After the fall of the Berlin wall, the total fertility rate in East Germany tumbled from 1.7 (1989) to a stunning 0.7 children per woman (1994). While this fact is well-documented, little is still known about the crisis underlying causes. We propose a new explanation: permanent shifts in the...

Governments are often willing to subsidize firms on the verge of bankruptcy. The main economic rationale behind these interventions is that a plant closure would not only harm the workers employed in that plant, but create a domino effect on the regional economy as a whole. Yet, little is still...