Four Economic Topics for Studies of Antiquity

In this book Donald W. Jones presents a framework for how to approach four important topics that have held the attention of historians and archaeologists for decades. He offers intuitive but rigorous introductions to the contemporary economic theory and modelling dealing with agriculture, international trade, populations, and the behavior of aggregate economies. Familiarity with these models can offer nuanced insights into ancient economic behavior in data-poor as well as data-rich environments. Each chapter presents case studies from the literature of antiquity demonstrating how this could work and offering suggestions of topics where these models could be fruitfully explored.