The formerly socialist countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have experienced a remarkable demographic transformation in the past twenty years. On many dimensions of fertility and family formation, much of the region now looks like Western Europe-below-replacement fertility...

Both Western and Soviet estimates of GNP growth in the USSR indicate that GNP per capita grew in every decade -- sometimes rapidly -- from 1928 to 1985. While this measure suggests that the standard of living improved in the USSR throughout this period, it is unclear whether this economic growth...

How does a shock to sex ratios affect marriage markets and fertility? I use the drastic change in sex ratios caused by World War II to identify the effects of unbalanced sex ratios on Russian women. Using unique data from the Soviet archives, the results indicate that male scarcity led to lower...