Persistent effects of empires: Evidence from the partitions of Poland

Using spatial RD, we test the persistence of historical partition of Poland among three empires—Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia. The formerly Prussian lands compared with the Russian lands have better infrastructure built during industrialization, resulting in higher support for anticommunist parties. The population of the Austrian compared with Russian lands believes in democracy more because of Austrian decentralized governance. People in the Russian territories are less religious than in the other two empires due to Russian imperial policies undermining trust in the Catholic Church. Both liberals and religious conservatives find higher support in the Austrian compared to the Russian lands.