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Chicago Economists Funny Business

Chicago. The School of Chicago 1972 by Roger Vaughan (Ph.D. 1977). IDs by Gordon, McCloskey & Grossbard

The 1500th artifact added to Economics in the Rear-view Mirror deserves to be a celebratory post for visitors. For this honor I have chosen a  pastiche drawn by a Chicago economics graduate student in 1972. Roger Vaughan (Ph.D. 1977) was the principal, if not only, illustrator for the student-produced satirical publication P.H.A.R.T., an issue of which has been transcribed for an earlier post.

I first saw a copy of Roger Vaughan’s reworking of Raphael’s “School of Athens” added to a photo from a Tweet of a few years back. At that time it did not occur to me to engage in a serious search for the backstory to the drawing. And yet, serendipity turned out to be kind to me when, on a visit to the Harvard Archives last year, I stumbled upon a folded, mint-condition copy of  Vaughan’s “The School of Chicago 1972” in the papers of Zvi Griliches. Of course I had this masterpiece of economics funny business copied and it now has pride of place in my home study.

A few identifications of the figures seen in “The School of Chicago 1972” are obvious (e.g. Milton Friedman and George Stigler, duh) and others could be identified from other Vaughan caricatures that likewise are found in Griliches’ papers (e.g. Marc Nerlove, Stan Fischer, and Robert J. Gordon). Still, most of the renderings remained unidentified. My first idea was to seek out the artist himself, but alas I could only confirm that he had passed in October 2021. The next idea was to seek a living eye-witness to the Chicago economics department of a half-century ago. Here I was luckier, the Stanley G. Harris Professor in the Social Sciences at Northwestern University, Robert J. Gordon, responded to my inquiry almost immediately and as quickly forwarded my request for further information to Distinguished Professor of Economics, History, English, and Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Deirdre McCloskey, for her confirmation and further commentary. Following the initial posting of this artifact, Professor Shoshana Grossbard of San Diego State University spotted a few misspelled names (mea culpa), but, more importantly, was able to identify Margaret Reid by her beret(!).We can all be grateful to these colleagues for their identifications provided below. There remains one unidentified man in the back-row standing to George Stigler’s left plus a couple of yet-to-be identified graduate students. Peeps, Economic in the Rear-view Mirror needs your help! You can leave comments at the end of this post.

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About the artist, Roger Vaughan

From his 1981 AEA Biographical Listing, p. 421

Vaughan, Roger J, 421 Hudson St., Apt. 406, New York, NY 10014. Birth Yr: 1946

Degrees: B.A., U. of Oxford, 1968; M.A., Simon Fraser U., 1970; Ph.D. U. of Chicago, 1977. Prin. Cur. Position: Dep.Dir., Off. Of Develop. Planning, State of New York, 1980-

Concurrent/Past Positions: Econ., Citibank, 1978-80; Econ. The Rand Corp. 1974-78. Research: Urban Policy, finance, taxation training.

Roger J. Vaughan’s Rand Reports,
1974-1980

• The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 1, Overview 1980
• Federal Activities in Urban Economic Development 1979
• Recent Contributions to the Urban Policy Debate 1979
• The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 4, Population and Residential Location 1979
• Assessment of Countercyclical Public Works and Public Service Employment Programs. 1978
• Regional Cycles and Employment Effects of Public Works Investments. 1977
• The Urban Impacts of Federal Policies: Vol. 2, Economic Development 1977
• The value of urban open space 1977
• The Economics of Urban Blight. 1976
• Getting People to Parks. 1976
• Public Works as a Countercyclical Device: A Review of the Issues 1976
• The Use of Subsidies in the Production of Cultural Services. 1976
• The Application of Economic Analysis to the Planning and Development of the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. 1975
• The Economics of Expressway Noise Pollution Abatement. 1975
• The Economics of Recreation: A Survey. 1974

Source: Rand Reports. Published Research by Author, Roger J. Vaughan.

Sage. Research Methods.

Communicating Social Science Research to Policymakers
By: Roger J. Vaughan & Terry F. Buss
Published: 1998
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412983686

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Raphael’s Scuola di Atene (1509-1511)

For some explanation of what we see in the original, cf. “The Story Behind Raphael’s Masterpiece ‘The School of Athens'” by Jessica Stewart at the Modern Met Website.

