IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/glodps/450.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Names and Behavior in a War

Author

Listed:
  • Jurajda, Štěpán
  • Kovač, Dejan

Abstract

We implement a novel empirical strategy for measuring and studying a strong form of nationalism - the willingness to fight and die in a war for national independence - using name choices corresponding to previous war leaders. Based on data on almost half a million soldiers, we first show that having been given a first name that is synonymous with the leader(s) of the Croatian state during World War II predicts volunteering for service in the 1991-1995 Croatian war of independence and dying during the conflict. Next, we use the universe of Croatian birth certificates and the information about nationalism conveyed by first names to suggests that in ex-Yugoslav Croatia, nationalism was on a continuous rise starting in the 1970s and that its rise was curbed in areas where concentration camps were located during WWII. Our evidence on intergener- ational transmission of nationalism is consistent with nationalist fathers purposefully reflecting the trade-o¤ between within-family and society-wide transmission channels of political values. We also link the nationalist values we proxy using first name choices to right-wing voting behavior in 2015, 20 years after the war.

Suggested Citation

  • Jurajda, Štěpán & Kovač, Dejan, 2020. "Names and Behavior in a War," GLO Discussion Paper Series 450, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:450
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/211494/1/GLO-DP-0450.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michal Bauer & Christopher Blattman & Julie Chytilová & Joseph Henrich & Edward Miguel & Tamar Mitts, 2016. "Can War Foster Cooperation?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(3), pages 249-274, Summer.
    2. Chun-Fang Chiang & Jin-Tan Liu & Tsai-Wei Wen, 2019. "National identity under economic integration," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 32(2), pages 351-367, April.
    3. Maia Güell & José V. Rodríguez Mora & Christopher I. Telmer, 2015. "The Informational Content of Surnames, the Evolution of Intergenerational Mobility, and Assortative Mating," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 82(2), pages 693-735.
    4. Cook, Lisa D. & Logan, Trevon D. & Parman, John M., 2016. "The mortality consequences of distinctively black names," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 114-125.
    5. Shesterinina, Anastasia, 2016. "Collective Threat Framing and Mobilization in Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(3), pages 411-427, August.
    6. Fontana, Nicola & Nannicini, Tommaso & Tabellini, Guido, 2023. "Historical roots of political extremism: The effects of Nazi occupation of Italy," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 723-743.
    7. Claudia Olivetti & M. Daniele Paserman, 2015. "In the Name of the Son (and the Daughter): Intergenerational Mobility in the United States, 1850-1940," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(8), pages 2695-2724, August.
    8. Roland G. Fryer & Steven D. Levitt, 2004. "The Causes and Consequences of Distinctively Black Names," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 767-805.
    9. Campante, Filipe & Yanagizawa-Drott, David, 2015. "The Intergenerational Transmission of War," Working Paper Series rwp15-039, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    10. Ran Abramitzky & Leah Platt Boustan & Katherine Eriksson, 2016. "Cultural Assimilation during the Age of Mass Migration," NBER Working Papers 22381, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Saku Aura & Gregory D. Hess, 2010. "What’S In A Name?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 214-227, January.
    12. Yann Algan & Clément Malgouyres & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2022. "The Economic Incentives of Cultural Transmission: Spatial Evidence from Naming Patterns Across France," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(642), pages 437-470.
    13. Vasiliki Fouka & Joachim Voth, 2012. "Reprisals remembered: German-Greek conflict and car sales during the Euro crisis," Economics Working Papers 1394, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Oct 2013.
    14. Alberto Bisin & Thierry Verdier, 2010. "The Economics of Cultural Transmission and Socialization," Post-Print halshs-00754788, HAL.
    15. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2012. "The Intergenerational Transmission of Risk and Trust Attitudes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(2), pages 645-677.
    16. Nico Voigtländer & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2013. "Married to Intolerance: Attitudes toward Intermarriage in Germany, 1900-2006," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 79-85, May.
    17. Bellows, John & Miguel, Edward, 2009. "War and local collective action in Sierra Leone," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1144-1157, December.
    18. Luca Anderlini & Dino Gerardi & Roger Lagunoff, 2010. "Social Memory, Evidence, and Conflict," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 13(3), pages 559-574, July.
