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...

Comparing aggregate statistics and surveying selected empirical studies, this paper shows that the characteristics and results of labour markets in eastern and western Germany have become quite similar in some respects but still differ markedly in others even 25 years after unification. Whereas...

The authors update previous findings on the total East-West gap in overall life satisfaction and its trend by using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) for the years 1992 to 2013. Additionally, the East-West gap and its trend are separately analyzed for men and women as well as for...

Political regimes influence contents of education and criteria used to select and evaluate students. We study the impact of a socialist education on the likelihood of obtaining a college degree and on several labor market outcomes by exploiting the reorganization of the school system in East...

This paper argues that the socialist episode in East Germany, which constituted a radical experiment in gender equality in the labor market and other instances, has left persistent tracks on gender norms. We focus on one of the most resilient and pervasive gender gaps in modern societies:...

After the German Reunification in 1990, East Germany transitioned from a centrally planned economic system to a market economy. At the time, upskilling through adult education was deemed essential for the successful integration of the workforce into the labor market. Besides substantial...

Using data for 22 economies in Eastern and Western Europe, we find evidence that having studied under communism is relatively penalized in the economies of the late 2000s. This evidence, however, is limited to males and to primary and secondary education, and holds for eight CEE economies but...

From a theoretical perspective the link between the speed and scope of rapid labor reallocation and productivity growth or income inequality is ambiguous. Do reallocations with more flows tend to produce higher productivity growth? Does such a link appear at the expense of higher income...