Hanno Hilbig
Biographic Data
| ID | 1248622 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hanno Hilbig |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hanno |
| FAMILY NAME | Hilbig |
| SIGNATURE | HILBIG H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Davis |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5849-9172 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 102 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Does Rent Control Turn Tenants Into Nimbys
The Green Transition and Political Polarization Along Occupational Lines
Green transition policies set long-term targets to reduce carbon emissions and other pollutants, posing a threat to workers in polluting occupations and communities reliant on them. Can far-right parties attract voters who anticipate losing from the green transition? We explore this in Germany, which has ambitious green policies and a large workforce in polluting occupations. The far-right AfD started campaigning as the only party opposing green …
Do Autocrats Respond to Citizen Demands? Petitions and Housing Construction in the GDR
Citizens in authoritarian regimes frequently communicate grievances to the government. While there is some evidence that governments respond to such petitions, little is known about the nature of this responsiveness: can petitions influence resource allocation and yield tangible improvements to citizens’ livelihoods? To answer this question, we assemble a novel panel of housing-related petitions to the government of the German Democratic Republic…
The Gendered Persistence of Authoritarian Indoctrination
A large literature has studied the effects of socialization under authoritarianism on political attitudes. In this research note, we extend this literature by demonstrating striking gender disparities in the post-transition persistence of these effects. We study the case of authoritarian indoctrination in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) using a regression kink design for causal identification. First, we draw on a unique survey fielded right …
Government Spending and Voting Behavior
Does government spending on public goods affect the vote choice of citizens? On one hand, prior research has characterized voters as fiscal conservatives who may turn toward conservative parties when government spending goes up. On the other hand, increased spending may signal that the economy is doing well, which makes progressive parties a more viable option. To adjudicate between both hypotheses, this article draws on a natural experiment, whi…
Refugee Labor Market Access Increases Support for Immigration
Does the economic integration of refugees affect public attitudes toward migration? We assess this pertinent question by examining a policy change in Germany, where the government significantly eased labor market access for refugees in the majority of the country. Using administrative employment data, we show that the policy led to a substantial increase in refugee employment, while natives’ wages and employment rates remained unaffected. The pol…
How budget trade‐offs undermine electoral incentives to build public housing
Housing shortages and rising rents have increased demands for affordable housing. In this paper, we examine whether electoral constraints can undermine local politicians' incentives to build public housing. Empirically, we draw on the full‐count census of all housing built in Germany, data on 19,685 local elections between 1989 and 2011, and an original survey. Using a difference‐in‐differences design, we demonstrate that incumbents are not rewar…
Local Newspaper Decline and Political Polarization – Evidence from a Multi-Party Setting
How does the decline of traditional news outlets affect political polarization? We provide novel evidence on this question by examining the link between local newspaper exits, media consumption, and electoral behaviour in a multiparty setting. Our empirical analysis combines a unique panel of all German local newspapers between 1980 and 2009, electoral returns, and an annual media consumption survey of more than 670,000 respondents. Using a diffe…
Wealth of Tongues: Why Peripheral Regions Vote for the Radical Right in Germany
Why is support the radical right higher in some geographic locations than others? This article argues that what is frequently classified as the "rural" bases of radical-right support in previous research is in part the result of something different: communities that were in the historical "periphery" in the center-periphery conflicts of modern nation-state formation. Inspired by a classic state-building literature that emphasizes the prevalence o…
Natural Disasters and Green Party Support
A growing literature shows that extreme weather can induce pro-environment attitudes. We examine the political effects of a severe flood shortly before the 2021 German federal election. Drawing on about 600,000 survey responses and electoral data, we assess how flooding affected (i) the perceived salience of climate change, (ii) self-reported Green Party support, and (iii) Green Party voting in federal elections. We find that even severe local fl…
Local news monopolies increase misperceptions about immigration
We examine how local news monopolies affect misperceptions about the size of the immigrant population in Germany. We propose a theoretical framework in which het- erogeneous information from different local news outlets diffuses through social interactions. We posit that indirect exposure to information from multiple sources leads to more accurate beliefs in competitive markets. To causally identify the effect of local news monopolies on misperce…
Freedom of Movement Restrictions Inhibit the Psychological Integration of Refugees
How do freedom of movement restrictions affect refugee integration? While a growing body of research studies the initial spatial allocation of refugees, there is little causal evidence on subsequent policies that restrict residential mobility. We study a contentious law in Germany, which barred refugees from moving to a location different from the one they were exogenously assigned to. To identify the causal effect of the movement restriction on …
Locked Out of College: When Admissions Bureaucrats Do and Do Not Discriminate
How does an individual's criminal record shape interactions with the state and society? This article presents evidence from a nationwide field experiment in the United States, which shows that prospective applicants with criminal records are about 5 percentage points less likely to receive information from college admission offices. However, this bias does not extend to race: there is no difference in response rates to Black and White applicants.…
Does Public Opinion Affect Political Speech
