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Economists Harvard Lecture Notes

Harvard. Tobin’s notes to lecture by Alvin Hansen on Keynes’ General Theory, May 1938

 

The following notes were taken by James Tobin at the end of his junior year at Harvard. The notes for this lecture by Alvin H. Hansen on Keynes’ General Theory were “filed” as loose-leaf pages inserted into a bound volume of Tobin’s handwritten course notes for Economics 41 (Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises, taught by John H. Williams and Seymour Harris). Hansen’s lecture might have been a guest lecture for that course since only a recitation section taught by Kenyon Edward Poole was included in the notes for that date.  

Also on that date in history at Harvard: Gunnar Myrdal held the second lecture in his four-lecture Godkin public lecture series “The Population Problem and Social Security”.

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Lecture
5/4/38
Prof. Alvin H. Hansen of Garver & Hansen
Littauer Professor of Political Economy

Keynes’ General Theory.

Not mainly concerned with trade cycle. Ch[apter] on trade cycle not very original. Cycle consists in fluctuation of rate of investment-purchase of capital-goods. Keynes holds that fluctuations in rate of invest[ment] due to fluctuations in the rate of prospective profits, in the marg[inal] efficiency of capital. Keynes emphasizes the rôle of expectations—psychology. Quick shift from prosperity to depression due to violent shifts in expectation from optimism to pessimism.

Mainly concerned with larger problem of full empl[oyment] of labor and the other factors of production. Could still have trade cycle but its booms would hit full employment. But also conceivable is a society in which ceiling of fluctuations is below full empl[oyment]—permanent under-employment. This long-run under-empl[oyment] Keynes mainly concerned with. Modern societies tend to be in a situation of chronic under-employment. He accuses classicals of working on assumption that society has long-run tendency to full empl[oyment]. Classical writers were concerned with pricing system and returns to different factors, and how much labor, etc., was used. R[ate] of int[erest] for example determined amount of saving cped [compared?] to consumption out of given income. This according to K[eynes] only goes with full empl[oyment] assumption. Rise in consumption in condition of under-empl[oyment] will lead to rise in investment as well. These are not alternatives until there is full empl[oyment]. This well realized by bus[isness] cycle theorists. Keynes applies it to long-run analysis.

What determines the volume of employment?

1) Rate of interest
2) Marg[inal] efficiency of capital. (Prospective rate of profit anticipated by bus[iness] man.)
3) Propensity to consume.

Nothing new about introducing rate of int[erest] as a determinant. Wicksell 1898 set forth determinants of expansion as prospective rate of profit on one side and r[ate] of int[erest] on the other side. Keynes adds the propensity to consume. dC/dY >0, <1, decreases. Rich societies have tendency to fail to maintain level of income once achieved. A society which consumes all of its income would have no difficulty in maintaining its level, because no deficiency in income-spending from incomes pd [paid] out to factors. If some part is not spent on consumers’ goods—just saved without a purchase of capital-goods – those who save are not actual investors-entrepreneurs—and there is not an equal amount of new investment, there is a tendency for incomes to fall. If propensity to consume is low, other determinants of employment must be very strong—high prospective rate of profit, low r[ate] of int[erest]—in order to balance saving.

“Classical” relation of r[ate] of int[erest] to saving. Later classical writers qualified argument: if r[ate] of int[erest] is very high, more saving; if low, less. But in between, there are the fixed-income savers. Keynes: determinant is level of incomes. Wouldn’t say no relation of saving to r[ate] of int[erest]. Given r[ate] of int[erest], determinant is level of incomes. There is for K[eynes] then no minimum r[ate] of int[erest], such as Cassel found: if int[erest] falls there because of shortness of human life people will say int[erest] is so low that not much income from it. Hence they will consume capital. At this p[oin]t tendency for saving to decrease, & consumption [to] increase. For K[eynes] there is another minimum point, below which there is not decrease of saving but an increase of hoarding. K[eynes] distinguishes mkt [market] & pure rates of int[erest]. Special risk in buying long-term commitment—risk is that r[ate] of int[erest] will rise a little bit in future, price of bond will drop so as to wipe out all int[erest] gain on it. Hence there is pt[point] where we won’t bother to buy securities but will hold cash. R[ate] of int[erest]not driven down below point of consump[tion] ncrease. What people will do is hold savings in liquid forms.

In rich community, marg[inal] efficiency of capital low; propensity to consume low; but rate of int[erest] can’t keep falling because of liquidity-preference. Hence there is not adequate volume of new invest[ment] to maintain full employment. R[ate] of int[erest] doesn’t drop to point where people stop saving & consume more, & rectify the difficulty; but is held up by liquidity preference.

Emphasizes largely r[ate] of int[erest]; Spiethoff thinks important thing in expansion is marg[ignal] efficiency of capital, which K[eynes] largely takes for granted. Spiethoff’s factors influencing prospective rate of profit on new invest[ment]: expanding market, increasing population, inventions & giant industries. All these associated with a young & growing capitalism, as in 19th.—unique century, conquering the world and revolutionizing the industrial technique and expanding population. Now decline in population, and no new mkts [markets]. K[eynes] assumes this exploitation of opportunities & emphasizes the monetary rate of int[erest], not as Spiethoff on non-monetary influences on marg[inal] efficiency. Risk & uncertainty of modern world decrease the will to invest—and perhaps also the tendency to save w[oul]d be greater. Failure of invest[ment] outlet.

K[eynes]’s solutions:

1) Artificially create a low rate of interest.
2) Stimulate consump[tion] by redistribution of income.
3) Enlarge volume of public investment.

[Qualifications]

1) How far will stimulate invest[ment] doubtful.
2) Effects of taxation for this purpose may hurt private invest[ment]
3) Public invest[ment] may be offset by private invest[ment] decline.

            Economic policies are choice among evils.

 

Source: Yale University Archives. Papers of James Tobin.  Box 6, Loose pages in bound lecture notes for Economics 41 taken by James Tobin during the 1937-38 academic year at Harvard University.

Image Source: James Tobin senior year portrait in Harvard Class Album, 1939.

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Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Undergraduate course on Money, Banking, and Crises, 1940-41

 

This course was one of the staples of the Harvard undergraduate economics experience. In this year that was to mark the official entry of the United States into the Second World War, we have complete course outlines, assigned readings and exam questions.

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Course Material from the Other Years

1937-38
1938-39 (Paper topics)
1941-42

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Course Description

Economics 41. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructors) Fri., at 2. Professor Williams and Associate Professor Harris.

The course will be conducted by means of lectures and discussions and (in the second half-year) a thesis based on work in the library. Certain subjects, such as monetary and banking history of the United States, will be covered almost wholly by assigned reading.

Source: Harvard University, Division of History, Government, and Economics. Announcement for 1940-41. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), p. 56.

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 41. Professor Williams and Associate Professor Harris. — Money Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 107: 3 Graduates, 18 Seniors, 58 Juniors, 27 Sophomores, 1 Other.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1940-41,p. 58.

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Economics 41
[First semester]
1940-41

  1. The nature and function of banking
    1. Dunbar, Theory and History of Banking, Chs. 1,2,3,4, pp. 1-60.
    2. White, Money and Banking, Ch. 16, pp. 349-372.
  2. Creation of Deposits
    1. Phillips, Bank Credit, Ch. 3., pp. 32-77.
    2. Currie, Supply and Control of Money, Chs. 5, 6, 7, pp. pp. 46-83.
  3. Note Issue
    1. Dunbar, op. cit., Ch. 5, pp. 50-81.
    2. Currie, op. cit., Ch. 10, pp. 110-115.
  4. Commercial Loan Theory
    1. Robertson, Money, Ch. 5, pp. 92-117.
    2. Currie, op.  cit., Ch. 4, pp. 34-46.
  5. U.S. Banking history
    1. White, op. cit., Chs. 18-23, pp. 387-529.
  6. The Federal Reserve System
    1. Dunbar, op. cit., Ch. 6, pp. 81-139.
    2. Federal Reserve Bulletin, July 1935: “Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds,” pp. 419-428.
    3. Langum, “The Statement of Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds,” Review of Economic Statistics, August, 1939, pp. 110-115.
    4. Burgess, Federal Reserve Banks and the Money Market, pp. 1-327.
    5. Currie, op. cit., Chs. 8, 9, pp. 83-110.
  7. Recent Banking Changes
    1. White, op. cit., Chs. 29-30, pp. 670-738.
    2. Moulton, Financial Organization and the Economic System, Ch. 5 [or 6?].
  8. Foreign Banking Systems
    1. Dunbar, op. cit., pp. 139-235, Chs. 8, 9, 10.

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Box 2, Folder “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1940-41”.

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Reading Period
Jan. 6-15, 1941
Economics 41

Read one of the following:

  1. Hardy, Federal Reserve Policy.
  2. Hawtrey, Art of Central Banking, pp. 116-303.
  3. Keynes, Treatise on Money, Vol. II, Book VII.
  4. Sprague, Crises under the National Banking System.

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Box 10, Folder “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1940-41”.

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1940-41
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 41

MONEY, BANKING, AND COMMERCIAL CRISES

Please put the day and hour of your section meeting on the cover of your first blue book.

Part I

Answer questions 1 and 5 and one other.

  1. Supply and Use of Member Bank Reserve Funds.
    (Figures are net change for year, in millions of dollars.)
Bills discounted -4
Bills bought -1
U.S. government securities -305
Industrial advances -3
Other reserve bank credit +81
Monetary gold stock +4,310
Treasury currency +119
Money in circulation +1,154
Treasury cash and deposits -369
Non-member bank deposits and other Fed. Res. accounts +1,067
Member bank reserve balances ?
  1. State briefly how the above statement of supply and use of member bank reserves funds is derived.
  2. What is the meaning of each of the above items?
  3. Describe the process by which each of the items influences the volume of member bank reserve funds.
  4. By use of a balance sheet, calculate and explain the change in member bank reserve funds for the period in question.
  5. What does the statement suggest with respect to the condition of the money market, member bank policy, and Federal Reserve policy?
  6. To what year or years do you think the statement given might apply?
  1. Discuss the significance of the more important weapons of control of the central bank.
  2. What are the important factors determining the volume of bank deposits:
    1. When a ready market for loans exists and banks are always loaned up?
    2. When banks have excess reserves?
  3. Discuss the 100 per cent reserve plan:
    1. In its relation to the “commercial loan theory” controversy.
    2. In its relation to fluctuations in the volume of deposits.
  4. Reading period. Answer one of the following:
    1. Keynes or Hawtrey: From Keynes’ or Hawtrey’s analysis, would you say that English or American central banking practice provides the more effective monetary control? Support your opinion by reference to your reading.
    2. Hardy: Basing your opinion on Hardy’s discussion, would you say that the credit policies pursued by the Federal Reserve System from 1928 to 1931 were the best possible under the circumstances?
    3. Sprague: Do you find in Sprague’s analysis of crises under the National Banking System reasons for the abandonment of that system in favor of the Federal Reserve System in 1913?

