Scholars At Risk : Academic Networks and High-Skilled Emigration from Nazi Germany

Event Date: 30 March 2022

Speaker: Sascha Becker, Professor of Economics, University of Warwick.

Time: 4-5:30pm

Location: Please contact Rachel Hill (r.hill@strath.ac.uk) for Zoom details.

Abstract:  "We study the role of professional networks in facilitating emigration of Jewish academics dismissed from their jobs by the Nazi government. We use individual level exogenous variation in the timing of dismissals to estimate the causal effect of networks. Academics with more ties to early émigrés (emigrated 1933-1934) were more likely to emigrate. Early émigrés functioned as “bridging nodes” that facilitated emigration to their own destination. We also distinguish between three kinds of social networks – family, community or professional networks and study their relative importance. Lastly, we provide some of the first empirical evidence of decay in socialites over time."

If you would like to read the full paper, please click here.

Published: 29 March 2022