IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bdp/dpaper/0081.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bismarck's Welfare State and the Socialists

Author

Listed:
  • Felix Kersting

Abstract

This paper examines the political consequences of introducing the welfare state targeted at blue-collar workers in 19th-century Germany. I conceptualize Bismarck’s reform as an accommodation strategy to combat the socialist party as an emerging challenger party. The result of a difference-in-differences design shows that the socialist party benefited in elections due to the reform. The mechanism analysis points to the socialists’ issue ownership by adopting a stronger reformist stance. The results are not driven by other political and economic channels related to the reform.

Suggested Citation

  • Felix Kersting, 2025. "Bismarck's Welfare State and the Socialists," Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers 0081, Berlin School of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bdp:dpaper:0081
    DOI: 10.48462/opus4-5989
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-hsog/files/5989/BSoE_DP_0081.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.48462/opus4-5989?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
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    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:bdp:dpaper:0081. 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: Christian Reiter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bdpemde.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.