Research

Peer-Reviewed Publications

“Modernization in Progress: Part-Year Operation, Capital Accumulation, and Labor Force Composition in Late Imperial Russia” (with Amanda Gregg) [2022, Journal of Economic History] [Link] 

Abstract: This paper investigates  part-year factory  operation, a common but understudied dimension ofindustrializing  economies, in a prototypical late-industrializing setting that offers rich factory-level data: Imperial Russia.Newly compiled data provides detailed descriptions of all Russian manufacturing firms operating in 1894 and shows that factories operating a greater number of annual working days were more mechanized, more urban, more likely to employ women and children, more productive, and more likely to survive. Rather than arguing that part-year operation demonstrated Russia’s uniquely inexorable backwardness, we stress operating time’s relationship to fundamental drivers of growth including urbanization, geography, and institutions. 

“Gender discrimination in infancy and childhood during the 1891 Russian Famine” (with Viktor Malein and Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia) [Link]

This article examines the impact of the 1891 Russian famine on the sex-specific mortality of boys and girls. Contrary to the previous literature that stresses the male vulnerability in harsh environments, our results show that the famine disproportionally affected mortality among girls. This result suggests that gender discriminatory practices that prioritised boys compensated the male vulnerability. Likewise, this article shows that the effect significantly varied across different ethnic groups and suggest that gender-discriminatory practices were not only in place among the Orthodox majority, but was especially strong among Muslim communities.