Good bye Lenin (or not?): The effect of Communism on people's preferences

By A. Alesina, N. Fuchs-Schündeln. 2006

1,002 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Preferences for redistribution, as well as the generosities of welfare states, differ significantly across countries. In this paper, we test whether there exists a feedback process of the economic regime on individual preferences. We exploit the "experiment" of German separation and reunification to establish exogeneity of the economic system. From 1945 to 1990, East Germans lived under a Communist regime with heavy state intervention and extensive redistribution. We find that, after German reunification, East Germans are more in favor of redistribution and state intervention than West Germans, even after controlling for economic incentives. This effect is especially strong for older cohorts, who lived under Communism for a longer time period. We further find that East Germans' preferences converge towards those of West Germans. We calculate that it will take one to two generations for preferences to converge completely.

Subfields: Demography, Economics and Econometrics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3964b19cd2d74fa8c4bffbbf21b7f87d3dccdf7b

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Citations in the corpus

Tribal Social Instincts and the Cultural Evolution of Institutions to Solve Collective Action Problems (2012, neutral): “Moreover, these biases appear to operate across domains of expertise, as experts or stars in one field or endeavor (e.g., basketball) are granted influences in other arenas (e.g., clothing choice or politics).”
Family Values and the Regulation of Labor (2015, neutral): “Comparison of equations (5) and (6) shows that those with strong family ties prefer a regulated labor market rather than a flexible one.”
The Costs of Economic Nationalism: Evidence from the Brexit Experiment* (2019, positive): “We also share a focus of analysis with studies of macroeconomic experiments at the aggregate level (Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln, 2007; Fuchs-Schündeln and Hassan, 2016).”
Conflict and Social and Political Preferences: Evidence from World War II and Civil Conflict in 35 European Countries (2014, critical): “Although supported by some empirical evidence (Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln, 2007), recent findings have undermined the importance of this factor (Roland 2004; Grosjean, Forthcoming).”
Entrepreneurial role models, fear of failure, and institutional approval of entrepreneurship: a tale of two regions (2016, positive): “Empirical evidence shows that East Germans have a higher level of state-reliance when compared to West Germans (e.g., Alesina and Fuchs-Schuendeln, 2007), which feeds back into lower preferences for entrepreneurship among Easterners (Bauernschuster et al., 2012; Runst, 2013).”
Preferences for redistribution: an empirical analysis over 33 countries (2011, positive): “5 Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln [2] argue that there is a long lasting impact of political regimes on collective beliefs about redistribution.”
ENERGY CONSERVATION “NUDGES” AND ENVIRONMENTALIST IDEOLOGY: EVIDENCE FROM A RANDOMIZED RESIDENTIAL ELECTRICITY FIELD EXPERIMENT (2010, positive): “…of political ideology has examined the causal role of the media (DellaVigna and Kaplan 2007), property rights (Di Tella, Galiani and Schargrodsky 2007), and historical circumstances (Alesina and Fuchs-Schundeln 2007; Giuliano and Spilimbergo 2009) in shaping a person’s ideological outlook.”
The Empire is Dead, Long Live the Empire! Long-Run Persistence of Trust and Corruption in the Bureaucracy (2016, positive): “More recently, Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln (2007) suggest that the differing history of West and East Germany from 1945-1990 left a mark in different political preferences for redistribution.”
Culture and Institutions (2015, neutral): “Indeed, different results emerge when a more stringent identification strategy (Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln 2007) is adopted.”
The Long Persistence of Regional Levels of Entrepreneurship: Germany, 1925–2005 (2014, positive): “An indication for such longer-term effects is the study by ALESINA and FUCHS-SCHUENDELN (2007) who find that East German citizens who were exposed to the socialist regime are much more in favour of redistribution and state intervention than their West German counterparts.”