Forced Migration, Staying Minorities, and New Societies: Evidence from Postwar Czechoslovakia
Jakub Grossmann, Štěpán Jurajda, Felix Rösel
American Journal of Political Science,
No. 2,
2023
Abstract
Can staying minorities who evade ethnic cleansing affect political outcomes in resettled communities? After World War Two, three million ethnic Germans were expelled from Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland, but some were allowed to stay, many of them left-leaning antifascists. We study quasi-experimental local variation in expulsion policies, a result of the surprising presence of the U.S. Army, which indirectly helped antifascist Germans stay. We find a long-lasting footprint: Communist party support, party cells, and far-left values are stronger today where antifascist Germans stayed in larger numbers. Postwar German Communist elites appear to be behind this effect along with the intergenerational transmission of values among active party members.
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The Long-term Legacy of the Liberation of the Sudetenland by the Red and US Armies
Jakub Grossmann, Štěpán Jurajda
IDEA CERGE EI Studie,
No. 7,
2022
Abstract
Forced migration results in trauma to the millions of people displaced from their homes, but very little is known about the fate of those who avoided expulsion and became a minority in the new society. This analysis reveals how and to what degree the manner and extent of the post-war expulsion of the German population from the Sudetenland influenced the country’s long-term social development. (This publication is written in czech language.)
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Trade Shocks, Labour Markets and Migration in the First Globalisation
Richard Bräuer, Felix Kersting
Economic Journal,
No. 657,
2024
Abstract
This paper studies the economic and political effects of a large trade shock in agriculture—the grain invasion from the Americas—in Prussia during the first globalisation (1870–913). We show that this shock led to a decline in the employment rate and overall income. However, we do not observe declining per capita income and political polarisation, which we explain by a strong migration response. Our results suggest that the negative and persistent effects of trade shocks we see today are not a universal feature of globalisation, but depend on labour mobility. For our analysis, we digitise data from Prussian industrial and agricultural censuses on the county level and combine them with national trade data at the product level. We exploit the cross-regional variation in cultivated crops within Prussia and instrument with Italian and United States trade data to isolate exogenous variation.
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Media Response
Media Response October 2024 IWH: Im Schnitt 30 Insolvenzen im Jahr in: Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, 15.10.2024 Oliver Holtemöller: Strukturwandel: 4,8 Milliarden Euro für das…
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Media Response Archive 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 December 2021 IWH: Ausblick auf Wirtschaftsjahr 2022 in Sachsen mit Bezug auf IWH-Prognose zu Ostdeutschland: "Warum Sachsens…
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East Germany
The Nasty Gap 30 years after unification: Why East Germany is still 20% poorer than the West Dossier In a nutshell The East German economic convergence process is hardly…
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The Rise of Populist Parties in Europe
The Rise of Populist Parties in Europe: The Dark Side of Globalisation and Technological Change? Is the increasing strength of populist parties due to economic causes?…
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Our Projects 07.2022 ‐ 12.2026 Evaluation of the InvKG and the federal STARK programme On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection, the IWH and the RWI…
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Vocational Training at IWH At the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) the state-approved professions specialist in media and information services (m/f/x) [library] ,…
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Exposure to Conflict, Migrations and Long-run Education and Income Inequality: Evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina
Adnan Efendic, Dejan Kovač, Jacob N. Shapiro
Defence and Peace Economics,
No. 8,
2023
Abstract
We investigate the long-term relationship between conflict-related migration and individual socioeconomic inequality. Looking at the post-conflict environment of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), a former Yugoslav state most heavily impacted by the wars of the early 1990s, the paper focuses on differences in educational performance and income between four groups: migrants, internally displaced persons, former external migrants, and those who did not move. The analysis leverages a municipality-representative survey (n ≈ 6,000) that captured self-reported education and income outcomes as well as migration histories. We find that individuals with greater exposure to conflict had systematically worse educational performance and lower earnings two decades after the war. Former external migrants now living in BiH have better educational and economic outcomes than those who did not migrate, but these advantages are smaller for external migrants who were forced to move. We recommend that policies intended to address migration-related discrepancies should be targeted on the basis of individual and family experiences caused by conflict.
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