Cultural vs. economic legacies of empires: Evidence from the partition of Poland

•We examine which differences among historic partitions of Poland are persistent.•Differences in incomes, education, corruption, and trust in government disappeared.•Differences in religiosity and democratic capital persist.•Persistent legacies of empires have an effect on political outcomes.

Poland was divided among three empires-Russia, Austria-Hungary, and Prussia-for over a century until 1918. The partition brought about divergence in culture, institutions, and economic development. We use spatial regression discontinuity to examine, which empire effects are persistent. We find that differences in incomes, industrial production, education, corruption, and trust in government institutions disappeared with time as they were smoothed by economic forces and policy intervention. In contrast, differences in intensity of religious practices and in beliefs in democratic ideals, i.e., democratic capital, persist presumably via inter-generational within-family transmission. Differences in railroad infrastructure built by empires during industrialization persisted to this day. Cultural empire legacies have an effect on the political outcomes in contemporary Poland.