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Using detailed panel data from the Pale of Settlement area between 1800 and 1927, we document that anti-Jewish pogroms—mob violence against the Jewish minority—broke out when economic shocks coincided with political turmoil. When this happened, pogroms primarily occurred in places where Jews dominated middleman occupations, i.e., moneylending and grain trading. This evidence is inconsistent with the scapegoating hypothesis, according to which Jews were blamed for all misfortunes of the majority. Instead, the evidence is consistent with the politico-economic mechanism, in which Jewish middlemen served as providers of insurance against economic shocks to peasants and urban grain buyers in a relationship based on repeated interactions. When economic shocks occurred in times of political stability, rolling over or forgiving debts was an equilibrium outcome because both sides valued their future relationship. In contrast, during political turmoil, debtors could not commit to paying in the future, and consequently, moneylenders and grain traders had to demand immediate (re)payment. This led to ethnic violence, in which the break in the relationship between the majority and Jewish middlemen was the igniting factor.

We study the long-run effects of forced migration on investment in education. After World War II, millions of Poles were forcibly uprooted from the Kresy territories of eastern Poland and resettled (primarily) in the newly acquired Western Territories, from which the Germans were expelled. We combine historical censuses with newly collected survey data to show that, while there were no pre-WWII differences in educational attainment, Poles with a family history of forced migration are significantly more educated today than other Poles. These results are driven by a shift in preferences away from material possessions toward investment in human capital.

We estimate long-term effects of Jewish presence in Europe before World War II, using discontinuity at the border of the \"Pale of Settlement\" area where Jews were allowed to live in the Russian Empire. Current residents of the Pale have lower support for market, and are less entrepreneurial but more trusting compared to those outside the Pale. We suggest a mechanism and test for it: anti-Semitism generated persistent antimarket culture and trust among non-Jews. Consistent with this mechanism, antimarket attitudes and trust decrease with distance to pogroms controlling for historical Jewish presence. Self-identification and cohesion of majority depends on the presence of minority.

This paper illustrates the emergence of inequality aversion in a transition country. Using a series of Polish cross-section surveys, we identify a structural break in the relationship between income inequality and subjective well-being. Inequality, initially perceived as a positive signal of increased opportunities, starts to undermine satisfaction after a couple of years, when individuals become skeptical about the legitimacy of the enrichment of reform winners. Satisfaction then stops following the ascension of national income. Classification JEL : C25, D31, D63, I30, P20, P26.

Cet article illustre la montée de l'aversion à l'inégalité dans un pays en transition vers le marché. Il explore les attitudes subjectives des citoyens polonais recueillies dans des enquêtes répétées de 1992 à 2005. Il identifie une rupture dans la relation entre inégalité et satisfaction. À une première phase, pendant laquelle l'inégalité des revenus est assimilée à l'élargissement des opportunités, succède une seconde phase marquée par l'impact négatif de l'inégalité sur la satisfaction. Cette évolution coïncide avec la montée, au sein de la population, d'un certain rejet des réformes. /// This paper illustrates the emergence of inequality aversion in a transition country. Using a series of Polish cross-section surveys, we identify a structural break in the relationship between income inequality and subjective well-being. Inequality, initially perceived as a positive signal of increased opportunities, starts to undermine satisfaction after a couple of years, when individuals become skeptical about the legitimacy of the enrichment of reform winners. Satisfaction then stops following the ascension of national income.

RésuméCet article illustre la montée de l’aversion à l’inégalité dans un pays en transition vers le marché. Il explore les attitudes subjectives des citoyens polonais recueillies dans des enquêtes répétées de 1992 à 2005. Il identifie une rupture dans la relation entre inégalité et satisfaction. À une première phase, pendant laquelle l’inégalité des revenus est assimilée à l’élargissement des opportunités, succède une seconde phase marquée par l’impact négatif de l’inégalité sur la satisfaction. Cette évolution coïncide avec la montée, au sein de la population, d’un certain rejet des réformes. The emerging a version to inequality: evidence from long subjective dataAbstractThis paper illustrates the emergence of inequality aversion in a transition country. Using a series of Polish cross-section surveys, we identify a structural break in the relationship between income inequality and subjective well-being. Inequality, initially perceived as a positive signal of increased opportunities, starts to undermine satisfaction after a couple of years, when individuals become skeptical about the legitimacy of the enrichment of reform winners. Satisfaction then stops following the ascension of national income.Classification JEL  : C25, D31, D63, I30, P20, P26.

