The empire is dead, long live the empire! Long‐run persistence of trust and corruption in the bureaucracy

  • We hypothesise that the Habsburg Empire with its well‐respected administration increased citizens’ trust in local public services. In several Eastern European countries, communities on both sides of the long‐gone Habsburg border have shared common formal institutions for a century now. We use a border specification and a two‐dimensional geographic regression discontinuity design to identify from individuals living within a restricted band around the former border. We find that historical Habsburg affiliation increases current trust and reduces corruption in courts and police. Falsification tests of spuriously moved borders, geographic and pre‐existing differences and interpersonal trust corroborate a genuine Habsburg effect.

Export metadata

Statistics

Number of document requests

Additional Services

Share in Twitter Search Google Scholar
Metadaten
Author:Sascha O. Becker, Katrin Boeckh, Christa Hainz, Ludger Woessmann
Frontdoor URLhttps://opus.bibliothek.uni-augsburg.de/opus4/117446
ISSN:0013-0133OPAC
ISSN:1468-0297OPAC
Parent Title (English):The Economic Journal
Publisher:Oxford University Press (OUP)
Place of publication:Oxford
Type:Article
Language:English
Year of first Publication:2016
Publishing Institution:Universität Augsburg
Release Date:2024/12/10
Volume:126
Issue:590
First Page:40
Last Page:74
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12220
Institutes:Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät
Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät / Institut für Betriebswirtschaftslehre
Nachhaltigkeitsziele
Nachhaltigkeitsziele / Ziel 16 - Frieden, Gerechtigkeit und starke Institutionen
Dewey Decimal Classification:3 Sozialwissenschaften / 33 Wirtschaft / 330 Wirtschaft