Working Papers

Collusion, Connection and Capture: The Political Economy of Late Tsarist Industrialization (Available upon request)

Is more or less competition good for growth? The effects of collusion for a country just beginning to industrialize are unclear - it could have adverse effects on growth, or it could solve coordination issues, create economies of scale and mitigate price risks. The prevalence of collusion can depend on the presence of different social classes within industries, since different social groups have access to different tools - collusion or political influence. Pinpointing the effects of collusion and who colludes is difficult since it is usually illegal and thus difficult to measure. My paper uses the context of Late Tsarist Russia to study the relationship between collusion and firm outcomes, and which social groups collude. I collect a novel dataset on collusive agreements and organizations and use it along with datasets on corporate founder characteristics and balance sheets to study the links between collusion and corporate outcomes using staggered event-studies, and the link between collusion and different social groups using OLS. Following collusive events in an industry, firms on average experience higher market shares, lower profits and higher assets. However, the subset of firms in the metallurgical sector entering collusive agreements experience lower assets and eventually see a rise in their profits. Elites and foreigners, who hold political power, tend to have higher total assets, and are negatively correlated with new collusion activity. This suggests that collusion and political power may serve as substitute strategies for firms in early industrialization.

Presented at: LSE Graduate Economic History Seminar, WEast Dublin Workshop 2024, LSE Seminar in Political Economy and Economic History, AMSE PhD Seminar, ENS Lyon Economic History Workshop, EHS 2025 (Strathclyde), EHA Philadelphia, Santa Clara University

Firm Formation in Tsarist Russian Empire: The Effect of the Polish Revolt (Available upon request)

My study takes advantage of a natural experiment related to the reallocation of land due to the serf emancipation in the Tsarist Russian Empire. In 1863 the Polish nobility revolted against the Tsar in the Western part of the empire. The revolt failed, and in retaliation the Tsarist government revised the terms of the emancipation by taking more land from the Polish nobility and reallocating the land towards the peasantry in the affected regions. Through spatial analysis and using detailed data on corporate charters and manufacturing censuses, I document a divergence in firm formation, firm characteristics and founder characteristics between the regions where there was greater reallocation from the gentry to the peasantry.

Presented at: AMSE PhD Seminar, WEAI 2023, EHES 2023 (WU Vienna), Middlebury, EHS 2024 (Northumbria), Baltic Connections 2024 (Jyväskylä), LAGV 2024 (Aix-Marseille), and ICDE 2024 (Aix-Marseille)

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