By the beginning of the twentieth century, decades of sustained economic growth in Western Europe left the Russian Empire a poor and largely agricultural society compared with its neighbors. In the final decades before the October Revolution of 1917, the Imperial Government enacted several reforms designed to improve the economy. A central objective of these reforms was the stimulation of growth in Russia's small but rapidly expanding manufacturing sector. How effective were these reforms?
This proposal seeks funding for the collection and analysis of firm-level data from Russian manufacturing censuses dating from the early twentieth century as well as archival sources from the late nineteenth century. This data will support tests of hypotheses concerning Russia's relative poverty in this period. The project uses economic and econometric tools to study a cluster of questions related to the late development of the Russian economy. When the project is completed, the data will be available to the public through the ICPSR and similar organizations. Such a new historical dataset of factories will be of interest to scholars in diverse fields including economic history, economic development, industrial organization, trade, and geography.
The results of this research will provide clues about the kinds of commercial law regimes that encourage development of manufacturing. This project contributes to the literature in economics that examines the relationship between institutions and economic growth by determining how a specific institution, commercial law, affected economic outcomes.
Industrialization and modernization are two major goals of economic development, and the Russian economy at the beginning of the twentieth century provides one of the best examples available of rapid industrialization and major reforms before political revolution. By understanding the kinds of policies employed by the Russian Empire and the resulting patterns of industrialization, researchers can gain an understanding of similar patterns exhibited by developing economies today. Furthermore, when industrialization is a goal of development, this project will have implications regarding which policies can encourage the growth of an industrial labor force.
Funding from this grant supported the collection and analysis of data from Russian manufacturing censuses dating from the early twentieth century as well as archival sources from the late nineteenth century. The new database constructed during the course of this project describes a sample of approximately fifteen thousand individual Imperial Russian factories in the period immediately preceding the October Revolution. This data supported detailed tests of hypotheses concerning Russia’s relative poverty in this period. Many institutional features of Imperial Russia also characterize developing countries today, so this research will interest scholars of developing economies. Once the dissertation project is completed and submitted, the new data on manufacturing in the Russian Empire will be made available to the public. Such data will be of interest to scholars in diverse fields including economic history, economic development, industrial organization, trade, and geography. This project used economic and econometric tools to study a cluster of questions related to the late development of the Russian economy. One sub-project focused on Russian company law, asking whether the difficulty of incorporation contributed to slow capital accumulation and low productivity. The results of this research will provide clues about the kinds of commercial law regimes that encourage development of manufacturing. Furthermore, ongoing research explores the labor market implications of a major agricultural reform, the Stolypin Reform of 1906, and a final project documents the variation in the internal organization of productive activity within individual factories. Industrialization and modernization are two major goals of economic development, and the Russian economy at the beginning of the twentieth century provides one of the best examples available of rapid industrialization and major reforms before political revolution. By understanding the kinds of policies employed by the Russian Empire and the resulting patterns of industrialization, researchers can gain an understanding of similar patterns exhibited by developing economies today. Furthermore, when industrialization is a goal of development, this project will have implications regarding which policies can encourage the growth of an industrial labor force.
