Natalya Naumenko
Assistant Professor, Department of Economics at George Mason University
Email: nnaumenk@gmu.edu
Publications
The Causes of Ukrainian Famine Mortality, 1932-33, with Andrei Markevich and Nancy Qian
Accepted for publication at the Review of Economic Studies
We construct a novel panel dataset for interwar Soviet Union to study the causes of Ukrainian famine mortality (Holodomor) during 1932-33 and document several facts: i) Ukraine produced enough food in 1932 to avoid famine in Ukraine; ii) 1933 mortality in the Soviet Union was increasing in the pre-famine ethnic Ukrainian population share and iii) was unrelated to food productivity across regions; iv) this pattern exists even outside of Ukraine; v) migration restrictions exacerbated mortality; vi) actual and planned grain procurement were increasing and actual and planned grain retention (production minus procurement) were decreasing in the ethnic Ukrainian population share across regions. The results imply that anti-Ukrainian bias in Soviet policy contributed to high Ukrainian famine mortality, and that this bias systematically targeted ethnic Ukrainians across the Soviet Union.
Accepted Manuscript: ReStud
Working Paper: NBER Working Paper 29089
Popular press: NBER Digest Oct 2021; Der Spiegel; Big Questions podcast (in Russian)
The Political Economy of Famine: the Ukrainian Famine of 1933
The Journal of Economic History (2021) no. 81(1): 156-197
The 1933 Ukrainian famine killed as many as 2.6 million people out of a population of 32 million. Historians offer three main explanations: weather, economic policies, genocide. This paper documents that (1) available data do not support weather as the main explanation: 1931 and 1932 weather predicts harvest roughly equal to the 1924–1929 average; weather explains up to 8.1% of excess deaths. (2) Policies (collectivization of agriculture and the lack of favored industries) significantly increased famine mortality; collectivization explains up to 52% of excess deaths. (3) There is some evidence that ethnic Ukrainians and Germans were discriminated against.
Paper: JEH
Response to Professor Tauger’s Comments
This is a response to Professor Tauger’s comments on my 2021 Journal of Economic History paper. Professor Tauger mostly comments on the paper’s Introduction, Background, and Weather sections, ignoring most of the statistical results. While the Background section has some oversimplifications, and I am grateful for the opportunity to correct them, Professor Tauger’s comments do not change the findings and conclusions of my paper.
Work in Progress
Economic Consequences of the 1933 Soviet Famine
Using recently discovered archival data, this article studies the impact of the 1933 Soviet famine on population and urbanization patterns. It documents that, although most of the direct victims lived in rural areas, the famine had a persistent negative impact on the urban population. In fact, the rural population gradually recovered while urban settlements in more affected areas became permanently smaller. The paper argues that the shortage of labor during the crucial years of rapid industrialization hindered the development of cities in the areas struck by the famine. Thus, the timing of the shock to population appears to be an important factor. While established urban networks tend to recover from large temporary negative shocks, the lack of people during construction and rapid growth might have a permanent negative impact.
Collectivization, the Industrialization Debate, and the First Five-Year Plans
Chapter 6 prepared for the Oxford Handbook of Post-Socialist Economies
Draft (currently being revised): PDF
The 1922 Soviet Famine, with Volha Charnysh and Andrei Markevich
Unintended Long-Term Consequences of Industrial Nuclear Explosions in the USSR, with Alexey Makarin
Other
“Famine in European History” by Guido Alfani and Cormac Ó Gráda, editors, Book review for the EH.net