 

Part II

Answer TWO questions.

  1. Discuss the problems of reserves of member banks and of reserve banks in the United States.
  2. Compare the American banking system as it existed under the first and second Bank of the United States with the National Banking System or with the present system. Which system do you think was better adapted to the problems with which it had to deal?
  3. In view of the large excess reserves in existence at the present time, and of other factors in the existing situation, would you favor a return to the currency provisions of the National Banking Act, and extension of similar reserve provisions to bank deposits?
  4. Outline the main revisions of the Federal Reserve Act from 1931 to 1936.
  5. What revisions of the existing banking law seem most essential in view of present and impending economic conditions?
  6. Describe the experiences of the Federal Reserve System in 1914-1921, or in 1922-1929.

Mid-Year. 1941.

 

Source: Duke University. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Economists’ Papers Archives. Wolfgang F. Stolper Papers, Box 22.

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ECONOMICS 41
Second Semester
1940-41

Outline of Lectures and Readings

Part I. International Aspects of Money (4 weeks)

Lecture

  1. Types of Monetary Standards
  2. Theory of the Gold Standard
  3. The Gold Standard in Practice.
  4. What is to Be Done about Gold?
  5. The Case for Variable exchanges.
  6. Prices under Variable Exchanges.
  7. Stabilisation Funds and Free Exchanges.
  8. Control of Exchanges.

Assignment:
Gayer, Monetary Policy and Economic Stabilisation, pp. 1-180.

Part II. Money in Relation to Prices and the Rate of Interest (4 weeks)

Lecture

  1. Definition of the Price Level.
  2. The Fisherian Approach.
  3. Velocity and Hoarding.
  4. Cambridge Approaches.
  5. Money and Forced Savings.
  6. Money and the Rate of Interest.
  7. Money and the Rate of Interest (cont.).
  8. The Significance of the Rate of Interest.

Assignment:
Chandler, Introduction to Monetary Theory, pp. 1-147.
Fisher, Purchasing Power of Money, pp. 8-73.
Keynes*, Treatise on Money, Vol. I, Chs. 2-5, 7, 14.
Mises*, Theory of Money and Credit, Part II, Ch. II.
Robertson, Money, chs. 1-3, 6-8.
Schumpeter*, Business Cycles, pp. 449-483.
Wicksell, Interest and Prices, Chs. 5-6, 7-9.

*Important but not assigned.

Part III. Money and the Economic System (4 weeks – 7 lectures)

Lecture

  1. Monetary and Non-Monetary Aspects of Economic Fluctuations.
  2. Objectives and Limitations of Monetary Control.
  3. Supplementary Instruments—Fiscal Policy.
  4. Supplementary Instruments—Fiscal Policy (cont.).
  5. Supplementary Policies—Wage, Price Policies, etc.
  6. The Monetary System under a War or Defense Economy.
  7. Various Proposals to Improve the Monetary System.

Assignment:
Chandler, Introduction to Monetary Theory, pp. 148-205.
Hayek, Profits, Interest and Investment, pp. 1-71.
Hawtrey*, Trade Depression and the Way Out.
Macfie*, Theories of the Trade Cycle, Chs. III-V.
Robbins, The Great Depression, Chs. I, II, III, VII, VIII.
Robertson, Essays on Monetary Theory, pp. 39-67, 98-113, 122-153.
Robinson, Introduction to the Theory of Employment.
Roll*, About Money, pp. 103-248.
Schumpeter, Business Cycles, pp. 109-23.

*Important but not assigned.

 

Reading Period. Read one of the following:

  1. Keynes, General Theory of Employment, Chs. 1-19, omit appendices.
  2. Hawtrey, Capital and Employment, all but Chs. 8, 9, 11.
  3. Hawtrey, Art of Central Banking, Chs. 1, 2, 4, 8.
  4. Durbin, The Problem of Credit Policy.
  5. Hansen, Full Recovery or Stagnation.
  6. Wicksell, Interest and Prices, and Keynes, Treatise, I, Chs. 2-5, 7, 14.
  7. Haberler, Prosperity and Depression (1939 ed.), Part I.
  8. Myers, Monetary Proposals for Social Reform.
  9. Wood, English Theories of Central Banking Control.
  10. Paper Pound of 1797-1821 (Cannan edition), and Heckscher, Sweden in the World War, Part III.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. HUC 8522.2.1. Box 2, Folder “Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1940-41”.

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1940-41
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 41

Answer ONE question in each part

Part I

  1. Outline and evaluate alternative solutions of the American gold problem.
  2. What are the relative merits of
    1. An international gold standard?
    2. Free exchanges?
    3. Managed currencies?

Part II

  1. Analyse the factors determining velocity of circulation of money.
  2. What are the main determinants of the general price level according to Fisher, Wicksell, Robertson, and Keynes? Are their approaches incompatible with one another? Which seems to you more valid or useful?

Part III

  1. Do you think the distinction between “monetary” and “non-monetary” theories of the trade cycle is justified, or useful? Illustrate from the literature.
  2. Apply the theories of Keynes or Robbins, or Robertson to the American Economy in one of the following periods:
    1. 1920’s
    2. 1930’s
    3. 1940’s
  3. Are we facing inflation? How can inflation be prevented or controlled?

Part IV (Reading Period)

  1. Show how the material you have covered in your reading period assignment can be applied to current economic problems.

Part V (First Semester)

  1. Discuss the 100% Reserve Plan in relation to the monetary theory of the trade cycle.
  2. Can you suggest any revisions of the Federal Reserve System which would simplify the problems of defense finance?
  3. Assuming borrowing to be a necessary part of our defense finance, analyse in detail the relative merits of borrowing from Federal Reserve Banks, member banks, the general public, and from abroad, at various stages in the defense program.

Final. 1941.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Harvard University Final Examinations 1853-2001. Box 14. Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions…, Economics, … , Military Science, Naval Science, May, 1947.

Image Source:  John Henry Williams and Seymour Edwin Harris in Harvard Album 1939.

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final Exams for International Economic Relations. Haberler and Harris, 1936-37

 

 

Reading lists for Harvard’s International Economic Relations two semester sequence for the academic year 1939-40 taught by Gottfried Haberler, Seymour Harris, and Wassily Leontief have been transcribed and posted earlier.  For the 1936-37 course I have only found the reading period assignments and the final exams for both semesters. 

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 43a 1hf. (formerly 9a). Associate Professors Haberler and Harris, and other members of the department.—International Economic Relations, I. Theory of International Trade.

Total 70: 4 Graduates, 48 Seniors, 11 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 4 Others.

 

[Economics] 43b2hf. (formerly 9a). Associate Professors Haberler and Harris, and other members of the department.—International Economic Relations, II. Commercial Policy.

Total 62: 5 Graduates, 45 Seniors, 5 Juniors, 3 Sophomores, 4 Others.

 

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College, 1936-37, p. 92.

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Reading Period First Semester
Economics 43a

Read one from each group:

  1. Marshall, Money, Credit and Commerce, pp. 98-190.
    Ohlin, Interregional and International Trade, pp. 1-138.
  2. Graham, Exchanges, Prices and Production in Hyper-Inflation Germany, pp. 97-238.

Reading Period Second Semester
Economics 43b

Read one of the following:

  1. Rope, German Commercial Policy
  2. Iverson, International Capital Movements, pp. 1-301 and pp. 454-512.
  3. World Trade Barriers in Relation to Agriculture
  4. a. Haight, French Import Quotas and
    b. Beverage, Tariffs, the Case Examined Chs. 1 thru 10.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003. HUC 8522.2.1) Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1936-37”.

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1936-37
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 43a

Answer one question from Group I, one question from Group II, and two questions from Group III.

Group I

  1. What use does Marshall make of the relation of demand and supply in international trade?
  2. What is the difference, if any, between Ohlin’s and the Classical approach?

Group II

  1. What is the meaning of the “comparative cost doctrine” if there are not two, but many export and import goods
    1. with constant cost in all industries
    2. with increasing cost in all industries
    3. in terms of opportunity cost?
  2. The market condition of demand, supply, price and quantity for a particular commodity in two countries A and B is given by this diagram.

    1. Suppose trade is opened between the two countries. What will be the influence on the price, quantities produced and consumed in both countries and how much will be exported from A to B, assuming that there is no transportation cost involved.
      Answer in words and show graphically.
    2. After trade has been opened, a duty is imposed in B whose height (on this diagram) is measured by a vertical distance of, say, one half inch. What will be its influence on prices and quantities produced, consumed and traded between A and B?
      Answer in words and sketch graphically.

Group III

  1. Assume you calculate the balance of international payments for a country during a particular year. The result is the following:
Net debits Net credits
Merchandise and Services 200
Tourist expenditures 100
Long-term capital 100
Short-term capital 200
Interest, Dividends 150
Gold movements 50 ….
Total 450 350

a) Enumerate a few possible explanations of the discrepancy between credits and debits.
b) In a recent book by J. E. Meade, Economic Analysis and Policy, you find the following statement: “If all the items in the Balance of Payments are properly and completely recorded, the total of all the items on the receipt side must be equal to the total of all the items on the payments side; the Balance of Payments must balance” (p. 216). Give your comments on this statement.
c) How can the above statement be reconciled with the statement frequently found that “the balance of payment is in disequilibrium?”

  1. Discuss the effects of exchange depreciation upon prices.
  2. Is the breakdown of the gold standard to be associated primarily with internal developments or with such external factors as large capital movements? Discuss.

Mid-Year.  1937.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers (HUC 7000.28 vol. 79). Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. January-June, 1937.

 

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1936-37
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 43b

Answer THREE of the first five questions, and ONE of the questions 6 to 9.

  1. When did the United States adopt the principle of the unconditional most-favored-nation treatment? Discuss the comparative advantages and disadvantages of the conditional and unconditional most-favored-nation clause.
  2. Discuss the differences and similarities between quotas and duties and the comparative merits of the two systems as methods for the restriction of imports and protection of home industries.
  3. Suppose an industry subject to decreasing cost; if production could be increased, costs per unit of output would fall. Production can, however, not be increased, because of foreign competition. Discuss whether and when in such circumstances an import duty can be justified on economic grounds.
  4. Discuss the mechanism of capital movements or reparation payments under a gold and under a paper standard. How do you account for wide difference of opinion among authorities concerning the practicability of large transfers of capital or reparations? Have recent discussions added anything new to the theory of capital movements? In answering, relate your discussion as much as possible to a concrete experience.
  5. Comment on one of the following:
    1. The international position of the United States in the thirties;
    2. The international position of Great Britain in the thirties;
    3. The international position of Great Britain at the end of the nineteenth century.In giving your answer, make some practical suggestions for attaining international equilibrium.
  6. Discuss (1) Germany’s recent commercial policies or (2) the operation and effects of clearing agreements.
  7. Can protection mitigate unemployment? (Beveridge.)
  8. Discuss briefly Iverson’s criticism of the classical approach towards capital movements, and comment on Iverson’s own contributions.
  9. What has the effect of trade barriers been upon trade in agricultural commodities and upon prices of these commodities? Relate your answers to the policies of one country.