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Roger Vaughan’s Pastiche

Open the image in a new window to see a larger image

Source: Harvard University Archives. Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 129. Folder “Posters, ca. 1960s-1970s”.

Background

The statues standing in the upper alcove are of the President and Vice-President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon (holding a lyre, a sweet visual pun) and Spiro T. Agnew (with the pennant “Effete Snobs”, abridged from his description of self-characterized intellectuals as an “effete core of impudent snobs” in his  “Generation Gap” speech given in New Orleans on October 19th, 1969.)

“1126” refers to the street address of the Social Science Research Building, 1126 E. 59th St.

“MV=PT” inscribed in the center of the dome is the Equation of Exchange (cf. Irving Fisher’s The Purchasing Power of Money). Cf. at the left of the back-row of Chicago economists, Arnold Zellner is carrying papers with “MV=PY“. Milton Friedman’s vanity license plates on his red cadillac used “MV=PQ” for the Equation of Exchange. Everyone seems to have agreed on the notational virtues of “M”, “V”, and “P”. Does anyone know whether there was any substantive reason for differences regarding the choice of “T”, “Y”, and “Q” for the final term?

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror comment: Though his arm is blocking part of the equation, Zellner is clearly displaying the equation of exchange, MV = PY.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “Underneath Nixon is Marc Nerlove pointing into the ear, by the way of insult, of Hans Theil the great Dutch econometrician (the four great econometricians at Chicago, which had included Zvi Griliches, who had just moved to Harvard, hated each other).”

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror comment: Robert J. Gordon served as an editor of the Journal of Political Economy (J.P.E.) from 1971-1973.

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror comment: Stigler’s position corresponds to that of Aristotle’s in Raphael’s fresco. There Aristotle holds a copy of his own Nicomachean Ethics. Stigler is seen here holding a book by [Adam] Smith, presumably Wealth of Nations.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “George Tolley [is] in a garbage can because he did urban economics (Vaughan was his student).”

Shoshana Grossbard’s comment: “[Margaret Reid]…not only [wore] the dark beret, but also [has] her hair in a bun, under the beret. that was her typical look. She and I attended Becker’s workshop in applications of economics in the years 1974-76.”

And guess what a casual search just turned up…

Margaret Gilpin Reid, professor emeritus of Home Economics and Economics

Source:  University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07052, Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Economics in the Rear-view Mirror’s comment: On the high-resolution hard-copy hanging on my study wall, the beret looks sort of like an ink blot and I regreted that imperfection. But now, thanks to Shoshana Grossbard’s careful observation combined with her memory of Reid’s “typical look” and an archival sighting of said beret, I am convinced and grateful that we now have another positive identification!

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “D. Gale Johnson…has a pitchfork because he was an agricultural economist. ”

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: Ted Schultz […] is pointing down to say “This is where the true Chicago School is, where I am!”.

Foreground

The identification of Robert F. Pollard was made by Roger Vaughan’s work and life partner, Anna Nechai.

 

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “…Dick Zecher [is] sticking his finger through an IBM card because he was in charge of the Department’s mainframe computer access.”

Another visual pun: Harry Johnson is portrayed writing on a literal Edgeworth-Bowley-box, a two-dimensional representation of allocations that could be Pareto efficient exchange equilibria. The two tradeable goods are measured in Edgeworth and Bowley units, respectively.

Deirdre McCloskey’s comment: “Mary Jean Bowman, one of two tenured women in a small department; she did educational and demographic economics.  The other woman was Margaret Reid, the inventor of household economics…”

The triangle seen in the previous detail is Arnold Harberger’s measure of deadweight loss (efficiency cost resulting from a natural or policy induced distortion of markets).  See Robert J. Gordon’s historical photo of Al Harberger stripping down to reveal himself as “Triangleman” ca. December 1970. In Raphael’s fresco Harberger’s place was that of Euclid.

Robert  J. Gordon’s comment: “I think the bearded student is Dan Wisecarver”

Robert  J. Gordon’s comment: “The woman holding the ball is Carolyn Mosby, the head of the department staff.”

