Tag: Triffin

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

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2022-04-18

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

Reports to the Dean of Harvard
from the Department of Economics.

1946-1947

September 29, 1947

Dear Dean Buck:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

articles were published.

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

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

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Paul H. Buck

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

___________________________

1947-1948

September 30, 1948

Dear Provost Buck:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following books were published by members of the Department:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very sincerely,
H. H. Burbank

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall

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

___________________________

1948-1949

September 28, 1949

Dear Provost Buck:

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

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

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

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

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

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

The following books were published:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Economic Planning, by Seymour E. Harris. Knopf.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely
[Harold H. Burbank]

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

___________________________

1949-1950

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___________________________

1949-1950

January 5, 1951

Provost Paul H. Buck
5 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

Dear Provost Buck:

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

I. Undergraduate Instruction

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

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

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

II. Graduate Instruction

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

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

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

III. Research

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

IV. The Staff of the Department

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

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

**VI. [sic] Distinctions**

Members of the Department received the following distinctions:

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

Professor Sumner Slichter — President, Industrial Relations Research Association.

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

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

Sincerely yours,
Arthur Smithies

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

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

Tags BlackJD, Burbank, Chamberlin, Crum, Dunlop, Frickey, Galbraith, Haberler, Hansen, Harris, Leontief, Mason, Metzler, Monroe, Orcutt, SawyerJ, Schumpeter, Slichter, Smithies, Triffin, WilliamsJH

Economics Programs Harvard Undergraduate

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

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2021-11-21

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

____________________________

November 12, 1932

Dear Dean Murdock,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

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

____________________________

1933
[not found]

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

____________________________

October 15, 1934

Dear Dean Murdock,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean Kenneth B. Murdock
20 University Hall

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

____________________________

October 18, 1935

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff

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

____________________________

October 15, 1936

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

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

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

____________________________

October 21, 1937

Dear Dean Birkhoff:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Three Years of the AAA by John D. Black

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

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

Prosperity and Depression by Gottfried Haberler

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

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

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

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

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

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

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

____________________________

October 15, 1938

Dear Dean Birkhoff,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Burbank

Dean George D. Birkhoff
20 University Hall
Cambridge, Massachusetts

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

____________________________

October 16, 1939

Dear Dean Ferguson:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

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

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

____________________________

October 15, 1940

Dear Dean Ferguson:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

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

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

____________________________

October 15, 1941

Dear Dean Ferguson:

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

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

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

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

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

Sincerely yours,
H. H. Chamberlin

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

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

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

Tags Abbott, BlackJD, Burbank, Cassels, Chamberlin, ColeAH, Crum, Currie, Ellis, Frickey, Galbraith, Gay, Haberler, Ham, Hansen, Harris, Hubbard, Leontief, Mason, Oakes, Reynolds, Ripley, Schumpeter, Slichter, SmithWB, Sprague, SweezyA, Taussig, Triffin, Usher, Wallace, Williams, Wilson

Harvard Seminar Speakers

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

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2018-02-01

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.

___________________________________

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.

___________________________________

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.

___________________________________

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.

___________________________________

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.

___________________________________

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.

___________________________________

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:

Exchanges, Controls, and International Trade (8 meetings)
Regional Problems (8 meetings).
Regional and International Aspects of Domestic Problems (8 meetings).
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.

Tags Bissell, Despres, Fellner, Furth, Gerschenkron, GilbertRV, GordonRA, Haberler, Hansen, Harris, HartAG, Heuser, Hinshaw, Kindleberger, Leontief, Lerner, Loveday, Machlup, Marschak, Mason, Mendershausen, Metzler, Morgenstern, Sickle, Staley, Stolper, StolperG, Triffin, Viner, Wallich, White

Courses Economists Harvard

Harvard Economics. Hansen and Williams Fiscal Seminar 1937-1944

Post author By Irwin Collier
Post date 2015-06-06

Motivation
Fiscal Policy Seminar 1937-38
Fiscal Policy Seminar 1938-39
Fiscal Policy Seminar 1939-40
Fiscal Policy Seminar 1940-41
Fiscal Policy Seminar 1941-42
Fiscal Policy Seminar 1942-43
Fiscal Policy Seminar 1943-44
Fiscal Policy Seminar 1944-45

___________________________

From the first annual report of the Graduate School of Public Administration by Dean John H. Williams for 1937-1938

[p. 298] Concerning the seminars which constitute our program of work little further comment seems necessary. A statement of last year’s program and that being followed this year is given in the appendix, where we have sought to describe in detail the content of the seminars and our methods of conducting them. Since properly qualified students carrying on graduate study in other schools and departments of the University may also participate in our seminars the program of the School embraces a student body many times larger than the number of fellows formally registered in the School. Thus at the present time there is a total enrollment of one hundred and eighty-eight students in the various seminars of the School. We began last year with five seminars and have expanded the program this year to eleven, of which five are full-year and six half-year seminars. In selecting the subjects we have been guided in large measure by our own interests and competence, but within these limits we have sought for subjects presenting problems of large public importance, problems both of policy and of procedure, requiring the combined efforts of different disciplines within the social sciences and permitting of effective cooperation between the University and the public service. Especially we have sought to find subjects that are at the research stage, and to put the emphasis upon investigation rather than upon formal instruction. Our interest is quite as much in learning for ourselves as in attempting to teach others…

[p. 314]

Fiscal Policy.
Professors WILLIAMS and HANSEN.

