The Talmud blamed the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple by the Romans on the fact that people insisted on following the strict letter of Torah law and not doing more than the law required. This paper will demonstrate the importance of stressing going beyond the requirements of the...

The focus of archaeologists on reconstructing exchange and communication networks in the past resulted in the enormous improvement of methods for analyzing material flows and detecting trade routes. However, our understanding of the determinants of trade patterns over time and space is still...

In 1715/16 Archbishop William King of Dublin used his experience as a Lord Justice during 1714-15 to write out a detailed case arguing that Ireland already paid more than its fair share of taxes to the Kingdom. In later years King became known as the leader of the Irish ‘nationals’ and his...

There are good indicators of the nature of the economy underlying the famous Hindu epic love story of Rama and Sita, the Ramayana. This paper attempts to extract the main features of this economy and present them succinctly

This paper argues that prior to Adam Smith economic progress was largely conceived as being based on the accumulation of knowledge. The development by Turgot and Smith of a concept of capital that subsumed other factors contributing to development led their followers to focus on capital to the...

Economists have occasionally noticed the appearance of economists in cartoons produced for public amusement during crises. Yet the message behind such images has been less than fully appreciated. This paper provides evidence of such inattention in the context of the eighteenth century...

A crucial pedagogical tool of the Talmud, one of the most influential books of Late Antiquity, is the use of divine reward and punishment as a way to promote ethical conduct. This paper examines ten behaviors whose reward, according to the sages, is wealth. These include being charitable,...

Este artículo hace una lectura crítica de las principales interpretaciones modernas de los escritos económicos de Aristóteles. Primero revisa el debate entre las corrientes “primitivista” y “modernista”, encabezado por Rodbertus, Bücher y Meyer. Luego presenta y comenta los puntos...

This paper proposes to approach the economic ideas which prevailed in England during the early 17th century by moving beyond the historical and analytical exegesis of the printed pamphlets of the time, and focusing instead on the intellectual perspectives brought to bear upon economic matters by...