Tag: comparing wages/prices across time
Abundance of food today compared with routine scarcity of food earlier than 150 years ago.
Posted onFor most of history, one of the main challenges was getting enough food to eat. Keeping your family alive through the winter until you can harvest the first crop in the spring has been a worry for thousands of years. That point is important when considering ancient finances back in the days of the Roman […]
Estimate of price of silver and gold in Viking Age
Posted onIncrease of income per person over last 200 years
Posted on(Article cross-posted from Outrun Change because it shows the radical change in per capita income over the last 200 years, which in turn illustrates the challenge of expressing ancient prices and incomes in terms of today.) Here is an approximation of annual per capita GDP from 1 AD through 1913: I’ve long been amazed at the […]
Price tag for the first New Testament printed in vernacular expressed in terms of the cost of a butchered hog
Posted onWhat is a cow worth today? That provides a framework for valuation in ancient times.
Posted onTotal wealth held by American households as reference point for ancient finances
Posted onHere is another point of reference I’ll use for my discussion of ancient finances. The Wall Street Journal reported on 6/7/16: Americans’ Total Wealth Hits Record, According to Federal Reserve Report. (Cross post from Attestation Update.) Want to add this additional frame of reference before getting back to looking at Alexander’s haul as he looted […]
Stock market capitalization as reference point for ancient finances
Posted onI am building some reference points for my ongoing learning about ancient finances. (If you couldn’t tell, I’m have a lot of fun. This learnin’ thing is cool.) Here is the value of all the stock listed on the market in the G-20 economies. This is the total capitalization of the companies in those countries. […]
Compensation for skilled construction worker
Posted onThe description of how much a drachma or Athenian Talent is worth is best considered by converting it to how many days labor could be purchased. Determining the silver content and converting that weight of silver to current dollars based on current silver values produces nonsensical answers. So I will try to adjust from a day’s […]
So, how can we compare today’s wages with 100 years or 2,300 years ago?
Posted onThe following numbers are based on purchasing power parity, which is a tool economists use to compare countries across currencies and across time. (Cross post from Attestation Update.) Average income across the planet is now $33 a day, which is also about equal to average income in Brazil today or in the US back in […]