IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v97y2007i4p1507-1528.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Goodbye Lenin (or Not?): The Effect of Communism on People

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Alesina
  • Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln

Abstract

Preferences for redistribution, as well as the generosity of welfare states, differ significantly across countries. This paper tests whether there exists a feedback process of the economic regime on individual preferences. We exploit the experiment of German separation and reunification to establish exogeneity of the economic system. We find that, after German reunification, East Germans are more in favor of state intervention than West Germans. This effect is especially strong for older cohorts. We further find that East Germans' preferences converge toward those of West Germans. It will take one to two generations for preferences to converge completely. (JEL D12, D72, H11, H23, P26)

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Alesina & Nicola Fuchs-Schündeln, 2007. "Goodbye Lenin (or Not?): The Effect of Communism on People," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1507-1528, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:97:y:2007:i:4:p:1507-1528
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.4.1507
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.97.4.1507
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/sept07/20051016_data.zip
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/aer/data/sept07/20051016_app.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H23 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Externalities; Redistributive Effects; Environmental Taxes and Subsidies
    • P26 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - Property Rights

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Good-Bye Lenin (or Not?): The Effects of Communism on People's Preferences (AER 2007) in ReplicationWiki

    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:97:y:2007:i:4:p:1507-1528. 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.