Household sorting in an ancient setting

We use archaeological data from ancient settlements of three different historical eras on a Greek island to construct novel measures of consumption. Using these, we show that the shares of high-quality consumption goods were relatively more concentrated closer to the center of nucleated settlements...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of urban economics 2023-05, Vol.135, p.103548, Article 103548
Main Authors: Gupta, Abhimanyu, Halket, Jonathan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeology
Luxury goods
Spatial sorting
Urban
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Description
Summary:We use archaeological data from ancient settlements of three different historical eras on a Greek island to construct novel measures of consumption. Using these, we show that the shares of high-quality consumption goods were relatively more concentrated closer to the center of nucleated settlements as compared to low-quality consumption goods. There is no such pattern in a placebo settlement. In this unique setting, these quality gradients may reflect differences in household consumption baskets across these settlements. We argue that some alternative, trade or production based hypotheses for such gradients can be weakly ruled out based on our data and archaeological sources.
ISSN:0094-1190
1095-9068
DOI:10.1016/j.jue.2023.103548