The economic power of elites, human capital, and industrial change in late Imperial Russia
研究了俄国贵族土地所有权集中对基础教育、公共教育支出和工业增长的影响，发现贵族通过控制地方政府减少教育投入，而政府补贴后入学率上升，且人力资本渠道解释了贵族对工业增长负面影响的56%。
This paper studies the economic impacts of land ownership concentration among the aristocratic elite in the Russian Empire. I document that areas with a higher concentration of noble land ownership were associated with lower levels of primary education during 1880-1911. Exploring the mechanisms, I show that by controlling local governments the landed elites decreased public spending on education, shifting the financial burden to peasant households in the 1880s-1890s. I also demonstrate that the extension of school provision through a government program of schooling subsidies after 1905 led to a relatively large increase in enrollment rates in regions with high noble landownership concentration, suggesting initial underinvestment in education in these areas. Finally, the paper identifies a significant negative influence of landed elites on industrial growth and firm productivity, with up to 56% of this effect attributable to the human capital channel.