. Historical Report Series, U.S. Gov’t.

Price Control of International Commodities by Seymour Harris. Archives Volume, Historical Records Office.

International Monetary Policies, by Gottfried Haberler (with Lloyd Metzler and Robert Triffin). Postwar Economic Series, Federal Reserve System Board of Governors.

Problemas de Conjuntura e de Politica Economica, by Gottfried Haberler. Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janiero.

Production in the United States, 1866-1914, by Edwin Frickey. Harvard University Press.

Seventy-eight articles have been published. Three books were published in the Harvard Economic Series during the past year. Five volumes are in the hands of the Press to be published later this year.

Professor Edward H. Chamberlin has been appointed to succeed Dr. Arthur B. Monroe as Managing Editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Both the Quarterly Journal of Economies and the Review of Economic Statistics are well established intellectually and financially. With the demands of instruction and research, the editing of the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics, as well as the direction of the Harvard Economic Series, raises questions regarding the adequacy of the manpower within the Department.

 In the area of distinctions or honors, Professor Joseph A. Schumpeter was chosen to be President of the American Economic Association for 1948. Dean Edward S. Mason was awarded an honorary degree, D. Litt, from Williams College, June, 1948.

Very sincerely,
H. H. Burbank

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1948-1949

September 28, 1949

Dear Provost Buck:

The pattern of the report of the Department of Economics on the work of the last year is essentially the same as the other reports for the post-war years. Indeed, not a little of the introduction to the report of a year ago could be utilized in the current report. The quantitative side of our work has been among our major problems. I think I was correct in predicting that the peak of the load would be passed in 1948-49. For the year 1949-50, numbers, particularly on the graduate level, will be approximately less although the total is still beyond the capacities of our senior staff.

Again I can repeat that the problem of building and maintaining a junior staff presents great difficulties. We have strengthened our position on the level of the assistant professor but we are unable to hold our most promising young Ph.D’s for appointment at the instructor level. All of our undergraduate instruction suffers because of this factor, but Economics 1 (the introductory course) is affected particularly. The demand for these young men by other institutions continues at a high level resulting in a high rate of turnover and leaving us sech year with a relatively inexperienced staff. [end of p. 1]

[Note: need to replace unfocussed image of page 2]

[p. 3 begins ] …expectation that we will be able to revise our general examination effectively.

In the post-war years the Department has been striving to meet its obligations to General Education and to the areas. We believe that we have made an excellent beginning in both General Education and in the Russian Area. We are still actively engaged in the attempt to strengthen our position in the Chinese Area. This is exceedingly difficult but I believe that some progress is being made.

Last year we were able to record with great satisfaction that some research projects were being established satisfactorily. These projects under the auspices of the Rockefeller Foundation and under the auspices of various groups interested in agriculture and marketing are now going forward successfully and up proving to be important for us not only as research projects but also because of their general effect upon a relatively large group of our graduate students. We can now give a type of training to our most promising men which would have been impossible without such projects. It should be emphasized at this point that other areas of interest need research funds.

The following books were published:

Collective Bargaining: Principles and Cases, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1949, by John I. Dunlop.

Labor in Norway by Walter Galenson. Harvard University Press, 1949.

Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy, by Alvin Hansen McGraw-Hill, 1949.

The European Recovery Program, by Seymour E. Harris. Harvard University Press.

Foreign Economic Policy for the U.S., edited by Seymour E. Harris, Harvard University Press.

Price Control of International Commodities, by Seymour E. Harris. Archives Volume for Historical Records Office.

Saving American Capitalism, edited by Seymour E. Harris. Knopf.

Economic Planning, by Seymour E. Harris. Knopf.

Post-war Monetary Plans and Other Essays, by John H. Williams. Oxford, Basil Blackwell.

The American Economy, Its Problems and Prospects, by Sumner H. Slichter. Knopf.

There were 62 articles published by members of the Department during the past year. Five books were published in the Harvard Economic Studies and two volumes are in the hands of the Press to be published later this year. There has been a total of 86 books published in the Harvard Economic Studies to this date.

It should be recorded that both the Quarterly Journal of Economics under the editorship of Professor Chamberlin and the Review of Economics and Statistics have prospered during the year. Again I do feel it necessary to refer to the fact that editing the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics and the carrying forward of the Harvard Economic Studies continues to raise questions regarding the adequacy of the manpower within the Department.

In the area of distinctions and honors, Professor Slichter was awarded honorary degrees (LL.D.) from the following universities: Lehigh University, Harvard University, University of Rochester, University of Wisconsin and Northwestern University. Professor

Haberler was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Economics (“Doktor der Wirtschaftswissenschaft honoris causa”) from Handelshochschule, St. Gallen, Switzerland. Dr. Galbraith was awarded the President’s Certificate of Merit, Medal of Merit Board, for services in Price Control and Economic Stabilization during the war.

Sincerely
[Harold H. Burbank]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean 1948-54”.

___________________________

1949-1950

[Draft] Report to Dean, October 2, 1950
Professor Burbank

In each of the reports for the last three years, emphasis has been placed upon two matters; our efforts to handle the increased numbers incident to the war, particularly on the graduate level, and our attempts to revise and improve our instruction, particularly on the undergraduate level.

With a good deal of satisfaction we are able to report that for the last year substantial progress has been made in each of these areas. Immediately after the war the number of our graduate students increased from approximately 100 to nearly 300. By raising the standards of admission and giving the most careful scrutiny to applications, the numbers on the graduate level are now well under 200, and will be reduced somewhat more for 1950-51.

The work of supervising and directing graduate students falls very unevenly upon the various members of the senior staff. Even with not over 150 graduate students some members of the staff will carry an inordinate part of individual instruction and of examining for the higher degrees. Further, large graduate classes tend to dilute the instruction.

On the undergraduate level the Department has revised its requirements for concentration, including the content of many of our key courses. This plan has been accepted by the Faculty and is now in operation. It is an ambitious scheme that involves not only a change in the content and coverage of our key courses but it also involves the strengthening the staff in these courses and an integration of course work with tutorial work. Undoubtedly it will take some years to complete this plan. Much depends upon our ability to build a strong junior staff, especially on the annual instructor level. When this reorganized instruction is in full operation it is expected that a number of courses now offered for undergraduates may be deleted.

Also it is with a good deal of satisfaction that after a period of suspension tutorial instruction has been reestablished and is developing steadily. The period of suspension was unfortunate but probably inevitable. We are now approaching a position with respect to both graduate and undergraduate instruction that at least approximates a normal situation, with a possibility of a carefully planned and well integrated system of undergraduate instruction. As a part of this plan increased attention has been given to reestablishing the General Examinations on something approximating the level of earlier years. Since we are lacking experienced tutors the establishment of tutorial instruction is a very real task but it is believed it can be done successfully.

We have been fortunate to have been able to attract to the Graduate School a group of unusually able young men. The very top of this group represents ability of the very highest order. Unfortunately only rarely can we retain the services of these young men even on the assistant professor level. However, the Department is keenly aware of the difficulties it faces in recruitment and every effort is being made to follow the progress of the product of other schools as well as the progress of our own young scholars.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

___________________________

1949-1950

January 5, 1951

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Provost Buck:

I am now somewhat belatedly submitting the report of the Department of Economics for 1949-50.

I. Undergraduate Instruction

Four hundred eighty-two Harvard and Radcliffe students concentrated in economics in 1949-50 as compared with 608 in the previous year. The enrolment in Economics 1 was 402 as compared with 546 in the previous year. Seventy-seven students graduated with honors; 20 obtaining magna cum laude and 57 cum laude.

The entire senior staff gave courses at the undergraduate level— a practice that distinguishes Harvard sharply from institutions such as Columbia and Chicago which restrict the activities of some of the most talented members of the staff to graduate instruction. Nevertheless, the strength of our undergraduate teaching has depended very largely on the unusually fine group of assistant professors we now have on our staff.

During the past couple of years the Department has been gradually moving toward restoration of the tutorial system and last spring it decided finally to give tutorial instruction to all honors students in their junior and senior years,

II. Graduate Instruction

Two hundred graduate students in economics were in residence last year as compared with 234 the previous year. The Department gave 58 general examinations for the Ph.D. and 47 special examinations.

The number of graduate students is still too large to handle effectively with the present staff. The students themselves justifiably complain that they cannot see enough of the members of the faculty. However if they did see as much of the faculty as they wanted to, the faculty would have little time for reading and research and the quality of instruction would decline. We are planning to deal with this problem as far as possible by making sure that more graduate students attend reasonably small seminars and do have an opportunity to get to know at least one faculty member reasonably well.

I believe that the quality of our graduate work has suffered through overemphasis on course work and preoccupation with grades. We tend to make graduate instruction too much of a prolongation of undergraduate instruction. We also tend too much in the direction of specialization and provide too little encouragement for students to become coordinated in the whole economic field. The remedy for this state of affairs depends more upon the general attitude of the Department rather than any specific measures of reorganization. We shall do whatever is possible to encourage students in the feeling that their main function here is to acquire the maturity that is essential for scholarship rather than to accumulate a collection of pieces of isolated information.

III. Research

Professors Mason, Leontief, Black, Galbraith and Dunlop are all conducting organized research projects within the Department. Apart from their substantive value, these projects give a considerable number of graduate students an opportunity to take part in organized research activity. I believe these projects have an important part to play in the future of the Department as a whole rather than as special interests of individual members. However, I do not share the view that most of our intellectual activities should be directed towards organized research. There is danger that we may become a research bureaucracy and that the merits of individual scholarship may achieve less recognition than they deserve. While the research project is invaluable in training the students in specialized activity, it does little to cultivate the maturity that should be one of the most important products of our graduate training.

IV. The Staff of the Department

Professor Schumpeter’s death has meant a loss to the Department that cannot be covered by any individual that we now have on the staff or could get from the outside. The only way to make up for his absence is for the present members of the faculty to direct part of their attention to the aspects of economic thought in which Schumpeter was particularly interested. This has in part been done. I think it is true to say that since Schumpeter’s death his own work has received more attention in Harvard classrooms than it received while he was alive.

The only new additions to the to the staff at the professorial level in 1949-50 were assistant professors Orcutt and Sawyer. Orcutt is giving a course at the graduate level and the undergraduate level on empirical economies in which he stresses the quantitative aspects of economic theory. He is also a first-class statistician. Since the resignation of Professor Crum we have had only one professional statistician in the Department, and it seems highly desirable to have at least two. Sawyer will add considerable strength to the Department’s work in economic history although he will spend half of his time in the General Education program.

VI. [sic] Distinctions

Members of the Department received the following distinctions:

Professor Edward Chamberlin — An honorary degree (Dr.) awarded by the Universita Catholica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy. December 1949.

Professor Sumner Slichter — President, Industrial Relations Research Association.

Professor Gottfried Haberler — President, International Economic Association for 1950 (held by Professor Schumpeter at the time of his death).

I am attaching a bibliography of the writings of the members of the Department. [not included in this folder]

Sincerely yours,
Arthur Smithies

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11), Box 2, Folder “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean 1948-54”.

Images Source: Burbank (left) from the Harvard Class Album 1946, Smithies (right) from the Harvard Class Album 1952.

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Economists Gender Radcliffe Undergraduate

Radcliffe. Paul Sweezy’s blue eyes and a summary of economics courses taken by the Class of 1942.

Paul Sweezy by many accounts was a Paul Newman of academic economics. This is implicitly confirmed in the following text, written by one of his fans for the Radcliffe Class of 1942 Yearbook summarizing Harvard economics courses offered to Radcliffe women in the early years of WWII.

_______________________

Economics. Ec. A—Or is the business cycle necessary? Wages, interest, profit, rent—where that last five dollars went. If value equals distribution, why do we pay so much tuition?—Money and Banking, or How Professor Harris converts the American business man to Keynes.—Corporations. Dull? How could it be, considering its Social Significance, and Dr. Sweezy’s blue eyes.—Economic Theory—watch ring-master Chamberlin corral the whole economic system into ceteris paribus.—Ec. 18. We have to strike a defense note in these parlous times.—Did we say strike? Ec. 81, Labor Problems, led this year by Messrs. Healy and Hogan.

Source (Text and Image): Radcliffe College Yearbook, Class of 1942, p. 43.

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Economics Programs Harvard

Harvard. Meeting of the Visiting Committee with the Economics Department. January 1944

 

Maybe attending to the routine business of the Harvard economics department was seen as a welcome respite amidst the Sturm und Drang of the Second World War. Maybe the consensus was simply shared that the transistory shock of the war would soon be over and it was time to worry again about the core missions of Harvard and its economics department. In any event, the following report outlines a “Research Program for the Department of Economics” presented to the visiting committee by the chair of the department’s Committee on Research Program, Professor John D. Black. 

____________________________

Visiting Committee Reports available at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror

Visiting Committee Report 1915

Visiting Committee Report 1974

____________________________

Meeting of the Visiting Committee of the Department of Economics with the Department, on Monday, January 10, 1944.

The Visiting Committee of the Department of Economics met with the Department at seven o’clock on Monday, January 10, 1944, at the Harvard Club in Boston. There were present for the Visiting Committee: Roger N. Baldwin, Albert F. Bigelow, Paul M. Herzog, George Rublee (chairman), Charles E. Spencer, and Orrin G. Wood. For the Department: John D. Black, H. H. Burbank, W. L. Crum, John T. Dunlop, Edwin Frickey, Seymour E. Harris, Arthur E. Monroe, Wassily Leontief, Abbott P. Usher, John H. Williams, and Edwin B. Wilson. Mr. Rublee presided.

 

Mr. Rublee called on Professor Burbank, the chairman of the Department of Economics, to make an opening statement.

Professor Burbank said that in previous years we had at these dinners talked about our teaching difficulties, especially those connected with the junior staff. Last year we discussed Professor Slichter’s experiment with the labor-union representatives. This year the Department had suggested to Mr. Rublee that we consider our most pressing problem of the present, as well as the immediate and long-run future. Fundamentally, this problem is concerned with the Department’s research. We must have a vigorous and effective program of research if we are to have a dominant Department of Economic in the University or, indeed, if the University itself is to maintain its high standing. The Department of Economics has recently appointed a Committee on Research Program. Professor Black is the chairman of this committee.

Professor Black then presented the following report:

RESEARCH PROGRAM FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

A department of economics in a large university has three functions to perform:

  1. To teach and train students,
  2. To contribute to an understanding of the current problems of private enterprise and public affairs,
  3. To help develop the science of economics.

In a small college a good job of teaching is about all that can be expected of a department of economics. In a great university the second and third functions are as important as the first.

Fortunately those three functions not only need not interfere with each other, but in a large university can be performed in such a way that each strengthens the other. This does not mean that all can be performed in the same time, but rather that each is better done if the other two are also being strongly carried. As a matter of fact, however, much time and energy is saved if all three are combined. Thus what is learned from the study of current problems can be used very effectively in the classroom and at the same time furnishes needed and valuable inductive material for the development of economic science. One’s teaching, in turn, especially one’s graduate instruction, is a constant source of ideas and suggestions to be developed in research. Only, therefore, if the staff of a department of economics is large enough and well enough financed so that it can work along all three of these lines, is it able to yield a large return upon the investment in it. Only if thus set up and thus functioning is it able to realize the possible economies of combination of these functions.

The Department of Economics of Harvard University has been performing on all of these fronts ever since it was organized. But in the period while the members of this committee have been associated with it, it has by no means measured up to its opportunities on the last two of them, and what is more important, unless some action is taken in the near future, it will miss out still more on its opportunities after the war. It will not only do less well the job it has been trying to do, for reasons to be indicated presently, but also will not reach out and encompass the larger needs of the years ahead. Needless to state, society and the nation are going to be faced with major tasks of adjustment in the years just ahead and over the next decade or two and likewise breath-taking possibilities for social advancement. So important is the role of economies in these developments that if the Department of Economies of Harvard University does not contribute its part to them, this alone will almost be enough to shrink Harvard University in toto into a second- rate institution. This, therefore, is a moment for stock-taking and laying out plans.

It is not part of the assignment of this committee to consider the teaching function of the Department. But some reference must be made to it for the reasons just given. the present course offerings and methods of instruction are not well fitted to the present and the impending future. The function of teaching in a field like ours is primarily to train students to apply economics, and the methods of economic analysis, to the situations which confront them after they leave college. For Harvard undergraduates, most of these situations are situations in private enterprise, although having important public relations. A limited proportion are assignments in the public service itself. The program of teaching needs to be organized in anticipation of the kinds of jobs, mostly private, that the graduates of Harvard University get to do. The graduate teaching program needs to envisage e wide range of working assignments, a large fraction of them in the public service. Training teachers of economics is only one of the functions of graduate teaching. Because the teaching is not organized as needed, there are some large gaps in the present program, and these gaps, it will appear presently, coincide with gaps in the research activities of the department.

The other two functions, contributing directly to an understanding of current situations, and developing economic science, are orginarily considered as research. There is considerably more to the first of these than just research, but since good research is basic to it, we will here consider them both as research and treat them under one head from this point on.

The deficiencies in the research activities of the Department of Economics, considered especially from the standpoint of the postwar can be designated under the following heads:

  1. Not enough research is being done
  2. There are gaps in it
  3. Some of it is not of enough significance.

The reasons for these deficiencies are as follows:

  1. Lack of resources to carry on the needed volume of research.
  2. This includes resources in research personnel as well as in the expenses of clerical assistants, field study, publication, and the like.
  3. Inadequate staff, or none at all, in some important fields.
  4. Very little in the way of leadership. Staff not organized in such a way as to promote research.

Let us now consider briefly these four reasons. When an economist does not have financial resources with which to do significant research, he may put in his spare energy on library work on the writings of his predecessors, the Congressional Record, and the like. For this he needs only someone to type his manuscript. If in addition, he has a little money to hire a computer, he may go to work on the census records and other official statistics. Those two descriptions about cover all the research now being done by the Harvard Department of Economics as such.

Lacking funds for anything more, two developments have followed. First, a goodly number of the staff members have taken on research or related assignments with other agencies. Merely to list these agencies tells the story. (We are purposely omitting the wartime agencies), the Treasury Department, the State Department, the Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Reserve Board, the National Resources Planning Board, the Food and Nutrition Board, the Bureau of Economic Research, the League of Nations, the Twentieth Century Fund, the National Planning Association, the National Industrial Conference Board, etc. While most of those assignments are important, to have as many of them disorganizes the research and teaching of the Department. Also the Department as such does not get adequate recognition for work done under other auspices. Finally, there is great need for having research done that is largely independent of government agencies. This point cannot be too strongly emphasized.

The second development has been that several members of the Department have started projects that they have not been able to complete thus far. They have learned by sad experience that they cannot swing ambitious projects without the help of trained younger associates who can direct the detail of the analysis and help with the writing. As a result, a number of important projects are now left suspended.

If the Department is to have a vigorous research program of its own, there must be funds with which to employ a dozen or two of these younger research associates, as well as funds for computers, clerical help, drafting, travel and field study.

The Committee is also disposed to think that a clearer recognition should be given to research duties in the total program of the Department. It would suggest that consideration be given to a plan which would differentiate teaching loads according to research carried. Staff members who do very little research, because not inclined that way, or having small capacity for it, would handle more classes under such a plan.

