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Peasant communes and factor markets in late nineteenth-century Russia

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  • Nafziger, Steven

Abstract

The peasant land commune was the emblematic institutional feature of agrarian Russian society before the Revolution of 1917. Economic historians have long blamed the commune for restricting household behavior in ways that contributed to Russia's economic "backwardness" by the late 19th century. Drawing on new household-level data collected from archival sources in Moscow province, this article provides the first microeconomic analysis of local factor markets and household behavior within the institutional context of the Russian peasant commune. The empirical evidence indicates that peasant households did have substantial flexibility when it came to allocating their land and labor holdings. In response to mortality shocks or lags in the communal adjustment of land, households engaged in land rentals and off-farm labor market transactions to improve upon suboptimal factor endowments. Although these findings do not imply that the resulting allocation of resources was fully efficient, they do illustrate how peasants made rational factor market transactions in a seemingly inhospitable institutional environment.

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  • Nafziger, Steven, 2010. "Peasant communes and factor markets in late nineteenth-century Russia," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 381-402, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:exehis:v:47:y:2010:i:4:p:381-402
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    1. Amanda G. Gregg, 2020. "Factory Productivity and the Concession System of Incorporation in Late Imperial Russia, 1894–1908," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(2), pages 401-427, February.
    2. Viktor Malein, 2021. "Human Capital and Industrialization: German Settlers in Late Imperial Russia," Working Papers 0221, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).
    3. Steven Nafziger, 2016. "Communal property rights and land redistributions in Late Tsarist Russia," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 69(3), pages 773-800, August.
    4. Ekaterina Zhuravskaya & Sergei Guriev & Andrei Markevich, 2024. "New Russian Economic History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 47-114, March.
    5. Andrei Markevich & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2018. "The Economic Effects of the Abolition of Serfdom: Evidence from the Russian Empire," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 1074-1117, April.
    6. Gani Aldashev & Catherine Guirkinger, 2016. "Colonization and Changing Social Structure: Kazakhstan 1896-1910," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2016-10, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Fenske, James, 2014. "Imachi Nkwu: Trade and the Commons," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(1), pages 39-68, March.
    8. Lindert, Peter H. & Nafziger, Steven, 2014. "Russian Inequality on the Eve of Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 767-798, September.
    9. Paul Castaneda Dower & Andrei Markevich, 2013. "Labor Surplus and Mass Mobilization: Russian Agriculture during the Great War," Working Papers w0196, New Economic School (NES).
    10. Aldashev, Gani & Guirkinger, Catherine, 2017. "Colonization and changing social structure: Evidence from Kazakhstan," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 413-430.
    11. Tracy Dennison & Steven Nafziger, 2011. "Micro-Perspectives on Living Standards in Nineteenth-Century Russia," Department of Economics Working Papers 2011-07, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    12. Vincent Geloso, 2023. "Unenlightened peasants? Farming techniques among French-Canadians, circa 1851," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(2), pages 341-363, May.
    13. Kukic, Leonard, 2021. "Technical change and the postwar slowdown in Soviet economic growth," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 33259, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    14. Jörg Baten & Mikołaj Szołtysek, 2012. "The human capital of Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe in European perspective," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2012-002, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    15. Jörg Baten & Mikołaj Szołtysek, 2014. "A golden age before serfdom? The human capital of Central-Eastern and Eastern Europe in the 17th-19th centuries," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2014-008, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    16. Fenske, James, 2014. "Imachi Nkwu: Trade and the Commons," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(01), pages 39-68, March.

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