Did Russia's Emancipated Serfs Really Pay Too Much for Too Little Land? Statistical Anomalies and Long-Tailed Distributions

According to the widely accepted view, under the terms of emancipation and land reform, Russian peasants received inadequate allotments of land for which they had to pay a disproportionately high purchase price. The data used to support the standard interpretation and the statistical methods underlying it are seriously flawed, however. Steven L. Hoch provides a detailed critique of these data and the methods of analysis, and he concludes that the price Russia's former serfs paid was fair, if not below the market price, for a viable subsistence plot. Overall, Hoch believes that the land reform settlement was a reasonable state policy producing a desirable economic outcome.