Intensive growth in the 11th century Byzantine economy: evidence from southern Greece and Byzantine Italy

David Dietze-Hermosa

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

Abstract: This paper approaches the discussion of the Byzantine economic revival of the 11th century using a qualitative comparative methodology (S Greece and S Italy) paired with descriptive statistics, and by including the heretofore under-discussed economy of Byzantine Italy. By doing so, it reveals and confirms the economic principles, associated with the Smithian growth framework, underlying said economic revival, namely, extensive economic growth followed by intensive economic growth brought on by demand-induced industrialisation and specialisation. This process was facilitated in the Byzantine empire by elite investment, monetisation and, in latter decades of the 11th century, trade liberalisation. This is evident with both southern Greece and southern Italy’s experiences with agricultural (especially olive oil and wine) and sericultural specialisation, and with the development of the southern Greek textile (especially silk) and pottery industries. Thus, the Byzantine economy is confirmed as experiencing sustained Smithian growth in the 11th century.

JEL-codes: N14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2024-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro and nep-his
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/127150/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:wpaper:127150

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History LSE, Dept. of Economic History Houghton Street London, WC2A 2AE, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager on behalf of EH Dept. ().