Publications (incl. accepted)

Hostility, population sorting, and backwardness: Quasi-experimental evidence from the Red Army after WWII

The Review of Economics and Statistics (accepted, pending replication package) 

(single-authored)

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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.

Activated history: The Case of the Turkish Sieges of Vienna

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Vol. 16(3), July 2024, pp. 76-112 (with Felix Roesel)

[Access via AEA site]  [Access pre-print]  [Replication files]

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.