IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp17981.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Long-Term Impact of Church Activity on Social Capital: Lessons from Post-War Czechoslovakia

Author

Listed:
  • Mikula, Stepan

    (Masaryk University)

  • Reggiani, Tommaso G.

    (Cardiff University)

  • Sabatini, Fabio

    (Sapienza University of Rome)

Abstract

We exploit a historical experiment that occurred in Czechoslovakia after World War Two to study the drivers of social capital accumulation in an extremely unfavorable environment. Between 1945 and 1948, the Sudetenland became the scene of ethnic cleansing, with the expulsion of nearly three million German speakers and the simultaneous influx of nearly two million resettlers. Focusing on the areas where at least 90% of the population was forced to leave, we show that the municipalities hosting a church built before 1945 developed significantly higher social capital under the communist rule, which persisted after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia. The heterogeneity of effects reveals that the longer a resident pastor served in a parish, the more civic capital emerged in the municipality after the Velvet Revolution, suggesting that the social interactions facilitated by pastors were crucial in establishing the foundational layer for social capital in church-hosting communities.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikula, Stepan & Reggiani, Tommaso G. & Sabatini, Fabio, 2025. "The Long-Term Impact of Church Activity on Social Capital: Lessons from Post-War Czechoslovakia," IZA Discussion Papers 17981, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17981
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp17981.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    social capital; forced migration; conflict; institutions; religion; transition countries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship
    • N24 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N44 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: 1913-
    • N94 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - Europe: 1913-
    • O15 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Economic Development: Human Resources; Human Development; Income Distribution; Migration
    • Z12 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Religion

    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:iza:izadps:dp17981. 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: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.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.