Skip to main content

Wealth Inequality in the Roman Empire

Walter Schiedel and Steven Friesen, two historians of the Roman Empire, have recently attempted to estimate wealth inequality in the Roman Empire when it was at its zenith using papyri ledgers, previous scholarly estimates, imperial edicts, and Biblical passages.  Schiedel and Friesen estimate that in 150 AD, the top 1% of Roman society controlled 16% of the wealth, less than half of what America’s top 1% control today!  It is also much lower than wealth concentration in N. Ireland - according to the estimate in my recent OEP article, the top 1% of population back in 2001 controlled 22% of the wealth.  I have no doubt that that figure is much higher for 2011.  You can read more about Schiedel and Friesen's work here.


Popular posts from this blog

Bitcoin Bubble?

According to Robert Shiller , speaking at Davos, Bitcoin is a perfect example of a bubble - story here . Shiller sees Bitcoin as a backwards step in the evolution of money.   George Selgin , a free banker, takes an opposing view - click here .  Although he doesn't believe that Bitcoin is money, he sees its development as a fascinating turn in the evolution of money. In particular, he lauds the fact that Bitcoin production is constrained and cannot be infinite. There is a short video below where Bitcoin explain how it works.
Read more

How Valuable Are Connections?

Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, Amir Kermani, James Kwak and Todd Mitton have written a paper on whether firms connected to Timothy Geithner benefited from these connections. They do so by looking at how stocks of these firms reacted to the announcement that he was a nominee for Treasury Secretary in November 2008. They find that there were large abnormal returns for connected firms. Below is the paper's abstract and the full paper is available here . The announcement of Timothy Geithner as nominee for Treasury Secretary in November 2008 produced a cumulative abnormal return for financial firms with which he had a connection. This return was about 6% after the first full day of trading and about 12% after ten trading days. There were subsequently abnormal negative returns for connected firms when news broke that Geithner's confirmation might be derailed by tax issues. Excess returns for connected firms may reflect the perceived impact of relying on the advice of a small ne
Read more

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles

Boom and Bust: A Global History of Financial Bubbles, co-authored with my colleague Will Quinn , is forthcoming in August. It is published by Cambridge University Press and is available for pre-order at Amazon , Barnes and Noble , Waterstones and Cambridge University Press . 
Read more