The Role of Palatial Economic Organization in Creating Wealth in Minoan and Mycenaean States

Serge Svizzero () and Clement Tisdell
Additional contact information
Serge Svizzero: CEMOI - Centre d'Économie et de Management de l'Océan Indien - UR - Université de La Réunion

Working Papers from HAL

Abstract: During the Late Bronze Age, Aegean societies (Minoan and Mycenaean) exhibited strong economic development. This resulted from the implementation by the elite of a centralized and hierarchical administrative and social system in order to manage most economic activities. In these palatial economies, the elite organized the extraction of the surplus, therefore avoiding the Malthusian trap. They also organized the division of labor and the specialization in production and the distribution of the collected surplus by means of staple and wealth finance systems, the latter being based on the production of luxury items controlled by the palace. Trade was also encouraged in order to strengthen palatial power.

Keywords: Exclusive institution; Malthus’ law; Mycenaean and Minoan economies; Staple and wealth finance systems; Palatial economies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-02150102
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.univ-reunion.fr/hal-02150102/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Role of Palatial Economic Organization in Creating Wealth in Minoan and Mycenaean States (2015)
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:hal:wpaper:hal-02150102

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().