Why did we stop roaming? with economist Ola Olsson

How far back should economic history go?

Most textbooks start with agriculture, trade, and the emergence of states. But what if we looked further – beyond written records, beyond cities, beyond even the first farms? What if the deepest economic lessons come not from the past few thousand years, but from the hundreds of thousands before them? For most of history, when things got bad, people ran. But with farming came rulers, taxation, and the first states – and suddenly, leaving wasn’t so easy. As Ola Olsson puts it, understanding why we stopped roaming is key to making sense of the world today.

In this episode of the Our Long Walk podcast, Johan Fourie and Jonathan Schoots interview Ola Olsson, professor of economics at the University of Gothenburg and author of Paleoeconomics: Climate Change and Economic Development in Prehistory.

Ola’s mentioned work:

Floods, droughts, and environmental circumscription in early state development: the case of ancient Egypt

Fiscal capacity in “post”-conflict states: Evidence from trade on Congo river

This podcast is produced with the help of Voice Note Productions. Our producer is Vasti Calitz with editing done by Andri Burnett. Kelsey Lemon provided helpful research assistance.

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