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The 2015 Refugee Crisis in Germany: Concerns about Immigration and Populism

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  • Alessandro Sola

Abstract

This paper investigates the effect of the refugee crisis, and the related government’s asylum policy, on concerns about immigration of the German population. Exploiting exogenous variation in survey interview timing of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), I employ a difference-in-differences strategy to estimate the short-term causal effect of the refugee crisis on concerns about immigration. The estimated effect is substantial, representing an increase in concerns of around 22%, compared to the pre-refugee crisis baseline level. Interestingly, I find that this increase was twice as large for East Germans, compared to West Germans. In a second section, I show concerns about immigration are positively correlated with political support for the relatively new, right-wing populist party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). However, using the variability in concerns generated by the refugee crisis, I find no evidence of a causal effect of concerns on political preferences in the short term.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandro Sola, 2018. "The 2015 Refugee Crisis in Germany: Concerns about Immigration and Populism," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 966, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp966
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    Cited by:

    1. Gallegos Torres, Katia, 2023. "The 2015 refugee inflow and concerns over immigration," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    2. Kai Ingwersen & Stephan L. Thomsen, 2021. "The immigrant-native wage gap in Germany revisited," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(4), pages 825-854, December.
    3. Christopher Prömel, 2022. "Belonging or Estrangement – The European Refugee Crisis and its Effects on Immigrant Identity," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1160, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    4. Sumit S. Deole & Yue Huang, 2024. "Suffering and prejudice: do negative emotions predict immigration concerns?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-39, June.
    5. Prömel, Christopher, 2023. "Belonging or estrangement—The European Refugee Crisis and its effects on immigrant identity," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    6. Chang Woon Nam & Peter Steinhoff, 2019. "The Role of Volunteers in German Refugee Crisis and Their Contribution to Local Government Expenditure," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 20(03), pages 25-30, October.
    7. Florian W. Bartholomae & Chang Woon Nam & Pierre Rafih, 2020. "The Impact of Welfare Chauvinism on the Results of Right-Wing Populist Voting in Germany after the Refugee Crisis," CESifo Working Paper Series 8629, CESifo.
    8. Lange, Martin, 2021. "The legacy of state socialism on attitudes toward immigration," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 733-750.
    9. Prömel, Christopher, 2021. "Belonging or estrangement: The European refugee crisis and its effects on immigrant identity," Discussion Papers 2021/16, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    10. Gallegos Torres, Katia, 2021. "The 2015 refugee inflow and concerns over immigration," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-102, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. Bryan Bohrer & Maria-Therese Friehs & Peter Schmidt & Stefan Weick, 2019. "Contacts between Natives and Migrants in Germany: Perceptions of the Native Population since 1980 and an Examination of the Contact Hypotheses," Social Inclusion, Cogitatio Press, vol. 7(4), pages 320-331.
    12. Pia Jäger & Kevin Claassen & Notburga Ott & Angela Brand, 2019. "Does the Electronic Health Card for Asylum Seekers Lead to an Excessive Use of the Health System? Results of a Survey in Two Municipalities of the German Ruhr Area," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-9, April.
    13. Deole, Sumit S. & Huang, Yue, 2020. "How do new immigration flows affect existing immigrants? Evidence from the refugee crisis in Germany," GLO Discussion Paper Series 579, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Concerns about immigration; refugee crisis; Germany; AfD; populism; political preferences;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F22 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Migration
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management

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