Middleman Minorities and Ethnic Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the Russian Empire

Grosfeld, Irena; Sakalli, Seyhun Orcan; Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2797500

Cited by 24 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…On the importance of wheat and bread in France in the 18th century, see, for example,Kaplan (1984) andKaplan (1996). See alsoPersson (1999) on grain markets during this period.3 Along the same lines,Grosfeld, Sakalli, and Zhuravskaya (2017) …nd that anti-Jewish pogroms in eastern Europe between 1800 and 1927 occurred when poor harvests coincided with institutional and political uncertainty.…”

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confidence: 89%

Emigration during the French Revolution: Consequences in the Short and Longue Durée

Franck¹,

Michalopoulos²

2017

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During the French Revolution, more than 100,000 individuals, predominantly supporters of the Old Regime, fled France. As a result, some areas experienced a significant change in the composition of the local elites whereas in others the pre-revolutionary social structure remained virtually intact. In this study, we trace the consequences of the émigrés' flight on economic performance at the local level. We instrument emigration intensity with local temperature shocks during an inflection point of the Revolution, the summer of 1792, marked by the abolition of the constitutional monarchy and bouts of local violence. Our findings suggest that émigrés have a non monotonic effect on comparative development. During the 19th century, there is a significant negative impact on income per capita, which becomes positive from the second half of the 20th century onward. This pattern can be partially attributed to the reduction in the share of the landed elites in high-emigration regions. We show that the resulting fragmentation of agricultural holdings reduced labor productivity, depressing overall income levels in the short run; however, it facilitated the rise in human capital investments, eventually leading to a reversal in the pattern of regional comparative development.

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confidence: 89%

Emigration during the French Revolution: Consequences in the Short and Longue Durée

Franck¹,

Michalopoulos²

2017

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“…They argue Jews were richer than the average population due to their overrepresentation in lucrative economic activities, and hence represented scapegoats to expropriate at times of economic crisis and social unrest. Grosfeld, Sakalli, and Zhuravskaya (2017) argue that Jews were persecuted at times of low agricultural yield only in areas in which they were more overrepresented in grains trade and moneylending, and hence economic specialization combined with negative shocks was crucial to the emergence of pogroms against Jews.…”

Section: A Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Historical Antisemitism, Ethnic Specialization, and Financial Development

D’Acunto

Prokopczuk

Weber

2018

The Review of Economic Studies

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as well as participants at several seminars and conferences. All errors are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

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“…An important body of work shows that places that experienced violence historically tend to be more prone to future violence, often due to changes in culture or a polarization of social identities (e.g., Besley and Reynal-Querol (2014), Zussman (2011, 2017), Sambanis and Shayo (2013)). A parallel literature examines how economic interests may offset such passions and mitigate violence (Hirschman (1977), Martin, Mayer, and Thoenig (2008), Rohner, Thoenig, and Zilibotti (2013), Jha (2013), Grosfeld, Sakalli, and Zhuravskaya (2019), Becker and Pascali (2019)). Indeed, exposure to novel financial assets appears to have had historical success at mitigating social conflict in three revolutionary states that subsequently led the world in economic growth: England, the United States, and Japan (Jha (2012(Jha ( , 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Valuing Peace: The Effects of Financial Market Exposure on Votes and Political Attitudes

Jha

Shayo

2019

ECTA

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Can participation in financial markets lead individuals to reevaluate the costs of conflict, change their political attitudes, and even their votes? Prior to the 2015 Israeli elections, we randomly assigned Palestinian and Israeli financial assets to likely voters and incentivized them to actively trade for up to 7 weeks. No political messages or nonfinancial information were included. The treatment systematically shifted vote choices toward parties more supportive of the peace process. This effect is not due to a direct material incentive to vote a particular way. Rather, the treatment reduces opposition to concessions for peace and changes awareness of the broader economic risks of conflict. While participants who were assigned Palestinian assets are more likely to associate their assets' performance with peace, they are less engaged in the experiment. Combined with the superior performance of Israeli stocks during the study period, the ultimate effects of Israeli and Palestinian assets are similar. the right-by about 4-5 percentage points (pp) relative to their vote share of 36% in the control. In particular, it reduces support for the incumbent Likud party, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, by 4-5pp (relative to 20% in the control). At the same time, it increases the probability of voting for parties that support restarting the peace processthe left-by 4-6pp (relative to 25% in the control). This mainly reflects a 3-5pp increase in the probability of voting for the chief opposition group, The Zionist Union, which includes the Labour party. Consistent with random assignment, these estimates are unaffected by controlling for individuals' vote choices in the recently held 2013 elections as well as education, income levels, region, religiosity, risk and time preferences, initial financial literacy, and other characteristics. In terms of magnitude, the effects are comparable to estimated effects of changes in security risks (e.g., living within the range of rockets from Gaza) on Israeli voters (Getmansky and Zeitzoff (2014)).Section 6 examines the underlying mechanisms. The analysis here is more exploratory in nature, as we move away from a one-treatment-one-outcome framework to multiple (potentially underpowered) subtreatments and multiple outcomes, some of which are self-reported attitudes rather than chosen behavior. Nonetheless, we believe the results 1 The Rand Corporation estimates that a two-state solution, which it regards as the most likely to succeed, will yield Israelis an economic dividend of $123 billion over 10 years and Palestinians $50 billion (Anthony, Egel, Ries et al. (2015)). In contrast, a return to widespread conflict would lower Israeli gross domestic product (GDP) by $250 billion and Palestinian by $46 billion over the same period. See also Eckstein and Tsiddon (2004). 2 Since the entire country is a single constituency, our study had no effect on the election outcomes themselves.

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Middleman Minorities and Ethnic Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms in the Russian Empire

Cited by 24 publications

References 64 publications

Emigration during the French Revolution: Consequences in the Short and Longue Durée

Emigration during the French Revolution: Consequences in the Short and Longue Durée

Historical Antisemitism, Ethnic Specialization, and Financial Development

Valuing Peace: The Effects of Financial Market Exposure on Votes and Political Attitudes

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