Does public opinion affect political speech? Of particular interest is whether public opinion affects (i) what topics politicians address and (ii) what positions they endorse. We present evidence from Germany where the government was recently forced to declassify its public opinion research, allowing us to link the content of the research to subsequent speeches. Our causal identification strategy exploits the exogenous timing of the research's di…
Do Inheritance Customs Affect Political and Social Inequality
Why are some societies more unequal than others? The French revolutionaries believed unequal inheritances among siblings to be responsible for the strict hierarchies of the ancien régime. To achieve equality, the revolutionaries therefore enforced equal inheritance rights. Their goal was to empower women and to disenfranchise the noble class. But do equal inheritances succeed in leveling the societal playing field? We study Germany—a country with…
Does Public Opinion Affect Political Speech
Does public opinion affect political speech? Of particular interest is whether public opinion affects (i) what topics politicians address and (ii) what positions they endorse. We present evidence from Germany where the government was recently forced to declassify its public opinion research, allowing us to link the content of the research to subsequent speeches. Our causal identification strategy exploits the exogenous timing of the research's di…
Natural Disasters and Green Party Support
A growing literature shows that extreme weather can induce pro-environment attitudes. We examine the political effects of a severe flood shortly before the 2021 German federal election. Drawing on about 600,000 survey responses and electoral data, we assess how flooding affected (i) the perceived salience of climate change, (ii) self-reported Green Party support, and (iii) Green Party voting in federal elections. We find that even severe local fl…
Wealth of Tongues: Why Peripheral Regions Vote for the Radical Right in Germany
Why is support the radical right higher in some geographic locations than others? This article argues that what is frequently classified as the "rural" bases of radical-right support in previous research is in part the result of something different: communities that were in the historical "periphery" in the center-periphery conflicts of modern nation-state formation. Inspired by a classic state-building literature that emphasizes the prevalence o…
Do Inheritance Customs Affect Political and Social Inequality
Why are some societies more unequal than others? The French revolutionaries believed unequal inheritances among siblings to be responsible for the strict hierarchies of the ancien régime. To achieve equality, the revolutionaries therefore enforced equal inheritance rights. Their goal was to empower women and to disenfranchise the noble class. But do equal inheritances succeed in leveling the societal playing field? We study Germany—a country with…
Freedom of Movement Restrictions Inhibit the Psychological Integration of Refugees
How do freedom of movement restrictions affect refugee integration? While a growing body of research studies the initial spatial allocation of refugees, there is little causal evidence on subsequent policies that restrict residential mobility. We study a contentious law in Germany, which barred refugees from moving to a location different from the one they were exogenously assigned to. To identify the causal effect of the movement restriction on …
Refugee Labor Market Access Increases Support for Immigration
Does the economic integration of refugees affect public attitudes toward migration? We assess this pertinent question by examining a policy change in Germany, where the government significantly eased labor market access for refugees in the majority of the country. Using administrative employment data, we show that the policy led to a substantial increase in refugee employment, while natives’ wages and employment rates remained unaffected. The pol…
Local Newspaper Decline and Political Polarization – Evidence from a Multi-Party Setting
How does the decline of traditional news outlets affect political polarization? We provide novel evidence on this question by examining the link between local newspaper exits, media consumption, and electoral behaviour in a multiparty setting. Our empirical analysis combines a unique panel of all German local newspapers between 1980 and 2009, electoral returns, and an annual media consumption survey of more than 670,000 respondents. Using a diffe…
Locked Out of College: When Admissions Bureaucrats Do and Do Not Discriminate
How does an individual's criminal record shape interactions with the state and society? This article presents evidence from a nationwide field experiment in the United States, which shows that prospective applicants with criminal records are about 5 percentage points less likely to receive information from college admission offices. However, this bias does not extend to race: there is no difference in response rates to Black and White applicants.…
Government Spending and Voting Behavior
Does government spending on public goods affect the vote choice of citizens? On one hand, prior research has characterized voters as fiscal conservatives who may turn toward conservative parties when government spending goes up. On the other hand, increased spending may signal that the economy is doing well, which makes progressive parties a more viable option. To adjudicate between both hypotheses, this article draws on a natural experiment, whi…
How budget trade‐offs undermine electoral incentives to build public housing
Housing shortages and rising rents have increased demands for affordable housing. In this paper, we examine whether electoral constraints can undermine local politicians' incentives to build public housing. Empirically, we draw on the full‐count census of all housing built in Germany, data on 19,685 local elections between 1989 and 2011, and an original survey. Using a difference‐in‐differences design, we demonstrate that incumbents are not rewar…
Do Inheritance Customs Affect Political and Social Inequality
Why are some societies more unequal than others? The French revolutionaries believed unequal inheritances among siblings to be responsible for the strict hierarchies of the ancien régime. To achieve equality, the revolutionaries therefore enforced equal inheritance rights. Their goal was to empower women and to disenfranchise the noble class. But do equal inheritances succeed in leveling the societal playing field? We study Germany—a country with…
Does Public Opinion Affect Political Speech
