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We set out a simple four sector macro model of the economy of the Roman Empire during a period of considerable economic prosperity. Our focus is on gold coins as currency and the seignorage which the government used to fund its activities. We solve numerically for a balanced growth representation of the economy of the empire, a solution that captures the intricacies of money creation, currency expansion and seignorage. We subscribe to the view that the exhaustion of low-cost gold and silver deposits contributed significantly to the ending of the economic prosperity enjoyed by Roman Italy and its provinces during the so-called Pax Romana (31 BC to 165 CE) and we attempt to capture significant shifts in variables during the decline.

This open access book charts how South Africa's gold mines have systematically suppressed evidence of hazardous work practices and the risks associated with mining. For most of the twentieth century, South Africa was the world's largest producer of gold. Although the country enjoyed a reputation for leading the world in occupational health legislation, the mining companies developed a system of medical surveillance and workers' compensation which compromised the health of black gold miners, facilitated the spread of tuberculosis, and ravaged the communities and economies of labour-sending states. The culmination of two decades of meticulous archival research, this book exposes the making, contesting, and unravelling of the companies' capacity to shape – and corrupt – medical knowledge.

AbstractThis paper studies the exposure of Australian gold mining firms to changes in the gold price. We use a theoretical framework to formulate testable hypotheses regarding the gold exposure of gold mining firms. The empirical analysis based on all gold mining firms in the S&P/ASX All Ordinaries Gold Index for the period from January 1980 to December 2010 finds that the average gold beta is around one but varies significantly through time. The relatively low average gold beta is attributed to the hedging and diversification of gold mining firms. We further find an asymmetric effect in gold betas, i.e. the gold exposure increases with positive gold price changes and decreases with negative gold price changes consistent with gold mining companies exercising real options on gold.