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Forced migration and human capital : evidence from post- WWII population transfers
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Becker, Sascha O., Grosfeld, Irena, Grosjean, Pauline, Voigtländer, Nico and Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina (2018) Forced migration and human capital : evidence from post- WWII population transfers. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick. Department of Economics. Warwick economics research papers series (WERPS) (1164). (Unpublished)
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Official URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/w...
Abstract
We exploit a unique historical setting to study the long-run effects of forced migration on investment in education. After World War II, the Polish borders were redrawn, resulting in large-scale migration. Poles were forced to move from the Kresy territories in the East (taken over by the USSR) and were resettled mostly to the newly acquired Western Territories, from which Germans were expelled. We combine historical censuses with newly collected survey data to show that, while there were no pre-WWII differences in education, Poles with a family history of forced migration are significantly more educated today. Descendants of forced migrants have on average one extra year of schooling, driven by a higher propensity to finish secondary or higher education. This result holds when we restrict ancestral locations to a subsample around the former Kresy border and include fixed effects for the destination of migrants. As Kresy migrants were of the same ethnicity and religion as other Poles, we bypass confounding factors of other cases of forced migration. We show that labor market competition with natives and selection of migrants are also unlikely to drive our results. Survey evidence suggests that forced migration led to a shift in preferences, away from material possessions and towards investment in a mobile asset – human capital. The effects persist over three generations.
| Item Type: | Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper) | |||||||||
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| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DK Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics | |||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics | |||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Polish people -- Migrations -- Economic aspects -- History, Polish people -- Education, Former Polish Eastern Territories, Forced migration -- Economic aspects -- History -- Poland | |||||||||
| Series Name: | Warwick economics research papers series (WERPS) | |||||||||
| Publisher: | University of Warwick. Department of Economics | |||||||||
| Place of Publication: | Coventry | |||||||||
| ISSN: | 0083-7350 | |||||||||
| Official Date: | May 2018 | |||||||||
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| Number: | 1164 | |||||||||
| Number of Pages: | 52 | |||||||||
| Institution: | University of Warwick | |||||||||
| Status: | Not Peer Reviewed | |||||||||
| Publication Status: | Unpublished | |||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | |||||||||
| Description: | This paper also appears as CAGE discussion paper 374 |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 12 March 2018 | |||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 12 March 2018 | |||||||||
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