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Sascha Becker


Contact details

Email: S dot O dot Becker at warwick dot ac dot uk

Room: TBC

Advice and feedback hours drop me an email

Personal website


Related links

Departmental Responsibilities

Monash-Warwick Alliance, e.g. Monash-Warwick-Zurich "Text as Data" Workshops, Monash-Warwick Applied Young Economist Webinar (AYEW), and Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers (WM-ESP), joint degree programs.


Research Interests

  • Economic History
  • Political Economy
  • Labour Economics

Recent Publications

Open access: Persecution, Pogroms and Genocide: A Conceptual Framework and New Evidence 2022,
(with Sharun Mukand and Ivan Yotzov), Explorations in Economic History forthcoming.

Open access: Entrepreneur Death and Startup Performance 2022,
(with Hans K. Hvide), Review of Finance 26(1): 163-185.

Open access: Forced displacement in history: Some recent research, 2022,
Australian Economic History Review 62(1): 2-25. Lead article.

Open access: More choice for men? Marriage patterns after World War II in Italy
(with Erich Battistin and Luca Nunziata), 2022, Journal of Demographic Economics 88(3): 447-472.

Open access: The Impact of Public Employment: Evidence from Bonn
(with Stephan Heblich and Daniel Sturm), 2021, Journal of Urban Economics 122, article 103291.

Jesus speaks Korean: Christianity and Literacy in Colonial Korea
(with Cheongyeon Won), Rivista di Storia Economica, 37(1), 7-32, special issue in memory of Carlo Cipolla's (1969) "Literacy and Development"

Open access: The Political Economy of the Prussian Three-class Franchise
(with Erik Hornung), Journal of Economic History, 80(4): 1143-1188.

Open access: Multiplex Network Ties and the Spatial Diffusion of Radical Innovations: Martin Luther's Leadership in the Early Reformation
(with Yuan Hsiao, Steven Pfaff, and Jared Rubin), American Sociological Review, 85(5): 857-894.

Open access: Prussia Disaggregated: The Demography of its Universe of Localities in 1871
(with Francesco Cinnirella) Journal of Demographic Economics, 86(3): 259-290.

Forced Migration and Human Capital: Evidence from Post-WWII Population Transfers
(with Irena Grosfeld, Pauline Grosjean, Nico Voigtlaender, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya), American Economic Review, 110(5): 1430-1463.

Open access: The Separation and Reunification of Germany: Rethinking a Natural Experiment Interpretation of the Enduring Effects of Communism
(with Lukas Mergele and Ludger Woessmann), Journal of Economic Perspectives, 34(2): 143-171.

Open access: Consequences of forced migration: A survey of recent findings
(with Andreas Ferrara), Labour Economics, 59, 1-16.

Open access: Discrimination in Hiring Based on Potential and Realized Fertility: Evidence from a Large-Scale Field Experiment
(with Ana Fernandes and Doris Weichselbaumer), Labour Economics, 59, 139-152.

Religion, Division of Labor and Conflict: Anti-Semitism in Germany over 600 Years
(with Luigi Pascali), American Economic Review, 109(5): 1764-1804.

Open access: Who Voted for Brexit? Individual and Regional Data Combined
(with Eleonora Alabrese, Thiemo Fetzer and Dennis Novy), 2019, European Journal of Political Economy, 56: 132-150.

Open access: Social Cohesion, Religious Beliefs, and the Effect of Protestantism on Suicide
(with Ludger Woessmann), 2018, Review of Economics and Statistics 100(3): 377-391. Lead article.

Open access: Effects of EU Regional Policy: 1989-2013
(with Peter H. Egger and Maximilian von Ehrlich), 2018 Regional Science and Urban Economics, 69: 143-152.

Open access: Who Voted for Brexit? A Comprehensive District-Level Analysis
(with Thiemo Fetzer and Dennis Novy), 2017, Economic Policy 32(92): 601-650. Editor's Choice.

Open access: Education and Religious Participation: City-Level Evidence from Germany's Secularization Period 1890-1930
(with Markus Nagler and Ludger Woessmann), 2017, Journal of Economic Growth 22(3): 273-311.

