NOT BACKWARD: COMPARATIVE LABOUR PRODUCTIVITY IN BRITISH AND RUSSIAN MANUFACTURING, CIRCA 1908

Nikita Lychakov (), Dmitrii Saprykin () and Nadia Vanteeva ()
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Nikita Lychakov: National Research University Higher School of Economics
Dmitrii Saprykin: Russian Academy of Sciences
Nadia Vanteeva: University of Ontario Institute of Technology

HSE Working papers from National Research University Higher School of Economics

Abstract: Using data from official manufacturing censuses, we compare labour productivity in Great Britain and the Russian Empire around 1908. We find that Russia’s labour productivity was at 81.9 percent of the U.K. level. Russia’s productivity was on a par with France’s and significantly superior to Italy’s. We also find that the majority of Russian industries underperformed British ones. However, the industries that had been established or modernised during the state-induced industrialisation policies of the 1890s, such as the Southern metallurgy, performed on a par with their British counterparts. Russia’s alcohol, tobacco, and petrochemical sectors outperformed their British equivalents. Our findings suggest a revision of the view that, at the turn of the 20th century, Russian manufacturing was economically underdeveloped.

Keywords: labour productivity; Great Britain; Imperial Russia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 L60 N63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-eff and nep-his
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Published in WP BRP Series: Humanities / HUM, December 2020, pages 37

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hig:wpaper:199/hum/2020

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