Recent scholarship contends that ancient Mediterranean economies grew intensively, contrary to standard Malthusian predictions. An explanation is Smithian growth spurred by reductions in transaction costs and increased trade flows. This paper argues that an ancient Greek institution, proxenia,...

It is generally believed that the systematic study of economics and its principles was started in 1776 with the publication of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, who has been universally held as the founding father of economics. Prior to Adam Smith,...

The Silk Roads were a decentralized network of trade routes that connected ancient cities across Eurasia. Goods, ideas, people, and technology moved along the roads for over 1,500 years. Using a detailed georeferenced map of the entire trade network, this paper finds that areas within 50 KM of...

A region's present-day economic performance can be deeply anchored in historical factors. We provide the first systematic evidence of a deep imprinting effect in the context of Roman rule in the south-western part of Germany nearly 2,000 years ago. Our analysis reveals that regions in the former...

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...

This paper explores the impact of antiquity on capitalism through the finance-growth nexus. We define antiquity as the length of established statehood (i.e., state history) and agricultural years. We argue that extractive institutions and deeply entrenched interest groups may prevail in...

"Slavery was a ubiquitous and fundamental phenomenon of Greek and Roman societies. Slaves constituted a substantial proportion of the population of ancient communities; they worked in practically all sectors of ancient economies, as agricultural workers, artisans, traders, servants, performers,...

Chapter 1: Introduction Civilization and Lived Experience -- Part 1: The Quests that Created a New Western Civilization (and Destroyed Others): Crops, Climate, Calories -- Chapter 2: The 3-Cs: Crops, Climate, Calories -- Chapter 3: Crops and the Shaping of Civilizations -- Chapter 4: Climate:...

We show that the creation of the first integrated pan-European transport network during Roman times influences economic integration over two millennia. Drawing on spatially highly disaggregated data on excavated Roman ceramics, we document that interregional trade was strongly influenced by...

1. Asymmetric Information and the Roman Economy: Introduction -- 2. Economics and Information: Asymmetries, Uncertainties and Risks -- Part 1: Information Management -- 3. Managing Economic Public Information in Rome: the Aerarium as Central Archive of the Roman Republic -- 4. Managing...

1.Origin of the Aryans -- 2.Ancient History of the Indians, Russians, and Japanese -- 3.Ethics of the Aryans and Modern Sages of India -- 4.Ethics of Kautilya -- 5.Relationship between Ancient Greece and ancient India, and Christianity -- 6.Ethics of Buddhism -- 7.Ethics of Japanese Buddhism,...

Chapter 1 - An Introduction to the Critique of Archaeological Economy (Reinhard Jung, Stefanos Gimatzidis) -- Chapter 2 - Writing the Deep History of Human Economy (Randall McGuire) -- Chapter 3 - Wealth, Women's Labor, and Forms of Value: Thinking From the Study of Ancestral Central America...

Chapter 1: Introduction: Finding a new approach to ancient proxy data -- Part I- Theoretical Frameworks and Methodologies -- Chapter 2: Playing by whose rules? Institutional resilience, conflict and change in the Roman economy -- Chapter 3: Networks as Proxies: a relational approach towards...

"This book focuses on the Canaanite-Phoenician economic systems that predominated in and determined Mediterranean history. Phoenician trade networks were sophisticated and elaborate operations that required a highly developed society and institutions in order to spread and be maintained. By...

1. Chapter 1: A historian’s introduction to paleoclimatology -- Chapter 2: A hard row to hoe. Climate change from the crop perspective -- Chapter 3: Who follows the elephant will have problems. Thought on modelling Roman responses to climate (changes) -- Chapter 4: Famines, demographic crises...

Climate change over the past thousands of years is undeniable, but debate has arisen about its impact on past human societies. This book explores the link between climate and society in ancient worlds, focusing on the ancient economies of western Eurasia and northern Africa from the fourth...

Colonial Adventures: Commercial Law and Practice in the Making' addresses the question how and to what extend the development of commercial law and practice, from Ancient Greece to the colonial empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, were indebted to colonial expansion and maritime...

This book, the first of two volumes, examines ancient civilizations to explore the ethical foundations of modern economic systems. The origin of ethical values is analyzed from a historical context and, through investigating the spread of the Aryan civilization from India into the rest of the...

"The studies collected in Ancient Taxation explore the extractive systems of twelve ancient states and societies from across the ancient world, ranging from Bronze Age China to Anglo-Saxon Britain. Together, the contributors explore the challenges of taxation in predominantly agro-pastoral...

"The subject of the book is the food supply to Ancient Rome during the period from the early to the middle Empire when the city was at the peak of its power and population. The subject matter delves into the wider supply of goods, such as wood and building products, to add further perspective to...

"The authors of this book argue that post-war fiscal and monetary policies in the U.S. are prone to more frequent and more destabilizing domestic and international financial crises. So, in the aftermath of the one that erupted in 2008, they propose that now we are sleepwalking into another,...

"Eastern Wines on Western Tables: Consumption, Trade and Economy in Ancient Italy is an interdisciplinary and multifaceted study concerning wine commerce and the Roman economy during Classical antiquity. Wine was one of the main consumption goods in the Mediterranean during antiquity, and the...

This volume studies information as an economic resource in the Roman World. Information asymmetry is a distinguishing phenomenon of any human relationship. From an economic perspective, private or hidden information, opposed to publicly observable information, generates advantages and...

Economic archaeology and ancient economic history have boomed the past decades. The former thanks to greatly enhanced techniques to identify, collect, and interpret material remains as proxies for economic interactions and performance; the latter by embracing the frameworks of new institutional...

This book studies past economics from anthropological, archaeological, historical and sociological perspectives. By analyzing archeological and other evidence, it examines economic behavior and institutions in ancient societies. Adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, it critically discusses...

"In this book, Gabriele Cifani reconstructs the early economic history of Rome, from the Iron Age to the early Republic. Bringing a multidisciplinary approach to the topic, he argues that the early Roman economy was more diversified than has been previously acknowledged, going well beyond...

Given the importance of lending to economies both ancient and modern, and given the widely acknowledged relevance of creditor and debtor protections for nurturing a vibrant and productive credit market, a large critical literature has developed exploring the intersection of law and lending....

Since 1789, mass education has been a key factor in development, enablinglarge numbers of people to escape at least the worst effects of poverty. This paper explores an ancient harbinger of mass education, among Jews in the Roman empire, the basis of Jewish religious education to modern times....

Introduction: The Value of the Historical Perspective for Leadership Studies -- Part I. The Postwar Period -- Leadership in War and Genocide -- Lost in Culture -- Prisoners as Leaders of Political Change -- Part II. The Second World War -- When Complexity Costs Lives -- Paul Geheeb and Nazi...

This book analyses ancient Greek federalism by focusing on one of the most organised and advanced Greek federal states, the Achaean Federation Sympoliteia. Unlike earlier studies that mainly focused on its political history, this book adopts an interdisciplinary approach, analysing aspects of...