The Economy of Ancient Greece: A Conceptual Framework

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Alain Bresson
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Max Weber ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
Ancient Economy ◽  
Greek Economy

This chapter describes the conceptual framework used by the book to study the economy of ancient Greece. It begins with a discussion of the debate between “primitivists,” represented by Karl Bücher, and “modernists,” represented by Eduard Meyer, over the nature of the ancient Greek economy. It considers Bücher's adherence to the so-called German Historical School of Political Economy and goes on to examine the views of Moses I. Finley and Max Weber regarding the ancient economy, Karl Polanyi's use of institutionalism as an approach to the study of the ancient economy, and the main assumptions of New Institutional Economics (NIE) with regard to the genesis and evolution of institutions. The chapter also analyzes the transaction costs theory and concludes with an assessment of criticisms against the classical economists' economic agent, the homo economicus, and the influence of constrained choices and limited rationality on economic performance.

scholarly journals Slavery and Athens’ Economic Efflorescence

Mare Nostrum ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Douglas Porter
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Economics ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Classical Period ◽  
Late Archaic ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Significant Growth ◽  
Milling Operations ◽  
Greek History ◽  
Greek Economy

Following a recent wave of literature arguing for significant growth in the ancient Greek economy, several ground-breaking books have sought to explain this phenomenon through the lens of New Institutional Economics (NIE). The undeniable prevalence of slavery throughout ancient Greek history, however, has not been substantially integrated into these new analyses. This essay intends to address this problem, by elucidating some of the ways in which slavery contributed to the economic efflorescence of Greece’s late archaic and classical period (600–300 BC) within an institutionally focused approach. Examining specifically the state of Athens, this study contends that not only did the system of slavery import a vast amount of labour from other areas of the Mediterranean into the Athenian polity, but it also directed labour towards economically productive aims that were otherwise  limited by Athens’ societal framework. The use of slaves in milling operations provides a key and often overlooked example, which will here be used as a case study.

Roman History

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-148
Author(s):  
James Corke-Webster
Keyword(s):  
Roman Republic ◽  
Social History ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Drivers Of Change ◽  
Ancient Economy

A bumper edition this time, by way of apology for COVID-necessitated absenteeism in the autumn issue. The focus is on three pillars of social history – the economy (stupid), law, and religion. First up is Saskia Roselaar's second monograph, Italy's Economic Revolution. Roselaar sets out to trace the contribution made by economics to Italy's integration in the Roman Republic, focusing on the period after the ‘conquest’ of Italy (post 268 bce). Doing so necessitates two distinct steps: assessing, first, how economic contacts developed in this period, and second, whether and to what extent those contacts furthered the wider unification of Italy under Roman hegemony. Roselaar is influenced by New Institutional Economics (hereafter NIE), now ubiquitous in studies of the ancient economy. Her title may be an homage to Philip Kay's Rome's Economic Revolution, but the book itself is a challenge to that work, which in Roselaar's view neglects almost entirely the agency of the Italians in the period's economic transformation. For Roselaar, the Italians were as much the drivers of change as the Romans; indeed, it is this repeated conviction that unifies her chapters.

scholarly journals GEI. Greek Economic Inscriptions (online)

Axon ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donatella Erdas ◽  
Anna Magnetto
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Technical Information ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Economic Life ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Critical Editions ◽  
Greek Economy ◽  
Selection Of

In recent years the attention of modern scholars to ancient Greek economy has received impetus from a series of newly published documents of undisputed significance. The results have been a deeply renewed examination of consolidated theoretical positions, and a detailed analysis of specific aspects of the economic life of the polis. Within this framework the GEI project aims at providing an online collection of epigraphic documents related to the economy of ancient Greece. Some of these documents, already known or newly discovered, have never been collected in a selection of this kind. The project covers a period from the archaic age to 1st century BC. The selected texts are representative of the different areas of ancient Greek economy, and are marked-up using the EpiDoc encoding conventions. For each document all technical information has been provided along with existing critical editions, bibliography, a critical apparatus, an English translation and a commentary.

scholarly journals What Factors Constitute Structures of Clustering Creative Industries? Incorporating New Institutional Economics and New Economic Sociology into A Conceptual Framework

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 213
Author(s):  
Poppy Ismalina
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
Economic Sociology ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Local Development ◽  
Industrial Clusters ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Creative Industries ◽  
Institutional Practices ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives

Creative industries tend to cluster in specific places and the reasons for this phenomenon can be a multiplicity of elements linked mainly to culture, creativity, innovation and local development. In the international literature, it is pretty well recognized that creativity is frequently characterized by the agglomeration of firms so that creative industries are not homogeneously distributed across the territory but they are concentrated in the space. Three theories are becoming the dominant theoretical perspectives in agglomeration economies theory and they are increasingly being applied in industrial clusters analysis to study the effect of clustering industries. The theories are Marshall’s theoretical principles of localization economies, Schmitz’s collective efficiency and Porter’s five-diamond approach. However, those have adequately theorized neither the institutionalization process through which change takes place nor the socio-economic context of the institutional formations of clustering creative industries. This text begins by reviewing three main theories to more fully articulate institutionalization processes of an economic institution. Specifically, this paper incorporates new institutional economics (NIE) and new economic sociology (NES) to explain the processes associated with creating institutional practices within clustering creative industries. Both streams of institutional theory constitute that economic organizations are socially constructed. Next, this text proposes the framework that depicts the socio-economic context better and more directly addresses the dynamics of enacting, embedding and changing organizational features and processes within clustering creative industries. Some pertinent definitions are offered to be used in a conceptual framework of research about how economic institutions like clustering creative industries constitute their structures.    

