This study uses the natural experiment of German reunification and a difference-in-differences approach to test whether the political and economic transition in East Germany in 1990 affected intergenerational occupational and educational mobility. Results obtained using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study show that German reunification did neither strongly affect occupational nor educational mobility. These findings are robust to operationalizing social origin in various ways. Admittedly, reunification may have had small or long-term effects on occupational and educational mobility that cannot be uncovered with the data and research design employed in this study. However, the findings rule out that there were large, short- or medium-term effects of German reunification on intergenerational mobility. These findings are at odds with theories that argue that institutional change has strong, immediate causal effects on intergenerational mobility.

中文翻译：

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政权变化会影响代际流动吗？来自德国统一的证据

这项研究使用德国统一的自然实验和差异研究方法来检验1990年东德的政治和经济转型是否影响了代际职业和教育的流动性。使用德国社会经济专家小组研究的数据得出的结果表明，德国统一并未对职业和教育流动性产生强烈影响。这些发现对于以各种方式实现社会起源的运作是可靠的。诚然，统一可能对职业和教育流动性产生了小规模或长期的影响，而本研究采用的数据和研究设计无法揭示这种统一。但是，研究结果排除了德国统一对代际流动性的巨大，短期或中期的影响。