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Enemies of the people

Author

Listed:
  • Gerhard Toews

    (New Economic School)

  • Pierre-Louis Vezina

    (King's College London)

Abstract
Enemies of the people were the millions of artists, engineers, professors, and affluent peasants that were thought a threat to the Soviet regime for being the educated elite, and were forcedly resettled to the Gulag, i.e. the system of forced labor camps across the Soviet Union. In this paper we look at the long-run consequences of this dark re-location episode. We show that areas around camps with a larger share of enemies among camp prisoners are more prosperous today, as captured by firms' wages and profits, as well as night lights per capita. We also show that the descendants of enemies are more likely to be tertiary educated today. Our results point in the direction of a long-run persistence of education and a resulting positive effect on local economic outcomes. A 28 percentage point increase in the share of enemies increases night lights per capita by 58%, profits per employee by 65%, and average wages by 22%.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerhard Toews & Pierre-Louis Vezina, 2020. "Enemies of the people," Working Papers w0279, New Economic School (NES).
    • Handle: RePEc:abo:neswpt:w0279
    as

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    File URL: https://www.nes.ru/files/Preprints-resh/WP279.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Castañeda Dower, Paul & Markevich, Andrei & Weber, Shlomo, 2021. "The value of a statistical life in a dictatorship: Evidence from Stalin," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Soviet Union; forced migration; education; persistence; natural experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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