Factory productivity and the concession system of incorporation in late Imperial Russia, 1894-1908

Amanda Gregg

No 14012, Working Papers from Economic History Society

Abstract: "In late Imperial Russia, commercial credit was scarce, and because the Empire had no general incorporation law, all firms wishing to incorporate needed to obtain the Tsar’s signature on their charters, a time-consuming and expensive process. Yet, over four thousand firms incorporated between 1700 and 1914. I identify the characteristics of firms choosing to incorporate and measure the gains to productivity and growth in machine power enjoyed by corporations from a novel panel database of manufactur- ing enterprises I compiled from Imperial Russian factory censuses conducted in 1894, 1900, and 1908. In the cross section, factories owned by corporations have higher av- erage revenue, bigger machines, and more workers. While the distribution of TFP for partnerships and single proprietorships has a long lower tail, the distribution for corporations does not. Factories that incorporate next period have higher average rev- enue per worker but not larger machines. After incorporating, however, factories have higher average revenue per worker and larger machines, suggesting the importance of incorporation for capital accumulation."

JEL-codes: N00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-03
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Factory Productivity and the Concession System of Incorporation in Late Imperial Russia, 1894–1908 (2020)
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