June 9th 2011

Hans-Joachim Voth, ICREA professor of the Department of Economics and Business of the UPF, joint with Nico Voigtländer, a researcher at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and PhD in Economics from the UPF, have published in the Working Papers Series of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), an online paper in seeking the historical roots of anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany. They prove that in medieval Germany there was a history of persecution and violence against the Jewish people.

The authors start from the premise of how cultural traits are persistent over time. Their research confirms that xenophobia against the Jewish people has persisted in certain parts of Germany since the Middle Ages to the Nazis, that is, for over five hundred years.

Reference work: Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth, "Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany", Working Papers Series of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 17113, June 2011.