Long-Lasting Effects of Socialist Education

Abstract

Political regimes influence contents of education and criteria used to select and evaluate students. We study the impact of a socialist education on the likelihood of obtaining a college degree and on several labor market outcomes by exploiting the reorganization of the school system in East Germany after reunification. Our identification strategy utilizes cutoff birth dates for school enrollment that lead to variation in the length of exposure to the socialist education system within the same birth cohort. An additional year of socialist education decreases the probability of obtaining a college degree and affects longer-term male labor market outcomes.