The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet Republic

2017/06/28 by Toman Barsbai, Hillel Rapoport, Andreas Steinmayr +1 · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Media Influence and Politics #Economic Policies and Impacts #Emigration #Democracy #Context (archaeology) #Politics #Political science #Communism #Development economics #Political economy #Demographic economics #Economics #Geography #Law

paper · pdf · doi:10.1257/app.20150517

openalex publication_date 2017/06/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

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 aftermath of the Russian crisis of 1998 strongly affected electoral outcomes and political preferences in Moldova during the following decade, eventually contributing to the fall of the last Communist government in Europe. Our results are suggestive of information transmission and cultural diffusion channels. Identification relies on the quasi-experimental context and on the differential effects arising from the fact that emigration was directed both to more democratic Western Europe and to less democratic Russia. (JEL D72, D83, F22, P23, P26)

Citations

• Social Remittances: Migration Driven Local-Level Forms of Cultural Diffusion
• Brain drain or brain bank? The impact of skilled emigration on poor-country innovation
• Globalization, Brain Drain, and Development
• The Consequences of Radical Reform: The French Revolution
• Do Migrants Improve Governance at Home? Evidence from a Voting Experiment
• Networks in the Modern Economy: Mexican Migrants in the U. S. Labor Market
• Underinvestment in a Profitable Technology: The Case of Seasonal Migration in Bangladesh
• Exit, Voice, and the Fate of the German Democratic Republic: An Essay in Conceptual History
• Do Migrants Remit Democracy? International Migration, Political Beliefs, and Behavior in Mexico
• Democracy and Foreign Education
• Social Remittances: Migration Driven Local-Level Forms of Cultural Diffusion

Cited by

• Does emigration reduce corruption?
• Exit, Voice, and Political Change: Evidence from Swedish Mass Migration to the United States
• Human capital flight [wikipedia]