# The Economic Complexity of the Roman Empire

## TL;DR

This study uses archaeological inscriptions to estimate the economic complexity of Roman Empire provinces, revealing a significant overlap with modern complex economies and shedding light on the persistence of economic capabilities over centuries.

## Contribution

It introduces a novel method of estimating historical economic complexity using inscriptions, linking ancient occupations to modern economic development.

## Key findings

- Most complex Roman provinces overlap with modern complex economies.
- Economic complexity appears to persist over centuries.
- The method provides new insights into long-term economic development.

## Abstract

Economic complexity is a powerful tool to estimate the productive capabilities and future growth of modern economies. Little is known of how economic complexity evolves over long periods in history. In this paper, we use archaeological evidence from the Roman Empire in the form of short texts preserved on a durable material (i.e. inscriptions) to estimate the economic complexity of the various provinces of the empire. By connecting the occupations listed in the text of inscriptions with the location in which the inscribed objects were found we can estimate that the most complex areas during the first four centuries of the Roman Empire have a remarkable and statistically significant overlap with the most complex countries today. While we lack an explanation for the reason of the preservation of economic complexity through the ages, this evidence provides a suggestion about how difficult the development of economic capabilities might be.