Climate Risks and the

Paul Kelly
King’s College London Economy of Roman
Egypt
Agenda
• Question to be answered?
• Methodology
• Base Data
• Econometric Model
• Assumptions
• Stochastic Results
• Sensitivity to Climate
• Conclusions
• Appendices – Equations, Assumptions and Bibliography
2
Question to be answered?
• Underlying research question:
• What was the effect on the economy of Roman Egypt of climate variability?
• Looking at this from a short-term microeconomic perspective by examining
the impact of climate on three different groups of people within the
dominant agrarian sector:
• Landlords;
• Smallholders;
• Private Tenants.1
• Econometric model using deterministic and stochastically driven input
variables to build a plausible model to follow these groups over a
generation and see what were their financial and family outcomes.
1I recognise that these groups overlapped in practice but they provide useful categories for presentation and the risks to families who covered more than one group,
e,g. those who were both smallholders and tenants, can be inferred.

3
Methodological Choice
• Models – ‘Some of the greatest fun I have had in Roman history has been in constructing
models…models allow us to perceive the structures or repeated patterns which lie
behind the superficial flow of individual actors and events…models allow us to construct
whole pictures’
• Modelling the family – three most significant unknowns:
• Fertility
• Spending and saving
• Climate impact on harvest.
• Valid conclusions beyond the banal and general can only be drawn by quantifying the
risks and I suggest employing an econometric model using both:
• stochastic assumptions, based on ‘Monte Carlo’ simulations for naturally variable parameters,
and
• deterministic assumptions for well known, closely defined parameters.
• Simple form of ABM – agent based model, inspired to some degree by medieval agrarian
historians.
• Roman Egypt has the necessary background data to allow plausible modelling and the
time period AD 50 to 150 is chosen to cover period of relative price, climate(?) and social
stability.2
1 Hopkins 1995/6, Rathbone 1997.
4
Stochastic modelling
• ‘Stochastic rather than deterministic models—models whose inputs and
outputs are probability distributions rather than discrete values. The
underlying principle is that one first represents the uncertainty about the
underlying processes or input variables mathematically and then calculates
the implied uncertainty about the outcome measure—a method called the
forward propagation of uncertainty.’1
• Monte-Carlo simulations – propagate uncertainty by use of random
number generation within the bounds and distributions defined to provide
outcomes.
• Need to consider carefully independence and inter-dependence of
variables.

1 Lavan 2016: 21-22.

5
Variability
• Variability within the model arises:
• from real, natural variability, e.g. in relation to wheat prices - ‘aleatory
uncertainty’
• from our lack of knowledge – ‘epistemic uncertainty’
• Ideally we want to reflect fully the first and minimise the second.
• When we estimate variability we need parameters for mode and
probability distribution.
• Conduct 10,000 simulations for each case.

6
Base Data
• Newly married couple, male 22, female 15, initially no other dependents.1
• In village in Oxyrhynchite nome, between AD 50 and 150.
• Follow their income and savings over 15 years:
• 15 years being a generation if define as when boys become men for taxation purposes or
girls start to marry and have children of their own.
• 3 types:
• Landlord: owns plots totalling 26 arouras, farms 13 arouras with family labour, leases
other 13
• Smallholder: owns plots totalling 13 arouras and farms this with family labour
• Tenant: owns no land but leases 13 arouras from landlord and farms this with family
labour.
• Initial savings for each, the same, assumed to be enough wheat and money for seed and
subsistence until harvest.
• Family expend all their human capital on working land. No other income assumed but to
counterbalance, no external costs for ploughing, manuring or harvesting assumed and plot
size assumption is high end.
1 Age difference and age at marriage consistent with Bagnall & Frier 1994, 118. I recognise that this ‘nuclear family’ does not reflect all the potential household
structures but it represents one possible model.

