We study the effects of large-scale humanitarian aid using novel data from the American Relief Administration’s (ARA) intervention during the 1921-1922 famine in Soviet Russia. We find that the allocation of relief closely tracked underlying food scarcity and was uncorrelated with subnational politics. We show that ARA rations reduced food prices, raised caloric intake, lowered the prevalence of relapsing fever, and increased rural birth cohorts. The aid benefited poorest peasants most and proved most effective in provinces with higher levels of human capital. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that, absent ARA relief, the 1926 population would have been 4.4 million lower.

That is from a new paper by Natalya Naumenko (my colleague), Volha Charnysh, and Andrei Markevich.

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