This seminar is concerned with public finance in relation to economic, political, and social institutions and systems. It deals with the monetary aspects of expenditures and revenues, with public finance as a compensatory mechanism in the business cycle, and with the social and political implications of government spending.

___________________________

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1937-1938

Source:
Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXVI February 28, 1939, No. 4.
Issue containing the report of the President of Harvard College and reports of departments for 1937-38, pp. 307-310 .

The Fiscal Policy Seminar in 1937-1938 was conducted on two planes: (1) a general meeting which included active members of the seminar as well as others in the University, both graduate students and faculty members, who had a special interest in one or more of the fields covered at these meetings; (2) a meeting restricted to the working members of the seminar.

The general seminar session met each week on Friday from four to six and was addressed by a visiting consultant of the School. The afternoon session was followed by dinner with the visiting guest attended mainly by selected members from the working seminar who were especially interested in the particular topic under discussion, the dinner in turn being followed by an extended discussion, lasting frequently until 10 or 10:30 o’clock. The visiting speakers were for the most part government officials, but there were also included various officials in the Treasury, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Federal Reserve Board in Washington, Social Security Board, Works Progress Administration and the Federal Housing Administration….

The general seminar session with visiting consultants proved extremely valuable from various standpoints. It proved a means by which government officials on their part came into closer contact with the Faculty and students of the Graduate School of Public Administration and accordingly acquired a personal interest in its problems, and on the other side a means of presenting to the School in a more vital way the problems confronting the government. This type of close contact, moreover, is believed to be a useful means of developing placement openings for the graduates of the School in Washington. The discussions with the visiting consultants in the Friday sessions, moreover, proved extremely stimulating as a background for the research work done by the working members of the restricted seminar group.

The working seminar met each week on Monday from four to six. At these sessions papers were presented by various members of the seminar. Out of these papers a number of articles were prepared for submission for publication in various economic journals. It appears that out of the year’s work perhaps some four or five articles in leading journals are likely to materialize. Some have already been accepted.

The combined work of these two seminar meetings forms the background of a research project in Fiscal Policy, which it is planned will eventuate in a volume exploring the problem in a general way and raising important problems for further research.

Program of Friday Meetings

October 15. F. J. BAILEY — “The Work of the Federal Bureau of the Budget.”

October 22. CARL SHOUP — “General Over-All View of the American Tax System.”

October 29. EUSTACE SELIGMAN — “The Effect of the Capital Gains Tax on the Investment Market.”

November 12. GEORGE C. HAAS, JOSEPH S. ZUCKER, L. H. SELTZER and A. F. O’DONNELL — “The Federal Tax Structure.”

November 26. LAWRENCE SELTZER — “The Undistributed Profits Tax.”

December 3. GERHARD COLM — “Economic Consequences of Recent American Tax-Policy.”

December 10. GEORGE O. MAY — “The 1936 Federal Tax Legislation.”

December 17. JACOB VINER — “The General Relations between Fiscal Policy and the Business Cycle.”

February 11. DANIEL W. BELL — “Treasury Financing”; W. R. BURGESS – “Relations of the Reserve Banks and the Treasury.”

February 18. E. A. GOLDENWEISER — “Relations of Deficit Financing to the Banking System.”

February 25. WOODLIEF THOMAS — “Fiscal Policy and the Money Market.”

March 4. LAUCHLIN CURRIE — “Federal Income -Creating Expenditures.”

March 18. A. J. ALTMEYER and WILBUR J. COHEN — “Old Age Insurance and Old Age Assistance: Current and Future Prospects.”

March 25. MERRILL G. MURRAY and JOHN J. CORSON — “The Social Security Taxes.”

April 1. ERNEST M. FISHER — “The Federal Housing Administration.”

April 15. ARTHUR R. GAYER — “Compensatory Spending.”

April 22. CORRINGTON GILL — “Administrative and Fiscal Problems of the Relief Administration.”

April 29. LEWIS DOUGLAS — “Government Fiscal Policy.”

May 6. GUNNAR MYRDAL — “Fiscal Policy in Sweden.”

Program of Monday Meetings

October 18. R. A. MUSGRAVE — “The Twentieth Century Fund Report on Facing the Tax Problem.”

October 25. G. G. JOHNSON — “The Capital Gains Tax.”

November 1. R. V. GILBERT — “The Price of Common Stock as an Element in the Interest Price Structure.”

November 8. EMILE DESPRES — “The Effect of the Capital Gains Tax upon Capital Formation.”

November 15. Dr. HEINRICH BRUENING — “Monetary and Fiscal Policies in Germany during the Depression.”

November 22. WALTER SALANT — “The Effect of Securities Market Regulations upon Capital Formation.”

November 29. K. E. POOLE — “Tax Remission as a Compensatory Device.”

December 6. E. P. HERRING — “Administrative Problems in the Formulation and Execution of Fiscal Policy.”

December 13. E. N. GRISWOLD — “Legal Aspects of the Undistributed Profits Tax.”

February 14. ROBERT FRASE — “Economic Effects of Social Insurance Reserves, with particular reference to Unemployment Insurance Reserves.”

