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.

最近的学术研究认为，古代地中海经济密集增长。一种解释是，斯密增长是由交易成本降低和贸易流量增加刺激的。本文认为，古希腊制度proxenia是在公元前 500-0 年期间实现这种增长的关键创新之一。Proxenia意味着希腊城邦宣布外国人为其“公共朋友”，这一地位赋予了义务和特权。“公众朋友”履行的职能可以促进社区之间的经济交易。因此，网络和回归分析在proxenia赠款和贸易强度之间建立了密切的关系。