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Did the Presence of Immigrants Affect Vote Outcome in the UK Brexit Referendum ?

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  • Hisahiro Naito and Mizuho Asai

Abstract

This paper examines the effect of the presence of immigrants on the voters' behavior using the data set of the UK popular referendum on exit from the European Union and the survey data on individual tolerance toward immigrants. We apply two stage least square(2SLS) estimation to control the endogeneity of the ratio of immigrants by using the information on past industrial composition to construct the instrumental variable while including the current industry composition and the current demographic characteristics as a control variable. Contrary to popular media content, we do not find a statistically significant evidence that the ratio of immigrants in each electoral area does affect the vote count on Brexit after controlling endogeneity of the ratio of immigrants in each electoral area and other observable characteristics. We also show that the survey result on the tolerance to immigrants is consistent with the estimation result of voters' behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Hisahiro Naito and Mizuho Asai, 2018. "Did the Presence of Immigrants Affect Vote Outcome in the UK Brexit Referendum ?," Tsukuba Economics Working Papers 2018-003, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba.
    • Handle: RePEc:tsu:tewpjp:2018-003
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