February 21. D. W. LUSHER — “The Relation of the Structure of Interest Rates to Investment.”

February 28. R. A. MUSGRAVE — “Limits in Public Debt and Taxation.”

March 7. WALTER SALANT — “Effects of Fiscal Policy on Business Stability.”

March 14. HERMAN M. SOMERS — “Future Fiscal Burdens Arising from the Social Security Program.”

March 21. MARTIN KROST — “Tax Variability as a Compensatory Stabilizing Device.”

March 28. NORTON LONG — “Some Aspects of Fiscal Planning under Democratic Government.”

April 11. S. J. DENNIS — “The Relation of the Undistributed Profits Tax and the Soldiers’ Bonus to the 1937 Depression.”

April 25. EMILE DESPRES — “Ezekiel’s Proposal to Secure Full Employment.”

May 2. G. G. JOHNSON — “The Trend Toward Treasury Control of Credit in the United States.”

May 9. GUNNAR MYRDAL — “Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Sweden.”

___________________________

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1938-1939.
Professors Williams and Hansen

Source:
Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXVII March 30, 1940, No. 12.
Issue containing the report of the President of Harvard College and reports of departments for 1938-39, pp. 342-345.

The Fiscal Policy Seminar was conducted in 1938-1939 on substantially the same plan as in 1937-1938; that is, the general seminar sessions, which met on Fridays from four to six, were addressed by a visiting consultant and were attended by the active members of the seminar, as well as by faculty members and graduate students who were especially interested in the topics under discussion. Smaller meetings were held on Monday afternoons from four to six and were attended only by students engaged in research in the field of fiscal policy.

The general sessions were held less frequently than last year – usually twice a month – and on two occasions were conducted jointly with the Administrative Process Seminar. These joint meetings were on the subjects of the capital budget and federal grants to states, in which both seminars had an interest.

At the three December meetings, “previews” were held of round table discussions which were conducted later in the month at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. The round tables covered the topics “The Role of Public Investment and Consumer Capital Formation,” “Divergencies in the Development of Recovery in Various Countries,” and “The Workability of Compensatory Devices.” In each case three guest speakers presented papers covering different aspects of the problem and providing the basis for general discussion….

As last year, dinners attended by the visiting guest and a small group of students followed the Friday afternoon session, and in the evening informal meetings were held for further discussion.

At each Monday session, a paper was presented by a member of the group doing active research in fiscal policy. The paper was discussed by the other members of the seminar. These papers and discussions formed the basis for theses which were submitted at the close of the year by students who were taking the seminar for academic credit.

The research project begun last year has resulted in a preliminary manuscript on “Fiscal Policy in Relation to the Business Cycle and Chronic Unemployment.” During the coming year, it will be revised and expanded with a view to publication.

The following is a list of the Monday meetings of the seminar:

October 3. An Over-all View of the Current United States Tax System: Federal, State and Local.

October 10. An Over-all View of Governmental Expenditures, 1913-1938: Federal, State and Local.

An Over-all View of the Rise of Public Debt, 1913-1938: Federal, State and Local.

October 17. The 1938 Revenue Act.

October 24. Issues Raised by the Colm-Lehmann Pamphlets.

October 31. The Economic Consequences of Retirement of the Public Debt.

November 14. The Theoretical and Practical Implications of Separating the Investment Budget from the Current Budget.

November 21. New York City’s Experience.

November 28. A Re-examination of the Stabilization of Consumer Income.

December 5. A Program for the Cyclical Stabilization of Investment and Current Expenditures.

December 12. Public Investment: History and Program for Future.

December 19. An Analysis of Governmental Expenditures with a View to Showing the Effects of the Volume and Types of Different Expenditures on Consumption, Saving and Investment.

February 6. Canadian Fiscal Relations.

February 13. Japanese Monetary and Fiscal Recovery Policies.

February 20. The Development of Budgetary Organization.

February 27. Balkan Credit and Fiscal Policy.

March 6. The Economic Implications of a Rising Public Debt.

March 13. Consumption, Saving and Investment and Relief and Social Security.

March 20. A Re-examination of the Stabilization of Consumer Income.

March 27. Deficit Financing and the Banking System.

April 10. Government Loans and Subsidies as a Stimulus to Private Investment.

April 17. The Economic Effects of the Income Tax.

April 24. Federal Aid to the States.

May 1. Some Attempts at the Statistical Determination of the Multiplier and the Propensity to Consume.

The non-resident consultants and the meetings which they attended were as follows:

October 7. J. ROY BLOUGH, Director of Tax Research, Division of Tax Research, United States Treasury Department. Tax Policy in the United States Today.

October 28. LAWRENCE H. SELTZER, Assistant Director, Division of Research and Statistics, United States Treasury Department. Tax Policy with Reference to Capital Accumulation.

November 7. FRITZ LEHMANN, New School for Social Research. The German Situation.

November 18. CHARLES W. ELIOT, 2nd., Executive Officer, National Resources Committee. Current and Capital Budgets.
GUNNAR MYRDAL, University of Stockholm. Swedish Budgetary Procedure.
This was a joint meeting with the Administrative Process Seminar.

November 25. ROSWELL MAGILL, former Under Secretary of the Treasury. The Formulation of a Revenue Bill.