    19. Yona Rubinstein & Dror Brenner, 2014. "Pride and Prejudice: Using Ethnic-Sounding Names and Inter-Ethnic Marriages to Identify Labour Market Discrimination," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 81(1), pages 389-425.
    20. Christian Ochsner & Felix Roesel, 2020. "Migrating Extremists," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 130(628), pages 1135-1172.
    21. Bisin, Alberto & Verdier, Thierry, 2001. "The Economics of Cultural Transmission and the Dynamics of Preferences," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 298-319, April.
    22. Paolo Masella, 2013. "National identity and ethnic diversity," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 26(2), pages 437-454, April.
    23. Alexandra Avdeenko & Thomas Siedler, 2017. "Intergenerational Correlations of Extreme Right‐Wing Party Preferences and Attitudes toward Immigration," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 119(3), pages 768-800, July.
    24. Luigi Guiso & Paola Sapienza & Luigi Zingales, 2006. "Does Culture Affect Economic Outcomes?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 23-48, Spring.
    25. Giuseppe Albanese & Guido Blasio & Paolo Sestito, 2016. "My parents taught Me. Evidence on the family transmission of values," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 29(2), pages 571-592, April.
    26. Maarten J. Voors & Eleonora E. M. Nillesen & Philip Verwimp & Erwin H. Bulte & Robert Lensink & Daan P. Van Soest, 2012. "Violent Conflict and Behavior: A Field Experiment in Burundi," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 941-964, April.
    27. Gregory Clark, 2015. "The Son Also Rises: Surnames and the History of Social Mobility," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10181-2.
    28. Natalija Novta, 2016. "Ethnic Diversity and the Spread of Civil War," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(5), pages 1074-1100.
    29. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/h23tra6lt8ora7hjg2kqou65h is not listed on IDEAS
    30. Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 1999. "Asymptotic Properties of Weighted M-Estimators for Variable Probability Samples," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(6), pages 1385-1406, November.
    31. Gil Epstein, 2007. "Extremism within the family," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(3), pages 707-715, July.
    32. Fearon, James D. & Laitin, David D., 2003. "Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(1), pages 75-90, February.
    33. George A. Akerlof & Rachel E. Kranton, 2000. "Economics and Identity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(3), pages 715-753.
    34. Yann Algan & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2013. "The Economic Incentives of Cultural Transmission: Spatial Evidence from Naming Patterns across France," Working Papers hal-03460909, HAL.
    35. Macartan Humphreys & Jeremy M. Weinstein, 2008. "Who Fights? The Determinants of Participation in Civil War," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(2), pages 436-455, April.
    36. Charnysh, Volha & Finkel, Evgeny, 2017. "The Death Camp Eldorado: Political and Economic Effects of Mass Violence," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 111(4), pages 801-818, November.
    37. Natalija Novta, 2016. "Ethnic Diversity And The Spread Of Civil War," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(5), pages 1074-1100, October.
    38. Vasiliki Fouka, 2020. "Backlash: The Unintended Effects of Language Prohibition in U.S. Schools after World War I," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(1), pages 204-239.
    39. Pablo Mateos, 2014. "Names, Ethnicity and Populations," Advances in Spatial Science, Springer, edition 127, number 978-3-642-45413-4, Fall.
    40. Leonardo Bursztyn & Michael Callen & Bruno Ferman & Saad Gulzar & Ali Hasanain & Noam Yuchtman, 2014. "Identifying Ideology: Experimental Evidence on Anti-Americanism in Pakistan," NBER Working Papers 20153, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    41. Noam Lupu & Leonid Peisakhin, 2017. "The Legacy of Political Violence across Generations," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 61(4), pages 836-851, October.
    42. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/bakbbitll86c9mofo099uih8m is not listed on IDEAS
    43. Yann Algan & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2013. "The Economic Incentives of Cultural Transmission: Spatial : Spatial Evidence from Naming Patterns across France," Working Papers 2013-25, CEPII research center.
    44. James D. Montgomery, 2010. "Intergenerational Cultural Transmission as an Evolutionary Game," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 115-136, November.
    45. Moses Shayo & Asaf Zussman, 2017. "Conflict and the Persistence of Ethnic Bias," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 137-165, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 23rd November 2020
      by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog on 2020-11-23 12:00:14

