Information Governance in Roman Finance

This paper studies the role of information as a determinant of the performance of the Roman financial system. I extend the traditional transaction cost approach by using a broader concept borrowed from organisation sciences: ‘Information Governance System’ (IGS). Information governance comprises all socially or formally instituted processes that regulate the production, circulation, valuation, storage, retrieval, and processing of information. The concept of IG system denotes how these processes are structured and which rule sets define them. I argue that the institutional framework of the Roman empire offered procedures for information governance that supported the development of a market for financial services. This public order IGS, however, required considerable knowledge and skills. As in late medieval Europe it led to the emergence of financial specialists. As such it was a positive determinant for the economic growth we see documented in the material record.