Financing Late Industrialization: Evidence from the State Bank of the Russian Empire
中文摘要
格申克龙 (Gerschenkron, 1962) 认为,俄罗斯帝国国家银行等公共机构推动了该国的工业化。我们利用一套独特的地理编码工厂数据集,借助工厂层面在国家银行分支机构可及性上的差异来检验这一论断。采用基于银行与工厂之间地理距离的识别策略,我们的结果表明,公共银行可及性的改善促进了工厂层面收入、机械化程度和劳动生产率的更快增长。与后发工业化理论相一致,我们还发现了公共信贷在商业银行较少、市场规模较小的地区作用更为重要的证据。
Abstract
Gerschenkron (1962 ) argued that public institutions such as the State Bank of the Russian Empire spurred the country’s industrialization. We test this assertion by exploiting plant-level variation in access to State Bank branches using a unique geocoded factory data set. Employing an identification strategy based on geographical distances between banks and factories, our results show improved access to public banking encouraged faster growth in factory-level revenue, mechanization, and labor productivity. In line with theories of late industrialization, we also find evidence that public credit mattered more in regions where commercial banks were fewer and markets were smaller.