By analyzing the case of Athens during the Classical period (508-323 BCE) the main thesis of this paper is that under direct democracy procedures and the related institutional setup, a monetary system without a Central Bank may function relatively well. We focus on the following issues: (i) Τhe...

In the beginning of the second book of his Politeia (Republic) Plato in passage 2.358e-359a-c raises the issue of the administration of justice as a means of motivating people to behave fairly regarding their relationships and when cooperating with each other because, at the end, this is...

In this paper, we mainly focus on two institutional aspects that are related to financial risk, that is, profiteering and the use of non-fraudulent coins when performing financial transactions. We argue that these two prerequisites were important for the success of the commercially oriented...

The present paper is inspired by the notions of "financial risk" and "financial uncertainties" and transfers their basic reasoning to social science analysis; that is, it develops a theoretical analysis in order to explain social and political change. We know that the degree of social and...