December 2. Preview of American Economic Association Round Table on The Role of Public Investment and Consumer Capital Formation.

GERHARD COLM, New School for Social Research. The Government as Investor.

BENJAMIN W. LEWIS, Oberlin College. The Government as Competitor.

GRIFFITH JOHNSON, United States Treasury Department. The Effect of the Social Security Taxes on Consumption and Investment.

December 9. Preview of American Economic Association Round Table on Divergencies in the Development of Recovery in Various Countries.

GOTTFRIED HABERLER, Harvard University. Recovery Policies in Democratic Countries.

GEORGE N. HALM, Tufts College. Recovery Policies in Totalitarian States.

EMIL LEDERER, New School for Social Research. Is There a World-wide Drift Toward Regimented Control of Industry?

December 16. Preview of American Economic Association Round Table on the Workability of Compensatory Devices.

PAUL T. ELLSWORTH, University of Cincinnati. The Efficacy of Central Bank Policy.

PAUL A. SAMUELSON, Junior Fellow, Harvard University. The Theory of Pump-Priming Re-examined.

EMILE DESPRES, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Washington, D. C. The Proposal to Tax Hoarding.

February 17. LAUCHLIN CURRIE, Assistant Director, Division of Research and Statistics, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Problem of the Multiplier and the Propensities to Save and Consume and the Outlook for Capital Expenditures.

March 10. GARDINER MEANS, Director, Industrial Section, National ResourcesCommittee. Discussion of preliminary edition of “Patterns of Resource Use” by the National Resources Committee.

March 17. E. A. GOLDENWEISER, Director, Division of Research and Statistics, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The Problems of the Quantity and Quality of Money from the Point of View of Monetary Regulation.

April 14. EWAN CLAGUE, Director, Bureau of Research and Statistics, Social Security Board. Federal Grants to States.

April 21. J. DOUGLAS BROWN, Princeton University. A Survey of the Social Security Program in the United States.

April 28. MARRINER ECCLES, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. Financial and Fiscal Problems Faced by Capitalistic Democracies Today.

___________________________

THE FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1939-1940
Professors Williams and Hansen

Source:
Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXVIII April 10, 1941, No. 20.
Issue containing the report of the President of Harvard College and reports of departments for 1939-40, pp. 324-326.

The Fiscal Policy Seminar continued its plan of holding meetings on Mondays from four to six, at which students actively engaged in research in the field of fiscal policy presented papers for discussion, and on occasional Fridays, when visiting consultants addressed the group. The Friday meetings, held usually twice a month, were attended by interested faculty members and graduate students as well as by the active members of the seminar. …Following the more formal afternoon presentation on Fridays, a part of the seminar usually met with the speaker in the evening for further informal discussion of the topic.

On October 20, the seminar met with the Administrative Process Seminar to hear Mr. Robert H. Rawson, a former Littauer Fellow, speak on the work of the Federal Bureau of the Budget. Two meetings were held jointly with the Price Policies Seminar – one in November at which Mr. Leon Henderson discussed price rigidities in our economy, and one in February at which Mr. Richard V. Gilbert, Chief of the Industrial Economics Division of the Department of Commerce, spoke on “War Inventories and the Current Economic Outlook.”

Discussion at the first five Monday meetings was based on the manuscript Fiscal Policy in Relation to the Business Cycle, a research project which has grown out of the meetings during the past two years. The subsequent Monday sessions were devoted to the presentation of papers by members of the group. These papers were discussed by the seminar and presented as theses at the end of the year by those receiving academic credit for the course.

The program of Monday meetings was as follows:

Professor ALVIN H. HANSEN

The Consumption Function.

Current Trends in Economic Theory with Special Reference to the Business Cycle.

Secular Trends in Investment and Saving.

Professor JOHN H. WILLIAMS.

Shifts in Control of Depressions.

Theories of Compensatory Spending.

Budgeting and Fiscal Policy.

The Marginal Propensity to Import.

The Australian Multiplier.

Investment in the American Economy, 1850-1940.

Fiscal Aspects of Ireland’s Economic Nationalism.

The Power of the Federal Reserve System to Restrict Expansion.

Wartime Corporation Finance.

Wartime Finance in Great Britain.

Unemployment Insurance Funds.

The Effect of Deficit Financing on the Banking System.

Public Health.

The Capital Budget.

The Implications of the Growth of Life Insurance for Full Employment.

Taxation in the Business Cycle.

Public Investment.

Redistribution of Income as a Result of Federal Expenditures.

The following is a list of the non-resident consultants and the topics which they discussed:

October 6. ISADOR LUBIN, Commissioner of Labor Statistics, United States Department of Labor.

Subject: The Position of Labor Relations and Labor Costs in the Current Situation.

October 20. HARRY D. WHITE, Director, Division of Monetary Research, United States Treasury Department.

Subject: Gold and Foreign Exchange.

October 30. ROBERT H. RAWSON, Junior Administrative Analyst, Bureau of the Budget.

Subject: Organization and Methods of the Federal Bureau of the Budget.
(Joint meeting with the Administrative Process Seminar.)

November 13.LEON HENDERSON, Commissioner, Securities and Exchange Commission, and member of the Temporary National Economic Committee.

Subject: Price Rigidities in the American Economy.
(Joint meeting with the Price Policies Seminar.)

