Economic Theory and the Ancient Mediterranean

Donald W. Jones is Adjunct Professor of Classics, University of Tennessee, and is also an economic consultant involved with demand forecasting and energy economics. He is the author of External Relations of Early Iron Age Crete, 1100-600 B.C. (2000) and co-editor of Measuring the Full Costs and Benefits of Transpiration (1997).

Preface xiii Acknowledgments xvii Introduction 1 Rationale 1 Organization 2 Method 3 Reader Outcomes 3 Themes 4 Relevance and Applicability 5 References 6 Notes 6 1 Production 8 1.1 The Production Function 9 1.2 The "Law" of Variable Proportions 11 1.3 Substitution 13 1.4 Measuring Substitution 15 1.5 Specific "Functional Forms" for Production Functions 16 1.6 Attributing Products to Inputs: Distributing Income from Production 17 1.7 Efficiency and the Choice of How to Produce 18 1.8 Predictions of Production Theory 1: Input Price Changes 20 1.9 Predictions of Production Theory 2: Technological Changes 21 1.10 Stocks and Flows 22 1.11 The Distribution of Income 23 1.12 Production Functions in Achaemenid Babylonia 25 References 26 Suggested Readings 27 Notes 27 2 Cost and Supply 29 2.1 The Cost Function 31 2.2 Short Run and Long Run 32 2.3 The Relationship between Cost and Production 33 2.4 Producers' Objectives 34 2.5 Supply Curves 35 2.6 Demands for Factors of Production 40 2.7 Factor Costs in General:Wages and Rents 41 2.8 Allocation of Factors across Activities 43 2.9 Organizing Production:The Firm 43 2.10 A More General Treatment of Cost Functions 46 2.11 The Economics of Mycenaean Vases, I: Supply and Cost 47 2.12 Accounting for Apparent Cost Changes in Minoan Pottery 49 2.13 Production in an Entire Economy: The Production Possibilities Frontier 50 References 52 Suggested Readings 53 Notes 53 3 Consumption 55 3.1 Rationality of the Consumer 57 3.2 The Budget 57 3.3 Utility and Indifference Curves 58 3.4 Demand 60 3.5 Demand Elasticities 63 3.6 Aggregate Demand 65 3.7 Evaluating Changes inWellbeing 66 3.8 Price and Consumption Indexes 70 3.9 Intertemporal Choice 73 3.10 Durable Goods and Discrete Choice 75 3.11 Variety and Differentiated Goods 79 3.12 Value of Time and Household Production 82 3.13 Risk, Risk Aversion, and Expected Utility 86 3.14 Irrational Behavior 88 3.15 Fixed Prices 90 3.16 Applying Demand Concepts: Relationships between Housing Consumption, Housing Prices, and Incomes in Pompeii 93 3.17 The Economics of Mycenaean Vases, II: Demand 96 References 99 Suggested Readings 99 Notes 100 4 Industry Structure and the Types of Competition 103 4.1 Perfect Competition 104 4.2 Competitive Equilibrium 106 4.3 Monopoly 108 4.4 Oligopoly 110 4.5 Monopolistic Competition 111 4.6 Contestable Markets 112 4.7 Buyer's Power: Monopsony 113 4.8 The Economics of Mycenaean Vases, III: Industry Structure 114 4.9 Ancient Monopoly and Oligopoly: Religion and Foreign Trade 115 References 117 Suggested Readings 118 Notes 118 5 General Equilibrium 120 5.1 General Equilibrium as a Fact and as a Model 120 5.1.1 The facts 121 5.1.2 The models 121 5.1.3 The questions 123 5.2 TheWalrasian Model 124 5.3 Exchange 127 5.4 The Two-Sector Model 128 5.4.1 The basics with the Lerner-Pearce diagram 128 5.4.2 Growth in factor supplies 130 5.4.3 Technical change 132 5.5 Existence and Uniqueness of Equilibrium 133 5.6 Computable General Equilibrium Models 134 References 136 Suggested Readings 137 Notes 137 6 Public Economics 139 6.1 Government in the Economy: Scope of Activities, Modern and Ancient 139 6.2 Private Goods, Public Goods, and Externalities 141 6.2.1 Private goods 141 6.2.2 Public goods 142 6.2.3 Externalities 143 6.3 Raising Revenue 149 6.3.1 Taxation 1: rationales and instruments 149 6.3.2 Taxation 2: effects of taxes 154 6.3.3 Taxation 3: tax incidence (who really pays?) 165 6.3.4 Taxation 4: optimal tax systems 169 6.3.5 Other revenue sources 173 6.4 TheTheory of Second Best 174 6.5 Government Productive Activities 175 6.5.1 Public production and pricing 175 6.5.2 The supply of public goods and social choice mechanisms 181 6.5.3 Public investment and cost-benefit analysis 186 6.6 Regulation of Private Economic Activities 191 6.6.1 Rent seeking 192 6.6.2 The costs of regulation: the Averch-Johnson effect 193 6.7 The Behavior of Government and Government Agencies 194 6.7.1 Theories of government 194 6.7.2 Theories of bureaucracy 195 6.7.3 Levels of government 196 6.8 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter 196 References 197 Suggested Readings 199 Notes 199 7 The Economics of Information