The Financial Markets of Roman Egypt: Risk and Return [Hardcover]

Examines financial markets in Roman Egypt to help us understand how ordinary people thought about some of the most important decisions they would make in their life: buying a house, lending their savings or renting land, yielding new insights into the nature of the economy of the Roman world.The Financial Markets of Roman Egyptanalyses some 4,367 financial transactions, leases, sales and loans, recorded on papyri in Roman Egypt in the period AD 1 to 350. The analysis of this remarkable body of information, the ancient equivalent of modern-day 'Big Data', helps us understand how ordinary people thought about some of the most important decisions they would make in their life: buying a house, lending their savings or renting land. Using innovative theories and techniques inspired by classics, mathematics and the financial markets, it brings out the differences and similarities of behaviours with modern and historical comparators.

The book looks at risk and return for both asset holders - the landlords and lenders - and those dependent on the use of those assets - the tenants and borrowers. In particular it quantifies the risks facing families, including climate variability. Issues such as wealth concentration, social mobility and the role of the aged and women in the financial markets are addressed.

The analysis presented expands our knowledge of the nature of the financial markets, and from that examination a sharper insight into the nature of the economy of the Roman world is gained, making it clear that there was no single market economy, but different sectors, some of which were driven by reciprocity/redistribution and others by financially rational judgements.1. Introduction
1.1 Theories of the Market
1.2 Who were the People concerned?
2. The Drachma in your Pocket
3. Housing - Markets within Markets
4. Buy land, 'cause God ain't making any more of it
4.1 Agricultural Land Sales
4.2 Land Leases
5. Usury or SolidaritlS4