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X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://www.historikertag.de/Leipzig2023/en/programm/sektionen/modelling-the-dynamics-of-wealth-in-the-roman-empire/
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UID:historikertag-2023-2525
DTSTAMP:20230403T081931Z
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SUMMARY:[Historikertag 2023] Modelling the Dynamics of Wealth in the Roman Empire
DESCRIPTION:Rome is of special interest for the trajectory of inequality in a world historical perspective. The rigorous enforcement of property rights by the Roman state provided a model and inspiration for later European régimes of inequality. And never again until the 19th century would single individuals be as wealthy as the richest Romans. Yet the evidence to reconstruct the evolution of inequality in the ancient world is fragile. For these reasons, Rome offers an excellent case study of how new methods may help us to interrogate accepted facts about pre-modern economies.
Only in some places and rare moments do we have data of actual wealth distributions. In the absence of good data, historians have often fallen back on intuitive inferences about the impact of various aspects of the legal, economic and social environment on inequality. But intuition is not always a good guide to the dynamics of complex systems.
In this panel, we will explore how computer-based modelling might help us to better understand the factors that affected the evolution of inequality in the Roman world.
Economists have shown that every economy has an equilibrium level of wealth inequality towards which it will move, in the absence of external shocks. We will explore the use of Agent-Based Modelling to simulate the impact of variation in different conditions (such as mortality levels or the inheritance regime) on this equilibrium level. By modelling and comparing different scenarios, we can investigate the effect of these conditions on equilibrium inequality.
We simulate the impact of three factors on wealth distribution. First, we examine to what extent different mortality regimes would have affected the equilibrium level of wealth inequality. Second, we test the widespread assumption whether partible inheritance produced lower equilibrium levels of inequality than primogeniture. Finally, we explore the impact of munificence on the concentration of wealth and levels of socio-economic mobility.
Der Beitrag Modelling the Dynamics of Wealth in the Roman Empire erschien zuerst auf Historikertag 2023.
LOCATION:S228
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