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Andreas Lichter (IZA) – “The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany”, joint with Max Löffler (IZA) and Sebastian Siegloch (U. Mannheim)

February 20, 2018 @ 12:15 pm - 1:15 pm
The Microeconometrics Seminar: Every Tuesday at 12:15 pm.
Time: 12:15 pm – 1:15 pm
Date: 20th of February 2018
Place: Room 3001.
Andreas Lichter (IZA) – “The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany”​, joint with Max Löffler (IZA) and Sebastian Siegloch (U. Mannheim)

Abstract: We investigate the long-run effects of government surveillance on trust and economic performance. We study the case of the Stasi in socialist East Germany, which implemented one of the largest state surveillance systems of all time. Exploiting regional variation in the number of spies and the specific administrative structure of the system, we combine a border discontinuity design with an instrumental variables approach to estimate the long-term causal effect of government surveillance after the Fall of the Iron Curtain. We find that a larger informer density in the population led to persistently lower levels of interpersonal and institutional trust in post-reunification Germany. We also find evidence of substantial and long-lasting economic effects of Stasi spying, resulting in lower income and higher exposure to unemployment.

Organizers:
Laurent Davezies (CREST – ENSAE),  Arne Uhlendorff (CREST – ENSAE) & Yannick Guyonvarch (CREST – ENSAE)
Sponsors:
CREST
Lunch registration:
food provided, no registration