This paper explores the dynamics of corporate finance during the early stages of industrial growth by examining a newly constructed panel database of Imperial Russian industrial corporations' balance sheets. We document large differences in financial strategies and outcomes across industries,...

This paper studies the influence of the service sector (joint-stock commercial banks and railways) on the economic development of agricultural regions within the Russian empire in the second half of the 19th century, using the case of the Central Black Earth region. The study compares yield data...

Prior to the Age of Mass Migration, Germans left central Europe to settle primarily in modernday Hungary, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. Despite the harsh conditions that the first generation of settlers had to endure, their descendants often fared better, not worse, compared to native...

Russia's defeat in the Crimean War cast new doubt upon the fundamental political traditions, social structures, national myths of the Nikolaevan era. It precipitated wide-ranging reforms, including military reforms, which were predicated on a shift in mentality. This essay examines the new...

This paper explores the dynamics of corporate finance during the early stages of industrial growth by examining a newly constructed panel database of Imperial Russian industrial corporations' balance sheets. We document large differences in financial strategies and outcomes across industries,...