Final. 1937.

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Harvard University. Examination Papers (HUC 7000.28 vol. 79). Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions, …, Economics, …, Military Science, Naval Science. January-June, 1937.

Image Source:  Harvard Class Album 1942.

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Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Year-end exams. Money, Banking, Commercial Crises. Young, 1921-27

 

Today’s artifacts come from the roaring ’20s. Besides his courses in economic theory, Allyn A. Young taught a year long course at Harvard, “Money, Banking and Commercial Crises”. Before presenting enrollment figures and the exams for Young’s Economics 3, I have assembled a chronology that identifies the course instructors over the entire period 1911-1946. Links are provided to the related artifacts that have been transcribed here at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. 

The chronology is followed by Young’s course description for 1924-25. Presumably there was a mid-year exam for the course, but these were not included in the printed collection of final course examinations. It is possible that the questions have been limited to the second-semester’s course content. This is something that definitely deserves checking.

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Chronology of the Harvard economics course
“Money, Banking and Commercial Crises”

This two semester course was the product of merging the one semester course “Commercial Crises and Cycles of Trade” (Economics 12) with the two semester sequence “Money” and “Banking and Foreign Exchange” (Economics 8a and 8b, respectively).

The new course “Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises” (Economics 8, then 3, and later 41) was a staple of economics course offerings for the next 35 years.

Economics 8

1911-12 taught by E.E. Day

Economics 3

1912-13, 1913-14 taught by E.E. Day.

Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises (1914-15) taught by Benjamin M. Anderson.

1915-16 taught by Norman John Silberling

Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises (1917-18) taught by Benjamin M. Anderson.

1918-19, 1919-20 taught by A. E. Monroe.

1920-21 through 1926-27 taught by Allyn A. Young. Year-end exams transcribed below.

1927-28 through 1931-32 taught by John H. Williams

1932-33 taught by John H. Williams, Joseph Schumpeter and Lauchlin Currie.

1933-34 [course title: Money, Banking, and Cycles] Seymour Harris

1934-35, 1935-36 taught by John H. Williams and Seymour Harris

Economics 41

1936-37  taught by John H. Williams and Seymour Harris

Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises (1937-38) John H. Williams and Richard V. Gilbert.

1938-39 to 1941-42 taught by John H. Williams and Seymour Harris

1942-43, 1943-44 taught by Alvin Hansen and John H. Williams

1944-45 first semester taught by Schumpeter, second semester by Hansen and Williams

1945-46 Economics 41 morphed back into a two semester course “Money and Banking” taught by John H. Williams with a new one term course “Business Cycles” taught by Alvin Hansen.

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Course Description, 1924-25

[Economics] 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises. Mon., Wed., Fri., at 2. Professor Young.

In this course money and credit will be studied with special reference to the part they play in the present economic system. The principal problems of public policy with respect to the control of money and banking will be discussed. Foreign exchange, organized speculation in its relation to the money market, and the characteristic phenomena of commercial crises will be considered in some detail. The course will be conducted by means of lectures, discussions, frequent short reports or exercises on assigned topics, and (in the second half-year) a thesis based on work in the library. Certain subjects, such as the monetary and banking history of the United States, will be covered almost wholly by assigned reading, tested by written papers.

Source:  Division of History, Government and Economics 1924-25 published in Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. 21, No. 22 (April 30, 1924), p. 67.

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Enrollment, 1920-21

[Economics] 3. Professor Young —Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 148: 6 Graduates, 34 Seniors, 67 Juniors, 26 Sophomores, 3 Freshmen, 30 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1920-21, p. 19.

 

Year-end examination, 1920-21
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

  1. What is a dollar?
  2. In what manner and why were bank reserves inelastic under the national banking system? What were the consequences?
  3. Discuss the relation of overproduction to crises, distinguishing carefully different types of overproduction.
  4. Outline the sequence of events in a typical business cycle.
  5. Define: federal reserve bank note, gold-exchange standard, “value of money.”
  6. In what different ways may federal reserve notes be issued?
  7. Explain and discuss the “equation of exchange.”
  8. Describe and explain the dominating position the London money market held before the war.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1921 (HUC 7000.28, No. 63), Papers Set for Final Examinations [in] History, Church History,…,Economics,…, Fine Arts, Music. June, 1921, p. 56.

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Course announcement, 1921-22

[Economics] 3. Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises

Mon., Wed., Fri., at 1.30. Professor Young.

Source:  Harvard University, Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year, 1921-22 (Third Edition),p. 109.


Year-end examination, 1921-22
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

  1. Draw up a statement showing the condition of a national bank. Explain the meaning of the various items.
  2. Under what conditions is a large surplus an indication of a bank’s strength? How may it be an indication of weakness?
  3. To what classes of persons are rising prices advantageous? To what classes are they disadvantageous?
  4. Define: gold exchange standard, banker’s acceptance, finance bill, bimetallism, index number.
  5. What do you take to have been the causes of the fall of prices between 1874 and 1896?
  6. Why were “surplus reserves” under the national banking system normally exceedingly small?
  7. State and explain the Ricardian theory of gold movements. Are the recent movements of gold from Europe to the United States explainable by the Ricardian principle?
  8. What relation was there between the Bank Act of 1844 and the controversies of the restriction period?
  9. If the weight of the gold dollar were reduced by half would prices be doubled? Explain your reasoning.
  10. “The bulk of the acceptance business arising out of the foreign trade of the entire world has for many years been conducted in London.” Explain what this statement means and why it is true.

Final. 1922

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1922 (HUC 7000.28, No. 64), Papers Set for Final Examinations[in] History, Church History,…,Economics,…, Social Ethics, Education. June, 1922.

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Enrollment, 1922-23

[Economics] 3. Professor Young—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 129: 6 Graduates, 33 Seniors, 75 Juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 3 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1922-23, p. 92.


Year-end examination, 1922-23
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

  1. Define: money of account, standard of deferred payments, inflation, gold-exchange standard, discounting.
  2. Give an account of the life-history of a typical commercial long bill of exchange, as used in international trade.
  3. Discuss the nature and significance of the par of exchange between two countries when one has a gold standard and the other has (a) a gold standard, (b) a silver standard, (c) inconvertible paper.
  4. Is New York City likely to become the center of the world’s foreign exchange markets? Discuss.
  5. In what ways are federal reserve notes and clearing-house loan certificates alike? In what ways are they unlike?
  6. Professor W. C. Mitchell holds that prosperity breeds a crisis because of (a) the gradual increase in the costs of doing business, and (b) the accumulating tension of the investment and money markets. Explain and discuss.
  7. Was the federal reserve system responsible for the rise of prices between 1917 and 1920 and for the subsequent drop? Discuss.
  8. In what ways do the federal reserve banks effect (a) regional and (b) national clearings?
  9. On what grounds is it generally held that a larger use of bank acceptances in this country is desirable?

Final. 1923.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1923 (HUC 7000.28, No. 65), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions,…,Economics,…, Social Ethics, Anthropology. June, 1923.

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Enrollment, 1923-24

[Economics] 3. Professor Young—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 119: 2 Graduates, 25 Seniors, 81 Juniors, 5 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 5 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1923-24, p. 106.

 

Year-end examination, 1923-24
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

Answer nine questions.

  1. Explain the first and either the second or the third of these theories of the business cycle: (1) the “banking theory”; (2) Hobson’s theory of over-saving; (3) Fisher’s theory of the lagging adjustment of interest.
  2. “It thus appears that the Bank of England’s official rate is often through long periods a mere empty symbol, leaving no actual relation to the real price of money in London; and only becomes effective, and a factor in the monetary position when…” When?
  3. Draw up a statement showing the principal items which enter into the balance of payments.
  4. What conditions must be fulfilled if New York is to become the center of the world’s foreign exchange markets?
  5. State and discuss the doctrine of purchasing-power parity.
  6. Discuss the open-market operations of the federal reserve banks, with special reference to (a) the provisions of the law, (b) the purposes of such operations, (c) their relation to possible changes in prevalent types of commercial paper.
  7. Why did national bank notes constitute an inelastic currency? in just what manner do federal reserve notes constitute an elastic currency?
  8. Discuss the effect of organized speculation on prices, taking account of the fact that different types of price variations cover different periods of time.
  9. G. Moulton lists as “fallacies,” (1) the notion that a nation’s capacity to pay a foreign debt (such as reparations) is measured by the excess of its annual production over its annual consumption, and (2) the notion that a country can pay such a debt by selling securities to other countries. Do you agree? Explain.
  10. “In the main, banks do not lend their deposits, but rather, by their own extensions of credit, create the deposits.” Explain.

Final. 1924.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1924 (HUC 7000.28, No. 66), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions,…, Economics,…, Psychology, Social Ethics. June, 1924.

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Enrollment, 1924-25

[Economics] 3. Professor Young—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 111: 1 Graduate, 22 Seniors, 72 Juniors, 12 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 3 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1924-25, p. 75.

 

Year-end examination, 1924-25
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

Answer eight questions.

  1. Some writers hold that business cycles are caused by the expansion and contraction of bank credit. Why and how, in their view, does bank credit expand and contract?
  2. “A country can pay a foreign debt only by exporting more than it imports.” Explain and discuss critically.
  3. What was the major defect of the old national banking system?
  4. Define: rediscount, trust company, par collections, gold standard, purchasing power parity.
  5. “The Bank of England has power to exert a decisive influence over the magnitude of the gold movements to and from England.”—Furniss.
  6. What are the distinguishing characteristics (economic or legal, not physical characteristics) of the following types of money: silver dollars, United States notes, national bank notes, federal reserve notes?
  7. What are the prerequisites to the stabilizing of a depreciated paper currency?
  8. In what measure was the federal reserve system responsible for the rapid rise of prices in 1919 and 1920 and for the subsequent collapse?
  9. The federal reserve banks hold nearly $3,000,000,000 in gold, amounting to about 75 per cent of their liability on account of deposits and note issues combined, and constituting a large idle investment. Under what conditions would a considerable part of this gold be exported to other countries?

