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Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

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Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#31

Post by mhh__ »

seanhunter wrote: post #23
bell-cot wrote: post #8

Wow. Looks like Harvard's Class of 1906-ish was expected to understand and operate parts of the real-world economy. In America. How times have changed!

Very easy to give a fact-free hot take, but I thought I'd take a look at the "research" section of Harvard's economics department website at the moment[1] to see what they work on. I'm not an economist but it seems like a pretty serious attempt to understand the real-world economy. Picking a paper purely at random (again, I'm not an economist so I just clicked through a few and they seem similar-ish to me in a broad…

Well the point was about students not researchers afaict.

There's a difference between Harvard (or any powerful equivalent) the research establishment and Harvard the school for training America's new elite.

Most of the economics students I know (especially the Harvard ones) would not surprise the PC at all.

As a subject it doesn't attract particularly serious people.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#32

Post by fiatpandas »

>The shipment to be sent “collect,” and the Chicago & Northwestern to get one-third of the total rate

Makes me think of “call collect” - might be a borrowed term from railroad payment terminology since phone company history if very strongly connected to railroad networks.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#33

Post by huitzitziltzin »

bell-cot wrote: post #8

Wow. Looks like Harvard's Class of 1906-ish was expected to understand and operate parts of the real-world economy. In America. How times have changed!

(Former) econ prof here (now in industry), though definitely not at Harvard.

To be honest "draw a map of a rail yard" or "write up a waybill" does not seem like the kind of exam material college students should be engaging in in 2024. The standard is higher now, a lot of the material more difficult and the questions have changed. The material being tested on that exam looks like middle-high school in parts?

In an _intro_ economics class I'd like students to understand what we (think we) know about supply and demand and apply it to relevant public policy issues - housing supply, taxation of vices, etc. I'd like them to discuss policy trade offs.

"Railroad economics" was presumably an elective, where the standards now would be even higher than in my intro class.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#34

Post by treyd »

eganist wrote: post #13
bell-cot wrote: post #8

Wow. Looks like Harvard's Class of 1906-ish was expected to understand and operate parts of the real-world economy. In America. How times have changed!

> How times have changed! Have they? What's changed, specifically, in Harvard's various programs in the last 118 years that lead you to your implied conclusion that their business and economics curricula have worsened?

Business classes, especially at institutions like Harvard and Sloan, have shifted their focus dramatically towards finance and upper management concerns and away from real boots-on-ground business operations.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#36

Post by queuebert »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #33
bell-cot wrote: post #8

Wow. Looks like Harvard's Class of 1906-ish was expected to understand and operate parts of the real-world economy. In America. How times have changed!

(Former) econ prof here (now in industry), though definitely not at Harvard. To be honest "draw a map of a rail yard" or "write up a waybill" does not seem like the kind of exam material college students should be engaging in in 2024. The standard is higher now, a lot of the material more difficult and the questions have changed. The material being tested on that exam looks like middle-high school in parts? In an _in…

Having actually taught economics undergrads at Harvard, albeit in a science elective, I can the standards are not quite so high as you might think.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#37

Post by _zoltan_ »

eganist wrote: post #28
_zoltan_ wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course you feel like it's your job to tell others what has value and what not? Why do you feel the entitlement to this?

It's probably coming from frustration with non-contributive commentary, of which the topmost comment unquestionably qualifies. It's in poor form to do citizen-policing pretty much anywhere let alone an internet forum, but I won't begrudge the user their frustrations over something that's undeniably a problem. Heh.

The comment you've replied is not wrong. The submission shows real world knowledge vs a lot of folks coming out today without any practical knowledge, just theoretical. This is what OP talked about.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#38

Post by eganist »

_zoltan_ wrote: post #37
eganist wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably coming from frustration with non-contributive commentary, of which the topmost comment unquestionably qualifies. It's in poor form to do citizen-policing pretty much anywhere let alone an internet forum, but I won't begrudge the user their frustrations over something that's undeniably a problem. Heh.

The comment you've replied is not wrong. The submission shows real world knowledge vs a lot of folks coming out today without any practical knowledge, just theoretical. This is what OP talked about.

> The submission shows real world knowledge

Compared to what specifically? It helps to find relevant, comparable examples of electives in major areas of economic impact and demonstrating how these modern electives fail to do what you described.

> vs a lot of folks coming out today without any practical knowledge, just theoretical.

This isn't a direct comparison. But if we were to make this comparison more direct (e.g "more people were prepared in 1907 for application of practical knowledge than today), it's also in need of substance. How much is "a lot"? What is practical knowledge, and how can you be sure that the knowledge taught isn't practical?

From the modern curricula linked elsewhere in the thread, it looks like quite a few courses are directly relevant to operationalization in their domains.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#39

Post by bell-cot »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #33
bell-cot wrote: post #8

Wow. Looks like Harvard's Class of 1906-ish was expected to understand and operate parts of the real-world economy. In America. How times have changed!

(Former) econ prof here (now in industry), though definitely not at Harvard. To be honest "draw a map of a rail yard" or "write up a waybill" does not seem like the kind of exam material college students should be engaging in in 2024. The standard is higher now, a lot of the material more difficult and the questions have changed. The material being tested on that exam looks like middle-high school in parts? In an _in…

High-level theory is nice. Ditto public policy savvy. And quite a few of the other questions on the 1906 exam reflect that.

But back at the coal face -

Rail yards were a very important and expensive part of a ~1906 railroad's infrastructure - both to build, and to operate. And the efficiency differences between a well-designed and poorly-designed yard were huge. A prospective RR manager who can't quickly map out a good rail yard is someone who simply does not understand the at-scale operation of a railroad.

Similarly, waybills were the core document for moving individual customer's loads around on an RR. If (fake name) EconoAir's manager at your local airport did not understand Flight Plans well enough to quickly draw one up - would you want to own EconoAir's stock, or fly on their airplanes?

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