Real wages in early economies: Evidence for living standards from 1800 BCE to 1300 CE

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

Volumn 53, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 425-462

  Scheidel, Walter ^a  

^a STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Ancient mediterranean economies; Ancient near eastern economies; Consumption; Early islamic economies; Economic development; Incomes; Real wages

Indexed keywords

EID: 77953191662     PISSN: 00224995     EISSN: 15685209     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/156852010X506038     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. Allen, Robert C. 2001. The Great Divergence: Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War. Explorations in Economic History 38: 411-447
2. -. 2005. Real Wages in Europe and Asia: A First Look at the Long-Term Patterns. In Living Standards in the Past: New Perspectives on Well-Being in Asia and Europe, ed. Robert C. Allen, Tommy Bengtsson, and Martin Dribe. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 111-130
3. -. 2009. How Prosperous were the Romans? Evidence from Diocletian's Price Edict (AD 301). In Quantifying the Roman Economy, eds Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson, ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 327-345
4. -. Jean-Pascal Bassino, Debin Ma, Christine Moll-Murata, and Jan Luiten van Zanden. 2005. Wages, Prices, and Living Standards in China, Japan, and Europe, 1738-1925. GPIH Working Paper No. 1, October 2005.
5. Alston, Richard. 2001. Urban Population in Late Roman Egypt and the End of the Ancient World. In Debating Roman Demography, ed. Walter Scheidel. Leiden: Brill: 161-204.
6. Amemiya, Takeshi. 2007. Economy and Economics of Ancient Greece. London and New York: Routledge.
7. Ashtor, Eliyahu. 1969. Histoire des prix et des salaires dans l'Orient medieval. Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N.
8. -. 1976. A Social and Economic History of the Near East in the Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
9. Bagnall, Roger S. 1985. Currency and Inflation in Fourth Century Egypt. Chico: Scholars Press.
10. Banaji, Jairus. 2001. Agrarian Change in Late Antiquity: Gold, Labour, and Aristocratic Dominance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
11. Bielenstein, Hans. 1980. The Bureaucracy of Han Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
12. Bowman, Alan and Andrew Wilson, ed. 2009. Quantifying the Roman Economy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
13. Bradley, Keith R. 1991. Discovering the Roman Family. New York: Oxford University Press.
14. Broadberry, Stephen and Bishnupriya Gupta. 2005. The Early Modern Great Divergence: Wages, Prices and Economic Development in Europe and Asia, 1500-1800. Economic History Review 59: 2-31.
15. Carrie, Jean-Michel. 1999. Economie et societe romano-byzantine (IVe-VIIe siecle). A propos de quelques publications recentes. Antiquite Tardive 7: 331-352
16. Chouliara-Raios, Helene. 1989. L'abeille et le miel en Egypte d'apres les papyrus grecs. Ioannina: Panepistemiou Ioanninon.
17. Cohen, Edward E. 1992. The Athenian Economy: A Banking Perspective. Princeton: Prin ceton University Press.
18. Drexhage, Hans-Joachim. 1991. Preise, Mieten/Pachten, Kosten und Lohne im romischen Agypten bis zum Regierungsantritt Diokletians. St Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verlag.
19. Duncan-Jones, Richard P. 1978. Two Possible Indices of the Purchasing Power of Money in Greek and Roman Antiquity. In Les devaluations a Rome. Rome: Ecole Francaise de Rome: 159-179
20. -. 1982. The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative Studies. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
21. -. 1994. Money and Government in the Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
22. Findlay, Ronald and Mats Lundahl. 2006. Demographic Shocks and the Factor Proportion Model: From the Plague of Justinian to the Black Death. In Eli Heckscher, International Trade, and Economic History, ed. Ronald Findlay, Rolf G. H. Henriksson, Hakan Lindgren, and Mats Lundahl. Cambridge MA: MIT Press: 157-198
23. Frezouls, Edouard. 1977/78. Prix, salaires et niveaux de vie: quelques enseignements de l'Edit du Maximum. Ktema 2: 253-68 and 3: 289-300.
24. Gelb, Ignace J. 1965. The Ancient Mesopotamian Ration System. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 24: 230-243
25. Glotz, Gustave. 1913. Les salaires a Delos. Journal des Savants 11: 206-15 and 251-260
26. Goitein, S. D. 1967. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza. Volume I: Economic Foundations. Berkeley: University of California Press.
27. -. 1983. A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza. Volume IV: Daily Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
28. Grohmann, Adolf. 1930. Zum Weizenpreis im arabischen Agypten. Bulletin de l'Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale 30: 541-543
