Pier Paolo Creanza
PhD student in Economics at Princeton
Welcome!
I am a PhD candidate in Economics at Princeton University, and affiliated with the Industrial Relations Section. My interests lie primarily within applied microeconomics. I have worked on the economics of institutions and growth. My work in progress focuses on scientific productivity and innovation.
In 2021 I presented my paper "Institutions, trade and growth: the ancient Greek case of proxenia" at the Society for Institutional and Organizational Economics (SIOE) conference on June 26th and at the Economic History Association (EHA) annual meeting on October 29th, as well as at Oxford's and LSE's Graduate Seminars in Economic History. The paper is now an R&R at the Journal of Economic History.
You can find me on Twitter and LinkedIn. My CV is here.
Contact: pcreanza@princeton.edu
To book office hours for ECO981 see my Calendly page.
Working papers
Institutions, trade and growth: the ancient Greek case of proxenia [SSRN] - Revision requested by the Journal of Economic History
Recent scholarship contends that ancient Mediterranean economies grew intensively, contrary to standard Malthusian predictions. An explanation is Smithian growth spurred by reductions in transaction costs and increased trade flows. This paper argues that an ancient Greek institution, proxenia, was among the innovations that allowed such growth in the period 500-0 BCE. Proxenia entailed a Greek city-state declaring a foreigner to be its ‘public friend’, a status that conferred both duties and privileges. Arguably, the functions performed by ‘public friends’ could facilitate economic transactions between communities. Accordingly, network and regression analyses establish a strong relation between proxenia grants and trade intensity. This provides indirect evidence supporting a secular process of market expansion and Smithian growth.
Work in progress
Scholars' migration and scientific productivity.
Historical geography of innovation.