MEMORANDUM

More documents

Recommendations

Info

spurred Leontief on to conjure up the theoretical structure he imposed on the table rather than the other way around. * * * Schumpeter had impressed upon Leontief while he was still in Germany the importance of publishing in an English-language journal. After Leontief moved to Harvard Schumpeter’s advice became even more urgent. Leontief submitted in June 1933 as a paper titled “Economic Changes and General Equilibrium” to Economic Journal. There is every reason to assume that the paper submitted had been prepared as the theoretical part (a) of the 1932 application. But it was to no avail, the manuscript was summarily rejected by the editor J. M. Keynes after 5-6 weeks. 208 He had in fact mentioned this paper to Wesley Mitchell two months earlier. Mitchell had asked Leontief in April 1933 about the work NBER was waiting for. Leontief promised the statistical analysis to be forthcoming very soon and added for Mitchell’s information that he was just finishing a paper for the Economic Journal about the theoretical scheme of his work for NBER. 209 Some months later Leontief submitted the paper to Econometrica. As the cover letter stated that Schumpeter had read the manuscript and advised him to submit it the assistant editor took that as equivalent to refereeing and sent the manuscript to Frisch. 210 Unlike Keynes, Frisch liked the paper and returned it with extensive comments and Leontief resubmitted a revised version. Frisch reviewed it again, found Leontief’s revision unsatisfactory and rewrote a several pages long section of Leontief’s paper before he returned it. The paper seems to be lost, which is great pity. The exchange between and Leontief with Frisch is the only documentary trace of the paper with Leontief’s attempt to write out the general equilibrium ideas he struggled with after the Eisenaufsatz. Below follows an abbreviated version of the exchange: Frisch to Leontief, 4 January 1934. “Dear Professor Leontief, 208 Leontief to Keynes, 2 June 1933 & 25 July 1933. I am grateful towards Wilfried Parys for making me aware of these letters. 209 Mitchell to Leontief, 28 April 1933; Leontief to Mitchell, 29 April 1933. Mitchell had also inquired about an article on the theory of international trade he had heard that Leontief was preparing. Leontief responded curiously that the international trade was just an “unimportant byproduct of his lectures” not deserving Mitchell’s attention. This was an odd self-deprecating comment as the paper on indifference curves in the analysis of foreign trade (Leontief 1933) brought Leontief quite a bit of attention. 210 W.F.C. Nelson to Frisch, 25 November 1933. 92
I have just read the manuscript of your paper submitted to Econometrica. I am very much interested in your general idea of investigating the repercussions from one system to another which may be caused by changes in any one system in a closed circuit. So far as I understand, this is the essence of your approach. This idea, I think, is very promising, and I believe definitely worthwhile to follow up. The general way in which you have set up the problem is very good, but I am under a strong impression that the whole exposition could in places be very much improved upon, if it were condensed and perhaps accentuated a little more by indicating sharply the object followed within each of the sections. I should therefore recommend that you go over your manuscript once more with this in view. While reading the manuscript I have taken the liberty to suggest – with pencil marks – certain pages, which I think could be omitted without weakening your whole chain of argument. As a matter of fact, I think your main idea would stand out more clearly if this were done. In places I have also suggested the re-phrasing of certain sentences. (…)For the last part of the manuscript I have only made very few and very general suggestions.” So far it was sheer praise. Leontief’s paper clearly was appreciated by Frisch. The more technical comments that followed cannot really be appreciated without a conception of the model of Leontief’s paper, which apparently is lost. But an idea of