The Effect of Labor Migration on the Diffusion of Democracy: Evidence from a Former Soviet Republic
利用摩尔多瓦社区和个人层面数据，研究发现1998年俄罗斯危机后的移民浪潮显著影响了随后十年的选举结果和政治偏好，最终促成了欧洲最后一个共产主义政府的倒台，证据支持信息传播和文化扩散渠道。
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.