and Risk 202 7.1 Risk 202 7.1.1 The ubiquity of risky decisions 203 7.1.2 Concepts and measurement 205 7.1.3 Risk and behavior: expected utility 209 7.1.4 Risk versus uncertainty: the substance of probabilities 215 7.2 Information and Learning 217 7.2.1 The structure of information 217 7.2.2 Learning as Bayesian updating 218 7.2.3 Experts and groups 223 7.3 Dealing with Nature's Uncertainty 225 7.3.1 Contingent markets 225 7.3.2 Portfolios and diversification 230 7.4 Behavioral Uncertainty 235 7.4.1 Asymmetric information: problems and solutions 236 7.4.2 Strategic behavior 242 7.5 Expectations 246 7.5.1 The role of expectations in resource-allocation decisions 247 7.5.2 Adaptive models of expectations 247 7.5.3 The rational expectations hypothesis 249 7.6 Competitive Behavior under Uncertainty 252 7.6.1 Production behavior 252 7.6.2 Search problems 253 7.7 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter 253 References 254 Suggested Readings 255 Notes 255 8 Capital 258 8.1 The Substance and Concepts of Capital 258 8.1.1 Capital as stuff 259 8.1.2 Capital in the production function 262 8.1.3 Stocks, flows, and accumulation 263 8.1.4 Prices and values 264 8.1.5 Temporal aspects of capital 265 8.1.6 Measuring capital 268 8.1.7 The labor theory of value 269 8.2 Quasi-Rents 270 8.3 Interest Rates 272 8.4 TheTheory of Capital 276 8.4.1 Present and future consumption, investment, and capital accumulation 276 8.4.2 Demand for and supply of capital: flows and stocks 279 8.4.3 Capital richness and interest rates 283 8.5 Use of Capital by Firms 284 8.5.1 Investment 284 8.5.2 Maintenance 287 8.5.3 Scrapping and replacement 289 8.6 Consumption and Saving 290 8.6.1 Intertemporal utility maximization 290 8.6.2 Hypotheses about consumption 291 8.6.3 Individual and aggregate savings 294 8.7 Capital Formation 294 8.8 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter 296 References 297 Suggested Readings 298 Notes 298 9 Money and Banking 301 9.1 The Services of Money 302 9.1.1 Money as a medium of exchange 302 9.1.2 Money as a store of value 302 9.1.3 Money as a unit of account 303 9.1.4 Stability of value 303 9.1.5 Monetization prior to currency 303 9.2 The Types of Money 304 9.2.1 Commodity money 304 9.2.2 Credit money 304 9.2.3 One special case of credit money: bank money 305 9.3 Some Preliminary Concepts 305 9.3.1 The price level 305 9.3.2 Inflation 306 9.3.3 "Nominal" versus "real" distinctions 307 9.3.4 What people in antiquity knew 309 9.4 The Demand for Money 309 9.4.1 Measuring money 310 9.4.2 The distinctiveness of the demand for money 311 9.4.3 Monetary theory and macroeconomics for ancient economies?! 312 9.4.4 The neoclassical quantity theory 313 9.4.5 Keynesian monetary theory 315 9.4.6 The contemporary synthesis 317 9.5 The Supply of Money 318 9.5.1 Supply of a commodity money 320 9.5.2 Creation of money by banks 323 9.5.3 The banking firm 328 9.5.4 Financial intermediation 332 9.5.5 Exogeneity / endogeneity of money supply and foreign exchange 335 9.5.6 Seigniorage: making money by issuing money 336 9.5.7 Bimetallism 337 9.6 Inflation 337 9.6.1 Causes of inflation 338 9.6.2 Mechanisms of inflation 339 9.6.3 Consequences of inflation 340 9.7 Monetary Policy 342 9.7.1 The players and their motives 342 9.7.2 Choice of monetary standard 343 9.7.3 Influencing the supply of money 343 9.7.4 Influencing the demand for money 345 9.7.5 International monetary policies 345 9.8 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter 345 References 345 Suggested Readings 347 Notes 347 10 Labor 350 10.1 Applying Contemporary Labor Models to Ancient Behavior and Institutions 350 10.2 Human Capital 353 10.2.1 Investment in human capital 354 10.2.2 Health 356 10.2.3 Guilds, occupational licensing, and entry restriction 356 10.3 Labor Supply 357 10.3.1 Utility analysis of individual and family labor supply 357 10.3.2 Lifecycle / dynamic labor supply 364 10.3.3 Supply of labor to activities 368 10.3.4 Household production 369 10.4 Labor Demand 375 10.4.1 The productive enterprise's demand for labor 376 10.4.2 Derived demand 379 10.5 Labor Contracts 384 10.5.1 Information problems and incentives 384 10.5.2 The basis of pay 385 10.5.3 Sequencing of pay 387 10.5.4 Compensating differentials in wages 387 10.6 Migration 391 10.6.1 Economic incentives for migration 392 10.6.2 Consequences of migration 394 10.6.3 Refugee migration 396 10.6.4 Equilibrating migration flows when the wage rate doesn't adjust 396 10.7 Families 398 10.7.1 Marriage 398 10.7.2 Intrafamily resource