 

 

 

 

 

Categories
Chicago Columbia Economist Market Economists

Chicago. Harry Johnson opposes major appointment to be offered to Gary Becker, 1964

HarryJohnsonGaryBecker

From the perspective of today it is rather difficult to imagine that the idea of bringing favorite son Gary Becker back to the University of Chicago from Columbia could have faced any, much less, serious resistance from within the economics department. But as the following letters from Zvi Griliches’ papers in the Harvard archives show, Harry Johnson’s displeasure with this prospect was a force taken most seriously by several of his colleagues, at least in the Spring of 1964. Perhaps more was at play than Johnson’s principle objection to a Becker hire:

“…his accomplishments consist mainly in doing more competently what various members of the department already do, and have been doing for a long time, and not in doing well what the department does not do and ought to be doing if it expects to attract good students and maintain its leadership among the graduate schools of the continent, I think that it would be a grave error of strategy in the development of the department to go after him.”

Johnson offered another interesting claim with regard to 1964 Chicago faculty expectations for a Ph.D. thesis:

“I have noticed among some of the graduate students the notion that the Ph.D. thesis is to be completed with the minimum of intellectual input and a few single-equation regressions. This is contrary to the intention of the Ph.D. regulations (‘the quality and length of a good journal article’)…”

Perhaps the birth of the concept of a job-market-paper?

_____________________

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHICAGO 37 • ILLINOIS
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

May 20, 1964

To: Al Harberger, Zvi Griliches

From: Al Rees

Re: Gary Becker

The question of an appointment for Gary will be discussed at a Department Meeting on June 4. I enclose a copy of a confidential memo from Harry in which he opposes the appointment. Harry will be in Italy on June 4 and cannot present his views in person. I would very much like to have your reaction before the meeting.

You should also know that appointments are being offered this week to Jimmy Savage and to Hans Theil, both at high salaries and both joint with the School of Business. There seems to be a very high probability that both will be accepted.

I am somewhat concerned about the number of tenure posts the Administration will let us have; in particular, I do not want to do anything that might “freeze out” Larry Sjaastad, for whom I have very high hopes.

Another consideration is the effect on Harry of making a senior appointment that he opposes. He seems to feel somehow outnumbered and is still actively considering a move to London.

Gregg has already put to you the case for Gary; in any case you know his stengths too well to need to be reminded of them.

[signed] Al

_____________________

 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Date May 19, 1964

CONFIDENTIAL

To: A. Rees
From: H.G. Johnson
In re: [Economics] Department Meeting, June 4th

As I will not be at the departmental meeting on June 4th, I am taking the unusual course of putting on paper my views about certain matters due for discussion, on which I would have spoken.

I. A. (1) The thesis prospectus seminar on Choudhri was dissatisfied with the prospectus; it considered making him prepare a new prospectus, but decided instead to make him get agreement from the three members of his Committee on a new draft. Earl Hamilton was in favor of another prospectus seminar, but was overruled. I have had second thoughts, and believe that the matter should be reconsidered, for the following reasons:

(a) next year’s money workshop will be in different hands than this year’s; I am worried that, in the rush to get students past their prospectus seminar, we will land next year’s workshop with a batch of poorly thought out prospectuses that will have to be patched up with great labor.

(b) Choudhri has an excellent record; he should be able to do much better, and we should make him do better–if we let him get by with low-quality work, we are doing his future career a disservice.

(c) I have noticed among some of the graduate students the notion that the Ph.D. thesis is to be completed with the minimum of intellectual input and a few single-equation regressions. This is contrary to the intention of the Ph.D. regulations (“the quality and length of a good journal article’), bad for student morale, and inimical to good teaching. An example in this case would be salutary, and it would do Choudhri himsèlf little harm and probably some good.

I. A. (1) I would like to recommend strongly that we go after R. A. Mundell for the Ford Fellowship for 1965-66. Mundell is one of the most original and elegant moentary theorists going: he has contributed to the theory of economic policy under fixed and floating exchange rates, and started off the analysis of optimum currency areas, and he has made a number of contributions to the price theory of money and of inflation. He is also a first-class international trade and general value theorist, and a man who is always ready for an intelligent argument. Apart from our mathematical economists, we have no-one here with Mundell’s interest in pure monetary and value theory; and we have no-one with his practical experience at the IMF. I should add that I have suggested Mundell partly because I have talked with him, and he would like to spend 1965-66 in this area.

