Research

Using the Synthetic Control Method and regional-level data (NUTS-2) from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), this paper shows that the collapse of the Berlin Wall led to a sudden stagnation in salaries for West Berliners, compared to a counterfactual scenario where the Wall had remained intact.

We present a theoretical framework that explains how European citizens form their preferences on EU integration. Building on theories of nation formation, we consider three ideological cost functions measuring the impact of EU legislation on national politics. Individual-level survey data from EU member states show that European citizens tend to be highly sophisticated: support for integration is driven by citizens who believe EU legislation amends their national policy, while Euroscepticism emerges among those who see it as interference.

Using the US “Liberation Day” tariffs of 2 April 2025 as an unexpected event during Eurobarometer 103.3 fieldwork, this paper asks whether economic coercion by a long-standing partner rallies citizens around the EU. The shock did not detectably raise trust in the EU or national institutions, attachment to the EU, or demand for common action; the before-and-after comparison rules out a rise in EU trust above 3.8 percentage points. Only the view that the country faces the future better inside the EU rose, narrowly. Within three weeks, attention to the economy rose; trust in the EU did not.

This paper examines whether EU cohesion transfers shape citizens' European identity and their preferences for further integration, and through which channel they do so. Combining regional exposure to structural and cohesion funds with individual-level survey data, it separates objective exposure from citizens' awareness of that funding. The results indicate that it is perception, rather than exposure alone, that moves European identity and support for integration, reconciling utilitarian and identity-based accounts of public opinion on the EU.

This paper provides a theoretical and empirical analysis of the relationship between politicians' salaries and voters' trust in institutions. Investigating the 2009 pay harmonisation of MEP salaries, we find a significant decrease in institutional trust following the reform, consistent with a model in which politicians have incentives to approve salary increases that erode public trust.

More than three decades after reunification, childcare enrollment rates among children under three remain markedly higher in East Berlin than in West Berlin. This paper decomposes this persistent gap into cultural and institutional channels, exploiting individual-level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) over 2003–2021. The results are consistent with an institutional account: the gap is driven by place of residence and correlated with differences in childcare supply, rather than by the cultural legacy of East German origin.