What characterizes regions where right‐wing populist parties are relatively successful? A prominent hypothesis proposed in the emerging “geography of discontent” literature claims that places that are “left behind” constitute a breeding ground for the rise of populism. We re‐examine this hypothesis by…
We investigate how self-employment in East Germany was impacted by 40 years of Soviet-style communism and the subsequent shock transition to a market economic system. To this end, we compare self-employment in East and West Germany after reunification with self-employment before the separation of Germany…