[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/119796.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Human capital in the regions of the Russian Empire and inequality in land distribution at the turn of the 20th century

Author

Listed:
  • Popov, Vladimir
  • Konchakov, Roman
  • Didenko, Dmitry
Abstract
This paper is an empirical test of what is called a unified theory of inequality and growth (Galor and Zeira, 1988, 1993; Galor and Moav, 2004; Galor, 2012) – in early stages of industrialization inequality enhanced the process of development by channeling resources towards individuals whose marginal propensity to save is higher, thus enhancing physical and human capital accumulation. In later stages of development, however, equality has stimulated human capital formation and growth and unequal distribution of income became a hurdle for economic development. A number of studies have found that human capital is higher and more evenly distributed in countries with lower income and wealth inequalities. In particular, Baten and Hippe (2018) argued that inequality in the distribution of land ownership in Europe (including Russia) in the 19th century had a negative impact on human capital formation (as measured by numeracy rate) as landowners did not have incentives to promote educational institutions or were not willing to pay the necessary taxes. In contrast, we find that in the regions of Russian Empire in 1897 uneven distribution of land was associated with higher levels of human capital (as measured by the average years of schooling and literacy rate), whereas the distribution of the human capital across the regional population (as measured by literacy and the proportions of inhabitants with higher, secondary and primary education) was more even. The difference in the results is caused by the different measurements of land inequality; our result is totally consistent with the unified theory of the inequality and growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Popov, Vladimir & Konchakov, Roman & Didenko, Dmitry, 2024. "Human capital in the regions of the Russian Empire and inequality in land distribution at the turn of the 20th century," MPRA Paper 119796, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:119796
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/119796/1/MPRA_paper_119796.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Easterly, William, 2007. "Inequality does cause underdevelopment: Insights from a new instrument," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 755-776, November.
    2. Nicholas Kaldor, 1955. "Alternative Theories of Distribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 23(2), pages 83-100.
    3. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc74-1.
    4. Oded Galor & Joseph Zeira, 1993. "Income Distribution and Macroeconomics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 35-52.
    5. Andrei Markevich & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2018. "The Economic Effects of the Abolition of Serfdom: Evidence from the Russian Empire," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(4-5), pages 1074-1117, April.
    6. Popov, Vladimir & Konchakov, Roman & Didenko, Dmitry, 2023. "Factors of social tension in the provinces of the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries," MPRA Paper 118464, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Joerg Baten & Ralph Hippe, 2018. "Geography, land inequality and regional numeracy in Europe in historical perspective," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 23(1), pages 79-109, March.
    8. P�ter F�ldv�ri & Bas van Leeuwen, 2011. "Should less inequality in education lead to a more equal income distribution?," Education Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(5), pages 537-554, February.
    9. Lowder, Sarah K. & Skoet, Jakob & Raney, Terri, 2016. "The Number, Size, and Distribution of Farms, Smallholder Farms, and Family Farms Worldwide," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 16-29.
    10. José De Gregorio & Jong–Wha Lee, 2002. "Education and Income Inequality: New Evidence From Cross‐Country Data," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 48(3), pages 395-416, September.
    11. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1998. "New ways of looking at old issues: inequality and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 259-287.
    12. Jacob A. Mincer, 1974. "Introduction to "Schooling, Experience, and Earnings"," NBER Chapters, in: Schooling, Experience, and Earnings, pages 1-4, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Popov, Vladimir, 2014. "Mixed Fortunes: An Economic History of China, Russia, and the West," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198703631.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Oded, Galor, 2011. "Inequality, Human Capital Formation, and the Process of Development," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 441-493, Elsevier.
    2. Ademola Obafemi Young, 2019. "Growth Impacts of Income Inequality: Empirical Evidence From Nigeria," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 10(3), pages 226-262, December.
    3. Stimpfle, Alexander & Stadelmann, David, 2015. "The Impact of Fundamental Development Factors on Different Income Groups: International Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113128, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    4. Maria Cipollina & Nadia Cuffaro & Giovanna D’Agostino, 2018. "Land Inequality and Economic Growth: A Meta-Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-20, December.
    5. Markus Brueckner & Era Dabla Norris & Mark Gradstein, 2015. "National income and its distribution," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 149-175, June.
    6. Vachaspati Shukla & Udaya S. Mishra, 2020. "Expansion in Education and Its Impact on Income Inequality: Cross-sectional Evidence from India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 63(2), pages 331-362, June.
    7. Oded Galor, 2009. "Inequality and Economic Development: An Overview," Working Papers 2009-3, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    8. Bequet, Ludovic, 2021. "Agricultural productivity and land inequality. Evidence from the Philippines," MPRA Paper 108131, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Guarini, Giulio & Laureti, Tiziana & Garofalo, Giuseppe, 2018. "Territorial and individual educational inequality: A Capability Approach analysis for Italy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 247-262.
    10. Jong-Wha Lee & Hanol Lee, 2018. "Human capital and income inequality," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 554-583, October.
    11. Daniele Checchi, 2001. "Education, Inequality and Income Inequality," STICERD - Distributional Analysis Research Programme Papers 52, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    12. Vachaspati Shukla & Udaya S. Mishra, 0. "Expansion in Education and Its Impact on Income Inequality: Cross-sectional Evidence from India," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 0, pages 1-32.
    13. Vivien Kappel, 2010. "The Effects of Financial Development on Income Inequality and Poverty," CER-ETH Economics working paper series 10/127, CER-ETH - Center of Economic Research (CER-ETH) at ETH Zurich.
    14. Iacopo Odoardi & Carmen Pagliari, 2020. "Household Wealth as a Factor of Economic Growth: A Case Study of Italy," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 14(3), September.
    15. Ludovic Bequet, 2022. "Agricultural productivity and land inequality. Evidence from the Philippines," DeFiPP Working Papers 2203, University of Namur, Development Finance and Public Policies.
    16. Amparo Castelló-Climent & Rafael Doménech, 2012. "Human Capital and Income Inequality: Some Facts and Some Puzzles," Working Papers 1201, International Economics Institute, University of Valencia.
    17. Attari, Muhammad Qasim & Pervaiz, Dr. Zahid & Razzaq Chaudhary, Dr. Amatul, 2017. "Impact of Agricultural Land Inequality on Human Development in Punjab (Pakistan)," MPRA Paper 89070, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Amparo Castelló-Climent & Rafael Doménech, 2020. "Global | Desigualdad de la renta y de capital humano revisitadas [Global | Human capital and income inequality revisited]," Working Papers 20/17, BBVA Bank, Economic Research Department.
    19. Gründler, Klaus & Scheuermeyer, Philipp, 2018. "Growth effects of inequality and redistribution: What are the transmission channels?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 293-313.
    20. Luis Bauluz & Yajna Govind & Filip Novokmet, 2020. "Global Land Inequality," PSE Working Papers halshs-03022318, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    educational attainment; school enrollment; inequality; land distribution; growth.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • N93 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:119796. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.