The nature of the gaps in the present program may be judged from a following incomplete survey of fields of research and teaching and the needs of each.

  1. Money and credit. Staff ample, but research associates, clerical and other help much needed. High time that a research showing be made.
  2. Business cycles. Staff ample. Funds to continue the program that was under way before the war.
  3. International economic relationship. Staff probably not entirely adequate and great need of developing a well-rounded research program suited to the postwar world. This program should include work on Inter-American relationships, development of resources of Latin America, international food supply and distribution and related population problems. Research associates and other financial help.
  4. Public finance. Staff ample. Research associates and other help needed.
  5. Economic history. A teaching as well as research associate needed. One professor now working alone in the field.
  6. Labor and industrial relations. The principle problem is to develop a workable program for using the research funds now available.
  7. Agriculture. A teaching associate needed, and probably two research associates with necessary supplementary funds.
  8. Commodity distribution. Needs complete staffing. An undergraduate and a graduate course are now being given on a makeshift basis. No research under way.
  9. Production economics. Courses now bracketed. Needs complete staffing.
  10. Forestry economies. A slight beginning has been made on a program in this field in collaboration with the Harvard Forest. An opportunity for an important contribution here. Needs a man to develop teaching and research with such financial support as required.
  11. Concerning the several other present fields of teaching and research in the Department, no statement is being made at this time.

The present research funds available for the Department are:

  1. A share with three other departments in the remnants of grant that will expire in June 1946. (About $40,000 left, most of which must be reserved for publication expenses.)
  2. Remnants of three other small grants, totaling about $6000, for special projects.
  3. The Wertheim fund, yielding about $3000 a year, for research in industrial relations, to be shared with other divisions of the University.

The committee suggests as a method of approach to the situation outlined that the Department set up a committee to draft a research program for the Department, and another one to develop a procedure for securing the necessary support for the program.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Professor Black added that in the natural sciences the idea of large laboratories is well established. In Economics also we need extensive laboratories and personnel therefor. Further, we need funds for field workers and for traveling expenses.

Mr. Bigelow asked whether there were any project being worked on in the School of Public Administration which could be coordinated with the research of the Economics Department. Professor Black answered that the idea of combining has already been carried as far as possible. The School of Public Administration funds are sufficient only to take care of the assembling of materials and other routine connected with the seminars.

Mr. Baldwin asked what the Department did with its research funds in the past when such funds were available. Professor Black answered that we made small grants to individual professors to help them finish projects in which they were engaged. These grants covered such activities as preliminary research, computing, and typing, but in general not much was available for field work or for traveling. Some eight or ten books have been published as a result of these projects. The publication of these books, as well as the research behind them, depended largely on research grants. Our research funds are now almost exhausted; we have very little money available for the future.

Professor Usher pointed out that in these earlier grants the modes and procedures were laid down by the donors. The Department did not have a free hand in organizing and planning research.

Mr. Baldwin asked whether the Economics Department today has a claim for research funds superior to that of other departments. Professor Burbank urged that a very strong case can be made out for such a position.

Professor Wilson observed that in days gone by great emphasis was laid on “inter-disciplinary” research. A second-rate “interdisciplinary” project would be given preference over a first-rate piece of restricted research. Professor Wilson further remarked that the research programs of the natural sciences were well set up thirty or forty years ago. Our social sciences, on the other hand, were for a long time treated as mere teaching departments. The movement away from this stand received a great impetus from an article by the late Professor Charles J. Bullock, in the Harvard Graduates’ Magazine for June 1915. This article called attention to the need of more generous and systematic provision for economic research. Our research program for Economics needs to be extended to a scale comparable with that of the natural sciences—unless, indeed, the United States government is to handle all the economic research in this country!

There was some discussion regarding the relation of university research in Economics to governmental research. Professor Usher pointed out that university research can be the basis for developing techniques of analysis which government bureaus can later put into “mass production.” Mr. Bigelow suggested that the development of techniques is more difficult in the social sciences than in the natural sciences. Professor Leontief predicted that the Economies Department’s research will set the direction for larger-scale governmental or “foundation” research, and emphasized that independent research, especially in its earlier stages, can never be reproduced in the “rough and tumble” conditions of governmental work. Dean Williams supported this view: a situation has been developing for some time—not just in connection with the War emergency—in which men are pulled out of university work to become mere administrators, to “run” projects; furthermore, working under governmental supervision may mean a certain loss of independence of thought, for consciously or unconsciously a men may be affected by considerations of “official policy.” Dr. Dunlop declared that you simply cannot do fundamental research under governmental auspices, there are always too many pressing current problems.

Mr. Herzog urged that the Department’s next step is to present cogent arguments to support its contentions regarding research needs. In this connection, it will be quite important to show people what contributions the Department has made in the past with the research grants allotted to it—what, for example, has resulted for practical use of the Government. Professor Burbank responded that we might take as an example the history of the statistical work on the Balance of International Payments. At the end of the last war the government and business men were vitally interested in this subject. Dean Williams was a pioneer in the field. Dean Williams briefly outlined the record. He began with an examination of the balance of payments for Argentina. Then, under the auspices of the Harvard Economics Society he, together with Professor Bullock and Mr. Tucker, made and presented a historical study of the Balance of Payments of the United States from 1789 to 1920. He kept this study up to date for several years and then turned it over to the Department of Commerce, working with them for a transition period of one year. The Department of Commerce has subsequently carried on the study currently.

As a suggestion regarding further possibilities of this sort, Professor Burbank referred to the problems connected with the incidence of taxation; these are most certainly current issues of the utmost importance. The country needs evidence for the formulation of governmental policy. We have in the Department a young man of high ability who has made a start on the investigation of these problems. We have no funds to help him, not even money for clerical and mechanical assistance.

Professor Burbank indicated that the Department would work a report along the lines of Mr. Herzog’s suggestion.

Mr. Wood urged that the Department visualize its projects and lay them out fully, with an indication of minimum and maximum amounts of money needed. Very little will be gained by talking in generalizations; the program must be concrete. Incidentally, with the Federal tax situation as it is, the present is a propitious time to obtain money for research—with reference both to individuals and to corporations.

Mr. Rublee raised question as to the exact significance of the title “Research Associate.” Professor Black answered that we have something in mind beyond a mere statistical clerk. Between the man in charge of a project and those doing the mechanical work, we need trained young economists who can assume the burden of direct supervision and also can help in writing up the results. Other Research Associates are needed to do traveling and field work. Professor Leontief suggested that the appointment of Research Associates is important for still another reason. Many of the young men thus appointed will become leaders in the economic developments of the future. The experience gained on our projects will be extremely valuable to them.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Mr. Rublee asked Dr. Dunlop to say a few words about the progress of the trade-union experiment which was described by Professor Slichter in this meeting last year. Dr. Dunlop said that this year we have gone ahead with the program, although of necessity on a reduced scale because of man power shortage in the various unions. We have six union representatives who, on the whole, are superior to the group we had last year. We have continued the development of techniques of instruction and we have widened our range of contacts with the unions. The unions are supporting the program and we are establishing new connections with certain important unions. In spite of the fact that the teaching staff has been somewhat depleted and we have had to furnish instruction on the basis of special arrangements, we feel that the year has been decidedly profitable and worth while, both for the union representatives and for us.

Mr. Herzog urged that by all means the work should continue, even though it had to be on a reduced scale. It is much easier to keep on with a going concern than to start afresh. He confirmed Dr. Dunlop’s impressions as to the high quality of the union personnel. He also reported the sincere testimony of a leading member of the labor-union group that the work at Harvard was felt to be highly worth while—to be a vital and crucial experience.

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

The meeting closed with general expressions of appreciation for Mr. Rublee’s work as chairman of the visiting Committee during the past few years and of the deep indebtedness which the Department feels to him for this work.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961 (UAV 349.11). Box 25. Folder: “Visiting Committee Correspondence, 1943-45.”

Image Source: Cropped image of  John D. Black (1938). Harvard Library, Digital Collections.

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Harvard. Economics Department Reports to the Dean, 1941-1946

This post adds the Chairman’s annual reports on the Harvard Economics Department for the World War II years to the series:

Department of Economics Reports to the Dean of Harvard, 1932-1941

More about Harvard during WWII: Coreydon Ireland, “Harvard Goes to War,” The Harvard Gazette (November 10, 2011).

_______________________

1941-42

October 15, 1942

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith a report on the work of the Department of Economics covering the past year.

The only honor conferred upon a member of the Department during this period has been the election of Professor Leontief to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Several books have been published by members of the Department, including Professor Harris’s two major works (appearing, I believe, not more than a month apart), The Economics of American Defense and Economics of Social Security; Professor Black’s Parity, Parity, Parity; Professor Hansen’s Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles; and Professor Haberler’s Consumer Credit and Economic Fluctuations. Professor Haberler’s Prosperity and Depression has also gone through a third edition. Professor Crum was co-author of Fiscal Planning for Total War. The list of articles, pamphlets, reviews, and other items seems unusually long. Professor Hansen has listed thirteen items, Professor Slichter eight, and Professor Black six. The Harvard Economic Studies has expanded from 70 to 72 volumes during the year.

The contribution of the Department to the war effort has been substantial. Professor Mason continues on leave of absence with the Office of Strategic Services, and Professor Harris has recently been granted full time leave to serve as Director of the Division of Export-Import Price Control in the Office of Price Administration. Among those in the Department who are more or less active as Consultants or in other part time war activities are Professors Black, Crum, Hansen, Leontief, and Slichter, and Dr. Butters. Numerous younger men have, of course, entered the war services or have declined possible reappointment at Harvard in order to accept administrative and research positions in Washington.

The problem of maintaining instructional standards has, of course, been aggravated by the war. Fortunately, exceptions to the two-thirds rule have been granted in many cases; otherwise it would have been literally impossible in the face of competing wartime opportunities to recruit a staff of younger men at all. Out of the present staff of fifteen teaching fellows eleven are on more than two-thirds time, and almost without exception these men would not have been available (that is, not even at two-thirds time) if exceptions to the rule had not been made. The average experience of the Economics A staff has improved owing to a policy of putting more experienced men into Economics A and breaking in new men either in tutorial work or in the Statistics and Accounting courses. 36% of concentrators in Economics are tutored by new men this year; 60% by men of one year or less experience. The very sizeable staff in Statistics and Accounting is made up almost entirely of new appointees.

In view of the desperate need for trained economists in the expanding activities of the United States Government, the Department has announced for the current year an Undergraduate Training Program in Economics for Government Service which has attracted a substantial enrolment. The program has been opened to non-honors as well as to honors candidates. It has been carefully designed to give advanced training of a type which will enable them to undertake with a minimum of delay and adaptation administrative and research positions in the government service. It includes, in addition to a substantial corps of standard courses in Economics, three new courses, namely, Economics 7a and 7b, Research in Market Organization, Commodity Distribution, and Prices; Economics 19a, Research in Money and Finance; and Economics 22b, Government Statistics. One striking indication of the merits of this program might appear in the fact that a program of training announced by the Department of Government seems to consist essentially in normal concentration Government plus an election from these new courses in Economics.

Sincerely yours,

E. H. Chamberlin

Dean Paul H. Buck

_______________________

1942-43

October 21, 1943

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith the report on the work of the Department of Economics for the academic year.

The war effort has continued to deplete our staff. Since the opening of the academic year Professors Chamberlin and Haberler and Dr. Dunlop have been granted leave of absence to undertake work in war agencies in Washington. However, Professor Crum resumes his work with the Department after leave of absence from the University to conduct an investigation on Fiscal Planning for the National Bureau of Economic Research of which he is currently the Chairman. Also Associate Professor Seymour Harris has returned to the University after a year and a half of service with the Office of Price Administration where he served as Director of the Office of Import-Export Price Control. A very small fraction of the once large junior staff now remains. By the end of the coming term it is expected that not more than four Annual Instructors will be active in instruction.

The incidence of war activities on research and publication has been two-fold. In some instances long-time research projects have been put aside, but concurrently much effort has been applied to projects concerned with war and post-war problems. Having in mind the inevitable interruptions of the war period, it is gratifying to be able to report that the books, scientific articles, addresses and reports have been in about the same number as the average of the immediately preceding years.

Of the major publications during the year the following should be mentioned:

J. A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy

P. M. Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development

Edwin Frickey, Economic Fluctuations in the United States: a Systematic Analysis of Long-Run Trends and Business Cycles, 1866-1914

S. E. Harris, Economics of America at War

S. E. Harris, Editor, Postwar Economic Problems

A. P. Usher, The Early History of Deposit Banking in Mediterranean Europe has just left the press.

J. T. Dunlop, Cost Behavior and Price Policy

It is also indicative of the demands of war activities that some forty or fifty articles directly related to the war and post-war economy have been published by members of the Department. In addition numerous reports have been issued to or under the auspices of various war agencies such as Professor Harris, “O.P.A. Manual of Price Control” and his “Reports on Anti-Inflationary Programs in South America,” and Professor Crum’s memorandum on Fiscal Planning for Reconstruction and Peace for the National Bureau of Economic Research. The Quarterly Journal of Economics has continued successfully through another year, bringing the total volumes of this publication to 57. The Review of Economic Statistics now in its 25th volume is continuing under the editorship of Professor Harris. The Harvard Economic Studies is now publishing its 75th volume.

The rapid reduction in the numbers of the teaching staff has been met in part by the increased activity of those remaining. With the very active cooperation of the members of the staff we have been able to offer a reasonably full and well balanced program of instruction. On the graduate level flexibility of instruction has been more necessary than in previous years because of the cosmopolitan group now in attendance –not less than a dozen different nationalities are represented. This flexibility is being achieved largely by increased individual supervision and instruction.

The sharp decline in the undergraduate body together with the presence of a small but able and experienced staff of teachers has made possible a degree of experimentation in the introductory course in Economics which should lead to significant changes in the conduct of this course in the post-war period. Also at the present time some attention is being given to a question which has been in the minds of a number of members of the staff for some year—the so-called quiz section. It has been a quite common practice, in the conduct of middle group courses to provide for two lectures and one section meeting each week. On occasion five lectures are followed by the section meeting. For many years the usefulness of the section meeting has been in question. It is to be admitted that it does relieve the instructor of a lecture, but whether or not it provides equivalent or better instruction is debatable. At the present time Professor Crum and Dr. Smith are conducting a controlled experiment in the section meetings connected with their offering Government Control of Industry and Public Utilities. In the course time they will report their findings to the Department.

At this point I should like to mention the interesting and valuable “experiment” which Professor Slichter has called The Trade Union Fellowship Project. I am enclosing Professor Slichter’s report on this project which, I believe, you will find of interest. We regard the experiment as not only highly successful from both the point of view of the University and the Unions, but the experience furnishes a good deal of evidence regarding educational processes which may prove to be highly significant.

Very sincerely yours,

H. H. Burbank

_______________________

1943-44

October 13, 1944

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith a brief report on the work of the Department of Economies for the academic year.

In the main, this report is a continuation of the report sent to you a year ago. In spite of the multifarious wartime activities of the member of the staff, the Department has maintained a well balanced offering of courses on both the undergraduate and graduate level. Course elections have continued to be surprisingly large, but I believe that the decline we have been expecting will actually begin with the Winter Term. The large proportion of foreign students on the graduate level, together with our inability to give complete offerings each Term, has necessitated an unusual amount of individual instruction.

Professors Mason and Chamberlin and Drs. Sweezy and Dunlop were on leave for the entire year. Professor Haberler resumed his work with us for the Summer Term.

I can repeat from my report of last year that the incidence of war activities on research and publication has been twofold. Most of our long time research projects have been put aside, but currently many projects concerned with war and postwar problems have been initiated and some of them completed. Although publication has been diminished by war activities, it is still gratifying to be able to report that the books, scientific articles, addresses, and reports—although not in quite the same quantity as in the prewar years—have nevertheless appeared in substantial numbers. Progress on the publication of books has shown a more definite interruption, but four books have been published during the year and not less than six books are now either actually in the press or are nearing form for publication. The books published during the year were:

J. D. Black, Food Enough

A. H. Hansen, (with H. S. Perloff), State and Local Finance in the National Economy

S. H. Slichter, Present Savings and Postwar Markets

J. H. Williams, Postwar Monetary Plans and Other Essays

Both of our periodicals — the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Statistics — have been able to continue publication without interruption and have been able to maintain their high standards. The difficulties encountered by scientific periodicals during these years are very real. One other volume has been added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

In my last report I mentioned the experimentation, particularly in the Introductory course, which had been initiated. I am very happy to be able to report that this experimentation has continued through another year with very gratifying results. A very interesting problem is involved in the attempt to present adequately the introductory material in Economies. Most of us who have been intimately concerned with the problem believe that a single course can serve both for those who will concentrate in Economics and for those whose main, interest lie elsewhere. The content of such a course, and the effective presentation of the material, is now being studied.

I might add here—because fundamentally it is experimentation in methods and relationships—that the Trade Union Fellowship Project has been conducted successfully for another year. At various times I have sort you Professor Slichter’s reports on these projects. We believe that a very interesting and productive educational experiment is being carried on with the Trade Union men.

Also in the sane connection I should like to record that during the last year we were presented with a variety of problems by the numerous South American students who came to us on the graduate level.We gave these students particular attention. By the end of the year we had learned that it would be highly profitable to develop for such students some specialized instruction which would overcome the difficulties under which all of them labored in their first term or two of residence. Their educational background, following European patterns, is such that it is necessary for us to present to them in concentrated form certain types of qualitative and quantitative analysis with which they are unfamiliar and which is not now offered on the graduate level.

The members of the Department have continued to discuss and to arrive at decisions regarding course instruction in the postwar years. In sone respects, we will strengthen the instruction offered mainly for the specialist in Economics, but we are more concerned with broader offerings which will prove to be desirable, and we hope necessary, for the college at large. Our permanent staff is large and versatile. We hope to be able to utilize to the full the resources we possess. In connection with the enrichment of our teaching, we expect to utilize more effectively in our instruction the material forthcoming from a number of proposed seminars.

It seems unnecessary to mention in detail the wartime activities of our staff members. Practically every member of the staff is actively engaged in some type of war activity. Without exception, each officer is utilizing his special aptitudes and training in connection with the various Federal agencies concerned with economic problems.

Very sincerely,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck
University Hall 5
Cambridge, Massachusetts

_______________________

1944-45

October 24, 1945

Dear Dean Buck:

I submit herewith a brief report on the Department of Economics for the last year.

As in the preceding war years, the Department has been able to present a very respectable offering of courses, both on the graduate and undergraduate level. The number of graduate students continued to be unexpectedly large, necessitating a rather more elaborate course offering for them than we had planned. To a somewhat larger extent than in the two preceding years the students enrolled represent such a diverse background of training and experience that sone new types of instruction were involved. Some seventeen nationalities were represented. We are inclined to believe that this is not altogether a temporary and war situation. Even after the European universities are reestablished, we expect to draw many students with foreign background and training. If this expectation is fulfilled, our wartime experience with foreign students will have been of considerable value.

Even before the war the Department was concerned with the reorganization of its instruction. Our discussions continued throughout the year materializing in a curriculum in theoretical and applied Economics which tends to utilize to the full the unusual capacities of the members of the staff. Our present position, however, is by no means definitive. We have always relied heavily upon the stimulating intellectual activities of the younger members of the staff. When recruitment is again possible we expect to strengthen our position markedly through the cooperation of these younger members.

