Download Free Banking And Business In The Roman World Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Banking And Business In The Roman World and write the review.

In the first century BC lending and borrowing by the senators was the talk of Rome and even provoked political crises. During this same period, the state tax-farmers were handling enormous sums and exploiting the provinces of the Empire. Until now no book has presented a synthetic view of Roman banking and financial life as a whole, from the time of the appearance of the first bankers' shops in the Forum between 318 and 310 BC down to the end of the Principate in AD 284. Professor Andreau writes of the business deals of the elite and the professional bankers and also of the interventions of the state. To what extent did the spirit of profit and enterprise predominate over the traditional values of the city of Rome? And what economic role did these financiers play? How should we compare that role to that of their counterparts in later periods.
This is the first book to present a synthetic view of Roman banking and financial life from the fourth century BC to the end of the third century AD. It describes the business deals of the elite and the professional bankers and the interventions of the state. It shows to what extent the spirit of profit and enterprise predominated over the traditional values of Rome, what economic role these financiers played, and how that role compares with that of their later counterparts.
What modern economics can tell us about ancient Rome The quality of life for ordinary Roman citizens at the height of the Roman Empire probably was better than that of any other large group of people living before the Industrial Revolution. The Roman Market Economy uses the tools of modern economics to show how trade, markets, and the Pax Romana were critical to ancient Rome's prosperity. Peter Temin, one of the world's foremost economic historians, argues that markets dominated the Roman economy. He traces how the Pax Romana encouraged trade around the Mediterranean, and how Roman law promoted commerce and banking. Temin shows that a reasonably vibrant market for wheat extended throughout the empire, and suggests that the Antonine Plague may have been responsible for turning the stable prices of the early empire into the persistent inflation of the late. He vividly describes how various markets operated in Roman times, from commodities and slaves to the buying and selling of land. Applying modern methods for evaluating economic growth to data culled from historical sources, Temin argues that Roman Italy in the second century was as prosperous as the Dutch Republic in its golden age of the seventeenth century. The Roman Market Economy reveals how economics can help us understand how the Roman Empire could have ruled seventy million people and endured for centuries.
In this, the first comprehensive survey of the economies of classical antiquity, twenty-eight chapters summarise the current state of scholarship in their specialised fields and sketch new directions for research. They reflect a new interest in economic growth in antiquity and develop new methods for measuring economic development, often combining textual and archaeological data that have previously been treated separately.
Why stable banking systems are so rare Why are banking systems unstable in so many countries—but not in others? The United States has had twelve systemic banking crises since 1840, while Canada has had none. The banking systems of Mexico and Brazil have not only been crisis prone but have provided miniscule amounts of credit to business enterprises and households. Analyzing the political and banking history of the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil through several centuries, Fragile by Design demonstrates that chronic banking crises and scarce credit are not accidents. Calomiris and Haber combine political history and economics to examine how coalitions of politicians, bankers, and other interest groups form, why they endure, and how they generate policies that determine who gets to be a banker, who has access to credit, and who pays for bank bailouts and rescues. Fragile by Design is a revealing exploration of the ways that politics inevitably intrudes into bank regulation.
This case study of a business that operated in the port of Puteoli on the bay of Naples in the first century AD draws on an archive of wax tablets published in Italy in 1999. The documents record banking, commercial, and legal transactions involving the bankers Sulpicii and their clients and customers. Transactions include loans made to corn traders, sea-going merchants and other businessmen, leases from warehouses, disputes over outstanding debts, and deposits of cash made by the imperial household. These documents and other case studies shed light on how the Romans conducted their business affairs.
Kay examines the economic change in Rome between the Second Punic War and the middle of the first century BC. He focuses on how the increased inflow of bullion and expansion of the availability of credit resulted in real per capita economic growth in the Italian peninsula, radically changing the composition and scale of the Roman economy.
A sweeping look at the evolution of commercial banks over the past two centuries Commercial banks are among the oldest and most familiar financial institutions. When they work well, we hardly notice; when they do not, we rail against them. What are the historical forces that have shaped the modern banking system? In Unsettled Account, Richard Grossman takes the first truly comparative look at the development of commercial banking systems over the past two centuries in Western Europe, the United States, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Grossman focuses on four major elements that have contributed to banking evolution: crises, bailouts, mergers, and regulations. He explores where banking crises come from and why certain banking systems are more resistant to crises than others, how governments and financial systems respond to crises, why merger movements suddenly take off, and what motivates governments to regulate banks. Grossman reveals that many of the same components underlying the history of banking evolution are at work today. The recent subprime mortgage crisis had its origins, like many earlier banking crises, in a boom-bust economic cycle. Grossman finds that important historical elements are also at play in modern bailouts, merger movements, and regulatory reforms. Unsettled Account is a fascinating and informative must-read for anyone who wants to understand how the modern commercial banking system came to be, where it is headed, and how its development will affect global economic growth.
From the end of the nineteenth century until the onset of the Great Depression, Wall Street embarked on a stunning, unprecedented, and often bloody period of international expansion in the Caribbean. A host of financial entities sought to control banking, trade, and finance in the region. In the process, they not only trampled local sovereignty, grappled with domestic banking regulation, and backed US imperialism—but they also set the model for bad behavior by banks, visible still today. In Bankers and Empire, Peter James Hudson tells the provocative story of this period, taking a close look at both the institutions and individuals who defined this era of American capitalism in the West Indies. Whether in Wall Street minstrel shows or in dubious practices across the Caribbean, the behavior of the banks was deeply conditioned by bankers’ racial views and prejudices. Drawing deeply on a broad range of sources, Hudson reveals that the banks’ experimental practices and projects in the Caribbean often led to embarrassing failure, and, eventually, literal erasure from the archives.