IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wil/wileco/2016-12.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Capital Structure and Corporate Performance in Late Imperial Russia

Author

Abstract

We investigate the financing of corporations in industrialization's early stages. A new balance sheet database featuring all Imperial Russian corporations in 1914 suggests that Russian corporations exhibited considerable financial flexibility. We emphasize financing differences between two types of Russian corporations: share partnerships and A-corporations. Share partnerships issued greater dividends as a proportion of share capital or profits, were less likely to issue bonds, and had larger accounts payable. Financial strategies varied with age, size, and sector in a manner consistent with modern corporate finance theories. This optimistic assessment suggests that absence of low-cost incorporation impeded Russian industrial and economic development.

Suggested Citation

  • Amanda Gregg & Steven Nafziger, 2016. "Capital Structure and Corporate Performance in Late Imperial Russia," Department of Economics Working Papers 2016-12, Department of Economics, Williams College.
    • Handle: RePEc:wil:wileco:2016-12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://web.williams.edu/Economics/wp/GreggNafzigerCapitalStructureCorporatePerformance.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guinnane, Timothy & Harris, Ron & Lamoreaux, Naomi R. & Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent, 2007. "Putting the Corporation in its Place," Enterprise & Society, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 687-729, September.
    2. Anton Cheremukhin & Mikhail Golosov & Sergei Guriev & Aleh Tsyvinski, 2017. "The Industrialization and Economic Development of Russia through the Lens of a Neoclassical Growth Model," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(2), pages 613-649.
    3. Chay, J.B. & Suh, Jungwon, 2009. "Payout policy and cash-flow uncertainty," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1), pages 88-107, July.
    4. Raymond Fisman & Inessa Love, 2003. "Trade Credit, Financial Intermediary Development, and Industry Growth," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(1), pages 353-374, February.
    5. Rajan, Raghuram G. & Zingales, Luigi, 2003. "The great reversals: the politics of financial development in the twentieth century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 5-50, July.
    6. Gareth Campbell & John D. Turner, 2011. "Substitutes for legal protection: corporate governance and dividends in Victorian Britain," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64(2), pages 571-597, May.
    7. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    8. Marc Deloof & Wouter Van Overfelt, 2008. "Were Modern Capital Structure Theories Valid in Belgium Before World War I?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3-4), pages 491-515.
    9. Eric Hilt, 2014. "Corporate Governance and the Development of Manufacturing Enterprises in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts," NBER Chapters, in: Enterprising America: Businesses, Banks, and Credit Markets in Historical Perspective, pages 73-102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Ilya A. Strebulaev, 2007. "Do Tests of Capital Structure Theory Mean What They Say?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(4), pages 1747-1787, August.
    11. Marc Deloof & Wouter Van Overfelt, 2008. "Were Modern Capital Structure Theories Valid in Belgium Before World War I?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3‐4), pages 491-515, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Natkhov, Timur & Vasilenok, Natalia, 2021. "Skilled immigrants and technology adoption: Evidence from the German settlements in the Russian empire," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    2. Emilie Bonhoure, 2021. "An Original Solution to Agency Issues Among PreWWI Paris-Listed Firms : The Statutory Rule of Profit Allocation," PSE Working Papers halshs-03107869, HAL.
    3. Gregg, Amanda & Nafziger, Steven, 2020. "Financing nascent industry: Leverage, politics, and performance in Imperial Russia," BOFIT Discussion Papers 7/2020, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    4. Emilie Bonhoure, 2021. "An Original Solution to Agency Issues Among PreWWI Paris-Listed Firms : The Statutory Rule of Profit Allocation," Working Papers halshs-03107869, HAL.