7
Base Data – Initial income and wealth
• Based on best estimate values for rents, yields and land values - none of families on breadline –
and have surplus after subsistence and costs in good years:

Estimated Median Estimated Median

Gross Income in Surplus Income in
Initial Wealth including land (dr.)1
year when Nile year when Nile
floods (dr.) floods (dr.)
Landlord 13,238 1,427 779
Smallholder 6,738 952 445
Tenant 238 952 98
1 Assumed land value 500 drs. per aroura, see Rowlandson 1996. Gross income if Nile floods and based on central assumptions. Median surplus is after subsistence for
family with two children, taxes and rent as appropriate. 2 Smaller surplus than the 20% example calculated by Erdkamp 2005: 49 but Erdkamp makes no explicit
allowance for non-cereal subsistence spend.

8
Econometric Model
• Essentially model net income (wheat and cash) after taxes and costs.
• And outgo which is subsistence for family plus discretionary spend.
• Savings/Debt at end of year is that at start plus income less outgo.
• Balance between cash and wheat rebalanced at year end at prevalent wheat
price to eliminate deficits where possible – if balance is still negative then borrow.
• Savings assumed to be invested in agricultural sector through purchase/leasing of
land.
• Assume those in need prefer to borrow rather than sell land.1
• Debt assumed to attract interest at known rates.
• Look to see which families prosper, fall into debt and who are ruined over a
generation.
1In line with the relative frequency of land sales to loans in Roman period, land sales (n= 452) and loans (n=1,835) a ratio of 1:4 even though small loans
may not have been formalised, data from Kelly forthcoming.

9
Key Assumptions
• Land assumed to be half under wheat and half under aracus, a rest crop
which is a type of grass.
• Crop yield is assumed to be inversely proportional to cereal prices – when
yields high – prices low and vice versa.
• Most assumptions are based on observed patterns.
• Initial scenario for comparison purposes assumes:
• Discretionary spend is 50% of maximum of expected or actual net income for
landlord and smallholder, but tenants only have discretionary spend in good years.
• Yield mean is 12.8 artabas per aroura, 25% year on year variability and 8% chance of
flood failure.
• Children – sufficient to maintain population.

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Central Scenario Results – Plausible and Sustainable

11
Initial Scenario Results:
Ruin, Debt and Prosperity – Plausible?
• Define ruin as:
• having to sell 13 arouras of land for landlord and smallholder,
• falling into deep debt where unlikely to be able to get further credit, assumed to be debt greater than two years’ gross
income, for tenants.

Lost some Gained wealth More than Fell into debt at

Ruined
wealth but not doubled doubled wealth some point
Landlord 0% 1% 84% 15% 14%
Smallholder 1% 8% 91% 0% 23%
Tenant 9% 7% 8% 63% 25%

• Plausible results – demographically stable, socially stable – those ruined replaced by those doing well, not
the best of all possible worlds, endemic egalitarian but not unsustainable debt. If anything central scenario is
conservative as to ruin percentage by assuming large plot size.
• Debt levels can be compared with smallholder debt in early 20thC Egypt – 37%.1
1 Richards 1982: Fig. 3.15

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Climate impact
• Climate can impact on:
• Ongoing expected yields
• Variability of yields
• Spoilage of harvested grain
• Nile flood likelihood
• Including successive failures
• Model each in turn to see how impacts different families

13
Stress tests on median yields
• Central yield assumption is 12.8 to 1 or twice rental. What if our central assumption is wrong or
climate changes? Unlikely to be above 240% rental since that is close to early 20th C Egyptian
yields with fertilisers. Lower bound of 160% is close to conventional academic yield estimate of
10:1. Ruin percentage:
Yield factor 240% 220% 210% 200% 190% 180% 170% 160%
Landlord 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
Smallholder 0% 0% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1% 1%
Tenant 0% 1% 3% 9% 23% 48% 78% 97%

• Conclusions: Tenants much more exposed to yield reductions than others given gearing.
Landowners of all types remarkably immune, if they adapt spending to available surplus.
• Conventional estimate of yield would make tenancy on the known terms unsustainable, even with
high end plot size estimate – so traditional view cannot be supported for Oxyrhynchite nome or
similar geographies.

