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Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

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Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#51

Post by 1oooqooq »

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…

just accepting the demand supply curve mantra is accepting a lot of consumerism dogma. and the math is not even that solid, as you know very well.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#52

Post by nwiswell »

bell-cot wrote: post #39
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 go…

> 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?

So since universities obviously do not focus on teaching that material, do you suppose that people in positions of authority at airlines don't understand flight plans?

Universities are institutions of higher learning, you can acquire the industry-specific mundane details on the job.

If you used Scheme in your CS program, you can figure out whatever tech stack your company is using. It's really not any different.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#53

Post by mytailorisrich »

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…

Would students of the time have learned about these things at any time before Harvard?

I think at the time this represented key aspect of the business that someone managing it should know about. Nowadays things may be too diverse and complex for people to learn, or be taught such specifics in college, but people taking senior positions in any companies still do a much better job if they know how the business works from the bottom up.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#54

Post by fishyninja »

nwiswell wrote: post #52
bell-cot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 go…

> 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? So since universities obviously do not focus on teaching that material, do you suppose that people in positions of authority at airlines don't understand flight plans? Universities are institutions of higher learning, you can…

There certainly are both bachelor and master programs for airline management, air traffic control, cargo management, airline safety, etc.

https://www.vaughn.edu/degrees-programs/bachelors-degrees/ai...

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#55

Post by giantg2 »

1oooqooq wrote: post #51
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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…

just accepting the demand supply curve mantra is accepting a lot of consumerism dogma. and the math is not even that solid, as you know very well.

What exactly isn't solid about it? Like most things, the theory may have exceptions and it isn't the only force at play. However, things like finding theoretical price points for a basic product based on demand, supply, and pricing is well established as a concept. The math behind it is very simple. When we get incorrect results, it's usually because one of the input numbers didn't match what we observed in reality, not because of an actual math issue.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#56

Post by giantg2 »

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…

Those are research papers. But these kinds of case studies aren't unusual at the undergrad level even at state schools. The rubric and results are not as in-depth or built out as published research. Usually the question for these exercises or papers are built on research publications so the professors have answers to grade yours against.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#57

Post by umvi »

jnordwick wrote: post #19

Based test. There is this mix of practical knowledge (different types or cars, terminals, etc), but also theory and history or how other country's rail system worked at the time and why they developed in that way. The last question is incredibly good: > Compare the experience of France with state railroad operation with that of Germany. What, in each case were the causes which led to state operation, the extent of th…

Sorry, I guess being in my 30s makes me old because I have no idea what "based" means even after looking it up. I originally thought it was a typo for "biased", but then I see other people using the word in the same thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40699295)

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#58

Post by IIAOPSW »

bell-cot wrote: post #39
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 go…

The issue seems to be one of terminology. The questions on the exam (and thus topic of the course) appear to be about technical competence at a handful of skills highly specific to the railroad industry. That's fine and valuable, but its not what most people would describe as "economics". I wouldn't expect the skills taught in an "economics" class to be concerned with the specific price of shipping a very particular bill of goods on a very specific line on a very particular railroad. I wouldn't expect "economics" to mean the fine grain details of the practical engineering challenges in laying out track. I would expect "economics" to mean some sort of underlying analysis of railroad pricing and capital expenditure practices.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#59

Post by wsh »

dylan604 wrote: post #43
fiatpandas wrote: post #32

>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.

Is this different from COD?

Yes. “Freight collect” means the recipient pays the carrier for transportation; it implies nothing about payment for the goods.

“COD” (collect on delivery) means the carrier collects a specified amount of money—typically, the price of the goods plus transportation—from the recipient, on behalf of the seller, as a condition of delivery.

Re: Harvard Railroad Economics Exam (1906)

#60

Post by Animats »

umvi wrote: post #57
jnordwick wrote: post #19

Based test. There is this mix of practical knowledge (different types or cars, terminals, etc), but also theory and history or how other country's rail system worked at the time and why they developed in that way. The last question is incredibly good: > Compare the experience of France with state railroad operation with that of Germany. What, in each case were the causes which led to state operation, the extent of th…

Sorry, I guess being in my 30s makes me old because I have no idea what "based" means even after looking it up. I originally thought it was a typo for "biased", but then I see other people using the word in the same thread ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40699295 )

Even the rapper usage doesn't seem to be very relevant here.[1]

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/based

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