Breaking the Unbreakable Union: Nationalism, Disintegration and the Soviet Economic Collapse
研究了20世纪80年代末90年代初苏联解体过程中，地区精英在可能脱离联盟时限制国内贸易的动机，以及这种动机如何加剧了苏联经济崩溃。
This paper investigates the effect of prospective secessions on economic integration and growth by examining the break-up of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Firstly, I show theoretically how regional elites had an incentive to restrict domestic trade once secession from the Union became possible. Secondly, I show empirically that the increased likelihood of secessions by the Union’s member republics strongly cut domestic trade. Thirdly, I show how this explains the severity of the Soviet output fall. These patterns persist once I instrument for prospective secessions with nationalist agendas that are exogenous to trade or growth.