Using detailed panel data from the Pale of Settlement area between 1800 and 1927, we document that anti-Jewish pogroms--mob violence against the Jewish minority--broke out when economic shocks coincided with political turmoil. When this happened, pogroms primarily occurred in places where Jews dominated middleman occupations, i.e., moneylending and grain trading. This evidence is inconsistent with the scapegoating hypothesis, according to which Jews were blamed for all misfortunes of the majority. Instead, the evidence is consistent with the politico-economic mechanism, in which Jewish middlemen served as providers of insurance against economic shocks to peasants and urban grain buyers in a relationship based on repeated interactions. When economic shocks occurred in times of political stability, rolling over or forgiving debts was an equilibrium outcome because both sides valued their future relationship. In contrast, during political turmoil, debtors could not commit to paying in the future, and consequently, moneylenders and grain traders had to demand immediate (re)payment. This led to ethnic violence, in which the break in the relationship between the majority and Jewish middlemen was the igniting factor.

Résumé Cet article illustre la montée de l’aversion à l’inégalité dans un pays en transition vers le marché. Il explore les attitudes subjectives des citoyens polonais recueillies dans des enquêtes répétées de 1992 à 2005. Il identifie une rupture dans la relation entre inégalité et satisfaction. À une première phase, pendant laquelle l’inégalité des revenus est assimilée à l’élargissement des opportunités, succède une seconde phase marquée par l’impact négatif de l’inégalité sur la satisfaction. Cette évolution coïncide avec la montée, au sein de la population, d’un certain rejet des réformes.

Can media affect religious behavior? We study the effect of a drastic change in media landscape on religious participation in Poland, a country, where vast majority of the population considers itself religious Catholics. Before 2015, news on mainstream public and private media outlets had a similar moderately-liberal slant. In 2015, a right-wing populist party Law and Justice (PiS) came to power and took control of the editorial policy of public media, introducing a substantial conservative pro-government and pro-Church bias in public-media broadcast. A private TV network, TVN, remained the main source of freely available independent-from-the-government news on Polish television. In a difference- in-differences setting, we exploit spatial variation in TVN signal, sufficiently good for reception in about two-thirds of the country, and the overtime change in the content of the major state-owned TV network, which has good reception almost everywhere. We document that, after PiS came to power, religious participation fell more in municipalities with access to TVN compared to municipalities receiving only state TV signal. Using a large-scale online randomization experiment, we examine the effects of exposure to different types of content available only via independent media. We show that exposing both the pedophilia within the Church and the mutual financial and political support between the Church and the ruling PiS party decreases trust in religious institutions, but the effect of exposing pedophilia scandals is stronger. The experiment's results persist for at least three weeks.

Using detailed panel data from the Pale of Settlement area between 1800 and 1927, we document that anti-Jewish pogroms--mob violence against the Jewish minority--broke out when economic shocks coincided with political turmoil. When this happened, pogroms primarily occurred in places where Jews dominated middleman occupations, i.e., moneylending and grain trading. This evidence is inconsistent with the scapegoating hypothesis, according to which Jews were blamed for all misfortunes of the majority. Instead, the evidence is consistent with the politico-economic mechanism, in which Jewish middlemen served as providers of insurance against economic shocks to peasants and urban grain buyers in a relationship based on repeated interactions. When economic shocks occurred in times of political stability, rolling over or forgiving debts was an equilibrium outcome because both sides valued their future relationship. In contrast, during political turmoil, debtors could not commit to paying in the future, and consequently, moneylenders and grain traders had to demand immediate (re)payment. This led to ethnic violence, in which the break in the relationship between the majority and Jewish middlemen was the igniting factor.