Still different after all these years: Solidarity behavior in East and West Germany

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Brosig-Koch, Jeannette; Helbach, Christoph; Ockenfels, Axel; Weimann, Joachim
• 署名单位: Otto von Guericke University; University of Duisburg Essen; University of Cologne
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2011.06.002
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 1373-1376
• 关键词: Experimental economics; Solidarity; NORMS; Cross-culture study

摘要

Using data from laboratory experiments, we find that East Germans show consistently less solidarity than West Germans; there has been no convergence in the 20 years after the reunification. While it has recently been estimated that political values converge 20 to 40 years after the reunification (Alesina and Fuchs-Schundeln, 2007), we conclude from our findings that social behavior changes more slowly than political values. We hypothesize that this is due to complementarities involved in individual social behavior and the necessity to coordinate on social norms on the society level. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.