Choregia and trierarchy as profit-oriented entrepreneurships

Joshua Günther () and Felix Hahn ()
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Joshua Günther: University of Kiel
Felix Hahn: University of Kiel

Constitutional Political Economy, 2019, vol. 30, issue 2, No 3, 177-193

Abstract: Abstract With regards to the model of the homo oeconomicus this paper argues that incentives for performing liturgies in classical Athens were based on profit-oriented calculation rather than desire to gain support for public offices. In classical Athens democratic measures diminished the power of single-person offices which led to a decrease in the desire to hold such offices by the aristocracy. Simultaneously, recourse to altruistic incentives is incompatible with the costs of liturgies and the effort some members of Athens society made in order to perform them. Careful examination of past research on liturgical spending in classical Athens and an analysis of coeval conditions show the validity of economic instruments that lead to a rational-actor perspective on public spending under the incentive of financial gain rather than non-monetary profit.

Keywords: Ancient Athens; Choregia; Public finance; Trierarchy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H41 H42 N4 N93 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10602-019-09276-4

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