Immigration vs. Poverty: Causal Impact on Demand for Redistribution in a Survey Experiment

Abstract

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Learning about inequality and demand for redistribution

“…Kuziemko et al (2015[36]) show that providing information about policy effectiveness increases the effect of the informational treatment on redistributive preferences. Lergetporer, Werner and Woessmann (2020 [37]) confirm the result, thought they show that the information on effectiveness does not increase the effect of providing inequality information but rather works as a separate channel. Settele (2021 [39]) shows that giving people the facts about the wide gender wage gap has only a limited impact on demand for concrete policies to reduce that gap, because a sizeable share of respondents believe that such policies are ineffective.…”

Fear and Loathing in Times of Distress – Causal Impact of Social and Economic Insecurity on Anti-Immigration Sentiment

“…Introduction Immigration occupies a central and controversial position in the current socio-political and cultural debate (Alesina et al, 2018;Martinangeli and Windsteiger, 2019;Romarri, 2019;Guriev and Papaioannou, 2020). Despite immigrant populations contributing significantly to the growth of local economies and providing labour force to sectors with relatively scarce native offer, political parties and platforms endorsing anti-immigration positions have been ubiquitously on the rise (Turner and Cross, 2015).…”

OECD Papers on Well-being and Inequalities

“…13 Nevertheless, not all the experimental evidence agrees. Lergetporer, Werner and Woessmann (2020 [37]), studying the impact of educational inequalities, also provide some of the treated participants with information linking the proposed policies with educational inequalities. They find that this additional "connecting" information does not rise the effect.…”

“…Using a different experiment in which they prime respondents to be less confident in government, they also show that reducing trust has an independent negative effect on demand for redistribution. Conversely, Lergetporer, Werner and Woessmann (2020 [37]) argue that reduced trust does not explain the limited effect of the inequality information treatment on preferences for redistribution, because the effect is driven by those groups that trust the government less.…”

“…• People's beliefs about the effectiveness of policies seem to matter. However, it is not clear whether this is a matter of baseline beliefs (results from Settele (2021[21]) suggest so, but those from Lergetporer et al (2020[37]) do not) nor whether providing information on policy effectiveness increases the effect of inequality information (as suggested by Kuziemko et al (2015[36])) or whether it rather has a direct effect which operates independently from inequality information (Lergetporer, Werner and Woessmann, 2020 [37]).…”