Volha Charnysh headshot
Volha Charnysh | Assistant Professor, MIT

Friday, October 29, 2021 12:15 PM to 1:30 PM

Abstract/Description

Vohla Charnysh presented the introductory chapter of her book project titled on migration, diversity, and economic development. Specifically, she investigates how post-WWII transfers remade Europe. In 1944-51, nearly 20 million people, including 12 million Germans and 5 million Poles, were uprooted from their homes and resettled elsewhere. She argues that this redistribution of population profoundly diversified societies within states. Migrants coming from different regions, espousing different religious beliefs, and speaking different dialects suddenly shared close quarters with one another. Her book seeks to explore how they learned to live together and why some uprooted populations are economically better off than others today. Using hand-collected archival and census data from Poland and Germany, Charnysh shows that communities diversified by forced migration initially struggled to cooperate and provide public goods, as individuals coming from different regions viewed each other with suspicion and distrust. At the same time, forced migration shored up the role of formal state institutions in the provision of public goods and welfare in the long run. Charnysh further argues that with time, communities that received a larger and more heterogeneous migrant population reached higher entrepreneurship rates and personal incomes.

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