Working Paper: NBER ID: w20023
Authors: Ran Abramitzky; Isabelle Sin
Abstract: We use book translations as a new measure of international idea flows and study the effects of Communism's collapse in Eastern Europe on these flows. Using novel data on 800,000 translations and difference-in-differences approaches, we show that while translations between Communist languages decreased by two thirds with the collapse, Western-to-Communist translations increased by a factor of four and quickly converged to Western levels. Convergence was more pronounced in the fields of applied and social sciences, and was more complete in Satellite and Baltic than in Soviet countries. We discuss how these patterns help us understand how repressive institutions and preferences towards Western European ideas shaped the international diffusion of knowledge.
Keywords: book translations; idea flows; collapse of communism; knowledge diffusion
JEL Codes: F02; F15; N0; N70; P20; P30; P51; P52
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| collapse of communism (P27) | increase in flow of translations from Western to communist languages (P20) |
| collapse of communism (P27) | decrease in translations between communist languages (P20) |
| collapse of communism (P27) | reallocation of translation efforts towards Western works (F16) |
| collapse of communism (P27) | stronger increase in Western translations in Baltic countries compared to Soviet countries (P29) |
| pre-collapse repression (D70) | differences in post-collapse translation patterns (F12) |
| demand for Western ideas (P19) | differences in post-collapse translation patterns (F12) |
| field of applied and social sciences (A12) | quicker integration into Western knowledge flows (O36) |