Overview
- Details the impact modernization and technology had on the economic attitudes of late Tsarist Russia
- Utilises mutual-dependence models of land cultivation to highlight the emergence of voluntary cooperation
- Uses econometric methods to provide insight into the impact of railroad technology on property rights
Part of the book series: Studies in Economic Transition (SET)
Access this book
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Other ways to access
Table of contents (12 chapters)
-
Front Matter
-
Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This book explores the impact of railroads on 19thcentury Russian peasant collectivism. The mutual-insurance mechanism in a precarious agricultural environment, provided bya structured communal-village system predicated on the reputation and authorityof community norms,is exposed to rationalist exchange—occasioning an institutional adaptation process:the individualization of property rights in land. Spatial-mobility technology animated market integration, specialization, literacy,and human-capital acquisition among peasant wage workers who commuted from their villages.Temporarily rising transaction costs forced the Tsar to concede household property rights in land in the so-called Stolypin reform of 1906.This challenge to the imperial patrimony, powered by the railroads, steered late imperial Russia toward constitutional governance.The spatial-mobility technology gave peasants access to centers of agglomeration of knowledge, changedcognitive perceptions of distance, and reduced the uncertainty and opportunity costs of travel. The empirical findings in this monograph corroborate the conclusion that the railroads occasioned a cultural revolution in late imperial Russia and made Stalin unnecessary for the modernization of the Euro-asian giant.
This book highlights the profound effect that the development of the railroads had on Russian economic and political institutions and practices. It will be of indispensable valueto students and researchers interested in transitional economics and economic history.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Sylvia Sztern is a post-doctoral fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Russia on the Move
Book Subtitle: Railroads and the Exodus from Compulsory Collectivism, 1861–1914
Authors: Sylvia Sztern
Series Title: Studies in Economic Transition
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89285-2
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-89284-5Published: 19 February 2022
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-89287-6Published: 20 February 2023
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-89285-2Published: 18 February 2022
Series ISSN: 2662-6675
Series E-ISSN: 2662-6683
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXXI, 513
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations, 37 illustrations in colour
Topics: Political Economy/Economic Systems, Economic History, Labor Economics, Industrial Organization