The reorganization of instruction has been concerned mainly with the content and coverage of courses, but in some cases it has dealt with the actual methods of classroom instruction. The introductory course has been completely recast, involving new types of material and new methods of presentation. The full effects of these changes will have to wait upon the enlargement of our junior staff. Also, some of our plans involving quantitative instruction necessarily are held in abeyance until the questions regarding a statistical laboratory have been settled.

The war effort of many officers of the Department continued through the year. Professor Mason and Drs. Sweezy and Dunlop were on leave from the University devoting their entire time to their respective wartime assignments. Professor Chamberlin returned to Cambridge in February from his post with the office of Strategic Services. Other members of the Department, particularly Professors Hansen, Slichter, Harris, Leontief and Black, while meeting their University obligations also served in various capacities with wartime agencies.

The incidence of this wartime service upon research and publishing activities of the group was marked. Both books and articles were fewer in number than in the normal year and in the main reflected the particular war activities of the authors. However, in all some

34 articles and 7 books were published. It should be noted that at least three volumes which the authors had expected to complete in the last year are now being prepared for the press.

The difficulties involved in the publication of scientific journals have been great but not insurmountable. We have been able to continue the publication of the Quarterly Journal of Economies and the Review of Economic Statistics without reduction in size and without omission of numbers. In the Harvard Economic Series [rest of line blank] that some four volumes either in the hands of the press or the Department were ready for publication but because of the war restrictions were not actually published.

Latterly the Department has been concerned with the vexing problems of the definition of objectives of students on the graduate level and the adjustment of these objectives to the various higher degrees offered. We are concerned with the administration not only of the Ph.D. degree in Business Economies, the Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government, and in part with the Ph.D. in Public Administration which may be conferred through the Littauer School of Public Administration. The problems involved in defining and administering each of these degrees will receive continued attention.

Although no honorary degrees have been reported by members of the staff, Professor E. H. Chamberlin was elected Membre Correspondent de L’Institut de Science Économique Appliquée, May 1945, and Professor S. E. Harris was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Very sincerely,

[H.H. Burbank]

_______________________

1945-46

September 30, 1946

Dear Dean Buck:

You have requested a brief report on the Department of Economics for the academic year 1945-46.

Although the Department of Economics had anticipated to a considerable extent the problems that would be presented by the post-war situation, it found the academic year 1945-46 presenting difficulties for which there, was no immediate solution.

Fortunately we had devoted a great deal of time and thought to our course offering and to methods of instruction. We were moderately well prepared to take up the new work involved in new instruction and also the work involved in changing the content of, old courses. Again we were fortunate in being able to meet most of the difficulties presented by the unprecedented number of graduate students. With all of the permanent members of the staff in residence, we were able to meet the graduate situation although it taxed our resources to the limit. Many of our most insistent problems were concerned with the difficulties we met in assembling and training an adequate junior staff. We began the fall term with 2 Assistant Professors (Faculty Instructors), 3 Annual Instructors, and 7 Teaching Fellows. The staff was increased during the year but it was far from adequate to meet the course work, involved in our offering. However, this would seem to be a problem of relatively short duration. A few young scholars are being brought from other institutions and occupations and our Graduate School contains a number of most promising young scholars whose development is proceeding rapidly.

During the fall of 1945 the Department surveyed repeatedly the obligations it had undertaken. We were committed to an elaborate course offering. He realized that the permanent personnel of the Department could not be expanded and we recognized that in the range of the junior staff immediate and extensive increases in personnel also were impossible. Because of the irreducible demands upon our limited resources, we reconsidered repeatedly our efforts in the area of tutorial instruction and eventually voted to suspend tutorial instruction for a period with the stipulation that the subject be reconsidered at such time as the Department might see fit and in no event not later than two years.

The foregoing remarks have indicated that all members of the staff are carrying much heavier loads than in pre-war days. The burden necessarily is apportioned unevenly but all are affected. The main incidence of this situation is on research. For some officers it means that research must be put aside temporarily. For others, less than ordinary progress is being made. However, as the following titles indicate, the contributions have been substantial:

Black, John D., and a committee consisting of M. R. Benedict, S. T. Dana, and L. K. Pomeroy; Credit for Small Timberland Owners, Including Farmers with Woodlands; A Report on Forest Credit. (In press)

Black, John D., with some guidance from Jorge Ahumada of Chile, Roberto Arellano Bonilla of Honduras, and Jorge Alcazer of Bolivia; Farm Cost Analysis, with Some Reference

Black, John D.; Clawson, Marion; Sayre, C.F.; Willcox, W. W.; Farm Management. The Macmillan Company (in press).

Chamberlin, E. H.; Fifth edition of the Theory of Monopolistic Competition (Chapter added). Translation of the above book into Spanish.

Crum, W. L., and Schumpeter, J. A.; Rudimentary Mathematics for Economists and Statisticians. McGraw-Hill.

Hansen, A. H.; America’s Role in the World Economy. W. W. Norton.

Hansen, A. H.; The United States After the War. Cornell Uiv. Press.

Hansen, A. H.; Financing American Propsperity. 20th Century Fund.

Harris, S. E.; Price Control in the International Field. (In press)

Harris, S. E.; National Debt. (In press)

Mason, E. S.; Controlling World Trade; Cartels and Commodity Agreements. McGraw-Hill.

Morgan, T.; The Development of the Hawaiian Economy, 1778-1876. Stanford Press. (In press)

In addition to the above books, some 72 articles have been contributed to scientific journals. We feel particularly happy in having been able to carry our publications, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Statistics, through the war period without serious alterations. Both publications are in sound financial condition. Actually, the Review of Economic Statistics will be in a much sounder position financially at the end of the current fiscal year than at the beginning of the war. However, increased publication costs are a matter for concern.

We have added two volumes to the Harvard Economic Series and published a revision of one. Three more volumes are now in the press. Again, increasing publication costs constitute a serious problem.

As mentioned above, all of the permanent officers of the Department had returned to active duty in Cambridge at the beginning of the year. A few officers have maintained contacts with various Washington departments and on occasion are called upon for consultation. In this connection, Professor John D. Black has served as Chairman of the Committee on Food Supplies for the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council and also has served actively with at least four other agencies. Professor John T. Dunlop has served as Consultant in the Office of Economic Stabilization and the Office of War Mobilization and Reconversion. Professor Seymour E. Harris has served as Consultant for the office of Price Administration. Professor Edward S. Mason has served as Consultant for the Department of State.

Very sincerely,

H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

_______________________

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers 1930-1961 (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Provost Buck—Annual Report of Dept.”

Image Source: A Harvard Army ROTC unit on parade along Memorial Drive, July 1943. From the Harvard Archives published in: Coreydon Ireland,  “To Honor the Living and Dead“, The Harvard Gazette (November 10, 2011).

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Economics Programs Graduate Student Support Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Chairman’s Report to the Dean. Harris, 1956

 

The previous post provided transcriptions of the annual reports to the Dean by the chairman of the economics department from 1932 through 1941. This post skips ahead to the middle of the 1950s to give us a glimpse of the post-war Harvard economics department. Seymour Harris’ big take-aways from his 45 year survey of undergraduate and graduate economics courses taught by Harvard economics faculty: (i) “the proportion of undergraduate courses given by full professors has fallen from 75 to 35 percent” and (ii) “graduate courses are relatively 5 times as numerous as they were in 1909-10.” (from July 3, 1956 cover letter to Dean McGeorge Bundy that accompanied the report transcribed below).

It is also interesting to note that the economics department’s continues to plead for more funds to compensate it for “…about one half the teaching burden of the G.S.P.A. and students in the G.S.P.A. account[ing] for about one third of all the graduate students in economics (on a full-time basis)…”. Harris wrote this report two decades after the Graduate School of Public Administration had opened for business.

____________________________

CONFIDENTIAL

June 30, 1956

Report to the Dean of the Faculty for the Academic Year 1955-56
by Seymour E. Harris, Chairman of the Department of Economics

Contents

Undergraduate Instruction

  1. More Mature Staff for Economics 1.
  2. Contents of Economics 1.
  3. Staff Meetings of Economics 1.
  4. Lectures in Economics 1.
  5. Economics Tutorial.
  6. High Honors Concentrators.
  7. Seminars for Honors Graduates.

Allocation of Resources

  1. Enrollment of Undergraduates in Graduate Courses and Vice Versa.
  2. Increase in the Number of Undergraduate Courses, 1909-10 to 1955-56.
  3. Increase in the Number of Graduate Courses, 1909-10 to 1955-56.
  4. Table 1 – Distribution of Courses by Academic Rank, 1909-10 to 1955-56.
  5. Table 2 – Courses Given by Faculty, 1909-10 to 1955-56, by Rank.
  6. Table 3 – Percentage of Courses, Undergraduate and Graduate.
  7. The Increased Importance of Graduate Instruction.
  8. Reduced Undergraduate Instruction by Higher Ranking Members of Faculty.
  9. Ibid., Statistical Summary.
  10. Number of Faculty by Rank.

Relations with G.S.P.A.

  1. Teaching Responsibilities of Economics Department in G.S.P.A.
  2. Contributions of G.S.P.A. to Economics Department.
  3. Overall Consideration of Number of G.S.P.A. Seminars.

Library Problems

  1. Library Problems.

Fellowships

  1. Inadequate Fellowships.
  2. Campaign for Additional Money.
  3. Outside Fellowships.

Research and Personnel Problems

  1. Competition of Research Fellowships for Potential Teachers.
  2. Research Projects.
  3. Financing of Pay of Director of Research Projects.
  4. Small Research Grants.
  5. Secretarial Help.
  6. Personnel Changes.
  7. Honors, etc.

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

Undergraduate Instruction

The Department is especially concerned with the problem of undergraduate instruction. Confronted with a trend away from economics the country over (see my Memo to the Alumni of the Harvard Graduate School in Economics, May, 1956, p. 4) and the competition of an unusually able corps of undergraduate teachers in competing fields at Harvard and notably in history and government we are paying increased attention to our undergraduate instruction. In the last year we have taken the following steps:

  1. More Mature Staff for Economics 1. We are using a larger proportion of instructors and assistant professors in Economics 1. We expect that half the Economics 1 staff will consist of instructors and assistant professors in 1956-57 as compared with 20 per cent in 1955-56.
  2. Contents of Economics 1. We are revising Economics 1 for 1956-57. Economics 1 has become too technical. One advantage of increasing the average age of the staff is that the older men are less inclined to teach the highly technical economics they get in graduate courses. Probably less than 20 per cent of those enrolled in Economics 1 are, or are likely to become, concentrators in economics; and no more than 1-2 per cent will become economists. Our major responsibility is to give the student in Economics 1 relatively simple economic theory and relate it to the major issues of public policy. We intend to devote more time to integrating our economics with history and political science. Macroeconomics will continue to receive a major part of our attention, but less time will be given to the economics of the firm.
  3. Staff Meetings of Economics 1. The Chairman now meets with the Economics 1 staff for 1½ hours every 2 weeks and in every possible way is trying to make the teaching fellow and other junior members, who contribute so much time and enthusiasm to our teaching program, feel as though they are an important part of our department staff.
  4. Lectures in Economics 1. This year we doubled our lectures in Economics 1 — a lecture every other week. In these lectures we try to go over ground not covered in the readings and also incidentally to give the undergraduate an opportunity to listen to some of the top economists in the country. We are now not disposed to increase the number of lectures further but we shall continue the experiment. Of this I am convinced — lectures are not likely to be as important in Economics 1 as in the elementary course in government and history (Social Science). The undergraduate probably gets much more from discussions of economics in small sections than from lectures.
  1. Economics Tutorial. Tutorial in economics is not as good as it ought to be. We are wrestling with this problem. We intend to have more meetings of tutors and to impress upon them the importance of tutorial. At one of our Executive Committee meetings, we had a frank discussion with the seven masters and several senior tutors concerning our tutorial work. Our Junior tests, tied to house tutorial, seem to be working well. This year we prepared an extensive reading list for Sophomore tutorial; and next year we intend to integrate tutorial and Economics 1 more than in the past. We hope that tutorial in the second half of the Sophomore year will deal with some of the theoretical problems that will be excluded from Economics 1.
  1. High Honors Concentrators. This year we had periodic meetings with all first and second group men in economics. At these meetings (one evening every two weeks) we try to encourage discussions of important problems in the seminar manner.
  1. Seminars for Honor Graduates. Economics 100 and 102 are two new courses (to be introduced in 1956-57 and 1957-58) to be open to Junior and Senior honors students. They will be run on a seminar basis, limited in enrollment, and will be integrated with tutorial. The student will get an opportunity to deal with theoretical problems and their empirical counterpart.

Allocation of Resources

  1. Enrollment of Undergraduates in Graduate Courses and Vice Versa. Here are some tables which throw some light on the allocation of resources between undergraduate and graduate courses. Generally courses for undergraduates and graduates are taken primarily by undergraduates, and courses for graduates primarily by graduates. Hence, we assume that the courses for undergraduates and graduates are in fact courses for undergraduates and courses for graduates are in fact courses for graduates. (In the spring term 1956 the percentage of Arts and Science graduate enrollment in courses for undergraduates and graduates was 14 or 1 per cent of the 1181 enrolled in these courses; the enrollment of undergraduates in courses primarily for graduates was 10 of 482, or 2 per cent).
  2. Increase in the Number of Undergraduate Courses, 1909-10 to 1955-56. Table 1 reveals relatively unimportant changes in the number of courses for undergraduates; and the net change in the number of courses for undergraduates and graduates (in fact undergraduate courses) in the last 40-50 years has not been large. In 1909-10, there were 10½ undergraduate courses (inclusive of half courses for undergraduates and graduates and exclusive of bracketed courses); in 1955-56, there were 14½ of such courses.
  3. Increase in the Number of Graduate Courses, 1909-10 to 1955-56. It is especially in graduate courses that the rise has been spectacular. In 1909-10 there were 1½ graduate courses in Economics (exclusive of bracketed ones); by 1929-30, there were 11; by 1939-40, there were 12½ courses; by 1949-50, there were 21½ courses; and by 1955-56, there were 24. All these totals include half courses.
  1. Table 1 — Distribution of Courses by Academic Rank, 1909-10 to 1955-56*
    (Refers to Units of Full Courses)
  1909-10 1919-20 1929-30 1939-40 1949-50 1955-56
Rank U G U G U G U G U G U G
Full Prof. 8 1 3 7 4 ½ 7 7 ¼ 16 ¾ 8 15 ¼ 5 18
Assoc. Prof. — — — — 3 3 3 ¼ 1 ¾ 1 3 ¼ 3 2 ½
Asst. Prof. 1 ½ ½ 3 ½ 2 ½ 1 — ½ — 2 ½ — 4 2
Instructor & Lecturer 1 — 3 1 1 ½ 1 1 ½ 1 3 3 2 ½ 1 ½
Total 10 ½ 1 ½ 9 ½ 10 ½ 10 11 12 ½ 19 ½ 14 ½ 21 ½ 14 ½ 24
  1. Table 2 — Courses Given by Faculty, 1909-10 to 1955-56, by Rank*
    (Refers to Nearest Decimal point)
  1909-10 1919-20 1929-30 1939-40 1949-50 1955-56
Rank U G U G U G U G U G U G
Full Prof. 76 66 32 67 45 64 58 86 55 73 35 75
Assoc. Prof. — — — — 30 27 26 9 7 14 21 10
Asst. Prof. 14 — 36 24 10 — 4 — 17 — 27 8
Instructor & Lecturer 10 34 32 9 15 9 12 5 21 13 17 7
Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

* U = “undergraduate” and “undergraduate and graduate”;  G = “graduate”.
Source: Compiled from Course of Study Volumes.

  1. Table 3 — Percentage of Courses, Undergraduate and Graduate
Total No. of Courses % of Total Courses
(Exclusive of Bracketed Courses)
“Undergraduate” and
“Undergraduate & Graduate”		 Graduate
(Inclusive of G.S.P.A. Economics Courses)
1909-10 12 88 12
1929-30 21 56 44
1939-40 32 39 61
1949-50 36 41 59
1955-56 38½ 38 62

From 1909 to 1929-30 the percentage of graduate courses was up from 12 to 44 per cent; but since 1929-30 the rise has been less spectacular. In Table 2, we note the courses, both undergraduate and graduate, given by men of various rank, from 1909-10 to 1955-56. The following points should be noted.

  1. The Increased Importance of Graduate Instruction. In 1909-10 there were but 1½ out of 12 courses, or 12 per cent, graduate courses. By 1929-30 courses were roughly evenly divided between graduate and undergraduate. By 1939-40 and 1949-50 the ratio was about 60 per cent graduate courses; and by 1955-56, 62 per cent of all courses were graduate courses, or 5 times as much relatively as in 1909-10.
  2. Reduced Undergraduate Instruction by Higher Ranking Members Faculty. Whereas in 1909-10 full professors accounted for 76 per cent of undergraduate course work, by 1955-56 they gave only 35 per cent of these courses; and there has been a marked decline since 1949-50. The total of undergraduate courses taught by them dropped from 1949-50 to 1955-56 by 3, or 37 per cent, and of graduate courses rose by 2¾ or 18 per cent. A similar trend is evident for associate professors, though from 1949-50 to 1955-56, the percentage of undergraduate courses taught by associate professors rose. It is a striking fact that in 1955-56, full professors taught 37 per cent less undergraduate courses and 1700 per cent more graduate courses than in 1909-10. In the former year there were 4 full professors, each responsible on the average for 2 full undergraduate courses and ¼ graduate courses. In 1955-56, 13 full professors averaged 1/3 of 1 undergraduate course and 1.4 graduate courses. (All 13 were not on full time). It is clear that the trend is away from undergraduate teaching for permanent members of the Department.
  3. Ibid., Statistical Summary. As might be expected, the percentage of all graduate courses taught by full professors tends to rise and of undergraduate courses to fall — the latter courses taught by professors declined from 76 per cent in 1909-10 to 45 per cent in 1929-30, and to 35 per cent by 1955-56.
  4. Number of Faculty by Rank. In this connection, the number at different ranks is of some interest. The full professors account for a somewhat larger proportion (teaching fellows omitted) than 50 years ago; but permanent appointments are an increased percentage.
  1909-10 1929-30 1939-40 1949-50 1955-56
Professors 4 5 12 13 13
Assoc. Professors — 3 3 2 4
Asst. Professors 1 2 1 4 4
Lecturers and Instructors 3 2 3 4 3
Visiting, etc. Professors 2
(part-time)		 3
(part-time)		 — — 1
Total (excl. Visiting) 8 12 19 23 24
———— ———— ———— ———— ———— ————
% Full Prof. (excl. Visiting) 50 42 63 57 54
% Permanent (incl. Permanent Lecturers) 50 67 89 74 75

Relations with the Graduate School of Public Administration

  1. Teaching Responsibilities of Economics Department in G.S.P.A. Our relations with the G.S.P.A. are of great importance. It is now close to 20 years since the G.S.P.A. was founded and yet the Department of Economics has never taken a long look at our relations. The Economics Department accounts for about one half the teaching burden of the G.S.P.A. and students in the G.S.P.A. account for about one third of all the graduate students in economics (on a full-time basis).
  2. Contributions of G.S.P.A to Economics Department. The G.S.P.A. has made an important contribution towards the Economics Department. It provides some research and secretarial help, good physical facilities, useful library, central facilities for students and faculty, an opportunity to give our students excellent seminars, and to meet outstanding scholars and practical men in government.
  3. Over-all Consideration of Number of G.S.P.A. Seminars. It may be that a decision should be made concerning the number of seminars. We tend to add one at a time, and the numbers now are at such a level that we may be putting a disproportionate amount of energy into these seminars. At any rate, net additions should be considered with care, given our available manpower. At present only 6 of the 18 permanent members of our faculty are not associated with the G.S.P.A.; and of the 6, Professors Dorfman and Duesenberry are about to participate. Of 27 courses to be given by permanent members of the Department, 7¼ will be as seminars in the G.S.P.A.

