IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v113y2023i7p1888-1932.html

Heroes and Villains: The Effects of Heroism on Autocratic Values and Nazi Collaboration in France

Author

Listed:
  • Julia Cagé
  • Anna Dagorret
  • Pauline Grosjean
  • Saumitra Jha

Abstract

We measure how a network of heroes can legitimize and diffuse extreme political behaviors. We exploit newly declassified intelligence files, novel voting data, and regimental histories to show that home municipalities of French line regiments arbitrarily rotated under Philippe Petain's generalship through the heroic World War I battlefield of Verdun diverge politically thereafter, particularly following Petain's own overt espousal of authoritarian views. Further, under Petain's collaborationist Vichy regime (1940–1944), they raise 7 percent more active Nazi collaborators per capita. These effects extend across all forms of Nazi collaboration and diffuse beyond the veterans themselves.

Suggested Citation

  • Julia Cagé & Anna Dagorret & Pauline Grosjean & Saumitra Jha, 2023. "Heroes and Villains: The Effects of Heroism on Autocratic Values and Nazi Collaboration in France," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(7), pages 1888-1932, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:113:y:2023:i:7:p:1888-1932
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20211509
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20211509
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20211509.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20211509.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aer.20211509?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Mathieu Couttenier & Sophie Hatte & Lucile Laugerette & Tommaso Sonno, 2025. "Dear Brothers and Sisters: Pope's Speeches and the Dynamics of Conflict in Africa," Working Papers hal-05029770, HAL.
    2. Lanzara, Gianandrea & Lazzaroni, Sara & Masella, Paolo & Squicciarini, Mara P., 2025. "Discrimination and assimilation: Evidence from anti-Chinese sentiments in the United States," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    3. Bahník, Štěpán & Houdek, Petr & Hudík, Marek & Say, Nicolas, 2025. "The limited role of prosocial behavior in preventing others from being dishonest," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    4. Guillaume Blanc & Masahiro Kubo, 2023. "French," Economics Discussion Paper Series 2308, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    5. Jean Lacroix & Ricardo Piqué, 2025. "Des nôtres? The Political Effects of Hosting Internal Evacuees," CESifo Working Paper Series 12314, CESifo.
    6. Kai Gehring & Matteo Grigoletto, 2023. "Analyzing Climate Change Policy Narratives with the Character-Role Narrative Framework," CESifo Working Paper Series 10429, CESifo.
    7. Panza, Laura & Zylberberg, Yanos, 2024. "Nation-building and mass migration: Evidence from Mandatory Palestine," CEPR Discussion Papers 18823, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Gay, Victor & Grosjean, Pauline, 2023. "Morts Pour la France: A database of French fatalities of the Great War," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    9. Andreas Ferrara & Christian Dippel & Stephan Heblich, 2025. "Frontline Leadership: Evidence from American Civil War Captains," NBER Working Papers 34057, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Kai Gehring & Matteo Grigoletto, 2025. "Virality: What Makes Narratives Go Viral, and Does it Matter?," CESifo Working Paper Series 12064, CESifo.
    11. Arya, Yatish & Bhatiya, Apurav Yash, 2025. "When do voters ‘rally around the flag’? The salience of political messages," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 245(C).
    12. Zakharov, Alexei & Chapkovski, Philipp, 2025. "The effect of war on redistribution preferences," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 241(C).
    13. Yuchen Guo & Matthew O. Jackson & Ruixue Jia, 2024. "Peer Influence on West Point Cadets’ CivilWar Allegiances," NBER Working Papers 33093, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    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:aea:aecrev:v:113:y:2023:i:7:p:1888-1932. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.