Greek Epigraphy and Ancient Economics

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alain Bresson
Keyword(s):  
Institutional Economics ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Technological Advance ◽  
Textile Production ◽  
Ancient Economy ◽  
New Concepts ◽  
Ancient Economics ◽  
Greek Epigraphy ◽  
Land Exploitation

After initial comments on the role of Greek inscriptions as ‘archives’, this chapter reviews the drastic changes that have occurred since Finley's book of 1973 in the picture of the ancient economy, both by acknowledging development and growth, and by adopting new concepts, not least New Institutional Economics with its emphasis on transaction costs. The methodological impact of such new approaches is sketched in four fields, each of which is illustrated with epigraphic documentation: (1) production and growth, instancing technological advance, land exploitation and textile production; (2) finance, taxes, trade and prices, with emphasis on the need and opportunities for quantification; (3) money and coinage; and (4) the transformation of uncertainty into an assessment of risk, illustrated in respect of farming practices and recourse to consultation of oracles and curse-tablets.

scholarly journals Modelling the Quest for Status in Ancient Greece: Paying for Liturgies

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 213-236
Author(s):  
George Tridimas
Keyword(s):  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Public Provision ◽  
Ancient Economy ◽  
Ancient Athens ◽  
Redistributive Taxation ◽  
State Administration ◽  
Status Seeking ◽  
Hypothetical System ◽  
Greek Economy ◽  
The Rich

AbstractThe substantive view of the ancient economy argues that social considerations and especially the quest for status featured prominently in ancient Greece. Paying for liturgies, the private finance of public expenditure by wealthy individuals, offered the opportunity to acquire status by choosing the level of contributions to outperform rival providers. Effectively, liturgies were a system of finance of public provision through redistributive taxation sidestepping state administration of taxes and expenditures. Applying the insights of the economic approach to status, the paper examines status competition in ancient Athens and compares paying for liturgies with a hypothetical system of explicit income taxation of the rich. It is concluded that status seeking increased aggregate provision of public goods. The results formalise important aspects of substantivism and illustrate the value of formal economic analysis in the investigation of the ancient Greek economy.

scholarly journals Institutions, Entrepreneurship, and Post-Soviet Development: An Assessment of Moldova’s Entrepreneurial Climate (1991-2009)

2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Olga Nicoara
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Institutional Context ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Market Process ◽  
Local Institutions ◽  
Institutional Barriers ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Economic Stagnation ◽  
Entrepreneurial Climate

<p>This paper explores the relation between Moldova’s institutions, entrepreneurship, and poor economic performance 18 years after socialism. The prevailing local institutions determine the direction of entrepreneurship in society (North, 1990; Baumol, 1990; Olson, 1996; Boettke, 1998). Societies with a mix of institutions favorable to productive entrepreneurship experience sustained growth. Conversely, societies with institutions rewarding unproductive and destructive entrepreneurship experience economic stagnation. Using the conceptual frameworks of new institutional economics, Austrian market process theory, and interviews with local entrepreneurs, I explore the link between Moldova’s institutional context and the local entrepreneurship and underdevelopment. For a better understanding of Moldova’s poor economic performance after socialism, scholars and policy makers must investigate the existing underlying gap between the <em>de jure</em> and the <em>de facto</em> institutional barriers to productive entrepreneurship.</p>

Linking institutions to economic performance: the role of macro-structures in micro-explanations

2012 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
CYRIL HÉDOIN
Keyword(s):  
Game Theory ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Game Theoretic

Abstract:Economists have been investigating the link between institutions and economic performance for several years. While econometric studies of this link have flourished, they are of limited use in understanding the causal mechanisms making some institutions responsible for economic performance. Several works using game theory and akin to the ‘new institutional economics’ have entertained the goal of developing micro-explanations of the institutions–performance link. Because game theory focuses on individuals’ actions and beliefs, game-theoretic studies of institutions are thought to oppose more ‘structuralist’ explanations that downplay the role of individual agents and put more emphasis on the importance of social (or ‘macro’) structures. This paper demonstrates that this claim is misconceived, as the micro-explanations produced by game-theoretic models must assume already existing macro-structures. Institutions produce downward effects, shaping each agent's action. Moreover, in a game-theoretic framework, macro-structures are constitutive of individual agency since, without them, agents would often be unable to choose. I illustrate this claim with the example of Avner Greif's study of the role of cultural beliefs in the economic organisation of medieval societies.

scholarly journals Behavioural Economics and Economic Behaviour in Classical Athens

2018 ◽  
pp. 15-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Institutional Economics ◽  
Behavioural Economics ◽  
New Institutional Economics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
Economic Behaviour ◽  
Analytical Tools

This chapter analyses the motivations of economic actors in classical Athens from the point of view of modern behavioural economics. The (now) old orthodoxy of M.I. Finley, drawing on Bücher and Weber, stressed that the so‐ called homo economicus did not exist until recent times: in antiquity, an anti‐productive mentality was essentially hard‐wired into the minds of elite Greeks and Romans, preventing economic development. This approach has been widely rejected in recent years, and in particular the methods of New Institutional Economics (NIE) have provided a way around the moribund formalist‐primitivist debate. Yet whilst NIE has provided a set of important analytical tools, it would be an exaggeration to claim that these tools can solve every problem relating to economic activity in antiquity; here, the insights of behavioural economics can assist us in understanding economic activity in past societies.

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