Library Problems

  1. Library Problems. Professor Arthur Cole retires this year. He has for many years been responsible for the acquisition of books in economics. Unless this responsibility is assumed by another, our economic collection will deteriorate. So far we have not been able to work out an arrangement acceptable to the Dean and the Director of the library. In my opinion, there is need for a central responsibility for library acquisitions in economics.

Fellowships

  1. Inadequate Fellowships. One of our most serious problems is fellowships. A study of fellowship funds announced as available to students suggested that Harvard was falling way behind. In a recent period of 5 years, five institution which are our strongest competitors had 30, 23, 20, 10, and 5 times as much money available for fellowships per Ph.D. granted in these five years. Increasingly we are losing the best students to rival institutions.
  2. Campaign for Additional Money. We have discussed this problem with Dean Bundy and Dean Elder, and also with our Visiting Committee. We have set up a committee consisting of Dean Mason, Professors Slichter, Dunlop and Harris to seek aggressively more fellowship funds. We are seeking these funds in the expectation that the major part of new funds will be available as additional funds for the Economics Department. Our goal is 6 fellowships at $2500 per year, or $15,000 per year additional. We discovered last year that by offering large fellowships to a limited number, we were more successful than in the past in attracting the more able candidates.
  3. Outside Fellowships. Our fellowship problem is eased by the availability of fellowships given by outside groups — governments, foundations etc. For example, Harvard received 5 of the 15 Wilson National fellowships for 1956-57. But it should be observed that there is often pressure to deny applicants access to the major universities and especially to Harvard. There is pressure to distribute widely, Moreover, a large proportion of these fellowship holders are often below our usual fellowship standards.

Research and Personnel Problems

  1. Competition of Research Fellowship Money for Potential Teachers. It is becoming increasingly easy for graduate students writing theses to receive fellowships that generally pay at least as much as a teaching fellowship. This year we lost 10 potential teachers as a result of these lucrative fellowships.
  2. Research Projects. Many of the Senior members of the staff are associated with large research projects, some of them of great significance. At least 9 of these projects may be classified as giant projects, three of them involving outlays of one half million or more dollars in the next 3-5 years. In 1955-56, Professor Leontief received almost one half million dollars to continue the projects of the Harvard Economic Group, and Dean Mason received $450,000 for a study of the New York Metropolitan area.
  3. Financing of Pay of Directors of Projects. It has always seemed to the Chairman, at least, that the foundations ought to pay part of the salary of the faculty members who direct these projects. When these projects are the major interest of those responsible for them, a case could be made for the foundation paying part of the salary of the relevant members of the faculty.
  4. Small Research Grants. It would be helpful to get some help from the Ford Foundation for small research projects especially for those who do not participate in the giant projects. I have had some preliminary discussion with the Ford Foundation, and I believe they would look with favor on an application for $25,000-30,000 per year for research help. Grants might vary from a few hundred dollars to $1,000-2,000 and be tied with specific projects. The great danger here is abuse of the privileges. Hence any such grant would have to be carefully administered – with some representation of outside economists on the committee.
  5. Secretarial Help. A related problem is that of secretarial help. Most of the Senior members, through administrative posts, control of seminars, editorial work, and research grants, manage to get the minimum amount of secretarial help. But 5 of our permanent members have virtually no access to secretaries and this is also true of most of our assistant professors. It would be helpful if some provision could be made for secretarial help for those without it. We realize this raises serious problems of finance.
  6. Personnel Changes. Professor Hansen retires this year and Professor Williams next year. We thus lose the best combination in money, cycles, and fiscal policy available anywhere. It is going to be difficult to fill this gap. Professor Black’s departure has also left a serious gap. We have added 2 very able assistant professors, Drs. J. Henderson and Valavanis, aside from two appointments (Drs. Moses and Conrad) in which the Economics Department shares one quarter of the cost. For 1957-58 and 1958-59, the Economics Department will have the services of Dr. E. Hoover for 3/7 of his time. We probably have the most able group of assistant professors in our history. It is not going to be easy to fill the gaps noted above, and make the most effective use of the young talent now in the Department. The Visiting Committee is again raising the question of a Professor of Business Enterprise, a matter to which we should give earnest attention. President Conant and Provost Buck were apparently prepared at the last discussion of this problem to provide an additional appointment for this purpose.
  7. Honors, etc. Dean Mason received an honorary degree from Harvard, and was a United States Representative at the United Nations Conference in Geneva on Peaceful Use of Atomic Energy.

Professor Hansen gave the Walgreen lectures at the University of Chicago.

Professor Harris served as Chairman of the Nor England Governors” Textile Committee,

Professor Galbraith advised the Indian Government on their Five Year Plan.

Professor Smithies was a Visiting Professor at Oxford and Professor

Kaysen at the London School of Economics.

 

Books:

Galbraith and Holton: Marketing Efficiency in Puerto Rico.

Harris: Keynes: Economist and Policy Maker.

Harris: New England Textiles and the New England Economy: Report to the Conference of New England Governors.

Kaysen: United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corporation: An Economic Analysis of an Anti-Trust Case.

Kaysen and Harris were two of the four co-authors of the American Business Creed.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2,  Folder: “Departmental Annual Reports to the Dean, 1955-”.

Image Source: Seymour E. Harris in The Harvard Class Album 1957.

 

Categories
Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

Harvard. Economics Chair annual reports to Dean, 1932-1941

 

This post takes us from the trough of the Great Depression to the eve of the U.S. entry into the Second World War. The items below are transcriptions of copies of reports written by the Harvard economics department chairmen of the time (Harold Hitchings Burbank (a.k.a. Burbie to his Buds) and Edward Hastings Chamberlin. Some chest-thumping, some whining, no notes of irony and definitely no flashes of wit…we all know this art form. Nevertheless some raw intelligence of value for working historians of economics of the present and future.

____________________________

November 12, 1932

Dear Dean Murdock,

Under the Faculty vote of December, 1931, the Chairman of each Department is requested to report in each half year to the Dean of the Faculty on the working of the plan recommended by the Committee on Instruction concerning Hour Examinations and Other Course Requirements. My report for the Department of Economics follows.

Acting on the Report from the Committee on Instruction, the Department of Economics on January 12, 1932 voted to observe the recommendations of the Committee. Following the Department meeting, I reported to you to the effect that the requirements of the Department of Economics were substantially in accord with the principles laid down by the Committee on Instruction. Ordinarily, we require not more than one Hour Examination in any one half year; ordinarily, we require not more than one thesis or report in any one half year. It is the standing rule of the Department of Economics and of the Division of History, Government, and Economics, that Senior candidates for Honors, who are writing Honors theses, shall be excused from the writing of any theses in courses within the Division. After a long discussion and with considerable reluctance, the Department voted that for Seniors who are candidates for Honors in the Division, Hour Examinations in courses within the Department shall be optional.

The vote of the Department was made known immediately to the students and observed in all of our undergraduate course (not of an introductory nature) during the second half of last year, and it is being observed in the current half year.

In the Division of History, Government, and Economics, we have had for many years a rule that all Seniors in good standing shall be exempted from final examinations in courses within the Division in their last half year. The result has been, of course, that after the April Hour Examinations, Seniors have paid little attention to courses within in the Division, and their attendance has been hardly more than occasional. The members of the Department who are more interested in courses than in General Examinations, and who perhaps doubt the efficacy of General Examinations, view this situation with increasing criticism.

When the Department voted the making of Hour Examinations optional for Seniors who are candidates for Honors, the doubting members were highly critical, fearing that our courses elected largely by Seniors would be entirely disrupted. From all that I can learn, I cannot see that there have been any untoward or undesirable results. In most of our “Senior” courses, the attendance until the Easter recess was satisfactory. Honors candidates attended lectures and, I believe, completed most of the required readings. Their records on the General Examinations were excellent. The Honors theses were among the best we have ever had.

A number of members of my Department and not a few members of the Departments of History and Government are strongly opposed to the new order. They make the point that we have in substance permitted an additional reduction in courses, that Senior Honor candidates are simply required to register in courses, but they have nether to attend them nor to do the work. All of these allegations are true enough, but it seems to me they are beside the point. To the extent that we have confidence in our examiners and tutors, I do not believe that in effect the requirements regarding the quality and quantity or work have been reduced.

The Department of History has recommended to the other departments of the Division the consideration of a motion which would require all senior candidates for Honors to complete whatever courses in History they elect. I think that probably the departments of the Division will consider in full detail the questions this motion involves.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

1933
[not found]

A copy of the report is not found with the others included in this post: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1934

Dear Dean Murdock,

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics:

In this period of rapid economic evolution the problems presented to a group of university economists are both stimulating and perplexing. The changing pattern of our social and economic structure offers new data for analysis and at the same time calls for a testing of principle that involves new fields for both teaching and research.

There have been few periods in modern history more difficult to interpret, yet the responsibility for interpretation seems foremost among the duties devolving upon educational institutions. For many years the keystone of the introductory course in economics has been that the community has the right to expect political and economic leadership from the graduates of its colleges. Our undergraduate courses are directed toward the attainment of this end. But the teaching of political economy is an art not easily mastered even by those who give abundant evidence of intellectual leadership. In the instruction of undergraduates and in the training of teachers and scholars in our graduate school, the difficulties inherent in our subject must not be overlooked. The presentation of the data of economics makes demands upon the staff not felt in many other departments of the University. Looking toward the strengthening of our undergraduate instruction, the Department is now associating a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are now in charge of the large lecture courses. In Money and Banking, in the Relations of Government to Industry, and in Public Finance, this experiment is advanced sufficiently to indicate its desirability.

At the same time that our teaching problems have become intensified the need for the results of research is pressing. In periods of accelerated social evolution involving political and economic experimentation, the demand for accurate data is insistent. Relatively, economics is a young science. The foundations of fact are still being established. Investigations that may have an important bearing upon government policy should not be delayed. The economists of this University have contributed largely to their subject, but always with scant facilities in material equipment and in time.

Among the many problems confronting us as a group, that of securing the time necessary for research is perhaps the most troublesome. To our exacting teaching requirements must be added the demands for public service. Since the establishment of this Department, the requests for such service heave been continuous. Of late the increasing calls have raised a question which must be considered by the University administration. The opportunities for service to governments are gratifying. Undoubtedly these services belong among the necessary functions of a university. But obviously they do divert a considerable part of our time and energy from our strictly defined duties. Over the years the University is enriched by such services, but at any given time the responsibilities attaching to teaching and research are interrupted. If the University Includes public service among its important functions, the personnel of the staffs affected should be so adjusted that the work can be performed without overtaxing our internal activities.

During the past your, the leave of absence of Professor John M. Williams was continued to allow him to serve as Economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to advise on monetary and credit policies, and to direct research. In the latter part of the year, Professor Williams was called by the Department of State to investigate certain conditions in Brazil, Uraguay [sic], Argentina, and Chili [sic]  and to formulate policies of exchange controls. Daring the second half-year, Assistant Professor Edward H. Chamberlin was granted leave of absence to work with the Committee on Government Statistics and Information Services in Washington. Also, during the second half-year, though leave was not requested, Assistant Professor William T. Ham was in Washington frequently, serving as a member of the staff of the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration. And also, though no leave was requested, Professor John D. Black devoted a substantial part of the year to public service. He served on a number of committees connected with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and land utilization. At the request of Secretary Wallace, he organized and directed the activities of committees outlining programs of economic research in (1) the marketing of farm products and (2) farm population and rural life. Also at the request of the Secretary of Agriculture, he served with two others to coordinate the work of the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of the United States Department of Agriculture. In the summer months, Drs. Alan Sweezy and Lauchlin B. Currie were called to the Treasury Department to serve as special investigators.

Owing to his illness, Professor Emeritus William Z. Ripley was unable to fulfill his duties as President of the American Economic Association. In his absence, Professor Abbott P. Usher, first Vice-President of the Association, was in charge of the December, 1933 session.

Notable among our publications of the year were Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy, by S. E. Harris, and The Theory of Monopolistic Competition, by E. H. Chamberlin. Because of its significance for immediate practical application, I am including at this point the Report of the Committee on Model State and Local Taxation, by Professor C. J. Bullock’s committee of the National Tax Association. Also at this point, mention should be made of Economics of the Recovery Program, by seven members of the Department. In the course of the year, about forty-five articles were contributed to scientific journals by various members of the Department.

Within the limitations described above, the research work of the staff is going forward at a satisfactory rate. Investigations in the following subjects are well advanced: History of the Industrial Revolution; Development of Banking and Credit in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Evolution of English Company Law; Economic Fluctuations; Nature and Effects of Inflation; Index Numbers; Municipal Ownership of Public Utilities; State and Local Taxation; Unbalanced Budgets; The National Income; New England Agriculture; The Economics of Agricultural Production; German Trade Unionism; The Fundamentals of Sociology; Economics and Politics; Socialism as an International Movement.

A considerable number of these projects are nearing completion and should be ready for publication shortly. A large project on the relation of Government to Industry involving the efforts of a number of the staff is in its initial stages. This subject is of such immediate importance that other plans for research are being put aside until it can be carried to its completion. The Quarterly Journal of Economies has continued its usual high standard. During the year, five substantial volumes were added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

Again I would press the point that the potential research capacity of the Department is severely handicapped by the demands of teaching and public service.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 18, 1935

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

In the report of last year the effects of the contemporary political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research were discussed briefly. More than ever we are aware of the responsibilities incumbent upon the teacher of Economics in this period of rapid and far-reaching change. Our undergraduate instruction had been, and is, receiving particular attention. A few years ago we began experimentally the association of a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are nominally in charge of the larger lecture courses. We are quite convinced that this method of instruction is most effective. Also there is a positive, although perhaps incidental, advantage in this arrangement in that it relieves the pressure for the multiplication of undergraduate courses.

I find it necessary to stress again the problem presented by the demands upon our staff for services to the public. We believe that public service belongs among the necessary functions of a university. But under existing conditions large demands for public service at any given time bring serious interruptions to both research and instruction. “If the University includes public service among its important functions the personnel of the staffs affected should be so adjusted that the additional work can be performed without taxing severely our internal activities.”

I am very happy, to write that Professor Chamberlin’s “The Theory of Monopolistic Competition”, published somewhat over a year ago, has won immediate recognition as a foremost contribution to economic theory. During the past year two books of unusual importance have appeared,—Professor John D. Black, “The Dairy Industry and the A.A.A.”, and Professor Sumner Slichter, “Towards Stability”. Six manuscripts have been completed, and should appear in book form during the present year. It is significant that five of these books have been written by the younger members of our Department whose teaching duties have been mainly of a tutorial nature. Among the publications I should note the report submitted to the Treasury Department on the “Objectives and Criteria of Monetary Policy” by Dr. Alan Sweezy, and the report to the State Department on “Foreign Exchange Control in Latin America” by Professor John Williams.

In addition to the above volumes and reports the members of the Department published somewhat over fifty articles in the scientific journals of our subject. Some of these contributions are of major importance.

The investigations of the staff are being carried forward as satisfactorily as possible with the limited facilities that are at our disposal. Two researches on a very large scale have to do with the general subject of the Trade Cycle and the Relation of Government to Industry. Numerous important, but less extensive, investigations are in process.

Perhaps I should note here that a generous grant from the Rockefeller Foundation enabled the Department to undertake the continuation of the Review of Economic Statistics and the fundamental research that is involved in this publication, The Quarterly Journal of Economics long published by the members of this Department, together with the Review of Economic Statistics, are among the more important activities of the Department. In the course of the year three volumes more added to the Harvard Economic Studies.

As in my last report, I would again bring to your attention the disturbing fact that the potential research capacity of the Department is handicapped severely by the demands of administration, teaching, and public service.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1936

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

I find it necessary to emphasize again the effects of the contemporary political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research. It had been necessary to bring these matters to your attention in both of the preceding years, since they present such important problems to us. We feel an increasingly positive responsibility regarding out undergraduate instruction in this period of rapid and far-reaching change.

We have continued the experiment begun some few years ago of the association of a number of the junior members of the staff with the senior members who are in charge of the large lecture courses. We believe that we are improving our instruction by this method, and at the same time this arrangement tends to relieve the pressure for the multiplication of undergraduate courses.

Perhaps as a result of the general social situation the elections of our undergraduate courses and the number of concentrators in Economics have increased very heavily. The problems of instruction presented by these overwhelming numbers are intensified perhaps by the personnel situation in which the Department finds itself. During the last dozen years the personnel of this Department—one of the largest in the University—has been changed completely. For a quarter of a century a group of eminent economists brought great prestige to the University. With the resignation of Professor Gay the active services of this group has come to an end. One cannot speak of replacing these scholars. They were unique both as individuals and as a group. Their leadership and their scholarship has left a lasting impression on the development of Economics. In the course of the passing of this group a now Department has been brought together. This new and younger Department is assuming full responsibility at the very time when questions of teaching and new methods of research are becoming insistent.

The demands upon members of our staff for public service continue. It has seemed expedient to encourage some few members to give their time and energy for public purposes. But with a minimum teaching force it has not been possible for all members of the Department to comply with the requests made. The public service relations of faculty members remains a question for the University to consider.

The Quarterly Journal of Economics celebrates this year its fiftieth anniversary. For forty years this Journal has won and held its prestige under the editorship of Professor F. W. Taussig. Professor Taussig, now emeritus, has graciously consented to continue as editor during the present year, but very shortly it will be necessary for us to provide for the editorial direction of this very important publication.

In an earlier report to you I indicated the activities of the Department in connection with the Review of Economic Statistics. The scientific work underlying this publication, as well as the journal itself, is now under the direction of a committee of the Department. The Review continues as a vehicle of publication of the results of investigations here and elsewhere regarding the business cycle. We have ambitious plans for the Review, and we have every reason to believe that its scientific usefulness will increase.

There is little question that, the research activities of practically all members of the staff have been curtailed by the heavy teaching loads which have been imposed. However, the research programs of various members and of various groups within the Department have shown marked progress in the past year. As I have indicated in an earlier report the research activities of our members are of two somewhat different types. Numerous members of the staff working altogether independently are pursuing their own researches while others working as a group are developing particular aspects of a well devised project in research. In the social sciences this latter type of work is rapidly assuming importance. In general it is this type of research which receives the support of the large foundations. Within our own group there are a number of projects of this character. Messrs. Mason, Chamberlin, Wallace, Cassels, Reynolds, and Alan Sweezy are developing Industrial Organization and Control. In the process of the exploration of this subject numerous independent volumes and studies will appear. Professors Mason, Chamberlin and Dr. Wallace are already well advanced in their study of monopolistic combinations and expect to complete it in about one year. Professor Cassels and Dr. Reynolds expect to finish their study on Canadian combinations this year, and Dr. Alan Sweezy is at work on investment policies. Dr. Wallace’s monograph, Market Control in the Aluminum Industry, is now going to press, and Dr. Abbott’s monograph on The Rise of the Business Corporation has just appeared and is being, used by our undergraduate courses. The full development of this program will take a number of years, but its completion will mark, I believe, a very significant chapter in research in the relation of government to industry.

