War and Well-Being in Transition: Russo-Georgian Conflict as a Natural Experiment

Gunes Gokmen () and Evgeny Yakovlev
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Gunes Gokmen: New Economic School and the Center for the Study of Diversity and Social Interactions, Moscow

No w0243, Working Papers from Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR)

Abstract: This paper assesses the effect of the Russo-Georgian conflict of 2008 on the well-being of minorities in Russia. Using the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), we first provide evidence that, on impact, the well-being of Georgian nationals suffered negatively from the conflict of 2008, both in comparison to their own well-being across time and to the well-being of the Russian majority. We also show that this negative effect of conflict does not have a long-term legacy that goes beyond 2008. Additionally, we demonstrate that the conflict has no direct effect on the livelihoods or the labor market outcomes of Georgian nationals. Therefore, we attribute the negative effect of conflict on well-being to more indirect channels such as fear, altruism, or sympathy. We also analyze the spillover effects of the Russo-Georgian conflict on other minorities that live in Russia. We find that while the well-being of migrant minorities who have recently moved to Russia is negatively affected, there is no effect on local minorities who have been living in Russia for at least ten years.

Keywords: Well-being; happiness; transition; conflict; minorities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I31 N44 P2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2017-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cis, nep-hap and nep-tra
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http://www.cefir.ru/papers/WP243.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: War and Well-Being in Transition: Russo-Georgian Conflict as a Natural Experiment (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cfr:cefirw:w0243

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