Graduate programs covering economies of ancient Greece and Rome

[canadian econ]

Hello all,

Is anyone aware of any graduate programs that have faculty knowledgeable in the area of ancient Roman economies? Better yet is there a program in economic history with a specific focus on this? Or is this something better studied in a Classics department. I do know that Amemiya is knowledgeable in this area however I don't think he teaches anymore/Stanford doesn't have much of an economic history program I don't think. An example of what I'm specifically interested in for would be price fixing in the Roman empire under the roman emperor Diocletian.

Cheers!

[OneArmedEcon]

Stanford definitely has one of the better programs in Econ history. While you are correct that Amemiya is essentially retired, Gavin Wright is one of the biggest names in Econ history, although he does mostly US economic history (although he'll likely be retiring in the not-too-distant future).

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any economic historians who are economists in the US who does much in that area. Maybe some in the UK or continental Europe? My impression is that the most active ancient societies for economic historians to study are Chinese and Muslim, since there are plenty of records that have not yet been translated and analyzed by Western trained economists.

While there are faculty in other disciplines (History, Classics, Archaeology, etc) who focus on it, within Economics Departments I think that you'll find it to be a virtually non-existent job market and I would heavily discourage anyone from doing a PhD Economics in order to study economic history. Amemiya established himself as a theoretical econometrician and only ventured into Greek economics history because it provided a novel way to tackle issues that interested him involving applications of cliometric techniques that he pioneered. To be perfectly candid, unless you have a cache of previously undiscovered material to investigate, I cannot imagine that it will be the most fruitful area for an economist to study.

[canadian econ]

Very good advice thank you. Oddly enough my original plan was to do theoretical econometrics...Suppose I'm intent on studying this, wouldn't I be better off switching into a Classics department?

[Zeno]

I would think so. Not that I have any real information on this, but if I wanted to find out about ancient economies, the first person I'd ask would be a historian/classicist, not an economist.

[RonSwanson]

I think Anthropology or even Religion might be a good idea. I'd suggest looking into a program that might let you do an interdisciplinary field.

[Humanomics]

You're not going to find an economic historian focused on that period, and that's not what you should be angling for anyway. You want to go to a good program where you can learn the methodological techniques you need to do cliometrics. Your reading on Hellenic and Roman economies will happen on your own.

It's absolutely *not* true that there is little marginal benefit to further work in economic history. Most history was done with an anti-market bias, and a Polanyian (read: incorrect) view of the past. So the extent of markets and their details have been systematically underreported in historical lit. That said, your job prospects as strictly an economic historian are more limited. But that's true of any field outside of very mainstream stuff like macro, micro, and labor.

We lack basic consumer price indices for many periods and places in history, not to mention answers to more substantive questions like those Fogel, McCloskey, Mokyr, Clark, Gershenkron, and others have attacked.

Economic history is probably the most well-established of all heterodox, interdisciplinary sub-fields in economics. If you can apply rigorous empirics to old assumptions about Greece and Rome, and thus pose serious challenges to standing assumptions among historians, you will have a very nice career.

[canadian econ]

You're not going to find an economic historian focused on that period, and that's not what you should be angling for anyway. You want to go to a good program where you can learn the methodological techniques you need to do cliometrics. Your reading on Hellenic and Roman economies will happen on your own.

It's absolutely *not* true that there is little marginal benefit to further work in economic history. Most history was done with an anti-market bias, and a Polanyian (read: incorrect) view of the past. So the extent of markets and their details have been systematically underreported in historical lit. That said, your job prospects as strictly an economic historian are more limited. But that's true of any field outside of very mainstream stuff like macro, micro, and labor.

We lack basic consumer price indices for many periods and places in history, not to mention answers to more substantive questions like those Fogel, McCloskey, Mokyr, Clark, Gershenkron, and others have attacked.

Economic history is probably the most well-established of all heterodox, interdisciplinary sub-fields in economics. If you can apply rigorous empirics to old assumptions about Greece and Rome, and thus pose serious challenges to standing assumptions among historians, you will have a very nice career.

The question remains : is the job market better for a classicist studying this topic ( in a diferent way of course) or as an Economic Historian using cliometrics.

And what school has faculty teaching cliometrics?

[OneArmedEcon]

Look at how many postings there are on JOE for JEL N (economic history). Most years, you can count them on one hand.

[canadian econ]

Look at how many postings there are on JOE for JEL N (economic history). Most years, you can count them on one hand.

My professor mentioned to me that likely there would only be 3 or 4 job postings in the field every year, even less for ancient economies. And even then you'd have to be a top candidate to get a job. I guess it would be better off pursuing classics in this case...

[OneArmedEcon]

My professor mentioned to me that likely there would only be 3 or 4 job postings in the field every year, even less for ancient economies. And even then you'd have to be a top candidate to get a job. I guess it would be better off pursuing classics in this case...

Yeah. I did my undergrad at UC Davis, which has one of the larger econ history faculties (although there have been some retirees that weren't replaced, so not as many as when I was there) in the US. The year that I graduated, the buzz around the econ history job market candidates was that there was an "unprecedented" six (6!) job market postings that year (2004).