IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_9918.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Biased Beliefs about Immigration and Economic Concerns: Evidence from Representative Experiments

Author

Listed:
  • Patrick Dylong
  • Silke Uebelmesser

Abstract

We investigate the link between biased beliefs about immigrants, economic concerns and policy preferences. Conducting representative survey experiments with more than 8000 respondents, we first document substantial biases in respondents’ beliefs about the immigrant population in various domains. Exposure to different types of signals about immigrants reduces concerns about adverse effects of immigration on the welfare state. On the contrary, different types of signals offset their effects on concerns about increasing labor market competition. Employing a data-driven approach to uncover systematic effect heterogeneity, we find that prior beliefs about immigration explain conditional average treatment effects. While attitudinal change is thus more pronounced among individuals with pre-intervention biases about immigrants, education and attitudes towards cultural diversity are additional drivers of heterogeneity. Treatment effects on welfare state concerns persist in a five to eight week follow-up.

Suggested Citation

  • Patrick Dylong & Silke Uebelmesser, 2022. "Biased Beliefs about Immigration and Economic Concerns: Evidence from Representative Experiments," CESifo Working Paper Series 9918, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9918
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp9918.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hainmueller, Jens & Hiscox, Michael J., 2010. "Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(1), pages 61-84, February.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Armando Miano & Stefanie Stantcheva, 2023. "Immigration and Redistribution," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 90(1), pages 1-39.
    3. David Card & Christian Dustmann & Ian Preston, 2012. "Immigration, Wages, And Compositional Amenities," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 78-119, February.
    4. Barrera, Oscar & Guriev, Sergei & Henry, Emeric & Zhuravskaya, Ekaterina, 2020. "Facts, alternative facts, and fact checking in times of post-truth politics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    5. Olivier Coibion & Dimitris Georgarakos & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Maarten van Rooij, 2023. "How Does Consumption Respond to News about Inflation? Field Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 109-152, July.
    6. David Card, 1990. "The Impact of the Mariel Boatlift on the Miami Labor Market," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(2), pages 245-257, January.
    7. David Y. Yang & Leonardo Bursztyn, 2022. "Misperceptions About Others," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 425-452, August.
    8. Anna Maria Mayda, 2006. "Who Is Against Immigration? A Cross-Country Investigation of Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 510-530, August.
    9. Italo Colantone & Piero Stanig, 2019. "The Surge of Economic Nationalism in Western Europe," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 128-151, Fall.
    10. Philipp Lergetporer & Marc Piopiunik & Lisa Simon, 2017. "Does the Education Level of Refugees Affect Natives' Attitudes?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6832, CESifo.
    11. Haaland, Ingar & Roth, Christopher, 2020. "Labor market concerns and support for immigration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    12. Ingar Haaland & Christopher Roth & Johannes Wohlfart, 2023. "Designing Information Provision Experiments," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 3-40, March.
    13. Martinangeli, Andrea F.M. & Windsteiger, Lisa, 2023. "Immigration vs. poverty: Causal impact on demand for redistribution in a survey experiment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    14. Matz Dahlberg & Karin Edmark & Heléne Lundqvist, 2012. "Ethnic Diversity and Preferences for Redistribution," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(1), pages 41-76.
    15. Alexis Grigorieff & Christopher Roth & Diego Ubfal, 2020. "Does Information Change Attitudes Toward Immigrants?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(3), pages 1117-1143, June.
    16. Guido W. Imbens & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2009. "Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 5-86, March.
    17. Martin Halla & Alexander F. Wagner & Josef Zweimüller, 2017. "Immigration and Voting for the Far Right," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 15(6), pages 1341-1385.
    18. Giovanni Facchini & Anna Maria Mayda, 2009. "Does the Welfare State Affect Individual Attitudes toward Immigrants? Evidence across Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(2), pages 295-314, May.
    19. Ortega, Francesc & Polavieja, Javier G., 2012. "Labor-market exposure as a determinant of attitudes toward immigration," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(3), pages 298-311.
    20. Barone, Guglielmo & D'Ignazio, Alessio & de Blasio, Guido & Naticchioni, Paolo, 2016. "Mr. Rossi, Mr. Hu and politics. The role of immigration in shaping natives' voting behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 1-13.
    21. Jack Citrin & John Sides, 2008. "Immigration and the Imagined Community in Europe and the United States," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56(1), pages 33-56, March.
    22. Jack Citrin & John Sides, 2008. "Immigration and the Imagined Community in Europe and the United States," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 56, pages 33-56, March.
    23. Hainmueller, Jens & Hiscox, Michael J., 2010. "Attitudes toward Highly Skilled and Low-skilled Immigration: Evidence from a Survey Experiment—Erratum," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(3), pages 624-624, August.
    24. Kenneth F. Scheve & Matthew J. Slaughter, 2001. "Labor Market Competition And Individual Preferences Over Immigration Policy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(1), pages 133-145, February.
