Institutions, Trade, and Growth: The Ancient Greek Case of Proxenia
研究了古希腊的Proxenia制度（城邦授予外国人的“公共朋友”身份）如何通过降低交易成本促进贸易，进而推动公元前500-0年间的经济增长。
Recent scholarship contends that ancient Mediterranean economies grew intensively. An explanation is that Smithian growth was spurred by reductions in transaction costs and increased trade flows. This paper argues that an ancient Greek institution, proxenia , was among the key 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. The functions performed by “public friends” could facilitate economic transactions between communities. Accordingly, network and regression analyses establish a strong relationship between proxenia grants and trade intensity.