Research
Published articles:
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Vol. 16(3), July 2024, pp. 76-112 (with F. Roesel) [Access via AEA site]
Abstract: We show that history stored in collective memories and activated by political campaigns can create xenophobia and radicalization. Turkish troops besieged Vienna in 1529 and 1683 and pillaged individual Austrian villages, killing and kidnapping in the process. Attacked places remember those events well but never expressed aversion to Muslims until far-right populists started to campaign against Turks and Muslims in the mid-2000s. We find that anti-Muslim sentiments and far-right voting surge in previously attacked places after the populist campaigns were launched, and Turkish communities decrease in response. Historical narratives in political campaigns can mobilize both beliefs and actions.
Awards:
Heinz König Young Economist Award 2019 by the ZEW
Scientific Acclaim:
The NEP-HIS Blog
CERGE-EI Blog
Media Attention:
Der Spiegel (online), Mandiner, Die Presse (print only)
The Economic Journal, Vol. 130(628), May 2020, pp. 1135–1172 (with F. Roesel) [Access via EJ site]
Abstract: We show that migrating extremists can shape political equilibria in the long run. Regions in Austria that witnessed an influx of Nazis fleeing the Soviets after WWII still have significantly higher far-right vote shares today. Institutions and family ties perpetuate persistence. Migrated Nazi elites founded and penetrated local party branches that cultivate and preserve far-right ideologies, even when outside conditions temporarily change. Phonebook entries from 1942 allow tracing current far-right party membership back to past migration. Our results suggest that controlling migrating extremists is crucial to contain the spread of radical movements.
Awards:
Young Economist Award of the Austrian Economic Association
Hans Raupach Best Paper Award of the 8th IOS/APB/EACE Summer Academy
Media Attention:
The Times, Wiener Zeitung, Nederlands Dagblad, Courthouse News Service, ZAP.aeiou, Der Standard, Die Presse, ORF Science, Österreich (oe24), Westdeutsche Zeitung, among others
Working papers:
Hostility, population sorting, and backwardness: Quasi-experimental evidence from the Red Army after WWII [Read]
Revise and Resubmit at the Review of Economics and Statistics
Abstract: How can short episodes of localized hostility shape regional economic trajectories that even amplify over time? I exploit economic differences across the idiosyncratic and short-lived line of contact between the Red Army and the Western Allies in South Austria at the end of WWII. The hostile presence of the Red Army for 74 days shaped the age- and occupation-structure via refugee flows causing amplifying effects over time and backwardness in sector development and tax figures. These findings also point to the isolated role of the Red Army's hostile actions after WWII in understanding the European economic East-West divide.
Selected work in progress:
Dying for mistrust? 1918-flu mortality, vaccination skepticism and vaccination behavior, with Lukas Schmid (University of Lucerne)
Big push and sector development – US induced regional growth and its spillovers in post-WWII Europe, with Riga Qi (PhD Candidate at CERGE-EI)
The evolution of the gender aspiration gap, with Lusine Davtyan-Ivanov (PhD Candidate at CERGE-EI and Gregor Pfeifer (University of Sydney)
Gender after war: Casualties, nation building and extremism after the collapse of Habsburg, with Sinara Gharibyan (PhD Candidate at CERGE-EI) and Monika Koeppl-Turyna (EcoAustria & WU Vienna)
Fast car to boom and bust: Transportation technology and its causal effects on rural economic development, with Flavio Malnati (PhD Candidate at CERGE-EI)
Opposition and gradual acceptance of new technologies: The case of a break-through technology in the early 20th century”,, with Benedikt Marxer (PhD Candidate at the University of Lucerne)