Coin quality, coin quantity, and coin value in early China and the Roman world
How was the valuation of ancient coins related to their quality and quantity? How did ancient economies respond to coin debasement and to sharp increases in the money supply relative to the number of goods and transactions? I argue that the same answer – that the result was a devaluation of the coinage in real terms, most commonly leading to price increases – applies to two ostensibly quite different monetary systems, those of early China and the Roman Empire.
The Ethics and Economics of Ptolemaic Religious Associations
The first part investigates the economic status of the members…In the second part, the rules are examined in more detail in search of economic incentives that might explain why people joined associations..In the third part, a different approach is presented that tries to understand how the rules correspond to actual social relations.
The growth of Greek cities in the first millennium BC
In this paper I trace the growth of the largest Greek cities from perhaps 1,000- 2,000 people at the beginning of the first millennium BC to 400,000-500,000 at the millennium’s end.
Monogamy and polygyny
This paper discusses Greco-Roman practices of monogamy and polygyny for a forthcoming handbook on the ancient family.