I. B. (2) Just as strongly, I feel that the department should not pursue the proposal to offer a tenure appointment to Gary Becker. I have a high respect for Becker’s theoretical abilities; but as his accomplishments consist mainly in doing more competently what various members of the department already do, and have been doing for a long time, and not in doing well what the department does not do and ought to be doing if it expects to attract good students and maintain its leadership among the graduate schools of the continent, I think that it would be a grave error of strategy in the development of the department to go after him. 

In addition, I would point out that Becker is probably the most distinguished graduate this department had had in recent years, and that going after him would be a repetition of the cannibalization-of-the-young policy that in my judgment has seriously weakened this department in the past decade or so. Unless we get our good graduates established in good departments in other Universities, we are going to have to live with the present image of the Chicago School in the profession at large, and we are not going to have representatives in other good universities steering good students towards us. If we persistently try to bring our own best back, we will defeat ourselves in the long run in two ways: we will not get the students; and we will not get the top-quality men we should get either, because we are bound to miss out on some of our own, and the fact that a new non-Chicagoan will necessarily be one of a minority outgroup will make the place unattractive to such men.

I am also fairly sure that Becker would not come, because he is intelligent enough to know that he should not come and begause he is well entrenched at Columbia, where a number of senior men are due to be replaced and will be replaced by men of his own

_____________________

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
CHICAGO 37 • ILLINOIS
DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS

June 15, 1964

Professor Zvi Griliches

The Maurice Falk Institute for
Economic Research in Israel
17, Keren Hayesod Street
Jerusalem, Israel

Dear Zvi:

I have your letter of June 7.

At the Department Meeting a week ago last Friday, we took no action on Richard Moorsteen other than agreeing to invite him to come to Chicago for a visit next fall. We agreed to invite Bob Mundell to join our faculty for the year 1965-66 on the Ford Foundation Professorship.

The Department took no action on my proposal to offer a major appointment to Gary Becker. It is likely that the question will come up again next fall and you will be here then to state your own point of view.

It is quite clear now that Theil is not going to give us his decision until after his return to the Netherlands. At the moment I am fairly optimistic that when he makes his decision, it will be favorable. Theil has been offered a quite good package, I think, and I judge from conversations with him that he feels he also has a good package.

Furthermore, Judy got the impression that Laura Theil would be favorable to coming here.

You ask in the postscript to your letter whether I got a raise. I presume that what was in your mind was the question: Will I get a raise if the chairmanship is offered to me and I accept it?

I can’t answer your  question for sure since the chairmanship has not been offered to me. Indeed, I have taken steps at this end to try to insure that it won’t be offered to me. If it is offered to me, it is very unlikely I will accept it. Indeed, I can’t imagine that the terms on which it would be offered would be sufficiently attractive to induce me to accept.

Sincerely,

[signed] Gregg

H.G. Lewis

HGL/agm

Source: Harvard University Archives, Papers of Zvi Griliches, Box 129, Folder „Correspondence, 1960-1969“.

Image Sources: Harry Johnson (Archives of two giants of economics donated to the U Chicago Library. U Chicago News, October 25, 2018); Gary Becker (University of Chicago Booth School Nobel Laureate Page for Gary Becker).

Categories
Chicago Economics Programs Fields

Chicago. Memo to Dean from Chair of Economics. Strengths & Weaknesses, 1955

 

What I found particularly striking in the following memo, written by the chairman of the Chicago department of economics in 1955, is the number of fields in which the department saw itself weak or at least in need of support: labor, international, mathematical economics and econometrics, development, and industrial organization. Perhaps this was just a matter of administrative strategy, beg for assistance for five fields and hope to actually get assistance for three. That said, Schultz does not appear to be engaging in three-dimensional chess here. Will be interested in hearing what other people think about the this memo.

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Carbon Copy of Strengths and Weaknesses Memo
T.W. Schultz to Dean Chancy D. Harris

September 22, 1955

[To:] Dean Chancy D. Harris
[From:] Theodore W. Schultz
[Re:] Department of Economics

 

It may be helpful to have me briefly state the major elements of strength and, also, of weaknesses which I see in economics, in the hope that these notes may serve you as you prepare your presentation for the trustees.

