Trade and the rise of ancient Greek city-states

Abstract

This paper examines the role of trade in the development of city-states. I first combine the Hecksher-Ohlin model of trade with the Tullock model of conflict to show how potential crop diversity interacts with trade to affect both production, appropriation, and defense. I then examine how the spatial-covariance of vegetation affects the adoption of coined money, entering battles, and unifying politically within ancient Greece. For all outcomes, semi-parametric hypothesis-tests show the spatial-covariance terms are both economically and statistically significant, but not whether there is more or less of any key crop.