IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rjusxx/v27y2023i1p19-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effects of ‘sanctuary city’ policies on the local economy: empirical evidence from US counties

Author

Listed:
  • In Kwon Park
  • Burkhard von Rabenau
  • Zhe Hong

Abstract

This study derives the economic development effects of sanctuary city (SC) policies at the US county level using data from close to 3,000 counties between 2013 and 2017. A county is taken to provide sanctuary to undocumented immigrants if county jails do not accept ICE detainer requests, i.e. do not hold detainees beyond their original release dates. Endogeneity problems and fixed effects in the panel data are fully accounted for by combining coarsened exact matching with the fixed effects instrumental variables method. We can infer that SC policy probably is a significant driver of economic development. The results show that implementing an SC policy for 2.8–3.4 years lowers the unemployment rate by 0.18 percentage points, reduces wages by 1.6%, and increases housing prices by 5.5%, suggesting that these policies have positive effects on the local economy and can contribute to reversing economic declines in some jurisdictions.Highlights The economic development effects of sanctuary city (SC) policies are derived using data from about 3,000 counties between 2013 and 2017.Endogeneity problems and fixed effects are addressed by combining coarsened exact matching with the fixed effects instrumental variables method.Implementing an SC policy for 2.8–3.4 years lowers the unemployment rate by 0.18 percentage points, reduces wages by 1.6%, and increases housing prices by 5.5%.Immigrant-inclusive policies have positive effects on the local economy and can contribute to reversing economic decline.

Suggested Citation

  • In Kwon Park & Burkhard von Rabenau & Zhe Hong, 2023. "The effects of ‘sanctuary city’ policies on the local economy: empirical evidence from US counties," International Journal of Urban Sciences, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 19-38, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rjusxx:v:27:y:2023:i:1:p:19-38
    DOI: 10.1080/12265934.2022.2093261
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/12265934.2022.2093261
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/12265934.2022.2093261?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rjusxx:v:27:y:2023:i:1:p:19-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rjus20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.