About

Walter Scheidel's research ranges from ancient social and economic history and premodern historical demography to the comparative and transdisciplinary world history of inequality, state formation, and human welfare.

Research topics

• Philosophy
• Environmental ethics
• Theology
• Art history
• History

Selected publications

• A comparison of income inequality in the Roman and Chinese Han empires

  Nature Communications · 2025-04-05 · 6 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The emergence of vast territorial empires is a recurring development in the history of human civilization. Their ability to extract resources from their subjects, and to redistribute them, also increases the potential of higher levels of economic inequality. Here we explore how imperial structures contributed to set the level of inequality in two ancient empires, the Roman Empire ca. 165 CE and the Chinese Han Empire ca. 2 CE. We estimate the overall levels of imperial inequality as the combination of inequality between and within regions. We find that the Han Empire was, overall, more unequal and extractive than the Roman Empire. Other empires, however, were even more extractive, as shown by a comparison with the Aztec Empire ca. 1492. We argue that higher inequality increased the potential for political instability and the collapse of empires. The authors estimate income inequality in the Roman Empire and the Chinese Han Empire. They find that the Han Empire was, overall, more unequal and extractive than the Roman Empire, with the respective one-percenters earning 26% and 19% of total income.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The economics of Greco-Roman slavery

  Explorations in Economic History · 2025-05-21 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• EIVIND HELDAAS SELAND, A Global History of the Ancient World: Asia, Europe and Africa before Islam. London and New York: Routledge, 2022. Pp. 160, illus., maps. <scp>isbn</scp> 9780367695545. £37.99. - RAIMUND SCHULZ, Welten im Aufbruch: Eine Globalgeschichte der Antike. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2025. Pp. 495, illus., maps. <scp>isbn</scp> 9783608988031. £38.00.

  The Journal of Roman Studies · 2025-07-17

  article1st authorCorresponding

  EIVIND HELDAAS SELAND, A Global History of the Ancient World: Asia, Europe and Africa before Islam. London and New York: Routledge, 2022. Pp. 160, illus., maps. isbn 9780367695545. £37.99. - RAIMUND SCHULZ, Welten im Aufbruch: Eine Globalgeschichte der Antike. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 2025. Pp. 495, illus., maps. isbn 9783608988031. £38.00.

  PublisherDOI

• Slavery’s Rome

  Arethusa · 2025-01-01 · 1 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract: Scholars have produced a great many studies of slavery in the Roman world. What we lack are studies of the history of Rome in the context of enslavement, of the Roman world that enslavement made—in short, of slavery’s Rome. I took the invitation to deliver the inaugural “X-lecture on economic power and dominance in the ancient world” at the University of Buffalo in 2023 as an opportunity to sketch out the contours of such an approach, which calls for new ways of looking at Roman history as a whole.

  PublisherDOI

• Roman economic performance and inequality: why we need the big picture

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Beyond technology and wages: power and the history of inequality

  Oxford Open Economics · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Framed as a response to Robert Allen's contribution, this commentary explores the impact of technological change on economic inequality over the very long run of history and emphasizes the role of power relations as another key driver of the distribution of income and resources.

  PublisherDOI

• Slavery's Rome

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Blood Is Thicker Than Water”—Non-Royal Consanguineous Marriage in Ancient Egypt: An Exploration of Economic and Biological Outcomes, by Joanne-Marie Robinson. Archaeopress Egyptology 29. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2020. Pp. xviii + 221. Paper. £38.00. ISBN 9781789695434.

  SBL Press eBooks · 2024-12-31

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Inequality Reduction Between Tragedy and Progress: The Great Leveler and Recent Scholarship, 2017-2024

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Déplacer le curseur de l’Histoire ? Une critique de « Au commencement était…, Une nouvelle histoire de l’humanité », par David Graeber et David Wengrow

  Sociétés plurielles · 2024-11-06

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  DarmangeatLa nouvelle et volumineuse histoire de la libert de Graeber et Wengrow 1 possde des atouts considrables, qu'il s'agisse de l'accent qu'elle place sur les processus de dveloppement survenus avant l'apparition des civilisations de l'crit, de sa porte mondiale ou de son scepticisme quant au lien entre le pouvoir d'tat et la civilisation.Mais elle souffre galement de graves lacunes : l'adhsion des auteurs une vision excessivement idaliste de la dynamique historique, leur utilisation de stratgies rhtoriques qui induisent leur public en erreur et leur incapacit rendre compte des grandes trajectoires du dveloppement humain qui en rsulte.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Sitta von Reden

  18 shared

• Richard Saller

  10 shared

• Andrew Wilson

  Trinity College Dublin

  10 shared

• Ian Morris

  10 shared

• Ian Mcauslan

  9 shared

• Greek History

  University of Wales

  9 shared

• P Rhodes Telemachus

  Eton College

  9 shared

• Hans van Wees

  9 shared

Labs

• The Grand Tour ProjectPI

  The Grand Tour Project

Education

• Ph.D.

  Stanford University

Awards & honors

• New Directions Fellowship by the Mellon Foundation
• Guggenheim fellowship
• Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences