IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/107898.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Byzantine Economic Growth: Did Climate Change Play a Role?

Author

Listed:
  • Lambert, Thomas

Abstract

Different chroniclers of the history of the Byzantine Empire have noted various economic data gleamed from historical documents and accounts of the empire at different periods of time. Research for this paper has not uncovered any estimates of long term, annual macroeconomic data (gross domestic product (GDP), national income (NI), etc.) for the empire during its existence. Such data has been estimated to one extent or another for other nations and societies that have existed during the middle ages. This paper attempts to provide conjectures on approximate real GDP per capita trends for the empire over its existence from AD 300 to 1453. Finally, some hypotheses on factors that would have affected Byzantine economic performance are tested using climate/environmental factors. The results of this paper appear to confirm some findings on how the Byzantine economy might have been affected by periods of regional climate change.

Suggested Citation

  • Lambert, Thomas, 2021. "Byzantine Economic Growth: Did Climate Change Play a Role?," MPRA Paper 107898, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:107898
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/107898/1/MPRA_paper_107898.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guido Alfani, 2021. "Economic Inequality in Preindustrial Times: Europe and Beyond," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(1), pages 3-44, March.
    2. Branko Milanovic, 2006. "An Estimate Of Average Income And Inequality In Byzantium Around Year 1000," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 52(3), pages 449-470, September.
    3. Alfred H. Conrad & John R. Meyer, 1958. "The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum South: Reply," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66(5), pages 442-442.
    4. Laiou,Angeliki E. & Morrisson,Cécile, 2007. "The Byzantine Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521849784.
    5. Jscques Melitz, 1971. "Some Further Reassessment Of The Scholastic Doctrine Of Usury," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 473-492, August.
    6. Morgan Kelly & Cormac Ó Gráda, 2014. "Debating the Little Ice Age," Working Papers 201406, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    7. Milanovic, Branko, 2010. "Income level and income inequality in the Euro-Mediterranean region: from the Principate to the Islamic conquest," MPRA Paper 46640, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Laiou,Angeliki E. & Morrisson,Cécile, 2007. "The Byzantine Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521615020.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gunes Gokmen & Wessel N. Vermeulen & Pierre-Louis Vézina, 2020. "The imperial roots of global trade," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 25(1), pages 87-145, March.
    2. Benito Arruñada, 2015. "The institutions of Roman markets," Economics Working Papers 1471, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Nov 2019.
    3. Milanovic, Branko, 2023. "How Rich Were the Rich? An Empirically-Based Taxonomy of Pre-Industrial Bases of Wealth," SocArXiv dvu74, Center for Open Science.
    4. Barthel, Stephan & Isendahl, Christian, 2013. "Urban gardens, agriculture, and water management: Sources of resilience for long-term food security in cities," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 224-234.
    5. Caruso Raul & Antonella Biscione, 2022. "Militarization and Income Inequality in European Countries (2000–2017)," Peace Economics, Peace Science, and Public Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 28(3), pages 267-285, September.
    6. Modalsli, Jørgen, 2011. "Inequality and growth in the very long run: inferring inequality from data on social groups," Memorandum 11/2011, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    7. Simplice A. Asongu & Oasis Kodila-Tedika, 2020. "Intelligence and Slave Exports from Africa," Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, , vol. 32(2), pages 145-159, July.
    8. Milanovic, Branko, 2013. "The inequality possibility frontier: the extensions and new applications," Comparative Institutional Analysis Working Paper Series 2013:1, Lund University, Comparative Institutional Analysis, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Robert Browne, 1993. "The economic basis for reparations to black America," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 21(3), pages 99-110, March.
    10. Mohamed M. Mostafa, 2023. "A one-hundred-year structural topic modeling analysis of the knowledge structure of international management research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 3905-3935, August.
    11. Graziella Bertocchi & Arcangelo Dimico, 2020. "Bitter Sugar: Slavery and the Black Family," Department of Economics 0172, University of Modena and Reggio E., Faculty of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    12. Anthony Edo & Jacques Melitz, 2023. "Wealth and shifting demand pressures on the price level in England after the Black Death," Cliometrica, Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC), vol. 17(1), pages 91-124, January.
    13. Martina Cioni & Giovanni Federico & Michelangelo Vasta, 2020. "The long-term evolution of economic history: evidence from the top five field journals (1927–2017)," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 14(1), pages 1-39, January.
    14. Jutta Bolt & Jan Luiten Zanden, 2014. "The Maddison Project: collaborative research on historical national accounts," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(3), pages 627-651, August.
    15. Bertocchi, Graziella & Dimico, Arcangelo, 2020. "Bitter Sugar: Slavery and the Black Family," GLO Discussion Paper Series 564, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    16. Jørgen Modalsli, 2015. "Inequality in the very long run: inferring inequality from data on social groups," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 13(2), pages 225-247, June.
    17. G.-Fivos Sargentis & Nikos D. Lagaros & Giuseppe Leonardo Cascella & Demetris Koutsoyiannis, 2022. "Threats in Water–Energy–Food–Land Nexus by the 2022 Military and Economic Conflict," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(9), pages 1-19, September.
    18. Conor Lennon, 2016. "Slave Escape, Prices, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 669-695.
    19. Milanovic, Branko, 2009. "Global inequality and global inequality extraction ratio: The story of the last two centuries," MPRA Paper 16535, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Bryer, Rob, 2012. "Americanism and financial accounting theory – Part 1: Was America born capitalist?," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(7), pages 511-555.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Byzantine Empire; climate change; real GDP per capita; empire size;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:107898. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.