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Stress test on yield variability
• Central yield variability assumption is that standard deviation (SD) is 25% of
mode. What if our central assumption is wrong or climate changes? Ruin
percentage:

Yield SD 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%

Landlord 0% 0% 0% 0% 0%
Smallholder 0% 0% 1% 1% 2%
Tenant 3% 6% 9% 17% 26%

• Variability has significant impact on tenant outcomes – a small increase in year on

year volatility nearly doubles chance of ruin.
• But is largely mitigated by effective granaries and credit support for smallholders
and landlords.
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Stress test on flood failure
• Central Assumption: 8%. What if our central assumption is wrong or
climate changes? Ruin percentage, varying 20% each side:
Flood 6.4% 8% 9.6%
Landlord 0% 0% 0%
Smallholder 0% 1% 1%
Tenant 8% 9% 11%

• Perhaps less impact than one might expect? Reflects rent relief if
unflooded land for tenant.

16
Stress test on spoilage
• Central scenario is that spoilage is 5% year on year – based on
available data – but lower than comparable models for other
periods/geographies of agrarian history.
• What if assume higher spoilage? – once again tenants most at risk.
Chance of ruin
Spoilage 5% 10% 15%
Landlord 0% 0% 0%
Smallholder 1% 1% 1%
Tenant 9% 14% 19%
Chance of falling into debt
Spoilage 5% 10% 15%
Landlord 14% 15% 16%
Smallholder 23% 25% 27%
Tenant 25% 38% 53% 17
Stress test on consecutive crop failures
• Central scenario is that there is no path dependence in relation to flood failure – yield and chance of Nile
flood failure in year t is independent of events in year t-1 and random within constraints. What happens to
mature family in years 13 to 15 of modelling?1
Chance of ruin by next generation
Flood failure Random Year 12 then random Year 12 and 13 then Year 12, 13 and 14
random
Landlord 0% 0% 0% 0%
Smallholder 1% 1% 2% 3%
Tenant 9% 13% 19% 25%
Chance of falling into debt by next generation
Flood failure Random Year 12 then random Year 12 and 13 then Year 12,13 and 14
random
Landlord 14% 14% 15% 16%
Smallholder 23% 25% 32% 42%
Tenant 25% 32% 43% 53%
• If there are two years in succession of flood failure, ruin probability roughly doubles for tenants
1 No allowance for cumulative impact of flood failures on wheat prices and supply so results should be regarded as lower end estimates.

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Conclusions
• Comparatives more important than absolute numbers. And
overwhelming conclusion is precarious nature of life for tenants
compared to other categories….differential social impact of climate.
• Conventional 10:1 yield estimate too low for Oxyrhynchite or similar
nomes.
• Frequency of Nile flood is less important than secure granaries.
• Climate impact - not only amount of yield, but yield variability has
significant impact on chance of ruin for tenants.
• Further micro-economic uses of the model – social mobility
implications, modelling other climatic and institutional environments,
financial triggers for infant abandonment….
• Macro-economic implications from micro-economic modelling?
Modelling the decline of certain villages in the Fayum? Total tax take
from Egypt? 19
Appendices
• Central Equations
• Assumptions
• Bibliography

20
Central Equation - Wheat
Deterministic and Stochastic
1. Actual net income = actual yield +/- rent - taxes - costs - subsistence
• Subsistence = adult wheat subsistence * number of adults + child wheat
subsistence * number of children
2. Discretionary spend = spend percentage * maximum of (expected
income, actual net income)1
• Expected income = expected yield +/- rent - subsistence
3. Income from existing wheat savings/debts = Savings/debts at start
of year * (Return on savings/loan interest rate)
4. Yearly Surplus/Deficit wheat = 1-2+3
1 Note that for tenants discretionary spend is based only on actual not expected spend

