A History of Market Performance: From Ancient Babylonia to the Modern WorldR.J. Van der Spek, Jan Luiten van Zanden, Bas van Leeuwen This exciting new volume examines the development of market performance from Antiquity until the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Efficient market structures are agreed by most economists to serve as evidence of economic prosperity, and to be prerequisites for further economic growth. However, this is the first study to examine market performance as a whole, over such a large time period. Presenting a hitherto unknown and inaccessible corpus of data from ancient Babylonia, this international set of contributors are for the first time able to offer an in-depth study of market performance over a period of 2,500 years. The contributions focus on the market of staple crops, as they were crucial goods in these societies. Over this entire period, all papers provide a similar conceptual and methodological framework resting on a common definition of market performance combined with qualitative and quantitative analyses resting on new and improved price data. In this way, the book is able to combine analysis of the Babylonian period with similar work on the Roman, Early-and Late Medieval and Early Modern period. Bringing together input from assyriologists, ancient historians, economic historians and economists, this volume will be crucial reading for all those with an interest in ancient history, economic history and economics. |
Contents
Analysis of historical time series with messy features The case | |
Market performance and welfare Why price instability hurts | |
Market performance and market integration in Babylonia in | |
Prices and related data from northern Babylonia in the Late | |
Climate war and economic development The case of secondcentury | |
Mediterranean grain prices in classical antiquity | |
The circulation of coins in Syria and Mesopotamia in the sixth | |
A frogs eye view of the Roman market The Batavian case | |
The circulation of money and the behaviour of prices in medieval | |
Money supply and the price mechanism The interaction of money | |
Risk aversion and storage in autarkic societies From Babylonian | |
Growing silver and changing prices The development of the money | |
Longrun patterns in market performance in the Near East | |
Markets from Babylon to Belfast Some concluding remarks | |
Soldiers and booze The rise and decline of a Roman market economy | |
Price volatility and markets in late medieval and early modern | |
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A History of Market Performance: From Ancient Babylonia to the Modern World R. J. van der Spek No preview available - 2014 |