This conference, generously supported by the Francqui Foundation , comes as a happy consequence of the Francqui Prize awarded in 2007 to François de Callataÿ for his research on quantification in Greco-Roman numismatics.
A first conference has already been devoted to this specific theme: ‘Quantifying monetary supplies in Greco-Roman times’ (Rome, Academia Belgica, September 29^th and 30^th, 2008).
The Brussels conference will enlarge the scope both chronologically (from Babylonian times to Middle Ages) and thematically (beyond numismatics). Seventeen leading experts will present original papers including case-studies as well as methodological thought about quantification itself (see the abstracts).

Program

• François de Callataÿ (Royal Library of Belgium/Université Libre de Bruxelles)
  Long-term quantification in ancient history: a historical perspective -
  
  
• Claude Diebolt (CNRS - Université de Strasbourg)
  The stakes of cliometrics in ancient history -
  
  
• Neville S. Morley (Bristol University)
  Orders of Magnitude, Margins of error -
  
  
• Gerassimos George Aperghis (University College London)
  Creating a long-term computer model for an ancient economy -
  
  
• Robert J. van der Spek (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
  On the efficiency of markets for agricultural products in pre-industrial societies: The case of Babylonia c. 400 – c. 60 BC. -
  
  
• Alain Bresson (University of Chicago)
  Grain, market and agricultural production in Greece: ancient and modern data -
  
  
• Josiah Ober (Stanford University)
  Explaining performance in the polis system -
  
  
• Didier Viviers (Université libre de Bruxelles)
  Demography and ancient towns : questions and difficulties -
  
  
• Michael Crawford (University College, London)
  Price relativities in the Greco-Roman world  - 
  
  
• Peter Temin (MIT Boston)
  Price Behavior in the Roman Empire -
  
  
• Elio Lo Cascio (Università degli studi di Roma la Sapienza) and Paolo Malanima (Università degli Studi Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria)
  Per capita GDP in the Roman economy: a revision of the estimates -
  
  
• Willem Jongman (Universiteit van Groningen)
  The new economic history of the Roman Empire -
  
  
• Geoffrey Kron (University of Victoria [Canada])
  Comparative evidence and the reconstruction of the ancient economy: Greco-Roman housing and the level and distribution of wealth and income -
  
  
• Andrew Wilson (All Souls College - Oxford)
  Quantifying Roman economic perfomance by means of proxies : pitfalls and potential -
  
  
• Roger S. Bagnall (New York University)
  Late Roman Data Collection -
  
  
• Jean-Pierre Devroey (Université libre de Bruxelles)
  Mesurer et compter dans les écrits de gestion carolingiens de part et d'autre des Alpes -
  
  
• Walter Scheidel (Stanford University)
  4,000 years of wages and well-being -