21
Central Equation - Cash
Deterministic and Stochastic
1. Actual net income = +/- rent - taxes - costs - subsistence
• Subsistence = adult cash subsistence * number of adults + child cash
subsistence * number of children
2. Income from existing cash savings/debts = Savings/debts at start of
year * (Return on savings/loan interest rate)
3. Yearly Surplus/Deficit cash = 1+2

22
Central Equation – Savings/Debt
Deterministic and Stochastic
1. Savings/Debt in wheat at year end = Savings/Debt in wheat at start
of year + Yearly Surplus/Debt wheat – Spoilage +/- rebalancing
purchases/sales of wheat to meet any deficit
2. Savings/Debt in cash at year end = Savings/Debt in cash at start of
year + Yearly Surplus/Debt cash +/- rebalancing purchases/sales of
wheat to meet any deficit
3. Total assessed Savings/Debt = 1 * wheat price + 2
4. If 3. is debt and > Threshold => ‘Ruin’
• Threshold (landlord, smallholder) = value of land
• Threshold (Tenant) = 2*(expected yield – rent)
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Deterministic Assumptions – Size of Plot
• Important assumption in base data. But applies to all three categories of people so comparative results less impacted. 13 arouras assumed.
• Higher than amount of land able to support small family unit where Bagnall suggests that a plot of at least 10 arouras would have been required for bare bones
subsistence for the average family in Karanis in the Arsinoite nome or from the data for plot sizes per leasee.1
• Lower plot size evidence reflects partible inheritance system and fact that categories overlapped (e.g. sometimes smallholders could also hold land on lease) and
thus land holdings fragmented.
• Ensures that all categories of people typically have surplus income over subsistence in years when Nile floods and thus internal consistency.

1 Bagnall 1993: 117, Data for lease plot size from Kelly forthcoming.

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Deterministic Assumptions – Rent
• Look at Oxyrhynchite leases, median rent per aroura if in wheat = 6.4
artabas per aroura (n=31). If in fodder = 22 drachmas, adjusting for
inflation post AD 150 (n=22).1
• Most Oxyrhynchite leases include rent relief clause if land unflooded,
so model assumes that landlord receives no rent and tenant pays no
rent in such years.

1 Data from Kelly forthcoming..

25
Deterministic Assumptions – Crop Rotation
• In Oxyrhynchite nome from AD 1 to 300:
• 77% of leases require crop rotation of some sort
• This is probably a lower end estimate since even where crop rotation was not explicitly
required, a tenant or landowner may have chosen to rotate crops
• Where crop rotation required, 24 out of 28 are biannual with crops split
50/50 between cereals and fodder either by area or by year.1
• 50/50 split is most common approach and suitable assumption.

1 Data from Kelly forthcoming

26
Deterministic Assumptions – Expected Yield
• Yields are not generally directly visible within the papyri. However,
general views of typical levels of wheat yield in Roman Egypt are 10:1
ratio to seed, though Rathbone regards these as ‘probably too low’.1
• Alternative approach by reference to share-cropping. Median and
average share-cropping percentage over whole roman period is 50%
(n=47).2
• So with median rent = 41.6 artabas of wheat and 143 drachmas, then
median yield = 83.2 artabas and 286 drachmas. Yield ratio to seed
12.8:1 or 12.8 artabas per aroura.3
1Rathbone 2009:308, See Erdkamp 2005: 34-46 for a discussion of evidence for yields throughout the Empire 2Kelly forthcoming.3 A high but by no means unfeasible
yield - Richards 1982:145, 170 has pre-’green revolution’ wheat yields from 1920 to 1952 for Egypt which equate to an average of 16.6 artabas per aroura.

27
Deterministic Assumptions - Taxes
• Individual taxes
• Poll tax for male adult villager at 16 drachmas following Wallace 1938: 127.
• Land taxes
• Cash taxes including naubion following P.Heid. Inv.G 24 l.10-13 gives 14
drachmas as cash public charges for 2 years for 13 arouras = 0.5 drachmas per
aroura.
• Monoartaba tax for Oxyrhynchite nome, following Rowlandson 1996: 54, 1
artaba of wheat per aroura increased by 1/7th surcharge =1.143 artaba of
wheat per aroura.
• Liturgies and exceptional taxes or demands excluded.
• Crown tax – imperfectly known – but not an annual exaction at time
concerned.

