The Gorbachev Anti-Alcohol Campaign and Russia's Mortality Crisis

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Bhattacharya, Jay; Gathmann, Christina; Miller, Grant
• 署名单位: Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-APPLIED ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7782
• DOI: 10.1257/app.5.2.232
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 232-260
• 关键词: coronary-heart-disease; alcohol-consumption; cardiovascular-disease; cirrhosis mortality; economic-crisis; eastern-europe; HEALTH; fluctuations; population; drinking

摘要

Political and economic transition is often blamed for Russia's 40 percent surge in deaths between 1990 and 1994. Highlighting that increases in mortality occurred primarily among alcohol-related causes and among working-age men (the heaviest drinkers), this paper investigates an alternative explanation: the demise of the 1985-1988 Gorbachev Anti-Alcohol Campaign. Using archival sources to build a new oblast-year dataset spanning 1978-2000, we find a variety of evidence suggesting that the campaign's end explains a large share of the mortality crisis, implying that Russia's transition to capitalism and democracy was not as lethal as commonly suggested. (JEL D72, I12, I18, P26, P36)