We conduct an information provision experiment to investigate the relevance of statistical information for economic attitudes towards immigration. Our experimental design is embedded into a large-scale representative online survey. We randomize the provision of information on the share and the unemployment rate of foreigners, representing facts about immigration related to the size and economic characteristics of the immigrant population, respectively. We aim to analyze the effect of information provision on two prominent economic channels of immigration attitudes: welfare state and labor market concerns about immigration. In addition, we examine whether biases in beliefs about immigration translate into immigration policy preferenes and preferences for redistribution in host societies.

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We investigate whether individual perceptions of the origin of immigrants are linked to economic concerns about immigration in the host society. In our experiment, participants are randomly assigned to one of three experimental groups: two treatment arms and a passive control group. While respondents in the first treatment arm are only subject to belief elicitation employed as a priming device, respondents in the second treatment arm are exposed to factual information about the overall share of immigrants in their society as well as the share of immigrants stemming from European countries. Conversely, the passive control group is neither exposed to factual information nor the priming device. We aim to analyze whether information provision and/or the priming treatment translate into economic concerns about immigration, immigration policy preferences and preferences for redistribution.