Another cooperative project on the Farm Credit Administration is being carried on by Professors Black and Harris and Dr. Galbraith, largely with the assistance of grants from the Committee on Research in the Social Sciences. Professor Black is working on the cooperative aspects of the Farm Credit Administration’s policies. Professor Harris is working on the monetary and recovery aspects of the Farm Credit Administration’s loan operations. Dr. Galbraith is working on the structural aspects of the Farm Credit Administration and the mortgage, credit and production loan policies. Numerous articles resulting from this research have been published in scientific periodicals.

Professors Crum, Wilson, and Black are conducting a study of the relation of weather and other natural phenomena with the economic cycle. This study is partly financed by the United States Department of Agriculture.

I believe I have mentioned to you and to President Conant in conversation the plans which are being developed for large research projects in collaboration with the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In addition to these cooperative projects all members of the Department are pursuing work along the lines of their individual interests. Professor Schumpeter’s study of time series and cyclical fluctuations is practically completed, and he hopes to send it to press by December. Professor Haberler’s major contribution—The Theory of International Trade and Its Application to Commercial Policy has been translated and is now available in English. For the past two years Professor Haberler has been working at Geneva on the Nature and Causes of the Recurrence of Economic Depressions which is soon to be published by the League of Nations. We are hoping to provide facilities for him so that the important research may be continued at Harvard. Professor Frickey’s study on a Survey of Time Series Analysis and Its Relation to Economic Theory is well advanced. The statistical work on the first volume has been completed, and he hopes to have it written by the middle of this present academic year. The statistical work on the second volume has been completed in part. Already two significant articles have been published. Professor Cole’s recent study in Fluctuations in American Business, written in collaboration with Professor W. B. Smith, was published late in 1935. Dr. Oakes’ investigations in Massachusetts Town Finance, the winner of the Wells Prize for 1935-36, is now being printed. Professor Chamberlin has continued to elaborate his Theory of Monopolistic Competition which is winning wide recognition among economist the world over. Numerous articles, some sixty in number, from members of the staff have appeared in various scientific periodicals in the course of the year.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

[Separate sheet following: I should have included Professor Harris’ Exchange Depreciation, Its Theory and History. We believe that this new book, which is being published today, will take Its place beside the significant contributions Professor Harris has made in the last half-dozen years, particularly his Monetary Problems of the British Empire and Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy.]

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 21, 1937

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

Previous reports of the Department of Economics have brought to your attention the effect of the political and economic situation upon our problems of teaching and research. It is still necessary to point out that the positive responsibility of the Department regarding undergraduate instruction has not lessened.

The election of our undergraduate courses remains at substantially the high level of recent years, while the number of concentrators continues to increase.

Last year I mentioned that with the resignation of Professor Gay the active services of the senior members of this Department, had come to an end. At this point it seems necessary to put into writing a matter I have discussed with you in conversation which has important ramifications. Coincident with the resignation of Professor Gay there were increased elections in certain of our courses that involve a large degree of individual instruction and also on an increase in the number of students demanding tutorial supervision. To meet these latter problems it was necessary to add to our staff a group of young men to carry on the instruction in the elementary course, Accounting, Statistics, Money and Banking, and so on. With increased numbers in courses demanding increased instruction, increased cost cannot be avoided; but it seems to us that this increasing cost because of increasing should not result in less effective intellectual leadership. To transfer a considerable part of the salary released by a retiring professor of distinguished accomplishment to the support of routine instruction in middle group courses seems to us not to be wise University policy.

Professor Taussig has resigned as editor of the Quarterly Journal of Economies. For the time being, committee of the Department will undertake the editorial direction of this publication.

The Review of Economic Statistics, which appears under the direction of a committee of the Department, is financed by funds from the Rockefeller Foundation. Should the grant be continued, it is expected that the research activities of the committee will be increased.

Not less than ten members of the Department are concerned with the activities of the Graduate School of Public Administration. In some instances—as in the case of Dean Williams—their work in the School has been compensated by a reduction of work in the Department, but for the most part the activities in the new School are simply in addition to the duties of the staff members.

The Committee on Research in the Social Sciences, of which Professor Black is Chairman, is working in close cooperation with the National Bureau of Economic Research and its cooperating University agencies. Principle among them is the project upon Fiscal Policy for which Professor Crum is acting as Chairman.

The responsibilities and activities of members of the Department tend in some instances to change the direction of our research, but in only too many instances they also tend to retard our research.

In all directions, however, the research activities of the members of the Department were sustained, with six books and approximately sixty articles appearing. Special mention should he made of the following books:

Three Years of the AAA by John D. Black

A Study of Fluid Milk Prices by John M. Cassels. Wells Prize Essay of 1934-35

Professor Chamberlin’s significant volume, The Theory of Monopolistic Competition has been revised.

Prosperity and Depression by Gottfried Haberler

Exchange Depreciation by S. E. Harris. (Came from the press last fall, and mentioned a year ago.)

Studies in Massachusetts Town Finance by E. E. Oakes. Wells Prize Essay of 1935-36

Professor Schumpeter’s book on Business Cycles has been completed, and is now ready for the press.

Economic History of Europe since 1750 by Usher, Bowden, and Karpovich

Explorations in Economics. Essays in Honor of F. W. Taussig contains contributions by most of the members of the staff.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1938

Dear Dean Birkhoff,

I beg to submit the following report for the Department of Economics.

As in previous years I am very happy, to be able to record that the research activities of the officers of the Department have been sustained. In the last two years I have been, able to enumerate an unusually large number of books actually published together with numerous contributions to our periodical literature. In the present year the number of volumes is smaller since the research activities of our staff are still in process. The most notable volumes are Professor Hansen’s Full Recovery or Stagnation and Professor Wallace’s Market Control in the Aluminum Industry. Professor Haberler devoted the major part of the year, and spent the summer abroad, revising his Prosperity and Depression. Also the volume by Professor Crum and Associates on Economic Statistics has been revised.

In all, some fifty or sixty periodical contributions have been made by members of the staff. Notable among these contributions have been the articles by Professor Slichter on “The Downturn of 1937” in the Review of Economic Statistics for August, 1938.

It fell to the lot of the officers of this Department, together with the officers of the Department of Government, to develop instruction in the Littauer School of Public Administration during the past year. Without going into the details of the principles upon which this instruction is based, it may be noted that research courses of a very advanced nature constitute the core of the work of the School. Professors Williams, Hansen, Black, Mason, Slichter, and Wallace are devoting a considerable proportion of their time to this work. It is expected and hoped that these activities will result in an increase in our contributions.

The grant of funds from the Rockefeller Foundation to subsidize the research underlying the Review of Economic Statistics expired with the closing of the fiscal year. This contribution made it possible to continue the Review, and to maintain the scholarly level of the contributions. In the course of the year the Review published a number of the contributions of the staff. Other contributions are nearing completion, and will be published in the present year. The accomplishments or Professors Crum and Haberler as Managing Editors of the Review should be noted. They have succeeded in restoring the very high level of scholarship which characterized the Review a decade ago. We believe that the Review in its present form adds materially to the prestige of the Department and the University.

Also I am happy to note that the Quarterly Journal of Economics under its new editorial staff is maintaining its high position.

There is little to be added to the points which have been discussed in previous reports. The Department finds itself fully occupied with the continuation of its traditional activities and the assumption of such new duties as are involved in the Graduate School of Public Administration. If the personnel of the Department remains constant, it will be necessary to reduce our activities, either in research, in teaching, or in both.

Last fall at a dinner of the Committee to Visit the Department of Economics I reported in some detail regarding the increasing activities of members of the Department. This report led to the appointment of a committee to investigate the budgetary situation of the Department. The investigation conducted under the direction of Mr. George May of Price, Waterhouse, made some very interesting disclosures regarding the increasing load of the Department.

I believe that problems of undergraduate and graduate instruction, the tutorial situation, and the public service contributions of our members have been discussed sufficiently in previous reports. I can only repeat that “there is little question that the research activities of practically all members of the staff have been curtailed by the heavy loads of teaching and administration.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 16, 1939

Dear Dean Ferguson:

In accord with your recent request, I submit herewith a report of the work by the Department of Economies for the past year.

Honors have been bestowed upon members of the Department as follows: Professor Schumpeter has received an honorary Ph.D. from the University of Sofia, Bulgaria, and Professor Leontief has been elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society. Professor Williams was elected a Vice-President of the American Economic Association.

In the field of publications, the outstanding event is the final appearance of Professor Schumpeter’s two volume work on Business Cycles: A Theoretical, Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Capitalistic Process. The fruition of years of study and research, this book is of especial interest as the first major work of Professor Schumpeter in the English language, his well-known Theory of Economic Development having appeared first in German before its translation into English much later. Other books actually appearing within the academic year (the fall of 1938) were referred to in our last report, such as Professor Hansen’s Full Recovery or Stagnation?, a revision of the volume on Economic Statistics by Professor Crum and associates, and a new, enlarged and revised edition of Prosperity and Depression by Professor Haberler (published by the League of Nations). During the year arrangements have been completed for the translation into Japanese of A History of Mechanical Inventions by Professor Usher. For some years Professor Emeritus F. W. Taussig has been at work on a thorough-going revision of his textbook on the Principles of Economics. Volume I appeared last spring, Volume 2 is in the press and will appear very shortly. This much needed revision (the last was in 1921) may regain for Professor Taussig’s text some of the preeminence it held in an earlier period before it had become so badly out of date. Politics, Finance and Consequences by Professor Emeritus C. J. Bullock, the result of continuing research since his retirement, has been published during the past year in the Harvard Economic Studies. A book of which Mr. Paul M. Sweezy was a prominent co-author, An Economic Program for American Democracy, is popularly supposed to have been influential in putting the stamp of economic authority upon recent economic policies of the Federal Government. Finally, some sixty-odd articles, addresses, and reviews by members of the Department have appeared in journals, both professional and popular, during the past year.

A matter not mentioned in our last report was a new policy adopted by the Quarterly Journal of Economics of publishing at intervals of approximately one year a series of supplements devoted to articles and studies of interest to scholars but of such length as to make their publication in the regular issues impractical. These supplements are sent to subscribers without charge, and additional copies are sold separately. The first of these appeared in May 1938, Rudimentary Mathematics for Economists and Statisticians by Professor Crum. Two other manuscripts have been accepted and will appear shortly.

The Committee on Problems of the Business Cycle has carried on the publication of the quarterly Review of Economic Statistics but because of the expiration of its grant of research money many of its new research investigation have been greatly curtailed. Quarterly issues of the Review of Economic Statistics, in addition to carrying the studies of current economic history which present a quarterly record of economic statistics for the United States with their interpretation, have published a wide range of articles on various aspects of the trade cycle problem. Several of these articles have been contributed by foreign specialists but more than half were produced by American writers (in this connection we may note that about one-fourth of the subscribers are located abroad). In addition to the normal research activities involved in studying current history the Committee has financed during the year a continuation of the special investigation by Dr. J. B. Hubbard of the remarkable developments in the issuance of securities since 1933. A further article in Dr. Hubbard’s series will appear in the issue of November 1939.

Mention has been made in previous reports of the burden placed upon particular members of the Department and thus upon the group as a whole by the responsibilities of public service. These responsibilities have continued and expanded during the past year. The adjustment of this burden is a pressing problem. Its immediate influence upon both teaching and research is adverse, yet no ready solution appears at hand. The additional burden of uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration presents an even more serious problem. For the most part the seminars and other activities of this School constitute a net additional load for those members of the Department responsible for them, and inevitably throw a heavier burden of administrative and other work upon others not directly concerned. Budgetary allowance for courses given within the School is an obvious answer to this problem, whenever it may become possible.

You have asked, among other things. for an account of “any changes in the methods of instruction”, of the Department. The changes here have been revolutionary. Over a long period of years there has been built up in the Department a staff of trained instructors and tutors, carrying on established traditions of teaching and constantly experimenting in the adaptation of methods to new problems. These men were sifted constantly, and the best of them retained for a substantial period, after which, if not advanced, they were without exception placed to advantage elsewhere. In view of the singular success with which in the past the personnel problem has been handled in Economics, it is not surprising that the Department is unanimous in viewing with dismay and discouragement the situation in which we now find ourselves. Fifteen teachers and tutors at the instructor or assistant professor level have left us within the past year, seven the preceding year. The general effect upon teaching may be indicated by the tutorial situation. Sixty-seven per cent of the students concentrating in Economics this year are tutored by men of two years or less experience, forty-three per cent by men of no tutorial experience whatsoever, Furthermore, it has been our policy in the past to stagger new men as between tutoring and Economics A, having them start in with either one alone and take up the other the following year. This fall we have been obliged to take on five men who are both teaching Economics A and tutoring for the first time. It has been our policy also to provide more experienced instruction in middle group courses through a period of apprenticeship in Economics A. This fall we have been obliged to put men of no classroom experience whatever directly into middle group courses. We are already experiencing in acute form the devastating effects upon instruction of a rapid turnover, brought on by the mass exodus of last year.

It takes time (and patience on the part of someone) to train men in the discussion method of teaching Economics which has been developed with such success in Economics A at Harvard University. Much is learned by slow experience, by making mistakes and by discussing techniques with fellow instructors, especially with those who have been through the mill. It is impossible to assimilate new men unless the collective experience of the group is maintained at a fairly high level. Furthermore, it seems unlikely that anyone in the Department will be interested in training them unless a substantial portion stay long enough to make it worth while.

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1940

Dear Dean Ferguson:

I submit herewith a report of the work by the Department of Economics for the past year. There is very little to report—no events or changes of outstanding importance, and only a few isolated items which might be of interest.

Professor Black has been elected to honorary membership in the Swedish Royal Society of Agriculture. Professor Slichter has been honored by appointment as Lamont University Professor.

In the field of publications there is the usual long list of articles in the professional periodicals, but no major work of importance by any member of the Department. Professor Usher’s History of Mechanical Inventions was during the year translated into Japanese. Also in the field of publications it is of interest that there has been begun under the supervision of a committee in the Department and financed in part by a grant from the A. W. Shaw Fund a new series entitled The Harvard Studies in Monopoly and Competition. The first two volumes of this series appeared within the year, — the first, Corporate Size and Earning Power, by Professor W. L. Crum, and the second, Control of Competition in Canada, by Lloyd Reynolds.

The Committee on Problems of the Business Cycle has continued publication of the quarterly Review of Economic Statistics. In place of the general reviews of current economic developments in the United States, which in earlier years had been regular features of each quarterly issue, the Review introduced this past year the policy of presenting each quarter an article pertaining to some specific problem of current interest. The November 1939 issue contained a study of the impact of the war on America commodity prices; the February 1940 number included a study of the current gold problem and the American economy; a review of recent developments in agriculture and the influences of the war on American agriculture appeared in May; while the August 1940 issue presented a comparison and evaluation of various estimates of unemployment in the United States. These studies have been made by members of the Department, with the Committee staff contributing assistance, whenever it was desired, in the preparation of the articles for publication. As in previous years, the Review has also presented articles covering a wide range of studies on various trade cycle problems; and the Review staff has continued the compilation of selected current economic series which have been used in research studies by Department members and graduate student within the Department.

There have been no important changes in policy in the year by the Quarterly Journal of Economics. The policy begun the previous year of publishing occasional supplements sent to subscribers without charge has been continued. Two supplements appeared during the year, Exchange Control in Austria and Hungary and Exchange Control in Germany, both by Professor Howard S. Ellis. Through an arrangement with the Harvard Economic Studies they will shortly appear in that series as a single volume.

During the year Professor Emeritus Frank W. Taussig attained his eightieth birthday. A tribute and greeting was presented to him on this occasion signed by some two hundred of his former students.

I call attention again to the continuing problem of the added burden to members of the Department for uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration. The situation here remains substantially as described in my last report. It remains one of the most serious problems which the Department has to meet in maintaining the standards of its instruction.

The quality of instruction given by the Department continues to suffer from the heavy losses in the junior personnel during the past few years. Sixty-four per cent of the students concentrating in Economics this year are tutored by men of two years or less experience, fifty-five per cent by men of one year or less. The difficulties of maintaining satisfactory instruction with such a rapid turnover remain almost insuperable, and concentration in Economics which has fallen off steadily over the past four years slumped most disastrously for the year 1940-41. Although most of the liquidation of our more experienced instructors and tutors had taken place before the year on which I am reporting, we have during that year again lost a number of our best men because of the limited inducement which could be offered for them to remain with us even for a short period.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

____________________________

October 15, 1941

Dear Dean Ferguson:

I submit herewith a report on the work of the Department of Economics covering the past year.

Professor Slichter has been elected President of the American Economic Association. This is the third time in the past five years that this honor has gone to an economist from Harvard, Professor Sprague having been elected in 1937-38 and Professor Hansen in 1938-39.

In the field of publications there have appeared, in addition to the usual long list of articles, several books of possible importance. I should mention especially Professor Slichter’s Union Policies and Industrial Management, Professor Leontief’s The Structure of American Economy: An Empirical Application of Equilibrium Analysis, and Dr. Triffin’s Monopolistic Competition and General Equilibrium Theory. The latter appeared in the Harvard Economic Studies of which there have now been published 70 volumes, four within the past year. The new series of Harvard Studies in Monopoly and Competition has been augmented by two new volumes during the past year, bringing the total to four. Professor Usher’s History of Mechanical Inventions has again been translated, this time into Spanish. During the past year an arrangement was made with the Rockefeller Foundation (for the current year only) which if continued may prove to be of real importance to the members of our Department. Professor Crum has been relieved of one-half of his teaching duties for research through the payment by the Foundation of the salary of someone to replace him in his teaching assignment. In addition to providing possibilities for research to members of the Department, such an arrangement would have the added advantage of making it possible to invite to Harvard for short period either possible candidates for permanent appointments or others whose presence here for one year would prove stimulating to our students.

Again I call attention to the problem of the added burden to members of the Department for uncompensated teaching in the Graduate School of Public Administration. This has been from the beginning a serious matter in maintaining standards of instruction. It is especially a factor in concentrating the activities of the older members of the Department in the graduate field, leaving undergraduate instruction to be taken care of in undue degree by younger men whose experience on the average seems to decline further each year.

The quality of instruction by the junior staff continues to be a grave concern to our Department. Last year I mentioned that 64 per cent of the students concentrating in Economics were tutored by men of two years or less experience. This year the percentage has increased to 72, and the problem of finding enough experienced and competent tutors in the right fields for distinction seniors has become impossible to solve. The general situation is reflected also in Economics A where the percentage of new instructors has jumped alarmingly for the current year. For the five years 1936-41 the sections taught by new men averaged 24 per cent of the total. For the current year 39 per cent of the sections are taught by new men. For the same five years the sections taught by men of one year or less experience averaged 45 per cent of the total. For the current year this figure has advanced to 61 per cent. The large volume of complaints on the part of students as to the inexperience of their tutors and Economics A section instructors leaves no doubt in the minds of the Department that the continuing decline in concentration in Economies is mainly a reflection of this situation. In view of the competing opportunities for our younger men which have repeatedly been pointed out the problem for our Department continues to be not to maintain a high rate of turnover as the present rules of tenure seem designed to do, but to be able through more flexible arrangements both with respect to tenure and to salaries to maintain a staff sufficiently experienced to give satisfactory instruction to our undergraduates. Such instruction is clearly not being given at the present time.

