Was inequality driving the trouble, or growing because of it?

The crucial question is how disparities actually weakened institutions. A plausible explanation must show how distributional strain actually constrain...

Measurements of inequality from ancient and medieval sources are incomplete and difficult to compare with modern statistics. Ancient inequality statis...

Imperial collapse often combined military, ecological, administrative and external pressures. An empire can face several simultaneous crises without o...

Which ancient debt-remission case gives the clearest evidence of its impact on households rather than royal ideology?

Canceling some debts can relieve borrowers while altering the expectations of those advancing resources. Relief for one side can change the willingnes...

Their purpose and effects remain topics of historical interpretation because texts express official intentions as well as practice. Rulers' offic...

An ancient proclamation wasn't a modern universal bankruptcy scheme. Such measures operated within particular political and social orders rather ...

What test wouldn't also condemn every ambitious breakthrough?

Evidence from prices, disclosures, credit and investor testimony should be examined as it was available then. Would you have recognized the warning si...

Real innovation and speculation can coexist; that's the uncomfortable part. Fraud and manipulation may coexist with useful investment, so labelin...

Contemporaries often faced genuine uncertainty about technology, future earnings and the availability of financing. At the time, some investors were j...