Nancy Qian (Alesina Seminar)

See the seminar's full schedule here: Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy

Today's Speaker

Nancy Qian (Northwestern), "The Causes of Ukrainian Famine Mortality, 1932-33"

Abstract

There are two prevailing views of why Ukrainian mortality (Holodomor) was disproportionally high during the Great Soviet Famine (1932-33): i) bias against Ukraine in Soviet Policy; ii) an unintended consequence of policies or exogenous factors with no inherent anti-Ukraine bias. To address this debate, we construct a large data set and document that holding per capita grain production, urbanization, and many other factors constant, famine mortality rate was increasing in pre-famine ethnic Ukrainian population shares across regions, even outside of Ukraine. All else equal, government grain procurement as a share of production also increased in pre-famine ethnic Ukrainian population share. The results contradict (ii), support (i), and, in addition, show that anti-Ukrainian bias extended to all ethnic Ukrainians in the Soviet Union, not just the republic of Ukraine.

Co-sponsored by FAS and IQSS, the Alberto Alesina Seminar on Political Economy supports research-related activities that integrate the study of economics and politics, whether by studying economic behavior in the political process or political behavior in the marketplace. In general, positive political economy is concerned with showing how observed differences among institutions affect political and economic outcomes in various social, economic, and political systems and how the institutions themselves change and develop in response to individual and collective beliefs, preferences, and strategies.

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See the seminar's full schedule at the Alesina Seminar page.

All interested faculty and students are invited to attend.