The emergence and the evolution of property rights in ancient Greece

Along with introducing democracy, advancing philosophy and excelling at the arts, during the period 800–300bceancient Greece achieved substantial economic prosperity. Recent literature attributes the efflorescence to the institutions and culture of democratic city-states. However, the city-states failed to initiate sustained growth. Technological progress remained slow and the economic efflorescence ended after the prevalence of Macedon and the subsequent Roman conquest. The present study scrutinises the roles of city-state institutions and culture. It shows that ultimately ancient Greece could not sustain long-run growth because a multitude of independent small city-states prevented the exploitation of economies of scale and stoked continual wars that exhausted them financially and militarily, and because of a culture valuing landholding, self-sufficiency and collectivist attitudes.

Section: Institutions and Culture As Causes Of The Ancient Greek Efflmentioning

confidence: 99%

The failure of ancient Greek growth: institutions, culture and energy cost

Tridimas

2018

“…In a recent paper (Economou and Kyriazis, 2017) we provided an extensive analysis of the property rights protection regime in Classical Athens by arguing that the Athenian economy was practising a series of market-type institutions, such as property rights protection; legally binding contracts guaranteed by courts comprising experienced jurors judging commercial cases; insurance companies; banking services, a reliable silver coinage as a means of accomplishing commercial/economic transactions, the drachma (also called, the ‘Athenian owl’) with its denominations of both silver and bronze types; and laws that protected the drachma from forgery, which was beneficial to transaction cost reduction. All these institutions led the Athenian economy to flourish during the 5th and 4th centuries bce .…”

Section: Property Rights In Hellenistic Athensmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, apart from organised courts at the local city-state level, Chaniotis (1999) provides evidence for the existence of a federal court called koinodikion (meaning, providing justice to the Koinon ), which was responsible for solving disputes or territorial differences in the Cretan Koinon as well as hearing civil and criminal cases. Obviously, in general, in the Greek Koina , common procedural rules for providing justice were exercised and the laws were recorded and stored in a special public building, intended for that purpose, as was the practice in Classical Athens (Economou and Kyriazis, 2017).…”

Section: Property Rights In the Hellenistic Koinamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Property rights protection constitutes a major factor in achieving a flourishing economy (see, among others, Hodgson, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2015d). In a previous paper (Economou and Kyriazis, 2017) we analysed the emergence and development of property rights in ancient Greece from the Homeric period (1100–750 bce ), where they evolved gradually up to the Archaic period (750–510 bce ) and were firmly established and secured in the Classical period (550–323 bce). At the beginning they were based on customs and were then gradually strengthened and institutionalised, linked to socio-political and military developments.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The evolution of property rights in Hellenistic Greece and the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt

Economou

Kyriazis

2019

Self Cite

In the present paper we trace the development of property rights during the Hellenistic period (3rd–2nd centuries bce), focusing on Athens, the democratic Hellenistic federations and the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. Property rights had been already well developed and protected by courts and state laws during the previous Classical period in ancient Greece, but we argue that they further evolved during the Hellenistic period due to the introduction of a series of new political and economic institutions. We found that there was a causal relationship between the evolution of property rights and the further development of economic institutions in Hellenistic Athens and the Hellenistic federations. We finally argue that the development and adoption of market-oriented economic institutions by the Ptolemaic Kingdom should be attributed to the great influence that these institutions had in the entire Hellenistic world, which resulted in their diffusion from the democratic states to kingdoms.

“…In the second essay, Economou and Kyriazis (2016) use ancient texts and other evidence to explore 'The emergence and the evolution of property rights in ancient Greece'. They cite early indications of the emergence of property rights in the writings of Homer and Hesiod.…”

Section: The Contents Of This Memorial Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to the Douglass C. North memorial issue

Hodgson

2016

This introduction considers the highly influential contribution of Douglass C. North to economic history and institutional economics, as it developed from the 1960s until his death in 2015. It sketches the evolution of his arguments concerning the roles of institutions, organizations and human agency. North's conception of the economic actor became progressively more sophisticated, by acknowledging the role of ideology and adopting insights from cognitive science. Eventually, he abandoned the proposition that institutions are generally efficient, to propose instead that sub-optimal institutional forms could persist. A few noted criticisms of North's work are also considered here, ranging from those which are arguably off the mark, to others that retain some force. The contributions to this memorial issue are outlined at the end of this introduction.