Army, tax reforms, and well-being in eighteenth-century Russia

This article examines archival records on crop yields and recruit numbers in eighteenth-century Russia, analyzing their dynamics and comparing them with data on recruits’ height as an indicator of changes in the standard of living. The study uses more than one hundred and ten archival sources, enabling the construction of time series. The resulting numbers confirm that the standard of living in Russia was generally low and changed in a cyclical pattern. The study reveals how military and tax reforms emerged as a significant driver of these economic fluctuations. The dataset compiled by the author not only facilitates estimations of living standards during this period but also enables researchers to address various questions in Russian social and economic history.