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Grossmann, Jakub & Jurajda, Štepán & Roesel, Felix, 2021. "Forced Migration, Staying Minorities, and New Societies: Evidence from Post-War Czechoslovakia," IZA Discussion Papers 14191, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Kukić, Leonard, 2023. "The last Yugoslavs: Ethnic diversity and national identity," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jurajda, Štepán & Kova?, Dejan, 2016. "What's in a Name in a War," IZA Discussion Papers 10331, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Carneiro, Pedro & Lee, Sokbae & Reis, Hugo, 2020. "Please call me John: Name choice and the assimilation of immigrants in the United States, 1900–1930," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    3. Dominic Rohner & Mathias Thoenig, 2021. "The Elusive Peace Dividend of Development Policy: From War Traps to Macro Complementarities," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 13(1), pages 111-131, August.
    4. Chabé-Ferret, Bastien, 2019. "Adherence to cultural norms and economic incentives: Evidence from fertility timing decisions," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 162(C), pages 24-48.
    5. Vasiliki Fouka & Soumyajit Mazumder & Marco Tabellini, 2018. "From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation during the Great Migration," Harvard Business School Working Papers 19-018, Harvard Business School, revised Jun 2019.
    6. Vlachos, Stephanos, 2022. "On war and political radicalization: Evidence from forced conscription into the Wehrmacht," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    7. Elena Esposito & Tiziano Rotesi & Alessandro Saia & Mathias Thoenig, 2023. "Reconciliation Narratives: The Birth of a Nation after the US Civil War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(6), pages 1461-1504, June.
    8. Francisco Villamil, 2021. "Mobilizing memories: The social conditions of the long-term impact of victimization," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 58(3), pages 399-416, May.
    9. Fontana, Nicola & Nannicini, Tommaso & Tabellini, Guido, 2023. "Historical roots of political extremism: The effects of Nazi occupation of Italy," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 723-743.
    10. Tabellini, Marco & Fouka, Vasiliki & Mazumder, Soumyajit, 2020. "From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation during the Great Migration," CEPR Discussion Papers 14396, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Nikoloz Kudashvili & Philipp Lergetporer, 2019. "Do Minorities Misrepresent Their Ethnicity to Avoid Discrimination?," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp644, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    12. Rachel E. Kranton, 2016. "Ekonomia tożsamości w 2016 roku: skąd biorą się podziały i normy społeczne?," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 6, pages 139-146.
    13. Booth, Alison & Meng, Xin & Fan, Elliott & Zhang, Dandan, 2022. "The direct and intergenerational behavioural consequences of a socio-political upheaval," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 931-958.
    14. Alacevich, Caterina & Zejcirovic, Dijana, 2020. "Does violence against civilians depress voter turnout? Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 841-865.
    15. Alia Aghajanian & Patricia Justino & Jean-Pierre Tranchant, 2020. "Riots and social capital in urban India," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-42, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Yann Algan & Clément Malgouyres & Thierry Mayer & Mathias Thoenig, 2022. "The Economic Incentives of Cultural Transmission: Spatial Evidence from Naming Patterns Across France," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 132(642), pages 437-470.
    17. Dominic Rohner & Mathias Thoenig & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2013. "Seeds of distrust: conflict in Uganda," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 217-252, September.
    18. Sirus Dehdari & Kai Gehring, 2017. "The Origins of Common Identity: Division, Homogenization Policies and Identity Formation in Alsace-Lorraine," CESifo Working Paper Series 6556, CESifo.
    19. Cheung, Man-Wah & Wu, Jiabin, 2018. "On the probabilistic transmission of continuous cultural traits," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 300-323.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/h23tra6lt8ora7hjg2kqou65h is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Booth, Alison & Meng, Xin & Fan, Elliott & Zhang, Dandan, 2018. "The Intergenerational Behavioural Consequences of a Socio-Political Upheaval," CEPR Discussion Papers 13354, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Nationalism; Names; Intergenerational Transmission;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:glodps:450. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/glabode.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.