Economic Theory and the Ancient Mediterranean.

Economic Theory and the Ancient Mediterranean presents a comprehensive introduction to the application of contemporary economic theory to the ancient societies of the Mediterranean Sea from the period of 5000 BCE to 400 CE. Offers an accessible presentation of modern economic theory and its relati...

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator: Jones, Donald W.
Format: eBook Electronic
Language:English
Edition:1st ed.
Imprint: Somerset : John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014.
Subjects:
Local Note:Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2022. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
Online Access:Click to View
Table of Contents:
  • Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright
  • Contents
  • Preface
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Rationale
  • Organization
  • Method
  • Reader Outcomes
  • Themes
  • Relevance and Applicability
  • References
  • Notes
  • Chapter 1 Production
  • 1.1 The Production Function
  • 1.2 The "Law'' of Variable Proportions
  • 1.3 Substitution
  • 1.4 Measuring Substitution
  • 1.5 Specific "Functional Forms'' for Production Functions
  • 1.6 Attributing Products to Inputs: Distributing Income from Production
  • 1.7 Efficiency and the Choice of How to Produce
  • 1.8 Predictions of Production Theory 1: Input Price Changes
  • 1.9 Predictions of Production Theory 2: Technological Changes
  • 1.10 Stocks and Flows
  • 1.11 The Distribution of Income
  • 1.12 Production Functions in Achaemenid Babylonia
  • References
  • Suggested Readings
  • Notes
  • Chapter 2 Cost and Supply
  • 2.1 The Cost Function
  • 2.2 Short Run and Long Run
  • 2.3 The Relationship between Cost and Production
  • 2.4 Producers' Objectives
  • 2.5 Supply Curves
  • 2.6 Demands for Factors of Production
  • 2.7 Factor Costs in General: Wages and Rents
  • 2.8 Allocation of Factors across Activities
  • 2.9 Organizing Production: The Firm
  • 2.10 A More General Treatment of Cost Functions
  • 2.11 The Economics of Mycenaean Vases, I: Supply and Cost
  • 2.12 Accounting for Apparent Cost Changes in Minoan Pottery
  • 2.13 Production in an Entire Economy: The Production Possibilities Frontier
  • References
  • Suggested Readings
  • Notes
  • Chapter 3 Consumption
  • 3.1 Rationality of the Consumer
  • 3.2 The Budget
  • 3.3 Utility and Indifference Curves
  • 3.4 Demand
  • 3.5 Demand Elasticities
  • 3.6 Aggregate Demand
  • 3.7 Evaluating Changes in Wellbeing
  • 3.8 Price and Consumption Indexes
  • 3.9 Intertemporal Choice
  • 3.10 Durable Goods and Discrete Choice
  • 3.11 Variety and Differentiated Goods.
