Agricultural Returns to Labor and the Origins of Work Ethics

We examine the historical determinants of differences in preferences for work across societies today. Our hypothesis is that a society’s work ethic depends on the role that labor has played in it historically, as an input in agricultural production: societies that have for centuries depended on the cultivation of crops with high returns to labor effort will work longer hours and develop a preference for working hard. We formalize this prediction in the context of a model of endogenous preference formation, with altruistic parents that can invest in reducing their offsprings’ disutility from work. To empirically found our model, we construct an index of potential agricultural labor intensity, that captures the suitability of a location for the cultivation of crops with high estimated returns to labor in their production. We find that this index positively predicts work hours and attitudes towards work in contemporary European regions. We find support for the hypothesis of cultural transmission, by examining the correlation between potential labor intensity in the parents’ country of origin and hours worked by children of European immigrants in the US

Essays on the economics of culture and identity

This thesis examines how culture | in the sense of identity and preferences | relates to economic decision-making. The rst chapter investigates how a prohibition of their native language in school a ects the assimilation of German immigrants in the US in the early 20th century. I nd that restrictive language policies produce a backlash of ethnic identity, which is particularly pronounced among less assimilated immigrants. In the second chapter I examine the role of history and memory in shaping consumer decisions. I show that the share of German car sales in Greece drops during periods of con ict between the Greek and German governments, and that this drop is larger in areas of the country which su ered from German reprisals during World War II. The third chapter provides a theory on the origin of the preference for work. Combining agroclimatic and attitudinal survey data from Europe, I show that regions in which returns to labor in agriculture have historically been high place more value on work versus leisure today.En esta tesis se analiza el modo en qu e la cultura | en el sentido de identidad y preferencias | est a relacionada con la toma de decisiones econ omicas. El primer cap tulo investiga c omo la prohibici on de su lengua materna en la escuela afecta la asimilaci on de los inmigrantes alemanes en los EE.UU. a principios del siglo XX. Los resultados demuestran que las pol ticas ling u sticas restrictivas producen una reacci on contraria al prop osito de la misma en cuanto a la identidad etnica, que es particularmente pronunciada entre los inmigrantes menos asimilados. En el segundo cap tulo examino como la historia y la memoria hist orica afectan las decisiones de consumo. Muestro que la proporci on de las ventas de autom oviles alemanes en Grecia cae durante los per odos de con icto entre los gobiernos griego y alem an, y que esta ca da es mayor en las zonas del pa s que sufrieron represalias alemanas durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. En el tercer cap tulo desarrollo una teor a sobre el origen de la preferencia sobre el trabajo. Combinando los datos de encuestas agroclim aticas y de actitud de Europa, muestro que las regiones en las que los retornos del trabajo en agricultura han sido altos hist oricamente, hoy en d a ponen m as valor al trabajo con respeto al oci

Replication Data for: How Do Immigrants Respond to Discrimination? The Case of Germans in the US during World War I

Data, code and documentation for replicating figures and tables in the main text and online appendix

Collective remembrance and private choice: German-Greek conflict and behavior in times of crisis

When does collective memory influence behavior? We highlight two conditions under which the memory of past events comes to matter for the present: the associative nature of memory and institutionalized acts of commemoration by the state. During World War II, German troops occupying Greece perpetrated numerous massacres. Memories of those events resurfaced during the 2009 Greek debt crisis, leading to a drop in German car sales in Greece, especially in areas affected by German reprisals. Differential economic performance did not drive this divergence. Multiple pieces of evidence suggest that current events reactivated past memories, creating a backlash against Germany. This backlash also manifested in political behavior, with vote shares of anti-German parties increasing in reprisal areas after the start of the debt crisis. Using quasi-random variation in public recognition of victim status, we show that institutionalized collective memory amplifies the effects of political conflict on economic and political behavior

Recognition of collective victimhood and outgroup prejudice

Published: 20 September 2021Groups that have experienced collective suffering are sometimes more sympathetic toward outgroups, while other times they display higher outgroup prejudice. What can account for these contradictory observations? This study uses a unique historical episode of forced displacement to examine how perceptions of recognition of the ingroup’s victimhood affect views toward outgroups. We collect data on descendants of ethnic Germans ousted from Central and Eastern Europe after the end of World War II, and examine their attitudes toward Syrian refugees today. Both observational data and an experiment are used to test the role of victimhood recognition. When they learn that their suffering is acknowledged by more Germans than they expected, descendants of expellees become more positive toward refugees. Interestingly, this effect is not symmetric. When recognition of suffering is revealed to be lower than respondents’ expectations, their sympathy toward refugees does not decrease. This effect is not present among respondents without a family background of forced expulsion. Additional evidence documents the underlying mechanism at work

Family history and attitudes toward out-groups : evidence from the European refugee crisis

First published online: 08 April 2021Can leveraging family history reduce xenophobia? Building on theories of group identity, we show that a family history of forced relocation leaves an imprint on future generations and can be activated to increase sympathy toward refugees. We provide evidence from Greece and Germany, two countries that vividly felt the European refugee crisis, and that witnessed large-scale forced displacement of their own populations during the twentieth century. Combining historical and survey data with an experimental manipulation, we show that mentioning the parallels between past and present differentially increases pledged monetary donations and attitudinal measures of sympathy for refugees among respondents with forcibly displaced ancestors. This differential effect is also present among respondents without a family history of forced migration who live in places with high historical concentration of refugees. Our findings highlight the role of identity and shared experience for reducing out-group discrimination.Financial support for this research was provided by the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Stanford University and by the Hellman Fellows Fund

Hate crime towards minoritized groups increases as they increase in sized-based rank

People are on the move in unprecedented numbers within and between countries. How does demographic change affect local intergroup dynamics? In complement to accounts that emphasize stereotypical features of groups as determinants of their treatment, we propose the group reference dependence hypothesis: violence and negative attitudes toward each minoritized group will depend on the number and size of other minoritized groups in a community. Specifically, as groups increase or decrease in rank in terms of their size (e.g., to largest minority within a community), discriminatory behavior and attitudes toward them should change accordingly. We test this hypothesis for hate crimes in U.S. counties between 1990 and 2010 and attitudes in the U.S. and U.K. over the last two decades. Consistent with this prediction, we find that, as Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Asian, and Arab populations increase in rank relative to one another, they become more likely to be targeted with hate crimes and more negative attitudes. The rank effect holds above and beyond group size/proportion, growth rate, and many other alternative explanations. This framework makes predictions about how demographic shifts may affect coalitional structures in the coming years and helps explain previous findings in the literature. Our results also indicate that attitudes and behaviors toward social categories are not intransigent or driven only by features associated with those groups, such as stereotypes