Round-up: Social skills in the labour market

The most interesting articles that came to our attention this week

How foreign wars can consolidate authoritarian power: Evidence from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Mikael Elinder and colleagues analyse public opinion data from Russia during the War in Ukraine. Analysing data from both Russian and American pollsters, they find that Russians became more supportive of Putin, with an effect seen in almost every demographic group. Russians also became more optimistic about the future and even slightly happier.

The role of pre- and post-birth factors in the transmission of political engagement. Aaron Weinschenk and Christopher Dawes examine the transmission of political engagement using data from a major adoption study. They find that adopted children are more similar in terms of engagement to their biological parents than to their adoptive parents — though due to low power, not all the differences are statistically significant.