Scaling analysis reveals productivity gains in the Roman World

A key question in economic history is the degree to which pre-industrial economies could generate productivity gains. Such gains have been characteristic of industrialized economies for the past two centuries. Previous studies have suggested that per capita productivity gains could be generated through agglomeration effects, but whether the productivity of an individual working alone varied in past societies has been an open question. In a new paper published in Science Advances, Social Reactors Project researchers use three independent lines of evidence, drawn from the cumulative archaeological record of developer-funded excavations in England and Wales, to show increasing productivity during the Roman era. The team used scaling analysis to control for agglomeration effects, revealing evidence for modest levels of growth in coin use, housing consumption, and pottery consumption by individuals between the 1st and 4th centuries CE. The fact that these patterns are apparent across multiple proxies, across the province, and in all sorts of archaeological sites, suggests that these productivity gains were widespreas and were not limited to a military or administrative elite, as some previous studies have suggested. The paper is available open access. Check it out!