Final. 1925.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1925 (HUC 7000.28, No. 67), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History of Science, History, …, Economics,…, Anthropology, Military Science. June, 1925.

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Enrollment, 1925-26

[Economics] 3. Professor Young—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 110: 31 Seniors, 64 Juniors, 8 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 6 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1925-26, p. 77.

 

Year-end examination, 1925-26
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

Answer eight questions.

  1. Define deposits, discount, monetary standard, bimetallism.
  2. Formulate the “quantity theory” in any way that you prefer, and discuss it critically.
  3. A Brazilian firm draws a 90-day bill upon a London banker on account of a shipment of coffee to Boston.

(1) Why should the London bill be preferred to a bill upon New York or Boston?
(2) What is done with the bill after it reaches London?
(3) How is the bill finally settled?

  1. Some writers hold that when a government issues inconvertible paper money it obtains what is virtually a “forced loan.” Others hold that such an issue is more like taxation. What is your opinion, and why?
  2. Give an account of one of the following:

The socialist theory of crises.
Hobson’s theory of over-saving.
The “banking theory” of crises.

  1. Explain briefly the meaning of any two of the following phrases:

Par-collections controversy.
Open market policy.
Gold settlement fund.
Rediscounting

  1. Compare the Bank of England and either the Bank of France or the Reichsbank with respect to

(a) restrictions on note issue;
(b) discount policy.

  1. Was the federal reserve system responsible for the inflation of 1919-20 and the ensuing collapse? Explain.
  2. Just why, in your opinion, did the mark (or the franc, or the greenback) depreciate?

Final. 1926.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1926 (HUC 7000.28, No. 68), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics,…, Social Ethics, Military Science. June, 1926.

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Enrollment, 1926-27

[Economics] 3. Professor Young and Mr. Marget.—Money, Banking, and Commercial Crises.

Total 125: 2 Graduates, 27 Seniors, 74 Juniors, 14 Sophomores, 2 Freshmen, 6 Others.

Source:  Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College 1926-27, p. 74.

 

Year-end examination, 1926-27
HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 3

Answer eight questions.

  1. Explain and discuss critically some form of the “banking” or “credit” theory of business cycles.
  2. “If prices are rising” Hawtrey observes, “the mere holding of commodities in stock yields an additional profit over and above the usual dealer’s percentage on the turn-over. If traders are to be deterred from borrowing money to buy commodities, the rate of discount must be high enough to offset the additional profit. But, it may be asked, how is this possible when prices are rising at the rate of 30 per cent per annum?” Hawtrey’s answer? Your own?
  3. Discuss critically either (a) Fisher’s proposals for stabilizing the price level, or (b) proposals for attaining the same end by controlling the supply of bank credit.
  4. Select two of the following and discuss their significance as “causes” of the depreciation of inconvertible paper money: (1) excessive quantity; (2) ultimate redemption uncertain; (3) unbalanced budget; (4) adverse balance of foreign payments; (5) speculation.
  5. Define: rediscounts, purchasing-power parity, invisible exports, monetary standard, par collections.
  6. Compare the note-issue system of the Bank of England (as established by the Act of 1844) with the note-issue system of the federal reserve banks, with particular reference to (a) separation of “banking” and “issue” departments, and (b) the type of assets by which the notes are “covered.”
  7. In what way or ways do purchases and sales of government securities in the New York money market by the federal reserve banks affect the state of that market?
  8. If you were Dictator of France, and took account of considerations of justice as well as of expediency, would you plan to stabilize the franc at its present (gold) value? Or would you plan for a gradual recovery of its pre-war value? Why?
  9. Discuss the relation of international gold movements to changes of (a) relative price levels, (b) relative discount rates.

Final. 1927.

 

Source:  Harvard University Archives. Examination Papers 1927 (HUC 7000.28, No. 69), Papers Printed for Final Examinations [in] History, History of Religions, …, Economics,…, Social Ethics, Military Science. June, 1927.

Image Source: Allyn Young in Harvard Classbook 1925.

 

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard

Harvard. Final exam for Economic Aspects of War, Harris et al., 1940

 

I just noticed that I have a copy of the final examination for the course “Economic Aspects of War” that I can now pair with the course outline and reading assignments that have been transcribed and posted earlier.   Seymour Harris organized the course that featured lectures of many other members of the Harvard economics faculty. 

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1939-1940
HARVARD UNIVERSITY

ECONOMICS 18b2

Answer Question 1 and four others.

  1. (One hour) Discuss war economics in its (1) real aspects on the one hand and (2) in its monetary and financial aspects on the other; and make clear the inter-relationships of (1) and (2). Illustrate briefly from World War I or II.
  2. On what principles does the State fix prices in war times? Be sure to state the objectives; and comment on experiences in World War I.
  3. Why have wars regularly produced price inflations? What monetary changes usually accompany such price movements? What monetary measures could be implemented to prevent price inflation under war conditions and what are their limitations?
  4. Exchange depreciation and exchange control with a view to maintaining exchanges above the “free” level are alternative policies in war times. Great Britain seems to have had recourse to the latter in World War I and to both depreciation and control in World War II. Explain the choice of policies. Criticise them.
  5. Taking account of the broad facts about the principal sources from which income is derived at various levels (consider not more than 3 or 4 levels) and the size distribution of income, indicate some of the probable effects of war upon the size distribution.
  6. Discuss what you consider a significant problem in the post-war economy, and attempt to show the relation of this problem to post-war economic conditions in general. It would be well to illustrate by reference to one of the following: Napoleonic War, World War I or (in anticipation) World War II.

Final. 1940.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Final Examinations, 1853-2001. (HUC7000.28), Box 5, Papers Printed for Final Examinations: History, History of Religions,…, Economics,…,Military Science, Naval Science. June, 1940.

Image Source: Seymour E. Harris from Harvard Class Album 1942.

Categories
Harvard Seminar Speakers

Harvard. International Economic Relations Seminar. Haberler and Harris, 1940-45

 

The most famous economics seminar at Harvard University in the history of economics is undoubtedly the fiscal policy seminar run by John Williams and Alvin Hansen. A list of that seminar’s speakers and their topics was included in an earlier post. Below I provide the reported speaker’s and topics for the “younger” international economic relations seminar jointly organized by Gottfried Haberler and Seymour Harris during the War years.

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EXPANSION OF THE SEMINAR PROGRAM

Several additions have been made in the seminar program of the School [of Public Administration] for the year 1940-1941. Professors Haberler and Harris are presenting a seminar on international economic relations. We planned our seminar program in 1937 on the assumption that it was wise to begin with domestic problems despite the fact that a number of the Faculty had special interests in the international field. In view of the events of the last few years, it seems highly important to develop these interests. The seminar given by Professors Haberler and Harris deals with the application of the principles of international trade to current problems…

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1939-40, p. 306.

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1940-41
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
[partial list]

[Seven of the meetings of the Fiscal Policy Seminar were held jointly with other seminars – four with the International Economic Relations Seminar and three with the Agricultural, Forestry, and Land Policy Seminar.]

 

October 11. SVEND LAURSEN, Student, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University.

Subject: International Trade and the Multiplier. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy Seminar.)

February 21. HARRY D. WHITE, Director, Division of Monetary Research, United States Treasury Department.

Subject: Blocked Balances. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy Seminar.)

March 21. RICHARD V. GILBERT, National Defense Advisory Commission.

Subject: The American Defense Program. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy Seminar.)

May 2. GUSTAV STOLPER, Financial Adviser.

Subject: Financing the American Defense Program. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy Seminar.)

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1940-41, p. 323 ff.

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INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR:
1941-1942. Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Harris

In 1941-42 the seminar devoted its attention to war and post-war problems in the field of International Economic Relations. A few meetings were spent on the discussion of fundamental theoretical problems. During the first semester all meetings were taken up by papers of outside consultants and their discussion. In the second semester student reports were presented and discussed, and a few extra meetings were arranged for outside speakers. The consultants and their topics were as follows:

 

October 1. EUGENE STALEY, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Economic Warfare.

October 8.[**] CHARLES P. KINDLEBERGER, Federal Reserve Board. Canadian-American Economic Relations in the War and Post-War Period.

October 15.[**] A. F. W. PLUMPTRE, University of Toronto. International Economic Position of Canada in the Present Emergency.

October 22. HEINRICH HEUSER, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Exchange Control.

October 29. FRITZ MACHLUP, University of Buffalo. The Foreign Trade Multiplier.

November 5. HENRY CHALMERS, United States Department of Commerce. Trade Restrictions in Wartime.

November 12. ARTHUR R. UPGREN, United States Department of Commerce. International Economic Interest of the United States and the Post-War Situation.

November 19. OSKAR MORGENSTERN, Princeton University. International Aspects of the Business Cycle.

November 28.[*] NOEL F. HALL, British Embassy. Economic Warfare.

December 5.[*] ROBERT BRYCE, Department of Finance, Canada. International Economic Relations with Special Reference to the Post-War Situation.

January 26.[*] PER JACOBSSEN, Bank for International Settlements. The Problem of Post-War Reconstruction.

February 13.[*] JACOB VINER, University of Chicago. Monopolistic Trading and International Relations.

February 18. H. D. FONG, Director, Nankai Institute of Economics, Chungking, China. Industrialization of China.

February 25. MICHAEL HEILPERIN, Hamilton College. International Aspects of the Present and Future Economic Situation.

March 11. JACOB MARSCHAK, New School for Social Research. The Theory of International Disequilibria.

March 14.[*] RICHARD M. BISSELL, JR., Yale University and the United States Department of Commerce. Post-War Domestic and International Investment.

March 18. ANTONIN BASCH, Brown University. International Economic Problems of Central and Southeastern Europe.

March 20.[*] ALBERT G. HART, University of Iowa. The Present Fiscal Situation.

April 10. ABBA P. LERNER, University of Kansas City. Post-War Problems.

May 8. HORST MENDERSHAUSEN, Bennington College. International Trade and Trade Policy in the Post-War Period.

 

Six of these were joint meetings with the Fiscal Policy Seminar [*] and two were joint meetings with the Government Control of Industry Seminar[**].

Student reports were presented on the following subjects:

Argentine International Trade.
Exchange Control in Argentina.
Some Aspects of Sino-Japanese Trade.
International Effects of Price Ceilings.
Location Theory and the Reconstruction of World Trade.
Some Post-War Politico-Economic Problems of the Western Hemisphere.
Economic Problems and Possibilities of a Pan Europe, Pan America and Similar Schemes.
The Balance of Payments of China.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1941-42, pp. 344-346.

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INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
1942-43. Professor Haberler

A larger portion of the time of the seminar than usual was devoted to the discussion of fundamental principles of international trade and finance. This was due to the fact that the graduate course on international trade (Economics 143) was not offered, and the seminar had to take over to some extent the functions of the graduate course.

