Math, girls and socialism

Lippmann, Quentin; Senik, Claudia

doi:10.1016/j.jce.2018.07.013

Cited by 53 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 50 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Second, and more broadly, we add to the growing literature on the medium-and long-term consequences of socialism and the former Communist party on socioeconomic outcomes, such as education, corruption, and trust (Alesina and Fuchs-Schündeln 2007;Ivlevs and Hinks 2018;Lippmann and Senik 2018;Nikolova et al 2019;Rainer and Siedler 2009). Specifically, we show that 25 years after the fall of socialist regimes, personal and family links to the former Communist party still matter to entrepreneurship.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Former Communist party membership and present-day entrepreneurship

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

After the collapse of communism in Central and Eastern Europe, former party members were particularly likely to start businesses and become entrepreneurs. What remains unclear, however, is whether this entrepreneurial activity was driven by the resources, information, and opportunities provided by former party membership or because individuals with specific individual attributes were more likely to become Communist cadres (self-selection). This study is the first to separate the causal effect of former Communist party membership from self-selection. Using individual-level Life in Transition-III survey data and a control function approach, we find that former Communist party membership has facilitated business setup but not business longevity in Central and Eastern European countries. We also show that people who joined the former ruling party had fewer of the traits associated with entrepreneurship such as unobservable personality traits, ability, motivation, and entrepreneurial aptitude, and as such were negatively self-selected. We show that former Communist party membership still matters for Small Bus Econ

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Former Communist party membership and present-day entrepreneurship

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Going beyond the labor market, Lippmann and Senik (2018) show that the stereotypical underperformance of girls in math is sharply lower in the regions of the former East Germany, in contrast with those of the former West Germany. The difference is not explained by differences in economic conditions or teaching styles across the former political border.…”

Section: Gender Rolesmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Separation and Reunification of Germany: Rethinking a Natural Experiment Interpretation of the Enduring Effects of Communism

Becker

Mergele

Woessmann³

2020

Journal of Economic Perspectives

105

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

German separation in 1949 into a communist East and a capitalist West and their reunification in 1990 are commonly described as a natural experiment to study the enduring effects of communism. We show in three steps that the populations in East and West Germany were far from being randomly selected treatment and control groups. First, the later border is already visible in many socio-economic characteristics in pre-World War II data. Second, World War II and the subsequent occupying forces affected East and West differently. Third, a selective fifth of the population fled from East to West Germany before the building of the Wall in 1961. In light of our findings, we propose a more cautious interpretation of the extensive literature on the enduring effects of communist systems on economic outcomes, political preferences, cultural traits, and gender roles.

show abstract

“…Campa and Serafinelli (2016) show that this appears to be a hallmark of socialist states. Besides work attitudes, Lippmann and Senik (2018) have also shown that the gender gap in mathematics is smaller in East Germany and in former socialist countries.. The rest of this work is organized as follows.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Undoing Gender with Institutions: Lessons from the German Division and Reunification

Lippmann

Georgieff

Senik

2020

The Economic Journal

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract Using the 41-year division of Germany as a natural experiment, we show that the German Democratic Republic’s gender-equal institutions created a culture that has undone the male breadwinner norm and its consequences. Since reunification, East Germany still differs from West Germany not only because of its higher female contribution to household income, but also because East German women can earn more than their husbands without having to increase their number of housework hours, put their marriage at risk or withdraw from the labour market. By contrast, the norm of higher male income, and its consequences, are still prevalent in West Germany.

show abstract

Math, girls and socialism

Cited by 53 publications

References 50 publications

Former Communist party membership and present-day entrepreneurship

Former Communist party membership and present-day entrepreneurship

The Separation and Reunification of Germany: Rethinking a Natural Experiment Interpretation of the Enduring Effects of Communism

Undoing Gender with Institutions: Lessons from the German Division and Reunification

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About