Arbeitspapier
The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany
Despite the prevalence of government surveillance systems around the world, causal evidence on their social and economic consequences is lacking. Using county-level variation in the number of Stasi informers within Socialist East Germany during the 1980s and accounting for potential endogeneity, we show that more intense regional surveillance led to lower levels of trust and reduced social activity in post-reunification Germany. We also find substantial and long-lasting economic effects of Stasi spying, resulting in lower self-employment, higher unemployment and larger out-migration throughout the 1990s and 2000s. We further show that these effects are due to surveillance and not alternative mechanisms. We argue that our findings have important implications for contemporary surveillance systems.
- Sprache
-
Englisch
- Erschienen in
-
Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 6042
- Klassifikation
-
Wirtschaft
Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government
Economic History: Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy: Europe: 1913-
Economic History: Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation: Europe: 1913-
Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: General
- Thema
-
government surveillance
trust
social ties
East Germany
- Ereignis
-
Geistige Schöpfung
- (wer)
-
Lichter, Andreas
Löffler, Max
Siegloch, Sebastian
- Ereignis
-
Veröffentlichung
- (wer)
-
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
- (wo)
-
Munich
- (wann)
-
2016
- Handle
- Letzte Aktualisierung
-
10.03.2025, 11:41 MEZ
Datenpartner
Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.
Objekttyp
- Arbeitspapier
Beteiligte
- Lichter, Andreas
- Löffler, Max
- Siegloch, Sebastian
- Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
Entstanden
- 2016
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