Ancient Economies
May 23, 2025
Sponsored by:
Northwestern Center for Economic History
Joel Mokyr, Joe Ferrie, and Walker Hanlon, co-directors
Organizers: Walker Hanlon and Taco Terpstra
Location: Kellogg Global Hub, Room 3301
Conference Program and Schedule
8:15-8:45 Light breakfast and coffee
8:45-9:00 Opening remarks
9:00-10:00 Taco Terpstra (Northwestern),
“Rome and the Rise of the West”
10:00-11:00 Ian Morris (Stanford), “The Geoeconomics of the Greek Miracle”
11:00-11:30 Coffee break
11:30-12:30 Joe Manning (Yale), “Bringing Egypt, the Nile and Climate into the ‘Ancient
Economy’”
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-2:30 Richard Saller (Stanford), “Some Demographic Context for Roman Institutional
Economics”
2:30-3:30 Kyle Harper (Oklahoma), “The Decline and Fall of the Ancient Economy”
3:30-4:00 Coffee break
4:00-5:00 Michael McCormick (Harvard), “Recent and Future Scientific Work / Reaction
to Papers / General Discussion”
5:00-5:15 Closing remarks