The Origins of Common Identity: Evidence from Alsace-Lorraine

Sirus Dehdari () and Kai Gehring

No 7410, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: The quasi-exogenous division of the French regions Alsace and Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War allows us to provide evidence about group identity formation within historically homogeneous regions. Using several measures of stated and revealed preferences spanning over half a century, we show that being exposed to occupation and repression for many decades caused a persistently stronger regional identity. The geographical RDD results are robust across all specifications. We document two mechanisms using data on regional newspapers and regionalist parties. The differences are strongest for the first two age cohorts after WWII and associated with preferences for more regional decision-making.

Keywords: group identity; regional identity; identity formation; persistence of preferences; homogenization policies; assimilation; Alsace-Lorraine (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 H70 N40 Z19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-his and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7410.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Origins of Common Identity: Evidence from Alsace-Lorraine (2022)
Working Paper: The Origins of Common Identity: Evidence from Alsace-Lorraine (2019)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7410

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().