  • 3.12 Value of Time and Household Production
  • 3.13 Risk, Risk Aversion, and Expected Utility
  • 3.14 Irrational Behavior
  • 3.15 Fixed Prices
  • 3.16 Applying Demand Concepts: Relationships between Housing Consumption, Housing Prices, and Incomes in Pompeii
  • 3.17 The Economics of Mycenaean Vases, II: Demand
  • References
  • Suggested Readings
  • Notes
  • Chapter 4 Industry Structure and the Types of Competition
  • 4.1 Perfect Competition
  • 4.2 Competitive Equilibrium
  • 4.3 Monopoly
  • 4.4 Oligopoly
  • 4.5 Monopolistic Competition
  • 4.6 Contestable Markets
  • 4.7 Buyer's Power: Monopsony
  • 4.8 The Economics of Mycenaean Vases, III: Industry Structure
  • 4.9 Ancient Monopoly and Oligopoly: Religion and Foreign Trade
  • References
  • Suggested Readings
  • Notes
  • Chapter 5 General Equilibrium
  • 5.1 General Equilibrium as a Fact and as a Model
  • 5.1.1 The facts
  • 5.1.2 The models
  • 5.1.3 The questions
  • 5.2 The Walrasian Model
  • 5.3 Exchange
  • 5.4 The Two-Sector Model
  • 5.4.1 The basics with the Lerner-Pearce diagram
  • 5.4.2 Growth in factor supplies
  • 5.4.3 Technical change
  • 5.5 Existence and Uniqueness of Equilibrium
  • 5.6 Computable General Equilibrium Models
  • References
  • Suggested Readings
  • Notes
  • Chapter 6 Public Economics
  • 6.1 Government in the Economy: Scope of Activities, Modern and Ancient
  • 6.2 Private Goods, Public Goods, and Externalities
  • 6.2.1 Private goods
  • 6.2.2 Public goods
  • 6.2.3 Externalities
  • 6.3 Raising Revenue
  • 6.3.1 Taxation 1: rationales and instruments
  • Equity versus efficiency
  • The social welfare function
  • Taxes: categories, concepts, and specific instruments
  • 6.3.2 Taxation 2: effects of taxes
  • Distortions
  • Deadweight losses from taxation
  • Personal income taxes and labor supply
  • Effects on saving
  • Effects on risk taking.
  • 6.3.3 Taxation 3: tax incidence (who really pays?)
  • 6.3.4 Taxation 4: optimal tax systems
  • 6.3.5 Other revenue sources
  • 6.4 The Theory of Second Best
  • 6.5 Government Productive Activities
  • 6.5.1 Public production and pricing
  • Pricing and production in declining-cost industries
  • Ramsey pricing
  • Multiple-part pricing
  • The structure of public enterprises
  • Public economic planning
  • 6.5.2 The supply of public goods and social choice mechanisms
  • The optimal provision of public goods financed by taxes
  • Voting on public goods: the Arrow impossibility theorem
  • Preference-revelation mechanisms
  • The positive economics of politics
  • 6.5.3 Public investment and cost-benefit analysis
  • 6.6 Regulation of Private Economic Activities
  • 6.6.1 Rent seeking
  • 6.6.2 The costs of regulation: the Averch--Johnson effect
  • 6.7 The Behavior of Government and Government Agencies
  • 6.7.1 Theories of government
  • 6.7.2 Theories of bureaucracy
  • 6.7.3 Levels of government
  • 6.8 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter
  • References
  • Suggested Readings
  • Notes
  • Chapter 7 The Economics of Information and Risk
  • 7.1 Risk
  • 7.1.1 The ubiquity of risky decisions
  • 7.1.2 Concepts and measurement
  • 7.1.3 Risk and behavior: expected utility
  • Elements of risk
  • Expected utility
  • Certainty equivalence, the risk premium, and risk aversion
  • Individual equilibrium under uncertainty
  • 7.1.4 Risk versus uncertainty: the substance of probabilities
  • 7.2 Information and Learning
  • 7.2.1 The structure of information
  • 7.2.2 Learning as Bayesian updating
  • 7.2.3 Experts and groups
  • Contracting with experts for information
  • Information and group decisions
  • 7.3 Dealing with Nature's Uncertainty
  • 7.3.1 Contingent markets
  • State-claims and assets
  • Maximizing state-contingent utility
  • Complete markets.