29. Harl, Kenneth W. 1996. Coinage in the Roman Economy, 300 B.C.-A.D. 700. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
30. Heichelheim, Fritz. 1930. Wirtschaftliche Schwankungen der Zeit von Alexander bis Augustus. Jena: Gustav Fischer.
31. Hoffman, Philipp T., David S. Jacks, Patricia A. Levin, and Peter H. Lindert. 2002. Real Inequality in Western Europe since 1500. Journal of Economic History 62: 322-355
32. -. David S. Jacks, Patricia A. Levin, and Peter H. Lindert. 2005. Sketching the Rise of Inequality in Early Modern Europe. In Living Standards in the Past: New Perspectives on Well-Being in Asia and Europe, ed. Robert C. Allen, Tommy Bengtsson, and Martin Dribe. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 131-172
33. Jasny, Naum. 1944. Wheat Prices and Milling Costs in Classical Rome. Wheat Studies of the Food Research Institute 20: 137-168
34. Jew, Daniel. 1999. Food, Silver, Trade and Liturgies: Modeling the Athenian Economy. Unpublished MPhil thesis, Cambridge University.
35. Johnston, Allan C. and Louis C. West. 1949. Byzantine Egypt: Economic Studies. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
36. Jones, Arnold H. M. 1964. The Later Roman Empire 284-602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
37. Jursa, Michael. 2002. Florilegium babyloniacum: Neue Texte aus hellenistischer und spatachamenidischer Zeit. In Mining the Archives: Festschrift for Christopher Walker on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday, 4 October 2002, ed. Cornelia Wunsch. Dresden: ISLET: 107-130
38. -. In press a. Hired Labour in Babylonia in the First Millennium BC. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Labour in the Ancient Near East (Dresden 2005), ed. Piotr Steinkeller.
39. -. In press b. The Remuneration of Institutional Labourers in an Urban Context in Babylonia in the First Millennium BC. In Actes de la Rencontre sur les Archives des Persepolis (College de France, 3-4 novembre 2006), ed. Pierre Briant and Wouter Henkelman.
40. -. Forthcoming. Money and Prices in Babylonia in the Sixth Century BC.
41. Krecher, Joachim. 1993/97. Miete. A. In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archaologie. Volume 8, ed. Dietz O. Edzard. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter: 156-162
42. Larsen, Jakob A. O. 1938. Roman Greece. In An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome. Volume IV, ed. Tenney Frank. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press: 334-414.
43. Little, Lester K., ed. 2007. Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541-750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
44. Loomis, William T. 1998. Wages, Welfare Costs and Inflation in Classical Athens. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
45. Maresch, Klaus. 1996. Bronze und Silber: Papyrologische Beitrage zur Geschichte der Wahrung im ptolemaischen und romischen Agypten bis zum 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.
46. Markle, M. M. 1985. Jury Pay and Assembly Pay at Athens. In Crux: Essays in Greek History Presented to G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, ed. Paul A. Cartledge and F. D. Harvey. London: Duckworth: 265-297
47. Masciadri, Madradele M. and Orsolina Montevecchi. 1984. I contratti di baliatico. Private printing.
48. Matthews, John. 2006. The Journey of Theophanes: Travel, Business, and Daily Life in the Roman East. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
49. Milanovic, Branko. 2006. An Estimate of Average Income and Inequality in Byzantium around Year 1000. Review of Income and Wealth 52: 449-470
50. -. Peter H. Lindert, and Jeffrey G. Williamson. 2007. Measuring Ancient Inequality. NBER Working Paper No. 13550, October 2007.
51. Morelli, Federico. 1996. Olio e retribuzioni nell'Egitto tardo (V-VIII d.C.). Florence: Istituto Papirologico G. Vitelli.
52. -. 1997. Sulle retribuzioni nell' Egitto bizantino: il caso dei potamitai. In Akten des 21. Internationalen Papyrologenkongresses Berlin, 13-19.8.1995, ed. Barbel Kramer et al. Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner: 727-737
53. Moreno, Alfonso. 2007. Feeding the Democracy: The Athenian Grain Supply in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries BC. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
54. Morris, Ian. 2004. Economic Growth in Ancient Greece. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 160: 709-742
55. -. 2005. Archaeology, Standards of Living, and Greek Economic History. In The Ancient Economy: Evidence and Models, ed. Joseph G. Manning and Ian Morris. Stanford: Stanford University Press: 91-126.
56. Morrisson, Cecile and Jean-Claude Cheynet. 2002. Prices and Wages in the Byzantine World. In The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, ed. Angeliki Laiou. Dumbarton Oaks: 807-870
57. Ostrogorsky, Georg. 1932. Lohne und Preise in Byzanz. Byzantinische Zeitschrift 32: 293-333.
58. Ozmucur, Suleyman and Sevket Pamuk. 2002. Real Wages and Standards of Living in the Ottoman Empire, 1489-1914. Journal of Economic History 62: 293-321.
