Corporations and partnerships: Factory productivity in late Imperial Russia

Abstract

Using factory-level data from an official manufacturing census, I examine productivity among two forms of enterprise in the Russian Empire from around 1908. I find that despite having 60 times more financial capital, factories owned by corporations did not outperform those owned by ordinary and limited partnerships. Although corporations were more mechanized per worker, both enterprise forms attained equal capital and labor productivity and total factor productivity. Corporations attained higher labor productivity than partnerships only in the metals and machinery industry. These findings suggest that Russian factories used the corporate form's unique advantages in a rather limited way: to build larger factories and undertake larger projects, but not to enhance productivity beyond the level of the partnership form. I also find that there were fewer accidents per worker at partnership-owned factories than at corporations.