Elements of Strength

  1. A comparatively young faculty strongly committed to research and graduate instruction.
  2. Research and related seminars are effectively organized as small scale enterprises:
    1. Workshop on Money
    2. Workshop on Public Finance
    3. Resources Research Enterprise
    4. Technical Assistance Studies
    5. Studies of Russia Agriculture
    6. Inventory Studies
  3. Satisfactory foundation support for some of the workshops and research enterprises now underway:
    1. Rockefeller Foundation supporting the money and public finance workshops.
    2. Resources for the Future supporting the resources research.
    3. Ford Foundation supporting the technical assistance studies.
    4. Also, for individual research, the Rockefeller Foundation support of economic history of Professor Hamilton.
  4. U. S. Government contracts and grants are proving satisfactory in financing some research:
    1. The inventory studies
    2. Russian agriculture work
  5. Financial support for competent advanced graduate students doing research is available from the several small scale research enterprises and, also, from SSRC (Griliches this year); from Earhart funds (Nerlove); and from corporations (Oi)
  6. Our new Ph.D. theses procedure is proving most effective in bringing student and faculty resources to bear on productive research.
  7. The new Economic Research Center of the Department is now proving important and necessary overhead facilities and services required by faculty and students working in the several small scale research enterprises.
  8. The new arrangements with the University Press to publish our Studies in Economics represents a major advance.
  9. The Journal of Political Economy continues strong as Prof. Rees and Miss Bassett take over.
  10. While we are not satisfied with the “quality” of many of our graduate students, we appear to be holding our own in a period when many averse factors are at work in lowering the quality of students in most branches, and also in economics generally as it appears.

 

Elements of Weakness

  1. Too many of the faculty are now in junior roles and there are too few major staff members on indefinite tenure in view of the fields of specialization in economics, the range and number of advanced graduate students, and the research work that is underway.
  2. With Professor Harbisons’s leaving and the non-functioning of the Industrial Relations Center in economics, our work in labor economics needs to be reorganized and strengthened. This replanning is now underway. Research resources are required: about $20,000 a year would be optimum.
  3. We are not prepared to serve adequately most of the many (representing about 30% of our graduate students) foreign students working in economics:
    1. Many of them should be in a modified Master’s program.
    2. Relevant research should concentrate on “developmental” problems.
    3. More effort is required to guide their work.
  4. The Department is now weak in International Economics because of the illness of Professor Metzler.
  5. The work in consumption economics has not been made as effective as it should be in bringing major graduate students into play in research.
  6. The reorganization and staffing of work in Mathematical Economics and Econometrics, with the Cowles Commission leaving, is unfinished business:
    1. Professor Hans [a.k.a., “Henri”] Theil is here this year as visiting Professor.
    2. Plans beyond this year await action.
    3. No research support at present for advanced students or for complementary staff in this important area.
  7. The broad area of Economic Development requires major attention and it should be placed high on our agenda as we develop plans and staff during the next few years:
    1. This area is needed to serve especially graduate students from foreign countries.
    2. The economic problems are important to the U.S. scene also.
    3. The Research Center for Economic Development and Cultural Change and importantly the “Journal” it has established need to be drawn into this new effort.
    4. Major new research resources are required.
  8. The long neglected field of Industrial Organization.

 

Some Concrete Steps

  1. To establish the work in Mathematical Economics about $20,000 a year will be required for a “professor” to head this work, for complementary staff, and related research.
  2. To establish the new enterprise now contemplated in Economic Development about $50,000 a year appears essential.
    In this area, a professorship, a visiting professor for each of the next several years, complementary staff, student research in a workshop and support for the Journal “Economic Development and Cultural Change.”
  3. Also in Labor Economics we need to move to a professorship and research support of about $20,000 a year.
  4. How to strengthen the work in International Economics must await developments affecting Professor Metzler’s recovery.
  5. There remains then the long neglected area usually referred to as Industrial Organization. Since no major individual has emerged here or elsewhere, we are compelled to “invest” in a younger person in breaking into this area.

 

Source:   University of Chicago Archives. Department of Economics Records. Box 42, Folder 8.

Image Source:  T. W. Schultz, University of Chicago Photographic Archive, apf1-07484, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.