59. Peng, Xinwei. 1994. A Monetary History of China. Bellingham: Western Washington University.
60. Petermandl, Werner. 1997. Kinderarbeit im Italien der Prinzipatszeit: ein Beitrag zur Sozialgeschichte des Kindes. Laverna 8: 113-136
61. Powell, Marvin A. ed. 1987. Labor in the Ancient Near East. New Haven: American Oriental Society.
62. -. 1987/90. Mase und Gewichte. In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archaologie. Volume 7, ed. Dietz O. Edzard. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter: 457-517.
63. -. 1990. Identification and Interpretation of Long Term Price Fluctuations in Babylonia: More on the History of Money in Mesopotamia. Altorientalische Forschungen 17: 76-99.
64. Radner, Karen. 2007. Hired Labour in the Neo-Assyrian Empire. State Archives of Assyria Bulletin 16: 185-226.
65. Rathbone, Dominic W. 1996. Monetisation, not Price-Inflation, in Third-Century A.D. Egypt? In Coin Finds and Coin Use in the Roman World, ed. C. E. King and D. G. Wigg. Berlin: Mann Verlag: 321-339
66. -. 1997. Prices and Price Formation in Roman Egypt. In Prix et formation des prix dans les economies antiques, ed. Jean Andreau, Pierre Briant, and Raymond Descat. St-Bertrand-de-Comminges: Musee Archeologique Departemental: 183-244.
67. -. 2009. Earnings and Costs: Living Standards and the Roman Economy (I-III c. AD). In Quantifying the Roman Economy, ed. Alan Bowman and Andrew Wilson. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 229-326.
68. Reger, Gary. 1994. Regionalism and Change in the Economy of Independent Delos, 314-1167 B.C. Berkeley: University of California Press.
69. -. 1997. The Price Histories of Some Imported Goods on Independent Delos. In Prix et formation des prix dans les economies antiques, ed. Jean Andreau, Pierre Briant, and Raymond Descat. St-Bertrand-de-Comminges: Musee Archeologique Departemental: 53-72.
70. Richardson, Seth. 2002. The Collapse of a Complex State: A Reappraisal of the End of the first Dynasty of Babylon, 1683-11597 B.C. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis Columbia University.
71. Rickman, Geoffrey. 1980. The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
72. Rosen, William. 2007. Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire, and the Birth of Europe. New York: Viking.
73. Roth, Martha T. 2003. Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor. SBL Writings from the Ancient World Series 6. 2nd ed. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press.
74. Sarris, Peter. 2006. Economy and Society in the Age of Justinian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
75. Scheidel, Walter. 1995/96. The Most Silent Women of Greece and Rome: Rural Labour and Women's Life in the Ancient World. Greece and Rome 42: 202-17 and 43: 1-10.
76. -. 2002. A Model of Demographic and Economic Change in Roman Egypt after the Antonine Plague. Journal of Roman Archaeology 15: 97-114.
77. -. 2005. Real Slave Prices and the Relative Cost of Slave Labor in the Greco-Roman World. Ancient Society 35: 1-17.
78. -. 2007. A Model of Real Income Growth in Roman Italy. Historia 56: 322-346
79. Shatzmiller, Maya. 1994. Labor in the Medieval Islamic World. Leiden: Brill.
80. Sperber, Daniel. 1991. Roman Palestine 200-400: Money and Prices. 2nd ed. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press.
81. Stathakapoulos, Dionysios C. 2004. Famine and Pestilence in the Late Roman and Early Byzantine Empire: A Systematic Survey of Subsistence Crises and Epidemics. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate.
82. Stol, Marten. 1993/97. Miete. B. In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archaologie. Volume 8, ed. Dietz O. Edzard. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter: 162-174
83. Tarn, William W. 1923. The Hellenistic Age: Aspects of Hellenistic Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
84. Temin, Peter. 2006. Estimating GDP in the Early Roman Empire. In Innovazione tecnica e progresso economico nel mondo romano, ed. Elio Lo Cascio. Bari: Edipuglia: 31-54.
85. Treadgold, Warren. 2002. The Struggle for Survival (641-780). In The Oxford History of Byzantium, ed. Cyril Mango. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 129-50. Van der Spek, Robartus J. n.d. Commodity Prices in Babylon, 385-461 BC. www.iisg.nl/ hpw/babylon.php.
86. Van Zanden, Jan Luiten. 1999. Wages and the Standards of Living in Europe, 1500-1800. European Review of Economic History 3: 175-198
87. Wang, Helen. 2004. Money on the Silk Road: The Evidence from Eastern Central Asia to c. AD 800. London: British Museum Press.
88. Worp, Klaas A. 1994. Abermals zum Weizenpreis im arabischen Agypten. Tyche 9: 225.
89. Zaccagnini, Carlo. 1988. On Prices in Nuzi. Altorientalische Forschungen 15: 45-52.
90. -. 1997. Prices and Price Formation in the Ancient Near East: A Methodological Approach. In Prix et formation des prix dans les economies antiques, ed. Jean Andreau, Pierre Briant, and Raymond Descat. St-Bertrand-de-Comminges: Musee Archeologique Departemental: 361-384