December 8. RAYMOND W. GOLDSMITH, Assistant Director, Research and Statistical Section, Securities and Exchange Commission.

Subject: The Volume and Components of Saving in the United States.

February 26. RICHARD V. GILBERT, Chief, Industrial Economics Division, United States Department of Commerce.

Subject: War Inventories and the Current Economic Outlook.

March 1. WARD SHEPARD, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, United States Department of Agriculture.

Subject: A Proposed Forest Policy for the United States.

March 8. EMILE DESPRES, Senior Economist, Division of Research and Statistics, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Subject: Internal Expansion and the International Position of the United States.

March 29. GARDINER MEANS, Economic Adviser, National Resources Planning Board.

Subject: The Structure of the American Economy.

April 12. M. A. HEILPERIN, Institute for Higher International Studies, Geneva.

Subject: The International Monetary System and the Business Cycle.

May 3. GERHARD COLM, Economist, Division of Industrial Economics, United States Department of Commerce.

Subject: Some Problems of Long-Run Tax Policy.

___________________________

THE FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1940-1941.
Professors Williams and Hansen

Source:
Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XXXIX February 25, 1942, No. 5.
Issue containing the report of the President of Harvard College and reports of Departments for 1940-41, pp. 323-326.

The Fiscal Policy Seminar continued its established practice of including in its program meetings at which visiting consultants discussed various topics of interest to the group, and sessions devoted to the presentation of student reports. The reports were presented in the second semester and were discussed at length by the other members of the seminar….

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

The program of meetings was as follows:

September 30. Professor HANSEN.

October 7. Professor WILLIAMS.

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

Subject: International Trade and the Multiplier.
(Joint meeting with International Economic Relations Seminar.)

October 21. Professor HANSEN and Professor WILLIAMS.

October 25. MARTIN KROST, Senior Economist, Division of Research and Statistics, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Subject: The Excess Profits Tax.

October 28. RICHARD A. MUSGRAVE, Instructor, Department of Economics, Harvard University.

Subject: Report of the Canadian Royal Commission on Dominion Provincial Fiscal Relations.

November 4. Professor HANSEN.

November 8. GEORGE TERBORGH, Senior Economist, Division of Research and Statistics, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Subject: Prospective Accumulated Backlog in Capital Goods and Durable Consumers’ Goods Industries in the Post-Defense Period.

November 18. ELIZABETH B. SCHUMPETER.

Subject: Fiscal and Monetary Policy in Japan.

November 25. BENJAMIN H. HIGGINS and RICHARD A. MUSGRAVE, Instructors, Department of Economics, Harvard University.

Subject: The Savings-Investment Problem Re-examined.

December 2. Professor HANSEN.

December 9. DAN T. SMITH, Associate Professor of Finance and Taxation, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.

Subject: The Role of Borrowing in the Defense Program.

December 16. Professor HANSEN.

December 20. GUY GREER, Federal Housing Administration.

Subject: The Organization of the Federal Housing Program.

February 3. Student Report.

Subject: National Income and Military Effort.

February 10. Student Report.

Subject: United States Housing Program During and After the Defense Program.

February 17. ERIC ENGLUND, Assistant Chief, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, United States Department of Agriculture.

Subject: Alternatives in Financing of the Agricultural Programs.

(Joint meeting with Agricultural, Forestry and Land Seminar.)

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

Subject: Blocked Balances.

(Joint meeting with International Economic Relations Seminar.)

February 24. J. KEITH BUTTERS, Instructor, Department of Economics, Harvard University.

Subject: Discriminatory Features in Federal Corporation Income Taxes.

March 3. J. KENNETH GALBRAITH, National Defense Advisory Commission.

Subject: The Farm Credit Administration and Related Farm Credit Problems.

(Joint meeting with Agricultural, Forestry, and Land Policy Seminar.)

March 10. Student report.

Subject: Trends in the Fiscal Incapacity of State and Local Governments and Their Impact on Defense and Post-Defense Policy.

March 17. Student Report.

Subject: The Effect of the Tax Structures on Economic Activity in the United States and Great Britain, 1929-1937.

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

Subject: The American Defense Program.

(Joint meeting with International Economic Relations Seminar.)

March 24. Student Report.

Subject: Essays on Fiscal Policy and the Building Cycle.

I. Transport Development and Building Cycles.
II. Monetary Control of the Building Cycle.

April 7. Student Report.

Subject: The Monetary Powers of Some Federal Agencies outside the Federal Reserve System.

April 14. Student Report.

Subject: Incentive Taxation.

April 18. Student Reports.

Subjects: The Use of Credit as an Instrument of Social Amelioration in Agriculture. Credit for a Solvent Agriculture.

(Joint meeting with Agricultural, Forestry, and Land Policy Seminar.)

April 25. CARL SHOUP, Professor of Economics, Columbia University.

Subject: Defense Financing.

April 28. Student Report.

Subject: The Economic Development of a War Economy.

May 2. GUSTAV STOLPER, Financial Adviser.

Subject: Financing the American Defense Program.

(Joint meeting with International Economic Relations Seminar.)

___________________________

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1941-1942
Professors Williams and Hansen

Source:
Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XLI, September 26, 1944, No. 23.
Issue containing the report of the President of Harvard College and reports of the departments for 1941-42, pp. 340-343.

