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Clans and Ploughs: Traditional Institutions and Production Decisions of Kazakhs under Russian Colonial Settlement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2016

Catherine Guirkinger  and
Gani Aldashev
Catherine Guirkinger
Affiliation:
Catherine Guirkinger is Professor of Economics, University of Namur, CRED, 8 Rempart de la Vierge, 5000, Namur, Belgium. E-mail: catherine.guirkinger@unamur.be.
Gani Aldashev
Affiliation:
Gani Aldashev is Professor of Economics, Université libre de Bruxelles, ECARES, 50 Avenue Roosevelt, 1050, Brussels, Belgium. E-mail: gani.aldashev@ulb.ac.be.
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Abstract

This article investigates how, with increasing land pressure during Russian settlement in Kazakh steppes in the late nineteenth century, clan institutions affected the transition from nomadic pastoralism to settled agriculture. Using a novel dataset constructed from Russian colonial expedition materials matched with clan genealogies, we find that, controlling for geographic factors, clan identity strongly influenced the duration of transhumance period, the organization of production, and the acquisition of new agricultural tools. Information transmission within clans, external economies of scale in nomadic pastoralism, and clan-specific values and norms underlie the results.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 76 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2016 

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Footnotes

We thank Ann Carlos, co-editor of this Journal, two anonymous referees, Jean-Marie Baland, Dan Bogart, Carole Ferret, Alexander Moradi, Tommy Murphy, Isabelle Ohayon, Jean-Philippe Platteau, Julien Thorez, and participants at the seminars at Aix-Marseille School of Economics, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, University of Fribourg, University of Namur, and University of Sussex for useful suggestions. Gani Aldashev acknowledges financial support from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) via the Research Credit grant 14694827 (“Land Pressure and Institutional Change”).

References

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