There were eleven meetings with outside consultants, of which eight were joint meetings with the Fiscal Policy seminar. The smaller number of students made it advisable to combine the two seminars more frequently than usual. The consultants and the topics discussed with them were as follows:

 

November 13. Professor FRITZ MACHLUP, University of Buffalo. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: National Income, Employment and International Relations; the Foreign Multiplier.

November 18. Dr. THEODORE KREPS, Economic Adviser, Board of Economic Warfare, Office of Imports.

Subject: Some Problems of Economic Warfare.

November 27. Hon. GRAHAM F. TOWERS, Governor, Bank of Canada. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Canadian War Economic Measures.

December 4. LYNN R. EDMINSTER, Vice-Chairman, U. S. Tariff Commission. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Post-War Reconstruction of International Trade.

December 11. Professor SEYMOUR E. HARRIS, Director, Office of Export-Import Price Control, Office of Price Administration. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Trade Policy in Wartimes.

February 12. THOMAS MCKITTRICK, President, Bank for International Settlements. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: The Bank for International Settlements.

February 24. Dr. LEO PASVOLSKY, State Department. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Post-War Problems in International Trade.

March 3. P. T. ELLSWORTH, War Trade Staff, Board of Economic Warfare.

Subject: The Administration of Export Control.

April 12. EMILE DESPRES, Office of Strategic Services, Washington, D. C. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: The Transfer Problem and the Over-Saving Problem in the Pre-War and Post-War Worlds.

April 16. Dr. ALBERT HAHN. (Joint meeting with Fiscal Policy seminar.)

Subject: Planned or Adjusted Post-War Economy.

April 20. Dr. ALEXANDER LOVEDAY, League of Nations.

Subject: European Post-War Reconstruction.

 

Student reports were presented on the following subjects among others: practice and theory of an international bank; post-war industrialization of China; coordination of fiscal policy in different countries; international position of the Brazilian economy; international commodity agreements; international implications for fiscal policy; British exchange equalization account; and Argentine exchange control.

Twelve students were enrolled in the seminar of which four were Littauer fellows, seven graduate students from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and one from the College.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1942-43, pp. 246-247.

 

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INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
1943-44. Associate Professor Harris

A new approach was tried in the International Economic Relations Seminar this year. We paid particular attention to the international economic problems of Latin America and especially to the problems raised by the great demand for Latin American products for war, the expansion of exports and of money, and the resulting inflation. Attention was also given to the transitional problems in the postwar period, particularly to the adjustments that will be required in exports, imports, capital movements, exchange rates, and the allocation of economic factors. In the course of the year leading government authorities on Latin American economic problems were invited to address meetings of the seminar, which were frequently joint meetings with the Fiscal Policy Seminar or the students of the graduate course in international organization.

The schedule of meetings for 1943-44 was as follows:

 

November 12. Professor HARRIS.

Subject: Inflation in Latin America.

December 9. Dr. CORWIN EDWARDS, Chairman, Policy Board of the Anti-Trust Division of the Department of Justice and Chief of Staff of the Presidential Cooke Commission to Brazil.

Subject: Brazilian Economy.

December 17. Dr. HARRY WHITE, Director of Monetary Research, Treasury Department.

Subject: Problems of International Monetary Stabilization.

January 6. Professor HARRIS.

Subject: International Economic Problems of the War and Postwar Period.

January 10. Professor HABERLER.

Subject: Reparations.

January 14. Dr. N. NESS, Member, Mexican-U. S. Economic Commission.

Subject: Mexico.

January 17. Dr. BEARDSLEY RUML, Chairman, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Subject: Economic Budget and Fiscal Budget.

January 21. Dr. P. T. ELLSWORTH, Economic Studies Division, Department of State.

Subject: Chile.

January 24. Dr. DON HUMPHREY, Special Advisor on Price Control to Haitian Government; Chief, Price Section, O.P.A.

Subject: Haiti.

January 31. Dr. ROBERT TRIFFIN, Member, U. S. Economic Commission to Paraguay.

Subject: Money, Banking, and Foreign Exchanges in Latin America.

February 4. Dr. MIRON BURGIN, Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.

Subject: Argentina.

February 9. Dr. FRANK WARING, Director, Research Division, Office of Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs.

Subject: Broad Aspects of Latin-American Economics.

February 10. Dr. BEN LEWIS, Head of Price Control Mission to Colombia, Special Assistant to the Price Administrator.

Subject: Colombia.

March 9. Dr. HENRY CHALMERS, Department of Commerce.

Subject: Inter-American Trade Practices.

March 31. Mr. HENRY WALLICH.

Subject: Fiscal Policy and International Equilibrium.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1943-44, pp. 271-2.

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INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Harris

The seminar meetings in the year 1944-1945 may be arranged under the following headings:

  1. Exchanges, Controls, and International Trade (8 meetings)
  2. Regional Problems (8 meetings).
  3. Regional and International Aspects of Domestic Problems (8 meetings).
  4. Lectures and Discussions on International Trade by Professors Haberler and Harris (8 meetings).

Four of the papers presented at these meetings were subsequently published in economic journals.

The schedule of meetings for 1944-1945 was as follows:

November 16. Dr. RANDALL HINSHAW, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: American Prosperity and the British Balance-of-Payments Problem. (Published in the Review of Economic Statistics, February 1945.)

December 11. EDWARD M. BERNSTEIN, Assistant Director, Division of Monetary Research, Treasury Department.

Subject: The Scarcity of Dollars. (Published in The Journal of Political Economy, March 1945.)

December 15. Dr. FRANCIS MCINTYRE, Representative of the Foreign Economic Exchange on Requirements Board of the War Production Board.

Subject: International Distribution of Supplies in Wartime.

December 21. Dr. ALEXANDER GERSCHENKRON, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: Some Problems of the Economic Collaboration with Russia.

January 11. Dr. WOLFGANG STOLPER, Swarthmore College.

Subject: British Balance-of-Payments Problem After World War I.

January 22. Dr. WALTER GARDNER, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: Some Aspects of the Bretton Woods Program.

January 26. Dr. WILLIAM FELLNER, University of California.

Subject: Types of Expansionary Policies and the Rate of Interest.

January 29. Professor WALTER F. BOGNER, Dr. CHARLES R. CHERINGTON, Professors CARL J. FRIEDRICH, SEYMOUR E. HARRIS, TALCOTT PARSONS, ALFRED D. SIMPSON, and Mr. GEORGE B. WALKER.

Subject: The Boston Urban Development Plan.

March 5. Dr. ROBERT TRIFFIN, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: International Economic Problems of South America.

March 19. Dr. LOUIS RASMINSKY, Foreign Exchange Control Board, Ottawa, Canada.

Subject: British-American Trade Problems from the Canadian Point of View. (Published in the British Economic Journal, September I945.)

March 22. Dr. ROBERT A. GORDON, War Production Board.

Subject: International Raw Materials Control: War and Postwar.

March 26. Dr. HERBERT FURTH, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: Monetary and Financial Problems in the Liberated Countries.

April 2. Dr. LLOYD METZLER, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: Postwar Economic Policies of the United Kingdom. (An article based on this paper and written in collaboration with Dr. RANDALL HINSHAW was published in The Review of Economic Statistics, November 1945.)

April 16. Professor EDWARD S. MASON, State Department, Washington.

Subject: Commodity Agreements.

April 23. Dr. ABBA P. LERNER, New School for Social Research, N. Y.

Subject: Postwar Policies.

April 27. Professor JOHN VAN SICKLE, Vanderbilt University.

Subject: Wages and Employment: A Regional Approach.

May 14. Dr. E. M. H. LLOYD, United Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, British Treasury.

Subject: Inflation in Europe.

May 28. Professor LEON DUPRIEZ, University of Louvain, Belgium.

Subject: Problem of Full Employment in View of Recent European Experience.

May 29. Professor SEYMOUR E. HARRIS, Professor WASSILY W. LEONTIEF, Professor GOTTFRIED HABERLER, Professor ALVIN H. HANSEN.

Subject: The Shorter Work Week and Full Employment.

 

Source:   Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1944-45, pp. 285-6.

 

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. International Trade and Commercial Policy. Haberler, Harris, Leontief 1940

 

Of the fields with a deep bench at Harvard in the immediate pre-WWII era, international trade could boast three faculty members and two post-docs of great distinction: Gottfried Haberler, Wassily Leontief, Seymour Harris; and Wolfgang Stolper and Heinrich (a.k.a. “Henry”) Heuser. This post has the course outlines with assigned readings for both the trade theory and commercial policy semesters and the final examination questions for commercial policy. 

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Henry Heuser from AEA List of Members 1948

HEUSER, HENRY KARL-MARIA, 1747 F St., N.W., Washington, D.C. (1942) Int. Monetary Fund, econ., res., govt serv.; b. 1911; B.A., 1932, McGill; M.A., 1933, Ecole des Science Economiques et Politiques (Paris); Ph.D., 1938, Univ. of London. Fields 10, 1a, 7. Doc. dis.  Economics of exchange control. Pub. Control of international trade (Rutledge, London, 1938; Blakiston, Philadephia, 1939).

Source:  Alphabetical List of Members (as of June 15, 1948) in the 1948 Directory of the American Economic Association (Jan., 1949). American Economic Review, Vol. 39, No. 1.p. 85.

 

Obituary for Henry Heuser (1911-95) from the Washington Post
April 21, 1995

Henry K. Heuser, 83, an economist who retired in the early 1970s from the Agency for International Development, died of cancer April 18 at the Washington Hospice.

Mr. Heuser was born in Berlin. In the mid-1920s, he immigrated to Canada. He graduated from McGill University and also studied at Ecole des Sciences Economiques in Paris and at the London School of Economics, where he received a doctorate.

In the late 1930s, he taught economics and international trade at the University of Minnesota, Harvard University and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He was author of a book, “Control of International Trade,” which was published in 1939.

During World War II, he was an intelligence officer with the Office of Strategic Services, then after the war he worked in Paris on the Marshall Plan for the economic rehabilitation of postwar Europe.

In the late 1940s, he worked for the Federal Reserve and the International Monetary Fund, then joined U.S. foreign assistance programs. He served in Italy, Korea, Tunisia, Libya, Sudan and the Ivory Coast.

On retiring from AID, Mr. Heuser lived in the Tuscany region of Italy, where he restored a 16th-century monastery and grew grapes for Chianti wine. He returned to Washington about 1987.

