A Yale economics professor yesterday called his department "one of the sorry spots in the Yale curricular picture." The professor, Ray B. Westerfield, pointed out that the Yale Graduate Department of Economics ranked 20 to 21st in a comparison of graduate departments of economics compiled by the "American Economic Review." Harvard ranked second in the list, Columbia first.

Westerfield called the economics courses at Yale "utterly inadequate and their quality of teaching is not outstanding." He further charged that, "the low salary scale, the lack of clerical and other assistance, burden of work imposed, and petty policies in top administrative circles have made it impossible to attract first class professors to Yale or even retain our ablest young men."

Based on Candidates

The Economic Journal list is based upon the number of candidates for doctorates at leading American universities and also the number who received doctorates in 1950-51. Columbia had 195, Harvard had 110, Chicago 100, and Wisconsin 89, Yale had 14.

Westerfield's charges were printed in the Yale Daily News, which also ran an editorial deploring the decline of the Eli economics department.

The paper did, however, say that the department "has stirred mightily in the past four years and there is good cause for hope and enthusiasm."