Peter Temin

"The study of ancient economies has for many generations been a fiercely debated field. Peter Temin has produced a book that will in many ways foster renewed energy in this great debate. What is of special value here is his economic analysis, including the use of regressions to show that price movements in the Roman provinces must be linked to those in Rome itself, and that the Roman economy, therefore, was a market economy. Whether one agrees or not with this basic conclusion, the framing of the evidence will alter the terms of the debate, and not just for the Roman economy but for Hellenistic economies as well. The book is a must-read for all economic historians and will surely become one of the most widely read books on the ancient economy."--J. G. Manning, Yale University "Peter Temin's fascinating book deploys the techniques of economic analysis to understand the nature of Roman trade, markets, and transactions, and definitively challenges the view of the Roman Empire as a 'primitive' economy. Stressing the importance of markets, trade, commerce, and banking, and emphasizing their prominence in the evidence from ancient texts and archaeology, Temin offers a sophisticated account of Rome's economic institutions and practices that fundamentally revises and enriches our understanding of the prosperity and the decline of this major imperial power."--Alan K. Bowman, University of Oxford "This is a very important book, and I know of no other quite like it. Temin's scholarship promotes and illustrates the relevance of economic theory to the study of Roman history. "The Roman Market Economy" contains plenty of claims that are controversial, but that's what will energize the debate."--Walter Scheidel, coeditor of "The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies" "Economic historians have actively studied medieval and early modern Europe for decades, but few have ventured back as far as Peter Temin does here. He demonstrates that economic arguments apply just as well to the ancient world, and that even quite general propositions can be tested against evidence from antiquity."--Francois R. Velde, coauthor of "The Big Problem of Small Change" "

The Roman Market Economy

Why the United States has developed an economy divided between rich and poor and how racism helped bring this about.

Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy

The Vanishing Middle Class

"Given the magnitude and importance of this event [the Great Depression], it is surprising how little we know about its causes." —Peter Temin

Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression?

Why the United States has developed an economy divided between rich and poor and how racism helped bring this about. The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, simple model of a dual economy to examine the dynamics of the rich/poor divide in America, and outlines ways to work toward greater equality so that America will no longer have one economy for the rich and one for the poor. Many poorer Americans live in conditions resembling those of a developing country--substandard education, dilapidated housing, and few stable employment opportunities. And although almost half of black Americans are poor, most poor people are not black. Conservative white politicians still appeal to the racism of poor white voters to get support for policies that harm low-income people as a whole, casting recipients of social programs as the Other--black, Latino, not like "us." Politicians also use mass incarceration as a tool to keep black and Latino Americans from participating fully in society. Money goes to a vast entrenched prison system rather than to education. In the dual justice system, the rich pay fines and the poor go to jail.

An inclusive economic history of America describing two centuries of American racial conflicts since the Constitution was written.

The Economic History of a Segregated America

Never Together

Paul Anthony Samuelson

Contains chapter overview and outline, learning objectives, key concept review, helpful hints, multiple choice questions and problem solving questions

Economics

Abstract: There are two views of the British Industrial Revolution in the literature today. The more traditional description, represented by the views of Ashton and Landes, sees the Industrial Revolution as a broad change in the British economy and society. This broad view of the Industrial Revolution has been challenged by Crafts and Harley who see the Industrial Revolution as a much narrower phenomenon, as the result of technical change in a few industries. This paper presents a test of these views using the Ricardian model of international trade with many goods. British trade data are used to implement the test and discriminate between the two views of the Industrial Revolution.

Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution

The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity. Peter Temin, one of the world's foremost economic historians, argues that markets dominated the Roman economy. He traces how the Pax Romana encouraged trade around the Mediterranean, and how Roman law promoted commerce and banking. Temin shows that a reasonably vibrant market for wheat extended throughout the empire, and suggests that the Antonine Plague may have been responsible for turning the stable prices of the early empire into the persistent inflation of the late. He vividly describes how various markets operated in Roman times, from commodities and slaves to the buying and selling of land. Applying modern methods for evaluating economic growth to data culled from historical sources, Temin argues that Roman Italy in the second century was as prosperous as the Dutch Republic in its golden age of the seventeenth century. The Roman Market Economy reveals how economics can help us understand how the Roman Empire could have ruled seventy million people and endured for centuries.

Hans-Joachim Voth

After 1688, Britain underwent a revolution in public finance, and the cost of borrowing declined sharply. Leading scholars have argued that easier credit for the government, made possible by better property-rights protection, lead to a rapid expansion of private credit, and see the Industrial Revolution as a result of the preceding revolution in public finance. In Prometheus Shackled, prominent economic historians Peter Temin and Hans-Joachim Voth examine this hypothesis using new, detailed archival data from 18th century banks. They conclude the opposite: the financial revolution led to an explosion of public debt, but it stifled private credit. This resulted in markedly slower growth in the English economy. Temin and Voth collected detailed data from several goldsmith banks - Child's, Gosling's, Freame and Gould, Hoare's, and Duncome and Kent. The authors look closely at Hoare's, founded by Sir Richard Hoare in 1672, because of its excellent records. Numerous entrants tried their hand at the new business of deposit banking; few survived and fewer thrived. Hoare's and a small group of competitors did both. Temin and Voth chart their growth in the face frequent wars and heavy-handed regulations. This new data allows insights into the interaction between financial and economic development. Government regulations such as setting a maximum interest rate caused severe misallocation of credit; a misguided attempt to lighten the nation's debt burden led directly to the South Sea Bubble in 1720 - analyzed in detail here - and frequent wars caused banks to call in loans, leading to sharply slower economic growth rate. Wartime borrowing crowded out investment. Far from fostering economic development, England's financial revolution after 1688 did much to slow it down - the Hanoverian "warfare state" was a key reason for slow growth during Britain's Industrial Revolution. Prometheus Shackled is a revealing new take on one of the most important eras of financial development.

Goldsmith Banks and England's Financial Revolution After 1700

Prometheus Shackled

David Vines

Reveals why international financial cooperation is the only solution to today's global economic crisis.

Peter Temin

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