IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/vfsc13/79953.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Prejudice in Swiss Naturalization Decisions: Theory and Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Ilic, Dragan

Abstract

Recent empirical studies have revealed prejudice based on country of origin in the Swiss naturalization system before courts banned closed ballot voting in 2003. Although the switch to elected councils has ameliorated the situation for the discriminated applicant groups, little has been known about the issue since due to lack of microlevel data. This paper presents an alternative approach. I propose a simple model of a council deciding whether to grant applicants citizenships. The model implies an outcome test for relative prejudice using rejection rates grouped by country of origin. Importantly, this specific outcome test does not suffer from the well-known infra-marginality problem. The test is implemented with unique data from 2003 to 2012 raised from large Swiss municipalities to test the hypothesis of no relative prejudice.

Suggested Citation

  • Ilic, Dragan, 2013. "Prejudice in Swiss Naturalization Decisions: Theory and Evidence," VfS Annual Conference 2013 (Duesseldorf): Competition Policy and Regulation in a Global Economic Order 79953, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc13:79953
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/79953/1/VfS_2013_pid_245.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sahuguet, Nicolas & Mechoulan, Stéphane, 2011. "Assessing Racial Discrimination in Parole Release," CEPR Discussion Papers 8506, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Shamena Anwar & Hanming Fang, 2015. "Testing for Racial Prejudice in the Parole Board Release Process: Theory and Evidence," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(1), pages 1-37.
    3. Kaas Leo & Manger Christian, 2012. "Ethnic Discrimination in Germany’s Labour Market: A Field Experiment," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 1-20, February.
    4. Marianne Bertrand & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 991-1013, September.
    5. Hainmueller, Jens & Hangartner, Dominik, 2013. "Who Gets a Swiss Passport? A Natural Experiment in Immigrant Discrimination," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 107(1), pages 159-187, February.
    6. Shamena Anwar & Hanming Fang, 2006. "An Alternative Test of Racial Prejudice in Motor Vehicle Searches: Theory and Evidence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 127-151, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ili, Dragan, 2016. "Prejudice in Naturalization Decisions: Theory and Evidence," Working papers 2016/04, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    2. Ilić, Dragan, 2018. "Prejudice in naturalization decisions: Theory and evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 1-18.
    3. Kevin Lang & Ariella Kahn-Lang Spitzer, 2020. "Race Discrimination: An Economic Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 68-89, Spring.
    4. LaVoice, Jessica & Vamossy, Domonkos F., 2024. "Racial disparities in debt collection," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    5. Malte Dahl, 2022. "Alike but Different: How Cultural Distinctiveness Shapes Immigrant-Origin Minorities’ Access to the Labour Market," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 23(4), pages 2269-2287, December.
    6. Anwar Shamena & Fang Hanming, 2012. "Testing for the Role of Prejudice in Emergency Departments Using Bounceback Rates," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 13(3), pages 1-49, December.
    7. Fossati, Flavia & Liechti, Fabienne & Auer, Daniel, 2020. "Can signaling assimilation mitigate hiring discrimination? Evidence from a survey experiment," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 65, pages 1-1.
    8. Chowdhury, Shyamal & Ooi, Evarn & Slonim, Robert, 2017. "Racial discrimination and white first name adoption: a field experiment in the Australian labour market," Working Papers 2017-15, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    9. Mujcic, Redzo & Frijters, Paul, 2013. "Still Not Allowed on the Bus: It Matters If You're Black or White!," IZA Discussion Papers 7300, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Ganserer, Angelika, 2021. "Non-compliance with temporary agency work regulations: Initial evidence from Germany," ZEW Discussion Papers 21-057, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    11. J. Michelle Brock & Ralph De Haas, 2023. "Discriminatory Lending: Evidence from Bankers in the Lab," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 31-68, April.
    12. Morten Størling Hedegaard & Jean-Robert Tyran, 2018. "The Price of Prejudice," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(1), pages 40-63, January.
    13. He, Simin, 2019. "Minority advantage and disadvantage in competition and coordination," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 464-482.
    14. Maresa Sprietsma, 2013. "Discrimination in grading: experimental evidence from primary school teachers," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 523-538, August.
    15. Ulf Rinne, 2018. "Anonymous job applications and hiring discrimination," IZA World of Labor, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), pages 1-11, October.
    16. Jens Ludwig & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2021. "Fragile Algorithms and Fallible Decision-Makers: Lessons from the Justice System," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 71-96, Fall.
    17. Daniel Martin & Philip Marx, 2022. "A Robust Test of Prejudice for Discrimination Experiments," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(6), pages 4527-4536, June.
    18. Eva O. Arceo-Gomez & Raymundo M. Campos-Vazquez, 2014. "Race and Marriage in the Labor Market: A Discrimination Correspondence Study in a Developing Country," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 376-380, May.
    19. Michael Stuetzer & Martin Obschonka & Eva Schmitt-Rodermund, 2013. "Balanced skills among nascent entrepreneurs," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 93-114, June.
    20. Baert, Stijn, 2017. "Hiring Discrimination: An Overview of (Almost) All Correspondence Experiments Since 2005," GLO Discussion Paper Series 61, Global Labor Organization (GLO).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • J71 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - Hiring and Firing
    • K42 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - Illegal Behavior and the Enforcement of Law
    • J70 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor Discrimination - - - General

    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:zbw:vfsc13:79953. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.