Fiscal problems arising out of the war and plans for the post-war period were of dominant interest in the Fiscal Policy Seminar program during 1941-42. With regard to post-war problems particular attention was paid to the question of federal-state-local fiscal relations, and a special section of the seminar library was devoted to books and pamphlets on this topic.

Meetings were held on Mondays and Fridays, the latter being given over mainly to visiting consultants, with reports and discussions by student and faculty members of the seminar concentrated on Mondays. As in previous years, several meetings were held jointly with other Seminars, eight with the International Economic Relations Seminar, and two with the Agricultural, Forestry, and Land Use Policy Seminar….

The program of meetings was as follows:

September 29. The Development of Fiscal Policy.

October 6. Defense Financing.

October 17. The Relation Between Fiscal Policy and Inflation.

October 20. The Problem of Federal, State and Local Relationships.

HARVEY S. PERLOFF, Associate Economist, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

October 24. The United States Housing Authority.

NATHAN STRAUS, Administration, United States Housing Authority.

October 27. Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles.

October 31. Urban Redevelopment.

GUY GREER, Senior Economist, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

November 3. Fiscal Policy and Business Cycles.

November 10. The Present State of Fiscal Policy.

November 17. The Multiplier.

November 21. The Federal Advisory Council.

WALTER LICHTENSTEIN, Vice-President, First National Bank of Chicago.

November 24. The Multiplier.

PAUL SAMUELSON, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Professor HABERLER.

November 28. Economic Warfare.

NOEL HALL, British Embassy.

December 1. The Multiplier.

PAUL SAMUELSON, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

December 5. International Economic Relations with Special Reference to the Post-War Situation.

ROBERT BRYCE, Department of Finance, Canada.

December 8. Post-War Problems.

Professors HABERLER and HARRIS as well as Professors WILLIAMS and HANSEN.

December 12. The Revenue Act of 1941.

J. KEITH BUTTERS, Department of Economics, Harvard University.

December 15. The Theory of Public Investment.

Professor HARRIS.

December 19. The 1942 Revenue Act.

ROY BLOUGH, Director of Tax Research, Treasury Department.

January 26. The Problem of Post-War Reconstruction.

PER JACOBSSEN, Economist, Bank for International Settlements.

February 2. Economic Philosophy and Post-War Fiscal Policy.

ALEJANDRO SHAW, Argentina.

February 9. Equalization Grants and Their Role in Fiscal Policy (student report).

February 13. Monopolistic Trading and International Relations.

JACOB VINER, Chicago University.

February 16. War Finance and Inflation (student report).

February 20. The Effect of Federalism on Fiscal Policy.

LUTHER GULICK, National Resources Planning Board.

March 2. Agriculture in the Post-War Period.

LEONARD ELMHIRST, Elmhirst Foundation.

March 9. War Finance and Direct Taxation (student report).

March 13. Post-War Domestic and International Investments.

RICHARD M. BISSELL, Department of Commerce.

March 16. Monetary Implications of Fiscal Policy.

March 20. The Present Fiscal Situation.

ALBERT GAYLORD HART, Iowa State College.

March 23. Problems of Monetary Control.

ROBERT V. ROSA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and

PETER L. BERNSTEIN, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

March 27. The Public Work Reserve.

BENJAMIN H. HIGGINS, Economic Consultant, Public Work Reserve.

April 6. A High-Consumption vs. a High-Savings Economy (student report).

April 10. Post-War Surpluses and Shortages in Plant and Equipment.

GEORGE TERBORGH, Senior Economist, Division of Research and Statistics, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

April 13. Private Industry Post-War Planning.

DAVID C. PRINCE, Vice-President, General Electric Company.

April 17. Commodity Taxation in a Progressive Tax System (student report).

April 24. Government Lending Agencies.

ROBERT V. ROSA, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and

PETER L. BERNSTEIN, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

April 27. The Impact of War Expenditures on State and Local Government (student report).

May 1. The Inflationary Gap.

WALTER SALANT, Chief, Price and Economic Policy Section, Division of Research, Office of Price Administration.

May 21. The Problem of Britain’s Food Supply.

E. M. H. LLOYD, Chairman, British Food Mission.

___________________________

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1942-43
Professors Williams and Hansen

Source:
Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XLI, September 28, 1944, No. 25.
Issue containing the report of the President of Harvard College and reports of the departments for 1942-43, pp. 243-245.

War and post-war fiscal problems were the main consideration in the Fiscal Policy Seminar in 1942-43. This included national aspects of inflationary and tax problems and post-war tax adjustments, as well as federal-state-local fiscal relations.

The program of meetings was as follows:

October 5. Professor HANSEN.

Subject: A Survey of the Fiscal.War Picture.

October 9. MILTON GILBERT, Director of National Income Division, Department of Commerce.

Subject: Concepts of National Income and Its Statistical Measurement.

October 19. Professor WILLIAMS.

Subject: The Present Status of Fiscal Policy.

October 23. Professor PAUL SAMUELSON, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Subject: Consumption Function.

October 26. Professor WILLIAMS.

Subject: Changes in the Banking System.

October 30. Professor LAWRENCE H. SELTZER, Wayne University.

Subject: Possible Techniques for the Working of the PostWar Economic System.

November 2. Professor A. P. LERNER, Amherst College.

