11/05/2015
4:10 pm - 6:10 pm
C325 Cheit Hall, Haas School of Business
The Oliver E. Williamson Seminar on Institutional Analysis features current research of faculty, from UCB and elsewhere, and advanced doctoral students who are investigating the efficacy of economic and noneconomic forms of organization. In this seminar, an interdisciplinary perspective–combining aspects of law, economics and organization–is maintained. Markets, hierarchies, hybrids, bureaus, and the supporting institutions of law and politics all come under scrutiny. The aspiration is to progressively build towards a new science of organization.
The OEW Seminar meets on Thursdays from 4:10 – 6:00 pm in room C325 Cheit Hall. Outside speakers normally meet with interested students from 3:00 – 3:45 pm in the IBI Conference room located in room F402 (in the Faculty Wing of the Haas School).
For faculty and students wishing to schedule an appointment, or for more information on the Oliver E. Williamson Seminar, please contact Sandria Frost at sandria_frost@haas.berkeley.edu.
For more information including past seminar schedules please click here.
Fall 2015 Schedule
Date |
Speaker |
Title of Talk/Paper |
|
November 5
|
(Princeton) |
“The Industrialization and Economic Development of Russia through the Lens of a Neoclassical Growth Model” [pdf] |
Abstract
This paper studies the structural transformation of Russia in 1885-1940 from an agrarian to an industrial economy through the lens of a two-sector neoclassical growth model. We construct a dataset that covers Tsarist Russia during 1885-1913 and Soviet Russia during 1928-1940. We use the growth model to develop a procedure that allows us to identify the types of frictions and economic mechanisms that had the largest quantitative impact on Russian economic development, as well as those that are inconsistent with the data. Our methodology identifies frictions that lead to large markups in the non-agricultural sector as the most important reason for Tsarist Russia’s failure to industrialize before WWI. Soviet industrial transformation after 1928 was achieved primarily by reducing such frictions, albeit at a significant cost of lower TFP. We find no evidence that Tsarist agricultural institutions were a signficant barrier to labor transition to manufacturing, or that “Big Push” mechanisms contributed to Soviet growth.