Chris Sims, brilliant macroeconomic empiricist, has died. His Nobel acceptance speech: www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2018....

So this is interesting. Around 1900 there's a notable shift in approaches to scientific writing. In his 1904 book Notes on the Composition of Scientific Papers, Clifford Albutt advises authors against describing the investigative pathways they followed. The text should be constructed deductively.

#EconSky Thomas Nixon Carver's eighth iteration of his Harvard course on schemes of fundamental economic reform 1910-11. He hoped to disabuse Harvard boys of their visions of social reform. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-meth...

#EconSky Description, enrollment and final exam questions for T. N. Carver's course on the functional distribution of income taught at Harvard 1910-11. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-inco...

#EconSky E.E. Day was a new assistant professor at Harvard tasked with the course on commercial crises and trade cycles in 1910-11. Course description, enrollment, and final exam are now posted. A third of the final was dedicated to specific economic indicators. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-comm...

#EconSky Course description, enrollment and exams for Edwin F. Gay's 1910-11 course on Modern European Economic History. Bonus material: all exams and some reading lists for European economic history at Harvard from 1883-84 through 1909-10. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-mode...

#EconSky Wm Z. Ripley's 1910-11 labor problems course at Harvard. Course description, enrollment and final exam. Added bonus: links to all Harvard labor economics exams 1892-93 through 1909-10. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-prob...

#EconSky The newly appointed asst prof of economics, E.E. Day (Harvard PhD 1909) took over the second half of the money and banking sequence at Harvard in 1910-11. His exam questions plus links to those of the previous four years now posted. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-bank...

#EconSky Money exam questions from the Harvard economics department 1910-11 and links to previous decade's worth of money exams. Taught by Charles Phillips Huse. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-mone...

#EconSky The enrollment and final exam for Harvard's undergraduate public finance course from 1910-11 taught by Charles Phillips Huse. Bonus: links have been provided to all Harvard public finance exams from 1884-1910 posted at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-enro...

#EconSky The enrollment, course description and final exam for W.Z. Ripley's Harvard course on the economics of transportation from 1910-11. Added bonus: links to all the railroad and transportation exams at Harvard from 1887-8 through 1909-10. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-tran...

#EconSky In 1910-11 the head of the Stanford economics department, Allyn Young, visited the Harvard economics department where he taught Ripley's statistics course. Course description, enrollment and final exam. Plus links to earlier exams. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-stat...

#EconSky Exam questions for economics course Principles of Sociology in T. N. Carver's Harvard course 1910-11. Sample: "Discuss the question: Is monarchy or democracy the more highly evolved form of government?" Plus links to all sociology questions, 1893-1910. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-enro...

#EconSky Frank Taussig's Economic Theory exam questions 1910-11 through 1913-14 at Harvard. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-core...

#EconSky Economics in the Rear-view Mirror is beginning its posts of enrollments, course descriptions, exams and misc course material (where available) for Harvard economics courses from 1910-11. We begin with Frank Taussig's Principles of Economics course. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-enro...

#EconSky Regulations for the award of PhD degree in economics at Columbia University, 1904-05. The paper chase at the turn of the 20th century. www.irwincollier.com/columbia-gra...

#EconSky Minutes of visiting committee of the department of economics and social science at MIT, 3 March 1947. "The point was made that the staff does not attempt to indoctrinate the students with the theories of any particular school of economists." www.irwincollier.com/mit-minutes-...

#EconSky The requirements (M.A. and Ph.D.) for economics degrees at the University of Chicago as of 1934-35. With links to the analogous requirements at Harvard and Columbia in the same years. www.irwincollier.com/chicago-requ...

#EconSky Requirements for a graduate degree in economics at Columbia University in 1934-35. www.irwincollier.com/columbia-req...

#EconSky Last post of 2025 from Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. Some course material for the special topics course offered by the Social Ethics faculty at Harvard in 1909-10. Topics include immigration, labor union strikes, poor relief. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-topi...

#EconSky Like sociology, social policy (called "social ethics") was regularly offered to students of economics at Harvard in the early 20th century. Course description, enrollment and exams for 1909-10 taught by Francis G. Peabody and three young instructors. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-desc...

#EconSky Line by line justification by the economics department chairman for his department's budget for 1944-45. Salaries, ranks and changes recommended plus remarks on the future development of the department. An informationally rich artifact! www.irwincollier.com/chicago-econ...

#EconSky Horror in an economics classroom. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/14/u...

#EconSky A 15 page program to integrate the sophomore group tutorials with the principles of economics course (Economics 1) at Harvard in 1965-66. Annotated reading lists. Probably authored by Head Tutor Lars Sandberg. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-prog...

#EconSky Before Eckstein, Feldstein, and Mankiw taught Principles of Economics at Harvard, Richard T. Gill was in charge. From 1965-66 the course reading lists and semester exams. Bonus material: link to a recording of Gill as Sparafucile in Rigoletto! www.irwincollier.com/harvard-read...

#EconSky Abram Bergson was 54 years old when he taught comparative economic systems at Harvard (1968). The course reading list and final exam questions have been transcribed. Bon mot of the exam: his name for a theoretical market socialist economy: Shangri-Lange www.irwincollier.com/harvard-read...

