Good Bye Lenin Revisited: East-West Preferences Three Decades after German Reunification

Bondar Mariia and Fuchs-Schündeln Nicola ()
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Bondar Mariia: Charles River Associates, Munich, Germany
Fuchs-Schündeln Nicola: Goethe University Frankfurt and CEPR, Frankfurt, Germany

German Economic Review, 2023, vol. 24, issue 1, 97-119

Abstract: In this paper, we document that living under Communism versus Capitalism has lasting effects on preferences for a strong government. Relying on the natural experiment of German reunification and extending the analysis of Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln (2007), we show that East Germans still have stronger preferences for redistribution than West Germans 27 years after reunification. While convergence of preferences occurs, the speed of convergence decreases significantly over time. Evidence from cohorts born after German reunification points towards significant intergenerational transmission of preferences.

Keywords: German reunification; preferences for redistribution; endogenous preferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1515/ger-2022-0042

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