Steven Nafziger

Big BRICs, weak foundations: The beginning of public elementary education in Brazil, Russia, India, and China

Our paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of public primary education in four of the largest developing economies circa 1910: Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). These four countries encompassed more than 50% of the worlds population in 1910, but remarkably few of their citizens attended any school by the early 20th century. We present new, comparable data on school inputs and outputs for BRIC drawn from contemporary surveys and government documents. Recent studies emphasize the importance of political decentralization, and relatively broad political voice for the early spread of public primary education in developed economies. We identify the former and the lack of the latter to be important in the context of BRIC, but we also outline how other factors such as factor endowments, colonialism, serfdom, and, especially, the characteristics of the political and economic elite help explain the low achievement levels of these four countries and the incredible amount of heterogeneity within each of them.

Did Ivan's vote matter? The political economy of local democracy in Tsarist Russia

Russias emancipation of the serfs was accompanied by numerous other measures aimed at modernizing the Tsarist economy and society. Among these ‘Great Reforms’ was the creation of a new institution of local government – the zemstvo – which has received comparatively little attention from economic historians. This quasi-democratic form of local government played an important role in expanding the provision of public goods and services in the half-century leading up to the Russian Revolution. This article utilizes archival records and contemporary evidence to outline the zemstvo s role in Russian society and describe its political structure. The article then presents a newly collected panel data set that includes information on the allocation of political rights within the zemstvo , spending and revenue decisions by district zemstva , and a variety of other socio-economic indicators. With these data, I explore whether the electoral structure of the zemstvo allowed the newly emancipated peasantry to voice their preferences over spending levels and tax rates. I find that the district zemstvo with greater political representation from the peasantry shifted taxes away from communal property and spent more per capita, especially on education. However, these effects did not derive from a direct voting mechanism but most likely arose out of the interaction between peasant representation and more liberal elements of the noble class. This study initiates a broader research agenda into the zemstvo s place in Russian economic history and contributes to the literature on the political economy of public good provision in developing societies.

Russian Inequality on the Eve of Revolution

Just how unequal were the incomes of different classes of Russians on the eve of Revolution, relative to other countries, to Russias earlier history, and to Russias income distribution today? Careful weighing of an eclectic data set provides provisional answers. In 1904, on the eve of military defeat and the 1905 Revolution, Russian income inequality was middling by the standards of that era, and less severe than inequality has become today in such countries as China, the United States, and Russia itself. We enrich this emerging story by noting some distinctive fiscal and relative-price features of Imperial Russia. We hope that this report sets the stage for comparisons to Russian before the serf Emancipation of 1861.

Big BRICs, Weak Foundations: The Beginning of Public Elementary Education in Brazil, Russia, India, and China

Our paper provides a comparative perspective on the development of public primary education in four of the largest developing economies circa 1910: Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC). These four countries encompassed more than 50 percent of the worlds population in 1910, but remarkably few of their citizens attended any school by the early 20th century. We present new, comparable data on school inputs and outputs for BRIC drawn from contemporary surveys and government documents. Recent studies emphasize the importance of political decentralization, and relatively broad political voice for the early spread of public primary education in developed economies. We identify the former and the lack of the latter to be important in the context of BRIC, but we also outline how other factors such as factor endowments, colonialism, serfdom, and, especially, the characteristics of the political and economic elite help explain the low achievement levels of these four countries and the incredible amount of heterogeneity within each of them.

Living Standards in Nineteenth-Century Russia

Most of the studies of living standards in pre-revolutionary Russia by economic historians have focused on a narrow range of measures for predominantly urban areas. A micro-level analysis that employs a broader set of measures of well-being for a small rural region in central Russia suggests that, contrary to previous findings, living standards were improving throughout the nineteenth century, even in seemingly less dynamic rural areas. Moreover, the variation in income and consumption patterns, human-capital development, and the distribution of resources in the countryside was greater than typically assumed. Since state and local institutions might be able to account for it, these determinants should be emphasized in future analyses of rural living standards in pre-Soviet Russia.

Serfdom, Emancipation, and Off-farm Labour Mobility in Tsarist Russia

ABSTRACT Serfdom is the most well known institutional feature of Russia under the Tsars, but its empirical implications for growth and development have rarely been explored. This paper investigates whether the legacy of serfdom affected labour mobility in the Russian countryside after Emancipation in 1861. I detail the structure of the reforms that ended serfdom and transferred property to the former serfs, and show that these measures did result in smaller land endowments, higher obligation levels, and possibly stronger communal restrictions than other groups of peasants faced in the post-Emancipation period. Drawing on a unique panel dataset of representative villages in Moscow province, I show how these differences were related to the scope of mobility out of agriculture between former serf and non-serf villages after 1861. Although the results suggest some persistence of constraints on labour mobility among former serfs, the observable differences in off-farm labour market activity largely disappear by 1900, despite persistent differences in land endowments between former serfs and non-serf peasants.

Communal Property Rights and Land Redistributions in Late Tsarist Russia

Communal property rights have long symbolized the apparent backwardness of rural Russian society in the late nineteenth century. Drawing on newly compiled data and qualitative sources, this article summarizes the institutions and practices of rural property rights in late Imperial Russia and shows that there was substantially more heterogeneity in what constituted peasant property rights than is commonly assumed. Archival and documentary accounts suggest that the emblematic practice of repartitioning communal land occurred relatively infrequently and, when undertaken, was generally managed in low‐cost ways. Econometric evidence from Moscow province implies that repartitions were driven more by concerns over the distribution of associated tax burdens than the desire to reallocate productive assets. Along with an analysis of cross‐sectional data on property rights and grain yields from European Russia, these findings suggest a weaker causal link between communal land practices and agricultural productivity than is typically asserted.

Collective Action and Representation in Autocracies: Evidence from Russia's Great Reforms

We explore the relationship between capacity for collective action and representation in autocracies with data from Imperial Russia. Our primary empirical exercise relates peasant representation in new institutions of local self-government to the frequency of peasant unrest in the decade prior to reform. To correct for measurement error in the unrest data and other sources of endogeneity, we exploit idiosyncratic variation in two determinants of peasant unrest: the historical incidence of serfdom and religious polarization. We find that peasants were granted less representation in districts with more frequent unrest in preceding years — a relationship consistent with the Acemoglu-Robinson model of political transitions and inconsistent with numerous other theories of institutional change. At the same time, we observe patterns of redistribution in subsequent years that are inconsistent with the commitment mechanism central to the Acemoglu-Robinson model. Building on these results, we discuss possible directions for future theoretical work.

Decentralization, Fiscal Structure, and Local State Capacity in Late-Imperial Russia

Investments in the fiscal, legal, and infrastructural “capacity” of the state have come to be seen as key determinants of economic development. Central authorities may make these investments, but local public sector institutions also play a role in building state capacity. This chapter examines the interaction between central and local capacity in the context of Tsarist Russia after the end of serfdom. We describe the structure of local government and, drawing on a variety of new sources, provide preliminary evidence on the extent of capacity building by various public sector actors. Our findings are suggestive of a particularly rich interaction between central authorities and decentralized institutions at the local level when it comes to providing public goods and services. We argue that interpretations of early modern and modern state building are remiss if they focus exclusively on the central government without considering the importance of locally determined efforts.