Work in the city: Roman artisans and the urban economy

In spite of continued interest in the economic history of the ancient Mediterranean world, historians possess only a limited understanding of the way in which Roman producers managed their businesses, particularly in non-agricultural sectors of the economy. In this dissertation, I address this gap in our knowledge by exploring the economic challenges faced by urban artisans during the early Roman Empire (31 B.C. to A.D. 235), and the strategies they devised in order to meet these challenges.; The nature of the market demand for artisans' products created the first challenge: most craftsmen produced for markets that were highly unstable, and for this reason they could not count on a steady and predictable volume of business throughout the year. The difficulties that artisans encountered when they attempted to recruit help posed a second challenge: they and the subcontractors or employees with whom they negotiated contracts found it difficult to gather the information necessary to locate one another and to enforce agreements---in other words, transaction costs were high.; In response to these challenges, Roman artisans sought, firstly, to minimize the fixed costs of production by tailoring their output and workforces to prevailing market conditions. Most preferred to run small and specialized workshops rather than large, integrated businesses. They relied heavily on short-term labour instead of on permanent workforces, they regularly contracted with other specialists for intermediate goods and services, and they often sought work opportunities for their sons outside of the family business instead of employing them personally. Secondly, artisans sought to mitigate transaction costs by embedding transactions within personal social relationships. Professional associations (collegia) offered a social context in which artisans could secure transactions with other specialists by relying on powerful reputation-based enforcement mechanisms. Likewise, manumission offered artisans an effective tool with which to simultaneously mitigate transaction costs and minimize fixed expenses: by freeing slaves in exchange for labour services (operae), artisans could create reserves of skilled workers who were responsible for their own maintenance but who could nevertheless be summoned at short notice and with minimal effort and expense.