Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Temin is a professional economist, and his book glows with the fervour of the true believer."--Peter Thonemann, Times Literary Supplement "[T]his important book should be a challenge to ancient economic historians of all persuasions to engage seriously with both economic theory and comparative history, as well as with its specific claims about the development and performance of the Roman Empire."--Neville Morley, Sehepunkte "In The Roman Market Economy Peter Temin accomplishes the quintessential task of the economic historian: to take shards of pottery, folios of brittle parchment, and patinated tools and fashion from them a credible, comprehensive and vivid picture of a society long gone."--Plamen Ivanov, LSE Review of Books "The Roman Market Economy effectively demonstrates the elegance and simplicity of economic demonstration. But Temin's methodological point would have been more persuasive had it shown that an economic methodology can lead to new, or challenge old, understandings of the ancient economy."--Sitta von Reden, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments ix 1. Economics and Ancient History 1 Part I: Prices *Introduction: Data and Hypothesis Tests 27 *2. Wheat Prices and Trade in the Early Roman Empire 29 *3. Price Behavior in Hellenistic Babylon 53 *Appendix to Chapter 3 66 *4. Price Behavior in the Roman Empire 70 Part II: Markets in the Roman Empire *Introduction: Roman Microeconomics 95 *5. The Grain Trade 97 *6. The Labor Market 114 *7. Land Ownership 139 *8. Financial Intermediation 157 Part III: The Roman Economy *Introduction: Roman Macroeconomics 193 *9. Growth Theory for Ancient Economies 195 *10. Economic Growth in a Malthusian Empire 220 *Appendix to Chapter 10 240 *11. Per Capita GDP in the Early Roman Empire 243 References 263 Index 289
