Department Colloquium: Kim Bowes (Penn) “Beyond GDP: Getting by in the Roman world”

Title: Beyond GDP: Getting by in the Roman world 

Abstract: The recent interest in the Roman economy has focused on macroeconomic issues, above all those which privilege the state - taxation, monetary policy, long-distance trade. The economic welfare of the non-elite majority tends not to figure in most of these accounts, which either looks tacitly or explicitly at elite concerns, or debate the macroeconomic question of "growth" and the calculation of Roman GDP. This talk takes a critical look at these efforts. Drawing on new work in development economics, it suggests that the focus on GDP is misplaced and that household-scale measurements which quantify consumption are both more indicative, and better suited to the data we have. Using a series of graffiti from Pompeii, re-situated in their physical and performative contexts, I'll discuss what they reveal about non-elite consumption practices, and suggest quite different quantitative reconstructions of Roman economic wellbeing.