Leontief’s model can be gleaned from the section of Leontief’s paper which was rewritten by Frisch after the paper was re-submitted. The model set out in that section was a highly structured general equilibrium system of n production functions, representing Leontief’s idea of vertical stages of production as a causal chain with. It was set out elegantly by Frisch as a circular causal chain (but the circularity was Frisch’s idea and Leontief didn’t like it). The Frisch version of (part of) Leontief’s system was as follows: x f ( x , b ) n n n1 n x f ( x , b ) n1 n1 n1 n1 - - - - - - x f ( x , b ) x 2 2 1 2 f ( x , b ) 1 1 n 1 The amount supplied of x i by sector i was a function fi( xi 1, bi ) of the input xi 1 provided by sector i-1 and a parameter b i and so on in a circular chain. The problem posed by Leontief was to find the equilibrium solution in the x 's when one or more of the b 's shifted. Frisch’s letter continued as follows: 93
Page 1 and 2:
MEMORANDUM No 18/2016 Wassily Leont
Page 3 and 4:
Rev-1, November 13, 2016 Wassily Le
Page 5 and 6:
Others have touched upon the questi
Page 7 and 8:
in 1925, or, for that matter, Germa
Page 9 and 10:
the Leontief family within the trad
Page 11 and 12:
From the beginning of 1905 Wassily
Page 13 and 14:
passport issued just before he left
Page 15 and 16:
finances. 26 Before he got the posi
Page 17 and 18:
mostly civilians. 33 Needless to em
Page 19 and 20:
Boisguilbert”. He stated further
Page 21 and 22:
student had conveyed a very positiv
Page 23 and 24:
“In his work, Leontief revealed e
Page 25 and 26:
extended studies in Berlin, he has
Page 27 and 28:
ecognized as equivalent to the Abit
Page 29 and 30:
Kurt Breysig (b.1866) was historian
Page 31 and 32:
years, we denote them by the key wo
Page 33 and 34:
assertions there were further artic
Page 35 and 36:
letter was returned after two days
Page 37 and 38:
laws. In other words the candidate
Page 39 and 40:
As the candidate remarks, this impo
Page 41 and 42:
process was delayed. In September 1
Page 43 and 44: framework for applied demand and su
Page 45 and 46: observations would be sufficiently
Page 47 and 48: As soon as the July 1929 issue of W
Page 49 and 50: Leontief returned from Shanghai alo
Page 51 and 52: express myself clearer than that.
Page 53 and 54: on 9 September for Harvard and rema
Page 55 and 56: Economist with the Federal Farm Boa
Page 57 and 58: Leontief. He wrote to Irving Fisher
Page 59 and 60: e advisable to submit copies of all
Page 61 and 62: with interesting colleagues, die Ki
Page 63 and 64: times and received suggestions for
Page 65 and 66: very soon, before the end of April.
Page 67 and 68: progress. He then had a meeting wit
Page 69 and 70: Another emphasis in the article on
Page 71 and 72: current basis and expressed his wil
Page 73 and 74: Just as Leontief arrived NBER plung
Page 75 and 76: Leontief enjoyed New York. At Leont
Page 77 and 78: offer from Harvard may well have di
Page 79 and 80: Wassily Leontief is carrying out ce
Page 81 and 82: Enchanted at Harvard Leontief’s p
Page 83 and 84: European man.” A vote was taken o
Page 85 and 86: Leontief had not yet published a si
Page 87 and 88: Leontief spoke to an audience at Ha
Page 89 and 90: Another Schumpeter initiative soon
Page 91 and 92: The outline was as follows: “The
Page 93: * * * One year later, in February 1
Page 97 and 98: Frisch to Leontief, 8 February 1934
Page 99 and 100: Schumpeter responded: “Dear Frisc
Page 101 and 102: Project a) was about the completion
Page 103 and 104: * * * Wassily and Estelle went on a
Page 105 and 106: several topics is very similar to t
Page 107 and 108: considered to illuminate the calcul
Page 109 and 110: The Structure of American Economy F
Page 111 and 112: term in Berkeley and the second in
Page 113 and 114: A part of the original Leontief man
Page 115 and 116: Bureaus post defense studies. 240 I
Page 117 and 118: Leontief Harvard period lasted unti
Page 119 and 120: Frisch, Ragnar. 1936. Annual survey
Page 121 and 122: Leontief, W. 1932. Studien über di
Page 123 and 124: Rutherford, Malcolm. 2004. Institut
show all

MEMORANDUM

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?