Economic Shocks and Assimilation Policies: Phylloxera and Educational Expansion in French Algeria

This paper studies the impact of a shock, the phylloxera crisis in 19th-century France, on assimilation policies towards the native population of French Algeria. In particular, assembling a novel dataset on French MPs and their parliamentary speeches, we find that MPs coming from areas hit harder by the phylloxera, were more likely to: i) use keywords related to the impact of phylloxera and wine production; ii) express greater interest and support towards policies aimed at educating the native population. The latter pattern becomes visible approximately ten years after the phylloxera crisis, consistent with the view that organizing production requires time.