We decompose the persistent satisfaction gap between East and West Germany into effects of objective circumstances and subjective mentality, the latter presumed to be a legacy of communist socialization. Using the methodology proposed by Senik (2014) in a cross-national context, we capture...

We combine particular features of the German civil service with the unique event of German reunification to test the theory of precautionary savings and to quantify the importance of self-selection into occupations due to differences in risk aversion. In the presence of self-selection, failing...

Since the beginning of detente in the sixties the United States' economic policy toward the Soviet Union has steered a zig-zag course. The latest spectacular step was President Reagan's lift - apparently without an adequate quid pro quo - of the embargo on grain and phosphates imposed by his...