Bücher der Reihe Palgrave Studies in Ancient Economies

Economic archaeology and ancient economic history have boomed the past decades. There is no reliable method to convert ancient proxy-data into the economic indicators used in economic history.

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 inequalities; at the same time, it is a source of profit, legal and illegal, and of transaction costs. The contributions that make up the present book aim to deepen our understanding of the economy of Ancient Rome by identifying and analysing formal and informal systems of knowledge and institutions that contributed to control, manage, restrict and enhance information. The chapters scrutinize the impact of information asymmetries on specific economic sectors, such as the labour market and the market of real estate, as well as the world of professional associations and trading networks. It further discusses structures and institutions that facilitated and regulated economic information in the public andthe private spheres, such as market places, auctions, financial mechanisms and instruments, state treasures and archives. Managing Asymmetric Information in the Roman Economy invites the reader to evaluate economic activities within a larger collective mental, social, and political framework, and aims ultimately to test the applicability of tools and ideas from theoretical frameworks such as the Economics of Information to ancient and comparative historical research.

Economic archaeology and ancient economic history have boomed the past decades. There is no reliable method to convert ancient proxy-data into the economic indicators used in economic history.

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 inequalities; at the same time, it is a source of profit, legal and illegal, and of transaction costs. The contributions that make up the present book aim to deepen our understanding of the economy of Ancient Rome by identifying and analysing formal and informal systems of knowledge and institutions that contributed to control, manage, restrict and enhance information. The chapters scrutinize the impact of information asymmetries on specific economic sectors, such as the labour market and the market of real estate, as well as the world of professional associations and trading networks. It further discusses structures and institutions that facilitated and regulated economic information in the public andthe private spheres, such as market places, auctions, financial mechanisms and instruments, state treasures and archives. Managing Asymmetric Information in the Roman Economy invites the reader to evaluate economic activities within a larger collective mental, social, and political framework, and aims ultimately to test the applicability of tools and ideas from theoretical frameworks such as the Economics of Information to ancient and comparative historical research.

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 millennium BCE up to the end of the first millennium CE.This book contributes to the multi-disciplinary debate between scholars working on climate and society from various backgrounds. The chronological boundaries of the book are set by the emergence of complex societies in the Neolithic on the one end and the rise of early-modern states in global political and economic exchange on the other. In order to stimulate comparison across the boundaries of modern periodization, this book ends with demography and climate change in early-modern and modern Italy, a society whose empirical data allows the kind of statistical analysis that is impossible for ancient societies.  The book highlights the role of human agency, and the complex interactions between the natural environment and the socio-cultural, political, demographic, and economic infrastructure of any given society.  It is intended for a wide audience of scholars and students in ancient economic history, specifically Rome and Late Antiquity.

This book examines the economic history of ancient South Asia by situating the Malwa region of Central India within Afro-Eurasian trade networks to illuminate the role of traders in the political, religious and economic processes connected with the Indo-Sasanian trade in the period of five centuries, circa CE 300-700.The book challenges the long-held centrality of the Roman factor in the South Asian economy by locating the Indo-Sasanian interactions in long distance economic networks with trade as a central feature. It considers the role and influence of traders as an understudied group affecting the contribution of the Indian economy to the world system. Amidst rapidly changing political landscapes, traders of Indian and Sasanian origins are studied as conscious political beings, who formed ties with varieties of polities and religious communities to secure their commercial interests. In addition, their commercial interactions with their Sogdian (Central Asia) and Aksumite (East Africa) counterparts are analyzed. The book also considers the nature of trade routes and the specific connections between mercantile and religious networks, including patterns of construction of religious shrines and temples along trade routes. Integrating epigraphic, numismatic, literary and archaeological evidence, this book moves away from a marginal treatment of the Indo-Sasanian trade in Indian history, and demonstrates how regional economic history must address a plurality of causes, actors, and processes in its assessment of the regional economy. The book will be of interest to students and academics of Indian economic history, as well as the ancient economies of South Asia more broadly.

This edited collection addresses concepts of value and its impact on economies and economic decision-making in Mesoamerica. It brings together various theoretical and methodological approaches to illuminate the little-studied topic of value in ancient economies.While scholars increasingly note that tangible objects found in the archaeological record could assume different values, depending on how they were used and circulated, less attention has been paid to how we might infer consensus (or lack of consensus) on how value was determined in past cultures so different from contemporary ones. These contributions show how multiple and conflicting understandings of what is important and meaningful coexist within any society even as moments of exchange create the impression of shared formulations of value. They consider divergences between shared understandings based on systems of beliefs and patterns of practice and the individual decisions of social actors. They also discuss howinequalities in social structures might inform our understanding of value, and how a multiplicity of values might encourage closer inspection of inequality in turn.The book brings together fifteen chapters focused on many parts of Mesoamerica, including Western Mexico, the Basin of Mexico, Veracruz, Oaxaca, and various parts of the Maya Lowlands, and range chronologically from the Classic period (250-900 CE) to the Spanish Conquest in the early 16th Century. It appeals to those working in archaeology, economic anthropology, economic history, and all those interested in how value can be understood in terms of contemporary cultural and political differences.