#EconSky A printed outline of three public lectures given at Harvard in 1879 by Simon Newcomb on the subject of taxation was rescued from an obscure file of undated economics department files. Frank W. Taussig was a member of the Class of 1879. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-syll...

#EconSky A half-century ago William J. Baumol taught the first semester of the two semester core sequence in microeconomic theory at Princeton. View the course reading list, study questions, midterm and final exam. www.irwincollier.com/princeton-va...

#EconSky Sometimes current events offers a hook for the history of economics. NYC elected a democratic socialist, Zohran Mamdani, to be its mayor in 2025, & at Harvard in 1909-1910, the economics department offered a course on municipal ownership and control. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-fina...

I am the curator of Economics in the Rear-view Mirror and I approve this message! www.irwincollier.com

#EconSky Mid-year and year-end exams for the undergraduate and business courses in economics taught at Johns Hopkins University, 1931-32 www.irwincollier.com/johns-hopkin...

#EconSky The Harvard economics department was nowhere near the frontier of the theory of statistics for most of the first half of the 20th century. A short reading by Prof. William Leonard Crum gives modern readers a taste. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-refl...

#EconSky The third highest enrollment in economics courses in 1909-10 was for a course taught by the Harvard Law School professor Bruce Wyman covering commercial and industrial law. Business content and easy grading ("a snapper problem") the key to his popularity www.irwincollier.com/harvard-fina...

#EconSky Ten page memo written by A.G. Hart of Columbia's economics department in 1973. He complains of a grievous neglect of instruction and research into the institutional nuts-and-bolts, historical trajectories, and granular area studies of economics. www.irwincollier.com/columbia-mem...

#EconSky Ten page reading list for James W. Angell's monetary economics course taught at Columbia University in 1954-55. www.irwincollier.com/columbia-rea...

#EconSky The patent for green eye shades was barely six years old when Harvard students attended the elements of accounting course taught by W. M. Morse in 1909-10. His end of semester exams are now posted at Economics in the Rear-view Mirror. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-exam...

#EconSky Final exam and enrollment for Charles Jesse Bullock's Harvard course on the theory and methods of taxation taught in the Fall term 1909. , www.irwincollier.com/harvard-amer...

#EconSky The 1981 reading list and final exam for the graduate course on social insurance taught at M.I.T. by Peter Diamond and Lawrence H. Summers (that's right, pre-Epstein Larry). The archival artifacts one finds! www.irwincollier.com/m-i-t-readin...

#EconSky Robert Clower's suggested reading list on the methodology of economics from 1970 Northwestern. www.irwincollier.com/northwestern...

#EconSky Thanks to Zvi Griliches' propensity to hoard and file, we have this copy of another University of Chicago economic theory prelim exam. This one for the Summer quarter of 1956. www.irwincollier.com/chicago-prel...

Economist in the Rear-view Mirror [Larry Summers] is not to be confused with Economics in the Rear-view Mirror [my blog]

#EconSky Reading lists for the overwhelming majority of Harvard economics courses open to both undergraduates and graduate students in 1920-21. Even better, every item has been linked! Economics in the Rear-view Mirror takes you there. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-cour...

#EconSky Memo to the Harvard Dean of Arts and Sciences by Frank W. Taussig in 1925 in support of the fresh PhD meat, Edward S. Mason. Taussig testified that Mason was "a handsome, upstanding chap. His very appearance makes an impression on the young fellows". www.irwincollier.com/harvard-lett...

#EconSky With "creative destruction" back in fashion, Economics in the Rear-view Mirror offers a glance at advanced economic theory taught at Harvard in 1948-49 by Joseph Schumpeter. His course reading lists included nine future Nobel laureates. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-adva...

#EconSky I have found different prelim exams for Economic Theory I for the 1957 winter quarter at the U of Chicago. This is the copy of the exam found in Zvi Griliches' papers. www.irwincollier.com/chicago-econ...

#EconSky In the Spring of 1993 these were the questions from the Harvard General Examination in Macroeconomic Theory. Objects in Rear-view mirror are closer than they appear. www.irwincollier.com/harvard-gene...

#EconSky Harvard even had a course on the history of economics that started with ancient Greece. OK, it was 1909-10 and Charles Bullock knew enough Greek and Latin to have taught the subjects before going to grad school in economics. Cantillon, anyone, anyone? www.irwincollier.com/harvard-hist...

#EconSky Half of Thomas Nixon Carver's final exam on the economics of socialism, communism, and the single tax at Harvard 1909-10 was dedicated to the single-tax reform. Too much of a good thing? www.irwincollier.com/harvard-meth...

#EconSky Shall I be wise and great, or rich and powerful? A question never asked by Thomas Nixon Carver in his Harvard course on the Distribution of Wealth, 1909-10. Round up the usual functional share suspects.... www.irwincollier.com/harvard-dist...

#EconSky Another reminder that European economic history was a core element in the training of early 20th century economists. Consider Howard Levi Gray and Edwin Francis Gay's course offerings for 1909-10 at Harvard... www.irwincollier.com/harvard-euro...