Subject: Rate of Interest.

November 9. Professor HANSEN.

Subject: War Financing in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

November 13. Professor FRITZ MACHLUP, Buffalo University. (Joint meeting with International Economic Relations seminar.)

Subject: National Income, Employment and International Relations.

November 16. Professor HANSEN.

Subject: Federal, State, Local Fiscal Relations.

November 20. DAVID E. LILIENTHAL, Director, Tennessee Valley Authority.

Subject: The Tennessee Valley Authority.

November 23. Dr. JOHN KEITH BUTTERS, Harvard University.

Subject: Revenue Act of 1942.

November 27. Hon. GRAHAM F. TOWERS, Governor, Bank of Canada. (Joint meeting with International Economic Relations seminar.)

Subject: Canadian War Economic Measures.

November 30. Professor WILLIAMS.

Subject: Basic Issues of Fiscal Policy.

December 4. LYNN R. EDMINSTER, Vice-Chairman, U. S. Tariff Commission.

(Joint meeting with International Economic Relations seminar.)

Subject: The Reconstruction of World Trade After War.

December 7. Professor WILLIAMS.

Subject: Basic Issues of Fiscal Policy.

December 1. Professor SEYMOUR E. HARRIS. (Joint meeting with International Economic Relations seminar.)

Subject: War Problems of International Trade.

December 14. Professor HANSEN.

Subject: The Beveridge Report.

February 1. Honorable HAROLD STASSEN, Governor of Minnesota.

Subject: Decentralized Government.

February 8. HARVEY S. PERLOFF, Federal Reserve Board, Washington.

Subject: State-Local Fiscal Relations.

February 12. THOMAS MC KITTRICK, President of the Bank for International Settlements.

Subject: The Bank for International Settlements.

February 15. Professor HANSEN.

Subject: The Beveridge Plan and a Post-War Minimum Budget.

February 24. Dr. LEO PASVOLSKY, State Department. (Joint meeting with International Economic Relations seminar.)

Subject: Post-War Problems in International Trade.

March 1. Dr. HANS STAEHLE, Harvard University.

Subject: Consumption and National Income in Post-War.

March 12. Dr. RICHARD MUSGRAVE, Federal Reserve Board, Washington.

Subject: Revenue Bill-1943.

March 26. Dr. PAUL STUDENSKI, Professor of Economics, New York University.

Subject: State-Local Fiscal Policies in New York in War-Time.

April 12. EMILE DESPRES, Office of Strategic Services, Washington. (Joint meeting with International Economic Relations 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 International Economic Relations seminar.)

Subject: Planned or Adjusted Post-War Economy.

May 8. GUY GREER, Editor of Fortune Magazine.

Subject: Urban Redevelopment.

___________________________

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1943-44
Professors Williams and Hansen

Source:
Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XLIV, July 7, 1947, No. 20.
Issue containing the report of the President of Harvard College and reports of departments for 1943-4, pp. 269-270.

Fiscal problems of the war and in the postwar period were the general topics under discussion in the Fiscal Policy Seminar in I943-44. More specifically this included national aspects of consumption and saving, taxation, budgeting, and the public debt. Emphasis was also placed on the international financial and monetary problems. Several of the meetings were devoted to discussion of the special fiscal and monetary problems in a number of Latin American countries.

Meetings were held on Mondays and Fridays and consisted of reports by student and faculty members of the seminar and of discussions led by outside consultants and by Dean Williams and Professor Hansen. As in other years, a number of meetings were held jointly with other seminars….

The program of meetings was as follows:

November 8. Professor WILLIAMS.

Subject: General Survey of Fiscal Policy.

November 15. Professor WILLIAMS.

Subject: General Survey of Fiscal Policy (cont.).

November 19. Dr. J. ROY BLOUGH, Director of Tax Research, Treasury Department.

Subject: Some Administrative Aspects of Taxation.

November 22. G. NEIL PERRY, Director, Bureau of Economics and Statistics, British Columbia.

Subject: Fiscal Policy and the Canadian Economy.

November 29. Professor WILLIAMS.

Subject: Problems of International Monetary Stabilization.

December 6. HANS ADLER.

Subject: Population Growth and Fiscal Policy.

December 13. Professor WILLIAMS.

Subject: Problems of International Monetary Stabilization.

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

Subject: Problems of International Stabilization.

December 20. Professor HANSEN.

Subject: Consumption and Saving during the War.

January 3. Professor HANSEN.

Subject: Consumption and Saving in the Postwar.

January 10. Professor GOTTFRIED HABERLER.

Subject: Reparations.

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

Subject: Mexico.

January 17. Dr. BEARDSLEY RUML, Federal Reserve Bank, 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 Adviser on Price Control to Haitian Government.

Subject: Haiti.

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

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

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

Subject: Argentina.

March 31. Mr. HENRY WALLICH.

Subject: Fiscal Policy and International Equilibrium.

April 14. Mr. EVSEY DOMAR, Federal Reserve Board.

Subject: Limitation of Public Debt in Relation to National Income.

May 5. Dr. J. KEITH BUTTERS and Dr. CHARLES ABBOTT, Harvard Business School.

Subject: Business Taxes.

May 19. Mr. GUY GREER, Board of Editors, Fortune.

Subject: Urban Redevelopment.

