Financing public goods and attitudes toward immigration

Abstract

We study a model where individuals choose both the level of provision of a public good and the quota of low-skilled immigrants that are allowed into the country. Individuals can supplement the public good in the private market. Immigrants a¤ect natives through three channels: (i) the labor market; (ii) tax collection; (iii) the quality of the public good. We …nd that the higher the political weight of the rich (highly skilled) is, the less tolerant the poor and the middle-class are toward immigration and the more demanding they are toward increasing public spending. The rich are the most favorable to immigration. As they have more weight, the political outcome is closer to their preferences and further from the preferences of the other groups. We use data from the European Social Survey to test the implications of our model. JEL Classi…cation: H41, J61, D72

Immigration, assimilation, and the future of public education

“…Our results suggest that immigration may increase income and ethnic segregation in schools unless assimilation takes place, which may result in increased income inequality. Our work is also related to the literature on how the use of public services by immigrants, relative to natives, affects attitudes toward immigration, as in Miguet (2008), Huber and Oberdabernig (2016) and Iturbe-Ormaetxe and Romero (2016).…”

Dragnet-Controls and Government Ideology

“…5 Fourth, micro data evidence shows that individuals inclined with rightwing political parties are less in favor of immigration than individuals inclined with leftwing political parties. See, for example, Facchini and Mayda (2009) and Iturbe-Ormaetxe and Romero (2016).…”