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Deterministic Assumptions - Costs
• Ploughing and manuring costs ignored since lack sufficient data to quantify, but this is
countered by assumption that family members did not earn wages for casual work externally.
• Cost of storage/spoilage – 5%.1
• Cost and amounts of communal pooling – ignored.
• Transportation to granary - SB XX 14315 has transportation charges of 0.3 and 0.2 artabas of
wheat per aroura at charge of landlord – so 0.25 artabas of wheat per aroura assumed at
charge of landlord or smallholder.
• Seed costs = 1 artaba of wheat per aroura.
• If land not flooded - transportation, seed and rental costs not applicable. But taxes still
payable.
1.Bekar & Reed 2003: 311 n.8 state for medieval England: ‘There is general agreement on the physical rate of depreciation from storage: peasants could expect to lose
about 10% of their carryover to rats, mold, and rain’. According to the FAO, in modern day Egypt the state often uses shona for storage. A shona is a simple floor area
enclosed by fences, where wheat is stored by stacking it in jute bags and few have concrete floors. ‘This basic system of storage in the shona is extremely wasteful. The
jute bags often tear and leave the wheat vulnerable to weather and pests. This results in important losses of wheat and reduces its quality, impairing its suitability for
milling by increasing the share of impurities. Handling is also done manually, which adds further impurities and losses. While there are no official estimates available of
the quantitative losses at the shona, these are believed to be in the range of 10-20 percent’ FAO 2015: xix. It is likely that Roman granaries, and also home storage
under cover for wheat for personal consumption, would have had lower losses than the shona, hence the lower assumption.

29
Deterministic Assumptions – Loan Interest
• Loans in kind: 26 loans over the whole Roman period where interest
rate is known. Interest rates are typically either 33% or 50%.1 Median
is 50% and I have adopted 50%.
• Loans in cash, most common rate and highest legal rate is 12%. I have
assumed 12%.
• For loans, across whole Roman period (n=1,620), proportions are:
86% are purely cash, 4% are mixed and 10% are purely kind.2
• As to when family finds themselves in debt I have assumed that they
borrowed in proportions as per the typical loans above, so 88% cash
and 12% kind, and pay interest accordingly.
1,2 Data from Kelly forthcoming.

30
Deterministic Assumptions – Subsistence
• Adult annual subsistence based on Scheidel 2008: 7 suggests 172 kg
wheat and other goods with cost c.57 drachmas.
• 172 kg wheat – Scheidel suggests that 1 artaba of wheat would have
produced 36 to 40 kg of bread. So c. 4.5 artabas of wheat would have
supplied the amount of bread necessary for subsistence.
• Home milling and baking assumed so no additional cost.
• Child subsistence assumed to be two-thirds of adult, consistent with
calorie intake.1
1 Erdkamp 2005: 49 assumes child subsistence wheat consumption is half that of adult.

31
Stochastic Assumptions – Discretionary Spend
• What percentage of net available or expected income might be spent on discretionary
spend? A biological behavioural process which will be influenced by internal factors such
as risk aversion and external factors such as harvest quality.
• Have allowed for discretionary spend amount to increase in line with harvest level – i.e.
in good years spending is higher – but allowing, given existing habits and commitments,
for spending to have a minimum related to the heuristically expected level of income for
landlords and smallholders. Tenants only spend on basis of actual not expected income.
• A stochastic assumption since linked to harvest level (yield) which is itself stochastic.
• Have not allowed for impact of existing level of savings on spending, partly since existing
savings may be tied up in loans or further land purchases.
• Central assumption is that 50% of actual/expected income after subsistence is spent and
50% saved.
• The level of saving at 50% above subsistence is same as central assumption in
comparable modelling of Bekar and Reed 2009: 17.

