Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/232872 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 14120
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We study the role of professional networks in facilitating the escape of persecuted academics from Nazi Germany. From 1933, the Nazi regime started to dismiss academics of Jewish origin from their positions. The timing of dismissals created individual-level exogenous variation in the timing of emigration from Nazi Germany, allowing us to estimate the causal effect of networks for emigration decisions. Academics with ties to more colleagues who had emigrated in 1933 or 1934 (early émigrés) were more likely to emigrate. The early émigrés functioned as "bridging nodes" that helped other academics cross over to their destination. Furthermore, we provide some of the first empirical evidence of decay in social ties over time. The strength of ties also decays across space, even within cities. Finally, for high-skilled migrants, professional networks are more important than community networks.
Subjects: 
Nazi Germany
professional networks
Antisemitism
JEL: 
I20
I23
I28
J15
J24
N34
N447
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
4.86 MB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.