Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/113773 
Year of Publication: 
2015
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 5440
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
This paper investigates the influence of political regimes on personality, using the separation of Germany into the socialist GDR and the democratic FRG and its reunification in 1990 as a natural experiment. We show that there are significant differences between former GDR and FRG residents regarding important attributes of personality (particularly the locus of control, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and openness). To understand the inuence of the GDR’s socialist regime on personality, we test an important channel by exploiting regional variation in the number of unofficial state-security collaborators across East German counties. Our results indicate that local surveillance intensity is indeed an important determinant of the personality of former GDR citizens. The differences in personality imply that former citizens of the GDR have economic prospects rather different from former FRG citizens and help to understand behavioral differences established in the prior literature.
Subjects: 
personality
political regime
East Germany
socialism
Big Five
locus of control
SOEP
JEL: 
D03
D12
D63
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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