Poverty Is Not a Vice or Micro Econometrics for Policy Program and Treatment Effects

Poverty Is Not a Vice: Charity, Society, and the State in Imperial Russia

Author: Adele Lindenmeyr

At the turn of the twentieth century, many Russians clung to the traditional belief that "poverty is not a vice" and that personal acts of generosity toward the poor, including beggars, earn spiritual salvation. Here Adele Lindenmeyr explores how this thinking--and opposition to it--shaped the development of private charity and public welfare in Russia from the eighteenth century to World War I. In recovering a long-forgotten aspect of Russian history, Lindenmeyr offers new insights into major issues debated by historians today: the development of a viable civil society in an autocratic state, the efficacy of central and local government, and Russians' complex reaction to Western ideas. Her book also provides fascinating background to the new flourishing of private charity in post-communist Russia.

The first challenges to the ethos of personal charity came from Peter the Great. Influenced by the Western notion that poverty was a vice, he attempted a systematic approach to its eradication. Lindenmeyr traces the course of poor relief from the establishment of the first state welfare institutions to the post-emancipation devolution of responsibility for the needy to local authorities. At the same time, however, almsgiving still thrived, especially among the peasant estate, where personal acts of charity were preferred to a poor tax. Finally, the author shows how hundreds of privately founded charitable societies and institutions also emerged, reflecting educated society's increasing awareness of poverty as a social problem and contributing significantly to the public sphere.

Table of Contents:

	List of Illustrations
	Acknowledgments
	Introduction	3
Ch. 1	The Russian Culture of Giving	7
Ch. 2	The Autocracy and Poor Relief, 1682-1861	26
Ch. 3	Estates, Local Government, and Poor Relief, 1861-1914	48
Ch. 4	The Autocracy and Poor Law Reform, 1891-1914	74
Ch. 5	From Charity to Philanthropy: Private Charitable Associations and the Origins of Civil Society, 1762-1856	99
Ch. 6	Charity and Civil Society in the Era of the Great Reforms	120
Ch. 7	"Scientific Charity" in Imperial Russia	142
Ch. 8	Transforming the Poor: The Work Relief Movement	168
Ch. 9	The Zenith of Voluntarism, 1881-1914	19д
Ch. 10	Conclusion	227
	Appendix	233
	Notes	241
	Bibliography	305
	Index	329

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Micro-Econometrics for Policy, Program, and Treatment Effects

Author: Myoung Jae Le

This is one of the first books to provide a textbook exposition of the literature on how to measure accurately the 'effects' of a 'treatment,' such as a drug, educational program, or tax regime, on a response variable like an illness, GPA, or income. The book focuses on non-experimental, micro-economic estimation.