32
Stochastic assumption – Number of children
• Assume population structure, married status and mortality are as per
Bagnall & Frier 1994: 104, 117.
• Assume natural fertility as per Frier 1994: 325.
• Determine level of fertility for married woman which maintains a steady
population which is 70% of Frier natural rates rates.
• Perform 1,000 simulations - at end of generation, median number of
children alive: 2.05, maximum number of children: 7.
• Use these 1,000 family situations randomly within model – no linkage
assumed between quality of harvest/prosperity and fertility or mortality.
• Assume mother and father survive and do not divorce.
33
Stochastic assumption – Risk of flood failure
• Distribution split between years when Nile flood totally fails and when flood
happens but effect will be variable:
• Sometimes flood is too late/excessive and disrupts sowing, harvest pattern
• Other years flood levels are insufficient.
• Assume chance of failure is 8%:
• Bonneau looked at year by year evidence for level of flood
• Identified ‘very poor’ low Nile flood levels at 8% of years with information
recorded within Roman period
• Possible over-estimate since years when no information recorded may be mor
likely to be ‘normal’
• In years when no flood – assume total failure – no yield, no rents, but taxes still
due.
• Test sensitivity of results to alternate assumptions.

34
Stochastic assumption – Wheat Price
• Inversely correlated to harvest level which is itself a stochastic
variable within determination of Actual Yield.
• Mode price = 8 drachmas.
• If flood fails then price = mode of 8 drachmas * (1+SD*3) = 14
drachmas.
• Overall minimum 4 drachmas and maximum 16 drachmas. No prices
from this period are known outside these bounds.

35
Stochastic
Assumptions – Lower (50%), Median and Upper (140%) Bound
Private Wheat Prices to A.D. 270
Actual Yield – 30
Drachmas per artaba

distribution
25
• In 8% of years flood fails. For remaining 92%
of years, assume normal distribution.
• If accept wheat price (assuming a mode of 8 20
drachmas per artaba) has inverse correlation
to Actual yield then graph would suggest a
wide distribution with SD as % of mode 15
around 25%.
• Though need to remember wheat price likely
to have varied within a year at the same 10
location, i.e. lower immediately after harvest
than in later months.
5

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300

36
Stochastic assumption – Actual yield
distribution (1)
• This yield distribution needs to allow for two sources of variability:
• Diachronic risk where typical harvest varies from year to year due primarily to
climate/flood
• Local variation within a year where different farmers will achieve different yields
due to:
• Quality of seed
• Quality of irrigation
• Quality of soil
• Experience/skill of farmer
• Unavailability of family labour, e.g. through illness, pregnancy, nursing.
• Mutual support.

37
Stochastic assumption – Actual yield
distribution (2)
• Diachronic risk- standard deviation:
• Globally average year on year wheat variability in last 30 years: SD 17% of
mean.1

1 Ray et al 2015: 2.

38
Stochastic assumption – Actual yield
distribution (3)
• Diachronic risk- standard deviation:
Variability from data from modern Egypt, post-Aswan dam: SD 7% of mean.2
• Richards shows data for pre-Aswan dam/”green revolution” variability of annual wheat yield with SD at
11% of mean for 1920 to 1952 which provides a lower bound on the best estimate and historic
variability of wheat prices with SD of 14.8% of mean for 1895-1913.3
• But evidence from Medieval England shows much higher year on year wheat variability: 40%+ but
greater harvest risk? 4
• Given lack of risk mitigation tools such as fertiliser and pest control could suggest Roman period
variability was higher than 20th century pre-”green revolution” Egypt, but lower than Medieval England
given relative regularity of Nile flood - say 25%, which would be consistent with price variability. But do
wide sensitivity.
• Local variation – standard deviation:
• Assumed less important than diachronic risk – 5% (SD) used and since uncorrelated with prices and
yields this assumption is less important.

