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The failure of ancient Greek growth: institutions, culture and energy cost

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 June 2018

GEORGE TRIDIMAS Open the ORCID record for GEORGE TRIDIMAS [Opens in a new window]
GEORGE TRIDIMAS*
Affiliation:
Ulster University Business School, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, BT37 0QB, United Kingdom
*
*Email: g.tridimas@ulster.ac.uk
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Abstract

Along with introducing democracy, advancing philosophy and excelling at the arts, during the period 800–300 bce ancient Greece achieved substantial economic prosperity. Recent literature attributes the efflorescence to the institutions and culture of democratic city-states. However, the city-states failed to initiate sustained growth. Technological progress remained slow and the economic efflorescence ended after the prevalence of Macedon and the subsequent Roman conquest. The present study scrutinises the roles of city-state institutions and culture. It shows that ultimately ancient Greece could not sustain long-run growth because a multitude of independent small city-states prevented the exploitation of economies of scale and stoked continual wars that exhausted them financially and militarily, and because of a culture valuing landholding, self-sufficiency and collectivist attitudes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , April 2019 , pp. 327 - 350
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2018 

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