 Cristiana Facchini of the Università di Bologna, describes the book as arguing that in the late Roman period Judaism was unique because it enforced "a communal regulation" to teach children "Torah", with the result that Jews became a uniquely literate group.The Authors then apply modern choice analysis and economic behavior theory, and, in particular, the literature on religious affiliation as a matter of choice in an open market of ideas in which many options are available, portraying Jewish parents in the 1st through 7th centuries as being required to make an expensive choice to forgo the labor of children on the farm and, instead, pay tuition for an education that conferred no economic advantage in a community of peasant farmers.Many, according to Botticini and Eckstein, chose Christianity, resulting in the demographic decline of the Jewish community.