Decades of investment decisions by central planners left communist societies with structures of production ill-prepared for competitive markets. Their vulnerability to liberalization, however, varied across space. Similar to the effects identified in the "China shock'' literature, we hypothesize...

This paper studies the causal effect of technology transfer on early industrial development. Between 1950 and 1957, the Soviet Union supported the “156 Projects” in China for the construction of technologically advanced, large-scale, capital-intensive industrial facilities. We exploit...