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

Dean W. S. Ferguson
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Source: Harvard University Archives. Department of Economics, Correspondence and Papers (UAV 349.11). Box 2, Folder “Report to the Dean on the Department 1932-…”

Image Source: Harold Hitchings Burbank from the Harvard Class Album 1934.

 

Categories
Carnegie Institute of Technology Chicago Economist Market Economists Harvard M.I.T.

Chicago. Three casual letters from Cambridge, Mass. regarding young talent, 1957-59

 

In the three letters to Theodore W. Schultz transcribed for this post we witness the old-boy network at work in Chicago’s search for young talent.  Mason and Harris from Harvard share the enormous respect that Harvard Junior Fellow Frank Fisher had won from the senior professors there.  Evsey Domar hedges somewhat in his assessment of Robert L. Slighton but more or less places him in a spectrum running between Marc Nerlove and Martin Bailey closer to the latter. Other now familiar (and less familiar) names are tossed in for good measure.

____________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Office of the Dean

Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

December 27, 1957

Professor Theodore Schultz
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois

Dear Ted:

In addition to [John] Meyer, [James] Henderson and [Otto] Eckstein, I would also name Franklin Fisher and Daniel Ellsberg as among our really promising young men. Fisher and Ellsberg are, at present, both junior fellows. Fisher is something of a wunderkind, having graduated summa cum laude from Harvard at the age of 18. He published a mathematical article on Welfare Economics when he was a senior, and those who can understand it say it’s good. He is only 20 now, and, of course, it is difficult to say how he is going to turn out. He may be another Paul Samuelson, and on the other hand he may not. Ellsberg is another one of our summas and a very good man, indeed. I don’t think he measures up to John Meyer, but is probably in the Henderson and Eckstein category. Since I promised you six names, I will add that of [???] Miller who came to us this year from California. I have really seen nothing of him, and consequently, can no give you a first-hand judgement. My colleagues, however, think he is very good.

With best wishes, I am

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Ed
Edward S. Mason
Dean

ESM:rrl

____________________________

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

Office of the Chairman

M-8 Littauer Center
Cambridge 38, Massachusetts

January 5, 1959

Professor Theodore Schultz
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Ted:

It was good to see you even though it was for a very short period. As you know, we include on our list of available men only those who have requested to be put on the list or who have given us their permission to have their name included in the list. It represents men who are either already Ph.D.’s or will receive their Ph.D. within the year, and who are actually available for the coming year.

[Daniel] Ellsberg will be getting his Ph.D. this year, but he is going to Rand at a salary of about $10,000. [Franklin] Fisher will not have his Ph.D. until June 1960. He is just out of college three years and has been offered an assistant professorship at Carnegie Tech. We have now promised him a similar appointment, and in fact he said he would prefer to be at Harvard.

Among other young men of talent who are now here but are not on our permanent roster are the following: Leon Moses who teaches half time in the department and does research with the [Wassily] Leontief project half time. There is a good chance that Moses will go to Pittsburgh, particularly in order to work on the metropolitan project with [Edgar M.] Hoover. Moses is an excellent man in every way and certainly of permanent quality: the same holds for Alfred Conrad who is in somewhat the same position as Moses. Incidentally, both of them have a leave for next year: There is also André Daniere who will be an assistant professor next year and who works primarily with Leontief. Daniere is another good man, though probably not quite as good as the others.

Then there are Otto Eckstein, James Henderson, Jaroslav Vanek and Louis Lefeber. They are all excellent men and in the running for a permanent appointment. Actually, during the next few years we will have but one or two openings and obviously we cannot keep all these men. There is little to choose among them and we will have a tough time making a decision. Please keep this in the highest confidence.

With kind regard, I am,

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Sey
Seymour E. Harris
Chairman

SHE/jw

____________________________

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
Department of Economics and Social Science

Cambridge 39, Massachusetts

January 14, 1959

Professor Theodore W. Schultz
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
Chicago 37, Illinois

Dear Ted:

Your letter of January 6, regarding [Robert L.] Slighton is not quite easy to answer. I do not know [Daniel] Elsberg [sic] or [Franklin] Fisher well enough to make comparisons, but I will try to compare Slighton with [Martin J.] Bailey and [Marc] Nerlove. From the point of view of statistical and mathematical ability, Nerlove stands in a class all by himself, and I do not think that Slighton’s comparative advantage is in those fields. As far as Bailey is concerned, he may have flashes of ideas at times superior to Slighton’s. On the other hand, I would credit Slighton with greater solidity, more common sense and better judgment. As far as long-run contributions are concerned, I don’t know on whom of the two I would bet at the moment, but Slighton would be a serious contender in any such betting.

Lloyd [Metzler]’s session went quite well. He was greeted by the audience most warmly and was pleased about the whole works very much. I am very happy that that meeting was arranged and that I could participate in it.

Please let me know if you need any additional information.

Sincerely yours,
[signed] Evsey D
Evsey D. Domar

EDD:jr

Source:  University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics, Records. Box 42, Folder 9.

Categories
Economics Programs Economists Harvard Socialism Wing Nuts

Harvard. Veritas investigating Keynesian economics, 1960

 

It’s that time again to venture into the loony-fringe. There once were (ahem) woke Harvard alumni who wished to save the world from “Keynesism” among other dangers. They had their own modest foundation founded by the son of President Theodore Roosevelt and John Bircher, Archibald B. Roosevelt of the class of 1917. This post shares reports from the Harvard Crimson as well as a transcription of a four page pamphlet put out by the Veritas foundation with the title “Keynesism-Marxism at Harvard.”

In an earlier draft, I unfortunately confounded father with son, both Harvard alums, both Archies. I still include the obituary for President Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson, Archibald B. Roosevelt, Jr. who had quite a  C.I.A. career, if for no other reason than to offer some anecdotal evidence regarding the proposition that apples don’t fall far from their respective trees.

There is also some archival irony in the fact that the copy of the pamphlet “Keynesism-Marxism at Harvard” comes from the W.E.B. Du Bois papers at the University of Massachusetts.

__________________________

Veritas Foundation Given $10,000 For Probe of Economics Teaching
Pamphlet Raises Funds

By Michael Churchill, The Harvard Crimson, January 13, 1960.

The Veritas Foundation has raised “around $10,000” towards its goal of $25,000 in order to investigate the teaching of Economics at Harvard, according to Archibald B. Roosevelt [Sr.] ’17.

The money has come in response to a pamphlet circulated recently by the Foundation, “Keynesism-Marxism at Harvard” which charges that “the teaching of Economics has been abandoned at Harvard, and a political-Marxian-Keynesian-socialist propaganda has been substituted.”

A major portion of the pamphlet is devoted to attacking Keynesian theory as un-American and totalitarian. “Even a cursory analysis reveals that Keynesism is not an economic science, but is a political credo which in its main essentials coincides with the communist teachings of Karl Marx.” It specifically contends that “Keynesians attack the principle of individual thrift and personal savings” in order to undermine American initiative and freedom.

“The fountain-head of Keynesian socialism in America has been, and still is, Harvard University,” the Foundation claims, adding that its center within the University lies in the Economics Department.

“Professor Seymour E. Harris is probably the leading propagandist of Keynesism in the United States today. He has been backed by such well known economists as J.K. Galbraith, Alvin H. Hansen and Paul M. Sweezy. Other supporters of Keynesism are some remnants of the now defunct Socialist Party and a larger number of miscellaneous ‘left-wingers’ of the ADA stripe, including certain known partisans of the Soviet system,” the pamphlet declares.

Harris and Galbraith were the only active Harvard professors mentioned, Roosevelt said, because of space limitations in the four page article.

Roosevelt refused to disclose the names of the persons who prepared the preliminary report, saying that due to the battle between Keynesians and anti-Keynesians it would jeopardize the jobs of the two outside economists who contributed to its preparation.

The Foundation circular notes “Keynesian ideas enjoy almost a monopoly” in American colleges. The effect of this monopoly is that “pessimism, discouragement and the credo of despair have been skillfully instilled into the minds of our youth. It has been done with planned premeditation.”

“The prestige of Harvard University has been used to promote a destructive ideology,” it charges. Followers of the doctrine include “the whole gamut of the totalitarian world. Socialists, Nazis, Fascists, Argentine Peronistas, followers of Nehru and those in the United States who yearn for a ‘man on horseback’ have embraced the socio-economic thinking of Keynes.”

__________________________

‘Veritas’ Report To Reach 30,000

The Harvard Crimson, January 17, 1961.

A Veritas Foundation report accusing the Harvard faculty of left-wing activities will be circulated to 20,000 additional alumni, according to Kenneth D. Robertson, Jr. ’29, one of the founders of the Foundation.

The second printing will boost to 30,000 the number of copies of the study, which is called Keynes at Harvard, and is subtitled “Economic Deception as a Political Credo.”

Left wingers–“Fabians and Keynesians” have turned the Economics Department into a “virtual Keynesian monopoly,” the report claims. Citing Seymour E. Harris, Alvin H. Hansen, and other professors of Economics by name, the study points to the Department as “the breeding ground of much of the leftism in Harvard.”

A form letter was sent to thousands of Alumni urging them to buy the 114 page pamphlet, Robertson said.

The $25,000 report was financed by Alumni in response to a letter sent out by the Foundation. “Veritas” is headed by three Harvard graduates: Arthur B. Harlow ’25, William A. Robertson ’31, and Archibald Roosevelt ’31 [sic, should be class of ’17]

__________________________

KEYNESISM-MARXISM AT HARVARD

In the brief span that the Veritas Foundation has been in existence it has received an unusual number of complaints from alumni, parents, students and others who are disturbed by the twisted economic and social thinking of growing numbers of graduates and undergraduates of our colleges and universities. Large numbers of graduates entering into adult society were found to be obsessed with the concept that our free enterprise society is doomed. For years many of them have felt that it is of little use to enter into private enterprises, since such institutions are only surviving relics of the dying capitalist system which is not worth the political efforts necessary to save it.

Much of today’s college thinking reflects the following premises:

  1. The private enterprise system of the United States is full of basic contradictions and fundamental flaws which inevitably will relegate it to the scrap heap. At best, some of the useful features of the private enterprise system will be tolerated but only under government control and domination until a transition to something different is evolved.(1)
  2. Manufacturers, merchants, bankers and the host of corporate executives of the country are hopelessly reactionary and incapable of understanding the need of the “new order”.(2) These same “leaders” are somehow not so “good” or not so “kind of heart” as are those who belong to the ranks of “organized” labor. They are incapable of concern for the “social good”.
  3. Thrift, savings, ownership and accumulation of private property are harmful to society and are not socially compatible with the “new order” which is rising out of the ashes of the “old capitalist” system throughout the, world. In fact, the new Welfare State will handle entirely the basic security of the individual by dominating and regimenting all segments of society so that there will always be “full” employment and “maximum” production. This will eliminate the need for a personal nest egg for the future and thus savings and accumulations of wealth become unnecessary to the individual, who becomes a “ward” of the state.(3)
  4. Society is composed of classes and these classes are consciously banded together to protect their overall group interests. Persons who possess property, operate industry, direct the banks, and own stocks and bonds, as well as those who engage in transport and exchange goods and services are members of the capitalist class. This class is more selfish, grasping, hard hearted, calculating and reactionary than the rest of the population. This class also bands together in a conscious plot to keep the rest of society in economic and political subjection.(4)
  5. The scope of government must be expanded to stand as a “third force”, gradually expropriating or redistributing the wealth of existing capitalists through unrestricted powers of taxation and at the same time preventing the accumulation of any new capital. This philosophy is represented as essential to any “progressive” or “liberal” society. The process of gradual taking over by government of all productive enterprise, accompanied by less and less private saving and unlimited national debt will somehow eliminate recurring cycles of mass unemployment and depression, followed by short lived prosperity. Government must control all fiscal and monetary policies as well as all production, distribution of goods and services.(5)
  6. College and university graduates can insure their personal future by attaching themselves to government bureaucracy, which is destined to expand indefinitely. Other alternatives presented are large corporate “bureaucracies” which are destined to socialization by government, or the huge tax-free foundations which are considered mere precursors of future government agencies.

The above philosophy may sound like communist Marxist propaganda, but it isn’t. It is a basic pattern for “sneaking into socialism”. It is a type of thinking which is identified as Keynesism after an English economist, the late John Maynard Keynes. It was this pattern that the Labor Party in Great Britain followed in its efforts to convert that nation into a Welfare State.

The type of thinking and planning that goes under the “Keynesian” label represents one of the slickest and most deceptive economic and political philosophies in the free world today. Keynesian propaganda is usually prefaced by the claim that its purpose is to “save” the free enterprise system from itself. Almost every book written by Keynesians opens with that theme. However, the remedies suggested represent some form of “creeping” socialism which will by degrees bring about a regimented society in which the government becomes the sole controlling and directing force.(6)

Since Keynes wrote his sensational work “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money” — (1936), the socialist movements in the United States, Great Britain and Germany have adopted his economic and social theories as the theoretical sinews of the “new” socialism”.(7)

The campaign to picture Keynes as the outstanding economist of “private enterprise” is a gross misrepresentation. For a number of years (prior to his 1936 book) Keynes’ ideas were considered as an important theoretical bulwark for the older doctrine of Fabian socialism. The Fabian movement was, however, the chief impetus behind the theory and early planning of British socialism, with overtones in the communist direction. Some Fabians were later identified as part of the Soviet espionage apparatus. Another (Sir Oswald Mosley) later led a movement in support of Nazism as a totalitarian prototype for the western world to follow. A book officially endorsed by Mussolini stated flatly that Keynesian principles were in operation under Fascism.

Keynesism has been accepted in the whole gamut of the totalitarian world. Socialists, Nazis, Fascists, Argentine Peronistas, followers of Nehru and those in the United States who yearn for a “man on horse­back” have embraced the socio-economic thinking of Keynes. Even Communists (who are supposed to be wedded only to Marx) have espoused the Keynesian dogma. Earl Browder, former head of the U. S. Com­munist Party was an open advocate of Keynes’ principles.(8)

The spread of Keynesian concepts throughout American colleges and universities has been phenomenal. It has grown to such dimensions that today in both the graduate and undergraduate fields of political economy the Keynesian ideas enjoy almost a monopoly. Except in our schools of Business Administration, the classical concepts of capitalism, private property, and the market economy have either been completely excluded from our colleges or are given a twisted and perverted presentation by Keynesian advocates. Sound economic principles are pictured as obsolete and inadequate for a modern industrial society.(9)

In tracing the growth of these ideas it soon becomes obvious that the fountain-head of Keynesian socialism in America has been, and still is, Harvard University. Harvard, on account of its academic prestige, was chosen the “launching pad” for the Keynesian rocket in America. Although the Keynesian concepts have spread throughout various departments of Iearning at Harvard the source and center of this ideology can be traced to the economics department of the college and its graduate school. The current chairman of this department, Professor Seymour E. Harris, is probably the leading propagandist of Keynesism in the United States today. He has been backed by such well known economists as J. K. Galbraith, Alvin H. Hansen and Paul M. Sweezy. Other supporters of Keynesism are some remnants of the now defunct Socialist Party and a larger number of miscellaneous “left-wingers” of the ADA stripe, including certain known partisans of the Soviet system.

In spite of some differences as to how to reach their goal, the advocates of Keynesism, like all the “left­wing” groups, belong to what may be called a political underworld. In the criminal underworld the various elements may cheat, shoot and kill one another, but they nevertheless present a general united front against their common foe, the police. The “left-wing” political underworld is likewise composed of elements that can fight each other, even unto death, but they consistently present a united front against the capitalist system.

The roster of those who have joined the Keynesian band wagon ranges from moderate socialistic “liberals” to the most ardent pro-soviet protagonists. The bulk of them, while claiming to be non-communists, eagerly join in the chorus against those who investigate communism, be they Congressional Committees, independent organizations or private individuals. The Keynesian crowd, in large measure, furnish support for the defense of those accused as Soviet spies and militantly uphold the right of communists to practice their subversion.(10)

Even a cursory analysis reveals that Keynesism is not an economic science, but is a political credo which in its main essentials coincides with the communist teachings of Karl Marx. Official communist publications accuse the Socialists of plagiarizing Karl Marx by offering Marxian theories under a Keynesian coating. Essentially the communist complaint against Keynesism is correct. Keynesism is basically Marxist in content. It is the same old wine in the same old bottles, but the labels are different.(11)

Keynesism, however, has a more subtle and deceptive approach than Marxism. Marxism openly announces its intent to overthrow the capitalist system. Keynesism gives lip service to the saving of capitalism, while its covert policies are calculated to make capitalism unworkable.

Marxism uses the regularly recognized economic terms in propounding its theory while Keynesism has invented an entire new nomenclature to replace the accepted terminology used in our classical economics.(12) Thus, in one fell swoop, the Keynesians have attempted to side track, by-pass and confuse, all minds previously educated in economic thinking, relegating them, so to speak, to the scrap heap. The new terms which are more abstract and vague than the time tested old ones, make it possible to indoctrinate an entire generation of college students exclusively with Keynesian dogma; while leaving it totally ignorant of the workings and benefits of our classical economic society. Keynesism (with its accompanying partner Marxism) dominates the sociological thinking in the academic world today. Students today cannot even understand the language of the pre-Keynesian treatises.(13)

A whole generation of college trained youth has been infected with the virus of Keynesism and Marxism.

Tens of thousands of young minds have been taught to lose faith in the economic system that has made the United States what it is today. Thousands of our future leaders have been discouraged from applying their personal initiative and talents towards the strengthening and perfection of the private enter­prise system. Pessimism, discouragement and the credo of despair have been skillfully instilled into the minds of our youth. It has been done with planned premeditation.

Keynesians attack the principle of individual thrift and personal savings. Their policy is fundamentally contrary to a “peoples capitalism” which encour­ages the small investors to become the owners of American corporations on an ever-increasing scale.

Tyrannies of all kinds, in the course of history, have always stifled individual savings. It is the savings of millions of Americans that have made it possible for our people to remain free. Corporations and governments that depend on the contributions of citizens to maintain operations must be the servants and not masters of these millions.

The modern political “left-wing” is fully aware of this fact. That is why they are so unanimous in branding the thrifty as “anti-social” and “producers of panics.” All collectivists are deathly afraid that, if the principle of saving is allowed to continue, a genuine “peoples capitalism” will continue to improve, expand and strengthen our modern American society.

Preliminary research has uncovered a mass of evidence in support of the thesis outlined above. The prestige of Harvard University has been used to promote a destructive ideology which has spread into practically every great American university. Entire departments, bureaus, and other agencies of government on the federal, state and local level have been flooded with personnel steeped in Keynesian and Marxist thinking.(14)

Banking and business institutions, industrial corporations, trade associations and labor unions have found it increasingly difficult to employ economists that are not infected with the destructive and dangerous social philosophy of Keynesism. Some of them have been forced to train their own economists to insure the sound, productive, realistic and constructive thinking necessary for the operation and preservation of the private enterprise system.

