Reprisals Remembered: German-Greek Conflict and Car Sales during the Euro Crisis

Vasiliki Fouka and Hans-Joachim Voth

No 726, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: During the Greek debt crisis after 2010, the German government insisted on harsh austerity measures. This led to a rapid cooling of relations between the Greek and German governments. We compile a new index of public acrimony between Germany and Greece based on newspaper reports and internet search terms. This information is combined with historical maps on German war crimes during the occupation between 1941 and 1944. During months of open conflict between German and Greek politicians, German car sales fell markedly more than those of cars from other countries. This was especially true in areas affected by German reprisals during World War II: areas where German troops committed massacres and destroyed entire villages curtailed their purchases of German cars to a greater extent during conflict months than other parts of Greece. We conclude that cultural aversion was a key determinant of purchasing behavior, and that memories of past conflict can affect economic choices in a time-varying fashion. These findings are compatible with behavioral models emphasizing the importance of salience for individual decisionmaking.

Keywords: salience; Consumer boycott; cultural aversion; political conflict; memory; car sales; Euro crisis; German-Greek relations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D12 D74 F14 N14 N44 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eec and nep-tre
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (20)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Reprisals Remembered: German-Greek Conflict and Car Sales during the Euro Crisis (2013)
Working Paper: Reprisals remembered: German-Greek conflict and car sales during the Euro crisis (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bge:wpaper:726

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