Labor Misallocation and Mass Mobilization: Russian Agriculture during the Great War

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Dower, Paul Castaneda; Markevich, Andrei
• 署名单位: University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison; New Economic School
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/REST_a_00726
• 发表日期: 2018-05
• 页码: 245-259
• 关键词: factor markets; PRODUCTIVITY; industrialization; distortions; peasant; income

摘要

We exploit a quasi-natural experiment of military draftees in Russia during World War I to examine the effects of a massive, negative labor shock on agricultural production. Employing a novel district-level panel data set, we find that mass mobilization produces a dramatic decrease in cultivated area. Surprisingly, farms with communal land tenure exhibit greater resilience to the labor shock than private farms. The resilience stems from peasants reallocating labor in favor of the commune because of the increased attractiveness of its nonmarket access to land and social insurance. Our results support an institutional explanation of factor misallocation in agriculture.