Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/223451 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 8379
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
This article links Russians’ individual experiences during the late-Gorbachev and early-Yeltsin years to the beliefs those same individuals espoused in the Putin era, over a decade later. Drawing on questions, some of which are retrospective, from the first wave of the Life in Transition Survey, I show that a range of attitudes – including diminished support for markets and democracy and stronger support for reducing inequality – can be explained by whether an individual suffered labor market hardships (wage cuts, arrears, and/or unemployment) in the half decade from 1989 to 1994. More recent labor market disruptions, surprisingly, bear no such relationship to beliefs in 2006. Relative to the rest of the former Soviet Union, this pattern is unique. Though an explanation is difficult to pin down, one speculative hypothesis is that Russians were uniquely impressionable during this exit-from-communism period. Individual economic hardship, in conjunction with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, may have been particularly disorienting for those living in the country in which communism first took root. Life experiences during these years of instability, uncertainty, and diminished status may have left a uniquely deep and enduring impression.
Subjects: 
Russian
endogenous beliefs
JEL: 
A13
D91
P26
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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