How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
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Re: How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
#2If you're into risk, then an awesome book is Against the Gods, by Peter Bernstein.
Re: How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
#3If you're into risk, then an awesome book is Against the Gods, by Peter Bernstein.
The painting they chose for the cover—Storm on the Sea of Galilee—was stolen in the Gardner Heist in 1990 and has yet to be recovered. It’s believed to be Rembrandt’s only seascape
Re: How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
#4I had no idea the board game was this old
Re: How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
#5If you're into risk, then an awesome book is Against the Gods, by Peter Bernstein.
Yes, and I was going to refer to that book, which is from 1998.
The article misses the point. He's describing the beginnings of marine insurance. The goal was to make commerce routine and at fixed cost. Before this, shipping was a high-risk, high-return, low-volume enterprise. Marine insurance converted it, gradually, into a low-risk, low-return, high-volume enterprise. From silks and spices to bulk salted herring in casks.
This is how shipping changed from "ventures" to "boring, but profitable".
Re: How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
#6Interest, risk, insurance etc. are such intrinsic economic concepts that it is hard to believe they didn't naturally originate in some form in the earliest human societies. While I'm sure the word risk and formal methods of actuary can be traced to the era mentioned by the author, I'm more hesitant to believe that the "idea of risk" was invented there.
Re: How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
#7I had no idea the board game was this old
play the Game of Life if you want a real classic ;P
Re: How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
#8Interest, risk, insurance etc. are such intrinsic economic concepts that it is hard to believe they didn't naturally originate in some form in the earliest human societies. While I'm sure the word risk and formal methods of actuary can be traced to the era mentioned by the author, I'm more hesitant to believe that the "idea of risk" was invented there.
Perhaps we didn't have as much economic activity in the earlier human societies or perhaps those methods have been lost to time (just like those societies). As an ex actuary student what I can tell you is that at least from a mathematical tools perspective, we didn't have those available till around the 17th century.
Re: How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
#9Re: How 12th-century Genoese merchants invented the idea of risk
#10Interest, risk, insurance etc. are such intrinsic economic concepts that it is hard to believe they didn't naturally originate in some form in the earliest human societies. While I'm sure the word risk and formal methods of actuary can be traced to the era mentioned by the author, I'm more hesitant to believe that the "idea of risk" was invented there.
Perhaps we didn't have as much economic activity in the earlier human societies or perhaps those methods have been lost to time (just like those societies). As an ex actuary student what I can tell you is that at least from a mathematical tools perspective, we didn't have those available till around the 17th century.
There are Babylonian tablets where merchants are complaining about other merchants not delivering on their contractual obligations :)