Survivors include his wife of 48 years, Maria Heuser of Washington; five children, Chilla Heuser-Rousselle of Paris, Alice Heuser of Potomac, Stephen Heuser of London, Tayo Heuser Shore of Narragansett, R.I., and Michael Heuser of Beverly Hills, Calif.; and 13 grandchildren. MARK LEE PATTEN Carpenter

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Course Enrollment
1940-41

[Economics] 43a 1hf. Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Leontief.—International Economic Relations, I. Theory of International Trade.

Total 22: 1 Graduate, 13 Seniors, 3 Juniors, 2 Sophomores, 3 Others.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1940-41, p. 63.

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Course Description
1940-41

Economics 43a 1hf. International Economic Relations, I. Theory of International Trade. Half-course (first half-year). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructors) Fri., at 9. Professor Haberler and Dr. Stolper.

The course will deal with the following subjects: Monetary problems of international trade; the pure theory of international trade.

 

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics Containing an Announcement for 1940-41. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), p. 56.

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Economics 43a
International Trade and Commercial Relations
[1939-40]

During the first half of the term the monetary problems of International Trade will be discussed in the following order:

The theory and measurement of the balance of payments
Gold Standard
Paper standard and purchasing power parity theory
Exchange Depreciation
The transfer problem and capital movements
The present gold problem
Problems of exchange control

Assignments of the first six weeks:

Haberler, Theory of International Trade, pp. 1-117.
Whale, International Trade, Chs. 17-19, 21-23
Department of Commerce, The Balance of International Indebtedness of the United States for 1938.
Graham and Whittlesey, “The Gold Problem,” Foreign Affairs, January, 1938.
Meade and Hitch, Economic Analysis, Part V, pp. 307-355.

 

The second half of the term will be devoted to the pure theory of international trade and to some of its applications. The classical theory will be discussed and confronted with Ohlin’s approach. The concept of the terms of trade will be taken up and some applications of monopoly theory, especially to the problem of dumping, will be treated.

Assignments for the second half of the term:

Meade and Hitch, Economic Analysis, Part V, pp. 356-408.
Haberler, International Trade, Chs. IX-XII, and Ch. XVIII.
Ohlin, Interregional and International trade, Parts I and II.
Viner, J., Memorandum on Dumping (League of Nations).

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 2, Folder “Economics, 1940-1941”.

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Final Examination
Economics 43a 1hf.
1940-41

[Not found (yet).]

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Course Enrollment
1939-40

[Economics] 43b 2hf. Associate Professor Harris , Drs. Heuser and Stolper.—International Economic Relations, II. Commercial Policy.

Total 18: 11 Seniors, 6 Juniors, 1 Other.

 

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments for 1939-40, p. 99.

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Course Description
1940-41

[Economics 43b 1hf. International Economic Relations, II. Commercial Policy.] Half-course (second half-year). Mon., Wed., at 12, and a third hour at the pleasure of the instructors. Professor Haberler, Associate Professor Harris, and Dr. Stolper.

Omitted in 1940-41.

 

Source: Division of History, Government, and Economics Containing an Announcement for 1940-41. Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXVII, No. 51 (August 15, 1940), p. 56.

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Economics 43b
1939-40

Week Subject Reading
Feb. 5-10 General case for free trade and criticism
(Dr. Stolper)		 Haberler, Chs. 13, 14.
Robertson, “The Future of International Trade,” Economic Journal, March, 1938.
Feb. 12-17 General effect of tariffs, partial analysis. Preferential tariffs.
(Dr. Stolper)		 Haberler, Ch. 15
Feb. 19-March 9 Special tariff arguments. Discussion of some of the Hutchins Committee Report. Schüler and Keynes arguments. Foreign Trade Multiplier.
(Dr. Stolper)		 Beveridge, Tariffs, the Case Examined, Chs. 5, 9, 10, 13.
Haberler, Chs. 16, 17, and Ch. 12, §4 review Macmillan Report, Addendum I.
Copland, D.B., “A Neglected Phase of Tariff Controversy,” Q.J.E., 1931.
Anderson, Karl, “Protection and the Historical Situation,” Q.J.E., 1938.
Samuelson, Marion Crawford, “The Australian Case for Protection Re-examined,” Q.J.E., 1939.
Taussig, Chs. 13 and 16.
Suggested reading: Taussig, Chs. 14, 15.
March 11-16 Dumping, anti-dumping duties
(Dr. Stolper)		 Haberler, Ch. 18, omitting the graphs.
Robinson, J., Economics of Imperfect Competition, Ch. 15, sec. 1-4.
Viner, J., Memorandum on Dumping (League of Nations).
March 18-April 20 Other measures, particularly quotas. Exchange Control and Clearing. Exchange Agreements, etc.
(Dr. Heuser)		 Haberler, Chs. 19, 20, 21.
Heuser, Control of International Trade, Ch. VI.
Ellis, Exchange Control, Supplement to Q.J.E., 1939, Ch. I.
Ellsworth, Chs. IX, X.
April 22-27 Tariff History: The glass industry.
(Dr. Davis)		 Probably Taussig, Tariff History.
April 29-May 4 Reciprocal Trade Agreements
(Dr. Stolper)		 Tasca, Reciprocal Trade Policy, selected chapters.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in Economics, 1895-2003 (HUC 8522.2.1) Box 2, Both in Folders “Economics, 1939-1940 (2 of 2)” and “Economics, 1940-1941”.

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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 43b2
1939-1940

Part I
(One hour and a half)

Take both questions. Write one hour on one of them and one-half hour on the other.

  1. “Territorial jurisdiction over a particular area can never be of economic advantage as long as there is free trade in commodities.” Do you agree?
  2. Discuss the relative merits of general depreciation, discriminating exchange rates, and export subsidies as means of restoring equilibrium after a period of strict exchange control.

Part II
(One hour and a half)

Answer question 3 and two other questions.

  1. Take (a), (b), (c), or (d) only.
    1. Do you think that Marshall’s argument for free trade are applicable to the United States of to-day?
    2. Outline the reciprocal trade agreements program of the U. S. A. and its probable effects on various sectors of the American economy. Do you think the program leads towards increased bilateralism or towards greater free trade?
    3. “Increased competition from newly industrialised countries compels the older industrial countries to choose between higher tariffs or lower standards of living.”
    4. It has been claimed that the protective effect of an import quota and a tariff combined are cumulative. Discuss with regard to the effects in the importing country as well as in the exporting countries.
  2. If a country’s exports are subject to foreign tariffs it cannot improve its position by levying tariffs on its imports. Give your considered opinion of this assertion.
  3. Under conditions conducive to a flight of capital [,] restrictions on capital exports may fail completely to bring about a permanent improvement in the balance of payments. Discuss.
  4. The total volume of trade between two countries under exchange clearing is just as likely to increase as to decrease. Discuss with respect to clearings between (a) a free country and a control country, (b) two control countries.
  5. “The operation of the foreign trade multiplier necessitates reconsideration of the proposition that employment and national income can never be increased by the introduction of tariffs.” Discuss.

Final. 1940.

 

Source: Harvard University Archives. Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations. History, History of Religions,…Economics,…Military Science, Naval Science (June, 1940) in Harvard University. Final examinations, 1853-2001 (HUC 7000.28) Box 5.

Image:  Haberler, Leontief and Harris from Harvard Album 1942.

Categories
Exam Questions Harvard Suggested Reading Syllabus

Harvard. Undergraduate International Trade. Enrollment, Readings, Exam. Harris, 1949

 

Seymour Harris was a Harvard man from his undergraduate years through his retirement from his alma mater. He served many terms as a government economic adviser and after Harvard moved on to be the chair of economics at the University of California, San Diego. This post provides a course description, enrollment data, reading list and examination questions for his winter semester course 1949-50 “International Trade”. An earlier post provides the outline the 1933 version of the course “International Trade and Tariff Policies”.

Seymour Edwin Harris was born September 8, 1897 in New York City. He received an A.B. in 1920 and a Ph.D. in 1926 from Harvard University. From 1922 to 1964, Dr. Harris taught economics at Harvard University, where he received a full professorship in 1954, and served as the chairman of the department of economics from 1955 to 1959. During World War II, Dr. Harris was involved in several wartime planning projects. From 1954 to 1956, Dr. Harris became chief economic advisor to Adlai Stevenson. He then served Senator John F. Kennedy in the same capacity and was chosen as a member of President Kennedy’s task force on the economy. In 1961, Dr. Harris was named as chief economic consultant to Douglas Dillon, Secretary of the Treasury. During the Kennedy administration. Dr. Harris, a proponent of Keynesian economics, was a member of Walter W. Heller’s New Frontiersmen, which persuaded President Kennedy that the stimulation of the economy was more important than a balanced budget and tax cuts and government spending could counter threats of a recession. In 1963, Dr. Harris became the chairman of the department of economics at the University of California at La Jolla. At the same time, he served as a chief economic advisor to the Johnson administration. [Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, Finding Aid to the Papers of Seymour E. Harris]

Harris had quite a reputation for grinding out volumes of edited papers (written by others):  From a 1962 or 1963 student skit:  Professor Gerschenkron’s alleged advice for Matthew (the Evangelist): “I wanted Matthew to rewrite his paper for the Quarterly Journal and call it ‘Christ as a proto-Keynsian’ [sic] But no, he was a very strong-willed boy and he brought it out in a syposium [sic] edited by Seymour Harris, called the Bible, essays in honor of God.”

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Course Description

Economics 143a (formerly Economics 43a). International Trade

Half-course (fall term). Mon., Wed., and (at the pleasure of the instructor) Fri., at 12. Professor Harris.

This course deals with the theory and practice of foreign trade and capital movements, including the importance of foreign trade, the manner of increasing its amount, its relation to the domestic economy, the problem of exchange rates, exchange control, international organizations in their relation to trade and capital movements. Political, economic, and administrative aspects are considered also.

Source: Harvard University Archives. Box 6, Courses of Instruction (HUC 8500.16), Final Announcement of the Courses of Instruction Offered by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences for the Academic Year 1948-49, p. 75

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Course Enrollment

[Economics] 143a (formerly Economics 43a). International Trade. (F) Professor Harris.

Total 120: 9 Graduates, 46 Seniors, 36 Juniors, 11 Sophomores, 1 Freshman, 12 Radcliffe, 5 Others.

Source: Harvard University. Report of the President of Harvard College and Reports of Departments, 1949-1950, p. 43.