Educational institutions that train our economics instructors, at the graduate level, have been for some thirty (30) years almost exclusively devoted to the Keynesian theory. Consequently this country is faced with the tragic fact that teachers of economics  throughout the nation are predominantly Keynesian or Marxist. For years, these Keynesian professors have infected, yearly, several hundred students who in turn became instructors and indoctrinated thousands more. Thus the process snow-balls on.

Marxism-Keynesism in our academic institutions has thus far been winning by default. There has been a lack of factual exposure. Keynesians keep repeating, in their text books, the theme that their theories are too deep and complex for the ordinary layman to understand. They lay exclusive claim to a profundity which builds a “Chinese Wall” around their dogmas. This is obviously done to discourage people outside their own inner circle from probing into their motives and intentions. The whole miasma of Keynesism is given the protective cover of “science.”(15)

The Veritas Foundation is not overawed by such claims of omniscience on the part of a group of would­be-bosses over all of society.

The text books, treatises, lectures and articles of those who run the economics department at Harvard represent the backbone of the Keynesian forces in the United States.

With your help we can get the true facts before the American people. We will unmask the methods by· which the Keynesian revolutionary virus is being injected, by degrees, into the life blood of our free society.

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE OF VERITAS FOUNDATION
AS GIVEN IN ITS DECLARATION OF TRUST

To educate the officials, teaching staffs, governing bodies, under-graduates and graduates of American colleges and universities, upon the subject of communism, the international communist conspiracy and its methods of infiltration into the United States.

[NOTES]

  1. Financing American Prosperity (A symposium of Economists) published by The Twentieth Century Fund (1945) Chapter no. 4 by Professor Howard S. Ellis.

  2. The National Debt and The New Economics by Seymour E. Harris, published by McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc. (1947).

  3. Ibid.

  4. Saving American Capitalism edited by Seymour E. Harris Chapter XXXI (1948).

  5. Ibid. Chapter XIII.

  6. The Failure of the New Economics by Henry Hazlitt, published by D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., (1959).

  7. Outline of the Political History of the Americas by William Z. Foster published by International Publishers.Socialists Abandon Marx (U.S. News and World Reports, October 12, 1959).

  8. Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain, 1919-1931, published by The Heritage Foundation, lnc., (1954) by Sister M. Margaret Patricia McCarran, Ph.D. The Universal Aspects of Fascism, by James Strachey Barnes, F.R.G.S., published by Williams and Norgate, Ltd., 0928). Outline of the Political History of the Americas by William Z. FosterJawaharlal Nehru by Frank Moraes, published by The MacMillan Co. (1956).The Twenty-Year Revolution by Chesly Manly.

  9. The Failure of the New Economics by Henry Hazlitt.

  10. Saving American Capitalism, edited by Professor Seymour E. Harris. Chapter 11 by Chester Bowles.

  11. Political Economy by John Eaton, published by the International Publishers (1949)

  12. The Failure of the New Economics by Henry Hazlitt. Chapter XXlX.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Financing American Prosperity (A Symposium of Economists) published by The Twentieth Century Fund (1945). Chapter no. 2 by Benjamin M. Anderson.

  15. The National Debt and The New Economics by Seymour E. Harris. Chapter II.

Source: UMassAmherst.  W.E.B. DuBois Papers/ Series 1. Correspondence/Keynesism-Marxism at Harvard, ca. February 1961.

__________________________

HON. MARY ROSE OAKAR
in the House of Representatives
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6, 1990

Ms. OAKAR. Mr. Speaker, I was saddened by the recent passing of Archibald Roosevelt, Jr. Mr. Roosevelt lived a full life and spent 27 years as a public servant to our country. I include in the Record his obituary, which recently appeared in the Washington Post.

The article follows:

(BY J.Y. SMITH)

Archibald B. Roosevelt Jr., 72 a retired intelligence officer who served as chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s stations in Istanbul, Madrid and London, died yesterday at this home in Washington. He had congestive heart failure.

A grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and a soldier, scholar, linguist and authority on the Middle East, Mr. Roosevelt viewed his calling–and its faceless, anonymous half-world of nuance and seemingly random fact–with a hard-headed realism leavened by a kind of romanticism that that has echoes of an earlier time.

After retiring from the CIA in 1974, he became a vice president of Chase Manhattan Bank and director of international relations in its Washington office. Well known in Washington social circles in his own right, he was particularly active on the diplomatic circuit during the Reagan administration, when his wife, Selwa Showker ‘Lucky’ Roosevelt, was chief of protocol at the State Department.

In 1988, he published a memoir called ‘For Lust of Knowing: Memoirs of an Intelligence Officer,’ in which he adhered so strictly to this oath to keep the CIA’s secrets that he did not even identify the countries where he had served. And although he was happy to tell interviewers that they could figure it out from his entry in ‘Who’s Who in America,’ he also was quick to explain that some Americans have forgotton what an oath is and that he would not break his even if the government told him to.

Instead, he gave his views on such questions as the nature of the CIA and why it attracted him, and on what intelligence officers should be and how they should see themselves in relation to their own country and the rest of the world.

‘We in the CIA were always conscious of having a special mission, of being the reconaissance patrols of our government,’ he wrote. Despite such vicissitudes as the Bay of Pigs disaster in Cuba in 1961, he said, the agency kept its esprit de corps even though with the passage of time it `was no longer a band of pioneers, but an organization.’

As for intelligence officers, Mr. Roosevelt said he thought of them in ‘the old-fashioned sense, perhaps best exemplifed in fiction by Kipling’s British political officers in India.’

His notion embodied a high ideal, indeed, for the intelligence officer ‘must be able to empathize with true believers of every stripe in order to understand and analyze them. …. He must, like Chairman Mao’s guerrillas, be able to swim in foreign seas. But then he must be able to pull himself to shore, and look back calmly, objectively, on the waters that immersed him.’

Most important, he said, the intelligence officer ‘must not only know whose side he is on, but have a deep conviction that he is on the right side. He should not imitate the cynical protagonists of John Le Carre’s novels, essentially craftsmen who find their side no less by his own account, the product of a ‘conventional, Waspish, preppy world’ and was destined for a conventional career on Wall Street. He managed to escape this fate, he said, because he `lived in another world of my imagination.’

Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt Jr. was born in Boston on Feb. 18, 1918. He graduated from Groton School and then went to Harvard, where he graduated in the class of 1940. While an undergraduate, he was chosen as a Rhodes Scholar, but was not able to accept because of the outbreak of World War II in Europe. His first job was working for a newspaper in Seattle.

During the war, he became an Army intelligence officer. He accompanied U.S. troops in their landing in North Africa in 1942 and soon began to form views on the French colonial administration and the beginnings of Arab nationalism. Later in the war he was a military attache in Iraq and Iran.

In 1947, he joined the Central Intelligence Group, the immediate forerunner of the CIA. From 1947 to 1949, he served in Beirut. On that and on all of his subsequent assignments abroad, he was listed in official registers as a State Department official.

From 1949 to 1951, he was in New York as head of the Near East section of the Voice of America. From 1951 to 1953, he was station chief in Istanbul. From 1953 to 1958, he had several jobs at CIA headquarters in Washington. In 1958, he was made CIA station chief in Spain. From 1962 to 1966 he held the same job in London. He finished his career in Washington.

Through it all he pursued an interest in languages. A Latin and Greek scholar when he was a boy, he had a speaking or reading knowledge of perhaps 20 languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili and Uzbek.

Mr. Roosevelt’s marriage to the former Katherine W. Tweed ended in divorce.

In addition to Selwa Roosevelt, to whom he was married for 40 years, survivors include a son by his first marriage, Tweed Roosevelt of Boston, and two grandchildren.

Source:  https://web.archive.org/web/20200525140528/https://fas.org/irp/congress/1990_cr/h900607-tribute.htm

Categories
Duke Harvard M.I.T. Nebraska Virginia War and Defense Economics

United States. College and University Courses on War Economics, 1942

 

This post is limited to the economics courses reported in a survey conducted in the days and months after the attack on Pearl Harbor that provides an extensive list of “War Courses” offered at U.S. colleges and universities at the time. The post begins with a short description of the survey itself. Next, two tables provide the names of institutions, courses (with descriptions), and instructors together with enrollment statistics. The post ends with a short bibliography of books listed for some of the courses on war economics.

Most of the courses in the survey (and not included here) concern administrative matters such as the procedures governing military procurement. There is at least one course on the economics of war that had been organized at Harvard by Seymour Harris not included in this survey (68 schools did not respond).

_________________________

Not included in the survey

Harvard University. Economic Aspects of War, organized by Seymour Harris, 1940

Final Exam for Economic Aspects of War, 1940

_________________________

How the Study was was Made
[pp. 11-13]

In April, 1942, a study was issued entitled A Report on War Courses offered by Collegiate Schools of Business and Departments of Economics. In this study were presented the combined information sent in by 58 schools and departments listing 196 separate courses. The Department of Commerce in cooperation with the National Conference of State University Schools of Business had distributed these questionnaires to approximately 175 schools on December 11, 1941. The questionnaires called for information on war courses offered after September, 1939.

In May another questionnaire was sent out to approximately the same number of schools of business administration and departments of economics. This questionnaire asked the school to list those war courses which were not reported for inclusion in the April report. Replies were received from 120 schools, 89 of which reported that they were offering war courses not previously reported, and 31 of which reported that they were offering no war courses. Sixty-eight schools did not reply.

Since the questionnaire asked the schools to “include established courses such as Business Policy and Cost Accounting provided they have been reoriented to meet war needs”, the element of judgment enters in to qualify the results. Some schools reported that they had organized no new courses but had reorganized old ones to meet war needs. They felt, however, that the alteration was not great enough to warrant reporting them as war courses. Other schools reported courses which contained in their description very little of a war nature. Courses which it was felt were not primarily war courses were not included in the report. In addition, courses were excluded which it was felt did not fall clearly into the field of business administration and economics.

Any further information which is desired on any of the courses reported here can be secured by writing to the instructor of the particular course. His name appears along with the description of the course.

_________________________

War Courses Offered in Collegiate Schools of Business and Departments of Economics

Economics of War

SCHOOL

 COURSE TITLE WEEKS
OF COURSE		 HOURS
PER
WEEK		 CREDIT
HOURS		 ON
CAMPUS		 SEC-TIONS STU-
DENTS

PREREQ-UISITES*

U. of Akron, Akron, Ohio.

 Economics of War

16

 2 2 No 1 15

2C
Albright Col., Reading, Pa. Economic Problems

16

 3 3 Yes 1 18

2C

U. of Ariz., School of Bus. & Pub. Admin. Tucson, Ariz.

 Economics of War 18 3 3 Yes 1 17 2C
U. of Ariz., School of Bus. & Pub. Admin. Tucson, Ariz. Geography of War Areas 18 3 3 Yes — —

—

Babson Inst., School of Bus. Admin., Wellesley, Mass.

 War Economics 12 3 0 Yes 2 40 C
Brooklyn Col., Brooklyn, N.Y. Econ. of Defense & War 16 3 3 Yes 2 34

2C

Brown U., Dept. of Econ., Providence, R.I.

 Economics of War 30 3 6 Yes 1 45 2C
Bucknell U., Dept. of Commerce & Finance, Lewisburg, Pa. Econ. of Modern War 6 6 ½ 3 Yes 1 20

2C

Carleton Col., Dept. of Econ., Northfield, Minn.

 Economics of War 18 3 3 Yes 1 — 2C
City College of N.Y., Commerce Center, New York, N.Y. Price Control Reguls. 6 6 3 Yes 1 39

—

U. of Cincinnati, Col. of Engin. & Commerce, Cincinnati, Ohio.

 Economics of War 14 3 3 Yes 2 60 —
U. of Cincinnati, Col. of Engin. & Commerce, Cincinnati, Ohio. Probs. of War and Reconstruction 14 3 3 Yes 2 60

—

Claremont Col., Claremont, Cal.

 America at War: Econ. Org. 6 10 5 Yes — — 4
Claremont Col., Claremont, Cal. War and Economics 15 3 5 Yes — —

4

Clark U., Worcester, Mass.

 Economics of War 6 5 2 Yes 1 — 2C
Clemson Col., Clemson, S.C. Economics of War 16 3 3 Yes 1 32

2C

Dartmouth Col., Tech. School of Bus. Admin. Hanover, N.H.

 Econ. Prob. of War 13 3 3 Yes 3 100 3C
U. of Detroit, Col. Of Commerce & Fin., Detroit, Mich. Economics of War 17 3 3 Yes 1 49

2

U. of Detroit, Col. Of Commerce & Fin., Detroit, Mich.

 War Finance 6 7 3 Yes 1 — 2
Duke U., Durham, N.C. Economics of War 18 3 3 Yes 2 55

3

Fenn Col., School of Bus. Admin., Cleveland, Ohio.

 Economics of Price Control 10 2 2 Yes 1 — 2C
U. of Fla., Col. of Bus. Admin. Gainesville, Fla. Economics of Total War 3 3 3 — — —

—

Franklin & Marshall Col., Lancaster, Pa.

 Econ. History of U.S. 15 3 3 Yes 5 125 —
Franklin & Marshall Col., Lancaster, Pa. War Economics 15 3 3 Yes 4 110

C

U. of Ga., Athens, Ga.

 Advanced Econ. Theory 8 5 5 Yes 1 8 3C
U. of Ga., Athens, Ga. Economics of War 8 5 5 Yes 2 66

2C

U. of Ga., Col. of Bus. Admin., Athens, Ga.

 Econ. of Consumption 12 5 5 Yes 2 40 3C
Hamline U., St. Paul, Minn. Prins. of Economics 8 3 3 Yes 2 62

1

Harvard Grad. School of Bus. Admin., Boston, Mass.

 Banking Probs. and Federal Fin. 16 3 3 Yes — — C
James Millikin U., Decatur, Ill. Econ. of War and Reconstruction 16 3 3 No 1 24

2C

Loyola U., Dept. of Econ., New Orleans, La.

 Economics of War 16 3 3 Yes 1 25 2
Macalester Col., St. Paul, Minn. Econ Probs. of a War Economy 18 3 3 Yes — —

2C

U. of Md., Col. of Commerce, College Park, Md.

 Econ. Institutions & War 16 3 3 Yes — — 2
Mass. Inst. of Technology, Dept. of Econ. & Soc. Sci., Cambridge, Mass. Economics of War 15 2 6 Yes 1 35

—

Mass. Inst. of Technology, Dept. of Econ. & Soc. Sci., Cambridge, Mass.

 Postwar Econ. Probs. 15 2 6 Yes — — —
Mass. Inst. of Technology, Dept. of Econ. & Soc. Sci., Cambridge, Mass. Postwar Problems 15 3 9 Yes — —

3C

U. of Minn., School of Bus. Admin., Minneapolis, Minn.

 Finance 11 3 3 Yes 1 11 3C
U. of Minn., School of Bus. Admin., Minneapolis, Minn. Our Economic Life 11 3 3 Yes 1 125

—

U. of Minn., School of Bus. Admin., Minneapolis, Minn.

 Public Finance 22 3 6 Yes 1 15 4C
Mont. State U., School of Bus. Admin., Missoula, Mont. War Economics 10 4 4 Yes 1 —

2C

N. Dak. Agri. Col., Dept. of Econ., Fargo, N.D.

 War Economics 16 3 3 Yes 1 25 2C
U. of N. Dak., School of Com., Grand Forks, N.D. Economics of War 8 5 3 Yes 1 21

2C

Okla, A&M, Col., School of Com., Stillwater, Okla.

 War and Post-War Econ. Problems 18 3 3 Yes — — 3C
U. of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. War Economics 18 2 2 Yes 2 65

2C

Pomona Col., Claremont, Cal.

 Econ. of War & Defense 6 5 3 Yes 1 19 2C
St. John’s U., Collegeville, Minn. Economics of War 18 3 3 Yes 1 20

2C

U. of S. Dak., School of Bus. Admin., Vermillion, S.D.

 Economics of War 18 3 3 Yes 1 25 2C
U. of S. Dak., School of Bus. Admin., Vermillion, S.D. Money & Banking & War Finance 18 3 3 Yes — —

2C

Stanford U., Dept. of Econ., Stanford U., Cal.

 American Economy in Wartime 10 5 5 Yes 2 89 2C
Stanford U., Dept. of Econ., Stanford U., Cal. War Effort 10 4 3 Yes — —

—

Stout Inst., Menomonie, Wisc.

 War Economics 6 5 5 Yes 1 — 2C
Susquehanna U., Selinsgrove, Pa. Amer. Probs. in World Relationships 32 2 2 Yes 1 27

1

Temple U., Philadelphia, Pa.

 Economic Planning 15 3 3 Yes 1 25 2C
Temple U., Philadelphia, Pa. Internat. Trade & Commerce 15 3 3 Yes 1 30

2

Transylvania Col., Econ. & Sociology Dept., Lexington, Ky.

 Economics of War 18 3 3 Yes 1 18 3C
Villanova Col., Villanova, Pa. Probs. of Peace After the War 6 5 2 Yes — —

—

U. of Va., Charlottesville, Va.

 Economics of War 36 3 6 Yes 1 — 2C
U. of Va., Charlottesville, Va. Prins. of Economics 12 3 2 Yes 2 180

1

State Col. of Wash., School of Bus. Admin., Pullman, Wash.

 Econ. & Bus. Tendencies 18 3 3 Yes 1 — 3C
U. of Wash., Col. of Econ. & Bus., Seattle, Wash. Econ. of Natl. Defense 12 5 5 Yes 1 94

2

U. of Wash., Col. of Econ. & Bus., Seattle, Wash.

 World at War 12 5 5 Yes 1 — —
Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, Ohio. Econ. of Natl. Defense 16 4 3 Yes 1 —

2C

Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, Ohio.

