Resumen de A tear in the iron curtain: : The impact of western television on consumption behavior

Leonardo Bursztyn, Davide Cantoni

• This paper examines the impact of exposure toforeign media on the economic behavior of agents in a totalitarian regime. We study private consumption choices focusing on the former East Germany, where differential access toWestern television was determined by geographic features. Using data collected after the transition to a market economy, we find no evidence of a significant impact of previous exposure toWestern television on aggregate consumption levels. However, exposure toWestern broadcasts affects the composition of consumption, biasing choices in favor of categories of goods with a high intensity of prereunification advertisement. The effects vanish by 1998.