Why Russian Peasants Remain in Collective Farms: A Household Perspective on Agricultural Restructuring

Abstract

This paper seeks to understand what motivates collective farm employees-share-holders to remain in collective structures rather than exercise their legally sanctioned right to leave with land and property shares. On the basis of a 1999 survey of 181 collective farm households and analysis of regional agricultural policies in Leningrad and Saratov oblasts, the paper examines divergent overt and covert benefits that employees derive from association with market-oriented versus less reformed collective agricultural producers. The paper relates the structure of employee incentives to regional-level agricultural policies and to the divergent effects these policies have on the depth and pattern of structural transformations of agricultural production.

JEL Classification: O18, Q10, Q15