___________________________

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1944-45
Professors Williams and Hansen

Source:
Official Register of Harvard University, Vol. XLV, December 1, 1948, No. 30.
Issue containing the report of the President of Harvard College and reports of departments for 1944-45, pp. 282-284.

Fiscal problems of the war and in the postwar period were the general topics under discussion in the Fiscal Policy Seminar in 1944-1945. More specifically this included national aspects of consumption and saving, taxation, budgeting, and the public debt. Emphasis was also placed on the international financial and monetary problems. Several of the meetings were devoted to discussion of the special fiscal and monetary problems in a number of Latin American countries.

Three of the papers presented at these meetings were subsequently published in economic journals. The program of meetings was as follows:

*Sept. 11. J. W. BEYEN, former president of the International Bank at Basle, Chairman of Netherlands Delegation at Bretton Woods.

Subject: Bretton Woods Conference.

*Sept. 18. RAGNAR NURKSE of Economic and Financial Section of League of Nations.

Subject: Bretton Woods Conference.

*October 30. Professor DOUGLAS COPLAND, University of Melbourne, Australia.

Subject: Australian Problems in the Transition from War to Peace.

*The dates in September and October, while part of the Summer Term, were integrated in the year’s program.

November 6. Professor JOHN H. WILLIAMS.

Subject: Estimates of Postwar National Income and Employment.

November 13. Professor ALVIN H. HANSEN.

Subject: Wartime Fiscal Problems.

November 15. RANDOLPH PAUL, formerly with the U.S. Treasury.

Subject: Postwar Federal Taxation.

November 20. Dr. FREDERICK LUTZ, Princeton University.

Subject: Corporate Cash Balances, I914-1943.

December 4. Professor JOHN H. WILLIAMS.

Subject: The Bretton Woods Agreements.

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 I945.)

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

Subject: International Distribution of Supplies in Wartime.

January 8. DAVID E. LILIENTHAL, Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Subject: Tennessee Valley Authority.

January 15. Dr. OLIVER M. W. SPRAGUE (Professor Emeritus).

Subject: Postwar Corporate Taxation.

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 9. Dr. PAUL J. RAVER, Bonneville Power Administration.

Subject: Bonneville Power Administration.

March 12. Professor ALVIN H. HANSEN.

Subject: Murray Employment Bill.

March 16. H. L. SELIGMAN.

Subject: Bank Earnings and Taxation of Bank Profits.

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 1945.)

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

Subject: Monetary and Financial Problems of 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 13. s. s. PU [sic]

Subject: Fiscal Policies and Income Generation.

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

Subject: Commodity Agreements.

April 20. HECTOR TASSARA.

Subject: The Role of the Central Bank in the Argentine Economy.

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.

April 30. Professor ALVIN H. HANSEN.

Subject: Postwar Wage Policy.

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

Subject: Inflation in Europe.

May 21. AXEL IVEROTH, Swedish Legation, Washington.

Subject: Postwar Plans in Sweden.

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.

Tags Currie, Domar, Fellner, Galbraith, Haberler, Hansen, Harris, HartAG, Leontief, Lerner, Lutz, Mason, Metzler, Musgrave, Nurkse, Salant, Samuelson, Shoup, Sprague, Staehle, Stolper, Triffin, Viner, Wallich, White, Williams

Reports to the Dean of Harvard from the Department of Economics.

1932-1941

1941-1946

1946-1947

1947-1948

1948-1949

1949-1950

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

1949-1950

I. Undergraduate Instruction

II. Graduate Instruction

III. Research

IV. The Staff of the Department

VI. [sic] Distinctions

November 12, 1932

1933 [not found]

October 15, 1934

October 18, 1935

October 15, 1936

October 21, 1937

October 15, 1938

October 16, 1939

October 15, 1940

October 15, 1941

EXPANSION OF THE SEMINAR PROGRAM

1940-41 INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR [partial list]

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

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR 1942-43. Professor Haberler

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR 1943-44. Associate Professor Harris

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Harris

From the first annual report of the Graduate School of Public Administration by Dean John H. Williams for 1937-1938

Fiscal Policy. Professors WILLIAMS and HANSEN.

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1937-1938

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1938-1939. Professors Williams and Hansen

THE FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1939-1940 Professors Williams and Hansen

THE FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1940-1941. Professors Williams and Hansen

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1941-1942 Professors Williams and Hansen

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1942-43 Professors Williams and Hansen

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1943-44 Professors Williams and Hansen

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1944-45 Professors Williams and Hansen

Reports to the Dean of Harvard
from the Department of Economics.

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

**VI. [sic] Distinctions**

1933
[not found]

1940-41
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
[partial list]

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

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
1942-43. Professor Haberler

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
1943-44. Associate Professor Harris

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC RELATIONS SEMINAR
Professor Haberler and Associate Professor Harris

Fiscal Policy.
Professors WILLIAMS and HANSEN.

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1938-1939.
Professors Williams and Hansen

THE FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1939-1940
Professors Williams and Hansen

THE FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1940-1941.
Professors Williams and Hansen

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1941-1942
Professors Williams and Hansen

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1942-43
Professors Williams and Hansen

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1943-44
Professors Williams and Hansen

FISCAL POLICY SEMINAR, 1944-45
Professors Williams and Hansen