Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/266096 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Series/Report no.: 
BOFIT Discussion Papers No. 12/2022
Publisher: 
Bank of Finland, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT), Helsinki
Abstract: 
Decades of investment decisions by central planners left communist societies with structures of production ill-prepared for competitive markets. Their vulnerability to liberalization, however, varied across space. Similar to the effects identified in the "China shock" literature, we hypothesize that post-market-shock outcomes will reflect pre-marketshock structures of production. Tracking voting outcomes at the district level in Russia's presidential elections, we document asymmetric reactions to the liberalization of markets in 1992. Electoral support for the pro-market incumbent declined most in areas with structural inheritances that made them most vulnerable to reforms. This finding sheds new light on an old debate about the importance of "initial conditions" (as opposed to policies) to the trajectories of post-communist societies.
Subjects: 
industrial structure
transition economy
voting
Russia
JEL: 
N14
N44
P00
P23
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
ISBN: 
978-952-323-423-9
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.