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Course Readings

Economics 143a
International Trade

  1. National Income and the Balance of Payments—4 weeks
    Relation of domestic policies and the balance of payments; the balance of payments of the United States and the United Kingdom; capital movements and reparations problems; dollar shortage and the E.R.P.
    Assignment

    1. *Harris; The European Recovery Program, pp. 1-120, 185-206, 272-276
    2. *Harrod; Are These Hardships Necessary? pp. 1-103
    3. United Nations; A Survey of the Economic Situation and Economic Prospects for Europe, pts. 2-5
  2. Regional Problems in the Balance of Payments—1 week
    No assignment.
  3. Industrialization and International Competition—1 week
    No assignment
  4. Monetary Aspects of International Trade—3 weeks
    Assignment

    1. Harris: The New Economics, pp. 246-293, 323-400
    2. *Ellsworth: International Economics, Part 1, Chs. 7, 9-11
  5. The Case for Free Trade and Obstacles to Trade—3 weeks
    Division of labor; comparative costs; tariffs and other obstacles; international commodity agreements and distribution of raw materials.
    Assignment
    Ellsworth, Part II, Chs. 1-5, 7-9
  6. The Problem of Allocation of Resources and Comparative Costs
    Assignment
    Ellsworth, Part I, Chs. 3-5

Reading Period Assignment—One of the Following:

  1. Staley: World Economic Development
  2. Buchanan and Lutz: Rebuilding the World Economy
  3. Marshall: Money, Credit, and Commerce, Pt. III
  4. Harris: Foreign Economic Policy for the United States

*To be bought.

Source:   :   Harvard University Archives. Syllabi, course outlines and reading lists in economics, 1895-2003. (HUC 8522.2.1), Box 4, Folder “Economics, 1949-50 (2 of 3)

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Course Final Examination

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
ECONOMICS 143a
International Trade

Spend forty-five minutes on each question. It is strongly suggested that you spend ten minutes assembling and organizing your thoughts before beginning each essay.

  1. Answer (a) or (b):
    1. It is a prerequisite for the establishment of interregional trade that relative prices would be different in one region from those in another if the regions were prevented from trading with one another. Why does this condition commonly occur, how does it lead to interregional trade, and in what way is that trade beneficial to the participating regions?
    2. Much of the theory of international trade attempts to explain how equilibrium in the balance of payments will be maintained by automatic tendencies. Present as fully as you can in the allotted time a classification and explanation of the forces working to frustrate these automatic tendencies and produce persistent dis
  2. Answer (a) or (b):
    1. Exchange depreciation has been resorted to in depression for reasons very different from those advanced for its use in periods of full employment. Compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages of depreciation in these two situations, making use of specific illustrations.
    2. The incorporation of national income analysis into international trade theory has led economists to distinguish helpfully corrective international economic policies from so-called beggar-thy-neighbor policies. How would you make such a distinction, and how effectively can it be applied?
  3. Answer (a) or (b):
    1. Comment on the relevance of the domestic policies of ERP countries for the attainment of international equilibrium by 1952.
    2. Discuss the reciprocal trade agreements program of the United States with reference to (1) the general arguments for and against tariffs, and (2) the limitations of tariff policy as a means of achieving international economic equilibrium.
  4. Answer one of the following with reference to your reading period assignment:
    1. What basic changes in the world economic structure have resulted from two World Wars, and how do they obstruct the reestablishment of stable multilateral trade?
    2. On what conditions does Staley base his case that, for existing industrial areas, it is possible to make the advantages of the economic development of new areas far outweigh the disadvantages? Discuss these conditions critically.
    3. Diagnoses of the widespread “dollar problem” differ according to (1) the definition of equilibrium adopted, and (2) the particular country under discussion. Discuss both these sources of variation in analysis. (Treat either one at greater length than the other if you wish.)
    4. Marshall is noted for his development of the theory of international supply and demand (commonly called “reciprocal demand”) as the determining influence on the barter terms of trade. Develop this part of his theory, and comment on some aspect or aspects of its relevance to current problems discussed in this course.

Final. January, 1950.

 

Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Papers Printed for Final Examinations; History, History of Religions, Government, Economics,…,Military Science, Naval Science. February, 1950.

Image Source: Seymour Harris in Harvard Class Album 1947.

 

Categories
Funny Business Harvard M.I.T.

Harvard or MIT. Economics graduate student skit, ca. 1963.

 

Because of the reference to Jaroslav Vanek’s leaving Harvard, we are able to date the following script to 1962-63 since Vanek left Harvard to work at the State Department in 1963. Almost everything about this script would lead me to conclude that it was used in a Harvard graduate student skit that somehow wound up in the folder for the Graduate Student Association at the Department of Economics of M.I.T. The folder is otherwise filled with clearly M.I.T. skit material from the 1960s. One of the students is identified as “David” another “Bob” and the third looks like “Les”.  

Lester Thurow did get his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1964 and came to M.I.T. in 1968 so it is not inconceivable that the following transcription is indeed based upon his personal typed script copy with original pencil stage directions that made its way into the folder. 

One thing that I find rather surprising about the text is just how many Harvard professors’ names have been misspelled.

__________________________

D—This is a review with a message—a message no economist can afford to ignore. The year is 2000 A.D. 16 years have now passed since 1984, that Armageddon of the economics profession when Professor Wassily Leontief finally established that the world really was homogeneous of degree one. The then President of the United States, Mr. Norman Mailer, immediately issued the great Marginal Product Proclamation. Everyone was to receive their marginal product.

B— But there was nothing left over for the economists. Economists became the hand-loom weavers of the 20th. century.

L—Arthur Schlesinger Jr. vividly described their position in a 17-volume work entitled “The Coming of the Raw Deal.” Economists everywhere, after the first shock, set out upon new careers. Tonight we shall discover what happened to some of those whom we know and love.

D—Several of them went into the movie industry and we will now let you hear the soundtrack of the preview of one of their movies.

(Epic Music—Bruckner?)

[Insert: Stand]

L—Ladies and Gentlemen, 21st Century Fox are proud to present Arthur Smithies and Joan Robinson in….The Big Push, the story of the unbalanced growth of an economist….

B—Production by Karl [sic] Kaysen

D—Copyright by Edward Hastings Chamberlain [sic]

L—All labor disputes on location and with Elizabeth Taylor arbitrated by John Dunlop.

B—Continuity by Simon Kuznets

L—Editing by Seymour Harris, of course.

D—Costumes by Robert Dorfman.

B—This is the story of Ragnar Maynard von Eckstein (his parents had always wanted him to be an economist). After many struggles at last he got to Harvard Graduate School.

L—It is a tale of |horror. See him now at a seminar on the economics of Medical Care…..

D—This after-noon I am going to discuss the economics of Blood-banking. One of the crucial problems in this field is what proportion to maintain of liquid assets. In this category we have blood [Insert:   L. What about near blood] near-blood. We also have non-liquid assets—bonds in the form of pounds of flesh. Another problem is the current shortage of tellers, for we can only employ vampires with a strong liquidity preference. If we cannot get more it will clot up the flow of funds and reduce the velocity of circulation.

L—It is a tale of |ambition…..

B—Coming from a family whose marginal product was zero, Ragnar Maynard realized that to get on quickly he must publish something. But what? He had not written anything. But our resourceful hero saw a way out: he would publish his first book before it was written. It was called First Draft, a revised tentative, preliminary, provisional text. It was based on Photostat copies of his blackboard notes.

L—It is a tale of |love….

D—Ragnar Manyrd fell passionately in love with a beautiful capital theorist, played in the movie by ravishing Joan Robinson. His demand for her love was infinitely elastic; her supply could not meet him—at least not at his price. The price was to join him in his exhausting search over peaks and through troughs for the elusive U-shaped cost curve.

L—It is a tale of |excitement

B—See Ragnar Maynard trying to free himself from the dreaded liquidity trap.

Insert: D—It’s true, it really is thicker than water

L—All this and more you can see in this movie—The Big Push is a take-off point in the development of the motion-picture.

B—See the exciting attempt on Professor Leontief’s life (with a 202 rifle) to try to prevent him revealing his startling discovery of a constant returns world.

D—See the world’s largest input-output table which proved it—drawn by the Economic Research project in the sand of the New Mexican desert.

L—You cannot afford to miss this motion picture. Filmed in wonderful new—Solocolor. An introducing revolutionary—Rostowscope.

(concluding epic music)

[Insert: Sit]

D—But the movies could not accommodate everybody…

[Insert: Bob in middle]

[Insert: one illegible word]

L—Professor Leontief, having escaped with his life, and using his input-output table from Scientific American as a testimonial, got into the business of designing bathroom tiles.

B—Professor Duesenbery [sic] was well qualified to go into the demonstration business. He drove Cadillacs around low-income districts to stimulate demand. And changed his name to Jones so that it would be him that everyone was keeping up with.

D—In England many economists went to work for the government where they produced a remarkable effect. Before 1984 political speeches had sounded something like this.

B—Good evening; I’m the Prime Minister. My name is….. [insert: ad lib] etc.

D—But now all this has changed…

B—Good evening…[insert: ad lib] etc.

L—Professor Tom Schelling took up a career in Madison avenue. It was he who was responsible for some of the following products…

D—Ladies, now you can wear the most powerful and alluring perfume in the world—First Strike—the only perfume with complete credibility. It also contains the only deodorant with overkill.

B—Now at last there is a product to take away the smell of deodorant—it is called Counterforce. Only Counterforce gives you 24-hour protection against odorlessness. [Insert: 5120 or S120]

[Insert: STAND]

L—For years girls have been searching for a perfume which will attract the men and yet prevent them from taking liberties—now they have it in the form of Deterrence—the perfume which is effective [Insert: only] if you don’t use it.

D—He also introduced a city wide deodorant campaign under the title of Civil defence.

L—And the only really safe method of birth control—Early Warning.

B—Meanwhile Professor Dunlop had become a truck driver and a shop steward for Jimmy Hoffa.

D—And Professor Kuznets took to selling abacuses.

[Insert: Some economists, not from Harvard opened a cafeteria.]

[Insert: Bob-Les—come forward]

L—Professor Galbraith first thought of becoming a rice farmer. But he soon saw that since there was no more need for economists he could now come into his own. After a coup d’etat he took over the Littauer building and changed it into the department of Affluent Studies. The idea was the ultra-popularization of economics; the main qualification for admission was to be a good phrase-monger. The new department published books like…

B—The Economics of Sex, with an appendix on the second derivatives of Jayne Mansfield. A geometric interpretation with diagrams.

D—The department became identified with a new theory of economic decline, published as a non-Rostovian manifesto. All countries, it said, tend to decline, and their speed of decline is determined by their relative degree of economic advancement. Its five stages of decline started with the age of mass consumption, through the age of preconditions for decline, coming then to the crucial landing stage.

B—Other books appeared like ‘The Naked Truth about Public Squalor, and so on.

