A war is forever: The long-run effects of early exposure to World War II on trust

Abstract

This paper sheds lights on the historical roots of trust across European regions. We embrace a life-course perspective and estimate the effect of early exposure to World War II on present levels of trust among Europeans aged above 50. Our identification strategy combines the variation in place and time of conflict episodes with the variation in the respondents’ month-year of birth and region of residence during the war. We focus on the pre-school period, which is a crucial stage of life for the formation of persistent trust attitudes. Our evidence provides support to this hypothesis. Individuals exposed to war episodes in the first six years of life display lower levels of trust in the adulthood. The gap persists when controlling for region and date-of-birth fixed effects, current and past socio-economic status, parental investment in human capital and other socio-demographic and economic controls, including current mental and physical health. Placebo results corroborate the validity of our findings.