Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/240368 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
BOFIT Discussion Papers No. 17/2020
Publisher: 
Bank of Finland, Institute for Economies in Transition (BOFIT), Helsinki
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: 
social preferences
beliefs
labor market
transition
Russia
Life in Transition Survey
JEL: 
A13
J60
P23
P26
P52
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-952-323-338-6
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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