Economic Crisis and Disillusionment from Socialism: Evidence From a Quasi-Natural Experiment,
利用以色列基布兹的经济危机作为准自然实验，发现危机导致对左翼政党的支持下降，且效应持续20年以上，经济态度右移是主因；债务减免未逆转态度，但劳动力市场自由化加剧了右移。
Abstract While many socialist countries suffered from harsh economic crises, studying their impacts on economic and political attitudes is challenging because of the scarcity of reliable data in non- democratic contexts. We study a democratic socialist setting where we have ample information on such attitudes: the Israeli kibbutzim. Exploiting an economic crisis that hit some kibbutzim more than others, we find that the crisis led to reduced support for leftist political parties. This effect persisted for over 20 years after the crisis had ended. We document that the electoral movement was rooted in a rightward shift in economic attitudes, suggesting that economic crises may undermine socialist regimes by silently changing attitudes toward them. In our unique setting, we can also study recovery mechanisms from the crisis. First, we find that while a sharp debt relief arrangement restored trust in the leadership, it did not reverse the impact of the crisis on economic attitudes. Second, as part of their efforts to recover from the crisis, kibbutzim liberalized their labor markets. Analyzing the staggered shift away from equal sharing to market-based wages, we find that this labor market liberalization led kibbutz members to move further rightward in their political voting and economic attitudes.