    25. Nicolás Ajzenman & Patricio Dominguez & Raimundo Undurraga, 2022. "Immigration and Labor Market (Mis)perceptions," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 112, pages 402-408, May.
    26. X Nie & S Wager, 2021. "Quasi-oracle estimation of heterogeneous treatment effects [TensorFlow: A system for large-scale machine learning]," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 108(2), pages 299-319.
    27. Imbens,Guido W. & Rubin,Donald B., 2015. "Causal Inference for Statistics, Social, and Biomedical Sciences," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521885881, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter, Julia & Übelmesser, Silke, 2023. "Regional Determinants of Attitudes Towards Immigrants," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277664, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Patrick Dylong & Silke Übelmesser, 2024. "Vorbehalte gegenüber Zuwanderung: Die Rolle von Kontakten und Informationen," ifo Dresden berichtet, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 31(01), pages 17-23, February.
    3. Elisa Stumpf & Jana Schuetz & Silke Uebelmesser & Ronja Baginski & Carmela Aprea, 2024. "Beliefs about demographic change: How well are individuals informed?," Jena Economics Research Papers 2024-003, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    4. K. Peren Arin & Umair Khalil & Deni Mazrekaj & Marcel Thum, 2023. "Terrorism and Misperceptions: Evidence from Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 10476, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Patrick Bareinz & Silke Uebelmesser, 2020. "The Role of Information Provision for Attitudes Towards Immigration: An Experimental Investigation," CESifo Working Paper Series 8635, CESifo.
    2. Philipp Lergetporer & Marc Piopiunik & Lisa Simon, 2017. "Does the Education Level of Refugees Affect Natives' Attitudes?," CESifo Working Paper Series 6832, CESifo.
    3. Moriconi, Simone & Peri, Giovanni & Turati, Riccardo, 2022. "Skill of the immigrants and vote of the natives: Immigration and nationalism in European elections 2007–2016," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    4. Olivier Bargain & Victor Stephane & Jérôme Valette, 2022. "Another brick in the wall. Immigration and electoral preferences: Direct evidence from state ballots," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(5), pages 1452-1477, November.
    5. Poutvaara, Panu & Steinhardt, Max Friedrich, 2018. "Bitterness in life and attitudes towards immigration," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 471-490.
    6. Lergetporer, Philipp & Piopiunik, Marc & Simon, Lisa, 2021. "Does the education level of refugees affect natives’ attitudes?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    7. Alberto Alesina & Marco Tabellini, 2024. "The Political Effects of Immigration: Culture or Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 62(1), pages 5-46, March.
    8. Sekou Keita & Thomas Renault & Jérôme Valette, 2023. "The Usual Suspects: Offender Origin, Media Reporting and Natives’ Attitudes Towards Immigration," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 134(657), pages 322-362.
    9. Martinangeli, Andrea F.M. & Windsteiger, Lisa, 2023. "Immigration vs. poverty: Causal impact on demand for redistribution in a survey experiment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    10. Mirjam Bächli & Teodora Tsankova, 2021. "Does Labor Protection Increase Support for Immigration? Evidence from Switzerland," CESifo Working Paper Series 9373, CESifo.
    11. Rania Gihleb & Osea Giuntalla & Luca Stella, 2022. "Exposure to Past Immigration Waves and Attitudes toward Newcomers," CESifo Working Paper Series 9941, CESifo.
    12. Haaland, Ingar & Roth, Christopher, 2020. "Labor market concerns and support for immigration," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    13. David Rodriguez-Justicia & Bernd Theilen, 2022. "Immigration and tax morale: the role of perceptions and prejudices," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 1801-1832, April.
    14. Jeworrek, Sabrina & Leisen, Bernd Josef & Mertins, Vanessa, 2020. "Gift-exchange in society and the social integration of refugees: Evidence from a field, a laboratory, and a survey experiment," IWH Discussion Papers 17/2019, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), revised 2020.
    15. Pascal Jaupart, 2018. "Divided island: Haitian immigration and electoral outcomes in the Dominican Republic," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(4), pages 951-999.
    16. Alesina, Alberto & Murard, Elie & Rapoport, Hillel, 2019. "Immigration and Preferences for Redistribution in Europe," IZA Discussion Papers 12130, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Deole, Sumit S. & Huang, Yue, 2020. "Suffering and prejudice: Do negative emotions predict immigration concerns?," GLO Discussion Paper Series 644, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    18. Boeri, Tito & Gamalerio, Matteo & Morelli, Massimo & Negri, Margherita, 2023. "Pay-As-They-Get-In: Attitudes Towards Migrants and Pension Systems," IZA Discussion Papers 15989, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    19. Tito Boeri & Matteo Gamalerio & Massimo Morelli & Margherita Negri, 2024. "Pay-as-they-get-in: attitudes toward migrants and pension systems," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 63-78.
    20. Alexis Grigorieff & Christopher Roth & Diego Ubfal, 2020. "Does Information Change Attitudes Toward Immigrants?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 57(3), pages 1117-1143, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    immigration attitudes; biased perceptions; belief updating; welfare state; labor market; causal forest;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C90 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - General
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_9918. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.