Authors
Alberto Alesina, Armando Miano, Stefanie Stantcheva
Publication date
2023/1/1
Journal
The Review of Economic Studies
Volume
90
Issue
1
Pages
1-39
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Description
Does immigration change support for redistribution? We design and conduct large-scale surveys and experiments in six countries to investigate how people perceive immigrants and how these perceptions influence their support for redistribution. We find striking misperceptions about the number and characteristics of immigrants. In all countries, respondents greatly overestimate the total number of immigrants, think immigrants are culturally and religiously more distant from them, and economically weaker—less educated, more unemployed, and more reliant on and favoured by government transfers—than they actually are. In the experimental part of our article, we show that simply making respondents think about immigration before asking questions about redistribution makes them support less redistribution, including actual donations to charities. The perception that immigrants are economically weaker and …
Total citations
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Scholar articles
A Alesina, A Miano, S Stantcheva - The Review of Economic Studies, 2023