How do individuals choose between formal and customary institutions? In developing countries, modernizing reforms, such as the introduction of formal land titling, often lag in the popular take-up despite their potential economic benefits. Focusing on the 1906 land reform in the Russian Empire, I examine the factors driving peasants’ choice to break away from a traditional institution of peasant commune that governed land tenure in favor of private property rights provided by the state. Taking advantage of newly digitized data covering 2,500 peasant communes in the province of Simbirsk in the southeastern part of European Russia in 1910–11, I argue that the demand for formal titling depended on the expected returns it provided in comparison to communal institutions. I show that peasants tended to take advantage of the reform whenever they perceived their property rights as insecure. However, if a commune offered a safety net by guaranteeing access to land to its members, the demand for land titling decreased. My results imply that the design of land reforms should account for the potential effects of customary institutions.
Research
Working Papers
Customary Institutions and the Demand for Land Titling in Late Imperial Russia
Immigrant Knowledge and the Growth of American Agriculture: the Case of Russian Germans (with Jennifer Kowalski)
This paper studies the effect of immigrant location-specific knowledge on agricultural development in a historical perspective. We exploit a unique historical case in which immigrants brought over a better knowledge of farming in recipient areas than the one widespread among the local population. In the 1870-s, Russian Germans, who immigrated from arid and cold Russian steppe regions, settled on the sparsely populated Great Plains. The first-coming settlers, in contrast, came primarily from more humid environments of the American East. This paper shows that the newcomers ended up in areas that closely resembled their sending regions in climatic conditions but lacked extensive wheat production. Having established that, we demonstrate that the inflow of Russian Germans triggered the shift in agricultural practices from less adapted to more adapted to local environmental conditions, more specifically, crowding out corn farming in favor of wheat farming.
Publications
Ethnic-Specific Infant Care Practices and Infant Mortality in Late Imperial Russia (with Timur Natkhov)
Economic History Review, August 2023, Vol. 76 (3): 783-806.
The Russian Empire had the highest infant mortality rate in Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. Using a variety of official statistical sources and qualitative evidence, this paper documents uniquely high infant mortality among ethnic Russians. In contrast, among other ethnic groups of the Empire infant mortality rates did not exceed those of the European countries by much. The evidence suggests that the explanation for the Russian infant mortality pattern was ethnic-specific infant care practices, such as the early introduction of solid food, which increased the incidence of lethal gastrointestinal diseases. Our findings highlight the importance of traditional infant feeding practices for mortality in pre-industrial societies.
Skilled Immigrants and Technology Adoption: Evidence from the German Settlements in the Russian Empire (with Timur Natkhov)
Explorations in Economic History, July 2021, Vol. 81, p. 1-18.
Larry Neal prize 2022 for best article in Explorations in Economic History
This paper examines knowledge spillovers across ethnic boundaries. Using the case of skilled German immigrants in the Russian Empire, we study technology adoption among Russian peasants. We find that distance to German settlements predicts the prevalence of heavy iron ploughs, fanning mills and wheat sowing among Russians, who traditionally ploughed with a light wooden ard and sowed rye. The main channel of technology adoption was German fairs. We show that heavy ploughs increased the labor productivity of Russian peasants. However, communication barriers precluded Russians from adopting skill-intensive occupations like blacksmithing, mechanics, carpentry, and other crafts. The results suggest that skilled immigrants may enhance local development through the introduction of advanced tools without transmitting their skills to a receiving society.