Does public opinion affect political speech? Of particular interest is whether public opinion affects (i) what topics politicians address and (ii) what positions they endorse. We present evidence from Germany where the government was recently forced to declassify its public opinion research, allowing us to link the content of the research to subsequent speeches. Our causal identification strategy exploits the exogenous timing of the research's di…
Freedom of Movement Restrictions Inhibit the Psychological Integration of Refugees
How do freedom of movement restrictions affect refugee integration? While a growing body of research studies the initial spatial allocation of refugees, there is little causal evidence on subsequent policies that restrict residential mobility. We study a contentious law in Germany, which barred refugees from moving to a location different from the one they were exogenously assigned to. To identify the causal effect of the movement restriction on …
Locked Out of College: When Admissions Bureaucrats Do and Do Not Discriminate
How does an individual's criminal record shape interactions with the state and society? This article presents evidence from a nationwide field experiment in the United States, which shows that prospective applicants with criminal records are about 5 percentage points less likely to receive information from college admission offices. However, this bias does not extend to race: there is no difference in response rates to Black and White applicants.…
Natural Disasters and Green Party Support
A growing literature shows that extreme weather can induce pro-environment attitudes. We examine the political effects of a severe flood shortly before the 2021 German federal election. Drawing on about 600,000 survey responses and electoral data, we assess how flooding affected (i) the perceived salience of climate change, (ii) self-reported Green Party support, and (iii) Green Party voting in federal elections. We find that even severe local fl…
Local news monopolies increase misperceptions about immigration
We examine how local news monopolies affect misperceptions about the size of the immigrant population in Germany. We propose a theoretical framework in which het- erogeneous information from different local news outlets diffuses through social interactions. We posit that indirect exposure to information from multiple sources leads to more accurate beliefs in competitive markets. To causally identify the effect of local news monopolies on misperce…
Government Spending and Voting Behavior
Does government spending on public goods affect the vote choice of citizens? On one hand, prior research has characterized voters as fiscal conservatives who may turn toward conservative parties when government spending goes up. On the other hand, increased spending may signal that the economy is doing well, which makes progressive parties a more viable option. To adjudicate between both hypotheses, this article draws on a natural experiment, whi…
Refugee Labor Market Access Increases Support for Immigration
Does the economic integration of refugees affect public attitudes toward migration? We assess this pertinent question by examining a policy change in Germany, where the government significantly eased labor market access for refugees in the majority of the country. Using administrative employment data, we show that the policy led to a substantial increase in refugee employment, while natives’ wages and employment rates remained unaffected. The pol…
How budget trade‐offs undermine electoral incentives to build public housing
Housing shortages and rising rents have increased demands for affordable housing. In this paper, we examine whether electoral constraints can undermine local politicians' incentives to build public housing. Empirically, we draw on the full‐count census of all housing built in Germany, data on 19,685 local elections between 1989 and 2011, and an original survey. Using a difference‐in‐differences design, we demonstrate that incumbents are not rewar…
Local Newspaper Decline and Political Polarization – Evidence from a Multi-Party Setting
How does the decline of traditional news outlets affect political polarization? We provide novel evidence on this question by examining the link between local newspaper exits, media consumption, and electoral behaviour in a multiparty setting. Our empirical analysis combines a unique panel of all German local newspapers between 1980 and 2009, electoral returns, and an annual media consumption survey of more than 670,000 respondents. Using a diffe…
Wealth of Tongues: Why Peripheral Regions Vote for the Radical Right in Germany
Why is support the radical right higher in some geographic locations than others? This article argues that what is frequently classified as the "rural" bases of radical-right support in previous research is in part the result of something different: communities that were in the historical "periphery" in the center-periphery conflicts of modern nation-state formation. Inspired by a classic state-building literature that emphasizes the prevalence o…
Does Rent Control Turn Tenants Into Nimbys
The Green Transition and Political Polarization Along Occupational Lines
Green transition policies set long-term targets to reduce carbon emissions and other pollutants, posing a threat to workers in polluting occupations and communities reliant on them. Can far-right parties attract voters who anticipate losing from the green transition? We explore this in Germany, which has ambitious green policies and a large workforce in polluting occupations. The far-right AfD started campaigning as the only party opposing green …
Do Autocrats Respond to Citizen Demands? Petitions and Housing Construction in the GDR
Citizens in authoritarian regimes frequently communicate grievances to the government. While there is some evidence that governments respond to such petitions, little is known about the nature of this responsiveness: can petitions influence resource allocation and yield tangible improvements to citizens’ livelihoods? To answer this question, we assemble a novel panel of housing-related petitions to the government of the German Democratic Republic…
The Gendered Persistence of Authoritarian Indoctrination
A large literature has studied the effects of socialization under authoritarianism on political attitudes. In this research note, we extend this literature by demonstrating striking gender disparities in the post-transition persistence of these effects. We study the case of authoritarian indoctrination in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) using a regression kink design for causal identification. First, we draw on a unique survey fielded right …
Political science (12 works) · Economics (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (5 works) · Affect (linguistics (4 works) · Demographic economics (4 works)