    5. Tomihiro Machikita & Tetsuji Okazaki, 2019. "Transition to a Modern Regime and Change in PlantLifecycles: A Natural Experiment from Meiji Japan," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-1122, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    6. repec:zbw:bofitp:2020_007 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Marvin Suesse & Theocharis Grigoriadis, 2025. "Financing Late Industrialization: Evidence from the State Bank of the Russian Empire," Trinity Economics Papers tep0225, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    8. Tomohiro Machikita & Tetsuji Okazaki, 2019. "Transition to a Modern Regime and Change in Plant Lifecycles: A Natural Experiment from Meiji Japan," CIGS Working Paper Series 19-006E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:zbw:bofitp:2020_007 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Gregg, Amanda & Nafziger, Steven, 2020. "Financing nascent industry: Leverage, politics, and performance in Imperial Russia," BOFIT Discussion Papers 7/2020, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
    3. Deloof, Marc & Vermoesen, Veronique, 2016. "The value of corporate boards during the Great Depression in Belgium," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 108-123.
    4. Eric Hilt, 2014. "History of American Corporate Governance: Law, Institutions, and Politics," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 6(1), pages 1-21, December.
    5. Marc Deloof & Ine Paeleman, 2024. "International entrepreneurship without investor protection: Evidence from initial public offerings in Belgium before the First World War," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(2), pages 523-553, May.
    6. Coyle, Christopher & Musacchio, Aldo & Turner, John D., 2019. "Law and finance in Britain c.1900," Financial History Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 267-293, December.
    7. Emilie Bonhoure, 2021. "An Original Solution to Agency Issues Among PreWWI Paris-Listed Firms : The Statutory Rule of Profit Allocation," PSE Working Papers halshs-03107869, HAL.
    8. Acheson, Graeme G. & Campbell, Gareth & Turner, John D., 2016. "Common law and the origin of shareholder protection," QUCEH Working Paper Series 2016-04, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    9. Turner, John D., 2014. "Financial history and financial economics," QUCEH Working Paper Series 14-03, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    10. Overfelt, Wouter Van & Annaert, Jan & Ceuster, Marc De & Deloof, Marc, 2009. "Do universal banks create value? Universal bank affiliation and company performance in Belgium, 1905-1909," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 253-265, April.
    11. Janette Rutterford & Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos & Carry van Lieshout, 2017. "Individual investors and local bias in the UK, 1870–1935," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(4), pages 1291-1320, November.
    12. Emilie Bonhoure, 2021. "An Original Solution to Agency Issues Among PreWWI Paris-Listed Firms : The Statutory Rule of Profit Allocation," Working Papers halshs-03107869, HAL.
    13. Aamer Shahzad & Muhammad Azeem & Mian Sajid Nazir & Xuan Vinh Vo & Nguyen T. M. Linh, 2021. "The determinants of capital structure: Evidence from SAARC countries," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(4), pages 6471-6487, October.
    14. Janette Rutterford & Dimitris Sotiropoulos & Carry van Lieshout, 2015. "Individual investors and local bias in the UK, 1870-1935," Working Papers 15009, Economic History Society.
    15. Marc Deloof & Abe Jong & Wilco Legierse, 2023. "Going public: evidence from stock and bond IPOs in Belgium, 1839–1935," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 17(3), pages 433-466, September.
    16. Marc Deloof & Wouter Van Overfelt, 2008. "Were Modern Capital Structure Theories Valid in Belgium Before World War I?," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3‐4), pages 491-515, April.
    17. Luis Alfonso Dau & Randall Morck & Bernard Yin Yeung, 2021. "Business groups and the study of international business: A Coasean synthesis and extension," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 52(2), pages 161-211, March.
    18. Imen Ghadhab, 2023. "Bonding, signaling theory and dividend policy: Evidence from multinational firms," Journal of Asset Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 24(1), pages 69-83, February.
    19. Custódio, Cláudia & Ferreira, Miguel A. & Laureano, Luís, 2013. "Why are US firms using more short-term debt?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 182-212.
    20. Christoph Börner & Dietmar Grichnik & Frank Reize, 2010. "Finanzierungsentscheidungen mittelständischer Unternehmer — Einflussfaktoren der Fremdfinanzierung deutscher KMU," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 62(2), pages 227-275, March.
    21. Ben Slimane, Faten & Padilla Angulo, Laura, 2019. "Strategic change and corporate governance: Evidence from the stock exchange industry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 206-218.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wil:wileco:2016-12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Greg Phelan (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edwilus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.