 The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet RepublicToman Omar Mahmoud (),
Hillel Rapoport (),
Andreas Steinmayr and
Christoph Trebesch
No 7980, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) Abstract: Migration contributes to the circulation of goods, knowledge, and ideas. Using community and individual-level data from Moldova, we show that the emigration wave that started in the late 1990s strongly affected electoral outcomes and political preferences in Moldova during the following decade and was eventually instrumental in bringing down the last ruling Communist government in Europe. Our results are suggestive of information transmission and cultural diffusion channels. Identification relies on the quasi-experimental context studied and on the differential effects arising from the fact that emigration was directed both to more democratic Western Europe and to less democratic Russia. Keywords: emigration; political institutions; elections; social networks; information transmission; cultural diffusion (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published - published in: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2017, 9(3): 36-69 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7980 Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from Access Statistics for this paper More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC. |
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