 Econ. of War and Reconstruction 15 1 ¾ 2 Yes 1 27

2 or E

*Prerequisites:

Numerals—years of college which must have been completed
C—certain courses in the same or allied subjects
E—experience in the field

_________________________

Instructors and course descriptions

SCHOOL COURSE TITLE INSTRUCTOR AND COURSE DESCRIPTION
U. of Akron, Akron, Ohio. Economics of War Jay L. O’Hara. Economic causes of war; transition from peace to war economy, fiscal and monetary problems of war economy; price control, rationing and priorities.
Albright Col., Reading, Pa. Economic Problems John C. Evans. Text supplemented by lectures, readings in economic theory for purposes of orienting the student, and current reading in the better newspapers and periodicals for correlation of current opinions.
U. of Ariz., School of Bus. & Pub. Admin. Tucson, Ariz. Economics of War E. G. Wood. An analysis of those economic factors which determine modern war; man power and materials, methods for their mobilization.
U. of Ariz., School of Bus. & Pub. Admin. Tucson, Ariz. Geography of War Areas G. Herrech. A course dealing with climatic, topographical and economic factors in war areas. Population characteristics and pertinent matters of history and government will be included, as well as a discussion of the military characteristics of the geographic background. Text material will be newspapers and magazines, and reference work in the library.
Babson Inst., School of Bus. Admin., Wellesley, Mass. War Economics James M. Matthews. Introductory analysis of economic causes of war, the economics of the war process, the post-war economic adjustment, war production, labor, wages, finance, prices, consumer control, railroads, electric power, housing, agriculture.
Brooklyn Col., Brooklyn, N.Y. Econ. of Defense & War Curwen Stoddart – The economic problems of defense in modern times; the expenditures by countries for armament and defense purposes since 1914 and the economic policies pursued in financing these expenditures. The functioning of the economy under war time controls, including the regulation of prices, production, consumption and finance, the repercussions of war upon neutral countries and the consequences of peace; with special attention to the immediate problems resulting from demobilization of war-time resources.
Brown U., Dept. of Econ., Providence, R.I. Economics of War Antonin Basch. Economic mobilization for war. Government controls over production, consumption, foreign trade, prices and wages through monetary policy, fiscal policy, price control, priorities, rationing and foreign exchange control. Economic warfare. Lessons of the first World War. Problems of post-war reconstruction.
Bucknell U., Dept. of Commerce & Finance, Lewisburg, Pa. Econ. of Modern War Rudolph Peterson. Problems created by the war in the field of production, distribution, finance, and prices and methods of meeting them.
Carleton Col., Dept. of Econ., Northfield, Minn. Economics of War D.A Brown [no course description]
U. of Cincinnati, Col. of Engin. & Commerce, Cincinnati, Ohio. Economics of War H.B. Whaling. Inflation and price controls. Fiscal and tax problems, function of the banking system in the war economy, rationing, devices for saving, conversion of peacetime to wartime economy, impact of war economic policies on post war economy.
U. of Cincinnati, Col. of Engin. & Commerce, Cincinnati, Ohio. Probs. of War and Reconstruction R.R. McGrane. How the war came to Europe. Problems of financing the war, mobilization of industrial resources, mobilization of public opinion. Problems of peace; what kind of peace does the U.S. want, what will be the position of the U.S. in the new world order?
City Col. of N.Y., Commerce Center, New York, N.Y. Price Control Regulations Henry Bund, Joseph Friedlander, Percy J. Greenberg. This laboratory and clinic course to be given by prominent authorities will provide up-to-the minute information and analysis of rulings and interpretations of orders of the Office of Price Administration. The lecturers will concern themselves with the purpose and provisions of the various regulations; individual groups of manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers will receive instruction in the computation of price ceilings for various commodities and how to obtain relief from present regulations which are oppressive; a series of laboratory exercises will be required.
Claremont Col., Claremont, Cal. America at War: Econ. Org. Arthur G. Coons [no course description]
Claremont Col., Claremont, Cal. War and Economics Walter E. Sulzbach. Emphasis on international aspects of war and economic organization.
Clark U., Worcester, Mass. Economics of War S. J. Brandenburg. A descriptive study of public economic policy in relation to war: what economic mobilization for modern war means in terms of labor, resources, civilian and military economic preparation, finance, and private and government enterprise. A study of economic problems to be faced in post war reconstruction will form a final unit of the course.
Clemson Col., Clemson, S.C. Economics of War James E. Ward. We deal with the problems of financing a war, production problems, maladjustments caused by war, post-war aspects, etc.
Dartmouth Col., Tuck School of Bus. Admin. Hanover, N.H. Econ. Prob. of War George Walter Woodworth. The chief aim of this course is to develop an understanding of how the economic resources of a nation can be most effectively marshalled for total war. First requirements are seen, then the problems of mobilization and conversion of resources. Final section is devoted to post-war problems.
U. of Detroit, Col. Of Commerce & Fin., Detroit, Mich. Economics of War Bernard F. Landuyt. An analytical survey of the economic aspects of the preparation for and conduct of war, with particular reference to the participation of the United States in World War II. Attention given to both the armed conflict and the civilian scene.
U. of Detroit, Col. Of Commerce & Fin., Detroit, Mich. War Finance Bernard F. Landuyt. A survey of the major aspects of the problem of war finance, with especial reference to the current American problem. Emphasis will be placed on the nature and significance of the problem, the principles basic to its solution, and the effectuation of these principles.
Duke U., Durham, N.C. Economics of War Earl J. Hamilton and H. E. von Beckerath [no course description]
Fenn Col., School of Bus. Admin., Cleveland, Ohio. Economics of Price Control A. O. Berger. A study of price control in normal times by (a) competition and (b) regulation under monopoly conditions, such as utilities. Price control under conditions of war: the reasons for it, the determination of ceilings, the economic implications.
U. of Fla., Col. of Bus. Admin. Gainesville, Fla. Economics of Total War Walter J. Matherly [no course description]
Franklin & Marshall Col., Lancaster, Pa. Econ. History of U.S. Harold Fischer and Noel P. Laird. A study of the factors in the economic development of the United States, with special attention to these factors as they influenced America’s rise to the rank of a world power. A history of the evolution of the economic life of the American people. Emphasis on problems involved in our adjustments to a war economy.
Franklin & Marshall Col., Lancaster, Pa. War Economics Noel P. Laird. A careful analysis of such economic problems as agriculture, consumers’ needs, price, banking, public finance, labor, transportation, and unemployment. Special attention will be given to war economy with emphasis on priorities, rationing, and government control over production, distribution, consumption, finance and other economic activities. A survey of the economic problems created by the war.
U. of Ga., Athens, Ga. Advanced Econ. Theory E. C. Griffith. The course deals with monopolistic competition and the problems of government regulation of prices; special emphasis is given to specific industries such as the iron and steel industry. Special attention will be given in 1942 to government control of inflation, rationing, and antitrust policy in a period of war.
U. of Ga., Athens, Ga. Economics of War Robert T. Segrest. Economic problems and policies of nations in wartime. Post-war problems with special emphasis on the United States.
U. of Ga., Col. of Bus. Admin., Athens, Ga. Econ. of Consumption John W. Jenkins. National economy from the interests of the consumer, before the war, now and in the post-war world.
Hamline U., St. Paul, Minn. Prins. of Economics C. B. Kuhlmann. War economics is given as the last 8 weeks of the course in principles of economics.
Harvard Grad. School of Bus. Admin., Boston, Mass. Banking Problems and Federal Finance Ebersole and D.T. Smith. Financing of the Federal Treasury during the present war is the over-shadowing concern of business, finance, and banking. Current activities of the Treasury are studied in relation to fiscal policy, and bank operations. Indispensable background is covered in two parts: bank portfolios and bank relations, with emphasis upon government relations arising out of government lending corporations, financing Federal deficits by bond issues sold to banks or to the public, and central bank and money management policies of the Treasury and Federal Reserve system.
James Millikin U., Decatur, Ill. Econ. of War and Reconstruction M. E. Robinson. An analysis of the fundamental framework of the war economy. Problems of finance, population, prices, civilian production, and procurement as affected by war. Study of our efforts to convert and produce for war in contrast to those of other nations. Brief study of the economic structure and problems of a post-war economy. Much of the course will be devoted to a study of sources, propaganda, and war annals.
Loyola U., Dept. of Econ., New Orleans, La. Economics of War John Connor. Economic factors in war: strategic materials; man power; production and consumption controls; price regulations; financing; post-war problems, etc.
Macalester Col., St. Paul, Minn. Econ Probs. of a War Economy Forrest A. Young. Modern warfare and the economic system; economic warfare; critical and strategic raw materials; maximizing production; foreign trade and shipping; labor and wage policies; housing difficulties; priorities, allocations, rationing and demand controls; direct and indirect price control and bases of price fixing; fiscal policy and war financing; problems of postwar readjustment.
U. of Md., Col. of Commerce, College Park, Md. Econ. Institutions & War G. A. Costanzo. An analysis of the Economic causes and problems of war. Industrial mobilization; theory and techniques of price control; banking and credit control; war finance; international trade and foreign exchange controls; economic sanctions and autarchy; and the problems of readjustment in a post-war economy.
Mass. Inst. of Technology, Dept. of Econ. & Soc. Sci., Cambridge, Mass. Economics of War Ralph E. Freeman. A study of the economic changes resulting from the adjustment of industry to the demands of War, and the impact of these changes on business stability, standards of living and methods of social control.
Mass. Inst. of Technology, Dept. of Econ. & Soc. Sci., Cambridge, Mass. Postwar Econ. Probs. Richard M. Bissell. A study of the economic difficulties that are likely to arise after the war, and of policies that may be adopted to cope with them.
Mass. Inst. of Technology, Dept. of Econ. & Soc. Sci., Cambridge, Mass. Postwar Problems Richard M. Bissell. A study of the economic problems involved in maintaining national income and employment under the conditions that are likely to prevail after the war.
U. of Minn., School of Bus. Admin., Minneapolis, Minn. Finance J. Warren Stehman. Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Commodity Credit Corporation, Federal Housing Administration Title VI, governmental financial policies to control prices, war finance and its effects upon business policy and upon investments. Probably fifty percent of the course dealt with financial material related directly to the war effort and fifty percent not so related.
U. of Minn., School of Bus. Admin., Minneapolis, Minn. Our Economic Life Helen G. Canoyer. Although the title of the course was not changed, due to an action of the advisory committee of General College, the committee did agree to a change in the emphasis of the course to war economics.
U. of Minn., School of Bus. Admin., Minneapolis, Minn. Public Finance Roy G. Blakey.  Each meeting was a discussion led by one of the members of the seminar. All were assigned certain basic readings and each was required to write a term paper or thesis on a phase of the subject selected by him in consultation with the instructor.
Mont. State U., School of Bus. Admin., Missoula, Mont. War Economics Roy J. W. Ely. The course is a study of the various factors that appear to lead to war; pre-war preparations; an analysis of war economy; and post-war adjustments.
N. Dak. Agri. Col., Dept. of Econ., Fargo, N.D. War Economics Paul E. Zerby.  Causes of war; economic means of warfare; economic problems and adjustments of post-war period; money and banking, public finance, labor, international economic policies, government and business.
U. of N. Dak., School of Com., Grand Forks, N.D. Economics of War S. Hagen. The course covers the steps by which a peace economy is transferred into a war economy. The controls instituted by the government to direct economic activity during the war period are studied and compared with peace time controls. Special attention is given to such topics as priorities, price-ceilings, war finance, labor management, lend-lease, and post-war problems.
Okla, A&M, Col., School of Com., Stillwater, Okla. War and Post-War Econ. Problems R. H. Baugh. An analysis of the impact of war on economic arrangements and processes; deals with such problems as the conversion of industry to war production, war-time labor issues, inflation, financing the war, rationing, conversion of war production to peace-time production, post-war employment, and international trade from the war.
U. of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pa. War Economics M. K. McKay. Emphasis is given to the problems emerging in the transition from peace to war. Special consideration is directed to war production, the role of the consumer and the various regulatory measures introduced by the government. Finally, post-war problems were viewed.
Pomona Col., Claremont, Cal. Econ. of War & Defense Kenneth Duncan. The economic problems and policies of a nation at war. Attention, is given to the economic forces contributing to war and to the strategy of international markets, materials, and shipping. The shift to a war economy and the war-time control over production, labor, prices, and consumer demand. War finance and inflation. Problems of demobilization and post-war economic planning.
St. John’s U., Collegeville, Minn. Economics of War Linus Schieffer. This course is designed to examine the repercussions upon the economy of the nation of a total war effort such as modern war entails. It investigates the problem of conversion of plant and resources, the dangers of inflation, the influence of strategic materials. It likewise spends some time discussing the postwar consequences of such a wholesale conversion of the national economy.
U. of S. Dak., School of Bus. Admin., Vermillion, S.D. Economics of War Claude J. Whitlow. Economic causes of war; nature of total war; man-power regulation and total war; war effort in real terms; price system under impact of war; labor problems in war time; war-time control of production and consumption; public finance and war; international relations during and after a period of war; post-war economic problems.
U. of S. Dak., School of Bus. Admin., Vermillion, S.D. Money & Banking & War Finance E. S. Sparks [no course description]
Stanford U., Dept. of Econ., Stanford U., Cal. American Economy in Wartime B. F. Haley, K. Brandt, W. S. Hopkins. War economics of raw materials, labor resources and policy in the war economy; transportation in World Wars I and II; business organization and policy; controls in the war economy, international aspects of the war effort; consumption and living standards in the war economy.
Stanford U., Dept. of Econ., Stanford U., Cal War Effort Staff. Lectures in all phases of the national war effort.
Stout Inst., Menomonie, Wisc. War Economics A. Stephen Stephan. The change from peace-time to war-time economy and the problems involved. The war and its effect on industry and consumers. Problems of war production, financing the war, price control, economic regulations and civilian morale.
Susquehanna U., Selinsgrove, Pa. Amer. Probs. in World Relationships W. A. Russ, H. A. Heath. A survey of the problems confronting the United States in her present day relationships with Europe, the Far East, and Latin America. These problems will be discussed, from the standpoint of relationships in economics, science, history and government. The second semester surveyed the economic relationships of war.
Temple U., Philadelphia, Pa. Economic Planning Russell H. Mack. Examination of the chief problems of production, pricing, and distribution arising under capitalism and planned economy. Special emphasis on the problems and techniques of war-time price control and rationing.
Temple U., Philadelphia, Pa. Internat. Trade & Commerce Grover A. J. Noetzel. The fundamental principles of international commerce. Special emphasis throughout upon the disorganizing effects of the present war upon world commerce. Proposed plans of reconstruction of post-war trade.
Transylvania Col., Econ. & Sociology Dept., Lexington, Ky. Economics of War W. Scott Hall. Background of nature and causes of war, economic factors in the causation, preparation for, and waging of war, economic effects of war. Emphasis on term paper.
Villanova Col., Villanova, Pa. Probs. of Peace After the War Edward J. McCarthy. An historical survey of the various efforts to organize states for economic and political purposes. Religious, social, economic and political problems facing nations at war are considered together with the several plans for post-war organization now being offered.
U. of Va., Charlottesville, Va. Economics of War David McC. Wright. Production for war, labor supply, price control, war finance, changes in the structure of the economy, post-war reconstruction, etc.
U. of Va., Charlottesville, Va. Prins. of Economics Tipton R. Snavely, D. Clark Hyde [no course description]
State Col. of Wash., School of Bus. Admin., Pullman, Wash. Econ. & Bus. Tendencies [No instructor named] Basic tendencies, in economic and business ideas and institutions. The effect of the war on economic change and the environment of business enterprise. The objectives and policies of government. Problems of post-war institutional adjustments.
U. of Wash., Col. of Econ. & Bus., Seattle, Wash. Econ. of Natl. Defense Harold G. Moulton and Howard H. Preston. Analysis of the problems arising from our national defense program, including organization of production, procurement of materials, financing industrial expansion, monetary issues, price control methods, labor relations, international exchange, fiscal policy of the government.
U. of Wash., Col. of Econ. & Bus., Seattle, Wash. World at War Staff. Factual information on the background of the present war, the ideological conflict; the fundamentals of military and naval strategy, economics and war, and the essentials of planning for peace.
Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, Ohio. Econ. of Natl. Defense Russell Weisman. The problems of industrial mobilization. Priorities, allocations, and price control. Methods of financing – taxation, public borrowing, fiat money and credit. Economic policies of the leading nations in World War I and II.
Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, Ohio. Econ. of War and Reconstruction Warren A. Roberts. An analysis of the steps involved in the conversion to war effort, and the effects upon business. An examination of the economic program of Germany and England and a comparison of policies of labor representation, of personnel conversion from normal occupations, of stages of development of war finance, and of uses of compulsory loans. A brief consideration of post-war problems.

 

_________________________

Bibliography
Texts used in War Courses Offered by Collegiate Schools of Business and Departments of Economics

ECONOMICS OF WAR

Atkins, W. E. (Editor). Economic Behavior. Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1931, 1079 p., $8.50.

Backman, Jules. Wartime Price Control and the Retail Trade. National Retail Dry Goods Association, New York, 1910, 48 p., $.10.

Baruch, Bernard M. American Industry in the War. Prentice-Hall, Inc. New York, 1941498 p., $3.75.

Boulding, Kenneth Ewart. Economic Analysis. Harper and Bros., New York, 1941, 809 p., $4.25.

Brown University Economists, A. C. Neal (Editor). Introduction to War Economics. Richard D. Irwin, Inc., Chicago, 1942, $1.25.

Burnham, James. Managerial Revolution. John Day Company, Inc., New York, 1941, 285 p., $2.50.

Chamberlin, Edward. Theory of Monopolistic Competition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1938, 241 p., $2.50.

Condliffe, John Bell. The Reconstruction of World Trade; A Survey of Industrial Economic Relations. W. W. Norton, Inc., New York, 1940, 427 p., $3.75.

Fairchild, F. R.; Furniss, E. S. and Buck, N. S. Economics. Macmillan Co., New York, 1940, 828 p., $3.00.

Faulkner, Harold Underwood. Economic History of the United States. Macmillan Co., New York, 1937, 319 p., $.80.

Fraser, Cecil E. and Teele, Stanley F. Industry Goes to War; Readings on American Industrial Rearmament. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1941, 123 p., $1.50.

Hardy, C. O. Wartime Control of Prices. Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C., 1940, 216 p., $1.00.

Harris, Seymour E. Economics of American Defense. W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., New York, 1941, 350 p., $3.50.

Lorwin, Louis L. Economic Consequences of Second World War. Random House, New York, 1941, 510 p., $3.00.

Meade, J. E.; and Hitch, C. J. Introduction to Economic Analysis and Policy. Oxford University Press, New York, 1938, 428 p., $2.50. Mendershausen, Horst. Economics of War. Prentice-Hall, Inc., New York, 1940, 314 p., $2.75.

Nelson, Saul and Keim, Walter G. Price Behavior and Business Policy (T.N.E.C. Monograph No. 1) U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1940, 419 p., $.45.

Pigou, A. C. The Political Economy of War. MacMillan and Company, London, 1921, 251 p., $3.25.

Robbins, Lionel Charles. Economic Causes of War. Macmillan Co., New York, 1939, 124 p., $1.35.

Robinson, Joan. The Economics of Imperfect Competition. Macmillan and Co., London, 1934, 352 p., $4.50.

Spiegel, Henry William. Economics of Total War. D. Appleton-Century Co., New York, 1942, 410 p., $3.00.

Stein, Emanuel and Backman, Jules. War Economics. Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., New York, 1942, 501 p., $3.00.

Steiner, George A. and Associates. Economic Problems of War. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1942, 676 p., $3.50.

Steiner, W. H. Economics of War. Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., New York, 1942, 250 p., $3.00.

Vaile, Roland Snow; and Canoyer, Helen G. Income and Consumption. H. Holt and Co., New York, 1938, 394 p., $2.25.

Waller, Willard Walter (Editor). War in the Twentieth Century. Random House, Inc., New York, 1940, 572 p., $3.00.

Zimmermann, Erich W. World Resources and Industries; A Functional Appraisal of the Availability of Agricultural and Industrial Resources. Harper and Bros., New York, 1934, 842 p., $4.00.

 

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. Supplementary Report on War Courses offered by Collegiate Schools of Business and Departments of Economics. Washington, D.C.: August 1942. Pages 11-13, 20-25, 45-89, 94-96.

Image Source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. “Buy War Bonds” (Uncle Sam). Wikimedia.