2Data from CAPMAS, the Egyptian state statistical service 2002-2015.3 Richards 1982: 145,170 and 91. 4 McCloskey
1976: 133.

39
Stochastic
Assumptions –
Return on Savings
• Assume reinvested in
agriculturally related activity.
• No differential
access/preference by size of
wealth allowed for.
• Based on work simulating
return from leasing land using
consistent assumptions.1
• Return on savings is low in
years when no flood but
otherwise random within
distribution.
1 Kelly forthcoming.

40
Selected Bibliography
• Bagnall, R.S. (1993) Egypt in late antiquity. Princeton.
• Bagnall, R.S. and B.W. Frier (1994) The Demography of Roman Egypt. Cambridge.
• Bekar, C. and C. Reed (2003) ‘Open Fields, Risk, and Land Divisibility.’, Explorations in Economic History 40, No. 3: 308-25.
• Bekar, C. and C. Reed (2009) ‘Risk, Asset Markets and Inequality: Evidence from Medieval England’, University of Oxford, Discussion Papers in Economic History 79.
• Bonneau, D. (1971) Le fisc et le Nil: incidences des irrégularités de la crue du Nil sur la fiscalité foncière dans l'Égypte grecque et romaine. Paris.
• Carter, M. and F. Zimmerman (2003). ‘Asset smoothing, consumption smoothing and the reproduction of inequality under risk and subsistence constraints.’ Journal
of Development Economics 71: 233-60.
• Croix, D. and M. Doepke (2003) ‘Inequality and Growth: Why Differential Fertility Matters.’ The American Economic Review 93: 1091 – 1113.
• Erdkamp, P. (2005) The Grain Market in the Roman Empire: A Social, Political and Economic Study. Cambridge.
• FA0 (2015) Egyptian Wheat Sector. Rome.
• Frier, B.W. (1994) ‘Natural Fertility and Family Limitation in Roman Marriage’, Classical Philology 89: 318-23.
• Hopkins, K. (1995/6) ‘Rome, taxes, rent and trade’, Kodai: Journal of Ancient History VI/VII: 41-75.
• Lavan, M (2016) ‘The Spread of Roman Citizenship, 14–212 CE : Quantification in the Face of High Uncertainty’, Past & Present 230, Issue 1: 3–46.
• McCloskey, D.N. (1976). “English Open Fields as Behavior Towards Risk,” in P. Uselding (ed) Research in Economic History, vol. 1. Greenwich: 124-170.
• Piketty, T. (1997).’The Dynamics of the Wealth Distribution and the Interest Rate with Credit Rationing.’ The Review of Economic Studies 64: 173-189.
• Rathbone, D. (1997) ‘Prices and price formation in Roman Egypt’, in J. Andreau, P. Briant and R. Descat (eds.), Économie antique: prix et formation des prix dans les
économies antiques. Saint-Bernard-de-Comminges: 183-244.
• Rathbone, D. (2009) ‘Earnings and Costs: Living Standards and the Roman Economy (First to Third Centuries AD)’, in A. Bowman and A. Wilson (eds.), Quantifying
the Roman Economy: Methods and Problems, Oxford: 299-326
• Ray D.K. et al (2015), Climate variation explains a third of global crop yield variability, Nature Communications 6:5989 doi: 10.1038/ncomms6989
• Richards, A (1982) Egypt’s Agricultural Development 1800-1980. Boulder.
• Rowlandson, J. (1996) Landowners and Tenants in Roman Egypt: The Social Relations of Agriculture in the Oxyrhynchite Nome. Oxford.
• Scheidel W. (2008) ‘Real Wages in Roman Egypt: A contribution to recent work on pre-modern living standards’, Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics.
• Van Minnen, P. (2008), ‘Money and Credit in Roman Egypt’ in W. Harris (ed.) The Monetary Systems of the Greeks and Romans, Oxford: 226-41.
41
• Wallace S.L. (1938) Taxation in Egypt from Augustus to Diocletian. Princeton.