Causes and Consequences of the Protestant Reformation
(with Jared C. Rubin and Steve Pfaff), 2016, Explorations in Economic History 62: 1-25.
Lead article

The Empire Is Dead, Long Live the Empire! Long-Run Persistence of Trust and Corruption in the Bureaucracy (with Katrin Boeckh, Christa Hainz and Ludger Woessmann), 2016, Economic Journal 126(590): 40-74. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12220

Trade and Tasks: An Exploration over Three Decades in Germany (with Marc-Andreas Muendler), 2015, Economic Policy 30(84): 589-641. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/epolic/eiv014

Absorptive Capacity and the Growth Effects of Regional Transfers: A Regression Discontinuity Design with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects (with Peter H. Egger and Maximilian von Ehrlich), 2013, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 5(4): 29-77. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/pol.5.4.29

Not the Opium of the People -- Income and Secularization in a Panel of Prussian Counties (with Ludger Woessmann), 2013, American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 103(3), 539-544. http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/aer.103.3.539

Offshoring and the Onshore Composition of Tasks and Skills (with Karolina Ekholm and Marc-Andreas Muendler), 2013, Journal of International Economics 90(1), 91-106. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2012.10.005

A Gift is not Always a Gift: Gift Exchange in a Voucher Experiment (with Dolores Messer and Stefan C. Wolter), 2013, Economica 80(318), 345-371. dx.doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12004

Does Women's Education Affect Fertility? Evidence from Pre-Demographic Transition Prussia (with Francesco Cinnirella and Ludger Woessmann), 2013, European Review of Economic History 17(1), 24-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ereh/hes017

Endogenous Product versus Process Innovation and a Firm's Propensity to Export (with Peter H. Egger), 2013, Empirical Economics 44(1), 329-354. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00181-009-0322-6

How low business tax rates attract MNE activity: Municipality-level evidence from Germany (with Peter H. Egger, and Valeria Merlo), 2012, Journal of Public Economics 96(9-10), 698-711. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2012.05.006

Too much of a good thing? On the growth effects of the EU's regional policy (with Peter H. Egger and Maximilian von Ehrlich), 2012, European Economic Review 56(4), 648-668. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2012.03.001

The Effect of Investment in Children's Education on Fertility in 1816 Prussia (with Francesco Cinnirella and Ludger Woessmann), 2012, Cliometrica 6(1), 29-44.

Education and Catch-up in the Industrial Revolution (with Erik Hornung and Ludger Woessmann), 2011, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 3(3), 92-126.

Margins of Multinational Labor Substitution (with Marc-Andreas Muendler), 2010, American Economic Review 100(5), 1999-2030.

Going NUTS: The Effect of EU Structural Funds on Regional Performance (with Peter H. Egger, Max von Ehrlich), 2010, Journal of Public Economics 94(9-10), 578-590.

Education versus Fertility: Evidence from before the Demographic Transition (with Francesco Cinnirella and Ludger Woessmann), 2010, Journal of Economic Growth 15(3), 177-204. Lead article

Equity Fund Ownership and the Cross-Regional Diversification of Household Risk (with Mathias Hoffmann), 2010, Journal of Banking and Finance 34(1), 90-102.

The Effect of Protestantism on Education before the Industrialization: Evidence from 1816 Prussia (with Ludger Woessmann), 2010, Economics Letters 107(2), 224-228.

Youth Emancipation and Perceived Job Insecurity of Parents and Children (with Samuel Bentolila, Ana Fernandes and Andrea Ichino), 2010, Journal of Population Economics 23(3), 1047-1071 (corrected page number).

Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History (with Ludger Woessmann), 2009, The Quarterly Journal of Economics 124(2), 531-596. Awarded the year 2010 'Prize for Academic Research' by the Friends of the Ifo Institute

Common political culture: Evidence on regional corruption contagion (with Peter H. Egger and Tobias Seidel), 2009, European Journal of Political Economy 24(3), 300-310.

Luther and the Girls: Religious Denomination and the Female Education Gap in 19th Century Prussia (with Ludger Woessmann), 2008, Scandinavian Journal of Economics 110(4), 777-805.

The Effect of FDI on Job Separation (with Marc-Andreas Muendler), 2008, The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy 8(1) (Advances), Article 8.

Income Insecurity and Youth Emancipation: A Theoretical Approach (with Samuel Bentolila, Ana Fernandes and Andrea Ichino), 2008, The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy 8(1) (Contributions), Article 19.

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