NES Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interactions and HSE International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development are happy to invite you to our joint meeting of the Research Seminar on Diversity and Development and HSE Seminar on Political Economy.
Natalya Naumenko (George Mason University) will present the paper “The Political Economic Causes of the Soviet Great Famine, 1932–33”(joint with Andrei Markevich, and Nancy Qian).
Registration: till noon of May 25, link to video-conference will be sent up to 5 p.m. (Moscow time).
Abstract:
This paper documents several new facts about the Soviet Great Famine, 1932–33. There was no aggregate food shortage. Regional mortality rates were unrelated to per capita food production, but positively associated with ethnic Ukrainian population share. Political loyalty to and peasant resistance against the regime were positively associated with famine mortality and state food procurement in regions populated by ethnic Ukrainians. The findings show that, all else equal, ethnic Ukrainians suffered disproportionally high famine mortality and imply ethnic bias in famine-era policies. A back-of-the-envelope calculation indicates that ethnic bias against Ukrainians explains 77% of famine deaths in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, and 92% in Ukraine.