Book translations as information flows: How detrimental was Communism to the flow of ideas?* [Preliminary and incomplete]

Using book translations as a measure of the flow of ideas across countries, we test the effect of the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe on the international transmission of ideas. We find that translations of Western European titles into former Communist countries increased by a factor of five with the fall of Communism, while translations between Communist countries decreased by a factor of three. The increased inflow of translations from Western European languages was especially pronounced in the more Western oriented non-Soviet countries of the Eastern Bloc, where translations reached levels comparable to those in Western European countries. In contrast, Western European patterns of translation over this period exhibit little change. The fall of Communism encouraged the translation of titles in more subjective fields such as religion and philosophy, but had limited effect on the translation of scientific titles. Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that Communism discouraged the flow of ideas, especially those that were perceived to be more threatening or less useful for the regime. The patterns we find are also consistent with cultural convergence of Eastern and Western Europe. We also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of translations as a measure of idea flow, and present the effect of Communism on alternative measures of ideas. JEL Classification: F14, F15, N70, P21, P33, P51, P52