IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_7949.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Origins of Common Identity: Evidence from Alsace-Lorraine

Author

Listed:
  • Sirus Dehdari
  • Kai Gehring

Abstract

The quasi-exogenous division of the French regions Alsace and Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War allows us to provide evidence about group identity formation within historically homogeneous regions. We use several measures of stated and revealed preferences at the municipal-level in a geographical regression discontinuity design. More nation-state repression is associated with a strengthening of regional identity in the short, medium, and long run. We explain this in a model and document that the establishment of regionalist organizations is a key mechanism to strengthen identity. A relatively stronger regional compared to national identity is associated with preferences for more regional decision-making.

Suggested Citation

  • Sirus Dehdari & Kai Gehring, 2019. "The Origins of Common Identity: Evidence from Alsace-Lorraine," CESifo Working Paper Series 7949, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7949
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp7949_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephanos Vlachos, 2019. "On war and political radicalization," Vienna Economics Papers 1904, University of Vienna, Department of Economics.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Enrico Spolaore, 1997. "On the Number and Size of Nations," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1027-1056.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cáceres-Delpiano, Julio & De Moragas, Antoni-Italo & Facchini, Gabriel & González, Ignacio, 2021. "Intergroup contact and nation building: Evidence from military service in Spain," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    2. Nicolas Berman & Mathieu Couttenier & Victoire Girard, 2023. "Mineral Resources and the Salience of Ethnic Identities," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(653), pages 1705-1737.
    3. Fontana, Nicola & Nannicini, Tommaso & Tabellini, Guido, 2023. "Historical roots of political extremism: The effects of Nazi occupation of Italy," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 723-743.
    4. Kersting, Felix & Wolf, Nikolaus, 2024. "On the origins of national identity. German nation-building after Napoleon," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 463-477.
    5. Klein, Miriam & Wiens, Marcus & Schultmann, Frank, 2022. "Borderland resilience, willingness to help and trust–An empirical study of the French-German border area," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    6. Kukic, Leonard & Arslantas, Yasin, 2022. "Religious change and persistence in Bosnia: Poverty, conversions, and nationalism, 1468-2013," IFCS - Working Papers in Economic History.WH 35286, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Instituto Figuerola.
    7. Felipe Carozzi & Edward Pinchbeck & Luca Repetto, 2023. "Scars of War: The Legacy of WW1 Deaths on Civic Capital and Combat Motivation," CESifo Working Paper Series 10298, CESifo.
    8. Tao, Yunqing & Wang, Dianjie & Ye, Yongwei & Wu, Haitao & Zhang, Yao, 2023. "The role of public environmental concern on corporate social responsibility: Evidence from search index of web users," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    9. Kukić, Leonard, 2023. "The last Yugoslavs: Ethnic diversity and national identity," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    10. Kai Gehring, 2019. "Overcoming History through International Organizations - Historical Roots of EU Support and Euroscepticism," CESifo Working Paper Series 7831, CESifo.
    11. Andrea Bonoldi & Chiara Dalle Nogare & Martin Mosler & Niklas Potrafke, 2020. "Do inheritance rules affect voter turnout? Evidence from an Alpine region," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 395-445, December.
    12. Vlachos, Stephanos, 2022. "On war and political radicalization: Evidence from forced conscription into the Wehrmacht," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    13. Gehring, Kai & Kaplan, Lennart C. & Wong, Melvin H.L., 2022. "China and the World Bank—How contrasting development approaches affect the stability of African states," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    14. Kai Gehring & Joop Adema & Panu Poutvaara & Joop Age Harm Adema, 2022. "Immigrant Narratives," CESifo Working Paper Series 10026, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sirus Dehdari & Kai Gehring, 2017. "The Origins of Common Identity: Division, Homogenization Policies and Identity Formation in Alsace-Lorraine," CESifo Working Paper Series 6556, CESifo.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    3. Sidney Turner & Richard Turner, 2011. "Capital cities: a special case in urban development," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 46(1), pages 19-35, February.
    4. Clément Carbonnier, 2008. "Fiscal competition between decentralized jurisdictions, theoretical and empirical evidence," THEMA Working Papers 2008-17, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    5. Pauline Grosjean & Claudia Senik, 2011. "Democracy, Market Liberalization, and Political Preferences," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(1), pages 365-381, February.
    6. Ben Lockwood, 2008. "Voting, Lobbying, And The Decentralization Theorem," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 416-431, November.
    7. Blesse, Sebastian & Diegmann, André, 2022. "The place-based effects of police stations on crime: Evidence from station closures," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    8. Federico Boffa & Amedeo Piolatto & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2016. "Political Centralization and Government Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(1), pages 381-422.
    9. Aristovnik, Aleksander, 2012. "Fiscal decentralization in Eastern Europe: a twenty-year perspective," MPRA Paper 39316, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Blesse, Sebastian & Baskaran, Thushyanthan, 2016. "Do municipal mergers reduce costs? Evidence from a German federal state," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 54-74.
    11. Fidrmuc, Jan, 2015. "Political economy of fiscal unions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PA), pages 147-157.
    12. Herzog, Bodo, 2006. "Coordination of fiscal and monetary policy in CIS-countries: A theory of optimum fiscal area?," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 256-274, June.
    13. Thierry Madiès & Emmanuelle Taugourdeau, 2020. "Vertical transfers and tax competition: does trade integration matter?," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 55(3), pages 453-475, October.
    14. Alberto Alesina & Edward Glaeser & Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Why Doesn't The US Have a European-Style Welfare State?," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1933, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    15. Anesi, Vincent, 2012. "Secessionism and minority protection in an uncertain world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 53-61.
    16. Saarimaa, Tuukka & Tukiainen, Janne, 2016. "Local representation and strategic voting: Evidence from electoral boundary reforms," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 31-45.
    17. Dokow, Elad & Luque, Jaime, 2019. "Provision of local public goods in mixed income communities," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 1-1.
    18. Anesi, Vincent, 2012. "Secessionism and minority protection in an uncertain world," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 53-61.
    19. Gaigné, Carl & Riou, Stéphane & Thisse, Jacques-François, 2016. "How to make the metropolitan area work? Neither big government, nor laissez-faire," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 100-113.
    20. Klaus Desmet & Ignacio Ortuño-Ortín & Ömer Özak, 2022. "Is Secessionism Mostly About Income or Identity? A Global Analysis of 3,003 Subnational Regions," NBER Working Papers 30428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    group identity; nation-building; repression; assimilation; regional identity; border regions; Alsace-Lorraine;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making
    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General
    • N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • Z19 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Other

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_7949. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.