Communal property rights and land redistributions in Late Tsarist Russia
利用新汇编数据和定性资料，研究晚期沙皇俄国农村产权制度的异质性，发现土地重分并不频繁且成本较低，其动机更多与税负分配而非生产效率相关，质疑了公有土地与农业落后之间的因果联系。
Communal property rights have long symbolized the apparent backwardness of rural R ussian society in the late nineteenth century. Drawing on newly compiled data and qualitative sources, this article summarizes the institutions and practices of rural property rights in late I mperial R ussia and shows that there was substantially more heterogeneity in what constituted peasant property rights than is commonly assumed. Archival and documentary accounts suggest that the emblematic practice of repartitioning communal land occurred relatively infrequently and, when undertaken, was generally managed in low‐cost ways. Econometric evidence from M oscow province implies that repartitions were driven more by concerns over the distribution of associated tax burdens than the desire to reallocate productive assets. Along with an analysis of cross‐sectional data on property rights and grain yields from E uropean R ussia, these findings suggest a weaker causal link between communal land practices and agricultural productivity than is typically asserted.