Cold war

Demography

World War II

German

Statistics

Interpretation (philosophy)

Archaeology

Economics

Computer science

Communist state

Development economics

Communism

Economic history

Natural experiment

Mathematics

Politics

Geography

German population

Political science

German reunification

Natural (archaeology)

Population

Political economy

Sociology

West germany

Programming language

The Journal of Economic Perspectives

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.

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