allocation 405 10.7.3 Children and the economics of fertility and child mortality 412 10.8 Labor and the Family Enterprise 414 10.8.1 The farm family household and the separability of production decisions from consumption decisions 415 10.8.2 Effects of missing markets on labor allocation 418 10.8.3 Restrictions on household activities 420 10.8.4 Implications of the family farm model 422 10.9 Slavery 423 10.9.1 The supply of slaves 424 10.9.2 The demand for slaves 426 10.9.3 Investment in slaves 427 10.9.4 Market consequences of slaves 427 10.9.5 Slaves' incentives 427 10.10 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter 428 References 429 Suggested Readings 432 Notes 433 11 Land and Location 440 11.1 The Special Characteristics of Land 440 11.2 Land as a Factor of Production 441 11.2.1 Supply 441 11.2.2 Demand 441 11.3 The Location of Land Uses 442 11.3.1 TheThunen model 442 11.3.2 The bid-rent function 447 11.3.3 Equilibrium in a region 450 11.3.4 Modifying the social context 451 11.4 The Location of Production Facilities 452 11.4.1 Individual facilities 452 11.4.2 Industries 455 11.5 Consumption and the Location of Marketing 457 11.5.1 The structure of transportation costs 457 11.5.2 The shopping tradeoff: frequency versus storage 458 11.5.3 Aggregate demand in a spatial market 460 11.5.4 Hierarchies of marketplaces: central place theory 461 11.5.5 Periodic markets 462 11.6 Transportation 463 11.6.1 Infrastructure 463 11.6.2 Equipment 465 11.6.3 Pricing of transportation services 465 11.7 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter 467 References 468 Suggested Readings 469 Notes 470 12 Cities 472 12.1 Cities and their Analysis, Modern and Ancient 472 12.1.1 Classifying cities 472 12.1.2 Characteristics of cities 473 12.1.3 What goes on in cities 473 12.1.4 Ancient observations and contemporary analytical emphases 474 12.2 Economies of Cities 475 12.2.1 Scale economies in production 475 12.2.2 Externalities 477 12.2.3 Types of production 477 12.3 Housing 479 12.3.1 The Special Characteristics of Housing 479 12.3.2 Housing supply 480 12.3.3 Housing demand 481 12.4 Urban Spatial Structure 482 12.4.1 The monocentric city model 483 12.4.2 Multiple categories of residents 488 12.4.3 Working at home 489 12.4.4 Endogenous centers 490 12.4.5 Density gradients and the ancient city 491 12.4.6 Wage differentials across cities 491 12.5 Systems of Cities 492 12.5.1 Production and consumption within any city 493 12.5.2 Different types of cities 497 12.5.3 The city size distribution and its responses to various changes 499 12.6 Urban Finance 503 12.6.1 Local public goods 504 12.6.2 What to supply and how much 505 12.6.3 Raising revenue 506 12.7 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter 507 References 508 Suggested Readings 510 Notes 511 13 Natural Resources 516 13.1 Exhaustible Resources 517 13.1.1 The theory of optimal depletion 517 13.1.2 Different deposits 520 13.1.3 Uncertainty 521 13.1.4 Exploration 521 13.1.5 Monopoly 523 13.2 Renewable Resources 524 13.2.1 Biological growth 524 13.2.2 Harvesting 525 13.2.3 The theory of optimal use 527 13.2.4 Open access and the fishery 528 13.3 Resource Scarcity 531 13.4 The Ancient Mining-Forestry Complex 531 13.5 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter 532 References 533 Suggested Readings 533 Notes 533 14 Growth 535 14.1 Introduction 535 14.1.1 Economic growth: delimiting the scope 535 14.1.2 Growth in antiquity: is there anything to explain? 536 14.2 Essential Concepts 536 14.2.1 Production functions again 536 14.2.2 Technical change 537 14.2.3 Growth versus development 537 14.3 Neoclassical GrowthTheory 538 14.3.1 The Solow model 538 14.3.2 Technology and growth in the Solow model 541 14.3.3 Endogenizing technical change 543 14.3.4 Extent of the market, division of labor, and productivity 545 14.4 Structural Change 546 14.4.1 Sectoral concepts as organizing devices 546 14.4.2 A two-sector model of an economy 548 14.4.3 Some stylized facts 549 14.5 Institutions 551 14.5.1 Property rights 552 14.5.2 Governments 552 14.5.3 Stability and change 553 14.6 Studying Economic Growth in Antiquity 553 14.6.1 What there is to explain 554 14.6.2 Organizing inquiry about economic growth with the help of growth theory 554 14.6.3 Studying episodes of growth following declines: beyond growth theory 557 14.6.4 Summary 559 14.7 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter 559 14.7.1 Evidence of growth 559 14.7.2 Sectoral structure 561 References 561 Suggested Readings 564 Notes 564 Index 569