Russian Inequality on the Eve of Revolution

Abstract

Careful handling of an eclectic data set reveals how unequal were the incomes of different classes of Russians on the eve of Revolution. We estimate incomes by economic and social class in each of the fifty provinces of European Russia. On the eve of military defeat and the 1905 Revolution, Russian income inequality was middling by the standards of that era, and less severe than is inequality today in China, the United States, and Russia itself. We note how the interplay of some distinctive fiscal and relative-price features of Imperial Russia might have shaped the now-revealed level of inequality.

Factors of Social Tension in the Provinces of the Russian Empire in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

“…In the late 19th and early 20 th centuries, only 4.7 percent of households owned private land other than the plots under urban buildings. This ownership share was smaller than that of other data-supplying countries with the possible exception of Mexico (Lindert, Nafziger, 2014, Table 3). The Gini coefficient of land distribution inequality for all European Russia was 88% for purely individual holdings and 60%, if we add peasants' communal land holdings per household (peasants' allotmentsnadel'naya zemlya).…”

“…The Gini coefficient of land distribution inequality for all European Russia was 88% for purely individual holdings and 60%, if we add peasants' communal land holdings per household (peasants' allotmentsnadel'naya zemlya). But in some periphery regions of the Empire it was as high as 85-96% for private land and 69-84% for all land 4 (Lindert, Nafziger, 2014). Gini coefficients for land inequality in other countries for 17-19 th centuries are mostly lowerfrom 57% in Japan to 70-90% in England, France, Northern Spain (Kumon, 2021).…”

The distributional effect of a financial crisis: Russia 1899–1905

“…My newly-constructed data series also permit me to tell the most comprehensive account to date of Russian economic conditions between 1899 and 1904. In particular, my research supplements narrative studies on Russian finances (Siegel, 2015;Malik, 2018), stock market 3 of 34 analysis (Annaert et al, 2019), economic inequality (Lindert & Nafziger, 2014), and the macroanalysis of the economy in the period (Gregory, 1982(Gregory, , 1994Owen, 2013).…”

Новая Ситуация Политического Знания: Труд, Контроль И Образ Будущего

“…For instance, inequalities in personal status and basic rights (including mobility rights) were pervasive in Tsarist Russia, and persisted long after the official abolition of serfdom in 1861. 29 Summarizing such inequalities with a single monetary indicator is clearly an 28 Lindert and Nafziger (2012) argue that the 1905 official inequality estimate might be somewhat ovestimated. However on the basis of similar estimates done by tax administrations in other countries (such as France, see above), we tend to reach the opposite conclusion.…”