Seminar 211, Economic History: "The Long-Term Consequences of Blacklisting: Evidence From the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33"

Seminar: Economic History | October 17 | 2-3:30 p.m. | 639 Evans Hall

Featured Speaker:  Vitaliia Yaremko, Graduate Student, UC Berkeley

Sponsor:  Department of Economics

I assemble a novel dataset to examine the long-term consequences of blacklisting, a Soviet repressive policy applied to entire rural communities during the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 to enhance compliance with the government’s collectivist policies and deter market-oriented behavior. All members of blacklisted communities could be banned from trade and provision of crucial goods, prohibited from leaving the area of residence, and face harsh in-kind fines. The propaganda component of blacklisting antagonized rural residents against fellow well-off, entrepreneurial-type peasants, called “kulaks”. The penalties were formally justified by blaming kulaks for the sluggish pace of state procurement. Using a weather-based instrument for the locality's blacklisting status I document that blacklisting significantly reduced the nightlight intensity (a proxy measure for economic development) of the affected localities by 60-90%. Additional evidence points to entrepreneurship and trust as channels for the observed effect and provides little support for demography and changes in ethnic composition as channels of persistence. My results support the notion that policies that suppress economic freedoms and disrupt social structure can have persistent negative effects on economic performance.

Event Contact:  elena_ojeda@berkeley.edu

Access Coordinator:  Elena Ojeda,  elena_ojeda@berkeley.edu,  510-