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  3. American Economic Review
  4. May 2016
  5. War, Inflation, and Social Capital

War, Inflation, and Social Capital

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Abstract

We use weekly data from 79 Russian regions to measure the impact of economic shocks and proximity to war in Ukraine on social capital in Russian regions. We proxy social capital by the relative intensity of internet searches for the most salient dimensions of pro-social behavior such as "donate blood", "charity", "adopt a child" etc. This measure of social capital is correlated with a survey-based measure of generalized social trust. Our search-based measure of social capital responds negatively to the spikes of inflation and positively to the intensity of the conflict in Ukraine (controlling for region and week fixed effects).

Citation

Guriev, Sergei, and Nikita Melnikov. 2016. "War, Inflation, and Social Capital." American Economic Review, 106 (5): 230-35. DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20161067

Additional Materials

JEL Classification

  • D72 Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
  • D74 Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
  • E31 Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
  • P24 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: National Income, Product, and Expenditure; Money; Inflation
  • P25 Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
  • P36 Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions: Consumer Economics; Health; Education and Training: Welfare, Income, Wealth, and Poverty
  • Z13 Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification