Statistics in Ancient History
MIT Department of Economics Working Paper No. 13-06
38 Pages Posted: 14 Feb 2013 Last revised: 19 Feb 2013
See all articles by Peter Temin
Peter Temin
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Date Written: February 13, 2013
This paper uses new data to extend the argument that there was an integrated wheat market in the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. I explore the meaning of randomness when data are scarce, and I investigate how we recreate the nature of ancient societies by asking new questions that stimulate the discovery of more information. The case for a prosperous Roman society extending the length of the Mediterranean Sea is strong. This paper draws on and extends work reported in my new book: The Roman Market Economy (Princeton, 2013).
Keywords: small samples, randomness, scarce data, Roman economy, ancient trade
JEL Classification: N73, C20, F61
Temin, Peter, Statistics in Ancient History (February 13, 2013). MIT Department of Economics Working Paper No. 13-06, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2217011 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2217011
Peter Temin (Contact Author)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - Department of Economics ( email )
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