Colonization, Human Capital and Development: the Long-term Effect of Russian Settlement in the North Caucasus, 1890s-2000s
Abstract: I exploit differences in proportion of Russian settlers in the North Caucasus during colonization to estimate the effect of human capital on long-term development. The main purpose of Russian colonization was to protect its access to the warm-water ports. Therefore settlement was an exogenous treatment on indigenous population that varied depending on the proximity to the Black Sea coast. Instrumenting the share of settlers by the distance to the coast I show their causal positive impact on literacy among the indigenous population in late XIX century with long-term effect on income, educational attainment and quality of local governance today.
