Economic Fallout of Decree 770: Assessing the Macroeconomic Consequences of Totalitarian Reproductive Policies in Ceausescu Romania

This paper finds statistically significant evidence that Romania's comprehensive ban on abortion and contraception—Decree 770—caused significant adverse effects on household consumption in the short-term, and government consumption and PPP-adjusted GDP in the long-term. These findings are critical in explaining how reproductive justice and totalitarian policies are critical factors when examining authoritarian countries and their transitions to democracy. The findings in this paper help to explain the desperate conditions Romanian civil society was mired in from the 1960s up until the 1990s, clarifying why Romania's transition to democracy may have been the only violent one in the region. Later, this paper's findings help to contextualize the risks associated with pro-natalist policies performed in authoritarian regimes.