  • Incomplete markets
  • Production adjustments for contingent consumption
  • State-dependent utility
  • 7.3.2 Portfolios and diversification
  • The individual portfolio
  • Market equilibrium and the "capitalization'' of risk in asset prices
  • 7.4 Behavioral Uncertainty
  • 7.4.1 Asymmetric information: problems and solutions
  • The principal--agent relationship and the moral hazard problem
  • Adverse selection
  • Signaling and screening
  • Signaling
  • Screening
  • 7.4.2 Strategic behavior
  • 7.5 Expectations
  • 7.5.1 The role of expectations in resource-allocation decisions
  • 7.5.2 Adaptive models of expectations
  • 7.5.3 The rational expectations hypothesis
  • 7.6 Competitive Behavior under Uncertainty
  • 7.6.1 Production behavior
  • 7.6.2 Search problems
  • 7.7 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter
  • References
  • Suggested Readings
  • Notes
  • Chapter 8 Capital
  • 8.1 The Substance and Concepts of Capital
  • 8.1.1 Capital as stuff
  • 8.1.2 Capital in the production function
  • 8.1.3 Stocks, flows, and accumulation
  • 8.1.4 Prices and values
  • 8.1.5 Temporal aspects of capital
  • Durability
  • Ageing of capital
  • Embodiment''
  • 8.1.6 Measuring capital
  • 8.1.7 The labor theory of value
  • 8.2 Quasi-Rents
  • 8.3 Interest Rates
  • 8.4 The Theory of Capital
  • 8.4.1 Present and future consumption, investment, and capital accumulation
  • 8.4.2 Demand for and supply of capital: flows and stocks
  • 8.4.3 Capital richness and interest rates
  • 8.5 Use of Capital by Firms
  • 8.5.1 Investment
  • 8.5.2 Maintenance
  • 8.5.3 Scrapping and replacement
  • 8.6 Consumption and Saving
  • 8.6.1 Intertemporal utility maximization
  • 8.6.2 Hypotheses about consumption
  • 8.6.3 Individual and aggregate savings
  • 8.7 Capital Formation
  • 8.8 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter
  • References
  • Suggested Readings
  • Notes.
  • Chapter 9 Money and Banking
  • 9.1 The Services of Money
  • 9.1.1 Money as a medium of exchange
  • 9.1.2 Money as a store of value
  • 9.1.3 Money as a unit of account
  • 9.1.4 Stability of value
  • 9.1.5 Monetization prior to currency
  • 9.2 The Types of Money
  • 9.2.1 Commodity money
  • 9.2.2 Credit money
  • 9.2.3 One special case of credit money: bank money
  • 9.3 Some Preliminary Concepts
  • 9.3.1 The price level
  • 9.3.2 Inflation
  • 9.3.3 "Nominal'' versus "real'' distinctions
  • 9.3.4 What people in antiquity knew
  • 9.4 The Demand for Money
  • 9.4.1 Measuring money
  • 9.4.2 The distinctiveness of the demand for money
  • 9.4.3 Monetary theory and macroeconomics for ancient economies?!
  • 9.4.4 The neoclassical quantity theory
  • 9.4.5 Keynesian monetary theory
  • 9.4.6 The contemporary synthesis
  • 9.5 The Supply of Money
  • 9.5.1 Supply of a commodity money
  • 9.5.2 Creation of money by banks
  • 9.5.3 The banking firm
  • 9.5.4 Financial intermediation
  • 9.5.5 Exogeneity / endogeneity of money supply and foreign exchange
  • 9.5.6 Seigniorage: making money by issuing money
  • 9.5.7 Bimetallism
  • 9.6 Inflation
  • 9.6.1 Causes of inflation
  • 9.6.2 Mechanisms of inflation
  • 9.6.3 Consequences of inflation
  • 9.7 Monetary Policy
  • 9.7.1 The players and their motives
  • 9.7.2 Choice of monetary standard
  • 9.7.3 Influencing the supply of money
  • 9.7.4 Influencing the demand for money
  • 9.7.5 International monetary policies
  • 9.8 Suggestions for Using the Material of this Chapter
  • References
  • Suggested Readings
  • Notes
  • Chapter 10 Labor
  • 10.1 Applying Contemporary Labor Models to Ancient Behavior and Institutions
  • 10.2 Human Capital
  • 10.2.1 Investment in human capital
  • 10.2.2 Health
  • 10.2.3 Guilds, occupational licensing, and entry restriction
  • 10.3 Labor Supply.
  • 10.3.1 Utility analysis of individual and family labor supply.