[Insert: Pause—back to audience]

L—Only one of the redundant economists took the highest calling of all. Let us now eavesdrop on a sermon by [Insert: his eminence] Archbishop Gerschenkron…

[Insert: seated]

B—You know, when I was an economist one of my graduate students wrote a very good paper for my course. Matthew, [Insert: I said] why don’t you publish this paper, no, really why don’t you publish. But you know youll have to change the title. What journal is going to publish a paper called ‘the First Gospel’? But you know it really was a very good paper. There was a lot of interesting material about the farm problem in Egypt and about the almost miraculous elasticity of supply of loaves and small fishes in Gallillee [sic]. Then there was a very good section about Christ throwing the money-changers from the temple. Well, you see, the rate of interest was very high then. Don’t you think that the real reason why Christ did this was to reduce the rate of interest and to stimulate investment. You see, I wanted Matthew to rewrite his paper for the Quarterly Journal and call it ‘Christ as a proto-Keynsian’ [sic] But no, he was a very strong-willed boy and he brought it out in a syposium [sic] edited by Seymour Harris, called the Bible, essays in honor of God. But, you know, it was still required reading for my course.

D—Professor Harberler [sic] took to song writing, and here is a sample…

[Insert: stand behind table]

(tune: God bless America)

[Insert: All:] God bless free enterprise,
[Insert: MOC or HOC or NOC] System divine,
Stand beside her and guide her,
Just as long as the profits are mine.
[Insert: Salute]
Corporations may they prosper
Big business, may it grow!
[Insert: MOC or HOC or NOC] God bless Free Enterprise,
The Status quo!

L—Well, David, I guess that’s it. Do you think they’ll throw us out?

D—I dont know. But I dont suppose we’ll ever be allowed to pass generals. There are still some jobs you can get without a Ph.D.

B—No chance at all is there? I mean about generals….

D—Well they were all in it weren’t they—all the generals board.

L—What about Professor Vanek? He emerged unscathed.

D—That’s true but he’s leaving.

B—That’s fair, of course.

L—Yes, he hasn’t done much since he’s been here really.

D—Half a dozen good articles…

B—4 books, or is it 5?

L—He’s become an acknowledged expert on at least two major fields of economics…

D—A clear and stimulating teacher…
And a nice guy…

L—Not much really. [Insert: Clearly not a Harvard type]

B—Not surprised they’re letting him go

D—Well, that’s it then.

B—One more thing actually…The perpetrators of this entertainment would like it to be known that any resemblance of characters in this review to any person or persons living or half-dead is purely intentional.

L—So be it.

All—In the name of the Holy Trinity:

D—Dorfman,

L—Samuelson,

B—and Solow.

All—Amen

 

Source:   MIT Archives. Department of Economics Records, Box 2, Folder “GEA 1961-67”.

 

Categories
Economists Harvard

Harvard. Alumnus (A.B., Ph.D.) Professor Seymour Edwin Harris, 1945 and 1970

 

The Silver and Gold Anniversary Class Reunions (25th and 50th, respectively) of Harvard College publish reports sent by class members to the class secretary. For answering the question, whatever happened to X, Class of ‘YY, these class reunion volumes can be useful. While it is not hard to discover what happened to Seymour Harris, a member of the Harvard Class of 1920 who went on to become a professor of economics at Harvard, the personal notes from this Harvard man, crimson to the bone, provide us a glimpse at least of how he wanted himself to be viewed by his former classmates..

_____________________

SEYMOUR EDWIN HARRIS
[1945]

Home Address: Four Winds Farm, West Acton, Mass.
Office Address: Room 234, Littauer Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
Born: Sept. 8, 1897, New York, N.Y. Parents: Henry Harris, Augusta Kulick.
Prepared at: Morris High School, New York, N.Y.
Years in College: 1918-1920. Degrees: A.B. cum laude, 1920; Ph.D., 1926.
Married: Ruth Black, Sept. 3, 1923, Honesdale, Pa.
Occupation: Professor of economics, Harvard University.
Military or Naval Record: Harvard Unit, Students’ Army Training Corps, 1918.
Wartime Government Posts: Director, Office of Export-Import Price Control; member, Policy Committee of Board of Economic Warfare; member, Secretary of State’s Committee on Post-War Economic Policy; adviser on Price Control and Stabilization to several Latin American governments; economic adviser to vice-chairman, War Production Board.
Offices held: Managing Editor, Review of Economic Statistics.
Member of: Harvard Faculty Club.
Publications: Thirteen volumes in economics; Twenty Years of Federal Reserve Policy; Post-War Economic Problems; Economics of America at War; Price and Related Controls in American Economy; Economic Problems of Latin America; Inflation in War and Post-War.

SEYMOUR HARRIS gives us a reading time of five minutes for the following account: “We—my wife and I—live twenty-five miles outside of Boston. We have a 40-acre farm and an old colonial house. This offers a much-needed escape from Cambridge, as the latter in turn is an escape from wartime Washington. I wish that I could say that we were doing a good job on the farm. Actually, help is not available, and the amount of time to be squeezed out these days for its care is limited. Our only farming this year has been a 7000-foot vegetable garden, one spraying of our two apple orchards, and frequent encounters with millions of ants, potato bugs, skunks, bats, crickets, etc.

“My working hours are divided among the following: teaching, writing, editing, and war work for the government. The last is the most maddening and the most interesting—also the most futile, tiring, and exasperating, yet rewarding. The newsworthy fact is not that so little, but that so much is accomplished in Washington. In retrospect this is hard to understand, for the se-up is such that progress would seem impossible. Yet we have increased our national income by 125 per cent, put eleven millions into the armed services, and produced war goods twice the value of our whole national income in 1932. Tens of thousands of little bureaucrats (including the writer) and tens of thousands of ingenious business men and millions of loyal workers have achieved what to most experts seemed to be the impossible in 1940. We have produced the mightiest war machine and the highest standard of living in our modern civilization. Our number one economic problem of the post-war is to do an equally effective production and distribution job. Upon our success or failure rests the future of private enterprise.

“Writing has become a habit with me—a drug, if you will. I have written (had printed) at least two million words. As I look back, I am surprised that I have had the patience to write so much. As I look forward, I am impatient to write even more. I can scarcely wait to finish a book so that I can start another. At present one is in page proof, another is in press, a third is about to go to press, a fourth is being planned. I ask myself why. It is certainly not because I hold that the world is waiting for my pontificalia. In fact, I often wonder if books are ever read. But the publishers seem to find printing books profitable, and they have sold 6,000 to 7,000 copies of at least one book of mine—practically a best-seller for technical books. Perhaps a slight contribution to the world’s knowledge is made, and it is hoped that in some manner or other we do have a very small effect on public policy.

“My wife, who has always given me editorial and proofreading assistance, does her best to discourage me—perhaps in self-defense. But there is as little hope for me as for the alcoholic, cures of which, I am told, are less than ten per cent. So long as paper and pencil are to be found my energies will go into writing, and so long as Scotch is available, the alcoholic will go after it. A psychiatrist might cure me, but I shall not give him a chance. The cure would leave me with little to do.

“My views are not always orthodox. Even the Saturday Evening Post has editorialized against some of my unacceptable (to them) views. To state them: I would like to see a revival of capitalism. I am not sure that private enterprise can carry the ball. But we should give it the best possible milieu. Several years in government work have convinced me more than ever that regimentation is not for the American people. And the bureaucrat soon learns to hate controls even more than those whom he subjects to controls. I hope that we can have a minimum of government participation in our economic life. Yet I fear that unplanned capitalism will not work. Can we have a society half capitalistic and half socialistic? Here is hoping that the thirties were not so significant as many of us fear.

“Lest you conclude that I work and farm and that’s all, let me add that I like to play tennis, golf, and especially to ski. I learned how to ski at forty, when I took an enforced vacation. I ski cautiously as old men must, but I manage to ski everything and so far with few bad spills. I have covered as much as thirty miles downhill in one day—riding up, of course.

“All this proves once more that I write too much. I want to conclude by saying that I have had one good break—a fine wife.

“And here are an additional 1,000 words—writing time thirty minutes, reading time five minutes. I shall not read what I have written, for if I do, I shall never send it.”

Source:  Harvard Class of 1920. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report (Cambridge, 1945), pp. 337-339.

_____________________

SEYMOUR HARRIS
[1970]

SEYMOUR HARRIS was born September 8, 1897, in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Henry and August (Kulick) Harris. He prepared at Morris High School, New York City, and at Harvard received an A.B., cum laude, in 1920 and a Ph.D. in 1926. From Monmouth College in 1961 he received an LL.D. In Honesdale, Pennsylvania, on September 3, 1923, he married Ruth Black, who died September 9, 1965. In Las Vegas, Nevada, on April 27, 1968, he married Dorothy Heron. He reports the following offices held, honors and awards: member of executive board and vice-president, American Economic Association; David A. Wells Prize, Harvard; Alexander Hamilton award, U. S. Treasury, 1968; Gold Medal for contribution to New England Economy; joint winner, Post War Plan for Greater Boston. His publications include: fifty books, the latest, The Economics of Harvard, 800 pages (in press); and edited the McGraw-Hill Economic Handbook Series. A college professor and writer, and a professor at Harvard for forty-three years he writes:

“I am finishing my fiftieth year of teaching—two years at Princeton, forty-three at Harvard, and five years at the University of California, San Diego. Am now Littauer Professor, Political Economy, emeritus, Harvard (since 1946).

“I have been an editor of four journals, including twenty years as editor of the Harvard Review of Economics and Statistics.

“I served on eight committees at Harvard, inclusive of General Education, Athletics, and Fringe Benefits.

“Over a period of thirty years I served on twenty-three committees or departments of the U.S. government, including chief advisor of the secretary of the treasury, 1961-68, and testified and wrote statements for about fifty congressional committees; was an advisor to three Massachusetts governors, and to the Conference of New England Governors.

“I was an advisor of President Kennedy and also Governor Stevenson in three presidential campaigns.

“I have also served as president of the Harvard Chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

“Upon the occasion of my retirement from Harvard in December 1963, letters of congratulation and commendation were received from a number of eminent men, including, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Adlai E. Stevenson, United States Representative to the United Nations, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, Clinton P. Anderson, United States Senate, Joseph S. Clark, United States Senate, Paul H. Douglas, United States Senate, Abe Ribicoff, United States Senate, Walter W. Heller, Chairman, Council of Economic Advisers, Washington, Sherman Adams, Lincoln, New Hampshire, Dennis J. Roberts, Providence, Rhode Island, and President Nathan Pusey of Harvard.”

Home Address, 9036 La Jolla Shores Drive, La Jolla, Calif. 92037. Office Address, Dept. of Economics, Univ. of California, San Diego, La Jolla, Calif. 92037.

 

Source:  Harvard Class of 1920. Fiftieth Anniversary Report (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 183-184.

Image Source:  Harvard Class of 1920. Twenty-fifth Anniversary Report (Cambridge, 1945), p. 1046.