Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/316877 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 11763
Publisher: 
CESifo GmbH, Munich
Abstract: 
Past trauma resulting from personal life shocks, especially during periods of particular volatility such as regime transition (or regime change), can give rise to significant long-lasting effects on people's health and well-being. We study this question by drawing on longitudinal and retrospective data to examine the effect of past exposure to major individual-level shocks (specifically hunger, persecution, dispossession, and exceptional stress) on current measures of an individual's health and mental well-being. We study the effect of the timing of the personal shocks, alongside the additional effect of 'institutional uncertainty' of regime change in post-communist European countries. Our findings are as follows: First, we document evidence of the detrimental effects of shocks on a series of relevant health and well-being outcomes. Second, we show evidence of more pronounced detrimental consequences of such personal shocks experienced by individuals living in formerly communist countries (which accrue to about 8% and 10% in the case of hunger and persecution, respectively) than in non-communist countries. The effects are robust and take place in addition to the direct effects of regime change and shocks.
Subjects: 
transition shocks
Soviet communism
later life health
health care system.
JEL: 
I18
H75
H79
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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