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Income Comparisons and Attitudes towards Foreigners

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  • Hyll, Walter
  • Schneider, Lutz

Abstract

We exploit a natural experiment related to the German re-unification to address the question whether disutility from income comparisons affects attitudes towards foreigners. We find robust evidence that East Germans expose strong negative attitudes towards foreigners, particularly from low-wage countries, if they worry about their economic status compared to better-off West Germans.

Suggested Citation

  • Hyll, Walter & Schneider, Lutz, 2017. "Income Comparisons and Attitudes towards Foreigners," VfS Annual Conference 2017 (Vienna): Alternative Structures for Money and Banking 168069, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc17:168069
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • J61 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Geographic Labor Mobility; Immigrant Workers
    • N34 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Europe: 1913-

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