DEPARTMENT XIX ECONOMICS 



(Hall 1, September 20, 11.15 a. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR EMORY R. JOHNSON, University of Pennsylvania. 

 SPEAKERS: PROFESSOR FRANK A. FETTER, Cornell University. 



PROFESSOR ADOLPH C. MILLER, University of California. 



IN opening the proceedings of the Department of Economics, the 

 Chairman, Professor Emory R. Johnson, of the University of Penn- 

 sylvania, spoke as follows: 



" The purpose of the deliberations of this Department will be to 

 point out the present status of economic thought and to indicate the 

 present trend of economic thinking. There is much evidence that 

 economists are to-day coming to view political economy less as their 

 predecessors of twenty-five and fifty years ago did, and to regard 

 the science as it was conceived by Adam Smith. In Smith's classic 

 work on the Wealth of Nations, the discussion and analysis of pro- 

 duction occupies the larger part of the volume. Smith was con- 

 cerned but little with the distribution of wealth, but endeavored to 

 put in scientific form the principles of the production of wealth. 



" Adam Smith and his successors for over a half- century studied 

 production very largely to the exclusion of other phases of economics, 

 because of the universal necessity for a greater amount of wealth. 

 The intellectual and social progress during the latter part of the 

 eighteenth and during the nineteenth century caused men to realize 

 more clearly than ever before the necessity for more efficient pro- 

 duction in order to satisfy the expanding wants of various classes 

 of society. 



" With the industrial development of the nineteenth century and 

 with the rapid accumulation of wealth, the ethical problems of 

 distribution came to occupy the thought of social philosophers and 

 turned the minds of economists toward ethical problems. The 

 problems of distribution received almost exclusive attention for a 

 score of years following 1880. In dealing with the theory of value 

 and with the principles of the distribution of wealth, the most notable 

 contributions were made by the Austrian and American economists, 

 although Jevons and other English writers contributed in no small 

 measure to the theory of distribution. The American people may 

 well be proud of the achievements of their countrymen in the develop- 

 ing of the theory of the distribution of wealth. 



" During the past few years the public has heard but little regarding 



