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

Abstract

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.

Managing Financial Risks while Performing International Commercial Transactions. Intertemporal Lessons from Athens in Classical Times

“…Bitros and Karayannis (2008) further analyzed the related issue of entrepreneurship in Athens, under free market economy principles. Economou and Kyriazis (2017, 2019a, 2019b argued that an efficient regime of property rights protection and protection of commercial contracts, through established law, juries, and courts, did function very well in classical Athens and later on. Of course, there is an intertemporal axiom that property rights protection is a very important prerequisite, enabling commercial transactions to become credible (Hodgson 2015).…”

“…Economou and Kyriazis (2019a) argue that the process of the transformation of the Athenian economy from an agrarian into a maritime economy, during the classical period, also led to "industrialization" in a variety of areas, such as the development of primitive versions of small industries, with some examples being metalwork, the shipping industry, silver mining, ceramics, carpentry, paints, fabric, etc. All these transformational procedures rendered Athens the first economy in history in which "services" and "industrial" (handicrafts) sectors contributed more to (what we nowadays call) GDP than agriculture (Kyriazis and Michael 2004;Halkos and Nicholas 2010;Economou and Kyriazis 2019b).…”