Maps of Europe and National Stereotypes

Here.

Hat tip: Tyler Cowen

Ptolemy Knew a Lot About Germany's Urban Economy

In 150 AD, the mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy drew 26 maps of the known world in colored ink on dried animal skins. One of these depicts “Germania Magna”, an area far remote from his residence in Alexandria. He nevertheless demonstrated extensive knowledge of the country even though the map has been until now difficult to interpret despite repeated efforts by linguists and historians.

But new work by a group of classical philologists, mathematical historians and surveying experts at Berlin Technical University’s Department for Geodesy and Geoinformation Science has produced, from the Ptolemy’s drawing, an astonishing map of central Europe as it was 2.000 years ago. The map shows that the North and Baltic Seas were known as the “Germanic Ocean” and the Franconian Forest in northern Bavaria was “Sudeti Montes”. It also shows a large number of cities such as Bicurgium (present day Jena) and Navalia (Essen). It turns out that half of the present day cities in Germany are 2.000 years old.

Researchers believe Ptolemy drew on Roman traders’ travel itineraries, analyzed seafarers’ notes and consulted maps used by Roman legions operating to the north. It was primarily surveyors with the Roman army, which appears to have advanced as far as the Vistula River, who collected information on the barbarians’ lands. The researchers had the great fortune to be able to refer to a parchment tracked down at Topkapi Palace in Instanbul, the document being the oldest edition of Ptolemy’s work ever discovered.

The complete article in the Spiegel Online is well worth reading and it includes two photos of the ancient medieval copy of Ptolemy’s map.

Why Monogamy is Prevalent in Rich Nations

A post by Marina Adshade, a professor of economics at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a reference to the original work of three Israeli economists, Eric Gould, Omer Moav, and Avi Simhon, published in the American Economic Review, 2008: “The Mystery of Monogamy”.

Read the Adshade article here.

The Meaning(s) of “Economic Reform”

Scott Sumner's analysis of the changing sense of the word:

“The term ‘economic reform’ meant more government between 1875 and 1975, and has implicitly meant less government since.”

Readers of my “Second Twentieth Century” know why.

He further notes that the recent financial crisis pushed the US towards statism, while the rest of the world seemed to be moving in the opposite direction.

Read the post here .

How Everyone Could Soon Accept Credit Card Payment

Simply with a cell phone: a small device that hooks up to an iPhone allows a person to scan and charge a credit card. Read the New York Times article.

A boon for individual entrepreneurs.

Immigration and the Economy: Food for Thought

Is everything that people usually believe about immigration and employment dead wrong? That’s what Rosemary Joyce, an anthropology professor at Berkeley, claims in a post on the Berkeley Blog.

A note for European readers: remember that the US labor market is characterized by much more flexibility of wages than European ones, making employment of low qualification immigrants much easier in the US than in Europe. Moreover the welfare protection is more extensive in Europe, attracting a larger pool of immigrants even though it weakens the effective labor supply and labor demand through higher cost of employment for firms and lower net wages for labor, due to a higher tax on labor.
Thus, the analysis of the immigration issue cannot be separated from an analysis of the unemployment effects of the regulation of labor markets and of the similarly negative effects of the payroll tax.

A Paradigm Shift in Politics?

An interesting post in The Big Picture .