What's in a Name in a War

CERGE-EI Working Paper Series No. 573

49 Pages Posted: 3 Nov 2016

See all articles by Stepan Jurajda

Stepan Jurajda

CERGE-EI; IZA Institute of Labor Economics; Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic

Dejan Kovač

Princeton University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: October 2016

Abstract

We propose a novel empirical strategy for identifying and studying nationalism using name choices. We first show that having been given a first name that is synonymous with the leader(s) of the fascist Croatian state during World War II predicts volunteering for army service in the 1991-1995 Croatian war of independence and dying during the conflict. Next, we use the universe of Croatian birth certificates and the information about nationalism conveyed by first names to contrast the evolution of nationalism and its intergenerational transmission across locations affected by extreme war-related experiences. Our evidence suggests that in ex-Yugoslav Croatia, nationalism was on a continuous rise starting in the 1970s, that its rise was curbed in areas where concentration camps were located during WWII, and that nationalist fathers consider the nationalism-transmission trade-off between within-family and society-wide transmission channels suggested by Bisin and Verdier (2001).

Keywords: Ustaše, Nationalism, Names, Intergenerational Transmission

JEL Classification: D64, D74, Z1

Suggested Citation

Jurajda, Stepan and Kovač, Dejan, What's in a Name in a War (October 2016). CERGE-EI Working Paper Series No. 573, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2863337 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2863337

Stepan Jurajda (Contact Author)

CERGE-EI ( email )

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Dejan Kovač

Princeton University ( email )

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