 Subotin, on whose work he spent hundreds of thousands of rubles.The result, completed only in 1901 - one year before Bloch's death - was a five-volume work entitled "Comparison of the material and moral levels in the Western Great-Russian and Polish Regions".On the basis of extensive statistical data, compiled mainly in the Pale of Settlement, he gave a comprehensive account of the Jewish role in the Empire's economic life, in crafts, trade and industry.